LEGO Bricktales review | PS5

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LEGO can be quite personal. You might have childhood memories of putting together a new set at Christmas or fighting over different bricks with your siblings, but previous titles based around those little plastic blocks haven’t really challenged your imagination as far as creating things with LEGO goes.

​by James Michael Parry

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​@james_parry

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Developer: ClockStone
Publisher: Thunderful
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC, Mac, Linux
Players: 1

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LEGO Bricktales changes all that by wrapping a story around a series of building challenges, where you’re given specific bricks to throw together to solve a problem, like making a bridge to get you character from one side of a river to another, and then your completed structure appears in the world – exactly as you designed it – in the world.

The story itself is simple, in a twee sort of way, and the team at ClockStone manage to pull it off by keeping their tongue firmly planted in cheek with the written dialogue, which certainly raised a smile or two.

Your character, blessed with magnificent afro hair, visits their grandfather to find the amusement park he runs has fallen into disrepair, and you’ll need to jump into a series of themed worlds and complete challenges to fix it.

Beginning in a Jungle, but branching out to City, Medievil and Desert among others, there’s plenty of variety in the relatively straightforward locations, separated out into each large, isometrically presented brick world.

​​It's a cool look, but quickly becomes a bit fiddly, since you can’t move the camera around to get a better view, as you climb ladders and wander around cliff edges. In the challenges too, the camera can add to the challenge, since it can be hard to keep everything in view at the same time, with your selection of pieces laid out on the ground besides the build area. Getting below your in-progress model can be particularly tricky.

It's surprising that the building sections have their issues, given ClockStone's history with both Portal and The Walking Dead Bridge Simulators, but clearly LEGO is a more intricate beast.

This leads us onto one of the most obtrusive issues, the controls. While the game has been released for consoles as well as PC, it seems clear the development had a PC-first mindset, as a glance at the controls menu and even some of the interface still has keyboard prompts rather than buttons. Of course, this could be a fairly easy fix in a future update.​

...it still feels like there's something missing here. Perhaps an over-the-top protagonist like Chase McCain was in LEGO City Undercover...

The result is that actually building the LEGO models is time-consuming and often wrought with imprecise movements as you struggle to line up bricks.

This ups the difficulty without meaning to, potentially putting the game out of reach for some younger players, at least those without mum, dad, or an unusually cooperative sibling with them to pitch in now and again.

Other than that the experience is quite relaxed. The music can get a little repetitive at times, but has themes tied to each area which match the happy-go-lucky vibe.

From a visual design point of view, the digitised bricks are familiar, with a little more true-to-life aesthetic than you might be used to from the Travellers Tales LEGO series, or even LEGO Worlds, and the character animation has inspiration from the stop-motion effect in The LEGO Movie.

There are only a few things to point to which really stand out as not quite right, it still feels like there's something missing here. Perhaps an over-the-top character like Chase McCain was in LEGO City Undercover, or more depth to the narrative.

Mostly, it feels like a game which isn't quite sure if it's for kids or big kids, and while the construction system it's based on has had over 70 years to perfect the balance between its various audiences – and famously spent a fair amount of time getting it wrong at various points – it's no surprise it's a challenge.

Overall, there's a lot of fun stuff in here, and the package is more than the sum of its tiny plastic brick-shaped parts, but if you come looking for a serious cerebral challenge, you might find yourself wanting more often than not, until you're faced with the prospect of building something more intricate like a fire escape.

If you embrace the quirky humour and complete the build challenges in the spirit they are intended, you're in for a fun time.

Pros

• The best digital LEGO construction we've seen
• Fun humour in a cute and playful package
• Keeps it simple and effective…

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Cons

• …but seems too simple for big kids and too tricky for youngsters
• Could do with a more compelling protagonist
• Doesn't make you feel like a Master Builder

8/10​