Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order Feels Like Coming Home (Review) -

 now you look at that separatist ship I've seen a Luke or Hulk in ages yeah ages breaking her will be big money all right let's go okay so let me put it this way Star Wars Jedi fallen order is a very imperfect game and if you want to sit there and disassemble all of its components and set each of them down side by side you could very easily put forward a strong and convincing case that this is just a pretty average action-adventure game but taken together all of the characters and the story and the world and the exploration and the law and the set pieces of the action and the rich thoroughbred Star Wars energy just coursing through this thing when you put all that stuff together you cannot but think holy [ __ ] this is [ __ ] awesome this is the best Star Wars fix I've had since I honestly I remember when like it's hard to remember a time when it was so easy to love something Star Wars but like true believers this is it I absolutely love this game and in this review I'm going to tell you why okay so can I just start by saying this we live in divided times and no more is that evident then when it comes to Star Wars now I don't want to get into what everyone thinks about the new trilogy or whatever that's your business but onething I think we can all agree on is  that no one agrees about the new trilogy or the offshoot movies or the expanded universe or anything else when it comes to Star Wars except maybe baby Yoda everyone seems to be pretty on board with him to be honest Jedi fallen order actually like means something to me as a Star Wars fan because it's the first time in a long long time when I could just walk away from something Star Wars related and just close my eyes and nod my head and think to myself yes that Star Wars you guys get it you did it thank you and given that this is the franchise among all other franchises that defined my childhood and teenage years that's a really really special feeling it's this feeling more than anything else that defines Jedi fallen order structurally and mechanically fall order is never as strong as the games that inspires it its world exploration and traversal and puzzles never feel quite as fully realized as they do and say uncharted the new abilities you gain access to never feel quite as impactful as they do in a multitude of other Metroidvania and fallen orders secure oh like combat does not a candle to secure oh and can even be described as bad depending on how much of a melee action purist you are but straddling all of this is Star Wars and every inch of this game is thick with

the most perfectly realized version a fan could hope for it comes through a cow the down-on-his-luck but never under turd here oh it comes through the lovable deep and engaging crew members that accompany here it comes through the incredible locations you visit and the supporting cast you bump into its present in the stone monuments that tower above you the deepest tombs you explore the gladiatorial combat you find yourself in and the set pieces that hold you transfixed until they're done with you you can take the Star Wars label off this thing and everyone would still know it's Star Wars because it just nails that feeling in a way that Star Wars itself has struggled to do for a very very long time now

[Music]

Jedi fallen order tells the story of calc Estes hiding away in a scrappers yard Cal's force sensitivity is revealed to us in some of the first moments of the game don't let go

[Music]

