Slipped now to 2021 but this looks amazing:
I've always loved the Lego games but the original Lego Star Wars games (the first they ever did) have aged pretty terribly now. Went back to them recently and they're more frustrating and fiddly than fun. This new version looks like a spectacular upgrade.
Lego games are always riddled with bugs/glitches, especially the newer ones. Let's hope this isn't.*
*Yeah, right.
It looks great, but I have played enough Lego games for this lifetime.
So this finally came out, after multiple delays and reports of studio crunch.
I'm… not totally convinced by it so far, but I guess it is early days. The structure of the game has changed somewhat , so instead of being a bunch of levels connected by a hub world, it's now a bunch of large open-world areas, with the levels being more short set-pieces (for instance pod-racing). It's not always totally clear whether you're in a "level" or not. The open world areas are surprisingly big and there is a HUGE amount of stuff to collect (over a thousand "kyber bricks" to collect across the nine movies, plus mountains of other collectibles). There are skill trees for each type of character (Jedi, droid, etc), dozens of ships and nearly 400 characters to unlock and generally it's just really massive and slightly daunting. It's now played from an over-the-shoulder perspective and looks and feels a lot more modern than the earlier games in the series.
Two initial problems though: firstly I keep getting sidetracked by stuff I can't get yet, which has always been the case with Lego games but seems more prevalent here. I really should just accept that the first playthrough is supposed to be a straightforward run through the storyline, and get on with that before coming back in Free Play mode.
Secondly, and more disappoingly, co-op is a bit rubbish. It puts the game into a permanent vertical split screen and the camera is so close to the characters that it makes it really hard to find your way around: it's like wearing horse blinkers. Only player 1 earns achievements, and you can't set inverted controls for each player independently (this is pretty much a show-stopper for us). Dual-stick controls might be tricky for younger kids. And the open-world levels means that you typically just head off in different directions and do your own thing. It might be the first Lego game that's actually better in single-player.
That said, it looks spectacular, it's as funny as you'd expect and did I mention it's absolutely enormous?
I'll get it when it's on discount for sure.
Ah shame about the spilt screen stuff. Whilst we have never completed it Lego Ninjago was one of the first proper games me and my little one played together and so it's disappointing to hear they've messed the ease of that up a tad with this one, like Mart will probably wait and check this out much later on then.
OK, this is growing on me now in a big way. It's much more fun in single-player than in co-op, and the Original Trilogy levels have a much more traditional "Lego game structure" than the prequels (I guess there's only so much they could do with The Phantom Menace, which is why it ended up as mostly hub levels).
The voice acting is great too. The prequels have basically got the entire cast of The Clone Wars back together, and some of the later voice actors are good too (Rey in particular is outstandingly good).
It's SO big though. I'm barely scratching the surface.
Says the man used to playing Assassin's Creed games forever.
Okay, I picked this up using reward points, so it only cost me £25. Been playing it today with the missus, who loves both Star Wars and LEGO games. I see exactly what you mean about it being huge, Gar… we're doing the levels in order (1 through 9) and having loads of hubs interspersed with smaller levels is a bit meh. Plus, it still seems as broken as other LEGO games - we tried a side mission that required us to speak to a specific character and while he's showing on the map, he's not actually in the level. Hmm. Hopefully we can go back to it and it'll work.
Enjoying it for what it is, and we'll get through it all eventually, but it's going to take a while.
I'm liking this more and more now. Been jumping around between levels (did 4, then 1, then 7, now back to 2) and they're really varied. I'm not even attempting to get anything that isn't right in my way at the moment, there's a whole game's worth of stuff in there just playing through the levels from start to finish before even thinking about the collectathon.
Had some minor bugs but then it's also being patched on an almost-daily basis so it'll sort itself out in time I'm sure.
Helppppp.
This is the first Lego game I’ve properly played, so I don’t really know what’s happening. (Surprisingly naff tutorial for a kids game!)
I started with Episode 1. I’m being sort of funnelled through the levels, following whichever character has a yellow exclamation mark above their heads. But am I supposed to be running off in other directions, exploring the levels and finding secrets? I keep expecting the levels to open up but I’m just whisked away to the next one without a chance to explore. Is my chance to explore, the bit where main quest characters are leading me somewhere?
