Sure, they’re meant to be games for children, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Lego games. I had the original Lego Star Wars games, the Indiana Jones and Marvel ones, I feel like there was a Pirates of the Caribbean one I had on PSP, but that also feels like it may be a fever dream. Anywho, I was feeling nostalgic when I saw the release of the Skywalker Saga, and the shakeup to the regular Lego gameplay had my interest.

Let’s talk about the gameplay first. Usually Lego games are a somewhat top down affair where you run around beating up baddies and solving puzzles, and if you want to aim a ranged weapon a little cursor appears on the screen for you to mark targets with. Skywalker Saga opts for a more traditional 3rd person camera, like one you may see in an Uncharted game. Aiming is more connected to your character in that you actually aim over their shoulder. There are still plenty of occasions where the game has the classic Lego game style, especially in the open worlds. That’s another big thing here on display, you travel to a lot of iconic Star Wars planets and each one has a dedicated open world space to explore. Some are more robust than others, Tatooine has 3 different world hubs, where as Mustafar only has a small part of the lava factory to explore. The open world exploration offered is great, being able to just visit a planet outside of a story mission is nice. Each hub is dotted with plenty of activities in the shape of climbing challenges, puzzles, and side missions from humorous galactic citizens.

The way this game handles levels is a bit unique. As you play through each movie most of it is spent travelling between the hub worlds with special circumstances. I didn’t encounter my first proper “level” until I was driving the Gungan sub. And it does seem a lot of the levels are reserved for vehicle sections, at least for the prequel trilogy. The later movies had more traditional Lego levels. There’s also an uneven pacing between each movie. I felt like Episode I, III, IV went by quick, while Episodes II, VI, and IX had more content from their movies represented in the game. I get some of the movies are less action heavy than others, but I felt there were moments left out that would’ve made good levels, like the opening space battle of Episode III. Still overall, I felt I got a good abridged version of each film, and now I sorta know what happens in Episode IX.

Another thing Lego games are known for is their humor. As expected, it’s all kid friendly jokes that maybe got one or two laughs out of me. There are also plenty of funny Star Wars in-jokes and memes splattered through the game that did get a smile from me. One mission had you interview witnesses as to whether Han or Greedo shot first & every time you pick Palpatine in free play his intro line is “Has anyone ever told you the story of Darth Plageuis the Wise?”. Lowly rebels, clones, or droids have discussions about plot holes or weird oversights in the movies that also are kinda funny. All of your favorite characters have their personalities played up for laughs. I actually liked Lego Kylo Ren more than regular Kylo Ren, he had more personality. If you explore around you also can find crates full of the original Lego Star Wars games laying around in the world.

There’s plenty of characters and vehicles to unlock from the movies, TV shows, and extended universe. If there’s a character that’s your favorite you can likely play as them, except Uncle Owen. Some are unlocked by completing missions, others by side missions, or just challenges. One thing I appreciate over the Complete Saga, every character has some offensive capability, even if it’s just swing punches. They also handle things like having 40 different clone troopers better by using an outfit system. So instead of having 40 different characters that are just color swapped clones, there’s one clone trooper with a set of different colored outfits.

One thing I didn’t care for, but also understand, is that every character is sorted into one of several categories, like Jedi, Scoundrel, Bounty Hunter, or Extra. Each category has it’s own set of skills, so each character in that set plays the same. After Lego Marvel had a large set of diverse heroes that shared some powers, but never felt like copies of each other, this felt like a step down. The Fetts had their jetpacks neutered, which granted, if they did work right it would eliminate most of the platforming challenges. There’s also an upgrade system where you can increase your max health or melee damage, or unlock special skills for each of the different classes. It’s a fun, if not entirely required system, except the damage increases, those are helpful.

Being I got this game at release, there were a few technical hiccups. Namely it was just a lot of crashes. If I tried to travel somewhere too quickly, or just hit a button too quick it caused the game to crash back to the PS home screen. It happened about once or twice a session. It was annoying, but never frustrating.

All in all, this game is a comprehensive Star Wars experience. You can play through all the movies then explore all the planets in free roam to your heart’s content. It’s able to be this vast experience by being simplistic in presentation, due to the Lego aspect. It’s a fun nostalgic trip that made me realize, even if they are considered crappy movies, my favorite trilogy will always be the prequels because I grew up on them. If I may have a nitpicky Star Wars nerd moment, I was upset they got the sound of Jango’s pistols wrong. It’s a distinct sound, like many sounds in Star Wars, and they didn’t use it.

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Lego Star Wars on the PlayStation 2. So when this game came out, I was excited again to play Lego Star Wars. Especially to find out what a modern LEGO Star Wars game would be like.

VOICED CHARACTERS

At first, I had my doubts when I found out this one would have voice acting. I loved the mumbling in the old games. And even if this way the game loses a part of its charm, I was really impressed by how much better fully voiced characters work here.

