Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

[DisturbedSwan]

So I'm about 4-5 hours into this, and so far it has been nothing less than phenomenal. 

 

It's a sequel to 2019's Jedi Order and takes place 5 years after the events of that game, again with Protagonist Cal Kestis (motion captured by Gotham's Cameron Monaghan), this time a lot more attuned to his Jedi powers, a little more dishevelled and world-weary but nonetheless determined to expunge the Empire from the Galaxy bit-by-bit, using his Jedi powers in tandem with small groups of misfits around the galaxy to do so. 

 

As this is a sequel, it plays very similarly to Jedi Order. You pilot Cal, his lightsaber(s), wield the force and explore different planets around the Galaxy in way reminiscent of a Souls-like and something like GoW/Tomb Raider 2013, you're able to go round different paths only to come to a dead end that will have a shortcut nearby it which will lead you back to a Mediation point (this games' Bonfires), you'll also encounter areas and paths that are inaccessible to you on your first visit, you'll have to return to these later once you have the required power and unlock the path.

 

There's a lot of games like this nowadays, particularly open world third-person adventure games, so it's likely you've played one similar at some point, pretty much everything is back from Fallen Order, the way the game plays mentioned above, the platforming, certain set pieces, certain slidey bits you drop down into before/after/during said set pieces, you'll be lightsabering a lot of Troopers and wildlife, solving puzzles and collecting trinkets. There is a grappling hook of sorts this time around I don't remember being in FO, there are also stances that enable you to dual-wield, double-end or just have the standard saber setup. You can now customise Cal to the Nth degree (apart from changing his hair colour), including his Beard, Clothes and Hairstyle, along with his Saber (oo err) and your trusty Droid BD-1 who, again, returns from FO. 

 

So far I've explored two planets. The game itself starts off in the dingy underbelly of Coruscant, which is every bit as amazing as you think it's going to be, Neon signs everywhere, cyberpunk vibes out the wazoo, flying cars whizzing about all over the place, gaudy electric billboards and all the trappings you'd expect from this City Planet if you've seen the films. This planet is quite linear, you pretty much have your objectives and can still go off into mini-exploration zones which usually circle back and where you first started exploring from, but a lot of it is locked off for the time being, giving you a streamlined approach to the objective at the levels finale. 

 

Koboh is the second planet I've been exploring and is absolutely bloody massive. It's a Wild West feeling Frontier planet (complete with the accents!) which seems to just go on and on for miles from the vistas I've found so far. It's rocky but with plenty of beauty and charm, lots of interesting wildlife and interesting flora and fauna to look at and admire, I thought Coruscant was a visual spectacle but some of the vistas in this have been absolutely mindboggling. Compared to Coruscant which felt like a Planet you'd visit, this seems to be the Bogano of Survivor, the hub planet, with loads of different paths possible for you to take, loads of NPCs to speak to, shops to peruse and lots of mini-games and activities you can partake in

 

Whilst I very much enjoyed the previous game, it did have lots of niggling technical issues that would eat away at your enjoyment from time to time, it just never really felt polished. You'll manoevre Cal onto a bit of pipe and he'd randomly do a Tee pose, there would be silly little bugs frequently enough that you'd notice them and kind of roll your eyes but never really annoyed or frustrated, that kind of stuff. But here, thankfully, all that has seemingly been eliminated, in my eyes at least, as everything feels so incredibly polished and buttery smooth, as alluded to above the game is a visual spectacle, it looks absolutely bonkers at times, particularly on my TV. I'm playing in Quality Mode on PS5 for reference.

 

If on PC though, it might be best to wait a couple of weeks for a patch, because, much like most big recent PC releases that version has been borked - which is a shame and not acceptable - but if on XSX on PS5, this would get a strong recommendation from me already, particularly if you're into Star Wars and/or similar third person adventure metroidvania/souls-like type games.

 

Pics:

 

Spoiler

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Think I'm now between 25-27 hours into this, something like that.

