This is a revised rewrite, but it has been so long since the old review that back then the Sequel Trilogy had just begun, and Disney wasn’t quite drowning people in Star Wars related projects and series up the wazoo, and to be honest while i still don’t consider myself a Star Wars fan… fuck if i know what a “Star Wars fan” actually means nowadays.
Nor i do care to properly find out.
I did like it casually enough to play some SW games like this and the sequel, and – as i said before – i would love a Star Wars Musou, which sadly will never happen, and in general i do like people fighting with lightsabers and magical space powers, i’m not above it, absolutely.
Also, while this isn’t the first hack n slash/beat em up based on the property (i remember the home consoles versions of the Episode III tie-in game being that and mostly well received), it was certainly one made because God Of War became popular, so Lucasarts wanted in, as everybody did.
Namco even resurrect their Splatterhouse series to get some of that violent 3D beat em up action.
Before moving to the plot, i’m basing the review on the X360/PS3/PC (well, the X360 one in this case) version of the game developed by Lucasarts itself, i know the Wii and handheld releases had some unique or extra material meant from this but ultimately cut (like a versus duel mode), while missing other content from the main release, alongside other differences due to the hardware downgrade, but i’m not reviewing those or all versions, i’m doing what the company considered the “main” version of the game.
That said, for The Force Unleashed we have an original plot about Starkiller, a secret apprentice of Darth Vader, sent by Lord Helmet himself to kill off Jedi, rebels, even other soldiers of the nazi space empire in order to keep his identity (and existence) a secret to the old Wicked Witch of a galaxy far far away, Palpatine, obviously.
This is supposed to take place between the original trilogy and the prequel one, i’ll take the wiki word for that, though i’m willing to bet a non-small amount of moolah this wasn’t canon nor was ever retconned into being such. Just a hunch.
Even if i do get lost on the meaning of some stuff i’m sure it’s meant to make sense to proper fans of the series (like “order 66”, still don’t know what is it about), the narration is quite enjoyable even from the prospective of a player not really invested into the lore such as myself, and even though i still stand by the fact that the better character is Starkiller’s personal butler/assistant/slave droid (which is telling in itself of overall characterization), i will admit the characters aren’t horrible or anything, and for what is worth, Starkiller himself isn’t nowhere as unlikeable as one could assume, given him being designed to basically be the most OP fuckin character ever.
Speaking of which, gameplay will be indeed very familiar if you played any beat em up/hack n slash game, especially so during the 360/PS3 generation, down to the emphasis on finishers via multiple QTEs, again, because God Of War muscled his way as the “western champion” of the genre (with Devil May Cry as “eastern champion”, if you will) and what developers looked at in hopes of replicating his formula – and more importantly – it’s success.
This being a SW game, it forgoes the usual “light attack-heavy attack” set up as you have a button dedicated to use Force powers, which let you do the usual fun stuff like grabbing enemies and objects from afar, you can do the Force Lightning, create shockwaves, and you can combine this alongside some neat stuff like using the lightsaber like a boomerang to deal with Stormtroopers, Wookies, Imperials and whoever gets in the way of Starkiller.
There is no denying how fun it is to use telekinesis on an enemy, use Force powers to make him become a human electric grenade and then toss him at other foes.
And if you’d think that makes Starkiller very OP…. yes, he really he for most normal enemies, but even on the default medium difficulty enemies will still find ways to make you stand guard and pay attention, it doesn’t become a straight up Dynasty Warriors style affair, bosses are quite decent-good (especially Force users), so even if Starkiller is a tad overpowered, the difficulty curve is well done, so you won’t feel too overpowered to point of being wipe the floor with the mooks, even as you acquire the various extra moves and stat upgrades.
Even though if this is due to enemies eventually using cheap shots as well, like how often enemies can hit even while on the ground or recovering from a downed position, trying to stunlock you with that or some long rang weaponry, and in the final levels there are some difficulty spikes.
