Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worst Lego Game I've Played
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2021
I've been playing Lego games a lot with my 8 year old son lately. We've recently played Lego Batman 3 and Lego Marvel Superheroes 1 and both were a lot of fun. They're not perfect games, some quests are glitchy and the controls can feel a bit laggy but they're great for what they are. Both of those also had really solid, funny, and original stories that my son liked and I laughed at - rare to find something entertaining for parents and kids at the same time.
Then there's this game which has none of the charm of other Lego games.
First, there's a game breaking bug that will corrupt your save file IN THE WORST WAY POSSIBLE. We had played a lot of levels and made it to about 22% completion. The game has an autosave feature and a "save and exit" feature but no control over the save files directly. I saved and exited, came back and played a few levels, saved and exited, came back and I was back at 22% and selecting from levels we had already played. I thought it was my fault, that I had forgotten to save so we re-played several levels and I made sure I saw both the autosave and that I saved and exited. Re-loaded and back at 22% again. It's like the save file is read-only now - it will load but cannot be updated. And since there is no control over the save files the only option is to start a new game and just HOPE that it won't also get corrupted.
Second, the controls are way overcomplicated. Each button has multiple actions now depending on if you single tap, double tap, or hold. This isn't explained in the game, I only figured that out once we got to the custom character creator and saw all the assignment options. Until then it felt totally random what would happen when I pressed a button. The actions are also inconsistent across characters. I've been playing video games my whole life and I can't recall a more confusing or frustrating control scheme. It's certainly way too fancy for a LEGO game.
Third, two player support is really weak. There are multiple places in the game where it would zoom into some mini game that would not function with the second player (like it was designed for full screen and couldn't handle the limited size of the split screen). The only way to progress was for me to drop out and then things would magically work again. The frame rate also drops really bad in two player. I'm not expecting this to be some AAA 60fps game but it's pretty bad.
Finally, the story, level design, and writing just sucks. Kang the Conqueror is the villain so there's time travel and multiple eras/locations mashed together. That could be fun in theory but it just comes across as a jumbled mess. Kang is hardly ever there and there doesn't seem to be a real plot except that he's evil, random combinations of characters are thrown together into weird locations, super repetitive NPC dialog every where, inconsistent level sizes, and you have to make repeated long walks through the same parts of the hub area to get to the next level. Normally in Lego games I can't wait to go back in free play and find other hidden things. In this game every level just felt like a chore to get through.
Honestly, I'm kind of glad the game broke my save file because it gives me an excuse not to play it anymore. Save your money and get a different Lego game.
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