Review: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Originally posted on Wordpress on 15 July 2022

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a game that came out in 2019. I saw a few things about it over the years, but not enough to pique my attention. Then I watched a few videos of a let's play of the game, saw that there was a trailer for a sequel, and found out that the game was on sale.

The plot of the game is, basically, following the notes of an old Jedi master, Eno Cordova, (who was also an archaeologist who studied the Zeffo civilization) to find a holocron that contains a list of force-sensitive children. I cared less about this and more about the archaeology part of it, because what isn't cool about a Jedi archaeologist?

I waffled back and forth on whether I wanted to 100% the whole game, and then did it anyway. I fully explored each planet, got all databank entries, found all collectibles, unlocked all force powers, and got most of the achievements. Overall, it took around 33 hours.

First of all, some notes/thoughts on the gameplay:

• The controls on PC are kind of wonky if you're playing with a mouse and keyboard like I do. The game recommends you use a controller when it first starts up, and it's probably a good idea to do that (I never did). Most of the key bindings are ok, but I had to remap doge to "V" because it was too awkward to hit initially.
• There are a lot of force powers/upgrades you can get. I only ever used a few and forgot about the more complex ones.
• The map is good and bad. It shows which areas you haven't visited and which doors and pathways are available and which you can't get through. However, everything turns the same kind of blue color after it's been interacted with, which can make it hard to tell what you're looking at.
• You have the opportunity to choose an answer to questions you're asked about...four different times. I doubt this has much of an effect on anything aside from a few lines of dialogue, so I'm wondering why it was there to begin with.
• You can change the difficulty at any point in the game. There is no penalty for doing so, and there is nothing locked behind a certain difficulty.

I'm going to review each of the four major planets - so no Bracca, Ordo Eris, Ilum, or Nur. I honestly don't have enough thoughts on any of those to bother writing them down.

Bogano

This is a Bogling, one of the native species of Bogano. You can get one on your ship, but you can't interact with it.

Bogano is the "starter" planet. It's the smallest and easiest to get around, and aside from Oggdo Bogdo (and the regular Bogdos), there's nothing there that's a serious threat. I will admit that my first encounter with Oggdo Bogdo happened when I fell into the cave and died immediately. I didn't come back to fight it until almost the end of the game.

The other planets are separated into different sections; the loading screens are disguised as things like elevators or gaps in the walls that you go through. There is none of this on Bogano. The entire planet loads at the same time - you can literally see all of it from the landing area. This did cause a little bit of lag at times.

Bogano is populated entirely by animals, both hostile and non-hostile, until the very end of the game when the Empire gets there (then there are stormtroopers). There's stuff left over from a Jedi archaeologist who lived there for a while plenty of remnants of the ancient Zeffo civilization, and some giant animal bones.

Overall, Bogano feels empty in a way that the other planets don't. It's much smaller and there aren't nearly as many enemies as on other planets. This isn't really a bad thing for a video game - it can be good to have a relatively safe, peaceful place to hang out in between stressful missions.

Zeffo

There is way too much stuff on Zeffo. There are 43 chests on this planet alone, while Bogano has 16, Kashyyyk has 27, and Dathomir has 16. Zeffo also has two ancient Zeffo tombs, ice caves that connect most regions of the map (which is actually good when you want to travel from one place to another in a short amount of time), an Imperial base, and a gigantic crashed ship.

It genuinely feels like most of the effort went into this planet. Bogano and Kashyyyk have zero tombs. Dathomir has one, but it's used solely for a boss fight. I don't think anything really would have been lost by moving one of the tombs to another planet.

There are a couple of areas on Zeffo - the ice caves, the Venator crash site, in particular - that are apparently easy to miss (not to me because I always explore everything) because the story doesn't require you to go there. There really isn't anything like this on the other planets. You're forced to visit all or most of the areas on Kashyyyk and Dathomir.

It's definitely a pity that the Venator is so easy to miss, since it (along with the Tomb of Miktrull) is one of the coolest parts of the planet.

Ultimately, Zeffo has way too much going on. It does, however, have some pretty cool visuals.

Kashyyyk

Kashyyyk is...a planet. It has giant trees, giant spiders, giant fireflies, giant slugs, Wookiees, and a bunch of stormtroopers. It's the planet that I think is most disconnected from the main plot. In the end, all you really learn is that you actually need to go to Dathomir. It feels like Kashyyyk is in the game mainly to take up space. It does show how the Empire is impacting people's lives and how they're rebelling, but not really much else.

You also visited Kashyyyk in Knights of the Old Republic, and much to my surprise, some of the enemies were the same. There are also tachs in the game, but thankfully they don't make any sounds like they did in KotOR.

This is what tachs look like now.

Dathomir

Dathomir is very pretty, but also very intimidating at first. I went there early in the game to check it out, and ended up leaving after a couple of minutes because I realized I was quite underleveled.

"Desolate" would be a good word to describe Dathomir - if it wasn't full of giant spiders, Nightbrothers, and eventually undead Nightsisters. It's a pretty barren world, but feels a lot less empty than Bogano because there are actual people there, living and undead.

