Category: star wars

Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the entirety of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, including its ending. There may also be spoilers for other iterations of the Star Wars franchise.

At the end of July I completed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. If you missed it, I documented my playthrough of the game, and you can find the entire series by following this link. However, that won’t be required reading for this piece, which will serve as a review/summary of what I thought of the game as a whole. So let’s get started!

My recent history with the Star Wars universe has been complicated. Due to disability, I haven’t been able to go to the cinema in person for several years, meaning that the most recent Star Wars films had been spoiled for me, and I was aware of their basic storylines before I could sit down to watch them. The last film I got to see unspoiled was 2016’s Rogue One. I enjoyed that film a lot, and at the time I enjoyed the first and second parts of the sequel trilogy – The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, despite its controversial nature. Solo was okay, I guess I’d call it average. But I didn’t enjoy The Rise of Skywalker at all, and I found The Mandalorian to be bland and uninteresting, as well as a show that struggled to break away from the franchise’s past.

Enter Jedi: Fallen Order. I’d been very much looking forward to the game since Electronic Arts announced it at E3 2018. It had actually been a long time since I played a Star Wars game when I first heard of Jedi: Fallen Order – though I would subsequently play the Star Wars Battlefront II campaign in late 2018 or early 2019. The only thing I was concerned about with the game before I played it was its difficulty; any time something is described as “Souls-like” (a reference to the Dark Souls series) I tend to think it probably isn’t something I’ll enjoy. However, the subsequent revelation that the game features an easier mode made me feel better. I bought Jedi: Fallen Order when it was on sale on Steam in the spring of 2020, a few months after it was released. Unfortunately around that time my PC was having issues, which meant I couldn’t play it immediately. I ended up replacing my graphics card – though the whole machine needs an overhaul at some point soon – and I was finally able to sit down and play.

I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from a game described as a “linear, story-driven, action-adventure” title, and from a gameplay perspective Jedi: Fallen Order was more or less what I was expecting. Cal had a lightsaber that he used as his only weapon, and a handful of Force powers that could be used both in combat and for puzzle-solving. As strange as it sounds when discussing a video game, I wasn’t particularly interested in the gameplay side of things. I wanted it to function correctly with no major bugs, and of course I wanted it to be an enjoyable and not-frustrating experience, but my real reason for playing the game was its story. As long as the gameplay didn’t get in the way of that I expected to be at the very least satisfied with the way Jedi: Fallen Order played.

My playthrough lasted 19.8 hours according to Steam – though a few minutes of that was taken up with the first-time setup, connecting to Origin, and a couple of updates that needed to be downloaded before I could play the game. Having looked it up online, the average seems to be around 20 hours, so I think my 19.8 hours is pretty much bang on what you could expect. I only died a handful of times (thanks in part to playing on the aforementioned easiest difficulty setting), so players who go for the hardest difficulty and end up having to respawn a lot more frequently than I did may find the game takes a little longer.

In my 19.8 hours I feel I accomplished as much as I could. I completed the game’s story, and there weren’t really side-quests of the type that many modern titles have, so the only things I could have done that I didn’t were collecting more cosmetic items and finding a few more “secrets” on each of the levels. These secrets mostly seem to be Force echoes – Cal can use the Force on certain objects or at certain locations to sense the past, and this would usually play out in an audio clip and perhaps an entry in the game’s databank. In short, as someone who isn’t a completionist who has to visit every last cave and open every single chest, I got as much out of the game as I reasonably could have. Backtracking simply for the sake of a few short audio clips and perhaps an extra outfit or lightsaber hilt colour doesn’t hold much appeal to me – so I didn’t.

Let’s talk about backtracking, because this is one of the few complaints I’d have about Jedi: Fallen Order. The game consists of seven planets – each planet forms one “level” for the purposes of our discussion. The first planet, Bracca, is a tutorial level, it’s very scripted, and within the first hour or so, Cal has left and there’s no option to return. Two of the other levels, Ilum and Nur, are relatively linear and compact, and may only be visited once. That leaves four levels: Bogano, Dathomir, Kashyyyk, and Zeffo. These are where the bulk of the game takes place, and they’re larger levels with some degree of exploration required to progress. However, the game’s story takes Cal from one planet to the next… then back to the previous one. This formula plays out for each of these four worlds, and frankly it got repetitive. I’m not averse to the idea of Cal revisiting the same planet – in the context of the story it made sense. But what I think would have worked better is if the levels had been broken down into two smaller chunks, with Cal visiting one location each time. This would have avoided the feeling of repetitiveness while still allowing the game to make use of many of the same assets for terrain and the environment.

The downside of bigger levels is that they can be confusing to navigate. Jedi: Fallen Order does provide an in-game map, but I found it difficult to get the hang of, especially on those bigger levels where a map would’ve really come in handy. The map is 3D, it’s entirely in shades of blue which made identifying any features difficult, there was no way to see the entire level all at once without completely losing my bearings, and generally the map was unhelpful most of the time. It was useful for seeing things like blocked doors and unnavigable passages, as these were usually highlighted, but for finding my way around a level and getting from point to point I have to give the holo-map a failing grade.

Because Jedi: Fallen Order didn’t offer many shortcuts or ways back to the beginning of the level (i.e. where Cal’s ship was) after completing the level’s objectives, having a good map would have been very helpful when it came to backtracking through each of the levels. This was definitely something I found to be frustrating – with the mission over, I was keen to get on with the story and having to spend twenty minutes or more finding my way back through a level I’d already completed wasn’t a lot of fun. I can’t think of many games that do this – at least, not ones I’ve played – and it feels like padding. With the objective complete and the mission over, having to waste time going back through an already-completed level can hardly be described as anything else.

At a couple of points, Jedi: Fallen Order felt as though it was trying to present itself as a game that offered me a choice of things to do when really no such choice existed. In the worst example, after completing the tutorial level and visiting Bogano for the first time, Cal had a choice of two planets to visit. I chose to go to Dathomir, as I thought it may contain a side-mission and I didn’t want to miss out on it if the story moved on too quickly. The game didn’t make clear that there was absolutely no point in going there – Cal would be unable to progress in any meaningful way on that planet until far later into the game. This fact wasn’t even acknowledged while at the section of the level where Cal was blocked from progressing. In short, Cal needed to jump across a gap in a damaged bridge, but the gap was too wide. After trying and failing once, he says to himself something like “it’s too wide to jump.” After saying that once, that was it. It took me looking up a walkthough online to realise that there was no way at all to progress further on that level, and that’s just something which shouldn’t happen.

This ties into a much bigger theme that was present throughout the game – there were many points where an extra line or two of dialogue would have gone a long way to improving the story. In the case of Cal failing the jump on Dathomir, we needed more explanation than a single ambiguous line, something to make it clear the way was shut. But at numerous other points the same issue was present. While I wouldn’t say the story was confused as a result, there were a number of places where it wasn’t as clear as it could’ve been. I pointed these out as I found them, and it’s something I seemed to say often in my playthrough posts!

While Jedi: Fallen Order had one main story – Cal’s quest to find a Jedi holocron – it made an attempt to introduce a B-plot involving the Stinger Mantis’ pilot Greez and a faction of bounty hunters. But this storyline was not properly developed and seemed to be abandoned toward the end of the game with no conclusion. A sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order is in the works, and it’s possible it may come back at that point. But the storyline didn’t feel like it ended on a cliffhanger. One minute Cal was captured by bounty hunters, a few minutes later he’d escaped. For the rest of the game bounty hunters would periodically show up – even in places where it seemed illogical to find them – but they never said anything or did anything of consequence. They were just slightly annoying enemies to fight. The storyline just fizzled out, and as of the game’s finale felt like it had been abandoned; it wasn’t even mentioned once during the final couple of hours of the game.

There were a handful of moments which I felt were immersion-breaking, where Jedi: Fallen Order stopped feeling like an unfolding Star Wars adventure and started feeling like just another video game. I looked at these moments as they happened, but the worst one was the escape from Ilum. After Cal retrieved his lightsaber crystal from the old Jedi temple, it was a race back to the Stinger Mantis with Imperial reinforcements on the way. Cere jumped on the radio to tell Cal to hurry – Star Destroyers were inbound! But when Cal made it back to the ship, Cere and Greez just stood there. And I had to walk Cal over to the galaxy map to choose the crew’s next destination. What should have been a daring last-second escape turned into a horrible anticlimax and completely robbed what had been a great part of the story of much of its dramatic effect.

As a whole, however, I liked Jedi: Fallen Order’s story. The idea of chasing a hidden holocron in what was a kind of archaeological/historical puzzle felt like something Jean-Luc Picard would have done in Star Trek: The Next Generation! As a history buff myself, I felt that the galactic history angle was fascinating and added a lot to the story. As far as I know, the Zeffo are new to Star Wars; they were certainly new to me. And in that sense, the story really did feel mysterious much of the time – I was never quite sure, especially early in the game, just was I was going to discover.

The characters all felt real and added to the story, too. Cal himself is perhaps the least-interesting of the main characters, but as someone who has to be the “everyman” protagonist that’s fair enough. And he did have a backstory – a padawan who survived Order 66. Cere and Greez were interesting too, though as mentioned part of Greez’s story – his gambling debt and the trouble with the bounty hunters – feels incomplete. But perhaps my favourite character was Trilla, the Second Sister.

When she was first introduced near the beginning of the game, Trilla felt rather flat. Slightly over-the-top and leaning into being evil meant that there didn’t seem to be much depth to her character; she felt like she could’ve ended up being one-dimensional. But the subsequent revelation that she had been Cere’s padawan, and had turned to the dark side after being tortured by the Empire, was not only a fascinating story twist that rivalled some of Star Wars’ best (and far exceeded some of its worst), but one which transformed her into a character who was complicated and even sympathetic. Her death at the end of the game – when she seemed on the cusp of forgiveness and perhaps even redemption – was heartbreaking.

Though it worked well for me, I can understand why some players may have felt that the ending of the game wasn’t its strongest point. We can set aside the accusation of Darth Vader being a “deus ex machina”, because in the context of the Star Wars universe I feel it worked. But Cal and Cere’s mission, for the entirety of the story, had been to retrieve the holocron for the express purpose of using it to track down and train the Force-sensitive kids. The setup of the story strongly implies that this has been Cere’s quest for a long time – perhaps even years. Cal’s decision to renege on that, and to destroy the holocron instead, didn’t exactly come from nowhere, but it was a story point that was less developed that it could’ve been. His motivation for doing so comes from Merrin, but they only had two very brief conversations on the subject before the pivotal moment – one of which was an optional conversation that would have been easy to miss. So I can understand why some fans will have felt that the ending was unsatisfying.

However, I’d like to explain why it worked for me. Firstly, Cal changed a lot over the course of the game. He came to realise that putting Force-sensitive kids through Jedi training would lead to them being hunted by the Empire. He lived much of his life since Order 66 in hiding, and having experience the Empire’s Jedi-hunters firsthand was not content to see other kids go through what he went through. Secondly, the vision on Bogano showed him how training the kids could go wrong and lead to them being captured or killed. And finally, the conversations with Merrin were what pushed him over the edge and convinced him to destroy the holocron rather than keep it. For me, he has more than enough motivation from his background and his recent experiences to feel that destroying the holocron makes sense – and from out perspective as the audience, keeping the kids safe from the Empire is still a huge victory.

Finally, let’s look at a couple of minor things that I didn’t like in terms of gameplay. Firstly, Jedi: Fallen Order was not as polished as I would have expected from a major release. There were a number of bugs and glitches, which mostly consisted of the environment or characters behaving incorrectly – characters would float in mid-air, stand on an invisible ledge, fall through the scenery, etc. The worst two glitches involved Cal getting stuck in the environment. At one point he was unable to cross a narrow beam because the game didn’t register where he was stepping correctly, and on another occasion he got stuck in the scenery after climbing an invisible wall. If I found these issues in a standard playthrough, QA testers must have spotted them during development. Between the game’s release and when I played it there were eight months in which a patch could have been rolled out; it’s a shame that these things were there in the first place but there’s been more than enough time to fix them.

There were a couple of gameplay features that I wasn’t wild about either. Both of these were creative decisions and not glitches or bugs, so I respect the decision to include them. But from my point of view, they didn’t work very well. The first is the checkpoint system. I haven’t played a game since the ’90s that had fixed checkpoints instead of allowing players to save freely, and even though it wasn’t something I had to make use of all that often, it’s not my favourite way to play. In the past it was a limitation of computing power that games had to get around because there was no alternative; in 2020 that isn’t the case. It’s a creative decision, one which aimed to bring Jedi: Fallen Order in line with titles like the Dark Souls series, and I respect that. I just don’t like it.

The second point wasn’t something I disliked per se, it’s just a feature that got old pretty fast: sliding. In the first level, the brief sliding section was wild and very fun. But the feature was repeated multiple times throughout the game and honestly it lost its appeal. Where it felt unique and fun the first time, after several mandatory sliding sessions the novelty wore off. Not to mention that several of these sections required milisecond-perfect button presses which could be very difficult.

On the plus side, Jedi: Fallen Order gave me what might just be my favourite ever experience in a Star Wars game: piloting an AT-AT. Unlike the sliding feature, which was reused multiple times, the game only gave me one shot at this, but it was so much fun. Cal and BD-1 stayed in the vehicle’s cockpit, and over a fifteen-minute section blasted their way through other AT-ATs, ground forces, and even Imperial ships on the surface of Kashyyyk. It was undoubtedly the most fun section in the game purely from a gameplay perspective!

