I was excited from the moment this game was announced. For someone who has been a lifelong fan of Star Wars and Legos, this game gave the impression that it would be a masterpiece out of the gate, and now, many delays later, that expectation doesn’t disappoint. With over a hundred ships, nearly 400 characters, 45 levels and over 20 planets to explore, the open-world truly feels like a galaxy far far away.

The Star Wars franchise and the Lego Group have a partnership that goes back over two decades, to when The Phantom Menace was released in 1999. This partnership has withstood Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm and resulted in massive building sets, TV shows, specials and several video games.

The developer, Traveler’s Tales, has released a whole host of quality video games based on Lego products. Some are based on licensed themes like Harry Potter and DC superheroes, while others are based on entirely original Lego franchises. The most well known of them all are the Lego Star Wars games, likely due to the popularity and iconicity of the franchise itself.

Many gamers are familiar with Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, which adapted the then-six films in their entirety with the charm and humor only Lego games provide. It’s an iconic game that has also received a cult following, with its infamous death sounds becoming popular memes on the Internet.

While The Complete Saga is a beloved classic, and has aged well, it is still a product of that time. The opportunity to recreate the now-nine mainline films seemed like the perfect chance to create a fantastic Star Wars experience, the likes of which has never been seen before.

This would also be quite an undertaking. Adapting nine films is quite the challenge, and with such a large galaxy of additional planets, characters, and stories, it would seem like an impossible task. Not to mention how Disney’s sequel trilogy has faced scrutiny from fans and critics alike, possibly tainting the entire franchise. 

In addition, many of the Lego games feel similar, with linear gameplay, repeating mechanics, unoriginal characters, and crude slapstick humor. There were dozens of Lego games before this one, many of them adapting Star Wars, and one that even previously adapted two thirds of the franchise covered by this game. Would this game be able to throw something fresh into the seemingly stale style of Lego games themselves?

This game doesn’t quite match its seemingly insurmountable mountain of expectations. 

It demolishes them in a manner that makes the Death Star destroying Alderaan look like cracking a peanut.

This game is a phenomenal experience from beginning to end. With a roster of 380 characters, the selection is incredible. Many previous games feature filler characters with no purpose or reasoning behind playing them. The addition of different classes with different abilities feels very intuitive. Sure there are Jedi who can use lightsabers and the Force, but there are many more, and all have unique abilities and traits that would make each class preferable to certain players in certain situations. I also love the concept of leveling up these abilities, creating more powerful options and giving more reasons for players to search levels and the open world for the Kyber Bricks, which are used to upgrade them.

The new and streamlined combat mechanics with dodging, combos, blocking, dueling, and taking cover are all fun and incredibly intuitive, with many unique combo animations and fighting styles for plenty of different characters and classes.

There are only five levels per movie, but that’s not an inherently bad thing. The transition from open-world to cutscene to level and any combination thereof is incredibly seamless, doing away with the results screen in previous games, showing the level collectibles on the open-world instead. Many of the levels are short, but it hardly feels like it because of how smooth the transitioning is. 

There are some repeating styles of levels, in particular the boss levels and space battle levels, but since it is “Star Wars” that seems justified. And even then, with the new combat mechanics, the boss levels never feel repetitive or annoying. And for the space levels, this game has some of the best space combat I’ve seen in any Star Wars game, with the flight controls being fun and responsive, in addition to many variations between different ships. 

This game is probably the best take on an open-world I’ve ever seen in a Star Wars or Lego game. Every major planet from the three trilogies is explorable, and they are all incredibly detailed and massive. Some planets, like Coruscant and Tatooine, are far bigger than others, even featuring multiple areas of the planets to explore. Most planets are just one single area, but the few planets that have multiple areas are certainly worthy of it given their importance to the saga. Each planet has its own space section. The space sections of each map are fun, albeit repetitive, with a comet to explode, a brief space battle, and a race or shooting gallery.

The details of the landing descent through the atmosphere and the jumps through hyperspace do wonders for immersion. Sure, these purely exist to give the game time to load in the area, but by being visually stunning and making total sense in-universe, it does wonders to make it all feel connected like you really are landing on a planet or lightspeed to a different system, respectively. And that’s not even mentioning the fun of still controlling your craft in these pseudo-cutscenes.

