LEGO Dimensions delivers a fun mash-up of beloved franchises like Lord of The Rings, DC Comics, and The LEGO Movie, but ultimately feels unpolished. The toys-to-life concept is entertaining with building the LEGO portal and figures, and the core story campaign has amusing moments. However, the gameplay can be repetitive, the portal is surprisingly finicky, and the relentless push to purchase additional expansion packs becomes tiresome. It's a decent choice for younger players or diehard fans of specific franchises, but may not hold long-term appeal.

I can't even give this an honest review. I played this on the Wii U and I could never get any of the characters to play with because all the seperate packs were so expensive. The memories of this game are the fact that I kept the Gandalf and Batman that came in the starter pack and I bought a Cyborg booster pack on clearance just so I could have a cyborg minifigure lol. I will say I will hate this game for all time for making the most stomach-churning after market prices for Adventure Time minifigures why did they not make any sets man, AND Sonic the hedgehog. thank god they started rolling out these new sets if I died before I saw a physical Shadow the Hedgehog minifigure Iwould have ghosted my way straight to Denmark

This is more so a retrospective on Lego dimensions and I will have a lot of opinions but also synopsis. It's a 7/10 you don’t have to read this if you don’t want to.
Lego dimensions this game has so much stuff I could talk about. It was easily the most content dense Lego game back then and could still be argued now with the Skywalker saga. Skywalker wins in that because you don’t have to spend hundreds for all the content. This game was expensive since the starter pack was $100, fun packs were $15, team packs were $25, level packs were $30, and story packs were $60. Look I know you got physical Legos with these but still felt like I was being overcharged. Since Skylanders was like $8-10 and level packs were like $20 just more classic Lego tax. Now I want to discuss the many franchises in this game, going from in order of appearance in the main story and then some year 2 stuff that I feel like that’s worth mentioning.
Starting off with DC comics, which is similar to Multiversus where they have a ton of DC reps compared to every other franchise. So there was Batman from the starter pack; Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman ,Cyborg, and Bane in fun packs; then lastly Joker and Harley Quinn in a team pack. I think they could’ve cut some characters like Aquaman and Bane but it’s fine, surely they will not add more characters from similar franchises right? Year two had Green Arrow and Supergirl (why was she required in year 2 levels) in random promotions; 3 of the Teen Titans; and lastly 3 Lego Batman movie characters which also came with a story pack. You could make the argument that the titans and Lego Batman characters are their own thing which I hard disagree with since they steal the Phantom Zone projector in the movie from Superman and in the story pack (review later). Also at the end of these I will discuss anything of note in the main story level. For the DC level (5) I really like Sauron and Two face team up kinda cool and I like.
Next up is lord of the rings and the roster is really lackluster and just missing something imo. Gandalf the grey in the starter pack and Gimli, Gollum, and Legolas as fun packs. To me this roster is missing a true villain like Sauron or a more interesting pick like Galadriel or Aragorn. A hobbit could also work like Sam. I would normally choose Frodo over him but I doubt they would pick him for plot reasons. Overall decent but could’ve been better. Now for the Lord of the rings level Riddler being the final boss is really funny to me since mini bosses in the same level are brainiac who was the main villain in the last Batman game and the Overlord, the final boss in 3 different Ninjago series and is one of the important characters in Ninjago right behind Lloyd and the first spin jitzu master. Gollum is also there because he told riddles in the dark I suppose.
The Lego Movie is weird because it has its main leads unlike Lord of the rings but was still missing something. It has Wildstyle/Lucy in the starter pack and Emmet,Unikitty, bad cop, and Benny in fun packs. This is also just missing one more character like president business or Vitruvius. Also I still find it weird Lucy was put in over Emmet for the starter pack. I assume it was for gender diversity since it would have been 3 men but I guess we’ll never really know for sure. The Lego movie didn’t have a level to themselves but they did go to it for a little in level 14. Starter pack is over now for other franchises.
