Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed may be an older game, but it’s still fun to play and Star Wars fans who haven’t previously enjoyed this title should give it a go. The engaging story and excellent voice work help bring it to life, despite the slightly dated graphics and relatively simple gameplay.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed can take you back to 2008, with all the good and mediocrity that comes with it. Do you need to play this if you like Star Wars? I think so. It’s a story that feels right at home with the original trilogy, some plot is good, some goofy, it’s certainly Star Wars. Some shortcomings like basic level design, targeting, and boss mini games. But using your force lightning to attack clone troops is satisfying. Not a perfect game, but darn near close to a perfect Star Wars game.

The Force Unleashed is a heavily flawed though still enjoyable experience from an era where Star Wars was trying to find its next identity. It tells an interesting story, even if its ultimate effect on Anakin’s perceived story arc means it's better left outside of modern canon. While its gameplay is linear, and repetitive, I can’t argue with the satisfaction of pulling down a section of the environment and using it to take out a whole group of stormtroopers at once. It by no means weaves its story into the greater universe with the expertise of something like Shadows of the Empire, but it almost certainly served as a gateway into better things like Jedi Fallen Order. As for this particular version, Krome Studios and Aspyr deserve immense praise for their efforts to preserve this oft-forgotten version. Outside of the missing bonus levels from the PSP version, this is the definitive version of this release. This is by no means a masterpiece, but it is an excellent version of a fairly good game.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed still provides a highly entertaining experience despite its few issues, and the Switch port does a great job of bringing the stellar title to newer audiences.

Despite the fact that 2008 is longer ago than most of us would like to admit, there is still some fun to be had with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Some may have preferred a different version from the Wii one, but what it lacks in visual punch it more than makes up for with additional content and more focused level design. It’s an enjoyable, silly Star Wars adventure that probably isn’t going to flip the switches of anyone without affection for the brand, but will be a good enough time for fans to keep them from focusing on its many rough edges. A bit of a time warp, but not a bad one.

Force Unleashed had a lot of love when it was first made. For its time, the game provided a new Star Wars adventure with a fun and novel way to play it. Now more than a decade later, games are made differently, and The Force Unleashed features a lot of gameplay mechanics we don't see anymore. Stiff and repetitive waggle controls are now at least optional, but quick-time events and a wooden presentation make this a great example of what games were a long time ago, in a galaxy not too far away.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed plays as great on the Nintendo Switch as it did on the Wii in 2008, but Aspyr limits Starkiller's true power over a console that can do so much more.

I'd recommend Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in 2022 with caution.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed isn't a bad port. Warts and all, it's a faithful reproduction of a Wii game that is fun but not exactly a title that too many would consider to be a timeless classic. At a low asking price, it can be good for those who really want every Star Wars game they can get on the system. That said, it would've been more interesting if Aspyr were more ambitious and went for porting the PC/PS3/Xbox 360 version instead. That would've been a treat for longtime Nintendo die-hards.

A decent enough romp, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is let down by a few technical issues and some extremely dated graphics. Switch Lite users won’t get the full experience, but still enough to go on. Console limitations aside, it is fun to hoof Rebels about and use them like levitating pin cushions from time to time.

If you’re looking for a more ambitious upgrade, or if you’re looking for a more fleshed-out game with more thought put into its combat and level design, The Force Unleashed will probably leave you disappointed.

The Force Unleashed on Switch is a good port of a rather dreary game by today's standards.

The Force Unleashed is a fascinating slice of video game history. Unfortunately it’s not exactly fun history, not anymore. Again, your mileage may vary. Perhaps you’ve lately grown wistful about motion controls. Maybe you long for the days when quick-time events were a much bigger part of mainstream gaming. For me, revisiting this chapter of gaming’s history was downright unpleasant at times. I loved messing around with force powers and lightsabers, but that only gets you so far. If you’ve got fond memories of this game, they’ll likely survive a subsequent playthrough. Otherwise, I’d be wary of jumping into Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

This is a remaster where the highs of unleashing the Force conflict with the lows of the original product. Quality-of-life improvements like the inclusion of traditional controls and the bump to the resolution help improve the game immensely. At the same time, the gameplay’s clunkiness, glitches and performance issues found on the Wii remain persistent issues in this remaster. For $19.99, there’s a decent amount of content and a chance to explore an old chapter relegated to Legends territory. Unfortunately, many of the more pressing issues were never addressed in this remaster. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is fun in short bursts on Switch, but the further you go, the more contained the Force starts to feel.

Overall, The Force Unleashed is a fairly ordinary game that is bolstered by its IP. If not for the Star Wars connection, it would have been forgotten long ago. Going wild with force powers does have its charm, but that’s not enough to elevate it into must-play status, by any means.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed’s biggest draw is nostalgia with this Switch port. Many have good memories of the game from its original release in 2008, but unfortunately, this port fails to respect this beloved IP. Perhaps the worst thing is that there are plenty of beautiful games on the Switch, and there’s little reason this couldn’t have been one. It could have redeemed the ill-fated Wii version, but instead, it might have worsened its shortcomings.

The Force Unleashed is now showing its age, especially in an era when Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has done many of the same things, but better. The Force Unleashed offers a short ride through a galaxy far, far away, and it does have some moments of making the player feel like an awesome Sith warrior, but it doesn't manage to sustain this feeling, with its lightsaber swinging soon becoming like a chore.

If you played the game on any other console, the Wii version of the game ported to the Switch isn’t the way to go when Xbox Game Pass has the game available on the Series X|S. While the story still hits, the gameplay is beyond dated and ultimately the motion elements remove any feeling of combos and replace them with constant wrist flicks and frantic waving.