(Originally published on Glitchwave on 6/20/2020)
[Image from playstation.com]
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Publisher: EA
Genre(s): Action-Adventure, Soulslike
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Release Date: November 15, 2019
Metaphors aside, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, or "Jedi Souls" as I refer to it as is a souls-like game with the Star Wars branding. It has a similar 3D Metroidvania-esque level progression, checkpoints where you can level up your character that also re-spawns enemies, parrying, combat dodging, and lore galore. Rather than accuse this game of not having any original ideas because of how much it takes from Dark Souls, I'm thinking optimistically about what other licensed products would fit nicely with the Dark Souls format. It's a game that is copied often for a reason. The only thing about this game that isn't translated from the authentic Dark Souls experience is the difficulty. Even on the second to hardest difficulty in "Jedi Souls" (the one that I played on), this game never reached the level of challenge that Souls-like games are known to present. I don't parry at all in Dark Souls and I seldom parry in Bloodborne only because it's much easier with a gun. In "Jedi Souls", I parry almost everything that comes towards me whether it be the Stormtrooper blasts (whenever they aim accurately), Scout Trooper's barrages of shock batons (or whatever they are called), and every bite and scratch from the rats on Zeffo to the Nydaks on Dathomir. The game is very lenient with dying which is something that other souls-like games are not. I don't even know if I'm good at parrying in this game or if the game is just giving it to me most of the time. Not to mention, the weapon scaling isn't as intricate as other souls-like games seeing as you have one lightsaber throughout the game and all you can do to it is customize its appearance. Instead of choosing a path to focus on like building dexterity or another asset in the skill tree, you will most likely fill in every single skill by the time you're finished with the story making Cal impenetrable by the end. Somehow, EA found a way to make soulslike gameplay accessible. I suppose this comes with the fact that Star Wars is one of the biggest franchises across all mediums and bringing forth something like Tomb of the Giants on little kids would result in a lot of tears and smashed-up controllers. This does not mean that the game suffers as a result. Quite frankly, it's refreshing to see something of a Dark Souls game that isn't meant to be blisteringly difficult. One could attest that my point comes from the fact that I might suck, but as Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki stated, the initial intention of Dark Souls was not to be frustratingly hard. It was rather a byproduct that came naturally with the way the world of the game was created. "Jedi Souls" still has all of the other essential elements of a soulslike game otherwise and to dismiss it for not making your blood boil is an unfair assessment of its integrity as a game.
Besides the souls-like experience that "Jedi Souls" delivers, it's also one of my favorite Star Wars outings as well. I am saying this as someone who generally likes the original trilogy and likes making fun of the prequels because those were the Star Wars movies that were popular when I was a kid. I couldn't care less about the Disney-produced movies due to absolute indifference. I wouldn't have even cared about playing this game if not for its soulslike gameplay. A lot of my cherished childhood games were Star Wars related (Lego Star Wars and Star Wars Battlefront II), so ultimately, I have some stake in whether or not this game holds up to my expectations of Star Wars. It turns out that "Jedi Souls" is probably the best Star Wars experience of the entire decade.
The period of time spanning anything Star Wars-related always seems to be relative to any point between all of the movies. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. In this frame of time, the Empire has already been readily established as a mighty tyrannical force in the galaxy. One aspect of their tyranny is seeking out Jedi that has gone into hiding to exterminate them. One of these surviving Jedi is a young man named Cal who was a "youngling" that survived Order 66 In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin and Emperor Palpatine execute an order that makes the clone troopers turn on members of the Jedi council. This proved to be successful resulting in the fall of the Jedi order with every surviving Jedi going into hiding. Anakin also kills a unit of Jedi kids in training to which Obi-Wan refers to as "killing younglings." Fun fact: Ewan McGregor covers his mouth when he says "killing younglings" to keep from cracking up.". Since Order 66, Cal has been working as a scrapper hiding his force powers. Once he uses them to save a friend, a faction of the Sith empire called "The Sisters" tries to have him killed but is rescued by Cere, a former Jedi, and Greez, the pilot of a ship called the Stinger Mantis. Cal then follows the path of an old fallen Jedi named Eno Cordova to find the Jedi Holocron, a device that discovers the location of Jedi children which Cal and the others hope to use to build the new Jedi order.
