"Stitching monsters" is not a problem, poor sewing is a problem
At the end of 2019, EA's Rebirth Studio launched Star Wars: The Fallen Order of the Fallen Warriors based on the top film and television IP "Star Wars". This is a work that was generally not favored before the release, but after the release, it made many "Star Wars" mysteries and players call it "Maka". After all, before it, the gamified adaptation of the "Star Wars" IP had been rotten for many years, and although "Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Knights" was ridiculed by players as a "stitching monster", its excellent narrative based on the "Star Wars" story background, coupled with the various gameplay "stitched" into line with the "Star Wars" theme, made it widely praised that year. Half a year after its release, sales easily exceeded 10 million, and the sequel was naturally put on the agenda.
Three and a half years flew by. Now, the new work "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" has successfully taken over, continuing the adventure story of Jedi Karl in the galaxy to resist the Empire. In actual play, compared with the previous game in the series, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's upgrade in content and experience is almost comprehensive. It not only improves on the existing gameplay of the previous game, but also further stacks materials in terms of volume, "stitching" more classic gameplay elements of the same type of game, so that the game can show a certain degree of innovation on the basis of stabilizing the content of the previous game. While not all of these innovations are satisfying, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is definitely a serious "Star Wars" game.
The story of "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" takes place several years after the ending of the previous game, and the plot still focuses on the protagonist Carl's growth as a surviving Jedi.
Players who have played the previous game should know that the narrative center of "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Knights" is the story of Carl, as a Jedi apprentice, after living incognito for many years, gradually finding and accepting his past self, and eventually growing into a Jedi.
And this time the narrative specifications of "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" go one step further. In addition to continuing to enrich the life trajectory of the protagonist Carl, through the meticulous portrayal of many supporting characters and villains. The production team also explores many propositions that "Star Wars" fans have long been concerned about in this work. For example, after the Great Purge, the attitudes of different Jedi survivors to fight back against the Empire, the Jedi Knights' understanding of the dogma of the Order and the most classic debate about the light and dark sides of the Force in the "Star Wars" works.
The addition of these narrative angles makes the story of this game more in-depth than "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Knights". Coupled with the fact that iconic elements of "Star Wars" culture, such as the severed hand terrier, appear frequently in the plot, it is enough to see that Rebirth Studio really understands "Star Wars". If you happen to be a veteran Star Wars fan, you should be happy to see the many attempts made at the narrative level.
You can even dismember some special enemies
Back to Carl, the protagonist of the story. From the prologue, players should also be able to see with the naked eye that Karl's abilities have improved significantly compared to the previous game after several years of confrontation with the Empire.
First of all, at the beginning of the story, Carl is already proficient in using two forms of lightsabers - single sword and double edge. At the same time, in terms of controlling the Force, some abilities that could only be learned in the middle and late stages of the previous game were given to players for free at the beginning of the story. If you happen to finish Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Knights before you experience it, the process of getting started will be very smooth.
In terms of core combat mechanics, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has not changed the basic disk of the previous game. The key to the battle is still the "wolf" style knife that you come and go. Although miscellaneous soldiers can basically ignore the block slot to kill them in seconds, when facing elite enemies and level bosses, this set of knife fighting mechanics that can deal large damage after breaking the block slot also makes the whole combat process both ornamental and challenging.
The core change to the combat gameplay of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is that Karl has up to five lightsaber forms and a richer skill upgrade route than the previous game.
In addition to the single sword, double blade and double sword that have already appeared in the trailer, the additional two lightsaber forms that are gradually unlocked along with the main story are also very "Star Wars" characteristics. In order to ensure your gaming experience, I will not disclose their details in advance.
It is worth mentioning that the production team has made each of these five lightsaber forms distinctive, and each of them has its own obvious strengths and weaknesses in the four attributes of strength, speed, range, and defense. Although players cannot freely switch the form of the lightsaber at any time, choosing the lightsaber that best suits their combat style and upgrading their skills according to their preferences is also the fun of fighting and character development.
Compared with the slightly thin skill system in the previous game, the skill upgrade page of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor retains the three skill trunks of survival, the Force and lightsaber, but also has a more detailed branching division under each trunk. For example, on the lightsaber, each lightsaber form has its own separate skill tree. In addition to the basic scale upgrades, the Force skill also adds the Air Control branch and the Confusion skill branch.
