Review: Bionicle 2015 Masters

Very similar to the 2001 storyline, the Toa crash landed on the island of Okoto following the Prophecy of Heroes. They had absolutely no recollection of who they were, what their purpose was, and where they were. They set out on quests to obtain their golden masks and eventually all linked up, got into some beef over who should be the leader, and then united to defeat the island’s enemies. Sound familiar?

I can’t hold that much of a grudge for them repeating the story because it had been 5 years since Bionicle Gen 1 ended, 14 years since the original launch, and there was a whole new generation who could get behind our heroes the same way we did in 2001. Also I’m a big fan of The Force Awakens so who would I be to complain about a story being reskinned?

Packaging:

The packaging for Gen 2 did away with the plastic canister packaging, I’m sure for ecological purposes, and instead turned to the route of cardboard packaging. The packaging does still attempt to mimic a molded canister in the sense that we have some sculpting to them.

The front box art depicts each of the Toa in an environment to match their elemental abilities, facing off against a skull spider as they attempt to retrieve the golden mask shown on each of their boxes.

The back of the boxes show off the play functions for the Toa, give a 1:1 image of the included golden mask, and a preview of combination models that can be made to upgrade each of the Toa. A comic strip on each box provides the story of the Toa retrieving their Golden Mask and then defeating skull spiders with their upgraded powers.

Model Reviews:

In total the build took me 1 hour and 7 minutes, which was quite a bit longer than I’m used to for a group of six Toa. Granted there are a lot more parts per model than what we saw in Gen 1. The actual experience was very enjoyable, it certainly didn’t feel like over an hour.

Skull Spiders:

Each of the Masters comes with a Skull Spider to accompany the build. There’s 2 dark blue, 2 yellowish green, and 2 silver. Green possesses x-ray vision, Blue is very strong, and Silver is the fastest. The only variation is that the skull spider from Pohatu’s set includes a stinger tail to mimic a scorpion.

Lewa:

First off we’ll start with Lewa, who is a mostly dark gray and silver build with a few pops of green and bright light orange. There’s actually only 6 green pieces in the entire set, which just feels a bit odd for a Toa. He still looks great, but I was surprised to see such little green. The two silver armor pieces which sit around his traps I’m a big fan of, as we’ll come to see they provide a bit of individuality from the others.

Looking at pictures of these sets I assumed that the chest plates would be stickers, but most of them are actually printed, Lewa’s being one of them. It provides in my opinion necessary detail, if this plate was silver the model would feel a little empty to me.

As always with Bionicle it’s all about those masks. These masks pay homage to the original Kanohi from 2001, with Lewa’s we can see some familiar sculpting and eye slots.

Lewa is equipped with two axes, with the back end of the axe being composed of a sword piece. The top end of the axe can be removed and moved to the back of his forearms, and then the sword pieces flip to the other end of the hands.

Just like the original Toa, the main play feature is a turning gear on the back that allows the arms to swing up and down. Back in 2001 knocking off masks was a big play feature for the entire year, and these sets pay homage to that as well with masks that pop off either when they’re bumped or by pressing down on the back of the eyes.

Pohatu:

Now for Pohatu, he looks a bit thinner than Lewa, personally I consider him to just be more athletic. His pops of color consist of dark orange parts, which once again there are only 6 of just like Lewa.

Something that surprised me was that the build is not completely symmetrical. The arms are different from each other. His right arm is composed of trans-neon green parts and the other black. There’s also brown armor on the right compared to silver armor on the left. I couldn’t find a ton of info about this so I’m assuming that he’s got some sort of a Winter Soldier arm that is more powerful than his other. This is also the arm that swings when turning the gear on his back. These same colored parts appear again at his calves.

The weapons are referred to as Stormerangs when attached to his hands and used for fighting, but they can also attach down to his feet where they’re then called Jeterangs. On his back Pohatu includes a piece which is a cool reference to the Rahkshi Guurahk, it's a nice inclusion. When equipped in the Jetarang variation, this piece can be put in one of Pohatu’s hands.

Pohatu’s mask certainly has some callbacks to his original Toa Mata mask, they did a good job with this one.

Gali:

Surprisingly the most intimidating of the smaller 3, Gali looks absolutely jacked up and utilizes pearl dark gray parts along with the silver ones to give her some shine. There’s also some bits of trans-light blue at the arms and legs that give some additional color pops beyond the dark azure armor and mask parts. Gali’s most prominent feature are the shoulder pads which stick up to nearly the top of her mask and can be reoriented to match the rest of the arm via a ball joint.

At her ankles there are small spikes sticking out which to me compliment her harpoon weapon very well. The harpoon is very reminiscent of a trident, perfect for our Toa of water. There are two fins on her feet which can be reconfigured to be an Elemental Trident by turning around her harpoon, and moving the fin pieces from her feet up to the end of the now trident.

Just like Pohatu, Gali’s twisting gear controls only her right arm, while the left can just be articulated.

Of all the Toa I think Gali’s is the least like her 2001 version. Not only is the one included with the set not transparent, but there aren’t any small cues to that original design. Now, there was an exclusive mask that is trans-dark blue given out during 2015 LEGO® Inside Tours, but unless you have a casual $4,000 sitting around, well you’re stuck with this one.

