I can say that games like Battlefront and Force Unleashed made me very fascinated by the Star Wars universe and its characters, but they didn’t have enough to make them my favorite games for a long time. On the other hand, Jedi: Fallen Order was the most difficult due to its excellent combat, characters The powerful, hero whose story you sympathize with and his steadfastness alone against the empire, and most importantly, the story that included many ramifications and various surprises made it like a prelude to what will happen in Survivor, this does not mean that Fallen Order is without problems, but it is the best SW game I have had the opportunity to try, as well It presented an original story comparable to the most prominent films in the cinematic series, and therefore, the new part takes upon itself the task of presenting a more mature story, and characters with more rational ideas and points of view that reflect the experiences they gained during that period, in contrast to the youth’s haste and love of exploration that dominated Cal in the first part.
Survivor does not offer radical changes as expected from any sequel, but the Respawn studio has focused all its efforts on taking advantage of the features of the first part and expanding them further, whether in gameplay, abilities, enemies, or even planets and exploration elements that make searching for and finding the secrets of each region Hidden treasures in a platformer style is more of a graceful show that pleases the eyes and provides the player with a sense of satisfaction whenever he succeeds in defeating a boss, or manages to navigate a puzzle that has been blocking him for a while and preventing him from moving forward with the events.
5 years after the events of the first part, Cal is still being hunted by the Empire as if he hasn’t moved an inch, but things have gotten worse and his capture has become the main goal of the entire galaxy, however, the young hero continues in his quest without giving any Attention to his enemies, he seeks revenge on the empire, but he relaxes from time to time due to developments that were not taken into account, and finally settles to solve his problems with his friends by disappearing from existence completely, Cal believes that the most correct view is to flee and protect your loved one unless you can confront And while his efforts are initially focused on reforming the Mantis to continue facing the Empire, he soon becomes acquainted with the Tannalor, a mysterious anomaly that will give our hero his escape ticket from all those pursuits and troubles that end as difficult for any power, including the Empire itself. , chasing anyone to this dimension, and therefore, the dream of reaching that point has become the main driver of events to move forward, while the memories that the player finds randomly and cinematic scenes that restore the truth of what happened to the Jedi faction dozens of years ago, how some turned against their comrades in A path to personal glory, leaving there an eagerness to know what really happened, even if answers are very limited in the first half of the title’s life.
Survivor events start from an interesting point where our hero tries to deceive the empire and arrest one of the leaders in order to reach his goal, and soon the mission ends unexpectedly, as a result of which he moved directly to Koboh, the largest and most active planet in the game, whether in terms of characters, shops or areas available To explore or its many offshoots that you’ll waste hours if you’re looking for all the collectibles, memories, and precious items, Koboh can be described as a giant, wide-open planet that pretty much serves as Cal’s home in light of his distance from his home country. This planet represents the first real change compared to the previous part, Since it puts players in a vast world while giving them complete freedom to do whatever they like.
The planet has a varied terrain between caves, valleys and mountain paths, and the deeper you explore it, the more you notice its huge size, it seems confusing at first, and I personally suffered in many situations due to the way the map is displayed through the hologram, which unintentionally distracts the player’s focus in some cases times to discover later that all the efforts you made in one of the tasks is only a sub-quest that is a rumor spreading on the surface of the planet and sharing its details with the population and you have to verify its validity through puzzle rooms that reward you in return with skill points that help you acquire more abilities that will make the confrontation Imperial soldiers are less severe.
Koboh isn’t the only planet, of course, and there are still more planets and moons to explore, but don’t expect a huge number, as Survivor’s design focuses on moving back and forth between those limited planets, unlocking more activities, shops, outfits, gadgets, weapons, and abilities as you progress through the events, though. And since the game design is more like a Metrovidia world, there will be new areas to explore on each visit, shortcuts to unlock, new puzzles to solve, and more powerful abilities matched by tougher enemies as Cal works to hone his skill towards his quest.
The exploration system and side content in Survivor works well with the progression system and the skill tree. There are three main skill trees that range from lightsaber abilities and its various ramifications, a power that allows our hero to push or pull objects or wield and control the mental strength of his enemies, and a health category. Cal gains skill points for the activities he engages in continuously, whether main or subsidiary, and can develop his abilities through rest points as happens in the Souls games, which reset everything in exchange for restoring current health or changing your combat or travel styles On the other hand, the customization options in this section have expanded impressively, and you will find dozens of chests containing clothes, haircuts, and spare parts for your BD-1 companion, allowing our hero to change his appearance more drastically than in the game. The first, including detailed customization of his lightsaber.