from then on calles thrusts into an epic fight for survival as he outruns the Empire hot on his heels while trying to build a future for the Jedi Order certainly one of respawns smartest moves here was to set this game in the post order 66 era where Jedi are being hunted to extinction the movies paint a picture of a sudden eradication of the Jedi but there were a few Jedi who remain and fought on to survive fallen order is one of those stories and it's an engaging one because like the original trilogy it's one of rebellion Luke Han and Leia were all fighting to keep the rebellion alive just as Cousy and Greece are trying to keep the Jedi alive and that's a pretty meaty flesh for any Star Wars fan to sink their teeth into and yeah that one sequence the flashback with the kid you know the one if you play the game holy [ __ ] that was some amazing Star Wars the other reason I think this whole package is so irresistible to a Star Wars fan is that it tells what is essentially an Old Republic story about the ancient Jedi Order and this is where the Star Wars games have always found their best success the movies never delve deep into the idea of Jedi's is an ancient order of knights with stone hewn temples and rituals and esoteric space magic by the time we come to it in the prequel trilogy the force is already sort of corporatized it's managed by a council from up on high in a big city that looks like an Amazon delivery Depot the Jedi are old ancient earthen spiritual primal like the swamps of Dagobah Jedi fall in order connects us to this feeling and allows us to explore it much of this comes through the environments the environment artists at respawn did an absolutely superb job in designing these spaces most planets house a Jedi Temple for you to explore and each one is its own mountain looming large over the landscape inside and out these spaces all possess such a withered lived-in quality that tells the story of their antiquity you can see it in the texture of the rock or the shine of the brass or the way they're lit or just the sheer size of them you feel like such a tiny insignificant speck within these spaces reminding you how small you are compared to the thousands of years of history and tradition that you now toil in service to you will trade in the footsteps of your forebears and learn from them you will visit the places where the Jedi Order began you will visit the planet where lightsaber crystals are obtained and in doing all of this you'll seek to become a Jedi Knight yourself even if this game sucked it would be worth playing for these moments alone but fallen order isn't relying on only the old-world charm to carry it it also knows how to fuse the more modern aspects of the Star Wars universe as well the Empire are present and the imperial spaces provides such a striking contrast to the more organic spaces present throughout the rest of the game the empire built architectural Explorer has never looked better remember the first time I in Canada and I was just like wow the metal textures combined with the lighting and the color scheme renders the most convincing Empire spaces you've ever seen and I never cease to be impressed by them it also provides really effective environmental pacing as the game is able to pull you into such a wide variety of different spaces with such ease such that you'll never really tire of one location the absolute heart and soul of this game though is your crew sia is a former Jedi who has her own mysterious reasons for leaving that life behind and actually guides you on your journey you'll uncover pieces of her story grease God I love this guy I just love his character model first of all it's just great and the voice actors delivery is just so spot-on his jokes don't really land as well as I'm sure the writers would have liked but he makes up for it with so much heart at pivotal moments oh and there's another crew member who joins later but I won't spoil that and they aren't the best like I love this person and I just want to see more of this person in absolutely everything oh and bt1 he's cute he's like a puppy we love him the crew is so important in formal art because I think it's almost cathartic but the new trilogy doesn't really have a crew there's a whole bunch of people who met a few times I think maybe but they aren't linked in any real way like there's no familial bonds they don't spend a lot of time on-screen together it's just not the same for an order gives us the Star Wars family that the new trilogy never did take away from all of this is that the new trilogy is garbage wait that's not the line but take away from all of this is that if you're a star Wars fan for an order is unmissable the minor plot issues that hamper this game's pacing can't take away from how Star Wars II this Star Wars adventure is it's so good in fact that it helps you forget that fallen order actually has a lot of issues as a game there's really four components to fall in order there's exploration and traversal action set-pieces Metroidvania and combat so let's take a look at each of them now many people are comparing fall in order to uncharted and I think that's a pretty fair comparison if you were to ask me which game fallen order was closest to I'd probably say Soul Reaver Raziel has a lightsaber after all but uncharted works too there's a lot of climbing a lot of swinging a lot of jumping and a lot of swimming you're doing all of this inside ancient tombs overgrown with vines each housing some sort of secret for you to find and spirit away so yes if it's not Indiana Jones it's uncharted respawn of getting a lot of praise for really nailing this exploration and traversal formula despite the fact that this is their first game of this type but might I remind you that this is not respawns first rodeo when it comes to movement and traversal mechanics apex legends is a battle royale game that is almost defined by its sense of flow with your ability to slide down mountains or zip lines or launch yourself across the map before this titanfall set the standard when it comes to movement mechanics in first-person shooters with some truly dizzying displays of skill possible for those that knew what they were doing and some very smart puzzle design in titanfall 2 single-player campaign in a weird way movement and traversal in fallen order never feels quite as good as it probably should given how experienced respawn are on this front cow's movement animations are sort of clunky and delayed his jump doesn't really pop as much as it should wall running feels really limited swinging feels really slow when you land you don't maintain any of your momentum so you constantly need to reactivate Sprint to keep cow moving I think the best way to summarize it would be to say that Titan Falls pilots feel more like Jedi's than Cal does when it comes to movement there's not a lot that cow can do that Nathan Drake can't and Cal's a Jedi it would have been interesting to see how much further respawned could have pushed the uncharted formula by embracing a more ambitious movement and traversal system but it looks like we'll have to wait for a future game for that I guess this leads into the metroidvania discussion yes Cal will unlock new abilities through his playthrough courtesy of flashbacks to training sessions with your former master and these abilities will make new areas of the map accessible it's certainly satisfying to see a red door on your map suddenly turn green when you unlock the required power this is one of the core appeals of the entire Metroidvania shtick but there's two types of Metroidvania powers there are those that operate like keys simply making an area accessible that wasn't before  and then there's powers that facilitate  more player expression and experimentation if you haven't go and play guacamelee on whatever system you can this is honestly one of the best Metroidvania ever made because each of the new abilities you gain access to can be combined with others and the level  design pushes the player to the absolute limit in putting all of these together you have to master guacamelee abilities and move sets to get the most out of the game where no such mastery is even  possible in fallen order because the  level design never fully evolves to make  use of them you can pull things towards you now so you can now finally cross that gap fine but the levels never offer you more advanced traversal challenges that allow you to stream together everything you've learned and accomplish something really satisfying there's also a discussion to be had about the general bugginess when traversing these spaces I had a lot of instances where Cal wouldn't latch on to something or he'd just fall off the edge or no reason or some sort of camera glitch would make my job ten times harder than it needed to be he definitely won't spoil your adventure but there will definitely be more than a few occasions where you'll just have to call [ __ ] on whatever just went down on screen these complaints about cows movesets or limited level design or bugs they're all pretty minor to be honest at the end of the day it's just really fun to explore space in this game as I've said you can break down its pieces and critique them but when you put them all together it's just enjoyable to see a spot in the distance and slowly make your way there solving puzzles both big and small as you go you might tire of the equation after the first five or six hours because the formula doesn't really volve much beyond that and the levels start to feel a little bit samey but if this formula appeals to you that it's more limited scope and its technical issues are not gonna hold you back from enjoying yourself and besides if you stick with it you get moments like these

