I played and reviewed this game already once - though I now came to learn, that I chose the wrong "version" of the game (the XBox actually came with the Deluxe Edition that has some additional content, though I am not quite sure what that is). However, it has been more than 3 years now, since I played this, and for the review I couldn't even think about all the details anymore, but remembered having fun with it. Plus, I just came to know that there was a sequel released - so I planed to play this one once more, and so I did. Last time I also didn't go for the 100% and did miss a couple of things (it was my first ever XBox, Star Wars and Story game in a very long time).

This game is a great Star Wars story and one of the better Star Wars games out there. I tried a lot of them, and never was happy - except for the old Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy; but those are two decades old now. Fallen Order is in many ways similar to the old Jedi Outcast story - instead of Kyle Katarn, we play Cal Kastis (is this name similarity really coincidental?), a former Jedi in hiding that has to re-learn all the tools and traded of becoming a Jedi - which, also for him, happens not by choosing, but by chance. Different to Kyle Katarn, we don't get to play the first half with normal weapons, but start with out light saber right away and never even are allowed to pick up another weapon. But, as with Kyle, Cal has a ship and a crew and gets sent on a mission; a mission that could potentially change the galaxy forever...

All in all, this is a great game; its fun to play, the settings are great, it feels like a perfect Star Wars game - Cal travels the Galaxy on the trails of an old Jedi, tracing his steps to learn a secret that could potentially change the balance of the Galaxy again, after the Emperor took over control just a couple of years ago and formed the Galactic Empire into an Empire. While we do so, we have to solve a lot of puzzles, fight some ancient and natural enemies and are hunted by the Empires typical troops, as well as some highly trained Jedi hunting Inquisitors. On the way we learn some new tricks, and make some new (unusual) friends and see both beautiful and cute creatures, as well as terrible and frightening ones.

Game play and story wise this game is mostly great fun; but it does some things rather unusually and here's where my critizism starts:

1.) This game will force us to visit places we've already seen over and over again; this is part of the concept. Sometimes the story takes us back, other times we just learned some new tricks that will allow us to access places that where previously inaccessible. This is both a unusual and in some ways great idea, as well as a horrible idea. On the plus side, it lets us explore the galaxy - and the designers put some thought into a lot of places, that are actually fun to explore - sometimes there are even story elements that link to things you can explore in the world; also some of the secrets are hidden really well - and if you find them you'd be both amazed by the clever hiding place, but also a bit angry at the designers for hiding it so well :D My biggest criticism is that after you visit a planet a second or third time and have to visit it again, because now you finally have that new ability - it gets a bit stale and boring. Especially because there are now fast travel points, or anything. You always land at the same spot, you always need to walk the entire way, and of course you'd probably forgotten half the places where you actually knew something was hidden, but couldn't reach it. So what starts out as a great idea soon turns into an annoying one, especially if you try to reach those sweet 100%.

2.) This somehow adds to the 1. point and only gets really annoying once you try to reach those 100% and try to walk through the same parts the second or third time: The map feature is a mess. I appreciate what they try to do and had to accomplish - the world desing is beautiful and clever and you really appreciate all those details that you could make out from afar turn into something you'll get to traverse - on different levels. For the first time - you always know where you've been and are only interested in where to go next which is clearly mapped on your map. But that second time, when everything is explored and there are no more markers, this map actually seems more like a handicap than an aid: Trying to figure out how to get form A to B on Dathomir or Zaffo is a real pain, and the map does more bad than actually help. Which is a shame.

3.) Power levels. This is probably my biggest issue with the game. The Game offers:
- Story Mode
- Jedi Knight
- Jedi Master
- Jedi Grandmaster

According to the games own description, "Jedi Knight" is for beginners, "Jedi Master" for people who have played similar games, and "Grandmaster" for people who want a challenge. So I thought to myself: "Jedi Master it is" - I had played this game once, I've also played myself through Batman and the entire Assassins Creed series, which are all pretty similar, and just finished Hellblade so I should be fine, right?

