The Ringer-Verse - Exploring the World of 'Star Wars Jedi: Survivor'

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

The Force shall be strong with Ben Lindbergh and Charles Holmes as they take a look at the massively popular video game 'Star Wars Jedi: Survivor' (02:00). They break down all of the new gameplay changes for the sequel and discuss what they think of the epic story, along with a few nitpicks (25:28). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Charles Holmes Social: Jomi Adeniran Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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isn't an option for me. I have to hold the line. And where's that Ganya, Cal? Look, I wish things were different, but you keep losing people. And you yourself said that the empire's growing stronger every day. Now, maybe it's time for you to be something more than a lightsaber. Think about yourself. Settle down. Find a home. What? Home, Grease.

There is no home. Home was the order. It was my teacher. It was everyone I lost. What is their sacrifice mean if I go and I just give up and stick my head in the sand? Oh, and welcome into the ringerverse, the ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor for the ringer, and my player to today is the man, the myth. The Midnight Boy, Charles Holmes. Hello, Charles. I am honored to be here, Ben 10, Lindomania, insanity, Lindbergh cheese.

I'm so happy you brought me on today. I'm trying out a few nicknames for you. Because sometimes you've potted together and like, I'm Coke Baby Chuck, you know what I'm saying? Well aware, yeah. You know, Steve has a nickname. I feel like you need a nickname, Ben. I welcome a nickname.

Please keep trying them out throughout this episode and I'll tell you what works. Crashing the Lynn. Shout out Steve. Always click on the draw. Well, I'm happy to have you here too. We have all heard your calls for more video game coverage

on the Ringaverse. I'm pretty sure those were actual calls and not just my imagination. The calls were coming from outside the house, I swear. And this is the first of a few gaming pods on tap for the feed this month. So many Bedlam Raiders died

to bring you this episode because Charles and I and producer Steve Alman have been immersed in Star Wars Jedi Survivor, respawn Entertainment's PC, PS5, and series SX sequel to 2019's Star Wars

Jedi Fallen Order. Charles, for me, this is a long-anticipated team-up. This is our first time potting as a duo, and I would be lying if I said there wasn't some part of me that was hoping you'd come in with an old-school, coat, baby chuck take with your red lightsaber swinging so we could duel to the death over whether we like this game. But you know what? I think it's going to be good vibes all the way today or most of the way. Not only is it going to be good vibes, I am so excited. Like, we're talking today, but like, Steve, he's my Sith Lord.

Because I was, like, enjoying my weekend playing this game. I'm like, oh, it's pretty dope. Like, everything, like, I want from Star Wars game. And Steve hits me up. And he's like, Charles, what's this game? And I'm just like, I encourage you to let the hate flow through you, Charles. I feel like, I don't know about you, Ben, but, like, I read your, I read your review. I think we're both on kind of the same footing with this game in terms of

my first reaction was everything that I thought in the back of my mind playing Fallen Order, things that annoyed me, and I love that game. But things that annoyed me, things that I was like, this is missing, was all there in this game, which I loved, where even things that I didn't know I wanted once I could do it in this game, I was just like, okay, this is not only a true sequel, this is kind of the ideal to me of when you get a sequel, not only building on it,

but like this game not only drops you right in, but it doesn't start you over. So I felt like I picked up right where I left off. I felt like a Jedi Knight. We're building on everything else we did. I really, really enjoyed my first like 24-ish hours of playing this game. Until Steve messaged you, and ruined everything.

It's a leap message. I played it pre-release so I could review it for Theringer.com. What a great website. So I was playing just in isolation in my little happy Jedi bubble. No negativity from Steve or anyone else.

And I was just having a great time. So I'm hoping nobody brings me down today. But the problem with a 20 to 30-hour game is that you can't really do an instant reaction pod because nothing's instant about that. But look, it came out a few days ago. So close enough, we've put a lot of time into it. And I wouldn't say we have nothing but love for this game, but we do have a lot of love for it.

A lot of love. Here's the plan. We have finished the game, but we're going to give you spoiler-free impressions. And then we're going to zoom out a bit to talk a little bit about what makes a good Star Wars game and what we want out of Star Wars games at a turning point for the video game franchise. And at the very end, we will zoom all the way back in to talk about a few specific plot points from Jedi Survivor. But don't worry, we will warn you before that happens multiple times, because if you haven't had a chance to check out the game yet or you're still working your way through it, we do not want you to experience it that way. We want you to experience it the way that we did before it came out. Except that if you get stuck playing it now, you can just go watch a walkthrough to figure out where to go, which would have been really helpful for me a few times last week. But there were no walkthrough to watch.

Did not have a walkthrough, which also like piss me off so much because I was just like, It was true school, like playing games in the 90s. Yes, it takes me back to when, you know, you had to buy a strategy guide. I feel like old man van here, but you had to like buy a hard copy of something to figure out what to do. No, no YouTube play-thrus. You were on your own unless a friend had it or you call the Nintendo Power Hotline or whatever you have to do. So that's the downside of playing pre-release. Do they still have those at Barnes & Noble?

Like as a kid, did you used to go to like a game section? with all of the play-through, like, big books. Oh, so good. And the artwork and the screenshots and all the secrets and all the lore. Oh, my gosh. I love those books. Yeah. Just great.

Before we get to the game, a few programming reminders because we have a full feed for you this week. On Wednesday's House of Our, Mal and Joe, we'll be giving you a trope's course on Magical Blades, RIP Dark Sabre. On Thursday, it's gone too soon. Mint Edition will go back. to the Star Wars well as they discuss Star Wars Visions, Volume 2. And Steve, I can't wait to hear what you think of visions, but what I really need to know is will Star Wars Young Jedi Adventures,

which also comes out this week be the way that I indoctrinate my daughter into lifelong Star Wars fandom because I don't want to put any pressure on her to like the things that I like, but also if she doesn't like those things, I may just very privately and secretly and quietly be crushed by that. How old is your daughter? Maybe just hide the entire fate of those young Jedi's to the fate that Doug Vader set them upon. You think Anakin makes a cameo at the end of Young Jedi Adventures? That'd be a great series finale. Hey, kids.

My daughter's 18 months old, so she's on the young side for sure. This is, you know, this is for... Oh, you just got to loop the movies in the background like Mozart while she's sleeping. Yeah. You know, get it in the rim cycle. Yes, just by Asmosis. Just subliminal Star Wars. messaging. And on Friday, the Midnight Boys, including a couple Midnight Boys I'm talking to

right now, will return for their instant reaction to Guardians of Galaxy Volume 3. My instant reaction is that Guardians is very good, and Charles, you know what else is very good. Star Wars, Jedi Survivor. So tell me a little bit about what you liked that you haven't gotten into yet. Let me just briefly set the scene for anyone who missed Fallen Order or doesn't play video games but is still listening to us talk about them, in which case we salute you. Thanks for the download. But both of the Jedi games were made by Respond, which developed Titanfall and Apex Legends. Respond was founded by the co-creators of Call of Duty and later bought by Electronic Arts,

which has had a mostly exclusive contract to publish Star Wars games for the past decade, which we will talk about a little later. The director of the Jedi Games, Stig Aspinson, is a veteran of the god of war games, the first few. So there's some God of War DNA here. There's some Dark Souls style combat and Metroidvania type exploration. There's even some Titanfall 2 type platforming. So there's a pretty broad blend of influences and gameplay types that in Fallen Order, at least, didn't always fit together smoothly. But here, I think they gel well.

