This review contains spoilers
To tell the truth, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (I will refer to it as just TCS for brevity's sake) is a game I wasn't sure about getting. The original two LEGO Star Wars games are ones I hold near and dear to my heart. In fact, they introduced me to Star Wars as a whole, and I have very nostalgic memories of the games. I typically just pop my discs in the PS2 whenever I'm looking for a LEGO Star Wars fix, so I've never owned TCS until recently. I saw it was on sale on Steam for like 4 dollars, and...well, if its that cheap, I lose nothing by buying it. I found myself pleasantly surprised by it, and I've clocked 27 hours in it according to Steam (but 17 hours in-game).
To clarify, my main concern was that this was going to feel pointless to grab since I assumed it was exactly the same as the original games. I already love the games, so I wasn't worried about not enjoying it. For the most part, TCS pretty much is the same, but there's a good amount of nice little changes that improve the game overall and make it feel like a definitive edition package deal of the originals. For me, the little things are what make LEGO games so fun. The core of it is stuff you pretty much know what you're getting, since they're well known for being incredibly easy games and most are licensed games based directly on the source material. That being said, the changes in this game were almost entirely for the better in my opinion. Would you believe me if I told you Count Dooku and Emperor Palpatine didn't have Force Lightning in the original duology? Well, they do now, and frankly they should've had it to begin with. Other small neat changes include Chewbacca being able to tear off the arms of prequel Clone troopers (this wasn't a thing in the first game which had the prequel missions), your ally trying to attack you in the hub if you have a hero as your partner when you're a villain, some additional content like a 2 player arcade mode or characters that weren't present in either the first and second game, and probably more stuff I missed since many of these changes are admittedly quite small. The most changes was for content from the first game based on the prequels. Considering that it was the first of the hundreds of LEGO games out there, its not surprising that it got this treatment. The hub world is now based on the Cantina from the second game, whereas in the first game it was Dexter's Diner. A few levels from the first game got altered significantly: Gunship Cavalry - a mission in Episode 2 - was once an autoscrolling shooter (and a very frustrating one at that since it was so easy to go out of bounds), but it got changed to be uniform with the rest of the ship missions in TCS that were all based on the second LSW game's ship missions. In fact, Episode 2 is the only one that had an entirely new mission added in TCS, which shows the ship chase from the movie featuring Anakin and Obi-Wan hunting down the bounty hunter Zem Wesell. Worth noting that the Pod Racing level also had some major differences, mainly in that its been shortened considerably and made less punishing overall. Also, every level from the first game had locations for Red Bricks added in, since Red Bricks weren't in the first game. Basically nothing from the second game's missions got changed at all. Needless to say, aside from the core of the game being almost entirely the same, TCS did make good changes to the content that I appreciate.
Gameplay wise, TCS is like any other LEGO game. If you've played one, you've pretty much played them all, but honestly that's no knock against them in my opinion since the core is fun. You go through a linear set of missions where the goal is to solve easy puzzles and fight any enemies in your way so that you can progress to the end. Each mission often follows events of the source material the game is based on. Missions are divided by which movie the events depicted take place in, from Episode 1 to Episode 6. Each episode has about 5 or 6 missions in them, plus a bonus mission not related to the story that's unlocked whenever you complete the episode. You're free to do the episodes in any order you like as soon as you complete Episode 1, but I finished them in numerical order anyway. While you're completing these levels, you come across Studs, the currency of the game. You get Studs from doing pretty much any sort of interaction with objects, from destroying them to using the Force for various effects on them. You can then use these Studs in the hub world to unlock characters after beating the story mission necessary to gain the option to buy them (there's also stuff like Extras or vehicles you can grab with Studs). Each character is in a sort of character archetype that has unique powers utilized in the missions, oftentimes needed to either access an optional room or activate important parts of a puzzle. Jedi and Sith have the Force, gun characters have a grapple hook they can use on red target spaces, bounty hunters have bombs to blow up silver objects, Astromech droids and Protocol droids have special terminals to open doors or do other important functions for progression...that sort of thing. This way, unless the character you're playing has no weapons at all (and no other uses like how young Anakin can't do anything in combat but can slip through vents), every character has some kind of purpose to fulfill in a mission. If its just characters you're looking for, then you'll easily be able to afford almost everyone just from playing if you're patient enough to get as many Studs as you possibly can from missions. Admittedly there were a few missions that were such a pain in the neck to keep my Studs on that I just finished them with very few on me. Speaking of which, ship missions are lame and I dislike them. They all play practically the same and they just feel very tedious to get through because of how much focus is put on the torpedos you need to find. The controls are also very odd, far from smooth.
