Sequels usually develop on their predecessor's formula, making sure to take what made the original work and make it better. Respawn did not take this approach for its sequel to Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. If the original made the audacious choice of being a metroidvania, not fearing of alienating the more casual audience that could be attracted by the licence it was using, Star Wars Jedi Survivor is a more linear game with metroidvania inspirations. In my very personal opinion, this makes the game a resounding success, but bear in mind that I'm not the biggest fan of 3D metroidvanias.
The resulting experience is a game that is simpler to enjoy, but that doesn't lack personality notably thanks to its multiple lightsaber stances that play very differently to one another and are all viable choices to face any enemy and is moreso dependant on the player's desired play style than a real "meta." Drawing comparisons with Ghost of Tsushima would be tempting, but it's stance system was closer to a game of rock/paper/scissors than a diverse choice of viable options.
The metroidvania aspect of the game is now found only if you go out of the story's beaten path. You'll never encounter a locked door while following main objectives, you won't have to go from planet to planet to try and find where you can use your newly found skill like in the first game, but you will find a lot of secondary content locked behind story progression. To me, this is a very good compromise between linearity and metroidvania. One thing I hate in metroidvanias is the fact that I don't know if the locked door that I've been obsessing over for the past 3 hours of gameplay is hiding story progression or the most meaningless collectible ever. So, by limiting non-linear aspects of the game to side content exclsuively, I now know that any locked door is optional, and I can live with the peace of mind of knowing that I don't have to get my hopes up on what's behind that door, as I know that it will be optional.
This makes exploration way better than in the first game, as it feels completely optional and less frustrating, as you're not looking for where to progress the story: the player now chooses when he advances the story, and when he wants to explore and take on side challenges, which there are tons of. You'll find enemy camps (always a treat as you can use the game's amazing combat system), jedi temples which are bite-sized versions of the first game's temples, with better, but still very simple, puzzles, or even combat challenges. I won't spoil my favourite as its a very welcome call-back to the first game, but falling upon said challenge was one of my favourite gaming moments of the year. Finding out that the post-game offered a more difficult version of said combat was also a treat, even though my first reaction was to blankly stare at my TV in terror.
As for the story, it was a very brave one. It does a fantastic job at capturing both the prequels (by using its combat droids, whose voice lines are always hilarious and really capture their character) and original trilogy, all while calling upon some of the expanded universe in a pretty substantial manner which I won't spoil as it's better to go in blind on that subject, as the game's marketing really doesn't push the narrative to keep a lot of the surprises. All this is more than welcome in a world filled with original trilogy nostalgia bait. Even if the game still takes place in the original trilogy's orbit, it manages to link back to the prequel and expanded universe in a really skillful way. The pacing is a bit weird, as the begining is a bit long and the end of the second act really leaves you on an adrenaline high that makes it feel a bit counterintuitive to continue on afterwards, but overall the story's structure is decent. The themes and characters (and mirrored constructions of certain characters) are all well developped for a video-game, especially a licenced one, so kuddos to Respawn's writing team for that. To put it mildly, the first game's story was decent, but nothing we hadn't seen before from the Star Wars universe, while this game's story feels like a work of love for the whole franchise.
It has to be said that on the technical side, the game does have a few notable issues. I never encountered anything game-breaking in 30 hours of playtime, but there were a few hickups, most notably textures taking time to load in (mostly in the background, the foreground is almost always perfect), frame drops in very specific places on the map, and collision bugs during "finisher" sequences in mini-boss fights that propelled both Cal and the monster I was fighting 5 feet in the air.
But, once the textures load in, the game is truly beautiful. The main planet, Kobboh, is dense with vegetation in a way that truly only feels possible on next-gen. It isn't amazing, but it is noticeable, and to do all this with relatively few hickups is truly amazing.
I hate saying that I love these games as they have EA's logo on them, but I really liked Fallen Order as a simpler metroidvania which drew heavy inspiration from Dark Souls, Zelda and Uncharted. I always loved the bravery that took Respawn to make a game that wouldn't be loved by casuals to give us what was an unoriginal game but with good gameplay. Jedi Survivor has a smaller scale, less planets, a more linear experience, which may be more casual-friendly but also feels more refined and like it has more personality that its predecessor. In my opinion, Jedi Survivor is a resounding success, besides its catastrophic launch on PC that is.