Speaking of Kashyyyk, it was fun to revisit a planet I’d played through years ago in Knights of the Old Republic. Though on my first visit the level looked quite different to the Kashyyyk I remembered from the older game, the second mission to the Wookie homeworld definitely brought back memories, and at points felt like playing an upgraded version of that classic from the original Xbox era.

There were some great scripted moments in Jedi: Fallen Order. When Cal is dreaming while on the train on Bracca, there was a moment where the train was suddenly replaced with an Imperial ship. It was seamless and perfectly shocking. I liked the voice acting performances that the characters gave – at no point did I feel they misspoke, over- or under-acted a scene, or were anything other than competent throughout. BD-1, Cal’s droid, is absolutely adorable and I love him. There were some genuinely emotional moments in the story, such as where BD-1 encouraged Cal not to give up in the crystal cave. But above all, Jedi: Fallen Order was fun to play. I enjoyed myself most of the time, and came out of it with a renewed appreciation for the Star Wars franchise after the disappointment of the most recent film.

I’m not going to give Jedi: Fallen Order a score out of ten. Metacritic and others have plenty of numbered reviews if you need to put a score on it. What I’ll say instead is that I enjoyed the game, and it’s one I would recommend to anyone who either likes Star Wars or who likes Tomb Raider-esque action/adventure titles. Even non-Star Wars fans who like that style of game would find something to enjoy here, but obviously for a fan of the franchise the game offers a lot more.

Having completed the story, I’m in no rush to play Jedi: Fallen Order again. It isn’t a game which offers branching storylines or even a light/dark system to increase its replayability. However, I enjoyed my time with the game and definitely recommend it to anyone who’s on the fence about trying it. If you’re playing on PC and you’re on a budget, the game was recently discounted during the Steam summer sale, so I think there’s a better than average chance that in December, during Steam’s holiday sale, you might find it at a steep discount. I don’t think there’s any real advantage to be gained from buying the deluxe edition – it seemed to offer a couple of customisation options and nothing more, and given how many customisation options are picked up just from playing the game, unless you desperately want an orange lightsaber or yellow skin for BD-1, I’d say skip it and save the few pounds/dollars.

It was fun to document a playthrough in this way. I’ve already started a much more casual playthough of a second game – Disneyland Adventures. That series is ongoing and I’ll be updating it occasionally as we go through August and into the autumn. I haven’t decided what game in the style of Jedi: Fallen Order I might play next. I was initially considering Control, but after my recent bust-up with the Epic Games Store that’s not an option right now. I do have several other titles I’m considering, though, both modern and retro.

I hope you’ll check back regularly for more game reviews, gaming discussion, and articles about Star Wars, Star Trek, and the wide world of geekdom. Until next time… May The Force Be With You!

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the copyright of Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. The Star Wars franchise is the copyright of Lucasfilm and Disney. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as well as for other iterations of the Star Wars franchise.

Welcome to the final part of my playthrough of Jedi: Fallen Order. Yes, that’s right – this session was the last one as I made it to the end of the game! This won’t be the final piece I write about Jedi: Fallen Order, though – I plan to write up a conclusion/review of the game as a whole at some point soon, so I hope you’ll stay tuned for that. Last time Cal had finally acquired the Zeffo Astrium in the tomb on Dathomir. He defeated Taron Malicos and brought a new ally – Night Sister Merrin – aboard the Stinger Mantis.

After loading into the game, I chose Bogano from the galaxy map on the Mantis and the ship took off. I wasn’t sure what to expect; it didn’t seem as though Bogano would be the immediate end of the game – though the story was approaching its climax – so I was wondering if something might happen en route or upon arrival (this is why I’ve usually been saving before setting course for Cal’s next destination!) Choosing to go to Bogano triggered a cut-scene between the Mantis crew. Cal set the Zeffo Astrium on the table, and Merrin, Cere, and Greez all had something to say.

The moment with Greez was very sweet – Cal and Cere both expressed their appreciation for getting them safely from place to place, and Greez seemed genuinely overwhelmed for a moment. Merrin piped up and offered her opinion on the holocron – is it fair to the children to force them to become Jedi when that will mean the Empire will hunt them the way they’re hunting Cere and Cal? Definitely something to ponder, but at the very least Cal says he needs to keep the holocron out of the Empire’s hands.

The flight was uneventful, as was landing on Bogano. After disembarking, Cere, Greez, and Merrin were all standing outside the ship, and optional conversations with each of them had a definite finality to them. “We’re in this together” was a phrase that came up a couple of times with Greez, and Cere warned Cal that there may be unexpected dangers in the vault. Merrin’s conversation was the most interesting, and in light of what happened later I think should have been a mandatory cut-scene instead of a chat which players could easily have missed or skipped. She asked Cal a very pointed question – whether the children whose names are in the holocron would have even been in danger had he and Cere not intervened. Merrin sowed doubt in Cal’s mind about what to do with the holocron and the children, and also suggests to Cal that taking them away from their families to fight as Jedi may not be their choice.

I liked these optional conversations, but they definitely had an air of finality to them, which led me to believe that the game might end soon after Cal arrived at the vault. Crossing Bogano to reach the vault was no issue, as practically all of the hostile creatures were once again absent, as they had been when we revisited Bogano in search of supplies. The only monster was the large three-eyed mini-boss near the entrance to the vault, but I chose not to fight it this time (that fight was annoying, and I felt Cal was already as levelled-up as I wanted him to be). It only took a couple of minutes, using the unlocked shortcuts and with abilities like wall-running and double jumping, to arrive at the vault.

One thing that surprised me (though it really shouldn’t have, since Cal is the only one who’s been here) is that no one bothered to re-seal the vault after Cal first opened it. Though it’s a tight squeeze to crawl inside, given that Trilla and the Empire are trying to get the holocron too, it might’ve been prudent to lock it down after Cal’s first visit. Inside the vault I was aware of how this large circular room would make for a perfect boss battle arena! I’d been half-expecting Trilla or a squad of Purge troopers to have been there, but to my surprise it was empty. I did take a moment to look around, just in case there was anything I hadn’t seen or any loot to grab, but aside from a spot in the centre of the room to interact with, there was nothing. Pressing the button led to a cut-scene in which Cal seemed to put the Astrium in a spot on the floor. This in turn caused the vault to move – Cal described the vault itself as being akin to a large holocron. Now this is something I don’t understand – for the first time while in the vault, Cal looked up, and there’s no roof! Cere made a huge fuss about accessing the vault, which appears to be just inside the door/crawlspace on the hilltop. Yet once inside, apparently it has no roof!

At first I thought the lack of roof may have been connected to the vault moving when Cal used the Astrium, but looking back that isn’t the case – it had always been open. Given that, I wonder why Cere needed Cal to access it in the first place. The entryway to the vault didn’t seem to be transporting Cal to anywhere other than a couple of metres along inside the hill, so presumably near to the vault entrance it should be possible for anyone to just jump into it from above. I guess I just found this to be confusing, and aside from Cere at the beginning of the game saying it needed the Force to open, there’s no real explanation of how the vault works. Is it cloaked somehow? Or hidden to anyone other than a Force user? Considering the Zeffo placed a record of their civilisation inside that they wanted someone to find, why would they hide it instead of putting it out in the open? Not for the first time I’m left thinking we needed a little more explanation of part of the game’s story. The vault’s movement opened up a mirror on the far wall, and Cal walked over to it.

Touching the mirror caused Cal to have a vision. Initially he was spoken to by a member of the Zeffo race, who briefly explained that they created the vault to serve as a record of their people, who for some reason were going extinct. I actually interpreted what this Zeffo leader had to say as being cult-like: he said his people had become decadent and strayed from “balance”, and that he would lead them “into the great unknown”, which sounds an awful lot like a metaphor for mass suicide to me. Did the Zeffo drink the proverbial Kool-aid? It wasn’t explained any further. I stand by what I said about the Zeffo looking at least somewhat similar to the Protheans from the Mass Effect games, though.

This vision was similar to the one Cal had of Master Tapal – it was very dark and cloudy, with characters and the environment being blurry and out of focus. This gave it an incredibly creepy feel throughout, and I was constantly expecting to be ambushed and attacked by someone – or something – hiding in the shadows.

Though the Zeffo leader only spoke for a moment, Cal’s vision wasn’t over. Progressing through this level led to Cal seeing the children he hoped to train. Initially he saw their progress as they called him “Master”, but the next section saw their home under attack by Stormtroopers. If this was a premonition of the future, it was bleak. But Cere had warned Cal that he would be tested, and perhaps this was part of the test. None of the characters could be interacted with, and none of the enemies could be battled; these scripted sequences played out as Cal walked through each area, but even if he wanted to he couldn’t do anything.

The vision grew bleaker as Cal progressed. I liked one section which saw him climbing up a wall – the scenery was designed to make it look as though, rather than climbing, Cal was crawling through a trench. It was very well done. Eventually he was confronted by a vision of Trilla, who drew her lightsaber. If Cal surrendered she promised to spare the children’s lives, so he knelt before her. Surrendering saw Cal fall into an Imperial facility of some kind, where the vision showed him the children imprisoned and a very dangerous-looking machine.

Walking further through the Imperial facility saw visions of Stormtroopers and other Imperials, and in this section Cal would walk toward an open doorway only for the door to slam shut. It happened several times, yet still managed to make me jump each time! Ultimately Cal ended up in a small hallway where the lights went out, leaving the screen black for a moment. Cal ignited a red double-bladed lightsaber, and had a vision of himself as an inquisitor, dressed in the same black uniform as Trilla.

After seeing himself in the inquisitor’s uniform, Cal was in a long hallway. At the end of the hallway seemed to be the mirror in the vault on Bogano. I approached it cautiously; there had been no enemies to fight in the vision yet, and I was expecting something at any moment. However, Cal made it back to the mirror, and seemed to stare at his reflection in a cut-scene. One thing that Jedi: Fallen Order has done that I really liked has been to always show Cal in whatever outfit I chose for him, even during cut-scenes. Yet at this moment, for some reason Cal was in his original outfit from Bogano, with no poncho. It kind of detracted from this moment a little, as it was supposed to show Cal – our Cal in the real world – confronting the dark vision of himself. Yet without those customisation elements it didn’t quite feel like our Cal, and the fact that the original outfit was a dark navy colour didn’t provide a great contrast with the black inquisitor uniform either. I would have liked to have seen Cal in the outfit I’d chosen for him in this moment, and because Jedi: Fallen Order has done that in every other cut-scene, I don’t know why it didn’t happen here.

Despite anticipating a boss battle of some kind during the vision, as Cal confronted his dark self the vision came to an end. Cal had apparently cracked the mirror, perhaps from hitting it or pressing on it while he experienced the vision. Behind him in the centre of the room, above the spot where he’d placed the Astrium, was the holocron. Cal approached it to pick it up… but this seemed too easy!

It was, of course, because the moment Cal collected the holocron, Trilla revealed herself. How long had she been here? Had she just been standing there watching Cal as he completed his vision? Seems a little voyeuristic… Regardless, she ignited her weapon and, in true villain style, thanked Cal for doing the hard work for her. She believed the holocron would “win her the Emperor’s favour”, presumably elevating her position among the inquisitors. A duel was inevitable, and compared to the earlier fight against her on Zeffo, I felt it wasn’t especially difficult.

Trilla had a few moves at her disposal, and as with the fight against Taron Malicos, the hardest part was getting her guard down long enough to land a blow. Cal’s Force powers were mostly useless – Trilla was immune to pushes and pulls, though some of the fancier moves, like the lightsaber throw, did work against her. I wouldn’t rank it as one of the game’s toughest boss battles, though – which certainly should’ve been an indication that this wasn’t the end!

Eventually I was able to grind Trilla’s health bar all the way down. I rather naïvely thought that the fight was over and that Cal could leave with the holocron! A cut-scene triggered which showed Cal knock Trilla’s weapon from her hands. He picked it up – at which point it was clear the fight was over. But Cal has the ability to sense Force echoes from places and objects, and touching Trilla’s weapon caused him to have a vision of what she experienced – all the pain and rage that her weapon had been through had left a powerful impression in the Force. Cal couldn’t control it, and while he was temporarily incapacitated, Trilla stole the holocron.

The Force echo – which we got to see in full this time, not just hear – was interesting. Cal witnessed Cere attempting to draw the Empire’s forces away from Trilla and another young Jedi, as well as Trilla’s capture and torture by the Empire. This culminated in her becoming an inquisitor, putting on her mask for the first time in front of Cere. The vision also showed the beginning of Cere’s escape from Imperial captivity. One thing that was interesting was Trilla’s helmet – it doesn’t allow a very wide field of view (as we might’ve guessed from looking at it). While aesthetically that might look “cool” (if the Sith care about coolness/intimidating looks) it’s hardly very practical to purposefully limit the vision of some of their top soldiers. In addition, the mask seems to give everything she looks at a red hue, which may be useful in dark environments but again can’t be practical most of the time.

When the Force echo was over, Trilla was nowhere to be seen, having fled the vault. After Cal regained his composure he headed back outside, as there was nowhere else to go from here. I took advantage of the meditation spot in case another big fight was looming, and while there was a squad of Stormtroopers outside, they were very easily avoided as Cal retraced his steps to get back to the Mantis. The Stormtroopers were busy anyway; the large monster had also spawned and as Cal snuck past the troopers were engaged in a fight against it.

