I really wish I could feel the hype that some people put on this game, but it's just not all there for me. I'll start with the good, though.

The visuals and music were a treat. Stage environments were surprisingly detailed and vibrant, and I enjoyed some of the theming of said levels. The music I didn't find too crazy, but there were some solid and enjoyable tracks sprinkled in for sure!

The rest is where the cracks start to show, unfortunately. Boss design is cheesy and unengaging, with many moves and patterns feeling like they're designed for you to use I-frames and tank hits rather than confronting the boss in any interesting fashion. The levels are better, but not by much. Stage design blends together at times, with few memorable or fulfilling set pieces that make you go "oh man, that's good". None of the level design feels structurally interesting enough to warrant the long stage run-times, either.

Combat does little for me here as well. There doesn't feel like there's much of a reason to fight enemies, especially when the game spams them to the point where it feels almost as if it's encouraged to outright ignore them. Additionally it can really break the pace of some stages when you constantly have to stop-and-go with enemies spawning in odd places, ready to attack the moment they appear.

The story is... fine! I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I didn't dislike it either. What did get me though was some of the pacing. Some scenes reach near classic JRPG length with little to no gameplay to break it up. Conversely, some plot points felt like they were resolved far too quickly with little to no payoff.

Needless to say, I really hope Freedom Planet 2 brings some much-needed improvements to the table, because as of right now I'm really not feeling this formula.

Jedi: Survivor is an amazing sequel that understands what made the first game so great, and uses that to take a huge next step. There are numerous optional areas with plentiful collectibles and upgrades, making every inch of the planets feel rewarding and satisfying to explore. There's also many combat additions, but I do wish there was more of an incentive to try more of them as I found I just stuck to one style that worked for me. The story has a lot of cool ideas, but the execution was rather lackluster so I rarely felt very invested. However, the biggest issue of the game is easily the performance. Even after many performance updates, the game still doesn't always run very well. I encountered innumerable bugs, some of which required me to restart the game to progress. This ruined the flow of what is otherwise an extremely enjoyable game.