Star Wars: Return of Cal

Despite wanting more, fans have had a good amount of Star Wars games. The Lego games are fun and when it was still receiving updates, Battlefront 2 was phenomenal, but there was one that stood out as the fan favorite. The story based adventure game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Being one of my favorite games, I was thrilled to hear that Respawn Entertainment was making a sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

Survivor had a lot of hype behind it, and Respawn definitely delivered. This game is fantastic and actually took a different approach than the first. 

The first game showed us the effects of Order 66 and the main character Cal Kestis fighting to stop the rise of the new empire. We got to see Inquisitors and of course, Darth Vader. Survivor went a different way with it though, taking Cal further into the galaxy and starting his own journey.

I like that they are giving Cal his own adventures. Obviously seeing characters we know is great, but Cal is one of the best written new characters, and really deserves his own story.

Along with returning gameplay features, we expectedly got some great new ones. A new addition is lightsaber stances. This changes the kind of lightsaber Cal uses. He can duel wield, have a single blade, double blade, and even have a crossguard.

I guess Cal also doesn’t care about being “uncivilized” in the eyes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, because now he can wield a blaster. I’ve always wondered what it would be like if someone did use a saber and a blaster, but I don’t think Cal was the right choice of the person to do it. He was trained while the Jedi Council was still a thing, so I think he would lean away from using a blaster.

There were also new force abilities added. The use of the force was a major win from the first game, and I think this game perfected it. 

The first game’s play style had you traveling from planet to planet doing a bunch of different tasks and puzzles. This game did it differently. For the most part, you’re on the planet Kohbo, which serves as kind of the main hub. This gives the game a more open world feel. You still do travel to different planets, but most of your time will be on Kohbo. I like that they tried something different, and I think a more open world style helps show the amazing scale of the Star Wars universe.

There is really only one “issue” I can think of with this game so far. NO PONCHO. Or at least, no poncho is part of it. There are a lot of minor things in this game that feel like they aren’t “Star Wars-y”. The poncho fits Cal, but now he has all kinds of clothing to customize that can make him look like he’s from Star Wars or that makes it look like he’s going on a date to Buffalo Wild Wings. A lot of the cutscenes and missions at the beginning of the game also feel out of place, and have a more general sci-fi feel. 

This is a very minor complaint, and I do think it’s funny that you can make Cal look intimidating or like he’s about to go fishing.

Overall, this is a great game. I think that this is one of, if not, the best Star Wars game out there. If they continued the Battlefront series, this may be a different story, but it seems like they’re leaning towards continuing Cal’s story.    You do have to play the first game to understand a lot of what’s going on, but I would definitely recommend this game. Despite finding him annoying at first, Cal has grown on me, I think Greez is funny, but for God’s sake, stop with the quirky droid sidekicks. I like BD-1, but he’s just another R2-D2 or BB-8.