2026 may as well be named the year of Pokémon when it comes to the world of LEGO, what with a trio of adult-sized sets releasing back in late February and plenty more to arrive later in August. I’ve been lucky enough to go hands-on with the company’s latest and most ambitious venture yet, its SMART Brick. We’ve seen them in action with the Star Wars brand already, but later this summer, builders will get a further dozen, these revolving around Pokémon.
While I won’t be reviewing every single one of these new sets, I will be focusing on perhaps the most important pairing, both of which include at least one SMART Brick.
Let’s start with the smaller and cheaper of the two sets, focused on the series’ mascot – Pikachu. The SMART Play: Training House with Pikachu comes in at 400 pieces on the nose, costs £59.99 and includes one SMART Brick, four SMART Tags, and one SMART Charger alongside this.
Now, first things first, what exactly is a SMART Brick? They’re essentially a 2×4 piece capable of reacting to movement and scannable tags. What this means is that when you plug it into any set utilising SMART Tags, it’ll make noises or flashlights based on the things you do. When it comes to Pokémon that includes a range of familiar actions, including battling and capturing.
With all 400 pieces put together, you’ll wind up with a small Pikachu, a treehouse, a Poké Ball and a sandwich. From an atheistic perspective, I think it all looks pretty great considering it’s done with only 400 pieces. Pikachu looks pretty spot on (flat face aside), as does the mini Poké Ball, while the treehouse has plenty of cute details that stretch beyond just its interior. Inside features two floors, the top displaying a kitchen set that disappears at the twist of a dial to reveal a bed for Pikachu. On the left and right of the treehouse, meanwhile, you’ll find a little grassy area and a training dummy.
So, how exactly does the SMART aspect come into play, you may be asking? Well, by taking out the pieces that make up Pikachu’s tummy area, you can switch this in with a SMART brick. In doing so, it will pick up on Pikachu’s Tag and essentially bring him to life by giving him a gentle shake. On his own, Pikachu will make some cute sounds, but it’s when engaging him with some of the other builds in the set that the true potential of the SMART Brick reveals itself.
The set impressively manages to take you through the all too familiar process of capturing and training a Pokémon, your first act to place the yellow creature behind the tall grass and throw your mini Pokéball at a target in front. Successfully doing so will trigger a sound effect indicating you’ve captured the Pikachu in the wild (very neat). With your new pal captured, you can then take him over to the training dummy, where you can wiggle him to attack. Doing so will improve his stats and level him up, supposedly (again, another call-back to the game series). The sandwich, meanwhile, can also be fed to Pikachu while lying him down on his bed and leaving him alone will send him snoring.
As an adult, watching this all play out seems technically impressive, but in the hands of my seven- and four-year-olds, to them it’s magic, as they marvelled at Pikachu reacting to their movements and looking to one-up each other at throwing the Pokéball at the target. Of course, there being only one SMART Brick and one Pokémon to play with led to countless arguments over who got to have a go next, a frustrating occurrence to referee but a good indication of how much fun they were having.
Perhaps better suited for the pair, then, was the SMART Play: Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle set, which came with not only the two titular Pokémon but also two SMART Bricks. Costing £109.99 and coming in 751 pieces, this set is similar to the Pikachu set in that it comes with a charger, a potion and some scenery-based builds, in this case a rocky pillar with spinning targets positioned on arms either side. Much like Pikachu’s practice dummy, this pillar adds a nice physical element to the set, my kids having a blast knocking both targets back and forth with their Pokémon.
What they especially loved, though, was battling the Pokémon, waving them in the air toward each other, accompanied by sound effects and lights. Each Pokémon is able to perform three different actions: a quick attack by making a sharp forward movement, a dodge by moving the Pokémon away from their opponent and lastly a charged attack, performed by waggling your Pokémon at a distance and then moving it inward for a large-scale hit. In action, it’s all just a flurry of waving and flapping, but for my kids, it’s exactly what they tend to do with cars and such, only now they have the feedback courtesy of the SMART Brick. In fact, the brick will even change its light colour, indicating the health of your Pokémon, a statistic that can be replenished when holding the potion up close to them.
Stepping aside from the cool technology for a moment, the actual design and build of the Charizard and Jolteon are top-notch, the former a perfect miniaturisation of the larger Blastoise, Venusaur and Charizard set that released earlier this year. Jolteon, too, looks the part, and both come in at a rather decent size. In fact, as a Pokémon fan, it’s left me excited to see LEGO’s takes on pretty much any of the over 1,000 Pokémon out there.
I will say both sets are on the pricier side, which I do understand since they come with the SMART Bricks included, but it’s worth bearing this in mind if you are someone who simply wants to build and is not really interested in the whole interactable aspect of the sets. You may be better off looking at some of the other ten non-SMART brick included sets. If, however, like me, you have younger children who love the Pokémon series, then they will absolutely love these sets. Already, they’ve been searching online for what other Pokémon will come next, sending my wallet into meltdown mode. Best of all, they will all work with the same SMART Brick, giving each upcoming set a sort of surprise as to how the brick will bring them to life.
Another thing I wanted to raise is the sound effects. Unfortunately, from what I could tell, these aren’t the official cries seen in the TV show or even the older video games and instead use original sounds. For Pokémon fans, that will come as a huge blow, especially since the noises are already out there in the wild, ready to use. Okay, I’m a 38-year-old man, so perhaps I’m not the target audience, and my kids didn’t seem to mind, but maybe an update down the line could switch in the current sounds with better ones.
The first two LEGO SMART Brick Pokémon sets are a great demonstration of the company’s new and exciting technology, and sitting down with my kids, swooping Charizard and sparring with Pikachu have left me impressed. They are definitely getting more from the interactable aspects of the sets, but as an admirer of the builds themselves, this does feel like the next step forward when it comes to playing with LEGO.
Review Copy Provided by The LEGO Group
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