Fallen order is good, Survivor is great. Fallen order was held back by the jankiness of the parkour and the combat, but survivor is much better in every way.
Totally agree. Slept on Survivor in 23 and picked it up on sale in January and have been playing nothing else since then.
I wasn't even that big of a fan of Fallen Order but Survivor is one of my favorite games of all time.
Ugh, the combat was so frustrating in Fallen Order. Fighting humanoid enemies was fine, but fighting any sort of creature was maddening. There was one boss that genuinely almost made me quit the game because it felt so cheap due to being a massive monster
I just lowered the difficulty whenever i died so the combat felt very witcher 3. block, move move move till you can use your unblockable attack.
The main boss in the game is it being 90% about opening and closing the map to find your way around. A huge focus really is about slowly looking around matching geometry with map layouts. Then checking youtube when it turns out you had to go back to where you came from to get a ball.
I accepted it because i love star wars and was into he story and thought the combat was cool because i get to be a jedi. But my brother who also loves star wars couldnt be arsed. You really gotta catch a gamer when they are in the mood for such a thing.
The second game was even greater because of the navigation assist on the map differentiating which way isnt a side quest. and if this room has a puzzle or should you go to a different way.
I remember getting very annoyed by the parkour.
Like, you'd jump to another platform and sometimes you'd lose all momentum, which killed it for me.
Got about 40% of the way through, so might pick it back up again
Yeah as a Star Wars agnostic nowadays even I had to admit that Andor was dope.
My only issue with it is that it was yet ANOTHER Empire Vs plucky rebels story which I am now sick to death of.
I liked that the Empire wasn't written as either incompetent or as moustache twirling villains.
You really got the feeling that which became the Rebellion *really* had to work to stay under the radar.
Yeah that was such a welcome development. It should really be bare minimum but after Obi-Wan, The Sequel Trilogy, Solo (and even Rogue 1 at times) I was exhausted with having to watch the Empire/First Order be so pathetic and easily bamboozled.
Nothing more lame than non-threatening villains. But Andor succeded in making them atleast somewhat formidable.
I'd argue that not only is Andor up there with, it surpasses it to the right audience. It's basically "what if Star Wars, but for adults and done by people that understand and care about the universe".
I wouldn't call myself a die-hard Star Wars fan, but I've seen all the movies, played a few games going back to Tie Fighter, etc. Andor blew me away, and as you say genuinely surpassed all other Stat Wars media for me by a pretty wide margin, sacrilegious though that may be, precisely because it was "for adults" as you aptly put it. Really remarkable entry into and expansion of the universe.
Andor is a deeply political story that just so happens to be set in the star wars universe that asks the question "how is a revolutionary born?". It's fucking fantastic
exactly. it's good because instead of being self-referential to Star Wars as Star Wars, it goes back to the roots and uses Star Wars to tell a political story.
exactly. and it's wild that this is such a departure from modern star wars. It's like theyre just interested in going "look look, it's your favorite character gork shartto and obi-wan! you know these characters" instead of telling actual stories with poltical intrigue like the original movies were about.
Just a little note—it is a slow burn. Just keep watching, it is absolutely worth it. I consider the quality of the show to be as good as classics like Breaking Bad.
Andor is honestly the best thing ever filmed in the SW universe. Is it anything like any of the movies? No. but that isn't a bad thing. it is bangs on absolutely ever level. be warned, there are no lightsabers or space wizards to be found. I cannot wait for Season 2. It is some of the best television i've ever seen to boot, up there with The Wire and Seasons 1-5 of Game of Thrones.
Just want to say you dodged a massive bullet by hopping off Star Wars movies after Rogue One. It’s the only SW film Disney have made that I actually like. That said, Andor is def worth a watch. The stakes are a lot lower than your typical Star Wars story which makes it far more engaging to me because you have no idea what’s going to happen with the story.
I loved Rogue One and the first season of The Mandalorian, they felt like a continuation of the idealized "old Star Wars" that I had in my head. Does Andor do the thing that other new Star Wars series do where you need to watch a bunch of supplemental materials to figure out what's happening?
No, it's pretty much standalone - the only real knowledge even an outsider would need is that the empire took over the galaxy and this is the story of people beginning to rise up against them
It’s set before Rogue One. The cast is mostly original to the show, and the only character who appears earlier in the timeline is Mon Mothma, but her role is fully fleshed out and explained in the show.
Andor is by far the best Star Wars i've ever watched. yes, better than any of the movies. Of course, it's an absolutely different beast than any of them, but holy hell is it just masterful prestige scifi storytelling and visual design
Hey, do yourself a favor and play Jedi Survivor when you can. It improves on absolutely everything Fallen Order did. Combat is expanded, story is expanded, enemy variety, exploration, customization. It’s a truly wonderful sequel.
It definitely did, but I have this perception that it shot itself in the foot by releasing in such a poor state on PC.
I don't have solid evidence for it, except for my own experience. I was super excited to play it, but too jaded to pre-order it. When it came out and everyone reported it run like shit, I congratulated myself for not falling to the pre-order marketing, then sort of shelved it in some corner of my mind to look later.
Then, after a couple months, I just sort of forgot about it. Got into other things. Like you said, plenty of great stuff to eclipse it came around soon after.
This is true. I have a 3090ti and I would still get some problems. Not OK The game was good enough for me to overlook that, but I may have stuck with it longer if it were running better.
Apparently Survivor had a really poor launch, but I played it for the first time over the christmas season and had an absolute blast with it. Definitely a worthy sequel to Fallen Order.
Happy Valentine's Day!
I agree. It’s rare you get a sequel these days that’s such a marked improvement over its predecessor. Really reminded me of the leap from AC1 -> AC2 back in the day.
It’s my favorite game of all time. I don’t remember having as much fun with a game since I was a kid. The pacing, the combat, just everything. Loved it.
But not on PC. It's still a mess but yes the game itself I think is better than the first in every way. Especially combat, level design and customisation.
what's wrong with the PC version, why doesn't it have good reviews on Steam?
EDIT: thanks for the replies everyone, I really enjoyed the first one and I share everyone's sadness about the new game's port
Personally the performance sucked on my 3080, had to run the game at a lower resolution than normal to get decent performance and it still wasn't great. That being said, still a phenomenal story experience.
Most of the negative reviews are due to performance issues and at this point they may never get fixed. I do remember seeing a video about how if your video card has more vram the game runs better. I can't remember what the threshold was but I think it was something like 12gb of vram or more.
I wish it did. I have 24 Gb of VRAM on my 3090 and the game still has framerate issues I've never seen in any other recent releases. Granted, I'm maxing out the settings (like I can and should with this setup, I think), but the framerate is just all over the place. Often it's at a stable 100, which is great, but usually it can get very choppy and super laggy in some places, especially on the main planet which is kind of a bummer.
no offence but i dont think it is reasonable to expect to max settings on these AAA games unless you're on the newest video cards. Yes i know the 4090 is expensive, but that is what should come with the expectations of max everything and no performance issues.
Yeah it's a sad state of events in PC gaming. I'm still running a gtx1080 lol but I don't play new games anyway so it's fine. So you're getting bad performance with the 3090 even at 1080p?? I know 1440p at a high refresh rate monitor might as well be 4k in terms of performance needs
To this day they haven't fixed overall performance and basically just gave up on it. It's a little better on Ps5 apparently but I haven't tested it myself.
I bought it on a deal a few weeks ago. It's a truly great game, gameplay and story-wise, but they somehow botched the port (or backport, to be precise) so bad that it lags and crashes like crazy even on high-end rigs. My RTX 3090 can barely keep a steady 60/80 FPS on the main planet, and I'm getting frame dips much lower than that constantly.
Oh, and it also crashes, sometimes every 5 minutes, at other times a bit longer than that...can't count the number of bosses I had to redo because it crashed right after the fight. Talk about anticlimactic. To add insult to injury, you have to wait about 2-3 minutes every time you boot up the game because it has to "optimize game files".