First up is the Wizard of Oz with only 1 character: The Wicked Witch of the West. I don’t know why Warner Bros like to bring her back and only her since she is planned for Multiversus and showed up in space jam and also in the Lego Batman movie. Also I think they don’t want to make a character that looks like Judy Garland since that’s a dark rabbit hole. Kinda sad we didn’t get one of her crew like Tin man or cowardly lion. Thankfully they made figures for them in the Lego movie 2 minifigure series. Since it was the first level nothing complex was shown in and there wasn’t a single keystone in the level.
The Simpsons was here just to promote the minifigure series and the really expensive sets at the time. They had Homer in a level pack (review coming on that), with Bart, and Krusty in fun packs. The Simpsons were odd in this game since they mostly used old voice clips and only 1 actor came to voice new lines. Bart is silent because of this which is sad because I really wish he could comment something about Sonic the Hedgehog. Alright level 2 and my god I hate this level not for level itself but a game breaking bug that should’ve been fixed before the game launched. I played this game on the Xbox 360 and in this level when president business grabs the Carbon rod the game freezes everytime the only way to get past it was to skip the cutscene but I kid you not I was stuck on this for days until it worked then I could play the rest of the game. Idk why this bug exists but if anyone knows please tell me I am interested. Hey is that the Joker mech from Lego Batman 2 that’s awesome
Ninjago is the only other franchise that even comes close to the number of characters DC had. It features Kai and Cole in a team pack and Jay,Zane,Nya,Wu, and Lloyd in fun packs. They basically got everyone you could ever ask for when it comes to making characters throw in a villain like Garmadon or Chen and it would’ve been perfect. I do need something to complain about so I will complain about the random weird choices for designs. Wu and Anya are fine since there's never changed but the problem children are Zane and everyone else. Zane is based more so off his tournament of elements appearance since he is obviously a robot at that point. Then you have Lloyd who still has his golden power even though he loses in rebooted. Then the other Ninja use outfits closer to the back half of rebooted. It’s fine I just wish there was more consistency through the designs. Also why are Kai and Cole in a team pack? I think the following combos would work better Jay/Cole kai/Nya Jay/Nya. I don’t need to explain the last two but the first one is a decent pick since it’s the only time the Ninja have a 1v1 rivalry (unless it happens later idk) and they grow because of that and it was featured in the tournament of elements. Now level 3 is fun with it being based off of the tournament of elements with Chen as the final boss with the appearance of Lex Luthor and Sarumon the white. They also throw in some rise of the snakes stuff so that is peak.
Doctor who is a franchise that exists for me. Never seen an episode and it never really appealed to me. It’s in this game however so I will talk a little about it. Two characters: The 12th Doctor in a level pack (no review) and a cyberman. I don’t know much from Doctor Who except for cybermen, daleks, and the weeping angels so two out of 3 ain’t that bad in my eyes. Now for the level (4) man this level is long and makes you have encounters with the previous enemies mentioned and some time travel thrown in as well and an important plot point for later.
Back to the future is an odd choice but I guess it was coming out in 2015 which is when the first act of 2 takes place. Marty Mcfly is a story pack (review coming) and Doc Brown is in a fun pack. I don’t have much to say on the characters themselves since the figures already existed and there isn’t really anyone who feels left out like we don’t even need a biff to show up. Level time (6) and why did they pick part 3. The whole reason Back to the Future was coming back around that time was because of part 2. It then just turns into a battle with lord Vortex (I’ll explain him later).
Portal is an odd choice for a level in a kids game since this is probably the least relevant franchise in year 1. It’s just 2 games on steam and aren’t even made by valve themselves. It’s only Chell in a story pack which I never got :(. I really like how Chell looks and the companion cube looks neat. Now level (7) and yeah this is the best level in the game. It adapts Portal’s gameplay so well making you have to use everything keystone you have unlocked to complete the puzzles. There is also an achievement on this level to complete this level in 25 minutes which seems like a decent amount of time but no this level is long and you have to know what you are doing. I’m really glad they got Glados and Wheatley’s voice actors back for this since it’s a blast. This level is going to be the closest thing we will ever get to portal 3 and it’s in a Lego game that will probably never come to new systems.
