I've seen this being described as a game you have to meet halfway, but it ends up requiring a bit more from the player's side. That's to say, it asks for the player to do multiple playthroughs to get the most out of it, but it doesn't hold up its end of the bargain. For one, the story, once pieced together, isn't really that captivating and feels like some jumbled ideas that weren't fleshed out. One of the 'bad' endings was much less underwhelming than the main one. Though its a short game and you can get the hang of it after a couple of runs, the gameplay starts to drag with each playthrough, requiring a lot of back and forth with little variety. The latter half can be more tense, though the difficulty can be almost entirely removed by glitches where enemies disappear. Similar bugs occur, and coupled with low-res textures here and there, the game feels somewhat unfinished. The atmosphere is done well at least and is pretty unsettling.

The Lego games were a favorite of mine though it's been nearly a decade since I last played one, so I may have grown out of the formula. LSW3 has all the cathartic destruction and amusing parody that I remember, though there's quite a bit of tedium in its design. The levels can vary from enjoyable to drawn out. Some missions are just complacent to give you mindlessly repetitive objectives while others throw drawn out boss battles at you. The game is of course pretty easy, with the only real difficulty coming from dealing with the less finely-tuned controls, such as with aiming, moving things with the force, or controlling a squad. Though not as iconic, it's still fun to play out the Clone War episodes (even if it only covers the early seasons) and the new large-scale battles mechanic is pretty neat and fitting.

Side-content is promising at first, with the copious amount of bounty hunts and ground assault missions. The former ends up being rather dry hide-and-seek challenges, and the latter is more of the large-scale assaults, but you get your fill of it pretty quickly. For completionists, the game wears out its welcome, asking you to do a lot of the same thing for a little reward. Custom characters also felt like an afterthought, lacking so many usable assets from other characters. I was however pretty impressed with the hub world, which was a blast to explore for the first time and unlock secrets within. The level of detail between the character animations was well-done too (made up for the occasional glitches).

The aesthetic and environments are cool af. Actually playing the game though is a chore. The platforming feels stiff, as does the combat, which lacks a dodge or block. There are a variety of weapons, but few are actually helpful. The story is hardly relayed in a captivating way, which is too bad because the premise is actually interesting. The music, while fittingly eerie, is at times insanely repetitive. I probably played this on the wrong platform too, as there's terrible lag when things get busy and cumbersome weapon-switching (and it probably explains the bad control). The constant bombardment of enemies got the better of me for most of the game too, and I probably wouldn't have made it through this if there was no manual save. All in this intensely hostile world simulated a sort of anxiety-inducing, maddening state in my mind when playing, which is a clever way to have me relate to Alice, so I'll give them that.

I had to abandon this halfway through due to the game-breaking Beleram/Mirkwood glitch (that this remained unpatched speaks for the game's lack of polish), but I wasn't that annoyed to let it go. The gameplay is rather simple, with basic hacking n' slashing, basic levelling, and basic loot. I alternated between the three characters each level, yet they play largely the same (and character-wise they're bland). I would've liked to switch between characters mid-level (for the character specific actions), but it seems this game was mainly designed for co-op. It is at least neat that the plot runs in tandem to the main story, and that you get to visit some of the unseen locations.