LEGO Hidden Side – Graveyard Mystery Review

The inclusion of app support for LEGO sets goes back a long way, but somehow The LEGO Group gets better and better at integrating their sets into fun (and often times educational) mobile apps for kids. Thanks to our good friends at LEGO, we had the opportunity to review the Hidden Side – Graveyard Mystery set. Let’s take a look at the build and our thoughts on the final product!

Set Number: 70420

Number of Pieces: 335

Price: 39.99 CAD

The Build

When looking at the box for Graveyard Mystery, I was instantly worried that because of the app integration built into the experience, that the set itself might be more difficult to build. Thankfully, that isn’t the case as the application just uses colored pieces to enhance the interactive elements.

Remove this app concept, and you really are just building a regular LEGO set. And from start to finish, this build is fairly easy. While the larger tree face on the right side of the set does take a bit of work as there are many small pieces, the rest of the set goes together in simple fashion. Even when integrating the interactive elements into the build, you really are simply putting flat colored bricks in the place of what would normally be environmental bricks.

Event at 9 years old, my son will often come to me for help with specific bricks, but he quietly went about his business, only bothering me when a sticker needed to be put on (which, while he could do it himself, I do prefer it to be perfect). From start to finish, he invested about 45 minutes into the build.

The Completed Set – Is There Value?

Two things really impressed me when the set was finally put together. First, despite the few pieces and the fairly wide footprint, the set is really solid, and nothing feels too loose when it’s all said and done. So often these smaller environment sets are a hodge podge of different elements that players arrange on their own when playing. As one solid build, I’m impressed with how great it really is when together!

The second impressive element is the attention to detail around the entire set. LEGO has the habit of forgetting about the backsides of sets. While having the backsides open does make for better playability (especially with buildings), the extra pieces also add costs to these sets, potentially pricing them out of someone’s comfort zone. With the Graveyard Mystery, however, LEGO has created a good looking set o matter which side you look at it from. Even the backside of the set has vines and such growing, giving it a great aesthetic.

Another value added element to this set is the number of minifigures you receive. On top of the three main figures – Parker, Jack, and Dr. Branson – players also receive a full skeleton, Spencer the ghost dog, and a wide variety of accessories such as a shovel, a broom, and smartphones. In sets under $40, it’s not often to only see 2, may be 3 figures. This set effectively comes with 5, adding tremendous value.

The only real downside to the set comes from the playability. The small grave differ hut that is included is way to small to be useable – while it adds a nice aesthetic to the graveyard scene, there is little to no room to actually play inside the hut with figures, and since the roof isn’t meant to come off, the hut itself just sits there, basically empty and fairly useless.

The App

Coming soon!

Conclusion

Overall, we are having a lot of fun with the Graveyard Mystery set from LEGO. The sheer number of figures means that we can all play with the set together. This is an easy recommendation for any LEGO fan, young or old, and we feel the application integration will only make it better!