Review: Though A Fantastic Premise, LEGO Brawls Falls Short

Though recently released on all major gaming platforms, LEGO Brawls has been the go-to brawling game for players subscribed to the iOS service, Apple Arcade. Bringing its own fresh ideas to the genre, LEGO Brawls manages to give players a reason to try what it has to offer thanks to its fantastic Brawler customization that perfectly captures the joy of playing with LEGO Minifigs.

While that’s all well and good, aside from customization, LEGO Brawls fails to really be anything more than a brawling game for amateur players, resulting in an experience where button-mashing your attacks and special abilities are the strategies, and you can only hope that your hits connect more than your enemies do. It’s an unfortunate realization, that really makes it feel like a barebones mobile title asking for a $39.99 entry fee. But, does it feel this way on purpose?

LEGO Brawls Review Biggest Takeaways

• LEGO Brawls is a great starting point for newbies to the brawler genre.
• Customization is the standout for this game, and stars as a reason to continue playing.
• LEGO Brawls can feel barren compared to its counterparts.
• $39.99 can feel like a stretch of the imagination due to poor marketing.
• Final Score: 6/10

Innovative Yet Unsatisfying Gameplay

LEGO Brawls, when first getting into it is actually pretty exciting. The tutorial does a great job of showing how different this game can be compared to other brawler titles, highlighting the combat and its original game mode specifically. Combat in LEGO Brawls is similar to the games of this genre but heavily diverges onto its own path in two key ways that I’ll get into soon.

Focusing on what it does right though; you have a standard melee attack, with the inclusion of 3 different kinds of powerup attacks that you can equip at any time. These powerups can’t just be used willy-nilly though, as you’ll need to pick up these sort of LEGO brick orbs that float around, and you’ll randomly be given one of your three equipped. It’s kind of like a Mario Kart powerup situation here, only your randomized chances are limited to the three you’ve chosen.

And just like Mario Kart, you can carry up to two powerups at any given time to use. These can be simple ranged weapons, special abilities, or even a vehicle such as a flying spaceship that shoots blaster shots at enemies. I’ve got to give it to the devs on this one, all of the special abilities are pretty unique and very fun to play around with or even watch others use.

Gameplay can be an incredibly hectic, and fun experience at times, especially in the first few hours of gameplay. But most of that fun starts to wear thin once you start to feel the shortcomings of the combat. For instance, every attack, across all Brawlers hits the exact same. This is a souring experience because you don’t really have those standout characters as you do in a game like Super Smash Bros.

There are no, “uh oh, they picked X character.” moments. It makes gameplay a boiled-down equation of button-mashing until you kill your enemy before they kill you. There’s no strategy, and matches can actually become quite messy because of everyone spamming attacks the entire time. The gameplay also just fails to feel satisfying when it comes to actually feel the attacks.

There’s no rumble, at least on the Nintendo Switch version, and connecting with an enemy in-game just doesn’t seem to give any kind of feedback to make a player feel as if they’re even doing any work. This is all made even worse by the fact that there’s no blocking button. This being omitted from gameplay just amplifies the gameplay that comes across as hectic, but in the wrong way.

Game Modes Offering A New Direction

The other aspect that tries its best to make LEGO Brawls feel different from its compatriots is the inclusion of its Control Point mode which sort of captures the same kind of feel as Call of Duty’s Domination game mode. Each team tries its best to hold the singular control point until the team who’s held it the longest by the time the clock runs out wins.

It’s a great mode that fits well with the fast-paced and crazy gameplay. Unlike Call of Duty though, because the gameplay is just a bit too crazy, there’s never that satisfying feeling of somehow clearing an enemy-filled control point based on either skill or strategy. It’s all just the luck of the draw on who started hitting who first.

And for its less than modest price of $39.99, LEGO Brawls only offers a few other modes. The typical Free-for-All type of mode where all players duke it out, Brawl Royale which sees two teams battle it out, and the Collect Mode which pits players against each other in a bid to see which team can collect the most collectibles to win.

