STAR WARS:
JEDI SURVIVOR

Oh man, Star Wars games... Star Wars games! I love em, maybe more tha the movies. Star Wars has such a rich setting and world to pull from making it great for serialized adventures, especially in video game form. When a Star Wars souls-like game was announced, I was excited, sure, but also a little cautious. For one, I've been a huge Souls fan since the beginning... well, not really. I missed out on Demon's Souls but I was right there when the first Dark Souls came out and have been there ever since. I love the series and while I'm not as attached to it as I ocne was (sorry Elden Ring), it's near and dear to my soul (heh). No othere souls-like game has really hooked me, however. Any souls-like that wasn't an official Dark Souls just kinda felt like the Safeway brand Dark Souls, you know? So when a Star Wars version was announced I was like... well... I like Star Wars and hitting things with light sabers in frenetic, focused combat... so let's give it a shot! And it was great! Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order was a blast to play. The souls-like elements really hold up and the mixture with Uncharted style exploration and level design was a perfect fit. The levels are open world while being just linear enough with a neat map thrown in to add a little Metroid to the mix. The developers really took some great inspiration from all over the gaming landscape, but it never felt hackneyed or too copy paste. So, natually, when they announced a second game in the series I was pretty stoked! Not only was the first game great, Cal Kestis is a fantastic and nuanced Star Wars character and I was excited to go on more adventures with him.


SETTING 9/10

Uhhh it's Star Wars! And boy do I love it. When I was younger, for whatever reason Star Wars never attracted me. I was always more of a scifi geek and the fantasy elements of the series always threw me offa bit. Plus, I felt like Star Wars was a little too ubiquitous for me to really get into. It was just everywhere, at least when I was growing up in the 90s as the remastered original trilogy was coming out and people were getting ready for Episode 1. However long it took me, I eventually did come around. I started to appreciate fantasy more in my adult years and the mesh of scifi and fantasy finally clicked for me. I realized it's actually super badass to be a space knight with a laser sword going on pulpy, over the top adventures. And how does this game capture the Star Wars setting? Wonderfully!! I'll admit, the first game had a bit more exciting locales, but the places you go in the second entry are still super neat. Hanging around the town on Koboh is always fun and the characters that you can attract to hang out there aren't totally unlikable. You've got your human looking folks and your... not human looking folks (shoutout to Turgle). And I really enjoyed bumming around Empire built structures. The interiors are really well designed and the lighting and textures make walking down the immaculate hallways a very visceral experience. A lot of the structures you find are buried within Koboh or even derelict and lying on it's surface and it's super fun stumbling upon an entrance to a massive, labyrinthian structure.

I also really enjoyed the cinematography and storytelling in this one. The whole ensemble really shines and Cal Kestis is one of my favorite characters in Star Wars and gaming. For a protagonist, he's pretty nuanced and as a figurehead for a force of good in the galaxy as one of the last known surviving Jedi, he is met with some tough decisions that he must reckon with. I feel it ties into the way people naturally play video games... like... yeah, I definitely had to chop that storm-trooper's limbs off the throw him off a cliff... for the greater good! But over the course of the game Cal definitely comes to terms with the destruction he can cause and how it ties to his balance with the force.


GAMEPLAY 8/10

Ever since I first played Star Wars: The Force Unleashed back in 2008, I have loved any game that lets me jump around with a light saber using the force to throw guys around. Every time I booted this game up I had a blast! Like I mentioned, I'm already a huge Souls fan so I was already really into the combat and all that. But the way this game does it just feels reeeeeeally good. For the most part, it's pretty tight, with parries landing with a satisfying pop and slow-down and light saber blows erupting with lights and sparks. I did have some issues wit telegraphing where the attack animation made it super confusing to tell when an attack was gonna land, especially with natural fauna type enemies. The saber stances were a real highlight of this combat system too. I loved the varity offered, but I found that I mostly stuck to the standard, blaster and crossguard styles.

Using the force is satisfying as heck in this game. You have the ability to upgrade your powers over the course of the adventure, and by the end of it I was deftly tossing guys around, throwing them off cliffs and pulling entire groups of foes to me to swing at them with a hot laser sword. Also, also... batting blaster bolts back with the lightsaber is one of the most satisfying things in all of gaming. Every time I squared off against a group I felt an adrenaline rush as the blasters all start firing and the melee attackers start closing in and I start dropping them one by one without even leaving the spot I'm standing in.

I did enjoy the level missions and the star quests around the map. The missions kept me engaged during the levels and they're actually fairly challenging sometimes! They are implemented in ways that make eploring and observing level details really rewarding. And the star quests challenged me to use powers I may not have otherwise wnated to use in fun, short burst style levels.

Which kinda leads to my only real gripe about the gameplay... I found most of the powers kinda... boring. I was really only drawn to a handful of them, the sword, the gun and the hammer being stand outs. To compare, I started up Kirby Superstar right after I beat this cause I was on a Kirby high, and I found most of the power ups in Dyna Blade way more engaging and fun. There were also instances where I would upgrade a weapon, which is a really cool mechanic in general, but would be kinda disappointed by the upgraded version. Overall, I felt like once I gravitated towards one or two powerups, I would just go to the hub world and grab those ones every time and would feel no incentive to try other powerups. To that end, I enjoyed doing the star road stuff since it forced me to use a power I wouldn't normally pick.


GRAPHICS 9/10

I love the graphics!! The colors in this game really pop out at you, especially on an OLED Switch and the tilt shift thing going on makes it feel like you're playing with toys the whole time. The big boss enemies are pretty intimidating and they are rendered really nicely. There's a scene in the beginning when a big huge gorilla guy looks through a window at you and then reaches in to nab you and the whole sequence was done really well. There's also a part at the very end that I don't wanna spoil that had my eyes popping out of my head at it.

Like I mentioned above, I've always liked settings with overgrown ancient ruins that are actually modern day buildings, and this game's take on it is great. Kirby games by nature are bright and poppy and bursting with color, so it's refreshing seeing the barren wasteland that is our modern day civilization all collapsed and run down and rendered with such a lively aesthetic.



MUSIC 7/10

Just like the graphics, Kirby music is pretty much always catchy and snappy to match the colors. While it's always fun, I find that there are only every one or two standout tunes in any given Kirby game.

I did enjoy the theme song with lyrics that this game got! And a few of the level themes were really hummable. Not much to say about the music honestly, but it gets a 7 because I never found myself hating it, and the songs I did like I really liked!


FUN! 9/10

This game is fun!! Fun enough for me to finish at least! I don't do that very often so it must say something. I will say I had the most fun towards the end of the game, during the last world and lead up to the final bosses. The challenge really ramped up during those sections and the final boss fights kept me on my toes. I also had the most fun I think doing the Star Road challenges. They really forced me to think outside of my usual power ups and I like that they're just neat little platforming levels you can blow through quickly and practice your best times.



All in all, Kirby and the Forgotten Lands is a great game for Kirby fans, platform fans and fans of super cute little things running around being cute. Despite some boring segments and power-ups that sometimes fell flat, overall this is a fun Kirby outing with a lot of depth and room to experiment and cut your battle chops.


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