The Objective –
The Game looked amazing (other than some of Cal’s hair styles). The landscapes and vistas in the game were very screenshot worthy and I found myself taking screenshots of views just because they were cool looking and well rendered. The downside to the improved graphics were some bugs in rendering, with certain textures rendering as flat or white blocks during game play. The controls were also buggy with controller and input lag showing up at very inconvenient times. This was on PC and Xbox One Series X (with an elite controller v2). The game had pauses, stutters, and more than once it crashed without any clear understanding of why. You could be sliding down a zip line one second and on the launch screen the next. These crashes were inconsistent and maddening if you had not hit a meditation/save point recently. Some of the rendering errors were terrible with lightsaber blades and/or blaster shots not rendering in combat.
The length of the campaign is good with enough changes of scenery to keep things going. Respawn increased the interactions with other characters making them feel more a part of the game than before. They can help in combat as well as exploration in some fun and unexpected ways. Respawn also added in more options to customize the Cal, BD-1, your Lightsaber, and Blaster from a visual perspective. If you are into that level of customization, they have you covered here. For combat and force abilities they have expanded them to allow these options to be customized to your tastes. These expanded combat and force abilities grow over the course of the game through exploration and as part of the campaign. When combined with the new Perks system it makes for some interesting options.
From a replay perspective the rather open and customizable nature of Cal and his capabilities do expand the game somewhat as does the Journey+ option where you can replay the game with new perks, and abilities available. Any skill points you acquired during the first run through are given back to you so you can spend them again and all of your selected abilities are cleared. It is an interesting option that I am looking forward to trying out in a few weeks after I have fully finished the game (finding everything).
