Julius Posted May 4, 2020 Author Posted May 4, 2020 Yeah, okay, I get that it's May 4th, but relative to the game's release, this update feels a little on the late side to me? Even if it does look cool (albeit a little bare).
Ronnie Posted May 6, 2020 Posted May 6, 2020 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Start of New Franchise, EA Confirms Quote EA CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be the start of a new franchise, suggesting more games, including a Jedi: Fallen Order 2, are being planned. During an earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the “first title in an entirely new franchise.” This is the first official confirmation that Jedi: Fallen Order isn't a one-off adventure. This isn’t too surprising considering the success Jedi: Fallen Order experienced critically and financially since its release. During an investor call last year, CFO Blake Jorgensen said that Jedi: Fallen Order “significantly beat our expectations” Good news!
Julius Posted January 13, 2021 Author Posted January 13, 2021 (edited) Seemed to sneak under the radar a bit with the Indiana Jones news today, but the next-gen update for the game is up. Also, went back and read some of the thoughts I and others left when this first released, and having played Demon's Souls recently, I find it hilarious just how many of my issues with this game were clearly influenced by From's games. I hadn't played any at the time, but seriously: the lack of fast travel points to try to teach you the level layout? Falls flat because the levels are super bland by comparison (and lacks the awesome shortcuts). The enemies with their backs to you like @Hero-of-Time mentioned in one of his posts way back? Means absolutely nothing and comes across as buggy because of how harmless these enemy types are. Sounds like I'm ragging on the game (still love those last few hours where it gets more linear and focused, best part for me by far), but yeah, now I've played a Souls game this is absolutely a Souls-lite like so many more familiar with those games were saying at launch, and it just falls flat looking back trying too hard to be like those games rather than being its own thing. No-one is playing a Respawn-developed Star Wars game for anything but a good time, so the lack of fast travel just hurts the game because that's not what anyone was hoping for. Really hope they can get that right next time around! Edited January 13, 2021 by Julius 1
Cube Posted January 13, 2021 Posted January 13, 2021 I hated Demons Souls and Bloodborne but had no issues with Fallen Order. This felt so much more like it was influenced by Metroid Prime. I was always exploring every nook and cranny so the lack of fast travel never really bothered me.
Ganepark32 Posted January 13, 2021 Posted January 13, 2021 Its a shame that the PS5 upgrade isn't on par with that of the Series X but a free update, providing a solid frame rate and even a small bump in resolution, is nice enough. Probably going to pick it up for playing on PS5 as its in the January sale on the PS store at the moment and although I've already played it through at release on the Xbox One, I've got a hankering for playing again.
Julius Posted April 29, 2021 Author Posted April 29, 2021 Free next-gen upgrade coming this summer: 1
Ronnie Posted April 29, 2021 Posted April 29, 2021 Nice. Been tempted to replay it on PS5. Free too, feels like publishers are running scared to charge for a next gen upgrade after what happened with Control.
Cube Posted April 29, 2021 Posted April 29, 2021 5 hours ago, Ronnie said: Nice. Been tempted to replay it on PS5. Free too, feels like publishers are running scared to charge for a next gen upgrade after what happened with Control. Activision don't care, where Tony Hawk 1 & 2 HD is a paid upgrade on PS5 and digitally on Xbox Series, or requires a new purchase of you have a physical version on Xbox.
bob Posted April 30, 2021 Posted April 30, 2021 I've still not opened my copy of this game. Wondering whether to try it, or just sell it. It just seems rather bland to me, although maybe that's unfair since i've not watched many videos on it due to avoiding spoilers.
Julius Posted June 11, 2021 Author Posted June 11, 2021 On 29/04/2021 at 3:58 PM, Julius said: Free next-gen upgrade coming this summer: This upgrade came out today to very, very little fanfare. Truly bizarre to see it on store shelves and people buying it before it was officially announced to be dropping today!
