I got this set for my 7 year old son and ever since getting it he has not put Mario down. This is only our third set after the starter course and the fire suit (which was something he had to have). As our first expansion set I couldn't be more impressed. Although one of the best parts for my son is the huge amount of coins you can earn from this set, allowing him to break the 100 coin barrier, which is a very big deal for him.

Once again you need to use the app to get the instructions as well as add the set to Mario's firmware. The "instructions" included with the set are just a 4 page ad for other Mario sets.

The build is pretty simple. The Pokey is of course repetitive and after building the first block, my son built the others on his own and then read the instructions. The support structure for the Pokey however isn't so repetitive (although the cactus branches are) and gave my son a fun little build. But this is not a set about building, it is a set about playing.

The upper segments of the Pokey are held in place by the structure, while the bottom part is only kept in place by some slopes. This allows you to place Mario on the turntable with the hammer and knock out each segment one at a time. This can be done quickly in two seconds or slowly, even if you leave the hammer underneath the upper segments of the Pokey, as my 4 year old daughter does, once you remove the hammer the Pokey still falls in place properly. We discovered that the action of breaking down the Pokey and then scanning the barcode awards you 21 coins.

You also get a Monty Mole who is very cute, but from a gameplay perspective, or when looking at it it's back, is no different than a Goomba.

Without any other expansion packs the interactive play element introduced in this set is just amazing and really increases the play value of Mario, even if you can only perform this task once per round.

I have several other expansion packs that I'm saving for the holidays, so I'm pretty excited about how those will be received, after seeing how great this one is. However, the best part is that while this is my son's toy, my daughter never wanted to play with it, but only watch her brother play. Now she is asking to play to, even if it is only to knock out the Pokey and not play a timed game or do other activities. This set has really shown me the true value of Mario and is making me seriously consider purchasing more sets as they are on sale now for Black Friday.

If you have Mario but not any expansion packs, I highly recommend picking up some, and this one is not only very affordable, but would also be an excellent choice.