Technically neither since Minecraft lacks an actual objective, but nonetheless I was excited that we got all these new sets for this year, although mustering the space for the newly released 21128: The Village is a challenge. For now, here's the pictorial review of the End Portal that JudgeChuck didn't get to.

The Box

The box showcases a good iea of what you get in the set, as it's shown in a stronghold complete with a damaged brick wall and lava flow, directly underneath a layer of snow. In-game it wouldn't be this easy to just reach it by digging, but it makes sense ot set the scene. Like any set, it shows off the figures in the front, and the play features on the back.

The Mobs

Included are four characters. Steve is fully suited in diamond armor to protect himself from the two Enderman. All of these figures have appeared prior in 21117: The Ender Dragon, although this time they're not with some lackluster towers, so this is a better way to pick them up unless you got that one on clearance.

What's new here is the Cave Spider, which in-game is a smaller, faster of the spider that's able to spit poison. I haven't encountered one yet bu I definitely wouldn't be friends with it. It's the same build as the regular spider from past sets, however it now has a navy blue head and abdomen, and uses slightly fewer parts to make it smaller, and more stable as it uses handles to attach the legs, rather than pneumatic T-pieces.

The Parts

The only new part to be included with the set it a 1x1 Round Plate in Bright Green, which is used for the emerald ore. It's what you'd expect, as the color matches the in-game counterpart very well. It also includes a generous 13 printed Eyes of Ender, which you'll see later. The build is mostly dark grey bricks and plates, which are useful for Minecraft layouts and terrain building, but are unspectacular.

The Building Experience

The build is seperated into four numbered bags. As usual, Bag #1 starts us off with the accessories that will be laid out on the rest of the model. Some may say doing these builds all at once is boring, but aside from likely being more cost-effective due to sorting similar elements together in the factory, this provides an experience that's quite like the game allowing you to place them wherever you want.

When you're done, you'll get 6 torches, two mushrooms, 3 blocks of stone, two fences, and a chest filled with redstone, diamonds and iron ingot. New for the set are four very nice bookshelves that offer plenty of color and can be arranged however you like, and the emerald ore that I mentioned earlier. It was a pleasant surprise to get it here, as I expected that to come with The Village later. Later in the build you'll build a lot of Iron Bars made from grey taps (included here for convinience) which align together to make a continuous grated wall.

Bag #2 and #3 construct the End Portal itself.

This is captured excellently with the use of tan blocks atop dark green hinge plates to keep it sturdy and add the well-known stripe of color, and it's attached by some 1x1 clear bricks to have it float. Each 2x2 square has a jumper plate atop it to place the eyes of ender, which look great with the pixilated design. Behind it you'll see a grey wall representing the bricks found in strongholds, complete with iron windows, along with a large staircase.

Compared to an actual stronghold it isn't quite as textured, but that'd require too many parts to reasonably be produced. As is the shaping and design is very accurate.

On the right side, you'll see a snowy area where our Steve can go mining, to get last-minute resources on his long, tiring trip to the end. The emerald ore is hidden under some stone. It's possible that he entered from here as ordinarily the area would be enclosed.

On the other side, there's a small water flow. This acts as a handle for the important play feature of "activating" the portal to then battle the dragon.

Sliding the handle will replace the lava underneath with the ghostly aura that makes up the portal. So this...

Turns to this.

It's very simple. The water block is attached to some plates which slide inside some notched bricks. Just make sure that you have this on a flat surface when building, as it the plate tends to get stuck under the stairs as there's no tiling to separate it from the antistuds. However, it is sturdy when built and can be moved, unlike the miserable track system from 21118: The Mine.

The black smudge also looks like the end platform, so when Steve enters...

He can land on the black base, and be slid through the hole behind the wall to go the separately sold End planet thingy.

Or he can fall into the lava and die. Depends on how much you can control yourself. :p

Lastly, Bag #4 builds the library and a small part of the cave, containing the naturally-spawned chest.

The library has been shrunken down quite a lot, but it's adequate and offers plenty of good uses of parts, including medium nougat plates for the floor, the well-done, compact chandelier up above the entrance, and a spider web. May want to watch out...

They connect to the portal room like this.

They're also attatched by hinges so that it can be reconfigured to fit the random nature of the game, and fit on whatever shelf you have. So along with the long hallway, it can be placed in a more squat way like this.

Or like this...

Point is, it's easy to squeeze into any Minecraft layout you have, and I quite like this aspect. Even better is that the parts in Bag #4 can be rebuilt to make a coloset that, impressively, even includes a brick-built door identical to that of 21121: The Desert Outpost and 21120: The Snow Hideout. I applaud the designer for including the parts for that, and it's also really inspirational in allowing you to take this apart and place this into your world.

The Model in it's Glory

Okay... now I feel stupid because I shown and told every aspect of the build, play features, and accuracy to you in the preamble... so I may as well just joke around.

"Luke... I think we're on the wrong end of the planet."

"I think we're in the wrong universe, we should change course before we get killed"

Speaking of the Snow Hideout, this looks quite good next to it given the placement of the biomes. And now it makes complete sense why Steve would put a house in the middle of nowhere...

It would make more sense if it was place on top of it, though. Luckily doing that is very easy, as you merely need to remove the chandelier, and move the white jumper next to it to the right. I'm not sure if this was intentional, as it lays directly atop the portal blocking it, but it's a nice feature, and it can be removed easily so that it's still playable.

Maybe Steve even spawned here and found the portal on the first night... how's that for dumb luck. Just watch out for the creeper.

Overall opinion

I recommend this set quite highly. There's a lot of nooks and crannies thrown into it to both make an accurate model and a fun set to play with, and it gets even better as you notice more of the features. Both the small details and the major functions show that the designer had played the game and captured whatever he could to make it fun for all ages.

Many fans have ignored the theme due to it's blocky simplicity, but beyond being hypocritical given that many of them have built even simpler sets in the 80's from town, castle or classic space, this offers an interesting, more abstract style of building that can be really fun, and can offer a good way of looking at the bricks to look at them as in-game components and making an entire world. It's even vehicle-free.

The price of $59.99 in the US is reasonable, although given the size of the thing in context of other sets, it could use a minor reduction compared to sets like 21125: The Jungle Tree House, which is highway robbery here, and in Europe it's marked up to the equivalent of over $70 which could be a turn-off. But if you're a kid or a teen who's plays Minecraft a lot, especially with the action portion of it, or you're looking for a good parts pack and a more simplistic but fun building experience, you'd be happy picking this up.