Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga lets players explore the galaxy through all nine of the mainline Star Wars films. With iconic locales, recreations of famous events, and tons to explore, I had to check it out.
Skywalker Stories
The main selling point of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is that it essentially lets you play through all nine of the films. This takes place through three trilogies, where all but the first episode of each needs to be unlocked.
While it does follow the story from the films, it is very much a highlights version. It’s possible to follow without already being familiar with the franchise, but it will certainly help if you have. Even more so as it will throw in the occasional fandom reference, like an optional mission interrogating people about whether Han shot first or a reference to a Star Wars meme.
Much like any of the LEGO games, it’s not an exact retelling either. It throws in humor often. One example of this is when Lando reunites with Han Solo, he puts on the charm with the droid C3P0 in a wig, instead of Leia.
The story is mostly told through animated cutscenes and voiced lines throughout missions. Though optional quests use unvoiced text.
I certainly enjoyed the light-hearted take on the Skywalker Saga of films. With a fairly simple story and plenty of physical comedy in the cutscenes, it should certainly appeal to the younger crowd too, even if they might be less familiar with some of the older films.
Missions
The way that Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga works is that the player is sent into missions, with visits to hub worlds between. So you might be flying an X-wing Starfighter to blow up the Death Star or running around Dagobah to get training from Yoda with clear objectives, but you’ll also have free time to explore.
Missions are usually a simple affair. Some are linear, while some are more open, but the player is always guided to objectives. Most missions are running around and solving some basic switch and movement puzzles along the way. Enemies often get in the way, so some button-mashing melee combat or shooting clears them out of the way easily.
Stakes are quite low. Death is more an inconvenience than a problem, as respawns are quick and just mean the loss of a small amount of currency. The level of enemy difficulty is low too.
One thing I really appreciated was how it uses characters. It’s possible to switch between party members and they often have different abilities both in interacting with puzzles and combat. Sometimes this allowed different ways to complete a section too, such as cutting enemies down with a lightsaber or having a droid hack a turret to blast them.
While there isn’t much challenge, there’s something that hooked me during the missions. Perhaps just since it’s so mindless, it’s relaxing. There are a ton of destructible objects to find for more currency too and optional objectives to find. Maybe it just triggers the same hack and slash enjoyment as the Warriors series, while still having a clear goal and reward. That it throws in the occasional flight mission to mix things up helps keep it engaging too.
Hub Worlds
It’s possible to visit 23 planets in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. These aren’t just places to move between missions but have plenty to do on their own.
Optional activities and collectibles are the primary attraction here. Interestingly, hub worlds seem to contain the more difficult tasks, with some trial activities requiring challenging platforming or speedy shooting.
The puzzles here can be simple, but some are more difficult too. One early example had me rotating a dial that lit up segments, but each segment could only be lit up once or it would fail. Knowing how it works, it’s simple – without any context and in a dark area where it couldn’t be seen well, it was far less obvious.
People can be talked to in hub worlds too and this often leads to rumors. Someone might mention the treasure in a nearby Tusken cave or some ruins that give them a bad feeling. This can lead to finding collectibles.
All The Unlocks
In a way, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga can be considered a collectathon. There are hundreds of characters, over a thousand upgrade collectibles and other things to unlock and find.
Starting on characters, it’s worth noting that I’m playing the Deluxe version with the DLC, but I can see 380 total. With so many, they’re not all exactly unique in how they play. Some are just variations too, like Chewbacca and Young Chewbacca, so this is a bit misleading.
It’s fun to unlock all of these iconic (and less iconic) characters, but many do play similarly. For example, Han Solo and Lando aren’t too different. Chewbacca is again fairly similar but does stand out more as his weapon the Bowcaster feels different. These are all members of the ‘Scoundrel’ class.
While each of the 380 characters may not stand out, the ten different classes do often feel more unique. Some may have special force abilities, be able to jump higher, interact with different puzzles or use a different type of attack. It’s also sometimes possible to go back to certain levels with a different class to open new paths or complete different tasks, which aids replayability.
Character classes can be developed with Kyber Bricks too, which is the most important collectible. There are a variety of skill trees that unlock new abilities or upgrade your core abilities. I spent far too much time hunting down Kyber Bricks for this, but since they can be gained by finding them, completing puzzles, completing missions, and more, it never got boring.
Lights, Camera, Action!
The graphics of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga seem fairly simple, just based on the Lego style. I’m surprised how well they make the characters and environments instantly recognizable though while keeping the style.
I did have some issues with cutscenes, unfortunately. For context, I’m playing on an Xbox Series S and it occasionally stuttered or felt less than smooth. This only happened during cutscenes though and it felt fine during gameplay at all times.
I was more impressed by the accessibility options. These are highlighted when starting the game and allow all sorts of changes, from options for bigger text and adjusting screen effects to ways to make gameplay easier like turning off the need to repeatedly tap a button to complete certain activities.
In terms of audio, I certainly enjoyed the voice acting, even if it’s primarily not the original voice actors behind the characters. For those who enjoyed the old Lego games, it’s possible to change voices to mumbles though.
The high quality of the Star Wars music should not need comment by now with how well it’s known. It’s no exception here.
Verdict
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga kept me hooked with its huge variety of worlds to experience, activities to do, and things to collect. The humor provided plenty of laughs, and there were plenty of in-jokes for franchise fans. It’s a great way to experience Star Wars all over again.
LEGO STAR WARS: THE SKYWALKER SAGA IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you enjoy Star Wars, then perhaps you’d like our review for Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.
Many thanks go to Warner Bros for an XBox review code for this title.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
