LEGO Builder’s Journey is yet another superbly presented game originally made for Apple Arcade and ported over to the Switch. It offers up a wonderfully relaxed puzzle experience, but there’s always that nagging feeling it’s overpriced when put forward as …
LEGO Builder’s Journey is yet another superbly presented game originally made for Apple Arcade and ported over to the Switch.
It offers up a wonderfully relaxed puzzle experience, but there’s always that nagging feeling it’s overpriced when put forward as a standalone title.
The set up is superbly simple. You – a small childlike figure made from a handful of blocks – must traverse one-screen stages by manipulating the block based terrain.
Your core aim is almost always to get from one point to another, and how you get there is up to you. Well, to some extent at least.
There’s only a certain number of ways you can get over rivers and other obstacles after all, but the challenges the game throws at you are just varied and often strange enough to keep you entertained.
The excellent presentation helps keep you interested too. That might sound shallow, but the game is simply lovely to look at, and it all feels as it should – from the satisfying click of pieces fitting together to the way your character hops around the terrain.
There’s a pared back plot told via no speech or text, which although occasionally confusing works far better than it has any right to as well.
However there are problems. As alluded to earlier, the game is short – and although some levels have been added to this Switch version they often feel a little clunky and arguably ruin the flow of the narrative.
Second is that the control scheme, although not terrible, is nowhere near as enjoyable as the touch screen set up used in the Apple Arcade iteration.
Which means you have to ask if this is a little overpriced at £17.99/$19.99, especially considering its brevity and the lack of replay value.
Builder’s Journey is an impressively put together experience for the most part, but is probably only worth investing in at full price for true Lego die-hards.
