As my review of Jedi: Fallen Order will tell you I loved that game, not just the actual gameplay but the story especially, so when Jedi: Survivor was announced I was excited and now it finally arrived I’m happy to say it lived up to expectations, though oddly flipped in that this time round I enjoyed the story but loved the gameplay. So while everyone (including me!) is playing the new Zelda game, allow me to throw up my review of the game I was frantically trying to finish before that game’s release!
Background:
Zipping through Coruscant in the opening sequence of the game.
Star Wars – Jedi: Survivor was released worldwide on April 28th 2023 for the PS5, XBOX Series X/S and PC, making it a still-rare current gen only game.
I’ll mention here that on launch the PC version was apparently near unplayable and the fancy graphics mode on PS5 and XBOX not much better. I played it on launch day with no issues however as I always choose consistency and stability if given the option like this game does so I naturally avoided the fancy lag-laden graphics option and had a blast from start to finish. I’m sure by the time you’re reading this most of these issues would’ve been ironed out… I hope so anyway, for those who love that 60 FPS-ness!
Gameplay:
They found a way to stick in the old Jedi Mind Trick in a few cut-scenes. That is a classic Jedi power rarely used in games, due to their action-heavy nature. Good fun!
I said in my Fallen Order review that although it’s become a meme the game really was the Dark Souls of Star Wars games and that framework is still very much in place. 3rd person combat with blocking, well-timed parrying and lots of dodge rolling, plus save spots all over the map that allow you to refill your health and your set number of health refilling objects as well as assign skill points, with the caveat that saving will reset the enemies back onto the map. Add in the connecting the map via shortcuts and multi-phase boss battles with specific patterns to learn and yep, it’s still very Souls-ian, though obviously not as rock-hard (well, not on normal difficulty anyway). I’m happy to report though that it avoided the Metroid classic of re-losing all your abilities and having to relearn them, which makes sense as there’d be no reason for Cal to lose his connection to the Force again, meaning you have the ability to wall-run, double jump, push and pull enemies and ride up and down wires right from the off, plus the ability to slow down time for a brief moment, Jedi mind trick people and animals into attacking each other and are given a grapple gun to fly up to higher ledges. As the game progresses you get the ability to air-dash after your second jump, pass through laser gates, shut off electrical equipment and more.
A big new addition as well is three new stances to go along with single bladed and double bladed lightsabres, that being duel-wielding two lightsabres, having a gun and a lightsabre at the same time and a new Kylo Ren-style crossguard lightsabre, which acts like heavy weapons from the Souls games in that its slow but deadly swings leave you wide open. It adds a lot to the game, I found myself switching quite a bit though in the end I used the blaster/lightsabre combo and the crossguard lightsabre the most, the first due to its ability to damage enemies from a distance and the latter to take massive chunks out of boss health bars. Like last time (and like most games in general at this point) you can put skill points into a skill tree to learn more moves and Force abilities as well as up your maximum health and Force meter. Another way to upgrade abilities and bars is through Force Crystals that are not only hidden around the maps as a reward for exploration but also act as a prize for completing High Republic era Jedi Meditation Chambers, which act as … well, let’s face it, they’re pretty much the Shrines from Breath of the Wild. Still, they’re fun though! There are also Force Tears dotted around the map that offer challenges, ranging from fun multi-enemy battles to “f**k this, I’ll do it later… or probably never” traversal challenges.
Shooting a droid while being moments away from block-parrying a raider with a staff. Gameplay bliss (that’s sadly still really blurry whenever you try to screengrab it…)
The chambers can be found on the main hub world of the game, the planet Koboh. This time round rather than a selection of smaller maps on different planets they went with a massive map on one planet, a quite big map on a second and then a few smaller areas on a few other planets/moons. It was really fun to travel around Koboh, finding new areas / hidden bosses and build up the central hub, a saloon that soon gets packed with people giving you side quests or offering mini-games, like collecting fish, creating a roof garden or playing a game of “Holo Tactics”, which sees you put down digital representations of enemies you beat and have them face off with someone else’s holo-army. Speaking of enemies, Koboh is packed with them, not just Empire soldiers or local wildlife (though there are plenty of both!) but a mercenary group called the Bedlam Raiders, who have managed to get a hold of a crashed ship packed with Clone Wars era droids, which give you a whole host of new foes to fight. Plus the Haxion Brood bounty hunters return but this time you get to hunt them, which leads to some fun fights.