 

The majority of my time with it has been spent going around Koboh (the hub Planet) and just exploring really. Trying to find all kinds of different hidden paths available only to be blocked by some ability I haven't yet acquired or something. A lot of times though the various paths you find do lead somewhere and then you're exploring some neat little cave system, whole new mini-area that loops back on its or a hidden collectible. Around 10 hours or so ago I unlocked the ability to mount a certain creature on Koboh which has made getting around much faster than just using Cal's own two feet. Pretty much been going to each area and trying to 100% it after that and leaving areas where I can see blocked paths on the map. The map in this game is much better than Fallen Order in general, you can see all the open paths, blocked paths, unexplored paths, a lot of collectibles you've already found and apparently an ability later on which shows you where everything is, which I will love later on for mopping up the 100% and/or trophy hunting.

 

The ship in Fallen Order often felt like a home base, much like the Normandy in Mass Effect, but the hub here is Koboh itself and a small settlement right smack bang in the middle of it. Here you can grow plants, shoot your shit with the residents of Pyloon Saloon, see your Fish collection, converse with a DJ and play Holotactics with various people. Around Koboh (and I presume the rest of the Galaxy) you can recruit people to return to the Saloon and then catch up with them later. It has such a nice vibe to it, just pottering about talking to people inbetween the exploring I've done so far. Not to ruin anything but there's a few old friends from Fallen Order that have shown up in this that put a smile on my face already too.

 

As a result of exploring Koboh to such a thorough extent so far, I haven't really progressed the story much. In the past hour or so of my recent session with the game I travelled to my first new planet - Jedha - and begun to explore there before turning in for the night. I will say though that what has happened so far has intrigued me and gone far deeper into the past and the Jedi's roots way more than I expected it to. 

 

In terms of technical issues, there's not really been many. Sometimes I see the frames dip when I'm in an area with a lot of running water, but those areas are few and far between on Koboh, the rest of the game has been a technical marvel really, still no bugs at all and feels so much more polished in general than the first game. On Saturday night I've done something I'd not done in a very long time and got completely lost in this game, 5 hours just flew by before I know it. The longest session I've had in any game for likely years now really.

 

Really looking forward to getting back to it. I didn't think a game this year would exceed Hogwarts Legacy for me but I think this maybe has already. An absolutely superb game, can't recommend it enough.

 

Pics:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Still plugging away at this and absolutely love it, I think I'm about 50 hours in now.

 

Koboh I think is probably one of the best designed worlds I've experienced in games, it's just absolutely gigantic but still manages to feel small and intricate. Having hidden caverns and interconnected areas that can feel completely different to one another whilst maintaining the overall continuity and feel of the greater planet itself, with the level design often still wrapping around on itself with plenty of shortcuts and areas you don't expect to end up criss-crossing doing so the further you delve into it. 

 

I think the level philosophy here is the biggest departure from Fallen Order really. In that game you had lots of different planets to explore that would share this same Souls meets Metroidvania meets God of War philosophy but you stayed awhile, did a plot event and then moved into another. This game feels primarily focused on Koboh and another planet Jedha, briefly touching on Coruscant at the very beginning of the game. So you're not travelling the Galaxy anywhere near as much, you do still have a ship and can go off and explore but the plot so far, all side quests and nice distractions have all been based on these two planets, main plot objectives often take you to an unexplored part of one of these planets rather than anywhere new.

 

The best thing about it is these areas are so diverse that it doesn't matter that you're not exploring a new planet, there's still that variety and fantastic level design in place, but instead of multiple different planets using this level philosophy in a more miniature form, it's more grandiose in scale with Jedha and Koboh being such huge but intricate areas to explore.

 

Plot has taken a back seat to exploration really, there is a kind of villain and a set of quite vague main quest objectives which usually lead to some kind of base and a boss or two but it's been largely non-existent to far, which is quite refreshing but at the same time a little disappointing. Set pieces seem to of been dialled back quite a bit from the first game too on the whole, there's been some fantastic moments but I think all but one were at the beginning of the game. Since reaching Koboh and exploring some other systems there hasn't been too many to speak of, but I've been playing this so slowly and sporadically it's definitely possible I've forgotten about something.