Well... nope. Especially in the beginning with Cal not having much power and life, Jedi Master is rather hard; manageable for most parts, yes, but there are parts that seem impossible, and for the end bosses I did not make any damage at all. So after constantly switching between "Jedi Master" and "Jedi Knight", I ended up sticking to "Jedi Knight" - which was okey for 80% of the time - but there are those few instances (Kashyyyk, where all of the sudden you face 4 giant spiders and two horned slugs, that all beat you up at once), where even Knight is so challenging that it'll ask all of you - which is fine except that your life resource is really limited and stim packs cannot be recharged etc., so you'll probably fail if you use them up all at once just after leaving that meditation point 100m ago.

Story Mode on the other hand is really boring for 80% of the time. So yeah, I feel that the balancing is way off, and this is actually adding to a lot of frustration. Story Mode is too easy and not fun, Knight works for most parts, Master is unplayable, and I didn't dare trying Grandmaster. Reading up on this I heard a lot of people comparing it to Dark Souls but more frustrating. So yeah, this is a shame.

And last but not least, it's all in all a really short game, which also offers not much after finishing it. But all in all it is still a really great game, even though I had a lot of points I criticized I'd say its a fun game worth playing, especially now, with prices being at an all time low and with Jedi Survivor as its successor that will continue the story started here.

After needing 35h the first time around (and being new to the X-Box), this time it took me 42h, but not only did I finish the story once more, but this time also got every chest, every secret, every entry on the database, and after seeing that I only missed 4 XBox trophies, I even went as far and did all of them as well. Plus I found a bonus area I totally missed the first time around (Venator Wreckage) and after maxing out every item on the skill tree I stumbled upon some additional fighting challenges I also didn't know existed before - and did all of them as well, scoring 1-2 Stars for each of them as well. So yeah, something you'd finish in 1-2 weeks time (max).

A game that promised me nothing, yet delivered me back to my childhood.

In our modern capitalistic worldview of franchises even Star-Wars has fallen victim to what I what I will call "content soup syndrome". There is just simply too much content to follow and to be aware of to fully enjoy the big whole now without serious caveats. This used to be different, this used to simpler. I guess we could say Jedi: Fallen Order is a game made by the standards of a more civilized time. A story not told in a vacuum yet not requiring much more than the main movies (perhaps the Clone Wars show) to grasp.
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Cal Kestis is a "survivor" of a "fallen order" living in hiding from the newly formed empire but also himself. Harboring guilt, issues with self-worth and deep seated insecurities, when he is is forced to reveal himself and flee once again, the path he must take will confront the young warrior with his inner demons, while also blossoming in his mind the idealistic, romanticized teaching of the Jedi.
A story that have been told a countless times before and will be told countless times, yet the respect, the timidness and the emotional maturity of the writing brings something special to the table. The cast here feel like they are real characters, flawed and layered people learning and growing by each other. A grand but intimate story all expertly built around a few key themes reverberating throughout the game.
I did not expect Cal Kestis ending up as one of my favourite jedi next to Obi-wan Kenobi but Respawn Entertainment did their due diligence.
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Along with the story, probably the strongest selling point of the game is it's Metroidvania influenced level design philosophy, which makes replaying past levels immensely satisfying as you constantly discover new secrets, pathways, upgrades and customisation options dotted around the maps.
The combat is inspired by Darks Souls but is more focused in on parrying and whittling down the opponent's defenses until you can strike. Dances like this with powerful foes can be difficult to master on the harder difficulties but is absolutely recommended if one wishes to entirely feel like a remnant of a powerful knightly order. It is a bit weird how all the enemies reappear if you rest at meditation points but let's be honest, there are games out there with far more agreedious dissonance between gameplay reality and in-lore reality and the Darks Souls formula provides a constant challenge in order to keep your combat abilities in check and polished for another fight.

de longe o maior problema desse jogo é a má otimização, independente da plataforma. a história é impecável, os personagens são memoráveis, mas... fica muito difícil não se incomodar com o jogo travando em muitos pontos durante a gameplay. por tentar ser um soulslike, mas com opção de modo fácil e modo história, acho que eles poderiam ter chutado o balde e colocado um sistema de viagem rápida, já que é muito frustrante ter que andar de uma ponta a outra do mapa a pé. mesmo com seus defeitos, esse jogo é realmente muito bom e eu acho que vale a experiência

"Fallen Order consegue ser simplesmente o que jogadores da saga sempre precisaram..."

