It's almost impressive how badly Electronic Arts has handled the Star Wars license up to now. Two Star Wars Battlefront titles came and went amid microtransaction controversies and lacking single player content during the earlier days of PlayStation 4, but there was always a bright light at the end of the tunnel - despite the looming possibility of cancellation previous projects had suffered. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was the publisher's big play for the holiday season, but it wasn't right up until launch that it would learn just how good of a hand Respawn Entertainment had dealt the Redwood conglomerate. Not only was it this generation's best title from a galaxy far, far away, but also one of the most outstanding original entries in the saga.
High praise indeed for a franchise which includes the likes of 2003's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a testament to the quality at the fingertips of the Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends developer. Borrowing ideas and mechanics from incredibly successful games of the past, it has managed to craft a lengthy encounter with the Force that still manages to feel wholly its own. Dark Souls and Sony's very own Uncharted series are two very clear influences, but it's how protagonist Cal Kestis makes those interpretations his own which sets this love letter to the prequels apart from the rest.
Finding someone with a genuinely good thing to say about the trials and tribulations of Anakin Skywalker and Jar Jar Binks in this day and age is probably a tall order, though it becomes clear almost immediately how much care and effort has been put into understanding the title's position in the universe. References are fairly few and far between, but when a callback does bring a smile to the face of a Star Wars fan, it's done with genuine meaning rather than a play on nostalgia. It is quite clearly designed by a team passionate about the saga for those who hold it in just as high a regard, although it's done in a way that budding Jedis can still get on board with.
In remaining accessible throughout, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order quickly becomes a crowd-pleaser. Lightsabers form the core of combat with parries, blocks, and dodges enough to conquer basic encounters, although it's never too long before one of the Dark Side's more menacing foes comes out to play. Force powers can turn the tide of a battle with pushes and pulls governed by a meter that is charged with successful body blows. But then if you do sustain a little bit too much damage, there'll always be a Meditation point nearby to cover up your wounds. Intense, incredibly enjoyable lightsaber duels are the crux of what makes the title tick, except with a Souls-like get out of jail card hidden in your back pocket, it promotes risk-taking on a level the Jedi Council would probably deem ludicrous.
Order 66 may have been what wiped those members out, but the game's storytelling in its aftermath is nothing short of outstanding. The ragtag group aboard the Stinger Mantis spaceship all come with their own distinct personality and motivations to help form a cast of characters who warrant their place in the canonical universe. Late-game reveals make for a wonderfully satisfying conclusion and the encounters along the way flesh out a specific part of the timeline devoid of numbered film entries.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is everything a fan of the franchise could have asked for. Intricate, impactful combat does the lightsaber justice just as much as the game's structure gives you the freedom to explore every planet's darkest corners. It may not tread new gameplay grounds, but what Respawn Entertainment has managed to piece together is quite simply one of the very best Star Wars instalments of all time -- justifying its position as one of the PS4's greatest games of the year.
Did you have chance to play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order? Do you love it as much as we do? Feel the Force in the comments below.
How we decide our Game of the Year: At the end of November, our editorial team creates a list of nominees for Game of the Year based on our own review scores and a number of other factors. After much discussion, we trim the list of nominees down and ask all Push Square staff to vote on their five favourites using a points-based system. The ten games with the most points by the designated deadline are our top ten PS4 titles of 2019. We then use this same order when writing about each game.
Comments 25
This is my game of the year and it isn't even close
@Roverjet Agreed 100%
I'm sorry but I'm not even sure it's the best Star Wars game on PS4, I think its decent but I didn't like the main character, pretty much all of the customisation options and the in game reasons for drip feeding what little powers you do have were laughable. I also feel it lacked any real ambition in it's gameplay and story.
Now on the plus side its combat was very good at times, the puzzles were interesting and for the most part the exploration was really well handled. There is definitely potential here and hopefully they get their chance to forge ahead and hopefully bring in new ideas rather than imitating other games and not have their hands tied in the story department by needless "canon"
I liked it at first but I am getting really frustrated dying all the time 😂 2 hits and you are dead seems harsh to me but I will lower the difficulty to easy and persevere
@Roverjet @THEH4MM Yep, totally agreed.
@LiamCroft "Finding someone with a genuinely good thing to say about the trials and tribulations of Anakin Skywalker and Jar Jar Binks in this day and age is probably a tall order..."
No it isn't, and hello there! Today's thirty-somethings are the kids who grew up with the prequels, just as the prequels' thirty-somethings were the kids who grew up with the original trilogy. This not only explains why everybody gives the new Disney films a hard time, but also why Jedi: Fallen Order was and is a fantastic game from start to finish. It's made for us, whereas the new films aren't.
And that's totally okay. As a gamer, I'm more than happy to be acknowledged in this way. I might even prefer it.
This game made it okay for me to love Star Wars again.
Best Star Wars since Rogue One.
Still waiting for it to just dip below an acceptable price and then I’m snapping it up in a heartbeat. The prequels have grown on me since they’re basically lovable sh*te and if this draws on the lore of Clone Wars and the like it should be fun.
@supergurr I had to do the same, and it feels wrong at first, but there's more than enough spectacular Star Wars to make up for the yawning ability chasm between its Story and Jedi Knight difficulty levels. Bring it down and you'll do fine!
