How LEGO Made the Perfect Knights' Kingdom Sequel 

This revisited series is always like Christmas coming early. I just booked myself a 45 minute meeting at work in order fit this in.

"Reload" "Reload" "Re...dammit, horseman, can you move a bit to the left?"

Vladek was pondering the orb before it was cool

I love that most people have the original Cloud City as a holy grail set, but you want an obscure Scala set, lol. Although I see why, there are some crazy pieces in that set

Something I noticed about wave 2 is that Sir Rascus' minifigure was always depicted with dark green hands, dark green hips and a dark green helmet as his accent color. Whether it be promotional pictures of the sets he appeared in, his minifigure form in the comic panels or even his own action figure, he had dark green hands. However his official figure always came with black hands instead which made him the odd one out compared to his fellow knights whose accent colors also featured darker colors (Jayko with dark blue hands, hips and helmet, Santis with dark tan hands, hips and helmet and Danju with dark bluish gray hands, hips and helmet). I don't know why Rascus was the only exception to the rule as he would've been the first minifigure with dark green hands but I assume it had something to do with quality issues. Regardless, dark green hands made their actual first appearance in 2013 with Legends of Chima. I swapped his hands with the correct color and the figure looks complete and consistent with the others now and I highly recommend this change to anyone.

Knight’s Kindgom and Orient Expedition were my “gateway drugs” into Lego as well. I regret not being able to get EVERY set from both, but I definitely remember having so much fun with the Castle of Morcia and Vladek’s Dark Fortress!

Growing up playing Runescape when I was 10 years old loving knights. When I saw Vladek's Dark Fortress in the store back in the day I immediately asked my mom and dad to buy this set. 100 Euro was a lot of money and I thought I might not be able to get the set, but I was surprised my parents agreed to buy it. It was my very first LEGO set I got and also started my LEGO journey into having more castle sets. I still remember the moment when I saw this set, because it meant so much to me. It made me the LEGO castle fan I am today.

Had a Knight’s Kingdom themed birthday party for my 6th or 7th birthday, We had the invites, and I think there was some other themed party stuff too. Core memory for sure!

I didn't know this theme existed until around 2012. My grandma found a box of Lego at a thrift store and saved it for my brother and I and it contained the original Gringotts Bank and Dueling club, about half a bionicle, and Vladek's Dark Fortress which I had never seen before. The instructions were included but the cover was missing, so we were building it at her kitchen table with no idea what it would look like when it was complete. This was one of the last times we visited her house before she passed, so it holds a ton of nostalgia for me. So cool to see it appreciated in a modern review video!

I grew up in the 2010’s with themes like superheroes, City, Ninjago and Nexo Knights and I’ve always found these older original themes I missed out on fascinating to watch in your videos, partially tempted to try and buy some of these sets you review here

I missed out on so many sets during this era as I was going through a "I only like action figure" phase as I entered highschool. I did collect the figures and I was a big fan of Bionicle but wow the build sets here are amazing

Knights Kingdom II is one of the most nostalgic Lego themes for me! I had a couple sets, every single action figure from all the waves and even the board game. I distinctly remember going to Legoland as a kid and getting foam swords and helmet to fight my friends (who’s family was also at legoland with us) on the big castle, with the dragon ride.

CASTLE BEST THEME 🎉🎉🎉

This was my favorite theme growing up. Thanks for allowing me to relive some good childhood memories 👍😊

I got a couple of the Knight's Kingdom sets for Christmas back in the day. In recent years, I've worked on expanding the number of characters in both factions. After getting one of the Fantasy Era sets, I decided to make the knights from that theme the foot soldiers for the kingdom of Morica who assist the four main knights in their missions (it helps that the kingdoms' colors of both themes are blue and gold.) I also made wives for the two rulers. Queen Mathias wears the blue dress from the Fantasy Era Queen while Lady Vladek is clad in the robes of the Evil Wizard from whatever minifigure series he's from.

I absolutely love these videos, it is really interesting to see a closer look at some older lego themes that I never got to experience and learn about all of the niche pieces and facts about them

I absolutely love these sets and I think you did them justice. I do a lot of moc building and you have just made me want to do a knights kingdom moc so badly. Can’t wait for wave 3!

Your excitement for this series is so amazing to see. I really loved these sets, especially Vladek's fortress, which still holds the record for the longest time I've had a set without taking it apart. Glad you can enjoy it now as well!

