Lego K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza (77052) review: "You are likely to be disappointed"

It feels fair to assume that K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza, as the biggest and most expensive set in the Lego Animal Crossing line set far, would be the most interesting or perhaps most complicated set of the bunch. But If you are looking for something novel as opposed to something significant in terms of scale, you are likely to be disappointed. This is not one of the best Lego sets, sadly - though it does have redeeming qualities.

Features

• Biggest kit in the series yet
• Comes with K.K. minifigure
• The town hall building is iconic

While technically the centerpiece of the Lego Animal Crossing sets, there's an odd assortment of accessories in K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza. There's the town hall building and some minimal furniture for the inside like the ATM, a small, surprisingly complex cafe stall, a concert setup, the notice board, and K.K.'s traveling van. The set also comes with three minifigures, K.K., Isabelle, and Audie. It's not a bad amount of stuff by any means, but it's a somewhat odd combination.

Build

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• Less than 3 hours to build
• Fairly straightforward though big in scale
• One or two complicated modules

The most complex bit in K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza might, at first blush, seem like the town hall building – and it does admittedly have a fair amount of LEGO bricks in it. But if you've built one building, especially from the Animal Crossing line, you've essentially built them all, and the town hall is no exception. In reality, the most captivating part of this set is actually K.K.'s travelling van.

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Product shots of the van might be a bit deceptive as it's quite complex – more than I certainly expected. There are a lot of little parts that go into making the whole, and in a different universe I wouldn't have balked at seeing the van as its own, slightly cheaper set instead of part of the larger K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza one here. The back opens up to reveal little touches like a little spot for K.K. to leave a drink or the functional storage area on top, and generally there's actually an overall sense that it might have been even better if the van had been larger in the grand scheme of things.

Design

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• Just as modular as the other Animal Crossing sets
• Clearly meant to be the centerpiece
• Not as complicated as it looks

Of all the Lego Animal Crossing sets that I've reviewed so far, K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza is the one that feels most like it is let down by design. It's by no means a bad set, but for being the biggest, most expensive set, it's actually somewhat minimalist. While it has 550 pieces in total, a huge number of those are part of the building or K.K.'s van.

Compared to, say, the Lego Nook's Cranny & Rosie's House set, there is a surprising lack of details. All the buildings in the aforementioned set have involved insides and complex roofs, and both are shockingly simplistic in K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza. The little cafe modular piece with its tiny pastries and tea and stall is quite charming, but it is hard to beat the feeling of having K.K. at all looms large over the rest of the set and is meant to be a significant amount of its value.

Should you buy Lego K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza?

At this point, if you're building more than one set from the Lego Animal Crossing line, you're going to want to have this one despite my caveats. The whole line is designed with the idea of customizing a series of modular builds to build the "island" that you want to have, and what's an Animal Crossing island without the town hall and plaza?

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Lego K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza

This set was built over the course of a single, 2.5-hour session. We made it a priority to directly compare it to other builds from the same line as we went and explicitly combine with other sets to see how it meshed.

For more on our process, see our 'how we test' guide.