Review: Bionicle 2016 Uniters

The last of the Toa, it's a sad day.

After the events of the 2015 storyline, Ekimu forged new weapons and masks for the Toa which were used to fight off some rogue Skull Warriors. To gain greater power and retrieve the Mask of Control, Ekimu sent the Toa off to find the Elemental Creatures who were aware of the locations of the Golden Masks of Unity, which would allow the Toa to merge with the Elemental Creatures.

Packaging:

The packaging for these sets is quite interesting in that there are three different box sizes for this wave. For the most part the Uniters match the box size that they had in 2015 under the Masters wave, with the exception of Kopaka. Kopaka comes as an even larger 2-in-1 set with Melum, the Creature of Ice, who was not included in the Elemental Creatures review I did a few weeks ago.

The front of each box gives us a great look at the Uniters in their environments, to me the thing that pops out are the weapon pieces on each box. Intentional or not, my eyes immediately are drawn to them. Also shown here are the various golden masks, as well as a few easter eggs for the Elemental Creatures in the background fighting off Shadow Traps and some ancient hieroglyphs of the Creatures combining with the Toa.

The back of each box follow the same format of a preview of the included play features up top with a preview of the Uniter combinations. There's also a comic strip along the bottom which is the same for each set, just reskinned for the Toa the packaging is for.

Each box is sealed with two clear pieces of tape to be cut open. Inside each set has a few bags along with the instructions. For Kopaka there's 3 bags with  a larger instruction manual, unfortunately mine was completely wrinkled up.

Lewa:

Ironically the first set is the best, Toa Lewa. Genuinely, this is one of my favorite Bionicle sets that's ever been made. The color scheme of the green and silver are perfectly balanced, and the overall shaping of the set reflects an agile but upgraded Lewa from the 2015 line. During the build I was worried there was too much silver, but right at the end some green pieces are placed and everything comes together magnificently.

The chest armor definitely takes some inspiration from the original 2001 torso mold which is a nice callback. The printing on the torso is a bit more subtle but includes printing of Lewa's elemental symbol. This is consistent with all of the other Uniters too. This elemental symbol is also seen at the mask mold, once again this is consistent for all 6 Uniters. The engraving as well as the mask molding has a very prominent samurai inspiration that goes along well with the art style of the other Generation 2 material.

One thing that really works to Lewa's benefit was the use of black parts for his skeleton rather than a dark gray. This allows for the silver and green to pop out more from head to toe and leaves a pleasant silhouette behind.

Lewa's weaponry consists of two Razor Crystal Blades, which utilize the mold that we saw for the Elemental Creatures. Nearly every other Uniter set uses this mold as well as a part of their weaponry.

Lewa was my favorite Toa growing up, so seeing him essentially perfected is a special thing.

Pohatu:

Following up Lewa is an incredibly daunting task and even worse for this rendition of Pohatu it feels much more bland. There's some sprinkles of dark tan and brown throughout the finished look, but as a whole the transparent neon pieces just aren't enough to carry the set. The amount of silver feels a bit overwhelming and unbalanced with the other colors of this set. The flow of the molds is also less smooth from section to section. You could convince me that this was just a basic toa build with Pohatu's mask slapped on, otherwise there's no personal touches.

Pohatu's carries a Crystal Flail, which I'll admit is pretty unique and new with the hanging rock piece. The issue here though is that Pohatu suffers from the same problem that the Rahkshi did. The staff must be connected to both hands which is very restrictive to the ability to pose Pohatu. Despite all the years of Bionicle I don't understand why they couldn't solve this issue and allow the back end of the staff to come off the back of the hand and instead be attached to the remainder of the staff.

Gali:

Gali's build threw me for a bit of a loop with the asymmetry, suddenly I felt like I was back to building the Skull army. The orange accents are well placed though and this looks much better done this way than if they were to include two orange molds at the shoulders and two at the thighs. The extra pop up at her shoulders also creates a bit more of a slimmer silhouette to prevent her from being too bulky.

Her mask looks rather nice but I can't help but still wish that the blue section was transparent to match the original Gali. There's a reason I think they chose to do this that we'll discuss later, but transparent blue really would have tied it all together.

Gali's weapon is the Elemental Water Spear, which just like Pohatu makes use of a hanging end on the rear of the staff. The extra hilt detail that covers up Gali's back hand goes a long way to forgiving the long, restrictive staff, but that issue is present just as it was with Pohatu. The front end of the staff has a small propellor that can be twisted, another fun twist to a staff weapon.

Tahu:

Of all the Uniter builds, Tahu feels the closest visually to his 2015 build. There's some armor upgrades and different prints, but overall you could probably swap the masks and convince me that this was the 2015 set with different weapons. One of the differences for this version is that there's even more gold than there was for the original. After seeing the first three sets incorporate silver, I wish Tahu did too. We essentially could've had a reboot of the Toa Nuva, which maybe the designers were afraid of, but the gold makes him stand out too much and disassociates him from the others. His mask includes silver to preserve the prestige of golden masks, but this only makes me want a silver theme even more.

