As a lifelong Nintendo fan myself, I was excited when I first learned that LEGO would be teaming up with Nintendo to produce a line of Mario LEGO products. Today, we are going to take a look at a set that I've been holding on to for quite some time waiting for my son to be old enough to play with it - LEGO 71360: Adventures with Mario starter course.
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The starter course set comes with 231 pieces and originally retailed for $60. Nowadays, you can often find the set on sale for about 20% off MSRP (such as on Amazon). The price-per-part ratio may seem poor at first glance but the Mario figure is full of electronics which definitely makes up the bulk of the set's cost!
The Starter Course set is necessary for any LEGO Super Mario collector for two main reasons. First, it's the only way to get the Mario character (which is what interacts with all of the bar codes you see above), and second, it's the only way to get the green "start pipe" and the black "end flag" that you need for the beginning and end of each level.
Besides the aforementioned start pipe and ending flag, the Adventures with Mario set comes with a number of other interesting elements including a spinning platform, a "?" (question mark) block, and a couple of enemies for Mario to stomp on (Bowser Jr. and a goomba).
The "?" block gives Mario different bonuses (coins, invicibility, etc.) and seems to give them randomly as far as I can tell.
Admittedly, Mario looks rather creepy when he's powered off but when he is powered on his eyes light up (as does the screen on his chest) and makes plenty of Mario-like sounds and plays Mario-esque music. As for Bowser Jr, like the rest of the set, all of his decorations are printed. There are no stickers to apply anywhere in the set (yay)!
Putting everything together, you can make a nice variety of courses to challenge Mario. There are gass sections, lava sections, and water sections to interact with (and Mario can tell what sort of terrain he is standing on based on the color of the bricks). There's also a cloud to swoop Mario up and over any particularly difficult levels!
Overall, I greatly enjoyed the Adventures with Mario set but I think my son (age 4) liked it even more! We've had a lot of fun building levels for each other to guide Mario through. The various platforms are super easy to rearrange with the different color plates - though it should be noted that as a side effect, no levels are particularly sturdy)!
My only real complaint about the set is the relative lack of enemies. With only two bad guys (a lowly goomba plus the "boss" Bowser Jr.) there isn't much variety there. Luckily, there are tons of ways to add more bad guys to your layout (either by purchasing some of the many expansion sets) or opting to buy the Mario blind bags.
I have purchased (and now built) a few of the expansion sets with my son so look for my thoughts on those in upcoming posts. For now, let's try and give a score to the Adventures in Mario set as it comes out of the box.
The Bottom Line (out of 10):
Fun: 10
Play Value: 10
Kid Value: 8
Adult Value: 2*
Overall: 9
*the "parent value" is much higher but for adult-only collectors there isn't a ton that's unique here.
If only LEGO had included printed instructions and maybe one more basic enemy (koopa troopa perhaps) this would have been a "perfect 10" set! As is, it's still a fair bit of fun...and if you add in some expansions you can really make some crazy levels!
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