The open world is not without its flaws, though. Many of the planets, such as Crait and Hoth, feel like they’ve wasted a bit of their potential by limiting the open world to just the inside of the base instead of the iconic exterior, but it’s still fun to explore. Some planets like Kashyyyk and Endor were very vertical in nature, with multiple layers overlapping on top of each other, which felt a bit tedious at times. There are many similar planets, but that isn’t the game’s fault. The game takes steps to make the similar planets still feel different. Jakku, with its massive sand dunes and wreckage yard, feels different from Tatooine. Ajan Kloss feels different from Yavin by having a massive to-scale Tantive IV. These details help make similar planets stand out against each other incredibly well.

There is a lot to do in the open-world, with many kyber bricks to collect. Some of the collecting methods, such as pressing switches in a certain order, or shooting four targets before time runs out, definitely get repetitive. But with over 1,000 to collect, some are bound to feel similar, but there are still plenty of unique ones.

The addition of large capital ships to acquire through various means also feels like a great addition, with each one being unique and basically being a mini-planet in a way, further enhancing the experience. 

Another aspect of this game I loved was how the levels were rarely linear. Many levels and even open-world collectibles had different ways and methods to obtain them, and this was a massive selling point for the game. It’s very fun to think of different ways to go around certain puzzles and challenges. Replaying story levels is a part of lego games I’ve always disliked, but the multiple paths and rewards for each one help make it worthwhile.

One of the main critical points of this game is its technical performance. I played it on the Nintendo Switch, and in single-player, it performed fine. Coming from someone who is all too familiar with the Wii Sound of Death, I was just grateful for it working at all. In two players on the Switch, it can lag at times, but considering how massive this game is and the fact that it is on the Switch, it’s somewhat understandable, and I imagine it probably performs much better on newer and more powerful consoles like the PS5 or Xbox X. 

When I first started playing, there were a couple of noticeable bugs, and the game crashed for me more times than I want to admit. The entire game just felt very glitched and broken at times. It’s interesting how many errors made it past testing, but given the size of the game, I’m not surprised. I would’ve been fine if it were pushed back a month or two to sort out all the bugs, but considering how much it was already delayed, I understand them wanting to avoid further setbacks. The bugs did affect my overall experience considerably though.

That was until last week, when quite literally, as I was writing this review, they dropped an update to the game, adding four more capital ships and fixing many (but not all) of the bugs I encountered. The number of Kyber Bricks has now been brought up to 1200 exactly. And this was a free update, not paid DLC character packs which the game does offer as well. I am very glad that attention is being brought to the game to add more content and fix the many bugs and glitches, and I hope more updates are incoming.

Two of the best aspects of this game are its humor and attention to detail. Lego games have always been known for their slapstick and comedy, and it is a joy to watch here. I won’t name specific gags to avoid spoilers, but there were dozens of moments that had me burst into laughter. 

This game has a very interesting relationship with the numerous iconic memes to come out of the Star Wars Franchise. The developers of the game clearly paid attention to memes and meta jokes. Unlike most modern movies, including Star Wars, which will attempt to incorporate memes into their serious story just for the sake of it, this game does it differently. It knows this story has been adapted before, so it decides to go all in, incorporating memes and meta humor to create a sort of hilarious satirical parody of the entire franchise. I absolutely loved it. 

This game truly feels like a game developed by Star Wars fans for Star Wars fans to enjoy, and it succeeds in that regard. 

And the attention to detail with easter eggs and clever references extend beyond memes and fanservice. There are countless references to other franchises, other Lego games, and so much more.

While it might feel overwhelming at times, this game is hands-down the best Lego game of all time and one of the best Star Wars games of all time. It’s an incredible video game and deserves a place as one of the best pieces of Star Wars content ever produced. While it may be a bit finicky at the time of writing, its humor, mechanics, unparalleled immersion and amount of content make this a video game everyone should check out.

Spinnaker rates this game 4.5 out of 5 Spinnaker Sails.

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