Um dos momentos que sempre curti foi entre o episodio 3 e 4, o qual temos o equilíbrio da força vindo de Skywalker. Escondido desde a ordem 66, Cal Kestis agora tem a missão de reerguer a ordem Jedi, o qual lhe faz pensar sua própria força de vontade e mentalidade em continuar sua jornada.

A gameplay se tem base em souls, então pode se usar parry, block ou esquiva quando sofre ataques. A maioria dos poderes clássicos da saga estão presentes, desde puxão e empurrão, até novos como desacelerar inimigos. O domínio de várias técnicas é necessário para passar de várias partes, uso de sabre de luz duplo contra uma multidão é praticamente obrigatório.

A trilha sonora é Épica, simplesmente, sabendo dar o momento de tensão entre combates ou exploração.

Não peguei nenhum problema técnico relacionado a gameplay, nessa parte é bem polida, mas não posso dizer o mesmo do desempenho, ele é medíocre, no sentido mediano, em transição de áreas por exemplo é possível sentir quedas bruscas de FPS, nada que comprometa a gameplay em si, mas causa bastante desconforto na exploração. E não adianta por no low ou ultra, não as quedas continuarão em certas partes, principalmente em áreas abertas, sendo essa parte da otimização minha única indignação.

Em suma, um excelente game e prato cheio para um fã de star wars.

this game perfectly fits the term "mediocre", its neither amazing nor is it shit, i wouldn't say this game perfectly balances the pros and cons either cus my god the flaws in this game are really bothersome to me, especially the fucking navigation system/map. I'm genuinely curious as to what the devs were smoking when they made that god awful map, the fact that it's holographic makes it harder to look at cus the background just blends in with the map, absolutely trash. The exploration isn't really all the fun since the maps are hella confusing to navigate through which makes it frustrating to even explore and everytime i had to get back to the mantis i just lost a good chunk of my braincells. Also hated how this game takes a lot of inspiration from the souls games whether it may be the combat or how difficult the enemies are sometimes (the rats) but doesn't bother implementing fast travel like dark souls, like what even is the point of those meditation points throughout the map when you can't even fast travel in them?
Now keeping aside the flaws the game does have some really fun features, mainly the combat which is very clean and fluid and actually takes time to learn, the parrying and dodging makes every fight tense and fun, the music is amazing, especially when they played order 66's ost during the flashback, solid story and likeable characters and to tie it all of it had an incredible ending. Overall this game is a solid 3/5

May or may not come back for a video review of this one.

As a Souls-like for someone who doesn’t Souls, I appreciate the gentle on-ramp for when I eventually return to Bloodborne.

The story and gameplay here are pretty solid. The music and sound design is excellent. Graphically, they really did a good job, but the game was plagued with glitches and crashed a ton. I played it in 2023 on Xbox Series X, so if it was ever going to be fully patched up and polished, it happened already. A shame that the technical hiccups weighed the game down for me.

Also, the first game I have ever unlocked every achievement for on Xbox, and I’ve been doing it since achievements existed! (Came close a couple times, it’s a sore subject, I don’t wanna talk about it.)

Jedi Fallen Order é um bom jogo, infelizmente não é tão bom quanto os antigos games no universo de Stars Wars, como Force Unleashed, KOTOR e etc. A história é muito boa, não é tão original visando todo o universo expandido de SW nos quadrinhos, que exploram toda a questão pós Ordem 66, mas possui plots interessantes, o combate é também muito bom. Os dois maiores problemas desse jogo são os mapas e o level design, fazer a platina dele não é algo prazeroso, apesar de ter gostado de explorar alguns mapas; mas sem guia, pegar todos os coletáveis é uma tarefa quase impossível. Ainda sim, a maioria dos fãs de Star Wars, como eu, vão gostar muito do jogo, especialmente se fizerem apenas uma única run e não se importarem com as conquistas.

Nota: 8/10

Nota para quem se aventurar na platina: 7/10