I am 39, and in the last decade started collecting macabre and skeleton themed toys, rediscovering the joy of Legos when sets that finally ventured into my less conventional tastes were released. Finally my unrequited childhood toy wishes were fulfilled: not just a Lego castle, but a vampyre castle....which i merged with related sets, and surrounded with lego cemeteries. Alas, Lego genres don't always last long...but that's when offbrand brick systems step in. The more generic, the more likely that it will have noticeable defects in compatibility. That is where (frmrly Megablox) Mega Construx seems to be the second best behind Lego. Interesting genres that are sometimes too adult for Lego, or benefit from having more true-to-original figurine designs (as Lego will abstract any character into the main lego man basic form). Coincidentally, I had the Grayskull Castle playset as a child, but tossed it out one day in a an act of pubescent-adolescent refute of childhood...thinking I would need closet space more than cool relics of my youth. So when I saw Mega Construx Castle Grayskull, it was an ideal way to upgrade my missing nostalgia. I would have no use for the original castle, except for display, of which it would require a lot of shelf space. But as a brick system set, it becomes versatilely entertaining and a more fun, worthwhile & more compact shelf occupant. What impresses me the most is that it also being a worthy and faithful simulcrae tribute to the original: Every original detail I remember rendered in the plastic shape of the castle walls is expounded upon by MegaConstrux; instead of just a sticker on the floor as a picture of a dungeon, the dungeon is a cage with four walls and a barred door. The throne also activates a trapdoor as in the original. Windows are rendered as actual windows instead of impressions in a molded plastic wall. Roofs are brown with shingles instead of just more green molded plastic in a single piece. The drawbridge teeth remind me eerily of the original, but the details on the outside of the bridge are fleshed out into actual implements. There is an operational elevator akin to the original. The ladder, weapons racks and doohickeys that spin (god knows what for) look just like the ones i remember, only now in bricks. Plus the set adds on things the 80s grayskull never had: secret passages, rooms for magic, technology and such as fit in the MoTU universe. i bought for 160$ on sale, reduced price...and I have gotten several hours of play/entertainment out of it everyday for 2 weeks. I'm taking my time building it, not rushing or pushing myself past the point where I start getting burned out, which is perhaps the one thing that has 2 edges to the sword: Unlike Lego, which builds up tall walls usually with many panels, this Mega Construx set painstakingly builds everywall with individual bricks. Unprecedented detail.... but it can get a little slow monotonous when working on a tall tower wall... but like I said, I give it a rest when i get burned out, and then I have more to play with the next day when I am fresh again. One last great thing is that construx blox figures are usually interchangeable... so when I take the wings from a Halo bugger, and add them to Skeletor along with his goat skull for a head from his staff, I get a magical skeletor goat fairy. Or replace he-man's left arm with an alien arm, to get Division 9 He-man. Possibilities are endless with bricks. And Mega Construx are cross compatible with Legos....even if their fit may be a few microns less precise, they still hold well together, very strong usually. 4.5 stars altogether
