Platinum Tales: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The year is 2005, pops brought home a copy of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game which was my first introduction to Star Wars. The 2000’s were a golden time to be a fan of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels as I can remember all of the toys, the Burger King watches and the amount of licensed games we got like LEGO Star Wars or Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. 14 years later after 5 iterations of LEGO Star Wars that covered all 7 of the movies plus the expanded lore in The Clone Wars we got a trailer for The Skywalker Saga which brought joy to fans like me who love the LEGO game series. Graphically the trailer looked amazing and was set on course for a 2020 release date but due to unfortunate delays for development purposes the game did not come out until April 5th, 2022. I have been waiting for this game since 2020 and now after spending the time to collect all 1200 Kyber bricks, achieve 10 billion studs, do every GNK droid mission and above all, solve the case of if Han shot first. This will act as a tale to how I completed The Skywalker Saga but also as a review where I give some much needed feedback for a highly anticipated game.

A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

In a galaxy far far away a young farmer boy got ripped off for two droids that ended up belonging to the local hermit after a message from some random woman on the trashcan looking droid name dropped him on accident which lead them to enlisting a smuggler and rug to rescue the mysterious lady. Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga does a fantastic job at retelling all 9 installments in the franchise with great comedy that only comes from TT Games. You’re given the choice on where you’d like to start with the respectable answer being Episode I: The Phantom Menace with Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Padawan named Obi-Wan Kenobi. Each episode goes through the major moments from their film with an open world hub to explore/move from mission to mission as well. If you’re a fan of the timeless tale that Star Wars created then you’ll have tons of fun with the story of the game.

You Underestimate the Power of Combos

Out is the old fighting style that TT Games has used for years and in is a brand new combo based style that really refreshed gameplay. You’ll not be impressed if you play fighter games but the combo system is easy to pick up with fun animations for some characters like Jango Fett using a grappling hook as a combo finisher or droids like R2-D2 using a taser like attachment to add shock to his combo. Enemies will now block so you won’t be able to fully spam attacks except if you invest in the very large skill tree for all the different character classes like Jedi, smugglers, bounty hunters and a few more. With those same classes you also can improve abilities while gaining new ones; you can improve the range your force push reaches or gain the ability to see enemies highlighted in red through the bounty hunter upgrades. Besides the combos you’ll explore 24 different hub world planets plus a few capital ships from the iconic franchise to tour and do missions for. Now this is still a LEGO game so you will be breaking things for studs to purchase just about anything you could imagine. Gone is the golden bricks as The Skywalker Saga uses transparent Kyber bricks that allow you to buy the character upgrades and datacards which replaced the red brick unlocks for 2x studs, invincibility and more. If you’ve played a LEGO game in the past 2-4 years then it follows the same structure with some newer features that refresh the experience for people like me that play these game often.

Fatter than Boss Nass

Now where the game is strong in the large, expensive roster and hubs is unfortunately a downside to the experience. You can play about 400 plus characters but unless you’re just into spicing it up you’ll never use the great majority though they did make sure that your Yaddles or 17 different Luke Skywalkers, hell Yareal Poof who many may remember was the star behind some hilarious Robot Chicken sketches were included. Some fans are upset too for the custom characters feature being removed but for me that didn’t matter much; though looking back it would have been fun to make some really weird combinations with all the figures available. Unfortunately the game just feels boring after a while, most of the side missions have charm but the constant grab this, go there or kill a group of enemies style takes away from the fun. Some side missions are great however like the GNK droid who you help on every planet or defeating clones of Supreme Leader Snoke on Exegol. The hub worlds do have a lot of beauty like Naboo or the Ewok village on Endor which helps add to the exploration but some worlds are almost to big like Kashyyyk or worlds like Exegol and Mustafar are boring with very little life to them. If you’re a completionist like me then you will feel the exhausting drag of finishing everything on each world so I would recommend playing this game in chunks or bits to really feel engaged because it does becoming painfully slow after a while.

The Last Thoughts

Overall this is a very fun game that I clocked 184 hours or 2 months, 1 week on PSNProfiles to platinum. I think if you’re a fan of Star Wars you’ll love the game or like the causal playstyle that TT Games has crafted through LEGO then you’ll have fun but if you’re a trophy hunter than be warned this game will ask a lot from you. I think as a whole this was still worth the full price tag but would say I paid that much due to nostalgia and the Carbonite Han Solo steelbook that you got through pre-order with Best Buy. I keep wanting to dive back into the game to replay the story but don’t have the heart because my golden rule is once I get the platinum I send it to the shadow realm where it lays with the other 46 platinumed games. If you enjoyed this review or wish to see more let us know, I am constantly trophy hunting and will stream my trials and tribulations soon on YouTube!