I struggled with whether to write this post or not, because it’s going to turn some people against me. After all, I’ve been a fan of Lego since before I can remember remembering. My earliest memories of Lego include saving up to buy a blue racing car, and another time using my birthday money to buy the Technic Forklift.

Set 392. Circa 1975

Set 850. Circa 1976

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So you can see that I’ve been faithful to Lego for oh, around 30-odd years. Geez, that’s scary! If I saved all the money I’ve spent on Lego over the years, I’d probably be able to afford a mansion on the Gold Coast.

And even now – about to turn 40 years old – I’m STILL buying Lego. Although I’ll admit my purchases are fewer and further between. The main reason for that is the price of Lego in Australia. It really is insane, and you can look at any bloggers comments to see just how crazy it is.

So lately, I’ve been embracing another of my favourite childhood pasttimes – scale modelling. You know what I mean, the plastic kits of cars, planes, tanks and trucks that you have to paint and glue together? These days, they’re much better value for money than Lego, and thanks to the internet, there’s some amazing ways to improve your models.

But I digress. Over the years, there’s been plenty of budget versions of Lego that have tried with varying levels of success to enter the building block market. And thanks to Lego’s prices, some are doing pretty well. Just look at Mega Bloks, they’re going great guns.

I’ve tried a stack of these Lego-like products and while some have been acceptable, they always feel a little too cheap, their model design and construction is often unstable and simple, and most fail at the one thing we all want – to have the cheaper brand pieces fit perfectly with REAL Lego. But it never happens, does it.

The latest Lego-like brand I saw hit the shelves was KRE-O. Here’s their Wiki article in case you’re interested: KRE-O. Their first product to hit the shelves was the Transformers range, and when I saw it, I was stunned. It took me quite a while to discover that the models DON’T transform – you get enough pieces to build the character and the vehicle – but only one at a time.

With my usual exposure to scams, I thought this was kind of rough. The boxes clearly show the vehicle and the character, and I always believe that companies should have to make this kind of thing blatantly obvious, so I disliked KRE-O from the get-go.

And then there’s the price. I again expected the sets to be cheap, at least compared to Lego, and they really aren’t. The prices are quite similar, and to me it seemed as though KRE-O were just cashing in on the Transformers movies – so disliked them even more!

But today, all that changed. I’ve had some huge surgery recently (AGAIN!) and today was my first outing. We stopped by the pharmacy to get some cool painkillers, and right next door is a Toyworld. I thought I’d consider buying myself a little treat, so in we went. And………..Oh….My….God.

The KRE-O sets were on sale. And not your typical Australian sale, where you get MAYBE 10% off. The Optimus Prime set was down from $120 to $30. Most of the other sets were on sale too, although not Bumblebee for some reason. Could it be because he’s more popular than the origin Optimus Prime? Maybe…

So I bit the bullet and bought the set. For $30, I thought “Who cares if it’s crap. It’ll give me something to do for half an hour instead of watch TV and wallow in my pain”. But little did I know about the surprise to come.

I got home, plonked myself on the lounge and opened the box. There are two instruction books – one for the character and one for the vehicle – and 542 pieces of pure joy. Many pieces were similar or even exactly the same as Lego, and some were………..better.

Yes, better. I can’t believe I’m even saying this, because it feels like a sin! But there are some pieces that I wish Lego had come out with YEARS ago. For instance, do you know the “angle plate”? It’s a 90 degree plate, that is 2×2 on one side and 1×2 on the other. Well, KRE-O do an angle plate that is 1×2 on both sides. It’s awesome! The practical uses were flooding through my brain as soon as I saw it.

But anyway, my plan was to build the truck first, since I figured I would end up building the character and then leaving him proudly on display for the next few weeks – attracting angry glares from my fiance, lol. So off I went.

There were pro’s and con’s to building this set. KRE-O break what I consider to be the cardinal rule in their instructions – their colours are too hard to tell apart. The majority of the pieces in this set are light grey, dark grey and black. But they also have pieces that are a kind of shiny, silvery colour. And while the colours themselves are easy enough to tell apart, when they appear in the instructions, they are shown from a more “comparative” perspective.

What I mean is that dark grey doesn’t always look dark grey in the book. It seems they use the same colours to differentiate when you’re building with dark grey and black pieces in a single step, as they do when you’re using light grey and drak grey in a single step. So there were more than a few times when I was unsure if I was using the right coloured piece. In fact, at one point I had to backtrack and change a piece I had added, because it was the wrong colour.

I also discovered that there was a piece missing from the set. Not a huge deal for the truck, because the piece in question can’t be seen on the finished product, and there was another piece of a different colour I could use. But I wonder what will happen when I build the character.

There were also a couple of pieces provided that were not the same colour as shown in the instructions. I know I said it can be hard to work out the exact colour, but when building the trailer, there are two plates of the same colour that go together, but I did not have the two plates in ANY colour left in my box. Maybe I made a mistake earlier on….?

There were also some changes between the stickers provided and what the instructions tell me I have. Again, not a huge deal in the long run, but if they’re going to make a change like that, they should update the instructions as well, I think.

And that’s about all the bad stuff I came up with. As for pro’s, the set comes with 5 KRE-O minifigs, known as KREONS. There are three mini transformers and two bike riders. And they are more flexible than Lego minifigs – their arms and legs move outwards slightly as well as back and forth.

The design of the truck model is excellent. It’s VERY similar to Lego, so I found it easy to work through the book, and understand how the model was coming together. Naturally, there are some funky pieces in the set so they can articulate the character, and these pieces were put to very good use on the truck.

The construction was also excellent. The model is VERY stable, quite heavy, and a decent size. In fact, Lego could do with putting this kind of detail into some of their kits. The truck cab took me around TWO HOURS to put together, which shocked me. Considering all my Lego experience, I usually need to spend over $200 on a Lego set that takes me that long, so in this area, the Optimus Prime set is great value for money.

The trailer was a different story. I’m pretty sure I whipped it up in about 10 – 15 minutes, and it really is just a token trailer, although they have put some good thought into the way it opens up. But when it’s attached to the truck, it seems too short and bulky for the cab. Also, I noticed that the way the wheels attach to the trailer seems wrong. I checked the instructions and the pictures on the box to make sure I did it they way they want, but it seems like they had to make some adjustments after test-building the kit, and didn’t really do a great job of that. But by adding two or three pieces of real Lego, the trailer would become even more stable.

So my final comment is to HIGHLY RECOMMEND these sets. Admittedly, I can’t speak for the other, smaller sets, but Optimus Prime was a great build both from a technical perspective and an enjoyment one as well. I loved building this set, and as always, I can’t wait to see what I can do to make the trailer even better than KRE-O intended!

So abuse me if you will, to some degree I feel like I deserve it. I feel like I have betrayed Lego somehow for potentially moving my allegiance to this new, Korean company. I can’t wait to see what sets they put out next.

Have YOU built a KRE-O set? Tell me what you thought of it – was is a disappointment, or were you as suprised and impressed as me?