Review: 21243 The Frozen Peaks
Posted by Huw,
2023 is the Minecraft theme's 10th anniversary and since its inception over 100 sets have been released, to many an AFOLs bewilderment!
Once again I have enlisted the help of 8-year-old William with the reviews of this year's sets, starting off with mid-priced 21243 The Frozen Peaks.
Summary
21243 The Frozen Peaks, 304 pieces.
£29.99 / $34.99 / €34.99 | 9.9p/11.5c/11.5c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
An accurate Minecraft set that fans will love
- Good to play with because of all the moving parts
- Inside could be bigger
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Packaging and Instructions
The box had good images of the finished set, and I like the Minecraft boxes now have a theme of green as the base colour. I think it would be good to have on the outside of the box the number of pieces in the set. [The European boxes don't show it -- Huw]
The instruction booklet is clearly set out, and I really like the little LEGO man at the bottom of the page showing my progress.
Minifigs and Animals
Steve - I really like him, he is a cool character and I use Steve in my Minecraft. His lead like vest makes him look like an explorer, and his diamond pickaxe is very useful in Minecraft.
Creeper - He looks just like the image on the box, and is accurate to the Minecraft game.
Stray - I have never seen a Stray in Minecraft, so I do not know if it is accurate, but I like his golden chest plate.
Goat - Mountain goats are really common in Minecraft, and the movement of the goat is brilliant, going backwards and forwards at the top of the mountain, and its head moving up and down.
The bucket of milk is also in the Red Barn Set, I did find the handle tricky to attach, but I like the bucket.
Construction
The set was quite difficult, as it has lots of levels which make it quite complicated. I struggled on page 40, and had to get some help from my mum, but it made me realise that the block positions and the order of construction was very important. I had to redo this part, but I managed it on the second attempt.
The Completed Model
The model is just like the images on the box when finished, and it has lots of detail. I like the goat with all its movement, and I was excited to see the treasure in the chest.
I liked the little mushrooms just popping out of the ground just starting to grow. The coal ore block is accurate, as it helps make torches and campfire, and the block of emerald ore hidden in the mountain, means you can blow up part of the mountain and capture the creeper! The iron ore block is used in Minecraft to make tools, armour, compasses, anvils and buckets.
My favourite bit is when the wall breaks up with TNT and catches the Creeper, great fun to play with!
Verdict
I really liked this set, as it is accurate to Minecraft, and I think the fans will like it. It is good to play with because of all the moving parts. The area of the set is quite small, so I think it could be improved by being a bit larger and less cramped. It took me one and a half hours to build with some help!
I would definitely recommend buying this set.
The set costs £30.00 and my Mum thinks its good value, but agreed with me that the base could be larger.
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35 comments on this article
See everyone, a Lego goat. Now, stop bringing it up on the comments for any set with an animal.
Goat - square headed goat but still a goat.
I've never gotten the commentary about AFOLs being confused about this line personally, I've never known any AFOL that didn't at least pick up a few of these sets each year, if not for the sets themselves then because they have regular bricks in interesting colors
Excellent review William!
I like the colors of this set, and the play features too.
It's wild that the person reviewing this set (Great job, William!) is younger than the theme itself. I can't believe Minecraft has been around this long!
Great job on the review. I like the goat.
Wow, the Swedish Minecraft makers and the Danish Lego makers have been doing this for 10 years! I don't think we've seen this much of them together since the Kalmar Union.
How has it been 10 years since LEGO Minecraft started?
Still feels like it's a fairly recent licence/theme
What's with the green armour? Is that supposed to be dyed leather. Doesn't look anything like that ingame.
@jol said:
"What's with the green armour? Is that supposed to be dyed leather. Doesn't look anything like that ingame."
My assumption was that it's supposed to be Emerald armor.
The armor in this set is definitely odd. The closest thing to it in game is dyed leather armor, but getting it that vivid is really hard with how diluted they can be. When the set was first revealed a lot of people wondered if it was the fabled emerald armor, a legendary item fans have been begging the devs to add to the game for... well longer than this theme's been around even!