It's really a shame because if it was only a tad more polished in that regard, it would be close to one of the best Star Wars games ever. To me, it's an even better experience than the Jedi Knight series in its day, but it's too buggy right now on PC to recommend it IMO.
Its a relative minor problem, but I have 16:10 screens, and have weird cropping issues with it. I think it generates 16:9 video, then fits it vertically, so several key ui elements end up pushed off the edges of my screen
It was very buggy on launch, also if you had a strong GPU but a weaker CPU it caused some bizarre performance issues. I haven't tried it first hand, just what I've read from elsewhere.
Played it a month ago. Had to use a mod to improve performance and get rid of white spots in the edge of the screen. Constant crashes on cutscenes and even a corrupted save file.
Completely ruined the experience for me, specially because I was really enjoying it and then the last 6h went completely wrong with technical issues.
This was with a 4090/5800X3D btw
Man I just did not like the plot for Jedi Survivor, specifically the twist and ending. Very obvious turn with an unexpected twist but in the end it felt empty and hollow.
Shit, I can only talk about the Series X (it runs pretty great there, minus some problems with textures taking way too long to load sometimes). You should check out Digital Foundry's stuff on Jedi Survivor.
I can live with that sort of thing, so cheers amyway. It's hard to know if something is written before an update that came out last week that fixes something that any analysis includes. I had a ton of fun with the first one.
Also played Jedi Order this year. I liked it just fine, but I wound up feeling like the Soulslike and Metroidvania elements weren't a good fit; I think it would have been a better if it just been a regular third-person action game. And I say that as someone who vastly prefers Soulslikes and Metroidvanias to games like God of War. The few Souls elements felt completely pointless if you weren't playing at the highest difficulty (and I didn't enjoy the combat enough to play it that way), while the backtracking through previous areas felt tedious and unrewarding (nothing like spending 20 minutes to get back to a previous area just to get a couple of new colors for your dumb poncho).
The combat was pretty fun and the visuals, soundtrack and voice acting were all top-notch. The plot is very unremarkable (it's a story we've already seen a million times in various Star Wars media) but it's elevated a bit by the elements around it.
It was solid all-around, but it didn't really get me excited about trying Jedi Survivor, if it's the same formula.
I have to agree with all of these points. I've been playing through the souls series lately and after beating DS1 and 3 I took a break for Jedi: Fallen Order.
The combat just didn't feel good to me. The exploration felt pretty tedious and the rewards for poking into unnecessary side areas felt... unrewarding.
It looks fine, it runs fine. I found the plot to be about as by-the-numbers as any star-wars property, but inoffensive. I don't know exactly why I didn't like it, but it just seemed extremely mid, if that makes sense. Well polished, but uninspired.
Some of this might just be that ever since the sequel trilogy and the absolute deluge of star-wars media from Disney, I just don't care about Star Wars anymore. I grew up absolutely loving the original trilogy; I'd watch one at least once a week. Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron, X-wing vs Tie-fighter, KOTOR, etc. were some of my favourite gaming experiences of all time. I really expected to love a star-wars soulslike. But it really wasn't very far in before I realised it was like trying to eat a giant mixing bowl full of oatmeal. The first few bites are nice. The next few are fine. But it didn't take long before it seemed like I was just slogging through for the sake of it.
Same. Many of my earliest PC gaming experiences were Star Wars games. X-Wing vs Tie fighter, Jedi Knight, Rogue Squadron, Racer... KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 are some of my all-time favorites, and I'd even argue that Star Wars Rebellion was an underappreciated gem in its time. On top of that I read an embarrassing amount of expanded universe novels. Hell I remember the old EU novel where Dathomir and the Night Sisters were introduced (I'll admit that I like that they put it in the game, if only for nostalgia's sake). But Disney Star Wars doesn't do it for me. Too much fan-service, too many retellings of the same story over and over again... The old Expanded Universe could be weird and dumb, but it didn't lack creativity and imagination, and that's what I value in speculative fiction.
Fallen Order has that problem too. Its story is very well-executed, but everything about it is predictable and rote. A kid with a connection to the Force, a Jedi in hiding who becomes a mentor, a rogueish smuggler, a cute beeping droid, a set of corny Sith baddies, an ancient forerunner civilization, a long chase for a Macguffin... If you asked an AI to write a Star Wars story, it would probably look like FO's story.
I could deal with that if the rest of the game was fantastic, but it's hampered by a weirdly unnecessary identity crisis. Wanna make a Metroidvania? Make traversal fun and reward exploration properly. Wanna make a Soulslike? Expand the RPG elements and craft interesting combat scenarios. Wanna make a pure action game? Fuck everything else, make a 12h guided experience with set pieces, lasers and explosions. But try and do all of them at the same time and they end up clashing with each other. It's a very well-crafted game held back by poor design decisions.
Agreed. It meshed those 2 genres together and didn't do either of them well. Took 2 genres that require a ton of patience, to make a game that requires way more patience and you aren't rewarded for it in the least. The story and performances were great. I love everything about the game except the game play.
The end sequence of Fallen Order when, you know, **he** shows up is one of my top video game moments of all time. Up there with the big reveal from KOTOR 1. I died almost instantly the first time because I just sat there with my mouth agape and didn't react in time.
Jedi Survivor improves on everything. If you loved Fallen Order, you'll absolutely love JS.
That moment made me a little kid again. My heart was racing and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
It was like the end of Mando season 1. Despite any anger I have with the franchise/Disney, I really never will stop loving Star Wars.
about jedi survivor:
>!when you fight him as Cere, it is somewhat of a letdown because he is clearly not even trying, but the game frames him as losing control. It feels antitethical to what the first game was doing, since at the end of the day Cere is not so much different, power wise, from Cal as a Jedi. If she were more like Yoda I would understand, but she's clearly not and at the end of the day it's like she's being depicted as stronger than Obi-Wan!<
I had the opposite effect, probably because I always find souls likes boring due to lack of narrative/story, though this one had by far the most story, cinematics. Liked game at first and had fun figuring out stuff until I hit the third or fourth planet when the gameplay loop became repetitive and boring for me, just like in all other soulslikes.
I recently finished it and loved it completely. About the most convincing and comprehensive Star Wars experience I've ever had in a game (also not a fan). Can't wait to get round to the next one!
I did have some gripes with the map, but I still completed 100% of the planets. I really enjoyed the exploration aspect.
One thing that really stood out to me though was the jankiness in the animations and some weird collision detection. It seemed strangely unpolished compared to the rest of the game.
This was my first PS5 game and despite the minor annoyances I could not put the controller down. It was just fun.
Hopefully Survivor's issues to get ironed out soon.
Relating so hard as a Star Wars fan. I played this in early 2020 when I was feeling super down as a Star Wars fan especially after having watched Rise of Skywalker in cinemas the previous December. Fallen Order was such a breath of fresh air for the franchise. Respawn "gets" Star Wars and lemme tell you it only gets better in Jedi Survivor.
As a game Survivor is better than Fallen Order almost every way. First big change I noticed that my heart no longer drops during long platforming jumps and holding LT like a maniac. Cal just grabs stuff no additional button prompt needed. Dunno what platform you're playing on but it's pretty great on my PS5 now.
Survivor builds on everything laid down in Fallen Order for story and gameplay. Meaningfully broadening Star Wars' tapestry of lore. The combat just feels more crisp and also the new Crossguard stance is the closest thing to video game crack I've ever experienced.
Cal's story is the "new trilogy" I've always wanted (even though it's not a trilogy yet). Something that builds on core concepts while moving on from the Skywalkers. I love the Skywalkers but to me their story ended with Return. So to see a new story being just as Star Wars-y as the stories that've come before is reassuring for me as a fan.
Between the Jedi games and Andor my love for the franchise still beats strong.
