Lego Party! review: a bright, creative party game for everyone

Lego Party! could easily have been another run-of-the-mill party tie-in game, trading on the Lego name and design similarities to Mario Party. But in its mix of clever, well-designed mini-games, creative stages, and gameplay quirks, it arrives as a fun, layered video game with the creative spark to engage all ages.

Across an array of modes, up to four players will compete across a virtual board game, or in mini-game blasts, to win the most rounds, and rack up a high score.

In the headlining mode, it’s all about rolling dice, travelling across a board, and landing on certain tiles which may initiate a mini-game, showdown, or game-changing event. Each round, you compete in one mini-game or another, earning various bits which can eventually be spent on a magical golden brick.

Lego Party! features a moreish gameplay loop

The gameplay loop is relatively familiar, although there are some neat additions that shake up each dice roll. Depending on which island you’re traipsing through (there’s a pirate-themed island, a Ninjago-themed island, and more), you might encounter a special area where you can build one of two new features – a pirate ship, a theme park, a castle, or some other location. It adds a sprinkle of spice to rounds, and ensures you’ve got variety in each new playthrough.

You’ll also find new features popping up with great frequency, to ensure you always stay on your toes. This isn’t a game where you can guarantee domination. In the spirit of fairness, you’ll get a variety of opportunities to claim, steal, or lose golden bricks, allowing everyone to fight on an equal plane. In certain rounds, you might stumble onto a thief character who can pinch bricks from others. You might also land on a tile where you can buy a brick, or roll the exact total to take a brick that’s lying undefended on the game board.

Check out the Lego Party! trailer

Playing against my nine year old niece, and my [redacted]-year-old mum, the playing field was made fairly even by this design. As an older player with more experience, you might feel you need to hold back somewhat – but you don’t really, because late-stage shake-ups mean you could be the victim of a thief, and the constantly changing position of the golden brick seller (as well as the random option to purchase a golden brick power-up from the shops) will ensure there’s no pure advantage on the game board.

In lieu of a formal strategy, you’re encouraged to kick back and enjoy the main event, stress-free: the game’s robust array of moreish mini-games, each genuinely charming and delightful in design. It’s these mini-games that significantly elevate the game, in their mix of wild, wonderful premises.

There’s silly physics games where you’re bouncing along a string. There’s an Excitebike-style motocross mini-game where you must maintain balance as you speed through bumps and hills. There’s a downhill ski slalom. An athletic unicycle race where you’re constantly eating dirt. Various mini-games where you must charm aliens to succeed. For younger players, who perhaps don’t have the attention span that older players do, it’s a novel mix. You won’t repeat mini-games in any one session, and even when you do, they’re bite-sized and compelling enough that you won’t mind the repetition.

Playing Lego Party! with kids

It was delightful, in my review period, to play this game alongside multiple members of my family. For my mum, it was a neat chance to sit down and relax, even if some of the mini-games escaped her, and she found the board game aspect a bit too slow. For my niece, it was a ‘9.9 out of 10 game’ and ‘so, so fun.’ I will say I learned a lot about the characters of Lego Ninjago playing with her, because every cameo and monster appearance on this themed board inspired an awe-filled gasp, and an explanation about that particular arrival.

I suspect this will be what hits most for Lego Party!. It’s a game that feels expertly designed for younger kids who may be familiar with video games, or with Lego, as a hobby or franchise. The game’s Lego UI inspired plenty of excited chatter from my niece, as well as the option to play with recognisable Lego minifigures. For someone with a shorter attention span, it also kept her riveted. She particularly loved that each mini-game had a practice round, and that you could perform jumping jacks on the winning podium (‘just like in the Lego Movie!’).

In the Lego Ninjago stage particularly, the board design and random events – including a dragon attack – inspired a euphoria, given how it adapts the show, and squeals of delight when events were triggered, including the unleashing of skeleton hordes by the dreaded Garmadon. (I was told he’s one of the primary villains, and ‘very scary.’)

Given this reaction, and my overall experience, it feels like Lego Party! will become a stalwart of our shared gameplay sessions. With bite-sized gameplay, bright and colourful characters, and a lot of imagination in gameplay, Lego Party! is a game that won’t necessarily surprise adults, but will provide a welcome party experience, and one that’ll absolutely delight younger kids. Even being outside the target audience, I can see the fun, and how it lit up the eyes of my niece, with clever choices elevating this significantly.

A PlayStation 5 copy of Lego Party! was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

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