Playable LEGO arcade machines are all the rage these days. Following our recent review of the LEGO Icons 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine, LEGO has announced another retro cabinet for your miniature home arcade with LEGO Super Mario 72051 Donkey Kong Arcade. Despite containing nearly half as many pieces, this model is more comparable in shape and size to LEGO Icons 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade – but claims to have actual simulated gameplay with a functional joystick and buttons to boot. We had a chance to build this model and play with it extensively to see how it holds up. Read on to see if it lives up to the nostalgic hype!
LEGO Super Mario 72051 Donkey Kong Arcade | 1,371 Pieces | Available August 1 to LEGO Insiders, August 4 for all | US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £149.99
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with a copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.r
The Box and Contents
While this set still falls under the Super Mario theme, the branding on the box uses the Donkey Kong logo. This appears to be the first time that this logo has appeared on a LEGO box, as the previously released Donkey Kong playsets used the Super Mario logo instead.
Inside we are greeted with 14 paper bags, a smaller plastic bag containing some lager pieces, and our instructions booklet.
The instructions booklet contains a nostalgic review of the Donkey Kong game, including a look at the original arcade machine. The note from the design team states that the development of this set has been a years-long project, and that the team specifically sought out to use ‘The Elder Bricks’ (LEGO Elements developed between 1949 and 1977) as part of the design to keep with the theme.
The set contains two large sticker sheets containing a total of 10 stickers. The sticker detail is printed well and the graphics are very accurate to the designs they are portraying, but using so many large stickers for very important visuals in the set is underwhelming. Many of these stickers are quite large and difficult to apply evenly, and I found that the build slowed to a crawl every time I reached one of them. The Jumpman (or Mario) piece that we’ll see later is a new printed part, but a Donkey Kong set where the titular character is a giant 6×8 sticker is disappointing.
The Build
As you would expect, the build begins with the floor of the arcade machine and works upward. In the first bag, we immediately see our first orange barrel (there will be a total of 15 in this set) that will eventually serve as a lever to release the rest of them.
The second bag continues the base, which is primarily built with a brick exterior and a good bit of Technic inside that will allow for the various movements. This next portion is a loose fit and rocks back and forth, as it will eventually hold the joystick.
The Jump button is connected next, along with a Technic decline that utilizes gravity to allow the barrels to roll back to their starting point.
The back is finished off with a couple of transparent panel assemblies that are connected with clips. These are removable and allow you to fix anything that is stuck, in addition to making the interior mechanics of the model visible.
The panel cover is built on its side and connects very cleanly into place. The first sticker for the ‘Jump’ button makes an appearance here, and the finished bottom portion looks very true to the real-life arcade machine.
The next several bags are spent building our way toward the top of the model. Most of these sections contain bricks on the back and sides with an open front, and contain the awesome retro pink lattice fences and a built-in ramp for the barrels.
The various levels of this assembly have different elements, like the sticker-applied Oil Drum and Fireball. There are also two Hammers up for grabs along the way – good luck getting that song out of your head.
As Jumpman will learn, it’s a long way to the top.
Once we’ve reached the summit, a Technic assembly is inserted into the sides of the upper frame and connected with pins to provide stability for the model.
On the backside of the model there are two 2×3 modified plates with holes that will support part of the movement structure later on, but I can’t help but notice that this color palette strangely resembles a certain plumber…
The build for the top section is fairly straightforward, and once that’s finished it’s time to apply 3 very important stickers.
Bag 12 is exceptionally fun, as it contains almost exclusively barrels and printed tiles. Orange and teal are both new colors for the LEGO barrel part, and they look great.
The actual barrels themselves have a slight difference in construction – the poison barrels contain an extra 1×1 round plate and a solid black minifigure head inside. This additional weight makes the blue barrels roll faster than the orange barrels, which adds an additional element to the gameplay that’s not represented in the original game.
The hero Jumpman is connected next, and this is a really neat piece that is printed well. It appears similar to the Pixelated Mario from 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System, though this obviously reflects his first ever gaming appearance.
The Technic assemblies on the backside are surprisingly simple, and they ultimately provide sideways movement and jumping functions for Jumpman. It’s much less complicated than I expected, but very effective nonetheless.
The joystick is next, and this is another nice little build that captures the look and feel of the real thing.
The exterior is covered with a frame assembled out of large white plates and rows of red and yellow tiles that neatly match the design aesthetic of the retro cabinet.
There are four large character stickers applied to circular tiles here, and I found these the most frustrating to apply. The tiles are in a fixed position on the model, meaning you can’t just turn the tile to line the sticker up. I ended up applying these separately on a baseplate to make sure they were evenly placed, but even then it was fairly difficult. The cuts on my sticker sheet weren’t even, which meant the bezels on the outside were lopsided – making this even more frustrating.
The final assembly of the build is the brick-built Donkey Kong logo that sits atop the machine. This was my favorite part of the build, and I absolutely love how it’s connected and positioned. The Donkey Kong logo typeface and placement is unique and seems like a difficult task to tackle in LEGO, but it’s captured very well here.
The Finished Model
The completed set definitely captures the retro vibe of the old arcade machine. The colors are vibrant, the graphics are well-captured, and the black parts used to represent the screen help the characters and elements pop.
The model is quite tall, but not overly deep. It’s surprisingly sturdy in this sense, as the base allows the entire upper portion of the structure to remain still while playing.
There are three primary gameplay elements: The first is the barrel lever, which moves the stack of barrels upward. This releases a barrel from the top of the model that simply rolls down using gravity, where it is added back to the bottom of the stack the next time the lever is pulled. The second is the joystick, which allows Jumpman to move left and right. The third and final function is the Jump button, which of course allows him to jump. The joystick movement and the Jump button can be used at the same time, allowing you to jump diagonally if you please.
Final Thoughts
The gameplay functions of this set are surprisingly fun and typically very smooth. The variation in the barrel weights add an additional layer of surprise, and the ability to move the joystick while jumping makes it feel more like an actual game. I do occasionally have an issue where a barrel doesn’t release and two barrels are released the next time the lever is pulled, but that’s not anything that severely impacts the experience.
Though this set is marketed as 18+ and isn’t necessarily priced for kids, my 7-year-old is absolutely obsessed with it. Both of my kids are fascinated by the functions and have played it in sessions for much longer than I would have expected, which does make me wish that something like this was more accessible to kids.
While the graphics are great, applying this many large stickers really takes some of the value out of the building experience. These are fairly difficult to apply, and they simply don’t have the quality perception they would have if they were printed. Even printing the Donkey Kong character tile alone would have made a big difference – it is the first Donkey Kong set, after all. In a $200 set with no minifigures, I’d personally hope for more printed elements and fewer stickers.
As a playable LEGO arcade machine, I think this model represents the original well and provides enough of a gameplay experience to make it a fun display piece. Even so, the hefty price tag for a set with no minifigures and several large stickers is a tough sell.
LEGO Super Mario 72051 Donkey Kong Arcade | 1,371 Pieces | Available August 1 to LEGO Insiders, August 4 for all | US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £149.99
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