This arrived in a big crate (along with the ship)... I thought it was oversized. I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened it. This box is not big. It is HUGE. A monster of 58 * 50 * 25 (W*H*D) cm.

As usual, it was all messed up (easily seen on the photos). These huge boxes don't really fare well. Being empty never helps.

I really must note this:

"Parents"? What parents? I thought to call mine, before starting, but I figured that would just prove I'm nuts, right?

What a silly thoughtless "warning". Hades, if you must put that "warning" there, just say "time needed for assembly" - doesn't matter is it's the owner, the parents, an older sibling, a grandparent or a visitor from Mars.

But worse to come... Opening the box - emptyish - there's these humonguos hunks of plastic.. Gah. WHERE are those gonna fit!? Do they even consider that? I do think we could probably fit two of these in here. Or the whole theme, minus boxes (see the end of this review regarding this issue).

Ah, but still worse to come. Hard to believe, I know. I picked up the largest piece.. turned it around. Nice color, light stone.

What the Tartarus!? It's all stained blue.

Several parts are all smudged. I do not expect a brand new set to need extensive cleaning. Look at this mess!

(and these are examples, not gonna include pics of all the fracking smudges!)

And the box itself is all messed up too:

What's with that?! Ah, there's a weird blue bag. Yes, that's it. I figured it was the darn blinky-winky in there.

I would love to know if others had the same problem with the stupid blue bag. Did yours have a stupid blue bag?

If the parts were properly packed, this would not happen. Having a box in an appropriate size would also help.

Also, if you're gonna just put stuff in a huge crate to jumble together for gods know how long, please choose stuff that doesn't "bleed" color all over. Is that a lot to fracking ask?

(can you tell I am furious with this?)

My first thought was regret - this set was on and off the buy list so many times. I mean, it was expensive as Hades, and HUGE. And... hard to use, since it is system WHY, and so hard to fix. But it was kinda different from anything else. And it did look beautiful (if limited).

Besides, figured that with a whole bunch of Rockies (oh, Rockies, how I miss thee..) and vegetation it should be possible to make a really nice structure.

Anyway, I solved the issue by putting it aside for later (got this months and months and months ago). I completely lost the will to mess with it. I bagged the stupid blue bag so it didn't cause further damage and just forgot about it. Along with the ship (and sometime later, Eret).

Through the months I looked at it, on occasion. And then remembered the mess. And found something else to do.

Finally, decided to do it this time..

123... 7

Queen Tahra, April 2018