Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order was an absolute banger. I know I liked it more than many, but it was a damn fun adventure that took inspiration from many other games and genres, mashing it into a wicked, third person action adventure game. With that difficulty cranked down, you felt like a Jedi, and so I have been chomping at the bit to get my teeth stuck into another Star Wars Jedi game. Bring on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
The game kicks off about five years after Fallen Order, where we join our friend, Cal Kestis, in custody. A bounty hunter is bringing him to the senator on Coruscant, which the senator wants to keep on the d-low from Vader. Drama already seems to be brewing. Anyway, Cal does Jedi things and finds himself looking for a mysterious planet that the Jedi wanted to call home a long time ago.
Unfortunately for Cal, he isn’t the only one looking, and so he has a heap of baddies to take on. Fallen Order did a decent job of telling a new story, but Survivor ramps it up. The characters are solidly written, with each having moments to shine. There are of course some cheesy dialogue moments, but it certainly fits the cheese that all Star Wars stories have. Fortunately, there is some solid voice acting in here to help land some of the more important moments.
The gameplay is pretty similar to Fallen Order. Meditation points save the game and let you work on your skill tree. These also give the option to heal up, but doing so respawns enemies, so you have to weigh that up. You can’t take down a solid enemy, run back to heal up, then breeze through to the next section because that enemy will be waiting for you again. My minor annoyance here is the saving. If you accidentally pop a fuse in your house which shuts down your PS5, you can lose a lot of progress. This isn’t a hypothetical I am pulling out of nowhere, and I was annoyed.
The level designs are also relatively similar to Fallen Order. You regularly run past sections that you can’t enter until you have a skill later in the game. The small number of planets add some great value as you keep returning with new access to new areas to further the story. You gain some sweet new abilities like grappling and dashing, which adds some fun variation to the platforming. The game is at its best when you have a great platforming section and you nail the rhythm.
The feeling of exploration and platforming is ramped up so much more with some great set pieces. Climbing through platforms in the sky as a massive aerial battle takes place was a personal favourite. There is another slick one where you are jumping through portals in more of a QTE way as you escape something I won’t spoil, that also stuck with me.
Combat is relatively similar to Fallen Order as well. You will fight a lot of droids which is awesome because your light saber hacks limbs off them. It is always weird when a lightsaber doesn’t cut stuff apart because of how powerful it is. Unfortunately, biological creatures are still lightsaber sponges and don’t lose their limbs. I assume this was to avoid it getting an R18 rating or something. Either way, hacking apart droids is fun as hell.
You can use a nice selection of stances which gives you the ability to play to your preferences. Cal can use a double sided saber, you can smash your way through with the slow but heavy hits, or now even dual wield a lightsaber and a gun. If you are like me you’ll pick one you like and stick with it, but it was nice to change up.
On the whole, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor takes what worked in Fallen Order and has improved on it. The story is way better and ramps up to one banger of a finale.
Another awesome action romp through the Star Wars universe.
