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Philmister978



Joined: 12 Jun 2011
Posts: 530
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 11:32 am Reply with quote
The problem with these sets is just that Lego as a whole is unnecessarily expensive across all its lines.

As someone who noticed this growing up collecting Bionicle sets, it's really annoying the more money it starts costing with each passing year per piece count. Even polybags cost more than what they used to for as little as 20 pieces.
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Traptrix Lover



Joined: 17 Dec 2022
Posts: 194
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 11:53 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Even I don't want my childhood sold back to me; I was happy getting a complete set of the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turtles at US$10 a pop. I will never feel the need to pay currency for a Turtle toy designed to look like the original 1980s ones. I want to look forward, not backward.


Why not both? Takara's Missing Link line of Transformers blends the original G1 figures with modern articulation and features. The best of both worlds and it's been a treat collecting them.

The thing is focusing on the "forward" requires things to actually be good and not bad. *glances at Transformers again where every show since Prime has been utter terrible and the only new figures that sell are all the older stuff between G1 and Prime because that's what people actually fondly remember* It's no wonder some franchises live in the past since those were the good old days like Transformers, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, and all those franchises. But it's also because the newer stuff tends to be aimed at kids - or at least they try to be. And the thing is kids don't really buy toys anymore and the average age of people who buy toys are in their late 20s and 30s last I read some article on the subject. So toys have become an adult collector's market now hence why LEGO costs so much. I'll admit I don't remember how much LEGO cost in the 90s when I grew up but I have to assume it wasn't that much because my parents never would have bought me a bunch of the sets if they cost that much. Kids today would rather have Fortnite and Roblox currency to buy skins than toys. So as a result all the newer versions of franchises tend to just have the cheap stuff for kids that can act as stocking stuffers or check-out line gifts such as blind box things but all the high end good stuff is going to be of the older stuff whose fanbase are adults now and have money to spend.

I am kind of curious to see if in 10-20 years we'll see the same high-end nostalgia market for more recent interpretations of these franchises or it'll still be the 1980s and 1990s versions that get all the love because no one attached themselves onto the 2010s and 2020s versions of these franchises.
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 11:55 am Reply with quote
Philmister978 wrote:
The problem with these sets is just that Lego as a whole is unnecessarily expensive across all its lines.

As someone who noticed this growing up collecting Bionicle sets, it's really annoying the more money it starts costing with each passing year per piece count. Even polybags cost more than what they used to for as little as 20 pieces.


God, tell me about it--Toa canisters would go for $10 a pop. You could get all six Toa for the price of the one Eevee set. And that doesn't account for stuff like how you could make all kinds of funky MOCs with the Toa, besides the official Kaita combinations.

I checked a calculator, and $10 in 2001 money (when the first Bionicle sets released) is about $18.50 in today's money--that's still loads cheaper than what LEGO charges for a ton of their stuff these days.

Traptrix Lover wrote:

Why not both? Takara's Missing Link line of Transformers blends the original G1 figures with modern articulation and features. The best of both worlds and it's been a treat collecting them.

The thing is focusing on the "forward" requires things to actually be good and not bad.


1. I don't want G1 toys with modern engineering. I wasn't even alive for G1, I have no love for that era. The few times I've seen reissued of G Hot Rod (who I love!), I've passed because I don't need a G1 Hot Rod.

2. The problem with wanting things to be "good" is that fans have crappy taste. I had people tell me to my face that Rise of the TMNT and Mutant Mayhem were bad. Things don't have to be "good,"they have to be sincere. I'd rather a failure that tried something new and failed.
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2947
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 1:02 pm Reply with quote
-Lego Pokemon: Yeesh, those are over the top. The Zelda sets they've brought out (including the Ocarina of Time final battle set they revealed today) are cheaper.

-Path of Radiance: Nephenee has returned

-Nintendo: I am now going to staple "Told y'all" onto the foreheads of everyone who claimed that Nintendo's prices weren't because of the tariffs. That was obvious from the day of the reveal
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2717
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 1:15 pm Reply with quote
Wow, that commercial was cringe. If you're charging $650 for Legos, they'd better be life-sized.

In other news, have you heard that MonHun Wilds had some performance issues recently diagnosed as being due to an absurd number of checks for DLC running constantly, leading to an unintentional buying DLC for increased frame rates? Pretty funny stuff.
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Joe Mello



Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 2559
Location: Online Terminal
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 1:41 pm Reply with quote
Philmister978 wrote:
The problem with these sets is just that Lego as a whole is unnecessarily expensive across all its lines.

They have to pay for all those IP licenses somehow.
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1761
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 2:31 pm Reply with quote
FilthyCasual wrote:
In other news, have you heard that MonHun Wilds had some performance issues recently diagnosed as being due to an absurd number of checks for DLC running constantly, leading to an unintentional buying DLC for increased frame rates? Pretty funny stuff.

So... does this means that it's more likely that the leaked Monter Hunter: Wilds Switch 2 port could run decently on the console? It seems the developers at Capcom messed up with this MH entry and now they are trying to salvage it.
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Philmister978



Joined: 12 Jun 2011
Posts: 530
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 3:01 pm Reply with quote
Joe Mello wrote:
Philmister978 wrote:
The problem with these sets is just that Lego as a whole is unnecessarily expensive across all its lines.

They have to pay for all those IP licenses somehow.