Aside from combat, the Force abilities are used in the way you expect, by moving objects or platforms around, use shockwaves to destroy obstacles, activate others, and so on, it’s the expect, typical combination of combat, some enviromental puzzles, a bit of platforming, as it was common for games of this kind and the post-GOW period, but it’s well done, thanks to a good variety of enemies and various locations you visit in the game, some even i can tell taken from the movies.
My only nitpick is that sometimes you will have to basically guess what the game exactly wants you to do, while giving some items you’d think you would need to then use… but not quite, even more when the solution involves doing killing TIE fighters, which isn’t what you’d expect since for the rest of the game these are seen fighting and being destroyed in the background, so you don’t expect to be actually able to interact with them all of a sudden.
That and sometimes the QTE aren’t that self explanatory, which is odd since these happen during the climax, why now are the prompts kinda vague compared to what you’re expect to do?
In terms of character progression, there isn’t much to say, it’s pretty typical stuff: killing enemies and doing creative combo kills nets you experience points, every time you level up you’re given an orb for each of the 3 kinds of upgrades: combos, Force abilities and stats upgrade.
You can also find spheres in the levels to modify the lightsaber, but that means just changing their beam colour and get some passive abilities buff like “% easier to deflect blaster shots with your lightsaber”, there’s no lightsaber crafting or anything like that, sadly.
Presentation is excellent, technically we have instead a solid if not that good looking game of this kind, it still looks fairly decent today, sounds great, performance is also solid, there are some collision errors here and there, with Starkiller on occasion getting stuck in some platforms or the space between platforms, nothing gamebreaking or that can’t be resolved by having the character jump and wiggle about.
My only complaint is that while the original cutscenes look damn good, some use the in-game engine and occasionally the lypsynch is off for Starkiller’s lines, though it could be an issue specific to the italian dubbing (which is also pretty good).
On the standard difficulty and without bothering too much about finding every collectable and doing every side missions, the game will take about 7 hours to finish, about the average-expected for this kind of game, which is single player only, and while some may lament this, i’ve played a good number of these games which had crowbarred multiplayer modes no one cared for, like they stuck one in Blades Of Time, for fuck’s sake, and this game is not designed for co-op.
Once finished, you can go for further runs on harder difficulties, you can mop up the collectables (which include the lightsaber cores you can equip and have them change the lightsaber colors), do the aforementioned side missions you might have missed the first time around, get all the achievements, and there is the expected ensemble of extra: gallery, concept art, extra costumes you can unlock, etc.
The game also had 3 DLC packs, which are included in the Ultimate Sith Edition, on X360 they have their own specific game disk, i assume the same was true for the PS3 release, but anyway these are basically 3 extra levels, one taking place in a specific place of the campaign (and the best one), while the other 2 are “what if” scenario for fanservice sake’s, aren’t that well balanced since “Fallen Starkiller” is even stronger, has all the upgrades and abilities unlocked already, so some boss fights meant to be challenging are more annoying than anything else, and it doesn’t help the “new enemies” like the Wompa are just reskins, in this case of those red imperial guards.
The DLC content doesn’t really amount to much, 1 hour and half of playtime, a bit more if you want to complete/collect everything, and to be honest you don’t miss much by avoiding them, it all smacks of cut content that once it would have been included as an unlockable in the base game, i do remember when that was the “normality”, which feels aeons go.
Star Wars The Force Unleashed is overall a good game of its kind and a good use of the license, so it can be enjoyed even by people less enthused with Star Wars, it could have been a bit beefier but it’s a fun ride with an OP original Star Wars character split between the two sides of the “magic space wizards power struggle”, the story is decent, presentation is quite good as well.
And it is satisfying to hack ns slash people with lightsabers while you make them levitate with your mind for human shield or to make your unfortunate captive foe become a lightning weapon, while retaining a satisfying sense of challenge.
And lots of cinematic QTE finishers, as it was in vogue after God Of War exploded as a franchise.
Starkiller’s tale lives up to the old high expectations SW as a videogaming license used to delive (mostly), and since it was a SW game, it sold pretty well, enough to warrant Lucasarts making a sequel…. one that most would rather forget, and that will be covering very soon.
Heck, Starkiller also made it as a guest unlockable character in Soul Calibur IV, almost forgot, but yes, it was real.
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