izigame.me

The Force awakens might not be the best, or most original movie of all time, but this Lego interpretation manages to capture the spirit of the film incredibly well, while also playing up to the 'it's just a remake of episode 4' crowd. The game starts with the ending of Return of the Jedi (The Battle of Endor, and the defeat of the Emperor on the Death Star II) and while the main campaign is then very true to the films, the extra missions added by the DLC add in all the scenes that weren't simply remade for TFA (e.g. the beginning of a new hope with stormtroopers attacking a rebel vessel) and even explaining some bits that the film ignored (how did Poe escape from the sand after the tie-fighter crashed, how did Han and Chewie capture the monsters on their ship etc, and even how did C3PO lose his arm). Collectively, the game feels like a work of fan love, not necessarily for Episode 7, but definitely for star wars in general, and an attempt to pull the film into the overall universe.
Gameplay wise, this is traditional Lego games. The skills might be more varied than in the first lego star wars, and perhaps less irritating than in lego batman (changing equipment in suit changer-machines every 2 minutes), but varied, and clear. Freeplay is somewhat irritating in that the game will happily give you 2 tiny droids and no jedi, but the ability to access every character solves this (admittedly with a pace penalty while you hunt for a character who can do what you need). That bug is made a little worse perhaps by the fact that certain skills (swimming and fast-shooting) by default recommend (in little helper icons) characters that can only be unlocked through DLC missions (Akbar and Phasma) rather than characters you might already have. In general actually, and this is true in other lego star wars games, the cast is perhaps a little padded - there are some 5 or six storm trooper types (not variants), plus snow and flame troopers, then there's pilots etc. And many of the side characters are characters you won't necessarily recognise. In fact, i knew more of the DLC characters from clone wars and rebels than the bit characters from TFA, but perhaps that's my fault.
The open world is less unnecessarily open than in either the Lord of the Rings or Marvel Avengers (which are punishingly tedious) and the main and DLC missions can all be easily accessed from the galactic map screen, only the busy work missions require you to walk around for them (and there are no 'get 5 rat skin' missions either!).
However, i would note that some of the great additions from the Lego Clone Wars are gone (particularly the brilliant RTS pieces). It's understandable, they would be hard to bake in, and the game introduces some cover shooting sections instead, but it's a shame they weren't able to build on those in any subsequent game.
In 2022, you have the Skywalker Saga as an option of course, but that devotes only 5 missions to each film, while this is 10 campaign missions, plus expansive DLC, so if you really want to spend nearly 50 hours in The Force Awakens, you might not find a better way.
So should you play this in 2022. The game is a bit buggy in places, but really only impacts the collectathon in the open world; there's some tedious moments; and the source material is weak (the voice acting really displays some of the acting 'talent' in the film...), but it's enjoyable, not too slow, and the extras fill in the gaps, while making enough jokes to make the overall package worthwhile.
The real question is whether the high price tag (40 CAD for the deluxe edition, plus another 6 dollars for the 2 DLC packs which aren't included) is justified, when the Skywalker Saga is $70 and covers more movies. For 46 dollars, you can get the Complete Saga (the first 2 games) and the Clone wars game - that might be the better deal...