Overall, I think The Complete Saga manages to be a truly definitive package. There are some details I would have liked to see added, like perhaps giving an option to go to Dexter's Diner for those with nostalgia for the first game (like me), and some sore spots of the originals are still there. I was disappointed to see that the ship missions are just as boring and annoying as I remember them being as a kid. Nonetheless, I have little to complain about here as a longtime fan of these games. I enjoyed my time with this.
To clarify, my main concern was that this was going to feel pointless to grab since I assumed it was exactly the same as the original games. I already love the games, so I wasn't worried about not enjoying it. For the most part, TCS pretty much is the same, but there's a good amount of nice little changes that improve the game overall and make it feel like a definitive edition package deal of the originals. For me, the little things are what make LEGO games so fun. The core of it is stuff you pretty much know what you're getting, since they're well known for being incredibly easy games and most are licensed games based directly on the source material. That being said, the changes in this game were almost entirely for the better in my opinion. Would you believe me if I told you Count Dooku and Emperor Palpatine didn't have Force Lightning in the original duology? Well, they do now, and frankly they should've had it to begin with. Other small neat changes include Chewbacca being able to tear off the arms of prequel Clone troopers (this wasn't a thing in the first game which had the prequel missions), your ally trying to attack you in the hub if you have a hero as your partner when you're a villain, some additional content like a 2 player arcade mode or characters that weren't present in either the first and second game, and probably more stuff I missed since many of these changes are admittedly quite small. The most changes was for content from the first game based on the prequels. Considering that it was the first of the hundreds of LEGO games out there, its not surprising that it got this treatment. The hub world is now based on the Cantina from the second game, whereas in the first game it was Dexter's Diner. A few levels from the first game got altered significantly: Gunship Cavalry - a mission in Episode 2 - was once an autoscrolling shooter (and a very frustrating one at that since it was so easy to go out of bounds), but it got changed to be uniform with the rest of the ship missions in TCS that were all based on the second LSW game's ship missions. In fact, Episode 2 is the only one that had an entirely new mission added in TCS, which shows the ship chase from the movie featuring Anakin and Obi-Wan hunting down the bounty hunter Zem Wesell. Worth noting that the Pod Racing level also had some major differences, mainly in that its been shortened considerably and made less punishing overall. Also, every level from the first game had locations for Red Bricks added in, since Red Bricks weren't in the first game. Basically nothing from the second game's missions got changed at all. Needless to say, aside from the core of the game being almost entirely the same, TCS did make good changes to the content that I appreciate.
Gameplay wise, TCS is like any other LEGO game. If you've played one, you've pretty much played them all, but honestly that's no knock against them in my opinion since the core is fun. You go through a linear set of missions where the goal is to solve easy puzzles and fight any enemies in your way so that you can progress to the end. Each mission often follows events of the source material the game is based on. Missions are divided by which movie the events depicted take place in, from Episode 1 to Episode 6. Each episode has about 5 or 6 missions in them, plus a bonus mission not related to the story that's unlocked whenever you complete the episode. You're free to do the episodes in any order you like as soon as you complete Episode 1, but I finished them in numerical order anyway. While you're completing these levels, you come across Studs, the currency of the game. You get Studs from doing pretty much any sort of interaction with objects, from destroying them to using the Force for various effects on them. You can then use these Studs in the hub world to unlock characters after beating the story mission necessary to gain the option to buy them (there's also stuff like Extras or vehicles you can grab with Studs). Each character is in a sort of character archetype that has unique powers utilized in the missions, oftentimes needed to either access an optional room or activate important parts of a puzzle. Jedi and Sith have the Force, gun characters have a grapple hook they can use on red target spaces, bounty hunters have bombs to blow up silver objects, Astromech droids and Protocol droids have special terminals to open doors or do other important functions for progression...that sort of thing. This way, unless the character you're playing has no weapons at all (and no other uses like how young Anakin can't do anything in combat but can slip through vents), every character has some kind of purpose to fulfill in a mission. If its just characters you're looking for, then you'll easily be able to afford almost everyone just from playing if you're patient enough to get as many Studs as you possibly can from missions. Admittedly there were a few missions that were such a pain in the neck to keep my Studs on that I just finished them with very few on me. Speaking of which, ship missions are lame and I dislike them. They all play practically the same and they just feel very tedious to get through because of how much focus is put on the torpedos you need to find. The controls are also very odd, far from smooth.
Overall, I think The Complete Saga manages to be a truly definitive package. There are some details I would have liked to see added, like perhaps giving an option to go to Dexter's Diner for those with nostalgia for the first game (like me), and some sore spots of the originals are still there. I was disappointed to see that the ship missions are just as boring and annoying as I remember them being as a kid. Nonetheless, I have little to complain about here as a longtime fan of these games. I enjoyed my time with this.