SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Intense combat, complex puzzling, and a painstaking recreation of the Star Wars universe make Jedi Fallen Order a worthy, if technically flawed, single-player adventure.
“Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things” says Master Yoda to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. As a long-time fan, those training scenes are amongst my favourites in the whole saga. But as someone who enjoys playing video games, I’m also looking for some adventure and excitement, no matter what Yoda says. With Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Respawn Entertainment absolutely delivers both. While we’re still not quite throwing phrases like “game of the year” around, EA’s first true attempt at creating single-player Star Wars for the new Disney canon is a worthy one, and a must-play for any serious fans of the franchise.
Set five years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, former Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis lives in hiding on the junkyard planet of Bracca, decommissioning and scrapping old Republic ships. However, when his Force sensitivity is exposed by a chance accident, he finds himself hunted across the galaxy by the forces of the Empire, including a vicious Imperial Inquisitor known as the Second Sister. Joining up with a ragtag band of rebels, Cal must use his powers to search for a special holocron which contains information that could change the future of the galaxy itself.
For Star Wars fans, authenticity of feeling is vital. Boil down the debate over which films are good and bad, and you find it’s really about which entries feel like Star Wars. It’s very much something you either get, or you don’t. Fallen Order gets it. While the overall quality of the story suffers, mainly due to pacing issues, Respawn have captured that all-important Star Wars feeling. It’s more than bringing pure fanservice to the table or nailing the unique palette of visuals and sound that define the franchise, although Fallen Order does manage to do both. It’s about infusing your story with rich background lore and taking your characters along an exciting yet reflective hero’s journey. Cameron Monaghan, who voices and mo-caps our hero Cal Kestis, is excellent and without saying too much, we absolutely get that hero’s journey alongside some memorable characters, the best of which is easily Cal’s wonderfully expressive companion BD-1, who really is the best droid.
Quoting yet another Star Wars character: there’s no such thing as luck. Respawn have not simply gotten lucky with Fallen Order. Their dedication and focus is most evident in the gameplay. The combination of lightsaber combat and Force powers is the best it’s ever been, easily surpassing the clumsy free-for-all of Battlefront II in terms of intensity and fluidity. Taking inspiration from the Soulsborne games, Fallen Order’s combat emphasises the role of the lightsaber as an elegant weapon for a more civilised age.
Combat is a bracing challenge, with a tactical focus on parrying, blocking and dodging, learning your opponent’s moves, and understanding your limits. Go in swinging and you’ll find even a few Stormtroopers can really do some damage. If you bide your time however, Cal’s lightsaber becomes a deadly weapon, capable of bringing down enemies in an exhilarating display of martial prowess. Combat also benefits from the inclusion of Force powers, opening up many new options to help Cal dispatch his enemies; he can slow enemies down to a crawl, or even pull them onto his lightsaber for a brutal one-hit-kill for example. The game’s three skill trees add a variety of different benefits and deadly techniques, allowing you to customise Cal by focusing on the powers you enjoy using the most. The quality is clearest during the game’s many thrilling boss battles, which draw on Sekiro and the latest God of War for inspiration, and occasionally even match the latter in terms of scale.
The other half of this adventure is exploration, and just as the galaxy is filled with secrets, so too are Fallen Order’s planets. The game features incredibly detailed environments with crisp vibrant visuals, recreating the sights and sounds of the Star Wars universe almost perfectly. Return trips to collect upgrades and skins are encouraged, since there’s a secret in every corner and the game slowly gives you new traversal abilities, from wall-running (from the developers of Titanfall, no less), to double-jumping, which arrives conspicuously late on. Cal also has to journey through a number of well-designed tombs, which combine combat with obstacle courses to test your traversal skills, and tough puzzles to solve. They’re frequently awe-inspiring, and I gained a real sense of pride and accomplishment from clearing one.
However, there’s also room for frustration. Some of the game’s environments are overly complex, and the in-game map, shown in hologram form by BD-1 in true Star Wars fashion, is often confusing. Distinguishing between the different “floors” of a planet is especially difficult, and it makes something as simple as crossing the map or returning to your ship incredibly tedious. The game is also packed with minor bugs and technical flaws, including long loading screens, framerate drops even when using the game’s specially designed performance mode, and the occasional crash. I also encountered a few visual glitches, including characters floating off the ground during finisher animations and texture pop-in. The game would sometimes freeze entirely for several seconds while it loaded in parts of a level. There’s nothing particularly major, but a large quantity of small bugs and issues is enough to drag the quality of the overall experience down.
That in itself is a shame, because Fallen Order is the first game in a long time that’s actually capable of making players feel like a proper Jedi Knight. It has a whole lot going for it, and as EA’s first real, genuine shot at making a single-player Star Wars adventure, it’s excellent. Even with the bugs and the technical issues, it makes for a fine addition to any fan’s collection.
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