Liesel Plays Star Wars Games (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lieselstarwarsgames) wrote2021-02-08 06:05 pm
lieselstarwarsgames) wrote2021-02-08 06:05 pm
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Part 1) - Introduction and Negotiations
I’ve said it many times before, but I’ll say it again: Lego and Star Wars was a match made in heaven. Lego’s quirky, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor fits with Star Wars so SO well and the beginning of that was in the first Lego Star Wars games. They were originally released as Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, which covered the prequels, and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy, which covered, well, the original trilogy, but eventually the two trilogies were put together into one game: The Complete Saga. Sure, it would end up not being the complete saga, but we didn’t know that yet. Since then, there have been plenty of other movie-based Lego games and most of them are also amazing, but the Star Wars Lego games are in a category all their own.
Expect a lot of gushing from me because this game is AWESOME. Unlike the NES and SNES SW games, this one isn’t very difficult, but difficulty doesn’t equal quality and this game is certainly rich with that, as we’ll see. But enough yammering, let’s play the game!
Since these entries will be screenshot-heavy, I decided to put them under cuts.
We start out in the game’s hub world, the Mos Eisley Cantina, with that oh-so-catchy music perfectly capturing the movie’s atmosphere.
You’ll notice right away that we’re controlling two characters: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. You’re always controlling at least two characters at once, kind of like in the original Donkey Kong Country games. You control the leading characters while the other AI-controlled characters follow the leader. You can switch which character leads at any time – which will be necessary throughout the game since some characters have skills that others don’t. We may only have two characters now, but as time goes by, we’ll unlock LOTS of playable characters – some get unlocked by progressing through the story and some can be purchased at the cantina bar with in-game currency.
Speaking of the bar, let’s head over there before we get started.
I love how the Lego version of Wuher the bartender is constantly glaring at us like we brought droids into the cantina. We don’t have any money yet, but as we get richer, we’ll be able to buy hints, characters, extras, gold bricks (which are important to unlock bonus levels), and watch cutscenes.
There are also two bacta tanks where you can create custom characters.
We’ll be going back there later, after we’ve unlocked more characters and thus more character parts.
And of course, we can’t have the Mos Eisley Cantina without the cantina band.
We can also go outside, but there isn’t anything to do here yet. Emphasis on yet.
Now that we’ve had our little tour, let’s head to the main attraction. There are six doors to lounge areas, each of which is numbered 1-6. As you’ve probably guessed, these correspond to Episodes 1-6. Only Episode 1 is unlocked, but after you’ve play the first level of Episode 1, all the other episodes unlock, meaning that you can theoretically bounce around from episode to episode. However, I like doing it the old-fashioned way and playing through one episode at a time in chronological order, so that’s what we’ll be doing for this playthrough.
Once we enter the Episode 1 lounge area, we’ve got something we can build. Whenever you see little piles of Lego bricks lying around, you can use them to build a surprise. So let’s have Qui-Gon do some building here . . .
. . . and voila! A picture of R2!
We also got a blue Lego stud for our trouble. Yup, that’s our currency – Lego studs. Silver studs are worth 10, gold studs are worth 100, and blue studs are worth 1,000. There are also ultra-extremely-rare purple studs that are worth 10,000, but those are few and far between.
Okay, I think we’ve had enough of an intro – time to go in the first level door and start playing properly.
Ah, that music, that opening crawl, EEEE! The opening cutscene tells us how much love was put into both replicating the movies and having fun with them (the pilots, HA!). It’s hard to find the cutscenes individually on YouTube, but you can easily watch them in big bulks, so I highly recommend watching them.
Well, we’re in the ship’s dining hall and we’ve gotta escape, but first, let’s enjoy one of the most fun aspects of Lego games – BREAKING SHIT! Even though the text tells us to use the Force, first let’s get out our lightsabers.
Oh yeah, almost everything that isn’t welded to the wall can be broken apart with lightsabers, blasters, or fists and then they’ll spit out studs that you can run around and collect before they disappear. It’s SO satisfying – in fact, you might find yourself constantly getting distracted by breaking up everything in sight. There’s also a meter that shows up when you collect studs during a level that gradually fills up as you collect more and more studs. It’s called the “True Jedi” meter – fill it up and you get a gold brick.
