Bringing Down the Goblin King in LEGO: The Hobbit
When I first went to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in theaters, I couldn't help but feel excited that I was finally venturing back to the majestic Middle-earth. After getting my hands on LEGO: The Hobbit recently, those same butterflies returned. I was heading back to a series with a world and characters I already loved from playing LEGO The Lord of the Rings.
Even though there are more dwarves than you know what to do with this time around, our demo in The Goblin Town area held a few refreshing surprises along with the silly LEGO charm I've come to adore.
Our demo began in the middle of a fight with the Goblin King, who, just like in the movie, is a bit silly instead of scary. His massive LEGO gullet is just as disturbing, though. LEGO Goblin Town looks just as brown and cavernous as it does in the film and it's incredible how Traveler's Tales once again brings these vast set pieces and iconic characters to life with LEGO bricks.
The Goblin King battle was broken in to multiple stages, each showing off a new element of LEGO gameplay. In the first section, Bilbo fell underground and I had to fight off a few goblins using the stalwart Thorin Oakenshield LEGO. Equipped with an Elven blade and shield, he's an excellent fighter. Much to my amusement, the goblins he fought went flying off the screen as he took them out, rather than simply falling at his feet.
The Goblin King
To make combat more than simply bashing and smashing everything, a few goblins have easy quick time events in place that you'll have to execute to bring down. What's more interesting is how every LEGO dwarf also has a strong finishing attack, and it's funny how they can all smash cracked walls like Gimli in LEGO: Lord of the Rings. Thorin could knock enemies up with his shield then thrash them down with his sword. Dwalin had a gargantuan hammer perfect for pummeling areas of enemies, Kili could fire three arrows instead of one, and the giant dwarf Bofur could charge up in a ball then go rolling towards his foes with brutal force. Aside from the silly animations, they were useful for quickly disposing goblins. Not to mention an extra added element of LEGO combat is always welcome.
Another staple feature of LEGO: The Hobbit is a nod to just how many dwarves there are in the movies. The new buddy-up ability allows multiple dwarves to be used together in combination. After taking out some goblins and dropping a few well-placed blocks on the Goblin King's head, the next step was to run next to another dwarf and buddy, or link, up with him by pressing circle on the PlayStation 4 controller. While linked, I was able to control both dwarves as one unit to execute devastating attacks to finish the Goblin King off.
You can buddy-up anytime, but it seemed necessary during the boss fight. In combat, buddy-up is amazing for taking out large numbers of enemies. One dwarf generally swings the other by his feet in a huge circle, creating a dwarf tornado of death that deals damage to anything they come in contact with. Other puzzles later on down the tunnels had me buddying-up three staff-wielding dwarves to create a sort of totem pole for a fourth dwarf to climb up. Already in this small section of Goblin Town, buddy-up was used in a handful of ways, and and considering Thorin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Dwalin, Balin Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori and Ori all have different ways of interacting with the environment and one another, I'm excited to see how else the mechanic will play out.
As I smashed my way through Goblin Town using a different set of dwarves for each section, to my surprise, I began acquiring tons of loot. Destroying barrels, enemies, and everything else earned me things like planks, ore, rocks, and rope that I then used to unlock a building mini-game. It's always fun to break all the LEGOs in a level, and now loot drops give me even more incentive to do so.
The building mini-game in LEGO: The Hobbit is almost identical to the version in The LEGO Movie Videogame. Basically, you're shown a virtual LEGO playset and have to select the LEGO bricks that are missing. Once you complete the playset, your work of art will be recreated in-game to help you access new areas. These sequences are realistic, and especially neat for those who love building LEGOs in real life as they're all based on actual playsets.
Goblin Town
The time-based building sections are also terrific for earning extra studs, as the faster you select the correct missing pieces, the more studs you'll be rewarded with. However, for each wrong LEGO you select, you'll lose some bonus studs. I earned almost 11,000 studs from one build, and knowing that I have to save up for things like stud multipliers and other characters, it's great there are new ways to collect the blocky currency.
The variety of collectibles to obtain in LEGO: The Hobbit is huge, as the journey will take you through an open-world LEGO Middle-earth from the first two Hobbit films. The role-playing game features that helped LEGO: Lord of the Rings stand out as more than just a platformer, like questing and mithril brick crafting, have been greatly expanded upon as well. Hopefully this means completing and unlocking everything, from good and evil characters, to stud multipliers, to new and improved wacky disco flasks, will lead to a lengthy but incredibly charming adventure.
As far as LEGO games go, I walked away from this demo feeling good about howLEGO: The Hobbit is coming along. The interplay between dwarves is fantastic, and the loot and build features help make it feel like the series is continuing to evolve. It's safe to say that now I can't wait to go back to LEGO: Middle-earth.
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