Ronnie Posted June 11, 2021 Posted June 11, 2021 (edited) Also, 20 million sales! Amazing numbers. But Star Wars is dead apparently. YouTube told me so. Edited June 11, 2021 by Ronnie 1
Julius Posted June 11, 2021 Author Posted June 11, 2021 1 minute ago, Ronnie said: Also, 20 million sales! Amazing numbers. But Star Wars is dead apparently. YouTube told me so. The fact that they say "20 million players" specifically makes me think that includes Game Pass and Origin downloads, but still, that's a very impressive figure. Also, Star Wars isn't dead, but I do look back at the five and a half years since The Force Awakens and wince a little at just how poorly the property has been handled, purely from a quality perspective. I'm currently in the midst of the longest hiatus I've taken from watching a Star Wars movie since I first watched a Star Wars film, as I haven't watched one since Episode IX. It's not even the fact that the film itself is bad (though it absolutely is), it's the fact that it also sullies other films in the Skywalker Saga. The hubris that Disney and the creatives involved in the sequel trilogy showed genuinely makes my blood boil. I don't think they've had a truly great game: I thought that Fallen Order was good and had a great last final act or so; the Battlefront II campaign is an abomination; and I played through Squadrons last weekend and, while it looks and sounds like Star Wars, that is a very forgettable campaign in my eyes which is of virtually no consequence considering the things it tries to touch on and reference. I hope the Fallen Order sequel builds on the pretty solid foundation of the first game, but that EA's 10 years of exclusivity is nearly up has me looking ahead and praying that we saw more games of higher quality coming from every direction, and for different genres. Heck, even in the case of the novels and comics, the fact that they will just freely rewrite their unified canon on the fly when an event is shown in film or as part of a series went a very long way to also putting me off picking those up too. The saving grace for me is what we've seen from Lucasfilm Animation and The Mandalorian. They aren't flawless, but they actually feel in line with George's vision for the brand, are of the highest quality for their respective mediums, and continue to push those mediums forwards. It's tough, but Star Wars falls into the same category for me as Pixar these days. It's impossible to be of the highest quality every single time, but they've seriously butchered some parts of their respective brands over the last few years (all I'm saying is at least we didn't get a Rata2ouille: 2 Rats 2 Furious, I guess that's a positive), and it hurts to see things I care about so much go that way. Thankfully there are games and other studios and particular creatives that I feel I can depend on for that consistency and not butchering their own ideas, but yeah, it still sucks. Star Wars isn't dead, but I still think it's got some ways to go before it's truly thriving again.
Ronnie Posted June 11, 2021 Posted June 11, 2021 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Julius said: Also, Star Wars isn't dead, but I do look back at the five and a half years since The Force Awakens and wince a little at just how poorly the property has been handled, purely from a quality perspective. Sorry to hear you don't look back at the last 6 years or so fondly. I'm the total opposite. Adore TFA, TLJ, Solo and Rogue One, adore Rebels and The Mandalorian, I thought the storyline of Fallen Order was excellent. Bad Batch is great and well from what I've seen of season 7 of The Clone Wars that's pretty fantastic too. Light of the Jedi was outstanding and the High Republic in general is getting rave reviews. I think quality wise it's been top notch, Ep IX and the storylines of a couple of games apart. I look at the comic/book retcons as isolated incidents. There's been so much cross-referencing between the films, series, books, comics and games, I think Lucasfilm have done a terrific job crafting a cohesive world. Sure there's a few retcons here or there, but they're what people notice, the exception. imo. For every tweaked Caleb Dume/Depa Billaba storyline, there's a dozen interwoven plots that do work. And hey, Phase 1 of the MCU was pretty rough at times, they didn't get everything right from the beginning either. And yeah, 20 million probably does include Game Pass players you're right! It's still one of the biggest properties around, regardless of what some idiotic YouTube clickbait videos say. Edited June 11, 2021 by Ronnie 1