Tahu:

Our first of the larger 3 Masters is of course you can tell, Tahu. The first thing that sticks out to me about Tahu is the amount of gold in this set. There’s more gold in this than in the Bionicle Stars Tahu. I’m honestly not a fan of the gold, I would have preferred either silver or orange to allow the red to shine a little bit more. In the case of gold now that becomes the pop of color and the red feels like it’s in the background. Color scheme aside, the sculpting of Tahu was nailed. He looks like he’s in peak shape and athletic as ever.

He includes a lava surfboard which feels so nostalgic back to the Toa Nuva. While he’s on the surfboard you can equip him with two golden swords, which can be clipped into his back if you want to take him off the surfboard and attach those weapon parts to his hands.

Tahu’s mask does a nice job of connecting back to the original’s look, but also gives us a new mood if you will.

Kopaka:

If you thought Gali was jacked, take a look at Kopaka. He’s got the legs of Saquon Barkley and the upper body of DK Metcalf for you NFL fans. Unlike Tahu the gold in this model isn’t too distracting, but we also have no shortage of white parts throughout the rest of the build. Kopaka also gives us our first stickers of the 2015 line. The chest plate is still printed however there are two stickers on his thighs. I’m not a big fan of stickers, but the extra detail here does a great job of keeping the model from being completely washed out with white.

I may be wrong here, but Kopaka has transparent hands and I don’t think we’ve ever seen that in a Bionicle before. They look great and when I got to them in the build I genuinely let out a yell because I was that pumped.

Much like the others, Kopaka does allow for changing up the configuration of his weapons, but I really like that the base build has nothing on his feet. I’m not a huge fan of the feet attachments and prefer something like the shield much more, also the shield is a great shoutout to previous Kopaka sets. That being said the shield can be taken apart and snapped into his feet to give him to giant skis. In his right hand he carries a pretty wicked spear.

Kopaka’s mask is my favorite of this line, it’s just so nostalgic with the different scopes on the side.

Onua:

Last but not least is Onua, who if I’m being honest feels a little bit cartoonish to me. He clearly skipped leg day but that didn’t stop him from having a barrel chest that even the Hulk would be jealous of. I think character-wise it can make sense, sure, but he just looks a little goofy. I’m a massive fan of the purple pieces since those were of course a color we got to see Onu-Matorans rep on Mata Nui, and they did a good job of incorporating them into this build. Similar to Kopaka, Onua has two very large shoulder pads which fill up the otherwise empty space between his chest and shoulders very nicely.

To bust his way through tough terrain, Onua has an Earthquake Hammer which just on looks alone this thing’s a beast. I am a bit disappointed that it’s made up of the same parts as his shoulder pads, but at first glance you won’t really notice that. The gear on Onua’s back controls both arms which makes sense for this character. Onua smash.

Onua’s chest is so big they actually utilized stickers to come up with the print. But since the background color is black they almost appear to be printed directly on the chest once applied.

Like Kopaka, Onua’s mask does an incredible job of tying back to the 2001 Toa Mata version. The mask in all accounts is seemingly identical, but just a little modernized for this head size.

Gold Masks of Power:

Each of the Masters comes with their Golden Mask of Power, which if I’m being honest feels a little Mickey Mouse. In the days that were 2001 it almost felt like you were on your own hunt to find the golden masks through the mask packs, but now they just come in the base set. The golden masks really aren’t advertised in the instructions other than for the combination model with the Protectors, but they can still be applied without those other upgrades, you’re not breaking any lore there.

Overall Notes for the Wave:

One thing I noticed through the builds was that there was much less usage of Technic axles and pins, focusing more on ball joints. As someone who doesn’t love the pain that comes with strictly Technic builds, I preferred this compared to the OG Bionicles.

Something that needs to be said for the Masters is that their articulation is incredible. There’s so many ball joints on each set that allows you to completely customize your display of them. They are also quite tight so no real worry of your limbs slipping out of place or drooping down once you take your hands off of them.

A small detail that grinds my gears is the eye color. With so many callbacks to the original 2001 Toa Mata, the eye color also should’ve taken that on by matching with the original. To do that Tahu should have pink eyes, Gali should have yellow, Onua dark green, and Pohatu orange. Unfortunately the part was never made in most of those colors so you can’t even make the modification yourself.

As we saw through a lot of the Toa highlights, there’s quite a few transparent limb pieces. They add a great flare to each set and invoke a little bit of their elemental abilities to their look.

Current Pricing & Final Thoughts:

If you want to pick up these sets for yourself, thankfully they come a little cheaper than those Toa Mata. In used condition they typically run $25 for the smaller sets, and $30 for the larger ones. If you want to get them in sealed condition, the prices vary a bit based on which one you’re getting, but expect to pay at least $75 for a smaller set, and a little over $100 for the larger ones. Which at that point you’re running up against the prices of a sealed 2001 Toa Mata.

The Masters do a good job of reestablishing the world of Bionicle to kick off Gen 2. There’s a ton to like, and plenty of callbacks to Gen 1 to get nostalgic over, but they don’t come without their flaws. At the end of the day they have me excited to see what’s next for Gen 2, and I can’t ask them to do much more than that.

Score: 8.3/10

Video Review: