Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order game review

Recently, I completed the latest Star Wars game. I had a good time, but was left wanting more. Here’s my thoughts.

Introduction

Star wars Jedi: Fallen order came out in November 2019 and most certainly it has already been reviewed left and right (and has an overall score of 79 on metacritic at the time of writing). Given that I don’t play many different titles, let alone finish them, I thought I could attempt a review of my own.

I have three major impressions. First, the game feels a lot like a 3D platformer with combat elements (more Rayman than Witcher, to my surprise). Second, it is an absolute eye candy. Third, while comparisons to Dark Souls are understandable, the latter has better climate and more combat depth (I played Dark Souls 3 quite a bit, but never progressed very far).

Plot & characters

The game is set five years after the events of Revenge of the Sith movie (Episode III). The player takes on the role of Cal, a Jedi padawan who managed to escape the Jedi purge and is now forced into hiding. This means that from the very beginning of the game he owns a lightsaber and has certain prowess in using the Force, but his repressed memories provide an explanation for some skills being unlocked throughout the story. Many of them are related to mobility, and are cleverly brought about by training flashbacks triggered at moments when they become essential to progress through a map. The motif of having to accept the past to be able to move forward is nicely played out at one point of the story, in its later stages, but other than that I didn’t feel especially engaged emotionally with the protagonist.

Other characters didn’t seem very interesting either. The most important of them, Cere (Cal’s mentor) and the Second Sister (main villain) felt just OK, even though their backstories were supposed to be powerful (involving betrayal, torture, dark side, etc.). The side characters seemed bland, with the glaring exception of Prauf, Cal’s only friend throughout his period of hiding: a seasoned blue collar worker belonging to the Scrappers Guild, sincere and warm-hearted, with modest ambitions. Even though he only appears in the prologue, he was my favourite character - helped, probably, by the voice acting from Wojciech Żołądkowicz (PL). Also quite interesting (and with more screen time) was Greez: an older, uncle-type pilot with beer belly and gambling addiction, referring to the protagonist in the tone of ‘one day, kid, I should teach you how to pilot a ship… not on my ship, of course’. His voice acting, by Janusz Wituch (PL) was pretty much on point, too. Speaking of which, the Polish dubbing was overall really good, ranging from OK to seriously great, and I was at no point tempted to search for an option to switch to original.

Actually, there is one more character who definitely deserves a mention: BD-1, Cal’s robot companion. He communicates only with series of beeps, apparently understandable to Cal, but obviously not the player; the small dialogues triggered from time to time are always nice. What is best, however, is BD-1’s movement animation, which allows the rather minimalistic robot to have its own personality.

Overall, the plot seemed fairly unremarkable, at times to the point of being cliche. You travel the galaxy, meet interesting people, and kill stormtroopers. You get to swing a lightsaber a lot though, and maybe that’s all a Star Wars game really needs.

Speaking of the plot, for me the low point came at Kashyyk, where serious effort leads to establishing contact with Wookie chieftain Tarfful… only for the protagonist to learn in a quick encounter that indeed, he needs to climb the humongous Origin Tree, and that indeed, to get to the top, one must start at the bottom. Only in a few dialogues does the player have to choose an option, but the choices never seem meaningful. Enough said, it is no Witcher game.

That being said, there are high points as well. The prologue, where the player learns character control by navigating a spaceship scrapyard (where Cal worked with Prauf), is a masterclass in climate, built through visuals and overheard conversations: to me it felt like a communist-era shipyard moved to cosmos. As mentioned above, Cal’s flashbacks take a serious turn as the story develops, and for a while become actual character development. And Cal’s vision at Bogano, leading into the final part of the game, is downright serious and creepy.

Gameplay

There are two main components to the gameplay. The first of them is lightsaber combat, which boils down to well timed attacks, parries, blocks and dodges, preferrably executed on a gamepad, in a manner similar to the esteemed Dark Souls series.

Second, the 3D platfrmer aspect is strong, and for this reason I think that the game should be compared not only to Dark Souls, but also to Rayman. At one or two moments I honestly expected to see yelow lums waiting to be collected.

Unlike in Dark Souls, the difficulty level it can be adjusted, affecting parry timing, damage taken and enemy aggression. I played through on Jedi Master, third out of four available, which appears to be a reasonably challenging option. Regular enemies seemed reasonably balanced, while boss fights were at times frustrating. That being said, in welcome opposition to my Dark Souls experiences, even on a first encounter with a boss I was able to live long enough to gauge their moveset and strategy. Enemies, even weak, were much harder to deal with in groups, when I struggled mostly with target switching (although I don’t know if that is a problem with game controls or just me). This is mitigated by an acquisition of a dual lightsaber later in the game, as its attacks can be spammed to a great effect againist mobs.

I really liked the fact that single and dual blade modes (which can be easily toggled once tha latter is acquired) have noticably different mechanics, with the former having higher damage on a single hit, and the latter offering quick and spammable, but weaker attacks. I am no lightsaber expert, but I would say that Cal’s overall fighting style can be classified as Form V, with its heavy focus on brute strength and pure power, with wide, powerful strikes and parries followed immediately by a counterattack (perhaps mostly because of gameplay demands than anything else). Overall, fighting was satisfying, even though compared to Dark Souls enemy movesets felt somewhat limited.

The biggest part of the game focuses on navigating vast locations and fighting one’s way through to reach a target. The progression is punctuated by activating ‘meditation spots’ located in predefined places, which serve as save points. They can also be used to replenish health, which causes enemies to respawn - just like bonfires in Dark Souls. Unlike in Dark Souls, where bonfires always feel way too scarce, here they are spaced just right.

In another clue from Dark Souls, some passages have to be unlocked by going the long way round, providing a shortcut for when the location needs to be revisited. Other require using a specific force ability, which is ‘rediscovered’ at some point. Together, these mechanics help streamline the plot in a fairly natural manner.

Speaking of movement - and there really is plenty of jumping - some jumps off a rope or cliff’s edge, to catch another rope seemed to behave erratically, with the character taking a turn seemingly at random. Again, I can’t really tell if that’s an errant game mechanic, or an unnoticed mistake with camera management on my side. For me, the Rayman-style platformer action was at points drawn out and tedious, but the pace picked up noticeably in the final, combat - heavy part of the game.

An additional element of gameplay is finding chests and echoes, somwewhat hidden all over the locations. Echoes are just that, echoes of the past, which provide backstory and grant some experience points when unlocked. Chests contain cosmetic items (poncho color schemes, lightsaber elements etc.) which affect nothing more than the look of things. For some reason I enjoyed the collectible aspect a lot, and paired with the sheer graphics quality it encouraged me to wander around each location a bit longer than strictly necessary much more than a simple x% statistic would.

Interestingly, the game was quite concise: I was neither rushing things nor trying to check every nook and cranny, and I have 36 hours logged on Steam, which includes a few spots that had me stuck for longer than they probably should if I were more skilled. There is an NG+ mode, conveniently added in an update recently. It allows for a replay of the main story while keeping the collected cosmetic items (I’ll pass on that) but it also adds ‘meditation training’, which, as far as I understand, means fighting predefined waves of enemies. As I liked the combat element, I’ll probably give it a few hours.

Conclusion

I think I managed to say it all above - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has its shortcomings in terms of plot and gameplay, but it is fun and looks stunningly pretty.