REVIEW: 70202 CHI Gorzan

[Brickthing]

Set name: CHI Gorzan

Set Number: 70202

Price: $15USD , 15 Euro

Pieces: 59

Year of release: 2013

Peeron

Bricklink

Brickset

CHI-up and swing into battle with CHI Gorzan, a CHI-powered warrior with big fists, a heavy mace, spiked shoulder armour and more!

This summer’s new wave of Chima CHI figures marks the start of LEGO’s second original IP sets/ultrabuilds using the Constraction figure building system. Gorzan is a member of the Gorilla tribe, and the owner of a gigantic Gorilla Striker mech, similar in size to Gorzan’s CHI form.

The Packaging

Front

Gorzan’s bag pictures the energy laced gorilla lunging through the jungle (in more of an agile monkey fashion than that of a Gorilla), ready to combat the evil crocodile, wolf and raven warriors. Gorzan’s minifig form looks down from above, and while he looks quite different in style and ornamental patterns, I like that they’ve included this detail for each of the different Chi characters, as opposed to using a single flagship character for every set.

Back

The bag of the package showcases the scale size of Gorzan’s head, a combiner that he creates with Razar, and a comic that shows how the minifig Gorzan activates his Chi form. It’s a neat detail that the bad Chi characters have red background while the good characters have blue, which is reflected even on the combiner diagram. Strangely Gorzan is shown in the comic with incorrect gold armour (compared to a new Gorilla style dark brown armour in his other set appearances so far), which might be due to the Gorzan minifig being altered later in the development process, since he appears in a summer set unlike the other Chi figure minifig counterparts, who have all appeared in the initial Winter line-up. This isn’t an inconsistency to complain about however, since I believe that both the minifig and Chi figure final forms are better with dark brown and gold respectively.

Contents

Pieces

Gorzan includes 59 pieces, which is on the lower side of the Chima Constraction wave. There is a modest range of Technic and bones, and while there aren’t too many shells, the shells that are there are quite useful. Gorzan includes 2 recolours of Black Phantom’s mace piece; Trans-Blue and Pearl Gold, as well as a Pearl Gold Hulk chest plate. Other notable pieces include a large torso bone, 2 new black fur pieces and 8 Dark Grey exo-force arms, as well as the reinforced joints and 3L Beam w/ Ball joint that all of the Chima sets seem to have.

Gorzan's Noggin

Gorzan’s head piece was created specifically for this set, and uses a combination of printed colours and multiple interlocking pieces. Gorzan’s teeth are cartoonishly asymmetrical, but stand out cleanly due to being made of white plastic compared to the surrounding black. While the Sand Blue printing doesn’t follow the lines of the part perfectly, the colour is solid and it’s great to see this particular shade in action figures again, even if only as an accent printed colour.

Side View

Back View

The back of the head shows the rest of the part that Gorzan’s teeth originate from, resulting in an exposed head husk. Since Gorzan is organic, would this be his skull?

Sticker Sheet

Instead of a printed chest plate, Gorzan has a sticker sheet for his Chi power. Here’s the last time you’ll see it, in its semi-crumpled glory. It’s a bit strange that this piece hasn’t been setup for printing capabilities, since Stormer XL’s torso needed stickering as well. Maybe it’s too big, or there are too many surfaces on the piece for it to be worth setting up a printing rig for it? At any rate, the stickering here is more intricate than a print would’ve allowed, so the choice of stickering both improves the look of the set (if you use the sticker) and the set’s usefulness in MOCing.

Build

While Gorzan’s appearance is quite similar to the Superhero Ultrabuild of the Hulk, he uses a different Technic-based torso construction, rather than relying on a mass of bones. The result is a smaller and more refined bulky torso, where the armour shells are more fixed in where they’re meant to be, rather than having the option to act as extra limbs as on the Hulk.

Finished Set

Gorzan, King of the Jungle!

Gorzan is quite tall and impressively comes across as a humanoid gorilla warrior, in that he looks to have the strength and attitude of a Gorilla, but without the lanky arms or quadrupedally inclined proportions.

While the Constraction system was initially used for the futuristic robotic heroes of Hero Factory, the excellent design of the new head and fur pieces are all that’s required to adapt the system into a stylized cartoon depiction of organic and very non-robotic animal warriors.

Side

Gorzan is quite thin around the waist, but his large hands prevent you from directly seeing the side.

Back

Thanks to the Technic structure used for Gorzan’s shoulders, his back looks a bit odd and semi-exposed, although it’s a large improvement over Stormer XL and the Hulk’s backs. It would have been nice if there was some more armour instead of the three light grey bushings though. Is Drilldozer’s torso shell still available as a part?

