LEGO Ninjago: Shadow Of Ronin is the new LEGO game for the 3DS and PS Vita. My 11 year old son played the game and this review is mostly his.
Like the previous LEGO Ninjago game for the Nintendo 3DS players take on roles of various characters from the Ninjago television series and LEGO sets and go about vanquishing evil in brick form. Characters this time include Nya, Sensei Wu, Titanium Zane, and Sensei Derek. The main plot takes place after the latest season of the television series. Ronin, using one of the obsidian weapons, steals a couple of years worth of memories from the ninja who then have to regain their elemental powers by collecting the rest of the obsidian weapons.
Throughout the game players will visit a number of familiar locations such as the Fire Temple, Toxic Boggs, and New Ninjago City. Players go through these locations collecting studs to buy characters to use in the game. Gold bricks are earned by destroying a certain number of specific objects or completing specific tasks such as giving a guard the wrong meal.
The difficulty level starts pretty easy and winds up getting a bit hard, but you can still complete the game in less than a day. My 11 year old (the same one who is helping write this review) finished the game in about four and a half hours of play. This was not a rush play through, but some time was taken to earn gold bricks.
Visually the game was good, but one or two levels there was some difficulty in making out what things were. My son played the game on a 3DSXL and despite this, at times the screen felt small for the action in his opinion. No problems with the audio, the voice acting was good, but not the same voice actors from the television series.
Once you complete the story there isn’t much of a need to go back and play through again. LEGO Ninjago: Shadow Of Ronin is a fun game but should have lasted a couple more hours. For $30 it might be a bit costly unless you are a hardcore Ninjago fan. My son is glad he got to play the game and enjoyed it, but he is also glad he did not pay $30 for it.