While the LEGO brand has been famously stamped across a galaxy of family-friendly multiplayer games, from high-speed kart racers to Super Smash Bros. style brawlers and even a Rock Band spin-off, it’s genuinely surprising how long it’s taken for the world’s most iconic brick-maker to erect its very own tribute to Nintendo’s Mario Party. But fear not, LEGO Party isn’t just a simple block-based imitation of Nintendo’s venerable virtual board game series. Sure, it might cleverly utilize Mario Party’s fundamental mechanics as a sturdy foundation, swapping out the Mushroom Kingdom’s heroes for a delightful cast of eccentric minifigs. Yet, every single element here bursts with undeniable personality, and among its 60 diverse minigames, you won’t find a single dud. If your quest is abundant laughter, then LEGO Party delivers all the essential pieces for constructing a wonderfully entertaining night with friends and family.
For anyone familiar with Nintendo’s iconic party starters, the core mechanics of LEGO Party will be as effortless to grasp as a tiny coffee mug in a minifig’s hand. In this brick-filled adventure, your primary objective is to gather gold bricks and studs, replacing the stars and coins of its spiritual predecessor. You and up to three other players navigate four distinctively themed game boards, each intricately designed with various stud-draining obstacles and tantalizing event spaces awaiting your landing. Depending on your chosen board, a session can span a quick six rounds (about 45 minutes) or extend into epic three-hour, 24-round marathons. Every round pits all four players against each other in a minigame, crafted to be intuitively easy for both LEGO Juniors and seasoned Technic enthusiasts to pick up, yet challenging enough to truly master.
Players can strategically carry up to three power-ups, acquired either by spending studs at the in-game shop or through lucky spins on Wheel of Fortune-esque spaces. These power-ups can dramatically shift the leaderboard, allowing you to teleport your minifig directly to a coveted gold brick space or carefully ‘slow your roll’ to ensure you land on a precisely needed square. Many of these foundational elements are well-established within the Mario Party playbook, and LEGO Party wisely adopts a philosophy of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t dig out the dog-eared instruction booklet to rebuild it,’ keeping these tried-and-true concepts solidly intact.
However, the Pirate, Ninjago, Space, and Theme Park boards within LEGO Party introduce some ingenious twists that truly set them apart. For instance, each minigame choice is made democratically: players move their minifig in front of one of three options presented at the start of every round. I particularly enjoyed this feature, as it gave our group more agency over which events we’d experience during each evening’s play session. (Naturally, if you prefer a more randomized minigame selection à la Mario Party, that option is also available.) I also find LEGO Party’s system for determining turn order in subsequent rounds far more dynamic, as it’s based on the results of the preceding minigame. This contrasts with Mario Party’s more rigid approach of fixing turn order by an initial dice roll. This results-driven method injects a satisfying ebb and flow into each board, providing an extra layer of incentive to excel in every minigame.
Each of LEGO Party’s wonderfully vibrant and intricately detailed boards boasts several unique ‘construction zones’ where landing grants you the choice of building one of two structures. These choices can dramatically reshape the map and introduce a plethora of game-altering additions. On the Theme Park board, for example, you might opt to construct the ‘Extreme Zone,’ which throws a gauntlet of reflex-testing stunt challenges your way, promising a gold brick upon successful completion. Alternatively, you could erect the ‘Royal Ramparts,’ which offers a ballista-based minigame for rapidly accumulating studs and a catapult that can hurl you at a random opponent to snatch one of their gold bricks. Blended with various other board-specific features, such as the Space map’s thrilling transformation into a turn-based battle against a colossal green alien, every single playthrough of these game boards has consistently felt fresh and exhilarating throughout the many hours my family and I have collectively invested.
Everything is Awesome
The experience has also been consistently side-splittingly funny, largely thanks to Ted Talker and Paige Turner, LEGO Party’s brilliant, quip-slinging commentary duo. Seemingly inspired by the hilarious play-callers of game shows like Wipeout or Holey Moley, Ted and Paige deliver colorful, real-time commentary on every turn and every player’s performance in a minigame. They’ll either hype you up when you’re on a winning streak or comically roast you when you’re struggling. Surprisingly, even after countless playthroughs of each of LEGO Party’s four boards, I’ve hardly heard the same joke twice. Though, to be fair, that might be because half the time their witty banter is completely drowned out by uncontrollable fits of laughter or the salty bickering that erupts when a hard-earned gold brick is ruthlessly snatched away from another player. Seriously, if you’re playing with a competitive crew, that sting can be worse than finding a stray LEGO brick with the tender sole of your bare foot.
The remaining humor in LEGO Party springs directly from the exhilarating, competitive chaos of the challenges themselves. Developer SMG Studio, known for the slapstick antics of their ‘Moving Out’ series, has truly outdone themselves in crafting a delightful construction derby of highly addictive minigames. From challenges testing your memory to physics-driven races and rhythmic dance-offs, LEGO Party’s collection of minigames is as diverse as it is entertaining, bursting with personality and creative flair. Furthermore, it’s always a clear sign of truly engaging multiplayer minigames when players become so engrossed in the competition that they don’t even realize they haven’t left the pre-game practice screen – a regular occurrence during my time with LEGO Party.