Right, basic rule of Lego games is: play through the story first. Just go through the episodes, enjoy the little jokes, collect anything that's right in front of you but don't worry too much about exploring. Most of the bricks and other collectibles will require abilities from characters that you don't have first time through.
Once you've done the story (or at least one episode), you can go back in Free Play with a mixed team of characters of your choice, and that's where you do your exploring.
There are 5 "story levels" per episode that you can go back and try and complete fully, plus a whole load of hubs that you explore in Galaxy Free Play (like Mos Espa, Naboo etc etc). You'll be running through both of those quite quickly first time through but they are massive so just come back later.
Ideally you'll want a mixed team of each type of character (one Jedi, one scavenger, one protocol droid etc etc) but you can worry about that when you get there.
Ahhhh that makes much more sense. I was half expecting to have to replay all the slow walking escort missions again, but having to run off in different directions each time.
Thanks!
I think you only need to finish one episode to unlock Galaxy Free Play, so you can get a flavour of it quite quickly. Obviously you'll only have access to the locations and characters you've unlocked so far, though.
A few tips:
The Extras menu (the right-most tab in the menu, I think) has a number of items that you can unlock using a Datacard collectible and a certain number of studs. Prioritise unlocking the stud multipliers- they make a massive difference to how quickly you can unlock everything else. They stack, too (I'm now on a x3840 multiplier).
It's worth playing Episode 7 sooner rather than later. Rey is the only Scavenger you get in story mode (I think) and you unlock the class abilities as part of her storyline. If you haven't done that, you're going to struggle to access some areas in free play.
Took me a while to work out how character selection works in free play - you essentially assign your team in the Characters tab, then switch between them using left and right on the d-pad. If you've got a variety of character classes in your team then you should be equipped for pretty much anything you come across.
Thanks for the tips!
I’m really enjoying this. The story bits are a little disappointing - it’s basically just running around twatting things with the rubbish combat. I’d have liked to see more puzzles, or actual building stuff.
But the free play is brilliant, and where I’d spend all my time if I didn’t have to unlock stuff in story mode first. It’s essentially Mario Odyssey, with Lego. And Star Wars. What’s not to like?
Are all the Lego games like this? I might have to give Lord of the Rings a go.
The older Lego games use more of a top-down view rather than the behind-the-character approach they've taken for this one.
And the hub worlds have increased in size and complexity with every game. The oldest Lego games don't even really have an explorable hub at all, just a bunch of levels accessed from a single room - but then over 20 years of these things they've gradually increased that part of the game till you get to what you have in Skywalker Saga, where the hub is by far the most substantial part of the game. Conversely the story levels in the older games have more building and puzzles, exactly the things that you wanted.
So this is by some distance the biggest and most involved of the games, but if you like this, you'll probably like the others. They all have a million different things to unlock, at least. I haven't played all of them, but of the ones I've played, the Harry Potter games and the Marvel Superheroes ones are particularly good.
I’m not sure there’s been a single “puzzle” that can’t be solved with the advice, “Break everything!” or maybe, “Did you try the Force/Magic”. I’ve played a bunch of them and helped my kids through some too, they are just busy work so your enjoyment will be down to how much you like 3D recreations or Lego recreations of your chosen IP.
I liked Lego Lord of the Rings on PS3. I think the peak was Lego Dimensions, particularly the Portal levels, although some of the sandbox areas in that were awful. I didn’t enjoy the marvel and dc games much.
LEGO The Incredibles was surprisingly good, and Marvel Super Heroes was decent. The older Batman games were good too. But the newer games like the DC/Marvel sequels and LEGO Batman 3 just highlighted how broken the engine is, so full of bugs and other issues.
I just hate how a game that's so focused on co-op play always excludes the second player by not letting them unlock achievements. It's such a huge oversight, and I'll never understand why TT has ignored it for so long.
Patch for Skywalker Saga is out now, fixes a few game-breaking bugs that didn't affect me but seem to have been causing a few folk some problems.
Also adds four new capital ships and 34 extra blocks to collect, just in case anyone thought this game needed more stuff to do.
We got this yesterday - it's utterly brilliant. Playing through with my 5 year old who hasn't seen any Star Wars but both utterly howling with laughter, this is the only time she has ever wanted to watch any cutscenes.