Star Wars: Battlefront II is one of my favorite games of all-time. I played it endlessly as a kid, and even when I got the first Battlefront second-hand later, despite having already played hundreds of hours of the second, I really didn't spend nearly as much time with the original. In the years since, I've continued to revisit Battlefront II across PC and Xbox Series X, barely returning to this first game. Having now replayed the campaigns and messed around in both Galactic Conquest and Instant Action, playing this game deliberately for the first time since I was probably nine or ten, I now realize why.
Everything that I love about Battlefront generally is here, but everything feels clumsier. The guns feel less precise, the movement feels stilted (why would I ever bother going prone), and the units are unbalanced. The Droidekas make playing as the Clones on any non-vehicle map an exercise in frustration, and the inability to do double-zoom a sniper scope as that faction is frustrating too.
There's no doubt that Battlefront simply has a different pace than its sequel - no sprint, no forwards roll, no changing classes at control points, etc. And to that end, these mechanical differences do lend a certain feel to this game than II, but it's not one I prefer. The balance just doesn't feel right to me, and the more arcade-like sensibilities of II are what put it in my top-tier.
I'm hammering in on my complaints largely just to try and articulate why there's a star-and-a-half difference between my score here and my score of the second game, which launched a year later and repurposes these bones entirely.
After all, I'd still rather play Battlefront I than most games that exist; the map selection here is great, certain units like the Dark Trooper are among the most fun in series history, the intrinsic excitement of a conquest match is pretty phenomenal. There's a reason that these games are lauded as being among the very best Star Wars games.
And yes, I am playing via the collection (on Switch). If, like me, you're just trying to play offline it's largely flawless.
Everything that I love about Battlefront generally is here, but everything feels clumsier. The guns feel less precise, the movement feels stilted (why would I ever bother going prone), and the units are unbalanced. The Droidekas make playing as the Clones on any non-vehicle map an exercise in frustration, and the inability to do double-zoom a sniper scope as that faction is frustrating too.
There's no doubt that Battlefront simply has a different pace than its sequel - no sprint, no forwards roll, no changing classes at control points, etc. And to that end, these mechanical differences do lend a certain feel to this game than II, but it's not one I prefer. The balance just doesn't feel right to me, and the more arcade-like sensibilities of II are what put it in my top-tier.
I'm hammering in on my complaints largely just to try and articulate why there's a star-and-a-half difference between my score here and my score of the second game, which launched a year later and repurposes these bones entirely.
After all, I'd still rather play Battlefront I than most games that exist; the map selection here is great, certain units like the Dark Trooper are among the most fun in series history, the intrinsic excitement of a conquest match is pretty phenomenal. There's a reason that these games are lauded as being among the very best Star Wars games.
And yes, I am playing via the collection (on Switch). If, like me, you're just trying to play offline it's largely flawless.