Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy: Prima Official Game Guide [ペーパーバック]

A game as big and as full of extras and secrets as Lego Star Wars II, you may need a leg up. Getting some of the hidden Lego Canisters and figuring out what you have to do in Freeplay mode can be bothersome. So of course, there's a strategy guide to give you a leg up. You may find you need it, but on the whole, the guide could've been way better. It isn't that the guide is bad, it's that it's heavily disorganized.

The guide begins, as most of them do, with the basics. Getting you used to the gameplay the way the instruction booklet is supposed to. Here, however, they give you a profile for each and every character. They tell you how to use each character, but to be honest, it's all the same. They give you a little mini-profile and then what they can do. All the jedi can do the same thing: The force, and unfortunately the guide will mention that for every jedi. Afterwards it talks about the transportation used in the game. From speeders to AT-ST walkers.

The guide then talks about the Mos Eisley Cantina. It only talks about the things you can do, but it's not really that in-depth on it. The good news is the guide doesn't have to be in-depth on it. It's easy enough to figure out on your own.

The walkthrough is where I begin to have some of the bigger problems with the guide. Each chapter begins with the overview provided by the game, and then a few story frames depicting what happens in the cutscenes before the start of the actual level. The problem with the walkthrough, however, is that it is heavily disorganized. Nothing is divided into sections (save for the call outs to freeplay mode). So in essence, if you come to a point where you need the guide but you haven't opened it, it'll be hard to find where you are in the walkthrough.

There are no maps to speak of throughout the walkthrough. I wouldn't have a problem with the lack of maps if there were an abundance of screenshots. There aren't an abundance of screenshots. Some of what the guide is trying to say can be rather confusing for the visual learner. They tell me to do something, but there's no screenshot to clarify what they're talking about. What screenshots there are are very small and blurry. To compensate for the blurry and small screenshots there are captions at least. This really does make the guide far better to use than it sounds.

The walkthrough could've been better on the whole. With a little more organization and bit more clarity it could've been far more useful. It does, however, become really helpful when playing through freeplay mode. If you go through freeplay mode, the guide calls out what you can do in freeplay. Since these sections aren't as long as the main walkthrough, they're not as tedious to read through to find yourself.

The walkthrough will get you through the game, it's just that you'll spend much more time reading the walkthrough than playing the game itself.

The guide covers the Bounty Hunter Missions and Gold Brick Bonuses. It hardly says anything about the Power Bricks which I could deal with. However, the part that could be on the divide for most people is the simple fact of whether or not you care that it gives you the cheats to unlock other characters. In some ways, it makes sense that the guide wouldn't give you something like this. After all, cheat codes should be left inside cheat books and the internet. Then again, a strategy guide is a cheap way to get ahead in the game, and just like looking up a cheat, it's optional to whether or not you're going to use it. Personally, a list of cheats should be in the guide, but I won't hold it against the guide one bit.

The main thing that makes me not recommend the guide is the highly disorganized walkthrough. For once I'd much rather go to GameFAQs. There are much more organized and detailed walkthroughs than this.

Unforttunately this game guide is not complete. You cannot find all of the LEGO cannisters and power bricks using this guide. You're going to have to stumble through on your own. If you have experienced the first LEGO Star Wars game then this guide is not worth the purchase.

This guide is missing quite a bit and is extremely disorganized. I finally resorted to highlighting the things that I needed and drawing arrows where appropriate.

The screnshots are substandard as well. There are much better guides available online.