Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Game Title: Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Released: June 27, 2016
Game Length: 31 Hours
Grade: B

Information

Marketing: I don't think anyone would argue that the film's trailer was awesome to watch. The Lego game takes the content from the teaser trailer and replicates it as the game trailer that plays when vising the store page on Steam. If you thought the trailer looked a little too good, you'd be correct. Their gameplay trailer was more akin to what you would see in the game. While the PC version doesn't have a demo version, the Playstation and Xbox do. Considering that the game only covers the one movie (with one level covering the final moments in Return of the Jedi), there is six additional levels extending the lore. There were a lot of extra packs to obtain too, like the Prequel Character Pack and Freemakers Character Pack - more about them below. In order to obtain 3 of the 4 level packs and 7 of the 8 character packs, including the exclusive Jedi Character Pack, you have to purchase the Season Pass. It does not include the Droid Character Pack and the most essential Phantom Limb Level Pack.

Story: The most attractive thing I found about this game is how much it dives into the lore of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It gives names to about 200 characters and provides better information in the scrolling text before each level. For example, we don't know the name of the galaxy's best pilot until about 22 minutes into the film. Poe Dameron then disappears a couple minutes later for an hour until he appears almost spontaneously with the Resistance. The game immediately names him, goes into detail about that lapse of time, properly displays all the planets, and categorizes the associated levels. The only information given in the film where the Resistance is The Ileenium System. In the film's defense, Star Wars: A New Hope never gives the name of Luke's planet (Tatooine). The best we get there is "if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from." Instead of a bloody mark on Finn's helmet, we get some fruit stains that help identify him. Although the plan of flooding the ship with poisonous gas never occurs in the film, the game incorporates the idea in several levels. A level is dedicated to the nameless duo that was about to take Finn to the Outer Rim. Since no level can go without two characters, there is a humorous encounter of a mind controlled stormtrooper that follows Rey around (repeating what she says until Rey mentions something about it). Following suit of previous Lego games, torture devices are nothing more than tickle machines. The ending also has a slew of cutscenes summing up a few loose ends.

Something Off: It is pretty amazing that Tt Games, including their branch company Tt Fusion, could pull of Lego Marvel's Avengers and Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the same year as all the other things pouring out of Lego Dimensions. It is also amazing how they managed to release the product 6 months after the film released. Though, there are some things that distinguish it from the other games. It is the first Lego game that holds "Mild Language" in their ESRB Rating. The "build" sound effect is different. The graphic interface is better refined. Perhaps the most unusual decision is how they modified how the mini-figures expressed themselves. You can tell the difference when watching the cutscenes that use the old method of physically moving their face compared to the rest of the game where the facial expressions animate through textures. It is as if their reactions "snap" into place when something happens. There also seems to be some fidelity lost in the mini-figures when representing the characters on the screen. It is almost as if they are the wrong color or don't contain enough unique designs that set them apart from each other.

Additional Content

Character Packs: Two packs were available for pre-orders: Jabba's Palace Character Pack offered through Gamestop and The Empire Strikes Back when buying the Deluxe Edition. I'd like to go through all the packs and go into detail of the characters. Unfortunately, many characters are simple re-skins and carry the same animations. The bounty hunters like Dengar carry rail-guns. Commander Cody does pull out a special holocron while idle. Chopper is smaller than the average astromech, makes his signature beeps, and launches in the air using his center booster. Cad Bane may tilt his hat, but he does not have his booster boots like in Lego Star Wars: Clone Wars. Ezra has his neat gun-lightsaber hybrid weapon. The Seventh Sister shows of her spinning red lightsaber and uses it to hover in the air. None of the Freekmakers have their signature logo on their backs, but I guess it's cool to have R0-GR with his broom and Naare showing her true colors when she attacks.

Level Packs: Have you ever wondered what happened with certain characters as the film followed the main characters? Then, boy do I have good news for you! There are six levels that follow characters like the Crimson Corsair, Han Solo & Chewbacca hunting down the Rathtar, Poe & Ackbar encounter with the Dianoga, and Captain Phasma flying around when the ship's hull breaks down gravity controls. There are also four DLC levels that help extend the lore a little further by showing off some stuff that bothered me during the movie. Poe's Quest for Survival follows charming Poe Dameron as he tries to make it through the desert and back with the Resistance. First Order Seige of Takodana brings you the action of destroying Maz Castle and moving through the area as Kylo Ren. Escape From Starkiller Base has you venture around as a couple of ace pilots trying to make their way as the base collapses. The most important and last level is The Phantom Limb where you find out how C-3PO gets that red arm of his as it is based upon the comic book. I very much like how these level packs link up with other levels of the game, but a part of me would have preferred some sort of notice on how they occurred chronologically.

