Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (XSX) Review

In a galaxy far, far away.

 

 Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the hotly anticipated follow-up to Respawn Entertainment's surprise-hit, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Seeing the return of young Jedi Cal as he continues the fight against the Galactic Empire, the game aims to deliver a more engaging story and improve upon it's predecessor. I played Fallen Order this summer and I ended up liking it a lot, so naturally I had to check out the sequel. So, how is it?

 Five years after the events of Fallen Order, our hero Cal Kestis has become a hardened Jedi Knight whose been tirelessly fighting the Galactic Empire's forces. After a mission goes horribly wrong, he learns of a planet named Tanalorr in a galaxy free from the Empire's reach, which he hopes to make it a sanctuary for Jedi survivors and innocents alike. To do that, he'll need to reunite with his old crew and scour the galaxy for clues on Tanalorr's whereabouts.

Cal's arduous journey to fight the Empire continues...

 The story was an engaging one having a relatable main lead in Cal and unexpected plot-twists. Cal's journey from timid kid in the last game to confident leader was joyful to watch and the supporting characters such as Greez, Merrin, Cere, and BD-1 were equally captivating and had plenty of great scenes as well. The villains too were neat with their own motivations, though I won't be spoiling them.

 Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is an action-platformer with some RPG elements. You play as Cal as you fight enemies with your lightsaber and Force abilities, while also taking part in platforming segments where you jump, climb, and run around. Combat remains unchanged from Fallen Order as you use a mix of physical and force attacks to defeat enemies. Stances in which you change your lightsaber fighting style are back, with three initial ones to choose from. As you beat enemies, you gain experience that unlock skill points which you can use to increase Cal's health, Force abilities, and Stances. 

The gameplay's fast, challenging, and fun.

 Jedi: Survivor introduces two new stances: a "Blaster" stance where you can dual wield both blaster and lightsaber and "Crossguard", a slow stance akin to Kylo Ren's that can easily shatter enemy guards. You'll be occasionally fighting challenging boss fights, which will have you choosing your play-style wisely. You can customize Cal's appearance like in the previous game, but now, you can change his hairstyle, beard, and clothes. There's even more options to tailor your lightsaber and blaster to your liking as well. The game also introduces fast-travel between rest points, which makes backtracking less of a chore.

 Exploration takes a larger focus with each planet being a huge open area with plenty of secrets and points-of-interests to uncover. The likes include Koboh, a grassy planet rife with deadly wildlife and home to Greez's Saloon; Jedha, a scorching desert planet with ancient ruins to explore and winged creatures to give you a ride; a Shattered Moon in space that's been destroyed years ago, to name a few. What's fun is that the planets actually feel like planets with the bigger areas and I often found myself getting lost checking every nook and cranny. The Metroidvania elements where a segment of a level is blocked internally until you find a power-up later in the game to open it back in full-force, so expect to backtrack a lot. 

Explore large planets that are sprawling with secrets and wildlife...
that's waiting to kill you.

 Of course, planets are riddled with various side and miscellaneous activities to partake in. Talking to some NPCs will reveal "Rumors" that take place in a certain location, which tends to be either an enemy encounter, puzzle chamber to solve, or characters to save. In Greez's saloon in Koboh, you can meet a variety of characters that you meet across the galaxy that will trade items with you, talk about their life-stories, and even challenge you to a duel in the game's strategy mini-game. There's even a rooftop garden where you can plant seeds that you find in various planets. In short, the amount of content here will last you quite a while.

 Jedi: Survivor looks stunning visually with lots of well-designed backgrounds, detailed character designs, and amazing lighting. That's the extent of my praise as the game inherits its predecessor's glitchy nature with many pop-in textures, clipping issues, and choppy audio plaguing the experience. Playing on XSX, the game oddly struggles with the console's "auto-resume" feature as it becomes breifly unresponsive. 

Heavy tech issues aside, Jedi: Survivor looks amazing.

 With that said, there instance were the game simply looked stunning like watching the sunset views of Koboh for the first time, exploring Tanalorr's gorgeous waters, and even Jedha's sand looking amazing with HDR turned on. The voicework was terrific as I enjoyed the main cast's performances, namely Cal, Cere, and Greez's. As for the soundtrack, it can be mistaken from one of the films with how authentic it was. 

 In conclusion, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor proves to be a vast improvement over Fallen Order with its larger emphasis on exploration, expanded combat, and edge-of-your seat narrative. However, it's plagued by the same, embarrassing technical shortcomings of its predecessor. Still, it's a must-play for Star Wars fans and I can't to see what Respawn has in store next for Cal.