LEGO Super Mario Collectible Figures: Series 5 REVIEW (the First Half)

Happy 2023, everyone!  I'm back and ready for another fun year of LEGO-related content here at Playing with Bricks.  For today, I've got the first half of the LEGO Super Mario Collectible Figures (Series 5) to take a look at.  For this batch, you can thank my son who build all of the characters - and I'll be sharing his thoughts as well as mine as we go through this review.

Baby Yoshi:

In my opinion, Baby Yoshi looks super dopey and I find his doped out expression too difficult to look past.  My son, on the other hand, was excited to get another Yoshi to build and he found Baby Yoshi "cute and little."  I like the little bridge that is part of the base for Yoshi...and getting a printed lily pad tile is also always appreciated.

Purple Toad:

One of the neat things about Series 5 of the LEGO Mario figures is that not every character pack is an enemy.  I already showed off the Baby Yoshi (good guy) and now we've got Purple Toad, another good guy in the Mario universe!  I love Toad's expression, easily my favorite part of this figure and build.  My son didn't have much in the way of thoughts on Toad - I think he'll have more appreciation for the mushroom-topped denizens of Mushroom Kingdom once he plays more Mario games and realizes how many Toads are present.

Here's another look at the two good guys (Toad and Yoshi) with them off of their bases.

The Baby Yoshi base with the bridge and lily pad is the better of the two though I will say that Toad's base looks like it belongs in Super Mario 3 which is no small feat in LEGO form.

Five of the remaining six figures in Series 5 are of the enemy variety.  Today, we'll look at two of the enemies.

Waddlewing:

We'll start with Waddlewing, a flying squirrel of sorts who also comes with two of the super cool vine pieces (a new-to-me piece).  Of the four figures in today's review, only Waddlewing caused my son to get mad while building - he found the figure to be a bit brittle while trying to piece it together.  

Nabbit:

Finally, the fourth character for today is Nabbit, the Star-stealing rabbit from various Mario titles.  The best part of Nabbit's build is his sack on his back.  You get a tile with a printed mushroom on it which I think could be quite a useful piece for custom Mario builds!

Waddlewing's tail holds the bar code and is poseable a bit which is nice.  You can't actually store anything in Nabbit's sack (a missed opportunity) but it's still a great looking figure.

Based on the four figures that we've built from Series 5 thus far, I would rank them as follows (from best to worst):

1. Nabbit
2. Waddlewing
3. Purple Toad
4. Baby Yoshi

As for their bases, I think Waddlewing has the best (love those vines) while Nabbit's is probably the worst (nothing particular interesting on it as compared to the other three builds).

My son and I still need to build the other four figures from Series 5 but once we do I'll have to do a review of the other half of the set (and then provide a full ranking of all eight figures).  I'll have to have my son provide his ranking as well for everyone!