Kick some bricks in 1-9! (Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga in review)

 It's finally time! Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga came out a few weeks ago and I'm finally ready to talk about it! I have always enjoyed playing Lego games to completion, ever since the original Lego Star Wars back in 2003, and through the years, the games have stuck to a relatively similar concept to that original title. They gained the open world element after Lego Batman 2, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, but even with that, the levels were still the same style and very similar in terms of content. Truly my dream with this game was for them to take everything that they've done with other Lego games and just blow them up to an even greater degree. I'm happy to report that I have been extremely pleased with this game overall, and I think I will be for quite some time to come. I hope you'll join me this week on the Lego Millennium Falcon as we jump to bricky Lego hyperspace!

A delightful look at a lot of the characters here on the main menu screen!

I have a good feeling about this...

    Ever since the first trailer came out for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, I've been hopeful for what looked like one of the best love letters to the series yet. There was another Star Wars game announced that year at E3, but I thought this was the more exciting of the two. The years have come and gone, and the game was met with several major delays, leading it to shipping at least about two years after it was supposed to originally, but that extra time has really gone into a spectacular new package. The entire gameplay system has been overhauled pretty dramatically when compared with the most recent Lego games, which would explain why it took so much extra time! Characters with guns remind me of Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, due to the "Third person over the shoulder" approach, making it much easier and fun to aim than just to focus a pointer on an object and then releasing the button, like in older games. The characters with Lightsabers are a blast to duel with, leading to some boss fights that, while still not being hard, had a lot of depth to them, especially compared with the old Lego Star Wars boss fights where if you did a double jump and attacked, then you were unstoppable. The combat is greatly improved here, having an actual combo meter where characters can chain together attacks, almost like something out of an action game like Bayonetta. It's a really neat system that, while it's not incredibly original, hence the comparisons, I legitimately didn't think they would ever implement in a game like this. Just these little changes must have taken a long time to implement, as well as the camera that goes along with it, so I'm just really glad that they took their time with them! The levels this time around are handled in a different way. 

Let me level with you here...

    Every episode has five levels, though the story is progressed in a lot of ways that aren't just levels. There are tons of cutscenes that you find that progress the story, but the majority of your time in this game is going to be devoted to the massive landscapes, and that's fine with me. The levels for the most part are vehicle stages or boss fights, such as the Boonta Eve Podrace or the boss fight with Darth Maul, both from Episode 1. There are still some levels that play like older games in this series, but they are somewhat few and far between. While I love the overall work that was done on this game, I don't love what they've done to the level system, as many times just played exactly like the open world segments, but they do a good job of giving you more agency in the story that you're playing through. This time, however, the open world is done so well, I don't really mind that the level systems play similarly, though I do wish they could have been a bit longer in certain situations. It's interesting that there are three Kyber bricks tied to True Jedi status, I assume they used that to give the player even more bricks to be able to upgrade abilities with, which brings me to my next point, the upgrade system!

For goodness sakes, work on your core!

    There is an upgradable skill tree this time around that gives the Gold bricks (this time Kyber Bricks) a different purpose other than just building things around the map. I have to give the advice right now, work on the core upgrades first, as a lot of these take the place of former red bricks from lego games, such as different detectors, stud magnet, and fast build. These will help a lot more than the other upgrades, though I must admit I haven't properly looked all of those over. Scavengers can climb faster and smugglers can negotiate lower prices, while Jedi can make their mind trick last for a longer period of time, or make their mind-tricked victims be able to walk farther. It's really cool how they've changed up this whole system so that individual character classes exist, making it less difficult to remember exactly who can do what, like in older games. All of these classes existed in the past lego games, but the uniform abilities across classes makes it much easier to sort through. Special shout out to the scavenger class, as they can create different tools to help them, a glider, the breaker blaster, which lets you break walls, and the Net Launcher, which allows you to climb up areas where you wouldn't be able to otherwise. It's a really cool addition and it makes them stand out a lot more than some. As in other Lego games, it's a little overwhelming having all of these characters to play as, as I don't want to leave any out. Star Wars has so many weird and interesting characters, it really makes me want to play as everyone at some point or another. Speaking of characters, I have to talk about the overall personality of this game really quick.

Maybe the funniest Lego game out there!

    This game had me legitimately laughing from almost the first moment of the first scene. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are trying to hail the separatist cruiser to land, but in the background, a hologram of Darth Sidious is rapidly trying to figure out how to turn off the camera, and Nute Gunray frantically takes down a picture of Queen Amidala that he has on a dartboard, instantly revealing the loyalties of the separatist leader in a hilarious way. This tone followed through the entire game, even during scenes where people died, they still tried their best to make it a funny scene. At the end of Episode 1, Qui-Gon slices Darth Maul in half, but while the two Jedi are celebrating their victory, Darth Maul's torso hops over and stabs Qui-Gon, killing the Jedi Master. Obi-Wan then cuts Maul's head off, which then holds the lightsaber in his mouth, though it keeps bouncing towards them. Obi-Wan then kicks the head into a basketball hoop and scores two points before the pieces of Maul fall into the pit like they do in the film. Just such over the top hilarious scenes are the norm in this game, as is the mention of Anakin not liking sand, which they bring up a whole lot. This goes even further though, to the point that I think this game actually makes the sequel trilogy better than it was done in film. The characters are constantly poking fun at the stupid things that happened in the sequels, my favorite having to be a line from Rey in Episode 9, when she goes to the wreckage of the Death Star II. Rey arrives and says something to the effect of, "Huh, I really thought that the wreckage of this place would have landed on that forest moon, but I guess I just don't know enough about astronomy." She's referring to the fact that at the end of Return of the Jedi, the Death Star II exploded while seemingly right over Endor, but somehow the station ended up washed up on this other planet. It makes it hilarious while also kind of making it better than the movie that the scene was based on! It's really just a fantastic nod, and it's far from the only time that this game pokes fun at the source material. I don't remember a Lego game that made me laugh as often as this game, and part of that comes from the normal Lego physical comedy, but part of it is also the writing of the well done voice acting that comes through really well. 

    Some voice impressions are better than others, I'm not going to call anyone out, since they all do a pretty good job but I do have to give a quick shout out to Billy Dee Williams who reprises his iconic role as Lando Calrissian, and does a fantastic job. Anthony Daniels also reprises his role as C-3P0 in this game, which is as fantastic and nervous as it always is. A lot of the cast of the Clone Wars TV show is back in this game as well, with Anakin and Obi-Wan's voice actors returning, as well as the Battle Droids, Count Dooku, Clone Troopers, etc. I just want to give huge kudos to everyone involved in this game who made it as much of an obvious labor of love as it is, including the voice talent and writers. Especially for the people who recorded for Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, it is extremely tough to pass yourselves off as Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill, and I think they did a great job.

    Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is a fantastic game that's really chock full of fan service for long time fans of the series, though it's also just a great reinvention of the Lego game formula that I hope they'll keep for a long time. It was announced last week that the game already has the best sales of any Lego game so far, so I'm glad that the hard work that the team at Traveler's Tales and WB Games put in has paid off! I'm not at 100% yet, just because the game is pretty massive, but I have beaten all of the episodes, I just have to track down the extras, which I'm really looking forward to! I may post another article when I get to 100%, but I'm not sure.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. As I said at the top of this, I've been waiting for this game to come out for a long time, and I'm just so glad that it has lived up to my expectations. Some of the levels are a bit lackluster or short for my liking, but compared with all that the game gets right, that is something of a minor complaint. Until next week, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Lego True Jedi, and may the force be with you, always.