And story-wise, both of these games star Cal Kestis, who is a former Padawan who survives Order 66. The first game starts about five years after episode three, Cal's in hiding, but he eventually gets drawn into an effort to find a holocron that contains the location of force-sensitive children. He makes some friends along the way. He meets some former Jedi. He gets hunted by Inquisitors. He duels Darth Vader.

He goes through it all. And in the end, he decides to destroy the holocron to keep the children safe rather than try to use it to build the order back up again. So that takes us to this game. First of all, tell me what you thought of fallen overall. order either back then or in retrospect. It sounds like you liked it, but felt like there was room for improvement, and now it has been improved.

I played Fallen Order very, very recently all the way through. And I think the game is very, very charming. But I think we can all agree, you've already said it. Not only did I feel like the fighting mechanics were very janky at some points, where there were large stretches of the game where I'm like, am I bad at this game or are just, It's the game bad. Yeah, it's just like the way you fight. Like sometimes it would work and other times I'm just like, what is happening.

But on the whole, I was just like, this is, I thought it was a great, great Star Wars game, even if I got to be honest, thankfully this was fixed in the sequel. Everything with the maps having to run back and forth. Oh my God. I spent endless hours running through that game to the point where like I'd never want to open it again. And thank God that they fixed that in this one. So many caves, so many spiders. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. What did you think of the first game? I liked it. Like, it felt good to play a real dedicated single player, big budget Star Wars game again. But it definitely felt like it could

have used a little more time in the oven. So I enjoyed it. There were some design decisions I didn't love, notably the pack trapping that you just mentioned. And honestly, I didn't really care about Cal Castas, apologies to the cow heads out there if you are out there. Are there cow heads out there? I honestly don't know. But I'm not one of them. I thought he was just generic and bland, which was really magnified all the more by the supporting cast, which was pretty strong. I mean, every other character is cooler than Cal, one of the best droid sidekicks ever in BD1.

BD1. Grease, the forearm pilot, the Knight's sister Marin, his Jedi mentor, Sir Junda, just like a great, strong non-Cal core there, which I guess isn't the worst thing if the player character is kind of a blank slate just going through the world and experiencing stuff, but not the strength of that game. So I thought it was a promising start to the franchise, but I was maybe more excited about what I hoped it could turn into than what it actually was, which brings us to Jedi Survivor, which kicks up about five years later in the timeline. It's a little more than halfway between episode three and episode four, so roughly the same spot as

the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. So while all that's happening and the Inquisitors and Vader are running around trying to track down Obi-Wan, presumably they're trying to track down Calcastus too.

Cal and B.D. are still fighting the Empire, but they're not making much progress. Their friends have scattered. So this time, Cal has to get the gang back together while also staying out of the empire's clutches and fighting another rogue former Jedi

and trying to keep hope alive while balancing his loyalty to the Jedi with what he wants as an independent person with a personal life that Jedi don't get to enjoy. So you mentioned a few highlights. Tell me what was good about this game. Why did you like it so much more? I think that this game stuck the landing

a lot more in terms of what not only we've seen on screen of Jedi, but how it would feel, especially in a game, where there were multiple parts in this game as I started getting bored, where it would be like, okay, Cal can talk to fucking animals now, and you can ride on animals.

And I was like, all right, dope, I'm riding on animals. Or very early on, you use Jedi mind tricks. All of these different things, same thing with,

I think the first game was very, very simple in terms of, hey, you either have a single-bladed lightsaber or you have a dual-wheel. Right. Which was fine.

But in this one, I felt like they started digging into you being able to play how you want. So, like, I was reading your review and you love the blaster and Laster stance. Yes. I hated it.

I was just like, I don't need a blaster. I was a dual-wheeled, dual-willed cross-saber the whole time. And I think that that was what kind of I liked about this. You went with the Kylo approach? Come on, you know, I'm a simple word, baby. Wow.

I used that for two minutes and never again, but that is in character for you. I could have predicted that. So, yeah, that was just like, you know, swinging just a heavy thing that moves very slowly, but there's a lot of power behind it. I mean, it was definitely like distinct play styles, right, depending on how many blades you were wielding and what style. So, yeah, I mean, maybe it seems counterproductive to have a blaster when you're a Jedi. If you're a Jedi, you don't have to have a blaster, right? but I liked kind of combining the Jedi approach and the Han Solo approach. I was like, I need a ranged weapon.

Like, I need to attack from far away. And then suddenly it gave me a blaster. And I was like, this is great. This is exactly what I wanted. So I guess those are basically opposite approaches to combat that we took. You're a better video game officianto than me. I'm like a dumb, numskull about it

where I just like run straight in. Just what I hack and slash. I just want to like hack and slash and do all the cool moves. Even though I know, I'm like, there's an easier way to defeat all these enemies. I'm like, doesn't matter, man. Big lightsaber. Let's go.

Yeah. It's not a game where you have to memorize a lot of complicated combos, to be honest. Like, you know, there's some techniques you develop and you obviously unlock skills and everything. And as you said, one thing I appreciated is that you kind of keep the skills from the first game, which makes sense, right? Like he goes from a Padawan to a knight. There's no story-related reason for him to suddenly lose all his powers. but so many sequels just kind of contrived some reason, right, so that you can go through that power progression

and unlock everything again. And there's plenty to unlock here. There's definitely a skill tree, but he kind of keeps the core abilities that you got last time, so you're building on top of that foundation instead of starting from scratch. So you do feel pretty superpowered from the start, even though it can be a challenging game at times.

So I also want to ask this, one of the new things on the skill tree besides all of the, light saver stances is confusion. Now you can use Jedi mind tricks, the force to either trick Stormtroopers, different enemies, or, you know, big animals.

I thought that was cool and I tried to use it for like five minutes. And very, very quickly, I was just like, janky, never using this again. Were you a confusion user throughout this whole experience? I was, yeah. Really?

I like just kind of camping out on the side and just like, you guys fight it out the most. amongst yourself. I'll just sit here. Just like pulling the strings, like the puppet master from the side. You have used the word janky twice in this pod and I used it in my review. That is the operative word to describe this game and this franchise as a whole. We'll get into maybe some of the stability issues shortly, but there is definitely a feeling of like maybe could have used a little more polish, right? So this is always kind of a feeling of like, is this thing about to break on me?

But when it's working, it works really well. I love that there's fast travel now, right? So no more backtracking, right? Just like unlocking shortcuts, don't have to wonder around aimlessly, or at least a lot less than you used to have to do that. There's a ton to do. I put like 35 hours into this game so far. I've only seen 65% of the main planet Kobo.

