A Critique of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

this video is sponsored by Squarespace if you don't know who they are what they make websites in it more at the end [Music] hello my young Padawans and welcome we're gonna be looking at Jedi fallen order in depth and we're going to be taking a chronological path through the game discussing what becomes relevant when Broca's strength is competency elevated into deep space through the star wars coat of paint it's a good tutorial level it looks good it does the whole make you hate the villain thing by killing the friendly man but dude you've got a spicy glow stick and you're fighting the Empire and a decent combat system for the first time since the Force Unleashed 2 which came out a decade ago it's worth considering that this game might be elevated immensely because of the way it makes some players feel and I'm no diehard fan of Star Wars but I gotta tell you on Baga no just after Cal joins up with sarin grease it had that same effect on me too you can watch your ship fly off when you choose a new destination you can customize your lightsaber however you want oh my god this is probably the most game ever made the music is the reinforced steel beams holding this structure together it feels so much like the movies you don't even question you're playing a game even the humor with the cute droid doing cute [ __ ] a sense of wonder so essential to Disney and even an element of supernatural mystery the movies have never done that well respawn wants you to feel like this is an alien world with its own life and geometry to explore but it also doesn't want you getting lost and frustrated so the level design has a tough task here it's never entirely clear where to go but it's never so hard to find the right path that you're lost for more than a minute though there's not really such a thing as a wrong path there's always something to reward exploration a cool collectible a permanent stat booster lightsaber customization item a poncho or an entirely new area oh and don't get me started on the combat a mysterious master Jedi Cordova thinks zepho is the place to be for information about how to protect force-sensitive children from the Empire so we'll head there and see what's what and then I'll get started on the combat clearly respawn a big fans of from softs work or maybe EA a big fans of the cash dollar their games make but either way it's no secret that Jedi fallen order is souls like you've got the typical interconnected level design dotted with bonfires a loss of souls when you die and a sakura like combat system with a much higher impetus on defense than avoidance what do you get when you take good combat and cross it with an amazing coat of paint good combat surprise surprise the animation on the lightsaber swings feels amazing enemies are excellently varied their attacks are well telegraphed and often create decently interesting scenarios a flamethrower dude and a minigun dude at the same time gets you playing in a very different way to a blaster dude and a stick dude the guard meter on humanoid enemies prevents overpowering kal but allows the lightsaber to feel like a weapon of immense power when it breaks through to the flesh your own ability to guard is balanced with your own guard meter and you can't rely on it due to frequent unblockable attacks powerful force attacks are balanced with a force meter that's what I got there isn't a novel to write about Jedi's combat because we've seen it before it doesn't do a great deal of its own but that doesn't mean what did feel fresh was insignificant firstly there's an enjoyable dynamic in combat encounters involving ranged and melee enemies you want to parry incoming blasters but also deal with whatever's up in your grille having to monitor multiple threats including the position of the blaster in the air is an effective touch I also like the management of soul loss on death the try try try again mentality is enforced strongly without any brutal punishments now that you only have to graze their health bar to get it all back before I start talking about zepho itself let me get two things out of the way first why can't I climb this second why can't I climb this it looks the exact same as every other climber balsamic respawn this isn't what I expected when you said fallen order did the rest of the Jedi make the same mistake you can't have inconsistencies like this and a Grand Master difficulty rant over on zepho the training wheels come off many enemies are thrown at you regularly and in tandem the types start varying - you've got commanders rocket troopers and minigun troopers they pose a good example of how combat becomes increasingly intertwined with movement as you approach one from a series of beams for another there's a nice slide to go down while you're taking fire though I do have to question how believable the most convenient ice slides in the galaxy showing up in Cal's path is as the distance between bonfires grows you start to respect gravity of your situation and that's nothing if not immersive of course highest-stakes also means kicking ass feels better than ever mechanics remain engaging exploration remains rewarding presentation is better than ever difficulty feels well paced and there's a good sense of mystery for a fun example of how mechanics are expanded upon let's check out this mountain it's often that you see giant cars that knock you up sorry off ledges in video games navigating them is much the same tense affair here but they also do something a little extra your only force power at this point is fries so they hide a chest in the machines path you get a tiny window to freeze it and make it over a short while later you have to freeze it mid thrust and use it as a platform it truly is remarkable how they keep the mechanical escalation going 20 minutes on you're in a tomb now you have to be more careful than ever during movement thanks to these