Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019)

Initial level design was a challenge (you'll be swearing at the level designers for sure), but trust me that you'll ultimately get accustomed to how the designs work. Spending time in this game, learning to use the map, building up Cal's powers and learning how to fight effectively (it's a Souls-lite kind of game) is so worth sticking it out because the story that unfolds is damn satisfying when the credits roll at the end.

I 100%'d the game (spent 85 hours, though most people will do it far quicker) on Xbox Series X, had some minor audio desync towards the end that I would attribute to Quick Resume (closing and reloading fixed it, but I missed a cutscene that I had to look up and watch).

Fantastic game, can't wait to go through the sequel Jedi: Survivor (playing it on PC with some performance mods).

I really wanted to give this game 4 stars, but it was so damn buggy that I just can't. Playing on an Xbox One S (2016), I kept running into issues such as enemies spawning in front of or behind me in a T-pose. Frequent-ish pauses for the game to load, and as the game went on, bugs got worse. I had one moment where it just crashed and I went back to the dashboard. Last night, I was wall running and after jumping off to land on ground, I fell through the world instead and died.

This definitely could've used some more patches as I don't think all of the issues are related to being on an older console. And this game came out in 2019, so my console was only 3 years old. Performance should've been better than it was.

Let it be known that I am not a Star Wars fan. I don't really actively dislike it, for the record, I just flat out don't care about it. I appreciate and respect the original trilogy for its placement in film history, but other than that I really just don't care. That being said, it was a surprise even to me how much I enjoyed this. I finally beat it last night, and god was it a good time.

It controls so well (aside from some minor expected jankiness that comes with all games), and even though its clearly optimized for a newer console it ran on my Xbox One almost perfectly. Each level was distinct and unique, and it had some of the neatest boss encounters I've had in years outside of Hollow Knight. It had an excellent soundtrack, and for once, I actually genuinely liked the cast. Imagine that, a Star Wars product with a fully enjoyable cast! What a novelty.

So yeah, this was a delight, and I look forward to going through and getting all the collectibles, secrets and etc and perhaps getting 100% in this game achievement wise. It was really fun. That being said, I admit I turned down the difficulty to story mode, but perhaps not for the reason you might think. Let me explain. I always play things on normal, but as I've gotten older, and games have gotten longer, and I have less time to sit here and do the same thing for 8 hours at a time, I simply cannot replay sections of stuff for hours on end. I got through the first half if not more of the game on normal, but after that I asked myself, "Does this game have difficulty related achievements? No? Okay then" and put the difficulty down to story mode.

If there are difficulty related achievements, I will play the game as it requires to be played, but if there isn't, I think I'm just at the point in my life and gaming career where I just wanna get through things as quick as possible to move onto other things. It wasn't even cause the game (outside of the Trilla fights) was hard, because quite frankly it wasn't, it was more just to push it along faster. The only negative thing I wish I could say is that I wish - and I understand why there isn't - I could fast travel between meditation points, and I also hate the map with a burning passion and wish I could either have a compass or put waypoints. That's my only negative thing about this game.

And...despite not being a general fan of the franchise and IP as a whole, even I gotta say both my girlfriend and I were totally taken by surprise by the darth vader appearance at the end. That was really cool, and unexpected, and we really liked that. So yeah, totally great game, glad I played it, and I look forward to playing a sequel someday. This singular game was better than anything else the franchise has ever put out, and I don't feel like I'm remotely wrong for admitting that. Easily one of the top 10 best games I played this year.