Of course, those were reactions when the set was revealed. Just this Wednesday Minecraft added a new mechanic to the game. Armor Trims! You can now line your armor with emerald patterns. Of course, those trims don't make your armor near as green as this set does, so I doubt it's what the makers of this set intended. I'm curious when/if more trimmed armor will appear in future sets of the line. There's theoretically around 600 minifigs you could milk out of that concept.
"since its inception over 100 sets have been released, to many an AFOLs bewilderment!" personally I'm bewildered that people are still bewildered by this theme. Minecraft's enormity is insane, especially among younger Millennials and Gen Z. It is the best selling videogame of all time, and just a couple years ago passed one trillion views on YouTube. In fact lets do some quick search results.
Minecraft has 1,200,000,000 results on Google (all of these range from about .5- to .7 seconds)
Star Wars has 1,400,000,000
Harry Potter 557,000,000
Marvel 1,570,000,000
Lord of the Rings 360,000,000
DC comics 269,000,000
Of course, comparing something like number of searches or sales numbers would be a better measurement of things, but these kind of results give you a rough idea how much content for each is out there on the web. Minecraft is nearly as popular as Star Wars, despite being around 30 years younger. It's more popular than Harry Potter, DC, and TLotR witch are all beloved LEGO themes in their own right. Add to the fact that things like TLotR are more popular with adults who don't buy a lot of toys, while Minecraft is more popular with children who constantly beg for toys, and of course the toys for them are going to do well.
Great review, and a very heartfelt moment of honesty about page 40. As AFOLs, we don't have the same perception about things like that. I hope we get William to do even more reviews, he has a promising future!
Thank you for the excellent review. Even though I don't play Minecraft, I do enjoy the sets. This set is now on my wanted list.
Great review. Great goat. Grüß Gott.
My son is 4. He loves playing Minecraft and likes the 4 other Minecraft Lego sets he has. He'll probably want this because it has a creeper.
Love these kinds of reviews, well done!
"These aren't the goats you're looking for. "
"Move along."
My son was 9 when the first Minecraft sets came out. He loved them and we have almost everything from the first few waves, including the early microscale sets. Despite having apparently “outgrown” Lego, he refuses to part with the sets!
Great review!
I love the Minecraft sets but I’d like to see them include some of the new characters (Noor, Sunny, Ari, Zuri, Makena, Kai, and Efe) instead of Steve and Alex every time.
Love the kid reviews!
Great set!
If I may, the stray is indeed accurate (to game modes Normal, Hard, and Hardcore), but the green armor Steve wears is strange. It could be dyed leather armor, or it could be a strange attempt at the new armor trims scheduled for update 1.20. Otherwise, a solid set. The dripstone makes me quite happy, no lie.
As for the whole "AFOL bewilderment" ... I'm an AFOL and these days I basically only buy LEGO Minecraft sets anymore. Marvel has been lackluster, DC has been a joke, Star Wars makes me wanna drown my sorrows in green alien milk, but Minecraft just keeps hitting with each set. Sure, there's weird little bits and pieces across sets (TNT in the Deep Dark? Really?) but overall, it feels the Minecraft line is the best of LEGO - so many of the sets are designed to be built and rebuilt with a game that's based around building and rebuilding. If anything, it's the perfect theme. That creativity that's core to LEGO and Minecraft has yet to be realized in any other licensed theme, frankly.
Great set, and great review, William!
The only thing I take issue with is the name, which should surely be The Frozen Peak.
Wow, Lego Minecraft is 10 years old? It feels like just yesterday that Minecraft itself celebrated it's 10th anniversary.
I can't help but wonder what it would be like if Lego made Minecraft sets based on mods. It might get the older MC fans who play Java interested in the theme (like me)
As for which mods, probably Create and the Aether, maybe Twilight Forest. I personally wouldn't mind Tinkers Construct and Immersive Engineering, or even Astral Sorcery. Almost too many possibilities.
