Unlike other reviewers, I feel the modular design of this, the largest Duplo set ever, is spot on. I built this set in a large room with four eager kids, aged 6 - 8.

The 7 year old helped me build each section, which we passed on to the other three kids who played away whilst we constructed the next bit.

Only after all 8 sub models were finished did we lay it out in to the suggested court yard layout. Yes, it looked immense, but the battle raged hard that afternoon, and the entire castle was reduced to rubble in about half an hour. But boy, did the kids have fun, which is surely the point of Duplo. I was slightly niggled that the sections don't connect all in one, but the kids couldn't care less. And with the amount of floor space it takes, this could never be a display set.

I can't claim it's particularly good value. A second hand set on Ebay, should you be lucky enough to find one, will cost around GBP150.00. But you do get a lot of great parts for your money. And the evil black knights look superb in this set. The gold colour scheme is unique to this set, and looks a cut above the regular black/red knights you see in other sets.

My son (2 years) isn't old enough to play with this monster... yet. So an ideal chance to have an chilled evening and becoming a boy again. Including a worried looking wife.

Assembling:
It took me 30 minutes. You need a strong light to spot the correct black bricks printed in the dark manual. Outlines would have been better, Lego. And I think that the huge amount of parts will be too much for a kid who wants to build this alone.

Bright side of the moon:
+ Giant castle (really)
+ Enough bricks and parts for creating even more stunning castles or buildings
+ Dragon with posable wings and head / mouth
+ Trap doors
+ Modular design (means: easy to re-arrange the castle)
+ Minifigs with cool oversized weapons

Dark side of the moon:
- Amount of space is immense
- Modular design (means: unstable right and left wall elements)
- Heavy task for kids building it (the manual is printed too dark, it's hard to spot the correct black bricks)
- some parts are clumsy arranged and fall off too easily during play (f.e. the part with the winch)

Additional stuff:
I bought this castle along with the big pirate ship new and sealed for a bargain. The price for getting this via auction or flea market is (in my opinion) far off imagination. So when you are going to buy this monster as a toy for your kids: No, this castle is not worth 200+ Euro. It's just a castle. A masterpiece, indeed. A crazy dream of an Lego Duplo designer, too. But just a castle.

Building this castle on some basic plates will help. Also there are some elements which could be built in a better way. So improvement during assembly will preserve you from repairing it every 10 minutes - when your kids begin to storm the gates.