OPEN AREAS

This game has too many open areas for my taste. While they give you more freedom between the linear levels and are great for players who love exploring or doing side quests, I found them a bit overwhelming. Every time I entered one, I was met with so many places to go and things to collect, it felt like a lot to handle. If you’re mainly focused on playing through the story from the movies, these areas can disrupt the flow a bit, as they slow you down and make you walk to reach the next story segment when it could’ve been more streamlined.

FINAL WORDS

Anyway, I had a great time playing this! It was exciting to see some fresh, modern aspects in a LEGO game, and many of them really worked for me.

Thank you for reading my review and may the force be with you. ❤️

Ricci

I had a complicated relation to Star Wars last year. If you follow me you probably know that I'm a really big fan of the franchise. I have a nice collection of merchandising and even a couple of tattoos. But I was really dissapointed at the state of the franchise with underwhelming series like The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Then, the great Andor came and revived my interest for all things Star Wars. But something was missing and I didn't know what it was. It was LEGO Star Wars of all things, the game that remind me why I loved so much the adventure that took place a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

This was a very chill game. There wasn't a single enemy that was a real threat or a platforming challenge that made me sweat. No problem, I wasn't here for a challenge, I just wanna relive the moments I like from the movies with the characters I love the most and even make fun of its silliest moments. That's exactly what this game. It was perfect.

Well, the game is not perfect. It has a lot of issues with pacing, repetitive combat systems, uneven level design and several jokes that don't land. But honestly, I didn't cared. I was having a lot of fun destroying separatist droids with a shirtless Kylo ren to care.

My first impression of this game was that it was a compilation of the prior Lego Star Wars games. But that couldn't be more wrong. What we got instead was a complete reimagining, and it is awesome.

It will genuinely blow your mind at how much content exists inside of this video game. After you play through the entire nine episode saga, and start to explore the rest of the content, you'll find the other 80% of the game. Sidequest after sidequest, unlock after unlock, each nerdier and more of a delight to a serious fan than the last.

I really liked this game. I love Star Wars. I love that every little joke, every little reference, was just a pure and utter delight. The gameplay is simple, yes, but it satisfies, and there is just so gosh darn much of it that if it were any more complex, it would be just too much. I loved the mix of puzzles and combat, melee and shooting and ship flying. You can be a droid! A Jedi! A Bounty Hunter! X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Falcon, Star Destroyer, those weird little battle droid Walker ship things!

Lego Skywalker Saga is packed with so much fun that it borders on gluttonous. It’s like the longest buffet you’ve ever seen, an ice cream sundae filling a swimming pool, a glistening, cheese-bubbling pizza the size of a, well, galaxy.

Better hope you’re hungry for Star Wars!

Lego Star Wars 1 was my first lego game, and I played the original trilogy and collection as well. I didn't play the future Clone Wars or Episode VII games, but I knew I had to play this when it came out. What pains me is that coming all these years later, I can't help but feel this game falls short of even those original lego video games in many ways, while surpassing it in others.

First, the good. This game is oozing with charm and character. As a Star Wars fan, I think the comedy is on point, and nails that child like meme level humor. It's not afraid to poke fun at the series and I love it. I played with voice acting on and some of the cast was spot on... others could have been different, but nothing bad. I also love how they set out to build all these locations and really make the worlds of star wars feel somewhat like worlds. It feels great to see these environments fleshed out and explorable.

Unfortunately, that's where the bad starts. It's cool running around this world, but I feel like they're empty worlds with basic puzzles. Yes, it is a kids game. But it feels like just switch to character with either force power, or explosive, or whatever faction, and do basic thing. There are a few vehicle races to mix it up but not enough in my opinion, especially having played other games such as Lego Marvel where I feel the open world of that game far surpasses these smaller open worlds. Also, because there are so many worlds, it feels like each one is cramped. Uncle Owen's hut is right next to literally everything else important, not spread out like we would believe from the movies. Things are just kinda shoved next to eachother and I get it, but the world doesn't feel Star Wars to me beyond the look.

Also, the open worlds took away from the level design it feels. Even previous lego games with open worlds had some stellar linear levels, but this game feels like those levels really took a hit. There are a lot of movies to do, I get it, but some of these levels, like the "They Fly Now!" Are literally an on rail shooter section with nothing interesting happening. The original Complete collection had a few on rail levels like the beginning of Episode III, but that at least had some small challenges and variety that made it fun to replay. This game does not, and it's 20 years newer.

Overall, I think it's fine. I love the atmosphere, the lego charm, and some of the story, but I don't think the worlds themselves are that interesting beyond looks and so many of the levels are short and unexciting. The combat is improved, but it still comes down to button mashing with some flare outside of bosses. It's a good game, but not the great revolutionary Lego game so many expected it to be. Still absolutely worth playing.