Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Xbox One)
After the release of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Order 66 ended up becoming one of the more fascinating elements for other Star Wars media to explore. As part of a bid to shift the Galactic Republic to a totalitarian empire, Chancellor Palpatine provided a clone army to assist the knightly order of Jedi in their battles across space. The Jedi learned to trust their clone allies, which meant when Palpatine gave these soldiers their coded order, few expected the slaughter that would come after. The Jedi went from an order with hundreds of gifted fighters to scattered warriors spread across the galaxy, the tales of how certain Jedi managed to survive and how they would attempt to rebuild the Jedi a ripe source for storylines of overcoming loss and hardship with honorable intentions.
Cal Kestis was only an apprentice Jedi when the purge began and for years after he escaped the Empire’s efforts to track down and slay the last remaining Jedi by hiding out on a planet as a starship scrapper. When an accident spurs him to use his connection to the universal power known as the Force to save a friend, word spreads quickly, the Empire sending Inquisitors to try and root him out. Fortunately his enemies weren’t the only one who heard of a potential Jedi in hiding, the spaceship known as the Mantis arriving in time to ferry him off world. On board is the former Jedi Cere who hopes to rebuild the Jedi order but cannot do so herself due to a traumatic event in her past, but she provides Cal Kestis aid in not only helping him find hope in rebuilding the Jedi but coming to grips with his own failures and inexperience. In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you’ll end up traveling across multiple planets to find the secrets needed to create a new Jedi Order all while the Inquisitors and the Empire hope to not only kill Cal but also utilize the same info he’s tracking to tighten their grip on the galaxy.
This science fiction action adventure constructs a pretty focused story despite some inevitably lengthy breaks that crop up when you’re exploring a planet. While a lot of your time on the jungle planet of Kashyyyk doesn’t really advance anyone’s personal story, there are a lot of smart decisions made in terms of making this plot more than just rebuilding the fallen Jedi order. Cal’s journey perhaps shines brightest when he’s at his lowest points, moments that test his resolve and dedication making him more sympathetic than if he more easily and heroically pressed forward in his quest. Cal’s inner turmoil and feelings of inadequacy draw out more interesting behavior from him and shifts in the story’s direction. He is hardly a brooding protagonist though, and one thing that makes exploring the planets more lively is the presence of the tiny BD-1 droid that rides on his shoulder. Existing somewhere between the simplicity of a pet and the comforts of a close friend, you can’t understand the beeps BD-1 speaks in but excellent body language makes the machine able to be quite expressive and a nice way for Cal to justify speaking when he’d otherwise be alone. The crew of the Mantis do their work in building up a strong central cast as well, the pilot Greez a four-armed alien with a weakness for gambling who is amicable despite being quick to complain about the danger the group puts him in, his gradual thawing not too far a step away from where he starts but still satisfying without sacrificing that endearing gruff demeanor. Cere provides a more serious counterbalance, almost assuming a mentor role but also having her own failings that weave into the main plot.
Your opposition can prove to be interesting conceptually as well. The main thorn in your side will be the Second Sister, a leader of the Inquisitor forces who is more than just a fearsome opponent, her own personal story adding a greater depth to the conflict rather than just fighting a straightforward antagonist. The Ninth Sister on the other hand is more of a brute with little emotional weight despite her imposing presence, but there is a surprisingly strong contained conflict on the hostile planet of Dathomir. Already a world filled with horned warriors, animated dead, and a sickly hue, an exploration of embracing darkness to survive provides a fairly interesting miniature arc. For the most part the story keeps its plot within a solid scope to ensure that its characters have time to show off who they are and grow over the adventure, it perhaps being the area the game best achieves what it sets out for and thus it produces a more personal and interesting Star Wars story than some of the major motion pictures.
The meaningful story moments will have long stretches of gameplay between them and there is certainly lightsaber combat awaiting players in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but a lot of focus is given to how you navigate the worlds once you touch down on them. The areas you explore are rarely straightforward, often containing many side paths, jumping puzzles, and even places you can’t access until you return later with new abilities. These 3D spaces pack in a good deal to do beyond always pressing forward while also utilizing this wider approach to area design so that you’ll often need to work a little to open the way forward. There are thankfully shortcuts found to make it so you can return to areas later without having to engage with all of the same navigational puzzles, but many spaces will ask you to poke around a bit to create a viable way forward. Some areas definitely hone in even deeper on the puzzle-solving and begin to include trials with multiple steps so that you have to start thinking ahead and really considering everything in the immediate area and how it could be helpful, and when the puzzles are at their most complex there are certainly some satisfying brain-teasers that make the more involved work you put in feel justified.
There are certainly a good amount of moments where you will find the way onward is something fairly simple like hopping between ledges, scaling the side of a rugged wall, pressing yourself through a crack, and other means of basic movement that only really connect spaces without engaging you in any way. Some of these are just disguised ways of loading new areas in, the game in general having a few issues with how it handles such things. Textures taking some time to appear on objects, weird moments of still scenes even as the audio plays during cutscenes as it tries to load something new, and some odd instances like characters gliding into a cutscene because the game hadn’t loaded their proper position in time for them to naturally arrive. You might also during regular play even see little problems like enemies moving around while stuck in single pose or have them hit a bit of ground that has a slight elevation change only for them to be shoved up into the sky so they’re just over your head, but usually these problems either resolve themselves quickly or won’t impact important moments.
It does feel like the game could have done more to oppose some of your moments of climbing or plain platforming though, it briefly toying with it with some vines that try to reach you while on walls but usually it just lets the moment exist without much of note. Decompressing after battle or letting you breathe in an impressive visual can justify these moments a bit, but their number can feel a tad excessive, especially if you go for extras. Items hidden in the environment can be found by Cal and provide echoes of a moment in someone’s history, lore about a location fed to the player through these little finds. Upgrades can be rarely acquired this way like additional health stims, but most of the additional content hidden off the main path will end up being parts used to customize your lightsaber or new paintjobs for the Mantis and BD-1. The lightsaber’s handle isn’t exactly the most visible part of the blade so over time the fact your rewards for going off the beaten path are likely to be such paltry things might lose some of its appeal, but the side content can provide interesting gameplay moments even if the prize for putting in the effort isn’t often substantial.
If you rush into the combat in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order expecting your laser blade to easily slice through the opposition, you’ll quickly learn that isn’t going to be the case. Combat is actually fairly methodical and you need to choose your moments to strike with purpose, parrying a key part of gaining an edge against foes who can be surprisingly tough even when they’re fairly simple. A regular Stormtrooper is easily dispensed with by slashing them or timing a guard to deflect their laser blasts, but even the large rats who are practically the simplest enemy in the game take a few attacks to put down and even move in ways to try and score a hit before they perish. Your opportunities to heal in a fight are limited to how many health stims you have and even acquiring all of them still doesn’t diminish the danger enemies consistently pose, enemies at least spaced out quite a bit in your adventure so that you’re not constantly in these rather risky skirmishes. Unfortunately it does seem activating a stim in a fight isn’t always the most reliable, easily cancelled by mistake with a bit of movement, but fights are often about waiting out your opportunities already so you can afford to press the button again if it didn’t quite take.
Parries end up being your bread and butter for gaining an edge, a well-timed press of the guard button upsetting an enemy’s rhythm. Sometimes you can immediately strike after, but your attack speed often means you can only score a few blows before moving back to the defensive. Identifying when to parry becomes key to overcoming stronger foes and dodging their unblockable attacks adds more to the fighting system then simply guarding with spot-on timing, although your dodge rolls are not invincible which can become an issue if you are in a tight space with multiple foes. Many enemies actually won’t be left wide open after you do parry, the player either needing to parry them multiple times or attack their guard enough that a meter eventually depletes and they’re briefly left open. This can make a boss battle or specific enemy feel like a much more formidable fight where the foe must be respected, but Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order also applies this idea to perhaps a few too many basic enemies. Stormtroopers with electric batons are a constant presence throughout the adventure and frequently you face a small squad of them all at once, the player figuring them out early but needing to put in that time parrying these familiar foe as a matter of course rather than as part of thrilling combat.
New planets and points in the plot will introduce new enemies with tactics you’ll need to come to know to make progress so it’s not all face-offs with those Stormtroopers with their electrified rods. Alien fauna comes in many forms and often with unique gimmicks to a species. Large spiders require you to avoid projectile silk and slowing effects on the ground, the Jotaz are large lumbering creatures with swings that can hit you with ease if you try to stick too close in the fight, and the enormous bat Gorgara might provide the best battle in the game as you need to identify its weakeness, dodge a rather wide range of different attack types, and need to wear him down in multiple ways to win. Similarly, the bounty hunters that start appearing later in the game at unexpected moments provide somewhat unique foes who act like minibosses, their skills different from what you see elsewhere and relying on tactics that make them formidable but not so difficult their surprise appearances end up frustrating. Lightsaber duels with important characters like the Second and Ninth Sisters are still interesting conflicts but tend to boil down to learning the move, parrying when appropriate, and then getting in your slashes rather than encouraging a wider range of attacks, but you are given more attack options than just swinging your blade and deflecting attacks.