Gorzan Smash!

Gorzan comes with 13 points of articulation, not counting the finger hinges, but he uses those points to great effect when it comes to carrying out cool and heroic poses. His arms suffer from the same wristless condition as Worriz and Laval, although due to his longer lower arm bones it still looks like he has wrists, even if he can’t properly use them. I’m hoping that in the future there might be a double-rod to axle/pin/socket connector, that could be used on HF shells and the inside of HF paws, to allow characters to hold their weapons without sacrificing normal wrist articulation.

Swoosh!

Gorzan’s colour scheme is fantastic, mixing greys, blacks, gold and blues. With the exception of the back, the set does a very good job at hiding all of the mandatory Technic colours, such as glaring red and blue axles/pins.

Wham, uppercut!

Gorzan serves spiky justice to any and all troublemakers that cross his path.

Combo Set

Front

While the other Heroes paired with each other, Gorzan is left to pair with 70205 Razar, but their colour schemes do lend to combine well. In Gorzan’s version of the combiner, the might Gorilla warrior beefs up his torso further and sprouts wings, resulting in a creature worthy of fighting Hawkman himself.

Back

He even has a tail and a vertical back ribcage, which I have to admit are a bit odd.

Incoming Hawk-Eagle!

I partially wish that the designs were more creative than resulting in 4 out of 6 combiners having wings, but at the same time these combiners act as an accessible and entertaining way to jumpstart kids’ imaginations when building, while still remaining semi-linked to the Chima story. They act as a buffer between playing within the rules of the Chima universe and making up your own adventures from scratch, which is an excellent role for combiners to play.

(The instructions for this combiner can be found here)

Final Thoughts

Colour Scheme - 10/10 – Because of the large gold chest plate, Gorzan manages to have gold as a dominant colour while only including 2 solid gold pieces, while the remaining colours of black, dark grey and gunmetal compliment the gold and Chi-Trans-Blue to create an excellent Gorilla inspired colour scheme. It’s a shame that the Sand Blue doesn’t feature more than just a print, but the colour scheme is still strong without it.

Parts - 9/10 – Gorzan comes with a solid range of pieces, in terms of shells, bones, Technic elements and weapons. Highlights include the chest piece and spike ball halves, but none of the other pieces seem useless, even the Gorilla head.

Design - 10/10 – The design of this set is excellent, using different bone lengths and a small amount of Technic to effectively create a large muscular body type, without excessive exposed bones or superfluous articulation points that you’re required to ignore. With the golden chest armour and black shoulders, the designers have even managed to add some very effective colour blocking to the figure.

Articulation - 9/10 – Gorzan has a full range of articulation points, with the exception of wrist movement, which is a shame considering the previous Gorilla figure – Rawjaw, did include it.

Quality - 10/10 – All of Gorzan’s pieces are of great quality, and the printing on the face is well done. The stickers are of a great quality as well if you choose to apply them, although only time will tell as to whether they’re resistant to eventually drying out and flaking.

Overall - 48/50 – Gorzan is an excellent and fun set to pose with, and a great set for useful pieces to add to your collection, especially if you don’t have many ball joints or Glatorian necks. Aside from possibly the Gold chest plate, all of the pieces would be useful if you were to buy a duplicate of this set, in order to have 2 of each coloured spike half.

[Aethersprite]

Thanks for the review! I love that this set is a refined version of Hulk/Stormer XL, and it pulls it off very well. And I have to say that he does look very odd without the stickers on his chest!

[Borex]

Thnx 4 the review. I don't have anything with Chima or Action figures like this, but this one is really a beauty. There's a big chance i will buy this one (and maybe i will buy me some Chima apes hah!)

[Aanchir]

Good review. On one hand, I really like how his shoulders are designed. It's nice and simple, using Technic but not involving too much complexity. On the other hand, on CHI Gorzan in particular, it isn't entirely effective. Because the shoulder joints are basically behind the chest plate, it really limits his articulation a great deal, whereas the design used for Stormer XL and Hulk were perhaps even wider than they needed to be and left plenty of room for the arms to pivot. Overall, I think this is a flaw of that chest plate in general. The way it extends out to the sides even beyond the part that would correspond to a human's pectoral muscles makes it dreadfully hard to use without absurdly wide shoulders.

Other flaws with CHI Gorzan include his back armor, which is pretty ineffective, and the fact that the mace's handle is too short — it ends where it meets the Y-joint, which is well before the end of his hands! But overall, he looks very gorilla-like and has great proportions. I just wish it didn't cost him so much in terms of articulation.