We broke up a little less than a month ago with the promise of finding ourselves talking about LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, after having stripped it to the bone and discovered if it really had brought the evolution that this almost twenty-year-old series needed. We would never have thought of finding ourselves in front of an experience of such proportions, so multifaceted and full of content.
By now, even the slimy stones of the Dagobah swamp know that the game traces all the main chapters of the film franchise, from The Phantom Menace to The Rise of Skywalker. Nine films recreated with patience and skill brick by brick, with the usual generous dose of humor.
The game does not immediately allow you to choose any episode but only the progenitor of each trilogy; the player is left to choose the order of use which, as every true fan knows, can only start from Episode 1.
The classic structure with a single hub from which you can access each level has been made more elastic so as to allow the player to freely choose where, how and when to go once all the stages have been unlocked. For this purpose, it is mandatory to complete the story first, with the subsequent possibility of retracing one’s steps in Free Play mode, the only one that allows you to take all the alternative routes and discover ALL the secrets of the game.
Never as in this case the capital letter is a must because LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga hides a number of unimaginable things in its most hidden recesses. One number above all: there are over 1000 secret bricks that you will have to find before you can think that you have seen everything the game has to offer. Many of these are well hidden in the levels, associated with some side missions or hidden in meteorites that ply the galaxy, while others can only be unlocked with certain characters. In this regard, there are more than 300 playable mini figures and include (in the Deluxe version) also guest stars from The Mandalorian, Rogue One, Solo: A Star Wars Story and so on.
Then there are the pieces of spaceships to find to unlock them in the corresponding selection menu, the batteries to dial, the secret codes and much, much, much more. But when does “so much more” become too much? Probably when the amount of content threatens to distract excessively from the main game or even make the use of the same cumbersome.
Here, perhaps the biggest “problem” of Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is just that. Excessive stimulation risks throwing a certain type of player into tilt – those who are not satisfied until they have cleared all areas of a game before moving on to the next. Here it is not possible to do this and you will have to retrace your steps over and over again before you can satisfy your craving for completeness.
Many might argue that even in the previous chapters it was necessary to do this but believe us, never in any other LEGO game have you had the opportunity to confront yourself with such a mass of things to do. The only consultation of the menu that summarizes the missions completed, those to be completed, the hidden ones that require clues to be found, the collectibles left behind, the upgrades of characters and spaceships, the star and galactic maps and so on … risks to give a headache to those affected by the craving for completism.
Obviously all this dissolves if you do not belong to this category and this is exactly what we recommend to those who approach Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: play it following the flow of what you want to do in every single moment, do not look at each other. continuously back and at least at the beginning forget about menus and options.
After about fifteen hours you can start thinking if you really want to commit yourself to the ascent of Everest represented by the fateful 100% and, when you are really convinced, you will discover additional layers of this game that really seems to never end. There is even a special prize for those who reach that goal but obviously to find out you will have to sweat the proverbial seven shirts not so much for the difficulty of the game, which is still quite low, but above all to understand how to complete some side quests that are not exactly intuitive.
The innovations introduced in the gameplay are visible but do not change the flavor of the soup too much. The new behind-the-shoulder camera is comfortable but occasionally fights the cameras a bit, especially in tight spaces. The fights are more complex, with firefights behind cover and even simple melee combos, but the “piece of cake” nature of the gameplay soon makes them almost superfluous so don’t be surprised if after the first levels you will return to the no-frills comparison of previous LEGO Star Wars.
The idea of crossroads is interesting, which from time to time allow you to take some alternative route with makeshift means. Too bad that with the passing of the hours their use thins out and becomes more and more intangible for the purposes of the game.
On the other hand, when compared to that of previous titles, the differentiation between the various character classes is excellent. There are ten in all, one general and the others specifically aimed at Jedi Knights, Dark Side, Droids, etc .. Each skill of the respective branch can be upgraded up to three times by spending the hard-earned bricks found around the galaxy and although the differences are not comparable to those obtainable in a pure RPG, compared to previous LEGO titles the leap in quality is felt and how.
In the Adventure mode the usable characters are fixed and linked to their respective stories, while in the Free Game the formation is as always put together to allow in one way or another to get anywhere and unlock anything. Pay attention especially to the more particular levels (Race of the Shells, Death Star, etc.) because they too hide many secrets, but given the speed with which they take place being able to find them and above all recover them all is not easy.
The team seems to have really thought of everything, even the most nostalgic players who dubbed characters (even in Italian, very well, however, even if not with the original voices) prefer the classic grumbles of the first games. Through a special option it is in fact possible to use them, perhaps combined with subtitles in order to be able to understand something. TT Games has also thought of a long series of options that also allow disabled people to enjoy the experience in the best possible way.
Once again we have to complain in a LEGO title the lack of online coop, even The Skywalker Saga can be played together with a Player 2 but only in local mode and there are no competitive challenges, which would have represented a significant plus.
Unfortunately, the multi-platform nature of the project did not allow the team to exploit in the best way the peculiar characteristics of each single hardware. On PlayStation 5 we appreciate as always the speed of data loading via SSD but we could certainly have done more in terms of sound, not so much for the rendering of effects and soundtracks (as always monumental and capable of stirring up like few others) but for the “spatiality” of the same, which is a couple of steps below the best PS5 productions. Same goes for the DualSense: it does its duty but in the past it has given us much more sensual emotions and vibrations.
Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is an excellent game of the LEGO series but we could compare it to an athlete who has spent the last 4 years training hard to carve his physique in stone, exaggerating perhaps a little too much and making him lose part of his its original elasticity and harmony.
Similarly, the latest creature of the TT Games is mammoth, gargantuan but has lost part of the lightness and immediacy that had almost always characterized the numerous chapters of this infinite saga. For once, the amount of content is more than proportionate to the asking price … but who will really have the strength to discover them all?
8/10
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