Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is an action adventure game from TT Games that spans all nine episodes of the Star Wars series. You’re free to start from any trilogy’s opening and unlock the following chapters after completing the campaigns.
Each episode is a tongue-in-cheek retelling of the movie events that keeps the spirit of the original plots but regularly uses slapstick, self-referential humor, and in-jokes to appeal to a younger audience. I found many of the ways the game chose to censor some of the more mature aspects of the plot to be fun commentary on the events themselves, like Anakin and Padme sharing a bunk bed. The cutscenes that play throughout story missions are all well-produced and deal out exposition efficiently, but they may jump around a little too quickly for someone who’s not already familiar with the movies. They are all fully voiced by soundalikes or voice actors from previous animated shows. Some are better than others, but overall it allows for more Lego humor to shine through in the dialog.
The pacing of gameplay sections is excellent and places you at the heart of iconic set pieces with a wide variety of mechanics thrown at you. You’ll need to solve puzzles to unlock doors, platform through hazardous areas, speed around in chase sequences, dogfight in space, and duke it out with blasters or lightsabers at a regular clip. Despite the wide assortment of activities, each section feels fun. Boss encounters are bigger set pieces that elevate the mash-heavy combat slightly, but it’s all quite forgiving and death respawns you immediately with only a loss of currency as a penalty. Co-op is drop-in, drop-out, but it does not support online play so 2-player local split screen is the only option.
Outside of story missions you can explore 24 iconic Star Wars planets, some with multiple large, sidequest-filled hubs. In the Free Play mode many challenges and secrets will require you to dig into your ever growing roster of playable characters and make use of their unique abilities. The 300 characters come in one of nine class types, including bounty hunters, astro mechs, and Jedi. But different characters of the same class can have subtle differences despite sharing mostly the same suite of abilities, making collecting them all a worthy goal but not a requirement for getting stuff done.
The realization of many of these fan-favorite Star Wars locales is simply amazing. Every one is handled with a ton of detail, and the populated ones feel especially alive with lots of NPCs going about their business. The soundscape is also a perfect mix of Lego’s plastic toys clattering about and Star Wars’ fantastical gadgets. It looks and sounds as authentic as you would hope, and lore notes detail even the most obscure Star Wars characters and ships to bring any casual fan up to the speed of the die-hards.
Sadly my playtime was not without some hiccups. I ran into a troublesome glitch that has essentially broken the final chapter of Episode III. At the start of its boss fight, a depth-of-field effect bug blurred all my immediate surroundings. Upon exiting the level to reload, it would not allow me to continue the story of the last chapter, instead dumping me back into Free Play with no mission markers and no way to continue the story. I was able to jump into the other episode story modes with no problem, but any attempt to go back and finish Episode III would not work. That being said, I think it’s something a “day one” patch might solve, and I suspect I was just unlucky as there were no other problems in my over 20 hours of playtime.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga feels like a big step forward for the Lego games. They’ve always lovingly parodied the Star Wars series in particular, but this is a game that celebrates the combined history of the Lego Star Wars models as much as the movies. It’s a must-play for young and old Star Wars or Lego fans alike. The game is out April 5 for $59.99 on PC and Mac, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, and Nintendo Switch.
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Published: Apr 4, 2022 11:00 am