The space, last frontier. It’s the journey of a sleazy redhead and his little mechanical assistant. PCGamesN recently had the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles to play Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the cinematic sequel, albeit in disappointing places, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Our practice session took place about an hour after the main story and began, like so many things, with Cal Kestis stuck.
Kal destroyed a holocron detailing the whereabouts of the Force-sensitive youths at the end of Fallen Order, and like them, he is alone. His overall mission remains a mystery, but we know that only he and BD-1 (always cute) will be aboard the Mantis come Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s release date rolls around. After a difficult time with the Empire, his ship is in need of repair and he knows that his former partner Grizz Dritus has the parts he needs.
This is where Jedi: Survivor starts to get interesting. Cal and BD-1 are forced to land on a planet called Kobo and search for their former pilot who has settled there. Landing far from Grizz’s cantina, I got out with my droid and started exploring. almost Kobo open world.
The first noticeable difference between this game and Fallen Order was the space I was given when exploring the environment. The metroidvania elements are still there, but instead of branching out into narrow paths, there are areas where I was only allowed to venture out with the indeterminate direction of my goal. The Fallen Order map remains the same, but now you can use the BD-1 as binoculars to scan and plot routes, placing markers in hopes of uncovering Kobo’s many secrets.
This time around, Cal has a few more evasive tricks up his sleeve: a Mario-style wall jump, available from the start, and, most interestingly, the ability to grab a climbable surface without player input. He feels a bit more dynamic in Jedi: Survivor, and the exploration is satisfying because of it.
The narrow, puzzle-filled paths are still there, but they seem to be more useful when you take Kobo’s landscape as an example, combined with a large town or grazing area. Random combat is also different in Jedi: Survivor. Squads of stormtroopers reliably patrol the landscape, and the openness of their environment allows you to fight on your own terms, rather than simply blocking your path. As such, the combat is a fun distraction from exploration, as well as a sense of naturalness and empowerment.
While Cal is attacked by the usual wildlife at all times, the skirmishes on Kobo seemed to lean a bit more towards the humanoid variety. He made me happy to see this, because moaning over a shapeless hunk of meat is never as pleasurable as yanking someone hard and hearing them insult me when I impale them with a sharp point. The barks of various enemies, especially the Clone Wars droids, were varied and surprisingly funny; not sure how much they chatter but it didn’t bother me while playing.
Combat has grown significantly since the first game. In Fallen Order, you only had two combat stances: one sword and two swords, with dual weapon attacks as a subset of each. Jedi: Survivor adds dual full-stance weapons and lets you unlock four more: a blade, double blade, dagger, and blaster, for a total of five. They each have their own skill tree and from my experience each one seems unique and deserves its place on the list.
The combat itself seems to evolve as the environment opens up; you have more creative freedom to choose your own path and also choose the kind of destruction you want to unleash. The new stances (dual wield, cross guard, and blaster) serve a unique function and offer good reasons to learn them, aside from the fact that they all look cool. The Dual Wield stance is hyper-aggressive, while the Cross Guard is the slower but more powerful stance, requiring a much more methodical approach to combat.
Speaking with Jason de Heras, design director for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, I asked him how the team tried to blend the extra creative freedom into combat without complicating gameplay:
“It’s always the design, the big problem with macro design, when you do things like that. Well, first of all, there are five shelves, but we decided in advance that you can only take two shelves at a time. It is a way to get the player to invest in two [stances] best case scenario, and they could figure out what works for them and what doesn’t work for their playstyle.”
Using the D-pad, you can switch between the two messages at will. This makes for some interesting combos and makes you think about your specific build before jumping into combat: you use a D-pad and dual blade to take on any number of enemies, or pair your dual wield with a blaster that takes out enemies. from afar before ending the case with a series of blows?
Of course, combat is only as hard as you make it. You can get out of trouble by hitting the random block attack button, but you’ll be rewarded with some real appeal if you manage to master some of the more advanced moves. One technique in particular stood out from the demo at the end of our demo, when Cal walked up to a group of stormtroopers, lifted them all into the air with the Force, and charged up his blaster to hit them all. He then took them all out with a single volley before turning his blaster around and putting it away like a true sniper. He’s not quite a Jedi, but cool all the same.
The combat additions and enhanced exploration options are welcome additions and feel like a natural evolution from Fallen Order, but in the end, like so much else to come from Disney’s Star Wars, it doesn’t do much, something to push the boundaries of what we have seen before. . I know for many, myself included, this will probably be enough to get me through the story and hopefully find Cal’s place in the larger world of Star Wars.
You’ll be able to get your hands on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor very soon, so take the time to review the system requirements to make sure you’re ready for every enemy and boss fight in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. If you can’t wait to continue Cal’s story, check out our list of the best Star Wars games on PC or even the best space games to get your intergalactic fix before the release date.
Source : PC Gamesn