Your channel always throws my brain into blissful nostalgia. Thank you for doing these videos. It really just brings me back. I didn't get many Lego sets but I had the Lego magazine and seeing all these sets made me want them so badly. It's cool to see them "in person"

Gosh, I absolutely ADORED that! Knights Kingdom has a really special place in my heart. I discovered it long after it had discontinued when I was little, and it was through bits and pieces of second hand Lego I got from multiple different people, most of the sets being incomplete. It always stuck out as a bit of an oddity to me for some reason, probably because I’d never heard of it and it felt like this strange elusive theme, but it had such a distinct feel and it’s become so nostalgic to me. There’s something about it that I can’t quite explain, but I just love it! You did a phenomenal job revisiting it, and I love hearing the excitement in your voice due to the nostalgia you have for this theme, it’s so wholesome. And along with the cozy and nostalgic feel of your videos it just makes for such an enjoy experience overall! As always, I love the work you do man. You’re a real gem in the community 🙌🏽🧡

I can’t wait for the Lego Castle troll sets to be reviewed. Such nostalgia

The impressive thing is, despite me not liking the Knights Kingdom era, I was still very interested in watching this video and found it quite enjoyable. That's the power of Cheesey: even if you don't love the theme, he still makes the video engaging and interesting. Thats the mark of a great YT creator. P.S. I think I need to cop that Vladek Fortress now...

And again we got an amazing video! Thank you for these! This was my childhood as well, great stuff!

I actually just picked up wave 1 and 2 fully of Knights' Kingdom II and I'm so glad to see you talk about them here as well

Love the reviews. The blasts from the past are so sweet!

These sets were also THE wave of my childhood- totally legendary! Thanks as always for the exemplary walk down memory lane

Ugh, this is wonderful. Thank you so much for the trip down the memory lane with nostalgia, which was my childhood too. My RU-vid account was opened at the same time hence the numbers.

Really love these videos that go over not as popular / not as well known themes.

Again an excellent revisit, well done! 😊 I was well off into my dark ages when these sets were released, but picked some sets up a couple of years ago (including 8877 that was glued together 😬)

Love these theme reviews! This wave must have came out when I wasn’t into Lego? I had some of the first wave of Knights Kingdom 2 and later had Fantasy era. So these sets are basically new to me?! Glad you’re here to fly the Knights Kingdom flag- it was a core part of my Lego experience while growing up 😃

I remember standing in line outside Target early on Black Friday '05 with my mom in order to get the Dark Fortress set for just $50… absolutely appreciate all that it came with, and this video is a fantastic explosion of nostalgia that gets right at the heart of the story and play features we had back then. Thank you so much for researching and assembling all of this quality content!!

I saw your first review of the Knights Kingdom several months ago. I’m just now realizing you did wave 2, and this was such a blast to the past. Really enjoy your reviewing style and commentary. Excellent work! Can’t wait to see more.

This video series is peak, please keep it going! I'd love to see more coverage of 2000s - 90s LEGO themes like this (Still waiting on the Mars Mission wave 2 video btw)

Amazing video! I also used to have the foam swords and Vladek mask, awesome stuff

My favourite series! Revisiting Knights Kingdom 2 has been a treat so far, can't wait to discover the next waves

25:20 Oh I may be one of the few who has figured it out. Its been a while, so I don't recall exactly, but what I did was hold my finger on the cog firmly, with a bit of downward force, then roll the cog backwards with as much speed as you can whilst maintaining a bit of said downward force. When you get it right, its insanely powerful, more so than the spring launcher. Not the most intuitive design, but definitely definitely a fun one. I remember rolling it so hard that the "toothed plate" piece would jam up in the front against the cheese slope.

man, I was fortunate enough to get Vladek's Dark Fortress as a kid, and have gone to Lego Land CA during the time when they were selling Knight's Kingdom foam swords and masks as well as doing stage performances. So much nostalgia watching this video, I really ought to go thank my parents.

You have single-handedly rekindled my love of Lego. It's been so long since I've even though about picking up a kit. I had no idea Bricklink was a thing either!

These are my favourite videos of yours! Hope to see more in the future :)) Would love one of the battle of geonosis lego sets

Great video as always, look forward to your next Exo-Force video! Recently managed to get my hands on a golden guardian, can’t wait to put it together!!

Another phenomenal video! LOVE the artistry with the presentation of the models and the way you describe the sets. Can’t wait for the next one!

Yay part 2!!! Thank you so much

I remember buying a Scorpion prison cave and foam sword bundle like 12-13 years ago sealed in the box/ plastic foil in a local toy store. I wish I still had that set, might have to buy a used one for nostalgia purposes.

Nice that you brought up weight as a better value gauge. Excellent topic and video!

Man, I really appreciate you bringing up the weight of Vladek's Fortress. Price-per-mass of a LEGO set has always been my go-to metric and it's nice to see others use it and not just drone on about price per part.

