Man oh man, I don’t know where to start with this… Perhaps I should make it clear,
I don’t usually compliment EA or their games. I rarely connect with one and I usually find
them to be cheap mass market piles of uninspired trite troglodytic transmogrified garbage…
You didn’t see anything... ALL THAT being said… I feel an obligation to praise a company
when they do something good and to criticize them when they do something bad, go figure.
After all, if you can’t compliment someone when they do something good, do your criticisms
mean anything? I don’t think so. Point is, EA just released a game that has blown me
away and taken me by complete surprise. And I’m so thoroughly impressed and baffled
by this, I feel that I need to make a video praising them so they know that THIS is the
kind of game we want more through the next generation. So buckle up, it’s a weird day,
we’re about to deep dive into an EA game and explore why it’s so awesome and how
it managed to do something incredible: get gaming influencers to praise Electronic Arts.
BUT! Before we do that, quick shout out to all of you who have been reppin’ the merch.
We have ALL NEW stickers in for the X-mas season, and they’re all super cheap with
free world-wide shipping. Head over to LukeStephens.net to check them out. I’ll sign all of the
stickers and even write you a personalized note - BY HAND. Plus, it’s Khaleesi in a
Santa hat… Who wouldn’t love that!? I also have Just… Wow stickers and regular
Khaleesi stickers too, whatever you like, or all of them! For real though, I wanted
to do something to raise funds for a new PC because mine is… Well… Dying. And I thought
what better way to raise some emergency funds than to actually give my ardent supporters
something cool that’s one of a kind. So order yours ASAP cuz once they’re gone,
they’re gone. Again, LukeStephens.Net ACT 1
A Brief History I have a complicated history with Star Wars.
Being named Luke, I have, for my entire life been assaulted with the same exact joke. People
thinking they’re so freaking funny— I know, you’re my father, I get it, hahaha,
SO FUNNY. Even today, like, 3.5 hours ago before I started recording for this video,
I went to Starbucks and placed my order through the drive through… And you know what the
guy said? “Well Luke, I may not be your father but I’ll have your drink up at the
next window…” Seriously, it’s CONSTANT. But for real, these jokes completely turned
me off of Star Wars; it was nothing personal, but the series had always been associated
with bullies for me. Kids who thought they had discovered my kryptonite in the form of
a poorly delivered mis-quotation of a 1980’s movie line...
You know what, this isn’t important, all of this is to say that I’ve never been into
Star Wars as a franchise or as a fictional universe. But one thing changed that. One
thing I never expected to be into. Of course, I’m talking about Jeffree Star and Shane
Daweson’s Conspiracy line. This took me by complete surprise and--
Hehe, I’m just kidding. A friend dared me to include Jeffree Star in a video and…
Well.. Here we are. I just won $10. Suck it. I’m actually talking about Star Wars Jedi:
Fallen Order. This is a game that’s been on my radar for a long time. But, being from
EA I’ve always tried to maintain a generous amount of skepticism. I mean, really, how
many times have we been burned by them. We get excited about something and they immediately
screw over their fans with some cheaply designed, monetized to high heaven, piece of garbage.
This was actually one of the reasons I kept so quiet about the game for so long. It wasn’t
cuz I was unaware or oblivious, I was just trying to avoid giving free press to a company
that has screwed over their customers time and time again. After all, it’s that kind
of free press that these predatory companies thrive on. They screw over their customers
year in and year out, yet YouTubers and gaming press organizations still cover all of their
releases and act as though nothing happened. Now, understand that I’m not a fan of boycotts
or the vicious picketing that can often happen in this industry, I think it’s stupid and
rarely effective. However, that doesn’t mean that I like to be taken advantage of,
which is exactly what these companies are doing when they release something like Battlefront
2 and still expect you to cover their new Star Wars entry. I didn’t want to do this,
so I kept mum on it. And, because I’ve been pretty harsh towards EA in the past, they
didn’t feel the need to send me a review code. But nonetheless, I was intrigued, and
so I went out and purchased a copy on launch day, popped it into the good ‘ol Xbox One
X and started playing. And what happened took me by complete surprise.
ACT 2 Subverting Expectations
As the game opens, it thrusts the player into an elaborate set piece in a ship wrecking
yard where the empire is having old, decommissioned ships deconstructed for scrap for the war
effort. These scenes are elaborate and beautifully constructed in almost every conceivable way.
The animations are fluid, transitions seamless, and the writing is natural and believable.
Seriously, the first hour of this game is so good, it’s hard to quantify. For real,
other than the lack of lesbian make out sessions this first hour is on the level of Uncharted
2 or Lost Legacy. And believe me, I know the boldness of a Naughty Dog comparison is not
lost on me. But that’s seriously how I felt in that moment. It was so shockingly polished
and of such quality that it was totally unexpected. Immediately, I wrote down in my notebook,
“If this holds through the whole game, this could be one of the best narrative games ever
made, much less one of the best Star Wars games.”