There are a lot more customisation options this time round (though no longer any way to customise the main ship, the Mantis) as you can not only customise every bit of your lightsabre and faithful droid BD-1 but also Cal’s appearance, from hairstyle, facial hair and every bit of his clothing, plus you can customise his blaster once you unlock that stance. Thanks to a bevy of collectables and shops there’s a lot to do there.
There are some truly … odd inhabitants of the Saloon, that’s for sure…
To sum it up the combat I found absolutely spot-on. There was a boss that involved a lot of wall running, jumping and air-dashing and I pulled it off first time and it was frankly exhilarating. Being surrounded by enemies and taking them out with a combination of parrying, dodging, pushing, pulling, confusing or slowing down time was just *chef’s kiss*. Seriously, if Tears of the Kingdom hadn’t just come out this game would’ve been one I did the rare-for-me thing of trying to unlock everything, just to continue playing it. I think my only criticism is lack of environment variety, Koboh is mostly a barren deserty planet and the second biggest map in the game is Jedha, a straight up desert world, so there’s a lot of rocks and sand on screen for most of the run time. Still, a small complaint really.
Graphics and Sound:
What can you say about Ninth Generation game’s visuals? They’re never going to look bad, are they?
This always seems silly in modern gaming, but I’ll say it anyway: the graphics are stunning, the facial details and subtle clothing and hair movements, the vast open areas with loads of things in the distant background that you can eventually visit… no criticisms here!
The music is very Star Wars-y and great in certain boss fights, and the sound effects are obviously (and thankfully!) spot-on. The voicework is once again great as well, from all ends. Let’s get Cameron Monaghan in a live action show already!
Story:
Cal just can’t catch a break with all these ex-Jedis he keeps running into…
Set five years after the end of Fallen Order Cal has gone solo away from Cere, Greez and Merrin, his single-minded focus on taking out the Empire driving a wedge between himself and his crew (why couldn’t THAT story be in the book “Battle Scars”? Much like I predicted the book had zero impact on this game beyond one brief mention of Greez losing an arm, and even that Cere was telling Cal not to blame himself for when in the book it was very clearly Cere’s fault, meaning that flashback actually contradicted the book!) Cal and a new team of fellow freedom fighters including a sharpshooter named Bode Akuna take on a mission on Coruscant but it goes badly, with only Cal and Bode surviving, though Cal did kill the Ninth Sister, solving a nice dangling plot-thread. The Mantis is damaged in the escape so he heads to Koboh to see if Greez can repair it, as Koboh is where he now calls home, owning a saloon on the desert planet. While staying on the planet Cal finds an old High Republic meditation chamber and inside a droid from that era called ZN-A4, or “Zee”. Zee is reactivated and eventually tells Cal of a special satellite array in a nearby forest she was supposed to activate, so Cal heads there.
