My first Star Wars gaming experience that didn’t involve sticks or action figures was West End Games D6 system, and one of the big criticisms of IP based Role Playing Games over the years has been the central conflict revolves around the main characters from the books or movies what impact can your character have.

Well, in this case, it’s plenty.

We get to see characters from the sequels on Batuu and on the Starcruiser. On Batuu you get selfies mostly and sometimes the character might interact with you. On the Starcruiser, central characters show up and while they eventually resolve the story, they cannot do it if they get caught or captured, or if captured, if they don’t get broken out of the brig, they can’t do it without your help.

In this case, you fly the Falcon, you shoot down tie fighters, you defend the ship, you have personal stakes and you also aid in the ongoing struggle to free the galaxy from the first order.

There’s things you can’t do, Light Side champion up on a balcony fighting First Order with a lightsaber, those are trained stunt people up there.

There’s things they can’t do. We had a full-on I am Spartacus moment when the First Order was trying to arrest somebody, one Lieutenant, and 4 Troopers can’t arrest everybody.

How about using the Force?

There’s a scene in the climate simulator if you’re on the force user’s path where you use telekinesis. I’ve seen recordings of this scene with kids, and every time it’s neat, the Saja are so good with the kids, and also pretty good with adults. Even though I’ve seen breakdowns and know how it works, if you can suspend just a little disbelief it’s cool.

There’s a part of the lightsaber training where you can sense things before they happen and block blaster shots with your lightsaber. Now I saw how they did it and thought it was a neat use of tech, but it was apparently so subtle not everybody got it. Some people just forest-gumped their way through that part of the exercise without using the force.

Travelers in Batuu confronted by Stormtroopers to see their identification have used the Jedi Mind Trick successfully for years.

Interact with the world

There’s light-up panels all over Galaxy’s Edge and some on the Starcruiser, you hack a panel with your datapad, and the lights change, there’s beep-boop sounds, things turn off, shuttles make sounds. It’s neat they give you some agency over the world. There are locked doors and secure systems you can’t get into, then you do a little hacking job for somebody, or interact with a character virtually or in person and suddenly the door opens or you can get access to the restricted files.

If you have any feedback about this post or our books, please feel free to contact us.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com