Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Review

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order excellent, rewarding lightsaber combat with a memorable story to create what is simply the best Star Wars game ever made.

Despite some technical issues that you’ll encounter on your travels, a focus on exploration and character development make Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order an essential chapter in the Star Wars story.

” You’d like to think that it wouldn’t take 40 years to make a game that really nails lightsaber combat. “

But with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Respawn has finally achieved the feeling of wielding the greatest weapon in the history of science fiction.

By taking inspiration from games like Dark Souls, Jedi: Fallen Order’s combat loses the high difficulty but keeps the satisfaction of a perfectly timed parry followed by a devastating execution.

The care given to the lightsaber is perhaps best personified by the sheer degree to which you can customize your own.

Like with a lot of this game, I don’t want to speak too much about how the light-saber plays into the story, but know that the critical narrative moment involving the weapon was one of my highlights of the year in gaming.

This is all in service of a story that not only does the impossible in decontextualizing some prequel era content into something less cringe worthy but fleshes out unique characters without the need for a parade of cameo appearances.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order follows the story of Cal Kestis; a young Jedi and survivor of Order 66, hiding out on a remote planet in the shadows of the Empire.

After a traumatic event severs his connection from The Force, Cal becomes a junker, mining for old scrap from the dying embers of the Clone Wars.

But when circumstances cause him to reveal his connection to the ancient power, Cal becomes enemy number one for the Empire and they’re Force-sensitive death squad, The Inquisitors.

” The game is set between Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One. Now, this is a criminally under-explored area of the Star Wars canon, although thanks to Disney I’m pretty sure every 20 minutes of it will be covered by a mini-series before long, but for now it’s a great place to set a game. “

Much like Rogue One and Solo, the combination of late Clone Wars era designs and early Empire designs are complete fan service for die-hards. The game’s also smart about which prequel era elements are included.

So while you’ll find the remains of a crashed Clone Trooper ship, thankfully you won’t have to resist the urge to decapitate any Gun guns.

You’ll visit half a dozen planets, each of them containing a lovingly designed and intricate map that’s a joy to explore.
You can tell the game was crafted by people who really care about the material and it shows.

Cal soon joins Cere and Greez on a mission to find a Holocron containing a list of force-sensitive children in order to rebuild the Jedi Order.

The performances are uniformly fantastic. Cal’s character development is earned and revelations about his backstory made it difficult to stop playing.

I’d highly recommend speaking to your crew at every opportunity as the game is just dripping with exposition for all of them.

I don’t want to talk about specifics, because frankly, the story deserves to be seen without any hints, but I will say that it manages to be captivating and engaging without the need to be a Star Wars fan.

However, if you are, like me, there are moments in the story that are such perfect fan service that you’ll start trying to move things around your desk with The Force.

The gameplay borrows from Dark Souls and God of War 2018.

Enemies typically have a block meter which you have to break down before dealing damage, however, with a well-timed parry, you’ll skewer most enemies in one hit.

Chaining these together to take out a full squadron is extremely satisfying, but occasionally the combat isn’t as slick as it wants to be.
Later sections in the game will overwhelm the player with enemies at which time the combat breaks down slightly.

Where the combat excels is in one versus one duels with other lightsaber users.
These are exciting tests of timing and skill and strike a balance between the absurd acrobatics of prequel duels and the more subdued fights of the original trilogy.

I really wish there were more of these or even a separate mode in which I could just fight lightsaber users endlessly, but the ones the game does have are challenging, fair and visually stunning.

Where the God of War 2018 influence shows is in the exploration of the world.
The game incentivizes exploration by hiding secret bosses, collectables and even gameplay upgrades.

Progress is stalled by certain abilities like a double jump or a force power, which gives the game a hint of Metroid-Vania, but these are usually just to avoid sequence breaks.

It’s more of an illusion of exploration than actual freedom. The exploration the game does allow is usually punctuated with a lot of Uncharted-style climbing sequences. These were used well occasionally as a way to show off the environment, but often they felt like admin more than gameplay.

The performance on PS4 Pro is often so bad it feels like the game was launched out of the airlock in time for Episode 9.

From load times that are similar to those of Blood borne at launch, to areas completely failing to load in, Jedi Fallen Order’s technical issues are a reoccurring stain on what is a fantastic game.

The frame rate will often plummet in areas with dense foliage and stutter during animations distracts from combat set-pieces.

Several times I would reach an area too quickly for the games liking, causing Cal to hang in the air like he’s been frozen in Carbonite. This resolves itself after 5 seconds 9 out of 10 times, but more than once the game crashed completely.

Auto-save is generous so no real progress was lost but modern games rarely feel as rushed out the door as Jedi: Fallen Order.

Also, some fights in confined spaces will cause the camera to get pushed up against the wall like you’re on a busy train making in incredibly difficult to tell from which angle you’re getting clubbed with a stun baton.

I personally don’t think these technical issues are enough for me to tell you to not play the game, but if you’re not an absolute Star Wars pervert that needs to see every piece of lore, you can probably wait until it’s fixed.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a visually stunning action game that provides a narrative that’s authentically Star Wars without having to lean on the established canon.

Its lightsaber combat is so consistently fun that the second priority for Respawn should be to add an endless wave-based mode so I can send Stormtroopers across an arena for hours.

However, that first priority must be to fix performance issues that leave a dark cloud over what is an otherwise exceptional game. I recommend it to any fan of action games, but for Star Wars fans it’s essential.