Feel the freedom of play in Lego Bricktales VR. See from perspectives you didn’t think were possible.
Imagination can be a powerful thing tool when it comes to playing. Unlike most toys, LEGO Bricktales grants people access to blocks with none of the mess. Thanks to the famous toys, so many independent universes have come into being. Each with its charm, these universes have countless stories that can go any direction. This one stars a young adult, their grandfather, his robot friend, and a demanding mayor.
The mayor wants the town’s theme park restored. It’s run down and in absolute disrepair, but there is some hope. Your grandfather has been hired to repair and restore the park to its former glory. With the help of his ever-evolving robot, the trio should make short work of what repairs are necessary. From developer ClockSTONE Studio comes a tale where one trio must bring back prosperity to their hometown. What will the restoration look like? And what will the mayor think about it? Jump into the sandbox adventure game and see where imagination can take you.
LEGO Bricktales VR is a fascinating way to play with the famous block toys. As someone who grew up with the knock-off brand, building any structure and seeing it stay put was nerve-wracking. There is no physical mess to clean up, which is a welcome relief. However, it does not detract from how complicated some structures can be.
Controls are pretty straightforward; luckily, the game won’t allow a player to do anything without going through a lengthy tutorial. By default, the left controller contains a couple of helpful shortcuts. The first shortcut is the ‘menu’ option, allowing players to mess with the settings. Second is the ‘return to grandpa’ function, allowing players to teleport right back to the park, no matter what ‘world’ they are currently in. Next is the wardrobe, a sub-menu that allows one to decorate the player’s character to their liking. Lastly is the ‘toggle VR/MR’ setting.
The toggle setting is pretty interesting. With VR, one can only see an infinite blank space surrounding the ‘board’ area. With the MR or mixed reality setting, one can see their play area and the environment that surrounds them in real life. Personally, using the mixed reality setting feels a little odd. Despite the partly odd feeling, it’s a great setting for one who wants to stay aware of their surroundings while busy playing LEGO Bricktales VR.
Like most titles that allow it, turning the environment or zooming is done by pinching trigger 2 on both controllers. ‘Lifting’ the environment shows a white rabbit, that supposedly, if followed, will help a player end the game.
Building the structures themselves in LEGO Bricktales VR is interesting. Each piece sits on its pile next to the small construction zone. Depending on the particular thing being built, the restrictive nature of the build area can be frustrating at times. But the freedom given in LEGO Bricktales VR does quite a bit to lessen the frustration. Not everything needs to be built in a complicated way.
Certain conditions must be satisfied for each structure in LEGO Bricktales VR. Every structure or object built must stay together and not break by default. Otherwise, the build is a failure. A green checkmark indicates when special objects are set in their rightful place or a given part of the environment.
Personally, the easiest structure in LEGO Bricktales VR has to be the bridges. Some of the blocks, if placed wrong, will simply fall apart and land on each other. It is important with the bridges that when the test bot makes its way through, its weight is supported the entire time, lest it fall with all the blocks the structure contains. Simply overlapping the blocks from the start point is the best way to handle things. And, after testing it, it works out despite looking like it was built in a panic with little regard for aesthetics.
LEGO Bricktales VR gives glaring hints when it comes to needing to build certain things. For example, the game informs the player through character dialogue a propeller and seat are necessary to help build the gyrocopter vehicle. The working design of the vehicle can be pretty basic, but it must be able to reach a ‘stable height’ regardless of how it looks. The back center seems the best place for the propeller to sit, as it allows the flying vehicle to lean forward.
The most complex structures have to be bridges and stairs. With most structures or objects, certain pieces will simply disappear if built with pieces in the wrong spot. This does well to show that certain things are built in the wrong spot. Purposely building the wrong thing to let the robot fall can be really fun at times. Seeing it plummet from what’s supposed to be a stable part of the environment is hilarious.
