selenicseas | Entries tagged with star wars

I finally got the chance to watch episodes 7-9 about a month after I planned to. Better late than never, I guess?

This set of episodes focuses entirely on Ghorman massacre – from the buildup, to the massacre itself, to the political aftermath on Coruscant. There's another major character death in this arc (Syril), but surprisingly, it happens in the middle of the arc, rather than at the end.

Speaking of Syril, it seemed that he was somehow having second thoughts about the Empire killing people on Ghorman when he had no issue with it happening on Ferrix. Maybe it was because he actually got to know the Ghorman rebels. It's like he was starting to come to the conclusion that the Empire might not be all that…and then he saw Andor and died right after.

I recognized the KX droids not from Rogue One, but Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. They're just as awful here in this show as they were in that game; I absolutely hated having to fight them. I definitely was not expecting this to be where K2-S0 came from.

So, now that Bix has left to somewhere unseen, Cassian has zero ties to his old life. There's nothing preventing him from dedicating himself entirely to the Rebellion now that he has nothing else. There is literally nothing left for him to lose.

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I took my time with these episodes – one per day. I thought it would better allow me to process things, and it did. However, that didn't exactly translate to thoughts that I can easily write down, so this post is going to be much shorter than the previous one.

Now, these three episodes are what I wanted from the show! No elongated introduction – we’re in the thick of things. Syril is an agent for the ISB who pretends to be sympathetic to the Ghorman Front. Kleya and Luthen attend a party in order to remove a listening device, which is probably the tensest scene in episode 6. Wilmon is now working with Saw Gerrera. For how few scenes he had in these episodes, I do have to say that Forest Whittaker absolutely stole the show every single time he appeared.

The Ghorman language really tripped me up. It sounds French, but there are zero identifiable French words. Evidently it's an actual conlang, not just a cipher. I don't think the showrunners could have made it any more obvious that the Ghorman Front is analogous to the French resistance.

It looks like there's going to be at least one major death at the end of every arc – first Brasso, and now Cinta. Honestly, I am expecting everyone who isn't Cassian, Mon Mothma, and Saw to be dead by the end of the season.

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I've been waiting for season 2 of Andor for two and a half years. Once there was a confirmed release schedule, I knew I'd be watching new episodes as soon as I could – not just to avoid spoilers, but also because I like the show and really want to see where it goes next.

Each batch of three episodes in Season 2 is supposed to cover one year of time. I was curious as to how exactly this would be shown on screen. The first three episodes take place over the course of just as many days. At least, that's the case for the storylines following Cassian, Bix, and Mon Mothma. Dedra's storyline isn't particularly tied into the others; it might not be happening concurrently.

This definitely felt like an introduction to the rest of the season. We're introduced to what each character has been and is currently doing. Of all the storylines, I'd say that Mon Mothma's was the strongest, while Cassian's was the weakest. I'm not sure the humor they were going for with the rebel infighting really worked. Or, I might have received it better if it hadn't gone on too long. Cassian's arc here felt like it was padded to meet the length of the other arcs; it could have been shorter.

There is probably a better way to word this, but I think the ultimate purpose of Bix's arc is to show that there isn't a way to avoid getting directly involved in the Rebellion. She, Brasso, and Wilmon have spent the past year living as undocumented workers, trying to live beneath the Empire's suspicion while still assisting Cassian – now an actual Rebel – and it still didn't work. The Empire found them anyway, and they had to escape their new home with Cassian – in a TIE fighter he stole to give to the Rebellion. Their "passive" resistance was forced to become "active" resistance, and it was directly due to the Empire's own actions. If the Empire had never come to Mina-Rau, I imagine Bix and the others would have continued assisting Cassian, but never actually join the Rebellion themselves.

At least, this is where I'm assuming that plotline is going. I could be wrong! We'll find out tomorrow.

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the sequel to Fallen Order, which I played and reviewed back in 2022. Jedi Survivor released in 2023, and like the previous installment in the series, I didn’t play it on release. One, because I typically wait for games to go on sale before I buy them, and two, because I had no idea how the game would perform on PC, which is where I do the vast majority of my gaming.