Star Wars: Resistance: If a person is interested in learning a little more about The First Order, one show came out with two seasons about the events that happen on a platform in the middle of nowhere. The first season follows a naive kid who tries to be a spy, a mechanic, and a racer. Despite his tomfoolery, he builds connections with the people on the station as pirates raid their shores until the captain finally gives permission for stormtrooper patrols. Things escalate into season two with the destruction of the planets from the Starkiller Base when the crew tackles ordinary problems like food, water, fuel, and lack of currency. The show also stars Poe Dameron as the main protagonist's connection with The Resistance.

The Freemaker Adventures: Disney XD came out with two seasons of a show covering a family of scavengers living inside the Star Wars universe. Although you might not recognize the new voices of those you recognize (which doesn't even include Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker), the voice acting of the main characters is really good (with Eugene Byrd playing as Zander Freemaker). You'll recognize plenty of characters, locations, and events - like Dengar being the primary bounty hunter for one of the Hutt family members or Lando Calrissian from Cloud City. The show might not appear to be much at first, but there are moments that can be quite... genius (taken from Episode 11). The first eight episodes are filled with shenanigans as the scavengers try to get by on The Wheel station. I found Darth Vader's joyride quite humorous in Episode 3 and how Kordi Freemaker backtracks the logic of the prison guards in Episode 5. The story then kicks into high-gear as Rowan, a 12-year old boy, searches for the remaining crystals for a legendary lightsaber. Although none of the new characters in season two appear in the character pack, you'll still enjoy following the team as they work with the Rebels in building the ultimate ship Arrowhead while the efficiency droid M-OZ chases them down.

Settings

What's New? There are quite a few new things to mention. Multi-builds is something that allows you to create an object, destroy it, and create another object. Usually there is an order in which you need to build things and the characters usually inform you when making a wrong decision. Sometimes these builds will create unusual structures that shoot out studs or lead you to secret areas. Others will require you to act quickly when it comes to rerouting power. There is the new cover system or "Blaster Battles" that replicates that weird camera panning relatively close to your character as they hide behind barricades. You can press LT to immediately target things and press B-button to initiate your special boost. Characters can use their weapon, throw grenades, grapple hooks, or use the force. Flight Sequences might have been seen as early as Lego Harry Potter, but Star Wars also added Ship Arenas where you take down enemy ships within a certain zone. Amusingly, this is also replicated on a micro-level inside some of the missions. Torpedoes now automatically fire when you are holding down the X-button. The charged B-button will also initiate a seismic charge bomb. You can roll to the left or right, loop around, or circle in the opposite direction. LT initiates a boost and even physically changes the stance of an X-Wing. Inside these sequences, certain collectables and race points can be found.

Gameplay: Although there are still "tutorial blocks" in the shape of holographic question marks, most of the help has been converted to a more vocal approach from the characters. There are quest chains. You can still hide under barrels. You cannot swap characters out in the world until after the campaign has finished. Until then, there will be guide studs to show you the way. The camera will pan along with a blue orb that bursts from one character to another when you switch between them. Red bricks have their own roster that appears after selecting the option on the character wheel. They can be bought and made available within the sub-menu. They no longer can be accessed in the main menu. You can, however, input codes from there. Some of the early red bricks are easy to obtain right away without the need of any special abilities. Fast interaction will skip over the mini-games like match-making with the protocol droid, scanning for hidden objects, and pressing at the right time with an electricity line. Funk Awakens plays some funky music while forcing people to dance. Imperial Inaccuracy will make all the enemies bad shots. There are a few other red brick powers with cosmetic changes that change your weapons or make them glow different colors. Collecting mini-kits in a level will slowly build a ship. Collecting all ten will automatically unlock both the regular and micro-sized versions of the ship without the need of purchasing them. Carbonite characters from past films can be "thawed" using a microwave at the base. You can participate in a "Dejarik Battle" for some good currency with playable characters from the chess board in a giant arena. Missions are generally marked green and can be exited at any time from the main menu. Final Tally: 153/222 Minikits; 233/262 Gold Bricks; 15/18 Red Bricks; 58/86 Ships; 89.5% Completion.

