Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was quite the journey and one that I was glad to wrap up. I heard Respawn Entertainment’s first maiden voyage into the Star Wars franchise was a little rocky so I purposely held off, and held off, and held off until it made its way onto the Xbox Game Pass via EA Play and then it became one of the first games I launched on my Xbox Series X. It took quite the journey to get to that point, but a bit more dawdling, and a next-gen patch later, I finally began making my way through it.
The first impressions were generally positive, but it just looked a little off in spots. I found the Cal Kestis’ animations — particularly his running animation — a bit odd in spots. It wasn’t as polished as I expected considering the studio. However, if anything distinctly Star Wars was involved, it was top notch and among the best in the business. It was like they invested all their time and energy into getting the Star Wars parts right. Lightsabers, lasers, and all the fine details on all the characters were so convincing.
I was much less convinced by the decision to give Fallen Order the Dark Souls and/or Metroidvania treatments. I don’t mind that style of game for Star Wars, but I didn’t find the exploration rewarding. I enjoyed the more punishing take on combat; it grounded everyone from Stormtrooper to giant spider. They felt formidable and gave me an appreciation for what the Jedi can and cannot do in ways the films never did. Stormtroopers aren’t just fodder. They can inflict serious damage if you’re not careful and it’s far more rewarding to treat them like fodder once Cal Kestis and I mastered our respective abilities.
I don’t know why anyone would choose to play this game on any other graphical setting other than performance mode. The performance mode isn’t a perfect 60 FPS on the Xbox Series X, but it’s still lightyears more enjoyable than the quality mode at 30 FPS. Even before Respawn patched the game to lift the resolution to 1440p60, I chose to stick with performance mode. Timing windows for lightsaber attack combos and parrying were significantly easier to pull off with the increase in framerate.
Doing and seeing Star Wars things was enough for me to keep playing Fallen Order, but even that started to lose steam towards the end. I didn’t care for the story; I enjoyed specific moments, but I found there was not enough material to warrant the game’s length. Having said that, I felt they rushed the events towards the end. The integration of Nightsister Merrin to the crew was the shining example of that. She was wisecracking and integrated with Cal and the crew in what felt like a half hour compared to the weeks of relationship building that occurred organically with the other characters.
Forgettable story beats and the open ended nature of the game resulted in an uneven momentum. Hopping back and forth between a handful of planets looking for clues for a McGuffin that I just didn’t find interesting in the slightest just made a large bulk of this game feel longer than it needed to be. The pay off will stay with me though. The final fight, the retrieval of the artifact, and the happy ending will be forgotten with time, but the encounter with Darth Vader? That will stay with me. It was the most convincing demonstration of his power for me. The movies have spectacular scenes, but the game really highlights the gulf in power between everyone and him.
And that’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in a nutshell. It has high highs, some lows, but a lot of busywork bogging it down. I’m not convinced that this was what Respawn intended. In fact, I’m convinced that a sequel in their hands could be something very special. This was a decent attempt by them, now let’s hope they get another try.
Verdict:
It was okay
