Powering Up LEGO Mario

2020-07-29 | Jetro

A few weeks ago, when LEGO unveiled their new LEGO Super Mario theme, we published an article that showed you what the LEGO Super Mario Starter Course contains.

We had a closer look at the Mario hub. Essentially Mario is a small hub with 2 AAA batteries, a colour sensor, a gyro sensor, screens for eyes, mouth and stomach and Bluetooth connectivity. At the front of the hub these are six switches and Mario’s trousers contain six corresponding ridges.

What does that mean? Well, depending on the ridges in the trousers Mario wears, he can exhibit different behaviours.

In the image below you can see how those ridges can be distributed. All the trousers below have six ridges, but in each of them there are two that are thicker, and so press the switches that correspond to those positions. If you look at the yellow trousers in the top left and count the ridges from left to right you will see ridges 1 and 5 are bigger. In the white trousers next to the yellow ones, ridges 2 and 5 are more pronounced. The red trousers show bigger ridges in positions 3 and 4, the yellow ones to the right on ridges 2 and 6 and finally, the original blue Super Mario trousers have thicker ridges at positions 1 and 6.

The question of course, is “what do these different Power-Up packs do?” Let’s have a look at them one by one:

71370 Fire Mario

The first in the series of Power-Up packs is Fire Mario. When I initially read the description I expected a red suit (thinking about a fireman), but it turns out this one is actually white. Rather than making Mario a fireman, it gives Mario fire power. This means Mario launch fireballs to more quickly defeat his opponents.

So how do you figure that out? The packaging doesn’t contain much of a hint. It appears to imply Mario can jump on fire without burning himself, but if you try to do that, Mario will still show the burning fire on his stomach and make the burning noise.

For more information you need to go into the app and add the Mario Fire Power-Up suit to your collection. There are two ways to do that. You can click on the "add set" icon in the top right of the main screen and select the corresponding set. However, since Mario knows he is wearing a different pair of trousers, you can also turn on his bluetooth and allow him to connect to the app. The app will then detect Mario is wearing a new suit and ask you to complete the corresponding steps. In either case you get short building instructions for the set as well as a video explaining his new ability.

71371 Propeller Mario

This suit IS red, and come with a round cap with rotor. When you lift mario and wiggle him in the air you hear the sound of the rotor and collect a few coins during the trip. It is important to make your movements a bit jerky so they register with the internal sensor. A soft landing will not give you the desired result and you really need to set Mario down with a bit of a thump. While flying is a way to advance faster in a level, the hub still needs time to display the animation, reproduce the sound and allow you to collect some virtual coins. This means the pace of the game stays pretty much the same. Another interesting factor is that while you may want to look at the screens on the Mario hub the first time to see you are actually collecting coins, after a few time the sounds provide enough information for you to know exactly what is going on, making the game flow smoother.

71372 Cat Mario

Take a wild guess: what do you think cat mario can do? :D

Fortunately, after the building instructions there is a short video that shows exactly how cat Mario works: he can now walk on walls. Again, making this work requires you banging Mario’s feet against the wall. If you play too softly, the hub will not recognise the steps. All this banging is starting to worry me a bit. I know LEGO makes everything child safe, but banging electronics on a table or against a wall just feels strange. I will also need to think carefully about where I will let my kids use this costume, before I have Mario’s footsteps all over the paint on my living room wall...

I’ll also add a screenshot of the building instructions:

71373 Builder Mario

The last of the Power-Up pack is builder Mario. In this case Mario becomes a power tool. If you make him jump and land on one of the coloured platforms in the game (no need to bank him repeatedly fortunately) you will hear the sound of a pneumatic hammer and Mario may gain a coin. This randomness also adds interest to the game as it requires you to stay alert to what you achieve in each run and try different things to gain coins.

Let’s go back to the ridges for a moment. These are the currently available configurations:

Does that look random to you? Well maybe just a bit, but if we organise the data there is an interesting fact to be discovered. Let’s assume (based on the configuration of all the trouser pieces that are available now) that trouser ridges need to press one switch in each of the 2 groups of three switches. That gives the following possibilities:

As you can see from the above table, there are still 4 unused ridge combinations, leaving space for further LEGO Super Mario Power-Up packs. What packs would you like to see in a second wave of LEGO Super Mario?

Mario launching fire balls at Goomba

We wish to thank LEGO for providing this set for review. The opinions in this review are not supported or endorsed by LEGO.