It took me about a year while to realize G1 ended. When I found out online, I just thought: “Huh. It’s over… that explains it…”
I had grown tired of Hero Factory by the time it ended. I didn’t really celebrate like a lot of other people, I just was
looks up words on Google
indifferent.
I was pretty negative at first. Even when I warmed up, I was only really buying the sets for parts. I found the story boring, and the fact that the generic masks had been replaced with character-specific helmets made it difficult to come up with a unique character of my own. I only really liked the more cynical takes on it provided by Nickon’s Galactic Lampoon and Kalhiki’s Dawn of Evil.
[quote=“ToaArcan, post:22, topic:30327”]
generic masks had been replaced[/quote]
Yeah, the character-centric hero helmets were one of my biggest pet-peeves with HF…I pretty hard to see anything but the character if one of those helmets were used on a moc (skillful moccists can make it work though). Thankfully, the helmets were just as detailed on the back as they were from the front, so I would flip them around to make a new “face”
Must boycott this horror 
No kidding I actually did this until bionicle came back.
(Edited to include more of my thoughts on the matter.)
I was intrigued by Hero Factory when I first came across it. This was a time when things were really shaking up in my world. I found out about Bionicle ending around the summer after I graduated High School and was preparing to move for University. This was somewhere following my “I’m Too Old For This” years (2005-2010 I would guess). I was getting into Transformers, saw the Bionicle Stars on a shelf, investigated, and probably my best response was “Huh.” I caught myself up on Bionicle lore, bought all the Stars, and that was it. Some form of closure on a fandom that I had not been a part of for 5 years.
My introduction to Hero Factory came as a gift from an ex-girlfriend, as she had bought me Meltdown. I was really into the design of the set, and the general aesthetic of the packaging and other materials of the Hero Factory line. Probably why the Hero Factory aesthetic stuck out to me was the clean, urban setting. I had just moved to a larger city that I had yet to explore, and then being introduced to the fictional Makuhero City sort of tied in with this feeling of exploring a new urban world. There was more of an emotional tie to the line at that point, similar to how I will always be tied to the feel of 2001 Bionicle when I was 9.
I explored the Hero Factory website soon after, fell in love with the cheesy Hero Factory FM podcast for its unique take on world-building, and greatly admired the fin-shaped factory that would rotate through the night-and-day cycle. I slowly worked my way through purchasing the first line of sets, and that was that.
Essentially, Hero Factory was the last big push I needed to get back into Lego and Bionicle, and it holds a place in my heart for that.
G1 Cancellation didnt bother me as much due to the line actually having an ending done trough a comic (even though I think the stars were kinda pointless as sets due to the Av Matoran build). Bionicle ended at the time when I was worned out with the theme, which contributed to me not having a problem with its passing. It had to have ended at some point. Also a fair note, I never read the expanded comics, books and similar media that wasnt available for hte wider audience (which were the movies, commericals, the site, and games), so to me I didnt care much for the in-depth story primarily cause I had no way to access it freely and easily from where I lived.
I didnt really like HFs first hero sets, mainly cause they just used a slightly visually different Av-Matoran build, the Villains were nice and I can see them usable for Bionicle stuff. In terms of Marketing I always felt the notion that HF was set in the same universe as Bionicle or possible even the same planet of Spherus Magna just in the future, and I kinda still stick to that fanon cause the story holes and elements just fit for me like that.
I had almost bough a HF set, specifically Rocka Breakout series one due to it closely resembling Kopaka in Gold armor and having descent color scheme with back coverage…however no HF set has ever truly interest me to spend money on due to each set having some flaw that made me not buy it…then G2 came along and fixed almost all those gripes with the Masters (even though I later on went on Bricklink to get some Modification parts for them, but more or less they didnt need too much to be changed). Overall HF had a lot of potentional as a successor to Bionicle, Breakout year was the way to go and if it hold on to those kinds of set design qualities, story, and thematic aspects, HF would have ■■■■■■■■■■ LEGO seems to fail in those aspects.
When it comes to the design of each years of heros the best was Breakout, followed by Invastion from Bellow (despite my innitial negative thoughts on the minifigures in what was once a primarily constraction centric theme…now I appreciate the MECH builds more), then Brain Attack (descent builds, but lower than the first two due to the color and design choices), then Rise of the Rookies, then the Ordeal of Fire, then Savage Planet. The last two mentioned felt less LEGO like of them all due to CCBS only being released and the pieces used felt very different from what we were use to, I didnt mind the balljoint aspect of it, I just didnt like the weapons, torso addon, and the helmet with the heads (the mata nui looking heads were a crime against nature, they didnt even have light-piping).
