Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order - Review

The last time we got a fully story driven Star Wars game was back in 2010 and it was not that great, with the news that EA were going to have exclusive rights to make Star Wars games, the hope was that would change. The rights were picked up in 2013 and since then we have had two shooters, a series of mobile games and now a full story driven experience but is this what we wanted or just what we were given.

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order takes place during the period between when the Empire rose and the Death Star was destroyed, between Episodes 3 and 4 if you count that way and this period has had very little happen in it. The story is that of Cal Kestis, a padawan who we find working at a scrapyard on Bracca, a planet that was known for creating the ships of the Republic but is now breaking them down under the orders of the Empire. Tasked with releasing some clamps, Cal’s friend almost falls to his death and you are given a choice to try and save him or not, but regardless the actions draw forth the Inquisitors, a group of Dark Force using acolytes that hunt down anyone with a connection to the Force. Making a run for it, Cal is rescued by Cere Junda and Greez Dritus, with the pair of them having a plan to restore the Jedi Order. Anyone who has seen the movies knows that this never happens, which can make it hard to invest in their motivation, but with the course set, it is time for the game to begin. As you explore more of the world and return to the ship, more of the backstory is revealed, giving you greater insights into the characters and their reasons for doing what they need to do.

The game is really a 3rd person metroidvania, with some Titanfall and Force powers thrown into the mix, each planet you visit, Bogano being the first, has many paths that you can’t yet take and enemies that you should not attempt to fight. When you first visit Bogano, you will encounter BD-1, a small droid that joins you on your adventure and acts as the games map and health manager, amongst other things. From the very first save point, there are multiple paths, which helps keep you interested in coming back later and it is in these paths that you can find some fun things to do but pushing forward is your best course of action. The game will eventually take you to a planet where the Empire is based and it is your choice in where to go, Zeffo or Dathomir, but the second choice is quite limited until later in the game. Whenever you venture back to the Mantis, the ship you use, you can go to any planet you want and explore, leaving the story alone for a bit and this helps pad the worlds out, giving you more to discover each time you go back.

As far as exploring goes, you are limited in the beginning, as you can only do so little, the game keeps a lot of the more powerful and useful Force powers locked away until Cal remembers them. It is quite the clever little system, Cal was traumatised by the execution of Order 66 and the events that happened to him and his master, of which I won’t spoil, as such his connection to the Force is little spotty. This path of unlocking ‘new’ abilities is quite clever and helps keep things going, there are some issues with it though and they come down to how the games makes use of the Force in combat, as opposed to out of combat. When you are exploring the world, you have unlimited Force use, want to spend 10 minutes pushing and pulling a block across the ground, you can do that, however once you enter into combat a Force use meter appears and you have limited Force available to you. In order to replenish it, you need to attack enemies, the more hits you land, the more you regain and while you can upgrade BD-1 to allow you to restore Force along with Health, it is not a solid idea. Due to this there are times when combat can become more of a chore, if you end up without a solid amount of Force at your disposal.

Speaking of the combat though, it is surprisingly very goo and even better, not stuffed to the brim with pointless chain attacks and combos, in fact the game does not even force (pun not intended) to use any combo attack, if you don’t want to. Your basic attack is mapped to a single button, with heavier attacks mapped to another, you can parry attacks, be they blaster or melee, with a tap of the left shoulder button as well. Learning how to combine all of that together, is quite the challenge, as if you are too slow on a parry, you will take a hit or three, to soon and the same happens. You can press and hold it down, which lets you deflect attacks, but when you are being shot with a blaster, you can’t direct it back to the source. Most of the enemies you fight fall into the two groups, Blasters or Melee and it is easy to pick up a pattern for them, blasters being the easiest ones as you send a bolt back to the shooter, multiples require some precision timing, but the effect is worth it. The thing about combat in the game is it is varied though, thanks to the Force and characters acting randomly, take all but one out and if he is a commander, he might shout that he will get revenge, if it is a low-level soldier, he might freak out. As they move around to try and get close to attack, there were times that I would reflect a blaster bolt back, only for another Stormtrooper to cross the path and get hit instead.

