Jedi: Fallen Order

Playtime: 15 Hours

Finished the main story on normal mode but that's about it - didn't do much exploration or other side stuff because I had no motivation for it. Managed to fill out most of the skill tree, and ended with 6/10 stims (4 containers missing). Didn't do a count of other collectibles/cosmetics because I didn't have any reason to care - won't be revisiting it.

I've never liked melee-action games (which I guess is the generic term for "Soulslike" games), since I've always found that kind of animation-first gameplay to be really clunky. A way I've found to describe it in notes is that it feels like I'm controlling a lead brick with 300 ping - I feel like it takes forever for any kind of action (attacks, blocks, dodges, etc.) to actually register, and then even longer for the animation to play out. Another way I've seen it described is that the controller feels like a way to give suggestions to the character I control, rather than an actual way to truly control them.

Thankfully, the poor mechanics don't usually cause too many problems in game, because the overall difficulty is pretty low outside of a couple of boss fights - specifically, the 2 major Inquisitor fights and the homeless dude on Dathomir. Those lightsaber duels are where the weakness of this control system really rears its ugly head - because of the animation-first gameplay, cancelling moves is impossible, but transitions between different states (attacking/blocking/dodging) are also very sluggish, meaning that you'll still get hit sometimes when you've been holding block for over a second, even 2. As an aside, this is also a huge problem with a few of the group fights in the game, where you can sometimes get stunlocked because of bad hit detection (or just glitchy gameplay?) - blocks don't seem to actually block all attacks from the front - this was a big issue on Dathomir. Lots of locked animations for killing stormtroopers which you can get knocked out of if someone else happens to hit you in that time as well - I'd actually consider this heinous enough to be a straight-up bug they never decided to fix.

But back to the bosses - they're boring as shit, because 90% of the fight is just waiting for the tiny window where the game graciously allows you to smack them a couple of times. There is very little reward for playing aggressively, or even for using high-damage attacks. Even when using a dual saber or split saber, your flurry gets auto-blocked after you hit most bosses twice, which is pathetic and renders almost all of the upgradeable combos irrelevant for the most high-stakes combat (they weren't useful in most group fights elsewhere in the game either). This is why the fights feel so drawn-out; they aren't actually very long, but so much of it is just sitting around watching for animations. If there was some kind of guard break you could do, or just a general acceptance of aggressive play, these fights could be so much better than they are. Also, a few of the bosses pretty much teleport around which is also really stupid. When I did die against these bosses (note: less than 10 times across all bosses in the entire game), I almost never felt like the death was because of a mistake on my part. Usually, they involved taking damage when blocking a non-red attack 1-2 seconds in advance, or when completely dodging the attack but getting hit anyway.

Based on all the negatives, I think my mindset after having beaten the game is not particularly positive, but I will say it is tempered quite a bit by the rest of the design. There are plenty of redeeming factors that draw the experience back to mediocre, but not bad. First and foremost, the difficulty of the game is very reasonable and is tuned well to complement the shitty mechanics. As I mentioned above, while the deaths were rarely due to my own mechanical error (I played on normal, so timing was pretty generous) I didn't have to suffer through very many of them. I probably died ~15-20 times in the game, which is surprisingly good for me given that I'm definitely not good at this genre (many of the non-boss deaths were just me being stupid, to be fair). The game also strikes a good balance for upgrading - for the most part, you don't get too many huge combat upgrades throughout the game, and can probably beat the final boss with beginner gear; the upgrades serve to grant you more options in combat, which is great until the boss fights. With this being my first view into a souls-like game, I'm surprised how unbothered I was by the meditation/bonfire mechanic respawning enemies in this game.

To further the point about upgrading, almost all the collectibles in this game are cosmetic only, with only a few side upgrades for force power, life, and stims. No annoying crafting mats or lightsaber stats, just pick a cool look that you like and go kill stuff. Even the DLC is just cosmetic as far as I can tell; I thought the orange saber was cool but it didn't actually do anything mechanically (except making the lightsaber flashlight a bit closer to a natural color?). I really appreciate that; it really shows a commitment to a purity of gameplay that they were going for, not an arbitrarily difficult gate for which you can buy a bomb. Because of the relatively flat upgrade structure, even some beginner enemies (like storm troopers) could still pose a threat in the end of the game - the game just felt so much easier because I got better (I should mention I used the default 3-swing combo for the entire game...).

Lots of other aspects about the mechanics were also stellar - the map was clear (but I still kept getting lost anyway), the UI is clean if a tad too uninspired, and I never had much confusion with most anything outside the combat, other than maybe a couple of puzzles that got me for a while. The game also looks great for its time, and ran flawlessly start to finish. Characters were kind of forgettable in all honesty, but the journey was very competently imagined, without unnecessary contrivances, and a very clear, personal tone from Cal's perspective, reinforced by Cere's presence. Oh, I should say that dumping Darth Vader here for fanservice points was lame in hindsight though.

All in all, if I had just liked the mechanics of the game, I think this would have been a decent hit for me, and a very solid game. A shame that I simply hate this kind of gameplay style, as EA seems determined to make this a bigger series... and the sequel seems to be everything people hoped for so far. Personally, I think this is a one-and-done game that I wouldn't have even touched were it not free for me on PS+. The positives and negatives basically balance each other out. The 7th screenshot of Cal doing the Nic Cage 'Oh Really?' face is pretty great though.