LEGO Bricktales is a back-to-basics LEGO game that dumps the big-name IPs in favour of the simple joys of building with those delightful coloured bricks.
The story sees you play the grandson of an eccentric inventor that owns a run-down theme park. With the help of a dimension-hopping robot, you are sent on a mission to find happiness crystals that will restore the park to its former glory.
Although it is not as action-packed as something like Marvel Superheroes or The Skywalker Saga, it retains the same silly humour and charm the LEGO games are known for.
There are five biomes to explore: Caribbean, City, Desert, Jungle and Medieval. Each one is in a bit of a state, and the locals need your help to rebuild them in return for happiness crystals.
To solve each problem, you must build stable structures out of LEGO. The game then switches into build mode. This gives you a blank canvas and a palette of LEGO bricks to construct the required object in the designated area. The basics are simple to grasp. However, the controls can be fiddly, which gets in the way of the otherwise zen gameplay.
Each puzzle is varied and stretches your creative and logical muscles as you attempt to create something aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound. To begin with, you will mostly be building towers, bridges, and staircases. But as Bricktales progresses, the models you put together get much more complicated and include zip lines, gyrocopters and much more.
After you have finished building and are happy with your design, you can enter simulation mode to test whether it’s structurally sound or a disaster waiting to happen. You must factor in weight and balance and consider Bricktales impressive real-world physics to successfully build sound structures. While the puzzles range from simply following a pattern or constructing something to a specific plan to building machines with complex moving parts.
Seeing your finished builds seamlessly integrated within the biomes gives you a strange sense of achievement. Even if they are a bit basic or barely hold together, it’s still fun to see your botched creations on screen.
Once you have something that works, you can pretty it up in sandbox mode. This allows you to improve your build and make it look just how you want, as it grants you access to a much larger variety of bricks in different colours.
As well as things to build, in each area there are treasure chests packed with cash that help unlock more customisation options to open and animals to collect. Like previous LEGO games to find everything you need to obtain special abilities to overcome specific obstacles. But unlike the traditional LEGO platformers, rather than using specific characters, you have access to an expanding wheel of skills that includes smashing blocks and quick travelling with Rusty the Robot.
If you enjoy the simple pleasure of building things out of LEGO or like a good brainteaser, you will find plenty to love about LEGO: Bricktales. It’s a delightful and fulfilling game that rewards imaginative thinking and lets you flex your creative muscles. While seeing your creations seamlessly integrated into each world always feels satisfying.
The story might not be as exciting as other LEGO titles, but solid gameplay and ingenious level design make LEGO Bricktales a game that will appeal to fans of puzzles and brightly coloured bricks.
