What Makes Hero Factory So Lame?

For one they have no back armor or and it sticks out, as well as the same building system is used in every set, which lacks in creativity. The sets also could have had better designs for the hero’s and their helmets and side plating. Though people say that it brought ccbc, but they didn’t execute all the sets well. If you look at the sets they all look the same without any characteristics unlike Bionicle. After some time all of the villians looked the same.

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Uh, what? What’s wrong with the character designs, helmets and “side plating”?


Because BIONICLE never used the same building style/system for all the sets in a wave. :stuck_out_tongue: /s


Uh… no. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Time for a rebuttal…

It’s because sometimes they seemed to lack creativity. It feels the same. The same building system over and over gets boring. The same reason why the Inika build become infamous. We needed something fresh with it. The new BIONICLE adding gear functions, new weapons, and some pretty cool gimmicks made up for this.

He didn’t say in the same wave. He said they ALL. Not just in a wave. True, the Toa Nuva were just new versions of the Mata, and the inika build was used over and over, but at least some DIVERSITY was made for the inika build in 2007-2008 (part 1 of it, anyways).

Look at the Toa Mahri, or the Barraki, or even the other sets. They used Inika builds and yet used so many more forms than the standard one torso piece that Hero factory offers. You could use an Inika torso, a wide Kongu torso, a piraka torso, or even a FOOT for a body! Hero Factory only used shells and then add-ons for the pieces. Some of the Inika Build sits offered a huge variaty of forms!

Besides, other builds were attempted in 2004 and 2005. Sure, some were clone sets, but they didn’t repeat the build over and over again in later years! (Unlike the Inika build)

While the villains may look different (which you make a point of), they were pretty generic and lacked the great qualities villians like the Makuta, Piraka, Barraki, Rahkshi, Bohrok, and many of the titan sets had to offer. The villains in HF themselves seemed like generic villains. They were things you’d probably see in other genres.

You don’t see villains like the Piraka everyday. They were snake-humanoid gangster guys with big teeth and laser eyes. You see guys that look like an orc, or a motercycle guy, or a spider everyday. Not to mention if BIONICLE did make a generic villain, at least the story made them different, like the Visorak.

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Uh…I fail to see how Makuta is “unique” AND the HF sets did have diversity. compare Toxic Reapa to Evo Breakout. and then compare a Piraka and a Inika…

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All of these so called “new” and “fresh” figure styles went completely against LEGO’s core philosophies: the Bohrok, McToran, Rahkshi, and more all used many ultra-specialized parts that were extremely difficult to reuse in other ways. CCBS on the other hand, allows you to integrate the pieces released in HF 2.0 back in 2015 with current BIONICLE 2015 parts seamlessly.

CCBS doesn’t have just “one” torso piece. Sure, it has a dedicated “torso” element (and several variations thereof BTW). But due to CCBS’ inherent flexible and very modular nature, there are litteraly thousands of different ways to make diverse torsos using all the different bone, shell and add-on pieces over the years.

All of these are pretty much just variations on the same standard bulky upper-body piece. They may have had some varied moulded details, but they still all had the same basic extremely wide-shouldered silhouette.

Yes, from a story perspective the HF villains were mostly rather weak. But that doesn’t change the fact that they were much more unique and interesting models then the early G1 villain clone sets ever were.

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it’s not about uniqueness, in this day and age nothing is “unique” it’s how he was and how his character was executed, the mastermind of everything, back plans for back up plans, making sure everyone played their part, even helping the toa without them even realizing what his true motives were, and that he actually won in the end and succeeded in his grand plan

to keep this on topic (and this is actually a good transition) the hero factory villains were a huge letdown coming off of this, they seemed childish and idiotic, not accounting for anything that might stand in their way, or if there plan had to take a detour “oh no I slipped on a banana, the plan is ruined!”

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I fail to see how “Von nebula” is unique. One could argue Makuta actually succeeded in his malicious goals (taking over the Matoran Universe), while no Hero Factory villain ever has. It’s the character and mind of Makuta that makes him unique. Von nebula is only out for revenge, as is Witch Doctor and other HF villains. Sure, Makuta felt underwhelmed because Mata Nui had the glory, but at least he succeeded.

@legomaster1378

That’s if you don’t know how to. I always found what was fun about legos was finding out HOW to use a difficult piece and feel proud that I used it for something. Not just building a figure that looks cool. Sure, coolness is great and all, but I like being proud of making something off of a harder piece. Besides, my brother uses Bohrok bodies in many of his MOCs. Just take a close look at them!

