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First of all, the most important topic comes first: Jedi Survivor is a good game, but I don't recommend buying it now (at least not on PC), because as of May 8th, when I completed the playthrough, the game still didn't perform satisfactorily. Although the latest patch (May 1st) has improved the performance from unacceptable to playable, the frame rate still fluctuates greatly in many areas, the graphics often look very muddy, and the edges of objects are full of dog teeth (5600X+3060ti, 1080P, full maximum effects, ray tracing and FSR off).
At the same time, the game has many bugs in terms of picture quality, such as every time you start the game, the shader needs to be re-compiled, and the picture will automatically switch to a strange low resolution; The rocks of the mountain are blackened, and light objects such as cloaks and hair are floating around. Not to mention that the game still has a lot of gameplay bugs (the achievement system doesn't display properly) and potential balance issues, all of which require developers to take time to fix.
Action, puzzle solving and platforming
The game's predecessor, Jedi Fallen Order, had a set of Tomb Raider-like action, environmental puzzles and platforming systems, and Jedi Survivor inherited these gameplay elements accordingly, but with a series of improvements. For example, the action system of this game is no longer so similar to Tomb Raider, but more self-contained, because it better integrates some Jedi elements into the action, bringing more diversity to the action system, such as not only the wall run and double jump like the previous game, but also the air dash, etc., and a certain action clip is even more amazing. This improvement is a good thing, because in a Jedi-themed game, players should feel more like Jedi than ordinary humans. More importantly, not only the movements are smoother and more natural, but also open up more possibilities for platform jumping.
In this game, puzzle solving and platform jumping are more integrated, that is, the puzzle solving is how the player performs platform jumping. I personally enjoyed the puzzle solving and platforming sessions of the game, not only was the gameplay more enjoyable, but the game also struck a good balance between challenge and comprehensibility: the player needs to use their brains and some manipulations to solve the puzzles, but these puzzles also make the player try it out a few times or think for a few minutes at most. The only problem is that the game has a bug where the two-stage jump occasionally fails to trigger.
In addition, I am very satisfied with the overall level design of the game, not only the design level is high, but some are very creative, for example, a level can be learned through the trial and error approach of death once, and learn ways to reduce the number of bosses encountered at the same time. Some of the combat levels don't feel very good, but I think it's more about enemy design and balance than the level design itself.
Explore with map design
The Metroidvania design, inherited from the previous game, is an important mechanic in the game's level and map design, meaning that players progress through the game to acquire specific abilities in order to gradually unlock areas on the map. Similar to the previous game, the game does a very good job of encouraging players to explore more, because the game always designs some forks in the main road and puts some content worth exploring. Thanks to the Galaxy Castlevania design, even if the player fully explores the area, after advancing some game progress, he can still explore new content and keep it fresh. This design is a clever way to add content to the game, and for those who enjoy exploring, it also gives the game a sense of continuous adventure (adventurous).
While players often deviate slightly from the main path to explore and each aspect of the game is linear as a whole, the game's map is non-linear, heavily using a central hub design, even if the area of each link can be connected to the central point. Such several regions with a central point together form a larger, interconnected region, and several such large regions form a larger open world, and there are small linear regions in the open world that are separated from each other.
This design sounds very complicated, but the actual gameplay will feel very organized, because most of the area is isolated from each other: except for the center point, there is only a one-in-one-out path (one-in-one-out does not mean one-way). So, the game doesn't have the complex feeling of being very chaotic and several paths intersecting, which is very effective for reducing the difficulty of finding your way in traversing and backtracking.
In addition, the game's map guidance system has been greatly improved compared to its predecessor, not only with very clear directions, indicating unexplored areas (unlocked at this stage), but also as hints for puzzle solving and platforming. However, there are also bugs in the map guide, and in some areas, paths that have already been explored will be marked as unexplored paths. The map guide also does not indicate areas that are far from the main road, or hidden in the main road, which may be intentional by the developer.
Combat and balance
In addition to exploration, puzzle solving and platforming, the important gameplay of the game is combat. Jedi Survivor inherits the Sekiro-like combat system from the previous game, encouraging players to attack more and master parry skills to break enemy defenses. Compared to the previous game, Jedi Survivor's combat moves are smoother, with a new buff buff buff (perk), more skills, and five different stances, which is a whole set of different combat moves. Unfortunately, you can't equip all the poses, switch at any time, you can only equip two. From the 3rd to 4th generation of Devil May Cry, Dante went from being able to use only one set of actions and not being able to switch styles at any time, to allowing to switch at any time, and the game combat experience has changed dramatically (the biggest selling point of the switch version of DMC3 is this), so Jedi Survivor may have missed a design with great potential.
The game has a similar stop-and-stop Force move, which already existed in the previous game, but seems to be of little use. The input to release this move has been improved, and the move will change as the game progresses, but it still does not have a high sense of existence. Because as far as my personal experience is concerned, in 74 hours of gameplay, the power bar of this big move has not naturally filled up a few times.
That said, overall, I think the design of the entire combat system is very solid, but the combat system is also bound to have all kinds of small bugs, which are very big in some situations.
