Lego Brawls - Review

When Lego Brawls was first announced, it was a mobile game, but it was recently announced to be getting the console port treatment. With that port, my expectations for the game increased dramatically, now that I have put in some considerable time into the game, were they met or did the game just fall apart?

At its core, Lego Brawls is just that, a fighting game and while there is going to be a clear desire to compare it to other fighters like Super Smash Bros or Multiversus, it is not going to be a fair thing to do. For one, while the named series are character driven, with staples from their various wheelhouses, Lego Brawls is relying on themes over names and while they can seem similar, the difference is enough. Beyond the variation in source material, the other big change difference is that engaging in combat here, is mostly driven by a single attack button and a few special items, should you pick them up. If you are a veteran of Super Smash Bros, or any other game like it, this is going to be extremely shallow by comparison, you have one attack and all the stick does, is change the direction of the attack. This can be a good thing for younger gamers, but for advanced gamers looking for a real challenge, this won’t deliver that.

What it does deliver on is content, there is a lot in this game, mostly in the form of unlockables, as the various game modes are available to you from the get-go, somewhat at least. The game offers a few basic modes, a free for all brawl, a team-based fight and a control point battle and while the core of each is fighting, there is enough difference between them, that you will likely gain an appreciation for one over the other. The game lets you fight in either local or online battles and it does offer cross-play support, so you should always be able to find an opponent or two online, no matter the platform you are on. But there are a few issues with the modes, the first and largest pain point is that you can’t choose a game mode to play, its vote based. That sounds like a good idea, if you are playing online with random people, giving control the majority, however that same approach does not work if you are playing on your own, or want to practice a singular game type. The other issue is that when you do get into a game mode you like, it may be on a stage that you don’t as there is no way to choose or even vote to choose on a stage.

Stages are assigned to game types at random, some are basic stages and perfect for fighting on, others lend themselves better to the control point game mode. The inability to select a stage though, is quite frustrating, as there is no way for you to explore the maps, outside of actual battles and even when you get on a map you want to learn, you are going to be in the middle of a fight. Speaking of fights, the most frequent fight you will get stuck in, is menu navigation, because as a mobile developed game it likely works wonders for touch screen, but not for console. When you are attempting to get into fights and voting on your selection, a yellow boarder appears around your highlighted offering, but it is such a fine border, it can be hard to see and the same border applies to the character creation screen. There are clearly some easy fixes that they can implement here, but if you are someone who has issues with seeing things, this is not going to be an easy game to get into.

Something that the games does have a lot of is content, it is packed with things to unlock, so you can make your own fighter. Much like any real-world Lego minifig, you can make changes to their hat, head and just about every other aspect and then you get into accessories, like main weapons. There are themes you can access from the start like medieval and wrestler, but the bulk of them like the various Ninjago, Pirate, Monke Kid and Jurassic World require you to unlock. Unlocking is not hard, you just select the one you want to focus on and play any game mode and as you play, you earn studs and with enough you can unlock parts within that theme. The problem is each theme has more than 30 levels to uncover and as you need at least a good win, per level, per theme, it goes from unlocking content to grinding for it. If you only care about a particular theme, then it isn’t really an issue, but if you want everything or even just a few themes, it will take a long time to unlock and with the gameplay as basic as it is, it’s a slow process.

Visually, Lego Brawl looks much like countless other Lego games, the characters are charming and even when you are in the minifig creator, you can see that come through. The stages are detailed, but without being able to take your time to explore them, some of the details are hard to miss. One aspect that is concerning though, is that there is no clear way to determine where you are on the screen, when the action kicks into gear. Should you be surrounded by other characters, on your side or not, it can be quite difficult to determine which character is you, a coloured outline or something would go a long way here. The game may not be a visual powerhouse, but it does a solid job and more importantly runs smoothly, so while the fighting mechanics may not be Street Fighter level, you shouldn’t encounter any issues while playing it.

On the audio side of things, there are some good and some weird, the good is that the music is mostly ok. Some of the tracks seem a little cheap, at least in terms of their length, but as most matches never last more than a few minutes, you shouldn’t notice them in fights. The menu music however is weird, as its not catchy or exciting, it is just there and should you want to spend time making a character, you are going to hear it, a lot. There are also no voices for the minifigs, they make grunts and ahs when you play, but its nothing special and not customisable in anyway.

Lego Brawls is a game, while its mobile base is clear to see, the console ports are decent, the only problem is that given the content is the same here as the mobile release, the asking price is too much. If you are looking for a game that will take you a long time to unlock everything, this fits that bill, but the problem is that beyond that, it offers very little for the more advanced gamer. For younger gamers, this is perfect as the controls are not demanding and the matches are a good length, but again the asking price makes it hard to justify. While its basic approach works well on mobile devices, it is perhaps just a little to simplistic for consoles and that makes it hard to recommend.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Bandai Namco

The Pros

+Complete freedom to make a character look exactly how you want, with the sheer number of pieces available

+Combat, while basic, is fun and can get chaotic enough to provide those wow moments…

The Cons

-… there are times though when there are too many fighters in one spot, making it hard to see what is going on

-The pace at which you unlock content is glacially slow and given the number of themes will take a long time to get everything