Star Wars: Squadrons

Picked this game up cause it reminded me of the ever popular game series rogue squadron and so far it's been a good intriguing game. Too bad EA decided to make it more about the online experience, outside of that, customizing your pilot is fun and along with that it almost just feels like an expansion pack for battlefront 2 (2015). Not bad at all for 39.99! Would recommend the game to anyone who enjoyed rogue squadron and Star Wars in general!

Continuing my theme of playing Next Gen Star Wars Games, I went back and replayed Star Wars: Squadrons and here is my review for the game. The premise of the game focuses on Vanguard Squadron of the New Republic & Titan Squadron of The Empire as they attempt to win the war after the battle of Endor.

Characters Now you play as Vanguard 5 & Titan 3 but your character is silent and you see the game through your point of view so what your character looks like doesn't really matter. I personally feel like the age of silent protagonists should be over and it is pretty lazy. I never cared about my character and the game did nothing to make me care.

This is even more frustrating because this game is filled of really interesting characters. Phil Morris plays Lindon Javes who is an Imperial defector and the new leader of Vanguard Squadron. Lindon is a cool character and I thought he was a good leader of the group here.

On the other side we have Terisa Kerrill played by Peta Sergeant and she is your typical Imperial Captain, she is angry and out for revenge and she seems to revel in the role and has a clear objective for the imperial side of the story.

The two squadrons are really fun. Vanguard Squadron has Gunny, Frisk, Keo & Grace. They're fun and layered characters, Frisk is a trandoshan who are usually villains in the Star Wars universe so it is cool to seeing him on the light side. The other members of the team are great too and have distinct personalities.

Titan Squadron has Grey, Shen, Vonreg & Sol. They are truly loyal to the Empire and it is actually refreshing to have characters who are fully committed to this side. Shen is basically half droid and his backstory is really fascinating. The rest of the team have their uniqueness too and that is really cool when before we have just seen generic imperials.

Story The story is okay, I like the two squadrons and the fact that it is the New Republic who are the ones building a new super weapon when in the past that has been more of an Empire thing. But the game does lack some depth and the ending is pretty terrible, it doesn't give much indication on what happened to any of the characters and is just an excuse to try and get DLC or a sequel that is just lazy.

Side Content The issue with this part of the review is that in 2024 nobody is playing the online of this game, I tried to find matches online for ages and I couldn't find any. Though I do remember that this games online wasn't that impressive to me to be honest. There aren't enough modes to sink your teeth into and the offline side content is even less which is a big shame. Especially as this game really focuses on its multiplayer it is well below the expectations of other games.

Gameplay I cannot deny that it is fun taking control of iconic Star Wars ships from inside of the cockpit. There is so much satisfaction when you take down an enemy fighter or a capital ship. Though I don't feel like it was as good as I wanted, The ships are quite slow and at times it feels like the game revolves on you banking left and not much more. Also, maybe I am the only one who found it harder to play as the imperials due to the fact that the TIE fighters don't have shields, I know that is the same as the lore but it made me not really want to use them as much. Lastly, I don't know what it is with recent Star Wars games but at one point this game has a huge difficulty spike that really feels out of place and makes the game truly unforgivable.

Graphics Easily the best part of this game are the graphics, this game really nails the Star Wars feeling and is really made by people who love the franchise. You get to fly lots of iconic ships and just the sound design makes you fall in love with the feeling of the game.

Overall Overall, Star Wars: Squadrons is an average game that fall short of what it set out to do. The single player is okay but in 2024 the online is worthless so I think this games life cycle has truly ended and is not worth the money.

Rating - 5/10.

The graphics and customization in this game is something that other developers should look at as a good standard. However for a Star Wars Story, the story mode holds little engagement. Each mission is the same as the last. Fight enemy fighters, blow something up, rinse and repeat. There are no moments that keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what happens next. MULTIPLAYER needs work. Fleet Battles are entertaining but get old quickly if you play multiple matches in a row. Dogfighting is not enjoyable whatsoever, the Republic always wins, their fighters have shields, the Empire's do not. I believe this game was a huge missed opportunity. There was so much that could have been incorporated into this game that simply went unused.

Let me start this off by saying that this game is not for everyone. If you have no interest in flight sims you probably won't like this because it's basically just a Star Wars flight sim. Now that I've got that out of the way, this game is so much fun. I have had an absolute blast over the past 5 days singlehandedly taking down star destroyers, escaping ships right as they explode, escaping asteroid fields with an explosion chasing me, drifting in space, and a lot more.On top of all that you can play it in VR with a joystick. It's honestly some of the most fun I've had in a Star Wars game. Ok now I'll talk about the story. It's fine. That's really it. The story itself is nothing special but the fun gameplay really enhances it. While the story itself isn't great, the missions in the campaign can be a lot of fun. One part that really stood out is when you get to fly inside the center of an imperial listening post, blow a bunch of stuff up, and then fly out with an explosion right behind you as the doors are closing. It was super cinematic and immersive, I felt like I was actually in a movie. Another thing I kinda liked was that your character isn't really anything special. In almost every Star Wars game, your character is either a Jedi/force user or a leader of some elite squad. In this game you're just a pilot, and I kinda like it. You aren't the leader of anything, you aren't part of some special family or group, you're just a regular person in the Star Wars universe. Some people might not like that but I kind of enjoyed not being the center of the universe in a video game. Ok now the multiplayer. The multiplayer is a lot better than I was anticipating. The dogfight mode is only a 5v5 deathmatch on a huge map, but somehow still has constant action and doesn't feel too big or too slow. Fleet battles are awesome because it feels like an actual war in the stars. The flagships have actual systems you can take down instead of just shooting one spot on their hull for 3 hours. they both have shield systems, targeting, power, and tractor beams, plus a ton of cannons and turrets, all of which can be destroyed. Star Wars squadrons is just a great experience and a ton of fun , and they have GONK droid bobble heads that you can put in your ship so it's automatically a good game for that. The last thing I want to say is that if you have VR and/or a joystick, use them. This game is 10x as fun with those. And it's only $40.

This game was really unnecessary,with Star Wars Battlefront alredy having a good spaceship modes. The only good thing from this game was the campaign and the immersion it gave to the point of view of the spaceship. Controls are hard to learn and VR support feels very of with a controller in hand instead of the joysticks.