The LEGO Mario Minifigure Sets Look Like a Much-Needed ‘Reset’ for the Mario Theme

LEGO has announced its first sets based around a new group of Mario minifigures , and they look pretty great. The company has just released pictures of the boxes these sets will come in, and, uh, I kind of want these sets just for the boxes?

The boxes are bright and bold and colorful, all decked out in the same red and blue shades that make Mario the recognizable mascot as he is. I mean, just look at this box for the Fire Mario & Bower’s Castle set. It’s perfect .

This new line of Mario sets is something of a reset ( ba-dum-tss ) for the LEGO Mario theme. Mario and LEGO have years of history together, including plenty of awesome Nintendo LEGO sets . But the overwhelming majority of the Mario sets belonged to a play-focused LEGO Super Mario theme .

These sets were based around a big (for LEGO), boxy, non-minifigure Mario that could “interact” with the environmental elements you built. That interaction was limited to sounds and music coming out of the Mario figure, along with simple animations that played on a tiny LED screen built into his chest.

I got to try out a handful of these sets when LEGO added a boxy Luigi figure to the mix. Let’s just say they didn’t wow me. They were clearly designed for young kids, but I had young kids at the time, and they didn’t want to play with the sets for more than a couple minutes, either.

Those Mario sets just weren’t very fun. And because they were designed for the weird boxy Mario figures to "interact" with, they didn't look very good, either.

Based on looks alone, that's all changing with these new Mario minifigure-based sets LEGO has just announced. They look much more fun. They’re still primarily intended for kids to play with them – just look at the suggested ages on the packaging; LEGO sets for adults they are not. But they're minifigure-scale, and they include plenty of "regular" interactive elements of the kind found on many LEGO sets. The main difference is that they don’t have the gimmicky interactivity of the boxy Mario. And I think that's going to make all the difference.

LEGO Super Mario: Mario's Beach Adventures

LEGO Super Mario: Fire Luigi vs. Koopa Troopa Battle

LEGO Super Mario: Luigi & Bowser Jr.'s Race

LEGO Super Mario: Yoshi at Mario's House

LEGO Super Mario: Bowser's Rumbling Race

LEGO Super Mario: Fire Mario & Bowser's Castle

In other words, they’re regular LEGO sets, just like the incredibly successful Star Wars and Harry Potter themes, but they're based on the wonderful world of the Mushroom Kingdom. That’s all LEGO needed to do to make Mario sets fun in the first place. And as for the minifigure versions of the Mario crew? They look great.

For the first time ever, I’m optimistic about the upcoming Mario LEGO sets for kids.

For more, check out our list of every upcoming LEGO set announced so far.

Chris Reed is a senior commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky .