Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review. A prety great game that manage to balance being both a great action game and a nice fresh Star Wars product.
Cal Kestis is sad. Being a terrorist is hard work, and no amount of lightsaber amputations is making him any happier. In Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, you follow his excellent adventure in reaching out to old friends, desperately trying to find new ones when the OG cast inevitably remember he’s a melt, and cramming as many seeds and rocks into his pockets as the force allows.
The latest triple-A action game from Apex Legends factory Respawn Entertainment, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the sequel to a surprising hit from 2019 which follows everyone’s favourite ginger hero as he performs outrageous feats roughly a bazillion miles away from any canon film. The first game managed to please the crowds by mixing a few Soulsian mechanics with a tasting menu of Star Wars’ most iconic aspects. We’re talking lightsabers, pushing storm troopers off cliffs, and a narrative focused on rebellion and importance of believing in the good of the universe. The stuff people have been lapping up for decades.
With the sequel, I went in with higher expectations. The team at Respawn did a damn good job last time around, both at making a great action game, and a great Star Wars product. After dozens of hours in the sequel, I do believe the studio has raised the cantina on both accounts.
We’ll begin with the bread and butter. If there’s one thing that Jedi: Survivor does especially well, it’s make the act of swinging your lightsaber around incredibly engaging. Even at the start of the game, Cal plays like an experienced Jedi, able to split a Stormtrooper in two and push enemies off cliffs. It was smart to start you off with a decent toybox of attacks to mess around with, and thanks to expansive skill trees you are able to quickly empower yourself further.
On to this foundation, you add lightsaber stances, which dramatically alter how you play. It’s tricky to nail the feel of a lightsaber (moreso than general sword combat in my opinion) because you can grab 10 nerds from a crowd at the Star Wars Celebration and they’ll naturally tear each other’s throats out over how slow lightsabers should be, how heavy they should feel, and which types of the weapons are for losers.
So it’s brilliant news to all of those dorks (yes, myself included) that each style is not only fun to mess around with in its own way, but also plays differently, too. You wanna mash that attack button super fast? Dual sabers is for you. Wanna sweep around and take out waves of droids at once? Darth Maul-style double-sided for you, mate. Are you 50+? Grab that single saber like you did at the movie screenings back in the day.
