Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor

I'm about 12 hours in I'd guess, and I'd say it's... a pretty good game. Not as great as people seem to be gushing about IMO, but... pretty good.

The environments are beautiful, the music sets the appropriate tone, and some of the stormtrooper dialogue is pretty funny. Environment design is often non-nonsensical however, and very, very gamey. Combat veers wildly between very easy and punishingly hard. Cal moves and reacts so slow it just makes me grind my teeth. Speaking of which, Cal is about as bland a protag as you can get, the story is predictable (so far anyway), lightsabre customization seems to amount to... nothing. And you can only appreciate those details when it's on the customization table. Dual blade is kinda neat, but doesn't make much of a difference outside of clusters of weak enemies. And what's with the ugly ponchos?

Yeah, this was my main gripe in the environment design. Super gamey with corridors... then the backtracking before one finds shortcut -- who invented these? Are we back to 90's or beginning of 00's?

I'm not sure I get the hype either. I haven't played it but to me it looks like they've mashed the combat of Sekiro with the general gameplay of Uncharted and Dark Souls, then given it a Star Wars skin.

I LOVE the Star Wars world, but this doesn't feel Star Wars-y enough for me. 

Really?  That's interesting.  I was annoyed enough by not being able to "walk" with keyboard and mouse that I switched to a controller and - walking aside - EVERYTHING seemed more difficult.

It's not a case of "gittin' gud", either - I use a controller when I can be bothered with FIFA   - I just found everything about the controller to be "wrong".  Combat with kbd/m was fun and challenging, but not super difficult.  With the controller I was button mashing, which is exactly what you don't want to be doing.

I'm still only a couple of hours in - no time last night, or tonight, in fact - but have arrived on the snow planet, Zeffo, I think?  I really liked the environments and thought the combat was...ok.  I need to become better accustomed to it, I think.  I think Hrungr mentioned this earlier, but whomever was responsible for the cutscenes is a goddamned genius, because they are amazing.  

Might be in the minority here, but I really enjoyed the wall running/platforming - reminds me of Prince of Persia, which is a series I loved.

Looking forward to playing more when real life stops interfering with the stuff that matters.

Yeah I tend to only use controller for Fifa and some other sports games sometimes generally though I tend to use keyboard and mouse for the majority of my games.

Does not sound like a game for me who liked Star Wars as a kid but feels indifferent now.
Hated all the platforming bits in DAI and MEA...

I also don't find light saber combat cool. *gasp*

Might check it out when it's 10 bucks tops. I'd rather play AC Origins/Odyssey eventually. Waiting for those to drop a bit more in price too, knowing that I never finish a AC game...

My guess is they are working in the I/O errors on the Unreal Engine.  Someone above wanted BioWare to move to Unreal, but frankly it has its issues as well such as transitioning to a different environment its not new to Fallen Empire either so I am pretty sure BioWare would run face first into that issue as well.


My new feeling is if you want BioWare to switch to a new game engine because Frostbite wasn't for RPGs, you don't want people to use Unreal for it has problems streaming content post loading screen. 

I am about 20 hours in (probably about 2/3rd through, I guess) and I have to say I do love this game.

Full disclaimer: I haven't really played a souls game before, so I've got no idea how it compares to those.

Pro - "The force is strong with this one.":
- Star Wars atmosphere is great! From the environments, to the visuals, to the characters, they nailed the SW atmosphere during the dark times.

- Risk/reward is just perfect (for me). Ok, I am not the most skilled gamer out there and I play this game only on the "normal" Jedi Knight difficulty but IMO, the whole risk vs. potential reward balance that they create with the gameplay mechanics is just perfect. It is challenging while never getting too frustrating. You always have to risk something to get something but it's never so much that you couldn't recover if you don't make it through. For example, actually dying - depending on how far you are from the nearest save point and how much XP you got to the enxt skill point - is a pretty big deal. You really want to avoid it but it also never happens casually. For example, falling from a ledge will not kill you but it will take away about 5-10% of you life (which is a rather precious resource). That - as far as I am concerned - is a good compromise, it'll keep you aware while not making all the jumping passages too frustrating. If you die, it'll probably be because you haven't figured out the strategy against a new opponent yet or you went into one of the optional boss battles that may yet be too hard for you. In any case, whenever I died so far, I always knew why and how to possibly avoid it next time. That challenging but fair gameplay is fantastic so far IMO.

