After many delays, “LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga” is finally here and it does not disappoint. The long-anticipated game has a few flaws, but overall the game is incredibly fun to play and well worth the $50 price tag.

The game’s vast amount of content is one of its greatest strengths. “The Skywalker Saga” has all six “Star Wars” episodes plus the three sequel episodes and each consists of many levels and challenges. If you are not trying to achieve 100% completion on all levels, there is free play, in which you can roam around any of the 23 planets doing whatever you want, using any of the 300+ playable characters and 100+ vehicles. Even in free play, there is so much to do, such as  space battles and side quests.

In addition to the base game, “The Skywalker Saga” comes with additional downloadable content, including the classic minifigs from 1999, characters from “Rogue One,” “Solo,” “The Mandalorian” and “The Bad Batch.” There are also codes that you can enter to get exclusive characters.

Another strength is the variety of levels in the episodes. For example, the “Phantom Menace” episode includes levels ranging from dogfights, like the space battle of Naboo in the phantom menace, to racing levels, like the podrace on Tatooine. Each level presents something unique and it does not feel like the creator company TT Games cut corners or copy-pasted anything. 

TT Games also took the graphics to a whole new level. Compared to older games like “The Complete Saga” and “Clone Wars,” the graphics are stunning and more realistic. They have grown so much in terms of quality and each area in “The Skywalker Saga” looks beautiful and blew my mind when I saw them.

Despite these strengths, “The Skywalker Saga” has some shortcomings, though they are not detrimental to the game. For example, TT Games changed the health system. In the older games, players had four hearts and would lose one if they took damage. However, in “The Skywalker Saga,” this system is replaced by a health bar. There was nothing wrong with the hearts; they were clear and concise. This new health bar system not only is confusing, but it does not add anything to the game. TT Games should have taken the advice of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and not present a solution to a non-existent problem.  

Another problem is the pacing issues during the episodes. Some things that are glossed over in the game, like the Darth Maul bossfight in “The Phantom Menace,” are important to the plot of the Star Wars movies. Conversely, the droid factory on Geonosis during “Attack of the Clones” takes forever and on top of that, when I am in the factory, my FPS (frames per second) are so low to the point where it looks like a Powerpoint presentation. 

“LEGO Star Wars: Skywalker Saga,” despite having some shortcomings, is a game that gives me a sense of enjoyment I have not felt since elementary school when I used to play games on my mom’s phone. This game is worth the wait and keeps nostalgic features from older “LEGO Star Wars” games while building on them with the technology of today.