HIGH Expands on everything that made its predecessor great, while adding much more.

LOW Getting eaten by the same Rancor over and over.

WTF I think I’m back to loving Star Wars again.

The Star Wars universe has had its ups and down in the last couple of years, but regardless, Disney is showing no signs of slowing down the release cycle of major stories to tell within the franchise. This includes the world of videogames, where the latest title, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, shines. 

A sequel to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Survivor is a third-person action-adventure set five years later. The crew of the Mantis has splintered off to fight their own battles, while protagonist Cal Kestis continues to take on the Empire. He’s re-introduced to players while sabotaging things on the Imperial-occupied planet of Coruscant, but things quickly go wrong and he begins an epic quest that takes him across the galaxy far, far away. 

Similar to the first SWJ, Cal is on a journey to preserve the Jedi way and is faced with dangerous opposition. I’m intentionally going to be as vague as possible with story here because I enjoyed the narrative immensely and don’t want to take those reveals away from anyone. However, know that it’s a darker tale that takes players on a path full of loss, joy, and the ever-increasing need to fight for a cause by balancing despair and tense drama with the classic, light-hearted, and sometimes pulpy tone Star Wars is known for.

To its credit, the script is also full of exceptional and shocking twists that don’t rely too heavily on callbacks to past Star Wars media, and even the obvious (and occasionally forced) cameos don’t detract from how fresh the story feels. Additionally, I appreciate getting a hero who isn’t bound by some magical destiny as a ‘chosen one’ or someone who’s got the baggage of coming from a long line of famous Jedi. Cal is simply a guy in the right place at the right time, and he’s ready to take on any challenge that comes his way.

Returning characters Cal, Greez, Cere, and Merrin all have plenty to do, and interactions with them are some of my favorite parts of the story. New characters, like the rogue rebel fighter Bode Akuna and the villainous Rayvis, also round out the cast well. There are certainly bombastic set pieces and plenty of exciting adventure, but I appreciated the quiet moments full of heart and human drama.

While the narrative is surprisingly strong, what also surprised me was that the gameplay got a significant facelift — especially notable since I recently replayed Fallen Order, so the differences between the two are fresh in my mind.

The most significant introduction to combat are the new stances. Players may remember that in Fallen Order Cal was able to switch between his single lightsaber and a double-bladed one, with a dual-wielding ability being thrown in as a special move. In Survivor, players now have a choice between five different stances — single, double-bladed, dual-wielded, crossguard, and blaster. At every workbench or meditation circle, Cal can equip himself with two stances he wants to use, and can switch between either of them with the D-pad. Every lightsaber also has its own skill tree to upgrade and expand the skillset. 

The two I became attached to the most were the crossguard and the double-bladed. The former is essentially the lightsaber equivalent of an RPG broadsword that looks similar to Kylo Ren’s weapon from the recent sequel trilogy, complete with vents on each side of the hilt. Its damage and blocking ability are significantly better than the other types, at the cost of a slow windup speed. After a few upgrades, however, the crossguard was quite effective against bigger bosses. The double-bladed has a lightsaber beam coming out of each side. like Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. I was able to launch myself and spin the saber like helicopter blades, and even throw it like a kyber crystal-infused boomerang. It’s not quite as strong as other stances, but it makes for a great weapon against a large group of grunts. 

It’s no secret that  Fallen Order was inspired by the Souls series with its approach to combat. While interesting and enjoyable, the notes it took made most fights too slow and cumbersome. To me, it felt like the combat with anyone but the standard, blaster-wielding Stormtroopers was too drawn-out and protracted, and it wasn’t until later when I upgraded my abilities and unlocked most of the moves that I got into a good flow with combat. In contrast, Survivor gives players enough power and variety to pick up the pace, right from the start.

Another aspect of Survivor‘s combat that I loved was being able to choose how to approach each fight — at no point did I feel the need to sacrifice being smart and tactical.