There are sometimes when you will fight large bosses, some AT-ST’s come to mind, but there are also a horde of bounty hunters to deal with, most of these guys are easy enough to deal with, but there are a few that have jetpacks, which mean it is hard to get a hit in. The bosses are also fun, be they the boss creatures that live on the planet, or the story moments, some take some real patience to understand and defeat, especially if they can use the Force as well. There is a downside to all this combat and that is when you meditate, in order for you to recover your stims and fill your health, the game respawns all enemies as a trade off and while that is not a bad thing per say, it means each time you enter a place you have already cleared, you have to fight on again. I also have an issue with how the game deals with the experience you earn, much like Dark Souls or even Shovel Knight, when you die, you lose a portion of your experience and have to go reclaim it, which is ok, however the game does not simply let you go and claim it back, no you have to attack the creature or enemy that defeated you. Which, if it is a strong creature, will put you back into combat and you are likely to die again, causing you to loop back and try again and with the games difficulty being quite distorted, this is a problem. The other thing with meditating, other than it being how you spend your points, is that it just breaks the flow of the game, I can understand going in to rest or upgrade, but why it does not save if you walk over it and not meditate, is beyond me, you can be running around and then the game comes to a dead stop, just so you can save.

While the gameplay is solid, the presentation is not, but before I list the reasons why, let me explain what works and most of it has to do with the visuals. The main cast all look wonderful and they work for the setting, no-one is too out there or withdrawn on their visual appeal, Respawn did a fantastic job on that front, even the planets are magnificent to explore, thanks to the visuals. The enemies sadly have very few iterations to choose from, so you will see many Stormtroopers over and over again and while the Purge Troopers, which are black versions of the regular troopers, but come equipped with electro-based weapons, which can withstand attacks from a Lightsabre. The creatures all manage to look like the ones we expect from Star Wars, but have enough new to them, to make you pay attention, even though they could have gone and dumped in creatures that we know, it is a welcome change. The locations on each of the planets are fun to explore and have many hidden rooms to discover, the game does a solid job of highlighting the out of the way places, but also leaving much to be discovered. The real problems for the visuals, sadly come in the way of technical issues, there were parts of the ground, that had no substance, meaning that I could literally walk through it, and there were times, especially on Dathomir, where nothing would load for a long time, leaving me standing on nothing and not be able to do anything, for fear of dying, until the game loaded. These were not small moments of time, a few seconds I would have been ok with, but once such instance lasted for almost 40 seconds and it was infuriating.

On the audio side, things are even worse, which when you consider that the levels would not load properly for a while, is saying something. The most common issue was that in all the cutscenes the audio would cut out for a second or two, but the visuals would remain active, the turn was that the audio continued to cut out, which put the sync out by quite the margin by the time the cutscene was done. The audio, at least the music would cut out during gameplay as well, which would not normally be a horrible thing, but this is Star Wars music and whenever the music played and cut out, it removed a sense of immersion, as Star Wars music is pretty epic across the board; The music itself was wonderful when it played without issue, just those pesky cuts. The actors who bring the game to life though, at least when not in a cutscene, have no issues, in fact they have done an amazing job and I can certainly see more of them in the future, even if on particular character sounds a little odd; though having Dee Bradley Baker return to voice the clones was a welcome touch.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is one impressive game, it has interesting characters and a solid gameplay loop that keeps inviting you back to past planets, even without the story pushing you there. The story itself is hard to get invested in, due to their goal being something we know that never happens, but the worst part are the innumerable glitches and issues the game has. While they don’t impact the gameplay itself, if you exclude interrupted audio, they do make following along with the story hard to achieve.

Review code provided by Electronic Arts