He soon discovers not only the existence of a planet called Tanalorr hidden in the hard-to-access “Koboh Abyss” but a Jedi from the High Republic era called Dagan Gera who had been put in stasis. Cal frees him but Dagan almost immediately bleeds his kyber crystal and invokes the Darkside as he battles Cal. Dagan soon escapes with the help of the Bedlam Raiders, who are led by Dagan’s old ally, a Gen’Dai called Rayvis. This puts Cal on a path to wanting to find out the way to Tanalorr as it could be the perfect place to hide people away from the Empire, a goal that coincides with his reunion with last Nightsister Merrin, Jedi Master Cere and her old Master Eno Cordova on Jedha, the two working with the Hidden Path to hide Force Sensitive people from the Empire. Cal soon heads to various locations on Koboh as well as its moon and slowly tries to put together a special compass that can get people access to Tanalorr…
*MAJOR SPOILERS IN BETWEEN THESE STARRED SENTENCES!*
Eventually they manage to get a complete compass after Cal kills both Rayvis and eventually Dagan, who for the record had tried to turn Tanalorr into a haven himself but it was destroyed by the Nihil, which made Dagan give in to his hate and obsession with the planet, leading to him being frozen. Sadly Cal’s celebration is short-lived as the Empire arrives on Jedha and Bode betrays everyone, admitting to bringing them there and then killing Cordova and running off with the compass. Cal gives chase and finds out to his surprise (and mine!) that Bode was a Jedi, Force pushing Cal off a ledge and rendering him unconscious. During this Cere tries to evacuate her people and makes sure the Hidden Path’s data is off-base but ends up confronting the suddenly appearing Darth Vader. The two duel but Darth comes up on top, killing yet another Jedi and watching as Cere’s rebuilt Jedi archive burns. Cal arrives too late and takes Cere and Eno’s bodies and heads back to Koboh with Greez and Merrin. I should say actually that by this point Cal and Merrin are something of an item, Cal deciding that since the Jedi Order is dead he doesn’t need to adhere to their laws against relationships.
They manage to track Bode to an Imperial base on an icy asteroid and find out he was an Imperial spy all along, and eventually that he betrayed them because his wife had been killed by Inquisitors looking for him and now he’s willing to do anything to protect his daughter Kata. Despite his best efforts Cal doesn’t stop Bode in time and although he briefly touches the Darkside Merrin brings him back around. They find out that there is another way to Tanalorr and so catch up with Bode on the hidden planet, and sadly he is too far gone, believing that keeping Kata locked up on Tanalorr is the only way she’ll be safe. Bode is eventually killed by Cal as Kata looks on, though she admits that her Dad hadn’t been the same since her mother died. Cal burns the bodies of Cere, Eno and Bode, three more members of the old Jedi Order he’s outlived, before agreeing to take Kata in with Merrin, and together with Greez they now plan to use Tanalorr as something of an Imperial safe-haven going forward thanks to Bode’s compass…
A new beginning …. Again.
Before I un-spoiler I just want to say that after that brief touch with the Darkside Cal’s time-slowing meter is replaced with a “use the Darkside” mode, which is the same thing but Cal’s attacks are super-powerful as well as slowing down time. It’s damn-near cheating, and that’s why it’s perfect: the Darkside is alluring because it’s the easy way out. There were a few moments in the boss fight with Bode that I hesitated and didn’t want to press the Darkside button because Cal was supposed to be past that thanks to Merrin, but I did it anyway in the end. I gave in to the Darkside because it was the easy path, and weirdly felt bad about it. They absolutely nailed that aspect of Star Wars lore and I can’t praise them enough for it!
*SPOILERS END HERE!*
So while two-thirds of the story was just a treasure hunt with a competing gang of enemies the final third was great with a twist that actually made me say “What?!” out loud. Plus it’s drenched in High Republic lore and callbacks, which given how much I LOVE those books and comics put an extra smile on my face every time it came up…
Downloadable Content:
Between being set during the reign of the Empire, these Clone Wars era droids and all the High Republic stuff, this game sure does take full advantage of the license, that’s for sure!
Much like the first game no DLC packs seem to be in the works, but if you Pre-ordered the game from certain outlets / stores / digitally you did get some cosmetic DLC which can be brought separately post-release.
Thoughts Now:
I’m pretty sure if the Empire had just mass-produced these things they’d have been no issue with the Rebellion…
Star Wars – Jedi: Survivor blew me away with its amazing and varied combat and fun level design, and its story while slow to get going was great for its final third. It’s a shame the PC version being so poor and the release of Zelda has kind of buried this game’s actual high quality because it really deserves respect as a good Star Wars story and a fantastic game. Top marks!
Hogan Reviews 