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 other 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 off a 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 with 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.

My only real complaint was that some of the environmental puzzles were a bit obtuse and could bring the pace to a screeching, frustrating halt. Typically, the game is split into exploration, combat and environmental puzzle sections. Normally, I would hardly notice the transition from one section to the other just because of how smooth most of the game is, but there were defintely parts where I got hung up trying to figure out the one thing the developers want you to do before you're able to move on the next section. Sometimes the context clues for certain puzzles were so hidden that there were points that I swore I was stuck in a puzzle room, only for me to realize there was a door or pathway tucked away in a corner and I had spent the last 15 minutes pressing up against walls and hapharzadly using force powers hoping to trigger a secret switch that wasn't there. And to that end, I didn't do a single Jedi puzzle. Just wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing so I skipped them all. Sorry not sorry.

GRAPHICS 7/10

The graphics in this game are... good... They're great, even! I appreciate a modern, AAA game that's not afraid to really dip into the full spectrum of the color palette. The blue of the Mantis contrasts nicely as you fly into Koboh against the yellow of its rocks and sandstone pillars. The colors of any respective light saber leap off of the blade and bathe the surroundings in its light. The mega structures you can come across are beautifully rendered and feel hulking and the game really captures the spotless interiors of Empire ships and bases.



The characters and enemies all generally look great and animations and facial expressions were never cringey to watch. However... while playing on PS5 (not sure if it's different on other consoles) the seams start to tear really easily in areas with a lot of graphical demand. Tons of pop in as items and landscapes are rendered a split second after the camera moves to reveal them which was more than a little jarring at times, and sometimes really distracting. Anything with physics like hair or costume ornaments were also subject to random outbursts of gravitational disturbance. I gave Cal the long-haired, Luke Skywalker cut and his do kept throwing a physics fit every time a new scene was rendered.



MUSIC 7/10

Since it's a Star Wars game, we obviously get the quintessential John Williams style Star Wars soundtrack which is nice. The action sequences are bolstered by the bombastic themes we all know and love, and the down moments were punctuated with bits of score that help set the scene and welcome a calm, exploration friendly enviroment.

And since we've all had these soundtracks and scores stuck in our head for the last 50 years, I kinda figured my brain would just shove the soundtrack to the back of my mind, but every once in a while I'd catch a moment where the music just really fit in with the scene and I found myself just... taking it in, which was a nice break from the action when those moments did find me.

FUN! 10/10

Yeah, this game gets a 10 out of 10 on the fun factor for me. Yes, there were some janky moments where I was defiitely not having fun, but they never stuck around too long and never brought down the overall experience either. Seriously, every time I booted up this game I felt my nerves start to tingle. It's just so much fun bumming around the world and combat is so engaging and involved and through different abilities and stances and customization options you can really build your own Cal Kestis that has his own unique fighting style. I also love that the game respects the player's time and agency. Where other games might let certain animations or sequences draw out for effect or to show off, Jedi Survivor just sort of let's things get a little janky or slightly out of place for the sake of letting the player just move and go and dive in head first. I never felt like the game tried to hold me back from something it didn't want me to do and instead looked me in the face and said, "go ahead, see what happens".



OVERALL: 8/10

So yeah, great game! It's up in the air whether I like Jedi Survivor or Jedi Fallen Order more. I think I like the first game for its setting a bit better, as the story is more fleshed out and concrete, but the second game adds so much more meat on the bone and irons out a lot of the kinks that it's a lot more fun to play. The stances really change the way the core combat works and being able to upgrade and customize each one really adds a lot to a already deep and fleshed out combat system and exploring the different areas Uncharted style never got boring either. Fantastic game in a fantastic series and I hope we see more of Cal Kestis soon!


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