After completing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor I was left with a good, yet slightly unsatisfied opinion. It was a great game, and I gave it an 8 because of it, but there are several issues which prevent this from becoming an amazing game.
The Good:
First of all, this game is stunning. The graphics, world design, character models (sometimes) and cutscenes are outstanding. Far, far superior to the previous game, which at times was a bit poor. The story is also much more engaging than Fallen Order and feels more open and vast, when compared to the very condensed story of the previous game. I was never bored or uninterested in what I was seeing, and the story never falters. The characters are also all very well done, with the clear standouts being Greeze and Merrin. Cal is awesome here as well, and he has shown great progression from the young and inexperienced Jedi from Fallen Order, and matured into a much more powerful Jedi, with demons of his own. He gets beaten and bashed throughout this game, which makes his journey and development all that more great. He would make an excellent live-action character. Greeze is as always, hilarious, and he gets some very somber moments in this game. He is pretty much that person you go to for comfrot. And of course, Merrin, who we didn't get much of in Fallen Order. She is at the forefront for most of Survivor, since the game is basically about her and Cal. And I'm here for it. She and Cal have great on screen chemistry, and her action scenes are a sight to behold and have some of the most exciting moments in the game.
There are other characters, who are decent, but none really stand out like the others. Cere is here too, but has a much reduced presense. She does have a really bada** moment towards the later half of the game.
The music is also really good, as it was before.
The biggest improvement has to be the combat. What a difference here. It is much smoother than before. We get introduced to 'Stances' throughout the game, and these playstyles are very different from the next. While I did prefer to run with the Dual Swords and Doubleblade, others will very much enjoy the others. I personally did not like the Gun&Lightsaber stance, it just wasn't my cup of tea. The Crossguard was also, fine for some instances. But a drawback to the combat, is that you get knocked out of combos very easily, so using a very slow stance like the Crossguard can be frustrating. Since most enemies are very fast, and will hit you before you swing. Faster stances like doubleblade or dual wield, is a better choice. Despite combat being much improved, there are also complaints. I played this on the Series X and used a controller, and the button mapping was horrendous for certain force abilites. Sometimes they wouldn't work, and other times the buttons clashed with other buttons and you would end up using the wrong powers. Also dodging is much worse here. It is clunky and slow, and you have no iFrames while rolling. It's a really big drawback when in the heat of an epic boss fight. They should have taken an Elden Ring approch to the rolling.
That being said, pretty much everything above is great about Survivor, and if that's what you're looking for, then you will love this game, but....
The Bad:
Bugs and Crashes. Like I said above I played this on the Series X and had a total of 4 crashes during my playthrough, and it was also littered with bugs and glitches - such is textures not loading in, or a drop in frame rate. The 'Performance Mode' did nothing for the game, and made it look much worse than it should be. So I stuck with 'Quality' and the performance was more or less the same.
Worlds. We do not get that many planets to explore in this game, which is so very disappointing. With a game that comes in at nearly 130gb, you would think this game would be massive. While the planets you do visit are vast in size, they aren't really interesting at all. The main planet - Koboh, where you will spend roughly 60% of your time, is just dull. There are some cool areas and boss fights to find, but it wasn't that great of a place, and I found myself wanting to leave, or not bothering about side quests.
The Villains. This is a major issue. The main adversaries to Cal are very lackluster. Dagan Gera, who you would think would make an epic villain, wasn't in the story all that much, and when we do see him, we always beat him. He never seems like an actual threat like Trilla did from Fallen Order. She was a fantastic villain and character. Dagan is just there... doesn't do much at all. His fights are pretty cool though. Rayvis, the big Thanos looking guy, looks cool, and sounds cool, but he too, is barely in the story. You can learn of of him through exploring the planets and hearing his voice, but that's it. Very underhwelming. And without spoiling anything for people, the other villain is also pretty poor too, despite the twist being epic and caught me off guard.
The difficulty. As someone who is a fan of the Soulsborne series, and enjoys a good challenge, this game's difficulty ranges from too easy, to too hard. There is no inbetween. Because of the above mention, the rolling mechanic of combat is awful, as is getting knocked out of combos and animations, it can make the game very frustrating on even the normal difficulty. This 'artifical' difficulty, isn't like what we get in Elden Ring, which was a very fair game, Survivor is a mess. I played on Jedi Master, and it was way more difficulty than the Grand Master Difficulty of Fallen Order. Enemies would take you health away with a couple of moves. This could have been solved with better rolling and dodging.
Overall, I really enjoyed Survivor. It was a great game, with some truly epic moments, heartfelt moments, and jaw-dropping moments. It was a worthly sequel to a very shockingly good game. It does have some major issues, which stop it from being the best Star Wars game since KOTOR. It is better than Fallen Order, but falls flat on many things. Because these characters and this story is so engaging, I am looking forwards to seeing what comes next. I do hope we don't have to wait another 4 years for the next game.
But come on guys, for a game that cost £70, you need to get these bugs and glitches under control. People will not pay for a game like that.
8/10.
