#instead of being forced to pick the cheapest closest option that takes animals

[dickbaggins]

just once I’d like to be able to plan moving and not be unceremoniously dumped out. like the choice to move being because of my own actions and agency

[cmescapade]

my long overview/review of ‘Star Wars: Journey to Batuu’ after forcing myself to play it almost nonstop

so i said i was going to amend what i said in response to this ask after playing to min/max shit so here is a tldr version of my opinion after playing:

I consider this pack to be a 2/10; It's enough to kill time as a temporary distraction, but not for long. There’s absolutely no replay value after going through all those missions as each outcome is ultimately the same by faction. There also doesn’t seem to be any negative outcomes for each prompt in the little “choose your adventure” pop ups--And if there is, it is extremely low since I have never gotten a negative outcome. 

The aspirations are fair, and are the only things I found in this pack that’s anyway redeemable since I believe the rewards can be used well in conjunction with general solo/super-sim gameplay.

kinda sat on this for a while bc i wasn’t sure if i should post something so lengthy but then i remembered this is my blog n i can post my left toe if i wanted to

even tho i would never post a pic of my left toe anyway

.......at least for free. With the right price, however....

anyway more details under the cut if you’re interested bc i like to ramble :))

I decided to split this into 5 sections to organize my thoughts a little better. I’ll be separating my thoughts on each faction, the ships as a rabbit hole, the faction missions, the star wars aspirations, and then the breakdown of my 2/10 rating. 

1. Factions

When you travel to Batuu, the game gives you a starting “mission” or quest to get you acclimated to the areas, and each area has a specific Faction associated with it.

And yes, you cannot live anywhere, nor are there any lots, as was already stated.

Every area has a similar makeup which has:

Control Panels

Supply Crates

1 non-rabbit hole area

1 interactable ship

The Black Spire Outpost is the biggest area and has:

Two places to grab food, three if you count the Cantina

Aside from the Cantina, the other areas are rabbit holes

The two eateries are:

Docking Bay 7

this one has the most food options

you’ll never go hungry in batuu because the cheapest items on the menu are Outpost Popcorn Mix and Water at 0 credits lmao

the other two foods not shown in the screenshot above are Yobshrimp Noodle Salad and Braised Shaak Roast

Ronto Roasters

This food place has two of the same options Docking Bay 7 has as well as two additional food items

Oga’s Cantina

The only area that you see the inside of

yea the bar serves batuu-only drinks too

also where you find the guy who would give you Scoundrel missions, Hondo Ohnaka.

You can essentially max your Scoundrel reputation without it hindering whichever side you wanna take, and you can keep it when you essentially max out your rep on either the Resistance or the First Order.

There aren’t any real pros to being a Scoundrel aside from some socialization interactions. It doesn’t do anything for initial Batuu gameplay aside from unlocking Scoundrel outfits in CAS and some upgrades for your droids, but this goes for all of your options (Resistance, First Order, & Scoundrel).

The Dwelling

This is a rabbit hole where your sim goes to sleep, pee, or shower… If not the closest bench. 

It’s located opposite to the Cantina. 

If you’re ever lost, there’s a spire you can sit/nap on right in front of it–or you can just wait till your sim wants to pee. 

they’ll automatically run there 

that’s… how i found it, tbh

Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities

Another rabbithole

This place sells items you can use to complete missions, like Dataspikes and a couple of Lightsaber parts

Majority of the inventory are decorative stuff to bring back with you

Savi’s Workshop

Right behind the antique shop is the lightsaber place where you can find more hilts, kyber crystals, and display cases for your lightsabers.

You can also click on the shop to start a lightsaber challenge.

Outside this area, you have the First Order District which has more supply crates and control panels than the other two neighborhoods, and a lot more activity–Makes sense since this is basically the hub for the First Order in general. 

There’s only the Droid Depot in this area, and the only real shop that has use for credits. Food wise, there’s a food stall, and if your sim is stinky or tired, they’d basically disappear for a few minutes to recharge and come back. 

Droid Depot

Each faction has specific Droid personality traits

Aside from “voices,” these personalities don’t do much

I guess the First Order one is a lot more zap-happy though

The Resistance Camp is even smaller. Like the other areas, it’s littered with supply crates, but only has one control panel and no shops. However, there’s a rabbit hole toward the back in the Caves.

This doesn’t lead you to anywhere interesting, and it’s just another ‘choose your own adventure’ kind of thing. 

2. Ships

In the Black Spire Outpost, you’ll find the iconic Millennium Falcon. You can do kessel runs and explore in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca if you have a high Scoundrel reputation. 

However, although I said you get to ride with Chewbacca, you don’t ever see him come out 

He just kinda……………..stays there

and the prompts tell u he’s there

n ur gonna have to go with it and use the power of your imagination to believe he really do be there

In the First Order District, there’s the TIE Echelon, which functions the same way as the Millennium Falcon… But, you can’t do anything outside of exploring or using it for missions. This is how the X-Wing Starfighter in the Resistance Camp functions as well. 

It’s all pretty copy and paste, but w/e, that’s how EA does it  

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Missions

There may be several different missions per faction, but to no one’s surprise, they’re all literally the same one but worded differently.

