Is the Force strong with this latest Lego game?
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will feature hundreds of playable characters – the most ever for a LEGO Star Wars game – and ships, LEGO’s signature sense of humour and fun, and new innovations, options, and gameplay features. Players can start the game at any point in the Star Wars timeline; fans can jump in with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, begin the original trilogy with Star Wars: A New Hope, or launch right into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The Lego games literally began with Star Wars so it’s good to finally go back to the series that started it all, yet this is more than just a rehash of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga which launched way back in 2007. I thought it’d be that plus a few missions for the new Trilogy but the team at TT Games have completely remade the prequel and original trilogy to include new cutscenes with voice-acting, plus the levels are also completely different in their design and appearance.
You also visit planets as explorable areas in-between levels, with them containing plenty of hidden collectibles to be found, perhaps too many for your average Lego player. The number of items you’ll be collecting exceeds anything that the Lego games have thrown at us by a large margin, plus now there are also upgrade trees to contend with and while combat is still simple, it does expand with its combos and even shooting has evolved slightly.
Each film has 5 levels based on them so you’re looking at 45 levels plus the many planets to explore as well, making it the most expansive Lego game to date. Drop-in/Drop-Out co-op play has always been a staple of the series and returns in true form here, working well but there is no online co-op to speak of. Personally, I don’t think it needs it and for me, I prefer playing alone anyway but for those who like to play co-op games in the home, The Skywalker Saga knocks it out of the park.
The humour of Lego games has always been its big selling point and while the original humour of telling the Star Wars saga without voice-acting is lost, the new gags still land well. The voice-acting is done well and there’s some great dialogue to be found here, while the soundtrack is classic of the films they represent.
It’s definitely the most visually stunning Lego game to date and that’s impressive considering the Lego games aren’t particularly famous for their visuals, but the character models are nicely animated the worlds you visit and well detailed. The framerate never dropped and load times were very short overall.
The Verdict
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is perhaps the biggest Lego game to date in terms of content and sets a new benchmark for the series going forward. For either Lego or fans of the Force, this game deserves to be in your collection.