Star Wars Jedi : Survivor Review - Trust ONLY in the Force

WACO, Texas (KWTX) -

Released: April 28th

Reviewed on PlayStation 5

Code provided by publisher

Being a Jedi is cool.

Jedi Survivor picks up the already excellent formula of Fallen Order and elevates it with more compelling combat, far more elaborate world design and a narrative that drips confident writing from beginning to end. When we rejoin Cal on his mission to help the resistance he is a full-fledge Jedi knight, with all the abilities and force power he worked so hard for in Fallen Order. Starting as a member of Sal Gurrera’s team doing a heist on a senator on Coruscant, Cal quickly feels the hopelessness set as his years of resistance have done little to slow the aggressive oppression of the Empire. Desperate and down Cal seeks out old friends, his adventure leading him to a High Republic era protocol droid, that tells the tale of a lost planet outside the galaxy beyond the influence of the Empire. Along this path Cal discovers Dagan Gera ,a high republic jedi knight who originally discovered Tanalor the planet beyond the abyss.

This is what makes the story here so excellent. Despite being set in the well-trodden era between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, Survivor resists the urge to put on iconic Star Wars moments like a greatest hits track and instead leans into this High republic connection. As Cal’s fears of losing everything again leads him down a dark path, he seeks refuge in this concept of a space outside the oppressive Empire. Survivor deftly handles these themes of fear, loss, obsession putting a mirror up to Cal in the form of Dagan. The ancient jedi knight felt betrayed by the former jedi council and is pulled into his own darkness falling into his obsession with reclaiming Tanalor for himself. The conflict brewing between them sets up a few excellent questions: how much of yourself will you sacrifice for your cause, and could you really turn your back on fascism if you had the chance to stay and fight instead?

Okay so the story is great, and I don’t want to talk about it too much for fear of accidentally spoiling something, so what about the gameplay? First things first. Respawn has avoided one of the most notorious pitfalls of any sequel, depowering the player. Cal starts off his time on the capital planet with lightsaber in hand force powers at the ready and his double jump and wall run traversal moves already available. His lightsaber skills also have improved, it really feels like he’s been hard at work for five years training in the bamboo to become a swordsman like no other. His swings are more precise and powerful only enhanced by the new variety of stances he can choose from. Combat is fast paced but also requires careful thought as well as jedi like patience. Especially fun are the lightsaber duels against non-force wielding characters using lightsabers. Each mission and world eventually leads to more powerful abilities too. For instance, by the time you finish the opening mission you’ve acquired a new grappling hook, further increasing Cal’s mobility. This begins a steady drip feed of new abilities growing our jedi arsenal.

Unfortunately for our growing Jedi boy here, he isn’t the only one who got more competent. This game throws new types of enemies into the mix consistently, made all the more challenging by the sheer number of enemies in some cases. This makes your choice of stances and skill point placement all the more important. Besides the already versatile options available from the opening of the game, such as the double bladed and dual wield stances, Survivor grants two additional stances to Cal throughout his adventure. The blaster stance grants him a blaster and a solo saber allowing him to charge in for quick hits after a flurry of blaster bolts. Effectively timing these moves together can make larger encounters way more fun. If you like a heftier hitting sword form, allow me to introduce you to my chill friend the CROSSGUARD STANCE. A move set that hit like a pissed off rancor while also offering the best defense in the game. I legit don’t understand why some people seem to hate it. Do you hate fun? Look at this thing it rules! These options allow for way more versatility while still making you have to think carefully about your selection, neither one being overpowered and both needing some patience to master. Cal also isn’t alone on his journey, though he mostly does go it alone, occasionally Merrin or newcomer Bode will join the fight helping take out enemies and creating some rad co-op takedowns. The back-and-forth banter only adds to the charming relationships they develop.

A good variety of optional encounters from legendary enemies to challenge mode force rifts give you a ton of opportunity to hone your saber work. Skill points can also be respec’d if you fancy trying out some other focus. You can even spend some time practicing meditation points. Not that I ever had time for that because Cal’s vastly improved lightsaber, blaster and clothing customization had me constantly tinkering with his looks and my saber color and build or just if I wanted a scope on my blaster for some reason. I never passed a workbench without immediately making some change to my saber build. This need for more and more customization options also lured me into chasing any chest I saw. I checked every inch of an area before moving on just to make sure I didn’t miss a new hair cut or lightsaber part.

