This set is a very brilliant set! It has the exclusive Death Eater, along with Professor Umbridge. It should have also included Luna Lovegood, because it also includes Thestrals. The greenhouse also has barrels with mandrakes inside of them. Since this set has Umbridge, it also has Umbridge's office, which is almost completely pink. A portion of the set is dedicated to the Room of Requirement, where Dumbledore's Army trains with Death Eater statues as targets. This set gets a well-deserved 5/5

There is quite a bit to discuss about this set, so I will break it down into sections.

What you get:

The Hogwarts Order of the Phoenix castle set comes with 943 pieces and 2 instruction manuals. The build produces 3 distinct buildings with numerous parts and components which I will discuss in detail.

What's in the box:

Opening the box you get the 2 manuals, a sticker sheet, and about 6 individual bags of parts, some of which have smaller sealed bags inside of them. Yeah, there is a sticker sheet, but overall there are very few pieces that really require the use of the stickers and for the most part they can be avoided without detracting much from the set. I used about half of them, and they were mostly easy to apply.

Mini-figs:

This set is fairly loaded, with 9 mini-figs, 2 horses, 2 mandrake root heads, and 1 blank knight (no legs, but armor, grey torso, and blank grey head). The figs you get are-

Hagrid, Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Death Eater, Hermione Granger, Dumbledore, Snape, and Umbridge. I would have liked to see professor Sprout considering we got the greenhouse, but it is hard to complain about figure inclusion when you have a list like this. The death eater, mandrake roots, and are the highlights of the figure assortment.

For accessories you get 2 broomsticks, hagrid gets a crossbow, and there are a few other odds and ends not specifically related to the figures like goblets and such (nice color assortment). There are also 4 wands that go in the wand holders.

There are some nice exclusive figures in this set in the form of Umbridge, the mandrakes, and the Death Eater (I think....). Some of the minifigs have dual head designs as well so you can rotate them if you want, though they appear to be sleeping, or have their eyes closed for some other reason. Hard to complain about something extra though.

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Part 1 - The Greenhouse:

This is, on the whole, my favorite part of the set. The build is clear and concise with great instructions. The thing about this part of the set that really wins me over is that it completely seals as a building. The greenhouse is hinged, so the two halves fully open to reveal the inside, but they close completely and leave no cracks or openings and the building looks really nice. The roof is clear glass and there are windows all around the side.

The inside of the greenhouse is sparse with plants, mushrooms, and a blackboard (sticker) talking about the mandrake roots. Yes! You get 2 really awesome mandrake root "minifigs". The heads are an original minifig design and are really nice pieces to get, and you stick one of the large 3 leaf plants on top and there you go. These 2 little heads are just a few of some of the really nice exclusive pieces in this set.
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Part 2 - Castle Segment

This is the second phase of the building which runs through to the end of the first manual and through part of the second. You end up with what appears to be the room of requirement on the bottom spanning both sides, an owl roost on either side at the top of the towers, a wand room on one side, and a table with two stools on the other. Three floors in all, but the topmost parts of the tower can hardly really be called floors.

The build on this part was also pretty straightforward and easy. Two stickers are used on two columns which make them appear to have monogrammed drapes. I used the stickers here since they add quite a bit to the scenery. The building is nice but it feels pretty empty. I would like to see bigger rooms and more in them. I will discuss that at the end though.

A neat feature of this part of the castle is that between the hinges on the wall segments is a tiny segment that appears to span the gap in the two wall segments, making it appear fairly continuous when viewed from "outside" the castle and helping it to appear complete on the inside. It is a pretty nice effect and is pulled off well in this build.

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Part 3 - The main castle:

The build on this was interesting, and the result is pretty interesting too. On one hand, you wind up with a castle that, when viewed from the front with the sides folded in, looks like a fairly complete and impressive tower but with gaps in the walls (they just left some pieces out since it was not structurally necessary, but would be aesthetically nice and a good idea to have). The tower does look pretty amazing for what it is though. Here, I would have liked to have seen a bigger door since it is the main door, but overall not a huge deal.

Inside, you have 2 floors of rooms on the sides and 3 in the center. The center section has the entrance hallway on the bottom, a trophy room in the middle, and an astronomy center with telescope on top. This portion of the castle comes off really well. It is well designed and accessorized and if you wanted to flesh out the castle and connect things, you could probably do a good job starting off with this set. No real complaints here, other than how the general build progressed, which I will get to.

The left hinged side has a fireplace with Sirius Black sticker face inside it on the first floor and a bed on the second (representing the dormitory). Not much to complain about here either, but also not much substance. The "rooms" are very very small and can fit 1-2 minifigs at the most (in the bedroom pretty much just one fig comfortably).

The right hinged side has a lab/workshop on the bottom and Umbridge's office on the second floor. This side looks a lot better than the other one. The rooms have a ton of accessories and look well designed and conceptualized, but still not room for more than one minifig really in my opinion.

The build on this section was pretty interesting. As you build each floor, it becomes progressively more unsteady, and because there are gaps in the walls and towers, you find yourself precariously placing pieces, either because there is no other way to do it at that point, or because the instructions have you placing pieces that would have been more easily placed a few steps prior. Once the build is finished it is very steady though and looks very good.

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Overall Thoughts:

I really like this castle. They did a lot very well with it, but left quite a bit out. I am starting to think that they need to design these castle/playset type things as a bigger collector's edition that would provide upwards of double the pieces but the end result would be infinitely greater through a larger area to work with and overall higher quality. Even with all the hogwarts sets you are still presented with gaps and things you have to work around. The sets were not designed to work together as modules even though they were designed in a modular fashion.