Ghostbusters is the franchise that got the most shit compared to every other franchise besides DC comics. They got Peter Vankman as a level pack (no review) as well as Slimer and the Stay Puft marshmallow man as fun packs. Then in year 2 Abigail Yates was added in a story pack (review coming). A lot of love was put into this franchise since every ghostbuster was playable in game but only more important ones got figures (even if one was the awful Melissa McCarthy character). Also it’s really cool to get the stay puft marshmallow man because even with the couple of sets he was never a part of them. Now the story mode level (9) is interesting since I think Zodd is an odd choice to make the main villain of the level. He is related to the phantom zone so there is that but not even the best reason. If this came out next year I think Morro from Ninjago would be a good pick. Slimer being the main obstacle in the first half is really good.
Midway arcade is a series of dead arcade games that only people like me care about. I take back everything I said about Portal being the least relevant franchise Because Midway arcade was chosen in this game. 1 character Gamer kid in a story pack (review later)? I feel so bad for the designs here since they need to make a normal Lego character out of something that could represent all of midway arcade. What we got was a generic kid who plays old games. If I were to add to this I would’ve thrown in the warrior from gauntlet. Since he’s human and would represent an actual game. Level 10 of the story mode makes you play 4 games: defender, gauntlet, super sprint, and Robotron 2084. I really like the gauntlet part since they go all out on it making you feel like you are playing gauntlet with the most bland sounding tutorials still in it. Also they make Robotron just a giant beat up section which is really good. I also like that the thief from gauntlet is the main villain and no random DC comics character shows up to be in the level. As you can tell I really like this level.
Last world with a level tied to them that being Scooby Doo. This just features Scooby and Shaggy in a team pack. I know these two are the most basic picks for this franchise but it would’ve also been cool to have a monster from the franchise. Monsters that I would like to see are The Black knight, tar monster, Charlie the robot, a phantom shadow, creeper, or space look could make great additions. Also these two were pretty common back then since they came in every Scooby Doo set. Now onto the level (11) which is interesting because every character gets cell shaded for the level/hub world which is a nice touch. I really do like that you have to fight the monster at the end, kinda disappointing that it's just vortex. Old man Jenkins doing this would be cool or like Sideshow Bob would be cool since Simpsons didn’t have a villain. You could even throw in a random DC villain for this and I would still like the twist more.
These last two franchises didn’t get a level based off of them.Out of those first I’ll discuss Lego Jurassic World. This is a team pack featuring Owen Grady and the ACU trooper. ACU trooper is the biggest waste in this entire game. It’s not like there was a character that was with him for the entire movie or a character that was closely associated with him. Barry or Claire would work well for the place of the ACU trooper. Claire not being here is so weird since she ends up being the only one of the three consistent characters in the Jurassic World trilogy (the other two are Owen and Blue the velociraptor). Also really weird they never got a level but I guess they just got a whole game just a few months back when Dimensions first launched.
The other of these two franchises is the legends of Chima. The characters are Leval, Craggor, and Eris in fun packs. They are all based on their year 3 outfits when the Chima team realized that they still had another year of making sets after year 2 which concluded the main conflict and just did Fire vs Ice. That is probably why it didn't get a level since like who actually cares about Chima it was thrown in here since it was the other Lego original next to Ninjago. All I’m going to say is Monster fighters would’ve been better than Chima.
In my opinion year 1 had a lot of variety in the franchises it chose and didn’t just stick with Warner Bros properties. For every promotional pick like Jurassic Park and Scooby Doo you had fun ones like Portal and Simpsons that really took advantage of the crossover. It’s also really nice that most of these have a level associated with them in the game which I can’t say for year 2.