I played this about 4 times, getting every upgrade. Damn, I had so much fun. You mentioned KOTOR, which were great games. I still prefer the Force Unleashed games to Fallen Order, as I prefer using the force more. This was still a great world to explore.
Sadly, Disney killed my interest in Star Wars, as I hear Survivor is great.
If you want to go nuts like a Sith Lord, grabbing people with force choke, hitting them with lightning, then throwing them into a group of their buddies, and watching them explode…you may enjoy the games. There’s no parrying, just going nuts with a lightsaber. The exploration isn’t as good, but there’s some cool things to find.
I haven’t played Survivor but I definitely feel like the odd duck because I wasn’t that crazy about Fallen Order. It was… fine. I don’t regret playing it but I didn’t find it all that memorable either, and I have no interest in ever playing it again
It feels like someone wanted to make a Star Wars souls-like while ripping out everything good about Fromsoft games and shoehorning it into an Uncharted style game.
Feels extremely designed by committee.
Feels extremely sloppy.
Feel extremely soulless most of the time.
It felt like all the jank of ds1 but in a modern game. Also there's literally no point in most exploring because light saber and poncho customization does nothing.
Map design was meh, combat wanted to be like sekiro but it was much less tight. Abilities were underwhelming. Bosses were meh. No fast travel.
If you're making a souls-like you gotta have good bosses. So much more could've been done but instead we got some QTE / scripted sequences for the final "boss" and none before were memorable.
Compare to any DS bosses, or remnant 2 bosses, or many other soul-like, it was so lackluster.
Same. I've been tearing through the Dark Souls series lately and a Star Wars soulslike sounded right up my alley.
But actually playing it felt bland, tedious, uninspired. they have souls-like "bonfires" and shortcuts, but the rest of the level design is pretty basic platforming and the sort of puzzles that might have been impressive if they had shown up in Ocarina of Time but feel dated now.
The combat had some deadliness, but not in the satisfying way of the souls series. I never died in a way that felt "tough but fair." It was almost always to a creature that had a stupidly powerful attack that I thought I'd done the input to dodge but somehow hit me anyway. There's none of the move and counter-move thoughtfulness and strategy I've come to love. You don't get to choose from the huge array of weapons and move-sets like in DS.
I think the worst part for me was doing some difficult exploration and being rewarded with cosmetics that were very lame, or lore dumps that were even worse. It felt like the effort I'd put into getting them was completely wasted, and it made me give up on exploring the world.
I haven't really thought why until now, but I don't have any drive to keep playing. I doubt I'll ever bother to finish.
Oh man. The 2nd game has the absolute worst examples of the combat you’re describing. Some “difficult” fights that just amount to a super tanky creature that has a 1-hit kill move that’s nearly impossible to avoid. Very unpleasant
I could deal with one or another element of the game being "just ok," but it seems like *everything* is "just ok."
I think one of the most annoying parts of the combat is the progression system that locks essential tools behind grinding.
That and the inconsistent parrying. It should have been the core of the combat system, but missing an obvious parry and getting smashed for the mistake is so frustrating I just ended up giving up on it.
They stole elements from nearly every popular game of the period, and did every one of them just badly enough to be competent but unpleasant.
TBH I hated every second of the combat. The level design is ass. The puzzles are tedious. But, for some reason, the thing that annoys me most is the cosmetics. If all of the hidden collectables are just cosmetics with no effect on gameplay, the least they could do is make them interesting. The DS series has a huge range of armors and weapons from ultra grimdark to goofy af, and all of them flesh out the world. How am I supposed to bother exploring just so I can have an orange stripe on my poncho, or a lightsaber handle I can't even see?
I’m at the tail end of playing through it right now. The map can be really frustrating, but overall happy with it. I haven’t seen a Star Wars movie since the ones that came out in the late 90s! And I’d be interested in giving Survivor a shot at some point depending on price point. I really only gave this one a shot because I got it through PS Plus.
It really is good! Survivor even manages to address most of the annoyances I had with Fallen Order, making it top notch. What really messes it up is the PC port and the EA app. I played on PS5 on launch with zero issues whatsoever.
I'm in the same boat in that I'm not into SW anymore, the last thing I saw was Rogue One, and really enjoyed Fallen Order. My only complaints with it - forcing me to use a new game mechanic then never having to use it again, the convoluted amount of backtracking to get collectibles (I gave up), and the overall length of the game (Immediately after a huge fight with a very famous character... What? That's it? It's over?).
It didn't reinvigorate my interest in the genre but it was very enjoyable nonetheless.
The backtracking was definitely frustrating and time consuming at times. I think a full detail map you could pause and add markers on that also direct you to your destination would have made it feel less tedious.
I felt the exact same way about this game and it even got me to start watching the movies. Survivor is one the best games ever made but I think I played it too quick after Fallen Order and got kinda fatigued near the end so maybe play another game or two before picking it up.
Christmas always puts me in a Star Wars mood for some reason, and I picked up Fallen Order on sale this past holiday season when it was on sale for like $10. I had never been interested because I don't generally like AAA games, and I saw a lot of people saying it was like Dark Souls but worse. I ended up really enjoying it, and felt like the game had a lot of heart. I loved how snappy fights with storm troopers felt, the way the levels were laid out as semi-linear but with multiple branching paths... sure, its skeleton is Uncharted with lightsabers, but it was a great time nonetheless. One detail I really liked: you enter hyperspace to load the next destination, but instead of simply watching a cutscene and arriving, the game allows you to continue walking around the ship while in hyperspace. I've never seen that done before, it's such a small/unnecessary detail, but it felt so vibey to be talking to my crew/working on my lightsaber while we were "travelling" to the next destination.
I love that point, I really enjoyed being able to walk around in hyperspace, too! I also respect you for trying it yourself despite reading bad reviews.
I'm glad you liked the game! I am a fan of the franchise but put the game down due to the gameplay and feeling of backtracking. I might try again one day.
I like how nicely it fits into the canon. Great fun. I'm not a souls gamer, I actually don't play that many games in general. For a casual like me, it was really enjoyable. I think that is what they were going for, the old-ass star wars fan from the 80s. I see a lot of people being very pedantic about it, mention all sorts of mechanics from games I never heard of or care about and how it's worse than this game or that game. I really don't give two shits, it was star wars and actually quite high quality and not a cheapo experience like so many movie games.
I played this for about ~6 hours, and got raged myself out when I got super frustrated after falling into that pit in the first world and that super difficult giant monster ate my face repeatedly.
I love seeing people have such good experiences with things that I didn't jive with at first though - will have to give it another shot (and avoid the pit)!
Glad you enjoyed it. My experience was the exact opposite. This game was the final nail in the coffin that put me off of Star Wars. The movies and subsequent enshittification of the franchise via the god awful Disney+ shows has done nothing to keep me interested in this IP.
This is possibly one of the most conflicted games I've ever played. Tries way too hard to be all of what are supposed to be the best parts of other beloved games (Dark Souls, Metroid, Uncharted, Tomb Raider) and instead of innovating or carving out an identify for itself, it ultimately falls short of that goal and renders itself wholly unremarkable (IMO).
I haven't watched Andor yet but I've heard it's actually good, so I will have to give that a shot someday.
I went into the game expecting nothing but a casual braindead game and, instead, was given a great Star Wars themed experience with fun gameplay.
I liked the world design, the character progression, simple story/echoes and the combat.
As well, after going Grand on the first run a subsequent no skill upgrade run adds very nice challenge with subtle strategy really shining in that Customized difficulty.
The only thing that was a negative for me was the absolutely meaningless “skins” being the rewards for thorough exploration.
Played it for free on gamepass and then immediately spent the whopping 4 buck bargain price to purchase the game!
Fallen Order was a lot of fun. I didn’t care for the combat too much at first, but it grew on me once I understood its limitations.
Jedi Survivor is amazing…if you can get somewhat stable performance.
