To say The Force Unleashed 2 is a disappointment would be the understatement of the decade. What few strides it makes in improving upon the issues of the first game are utterly crushed beneath what a ruthlessly boring, lacking in creativity, narratively abominable mess that LucasArts decided to deliver to us. The fact this game was built in nine months MAY be miraculous considering its general state of polish, but its short development time shows in nearly every aspect of the game.
Visually, the game hovers in this strange place of being both better and significantly worse than the first game. The pre-rendered cutscenes are much smoother, including more detail and better animation quality than the original. However, the game frequently intersperses in-game cutscenes that look awful, every character looking like they're made of wax. The environments are often pretty, but far too clean. Gone is the grit, the messiness, the chaotic nature of the varied environments of the first game, all in favor of way too many tight, glossy corridors that make a majority of the game look exactly the same. Paradoxically, the animation quality is both better and worse - there are many instances where the character movements are noticeably smoother and more natural. In other cases, however, they're jerky and stiff. Lightsaber combat no longer has the smooth, artistic flourish of the first game, and Starkiller now looks like he's missing half his animation frames every time he swings his sabers. The slow, smooth build up to charging Force Repulse is now just a quick, awkward motion that lacks the gravitas of the original.
The lack of diverse environments is shocking considering how rich the first game's biodiversity was. The original was able to make Felucia look unique both times we visited, same with Kashyyyk and Raxus Prime. Including the DLC, there were ten unique environments in the first game, three of which were repeated, but all three radically changed and retreading little if any of the same maps. TFU 2 has a startling FOUR environments, one of which (Kamino) is reused and look entirely identical to the first time you're there, and one of which was a non-combat area that existed solely to facilitate a key jangling fan service cutscene. Outside of the admittedly lovely casino/city environment of Cata Neimoidia, 75% of the game is spent running through the hallways of a single space ship and Kamino, with virtually nothing in the way of environmental hazards to use against the enemy like there were in the first game. The game's Endor DLC wasn't even ported over to the PC version, leaving its most interesting and varied environment unplayable to anyone playing this edition of the game.
The gameplay, too, is stunted. While the targeting has been massively improved and there were far fewer instances of unfair deaths at the hands of enemies hitting me while I was down, the combos and force powers have been halved, leaving me with far less variety in combat as the first game. There's a hideous over-reliance on QTEs, even when you're doing something as simple as opening a door. Lightsaber abilities are now tied to the colors (unlike the first game where you had separate crystals for both), forcing you to choose between looks and practicality. Unlike its predecessor's thirteen unique costumes in each level (not including the bonus costumes for both endings of the game, several other optional costumes, and a wealth of different characters you could play as), TFU 2 has a total of FOUR unique costumes across its 7 levels and a scant handful of other costumes, several of which were clearly just ported from the first game.
Narratively, the game is an abomination. The first game was hardly a literary masterwork, but this one takes the cake for one of the most incoherent stories I've ever played. Nominally, it's supposed to be a character story exploring who Starkiller is. Is he a clone? Does it matter? What makes him the man he became in the first game? All of these questions are posed and none of them are explored. Juno is hardly in the game, relegated to a damsel in distress and stripped of her agency entirely. Starkiller, for that matter, is reduced to a bumbling buffoon whose sole objective in the game is to find his girlfriend. He has no motivations beyond that, no care for any other character or force in the game, no desires, no introspection, no development. Were it not for Sam Witwer's ability to squeeze out an excellent performance in spite of the abominable writing, this version of the character would be the most infuriating protagonist in gaming history. Also, Boba Fett is in the game. I decided to include that factoid as an afterthought, considering that the game treated him with the same measure of respect. He appears briefly in a couple cutscenes and does absolutely nothing. He literally had more screentime in the 3 minute boss battle against him in the first game's Tatooine DLC than there is in this entire game.
While the combat can be fun and has certainly improved mechanically, the reduction in abilities and environmental factors that made the original so chaotic and fun leave the experience feeling rather hollow. By the time you get to the overly long, overly easy, and EXTREMELY drawn-out final boss that refuses to end, you'll be begging for the game to end. The atrocious story paired with monotonous level design and shockingly few enemy types leaves this 5 hour experience lacking in nearly every aspect. The challenge mode does nothing to alleviate the lack of content, and several of the challenges feel patently unfair to the point of being downright impossible to get Gold. The fact that the story ends on an embarrassing cliffhanger that makes no sense canonically means that the game is forever left unfinished, its thematic core completely barren and unrealized, and leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I think about this short-lived franchise.
4/10
