LEGO 72152 Pikachu Review Roundup: A 2,050-Piece Build With a Face Problem Reviewers Can't Get Past

Three independent reviews. One shared verdict.

LEGO 72152 Pikachu and Poke Ball was the consumer-facing hero of the Pokemon Day 2026 wave — the $199.99 middle-tier set that most fans were actually going to buy. Eevee at $59.99 is the gift-shop impulse. The Kanto trio at $649.99 is the investment piece. Pikachu is the one that was supposed to land in living rooms.

The build itself is a competent six-hour project across 16 numbered bags. Wargamer's reviewer specifically praised the pacing and phase-based structure: the build stays varied and engaging through the full run. No reviewer disputed the assembly experience. Where the reviews diverge from LEGO's marketing is in the final product — specifically, the face.

Three separate publications, writing at three different times between February 8 and March 14, arrived at a near-identical critique. Something about Pikachu's face — the eyes, the proportions, a jutting section around the cheeks — reads wrong to most viewers. The Reddit thread that Game Rant cited pulled over 7,300 upvotes on the same complaint, with the top comment calling the face the "major problem" and several users saying old Mega Bloks Pikachu figures from 20 years ago look closer to the source character.

What each reviewer actually said

Wargamer's March 12 review is the most generous of the three. The writer gave it 7/10 and defended the build journey, saying "a truly fun build process that stays varied and engaging." They conceded Pikachu looks better in person than in the LEGO promo images, which they called "jarring." Their most pointed criticism was structural: the finished model is unsteady without its display stand, partly because the feet are undersized relative to the body weight. They also flagged a "strange section jutting out more than the rest of it" on the face — the same quirk everyone else zeroed in on.

Game Rant's February 8 piece was less charitable. Framed as a post-reveal reality check, it aggregated the negative fan reaction and built the headline around it: the set looks "disappointing in person." The article leaned hard on the Mega Bloks comparison, and its sharpest line was that the face "looked worse than the Mega Bloks versions of Pikachu." The lightning-bolt base got credited as a redeeming feature, but the reviewer was clear: the base is not enough to carry the set.

Nintendo Life's February 12 video review roundup aggregated reactions from creators including Tiago Catarino, and the consensus was harsh. "That Pikachu is not pleasant to look at" was the line the writeup led with. Reviewers said they would rather a larger model with trainer minifigs — a format LEGO has explicitly not offered in this wave. The Mini Pokemon Center Insiders reward is the closest thing to a minifig-scale product in the launch lineup.

The structural complaints reviewers kept landing on

Consolidated across the three reviews, the critique stacks up cleanly. Pikachu's face has a jutting section near the cheeks that reviewers find off-putting. The eyes and nose proportions are called out by multiple sources. The model wobbles without its display stand. The feet are undersized. The price — $199.99 for 2,050 pieces — is treated as steep given the aesthetic problems, with reviewers repeatedly pointing at the $59.99 Eevee as the better value in the same wave.

The consistent bright spot is the lightning-rod base. The black bolt-shaped stand with energy lines trailing up into the Poke Ball gets credit in every review. It's also the only part of the set that is unambiguously new-to-LEGO in construction vocabulary — the Pikachu figure itself lands close enough to fan-made MOCs that the comparison is doing LEGO no favors.

Two things worth noting as counterweights. First, the set is still selling. Sellout data isn't as dramatic as the Kanto trio (72153 cleared pre-orders in under 24 hours) but Pokemon Day demand has moved 72152 through retail channels at pace. Second, LEGO's design brief for Pikachu is harder than the Kanto trio's. Pikachu has a specific, iconic face every Pokemon fan has memorized since 1996. The Kanto starters have more design latitude because they appear less often in their 2D stylized form.

What the cards actually say — and what the cheaper set does right

Below are the bricQ canonical cards for both 72152 Pikachu and 72151 Eevee — the two sets reviewers keep comparing. Piece counts, theme metadata and image are all pulled live from the Rebrickable mirror.

Eevee keeps winning the value comparison because LEGO's constraint was lighter on it. Eevee has no universally-fixed silhouette the way Pikachu does. The 587-piece build reads as a friendly Pokemon without triggering the uncanny-valley response Pikachu does. If you are buying one Pokemon LEGO set in 2026 based on critical reception alone, Eevee is the consensus pick.

Where this leaves the wave

The Pikachu reception is not fatal for LEGO's Pokemon line. The Kanto flagship sold out in a day, Eevee is reviewing well as the value pick, and the August 2026 summer wave — rumored to include Rayquaza, Mewtwo, Munchlax, Arcanine and a bigger Poke Ball with Smart Brick interactivity — has a full calendar quarter to address the face-design critique before launch.

What the Pikachu reviews do establish is a baseline expectation: Pokemon LEGO is going to be reviewed on more than piece count and price. The face matters. The silhouette matters. The details that longtime Pokemon fans pattern-match against from the games, the show, and the card art are the scoring criteria now, and LEGO's design team will need to clear that bar if the line is going to keep the press Kanto got in January.

Until then, $199.99 for Pikachu is a price most reviewers think buyers should probably spend on Eevee at $59.99 and a secondary-market Mega Bloks Pikachu instead.