“Blast him! He’s got a lightsaber!”
It’s been nearly a decade since we’ve seen a solid single-player Star Wars game, or really even a memorable title in the beloved franchise. Since EA snapped up the Star Wars license back in 2013, it has only published an MMO in The Old Republic, a mobile game in Galaxy of Heroes, and a pair of Battlefront titles that either were drastically light on initial content or loaded with pay to win microtransactions. To say EA has been kind to the Star Wars license is questionable, but with Jedi: Fallen Order, EA might have finally delivered as not only is it the best Star Wars game in years, it’s frankly, one of the best Star Wars games ever made, even with its slew of technical problems.
Developed by Titanfall and Apex Legends developer, Respawn, Jedi: Fallen Order takes place a short five years after Anakin Skywalker took the low ground against Obi-Wan Kenobi. You play as Cal Kestis, a force user in hiding, working your standard nine-to-five as a scrapper, forced to reveal his powers during an accident that would have left his friend dead. Exposed, and on the run, Cal teams up with a pair of characters in Cere and Greez, who require the likes of a Jedi to track down something that may save the all but extinct Jedi Order. You’ll travel to a few planets to achieve this goal, wall-running, climbing, vine-swinging your way across Metroidvania style environments as you track down long lost secrets, new lightsaber pieces, or maybe a new skin for your droid companion, the adorable and memorable, BD-1.
Good Star War stories have always been about characters, and Fallen Order succeeds in that regard as everyone here commits to not just solid performances, but with extremely well-written and defined roles to the story. Cere, a former force user herself has a complicated past that plays into much of the overall narrative, and Greez, her hired pilot, provides much of the comic relief as well as some of the story’s heart. There is another character that joins the ship as well and they are honestly my favorite addition to the crew, it’s just a shame they join up far too late in the story, especially with how great their design, voice work, and chemistry is with Cal. Thankfully, returning to planets once you’ve completed the story will offer you up chances to converse with them, explaining Cal’s connection to the force among other things. On the other side of the force is the Second Sister, an Inquisitor that is set to destroy the last remnants of the Jedi. These villainous characters, first introduced in the Rebels animated series, are powerful Sith users that have claimed the lives of countless Jedi. Her role in the story is well told and is the perfect counter to Cal in his attempt to restore the Jedi Order. The final confrontation between the two is wildly entertaining, as are the events that follow that clash.
The story itself takes some interesting turns and is presented in a way that feels very Star Wars. Given that everything that comes out now is tied directly into canon, it’s amazing to see returning characters from the franchise show up in fun and unique ways, such as running into Saw Gerrera on Kashyyyk, or, well, I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own. While it’s unclear if this game will make any sort of impact on other aspects of the Star Wars universe, it still goes to some interesting places with its story. Jedi: Fallen Order also takes time to develop each of its main cast, its villains, and even BD-1, your companion droid who can slice open terminals, zip you up and down cables, or hack into enemy droids to have them assist you in combat. The overall length of the game should run you anywhere from around 15-25 hours should you look to 100% the maps, which are designed in such a way where you’ll need to return to them when you’ve unlocked new force abilities, but more on that later.
Cal, as portrayed by Gotham’s Cameron Monaghan, is quite impressive as the young Jedi. While I’ve never been a big fan of his, he holds his own here due to some great moments for the actor to display his talents. There is a clear sign that he is haunted by his past and you’ll get to explore much of that through flashbacks to his training, as well as a key moment that defines the man he became. Much of his time is also playing off BD-1, a small adorable companion droid that might be the best robotic addition since Rebel’s attitude-fueled Chopper. BD-1 has a curiousness to him and keeps Cal positive, even sharing jokes with him or using his little beeps to play out Star Wars melodies from time to time. There are also countless times he’ll beep at you so that he can scan something, as if you’re taking your young son on a family trip, watching him take pictures of everything he finds fascinating. The duo works extremely well together and much of that comes down to fantastic animations, clever moments of dialogue, and situations where they’ll come to rely on one another.
Being a Jedi comes with a variety of different toolsets, from wielding a lightsaber to manipulating the force in a variety of ways. Most Jedi have a unique ability to them, or at least something they are proficient in. Cal has the rare psychometry ability, allowing him to glance at the past of an item, the very same ability granted to Quinlan Vos from the Clone Wars animated series, and that of the novel, Dark Disciple. This ability allows Cal to read into the history of an item, serving as a way to build lore and narrative around the environments, similar to that of picking up journals or reading emails in other adventure games. It’s a smart move to give Cal this ability as it allows much of the story to flow towards Cal in a way that pushes the story further along at a good pace.
