LEGO Pokémon is coming to life in August thanks to SMART Play — here’s everything you need to know about how the tech-powered brick will let you interact with your brick-built Pokémon.
There are 12 new LEGO Pokémon sets releasing on August 1, and unlike the launch sets from back in March, this new wave is designed for children to play with rather than for an adult collector’s display. A big part of the play pattern is expected to come from the integration of SMART Play into the sets. All the Pokémon will be compatible with the LEGO SMART Brick, which will allow them to come to life and respond to how they are played with.
Blocks has covered how LEGO SMART Play works more generally, but below you will find answers to some of the biggest questions about the new LEGO Pokémon sets and how they’ll interact with the SMART Play system, with insights from the LEGO creatives behind the new range of sets.
Will all the LEGO Pokémon come with a SMART Brick?
No. Much like the Star Wars SMART Play sets from earlier this year, only a select handful of sets actually come with a SMART Brick. 72164 Training House with Pikachu will include one SMART Brick (plus a charging pad), and 72167 Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle will include two (plus a charging pad). SMART Bricks are not currently sold separately, so you do have to purchase one of the two “All in One” sets (or one of the Star Wars “All in One” sets) to get a SMART Brick.
What can the SMART Play Pokémon do?
The basic functionality of the SMART Play Pokémon is the same as what debuted in the Star Wars sets — the bricks react to how they move and to what they detect to dictate the play experience.
In LEGO Pokémon sets, this comes down to SMART Tags and motion detection. SMART Tags are built into the bellies of all the Pokémon and placing the SMART Brick on top of a tag will tell it to behave as that respective Pokémon.
The experience playing with each Pokémon has then been designed to recreate the experience of playing a Pokémon video game.
“When we spoke to the kids, they’re all saying the same thing,” shares LEGO Senior Vice President, Product and Marketing Development Federico Begher. “They’re saying, ‘I’ve been a trainer in the digital tools, but it would be so cool to feel like a trainer in the real world, to have the creatures respond to me, to bond with them, to battle, to do all the things that a trainer would do in the real world. And I think we’re going to be close to delivering that, if not fully delivering that.”
Thanks to SMART Tags in the sets, fans will be able to battle, train, care for and go on adventures with their LEGO Pokémon. For a more in-depth explanation of the ins-and-outs of LEGO Pokémon SMART Play, you can head here.
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Do SMART Play Pokémon sound like actual Pokémon?
No, they do not. Pikachu will not make any Pika Pika noises. The LEGO SMART Bricks will instead produce chirping-like noises for the smaller Pokémon and more appropriate, deeper sounds for larger ones. Motion sounds are also a big part of the play experience — it will make walking or flying noises for Pokémon as they are moved around. There are also sounds for eating and battling, among other interactions the Pokémon can have with other SMART Tags. But they will not make their iconic Pokémon noises. And this comes down to how the SMART Brick synthesises its sounds.
“We’ve taken some liberty in terms of it being more open-ended,” LEGO Design Director Siddharth Muthyala explains, “so children can put their own stories into it. The more it gets guided, the more we are defining what it is and then the children step back. And the SMART Brick is a synthesiser, and the sounds are generated on the fly as you play with them, having an open-ended play experience where kids can fill in the gaps.”
Will my old SMART Bricks work with LEGO Pokémon?
If you have any SMART Bricks from the LEGO Star Wars sets, you will be able to use them with the new LEGO Pokémon range. All you have to do is download a small firmware update while it sits on the charger. “In two minutes, while you leave it charging, it will be updated,” says Federico. “It can work with any SMART Play set. LEGO Pokémon is utilising a feature of the brick in a bigger way than Star Wars, [being] more precise in understanding the movements between two bricks. It’s a feature that we will keep incorporating into all SMART Play moving forward.”
It is worth noting that the update is downloaded via an app, which breaks the whole ‘no app needed’ promise of the SMART Play system, but the play experience remains entirely app-free and lets you mix SMART bricks from different sets.
Why do LEGO Pokémon look like that?
Fans expecting hyper-accurate LEGO Pokémon might be a little taken aback by the blocky designs used across the range. But there was a very well thought out reason as to why the Pokémon are more stylised — they’re intended to be played with.
“Children are lunging and throwing Pokémon in front of each other,” says Siddharth. “They’re really battling. So what that means is these Pokémon have to be super stable. We don’t want things flying off and breaking. So our Pokémon have been designed to be extremely robust and strong.”
Will there be more LEGO Pokémon sets, with or without SMART Play? What about minifigures?
There’s no official word as of now, so speculation on future sets is just that. Given the success of the large-scale 18+ models and the LEGO Group’s commitment to SMART Play, it’s reasonable to assume more of both types of sets could come later on. As for minifigures, there’s no way to know. But Blocks will be sure to keep you up to date on all the latest LEGO Pokémon news.
And that’s all the most important things to know about LEGO Pokémon SMART Play before it launches on August 1. To get more info about how you’ll be able to interact with the Pokémon, head here. And for a look at all the sets coming out, head here.
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