- The lightsaber throw skill is often mistyped as a Force attack.
- The attack determination area (hitbox) is very large and inaccurate, even if you jump, if it is not high, many horizontal attacks on the ground will be judged to hit the player.
- Changing the lock-on is very slow and often fails to switch to the desired target, especially if the enemy is clustered or there is a large distance between two enemies (in which case changing the lock is often unresponsive).
- Sometimes even if you press the treatment and hear the sound of the treatment, the actual treatment does not happen.
- One enemy attack is occasionally judged to be two attacks; As players approach the edge of the arena, strange little errors can occur in character movements.
This game and the previous game I have the highest difficulty to complete, and this game is significantly more difficult than the previous game, mainly because this game relies more on the player's reaction speed. Compared with the previous game, the battle pays great attention to the player's precise timing and accurate input, which is a bit like playing Vergil in Devil May Cry (if you watch the battles of some big god players, it will be very like watching Devil May Cry). But if the player doesn't react fast enough, the penalty for the player is also high. It feels to me that combat is a bit too dependent on the player's quick reflexes, and even many fast-paced hack-and-slash and strictly souls-like games don't rely so much on the player's reaction speed. I think it may be that the highest difficulty was not adequately tested (the game was rushed), which caused some balance flaws.
Enemy design
Typical examples of balance flaws are RPGs and charged-up shots that are a bit ridiculously high in damage, and many times the player hangs without realizing what's going on (these enemies should be dealt with first, but annoying targeting often fails to lock onto those enemies, especially when the enemies are clustered). But the balance problem is more intuitive, and the more dazzling performance is mainly found in some non-human enemies and bosses, because the design of these enemies and bosses is really offensive (especially the big frog) - their movements are extremely irregular, excessive aggression, one attack every three seconds, and even if the health bar is full, once hit, most of the health bar is directly emptied; The attack windows left behind are very small, the tolerance rate is frighteningly low, and they can also continuously fire undefensible and instant death attacks. So if the player doesn't react fast enough, the battle will be over in a few seconds and will be reopened.
For this part of the extremely badly designed enemy, the player's strategy can only be to slash once or twice, and then keep dodging, and you can't be greedy for a knife at all. But in addition to this part of the enemies, for most of the enemies in the game, the player has to go up and attack more, and it can be said that these enemies completely change the game from wolves to dark souls. And depending on the enemy, the combat logic of the game has changed so drastically, I'm not sure it's a good thing.
There is a type of challenge called Force Tear, which is somewhat similar to the secret mission in Devil May Cry, and this challenge itself is designed to be difficult. But some of them are really excessive, because the challenges involve 1v2 or even 1v3 with these dung bosses in a small venue. You know, even if the bosses themselves are well designed, multi-boss battles are notoriously difficult to balance. And the developers obviously did not think much of the balance when designing these battles. Because the player can experience that when the view is obstructed by the body of one boss, the attack of another boss directly passes through the body of the former and hits the player; Or, just dodging one boss's attack, and the moment the dodge ends, another boss's attack hits the player at the same time, this kind of challenge is very exciting to play.
tale
In the previous Jedi Fallen Order, my favorite thing is its story, which is well written and easily resonates. The whole story revolves around the experiences, struggles and growth of several main characters, each of which has a complete character arc, although it focuses on small aspects such as character development, but can be seen in small ways, reflecting the impact of the big event "Fall of the Order" in the Star Wars universe on each character. It was precisely because I was attracted by the story that I played Jedi Survivor.
The story foundation of this game is based on the fact that the player has played the previous game - not simply knowing the content of the story, but the game expects you to play the previous game and experience the growth and bonding of the main characters firsthand, because there is not much time in the story of this game to reintroduce these characters, nor can further character development of characters other than the protagonist Cal. It is undoubtedly not very friendly for new players who play the game directly, and for old players who have forgotten the story of the previous game. More importantly, the connection between the protagonist Cal and the protagonist group has not been re-emphasized and deepened, and the relationship with the new character Bode is not so deep. As a result, the important events and twists in the story lose a lot of tension, and they don't live up to the depth I expected, and many players may not even care.
Looking back now, compared to the length of the entire game, the proportion of time spent telling the story is very short, a lot of it is explaining things, and there are many invalid lines that don't contribute to the plot. Admittedly, the writing level of the dialogue is still very high, the tone of the lines is very consistent and can highlight the character's personality, and the protagonist Cal's character growth from recklessness to maturity is also portrayed, but compared with the story of the previous work, you can undoubtedly feel the decline in the narrative level.
postscript
Around the time of the game's release, Bloomberg published a report that Jedi Survivor broke records for production time. That's a compliment when you consider the game's rich content and the level and map design that I think will compete for the award at The Game Award. But if you consider the poor PC performance, glitches, balance and some enemy design problems, this is pure irony. Maybe it's because EA wants to release the game before Star Wars Day on May 4th, but what I expect is that the game will be released in a more polished state. Jedi Survivor is essentially a good game, and it shouldn't have left players with these bad impressions.