I love a gift with purchase, and I love a chain reaction.

So, when LEGO offered to send me 41404 Monty Mole and Super Mushroom – the gift with purchase for those who preordered their LEGO Super Mario Starter Sets a little while back, I was quite excited. The set has 163 pieces, and comes with a Super Mushroom, POW Box, Stone Eye and Monty Mole.

The box is relatively small, and the build is simple. But not too simple. the building instructions are included in the LEGO Super Mario App, and require you to build and scan the Stone eye before proceeding with the rest of the build.

There are a number of printed elements in this set, including the Super Mushroom’s face and ‘hat’ (on a flesh coloured 2×2), as well as monty mole’s face print. There are 3 4×4 yellow rounded plates, as well as a 6×6. Desert is the one terrain that LEGO Mario can scan that is not included in the starter set, making this a useful addition to it.

The Stone eye was a fairly straightforward build, as was the desert scenery. A lever, with a POW box is wedged under the Stone eye. When pushed on, Stone eye pivots to the ground, with the top of its head landing on another lever, next to Monty Mole’s burrow. This figure is identical to the the one seen in 71363. There is another sticker on the side of Stoneeye’s head, which allows you to collect 10 coins, with a single scan. Subsequent scans yield only one coin. The POW Box does not appear to add anything to the level, other than sound effects – as discussed in my review of 71362 the Guarded Fortress. It is useful to play in combination with enemies who require multiple scans to defeat.

When Mario presses down, when he scans Stone eye’s tag (for 10 coins), Monty Mole pokes his head up from his burrow.

Monty Mole scans for 1 coin. this can be repeated within the time available.

Powerups and Bonuses

There are two power-up action tiles in this set: the Super Mushroom, as well as the POW Box.

The Super Mushroom scans for several coins, but otherwise has limited effecting this set. When engaged, a mushroom appears on Mario’s chest, and protects him from being knocked out for long if he should fall off any sliding or swinging platforms, such as you might encounter in 71360 Adventures with Mario. It cannot be rescanned during the course of a timed game, but can also be awarded randomly (as one of 5 options) from a question mark box.

The POW Box has little obvious effect when scanned in this set, other than having Mario display ‘POW’ on his chest, and make an exploding sound, as Stone eye falls. However, experimentation with other sets reveals that the POW Box allows an enemy requiring multiple scans to be defeated can be defeated with one scan.

On the whole, this is a small set, providing a couple of obstacles for Mario to jump over: the inclusion of the POW block will be useful with other sets you might get in the theme in the future. the super mushroom will probably improve your enjoyment of the starter set, which it is distributed with as a gift with purchase. It adds some useful facility to the starter set, as well as providing an easy way to collect a quick 11 coins in a game. Great if you can get hold of it, otherwise, there is a poly bag containing an additional ‘?’ box and super mushroom available as a gift with purchase with a minimum spend on LEGO Super Mario sets this week.

Did you manage to secure this set with a preorder? why not leave you comment s below, and until next time,

Play well.

This set was provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes. all opinions are my own.