For example, stormtroopers with shields can be taken down with brute force, though the most effective (and enjoyable) is to force-pull the shields out of their hands and launch them back at them. Moves like that never get old, and mixing in other force powers like the new Jedi mind trick ability (which has enemies fighting to defend the player in battle) makes combat feel faster, more nuanced and more engaging than last time. 

The buddy system is another great enhancement to fights. Throughout the story, Cal will partner up with Bode or Merrin for backup. In one instance, Bode might be called in to throw stun grenades and give Cal an opening to attack, while Merrin can trap them using her magick. This is specially useful during some of the harder fights against the new Battle Droid variants.

Combat isn’t the only thing that’s been ironed out. Navigation and exploration — a major sore point with many players in Fallen Order — got a major boost, thanks to Cal’s expanded traversal. He can still wall-run and double-jump, but he’s also got a brand new grappling hook and a few late-game additions to the arsenal. There’s also a larger emphasis on simply moving this time around, with many levels focusing on platforming or free-running. It feels like a huge step up.

The interconnected levels and metroidvania aspects of Fallen Order make a comeback in Survivor, but like the rest of the navigation, they get some smart tweaks.

An improved holo-map and fast travel have been added, meaning that Cal can travel between mediation points he’s previously visited, though this is limited to the current planet he’s on. Exploration also feels exceptionally worthwhile thanks to more meaningful collectibles. Every planet now has new things to find, such as the standard cosmetic options for Cal like beard and hair choices, weapon skins, and new jackets, shirts, and pants. More importantly, different currencies for shopkeepers on the hub planet of Koboh are scattered throughout, and these can be exchanged for even more cosmetics and items to place around Greez’s cantina, which acts as a hub of sorts. As someone who wasn’t actively diverting from the main path that often, I still found myself accumulating interesting stuff on the way to my next goal, and I can’t wait to go back and see what I missed.  

Speaking of Koboh, it’s a large, open-ended planet with much to do, including a variety of sidequests, optional boss fights and random enemy encounters around the map. This new, enriched content makes the planet (and all the others) feel expansive and dense. While not open-world, they’re big enough with many diversions from the critical path, and each one is full of secrets to find. This richness makes the world of Survivor feel like a series of real places, not just varying backdrops, and even after 30 hours of play there’s still plenty of left for to discover.

If I was simply grading Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in a straight comparison with its predecessor, it would already be a great game. However, Respawn took a hard look at what worked and what didn’t, and they’ve polished, fixed and expanded on virtually everything. From the robust combat suite, upgraded movement system, detailed world, and exciting story that not only rivals the best Star Wars games, but the major triple-A titles out right now, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is simply one of the best videogame sequels released in recent memory.

This trip to a galaxy far, far away is one that’s well worth taking.

Score: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is published by Electronic Arts and developed by Respawn Entertainment. It is available on PS5, XBX/S and PC.This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PS5. Approximately 30 hours were spent in singleplayer and was completed. There is no multiplayer mode. 

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T for Mild Language and Violence. The site states: This is an action-adventure game in which players assume the role of an outlaw Jedi on the run from the Galactic Empire. From a third-person perspective, players explore alien planets while using their Jedi powers to traverse environments and battle enemies in melee-style combat. Players use lightsabers to slash and break apart alien creatures, droids, and humanoid enemies. Combat is fast paced, with cries of pain, impact sounds, and large explosions. Some sequences depict characters getting impaled through the chest. The words “a*s” and “bastard” are heard in the game.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles present in the game, as well as visual cues during gameplay. Subtitles can be adjusted, and in my view this game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.

HIGH The first sight of the colony’s oxygen engine.

LOW Trying to figure out how to back eject from an ice climb on a sharp time limit.

WTF The ships still have fuel enough to launch?

The modern media landscape being what it is, I’m never surprised to see a sequel. Often, though, I ask myself whether a particular one is necessary.