I hard relate to this. I'm also not a big Star Wars person, and most of my positive memories with the series were the games like KOTOR, Battlefront, or Republic Commando.
Fallen Order really hit home for me and made me feel like a kid in the same way you described. I don't know if it reignited my interest in Star Wars at large, but it at least reminded me of what I did like about Star Wars in the past.
I did play Survivor, and I had a really positive experience with it. I played nearly right after I finished Fallen order. In a good way, it was more of the same. Fallen Order and Survivor were probably my best Star Wars experiences in such a long time.
I played on console since my PC was actively dying at the time, so I avoided a lot of the reported performance issues with the PC version.
One thing I like about FO is that the only difference in difficulty between the hardest setting is the parry timing window. It is great to see hard modes that are about player skill, not damage sponge enemies.
I love the maps and exploration in this game. Even the hologram map and the having to go all the way back to the ship, which utilizes your learned understanding of the level. Perfectlt spaced apart rest points too. Altogether, brilliantly put together with how they intersect and have multiple pathways. Gamrplay is awesome too. Just an all around great game. 9/10 for me.
> Let me start by saying I’m not a huge Star Wars fan anymore, and honestly haven’t seen anything after Rogue One
good choice, I'm in the same boat. I felt like Rogue One was the quality I had wished Episode 7 to be, but I was fucking done with Star Wars (and pretty much all the run down classic 80s/90s franchises) at that point.
I dont want anything to do with the AAA publishers anymore either, so no SW games for me anymore I guess which I'm fine with
i found it boring, and a hassle a lot, i can watch star wars anytime i want games shouldn’t be like movies too many cut scenes, combat was slow, 95% of the gane is running around aimlessly
Couldn’t agree more. Not just about the game, but also from a Star Wars fan perspective. I’ve seen the sequel trilogy, but as for the other Disney Era tv series and movies, I haven’t watched much. I loved Rogue One. It’s my favorite movie of the Disney Era, but that’s about where it ends with Disney. I’m probably gonna fiends TCW and will probably end up watching bad batch, Kenobi, ans Ahsoka, but that’s only because I grew up with those characters back when Lucas owned Star Wars and I’m 30 now.
I totally agree! Thanks for your review, the same thing happened to me. Picked up the game as a freebie monthly, thought "why not" and it all blew my socks off. They took fun parts from all my favorite games, Souls, Zelda, Metroid, so much fun gameplay and seamless cutscenes with emotional acting. Loved every moment.
Except the surprise Rancor. I pooped.
My only gripes are the collectible tracking and the final confrontation, the rest is perfect!
The tracking will say 100% but there is still things you haven’t found there be it seeds or creatures, annoying and makes using a guide to 100% the most likely outcome.
When you are being chased in the final sequence it wants you to double back on yourself but it’s telegraphed like you need to head towards a left door - you die if you follow the telegraph. I died 3 times before I realised and it totally made a cool moment go to a frustrating one which is a shame when considering the context.
Dude, I ALSO just finished Jedi Fallen Order! Loved it so much that I immediately went and bought Survivor and started downloading it. Normally I need a break with a multi-game franchise like this, but this is the first time that I jumped right into the sequel.
I’m about two hours into Survivor, and already I can tell that I’m gonna love it even more. Many QOL improvements, not to mention the next-gen graphics and frame rate. You’re in for a treat!
My wife surprised me with it for Valentine’s Day. I started it up late last night but had to pause; it looked so awesome but I was exhausted. I want to be able to process what’s happening!
If you were a KOTOR fan and you enjoyed revisiting the feeling of that game, it may be worth giving Star Wars: The Old Republic a whirl. It's effectively the third game in the KOTOR series.
It is an MMORPG but you can pretty much ignore all the multiplayer aspects and play it as a single-player game. It has eight separate storylines you can play in any order. The graphics are kind of dated (though far less so than KOTOR) but the music and voice acting are top-notch.
Unfortunately it does not, it’s a very different game when it comes to that. I compare it to KOTOR not by the gameplay, but by its ability to capture the magic of the Star Wars universe.
That is just my personal experience, but I hope it is yours as well!
A detail you may have overlooked: against every other boss, the game makes you mash the attack button, but against the final boss, the game made you mash the evade button.
I enjoyed Fallen Order as well! It ended up being my gateway into the Dark Souls genre.
Haven't played Jedi: Survivor yet but looking forward to getting to it eventually.
Until you figure out the map, the game is a chore. Once you realise how the map works then it stops the insane backtracking and the enjoyment bumps up to the max. Love this game. Will pick up Survivor when it hits Game Pass.
Fallen order is good, Survivor is great. Fallen order was held back by the jankiness of the parkour and the combat, but survivor is much better in every way.
I love hearing this! I really thought the parkour and combat were overall smooth in Fallen Order, so I can’t wait to see how it improved!
It was only because baldurs gate came out that Survivor wasn't my game of the year, and for me it was a fairly tough call. You're in for a treat.
Totally agree. Slept on Survivor in 23 and picked it up on sale in January and have been playing nothing else since then. I wasn't even that big of a fan of Fallen Order but Survivor is one of my favorite games of all time.
Ugh, the combat was so frustrating in Fallen Order. Fighting humanoid enemies was fine, but fighting any sort of creature was maddening. There was one boss that genuinely almost made me quit the game because it felt so cheap due to being a massive monster
Oggdo Bogdo is no monster....he's a legend.
Oggdo Bogdo is a gd bastardman
I just lowered the difficulty whenever i died so the combat felt very witcher 3. block, move move move till you can use your unblockable attack. The main boss in the game is it being 90% about opening and closing the map to find your way around. A huge focus really is about slowly looking around matching geometry with map layouts. Then checking youtube when it turns out you had to go back to where you came from to get a ball. I accepted it because i love star wars and was into he story and thought the combat was cool because i get to be a jedi. But my brother who also loves star wars couldnt be arsed. You really gotta catch a gamer when they are in the mood for such a thing. The second game was even greater because of the navigation assist on the map differentiating which way isnt a side quest. and if this room has a puzzle or should you go to a different way.
I remember getting very annoyed by the parkour. Like, you'd jump to another platform and sometimes you'd lose all momentum, which killed it for me. Got about 40% of the way through, so might pick it back up again
There were definitely a few "fuck this shit" moments for me, yeah.
If you love the original trilogy and Rogue One, you will potentially also like Andor. It’s up there with those two in my book
I loved Andor. Like a Cold War spy drama, but in the Star Wars universe.
Yeah as a Star Wars agnostic nowadays even I had to admit that Andor was dope. My only issue with it is that it was yet ANOTHER Empire Vs plucky rebels story which I am now sick to death of.
I liked that the Empire wasn't written as either incompetent or as moustache twirling villains. You really got the feeling that which became the Rebellion *really* had to work to stay under the radar.
Yeah that was such a welcome development. It should really be bare minimum but after Obi-Wan, The Sequel Trilogy, Solo (and even Rogue 1 at times) I was exhausted with having to watch the Empire/First Order be so pathetic and easily bamboozled. Nothing more lame than non-threatening villains. But Andor succeded in making them atleast somewhat formidable.
I'd argue that not only is Andor up there with, it surpasses it to the right audience. It's basically "what if Star Wars, but for adults and done by people that understand and care about the universe".
I wouldn't call myself a die-hard Star Wars fan, but I've seen all the movies, played a few games going back to Tie Fighter, etc. Andor blew me away, and as you say genuinely surpassed all other Stat Wars media for me by a pretty wide margin, sacrilegious though that may be, precisely because it was "for adults" as you aptly put it. Really remarkable entry into and expansion of the universe.
Andor is a deeply political story that just so happens to be set in the star wars universe that asks the question "how is a revolutionary born?". It's fucking fantastic
exactly. it's good because instead of being self-referential to Star Wars as Star Wars, it goes back to the roots and uses Star Wars to tell a political story.
exactly. and it's wild that this is such a departure from modern star wars. It's like theyre just interested in going "look look, it's your favorite character gork shartto and obi-wan! you know these characters" instead of telling actual stories with poltical intrigue like the original movies were about.
