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A story in a sprint forgetting to take a breather

This is the game review. Here you can find the music review of
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

The day will come when I tire of the Star Wars brand. When I am no longer attracted to the galaxy far, far away, the good versus evil that has been acted out to the point of exhaustion, the group of heroes with the seemingly impossible fight against an empire, the spectacle of effects and the constantly self-referential music. The new films, episodes 7, 8 and 9, are to blame for this, all of which made me look forward less to the subsequent movie. Nothing was original, nothing was well thought out, nothing was consistent - worse still, they even took away the appeal of their predecessors, with new rules making nonsense of what had already been established. If this is to be the future of one of my beloved franchises, then I won't be going down the path of the Harry Potter-films or The Hobbit-trilogy - I'd rather reminisce about those days and thankfully decline when the name Star Wars is lovelessly slapped on somewhere again.

But then there are those moments again, when I realize that it is still possible to weave good content, gripping stories and new twists around the ageing flesh of the golden cow. Most recently, this was the series The Mandalorian, which massaged life back into my trampled love with charm and passion. Then Battlefront 2 showed me how well games can be redeemed by developers years after a disastrous launch. And now Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order? Will I be in for another surprise - or just another disappointment? I'll save the answer to that question for later, because the explanation is the sum of my criticisms - and I definitely have them. I'll also have to spoil a little and mark the spoiler heavy parts. But if you don't want to know anything at all, it's best to skip to the conclusion now. All set? Here we go.

Futurely on...

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an action-adventure set in the time after Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The Clone Wars are over, the Jedi have largely been wiped out and the Galactic Empire has consolidated its reign of terror. The story is therefore relatively free, as this phase between Episode III and Episode IV – A New Hope has only been explored by the Star Wars: Rebels and the Expanded Universe ... and the latter is really only known to hardcore fans. At the same time, the story of Fallen Order is also based on the premise that nothing we do will be relevant in any way. We won't overthrow the Empire, we won't dethrone Darth Vader or the Emperor and we won't become a Jedi of distinction - at least if you don't want to blow up the logic of an entire saga with a single work (looking at you, Rian Johnson). But I can say this much in advance: the game lives up to this claim. There is no canonical 'what the fuck' moment ... which is something to be thankful for these days.

But now to the content. We play Cal Kestis, a young adult ex-Padawan who survived Order 66 and hides his Jedi nature until the Inquisition tracks him down. This all happens in the first 10 minutes, or rather, experienced Star Wars-consumers will be able to piece it together, because it is only as the game progresses that we learn more about Cal's past before the fateful betrayal by the Emperor. We already know the Inquisition, a group of dark Jedi hunters under the command of Darth Vader, from Star Wars Rebels, where they played a major role. What? This is a reference to the past and a consequential narrative? I am thrilled. The first images of Cal's workplace also immediately gave me that cozy fan feeling that I had been missing for so long. A gigantic Venetor assault cruiser of the Galactic Republic, never before experienced in this form, lies discarded among many of its kind, which are being dismantled for the construction of new Star Destroyers. Imperial drones are flying around, an entire wing is ponderously sawn off by laser and hauled away. It's dark, cold and oppressive... and awesome. That's how it should be!

This introduction alone got me on board and made me want to see what was still to come. That was, of course, the tutorial. The gameplay is reminiscent of the Prince of Persia-games and is okay, even if I was used to smoother gameplay. No matter, the atmosphere makes up for everything. After the obligatory exposition, we are then forced to use our Force abilities, the Inquisition comes and kills our best buddy. We flee and are about to fall victim to either an abyss or a lightsaber before being rescued by strangers in a spaceship. Phew, pretty close, a last-second rescue... we've seen it all 100 times before.

Old, but gold?

And this feeling of having experienced it all before unfortunately continues throughout the game. What follows is a slightly spoilerish character analysis. The people who saved us are mentor Cere Junda, an ex-Jedi knight with a troubled past, and grimly adorable pilot Greez Dritus, who's great at flying. Cal befriends the two in no time at all and travels to the planet Bogano to look for a way to bring the Jedi Order back to life. Once there, Cal meets the last of the group, the cute-as-a-button droid BD-1, who accompanies Cal on his missions. I'll leave it at that for now, story-wise.

What you can see once again, however, is that the authors of this franchise usually find it easier to make an android more interesting than human characters. Like R2D2 or BB-8, BD-1 also seamlessly joins the ranks of droids that show more personality than the protagonists. Of course, the dog-like helper gets a free pass due to the cuteness factor, but for me the contrast is particularly noticeable due to the flat characters. Cere chooses to express herself opaquely so that you can discover some personality later on, but in general she remains very pale and basically has nothing more to say than: “Do this for me, it's important, but I can't / won't, I believe in you, have fun, don't forget your sandwich.” Greez, on the other hand, is just there. Really. Apart from being an additional motivator for Cal and a conversation partner for Cere, he contributes nothing to the story, and even a short section that hints at complexity quickly becomes irrelevant again. He's the comic relief sourpuss with the hard shell and the soft core.