Once again this had a very “video gamey” feel to it, and the story didn’t seem to have a natural flow. The Mantis was sitting a few hundred yards away, out in the open, yet no Stormtroopers were bothering the ship and crew. In fact, the small squad immediately outside the vault were all the troops that the Empire had bothered to send to Bogano. Trilla had successfully got the holocron, but if the Empire still wanted to capture and/or kill Cal and Cere, they missed a golden opportunity. As it is, Cal was able to gently stroll back to the Mantis, and talk to those on board before taking off.

Despite the fact that Cal had fought Trilla again, and that she had stolen the holocron, the Force echo seemed to be another hint at her possible redemption – a theory I’d been tossing around since she was given a name and backstory when Cal faced her on Zeffo. Upon returning to the Mantis Cal apologised to Cere, not only for losing the holocron but for not understanding what she’d been through.

Cere told Cal that Trilla is her responsibility – she still felt responsible for allowing her to be captured and turned into an inquisitor. She knew where Trilla would take the holocron – the inquisitor’s home base: Fortress Inquisitorius. To me that name sounds like it comes right out of the Warhammer 40K universe, but that’s okay! The fortress was where Cere escaped from, and is where the inquisitors take Jedi and other Force-sensitives to turn into more inquisitors. She was very anxious about going back, but seemed to snap out of it pretty quickly. She used the Force to pull Trilla’s lightsaber to her, and in a scene reminiscent of the knighting of Brienne in the final season of Game of Thrones, knighted Cal, making him officially a Jedi.

This was a real emotional moment in the story for me – Cal had come a long way from hiding out amongst the scrap and dead ships on Bracca. Even though the Jedi Order was all but gone, he had managed to become a Jedi Knight. Cal had been a great protagonist thus far, definitely channelling some of the same energy as Luke Skywalker in the original film. Cal’s journey in some ways parallels Luke’s – a young man from an out-of-the-way planet, thrust into a galactic adventure by events outside of his control. Yet at the same time, Cal’s background as a padawan, his deliberate decision to stay in hiding, and his willingness to confront his own guilt and past make him very different from Luke – and taking steps away from the original films is something Star Wars as a brand needs to do if it’s going to survive and be successful. But we’ve strayed off-topic! After the knighting ceremony, to my surprise I had control of Cal again. At the holotable on the Mantis, all the previous planets – Dathomir, Zeffo, Ilum, and Kashyyyk – were available to travel to. There was also a new destination: Nur.

Nur had two Star Destroyers in orbit on the galaxy map, which looked pretty intimidating! But there was no point going anywhere else. The story had reached its climax; Nur was surely the game’s final level. The galaxy map shows as a percentage how much of each planet has been explored, and how many secrets and hidden chests have been discovered. For every planet I was between 85-90% explored, which I think is pretty good, and I’d found over half of the secrets and about two-thirds of the hidden chests (which contain cosmetics like lightsaber parts, Mantis and BD-1 paint schemes, and ponchos for Cal). As someone who isn’t a 100% completionist, I consider all of that to be pretty decent, especially for the first run through a game. With all that in mind, I selected Nur and the Mantis headed out.

Upon arriving in the system, two Star Destroyers were present in orbit of the moon. Greez told the crew that their usual methods of avoiding detection would not be good enough, and worried about how they’d be able to get to the surface safely. Merrin had a solution – using a spell to cloak the ship. Despite Greez’s initial unease, this worked perfectly, and the ship disappeared from view.

With the ship safely cloaked, approaching the moon wasn’t an issue. Cere and Cal would both be going; Cere planned to disable the fortress’ scanners and defences while Cal retrieved the holocron. This reminded me of Luke and Obi-Wan splitting up during their mission aboard the Death Star, and I didn’t expect Cal to see Cere again. However, it also felt like Cere had finally overcome her fear of using the Force and had embraced her Jedi nature once again, which has been a very satisfying character arc to see play out.

After using the Mantis’ escape pods to land on the moon – which is covered by an ocean, at least in the vicinity of the fortress – Cal was on his own, though Cere would check in by radio. After Cal’s pod splashed down, the area immediately outside the pod was not well-laid out and was confusing to swim through. There was no obvious path through the water, and no landmarks to allow me to get my bearings. Cal also couldn’t swim to the surface, despite the surface being visible only a few metres above his head. And finally, during swimming sections the holo-map can’t be used, all of which contributed to a very confusing few minutes of blindly swimming around.

The fortress itself is apparently constructed largely underwater – the idea being that sections or even the whole thing could be flooded if necessary to prevent Jedi prisoners from escaping. In the aftermath of Order 66, this is the facility the Empire used to hold Jedi, torture them, and turn the survivors into inquisitors. As a concept I quite liked it; it definitely seems like a tactic the Empire might have used. Though it raised the question of how Cere was able to escape a facility with such a permanent and deadly failsafe!

After eventually figuring out where to swim to, Cal made it into the fortress via one of its underwater airlocks. This section contained a few Stormtroopers and little else. In fact the base as a whole – except for the latter areas that we’ll come to in a moment – was mostly uninteresting. There were a few hallways, some of which had windows to the outside underwater environment, but aside from a single puzzle (one of those connect-the-power-cable ones we’ve seen quite a few times) there wasn’t much of note.

Over the radio, Cere made contact to tell Cal she’d succeeded in disabling the fortress’ shields. Cal flooded this section of the base and then swam to the next – fortunately this swimming section was less of an issue than the first. After entering the next dry section of the base, Cal found himself at a training dojo where a couple of Purge troopers were practicing. This room would soon become a battle arena, with several waves of all kinds of Stormtroopers and Purge troopers to defeat – by far the largest fight in terms of numbers in the whole game.

One part of the floor of the dojo opened up to reveal a pit, and though the troopers weren’t hard to fight one-on-one, as with the zombie Night Sisters back on Dathomir, in numbers they were a challenge. The pit in the middle of the room created an additional danger, but was also useful for Force pushing troopers into – a favoured tactic of mine throughout the game! Eventually Cal prevailed, and a meditation spot emerged as a reward. I checkpointed my progress here before heading further into the fortress.

The next room was the prison – though it was lacking any prisoners, as presumably there are fewer and fewer Jedi for the Empire to hunt down these days! Cal also had his first run-in with Cere since arriving at the base, opening a blast door for her and seeing a pretty cool scripted sequence as she defeated several Purge troopers using Trilla’s lightsaber.

Cere was able to unlock a route for Cal to leave the prison and get to the holocron, which was being kept in the heart of the fortress – the interrogation chamber. For some reason – it wasn’t clear why – the fortress was built atop a lake of molten lava. Makes you wonder why the Empire is always doing things like that! It gave this part of the level a weird aesthetic: a mixture of Star Wars’ Empire with a Bowser’s Castle level from Super Mario! One thing I thought as we arrived on Nur was that the fortress (or the part of it above the water, anyway) vaguely resembled Darth Vader’s castle in Rogue One – his castle is similarly built above molten lava on Mustafar, the planet where he lost the fight against Obi-Wan.

The route to the interrogation room was eerily deserted. Cal noticed a turbolift and suggested to BD-1 it could be an escape route. Otherwise he was walking across a long, open-sided bridge that led from the prison room to the interrogation chamber, but there were no troopers or enemies of any kind. Two large, intimidating gun-turrets were silent too; I wondered if Cal would have to battle them on the way out!

After entering the interrogation room, Cal was confronted by Trilla. He made an admirable attempt to get through to her, offering her a chance at redemption and a return to the light, but she attacked him and a duel began. This was the hardest battle in the game, no question. Trilla was 10x stronger than she had been in the earlier fight on Bogano, and landing even a single hit on her required jumping, dodging, parrying, and split-second timing.

Trilla was a difficult opponent, and Cal needed to use most of his stim-packs to survive the fight. The duel also included a couple of quick-time events, which involved mashing the X or B buttons to survive as Cal and Trilla locked blades.

Eventually, however, Cal was able to grind down her health bar, defeating Trilla and ending the duel. As the fight ended, Cere arrived. She spoke to Trilla, telling her that the fight was over and to try to let go of her pain and anger. For a moment, it seemed as though she’d got through to her former apprentice, and Trilla listened, expressing her regret for holding onto her hate for Cere for so long. Before the two could fully reconcile, however, Trilla was paralysed. Out of the smoke behind her, a familiar mechanical breathing could be heard…

I couldn’t believe it at first! Surely we weren’t going to see Darth Vader himself! In a way, it makes a lot of sense that he’d make an appearance. Not only for the story, but because it’s a Star Wars game and players love to face off against one of the biggest villains in the franchise. But I wasn’t expecting it at all, so it was a genuine surprise. The mechanical breathing grew louder, and then Darth Vader himself emerged from the smoke. “This can’t be good,” remarked Cal.

Unlike Palpatine’s return in The Rise of Skywalker, Darth Vader’s appearance here worked very well. It was a genuine surprise – a shock, really – and in the context of the story facing off against a bigger, badder foe makes sense. I can understand why some people may feel that Vader’s arrival at this point in the story seems like a deus ex machina, and perhaps if the game was detached from the Star Wars brand, the sudden arrival of a new supervillain at the last moment could be seen that way. However, this is Star Wars, and given the game is taking place during the years before the original film, when Darth Vader was the Empire’s second-in-command, it doesn’t feel that way to me. Darth Vader, and original trilogy characters in general, can definitely be overused in Star Wars; I would suggest that Vader’s scenes in Rogue One didn’t really add anything to that film’s story, for example. But here it really did succeed, and not just because of a sense of nostalgia. Vader is a terrifying opponent, especially for someone like Cal who barely scraped through the fight against Trilla!

One point I want to mention just before we go on: there was something ever so slightly “off” about Vader’s appearance. The best way I can explain it is that he looked to have the wrong proportions, being slightly broader and – for want of a better word – chunkier, than how he appears in the films. His helmet, too, seemed slightly different, perhaps squashed or just a fraction different in its scale. None of these factors really bothered me in the moment, nor dragged me out of the story, but I thought it worthwhile to mention. I daresay any such minor issues were a result of the game being, well, a game.

The first thing Vader did upon arriving in the interrogation chamber was kill Trilla, whose last words to Cal and Cere were “avenge us!” I’d like to think that, had she survived, Trilla was on the cusp of redemption and a return to the light. Her conversation with Cere seemed to be moving in that direction, and it will be a tragedy for both Cal and Cere that they never got to find out, nor to save Trilla from Vader’s blade. Cere shouted at Cal to run, before making a leaping attack on Vader. Using the Force, he casually threw her aside and she toppled over the edge of one of the platforms – seemingly to her death.

The next part of the game was initially confusing to me, as Vader grabbed Cal with the Force. Though I was in control of Cal, I couldn’t see any way to attack Vader (Cal couldn’t ignite his weapon, nor move) and after being held in the Sith Lord’s grip for a few seconds, Cal was dead. I was initially worried that I’d respawn before the duel with Trilla and have to do the whole thing all over again; luckily this wasn’t the case. On the second go around I figured it out – Cal used the Force to throw a large barrel or tank at Vader, and in the momentary lapse in the Sith Lord’s concentration, made a run for it.

Darth Vader was an unstoppable killing machine – Cal had nothing in his arsenal that could even come close to matching the Sith Lord’s power and abilities. All he could do was run – sprinting back along the bridge toward the turbolift as Vader literally tore the bridge itself apart with the Force. This sequence was the most tense in the whole game, as Cal had mere seconds to run and jump across each gap and over each obstacle, lest Vader would catch him and it would all be over.

Vader gave chase – but at a slow pace, and Cal was able to leap across the wrecked bridge, making it to the turbolift. After bashing the controls to make the lift move, it seemed as though Vader had caught up to him, but despite the Sith’s lightsaber cutting through the doors, the turbolift moved and Cal made it to an upper level of the facility. With the holocron safely in his possession he signalled the Mantis – informing Greez of Cere’s death and requesting extraction. Running down a hallway led to a locked door, which Vader came crashing through!

I loved this next part. As Vader and Cal briefly crossed blades, little BD-1 hopped up onto the Sith Lord’s shoulder. Using the skill he’d acquired earlier in the game he tried to slice (hack) into Darth Vader’s mechanical suit! For a second it seemed as if this might’ve worked, but then Vader grabbed the droid. It seemed like the end of BD-1…

Cal, who had been knocked off his feet, tried to use the Force to retrieve his lightsaber. Vader demanded that Cal give him the holocron; Cal of course refused. Using the Force, Vader held Cal’s lightsaber out of reach, but then activated it and stabbed Cal through the abdomen. The wound didn’t go all the way through, and while wounded, Cal wasn’t dead yet. Things looked grim, however. BD-1 beeped at Cal to get up, but it seemed like Vader had the pair thoroughly beaten.

But that just goes to show that in Star Wars – and in these kinds of stories in general – you shouldn’t trust that a character is dead unless you see their corpse! Cere came roaring back out of nowhere, attacking Vader! Though still outmatched by the Sith Lord, her intervention saved Cal and BD-1. Vader told Cere that her strength with the dark side would have made her an excellent inquisitor. The pair duelled for a moment, before Vader disarmed Cere.

Cere was able to use the Force to paralyse Vader, using a move that looked like he was being crushed. Cal intervened before she could go too far, and by breaking a window in the underwater facility, the trio were able to escape. Vader, whose mechanical suit is – I assume – vulnerable to water, was left holding the torrent back with the Force, unable to pursue.

