Set Review: Tropical Aquarium 10366
The LEGO Company has been on a bit of a run in the past few years with set releases. As the top toy company in the world, it has expanded its product line not with new products, but with new themes and subjects in its building range. The size of the sets have also increased, which has led to higher and higher set prices. Some of these sets come from demand (any of the Star Wars Ultimate Collector Sets or the Death Star set come to mind), and some sets are made as a sort of initial step for a theme.
The Tropical Aquarium is a set that is unique in its subject matter. There have been a couple of much smaller sets that include an aquarium or fish, but this set comes in at 4154 pieces and a price of $479. BrickJournal recieved a review copy from the LEGO Group to get some impressions and thoughts.
With 81 bags of parts and and an instruction book that is 500+ pages long, this is a set that will keep you occupied for a weekend. I and my niece built it over several nights, with me building the initial steps and base, while she built the rest. We both had opportunities to build items of interest, with me working on the internal mechanisms and she building the many decorative elements.
There are some nice surprises with this set. The overall size of the set is almost as large as the box, which I find nice. It’s footprint is two green baseplates (32 x 32 studs/10 in per baseplate) with 1.25 green baseplates in height. It’s also a heavy set with the high part count. If you want organic parts, this has a nice assortment of leaf elements and tentacles in different colors. One new element appears in this set that is a clip-on fin.
I really liked the functions that were added to the set to make it less static. With Technic-driven cranks, there is an opening treasure chest, swaying coral, and a swimming fish. The fish has a hinged body, so it wags when swimming. What’s neat about these functions is that they are cyclical, so one can continually turn the cranks in either direction and not worry about breaking the joints. There is another shift mechanism that moves a crab in and out of his cave, which has a different handle to turn.
There are a couple of neat build methods that are used in this set, mostly to reinforce the structure of the tank. A couple of ball joints are used to secure the back to the cave, which itself is held in place using large turntables as attachment points. Using the turntables allowed for the cave assemblies to be angled off the usual 90 degree build grid.
Besides that, the set isn’t that complicated to build – the 18+ age recommendation is a little high. The corals are built using a multiples of specific elements in unique colors, so while the corals are colorful, using the parts for other builds could be challenging. Then again, with a few modifications, this set could be a Star Wars Battle of Feluccia set with the right minifigures.
The fish assortment is not based on real fish, but inspired by them. IP rights keep certain fish from being included (clownfish, blue tang, for example) but it would have been nice to have a butterfly fish or lionfish. A lionfish would have been especially striking in the set.
For those building this set, it’s designed to be put on a shelf and admired. My niece enjoyed building it and everyone who saw the completed set was impressed with its functions. It’s sitting on the table on display.
The one thing that is an obstacle for is the price. This set is big and expensive, and with the other big and expensive sets coming out, this one could be missed. And if you’re wondering where the water filter is, it’s a gift with purchase with this set while supplies last.
Youe can preorder the set here. BrickJournal thanks the LEGO Group for the review copy of the set.
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