This review contains spoilers
Underwhelming sequel but fun gameplay
The force unleashed 2 is a direct sequel to the first where you played as Star Killer who was a secret apprentice to Darth Vader. It was a simple idea that was hit with huge success for its level design, character design, story and replay ability. So, the idea of that game getting a sequel makes a lot of sense on paper but man I'm not going to lie to you that it massively disappointed me when I finally got around to playing it.
Force unleashed 2, just like the first game is a 3rd person hack and slash Star Wars game where you play as a secret apprentice to Darth Vader between episodes 3 and 4. This game picks up with a clone of star killer from the first game and running off to find out more on who he is and what happened to his friends and love interest. You travel to multiple planets and reconnect with old allies. You can collect different light saber crystals and outfits while exploring different planets, ships and locations from the Star Wars universe. You also have a much-improved combat system using 2 lightsabers this time and man is the combat fun as hell in this game. You can use the force to pick up objects and move them around to platform off them or use them as weapons to throw at enemies. The different lightsaber animations and combat is crazy satisfying to pull off and I had nothing but a blast with the gameplay this time around. I guess you could say the core gameplay isn't crazy different, like it's still a linear hack and slash style game but the force abilities you use this time around are crazy and overpowered as hell.
Graphics, voice acting & music: Graphically this game looked great for its time and each planet you go to was fairly interesting and was either an original planet or something from the movies. The voice acting here is probably just as good as the first game with Sam Witwer killing it again as star killer. The music wasn’t anything crazy memorable other than the regular Star Wars music you've heard before. This game does have an original soundtrack too, but it wasn't anything that stuck with me.
Story/ SPOILERS: oh man... so based off everything so far it seems like this is a great game, right? And well yeah so far, I love it... until we get farther into the story. In order to talk about it I have to spoil some stuff and I won't talk about the entire plot but the basic idea of it and the endings so stop here if you do not wish to be spoiled. So, this game picks up some months after the good ending to the first game. Darth Vader is making a bunch of Clones of Star Killer trying to make the ultimate appearance that's extremely obedient, so he keeps cloning star killer and the one we play as in this game remembers who he was and escapes the facility. There was also a somewhat minor romance between him and his pilot Juno from the last game and that's now his driving force and basically the only thing he cares about in this game, okay sure. Love is a powerful motivator in storytelling and I'm okay with this, but I guess to me there's something about it that feels a bit out of nowhere in this story. Like in the first game he slowly develops feelings for Juno and he gives her a Lil kiss at the end of that game but aside from that I feel like he didn't spend enough time with her romantically for him to be like straight up obsessed with her In this game and this isn't even the real star killer but again not a huge deal, I just wish there was a bit more to his motivation here. There's a lot I could say about the plot of this game and cloning force users and how it may or may not fit into the bigger Star Wars universe, but I don't dislike it and of course this game takes place more or less in its own timeline so who cares if it breaks lore right? Same can be said with how overpowered he is at this point, I'm just along for the ride. I guess the biggest complaint with this story is how short it is. Force unleashed 1 was roughly 8-9 hours long but this game is like 4-5 hours long. That's crazy short for no reason and the ending or endings feel a little anti-climactic and also both endings feel like they don't make sense in and of themselves for multiple reasons. Basically, you start on kamino, escape, go to a bunch of planets and find yourself back at kamino just for the game to end and yeah that's it. I guess I don't have an answer for what I was expecting the ending to be but fighting faulty Clones felt a bit goofy and having a rematch with Vader isn't a bad thing, but it was a bit underwhelming to me like an “aw sh*t here we go again” kinda feeling. It feels like we are right back where we started at the end of the first game where he either chooses his friends or to kill Darth Vader and honestly Star Killer doesn’t feel like he’s really grown all that much as a character either, like what does this journey really accomplish for him by the end? The 2 endings you get also make no sense. If you pick the good ending Juno doesn't die from her fall and you capture Darth Vader (which to me feels silly as hell, like any restraint would hold this dude? Like okay sure.) Also, I don't understand the bad ending. In the first game you either took Darth Vader’s place or sacrificed yourself to save your friends but in this game you either capture Vader and Juno somehow survives, or you try to kill Vader but instead are killed by a random evil clone and everyone basically dies by being pushed off the edge of the platform and it all just feels rushed and all forced. Like how does the evil ending contrast with the good one? Does the evil clone just not exist in the good ending timeline and why? What about killing Vader causes an entirely new character to suddenly exist? I feel like this wasn’t really thought through in the writing room. This all goes without saying, clearly this story is far from the regular Star Wars timeline at this point. I mean the first game you could probably make some stupid argument that the game could have still existed in the timeline before a new hope but where this one ends… yeah, there's no way in hell it could but I mean ultimately that's okay and this story honestly works better in its own universe either way. It's an overall fun story I just wish more time went into it. Evil clones can absolutely work it just feels random with how they did it in this game. Everything except the gameplay has this superficial feeling like it was rushed and pushed out the door for money and as for the dlc? Well, just like the first game, it goes off the bad ending and continues that idea that an evil star killer can kill basically all the mainline hero’s and it is fun for sure and both the dlc and main story endings all leave off on these wacky cliffhangers for the sequel that we unfortunately never got and probably never will. I think that's the thing that hurts the most about this game is that we got a short middle game that left off on an unsatisfactory mark not having a satisfying conclusion. A conclusion they probably planned to finish in a 3rd game that probably will sadly never happen.