ask plants you've even gotten into oven ball and wind mechanic throughout the entire dungeon that finishes with an actual puzzle an actual puzzle is nothing remarkable but it made me think and that's more than I ever expected I talk this up so much and it's important too because it's reflective of how I felt on zepho I thought it was amazing and I want you to as well so I can take your hope and rip it away from you if you haven't played this game you've probably noticed something if you have and you're with me on this you'll know the transition from WoW to somewhere above boredom is a lot smoother than I make it out to be the problem is unsurprisingly the pace of escalation slows as the game goes on so it can't keep distracting you from how fundamentally unoriginal fallen order really is this games a mix of just about everything it combines Souls like interconnected level design dotted by bonfires with Metroidvania esque item usage in the same way as darkside as three where you gain an item later in the game for use in areas earlier it does puzzles like Darksiders elder and tomb raider with a couple key mechanics relative to the location in combination with items which in this case is the force combat is just like sakura with guard meters and a high focus on defense while force push and pole feels straight out of control movements almost a carbon copy of Darksiders - with wall running vine climbing and ledges but there's also some on chart with the rope swinging even the mystery has been done before an ancient alien race that mysteriously disappeared boy you can actually hear the same composition style when fallen orders doing it's supernatural wonder as you could in titanfall 2 [Music] [Music] if you're a fan of this genre moreover if you're a fan of games you've probably played Jedi fall in order before and I wish I didn't have to say that it's a weakness but it is it does nothing bar lightsabers particularly better than anything we've seen before which can make the experience feel quite unremarkable forgettable this interesting when it's done playing all its best cards for the first time it felt like I was going through the motions boxes are getting ticked but I'm not amazed speaking of forgettable we're in the ice mines nothing interesting is done here it's just more thankfully it's short better just a while later it links into the very first lock door you saw on zepho for some of that beautiful interconnected design and behind it is a 1v1 boss fight with an 80 ST it's done surprisingly believably the lasers are fairly easy to dodge for a force user which is why most of its arsenal is dedicated to getting you to piss off land mines and stun grenades are deployed around its feet a cool move set certainly but I shouldn't be overzealous with the praise there's very little for Cal to do here except choose between spamming dodge or blocking the lasers blocking gives a shot at parrying so that's the high-risk high-reward strategy but after that choice what more is there to this fight you get in for strikes then you roll away avoid attacks for a bit rinse repeat it's really quite repetitive but our next destination should be a happy site for fans Kashyyyk Kashyyyk sets the familiar formula in stone interconnected level design shortcuts with escalating combat movement and puzzle encounters but to no one's surprise the cracks are starting to show themselves we've seen the inconsistent rules of climbing on zepho but what about this zinger you got a spinning platform and you want to get from where you are to one of the sides my first idea was to freeze it diagonally so I just barely have the distance to get across and I did except I didn't because the game decided that Cal can't climb anymore what is this hydrofluoric acid I don't buy it my second idea was to freeze it hop on allow it to speed back up and then freeze it again at the right moment but no that doesn't work either because Cal just ragdolls like someone shot a mouse up his ass sure I'd probably want to sit down at the speed but he trying to tell me that this roundabout is like trying to surf on a fighter jet come on the real solution is just turning it off and on again from the other side using the pipes to go around but there shouldn't have been any solution because this should have been cut there's no doubt that plenty of people will have had no trouble and I'll have had no trouble with areas plenty of people heard but it seems that for everyone moments like this are pervasive only moments later I lost a fight with a security droid because it glitched me into a corner and I couldn't move which brings me onto a question one I've asked myself playing this game and so many before why souls let's talk about Dark Souls I'm sure you guys have never heard those words from a games critic before so I should be treading new ground here but this aren't ironically because I want to talk about the soul of Dark Souls Dark Souls married it's game playing themes perfectly you fight through a dead post-apocalyptic world on the verge of slipping out of the light forever to exist only as a graveyard for evermore in each of the three titles everything that was once great is atrophied starved of salt and in the midst of it you a decrepit lone husk but within within is the power to stand up against all of it to take the devastating defeats and just keep coming back that's what made Dark Souls automatically powerful to me and why a good number of people have had it speak deeply to their depression because it's the most striking portrayal of willpower I have ever seen in games just keep fighting never give it its expressed both in the law and in the game I don't know if Demon Souls has the same power to people but my point is everything about the souls structure enhanced the experience it was like a trial maybe less so in from softs later titles but I can at least speak for blood-borne that it's law fit the structure beautifully you're alone because you're going out on the night of the hunt everyone else has succumb to the beasts curse or is hiding away and the intense difficulty works because you're meant to be in a literal nightmare up against Lovecraftian forces for another example in fromsoft work when enemies respawn it's always up to some supernatural cause like time dilation or nightmares or the undead curse now the souls like genre is a big deal and from soft sure aren't the only players but so many of those so-called clones seem only to use the structure or aspects of it because it's popular ironically they've forgotten that it works so well there because it's all makes sense now that I've never felt as compelled by the formula in clones as I have in the originals which sucks to be sure but it's outright bad when it's carrying over Souls conventions to no positive effect we'll start small enemies respawning and finding themselves in the exact same circumstances films like Groundhog Day there's no supernatural element to help suspend your disbelief getting worse just like in control spawning you at a bonfire instead of at the boss serves zero point whatsoever you can't gain anything from killing enemies you're just dodging past them and if you get grazed on the way there the frustration is immeasurable because now you're gonna start at a huge disadvantage it doesn't encourage me to try try try again it encourages me to Alt alt alt f4 it's not even just boss runs its extensive runs to get back to tough combat encounters fighting enemies on the way is fine and that's gameplay are meant to master but what about when you're spending what feels like an entire minute doing this stupidest uncharted climbing section this isn't proving my mastery respawn it's not even practice it's a bigger pain in the ass than Johnny sins I played on Grand Master so I've got plenty to say about the higher difficulties of this game but for now I want to address the difficulty in general there are a lot of people complaining that this game is too hard and as usual a lot of that is failing to take personal responsibility but I sympathize with those who wonder what the point was I played on Grand Master with two stims and even I don't understand the point you could have had a brutal difficulty option without the souls framework selecting story mode isn't going to remove it it's not going to take away boss runs or any of the innately challenging parts of souls was it a good fit for Star Wars well art doesn't have to be made to appeal to the most people so I'm watching my argument here but I can't help thinking this game could have done everything it does now better if it didn't want to be Souls like now we've got a tomb to raid on zepho so let's come back to that argument in a bit there's no fast travel in Jedi I'm smart because it raises your chances of revisiting old areas they might have a little more to them when you come back with new abilities and it also brings some Dark Souls 1 to the table where you're expected to use a little meta scale navigation to find your way the holo map is perfectly legible so there's nothing fiddly to crafting a route might want to check out an old area he might prioritize speed you might want to reduce encounters it's a nice variation in the gameplay loop on that note the pace of escalation takes a significant hit on your second visit almost nothing new is done with movement unless you count being able to go up a zip line which I don't because it isn't a mechanic it's just a means to access new areas no different than an access key meanwhile combat is only rationed these flying drones tu'pari and honestly though the stardestroyer might be nice to look at the primarily Imperial and otherwise grey environments don't do much for the AI it's a fairly dull affair but thankfully before the tomb we're treated to the very first lightsaber boss fight it's been possibly yeah forever since I last had a decent lightsaber battle in a video game so this is a rush the second sisters movements are a joy just to look at everything's telegraphed well it's a great move set nothing less plenty more but only because it's lightsabers this is a standard boss fight you've played it before now let's have a look at this tomb where the first dealt with wind this deals with magnets some of which contain torches which you need to burn bramble this makes a lot of sense because as we know lightsabers are pretty terrible at cutting things and aren't that hot at all often when you enter a giant room in these games you're expecting a decently sized puzzle right you'd sure get one in Darksiders or Zelda but in Jedi when you enter a giant room with all these moving parts the level design often solves the puzzle for you I felt this in the first Tomb as well that despite how many offshoots in spaces there were as long as I followed the correct route everything would simply fall into place and until the very last room it did here for example you enter a big old chamber with a big ol magnet platform thing looks complicated but as long as you follow the route there's pretty much only one thing you can do at any given time you go along the only way you can go you press the button and the correct path opens it's not really a puzzle then it's just a bit of variation in the level design this is true until the very last wall where you have to use force freeze but that's no more interesting than stuff we were doing five hours ago fast-forward a minute and cowls got force pull with which you can start using the fire magnets to burn bramble in the central chamber there's a ball held in a glass container the game has been drawing attention to that for a while so it seems clear we're going to have to get out there's a flammable part of the chain so target acquired all we're gonna need now is some fire easy done next we got to get it to the bramble and this is where the fun begins the rain you previously assumed was set dressing