LEGO Party feels like one of those inevitabilities. LEGO has done it all: superheroes, Star Wars, racing, open worlds, and even games based on their own movies. Who knew a great party game was sitting right there the whole time? What’s surprising isn’t that it exists. It’s how good it actually is. LEGO Party could’ve coasted on the licenses alone, slapped some minifigures on a board, and called it a day. Instead, it feels like a careful rethink of the formula. Familiar enough to jump right in, but different enough that it earns its spot on the shelf.
The biggest statement comes before you even hit the board.
Character customization is absurdly generous right from the start. Instead of looking through some staple mascots every round, you’re building your own LEGO avatar. Everything down to the hair, hats, weird face prints, goofy accessories, it’s all there. And it’s not shallow. The more you play and level up, the more you unlock, which keeps you going back to see what’s next. One night, I went from rocking a knight’s helmet to dressing as a pigheaded astronaut, because why not? That connection by seeing your figure stomp around the board and blow it in a mini-game does more for the experience than Mario Party’s static roster ever has.
“LEGO Party keeps things cleaner, less unfair, but maybe a little too polite.”
That feeds directly into the mini-games, which are easily LEGO Party’s backbone. There are over sixty, and while a few duds are unavoidable, the batting average is shockingly high. The standouts are flat-out hilarious. The mini-golf chaos, where you have to bounce your balls off of walls and other players to get them into the holes, is the kind of game that leaves everyone screaming at the screen.
The slug mirror game that forces you to copy the movements of a giant slimy creature is so dumb it’s brilliant. And then there’s the dancing game, basically Guitar Hero if it were filtered through LEGO slapstick, with your minifig hitting moves to a funky beat. It’s not just good, it’s the kind of thing you immediately want to play again, even after losing.
The smart part is how the game handles getting into them. Mario Party has always just thrown a random mini-game at you, which is fine, but also feels like you’re rolling dice twice in a row. LEGO Party gives you options. At the end of each turn, you vote on one of three mini-games or hit random if you’re feeling lucky. It’s such a small tweak, but it changes the energy. Suddenly, you’re lobbying your friends, bargaining, or daring someone to pick random and live with the consequences. It’s player-driven chaos, and it makes even the downtime fun.
The boards themselves also push things forward. Instead of being static rides, you loop around on LEGO Party boards that expand as you play. You can literally pay to add new paths or sections. Maybe it’s a shortcut, maybe it’s a treasure stash, maybe it’s a detour that ends up helping your opponent more than you. The pirate-themed starter board nails this: it starts small and manageable, but as more of the map opens up, treasure chests and branching routes appear, and suddenly the simple loop you thought you understood is a different game altogether. It feels like LEGO, like you’re building the playset as you fight over it.
The win condition is gold bricks instead of stars, which makes sense thematically and feels satisfying to collect. Watching your pile grow brick by brick just fits the vibe. Where I think it stumbles is at the finish line. There are no bonus awards at the end like Mario Party’s infamous “most coins lost” or “win the most minigames” stars. Yes, those moments are infuriating, but they’re also what make Mario Party a friendship ruiner, and can really turn the tide of battle. LEGO Party keeps things cleaner, less unfair, but maybe a little too polite.
Even with that, it’s hard to complain when so much else works. The humour’s there, baked right into the animations and the slapstick chaos. The pacing keeps rounds moving quickly enough that a dud mini-game never overstays its welcome. And the customization keeps everything feeling personal.
“After a few nights with LEGO Party, it stopped being ‘Mario Party with LEGO’ in my head and became its own thing.”
What surprised me most was how much strategy is often overlooked. You’re not just rolling dice and hoping for the best. You’re deciding when to spend currency, whether to expand the board or save up for bricks, which mini-game to vote for, and whether to risk opening up a path that might help everyone else. It’s not a heavy strategy, but it’s just enough to keep you engaged in between the laughs.
After a few nights with LEGO Party, it stopped being ‘Mario Party with LEGO’ in my head and became its own thing. Mario Party has the nostalgia, sure, but this feels fresher, sharper, less reliant on randomness to make the night memorable. It’s LEGO taking the same core idea and making it theirs.
LEGO Party isn’t perfect. A few mini-games are weak, the unlock grind can drag, and I really do miss the bonus chaos at the end. But the overall package is funny, creative, and surprisingly takes some real strategy. Even with that, it still remains easy enough for anyone, including kids, to pick up the game within a turn or two. Most importantly, it gets the feeling right. That special kind of group chaos where you’re laughing, swearing, bargaining, and silently plotting your revenge.
I do hope that down the line they end up adding more boards to it, because there are only five, and while they are a ton of fun, it gets pretty easy to have seen and done everything, only to replay your favourite board and know exactly how to play it. The fact that cross-play is an option and works really well means that it is also significantly more accessible.
By the time my last match ended, I was already planning my next minifigure outfit and debating which board to try again. That eagerness to jump back in says it all. LEGO Party doesn’t just borrow the formula; it builds something new out of it. Brick by brick, joke by joke, it proves that there is room for more than one board-based party game. It’s the party game I didn’t realize I wanted, and now it’s the one I can’t stop thinking about.
