Kago
1994
Played on modded SNES Classic
Hardcore relic of it's time.
This game has some neat things going for it. I like the aesthetic of the game and the different types of cars are nice. The maps seem decent enough.
This game is just kinda obsolete now though. It suffers from a terrible frame rate and the actual screen of game play is super tiny you can hardly see anything at times.
This game is an interesting relic and nothing more, there is countless other racers that you should play rather than this.
Hardcore relic of it's time.
This game has some neat things going for it. I like the aesthetic of the game and the different types of cars are nice. The maps seem decent enough.
This game is just kinda obsolete now though. It suffers from a terrible frame rate and the actual screen of game play is super tiny you can hardly see anything at times.
This game is an interesting relic and nothing more, there is countless other racers that you should play rather than this.
2023
Another F2P game strongly held back by being a F2P game.
Caliber is a character-based 3rd person shooter heavily influenced by SOCOM, there is PVE and PVP, and while PVE has some merits the real meat and potatoes of this game is the PVP.
So, it's your standard 4v4 elimination rounds, and I personally love elimination round style multiplayer games, I find it much more engaging and intense than a death-match, but much better paced than a battle-royale. Minus some feelings of jank and lag at times, the gun-fights in this game are quite good. Coordinating strategies with your 3 teammates feel awesome and outsmarting your enemy unironically feels tacticool. This phenomenal feeling of tactics, quick reactions, teamwork, and quick deaths create a very enthralling game that I'd easily recommend, but it's the things surrounding this excellent game that bring this down to a 3.
There are an insane amount of characters, or operators, to choose from. They're all based off of real factions and some are pretty sick, they have solid character design and unique abilities, the amount of operators and all the different perks/abilities can feel very overwhelming, but the larger problem arises with upgrading and unlocking them.
I am not a fan of the upgrading system, it puts veteran players at a MAJOR advantage over everyone else, think star cards from SWBF2 2017, where you can grind to unlock perks and stats that just flat out make you better than previously. It is an unfair system and I am not a fan, though admittedly this wouldn't be such a detrimental deal if upgrading and unlocking operators didn't take such a long time.
No really, the grind in this game is absolutely absurd, it takes serious time to upgrade and unlock operators. You must first get the XP to even have the option to upgrade, which can take forever, then you must pay credits to actually upgrade. These credits are either earned through a very harsh grind or with a pretty absurd amount of real money, which sucks.
With so many choices for operators and perks/upgrading being an extremely important advantage, a player must decide what operator they want and stick with that pick for a very long time. Choosing an operator can be very difficult, even going into training and testing out their abilities wont give a proper feel for how they are in-game, so you are basically taking a calculated guess on if this operator will suit you or not, and regardless of the result you are stuck with the operator for, again, a very long time.
I think I've harped on about the F2P woes enough, it just saddens me that such an extremely fun 4v4 SOCOM-like game is stuck with such horrible progression and monetization systems.
I'd still recommend Caliber just expect the F2P nonsense and try to look past it, for the actual game is, to my knowledge, currently the best SOCOM game right now.
Caliber is a character-based 3rd person shooter heavily influenced by SOCOM, there is PVE and PVP, and while PVE has some merits the real meat and potatoes of this game is the PVP.
So, it's your standard 4v4 elimination rounds, and I personally love elimination round style multiplayer games, I find it much more engaging and intense than a death-match, but much better paced than a battle-royale. Minus some feelings of jank and lag at times, the gun-fights in this game are quite good. Coordinating strategies with your 3 teammates feel awesome and outsmarting your enemy unironically feels tacticool. This phenomenal feeling of tactics, quick reactions, teamwork, and quick deaths create a very enthralling game that I'd easily recommend, but it's the things surrounding this excellent game that bring this down to a 3.
There are an insane amount of characters, or operators, to choose from. They're all based off of real factions and some are pretty sick, they have solid character design and unique abilities, the amount of operators and all the different perks/abilities can feel very overwhelming, but the larger problem arises with upgrading and unlocking them.
I am not a fan of the upgrading system, it puts veteran players at a MAJOR advantage over everyone else, think star cards from SWBF2 2017, where you can grind to unlock perks and stats that just flat out make you better than previously. It is an unfair system and I am not a fan, though admittedly this wouldn't be such a detrimental deal if upgrading and unlocking operators didn't take such a long time.
No really, the grind in this game is absolutely absurd, it takes serious time to upgrade and unlock operators. You must first get the XP to even have the option to upgrade, which can take forever, then you must pay credits to actually upgrade. These credits are either earned through a very harsh grind or with a pretty absurd amount of real money, which sucks.
With so many choices for operators and perks/upgrading being an extremely important advantage, a player must decide what operator they want and stick with that pick for a very long time. Choosing an operator can be very difficult, even going into training and testing out their abilities wont give a proper feel for how they are in-game, so you are basically taking a calculated guess on if this operator will suit you or not, and regardless of the result you are stuck with the operator for, again, a very long time.
I think I've harped on about the F2P woes enough, it just saddens me that such an extremely fun 4v4 SOCOM-like game is stuck with such horrible progression and monetization systems.
I'd still recommend Caliber just expect the F2P nonsense and try to look past it, for the actual game is, to my knowledge, currently the best SOCOM game right now.
2006
Anytime FPS games are discussed for the PS2, BLACK will always come to mind.
This game does exactly what it wants to do. It's a no nonsense, down to the grit FPS game.
The game runs around a total of 7 hours, and I think the pacing is pretty good. It offers some stealth but generally this is full on action and explosions from the start to the end. The stealth feels half-baked and just not really put in with much development on it.
The levels are mostly unique and have their own feeling, and the design is pretty damn good, it just flows so well. People always talk about the guns of this game but the levels themselves are really well done and amplify this game.
Now, on the guns, yep, it's awesome. Every gun feels and sounds distinct, they sound visceral and impactful. I think almost every gun I used was fun to play around with. gunfights fill the room with smoke and havoc, it feels exciting. The gunfights are just excellent here.
Now the story, as you may expect from a PS2 FPS game, is bad. It is hard to follow and overall very forgettable, it also ends on a cliffhanger for a sequel that doesn't exist sadly. But y'know, the story isn't really important here.
Also a minor complaint, the friendly soldiers you travel with feel pretty useless, they kill an enemy here and there but generally this feels like a one man army game, you vs a million Russians.
If you're into the FPS genre I'd say give it a try.
This game does exactly what it wants to do. It's a no nonsense, down to the grit FPS game.
The game runs around a total of 7 hours, and I think the pacing is pretty good. It offers some stealth but generally this is full on action and explosions from the start to the end. The stealth feels half-baked and just not really put in with much development on it.
The levels are mostly unique and have their own feeling, and the design is pretty damn good, it just flows so well. People always talk about the guns of this game but the levels themselves are really well done and amplify this game.
Now, on the guns, yep, it's awesome. Every gun feels and sounds distinct, they sound visceral and impactful. I think almost every gun I used was fun to play around with. gunfights fill the room with smoke and havoc, it feels exciting. The gunfights are just excellent here.
Now the story, as you may expect from a PS2 FPS game, is bad. It is hard to follow and overall very forgettable, it also ends on a cliffhanger for a sequel that doesn't exist sadly. But y'know, the story isn't really important here.
Also a minor complaint, the friendly soldiers you travel with feel pretty useless, they kill an enemy here and there but generally this feels like a one man army game, you vs a million Russians.
If you're into the FPS genre I'd say give it a try.
1993
I'd say this is one of the most important games ever made. I know Wolfenstein 3D is that FPS game but DOOM MADE the FPS genre.
The structure is simple, you just run through levels killing demons n shit, collecting keys, opening doors, getting armor and guns, etc. It's a fun time, and this game has really excellent level design for its time, rivaling modern game's level design.
Now, you may get lost in some of these levels, but that's all a part of the journey. The exploring is a big chunk of this game, a lot of these older shooters are like half puzzle and half blow the shit out of enemies. Both halves are quite good here.
The soundtrack is legendary, still great to listen to. The sounds of the guns and the enemies dying is eternally satisfying as well.
There are some random difficulty spikes but you can overcome them with some determination.
Honestly if you don't like this game you just don't like classic FPS games, as far as the "boomer shooter" genre goes, it doesn't get much better than this.
The structure is simple, you just run through levels killing demons n shit, collecting keys, opening doors, getting armor and guns, etc. It's a fun time, and this game has really excellent level design for its time, rivaling modern game's level design.
Now, you may get lost in some of these levels, but that's all a part of the journey. The exploring is a big chunk of this game, a lot of these older shooters are like half puzzle and half blow the shit out of enemies. Both halves are quite good here.
The soundtrack is legendary, still great to listen to. The sounds of the guns and the enemies dying is eternally satisfying as well.
There are some random difficulty spikes but you can overcome them with some determination.
Honestly if you don't like this game you just don't like classic FPS games, as far as the "boomer shooter" genre goes, it doesn't get much better than this.
Obviously this is the greatest game ever made.
I bask in its glory. God has touched down to Humanity and graciously gifted us this masterpiece.
Play it.
I bask in its glory. God has touched down to Humanity and graciously gifted us this masterpiece.
Play it.
I debated if I should even log this DLC, but it is enough of an expansion I think.
This just adds some bonus missions that can give you unique plane parts in the base game. That's really all there is to it, not much to say here!
It's totally fine, some of the upgrades are pretty cool, and uh yeah, that's it.
This just adds some bonus missions that can give you unique plane parts in the base game. That's really all there is to it, not much to say here!
It's totally fine, some of the upgrades are pretty cool, and uh yeah, that's it.
2021
Got it for free on PS Plus
A decent game that resembles Gmod's murder game or TTT or some other games in this genre (Among Us).
The game doesn't feature a tutorial which is quite troubling because there are some mechanics that are confusing upon first experiencing. Bottom line this game really needs a tutorial.
A bug I noticed if a player leaves in the hub area before the game actually begins, the lobby will break. The game overall just seems unpolished.
The game also suffers if people don't use their mics, like it is WAY more fun and interesting if everyone is talking, if no one talks the synths usually win. Seriously people the PS5 controller literally has a built in mic you have no excuses now.
The game itself is alright, I think it has an odd aesthetic but it's ok. I think there is also some big balancing issues, the game is very much so synth-sided. As a human, you need all of your fellow humans to be competent to even have a chance at winning, which in random matchmaking, is unlikely. They need to buff the humans quite a bit.
I really enjoyed the physics and always love when games have VOIP, and the concepts at hand are pretty interesting. I think the gas may go down a bit too fast though, further making it too hard for the humans.
If possible, play this game with friends, use voice chat, and hope for the best. I had a lot of funny moments and had an overall enjoyable time, but this game simply will not last, so play it while you can I guess.
I predict this game will be completely dead within a year, if not sooner.
A decent game that resembles Gmod's murder game or TTT or some other games in this genre (Among Us).
The game doesn't feature a tutorial which is quite troubling because there are some mechanics that are confusing upon first experiencing. Bottom line this game really needs a tutorial.
A bug I noticed if a player leaves in the hub area before the game actually begins, the lobby will break. The game overall just seems unpolished.
The game also suffers if people don't use their mics, like it is WAY more fun and interesting if everyone is talking, if no one talks the synths usually win. Seriously people the PS5 controller literally has a built in mic you have no excuses now.
The game itself is alright, I think it has an odd aesthetic but it's ok. I think there is also some big balancing issues, the game is very much so synth-sided. As a human, you need all of your fellow humans to be competent to even have a chance at winning, which in random matchmaking, is unlikely. They need to buff the humans quite a bit.
I really enjoyed the physics and always love when games have VOIP, and the concepts at hand are pretty interesting. I think the gas may go down a bit too fast though, further making it too hard for the humans.
If possible, play this game with friends, use voice chat, and hope for the best. I had a lot of funny moments and had an overall enjoyable time, but this game simply will not last, so play it while you can I guess.
I predict this game will be completely dead within a year, if not sooner.
1993
No way! It's Star Wars, but chess!
Idk how else to explain it but yeah it's chess themed Star Wars. The thing is between every move animations play, so imagine you move a piece in chess, you now have to sit there and watch the piece slowly walk over to where you placed it all while a little music bit plays, you will hear this same music bit every single time you move that piece.
So, it's really Star Wars themed chess but the pacing of the game is a million times longer because the animations are super slow.
Also like battle chess, every time a piece is taken out, an animation of the two pieces occur, they're pretty unique and cool animations, easily the best part of the game.
Long story short, this game is completely obsolete as why the hell would you ever play this over just regular chess. The novelty of it wears off almost immediately. The best way to enjoy this game is just watching the fighting animations on Youtube.
(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")
Idk how else to explain it but yeah it's chess themed Star Wars. The thing is between every move animations play, so imagine you move a piece in chess, you now have to sit there and watch the piece slowly walk over to where you placed it all while a little music bit plays, you will hear this same music bit every single time you move that piece.
So, it's really Star Wars themed chess but the pacing of the game is a million times longer because the animations are super slow.
Also like battle chess, every time a piece is taken out, an animation of the two pieces occur, they're pretty unique and cool animations, easily the best part of the game.
Long story short, this game is completely obsolete as why the hell would you ever play this over just regular chess. The novelty of it wears off almost immediately. The best way to enjoy this game is just watching the fighting animations on Youtube.
(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")
Alrighty then, another shelved game, I feel bad, but man a lot of games are unnecessarily long. I've put in around 12-13 hours and I'm completely out of motivation to continue and finish the game.
So, the combat is OK, it's a little annoying cause I just want to finish enemies but I can't do it without getting interrupted, also ranged enemies break up flow and have to be addressed or else you'll just die. a lot of the little slashes aren't overly satisfying either. In general, combat is OK, it's nothing incredible but it gets the job done.
The stealth is also alright, it's pretty basic AC level stealth mechanics, which again, is OK, but nothing incredible.
The map is kinda lame. It's small yet very empty, all there is to find is uruk, slave humans, the dog-monster things, ghouls, and some other beasts. The random critters like rats, spiders, birds, etc. are pretty pointless and serve no purpose. I actually like the atmosphere and vibe of the map, but idk man it just doesn't do it for me.
The story is pretty bad. Just super forgettable and boring, I don't really care about any of the characters at all, they're void of any personality.
There's plenty more points I could go into, but after clearing out the first map 100%, and gaining access to the second map, I legitimately just cannot bring myself to continue, I just don't want to play it anymore.
So, the combat is OK, it's a little annoying cause I just want to finish enemies but I can't do it without getting interrupted, also ranged enemies break up flow and have to be addressed or else you'll just die. a lot of the little slashes aren't overly satisfying either. In general, combat is OK, it's nothing incredible but it gets the job done.
The stealth is also alright, it's pretty basic AC level stealth mechanics, which again, is OK, but nothing incredible.
The map is kinda lame. It's small yet very empty, all there is to find is uruk, slave humans, the dog-monster things, ghouls, and some other beasts. The random critters like rats, spiders, birds, etc. are pretty pointless and serve no purpose. I actually like the atmosphere and vibe of the map, but idk man it just doesn't do it for me.
The story is pretty bad. Just super forgettable and boring, I don't really care about any of the characters at all, they're void of any personality.
There's plenty more points I could go into, but after clearing out the first map 100%, and gaining access to the second map, I legitimately just cannot bring myself to continue, I just don't want to play it anymore.
Bomber Crew in Africa!
So, I thought the original Bomber Crew was quite fun but repetitive, a year or so later I decide to play its expansion campaign, the USAAF, and it's just more of the same, thus I dropped it halfway through the campaign.
Switching from Europe to Africa, it's a decent pallet swap, but nothing more. The real game changer is this new plane. It's layout is different and it is far larger, so it is accompanied by a larger crew. There also seems to be a much larger focus on bombing naval targets than in the base game, which is a negative in my opinion.
The new plane is pretty sick, I made it all shiny metal and put "BADASS" on the side in bright red, but it simply doesn't change up gameplay from the base game enough. It just feels like I'm playing the exact same thing again, just a slightly alternative version, and the base game already takes a very long time to complete!
You must also grind upgrades for your ship and crew again, which would be fine but fucking hell it is such a nasty grind. This grind is especially amplified by having more crew members, it's the EXACT same grind from the base game, but slightly longer. I'd reckon a good expansion would've either shrunken the grind considerably or change up the upgrades.
The missions is what really kicked me off this. There's a lot of missions where you must bomb moving boats, which is a major pain in the ass because your pilot doesn't line up with the boats in the way that you'd need to actually land your shot, so the resulting effect is just swarming around a boat forever and just hoping your pilot will actually line you up. It is simply frustrating, they should have focused on other aspects of the base game more.
All in all, this is just a disappointing alternative version of the base game. You get a nice color swap, a larger plane, a longer grind, and more frustrating missions. Not worth checking out unless you absolutely loved the base game.
So, I thought the original Bomber Crew was quite fun but repetitive, a year or so later I decide to play its expansion campaign, the USAAF, and it's just more of the same, thus I dropped it halfway through the campaign.
Switching from Europe to Africa, it's a decent pallet swap, but nothing more. The real game changer is this new plane. It's layout is different and it is far larger, so it is accompanied by a larger crew. There also seems to be a much larger focus on bombing naval targets than in the base game, which is a negative in my opinion.
The new plane is pretty sick, I made it all shiny metal and put "BADASS" on the side in bright red, but it simply doesn't change up gameplay from the base game enough. It just feels like I'm playing the exact same thing again, just a slightly alternative version, and the base game already takes a very long time to complete!
You must also grind upgrades for your ship and crew again, which would be fine but fucking hell it is such a nasty grind. This grind is especially amplified by having more crew members, it's the EXACT same grind from the base game, but slightly longer. I'd reckon a good expansion would've either shrunken the grind considerably or change up the upgrades.
The missions is what really kicked me off this. There's a lot of missions where you must bomb moving boats, which is a major pain in the ass because your pilot doesn't line up with the boats in the way that you'd need to actually land your shot, so the resulting effect is just swarming around a boat forever and just hoping your pilot will actually line you up. It is simply frustrating, they should have focused on other aspects of the base game more.
All in all, this is just a disappointing alternative version of the base game. You get a nice color swap, a larger plane, a longer grind, and more frustrating missions. Not worth checking out unless you absolutely loved the base game.
This DLC can simply just be described as disappointing.
So, this DLC doesn't change up gameplay much at all, except for a new weapon for your ship that is utterly useless and some armor sets, a couple are actually pretty cool. The main focus of this DLC is the story, and it also fills out missions on parts of the map that were otherwise unused in the main campaign.
I was actually enjoying the story of this DLC more than the base game at first. It was actually quite interesting, coherent, and has a lot of mystery going on. Darius is easily the coolest character not just in the DLC, but the entire game, and Neema is alright. But back on topic, about halfway through the story it all just started to fall apart, and it felt rushed. Ideas aren't explored nearly as deep as they should be, and when it all ends I was just thinking "that's it?"
Darius is seemingly the first assassin, is a total badass, and has the first ever hidden blade, he is the best part of this thing, yet we learn almost nothing about him throughout the DLC, and we don't even get the hidden blade after beating the DLC, which feels kinda insulting but I get it.
Another major problem is how disconnected it all feels from the rest of the story. I played this after beating the main game, where I saved all of my family members, killed the cult, and learned that I must protect the gates of Atlantis, yet seemingly none of this matters in the DLC. My character never ONCE tells his wife or father-in-law about the rest of his family, or about his duty with Atlantis, which is a total immersion breaker. Also, I already defeated the cult, yet they are present as enemies during the DLC, which makes no sense. It seems the story was majorly held back by making it accessible while you're going through the main game, I'd have preferred it to be locked until completion so it actually makes sense.
I'm rambling a bit too much, but overall this DLC is more of the same with a disconnected and disappointing story that could've been so much more.
If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.
So, this DLC doesn't change up gameplay much at all, except for a new weapon for your ship that is utterly useless and some armor sets, a couple are actually pretty cool. The main focus of this DLC is the story, and it also fills out missions on parts of the map that were otherwise unused in the main campaign.
I was actually enjoying the story of this DLC more than the base game at first. It was actually quite interesting, coherent, and has a lot of mystery going on. Darius is easily the coolest character not just in the DLC, but the entire game, and Neema is alright. But back on topic, about halfway through the story it all just started to fall apart, and it felt rushed. Ideas aren't explored nearly as deep as they should be, and when it all ends I was just thinking "that's it?"
Darius is seemingly the first assassin, is a total badass, and has the first ever hidden blade, he is the best part of this thing, yet we learn almost nothing about him throughout the DLC, and we don't even get the hidden blade after beating the DLC, which feels kinda insulting but I get it.
Another major problem is how disconnected it all feels from the rest of the story. I played this after beating the main game, where I saved all of my family members, killed the cult, and learned that I must protect the gates of Atlantis, yet seemingly none of this matters in the DLC. My character never ONCE tells his wife or father-in-law about the rest of his family, or about his duty with Atlantis, which is a total immersion breaker. Also, I already defeated the cult, yet they are present as enemies during the DLC, which makes no sense. It seems the story was majorly held back by making it accessible while you're going through the main game, I'd have preferred it to be locked until completion so it actually makes sense.
I'm rambling a bit too much, but overall this DLC is more of the same with a disconnected and disappointing story that could've been so much more.
If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.
I deeply regret wasting my time and actually fully playing through this game. It does not have a SINGULAR good thing going for it, there is nothing redeemable about this game, it is pure, utter garbage.
The platforming is garbage, extremely imprecise, controls horribly, it is actually so frustrating. This platforming makes up the majority of the game, and it's just the worst. The game punishes you for going fast, so you have to slowly finagle around, somehow it manages to be frustrating and boring at the same time.
Combat is also terrible, you mind numbingly mash one button over and over the entire game, only on some enemies where you do the exact same QTE sequence on them, such as the main boss, which you fight like 4 or 5 times, and every time it is the exact same. Combat is so fucking boring in this game.
I decided to play this game mainly cause of the story, I really liked Altair in the first game and figured I wanted more. Unfortunately this game doesn't provide that. I don't know if the creators of this game never played AC1, or just didn't care, but Altair does not act like Altair AT ALL in this game, which is just jarring. He quips like a marvel character or something, and all the enemies talk like batman goons. This and the ugly graphics create a tone that doesn't fit AC at all.
This story is also completely irrelevant to anything else in the entire franchise, and you are missing out on nothing if you skip it. It is a prequel that is completely and utterly meaningless. To make it even worse, it ends on a fucking cliffhanger! They had the audacity to end this on a cliffhanger, just absurd.
Honest to God this may be one of, if not the worst games I've played from the 2000s. It is irredeemably worthless and a waste of time. Stay away at all cost.
If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.
The platforming is garbage, extremely imprecise, controls horribly, it is actually so frustrating. This platforming makes up the majority of the game, and it's just the worst. The game punishes you for going fast, so you have to slowly finagle around, somehow it manages to be frustrating and boring at the same time.
Combat is also terrible, you mind numbingly mash one button over and over the entire game, only on some enemies where you do the exact same QTE sequence on them, such as the main boss, which you fight like 4 or 5 times, and every time it is the exact same. Combat is so fucking boring in this game.
I decided to play this game mainly cause of the story, I really liked Altair in the first game and figured I wanted more. Unfortunately this game doesn't provide that. I don't know if the creators of this game never played AC1, or just didn't care, but Altair does not act like Altair AT ALL in this game, which is just jarring. He quips like a marvel character or something, and all the enemies talk like batman goons. This and the ugly graphics create a tone that doesn't fit AC at all.
This story is also completely irrelevant to anything else in the entire franchise, and you are missing out on nothing if you skip it. It is a prequel that is completely and utterly meaningless. To make it even worse, it ends on a fucking cliffhanger! They had the audacity to end this on a cliffhanger, just absurd.
Honest to God this may be one of, if not the worst games I've played from the 2000s. It is irredeemably worthless and a waste of time. Stay away at all cost.
If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.
Actual hell to play
Beat this one on normal difficulty again, and oh my god it's so difficult. This is LEAGUES harder than the first Super Star Wars, an already difficult game.
This game isn't hard for the right reasons, it hard cause of jank and bullshit. You have to take a lot of leap of faiths, enemies throw stuff at you that is virtually impossible to avoid, the hitboxes on both platforms and enemies is super janky, the levels are just way too long, bosses have way too much health, and it feels like beating bosses is just strokes of luck, as sometimes you win the fight, and other times you lose the fight, despite doing the same thing on both attempts.
The Mode-7 Sections are probably the best parts of the game, specifically the Hoth battle, it's the most fun you will have playing this. Immediately after this section though, you get a 2D Hoth battle that really sucks.
The enemy spam and placement is seriously just a nightmare, it feels like the devs didn't playtest it at all. Even when you figure out how to progress and beat everything, it feels insanely tedious and annoying.
Same as first game, the graphics and audio are superb, but the actual game sucks. fucking 70% of the enemies and bosses in this game aren't even in the actual movie, it's stupid. There's a lot of filler levels and every level feels super long, this game feels way way longer than the first.
Luke having force abilities is cool though lol.
Despite improvements in mode-7 levels and in character abilities, the level design, enemies, and bosses make this game worse than the first one. It is flat out not fun to play. I will never replay this one lol.
(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")
Beat this one on normal difficulty again, and oh my god it's so difficult. This is LEAGUES harder than the first Super Star Wars, an already difficult game.
This game isn't hard for the right reasons, it hard cause of jank and bullshit. You have to take a lot of leap of faiths, enemies throw stuff at you that is virtually impossible to avoid, the hitboxes on both platforms and enemies is super janky, the levels are just way too long, bosses have way too much health, and it feels like beating bosses is just strokes of luck, as sometimes you win the fight, and other times you lose the fight, despite doing the same thing on both attempts.
The Mode-7 Sections are probably the best parts of the game, specifically the Hoth battle, it's the most fun you will have playing this. Immediately after this section though, you get a 2D Hoth battle that really sucks.
The enemy spam and placement is seriously just a nightmare, it feels like the devs didn't playtest it at all. Even when you figure out how to progress and beat everything, it feels insanely tedious and annoying.
Same as first game, the graphics and audio are superb, but the actual game sucks. fucking 70% of the enemies and bosses in this game aren't even in the actual movie, it's stupid. There's a lot of filler levels and every level feels super long, this game feels way way longer than the first.
Luke having force abilities is cool though lol.
Despite improvements in mode-7 levels and in character abilities, the level design, enemies, and bosses make this game worse than the first one. It is flat out not fun to play. I will never replay this one lol.
(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")
Played on PC, at the time of writing this I haven't 100%'ed it but I've played almost 60 hours of it and I feel I'm ready to review it. I plan on 100%ing in the future.
Smoke and Mirrors.
This is an OK game, maybe even a good game. It's the most complete Star Wars game ever made. The most locations, characters, vehicles, and movies ever compiled into one Star Wars game.
I really didn't know how to rate and rank this game as it's extremely similar to the LEGO Star Wars games I grew up with and have bias to, and that means all the issues this game has, the old games also have. But I think it's less excusable here. 15 YEARS later, with like 4 or so years of development, all of the same issues prevalent in the original games are still here. TT games seems to have a poor design philosophy and doesn't think there's any problems with it. And this problem is that the LEGO games are ridiculously easy. The games treat you like an actual moron and holds your hand the entire way. I understand these games are meant for children, but poor game design cannot be excused just because "it's for kids." I was some dumb little kid and I played Star Wars Battlefront 2 all the time, it was engaging, fun, and exciting. I could fail and die and it was OK, the game was still easy enough for me to grasp it while having some challenge to keep me engaged, and the risk of death and failure made things actually exciting. While I still enjoyed the LEGO games, the combat is the weakest aspect of these games by far, and it's completely dull and un-engaging. There is no challenge at ANY TIME during combat, nor is there really any challenge in the entire game. There are ZERO consequences for dying, nothing happens if you die, not even a small checkpoint setback, just NOTHING. And this has been a thing in every LEGO game and I don't understand why they're still using this system, it's so boring. I don't understand why TT games think children brains don't function and can only do the bare minimum. If you can move around a camera, walk, and press a button to attack, this game will be absolutely no challenge to you, and I believe every child that plays video games can beat this game with little to no challenge, that also goes for the older games.
Even with the combos and flashy animations, it is completely braindead, you don't need to press anything other than the attack button, over and over, using combos and whatnot are pointless as you never need to. The AI is braindead and never challenges you at all, they all do the bare minimum. Boss fights are also braindead as they all do the same moves over and over and are ridiculously easy to avoid, not that you need to avoid them because again, there's no consequences for dying. Also for quick time events or any button mashing sections, there is zero consequences for failing them, in fact you literally cannot fail them. I found that was a constant theme of playing this game, is that the game literally doesn't allow you to fail. I recall trying to crash my ship in space and I rammed into rocks and big ships millions of times, and my ship simply couldn't get destroyed. You have to literally TRY to die if you want to die in this game.
Going into specifically boss fights, they just straight up weren't designed for Co-Op most of the time. While player 1 is Luke fighting Vader on Bespin player 2 is R2-D2 and does nothing. While player 1 is Obi-Wan fighting General Grievous, player 2 plays as Cody and just does nothing. While player 1 is Obi-Wan fighting Anakin, player 2 plays as C3PO and R2-D2 and does nothing but chores. Meanwhile in the original game The players get to play as Obi-Wan and Anakin, and actually fight each other at the end of the level. it's awesome. You actually do get to fight your Co-Op partner in The Luke Vs Vader battle on Death Star II, but it's very underdeveloped and a tad buggy, and it's impossible for the player playing as Vader to win the fight, despite this it was the most fun boss fight in the game.
The ship combat in this game is terrible btw. it's so boring and void of any engagement it feels like a chore. Easily some of the worst content of the entire game. The vehicle levels in the old games were actually more fun simply because they were more challenging and entertaining. The ship combat here is just mindlessly aiming at a circle while the enemy AI does literally nothing. The on ground combat is also terrible but we've already discussed that.
Not counting the DLC, there are 384 playable characters, that the game boasts as "unique" which they really aren't, there are more like just 9 character classes, and all the characters play exactly like the other characters in their class. It's not a big deal because this is what I expected, still I just want to point out there's really only 9 type of characters, with some extra random character types like the rancor and wampa, but they can't really do anything. There is also a lot of vehicles in this game, and every single one of them are exactly the same. They sound different and look different, but they all function identically. So what I'm saying is, there is little to no uniqueness between all the characters and ships.
So, combat sucks and is void of any engagement, how about the puzzles? Well, I'll tell you! The puzzles are ludicrously easy and take zero thought. This being a kid game makes easy puzzles more acceptable, but still man oh my god, just so easy. And the little panel puzzles are so lazy, they're ridiculously easy and require no thought, and it's the same content copy and pasted throughout the entire game. Seriously the laziest puzzles I've seen in recent memory. You can even buy a character upgrade that just lets you SKIP the puzzles, a humongous red flag that the puzzles aren't fun and are busy work. ANY GAME THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SKIP PUZZLES MEANS THE PUZZLES ARE POORLY DESIGNED!
Talking about upgrades, there's quite a few! and they're all completely pointless! In fact, I would recommend NOT upgrading simply because it makes a brain dead game even more easy.
With 9 films being included in this game, there's only 5 levels for each movie, but in between the levels you play through the story in the open world. For example, you start Episode I on the Trade Federation Ship and have to fight your way through it, it's cool. I liked the way the open world and the levels were weaved together as you play through the movie. The problem is, once you play through a movie, the open world segments of the movie are completely inaccessible and not re-playable. Once you go through a section of the movie in the open world it's gone forever, the only way to play it again is to make a completely new save file. A design oversight that I wish was addressed as I enjoyed playing through the movie a lot.
Now onto the 5 levels for each movie, it's decent. The pacing is pretty fast, you just FLY through the movies. They get you in and out as fast as possible. For example in episode III, you go straight from killing Count Dooku to killing General Grievous like 2 minutes later, it's insane. At the same time though, there are some levels that just feel like wasted filler. The most notable example is the Level from Episode V where Han and some guy go and repair some radios or something. It never happens in the movie and is a complete waste of time. You don't even see Luke and the Wampa, you instead see Han repair some radios. Really bizarre choice man.
I'm gonna rant about performance for a bit. I have a very powerful computer that can run just about everything I throw at it, but some sections of this game are so poorly optimized that the frame rate chokes extremely hard and is near unplayable. I imagine playing this game on the switch is a nightmare. If my massive PC can't handle this stuff, then I know it's the game being poorly optimized and not on my end. This was at its worse in the droid factory from Episode II. The framerate goes to a slideshow, it's unbearable. Also in some open world sections it chokes extremely hard, most notably on Endor, the framerate is just insufferable. How this has not been fixed or how no one is talking about this is beyond me. The game has also crashed a couple times, at complete random.
Another problem is the DLC characters. they are completely wasted potential. NONE of the DLC characters have any voice-lines, they're all completely mute, which makes them feel out of place among vanilla characters. It's quite disappointing to see some fan favorite characters and they're just completely silent. most of the DLC characters also lack any real special abilities or uniqueness. The characters from the classic pack all just play like their standard counterparts, the characters from the SOLO pack all just play exactly like every other scoundrel character, etc. I'd say the Mandalorian is the most unique character as he has a unique looking gun (still functions the same as every other gun) and a little grogu companion following him around. Ahsoka is the second most unique as she's duel wielding light sabers, and I'm pretty sure she's the only character in the game that does this, so she has unique animations. The Bad Batch DLC was the biggest missed opportunity as every character literally has a unique ability in the show, yet the game just has them all as regular generic soldiers. They could've done so much more with the DLC. Also there is no DLC levels, which sucks considering all the other recent LEGO games have them.
Two huge missing features that you probably already know about are Online Co-Op and a character customizer. I have no idea why Online Co-Op isn't here, it's 2022 and they still don't have it, what are you doing TT. And it blows my mind that they just decide to not put a character customizer in the most ambitious LEGO game yet, when it has been in literally every past LEGO game in this fashion. Huge miss and some more bad choices from TT.
The cut scenes and stuff are OK, there are some funny and charming moments, but with the story being at such a fast pace even the cut-scenes feel abrupt. I think I prefer the cut-scenes of the original games but these ones are good as well.
Now I've been ripping on this game, but I do like it. It's a fun romp through the Star Wars universe and tbh I just enjoy being in the Universe. Mostly all the locations you'd want to explore are here, and are fun to explore. There were a lot of moments that got a smile out of me as a Star Wars fan. A lot of love has been put in to make the worlds of this game feel authentic, and I think the game does that very well. And despite the roster not actually being unique, I enjoyed seeing all the random characters that I recognize, though I have to complain, it's lame that we don't get any force ghosts, no Indiana Jones, and a surprising lack of Jedi characters, while a lot of the roster is filled with random meme characters no one cares about. Also jet-packs and astromechs were nerfed lol.
I'm gonna try to do a conclusion paragraph now OK?
This is a game with more content than we've ever seen in a LEGO game or Star Wars game. It's got more worlds, characters, ships, etc. Than we've ever seen in one package, it's impressive. The Worlds have been lovingly recreated and feel authentic. It's got a decent amount of that LEGO charm we all know and love, but the flaws of a LEGO game are as prevalent as ever. The game-play is void of any engagement or excitement, and just feels like busy work. After 15 years, TT games hasn't bothered fixed any of the core game-play issues that every LEGO game has, and some aspects of it are even worse here than in previous titles. With some terrible design choices, lack of features, poor performance in some areas, and quite poor DLC, I cannot give this game anymore than a 3 out of 5. It is a game that I'd recommend to anyone that loves LEGO and loves Star Wars, but its flaws cannot be ignored. The game is as ambitious as ever, but the age old saying "quality over quantity" rings truer than ever here.
(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")
Smoke and Mirrors.
This is an OK game, maybe even a good game. It's the most complete Star Wars game ever made. The most locations, characters, vehicles, and movies ever compiled into one Star Wars game.
I really didn't know how to rate and rank this game as it's extremely similar to the LEGO Star Wars games I grew up with and have bias to, and that means all the issues this game has, the old games also have. But I think it's less excusable here. 15 YEARS later, with like 4 or so years of development, all of the same issues prevalent in the original games are still here. TT games seems to have a poor design philosophy and doesn't think there's any problems with it. And this problem is that the LEGO games are ridiculously easy. The games treat you like an actual moron and holds your hand the entire way. I understand these games are meant for children, but poor game design cannot be excused just because "it's for kids." I was some dumb little kid and I played Star Wars Battlefront 2 all the time, it was engaging, fun, and exciting. I could fail and die and it was OK, the game was still easy enough for me to grasp it while having some challenge to keep me engaged, and the risk of death and failure made things actually exciting. While I still enjoyed the LEGO games, the combat is the weakest aspect of these games by far, and it's completely dull and un-engaging. There is no challenge at ANY TIME during combat, nor is there really any challenge in the entire game. There are ZERO consequences for dying, nothing happens if you die, not even a small checkpoint setback, just NOTHING. And this has been a thing in every LEGO game and I don't understand why they're still using this system, it's so boring. I don't understand why TT games think children brains don't function and can only do the bare minimum. If you can move around a camera, walk, and press a button to attack, this game will be absolutely no challenge to you, and I believe every child that plays video games can beat this game with little to no challenge, that also goes for the older games.
Even with the combos and flashy animations, it is completely braindead, you don't need to press anything other than the attack button, over and over, using combos and whatnot are pointless as you never need to. The AI is braindead and never challenges you at all, they all do the bare minimum. Boss fights are also braindead as they all do the same moves over and over and are ridiculously easy to avoid, not that you need to avoid them because again, there's no consequences for dying. Also for quick time events or any button mashing sections, there is zero consequences for failing them, in fact you literally cannot fail them. I found that was a constant theme of playing this game, is that the game literally doesn't allow you to fail. I recall trying to crash my ship in space and I rammed into rocks and big ships millions of times, and my ship simply couldn't get destroyed. You have to literally TRY to die if you want to die in this game.
Going into specifically boss fights, they just straight up weren't designed for Co-Op most of the time. While player 1 is Luke fighting Vader on Bespin player 2 is R2-D2 and does nothing. While player 1 is Obi-Wan fighting General Grievous, player 2 plays as Cody and just does nothing. While player 1 is Obi-Wan fighting Anakin, player 2 plays as C3PO and R2-D2 and does nothing but chores. Meanwhile in the original game The players get to play as Obi-Wan and Anakin, and actually fight each other at the end of the level. it's awesome. You actually do get to fight your Co-Op partner in The Luke Vs Vader battle on Death Star II, but it's very underdeveloped and a tad buggy, and it's impossible for the player playing as Vader to win the fight, despite this it was the most fun boss fight in the game.
The ship combat in this game is terrible btw. it's so boring and void of any engagement it feels like a chore. Easily some of the worst content of the entire game. The vehicle levels in the old games were actually more fun simply because they were more challenging and entertaining. The ship combat here is just mindlessly aiming at a circle while the enemy AI does literally nothing. The on ground combat is also terrible but we've already discussed that.
Not counting the DLC, there are 384 playable characters, that the game boasts as "unique" which they really aren't, there are more like just 9 character classes, and all the characters play exactly like the other characters in their class. It's not a big deal because this is what I expected, still I just want to point out there's really only 9 type of characters, with some extra random character types like the rancor and wampa, but they can't really do anything. There is also a lot of vehicles in this game, and every single one of them are exactly the same. They sound different and look different, but they all function identically. So what I'm saying is, there is little to no uniqueness between all the characters and ships.
So, combat sucks and is void of any engagement, how about the puzzles? Well, I'll tell you! The puzzles are ludicrously easy and take zero thought. This being a kid game makes easy puzzles more acceptable, but still man oh my god, just so easy. And the little panel puzzles are so lazy, they're ridiculously easy and require no thought, and it's the same content copy and pasted throughout the entire game. Seriously the laziest puzzles I've seen in recent memory. You can even buy a character upgrade that just lets you SKIP the puzzles, a humongous red flag that the puzzles aren't fun and are busy work. ANY GAME THAT ALLOWS YOU TO SKIP PUZZLES MEANS THE PUZZLES ARE POORLY DESIGNED!
Talking about upgrades, there's quite a few! and they're all completely pointless! In fact, I would recommend NOT upgrading simply because it makes a brain dead game even more easy.
With 9 films being included in this game, there's only 5 levels for each movie, but in between the levels you play through the story in the open world. For example, you start Episode I on the Trade Federation Ship and have to fight your way through it, it's cool. I liked the way the open world and the levels were weaved together as you play through the movie. The problem is, once you play through a movie, the open world segments of the movie are completely inaccessible and not re-playable. Once you go through a section of the movie in the open world it's gone forever, the only way to play it again is to make a completely new save file. A design oversight that I wish was addressed as I enjoyed playing through the movie a lot.
Now onto the 5 levels for each movie, it's decent. The pacing is pretty fast, you just FLY through the movies. They get you in and out as fast as possible. For example in episode III, you go straight from killing Count Dooku to killing General Grievous like 2 minutes later, it's insane. At the same time though, there are some levels that just feel like wasted filler. The most notable example is the Level from Episode V where Han and some guy go and repair some radios or something. It never happens in the movie and is a complete waste of time. You don't even see Luke and the Wampa, you instead see Han repair some radios. Really bizarre choice man.
I'm gonna rant about performance for a bit. I have a very powerful computer that can run just about everything I throw at it, but some sections of this game are so poorly optimized that the frame rate chokes extremely hard and is near unplayable. I imagine playing this game on the switch is a nightmare. If my massive PC can't handle this stuff, then I know it's the game being poorly optimized and not on my end. This was at its worse in the droid factory from Episode II. The framerate goes to a slideshow, it's unbearable. Also in some open world sections it chokes extremely hard, most notably on Endor, the framerate is just insufferable. How this has not been fixed or how no one is talking about this is beyond me. The game has also crashed a couple times, at complete random.
Another problem is the DLC characters. they are completely wasted potential. NONE of the DLC characters have any voice-lines, they're all completely mute, which makes them feel out of place among vanilla characters. It's quite disappointing to see some fan favorite characters and they're just completely silent. most of the DLC characters also lack any real special abilities or uniqueness. The characters from the classic pack all just play like their standard counterparts, the characters from the SOLO pack all just play exactly like every other scoundrel character, etc. I'd say the Mandalorian is the most unique character as he has a unique looking gun (still functions the same as every other gun) and a little grogu companion following him around. Ahsoka is the second most unique as she's duel wielding light sabers, and I'm pretty sure she's the only character in the game that does this, so she has unique animations. The Bad Batch DLC was the biggest missed opportunity as every character literally has a unique ability in the show, yet the game just has them all as regular generic soldiers. They could've done so much more with the DLC. Also there is no DLC levels, which sucks considering all the other recent LEGO games have them.
Two huge missing features that you probably already know about are Online Co-Op and a character customizer. I have no idea why Online Co-Op isn't here, it's 2022 and they still don't have it, what are you doing TT. And it blows my mind that they just decide to not put a character customizer in the most ambitious LEGO game yet, when it has been in literally every past LEGO game in this fashion. Huge miss and some more bad choices from TT.
The cut scenes and stuff are OK, there are some funny and charming moments, but with the story being at such a fast pace even the cut-scenes feel abrupt. I think I prefer the cut-scenes of the original games but these ones are good as well.
Now I've been ripping on this game, but I do like it. It's a fun romp through the Star Wars universe and tbh I just enjoy being in the Universe. Mostly all the locations you'd want to explore are here, and are fun to explore. There were a lot of moments that got a smile out of me as a Star Wars fan. A lot of love has been put in to make the worlds of this game feel authentic, and I think the game does that very well. And despite the roster not actually being unique, I enjoyed seeing all the random characters that I recognize, though I have to complain, it's lame that we don't get any force ghosts, no Indiana Jones, and a surprising lack of Jedi characters, while a lot of the roster is filled with random meme characters no one cares about. Also jet-packs and astromechs were nerfed lol.
I'm gonna try to do a conclusion paragraph now OK?
This is a game with more content than we've ever seen in a LEGO game or Star Wars game. It's got more worlds, characters, ships, etc. Than we've ever seen in one package, it's impressive. The Worlds have been lovingly recreated and feel authentic. It's got a decent amount of that LEGO charm we all know and love, but the flaws of a LEGO game are as prevalent as ever. The game-play is void of any engagement or excitement, and just feels like busy work. After 15 years, TT games hasn't bothered fixed any of the core game-play issues that every LEGO game has, and some aspects of it are even worse here than in previous titles. With some terrible design choices, lack of features, poor performance in some areas, and quite poor DLC, I cannot give this game anymore than a 3 out of 5. It is a game that I'd recommend to anyone that loves LEGO and loves Star Wars, but its flaws cannot be ignored. The game is as ambitious as ever, but the age old saying "quality over quantity" rings truer than ever here.
(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")
Not my favorite game, as I didn't play it growing up, but I think this might be the best game ever made.
Not exaggerating, this game is a goddamn masterpiece, seriously everyone that plays video games should play this game. Everything about this game is just genius. The level design, the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue, and that fucking ending. I thought about that ending for weeks and I still think about it often.
Just play it for god sake.
Not exaggerating, this game is a goddamn masterpiece, seriously everyone that plays video games should play this game. Everything about this game is just genius. The level design, the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue, and that fucking ending. I thought about that ending for weeks and I still think about it often.
Just play it for god sake.