Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge – Last Call is ILMxLAB’s expansion for the latest Oculus Meta Quest exclusive series, which finds players exploring the wilds of Batuu alongside Black Spire’s colorful occupants. Whereas Part 1, released a year ago, was a short but fun experience that sometimes overstayed its welcome, Last Call is everything you’d want in an expansion and more, delivering way more story content, variety, and new items to further enhance the experience. If you’ve been holding out on picking up Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge for your Quest, your patience has been rewarded and there’s no better time than now to play.
The Last Call content picks up where the main game originally ends, with the player’s droid repair technician successful in fighting back the Guavian Death Gang to take back missing cargo on behalf of Mubo (Matthew Wood), Black Spire’s Droid Depot owner, while also helping rescue R2-D2 and C-3PO from their grasps. Relaxing from the victories at Seezelslak’s (Bobby Moynihan) cantina doesn’t last long, as Dok-Ondar, the owner of the Den of Antiquities, arrives with a job to secure an artifact before one of his rivals, but the story gets far more complex and new characters like Lens Kamo (Karla Crome) and Baron Attsmun (Mark Rolston) further complicate matters. Whereas Part 1’s mission was a long slog out into the Wilds, Last Call’s main mission and other tales break up the excursions, having players come back to Dok for the next assignment and allowing them to turn in collectibles and repair parts to Mubo’s for credits to purchase various upgrades. This results in a much better sense of progression, while keeps the story tight so you don’t lose the plot out in the Wilds. Last Call’s main mission and three other tales, from another visit to The High Republic era as Jedi Knight Ady Sun’Zee (Ellie Araiza), blasting through a bounty’s henchmen as IG-88 (Rhys Darby) on Nar Shaddaa, to confronting the First Order presence on Batuu, the new content is not only longer, another 4-5 more hours of content, but it offers so much variety compared to the opening mission it could’ve been shorter and I still would’ve enjoyed my time more. Playing it all together should result in a tighter package overall, as the new upgradeable gloves and pouches will be available sooner for new players and should make the earlier mission a little easier to play through. It’s bittersweet Last Call was this good though, as it’s the final update for the game, and it seems like a shame to stop it now that it has hit its prime, but I guess they’ll take what they learned from here to work on the likely next Quest and ILMxLAB VR experience.
Since this is an expansion, the core of the experience and the VR controls don’t change, but some of the upgrades offer ways to mitigate some of my issues with the original VR controls. With the Oculus Quest 2, players are untethered from a computer and can roam around the ‘Guardian’ space you set up before playing, while the two controllers act as the technician’s hands and the UI (user interface) is the player’s chest, which is where you’ll find the handy All-Kit, your weapons, and the pouch that stores everything that’s not a gun. It’s still both intuitive yet clumsy in execution, as the tracking and game can sometimes not recognize what exactly you’ll reach for and pick up the wrong item, sometimes leading to otherwise avoidable deaths, so while you might be able to reach without looking for the guns at your hips (or now over your shoulders, one of the neat new upgrades) but it might be better to double check before assuming you’ll get what you want. While you can always place medpacks on your wrists for easy access, trying to dual-wield in a fire-fight and then reach for one and use it can lead to struggles, so now there are gloves you can buy from Mubo that auto-use the medpacks, which was a blessing for someone like me trying to clear out the enemies as fast as possible and forgetting to otherwise put medpacks on my wrists. Other gloves allow players to take less damage or prolong a weapon’s usage before it overheats, while a new holster system recharges your blasters. There’s even now a quick button press to crouch, allowing players to hide behind crates during laser fights without having to physically crouch, while the jetpack feels like it controls better/lasts longer, which the terrain and environmental puzzles are built to make using it more of a benefit than a neat gimmick. These quality-of-life upgrades and additions don’t necessarily make the game easier, as there are still some tricky encounters, a good variety of enemy types, more varied and vertical terrain for enemy encounters, and tons of different guns this time around, but they make the experience less frustrating to make up for sometimes imprecise controls or accidental flailing by the player. Otherwise, I tried to play the game with the free movement controls again, which allow you to use the joysticks on the Quest controllers to move around the world almost like a traditional game, but it still made me queasy, so I continued to use the warping movement scheme, which has you throw out a marker to where you want to be next, so make sure to play with whatever makes you most comfortable!
