WARNING: This following article contains minor spoilers for the game “Jedi: Fallen Order.”
“Jedi: Fallen Order” has just reinvented the video game genre for years to come. The game was one of the most highly-anticipated of the year, and people were right to be excited.
The game starts out strong with a fight scene on the junkyard planet Bracca with the Second Sister, the main antagonist of the game.” For the next 20 minutes, one spends their time battling through stormtroopers and running across an exploding train.
The difference between this game and in previous Star Wars games, such as “Star Wars: Force Unleashed,” is that in no way does Cal Kestis (the protagonist) feel invincible. In previous Star Wars games, stormtroopers could be defeated easily, but now, almost anything can take you down. Yes, thing. Even a humongous Toad with an even bigger tongue can kill you.
In the tutorial, I died within the first minutes of fighting stormtroopers. This is because I was not accustomed to parrying, which is a huge part of the game. The game mechanics themselves work similarly to “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice” and “Dark Souls” in the way that you must dodge to stay in a fight. If you fail to dodge, you have to re-spawn from the checkpoint.
If one was to try to place “Jedi: Fallen Order” into a genre, they would have to think harder than with most games. Although it follows a linear progression, there is lots of room to explore.
Playing on the Jedi Master setting, which was the second hardest, made the game very challenging in a good way. In this setting, there is something that appeals to almost every person who boots up the game, in that each person’s experience is different. If one likes exploring over combat, they could select Jedi Knight. With this setting, players are able to explore every crevice of every planet, without being too challenged during a fight.
During a fight, if one does not dodge and parry, they will be killed quickly. However, if one needs help, their trusty droid BD-1, will give them a “Stim,” which is essentially a health booster.
Out of all the video games released with a sidekick, such as “God of War,” BD-1 is by far the most helpful. Without the map (unlocked when you reach BD-1 on the first actual planet), one would not be able to make it through the game.
The map is not static, so one can see different levels of terrain, as well as places that have and haven’t been explored, places where one cannot go, and different shortcuts that one has discovered. With each planet, one explores many different terrains, and each almost feels like a separate game.
This map is extremely helpful as the big worlds can be very confusing at times.
The game’s storyline itself finds Ketis searching for a Holocron, which is filled with information of all force-sensitive children in the galaxy. As the Empire does not want the information to get out, they hunt down Ketis, who is sent to many planets to find it.
Over the course of the game, players will inevitably unlock the main Force powers: Force push, Force pull, Force freeze, and wall running. These are all very helpful, and end up being integral to the story.
What’s different about this game compared to other EA games is that there are no micro-transactions. This is huge considering that most of EA’s games revolve around micro-transactions, and are barely playable without them. The way cosmetics and other items are unlocked is by finding chests and opening them. If one just wanted an extremely linear progression, they could go the whole game without unlocking cosmetics. This is a step in the right direction for EA.
This game is in a genre of its own, and almost everything about it is amazing. I would recommend it to everyone because this game can be tailored to almost any style of play, even though parrying is hard to adjust to in the beginning.
[star rating=”4.5″]
