Now Playing: Jedi: Fallen Order

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order tells the story of Cal Kestis, a young Jedi Padawan who escaped the Great Jedi Purge. Cal has been hiding on the planet Bracca, scraping together a meagre living salvaging ships from the Clone Wars but, as you can probably guess, his true identity is soon revealed and he’s forced to go on the run, hunted by the Sith Inquisitors of the Empire.

Cal is a likeable, if not particularly complex, protagonist. He’s a little too nice, too forgiving and it’s a shame we never really see him lose control, be challenged by any morally murky choices, or – even if it might be a little trite – forced to confront the seductive power of the Dark Side. That’s not to say that Cal isn’t faced with any internal conflict, but that conflict largely relates to his past, not his present or future.

Cal sets out upon a mission to restore the Jedi Order, accompanied by Cere – an ex-Jedi Knight – and Greez – a four armed alien with a love of cooking and gambling. Cal also has the trusty BD-1 at his side, an adorable and loyal droid who assists him throughout his travels. At the heart of the story is a Jedi Holocron, hidden within an ancient vault. Hunted by the Second Sister – a Sith Inquisitor – Cal and his crew need to locate and retrieve the Holocron before the Empire do.

Like Cal, it’s a shame the supporting cast (both good and bad) aren’t explored to any great degree. Cere has a pretty decent backstory and arc, as does BD-1, but Greez doesn’t get much. There’s a cool little section that feels like it was originally part of a much larger arc for Greez involving bounty hunters and gladiator cage fights, but it’s cut pretty short in the game and doesn’t really factor into the plot moving forward.

 

The Second Sister is a cool villain but sadly, she doesn’t really get enough time in the game. Like Cere, she has a pretty good backstory and arc, but I really wanted to see more of her throughout the game and have more interactions between her and Cal. She is, without spoiling too much, what Cal could have been if he hadn’t escaped the Purge, so it would have been nice to see them confront one another – and the path they each could have taken – presented more substantially within the game. A section where they’re forced to team up and work together, for example, would have been pretty fun.

Another cool villain – the Ninth Sister – gets a pretty fun boss battle but then just disappears from the game entirely. And another character who joins your crew towards the end of the game doesn’t really have much to do at all. It feels like, similar to Greez, that there should have been at least one mission revolving around this character and their story once they join you.

As much as I enjoyed the story and character aspects of Fallen Order, I can’t help but feel frustrated by them. I wanted to interact more with my crew and with the villains opposing us. I wanted to see more conflict within Cal as he struggles with the weight of the responsibility that has been thrust upon him.

 

On a few odd and seemingly random occasions you’ll get a dialogue choice when speaking with someone. It feels like the remnant of a more ambitious RPG style choice system that the developers just didn’t have the time or money to properly develop. And that feeling of cut corners and pared down features is one that persists throughout the game as a whole.

In terms of gameplay, there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before. Fallen Order is unashamedly derivative. It takes the platform aspect of the new Tomb Raider games, the map progression of Metroid and the combat of Dark Souls. I think it’s fair to say that Fallen Order is a jack of all trades but a master of none.

On your journey you’ll travel to several different worlds. Each world will vary in size and map complexity and your progression through each map will be determined by the abilities you’ve unlocked. You can only explore so far on your initial visit, with many pathways inaccessible until you’ve unlocked the necessary skill.

 

This encourages you to return to previous maps to open up and explore new areas. This will sometimes be part of the natural story progression, but also purely for your own exploration as you seek out hidden chests and secrets. The chests, it has to be said, are pretty pointless because they only contain cosmetic customisation pieces. This would be good if they gave you a varied range of new outfits for Cal, but they only include new colour options for your default (and only) outfit.

You also get new colour skins for BD-1 and your ship, and various new lightsaber parts. The lightsaber parts do at least change the visual appearance of your weapon, but it’s not like you really see it up close very often anyway. The collectible stuff in Fallen Order feels like another cut corner, like they wanted to do far more with cosmetic custom options but just didn’t have the time. That said, the ‘secrets’ on each map are worth tracking down because they’ll provide boosts to your health, force power and healing stims.

Traversing the map is a lot like the new Tomb Raider – you can run, climb walls and swing from ropes to get about, with a few slip and slide roller-coaster set piece moments to keep you on your toes. Combat, on the other hand, is a lot like Dark Souls. You can dodge and parry and utilise a – sadly limited – range of combo moves. You have ‘mediation points’ (bonfires) where you can rest, restoring your health and stims (flasks) but also re-spawning all enemies on a level. If you die in combat you’ll lose all of your accumulated experience, but you can retrieve it by striking the enemy that killed you.

 

The combat, overall, is pretty fun, despite the lack of humanoid enemy dismemberment. It can get a little messy, particularly towards the end of the game when, once again, it feels like time and budget was a factor and the game just devolves into a linear corridor that throws dozens of enemies at you at once. I also would have liked more elaborate combo moves and abilities. The difficulty options are pretty good – I’d recommend Jedi Master for a fair, but robust challenge.

Visually, Fallen Order looks great. The character models – most of them, at least – look fantastic. The wookiees though look pretty terrible. I don’t know what happened there. The environments are varied and make for some very pretty screenshots. The sound and music, as you’d typically expect in a Star Wars game with such a rich and iconic base to work from, is also really good.

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy playing Fallen Order but I also feel like the game doesn’t quite live up to its own potential. It’s the kind of game you’ll play but also be frustrated by because it just falls short in too many key areas. The signs of a tight production schedule and budget are obvious – take the chests you open underwater, but still play the same animation (and audio) as they do on land.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a really good game that I really want to see a sequel to. A sequel that the developers have the time and resources they need to deliver on the experience they clearly wanted but weren’t quite able to here.

7/10