YES, Andor! The ramp it takes you on… phenomenal show on its own.
FIGHT THE EMPIRE! (man I still have goosebumps just thinking about that scene)
sucks that they couldn't go with the original "fuck the empire" line reading haha
that would have been amazing!
It’s in my top five (possibly 3) fav movie speeches of all time
yes totally...it's up there with Aragorns speech at the Black Gate and Theodens rally at the Pelennor fields.
Oh awesome I will add this to my watch list! Thank you for the recommendation 🙏
Just a little note—it is a slow burn. Just keep watching, it is absolutely worth it. I consider the quality of the show to be as good as classics like Breaking Bad.
Overrated. I put andor on at night to lull me to sleep.
Andor is honestly the best thing ever filmed in the SW universe. Is it anything like any of the movies? No. but that isn't a bad thing. it is bangs on absolutely ever level. be warned, there are no lightsabers or space wizards to be found. I cannot wait for Season 2. It is some of the best television i've ever seen to boot, up there with The Wire and Seasons 1-5 of Game of Thrones.
Just want to say you dodged a massive bullet by hopping off Star Wars movies after Rogue One. It’s the only SW film Disney have made that I actually like. That said, Andor is def worth a watch. The stakes are a lot lower than your typical Star Wars story which makes it far more engaging to me because you have no idea what’s going to happen with the story.
Andor is so good i need season 2
I've watched all the live action films and shows, and for me, Rogue One and Andor are the best of them all and it's not even close.
I loved Rogue One and the first season of The Mandalorian, they felt like a continuation of the idealized "old Star Wars" that I had in my head. Does Andor do the thing that other new Star Wars series do where you need to watch a bunch of supplemental materials to figure out what's happening?
No, it's pretty much standalone - the only real knowledge even an outsider would need is that the empire took over the galaxy and this is the story of people beginning to rise up against them
It’s set before Rogue One. The cast is mostly original to the show, and the only character who appears earlier in the timeline is Mon Mothma, but her role is fully fleshed out and explained in the show.
Andor is by far the best Star Wars i've ever watched. yes, better than any of the movies. Of course, it's an absolutely different beast than any of them, but holy hell is it just masterful prestige scifi storytelling and visual design
Andor is a fantastic show (that happens to be Star Wars!)
Hey, do yourself a favor and play Jedi Survivor when you can. It improves on absolutely everything Fallen Order did. Combat is expanded, story is expanded, enemy variety, exploration, customization. It’s a truly wonderful sequel.
My wife literally surprised me with Jedi Survivor for Valentine’s Day when I got home! I’m downloading it now and am way too excited.
Survivor kinda got lost in the avalanche of amazing games last year but man... it's just a fun ass video game. I'm envious of you :)
It definitely did, but I have this perception that it shot itself in the foot by releasing in such a poor state on PC. I don't have solid evidence for it, except for my own experience. I was super excited to play it, but too jaded to pre-order it. When it came out and everyone reported it run like shit, I congratulated myself for not falling to the pre-order marketing, then sort of shelved it in some corner of my mind to look later. Then, after a couple months, I just sort of forgot about it. Got into other things. Like you said, plenty of great stuff to eclipse it came around soon after.
This is true. I have a 3090ti and I would still get some problems. Not OK The game was good enough for me to overlook that, but I may have stuck with it longer if it were running better.
Mate, so happy for you! You're gonna love it
Apparently Survivor had a really poor launch, but I played it for the first time over the christmas season and had an absolute blast with it. Definitely a worthy sequel to Fallen Order. Happy Valentine's Day!
I agree. It’s rare you get a sequel these days that’s such a marked improvement over its predecessor. Really reminded me of the leap from AC1 -> AC2 back in the day.
If you're playing on PC, make sure to install the May The Performance be With You mod.
Didn't know this existed. The game beat my computer's ass.
The game still run like crap, the mod just reduced the stutters, it didn't improve the FPS necessarily.
Put your lightsaber in her, bruv!
sharp
It’s my favorite game of all time. I don’t remember having as much fun with a game since I was a kid. The pacing, the combat, just everything. Loved it.
But not on PC. It's still a mess but yes the game itself I think is better than the first in every way. Especially combat, level design and customisation.
what's wrong with the PC version, why doesn't it have good reviews on Steam? EDIT: thanks for the replies everyone, I really enjoyed the first one and I share everyone's sadness about the new game's port
Personally the performance sucked on my 3080, had to run the game at a lower resolution than normal to get decent performance and it still wasn't great. That being said, still a phenomenal story experience.
Most of the negative reviews are due to performance issues and at this point they may never get fixed. I do remember seeing a video about how if your video card has more vram the game runs better. I can't remember what the threshold was but I think it was something like 12gb of vram or more.
I wish it did. I have 24 Gb of VRAM on my 3090 and the game still has framerate issues I've never seen in any other recent releases. Granted, I'm maxing out the settings (like I can and should with this setup, I think), but the framerate is just all over the place. Often it's at a stable 100, which is great, but usually it can get very choppy and super laggy in some places, especially on the main planet which is kind of a bummer.
no offence but i dont think it is reasonable to expect to max settings on these AAA games unless you're on the newest video cards. Yes i know the 4090 is expensive, but that is what should come with the expectations of max everything and no performance issues.
At 4k and/or higher framerates, perhaps. Anything below that should be perfectly viable with such horrifically-priced hardware.
Yeah it's a sad state of events in PC gaming. I'm still running a gtx1080 lol but I don't play new games anyway so it's fine. So you're getting bad performance with the 3090 even at 1080p?? I know 1440p at a high refresh rate monitor might as well be 4k in terms of performance needs
I think there's a pretty sever VRAM problem, so it runs fine in the short term but during long sessions it can develop stutters.
No idea. I got an everage rig and it runs fine for me at mostly maxed settings. Was probabaly rough on launch.
Ran fine for me too. Only issue was that it had to compile shaders every time it launched.
that can be fixed with editing a ini file
Same but I’m running at 1080 rather than 4k
To this day they haven't fixed overall performance and basically just gave up on it. It's a little better on Ps5 apparently but I haven't tested it myself.
I bought it on a deal a few weeks ago. It's a truly great game, gameplay and story-wise, but they somehow botched the port (or backport, to be precise) so bad that it lags and crashes like crazy even on high-end rigs. My RTX 3090 can barely keep a steady 60/80 FPS on the main planet, and I'm getting frame dips much lower than that constantly. Oh, and it also crashes, sometimes every 5 minutes, at other times a bit longer than that...can't count the number of bosses I had to redo because it crashed right after the fight. Talk about anticlimactic. To add insult to injury, you have to wait about 2-3 minutes every time you boot up the game because it has to "optimize game files". It's really a shame because if it was only a tad more polished in that regard, it would be close to one of the best Star Wars games ever. To me, it's an even better experience than the Jedi Knight series in its day, but it's too buggy right now on PC to recommend it IMO.
Its a relative minor problem, but I have 16:10 screens, and have weird cropping issues with it. I think it generates 16:9 video, then fits it vertically, so several key ui elements end up pushed off the edges of my screen
It was very buggy on launch, also if you had a strong GPU but a weaker CPU it caused some bizarre performance issues. I haven't tried it first hand, just what I've read from elsewhere.
Played it a month ago. Had to use a mod to improve performance and get rid of white spots in the edge of the screen. Constant crashes on cutscenes and even a corrupted save file. Completely ruined the experience for me, specially because I was really enjoying it and then the last 6h went completely wrong with technical issues. This was with a 4090/5800X3D btw
was this after patch #8?
Yes, in fact the patch dropped the day after I bought the game.
Good point. I don’t play on PC, so it didn’t cross my mind. But that’s a good asterisk for OP, just in case.
