This review contains spoilers
For some reason I analyze Star Wars content differently than regular IPs; it's so otherworldly that I don't look at it the same as others. The movies, shows, comics, books, and games I've ingested for some reason transcend their regular forms of media. Star Wars is more. With that being said, here are my thoughts:
The story and characters were excellent and the strongest area of the game. I think this game contributes a LOT to the Star Wars canon and I am anxious to see what happens with Tanalor; the possibilities are endless. My theory is that Cal has been there the entire time building up a new Jedi Order, maybe even a refined Jedi Order with the help of Merrin. If they make a third game I could see them expanding on the saloon idea with an entire Jedi temple and making it even more in-depth. The villains were a little lazy and lackluster, though. The way Degan was introduced felt like a cheap way to bring in a force user who can compete with Cal. I really did not like the Bode twist. Him being a secret Imperial is cool, but an ex-force user? Meh, felt forced and cheap. Rayvis was cool mainly because he's the same species as Durge. And the Darth Vader cameo at the end also felt forced, like it was never built up at all. On the other hand, though, the heroes are all great! I love Cal and feel for his struggle between Light and Dark and how he has been ostracized from the Imperial led galaxy. Merrin is charming as always, and of course BD-1 is the best droid in Star Wars.
The quality of the game was overall excellent with some performance issues. The visual were beautiful and the cinematics were of a high quality, however I did get some noticeable bugs, FPS drops, and rendering issues, all of which I thought we were past on the PS5. Plus some of the cinematics had awkward character motions that were the result of poor optimization. These kinds of things may seem small, but it's the difference between an okay game and a fantastic game. I just got done with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and was blown away by the quality - not a single loading screen, never dropped FPS, had huge sweeping landscapes, and never felt a dip in quality at all.
The gameplay was the weakest are of the game for me and a large part of why I just like this game instead of love it. The combat wasn't as fluid as something like Ghosts of Tsushima or the Arkham games, and I found some of the fighting to just be downright annoying with how clunky it was. I turned the difficulty down to easy and just ran with it to get through the story. The boss fights weren't special either. Throughout the game it got easier, but I can't tell if it got better as the game went on, or if I just got used to the clunkiness. I wish you could have all stances at once and there was never a good reason as to why you couldn't. I don't like the "resting respawns all enemies" system, either, but I recognize that may just be preferences and not indicative of poor game design. I do appreciate the more developed puzzles in this game over the first though. And overall the gameplay was a slight upgrade over the first, but that's not saying much because the first one also severely lacked in this area.
Overall this game expands on and is better than the first in nearly every way. If the combat was better I would've been more interested in side missions after the main campaign, and may even have gone for 100%. Then I could've seen myself giving this a 8 out of 10. But still, even with those gripes I still think this game was great for the Star Wars universe, and I can't wait to see Cal again!
The story and characters were excellent and the strongest area of the game. I think this game contributes a LOT to the Star Wars canon and I am anxious to see what happens with Tanalor; the possibilities are endless. My theory is that Cal has been there the entire time building up a new Jedi Order, maybe even a refined Jedi Order with the help of Merrin. If they make a third game I could see them expanding on the saloon idea with an entire Jedi temple and making it even more in-depth. The villains were a little lazy and lackluster, though. The way Degan was introduced felt like a cheap way to bring in a force user who can compete with Cal. I really did not like the Bode twist. Him being a secret Imperial is cool, but an ex-force user? Meh, felt forced and cheap. Rayvis was cool mainly because he's the same species as Durge. And the Darth Vader cameo at the end also felt forced, like it was never built up at all. On the other hand, though, the heroes are all great! I love Cal and feel for his struggle between Light and Dark and how he has been ostracized from the Imperial led galaxy. Merrin is charming as always, and of course BD-1 is the best droid in Star Wars.
The quality of the game was overall excellent with some performance issues. The visual were beautiful and the cinematics were of a high quality, however I did get some noticeable bugs, FPS drops, and rendering issues, all of which I thought we were past on the PS5. Plus some of the cinematics had awkward character motions that were the result of poor optimization. These kinds of things may seem small, but it's the difference between an okay game and a fantastic game. I just got done with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and was blown away by the quality - not a single loading screen, never dropped FPS, had huge sweeping landscapes, and never felt a dip in quality at all.
The gameplay was the weakest are of the game for me and a large part of why I just like this game instead of love it. The combat wasn't as fluid as something like Ghosts of Tsushima or the Arkham games, and I found some of the fighting to just be downright annoying with how clunky it was. I turned the difficulty down to easy and just ran with it to get through the story. The boss fights weren't special either. Throughout the game it got easier, but I can't tell if it got better as the game went on, or if I just got used to the clunkiness. I wish you could have all stances at once and there was never a good reason as to why you couldn't. I don't like the "resting respawns all enemies" system, either, but I recognize that may just be preferences and not indicative of poor game design. I do appreciate the more developed puzzles in this game over the first though. And overall the gameplay was a slight upgrade over the first, but that's not saying much because the first one also severely lacked in this area.
Overall this game expands on and is better than the first in nearly every way. If the combat was better I would've been more interested in side missions after the main campaign, and may even have gone for 100%. Then I could've seen myself giving this a 8 out of 10. But still, even with those gripes I still think this game was great for the Star Wars universe, and I can't wait to see Cal again!