Finally runs great now that they've removed Denuvo!

I enjoyed this game, but I liked Fallen Order a lot more.
I overall have some mixed feelings about this game. It's a very fun game, with a great start and ending, but the middle feels watered down. Not because it lacks content, but because some of it feels like filler or is just out of place (like gardening). The open world aspects fell flat imo. But what I disliked the most is how the main villains you're introduced to shortly arriving on Koboh feel like anime villains. Between that, and the Koboh matter puzzles, large parts of it don't feel like Star Wars. Thankfully, the story does get much better!

As far as game play, they did a good job of expanding on the first one. The different stances and force powers provide a good variety of play styles.

Iterates on and improves nearly every mechanic from its predecessor while also introducing a suite of new ones. The planets are much more expansive and interesting to explore. Premise of the story felt considerably weaker in comparison to the first, but beating the crap out of droids is so fun it still manages to keep my attention.

While things are a bit better now, it's a shame the game released in such a poor state performance wise - I can only hope the next one isn't bungled the same way.

Of the two games in this franchise thus far, I liked this one more than the first. It feels more confident in what it wants to be, it knows its identity as a game better than its predecessor did. The combat is still fun and responsive, Cal's maneuverability has been improved (though I was only so-so on the parkour), the exploration didn't feel as tedious as it did in the first game, and the characterization of numerous main cast members, Merrin in particular, felt stronger and more developed.

I was engaged with the story all the way throughout, I thought the conflict was well-developed and worked well as a way of furthering Cal's growth, however I can't say I liked the primary villain Dagan that much. He was weakly characterized and his motivation seemed half-baked. Trilla in the first game was much more enjoyable of a villain. I was engaged with the climax of the story, though, and felt this game came to a decently satisfying conclusion (considering that its story is intentionally left open-ended).

I think the exploration was fine, as I said previously, but I wasn't a big fan of the more open-world-esque setup of this game's maps. I much preferred the multiple, varied planets of the first game to the simplified set of locales in this one.

Overall, I think the second game is an improvement on the first. It took what worked there and developed it further, now having a solid foundation with which to build from. I will say that the PC version of this game is horribly optimized, which didn't outright ruin the experience but definitely worsened it for me, so if you're thinking about getting this game keep that in mind. I would recommend waiting for it to be on sale, not only because of its base price but because of its extremely poor optimization. It might be fixed in the future, and the game never crashed on me, but any prospective buyer should be aware of this game's technical issues.

To not end on a bad note, though, this game was still very good despite its technical problems. I would definitely recommend it to anybody who enjoyed the first one.