So there's just endless amounts of stuff to do, potentially too much stuff to do. Maybe some stuff you'll not at all be interested. in doing. But if you are, it's there. It's also unlike the last game next gen only, or maybe it's time to call it current gen, right? So it was just developed for the current generation of consoles and PCs. So graphically, even though it labors at times, it is often a very good looking game. And I think they really nailed the aesthetics of it. Like the imperial bases just look and feel like imperial bases. Like the prequel-inspired settings, just really look and feel like prequel-quil-inspired

settings. And Pailun Saloon, which is sort of your central hangout on Kobo. It's where you can do a lot of dialogue and recruit characters and learn things about people and unlock stuff and also do some gardening on the roof for some reason if you're into that. But just aesthetically speaking, like it has that rundown, authentic kind of canteena feel. And I just, I wanted to live there. Like, I didn't really want to go fight people. It was like, can I stay in this saloon and just hang out in my little room here and talk to interesting aliens. I think this game really nailed the aesthetics of Star Wars in so many different ways where I was actually surprised because I didn't watch really any videos.

I didn't read anything. I was like, I want to be fresh. And the way that we basically go from like High Republic to the prequel series to the see, like there was just such a almost like a seamless blend of all of these generations of Star Wars and even with the enemies like I not only did I love seeing the clankers the feeling of mowing them down is exactly how it feels in like clone wars and just the little things that they say and like at the Cal at one point it's like who programmed them to talk that much there's like little things that I was just like this is way more charming the slower you go

and I couldn't go that slow because I was trying to beat the game in time for this pod but But to your point, I wanted to live in this game way more than I wanted to live in Fallen Order. Yeah, I did a fair amount of side stuff, but because I was trying to write a review and prep for this pod, I played it a little bit differently than most people probably would or could

if they just want to take the leisurely approach. And I think the game would reward that. But I really was impressed. I mean, the writing, the characters, the supporting cast is still really strong. We could talk about whether you were more interested in Cal than you were before. but everyone else around him is really charismatic, really magnetic, has an interesting backstory.

And the story really impressed me because the original game, I thought the story did some things well. Like at the end, when you decide to destroy the holocron, I kind of admired that decision because it was sort of not the typical hero's journey. It was while we were looking for this McGuffin the whole game and then we finally found it and we just decided to destroy it. It did, though, feel a little bit like what did we accomplish? here, right? And so they address that head on, like one of the first scenes, Cal's like, everything I'm doing feels pointless. The empire's only growing stronger. And I thought it was smart to acknowledge that because that was just directly addressing the problem that plagued Obi-Wan.

Like, what are we doing here? What can we hope to accomplish when we know that the empire isn't going down yet and the Jedi aren't coming back yet? Can these characters actually grow and evolve? and I thought just by kind of acknowledging that canonical timeline elephant in the room, they then kind of gave themselves the freedom to chart their own narrative course. And I thought it was like just the perfect palate cleanser after being a little let down by the Mandalorian and some of the connections in that season. It just felt so well done here. I mentioned in my review,

I felt like it sort of synthesized many of the best elements of each of the streaming series, even the not so good ones. So this game is funny, as you were just alluding to, like if you listen to just some of the overheard dialogue, you know, if Cal's kind of waiting to attack someone and you hear the droids talking each other or the troopers talking to each other, it's genuinely funny, right?

And there's some other little, like, Easter egg and jokes, and there's a fake boss that made both of us, Rick the technician or whatever he's called. I actually laughed that loud. I laughed out loud at Ray. That was so great. Like the boss fight, you know, UI comes up in the health bar, and it's just some guy who you can just one shot kill. I don't know if it's like an allusion to the Kylo Ren S&L character or what, but I love that.

So you have that, which, you know, Mando at its best can be funny. And then you kind of have the colorful, exotic locales and different planets and rich cast. And then you also have some Andor that creeps into this game, you know, like the ISB. shows up and you get some insight into the tyranny and the politics inside the empire. And then obviously there's a lot of Obi-Wan Kenobi in this game because it's, you know, the trauma of having survived Order 66 and being pursued by the empire. And there's even like, you know, Book of Obamette, not that that's necessarily something to emulate, but you have that criminal element and sort of the seedy underbelly of Star Wars and you have kind

of like the galactic conflict playing out, you know, a local setting that, you know, you can see improve and help improve. And then even like Bad Batch, you know, there's sort of that like found family, us against the world, teaming up on a ship and traveling around the galaxy, even though the empire is getting stronger all the time. I just, I felt like there were little echoes of like every other Star Wars property in a way that it felt well integrated instead of just like, let's take this and take that and just throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

I mean, I agree. And I also think that it was very, very smart for. at least the bulk of the game for Dagon, who is a high republic, Jedi turned Sith Lord, basically, as the main antagonist, because that helps them skirt around kind of which we're saying, which is what are we actually really accomplishing in this game? Because we already know what's going to happen. So it was actually nice that, of course, there's still the empire, you're still fighting stormtroopers and all of these things.

But it's nice that there's like separatists or there's High Republic enemies and this enemies because I was just like, okay, this feels more like cow story instead of feeling like just a Star Wars story that happens to have cow. Yeah, it's like an adjacent path.

It kind of moves in parallel almost with the main timeline and you're constantly crossing paths with the empire and yeah, there's an inquisitor presence again as there was in the first game. But it's almost, you know, that fight kind of, you get that out of the way early. And then you move on to other adversaries and other goals and bigger goals, sort of sweeping galactic goals.

So I thought the story was just really well done despite kind of difficult circumstances and that you're hemmed in by other trilogies and you're limited in what you can do because Star Wars games, at least currently, are part of the same canon, right? You know, it's not like some other properties approach to video games where it's just an entirely separate thing. What happens here is bound by and binds what happens in a movie or what happens on TV. So there's some constraints there, but also some potential there. And I thought they did really well with that.

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and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. So we should talk, I guess, about some nitpicks again. We're high in the game. Let's bring in Steve really quick. Because Steve, I need to like, let you solo this. Steve, you had some nitpicks with this game.

Well, I mean, I certainly don't want to. be the bucket of cold water that gets poured on this game because I do genuinely think that this is an improvement on Fallen Order in basically every way. But I had always seemed to have that problem with both Fallen Order and this, where I never really liked how the game felt. And I think the bigger complaints that I would have about this game are probably a reflection of the state of AAA game development as a whole, where a game seems to need to be, in order to justify a 60 or $70 price tag has to be a 35-hour, be-all-end-all gameplay experience that, depending on what a game should be or maybe demands of it can be too much.

