As is often my case with games I arrive late to the party. That will however never stop me from playing the game and subsequently reviewing it. With Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order however i am "only" about a year late. I've been busy playing other games and simply never got around to it. Luckily for me it was on sale just as I was looking to find my next game to play. While buying anything on a sale is always a good feeling, believe me, this game is also worth it's full price.
Starting issues
I need to mention this because it was a huge deal in the beginning. This game does have some real technical issues, at least on PC. The game stutters a lot. In fact it stutters so much that I felt it was unplayable at the start. As I was nearing the two hour mark on Steam I was really on the edge of almost refunding the game. I turned it off and dwelled on it for a day before I decided to soldier on. Luckily it got better as I went and I also learned to live with it.
Apparently the stutters are, as is often the case with stutters, due to how the game is loading its assets. Instead of loading the whole level as you zone in it loads and unloads parts of the level dynamically as you move through it. The great thing about this method is that you never get to see a loading screen during a level, ever. It will all seem like one big open world as you move through it. In some areas they do utilize the classic "squeeze through this space very slowly as we load the rest of the level" method, which basically acts like a glorified loading screen.
However, I was digging deep to find a solution as to how to fix this problem, and turns out there are none. If you have a GTX1070 (like me) or a RTX3090, you'll still be having these issues. That's bad. Very bad.
Gameplay
Gameplay is simply great. This game borrows from some pioneers and masters in their genres and combine them together to something grand. It takes the level design, bonfire and death mechanics of the Dark Souls games. You're wandering through deep caves, battling scores of enemies and climbing mountains when you suddenly find a door. You open the door to find an elevator that takes you back to the start of the level. You now have a shortcut and don't have to traverse all of that again. The bonfire mechanic, in Fallen Order called meditation spot, basically functions as a rest point, save point and level up point. When you rest at them all enemies in the level, defeated or not, will respawn, but you heal to full and refill all of your healing stims in return. You can also choose to spend your well earned skill points on new skills. If you die you loose all of your EXP and will have to fight your way back to where you died to pick it up, either from the ground or by damaging the enemy that killed you.
Level design is also largely influenced by games like Uncharted and classic adventure games like Tomb Raider in how you traverse them. Movement is fluid and solid. You have a range of different methods to traverse the relatively complex and diverse levels. There's jumping, climbing, sliding, swimming, shuffling, zip-lining and probably more that I'm forgetting. All of these are tied together in a string of great and fluid animations.
Combat
Being a huge fan of the Dark souls series I was really excited about the combat in this game. What I liked the most about combat in general was the diversity in abilities and all the different ways to use them to defeat your enemies. Can't be bothered fighting this storm trooper? Just force push him off the cliff. Is this enemy annoyingly far away from you? Just force pull him in. Diversity is good.
It's also good that you can't be doing these things endlessly. Using force abilities costs force which can be depleted. You can refill your meter by fighting enemies normally, either by hitting them or parrying their attacks. This makes sure you're not always an unstoppable powerhouse.
I was however a little bit disappointed by the balance of difficulties. The highest difficulty, Jedi Grandmaster, was just to hard. Being a fan of the Dark Souls series I sure do know how to take a beating. On Jedi Grandmaster you're just one shotted by pretty much everything. There is simply no room for failure. On Jedi Master however I found the game to be a tad to easy. Parries were really easy to hit and dodges just always work. This could easily be circumvented be leaving out the red flashes on enemies which indicates the ability can't be parried. This was also what ruined the bosses for me, which will be my next talking point.
The bosses in Fallen Order are really cool. The boss fights are also really cool, albeit a little bit disappointing. Because of the aforementioned red flash on on enemies when they're executing an unblockable ability you basically don't have to do any trial and error and properly learn the boss fight. You just parry everything until the boss flashes red and then you roll away. I defeated every boss in a maximum of two tries, except for the last one. This was a disappointment to me because in souls-like games a boss should, in my opinion, be a real hurdle. It's the next skill check to allow you to progress. It should be a process of trial and error until you master the fight and finally bring the beast down. I'm biased on this, I know. Oh well, combat is still great.
Story
The story is decent. I really like that it doesn't make a big point of fitting into the whole saga. It takes place somewhere in between the third and the fourth movie from what I can tell. It basically functions as a small side story in the whole that doesn't leave any impact on the whole. It acts as a filler for lore. You get to know a whole lot about an ancient civilization called the Zeffo, in addition to a bunch of other things.
The story starts out really good and really makes you curious to find out more. The in between part didn't really get me all that engaged. Then comes the end which is just absolutely awesome. The cast of characters is another strong point. They are all quite interesting and really likeable.
Visuals
This game simply looks stunning. The graphics are top notch mixed together with a really nice color palette. The images I've been posting throughout this review should be evidence enough to that. They are all taken by me using the in game photo mode that comes with the game. Albeit most screenshots are filtered and edited, all by the in game photo mode editor, these visuals are just as great unfiltered.
I also really need to recommend everyone to use the photo mode. Use it to check out vistas from different angles. Play with the filters and other settings to make it look even more stunning than it already is. Out of the 30 hours I spent on this game I have to think that at least 2 of them was spent inside the photo mode. And honestly, I wish I has spent more time in there. I'm so sad I can't post my favorite screenshot here due to it being a massive spoiler.
Verdict
This game is great. If you like games focused heavily on exploration and combat this will be right up your alley. The game is pretty much all that accompanied by a decent story that will make your knowledge of the Star Wars universe richer. Even though the game gave me a rocky start and I was a tad disappointed about several aspects of the combat it was still an overall awesome experience. The visuals alone is worth it. It's like you're travelling through art in many areas. If you're a completionist like me this game is quite satisfying. You can choose to be thorough as you play through the game, or you can come back to it all once you've finished the story. No collectible, achievement or trophy is missable. You can play the game how you want and at your own pace. You should not sleep on this game. If you're on edge, stop! Get off that edge and go get this game!
Thank you for reading
Thank you all for reading my review. I always sift through any comments I get in due time. If you want to read more reviews like this in the future, fell free to follow me. On my blog you can expect to find content featuring video games and general slices of life.
Next up I'll be playing Metro: Exodus. I picked up a complete pack of all the Metro games on Steam sometime last year. I played through, and absolutely loved, the first two games. Then I never got around to the third and final installment. I'll be returning with another review once I'm done.
All images in this post are taken by me using the games in game photo mode.