Finished this yesterday after grabbing it for cheap ($14) on the EGS. Overall, it was ok (and I really liked some parts), but there's some pretty big caveats to me liking it.
First, had some pretty terrible performance issues. Rocking a 1080ti and an OC'd 2700, although I am running on a 1440p Ultrawide, and while generally the game performed around 70fps+ at all times, I had extreme stuttering issues that just didn't go away no matter what I did. It was installed on an SSD at all times, and even tried moving it to some of my faster drives, and it didn't fix it. It would run fine, and then randomly drop to 40-55 fps, then shoot back up to 70+, and this felt AWFUL.
I also felt like the combat was pretty "eh", and it never really clicked to me. It felt so SLOW at times, and so damn deliberate, which made encounters a chore. It also didn't help that stuff like popping a stim would fail half the time (I'd even get the audio prompt from Cal, but BD-1 wouldn't actually stim me), and this got me killed constantly (understandably, I shouldn't be needing to pop stims so often, but between the stiff combat and the performance issues, I was needing to use them as a crutch). It also didn't help that dodging felt completely useless at points (as noted by tiebreaker above). In addition to feeling like you're in molasses, it never feels like you dodge/roll far enough away, and attacks still hone in on you anyways. Parrying attacks is fine, but when I'm having to parry every damn attack that comes my way with the same combo every time, it got boring pretty quick.
Also, in the final actual boss fight, the dodging and stim issue got me killed at least half a dozen times, so redoing that damn fucking boss fight meant I was just pissed off and didn't give a shit at what happened afterwards. The few times the combat clicked felt awesome, and it was pretty sweet switching up force attacks with saber attacks and switching modes, but this happened far too few many times for me.
I also found the story stuff, while generally interesting (especially as I've gotten back into Star Wars, and am more interested in what happened around this time-frame), incredibly rushed at points. The relationship with Merrin came out of fucking nowhere, and I think for me, the Wanderer (and his final form) only showed up like 3 times in total in cutscenes, so his presence had no impact on me whatsoever. I'm not sure if I just played the game wrong, as maybe it expected you to planet hop a bunch, but I would generally go to a planet, complete it fully until I needed a new power/tool, move to the next story progression area, complete that until I couldn't anymore, and then go BACK to the previous planet to clean up what I could. I think the game maybe expected me to hop around more, so maybe there were more encounters that I just completely missed?
There were quite a few times where I'd get dialogue stuff that felt like it didn't realize I had already done something (lots of Greez telling me to go check out that big crashed ship on Zeffo when I already cleared it out, etc.). This brings me to another issue, which was just the general lack of polish. In addition to the audio issues (and the above mentioned stim issue), I just kept running into random bugs. Nothing serious, but definitely annoying. And while not a bug, not saving once I got INTO the ship is baffling. I understand there's a meditation spot on the ship, but come the fuck on! I lost like half an hour of just needing to re-traverse an area because I had cleared the mission at the end of the level, and then on my way back was getting all the extras/chests, made it to the ship, and was done playing for the evening, so I quit the game via the menu. Started it back up the next day, and I was all the way back at the end of the level, needing to do all that shit over. Can't even use the excuse that the game tried to be a Souls-like, as even Dark Souls lets you quit wherever the hell you want, and when you start, you're right back where you were at when you quit.
Blegh. I did enjoy a lot of the story beats themselves though, and I really liked the crew when they interacted with each other. Cal, Cere, and Greez (and BD-1!) were all awesome, and I'd definitely be interested in more stories with them. Cal and his master's relationship felt kinda rushed, but I enjoyed the scenes with them both that weren't the training sections. The game also looks absolutely gorgeous, and is a visual feast for the eyes at points. Definitely paused at a few spots in the game to just look around. The music is also amazing (not sure how much of it is just re-used Star Wars existing scores, but even the stuff that sounded new sounded great). Some of the non-Stormtrooper enemy designs were really nice as well (although I have no idea if most of them are original to this game, or if they already exist in the greater Star Wars canon). And of course, the stormtroopers, their variants, and stuff like the AT-ST's/AT-AT's that show up are a treat as well (and I especially loved the probe droids and their sound effects; Fantastic stuff!).
Definitely worth a play through if you're a Star Wars fan that wants more of the universe, and even for somebody that's just a casual fan, but I think a price point of ~$20 for the game is probably perfect right now, and I'm not sure I'd be as agreeable to it at a higher price (and again, this probably comes down to the technical issues I was having). I think, for me, I probably should have looked more into the PC version, as it seems the stuttering is widespread, so going with the PS4 version via PS5 BC sounds like it would have been more enjoyable for me.
It and The Mandalorian got me interested in Star Wars again though, so I also grabbed Squadrons in the sale as well. Gonna check that out next, and will probably go back and play through the Battlefront 2 campaign (I know that one seems to have been pretty poorly received, but I'm still interested in checking it out).
