Review: 71363 Desert Pokey
Posted by Huw,
71363 Desert Pokey, at £18 / $20, is one of the cheapest Super Mario expansion packs to add to the starter set 71360 Adventures with Mario.
Like all expansion sets, it introduces new gameplay opportunities and new enemies to defeat.
It also allows for the accumulation of a large number coins with no skill whatsoever, so might just be the set for you!
Characters
Monty Mole appears in two sets, so if you missed the opportunity to obtain him in 40414 Monty Mole & Super Mushroom when it was a gift with purchase, you'll find him in this one.
According to the Super Mario wiki, Pokeys are cactus enemies that are typically composed of three to five spherical body segments. To defeat a Pokey, typically each body section must be destroyed; however, defeating the head usually kills the entire enemy.
The LEGO version consists of four cubic sections with tiles on the top and bottom, and spikes on three sides. One section has a barcode on the top.
The 1x1 pyramid is new in bright green in this set.
Construction
Parts are packed in three bags and if you can't be bothered to work your way through the instructions in the app on a tiny phone screen you can download a PDF version of them from LEGO.com.
The model consists of a vertical wall, upon which the Pokey is mounted, with a cactus on either side, and a rotating turntable with a hammer attached. Mario is placed in here during gameplay.
The four sections of the Pokey have 1x1 cones on the back which slot between rails on the wall. This prevents the upper sections from being knocked over when the hammer strikes the lowest one.
Incredibly, this is the first time that 2x4 33 degree ridge slopes, seen here at the base of the Pokey, have been made in dark grey!
Barcodes
There are three barcodes:
- On Monty Mole
- On one section of the Pokey
- In the turntable
Play
Mario is positioned in the turntable and then rotated from side to side to knock out the lower section of the Pokey with the hammer. After the pokey has been demolished, its barcode can be scanned. However, it can be a job to actually find it in the debris if it lands face down!
Jon, aka AcademyOfDrX writes:
This set shares the desert setting and chain reaction play of Monty Mole and Super Mushroom. Promotional images show Mario using the hammer to knock a Pokey segment into Monty Mole, and if you use the default set layout, it's hard not to recreate that action. What you see is what you get with this one, but for a $20 entry level set, that's not a bad thing.
My favourite extrapolation of this set's mechanic was described by Lyichir in his comment on the review of 40414 Monty Mole & Super Mushroom. He imagined replacing the Desert Pokey with a Snow Pokey, and knocking him apart with a snowball instead of the hammer. Though the Desert Pokey set can be added on to any desert level as-is, arguably its greatest value comes from starting with something basic and coming up with ways to add a new spin on it.
Points
Coins are gathered in three ways:
- By whacking Monty Mole (1 point per stomp)
- By rotating Mario in the turntable
- By scanning the Pokey's barcode (5 for the first scan,1 for subsequent ones)
If you play as intended, you will normally receive 9 points for rotating back and forth to knock out the sections of the Pokey, and 5 for scanning it. Sometimes you get 10 for scanning it but I've no idea why.
However, if you continue to swing the hammer after the Pokey is smashed to the ground until time is nearly up, then scan him just before, you will gather a large number of coins:
Verdict
It's a colourful and interesting looking set, which is why I bought it. However, there is not much to the gameplay, and it requires no skill or patience to master. It's therefore not a 'must have' one by any means.
There's certainly scope for buying multiples of it and building an extra-tall supporting wall and Pokey to smash to the ground!
This one, and a few other Mario sets, are in stock at LEGO.com, although the number on back order is increasing by the day. It's clearly a popular theme, so buy them while you can.
73 likes
19 comments on this article
I find the set name to be a bit redundant. "Desert Pokey". That's like saying "Desert cactus". Yes, Pokeys are desert enemies, lol.
(Unless you're playing Super Mario World, where they're forest enemies for some reason)
I like the Pokey's design, I must say! It's obviously held back by the necessity of it to be square, but they did the best they could given the current system, I feel.
I find it rather curious that they used the flower-top design, too. The actual games haven't featured this design in over a decade!
"After the pokey has been demolished, its barcode can be scanned." - I suppose that if you put the cube with the barcode at the bottom, you just have to knock that one out?
As for the PDF instructions at Lego - how come they are still not linked to from the set pages here at Brickset?
@MrClassic said:
""After the pokey has been demolished, its barcode can be scanned." - I suppose that if you put the cube with the barcode at the bottom, you just have to knock that one out?"
Yes, but then you'd not get coins for swinging the hammer so many times.
"As for the PDF instructions at Lego - how come they are still not linked to from the set pages here at Brickset?"
