LEGO: Ninjago Movie

My first impression of LEGO Ninjago was surprise at how aggressively Traveller's Tales leaned into the fighting. Every prior entry in this series treated combat as a speed bump between puzzle rooms. Here it is the actual point. You get six distinct attacks, air juggles, double-jump slams, and spinning chain combos that can theoretically top 100 hits, all easy enough to pull off that younger players won't feel locked out. The skill tree is light but functional, letting you nudge damage values, extend combo windows, or harvest extra studs for defeating stunned enemies in a particular way. For a LEGO game, that is a legitimately expanded toolkit. The structural overhaul is where the game genuinely surprised me. The per-level stud meter that has nagged LEGO players since 2005 is gone, replaced by a persistent global meter that rewards milestones rather than punishing missed targets. Characters discovered or earned are immediately playable, no second stud payment required. Multi-build puzzles from LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens carry over here too, meaning certain brick piles can be directed into two or three different solutions. Nine open-world levels track the film's plot, each hiding a Challenge Dojo that pits you against escalating waves of Garmadon's shark-army grunts and a boss. Competitive Battle Maps support up to four local players across three modes, including a Capture the Flag variant called Samurai Showdown and an orb-collection mode called Mystic Bounty. The campaign is short. Story mode can be cleared in roughly three hours, with another five or six spent hunting gold bricks, character packs, and Dojo bonus levels if you want to see everything. That is lean even by LEGO standards, and the on-rails mech-dragon flight sequences are a low point, visually chaotic to the point where enemies seem to appear from nowhere. Some shield-carrying enemies require specific attacks to open up, but the game never tells you clearly which ones work, making those moments feel arbitrary rather than tactical. Camera lock-ups and occasional bugs have been noted across platforms since launch, and the PC version inherits some of those rough edges. Where the game earns its Very Positive Steam rating is in the co-op. Having a second player halves the tedium and turns the banter-heavy writing into something genuinely funny to experience together. The voice cast, notably not the movie's film cast due to a SAG-AFTRA strike at the time, does solid character work rather than cheap imitation. The Ninjago City environments are bright, detailed, and hold up visually. Fans of the TV show will find extra Easter eggs and nods that the movie-only crowd will walk past entirely. If you have kids who love Lloyd, Jay, Kai, Zane, Cole, or Nya, this is an easy recommendation at the right price. Solo adult LEGO veterans will find the combat ideas interesting but the whole thing over before it gets deep. Put a second controller in someone's hands and the experience meaningfully improves.

Alex · Scout Team

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