God I loved this game*

A lot of people said this game is one of the best Star Wars narratives out there, and I 100% agree. Pretty much all the characters ranged from simple 'not a repainted movie character we swear' types like Zaalbaar and that one R2 copy I forgot the name of, to actually great characters like Carth, Candorus and especially Bastilla. And the worldbuilding of planets like Dantooine, Korriban, and ancient Tatooine were really cool to learn about and explore* in probably my overall favorite Star Wars take since Empire Strikes Back, as well as seeing original older versions of things like troopers and the Sith order (turns out Star Wars can be pretty cool if you don't focus exclusively on one family tree and the dozen people and couple planets that surround it, HUH DISNEY?)

But you, clever reader, have probably noticed a few asterisks dotted throughout my review. And that's because while the writing is top shelf Star Wars, this is also a video game, where you have to interact through gameplay.

The gameplay sucks.

God I hope that remake gets back up and comes out, because the gameplay here exists on a scale of 'tedious but bearable' to 'holy shit who playtested this garbage?' Combat is...mostly fine. You make a build, you get party members, and you take it in turns to kill whatever shows up in front of you, standard RPG stuff. But then certain fights (from named Sith especially after the third planet you visit and they start spamming the move that heals them and hurts your entire party at every opportunity.) are actively frustrating. Same with the planet exploration, with all areas being in two categories. The place where people are, where you get to learn about the conflicts and lore from an often neutral position, making both the Sith and Jedi more interesting as a result. These places are great. But then there's the place where gameplay is, where you hang around an area fighting dudes until you find the plot hook and progress. Rince and repeat until you get to the final area and have dozens of guys thrown at you for ages, fight an annoying final boss, and come away satisfied enough.

Overall, it's peak Star Wars wrapped in a layer of shitty and poorly aged gameplay decisions. I absolutely recommend it, but for the love of god don't be ashamed for playing easy.

Yakuza I love ya but we gotta talk about your addiction to having dudes with guns all over the place in the final stretch of every game, it's becoming a problem. If that was in the Kiwami 1 engine it'd probably be the most unplayable garbage in existence.

Also the main romance was fucking lame.

Everything else was peak tho.