TT Games fluctuating between fun and grind?

[AuldWolf]

So I've had a bit of a realisation.

It took me a long while to understand why I dislike LEGO Marvel Superheroes so much. It isn't that I'm not a Marvel fan, because I have been for years, and it isn't that I'm a rabid fan because I really don't think the Marvel Now stuff is so compelling (I don't buy everything). I just happen to like it. I like Iron Man, I like the X-Men, they do some pretty rad allegories with social issues too that I enjoy. So there's that.

Now, I like DC, but I like DC a little less than Marvel. A lot of this has to do with how, until recently, DC has been playing it very safe and trying not to tread on too many toes. They're a very safe comics house. With Grant Morrison writing so much, though, I think that's actually turning around, so in ten years from now I might even like DC better than Marvel, who knows?

I feel that was a necessary preface.

The problem is is that I loved LEGO Batman 2, yet I disliked LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, I found it to be a bore, and the most uncompelling LEGO game I've ever played. I couldn't quite understand it, here were my favourite characters doing the things I liked, what was going on? Why did I like LEGO Batman 2 so much more? It took the LEGO Movie Videogame to actually show me what it was, because I can be a bit thick and slow on the uptake.

In LEGO games of the past, the environments were always puzzles, that was fantastic. LEGO Batman 2 continued this tradition by making the entirety of Gotham City a puzzle. And one which you unlocked more of as you went. You'd see hints of how to begin puzzles anywhere. You could get out of the Batmobile at any point, look around, and see a hint as to where a puzzle would start, or you'd see something tantalising that would make you want it. That, or you'd simply want to get up there because, hey, it looks suspicious.

And this was always rewarded, you were always poking things and enjoying novel new ways to use the existing mechanics to find new things. The levels themselves continued this trend, using Superman's powers as a means to solve puzzles. There was always stuff you could interact with, and it was a puzzle, and that was great. If you go back to LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, and play that and LEGO Batman 2, you can see how non-uniform this is.

So I began to understand.

The problem with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes has a lot to do with how barren the city is. There are people, yes, but there's not much to actually find. It's dead. Empty. Vapid. You're not constantly seeing things that invite you to explore or hint at puzzles, there's nothing to tempt you to look around. And flying over the city as Iron Man reveals no secrets from above (contrary to doing so as Super-Man, which revealed many).

This leads into the next problem, a lot of the gameplay in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is uniform. There are sidequests, where you play a boring minigame. It's like...

This is a puzzle. Have fun HERE.

This is a race. Have fun HERE.

This is combat. Have fun HERE.

And it felt really tightly wound, conformed, and guided, it didn't feel like it was made with the kind of passion that LEGO Batman 2 had. It wasn't as freeform. It literally had designated FUN spots, which they apparently felt they needed because the game wasn't fun enough. So you had those side missions, and that was it. Aside from doing those side missions, there wasn't really a lot else there. Also, they introduced game mechanics, but they kept them mostly as such rather than using them in inventive ways. So Captain America's shield can go through fire, but that's all it ever does.

So it feels like a really, really reined in third-person brawler. I can't help but wonder if that's just teh creative direction that did it, or whether it was Marvel's fault. But the lack of continual interactivity and freeform puzzles left it feeling grindy, like an MMO.

The LEGO Movie Videogame feels like TT Fusion picking up the slack. I'll explain.

There was one point where I built a thing and it catapulted me! Whee! I was flying through the sky. That was kind of new, and fun! And then I had to hook up a speaker system to get some lazy workers out of a shed, and I had a wrecking ball tied to new mechanics that I'd never used before, and then there was a rhythm game because hey why not?

The little dance game really reminded me of how crazy, unbridled, and raw the LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean game was. How completely random it could be. And that, in turn, reminded me of some of the other things I liked about LEGO. Like riding an ice cream truck around a star destroyer in one of the LGEO Star Wars games. That was rad. But LEGO Marvel Super Heroes had none of that, it was a straight up third-person action grindfest with some 'puzzling,' and I use the term lightly.

