Lego Pokémon Smart Play sets are the best kids toy of summer 2026
Overview & Key Takeaways
We played around with Lego's adorable Pokémon Smart Play sets and felt 8-years-old again.
When I was a kid growing up in the late '90s, I had more Pokémon toys than you could imagine. Stuffed animals, bouncy balls with plastic monsters inside, gold cards — you name it. I still have some of my favorites on my nightstand to this day: a series of wheeled monsters that you could shoot out of launchers. At the time, that was the coolest thing in the world. If I had Lego’s new Pokémon Smart Play sets back then, I’m pretty sure my mind would have been permanently blown.
Rolling out this weekend, the Smart Play series gives Pokémon fans a series of interactive Lego sets to toy around with. Building them is only half the appeal; you can also train, battle, feed, and even heal your monsters. It’s what I pretended to do with my plastic figurines as a kid, but the toys actually make the sound effects I would always provide myself. For a certain kind of young Pokéfanatic, it’s a dream toy set.
Ahead of their release date, we played around with various bits and pieces from the 12 sets launching on Aug. 1. There's a lot of variety across the sets, including a Pikachu-shaped house with a hidden bed, a Squirtle on a car that can shoot “water” discs, and a Mewtwo in a tank that opens up with the spin of a wheel. Your youngest can play around with some small, adorable Pikachu and Eevee or go up a level to build a Charizard with fully articulated wings. I was personally delighted by a blocky Bidoof.
The secret sauce is found in Smart Bricks. Each Pokémon becomes interactive when you slot a special brick into it. That can interact with other monsters’ Smart Bricks, as well as Smart Tags on objects. Slot a Smart Brick into Jolteon, and it will “talk” with the Squirtle next to it. Lay it down on a bed and it will start snoring. Put a burger next to it, and you’ll hear the sound of it chomping. Each set comes with its own smart objects that you can mix and match to create more interactions.
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Image: Nintendo
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Image: Nintendo
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Even more appealing, though, is that you can actually battle with them. When you shake two monsters next to one another, a battle theme will play. You can move them around to land hits as you mock-fight, and even shake a monster to charge up an attack. (If you shake it for too long, you’ll overcharge and end up dazed for a moment.) When one Pokémon’s HP reaches zero, the fight ends and a light appears on the winner. If you want to get an edge before the fight starts, you can put your monster near a training smart tag and pretend to whack away at a target to get an attack boost. And if you come out of a battle wounded, you can place a potion near your pal to restore their health.
It’s surprisingly involved, putting mini-RPG mechanics inside of Lego sets. Considering how much I used to pretend my toys were fighting when I was growing up, I have to imagine kids will get a kick out of it. I also imagine there will be a lot of waggling battles that get a little too intense and wind up with bricks flying off of monsters. I would be holding my breath if I saw my niece smashing an intricate Mewtwo into a Lapras with full articulating limbs. For parents who are worried about that, there are some more chill sets that are more about putting monsters to bed or playing with a berry dispenser.
Image: Polygon
It’s a smart move for Lego. Pokémon toys already have a built-in collect-’em-all appeal, and that’s all the more appealing considering that you’re livening up your old sets every time you add a new one to the mix. It’s the kind of thing I know I would have begged my parents for as a kid, totally naive to the fact that the most involved set costs $120. (They're available in a wide range of prices, thankfully, with smaller sets as low as $15.) My own toy collecting days might be behind me, but even I wouldn’t mind adding a talking Bidoof next to my old McDonald’s Rapidash.
