Lots of games at Summer Game Fest sure looked a lot like other well known titles, but no other game wore its inspirations on its sleeve as much as LEGO Party. From the name to the board game layout to the minigames, you’d have to be a die-hard LEGO defender to ignore the closeness to Mario Party. But after 40ish minutes of hands-on time with LEGO Party, it’s evident developer SMG Studios is keen on carving out its own space in the party genre rather than just copying Mario Party.
To fairly acknowledge the similarities first, if you’ve played Mario Party at any point in your life, you’re primed for LEGO Party already. The objective is to collect the most Golden Bricks through purchases and luck while Studs serve as your primary currency (and tie-breaker in the event of equal Golden Bricks). Your chosen LEGO figure bops around the board triggering events on certain spaces, and after all four players have gone, it’s time for a minigame. After Stud gains are tallied, it’s back to the board for another round.
That’s the gist of LEGO Party which, if you shuffle a few words around, is basically Mario Party. But who cares? Why shouldn’t Mario Party feel the pressure of another game moving into its space? Aside from smaller releases like Pummel Party and Garfield Lasagna Party, the answer to who’s pressing Mario Party has largely been “nobody” over the years.
After six or so rounds of LEGO Party, a few decisions SMG Studios made stood out. For one, the battle tiles that trigger minigames between the minigames are always 2v2 showdowns. That could pose a problem in games without a full four players (CPU players replace those that drop out), but it also ensures nobody’s time is wasted. The goal there, according to SMG Studios, is to make sure everyone’s participating at all times rather than two players watching the other two duke it out.
How you perform in the core minigames also impacts your board performance as well. Rather than just following the same turn order each time, the ranking of players in the last minigame determines the turn order when you’re back on the board. More than once, I found myself in a key position to pick up a Golden Brick that was a few spaces away, but only if I did well enough in the minigame to go ahead of other players. Towards the latter half of LEGO Party matches when Stud gains and losses are increased, this turn order keeps even those in first place committed to doing well in minigames.
The minigames themselves are again quite similar to some we’ve seen in Mario Party, but they’re at their best when they lean into the LEGO theme. My favorite Mario Party game of all time, Bumper Balls, is recreated in LEGO Party, but the twist here is that your LEGO cluster grows larger as you collect falling LEGO bricks. A bigger ball means bigger bumps, so you’re encouraged to move around rather than just be an opportunistic camper. Another minigame tasked players with building the biggest tower out of – you guessed it – LEGO bricks. Flat LEGO pieces flew towards the tower with players having to stop them at the right time, but overhanging bits of the LEGO pieces were chopped off to ultimately make your tower narrower as it grew. Another 2v2 game saw one teammate placing different-sized LEGO bricks on a vertical board while the other player jumped on each one as they were placed to ultimately reach the top of the shambly LEGO build before the other team.
LEGO itself is a brand that’s crossed over with pretty much every pop culture phenomenon it can, so as long as licenses align, there’s ample opportunity for LEGO Party to grow with more boards and characters beyond the current boards seeing how the only current known collab is LEGO Ninjago. I’m not particularly thrilled at the prospect of everyone’s favorite LEGO collabs being sliced up into DLCs, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet how future content will be handled, so for now, I’m optimistic about LEGO Party.
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