LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga review — A fine addition to my collection

In March of 2005, we were introduced to the loveable world of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game. With its cheesy puns, non-verbal communication, and lots of slapstick, the game took my world by storm. This game launched a generation of movie tie-in LEGO games such as Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, and more. Now, almost 20 years later, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is here, and this…. is where the fun begins…

Let’s start off our journey with the basics. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is about finding YOUR way to play. The opening menus allow you to choose from which era you want to start, showing you beautiful dioramas of all nine films. I naturally started with A New Hope. As you progress, you can choose to move eras simply by going to the in-game menu. After you finish a mission, just like the other games, you can unlock Free Play, which lets you replay the mission without limitations to which characters you can pick. This allows you to collect those extras that you may have missed the first time. In between missions, you’re free to roam around the area freely. For example, after Princess Leia’s Tantive IV mission I was dropped into the adorable LEGO version of the Lars Homestead and the Jundland Wastes. It was at this moment that I got extremely distracted doing side missions and made Old Ben wait for me at his house.

Side missions in this game tend to be everywhere in the “overworld” areas. Each side mission is unique to the planet and generally takes 1-5 minutes to complete. Side missions include everything from playing soccer with some Jawas to taking over full Trade Federation ships in space. Each of these side missions tend to reward you with Kyber Bricks or (if you’re lucky) a datacard. Kyber Bricks allow you to upgrade your characters. You have “Core Upgrades” which include upgrades such as making your sprint faster, adding additional health bars, and the ever helpful “Attract Studs” upgrade. Each of these core upgrades help all of your characters. A new addition to The Skywalker Saga is the inclusion of character classes. These character classes, such as Jedi, Scoundrel, Astromech, etc, can be upgraded with Kyber Bricks as well as giving each class added bonuses to attack, defense, etc. There are also datacards to find, which are hidden well. These datacards allow you to add extra fun to your game with Baguette Lightsabers, Retro Mode, Big Head Mode, the impressively hilarious Galaxy Rave, and more.

Beyond collecting Kyber Bricks, Studs, or datacards, exploring each planet is the part of this game that I found to be the most fun. Each planet is completely unique in their own ways. I was surprised by just how big each planet really is, and it is stunning to see. As I stated before, I started with A New Hope. The first time you really get to see the overworld at its height is Tatooine with Mos Eisley, Mos Espa, and the Jundland Wastes available with more than 100 Kyber Bricks, 3 datacards, and 25 characters to unlock. This is where a lot of my time was put in during my playthrough. I spent about two hours just running around Tatooine in Galaxy Free Play, which is unlocked after you finish your first movie. Something this game really does well is the environment. If you’re on Tatooine, the minifigures tend to get sand on them as they travel. This is the same for snow on Hoth, water on Kamino, and mud in the Naboo swamps. Seeing your minifigures get dirty the more you travel is a fun addition. The Skywalker Saga environments are also almost 100% made out of LEGO bricks. During the Tantive IV, I was impressed by how walls, floors, windows, etc, were all made of LEGO bricks. So much so, you could see the LEGO logos on the top of each peg. This just adds to the fun immersion of the game.

From a graphical perspective, this game is stunning. Everywhere you look there is so much detail, from the trees to the creatures running around to the beautiful backgrounds. I was impressed by the level of care put in for a game that’s about LEGO brick versions of Star Wars moments. I played the game on the Xbox Series X and never had a moment where the frame rate dropped. It is one of the smoothest games I’ve played in a while. In all the travels I had, I only had a few moments where I was taken out of the game due to technical issues. In a moment on the Tantive IV and then a moment on the Death Star, I had a slight issue with some audio glitching. The audio would cut out bits at a time, making it difficult to hear the voice lines or sound effects. These issues generally persisted until the end of the area, and normally weren’t present in the following area. Another moment was when one of the sea creatures on Naboo glitched through the glass of Otoh Gunga. These were small things, but they were present.

The combat systems have also been completely reworked for The Skywalker Saga. Blaster heroes now have the ability to lock on using the left trigger to aim while shooting with the right trigger. This adds so much when it comes to ways to take down enemies, allowing you to shoot the environment to cause chaos, shoot the helmet right off a stormtrooper, shoot some poor trooper’s knee, and more. They’ve also added a new combo meter that allows you to get extra studs the higher your combo gets. These combos actually work together between melee, ranged, and Force attacks. For example, when playing as Han Solo you can go from shooting a trooper with a blaster to slapping him in the face and the combo will continue. This is such a great addition to the game. I enjoyed finding multiple ways to keep my combos alive during combat. Something else to keep in mind is the couch co-op. While I personally didn’t have a chance to play the couch co-op, this game would be so much fun with a buddy to help with the puzzles. Switching between characters to solve puzzles by yourself is fine, but a buddy would make them easier.

