LEGO Bricktales Reviews
LEGO: Bricktales manages to be fun despite some structural shakiness.
LEGO Bricktales can often get in its own way, but it’s still a fun adventure that breathes new life into what a LEGO game can look like.
Part adventure game, part construction simulator, Lego Bricktales lays strong foundations for a truer type of Lego experience.
Lego Bricktales could be up your street depending on what you’re looking for. If you want a simple action adventure like so many other Lego titles then this isn’t for you. However, if you want a unique puzzle game that uses Lego elements well then you’ll find more here to enjoy. The main thing that lets it down is the clunky control system and the variable difficulty means younger players hoping for a building game will likely end up frustrated. The environmental puzzles you’ll need to solve to collect everything can also get very repetitive. Overall though it’s a fairly average game that offers a decent-length story mode, some interesting puzzles, and a few extras for those who want them. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a pirate ship ride to build.
Bricktales gets its hooks into you in the same way that real-life Lego might
Lego Bricktales is a remarkable approximation of actually playing with Lego bricks, thanks to a variety of clever physics-based building challenges.
Lego Bricktales is a breath of fresh air, and a tremendous surprise. It’s not the longest experience in the world – but I loved every minute of it, and still feel compelled to go back and improve some of my less satisfying builds. Tricky controls be damned – it’s a low-key game of the year contender.
Lego Bricktales isn't perfect, but it offers up a refreshingly unique experience relative to the litany of action platformers based on licensed IP we've been getting for nearly two decades now. We sincerely appreciated the focus on low-stress building puzzles that encourage and reward creative solutions. It's the kind of game that you just take at your own pace and lose yourself for a bit to the relaxing tunes and simple act of building. It's a shame, then, that awkward controls hamper your creativity and hold it back from greatness. Couple that with performance issues on Switch, and we'd recommend playing on PC if you can. Still, Bricktales is the closest thing in years that a Lego video game has gotten to the actual feeling of playing with Lego, and those of you who appreciate the famous toy will find something to love here.
LEGO Bricktales is puzzler that takes you back to the early days of LEGO, when the freedom to build want you want took centre stage. There're plenty of opportunities to build, explore, and bask in the gentle humour that we could all do with a little more of.
LEGO Bricktales offers a building adventure in the style of the famous toy franchise
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Developer ClockStone gave this a good effort, but there wasn't enough in LEGO Bricktales to keep me feeling interested. Even the story, which is typically a franchise strong suit felt underwhelming with half-hearted humor and nothing really memorable. That's not to say there isn't a foundation for something better in the future. The concept of using LEGO building to progress and doing it in your own way is a strong one, but without better tools, like blueprints and the like, the novelty wears off quickly. For now, LEGO Bricktales is a fun curiosity and little more than that.
Lego Bricktales is a wonderful adventure that's full of the charms of playing with the iconic construction toy in real life. It's a gorgeous digital rendition with all its exquisitely crafted dioramas a delight to behold, and with puzzles that lean on Lego's greatest strengths. Just beware that the Switch version is hampered by intrusive performance issues in places.
LEGO Bricktales isn't like other LEGO titles you've tried. It is simpler and puts more focus on construction than on action or platforms. The problem is that everything sins of simplicity, and the star of the game, the construction, has a somewhat cumbersome system and some failures. But if you go for construction, you will enjoy it.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
LEGO Bricktales is a game with a double personality: fun and inspired on one side, problematic and badly optimized on the other. But despite the obvious flaws it still manages to entertain thanks to its mix of brick-based constructions and puzzles.
Review in Italian | Read full review
LEGO Bricktales does only one thing, but it does it well: it allows you to play with LEGOs as you would do in your room, without placing constraints on your imagination. Its main limitation is a somewhat stubborn control system and a camera that is not easy to handle, but the final result repays the effort. The added value is a really appreciable technical compartment, which recreates small dioramas with enormous charm, based on historical LEGO sets that will lead to tears anyone who was young in the 80s/90s. It could mark the beginning of a new era for LEGO games, and that would be great news.
Review in Italian | Read full review
This malleable gameplay is the crown jewel on what would otherwise have been an average exploration-adventure title. The presentation is excellent, and the colour palette is vibrant and exciting, but the moments where you have to figure out how to build something are the moments sure to stick with you.
LEGO Bricktales not only clearly shows that the LEGO property is more than capable of standing up on its own two block-feet without the aid of a fancy licence, but it also more importantly reminds us why LEGO is loved the world over in the first place. LEGO Bricktales is all about firing up the imagination to construct LEGO to solve challenges as you subconsciously grin with the sort of wide-eyed wonder that LEGO has always prided itself on inciting in builders both young and old. Quite simply, LEGO Bricktales is brain-teasing, warmly charming and purely distilled joy that everybody should play.
Bricktales is perfect – for the right audience. The trouble is, I’m not sure who that audience is. The visuals and the writing feel very all-ages. But the puzzle design requires a high degree of patience and perseverance. I’m neither a parent nor a child, however. For all I know, kids love spending ages making the perfect bird perch. That’s where the alchemy happens, you see. That’s the crucible. If you love building without blueprints, if you’ve got a head for design, you’re in luck. LEGO Bricktales will be an incredible time from start to finish. But otherwise? The breathtaking visuals and clever design won’t be enough to hold your attention.
Overall, LEGO Bricktales, much like the similar LEGO Builder's Journey, is a great little puzzle game that provides a real sense of LEGO building to the player. The customization and cute story keep the game interesting and the sandbox mode is a great way to practice building real LEGO sets. There is never just one specific answer to a puzzle and mixing things up makes for a fun and enjoyable game that would work for LEGO fans of any age.
Since solving Lego-based puzzles is at the forefront, Bricktales doesn't feel like it's aimed directly at the younger crowd; the sometimes difficult-to-solve conundrums might turn kids off. There is plenty for them to get into, like collecting in-game items or the Lego player customization. The physics-based puzzles to solve were excellent; some were easy, and others were a challenge, but all were rewarding. Even with the challenge, Lego Bricktales is the closest I've come to feeling like I was playing with physical Lego bricks. Playing Lego Bricktales is not the same as sitting on your bedroom floor and letting your imagination run wild, but it's close.