Super Mario Bros – Mario The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

Mark from @The.BrickLoft here (formerly Brick_Beat), with a very cool brick-built Mario set available from YOUMKO.

Firstly, a big thank you to YOUMKO for gifting me this set for review, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
* Super Mario Bros Mario
* Studio MOC 000007
* 4598 pieces
* £127.41 from Europe Warehouse (price when review was written, not including shipping costs)

I’ve titled this The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as I came across many of these points throughout my journey of the build. Let’s get the Bad out the way first. Firstly I need to point out that this is not a ‘LEGO’ set, nor is this a set designed by YOUMKO. This amazing Mario build was designed by the very talented Dave Holder and was originally made available to purchase from Bricker Builds using official LEGO bricks.

Mario, along with many other brilliant designs, are still available from Bricker Builds but expect to pay a HUGE price for one. For me personally there is no way I could ever afford or even justify spending over £1,000 for a LEGO version of this Mario build and is why I think this alternative and cheaper option has a place in the market. BUT… and it’s a big but – the thing that doesn’t sit well with me is how these designs were simply ‘taken’, to then be made available with no agreement or any credit to the designer.

Personally I think these cheaper, alternative brick sets should still be available to purchase and for YOUMKO to supply the bricks needed for the build without any instructions. The digital instructions could then be purchased separately via Bricker Builds and by doing this you are still supporting the designer along with getting the bricks at a more affordable cost. Not only that, the digital instructions I think is a must as there’s times throughout the build where zooming in helps and the paper instructions are small and sometimes hard to follow.

I think this is the fairest thing for everyone, a cheaper way for fans to experience Dave Holder’s designs and still showing designer support by purchasing the instructions.

But that’s just my personal opinion.

Now that’s out the way, the Ugly –
This was just a small issue, I had some ‘faulty’ bricks which I can only describe as being deformed and melted. This is clearly a small error when they were machined. Again this is was a small issue for me and only a handful of pieces were affected, the cost of the bricks compared to the leading brand I think you can easily look past things like this.

How the build went, I was able to hide these parts internally throughout and didn’t affect the overall build. I spoke to YOUMKO about this and they were very understanding and said they would happily send replacement parts once I knew how many I needed at the end of the build. The rest of the bricks were actually good, the colour and clutch power felt no different to the leading brand.

On finishing the build I was left with some spares and overall i believe I have enough pieces to replace most of the faulty ones, but I’m not going to go back now and change them out 😅

Something I must point out is that the bricks do not come sorted into numbered/stages bags. The bricks are somewhat sorted into their types and mixed with different sizes/colours making it a little easier to find pieces. With over 4500 pieces infront of you, you’ll need a lot of space and a bit more organising time throughout the build.

I must end this on the Good!

This set is Amazing! The build is like nothing I’ve experienced before, building layer after layer on the baseplate provided and watching the character literally grow, and this thing is HUGE!

Once finished you are left with something you would normally only see in a LEGO store or at LEGOLAND. The brick built Mario captures the character perfectly with his looks and pose making you want to say “It’s-a Me, Mario!” every time you look at it. To get this detail across by using bricks I think again shows the amazing talent from designer, Dave Holder.

I’ve displayed mine with Mario holding the Star which is also available to purchase separately. For anyone who enjoys building or is a fan of Mario, and has the space to display, I think this is the perfect set.

If you would like to purchase this here is a link to YOUMKO:

https://www.youmko.com/?DIST=Q0ZBGlw%3D

YOUMKO have kindly given me a discount code to share with you, simply pop the code into the box during checkout and you’ll save 14%: BRICKBEAT

Digital instructions to this build can be found here: https://brickerbuilds.com/en-gb/products/italian-plumber?variant=43639773331689

Thank you for taking the time to read my review.

• Brick Quality 7
• Value for money 9
• Building experience 8
• Overall 9