LEGO The Incredibles Review – Incredibly Okay (PS4)

Pixar’s The Incredibles graced the LEGO scene in 2016, but it took a second movie for the minifigs to grace the world of LEGO video games. Much like this review, it’s better late than never. With TT Games’ other superhero LEGO games, such as any LEGO Batman title, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, or LEGO Marvel Superheroes, The Incredibles seems like an easy enough fit. Elastigirl is pretty much a Mr. Fantastic, Dash is a Flash, Violet is a Susan Storm, Mr. Incredible is a less crazy Hulk, etc. There’s a lot to work with, and with the sequel in theaters, it’s truly the best time to add it to the LEGO superhero shelf. What better way to garner hype for the new film than with a fun video game, AMIRITE?

At its heart, LEGO The Incredibles is rather fun, although it’s fairly less inspired than other movie-based LEGO titles.

Everyone is Special

If you don’t care about spoilers for The Incredibles 2 film, then jump right on into this game. I hadn’t seen the movie yet by the time this reached my reviewing hands, and I was a little bummed that I had no surprises when I did see the film. I should have known that going in to be sure, and well, the movie was fairly predictable anyway. While the major plot points might be laid bare in the beginning of this game (the first movie opens after completion of the second film), you can be rest assured that the finer points of the second flick are not. Not everything will be ruined for you.

If you’ve already seen the movie, then congrats! You already know what this game will entail in regards to levels. You also know that the second film is all about getting supers to be legal again, which means that your character roster is going to have a whole bunch of supers in it! Unlike DC or Marvel-based LEGO games, however, you really won’t know who any of the supers are unless you took careful notes of those quickly mentioned. I pretty much glommed on to a couple of the supers I unlocked early if I needed underwater or flying abilities. Otherwise I pretty much stuck to the main cast from the movies. I knew supers were pretty prevalent before the dark times, but seriously, who wasn’t super?

To be fair, however, I pretty much use the same tactic when playing any superhero LEGO game.

The number of super villains is also quite staggering. Of course we’d remember Syndrome and Bomb Voyage from the films, but there are several new villains that I’m certain TT Games had to have made up. I say that simply because I can’t imagine a villain based upon ice cream coming from The Incredibles lore. But hey, with the Underminer, what do I know?

The reason for the super villains lies mostly in the hub world. LEGO games are famous/infamous for their hub worlds, which contain the majority of the game’s collectibles. This is also where players will spend the most of their time, running all over the place to collect every single gold and red brick. Most of the hub worlds have their individual partitions to make traversing the large world easier, but LEGO The Incredibles does something different with these sections. It uses these sections much like many open-world games, where the player needs to “clear the area” to uncover collectible locations. You clear the area by stopping crime waves in each section and beating each individual boss (super villain). The collectible locations then appear, making the hunt toward 100% easier than it ever has been before.

In addition, when you clear an area, a Pixar Family Build (a mini-game where the family builds some crazy contraption together) will unlock, which, upon building it, will yield a red brick. The red bricks unlock various perks, such as stud multipliers and collectible detectors. Usually they cost a ton of studs to unlock, but this time, they’re free. If you find a red brick, its specialty is yours instantly. Suddenly there is not a huge need to amass billions of studs. You won’t even need red brick stud multipliers to earn the True Super achievement for each level, because it’s unbelievably easy to meet that minimum total in the story mode alone.

Which Means No One Is

The big question is, where is the challenge? LEGO games have always been created with kids in mind, but there was always that element of challenge to completing them for older kids (like me). Young kids often are not completionists, but this title really wants them to be. It’s not hard to collect all the mini-kits, gold bricks, red bricks, or characters. You clear the crime waves by completing 2-3 specific missions, and there are only four unique mission types. You will literally do the same thing over and over, which I expect for the hub races, but can we get some variety in the crime waves? I felt like I was on autopilot for each area until the boss fight. At least those had some creativity.

The only real challenge to be found lies in the trophies. For each level, there is a corresponding challenge to earn an extra bronze trophy. For example, there are a couple of challenges to complete a level (or a portion of a level) under so many minutes. There’s another trophy for surviving a mini-game without taking any damage, and so on and so forth. So at least there’s knowing that while it will be easy for young kids to get that 100% completion, the older kids (again, me) can find the challenge in trophy hunting. But if trophy hunting isn’t your thing, then consider this a fun game to play with your kids and/or the easiest LEGO game you’ve ever played.

The LEGO games have always been known for their little quirks, but when it comes to pushing a game out with a theater release, they’re fairly sloppy. LEGO The Incredibles has all of the symptoms of a rushed game, but at least it doesn’t have any game-breaking glitches. It’s not a bad LEGO game, but it’s nothing to write home about either. It’s just incredibly okay, when it should just be incredible.

LEGO The Incredibles review code provided by publisher. Version 1.00 reviewed on a standard PlayStation 4. For more information on scoring please see our Review Policy here.