The LEGO Group's take on the Game Boy is almost a scaled replica of the Nintendo handheld – but have the designers managed to capture every detail?
Made up of 440 pieces, the newly revealed LEGO Super Mario 72046 Game Boy is a near 1:1 scale of the real handheld classic console. Rendering the Nintendo toy out of LEGO bricks takes some nifty manouvering and, while 72046 Game Boy naturally doesn't actually work, almost all the exterior details follow through into the LEGO set.
Taking a closer look at the real console and the brick-built one, the main colour chosen is the classic Game Boy shade that most people associate with it. Although the real Game Boy was a touch later, light grey is an apt pick for the case of the LEGO Game Boy, with a darker shade surrounding the screen and black and bright reddish violet for the buttons.
There are some printed elements for details on the casing, like the 'Nintendo GAME BOY' slogan below the screen and the sound, power, and battery icons higher up. The printing means that the location of these details will be spot on and aligned, without needing to line up too many stickers, but the use of various plates does take away from some of the smoothness of the casing.
While that's perhaps a necessary evil, the grooves around the top of the real Game Boy could have learned into the necessity of having gaps between plates. Instead, this area of the console, where there actually are indents, is confusingly left smooth.
The buttons have been recreated physically, with a cross plate element for the arrow buttons and two round elements for the A and B buttons. What looks like wheels or gears have been embedded into the casing on the front and side to reflect the 'Select', 'Start', and volume buttons, which is a neat way to capture the look of the buttons.
In the case of the 'Select' and 'Start' buttons, they look slightly oversized on 72046 Game Boy, as well as having more of a gap at the ends than the real thing. Still, it's a clever way to recreate the buttons without relying on printed elements or stickers.
In terms of scale with the two included cartridges, the LEGO designers have nailed it very well. Once again, what looks like printed elements are used to keep the Nintendo Game Boy logo placement consistent, but the texture of the slightly concave section at the top of the cartridge is lost, rendered only with a light grey outline on the plate.
All in all, 71046 Game Boy is an impressively faithful rendering of the beloved console. With a near 1:1 scale, from afar it could actually look like the real thing, with only quibbles about minor details up for criticism.
LEGO Super Mario 72046 Game Boy is available to pre-order now, retailing at £54.99 / $59.99 / €59.99.
Featured image: PICRYL, licensed under PDM 1.0
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