Jedi: Fallen Order mixes the magic of Star Wars with the stellar combat gameplay mechanics Respawn can provide. It’s both challenging and exhilarating. Technical issues and minor graphical bugs plague what is otherwise the best Star Wars game in over two decades.
Arguably one of the hardest franchises to create anything for is Star Wars. Be it movies, TV, comic books, or yes: video games. EA’s track record when it comes to its Star Wars games license has been an interesting tale, to say the least. From gorgeous but shallow games like Battlefront 1 or 2 (campaign notwithstanding) to highly publicized canceled games like Star Wars 1313, EA has needed a hit on their hands.
Ladies and gentlemen, droids and bounty hunters alike: Jedi: Fallen Order is that hit.
Jedi: Fallen Order captures the magic of Star Wars in a way unlike anything else. From the pitch-perfect music swells to the challenging yet satisfying gameplay, Jedi: Fallen Order had me grinning ear-to-ear throughout my roughly 20-25 hour playthrough.
That’s not to say that the game isn’t without its faults, as I’ll outline in this review. Bugs and technical issues plague what would otherwise be the perfect Star Wars game. But let’s just “force jump” into it!
Story
The key to any Star Wars story is detail and cohesiveness, especially in this day and age where everything is presumed canon. Jedi: Fallen Order gracefully balances key themes and tropes of Star Wars lore and storytelling, all the while injecting enough originality where it never feels like you’re beaten over the head with fan service or nostalgia. There are certainly little easter eggs thrown throughout the game for fans to find, but the game does a good job of not simply being an easter-egg hunt. I was delighted when certain planets or references to past films pop up, but it never felt ham-fisted.
The story in Jedi: Fallen Order matters, but not necessarily in the way you may expect. Yes, the story is canon and plays in the events between Episode 3 and Episode 4 of Star Wars; but it plays within that timespan in a way that never expressly adds or detracts from the mainline Star Wars films. Without diving directly into spoiler territory, just know that the stakes are high and that everything feels like it could have future implications for the Star Wars universe.
Cal Kestis (played by Cameron Monaghan) developed into one of my favorite Star Wars characters throughout the game. While Monaghan’s performance at the beginning appeared to be bland near the beginning, his believability as a young Jedi in search of his place in the universe grabbed me. Especially when BT-1 (the best droid ever) is introduced for Cal to interact with.
Cal is accompanied by two crewmates: Cere Junda and Greez Dritus (Greezy money, baby). The crewmembers act sort of like how Mass Effect’s crew members did on the Normandy, but to a much lesser degree. Throughout the game, Cal can interact and start conversations with each of the crew members to get a little bit more backstory and context for the story, but they never interact directly with gameplay. That being said, both crewmates are incredibly likable and interesting enough that I just want a whole mini-series following this rag-tag group around the universe.
Another major part of the story that I’ll throw in is just the music. A key part of what I like to think is “good” Star Wars is how music is implemented in various moments. You can’t just throw the standard Star Wars main theme into every situation, it has to fit what’s going on in a scene! Jedi: Fallen Order uses music exceptionally well to tell the story. There are several well-timed music swells that hit at the perfect moment to bring everything home. It even left me teary-eyed on several occasions. Nothing beats that.
Gameplay
The real Tauntaun meat and Dagobah potatoes to Jedi: Fallen Order is its gameplay. Here’s the gameplay recipe for Jedi: Fallen Order:
- Add 1/2 tablespoon of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’s sword combat for the lightsaber combat.
- Add a pinch of Uncharted dialogue and traversal.
- Add 1 cup of God of War’s magic for Cal’s force abilities.
If that sounds like a fun time to you, then Jedi: Fallen Order is for you. While certainly not as difficult as the Soulsborne games, there were plenty of combat scenarios that took a certain level of attentiveness to enemy attacks and tells. This level of difficulty probably added an extra 5-10 hours on my “Jedi Knight” difficulty playthrough. But rest easy, Star Wars fan, if you’re just wanting to experience the story there is a “Story Mode” option.
The lightsaber combat feels fantastic. Moving between defensive blocking (this is the Jedi way, after all) and quick parrying attacks has never felt better, and Respawn has done a great job at illustrating the sheer power of a lightsaber. No, you’re not able to cut limbs off of humanoid characters, but it is pretty satisfying to slice through those random bug enemies.
The only issue I have with the lightsaber combat is the default button-mapping of the attacks. By default (on the PS4 version of the game), lightsaber swings are mapped to the Square button and blocking to the L1 button. I immediately had to flip it to have my lightsaber swings mapped to R2, while blocking was L2. This provided a way more comfortable and recognizable way to go through the various combat moves. Not a major gripe, but it certainly killed me a lot at the beginning with being such an odd controller scheme.
Traversal is also my other main gripe with the game. Edge-detection in Jedi: Fallen Order is atrocious. There were many times where the game would not recognize an edge of a cliff as an edge, and send me plummeting to my death. Or conversely, clearly climbable walls with vines would not be recognized as claimable, sending me plummeting once again to join fellow force ghosts. Wall-climbing, in general, is a mess. Players once grabbed onto a wall, need to hit L2 to confirm that they want to grab onto the wall. As I mentioned before, since I remapped my defending button to L2, the game would glitch and pull out my lightsaber while I’m trying to grab onto a wall. It, unfortunately, happened during several pivotal scenes that required urgency, and it became a needless annoyance in the long run.
Other than traversal, Jedi: Fallen Order does an impeccable job at encouraging its players to search in every corner of every planet. I never felt bored by the various planets I was allowed to explore, and never felt I was lead down a corridor that didn’t hide some sort of secret. Combine that with genius use of force abilities (push, pull) and puzzles, and every world was simply a joy. It was also very cool to see how each planet (some more recognizable than others) to be in the transition period between the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire.
Conclusion
Jedi: Fallen Order is the most fun I’ve had with a game in 2019. It’s combat gameplay combined with a sense of scale and wonder only a few Star Wars games have been able to achieve is a huge treat. I do wish that traversal was more enjoyable than it ends up being, but its serviceable enough to explore the compelling planets Respawn has included in the adventure. It’s a story deep in lore and canon, yet still feels satisfying in a self-contained story. It’s a must-play for Star Wars fans, and I cannot wait to see what adventures await Cal and his crew in the future.
