Review: LEGO 75973 D.va and Reinhardt

December 17, 2018 | 7

Two months ago, LEGO officially unveiled a brand new theme for 2019 – LEGO Overwatch, which caught many LEGO fans and industry observers by surprise. It was quite a bold move by LEGO, to produce sets from the online first-person shooter game, especially since LEGO rarely dabbles in video game licenses.

For the unaware, Overwatch is a game from Blizzard Entertainment (creators of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo) which burst on the scene 2 years ago and quickly rose in popularity. The game can be simply described as a 6 on 6 arena shooter, where players can select from a diverse roster of characters called “heroes”, who each have different abilities and playstyles.

Think of Overwatch as a first-person shooter version of Dota2 or League of Legends. While the game isn’t as massive as it was back in 2016, overshadowed by newer entries such as Fortnite, the community is still pretty massive, active, supported by a relatively decent e-sports scene, and an even bigger cosplay & fan art scene.

I received the opportunity to review the entire Overwatch theme from LEGO, so to kick things off, I’m taking a look at LEGO 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt, a medium-sized set from the theme. Why? Because it has 2 mechs and I’m a sucker for LEGO Mecha.

Name: D.Va & Reinhardt
Set Number: 75973
Pieces: 455
Price: AU$59.99 | US$39.99 | £34.99 – Buy from LEGO.com [AUS] [USA] [UK] [Amazon]
Exclusive to: N/A
Theme: Overwatch
Release Date: 1 January 2019

The first thing that struck me about the new Overwatch sets are is the gorgeous box art. LEGO have gone outside their normal design conventions and introduced a bit more interesting box designs, with the two characters featured prominently on the box spine.

On the back, instead of regular shots of the set in action, we get an alternate illustration of the sets, with the names of D.Va and Reinhardt across their respective mechs, which is nice for those of you who aren’t familiar with the characters.

When I played Overwatch, I mostly played for the gameplay and competitive nature of the game. While the game did feature a very large and colourful cast of characters, each with their own traits, lore and unique personalities, I never really got into that side of the game.

The story is a little lose, basically, a bunch of robots called Omnics, driven by Artificial Intelligence started to turn on humanity. The Overwatch was then formed to fight them off, which they did. And then they all decided to fight each other in battle arenas. That’s the Overwatch lore in 3 sentences.

As there is no single player campaign, or story-mode in the game, the Overwatch community has traditionally relied on vehicles such as comic books, articles and of course Animated Shorts that Blizzard periodically releases. If you know anything about Blizzard, they are the absolute kings of CG animated shorts and trailers.

If you’d like to get acquainted with D.va and Reinhardt, I recommend watching Shooting Star and Honour and Glory, respectively. The latter is a fantastic short and even if you don’t know much about the game, it’s a really well-made cinematic short.

Let’s jump into the characters of the set, both of whom are exclusive to this set. We get the combo of D.Va and Reinhardt minifigs, both of whom pilot mechs in the game, which explains why they both got paired up in this set.

We begin with Reinhardt, a grizzled German war veteran who was part of the Crusaders, a modern order of Knights which pilot bulky armoured mechs, complete with turbo thrusters and giant weapons to fight off the Omnics.

Reinhardt’s minifig is a decent rendition of his character. His battle-scarred face is captured well, but his beard doesn’t look all that accurate. He mostly looks like an old man, and because his beard is printed on his face, it lacks the volume that matches his in-game character’s.

His white hairpiece is really nice and is the second time its being made available outside of a Star Wars The Last Jedi character. The printing on his torso is great, with the segmented armour, but sadly, he has no arm or leg printing which is a huge waste.

For an alternate face, he has a visor up and here, you can also see his back printing, which has a mini thruster engine at the back (cool) that allows him to dash forwards on the battlefield.

For an accessory, he comes with an Overwatch printed coin (nice), which is a reference to the Honour and Glory animated short.

The best thing about Reinhardt is his helm, which truly looks bad-ass. It looks very Sauron-inspired and is probably the closest thing we’ll get to Sauron’s helm. I love how well-designed the helm is and and it looks amazing from every angle.

