LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Strategy Guide Review

When it comes to LEGO games, everyone knows that it’s not very difficult to get through each level. When you’re stuck, you just break enough stuff until the solution appears. One can burn through any of the games in less than 10 hours with that method. However, everyone also knows that the main point to the LEGO games is to complete them to 100%, which means obtaining all the studs for “True ____” status, finding all the pieces to whatever you’re supposed to build, snagging gold bricks, and locating (and buying!) all of the red bricks. Here is where one may need the guide, because oftentimes, it’s just not that obvious where you can find all of these delightful collectibles. It is this standard that the strategy guide for LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars has been held against, and the guide fulfills this monumental task very well.

The opening page for each mission starts with maps that pinpoint locations of the various Minikits, locations of items needed to reveal a Minikit, and locations of the highly coveted purple studs. While these maps are quite important, the most useful portion of the opening pages is the chart that lists all of the Minikits in every mission, where they can be found, and if they can be obtained in Story Mode or Freeplay. Just below the chart is the stud requirement for the True Jedi status. For the DS guide portion–yes, they are two separate games–the stud requirements for both Story Mode and Freeplay are listed.

Unfortunately though, it is with these charts and maps that the guide lost half a point in the rating. In a few places, the True Jedi requirements were incorrect. For example, the Epilogue is listed as having a 20,000 stud requirement, when in reality, it’s 250,000 studs. In addition, the map to the right is supposed to mark 10 rocks the player has to break in order to summon a Minikit. There is no number 10 on the map; however, I have to wonder if this is the fault of the guide writers or the game, because after roaming every inch of the area, I couldn’t find this 10th rock. As LEGO games are known for their glitches, it’s possible that this rock doesn’t exist.

Everything else in the guide, though, is flawless. The page layout makes it very easy to follow along with the story sequence, locate Minikits, and locate Red Bricks. With each callout for the Minikits, it’s clearly labeled as whether the Minikits can be found in the Story or in Freeplay so you won’t have to waste your time trying to search for them in areas you won’t be able to reach. If you need to purchase a certain character to obtain the Minikit, the player is forewarned. There are also separate callouts on the page for words of caution, notes, and tips for obtaining True Jedi status.

To make things even easier to find, there are colored tabs on the right pages (as shown to the right) to mark exactly where each mission is in the guide, for both console and DS versions of the game.

The console version of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars has an extensive Hub world, and I know I never would have found the second Hub that opens up more missions without this guide. Why? Because I never once would have thought about flying a ship OUT of the Hub world. I was surprised to even find that the Hub world was mentioned at all in the guide; that’s how much I wouldn’t have thought about exploring outside of the Hub. Everything in the Hub is obvious enough, right? Apparently not in this game.

So despite the minor flaws mentioned above, I cannot recommend this guide enough. For anyone who wants to complete the game 100%, the LEGO Star Wars III: Clone Wars strategy guide is practically a necessity.