After spending about 10 hours in the comprehensive Enhanced Edition of Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge on a shiny new PlayStation VR2 going back to the old Meta Quest 2 version felt a lot like falling up a flight of stairs backward in slow motion. With the delightful and inarguably essentia Last Call DLC in addition to a bevy of improvements that make use of every last one of the new headset’s haptic bells and whistles plus the movie-like color depth I’ve found the droids I was looking for. Be warned though that you’ll have to stick around beyond the first three hours of the middling original campaign and its genuinely bad writing but after that it picks up the pace and puts on a real Star Wars show.
Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge begins on a subdued note. Upon waking up in the quarters of a cargo ship, you step into the role of a nameless, voiceless droid mechanic who also happens to smuggle illicit goods as a side hustle. Its early moments have you stumbling aboard the ship while characters talk at you through your transmitter. But at least you get a nice scenic shot of interstellar travel from your ship’s observatory before things go to the dark side.
A crash-landing puts you on the planetary surface of Batuu, a backwater world marked by a podunk settlement you might recognize as the setting of the Star Wars-themed section of Disney’s real life theme parks. Here you meet Seezelslak the cantina’s sole proprietor and Mubo a droid repair shop owner who’s your main smuggling client. They come across as exasperatingly cheesy at first with overtly obnoxious dialogue lines that seem like they were pulled directly out of The Phantom Menace and you can’t skip any of it. The droid shop and the cantina are treated as Galaxy’s Edge’s two central hub areas though it’s disappointing you can’t explore any more of the settlement itself.
From the opening there are plenty of chances to live out your Star Wars fantasies with fully modeled blasters satisfying shotguns throw able lightsabers rocket launchers and obscure weapons that can be comfortably dual wielded or two-handed if you wish. They all look lifelike up close almost as if you’re holding authentic Star Wars props. The fleshed-out arsenal feels especially punchy due to the haptic feedback and trigger resistance of the Sense controllers and each blast can repel your trigger finger with an impressive level of force. The All-kit multi-tool makes otherwise trivial interactions like solving basic puzzles to open a door or a treasure chest feel more like you’re a kid playing with a toy that makes a whirring noise or shoots fire or sparks.
The Verdict
Star Wars Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge Enhanced Edition is an excellent way to showcase the best features of a fancy new PlayStation VR2 headset to friends and family but thanks to the expanded content it’s also a worthy shooter and a memorable Star Wars game in its own right. Unfortunately there’s no way to skip past the annoying first chapter, but if Star Wars fans are accustomed to anything it’s sitting through some bad episodes before you get to the good stuff. While it's slightly dogged by a few monotonous quests and some slow burn character development once it gets moving and throws you into punchy blaster battles it recreates that signature Star Wars atmosphere in detail so vivid that most of the 10 hours you’ll spend inside your headset are a great time.
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