How do the LEGO Lunar New Year 2025 sets compare to 2024?
80116 Trotting Lantern and 80117 Good Fortune are a significant departure from the previous LEGO Lunar New Year sets, but they’re still among the cream of the LEGO crop.
Ever since the LEGO Group started offering up annual Lunar New Year sets, these have been some of the most beautiful and impressive sets in any given year. With last year’s 80113 Family Reunion Celebration in particular, many fans who had not previously considered the Lunar New Year offerings were inspired to try something new. This year’s sets are perhaps not quite as universally appealing, but anyone who picks either 2025 set up will absolutely not be disappointed.
Set name: 80116 Trotting Lantern Release: January 1, 2025 Price: £89.99 / $129.99 / €99.99 Pieces: 1,295 Minifigures: 5 LEGO: Order now
Set name: 80117 Good Fortune Release: January 1, 2025 Price: £69.99 / $89.99 / €79.99 Pieces: 1,021 Minifigures: 0 LEGO: Order now
Big shoes to fill
The Lunar New Year LEGO sets for 2024 were always going to be difficult to top. The offerings for the Year of the Dragon were some of the best LEGO sets of the year; 80112 Auspicious Dragon is an absolutely beautiful brick-built display model, while 80113 Family Reunion Celebration, with its high level of detail and gorgeous façade, quickly won over LEGO city builders who otherwise might not have given the Lunar New Year sets much thought.
This time around, it almost feels like the LEGO designers have moved as far in the opposite direction as possible. The brick-built display set this time around is not a large snake, as one might expect; instead, 80117 Good Fortune is a far more generic collection of traditional Lunar New Year paraphernalia.
Meanwhile, in lieu of a building or scene that could be incorporated into a LEGO cityscape, we have 80116 Trotting Lantern, a large and ornate lantern with a working light brick that features just a small family scene inside its walls.
Holding a candle to that which came before
For all that 80116 Trotting Lantern may feel underwhelming after the dizzying heights of 80113 Family Reunion Celebration, it shouldn’t be dismissed too quickly. No, city builders won’t get quite as much out of this set, but it is an absolute work of art in its own right. The light brick and turning central mechanism allows for the lantern to project images, just as a real Chinese revolving lantern would.
The stand-out feature here are the beautiful pearlescent panels, which are decorated with gold, red and white prints. They are absolutely stunning to behold, and one can only hope that the LEGO Group continues to find ways to include elements like these in Lunar New Year sets moving forward (having previously appeared in 2022’s 80109 Lunar New Year Ice Festival). Even if not, these panels are so exquisite that they almost feel worth the price of the set on their own.
It’s true that the small tableau featuring the LEGO Group’s now-iconic Chinese family is a bit of a letdown considering the kinds of scenes that they’ve appeared in for past sets. To a certain degree, their inclusion feels perfunctory; merely here to make the set more appealing to those who have picked up previous sets in the theme. It probably wouldn’t have hurt the set very much if it didn’t contain any minifigures at all.
It’s very clear, though, that 80116 Trotting Lantern isn’t trying to follow the previous formula for Lunar New Year sets. If the weakest element of this set is its inclusion of a few unnecessary minifigures, that’s hardly something to complain about. Plus, the Year of the Snake minifigure will be essential for anyone collecting that particular annual assortment of costumed characters.
Forever fashion
80117 Good Fortune doesn’t exactly overflow with references to the Year of the Snake. Not all previous Lunar New Year sets have been specifically tied to their zodiac animal, but even so, after last year’s 80112 Auspicious Dragon, 80117 Good Fortune does feel a little more generic as a result.
That said, a lack of references to snakes does mean that the LEGO set is less tied to a specific point on the lunar calendar: no obvious references to this particular year in the zodiac means that the set can sit happily on display for years without going out of fashion.
This is a LEGO set that can potentially stay on display indefinitely, or else be brought out each year for decoration during the festive period, in a way that is simply not true of something like 80112 Auspicious Dragon. The result is a somewhat timeless LEGO set, which is about as far from fast fashion as possible, and that’s very welcome.
Our honest opinion: These are two fantastic LEGO sets with a high level of detail and a satisfying build that offer an excellent jumping-on point for the Lunar New Year theme, even if neither set is quite as memorable as the offerings from last year.
These sets were provided for review by the LEGO Group.
Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO using our affiliate links.
