This past week, I looked at the upcoming Hogwarts Moment series from the LEGO® Harry Potter theme. The LEGO® Group sent me the sets for review ahead of the official January 1, 2021 release. The wave of sets represents a new twist for the brick-built Wizarding World. As such, each kit consists of a different Hogwarts textbook. Additionally, opening the book reveals a wizarding classroom. There are four to collect: Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms, and Potions. While reviewing each throughout the week, there was a lot of interest in what the sets look like together. Therefore, today I present a Hogwarts Moment overview.
First, let us examine the price. Each set costs $39.99 in Canada. Additionally, the sets range in brick count from 233 to 271 bricks. Unfortunately, that means that most of these kits are expensive for what you get. They are costly both in terms of price-per-brick and the build time you get out them. Incidentally, in this category, the best value set is Potions Class.
The Hogwarts Moment books make a wonderful display.
The book cover design for each set is almost identical. The textbooks differ only in color. As books, they make a wonderful display with the spines facing out. However, the “pages” of each book do not resemble actual paper very much at all. Conversely, something more akin to the Charles Dickens Tribute set would look better. However, the top of each book has studs, allowing you to display Minifigures atop the books.
When opened into playsets, there is one blaring issue present in all sets. The details rely hugely on large stickers. While kids might not find this bothering, I think many AFOLs will. I certainly found it upsetting. As an avid builder, I want to assemble my set details out of bricks, not paste them on. Additionally, all the sets lack SNOT (stud-not-on-top) techniques to hide the underside of the cover plates. For this price, these sets need more bricks for a cleaner, brick-built look.
The books open and join for 360-degrees of play.
By collecting all four sets, you can make a 360° playset. The covers of the books lock together using round 1×1 tile with bar and pinholder pieces. Subsequently, displaying the sets in this fashion requires a fair amount of space. They filled most of a 48 x 48 stud baseplate when I set them up for photography. While I like Herbology and Potions class the most, I found the central walls in these sets to be awkward in the 360° configuration. However, that is a minor issue that probably will not impede play much.
The Minifigures in these sets really are the major highlight. Each set comes with three, which is a great number for sets of this size. For me, it was the Professors that I liked the most. I am not a fan of stumpy kid characters. These sets have a lot of those. I also already have most of these child characters. The best characters in the Hogwarts Moment sets were McGonagall and Flitwick. They were the most unique. McGonagall featured a new hat with hair molded on. That was a huge improvement over the variant that came with Hogwarts Great Hall. Meanwhile, Flitwick resembled the character from the first two Harry Potter films. Previous Minifigures resembled the character from later films.
The Minifigures are the highlight of these sets.
Ultimately, the Hogwarts Moment sets will please Harry Potter fans. Additionally, they make great playsets for kids. However, as an AFOL with only a passing interest in Harry Potter, these sets were merely okay. I do not dislike them by any means. However, I do not love them either. They need more details for the discerning AFOL in my opinion, and less stickers. That concludes my Hogwarts Moment overview. What do you think of these sets? Feel free to comment below or reach out on social media.
Until next time,
Tom
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Okay, they do look really good lined up side by side, and the 360-degree playset thing is neat. I didn’t realize you could do that. My opinion of these sets is slightly improved.
I do like how all the books line up. I think the 360 degree thing is fun too, but it takes a lot of space. Hard to make an AFOL display with too…
Yeah, for kids I think these sets would be great. For AFOLs, I’m not so sure.