#952 SoulCalibur IV (X360) Guest Characters (3/3): The Apprentice playthrough.
0A playthrough of the Star Wars guest character, boss and hidden character The Apprentice/Starkiller/Galen Marek in the Xbox 360 version of Namco’s SoulCalibur IV/ Soul Calibur 4.
The Apprentice, also known as Starkiller and Galen Marek, was the protagonist of the game The Force Unleashed, released later in same year as SCIV (2008), and also returned in its sequel; The Force Unleashed II. He’s called The Apprentice here mainly because The Force Unleashed was actually released later in the year, and so they attempted to hide that particular detail for some reason. Which, of course, makes this game seem even more horrendously dated than it already is. Indeed, it’s probably one of the best examples as to why guest characters are usually a terrible idea; unless you go for a ubiquitous, iconic character (such as Akuma or Geese in Tekken 7), you are liable to horribly and immediate date your game as a result of the character’s inclusion (such as Noctis in Tekken 7). Oddly enough however, Namco learnt from and improved this in the two subsequent SoulCalibur titles, which I’ll get to over the next few videos.
My absolute favourite story about the creation of The Force Unleashed is the one where the development team brought George Lucas in to discuss possible names for Starkiller. After being asked what Starkiller’s sith name should be, Lucas replied with two ideas; “Darth Icky, and Darth Insanius.” At first, the development team thought that Lucas was joking, and expected him to admit to it being a joke. Nope. Instead, he simply moved on to another topic of discussion as if nothing had happened. It’s sort of amazing that this was the man who not only managed to create one of the most beloved franchises of all time, but somehow also managed to turn it into a mockery of itself later on. Needless to say, any Star Wars game I play I name myself Darth Icky. It just fits. That said, Lucas has been somewhat been redeemed by just how poorly Kathleen “The Force is Female” Kennedy has handled the franchise, putting out poorly constructed rehashes of existing films and complaining that people are sexist if they don’t like them, as Sony attempted to do with their Ghostbusters reboot. And look how well that went over.
The Force Unleashed was one of those games which I played at the time because there hadn’t been a good Star Wars game in three years. I actually played through Jedi Academy in the same year. You can probably guess which game I go back to. Between 1997 to 2005, Star Wars had something of a renaissance when it came to games. Sure, previous titles such as the Super Star Wars Trilogy and the X-Wing series were pretty great, but the release of titles such as Dark Forces II, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, Battlefront 1 and 2 and especially the simply incredible Star Wars Galaxies were astoundingly good titles all released within a pretty short span of one another. And then, well, that was kind of it.
Presumably so many games were developed as a way to capitalise on the success of the Prequel trilogy, which explains why titles dried up so considerably after 2005, but as someone who’d been following the release of Star Wars titles for years by that point I really felt a sort of abandonment when proper Star Wars games stopped coming out. Felt like the end of an era for me, personally.
When I learnt about the Force Unleashed, therefore, it wasn’t so much a game I wanted to play so much as one I needed to play. Hell, I played and replayed it quite a few times over despite the mediocre plot and insufferable gameplay, just because, hey, it was something new related to Star Wars. Eventually however, I just had to accept that objectively good Star Wars games were a thing of the past and had to move on. Force Unleashed as a game is basically a Devil May Cry 3 rip-off, emphasising long and excessive combos, particularly air combos. Really though, it shouldn’t be compared to a game as good as DMC 3. To sum it up it’s a mediocre excuse of an adventure which adds literally nothing to the Star Wars canon, and exists simply to profit off of fanservice, much like its maligned sequel. Or the Disney Star Wars films. The DLCs for the game simply added to the cash-in nature of the title, adding levels and boss fights against Luke, Obi-Wan and even Boba Fett, amongst others. Yep, a cash-in title advertised in a sequel which already feels like a cash-in. Boy, aren’t these two just made for one another.
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