But my biggest problem is with Cal himself, portrayed by 26-year-old actor Cameron Monaghan. I only knew him from the Gotham series as the Joker stand-in, which is why he had a very difficult standing with me right from the start, even though he was one of the better parts of this terrible franchise. Acoustically, Monaghan does a good job, the voice fits the character of the adventurer as well as the appearance (one would think, after all, motion capturing was used), but that's why the acting wasn't good enough for me. Maybe it's just the writing, but overall I'm not convinced by the character of the poncho protagonist. Far too often, tragic experiences are shrugged off, things are experienced without expression or commented on inappropriately.

Any time Cal fails, any time the player might be fooled for even a moment into believing that something big has to happen for things to continue, the authors don't let a second pass before offering a helping hand. We experience no arc of suspense, no height of fall. Everything fits somehow, every valley is crossed quickly. Unlike Nathan Drake from Uncharted Cal doesn't have enough charisma for us to really empathize with him. That's why the adventure, in combination with the equally pale side characters, feels more like a bad Tinder date: we meet someone we don't like, spend time together, know that none of this is going to help and in the end someone gets food poisoning ... or something like that. There's just no emotional connection - with the exception of BD-1, whose story touched me the most, and that really says a lot.

If only we had more time...

The fact that we only learn a little about the characters is in no small part due to the pacing of the story, which, if you reduce the exploration of the levels to the essentials, jumps from plot point to plot point far, far, far too quickly. It feels like Fallen Order is based on the campaign of a Call of Dutys, wants to show off as many facets and bombast as possible, but forgets that the game is more reminiscent of Tomb Raider with Dark Souls-battles. This allows us to freely explore the expansive, metroidvania-like levels, which is a lot of fun, as there are small points of interest to be found everywhere. These include objects whose past Cal can relive through the Force and which tell little side stories in codex entries to breathe some life into the world with interesting background information about the various locations.

Other things we find while exploring are containers with costumizations for the outfit of our protagonist, BD-1, the Mantis (our spaceship) and our lightsaber. These are all purely visual in nature and a nice bonus. That doesn't bother me either, after all, a lightsaber always makes the same amount of ouch, no matter what color or what kind of handle it has. However, if you want to find everything, you'll have to spend a lot of time exploring every map or searching directly via the online guide. Shortcuts help us discover the various locations, which we find as we roam the beautiful maps designed with attention to detail and allow us to shorten longer level sections. However, the confusing map can be frustrating here, which drove me to white heat time and time again and clearly signals to the player: “You can use me, but it's best to just memorize the routes.”

Secondly, Fallen Order is plagued by a feature that must be included in the Soulslike bundle: respawning enemies. I understand the reasoning behind this and also the necessity, after all it's no fun to revisit a location and find it completely empty. However, the enemies not only appear when we revisit the planet, but also when we replenish our health and stimpacks at the designated meditation points. Each time we get a message that we have fully recovered, but that all the enemies are back too. Why? Why do the stormtroopers I just chased over the cliff have to reappear right behind me? And why do they have to fight the monsters in exactly the same place again, making me feel like I've missed the exit from the Matrix?

In this way, moments that were exciting and novel the first time around become boring and you get the feeling that you have no influence on the world, just like in an MMORPG. It doesn't even bother me so much that I have to fight the same enemies again, it's more the cheap attempt to suggest to me that there's always something that makes it worth taking another detour. Precisely because I know exactly what's coming, I tend to roll my eyes when a stormtrooper calls out to his colleagues for the umpteenth time: “Quick, he's here!” Of course I'm here. You'd better ask yourself why you're here again! Has my lightsaber blow across your chest healed nicely? Great, that's great.”

Okay, an example of how to do it better? Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. There, too, we return to previously explored locations, only here we don't encounter the same enemies, but new ones. Suddenly there's a mercenary troop where before there was local fauna lurking for lunch, or we meet characters. Characters with more than one cryptic sentence, characters who don't just show you where to go. But well, now I'm comparing a role-playing game with an action adventure.

Better well self-made than badly copied

So let's stay with the game mechanics. As has already been mentioned several times, Fallen Order borrows heavily from the top dog Dark Souls and adopts many gameplay elements. In addition to the aforementioned bonfire-copies, where we can distribute our collected skill points into different abilities in the areas of Force (power abilities), Lightsaber (combat moves) and Survival (healing and life energy), we can also lose these experience points if we die prematurely and have to collect them again. If we fail to do so, they are gone. I played on the second easiest (or third hardest, depending on how you want to look at it) difficulty level and this didn't happen to me once. In the end, I had too many skill points to spend anyway due to me exploring the planets - a pity, games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssee at least let me increase attributes selectively. In general, however, I found the skill system well implemented and motivating. For the most part, the abilities are meaningful and the progression from checkpoint to checkpoint is rewarding and fun. In addition, we don't feel completely overpowered at the end like our colleague Starkiller from The Force Unleashed, but not really powerful either. Blame it on the combat system.