As it turned out, the game was pretty janky on release – not just on PC, but on console as well. I waited until January 1^st, 2024 to play it, and by that time, the performance on PC was pretty decent. Not perfect, but decent. I got around 60 FPS while playing the game, and did experience a few visual glitches, including textures taking some time to load. Additionally, small pools of water, including all of the water on Tanalorr, consistently had low-quality textures. The rest of the water was fine, so I’m not sure what was going on there.

One very annoying screen that you’ll be seeing a lot if you play on PC is this:
optimizing game files image

This happens every single time you start up the game. It’s not quick, either – at least, it wasn’t for me. I have no idea if the compile time changes depending on your PC specs.

Like the first game, this one says it’s best played with a controller. It’s not lying. This game is obviously not designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard. I didn’t have to remap any of the key bindings like I did with Fallen Order, but I did spend a lot of time hitting Caps Lock when I wanted to hit Tab or Shift.

Even the menus themselves aren’t meant to be used with a mouse and keyboard! There’s a lot of “scrolling” through menus that’s done with Q and E which I imagine are done with the left and right tabs on a controller.

The game plays similarly to the first one, with improvements. Fast travel was added to Meditation Points. The map is no longer as confusing as it was in Fallen Order. There are more lightsaber styles (a single blade, double-bladed saber, two individual sabers, a crossguard saber, and a single saber/blaster combo). I ended up using the blaster a lot, as one thing I found myself wanting in the first game was a way to hit enemies without having to walk right up to them.

In addition to lightsaber and BD-1 customization, Cal himself can be customized. There are more outfits than just ponchos in this game. On the downside, the Mantis has one paintjob the entire game.

While Fallen Order had four major planets, Survivor only has two: Koboh and Jedha. Most of the game takes place on Koboh. It’s the largest planet with most to do, including:

Recruiting people to the saloon
Getting sidequests from the people you recruited to the saloon
Finding fish for the fishtank in the saloon
Collecting seeds to grow in the garden above the saloon
Petting boglings

the rooftop garden

The other planets are Coruscant (where the game starts), the Shattered Moon (which is exactly what it sounds like), Nova Garon, and Tanalorr. Those four really only need to be visited once unless you’re a completionist. Given that most of the collectibles in the game are entirely cosmetic, there’s no real reason to do a 100% run unless that’s your particular preference.

There are two more things added in this game: Force Tears and Meditation Chambers. Both are optional challenges and given non-cosmetic rewards. I didn’t out of my way to find them, but did at least attempt to complete all the ones I found.

There’s a lot of stuff in this game. It’s a lot! I didn’t take much longer to complete this game in comparison to Fallen Order, but I still feel like I spent a lot of time on things completely unrelated to the main story.

Speaking of the main story, I think it goes on too long. After you defeat the person who seems to be the main antagonist of the game, there’s more! You travel to three different locations afterward. The first of those locations contains a plot twist and introduces the real final antagonist. The second two locations are entirely new to the game and cannot be visited before this point.

I finished the game about 5 hours after defeating the decoy final boss. Honestly, it felt like the final chapter went on for way too long. Even though the two final locations were short levels, I just wanted to be done with the game at that point.

Despite all my complaining, I really did like this game a lot. It was a massive improvement on the first game, and I’m eager to see where Respawn goes with the next game. I just hope there’s a better balance between main story and optional content.

Rick the Door Technician: defeated

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Posted to Dreamwidth on 21 October 2024, backdated to 15 July 2022. Originally posted on Wordpress.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a game that came out in 2019. I saw a few things about it over the years, but not enough to pique my attention. Then I watched a few videos of a let's play of the game, saw that there was a trailer for a sequel, and found out that the game was on sale.

The plot of the game is, basically, following the notes of an old Jedi master, Eno Cordova, (who was also an archaeologist who studied the Zeffo civilization) to find a holocron that contains a list of force-sensitive children. I cared less about this and more about the archaeology part of it, because what isn't cool about a Jedi archaeologist?

