Lego’s New Mario Kart Set Is Like Nothing You’d Expect

Ever since Lego started doing Mario sets, the brick maker has juked where many, many Nintendo fans would perhaps just preferred that they jived. The Super Mario line championed an electronically-enhanced, play-forward modular design series over traditional playsets, and even the company’s one-off builds for adult collectors themed themselves around elaborate model-making over minifigures. When fans expected them to do the same with this year’s Mario Kart sub-line, Lego surprised again, making a half-way mix between its Super Mario modularity and traditional expectations with brick-built vehicles and characters. And now once again, Lego just keeps surprising.

In celebration of this year’s “Mario Day” (March 10, because, well, ‘Mar 10’ looks like ‘Mario’ if you squint), Lego revealed a new 1,972-piece Mario Kart release that iterates on its previous Mario-themed collector builds. Instead of being an elaborate entry into the new sub-line, it’s a 8.5″-tall brick-built replica of Mario himself, riding his traditional kart from the series.

Lego Mario Kart Mario and Standard Kart

Following in the footsteps of builds like the Lego Bowser, the new karting kit has some poseability, letting you move Mario’s head and arms around–and the stand the kart itself is placed on can be tilted to help it look like he’s drifting round a corner. And, of course, just as with every other Mario set before it (and unlike last year’s Legend of Zelda set), there are no minifigures to be found here, as Lego remains adamant to not do the one thing people want more than anything else with this series, even as the company chucks cool set after cool set out in their direction.

Ah well. There’s always next Mario Day?

The Lego Mario Kart Mario and Standard Kart set is available to pre-order now, and will release on May 15 for $170.

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