Which is better: Bionicle or HF, building style and characters and story

Personally I think that Bionicle has the better story. Its story is unbeatable. Elementable robots against beastial rahi, hive minded bohrok, Monsterous barrki,

diabolical makuta and so on. All protecting little people and who could forget kanohi masks with powers.

However, Hero Factory has a much better building system. Its very customizable and easy to build. Whereas bionicle has a harder building system. I don't mean super hard, but i think a non-builder can build HF easier than bionicle.

Bionicle has a better story and characters. I also prefer the bionicle building system better than the hero factory building system. the only thing that I like better about hero factory is the system where the ball sockets don't break. While I think both are good I much prefer bionicle. I think if maybe hero factory keeps coming out with more sets and it gets to where you can build a wider variety of things with the system I might enjoy building with hero factory more. I just can't ever seem to be able to create a moc that I really like out of hero factory parts. I hope hero factory will one day receive a better story.

Personally, I prefer all aspects of Hero Factory to Bionicle. The epic, overarching storyline of Bionicle was something that drew me in and kept me hooked, sure, but it was also kind of tiresome and dragged at times. Hero Factory's lighthearted, episodic storyline is highly refreshing, and I donn't feel pressured to buy every book written for kids in kindergarten or listen to every podcast for feat I missed something vital in the story. In addition, the setting and premise still allow for darker, more epic, and/or more plot heavy, as the excellent short story Sundown by Angel Bob. The building system is quite obviously superior in every way, from quality to versatility - the ball joints never break instead of always breaking, and like the story, the official project is simple and easy to understand for young or casual fans, while still allowing hardcore fans or MoCists to get their complexity fix by adding Technic parts via the Technic holes on larger pieces, System pieces via the dual-pegs on cladding, and Bionicle via ball joint. All in all, I believe it's an excellent line.

It's a tough one. Both have their pros and cons.

Bionicle had a marvellous story line and it was lavishly produced with lots of background depth to it. However, as it progressed, I felt the story became poorly handled, and lost sight of the original genius of the first waves back in 2001. However, it kept me hooked until the bitter end.

The Bionicle building system in my opinion is better simply for the sheer amount of different pieces, and how much more versatile building is, as well as the actual experience of building being far more entertaining than Hero Factory's. Hero Factory's hasn't fully developed yet, but I still remain dissapointed at the lack of pieces. However, the new joints are brilliant and I still haven't broken one.

The Hero Factory story is much clearer cut, and easier to follow, and is definitley refreshing. However, due to the massive lack of a firm story (so far atleast), I find it hard to stay attached to it, and admittedly I have stopped buying the sets.

So, perhaps the ultimate theme would be the Bionicle range in pieces, built with the strength of Hero Factory's pieces, and a episodic story line with the darker and deeper aspects of Bionicle. Who knows? All opinion I guess.

Edited June 6, 201212 yr by The Crazy One

Story wise, I've never focus on Bionicle's stuff nor do I focus on the HF stuff. I've been doing my own deal long before either line was around.

Toy wise, Hero Factory blows Bionicle away. When Bionicle first started, I had Lego Throwbots that could at least had head movement. Then towards the end, I could not touch a figure for six months and picked it up and leg falls off. With HF, no jumbo heads, no "O" on the face if the helment is off, no short body and long limbs, no cracking parts, able to bend arms and legs. Had I known about HF sooner, I wouldn't even wasted my money on the 2009 sets.

Hero Factory all the way, baby!

As you can probably tell, I prefer every aspect of Bionicle over HF, but one: the non-snapping ball sockets. I don't like the HF building system as it's incredibly lacking in variety and imagination and has a tendency to produce "clone sets". If only they rebooted Bionicle but remoulded the ball sockets to the HF style, I would be happy.

Well, I personally think the two shouldn't be compared, but I might as well speak my opinion.

