LEGO Friends 41363 Mia’s Forest Adventure review

LEGO Friends 41363 Mia’s Forest Adventure 41363 contains some nice individual elements but do they all come together to form one cohesive set? 

Price: £12.99 / $14.99 / €14.99  Pieces: 134  Available: Now

For those new to the LEGO Friends theme, each set follows the lives of five friends as they work and play in and around the fictional city of Heartlake. 41363 Mia’s Forest Adventure leads Mia on a journey through the woods for a nature spotting adventure. The set contains a Mia mini-doll figure, a emote controlled skateboard, an animal watching shelter, creek and small bridge. A typically adorable baby bear and frog are also included.

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The woodland scene for Mia to explore is split into two buildable areas. The first, a small tree and cave, is very simplistic. It is designed to be viewed from the front as the back is completely flat and devoid of details. While the colour scheme works perfectly fine, the shaping doesn’t feel that natural and in places it looks awkward. The play feature, a dropping bee hive, is fun though and at least it works well.

The build and design for the bridge is much better although the orange grill pieces look slightly odd. Perhaps reddish brown would have been a better design choice – if only to add a slight element of realism?

The observation deck is probably the best designed element in the set. The wood detail stickers look incredibly effective and the binoculars on the light grey telescope look authentic.

Mia’s preferred mode of transport, a bright green skateboard, is a strange inclusion. On one hand it’s a decent build. The 1×1 quarter tiles offer up a nice finish and Mia does look good riding it – but it raises the question as to why you’d go nature spotting in the woods with a large remote controlled skateboard, surely you’d scare away the animals? Younger fans will find it fun and probably won’t question the logic.

The Mia mini-doll is dressed in appropriate attire, with hiking shoes, shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt. Her dual-molded helmet with pony tail looks great.

At first glance the set’s price tag seems a little high, but when taking into account all the parts included it actually starts to feel like fair value. As with all LEGO Friends sets, the pieces are bright and colourful and include some useful parts for fans of free building, such as the tan 1×1 with studs on adjacent sides, the 2×2 slopes in dark azure and the 1×1 quarter tiles in both azure and dark azure – but those elements won’t be enough to convince the older fan to purchase this set.

This is definitely one for a younger audience who’ll overlook the simplistic designs and love the bright colours and cute animals. The set just doesn’t feel as cohesive as the others available in the Friends theme.

This product was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

41363 Mia’s Forest Adventureis available now at shop.lego.com. You can help support Brick Fanatics’ work by using our affiliate links.

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