LEGO Bricktales Review

ign.com:

There are few better ways to spend a day than building LEGO. Feeling the pieces click together as a pile of plastic bricks becomes an epic creation is incredibly satisfying in a way that digital representations haven't always been able to recreate. So while most recent LEGO games have instead found success as silly action-platformers with licensed tie-ins, LEGO Bricktales goes in a completely different direction. It ditches the pop culture characters and co-op combat in favor of an original story with building-based puzzles. It’s not quite the same as building LEGOs in real life, but it comes pretty close — even when you’re fighting with the camera or obscure mission objectives.

In LEGO Bricktales, you’re a brick person tasked with helping your eccentric grandfather power up the theme park where he apparently resides before it gets shut down for good. Think Doc Brown from Back to the Future, but instead of a souped-up DeLorean, Grandpa’s built a portal to transport you to faraway lands. Your mission: help out the locals across a handful of biomes and collect Happiness Crystals, which can be used as a power source for the theme park’s attractions. Helping an archeologist explore a jungle temple, finding a long-lost pirate vessel, and curing a kingdom full of poisoned peasants are all in a day’s work when you’re trying to restore Grandpa’s park to its former glory.

Each level of LEGO Bricktales is designed to look like a detailed diorama when zoomed out, which is reminiscent of the Captain Toad stages in Super Mario 3D World. Unlike many of the most popular LEGO games, there’s no platforming or combat to be had here. Instead, LEGO Bricktales combines exploration and building puzzles for a more grounded approach — well, as