Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - Xbox One

It feels like it's been [ stares into the far distance ] many, many years since we've been graced with a truly well thought out, evocative, fun, single-player Star Wars game. Maybe the last one was The Force Unleashed, but even then ... I just kind of found that game not in the spirit of Star Wars and too much like a generic slash 'em up action game.Anyway, Fallen Order isn't in that style. As a game, it's not easily categorized. I've heard people compare this to Sekiro, but I haven't played that one yet. Basically, you play as a Jedi fleeing THE LAW (the law here meaning Palpatine's Inquisitors). The idea of the game play is simple, but ramps up throughout the whole game and continues to be challenging from beginning to end. There are no guns to use, but you do get some upgrades to your light saber over time, and a relatively simple skills tree that adds some new combat abilities, some of which are a must-have. But don't fret too much about what to pick; as long as you invest time in looking for MOST of (like 75%) of the random collectibles, and you spend some time killing everyone in your way, even when you pass through a previously cleared area that respawned the baddies, you should be able to grab nearly all, if not all, of the options.The game itself is solidly in the middle between a through-and-through linear story, and offering the player some choices. By that I mean you can decide fairly early on how fast you want to blast through the campaign; you can choose to bounce back and forth between 4 worlds and grab some XP, collectibles, and discover a few other things independently of your primary objective. But doing this really doesn't impact the story, or who shows up and when, or who you fight or don't fight, anything like that. So it's closer to an illusion of choice than anything like Mass Effect levels of variability. Still, it's a nice design decision.Combat for this game seems to make people love the game as a whole, or hate it. Personally, I loved it. I found it to be solidly in the range of "challenging to the point I was cursing repeatedly at being absolutely squashed for the 12th time, but satisfying in that there were clearly ways to defeat the enemies that didn't rely entirely upon luck". Truly, combat in this game requires patience, intellect (IE, studying your opponent's attack patterns, their style of combat, little things like that), excellent timing, and using the full range of your character's combat abilities. There are four levels of difficulty, each of which clearly advertise what they change, and I played at the 2nd hardest level. It was a challenge, but a fun one. At no point in this game can you just go super-hero and run through a group of bad guys, laying waste to everything, and coming out the other side with barely a scratch. Even groups of lowly, basic Stormtroopers can kill you, because blocking blaster shots is not automatic, and blocking each shot uses up a "stamina" meter (although you can improve various attributes to blocking as part of your character's skill tree). Additionally, ranged weapon enemies frequently fire in staggered order; IE, you can't just wait for them to shoot all at once, block a wave of shots, and then rush in. And as you get further through the story, the range of enemies you'll face, not all of them being Imperial, will get more challenging, each having different types of attack patterns, speed, and vulnerabilities (so once again, forget about just rushing and chaining an endless series of hack-and-slash attacks; not happening). I think the enemy type that I hated most was a surprise cameo by the interrogation droid from Rogue One, which basically just rushes in, does an unblockable power attack, then body slams you, sapping nearly half your health each time, and like 90% of the time I'd always over-extend my own attack and forget about this droid's insane abilities.Finally, story in this game is pretty good. It's an original idea, with a surprising lead villain, and lots of cameos, homages, and call-outs to fans of all things Star Wars. Two of the planets you visit are unique to this game, but you also see Dathomir and Kashyyyk, and also ... a planet that may or may not be the one used to create Starkiller base in Episode VIII. In any case, no real big surprises or twists, and sometimes things are a little hard to follow given the ability to meander around on various planets at your own leisure before bothering with the primary objective. I found the cast of characters to be wonderfully diverse and not at all like the typical people found in Star Wars stories. The protagonist, Cal Kestis, is refreshingly young but capable, driven, and morally set in his ways. The events that drive the story are a little forced and murky, but getting to play at Star Wars: Tomb Raider Edition is pretty fun. And the ending is a little weird with a completely unnecessary and artificial cameo. But I found the very last scene of the game to be satisfying, and hopefully the beginning of a sequel (don't worry, the game doesn't end on a cliffhanger; the story as presented has a clear beginning, middle and end).

It's basically like a hybrid between KOTOR and Tomb Raider. I had hoped it would have more RPG elements, but there's still a nice, slow trickle of fun new abilities you get over time and you have some choice in what to focus on. But it's a damn near perfect adventure game. The story is fantastic and engaging right from the start. One of the best beginnings I've seen since GTA V. It's not a game you have to play for five hours before it gets going, in other words. And the characters are all interesting, poignant and fully fleshed out. They all fit well into the story and all the loose ends get ties up while doing a great job of keeping it in line with canon Star Wars. Like if you just get this and put it on story mode it's still fun even though combat doesn't present a serious challenge at that level purely because the story is good enough to be a Star Wars movie. Plus the combat mechanics themselves are just fun as heck even if only the bosses have a real chance of killing you. They remind me a little bit of Shadow of Mordor in how satisfying they are though without all the combo stuff. And if you prefer an actual challenge there are harder skill levels that make the game very difficult and even a lowly storm trooper presents a real threat. I also like the variation in the stuff you do. It never feels repetitive. You'll fly on top of a giant bat, swim through caves, swing around gigantic trees on Keshyyyk, solve puzzle temples that all work a different way, travel to a variety of spectacularly beautiful worlds and learn all sorts of techniques and combos with both single and double bladed lightsaber. You can throw throw enemies off cliffs with the force, toss them around like rag dolls, hurl your lightsaber and parry with beautiful marital arts type moves. Just such a good game. Say what you will about EA, but this is the sort of game I think can only be made by a large company with many people working together. It's done a lot to rehab their image in my mind. I'll put up with a lot of bs if they can just put out something of this caliber from time to time. One last thing I'd mention is this game has enhanced graphics for the Xbox pro. I have an old Xbox and you can tell the game dumbed down the graphics for my old system. They're still beautiful, but I think to fully appreciate the immersiveness of the game you would want a more powerful system. There were also times you can tell the game is just a little too much for the old system. Like sometimes when you enter new rooms the graphics don't render for a couple seconds. It also freezes up for a couple seconds sometimes when you use the holotable in the ship. It wasn't a big deal since it always recovered from freezes pretty quickly and it didn't affect the fun of the game, but I could see it annoying some people. But if you really care about graphics you'll probably have a better system than an 8 year old xbox.