STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor – Review
To create Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, developer Respawn Entertainment expanded upon all that was great about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. This results in a well-told story that asks, “What does it mean to be a Jedi and a survivor in the face of an all-consuming Empire?” with shockingly personal yet profoundly emotional stakes.
Improved exploration, accessibility, and fighting choices make this not only one of the best games of the year but also one of the best adventures so far this year.
Survivor’s main character, Cal Kestis, is back and more frustrated than ever about the status of the galaxy. Cal is still the same mellow, trustworthy guy from years past, but he’s plainly worn down. Cameron Monaghan gives a fantastic performance that convincingly conveys Cal’s exhaustion from the frequent deaths of his companions.
Cal’s efforts to keep his friends and family safe are given new life when he discovers Tanalorr, a planet that has been kept secret since the High Republic. The story becomes unusually intimate despite the gravity of the information revealed. Although it doesn’t go for the home run very often, the story it tells is meaningful in a way that other Star Wars media isn’t.
Before playing this game, I liked Cal. Now I really care about him. Cal’s friendships are the backbone of this narrative, and they are given ample opportunity to shine. Cal is inspired to greater heights of bravery and compassion by Cere, played by Debra Wilson, a returned Jedi, by the ever-friendly Greez, portrayed by Daniel Roebuck, and by the mysterious Nightsister Merrin, portrayed by Tina Ivlev.
Noshir Dalal’s new character, Bode Akuna, comes across as just another hired gun eager to take on the Empire, but like the rest of the rebels, he has his own reasons for joining up. Meanwhile, Cody Fern and DC Douglas’s portrayals of Dagan Gera and Reyvis, two mysterious living relics from the High Republic, make for a nice contrast to the main cast.
Despite the obvious difference in the number of lightsabers on screen, I would compare Andor to any other recent Star Wars work. There aren’t any huge story twists that make you question the Force’s basic existence, but you do get to see the Jedi ideal analysed through the cold eyes of need. Is it possible to hate someone who is trying to kill you? When someone is already buried in their obsessions, what effect does betrayal have on them? Star Wars Jedi: Survivor excels brightest when it poses such questions.
Lightsaber duels in Fallen Order are back and better than ever, with the same tightness, toughness, and fairness. Cal’s skills are intact, and he’ll swiftly pick up some new ones. Single-bladed, double-bladed, dual-wielding, crossguard, and blaster are just some of the Lightsaber Stances available in Survivor. There are benefits and drawbacks to each posture, as well as a diverse set of abilities to learn for each.
Using a lightsaber with two blades instead of one is one way to quickly deal damage to many foes. The crossguard stance, on the other hand, is cumbersome to use and has poor timing, but its damaging connected blows are devastating. You can choose your attitude at any time outside of the tutorials, giving you a great deal of freedom in devising strategies for dealing with the galaxy’s many threats.
All of Cal’s Force abilities are back, plus he’s learned some new techniques to help him out of sticky situations, such using Jedi mind tricks to temporarily convince adversaries to join your side and buy you some time to regroup during more intense confrontations. Allies, if present, can be summoned at will and ordered to aid on occasion. Bode’s cover fire and Merrin’s anchoring of foes to the ground make dealing with a dozen Stormtroopers and an AT-ST a lot more manageable.
Using a Metroidvania-style technique to letting players return to regions over time with new powers that revealed new paths, Fallen Order’s level design was one of the game’s weakest elements. There was no means of rapid transportation, and some places, Zeffo in particular, were downright counterintuitive to get around in. Survivor is a tremendous advancement in every one of these areas.
You’ll never be too far from a meditation place to rest and heal, as your travels across planets frequently discover new shortcuts in strategic areas. Overall, this made the game easier than the one before it, not because the difficulty was lowered in battle but because my deaths felt less arbitrary. You can also use fast travel to get from one meditation spot on the same planet to another rapidly; load times rarely exceeded seven seconds.
You can also make advantage of the various alien flora to go about, either by gliding to new areas or by riding various species to reach otherwise inaccessible ledges. This allows for a wider variety of approaches to tackling environmental riddles, and I found that I had to use every resource at my disposal on more than one occasion to find a secret passage.
In Fallen Order, players could only alter the colour of their lightsaber, swap out a few skins, and gather the now-famous ponchos; in Survivor, however, players have far more options. Cal’s hair, beard, and clothes are very customizable. BD-1 offers similar high levels of personalization. Do you want your toy robot to look like C-3PO in his incomplete form from The Phantom Menace? You can have that.
Not nearly an open world game, but the planets you visit, especially the remote frontier world of Koboh, are quite large. Minigames like gardening and a holotable can be played at the saloon, which serves as a central location. The saloon’s talks, shops, and dialogue trees can be expanded with the addition of new persons you encounter and recruit. None of this is essential, but it provides you more incentive to venture off the beaten path.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor can look really good on consoles from the current generation. The galaxy is enormous, filled with glowing nebulae and exotic life forms of all kinds. The character models in this game are an improvement over those in the previous installment, and there are even a few breathtaking environments. The visuals aren’t the best I’ve seen, but I can overlook that in exchange for the larger maps and more populous universe.
On Xbox One Series X, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor offers two settings: a visuals-focused mode that runs at 30 frames per second, and a performance mode that aims for 60 frames per second. Dynamic resolution appears to be used by both modes, while the performance mode specifically caps the resolution at 1440p in order to increase framerate.
My experience with Performance mode was positive for the most part throughout the game. When I was exploring Koboh, the resolution and framerate would drop noticeably whenever I got close to the hub area. Some textures would even take a few seconds to load in. It was distracting anytime it occurred, since there was a noticeable drop in graphic quality and a slowdown in the responsiveness of the controls; I hope the devs address this issue before or soon after release.
You can change the game’s field of view (FOV), adjust navigational aid, scale the game’s user interface (HUD), toggle between button mashing and holding inputs, and more in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s accessibility menu.
This adventure is far more welcoming to a wider variety of players than its predecessor thanks to a not-entirely-comprehensive array of alternatives. After the game is released, the developers have said, they plan to add more customization options.
Let’s say you’re worried about how challenging the game is. The new Story mode makes evading and parrying enemy attacks unnecessary, making for a considerably less challenging experience overall. In this way, you can fight without fear of immediate death.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is, generally speaking, playable by newcomers. The game successfully refreshes your memory of familiar faces without overwhelming you with backstory. If you, like me, are interested in reading up on the backstory of everything in the game, there is a database at your disposal.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is an excellent action-adventure game that shows what can be accomplished when designers listen to player feedback. While the more introspective storyline may not appeal to all readers, I can see myself returning to the Star Wars universe time and time again if it continues to be this entertaining.
The current performance issues in certain locations are a minor blemish on an otherwise wonderful journey, so I’m hoping they’ll be fixed soon. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor expands on the Padawan on the run introduced in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order by demonstrating that Cal Kestis deserves to be called a Jedi Knight.
