STAR WARS Zero Company™

This game is difficult to review. The idea and premise of the story arc is excellent. I would argue that ii is the best Star Wars since George sold his child into Disney's slavery. But there is huge DEI flavoured turd shoved into the game smearing a lot of its contents. Which is depressingly sad. Game also seem to have its wings clipped and rushed into the store. With enough modding it will be amazing but for now I'd argue to get it at heavy discount to discourage further DEI initiatives ruining entertainment and more importantly lowering storytelling quality and vandalizing established IPs for sake of contemporary, fake 'activism' for dumb, fake 'causes'. GOOD (+) main story and its setting in SW universe (+) base gameplay loop idea (+) some of story character's abilities design and in-game interactions/combos (+) it's decent xcom in SW universe, what's not to like? (+) AP and advantage system is decent innovation F@#*ING BAD (-) usual DEI turds galore: * body types instead of plain male/female selection, * bastardization of femininity - deliberate facial 'uglification' of female facial features, deliberate removal of all secondary sexual characteristics from female characters (as if they never went through puberty), * removal of 'white' phenotypes (caucassian, nordic, slavic etc.) from facial customization pool * vitiligo applicable to every species as main separate toggle... I get that this is USA DEI racists at work (aka consultants sent in by publishers and IP partner's) but this gets really absurd at this point. Nothing that mods can't fix, but why modders should carry this burden and developers need toe this stupid racist and sexist line? Because of USA's domestic politics? Just stop with it already. (-) possible custom hires (great as concept) are sub-par to story characters and are eventually only good for passive FP generation for characters that matter (-) contemporary DEI story writing in side characters mission and neutral side mission; there is a lot of cringe but also most importantly idiotic inconsistent, gibberish writing. To keep spoilers to minimum, single example: character has a husband that leads clan but loses honour duel and is supposed to merge clans, decides to flee with his clan instead, then decides that best way to make money is to murder everyone in it but 3 other people and steal their ♥♥♥♥ (yes, wife and his family included) then his wife miraculously survives and and chases these murderers, eventually catches husband, he says he is sorry for what he did, she just kills him, main character of the game comments they can relate because they were married once too. The end... literally the end, all context we ever get. (-) recruitable clone troopers as unlock = random generated non-jango looking dudes with (you know it) vitiligo (-) no meaningful choices in the story, even though we are given choices throughout with heavy handed guidance what to pick (what is 'correct') (-) operations and missions timing were not QA-ed properly so they can lead to very stupid situations blocking you from completing certain missions/operations at random, removing of player planning and their agency (-) missions get repetitive and bosses just encourage builds that one shot them in initial turn (-) main character with insights and 'panache' of single, wine-aunt posting on X (there are few good lines but in general it looks like it was gutted and re-written from ex-soldier to this slop) (-) issues with stuttering on loading new enemies to map and sometimes them loading into places outside of playfield (no way to target them, no way for them to come out on their turn if your objective happens to be eliminate all enemies you need to restart mission) (-) endless waves in missions, just lazy design; lets you farm bonds between characters but at some point this is really immersion breaking for tactical x-com like game imo (-) no drops on enemies, no experience, no nothing, it doesn't matter who does what in mission beyond bond farming which is related mostly to who assists whom - feels more like sims like than xcom like in this regard (-) most weapons and base upgrades are pointless and uninteresting (-) clone troopers unlock in story is just cosmetic (no new classes, specializations, weapons or traits) and immersion breaking to boot (clone troopers that aren't jango clones) (-) no feminine garments in customization and armour at all (-) customization 'unlocks' seem the most boring copy-paste, unimaginative, added to just be there in last minute thing and it's locked to few pre-set shades when it comes to available colours (-) few weapons and their viability, pistol and repeater are vastly superior to other 2 weapons