Cal gave Cere his breather (the small device that allows for breathing underwater) and attempted to swim to the surface. A combination of his wound and exhaustion meant he was struggling, however. At the last moment, Merrin intervened, diving into the water. The screen went dark…

Cal awoke aboard the Mantis to see Greez looking over him. Cere was fine, he was told, and so was BD-1 (thank goodness!) After struggling to his feet, Cal joined the others in the Mantis’ main cabin. Cal and Merrin shared a hug and a touching moment – a budding romance, perhaps? Then he sat down with Cere to look at the holocron.

Cere told Greez that her contract with him was up; Greez said he was planning on sticking around. This was another sweet moment, as the curmudgeon had fully softened after all of his adventures with Cere and Cal. The crew gathered around the holocron, and Cal opened it to access the list inside. Cere reiterated her mission statement from the beginning of the game: they should use this to rebuild the Jedi. She did note, however, that doing so would forever change the lives of the children as the Empire would hunt for them.

Cal had other plans. Evidently swayed by what Merrin had said about the children having no choice, and that Cal may have been the one putting them in danger, as well as the visions he had on Bogano of their capture and torture, he suggested that the fates of the children “be trusted to the Force”. Implied in that is that if their destiny is to be Jedi, they would be found and be able to train. If not, they should be left alone. With a silent Cere seeming to give her blessing with a look, Cal destroyed the holocron, preventing the Empire from ever finding the children.

This was the end of the game. Cal asked the crew where they should go next, and then the credits rolled. I have to say that I liked this ending, and the idea of trusting the will of the Force and not forcing the children into a life on the run. However, I think it will be controversial with some fans. The objective Cal and especially Cere had was to use the list to find Force-sensitive children and raise them to be a new generation of Jedi. Even at the last moment, this was Cere’s hope. Cal had one mandatory conversation with Merrin in which she sowed a seed of doubt, and one further optional conversation. He also had the vision in the vault. Those two things changed his mind, and while it was more than enough motivation from my point of view, and I regard keeping the list out of the Empire’s hands as a solid victory, it wasn’t the original mission which had been at the heart of the game for most of its runtime, and for that reason I expect some fans may not have enjoyed the ending.

So that was it. Jedi: Fallen Order. As with many games, it took me a little while to get around to playing it – it was released in November last year – but I’m glad that I finally did. After a very disappointing experience with The Rise of Skywalker, it was nice to genuinely enjoy a journey in the Star Wars universe again. And this is also the first Star Wars project since Rogue One that I went into unspoiled. I got to enjoy the story as it unfolded, allowing the surprising moments to be genuine surprises, and that was a good feeling too.

Cal’s journey has been amazing, and it seems as though the ending of the game has been careful to leave the door open for a potential sequel. Rumours abound that it may even be scheduled for a 2022 release – but we’ll wait and see on that! All in all, Jedi: Fallen Order took me just shy of 20 hours to complete – and having looked online that seems about average. I enjoyed myself for most of that time – though there were a couple of frustrating sections and some unnecessary fluff. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’ll be doing a retrospective/review of the game at some point soon, before my memories fade too much, so I hope you’ll come back to see that. For now, all that’s left to say for those of you who’ve been following this playthrough is thank you! I hope you enjoyed this format of a written playthrough illustrated with screenshots; I certainly feel like I learned a lot since I made my first entry in this series, and I’m keen to try again with another game. I already have several possibilities in mind!

So until next time… May The Force Be With You!

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the copyright of Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. The Star Wars franchise is the copyright of Lucasfilm and Disney. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as well as for other iterations of the Star Wars franchise.

Welcome to the next part of my playthrough of Jedi: Fallen Order. I had a couple of other things I wanted to write about over the last couple of days, including Star Trek’s Comic-Con @Home event, so I apologise to those of you who were waiting for this! After the last play session had some interesting story elements, but was let down by frustrating gameplay and a long section that felt like it was simply there to pad the game’s runtime, I was hoping for something different and exciting – and I definitely found it! After Cal broke his lightsaber in the tomb on Dathomir following a confrontation with a dark vision of his old Master, Cere took him to a strange snowbound planet – the first truly new location since our first visit to Kashyyyk way back in Part 6 of this playthrough. Cere handed Cal her own lightsaber, and he was ready to set off into the snow in search of something to repair or replace his broken weapon…

Speaking with Cere aboard the Mantis revealed that this planet was called Ilum – a name I vaguely recognised from the Star Wars galaxy. After looking into it, it turns out that Ilum was the planet that the First Order would ultimately convert into Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens, though in this era (remember that Jedi: Fallen Order is taking place about fifteen years before the original trilogy) there was no sign of the famous laser! Ilum was a wintry environment, similar in some respects to Zeffo but with much more snow and ice. After being initially excited at the prospect of visiting a wholly new planet for the first time in ages, the terrain was actually quite samey. If you’ve ever been in a strong blizzard you’ll know it can sometimes make the environment seem like it’s monochrome – and Ilum definitely had that feel to it as Cal set out from the Mantis.

Ilum has a Jedi Temple, and getting there through the blizzard was Cal’s objective. It felt like the task he was to complete was a little vague at first – yes he had to fix his lightsaber, but how? And what did he expect to find on Ilum to help him with that task? A few extra lines of dialogue would have fixed this – and it’s not the first time I’ve said that during my playthrough. With the new climbing ability that he’d acquired on Dathomir, Cal was able to scale ice walls, and climbed to the top of a large frozen area. In this section was a Force echo of a former Jedi Master. It turned out that the Jedi came to Ilum as part of some kind of trial or ritual, as well as to gather kyber crystals – the mysterious objects that power lightsabers, and which would later be co-opted to power the Death Star’s weaponry.

Inside the entrance to the Jedi Temple – which was little more than an icy cavern, really – was a puzzle to complete. The archway leading further inside had iced over, and there were three doors that had to be opened letting in “magnified light” which had to be refracted through a large crystal in order to melt the ice and gain access. This puzzle wasn’t too hard, but it took me a moment to realise that the doors – which had to be opened by pulling a chain – didn’t need to be permanently opened; Cal simply needed to hold the chain long enough to melt the ice.

I don’t think the giant crystal in this area was supposed to be a kyber crystal (which I always want to spell Khyber, with an H, like the mountain pass and region of Pakistan) if it was, Cal could’ve just broken a piece off and been on his merry way! Cere made a big deal of giving Cal her lightsaber, so I expected to be traversing this region armed. However, Cere’s lightsaber doesn’t work – another thing that a line or two of dialogue should have explained – so Cal remained unarmed despite carrying two weapons. The in-game databank said that Cere sold parts of the weapon to pay for Greez’s gambling debts, and I guess that could also explain how she’s been able to keep him on the payroll for what seems to be a long time, which was a question raised earlier in the game for me.

Melting the ice wall let Cal explore further into the Temple, and as I said this was really just a cave with a few statues in it. It seems like the Jedi offered up some pretty tough challenges – this cave was meant to be traversed by apprentices and children, but it seems like a difficult task for them! There were a lot of sheer drops, and several places where it took a moment to figure out what was the right path. Just inside the entrance to the Temple was a meditation spot, and I’d been saving up Cal’s skill points – spending three meant that BD-1’s stim-packs now totally refill Cal’s health no matter how low it gets, which seems like it will be a very useful upgrade! The ice cave on Zeffo – which is actually fairly similar to this section in appearance – contained a number of monsters to fight, and with no lightsaber I was wondering what this cavern would throw at Cal and how to avoid it. So far, though, there had been no enemies at all – just silence. Cal came upon a section of water to swim through to access the next part of the cavern.

This was quite cleverly done – there were several hydrothermal vents which obviously explained how there could be areas of liquid water in an otherwise-frozen environment. But Cal must’ve got very cold swimming through this water! The next area of the cavern contained a shocking and ominous revelation – probe droids were present on Ilum! Luckily BD-1 had acquired the skill to hack into them some time ago, and Cal was also able to use Force pull and Force push on them to defeat them – but how had the Empire found him here? A radio call to Cere and Greez led to the two of them worrying that the Mantis was being tracked.

There were a number of statues in the cavern, and these were kind of creepy – hooded and faceless figures in Jedi robes. They reminded me of the statues seen on Jedha in Rogue One, which similarly had a ghostly vibe. Perhaps this is because – as Cal says at one point – knowing that the Jedi are gone makes it feel like being surrounded by ghosts. Any hooded figure with a shrouded face plays on deep-rooted cultural and historical fears of figures like the Grim Reaper, or even the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and I think that’s part of why they felt so haunting and eerie in this section of the game. Credit to the developers for achieving that sensation – it made progressing through the caverns very tense indeed, something that married well with Cal being essentially unarmed and defenceless.

After heading deeper into the cavern and defeating another couple of probe droids, Cal spotted a glittering object. While making his way through a narrow crevice, the ice below him gave out and he fell into another pool of water. Clearly freezing cold (and suffering from hypothermia) he had a vision of his younger self leading him out of the water in what was a very strange, ethereal moment in the game.

Inspired by the vision, Cal forced himself to climb out of the icy water and collapsed – but the kyber crystal was close. He stumbled his way toward a large crystal formation and plucked the tip from one of the pointy shards – this was the glimmer that he’d seen that led him to this part of the cave. As he held the small piece of crystal in his hand it broke in two. Cal broke down, believing he’d failed and that his quest was over. And at this point perhaps someone knew more about Star Wars’ wider lore or expanded universe (the stuff not included in the films) might’ve known what was happening or why Cal became so dejected… but I didn’t.

There was a line earlier in the level about how the “crystal chooses the Jedi” and not vice versa (kind of like wands in the Harry Potter series, I guess). So perhaps Cal was upset that the crystal that chose him was broken. But he’s sat in a cavern literally surrounded by giant crystals, and with a small amount of effort could have broken off another piece using the Force or even just with his bare hands. So I don’t really understand this moment, and just taking what we know from the game without interjecting with lore from other Star Wars properties, it didn’t make sense and didn’t feel sufficiently explained.

Are the other crystals in the cavern not also kyber crystals? What happens if a Jedi chooses his own crystal instead of using one which chose him? Cal has been using Master Tapal’s lightsaber (containing Tapal’s crystal, presumably) very effectively for the entire game up till now, so it doesn’t seem like it’s the case that crystals are somehow bound to one Jedi. If a Jedi is chosen by a crystal but then loses or breaks that crystal, can they come back and get another one? And since Cal is literally still in the cavern surrounded by other crystals, can’t he just take another one – or wait for another one to choose him? I feel like this moment, which was the most emotional in the story so far, needed more explaining. Luckily, what came next washed a lot of that disappointment away and cranked up the emotion.

As Cal sat feeling sorry for himself at the foot of the crystal formation, Master Cordova’s voice could be heard. BD-1 had made it to the cavern and Cal was very pleased to be reunited with him – having told BD-1 not to follow him as he fell into the icy water a moment ago. BD-1 played a recording from Master Cordova in which he discusses failure. Master Cordova sensed “the doom of the Jedi Order” – perhaps this was the moment of Order 66. He locked BD-1’s memories with an encryption that could only be broken if the droid made a trusted connection with someone new; BD-1 has chosen Cal, and told him (in beeps and trills, of course) that he believes in him.

Inspired by this, Cal gets up. It isn’t over yet! Somehow – and again I’m not sure how – he pressed and squished the two shards of the crystal back together, forming a single, working crystal. This next part was fun – I had eight different colour options for the fixed crystal. I chose pink (or magenta as the game calls it) and after a short cut-scene, Cal had his weapon back.

This can be customised later at a workbench, but I see no reason to change from pink. Orange had been fun up till now, though! Cal used parts from Cere’s lightsaber and Master Tapal’s to form the new weapon. In addition to being double-bladed, it can now also be pulled apart and duel-wielded, giving Cal a new kind of attack – one that looks pretty darn cool too. I took this opportunity to further customise the weapon before leaving the cavern, including giving it a shiny red colour for the hilt.

In addition to blue and green, which are available in the base game, and orange, which I had from buying the deluxe edition, the colours now available for Cal’s weapon are: purple, pink/magenta, yellow, a pale blue or teal, and a darker cobalt colour. The weapon can be symmetrical, looking the same at both ends, or each end can be different. I haven’t unlocked anywhere near all of the options yet, and there must be hundreds of possibilities for how the finished saber can look.

After tinkering with the saber for a while, I was satisfied and ready to get back to the ship. But of course it wasn’t going to be a simple case of backtracking! The probe droids we’d seen earlier weren’t the only Imperials on Ilum – the Empire had a whole base here with legions of troopers. When the probe droids spotted Cal they presumably scrambled their forces, and on the way out, Cal ran head-first into an Imperial mining facility! There were a number of troopers to defeat here, and more kept dropping in by ship. Cal put his new weapon through its paces, and eventually prevailed!

In this area, the Empire seemed to be digging a long, deep trench. Given that Ilum would later become Starkiller Base, I wonder if this trench is meant to be the beginnings of that. In The Force Awakens, Starkiller Base had a huge trench that cleaved the planet in two, and this was where the super-laser was mounted. I think these two things are connected, and if so it was a great little reference to the sequel trilogy. Beyond the landing pad was a doorway that BD-1 was able to hack. Inside was a whole squad K2SO-type security droids – the ones I’ve had trouble with on other levels.

