While most of the games I play on the Switch I tackle solo, playing LEGO games with my wife is mandatory. Over the years she’s evolved from being a purely casual gamer into at least being moderately capable. The move a generation or so ago that put you in full control of the camera with the right joystick threw her for a bit, but she’s weathered that storm. Seeing LEGO Ninjago on sale we decided to pick it up, and while we had a pretty good time 100% completing it, overall we found it to be a mixed bag.

On the positive side, the overall handling of the combat in this entry was pretty good. We both liked the combo system and some of the moves, though I’ll admit that I never really 100% understood under which circumstances you’d get the availability of some of the extended ones. Another positive is that I think the volume of content in the game was more sensible than the likes of the Skywalker Saga, which honestly overstayed its welcome and got pretty repetitive after a while. Ninjago didn’t overwhelm you with what felt like an endless stream of places to hop between and other elements, every area was pretty well self-contained and pretty reasonably sized.

Looking at the negatives, among the LEGO titles we’ve played this was less compelling overall because we have absolutely zero connection to Ninjago overall. So while most of the characters and cutscenes were nice enough, we were even more indifferent about them than usual. Another concern, though I’ll note that it is an issue consistent across pretty well all LEGO titles, was stability. Over our play time I’d estimate the game crashed about 10 times. Thankfully most of the time we only lost a little bit of progress, but having to start back up is a pretty slow process, so it very quickly dampens enthusiasm and that’s a shame. Last, while I appreciated the pretty extensive variety of skills characters could have, the lack of initial direction on how best to find the proper character, and the utilization of the character selection interface to filter everything, was cumbersome at best. We simply haven’t had nearly as many problems with this in other LEGO titles.

So, in the end, that leaves you with a reasonably good LEGO game, but I’d think unless you’re a Ninjago fan specifically it isn’t a particularly great one. If you’ve played through pretty well everything else like we have, and are looking for that LEGO fix, it will work in a pinch. That said, the lack of a connection to the characters and ability to appreciate the world being brought to life made it a little tougher to fully enjoy.