LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga

You know, I realized I hadn't done a lot of Star Wars content this year - especially in May...yes, I know, but don't sic the angry mob on me yet! I've been kinda stressed lately and recording stuff for YouTube has been tricky (thanks, OBS). So, how do you de-stress on a videogame? Well, by playing a silly game and what's sillier than LEGO?

Now, now, cool your jets everyone, I'm not insulting LEGO, I'm just...yikes!

*Ducks*

Okay, okay, everyone, calm down and we'll get to the review!

LEGO in the Galaxy Far, Far Away

Developed by Traveller's Tales and published by LucasArts, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga was announced at the Star Wars Celebration on May 25, 2007. It was a sequel/combination of two previous LEGO Star Wars titles:

• LEGO Star Wars: The Videogame (2005) - This covered the prequel trilogy
• LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (2006) - This, obviously, covered the original 3 films.

The Complete Saga was released in November 2007 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo DS. It was later released for Windows (2009), MacOS (2010), iOS (2013), and Android (2015).

Upon release, the game was met with a positive reception and was the best-selling LEGO videogame until being surpassed by LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.

A Shortened Version of the Saga

Right, so, much like LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Star Wars: the Complete Saga re-tells the stories from the films in a much shorter format. As I said earlier, it's a combination of two prior LEGO Star Wars videogames so we have six stories to play for both the prequel and the original trilogies.

There are four modes of gameplay:

• Story Mode
• Free Play
• Challenge
• Super Story

Story mode is, well, the story of each of the six films. We get to play through the events of The Phantom Menace and other films. The Free play mode is a more flexible form of play where you can play a variety of unlocked characters.

Challenge mode is where you have a set time to locate ten blue canisters throughout the level.

Super story mode is basically the whole episode - think the whole movie - in one go. It has a stud count and a timer (i.e. best total number of studs collected for the Phantom Menace is 100,000 studs. The best time for that level is 1 hour). If you beat the timer - completing the whole thing in a shorter time than the best listed one (i.e. 1 hour), you get one gold brick. Collecting 100k or more studs gets you the other gold brick.

With the exception of Super Story Mode, every level has three gold bricks to collect. These are collected by:

1. Reaching the True Jedi rating by filling up the progress bar all the way to the top.
2. Completing a level.
3. Finding all 10 mini-kits hidden throughout each level.

You also have red bricks to find which unlock specific characters and/or abilities.

What Did I Like about this One?

The stories are shortened significantly, but everything fits together really nicely. The humor is also great. I loved pretty much every bit of it, because it was executed perfectly. Some of my favorite jokes included a group of stormtroopers having a pool party and Qui-Gon facepalming at his apprentice's silliness.

The music is nice, but that's kinda expected with John Williams at this point, isn't it?

Lightsaber combat is very satisfying, and the puzzles are very well-designed.

I've played several LEGO games over the last few years. I loved the story mode, and the challenge mode was interesting. Now, I don't usually play the free play mode, but it was an interesting experience. Being able to switch between different characters allowed access to other parts of the levels, and that made things very interesting.

Is There Anything I Didn't Like?

Well...yeah, unfortunately, I have a couple of things that I felt didn't really work very well.

The vehicle controls are hit and miss, some of them, like the Mos Espa Pod Race, are really good. Others, like the Attack over Coruscant (E III), are very awkward.

Final Thoughts

Overall, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a lot of fun, and it's worth playing if you haven't tried it already.