proofs capable of putting out the flame so you realize that the rainfall creates pathways very cool it seems clear you'll have to get it across this small gap so you drop it freeze it in midair and then collect her from the other side but you might first assume that you could easily hop this gap and it's really a contrivance that you can't a good puzzle even so from there you free the ball and your time in the tomb is done one interesting puzzle in an entire tomb is rather disappointing especially since this now brings the puzzle count up to a grand total of two but nonetheless that's to more than nothing games better with them than without them unlike the first trip to zepho this one does end with a bang quite literally you get your ass kicked by random bounty hunter and wake up behind bars guess they watched Gotham and thought you were gonna commit in cell violence man this game really doesn't have an original bone in its body but I can't argue with the variation turns out the whole thing's a reality TV show in the finale is an arena sounds like fun it's three rounds into a decent boss and that's about it which is just the thing with fallen orders bosses there's really not much to say you want to know that their attacks are well telegraphed or that you aren't forced to depend on a single viable strategy well you're not there moveset fits the context of their character they look good they're fair for the most part they're good enemies and that's just it these fights do absolutely nothing different and absolutely nothing remarkably well they're not creative enough to feel like zelda-esque bosses no test of recently acquired abilities no incorporation of mechanics such as wind or magnets but they're also not bold enough to feel like souls s crosses outside of maybe one exception there's no grandeur no huge scale no badass music no incredible arenas only three bosses have a second phase and that's just a tougher move set instead of something interesting like doubling up or changing the setting at least the lightsaber bosses stand out they've got lightsabers and that's always going to be more compelling than jetpack John or a diabetic sea cucumber having given jetpack John's family enough time come on I say it's high time we paid a visit to Dathomir darth maul's home world is available the moment you let off the hook you can head here before you even hit zepho and frankly that's one of my favourite things about this game DAF M is sold as a challenge particularly Ally game and it is the mere option of putting yourself to the test is compelling to me as a way of proving mastery and doubly so for repeat playthroughs I love the idea that on a second run Cal's journey might feel completely different based on the sequence of planets he visits but proving mastery is not going to be enough for most players they're gonna need an extrinsic motivation a material benefit in the same way as heading somewhere early in Dark Souls for an ember or weapon well about two areas into that for me you get it the double lightsaber oh baby we'll take that for a spin in just a second I don't want to gloss over Dathomir Knight brothers compared to the Empire they're tougher in every way but that's just because they're the Empire with a few new tricks it's just stupid that the night brother arches fire easily deflected on blaster bolts in the exact same way as stormtroopers despite being from completely different races planets and cultures it's a bow for God's sake kidding me the Warriors are just angrier scout troopers so the same dynamic exists in combat where you want to deal with the ranged enemies first there's almost no functional difference between this lot and the others you fought before it's jarring and it's a shame thankfully our second visit to Kashyyyk is a good place to demonstrate the newfound capabilities of the lightsaber one on one the double blade is utterly outmatched the dps is weak but of course it can hit more than one target at the same time so the dynamic becomes clear if there are enemies close together use double if not you single but there's more to it than that preparation might be more complicated than you think there's an attack you can buy very early that allows you to switch blades while dealing damage much like blood-borne the devs valued this ability so much that it's mapped to a hold of X of course it's higher risk but the high damage switch attack is the high reward we also have to consider deflection capability single blades can parry a blaster bolts right but if you parry a blaster bolt with the double blade all subsequent bolts are also sent back as long as there isn't to greater delay between hits so in the right situation and with a bit of good timing you can walk up to a group of stormtroopers and drop em like flies you can greatly enhance your play by using the right blade at the right time it's a hearty helping of depth added onto an already deep combat system they've outdone themselves with this I adored lining all these new systems so far into the game unlike zepho they've managed to vary the terrain like night and day despite being set on the same planet you're taken through an especially jungle like area known as the shadow lands in its heart you have to be wary of jaw plants that you can only step on for a second before they snap and poisonous red flowers that seek your position it can get quite tense with a lot of them around kind of felt like terraria is jungle which is about as high appraised I can give oh wait did I say something because the next area has trampoline plants which reminds me of Wind Waker so we've gotten as high as we're gonna get those are Michael Jackson's last words I imagine fun fact the developers site Wind Waker is an inspiration for this game that puts a smile on my face the variation is at an all-time high but it just gets better all that water you've been swimming through well now with a rebreather from tarfful you can swim