[Music]

you strap a coupling out gotta get down there's about a dozen of these set-piece moments littered throughout the game and they are just so so fantastic just as much as Star Wars is about ancient orders or the evil empire or the crew by your side it's also about adventure just moments of unrestrained adventure and fallen order is chock-full of this stuff I mean look at this yeah you're climbing aboard a vine-covered 8080 as they slowly make their way towards a rebel base and then you commandeer one and drive it for yourself before Forest Whitaker rocks up but he's all like hey bro I'm sorry but this is just too [ __ ] cool okay so smash cut I put it off long enough I think it's time now to talk about combat engineer fallen order okay so the best way I can say this and it's harsh but it's true but the best way I can describe combat Jedi fallen order is if secure oh sucked right okay so let me unpack that let's look first at Cal Cal has a lightsaber which later on becomes a double lightsaber that functions largely the same way you can do both light and heavy attacks and repeated button presses will put you into a sort of combo there's a skill tree that opens up over time allowing you to learn more advanced moves like new combos or light saber throws or whatever there are two major issues with combat in fallen order the first is that it's what I call animation LED melee combat this is a combat model where the animation is far more important than things like positions or hit boxes or enemy reaction when you swing a lightsaber in the game what matters most is that the animation happens which means that the game will take its time to wind it up and conclude it regardless of whatever else is going on this results in cow feeling quite imprecise as you control him he sort of feels like he's just flailing around wildly rather than striking at the enemy with clear intent it means his light say but doesn't snap back to position when it's blocked creating a moment when it feels like the controls have just become unresponsive this is really important because of the second major issue in fallen orders combat and that's the implementation of a poison meter almost all humanoid enemies have a poison meter making it to damage them until it's broken you break it by wearing it down through repeated attacks or by parrying enemy attacks which removes huge chunks of it really incentivizing you to play the parry game are less secure oh there's one critical difference between secure oh and fallen order however and that's the way that the enemy's poise meter is refilled the absolute genius of secure oh is that it arrived a combat model where aggression and skill were rewarded because you could suffocate the enemy with your rage if you just stayed on them and attacked and parried absolutely everything they never got the chance for that poison meter to refill so you could just beat your opponent down with sheer will and fallen order and enemy's poison meter is refilled after you damage them once or twice it just pops back up miraculously this means that you can be in a full messy combo beating down on your enemy after successfully breaking their poise only to have that combo immediately halted by a block or a parry from an enemy that somehow recovered while you were wailing on them this really sucks to be honest not only does it make the game feel far less skill oriented but it also completely interrupts the momentum of every encounter combat much like exploration never really flows I've never asked you to chain together everything you've learned to accomplish some great feat of skill it's always like this staggered staccato sort of affair that's more frustrating than rewarding this certainly isn't helped by a lack of enemy variety and boss encounters the local fauna are a strange mix and most of them are kind of annoying to fight for a variety of reasons while the Empire troops all sort of feel the same no matter who you're going up against bosses are a complete cakewalk and really lacked imagination in encounter mechanics there's a lot more you can do with the creatures and the characters of the world of Star Wars that respawned have not done here but again a lot of this is academia if you want a brilliant third-person action melee game go play Devil May Cry or sakura or Dark Souls or one of those if you want to be a [ __ ] Jedi this will do the trick I'll admit I was definitely frustrated by fallen orders combat but never so much so that I wanted to put down the controller and walk away not even once Star Wars Jedi fallen order is developed by Respawn Entertainment of both titanfall and apex legends Fame and I just want to congratulate them on this title these guys are some crazy talented developers

but even then it's not easy to land anything in the Star Wars universe without it blowing up in your face some minor issues aside these guys nailed it so kudos to them and by the way if you haven't checked out the titanfall 2 single-player campaign go and play it it's currently free for PS Plus members and it's one of the best single-player shooter campaigns ever made secondly this game is published by EA now most of you will know my thoughts on EA and they're just about the same as everyone else's thoughts on EA but credit where it's due EA let respawn make a single-player Star Wars game with no multiplayer no loot boxes and no microtransactions that's not exactly how EA rolls in this way Jedi for an order represents a weird sort of like road to Damascus for EA who only a few years ago commented that single-player games weren't in high demand in the market and who canceled Amy Hennig project ragtag by asking FIFA makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year through Ultimate Team what's your version of that Star Wars Battlefront 2 was a perfectly fine game ruined by its monetization and EA has canned at least one other Star Wars game they were working on it's encouraging them to learn that Jedi fallen order is selling through the roof hopefully it will serve as a reminder to EA that well made Fairly monetized single-player games will never go out of style but as great as this thing is for EA and for respawn I really just think it's great for Star Wars fans everyone is united on this thing everyone can feel that we finally got something uncomplicated ly great and given how hard it is for Star Wars to unite fans these days the legacy of Jedi fallen order is an important one

[Music]

you

[Music]