For some reason the LEGO Customer services instructions page does not list Super Mario in the drop-down list of themes and we rely on that when we gather the links automatically.
@huw said (In the article) It also allows for the accumulation of a large number coins with no skill whatsoever, so might just be the set for you!
You saying we have no skill?
Just kidding, great review, keep up the good work!
I’m still kind of amazed at how they pulled off the “Pokey destruction” play feature, honestly— it’s just like the games! (Outside of the comically oversized hammer)
This is a set which makes one of the stronger cases for the Mario play pattern- it's reasonably priced, the action feature is well thought out and nicely kinetic. So if you're buying intobthe system, it's an easy expansion to justify. It is an expansion, so it's not nearly as good in isolation, but the value of every expansion is preconditioned on you getting the starter set.
@Robot99 said:
"I find the set name to be a bit redundant. "Desert Pokey". That's like saying "Desert cactus". Yes, Pokeys are desert enemies, lol.
(Unless you're playing Super Mario World, where they're forest enemies for some reason)"
Don't forget the snowman-like "Snow Pokeys" introduced in Super Mario 3D World (and which reappear in Super Mario Maker 2 when Pokeys are placed in snow levels). I'm hoping they appear in a future set, especially since snow/ice is one level theme that isn't yet represented in the current range of sets.
The only flaws in this set are (imho):
- when you bust out Pokey, sometimes it’s pretty hard to find the pokey piece with the sticker on it to stamp on
- most of the times the turning goes smoothly, but sometimes it is rather rough.
@Lyichir A snow based set would be cool, but do you think they can update Mario to recognize snow?
@natro220
Probably white would be snow. Think about it - I don't think any ground in this first wave is white, so the color is probably being reserved for future plans.
@Robot99:
Keeps it from getting mixed up with Gumby Pokeys.
@Huw:
There's a lot about the Mario theme that's not normal. I tried to look up a specific set on their website over the weekend, and when I pulled up Mario in the list of themes and clicked on it, I got an advertisement instead of a list of products to buy. You have to actually click on a separate tab at the top of the Mario inset to get to the stuff that's for sale. And that's on top of ditching paper instructions (though, to be fair, they'd already done that for the Dimensions accessories which had their instructions embedded in the process that rewrote your game tag, with the paper instructions only showing you how to build the minifigs).
@natro220:
Doesn't the game actually run on an app on your mobile device that's linked to the Mario character? They've got four switches built into the pants, which gives you 16 possible combinations that identify which outfit he's wearing. So far there are five, which could have been accomplished with only three switches, so unless they've programmed all the missing outfits in with full game mechanics (now go buy some outfits and break the switch bumpers off to see if you can figure out what the other 11 outfits are!), they need a way to add them in at a later date.
@Norikins said:
" @natro220
Probably white would be snow. Think about it - I don't think any ground in this first wave is white, so the color is probably being reserved for future plans."
An easy way to find this out would be for someone who has Mario to try placing him on a white plate and see if it currently registers anything.
The Mario figure can update its firmware when connected to the phone app (mine updated when I first got it set up), so updating it to support new terrain colors and barcodes seems believable. The main limiting factor to me seems like it would be the amount of space on whatever memory it has inside and the number of distinct barcode patterns that can be recognized.
@Lyichir said:
"Don't forget the snowman-like "Snow Pokeys" introduced in Super Mario 3D World (and which reappear in Super Mario Maker 2 when Pokeys are placed in snow levels). I'm hoping they appear in a future set, especially since snow/ice is one level theme that isn't yet represented in the current range of sets."
Oh, duh! It was even mentioned in the review here!
Yeah, that explanation makes sense, and gets me hopeful that we'll see some Snow Pokeys. We already have the perfect bucket element for their "hat"!
Another thing I'm hoping will appear is airships. That's one of the first things that come to mind when I hear "Super Mario", and there's huge potential for a really cool set built off of those.
This one looks really fun.
But loud. I have to say, the LEGO Mario set is still popular with my kids, and they’re looking forward to the expansion sets.
@Norikins said:
"Probably white would be snow. Think about it - I don't think any ground in this first wave is white, so the color is probably being reserved for future plans."
There are two white "platforms" with barcode stickers in 71376 Thwomp Drop.
This set is kind of ingenious. with the hammer and the pieces sliding down...
@Norikins: And in the starter course 71360 there's a white platform with barcode sticker used for the cloud.
@MrClassic:
I don't have any of these sets and haven't played the game, but don't the barcode stickers supersede any color triggers? I mean, some of the powerups and enemies are red, but they don't trigger lava damage on top of whatever effects are caused by the barcode.