Deliver Us the Moon, a perfectly good game about a lonely effort to revive a lunar power station, didn’t seem to be crying out for one, even though the villains’ departure on an obviously-doomed planetary colonization mission was a clear hook. As it happens, the developers took the bait, and the story continues now in Deliver Us Mars.

Much has changed this time around. I felt that Moon suffered from the silence and general disembodiment of its main character, as well as the absence of other individuals to interact with. In  Mars the protagonist is vocal and numerous characters are frequently on screen, albeit somewhat stiff-faced. If anything, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, as Mars has a bit too much chatter and far too many flashbacks.

Unfortunately, the expanded dialogue mainly reveals that many of Deliver Us Mars’ characters are completely insufferable, including those clearly intended to be sympathetic. The protagonist, Kat, is perhaps not the worst, but she’s introduced to us as a child willfully destroying a toy just given to her by her father, and this foolhardy self-centeredness ends up driving much of the plot.

Of course in a game in which the Earth is suffering a climate catastrophe, there’s plenty of willful destruction to go around. Deliver Us Mars is a depressing experience, devoid of optimism for either the potential for colonizing space, or our chances of rescuing the Earth.

As the title suggests, the fleeing scientists of the first game decided to make their new home on Mars, a location not clearly superior to the Moon as a potential home. Their efforts have gone both better and worse than expected. The terms of the story and of Kat’s connection to one of the colonists require that the scientists have, without support from Earth, developed functional industry on an alien planet at a pace that beggars belief, which is just one of the plot’s many striking implausibilities.

A game of this kind tends to fill those holes by dotting its levels with bits of lore, and Kat can find holograms and snippets of text. Yet, it feels like there’s frustratingly little to glean even from surroundings that should be data-rich. This leaves gaps in the story, like how anyone came to think that sending four people to bring back three giant, possibly unfueled spaceships was going to work.

As it happens, the task involves a lot of walking. Much time is spent in plodding traversal, occasionally spiced up by floaty drives in a rover that handles like the second coming of Mass Effect’s Mako. Outdoors, Kat has a time limit on her oxygen, although thankfully the devs eschew Moon’s habit of strewing areas with canisters containing ridiculously tiny quantities of oxygen to extend the timer. The limit rarely matters except when Deliver us Mars asks her to do a bit of rock (or ice) climbing.

The climbing approach is fairly standard. Kat has a pick in each hand controlled by a mouse button or trigger. Holding down that control slams the pick in, releasing it allows her to reposition it. It’s all right as far as it goes, but rock-climbing feels like a mechanic in search of a purpose. The developers gamely keep trying to supply one, but however many platforming challenges Kat encounters, each scenario seems modified to suit the climbing, rather than the climbing being a natural solution to any problems the story poses.

There are also puzzles to solve in the form of routing power beams (generally for opening doors) and positional tasks that are used to unlock holograms. I did not find these to be interesting but at least they, unlike the climbing, felt like they belong.

The sense of story being divorced from events is further accentuated in sequences where Kat is asked to perform tasks related to spacecraft launch. As a highly trained astronaut, Kat should know exactly what to do, but as a player I was forced to scan around until I found an active control panel, figure out how to use it, then carry out a request. None of this was particularly difficult (and at least it fit the context) but it accentuated the divide between the character and me, not least when I was asked to slide forward a throttle and did this while Kat’s immobile hand was visible elsewhere onscreen.