As you start your adventure, Cal will only have force stasis, an ability that allows him to slow events around him. While he has the abilities for force push and pull, as well as wall-running and a double jump, he won’t be able to use them until he remembers his training, which will unlock when Cal needs them the most. Since Cal remained hidden for years after Order 66 was triggered, he’s rusty, lost in the ways of the force and needs to recall the many teachings of his master, Jaro Tapal.
Since Cal will not use a blaster he will rely solely on his skills with a lightsaber to cut down stormtroopers, bounty hunters, vicious creatures, or the few run-in’s he will have with an Inquisitor or two. You’ll have various lightsaber attacks to master, as well as the ability to throw it, which is probably my favorite move to pull off. You’ll combine your attacks with dodging, or parrying strikes from other melee-focused opponents or using your lightsaber to return blaster fire to its owner. By combing these combat arts with force powers, it’s easy enough to throw your lightsaber into a crowd of stormtroopers, while using force push or pull to toss others over the edge of a high-up platform, just in time for it to snap back to your hand to dodge an incoming blaster bolt. The combinations are pretty varied, but there is a limit to how force-wieldy you can get, at least a solid way into the game. Counter to the Jedi teachings, you’ll earn force power through aggressive combat. The more you achieve in combat, it fills a meter that can then allow you to use force powers. While there is an auto-fill portion that allows for a single attack to be ready at almost anytime, this system is put in place to prevent spamming powers over and over again and requires you to use your lightsaber abilities alongside your fantastical powers.
How deep into combat you’ll get will benefit you greatly depending on which of the available difficulties you’ve chosen. Story mode increases parrying time, while also decreasing enemy aggression and how much damage you’ll receive. Jedi Knight increases the latter two while decreasing the amount of time you’ll have to parry. Jedi Master and Jedi Grand Master continue that while increasing and decreasing where needed to up the challenge to what skill level you feel up for.
Adding to combat, and your survivability is the leveling and progression system. As you approach meditation circles, which double as save points and areas where you’ll respawn when you die, you can use your earned skill points towards boosting your health, force powers, or learning new lightsaber attacks or other ways to use the force. At first, given the design, I assumed there were more paths, but what you see here below is the full tree offered to you. It’s easy enough to level up almost everything in a single playthrough, so you’ll welcome to use your points towards something you want and not feel like you’ve wasted your time. That said, I do sort of wish the skill tree system expanded further and let you push into certain builds. I also felt that skill points arrived pretty frequently, so I never felt like something I wanted to sink points into was that far, far away.
Meditation circles also allow you to rest, causing your health to refill, and the health canisters BD-1 holds on him to refill as well. Rest also causes all nearby threats to respawn around you, so it can allow you to grind away against the numerous creatures and empire threats that flood certain areas. You’ll come to rely on these circles quite often to refill your health, as while you start with just a few health refills for BD-1 to carry, you’ll have to explore the various planets to find more, with several of them hidden quite well. This is especially helpful since there is no health regeneration or health pick-ups to use, forcing you to play smart and tactical if you’re going to survive on harder difficulties. I mentioned that these circles will also be where you’ll respawn as dying forces you to seek out where you died to collect back the experience you were holding on to. This is done by either collecting it from where you died or defeating the enemy that killed you. This type of system is similar to that of Dark Souls, but frankly, it’s tiring comparing every game to Dark Souls when it borrows bits and pieces from it.
Tracking down various relics, health canisters, or a new outfit or lightsaber piece all comes down to exploring the vastness each environment provides. While many of these items are on the natural path, there are caves, paths, and locations that either requires abilities you’ll gain later or are hidden out of the way, rewarding those who stray off the beaten path. Many planets are massive in scale allowing for dozens of locations to seek out should you want to find every last secret. You can use BD-1 to cast a holographic map to make things a bit easier to navigate, but the map itself borders the line between being incredibly useful or partially confusing, especially since you’ll need to trek all the way back to your ship as there is no fast travel system present. This does allow you to find hidden short cuts or additional paths that may have been previously unreachable, but some locations require that you traverse across great distances, which may upset some not wanting so much backtracking. The map does, however; guide you to where you need to go, by indicating areas not explored, or where you’ll require a certain power to access a particular path later on.
