Adventure Time is one of those Marmite things - you either love its zany, psychedelic weirdness, or you just don't get it at all. As one of three packs aimed at the younger audience, LEGO Dimensions' Year 2 offerings have jumped into the land of Ooo with both feet, offering a level pack, a team pack, and a fun pack based on Adventure Time characters. At the time of writing, it's also the only (official) way you can get your hands on Adventure Time minifigs and pieces - but choosing the right pack for you is sure to be a challenge.
This level pack includes:
- Minifig: Finn the Human
- Vehicle: Ancient War Elephant
- Vehicle: Jakemobile
Getting you access to:
- Adventure Time Battle Arena
- Adventure Time Adventure World
- Adventure Time Level: A Book and a Bad Guy
The Minifigs
As a level pack, the Adventure Time Level Pack only includes the one minifig - but on the plus side, it is the star of Adventure Time himself, Finn the Human. As with most of the LEGO Dimensions characters, Finn has a reversible face, letting you either have him with a cheesy grin, or a simple smile, while he also comes packing his trusty backpack.
As seems to be the new norm for lead characters in level packs, Finn also comes packing a pretty impressive range of abilities - although he does fall just that little bit short of current abilities heavyweight, Ethan Hunt of the Mission Impossible Level Pack.
Here's a full list of Finn's abilities:
- Acrobat
- Deflection
- Grappling
- Laser Beam/Laser
- Pole Vault
- Sword Switch (exclusive)
- Red Demon Objects (exclusive)
- Target
- Vine Cut
In game, Finn is actually a really versatile character. While he mostly uses his sword, and packs a fair punch, Finn can actually call up a weapon wheel at any time, to switch between a variety of weapons, from a fairly standard crossbow, to a whole bevvy of swords. The ability to switch between a sword and a bow is cool enough, as it means Finn can take on enemies either up close, or from afar - but he has more than just a few swords on hand.
After finding Billy's Gauntlet in the included level (more on which later), you can hold Square (at least on PS4) to send out a laser beam which can melt ice, and wreck gold objects. The crossbow, meanwhile, can also be used for the pole vault ability (essentially, shooting a target, which leaves the crossbow bolt poking out so you can swing from it), while his selection of swords let Finn do even more.
Your options here are Scarlet, the Demon Sword, Finn Sword, Grass Sword, Crystal Sword and Root Sword, and each has slightly different uses - the Grass Sword can cut through grass vines, for example, while the Demon Sword lets Finn make use of one of his exclusive abilities - Red Demon Objects, which lets him smash items made out of red bricks.
However, it's these exclusive abilities that leave us feeling a little bit uneasy, as it's never much fun having things locked to only one character. If you have no interest in Adventure Time, you shouldn't have to buy an Adventure Time character to 100% the levels you do own - especially now that the much loved Hire a Hero function seems to have been removed for Year 2 figures.
What makes things worse is that one of Finn's abilities - Red Demon Brick Smash - is essentially the exact same as Voldermort/Harry Potter's Diffindo. Both let you interact with red bricks, albeit one lets you smash an object made out of it, while the other lets you cut a shape out of a wall of them - but despite the fact that both are eerily similar, you can't use one character for the other.
The vehicles
The Adventure Time Level Pack comes with two vehicles - the "rolls off the tongue" Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a car version of Jake, known as the Jakemobile. If you want to be able to play as Jake proper, you'll need to buy the Adventure Time Team Pack.
Starting with the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, as it's undoubtedly the "wtf" weirdest of the bunch, this is a model it can be a bit tricky to describe. While it can take a bit of looking at to figure out exactly what it is, it actually bears a shockingly good likeness to the one from the TV show.
Not a bad likeness, right?
In essence, the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant is a ridable, hovering elephant that can fire laser beams. What it lacks, though, is the ability to go up and down - it hovers, rather the flies, so you're doomed to just cruise at whatever altitude you left the ground at. That said, the laser it packs does make it a pretty formidable foe.
