All minifigures, except the price
Originally released back in September of 2019 on Apple Arcade, Lego Brawls is a Super Smash Bros. style fighting game that sees you jump into eight-player action as one of over 200 unlockable Lego minifigures. You'll battle it out here across a slew of Lego-themed arenas in free-for-all fights or cooperative face-offs where two teams of four duel over a simple objective. It sounds exciting, it looks great, and we absolutely love Lego! Unfortunately, it's all let down by extremely basic gameplay and stuttering performance on Switch.
Yes, as much as this one is right up our blocky plastic street, it's hard to see anyone, beyond very young kids, getting a lot of time out of what's on offer here. There may be an absolute ton of minifigures, costumes, and other bits and pieces to unlock as you play and earn studs — something which will undoubtedly keep some young fans busy for quite a while — but in terms of the actual brawls, well, it's a very shallow and disappointing experience that quickly becomes a repetitive button-mashing bore.
Fights here give you a basic attack, the ability to jump, and space for two specials that you'll pick up from blocks scattered around arenas. Initially, the specials are a good laugh and there's plenty of daft stuff like Lego sharks, rockets, drills, lasers, horses, and so on to collect and batter your enemies with but, before long, the excitement wears off as you realise that all of these power-ups control in the exact same manner and don't really add any sort of strategic depth beyond simply barrelling through enemies for an easy kill.
Lego Brawls' battles are very simply a case of hammering buttons and hoping for the best when it comes down to it and none of this is helped by the fact that there's constant stuttering in online play at launch and it can be very hard to keep an eye on where your character is due to how far out the camera likes to zoom during the chaos. Not a great mix.
With eight-player local play, online free-for-all, and an online co-operative mode to dig into across a range of famous Lego sets, such as Ninjago, Pirates, The Hidden Side, and Jurassic World, this game has the bones of a really great party brawler, and it does look very nice, but there's just no getting around the fact it's tediously simple and messy stuff that's also laughably over-priced — and this is the real sticking point. You might be tempted to look on Lego Brawls as pleasantly daft nonsense for your youngest Lego fans if it weren't quite so ridiculously priced on Switch, especially when you consider how little it cost originally as part of Apple Arcade.
Beyond the ability to collect minifigs and customise your character — something that does nothing to really change up the actual battling at the heart of it all — there's very, very little here to sink your teeth into. It all ends up feeling like a rather poor free-to-play mobile game, and one that doesn't perform very well on Nintendo's hardware.
Scoring Policy Review copy provided by Bandai Namco
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
Liquids, solids and the occasional gas
Wow, that's a shame. Looked like a load of fun.
LEGO games will be great when it doesn't use any popular Western franchises or Smash Bros clones. I still consider LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER as the only LEGO game I like the most.
Daaaanggg. Well I’ll be skipping that.
Guess I’m not getting this game
@Anti-Matter That game always seems so severely underrated. It's a shame Nintendo didn't go all in with its Wii U exclusivity and make it their GTA killer. An open world kid friendly and fun Lego game? Sign me up.
Hope we can get more original Lego games of similar quality.
Well, I had some hope. That’s a skip.
That's disappointing. I was interested in it myself, but the pricetag put me off entirely. Looks like it wasn't just the price that was a problem with this, huh? Massive shame.
Far far too many games - even simple ones run poorly on Switch.
I love the machine for what it is but boy do I hope we are getting a fully back compatible update next year that runs everything much much better.
I don't need 4k but 1080p 60 docked and 720p 60 portable would be glorious.
Typo in the headline: 'disappointly' should read 'disappointingly'.
Oh wow, I was somehow under the impression this would be free 😅 Yeah that'll be a hard skip.
Oof. Imo Lego should stay away from technology. The only time I remember Game + Lego being fun was Nexo knights, and s for Lego games, I would rather just have a star wars/marvel/police game without the Lego.
It works better on apple arcade since they aren't selling it at a full console price and instead as a game part of a subscription model, most of the games on apple arcade probably work worse on consoles since thats just not the right place for them
It becomes a real insult to the Switch when developers can't even get simplistic, non-hardware-intensive games to work properly.
Is the Mario Kart/SSB clone war over yet?
@Anti-Matter I still need to go back that game its really fun.
@TheRealKyleHyde Maybe it's a new word they built out of LEGO?!?!
@ModdedInkling it's a bad idea when considering the switch is the most likely console for Lego sales. If Monster Hunter can run smoothly on the switch certainly this can.
If you have a Switch you will play Smash and if you have a PS5/Xbox/PC you're playing Multiverses, this game has no chance.
This looks so bad, normally I quite like the Lego graphics, but this just seems off to me.
Grat bow I'll consider not buying til it's on sale or clearance prices
@TheRealKyleHyde it's not a typo, it's an illiteracy !
@Anti-Matter Lego star wars TCS is the GOAT
@sneaky_sasquatch Well, since I don't even like Star Wars and other popular Western franchises, I like LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER for being normal without flashy outfits from popular Western franchises.
@TheRealKyleHyde @Andgiles62 The art monkeys swang in and whipped out the ‘ing’, actually. I’ve shut the window now and put it back. 🙏
Tap here to load 24 comments
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...
Random: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Trick Gets You All Korok Seeds In 10 Minutes
Reminder: Splatoon 3's First Splatfest Starts Today
Happy World Rock Paper Scissors Day from Nintendo!
Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection - The New Gold Standard For Retro Compilations
New Pokémon Confirmed For Scarlet & Violet In Cryptic Photo Tweets
Here's Your First Look At Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's Grafaiai
PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Mini Review LEGO Brawls - Disappointingly Basic Brick Battles That Stutter On Switch
Review City Wars: Tokyo Reign - A Deep Deckbuilder That Stands Out In The Crowd
Review Ooblets - An Adorable Life Sim Full Of Charm, Character, And Dancing
Mini Review Restless Soul - A Minimalist Adventure With An Overabundance Of Banter
Review ANNO: Mutationem - An Impressive Cyberpunk Action-RPG With Stunning Visuals
Limited-Time Pokémon Sword And Shield Distribution Event...
Pokémon GO Spotlight Hour Times: This Week's Featured Po...
Game Journalist Doubles Down On Zelda News At Upcoming Ni...
Random: Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Trick Gets You All Koro...
Soapbox: Forget Marvel, The Perfect Capcom Crossover Is S...
We Might Get A Brand New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Gam...
Mario Kart Tour To Remove Gacha Elements Next Month
Soapbox: Endless Zelda Remakes Are A Poor Substitute For ...
Best Mario Kart Games Of All Time
Mini Review: LEGO Brawls - Disappointingly Basic Brick Ba...
Here's Your First Look At Pokémon Scarlet & Violet's Gra...
Random: The Sky In Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Is One Big Opti...
Join 1,339,833 people following Nintendo Life:
© 2022 Hookshot Media, partner of ReedPop. Hosted by 44 Bytes.