Some minigames are fantastic, toybox homages to other giants of multiplayer mayhem, such as the obstacle course dash that feels lifted straight from Fall Guys, or the zero-gravity space shuttle soccer which orbits closely to Rocket League. Others ingeniously tap into the familiar, tactile joy of playing with LEGO itself, like the one where you frantically try to build monsters from a pile of differently shaped blocks with no instructions. There’s a challenge with four soccer goals to defend from an escalating barrage of balls, playing out like an inverted game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Another places each minifig on a LEGO motorbike, tasking you to navigate an undulating course like a charming recreation of Trials HD.
Among the most cherished minigames on my couch are those that feel utterly unique. There’s the frantic, four-way showdown to smash your opponents’ LEGO vase with a brick boulder, which accelerates with every deflection, or the nightclub-themed battle where everyone scrambles to launch their minifig onto a floating dance floor using elastic grappling hooks. Of course, each member of my party has their personal favorites: I adore anything on four wheels, my son is captivated by the zero-gravity games, while my daughter’s top pick is… well, usually whichever minigame she just won. But the consistent quality of challenges throughout the game board means that even when we opt for a random minigame, we are rarely left disappointed.
Everything is Cool When You’re Part of a Team
I also appreciate that success in these minigames is primarily a blend of skill and a dash of luck. You won’t encounter any cheap button-mashing challenges here, unlike those that frequently pop up in Mario Party, which I always felt subjected my expensive game controllers to undue wear and tear, not to mention seeming a bit unfair to the younger players in my living room who haven’t had decades of button-mashing practice to build up their biceps.
Moreover, LEGO Party avoids the awkwardness of lopsided three-versus-one match types that often compel the majority to unfairly target a single individual. Instead, LEGO Party’s minigames are consistently balanced, offering either a free-for-all experience or intense two-on-two ‘Brick Battle’ face-offs when you land on a designated square. These team-based clashes range from the sheer intensity of a doubles air hockey match to more absurd co-op tasks, like one player aiming a T-shirt cannon while the other fires it at a crowd of shirtless minifigs. All these challenges demand effective communication and precise coordination between duos to secure victory. In fact, I enjoyed these Brick Battles so much that I was a little let down to discover only nine of them were included in the roster.
Despite this, I’m delighted that LEGO Party foregoes the often arbitrary participation awards at the end of each board, a common feature in many Mario Party titles. There’s still plenty of drama with fortune-altering chance spaces sprinkled across the map in the final stages, and many games I’ve played have seen the lead change hands constantly right up to the last round. However, the winner is always clearly defined by the time the game concludes, never unfairly propelled into first place by some obscure, unseen statistic like simply landing on the most event spaces. This approach ensures that victory truly feels earned through genuine merit, rather than some mysterious calculation. That doesn’t mean other players won’t seize every opportunity to knock you off the winner’s podium – and I mean that quite literally, especially during the riotously interactive results screen which often descends into chaotic slap fights, banana peel slips, and minifig breakdancing in the background.
While LEGO Party’s roster of playable minifigs might not boast iconic figures like Mario or Yoshi, it more than compensates with sheer quantity and an impressive array of character customization options. Progressing through each game board or playing curated minigame playlists earns you XP, which gradually unlocks new minifigs along a series of straightforward progression paths. Additionally, you’ll earn ‘carrots’ that can be spent to unlock a separate collection of minifigs in the shop. By my count, there are well over 200 minifigs available – from goth kids to pizza-slice people and stylish ninja warriors – and as you unlock each one, their individual parts become available to craft entirely new, unique creations of your own. Fancy a minifig sporting tiger-print pants, a Miami Vice-style linen jacket, and an American football helmet? A peculiar combination, perhaps, but it’s all yours to assemble!
Speaking of connecting things, I would absolutely love to see LEGO Party harness the extensive range of pop culture partnerships the Danish brick-maker has amassed over the years. Imagine bringing these beloved franchises into the party, either through exciting expansion packs or future sequels. A LEGO Star Wars board, featuring minigames built around thrilling lightsaber duels and Death Star trench runs, would be an absolute delight. Similarly, a LEGO Indiana Jones board, with event spaces designed to trigger Raiders of the Lost Ark-style booby traps and rolling boulders, would be fantastic. Given Nintendo’s recent collaborations with the LEGO brand, it’s not entirely far-fetched to imagine a LEGO Mario LEGO Party expansion, at least for the Switch versions, which would truly bring things full circle. To be clear, nothing of this nature has been announced, and I’m merely musing aloud, but I’ve had an absolute blast with LEGO Party so far. I sincerely hope this game has laid the fantastic plastic foundations for a series that is here to stay.
Verdict
LEGO Party doesn’t completely reinvent the tried-and-true Mario Party formula, but it does introduce some welcome tweaks to its structure, a uniformly high quality collection of minigames hard-tuned for hilarity, and an enjoyably silly game show-style presentation that’s yet to overstay its welcome. The four game boards on offer might be a few less than Super Mario Party Jamboree’s collection, but the transformative nature of their layouts brings welcome variety and surprise to each session, and the considerable minifig customisation options are a joy to tinker with. Creative, colourful, and a consistent crack up, LEGO Party is purpose-built to turn any boring old night into a block party filled with belly laughs.