A huge rush of new LEGO sets have now arrived at Best Buy for Spring 2023 and they include many of your favourite brand names. Whether Technic, City, Marvel or Friends, all of these lines are included in the new sets, along with a lot of other familiar brands and a few new ones. Let’s take a look at what’s just arrived, and how you can get your hands on them.
New LEGO Super Mario Sets just in time for the movie!
The new Super Mario Bros animated movie comes out in April, and while the new LEGO sets aren’t directly associated with it, it features characters you’re sure to see on the Big Screen. LEGO Super Mario is also a line I’m familiar with, as it is my 9 year old daughter’s favourite, and we’ve been able to get our hands on a lot of new sets recently. On the larger side of things, there is the 567 piece Fliprus Snow Adventure. If you’re not familiar with the Fliprus, they’re pretty new to the Mario Franchise, appearing for the first time in New Super Mario Bros. U for the Nintendo Wii U. Unsurprisingly, this is an ice level set, featuring Fliprus that can throw ice balls, a penguin, snowman and a red Koopa Troopa.
PLEASE NOTE: For the best experience possible, you’ll need to download the Lego Super Mario app, and get one of the three LEGO Super Mario Bros starter courses. This is so that one of the main characters can properly interact with the pieces. Lego Super Mario is a bit unique in that the interactive elements have a printed code on them that the main characters can scan (with their onboard cameras) and interact with. You’re also able to mix and mingle all of the LEGO Super Mario sets to make a giant interactive level, for which you can track progress and points through the apps.
If you’re at all curious how all of this works, we’ve reviewed a couple of these starter sets and my daughter has included video demos in them too. Please check out this blog review for the Mario Starter Course as well as the Peach Starter Course. If you’re a Luigi fan, he has his own starter course as well.
The new LEGO Star Wars TIE Bomber
Star Wars is LEGO’s longest running and most successful licensed theme, spanning nearly 25 years. LEGO Star Wars has also had a wildly successful video game series and the console release of the first game in 2005 is what can be attributed to the successful launch of dozens of licensed games since. There have also been over 30 different LEGO Star Wars short films, movies and TV shows. In all, nearly 900 LEGO Star Wars sets have hit the market, from small 20 piece Polybags to the 7500+ piece Millennium Falcon and there’s no slowing down. Expect 15 new sets throughout 2023, with with one of them being the 625 piece TIE Bomber. The TIE Bomber comes equipped with stud shooters, torpedo launchers and 4 minifigures, including Darth Vader and Vice Admiral Sloane.
The TIE Bomber was designed by Hans Burkhard Schlomer, who’s been the driving force behind a lot of the most recent and popular Star Wars sets of the past few years, as well as the Advent calendars.
One of the other neat LEGO Star Wars concepts are the helmets. While they aren’t interactive sets like the TIE Bomber is, they’re pretty popular among LEGO Star Wars fans and make for great display pieces, especially when you get a few of them together next to each other. One of the newest helmets now available is Princess Leia’s Boushh helmet. This has already proven to be a pretty popular new addition, as at the time of my writing this blog, they’ve already sold out of their initial run.
If you miss out, I’m sure they will be back in stock soon, but you can still get your hands on my favourite one – The Luke Skywalker Red Five Helmet.
The TIE Bomber and Leia’s Boushh Helmet are two of dozens of LEGO Star Wars sets and video games available now.
LEGO Friends leads the way with 7 new sets
Friends and the characters of Heartlake City were my daughter’s first builds of “big kid” LEGO when she was 6. With everything from swimming pools to horse stables, the characters and their sets hit all of her interests at the time. While she’s moved onto Super Mario now, she still checks all of the Friends sets when we pass by the LEGO sections at any store. The line was introduced back in 2012 and will pass 500 unique sets in 2023. The one thing I’ve always liked about LEGO Friends is the vibrant colour schemes as well as the unique building styles and pieces you can’t find in the other urban environments like LEGO City. The new Friends sets available now are absolutely no exception.
The majority of the 2023 offerings so far are larger builds that range from the 830 piece Organic Grocery Store to the 2010 piece Downtown Flower and Design store. The complexity of the latter set makes it an ages 12+ build, but most of the others are in the 7-8 and up range.
Just about all of the LEGO Friends’ builds are based on a mixture of bright colours or softer tones of the colours you would normally see out of City. There’s a lot of use of pastel colours and rounded corners in the builds, and many buildings (like the Heartlake Downtown Diner) looks like what you’d expect to see out of a cartoon. The characters aren’t considered minifigures, but mini dolls, and they have a much more lifelike appearance than normal LEGO figures.
LEGO Avatar makes a splash
When the dust settles, it is highly likely that Avatar: The Way of Water will settle in as the third highest grossing film of all time. While the original film wasn’t tied into LEGO during its release in 2009, a series of Avatar themed sets started coming out last year, and you can pick up just about all of them at Best Buy. New to the line are LEGO Avatar: Skimwing Adventure and Mako Submarine. Both of these aren’t particularly large builds, though the Skimwing looks really cool. Featuring Tonowari and Jake minifgures, the Skimwing comes with its own stand and is fully posable for display. The Mako Submarine is 553 pieces, and comes with a couple of different underwater feature builds, including the Mako Submarine which can be mounted to one of the sea features.
My personal favourite set out of this line though? I’m a really big fan of the Tree of Souls set. The way the tree looks is too cool for me not to recommend you have a look at it.
It might be worth having a look at all 6 sets though, as if all of the Avatar sets do interest you though, you’ll have to act fast on two of them. LEGO Avatar: Neytiri & Thanator vs. AMP Suit Quaritch and LEGO Avatar: Floating Mountains – Site 26 & RDA Samson have already been announced as to be discontinued and will not be around past the end of this year.
The LEGO Botanical Collection challenges expert builders
Geared toward the AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) in your household, the introduction of the Botanical Collection is designed to challenge even the best and most experienced LEGO builders. The latest addition to the Botanical Collection is a Flower Bouquet. I’ve built a lot of LEGO sets in my life, but this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I bought my wife the much less complex rose set for Valentine’s Day and I was wondering how that came out to be a 100 piece set. This bouquet is over 700 pieces with flowers of all shapes and sizes. When I look at sets like this, my eye is always on the way that they’ve blended classic piece shapes with unique ones, and this set is full of both. You’ve got some familiar greenery, but then you’ve also got flower buds and smaller rose shapes that you rarely, if ever, see in sets. Even the leaf shapes are unique. There are pieces of all shapes and sizes, and even at less than 1000 pieces, will probably take a few hours to build. If you’re looking for something a little more outside the box than buildings and minifigures, this is the way to go.
Past all of this excitement, there are still new sets available from Ninjago, Minecraft, Marvel and more that I’ve not mentioned. Once again, please click this link to see the entire lineup of new sets that will be arriving shortly. As always, get your orders in early, because many of the sets in the new lineup are selling out quickly.
These sets and many more LEGO sets are now available at Best Buy and online at BestBuy.ca
