Game Review: Star Wars BattleFront 2
Updated: May 27, 2019
Let’s be honest, anything is better than the first one. I am sure a ball of lint covered in decaying cheese from the 90’s would be more entertaining and less of a letdown. Yeah. I went that far. I was salivating of the thought of the first Battlefront, until I played it and felt under disappointment. This time, I waited for all the details to be released before I got excited.
But before we get into why I thought this game was gold, let’s talk about why it wasn’t.
First major speed bump of the game was the micro transaction controversy. I was going to pick up the game at a local video story but once I heard about it, I decided to wait. 3 days later, EA removed the micro transaction processes and unlocked most of the content. From what I read, it caused a 3 billion stock value loss. Personally, I was never a fan of the “micro transaction” concept, and I even recall it being a topic in MGS: V. I hate Season Passes as well. But would always chose the pass over this because it was cost less in the long run.
Second, the control scheme for Jedi/Sith is literally confusing. I think back to the days of Jedi Outcast and wonder why it worked so easily. Yet, in 2003 the lightsaber/Jedi abilities gameplay made sense? During the campaign mission with Luke, I literally had moments where I was straight missing people because they were crouching or slightly around the corner of a box. Also, it felt very clunky and hard to have a fluid experience with abilities. Why not use the control scheme from Force Unleashed? The gameplay was perfect and had more abilities with Star Killer. I felt that was a huge miss.
And finally, as much I am about the praise the Campaign mode, I felt it was extremely short and the main character Iden Versio was essentially a cookie cutter clone of Jyn Erso from Rogue One(Rogue Uno, inside joke to Con Stranger) in look, design, attitude and story in a ways. It’s clearly evident without spoiling anything, that the story will be continued but I feel like this could be more effectively laid out over time rather than covering a 20 year story (not kidding) in a short campaign.
Now time to be positive.
The Campaign was pretty solid. I may have slightly just criticized it, but to have an opportunity to play a story that literally connects Episode 6 to Episode 7 and in a believable story is hard to come by. They took Storm Troopers that were devastated from the destruction of the Death Star during Return of the Jedi, have them see the error in the Empires ways after Order 66 Pt2 being sent out, to becoming a pivotal apart of Episode 7, The Force Awakens. Along the campaign you get to also play as Leia, Han Solo, Luke, Lando and even Kylo Ren in a weird mind bending story. All these character had different types of weapons and abilities that made sure they were just stock characters with different skins on. Han is the best character out of all of them. Don’t worry, there is tons of combat in space to make it a full Star wars. All in all, it was a solid story and look forward to the additions via DLC.
The gameplay for the most part (already discussed lightsaber) was solid. Whether if it was a tie fighter, an X-Wing or even an AT-ST, the controls made sense. The only flaw is that they made it so much fun that it was so easy to get distracted from the storyline. The gameplay for even multiplayer was a huge upgrade from the previous installment and actually made me want to play MP. Which if you read my reviews, I typical go on about how much I hate MP.
Is it worth 79.99? No. But I also feel that game really is worth that. Perhaps 59.99 on a Boxing Day sale would be fine. But really EA, don’t do micro transactions if you want to make money. Idiots.