LEGO Bricktales (Nintendo Switch) Review

LEGO Bricktales is a puzzle game, making use of building with simple LEGO bricks to solve puzzles. Everything is loosely tied together by a story, which is not particularly intriguing, unfortunately. Since the narrative doesn't really drive the game forward, perhaps the other parts do? ...It doesn't seem likely.

This title is overall simple, and while puzzle solving is involved and can at times be satisfying, there is a bit of backtracking that gets tedious fast. The fact that the camera is locked in place while exploring doesn't help, either. There is no combat or anything of the like - LEGO Bricktales is purely about exploring and solving puzzles.

As part of the story, players get to explore different worlds while repairing a theme park, and there is a way to use special abilities.

The main aspect is most likely the puzzle solving by building things. For this, players enter a build menu in which they get a set number of bricks to use, with the type and number of each depending on what is being asked of the player. It is then necessary to build things, such as bridges, stairs or other objects that also need to fulfil certain criteria. This can become quite tricky, as the number of bricks is limited, but that may be where the challenge is meant to be.

Unfortunately, the real challenge is the controls. They are the opposite of intuitive and, quite frankly, a pain to use. This makes building and implementing certain ideas difficult and tedious. Perhaps this title is aimed at children, in which case story writing would be acceptable, but that still doesn't explain the awful choice of controls.

LEGO Bricktales looks nice enough, the creative worlds are fully built from LEGO bricks, and the music is adequate, but nothing special overall. There is no voice acting, and this title is just missing something. It doesn't feel like this is all it could have been. However, for children it could be a good time.