And I think we can see the limitations of not only maybe not, not to say the studio's talents, but at least, you know, what the game can deliver on in such a period as when it came out, it may have been given too much. Like Ben, you said that like this game probably has a few too many things to do. I could tell you exactly what the game didn't need. And that was a garden simulator when we can explore the galaxy

and fight stormtroopers. I don't think I'll be, you know, examining the local fauna. You don't like Starry in a galaxy far, far away? Maybe not too far away. That's far away, not what I wanted to be doing in a Star Wars game. I can guarantee you that. You hate flora and fauna. You hate

the natural landscape. Why can't we just walk around and pet the creatures? Yeah, Steve. Smell the grass. What's wrong with that? starve. I bet you starve your little characters in Animal Crossing don't you. Oh yeah, no, I kill Tomogacchi's from day one. That's my, that's my go-to. No, but like if we can pet every animal, kill every animal, platform, get every single lightsaber stance that you could think of within the first level and forget half of the great

things that were taught already. I pushed up against this game more than I would have liked to. even though that I can say that this is a better story, better gameplay, better looking in every single way, design-wise, I feel like it has too much to do. And I kind of lay that at EA's feet rather than respawn because this definitely feels like this had to be the be-all-end-all Star Wars game until the very next one. And I think that they might have stretched to respond a bit too thin. I think that given the multitude of complaints about performance, that they likely were. And regardless of whether or not how much time they needed, the game still needed to come out.

And it had to do all of those things and more. And I feel like it was just a little overstretched for what the game could have been. But it is great to do all of this again. It was awesome to get my favorite lightsaber stances out of the way in the beginning and be like, okay, great, I'm a twin-sabered Jedi now. and I can explore and fight however I want to.

Oh, so you were a twin saber? What were your two? Because I was dual weed too. I was a twin saber. What was the other one? It was twin saber and single saber because those were good high damage counters for that. I like that quite a bit.

But in the end, I feel like this was an improvement, but still such a frustrating endeavor for me to actually know that like to know what this studio is capable of and to feel like they were probably just hindered by the amount of stuff that you needed to put in this game was a lot. I can see your lightsaber just turning red over there, like Dagencara, as you just plead all of your hate and anger that you harbored for this game, just seeping through your microphone. Here's my defense of the it tries to do too much, which I think there's truth of that,

but the saving grace is that it doesn't make you try to do too much. It may be trying to do too much. It may be supplying things that I or you had no interest in. doing, but it doesn't force you to do them, right? It's just there. Now, we can question, like, what the opportunity cost of that was and what got short shrift because they were putting in a garden, right? But it's not like you have to plant X number of plants to progress to the next battle or something. Very true. All of this is entirely optional. So, you know, it's not one of these games where it's like you must craft because it's mandatory and you must go collect this and you must play this

mini-game that you have no interest in playing. Like, you know, in a lot of games, there's some kind of, you know, hollow table, like space chess type of game. And there is one in here, too. I played it a few times. It was kind of cool, but I didn't linger. I usually don't with that kind of thing. But it was just there, you know? It was like not thrust into your face. Someone had to work on that. And it probably took them many hours to do it. But none of that stuff that felt kind of half-baked or just not really what my priority was at any one time was really forced upon me in a way that I felt like it was, you know, an imposition. And that's very true. I think that for as stretched out as the game can be, most of the things that would rub me the wrong way are more or less

ignorable. Like, I would have found those rather simplistic, uh, Breath of the Wilde-esque Jedi temple puzzles, you know, carry, carry the force ball to get your nice little treasure at the end, types of interactions, you know, a bit grading, but knowing that I can easily ignore them and just progress onto the main story, that's a welcome return because that was kind of far and away my biggest complaint with Fallen Order is that like a lot of that had to come at the expense of me actually learning the game. But like in actuality, when I first started this game, it gave me every single tool that I had from the first game within the first two hours. And I was like, I already know that I'm going to forget half of this stuff by the time that we

actually get out of this first tutorial. But that being said, I think that this is a great improvement and I would still recommend it to anybody who actually wanted a better experience from Fall in Order. As long as they don't mind gardening, because that's the last straw.

I think mine is less the gardening. You know, shout out Stardue Valley, one of my favorite games. It is more of, I think the thing that graded me about Fallen Order is kind of here too, to a lesser extent, which was like,

I would look for all these chess, I would look for all of these things and then it would be like all right, you got a new color for BD and I'm like, you give the fuck. And I want a treasure chest that gets you a beard? I would love to unlock the beard. That was a couple times that happened

where I'm just like, dog, did I just spend 30 minutes? Yes. To get a fucking soul patch. What are we doing? There's nothing more deflating than exploring a level, finding some secret passageway.

You feel so proud of yourself. I crack the case. You reach a chest. only to be rewarded with a haircut. It's brown pants, another pair of brown pants. Like, I'm glad you discovered a center part, Cal. I was a kid in the 90s. I could have told you about that.

Or, you know, like, I know some folks like to geek out about lightsabers and more power to the people who care about that kind of customization. But I couldn't even tell the difference between the different lightsaber part. It's like, here's an emitter and here's a pommel, and it's like this tiny thing in your hand. I can't even tell the difference. I could not have cared less. And I felt the same way about the first game where you're, you know, getting new paint schemes for your ship or whatever.

Like, there must be someone who's into that. This is one case, I guess, where it actually, like, does rub me the wrong way because I'm going through all this effort to get stuff. And that's what you're giving me. I will say that the one exception is that Cal absolutely looks better with a full beard. And I did get the beard. And I know Mal would agree with me here because she thinks that's true for anyone who can grow one. But Cal especially, like, my opinion. of him rose considerably

once he had the beard. I was like, okay, Calcestis, I'm in on this guy, actually. Maybe he's okay. So that was the one case, but if it was like a sole patch or like a short goate or something, it's like, all right, I guess I will never use that. I mean, I

also will say part of this is bugs and part of this, isn't it? The part that is bugs is like, I think we all played a version of the game. I think we all played on PS5 that's still very buggy. And Steve's point might be kind of an indication

that maybe this game is trying to do too much because I will tell you, I wasted hours trying to get somewhere looking at my map, being like, am I, what's happening? And everything would be fixed once I restarted my game. And that was the point. And this happens towards the end of the game.

And similarly, there were points, I don't know if you guys felt this where sometimes the levels were designed in this way, where I'm like, I should be able to go here, or I can't find the thing that is supposed to be here, what's happening? And I would have to stare at the screen and be like, oh, it wants me to do this weird thing that I just learned from BD to get here. And those are the parts that I was just like, I don't know.

This really adds to the game as much as it just makes me frustrated that this one thing, the size of a dime on my TV, is what I. I've been looking for. Yeah, there are a lot of points. It has that very gamey kind of level design where it will try to just point your attention towards something very obviously. You know, like there's a certain kind of pattern on walls that you can wall run or there's some sort of paint or something on ledges you can grab or there's like a blue aura surrounding

things you can force, push or pull, right? And in a way that almost takes you out of it. It's like who came along here and painted this wall to let me know that I could wall run here. But without that, you'd be totally lost. And even with that, sometimes I was lost, because there were definitely times where I was like, oh, I can jump to that, right? And I could not jump to that. It was, it was too high, like kind of arbitrarily, almost, it seemed like. So that was frustrating at times. And yeah, when it comes to the bugs, like, again, everyone's mileage will vary with that stuff and no two play-throughs are exactly the same. And we did all

play on PS5. The PC version has been having a really, rough launch. And, you know, I hesitate to mention any specific bugs because I played part of my play-through prior to the day one patch coming out. You, I think, played after that, and you still experienced a lot of that stuff. And I still experienced a lot of stuff. Yeah. And I did too. And there have been subsequent patches. You know, we just got an email shortly before we started recording about, here's the next patch that's coming and it's going to fix all of these issues. So it's possible that by the time people are hearing this and playing, they will have no problem. You know, this isn't like cyberpunk. It's not like horribly broken and it's going to take

years to fix. It's just, it's janky. There's not a lot of polish. And I think what bothered me wasn't even so much the bugs or the crashes themselves because I didn't lose a ton of progress, but it was the way the bugs sort of sapped my confidence in the game. Because once I encountered something that prevented me from progressing, every time I get stuck after that, I was wondering, is this a bug? Or am I just stuck? Like, should I quit? Like, should I start this over? You know, like, it's one thing if you kind of can trust that the physics work and like everything's loading the way it should and you're stuck and you know it's your fault and you can keep banging your head against the wall until you can solve the problem.