Thankfully they didn’t all attack at once, and after a long fight Cal was able to take them out. Off to one side, in some yellow storage containers, BD-1 and Cal found huge numbers of kyber crystals – the Empire is mining them. He reported his findings to Cere back on the Mantis, and she and Greez got the ship ready for takeoff. The only accessible door in this room led back into the cavern, and from here Cal was mostly backtracking to get back to the ship – though the cavern was now packed with troopers.

Cal had to battle his way through the cavern, which contained probe droids, K2SO droids, Purge troopers, and a variety of regular troopers too. It was a hard fight, not so much because of any one individual opponent – this wasn’t a boss battle, after all – but because of the numbers Cal was up against. On the radio, Cere checked in to tell Cal that the Empire was bringing in reinforcements, including by Star Destroyer from neighbouring systems. Though this part of the level wasn’t timed (at least it didn’t seem to be) it was still a very tense sequence as Cal raced back to the ship!

After surviving the cavern, Cal was back at the archway where we’d melted the ice earlier. There was a meditation spot here which I used before progressing – though Cal had no more skill points to use. Unless more options open up on the skill tree, by the way, I think I’ve chosen all of the ones that seem useful to me. Perhaps that’s just because we’re entering the latter part of the game. Before exiting the temple and getting back to the surface of Ilum, there was a Snowtrooper! These guys were seen in The Empire Strikes Back and it makes perfect sense that they’d be here on another snowbound planet. It was a great little bit of nostalgia.

Back on the surface, the blizzard had almost fully cleared. It looked like a straight shot back to the Mantis, but from behind a rocky outcrop came not one but two AT-STs. They attacked Cal in tandem, and it was difficult to separate them long enough to attack one without getting blown up or blasted by the second! Eventually I brought the first one down, and from there the second one was less of a challenge.

Cal sprinted back to the Mantis – Imperial reinforcements were inbound and if he didn’t get back before the Star Destroyers arrived it might’ve been impossible to leave the planet! All that tension and buildup… was kind of spoilt by Greez and Cere just standing there on the Mantis when Cal arrived. I even had to walk over to the holotable (Cal can’t run on the Mantis) and manually choose a destination. After Cere had been so jumpy, rushing Cal to race back to the ship before they’re all blown to smithereens by the Empire, this was just anticlimactic and completely snapped me out of what had been one of the most exciting parts of the story so far.

The gang even had time for a chat as Cal boarded the ship. He told them about BD-1’s memory wipe, and expressed his thanks for believing in him. It was a sweet moment – or it would have been had the timing been different. I expected a cut-scene like the escape from Dathomir, with the Mantis pulling away as Stormtroopers chased Cal, escaping the system in the nick of time to avoid the Star Destroyers… but none of that transpired. If Cere hadn’t been on the radio telling Cal to run because of how imminently doomed they all were it would’ve been fine – but the rapid switch in tone from “run, Cal, run!” to “we’ve got loads of time to stand and chat” was incredibly jarring.

The obvious destination was Dathomir. I saw no point in any more backtracking, and I wanted to resolve the situation there to continue the story. With the course laid in the Mantis took off and arrived at Dathomir moments later. After a short bit of banter with the crew, which included the revelation that they’re on the bounty hunter guild’s most wanted list, Cal headed out. With the climbing gloves, he could climb up the ramp I noticed last time and use that as a shortcut to get back to the bridge leading to the dark tomb. There were a few zombified Night Sisters to battle en route, but nothing Cal and his new weapon couldn’t handle.

At the entrance to the temple was another bounty hunter ambush. A hunter and a droid were both present and again this was an annoying fight. Eventually, however, Cal was able to get the better of both of them (apparently Force pushing over a cliff still works if you use it on a guy with a jetpack…) and enter the tomb. There were no enemies to fight inside, and Cal used the meditation spot before re-entering the dark vision he had of Master Tapal.

Master Tapal began by taunting Cal again, and then the duel was on. Once again I was expecting a difficult boss battle, yet once again I was wrong. Though I had control of Cal during this sequence, he had no health bar and nor did Master Tapal. After a brief duel it became obvious that the only way out of the vision was to take it peacefully – not fighting back or trying to strike at Tapal.

By choosing the peaceful path – which is, of course, the Jedi way – the vision of Tapal relented and ended the fight. Cal told his former Master that he would honour his teachings and remember his sacrifice, letting go of his guilt. The vision of Tapal then disappeared, and the pathway to the next part of the tomb finally opened.

Having completed the vision-quest, Cal was able to access the rest of the tomb. He had beaten the darkness in the tomb – and within himself. I’m never sure with things like this whether what transpired was taking place in Cal’s head, whether it was something more real, something based in the Force, etc. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, it’s just something to ponder. I tend to assume for a vision like this that it’s in his head, perhaps amplified by the Force, but not something tangible.

Beyond the doorway were several Night Brothers. They weren’t particularly difficult to dispatch, and it was nice to try the duel-wielding move on them. Seeing Cal pull his double-bladed weapon apart and use both pieces independently is very cool. It’s certainly not something I’ve seen in Star Wars before. The Night Brothers in this area had a marking painted on their chests – the same one we saw as a scar on Taron Malicos. Interestingly, when I went back to look at screenshots of the previous visits to Dathomir, the Night Brothers all had that same symbol – though many were faded. The paint on those in the tomb was much fresher.

After entering this area, the Night Sister appeared. Her name is Merrin. Instead of just attacking this time, she spoke to Cal, which gave him a chance to reason with her. Malicos lied to her, he said, and the Jedi weren’t conquerors who would have wanted to wipe out her people.

The two realise they have something in common – Cal may be the last Jedi, and Merrin may be the last Night Sister. Malicos had promised her revenge in exchange for sharing the secrets of the tomb, but instead he became corrupted by the dark side. The two formed an alliance (albeit one of convenience) to take down Malicos. Cal didn’t have far to go for this confrontation. Down a wide hallway, Malicos was waiting. He stood on a circular platform which had a sheer drop into red mist on all sides – it reminded me so much of the Bowser fights in Super Mario 64… and that’s the third thing in Jedi: Fallen Order which seems to draw on that game, after the slides and the underwater chests! I never expected to get even one thing in a game like this to remind me of Super Mario 64, let alone three.

After crossing over to the arena, Malicos seemed happy to see Cal return. He tried once again to convince Cal to join him, and talked at length about how reviving the Jedi Order would be a waste of time – the Order failed, he said, stifled by tradition and its own past successes. As with Luke in The Last Jedi who said similarly critical things of the Jedi Order in its last days before the rise of the Empire, Malicos isn’t exactly wrong. The whole story of the rise of the Sith in the prequels is on the back of Jedi hubris, believing themselves to be better than they were. Regardless of how I may feel about the Jedi, Cal rejected everything Malicos has to say. And it’s clear, of course, that Malicos’ idea of a replacement for the Jedi would put him firmly in control. He had been wholly corrupted by the dark side after years on Dathomir. A duel began.

I said way back in Part 4 of this series, when Cal first met “the wanderer” – aka Malicos – that I was sure they’d end up fighting. It’s nice to be right sometimes! This was a difficult fight – up there with the duel against Trilla on Zeffo. Malicos had a number of Force powers at his disposal, but more than that it was very hard to land a blow on him. He kept his guard up, and hitting him required split-second timing. He was also immune to things like Force push – which of course makes sense.

Merrin showed up during the duel, and at a couple of scripted moments used her magic to attack Malicos. When Cal had finally ground his health down, Merrin stepped in and used her magic one final time, entombing Malicos in the ground in a cut-scene that reminded me of a horror film called Drag Me To Hell.

With the battle over, Merrin and Cal had another chance to talk. Interestingly, Merrin is unaware of the Empire – or any galactic affairs beyond what was happening on Dathomir. Cal explained that he’s searching for the Zeffo Astrium, an object which will help him access a list of Force-sensitive children. He told Merrin he wants to save them from the Empire, a cause she can get behind. The Astrium wasn’t far away, and after jumping over a couple more platforms, Cal finally found it.

Merrin returned as Cal found what he was looking for. She was very happy for him, as the Astrium may be able to save the children and revive the Jedi Order. But she is still alone; nothing can revive her people the way the Astrium and the holocron might for the Jedi. Cal and Merrin connected over their shared experiences as the last of their kind. Cal also referenced what Prauf said to him at the beginning of the game – in the aftermath of the Master Tapal vision he’s also taking on board what Prauf told him too. To my surprise, Merrin said she would join Cal on his mission. I don’t think she will be a constant companion as Cal goes on quests – Jedi: Fallen Order isn’t that kind of game – but she will perhaps hang out on the Mantis, be available to talk to, and participate in cut-scenes.

Merrin told Cal she’ll meet him back at the ship, leaving Cal once again to backtrack through the level. Fortunately this tomb was small compared to the two on Zeffo, but there were no shortcuts to get back outside. A couple of large monsters had spawned in the tomb, and Merrin sat to one side as Cal took them on alone. In these moments, Jedi: Fallen Order feels like a typical game and not an interactive Star Wars experience, and it can make suspending my disbelief more difficult. However, taking on the monsters wasn’t a huge challenge this time.

I like that we can see Merrin’s face now that she’s taken down her hood. It humanises her – despite the ash-grey skin – and we can see her more emotive and expressive. I still think she reminds me of Visas Marr from Knights of the Old Republic II, though! Merrin apparently didn’t tell her zombified Night Sisters that she and Cal are allies now, as several attacked him on his way back to the ship. However, these fights weren’t particularly challenging. Back aboard the Mantis, Cal introduced Merrin to the crew. They were standoffish at first, and they don’t trust her – but they do trust Cal, so Merrin was welcomed aboard. The next destination is Bogano – back to the vault. But I chose to save my game at this point and save Bogano for next time. Exploring two planets is enough for one session!

So this was another long one! Repairing the lightsaber was great, and despite Ilum being kind of bland, it was nice to finally get to see a different planet after hopping between the same three worlds for a long while. The emotional moment with BD-1 in the cavern was incredibly sweet, and I’m even more in love with the cute little droid than I already was. In fact the story of this entire section was great – the only part I didn’t like was the kyber crystal breaking and the lack of explanation for why that was an issue.

I feel certain the trip to Bogano won’t go smoothly – but join me next time to find out!

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the copyright of Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. The Star Wars franchise is the copyright of Lucasfilm and Disney. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and for other iterations of the Star Wars franchise.

This section was a long one, even by my standards, so I hope you’ve got a drink at the ready as we could be here for a little while! Last time we left Cal and the gang on Kashyyyk, having determined that the next destination was Dathomir. Cal had defeated the Ninth Sister, befriended a shyyyo bird I named Buckbeak, and after listening to another recording of Master Cordova, had made it back to the Mantis. Upon loading into the game, Cal was standing outside the ship and got a couple of lines of dialogue from Cere and Greez, mostly just discussing the situation on Kashyyyk. At the galaxy map I was all ready to set course for Dathomir when Greez suggested we backtrack to Zeffo – he thought there might be some loot worth getting in the wreckage of the crashed ship. Despite wanting to get on with the story, the return to Bogano last time proved very fruitful so I decided to go along with it.

The flight to Zeffo was uneventful, and after landing at the usual spot, Cal spoke to Cere and Greez again. It turned out that Cere had once been a Jedi seeker – using her skills to locate Force-sensitives for the Jedi Order. Teaching Trilla what she knew led to the latter becoming a particularly successful Jedi-hunter. Cal headed in what I hoped was the direction of the Venator’s wreckage. At one point I got turned around in the ice caves, and it took a little while to find my way out. Another duo of bounty hunters beset Cal near the entrance to the first tomb, and this was another tough fight.

I didn’t go back into the tomb; I’m not even sure if the tombs were still accessible, but even if they were there’s no point. Eventually Cal made it to the wreckage of the Venator-class ship, and to be fair there was a lot we hadn’t explored here. Last time Cal basically looked over about 10% of the ship en route to the Imperial excavation site, and after escaping Trilla and the tomb was captured by the bounty hunters, precluding a return to the crashed ship. This time, I ignored the route that led to the dig site and proceeded deeper into the wrecked ship. The ship is sitting in a large body of water, and now able to dive below the surface, Cal found a hidden chest. An ice slide then led further into the ship, seemingly through one of its engines. The ship still had some power – during the slide Cal had to avoid some dangerous-looking electrical columns and vents.

Inside the wreck, Cal spoke briefly to BD-1 about his earlier life. As a Jedi padawan he lived aboard a Venator-class ship with Master Tapal; demolishing them as a scrapyard worker on Bracca was hard for him. There were several Force echoes amongst the wreckage, telling the story of a Jedi Master and her apprentice who were attacked and killed during Order 66. Cal eventually found their remains.

Also in the wreck were a number of troopers, including a Purge trooper. Once again, I have no idea how the troopers got to be in the parts of the level where they were. For Cal to get there took a lot of climbing, swimming, swinging, and using Force powers, so it kind of makes no sense that Stormtroopers would be able to be in these hidden areas in my opinion. There was another bounty hunter to fight in the wreck too, and I’m increasingly convinced that the bounty hunter attacks are not scripted and their locations are random. As usual I found the bounty hunter fight difficult, but was eventually able to prevail.

The reward for half an hour’s worth of exploration was meagre – a few customisation options, which were mostly lightsaber parts, and a single new stim for BD-1. Additional stim-packs are useful, there’s no denying that. But Zeffo is a large level and the Venator wreck took time to navigate; I was hoping for something more, I suppose. After collecting the stim-pack upgrade there was also the matter of making a safe return to the Mantis which was all the way on the other side of the level.