This planet is more annoying than the other planets, mostly because there aren't nearly as many shortcuts as there are on the other planets. You can't skip entire areas like on Zeffo. And dealing with the undead Nightsisters became such a pain that I had to actually lower the difficulty because I was sick of being mobbed by enemies and just wanted to get through the place.

There is a tomb on Dathomir, but it consists solely of a boss fight. After the huge detour you have to go through to get to the tomb, I'm not sure I would have liked to explore an entire area, so that's fine with me.

Other Miscellaneous Things

The whole Ordo Eris sequence comes out of nowhere, even if you do listen to your crewmates' conversations. It genuinely doesn't seem like there's enough to support that part of the game existing. It also seems pretty strange that a bounty hunter could track down and kidnap a Jedi while the entire Empire, for some reason, can't do the same. It doesn't really add anything to the game, either.

You have multiple crewmembers - Greeze, Cere, and eventually Merrin - but they don't really do anything outside of cutscenes. They stand around the ship when you're on a planet and sometimes have dialogue that relates to that particular planet. I would have liked more crewmember conversations.

In Conclusion

I liked the game! There are definitely things I would have fixed, but overall it's pretty good. I am definitely going to play the sequel when it comes out (or, most likely, when it goes on sale) and it's likely I'll end up reviewing that one, too.

Some Thoughts On: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Posted on 17 May 2024

Purchased Through: Steam

Hours Played: 36.3

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the sequel to Fallen Order, which I played and reviewed back in 2022. Jedi Survivor released in 2023, and like the previous installment in the series, I didn’t play it on release. One, because I typically wait for games to go on sale before I buy them, and two, because I had no idea how the game would perform on PC, which is where I do the vast majority of my gaming.

As it turned out, the game was pretty janky on release – not just on PC, but on console as well. I waited until January 1st, 2024 to play it, and by that time, the performance on PC was pretty decent. Not perfect, but decent. I got around 60 FPS while playing the game, and did experience a few visual glitches, including textures taking some time to load. Additionally, small pools of water, including all of the water on Tanalorr, consistently had low-quality textures. The rest of the water was fine, so I’m not sure what was going on there.

One very annoying screen that you’ll be seeing a lot if you play on PC is this:

This happens every single time you start up the game. It’s not quick, either – at least, it wasn’t for me. I have no idea if the compile time changes depending on your PC specs.

Like the first game, this one says it’s best played with a controller. It’s not lying. This game is obviously not designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard. I didn’t have to remap any of the key bindings like I did with Fallen Order, but I did spend a lot of time hitting Caps Lock when I wanted to hit Tab or Shift.

Even the menus themselves aren’t meant to be used with a mouse and keyboard! There’s a lot of “scrolling” through menus that’s done with Q and E which I imagine are done with the left and right tabs on a controller.

The game plays similarly to the first one, with improvements. Fast travel was added to Meditation Points. The map is no longer as confusing as it was in Fallen Order. There are more lightsaber styles (a single blade, double-bladed saber, two individual sabers, a crossguard saber, and a single saber/blaster combo). I ended up using the blaster a lot, as one thing I found myself wanting in the first game was a way to hit enemies without having to walk right up to them.

In addition to lightsaber and BD-1 customization, Cal himself can be customized. There are more outfits than just ponchos in this game. On the downside, the Mantis has one paintjob the entire game.

While Fallen Order had four major planets, Survivor only has two: Koboh and Jedha. Most of the game takes place on Koboh. It’s the largest planet with most to do, including:

• Recruiting people to the saloon
• Getting sidequests from the people you recruited to the saloon
• Finding fish for the fishtank in the saloon
• Collecting seeds to grow in the garden above the saloon
• Petting boglings

The other planets are Coruscant (where the game starts), the Shattered Moon (which is exactly what it sounds like), Nova Garon, and Tanalorr. Those four really only need to be visited once unless you’re a completionist. Given that most of the collectibles in the game are entirely cosmetic, there’s no real reason to do a 100% run unless that’s your particular preference.

There are two more things added in this game: Force Tears and Meditation Chambers. Both are optional challenges and given non-cosmetic rewards. I didn’t out of my way to find them, but did at least attempt to complete all the ones I found.

There’s a lot of stuff in this game. It’s a lot! I didn’t take much longer to complete this game in comparison to Fallen Order, but I still feel like I spent a lot of time on things completely unrelated to the main story.

Speaking of the main story, I think it goes on too long. After you defeat the person who seems to be the main antagonist of the game, there’s more! You travel to three different locations afterward. The first of those locations contains a plot twist and introduces the real final antagonist. The second two locations are entirely new to the game and cannot be visited before this point.

I finished the game about 5 hours after defeating the decoy final boss. Honestly, it felt like the final chapter went on for way too long. Even though the two final locations were short levels, I just wanted to be done with the game at that point.

Despite all my complaining, I really did like this game a lot. It was a massive improvement on the first game, and I’m eager to see where Respawn goes with the next game. I just hope there’s a better balance between main story and optional content.