But in this case, I wasn't sure whether I could actually solve the problem or whether I should just restart. So that was an issue. But, you know, this game was developed in like three and a half years, which is very fast by AAA, big budget. licensed game standards. So I think it does show some strain and some seams. And there was that last minute six week delay, which I'm guessing was much needed. I wonder what the game looked like.

You know, if this had come out in March as it was originally supposed to, then I'm guessing all the problems were pinpointing here would have been way worse. So I want to ask you guys this. This game teases an open. It's like a semi-open world. Like it teases it.

do you like do we want that in the next star wars game something that is a little bit less you are on this track playing the way we want you to play and kind of how i believe the name of the plan is cobo where it's just like you can just keep exploring forever is that something that like star wars needs to do or it's just not in their dna i like everyone else have some open world fatigue, I think, and I'm always looking for open world games that will mix up the formula somewhat. So I wouldn't want it to turn into just sort of a Ubisoft, like, you know, unlock the towers and unlock the map, and then there's a bunch of collectibles, like that kind of game. I don't necessarily need that for Star Wars, but I would like just some

of the constraints removed, because there aren't that many planets in this game. Some of the planets that there are are way bigger and more packed with content than the ones in fallen order. So there is a lot to do, but there are only so many environments. You never really have a sense that, like, you can explore the entire galaxy, you know, and you can go anywhere and you can do anything. You are kind of constrained to a handful of planets. And there's a lot to do on those planets, but it's definitely semi-open world, I would say, yeah.

But, but Kobo, like, there's, I was enjoying the exploration on that planet, I think. I don't know that I necessarily needed to be even bigger than that because it's bigger than I had time to see everything as it was. I did want to say, like, I guess, you know, my main nitpick, obviously, about this game and this series as a whole is just the colon placement in the title, because I just do not know how to pronounce Star Wars Jedi pause survivor. Star Wars Jedi fall in order, just from a copy editing perspective, constantly questioning where I pause, why the colon is there, probably doesn't bother everyone else as much as it bothers me. But just to sum up everything we've said, the good and the bad, in my review, I said that I thought this was the best Star Wars game in 20 years. Now, 20 years, you know, kind of conveniently, that takes us to 2003 when Cotaur came out. So I'm not saying it's better than Cotor or any of the other games

that came out, you know, right around that time, Jedi Academy. But I think just, you know, comparing to to everything else I've played in this franchise in the past 20 years, for me, that was almost an easy call. So is that a transgression? Or are you with me on that way? Steve, Steve, you looked, you were, you were counting. You were trying to find out of just like, okay, you better not say this is better than Cotor, but because I would, you'd have to, I'd be cutting mics after that.

Right. It's like, I guess it's only been 19 and a half years or something. Cotaur came out. So if you want to do the month's arithmetic there, that I guess you could catch me in that. Here's the thing. This game is fun. Like, it's like, for all of my nitpicks,

I was like, I'm going to spend 30 hours in a Star Wars universe. I like that. It's this one. Yeah, I guess that goes along with what Steve was saying about it, being a bit overstuffed, just having so many ideas and mechanics and concepts. And it's kind of the difficult thing that you want to, diagnose this game as because when you say that this is like this might be this is the best star

war's game since cotor that game came for cotor came from a lineage of bioware where they had kind of been perfecting and influencing on their RPG narrative based turn based style combat and gameplay and then they just seemingly got the license to a star wars game and slapped that skin on the latest iteration of that gameplay. This game wears a lot of influences on its sleeve and I say rarely exceeds in giving us the full realization of all of them. It's not quite a soul's like. It's not quite Breath of the Wild.

It's not quite any of those like Prince of Persia-esque platforming mechanics, things. It's good and it's enjoyable. And it certainly is worth a lot of people's time. But when we want to kind of find where the, next great Star Wars game is. We kind of keep thinking about, okay, well, what is going to be our mass effect for Star Wars? What is going to be our uncharted for Star Wars? I don't know if we can find that sort of like diagnosis for what is going to be that next

perfect Star Wars game unless we kind of directly follow one of those influences rather than several. Yeah, there's a little bit of Jack of All Trade's Master of None going on here. I mean, it does a lot of things really well. it's not necessarily best in class at doing any one of those things if you want the absolute best combat and the absolute best platforming. But it does enough of them at a high enough level. And I appreciated the variety, too. There are a lot of Star Wars games that have, you know, on foot sequences and flying sequences and other types of sequences. And sometimes that doesn't

work so well. And sometimes it's like, hey, this is maybe not the best of all worlds, but at least, you know, pretty good of all worlds. But that kind of takes me to that big picture question, which is what makes a good Star Wars game. What do we want out of Star Wars games? Because this is kind of a turning point or potentially the end of an era because this is the year when that decade long electronic arts exclusivity contract expires. So it's now sort of open season. You know, anyone can in theory get the Star Wars license, make Star Wars games now, as opposed to everything just being tied up with EA, almost everything with some exceptions like Lego games, for instance. But Star Wars is, you know, a big enough universe and a broad enough, rich enough tapestry to support almost every genre of video

game, right, over the past few decades. I mean, racing games and strategy games and fighting games and dancing games and gardening games, yes. But broadly speaking, I would say when it comes to the classics, there are maybe three main groups, each of which has its own flavors and subsets. But, you know, big picture, you've got your Jedi games, Jedi Knight and Kotor and Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor. You've got your... your shooters, Dark Forces and Republic Commando and Battlefront and the other Battlefront and Battlefront 2 and the other Battlefront 2. And you have your flight sims.

So X-Wing and Tie-Fighter and X-Wing versus Tie-Fighter and Rogue Squadron and Squadrons, a recent game that I liked a lot. So what is your preference? Pick your poison, Charles, when it comes to Star Wars games. Honestly, I ain't going to hold you. I like my Star Wars games. Like, I like my movies. I want to see a lot of lightsabers, okay?

