A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…
The LEGO games were always a day one purchase for me as I got to play the franchises I grew up with like Star Wars, Indian Jones and Batman just to name a few. Over the years their lack of innovation and someone to co-op with made LEGO games an unattractive purchase for me. Fast forward to the birth of my son and my co op partner is ready to take up the challenge.
The Skywalker Saga combines all three of the Star Wars trilogy, that’s 9 films to play through. There is some nice touches in the latest LEGO rendition. You can start with the first episode of which ever trilogy you want; Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Episode IV – A New Hope or Episode VII – The Force Awakens. If like me you played LEGO Stars Wars – The Force Awakens not so long ago don’t worry about having that feeling that you’ve played this game before. What the developers have done so well is retelling this epic story in a more concise way. You get all the story plots without the filler that other LEGO Star Wars games had to include to make them longer.
The evolution of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game to The Skywalker Saga is a credit to everyone who has worked on the franchise and the LEGO games. In recent months I have played LEGO Ninjago, Marvel Super Heroes and LEGO DC Super-Villains, enjoying the way each of the games changed the gameplay. The Skywalker Saga blends a wonderful mix of open-world and linear story paths. Gameplay has been updated and definitely, it’s for the better. For changing to different characters you now press LB which does take a little time to get used to but I found it streamlines the controls nicely. When you want to use your blaster you press LT to go into over the shoulder view for better accuracy and pressing RT just feels so good. Another addition is Kyber Bricks, blue LEGO bricks you can collect by completing challenges, collecting LEGO studs and finding them around the world. These Kyber Bricks can be spent on RPG-style elements, so if you want your characters to build faster there’s a skill tree for that,or you want your character to move faster – you see where I am going. The skill tree is massive and adds so much more replayability.
I had a chance to play LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga with my son and we have both had a great time with it. Even though he isn’t the best co-op partner (yet), I didn’t feel that he was holding me back from all the experiences that was on offer here. There is a lot of exploring to do and sometimes even if someone takes the “wrong” path it normally leads you to either a Kyber Brick, a puzzle to solve or a well placed secret. I played A New Hope in single player to check how the experiences changed and was very happy to find that there wasn’t a difference at all. I may have collected more Kyber Bricks and spoken to a few more characters but the fun translated well from co-op to single-player and visa versa.
Conclusion
It’s been a long wait for this latest LEGO title, but boy, was it worth it. Updated gameplay and controls feel fresh, while the visual and audio work do the LEGO Star Wars name justice nicely. With plenty of thigs to see and do, this could well be the ultimate LEGO game when all is said and done!
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