With such a skill tree design, it is clear that the production team hopes that players can gain a higher degree of freedom to grow. After all, if you only focus on advancing the main story, the skill points you accumulate after completing the level are far from enough for you to learn all the skills in the game. So, as you play, you can selectively develop your favorite skill progression routes. Being a partial student is far easier for you to experience the charm of lightsabers and the Force than a seemingly robust hexagonal warrior.
Thanks to the Shuffle feature added to the game, you can switch between different combat styles at the save points on the map at any time, just like in the "Souls Like" game.
You can increase the effect of air control early in the process, so that even when facing large enemies, you will not easily fall behind;
You can also pick two favorite lightsaber forms and fully unlock their skills, so that you can use more cool and effective lightsaber moves in real combat;
You can even prioritize strengthening your mind control over your enemies while turning multiple enemies on the battlefield into your teammates – which greatly reduces your risk of death when faced with battles that are obviously monster-packed.
Although compared to a pure RPG game with a rich choice of classes and weapons such as "Elden Law Ring", "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" can only be regarded as the skin of learning the character development gameplay, but compared to the previous game, more lightsabers and skill choices can also allow players to maintain enough freshness in the combat part of the game even after clearing the level and opening the new game + mode.
However, what can really support the gameplay time of twenty or thirty hours is not only the combat system, but also the larger scale and more exaggerated map design in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor than the previous game. This is also the upgrade that the official highlighted when promoting the game before.
"Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" does not follow the ready-made planet map of the previous work, but re-designs the semi-open planets with exceptionally wide exploration scenes of Ji Bo and Jedhar based on the 3D map design idea of Castlevania. Coupled with a number of large maps with more linear levels, including the Shattered Satellite and the imperial capital Coruscant, it brings players quite a lot of map exploration fun.
This scene is somewhat a tribute to the meaning of "Breath of the Wild"
Unlike the design of the previous game, which used all traditional linear 3D Galaxy Castlevania maps, this time players can already explore a fairly wide area of the map when they first set foot on Kobo Star, which is one of the main stages of the story. Especially when Karl arrives at the outpost in the middle of the map, which is one of the bases for this adventure, there are plenty of unknown areas to explore in all directions, and it is inevitable that people will not yearn for it.
Although limited by the main story, when players enter these areas, they will find that they are blocked midway due to lack of corresponding abilities. But encountering new enemies, seeing rich alien landscapes and creatures, and earning new collectibles and upgrade rewards along the way are fun and challenging in themselves.
Thanks to larger map scenes and almost insensible map load times, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is able to present a more exciting cinematic performance of large scenes than its predecessor. On Kobo, you can see giant alien creatures that take up most of the screen's field of view and the Imperial Observatory built on top of the clouds. On the planet Jedhar, the plot presents us with a high-speed crossing of the blockbuster map scene, and the performance effect is comparable to the boss chase of the new "God of War". These grand map scenes and epic grand performances are undoubtedly a visual feast for "Star Wars" fans.
On a smaller scale, in the detailed design of these huge 3D galactic Castlevania maps, this Star Wars Jedi: Survivor clearly learns the lessons of the previous game. Many map detail problems that once plagued players have been effectively solved in this game.
Here are a few examples that are obvious and improve the player's gaming experience.
In the previous game, players would often return to the planet they had explored before to open up new paths due to the needs of the story. However, the map does not have route navigation and fast teleportation functions, resulting in a lot of time spent re-running the map every time the player returns to the previous planet, so it is often easy to get lost.
By this time, both problems have been solved. The large map brings more save points and shortcuts, saving players the time to run the map repeatedly. Even if you're exploring new scenarios on the map to complete side quests and collect hidden objects, the game includes telescope markers and route retracement to prevent players from easily targeting and getting lost. In the main story, if you encounter a complex map scene and don't know how to go, in addition to BD-1 giving hints on the side, you can also open the map to see a special path navigation marker.
Secondly, in the distribution of map content, the production team not only stuffed more material this time, but also made the order and way of exploring the map more reasonable.
At a fork in the road on almost every map, whenever you take a few steps further inside, use platforming skills to reach a hidden platform that previously seemed impossible to reach, or complete a duel with elite enemies, the game will reward players accordingly - whether it is a simple collection or a recruitable NPC character.
One of my personal favorites is the presence of several Jedi Sanctuaries as explorable labyrinths on the map. The level design they bring is often more elaborate and complex than the box court map on the ground, much like the temple trials in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You'll have to use Karl's Force in the maze, as well as the special features of the robot BD-1, to complete a series of scene puzzles. Although the difficulty is not high, it tests the player's observation and understanding of the scene.