Julius Posted June 11, 2021 Author Posted June 11, 2021 (edited) 52 minutes ago, Ronnie said: Sorry to hear you don't look back at the last 6 years or so fondly. I'm the total opposite. Adore TFA, TLJ, Solo and Rogue One, adore Rebels and The Mandalorian, I thought the storyline of Fallen Order was excellent. Bad Batch is great and well from what I've seen of season 7 of The Clone Wars that's pretty fantastic too. Light of the Jedi was outstanding and the High Republic in general is getting rave reviews. I think quality wise it's been top notch, Ep IX and the storylines of a couple of games apart. I look at the comic/book retcons as isolated incidents. There's been so much cross-referencing between the films, series, books, comics and games, I think Lucasfilm have done a terrific job crafting a cohesive world. Sure there's a few retcons here or there, but they're what people notice, the exception. imo. For every tweaked Caleb Dume/Depa Billaba storyline, there's a dozen interwoven plots that do work. And hey, Phase 1 of the MCU was pretty rough at times, they didn't get everything right from the beginning either. And yeah, 20 million probably does include Game Pass players you're right! It's still one of the biggest properties around, regardless of what some idiotic YouTube clickbait videos say. It's definitely one of those things where everyone has a different idea of what Star Wars should be, so I'm glad that it's clicked for you. Don't get me wrong, I think there are great things and moments in a lot of what they've done: Rogue One's third act, from Vader's Castle onwards, is up there with my favourite third acts from the films; Kylo Ren is probably one of my favourite characters in the Saga (minus what happens at the end of IX) and personally one of the ones I most deeply relate to, major Zuko vibes; a lot of the new musical themes are brilliant (even if I think overall it's a step down from the prequels, and I hate the fact that all three of the sequels go directly from the Force Theme straight into Finale when that only happened in one of the six preceding Saga films); and so on. But up until now, Episode IX is still the thing which I trip up on the most, and it genuinely makes it difficult for me to return to some of my favourite films (like I said, longest I've gone without watching them). Some might say "it's the journey not the destination", but this is a trilogy of trilogies: yes, it is in large part about the destination, because you went out of your way to make sequels. Revenge of the Sith was lucky in a way because, even though I know it has its detractors, it doesn't make the OT unwatchable in any way, and you could easily ignore them. I find it very hard to go back to the OT simply because a lot of it feels like it doesn't matter, especially the ending of ROTJ. It hurts, but hey, lessons learned for what I personally think should go into and come out of something like this I guess. And then we hear J.J. admit he should've planned it out more and, well, obviously! Anyways, I would highly recommend Lost Stars and Bloodline, easily my favourites from the new canon books that I've read, as well as the Thrawn novels. I can't recall, did you read Rogue One: Catalyst? If not, I can't recommend it enough, especially seeing as you loved Rogue One - it adds so much to the film! And yeah, you're right about them being isolated incidents now that I think about it more (though I do still think it kind of sucks). I think another personal hurdle with the novels I have is that once I started falling behind, as someone that was collecting the hardcovers, it became exponentially more expensive for me to catch up that way and I kind of gave up. While Phase 1 of the MCU was rough, definitely different situations stabbing George in the back over his story treatments and rushing the sequels out - IX just to have it release in the same year as Endgame when Iger was supposed to step down for one last ego stroke - says it all really. Remember, Rogue One and Solo were privy to insane amounts of rework (whereas in the case of The Force Awakens it was more just dialling it back from their original plans), and I honestly reckon that they ended up with more man hours on them than some of the sequels because of that. These things need time, I think the biggest issue with Disney is that they don't really care and just want their slate filled (other than The Last Jedi most of the Disney-helmed Star Wars films received their final edit extremely late, and there are certain green screen or CG moments where it's obvious more time might have been needed as a scene managed to sneak it's way through a bit). It's absolutely still one of the biggest properties though, regardless of how you might view the last five years or so, there can be no doubt about it. Edited June 12, 2021 by Julius
drahkon Posted June 27, 2021 Posted June 27, 2021 (edited) This is 15 bucks on the PSN store and I have 20 Euros available to spend on a game Thing is: I haven't watched any of the new Star Wars movies, series, etc. I very much enjoyed Episodes 4-6 and I tolerate 1-3. Would that be enough to get something out of the game's story? Since the gameplay is apparently kinda similar to the Souls games I'd probably enjoy playing it. But I need to know if I could appreciate the story. Edited June 27, 2021 by drahkon 1