The Villains were always way better and larger than any Hero set (quite the opposite from Bionicle), but since I dont like villains that look ugly, most of them right upfront didnt appeal to my sense of aesthetics. If I was a dedicated mocist, those sets would be amazing for me.
I am quite glad HF existed, it brought tone of new and interesting pieces, new building system that is objectively better than the undefiend Bionicle one. However I am sad that the community aspect of HF and to an extent Bionicle has sowered the reputation of the building system in the ways it really didnt need since it was a line that already was not as popular as system (we didnt need inner civil wars about it adding insult to injury).
My childhood was hf . I have no bionicle and when I was a child I thought that hf was better because it was simpler .Now that I grew up I think that although bionicle came back into the game hf should not gotten cancled !!
I didn’t really like the Hero sets, but the Villains were pretty good.
But, when it came to CCBS, I liked the line. Savage Planet was my favorite series of the line, and HF as a whole brought a lot to the table
since bionicle for me back in g1 were nohing but cool robots i had no real trouble replacing bionicle with hero factory. until 2013 so was the only part of the bionicle story i was familiar with the Movies. which looking back were probably quite confusing since for some time i believed that the masks were what gave the toa, matoran and turaga Life. which was a conclusion i came to after seeing the tahu’s landing cinematic used to promote bionicle the game and lihkans Death in legends of metru nui. hero factory was far simpler and the easily available tv series made it easy to follow the story. though like now i mostly collected the sets for parts.
I was to Barnes and Noble back in late 2010 and they were having a LEGO deal. I decided to get a Constraction set for the first time because I had a little extra money to spend. I saw the Bionicle Stars along with the wave 1 heroes, and I didn’t really know Bionicle was ‘cancelled’ per say. I just thought HF was the ‘cool new thing’, so I got Stormer 1.0.
I know the limbs were extremely specialized, but my dad put the whole thing together because the limbs wouldn’t go for me.
And just as we finished him, the HF special came on Nick and I was like “Woah, I have the main character.”.
I didn’t get back into Constraction until 2014. And that’s when I really got invested.
Well, I wasn’t here in the TTV community when it happened. I was 14 at the time when the original HF wave leaked. Firstly, I thought the heroes were good-looking, but the villains were eh, kind of… alright because G1 was discontinued. But I did see some “Bring back BIONICLE”, which gave me a little bit more hope. But it was too long until 2015, when BIONICLE was rebooted, the sets were probably alright but we had got some best sets including UtH and the LoSS.
But for now, I’m 21 years old, but it took a while to realize that the SW CCBS ones are alright; the limbs and some body constructions are repetitive, but it has some interesting builds, especially Vader. K-2SO and Grievous.
Well , during that period I was around 7 years old . I had never been into bionicle back then , I had only seen some sets in the lego catalogs and thought they looked cool . So , when I first picked the new catalog of the 2010 summer sets and saw the hero factory line I thought to my self " wow , those look neat , but I don’t really care " ( back then I was legions more interested in the classic system sets ) . It was only with the Ordeal of fire line that I fell in love with hero factory and I still love it to this very day , despite popular belief !
When Hero Factory first came out, I loved the Hero Factory FM on the website. That really got me into HF, because I was upset that BIONICLE had been cancelled. Once the sets came out, I picked up Furno and a few villains. Truthfully, I only really got into HF during the Ordeal of Fire era. I absolutely loved the new building system and style.
Bionicle Gen 1’s cancellation was like getting hit by a train. I’d religiously followed the line since 2006 and having it gone was tough. Hero Factory’s childish characters and shallow plot was pretty jarring compared to its predecessor, and I remained disinterested in it all the way up until its cancellation.
I had collected Bionicle from a very young age, I think I was about 3 or 4 when I got my first few sets. This had to be 2004 or 2005. But the series didn’t really mean anything to me until near the end of the Karda Nui Saga and 2009. I think the Bara Magna age for me is the most nostalgic, which is unfortunate because I was about 9 when i heard the news it would be canceled.
At first, Hero Factory to me looked interesting, and in all honesty i really enjoyed the HF world building. It reminds me a lot of Overwatch. But it took a little while for me to get used to CCBS in the form of Ordeal Of Fire. During the HF years I became passionate about this current line, and with the help of the TTV channel, I was able to backtrack and learn all about the Legend of Bionicle. The sets I had mindlessly collected from a very young age took a new meaning and helped me through a difficult time in my life, and I must thank TTV for that.