Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order:
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order: Return of the Cliche
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order: Exploring Six Planets in the Galaxy
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order: Murdering Wildlife with A Wifflesaber
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order: Even the Force Can't Hold the Plot Together
Unlike Dark Souls, where parrying is high impact, I preferred evading attacks in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. An unlockable ability, precision evade, enables a fusion of dodging and attacking. Combat suffers in appearance, speed, and movement. Every action that Cal takes looks like a performance. He attacks theatrically, wasting time and energy with inefficiency. He waves his lightsaber in extended arcs, twirling it unnecessarily. Combat is like watching a bad Shakespearean actor enact exaggerated sword fights. Cal wields his lightsaber like a sword only when stabbing his enemies. When he hits them, it looks like he is battering them with a club. Or, considering the dozens of hits required to down difficult foes, the lightsaber resembles a wiffle bat. Watching the force he puts into each strike, one expects the feeble blade of his saber to break. This lack of damage slows down Fallen Order, by lengthening combat.
Like Dark Souls, or Nioh, the heal button doesn't immediately heal Cal. There is a slight delay, and the action is interrupted by enemy attacks. These two elements increase the difficulty. They demand the player plan ahead, a surprising ask in an otherwise simplified, mainstream game.
But unlike Nioh and Dark Souls, battles are supposed to be confronted head on. Cal is inept at stealth. Enemies immediately know where he is. They wait, chatting about their day, until Cal steps into the spotlight. They almost never attempt the amateurish ambushes of Nioh, or the terrifying traps of Dark Souls. Nor do the enemies of Fallen Order feel unique. William faced twenty-seven different foes in Nioh. Fallen Order unleashes a similar number, but they feel too similar to one another. Beyond the distinguishing feature of combat range (melee, ranged, special ranged, or special melee), each enemy feels the same. Flying enemies are troublesome. There are only two, and at first I thought, “WTF, I only have a lightsaber.” One type shoots at Cal, and the player has to deflect three shots. So they are exactly like stormtroopers. The other dives at the player who has to attack at the correct moment.
If the player feels overwhelmed by an engagement they can withdraw to a previous area. Enemies seem prohibited from leaving their starting location.
Most of the foes are not stormtroopers, or Imperial Forces, but local plants and animals. Each planet has one super creature, a stronger version of the local wildlife. Anecdotal evidence on the internet implies that many players become stuck trying to kill the Oggdo Bogdo, a stronger version of the oggdo, on the first planet of Bogano. Some advice, if it kills you ten times and you've only been playing the game for an hour, leave it alone until later. When not murdering a biospheres worth of flora and fauna, along with a few Imperial soldiers for good measure, the player is confronted by bosses. These excruciating engagements require tiresomely chipping slivers of health off lightsaber wielding foes. Before Cal can even inflict damage, he has to whittle down their stamina, their ability to guard against attacks. Why does every boss battle include one of those “challenges” where the player has to repeatedly tap the same button? Does anyone ever fail? They're only included so the director can include a cinematic close up of the foes face to face.
One issue I've repeatedly considered as I write this article is difficulty. Some players may find Fallen Order difficult. I'm not a master by any means, but I found its combat a much easier version of the Souls genre. I constantly encountered little design decisions they implemented to make Fallen Order easier for new players. The same decisions frustrate experienced gamers who expect the world to react in a certain manner.
Rolling. I roll to avoid attacks. In Nioh or Dark Souls rolling is a risk, “What if I roll off a cliff while avoiding an attack?” Fallen Order doesn't allow this. One can not roll off the edge of a platform. At first this seems beneficial. I can't fall to my death. But in Fallen Order I can't fall to my death anyways (see previous articles). Instead, this mechanic prevents the player from rolling off a platform loaded with enemies to a lower platform with danger.
The strangest design decision is the
lack of numbers. I commented on a similar situation for Overwatch.
Fallen Order has no health numbers, no damage numbers,
no force bar numbers, no experience numbers, and no healing numbers.
Instead, all these concepts are represented by bars, and changes to
bars, which move up or down without any indication.
On every planet Cal learns a new Force Power by recalling his past training with his master, Jaro Tapal (most planets also add a tool to his inventory and an upgrade to BD-1). These powers are the classic, Push, Pull, and …. Jedi Flip? Why couldn't they have called it Force Jump? I can see Cal flips as he performs it, but... I expended my experience points to increase my force power, which was useful against most enemies. Particularly powerful was Force Push. Nearly all combat occurs with a cliff or chasm nearby (again, see earlier article). There isn't an enemy you can't push off. A dozen stormtroopers at once, sure. An elite electrostaff purge trooper, with ease. And a named mini-boss, Reviktor, yep! Cal can even push rockets back. The only limit to force power is that Cal has a small amount, and it only recharges when he hits an enemy with his lightsaber. Also, bosses are nearly impervious to force abilities, making them difficult to defeat with a Force Power build.
Another under served aspect of Fallen Order is the puzzle temples. The second planet (not including the introductory area), introduces a sizable puzzle temple. Solving it requires the use of the newly acquired force push. Like the other mechanics, the developers deploy an easy mode; if the player is stuck, they can ask BD-1 for hints. After this introduction, any reasonable player would assume the inclusion of future puzzle temples. They exist, but barely. The developers seem to have built and abandoned the idea of puzzle temples, after Zeffo.
But that wouldn't leave space for the meandering story and pitiful boss fights.
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