Dark side or light side?
No shocking, this game is full of decisions your character has to make. And these decisions always bring you closer to the Light Side or the Dark Side of the Force. Mechanically, it works exactly like it did in the first game.
Fortunately, the sequel adds a couple of fun twists. The first is that you can also influence your companions to one side or the other of the Force (more on them in a minute). This makes your moral decisions more impactful simply because they affect someone other than your character.
The other twist is that the character Kreia offers new perspectives on the whole “good versus evil” thing. If you decide to help a helpless person (as Jedi code apparently would require), she is there to point out that you have prevented them from learning to help themselves. Therefore, if they remain helpless for life, your character is now partially responsible for them.
This is related to a large-scale deconstruction of the whole Star Wars mythology. And while not everyone likes it, it’s hard to argue that it adds meaning and depth to the decisions you make.
Squad
As in the first game, you are not alone in your galactic quest. Your character (a former Jedi who has lost his connection to the Force) is joined by a savage crew full of droids, smugglers, bounty hunters, and so on.
However, I ended up liking this new team more than the one from the previous game. One reason is that the characters are more interesting: instead of being completely good (like Carth in KOTOR) or completely evil (like HK-47, which returns here), most of the new characters have a lot of shades of gray.
Secondly, each character has secrets and the game forces you to establish a deep relationship with the crew members before they blurt out their pasts. This makes it more rewarding to talk to these characters and also “play” the conversations: say the wrong thing and you could damage your relationship with the crew member and miss out on learning more about them.
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