Respawn Entertainment probably has a lot of Star Wars fans in their company because they clearly know what they were doing with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Every bit of the game feels authentic. It's a game that neatly fits in the Star Wars lore, not just a game that had been given a Star Wars-themed coat of paint.
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Lightsaber Savvy Combat
Being a Star Wars game revolving around a Jedi, combat revolves around the lightsaber. The main character, Cal Kestis, is a young Jedi Padawan who survived the purge of the Jedi Order.
Padawans are Jedi-in-training, usually paired with a Jedi Master to teach them the ways of the Force before becoming a full-fledged Jedi Knight. Cal's rank as a Padawan shows in the repertoire of Force powers he could use in combat. Using only Force push and Force pull in combat, Cal's swordplay with the lightsaber becomes his primary way of fighting off enemies. Cal could also use the Force to slow down time, allowing him to dodge quick attacks and dish out his own.
This limitation makes combat challenging but fulfilling—which incentivizes players to master the game's controls. Enemies do a lot of damage, but they give visual cues to give players an idea when and where attacks will be coming from. These limitations actually give the game a lot more suspense—the Empire does feel menacing. You will also relate to the helplessness of Cal—always being forced to a corner and always being outnumbered. The difficulty serves the overall story that the game wants to deliver, and not just an arbitrary difficulty to punish players.
Space Indiana Jones
Outside combat, the game has a strong emphasis on exploration and platforming. It plays similar to Tomb Raider and Uncharted games, where you have to use your environment to solve puzzles and reach your destination. Cal would often have to use his Force powers to slow down time, allowing him to pass through obstacles or to time his jumps correctly.
Although the game doesn't have an open-world, exploration still takes a big part of the game. There are a lot of collectibles that you could get, mostly cosmetic designs to personalize your lightsaber. Be sure to check all nooks and cranny, and you might even find something that will make lightsaber battles even more exciting.
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Not Any Souls-like
Fallen Order also borrows heavily from Soulsborne games, but they make sense lore-wise. Their implementation doesn't feel forced at all.
Dying in combat penalizes players by taking away the experience points they've gotten from fighting enemies. These can be reclaimed by hitting the same enemy who killed you to the level of health that they had when you died.
Meanwhile, you can recover health and refill your Stimpaks (Fallen Order's Estus Flask, if you will) while meditating on checkpoints similar to the bonfire in Dark Souls. Meditation gives you access to your skill tree, but it also respawns all enemies in your area every time you leave meditation.
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Lastly, the Stimpaks you use to heal yourself is given to you by Cal's trusty droid—BD-1. The droid plays a big part in both the story and in the game's core mechanics, which is precisely how effective video game sidekicks should be like.
Film-worthy Storytelling
Perhaps what matters most, in the long run, is how Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order fits in the canon, and what it adds to the expanded universe. Thankfully, writers Aaron Contreras, Megan Fausti, Matt Michnovetz, and Manny Hagopian did a great job in forming a compelling narrative for the game.
Guilt-ridden for being one of the few survivors of the Jedi purge, Cal's mission in the story becomes retrieving a Holocron that contains a list of names of Jedi Padawan. He's motivated by the desire to save others who would otherwise suffer the same fate of his Jedi Master, who died protecting him during the purge.
Cameron Monaghan's portrayal of Cal Kestis conveyed the emotions of guilt and wanting well, which helps players in understanding the stakes of the conflict, and ultimately rooting for the protagonists to succeed. The relationships he built during this 20-hour journey unfolded through emotional, relatable conversations between him and his crew.
The game's final moments play out well, and it ties up all loose ends before the end credits roll. The story fits right in between Star Wars Episode III and Episode IV, and it was told in a way that only those who cared about the lore could. And for that, even sans the fun game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order deserves to be part of the Star Wars franchise.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is now out on Steam, Epic Game Store, Origin, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