within it and explore the depths in contrast to recent events the game is now doing a fantastic job of preventing things feeling stale but there is one thing I take issue with there's not been much to say about the story so far but since we first arrived on Kashyyyk we've had the singular objective of meeting tarfful a wookie commander who could supposedly help us uncover a zepho artifact and what is our grand meeting with him like it's not even a cutscene he just meows that we've got to reach the top of the origin tree right well that was the most anticlimactic meeting I've ever heard why didn't the writers just have the origin tree as your destination to begin with a name like that elicits far more intrigue and anticipation than a single wookie goon it just doesn't add up to me moving on there's a big old sliding set piece but uncharted though it may desperately want to be this is not let's not even get bogged down with how dumb it is that every planet is littered with convenient slides for kalter inexplicably roll escape through the best set pieces feel like they're not just a bunch of scripted explosions and your input is actually achieving something this doesn't you're just sliding down some mud and doing the same bog-standard movement challenges you've done since bracha but Weiss it's bug to hell momentum decides not to exist on some corners and vines were performing questionably too thankfully though a big white birdie shows up to save Cal from the ninth and you from this [ __ ] climbing up the pleasantly wood themed origin tree notice the final force ability which I must admit felt at an out-of-place all we were doing was bouncing around on some trampolines and then we were suddenly given the Jedi flip which by the way is a fancy way of saying double jump not particularly dramatic unlike the previous abilities which punctuated the halfway point in a too similar to items in a Zelda dungeon predictably you end up finding the nice birdie predictably it's injured predictably you heal it and then predictably take it for a spin in this seventh journal akin ass cutscene music is second to none but this is painfully cliche it just doesn't have the same effect when you've been through this routine 350,000 times since we never saw her die outright the 9th sister rocks up in the most obvious setup known to man she's a good fight but disappointingly low tier waifu material what's been interesting about visiting Kashyyyk again also carries over to Dathomir night sister Maren takes offense to your demonic force magic and sets loose a horde of zombies zombies yes in star wars perfect for the double saber and a refreshing change of enemies but I must admit this game is starting to feel remarkably like a fantasy rather than a sci-fi and a derivative one at that as if all the stuff people like in fiction was just thrown into a pot and seasoned with a Star Wars paint job you got mages you got magic you got zombies the biggest tree the biggest bird the guy from New York who calls everyone kid it's the whole shebang it's every cliche ever done and I think that's just the story the writers wanted to tell but is it really a coincidence that the gameplay feels the exact same way a mishmash of what's popular despite the fact that respawn didn't do what EA originally wanted them to it seems very likely that they had a hand to play in the technical state of this game sometimes its enemies jumping like dumbass is no big deal sometimes it's the camera glitching through the environment also not a big deal but other times it's worse much worse sometimes enemies will be sent into the stratosphere and then land who knows where maybe getting in a cheap hit sometimes an enemy will glitch you into a corner that you physically cannot escape almost always resulting in a cheap death or you might get stuck in the environment otherwise I wouldn't give a toss frankly if that wasn't the Grand Master difficulty but there is this game wants to present itself as that skill based gauntlet it is Souls like but I can't count the number of times I've taken permanent damage to a whole lot of [ __ ] bugs aren't the only problem inconsistencies make it twice as bad I've talked about some before but let's address the one in da for me you've been taught that you're immune to full damage right so why can't I jump down here I can jump down the next almost equally far drop just fine but not this one sure it looks like that might be skipping but that's not good enough you can't arbitrarily put kill zones in areas a player might assume they could get to thanks to lessons you've taught them well maybe you can you probably could but failing the platforming in this game comes with a good chunk of health loss and that's just not acceptable when every mistake counts brings me back to the pervading question why is this game souls light what does it gain from going down this route I'm seeing no answers Dharma is the perfect place to make this point because I don't believe it was play tested following a later fight with a big-ass beast thing there's a short and pointless box puzzle that requires you to pull over a box and use its height to grab onto a Ledge after that it's an archers gauntlet where all those bugs and inconsistencies I just covered show their face if you respawn you have to move the box all over again that's not punishment that's contempt you could say that there's not much difference between bonfires and checkpoints but bonfires absolutely encourage bad placement because they're going for the hardcore sense of a great trial between them in the section right after there's a beast glitching out in the corner and then I'm clipping through the floor I know Dark Souls 3 pull this trick once but the whole surprise routine this game does with an enemy hidden behind a corner is cheap the first time insufferable the tenth the plunging attack is too inconsistent and worst of all when an enemy glows gold you can't see