Environment: The Galaxy map shows the percentage complete for each of the planets, numbers the levels, but does not cycle through them in order. It does show how many gold bricks you need to collect to unlock things, but the final level where you take the Starkiller Base to destroy random planets requires a whopping 249 of them. At least there are overhead maps in each of the sectors, including inside the Millennium Falcon. You access the maps at any time and place waypoints with guide studs to help you navigate around. Building structures start out much quicker than previous games. They included that really wacky Jabba Flow song at Maz Castle. The beam that shines from your flashlight and astromechs is nice. Character names are always shown on the screen now that pausing the game hides the interface.

Details: I've noticed that loading screens are somewhat limited to the location you are currently at, but will load piece-by-piece and even animate when built. There are hyperspace travels before and after doing a mission, but it can take a full 15 seconds for the transition. The background of the levels is generally filled with much activity between the mini-figures. Stormtroopers will sometimes display random events like grabbing a flower before they fall or losing their helmet in a fight. Sticking a grenade on them will cause stormtroopers to run in terror before they explode. The casual conversations are also a blast to hear. One of the funnier lines was "How can we tell each other apart?" Characters will sometimes have a small victory dance when you solve or unlock something. There are a lot of hidden areas and mini-games like escaping the asteroid or entering Kylo Ren's room filled with merchandise.

Characters

Traits: In order to access a mission, you'll need to find a character with the appropriate trait highlighted in blue. This can be a tad difficult when the roster doesn't line them up every time like they do with the stormtroopers. Not every character has one and this is the only time when the game checks for it. These include Resistance, First Order, Bounty Hunter, and Scavenger. You can freely switch to another character during the mission. While many red bricks can help alleviate the responsibility of doing all the little mini-games that occur while doing a puzzle, the only trait that is provided for everyone is super strength. There are several characters that can pass through toxic gas or command troops, but sometimes it can get frustrating when you need someone with a secondary ability. Not all who can grab their friends to help can grapple down structures. Not all that can toss their staff into a slot have the agility to swing on it. Each character has at most three tooltips shown and some essential ones for puzzles like the ability to jump into pools aren't listed. Although some gameplay advantages are listed like using force lightning or using a lightsaber, some weapon types can be distinctly different. Boba Fett pulse fires with three shots at a time, Sidon Ithano slowly fires one powerful shot at a time, and Captain Phasma can fire consistent shots without having anything targeted.

Hat Check: There comes a time when a console will check for a specific kind of helmet. From a story standpoint, you will have to find a hat dispenser that deposits one of three hats onto your characters. These helmets will stay on your character even if you switch to a new one. This can leave some humorous results when it just sort of hangs over Chewbacca's head or entirely replaces Kylo Ren's mask. I think my favorite is to watch BB-8 roam around with a stormtrooper helmet or chicken hat. Though, these checks are very strict. You won't gain access if your Kylo Ren isn't wearing his mask or you choose a stormtrooper from the wrong era. Mi'No Teest helmet won't pass inspection.

Animation: Beyond the gun checking, helmet adjusting, foot tapping, smiling, and stretches, I didn't notice a whole lot with unique idle animations. A few do retain their personalities like Darth Vader's breathing, Chewbacca's roar, and the Emperor's cackle. Captain Phasma buffs out her armor like Winter Soldier in Lego Marvel's Avengers. Admiral Ackbar and Ilco Munica pull out a snack brick and eats from it. Blass Tyran will pull out a scope. Princess Leia and Kaydel Ko Connix pull out a holocron of the Death Star. Several members play with X-Wing Model: any pilot like Lieutenant Bastian or Jessica Pava will pull one out of their pocket and Kylo Ren will use the force to fly it around before making it explode. Pru Sweevant will take out a blue comb to brush his beard and occasionally toy around with a grenade. Quiggold will spin around on his peg-leg. Rey and Unkar Plutt will pull things out of the ground. BB-8 will prop his head up and occasionally spins.