Each planet has its own selection of creatures and environmental threats, as well as some unique stormtroopers that are prepared for your lightsaber shenanigans. Populated by several insect creatures and savage Zabraks is Dathomir, a remote planet known to fans of Darth Maul and the Clone Wars cartoon. It’s an impressive location with a lot to discover, and it’s also home to the Night Sisters, a breed of interesting characters that really need to be featured more. Kashyyyk, the lush forest planet is well known to fans of Star Wars due to it being the natural homeworld to that of the Wookies. You’ll battle giant spiders as well as venus flytrap style creatures that disguise themselves as platforms, eager to snap you up should you take too long to traverse across them. There is also Bogano, a planet you’ll visit early on that kickstarts much of the narrative, and it’s packed full of a few creatures that will get you introduced to some aspects of combat. Those locations aside, there are a few more places you’ll visit that are loaded with interesting battles and much to explore and discover.
Traversing these locations is where the game shifts to borrowing a few aspects of Uncharted as you’ll swing from vines, climb specially marked walls, wall-run, and several instances of where you’ll slide down steep curved inclines, Mario 64 style. While much of the platforming is rather fun, I found there isn’t much room for error when leaping to vines or some platforms when you leap towards them. Grabbing onto a wall from a platform requires a button press to remain held, as does when you try to double jump up the wall to speed things up. I do feel that the game needs a bit of patching to be a tad more forgiving as while you don’t lose much health respawning from a failed jump, it can feel incredibly disheartening to miss a jump or grab by a pixel’s width and plummet to your doom. While much of the problems of vine-swinging is fixed when you earn force pull, it was probably my biggest reason for dying across the entire adventure.
Being part of Star Wars, a solid soundtrack is a given considering the franchise’s past. Nearly every planet or encounter has a solid piece of music attached to it that really looks to sell how engaging the overall gameplay is. Boss battles and a certain confrontation is packed with an intense score, demanding of the action taking place on screen. The voice acting is especially impressive, with my personal standout, Tina Ivlev, as Merrin, giving me a new Star Wars character to add to my list of favorites. Cameron Monaghan (Cal Kestis), Daniel Roebuck (Greez), and Debra Wilson (Cere Junda) are perfectly cast, and it was an absolute pleasure hearing some voices from the Clone Wars cartoon as well, even if it was very brief. There are also countless times where Stormtroopers would acknowledge certain things, or panic, that left me laughing as I would then continue to force push and pull them all over the battlefield. Sound has always been a stellar aspect to Star Wars and Fallen Order continues with that tradition.
Fallen Order has some strong visuals moments and combined with some stunning art design, this is a damn good looking game. There are, however; some moments where some texture work feels lazy and frankly, the game has some of the worst Wookies I’ve ever seen. That said, these are super minor complaints as the large bulk of what Fallen Order delivers on is incredibly solid and everything feels truly authentic and we are treated to some incredible backdrops and new planets that further build upon this masterful franchise.
Now, all that praise aside, the game has some issues. I’ve fallen through the world a few times, one where I just kept falling without stopping, and I’ve glitched through walls more than once. I’ve had Stormtroopers start sliding around the ground when dead, to enemies getting stuck in walls, not to mention some moments of brain dead AI. I had a cutscene play out during a black screen, forcing me to watch it on Youtube, as shutting down the game and restarting it put me after it had completed. So yeah, this game could have used some more time to iron out these problems, and frankly, I’ve seen other people online have their own variety of issues as well.
Had the game featured a more in-depth skill tree system, a few more force powers, and lightsaber attacks, and of course some overall polish, this would have been damn close to a perfect score and a sure contender for my game of the year. That said, this is easily one of the best games I’ve played this year and frankly, it is one of the few games that has given me a ton of technical problems that I found myself ignoring because I just wanted to keep kicking ass as a Jedi. Fallen Order can feel largely unfinished because of its technical problems, but thankfully, these issues are easily fixable as they are not related to poor mechanics or vast gameplay systems. If you’ve been wanting to revisit the feel of the Force Unleashed games, or are craving a solid Star Wars experience, Jedi: Fallen Order is a truly engaging and fantastic addition to its universe.
Star Wars - Jedi: Fallen Order was purchased by the reviewer and played on an Xbox One X.
All screenshots were taken on an Xbox One X.