I want to see cool lightsaber battles. That's probably why I like Survivor, because I was just like, oh, yeah, there's a bunch of lightsabers in here. Let's fucking go. Okay? Like, hey, everything can't be Andor. Andor surprised me because it didn't have that many lightsabors in it. So if we just got a game, like, let's say we got, even if it's the next version of

this game, that's just like, we're going to put all. of our energy in the fight mechanics and finally unlock. Because I feel like, I'll ask you this. Ben, how far away do you think they are percentage-wise from perfecting at least the lightsaber part

of this game? I feel like they're like 75% there. They just need like 25% of like, we are going to focus on this next time. Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that because that's like number one on my wish list for what we want in a Star Wars game, just our ideal, you know,

power fantasy, if it could happen, this is number one on the wish list. I just, I want like all lightsaber limitations to be removed. I want, I want a quote unquote, realistic lightsaber game, right? I mean, even in Jedi Survivor, like, there's something just kind of incongruous about just like hacking and slashing at droids or troopers and not having them get sliced apart immediately, you know? Like, I sympathize because. it's a video game and a technologically it's hard to just have everything be destructible and B like how do you have a challenge if you can just one slice kill everything right but you know sometimes you'll be fighting something and slashing away and then like the animation like the kill

animation will trigger where finally you slice it in half or you slice an arm off or whatever and it's like why could I not just do that you know like why could I not control that myself why does that have to be an animation taken out of my hands. And I feel like lightsaber of combat, like going back to the last Jedi night game, Jedi Academy, which I think is generally regarded as one of the best lightsaber games, because like you could control it really precisely. You know, like in this game, you're kind of like swinging and button mashing, but you can't like angle it, really.

Like you can't go high or go low. Like there's no precision to it. It's kind of like a brute force and it's like, you know, timing with parrying and blocking. and rolling out of the way. But you don't really feel like you are a master of a lightsaber. I got so pissed when it would do the animation of splitting a droid in half.

I'm like, this makes no sense. I'm just like, to your point, why can I not do this all the time? So then I'll ask you this then. If you want a more realistic, believable lightsaber, is there a version of the game where it's twofold, where when you get hit with a lightsaber, that's it.

Yeah, sure. If that's the tradeoff, I'll take it. If that's a trade, so you're saying like one hit, like we're doing this like the movies. Yeah. Let's do it. I mean, you know, I would want like a save point and to be able to load again. I'm not that hardcore. But yeah, I'd be into that.

Like, let's do it. Let's go all the way. Because just like, you know, there aren't really destructible environments in video. Like there was a while. there where it was like the next big thing was like everything is going to be deformable and destructible like going back to red faction like we'll be able to blow up the levels and we'll be able to like blow holes in tunnels and find our own way into bases and I kind of figured that like by the time we got to this generation a lot of games would be doing that but they're not

really I think if anything it's gotten harder just because there's so many like assets on the screen and it would take so much processing power and plus like if you have people working for years on the architecture of a level and then you have play years just come in and blow everything up. So I'm sympathetic to that, but like, imagine how great it would be if not every door was just impenetrable and locked unless you found a key or whatever. Like, what if you could just slice open doors with a lightsaber or slice through the wall or whatever like they do in the movies, you know?

Like, it's asking a lot, I know. And maybe this would have to be like a VR sort of solution, like, you know, Vader Immortal, like so that you could actually kind of have a one-to-one mapping of the swings. Otherwise, it's tough, I know, but there's something about it that just takes me out of the experience when I'm like, I'm this high-powered Jedi with this indestructible weapon. It's like, is everything secretly made of Bescar in this world? Like, is there a lore reason why I can't cut this like box, you know? But similar to that point, though, I also need them to fix the force mechanics because it's funny how much like some of the force abilities that you do get in this game are super cool. like finally being able to like lift up your opponents, slam your opponents, everything like that.

But because there's so much to do, I don't know about you. I didn't rely on the force powers that much in fighting because sometimes I couldn't. I'm like, is it going to work this time? Like, is it going to? Then I'm just like, let me just fuck them up with the lightsaber. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

There were times like when I pulled it off, when I pulled off some combo and then like, you know, force pushed a rocket back at a rocket launcher. guy and then like pulled someone off a ledge or whatever. It's like, okay, I'm badass Jedi now. Trooper shield, shove it back. It's cool when it works. Yeah. Sometimes I'm just like, I'm trying to pick up the shield and then they kill me.

I'm like, what the fuck? Right. So I imagine there's going to be a flood of Star Wars games come in. You know, respawn presumably is making a sequel to Survivor and also a shooter and also a strategy game. And there have other been, there have also been some other games that have been announced. But now that's sort of open season on Star Wars, I think we're going to see more games, which will probably mean that we get some crappy games,

but also might mean that we get some variety because the EA era, a lot of games were canceled. There was some quality like Battlefront 2 was good, squadrons was good, these Jedi games are good, but not a lot of quantity. So I'm looking forward to other people getting a crack at it. And it's hard for me to separate the quality of some classic Star Wars games

from how old I was when I played them. So I'm trying not to have my childhood nostalgia blinders on. But I do think that the most memorable Star Wars games for the most part, aren't adapted directly from the movies. You know, like there are some great ones that are from Super Star Wars to Lego Star Wars last year. But Jedi Knight and Shadows of the Empire and Cotor and Republic Commando and X-Wing versus Tie Fighter in this game, they kind of do their own thing and they create their own characters. And I appreciate that.

That's what I want. So I want the realistic Jedi game with realistic lightsaber movement. I want a non-human protagonist in a video game. this game has such great non-human protagonists in supporting parts. Like, they steal the spotlight. They outshine Cal, so let them be the least. Yes. I mean, just so many.

And actually, Respond initially wanted to make Cal a different species. But ultimately, they just opted for a white bread guy because they were worried it would be alienating. No pun intended. Well, Asoka got a series now, so I feel like the door is open. And I think lastly, to your point. point about the scale. The other note I had about, you know, must have, want wishless Star Wars games would be like a no man sky or Starfield type of scale to a Star Wars game where it's just like you really feel like you're in that galaxy. And again, I know I'm asking a lot because all of those are like procedurally generated and how would that work with like cannon and lore and like all the things that people expect in a Star Wars game? Like it would just be so vast. It would be too big to to be programmed. You want to go, you want more, like, you don't want four or five planets. You want the whole unit.

Yeah, like, you know, I guess like the old republic, like the MMOs had, you know, 10 or two dozen planets maybe, but I want to like take off. I don't want to like have Greece say, we're almost there, kid, like press button and we will land, right? Like, I want to take off. I was just like, y'all didn't take this out. Fuck. Like, I was just like, bro.

I want to take off. I want to land. I want to go where I want to go. where I want to go. There was back in the mid-90s, this is a deep cut, but there was this game called Escape Velocity.

It was like a shareware game. And it was like very much like that. It was like 2D top down, but it was like you could explore the entire galaxy. And there was a Star Wars mod for it that had like Grand Admiral Theron and all the ship models and everything.

And I was visiting a friend of my mom's who had a kid who was older than me and he had the Star Wars mod for this game Escape Velocity. And I was like dreaming of, about this game for weeks. I was like, I can't wait to get home. I'm going to get this game.

