Blake Burns

Jedi: Survivor is the next interactive quest in Cal Kestis's life for the player to experience. This game takes us on a journey against the Empire, Raiders, and occasional bounty hunter, to help populate a deserted outpost, and build a community. Survivor takes all of the criticisms and difficulties that came with Fallen Order and completely fixes them. The gameplay is much smoother, the world stays intact (mostly, still a few performance issues but nothing like FO had), and your Jedi abilities flow naturally, and scale well. The number of lightsaber stances you can unlock in this game really adds to the effect of playing as a Jedi as well. When it comes to being a lone Jedi in the galaxy, this is the more fun game. However, it does drop the ball a bit on what Fallen Order absolutely excelled at: the story-telling. The main conflict here is less focused than in FO. With a rotating cast of Big Bads, the player never locks in on one main enemy, leaving your story path to feel less an epic struggle against evil and more a "set em up and knock em down" quest, like the 1p mode in the original Smash Bros. When you do not have a singular, consistent enemy to fight, the whole story tends to fray, no matter how singular your mission is. While the story may have hollowed out in comparison to the first installment, this sophomore effort fills the world with collectables and exploration aplenty. With fewer plants to explore (I will admit this is technically incorrect, but aside from Koboh and Jedah, the planets you visit are much much smaller than the FO sites), the world is much more "open," with more freedom to explore and fewer straight platforming paths. The two large explorable planets are filled with side quests, puzzles, and platform areas as you collect items for cosmetics, or upgrades, or just learn secrets of the world you're in. This is what gives Survivor a better replay-value than FO, in my opinion, after playing through both of them once and then 100% each of them. Fallen Order has by far the more compelling, enthralling, captivating story. But Survivor has so much more to offer, and a much smoother experience playing as a Jedi.

This a very fun show! Which is important because that's what it's meant to be. It has a unique mood to other Marvel shows, is more episodic, and it works for them. They don't spend too much time on the origin story, but give you enough. There's no villain appearing in every episode, or some big plot tying it all together (though there is an undercurrent so each episode isn't completely encapsulated). It probably is like a mid to high 3 point something out of 5, but I'm rounding up to four. Especially to compensate for the so many petty 1 star reviews from people who were never going to like no matter what.