Overall, very positive.

Graphics - Generally speaking, excellent. The larger world and the smaller environments were usually gorgeous. Not only was the art direction good, but repetition seemed to have been kept to a minimum, which is always nice. Though I do have to take a few notches away due to a combination of some persistent graphical bugs as well as (PC specific gripe incoming) the fact that it's an AMD sponsored title, so the only upscaling tech available was FSR, which is just objectively inferior to Nvidia's implementation of DLSS.

Performance - I follow up arguably the strongest point with probably the weakest. After patches, performance is currently just "ok". It's not terrible, but it's not very good. Some areas are great while other areas become a stuttery mess for no apparent reason, with the saloon being a glaring sore spot. The game is currently playable, but I hope they continue cleaning that up.

Story - I certainly have some quibbles, but overall, I think the story was really solid, especially considering that middle games of trilogies are notoriously difficult to pace. With that said, I'll note two specific quibbles that annoyed me the most. First, if you're going to make me chase a McGuffin, don't insult me by making the McGuffin not ultimately matter. I mean, yeah, having it sets up the post-credit sandbox, but it was still irksome. Second, if you're going to pigeon hole me into an action, just do it. Don't make me "choose". Maybe it irritated me more as an avid RPG gamer, but every time the game made me take an affirmative action to do something I otherwise didn't want to do, it pulled me out of my suspension of disbelief. My complaint about the Bode fight is just the most recent and glaring example for me. I'm ok with a tight narrative game with no choice, but if you're going to railroad me into something I don't like, put it in a cut-scene. Making your gamer scowl while they grudgingly press a button prompt isn't great game design.

Combat - Overall good with some really solid depth and complexity, but god damn, some of the fights are just annoying, and that usually came in two flavors. First, large creatures which spammed unblockable, and sometimes nearly undodgable, attacks while also having extremely fast and tight turn radii. I'm looking at you, Spawn of Oggdo. Second, humanoid enemies that used scripted force pull/choke. Not only is it just an annoying, flow breaking dynamic, but it crashed me out of my suspension of disbelief every single time they didn't immediately murder me. It's like, really, you're strong enough in the force to effortlessly lift me off of my feet and pull me across the room... and then you just drop me in front of you and let me parry your next attack? If you're that powerful, I should be dead. Hell, Cal can't even exert that much power over some higher level mobs. It's just annoyingly immersion breaking.

Fun - Outside of some frustrating points, the game is extremely fun. Combat is usually fulfilling and world traversal is vastly, vastly better than Fallen Order. I genuinely enjoyed getting around the world, especially the more parkour heavy elements. Offhand, I can think of two points that took away from the fun element for me. First, I found the meditation save point dynamic to just be a little frustrating for a gamer in his mid 30's. I've got shite to do, and sometimes I had to force myself to keep playing just to get to a meditation spot. This was further exacerbated by occasional game crashes. The second is more personal preference: I really don't like the lazy "gameplay filler" nonsense by slowly rolling out very simple abilities. Go through an area once? Sorry, come back when you can press one button and go through green fields. Did that? Cool, come back when you can shoot blue darts. Thought you were done? Lulzy. Come back again when you can grapple onto these balloons that are pointless for 90% of the game. Expecting me to go through the same areas over and over and over again is, once again, immersion breaking for me.

I know I've spent more time talking about negatives than positives, but that's more because good things are usually more general and bad points are usually very specific. I would highly recommend the game, especially once the performance issues are fully cleaned up. And if there's anything specific you're curious about, feel free to ask.

This post was edited on 6/6/23 at 9:52 pm