It's going to be all my Star Wars dreams come true. And then I got home and I found out that it was Mac only and I had a PC. I could not play it. There was just heartbreaking, devastating. So I'm still wishing for that kind of game in Star Wars. Lingberg, man. You're breaking my heart. I know.

Just take the leash off. Like, let me go anywhere, do anything. I'm not asking too much. Just let me do anything in a Star Wars game. Come on. It's about time. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

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may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. All right. So last thing here, and now I will warn everyone, we're going to get into more explicit spoiler territory here, just discussing some specific plot points before we wrap up. So if you have not gotten to the end, if you have not started yet, you can skip ahead or we'll see you next time because we don't want to spoil this for you. But there are a couple things that happen in this game that are just so cool that I think we have to address them or at least our big twists or big character crossovers, etc. So now, okay, safe, you're gone, here we go. So first things first, the Bode twist or maybe multiple twists, right?

It's not Luke I am your father. It's not the Cotor twist, which I won't even mention here out of fear of spoiling it for someone 20 years after the fact. But Bode, who's a new character and your sidekick and your brother basically for the entire game, turns out that he is secretly an ex- Jedi who is kind of dark side curious. and is spying on you for the empire and betrays you, and you end up fighting and killing him, which that's a lot to take in. So what did you make of the twists and turns with Mr. Bode Akuna?

I thought it was hilarious because the whole time, as I'm getting towards the end of the game, I'm like, why the fuck is Bodes? Like, why is he acting so weird? Why is his face so weird? Because I was just like, please, he's weird. His hair is weird. Yeah.

It was just like the way the character was acting. I was just like, please don't say, I'm going to stab him in the back, please. And they, like, act like it's this big twist, but I'm just like, he literally went from just being like a Penn State bro the entire game. Be like, yo, gal. I mean, he loves you, dude.

He's undercover. He's good at keeping his Jedi skills secret. I mean, that's a testament to just how great a secret agent he is. But then at the end, like, his face just, like the model of his face just changes in every single time he talks to Cal. Like he has this scowl on his face. And I'm just like, oh, they're doing it. They're doing it.

So when the twist happened, I'm just like, okay, sure. And I guess they are fixing what I think was probably a big complaint about Fallen Order, which is when I was playing Fallen Order by the time I beat the game, I was like, wait, that's it? Like, I was just like, because you get Marion and you're just like, all right, we got a new character, we're about to go do the shit, and it's done. Yeah. This game has, we've already, I think, spoiled it, but this game has opposite problem where

there are five different endings. And I'm like, when is this game? Yes. Yeah. Right. I mean, Bode, like, there's clearly something fishy about him. You know, I didn't pinpoint exactly what the story was. But his daughter's story throughout the whole game where he's like, I'm doing this all for

my daughter. And it's like, you never see the daughter. And you just like, don't know the daughter. and it feels like this very flimsy justification to do everything to the point where you start to suspect like, does he even have a daughter? Like, is this a cover story or something? And it did surprise me though, because once he revealed himself to be a backstabbing double agent, I was like, okay, well, the daughter story then was was fake all along. But no, he actually has the daughter. The daughter is real. The daughter is very real. And then I thought, well, there's no way this game is

going to make me orphan a cute little girl, right? Like, as soon as I found out about the daughter and he, like, broke bad, I was like, well, is he protected by plot armor now? Like, are they going to make me? Like, he's already a single dad. Like, this poor girl's been on her own the whole game. Now I'm just going to kill her dad. But yeah, that's what I did.

That's what I want you to do. I mean, even if some of it was foreseeable, I was like, all right, I got ahead of you. Like, I did not see that final twist coming. Wait, can we also, can we also get to? you like, I have to, this is a public service announcement for everybody who touches Star Wars,

movies, TV, games, books, whatever. You do not need to put Vader in every single fucking one of these when Vader showed up. I was like, what the fuck? We already did this. And the Vader

fight, I was just like, fuck this. I was like, I don't want to be, I don't want to be like a sour like, was about it, but, didn't we already do this? Right. Fader kicked my ass. I mean, I thought the bus fights up to that point were pretty easy, and I'm not bragging.

Like, I was just playing on normal. I'm not like some super video game savant, but I was weirdly having a tougher time with some of the regular enemies who were kind of kicking my ass, and then the boss were not that bad. But then Vader, my God, like, I fought him like 50 times or something before I finally beat him. It was very frustrating, although I was like, well, it's dark. Darth Vader, like, he should be kicking my ass. I'm Cal Kestis. Like, I guess in that fight, you're not Cal, right? You're Seer. But, like, whoever it is fighting Vader, it's like,

okay, this should actually be hard. But yeah, I think it was a little like, okay, there was the big Vader reveal in the first game. So maybe they felt like, well, we've got to give you Vader every time now, because it'll be a letdown if we don't give them Vader again. And, you know, at least it, like, makes sense, sort of, that, like, Vader would be there, like, trying to track down the hidden path and, you know, trying to kill Jedi. Like, that's what he's doing at this point in the timeline. But it did feel a little, I guess, like, gilding the willy. Like, there's so many boss fights in this game.

There are so many times I thought, all right, that's it. I win. And no, there's three more boss fights after that. Vader is very, very hard to your point, which I'm like, I like story-wise in terms of like he should be hard. Seer should not. That was also the other thing where Van talks a lot about this on the Midnight Boys, where I think the other problem with having Vader in this

is that Sear putting up such a good fight story-wise does not make a lot of sense to me because this is someone who, in the last game, distanced herself from kind of being a Jedi. And in this, the minute, I don't know if you felt this, but the minute you become Seer, she's kicking ass. Like, she's like, she's powerful. Single-handedly laying waste to the entire army.

Yeah. Like, the way Seer feels, feels is different than the way cow feels. And you're just like mowing down, motherfuckers. And I'm just like, wait, is she, should she be a little rusty? Yeah, you'd think. I mean, I guess she's, she's motivated, right? She's trying to protect her anchorite buddies and her archive that she's assembled.

But yeah, when you play us here, it's almost like what the lightsaber should feel like. It's like one hit kills because they're putting so many enemies on the screen, but you're just wiping them away. So I guess one more question or maybe two. Cal and Marin, were you shipping? Are you into to this duo as a couple here? It got to me. I'm not going to lie. I love Marin. Maron is my favorite character in this entire game. I don't know what she sees in Cal, frankly, but...

He's a weapon. I don't know. Like, Mary, you could do better. Yes. But like, towards the end of the last game, I was so excited when Marin joined the crew. And then when the game ends, I was just like, wait, what? I want to show a Marin Moore. Edit this game. I was just like, all right, cool, she's going to be more in it. And then she kissed this gal. I'm like, all right. And I want her to be happy. Part of me was just like, dog, like, Marin, like, boo.

Like, pick yourself up. This dude. This fucking dude. Like, I don't know. I guess she doesn't meet a lot of single guys. But I will say what I did like about this game that this game does is that Cal is kind of the first Jedi that I've seen in a while. who says the, like, quite part out loud is like, the order is over. And it's kind of just like, why the fuck am I?

