Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Diaries Part Four

This is my ongoing exploration of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. This time I will finish Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.

Having chased after Boba Fett to rescue Juno Eclipse, I had managed to overcome many boarding parties aboard the Rebellion’s capital ship Salvation, before deciding to crash it into a planet…

To be fair, my target was more specific than just the planet of Kamino, but as people abandoned the ship, with Rahm Kota and PROXY aboard the Rogue Shadow, I aimed the ship downwards and hit full throttle. Of course, debris and ships required moving out of the way using The Force, but as the ship entered the atmosphere and the buildings came rushing towards me, I smashed out through the cockpit window and went into freefall! The ship smashed into Timira City and a whole swarm of TIE Fighters flew out of the destruction. One caught me on its wing, so I literally threw it away, presumably because The Force.

Somehow safely landing in a courtyard, I just so happened to be close to a pair of AT-STs being watched over by two turrets. The surrounding debris made things a little easier, but not a whole bunch… A third AT-ST joined the fun the moment I destroyed the second, and after that a whole slew of Troopers and an AT-MP came out to play. Once the area was clear, I moved some debris out of the way and entered the facility.

As I reached the top of a security tower, Kota just so happened to be in the one opposite me! He deactivated the security field to allow me to progress just as I finished off the Imperials, then I killed a few more before hurrying down the corridor. I arrived on a platform overlooking Kota and the Rebels, who were under fire from snipers, so I quickly killed those before the Incinerator War Droid that was also there.

Upon opening the doors into the next hallway, I saw a large number of Imperials. So, wanting to defeat them a few at a time, I backed into the platform so they would follow. Spontaneously, the Saber Guard died. An Incinerator War Droid followed close behind them, and died at the exact same point! For some reason, the room literally killed them. Unfortunately, the Stormtroopers wouldn’t leave their position for the good of science, so I had to kill them using the old ways. Further along my route, a TIE Bomber destroyed the bridge I would soon require, so while I dealt with the Troopers on the next platform, Kota said that he would see what he could do. However, after I cleared my platform, the Rebels came under fire from two dropships while I was attacked by TIE Fighters. Putting my peanut butter in their chocolate (AKA chucking TIEs at the dropships) freed me up to leave the platform and deal with the various Troopers and Saber Guards in the next hallway.

Annoyingly, two Incinerator War Driods came up on an elevator as I entered the room in front of me, requiring a bit of a tactical retreat so that I could try to deal with them one at a time. Once they were finally destroyed, I exited to the destroyed bridge and bent part of it down using The Force, while Kota lifted some broken portions for me to jump across the gap. Positing that Darth Vader had Juno at the top of the city, I hopped on an elevator up.

Kota complained that I refused to do more for the Rebellion after I had rescued Juno, but as I exited a hallway I saw that future decision was the least of my issues. Ahead of me was basically the way that I’d gone right at the start, along the outside of the facility past some kind of generators, in the rain, and confronted by lots and lots of Imperials. Stormtroopers, Scout Troopers, AT-MPs, Terror Biodroids… I upgraded my Saber attacks to maximum level when I got a chance, just before facing an Incinerator War Droid and about 30 Terror Droids, while Kota tried begging me to help the Rebels.

I entered a large, tall room with what appeared to be lots of jumping ahead of me on many raised platforms. Thankfully, someone came to see me off on my journey. Actually, lots of someones - Terror Troopers, Saber Guards, Sith Acolytes, a veritable smorgasbord of special forces meeting in one place to be killed! Some platforms rearranged once the coast was clear and I began jumping, but this was a cloning facility, and around me were a lot of cloning vats. Worse, they were apparently strong in The Force….

After lots of jumping, liberal use of The Force, a bunch of Force Lightning, and a ton of lightsaber swinging, I reached the top. I had only had a few handfuls of Jumptroopers and Sith Acolytes to deal with. Until I was able to Force open the doors and was confronted by more Acolytes and Saber Guards… Then out through the next door, a repeat of all of the jumping! Except this time, Shadow Troopers were waiting for me on some of the platforms, so I just used Mind Trick to stun them, then threw them as far as I could using The Force. It was very cathartic.

Ascending an elevator, it appeared that this was the final fight. I made my way through the smoke-filled hallways, hallucinating Kota and Juno taunting me, as well as being randomly attacked by Darth Vader who refused to speak. I finally found the exit as well as Vader, and a ton more clone vats, so we fought! Jumping from platform to platform, and usually accompanied by faulty clones, we battled. The clones actually helped me, because I just pulled a Mind Trick and they would aid in distracting Vader so that I could hack away at him!

Eventually, Vader escaped for a moment and when I caught up to him, he was with Juno! Vader began Force Choking her and told me to bow to him, which I did. Despite all of his insults, saying that I was weak and not half the man that the original had been, Vader still wanted me to fight for him, and if I failed at any task, he would kill Juno. Until she ignited a lightsaber and attacked Vader herself - so he threw her through a window, seemingly killing her. Grief-stricken, I attacked and was quickly also thrown outside where Vader joined me to continue our duel, and I upgraded my Force Repulse to its second level.

In a relatively short time, Vader was on his last legs and tried throwing me off of the platform which we fought upon. He even tried to push me off using a massive antenna, but I overcame him like I had overcome every other obstacle, and held him at the edge of my lightsaber ready to chop off his head! Kota ran out, telling me to stop, that we could learn the Empire’s secrets from Vader, then put him on trial and execute him officially. Also, he was the only one who knew if Starkiller, the original Galen, had survived the attack on the Death Star. But that didn’t matter to me, I chose the Dark Side!

As my lightsaber swung through the air, a red lightsaber stabbed me through the chest! A Sith decloaked behind me and took down Kota and the other Rebels easily, removing their hood as Vader spoke. The cloning process before me was not a failure after all, because there stood a Dark Side version of Galen! He kneeled before Vader, asking his master’s bidding, and the Lord of the Sith told him to take the Rogue Shadow and track down every member of the Rebellion, and kill them…

FINAL THOUGHTS

What a couple of games! I’m honestly disappointed that this has ended on Part Four and not at least another part. The graphical and gameplay improvements over the first game were really welcome, being able to throw the lightsabers somewhat accurately for instance.

Being so overpowered as Starkiller (a name I’ll get into in a moment) is certainly different from how I remember Luke and Obi Wan in the original trilogy, which means it’s a lot of fun. Sure, I played on Easy because that’s how I roll, so I was just mowing through people with hilarious ease. And pulling weeds, if we stick with the gardening analogy, because dang those people could fly…

Starkiller is a name that I really don’t understand. It was used a handful of times in the first game for no apparent reason, not that the name Galen Marek was used either, to be fair. But “Starkiller” is a nickname you get for killing or something star-related, yet it’s used before he pulled a Star Destroyer out of orbit and rammed it into the ground. I used it rarely (if ever) in these diaries because I was given no reason to, it’s a reference to Luke Skywalker’s original name before Star Wars was rewritten to be good. That’s all.

I’m probably going to check out the graphic novels that Marvel published (well, republished because Dark Horse Comics published it first) written by the lead writer of these games, Haden Blackman. Hopefully they will answer some of my lingering questions, such as “why was PROXY even in this game?”, “why did Juno barely speak until the Light Side ending?”, and “why couldn’t I fight Boba Fett?”

But before I do that, I figured I’ll check out the DLCs that I skipped out on! Like I said, I want more from these games, so that’s what I’m getting. So join me next time for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed DLC Diaries!