Certain angles must be looked at in order to see the best way to build certain structures. Players need to approach a hammer icon in most environments/worlds to start one of the builds. LEGO Bricktales VR reiterates a few times that approaching the hammer is necessary. In the PC version of Lego Bricktales, one writer experienced a glitch in building the structures. No matter how accurate and stable the structures were, they still fell apart when the test robot was released. In the length of time that my game is, it is thankfully a glitch I have yet to experience.
Being able to turn the environment is important when it comes to the building aspect. With LEGO Bricktales VR, one uses the second trigger on both controls to ‘turn’ things. Only one is needed, though, to push the environment away or pull it back towards oneself. The freedom within the construction zone is unmatched in the virtual reality iteration. According to the writer who took the Xbox Series X version for a spin, the top-down bottom-up perspective is restricted in a way that virtual reality is not.
After building the most important parts of an environment, one will gain a ‘happiness crystal’ from that particular world. This unlocks the ability to work on certain parts of the theme park. One of the first in LEGO Bricktales VR is the Tilt-A-Whirl. One must construct seats for riders to jump into. While there’s no wrong way to build them, my brain told me to go the safe minimalist route. Thanks to the way LEGO Bricktales VR is built, the seats can be redesigned indefinitely. Hopefully, the next look will have a more interesting color palette, because minimalist is not it.
A few times in LEGO Bricktales VR, the player character has the opportunity to help others stuck in the environment. One of the explorer characters tasks one with collecting chameleons. This particular character is hilarious because he purposely disguises himself as a tree. His reason for doing so? Because it’s the only way (in his eyes) to get close to the animals without frightening them. Collecting generic lizards, rabbits, birds, chameleons, and crustaceans is possible. However, LEGO Bricktales VR makes a hilarious comment about how it’s uncertain that collecting the animals serves any purpose other than occupying time between game events.
Currency comes in the form of bananas. I cannot say that bananas are all that weird, considering some games use things like ‘chromatic orbs.’ Fruit as a currency is silly, but it is far easier to follow. I wonder how the jungle world’s primates feel about their food being taken. These bananas are how one unlocks the wardrobe outfits, which are purchased from Boo the merchant. These outfits are accessed through the Wardrobe menu and separated into head, chest, pants, and shoes. It’s cool to be able to change outfits in LEGO Bricktales VR since the physical toys are designed for such a thing. Wouldn’t it be weird to change outfits with real toys the same way?
The visuals of LEGO Bricktales VR are fantastic. Of course, the environment looks just like any brick set with its animals, people, and environmental decorations. It is amazing to see how accurately the characters and blocks can be recreated within a virtual reality space. And, considering the medium, it sometimes becomes hard to tell whether things are 3D rendered, or if pictures of actual sets were taken from every possible angle. The visuals alone make the game worth one’s time.
Sometimes, characters will speak in a panic. This is conveyed by making some words in italics shake to emphasize a specific word or signify a certain emotion. It’s a funny visual component through which many fourth wall breaks are made. It shouldn’t be surprising that Lego Bricktales, like many of its sister stories, use the ‘fourth wall’ story element. For those unfamiliar, ‘fourth wall’ breaking is when characters in their own stories mention our universe and the people in it.
There is nothing in the way of auditory dialogue regarding characters speaking. Other than some noisy gibberish, everyone’s tone of voice is the same, really. Audio shines more when it comes to the environment and objects within it. Plane crashes and animal sounds, for the most part, feel pretty accurate. And, of course, there’s the sound of Legos being placed throughout.
LEGO Bricktales VR is an exciting sandbox game. It is not a lengthy game and can be completed in a single afternoon, provided someone has that amount of free time. It is a great introduction to the toys for those unfamiliar with the Lego brand or who’ve never used them. It feels like a softer introduction than something that uses an IP like something from J.R.R. Tolkien’s or George Lucas’s minds.
For some people, there is no way to replace the physical toy. There is something to putting one’s fingers to the plastic. Any medium cannot replace a sense of accomplishment within our realm. While it may not hold the sense of nostalgia that a full set might, it is still a fun way to play. And it may inspire some to go out and buy a set so they can feel the joy of building something for real. Whether it’s a physical toy or a new game with the same theme, it’s a good way to attract fans.