So that’s all the year 1 franchises now onto year 2. I already discussed The DC stuff and ghostbusters have already been discussed but many of the others I have nothing to say about. Those franchises being: BeetleJuice with himself in a fun pack; Knight rider with Micheal Knight in a fun pack; Lego City Undercover featuring Chase McCain in a fun pack; the A-team with Mr.T in a fun pack; The Goonies featuring Sloth in a level pack(no review); and lastly the powerpuff girls 2016 with Blossom and Bubbles in a team pack and Buttercup in a fun pack. This due to me never really owning, not having a level, or me not caring. Now onto the packs I have something more to say of then they exist.
E.T is a movie alright. E.T. Was in a fun pack. Man seeing an E.T level would’ve been so cool but alas we will never get that. Some of these will be very short.
Gremlins is a pick alright but yeah it makes sense why both of the characters returned in Multiversus. It was Gizmo and Stripe in a fun pack. I do wish that Gremlins 2 would actually get some more screen time since the most it gets in this is some of Gizmo’s moveset is based on and Stripe has nothing to do with it.
The wizarding world of Harry Potter has 2 themes being Harry Potter and fantastic beasts. Harry Potter had: Harry and Voldemort in a team pack, and Hermione in a fun pack. My obvious complaint here is, where is Ron since he’s the only major character missing from this. I can understand why there wasn’t a level for them since they had two games full of levels and I don’t know what they would’ve done in said levels. Also why is Voldemort’s vehicle the hogwarts express that’s really random and never really associated with him. Meanwhile Fantastic beasts had Newt Scamnder in a story pack (review later) and Tina Goldstein. Yep these were characters from that movie. I have never understood the appeal of these movies but I know why they are here, I’ll talk about that later. It’s a normal selection based on what the first movie had given them.
Adventure Time is a banger and one of the couple of actual good choices for year 2. It had: Finn the human in a level pack (review later), Lumpy Space Princess (LSP) and Jake the dog in a team pack, and Marceline the vampire queen in a fun pack. This is actually a pretty solid selection of characters even though I really wish he got Ice King since he is the best character. All their figures are all real high quality and I am glad at what we got. Also I am mad that I could never unlock Fern since he wasn’t in the Xbox 360 version for whatever reason which was so weird.
Mission Impossible is a franchise where I saw the first movie, thought it was alright and never really saw the rest of the movies. Ethan Hunt in a level pack (review later) was all this franchise got. It’s honestly crazy that Tom Cruise gave his likeness for this which is very rare. Such a great addition that adds variety to year 2 and its selection. Kinda wish they got a soundalike so we could hear him have conversations with other characters but it is what it is.
Sonic the Hedgehog is definitely the biggest surprise of anything in year 2. It had Sonic in a level pack (review later). It’s crazy how this was the only Lego Sonic stuff there was for 5 years and only took them till a Lego ideas set winning to do more with Sega. The figure is really good and still is decent compared to the new Sonic stuff. I wish we got some more characters back then but it’s a non issue now because I can actually buy a Lego Tails or Eggman.
That was all the year 2 stuff and man it’s so much worse then year 1. Year 1 had a fair amount of variety of franchises with the obvious picks to, the devs put Portal in this game. Year 2 on the other hand fell into marketing a new thing or 80’s nostalgia. The interesting picks for me are whatever didn’t fit into those two groups (Sonic,Mission impossible, Harry Potter, and Adventure Time). Also I don’t like how many of these don’t have a level associated with them and a 4th story pack being like a mini version of the main game would’ve been a massive help to this. Also I don’t like that all the story packs belonged to the marketing new thing crowd and wish they would split it up better. At least all the level packs this time were all bangers of what I played. Holy I just finished talking about the roster and there is still the story, gameplay, battle, and other random things
The story reads like a fan fiction but it has decent writers. The story revolves around this character Lord Vortex who is trying to take control of Lego Multiverse by finding the foundation elements. The elements are kryptonite, the one ring, treasure chest (Lego movie), the Ruby slippers, the carbon rod, master Chen’s staff, the flux capacitor, the cake (portal), palantir, PKE meter, gold token, diamond scrab. I have some problems with the selection of items so I will go over them in order of appearance. Kryptonite is really common in DC comics and maybe a more interesting item could’ve been used, maybe like the mother box would’ve been interesting. The only problem is that Robin would need to Obtain it first which could be hard to explain. Then the treasure chest for the Lego movie is literally the dumbest choice out of all of these. Both the piece of resistance or the kragle would’ve made better choices then the treasure chest on metal beard. If you want to do an oddball pick you could go with Vitruvius’ staff and that would work a little better. Next Chen’s staff is not the staff I would’ve picked for a foundational element. The mega weapon would be a solid choice for a different thing since it is a combination of the golden weapons. Next is palantir,why does lord of the rings get two foundation elements? All it really needed was the one ring and that was a perfect choice but the palantir is here as well. I would’ve replaced this with something from Doctor Who since the Doctor is a major character in the story and his world doesn’t have one. I could see the argument of him being a Timelord caused for his universe to not have an element, which I would respond with I don’t care. The screwdriver would’ve been a solid choice for this hypothetical foundation element. Last one that I would complain about is changing the diamond scrab with Scooby snacks. Scooby snacks are more important and actually matter to the Scooby Doo universe.