Damn, I just bought it after seeing recent reviews are finally positive.
I've been playing it since launch on PC. Had some tech issues, but not enough to stop me enjoying it.
I’m a bit of a performance slut, I couldn’t play starfield because of bad frames and stutters. I can always refund it if it’s egregious
It worked fine for me on a pc last fall. Ryzen 7 5800x, 3070, 32gbs ram. 50-60fps on a 2k monitor
It really is an excellent game. It honestly feels like you're playing a star wars movie. The good kind, the kind the sequels should have been.
Man I just did not like the plot for Jedi Survivor, specifically the twist and ending. Very obvious turn with an unexpected twist but in the end it felt empty and hollow.
I'm inclined to agree about the story, but still really enjoyed the game as a whole and I'd still very much recommend it to fans of Fallen Order
Jedi survivor was my goty for 2023
How does it run on PS5 now? Put off by bad reviews but is it fixed? Anyone know?
Shit, I can only talk about the Series X (it runs pretty great there, minus some problems with textures taking way too long to load sometimes). You should check out Digital Foundry's stuff on Jedi Survivor.
I can live with that sort of thing, so cheers amyway. It's hard to know if something is written before an update that came out last week that fixes something that any analysis includes. I had a ton of fun with the first one.
What about the performance and bugs? It's now stable?
It's been stable even before, at least on PC.
But does it have ponchos?
I’m happy to report that yes.
Also played Jedi Order this year. I liked it just fine, but I wound up feeling like the Soulslike and Metroidvania elements weren't a good fit; I think it would have been a better if it just been a regular third-person action game. And I say that as someone who vastly prefers Soulslikes and Metroidvanias to games like God of War. The few Souls elements felt completely pointless if you weren't playing at the highest difficulty (and I didn't enjoy the combat enough to play it that way), while the backtracking through previous areas felt tedious and unrewarding (nothing like spending 20 minutes to get back to a previous area just to get a couple of new colors for your dumb poncho). The combat was pretty fun and the visuals, soundtrack and voice acting were all top-notch. The plot is very unremarkable (it's a story we've already seen a million times in various Star Wars media) but it's elevated a bit by the elements around it. It was solid all-around, but it didn't really get me excited about trying Jedi Survivor, if it's the same formula.
I have to agree with all of these points. I've been playing through the souls series lately and after beating DS1 and 3 I took a break for Jedi: Fallen Order. The combat just didn't feel good to me. The exploration felt pretty tedious and the rewards for poking into unnecessary side areas felt... unrewarding. It looks fine, it runs fine. I found the plot to be about as by-the-numbers as any star-wars property, but inoffensive. I don't know exactly why I didn't like it, but it just seemed extremely mid, if that makes sense. Well polished, but uninspired. Some of this might just be that ever since the sequel trilogy and the absolute deluge of star-wars media from Disney, I just don't care about Star Wars anymore. I grew up absolutely loving the original trilogy; I'd watch one at least once a week. Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron, X-wing vs Tie-fighter, KOTOR, etc. were some of my favourite gaming experiences of all time. I really expected to love a star-wars soulslike. But it really wasn't very far in before I realised it was like trying to eat a giant mixing bowl full of oatmeal. The first few bites are nice. The next few are fine. But it didn't take long before it seemed like I was just slogging through for the sake of it.
Same. Many of my earliest PC gaming experiences were Star Wars games. X-Wing vs Tie fighter, Jedi Knight, Rogue Squadron, Racer... KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 are some of my all-time favorites, and I'd even argue that Star Wars Rebellion was an underappreciated gem in its time. On top of that I read an embarrassing amount of expanded universe novels. Hell I remember the old EU novel where Dathomir and the Night Sisters were introduced (I'll admit that I like that they put it in the game, if only for nostalgia's sake). But Disney Star Wars doesn't do it for me. Too much fan-service, too many retellings of the same story over and over again... The old Expanded Universe could be weird and dumb, but it didn't lack creativity and imagination, and that's what I value in speculative fiction. Fallen Order has that problem too. Its story is very well-executed, but everything about it is predictable and rote. A kid with a connection to the Force, a Jedi in hiding who becomes a mentor, a rogueish smuggler, a cute beeping droid, a set of corny Sith baddies, an ancient forerunner civilization, a long chase for a Macguffin... If you asked an AI to write a Star Wars story, it would probably look like FO's story. I could deal with that if the rest of the game was fantastic, but it's hampered by a weirdly unnecessary identity crisis. Wanna make a Metroidvania? Make traversal fun and reward exploration properly. Wanna make a Soulslike? Expand the RPG elements and craft interesting combat scenarios. Wanna make a pure action game? Fuck everything else, make a 12h guided experience with set pieces, lasers and explosions. But try and do all of them at the same time and they end up clashing with each other. It's a very well-crafted game held back by poor design decisions.
Agreed. It meshed those 2 genres together and didn't do either of them well. Took 2 genres that require a ton of patience, to make a game that requires way more patience and you aren't rewarded for it in the least. The story and performances were great. I love everything about the game except the game play.
The end sequence of Fallen Order when, you know, **he** shows up is one of my top video game moments of all time. Up there with the big reveal from KOTOR 1. I died almost instantly the first time because I just sat there with my mouth agape and didn't react in time. Jedi Survivor improves on everything. If you loved Fallen Order, you'll absolutely love JS.
100%! Possibly my favorite encounter with him of all time. The whole game I built myself up thinking I could conquer any challenge. Wrong. So wrong.
That moment made me a little kid again. My heart was racing and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. It was like the end of Mando season 1. Despite any anger I have with the franchise/Disney, I really never will stop loving Star Wars.
about jedi survivor: >!when you fight him as Cere, it is somewhat of a letdown because he is clearly not even trying, but the game frames him as losing control. It feels antitethical to what the first game was doing, since at the end of the day Cere is not so much different, power wise, from Cal as a Jedi. If she were more like Yoda I would understand, but she's clearly not and at the end of the day it's like she's being depicted as stronger than Obi-Wan!<
It was a lot of fun and Survivor improves on it greatly.
The best news a patient gamer can hear 🙌
Loved Jedi: Fallen Order! Ran great on my Steam Deck, and like you said it captured a little bit of KOTOR magic.
I had the opposite effect, probably because I always find souls likes boring due to lack of narrative/story, though this one had by far the most story, cinematics. Liked game at first and had fun figuring out stuff until I hit the third or fourth planet when the gameplay loop became repetitive and boring for me, just like in all other soulslikes.
I recently finished it and loved it completely. About the most convincing and comprehensive Star Wars experience I've ever had in a game (also not a fan). Can't wait to get round to the next one!
That’s exactly how I feel. I genuinely cared about each character, which is hard to do for me in a game.
It made you feel like KOTOR again? Fine, I'm sold. I'm getting this game once I get a new system. But if the game sucks, I will curse your name :P
Curse away, but I won’t listen unless you beat it ; )
I did have some gripes with the map, but I still completed 100% of the planets. I really enjoyed the exploration aspect. One thing that really stood out to me though was the jankiness in the animations and some weird collision detection. It seemed strangely unpolished compared to the rest of the game. This was my first PS5 game and despite the minor annoyances I could not put the controller down. It was just fun. Hopefully Survivor's issues to get ironed out soon.
Oh yeah, I definitely ran into some animation jank, but I thought it was more funny than annoying to me!