Luckily, the themed levels in LEGO Brawls help to make gameplay feel fun as each one not only looks unique but can vary heavily in design from one to another. The developers have obviously got a great creative flow going, it’s just a shame that the actual gameplay aspects didn’t land as well as one would hope to make it come full circle in that regard.

Customization Entices The Creative Minds

The area that LEGO Brawls hits a home run in is its Brawler customization. There are over 240 different LEGO Minifigs to unlock alone, all of which pieces can be used in order to create your own unique Brawlers. In addition to actually putting your own together, mastering the Minifigs which are called Champions can be quite a fun task as well.

Before getting access to all of the Champion Minifigs, you’ll have to play as each one in succession and master it before you can fully unlock its cosmetic items and special abilities for the customization side. Similarly, most of the 240 Minifigs actually have to be unlocked by simply playing the game or collecting pieces for doing well while fighting in matches. It can be kind of confusing at first but makes a bit more sense the more you play the game.

This newly released version of the game is actually a full package of what the game had put out in the past on iOS, featuring all 12 of its season passes called Themes. Though LEGO Brawls doesn’t really market itself this way and that’s part of why it can be confusing when it comes to how unlocking things go. You also have to pick a specific Theme at a time to unlock the items in its tiers. I just think the game could have illustrated this a bit clearer, especially when you finally realize who the main demographic really is for this specific brawler, kids.

Where it Goes Wrong

At face value, LEGO Brawls just seems like the LEGO company’s take on the Smash Bros. formula, falling in the same vein as MultiVersus and the like. At the end of the day though, it isn’t. LEGO Brawls is definitely a brawler game made for a younger audience who may feel a bit afraid of getting into the more complex brawlers.

Games like Smash have tons of characters with varying strengths and abilities that could turn the newer or less coordinated players away, myself included. As I’ve always been a fan of the Smash games, I could never get hooked because there is a lot to learn all while battling against other players who have mastered the game and can truly decimate matches. This can make games unfun.

The place where this game fails is in explaining what these Themes really are and expressing why you’ve paid $39.99 in the first place. If you’ve paid $39.99 for a game that you expect to be on par with Smash, knowing full well that it was originally a mobile game, only to find how bare bones it is at first glance, you would be pretty let down. But if the game were more upfront with the fact that the $39.99 price tag is basically just the fee for all of the season passes, then that would make a bit more sense.

Marketing your game properly means the world, especially if you’re going to stick a price tag on a game that’s technically free on iOS devices. Sure, Apple Arcade is a subscription service but your subscription includes hundreds if not thousands of other titles.

Is it Worth Picking Up?

I’d say that LEGO Brawls is actually a really good game for families to play together. If you’re a parent that grew up on the Smash games but wants to take it easy on your toddler or young child, this is great. The customization options are fantastic to bond over and the simplistic gameplay is great to just kick back and relax with. Following that; kids would find this game to be a blast. It does have its exciting moments when things fall into place and I think that kids specifically wouldn’t even realize the game’s off-beats.

Alternatively, if you’re someone who just can’t find the hype in Smash or even Multiversus because of the difficulty curve, then it could be worth it for you too if you can look past the game’s misses and give it a chance. You at least get a ton of things to unlock which makes the game feel worth it if you look through the proper lens. I just personally cannot look past the fact that you can’t at least block.

At the end of the day, LEGO Brawls is a mixed bag but it feels like it was meant to be that way. Gameplay is simplified for a reason. The unfortunate thing is that it doesn’t mean that the gameplay is actually really good. It’s also $39.99 mobile game on PC and consoles that includes all previous DLC, and it was made with kids and families in mind, just like every other LEGO game.

Related: How to Switch Themes in LEGO Brawls

LEGO Brawls is available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, mac, and iOS devices. If you’re looking for more LEGO Brawls content, be sure to check out our guides and other coverage pieces.