Created by TT Games, just like its predecessor – this movie tie-in brings in humour, action and unique tweaks that made surprises every now and then.
Platform Reviewed: PS4
Platform Available: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Traveler’s Tales
Release Date: September 22, 2017
Price: USD $59.99
This review is based on a physical copy shipped by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
As the title suggest, you play as a variety of ninja with heavy focus given to Green ninja Lloyd. With the help of his companions, they defend Ninjago city, illuminated in an ancient island that looks like a cartoonish Tokyo. Ninjago city is in trouble because of attacks that is lead by Garmadon who is lo and behold! Lloyd’s Father, together with his aquatic thugs and mech techs. Gameplay is pretty much linear as you just have to go through the storyline.
Other times you have the opportunity to swap with other ninja’s so you can use their special skills. Because of Lloyd’s family background, he grew up indifferent at school and ultimately eager to reverse his father’s impression on the people and the city, ultimately. Due to this immature eagerness, he blew up and put the city at risk. Making him do the extraordinary and travel to the heart of the island to seek his Spinjitsu power and save the city.
As someone who saw the movie and slept all the way through, I wanted to give another chance to this video game as it may have a different experience for me. TT Games, almost got it right – though it fell a little short. Performance wise, during gameplay it was noticeable that there were framerate drops. This was especially difficult when there were a lot of things that is happening on screen; flying objects and moving characters. Solo campaign is quite enjoyable as its own.
With over 6 chapters to go through, free play walkthrough is not anymore needed. The player just needs to finish a mission and backtrack from there, making it easy to get all the collectibles from that level. Unlike the previous LEGO Games where collecting is an arduous task. This is fun as you can switch between characters utilizing their special skills and discovering new characters and secret. You also have the ability to go back to the Dojo on the first chapter to defeat waves of enemies to gain high scores and get certain rewards. Collector enthusiasts and Competitive gamers will surely appreciate this game.
Players can also join a series of dojos, what i particularly enjoyeds is the action packed combat scenes that this game delivers. Moves like Rushing boar charge, Swooping Hawk and Floating Butterfly were unique on its own. You can really see the character fly and swoop through the air to combat enemies (not bad for a Lego Video Game). It has its own finesse and just by using one type of move won’t cut it. AI on this game gets smart – meaning, they change their offense if you just use one move. Making their defensive futile to you as you can’t land any hits.
That, again, surprised me as the enemies learns to adapt your fighting style making players strategic and has to be forced to try out new combo moves. This encourages players to have fun and it really is a lot of fun. Little flaw I see though is when you beat these enemies, you are rewarded with in game money, tokens, where it gets scattered into the map – you have to actually walk through them to collect them, or else they disappear for being idle too long.
I find this disadvantageous because you don’t want to be wasting your time going all around your map just so you can collect those. Especially when you go about and smash these objects in the map, where it can get you more money, you’ll need to run around just to collect these precious tokens.
It definitely delivers fun, especially with the game’s’ voice characters. They really capture the humour in every line they say. Although the demographics was intended maybe for kids or for teenagers – young adults still can find little jewels here and there hidden on this video game.