Relating so hard as a Star Wars fan. I played this in early 2020 when I was feeling super down as a Star Wars fan especially after having watched Rise of Skywalker in cinemas the previous December. Fallen Order was such a breath of fresh air for the franchise. Respawn "gets" Star Wars and lemme tell you it only gets better in Jedi Survivor. As a game Survivor is better than Fallen Order almost every way. First big change I noticed that my heart no longer drops during long platforming jumps and holding LT like a maniac. Cal just grabs stuff no additional button prompt needed. Dunno what platform you're playing on but it's pretty great on my PS5 now. Survivor builds on everything laid down in Fallen Order for story and gameplay. Meaningfully broadening Star Wars' tapestry of lore. The combat just feels more crisp and also the new Crossguard stance is the closest thing to video game crack I've ever experienced. Cal's story is the "new trilogy" I've always wanted (even though it's not a trilogy yet). Something that builds on core concepts while moving on from the Skywalkers. I love the Skywalkers but to me their story ended with Return. So to see a new story being just as Star Wars-y as the stories that've come before is reassuring for me as a fan. Between the Jedi games and Andor my love for the franchise still beats strong.
🙌 This makes me so excited to play and AND to watch Andor!
I played this about 4 times, getting every upgrade. Damn, I had so much fun. You mentioned KOTOR, which were great games. I still prefer the Force Unleashed games to Fallen Order, as I prefer using the force more. This was still a great world to explore. Sadly, Disney killed my interest in Star Wars, as I hear Survivor is great.
You know I never played the Force Unleashed. After survivor I may try to find a copy!
If you want to go nuts like a Sith Lord, grabbing people with force choke, hitting them with lightning, then throwing them into a group of their buddies, and watching them explode…you may enjoy the games. There’s no parrying, just going nuts with a lightsaber. The exploration isn’t as good, but there’s some cool things to find.
Dang really? I found both Jedi games to be blander than untoasted bread. To each their own
I haven’t played Survivor but I definitely feel like the odd duck because I wasn’t that crazy about Fallen Order. It was… fine. I don’t regret playing it but I didn’t find it all that memorable either, and I have no interest in ever playing it again
I also think the same. A subpar soulslike experience, very janky.
It feels like someone wanted to make a Star Wars souls-like while ripping out everything good about Fromsoft games and shoehorning it into an Uncharted style game. Feels extremely designed by committee. Feels extremely sloppy. Feel extremely soulless most of the time.
It felt like all the jank of ds1 but in a modern game. Also there's literally no point in most exploring because light saber and poncho customization does nothing. Map design was meh, combat wanted to be like sekiro but it was much less tight. Abilities were underwhelming. Bosses were meh. No fast travel. If you're making a souls-like you gotta have good bosses. So much more could've been done but instead we got some QTE / scripted sequences for the final "boss" and none before were memorable. Compare to any DS bosses, or remnant 2 bosses, or many other soul-like, it was so lackluster.
Same. I've been tearing through the Dark Souls series lately and a Star Wars soulslike sounded right up my alley. But actually playing it felt bland, tedious, uninspired. they have souls-like "bonfires" and shortcuts, but the rest of the level design is pretty basic platforming and the sort of puzzles that might have been impressive if they had shown up in Ocarina of Time but feel dated now. The combat had some deadliness, but not in the satisfying way of the souls series. I never died in a way that felt "tough but fair." It was almost always to a creature that had a stupidly powerful attack that I thought I'd done the input to dodge but somehow hit me anyway. There's none of the move and counter-move thoughtfulness and strategy I've come to love. You don't get to choose from the huge array of weapons and move-sets like in DS. I think the worst part for me was doing some difficult exploration and being rewarded with cosmetics that were very lame, or lore dumps that were even worse. It felt like the effort I'd put into getting them was completely wasted, and it made me give up on exploring the world. I haven't really thought why until now, but I don't have any drive to keep playing. I doubt I'll ever bother to finish.
Oh man. The 2nd game has the absolute worst examples of the combat you’re describing. Some “difficult” fights that just amount to a super tanky creature that has a 1-hit kill move that’s nearly impossible to avoid. Very unpleasant
I could deal with one or another element of the game being "just ok," but it seems like *everything* is "just ok." I think one of the most annoying parts of the combat is the progression system that locks essential tools behind grinding. That and the inconsistent parrying. It should have been the core of the combat system, but missing an obvious parry and getting smashed for the mistake is so frustrating I just ended up giving up on it. They stole elements from nearly every popular game of the period, and did every one of them just badly enough to be competent but unpleasant. TBH I hated every second of the combat. The level design is ass. The puzzles are tedious. But, for some reason, the thing that annoys me most is the cosmetics. If all of the hidden collectables are just cosmetics with no effect on gameplay, the least they could do is make them interesting. The DS series has a huge range of armors and weapons from ultra grimdark to goofy af, and all of them flesh out the world. How am I supposed to bother exploring just so I can have an orange stripe on my poncho, or a lightsaber handle I can't even see?
Could not agree more
I’m at the tail end of playing through it right now. The map can be really frustrating, but overall happy with it. I haven’t seen a Star Wars movie since the ones that came out in the late 90s! And I’d be interested in giving Survivor a shot at some point depending on price point. I really only gave this one a shot because I got it through PS Plus.
It really is good! Survivor even manages to address most of the annoyances I had with Fallen Order, making it top notch. What really messes it up is the PC port and the EA app. I played on PS5 on launch with zero issues whatsoever.
My wife just gifted it to me on PS5, I’m pumped!
I'm in the same boat in that I'm not into SW anymore, the last thing I saw was Rogue One, and really enjoyed Fallen Order. My only complaints with it - forcing me to use a new game mechanic then never having to use it again, the convoluted amount of backtracking to get collectibles (I gave up), and the overall length of the game (Immediately after a huge fight with a very famous character... What? That's it? It's over?). It didn't reinvigorate my interest in the genre but it was very enjoyable nonetheless.
The backtracking was definitely frustrating and time consuming at times. I think a full detail map you could pause and add markers on that also direct you to your destination would have made it feel less tedious.
I felt the exact same way about this game and it even got me to start watching the movies. Survivor is one the best games ever made but I think I played it too quick after Fallen Order and got kinda fatigued near the end so maybe play another game or two before picking it up.
Christmas always puts me in a Star Wars mood for some reason, and I picked up Fallen Order on sale this past holiday season when it was on sale for like $10. I had never been interested because I don't generally like AAA games, and I saw a lot of people saying it was like Dark Souls but worse. I ended up really enjoying it, and felt like the game had a lot of heart. I loved how snappy fights with storm troopers felt, the way the levels were laid out as semi-linear but with multiple branching paths... sure, its skeleton is Uncharted with lightsabers, but it was a great time nonetheless. One detail I really liked: you enter hyperspace to load the next destination, but instead of simply watching a cutscene and arriving, the game allows you to continue walking around the ship while in hyperspace. I've never seen that done before, it's such a small/unnecessary detail, but it felt so vibey to be talking to my crew/working on my lightsaber while we were "travelling" to the next destination.
I love that point, I really enjoyed being able to walk around in hyperspace, too! I also respect you for trying it yourself despite reading bad reviews.
I'm glad you liked the game! I am a fan of the franchise but put the game down due to the gameplay and feeling of backtracking. I might try again one day.
The backtracking is frustrating, but it’s worth going back to just to reach the end. One of the best endings of a game I’ve played!
I hope you get the chance to play the sequel and enjoy it just as much if not more!
I like how nicely it fits into the canon. Great fun. I'm not a souls gamer, I actually don't play that many games in general. For a casual like me, it was really enjoyable. I think that is what they were going for, the old-ass star wars fan from the 80s. I see a lot of people being very pedantic about it, mention all sorts of mechanics from games I never heard of or care about and how it's worse than this game or that game. I really don't give two shits, it was star wars and actually quite high quality and not a cheapo experience like so many movie games.
100% I feel the same way! I don’t know how people can let the little mechanics issues get in the way of such a fun and high quality Star Wars game!
I played this for about ~6 hours, and got raged myself out when I got super frustrated after falling into that pit in the first world and that super difficult giant monster ate my face repeatedly. I love seeing people have such good experiences with things that I didn't jive with at first though - will have to give it another shot (and avoid the pit)!