BD-1 helps you examine different elements in each new area you visit, and provides more details about characters, planets and enemies to deal with comfortably, while the optical map provides a general picture of the area you are in with some details that introduce you to places explored, sub-quests and the main objective , and you’re free to choose your next move, such as automatic markers that highlight pathways to unexplored areas, icons that let you know which areas you can’t yet reach with your current capabilities, a thin line indicating the way you’ve just taken, and of course, save and travel points rapid.
To deal with more powerful threats, Cal acquires more abilities over time, most notably the ability to tame a different set of monsters depending on the planet you are in, these monsters work to shorten time and travel to distant areas in a shorter period of time, and they are also necessary to overcome some obstacles or Areas that you cannot reach on foot, and this feature works perfectly with the design of levels that witnessed a great diversity in the battlefields and the level of enemies, and battles for bosses that will witness a great difference between players for various reasons, most notably the level of difficulty that the user addresses, so the battles of the Minibosses for example The example puts you up against giant animals and creatures with great strength, but it relies on the same attacking methods over and over again. It develops well in the main boss confrontations, especially in the second half of the events, but once you master the basics of the gameplay such as dodging and blocking, you will be able to defeat random enemies that They get in your way every once in a while, and you may suffer for a while in the big battles until you can develop your skill tree, for example, but not limited to, you can use force to attract enemies towards you and damage them at once, or control one of the soldiers or monsters to eliminate Your opponents replace you, or use interactive elements in the environment around you such as mine balls that can be thrown at enemies and fragile walls to cross over to the next area.
Here you’ll face the usual threats you encountered in the first installment such as the Purge, which are smarter and faster in combat and pose a threat to our hero most of the time, the Magnaguard, elite units that use energy weapons to shoot targets from a safe distance, and the all-new threat of the Bedlam Raider, hunters Bonuses They use energy weapons to stop our hero, and Cal must break their defenses and avoid their attacks until he can eliminate them, and it can be said that Survivor has a great diversity of enemies, whether monsters, soldiers, or even robots, but the real problem lies in the offensive capabilities of some units that are similar in general , especially in boss fights, where most monsters rely on the same attack mechanics of quickly running towards you, or rolling and striking randomly from close range.
Each takes Rambler’s Reach as his main headquarters, and returns to it continuously either to progress in events or to visit the different stores that provide new customizations on each visit, or to exchange parties and obtain new information from virtual characters, and it must also be taken into account that some areas The player will only be able to visit them after acquiring specific abilities at a certain time in the story, so Survivor does not reveal all of its surprises at once, but rather keeps the player eager to expand their arsenal of abilities and gear and seek out new, more difficult challenges.
Each planet has its own unique designs and different unexpected threats, but the smaller planets do not have the variety or volume of activities that the main planet Kuboh offers, not that they are repetitive, quite the contrary, they provide more difficult challenges, such as trying to avoid a huge monster inhabiting the sand The desert kills everyone who steps on it, or cliffs that are difficult to climb except with the help of the efforts of another companion, but it does not provide the volume of content that you saw on the main planet, and therefore it will not require you as much time to find all its secrets as you think.
Not only does Survivor change what didn’t work in the original game, it builds on its best elements. Dark Souls-inspired combat was one of Fallen Order’s biggest charm points, and it’s back in full force here with even greater depth thanks to new combat stances and a more effective power-up. There are more combat modes than the previous part, giving each player the freedom to choose his preferred style. Personally, I relied on Dual Wield mode most of the time, where Cal’s attacks are much faster but with a shorter range, while Double Bladed mode provides you with a more powerful weapon in Close-range battles and large groupings, but they are less effective in difficult boss encounters, and as you progress through events and get to the middle of the game, you will be able to unlock completely new modes such as Blaster and Crossguard, both of which are necessary in some intense situations, and the true potential of these modes is revealed Obviously when combined with Cal’s abilities and the skills he’s gained, such as slowing down time to get closer to your opponent and inflicting damage on them, or a quick strike and finish it off backwards to avoid taking any expected damage.
The game provides a performance mode with a resolution of 1440p and a speed of 60 frames per second, and a 4K quality mode with a rate of 30 frames that rises to more than that most of the time. It is really strange that the quality phase was better in that part, as the game works stably most of the time, but you will not feel the same smoothness and speed in the huge battles as expected, even the first day update that was released a few hours ago did not solve the problem of the performance phase so far , waiting for more updates after launch.
Survivor outperformed the previous part in most of its elements, and provided an improved gameplay with meticulously designed combat battles that provide significant changes in the gameplay according to the fighting positions on which the player relies, and an interesting story that may seem a bit slow at first, but it reaches its peak in the second half of the game. Events with non-stop surprises, an impressive level of graphics, sound effects faithful to the Star Wars business and professionally designed, and a huge amount of content that stretches for dozens of hours in case you decide to invest your time in activities and sub-quests.