While I did enjoy Bionicle's story a great deal, the open-endedness of Hero Factory's story allows for a great deal of customisation and implementation into the story; there's no limit to how light-hearted or dark you can make your story, which I think overall makes it a better franchise to get into and, oddly enough, gives it more of a "LEGO" feel. Although it can be difficult at times to create a unique character, the parts are generic enough to be used in very abstract ways (look up that purple octopus MOC thingy) and yet can still be used differently by simply rotating the piece on a normal set, which I think is quite an achievement.

I think both are great, but they're great in such different ways that it's hard to compare the two. Hero Factory has a simple ball joint-based building system, a smooth and polished aesthetic and a lighthearted, episodic story. BIONICLE had a more complex Technic-based building system, a rough and mechanical aesthetic, and a deep, complex storyline. In terms of build, there are things BIONICLE couldn't do that Hero Factory can, and vice-versa. Hero Factory's aesthetic makes the parts more compatible with the smooth surfaces of standard LEGO, but BIONICLE had better parts for greebling. And while I loved BIONICLE for its complex storylines, Hero Factory's simple and accessible hero-versus-villain story was a welcome change of pace. In some ways, such as the sturdier ball cups, Hero Factory comes out on top simply by virtue of being newer. But apart from those minor considerations I feel the two themes are about on-par with one another.

Story wise, I'm ambivalent. BIONICLE had an epic story full of myths, but I agree it became increasingly hard to follow. The books never appeared in Italy, at that. And I didn't like the movies that much, though I haven't seen the fourth one.

HF story is certainly less dark and epic, but I appreciate its lighthearted feeling that makes it closer to most other Lego themes.

Setwise, 2010 HF < BIONICLE, 2011 HF = BIONICLE (2011 HF would've won if I liked 3.0 as much as 2.0), 2012 HF utterly stomps BIONICLE for the reasons others have stated.

As far as building systems are concerned, HF's beats BIONICLE's. No doubts whatsoever.

On a whole, I say that I prefer HF these days.

Edited June 6, 201212 yr by Shakar

I never really cared for the story. I collect construction toys, because they look good and interesting and because it is fun trying to build them.

I liked Bionicle, but right now I am not sure if Stockholm syndrome was in effect or something. Nowadays, I have tons of Bionicle pieces, but many of them do not look aesthetically pleasant to me in comparison to HF parts. Another bunch of Bionicle parts are so disgracefully specialized and large that I can't come up with a good use. Then there's the other chunk of them that are broken or very prone to break, and sadly it is the very Bionicle parts that don't look aesthetically bad to me and are not ultra super specialized. So, what's left? A couple of "male" (it is a technical therm, really) articulations; Bohrok teeth eyes, cockpit, shields and other decorations that are not Bionicle-specific anymore; Kanohi; 10% of the weapons; and all those parts that are really Technic parts.

The HF build system is great, specially because of piece quality. I also can't be happier with the much more inorganic, robotic setting. Then we have how the smoothness matches better with system and how decorations are system compatible. I do hope that he disturbing trends started in 2012 are short-lived. I want bone colors to be neutral and mostly black and I want LEGO to ease out in the color schemes and stop making such Frankenstein mixes. I would also like them to start using technic to make Titans, because it seems that the HF build system is only good with small figures.

Otherwise, I think Hero Factory is superior in every way imaginable to Bionicle.

In terms of story, I'd say BIONICLE probably has an advantage, if only because the Hero Factory story has more moments where it falls flat and less media to spread thse flat moments across. For instance, the Savage Planet special was hard for me to watch the first time without cringing frequently at bad jokes and one-liners. Even BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn, which a lot of people seem to dislike, had fewer moments like this for me, and those it had were spread across 88 minutes of film rather than a running time half that length.

This year's Breakout special is not flawless, with the giant plothole at the beginning where Voltix activates the Black Hole Orb Staff and the somewhat odd shift in Evo's voice and characterization, but overall it shows signs that the series is improving in its storytelling, which hopefully will become a trend.

As for the different storytelling styles of the two themes, I'd consider them equal in quality. BIONICLE had a constantly-expanding saga that was magnificent in its scope, while Hero Factory has an episodic, mission-based storyline that's easy to enjoy without having to pay close attention to its context on a huge timeline.