Now, don’t be mistaken, the quality goes through some serious pits and valleys throughout
the 15 or so hour journey; and we’re going to deep dive into those issues in just a minute,
don’t worry. But I want to make it clear that in that first hour, I was beyond blown
away. The game carries forward at a steady pace,
sending you to new areas and presenting a constant stream of new enemies and creatures
to fight. You swing, slide, and explore these levels along side your new pal BD-1, who is,
let’s face it, the best AI companion since Ellie met Joel. All the while you’re fighting
with your lightsaber that can be customized with a plethora of different pieces, in a
style that mimicks that of Dark Souls and Sekiro. Some would also say Bloodborne, but
I’ve put several hundreds of hours into that game and love it more than life itself
and I would not compare the two. There’s a plethora of reasons for this, but for this
video, let’s just say that Bloodborne pushes chaotic gameplay while Star Wars Jedi: Fallen
Order tries to foster a much more tactical and steady type of combat; in other words,
much more in line with a slower build in Dark Souls or any build in Sekiro… Because…
You know, there aren’t any builds in Sekiro, really, because it’s not an action RPG…
But, well that’s beside the point. The point is, the combat is something that
we haven’t seen paired with this type of narrative title before. Usually, in narrative
games, the developers feel obligated to put the gameplay in the back seat while the narrative
takes control. And let me be clear, this isn’t an inherently bad thing. Narrative games’
priorities are, and should be, their narratives; after all, that’s kind of the point. The
bad part is that this can often mean that the gameplay suffers. Look at a game like
Death Stranding; “oh no, he brought up Death Stranding, we gotta freak out if he compliments
it for being a sellout or freak out if he hates it for not having an open mind!” Ok…
let’s be reasonable here, Death Stranding is a narrative game. The gameplay is, objectively
I think, repetitive in nature. I’ve enjoyed playing Death Stranding, but even I can admit
that the narrative is the priority and that the gameplay often suffers for the sake of
the story’s efficacy. On the other hand, you have a game like The Surge 2, which has
some fantastic gameplay (like for real, if you haven’t played the game yet and like
Soulsborne titles, PLAY THIS NOW), but while the gameplay and combat excels the narrative
drags and suffers. I mean, to be honest, I’m not even sure what the overarching narrative
is. Same for Dark Souls, I’m willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of players
won’t be able to explain effectively what the story of the Souls games is. But that’s
ok, because those games are about the gameplay, and that takes precedence.
And so, for a Star Wars game to put so much focus on exploration and combat mechanics
took some real balls. The easier thing would be to lean into the lore and rely on the Star
Wars license to do all of the heavy lifting; but instead, Respawn Entertainment took the
bull by the horns and charged ahead, implementing a robust combat system based on parries and
individual enemy exploitation. And to be honest, it works really well… Most of the time…
What is it like the other times? Good question, let’s get into some of the things that Jedi:
Fallen Order doesn’t do so well: ACT 3
Surprisingly Predictable
I think we were all worried that EA was going to push this game out without polish. After
all, it’s not a live service game, meaning that any excessive development time has to
be made up for up front with the initial sales of the game, a fact that makes it all the
more difficult to delay a title like this beyond the initial release window, something
that could result in a total cost increase on the project of up to 10-15%. And, well,
these concerns were in fact warranted, despite the ridiculous amount of polish in the first
few hours of the game there’s a lot here that is unpolished and frankly not ready for
release. What exactly am I talking about? Well, buckle up, here we go.
LIST OF GLITCHES
This is just a selection of the glitches I’ve encountered. There are, believe it or not,
many more but I’ve got to keep this video within a reasonable length so I’ll stop
it there. Once again, all these problems just prove to me that this game was rushed out,
even though the first two hours received an excessive amount of polish. It shows where
their efforts were directed: at the opening hours where they could make a good first impression.
Let’s be clear, EA games are known for a lack of polish and for premature releases;
it’s nothing new, which is why the first few hours were so surprising to me. But it
does seem that EA’s management set a release date and held the dev team to it without any
exception. While it’s unfortunate that the late game lacks serious polish, it’s still
a huge step for an EA published game that starts so well and to maintains such quality
as a single player title. Beyond this, fighting with multiple enemies
is a nightmare and clunky as hell, just like in the Souls games, and this woman looks just
like Sheen from Jimmy Neutron. Don’t get mad at me, I’m sure she’s got a great
personality, but she looks like Sheen. What do you want me to say?! There’s also a fair
number of scripted boss fights that you can’t possibly win, which is a major pet peeve of
mine. I know it’s not objectively bad, but I just don’t like it. And there’s a lot
of times where the level design is almost inexplicably bad. Like this lower area, the
perfect place for a hidden item. We found it on stream over on Twitch the other day
and… I almost got soft locked down here. There’s no reason this should be here. It
serves no purpose other than to almost softlock idiots like myself out of the game. It only
furthers the idea in my mind that parts of the game are very well thought out and meticulously
designed, while other parts are laughably bad.
ACT 4 Conclusions
So, what does all this mean? Well, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has gripped me with its
story and captivated me with its gameplay. It’s a game that is so surprisingly good
and narratively focussed that it’s still hard to believe it came from EA. But after
much consideration, I decided I needed to make this video; a video where I praised EA
for doing something so antithetical to their standard modus-operandi. After all, if we
never praise a bad company for doing something good but rather only criticize them when they
screw up, how can we expect them to turn their act around and improve? We likely can’t.
Not to mention that if you never offer praise, your criticisms aren’t actually worth anything.
You’re just a troglodyte that profits off of the mistakes of others; you’re a leach.
But if you praise someone or a group of people when they do something great, while holding
them accountable for their mistakes, you can rest assured that you’re helping make the
industry a better place, one step at a time. So, while it may seem weird to praise EA,
I think it’s important to do so; Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a fantastically surprising
game, and it has done something incredible: forced the gaming community to praise the
Goliath of the industry.
That’s it from me. Thank you for watching. Please subscribe and like the video if you
enjoyed it. You’ve probably seen a couple of my videos at this point, so why not subscribe?
You’ve probably considered it, why not make today the day? Speaking of, remember to check
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gunna sell out pretty quick so make sure to hurry and get yours ASAP.
Thank you for watching, truly. I love and appreciate you all more than you could possibly
know, and I’ll see you in the next video.