This excellent level design has already been shown in the previous game. Today, they appear as side quests in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - on the one hand, this reduces the overall difficulty of the main level, on the other hand, it satisfies some interested players, further improving the design level and playability of the level.
The above discoverable content hidden in the corners of the map is the essence of the Galaxy Castlevania-like map design. Compared with the previous work, the production team has obviously become more careful in the distribution and design of map content. If it's just a simple detour, you may only get materials to redeem for rewards, or collectibles such as costumes and lightsaber parts that have little impact on the actual game. But if you can face off against a hidden boss in the map or solve a maze deep underground, you'll get relatively advanced rewards. For example, directly increase Karl's health and Force caps, or special effect slots that provide additional bonuses in real combat.
Compared to the previous game, which uniformly opened cloak colors and parts from chests, this positive distribution of rewards will make it easier to motivate players to explore the map.
However, it should also be noted that although the production team piled a lot of material in the game map this time, not all the content appeared in the right place. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of ideas for trying to innovate, but some of the content can only be said to be more fun than nothing after it actually lands.
Since collecting items was mentioned earlier, I'll continue with this section. In addition to the previously mentioned collection elements from the previous game, such as costumes and lightsaber parts, this is to emphasize the importance of the new outpost and recruitment system, and additionally add collection missions for different NPC characters.
This part of the experience is just like Assassin's Creed and any other formulaic open-world game. Players look around the map for items to collect, but when they return to the base and open the NPCs' shops, it turns out that collecting these can only be exchanged for another type of collectible, such as hairstyles and clothes, which also has no impact on the actual gameplay experience. In the end, except for a few individual shops that offer "special effects" as goods, most NPCs can only "barter" to satisfy your collecting proclivities.
In addition to recruiting these merchants, the recruitment system, which is the main carrier of the new elements of this game, actually shows little playability in the gameplay. There are roughly three types of NPCs you can recruit, one is the merchant mentioned earlier, one is the side quest dispatcher, and the other is the host of individual mini-gameplay. But either of them, none of them impressed in the flow of the game.
Most of the side quests of NPCs are to let you go somewhere to solve a certain event, whether there is a reward or not, the story is not exciting is also another story, in essence, let the player open the picture and fight monsters, the shaping of the NPCs is almost zero.
The quality of individual NPCs that offer additional mini-gameplay is also uneven. For example, I didn't understand why the production team built a garden on the roof of the base for me to farm. Not only are the seeds in these fields very difficult to find in the game, but after planting them, I can't seem to do any processing of these alien plants, so I can only hang them on the roof and be exposed to the wind and sun.
Another NPC offers a holographic battle game that is relatively interesting. Not only does it restore the game of the same name that existed in the "Star Wars" movie, but as a built-in mini-game, its own quality is indeed passable. Players need to scan the data of their defeated enemies into the computer, and then they can use them to line up on the holographic battle table to face other NPCs in the outpost and get rewards.
This is a fun gameplay that can be carried forward by the series like "Quint Cards", but in this game, it only appears as a primary gameplay embellishment. The opponents that players can challenge can be counted on two hands, and the difficulty is generally not high, after mastering the basic rules, you can basically easily play after trying a few times, and there is a lack of sufficient challenge difficulty.
Most of these problems are concentrated in the recruitment system designed as an attempt to innovate, and the large map that needs more content to populate. It can't be said that they are worthless, but as a spice for an action-adventure game, they don't taste enough to interest diners and thus "eat tasteless, it's a pity to abandon them".
But aside from the small proportion of innovation in these processes, the combat and map exploration content, which are the core of the gameplay, can be fully optimized and improved in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor this time, and the production team's attitude of listening to players and quickly correcting mistakes is why I am really willing to score high for this game.
As the second work in the series, "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor" is still unable to get rid of the ridicule of "stitching monsters" compared to those action games with their own core competitiveness on the market, but the hard power of Rebirth Studio has indeed been confirmed again through this work. Coupled with the fact that the stitched gameplay itself is highly consistent with the "Star Wars" theme, it may be jokingly called "stitching monsters", which is not a very humiliating thing.
After all, some works are inherently suitable for being giants, and the most effective way for most works to be recognized is to stand firmly on the shoulders of giants.