Review for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and | , the video game was released on 15/11/2019
“This is how freedom dies: under thunderous applause”. The second Star Wars trilogy, one of the most impressive entertainment products ever, could - roughly - be summarized with the above quote which, by reconnecting to the bitter taste with which the "original" story is introduced, leaves very little space to hope.
In the posthumous trio of films the brilliant creator of the saga, George Lucas, explored the origins and genesis of a dark imaginary, in which - for peace and justice - there is very little space. It is no coincidence that the first film in order of release, Episode IV, takes the nomenclature "A new hope", unmistakable sign of a small change in the process of being, capable of reviving the fortunes of an entire galaxy sadly fallen into the yoke of the overwhelming Empire and its ruthless leader. If the first trilogy, the "original" one, brings already well-defined events and situations to the screen, the second tries to clarify the genesis of these events, but only partially succeeding in satisfying the palate of the most die-hard fans.
Net of a more than valid job, in fact, being able to make everything fit together wisely was not a simple mission, not even for Lucas himself, who inevitably had to omit or at least deepen some passages, remained wrapped in the same darkness generated by the despotic rule of the emperor Palpatine and his followers. Raise your hand now, therefore, who, as a fan of the saga, has never tried to imagine what actually happened in that period of time, in those dark years that effectively sanctioned the general monopolization of66 order and its staunch supporters.
Paradoxically, however fascinating and potentially full of points of interest, this slice of the Star Wars universe has never been explored, like a distant planet located in the most remote corner of the Outer Rim. This at least until today, until the arrival of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, not a new episode of the large group of cinema exponents, but yet another tie-in videogame with great expectations or, to stay on the subject, hopes. Because let's face it, the aspect that immediately struck the work of Respawn Entertainment (Titanfall, titanfall 2) was precisely that of the issues addressed, even before exploring playful or structural depth and vastness.
In fact, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is located - chronologically speaking - right between the end of the second and the beginning of the first trilogy, in that dark period of time that has effectively sanctioned the definitive success of Palpatine, commendably backed by Darth Vader, whose ominous genesis is narrated right within the three films that served as a prequel to the whole story. It goes without saying that the mission of the "Bay”, As well as that of one Jedi, is anything but simple: being able to make ends meet, not only on a playful level but above all in narrative coherence, when you go to touch such a glorious and layered brand, is not a commitment exactly for everyone and it could not be otherwise . After spending the last few days in the red sun of Dathomir and the frozen lands of the solemn Ilum we are pleased to tell you that, basically, Respawn's mission succeeded.
The Force has shown to flow powerfully within the staff that worked on the production of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order which, although it shows the side to some more or less obvious problems, has been able to honor and even embellish an almost boundless narrative agglomeration.
A long time, in a distant galaxy ...
The story that weaves the strings of the narrative sector of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order it is one of the simple ones that probably never experiences sensational moments or sensational head shots, but is coherent and extraordinarily respectful of the original material from the first to the last moment. Cal Ketsis, our alter ego, is a young human who spends his days among the wreckage on the planet Bracca, a remote corner of the galaxy apparently far from the watchful and inexorable gaze of Order 66. The historical context is that of the tremendous Jedi Purge in which the self-styled order began the extermination of every single Jedi (but also of potential ones, including infants) who remained alive after the tragic epilogue shown inside "Revenge of the Sith". From the very first moments, the game lets us quickly understand the direction it wants to take.
Cal, and it's not exactly a mystery of faith: he is actually a Jedi, one of the few remaining, whose connection with the Force has however become quite weak, due to a sequence of events as grim as, after all, distant. The young Jedi with the red hair in fact, he never completed his training since - and it turns out as one progresses in the not very intricate history - the specter of the Empire has been able to extend beyond any boundary, going to embrace a good part of the known world with its dark clutches.
Inexorable and unstoppable, the Empire, at the hands of Second Sister, reaches the planet Bracca, with the sole purpose of tracking down and slaying the Jedi menace that lurks on the peaceful planet. For Cal, therefore, it would seem to be the end but, as in any self-respecting story, that episode happens, the son of pure altruism and affection, which triggers all events to a bit. Cal's best friend, Prauf, sacrifices his existence to help the escape of the young Jedi who, terrified by the ghosts of a past that returns to knock violently on the doors of his fragile memory, thus begins a path directed - at least initially - almost exclusively to survival.
Cal's mission in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, however, soon assumes very different and decidedly less "compliant" connotations. Approached since Waxes e greez, two space pirates with much to say, the young man embarks on a solemn assignment: refound the now virtually devastated Jedi Order.
