My thoughts on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
This is a review I should’ve done a couple of weeks back but unfortunately, I didn’t get around to penning it down as I started playing Ghost of Tsushima almost immediately after finishing Survivor.
I played the first Star Wars: Jedi Order game on PC and I have to say it was a remarkable game. I loved everything about it and I don’t even know if that’s because I hadn’t played a Star Wars game since the days of PSP (PlayStation portable) consoles or it was just the right game at the right time but Jedi Order captivated me in a lot of ways which.
Survivor on the other hand, is a fine game. EA and Respawn got a lot of things right with this sequel — from the gameplay, to the story and even the improved fighting mechanics — I had a lot of fun playing Survivor on the PS5 but I also have some issues about the overall gameplay.
The first drawback I noticed about Survivor is the difficulty. Now don’t get me wrong here I play a lot of games on either ‘Moderate’ or ‘Normal’ difficulty and if it’s a story-driven game like The Last of Us or Uncharted, I tend to raise the bar a bit and play a tougher difficulty but to my suprise, playing Survivor on Normal difficulty often felt like I was playing the game on the highest possible difficulty.
Unlike the first game, a lot of the bosses this time are extremely tough to defeat and I get that there are players out there who don’t mind facing a particular boss over and over again until they somehow defeat them (which is more satisfying I KNOW), I played Ghost of Tsushima on Normal difficulty and at one time I’m pretty sure I battled Ryuzu up to a dozen times before finally putting him down once I mastered those parry attacks.
So back to Survivor, it just felt like Respawn went a bit too far with the game’s difficulty especially with many of the bosses. Don’t even get me started on the final mission where you’d have to battle hundreds of enemies at different locations before reaching your destination and dying means you’ll have to face them all over again — sigh.
The next issue I had with Survivor is the movement and map. Moving around and flying from one planet to the next is pretty much the same as it was in the first game but this time it felt like it’s very easy to get lost around the planets and the game’s navigation assist isn’t very helpful most times as you’ll have to figure out the routes all by yourself. There are a couple of times when you’d need to seek the help of a walkthrough video before getting to your next destination because the navigation system just sucks in Survivor. If you’re not very patient, you’ll find yourself watching far too many walkthroughs just to get to the next destination.
So those are the two main issues I had with Survivor. I think the story this time is more captivating than Jedi Order and even the characters were more interesting and hilarious especially Greez, who after deciding to join Cal once again immediately breath life into the game. And from there the game slowly re-introduced us to the rest of the crew including Cere and Merrin both of whom were also far more interesting and played more active roles this time as opposed to the first time.
One of the things I loved about the narrative in Survivor were the twists and shocking surprises the game showcased. Jedi Order didn’t really prioritize giving us shocking moments but we did have some “oh wow" moments with the story except Survivor has that and more! So I think Survivor is a better game for the most part and I’m really excited to see what happens in the next game because Survivor didn’t really end with much of a cliffhanger. It ended in a way that’ll make you go “is that it? Or are we getting another game?”
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a fantastic Star Wars game and you can still have a great time even if you haven’t played the first game. Cal is stronger than ever and there’s new features, skills and abilities to help you take down enemies. I enjoyed it for the most part but it’s not one of those games I was willing to keep to explore later even after finishing the story.