Cal is played by Cameron Monaghan who you might know as the gay red-haired guy from Shameless. I don't usually give reference to whoever plays a character in a video game, but Cal looks exactly like him. He is the arch-typical lead role in most Star Wars media: looks somewhere between 16-28, strong-willed, extraordinarily capable, but has noticeable flaws that come with a lack of experience. He is essentially Luke Skywalker before Luke Skywalker. I think playing as someone like this correlates well with the Metroidvania style of gameplay that "Jedi Souls" presents. Metroidvania games put up barriers around the game world so that the player can incrementally gain everything he needs until you can traverse through it with ease. The obstacles that the player overcomes coincide with Cal's character arc of becoming a master Jedi as every force move and every new lightsaber swing unlocked feels like Cal growing as a skilled warrior. He's fine for the lead role, but the characters in this game work better as an ensemble.
The character with just as much screen time but doesn't get the same level of credit is BD-1, Cal's obligatory droid sidekick that comes with every training Jedi in the Star Wars universe. Like other droids, he bleeps and bloops and aids the young Jedi with any mechanical obstacles. Like Cal, he fits his role just fine. He's a bit more charismatic than the droids from the films, but that can probably be attested to his chihuahua-like size. Every video game sidekick seems to be more charming that way. The crew of the mantis are my favorite characters in the game. Cere serves the wiser, older Jedi role ala Obi-Wan Kenobi, but unlike Obi-Wan is much more interesting because her character is much more nuanced than anybody from the Jedi council in the films. The Jedis in the films were very sterile characters and their operation of the order made them seem like a council of catholic priests with glowing swords. Cere is as strong-willed and wise as any Jedi, but her dark past following the fallout of Order 66 is a fair point of interest of her character. Greez, the pilot of the Mantis, is kind of a cross between ET and George Costanza that serves as the comic relief of the game, but always subtly through banter with the other crew members. There is a fifth crew member of the Mantis but she is shoehorned in at the end of the game and doesn't have the same impact as the others because of this. Cal mentions that the Mantis crew feels like a pack of misfits which is exactly what the group in the original Star Wars film felt like which is always a very charming dynamic.
The reason why I was enveloped in Star Wars when I was a kid didn't have anything to do with the characters or even the lightsaber duels. I was captivated by the world that George Lucas created that people expanded on through decades of Star Wars maintaining its huge role in the cultural zeitgeist. Because exploration and lore are a staple of the souls-like genre, "Jedi Souls" takes advantage of highlighting the vastness of Star Wars. There are only five main planets to explore, but the levels in these worlds are pretty rich and spacious. Not to mention, the Metroidvania genre implements plenty of backtracking, but never to the point where it becomes tedious, so the levels are paced pretty well. My personal favorite of the five worlds you explore in the game is Kashyyyk. I'm not sure if that is because it's the only planet that I recognized from other Star Wars media or because the wookies are my favorite Star Wars creatures, but the planet looks gorgeous. Climbing the origin tree was a highlight of the entire experience because the view is breathtaking. Each planet has an expansive map to explore and there is plenty to discover: the history of the planet, the fauna, creatures, etc. Every location feels abundant and rich and I think the soulslike direction and level design aids this. Even the Mantis feels lively. There is a terrarium on the Mantis where you can put seeds that you discover from the planets you explore. It doesn't reward you with any special force powers or abilities, but it is indicative of the effort the developers put into making every location feel opulent. One criticism about the vastness of each world is the levels could have been designed to make it easier to get back to the Mantis. This is usually a problem due to how expansive every location is. There are shortcuts, but those are usually located near the Mantis anyways. This is especially a problem on Zeffo because it's the biggest level. Perhaps they could have incorporated something like Metroid Prime 3 where you can summon the ship at a couple of different areas of the level, but maybe that would have made the checkpoint layout a bit too easy.
"Jedi Souls", after a long time span of subpar Star Wars titles from the greedy developer EA who cared more about bleeding money from children rather than putting care and effort into an expansive Star Wars experience, finally apologize for what they've done with this game. EA, I accept your apology, but I'm a natural skeptic, so I won't be surprised when you disappoint us again. For now, what we have here with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a return to form. They saw that with Dark Souls as a main source of inspiration that they could deliver something that was more accessible, but something that did not sacrifice the richness of the souls-like genre. As something in the Star Wars canon, it fully understands what makes Star Wars so invigorating. Someone finally got it right after all these years.
PS: The light-saber duels in this game are wicked as hell. Thank god they decided to be more lenient with the parrying or else every fight would be Cal awkwardly backing up and roll dodging, and that's just not what a lightsaber duel should be.
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