In doing so, however, the young padawan first of all needs to (re) discover himself first: during the crossing, in fact, the pupil of the Jedi Master Jaro Topal he must find a connection with the Force, now almost completely dormant inside his body, in a sort of training journey that takes the form of a real crusade, made up of violent clashes, losses, unexpected alliances and lots and lots of fan- service that will accompany all the progress of history, lasting about 16-17 hours, seamlessly.
Without shining for writing or narrative depth, everything becomes extremely apt and consistent when it comes to loyalty to the Star Wars universe with which Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order manages to blend perfectly. Also and above all on the end, the title packaged by Respawn Entertainment never ceases to pay homage to the saga, when it manages to offer a satisfactory and coherent conclusion, albeit characterized by that same style at times hasty from which the whole journey of Cal is characterized. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a narrative product if we want weak, but it manages, with great nonchalance, to hit two goals that are far from simple: to breathe the whole atmosphere of the saga in every single aspect to long-time fans and to be accessible to those who, on the other hand, approach the brand with curiosity for the first time. There are many references to the universe they belong to, but well thought out, to ensure that, after all, no young Jedi, holding his pad, is left alone. After all, the Force is in each of us: we must know how to listen to it.
May the force be with you
The other major junction linked to the evaluation of production is undoubtedly that inherent in the purely playful sector, an unknown if we want even more overwhelming than that linked to the narrative sector. It is no mystery that i tie-in related to the universe of Star Wars have not always received the right attention, especially on a playful level and therefore the doubts of the eve were all in all understandable.
Fortunately, however, to make even the most skeptical of skeptics change their minds quickly, the very first gameplay videos in which all the care placed by Respawn in its bravest creature jumped to the eyes without any filter whatsoever. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a title characterized by a seemingly simple combat system but which in reality turns out to be much more layered and complex than one might believe. Young Cal, being a Jedi, has one with him Laser sword, the weapon that we will wield throughout history, a symbol of an exquisitely action fruition that never leaves the playful sector of production, but flanked by further branches of the mold role.
Thanks to the narrative gimmick for which Cal has not completed his training, in fact, Respawn thus ties a classic Skill Tree to the progression of the young Jedi, whose skills on the field expand as the game progresses and in many cases, are overcome in certain steps of the plot itself. The product packaged by Respawn basically manages to perfectly blend different playful approaches, whose general collocation remains that of an action-RPG with elements souls-like in truth only hinted at, a strong exploratory charge and a Platform component that is anything but sketchy. The practically open world structure of the game - not in the strict sense of the term but in the freedom it offers to the player in the exploration of the various planets present - is in fact bound to the skills of Cal which, a bit like happens in metroidvania, are fundamental in the exploration of previously precluded corners.
This complex system that intertwines various playful elements in a more than harmonious and functional way, is however strongly subservient to the plot itself. In fact, Cal's various skills are offered to the player as he progresses through the story, which requires some sort of practically mandatory backtracking where we wanted to complete the game in a total way, thus exploring all the ravines and finding all the objects scattered throughout the vast game maps. It is natural to think that, in the long run, the title will suffer a brute slowdown in terms of general difficulty, and it probably is. At first, without most of the various skills, Cal is clearly more defenseless than the numerous threats in the game, firmly accompanied by a level of challenge set sharply upwards.
Excluding the first level of difficulty, in which the enemies are practically self-propelled dummies, the remaining solutions show a very high general complexity, which leads the player to calmly plan each clash, both against the iconic enemy troops (Stormtropper, etc.) and against the numerous creatures that swarm the streets of Bogano, Dathomir. The playful complexity that develops over time is however counterbalanced by an all too simplistic combat system, in which a single button is used for contact with the enemy: the various unlockable skills quickly become the best way to bring the fights home. In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order there are now typical movements of the genre, such as the "parry", the dodges and the counterattacks, but everything stops perhaps excessively abruptly to be decisive when a higher mastery of the Force and its physical branches.
Young Cal in combat is partially assisted by BD-1, a small robot that despite not having combative skills is essential: exploring, opening crates, discovering secrets and information about the surrounding world are all features prerogative of the little cyber friend, who is also necessary for more practical elements such as treating our alter ego. While crossing Cal can find items that serve to increase units by Steam and expand the effect of the treatments themselves, unlocking specific skills from the dedicated menu. The elements in common with FromSoftware's work do not end there. The system checkpoint Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is, for example, pretty much the same. By exploring the maps it is in fact possible to stop and rest at some meditation sites and by touching them you can regenerate your health and that of healing objects, but at the same time you can also regenerate previously defeated enemies. From the “Souls” series, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order also recovers the death and rebirth system: once defeated it is necessary to retrace our steps in order to recover all the experience gained previously.
