LEGO Bricktales, a review of a to-do game

Who hasn’t at least heard of LEGO, the famous building sets that have entertained and united generations for almost a century? Their fame quickly moved them from the physical world to the virtual world, resulting in dozens of more or less overwhelmingly successful video game productions. If licensing deals with various film production companies before (and not only) are noteworthy, it seems that in recent years the strength of the LEGO brand lies not in business dealings (mainly for God’s sake), but in business dealings. the product itself or its iconic bricks. Thus, we had the opportunity to witness what appears to be a mixture between detour and “going back”.

Video games like Minecraft-like LEGO Worlds or, more recently, LEGO Builder’s Journey, a miniature adventure that shows how technically we can take the use of famous structures in a virtual world, have shown us this.

There LEGO Bricktales review explains that this game is almost a transition between the two products just mentioned.

A miniature adventure

While LEGOs are so much more than toys, we always try to keep a pretty big target that winks at adults and children alike when it comes to bringing them into the video game market. LEGO Bricktales is no exception. In fact, perhaps in this case the balance is more pointing towards the very small. It is evident from the first moments of the game: a scientist grandfather trying to get his amusement park back on its feet, a talking robot flapping its wings around us, a journey through space and time. pursuit of happiness (and we’re not talking about anything figuratively or conceptually high, we’re talking exactly the happiness bricks that will be used to fuel grandpa’s new amusement park). Everything (more than one, actually) in a world where there is no evil, and if there is only one stupid mistake, given by something undesirable.

No meaninglessness, no double meaning, no violence, no death. Bricktales is a video game that every parent would want their child to play; what your aunt gave for her birthday But don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t indicate a lack of quality. Maybe you will get such a game from your aunt for her birthday!

While using the entire narrative system as just an excuse to pack an adventure between fantasy worlds, what sets this apart from hundreds of other titles aimed at eliminating violence and insane action from your curriculum is the fact that there’s actually something to be done in between. one unnecessary dialogue and another. And it’s definitely thanks to the nature of LEGO, born to create.

Building the world, one brick at a time

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of LEGO: build. And that’s exactly the focus of the game in Bricktales. To rebuild our grandfather’s park, we must embark on a space-time adventure together with Rusty, the trusty robot who can open multidimensional portals that allow us to travel in different thematic contexts (five in total), from the wildest jungle to atolls. pirates.

immersed in little maps that look like gods diorama From the square base, we have to help the characteristic characters (stereotypes more than the stereotypes) solve their problems so they can reward us with a Happiness brick that will serve to nourish the park and bring the cars back to life. your grandfather.

So far, it seems to be galloping back and forth to please a bunch of non-player characters. But this is where the ace in the hole associated with the brand comes into play: construction. In fact, the title asks us to build bridges, roads, and mechanisms that facilitate our movement in explorable environments, as well as create engineering and non-engineering jobs that meet the needs of the characters who demand them. In these cases, the game switches to a kind of “workbench” (something between Kerbal Space Program and Siege, with all the simplifications of the vault) where you can build from scratch and test your work most of the time without doing anything. a definitive guide on how to proceed (at best, given a structure to copy, or a more or less complex puzzle to put together correctly). Creativity and ingenuity come together here, forcing the player to think outside the box, but also taking into account the structural stability of his work.

Just to give an example, if we’re building a bridge, combining two banks with an insignificant and weak row of bricks would be useless when simulating the actual effectiveness of the construction, given that the game offers fairly realistic physics management. Parts separated even in case of partial instability.

If the game’s outer envelope of adventure clearly appeals to minors, there is a desire to involve the adult group in these construction episodes (which certainly takes most of the time) with a rate of challenge. often very high. You need to know how to make the best use of each piece offered, even if not in the “traditional” way the developers themselves think. That doesn’t mean it’s overly difficult to progress through some chapters, but it definitely requires a certain amount. creativity Anyone, big or small, can apply at the expense of perhaps spending an entire hour in the same building.

On the other hand, what will always remain somewhat complicated to convert to virtual format is the structure itself. While the authors of Bricktales try to suggest a positioning system that is as intuitive and varied as possible, there’s always a sense of mechanicalness that makes the process a little frustrating and frustrating. a little urgentoften leads to an ambiguous reading of the actual placement of the pieces, which takes a lot of time to figure out where the brick actually fits.

time dilemma

How long does a game like LEGO Bricktales take? Answer: it depends on who is playing. An engineer who is used to building entire cities or even just a big brick fan can complete the game with a flick of his fingers. But the same is true for a particularly creative child who, thanks to his not yet very conditional understanding of human work, is able to find new and unexplored ways of thinking about a background. Unfortunately neither of us completed the main quest in a little over thirteen hours, and the counter shows we only completed 52% of the game.

But don’t be fooled. There are no side quests with complicated plot lines. What’s missing is basically collections (all five, like worlds) to be saved by following your steps and exploring different biomes with new skills learned. In addition, to add to the list of completeness, we also find outfits with which we can customize our alter ego (thematic ones to be purchased with fictitious tokens in game stores, adding to a number that is already significant enough from the start of the adventure) and special bricks with which we can go back to rethinking each structure built, single free mode This gives full play to the player’s imagination. During the adventure, the weight of going back and forth a few times made itself felt, perhaps even just for useless interactions with characters who practically had nothing to say, so we leave you to imagine what the hunt for collectibles might have been like. Without a few more hours in front of the screen, it adds practically nothing to the game.

Visual quality of LEGO

The appeal of LEGO in everyday life largely lies in its different textures and the way the pieces intertwine when we put them together. This particular quality is something the Danish brand has long lacked in video games either due to the lack of sufficient technologies or the easier it is to create a semi-realistic three-dimensional environment in which to place made items. of LEGO. However, with the Worlds first and then the Builder’s Journey, the potential of a world made entirely of colored bricks was visual and stylistic consistency Among such products, the latter is a technological precursor, perhaps more of a technical spectacle than a real video game.

With LEGO Bricktales, the hope was to witness the continuation of the fair march with the banner. technical reference point, but instead, we’ve settled on a less daring middle ground. We had the opportunity to experience the game on PC to the maximum graphic detail and it cannot be said that it is a technically inadequate game. Quality is, of course, essentially a lighting system it does more than half the work, but we’re far from the refinement and “tactile flair” that Builder’s Journey brings back. However, considering the target audience and expectations of a similar game, the result is more than satisfying.