I'm so conflicted about this game. To get things out of the way, it's a great game - but it has so many missed executions and it had a lot of expectations to follow up on.
Jedi Fallen Order was a hallway game. In Survivor, they attempt to remedy this (honestly, non)issue by creating this large open areas to explore. These are fun at first until you realize that the traversal options are rarely different than the smaller areas (besides the cute chocobo creatures). It becomes a chore to work through the extra content in this game, so I stopped pretty early on. If the rewards were better, it might be more worth it, but besides a few spare skill points here and there, it was mostly cosmetics.
Speaking of the cosmetics, they are so so fun. I honestly loved customizing Cal. I went with a longer haired Cal, with White, Red, and Black themed colors using the Imperial color set. It was a ton of fun seeing my Cal in every cutscene. But it never felt worth it to go out searching for cosmetics for the extras.
The story is, in my opinion, weaker in this game than in Fallen Order. I won't go into too much of spoiler territory, but there is a certain twist that felt somehow lacking in foreshadowing, but predictable at the same time. I hesitate to say the word cliche because it has a negative connotation, but that's how it is honestly. Despite this, the character writing is much stronger, especially Merrin. She's given a ton more time to breathe in this game and her interactions with the characters we got to know last game are perfect. The characters are the real driving force in this game.
Combat in this game was massively improved from its predecessor, with the existing stances open almost right at the start to play around with. However, it's the two new stances that really shine in this game. Once I got them, I never switched off of them. They made the game so fun to run around in.
The difficulty in this game is perfect at the Jedi Master (hard) difficulty. If you want a Sekiro-like difficulty, I would settle around there, with Grandmaster being a little too punishing to really attempt in my opinion. The game felt really good here, and the pace of combat was great.
Overall, the game is definitely better than the previous title. However, I do still feel very conflicted about the story and open areas, and I hope that in the future they really begin to finetune what works in these games and what doesn't. Traversal in the form of grappling hook and air dashing was very fun - these open world areas need to make more use of them in a metroidvania-like style rather than just empty areas to run around in. The performance issues were also a problem, even on the PS5 version. The game looked great (and boasted the best dialogue lip-synching I've ever seen in a game), but I would gladly take a downgrade if it meant better optimization for a steady 60fps. I hope the next entry in the series really strives for perfection - a series like this really deserves a masterpiece.
Jedi Fallen Order was a hallway game. In Survivor, they attempt to remedy this (honestly, non)issue by creating this large open areas to explore. These are fun at first until you realize that the traversal options are rarely different than the smaller areas (besides the cute chocobo creatures). It becomes a chore to work through the extra content in this game, so I stopped pretty early on. If the rewards were better, it might be more worth it, but besides a few spare skill points here and there, it was mostly cosmetics.
Speaking of the cosmetics, they are so so fun. I honestly loved customizing Cal. I went with a longer haired Cal, with White, Red, and Black themed colors using the Imperial color set. It was a ton of fun seeing my Cal in every cutscene. But it never felt worth it to go out searching for cosmetics for the extras.
The story is, in my opinion, weaker in this game than in Fallen Order. I won't go into too much of spoiler territory, but there is a certain twist that felt somehow lacking in foreshadowing, but predictable at the same time. I hesitate to say the word cliche because it has a negative connotation, but that's how it is honestly. Despite this, the character writing is much stronger, especially Merrin. She's given a ton more time to breathe in this game and her interactions with the characters we got to know last game are perfect. The characters are the real driving force in this game.
Combat in this game was massively improved from its predecessor, with the existing stances open almost right at the start to play around with. However, it's the two new stances that really shine in this game. Once I got them, I never switched off of them. They made the game so fun to run around in.
The difficulty in this game is perfect at the Jedi Master (hard) difficulty. If you want a Sekiro-like difficulty, I would settle around there, with Grandmaster being a little too punishing to really attempt in my opinion. The game felt really good here, and the pace of combat was great.
Overall, the game is definitely better than the previous title. However, I do still feel very conflicted about the story and open areas, and I hope that in the future they really begin to finetune what works in these games and what doesn't. Traversal in the form of grappling hook and air dashing was very fun - these open world areas need to make more use of them in a metroidvania-like style rather than just empty areas to run around in. The performance issues were also a problem, even on the PS5 version. The game looked great (and boasted the best dialogue lip-synching I've ever seen in a game), but I would gladly take a downgrade if it meant better optimization for a steady 60fps. I hope the next entry in the series really strives for perfection - a series like this really deserves a masterpiece.