As in its big source of inspiration, Fallen Order tries to force us to proceed with caution. Bluntly slashing only works in the rarest of cases and even seemingly harmless enemies can cost us valuable life energy. We usually have to wait for our opponent to attack and block at the right moment to counterattack, since we only deal damage when our opponent's stamina is empty. In addition to Force abilities such as Force Push, Force Pull and Cal's special ability to slow things down, we also use our lightsaber, which, without wanting to spoil too much, we gradually upgrade over the course of the story. This tactic is fun in duels, especially with other lightsaber wielders, and encourages prudent action, but can quickly become messy and frustrating in group battles, especially when firearms are also involved. For example, it can happen that you die in battle with stormtroopers because the awkward controls in combination with the unruly camera don't let you do what you actually want to do.

But another thing that bothers me about the game is that lightsabers are once again degraded to a light stick rather than a deadly and awe-inspiring energy weapon. Even scout troopers, the easiest enemy type next to stormtroopers, can parry our blows with their shock staffs, and if we hit an enemy several times on the body, he doesn't drop, let alone have body parts fly. Sure, I don't need a bloodbath in a game, and Star Wars isn't known for its excessive depiction of violence, but games like Jedi Knight have made me feel much more like I'm holding a really powerful weapon that should be feared. Of course, I could just turn down the difficulty and club everything, but that's not my point. It's this ludonarrative dissonance that on the one hand tells me what a badass fucker I am, but then I need several hits for a mere stormtrooper. Why not include phases where you have to batter people's armor in order to hurt them? If the whole thing becomes too easy, give me more opponents to compensate, so that I have to take cover or plan my approach. Criticism that I should probably direct at a shooter rather than an action-adventure game.

On the subject of shooting in general. Why is it so damn hard for Cal to just pick up a blaster to take people out at range? How many times have I stood there and had to wait for the enemy to shoot at me, only to throw the projectile back with pinpoint accuracy until the enemy, reluctant to learn, bites the dust? Or redirect missiles at other opponents? Or chew through the same moveset over and over again? These little things don't really make a case for making the respawning enemies look smart, especially when they reach the limits of their allocated areas and roar angrily into the elevator, which they can't enter despite the door being open. This takes the fun out of the actually quite free combat system and turns it into a routine reel. Once again a legacy of the original, where memorization as an integral part makes perfect sense. After all, boss battles with specific attack patterns are much more common here, while different weapon types and skills expand the experience. Instead, Fallen Order feels like playing against the same team with the same line-up in a soccer match, until instead of playing, you'd rather just mow everything down.

What is it they’ve sent us? Hope

That was quite a lot of wood that I threw into my furnace of rage with many small flaws that came back to me while writing this review. But I'm not writing them to criticize Fallen Order to the ground, because as you can read on the internet and on popular review platforms, a lot of people are having fun with this game. Many talk about it being 'brilliant' or 'great'. I'm more reserved, but I also have other expectations or criticisms based on my personal preferences. Objective shortcomings such as the clumsy controls and the camera, which causes you to fall to your death far too often in the jump passages, should be mentioned, as should the infrequent and simple puzzles, which hardly take longer than three minutes to solve. I would also like to mention the stiff facial animations outside of the (in contrast) lovely cutscenes, some of which reminded me terribly of the (patched) Mass Effect Andromeda or the less terrible Dragon Age Inquisition . And as a final point, perhaps the minimalist HUD, which is stylish but lacks clear legibility, especially when using the Force abilities.

But as is often the case, people are particularly strict about the things they like. For me, that's Star Wars, and Fallen Order is Star Wars. It lives Star Wars, you can feel the lore in each of the little storylines as you explore the fantastic locations. When you're shimmying through a crashed spaceship, throwing Imperial scout drones around with the Force or gritting your teeth when perfect timing is required in a lightsaber duel, and even when the expected story twist comes and you sit there rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself: “That was obvious”, then that's exactly what I want from a license conversion - well, with the exception of the latter perhaps.

Added to this is the soundtrack, which simulates the mood well, even if it unfortunately can't really set any accents. The vehicle to satisfy my Star Wars-fantasy is definitely there, and as you can see again and again, a lot of heart and soul has been put into it, especially when you see the allusions to series like The Clone Wars or Rebels . Only protagonist Cal, whose motivation and steadfastness within the shallow story seems implausible to me, is something I hope to see more of in a potential sequel, in addition to the many small points of criticism. Because there simply has to be a sequel, the ingredients after the cold start are definitely there for me to be carried away to hymns of praise.