Special Ability: Most characters will simply counter opponents with a slap, but there's a few I noticed with a different approach. Those attuned to the light side will momentarily turn enemies into allies. Those of the dark side will force choke them. As much as I wanted a wide-range of interesting B-button counters, there were at least a few cool special B-button abilities. Quite a few characters will only launch in the air and smash the ground. Some will cover themselves with a shield as an airstrike gets called in. A few of the pilots will generate a shield and launch a bunch of tiny X-Wings around them. Boba Fett will launch himself in the air and shoot rockets out from his pack. Anyone wielding a lightsaber will jump high in the air and twirl it near the ground in the direction you point. Gun-wielders will jump up and shoot where you point them. Darth Vader's special ability is a force blast and Kylo Ren's ability is to reflect blaster fire (that appears even when there are no enemies) back at people. Characters who don't wield weapons or attack in general won't have any abilities.

In a Name: When you are trying to put together a roster of characters, especially when it comes to Star Wars, things can get pretty wild. Not only are you trying to pool together every single character you can think of from a single movie, but you also need to add a little bit from the other movies. The problem? I have not a clue who all these characters are. Not counting the ones from the DLC, I came up to around 210 characters (including the variants). I attempted to look up each and every one of these with varying results:

• Including all versions of Finn and Rey, you come to around 85 characters you can identify from the film. There were a couple who lost the role of Rey but were given their own character: Kaydel Ko Connix (who is actually Carrie Fisher's daughter) and Jessika Pava. Fun Fact: Ello Asty is L-O-S-T pronounced outloud.
• There are 35 older characters you can thaw from carbonite.
• 25 Mini-figures do not have names but are listed as generic characters. These include the many versions of stormtroopers and the game holograms.
• There's about 15 characters I could not find a reference anywhere in the Star Wars universe. An additional 10 characters are in the film, but only named inside the game. These include ones like Mi'no Teest, Monn Tattch, and Oskus Stooratt.
• Several characters are named to some degree, despite not having a major role. 10 are not named within the film but credited at the end. There are around 15 listed in the Visual Dictionary. There's approximately 5 that are named from the release of Disney Infinity 3.0, including Hoogenz, Quinar (whose costume was made for the film but not added), Pammich Nerro Goode (which is a combination of different names from the film credits and visual dictionary), and Taryish Juhden.
• About 10 characters have been named in some sort of Star Wars merchandise. The various droid color schemes came from a gacha machine. R-3PO is from Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know. M9-G8 is from Ultimate Sticker Collection: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Varmik was named on a POP Vinyl Toy. EGL-21 "Amps" Goss Towers is only named via his Action Figure.
• The two characters that appear behind-the-scenes in one of the hidden areas are JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy.

Exclusive Abilities: Now comes the hard part. If you think recognizing the characters was bad, finding the right one to complete a puzzle is even worse. This goes beyond finding the one who can wield a staff, use grapple hooks, or scan for objects. Considering that the entire roster is in alphabetical order, finding that one droid in the middle somewhere can be problematic. There are challenges that only a limited few (outside the DLC) can do:

• Admiral Ackbar or Bollie Prindel are the only non-DLC members who can swim.
• First Order Flametrooper is the only one that can melt ice bricks.
• Athgar Heece or Boba Fett are the only ones that can hover.
• BB-8 is the only one that can charge up electrical ports, access BB-8 exclusive puzzles or challenges, and activate roll pads.
• C-3PO, K-3PO, O-MR1, PZ-4CO, and R-3PO are all Protocol Droids that can translate using their own voice actor and personality traits.

Summary

Review: Because the game covers a single film, the developers are able to expand on the minute details. You can play a multitude of characters, some who were unnamed or those who were unable to be present in the movie. You explore events and locations that help better explain what happened between segments of the film. Better narration, descriptions of the characters, and more intel into the various worlds made it easier to immerse yourself into the game. New mechanics like space arenas, multi-builds, and the covering system set it apart from the other games in the series. Unfortunately, re-designing things like facial expressions and the character roster turned out quite controversial. Some of the better aspects of this release are locked behind cinematic trailers, animated shows, and downloadable content. Because the complete style of the game was replicated in Lego: The Skywalker Saga, it probably isn't worth replaying this one unless you want to exclusively learn more about this particular moment in the Star Wars timeline.

 

 

3-13-2023