There is no doubt that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order offered a refreshing take on the Star Wars universe (and once again showed EA the true potential of single-player experiences). Its gameplay formula included a mixture of Metroidvania elements along with FromSoftware’s souls-like mechanics. And when you added a protagonist who is a Jedi but not a Skywalker, you could easily say that Respawn Entertainment hit all the right spots with Fallen Order.
But it looks like the game giant has done it again, as the long-awaited sequel takes all the best features of its predecessor and brings many improvements, resulting in a rewarding experience worth your time.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review – Prologue
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor invites you to assume the role of Cameron Monaghan’s Cal Kestis, a lone Jedi on the run and adamant about fighting against the forces of the Empire, which grows bigger and stronger with each passing day.
But Cal, although split up with his former companions, is also more experienced as he now cooperates with the famous rebel leader Saw Gerrera and runs with other mercenaries. That brings us to the glorious, although a bit dragged, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor prologue.
The sequel welcomes you with a hefty opening sequence set in Coruscant. Our very own Cal Kestis is a prisoner and is being taken to yet another evil politician with a disturbing voice and bad skin. This time, “Senator Daho Sejan” takes the role of the minor Star Wars villain whose life is as long as the prologue.
From its minor villain formula to Star Wars shenanigans, the prologue offers almost everything you want to see in a Star Wars product. You can’t go wrong with a Jedi who fakes being imprisoned, a deus ex machina that goes wrong at the right time, the loss of some characters the player will never see, some ship battles, and the final escape to the hyperspace. And Respawn, thanks to their experience in creating Disney-like stories in the Star Wars universe, didn’t go wrong either.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and its compromises
The prologue gives you a glimpse of what Star Wars Jedi: Survivor offers in terms of combat and exploration. It also introduces two highly-curious lightsaber stances to test you with a boss fight near the end.
When the classic Star Wars action ends, Cal escapes from Coruscant with his fellow droid BD-1 and crash lands on Koboh. And that’s where the sequel welcomes us to its semi-open world and slowly starts showing what it is all about.
Like its predecessor, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor embraces the Metroidvania-level design. But unlike its predecessor, it adopts the elements of the genre on a much larger scale. And this becomes apparent immediately after you find yourself on Koboh, the first stop on your journey.
This earth-like planet is the perfect example of how the sequel went out of this way to improve upon its predecessor in terms of exploration and level design. Respawn’s long-awaited sequel does expand upon Fallen Order’s lackluster approach to the Metroidvania elements.
But despite the improvements, these level design elements – no matter how refined – sometimes fail to keep you invested in its atmosphere. The whole semi-open world exploration of the sequel can sometimes feel bloated, resulting in a tiresome experience after a ton of climbing, jumping, and running; this type of exploration lost its luster even before the final installment in the Uncharted franchise.
Indeed, the diverse scenery of the sequel’s planets is a delight. But even though they looked mesmerizing, I could not help but lose the curiosity to slice another chest to find another beard style for Cal.
Since the lightsaber colors and most outfits for Cal were available right at the beginning of the game, I lost my enthusiasm to find new cosmetics quickly. That being said, Respawn brought many customization options for our Jedi. So no more poncho color hunting like we all did in the previous title.
Jedi: Survivor and the Metroidvania formula
Luckily, cosmetics are not the only rewards you find after beating dungeons and unlocked areas in Jedi: Survivor’s refined Metroidvania world design. Respawn went with more optional areas to reward you with various skills, perks, and cosmetics.
Yet again, the sequel puts you in a long sequence right after the prologue, where you constantly delve into the run-and-jump formula and fight a few enemies in a souls-like fashion, which, fortunately, still works thanks to new lightsaber stances.
But when you start exploring optional areas left and right, Jedi: Survivor shows how Respawn tried to find a compromise between telling a Star Wars story and depicting an adventure set in the Star Wars universe.
Indeed, its semi-open worlds are essentially enormous labyrinths drenched in Metroidvania sauce. And it is also true that exploration gets tedious after some point. But Respawn probably believed that offering “too much open-world” might weaken the ability to keep the player invested in their Star Wars story. And focusing on that same story too much might result in a linear experience.
While I clearly see this compromise, and I understand that they aimed to stay loyal to the Metroidvania elements, I must say that the sequel failed to keep me invested in its semi-open worlds.
That’s because the wonderfully-crafted areas of Jedi: Survivor do not feel genuine, found, or discovered. Instead, under the depiction of a wild, vicious planet filled with beasts and natural wonders, Koboh is revealed to be a glorified parkour map designed to offer underwhelming rewards while making desperately wait for the game to unravel at least some parts of the story. And the puzzles I have encountered in its optional areas are uninteresting.
