When I first played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I came away from it thinking it was highly flawed but had a good foundation to build on. Now having played Jedi: Survivor, not only has Respawn built on that foundation, they’ve done it to such a degree that the prospect of replaying Fallen Order becomes a less and less appealing prospect.
Combat retains its Soulsbornekiro style from Fallen Order, but with a few tweaks; three new lightsaber stances — dual wield, saber & blaster, and Crossguard — have been added. While the now 5 styles available still kind of boil down to ‘quicker styles for groups, heavier styles for bosses and large enemies’ they still each have their own moves and add variety to battles. Combined with all your force abilities you’re able to pull off a ton of cool moves even in the early game.
Exploration is also much improved over Fallen Order. Cal moves faster, there’s finally fast travel between save points, and while the platforming isn’t all that challenging, the amount of moves the game asks you perform keeps it engaging. You’ll be chaining double jumps into dashes into wall runs into grappling hooks. As a result exploration feels much more fun and rewarding.
The biggest leap forward Survivor takes over Fallen Order and the reason for my high rating is the story. Where Fallen Order’s story was serviceable but not particularly memorable, Survivor’s story feels like Respawn wanted to live up to the grand Star Wars tradition of the third part of a trilogy being the best one (ignoring Attack of the Clones, which is the worst one.) Cal’s arc here is excellent. His single-minded obsession with destroying the Empire has caused his old group to splinter. He sees them as having given up the fight when in reality, they’ve just chosen different paths to resistance, Cal was just too stubborn to see that because he’s still clinging on to a code that has no place in the galaxy anymore. He seems to believe that if he rests, people die, and the less he rests the less people will die, which is obviously flawed logic and a horrible headspace to put oneself in. Cal’s obsessiveness also has a dark mirror in the game’s villains, both of whom are former Jedi. One wanted to create a Jedi utopia on the secret planet of Tanalorr, the other is just looking to protect his daughter from the Empire. Both are noble goals in and of themselves, but where it goes wrong is when these two men try desperately to exert control on uncontrollable situations, which drives them both to do terrible things. It’s a really effective story that I feel isn’t getting its due appreciation.
One of the few issues I had with Survivor, though, is its performance. While it’s not in the nearly unplayable state it was at launch, I still experienced my fair share of issues. Framerate drops and texture pop-in are omnipresent issues, the latter sometimes getting so bad that areas will spend 10-15 seconds looking like a PS1 game before the textures finally finish loading. Lighting also constantly goes on the fritz, and all these issues keep the game from looking as good as the first, despite the first game primarily releasing on decade-old hardware.
All that being said, I highly recommend Jedi: Survivor. I think it’s a serious contender for best Star Wars game ever made.
Combat retains its Soulsbornekiro style from Fallen Order, but with a few tweaks; three new lightsaber stances — dual wield, saber & blaster, and Crossguard — have been added. While the now 5 styles available still kind of boil down to ‘quicker styles for groups, heavier styles for bosses and large enemies’ they still each have their own moves and add variety to battles. Combined with all your force abilities you’re able to pull off a ton of cool moves even in the early game.
Exploration is also much improved over Fallen Order. Cal moves faster, there’s finally fast travel between save points, and while the platforming isn’t all that challenging, the amount of moves the game asks you perform keeps it engaging. You’ll be chaining double jumps into dashes into wall runs into grappling hooks. As a result exploration feels much more fun and rewarding.
The biggest leap forward Survivor takes over Fallen Order and the reason for my high rating is the story. Where Fallen Order’s story was serviceable but not particularly memorable, Survivor’s story feels like Respawn wanted to live up to the grand Star Wars tradition of the third part of a trilogy being the best one (ignoring Attack of the Clones, which is the worst one.) Cal’s arc here is excellent. His single-minded obsession with destroying the Empire has caused his old group to splinter. He sees them as having given up the fight when in reality, they’ve just chosen different paths to resistance, Cal was just too stubborn to see that because he’s still clinging on to a code that has no place in the galaxy anymore. He seems to believe that if he rests, people die, and the less he rests the less people will die, which is obviously flawed logic and a horrible headspace to put oneself in. Cal’s obsessiveness also has a dark mirror in the game’s villains, both of whom are former Jedi. One wanted to create a Jedi utopia on the secret planet of Tanalorr, the other is just looking to protect his daughter from the Empire. Both are noble goals in and of themselves, but where it goes wrong is when these two men try desperately to exert control on uncontrollable situations, which drives them both to do terrible things. It’s a really effective story that I feel isn’t getting its due appreciation.
One of the few issues I had with Survivor, though, is its performance. While it’s not in the nearly unplayable state it was at launch, I still experienced my fair share of issues. Framerate drops and texture pop-in are omnipresent issues, the latter sometimes getting so bad that areas will spend 10-15 seconds looking like a PS1 game before the textures finally finish loading. Lighting also constantly goes on the fritz, and all these issues keep the game from looking as good as the first, despite the first game primarily releasing on decade-old hardware.
All that being said, I highly recommend Jedi: Survivor. I think it’s a serious contender for best Star Wars game ever made.