You can also use the Force on the dining chairs and they’ll start dancing to a snippet of the Mos Eisley Cantina theme before spitting out some more studs – HA! But anyway, when we’re done collecting studs, we can use the Force to open the door.
Of course, the door leads to the hallway, where there are battle droids waiting. It’s easy to slice them open, though. Also, you can’t really get a game over – if your health meter gets to zero, you fall apart and lose studs, but you can still continue after you get put back together. However, since studs are so important towards experiencing everything the game has to offer, you’ll still get frustrated when you lose them.
There’s a whole lot of stuff we can use the Force on to get studs and there’s also a doorway, but we need a droid to open it.
And we don’t have a droid with us. Maybe we can find one. Well, there’s another room where we can use the Force on this reactor to get more studs – and if we’re feeling brutal, we can Force-push around some PK droids for the hell of it.
Back to the hallway. If we use the Force on everything in the hallway that glows, a Lego minikit appears (and, ha, the screenshot caught Qui-Gon breaking into pieces thanks to offscreen battle droids!)
There are ten of these things hidden in every level. Collect all ten and you unlock a new vehicle to use in bonus levels. More on that later. For now, let’s continue fighting our way through the battle droids. Go down the next hallway, slice through the battle droids, and you’ll find TC-14. Ha! A droid!
We can actually take her back to the rooms that were locked earlier in the level (though she’s extremely slow). In the first locked door is another minikit, which can be accessed by you stepping on one of these button triggers and your AI partner stepping on the other.
In the next bonus room is another minikit (and a nice view of Naboo to boot), but it’s too high to reach. You can use the Force to stack these boxes up, but neither Qui-Gon nor Obi-Wan can jump high enough to get on top of the stack. Maybe we’ll find someone later who can jump higher than the Jedi.
Well, so much for bonus room sidetrips. There’s another locked door, but we need an astro droid to unlock that one. Sheesh, so many rules. Back to the main hall, let’s use TC-14 to unlock the door at the end of the hallway to continue. By the way, when protocol droids like TC-14 or C-3PO get hit, they lose limbs. It’s pretty funny to watch them hop around with one leg and one arm.
We end up in a little nook where we have to use the Force to find a broken-up activation panel, then we’ve got to build it so TC-14 can get us through another locked door. After that, we’ve got to use the Force to stow through this . . . thing, whatever it is. Maybe it leads to the vents.
Uh . . . no, it didn’t lead to the vents, it dropped us WAY UP HIGH!
Good thing Jedi always land on their feet. Anyway, the battle droids of course will start attacking you once you land in this big room, but there’s a powerup on the floor that will briefly soup up your battle skills and turn your lightsaber PURPLE. Ha, purple lightsabers are the most badass ones!
Also, if you drop down into this little nook, you can see the forcefield separating you from endless space. God, I LOVE how this game really gives you the feel that you’re playing in the actual movie.
But if we try to leave, we run into bad news – droidekas! Yeah, these guys aren’t so easily sliced apart as regular battle droids. I could help Obi-Wan fight them, but instead I think I’ll build a battle droid bike out of those Lego bricks randomly lying around and go ride it.
Sure, the bike does nothing against the droidekas, but it’s fun to ride around on. Okay, okay, I’ll get off the bike so we can continue. You’ve got to deflect the droidekas’ blasts with your lightsaber to break their forcefields, then you can slice them up. After using the Force to build some platforms that help us jump over the fence, we get to a battle droid ship! Our ticket out of here!
Oh wait, we need TC-14 to activate it. Okay, let’s step on the buttons to turn off the forcefield so she can get through.
Come to think of it, why did TC-14 join with the Jedi? Was Nute Gunray mistreating her? That wouldn’t surprise me if he was. Anyway, use TC-14 to open the ship, then the Jedi can slip in to end the level (ha, Obi-Wan does stealth!).
But we’re not done yet. Since we’ve accumulated some money, let’s head over to the bar to buy some new characters. TC-14 got unlocked since we played her in the level, but now we can also buy the gonk droid . . .
. . . a PK droid . . .