Julius Posted June 27, 2021 Author Posted June 27, 2021 43 minutes ago, drahkon said: This is 15 bucks on the PSN store and I have 20 Euros available to spend on a game Thing is: I haven't watched any of the new Star Wars movies, series, etc. I very much enjoyed Episodes 4-6 and I tolerate 1-3. Would that be enough to get something out of the game's story? Since the gameplay is apparently kinda similar to the Souls games I'd probably enjoy playing it. But I need to know if I could appreciate the story. I think you could get by on knowledge of the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy, for sure, as it's set between the two for me it didn't really kick into gear until the final 25% - 30% of the story, though I'm sure it's different for others! Just felt a bit by the numbers until it picked up towards the end, but it was enough to keep me going at least. 1
drahkon Posted June 29, 2021 Posted June 29, 2021 So far so good Cranked the difficulty up to the max and it's certainly challenging. Unlocked some new skills in Zeffo and I hope the combat opens up a little now. Kinda don't like how not everything in the skill tree is unlocked from the start, but it does make sense from a story perspective. Also: I reeeaaaally don't like Cal's face. He always looks like he's about to pass out from being dumb. 1
drahkon Posted July 1, 2021 Posted July 1, 2021 (edited) After a fair bit with Fallen Order I can say: No idea. I have no idea what to think I kinda enjoy playing the game, but it also is such a mess. It wants to be something similar to the Souls games but fails miserably. Enemy encounters are boring, bosses are way too easy and the 8 trillion save points crush its ambition to even come close to one of the Souls games. And come on...don't put in 37 Princess's Secret Slides. It's non-gameplay at its worst There's also some jank with animations, platforming, enemies glitching, etc... Then again, it's bloody awesome and fun to use the force in battle. Presentation is nice, too. It is Star Wars after all. So yeah, that's where I stand. I'll finish it, I'll get the Platinum, I will get annoyed many more times and I will enjoy it. Edited July 1, 2021 by drahkon 2
Happenstance Posted August 17, 2021 Posted August 17, 2021 Decided to give this another try. When I first played it, it was on Xbox One so there was a lot of slowdown but as it's on sale on PSN at the moment with a free PS5 upgrade I figured why not. As for finding the story a bit boring the first time I tried, I'm in a much more "Star Warsy" mood at the moment so I expect I'll probably enjoy it more.
bob Posted November 25, 2022 Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) Had an hour or two to myself yesterday evening, and having finished AC: Unity, was digging around in my games pile for something new to start. Forgot I even had this one! I'm not sure why I own it, to be honest. I remember the reviews being good, but every screenshot or video I saw of it at release was some dude running around in some dreary looking brown cavern. I think that's why i put the unopened game in the back of the cupboard and forgot about it. Anyway, I thought, "what the heck", and opened it up. It took roughly 40 minutes to download various updates, and when I finally opened up the game, it froze on the opening cinematic (weirdly, it shows a shot of a moon in the rain, past which a starship is supposed to fly past, but that never happened, so I was left watching the rain fall against a pretty night sky for about 5 minutes before I wondered if perhaps that something else was supposed to be happening...). A console restart later, and I finally got to play. First impressions are pretty good! Very cinematic, and reasonably fun gameplay, even if the main character handles like an early PS1 platformer when he changes direction. That'll just take some getting used to though. Expect me to spam this thread with my impressions as i play through. Thought i'd post them in here rather than the Gaming Diary, because why not. Edited November 25, 2022 by bob 1
Hero-of-Time Posted November 25, 2022 Posted November 25, 2022 It's a decent game and has a good story by Star Wars standards. Hope you enjoy it.
bob Posted November 25, 2022 Posted November 25, 2022 43 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said: It's a decent game and has a good story by Star Wars standards. Do the environments change at all, or is it all brown caverns and rusty metal rooms?
Hero-of-Time Posted November 25, 2022 Posted November 25, 2022 6 minutes ago, bob said: Do the environments change at all, or is it all brown caverns and rusty metal rooms? Yeah, they change. You get to explore some nice forest areas later on.
drahkon Posted November 25, 2022 Posted November 25, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, bob said: First impressions are pretty good! Very cinematic, and reasonably fun gameplay, even if the main character handles like an early PS1 platformer when he changes direction. Pretty much a concise review of the game 1 hour ago, bob said: Thought i'd post them in here rather than the Gaming Diary, because why not. I think that's for the better. The Gaming Diary thread is ok for the low user count, but I'd still prefer separate threads for regular impressions/updates. Gonna do this from now on, too. Edited November 25, 2022 by drahkon
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