Tahu also makes use of light blue printing at his chest piece and at his feet. I can only guess that these are to mimic the blue core to fire, but the effect doesn't come off so great.

Tahu's Elemental Fire Blades feel very early 2000's inspired, they make me think of the Makuta Nui combination build. Each of the blades has a gear that brings the blade forward to stab an opponent. In a model where they could not incorporate gear functions for the arms to swing, I do appreciate the extra bit of dynamic function to the weapons. The orange sticks out a little bit too much, I wish it was transparent to match the skeleton, but that's a bit of a nitpick.

Onua:

Unlike Tahu, Onua's build was much less reliant on gold pieces which makes for an overall more elemental appearance to the set. I still would have preferred silver, but this is at least an improvement.

The feet pieces they used for this set really threw me for a loop. I've never seen a mold like these before, and they're in a pearl dark gray color that doesn't quite blend in with the black, purple, and bits of gold. I love the use of the transparent purple shoulder armor, light hits them beautifully and once again this makes the set feel more elemental as opposed to just an armored up Toa.

Onua carries his Blazing Crystal Hammer, which aesthetically could not be much better. The hammer has two functions to it which is a bit different to see, but they're executed well. The top of the hammer can spin around to be a blaster, which by twisting the hammer will fire off studs. LEGO® clearly learned a little bit from the 2015 line and included a small little holster for Onua to store extra ammo. This doesn't solve the issue that the studs will easily be lost, but at least the extra ammo is accessible.

Kopaka & Melum:

Kopaka and Melum being a dual set I was indifferent to going in, but it's actually really great that LEGO® released a set that allows you to perform the featured combination for this wave, more on that shortly.

Melum overall feels like a dumbed down version of Terak, the Creature of Earth. I'm curious just how much this model was limited by the price constraints of the set it's in. If this were to be released as a sole Creature set, I have a strong feeling that it'd be more impressive.

Kopaka is really fascinating to me. He actually does incorporate silver rather than gold for the most part, which I like for the continuity of these sets, but there's also some navy and neon green print accents mixed in, which has just never been a part of his color scheme. He kind of feels like he could just be dropped right into the Seattle Seahawks sideline for an away game. Instead of navy blue these pieces should've either been transparent light blue, white, or silver.

Kopaka has a pretty sweet Elemental Ice Blade in his left hand which has a bit of a trident vibe, and in his right hand an Elemental Ice Blaster which includes the only stickers of this entire set line. I think it'd look fine without them but they don't hurt. The blaster has that same function, but just like Onua he comes strapped with some reserve ammunition.

Play Features and Masks:

Each of the Uniters have a gear literally on their butts which when twisted turns the entire torso back and forth. This was a necessity to maintain a gear function with the combining function we'll see shortly, but it's essentially the same function as the 2003 Makuta set, which I dislike just as much now as I did for that set. It serves its purpose, sure, but it's clunky and only makes sense for the sets with long staff weapons.

Just as was the case with the 2015 line, there's some clear inspiration taken from the original 2001 mask molds for each of the sets. I think these do a better job than the 2015 masks at being their own style while also paying homage to the originals.

Each set comes with a Golden Unity Mask for each of the associated elements. They’re really half gold and half gradient to match the color of transparent pieces used throughout each set.

Uniter Combinations:

The play feature that I've been absolutely dying to get to has been the ability to combine the Elemental Creatures with the Toa to form their Uniter combination. Each Toa has two pins sticking out on their back that feeds directly into two pinholes on each of the Elemental Creature sets. From there the head of each Elemental Creature folds down to form a guardian cap of sorts above the Toa's masks.

I cannot understate just how much more I like this than if LEGO® were to give us Kaita models for this wave. The Kaita had their place, but this to me transforms each of the Toa into their God-tier selves. The color coordination could have been executed better, but when I look over at a Uniter like Lewa, what more could you possibly ask for? He looks unbeatable, the kid in me is going nuts.

Progression from 2015 Masters:

One thing I do really like about this wave of sets is that there's clear growth from the 2015 models. Some of the changes may be slight, and less blatant for some sets than others, but as a whole they move things along, I just wish we could see what would have followed them up, it feels like they were really catching a stride.

Current Pricing & Final Thoughts:

If you want to purchase any of the Uniters for your collection you can find them in used condition for about $40-50 each and in brand new sealed condition they stagger a little bit but in general you're paying at least $100 and often will find that price exceeding $150.

When it comes to this wave being the last we may ever see these Toa characters, I feel more than satisfied. There's a ton of respects paid toward the original sets but also the incorporation of 15 years of Technic innovations. Could they be better, absolutely. But from 2001 to this wave, it's been quite the journey for these characters and this feels like a worthy version to hang up their cleats on.

Score: 8.6/10

Video Review: