The latest Star Wars game isn’t what gamers are hoping for

STAR Wars Jedi: Survivor is a little bit like the classic movies when everything is going right, evoking feelings of George Lucas’ classic trilogy. 

It’s an excellent Star Wars game at its best, but it never gets quite past being a Star Wars game, failing to cross the line into a good video game. 

If you ignore the lightsabers and the force powers, you’re left with a game that is more often than not functional, but not always fun. 

Jedi: Survivor is set several years after Jedi: Fallen Order, and the crew that accompanied Cal, the main character, in that game have moved on. 

Joined by his trusty droid companion BD-1, Cal is still exploring the galaxy, trying to find a way to rebuild the Jedi Order without the Empire’s looming interference. 

A tipster leads him to the planet Koboh, where Cal ends up getting wrapped up in the promise of a potential Jedi utopia outside of the clutches of the Empire. 

Cal’s journey in Jedi: Survivor sees him meeting up with new and returning characters, searching several planets for new clues, and unlocking new abilities. 

At times, it feels like it wants to be a Metroidvania game, which usually involve coming back to a central home base and unlocking new pathways as you unlock new abilities. 

Jedi: Survivor does that, and you probably aren’t prepared for how often you’ll be returning to Koboh, which is heavily gated for progression. 

The basic progression loop is that you’ll complete a mission on Koboh, visit another planet, come back to Koboh, and then repeat the process for most of the game. 

Koboh isn’t particularly inspiring as a place to visit multiple times throughout your journey, as a fairly bland environment filled with sand and rocks. 

Between Koboh and some of the other planets, it’s very easy to get bored as you spend a lot of time looking at rocks or ruined spaceship interiors. 

While some areas typically have wide open spaces, you usually get funneled into a more linear path, removing some of the wonder of the open areas. 

You can, if you want, take the road less travelled, but you’ll usually just end up discovering a cosmetic or one of the game’s several currencies. 

Jedi: Survivor does at least do away with a lot of the unsatisfying gear and gold management found in a lot of similar RPGs, which is a nice change of pace. 

You’re able to customise Cal, his lightsaber, his blaster, and your droid buddy BD-1 with cosmetics found all over the game world.

The multiple types of currencies are used for different types of shops, with some unlocking cosmetic options, and others unlocking bonuses and perks. 

It’s usually worth doing some exploring because of this, and it’s an effective incentive to explore so you can unlock unique items and powerups. 

Combat takes a big step over its predecessor too, as you can equip two different lightsaber stances at once, allowing you to switch things up for different enemies. 

You’ll also have access to other combat options, like the blaster and force abilities, which widens your options considerably as you progress. 

Some combat stances are built for speed, while others are built for power, but it’s almost always better to just use the faster options as the longer attack animations can end up hurting more than helping. 

On the whole, combat isn’t quite as satisfying as it should be, with parry windows being unclear and large monsters not reacting to parries at all. 

While playing, it’s often required to look at your HP bar instead of focusing on the fight itself, as it’s difficult to know when your parry has been successful. 

Fighting groups of enemies is also frustrating in the first half of the game, when you’re lacking options to handle them. 

It gets better as you progress through the game, as you’ve got a wider range of options for taking down different enemy types and groupings, but it takes too long to get there. 

Combat can shine at its very best, when you’ve got dozens of options and the right loadout for every fight, but outside of that it’s dull and samey. 

The rest of the game is much the same, with plenty of options and interesting ideas, but ultimately a series of similar corridors and hallways that do little to excite. 

It also has a few issues on PS5, where performance is shaky and inconsistent at the best of times, with frequent frame drops even in the game’s performance mode. 

While an improvement over Fallen Order, Jedi Survivor is just too sparse and boring to keep you entertained for too long. 
Written by Dave Aubrey and Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.