Alongside this more cerebral take on the civilized weapon of the Jedi is a reinvigorated world design. Respawn has taken their version of metroidvania level making and expanded outward to more open world style levels. This creates a far more lived in space, full of local legends to investigate, puzzles to solve and carefully hidden collectibles to uncover. The recursive design elements of this style can sometimes mean missing those all-important meditation sites can have you sent back miles from where you were if you die. This makes for some rather tedious backtracking, sometimes forcing you to replay areas multiple times just to get to the next spot to sit down and pray to Yoda. That being said, for the most part that “ooo I got a new thing to try better take this short cut back here and see if this thing unlocks now” style of design really does pay off. Movement plays a huge role here too; I fully fell in love with the force parkour challenges. These really nail down that force assisted movement that once mastered makes even the most insane traversal seem doable. Speaking of the world, the new hub area consisting of a western style town full of prospectors and farmers is really a charming and welcome addition. Recruiting and building on the town’s residents is a lot of fun and drives most of the side activities. Some of them become vendors for cosmetics and some simply tell you to explore certain rumors. Others are a DJ droid here to drop a sick beat. It really makes the world feel fully alive to see normal people in Star Wars just eeking out and existence. Even if most of these characters are fairly one dimensional.

The craziest part about this game though, is how much it has in common with last year’s Pokémon Scarlett and Violet. - don’t laugh- Not just because this game is less linear and more open than its predecessor or because it has cute creatures that you can battle and collect (kind of) but because this is a game from one of the biggest media franchise in the world, published by one of the largest game publishers in the world from a AAA studio, so full of weird jank, visual issues and truly unacceptable polish problems that I can’t believe I still love it enough to give it as high a score as I’m going to. Frame rate issues abound throughout this game, textures tear and sometimes an enemy doesn’t spawn exactly right. All those things can be patched and fixed, but you know what can’t. The Story.

Ultimately, I can’t get over how excellent the story is, Cal walks the fine line of light and dark more so than any character since Anakin has. So much so he get to the point where he even embraces some aspects of his own darkness. His journey to find safety and life outside the influence of the empire conflicts with his desire to fight for the hope of the galaxy, putting his values to the test as he sees more and more sacrifices of his soul to do what he has too. I loved seeing Cal and the crew of the mantis reunite to find Tanalor with the promise of a fresh start, everyone’s characters progressed outside the game in the 5 year gap and you can really feel how much more mature the whole team is this time around. Moment to moment dialogue only helps to build on this sense of emotional growth. While the main story starts a little slow in the beginning, it quickly turns into a tale whose key tenant of this game reminds me of a recent quote from Yoda in the High Republic comics where he reminds another Jedi that the struggle between light and dark is not a onetime victory it’s a battle we face daily. It’s not enough to just fight for what is right, you have to fight for what is good with good. Cal’s willingness to walk his own path outside of the confines created by Jedi order is more in line with the views of a grey jedi. I absolutely loved this. An incredible Star Wars story, a thrilling odyssey in its own right and an action game full of thrilling, thoughtfully constructed showdowns and lots of interesting places to explore. So despite it’s various flaws and technical difficulties I’m still giving this game a 9. That being said, next time just delay the game a little longer to polish out these issues. EA you have so much money and I know the developers at Respawn would have loved to make every part of this game as fluid as they could have. I know patches are coming but still... Okay rant over. Jedi Survivor is a vast improvement on everything in Fallen Order and now ranks up in the top of my favorite Star Wars story. Respawn has effectively re-captured that sense of wonder Star Wars gives me and wrapped it in excellent narrative, gloriously fun combat that fully captures the power of the jedi while also expanding the lore in new and inventive ways. Even if you aren’t a stalward Star Wars fan, this game offers a thrilling adventure story to engross yourself in. It may not be perfect but man does being a jedi never stop being a thrill. If you like this review leave a like on our video and hey why not subscribe so you don’t miss our next one. For Hardwired I’m Andrew Hamilton.

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