I thought the Breez machine looked pretty good in the TV episode, but like the ‘Combat Machine’ its set is so lackluster. At least they tried to do something new…
If they’d cut out all the parts of the episode that didn’t show Breez doing stuff, and released that as an exclusive clip, I might possibly have liked it. They could change the name from ‘Invasion from Below’ to ‘Natalie kicks Butt’.
Villain factory had so much potential… but no, evil brains is what everyone wanted, right?
Ha! Ha… ha… huh… 
Yeah, I wish the brains never existed.
The second Brain Attack was announced I had a bad feeling that HF was finished. The whole theme felt uninspired and it was incredibly mediocre set and story wise (although it did grant us the return of Metru colors, BROWN, and one of the best sets ever, Dragon Bolt, so it’s not entirely terrible).
-Mesonak
I thought the sets were fairly nice, it’s just that promotional material was piss poor, and the background behind the story was just abysmal, even for HF standards.
Promotional material was garbage, and the story sucked, yeah. My main issues from the sets, I suppose, don’t necessarily come from a design perspective but rather the theme as a whole and the “innovations” it brought, namely the Hero visors and the Villain heads. The visors for the Hero helmets, while a nice idea, made the heroes’ heads extremely tall and awkward looking in some cases (although not always). The brains were just terrible all the way around; all the cool, creatively designed villain faces were ruined as far as MoCing goes due to their need to attach to the stupid new head piece+brain in order to look remotely good (this was due to the flat nature of the villain faces).
Overall, though, I did really enjoy some of the sets from the wave. I am a fan of the villains for the theme, despite the stupid brains. I think they all look good to a degree (except maybe Aquagon), and they did their job fairly well. The heroes, though, I was far more mixed towards, and don’t even get me started on Jet Rocka. 
-Mesonak
I got Jet Rocka on clearance for $10 so I’m happy with mine. BUT as a $35 set could have been better
Oh wow; that’s an amazing deal! Congratulations.
My birthday was several days ago and I was able to procure Queen Beast, Crystal Beast, and Tunneler Beast. I feel that this is the best avenue I have for providing my thoughts on them, so here I go!
Tunneler Beast is pretty cool. He’s up there with Thornraxx as HF’s best $10 set, in my opinions. Some cool recolors, a creative build, and a menacing appearance. My main complaint is that his head articulation is somewhat limited, and he can be somewhat tricky to pose at times as a result of that (as well as the positioning of some of his limbs). That being said, if anybody wants a cool, cheap set, he’s one of the best.
Crystal Beast is the most standard of the trio as far as construction is concerned. He doesn’t really deviate much from the norm whatsoever except for his neck. However, parts wise, he’s among the best. If you’re looking for transparent light blue parts, then look no further; he’s got plenty. For that reason and that reason alone, I’d recommend him to people. His color scheme is genius and makes the figure stand out amongst the crowd, and while his build may not be terribly exciting, he’s got a good stance and some amazing pieces.
Queen Beast surprised me, because I had very low expectations for the set. Despite impressions from people that own it being positive, I was never sold on the set by looking at pictures. It looked fairly uninteresting. Actually having the set in my possession, however, changed my opinions quite a bit once I was actually able to examine the build. From a technical standpoint, the set is genius, and uses some interesting design techniques to achieve a very distinctive look. Combine that with a vibrant color scheme of black, azure, and transparent neon green, the set is pretty outstanding. Many (including myself) were concerned about the price, $35, but the set comes with enough content to justify that. The Queen, three Herofigs, a Jumper. two cocoons (which are excellent, by the way), and a pretty nifty Evo vehicle that smashes the Evo Walker into the ground quality wise… it’s enough, I feel. While I wish the vehicle was given to someone other than Evo due to his oversaturation, it comes with some good parts and is well-built enough to justify being included.
Overall, I’m very impressed by what will likely end up being HF’s final wave. I still need to acquire some of the summer Machines at some point to spice up my collection a bit, but I would definitely recommend the Beast trio to anybody looking for some fun sets to prep yourselves for BIONICLE’s return (or fans of Hero Factory looking for good new releases, of course :P).
-Mesonak
I am actually gonna attempt to make a Chibi Jet Rocka when it is done i will upload it to this page.
My birthday is coming soon so I’m wondering if there are any recommendations others have concerning both waves of sets.
Evo XL is pretty good. I wouldn’t recommend any others.
Get Splitter beast and Crystal beast if nothing else.
I got the Rocka & Surge one from wave 2, and it’s pretty good.
Im probably going to pick up a beast if Jet Rocka doesn’t go on sale more. Im looking at Splitter Beast but tbh he just looks like a generic humanoid with a crappier version of tunneller beast on his back.
I hate the episode. Felt to rushed, nothing really was considered cleaver, the villains looked like rip offs of the Monsters from Pacific Rim, the Hero’s voice changes wouldn’t be a problem, but I could hardly tell whose talking half the time. Just made it feel like a generic commercial… extended to 22 minutes.
I got Jet Rocka, minus Rocka, for three bucks at a thrift store.
WOW
That’s awesome. Jet Rocka’s Rocka figure was pretty garbage-tier anyway.
-Mesonak
Meso, maybe you could start the Hero Factory recap review series! =P
But anyways, I really like the idea for this series. The show was bad. I felt that Wave One was stronger than Two as far as heroes go, but Two had better beasts. I prefer the mech kind of thing rather than the four-legged walkers.
Invasion from Below was a mess, the TV special was terrible (who directed it?). And LEGO was just begging for Bionicle fans to hate Hero Factory, why take a constraction line and make it completely minifig scale?
Exo-Force technically did that 