Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit review

Honestly, there are few other Lego ranges as joyful as the Animal Crossing range, a crossover between Lego and Nintendo.

If you’re familiar with the Animal Crossing games, the most recent of which being Animal Crossing: New Horizons, available on Nintendo Switch, you’ll get a kick out of seeing its familiar creatures and characters in minifigure form. But even if you’ve never played this cosy little life sim, it doesn’t matter — there’s a lot to love purely from the view of a Lego constructor.

While the Animal Crossing range currently varies in price from £12.99 to £69.99, Isabelle’s House Visit is firmly in the middle, costing £34.99. It’s a very reasonable offering for its price range, allowing builders to create Fauna’s house, complete with a full interior and plenty of accessories. Yes, despite the name of the set, it’s actually Fauna‘s house, and Isabelle is just visiting.

Let’s have a look at it in more detail, shall we?

Lego Animal Crossing 77049 Isabelle’s House Visit review

• RRP: £34.99
• Number of pieces: 389
• Release date: March 2024
• Age rating: 6+
• Time to build: ~60 minutes

Buy Isabelle’s House Visit on Lego.com

Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit review: What’s in the box?

The pieces of Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit are split across six bags. In them, you’ll find everything you need to build Fauna’s house, plenty of outdoor space and two minifigures: Isabelle and Fauna. You’ll be relieved to know there are no stickers here!

The pieces are in plastic bags this time around, despite some of the Lego Animal Crossing sets having paper bags. Lego is slowly phasing out plastic bags, so some are still popping up. It will be a while yet until all sets have paper bags.

There’s one instruction book, which is suitably thick and well-printed on good quality paper. Disappointingly there’s no introduction or information about Animal Crossing: it’s straight to business. There are, however, these lovely pages with big prints of the minifigures on them.

Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit review: The build

I’ve absolutely loved every moment building Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit. Since this is a set aimed at children aged 6 and above, it’s a very simple build, with easy-to-follow instructions and very basic steps that only involve one or two pieces. But if you’re a grown-up with a love for Animal Crossing (like me!) you shouldn’t let the age rating put you off.

It takes around 60 minutes to build Isabelle’s House Visit, give or take. Expect longer for children, of course, or anyone not as familiar with the process of Lego building. But this is a great set to start with if you are new to Lego, because it’s very user-friendly.

The bag-by-bag process of building Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit, in pictures:

Image: ThatBrickSite

Image: ThatBrickSite

Image: ThatBrickSite

Image: ThatBrickSite

Image: ThatBrickSite

Over the six bags, the build is very methodical. You’ll start by putting together Isabelle and some outdoor accessories. Next up is building the basic structure of the house, including walls, a door frame and some window frames.Following that, you’ll add the roof structure, followed by the roof itself.

There’s a nice building technique here, with the roof being built in one solid piece that then sits in place on sloped tiles. The roof is layered up with orange flat tiles, that give a wonderful, cartoony impression of actual roof tiles. It looks wonderful — as does the chimney complete with its plume of smoke.

I should also add that Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit is designed to be customisable in a couple of key ways. It comes with two sets of windows, for example: rounded blue frames, and square brown frames. You can easily swap them out at will.

The interior of Fauna’s house is also designed to be decorated however you’d like. There’s a bed, a clock, a table, a plant, a cooker and a sink that can be arranged in the way you see fit. It’s just a shame there’s not a great deal of space, so you’re rather limited on letting your inner Laurence Llewelyn Bowen flow freely.

The interior accessories are lovely, though. I particularly love the patchwork quilt on the bed.

Play or display?

It feels almost criminal to not play with Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit. The Animal Crossing sets as a whole have very much designed to be cherished and played with, and the way they can be customised really feeds into that.

Each set also has a modular element to it in the way they’re built. The “garden” of Isabelle’s House Visit is arranged over large green plates. They can be arranged exactly how the instructions say, or you can take them apart to create your own layout. If you have multiple Animal Crossing sets, you can mix-and-match across all sets to create your own perfect little village.

It’s because of that modular element that I think the Animal Crossing sets as a whole, not just Isabelle’s House Visit, are perfect for display too. Sure, it would be a shame if they didn’t get played with, but they look fantastic. Colourful, cute and joyous, they’re just so lovely to look at. I for one am looking forward to having a complete Animal Crossing village on my shelf one day.

Value for money?

At £34.99 (or $39.99 in the USA), I think Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit is great value for money. With 389 pieces, it sits right in the typical 10p-per-piece rule we often see for Lego. But considering this is a Nintendo brand, it’s very reasonable. You’re getting a whole house, lots of customisable elements, plenty of interior decorations and two minifigures for that price, and I couldn’t really expect anything more.

It’s also worth noting that the Animal Crossing sets are often currently on offer — there’s currently 30% off Isabelle’s House Visit on Amazon UK at the moment. For £24.99, there really is no question that this set is worth every penny.

Should you buy Lego Animal Crossing Isabelle’s House Visit?

Yes, you absolutely should buy Isabelle’s House Visit! It’s a must-buy if you’re an Animal Crossing fan: it captures the magic (and cuteness) of the game perfectly. But even if you’re unfamiliar, there’s still a lot to love. Simply as a fun little house, this is a lovely build — and the minifigures with their moulded heads are simply delightful.

The Lego Animal Crossing range is designed to complement each other, so if you have more sets, Isabelle’s House Visit will fit in perfectly. But even if you have none, this set works just as well by itself. Just be warned: you will want to buy more of them.