You’re right on the variation, but when it comes down to shapes and how it makes characters look, I would always go for BIONICLE anyday. You get so many shapes and sizes, and you don’t just use shells or the bone pieces.

Shoot, look at Matoro Mahri for instance. Sure, his shoulders are wide, but look at the torso himself. He’s quite thin, and the foot piece allows for a good hunch. Wide shoulders are the only outcome of using the Inika build. But he looks more hunched or less humanoid when you use that foot to connect his head, and overall looks so unique, and it requires using less new molds.

And the pieces they use, while not all new, still allowed him to be that way. And he didn’t have any exposed ball-joints. HF’s torso pieces makes them upright, which, while you can add an extender piece for the neck but that kinda looks silly, is harder to pull off, and when you have separate pieces to make a torso, you can do whatever the heck you want for where the head or body goes. Moreover, the Torsos HF had to offer were one big bone piece, constraining the positions arms could be, while BIONICLE could moves things up and down a few notches, or widen or shrink shoulders (not just with an Inika torso).

Fair point, but I do like to give BIONICLE the pointers to the fact that the villains seemed unique for themselves. Sure they were clone sets. But at least they didn’t loom like something from some other super-hero or sci-fi film. The Bohrok, the Rahkshi, the Piraka. All iconic BIONICLE characters. While wave 1 of Hero Factory had some pretty unique villains, after that, they didn’t seem as unique and captivating as a Bohrok.

If I saw a HF villain, like XT4, for example, and compared it to the Piraka, I’d think both looked cool. Sure, XT4 has a unique build with already-available pieces, but I could argue that I’d buy the Piraka first because A) it came with new pieces at the time, B) looked intimidating and unique on it’s own, and C) didn’t feel like it could be from some other movie. It felt like BIONICLE. It was the uniqueness of BIONICLE that gave us the iconic villains.

Were the builds that great? Not always. But cut BIONICLE some slack. Things like the Rahkshi and Bohrok were at an early stage of BIONICLE’s contraction. They were amazing for it’s time. Things like the Glatorian or Phantoka had no excuse, as they came with the same builds (The Mahri are not included because that year led to some great sets once experimenting with the Inika build). Now some of the villains had some unique builds from HF, but not always. Things like XT4 were unique, but that was mixed with other not-so unique.

Overall, just because BIONICLE had clone sets doesn’t mean it was worse. In fact, it gave more colors in the pieces they gave us, too, which is great for MOCing. Not to mention, like I said, many were trying to get the point in which now we have CCBS. All they had to work with was technic. And sometimes those limited pieces allowed more creativity (like the Mahri), and sometimes they were lazy (like the Glatorian). HF has the same thing happen to it. Both are guilty of this sin.

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So true. Some of the Bionicle titans such as Brutaka, Maxilos, Axonn, and Karzahni were extremely unique from each other, having different builds/stances from one another and we can’t really tell just by looking at them that they basically use the same torso pieces (even though they do). In comparison, you can easily tell that Rocka XL, Fire Lord, Black Phantom, and Skull Grinder use the same torso build. Their overall stance isn’t that much different.

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Because Brutaka or Axonn, or HYDaxon are all super original.

Those were just a few.

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Karzahni, Artakha, Zaktan, Helryx, Bohrok

for every unoriginal name, we have 2 originals to back it up

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Not as bad as Hero factory, but still.

I always saw Artakha derived from art, just me?

Gen 2 seems to be going this way as well. :frowning:

Huh, never thought of that.

What way? Super unoriginal names? (I recommend quoting when you’re replying to a specific comment in a multi-person thread)

It was supposed to be a reply, seems like it didn’t work. :stuck_out_tongue:

I was referring to super generic names, but there is still a chance of better names soon. (hopefully)

@Chronicler @legomaster1378 Can I say something??

HF and Bionicle G2 would not be as good as they are had G1 not done what they did. because of the daring builds of some G1 sets Lego could find out what worked and what did not. that way HF and G2 were so good, and without the inika build CCBS may not have been a thing. so I thank G1…cuz as awesome as it was, it helped even more awesome things t follow…

but hey…I could be a idiot…

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I understand how G1 had some very unique and interesting builds. But I fail to see how they directly relate to CCBS. If anything, HF, Chima and Super Heroes’ builds paved the way for G2.

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But they could not have made CCBS unless G1 was a thing.

Perhaps. But I personally don’t see any direct correlation.

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I know…but LEGO needed to learn…and they did…

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Possibly. But I don’t really see any standout lessons from G1.

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