Lego Party from developer SMG Studio won’t shake Mario Party comparisons and doesn’t try.
Rather, the new party-game effort splashes a super creative dose of Lego bricks all over the experience while reassembling some of the tried-and-true genre staples for modern times.
A party game with four players working across different boards, loads of minigames, hundreds of minifigure parts and bricks and plenty of heart, Lego Party is a cross-platform romp for all ages with some serious potential to stand the test of time in a genre dominated by others.
Lego Party is an eye-popping affair. It’s not just vibrant, diverse and smooth-looking on modern consoles with the super-satisfying brick-clicking sound effects and wacky noises during minigames.
Lego fans of all ages will appreciate the obvious love and care that went into crafting themed boards such as Lego Ninjago and Lego Pirates. There is some seriously surprising depth to levels and Lego Party knows it, too, often showing off the big scale and depth with sweeping camera pans.
Nearly every Lego piece one can think of is on display in the process and cobbled together in impressive ways. It certainly helps in the personality department that the characters are super endearing and outright funny.
These aren’t set board maps, either. Players can choose to expand them as a game progresses, quite literally building up new areas to traverse. Big overarching board-based events like a massive animal flying in to impact the board are common, too.
Basing the game in a Lego land with today’s horsepower backing the consoles makes for some jaw-dropping stuff. Little details, expressions and more are simply engrossing. One minigame called “Graffeeti” asks players to run around a white Lego board and their footsteps create vibrant, multicolored paths down to the individual, tiny bricks underfoot.
Lego Party will feel familiar to most gamers with even a passing experience with Mario Party. Players take turns moving around a board. Like other party games, different spots on the board will have different effects.
The overall goal is to acquire golden Lego bricks, with the player who has the most by the end the winner. What’s nice here is the lack of RNG found in the red plumber’s effort. Victory or defeat feels earned thanks to the lack of random bonuses or even point swaps.
Also like others, after a round, a bonus round will see players partake in a minigame. Upon release, the game boasts 60ish of these, with the bonus round choosing one of them at random. Those minigames can also appear at random mid-round thanks to one of spots on the board, too.
Also included is a little shop where players can spend acquired currency on things like self-boosts or traps they can place on the board for other players.
What’s interesting is how Lego Party uses minigames to stand out from its fellow board-based games. These rarely ask multiple other players to sit out of the action, instead sometimes asking players to become temporary allies in a two-on-two format.
Otherwise, it’s every-player-for-themselves chaos in the best way. Not only do players get to vote on minigames at times, they can also practice them before the action starts to matter.
Speaking of action that matters, in a refreshing twist, an entire game starts with a minigame that determines play order on the board. As opposed to the other bigwig in the genre that relies on a random roll, this opening minigame is critically important to how games play out.
Overall, kudos goes to Lego Party here. There isn’t a bad minigame of the bunch and most keep with very simplistic controls to keep it fair for players of all ages.
While there isn’t a major story worth diving into here, it’s worth dishing some praise to the overall game show backdrop of the happenings here.
Over the course of this Challenge Zone, presenters throw out funny commentary on the matches (one’s name is Paige Turner, to illustrate the vibe here), which includes some zingers thrown at those players in last place, which will make for some funny times on the couch during local co-op with the family.
Beyond the standard game mode, Lego Party comes equipped with other modes worth a nod. As expected, the heavyweight here is a mingame rush that lets players run a gauntlet of different minigames.
Call it another lesson in the predictable can be good column. Sometimes the minigames are just quicker and/or more enjoyable than sitting down for a lengthy session. Players can even make their own playlist of minigames to play.
Speaking of time investment, Lego Party comes with a nice suite of options. Perhaps the most important of those for a board-party game, though, is the ability to tinker with just how long games can actually take before a winner gets crowned.
As for progression, there are literally hundreds of minifigures to choose from and customize with what is likely literally thousands of parts. No questionable microtransactions here, either, just currency earned by playing that can purchase new minifigures and items.
Lego Party runs well and boasts cross-platform multiplayer. If there’s a complaint, it’s an inability to matchmake with random players. But this is positive baby steps for the genre as a whole, going cross-platform at all.
Lego Party is one of those games that creates an obvious question: Why hasn’t Lego done this before?
It’s so head-smackingly obvious that one has to wonder why this is the first serious stab. There’s also something really refreshing about a high-quality board game like this becoming widespread and available across all platforms, not just Nintendo consoles.
Not content to just be Lego-Mario-Party, this offering pushes some much-needed modernizations for the genre by removing a major chunk of RNG usually weighing it down, permitting practice and voting and keeping things accessible and fair for all ages.
An unexpected high point for the genre and certainly here to stay for a long time, Lego Party is one of the shockers of 2025 that boasts massive appeal while being straight-up enjoyable to pick up.
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