Boomer Bill Barrage: LEGO 71355 - REVIEW (LEGO Super Mario)

I'm back with my second LEGO Super Mario expansion set to review:  LEGO 71355:  Boomer Bill Barrage.  First, I must start with the fact that I always referred to the main bad guys as "Bullet Bills" but the box clearly refers to them as "Boomer Bills."  That out of the way, let's get to the heart of the review.  

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The Boomer Bill Barrage set comes with 132 pieces and originally retailed for $29.99.  The set features three bad guys (two of the aforementioned Boomer Bills plus a Shy Guy) as well as a Super Mushroom.  

The main portion of the set consists of a turntable with two platforms on it, one on each end.  Each platform has a splat gear attached to the bottom of it so that when you spin the platform the Boomer Bills will also "fly" around as their gears mesh with the spinning platform.  Even better, the platform has two "difficulty levels" for play:  a platform with studs (easy mode) and a smooth platform with no studs (hard mode).  It's definitely challenging to keep the Mario figure on the smooth plate while spinning the turntable!  

The rest of the set consists of some basic platforms that are useful for extending your Mario set-up.  You get three small platforms of varying heights plus one large platform.  All of the platforms are green (grass) while the turntable is set over water.  There's also a simple tree build to round things out.  Ultimately, the build doesn't look terribly impressive on the table - and it certainly doesn't look like thirty dollars' worth of stuff.  


That said, I particularly love the faces on the Boomer Bills - and the clear poles that they attach to work well for the flying effect.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for those who want super challenging courses), it's nearly impossible to get Mario from one side of the platform to the other without "taking a bullet to the head" via a flying Boomer Bill.  Sure, you can cheat a bit to make it work but as constructed poor Mario will almost always fail!

While the Boomer Bills look great, they don't come with any action tiles.  Instead, those tiles are reserved for the swiveling platform (you get coins as you go around in a circle) and the two other items in the set, one good item (Super Mushroom) and one bad guy (Shy Guy).  

For as much as I like the Boomer Bills, I think Shy Guy ended up being the star of the set for me!  That face, coupled with the super simple belt, make for a perfect LEGO recreation of one of the Mario series' most interesting bad guys.  Ultimately though, other than Shy Guy there isn't a ton to love about this set (unless you can pick it up at discount)!

The Bottom Line (out of 10):
Fun: 
 4
Play Value:  5
Kid Value:  4
Adult Value:  2
Overall:  3

The Boomer Bill Barrage set is perfectly adequate, but not for the retail price of $30.  I expected this set to capture my son's attention since he loves gears so much right now, but even he found the set to be rather lackluster compared to say the Whomp's Lave Trouble set which I reviewed earlier this month.  Ultimately, the success of this set hinges on how much you love Shy Guy - there's not much else here to move the needle so to speak.

Now that I've reviewed two of the LEGO Super Mario expansion sets, we can start a proper ranking (see below).  As I continue to review more expansion sets, expect to see some changes in the overall rankings (especially if I end up with multiple expansion sets that overlap with either included enemies or challenges).  As a reminder, I also reviewed the Mario starter course but since a starter course is basically required for proper play, I did not include that set in the rankings.

Best LEGO Super Mario Expansions:

1.  Whomp's Lava Trouble (review link, 9/10)
2.  Boomer Bill Barrage (3/10)


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