This was kind of my problem with the first game. They made Jedi wayyyyyy too powerful. This started with Lucas'Prequels really, speeding up the saber fights so that they looked more impressive and I was okay with that. But even from episodes 1-3 you could see the saber fights getting pretty ridiculous, by the 3rd move you had Anakin and Obi-wan swinging their sabers so fast that the light was giving me epileptic seizures. And while in Episodes 1 and 2, you could sort of still see how maybe...kind of it was still a plausible method of battle, but by 3 you just had some bizarre maneuvers that really served no purpose other than to dazzle the audience.
Then came the force unleashed, where you could basically defeat the entire Empire single handedly, I don't know why he would have sacrificed himself for the rebellion. Why was sacrificing the most powerful superhuman fighter in the galaxy somehow preferable to letting a couple of old people and some women die. Think of the greater good, for the force's sake! He could bring down Star Destroyers with his MIND!?!! Think of all the lives that could have been saved if the Apprentice had just flung the Death Star into the sun. Think of the children of those poor fighter pilots, who were needlessly made orphans because some nameless ex-Sith decided to be noble!
I don't really even care that ruins the Star Wars mythos or canon, let's face it, it wasn't exactly deep to begin with. If it makes for a better game or story, go for it. What I do care about is that when the character is that bloody powerful, nothing is a threat anymore, there's no feeling of danger for the character. And sometimes for game that's fine, I liked Dynasty Warriors, a game where you could single handedly defeat an entire army. But for games like this where they advance the story through cutscnes all the time, when it comes down to building tension they have to resort to some cheap ploy to actually create a sense of danger for the protagonist. If I remember right when you're betrayed by Vader in the first game he basically just flings you into a wall and your out cold. And then suddenly it's an entirely different character.
I just cut my way through thousands of Stormtroopers and several Jedi to get here, but as soon as Vader flicks his wrist...that's it? Game over? He's done? Seriously? I mean that's a ***** slap taken to the summit of Mount Olympus and ordained by Zeus himself. But you know what? Okay, fine, I can deal with that.
But then at the end of the game at the climax, suddenly Vader's lost this power? The ending boss fight is just an anti-climax compared to the rest of the game. Vader just another ordinary bad guy by that point. Sure, slamming him into a wall and then killing him would be a horrible way to end the game...but that also means it was a horrible way to advance the story as well.
Now finally, we have a new (prerendered cinematic) of the same guy, doing the same things, only to twice the amount of people and crushing massive droids with a single stern look. I was actually kind of hopeful at the beginning, thinking maybe they were gonna go for a sneakier (and thus more subtle) version of the combat. I personally think it would be awesome to be able to zap the lights and then cut down stormtroopers one by one. Sneaking through ventilation ducts or hanging from cat walks before leaping down on a passing patrol. An assassins creed sort of stealth/combat setup would be good, I mean Enzio might do best when undetected but he could still kick ass in frontal assaults. If you can do that for the aristocratic snot-nosed brat of a Banker in the 17th century, than you can bloody well do it to a Jedi.
Then my hopes were dashed as the apprentice crushed a droid and then sent out a shockwave that killed probably close to a hundred fathers, sons, brothers and distant cousins who sought to serve their country (empire, whatever) in an instant. Though they undoubtedly deserved their fate for being stupid enough to CLOSE in around the apprentice when their armed with rifles designed for ranged combat (they don't even have bayonets for christsakes!), the rifles are already so tiny they probably have an effective melee range of 5 feet at best and they're CLOSING on the guy with two whirling blades of hot steamy blue fire?
Anyway, I guess the point of this overlong rant was really just to say these words to the developers:
Show some bloody restraint! We don't need to see the main character wipe out an entire army to feel he's badass.
