Lego Ninjago Movie Video Game

Based on the movie, the game includes loads of video scenes presumably straight from the film. There's plenty of dialogue quips as you progress through the levels too. It's humorous but the characters often come across as simplistic in their intelligence, always looking to the wise old leader to offer them advice.

Just like other Lego games, there's plenty of stuff to smash, but it's slightly more combat-focused than some other Lego games. It is still simplistic, but there's a few different attacks, and a combat tutorial at the start.

Some enemies look similar to your characters, so you might end up hitting them by mistake. It can be a bit hectic if you are also hitting objects, or collecting the studs because it adds to the on-screen clutter. If you do happen to die, you just instantly respawn where you died. The AI allies are very passive when it comes to combat. They generally follow you when platforming, and hang around interactive objects when needed.

You are guided to the right area by a waypoint marker which is helpful when some of these levels are quite large/wide with plenty of distractions. There's some minor platforming, along with wall-run sections to navigate through areas. Building structures from loose bricks still involves just holding a button for your character to auto-build something, but there's a few where you need to choose to build to the left or right. These can be simple puzzles where you need to build in one location, then smash it up, then build the other. So the puzzle is working out which combination allows you to progress (although it’s 50/50 choice of getting it right without thinking).

The visuals are really colourful and sharp, and the early levels have lots going on in the background which makes it feel more intense/more urgent.

The early levels often feature occasional vehicular shooting sections since you have your mechs. These are often on rails, or circle strafe around a point.

The game takes around 6 hours if you concentrate on the main story. Just like the other Lego games, the levels are designed to be replayed with different characters and use their abilities to find secrets that weren't accessible in the initial playthrough.

As you go through the story, you periodically earn a Ninjuity token, which you spend in an upgrade tree. I thought these abilities weren't really that noticeable other than the increased stud multipliers.

Even though there’s a few new ideas, it ultimately plays like all the other Lego games. Given that there’s plenty of franchises, you may as well play a couple of franchises that you like, but I’m sure Ninjago fans will be happy with this.

As a 26 year old man I feel kind of stupid playing this game obviously intended for 5 year olds. I got it for free and noticed it was short so might as well.

- complete lack of difficulty. can play with 1 hand.

- driving sections play themselves. all you have to do is hold 'right trigger' and you can still win. theres multiple missions with these squences and it just feels like filler in an already extremely short game. on rails turret sections.

- gameplay is trivial. theres so much shit flying in your face and winning collectiables for upgrades when ultimately it doesnt matter because theres a total lack of any challenge. there is no difficulty select, one difficulty for the game. even if you do happen to die, you just instantly respawn where you died.

- constant interuptions game forcing control away from the player.

- michael bay tier rediculous constant action and shit exploding all over the place when really none of it means anyting because theres no actual danger or challenge. just becomes an annoyance and contrivance . a cliche to make you have the illusion of action when really its trivial .


- unlock system which is utterly pointless because no matter what you choose the game is still piss easy so i just ended up picking random shit to make it disappear.

- has the type of dumbed down scripted 'platforming' where you just hold a direction and spam button presses to procceed. not actual platforming but rather like acting out a script.


- pretty sure the 'cutscenes' are actually just scenes taken from the movie. which i dont care about. its a cop out. i was tempted to just skip all of them because its obviously for 5 year olds.

- theres some sort of free play hub world where you can do optional things but i never saw the point. you can return to previous levels to find collectables but why would I care about doing any of this when the gameplay is so trivial and pathetically easy?

- parts of the game have an annoying mechanic where you have to destroy a very specific random object in the enviorment and then hold B to 'rebuild' it into something to progress. all it does is halt pacing and make you walk around smacking stuff for minutes to progress. dumb.

- there is a bunch of different characters per chapter but really they all feel the same so its whatever. just have to switch back and forth to interact with certain triggers.

- can actually just run past many enemy encounters easily.

- most of the game is traversing the enviorment via pre scripted platforming sections or looking for enviormental switches. it looks like youre doing a lot but really youre not. then you come up to segments where you cant progress until you figure out the switch or object you have to interact with usually requiring character swapping. the combat is actually minimal as you can run past most all encounters easily. its not that exciting of a gameplay loop.

+ the graphics are nice and colorful and the controls are smooth and decent.

+ really short game so not a pain to finish in 1 or 2 sittings. ~ 4 hour length

the whole game I was wondering if I accidentally set the difficulty to 'very easy' as even the last boss was a total joke. but no the game is just designed for children so its incredibly forgiving and simple. probably the easiest game i've ever played. at the end of the game it said ive only completed 41% so theres a lot of optional stuff to do in free roam mode if youre into that thing but I wasn't because i had already unlocked all of the abilities and since the game has no challenge I see no need to play past the end credits.

5/10