Chindie Posted December 2, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted December 2, 2019 Surprised there's been so little talk about this. Sure that E3 demo was... err... not good, but the game itself has had a better reception. It's quite good. It's **** miles from perfect, which we'll get to, but given the parade of shit that's had the Star Wars name stamped on it recently it's a triumph. It's a bit of a mongrel of Metroidvania and Souls gameplay tropes. You have a take on the usual Souls stuff - bonfires, somewhat punishing combat that relies on blocking and timing, together with a progression system that relies on using new skills to revisit areas and unlock new bits of old levels. It works reasonably well although you kinda have to turn off your Star Wars knowledge - the 'bonfires' don't make sense in this universe, the lightsaber is nerfed severely to give any kind of challenge - but it's fundamentally solid. Looks good, mostly, too. It's very, very Star Wars, with decent enough contained plot taking place before A New Hope and some good voice work to sell it. It's not all decent though. It's one of the most buggy, janky and unfinished feeling games I've played this generation. It runs rough, with frame rate everywhere. It regularly judders to a halt as the game catches up to your progress to load in the next area. Textures pop in on their own schedule. Models will often do weird shit like judder away for no reason. On one memorable occasion all sound except force powers and it's take on audio logs stopped. None of this makes it unplayable but wow does it feel like this was kicked out of the door a couple of months early, at least. It also sometimes looks more than a little crap. In fact it's graphics are schizophrenic. There's moments that look stunning, genuinely, and then there's others where textures are more at PS2 levels. At times it genuinely looks like a remaster of a game at least 10 years old. At others it looks like it's pushing these consoles to their limit, if not beyond that. It has a maddening map, a deadly sin for a Metroidvania, that is extremely irritating to navigate, made all the worse by another issue with the game. It's level design isn't as clever as Souls, so you often find yourself backtracking along completely incomprehensible routes to get to where you want to get, because almost every route becomes a one way route. Couple that to is nightmare map and the backtracking is a chore. It's also far too reliant on bizarre slides in every level that just feel like corner cutting, and various naff ways to slow the player down as it hides loading - you'll be sick of siddling through narrow gaps or cutting senseless stuff blocking a corridor. Moreover, the backtracking probably isn't worth it. The game's collectables break down into narrative fluff, and completely pointless cosmetic upgrades. Sure you can build your own lightsaber, but this has no bearing on gameplay and you can barely see it anyway. Otherwise you can collect palette swap outfits and paint jobs for your droid and ship. I suspect there was originally planned to be a stat boost element to the lightsaber stuff, but along with everything else the game was rushed so it became cosmetic only. But... It's still kinda not bad. It plays pretty well, the jank aside, it's fun, and it's nice to have a decent single player title that isn't loot boxed and microtransaction'd to death. It's fairly challenging, and by the end you'll feel fairly formidable as a Jedi, especially if you knock down the difficulty (which had no draw back at all). It's worth your time, especially if you love Star Wars. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubbs Posted December 2, 2019 Share Posted December 2, 2019 Been watching lots of videos of this. Was kinda taken in by the whole Star Wars game thing. Having read your comments im glad I haven't taken the plunge yet. I'll wait till it's at a good price and some of the aforementioned bugs have been sorted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted December 3, 2019 Author VT Supporter Share Posted December 3, 2019 I've been a bit harsh. It's by no means bad, it's quite good, but it kinda feels a little rushed. It's like a good first draft. The fundamentals are there but it's missing the final pieces and the polish. It's still good, but not all it could be. I'd bet good money it'll have a top quality sequel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted December 3, 2019 Share Posted December 3, 2019 waiting for the price drop, the character models look **** terrible which has put me off 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted December 3, 2019 Share Posted December 3, 2019 2 hours ago, Chindie said: I've been a bit harsh. It's by no means bad, it's quite good, but it kinda feels a little rushed. It's like a good first draft. The fundamentals are there but it's missing the final pieces and the polish. It's still good, but not all it could be. I'd bet good money it'll have a top quality sequel. It depends if the sequel gets the EA treatment. From what I have heard Fallen Order is unlike every EA published game because Respawn started development before EA bought them. A lot of Fallen Orders success was due to it being a Souls/Sekiro-like Action RPG that was single player only with no microtransactions. There is every chance Fallen Order 2 will be everything people hate about EA games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 I want it to show support for single player none EA-ified games but it just looks so dull and uninspired. Was kind of hoping for something more from Respawn. Dunno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted December 6, 2019 Share Posted December 6, 2019 2 hours ago, Ingram85 said: I want it to show support for single player none EA-ified games but it just looks so dull and uninspired. Was kind of hoping for something more from Respawn. Dunno. Your support will do literally nothing. The October 29th investor call saw the phrase "live service" mentioned 41 times in 60 minutes. EA have no intention of ever going back to the one and done business model. Fallen Order is an outlier due to potential contractual terms and EA's respect of Respawn, rather than a sign of change. If the game looks dull and uninspired to you then I wouldn't bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted December 6, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted December 6, 2019 Will wait til it's on EA Acess/Gamepass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted December 27, 2019 Share Posted December 27, 2019 My lad has just had this for Christmas - I really like it (but have no clue what makes a great game) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante_Lockhart Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 I’m enjoying it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 21 hours ago, Dante_Lockhart said: I’m enjoying it. I am too - even got my own save game going!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshVilla Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 I’m loving it, best single player Star Wars game in ages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshVilla Posted January 15, 2020 Share Posted January 15, 2020 Just finished it. I really enjoyed it, fun but tricky enough in parts. Definitely recommend it to any Star Wars fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboyangel Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 On 15/01/2020 at 20:31, JoshVilla said: Just finished it. I really enjoyed it, fun but tricky enough in parts. Definitely recommend it to any Star Wars fans. Almost finished too (at the final big bad guy) but cannot finish it until my lad does as it is his game after all - he was miffed that i got the double lightsaber before him! I've really enjoyed it but surprised it hasn’t taken too long to complete. is this the usual size for a game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 17, 2020 Author VT Supporter Share Posted January 17, 2020 20 minutes ago, theboyangel said: Almost finished too (at the final big bad guy) but cannot finish it until my lad does as it is his game after all - he was miffed that i got the double lightsaber before him! I've really enjoyed it but surprised it hasn’t taken too long to complete. is this the usual size for a game? It's a little shorter than games of its type usually imo. If you want to 100% it it's a fair bit longer but there's not much point. It does feel a little like the game is half-baked in some respects, like a proof of concept, and part of that is the size of it. I suspect it would have been longer had Respawn had the chance to do so. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villan_of_oz Posted January 17, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 17, 2020 So do I but this? It's hard to know based on what I read... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pelle Posted January 20, 2020 Share Posted January 20, 2020 Bought it about a week ago and started to play it last Tuesday. I'm not a gamer so there are few games that really catch me, but this one did. I was home "sick" all week and played it almost day in, day out. I almost never do that. It's perfect for me Tomb Raider/Uncharted (my favourite game) meets Star Wars. Kind of. Not finished yet, but I feel I'm getting close. Don't really want it to end, but play it at every chance. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouchmefoot Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 Finished it last night. Really good throughout, like others say a bit like tomb raider fused with an update of the old jedi knight games. Could have been longer but finished before I got bored of it so all good I suppose 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wazzap24 Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 I know it’s a different kind of game, but this is not a patch on Battlefront II - which is now a completely different game to the launch version in 2017, with content being added on a pretty much monthly basis and no loot box/MT issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted November 5, 2020 Share Posted November 5, 2020 Finally on EA play Nov 10th 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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