Star Wars may be one of the most divisive things currently circling pop culture. Disagreements between the direction of the series and the quality of the films had nurtured an odd little war in a Twitter not too far away. With that being said, we should appreciate that EA has managed to bring Star Wars fans back together. Unfortunately, it’s nearly always a union of dismay at how poorly EA has handled the license.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Price: $60 USD
Platform: PS4 (reviewed, Xbox One, PC
MonsterVine purchased with retail PlayStation 4 copy for review
Cancelled titles, releases that barely constitute a Beta worth of content and a sequel with more transactions than your bank statement after the newly acquired bevy of TV and film subscription services. But here we have Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a game that seeks to bring balance to the force.
Created by Respawn (Titanfall, Titanfall 2, Apex Legends), Fallen Order is a new fresh step in a curious direction. On the surface level, it’s easy to mistakenly see it purely as a ‘Souls-like’, but this assumption falls more into the realm of wrong than right. Respawn has blended together with a number of elements from the biggest games in the last five or so years to craft something that falls between Uncharted and a very simplified version of Darksider 3… which in turn is a take on Dark Souls. The DNA pool is growing.
Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order takes place a few years after Revenge of the Sith. As the title suggested, the Jedi Order has mostly been wiped out after Order 66, with the remnants scattered across the galaxy. The Empire embarks upon a grand crusade to purge the Jedi by extermination or turning them to the dark side. Amongst it all, Cal Kestis stands as a former Jedi in training. Through fleeing from the Empire, and his past, he stumbles upon a droid that holds the key to restoring the Jedi Order.
In all fairness, the story is serviceable, with all the familiar beast you’d expect from the Star Wars universe. Respawn has clearly attempted to create something that dives a little further into the Jedi. Moments of interest flutter around a mostly average plot thread that flirts with setting things up for a series, rather than single contained adventure. By the time the final curtain falls, a certain sense of unfulfillment creeps in. The same way a McDonald’s burger is edible and quite nice, but still leaves you hungry and unsatisfied.
The cast of characters is a mixed bag. Undoubtedly, the star of the show is BD-1, Cal’s robotic companion. Respawn have a knack of crafting endearing non-humans, a skill very much on show here. Beebs bops, and quirks can’t help but melt the heart whenever BD-1 pipes up. It’s just a shame the same can’t be said for our main character.
Cal is simply dull. A wet blanket that makes little sense tonally. Moments after a tragic event, he’s popping off jokes. His general demeanor does little to help, plagued by a seemingly constant inability to be anything more than being a guy who is a Jedi looking for a thing. Even in moments meant to build a connection between the player and Cal, it all falls flat. That disconnection is applicable to everyone else in the cast apart from a multi-armed ship Captain with some disgruntled charm.
The ‘Souls-like’ elements offer the most interesting aspect of the game, but not for the reasons you’d expect. Combat is the basic setup of light attack, heavy attack, evading, blocking, stamina, mana (or in this case Force) and parrying. In all truth, the system works fine but lacks any real sense of depth seen in other games around it. But this is where the interest begins to grow.
Fallen Order is arguably the first ‘Souls-like’ to try and bridge the gap. The inclusion of difficulty settings, supplemented by the lack of any stats and gameplay changes tied to equipment, allows the game to bring the experience down to an accessible level. Each difficulty setting alters how much damage is taken per hit, time to parry and similar variables. It’s an interesting experiment that challenges the argument of adding difficulty settings to ‘Souls-like’, but not without issue.
It’s apparent that Fallen Order suffers from being a little too easy in parts. The simplicity of the combat rarely makes room for creativity or mastering mechanics. The room for growth may be minimal, but it does remain satisfying, at least in the early stages of the game. Those hoping for a deep system to get to grips with will no doubt be disappointed. Whether or not this is a problem born from trying to be accessible remains to be seen, but the suspicion is there.
Each of the planets interweaves and hides secrets that can be unlocked upon return visits. Cal’s freshly recovered force abilities allow him to push, pull, jump, swim and run into unexplored areas. The reward for these brief bursts of exploration tends to be cosmetics and scarcely HP/Force increases, often rendering a moment of ‘ooooo, a new area’ to ‘oh, a poncho color I don’t want’. It’s still nice that such things exist, but it feels like a lost opportunity to truly reward the more curious minds with some world-building beyond a brief bit of text.
In an odd way, the mindset of ‘glad it exists, but wish it had more detail’ tends to haunt the entire adventure. There’s not a whole lot to master within the game. Sure, there’s traits and abilities to unlock, but their tame nature results in it all feeling far too similar. Combat, while adequate, rarely feels exciting outside of one or two of the bosses.
The fault isn’t purely down to the combat alone, enemy types and actions contribute just as much. Each enemy offers little variation. Light attack, light attack, unblockable, repeat. Over and over again. Their challenge only comes as the game progresses, throwing more and more enemies at the player.
It’s not engaging to fight a conveyor belt of repeated enemies in ever-growing packs, with a bunch of ranged guys in the background to boot. All it does is stop any ebb and flow that tries to emerge, instead of devolving into spamming evade while hoping the camera catches up. Unfortunately, this is what the closing acts of the game tend to consist of. Somewhere in the chaos, Fallen Order’s qualities linger.
Production-wise, it all ticks all the right boxes. It looks and sounds like Star Wars, from the pew pew of a blaster to the forwarding imperialistic architecture of the Empire’s bases. The environments are covered in plenty of set dressing, complete with nods to past events in the Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, when playing on a standard PlayStation 4, the Fallen Order can struggle to maintain a frame rate above 30.
Drops tend to appear in the later levels, even more so when multiple enemies are present on the screen. Other technical issues include spawning in enemies and some buggy boss encounters. Whether these are patched out in the future remains to be seen.
Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order is decent, but could have been more. The lack of depth in its combat weighs down the entire experience. Fancy animations and good visuals simply can’t hide the Fallen Order’s key failings. Whether or not the lack of depth is a result of the attempt to make ‘Souls-like’ accessible falls to debate, a debate that is more interesting than the game itself.
The Final Word
Star Wars fans will no doubt find enjoyment in the Fallen Order, those expecting a Souls-like may be left a little cold.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
