in a galaxy far, far away…
March 10, 2020
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a recently released, standalone game for all platforms, which follows the story of Cal Kestis. Cal is a Jedi Padawan who escaped the Purge of Order 66 thanks to the sacri ce of his master, and has been hiding on the planet Bracca as a scrapper. He is found by the Empire’s Jedi hunters, called Inquisitors, and escapes once again with the help of Cere Junda, a former Jedi, and Greez Dritus, the captain and pilot of The Mantis. Commonly referred to as Jedi: Fallen Order or just Fallen Order, the game falls into the Souls-like, third-person, and action-adventure genres, with a compelling story to complement the gameplay.
Fallen Order obviously takes great inspiration from the Darks Souls series, which is known for being unforgiving but extremely rewarding. The player must learn the attack patterns and tells of every enemy to survive, especially on higher dif culties, and every use of your healing item counts, like in the Souls games. The game is mostly very fair, though some segments and bosses prove to be rather annoying. Unlike the Souls games, however, Fallen Order follows an obvious story, and has a story difficulty setting for those who just want to enjoy the storyline. The game is also fairly short, with most of the playtime coming from backtracking to previous areas for new objectives to use new abilities to find more collectibles.
The main character, Cal Kestis, actually has a very limited set of abilities, but as the game progresses, he remembers his teachings and collects upgrades for his droid that allow him to more easily traverse the environment and defeat enemies. The combat is tight and enjoyable, the characters have interesting and engaging backstories, and the story is excellent on the first play through.
On the second playthrough, the unskippable cutscenes were annoying, and the story did not have anything new to show. The collectibles were still fun to get, but knowing their locations made only a few dif cult.
Overall combat does not change, but less powerful enemies will be easier to dispatch and more powerful enemies will display additional exploitable weaknesses. Players will have to use their skill and wits to nd ways to quickly defeat enemies.
I enjoyed Fallen Order. The combat is tight and enjoyable, the characters have interesting and engaging backstories, and the story is excellent on the first play through.