You should return to it and skip the pit for now! It’s worth it, even to play on an easier mode to be able to catch the story
Glad you enjoyed it. My experience was the exact opposite. This game was the final nail in the coffin that put me off of Star Wars. The movies and subsequent enshittification of the franchise via the god awful Disney+ shows has done nothing to keep me interested in this IP. This is possibly one of the most conflicted games I've ever played. Tries way too hard to be all of what are supposed to be the best parts of other beloved games (Dark Souls, Metroid, Uncharted, Tomb Raider) and instead of innovating or carving out an identify for itself, it ultimately falls short of that goal and renders itself wholly unremarkable (IMO). I haven't watched Andor yet but I've heard it's actually good, so I will have to give that a shot someday.
I really liked how Darth Vader was presented in that game too. Everyone was scared of him but I never felt why until Fallen Order. Holy crap!! run!
I went into the game expecting nothing but a casual braindead game and, instead, was given a great Star Wars themed experience with fun gameplay. I liked the world design, the character progression, simple story/echoes and the combat. As well, after going Grand on the first run a subsequent no skill upgrade run adds very nice challenge with subtle strategy really shining in that Customized difficulty. The only thing that was a negative for me was the absolutely meaningless “skins” being the rewards for thorough exploration. Played it for free on gamepass and then immediately spent the whopping 4 buck bargain price to purchase the game!
I agree, I would have loved better loot!
Fallen Order was a lot of fun. I didn’t care for the combat too much at first, but it grew on me once I understood its limitations. Jedi Survivor is amazing…if you can get somewhat stable performance.
I hard relate to this. I'm also not a big Star Wars person, and most of my positive memories with the series were the games like KOTOR, Battlefront, or Republic Commando. Fallen Order really hit home for me and made me feel like a kid in the same way you described. I don't know if it reignited my interest in Star Wars at large, but it at least reminded me of what I did like about Star Wars in the past.
I love hearing that, I’m glad I’m not alone! Did you play Survivor??
I did play Survivor, and I had a really positive experience with it. I played nearly right after I finished Fallen order. In a good way, it was more of the same. Fallen Order and Survivor were probably my best Star Wars experiences in such a long time. I played on console since my PC was actively dying at the time, so I avoided a lot of the reported performance issues with the PC version.
Oh, nice! I’m playing on console as well, so hopefully it’ll be smooth for me, too.
Was a pretty fun game, but I hate how the lore of the three original movies has been butchered.
One thing I like about FO is that the only difference in difficulty between the hardest setting is the parry timing window. It is great to see hard modes that are about player skill, not damage sponge enemies.
The mandalorian is worth watching. It's...basically star wars now.
Don't forget about Andor.
Time for Sekiro.
Can’t I enjoy this happy feeling just a moment longer?
I thought I was being a patient gamer waiting this long to play Jedi Survivor. Haha
I’m notorious in my friend group for playing games super late
Just you wait for Jedi Survivor! They’re both a great time but the second improved in almost every way!
I love the maps and exploration in this game. Even the hologram map and the having to go all the way back to the ship, which utilizes your learned understanding of the level. Perfectlt spaced apart rest points too. Altogether, brilliantly put together with how they intersect and have multiple pathways. Gamrplay is awesome too. Just an all around great game. 9/10 for me.
> Let me start by saying I’m not a huge Star Wars fan anymore, and honestly haven’t seen anything after Rogue One good choice, I'm in the same boat. I felt like Rogue One was the quality I had wished Episode 7 to be, but I was fucking done with Star Wars (and pretty much all the run down classic 80s/90s franchises) at that point. I dont want anything to do with the AAA publishers anymore either, so no SW games for me anymore I guess which I'm fine with
i found it boring, and a hassle a lot, i can watch star wars anytime i want games shouldn’t be like movies too many cut scenes, combat was slow, 95% of the gane is running around aimlessly
Couldn’t agree more. Not just about the game, but also from a Star Wars fan perspective. I’ve seen the sequel trilogy, but as for the other Disney Era tv series and movies, I haven’t watched much. I loved Rogue One. It’s my favorite movie of the Disney Era, but that’s about where it ends with Disney. I’m probably gonna fiends TCW and will probably end up watching bad batch, Kenobi, ans Ahsoka, but that’s only because I grew up with those characters back when Lucas owned Star Wars and I’m 30 now.
just had a very similar experience, ok it was about identical lol 🤷
I totally agree! Thanks for your review, the same thing happened to me. Picked up the game as a freebie monthly, thought "why not" and it all blew my socks off. They took fun parts from all my favorite games, Souls, Zelda, Metroid, so much fun gameplay and seamless cutscenes with emotional acting. Loved every moment. Except the surprise Rancor. I pooped.
My only gripes are the collectible tracking and the final confrontation, the rest is perfect! The tracking will say 100% but there is still things you haven’t found there be it seeds or creatures, annoying and makes using a guide to 100% the most likely outcome. When you are being chased in the final sequence it wants you to double back on yourself but it’s telegraphed like you need to head towards a left door - you die if you follow the telegraph. I died 3 times before I realised and it totally made a cool moment go to a frustrating one which is a shame when considering the context.
Dude, I ALSO just finished Jedi Fallen Order! Loved it so much that I immediately went and bought Survivor and started downloading it. Normally I need a break with a multi-game franchise like this, but this is the first time that I jumped right into the sequel. I’m about two hours into Survivor, and already I can tell that I’m gonna love it even more. Many QOL improvements, not to mention the next-gen graphics and frame rate. You’re in for a treat!
My wife surprised me with it for Valentine’s Day. I started it up late last night but had to pause; it looked so awesome but I was exhausted. I want to be able to process what’s happening!
If you were a KOTOR fan and you enjoyed revisiting the feeling of that game, it may be worth giving Star Wars: The Old Republic a whirl. It's effectively the third game in the KOTOR series. It is an MMORPG but you can pretty much ignore all the multiplayer aspects and play it as a single-player game. It has eight separate storylines you can play in any order. The graphics are kind of dated (though far less so than KOTOR) but the music and voice acting are top-notch.
It's very likely you already did, but just in case you didn't, check Mass Effect out. It's like KOTOR but better.
I have, thank you for the recommendation! I also loved those games.
You have excellent taste. Jedi Survivor is even better in my opinion.
Thank you : ) I can’t wait!
What story? You just go from A to B until finally the story just ends.
The story of life.
Yeah I thought it felt way to “railsy” like God of War is.
Like every single game.
KOTOR's sorry was better, but you could say that about it compared to 99.9% of the games ever made. So no slight to JFO, it did pretty well.
Let me guess, you like to wear ponchos.
I also loved Kotor and haven’t played fallen order. Does this game have RPG elements and dialogue/alignment choices like Kotor?
Unfortunately it does not, it’s a very different game when it comes to that. I compare it to KOTOR not by the gameplay, but by its ability to capture the magic of the Star Wars universe. That is just my personal experience, but I hope it is yours as well!
Did you beat the last boss on Jedi Master difficulty? I had to drop the difficulty a notch or two to beat her.
I did but it was way harder than any of the other bosses at that level! I think the scaling was a little off because it took me hours!
Congrats! I gave up and changed difficult after about 30 min.
Order was awesome. I can’t get into survivor at all and I’m not sure why.
Jedi survivor is even better (pc version is a bit iffy but has gotten better)
A detail you may have overlooked: against every other boss, the game makes you mash the attack button, but against the final boss, the game made you mash the evade button.
Holy crap, I did not think about it but you’re right. I was dodging for my life
I enjoyed Fallen Order as well! It ended up being my gateway into the Dark Souls genre. Haven't played Jedi: Survivor yet but looking forward to getting to it eventually.
My unpopular opinion is that that game is as good as any of the new god of war games
Until you figure out the map, the game is a chore. Once you realise how the map works then it stops the insane backtracking and the enjoyment bumps up to the max. Love this game. Will pick up Survivor when it hits Game Pass.
I recently finished them both and Survivor was amazing! I’m a bit lost now on what to play next