LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (2007)

I am on a journey to beat 360 random Xbox 360 games. Here's my next adventure

Game number 63 was Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. This is an action puzzle game where you play through Star Wars 1-6 in the lego world. It is the huge combination of Lego Star Wars 1 and 2, which were episodes 1-3 and 4-6 respectively.

Graphics/Sound: The graphics look good! This is essentially a port of PS2/XBOX games; however, it looks better than ever on the 360. It is very difficult to make lego graphics look bad. The entire world is made with legos and it looks awesome!

The sound is absolutely iconic! That is less due to the game doing anything unique and more just because of the classic Star Wars sound track that was used… but if its not broke then don’t fix it! The sound effects were also done perfectly! Anyone who has played this game remembers the blue stud sound effect and the minikit sound effect. Those are probably 2 of the most iconic sound effects ever. Exceptionally done!

Story: The story is Star Wars. It does not stray very far from the movies. The cutscenes are great and there is a sense of humor that I have always loved. One of my few complaints for the story is that it can be confusing at times. Most of the story is skipped (as there are only 6 levels per movie) and the lack of dialogue makes it so that you will not really know what is happening in each scene unless you have the movies memorized.

Gameplay: The core gameplay of the lego games consists of a series of puzzles that need to be solved through building legos, pushing things around, and interacting with different parts of the levels. Most of the characters have different specialties and certain parts for the puzzles require the use of certain characters. For instance, the Jedi are able to use the force on certain objects that other characters cannot; while bounty hunter characters can throw bombs that destroy silver objects. There are many different types of characters and puzzles.

The puzzle difficulty in Lego Star Wars is on the easy side compared to the many lego games released after it. Nothing here is super cryptic and it is the perfect entry point to the series for new people or for the game’s intended audience: children.

In addition to standard levels, there are also vehicle levels. In these, the player will take control of a space ship and need to complete a series of challenges. These will include bombing blockades, shooting down ships, and using missiles to destroy targets. I think these levels range from downright awful to decent. I would be sad if some of the better ones were removed from the game; but they rarely act as more than a buffer between the standard levels.

One of the main collectables in Lego Star Wars are the minikits. Each level has 10 minikits that are hidden throughout the level. It is almost always fun to go after these minikits and you are missing half the game if they are ignored! There are so many optional puzzles that you will never see if you don’t go after them. Do yourself a favor and go for all minikits if you ever play this game.

It is rarely possible to find all these minikits the first time a level is played in story mode and requires the player to engage in the best part of the game: free play mode. You can go back to any level that you have beaten and use ANY CHARACTER you have unlocked! It is so much fun to be able to play through levels as any character. I love destroying the base on Hoth as Darth Vader himself or fighting Darth Maul as himself!

While story mode and free play mode are definitely worth your time, Lego Star Wars is guilty of extreme padding for any who want to go for 100%. There is blue minikit mode, which puts 10 new, blue minikits in every level and requires you to find them all in a given amount of time. I just don’t see why this needs to exist. The levels were designed around the original 10 minikits and the blue ones are often in open spaces or are just repeats of the originals. It just feels like padding to play these challenges.

The final game mode is the super story. This mode forces you to play all 6 levels of each episode back to back in story mode again. It is the exact same thing as the first time except that there is a timer. You beat the super story if you can beat the episode in under and hour and get more than 100k studs. It is trivially easy to do this on every episode other than 6, which has much longer levels than the other episodes.

My experience: I have been playing lego star wars for 20 years and have played through all these levels before. I decided that I would go for 100% this time because I’ve never done that… it was a mistake. The story mode, minikits, and red bricks (another collectable that gives you cheats when you get them) were great! I am truly happy that I got all of them and saw everything each level had! My happiness was quickly killed once I started going for the blue minikits. I just don’t see why those exist. Finally, I did the super stories and those were the worst! I already played those levels 3 times and didn’t want to do it again. Beating level 6 in under an hour was a pretty cool accomplishment though. I only finished it in 59:40 and was sweating by the end. Don’t 100% this game, just go for the minikits.

Overall, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is an amazing game that has kept my attention for 20 years. Playing through these levels is fun and the Star Wars universe is a perfect place for a lego game. I would recommend everyone play this. There is fun to be had here for anyone. Also, play local coop if possible! It is the best way to play the game! (9/10)

I spent 31 hours, 12 minutes, and 44 seconds playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

I have spent a total of 817 hours and 41 minutes on the Road To 360 challenge so far.

Next Game: Call of Duty 2

Lego Star Wars has been on my list for many, many years to play through. I played a bit of it a long time ago, and there is a bit of charm to these (older) Lego games, not to mention a fairly easy plug and play, turn off your brain and enjoy atmosphere. Well mostly anyway.

Action and platforming, the game takes you through the first six movies of the Star Wars saga, each broken into six different parts that replicate the action of each respective movie. This is also tied together by a central hub of the Mos Eisley Cantina which is a fun little touch. I don't know about modern Lego games, but nothing is voiced in this game, so all the cut scenes are Lego "acted" which in itself is a funny addition.

Overall the gameplay is pretty good. The camera follows only from one angle, so some of the platforming can be annoying when you can't get your depth or jumps lined up properly. The light saber combat also leaves some to be desired. It feels very slow, and the animations long. While it feels conducive of an actual action games animations, I found myself wanting to use a blaster character more often to just mow down hoards of droids instead of taking the fight to them. Also, rarely did I employ my force abilities vs. enemies. It didn't feel great, and you still had to follow through with another shot because the good Jedi's don't outright kill.

Where the game really slogs (and where the 66% comes in) is the 100% completion counter found at the store in the cantina. I went in guns blazing that I was going to do 100%, but in order to do that, you need to play through each level a MINIMUM of 4 times a piece for most. First you do the story mode. Freeplay follows, where you can collect the mini kits you were locked out of the first go around. Then we move onto the challenge where you have to collect 10 blue mini kits in under 10 minutes per level, and finally round it out with the Super Story mode which you complete all six levels in one go without a break in under an hour. Listen, the game was pretty fun but to have to go back and do this again and again really isn't. Also couple this with a pile of other tedious side content, it really isn't worth doing unless you are a hardcore achievement person and a total completionist. I do concur, if you were doing it with a second player (a child perhaps) doing the 100% might be a bit more tolerable as you would be having fun with another party along the way.

Fairly quick if you do the main stories once, and even a few challenges and certainly worth playing through. But as far as 100%, ehhh... 66% is close enough for me.