Been waiting for this one! Loved this theme as a kid and I had mostly wave 2 sets.

8876 was my first ever lego set and I loved it, the prison cage was always a favourite feature of mine

Another great video, love this series!

I have so much nostalgia for the Scorpion Prison Cave set. Love the skeleton, white horse, and scorpion build.

As a child I had both castles of the Knights Kingdom Series, it was so awesome to play with them, I loved it! Then the dark fortress fell apart, because my father dropped it while making room for my brother's weight bench, which he never actually used :( but it's Lego, so I could rebuild it like I wanted to, good times :)

I absolutely love the sets from this era, Lego's creativity was through the roof. I would love to see you revisit Galaxy Squad as that is one of my favorite!

I have a battery-operated sword from Knights Kingdom year 2 based on Vladek's design in the action figure. the idea is that as you swing the sword it makes sounds of clashing blades. It was also packed with some of the action figures if I recall correctly.

Thanks for this nostalgia trip. I recently fell back in love with Lego and I got all my knights from this series from my parents place. They now live in my lego animal crossing village!

Yay, more moreeeee... Knights Kingdom 2 baby . Love it .. great job

This was a really wonderful revisiting video, even as someone who didn’t have that much of it definitely something I’ll keep an eye out for. Not to short change your wonderful revisiting video but I found it absolutely hilarious that you mentioned 5962 The Tinderbox because that infarct is also my dream Belleville set, to the point where I’ve got a BL wanted list of it parted out xD. Wonderful job with these revisiting vids they have improved so much and as much as I’m aware you’ve got just a Bunch of them in the making I think some of the old ones could use a newer vid (not to say that they’re still not my favourites) Great job!

I recognized the piece on the end of the mini catapult at 10:36 as a pot almost immediately. I got one of those pots in my second ever lego set, and knew about the ability to hold cylinder bricks in it like that. Never thought about using it as a catapult though. Color me surprised!

Vladek's Dark Fortress was easily my all-time favorite childhood set. What a glorious castle!

I was literally just wondering when this would come out. Wonderful.

Awesome video!! I can’t wait for the third wave!!👍💯🔥

This is my lego castle theme as well. great waves and love the minifigs.

The Knights Kingdom line is over all a really cool line up in general and gives much room for more Medieval based stories for kids., and really could go a long way probably if it made a third resurgence, hell make them cameo with Ninjago.

Love the midnight vibe with the lights in the background

This was a cool retrospective. I look forward to the Wave three breakdown.

That "weak spot" wall in Vladek's Dark Fortress is actually a sticker too...

Love the respect for Ice Blade, that is still one of my all-time favorite sets! Had the best transforming feature out of that wave too! I love Knights Kingdom II, it's my favorite castle theme. It feels how castle should be if it existed in the Lego universe, the right mix of fantasy and Lego. I also really miss the comic strip they would put on the boxes or instruction manual. I would spend hours rereading them as a kid and appreciating the art. That's one of the reasons I like the Hidden Side's box art. I'm sad they don't really do that today. I guess it exists digitally but it sure did make the instructions unique and worth keeping.

I have most of a copy of this set, including that side build ballista. I believe at 25:56 you demonstrated pretty much exactly how it's supposed to work. It's very finnicky but basically you hold the ballista in place and run your finger over the wheel which should propel the projectile forward. Difficult to make it go far. If I can get a good demonstration with my decrepit copy I could upload!

This video convinced me to buy a sealed copy of vladek’s dark fortress One of the best sets I own it’s awesome!

Great video been waiting for it

A lovely and informative video as always

I've been waiting so long for this

I found those exact birthday cards but for Bionicle 2004 at a goodwill. It's cool to see Lego did this for other lines.

I’ve been waiting a long time for this one

One of my favorite childhood sets was Vladek's Dark Fortress. Such an amazing set, and one I want to rebuild one day because I completely regret disassembling it. I suspect some of its pieces are in Storage, because there are some pieces I've failed to rediscover in my collection.

As a kid, I was always a little bummed that Lego never made a generic good-guy knight. Especially since the shadow knights are all corrupted Kingdom knights. Could have made a cool transformation feature in a set (like the anakin to vader transformation in 2005)

I really love the revisiting series, you shouldn't stop with it❤

Heck yeah! Excited for this one

Fireball Catapult is one of my favorite Castle themed sets ever. I didn't need to be invested in the story, it was just a nice little build, a couple of well designed knights with color scheme implied alignment of good and evil, and a horse.