Yeah, but that doesn't explain why their original IPs like Ninjago or Friends have to cost the same amount as Pokemon or Star Wars.
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Flash33



Joined: 06 Jun 2024
Posts: 144
Location: Florida
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 4:19 pm Reply with quote
I grew up with Lego products, with one of my favorite games of all time being Lego Island. I played many Lego games including My Lego Network (MLN for short) and it's ancestor whose name I sadly forget, Lego Drome Racers (and LR in general starting with 2 including Drome Racing Challenge) and even Lego Sleep, Lego Universe (the short lived MMO), Junkbot and Junkbot Undercover, World Builder (1&2), Mars Mission, Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident (great game, and a fan brought it back on itch), Backlot (never made it very far) and Knights' Kingdom (the second one, not the first, there's a difference I only learned fairly recently). That even includes Bionicle. I've even been to Legoland in both CL & FL (the latter on opening day no less) and the FL Lego Store (a large store themed around Legos both inside and out) many times. There's also Lego Club Magazine I read when I was little and the official message boards I was active on back then. Needless to say I've been around a while, so believe me when I say I agree that Lego sets get more and more expensive every year it's ridiculous and it's part of the reason I stopped playing with them. I get there are collector's items that are meant to be expensive: I don't necessarily like that but whatever, exceptions to the rule I guess. Everything else though no. How are people supposed to get into Lego when they make things so expensive to even get started?

People are genuinely very creative with what they can do with Lego, and I think it would only benefit them in the long run if things were more affordable. Yes there are specific IP collabs and whatnot but that's no excuse for high prices in general. Hopefully in the future things will change for the better.
_________

As for Ronald Mcdonald being called Donald in Japan, that seems like a very weird and pointless change with the only explanation I can think of being they didn't want to confuse people with the whole R and L distinction issue that the JP language has (I didn't say it was a good explanation just that it's a possible one).
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 7196
PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2026 6:45 pm Reply with quote
Traptrix Lover wrote:

The thing is focusing on the "forward" requires things to actually be good and not bad. *glances at Transformers again where every show since Prime has been utter terrible and the only new figures that sell are all the older stuff between G1 and Prime because that's what people actually fondly remember* It's no wonder some franchises live in the past since those were the good old days like Transformers, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, and all those franchises. But it's also because the newer stuff tends to be aimed at kids - or at least they try to be.


All these properties by default are kid centric and have been since inception. And while nostalgia can be good as we’ve seen far too many times it leads to bullshit like gatekeeping and redundancy.

Only so many times you can do Star Wars and reference, utilize, and cover stuff from the orignal trilogy.

Or you do a new Superman movie following the same plot beat of “Superman has to stop Lex Luthor from doing something evil”

Or let’s make another 2D Sonic game after we also rerelease the Genesis era games.

Silver Kirin wrote:
So... does this means that it's more likely that the leaked Monter Hunter: Wilds Switch 2 port could run decently on the console? It seems the developers at Capcom messed up with this MH entry and now they are trying to salvage it.


They’ve been trying to salvage the game since last year and by last check it hasn’t worked. Especially for PC owners.
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2947
PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2026 12:20 am Reply with quote
Also, must bring up it has now been a year since the Switch 2 was first revealed. Interesting how the year has been since then.
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Azure Chrysanthemum



Joined: 23 Apr 2023
Posts: 229
PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2026 3:00 am Reply with quote
If I had children I'd be in absolute despair over the state of Lego. Those were formative toys for me growing up (along with the Brio trains which appear to be somewhat less ridiculous than the wallet assault Lego has become) and not being able to get it due to the expense would really hurt. Thankfully I suppose that wasn't the hand life dealt me so I just get to watch Lego in horror and be sad at how it's not accessible for kids to have them as toys anymore.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 5145
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2026 8:48 am Reply with quote
I remember reading somewhere that the switch from kids to super expensive collector sets for LEGO was a result of tax on plastics. The tax made it no longer efficient to market to kids, hence these ungodly expensive sets for adults.
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Terry Lang
Subscriber



Joined: 10 Jan 2017
Posts: 90
PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2026 9:16 am Reply with quote
Can confirm Artificial Dream in Arcadia is really good. There are sadly a lot of really good Touhou fangames that lack coverage. Like Fantasy Maiden Wars, a game loosely based on Super Robot Wars. I recommend anyone to, if not play it, look at some videos of the incredible attack animations they pulled off.
There is also another dungeon crawler incoming with Labyrinth of Touhou Tri.
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groovysunbeam



Joined: 21 Jun 2023
Posts: 82
Location: Belgium
PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2026 10:22 am Reply with quote
BadNewsBlues wrote:
Or let’s make another 2D Sonic game after we also rerelease the Genesis era games.


Yes please. Sonic Mania was the best Sonic game in years and still is the best since it's release. I know it just copies half its stages from the older games but those older games was when the series was good so why not copy them? More 2D games in general please.

Azure Chrysanthemum wrote:
If I had children I'd be in absolute despair over the state of Lego. Those were formative toys for me growing up (along with the Brio trains which appear to be somewhat less ridiculous than the wallet assault Lego has become) and not being able to get it due to the expense would really hurt. Thankfully I suppose that wasn't the hand life dealt me so I just get to watch Lego in horror and be sad at how it's not accessible for kids to have them as toys anymore.


We might have grown up with Lego but do kids even care? They probably would rather just build things in Minecraft if they want to build stuff with bricks. It's like expecting kids to care about the original Gameboy when they have tons of games on their phones now and don't need the dedicated handheld that plays 1 type.

What really baffles me is why Lego became popular as a high-end collector thing for adults to begin with. They're like a model kit only a lot more expensive and lot worse looking because it's all blocky. For the same price you could get a statue that looks way better and is twice the size. Unless the Lego set has actual playability to it which these starter statues don't look like they do it's better to just go for a real statue if you want an expensive display piece.
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