<\/div>When Cal meditates, he again has to face his former master Jaro Tapal. This is the moment where Cal has to get over his survivor’s guilt by realizing that he doesn’t bear the blame for Tapal’s death.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s normally hard to depict internal struggles like this, but in Star Wars we can use the Force as a storytelling mechanism to make the internal struggle an external one. Instead of having our main character talk about his feelings with someone else, we can create this apparition of Jaro Tapal to serve as a literal embodiment of Cal’s guilt. Cal can talk directly to his inner demons, confront them, and overcome them. In this exchange Cal calmly rejects Tapal’s accusations and refuses to fight. The Tapal apparition attempts to attack Cal, but it doesn’t really have any power to hurt him. It never did. All it could do is guilt Cal into hurting himself. This was literal in their previous exchange when Cal broke his lightsaber, and figurative in the sense that this guilt has weighed on Cal for the last 5 years and prevented him from reaching his true potential.<\/p>\n
This is fantastic. It’s a solid idea, expressed in a compelling way, that’s consonant with Star Wars loreIt’s even consonant with Traditional Star Wars!<\/span>, that works in the context of a video game, and is beautifully written and performed. It gives us both spectacleLightsaber confrontations are always exciting, even if the participants aren’t actively swinging their swords around.<\/span> and emotional at the same time, which is something that – at least for me – Star Wars hasn’t accomplished since 1983.\u00a0<\/p>\n My only gripe is that it took us way too long to get here. Cal felt like a stock Normal Guy protagonist for almost half the game. And even once his problems surfaced, it took awhile for the conflict to become interesting. The first few chapters of the game focused on the Cere \/ Trilla conflict, and that wasn’t nearly as powerful for me because of all of my nitpicks with the author’s interpretation of the Dark Side. (And also because that conflict doesn’t really involve our protagonist.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Once Cal has made peace with his ghosts, he finally enters the temple.<\/p>\n Merrin teleports in and Cal introduces himself properly this time. He’s being a little less arrogant and entitled now. That’s good. It shows character growth. He’s made peace with his past, and now he’s stopped thinking with his lightsaber.<\/p>\n He even hands his weapon over as a sign of goodwill. They talk about their individual damage and trauma from the last 5 years. Once they’ve bonded a little, she returns the weapon. Cal is actually acting like a Traditional Star Wars Jedi instead of a nu Star Wars Jedi in this scene. I really dig it. I just wish the story had made it clear that his earlier behavior wasn’t okay.\u00a0<\/p>\n This story has been ignoring Cal’s outrageous body count for the purposes of gameplay, and I assumed we were supposed to ignore his confrontational posture with the Dathomir locals for the same reason. This is a problem that isn’t really an issue for moviemakers, but is a constant challenge for game designers.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are some things – like cutscenes – that are explicitly part of the story, and some elements to the experience that are obviously NOT supposed to be taken literally. Things like save points, the inventory grid, or the hero magically healing gunshot wounds by crouching behind chest-high walls are all gameplay abstractions that we don’t include as part of the “story”. If Nathan Drake pushes through the mercenaries in the jungle and reunites with his friends, and if one of those friends asks him if he’s hurt, he’s not going to reply, “I was shot fifty-three times, but it wore off and I’m fine now.” To go on this adventure, we need to compartmentalize a bit or the whole thing flies apart.<\/p>\n I’m not really complaining that the game suffers from the dreaded Ludonarrative Dissonance<\/a>. It’s not that gameplay and story are in direct conflict, it’s just that in a complex and story-heavy game it’s not always clear which<\/b> bits we’re supposed to believe and which bits we’re supposed to ignore for the purposes of gameplay. <\/p>\n I had figured Cal was acting like a jerk on his first visit to Dathomir because the game designer wanted us to have dudes to fight here, so they contrived this conflict. I wasn’t trusting the storyteller<\/a>. I figured Cal’s behavior was pretty normal for a Nu Star Wars Jedi, so I didn’t think this was setting up a character arc.\u00a0<\/p>\n I think you could have fixed this if the story had openly acknowledged his error. When he got back to\u00a0 the ship, perhaps Cere could have attempted to correct him, and he could have rebuffed her. Then we’d understand his behavior was demonstrating a clear need for character growth and not just an excuse to dump mooks in our path.<\/p>\n Once Cal and Merrin have become friends, Cal finally gets around to explaining that he’s here to save childrenAgain, it’s been at least<\/b> five years so a lot of those children are tweens or teens now.<\/span> from the Empire. He could have avoided doing a lot of murders if he said so sooner, but whatever.<\/p>\n Once the chat is over, Cal heads inside. I thought we were here to get an Astrum, but apparently we’ve decided to confront Malicos.\u00a0<\/p>\n Malicos sees Cal, and assumes the kid is here for training. Malicos has the idea to replace the Jedi Order with something new. It’s not completely clear what this new order would look like, but like all would-be dictators Malicos probably assumes he can figure out these “small details” once he has absolute power over everyone around him. He dreams of building a Grand New Thing, but it’s a safe guess that his new order would turn into a death cult of backstabbing and infighting. My read on it is that he’s trying to create a Sith-style theocracy without the Sith-style order. If the Empire represents space fascism, then Malicos is going for “basic despotism, but with lightsabers instead of guns.” Maybe I’m reading it wrong (Malicos seems a little vague on the details himself) but I think it’s safe to say that his new order would be a heinous disaster even by Jedi standards.<\/p>\n Anyway, Cal isn’t interested. Maybe Malicos doesn’t want Cal to tell other Jedi about what he’s been doing on Dathomir, or maybe he’s just a dick that can’t take “no” for an answer. Anyway, a lightsaber duel ensues.<\/p>\nMerrin<\/h3>\n
<\/div>The Line Between Story and Gameplay<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Malicos<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Let’s Talk About Saber Duels Again<\/h3>\n
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