Another change to the way we play the game is the addition of the new boss fights. Each boss fight is slightly different, but each one has its own unique take based on their fighting styles. Darth Maul is agile and quick, General Grievous uses four blades at once, Kylo Ren… is angry and yells a lot. One of my favorite boss fights was actually against Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones. It’s split into different sections and in between each fight there’s time for you to collect studs for the “True Jedi” Kyber Brick bonuses and a puzzle for you to solve. While not difficult for a “True Jedi” like me, they are still a fun time. There are also quick time events for you each time you get a bosses health bar down. For instance, the time that Kylo told Rey she needed a teacher in TFA, or Count Dooku insulting Anakin’s anger issues in Revenge of the Sith. I never felt like the quicktime events were overused. I’m not a huge fan of quicktime events being a mainstay, but I appreciate using it for big dialogue moments only.

Flying is something I got very distracted doing. You have space above each planet for you to fly around and collect Kyber Bricks from the Kyber Bricks Comets, doing time trials, random space encounters such as Trade Federation attack ships, and more. I really liked being able to choose different ships for different events for the best result. Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter was great for the time trials, while the Millennium Falcon was perfect for any combat missions. As someone who’s been begging for more fluidity in Star Wars games when it comes to going from land to space, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga does a great job on the visuals.

A staple of the LEGO games have always been the loveable style of comedy. This game has plenty to get a laugh out of fans of all ages. One of the things I’ve always loved was slapstick comedy, and this game doesn’t disappoint. I think the ‘funniest’ trilogy in that regard has to be The Original Trilogy. Chewbacca and Han take center stage with loads of jokes. When it came to dialogue, I noticed that quite a few of The Clone Wars cast reprise their roles including James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan), Catherine Taber (Padme), Matt Lanter (Anakin), Dee Bradley Baker (Clone Troopers), and a few more. I think that’s what makes the Prequel Trilogy so funny when it comes to the interactions between characters.

Finally, the Sequel Trilogy takes the cake when it comes to funniest writing. They did a great job taking some of the more… interesting aspects of the sequel trilogy and making the joke count in a loveable and fun way. The datacards, as I discussed earlier, are also a great way to add some fun to each area. One of my favorite datacard extras I got was “mumble mode.” This does exactly what you expect, replacing the voice acting with mumbling like the original games. There was something very nostalgic about playing the opening to The Phantom Menace with the mumble mode on, making it sound like the LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game opening. I have yet to unlock the Galactic Rave mode, but I have seen footage of that and it looks like a blast. Even on each planet, there are funny easter eggs or funny moments, like unleashing a Wampa or Rancor in the middle of a crowded street to see everyone’s reactions. So much fun to be had, it’s hard to talk about them all, but that leaves plenty for you to find yourself.

For those of you who are thinking about getting The Skywalker Saga, I wanted to add two helpful hints to help you get along in the game faster. The first is to unlock the “attract studs” core upgrades as quickly as possible. These upgrades expand the distance you can attract the studs to you. This will make getting the “True Jedi” objective in each level easier and will make getting enough studs to unlock new characters and ships easier. The second helpful hint is to go to each planet’s space area and destroy the Kyber Brick Comet. This comet will give you five bricks each which will make unlocking new upgrades easier. Speaking of unlocks, we have a special surprise for making it this far in our review. You can use the following codes given to us from the LEGO Star Wars team to unlock some new characters early! Type in OKV7TLR to unlock the Bounty Hunter Dengar, and XV4WND9 to unlock Resistance Leader Admiral Holdo.

What else can I say that I haven’t already said? LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has raised the bar for LEGO games so high that I can’t imagine how they could get it higher. With two DLC character packs available at launch with The Mandalorian Season 1 and Solo: A Star Wars Story, with more on the way in the future such as The Bad Batch (the one I’m most excited about), Rogue One, and Mandalorian Season 2; there should be plenty of fun characters for all fans of the Star Wars franchise for the near future.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is set to release on April 5th, 2022 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch™ and PC.

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