Goat quota (goata?) has been fulfilled!
@Muncher said:
"I've never gotten the commentary about AFOLs being confused about this line personally, I've never known any AFOL that didn't at least pick up a few of these sets each year"
Same here. Every AFOL I know loves the Minecraft line of sets.
Minecraft and LEGO are a perfect match. When I first saw the Minecraft video game I thought it was invented by LEGO because it looked like it was built out of bricks in the first place.
The sets, while not cheap, offer lots of useful basic pieces in interesting colours often not available elsewhere, plus they don't contain a single sticker but prints only, which already shows the care and attention LEGO denies even far more expensive products.
All in all a great line of sets that continues to generate new and exciting material.
I would go so far as to speculate that @Huw might actually be the only AFOL (or one of very few) who's bewildered by the theme's continuing popularity.
;-)
@austinpowers , it looks like you could be right...
@Fizyx said:
" @jol said:
"What's with the green armour? Is that supposed to be dyed leather. Doesn't look anything like that ingame."
My assumption was that it's supposed to be Emerald armor."
I'm confused as well, since there isn't Emerald armor
@Huw : wow, finally for once :-)
I also love the occasional review by a kid, since it puts things into perspective. My own kids have almost outgrown LEGO by now (the older one definitely has, and for the younger one Minecraft and the Icons line are the only ones she's still interested in). Interesting to read for example that William struggled with some sections that most AFOLs probably wouldn't think anything of in terms of difficulty.
ive been getting minecraft sets for a year now, I like the theme so much, it's so cute and accurate to the game. Like the panda nursery set for example looks plain, but I built so many buildings like that over the years it immediately called to me. Another couple of great ones is the Mushroom house, and the pig house.
Right now, i would probably say I like it more than Lego star wars, but that's after years of grit with that theme (mostly the fans..) and that im way more familar with Minecraft, so of course it will appeal to me more. Also I like it more than city, the problem with that theme is that you basically need hundreds of dollars to make a good one, with minecraft, everything is really cohesive, so you can basically put any two sets together and it looks like one bigger one.
Good theme, I should have started so much longer ago
Hopefully 11030 will sell good enough, to see more of those brick-boxes with other colors.
Minecraft has blocks in almost every color nowadays, of course not every LEGO color will 100% match the game, like coral, neon yellow, turquoise, but can still have a purpose to set materials apart as LEGO blocks don't have texture like coral/wool/leaf blocks.
Excellent review William thanks very much. Been curious to see what is behind the frozen mountain.
I used to be bewildered about Minecraft sets but changed my mind last year. It's mostly to do with perspective.....from a city building AFOL point of view - the theme isn't that great, especially with figs and accessories. From a Minecraft player point of view - then it's perfect, especially when integrating the sets together.
I bought enough bakeries. I have like 5 goats now. LOVE them in game, love them in Lego form. xD
I am little sad the head is not dualmolded though with dark tan horns.
I buy most of the Minecraft sets. I enjoy the builds and they always make nice scenes. The kids love playing with them and especially the minifigures and mobs
Heck, LEGO Minecraft will be 11 years old in June, given that it began with the Micro World set released as the third LEGO CUUSOO set back in June 2013, before LEGO CUUSOO became LEGO Ideas.
As far as I can tell, LEGO Minecraft sets have been pretty much continuously available since then, giving it the fourth-longest stretch of continuous production / availability of any licensed theme, after Star Wars, DC, and Marvel. Harry Potter / the Wizarding World has a lot more sets and goes farther back, but it’s had at least a few years here and there when there weren’t any sets available.
@Fizyx said:
" @jol said:
"What's with the green armour? Is that supposed to be dyed leather. Doesn't look anything like that ingame."
My assumption was that it's supposed to be Emerald armor."
Or CACTUS ARMOR! That would give the effect of the Thorns enchantment innately.
Minecraft is the most LEGO theme that LEGO makes. There's lots of buildings and terrain (not just motorcycles and mechs) and the builds are all ready to remix and combine. It's one of their best themes.