I waffled back and forth on whether I wanted to 100% the whole game, and then did it anyway. I fully explored each planet, got all databank entries, found all collectibles, unlocked all force powers, and got most of the achievements. Overall, it took around 33 hours.

First of all, some notes/thoughts on the gameplay:

The controls on PC are kind of wonky if you're playing with a mouse and keyboard like I do. The game recommends you use a controller when it first starts up, and it's probably a good idea to do that (I never did). Most of the key bindings are ok, but I had to remap doge to "V" because it was too awkward to hit initially.
There are a lot of force powers/upgrades you can get. I only ever used a few and forgot about the more complex ones.
The map is good and bad. It shows which areas you haven't visited and which doors and pathways are available and which you can't get through. However, everything turns the same kind of blue color after it's been interacted with, which can make it hard to tell what you're looking at.
You have the opportunity to choose an answer to questions you're asked about...four different times. I doubt this has much of an effect on anything aside from a few lines of dialogue, so I'm wondering why it was there to begin with.
You can change the difficulty at any point in the game. There is no penalty for doing so, and there is nothing locked behind a certain difficulty.

I'm going to review each of the four major planets - so no Bracca, Ordo Eris, Ilum, or Nur. I honestly don't have enough thoughts on any of those to bother writing them down.

Bogano

A bogling on Bogano.

This is a Bogling, one of the native species of Bogano. You can get one on your ship, but you can't interact with it.

Bogano is the "starter" planet. It's the smallest and easiest to get around, and aside from Oggdo Bogdo (and the regular Bogdos), there's nothing there that's a serious threat. I will admit that my first encounter with Oggdo Bogdo happened when I fell into the cave and died immediately. I didn't come back to fight it until almost the end of the game.

The other planets are separated into different sections; the loading screens are disguised as things like elevators or gaps in the walls that you go through. There is none of this on Bogano. The entire planet loads at the same time - you can literally see all of it from the landing area. This did cause a little bit of lag at times.

Bogano is populated entirely by animals, both hostile and non-hostile, until the very end of the game when the Empire gets there (then there are stormtroopers). There's stuff left over from a Jedi archaeologist who lived there for a while plenty of remnants of the ancient Zeffo civilization, and some giant animal bones.

Some kind of fossilized Star Wars dinosaur.

Overall, Bogano feels empty in a way that the other planets don't. It's much smaller and there aren't nearly as many enemies as on other planets. This isn't really a bad thing for a video game - it can be good to have a relatively safe, peaceful place to hang out in between stressful missions.

Zeffo

An area of Zeffo.

There is way too much stuff on Zeffo. There are 43 chests on this planet alone, while Bogano has 16, Kashyyyk has 27, and Dathomir has 16. Zeffo also has two ancient Zeffo tombs, ice caves that connect most regions of the map (which is actually good when you want to travel from one place to another in a short amount of time), an Imperial base, and a gigantic crashed ship.

The crashed venator.

It genuinely feels like most of the effort went into this planet. Bogano and Kashyyyk have zero tombs. Dathomir has one, but it's used solely for a boss fight. I don't think anything really would have been lost by moving one of the tombs to another planet.

There are a couple of areas on Zeffo - the ice caves, the Venator crash site, in particular - that are apparently easy to miss (not to me because I always explore everything) because the story doesn't require you to go there. There really isn't anything like this on the other planets. You're forced to visit all or most of the areas on Kashyyyk and Dathomir.

It's definitely a pity that the Venator is so easy to miss, since it (along with the Tomb of Miktrull) is one of the coolest parts of the planet.

Ultimately, Zeffo has way too much going on. It does, however, have some pretty cool visuals.

Part of the Tomb of Miktrull.

Kashyyyk

A large tree on Kashyyyk.