@RogerRoger I completely agree. Might be an unpopular opinion but phantom menace is my fave
@Roverjet Same (although it and Revenge of the Sith are so close, it's practically a tie). It might've been the Special Edition re-releases of the originals that got me into the franchise, but I was the perfect age for The Phantom Menace when it arrived in 1999, and it guaranteed that I'd be a life-long fan.
Never thought I'd make as strong a connection with another Star Wars story, and then along came Cal Kestis.
For me it was a very good game rather than a great game but if they improve a few things a sequel would be something to look forward to.
I found some of the traversal frustrating at times it was like playing an old-school Tomb Raider game where if you miss timed a jump by a split-second or a tiny angle you plummeted to your death. I probably died by this sort of thing way more than I did by combat. And don't get me started about the 'sliding' sections, Cal handled more like an ocean tanker rather than a jedi. I hope they improve or get rid of them in a sequel.
The combat wasn't especially to my liking, not a fan of the 'blocking' bar you chip away at until you do some damage then it jumps back to full again. Like @RogerRoger and @Supergurr have mentioned I had to turn the difficulty down to easy to actually fully enjoy the combat and actually feel jedi-like.
Luckily the positives greatly outweighed the negatives. I liked the characters and being on the ship with them felt a little like Mass Effect lite. I also enjoyed the story, especially the ending which I thought was the best part.
Didn't like it at all to start with. It was a buggy experiance that lacked polish, but, that doesn't mean I won't play it again. Now they've patched it and updated it a few times I hope they've sorted the problems and it's a more enjoyable experience.
The game was way to buggy for me and also very unrewarding. Also backtracking got very repetitive as time went on. Still it had some decent moments but it is nowhere near my game of the year.
Really great game, I really enjoyed playing, though some early sections seemed to drag a little to me. However, by the end I was ready to go back and use force powers to explore new areas. I felt that the performance on my 'base' PS4 pulled the game down a little. As I dont bother with PC gaming, starting to seem like the PS5 makes sense next year, to run newer games to a better standard.
Honestly Fallen Order did the exploration and combat better than the Uncharted games. I'd even say Metroid Prime was the biggest inspiration for this game.
I give this game my 'Should have a new game plus but doesn't" award for 2019.
@BearsEatBeets well ar least if u fall u dont completely die, just takes away some health. I play alot of souls like so i find it to be kinda easy, the parry window is huge.
Definitely my game of the year, hands down. Im really hoping to get a good sequel to finally a good star wars game.
While it’s a pretty good game and I still had fun going for the platinum, it’s definitely behind the KOTOR games. I think too many people haven’t even touched them even though they are some of the best RPG’s of that time.
I love Anakin and Jar Jar Binks!
The internet can do one!
Elements of Uncharted and God Of War in a Star Wars game? Sold! It’s everything I love wrapped into one single package.
I'm the opposite. This is easily one of the most disappointing games of the year for me. I quite liked all the moments on the Wookie planet, but I really disliked everything else about it. After Sekiro and years of high quality Soulsborne stuff, this just didn't cut it for me, sadly.
I thought it is an okay game but there were things I didn't like about it for sure.
The map in the game is super conveluted and it is way more of a hassle to get where you want to than it should be. I also thought the combat was utter trash compared to any of the From Software titles, the animation just wast good enough to communicate the parrying timing compared to a From title and the fights become quite boring and repetitive.
I also thought Kal was so very, very boring.... I just never warmed to him at all, he was so milquetoast with nothing cool or badass about him. When you have that universe to create from you give us a boring ass human wet blanket.
Sekiro was supirior to this game in every single way in my opinion.
I'm currently playing it right now... Even though it seems to be a fairly good game so far, I wouldn't put it anywhere near Horizon: Zero Dawn. I'll say though that the story and characters are more compelling than the current Star Wars theatrical series. It's enjoyable but not very high up on my list of games for 'contender of the year'. That opinion might change however as I continue to play.
i platinumed it, but looking back on it, it wasn't actually that great in my opinion. it's a 6-7/10 at best. the exploration was the best part of it, but eventually trying to find all the collectables for the platinum, the backtracking just got tedious, and the holomap made navigation a lot more cumbersome than it should have been. there were loads of bugs, the camera was fairly ropey at times, and the slide parts were annoying the first time, irritating the second, and just damn tiresome after that.. i think there was one planet (the undead one) where i wasted at least 10 minutes trying to get from top to bottom of the slide because of the unhelpful camera positioning. combat was fairly crap imo, and even after fully upgrading, the force powers were still pretty limiting that you never felt like a jedi. to say the storytelling is "nothing short of outstanding" wouldn't even be true for a 12 year old. the story was ok for a videogame (going from planet to planet to discover an ancient hidden maguffin with the information for something important, has a large resemblance to parts of the latest movie), but i found cal be a bit of wet fish as a lead protagonist, just couldn't warm to him at all. greez was pretty good as the comic foil, but otherwise the cast was largely forgettable.
@Dyrual - i haven't played sekiro.. or any of the souls games, mostly because it's not a genre i particularly like, nor do i have the patience to replay the same encounters 50 times to progress. you can play this on easy and after the first couple of planets and a few health/force upgrades you can coast through it.. or put it on normal for a challenge. to be honest, i found normal pretty tough and frustrating at first, so i played it on easy til it got too easy there was no challenge at all. you can change the difficulty up and down at any time during the game.
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