the red glow to indicate an unblockable attack that also applies to bosses and I'll tell you what I haven't had a heated game a moment in years but that pulled it off just to avoid the impact wounds from being pounded with [ __ ] the entire game I truly think the game is better on master glad that I mentioned bosses cuz Wow a big open room completely flattened surrounded by walls well bugger me if this isn't a boss fight gorg aura is a strong fight but if you fought a bird before you fought this it tries to smack you but it gets stuck so that's your opportunity sometimes it gets angry and uses wind as a ranged attack well swoops across the arena that's really all there is to it it keeps you on your toes you can't exploit there's nothing to complain about here unless you count the fact that other devs could probably claim copyright the bird leaves with a little help left on the bar so maybe that's the third puzzle you've got to decide whether or not it's gonna come back this is some mastermind level [ __ ] right here see a comes back and this is just embarrassing you meant to climb away from the bird but it's not as simple as that you're allowed to go near its claws but not its beak who knows why and those rocks you see falling down well in another game they'll hit you so you should get out of the way but it's actually getting out of the way that will kill you because the bud will catch up in reality none of the rocks can hit you which you might have known if you had a vertical perspective but you don't once you get to the top there's a freefall section because cowell needs to use the bird to break his fall logically you have to press l2 same for grabbing onto anything else but unlike literally every other climate will surface if l2 is held before the prompt shows up it just won't register this is some crusty-ass QTE tacked on to an average boss it seems quite clear that parts of this game which is rushed and others were given the utmost attention began oh is it Baga no Pagano I don't know it's one of those Brucker and early zepho these areas are next to perfection but the bugs go on and on throughout Dathomir all the way up until the third tomb this one's different it's playing with your head forcing you to relive order 66 in what seems like evidence of my point this section is brilliant the music is so fantastically tragic and you're so attached to thermals as a father figure that the emotional impact is unmatched should be son order 66 kinda sucked ass there's not a bug in sight unfortunately Kell breaks his lightsaber because he's a [ __ ] idiot and then the zombies put you in grave danger so you've got to dash your ass off world there's only one place to be when a Jedi is in need of a lightsaber Endor no Ilham easy mistake they're both whiter than Jimmy cars teeth Ilham looks absolutely incredible the quality of the atmosphere cannot be understated here through the excellent composition and the brilliant graphics indoors is truly a breathtaking spectacle with no lightsaber it had to be all it's got his movement and some light puzzle dressing and firing a light through a crystal to melt some ice it works Ilham feels like a sacred place though it's not difficult traversing it feels like a trial and due to Cal's mental state from having relived order 66 it feels absolutely appropriate that he would break down upon losing the only Kyber crystal to be found in BD one's lost memories he finds wisdom and hope enough to stand back up and craft his saber it felt powerful not contrived or be a cliche and exciting - because you get to choose any color you please as we know lightsaber color determines your views on women so it's great that there's such a wide range of perspectives but it's not just the color you get yet another lightsaber type the split saber sadly it is only reserved for specific attacks it's not a state like the double saber but it does mark a huge increase in power the split saber is incredibly strong requiring only as much force as any other ability but doing extreme damage to even multiple targets in range good thing then that the game puts you up against as many scout troopers as the engine can handle for you to have a little power trip I love this whole part of the game but it only builds on a concern I had well before the split saber was introduced and that's false abilities false ability is everywhere but not a drop to use you have the overhead strike and a follow-up lightsaber throw force pull force push force freeze arrow pulse and a heavy attack in a hula hoop for the double Sabre all of which consumed the exact same limited force path that does not leave room to experiment I threw my lightsaber maybe once or twice in the entire game I never used fries after the halfway point because I would only use my force on ability as I was certain would be worth it it hurts the power fantasy a lot you only have enough force to start mucking about very late into the game which brings me back to the question yet again why souls the souls genre has done magic it's had weapon arts and special attacks like in Sakura but the goal was never to give you a power trip no one wanted that from Star Wars though Star Wars is a different beast and like I said the fusion isn't wrong because that implies you can only make art that appeals to the most people but I will say that I had to try hard to feel like a Jedi and that sucked having escaped elem and kal having learned to let go of his guilt for not saving his master during order 66 we can head back to Dathomir and access the finals fo - turns out there isn't actually a tomb you get what you're looking for almost immediately see ya that leaves the total at 2 - puzzles is great anyway there are two other things of note on Dathomir there was a Terran male eCos and night system Marin Malik hos is a Jedi turned dark user he promised Marion revenge for the deaths of their sisters in return for letting him use their magic