T w e n t y S i d e d

This is the player’s third matchup against Second Sister, but Cal’s fourth. The first one was cutscene-only, so the player didn’t participate. Then a few minutes after that, we got our tutorial duel where Cal escaped with the help of Cere. Then at the end of Zeffo part 2 we got a rematch that was cut short by a forcefield. And now here we are near the end of the game. Both sides have been indirectly fighting for the holocron, but now the two sides are going to fight over it directly.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Jedi Fallen Order Part 20: Careful With That Thing”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

We arrive back on Bogano, which is where our MacGuffin is waiting for us. Essentially Master Cordova hid this supremely important and sensitive bit of intelligence on this secret planet that only Jedi know about, and then he created a planet-hopping scavenger hunt that would require us to brave treacherous territory and attract Imperial attention to get the Astrum to open the vault. Anyone could have showed up and grabbed the Astrum at any time. The Empire could have taken it just because they hoard relics. Malicos could have taken it just because it was a cool Jedi thing sitting in the creepy tomb where he ruled over the hapless locals. The locals could have taken it because it’s theirs and maybe they’re attached to it. 

This is like putting all your valuables in a bank vault, but then storing the key for the vault in the middle of a warzone, inside of a despotic nation, in territory controlled by a ruthless drug cartel. Those layers of danger aren’t protecting your key, they’re endangering it further. 

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Jedi Fallen Order Part 19: Pay For Your Lack of Vision”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

You might remember that last time our hero Cal Kestis had just gotten into a fight with Malicos. Cal didn’t want to join a Jedi cult run by Darth Manson and Malicos didn’t want Cal to not join.

Earlier in this series I praised how gracefully it created an unwinnable fight without running into the obnoxious problem of “Failure is Forbidden until it Becomes Mandatory“. This fight isn’t nearly as successful at doing that.

In a story sense, it makes sense that Cal can’t win this duel. If Jedi powers were academia, then Cal is in middle school and Malicos has a couple of PhDs. It would feel juvenile and fanfiction-ish if Cal went around casually besting Sith Lords and Jedi Masters. This is what made me dislike Galen Starkiller from the Force Unleashed series. He was so ludicrously powerful that he broke the universeIt doesn’t help that he had the personality of a wooden plank with a frowny face painted on it.. As a writer, It’s incredibly dangerous to create a character who is both far more powerful than Luke Skywalker while at the same time being far less interesting. So I’m glad that Cal doesn’t go down that same road by winning this fight. 

On the other hand, this is a video game and you can get good at it. On my second playthrough it was sort of hilarious / annoying to have the fight stop for a cutscene interlude where the writer pretended like Cal was struggling. 

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Jedi Fallen Order Part 18: Let’s Team Up and Be Idiots Together!”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.