Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Review - This May Not Be the Star Wars Rebirth You’re Looking For
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It's Star Wars season again. With a new movie on the rise, and an ongoing TV show making its mark on the franchise, excitement is at an all-time high. Respawn Entertainment is at the helm for EA's latest Star Wars game, and they’ve given us a new lightsaber-wielding hero, one on a path to becoming a Jedi Knight. It's been a while since we've gotten a full-on single player lightsaber action-game on home consoles, with the last major Star Wars game releases being multiplayer-focused shooters. Will Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order be the game that brings balance to The Force? Let's take a look.
“Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of The Force.”
A Familiar Space Odyssey
The action kicks off five years after the events of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. You play as Cal Kestis, a former Padawan on the run from the Empire following the Great Jedi Purge. Hiding as a scrapper, Cal was forced (heh) to use his powers to save a friend from an accident. This quickly catches the attention of the Inquisitors, a group of Force-sensitives recruited to hunt down any remaining Jedi that survived Order 66.
The game opens up with a very strong set-piece that’s filled with a lot of action and explosions as you run from Stormtroopers on a moving train; the ride ends with an unwinnable encounter against one of the Inquisitors. In the nick of time, Cal’s rescued by a ragtag group of rebels who then escape to the cosmos. You’re then tasked to search for a secret that can only be unlocked by Jedi, a secret that will reveal an artifact that has the potential to restore the Jedi Order and bring peace back to the galaxy.
All of this is complemented by a soundtrack that sounds very similar to the musical scores done by John Williams for the Star Wars films. This really throws you into the whole experience and can tickle a diehard fan’s nostalgia bones to their soft, gooey cores. The game also does a few clever things with its presentation for a few story beats. For example, at one point, the game spawns a meditation circle - normally a way to access your skill tree - not for gameplay reasons, but to throw you into a cut-scene where Cal has an internal battle.
While the story is far from perfect, I found it quite enjoyable. It hits the marks on what I expect to see in a Star Wars storyline. Just don't expect too much. The galaxy is not exempt from the power of the MacGuffins and Deus ex machinas that the rebels seem to be spoonfed in these games.
Metroidvania? Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.
Having only seen the E3 demo, I was fully expecting this to either be a level-to-level action-game or an RPG with action combat. Fallen Order turned out to have combat stylings more akin to the Souls series. The more accurate comparison would be to Sekiro, since there are no RPG elements, nor a leveling system to upgrade your character. As mentioned earlier, there is a skill tree that you can access for boosting your maximum health and Force meter, as well as unlocking new Force attacks and lightsaber combos.
Force powers are not unlocked via the skill tree. They are instead acquired through story progression. This plays into the Metroidvania comparison. Instead of being a linear level hop, you’ll get to choose which planet to tackle first. Each planet acts as its own map, with roadblocks that require you to acquire certain Force powers in order to progress. This incentivizes backtracking between planets when new powers and abilities are unlocked, leading to story progression, secrets, or shortcuts.
I wish I could say that the level design is as clever as Metroidvania games, or even the Dark Souls series. While there are shortcuts, they're not as well-placed, and are too few and far between one another to be functional as full-on shortcuts. The level design tends to push forward linearly, as opposed to looping around itself. I'd often find myself running back and forth between areas when revisiting planets. The lack of any form of fast travel also adds to the tedium of the long stretches of running.
A clumsy weapon for a more civilized age
The moment I got to control Cal, the first impression wasn't great. There's a floaty sensation to nearly every action that your character can do. As far as movement is concerned, even though Fallen Order has platforming segments, there's no harsh punishment for, say, falling into a pit. You lose a bit of health but cannot die from falling, even at near zero health. There's a magnetic snappiness to most of the platforming bits, but the imprecise feel can lead to some mild annoyance at times. Respawn Entertainment is known for having wall-running in all of their games, and Jedi: Fallen Order is not exempt from that. I will say that this is the worst wall-running that I've ever experienced in a video game.
Attacks also suffer from the floaty sensation of the controls. There's a lack of snappiness to the saber swings, making it difficult for me as the player to register whether I've landed a successful hit or not, causing me to constantly monitor enemy health bars even early on. Making the attacks sluggish could have been the intent of the developers, since the game appears to be trying its best to force you into using certain mechanics when facing specific enemies and scenarios, with the main mechanic being the parry system. If you can time your block correctly, you’ll be able to parry nearly every attack. This then allows you to either (A) open them up for a counter, (B) slow down the animation for a few moments, thus allowing you to plan out your next move better, or (C) straight-up land a riposte and instantly kill an enemy.
Before you learn all of your Force powers, the game looks to steer you hard into playing a more defensive strategy for nearly every enemy encounter. Most attacks will deal a ton of damage to you early on, and with the attack animations being a tad slow and sluggish, a lot of reactive offense or mashing the attack buttons in panic will usually end in death, and the consequence of a long loading screen before Cal respawns. Usually, when a player learns from their mistakes in a game and conquers obstacles, there's a sense of satisfaction. With the combat in Fallen Order, that feeling is sometimes absent and instead replaced with confusion. The damage dealt to enemies doesn't seem to be consistent, as at times it takes multiple hits to take down an opponent, while in another instance, it might take only a single hit to eliminate the same unit in the same fashion. Apologies if I'm having trouble explaining this. It's really a phenomenon you have to experience for yourself, and it's definitely something that you have to get used to.
It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it happens everywhere.
On console, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order feels like an un-optimized PC game running on a lower end machine. Long loading times can get annoying if you find yourself dying a lot and almost room-to-room texture popping is a mild annoyance. Characters and enemies loading in late and/or showing up in a T-Pose is hilarious and at least if enemies load late, they can't actually attack and hurt you until they’ve loaded in completely (that is, of course, unless they load in mid-attack right beside you, literally appearing out of nowhere. I'm looking at you, Ba-Gonk).
One of the more egregious bugs that I encountered was during a major set-piece moment. Without spoiling too much, you are unarmed and are on the run from troopers. While their audio queues were fine, most of the troopers loaded in late, with their models stretching in from somewhere off-screen. A character comes in to save you while taking out troopers along the way. From my perspective, a trooper loaded in mid-death animation, while the other character spawned halfway through killing another trooper. It's funny, but it kind of ruins the moment.
I am one with The Force. The Force is with me.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order may not be the droid that we're looking for, it's still a fun romp through the cosmos, providing a decent story with some strong moments that will tickle the most sensitive midichlorians inside you (Yes, they're there, even if you pretend that they don't exist). Underneath all those technical issues is a good lightsaber game. Just don't give in to the Dark Side when a group of Stormtroopers slide down a ramp while in a T-pose.
7/10
Highlights
(+) Great character dialogue
(+) Incentivizes exploration and backtracking
(-) Lackluster character customization options
(-) No fast travel (at the very least back to the ship) and poorly thought-out shortcuts
(-) Lightsaber blade doesn't passively sear the environment and no limb dismemberment against humanoid enemies
(-) Not enough boss fights
What I’ve Played
Completed the game mostly in Jedi Master difficulty (dabbled a bit in Jedi Grand Master mode)
Most if not all planets were 90-100% explored with all collectibles attained except on the planet Zeffo
30+ hours of total game time (half of which was spent exploring)
Platform: PlayStation 4 (Standard)
[This review is based on a code provided by EA]
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