hence their alliance but Maron is untrusting so she allows him to fight kal unaided whadda boss fight it's easily my favourite of the lot why because it looks good it's got that grandeur boss fight should the arena the surroundings it's a movie worthy duel what more could you want a less annoying boss run that's what you could want squeezing through this ass crack for about 30 combined minutes his time I'll never get back as for Marion she chooses to join Cal's bro team and will go over her character soon what I'd like to bring up now is that she's my new waifu why aren't more girls tattooed Russian witches these days the circle completes itself as we journey back to pagano meirin raises a very valid point are we sure finding this holocron with all the names of the four sensitive children in the galaxy is a good thing won't we be condemning them to the same fate having let the Astrium do its work Cal has a vision that shines some light he finds the children trains them up and one by one the Empire hunts them down slaughtering them just like what happened to seers Padawans speak of the devil the second sister fight barely lasts the blink of an eye before Cal grabs her lightsaber and her past is revealed you watch from her perspective as she's captured tortured and made to dawn her second sister uniform in front of seer the rage resulting beckons the darkside Fromm's here that's why she cut herself off from the force what stands out among endless fantasy clichés is the characters of the story throughout the entire game the presentation of their emotion is next to perfect with excellent acting in these brilliant mindfuck sequences you watch your Padawans die in this abyssal place you see Cal turned to the dark side it's reflective of his own fear show don't tell taken as literally as it gets there written just as well I could see the makings of a mass effect cast here seers guilt is believable she sold out her padawan under Imperial torture and let in the dark side when they use Triller against her she failed she made mistakes and her actor sells all of that guilt under the skin masterfully through that you can also understand thrillers perspective her master having betrayed her and also under torture she fell entirely to the darkness nothing here is groundbreaking but it's something and it works something however isn't really enough for a protagonist Cal is a very typical Star Wars hero arc a virtuous young Paragon and there's very little variance from that there's very little depth what there is is good order 66 and the weight of his failure was very interesting to see play out but it's much too late in the story I wanted to care earlier than 3/4 of the way in I also enjoyed the one time we see Cal utterly defeated on Ilum where the Kyber crystal breaks in his hand failure is a part of the journey that lesson felt more than just what was needed to move the narrative forward it was far deeper than that as I said the daughter the third tomb rejected him for his guilt he failed all those years ago he's deeply internalized that so this message from Cordova was more than surface level motivation especially thanks to the presentation it was a believable development for the character it becomes clear that this lesson of failure and moving on is the game's theme when even Nightsister marin learns it she spent much of her life trying to avenge the slaughtered Nightsisters but her hatred was built on false pretences and as it is with hatred let her know we're in consideration of this I think it's a very natural thing for her to want to join Cal she's got to find a real purpose in life she's got to move on from what's been eating away at her so when the opportunity to do so stands right in front of her who wouldn't sees it that development felt believable relatable even it got me interested among other reasons so sure while the plot is chasing some generic MacGuffin around the galaxy there is redemption for this story in the characters let's see how it ends drillers got the holocron on nurse same place she became the second sister same place Cyr was tortured I knew this place was trouble when I walked in it's quite clear there's an element of finality to it just about every enemy you can imagine is thrown at you it's a brutal sequence of combat gauntlets and that felt very dramatic indeed even on grandmaster cutting my way through them gave me the impression of finally striking back against the Empire after a full game of playing the mouse at its end guess who surprise surprise it's trailer and she is guess what a lightsaber boss she's got a bunch of lightsaber attacks and they're all real cool it's a strong fight just like the rest of them remarkably unremarkable she's also got two key problems firstly there's an AoE attack which can be insanely hard to react to if she does it up close typically Trillin will dodge away and initiate the attack from quite some distance giving you a reasonable time to consider the appropriate response up close you can't do that so at least on your first time you can call some premium [ __ ] I'd say the issue here is that if trailer gets stuck on the environment and can't make the distance the attack isn't canceled so you end up with a ranged AoE initiated in kissing distance my second problem is this [ __ ] droid a hemorrhoid droid the straight-up shouldn't have been in a fight because you aren't fighting it you're fighting the lock-on system it is irritating as it gets to die because your lock-on was horny and wouldn't get off trailer I felt in this fight more than most that the better experience would be on a lower difficulty where moments like this don't always end in an intense lightsaber pegging session but I've said everything I've got about souls we're at the end now trailer was the final boss but she isn't the final encounter the Big D comes out like what's up they handle this very intelligently it's not a fight it's an escape sequence Darth