Lego Fly with Dodo Airlines (77051) review: "A surprisingly good kit which provides maximum brick for buck"

The Lego Fly With Dodo Airlines set is a bit of an oddity. It's an important location in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and could be even bigger than the set actually has ended up being. My very first impression was surprise at just how few bricks actually go into this one, and it does work – even if it's not exactly as significant as I might have liked it.

Lego Fly with Dodo Airlines features

• A lot of complexity for few bricks
• Shockingly cute plane
• Compact little airport with details

As the name implies, the Flying With Dodo Airlines Lego set includes the Dodo Airlines building, dock, plane, and a bunch of associated accessories like little lifebuoys to a surprisingly involved potted plant to a simple tower control and ticket counter. The flag on the dock includes a bunch of extra pieces of the box in order to customize it as you see fit, which is a nice touch.

In terms of minifigures, this one comes with Wilbur and Tangy. While it makes sense to include the pilot and a potential passenger in the set, it's unfortunate to not also include Orville, the other dodo that traditionally is the one to run the ticket counter at Dodo Airlines.

Build

• Shockingly small number of pieces
• Lots of fine pieces
• No complicated, fiddly bits

The entire set is a relatively easy build, taking only 1.5 hours for me, start to finish. In fact, the most complicated part of putting Fly With Dodo Airlines together is actually only encountered if you try to get creative with the airport's flag. There are multiple possible options for what to add to that in order to get a finished product, leaning on the customization inherent to such items in the modern Animal Crossing games. If you follow the basic instructions, it's easy enough, but the moment you diverge off the beaten path, so to speak, is when it gets a bit hairy thanks to the large amount of small pieces involved. If you like to get creative, this won't be one of the best Lego sets.

Design

• Small footprint, big impact
• Customizable flag
• A scale that works

While the dock and building are technically a larger overall build, the real star of the Fly with Dodo Airlines Lego set is obviously the plane itself. Because of the scale, it's not particularly big, but it's simple to build and serves its purpose admirably. It's not going to blow anyone away, but it perfectly fits the vibe of the various Animal Crossing sets.

It's also pretty clearly meant to serve as the highlight of the set. The rest of Fly with Dodo Airlines is a simplified version of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons', well, Dodo Airlines. It'll be immediately recognizable to anyone that has played the popular video game, and its function is certainly clear even to those that lack that familiarity: it's a small dockside airport complete with ticketing counter.

If there is one unfortunate aspect to the Flying With Dodo Airlines Lego set, it's that the very nature of it somewhat calls for a small island or two. Given the entire point of Dodo Airlines in the video game is to travel to different islands, owned by other players and not, it would have made sense to include some small amount of additional setting beyond the airline building and plane. The Lego Kapp'n's Island Boat Tour kit could have just been Kapp'n and his boat and dock, but it actually includes a whole beachside scenario that isn't exactly replicated for Dodo Airlines.

Should you buy Lego Fly with Dodo Airlines?

This might not be anyone's first choice when looking at the Animal Crossing range as a whole, and that's a shame; it's a surprisingly good kit which provides maximum brick for buck. If you want a good addition to your existing collection, Lego Fly with Dodo Airlines comes highly recommended.

For those of you who may only buy one Animal Crossing kit, though, I'd recommend looking at Lego Isabelle's House Visit instead.

Ratings

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How we tested Lego Fly with Dodo Airlines

This set was built over the course of a single session and took around 1.5 hours to complete. That was with some distractions in the middle, so it would take a dedicated builder a slightly shorter amount of time. Additionally, the set was directly compared to other single sets in the same line as well as a whole as part of the line in total.

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