Their real trick is to make you run and jump until you can see the hidden key to solve it. And that doesn’t work due to most puzzles essentially being a parkour map that hide a magical ball to open an unlocked door. But they do contain some echoes that reveal some fragments of the past of the Jedi.
This equation couldn’t get me invested in Jedi: Survivor’s puzzle-solving approach. But if wall-running and ball-shooting are something you fancy in solving puzzles, you might spend a considerable amount of time in the game’s optional areas.
But as soon as I was out of Koboh and landed on Jedha to meet with our former companions, the sequel picked up from where it left off and kept me invested. Finally, after a sequence with relatively slow pacing, I was ready to brave the dangers of the galaxy with my new lightsaber combat stances.
Despite the large explorable zones that often feel dull, Jedi: Survivor does its best to offer a rich experience with gardening, rumor investigation, bounty hunting, and many more. For those who enjoy spending every minute in the galaxy far away, these are great side activities that will undoubtedly extend the playtime. But they are not enough to label Jedi: Survivor other than a decent adventure game with uninteresting exploration mechanics.
Jedi: Survivor’s combat never gets old
While I would love to discuss my mixed feelings about Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s open-world design, I believe I should do it justice by praising its improved combat mechanics. Because the combat is where the efforts of Respawn are most apparent.
The predecessor was celebrated with its lightened-up combat formula of Dark Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Jedi: Survivor still depends on that souls-like groundwork but then decorates it with the new fighting styles and successfully offers a different formula that is more rich and complex.
And thanks to the ever-growing Galactic Empire, you often find the chance to test your skills in diverse locations.
As the story progresses, the sequel puts you in various sequences where you fight with a companion, allowing you to command them at certain times during the fight. While it doesn’t happen much, it correctly adds to the combat mechanics. After all, you can’t go wrong with a space witch who freezes the enemy for a solid lightsaber action.
From Crossguard to Blaster, every lightsaber stance has advantages and drawbacks, resulting in combat gameplay requiring skill and finesse. And when you wear a Han Solo-style jacket after equipping the Blaster and your lightsaber, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor reaches new heights.
With Jedi Master difficulty, I quickly learned that hitting the attack button mindlessly didn’t help, and I found myself constantly blocking, parrying, or using the Force to fight my way out. And that’s how it should be.
It’s worth noting that the game allows you to switch between only two lightsaber stances, which should be equipped at a Meditation Point first. On the other hand, a Meditation Point serves as the Bonfire of Jedi: Survivor and allows you to access your skill tree.
And don’t worry. The game grants you the chance to test out all of your skills quite often. Unlike Fallen Order, the sequel throws mountains of enemies your way. The enemies may be few in variety but great in number when compared with the predecessor.
Moreover, they are not the only challenge on your journey. That’s because the sequel also comes with a series of challenges called Force Tears. Think of them as pocket dimensions where you try to complete the objective, which can be destroying 150 droids or defeating the enemies using a certain lightsaber stance.
Unlike other semi-open-world aspects of the game, these optional side activities are not tiresome and offer a refreshing take that allows you to test your fighting skills.
Jedi: Survivor tells a genuine Star Wars story
The journey of Cal Kestis is not something we haven’t heard before. In essence, it is a story of a good guy who is outnumbered, always on-the-run, and constantly worried about the fate of his cause. But no matter how repetitive it sounds, that story seems like it still hasn’t lost its luster when told in the far galaxy. Despite its slow-pacing and anti-climactic moments, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor successfully builds upon the story of its predecessor.
Thanks to brilliantly-crafted cutscenes that occur seamlessly, Jedi: Survivor also follows the celebrated cinematic aesthetics of the Star Wars movies. And despite its underwhelming side characters, the sequel deserves some love for its storytelling and narrative design.
Even though it embraces some of the same tropes we have seen in the recent Star Wars products, I am content with how Jedi: Survivor told Cal’s story.
Jedi: Survivor’s low FPS and performance issues
Triple-A titles launching with abysmal performance issues are becoming a norm. And Respawn’s highly-awaited sequel is the most prominent example of it. Its poor optimization renders the game unplayable.
Alongside crashes and issues with the EA launcher, your rig will probably fail to maintain 60 FPS while running the game. The game’s terrible performance is accompanied by blurry graphics as well. Despite the massive issues, I tried objectively approaching the game in my Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review – wrapping up
Our Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review concludes here. It is safe to say that Jedi: Survivor is a well-crafted title that successfully expands and improves upon its predecessor. Despite its abysmal PC port that runs terrible, underwhelming semi-open-worlds, and dull side characters, it seems like Respawn took all the right notes after Fallen Order and came up with one of the great, if not the greatest, Star Wars games in the last two decades.