Huh. I knew I had some Knight's Kingdom theme sets, but oddly I have no memory of owning Vladic's castle, but every time you brought up exclusive or rare pieces, I was like "Wait a second...", went over to my LEGO collection and lo and behold, I had the exact piece. The more I looked at it, the more pieces I recognized and found in my collection, until eventually I just had to accept that my eyes were correct and I totally must've owned this set. The reason I remembered so many of the pieces was because I used them ALL THE TIME in my custom builds, so clearly I must've very quickly cannibalized the castle before the memory of what it was had time to settle in my brain. So on the one hand, I guess I "missed out" on playing with this super cool castle, but on the other hand I suppose I just played with LEGO as intended, letting my imagination use the pieces as it saw fit. Either way, I guess I ended up loving this set dearly because I got so much usage and fun out of its pieces, even to this day!

'Eyo, back at it again relating everything to Bionicle. Those pearl gold shoulder armour pieces are actually really cool to use on Bionicle mocs as there isn't really any piece that can quite replicate that shape, especially not in pearl gold which is a much more limited colour than you would imagine. You can actually also get the shin pieces in pearl gold as well. During the tail end of 2005 when they switched from flat gold to pearl gold a few sets that were supposed to have flat gold pieces, like Rascus, shipped with pearl gold instead. They're substantially more rare, I only know two people who have sets of them, and they're probably way more difficult to acquire since there could very easily be mixed up with reddish gold pieces instead. A shame, since the shin piece is even harder to replicate with available pearl gold pieces.

I have been very sick at home for weeks now and these deep-dive videos about older Lego themes have been very relaxing and informative. Will you also make one for Atlantis or Galaxy Squad?

I was pretty little when this theme came out, but I was lucky enough to have Vladek's Dark Fortress. I still have a decent amount of the pieces in storage, and I have the knights proudly diplayed on my wall.

Im seeing a bunch of Nexo Knight prototype stuff in here, green lance guy, blue and neon orange moving tower, nice

The idea of knocking the mask off is pretty cool. Lego should have made more things with that gimmick.

Knight’s Kingdom was my favorite theme at the time and I actually used the birthday invitations for my 6th birthday party!

This was my wave!, love the Scorpions!

Here would be a suggestion. In the video you mentioned there are ways to improve it I wonder if it would be interesting to people to see you use your expertise to improve it with a similar spirit of Lego's style at that time. Thanks for all you do😊

Very well made

I wish i could get some of these sets. They are pretty sweet.

Ah, Knights Kingdom. Easily one of my favorite themes, right up there with Bionicle and Star Wars. Thank you for these retrospective videos, it brings back good memories. Keep up the good work. Also, Bionicle retrospective when?

While I personally preferred 1 and 3, Vladek's fortress remains my favorite castle playset. It's huge and has lots of playfeatures. I think it gets even better when you combine it with "Dark Fortress Landing".

Great video, as usual! I'm curious if you're an agents fan...definitely one of my favourite 2000s in-house themes! Cheers

God this is the set I missed in those knights kingdom waves almost should try and get it!!

cannot wait for the Third Wave,by far,my favorite of the theme,and a lot of that has to do with my boy Jayco getting a kingly makeover!

It's bittersweet seeing the Dark Fortress again. On one hand, it's a blast of nostalgia, but on the other hand, hearing how much it goes for now makes me sad that I broke it down over fifteen years ago. :'( Had to for a move, and I just... never put it back together.

On the Scorpion Prison Cave, I like how it has fences built as a portcullis. NPU! 😉

I really want to see you cover Wave III!!!! I had never even known that it existed before I was inspired to check Bricklink by your video!

Scorpion priaom cave and The Batwing: The Joker's Aerial Assault were my first sets

Hmm this video ended in an extra posivite way with your narration sytle. I guess needed it, thanks.

knights kingdom 2 is the best of the best, honestly. so happy to see another vid on it! although, idk how I feel about you being so excited to see a skeleton and drop hot coals on people...........

So I have a funny story about Knights Kingdom. As a wee lad, I got a few sets from the first wave, but because my parents were pretty hesitant to buy the big sets because they were so expensive, I never got anything over the $40ish set price. At the time, a friend of mine also got the sets, but got the whole wave including the cool castle. Years later when he outgrew his Lego, (always a tragedy) he passed on his whole series of knights kingdom sets to me. Insanity! Well, it’s gets even crazier. After wave 1, my parents moved on to getting me sets from different themes, so I never had any sets from wave 2. Well, another friend of mine was lucky enough to participate in a focus group for Lego, and as a result was gifted the second wave castle for participating. Well, a few years later, when he also grew out of lego, you know who got the second wave castle? Me! I never had the minifigs from the second castle, but I had plenty from wave one sitting around, and I did get the cool mask as well!