Vader's force power tears the terrain to shreds as he scramble away he's out of sight when you throw yourself in the elevator building the anticipation and then he's right back on you it takes the efforts of the whole team just to make it out alive introducing a little horror element to Darth Vader is the least by-the-numbers element of this entire game and it was glorious so we gots the holocron it was supposed to help rebuild the Jedi Order but due to meirin's questions and the Zephyrs predictions kal chooses to destroy it this way the Empire can never find them and their destinies will be left to the force I'm not seeing a thematic message here and it also renders the entire story inconsequential I really didn't like that though maybe Kell was right that doesn't help the story it's quite a download to end things aren't in my opinion which really serves to back up my point that the only worthwhile narrative beat this game's got are the people in it I can only hope for a sequel as long as meirin's there of course now I always make a point of talking about the end game but I don't think respawn put a second thought into it perhaps they assume that the exploration would be enough and maybe it is for some but I don't want a poncho I want to experience what this game does that I can't get anywhere else a solid modern lightsaber combat system without interruptions Dark Souls doesn't have lightsabers this game does this game also has an arena so there's every asset needed for easy access gameplay I was almost certain they let you come back here but no such luck it's a huge disappointment to me would have been an easy goldmine of replayability and it's not like you can revisit nerve Eva what a shame I went in with the expectation that this game would be just okay and what I got was quite fantastic by every measure apart from plot and bugs the game is at least good but I don't have much of a passion for it they could have called this game single-player game this single-player game and people would have thought it was top tier satire I lost a lot of love for the game as time went on and I continually felt like it wasn't even doing its borrowed aspects justice this game is a Souls like but it isn't a skill-based gauntlet and now it can't be either a decent Star Wars story for beginner gamers or a Jedi power trip the combat is good but that's just the point it does everything that it sets out to do but not with the soul or even the efficacy that made it work so well originally the puzzles like Zelda and Darksiders but not really as good because of inconsistencies and contrivances the navigation is like Uncharted but not really is good because it's janky and miles less believable these slides like boss runs they just don't fit they make no sense I enjoyed them but they stuck out like a sane person on Twitter I found it very hard to love this game and I still don't love it but by no means do I think it's bad overrated or even meaningless proving to publishers that single-player games do in fact sell is something I'm very grateful for it's not a masterpiece but it's a triumph for the industry and even for Star Wars finally the franchise is on an upturn between the Mandalorian and this fans are off suicide watch speaking of suicide and watching have you ever wanted to experience death stranding without having to play it well now you can't but you can get pretty close with my 7 our deaths stranding commentary I did put a considerable amount of effort into that one so if you're curious I think you might enjoy what you see be there or be square speaking of being square square space I finally gave web designer go guys square space reached out to me so I thought I'd seize the moment and it was a relatively short moment I managed to pull everything off remarkably quickly scheduled posts is a feature from patreon I was glad to see here community features provides my very own commenting liking and replying system but best of all appointment scheduling maybe you guys know someone who takes clients an artist for example or a teacher I sure do and like I said last year I've been considering joining them a small step into voice work but boy was I not looking forward to coding that in mother web designer with Squarespace I eventually opted for the flexible contact us feature and it took me about half an hour I had checkboxes all the fields ready it was connected to my email I didn't have to look up a single working out tutorial Squarespace is a highly functional amazingly accessible blend between a website style and substance the good news is they're offering you something to have you head on down to squarespace.com slash white lights you can get 10% off whatever you buy first with a code white light for the first time in history you can be there and be square I'll see you guys later thank you to hell Hudson dominic Jaworski Fabian flack Benjamin Carter Rosa Bishop Nelson john lammle ballistic rainbow mr. t with some tea Marty Lex Williams Manor gurney ol kang roman three to three seven four six five sim Joshua Carolyn Douglas Griffith avi Leon Carson Dyle Noah be subtly hold shift juris pure ins combat wombat chants taka quarter gamer captain excellence Trixie lulamoon sleepy bear sigh drop Z Z shade the lewd Meister and Rob Massey [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Whitelight

Views: 564,408

Keywords: star wars, star wars jedi fallen order gameplay, star wars jedi fallen order, jedi fallen order, lightsabers, jedi fallen order lightsaber combat, star wars game, star ware game review, whitelight, white light, whitelight star wars, jedi fallen order review, star wars jedi fallen order review, respawn entertainment, cal kestis, star wars review, game review, jedi fallen order analysis, jedi fallen order critique, jedi fallen order pc, jedi fallen order ps4, star wars explained

Id: gx0Tzrr3ifw

Length: 44min 6sec (2646 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020