If there’s one thing that led the opening mission of Part I to overstay its welcome, it was the infrequent comm chatter or other dialogue-filled artifacts along the way, making the world feel empty beyond the numerous bad guys, but that’s been corrected for Last Call. Dok-Ondar’s past with the first target means he’ll frequently chime in over the comm about events going on, especially when you find Deek’s journals littered around the levels. As IG-88, the crime boss you’re tracking down constantly talks over your slaughter of his men, often to humorous effect. The mission to take down a First Order recruitment center has chatter from all the denizens of Black Spire Outpost, including even Hondo Ohnaka (Jim Cummings). And Ady’s mission sees her training her Padawan, who has great questions about the Force, what it means to be a Jedi, and the Order’s role in the conflict with the Nihil unfolding in the pages of The High Republic content. The dialogue goes a long way to fleshing out these stories and making the world feel more alive, instead of a long, lonely journey through a video game. Also, the enemy AI swarms and moves around a bit more than the original enemies, forcing players to move more as well and use the environment to their advantage, and it made for a more rewarding experience when surviving encounters. A variety of enemies also helps make combat feel fresh throughout, whereas Part I relied a little too heavily on the basic stock Guavian Death Gang member, while boss encounters aren’t as confusing or lack directions like the battle at the end of Part I, often making you complete puzzles instead of actually full on engaging in combat, which is a plus.
As for the additional tales, Ady Sun’Zee’s (Ellie Araiza) return is a far better package than her first. Ady’s training her Padawan, Nooa (Meredith Anne Bull), and this contemplative and Force-infused puzzle solving allows the game to focusing more on their interactions, while these lessons mean your actions sync up with what the story is trying to say about being a Jedi, whereas the first tale’s action-heavy content made it feel disconnected with Ady’s psychological journey. Tip: You can finish the first three levels of each lesson, but if you stick around, there are an additional three levels to complete! Playing as IG-88 in “The Bounty of Boggs Triff,” Rhys Darby’s performance will make fans of The Mandalorian’s IG-11 happy and provide all fans a great dead-pan delivery. This tale is more of an arcade-like shooter, to the point at the end of each level of the Triff’s hideout provides you with your stats, while your two guns rarely overheat if you play it right. The challenge increases with each floor yet there is a lot of variety in the environment or situations, like trying to avoid an E-WEB blaster or taking down Triff’s shields and other tricks as he makes his last stand. It’s a fun, empowering experience and really lets players see how deadly and dangerous these IG droids really are!
Here are a few other things:
- It’s a little thing, but it was very nice you could punch enemies this time around, as sometimes it’s easier than fumbling with the reloading and quieter than blasting everything.
- Seezelslak’s Cantina now has a drum set, and while I’m not musically inclined enough to play anything recognizable on it, of course others managed to play stuff like the Star Wars Theme!
- No longer available, when Galaxy’s Edge first opened, they had specially designed sporks to add to the illusion you were in Star Wars…so naturally people stole them and sold them online. Paying homage to this infamous history of the park, sporks were added to the game hiding around Seezelslak’s Cantina, which can be turned in for credits at Mubo’s!
- In the main tale of Last Call, when players explored the long-abandoned Jedi Temple, first seen and explored as Ady in her first tale, “Temple of Darkness,” holo-logs found around the map contain dialogue from Jedi Master Cohmac Vitus. Cohmac has starred in The High Republic’s Into the Dark and Out of the Shadows, and there’s been enough concept art and descriptions of him it’s clear he’s not a white person, but the voice actor chosen for him is not only white, he makes Cohmac sound that way too. It was both neat to hear Cohmac speak but disappointing it was done this way.
- While a lot of the cast here is from audiobooks or other Star Wars games, one of the coolest cameos is that of Alex Marshall-Brown, who returns to voice the role she originated in real-life: Vi Moradi, who can be seen by visitors of Galaxy’s Edge!
- Gameplay designer from ILMxLAB Zander Dejah recently starred on an episode of Galactic Builders, talking about creating the VR experiences and that he’s responsible for much of the UI players interact with! Not only that, but he physically created the All-Kit tool, in all its tool switching glory!! How cool would that be to use not only for real, but as an interactive controller for this game?!
If it hasn’t been clear by now, all my issues with the original launch of Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge were addressed with Last Call, a fun expansion with tons of new content and improvements which make it a must-buy game.
+ Bigger story and scale
+ More variety from main missions, side quests, to ‘Tales’
+ Quality-of-life improvements
+ Plenty of good laughs assists each story’s entertainment
– Voice acting choice for Cohmac
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.