Do not put points into Treat Injury, worst mistake of my life.
Overall it's a very odd game, lots of half-assed ideas while keeping itself very ambitious, 3 different minigames, 8 planets to explore with their own cultures both original and from the films, a real time combat system with a certain degree of freedom of approach, 9 different companions with their own storylines and exclusive missions...
And it's too much, going by the first thing Taris is probably the best of all the planets, it features the most characters, factions, interesting choices, depht, variety in activities; it's also the most challenging gameplay wise since you don't have any exploitative force powers. After that though, Manaan and Tatooine are close in terms of the main quest and side activities; Kashyyk (except for Jolee), Korriban, Dantooine, Yavin, and the last planet are less inspired in their design and main quest, even if Korriban is probably better for an evil character.
The ship minigame and swoop races are an afterthought and nothing would change if they didn't exist; pazaak though, I've probably sunk 10 hours into that, even if it's unfairly designed, frustrating and incentivises savescumming, it's so engaging, I hope they flesh it out in the sequels.
Combat is probably the biggest miss, you barely have to mix your strategy besides the buffs you'll apply to yourself, which makes each encounter very repetitive and one-note. At times it's interesting, being able to first enter rooms in stealth and set up traps adds an extra layers that's barely used (not to mention stealth is rather useless most of the time since the big encounters are scripted) and the force powers are a good addition, but they also make things too easy, infinite healing, 4 different ways to stun enemies, force speed, etc... It conveys how powerful jedi are supposed to be, but doesn't favor combat variety specially since they really diminish the use for non-force allies.
On the companions most of them are fine, Jolee and HK-47 being the stand-outs, I love them, Mission is close but her quest is dull, Carth, Bastila, Juhani, and Canderous are fine but too standart even if the game tries to flesh them out. Zaalbar is boring even if it's funny when you first find him since you realize how much of a gentleman a wookie is, T3-M4 could perfectly not exist, did the mandatory mission with it and never touched it again.
The main narrative is interesting, twists a lot of the narrative of the movies on their heads, actually playing with the elements unlike everything that's being done with Star Wars nowadays; the structure is still a chase of McGuffins but it lends itself well to a videogame. It makes the universe be intriguing again, expandind the history of the world so much, the game understands what made those movies captivating the first place.
In terms of side quests there's a lot of your average fetching and killing akin to RPGs, it does manage to give a lot of them variety though, some very unique like the mysterious box and Jolee's personal quest.
Overall, a good experience, but tries too many things, the last act is such a slow crawl to the ending, you just want it to end already.
Overall it's a very odd game, lots of half-assed ideas while keeping itself very ambitious, 3 different minigames, 8 planets to explore with their own cultures both original and from the films, a real time combat system with a certain degree of freedom of approach, 9 different companions with their own storylines and exclusive missions...
And it's too much, going by the first thing Taris is probably the best of all the planets, it features the most characters, factions, interesting choices, depht, variety in activities; it's also the most challenging gameplay wise since you don't have any exploitative force powers. After that though, Manaan and Tatooine are close in terms of the main quest and side activities; Kashyyk (except for Jolee), Korriban, Dantooine, Yavin, and the last planet are less inspired in their design and main quest, even if Korriban is probably better for an evil character.
The ship minigame and swoop races are an afterthought and nothing would change if they didn't exist; pazaak though, I've probably sunk 10 hours into that, even if it's unfairly designed, frustrating and incentivises savescumming, it's so engaging, I hope they flesh it out in the sequels.
Combat is probably the biggest miss, you barely have to mix your strategy besides the buffs you'll apply to yourself, which makes each encounter very repetitive and one-note. At times it's interesting, being able to first enter rooms in stealth and set up traps adds an extra layers that's barely used (not to mention stealth is rather useless most of the time since the big encounters are scripted) and the force powers are a good addition, but they also make things too easy, infinite healing, 4 different ways to stun enemies, force speed, etc... It conveys how powerful jedi are supposed to be, but doesn't favor combat variety specially since they really diminish the use for non-force allies.
On the companions most of them are fine, Jolee and HK-47 being the stand-outs, I love them, Mission is close but her quest is dull, Carth, Bastila, Juhani, and Canderous are fine but too standart even if the game tries to flesh them out. Zaalbar is boring even if it's funny when you first find him since you realize how much of a gentleman a wookie is, T3-M4 could perfectly not exist, did the mandatory mission with it and never touched it again.
The main narrative is interesting, twists a lot of the narrative of the movies on their heads, actually playing with the elements unlike everything that's being done with Star Wars nowadays; the structure is still a chase of McGuffins but it lends itself well to a videogame. It makes the universe be intriguing again, expandind the history of the world so much, the game understands what made those movies captivating the first place.
In terms of side quests there's a lot of your average fetching and killing akin to RPGs, it does manage to give a lot of them variety though, some very unique like the mysterious box and Jolee's personal quest.
Overall, a good experience, but tries too many things, the last act is such a slow crawl to the ending, you just want it to end already.
Dead_By_Dawn
5 months ago