Respawn Entertainment and EA have done a stand-up job at delivering the first single-player Star Wars game in what feels like a lifetime of waiting. Jedi: Fallen Order gives players the feeling of being an actual Jedi with engaging and satisfying combat, several planets to explore, and a narrative that is surprisingly compelling. But, even with all of these positives, I can’t help thinking about ways that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order could have been an even better game.
More Unique Combat Scenarios
Whenever I would encounter a Stormtrooper or a volatile droid in Jedi: Fallen Order with my lightsaber in hand, I always knew what to expect and when to expect it, typically.
I would walk into a run and there would be two guys with lightsabers of their own and then there would be a group of weak Stormtroopers trying to shoot at me with their measly blasters.
This happens so many times throughout the campaign of Fallen Order and it was very predictable and somewhat annoying. Attempting to have some engaging combat with a foe only to be constantly hit by blaster shots was extremely irritating and it would have been great to see to some different types of mobs in the game.
The enemy variety also doesn’t change too often over the course of the story and I understand that there’s only so much that you can do with the forces of the Empire but different combat scenarios would have been welcomed.
Better Unlockables and Costumes
There are tons of little chests to be found on all of the planets that you get to explore in Fallen Order but the unlockables are kind of bad.
Being able to change the color of your lightsaber is pretty rad but changing the helm and the outer casing and little things like that are barely noticeable and it makes up for most of the things that you’ll collect.
Oh, and you can also change up the design of Greez’s ship and the color of BD-1 but best of all, you can equip Cal with… ponchos… like a lot of ’em.
I’m not sure why there aren’t cool and silly costumes like an R2D2 hat or even a hairy Wookie outfit because who thinks Poncho’s are cool? That’s right, nobody.
Fewer Puzzles
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order makes it a lot of fun to kill Stormtroopers and other iconic Star Wars enemies but something that the game doesn’t do so well is the puzzles.
Since Fallen Order takes a lot of inspiration from franchises like Tomb Raider and Uncharted, you can bet that there will a lot of climbing sequences as well as tricky puzzles to solve, but the puzzle sections in this feel like they are just there to slow your progress to a screeching halt.
These puzzles are typically too long and require you to run around looking for a solution like a crazy person until you ask BD-1 for some guidance, and even then, he’s not super helpful.
The combat is for sure the best part of this game and only to be interrupted doing these moments by poor puzzle designs is very unfortunate.
It felt like filler for the sake of making the game longer but I let out a huge sigh every time I had to stop and figure something out.
A Damn “Return to Ship” Button
If you think of one planet in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as one big labyrinth or dungeon such as how they are in a Zelda game then you would think that there would be an easy way to fast travel from one end to the other with a portal or something once you’ve finished it, but sadly, that isn’t a thing in this game.
When you “complete” a level, you have to use the map to track your way back to the ship at the launch pad and it’s probably the worst design decision by far.
It adds up a lot of unnecessary playtime to each planet and having some sort of fast travel system (maybe between save points?) would have been awesome and it would have made my time with the game a bit more enjoyable.
I feel like this was a mistake that could be remedied in a future patch of the game, but I doubt it.
More Time in the Oven
In all of my years of playing video games, never have I ever seen the technical issues that I encountered in this Star Wars game.
I noticed characters T-posing for split seconds, characters would float and pop in randomly, the game would just freeze for seconds at a time, enemies would flail about sporadically, and a bunch of other little things here and there.
It didn’t exactly ruin my experience with the game but after it happened over and over again, it got to the point of being downright laughable at times.
Fallen Order is a game that is not polished and if the developers would have spent a little bit more time smoothing out the uneven edges, I’m sure that a majority of these issues would have been absent from the game.
When you compare to this a polished and smooth game such as Sekiro or Titanfall 2, Star Wars looks pretty rough.
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