March is Yavuz's month! To kick it off we have a Dungeon's and Dragon's style RPG set in the Star Wars universe, thousands of years before the events of the main franchise movies. You wake up on a space ship with no memory, and unfortunately the ship is going down. You play through a brief tutorial segment as you escape before landing on an alien planet, Taris.
From what I understand there are more planets to explore, but this is where I spent the majority of my time playing. It's a city divided into layers based on class and you start out in the upper city in an abandoned apartment. As you explore and speak to the citizens, you learn about the issues the planet is currently facing and the intricate power struggle going on between a crime boss, two rival gangs, and the Sith. On paper this actually sounds kind of odd, but it is explained well and not difficult to follow. Your goal here is to find the Jedi master who was also on your ship and presumably crashed into this planet. Your companion Carth isn't sure if she survived, but you plan to make your way down to the lowest part of the city to look for her.
The backstory for your own character was not yet revealed in the time I played. You can also speak to Carth at any time and probe him for information about his past, but he didn't seem to like to talk about himself too much. In fact, he started to become suspicious of my character's involvement in the crash which had killed so many people. I wish I had gotten more backstory about the characters but I'm sure that is to come.
While I didn't love the controls, which felt clunky, the game otherwise was enjoyable. I was intrigued by the story, which I feel I have only scratched the surface of, and there is dialog literally everywhere which does a great job of building a rich and interesting world. The graphics are about what you'd expect for a game of it's age, though I felt the UI was cramped. There is a lot of text in the item descriptions and scrolling all the time is annoying. Saving also was a three step chore.
Overall, I really struggled with rating this game. I know there is much more to it that I haven't touched on. What I have seen so far I enjoyed, though, so that's why it landed where it did. If I have an extra 100 hours some time…
-Caitlyn