While exiting the Venator wreck I spotted a smaller area off to the side of the main crash site that I also explored. Inside was a holo-recording of a Clone Trooper commander, and another bounty hunter to fight. These guys definitely have it out for Cal! This section was thankfully smaller and took less time to explore, but also contained nothing of value. A couple of Force echoes added to the story of the Jedi Master and padawan, but that was it. I headed back to the Mantis via the ice caves as I remembered that there was a cable-car in there.

Aside from one annoying puzzle which involved moving a box, wall-running, and jumping to cross a gap, the Venator wreck was an easy enough level. And it was a nice change of scenery from Jedi: Fallen Order’s previous levels, as well as being somewhat reminiscent of Rey’s exploration of the wrecked Star Destroyer on Jakku in The Force Awakens. After backtracking through the ice caves and fending off a few more Stormtroopers, Cal made it back to the Mantis. Cere piped up, suggesting another diversion back to Bogano, but as I’m fairly confident I got everything worth having last time I decided to ignore her and go to Dathomir this time. I was itching to continue the story – even if I wasn’t excited at the prospect of battling those Night Brothers again!

After landing, Cal spoke to Greez and Cere. Greez was frightened of Dathomir and insisted on staying aboard the ship, but Cere was standing just outside. Greez told Cal to go easy on Cere following the revelation about Trilla, and in this conversation dropped a nice little easter egg about a “castle on Takodana” that makes great cocktails – a reference to Maz Kanata from the sequel trilogy. Outside the ship I spotted a rock formation that I hadn’t seen last time – it looked like it could be a shortcut into the level but there was no way to climb it. Before heading off to get back to the crumbling bridge that thwarted Cal’s first attempt to explore Dathomir, Cere wanted to chat. She basically warned Cal to be careful, and in an optional conversation they spoke about Cal healing his connection to the Force. Despite their differences, Cere appears in this moment to care for Cal and act as his mentor.

The path through Dathomir to the bridge was familiar to me after having spent time here earlier in the game. After that debacle, I was half-hoping that the double-bladed lightsaber upgrade Cal acquired on that trip would prove itself useful at some point. Unfortunately it didn’t; aside from a single special move that Cal could learn (throwing the double-bladed weapon around him in a wide circle) it seems to make no difference, and Cal could have stuck with using the single-bladed variant. That first visit to Dathomir was thus a complete waste of time, and detracts from what has otherwise been a decent story. The wanderer Cal met last time is still standing on the bridge in the same spot, and it’s as if no time has passed at all. As I said previously, I’m happy with a linear game that requires me to take a specific path. Jedi: Fallen Order is clearly this kind of game. But with that being the case, the game should not have presented itself as one with optional routes – pretending to offer player choice where none exists is clearly an attempt to mimic more open titles (like the older Knights of the Old Republic games as well as modern open-world ones) but without the substance to back it up. Instead of Dathomir feeling like an intimidating place to visit at this point in the game, it ended up feeling like yet another backtrack, and the first part of the level’s layout was very familiar as I’d spent a lot of time scouting it out looking for a way across the bridge.

I had unlocked a couple of shortcuts on my first visit to Dathomir, and it only took a few minutes to get back to the bridge. The wanderer was still there, but as we’d exhausted the conversation options last time, he had nothing left to say to Cal. Double-jumping across the gap that halted his progress last time led to Cal being confronted by three Night Brother archers, and after taking them out a cut-scene triggered which saw another Night Brother attack a wooden platform on the bridge, sending it and Cal crashing down. This next sliding section has to be the worst in the game so far, and seems to have a major glitch or bug. A short slide after the cut-scene ends with Cal needing to double-jump across a gap to continue sliding, but for some reason this jump proved impossible. No matter how many times I tried, aiming Cal was impossible. He’d end up leaping off to one side, and the rare time he didn’t the double-jump wasn’t enough to clear the gap. At one point Cal even got stuck on a branch above the slide, unable to move or progress further.

This slide was way harder than it needed to be. And the double-jump feature is to blame – for some reason, what was happening was that Cal would jump up from the slide and immediately double-jump, despite the fact that I was only pressing the button once. This meant he lacked the momentum to clear the gap in the slide, and pressing the button a second time did nothing as the game believed he had already double-jumped. I tried switching over to the keyboard and mouse input, but the same issue occurred. I quit the game and re-loaded my save file, but the issue persisted. I was eventually able to clear the gap and continue down the slide, but it took over thirty attempts. Luckily, as I’d seen while stuck in the scenery, there was a meditation spot near the bottom of the slide. After checkpointing, I was tempted to take a break after all the fuss with that stupid slide, but I decided to press on as I was curious to see more of the story and we hadn’t actually done anything of consequence on Dathomir yet. Around the next corner and through a gap in the wall, the Night Sister who confronted Cal last time was back.

The Night Sister reminds me of Visas Marr from Knights of the Old Republic II, something about the hooded robes and mysterious Force abilities, I think. But that’s incidental. She is furious at Cal, as she believes it was the Jedi who attacked her people (as I think we covered last time, I think this was something included in the Clone Wars television series, but I haven’t seen it). She said she wants to exact revenge for the attack, and used her Force-magic to raise a number of zombified Night Sisters to attack Cal.

These Night Sister zombies weren’t hard to defeat one-on-one, but as is often the case with zombies in video games – and in the wider genre of zombie fiction – en masse they were much harder opponents. The Night Sister is able to raise several at a time, and over the next section of the level Cal would be beset by multiple groups of these non-sentient enemies. Despite the fact that the game’s databank describes them as “mummified”, they absolutely behave like typical fast-moving zombies, so that’s what I’m calling them.

This section of the game, as Cal tackled the lower levels of Dathomir, felt once again like the game was being padded out. Nothing in this area contributed to the story; there were no major puzzles and only one boss fight. Cal’s journey across the game has had several of these moments – detours which neither added to his personal story nor the overall story of the game. The entire objective of this section – which probably took a good hour to complete – was to get back to the section of the bridge where Cal fell and thus access the tomb. While it was at least a new, unexplored area and one that didn’t involve a lot of backtracking, it wasn’t particularly interesting, and the enemy types thrown at Cal were the same two Night Brothers – the melee and archer variants – and the zombified Night Sisters.

I mentioned a boss fight, and this was a big one. Earlier, Cal had spotted a large creature flying around, and after progressing as far as possible through the lower levels, eventually ended up facing a room that was very clearly a “boss fight arena”. It even had a meditation spot directly preceding it! On the far wall was a dead Night Brother and what looked like a section Cal would be able to climb. While investigating, the winged monster Cal had spotted earlier arrived – this must be its nest. The fight was difficult as the monster had a number of moves at its disposal, including unblockable attacks and a screech that could temporarily stop Cal from moving. It could also fly quickly from one side of the arena to the other, and its size meant its attacks had a broad range, making them hard to dodge.

The creature – which I thought resembled a giant owl – was hard to take down. Eventually, when its health bar was around three-quarters depleted, it fled the area and Cal thought he’d won. He’s clearly not a gamer, because if he was he’d know that the monster was sure to be back! The Night Brother that Cal had begun to examine before being interrupted turned out to have special gloves that made it easier to climb walls – but only walls with a certain pattern, of course. Cal was thus able to climb out of the arena and on to the next part of the level. I found these gloves worked very well, but at several points there were glitches where Cal was able to use them to climb invisible walls. One time this led to getting stuck in the scenery and I had to again quit the game and re-load my save.

The monster did eventually come back, and in a scripted sequence grabbed Cal and took off flying through the air. This section saw Cal and the monster fight in the air, with Cal having to jump onto its back several times – these moments required split-second timing and perfect accuracy, neither of which are my speciality, so this section took multiple tries! Eventually the monster and Cal crashed back to the ground, and the monster was finally dead. As an aside, I often find myself feeling sorry for creatures like this in games – it was just minding its own business when Cal showed up, after all. It’s for this reason that I was never interested in games like Monster Hunter World – I just don’t want to harass and kill monsters for no reason!

With the boss defeated, this section didn’t have much more to offer. Cal had to make his way back up to the surface, and some Night Brothers stood in the way, as did a long, winding, and complicated route. There were a couple of Force echoes which seemed to imply that the wanderer had crash-landed here in a ship and was taken prisoner by the Night Brothers. There were also a couple of customisation options in chests.

At one point Cal entered what was described as the Night Brothers’ village. This section contained another slide – thankfully an easier one than the one that led here from the surface – and a number of enemies to battle. Presumably being a Night Brother is more fun than it first appears if the way around their village is by slide. Cal was finally making his way up, back toward the surface, when he had a very ominous conversation with Cere on the radio. Apparently Greez, who has locked himself aboard the Mantis, insisted he’s seen something or someone snooping around the ship. This wasn’t an optional conversation; it triggered automatically as Cal made his way through the level. I was sure that this would lead to consequences later! In a chest in this area I unlocked another paint job for the Mantis. Despite enjoying its yellow design, I chose to apply this mostly-black variant just for a change of pace.

The climb up from the Night Brother village overlooked the Mantis, as you can see from the screenshot above. But this was still a long way from where Cal needed to be, and I was beginning to get frustrated with this incredibly long detour. Fortunately, however, Cal did eventually make it back around the level, unlocking a shortcut back down to the lower level (as if I’m going back there on purpose) in the process.

Back at the bridge, the wanderer was gone and the three Night Brother archers had respawned. Defeating them was not particularly difficult, but one of them fired an unblockable shot that, because of where I was standing in that moment, knocked Cal off the bridge and back onto the glitchy slide. Well there was no way I was going through all that again, and after failing to jump back up to the bridge, I re-loaded the game for the third time in this session. Luckily there was a checkpoint in the area just before the bridge – but I’d loaded in here three times now, and the same three Night Brothers appeared each time as the game always loads the same enemies in the same areas. I wondered to myself how many darn times I’d have to complete this one fight! This time I made it across the bridge without falling and to my surprise there were no enemies in the area. It was a straight shot from here to the entrance to the tomb.

There were two paths available, one which led directly to the tomb and one off to the side. Off to the side was only a chest, and after picking up another customisation piece I headed into the tomb. To my surprise, there was nothing in here. In a large room, Cal walked to the back where there was a wall or door that contained carvings – these looked like the Zeffo script we’d seen elsewhere. But as Cal “interacted” with the wall, nothing seemed to happen.

An audio log from Master Cordova provided a little more information – the Night Sisters allowed him to access the tomb, which he described as hidden and secluded, but he felt it was a dark place. Checking the holomap confirmed that this door was blocked, and with nothing else to see inside the room I turned to leave. There was a meditation spot right by the blocked doorway – strangely I hadn’t seen it on the way in. I decided to make use of it before heading outside to see what I’d missed, though Cal didn’t have any points to use. However, exiting the meditation spot didn’t bring me back to the tomb – it was another flashback of Cal in his youth!

I absolutely love the way this was done. Jedi: Fallen Order has used one of its most basic features – the checkpoint-save – to pull a complete surprise on players. As Cal knelt down to meditate I had no inkling of what was about to transpire! When I got over the initial shock, however, it seemed obvious that in a place of darkness, Cal was going to see a very dark vision – could this be the day of Order 66? Unlike previous flashbacks, where Cal was in a bland grey training room, he first appeared in a cabin aboard a ship, and curiously I could see what looked like a Jedi holocron (just like the one we’re chasing) on one of the beds.

Where previous flashbacks had been fairly short, designed to show Cal a new skill (or rather, to re-learn an old one), this section was long. It also contained the first difficult puzzle since arriving on Dathomir – in the training room Cal had to use all of his skills from wall-running to double-jumping to get from the ground to Master Tapal’s location in a room high above. And my goodness was this just the dumbest puzzle! It wasn’t bad per se, it was just not at all obvious where to go at one point. Cal had to jump from a floating platform and hang onto part of the wall of the room, but the wall was grey and the hand-hold was also grey, meaning it wasn’t obvious where to jump or what to aim for when Cal reached that point. The jumps between platforms and especially at the wall-running section were also right on the limit of Cal’s abilities, meaning each jump had to be timed perfectly to avoid Cal falling to the floor and having to repeat the whole obstacle course. On the plus side, I got a taste of what it must be like to be a Jedi padawan… suffice to say I would’ve failed padawan school.

After eventually completing this obstacle course, Cal arrived in the upper room where Master Tapal was waiting. Here it was revealed that they’ve been on or in orbit of Bracca for some time – presumably why Cal went there during or after Order 66. Bracca had been secured – presumably from forces loyal to General Grievous and the separatists – and the ship was getting ready to move to another destination. However, the Clone Trooper in the room received new orders, and we heard the familiar line from Revenge of the Sith: “Execute Order 66”.

Despite being momentarily overwhelmed by sensing the deaths of many Jedi through the Force, Master Tapal was able to defeat the lone trooper. He encouraged a frightened Cal to make his way to the escape pods, promising to rendezvous there after taking care of business. The next section of the game saw Cal make that journey, and he had to fight Clones who had been his friend moments earlier.

The Clones were no harder to defeat than Stormtroopers; despite being young in this sequence, Cal was armed with a lightsaber (blue this time) and just as capable of standing up against the troopers as he has been in the rest of the game. Making it through the ship was thus not an issue from a gameplay point of view – in fact I expected Cal’s youth, and the lack of BD-1 to carry stims – to make it harder than it was.