The star and main attraction of this set is undoubtedly D.Va, the Korean professional gamer turned mech pilot. Due to the meta nature of her character as a pro gamer, and her “anime-look”, she’s one of the most popular Overwatch characters and is the subject of a million different cosplays.

In Korea, pro-gamers and e-sports champions are revered almost as much as physical sports stars (or even more so, when you count people like Faker or Jaedong of League of Legends and Starcraft fame), and as such, D.Va is considered a massive celebrity, with all sorts of endorsements and merchandise around her legendary status as a gamer and mech pilot.

Design-wise, LEGO have pretty much nailed her look. They’ve managed to get all the details about her blue and white mech-suit down pat, and it has all her signature features such as her Bunny Logo on her chest.

She also has an alternate face, which has her blowing a pink bubblegum, and here, you can also see her back printing which has her name on her back.

Her hairpiece is sublime, complete with her trademark headsets with bunny ears which Overwatch fans will go nuts for. She also has a pink Light Gun, which is a pistol-like weapon that she uses in-game.

Unfortunately, like Reinhardt, she doesn’t have arm printing which is a massive, massive wasted opportunity as her arms look so bare without any details on them. It’s such a waste as her character has fairly detailed arms. C’mon LEGO, it’s 2019, all premium licensed minifigs should exit the factory with arm printing.

On to the Mechs, which is where the fun begins. Reinhardt pilots a Powered Armour, which is essentially based on medieval knights and their massive pieces of armour.

Reinhardt’s mech is pretty average looking. It’s mostly grey and silver, and it has some nice features such as massive shoulderpads (which remind me of Warriors from The World of Warcraft with their exaggerated shoulders) but conceptually, it’s just a mecha-nized Knight.

As a mech, the proportions are decent – I think it’s a little too large based on Reinhardt’s actual scale, but can see why it would be challenging replicating that in minifig-form. Reinhardt occupies a space in the chest/head area, and he wields a massive Rocket Hammer, which is his signature weapon.

The Rocket Hammer, as the name suggests, has a massive rocket attached to the head, allowing him to take massive swings at the enemy, pummeling them into submission. The Rocket Hammer splits into two, to give Reinhardt a smaller, minifig-sized one.

Here’s a look at the back of Reinhardt’s powered armour, which also has a rocket strapped to his back. These Germans really love their rockets, as they’ve slapped it on all things Reinhardt.

Like his hammer, it allows him to propel himself across the battlefield.

One of the nicer features of Reinhardt’s mech is his left arm, which has a shield.

This is crucial to one of Reinhardt’s signature moves in-game, the Barrier Shield which creates a blue force-field to protect his teammates, allowing your team to set up strategically around it, or to protect a fellow hero under fire.

Despite the simple design, the mech is quite sturdy, at the cost of articulation on its legs, which are quite rigid and have limited range. 

D.Va’s mech, or MEKA as its called, which is an acronym for “Mobile Exoforce of the Korean Army” is the highlight of the set. First of all, it’s bright pink and its iconic rabbit-shape which is unlike any other LEGO Mech that has ever been sold at retail.

Fun fact: D.Va’s mech’s name is Tokki which is Korean for Rabbit.

This mech is a work of art, and I cannot commend the LEGO designers enough for how well they managed to translate’s D.Va’s MEKA into LEGO form. They’ve accurately captured the unique shape, which isn’t an easy feat given its unorthodox, top-heavy design, curves and beak-like “head”.

For weaponry, the MEKA has twin Fusion Cannons, which are mounted on small arms, represented by stud blasters.

From above, you can see all the decals from D.Va’s sponsors, which take inspiration from real-life e-sports teams that have sponsorships from big brands. All these sponsors are fictional, except for the Blizzard Entertainment sticker, which is a great nod to the game’s developers.

Seriously, the design team has done a remarkable job getting the look of the mech right.

In this photo, you can see that there’s a space within the mech’s head, where D.Va lies prone, to control the mech. The design technique that’s used to get the “beak” right is so damn satisfying.

