Brick Building Madness

When I first saw LEGO Party!, my immediate reaction was excitement for one reason: SMG Studio and Fictions. The studio behind such hits as Moving Out and its sequel Moving Out 2 had instilled such a faith in this product that I knew instantly it was in good hands. I am glad to report that those hopes came to fruition, even if there are some performance issues on PC.

By looking at the trailers, I am sure you can see the similarities to another mustache and red cap-wearing character's own party game. The comparisons will be inevitable, but LEGO Party! has the confidence to go its own direction, truly incorporating not just the ideas of LEGO, but also its history. Three of the four available boards are based off popular "themes" from the LEGO corporation, with the only one not being established is the Theme Park Board. Whether you are boarding pirate ships or battling aliens in space, what SMG succeeds at is making it all feel unique.

Brick By NOT Boring Brick

If you have played other party games, then you have the basic idea of how LEGO Party! plays. Players will take turns moving across a game board, in this game called challenge zones, with the goal of collecting enough studs to purchase a gold brick. The player with the most gold bricks at the end of the game wins. There are two main things that SMG and Fictions added to differentiate this title from others in the genre.

First, you start each round with a minigame that determines your placement for that turn. If you do well in a minigame, then you get to have your turn earlier. Luckily, these minigames are fantastic. Not every minigame is a standout, but there are very few that I avoided whenever they came up. The developers have made sure to keep the LEGO aspect at the forefront of so many games. One minigame can see you fishing in a bowl of pieces to match the diagram on the side, and another will give you a collection of pieces to fit in an area and you have to figure out where they fit. There are, of course, your traditional races or mazes, but they have been done excellently here. With 60 minigames, the fact there are so little that I dislike has to be commended. I do wish there were more team-based games, however, with all of them being relegated to battle spaces.

Second is the ability to build different paths that expand the board. Each board has sections that are missing and can only be fixed with your help. you are typically given the choice between options that change not only the visuals of the map but also add different spaces that change the game. Take for example, the map based on LEGO Ninjago. At a certain point you will have the option between building a flying pirate ship or a training area. Both come with their set of spaces and special events that make each game on that map interesting.

There are ways that the game works for and against you. Lucky spaces will provide studs for you, power-up spaces will give you a random ability to use once, and unlucky spaces will hurt you and potentially others. Unlike other party games, there are no bonuses at the end of a game. Standings are purely based on how you perform.

Truly A LEGO Game

Making a good party game is no easy task; it's especially difficult when you have to remember that you are working with LEGO. Thankfully, the developers took the time to really analyze what this audience would have liked from this. For instance, characters that are unlocked in the game are based off the "LEGO Collectible Minifigure" sets that have been going on for over a decade. The pure joy that I got seeing minifigures that I already have on my shelf as playable characters told me everything I needed to know about their attention to detail. The most surprising being Clutch Powers from the first non-Bionicle-based LEGO movie, The Adventures of Clutch Powers.

Characters are unlocked via carrots that you unlock as you complete each pass. Thankfully these passes and characters are not purchasable with real-world currency, but any map-specific pass requires playtime on those boards. So if you want Sensei Wu from LEGO Ninjago, get ready to play that map a lot.

Additionally, the game boasts a surprisingly robust character customizer. While not on the level of TT Games' Lego DC Supervillains, it does hold a diverse selection of head, hair, chest, and leg pieces that allow you to create some wild creations. What makes it better is that as you unlock new characters, their pieces get added to ones you can choose from to mix and match. I do, however, wish that every piece of the character was unlocked and usable for custom Characters.

Along with the visual aspect, the buildable sections throughout the maps help bring the LEGO feel in every action. The game also is very funny. There's nothing better than landing on a space with a guy in a banana suit that allows you to send a hoard of monkeys to an opponent and steal either their coins or a gold brick. Or how about after you finish a minigame and have time afterwards to either bust a move or go extremely close to the camera and just spin in everyone's face. Even the game commentators and loading screens have fun brick-based puns that got many chuckles out of me.

Problems to Address

While the game is great, I did encounter a couple issues in my playtime. I should note that as far as I am aware, there were no day-one patches or driver updates, as the code was provided pre-release. Sound was surprisingly the major issue that occurred after rapid input registration. I restarted my PC each time it happened and it worked, but it was a major annoyance. There was also a weird bug where my controller stopped being recognized after alt-tabbing a number of times. The last major issue was with matchmaking. Trying to initialize a match was met with an error message at the beginning, but subsequent invites were fine. It could be due to trying to play cross-platform, but it should be looked at.

Gameplay-wise there is something I hope can get patched out. When you start a challenge zone, it will ask you if you want to hear an explanation of how the game works. Even if you click no, the commentators will interject the first time you do any specific task and explain what is happening.

Final Verdict

LEGO Party! manages to bring together the chaotic nature of party games with the creativity of LEGO sets. With four game boards, 60 minigames, 300 characters, online, and local co-op, this game is fully worthy of its asking price. With minigames that harken back to the joy of LEGO, I found myself completely engaged and feeling glee while playing. I cannot recommend it enough.

LEGO Party can be purchased on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Switch, Switch 2, and PC for $40.

Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product.