Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — Souls of the Force

It was easy to lose hope in EA eventually releasing a good Star Wars game with the license they obtained, following the ten-year deal struck with Disney and Lucasfilm nearly five years ago in 2015. Yet as the halfway point was approaching, the company had only released two Battlefront games. The first game in that rebooted Battlefront series turned out fine fine, while the same would have applied to Battlefront II if it wasn’t bogged down with loot boxes and microtransactions. Meanwhile, Amy Hennig’s Ragtag title was cancelled (and developer Visceral Games was shuttered), while the replacement game at EA Vancouver was also eventually canned. EA’s kept altering the deal, to the extreme chagrin of Star Wars game fans.

This is why the weight of the force was perhaps unfairly placed on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s shoulders, Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment’s attempt at a Star Wars game. For a time, it didn’t seem like it would measure up to expectations, after the EA Play demo garnered criticism for resembling a linear on-rails action game. But they maintained excitement through descriptions about what it actually was: An experience with Metroidvania-style playgrounds for levels. Fortunately for Respawn and EA, it mostly lives up to its promise, and it’s the experience the vocal fanbase wanted when they heard EA acquired the license.

Fallen Order occurs during one of the darkest times for the Jedi in the so-called Skywalker Saga, following the end of Revenge of the Sith and before A New Hope. Main character Cal Kestis is one of the few Jedi who survived Order 66 in being one of the younglings who wasn’t slaughtered, but he’s maintained a low profile since the incident happened thanks to the Empire’s take over. But it doesn’t take long until the Empire, specifically a faction led by an inquisitor known as the Second Sister, discovered that he still exists. After escaping, he meets up with a small crew consisting of Cere, a former Jedi, and pilot Greez. They make it their mission to rebuild the Jedi order. You might have an idea of how this will end if you’ve seen any Star Wars movies after RotS.

The story is typical affair for Star Wars entertainment, with Jedi fighting against an all-powerful Empire, though Fallen Order has more in common with the TV animation and the non-episodic films in terms of its tone. What makes it enjoyable is how this isn’t common within the confines of a video game, and how we haven’t received a Star Wars game like this in a long time. Because of that, the sense of familiarity is welcome and nostalgic.

As I mentioned above, this is a Metroidvania-style game with nonlinear levels. So, Cal is similar to a Metroidvania-style protagonist in how he learns more techniques to make battling and traversing easier. More accurately, he’s relearning them. Cal was trained as a young Padawan, but forgot many of the abilities after an extended period of doing non-Jedi work. This means the player won’t be able to live out their full Jedi fantasies when the game starts, outside using a lightsaber. There’s nothing wrong with this, because it creates a good sense of progression.

Combat is very, very inspired by FromSoftware’s Souls games, adjusted to fit a Star Wars Jedi game. Cal can primarily attack with the lightsaber, and make careful swings while making sure the enemy can’t counterattack or if another enemy isn’t attacking simultaneously. It’s imperative to be careful thanks to the lack of roll cancelling, which was tough to adjust to for anyone too well versed in Japanese character action games. (It’s not just me.) Just before the combat can get repetitive, Cal will unlock Force powers to add variety, which is also around the time when more enemies will be thrown the player’s way. Cal’s basic skills can be upgraded while resting at a meditation site, where recovering health and health stems will revive all the enemies in the area, similar to a — you guessed it — Souls game.

The combat is solid for a western game, but not perfect. Countering attacks isn’t as intuitive as it could be, as there were times where I blocked before an attack landed but couldn’t activate it. This hurt every time it happened, because Cal can only block so many times before the stamina meter temporarily depletes, and attacks hit hard later on in the game. Dodging could have been a bit faster too, though it’s not as big of an issue.

There were points where I wish the combat system took more inspiration from the Devil May Cry games instead of the Souls titles, considering what Jedi are capable of when they can reach their full potential. It can be hard to handle two stronger targets at a time, let alone more of them, but this change would have made fighting them more bearable. But I’m well aware of why they chose the Souls games as inspiration: They tend to sell better than any DMC game. I’ll settle for them tightening up the dodging and defending.

The game features four primary planets, all of which channel the look of the Star Wars movies and the expanded universe as it exists today. The segments of the worlds are big, but shortcuts are scattered through them to make travelling back and forth less of a hassle. The level design is good, in spite of having an in-game map that’s difficult to read. The only issue is the overuse of gimmicky sliding sections, which rival some PlayStation 2/Gamecube-era mascot platformers. They wouldn’t be quite as bad if it wasn’t so difficult to steer Cal.

One of the biggest aspects working against Fallen Order is how unpolished it is. There’s nothing game-breaking, but several errors and performance hitches are eyerolling hassles. There are points where the game will struggle to load textures and characters, only to have them suddenly and awkwardly pop in. The cutscenes will also be slightly out of sync at times. Since I had the pleasure of playing this on a base PlayStation 4, the framerate was a struggle to deal with when many enemies were on the screen in certain parts of specific levels. The loading times were also not great, with how it sometimes has to stop and load while progressing through levels. It extremely bad when the game takes around 30 to 40 seconds to reload the checkpoint when you die.

Basically, this could have used another six months in the development oven before it released, but it’s clear that EA wanted this game finished before the Christmas season began in earnest. Given how well it sold, it’s tough to blame them — but I am.

It hurts whenever the cutscenes go out of sync because the overall acting is good. Cameron Monaghan, who played the Joker in the Gotham TV series, plays and lends his likeness to Cal Kestis, and does a good job with him. It was also nice to see Debra Wilson in this game as Cere after seeing her as Grace Walker in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. I’m a big fan of the Second Sister’s acting, whose actress achieves the perfect mix of deviousness and cheesiness for a Star Wars villain. The game nailed every aspect of the presentation, outside the overall performance — especially on base consoles.

It says a lot that EA had to be strong-armed into green lighting this game as a response to Battlefront II, but the end result was appreciated. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order doesn’t excel in any particular department, but it makes for an enjoyable game in the end. Hopefully there’s more to come, ideally in a more polished form. I’ll be watching the developments of future Star Wars games with great interest from here on.