- A slightly reduced replica of the original 8-bit Nintendo console, complete with a top door that opens up and down, AC adapter ports, and A / V ports.
- A buildable game cartridge from Super Mario Bros (1985), which can be inserted into the NES.
- A 1: 1 scale replica of a NES controller, which plugs into the player ports on the front of the console.
- An 80s-style TV and stand.
The latter has a side crank. Rotate the crank, and a Super Mario Bros. level, made entirely of LEGO, will scroll across the TV ‘screen’. The TV, not including its build stand, is approximately eight inches tall and nine inches wide. The entire set, including the console, easily fits on a shelf, or, if you feel cheeky, in the media cabinet underneath your actual TV.
The LEGO Nintendo entertainment system is 2646 pieces. Its building instructions are distributed in two instruction manuals: one for the NES console, the controller, and the cartridge; and another for the television, its rotating screen and support.
Photo Credit: Kevin Wong
First, you build the NES console. As well as a cool secret within the build (more on that at the end of this article), it’s a pretty straightforward experience: methodical brick laying from the bottom up to create the signature shape of the console. I was intrigued by a build mechanism that allows you to insert a cartridge into the LEGO console and push it down, just like you would with a real NES. There’s a good trick to this, which involves interlocking rods and pins, which creates a sliding catch and release.
Cartridge and driver configurations are simple and short; Its appeal lies in seeing how familiar objects from your childhood slowly take shape. But in terms of construction, they are a pause before the exciting second half of the set: the TV and its side scrolling at the Mario level.
Photo Credit: Kevin Wong
This is where LEGO designers, free to pay homage to another company’s design, create something ambitious and totally unique. The TV is a bit out of time: From its wood-paneled appearance to its click-channel dial and lift-up antenna, it looks just like every ’80s TV we’ve had, the kind of thing that would be at MoMA like a example of The aesthetics of a period of time.
As for the level of Mario displacement inside the TV, its construction is creative and compact. The landscape is actually a mosaic, which uses a combination of 1×1 tiles and plates to create the illusion of sky, bushes, clouds, and platforms. The printed tokens of Goombas, Koopa Shells, Coins, Question Mark Blocks, and Ignition Elements overlap on top of that.
Photo Credit: Kevin Wong
The mosaic is built on a long conveyor belt, which wraps around an axis and mounts inside the TV. When you rotate the crank, you rotate the gears, which rotates the screen. Mario’s avatar is mounted on a plastic stick, which is pressed against the tiles. It “jumps” in response to hitting strategically placed LEGO poles. That both effects were accomplished with a single crank and gearbox is a wonderful ingenuity.The main reason magicians never tell their secrets is because the solution is never as compelling as the illusion; It is often mundane to the point of feeling cheap. This LEGO set evokes the opposite effect. Knowing how it works and building it, first hand, makes it even more impressive. You marvel at inventiveness. Interlocking plastic bricks can create a simple and elegant machine when placed in the correct order.
Photo Credit: Kevin Wong
One last detail deserves mention: the aforementioned secret inside the console.
LEGO is as much about the building process as the end result. Designers underline this philosophy by hiding Easter Eggs within construction: small aesthetic details that have no practical purpose other than entertaining the builder and letting them in on something exclusive. And once the set is finished, the builder can choose whether or not to reveal the details; the average person would never know it was there.
The LEGO Nintendo entertainment system has a wonder of an Easter egg hidden inside its console. LEGO often markets these Easter Eggs as a point of sale in its press releases, but not this time. Caught me completely off guard.
If, like me, you see the construction process as a type of narrative narration, consider this a spoiler warningand skip the next two paragraphs.
There is a hollow space inside the console, and the developers used it to build a World 1-2 diorama from Super Mario Bros (1985). You see the elevators up / down. You see the exit pipe you jump over to get to the first Deformation Zone. And you see the Warp Zone itself, with the three pipes leading to Worlds 2, 3, and 4.
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It is a minimalist representation; I didn’t know exactly what I was building until I completed it. But when it suddenly clicked, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It was 1989. I was six years old, and my mother, who had been playing with the NES after going to bed, told me about the Warp Zone she had discovered in the middle of the night. After finishing breakfast, I turned on the NES to see for myself.
These child recognition explosions make the LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System an exceptional build. Like Nintendo, LEGO knows the power of nostalgia. Just as each generation rediscovers Mario, each generation rediscovers LEGO; Every brick since 1958 matches every brick today, creating a shared intergenerational experience. It is fitting that this set, this joyous tribute to childhood from 1980, allows many adults to rediscover that part of themselves and incorporate LEGO into their adult lives.
The LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System, Set # 71374, was created by LEGO designers Daire McCabe, Pablo Gonzalez and Leon Pijnenburg. It sells for $ 229.99. It will be available in physical LEGO stores and the LEGO online store on August 1.
Kevin Wong is a LEGO fan. Talk about your favorite sets with him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