. . . a regular battle droid . . .
. . . a security battle droid . . .
. . . a commander battle droid . . .
. . . and a droideka.
Whew, that’s a LOT of droids, but now we can play as any of those droids when we replay a previously-completed level in Free Play mode. We’ll get to Free Play mode later on, but for now, have this song about the Mos Eisley Cantina and droids. Yes, I've shared it before, but the hell with it, it's my blog.
Expect a lot of gushing from me because this game is AWESOME. Unlike the NES and SNES SW games, this one isn’t very difficult, but difficulty doesn’t equal quality and this game is certainly rich with that, as we’ll see. But enough yammering, let’s play the game!
Since these entries will be screenshot-heavy, I decided to put them under cuts.
We start out in the game’s hub world, the Mos Eisley Cantina, with that oh-so-catchy music perfectly capturing the movie’s atmosphere.
You’ll notice right away that we’re controlling two characters: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. You’re always controlling at least two characters at once, kind of like in the original Donkey Kong Country games. You control the leading characters while the other AI-controlled characters follow the leader. You can switch which character leads at any time – which will be necessary throughout the game since some characters have skills that others don’t. We may only have two characters now, but as time goes by, we’ll unlock LOTS of playable characters – some get unlocked by progressing through the story and some can be purchased at the cantina bar with in-game currency.
Speaking of the bar, let’s head over there before we get started.
I love how the Lego version of Wuher the bartender is constantly glaring at us like we brought droids into the cantina. We don’t have any money yet, but as we get richer, we’ll be able to buy hints, characters, extras, gold bricks (which are important to unlock bonus levels), and watch cutscenes.
There are also two bacta tanks where you can create custom characters.
We’ll be going back there later, after we’ve unlocked more characters and thus more character parts.
And of course, we can’t have the Mos Eisley Cantina without the cantina band.
We can also go outside, but there isn’t anything to do here yet. Emphasis on yet.
Now that we’ve had our little tour, let’s head to the main attraction. There are six doors to lounge areas, each of which is numbered 1-6. As you’ve probably guessed, these correspond to Episodes 1-6. Only Episode 1 is unlocked, but after you’ve play the first level of Episode 1, all the other episodes unlock, meaning that you can theoretically bounce around from episode to episode. However, I like doing it the old-fashioned way and playing through one episode at a time in chronological order, so that’s what we’ll be doing for this playthrough.
Once we enter the Episode 1 lounge area, we’ve got something we can build. Whenever you see little piles of Lego bricks lying around, you can use them to build a surprise. So let’s have Qui-Gon do some building here . . .
. . . and voila! A picture of R2!
We also got a blue Lego stud for our trouble. Yup, that’s our currency – Lego studs. Silver studs are worth 10, gold studs are worth 100, and blue studs are worth 1,000. There are also ultra-extremely-rare purple studs that are worth 10,000, but those are few and far between.
Okay, I think we’ve had enough of an intro – time to go in the first level door and start playing properly.
Ah, that music, that opening crawl, EEEE! The opening cutscene tells us how much love was put into both replicating the movies and having fun with them (the pilots, HA!). It’s hard to find the cutscenes individually on YouTube, but you can easily watch them in big bulks, so I highly recommend watching them.
Well, we’re in the ship’s dining hall and we’ve gotta escape, but first, let’s enjoy one of the most fun aspects of Lego games – BREAKING SHIT! Even though the text tells us to use the Force, first let’s get out our lightsabers.
Oh yeah, almost everything that isn’t welded to the wall can be broken apart with lightsabers, blasters, or fists and then they’ll spit out studs that you can run around and collect before they disappear. It’s SO satisfying – in fact, you might find yourself constantly getting distracted by breaking up everything in sight. There’s also a meter that shows up when you collect studs during a level that gradually fills up as you collect more and more studs. It’s called the “True Jedi” meter – fill it up and you get a gold brick.
You can also use the Force on the dining chairs and they’ll start dancing to a snippet of the Mos Eisley Cantina theme before spitting out some more studs – HA! But anyway, when we’re done collecting studs, we can use the Force to open the door.
