Monday 21 November 2022

Star Wars the Force Unleashed 2 Review

This game is very much the sub par game I beat 11 years ago. I am glad I played it on my remaining days with the PS Premium because buying this game at a con for 5 bucks still wouldn't be worth it. The story is just terrible and everything about the plot feels like a terrible straight to DVD sequel. The writing in the game is just terrible. TFU1 was already hard to make a sequel out of since it had a definitive conclusion but Vader making a fucking clone and never installing any fail safes in case if he turned is just stupid. People bash the mind control chips in TCW but it makes sense why they would be installed. Kota has barely anything to do, Proxy randomly shows up after getting killed by Vader, and all Starkiller wants to do is go after Juno. That Yoda cameo is just laughably bad, he doesn't even take any interest in Starkiller despite being stong in the force. And why would Vader resort to cloning instead of just recruiting someone else for the Rule of Two especially after so many failed attempts? Everyone thinks it's the real Starkiller even though they clearly saw him die. And what exactly made clone Starkiller want to throw away everything and wants to go after Juno to the point where he is willing to give up his life for it? Was it the Yoda cameo? That is really not good enough for me. Everything clone Starkiller wants is Juno and that's it. These plot threads are loose enough as is to make a sequel around. Kota, Juno and Proxy are given nothing to do and all Kota does is scream at cloned Starkiller for the whole game and bark orders at him.

Now the gameplay, while it isn't *that* bad, it's still not good. It's painfully average. TFU2 is more polished but the enemy variety is lacking and while it looks nice and it's cool that dismemberment is in the game, it's just window dressing. And while this game is infamous for it's short length I argue what you do in those 4-5 hours isn't very interesting. The game's campaign just feels undercooked from the lack of enemies to the game's simplistic upgrade tree all the way to the fact that game barely has much going on mechanically and most of the encounters are fighting the same enemies and then a setpiece. The funny thing is that even the setpieces start to become less and less common the more the game goes on after Cato Neimodia there isn't much in the way of any scripted sequences that isn't just a QTE. That and the only way the game ever ramps up any challenge is by shoving in lots of "darkside users" and mech enemies. I had to lower the difficulty to easy because the mechs do so much damage to you and they require you to either actively dodge or wait for you to reflect attacks while other enemies are attacking you from all sides. The combat encounters simpily became more tolerable because I could take more damage. You could say that for the first game too but that game at least had more varied enemies and more interesting enviroments and scenarios by comparison. There is a lock on now, but it can't be toggled and it's useless considering how much the game's combat consist of you getting surronded. So much of the game just feels like the same the opening level on Kamino. The final boss is also Vader and a bunch of defective clones, even that is a downgrade of stakes compared to you fighting Palaptine in the first game.

Good things about the game is the voice acting is solid and Sam Witwer does a good job with the material he is given, the visuals are a massive set up over the first game and the music especially hearing Prequel tracks was also nice.

Overall, not a very good sequel to a game I was just lukewarm on. Not a very good Star Wars game or a very good God of War clone.

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