It's almost like they view children as being so simple-minded and imbecilic that they'd hold their hands hard enough to crush them. And I feel it's wringing the fun out of their games. I mean, LEGO Batman 2 was great, but it still feels more tame and reigned in than Pirates. And LEGO Marvel Super Heroes went off the deep end of dull. In a game that has space raccoons and men in living tech suits, it's really hard to mess that up, but they did it.

I think TT Games is losing their way.

This is why the LEGO Movie Videogame was such a revelation for me. It didn't have any of the finely marked sections for having FUN, it didn't have races with giant neon signs, it was just much more organic, random, and creative. It was novel. It was genius at times. Sure, it's short, and it's buggy, but it's also brilliant!

So I really hope TT Games are paying attention, because I think that they're at their best when they're being random -- like the LEGO Movie Videogame, like LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, and to a lesser extent, like LEGO Batman 2. And not like LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. They're paying too much attention to old fart critics, maybe, who've had all the fun wrung out of them, who enjoy the soul-sucking grind and feel threatened by novelty. I mean, sure, I'm an old fart too, but I'm more like Robin Williams in that I'm still a kid myself and I give not a damn.

Kids don't like being reigned in and having set areas to do things in, they prefer the more organic, fun, and just crazy approach to the best of the LEGO games. I think TT Games need to pay less attention to critics, and just do what they do best -- have fun with it and stop worrying. And do all of the crazy things. All of them.

Edit: And to add to that...

I think they're listening to the critics too much in regards to length. I mean, yeah, the Movie Videogame is short, but it's amazing all the way through. It's brilliant, and I love it. And the same goes for the family kid. A soulless hack of a journalist will tell you that if a game is longer, it's better quality. A kid won't agree. If something gets boring, they'll just stop playing it and ignore it. So if something feels grindy to them, they'll just set it aside and never pick it up again.

But if something feels fun, and continually novel and interesting, it'll actually last longer because they'll want to complete it just to see what crazy thing happens next. If they feel they're being reigned into routine, and they're just doing the same thing over and over, they'll just be bored of it. So I can see many kids being incredibly disappointed by LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. This is why you let kids review LEGO games, not old hacks.

I don't mind if LEGO games are shorter, so long as they have that dynamism and that constant novelty seen in games like Pirates and the Movie Videogame.

Grind doesn't equal fun, I've often pointed that out. And it's especially true for kids.

[RiddleMe]

My issue, which seems to be a small slice of what you're getting at is that there's TOO much stuff to collect nowadays. I felt that really started to get out of hand with Lego Potter 1. Now I grew up on Banjo-Kazooie, collectathons are games I typically like; but when there's just so many things to collect I can only go so long before I grow bored of it, and just give up without finishing. Lego Movie rectified some of that, though I think it was only because they were time constrained, not because they actually wanted to pull back.

[IkoN Clan Les legi 102 community]

1st thank you for this second sorry for the late response i 100% agree here ❤️ this is a very accurate well written process on the lego games as someone who misses the good ole days of the lego batman mumbles and how tt has changed shifted soooooo much with the franchises they used even with the simple puzzles of pushing a block or using a batarang blaster or indys whip, were as easy as tying your shoelace, i agree lego marvel sucked this over focus on heres 30 ring races, heres 10 quests….. is not good game design, AT ALL!! ever since the pandemic lego has had a uprise in streamers playing every game old or new to fill in that childhood gap, and yes these games are marketed for kids kids dont have the attention span adults do, they Really really really have to change up their format even if they remastered lego batman 1 which was the peak history for tt i dont see this changing as lego skywalker now has a rpg grindy lvl up open ish altered combat system and the menu ui is soooooo different from indy complete saga etc… but it does suck seeing a nostalgia fueld trip turn into do 50 things on this open world…😞
It really is sad as the same way bonding with your childhood dog only to put on the rose tinted glasses of wait why am i playing this? Doing this?? 😔 seeing as how most of the old team has left the studios it does feel like a heartbreak moment

TT UNDERSTAND GRIND DOES NOT make fun gameplay!