I was a LEGO kid. I love LEGOs, theres something about the act of building things that has resonated with some deeper part of my personality and greatly impacted my creative existence - and so its actually kind of surprising how few LEGO video games actually let you build something piece by piece. Builders Journey, in basically every way you could look at it, is a love letter to LEGO and what LEGO represents. Small building puzzle dioramas rendered in minimal and luscious fashion, sporting a simple but touching lil story of adventure and assembly, resembling the small box sets you might crack open on a quiet Saturday afternoon in August maybe 25 years ago, when a couple more unique parts for your own toolbox was just as important as whatever fun structure the instructions taught you how to make. It means so much that, while the puzzles are incredibly simple, their solutions are not always strict; you can still over- and under-build to your creative hearts content.

Most importantly: Its also kind of boring sometimes. Interesting in concept, austere in practice.

Probably the first game I've played in a while that makes me feel disappointed. Was hoping for a chill, eye-candy puzzle game, and what I got is a clunky, headscratch-inducing and repetitive one.

I do not like how the game controls: selecting which blocks to move can feel very finicky with the analog stick, especially in later parts of the game. And having to hold the X button to put things down gets tiresome quickly. Maybe it would work better with a mouse.

As for the puzzles themselves, it's kinda weird. Most of the time you will have to move your character from start to wherever the goal is, and the act of repeatedly selecting which blocks your character can move to feels mindnumbing to me. The closest thing to good puzzles here are the ones where all you have to do is connect the starting location to the goal with blocks that you character can skate on, since it removes the previous repetitive act. But even then these puzzles don't feel particularly satisfying, stimulating, or interesting. During the story mode, there is no point where I felt like I was doing something fun. I'm truly baffled by it. If I didn't know it was only 2 hours, I would probably bail out midway through.

There's also the creative mode, which allows you to build freely in a 10x10 Lego area. I tried making something nice but the story mode left such a bad taste in my mouth that I just can't really put my mind into it. Bought this on 50% off and I definitely regret it.

I kinda feel bad giving this such a low score because it's such a pretty game with a good story and it's really creative, but it has a lot of big issues from a design standpoint. Not to mention the controls are just so unintuitive and awful.

You play by dragging and dropping Lego blocks, except you don't actually drag and drop, you click to pick up and then click + hold to place. Clicking without holding while you are already in possession of a block will make it rotate. I know that right click shifts the camera but come on there had to be a better way to do this. I assumed you had to click + hold to carry a piece because that's how drag + drop works in any other game/software/whatever but not here, I genuinely thought my mouse was broken.

The game is also constantly changing its mechanics and goals. Some levels are finished by putting the right piece where it needs to be, others are finished by reaching the correct place on the map. I think the worst offenders are these two levels that mirror each other, where you're switching between things on the surface of the world and things underground. The problem is, both of these levels (especially the first one) are very very unclear what you're supposed to do. And if you make the wrong kind of mistake, you have to sit through the entire other half of the level all over again. It doesn't make much sense here, but it's really awful to sit through, especially when the game, in any other context, doesn't punish you for being slow/making mistakes.

The game is also pretty sluggish. Not like it runs slow, but a lot of things just feel like molasses. Spinning dials is egregiously difficult when it absolutely doesn't need to be, and the camera controls are just as heavy and swampy. I also think it could due to be much more clear about certain things, like for example, it's pretty obvious for the most part the range your character is able to jump to, but when you start adding in things like different heights of blocks it gets much more confusing. I also think it could've been more clear what blocks you can pick up and which ones you can't.

This game definitely isn't worth $20 in my opinion. I think I got it on sale, and I'm glad I did. I don't usually say that, but come on, it's Lego. They know better. It's a gorgeous game, but it just doesn't feel smooth or clear enough to be truly fun. If the controls were better and the game didn't feel so sloggy and foggy then I know it would've been pure bliss to play.

This game looks beautiful and is fun to look at, but really just lacks depth.
Everything in Lego Builder’s journey is made out of Lego, which is honestly most people’s dream when it comes to an actual Lego game. But when you start to look further into it, there isn’t really much room for creativity. You can only place the Lego pieces in certain areas and it makes the game feel much more like a puzzle game with a Lego theme and less of a Lego game, which I guess is what they were going for but still feels disappointing. The story is also boring and is just there to string along different environments. It’s an “eh” game and it’s a good thing it doesn’t overstay its welcome.