Where it Shines:
Story - 7/10
Combat - 8.5/10
Setpieces - 7/10

The Good:
Eastern Exorcist surprised me. I expected a pretty unpolished rushed game, but it's actually really well thought out and has a lot of depth. The key takeaways for me are:
- The combat system is quite complex, with lots of combos, counters, special abilities, and upgrades
- The bosses are really fun
- The story is far better than it needs to be for this type of game
- The backdrops and locales are all highly memorable with very well thought out shots and sequences.
- There's not enough games out there that branch out of the typical medieval high fantasy backdrop, so it's extremely refreshing to see chinese lore and history represented, which is far more interesting to experience and look at anyway.
- Lots of challenges and trials and other extra content.

The Bad:
It's not without it's flaws.
- The ending is very...ubrupt? You spend the whole game trying to accomplish a particular task, and then you beat the last boss and there's a very brief cutscene that basically just says "And then you did the thing you were trying to do, the end."
- The cutscenes are very bland. Think early 2000's flash animations
- In that vein, the character models also reek of that flash animation style, where it looks like their appendages are pinned to their joints and just bobbing around like a bad paper cutout art project
- the music is pretty nonexistent. This game could have had some amazing classical Chinese influences inspiring it's score, but it feels very placeholder and lazy. It's not bad, just completely unmemorable.
- the difficulty curve is sort of all over the place. Playing on story mode felt challenging even at the beginning, and I died a few times. But as you progress, it gets laughably easy. I think the game suffers from an inverse difficulty curve like Breath of the Wild did - too hard at the beginning, too easy at the end. It's probably best enjoyed on normal difficulty or higher, but be prepared for the beginning to be annoying. It does have a NG+ mode though, if you felt like replaying it and notching up the difficulty each time.

Summary:
This game surprised me. It always peaked my interest, and I managed to squeeze it in this year seeing how short the playthrough time was. I'm glad I did. It's not one of my all time favourites or anything, but if you want a short, fun, combat heavy game, set in a more interesting world and with a decent story, this is definitely a great choice. I hope the studio makes more games and comes out with more polished products in the future.

Note on my ratings:

Treat my stars like Michelin Stars - just having one means the game is worth playing in some way.

1/2 ⭐: hot trash garbage, since you can't do zero stars here
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite

Where it Shines:
Fun with Friends - 7/10
It's Star Wars - 6/10

The Good:
So of course on release this game was infamously derided, and well deserved. But years later, with all the content unlocked and the game dirt cheap or available on gamepass, it's actually not a bad game.
Just squading up with some pals and playing on vc is a fun experience, and the game can really be a great quick jump in and play with friends game.

The Bad:
Unfortunately, that's kind of were the good stuff ends. It's a shadow of the original, especially in terms of the single player, and there's a lot of jank and unbalanced stuff at the core of the experience.
To top it off, there are a lot of wonky things to try and even party up and play. It's not as straightforward as you'd think, and sometimes it just doesn't even work.
It's EA so there's also the stinking turd residue of that company all over it.

Summary:
If it wasn't a Star Wars game, it would be DOA. But it has survived off of that alone. Is it worth playing? Maybe, maybe not. You're not missing anything by skipping it. But if you just want to shooter bro with your friends, it's not a bad choice.

Note on my ratings:

Treat my stars like Michelin Stars - just having one means the game is worth playing in some way.

1/2 ⭐: hot trash garbage, since you can't do zero stars here
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite

Where it Shines:
Dungeoncrawler x Deckbuilder - 10/10
Sound Design - 10/10
Tapping AI lands during their upkeep so they take manaburn - 10/10

The Good:
This game was my freakin childhood bro.
They don't make stuff like this anymore. The combination of isometric dungeoncrawler rpg with the battles all being magic is just so amazing. I would pay 100 bucks new for a game like this today. It will never happen though.

The Bad:
You can't really play it on modern computers anymore, it's old and it's very clunky and buggy.

Summary:
You may not like it, but this is what peak MTG looks like.

Note on my ratings:

Treat my stars like Michelin Stars - just having one means the game is worth playing in some way.

1/2 ⭐: hot trash garbage, since you can't do zero stars here
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite