time: 50 hours
platform:steam
mods?: vanilla
starting note: this is my first rpg, as i'm guessing for many others, i feel most of my criticism with the game wouldn't really work if i had prior experience in another game that uses the D&D system, also i played throughout the game with a dex build.its more likely i would have a different opinion if played differently.
i want to start this review on a slightly different note, that explains my feelings going into the game. To start i should say i am not a star wars fan, its more than likely because i wasn't alive for the prequel hype, and it never tickled my fancy.With all honesty i felt a huge annoyance for the way they'd use their characters within the universe. i always thought the jawa, bounty hunters/mandolorians and the sith were a lot more interesting than the focus being on the jedi. I know someone who loves star wars and while binging the films i didn't like the fact that the bounty hunters would be shown less than 10 minutes at a time. so to say i went into this without bias would be a huge understatement, but going on this journey was one of the best choices of my life. the game feels worthy of its appreciation among players, and a lot of its credit is very well deserved.If you are someone that doesn't like the rpg side of it than by all means turn the difficulty down and save scum as it is a very heavy story game with a huge amount of discovery involved.
As my title says this is a great rpg to get started with, in fact i liked the amount of choice within things like builds, i even made my own guide which i will link below the review. the amount of play style it offers is next level insane, and its that amount of choice which feels charming, one of my most favorite game; deus ex used the same game design, putting player choice in front of game play. games that make you feel able to play the game as you please are amazing.Now while reading through the review i find the game difficult to look at from a critical stand point. but i believe the game design should be mentioned first. for people who haven't played it, it is worth it although the biggest difficulty spike for a beginner is the amount of choice and understanding the combat system.When i went into this, i found it difficult to find anything useful, most Reddit forums were filled with the best builds in the game with a little amount of forums that actually explain why these builds work, the game isn't just big numbers = good, it offers too much variety to just be put down to that, and as a new beginner its rather difficult. The way i got around this was by restarting the game an hour or two into it, by doing this getting back to the same place will be a lot more efficient while also getting my mind used to the way the game works. for anyone interested i would recommend doing that along with a guide. now with more of a spoiler free review here i want to dig a little deeper into what makes the game so good.
spoilers ahead will be blurred
After leaving taris the game begins to shine especially the progression towards the light saber. in Jedi outcast they had you pick the blaster up for probably a hour or two within the story and this made receiving the light saber feel so much more cooler, it felt like a sense of progression of character development.another thing is the allowance of letting the player chose the approach is one that has felt missing from gaming for a long time, i believe this game proves creative limitation. instead of forcing you down a single route you have so much to chose, the light or dark side, the planet order, the bonds you make and the crew mates you ignore. All of that choice will make you play the game more than once, while i do think the dark side dialogue can be a bit cheesy, when i began i actually agreed with it, in the cynical depth inside of me lol. when you have someone moaning and talking to much, the game gives you the option to snap back, and it provides a variety of response's. With some rpg's i have trouble with what the repercussions are for saying something slightly rude. In quite a few rpgs you may be given the option to be a little rude but when you say it everybody around you wants to cut your throat. it escalates too rapidly, this breaks a lot of immersion for me. This game doesn't have that issue, the game doesn't break immersion, it just floats instead of sinking. and that is far past my expectations. the writing is very well done, I started the game thinking that carth was just whinny and insecure but then when you learn about his son and they have a reunion it felt so real. the way the voice actor acted surprised when carth has when told his son is alive felt insanely real and made me feel compassion for him, despite the fact he is clearly not real.
To move on from the writing and story i want to talk a little about the combat. i believe the combat in the game is great, the enemy scaling feels pretty smooth from troopers to jedi's and the math behind it makes anyone playing think a little more. Its a game that doesn't hold the players hand and just allows experimentation. When it comes to the statistics behind the game you will more than likely play through and realize you didn't optimize your character making you want to play again with all the knowledge you have now or taking a completely different approach.The only downside is that it can feel a little overwhelming.From trying to get into other games that use this type of combat like NWN and bulders gate you begin to realize its definitely one of the more simple games out there, and maybe that is another reason it is so highly rated. its a time strategy game where party planning and positioning works better then splitting up, i can see a few people not enjoying this style which is fine. On a whole though i feel you have to give the combat a good chance by letting the story carry you for the first hour or two, after that you might begin to like it more. I started the game hating the fact that i had to rely on other party members to actually play the game but seeing how they improved from starting by Armour,weapons and giving them certain skills made it so much easier to get into. so to round the combat up i would say give it a fair chance but if it isn't for you then that is fair enough.
lastly i want to wrap the review with a little few things i disagreed with Throughout the game. i have 2 two main issues. For this i will go in progressing order of the story and plot of the game.The first issue is the planet Kashyyyk. This is where the exploration didn't feel that great, and i found it a little pointless, mainly because you don't need to really do the main quest to collect the star map which i didn't like. its very out of place for the pacing of the game ,along with that there was no unique monster unlike Tatooine's kryt dragon and manaan's sea beast. while there is a unique monster it just felt out of place it wasn't necessary to move the plot. Another reason i didn't like the planet is the fact it was a swamp. i'm just not a fan of swamp levels within any games, they are what sewer levels are to fps players. it felt like you had the dunes of Tatooine, the open seas of manaan then you had leech infested water. it isn't really my thing. Now to move on a little later in the game, i want to discuss the star forge base. Now this started pretty well i had went through absolutely destroyed the droids and kept moving.. until... DECK 2. Now when looking up the re spawning enemies in the star forge online, you can see a lot of people talking about how annoying it can be and to this i completely agree.I just cant see from any type of game design view why this would work. The game goes from destroying everything around you to a call of duty zombies match. this part of the game is unfair by any means. if your planning on playing a persuasive talker, this and fighting Darth Malak completely stops you from beating the game. its almost as if the games positives are also its own downfall. i really do believe that this wasn't intended, like how a lot of game developers make enemies more spongy and call it "hard mode" it just felt really cheap. It didn't build suspension to the final confrontation just frustration and i really cant tell what they were thinking in doing this.To figure out how the enemies spawn i did some testing. I found out the game uses triggers, once walked over enemies spawn, to make it worse the triggers are all really close together and they can stack, so if one trigger gives 5 jedi apprentices and then you set another one off once you beat the 5 jed the game throws you another. Honestly this really ruined the games pacing from the hype massively. After completing the game i went to search for a mod that lowers the spawn rate but to my surprise that doesn't exist. if i was to present this game to another audience this is the one thing that i can see people having an issue with. Now while writing parts of the review i watched salt factory's guide for the game and found out his game had several bugs . Luckily i didn't encounter any bugs at all apart from one time one of my save files were corrupted but that's about it. its definitely risky playing the game and from what it seems it can be very random weather your pc can handle it. Clearly the game needs some maintaining to keep a new audience coming into the scene. i have heard of a remake but i haven't seen much information about it.
To end this review i want to say a few last words.This game was worth the money buying it for around 10$ and pumping 50 hours just proves that is the case, it shows that it may just be worth waiting for a 50$ game to go down in price and that is something that has been shown to me throughout trying older games. you are definitely getting your moneys worth because the amount of games i buy for around 50$ and only get about 12 hours of content is criminal.To end it here i feel this game deserves a 5 so bad but i believe it isn't a game that is simple enough for an average player, if you put this game into a child's hands i cant see them keeping their attention on it for too long, the game isn't mario simplistic, its quite on the math side of things another thing that knocks the game a peg is the star forge enemies re spawning its just a weird difficulty spike that ruined my end game experience. i can see people doing this part without an issue so this is all just from my play through from what iv heard people have had far more glitches but i'm guessing you have people on the other side of the scale who has had a great experience without any flaws. it is one of those games that if you call "overrated" you aren't wrong because it seems like the game is inconsistent with other players. it gives of the meme "every super Mario 64 copy is personalized". its obvious that if you play the game and encounter a lot of bugs its easy why you wouldn't like it. I'm guessing those issues are due to time and the bugs of playing it on a modern pc but as i said before i didn't have really anything too game breaking. So in my eyes the game is a high 4/5 its a game i will revisit unlike many other games i have played and it is worth checking out.
the guide. feel free to make a copy :) : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_fzemVh2KhMPaqA2pjommjJun8HTdC0D7w5wh8UnVLc/edit?usp=sharing
EDIT: i forgot to blur the spoilers i apologies. i had this review on private, when i un-privated it, i noticed it didn't hit the home page of grouvee. i copy and pasted the review into another post which sorted the issue. i apologies for anybody who read this before the edit.
