Lego Bricktales VR Review: Puzzle fun or kids' stuff?
In Lego Bricktales, you build and puzzle your way through different Lego dimensions presented as tabletop dioramas. I played the new XR version of Lego Bricktales on the Quest 3 in VR and Mixed Reality, and I am thrilled.
The VR version of Lego Bricktales was released in the Meta Store on December 7, 2023, and is available on Quest 3, Quest Pro and Quest 2. The Lego adventure developed by Thunderful Games has already been available for PC, Playstation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and smartphones since October 2022. I tested the new VR version on Quest 3.
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Lego Bricktales VR Review in a nutshell
Lego Bricktales focuses on perfectly translating its core mechanics to VR. Instead of exceeding my expectations, it delivers exactly what I expect from a puzzle game on the Quest 3.
In Lego Bricktales, you get intuitive game mechanics perfectly translated to VR, detailed diorama worlds that make the most of the Lego style, and entertaining puzzles that encourage my creativity with multiple solutions rather than limiting it.
Tested on: Quest 3
Lego Bricktales is suitable for me when …
- I'm looking for a solid VR puzzle game,
- want to solve puzzles with creativity and
- enjoy the typical Lego humor with puns and absurd situations.
Lego Bricktales is less suitable for me if …
- I am looking for a deep story,
- want to spend hours puzzling over extremely tricky puzzles and
- can't do anything at all with Lego or puzzle games.
A multidimensional adventure with typical Lego humor
In Lego Bricktales, you help a scientist fix his amusement park before he gets in trouble with the city council. Together with a robot, you will be sent to different Lego dimensions to get happiness crystals.
To achieve this, you must solve the problems of the people in the different Lego worlds and make them happy. Once you've done that, you can repair a ride in the amusement park hub and explore the next Lego dimension.
As you can see, the story mainly serves as a reason to send you to several classic Lego worlds, such as a jungle, the Middle Ages or a big city. However, you wouldn't expect a really in-depth story in a Lego game.
In the jungle dimension, I rescue the participants of an expedition. | Image: Lego / Thunderful Games
In typical Lego fashion, the goal is to provide light entertainment for a wide range of fans, young and old. Humor is always a matter of taste, but I think Lego Bricktales finds a good mix of puns and absurd scenarios without being annoying or getting in the way of the fun.
Lego Bricktales: VR and MR on the Quest 3
In Lego Bricktales, the playing field is composed of dioramas placed in your mixed reality or virtual reality environment. I spent most of my time in mixed reality mode, which works well with the Quest 3's color passthrough.
If the passthrough doesn't work properly in the evening or in bad lighting conditions, the VR mode is a suitable alternative, which replaces the passthrough effect behind the dioramas with a monochrome background.
You can switch between VR and MR in the menu at any time with a single click. Both modes run equally stable on the Quest 3 and without performance problems.
Lego Bricktales impresses with intuitive gameplay
In Lego Bricktales, you move your custom character and the entire diorama independently. The character is moved with the analog sticks. You rotate levels horizontally using the grip buttons on the Quest 3 controller to see new perspectives on paths and secrets.
Both work so well because the levels are so incredibly detailed and lovingly designed that I immediately wanted to examine them from every angle. Although the paths are largely linear, you immediately see hidden treasures, locked doors, and all sorts of interaction points that arouse your curiosity.
The pirate cove offers countless details. | Image: Lego / Thunderful Games
There is also a kind of Metroidvania mechanic. In each of the five Lego dimensions, you will find an ability that you need at special interaction points. For example, you can clear blocked paths or use teleporters. You can use these abilities to progress, but you can also return to the other worlds to reach previously inaccessible places with treasures and collectibles.
I particularly liked the puzzle rooms where you unlock these abilities. They build on each other, so you can switch between up to five different abilities to solve the puzzles.
Lego Bricktales: How to build in the VR version
The absolute highlight of Lego Bricktales, however, are the numerous puzzles that require you to build something out of Lego bricks. Bricks are picked up with the Quest 3 controllers' trigger button and rotated with the analog stick. This allows me to build precisely, intuitively and without delay.
To make sure it's not too easy, the available Lego bricks and the construction area are predefined. In addition, every finished construction has to pass a physical test before it is transferred to the diorama world. You can't just build "in the air" and you have to make sure it's structurally stable.
Here, the bridge must be stable enough for the robot to cross it. | Image: Lego / Thunderful Games
Initially, you build simple bridges and stairs, or you have to rebuild a structure exactly. Later on, however, more requirements are added. For example, some puzzles require you to build in a balanced way, or special parts must be part of the construction.
The level of difficulty and creative freedom are balanced here, as there are always several possible solutions. You can try to reach your goal with as few bricks as possible, or create works of art with all available bricks.
Here, I am trying to build a crane. | Picture: Lego / Thunderful Games
Some of the puzzles took me a while to solve and I had to completely restart my builds several times before I found the solution. However, the puzzles never became frustrating and even younger Lego fans shouldn't have too many problems here.
Lego Bricktales Review on Quest 3: Give me more!
Lego Bricktales focuses on its core mechanics and implements them perfectly. In particular, the building puzzles with direct hand control using the Quest 3 controller work perfectly and were so much fun that I would like to play many more of them.
With about eight to ten hours of gameplay, an entertaining story and five worlds, each with numerous dioramas, there is a lot of content. But because the game is so good, I want more.
Lego Bricktales is just screaming for DLC expansions or a sequel because the creative possibilities of the game mechanics created here are far from exhausted. Thunderful Games and Lego have created a formula that I would love to see with more dimensions, deeper puzzles and Lego mechanics.
Lego Bricktales is a rock solid puzzle game for the Quest 3 that Lego fans young and old can pick up without hesitation.
You can buy Lego Bricktales VR here
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