Overall: 6.5/10

Story:

I remember playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed when it first came out on PS3, and while I’ve never been a huge Star Wars fan, neither then nor now, I was curious to dive back in and see how it holds up. That said, I obviously can’t speak to where this game fits into the overall lore, if it’s considered canon, or how it compares to the broader quality of Star Wars storytelling. What I can talk about, though, is the narrative itself, and honestly, it’s not great.
The story is about as predictable as it gets, filled with clichés and poor plot development. The dialogue is cheesy too and not in a fun, campy way either; it's in a more in a cringeworthy, unpolished sense. Additionally, As I played, there were multiple points where it felt like huge chunks of plot development were missing. Characters do things with little to no proper build-up, often relying on surface-level motivations.
For example, Starkiller’s relationship with Juno seems to appear out of nowhere, with no real emotional build-up other than “they went on adventures together.” General Kota, after getting blinded and having his rebellion ruined by Starkiller, somehow decides he's loyal to him and even admires him, despite their entire history being hostile. Starkiller himself flips from a brutal Sith assassin to a wisecracking, easygoing guy who suddenly has a conscience, and I could go on.
The whole narrative feels less like a coherent story and more like a checklist of "important" moments the developers wanted to hit, without the necessary connective tissue to make you care about any of it. As a result, the story comes off cheap and lazy, with very little emotional weight behind the big dramatic moments.

Gameplay:

First off, this game is locked at 30fps by default, but there’s a very easy 60fps patch available, and I definitely recommend using it AND a controller. Using both helps smooth out the experience and makes it feel a lot less janky right off the bat.
Now, The early half of TFU is genuinely a blast. The lightsaber hack-and-slash combat has all the late 2000s charm you'd expect, and the basic Force powers are super satisfying to use. It nails that initial power fantasy really well; tossing enemies around, zapping them with lightning, and crushing everything in your path feels great at first.
Unfortunately, once you move deeper into the game and start needing to use Force powers against more advanced enemies or you're just trying to combo abilities together quickly, the gameplay really starts to fall apart. For Starters, TFU has a serious crowd control problem. It throws so many enemies at you at once that using any of your abilities, the ones you've spent skill points unlocking, becomes very difficult. You’ll be trying to land a four or five-button combo, only to get interrupted every single time.
The basic combat mechanics don't help much either. Blocking, dashing attacks, parrying, etc. all feel poorly implemented. Enemies just become "harder" by spamming knockdown attacks with zero counterplay. You get knocked down, and by the time you stand up, you’re knocked right back down again, leading to obnoxious stunlock chains. That’s not an increase in difficulty, that’s just bad game design.
By the time you reach the last few levels, this game just starts throwing everything at you. You’ll be fighting an AT-ST, jetpack troopers, snipers, AND MORE all at the same time. It kinda just turns into a mess of enemy spam. Honestly, the gameplay feels WAY better on the two lowest difficulties where you can actually feel like the overpowered Force-wielding beast the game WANTS you to be. On higher difficulties, the bad scaling and poor mechanics make it an excruciating slog.

World:

TFU features ten levels if you include the prologue where you play as Darth Vader, plus three additional DLC levels. Each setting is immersive, with every environment standing out clearly from the others. Even when you return to the Raxus Prime or Felucia for a second visit, both maps are completely different, and neither feels like a simple rehash of the first time you were there.
Regardless though, while the settings are unique, the actual structure of the levels is extremely linear. Every stage is basically a long corridor: fight enemies in one room, maybe solve a simple environmental puzzle, move to the next room, and repeat, usually ending with a boss fight. It might sound like a complaint, but honestly, I’m pretty indifferent to it. The level design definitely shows its formula by the end of the game, but in a game like this, the gameplay is clearly the main focus, and every level serve as a decent enough backdrop for it.
There’s a small incentive to explore in the form of hidden holocrons, which give you force upgrades, lightsaber crystals, and other bonuses. However, these collectables are usually hidden in annoyingly obvious spots like behind a stack of boxes or sitting on top of a hard-to-reach ledge. It feels like exploration was an afterthought, but honestly, that doesn’t hurt the gameplay too much. TFU is more about fast, flashy action than careful map design, and in that context, the levels do their job. I just wish the game had disguised its formula a little better.

Visuals:

In the aspect of visuals, this is absolutely a product of its time. Playing it today, it’s clear that TFU hasn’t aged particularly well. The character models, textures, and lighting are all unmistakably seventh-generation, and not in a way that’s stood the test of time.
That said, I got used to the visuals pretty quickly. Once I was into the gameplay, the graphics stopped being much of an issue. They get the job done without being distracting, but you’re never going to mistake this for a great-looking game today. It's tolerable to good, at best.
One thing that really hammers home the game’s age is the prerendered cutscenes. They're packed with that very specific, early-HD-era look: slightly blurry, overcompressed, and oddly lit compared to the actual gameplay. There’s definitely a certain charm to it since I have nostalgia for that period of gaming, but objectively, it’s pretty rough by modern standards.
Overall, the visuals are bearable. They're good enough to carry the action without hindering the game, and TFU definitely isn’t a game you play for jaw-dropping graphics. It’s all about the gameplay, and luckily, the visuals do just enough to support that.

Music/Sound Design:

When it comes to Star Wars, you expect the music to deliver and TFU absolutely delivers on that front. The music is every bit as grand, emotional, and thrilling as you'd hope; it's pure SW spectacle, and easily one of the game's strengths.
Unfortunately, the sound design itself is another story. One of my biggest issues is how compressed and fuzzy the audio sounds across the board. Sound effects, voices, and even parts of the soundtrack sometimes feel muted and muddied, lacking the crispness and clarity you would expect, even for a game of its time. It's not the biggest deal, but it obviously hurts the overall auditory experience.
Adding to the frustration, the last two levels suffer from outright broken audio. Large sections of these levels simply don't have any music at all, which absolutely kills the pacing and emotional weight the game is supposed to be building toward. It’s painfully obvious that something is missing; It’s not a design choice, it’s a broken implementation. While there IS an unofficial fix available online, just like the 60fps patch, there’s a big difference between enhancing performance and fixing broken, core elements of the game.
The fact that players are expected to hunt down external fixes for something as fundamental as missing music is pretty unacceptable. It's crazy to me that this wasn’t addressed back when the game was ported to PC. A studio releasing ANY game with BROKEN AUDIO is a serious misstep, and sadly, it’s something that really drags down the PC port.

Mouse and Keyboard gamer here. If you're happy to use controller then this review isn't for you.

The review portion of this review consist of one single sentence, the final sentence.

I need you to understand that it will sound like hyperbole. It's not.

I mean it literally.

Ready?

'I can't speak for others but this is the worst PC port I've ever played in my entire life and it's not even close.'

Ahead of its time by decades.