Review: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – PS5
The force is strong with this one
Hello friends! Last Friday morning we received our review code for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on PS5. Warner Bros. Games, TT Games, the LEGO Group, and Lucasfilm Games invite the players to journey to a galaxy far, far away in this long-awaited game filled with fun adventures, whimsical humor, and the freedom to fully immerse yourself in the LEGO Star Wars universe like never before.
The Skywalker Saga allows us to play through all nine Star Wars saga movies in a brand-new LEGO video game unlike any other. We can start with our favorite trilogy, so that’s Episode IV or Episode I, I think that I’m right to say that probably nobody will choose to start their adventure with Episode VII.
Everything that someone can love about the Star Wars universe and the LEGO games is on full display in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and done right.
As we play through each episode, we will explore well-known locations and take part in iconic scenes from the renowned saga. Aside from the canon movies, there are some subtle acknowledgments that Rogue One and Solo events are part of the same universe.
With six out of these nine episodes released in the same format in the past, the dev team had a mission to make something different with them. That comes in the form of new, open-world-like levels and completely redesigned gameplay mechanics.
If until now the LEGO games had you destroy every brick, solve a puzzle, move on, break everything again and so on, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga introduces character classes, brand new skills and even allows us to solve puzzles that now have multiple solutions.
Add to all this fun the possibility to enjoy these adventures alongside a friend or family member in a split-screen couch co-op, or via online functionality, and the shared experience can be really satisfying. Alina and I took advantage of this and we played together through a few worlds. I’ll talk about accessibility a bit later, to explain how we did that with me being blind.
Every episode is split into about 5 or 6 levels, so there is a lot to explore and with side quests popping up here and there, adventurers into this galaxy will have a lot of things to do.
The gameplay is fun, well designed, and players will rejoice at the opportunity to shoot enemies with blaster rifles, slice and dice them with lightsabers, or clumsily punch them with Jar Jar Binks.
I really don’t want to go into further details because it would be a shame for me to spoil your experience and enjoyment.
Suffice to say that you’ll have a blast discovering all the excellent mechanics the developers introduced in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.
The presentation looks quite good. With superb lighting, colorful levels, and even facial animations that look close to those in The LEGO Movie, the world is built with millions of real LEGO bricks, and the enemies react when they are hurt and break into pieces in a natural way.
The voice acting is very good, the script is filled with well-loved lines and the soundtrack is the one we all know and treasure.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has a dedicated accessibility section, displayed prominently in the main menu, and even goes as far as to ask you at first boot whether you want to directly go into the accessibility submenu. For low vision and blind gamers, there are no functions to turn on Menu Narration or Text to Speech. So, it will be impossible for them to navigate the menus without a menu guide or access to OCR technology.
The accessibility suite includes auto-completion of button presses for specific events, lock-on target, slowdown when the reticle is on target, auto life regeneration over time without the need to collect health bricks, and an option that will save the progress right before the player can fall of a ledge.
There’s also the option to center the camera to face the current objective, which would have been excellent if it were to work as intended. Right now, it doesn’t, and when I used it I found myself facing a wall 9 out of 10 times. Even like this, I managed to have fun with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga using these options and guidance from Alina. It also helped the fact that she was able to go to specific points in the levels and I just had to press X to continue to the next checkpoint.
I know that the Disabled Community had a lot of hopes for this game and I’m really sorry to be the one who destroys their dreams… Sadly, some developers still don’t make a priority out of creating accessible experiences for impaired gamers and that’s even more true especially when it comes to low vision and blind individuals.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga combines two magical worlds and gives the player the best of them. This is the most complete and fun experience available to both LEGO and Star Wars fans. The Universe awaits and the Force is yours to control in any way you see fit. Live the legend, explore strange and distant places, smile and laugh with your favorite characters, and most of all, have fun while doing all of this.
If you like LEGO games and love Star Wars, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is your next unforgettable adventure in A Galaxy Far, Far Away, perfectly suited for young Padawans and Master Jedis alike!
Verdict: Great
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Review copy provided by CD Media
Victor Dima