A particularly cool sequence saw Master Tapal take out a whole squadron of Clones in a corridor below Cal, who was using the ship’s Jefferies tubes to avoid detection en route to the escape pods. Escaping the ship, while it posed no real challenge from a gameplay perspective, was one of the most tense and exciting in the game so far. It really felt as though Cal had mere moments to get away from the ship and the violent Clones, and his own shock at was happening came through in the animation and voice performance perfectly. At one point Cal had to climb through a turbolift shaft and lost his lightsaber – this explains why he uses Master Tapal’s saber instead of his own.

Upon reaching the escape pods, we saw Cal witness his Master’s death. A squadron of troopers blasted away at Master Tapal, and though Cal was able to open the escape pod and help him inside, it was too late and he died in Cal’s arms. His last words to Cal were to wait for a signal from the Jedi Council – despite everything that transpired, Master Tapal still had hope that some Jedi would survive and be able to help Cal. The escape pod launched, and Master Tapal had his revenge as the ship exploded – this is perhaps why we see an exploding Venator-class ship on the game’s title screen.

The escape pod was presumably bound for Bracca, or else ended up there shortly after, as we know the ship was in that system. How Cal came to hide out, where he landed, and other questions are unanswered, but perhaps we’ll learn more later in the game. However, none of that really matters – this moment is the heart of Cal’s backstory. Order 66 led to the death of his Master, and he feels a great sense of guilt. Not only survivor’s guilt, but that he couldn’t do anything to save him, that he wasn’t quick enough or skilled enough. As the flashback ended, a new vision began. In a dark, shadowy arena, Master Tapal confronted a fully-grown Cal, saying that it was his fault he died, and that he was weak and a traitor. Cal duelled the vision of Tapal, and unfortunately this serious moment was somewhat spoilt by a silly visual glitch – Master Tapal’s head seemed to twist unnaturally.

The duel between them was short; I expected a boss battle but it was really just a couple of blows. As Cal struck his Master with his lightsaber a cut-scene triggered. Cal plunged his blade into Tapal, who says that his blood is on Cal’s hands, as it always had been. This is a representation of Cal’s feelings of guilt, amplified by the dark side of the Force – or at least that’s how I interpreted this vision.

Snapping out of the vision, Cal realised in the real world that he’d been holding his lightsaber tightly – and crushed the crystal inside in his hands. The weapon was now broken; regular button-pressing wouldn’t activate it. With no way into the tomb, and now unarmed and unable to defend himself, a dejected Cal left the tomb. The wanderer was waiting outside, and revealed himself to be a former Jedi. Just as I was wondering how I’d be able to fight him with no weapon, the Night Sister appeared.

The wanderer – whose real name is Taron Malicos – seemed to be armed with two lightsabers. Either that or he has a very ornate belt buckle! I wondered if Cal would be able to steal one or might even be given one, but it turns out that years on Dathomir have turned Malicos to the dark side. He even controls at least one faction of Night Brothers. He attempted to recruit Cal into whatever cult he has going on, which angered the Night Sister as she believed all Jedi need to die as punishment for the attack on her coven. After a brief conversation, the Night Sister raised another group of undead, and the race was on for Cal to make it back to the Mantis!

I didn’t see what happened to Malicos in all the confusion. He may have escaped – and it seems like, from a story point of view at least, Cal will still have to deal with him somehow. My immediate concern, however, was that Cal was unarmed and now being pursued by the largest group of zombies seen so far. These zombies can jump, meaning crossing the bridge provided no safety. More zombies appeared as Cal raced back through the level, barking at Greez and Cere to prepare the Mantis for takeoff. The ramp I spotted before was a shortcut – and I was able to utilise it to return to the Mantis with the zombies in hot pursuit!

Cal made it back to the ship in one piece, and though a number of zombies tried to climb aboard, Greez was able to take off and flee the planet. Cere and Cal sat down for a heartfelt conversation, as Cal revealed his broken lightsaber to her. Cal was sure he could have saved Master Tapal – all the guilt he’s felt for years came spilling out. Cere responded by telling Cal that she cut herself off from the Force because in order to escape the Empire she gave in to the dark side. The pull of the dark side is something every Jedi will have to deal with, she says. Learning about the holocron snapped her out of her rage and anger at the Empire and at herself – providing her with hope that there could be a brighter future.

What will happen next is unclear. The Mantis flew to a snowy location that I initially thought may be Zeffo, but now I’m sure is not, and after landing Cere told Cal it was time to build himself a new lightsaber. She offered him her own, and he took it. This planet may be some kind of Jedi training ground – Cere was a former Jedi seeker, after all. After landing on the snowbound planet, I checkpointed my progress and stepped away from the game.

So this was a very long session, with some quite frustrating points but a great story. Jedi: Fallen Order has taken Cal – and me along with him – on a rollercoaster ride so far. Conquering his fears and guilt seem to be the key to entering the tomb – but first Cal will need to rebuild his broken weapon. Hopefully the Zeffo Astrium will be worthwhile when he finally gets it. I’m assuming that won’t be our final visit to Dathomir. Not only does Cal need to access the tomb, but both the Night Sister and Malicos need to be confronted to conclude that section of the story satisfactorily.

Join me next time and we’ll see what happens next – and where we are!

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the copyright of Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. The Star Wars franchise is the copyright of Lucasfilm and Disney. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and for other iterations of the Star Wars franchise. There is also a spoiler for Game of Thrones Season 8.

Welcome back to Jedi: Fallen Order. After avoiding the Second Sister’s forces on Zeffo, and escaping imprisonment by a gang of gambling-obsessed bounty hunters, Cal and the gang got a lead on the location of Wookie chieftain Tarfful. I was all set to head back to Kashyyyk when Cere suggested a return to Bogano in search of hidden caches of supplies. At the end of the last part of this playthrough, we had just landed on Bogano, so that’s where we’ll pick up now.

I haven’t exactly been wild about Jedi: Fallen Order’s style of sending me back-and-forth between the same levels. Returning to a previously-visited level is fine for completionists who have to unlock every last item, but generally speaking I’m here for the story. However, the chance to acquire some new loot was enticing enough to convince me to backtrack, and I’m very glad I did. After landing, Cal spoke with both Greez and Cere – these were basically continuations of the chats he had with them last time. Cere expressed her regret at not telling Cal about Trilla and her past with the Empire sooner. Greez had a line that I found interesting: Cere is the one “paying the bills” for their expedition; he’s literally just a hired pilot, though they have become friends. This raised a question for me that may be wholly irrelevant, but I can’t help wonder where Cere got the funds for all this star-hopping. Though the economy of the Star Wars galaxy has always been suitably ambiguous, Cere must be reasonably wealthy to be able to afford to keep hiring Greez and the Mantis. Yet as an ex-Jedi and fugitive from the Empire, where did she get her money?

At the landing site there was a ramp that led down into a small chamber. Inside was a little fox-like creature; Cal rescued it and it will now have a home aboard the Mantis. Also in this area was another sphere-and-socket puzzle, which upon completion opened up an area containing a chest. We’d found one of these chests during our first visit to Zeffo, and inside was an upgrade for BD-1, allowing him to carry one more stim (health pack). This alone made the trip worthwhile, and after thinking I wasn’t going to spend much time here in my rush to get to Kashyyyk, I was suitably buoyed by gaining an extra stim to revisit more of Bogano in the hopes of finding more loot!

Outside of this area were a few more of the fox-creatures, but the hostile enemies that we encountered on Bogano the first time all seemed to have vanished. I used the holomap to try to scout out unexplored areas and places where previously-blocked paths were now accessible. In what had presumably been Master Cordova’s camp – where Cal met BD-1 for the first time – was a surprise, though! A large droid was waiting for Cal, and seemed to speak with a human voice as if being controlled remotely. After defeating it, it turned out to be affiliated with the bounty hunter collective that Cal escaped last time. This felt like a bad sign: was Cal being hunted by two groups now?

After collecting a couple of lightsaber components, Cal faced off against another large monster. We fought one of these after exiting the vault on Bogano the first time, and more recently in the bounty hunter’s arena. It was a tough fight, but Cal received a great reward – another new poncho. This one is my favourite: it’s pink! Unless he later finds one covered in sequins or rhinestones I doubt I’ll be changing outfits for the rest of the game. Cal looks like a pretty princess.

There were a couple of other things to see on Bogano; at one point Cal and Cere spoke on the radio about her time as Master Cordova’s apprentice. They enjoyed playing holo-chess together, which was a cute little story adding to Cere’s background. There was one final unexplored area left, and to my great surprise when I got there I found another chest with a stim upgrade. This means BD-1 can now carry five stims as opposed to the two he was equipped with at the start of the game. This obviously helps a lot, as a couple of times Cal has run out of stims during particularly difficult sections. After retrieving this second stim I was content that I’d picked up as many of the supplies as I was going to find, so back at the Mantis I set course for Kashyyyk.

I wasn’t sure what to expect on Kashyyyk. Mari – the resistance fighter Cal befriended last time – had said the Empire’s counter-attack led to them taking back control of the facility we attacked last time. It always felt like the resistance was fighting that kind of engagement; expecting them to keep control of an Imperial facility didn’t seem feasible. However, their situation appears grim. With Saw Gerrera having retreated away from Kashyyyk, it wasn’t clear who would still be there, or even where the Mantis would be able to land. As it turned out, the Mantis was able to land at the same Imperial landing pad as last time – though given the Empire is now in full control of this area, I’m not exactly sure how or why that was possible other than “because it’s a game”. As I said before about Zeffo, given that we’re going to be taking a different route this time and exploring a different area away from the Imperial base, I’d have preferred to see the Mantis pick a new landing zone. Splitting Kashyyyk and Zeffo into two wholly separate levels for the two visits Cal had to make to each would have gone some way to making these sections feel less repetitive and less like backtracking.

There were no enemies to fight at the landing pad, and though both Cere and Greez were stood outside the ship, neither had anything to say. Presumably we’d used up their dialogue on the jaunt to Bogano. There was evidence of a battle on the landing pad, as Cal sensed a Force echo from a discarded resistance fighter’s helmet. Trilla had been here in search of Cal, and had killed the resistance fighter while looking for him. Cal felt very guilty at unleashing the Jedi-hunters on these resistance fighters; while they would have had a hard time holding out against the Empire, they were no match for Trilla and her Purge troopers.

Also at the landing pad were Mirienna and Choyyssyk – Mirienna was the woman from Zeffo who Cal met; her husband had been killed by the Empire. Choyyssk was a Wookie who Cal freed from the prison; he was the one who set up the meeting with Tarfful, the chieftain we’re here to meet. Tarfful wasn’t here, though, he was at a rendezvous point in Kashyyyk’s Shadowlands. After a brief chat in which Mirienna revealed she too is leaving the planet, Cal wished them well and headed out. I was excited at the prospect of heading into the Shadowlands. I mentioned this area on our last visit to Kashyyyk as I’d played through it in Knights of the Old Republic. Compared to that game, the presentation of Kashyyyk in Jedi: Fallen Order was quite different; less like a massive forest with kilometres-tall trees and more like a dense jungle. However, all that was about to change!

A cable-car took Cal to the Imperial facility’s rooftop, where last time we’d defeated the AT-ST and listened to Saw Gerrera’s speech. From here, the only way forward was to take an elevator into the facility and find a way out into the forest from there. I had a bad feeling about the elevator – last time Cal rode one the doors opened to reveal Trilla! And this time was almost as bad: Cal arrived in the Imperial facility only be confronted by two bounty hunters. This was one of the hardest fights so far in Jedi: Fallen Order for me. Both bounty hunters had a variety of weapons and stun-gadgets at their disposal, including flashbang grenades which turned the screen white, blinding Cal temporarily. However, after focusing on one opponent at a time (and using a couple of stim-packs) Cal was able to defeat one of them, before a well-timed use of Force push sent the second falling to his death. Thank goodness for enemies who choose to fight on ledges and platforms!

I can’t tell if the bounty hunters are always in this location, or whether their appearances are somewhat random. However, one thing is clear – having encountered the droid on Bogano and now these two, the bounty hunter guild is hunting Cal. Surprisingly this wasn’t mentioned at all; I wondered whether Cal might’ve told Greez what had happened, but he never did. After this fight there were several Stormtroopers and a Purge trooper to defeat, before BD-1 was able to take down a forcefield allowing Cal to exit the base and head into the forest.

After exiting the base, Kashyyyk finally started to take on a similar feel to how I remembered it from Knights of the Old Republic in the early 2000s. At points, Jedi: Fallen Order’s Kashyyyk Shadowlands felt like a visually-improved version of the level from the older game, and I absolutely adored the nostalgia trip of exploring this dangerous forest floor. Gone were most of the jungle elements that Cal saw on the route to the Imperial base last time, replaced with a dense forest. I have no doubt Kashyyyk’s wroshyr trees are based on California’s giant redwoods, and while I’ve never seen those for myself I’ve seen photos and at least one documentary! A short distance from the base were several Stormtroopers armed with rocket launchers in a treehouse-platform, and credit to the game’s designers here because the platform looked just like the ones seen in Revenge of the Sith. Yoda was in such a treehouse when Order 66 occurred.

