Embrace the jankiness.



It is an ambitious follow up to the perfectly acceptable Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, although without Wookiees or very many Inquisitors, or... hm, actually, is this game ambitious? I think there were attempts to add a number of side quests and activities that ended up sort of half-baked. The bounty hunting was definitely a thing that was added that I only accidentally completed any of. I planted a garden, but it seemed difficult to figure out what the garden was good for. Honestly, a lot of the rewards were just decoration, anyways. By the end of my playthrough, I forgot to spend most of the currencies I found, stopped trying to make my saber, blaster, robot friend, or even myself look cool. Maybe this is just a long metaphor for the effects of depression.

I did like the story, to be fair. It wasn't as solid as the first game but, after it got going about a third of the way through, it did have some excitement and the big twist was fine. Although, Merrin was one of my favorite Star Wars characters after the first game and in this one she was bad ass but didn't have as compelling of a growth arc. There also wasn't that many worlds to explore, was there? And I was often distracted from the story by looking at all the visual anomalies like white polygons flashing on the edge of the screen when rotating, or weird pop-ins during cutscenes, or animals getting stuck 3ft above the ground, and that one time that the sound just stopped working for me... Oh, and I really came to hate the fighting system, even after I turned the difficulty to Padawan level. I want to react to what's happening, not memorize a series of enemy moves. It seemed that every time I wanted to block an incoming strike, I'd be in the middle of a different action and unable to stop spinning around or whatever until it finished. Perhaps others like this style better but it is the downfall of many a game for me, unfortunately.

So, it's a fine story with an annoying battle style and not enough ambition or quality, I think. It is Star Wars however, so I'll probably get the third game too, I guess.

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