I feel like the thing that all Lego games capture still is that essence of nostalgia, and its always for different reasons
Like uhh the Lego Movie Game thing, abeit simply having altered characters to unlock, I kinda did the same thing when I was younger. "If I change the hat on this one guy he's now a different character!" My sister and I played the Lego Marvel Game thing also and I made a dudeguy with Deadpool's blades but Iron Man's jets and that was fun, it reminded me of when I played Legos with my neighbor in which EVERYONE COULD APPARENTLY FLY BECAUSE WE LACKED THE ABILITY TO MAKE PEOPLE SIMPLY WALK! Lego Rock Raiders reminds me of all the odd money systems we would use, such as those ridged plates were dollars and studs were cents, Lego Racers reminded me of all the dumb space ships we made which were basically a lot of the cool bricks stuck onto eachother, etc.