Of course, the door leads to the hallway, where there are battle droids waiting. It’s easy to slice them open, though. Also, you can’t really get a game over – if your health meter gets to zero, you fall apart and lose studs, but you can still continue after you get put back together. However, since studs are so important towards experiencing everything the game has to offer, you’ll still get frustrated when you lose them.
There’s a whole lot of stuff we can use the Force on to get studs and there’s also a doorway, but we need a droid to open it.
And we don’t have a droid with us. Maybe we can find one. Well, there’s another room where we can use the Force on this reactor to get more studs – and if we’re feeling brutal, we can Force-push around some PK droids for the hell of it.
Back to the hallway. If we use the Force on everything in the hallway that glows, a Lego minikit appears (and, ha, the screenshot caught Qui-Gon breaking into pieces thanks to offscreen battle droids!)
There are ten of these things hidden in every level. Collect all ten and you unlock a new vehicle to use in bonus levels. More on that later. For now, let’s continue fighting our way through the battle droids. Go down the next hallway, slice through the battle droids, and you’ll find TC-14. Ha! A droid!
We can actually take her back to the rooms that were locked earlier in the level (though she’s extremely slow). In the first locked door is another minikit, which can be accessed by you stepping on one of these button triggers and your AI partner stepping on the other.
In the next bonus room is another minikit (and a nice view of Naboo to boot), but it’s too high to reach. You can use the Force to stack these boxes up, but neither Qui-Gon nor Obi-Wan can jump high enough to get on top of the stack. Maybe we’ll find someone later who can jump higher than the Jedi.
Well, so much for bonus room sidetrips. There’s another locked door, but we need an astro droid to unlock that one. Sheesh, so many rules. Back to the main hall, let’s use TC-14 to unlock the door at the end of the hallway to continue. By the way, when protocol droids like TC-14 or C-3PO get hit, they lose limbs. It’s pretty funny to watch them hop around with one leg and one arm.
We end up in a little nook where we have to use the Force to find a broken-up activation panel, then we’ve got to build it so TC-14 can get us through another locked door. After that, we’ve got to use the Force to stow through this . . . thing, whatever it is. Maybe it leads to the vents.
Uh . . . no, it didn’t lead to the vents, it dropped us WAY UP HIGH!
Good thing Jedi always land on their feet. Anyway, the battle droids of course will start attacking you once you land in this big room, but there’s a powerup on the floor that will briefly soup up your battle skills and turn your lightsaber PURPLE. Ha, purple lightsabers are the most badass ones!
Also, if you drop down into this little nook, you can see the forcefield separating you from endless space. God, I LOVE how this game really gives you the feel that you’re playing in the actual movie.
But if we try to leave, we run into bad news – droidekas! Yeah, these guys aren’t so easily sliced apart as regular battle droids. I could help Obi-Wan fight them, but instead I think I’ll build a battle droid bike out of those Lego bricks randomly lying around and go ride it.
Sure, the bike does nothing against the droidekas, but it’s fun to ride around on. Okay, okay, I’ll get off the bike so we can continue. You’ve got to deflect the droidekas’ blasts with your lightsaber to break their forcefields, then you can slice them up. After using the Force to build some platforms that help us jump over the fence, we get to a battle droid ship! Our ticket out of here!
Oh wait, we need TC-14 to activate it. Okay, let’s step on the buttons to turn off the forcefield so she can get through.
Come to think of it, why did TC-14 join with the Jedi? Was Nute Gunray mistreating her? That wouldn’t surprise me if he was. Anyway, use TC-14 to open the ship, then the Jedi can slip in to end the level (ha, Obi-Wan does stealth!).
But we’re not done yet. Since we’ve accumulated some money, let’s head over to the bar to buy some new characters. TC-14 got unlocked since we played her in the level, but now we can also buy the gonk droid . . .
. . . a PK droid . . .
. . . a regular battle droid . . .
. . . a security battle droid . . .
. . . a commander battle droid . . .
. . . and a droideka.
Whew, that’s a LOT of droids, but now we can play as any of those droids when we replay a previously-completed level in Free Play mode. We’ll get to Free Play mode later on, but for now, have this song about the Mos Eisley Cantina and droids. Yes, I've shared it before, but the hell with it, it's my blog.