The appearance of this set is, still, quite nice. I have it folded up and I am looking at it from the outside, and already I have ideas how to make a really really nice castle tower (hogwarts theme aside) but I don't have the pieces to make this hogwarts castle what I would really really like it to be.

Again I come back to why I love the greenhouse so much. It is modular, and as a building looks extremely well designed and finished and the inside can be remodeled for whatever. It isn't that big inside, but still very nice and there is room to work with.

What could be better? As always, I advocate printed legs, arms, and backs on the minifigs. More accessories for this number of figures would be good. I would have liked solid walls (if this set folded up and was completely sealed, it would be virtually flawless). That is really my only major gripe here, but I can see why they left out the wall pieces since structurally it is fine. It helps cut down on the cost. I don't think it would have taken much more than 20 pieces though, if that.

Even with the minor flaws, and they are somewhat numerous, but fairly unrelated (for the most part I would call them annoyances). I easily looked past them and enjoy the set very much. You get a lot of value for your money with this set and I highly recommend it.

This was a great buy for me, being a huge Harry Potter fan myself. I wish they had released more than one set for Order of the Phoenix, but I like how with this one set they kind of included minisets of others they would have released. If Lego HAD released multiple sets, they probably would have had the Room of Requirement, Umbridge's office, and Thestrals, which were all included in this big set. My only real complaint with having only one set is the lack of the Ministry of Magic, where a large chunk of the movie takes place.

-Minifigs: 9 great, detailed minifigs. The Death Eater and Umbridge were really detailed and accurate, I love these minifigures. I think it should have had Luna instead of Malfoy though, because Malfoy had hardly any screen time in the movie, and Luna was very prominent in the movie. Her character also could have brought a Ravenclaw body to the Lego world.

-Greenhouse: This greenhouse was great, despite being three movies late. The mandrakes were cool even though they didn't match their depiction is the second film. A nice little additon, but I would rather have had a part of the ministry.

-Small castle: I'm guessing the bottom part was is the Room of Requirement, and I guess adding the stupid target toy was the best this set could have had considering how bland the room is in the film. There could have at least been a fireplace. I'm glad a set finally has an owlery in it too!

-Large castle: This castle is fantastic. The entry hall had a great knight piece with a secret ancient meassage which is pretty cool. The axes over the door were a nice touch too. Sirius in the flames is cool since it was a scene in Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. Is the room on the bottom right supposed to be Snape's office, where he teaches Harry Occlumency? That's what I assumed. Kind of weird, but this office has some cool pieces to make interesting, like the blue lightning-type thing. The dormitory was useless and boring. Dumbledore's office is cool, but seeing as there is already a set from the second movie for it, they could have replaced it with something else. I would have liked an O.W.L. examination hall and fireworks, even if it isn't correctly placed in Hogwarts. Umbridge's office was perfect, including the locked up broom from the book! Finally, the telescope makes no sense, unless it is supposed to be from the Astronomy exam in the book. I don't see why it owuld be though, the telscopes were outside on a tower and never being close to referenced in the films. I can't think of anything better to replace it with though, so I guess it's a nice touch.

This is a great Lego set, and would definately recommend buying it. What irritates me most is that Luna isn't here. There's already a Draco minifig, and he's hardly in this movie, so give us Luna! I would have really liked some part of the Ministry too since there is only one set for this movie. But yes, it's a really great set and fun to play with.

the minifig (the unknown one) must be a test dumy in the room of requirement although i do not have this set i know for sure that the set has the room of requirment in it so this must be the character/

This is my first "big" review!

I. Introduction

In the sadness of it all, Lego Harry Potter (LHP) stopped it's marketing after making only one set in it's terrible year. Now, I can't say quite the same for this set, only because it has some really good stuff to it.

II. Mini-figs, Accesories, and Animals

You get 9 Mini-figs: Ron, Hermionie, Death Eater, Draco, Umbridge, Dumbledore, Snape, Hagrid, and of course Harry. For the Animals you have the Thestral (that flying black horse skeleton in the top right corner) and a Mandrake (although I'm not sure if a Mandrake is an Animal, more of a Creature), a Owl, and a Bat or two. For the Accesories, you have several wands for the Wizards, and a Bowcaster for Hagrid.

III. The Greenhouse

The lack of Professor Sprout is not all that great, but the greenhouse contains several interesting accersories and a creature: the Mandrake, a Chalkboard, a magnifying glass, a plant book, and plants, of course! :)

IV. The Castle Entrance Hall

You see that the front of the castle has some decoritive shelid with the Hogwarts(TM) insignia. You "enter" the castle and see a knight to your right and a room (possibly the mail room although that's actually somewhere on the school grounds) with a cool Purple-Blue Lightning Bolt on a table to the left. On your far right, although not seen in open view unless viewed from the backside, is a room with a fire place that Sirius can talk through to Harry, Ron and Hermionie.

Right above the fireplace room on the second story is Draco's sleeping quarters. Next to it is the Trophy Room for Quidditch winnings and other awards. Also to the right of the Trophy Room is Professor Umbridge's Office with the Plates with pictures of live cats on them. There is also a quill pen bottle and a perfume bottle (I think) on her table.

V. The Dumbledore's Army (DA) Meeting Spot

This is where the DA train to fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Voldemort). There is a Reducto(TM) spell challenge with a worn target. Above it is a Wand holder and sitting area.

VI. Conclusion

This now concludes my LONG Review of 5738-1: Hogwarts Castle. I hoped you found it useful. Also, if you think the size of this set is too small, attempt to combine the previous castle sets. It might work, I don't know.

Rating:
Playability: 8/10
Size: 7/10
Detail: 7.5/10
Overall: 7.5/10

jonbuddy