Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Revisited

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was a follow-up to one of the more interesting takes on the Star Wars franchise giving us a non-canon look at things. This sequel follows Starkiller's clone and his big escape towards finding identity after the true character had everything taken away from him. It was another darker look at the series and one that provided a confusing set of stories. There were multiple endings based on your view of the force and it was interesting to see this dark story continue. That aside, it felt like a step back from the first game aiming for an action type quick button approach and it featured less depth having you over powered from the start. That's not to say I don't like being a strong willed character, but the first one's growth as a Sith was impactful on its narrative.

The game released in 2008 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and the Wii of which the final console apparently had the most content for whatever reason. It was also made available on Xbox One through Xbox Backwards Compatibility at a later date. There was only a campaign to this game so not a lot of replay value and with an alright story that was shallow compared to its predecessor it didn't particularly do great critically or commercially. Without caring about that however it was a lot of fun to play with great saber combat and intense abilities. The visuals were also impressive capturing an authentic take on the Star Wars universe and there's just something so interesting about venturing into a non-canon era.


I was also able to check out its only DLC entitled Endor when going back to replay this as it was super cheap and that was certainly interesting. It was a completely different take on the franchise with that and it was dark, an area that Star Wars rarely ever travels to. I was also able to drop kick some Ewoks, so you could say it was a fun trip to Endoor! The character of Starkiller was also interesting taking on the name of which the Skywalker's originally had and being a wild card in the series. The two games wove beautifully between key events with the divergences being the most exciting aspect of them both.

It's a shame that this didn't finish off the Unleashed storyline on a more powerful note or at least have something additional to it. Story only games are difficult to pull off and this one just didn't quite hit the right spot to have an impactful one. Despite having well developed characters, fun lightsaber combat and intense force abilities it was just held back by the narrative. Even with choices that could widely diverge the ending, it wasn't a satisfactory journey to get there. Still, it's an interesting continued take on Star Wars and those that enjoyed the first will want to dive into this one in order to see what happens to the characters.

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