Brief Review of Jedi: Fallen Order

Jedi: Fallen Order is a genuinely good game. Certainly not without its flaws, and it definitely took some time for it to hit its stride, but once it does it just gets better and better right up til the end. It obviously borrows a ton from Sekiro and souls; this is not necessarily a bad thing but because it has such similar mechanics and game play structure it is hard not to make comparisons. That being said, it certainly does not have the technical polish or depth of Sekiro, this can be a little frustrating as some of the defensive windows and hit boxes can be a little odd and that isn't helped by the fact that there is not a uniform difficulty so your mileage may vary on this issue. In addition, perhaps the game's biggest problem is that it has a ton of technical issues. I only had one hard crash, but frame rate would very often drop in combat and there was a good deal of screen tearing and both texture pop and asset loading issues from time to time. In some of the more impressive moments and level transitions it can definitely feel as though the game is just barely holding together. Which brings me to my next point, exploration is absolutely amazing. I knew from previews that exploration and platforming would be a part of this game but I had no idea just how much I would enjoy it. I feel like I have never gotten to explore the Star Wars universe this way and levels have a ton of depth with various paths and collectibles to find. Unfortunately a lot of the collectibles are kind of throw away and the only rewards besides experience that you find are entirely aesthetic. There are tons of lightsaber pieces to find in order to customize your weapon and yet it was kind of disappointing that they never allowed for any kind of RPG style build diversity. I also really enjoyed the story for what it was, it certainly put the two most recent movies to shame in my opinion - although that isn't hard as far as episode eight is concerned. There are a few moments of cringe or overly stereotyped dialogue, but I feel like that almost made it more of a genuine Star Wars story. By the end, I really liked all of the characters and felt they had all gone through decent arks; even your ship's crew members who never really do anything more than offer some entertaining dialogue between outings. So overall despite my wish that the game mechanics had been a little deeper, the skill tree a little more creative, and the overall product being a little more finely tuned, I'd say Fallen Order is well worth playing. It was a good deal of fun once it got going and continued to surprise me with new locations and mechanics throughout the experience.