LEGO Bricktales Review

Explore and build

Reviewed by A.J. Maciejewski playing an Xbox Series X on October 31, 2022 🧱

LEGO Bricktales is also available for Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch

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If you enjoy building things with LEGO then Bricktales is here to offer a unique and entertaining experience with plenty of clever puzzles.

│ At Video Chums, accessibility is important and we go to great lengths to ensure that it's easy for everyone to enjoy our content. 👩‍🦯

What is LEGO Bricktales?

LEGO Bricktales has a cute premise where you help your grandfather rebuild his amusement park. You do so by visiting locales from across the globe in the hopes of gathering inspiration for rides. Specifically, you earn happiness crystals by making all of the folks happy at each of the many areas contained within the expansive game world. You'll end up exploring a jungle, a desert, a medieval zone, a city, and The Caribbean so there is a lot of variety on display, especially with the delightful cast of characters that you'll meet along the way. v1d30chumz 35-172-230-154

Help a LEGO out

The campaign of LEGO Bricktales is centered on helping out NPCs who inhabit each of the 5 locales. You do so by building all sorts of contraptions and useful structures that will allow them to do things such as cross a chasm, provide support for their rickety treehouse, and set up shop after their marketplace stall gets destroyed. There are many distinct and adorable scenarios; some of which are very funny and I thoroughly enjoyed helping folks out just so I could watch their silly antics ensue. 😊

Explore for treasures

Perhaps the most impressive aspect about LEGO Bricktales is its intricate stage designs that reminded me a great deal of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker as each area is presented as a diorama that's full of many nooks and crannies. Plus, there are loads of collectibles to discover from treasure chests full of currency to cute animals that you can snag as they're minding their own business.

You can also use earned currency to purchase region-specific wardrobe items and sandbox brick themes so there's some room for customization, too. On top of all this, you'll unlock abilities as you progress which provides a sort of Metroidvania feel as you can backtrack to previous levels in order to discover newly accessible goodies and it all comes together to make for one rewarding world. 🏆

When a problem comes along, you must build it

The other element of LEGO Bricktales' gameplay is actually building solutions to help the citizens. This is accomplished by choosing from a selection of available bricks then utilizing them to build upon an unfinished structure. For example, you may have to create a helicopter to fly up a cliff or a zigzag staircase that can allow you to gradually climb up the side of a structure. The brilliance of this whole system is that you can build however you wish then when you test your creation via a simulation and it actually works, you'll move on to your next challenge. I love how much freedom you're given and I frequently tinkered with my solutions to make them more appealing. ✨

Tricky brickies

Unfortunately, LEGO Bricktales has its downsides with the most annoying of which being the clumsy controls when you're building. Even after playing for hours, I still regularly stumbled while trying to place bricks exactly where I wanted. It's certainly tough to move things in a 3D space when you're looking at a 2D television so perhaps it would be more intuitive in VR. Either way, the controls are cumbersome and some of the puzzles aren't very user-friendly, especially in the early goings. For example, when tasked with attaching a treehouse to the ground, I didn't realise that I couldn't simply rest bricks on the floor as each piece needs to be attached to a predefined piece. I wish there was an onscreen warning to tell you these arbitrary rules because it's frustrating not knowing what you're doing wrong. 😳

LEGO Bricktales masterfully combines rewarding exploration with clever construction-based puzzles to make for a highly entertaining formula. The controls can be annoying when you're building things but once you see it all come together, you'll have a great time.