I usually don’t play license games, but I heard some good stuff about this one. Guess the influencer marketing got to me this time.
This is a Star Wars game, and like most “extra” content it takes place between episode 3 and 4. The empire is hunting down the rest of the Jedi and killing them. You play as a Jedi in hiding, Cal, who finds a potential way of rebuilding the Jedi order.
Well. This is where I’m a bit lost. Since we all seen episode 4 it is quite clear that Cal will not succeed with his venture from the get go. So why are we playing this game?
The game stays true to the Star Wars legacy. It feels like Star Wars and I think that’s important. The environments are quite bland, but they are very well crafted and I enjoy playing in them. The cutscenes are also pretty well made and I like the way you can read in the emotions in facial expression.
The fighting is mostly Cal swinging his light sabre around. At the start you only get attack, block and some sort of parry that I never really understood. The upgrade system is well made. You gradually get new skills to add to your repertoire in a pace that lets you learn and discover their uses in a good pace.
I didn’t enjoy this game. Apart from the story being completely pointless from the start it doesn’t extend the Star Wars universe at all. It just provide exactly what you’d expect within the boundaries of not affecting anything else. I guess the writers had trouble setting their heart to it because it’s s badly written and the dialogue is boring even when they try to be funny. Having played Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, where every piece of dialogue is a golden nugget, the dialogue in Jedi Fallen Orden is more of a paperweight.
The action is not very good either. They’ve tried to make a fighting system like Sekiro, but don’t have the precise control that From Software can muster. It’s also very repetitive as you fight the same enemies from the beginning to the end.
I said that I liked the environments but the level design is not good. A lot of repetitive elements, and quite often hard to understand where you’d supposed to be going. They also love the pattern of letting you walk right up to the point of where you’re heading just to throw you down to the bottom of a pit.
There is a design decision I cannot explain. They want you to play a level over and over again. When you’re done with a level you have to run all the way back through the level back to the space ship. I thought Mass Effect taught us 15 years ago that a space ship can pick us up when the mission is over. But here you’re forced to find your way back through the level with little to no point. Also when the game throws you down you are forced to replay parts of the level, and every time you return to a planet you’re forced to replay the level up to the point that’s now unlocked. I don’t like it when developers don’t respect my time as a gamer. If you don’t have more content, do not force me to replay old content just to prolong the game.
There are lots of small conveniences that you’re used to from modern games that they just left out of this one. You cannot manually save, but they are not autosaving after each cut scene. So you need to find a resting point in the game, where you know it will save, so you don’t have to experience the boring cut scene again. Another irritating thing is that the game doesn’t replenish health when you sit down at a resting point. You need to manually press an option to rest, which you of course forget. There is no point in this mechanic other than piss you off.
The game is also quite buggy. The sound came out of sync at several times and despite me restarting the game, I think I played half the game with the sound out of sync. The game crashed on me completely at one time, and there are strange things happening like your robot companion being at two places at the same time.
The game ends in a couple of quick time actions that made me really angry, because the game hasn’t had any QT up to that point. Introducing new mechanics at the end of the game is always a good source for frustration.
I did play this game to the end, and I didn’t hate it most of the time, so I rate this game as OKAY.
Replay 