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Devices: iPhone • iPad • Android
LEGO® Ninjago™: Shadow of Ronin™
An action/adventure Ninjago LEGO game originally made for the Playstation Vita and Nintendo 3DS, now available for mobile play.
ABOUT
Shadow of Ronin™ was originally made for real portable gaming consoles, and in transferring over to mobile, this app has gained multiple game-experience ruining bugs. These bugs include blacked-out screens during multiple cutscenes, game crashes (where the app quits out unexpectedly) and the characters are sometimes difficult to control in certain parts of levels. These make the experience frustrating at times, leaving the player asking “Did I really spend money on this?” or “Was this game even finished before they sold it on the app store?”
As far as the gameplay goes, Ninjago has promise. All the characters you love from the Ninjago world are here and there is a lot of charm to the writing and story in this game. Unfortunately, the blacked-out screen during important narrative cutscenes ruins the experience greatly, and the touch screen controls can be frustrating (although this game DOES offer Bluetooth controller support, which improves the experience!) Because of these issues, our editor cannot recommend spending $4.99 on this game when so much of the cutscene experience seems blatantly broken. Our editor playtested on both an iPhone and iPad and had the same cutscene issues in the same spots of their playthrough.
The developers of LEGO® Ninjago™: Shadow of Ronin™ are Warner Brothers, and they have linked their overarching privacy policy to this app. It covers their broad range of apps and IP experiences, and while they explain they do collect “different types of information during your interactions with our Sites and through our advertising and media across the Internet and mobile apps. This information may include personal information”, the Ninjago app is self-contained, and doesn’t offer links to go and browse other webpages, nor does it have ads to click on. There’s plenty to read in this privacy policy, but almost none of it applies to this app. We’d like to see a more specific Privacy Policy for this game’s individual experience for children.
This game should be viewed as a videogame for your mobile device and does not have any educational value.
SCREENSHOTS
GAME PLAY
Upon installing the app, you will be prompted to choose your control settings. Virtual D pad settings will mimic use on an actual controller, and casual is a *touch once to attack and move* experience. After that, you can jump straight into the story! Our playthroughs had black screens through the first few cutscenes, (as well as scattered throughout the game) which was disappointing. The gameplay itself is what you’d expect from a lego action game, although the touch screen controls can be a bit finicky if you play with the virtual D Pad settings. You switch through your Ninjago characters to smash lego bricks, attack enemies, collect coins, and solve simple puzzles. If you’ve ever played a lego game, this is very similar. Unfortunately, we also had a few experiences of getting kicked from the app and having to start back up before continuing our play from the most recent save.
REVIEWS
LEGO® Ninjago™: Shadow of Ronin™
- Value
- Privacy
- Educational Value
- Ads
- Editor Rating
2.4
Summary
Although it would be great to have LEGO Ninjago Shadow of Ronin on a mobile device, it seems a few experience damaging bugs were inadvertently added when the developers ported over from PS VITA and Nintendo 3DS to mobile. Even 11 years later, this game hasn’t received the patches and developer support to make this mobile game worth $4.99, which is unfortunate, because the gameplay is fun when the controls aren’t imprecise.
Pros
Fun, quirky writing that you’d expect from a LEGO game
Bluetooth controller supported
Ad Free, no in app purchases
Cons
Not much educational value
$4.99 is not ideal for a slightly broken game
Broad privacy policy
Broken cutscenes
Occasional crashes
Occasional finicky touchscreen controls
Sending
