Respawn Jedi Fallen Order

Just bought this from the PS store. Usually go disk but I'm minimising disk purchases now due to the current...situation.
Looking forward to a simple, linear campaign as I've been playing games with a lot of bloat of late which has left me exhausted.

I’ve just got the force push ability and finished the sphere puzzles which was fun. Back on the ship now. First impressions is that it’s a cool game – like Uncharted meets God of War meets Tomb Raider meets Souls so easily accessible for that type of player. But it has some issues that I can see putting some people off altogether, especially those who are just Star Wars fans as opposed to frequent gamers.

Here’s what’s right with it: It feels like Star Wars, at least to a casual observer of the franchise like myself. Everything from the direction to the music to the creatures to the terrain is on point. The graphics and animations are decent although not as good as Star Wars Battlefront II which I believe had more financial backing so understandable. Character models are well done (with the exception of one character who looks very last gen for some reason).

Technically, the game is more polished than I had heard. Some frame rate dips here and there and the occasional disappearing dead enemy that my robot can’t scan but nothing too immersion shattering.

The best thing Fallen Order has going for it is, “the way back is actually the way forward” approach to level design which we’ve seen in many games before but Fallen Order does it well. There is backtracking but I don’t find myself craving fast travel points at all because there's always shortcuts, and often those shortcuts you discover are on the way to the next object anyway. The holographic map system manages to be visually consistent with the Star Wars world yet very easy to follow. I also like that climbing actually requires a degree of thought – you literally have to figure out what is climbable through trial and error, rather than the typical yellow and white paint smeared on all the walls which games of this nature are a bit too fond of.

Also, so much of each planet is locked behind abilities you don’t have yet so there’s no reason to go out of your way to explore which is a liberating feeling. It means you can just get on with the story and worry about the collectibles later. The map actually tells you what’s available in any given area anyway. I think this is what Control was trying to do.

But I do agree that this game has problems. I think its biggest mistake is taking itself way too seriously. In a Star Wars game being a Jedi should play on the level of PS4 Spider-Man or the Batman Arkham games whereby it’s a power fantasy that "makes you really feel" like the hero. But Respawn has made the misguided decision to make Every. Single. Step of the way a “teachable moment” for the player. It wants you to fail and fail over and over again but the pacing of these teachable moments are too frequent which makes getting through the levels a repetitious slog at times. It’s not helped by the fact that virtually all the mechanics are quite rough.

The combat, in particular, is problematic. I’m playing on Jedi Master because I think that’s the equivalent of ‘normal’ but wish I had started on Jedi Knight.
It's trying to copy the soulsborne genre but it’s out of place for an IP like this. The way the game handles the force powers and the lightsaber animations are visually great but it doesn’t play nicely because there are too many restrictions. Imagine if the swinging in Spider-Man PS4 had a stamina meter. It wouldn’t feel half as exhilarating as it does, it would feel like work.

The action is also too chaotic for that truly slow and methodical soulsborne approach that it's going for. Enemies all attack at once and this game does not handle multiple attacking enemies well. You’re expected to dodge and block hits and projectiles you couldn’t have possibly seen coming, either because they’re off-screen or aren’t telegraphed well. You might as well forget about lock-on because the simultaneous attacks means you need to change targets more quickly than the lockout will allow.

The camera is all over the place - sometimes sending you swinging 180 degrees for no good reason which again forces you to play without lock-on so you can micromanage the camera yourself. You’ll also find yourself fighting multiple enemies on narrow cliffs so there’s no room to move at best or they can just knock you off with one hit at worst.

I don’t like the stimpack system either. A simple health-upon-kill like the Spider-Man and Batman games would have been more appropriate, or meet somewhere in the middle by allowing Cal to auto heal out of combat.

I’ve seen people say they had a better time when they turned down the difficulty but that merely masks the problem which is that the game punishes you for it’s own clunkiness. The only difference between difficulty modes is how much it punishes you. The reason why I haven’t turned down the difficulty yet is because it’s still early days and I want to give the game the benefit of the doubt by assuming that it’s me who just needs time to master the mechanics. For now I’m going to believe that, “what is in the way is the way” but I'm not convinced it will start to click if I'm being truthful.

What I’m not willing to forgive though is the checkpoint system. This stupidly sadistic send-you-all-the-way-back-from-whence-you-came-rebel-scum approach to punishment is so obviously designed to just pad out the game length. :rolleyes: The trial and error aspect of climbing that I praised earlier is quickly ruined by the looming thought that multiple failed attempts could send you back halfway through the map. Simply put, the fun of figuring out how a mechanic works is not worth the risk of failing it in Fallen Order and that’s a real shame.

The punishment for not progressing throughout the level should be…not progressing. Not having to retrace the same steps and fight the same trash mobs over and over again just to get to the part you’re actually struggling with. This is by far and away the worst aspect to the game and where I think it would easily lose a new player.

Also, losing XP upon death is just lame. I do like the ‘wow’ moment when you damage the enemy that stole your XP, feels like you’re reclaiming your honour but it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pointless front to make the game appear more hardcore than it actually is.


Like I said, it’s early days. Maybe as I grasp the mechanics more the constant respawning will be a distant memory but just the fact that it’s in there at all is irritating.

They shouldn't have included him at the end. That was corny. His entrance wasn't directed particularly well either - the extreme close up was not flattering. The game's direction is better than that.

Anyway. I've platinumed it now and overall I had a good time...especially when I turned the difficulty down. The respawning halfway across the map started to annoy me so much that even though I was getting through it with each retry I realised I just wasn't having fun and just stopped giving the game the benefit of the doubt. The combat is bad. There's no way to say it. If anything, on Jedi Knight it gave me enough time to realise just how inconsistent and sloppy it is in ways I couldn't see on Master difficulty when the enemy aggression was higher. I never trusted that a parry or a dodge was going to work the way it should. It's just really unpolished which is a shame because it could have been awesome.

The worst was with the ninth sister. For context, when I defeated each of the Valkerie queens in God of War I felt such a sense of accomplishment. I really wanted to beat them for a sense of pride because I felt like the combat had earned that. I got the sense that the combat designers were meticulous and deliberate with what they wanted and that I owed it to them and myself to rise to their challenge. They were tough but I knew that as long as I learned the right defensive techniques and didn't give in to the temptation to button mash I could trust Kratos to do what I wanted.

After I defeated ninth sister however I didn't feel pride at all, I felt exhausted. Like I had clowned myself by wasting time micromanaging combat that the devs should have done properly themselves. She also had few vulnerabilities which made finding an opening tedious. As an example, somehow she was able to run into a wall and stun herself doing it but then immediately block or run again. :rolleyes:

The fight with the big bird wasn't as bad but as I was so sick of the combat at that point having just slogged through the worst map for combat (Dathomir) I just put it on story mode so I could basically just end the bird quickly and run past everything until the conclusion before it ruined my enjoyment of an otherwise good game. It allowed me to focus on the best parts which were the puzzle solving and working out the map. My only regret was that I didn't do it sooner.

Loved getting all the collectibles post game - some of the puzzles for them were really clever and easy to miss first time round. And there's always that great feeling that you've come a long way when a puzzle you couldn't do before you're now able to do due to having the right equipment. I actually enjoyed the backtracking to the ship as it was a test of how well I knew the map and how well I was able to follow the holograph. Only Dathomir really gave me trouble there, got lost a few times.

Overall, it's a fun game and a faithful adaptation. If Respawn can learn from the mistakes here for the sequel it could be truly special.

Call me weird - trying to figure out the map was one of my favourite parts. Kind of reminded me of some of the best parts in Arkham games for some reason. Personally had no issue with the lack of fast travel as traversal didn't feel as repetitive as say something like Vampyr.