Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review: Letting Down the Jedi Order
Electronic Arts’ tragic mishandling of the license did at least result in one thoroughly great game:. It was a well-paced action title and far cry from the other games at the time that also left plenty of room for improvement. Respawn Entertainment’s was a similarly solid idea that was able to flourish with its impeccable sequel. does expand upon ‘s base by adding more open spaces and a bigger suite of companions, but also stumbles in many of the same ways and fails to be the significantly better second entry it deserves to be.
The combat is the ultimate example of ‘s inability to meaningfully improve. Protagonist Cal Kestis has access to a few more lightsaber types that all have their own stats, strengths, and weaknesses. For example, the Crossguard stance with the Kylo Ren-esque lightsaber is plodding but powerful and the Blaster style adds in a mix of ranged blasting and melee swordplay. All five are different and have a unique array of slashes and swipes, although they aren’t as expansive as they could be and leave a few button combos unused.
However, the game locks players to two at a time and that makes it difficult to experiment. Switching stances has to be a conscious decision and putting that onus on the player means it’s easier to just rely on the most convenient two. There’s also no way to anticipate what is up ahead and what stances will yield the best results; the amount of workbenches and meditation points peppered around that let players swap stances can’t make up for that limitation. Having access to all of them at once would add more variety and utility, both of which are tantalizingly just out of reach here.
The combat itself is similarly conflicted. Like, borrows heavily from FromSoftware’s and its
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