4/5 ★ – elmodonnell's review of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

Staggeringly wide and so crushingly close to perfection, it kills me to rate this the 'same' as the first game because this is so much better in almost every way, but the performance is simply just that bad. The story here is 'good' in about the same way as the first game's for me- the character arcs are all there and functional, but none are particularly novel or engaging. The cutscenes are very well directed, the performances are great and the narrative crescendos elicit the intended emotions, but I'm not sure there's any new thematic ground covered here? Cal's fun and his relationship with BD is adorable, but he's only really given a few crumbs of development here, even when his life changes pretty drastically, both between games and over the course of this one. I wasn't caught off guard by the final twist, and I liked the character, but it just felt a tad rushed and very 'part 2 of a trilogy'. The story is generally good, but it's at its strongest when it's working in tandem with gameplay- Jedha features a sequence that has topped even Uncharted's craziest as my favourite in gaming, and it's not even the only stand-out setpiece the game has up its sleeve. The gameplay in general is a massive step up from the original in pretty much every conceivable way. While we lost a couple of abilities like 'slow', you generally start the game with everything you had in the last one, and work to build yourself as an even more powerful force of nature through a whole new skill tree (though, thanks to five separate lightsabersaber stances instead of two this time around, most of those are saber-based). It's not exactly breath of the wild-level freedom of player expression, but these stances and abilities do let you play in some genuinely distinct styles, with it never feeling like there's only one way to approach an encounter. Once all the movement mechanics and animal mounts open up, it can feel a little clunky to dash-jump your way around the world, but it makes exploration a lot more engaging than just 'follow the wall-runs'. Koboh is your hub world, and whilst by 'normal' open world standards it's certainly small, the sheer scope and variety of its landscapes is staggering. Initially I was a little disappointed by the lack of planets and kinda wished they'd broken Koboh's contents across a few different worlds, but the detail at which it lets you dive into the raider faction was compelling and believable enough to paint the whole open world as one 'invasion' story- at first it's nearly exhausting, but there are several new 'area' reveals on Koboh that absolutely blew me away. Jedha offers the game's only other 'open' world and it felt like just about the right size, with Coruscant and the Shattered Moon both offering great distinct on-rails segments, with a bit of freedom to revisit down the line. There's definitely a little bit of over-correction from the labyrinthian Dark Souls level design of Zeffoh, with every location now having an abundance of meditation points from which you can fast travel between, and a zipline 'shortcut' every two seconds. This has the benefit of letting them crank up the difficulty even higher- playing on Jedi Master I had plenty of struggles, but the spawn runs were never too much of a hassle. On NG+ in Jedi Grandmaster, with the 'deal and take increased damage' modifier enabled, you're basically in 'realism' mode, where a couple of blaster shots will kill you, but your saber will also cut through basically any enemy like butter in one hit. Basically every location gives you a fun, unpredictable 'cinematic' first impression, and then allows you to respawn and revisit every one of them at your own pace, with various shortcuts to make it less of a slog- when you get to the end-game collectathon, believe me, you'll be happy. Speaking of collectables, it felt like customization and collectable 'loot' was the other piece of feedback the team zealously corrected this time around, though I'm not sure 'too much' customization can be a bad thing in a game like this. There are chests containing hair styles, jackets, lightsaber parts, BD-1 paint and materials for your blaster and lightsaber around every corner, and even the most seasoned loot-hunter will struggle to 100% areas without guides or the map upgrades. Pretty much everything about Cal can be changed (apart from his hair colour), putting the first game's ponchos to shame, and allowing for some insanely elaborate sabers. Player expression and exploration are at the core here, and it feels like the 'meat' of the game is in not just upgrading Cal, but in meeting travellers around Koboh who can contribute to the liveliness of your hub, Pyloon's Saloon. Some of these interactions feel almost a bit too dense and not as well spaced-out as they could be, but I'd be lying if I didn't light up with joy every time I ran into Captain Skoova in the wild, or get dunked on by Turrgle or that giant slug dude. Once the saloon fills up with the people you've helped out, you can nearly walk around for 15-20 minutes on end chatting, as well as hitting up the various shops, quests and customizable gardens around the hub. The game is fascinated by the lore and history of this world, but for once, that lore isn't just characters or events from other movies/books/games in the Star Wars canon. These games have carved out their own little chunk of the galaxy, one for which they can flesh out an entire history without stepping on anybody's toes, and the game's commitment to the authenticity and world-building of this 'chunk' is more impressive than anything Star Wars has done outside of Andor. To briefly mention the elephant in the room that stops this from being a 9/10 though, this is the worst-performing game I've ever played on my PS5. I was lucky enough to encounter zero major glitches, crashes or setbacks, but the framerate and screen-tearing are unforgivably bad for around half of the playtime. It's the first game in a long time I've been 'happy' playing at 30fps thanks to decent framepacing and motion blur, but I shouldn't have had to- I still needed to bump up to performance mode for boss fights where quick parries were needed, because this is, after all, basically a Dark Souls game, and 30fps isn't enough. If this were a typically 'rough' AAA launch where the game would eventually be quietly fixed and everyone would settle down I wouldn't even bother mentioning it, but Respawn don't even appear to acknowledge that there are performance issues on consoles. I just hope this is an anomaly of awful playtesting, and not a sign of things to come for the remainder of this generation.