[DisturbedSwan]

Just some pics I meant to add to the previous post, I don’t have much more to add on my thoughts overall, just that they haven’t changed.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

I actually finished a game, and it was this one. Think it ended up taking me 70 hours or so.

 

I didn't end up doing everything because the game is huge and certain stuff doesn't unlock until you finish it anyway, so yeah I did pretty much all I wanted to, explored all I wanted to then did a few story missions and it was over. 

 

I absolutely loved it throughout, it feels a much more polished game than Fallen Order, it feels more assured of itself and its goals than that game which just felt like all the modern game development ideas thrown together to make a cohesive game, one that was great but felt very unoriginal at times. 

 

Pretty much everything is better than Fallen Order, there's less planets but the ones that are there are huge and have a lot more levels to them, much more labyrinthian and interesting to explore, with more secrets. Despite the reports of technical issues, I didn't really have any, I played on Graphics mode on PS5 and the game ran like a dream pretty much, the frame rate did get a bit tetchy at times on the hub world of Koboh but aside from that it felt so much more polished than the previous game where I got silly bugs and graphical issues throughout, on PC back in 2018 or so.

 

Fallen Order for me, felt like it had a bit of an identity crisis really, in some parts very GoW, some parts it tried to ape Souls and others Uncharted. This feels very much more like its own thing, there are still influences in there from Souls but they're dialled down quite a bit, whereas the GoW influences are ramped up but made into a very modern feeling game if that makes sense. Story-wise, I don't think it's maybe as strong as Fallen Order but there are definitely some great moments in there, including some emotional gut punches I didn't expect.

 

I really can't recommend it enough really, it's an absolutely phenomenal game and I loved pretty much every second of my time with it.

[Maryokutai]

1 hour ago, DisturbedSwan said:

70 hours

 

wtf, that's the most off-putting thing I've read about this game so far. Even if I subtract the slow-motion bonus you always apply to games, that's still about 50 hours which sounds extremely bloated for a game like this.

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, Maryokutai said:

 

wtf, that's the most off-putting thing I've read about this game so far. Even if I subtract the slow-motion bonus you always apply to games, that's still about 50 hours which sounds extremely bloated for a game like this.

 

Haha slow motion bonus lol, that's definitely me.

 

I definitely can understand where you're coming from, I think it took me about half that to finish Fallen Order. This is a much bigger game, with humungous planet-sized open worlds that in part have to be traversed via animal or machine really, there's less of them though and a ridiculous amount more to do than in FO. 

 

It is all good stuff to do though in my view, it's more like Modern GoW in that it mostly feels meaningful and worthwhile to do the side activities, collectibles and quests, in my view at least. With FO I felt like it ran out of steam about 5 hours before the finish line but with this I enjoyed it throughout, despite it being double the size.

 

But yeah, in general I agree with the sentiment that I wish devs/pubs didn't just go sequel = bigger & better, but with this they have nailed it, in my view of course. I haven't even done everything in the game either, almost every planet isn't at 100% for activities/collectibles, there's a bounty quest, hidden Jedi temples and a few other stuff I've yet to do and then even more if I wanted to go for the Plat. I'm trying to switch off the part of my brain that has to go for all the trophies, areas completed etc. and go back to just being satisfied with finishing something as I've got lots of stuff I want to play and sodding about doing that extra stuff has a knock on effect.

[spatular]

Started this over the xmas break, took a little getting into but really enjoying it now, not surprising as i liked the first one and this is supposed to be better.

[spatular]

Yeah this does seem like a really long game, not sure how long ive been playing but wouldnt be surprised if it was 40-50 hours or so. Often i might be wanting the game to end at this point but still really enjoying this one, happy for it to continue for now. I have done quite a lot of extra stuff too. It does a lot of stuff really well - the exploration, puzzles, combat, platforming, set pieces, graphics, sound all done really well. The combat is good but think its going for a dark souls lite style or something, where id prefer it if i could block/dodge whenever rather than waiting for previous attacks to finish.