In terms of rebuilds, the Ancient War Elephant can be transformed into a Cosmic Squid, which if anything looks even weirder, and a Pyschic Submarine - adding another to the fairly short list of LEGO Dimensions vehicles that can run underwater. Good job its ears are actually scuba flippers, right?
The Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, the Cosmic Squid, and the Psychic Submarine.
The Jakemobile, meanwhile, is a car based form of Finn's best friend, Jake the Dog. While it does feel like a bit of a cop out, as it'd be nice if Jake the character could simply transform into the car, this is a pretty good build, with swept, racer-like styling. You even get a flat Jake the Dog face brick, which could be fun if you're planning on building anything else.
In terms of rebuilds, the Jakemobile's transformations are every bit as weird and kooky as you'd expect. First up is Snail Dude Jake, a build which transforms your car into what essentially looks like, well, a snail with wheels for ears, and which adds a sonar ability, while Hover Jake turns the car into a cool hovercraft, complete with giant "fans" on the back (actually, wheels).
It's disappointing that Snail Dude Jake looks so different in game as compared to the model...
The level: A Book and a Bad Guy
But the biggest part of any level pack is the level itself and here... well, Adventure Time is a bit of a mixed bag.
Er.... Hello?
The story here is based loosely on the events of two Adventure Time episodes - The Enchiridion, and Mortal Folly. As you've probably guessed by the title of the level, Finn and Jake are on the hunt for a powerful book known as the Enchiridion - and they'll bump into a load of familiar faces along the way, from Princess Bubblegum and Mannish Man (the manliest Minotaur) to the dastardly Lich.
Save the old ladies!
As you'd likely expect, then, this is about as utterly crazy as things come. One moment you'll be rescuing old ladies from rampant pixies ("If you rescue me, I'll give you a whooooole silver stud!"), the next you'll be going inside someone's stomach, solving a disco pad puzzle (it wouldn't be a LEGO game without one, right?), and a few seconds later you'll be platforming across the Candy Kingdom. It's a fairly chunk level, with around an hour and a half of gameplay here - and it's a real looker, too, with the entire level done out in LEGO Dimension's cartoon-style cel-shading, much in the same way as the Scooby Doo adventure world was.
Did we mention it got weird?
However, as was the case with the Mission Impossible Level Pack, it's the bugs that let this down the most. After defeating one of the level's bosses (the "Evil Guy"'s minion), our game crashed, not once but twice. Twice in a row we entered the boss fight, twice in a row we battered our way through, and twice in a row our game crashed straight back to the console's main menu. We've said it before, and we'll say it again - when you're paying the price of a complete LEGO game for a single level and some LEGO bricks, you expect it to be utterly flawless. We know we aren't the only ones who've had this happen, either - we saw someone pop up asking the official LEGO Dimensions Twitter about the exact same issue just a day ago. Luckily, it was third time lucky for us, and we didn't lose too much progress each time - but we expect better from TT. Still, at least it's nicer with its co-op play.
---
Needless to say, when it comes to LEGO Dimensions, Adventure Time fans have got a tough choice on their hands. With three options on offer, whether you're best off getting the Fun Pack for the Adventure World and Battle Arena alone; getting the Team Pack so you get access to all of the above, plus and extra character and vehicle; or getting the Level Pack so you get the extra level (but get one less character), is mostly going to depend on the kind of player you are. It is a tricky decision to make, though, especially as the packs have all been designed to intertwine - there are optional sections in both the level and the Adventure World that require Game Boy-alike BMO to plug herself in, which you won't be able to do without the Team Pack.
In all, the level here certainly isn't bad, and this is the only way you'll be able to get your hands on the game's hero, Finn - but if you really just want to delve into the Adventure Time world, the £15 price tag on the Marceline Fun Pack is going to be mightily tempting.