To get the elements above he invades many of the worlds or teleports characters through a wormhole. Vortex takes Robin,Frodo, and Metalbeard to get their foundation elements and it’s up to Batman, Gandalf, and Wildstyle to find and rescue their friends. A lot of the levels have a similar format like 1-5 is to find a keystone and sometimes miss out on the foundation element if there is one 7-11 is to find the foundational element from the world. 6 and 12-14 revolve around fighting a Lego Dimensions original boss. It’s really weird to me that level 6 or the back to the future level is the first main vortex fight. I think the fight would have also been more interesting if the level was set during Hill Valley in 2015 instead of 1885 but I could also just be biased against western. Level 12 is when Vortex gets what he wants and gathers the foundation elements since the group put them in one place with little to put up a fight. With them he summons a green 24x32 which is the strongest thing in the Lego Multiverse giving him infinite power. I can not tell you how hilarious seeing the 24x32 tile as the strongest thing. You can literally buy these for like what $5 on bricklink. Anyways, Votex makes the Trio’s friends into a giant mecha called the Tri. This design is garbage in my opinion but it was just made with garbage that happened to be around so I’ll let it slide. I wish it took more from their designs since Frodo adds nothing to the mech. Also level 13 they go through the starter pack worlds fighting the Tri. I really wished they had made the section based on The Lego Movie a little longer since it didn’t get a level. They beat the Tri and realize they will need so they grab characters from other worlds but only Glados and the Doctor. To me it’s really odd these were two plot relevant characters that weren’t villains (I mean Glados is a villain but wasn’t associated with Vortex). It’s honestly shocking how good Glados specifically has it since she also gets to sing in the credits and has a post credit scene. Also I really like the very few exchanges we get of the Doctor and Glados because it’s honestly fun to see their back and forth. Their plan is to get Vortex trapped in a rift like how he did to the trio back in level 4 where the Doctor saved them. I don’t really have much to add to this since they just do the plan and then also destroy the 24x32 tile. Also I don’t know how good of a strategy just locking him up in the rift system is. Last thing I want to quickly talk about is the post credit scene where a guy with a red shirt gets corrupted by Lord Vortex. I love how this is never followed up on and I think it would’ve been cool if this was expanded in Year 2 or something in another story pack being more like a mini version of the main game. That’s everything I really wanted to say about the story next up the gameplay.
