Recent reviews by xXx_ju5tan0th3rb1gb0y_xXx

Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga is a good but messy experience. I'm a pretty big fan of the Lego games, and normally attempt full completion on them. After getting 100% completion on this, I can safely say I would recommend this game, but only under specific circumstances.

Core Gameplay
If you've played any Lego game, you may think you have an idea about the core gameplay loop, but surprisingly this game deviates from it a fair amount. The typical level structure is instead replaced by what feels like smaller "encounters". For example, sometimes the game will consider a "level" out of what is just a five minute boss battle. Spaced between these encounters are explorable worlds with a fair amount of things to do in them. Unfortunately, playing through the story mode of the game is heavily restrictive in terms of how much exploring you can actually do. In the story, spots betwwen the few shorter levels are often nothing more than walking and listening to dialogue. I might expect this from other games but previous Lego games of the past are much more capable of exploring narrative through its gameplay. The worst thing about these walking sections is that almost any form of "attack" from the player results in the npc being followed getting scared. This puts a further halt on story progress, as you now must wait for the character to stop cowering. This means that while walking from encounter to encounter you must be careful with how much exploring you do, as interruptions in the npc walking cycle can take a second to come back from. This was extremely frustrating to deal with.

The levels themselves can also be frustrating, as there are now "level challenges". These can range from "don't die" to frustrating tasks such as making it through a level without detection. The glitchy nature of this game does not lend itself well to these sorts of challenges, as often there is things outside of your control preventing you from reaching certain collectibles or achieving certain goals. Free play will literally break some levels, with enemies not attacking when they should, prompts not appearing, collectibles not spawning, etc. This results in the player replaying the level multiple times, which is not as simple as pressing restart. Rather, the player must go out into the open world, and restart the level from an absolutely abysmal UI. Additionally, you have to worry about cutscenes which are inconsistently skippable. Some you can, some you cant. And that can feed into a lot of these short levels feeling like a chore to complete.

Additionally some boss battles are spaced out so that you can literally not defeat them until they have performed special actions or moves. For example, you could whittle down Darth Vader as Luke to the bottom of his health bar, but you will not be able to defeat him until he goes through several attack patterns and then gets you into a lightsaber lock. Only after completing the accompanying quick time event can you move to the next stage of the battle. This can be frustrating in large battles, where some enemies can not be damaged, and you will have no idea why.

Space combat is surprisingly polished and intuitive, although some space battles are split into separate stages similar to the boss battles. This results in loading screen, take down 10 enemy ships, loading screen, take down 15, rinse and repeat. Some of these are longer, involving four separate space battles each with their own loading screen.

Sometimes you just want to get into the action, or to the next section, and the game wont let you. I think that's representative of a fair amount of the content in this game. But those bursts of Lego smashing, building, and fighting are often worth it.

UI
Not exactly sure why, but the UI in this game does not follow conventions that you might expect from large titles. For example, quickly accessing your map is nearly impossible, as opening the local map and then backing out results not in a return to player control, but rather backs up through each level of map up until the entire galaxy is being shown. Only then will you be able to fully back out. It made quickly checking for collectibles on a map exceedingly difficult, as if it wasn't hard enough given the map system itself. It can be fairly difficult to distinguish where the collectibles are, especially if there are multiple floors on a level. Switching between characters is also an extreme hassle. In other Lego games, you simply select the character from a large list of the characters you have unlocked. In this game, you have to select the character you want to replace, and then go through two separate sub-menus to finally switch them out.

Side Content
Lego games aren't exactly known for their mind-blowingly complex side missions and events, but this game takes copy and paste to a whole new level. One particularly frustrating aspect of these side missions is that they take you from planet to planet, and it can be come very boring. This game is at its best when you're attacking enemies, solving puzzles, and collecting items. This game is at it's worst when you're performing fetch quests that revolve around traveling to four different planets, attacking a bush for its flowers, and then going back to an npc. Loading screen after loading screen becomes very draining at times, and that's what a fair amount of the side content is. It makes exploring very detailed planets that we all know and love (Dagobah) into chore after chore. In terms of side content, it's not exactly a great game to pick up and play with a friend or loved one. I wouldn't recommend this game for the sake of attempting 100% completion, as some side content feels like simple padding and a waste of time.

Conclusion
Star Wars fans will have a lot to love about the game. From the characters to the ships and cutscenes, the
whole game clearly was made by big fans. In terms of playable characters, the game has some incredibly deep cuts, and the obvious fan favorites. However, for a casual fan/gamer looking for a fun co-op experience I'm not sure I would recommend this game. Often the game seems like it was designed as a single player experience with co-op thrown in as an afterthought. For example, the duel on Mustafar will only have one player actually participating in the duel, while the other sort of just stands off on a platform as R2-D2. People who aren't looking to complete 100% may be okay with the game's new story and level structure, but people looking to explore their favorite worlds in the Star Wars universe may be disappointed in how slow the game can be at times.

Simply put if you are a Lego fan and a Star Wars fan, you will probably like this game. If you're only one or the other, I feel as though you'd be better off playing the older Lego games with the old level structure. They're much better for short bursts of co-op fun.

(It's so close to being great, just needed more time in the oven i think.)

Fantastic addition to a stellar line of work from Edmund, and a great addition to a series near and dear to my heart.

I am a goat. That is all. 10/10