Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Review (PS4)

For a game that wasn't even suppose to be a Star Wars game, Fallen Order succeeds and even exceeds  in being one. Combining gameplay elements from other successful games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted, the game leaves the epic space battles behind and focuses more on platforming, puzzle solving and exploration. 

Fallen Order takes place after Revenge of the Sith and you play as Cal Kestis, a young Jedi who's been in hiding from the Empire. When discovered he is rescued by a former Jedi Knight and her pilot. Together they travel to different planets, discover a lost civilization and try to track down Force sensitive children to protect them from the Empire.

In the game you travel to exotic locations, explore ancient tombs and learn the way of the Force. You're trusted travel companion is a droid called BD-1 and he helps you unlock doors, scan items in the world, loot chests and more. By the end of the game you have learned a lot and become a Jedi Knight, capable and dangerous. Which brings us to combat.

Combat is all about evading, parrying and blocking and then striking when the enemy is at its most vulnerable. Timing can prove to be quite challenging and even when you think you're evading at the right time you somehow get hit. The Force also allow you to push and pull object or enemies as well as freeze them. This is quite handy both when platforming and in combat situations.

I usually play games on normal difficulty but this time I had to swallow my pride and set the difficulty to easy. The boss fights were just too challenging and I was more interested in exploring the world than fighting. Make peace not war, dude.

If you want a greater challenge, by all means, set a higher difficulty. By scanning defeated enemies you get an insight into how to best beat them. Good thing is that you can switch the difficulty at anytime.

Of all the things in the game, I actually enjoyed platforming the most. There are so many cool mechanics. You can run on walls (Prince of Persia style), use the force to freeze or move objects and so on. Combat, as I mentioned, was a double edged sword, (or light saber if you will) fun at times, but frustrating other times. Especially when you have to backtrack and all enemies have respawned. It's just annoying to have to fight them all over again. 

Ironically, I think the biggest strength with Fallen Order is that it feels more like an adventure game than a "Star Wars game". Even without the lore from the Star Wars universe it's a good game on its own. I wouldn't go so far to say that Fallen Order is as good as the best games in the adventure genre, but it is a worthy contender and definitely a must play.