Next up is gameplay and I usually don’t talk about it during the other reviews since they all essentially play the same. In this you got the true whatever, the 10 minikits, and the citizen in peril. There are some editions like the Midway game of the level. Every level has an old Midway game and you need the arcade machine to be able to activate them. The actual big change to gameplay is the addition of keystone puzzles. These puzzles use the pad and how it affects the game. There were 5 (going to do these off memory): The portal one, the color one, elemental, scale, locate. Each of these can bring interesting changes to gameplay making the puzzle variety decent even though you only have 3 characters for the whole game. My favorite of these were the locate puzzles since it brought something random in to help with the level. My personal favorite of these was when HAL 9000 came in to distract Glados. I do have problems with how this was implemented. The main problem is that you have to do these somewhat often so if your system is kinda far from you it can get quite tedious. I had this exact problem with the game when I played it for the first time and it sucked. Another problem is that there aren’t enough slots for switching if everything is being used. This is due to only having 7 slots: 3 on the left and right, then 1 in the middle. Oftentimes with these puzzles you need to use all the slots for the puzzles like the portal one. Since it spawns 3 portals one for each section and oftentimes you have to move characters to get them in the right portal. This can be a nonissue if you just use what you need which is only 4 things with the starter pack. If you can get past these issues it’s a really good gameplay addition. Also lastly there are 3 other keystone puzzles in the story packs but I will talk about them in their reviews. Going to quickly discuss the adventure worlds. The worlds are alright and they give you a bit size version of open worlds. Each one has one red brick at least they give you score times 2 in Lord of the rings. Most of these just kinda exist for me like it’s cool to run around Springfield but why is there like 4 worlds featuring New York. I know they are different since Ghostbusters is the 80’s, Gremlins is only half the area, Fantastic beasts is the 1920’s, and Ghostbusters 2016 is modern New York. I said this earlier but I wish every world/dimension had a level and not just an adventure world. Imagine if there was an E.T. level, or like a knight rider level I think a story pack featuring an original campaign could’ve been so cool. The last thing I really have to say about adventure worlds is that it’s nice to see some of the characters who didn’t make it in dimensions to have some presence in the game. Next is the vehicle/tool customization. It’s honestly really cool that each of these has two other versions that you can get by upgrading it. Some of these are really cool since you can change the color of these and add additional upgrades to it. Just a fun feature even though you need like every gold brick to see all the versions of vehicles. Last gameplay thing I feel like mentioning is the battle mode added in year 2. The best thing it did was add 4 player mode to this game. The obvious problem with this mode is that you need to buy a year 2 pack to even play the mode. I think 1 freebie associated with foundation prime would make a good free course. Another problem is that some maps are associated with multiple characters and some have minimal changes. For example, all the Powerpuff girls have Townsville as their stage so it makes you only need one which is a bad business move imo. Or it could be like Marecline’s stage which is the exact same as Finn’s (the pillow world). What makes this worse is the fact that Marceline has nothing to do with the pillow world. This mode had four modes: capture the flag, Base Bash, objectives, and tick tack boom. Most of these describe what you do except tick tack boom which is just tag with a giant bomb.The funniest thing about this mode is some characters had to get nerfed since they would be OP in a mode like this. Of the characters invincible ones like Superman can be killed and then Sonic’s speed was reduced. Overall the mode is really bland; it could've used some overpowered objects to make matches more interesting. Imagine the Locate keystone and it acts similar to an assist trophy in smash. Heck make each of the keystones an ability and it would’ve been a really great addition. Also I never had a 4th person to play with so maybe it would be better with 4 people. That’s the end of the gameplay section.
Closing thoughts: this Lego game means a lot to me. It's easily the most ambitious game in the entire franchise and I wish a year 3 could’ve happened just so we could see an improvement to the game. However, I don’t have rose tinted glasses so I can understand why this game was discontinued. That will not change how this game holds a place in my heart and how great it was for giving us franchises that would never get Lego normally. 7/10 good luck trying to find a way to play it.

Crossovers are incredibly tricky things to do right. A strong crossover to me is one that not only pulls from unexpected sources to keep that surreal "this should not be possible" sense of surprise, but treats those sources with proper care and respect. In this day and age though, it's hard for me not to feel kind of apathetic to crossover media in general, as it seems like every entertainment megacorporation wants to create their own multiverses in order to circlejerk over how many IP they've managed to eat up. Lego Dimensions has a bit of both in it, though I'm happy to say it's moreso the former than the latter.

