I became a father last year. We received a few gifts at the birth, including LEGO Duplo. At the moment, he mostly enjoys throwing the Duplo around. But I thought it would be fun to build some things for him. Eventually, I started delving a bit deeper into LEGO and decided to just buy a set right away that looked really cool to me. It was the 72195 Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise.
At first, it took some getting used to because I had never done this before, but all in all, I really enjoyed it. There are some nice effects hidden in the 3 Pokémon. As a downside, I do have to say that the "base" already takes up a very large portion of the LEGO. I think with the Charizard, it's even half. By the way, I think the "base" is really nicely finished, although the water at Blastoise is the weakest. I found the build of Blastoise to be the most surprising build, and it had the most fun building methods.
It also looks very nice in my office now as a display. But I don't know if it will stay that way for long. I bought the box second-hand for €550 (including the Kanto badges), and I think that is quite a hefty sum to have sitting on the shelf "just like that." I must say that I have become very enthusiastic and have since bought the Mario Kart set as well.
One thing I was still wondering about, though. Sometimes you see that you have to place two exactly identical LEGO bricks next to each other. For example, a 2x1. I don't quite understand why they don't just use one 2x2. Is that simply to fit more bricks in a set? Or does this actually have a function in terms of weight/force distribution?