Kashyyyk is...a planet. It has giant trees, giant spiders, giant fireflies, giant slugs, Wookiees, and a bunch of stormtroopers. It's the planet that I think is most disconnected from the main plot. In the end, all you really learn is that you actually need to go to Dathomir. It feels like Kashyyyk is in the game mainly to take up space. It does show how the Empire is impacting people's lives and how they're rebelling, but not really much else.

You also visited Kashyyyk in Knights of the Old Republic, and much to my surprise, some of the enemies were the same. There are also tachs in the game, but thankfully they don't make any sounds like they did in KotOR.

A tach on Kashyyyk.

This is what tachs look like now.

Dathomir

The landscape of Dathomir.

Dathomir is very pretty, but also very intimidating at first. I went there early in the game to check it out, and ended up leaving after a couple of minutes because I realized I was quite underleveled.

"Desolate" would be a good word to describe Dathomir - if it wasn't full of giant spiders, Nightbrothers, and eventually undead Nightsisters. It's a pretty barren world, but feels a lot less empty than Bogano because there are actual people there, living and undead.

This planet is more annoying than the other planets, mostly because there aren't nearly as many shortcuts as there are on the other planets. You can't skip entire areas like on Zeffo. And dealing with the undead Nightsisters became such a pain that I had to actually lower the difficulty because I was sick of being mobbed by enemies and just wanted to get through the place.

There is a tomb on Dathomir, but it consists solely of a boss fight. After the huge detour you have to go through to get to the tomb, I'm not sure I would have liked to explore an entire area, so that's fine with me.

Ominous statues in the Tomb of Kujet

Other Miscellaneous Things

The whole Ordo Eris sequence comes out of nowhere, even if you do listen to your crewmates' conversations. It genuinely doesn't seem like there's enough to support that part of the game existing. It also seems pretty strange that a bounty hunter could track down and kidnap a Jedi while the entire Empire, for some reason, can't do the same. It doesn't really add anything to the game, either.

You have multiple crewmembers - Greeze, Cere, and eventually Merrin - but they don't really do anything outside of cutscenes. They stand around the ship when you're on a planet and sometimes have dialogue that relates to that particular planet. I would have liked more crewmember conversations.

In Conclusion

I liked the game! There are definitely things I would have fixed, but overall it's pretty good. I am definitely going to play the sequel when it comes out (or, most likely, when it goes on sale) and it's likely I'll end up reviewing that one, too.

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Posted to Dreamwidth on 18 October 2024, backdated to 3 May 2021. Originally posted on Wordpress.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is an RPG game by Bioware, released in 2003. I, however, didn't know this game existed until a couple of years ago. I didn't really get into PC gaming until mid-2019, and the first time I played KotOR was in early 2020.

I'd just finished playing Mass Effect 2, so I genuinely wasn't impressed by the game at first. KotOR is rather clunky in comparison - since, you know, it's from 2003 and ME2 is from 2010. It took a while for me to get used to the controls and I genuinely couldn't get into the game. I have zero idea why, since I've played older games and had zero problems with them.

For some reason, in February of this year I thought about replaying KotOR. The thing is, I don't particularly like replaying video games. If there's achievements I've missed or some kind of New Game+, I'll do it, but otherwise? There's no justifiable reason to replay a game when I already own so many unplayed ones.

I actually considered doing a screenshot & text Let's Play of a new KoTOR playthrough. I even wrote a blog post as a test to see what it would look like, but decided against it as it would take way too long. Something like that would take more than 10 blog posts.

So I decided on a review. Perfect justification for replaying a game.

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Playthrough 1: Scout/Jedi Sentinel, Light-side male, 44 hours
Playthrough 2: Scout/Jedi Consular, Light-side female, 31.5 hours

Stat screen for Seraya Dral, the player character.

First things first: this game, like every game, has some bugs.