As someone who has had both huge Lego and toys-to-life phases in my youth (a very deadly combination for the wallet of my parents, for sure), this game has always interested me. I wasn't able to buy it in its time due to it being significantly more expensive than other TTL games. Like, I remember this game charging 100 dollars for the starter set and 30 dollars for the character packs, shit was not within my realm of affordability at the time. Luckily, we happen to live in the cool future that has NFC stickers and android apps to basically unlock all the money-gated content without having to buy discontinued lego sets from dubious resellers!

The game is a pretty typical Lego game, the formula really hasn't changed at all since the Lego Star wars games that released a decade prior. Collect studs, find minikits, solve puzzles, etc. My two biggest gripes come from the level length and the toys-to-life integration. Levels are far longer than is comfortable for me, with shit taking anywhere from 30-80 minutes to complete which is just too exhausting for the type of games these lego titles are. The toy pad is also used in a rather annoying way, as there are three sections to it that each have their own bespoke NFC readers and LED lights, and the game constantly requires you to shift characters around on the portal in order to solve puzzles. Whether it's having each section on the pad correspond to warping your character to three different places, coloring your characters in game and then moving their figure to color in the pad lights to match a certain pattern, having different sections give different elemental attributes, or having different parts of the pad change your in-game character size, playing this game required me to constantly keep stopping everything I was doing to go lean over to the pad on the table and shuffle characters around constantly. It also means that most of the puzzles are the exact same, so the actual act of playing campaign levels gets really stale really quickly.

The crossover aspect of this game is its biggest strength, though not all properties are treated equal. There are 30 "worlds" that the game picks characters from, though the amount of content each world has varies depending on the IP. The main campaign consists of the trio on the cover going through 11 different worlds and engaging with various mashup shenanigans throughout. Your mileage definitely varies with how many of the crossed-over IP you actually care about, as I was mostly going into the campaign eager to see the Portal, Ghostbusters, Scooby Doo, Midway, and Back to the Future content only to get mostly jebaited by constant DC Universe characters invading random places I didn't give a shit about. Scooby and the gang barely got any screentime in the main campaign!!! There are also one-off bonus levels that exist, but they only are there for certain worlds so fans of specific series might be disappointed to see they only got table scraps. Lastly there are huge explorable hubworlds full of side missions and collectables for every single world in the game, so at the very least there's something to do for fans of each IP. Regardless of the total amount of content each IP was given, they did make sure to do them all as much justice as they possibly could, and filled the game to the brim with details and references that fans can appreciate. There's a sonic level with both a Mecha Sonic fight AND a chaos fight. The back to the future world has multiple different variations for each of the many time periods that you can travel between. The midway arcade world has nearly an entire compilation titles worth of playable arcade games on their own janky emulators. The Doctor Who character has fully voiced, uniquely animated variations for every doctor incarnation, AS WELL as bespoke theme music for using the TARDIS complete with period-accurate TARDIS interiors. There are over 45 minutes of unique character-to-character dialog for all sorts of interactions ranging from your expected quirky chatter (Sonic can remark on Doctor Who supposedly naming his screwdriver after him) to unexpected deeper cuts (the midway gamer kid straight up references LJN's shitty back to the future game when paired with Marty Mcfly). The credits music is even a brand new Jonathan Coulton GLaDOS song for petes sake! At the end of the day the crossovers could be seen as shallow fanservice, but it felt to me like it was a labor of love by fans on the developmental side.

The game really is built like a kid playing with their own Lego sets. Playful, ambitious, slightly unhinged, messy, and unbalanced as there's clearly favoritism towards certain sets over others. All the different aspects of the game definitely make it difficult to review and cleanly get my thoughts on it properly out, that's for sure. A messy, fragmented, review for a messy, fragmented game, I guess. Still something that I am overall impressed by the scope of, I didn't even mention the fact that there are one thousand and sixteen gold bricks to earn throughout the game. In my first playthrough being as generally thorough with the levels as I could, I earned about 20, to put how rediculously insane that total number is. Would definitely suggest giving it a shot if you have the means to play without breaking the bank and like enough of the worlds present. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the Wii U port like the plague.