In terms of sets, Hero Factory surpasses BIONICLE in some ways like its more unified building system and its sturdier joints just by being newer than BIONICLE. And in many other respects like the personality and color schemes of the sets I'd say the two themes are about equal. But overall, I think Hero Factory sets stand out as superior.

The theme's parts are more versatile in the ways they can be attached. In BIONICLE, two Toa with a Toa Inika build could only really be made unique by using different armor pieces, whereas hero sets with a generic build and generic parts can still look extremely unique just by using the shells in different configurations. The Hero Factory building system allows much more control over the proportions of a figure than a non-Technic-intensive BIONICLE build ever did.

Also, as others have mentioned, Hero Factory parts are a better match stylistically for the smooth aesthetic common in Technic and System pieces. The smoothness of the parts makes them work almost as well for organic characters like the Ultrabuild Batman figure as for robotic characters like Hero Factory's heroes.

So I'd say the two themes are about equal, but if you were to ask me which of the two I'd rather have today, I'd choose Hero Factory in a heartbeat. It's had some growing pains, just as BIONICLE did, but overall it's making great improvements on many levels as it moves forward, and being a younger theme it doesn't have to take a decade worth of sets and story to take into account when deciding on new directions in which to develop.

I prefer Hero Factory over Bionicle. Bionicle's complex storyline, while it was great, was the reason why I gained and lost interest in the theme. The sets were great, but certain parts were hard for me to MOC with, and they broke alot. Hero Factory's simple storyline has my fullest attention, mainly since they're episodic. I'm personally in love with the HF Ball-and-Socket system, the stronger sockets that don't break makes MOCing with fun for me (instead of a chore of looking for a certain piece which isn't broken and unusable), and HF don't have many specialized parts, which makes using the parts simpler.

I find comparing the two lines rather pointless for they both have their ups and downs and both appeal to different people, but since you asked I will provide my answer.

I'd say that as of the time being, Bionicle wins over Hero Factory in most aspects. Bionicle had a complex and thrilling story where everything was connected as part of one major event, with a rich cast of characters and locales. The stories could sometimes be very dark, which is something that its replacement cannot do. Hero Factory is a more lighthearted series, where most of the stories within are not connected and are seemingly random. Characters are not expanded on as much and the plot is kept very simple. In a sense this is a good thing, as some of us (not me) were fed up with how the Bionicle story went on and on without taking breaks from the main story. Bionicle was one massive story, where Hero Factory is a collection of different adventures of the heroes that do not all relate to each other.

The building systems for the two series are very different as well. Bionicle, being the senior, used more complex designs with more pieces and smaller parts. Originally gears were implanted in the figures to give them movement features. True, initially the sets had limited articulation (but they looked very nice) but as the series progressed the builds became stronger and more articulated, more like normal action figures. Most armor pieces and tools were attached via pins and axles, making there endless possibilities for building, but at the same time limited ideas. Hero Factory utilizes a much more simple system relying on ball joint pieces. The system is much simpler and makes building easier. There are more ways to build with this system, as you can connect just about anything anywhere. Both allow much creative freedom, but the new Hero Factory system takes the cake with its more simple, stable, and adaptable form.

I don't like comparing the two, as stated in the very beginning, but if I were to choose I would instinctively say Bionicle. Bionicle appealed to me because I liked the idea of one huge story where multiple worlds are connected into one major occurrence, but also because Bionicle was an important part of my childhood and growing up. Bionicle always had a moral to the story, and that did teach me about character (to some degree anyways). As much as I like the newer Hero Factory sets, I don't think that the line is good enough to beat its predecessor.

I gotta go Bionicle. I tried some of the HF sets but they just can't compete with the fun I had building the larger Bionicle sets. Furthermore HF sets just don't look nearly as nice on display as the bulk of the later Bionicle material.

Oh look, another 'which is better' thread!

I like both equally.