My Overdue Jedi Survivor Review

Fallen Order's sequel, Jedi Survivor, was supposed to be released on March 17th of this year, but it was delayed until April 28th, and this killed me. For my money, March is the most miserable month of the year. It's a lot like February, but without the Super Bowl. Actually, it's worse than February, which at least stays mostly cold and the snow doesn't melt. Here in the Northeast, the daytime temps start to exceed freezing, so the 29 feet of snow begins melting and turning everything into a muddy, wet mess. I absolutely hate March. So Jedi Survivor's original release date was a dream come true. It would give me a pleasant diversion to while away my most hated month.

The delay to April 28th was a dagger because that's the busiest time of the year in this region. There is no downtime. It's constant cleanup from the winter and yard work. That is followed by the only truly decent four months of weather we get around here. I wasn't about to waste it inside playing a video game, but mother nature had different plans. I think I've seen the sun twice since Memorial Day. This has been the rainiest summer I can recall. I decided to take advantage of the inclement weather to power through one of my most anticipated video games in recent memory. And when I say "power through", I don't just play through the story. I'm not satisfied until every collectible is found, and all achievements are earned:



So what about the game? Well, I like it. I'm still playing it currently on the New Journey+ option. Having said that, Jedi Survivor initially feels like a some DLC (downloadable content) for Fallen Order. I hope none of the developers are reading this review because this game took four years to release. Comparing it to an "add on" for an existing game would come across as an insult considering that much effort, but at first, it's very much "more of the same". After the introductory chapter, you end up on the planet Koboh performing similar platforming and fighting the local fauna. It felt very familiar to starting off on Bogano in Fallen Order.

I'm going to avoid spoilers, but the next part is in the trailer, so I feel it's allowable. Jedi Survivor soon differentiates itself from its predecessor if you opt for one of the side missions on Koboh. You can get to this before even reaching your first story objective on the planet. You find yourself squaring off against a Rancor which is insanely difficult especially on the higher difficulties where the beast has some instant kill attacks. I would say that's a bit of a theme of Jedi Survivor. It's Fallen Order on steroids. It's the same combat system and platforming system but bigger and more difficult. I have to admit, having played through Fallen Order five times, this made the game a bit tedious at times. Some of the platforming felt more like torture than challenging (especially considering that I'm deathly afraid of heights). In two of the boss fights, I actually cut the difficultly down because I was tired of restarting the battle over and over when I died. In additional to the Rancor, there's another boss beast that is already notorious in the gaming community. It's insanely difficult.

Where the game's freshness comes in is with the new stances and enemies. In addition to the single and double blades from the first game, you get dual wield, blaster, and cross guard stances. This offers replay value, and it's fun learning the nuances of each stance. You can equip two stances at time, and each has its pros and cons. I felt that dual wield and cross guard provided me what I needed for most situations. The biggest impact from the new enemies comes from the prequel era droids, which are prevalent. This even includes the BX "Commando" Droids from The Clone Wars, which provide a good mid-tier enemy challenge especially when fighting a group of them.

There's a lot of "post endgame" tasks to accomplish, which really ups the overall value of the game. There is one series of side quests that culminates in a cameo that left me absolutely giddy. In the exploration of all areas you will happen upon Force Tears. These are mini challenges which primarily consist of battle arenas, but also includes a few platforming challenges. Some of these are beyond difficult. I took me at least 100 tries to complete this one:


Once I finally completed that, I actually celebrated like the Pats won a big game. This no-caps quote from Reddit about that challenge really made me laugh:

does the existence of an entire challenge level clearly made so that people can tear out their hair and threaten to snap the disc in half count as a bug? because I want to bug report this challenge level in particular. I despise this one, I rage quit and don't really want to touch this [expletive] game for a while. which sucks because I was really having a good time otherwise - IndiGhost77

It's not a perfect game. I don't think it's as groundbreaking as it's predecessor. It feels like exactly what it is: a sequel that takes the original and does everything bigger in every way possible. It's definitely worth playing in my opinion, and I can easily recommend it to our readers (many of whom have likely completed the game at this point).

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