Announced during the Summer Games Fest Showcase, Lego Party! surprised everyone as a new game coming in as what looks like a direct competitor to Nintendo and Mario Party. After the reveal, we got to go hands-on with the game and it’s even more wild and chaotic than any Mario Party while still being just as fun as those games, and will definitely be a blast for those that want a party game, but don’t own a Nintendo console.
We got to play a six round game in the party mode, and to choose the player order we played a minigame to start and the order of turns was determined by placement in that minigame. From the get go of the actual game, the chaos erupted as the Gold Brick (this game’s version of Stars) spawned two spaces right outside the starting area and the first player to roll was able to buy it immediately as we all started with 50 studs which was more than enough to purchase it. From there, the game kept to its wild and chaotic nature as there were plenty of environmental effects across the board such as a kraken, giant crab, and a volcano to interact with and caused mayhem throughout the game. The chaos will definitely make it so no player has too much of advantage by being too good at the board aspect that you would expect in these types of games.
There were also moments where we had to pay to build a way across areas of the map to access certain spots. One of which was a pirate ship that immediately shot cannons at all players that caused us to lose a portion of our studs. As the game neared its end, the hazards got even wilder. There was a space where a shark appeared that could cause misfortune to all players. This happened almost immediately after it spawned as one player landed on it. Then, the craziest thing happen. A player made it to the top of the volcano which had a giant roasted turkey shoot off and it hit the player who had the Gold Brick who then lost the piece. Finally, the player who was shot off the top of volcano landed on the shark space which caused us all to lose studs and had us all laughing and screaming hysterically.
As for the minigames, the ones we got to play ranged from average to pretty fun. The best of which didn’t feel as fun as the best minigames in Mario Party. However, the four of us were still having a blast while trying to beat each other, then had fun beating each other on the placements screen. Lego Party! caught us completely off guard in how enjoyable of a time it was, and is sure to be a blast for those who are fans of Lego and party games.