Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review
For the longest time, Star Wars games have always been the but of the joke in the gaming industry. Mainly being flops that never amounted to much or being fronts for micro-transactions that would be utter crimes. We were in a new era of Star Wars games that paled in comparison to the legendary titles of KOTR and the original Battlefront series. But with Star Wars Jedi fallen order releasing with some epic moments giving star wars fans some hope to see the end of this drought, the focus now turns to the sequel in seeing whether this momentum has some life or if it’s just hallucinations and granger. Does Star Wars Jedi: Survivor live up to the original IP? Is it worth buying?
I give the good, the bad and the ugly and answer these questions in my final verdict.
The Good
The Gameplay
One of the best parts of this game has to be the gameplay. It’s very rare to see in sequels but the combat has only gotten better from its predecessor. The expansion of the many stances you see in the game definitely gives this title a much-needed boost compared to the previous installment. Each stance gives you advantages and disadvantages that really open up the many ways to play.
Many Stances
Single- and double-sided stances were the same from previous games but definitely were kept early on to give fans some cool ways to fight. The cross guard is for higher damage output but slower in movement which is similar to Kylo Ren or Darth Vader.
Dual wield gives you speed and pure attack power which can devastate opponents in bursts but leaves your defenses down. Even the Blaster stance gives you a badass way to mix between being a Bounty Hunter and Jedi getting ranged attacks with good close combat ability in the loss of defense.
Use the Force Cal!
Each of these stances as well as your force powers have the ability to be upgraded heavily in their skill tree which adds more ways to customize Cal. What’s so great about these expansions is that it feels like Cal did not lose all of his skills or abilities from the previous story. It was more like he is expanding on what he already knows and he is only growing as an experienced Jedi Knight.
The combat of this game is also very well balanced where it does give you a challenge to know the different mechanics and moves sets of who you face. This system is way more complex and advanced rather than just the hack-and-slash we have seen in previous games.
Better than previous games
Not gonna lie, I did enjoy games like the force unleashed but Jedi Survivor does give more depth to the combat systems that come along with Star Wars. Facing new ways to navigate or combat enemies does give this game new ways to play which does make the replayability way higher than before. It never felt so good being a Jedi hacking and slicing away a bunch of dumb stormtroopers — it’s definitely A Tier in their gameplay.
The Story
One of the most important aspects of any Star Wars IP has to be the story. What most people expect from games like Jedi Survivor is that they at least add more to the lore of the Universe that gives context to the world we know and love.
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order had really set up a great back story of Cal Kestis and his journey staying hidden as a Jedi. The story really portrayed the difficulty of the Jedi living in this post-order society and trying to become part of the world while staying hidden. Giving Cal meaning to his life to protect other Jedi and force sensitive children from the Empire was a cool concept and it really showed how brutal life was.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor does a great job setting up the events of what is happening at the start of this game while a badass cinematic reviewing the story up until this point. Painting the picture for the new or returning player.
Cal is a different character
Cal is completely different than who we were from the start of the first title. A seasoned Jedi Knight with a new crew definitely gives the vibes of Anakin in the way he’s calm and collected in major points of the opening. But what I really loved most about this story are the themes they are emphasizing compared to the previous game.
Themes of a Jedi
Jedi Fallen Order was more about finding meaning in your life and becoming more than what you ever imagined. While Jedi Survivor is more of a contrast to this and has Cal faced with the fear of losing everything you care about in pursuit of his goal. Cal’s hatred for the empire is having him lose what he cares about most and being alone is one of his biggest fears or what causes him the most pain. The constant battle we each have over the dark side with emotions like anger and sadness is always present in this game.
Jedi Survivor finds ways to improve on the story from the previous game by including these themes which gives the audience more to cling to in the journey to defeat the Empire in their goals.
Customization
One of the best aspects I enjoyed from the game was the use of customization. I always found it to be a fun aspect to be able to customize my own star wars character and bring around my droid kicking some ass. Right off the bat, the customization had only gotten better in Jedi Survivor compared to the previous installment.
Instead of just choosing between which poncho you are rocking, you get to customize everything about Cal as a whole. Want Cal going full Lando Calrissian outfit? Do it. Want Cal to rock a hillbilly beard and take down the empire? You can do that too.
Giving the player more ways to customize your character only is a positive to me and to be honest it’s quite hilarious to see all the different combinations you can have. Adding more components to changing your lightsaber was also pretty cool too.
One criticism with this has to be with not being able to change the colors of your light saber to be different depending on the side. I felt like giving us the ability to diversify it would be pretty dope. But either way, customization was a good aspect overall which is a plus for sure.
The Bad
Lack of Music
One of the problems I had with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in my play-through was the lack of music. Star Wars was always known as having one of the greatest tracks in all of its movies and shows; t was sort of disappointing not to have this for this game. I mean there are so many you can pick from and Lucas Films had done such a great job in Jedi Fallen Order in including some of them in certain parts of the game.
No imperial march, no dual of the fates or even others to make the moments feel more epic. Not to spoil anything from Fallen Order, but one key point of the game when the intensity gets to the breaking point, one small tune that was from Revenge of the Sith started playing and my heart literally stopped with how cool the moment was. Any Star Wars fan that heard that tune play knew what was about to happen.
Music is such an important part of the Star Wars series and you literally can’t tell me that you avoid all semblance of this in the game entirely. Never really understood why game developers that have access to so many good tracks refuse to use them when they literally can make the game even better if they did.
Lack of Enemy Variety
One of the flaws of Jedi Fallen Order was the lack of enemy variety and it seems like Jedi Survivor falls into the same problem. Most enemies have the same basic move sets, basic fighters with blasters that can easily be taken down. Heavy units with many shots that are harder to take down and a sword-wielding fighter that excels in counters and is more up close in personal. Other than that we are talking about the most basic of enemy fighters I’ve seen in a Star Wars game.
Now I can give them some credit for creating more animals to fight, which does open up some new experiences. However, they seem easy to fight and do not warrant much of a second take because they can be handled with little to no problems.
Too Easy
One thing that made the previous game better was that even if they didn’t have as many types of guards to fight they were definitely harder to face in these altercations. I think Jedi Survivor made it way too easy to defeat enemies in this game, making it feel more like a cakewalk when these guards should be way harder.
Don’t get me wrong, I know stormtroopers are supposed to be dumb and all, but this is pretty sad to see how useless they are as a threat to Cal.
The Ugly
The Broken Launch
One of the grossest aspects of this game has to be the state of the game upon launch. It’s pretty sad to see a game that has so much hype behind it basically release as it should be on the Nintendo Switch rather than next-gen consoles. On the PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles there are constant frame rate drops and in certain cases, the game just can render textures at all.
In my playthrough, I literally watched characters fall into place or float like they were Princess Leia flying through the air from The Last Jedi. It’s embarrassing for developers to have to put out a statement saying “we are sorry” to all of their fans when charging top-tier prices for a game that should not have these problems.
Fans’ Frustration
Imagine buying the collectors edition and being unable to play the game you spent all this money for. That is sickening and honestly should never happen. Playing in performance mode literally doesn’t change anything about the experience and just makes the frame rate drops happen more frequently which only hurts the experience.
What’s worse is that EA has no update in sight and is expecting the fans to sit there with their thumbs up waiting for a patch to be shadow-dropped. It honestly makes you want to force-choke those that made the decision to drop this before it was officially done.
Like knowing full well that this was still broken they put it out anyway, that’s just bad. Why can’t developers get this right at this stage of the game? It’s the question that plagues so many at this point and unfortunately Jedi: Survivor falls into this issue plaguing their release from the start.
Final Verdict:
Obviously, by playing Star Wars Jedi Survivor, we can see some aspects that are great as well as straight-up bad. The gameplay and story really give me such a good feeling about seeing Star Wars IPs actually giving more depth to the lore of the universe rather than putting out subpar movies that only hurt my soul. Building on great characters like Cal and his crew gives me the feeling of the original gang trying to save the universe but on a much smaller scale.
However, the release of the game definitely left me with a taste of green milk in my mouth with how horrible the framerate and glitches were right from the start. The practice of releasing a game before it is officially done should be banned and should be considered a crime.
Rating:
I’d give Star Wars Jedi: Survivor an eight out of 10. It has some really great aspects that further the story from the previous installment and add more elements that make it feel different than just the standard story. If the glitches and crashes weren’t as evident as they are id put this as a game-of-the-year candidate hitting in the lower 9s but since EA is too grubby to do that it sits safely at an eight
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is definitely worth buying now but if you do mind the glitches and frame drops then you could wait a few months until the patch goes in to fix the game.
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