6.5/10
The force unleashed 2 is a direct sequel to the first where you played as Star Killer who was a secret apprentice to Darth Vader. It was a simple idea that was hit with huge success for its level design, character design, story and replay ability. So, the idea of that game getting a sequel makes a lot of sense on paper but man I'm not going to lie to you that it massively disappointed me when I finally got around to playing it.
Force unleashed 2, just like the first game is a 3rd person hack and slash Star Wars game where you play as a secret apprentice to Darth Vader between episodes 3 and 4. This game picks up with a clone of star killer from the first game and running off to find out more on who he is and what happened to his friends and love interest. You travel to multiple planets and reconnect with old allies. You can collect different light saber crystals and outfits while exploring different planets, ships and locations from the Star Wars universe. You also have a much-improved combat system using 2 lightsabers this time and man is the combat fun as hell in this game. You can use the force to pick up objects and move them around to platform off them or use them as weapons to throw at enemies. The different lightsaber animations and combat is crazy satisfying to pull off and I had nothing but a blast with the gameplay this time around. I guess you could say the core gameplay isn't crazy different, like it's still a linear hack and slash style game but the force abilities you use this time around are crazy and overpowered as hell.
Graphics, voice acting & music: Graphically this game looked great for its time and each planet you go to was fairly interesting and was either an original planet or something from the movies. The voice acting here is probably just as good as the first game with Sam Witwer killing it again as star killer. The music wasn’t anything crazy memorable other than the regular Star Wars music you've heard before. This game does have an original soundtrack too, but it wasn't anything that stuck with me.
Story/ SPOILERS: oh man... so based off everything so far it seems like this is a great game, right? And well yeah so far, I love it... until we get farther into the story. In order to talk about it I have to spoil some stuff and I won't talk about the entire plot but the basic idea of it and the endings so stop here if you do not wish to be spoiled. So, this game picks up some months after the good ending to the first game. Darth Vader is making a bunch of Clones of Star Killer trying to make the ultimate appearance that's extremely obedient, so he keeps cloning star killer and the one we play as in this game remembers who he was and escapes the facility. There was also a somewhat minor romance between him and his pilot Juno from the last game and that's now his driving force and basically the only thing he cares about in this game, okay sure. Love is a powerful motivator in storytelling and I'm okay with this, but I guess to me there's something about it that feels a bit out of nowhere in this story. Like in the first game he slowly develops feelings for Juno and he gives her a Lil kiss at the end of that game but aside from that I feel like he didn't spend enough time with her romantically for him to be like straight up obsessed with her In this game and this isn't even the real star killer but again not a huge deal, I just wish there was a bit more to his motivation here. There's a lot I could say about the plot of this game and cloning force users and how it may or may not fit into the bigger Star Wars universe, but I don't dislike it and of course this game takes place more or less in its own timeline so who cares if it breaks lore right? Same can be said with how overpowered he is at this point, I'm just along for the ride. I guess the biggest complaint with this story is how short it is. Force unleashed 1 was roughly 8-9 hours long but this game is like 4-5 hours long. That's crazy short for no reason and the ending or endings feel a little anti-climactic and also both endings feel like they don't make sense in and of themselves for multiple reasons. Basically, you start on kamino, escape, go to a bunch of planets and find yourself back at kamino just for the game to end and yeah that's it. I guess I don't have an answer for what I was expecting the ending to be but fighting faulty Clones felt a bit goofy and having a rematch with Vader isn't a bad thing, but it was a bit underwhelming to me like an “aw sh*t here we go again” kinda feeling. It feels like we are right back where we started at the end of the first game where he either chooses his friends or to kill Darth Vader and honestly Star Killer doesn’t feel like he’s really grown all that much as a character either, like what does this journey really accomplish for him by the end? The 2 endings you get also make no sense. If you pick the good ending Juno doesn't die from her fall and you capture Darth Vader (which to me feels silly as hell, like any restraint would hold this dude? Like okay sure.) Also, I don't understand the bad ending. In the first game you either took Darth Vader’s place or sacrificed yourself to save your friends but in this game you either capture Vader and Juno somehow survives, or you try to kill Vader but instead are killed by a random evil clone and everyone basically dies by being pushed off the edge of the platform and it all just feels rushed and all forced. Like how does the evil ending contrast with the good one? Does the evil clone just not exist in the good ending timeline and why? What about killing Vader causes an entirely new character to suddenly exist? I feel like this wasn’t really thought through in the writing room. This all goes without saying, clearly this story is far from the regular Star Wars timeline at this point. I mean the first game you could probably make some stupid argument that the game could have still existed in the timeline before a new hope but where this one ends… yeah, there's no way in hell it could but I mean ultimately that's okay and this story honestly works better in its own universe either way. It's an overall fun story I just wish more time went into it. Evil clones can absolutely work it just feels random with how they did it in this game. Everything except the gameplay has this superficial feeling like it was rushed and pushed out the door for money and as for the dlc? Well, just like the first game, it goes off the bad ending and continues that idea that an evil star killer can kill basically all the mainline hero’s and it is fun for sure and both the dlc and main story endings all leave off on these wacky cliffhangers for the sequel that we unfortunately never got and probably never will. I think that's the thing that hurts the most about this game is that we got a short middle game that left off on an unsatisfactory mark not having a satisfying conclusion. A conclusion they probably planned to finish in a 3rd game that probably will sadly never happen.
6.5/10
2 Comments
Yeah I always wondered where they were gonna go from here with a 3rd game, I have a feeling it would have been a much stronger entry than 2 but who knows.
LeonardoMF93
1 month ago