Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order review: The best Star Wars game in years

Forget the new TV show and the film coming out next month. There is another fabulous Star Wars story for you to experience first.

There’s something hilarious about enemy stormtroopers panicking as you mow down their friends with your lightsaber, then simply saying, “Oh dear,” that makes Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order so charming and full of personality.

This is EA’s third Star Wars game since acquiring the publishing rights in 2013, and is without a doubt, by quite some distance, the best so far. It’s finally the game that fans have been waiting for.

What’s more is that this game is official Star Wars canon, so if you’re a fan of the series then this is an absolute must play.

It also introduces two new, never before explored planets to the ever expanding universe, Zeffo and Bogano.

Plenty of ways to traverse the terrain.

Developed by Respawn Entertainment, Fallen Ordertakes place five years after Order 66 in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and sees players follow Jedi padawan and purge survivor Cal Kestis.

After using his force powers to save a friend, Cal is discovered by the Empire and quickly finds himself being hunted by evil imperial Inquisitors, while also searching for an item which could save the Jedi Order from extinction.

Outrunning storm troopers while simultaneously trying to save the Jedi Order from extinction is no easy task.

While Star Wars Battlefront 2 had a short campaign and a big focus on multiplayer, Fallen Order is definitely just a single player campaign, with no multiplayer functions. While this may disappoint some fans, it is undoubtedly the right move, really taking things back to basics and giving fans 100 per cent pure Star Wars.

Gameplay is a mix of action, platforming adventure, exploration and puzzle solving with some very interesting combat mechanics taken from one of the best series in gaming, the Souls series by From Software.

If you’ve played any of these games before it’s impossible not to notice some of the similarities to Dark Souls and 2019’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and this is by no means a bad thing. The focus on parrying lightsaber combat really makes deflecting enemy attacks and gunfire feel more realistic, as does the use of a stamina bar so players don’t just continuously block enemy attacks forever.

Also like the Souls series, Fallen Order ditches autosaves and uses a bonfire-like meditation checkpoint system. Upon dying, players are sent back to their most recent meditation point. They also lose all new experience they’ve accumulated – to get it back, they must seek out the enemy that killed them and score a hit on them.

Jedi: Fallen Order lightsaber combat feels realistic

While Dark Souls and Sekiro are well known for their punishing difficulty, part of what makes Fallen Order stand apart is the use of different difficulty levels, which make this game more playable and accessible for a large number of players.

The biggest criticism of Fallen Order prior to release was that players would be unable to dismember enemies with their lightsabers. Barbarism aside, if this is an issue for you then no need to worry, since this isn’t entirely true, and it’s also not a huge distraction when you’re playing.

Jedi: Fallen Order is the best Star Wars game in a while.

The supporting characters and friends of Cal are mostly well written, and without mentioning spoilers, we even get to meet well known characters in the Star Wars Universe. The absolute standout supporting character is your companion droid BD-1, who is hands down one of the cutest droids in the Star Wars series.

VERDICT

Fallen Order is by far the best game in the series for a long time, and definitely a must play for any gamers who are fans of the franchise.

It moves past the loot box controversy of Star Wars Battlefront 2, and gives fans what they needed – a kick-ass Star Wars story from a relatively unexplored time period of the canon, that lets you live out nerdy fantasies of wielding a lightsaber and using the force.

What more could you want?

Score: 4/5

Wilson Smith is a games writer for news.com.au. Continue the conversation with him on Twitter at @wilson_smithdt

Originally published as Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order review: The best Star Wars game in years