When a video plays, the game window sometimes minimizes. This is much more of a problem when there are two or three videos back-to-back.
Characters sometimes get stuck after combat. This is something that never happened when I played on my laptop, but happened frequently on my desktop. It's not too much of a problem since most of the time you can just switch to another character and have them lead the party instead, but sometimes all three party characters get stuck, which is a pain. However, this isn't too much of a bad bug because...you can save the game right there and reload the save, which makes it possible for the character to move again.
Party members occasionally get stuck behind part of the geometry and have a hard time getting to you. This has resulted in me trying to exit an area only to be told that I need to gather my party, checking the map, and seeing that a character is halfway across the map. Usually, you have to wait for the character to catch up.
A bug I only encountered on my laptop: the grass can cause a weird graphical glitch in the sky. This can be fixed by turning off the grass in the options menu.

For my second playthrough, I installed the Kotor 1 Community Patch, so I have no idea how many other glitches and bugs there are in the base game.

Secondly, I'm going to review each planet. I think that's the easiest way to start things off. And I'm going to skip talking about the tutorial level (the Endar Spire), because it's pretty much just an introduction to the game mechanics & controls.

Taris

Taris upper city.

Taris is the first planet you end up on. I know a lot of people don't like the planet because it takes up a lot of time and you don't get to become a Jedi until you get to Dantooine (you usually end up at level 8 out of 20 total levels), but I personally think the planet is fine.

You get most of your party members here - Carth, Mission, Zaalbar, Bastila, T3-M4, and Canderous. You can talk to all of those party members and each of them has their own personal quest you can do...except for T3-M4. This droid is obtained for the single purpose of...opening the door to the Sith Base.

One door. You can use T3 to open all the other locked doors in the game, but there are other characters who can do that, too. T3 isn't good in combat, has no personality, you can't have conversations, and it has no personal mission. There is literally no reason for T3 to exist other than as an obligatory droid character. I don't even have any screenshots of this droid.

There are a ton of sidequests on Taris, and you can help a ton of people...which ultimately ends up not mattering at all (except for the experience you get for completing them) since the planet gets destroyed when you leave it.

Dantooine

Dantooine is where you actually get to become a Jedi!

Jedi training.

Dantooine is also the first planet where the grass glitch pops up, since the planet is covered in grass. The planet has quite a few sidequests - mostly stuff that you're tasked to resolve as a Jedi - and the seventh party member: Juhani.

Juhani is one of the two optional party members - rather than persuading her away from the dark side, you can straight up kill her once you meet her. I genuinely don't know why you'd want to do this. Juhani is one of the more useful party members in combat.

There are ruins on Dantooine that are 20,000 years old, because it wouldn't be Star Wars without lots of improbably old things. This is where you learn the main objective of the game: travel to four planets - Tattooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, and Korriban - and use the star maps on those planets to find the Star Forge.

A conversation with Bastila in the ruins.

This is where the game finally opens up. You can travel to any of the four planets in any order you want. You can come back to Dantooine at any time you want before you complete your third planet. You can complete a sidequest on one planet, go to another, complete a few more quests, and go back and forth without penalty - unless you include the docking fees on Manaan as a penalty.

I did actually do a little bit of that in my second playthrough, but primarily stuck to the recommended order of Tatooine -> Kashyyyk -> Manaan -> Korriban.

Tattooine

Maybe it's because Tatooine is the first planet I chose to go to, but I think it's the best planet in the game. Three characters have their personal quests here: Mission, Bastila, and Canderous. You can make a lot of money through swoop racing. You can get your second optional party member, HK-47. And if you do things correctly, you can learn a lot about the backstory of Tatooine.

Also, this is where you first start getting attacked by groups of Dark Jedi.

A conversation with a Dark Jedi.

This isn't really a bad thing, because you get lightsabers from them. Extra lightsabers are always good to have and they sell for quite a bit of money if you don't want to keep them.

HK-47 is the eighth party member you can obtain. He's necessary for negotiating with the Sand People, so if you don't plan on doing that, then it isn't actually necessary to buy him. HK-47 doesn't have a personal quest, but you can repair him (using your Repair skill) over the game to learn more about his backstory.

A conversation wtih HK-47.

I really have to recommend bringing HK-47 along to talk to the Sand People. You will learn a lot about the history of Tatooine and how it relates to things you learn later in the game.