Here’s a look at the back, which features a hatch you can open for D.Va to slide into the cockpit.

Unfortunately, there are no handles or joysticks for D.Va to grip like in the game, but that’s a small flaw in the grand scheme of things.

The legs look skinny, but they are surprisingly sturdy, and they have really good articulation to them, allowing you to swivel and position them in a variety of poses.

The curves of the mech are just beautiful, and fans of Japanese mecha are going to fall in love with this set, even if they know nothing about Overwatch.

I cannot stress enough how enjoyable this mech was to build and to pose.

To think that we get a mech of this quality in a retail LEGO set is reason enough for the entire existence of the Overwatch theme, and it’s not too big a statement to make that this is one of the best LEGO Mechs that I’ve had the pleasure of owning.

While this set mainly caters to fans of Overwatch, I think there’s enough substance in the builds to attract non-Overwatch LEGO Mecha fans.

Reinhardt is pretty stock-standard, however D.Va’s mech more than pulls her weight, elevating this set from good to great.

What I liked:

• Minifigures are mostly solid renditions of D.Va and Reinhardt
• Lots of new elements introduced such as Reinhardt’s helm, and D.Va’s hairpiece
• D.Va’s MEKA is simply outstanding in every way
• The set is priced very fairly for what you get

What I didn’t like: 

• Lack of arm printing on both minifigures is a disappointment
• Reinhardt’s mech is a little boring

Final thoughts: I think I picked a pretty good Overwatch set to start with, and my expectations were exceeded with this set. I was really looking forward to 75793 D.Va & Reinhardt for the mech-factor alone, and safe to say that this is one of the standout sets of the entire Overwatch theme.

D.Va’s mech is simply a joy to put together. The build was swift and fun, with a few really ingenious building techniques employed to achieve its unique shape, and it didn’t feel that repetitive.

The finished model is just a gorgeous piece of LEGO to look at, with the designers absolutely NAILING the curves and unique shape of Tokki. I can safely call this one of the best non-Voltron mechs that LEGO have ever designed, and is more than worth the admission price alone.

Reinhardt’s powered armour is just decent. Probably overshadowed by just how good D.Va’s mech looks, but it really doesn’t do much to innovate and is a really safe mech design.

That said, the designers didn’t have a lot to work with in term of the subject matter, so you can’t really blame them.

For Overwatch fans who are also LEGO fans, being able to own a D.Va minifigure (and Reinhardt if you main him) is also another plus to this set.

While the Overwatch theme is primarily targeted at players of the game, I think there’s a lot here for non-Overwatch fans to enjoy. If you have younger kids, I think he or she will be delighted to have two mechs to play around with, as they both have very good articulation and pretty interesting minifigures.

If you’re an Overwatch fan, I would make this your first set to pickup as you’ll absolutely not regret it at all. It’s decently priced (US$30 and AU$60 respectively) and you’ll likely have these two mechs displayed for an extended period of time.

Rating: 4/5

LEGO Overwatch releases worldwide on 1 January and will be available on LEGO.com and most major toy stores.

Special thanks to LEGO for sending this set for early reviews. 

Thanks for reading this review! For the readers that are hardcore Overwatch fans, please forgive me if I made any mistakes. It’s been a year since I last played, and I haven’t really been keeping up with the game save when a new animated short or hero gets announced.

Hope you enjoyed reading the review! There’ll be many more Overwatch reviews to come soon, so keep an eye out and let me know in the comments if you’d like to read more!

Are you excited for the Overwatch sets, and this set specifically? Even if you aren’t an Overwatch fan, I’d love to hear your thoughts on D.Va & Reinhardt, and if this set will pique your interest.

Don’t forget, you can find many more reviews in the Jay’s Brick Blog Review Hub. To stay up to date on the latest posts, you can follow the Jay’s Brick Blog Facebook page or subscribe to receive email alerts for new posts! I also post behind the scenes content, and teasers on my Instagram page @jayong28, so give me a follow if you’d like to see more!

Until next time! I’ll leave you with my favourite shot I took over the weekend of D.Va and her MEKA.