The resulting experience is a game that is simpler to enjoy, but that doesn't lack personality notably thanks to its multiple lightsaber stances that play very differently to one another and are all viable choices to face any enemy and is moreso dependant on the player's desired play style than a real "meta." Drawing comparisons with Ghost of Tsushima would be tempting, but it's stance system was closer to a game of rock/paper/scissors than a diverse choice of viable options.
The metroidvania aspect of the game is now found only if you go out of the story's beaten path. You'll never encounter a locked door while following main objectives, you won't have to go from planet to planet to try and find where you can use your newly found skill like in the first game, but you will find a lot of secondary content locked behind story progression. To me, this is a very good compromise between linearity and metroidvania. One thing I hate in metroidvanias is the fact that I don't know if the locked door that I've been obsessing over for the past 3 hours of gameplay is hiding story progression or the most meaningless collectible ever. So, by limiting non-linear aspects of the game to side content exclsuively, I now know that any locked door is optional, and I can live with the peace of mind of knowing that I don't have to get my hopes up on what's behind that door, as I know that it will be optional.
This makes exploration way better than in the first game, as it feels completely optional and less frustrating, as you're not looking for where to progress the story: the player now chooses when he advances the story, and when he wants to explore and take on side challenges, which there are tons of. You'll find enemy camps (always a treat as you can use the game's amazing combat system), jedi temples which are bite-sized versions of the first game's temples, with better, but still very simple, puzzles, or even combat challenges. I won't spoil my favourite as its a very welcome call-back to the first game, but falling upon said challenge was one of my favourite gaming moments of the year. Finding out that the post-game offered a more difficult version of said combat was also a treat, even though my first reaction was to blankly stare at my TV in terror.
As for the story, it was a very brave one. It does a fantastic job at capturing both the prequels (by using its combat droids, whose voice lines are always hilarious and really capture their character) and original trilogy, all while calling upon some of the expanded universe in a pretty substantial manner which I won't spoil as it's better to go in blind on that subject, as the game's marketing really doesn't push the narrative to keep a lot of the surprises. All this is more than welcome in a world filled with original trilogy nostalgia bait. Even if the game still takes place in the original trilogy's orbit, it manages to link back to the prequel and expanded universe in a really skillful way. The pacing is a bit weird, as the begining is a bit long and the end of the second act really leaves you on an adrenaline high that makes it feel a bit counterintuitive to continue on afterwards, but overall the story's structure is decent. The themes and characters (and mirrored constructions of certain characters) are all well developped for a video-game, especially a licenced one, so kuddos to Respawn's writing team for that. To put it mildly, the first game's story was decent, but nothing we hadn't seen before from the Star Wars universe, while this game's story feels like a work of love for the whole franchise.
It has to be said that on the technical side, the game does have a few notable issues. I never encountered anything game-breaking in 30 hours of playtime, but there were a few hickups, most notably textures taking time to load in (mostly in the background, the foreground is almost always perfect), frame drops in very specific places on the map, and collision bugs during "finisher" sequences in mini-boss fights that propelled both Cal and the monster I was fighting 5 feet in the air.
But, once the textures load in, the game is truly beautiful. The main planet, Kobboh, is dense with vegetation in a way that truly only feels possible on next-gen. It isn't amazing, but it is noticeable, and to do all this with relatively few hickups is truly amazing.
I hate saying that I love these games as they have EA's logo on them, but I really liked Fallen Order as a simpler metroidvania which drew heavy inspiration from Dark Souls, Zelda and Uncharted. I always loved the bravery that took Respawn to make a game that wouldn't be loved by casuals to give us what was an unoriginal game but with good gameplay. Jedi Survivor has a smaller scale, less planets, a more linear experience, which may be more casual-friendly but also feels more refined and like it has more personality that its predecessor. In my opinion, Jedi Survivor is a resounding success, besides its catastrophic launch on PC that is.