Kashyyyk

For some reason, it feels like there isn't much to do on this planet. It may be because Zaalbar's personal quest takes place here and it's non-optional. A lot of the sidequests here are more integrated into the main story than on other planets.

Kashyyyk is where you meet Jolee Bindo, an old Jedi who apparently doesn't follow the dark or light side of the Force.

A conversation with Jolee Bindo.

Jolee is, in my opinion, the most interesting character in the game. You learn a lot about the Jedi and wars from years ago. And since he's a grey Jedi, he can use both light and dark-side force powers without penalty. This makes Jolee - also in my opinion - another really good combat-oriented character. There's really no reason not to bring him everywhere.

Manaan

Of all the planets, I like Manaan the least. The planet is genuinely too big - four maps for Alto City, one of the Sith base, and a couple for the Hrakert Rift (underwater) sections.

Jolee's personal quest takes place here. His friend, Sunry, is on trial for murder and you're asked to help prove that Sunry is innocent, because Jedi apparently do that sort of thing. I didn't think much of it on my first playthrough, but when I looked up the possible outcomes of the trial, I realized that I had missed a lot of information. On my second playthrough, I made sure to find every piece of information I could and got an entirely different outcome from the trial.

The Hrakert Rift section of Manaan is the shortest section on the planet, but it's the most tedious, because you move extremely slowly while wearing the environment suit.

The sea floor of Manaan.

I think this is what most people hate about the Manaan. I definitely hated it in my first playthrough, but found it not so bad in my second.

Also, what's kind of hilarious is that you can get attacked by Sith when you're at the bottom of the ocean:

A conversation with the Sith at Hrakert Rift.

Yep, you can even ask them how they got down there.

Korriban

Korriban is under control of the Sith. There's even a Sith training academy there, which you have to get into in order to find the location of the planet's star map.

There are also a bunch of Sith archaeologists looking through tombs in the Valley of the Dark Lords, something I thought was more interesting than most things in this game. Maybe it's because I like archaeology?

Talking to a Sith archaeologist.

Carth's personal quest takes place on Korriban, and Juhani can run into an ex-Jedi (now Sith) who she used to know. This only happens if you have her in your party, so I had no idea about it until my second planthrough.

The Unknown World

So after you've gone to all four planets and obtained all four star maps, you find the location of the Star Forge. Then, when you try to go there, you crash-land on another planet. This planet has sidequests, and you can also get money, even though you're past the point where you can buy anything.

I don't want to say much about this planet because it would be going too far into spoiler territory, but it is quite a pretty place.

Looking towards the sea on the Unknown World.

Star Forge

Eventually you actually get to the Star Forge, which is the only place in the game that has respawning enemies. While there's a cutscene where Malak says that all available troops are sent out against you, there's no indication that this means that the waves of enemies do not end. This makes a couple of areas pretty difficult to get past.

Except, of course, if you go into solo mode and move each character from one safe area to another. That pretty much lets you bypass all the fighting. Since you're at level 20 by the time you get to the Star Forge, there's no actual reason to level up any longer.

Here is one frustrating thing that I did not know before going into the final boss the first time: it's just about impossible to defeat the boss if you don't have one out of a couple of specific force powers. In my second playthrough, I made sure I had at least one, and was actually able to defeat the boss.

Additional Things

There are plenty of ridiculous dialogue choices you can make, most of which are dark-aligned. Most of them came across as way too unreasonable for me to consider - like responding to a request for help with threatening to kill people.

You can ask each character about each planet, and all of them have a unique thing to say. You can also have conversations with each character and learn more about them as the story progresses, but the trigger is different with each character. New dialogue appears after the player character levels up, the party members level up, or after you find a new star map. There's no way to know which applies to which character without checking a guide.

Overview

This is a pretty good role-playing game, even if the controls are rather clunky and outdated. Just look up a guide if you want to make sure you don't miss something or build your character in the wrong way. You'll probably want to be able to defeat the final boss on your first playthrough.

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