Lego Marvel Super Heroes (Switch) Review

It’s been a while, but finally, we can play the original Lego Marvel Super Heroes on the Switch. It’s time to suit up, team up and go Hulk Smash some bricks.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes (LMSH) is from that period in time when the Marvel movies had reached The Avengers, with Guardians of the Galaxy on the way. LMSH manages to be a mashup of characters inspired by their movie counterparts while also managing to get the X Men and Fantastic 4 involved. So much more has happened since, in the Marvel universe, it’s almost like a stroll down memory lane when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still truly coming together.

The ever-hungry planet devourer Galactus is out in space, eating everything in his path. His herald, the Silver Surfer, is scouting for new planets to consume. Doctor Doom shoots down The Silver Surfer upon finding Earth, destroying his cosmic board into cosmic bricks. Now it’s a race against time between heroes and villains to collect those bricks, and just maybe the heroes can stop Galactus from consuming the world. To save the world, you’ll be visiting notable Marvel universe locations, such as the Raft, X-Men Mansion and Stark Tower. As you bust up everything in sight for the ever precious Lego studs, you’ll encounter a surprising amount of Marvel villains for fights. Some more closely resembling their MCU counterpart and the more traditional designs, at the time, some were likely deeper cuts into the wide selection of named villains to have in the game. It’s nice to be able to just enjoy a game full of Marvel characters and locations without being tied down to their movie counterparts.

When playing through the levels in story mode, you control a limited group of heroes, which means you’ll only have access to some of the powers needed to explore every area. It’s been like this since way back with the original Lego Star Wars games, forcing you to come back on Freeplay with any character of your choosing to find every collectible. While the main story with some extra exploring will keep you going for a good 10+ hours, wringing out every collectible and doing every side mission and odd job around New York will take many more. It’s also the never-ending quest to collect more Lego studs. If you want to unlock many different characters, you’ll need a lot.

In between missions, you can run around the SHIELD helicarrier, drop down below and run, fly or web-sling your way around a decent-sized New York. If you don’t want to do all of the extra mucking around, you can follow the objective marker to where you need to go and keep the story moving along.

If you’ve played Lego Marvel Superheroes on any other console, then you know exactly what to expect. Nothing appears to be lost on the Switch port, even though it took so long to get here. If you have someone else around, you can jump into the co-op, an essential feature for unleashing maximum (Lego) carnage together.

If this is your first experience, you’re in for a treat, and this game is one of the few times where a lot of these Marvel heroes and villains could all share the same space before Marvel benched ones they didn’t have the movie rights for. It sits in an interesting period where it borrows from the MCU for some characters and gets to see the more traditional versions of characters before they got the movie treatment later. Even Deadpool is here, selling you the score multiplier and cosmetic settings.

Eight years ago, Lego Marvel Super Heroes was sitting in an interesting place. Lego games based on franchises were starting to get tired, but LMSH had the benefit of having an extensive roster with various abilities. It also helped that it didn’t have to be based on an existing story, where game levels based on movie sequences would have to be shoehorned in to fill out the game. Anyone familiar with the Lego games over the years will undoubtedly be familiar with the wildly varying levels of quality across the different franchises. Over the years, I’ve had a soft spot for Lego Marvel Super Heroes for managing to make a solid Marvel adventure regardless of who had the movie rights.

If you’re waiting for the Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga to finally come out to satisfy your Lego game fix, Lego Marvel Superheroes will help tide you over. It is unfortunate it’s taken so long to come out on the Switch. It’s one of the more enjoyable Lego games over the last eight years.

Rating: 4/5