In a nutshell, several games showcased at Summer Game Fest bore a striking resemblance to popular titles, but none were as overtly influenced as LEGO Party. From its name and board game-style layout to its minigames, it’s hard not to notice the similarities to Mario Party. However, after approximately 40 minutes of playtime with LEGO Party, it’s clear that the developers at SMG Studios are striving to establish their unique identity within the party genre, rather than simply imitating Mario Party.
If you’ve ever enjoyed a game of Mario Party, you’ll find yourself right at home with LEGO Party. The goal is to accumulate the maximum number of Golden Bricks by purchasing them and relying on luck. Studs function as both your main currency and the deciding factor in case of a tie in Golden Brick count. As you select your LEGO figure, it moves around the board activating specific spaces, and once all players have taken their turn, a minigame ensues. After the Stud earnings are calculated, the game returns to the board for another round.
In essence, LEGO Party is similar to Mario Party, if you rearrange some words. However, it doesn’t matter who is competing for Mario Party’s territory. After all, smaller games like Pummel Party and Garfield Lasagna Party haven’t posed much of a challenge to Mario Party in the past.
After approximately six games of LEGO Party, certain choices made by SMG Studios caught my attention. For instance, the battle fields that initiate minigames consistently feature 2v2 encounters. While this might create issues in games with less than four players (AI takes over for missing ones), it also prevents anyone from idling. The idea behind this, as explained by SMG Studios, is to keep all players engaged at all times, rather than having two spectators watch the other two play.
Read Next
In LEGO Party matches, your success in mini-games significantly influences your progress on the game board too. Unlike always sticking to a fixed player rotation, the final mini-game results decide the sequence of turns once you’re back on the board. Occasionally, I found myself at an advantageous position to grab a Golden Brick that was not far off, but only if I excelled enough in the mini-game to overtake other players. As the match progresses towards its end and the Stud gains and losses become more significant, this turn order keeps even the leaders engaged in performing well during mini-games.
In the minigames of “LEGO Party,” there are some resemblances to those found in Mario Party, but they truly shine when they embrace the LEGO theme. My all-time favorite from Mario Party, Bumper Balls, is reimagined here, with a twist: as you gather falling LEGO bricks, your LEGO cluster expands, prompting you to move around instead of camping in one spot due to the larger size causing bigger impacts. Another minigame required players to construct the tallest tower using LEGO bricks. Players had to time their stops for incoming flat LEGO pieces, but the overhanging bits were trimmed off, making the tower narrower as it grew taller. A 2v2 game featured one player placing different-sized LEGO blocks on a vertical board while another jumped onto each block as they were placed, with the goal of reaching the top before the other team in this unstable LEGO construction race.
The brand LEGO is widely recognized and associated with various pop culture icons. As long as partnerships match up, there’s potential for the expansion of LEGO Party with additional boards and characters, given that only the collaboration with LEGO Ninjago has been announced thus far. Although I’m not excited about the idea of popular LEGO collaborations being divided into downloadable content packs, the specifics regarding future content distribution remain uncertain. For now, I maintain a positive outlook towards LEGO Party.
https://comicbook.com/gear/news/heres-every-lego-set-launching-on-june-1st-2025/embed/#
Read More
2025-06-12 01:39