Let it be an elusive one Scazz or a skilled Bounty Hunter, this maneuver becomes fundamental where you do not want to give up the points collected. In truth, this last step is one of the most simplified things in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Getting experience points is actually quite simple and the amount of the latter did not seem to vary by changing the level of difficulty. What never goes away is the feeling of "sliding" of Cal himself, which manifests itself both in clashes and in simple walking. Especially during the climbs we happened to run into completely busted animations that often also misled us.
Memorable landscapes
Another delicate aspect, having to work with such a brand, is certainly linked to the strictly aesthetic creation of the title. From this point of view, Respawn has truly surpassed itself, bringing to the screen a universe so deep and faithful to the original one as to be almost unsettling. If numerically speaking the planets that can be visited in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will not make you cry out for revolution, the conformation, first of all aesthetic and then structural, will literally make you splash out of your chairs. Every single planet is, as we said at the beginning, practically freely explorable (after unlocking the skills necessary to overcome some points), full of elements to be found, whether they are "simple" codecs useful for the purpose of completeness and knowledge or the objects that are part of the arsenal of Cal, BD-1 and the ship with which Cal, Greez and Cere travel, the Mantis.
In truth, the elements that can be found have a purely aesthetic value in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: they allow you to change the appearance of Cal's clothing, the lightsaber supplied to the Jedi, the ship's livery and the chromatic features of the little BD -1. Go around the various places, such as the Black Forest of Kashyyyk, can have an incredibly romantic flavor for long-time fans since the reconstruction of various places, situations and stylistic solutions in some cases borders on the manic.
Every single ravine of every single planet will make you breathe the air of Star Wars deeply, skillfully mixing "souls-like" elements with "metroidvania" elements on the altar of a component puzzle solving anything but sketchy. The level design is in fact very intricate and you will often retrace your steps after having unlocked numerous shortcuts and having found various secret passages often able to lead you towards more or less relevant secrets, whether they are special enemies or objects of mere enhancement of the Jedi . It is a pity, however, that so much structural and artistic goodness is partly violated by a technical sector that is not up to par: net of polygonal models that are all in all pleasant to see and fairly "evolved" in terms of computing power, theU it shows all its limits if we analyze other aspects.
In fact, to a more trained eye, elements such as the excessively delayed loading of the textures, frequent loading between one area and another and in general a very basic quality of the animations and in some cases difficult to understand are quickly noticed. On PlayStation 4 Pro, the version we tested in the review phase, we faced several problems split evenly according to the graphics mode selected.
In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with the "Performance" variant activated (1080p mandatory, but 60fps) the game showed off all its paucity in terms of resolution and various pixel density, while in the second case, that is, taking full advantage of the potential of Sony's mid-gen console, the overall picture, much more fluid and pleasing to the eye, however, has shown its side more frequent slowdowns, sporadic but annoying frame drops and an almost constant presence of texture whose loading was almost always late.
Nothing to say instead about the sound sector of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, literally commendable. The sounds, whether from enemy blaster shots or from Cal's lightsaber, they are practically perfect, masterfully reproduced and accompanied very well by a soundtrack that seems to spring straight from one of Lucas' iconic cinematic masterpieces. Too bad for a dubbing that, as almost always, puts many years of knowledge of the saga under your feet, with a series of pronunciations bordering on justification.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a brave experiment, a battle against the darkest of the Sith, won only in part by the young padawans of Respawn Entertainment. If on the one hand we find an incredible fidelity to the universe to which it belongs and an overall satisfying and satisfying gameplay (especially for those who are constantly looking for a challenge), on the other hand we contrast a tendentially weak plot and a technical sector that is not exactly the same. height. Overall, however, the creators of Titfanfall have done an excellent job, solemn and refined, but which demonstrates, especially on the gameplay front, a sort of hidden fear in going beyond the well-defined boundaries. Beyond everything, however, we are faced with one of the most accurate products linked to the Lucas universe, capable of respecting it and expanding it at the same time in a functional way, offering the player a fun and satisfying experience. Recommend the title to a fan of the saga is now superfluous, but we would like to suggest the purchase also to Action-RPG fans looking for a product that is certainly not innovative, but which manages to have its say in a period in which the gaming world has been upset by Kojima and his Death Stranding.
► Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an Action-Adventure type game developed by Electronic Arts Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and | , the video game was released on 15/11/2019