From here a zipline led deeper into the forest, and there were a variety of animal and plant(!) enemies to battle. Tarfful sure picked an out-of-the-way location for a meeting! But that makes sense as he wouldn’t have wanted to get any closer to the Imperial base than necessary. There was a Force echo in this area which showed Saw and Mari arguing – believing Kashyyyk lost, Saw has withdrawn as we already knew. But Mari insisted on staying behind to help the Wookies in their resistance to the Empire. I’m still hopeful Saw will reappear in the game, as Cal’s story with him doesn’t feel complete. This section contained several giant venus fly trap-like plants, which are more than big enough to eat Cal! Luckily there’s a couple of seconds between stepping on one and it snapping shut, which is enough time in most cases to jump off before having a problem.

After battling a few more troopers, Cal was able to advance deeper into the forest. Another Force echo saw Cal learn about the resistance’s retreat from the Imperial base; at one point they were overrun and a number of soldiers were killed. After climbing through a cave, Cal dropped down into a body of water called Origin Lake, and was getting closer to Tarfful – whose rendezvous location was marked on the holomap.

There was another Purge trooper to battle in this area as well as the standard troopers and monsters, and Cal had some swimming to do to get out of the lake. Climbing up eventually led to a couple of vines, and after swinging across like a fabulously pink Tarzan, Cal made it to the meeting with Tarfful. For some reason Choyyssyk was there too, having apparently raced there from the landing pad. Having a companion during this section of the game could have been interesting, and it could have been fun for Choyyssyk and Cal to journey through Kashyyyk together. The meeting itself was a complete let-down, as Tarfful basically says that he once told Master Cordova to climb a large tree – the Origin Tree. And that was it. No big reveal or useful information, and the conversation with Tarfful and Mari was over in a couple of minutes. At least there was a reason for Cal to head to his next objective, though; you’ll recall my complaining several times at the game dumping objectives and map markers on Cal with no explanation given!

I was really expecting something more substantial from Tarfful, especially after all the buildup to meeting him. Even if he’d still given Cal the same basic information and quest, the conversation at the meeting could have been so much more than it was. It wasn’t even a cut-scene, as Cal stood there stoically while Mari translated Tarfful’s Wookie growls. Mari gave Cal a breather – the device used by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace – to allow him to breathe underwater, as the way in to the Origin Tree will require a lot of swimming. As an aside, Electronic Arts, who published Jedi: Fallen Order, have an online store/game launcher called Origin. Is it just a coincidence that the Origin Tree and Origin Lake share its name? Probably. An optional extra chat with Mari revealed that before taking up arms against the Empire she was a cartographer, making maps of backwater planets. Little moments like this go a long way to humanising characters and making them feel like real people. While I expect we’ve seen the last of Mari, this moment was sweet and it showed how the rise of the Empire affected people across the galaxy.

After the anticlimactic rendezvous, Cal set off in search of the tree. Equipped with the breather, he can now dive underwater and seemingly spend as long under the surface as he likes. Swimming is something many games struggle to get right, and unfortunately some of the same issues that have plagued other titles are present in Jedi: Fallen Order. I’ve already spoken several times about the game’s relatively clunky controls, and in a three-dimensional underwater environment, Cal controls like a drunk hippopotamus. It was very difficult to get him to navigate even the widest of caves and openings, and the fact that Kashyyyk’s murky water doesn’t allow for great visibility when swimming made these sections of the game frustrating to play at points. However, there were several chests underwater which contained various lightsaber parts, which was nice. And for the second time while playing Jedi: Fallen Order I got a Super Mario 64 flashback – opening the chests while underwater felt so much like it does in that game to me!

Surprisingly – and thankfully, given how tricky it was – the swimming sections contained no underwater monsters or aggressive piranha-like fish to fight off or escape from, and after uncovering a couple of chests, Cal made his way to the next area of the level, which was presumably the base of the Origin Tree (though nothing appeared in-game to confirm this). There were Stormtroopers in the area as well as plenty of monsters; the large spiders being perhaps the most difficult to fight as they could immobilise Cal with their webs (think what happened to Frodo in Lord of the Rings!)

The ascent was slow-going in places, and I debated taking a break. But there were no meditation spots in the vicinity, and I wasn’t keen to have to start all over again from the bottom. By the way, how many games in recent years have this kind of old-school “checkpoint” system instead of letting players save their progress on the fly? Though I’ve never played the Dark Souls series, I think this is something those games brought back as a way to increase the difficulty, and it’s something Jedi: Fallen Order mimics. It definitely has the desired effect, and while the ability to freely save would be nice, I can’t criticise the game for sticking to this model. Cal did eventually make it to the point the holomap was sending him to.

This turned into an ambush, however, as the Ninth Sister – another Inquisitor who we briefly saw on Bracca – appeared in her ship! I thought she was going to jump down and duel with Cal, but she remained aboard and started blasting at him, triggering a long sliding sequence as he escaped. This was particularly annoying, as the sliding sections have difficult controls and require perfectly-timed button presses and perfect aiming to complete jumps and avoid Cal falling to his death. This was even worse than the ice slide on Zeffo and took many attempts to get right. At one point Cal was propelled through the air by several well-placed bouncy plant-things (I know that’s a horrible description, sorry) in a sequence that reminded me of the barrel-cannons from the Donkey Kong Country games. The Ninth Sister’s ship was eventually taken down by one of Kashyyyk’s huge animals, though it seemed clear that wouldn’t be the end of her.

Luckily there was a meditation spot shortly after the sliding section, which I took advantage of. I opted to improve Cal’s Force push ability; it will now affect groups of enemies, provided they’re standing close enough to one another. This has the potential to be very useful, as I’ve found Force push to be one of my most frequently-used powers during combat. As Cal had slid back down to the forest floor, it seemed as though he’d have to climb back up the Origin Tree to find whatever he was looking for up there, but it wasn’t long after he began the climb that he had a flashback to his time training under Master Tapal. This time Cal was able to learn the “Jedi flip” that he needed to get across that bridge on Dathomir, and after the flashback was over, Cal states that he’s finally re-learned the skills Master Tapal had taught him; he’s “back to where he was” before Order 66 and the rise of the Empire brought his Jedi training – and the whole Jedi Order – to an abrupt end. As previously mentioned, the Jedi flip is basically a double jump, allowing Cal to cross wider gaps and stay in the air longer.

Re-learning these skills means that Cal unlocks more upgrades when meditating, but of course having just used the only two skill points he had on the Force push upgrade, the next meditation spot was only used to checkpoint my progress climbing up the Origin Tree. A Force echo showed Cal that Master Cordova had been this way – so at least we were on the right track! There was also a Clone Wars/prequel era ship that had crashed partway up the tree, prompting Cal to talk about how the war on Kashyyyk never truly ended, and how the last few years have been rough for the planet and its people.

The creature that had taken out the Ninth Sister’s ship was back. I hadn’t really seen it clearly earlier, but it turned out to be a large bird with strangely translucent wings – a shyyyo bird. The fight against the ship had injured it, and Cal found it laying down partway up the tree feeling sorry for itself. Like something from an old fable, Cal was able to remove a piece of debris from its wing and heal it with a stim-pack, becoming fast friends with the creature in the process.

The bird was grateful for Cal’s help, and flew away from the area where it had been resting. There was another chest in this area that unlocked a different colour scheme for the Mantis, but I like its yellow “space banana” hue so I didn’t apply the new one this time. The shyyyo bird was waiting for Cal, and in the most wholesome and adorable cut-scene it let him climb on its back and flew him higher up the Origin Tree. This scene was reminiscent of the final sequence in the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry soars through the sky on Buckbeak the hippogriff!

I was in love with the shyyyo bird – and very worried that it was going to be shot out of the sky like Rhaegal the dragon had been near the end of Game of Thrones’ final season! As you may remember I’m easily swayed by cute animals in films and games, and despite its gigantic size, the shyyyo bird definitely qualifies. After the cut-scene Cal dismounted, and the shyyyo bird left. This area was fairly small and contained the remains of Master Cordova’s camp, as well as a workbench. I took this opportunity to customise Cal’s lightsaber once again – you know I like to play with the various customisation options, and we’d unlocked half a dozen or more lightsaber options since the last time I was at a workbench.

Thanks to the shyyyo bird, Cal was exactly where he needed to be. Just beyond the area with the workbench, BD-1 played the next recording from Master Cordova. When he passed this way he was able to acquire a Zeffo Astrium – the macguffin Cal is chasing that he hopes is the key to accessing the vault on Bogano.

Unfortunately the Zeffo Astrium that was here is long gone – Master Cordova will have taken it with him, but who knows where it ended up. However, he gives Cal his next destination – Dathomir contains another Astrium, but this one is trapped in a tomb that Master Cordova described as being “dark”. Surely this means the dark side of the Force, though what exactly Cal will find when he heads back is unclear. Master Cordova had tried to find the Astrium on Dathomir without success; Cal must now accomplish what a seasoned Jedi Master could not. A tough task indeed.

Immediately beyond the area where the recording played was a meditation spot. Then the shyyyo bird returned to fly Cal back down the tree. However, after landing the Ninth Sister’s ship was back and shot the poor bird! It looked like the end for the shyyyo – which was pretty devastating – and then the Ninth Sister herself jumped down for a duel with Cal. And she’s a big lass.

Apparently the Second Sister (Trilla) considers Cal to be “important”, though the Ninth Sister can’t figure out why. She’s content to just cut Cal down, and after a brief conversation in which Cal tells her she will no longer be able to terrorise Kashyyyk, the combatants draw their lightsabers – the Ninth Sister’s has a handguard like Trilla’s – and engage in a difficult duel. While the fight against the Ninth Sister was hard, I actually found the battle against the bounty hunters earlier to be trickier. The Ninth Sister has a few tricks up her sleeve, but nothing as bad as paralysing weapons or flashbangs.

The fight went on for a little while, as Cal had to frequently dodge and parry the Ninth Sister’s powerful attacks. At several points the game would jump into a quick-time event, where mashing the X or B button was required to stop one of the Ninth Sister’s strikes. However, after persevering and striking at her whenever possible, Cal gained the upper hand and ground down her health bar.

Eventually Cal was able to damage the Ninth Sister’s helmet and – in true Star Wars style – eventually cut off the hand she used to hold her weapon. Despite this she tried to continue the fight, but a final strike from Cal sent her over the edge of the platform. Did she fall to her death? Unclear. Cal definitely believes that this was the end of her, but without seeing a dead body I’m not 100% convinced! Star Wars villains have a tendency to pop back up, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the Ninth Sister makes a return.

Regardless, the Ninth Sister’s demise ended the duel, and Cal stood for a moment in shocked silence at having beaten a full-fledged Inquisitor. While wounded, the Ninth Sister told him something interesting – she used to be a Jedi! Like Cere, she was captured and tortured by the Empire, and while Cal still hasn’t fully forgiven Cere for not telling him everything about Trilla and the mission, he now has a better understanding of what she must’ve been through. Despite the way it was presented, I must admit I find this a little ominous; if the Ninth Sister and Trilla were both converted, and we know that Cere used the dark side too in that moment, is she really someone Cal can trust? The shyyyo bird – Buckbeak, as I’m calling it – survived the Ninth Sister’s attack and returned to fly Cal back down the tree.

After disembarking and bidding farewell to Buckbeak, Cal headed back to the Imperial base, which wasn’t too far from where he’d been dropped off. The troopers had all respawned, but it wasn’t too hard to cut through them and make my way back into the base.

I was worried that the bounty hunters would have respawned too, but aside from a lone Purge trooper, there were only regular Stormtroopers to worry about as Cal made his way back to the Mantis. En route Cal found the body of a Wookie near an empty tank, and a Force echo over his or her corpse led Cal to realise that the tanks of brown liquid were a toxic byproduct of the Empire’s refinery on Kashyyyk – this would have been great to know on our first visit to Kashyyyk as it would have explained why Cal instantly died if he touched the liquid. But never mind, at least now we know! It wasn’t too difficult to get back to the cable-car, and from there it was a short ride back to the Mantis.

Despite the fact that the Empire is in full control of this area, neither Greez nor Cere seem particularly bothered or on alert. The Mantis is sat on an Imperial landing pad – presumably illegally – and after what happened on Zeffo I have to assume that the Empire knows Cal is using the vessel. Could they be ignoring it on purpose to track it? That’s one possibility. Greez and Cere were sitting down to eat lunch, and Cal joined them to explain what had happened. Neither seemed especially impressed at his defeating the Ninth Sister, but he informed them of their new destination – Dathomir.

Cere apologised again for the business with Trilla, but Cal tells her – in a rather standoffish manner – that it’s okay. After his duel with the Ninth Sister he has a better understanding of what it must’ve been like, and was impressed that she didn’t end up joining the Inquisitors even if she sacrificed Trilla. Though there’s still tension between the two of them, they have at least arrived at an understanding, or at least that’s the way it seems for now. When the lunchtime conversation was over, I used the Mantis’ meditation spot to checkpoint my progress before taking a break.

So this part of the game was pretty good. The Tarfful scene, which had a lot of buildup, was kind of a miss for me, but I absolutely adored soaring high above Kashyyyk on Buckbeak the shyyyo bird, and returning to a massively-upgraded version of the Shadowlands that I remembered from Knights of the Old Republic was a nostalgic treat. Cal accomplished his mission and seems to have possibly defeated the Ninth Sister to boot, which if true is great news. The Mantis has a new destination – albeit a planet we’ve already visited – so it’s next stop Dathomir! Come back next time when we’ll confront the darkness in search of a Zeffo Astrium.