Video Game Review - LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

It's finally here! The culmination of all the LEGO Star Wars games that TT Games have done is here at last. Now since the early days of LEGO games, they had very rarely done any licensed properties with the very first one being another Creator game to do with Harry Potter. Prior to TT Games being formed and doing LEGO games, they did a lot of games which many like me have fond memories. But compared to the success they get with games now, those early really only existed because much like Disney at the time, LEGO were desperate and were not the major company that they are today. TT Games was formed following the merger of Travellers Tales and Giant Interactive (the latter of which was what used to be LEGO Interactive) and since the first LEGO Star Wars game, they have been making LEGO games ever since. Largely all licensed games with franchises such as Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Wizarding World, Middle-Earth and more. They also tackled LEGO's own original themes with games like LEGO City Undercover and Bionicle Heroes and even tried to implement the toys themselves with the crossover toys-to-life game LEGO Dimensions. So here we are with the possibly final game in their line of Star Wars games which itself is a remake of The Videogame, The Original Trilogy, The Complete Saga and The Force Awakens while also including episodes 8 and 9 from the sequel trilogy and more recent elements from the LEGO games such as voice acting, open worlds and other thing while tailoring to older fans with things like mumble mode and so forth. So let's see if this game (which apparently will be the only game using the TT Games engine that ultimately was the reason why it took so long and thus was too difficult to use) was worth the wait:

So, as the name states, this game covers all nine episodic films that make up the Skywalker Saga. Find out how Anakin Skywalker (reprised by Matt Lanter from The Clone Wars) became Darth Vader (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) in the prequels. See a new rebellion formed with his son Luke Skywalker (voiced by David Menkin) at the helm just as he becomes the first Jedi since Order 66 was declared in the original trilogy. And finally, see a new generation of heroes navigate the galaxy in the wake of a new war with some awakenings within in the sequel trilogy. Unlike previous LEGO games, you can start from the beginning of each trilogy in any order you wish and unlock the remaining episodes. There are a total of 45 levels, which means 5 levels per film. Each character with a lightsaber can now perform a series of combo moves, and characters with a gun can shoot over the shoulder. Despite primarily being a game about the nine films, the characters are not restricted to just those films as others from other Star Wars media also appear, including those from various TV shows, streaming shows and other films too. Following from what we got in The Force Awakens game, there is no single hub world, but rather a whole galaxy full of explorable planets and moons with iconic landmarks from the saga. You can also explore the insides of ships such as a Star Destroyer and the Death Star (after taking down defences out and in and purchasing them, of course). In keeping with the previous games, there are random encounters, a mode to make characters mumble and other great little things too.

While this game has been very hyped and is very much a good example of a good Star Wars game, it's far from perfect. Most of the levels, when compared to previous LEGO games, are quite short. But that may be a good thing because much of the story uses the explorable galaxy that we have which, in a way, allows the game to cover a lot more that happened in the films compared to the early games. I also like how TT Games really wanted to make this very different to the LEGO games they have done before and yeah there is still the stud bar, the minikits and a need to unlock everything to be able to complete it 100%. But there are some differences like the space battles, ground war like battles, combos for various fights and so on. The humour is not too bad in this game and much of it covers some of the internet's most well known memes to do with Star Wars such as Anakin complaining about sand, Obi-Wan (reprised by James Arnold Taylor from The Clone Wars) doing his iconic Revenge of the Sith lines, Kylo Ren (reprised by Matthew Wood from the LEGO Holiday Special) going shirtless and macho and many others. It's also really nice to see that rather than use archival footage, the developers had the actors do new dialogue for the game. I've always found in some of the LEGO games that the footage sounds off. So overall not a completely perfect game, but it lives up to the hype and hopefully the next LEGO game isn't too far away because it's been or rather feels like a long time since the last one. 9/10