LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Nintendo Game Boy Advance - Released - September 1, 2006
Focused on the original trilogy of the Star Wars universe (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of Jedi), the sequel to LEGO Star Wars brings some innovations over the first title, making it more similar to its PC and console counterpart than the previous game.
During the story mode, the player is joined on-screen by two other characters, and can change between them to use their specific skills to proceed. Characters share a life bar of four hearts, with the rate of depletion changing according to each character (a stormtrooper will lose three hearts when hit by a blaster, Vader will take two or three hits before losing one). If a support character is "dismantled" by attacks, there's no problem, but letting that happen to the controlled character means a loss of stud points (the game currency), as well as a drop on the "Super Kit" gauge, which replaces the Jedi rank evaluation of the previous titles.
Gameplay has been changed to accommodate the lack of lightsaber battles in the later episodes, and so blasters are a lot more effective and fire faster, but have lost their "charge" mode. New flight missions are also included. These are similar to previous Star Wars games, like Return of the Jedi, and allow the player to attack both Death Stars, skim the surface of the forest moon of Endor in a Speeder, escape from an asteroid field with the Millennium Falcon, or draw wires around the legs of Imperial walkers in Hoth.
There are three major character classes: droids (unable to fight, but the only ones capable of opening most regular doors during story mode), Jedi (melee fighters capable of interacting with larger objects to uncover hidden studs and with different Jedi powers) and Blaster users, which can fire at an enemy from a distance, as well as assemble smaller objects (like short bridges or door switches).
Gameplay remains a light jump-and-slash isometric game, with the goal being usually to go from point A to B, while pulling levers somewhere in the level. Like in the first game, the game can not be entirely completed without playing in Free Mode (a near perfect run in Story mode will only complete around 50% of the game), as many doors can only be opened, or even reached, by using the unique special abilities of one of the 36 unlockable characters.
To acquire characters for Free Play, the player now needs to accomplish three things: earn enough credits (the value of each stud was increased 10 fold), complete a level (to unlock playable characters such as the level variation of Luke or Leia), and get all "mini kits" (which replace the "Death Star Plans" of the prequel). Characters that can be unlocked include enemies, such as the Tusken Raider or Stormtroopers, or heroic characters, like Yoda. There are also additional items to be bought, including music, palette swaps, new game modes, lightsaber colours and hints.
