Ninjago! The Spinjitzu masters are back in this sequel to LEGO Battles: Ninjago.
Many years have passed since the Overlord was defeated by our ninja heroes. After the great battle Ninjago City was rebuilt into the technologically advance New Ninjago City. The Ninjas have gone on with their lives, most becoming teachers at Sensei Wu’s academy. But all that changes once it’s discovered that the Overlord still lives within the Digiverse in Borg Industries. Now with a robotic army of nindroids and Overborg (formerly Cyrus Borg) under his command, The Overlord must get the golden powers that reside within Lloyd. With those powers he can escape the Digiverse and continue his plan for ultimate power.
I have not played the first Ninjago game, but I am a fan and have played a lot of the other LEGO franchise games. So the gameplay and features of Ninjago Nindroids are very similar to all the other LEGO games.
The stages are mostly linear, at almost a 3rd person view, except for the stages where you pilot a Mech or vehicle. Actions involve you punching, kicking, jumping or charging your attack meter to unleash your Spinjitzu special attack on enemies/objects. Jumping can be a problem at times, especially onto small platforms. I had to turn of the 3D capability on my 3DS to time my jumps better.
At the beginning of the game you can only use Kai (Red Ninja/Teacher), Cole (Black Ninja), Jay (Blue Ninja) and Zane (White Ninja). There are over 50 playable characters include Sensei Wu, Lloyd (Green/Golden Ninja), Nya (Samurai X), Serpentines, Skeletons and others that you can control. Each character has a special power or weapon that will assist you in getting through the levels. For example, Cole’s grappling weapon can reach areas and pull objects out of reach. Collecting LEGO studs will allow you to purchase the other characters and items.
There are about 30 different levels, with achievements to unlock, that you will have to play through multiple times. Some of these require you to have a certain character in your roster or complete within a time limit. So be prepared to go back through these levels more than once if you want to get collect all the Gold Bricks to build a special surprise.
One of the main problems with the game is playing it on the 3DS screen. The size of the screen is just a bit too small making some objects and Lego studs hard to see. During the Ninjacopter level I had a bit of a hard time seeing the missiles heading toward me and some objects on the building in front of me. It would probably play a bit easier on a Nintendo 3DS XL. Even with that problem it is still a fun game.
The game is based off the animated TV series, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, renamed LEGO Ninjago Rebooted for its third season.
Ninjago: Nindroids is rated E for Everyone and available now on the Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita.