Regular missions only have one plus (+) and one negative (-) icon

Regular Scoundrel missions only have one plus icon and no negatives since they don’t impact other factions

Each faction has a regular mission that pertains to:

Obtaining information

Exploring with the faction’s designated ship

Stealing from Supply Crates

Hacking a Control Panel

Yes………………….They’re very repetitive

You don’t have to do all of them though

You can spam the same one over and over as long as it fits the time slot

For example, the Resistance’s ship exploration mission is limited to only the day time and seems to disappear when it gets late in game

also there’s an error with the TIE Echelon where it’s missing a whole ass prompt

……As you can see, the options make no sense because the prompt is the same one that came before it 🥴

anyway…

Story Missions are the only missions that seem to differentiate from each faction.

All missions that pertain to the “story” are indicated with prerequisites of higher ranks within the faction

All of them give a double boost toward your faction

If it’s a Resistance story quest, it’ll always increase hostility from First Order members

Vice versa for the First Order faction

The Scoundrels are neutral, and do not impact any faction 

It’s only the Resistance and First Order factions that have very similar plot lines

but I’m guessing it’s only like that since they’re supposed to follow the vague cause/effect the two of them have?

4. Aspirations

The initial Aspiration you get when you pick the Star Wars umbrella in CAS (or in game) is “Hope VS Order.” After completing this one aspiration, you unlock the 3 that pertain to each faction.

Paragon of Hope

Resistance aspiration

Reward trait gives a boost to Charisma skill building

This is probably nice for those careers that need Charisma to be high, like the Political and Business branches

Enforcer of Order

First Order aspiration

Lowers chances of “Death from Anger”

Since I like killing my sims, I think this aspiration is pointless lmao

Galactic Privateer

Scoundrel aspiration

“Sleight of Hand” reward trait

Unlocks pickpocketing outside of Criminal branch usage

Best one here tbh

Works outside of Batuu, you’ll steal simoleons instead of credits

Also you can cheat whenever u play Sabaac and no one will notice

5. Reevaluation of Initial Opinions

I’ll be going through my initial list from my Response to the Ask I got before. I originally stated that it seemed promising and it was a 3.5~4/10.

Aesthetics/Visual: my opinion is unchanged, it still made me sad i can’t have a little shanty house out there or rent a garbo lot, 0.5/5

The longer I played, the more I didn’t find any new animations

The lightsaber sparring slowly began to look like a mash between GF and RoM duels after a while

I still hate that the areas were beautiful (+0.5) but the interactive places forced cutaway

why do you wanna ruin my screenshots like this, man

CAS/BB still is hard to integrate–Unless your sim is a geek with figurines, the ship models might be nice to add to their collections

Otherwise……

….

I don’t have a follow up for that, sry

Gameplay: uhhh at least i found something i could use outside of Batuu, 1.5/5

I think that playing 3984729847 repetitive missions for a long period time really orientated me to the whole map

…but the fact that i had trouble the first time around still makes it not-user friendly

the issue I had with the resistance members not having an icon? It’s a thing, I guess

The resistance quests take you on a weird trip to “prove” yourself so i guess the icons are supposed to show that they’re “not” resistance members or something idk

they’re supposed to be the sneaky underdogs who wanna do good or w/e

I guess that’s immersive…….. +0.5

sry im first order trash

they also have “Ignite the Spark” and “Ask about Missions” both leading to the same mission screen……………….

convenience?? i guess??

missions are still confusing, made worse when the game itself glitches up a storm

there was one mission where i had to go to the cantina to find someone

and they wouldn’t spawn within the time frame………….

i had to go in and out for like 3 days until they actually spawned

i only knew this bc i arrested half the people in the cantina while i was bored

so anyone without a red bar was probably them lmfaoo

also, as i stated above……. there’s some mission errors in the prompts 

Currency is still worthless.

Everything can be done by purely stealing from supply crates

Credits are only worth to blow it off on sabaac! 

The only real need for credits is to have 1,000 so u can buy a droid

Then slam the rest of those credits on the table to bet bajillions on a game of sabaac!

Aspirations………. Useful +1

Despite them being sorta niche, they’re pretty decent

Can abuse the rewards for optimal gameplay for a super sim

Honestly i just love the pickpocketing reward off the Scoundrel aspiration, just because it works outside of Batuu (and that he didn’t have to be in the Criminal career for it either)

In total, my personal rating for this pack is 2/10.

It was nice, but I don’t really see this pack being replayable, considering that i did everything there was to do on Batuu in a single trip. Sure I could’ve taken my time, but since everything would end up the same anyway, it felt like it was set up to be a one-time gig. 

At least with JA you’re moderately forced to return so you can collect treasures that are RNG–In JtB, you can snatch up all that you need on Batuu from grinding everything like a nutcase. There’s also chances of failure in JA, but on Batuu that percentage is almost little to none. The most you’ll ever get is a dazed moodlet that barely lasts, a negative relationship, and being escorted to a loading screen.  

I feel like this pack could be a little better if there were more risks involved, but there are barely any that I encountered. It’s just another weird, rehashed cash grab by EA.