Game Review | LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – Chewie, we’re home

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I don’t need a working time machine to travel back to my childhood. All I need is to see the words, 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…’ fly across my screen, and I’m right back to being a young child again. I can still remember watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace with my dad and being equally excited to watch my first ever Star Wars movie “on the big screen” as I was to be out past my bedtime; and since then, I’ve never missed out on watching a Star Wars movie at the cinema.

You might ask what this story has to do with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and the answer is everything. As I’ve grown up, I’ve found myself constantly searching for a Star Wars game that would be able to scratch the perpetual itch I have to spend more time in the franchise’s universe while also giving me the chance to play through some of the most iconic moments. I would never have thought that LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga would turn out to be the game I’ve been looking for, but it is.

Now I’ll be the first to admit I love collecting LEGO games to play with my partner on cold and rainy days. There is something incredibly enduring about how the game faithfully adapts the media it’s based on while still staying true to itself. Every LEGO game I’ve played has grabbed my attention with its goofy yet on brand humour, simple yet addicting gameplay, and satisfying mechanics and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is no different. It has everything I love about previous LEGO games but expanded to make everything feel better and bigger than any of the LEGO games that have come before.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga combines storylines and content from the three core Star Wars trilogies and allows players to play through any of the nine games in the order of their choosing. Perhaps one of the more ingenious moves is how the developers chose to weave in multiple plot points from the other Star Wars movies to give players a more complete story than we’ve ever seen from a Star Wars game before. A lot of attention was put into recreating small and memorable moments from the films to keep fans constantly engaged while also offering enough detail that those who aren’t familiar with the franchise will still enjoy the game.

Some of the most fun to be had within the game is exploring the areas and discovering their secrets. From mini-games to puzzles to side quests and special collectables, it’s here that the game comes into its own and shines. One of the new additions to the game is the new and improved camera angle which puts you closer to the characters and allows for a feeling of being right in the middle of the action. It also adds to the visual spectacle of the game as you can now notice how your characters become dirty and dusty while playing through the world.

Anytime you play a character with a blaster, there is also a new over-the-shoulder camera allowing you to aim at the enemy’s different body parts. This change in the camera makes the game feel highly cinematic and gorgeous; however, when the camera decides it’s no longer on your side, it’s so frustratingly bad that you suddenly understand the deep anger that created Darth Vader.

Where the scale is genuinely shown is in the number of playable characters. With over 300 characters to unlock, there is no shortage of options within the game. Characters each have unique abilities, depending on their faction and during my playthrough, I constantly switched between characters to utilise their special skills while exploring. Each of the factions also has its own upgrade paths to be unlocked, allowing you to choose your favourite factions and then upgrade them to be just as cool as possible.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is not just one of the best ways to play through the story Star Wars created but also one of the best LEGO games around.