Star Wars Jedi Survivor Review - A spoiled spectacle
Coming hot on the heels of the successful Jedi: Fallen Order, developer Respawn hoped to catch lightning in a bottle once again with the release of the latest iteration of their Souls-like (a closer-to-truth term for this would be Souls-lite) game set in the Star Wars universe.
All the premises are there for a good time, and for the most time it delivers: there is an above-average game under all the technical and design difficulties. Unfortunately, those two caveats make it impossible for the game to get a good grade in my book... I will elaborate on these two major shortcomings in the following lines but for now the best place to start is with:
The story: The premise and what it achieves
All things considered, I felt the story was rather mediocre in this installment. I do not believe the goal was ever to have a deep or interesting story, but instead to have something barely pasable to keep the player moving forward.
I say this because the game uses the same moral ambiguities for both of the villans throughout the 20h runtime of the story. Moreover, it feels like a constant cat and mouse game with running around between 3 planets. The reasons are as follows: oh the thing isn't actually here, it's over there. Oh the thing broke, but we have heard of the same thing being over here actually. Oh all the things failed? Better look for another way of achieving the same goal.
That is most of what i can say without entering into a huge spoiler rant. For those that are after spoilers or rants, seek the toggle box below.
Story Spoiler-Ridden Rant
I felt really disappointed that the main bad guy in this is a Jedi that has fallen to the dark side, and now seeks to make his own cult and rule the galaxy. It felt not only creatively challenged, but also repetitive (they did this exact thing with Taron Malicos in the previous game). Also, there is a surprise second villain in this story, who is the subject of a plot twist in the closing 3rd of the game. He is also an ex-Jedi that fell to the dark side (this time siding with the Empire for self-interest). The Jedi Order should really hire better imo, this is unacceptable retention for their staff.
Also, during the first three quarters of the game you seek these compasses, because that's what you have been told via a holo message. It turns out though, that after chasing 3 compasses and all of them breaking or being already broke, it turns out that Santari Khri had also spoken about an alternate way of reaching Tanalorr, but nobody bothered to watch the whole holo...
Gameplay
The experience of playing this can be split into two parts, and I'll tackle both separately, as they are very much their own thing:
Combat
This game uses the Fromsoft template for combat and checkpoint design. You have a bunch of Bonfires (meditation points) throughout the levels, and your job is to reach the next one alive. If you do not, you are reset to the previously-reached bonfire and all enemies respawn and you lose your XP.
The enemy design is rather decent, with a a fair few frustrating encounters. All enemies are very interesting and challenging on their own, but the frustration comes when the game pits you against 5 melee stormtroopers, 2 purge troopers, 2 rocket launching enemies, 3 robots and a couple laser-equipped fodder enemies. Trying to juggle all of these enemies while also not running around the arena like a nutcase is quite difficult, as they all attack at the same time and you cannot possibly deflect blaster shots, block melee attacks and deflect rockets at the same time.
It feels a little bit as the game trying to artificially get harder and harder by throwing more enemies at you, instead of upping individual enemy difficulty.
Level Design
This was, by far, the most frustrating part of the game for me: most of the levels are very pretty but feel very confusing to navigate. You are often not sure which way to go, and I have often found myself either backtracking needlessly or even skipping entire areas because in my search to find the way, as obtuse as it was to find, I actually found a skip for the entire level. When the player isn't guided properly, they must find their own way.
Furthermore, the progression within the levels is incredibly game-y. Elevators (whose entire purpose is to be called to the floor where they are not already) cannot be called unless you interact with them from above to "activate" the shortcut.
Adding fuel to the fire are things that magically activate themselves after you have done a seemingly unrelated task: inspect this item for the door button to magically become pressable, defeat these enemies to allow BD to slice through circuitry.
Also, it does not help that Cal routinely remembers ways to unlock doors that have been stumbled upon 20h ago. (oh I just realized I can use force push on this door, even though i had force push this entire time).
Overall I was doubtful most of the time when exploring and routinely confused side alleys with level progression and went further forward than I was supposed to, because I thought I was exploring a side alley.
The world
Without a shadow of a doubt the best thing about this game: the world itself. What the artists did here is certainly spectacular and absolutely belongs in the Star Wars universe with all its glory. There are towering mountains and dark crevasses, rich flora, varied landscapes. Almost anything you could want is represented, and in stunning fashion.
When I was feeling upset at the combat or level design, this was what pulled me through.
I think the best way to showcase what I am talking about is visually:
Conclusion (Grade: B)
A good looking game but held back by pretty bad performance on PC (and barely decent on PS5), confusing level design and a few combat design issues. There was potential here, but since the previous game's performance was never fixed, I would not hold my fingers crossed for this one. Play on console or not at all, and do so knowing the draw