Deliver Us Mars demands a sequel, in the sense that it artlessly uses a couple of post-credits scenes to set one up, but there’s nothing here that left me wanting more. Its puzzles are rather dull and the most notable gameplay activity, rock-climbing, feels like it belongs in an entirely different game. I don’t care for most of the characters that survived Deliver Us Mars’ sloppy, facile plot, and its scenario is hopeless and depressing. A third installment may be inevitable, but I’m not eager for that package to arrive.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by KeokeN Interactive and published by Frontier Foundry.It is currently available on Windows PC, PS4/5, and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via the publisher and reviewed on a home-built Windows X PC equipped with a AMD Ryzen 2700X processor, an ASRock X470 motherboard, 32 GB RAM , and a single GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card using driver 531.29. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Mild Blood and Violence. Per the ESRB: “This is an action-adventure game in which players assume the roles of astronauts investigating a lost colony on Mars. From first- and third-person perspectives, players explore spacecrafts and colonies, solve puzzles, and avoid hazards (e.g., electrical bursts). As players progress, they can unlock journal entries depicting holographic images of violence/peril: colonists suffocating to death; characters sucked into space as a result of a terrorist attack. One sequence depicts an exploding space craft, with a woman left on board. Some scenes depict human corpses scattered across facilities, including a man with blood on his face.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. However, they cannot be altered or resized. During the course of play, there are several noises that are important, for instance a chirp indicating that another quarter of the oxygen tank has been used or an alert from the that a collectible has been identified. Although there are visual counterparts for these noises I noticed that the sounds were more accurate about status and directed me to search areas I had otherwise ignored. I believe the game will be more difficult without the assistance of sound.

Remappable Controls: On PC, this game offers fully remappable controls, but I have seen complaints that this is not true on other platforms. Players on console might want to investgate before a purchase.

HIGH The story and characters.

LOW Damage sponge enemies.

WTF Is this an action game or a cooking and travel show?

Persona 5 Strikers (P5S) might seem like a standard musou action game in the 1-vs-1000 Dynasty Warriors style, but in a surprise move it’s essentially a full-on sequel to Persona 5.

While P5 was a true JRPG in the sense that it offered turn-based combat and tactical thinking much like the earlier Persona and Shin Megami Tensei titles that inspired it, P5S does away with that formula and replaces it with realtime action. It also sacrifices a few other series staples to better match this new style of play, but overall it’s a short — yet sweet — continuation of the Phantom Thieves story.

For those thinking of jumping into P5S without playing P5 first, my sense is that they’ll undoubtedly be lost. Strikers picks up roughly a year after the events of P5 and does nothing to explain the world, the characters, or the events that came before.

For those already familiar with P5, they’ll know that its action took place inside Palaces, but Strikers introduces new levels called “Jails”. These Jails are all custom-crafted (not randomized) and have challenges to overcome, most of which revolve around engaging waves of Shadows inside combat arenas.

Once in the thick of it, the player most often controls Joker, but I would often switch between party members to control the flow of combos and to hit enemies’ weak points. This was mostly entertaining, although to be honest, I did miss the turn-based combat — heroes versus large numbers of opponents feels far less tactical and overly hectic at times.

Also, some fights would devolve into long slugfests where I would successfully launch combos and target weaknesses, yet a brawl would still drag on to the point that it felt excessive. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case for every opponent, but it cropped up enough to dampen the core gameplay loop.

Once players get a handle on this new combat, they’ll notice that everything else advances in typical Persona fashion by slowly building up the story and characters. Outside of Jails, Persona 5 lets the player explore the city, go shopping, speak to party members, cook and take care of inventory management. These segments are much-needed breaks from the action. This is also a great time to equip and level Personas, as well as combine them into new ones. This series hallmark is simplified here, but the alteration fits the more streamlined approach of P5S.

Another aspect that’s been trimmed is the Social Link system, now replaced with a group “Bond” stat where the player gains points to spend on a board of abilities and stat boosts that benefit the entire party. While I missed the rich sidestories that shone in P5 and other Persona games, the Bond system makes sense as the campaign unfolds into a road trip across Japan. That said, I did wish for a few more personal character moments.

As a way of compensating for the lack of Social Links, P5S includes “Requests” — arbitrary Achievement-like tasks that ask the player to return to prior Jails. The few that stood out were those regarding my own companions, but the scenes that act as a reward only come in the form of dialogue. It’s disappointing, as doing these is often necessary to increase Bonds, which in turn increases combat effectiveness.  