- Progression: When I started the game, I was a bit surprised what a wuzz I actually was. Couldn't do much more than swing my lightsaber around. But now, 2/3rds in, I am doing special moves, change between single and double blades, pull and push objects and enemies, etc. Almost every skillpoint gives something cool and new you can do. At the same time, you upgrade BD-1 with new abilities every now and then, many of which open up new paths. So all in all, there is a real sense of progression, which is great.

- Enemy types: There are a lot of different enemies in the game and each one is unique in it's abilities and you need to figure out the right strategy to counter them. Some are better to approach defensively with blocking, for others you need to get close quickly and just take them out. yet others come in groups and require crowd control. This diversity in combination with a lot of moves and move combinations you learn to do is what makes the combat challenging but also interesting. If you find that combat gets too hard all of a sudden, try another tactic.

- Lot's of interesting little things to find: Yes, there are lot's of collectables, which I usually hate but here, they are finally done right. For one, there are no symbols showing them on the map. There is an exploration meter that tells you if you are still missing stuff in a certain region on the map but that's it. So you actually need to explore to find stuff. Also, everything you find actually gives you something within the game. It might be a new skin for you or your lighsaber/droid/ship, it might be a piece of lore for the codex or it might be an upgrade for force/life/stimpacks. Either way, it's immediately useful, no collecting 15 shards to opne some door at some point.

Not great but also not really a negative - "Only a Sith deals in absolutes.":
- The main story, while somewhat interesting isn't really blowing me away so far. It's more a thing that just keeps plodding along, rather than really drawing me in. If it weren't for the fantastic gameplay to motivate me, I am not sure this story alone would do the trick. Don't get me wrong, it works, it's just not astounding in any way. But who knows, maybe it'll still pick up toward the end.

- I have a love/hate relationship with the holo-map. One the one hand, it's great because it shows clearly which paths you haven't explored yet and which one's you cannot reach yet with your current abilities. On the other hand, it's a bit unwieldy at times. Not sure how I'd improve it though, because the levels are very expansive and kinda set up like a labyrinth of many tunnels, so it's probably the best they could do.

- The controls are ok. They need to be rather precise to work with this kind of game but sometimes that makes me feel like it lacks a bit of fluidity (like we had in e.g. the Jedi Knight games). Even though they tell you to play with a gamepad, I still preferr M+KB btw.

- The graphics range from gorgeous visuals on some of the planets to just ok, especially when it comes to characters. Somehow, I feel most of the characters have a strong uncanny valley effect. I think it's something about the skin textures and how they reflect light. It just feels a bit off. Oh and the protagonist Cal looks like he jumped directly out of the marketing department. What a bland looking guy. If there is a sequel, I hope he gets some grit.

Cons - "I have a bad feeling about this.":
- Especially if you want to explore to the fullest, there can be a lot of backtracking. I cannot understand why they didn't make the meditation points into fast travel points. I can't see the downside of that, really.

- The camera sometimes has clipping issues, which is bad during combat in tight spaces.

- One thing I am thinking very very often while playing is that this game misses a stealth mechanic. First of all, it would perfectly fit the Jedi theme (think Obi-Wan on the death star in Ep4) and second, I think it could really add to the gameplay. As it is, the only way to surprise enemies is with an air attack but you can't sneak up on anyone. Stealth would add a lot to the game I think and I hope they'll add such a mechanic to a sequel.


All in all, I love this game so far and it's my title of the year, definitely. Finally another really well crafted single player experience (and for Star Wars Fans this is the first one in about 15 years, really, the Battlefront 2 campaign doesn't count, too little, too short). Congrats Respawn, you did it again!

Wait, are you serious? I haven't found a single saber color yet and I thought I was pretty thorough with checking for chests. Or can they be found some other way?

Ah, ok, thanks. That's a bit of a weird move for such a fairly guided game, to unlock those customization option shortly before the end, when you can barely use them anymore. A lot of games do this and I always think it doesn't make much sense to me, especially if it's just cosmetics. I mean, if the coolest armor int he game also has the best stats, ok, I kinda get it but with just colors for things, it's kinda stupid.

I'm such an idiot.

The Zeffo tomb...

I took me forever to work out how to get out of the damn thing. It took longer than it did for me to work the sphere puzzle!

That said, I gave up on walking with a controller for the "best" experience. I can walk when I'm holding my lightsabre - which is a good idea. Now I'm having fun with the sub-optimal keyboard and mouse

Unlocking "push" was a relief - I was starting to worry it was taking too long and I'd missed something really obvious.