Force powers are a hugely important part of the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order experience. Perhaps their greatest contribution is to spicing up the exploration, giving you a means to manipulate parts of your environment by pushing things, pulling them towards you, and slowing them down. A few more action-focused platforming segments require quick and smart use of these skills and these powers tend to give the puzzle solving its added depth as you integrate your slowly growing set of skills into engaging with the variables demanded by a specific challenge. In battle these Force powers can give you an extra edge as well, although the lightsaber duels likely do feel a bit weaker because of how easily bosses often either resist these skills outright or the main use of them turns out to be slowing the foe briefly for a free hit. In battles with normal enemies though you can shove them off a cliffside with your push power or pull an enemy in close and stab through them in an instant instead of needing to gradually break their guard. You can gradually get upgrades like having BD-1 hack mechanical enemies to your side for some situational fun, and at other points you might find the Empire’s forces struggling the dangerous wildlife and can sit back and wait to kill the victor. Fighting foes yourself will build up your experience though that can eventually increase how much force power or health you have and grant you more specific abilities or make it easier to pull off certain skills like the Force push effectively. These experience points end up tying to the game’s handling of death as well, as you’ll lose those points on death and need to return and strike the foe who killed you if you want to get that valuable resource back. Dying again without reclaiming it will cause you to lose it, that danger even normal foes provide making those moments you might lose that valuable experience a bit more tense.
THE VERDICT: A solid Star Wars story exists at the heart of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a smartly condensed cast of characters making for a more personal journey to enjoy. There’s probably a bit too much uncontested navigation between moments of that plot, but there are clever puzzles to overcome and interesting platforming that makes good use of the same Force powers that add a much appreciated layer to the combat. The heavy focus on respecting the danger every foe presents in battle can lead to some of the more tense and skill-focused skirmishes like specific boss battles and more formidable foes found out in the world, but other times the emphasis on parrying either simplifies what could have been a more exciting battle or leads to it feeling like there’s far too many Stormtroopers blocking your progress with methodical combat. Not even a few minor technical problems can diminish the impact of moments where you face a formidable foe, overcome a complex puzzle, or experience a well-written story, so ultimately Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order does end up better defined by its strengths rather than its deficiencies.
And so, I give Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for Xbox One…
A GOOD rating. While perhaps trending close to a typical story set in the galaxy far, far away thanks to familiar character archetypes and a plucky group of heroes going up against the monolithic Empire as they can often be found doing, the story of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order does balance its spotlight well to flesh out these characters and make their personal tales fairly compelling. Besides some lulls like Kashyyyk the game does a good job of peppering in enough revelations and developments throughout the journey, drawing out the better moments for Cal and introducing more depth to situations so the tale ends up more than just a way to justify your planet hopping adventure. The layout of the areas you explore often invites curiosity fairly well with its little challenges and multiple small things to find in a space even if some of the rewards are underwhelming, but something should have been done to invigorate those moments where it feels like the game is doing little to oppose your progress. Climbing could have had more complexity in regards to Force power use and some moments like needing to chain a few powers together to set things right for the climb show its potential, but the Force also gets more room to stretch its legs in the puzzles that do make good use of the environment. The battle system ends up a double-edged sword despite leaning on a blade where every part of it should be lethal. Encountering foes that require some skill and responsiveness to overcome does ensure even basic battles can still pack a punch, but a few too many parts will roll out foes who became too familiar and needing to take the time to wear them down ends up dull because of it. When the system works it can provide epic encounters like the fight with Gorgara but it can also sort of weaken the threat of some foes because of how effective those parries can be in reducing your response to danger to a fairly basic game plan. Perhaps the gameplay could have taken a hint from the story and thinned its scope some so certain simplistic or repeated ideas could be trimmed or kept fresh more easily, but there is still an abundance of content where you will be enticed by an open space to explore or a formidable foe to face.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order builds off the aftermath of Order 66 well by keeping its eye on the personal impact of such an event while giving you a goal with a reasonable reason to hop between a good range of diverse planets. Even being a Jedi is well integrated into the play as your Force powers assist in exploration and combat, and while your lightsaber isn’t the lethal implement it is usually portrayed as, you get more out of the battles because they aren’t so easily carved through. Its balance of its principle ideas can be off at times, but it still ends up a Star Wars title that can stand alongside the films in terms of its narrative while also providing exciting video game action on strange alien worlds.