Yeah, my valo celibacy is over. Like, let's do it. Yeah. He's just like, dog. Like, I need, like, I need some loving too. Like, I just can't be all empire all the time. Yes. Which I actually wish they would port that philosophy over to some of the TV shows and movies of

just like, everybody does not have to be a monk anymore. At least in this time period, they can be played. with what does it mean to be a Jedi without the order instead of being like, we have to rebuild the order at all cost, which I think this game has like a nice through line of like, do we need the order? Yeah, right. And coming to terms with, you know, if we're obsessed with bringing back the order, then are we just going to end up dying, which is good because we know that he's not

going to bring back the order, right? So like, if the entire game is him trying to bring back the order, it's like, all right, we know this is kind of a lost cause, right? So he's got to find another cause. And if that is Macanon-Maron, I am all for it. So great. Which brings me to my last question, which is, what do you want from the third game in this trilogy, presumably, for these characters? Are you rooting for crossovers?

Do you want these characters to show up in live action? Do we need that kind of crossover? No. No. Here's the thing. Star Wars has gotten a little too cute. Let's not MCU this shit. I'm even, if I'm going to be honest,

I think that's what derailed Mando season three. It being like a party for everyone instead of just doing the one thing right, I would like Star Wars to go back to being a little bit more silo. Like worry about telling a really good story instead of this being Muppet Baby hour where like everybody's in the same room at all the time. You're like, what the fuck? Like I actually, there's a version of this game. and like there might be, I haven't played everything,

where it's like, they drop you back in where it's like, do I need to play for five hours with Saw Guerrera and meet like everybody from all of these different movies? Like, no. Spoiler, I have heard, have you gotten to Boba Fett yet? Is Boba Fitts? I've heard Boba Fitt's in this game.

I have not encountered Boba Fett. Maybe I read a headline and I was just like, that's the type of thing where I'm just like, let's not get cute. Like, we're getting a little too cute. I'll ask you, though, do you want Cal in live action? Or do you want to see, like, other characters pop in to this? I barely want Cal in his own game.

So I'm fine. Sorry, Cal. Yo! Look, he's a nice guy, you know? He's inoffensive. He doesn't make me mad. He just doesn't bring a whole lot to the table until he has a beard, at least. No, I mean, the most adorable, capable droid in the universe see something in him.

BD's got to be a good judge of character. No shots at Cameron Monaghan. It's not his fault. I won't be, like, upset. Really, if Cowell makes a cameo or appears, like, I don't need a Calcastas series. Like, this is the Calcestus series. You know, like, I just spent 35 hours with the guy playing this game, and I don't think he's even the highlight of the games.

So, no, I don't think it has to be the natural progression. Like, when you make it as a video game character, that means that you're promoted to live action. No, like, you can exist in your own corner of the universe. That's fine. if there are books or comics or other things like that, fine. But yeah, I think he's gotten enough shined as it is, really. And, you know, as for the next game, like, I would be fine with Cal and Marin just staying out

of the fight and raising Cata together, which has got to be awkward. Like, hey, I know we just killed your dad, want to travel the galaxy with us. But I guess she's very understanding about that. But, you know, if we're just... Can I ask a quick question about that, though? Sure, yeah. As a Star Wars expert. If Cal...

Marin have kids. Yeah. The M counts. Off the charts. Will the, if they have a male kid, will it have horns like the males do? Yeah. I don't know if the Zabrak horn is a recessive gene or I don't know if that gets transferred, but that's a good question.

You know, because I was always wondering, I'm just like, to your point, is it a dominant gene to have the horns or is it not? Right. Yeah. Anyway, I'd be fine with them just enjoying their leading. time and being a family and having hot force sensitive sex, like making up for decades of lost time while he was a Jedi. I mean, I just, I don't think that's in the cards for them. Like, maybe the sex, hopefully, but not the staying out of the fight. Like, when it comes to someone

like Grogu, I'm happy to think, you know, hey, it's a big galaxy. Like, the fact that Grogu's not in the sequel trilogy doesn't mean something bad happened to him and he's dead. He could just be doing something else. But with Cal, it's kind of hard to do. to imagine him not being connected to the rebellion and everything else that's going on, because he's a true believer. That's just kind of who he is. So that makes me a bit worried for Cal, or I would be worried if I cared more about Cal.

Sorry, Cal. Damn, y'all hate Cal. Everybody's really hard on my main cow. Extremely neutral on Cal, I guess. But look, I mean, with the High Republic tie-ins and with the hidden path and everything, like clearly there's potential for more tie-ins to the next Jedi game, you know, like could Grogu show up in the next Jedi game as part of the hidden path? Like, yeah, maybe.

I mean, all of that stuff is going to play. If I could play as Grogu, oh my gosh. Yeah. I would love to play as baby Grogu. That'd be all right. I'd be fine with that. All right.

We've talked about it all. We like this game. We highly recommend it. Let's give some numbers. I want to see. I want to hear Steve's number. Oh, okay. Out of 10, Steve, where are you going?

At 10? Yeah. With the inclusion of half numbers, I could go. No, no, no, no half numbers. Don't, nah. All right. I would say, I would say this is a, this is a, this is a light seven.

Ooh. Hoof. Ooh, a light seven. God damn. Where are you going, Lindbergh. Going nine. Oh, all right. All right.

I like that. I, here's the thing. You're going to go right in the middle? I'm right in the middle. This is an eight for me. This is a strong eight. I had a lot of fun. I know we nitpicked a lot of this shit.

But like, this game is, an improvement on Fallen Order. I had a blast. Dual-wield lightsavers are fucking dope as hell. I love this game. Yeah, I really love it too. That's why I'm giving it a nine.

It's reflecting my feelings. All of us can't be negative Steve over there. Yeah. It can be only one. Speaking of Steve, did you encounter the side character Scova Steve, who's like this little

slug guy on Kobo who fishes? Yeah, bottom. tier Steve right there. I don't appreciate that. Best, best Steve. I've never encountered. Yeah.

Not when my favorite frog boy is in the same game. Absolutely not. The frog boy is great. Oh, I love frog boy. He looks like what's your, though WB frog. I'm like, what fuck is this? Well, fuck is this one fuck?

Scottish slug. I just love that he wants to be a Jedi like Cal and he can't, like I don't have time to teach you, buddy. This game has a lot of character and a lot of characters. So, toward the end of the game, Cal says, I don't know if I'm ready for what comes next, but I know our listeners are ready for what comes next. House of our on Wednesday, Mint Edition on Thursday, Midnight Boys on Friday, and later this month,

a couple of pods on The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, which I will be back for coming soon. We're going to do an instant reaction and a deeper dive. So stay tuned for that. Thanks to Steve Allman for producing. Thanks to Arjuna Remkepao for letting us get our game on this month. Thank you so much, Charles, for teaming up with me here today. Yo, thank you, man. I'll see y'all later. And remember, never pass up a save point, because if you do, you will die,

and you will lose a lot of progress, and you'll be pissed. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people, real care, real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting cheese, or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt. Keep it real. Look for the seal.

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