With the knowledge that P5S makes several large changes to the traditional Persona experience, I will say that Strikers absolutely delivers as a sequel in terms of narrative. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next, who was behind what plot, and to delve deeper into the psyche and trauma of the new cast. Much of the game also highlights discovering and enjoying food together throughout the country — entertaining, and a viable way to get some of the best items!

While not for first-time Persona players, Persona 5 Strikers absolutely delivers an unexpected sequel to P5 by offering an engrossing story and more time with these charming characters. Also, at roughly thirty to forty hours, it’s certainly a faster ride than its nearly two hundred hour predecessor — not a bad thing, since it left me hungry for another adventure with this crew.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Atlus, Omega Force and P Studio, and published by Atlus and Sega. It is currently available on Switch, PS4 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Violence. The official ESRB description reads as follows: This is an action role-playing game in which players follow high-school students operating as Phantom Thieves in two different worlds. As players explore dungeon-like areas, they engage in battles against fantastical creatures (e.g., demons, evil spirits, shadow creatures). Characters use blades, guns, and Personas (i.e., creatures with magical powers/attacks) to defeat enemies. Combat can be frenetic, highlighted by impact sounds, occasional gunfire, and cries of pain. One dungeon contains several large bloodstains on the floor/walls; characters occasionally rip masks off their faces, resulting in splashes of blood. Several female monsters/demons/Personas are depicted with partially exposed breasts, and one creature has a phallic-shaped head and torso. Various Personas (e.g., Succubus) have sexual characteristics described in text (e.g., “A demon who tempts sleeping men…”; “They visit sleeping men and have sexual intercourse with them.”). The words “f**k” and “sh*t” appear in the dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. Subtitles are large and easy to read on the default setting, and they can be resized. The game uses visual cues for all information, and audio cues have visual tags. During combat, dialogue text appears on the top-right side of the screen and can be difficult to read while fighting.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but movement is on the left stick. Camera is the right stick. Jumping is X. Selecting items on menus is also X. Combat controls use all buttons on various combinations of the face and shoulder buttons to cast Personas and move combinations.

HIGH Exploring Union.

LOW The writing, and Tango’s expectation that we care this time.

WTF So their intent is to put everyone on the planet in this machine?!

The Evil Within was about a machine called STEM used to connect the minds of multiple individuals, transporting one’s consciousness to an Inception-like dream world while the corporeal body rested peacefully in a tub. The game did a poor job of explaining the practical application of such technology – something about preventing disparity by turning the world population into a hivemind – but as an excuse for director Shinji Mikami to rattle off whatever crazed horror-related idea he could conjure up (whether it made any narrative sense or not) it worked.

I’ve always been a proponent of the first Evil Within for that reason. The worst thing a horror game can be is predictable, which that title certainly never was. Yes, the story and writing were atrocious, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for a survival horror romp with such manic energy. However, this sequel, bless its little heart, wants to be taken seriously. Its script is every bit as awful as the first’s, but we don’t get the barrage of wacky set pieces to show for it. Although The Evil Within 2 isn’t without its redeeming qualities, it’s a follow-up that misunderstands the appeal of its predecessor.

Our protagonist is once again Sebastian Castellanos, who’s forced to re-enter STEM when he learns that his daughter (whom he thought was dead) is trapped inside. The resulting experience, much like the first, pulls heavily from Resident Evil 4, borrowing its signature over-the-shoulder camera perspective and throwing in some stealth options for good measure. I wish enemy awareness had been a bit less sensitive (it’d be nice if players had a split-second window to perform a stealth kill after being seen by the target), but it plays well enough.

The new dream world is a suburban town called Union, which turns out to be The Evil Within 2’s star attraction. While the campaign is still mostly comprised of linear corridor-based sequences, players are sometimes given the opportunity to explore open stretches of the area. What I like about these levels is that they recognize the futility of trying to impress us with size in a world where the Just Cause series exists, and instead limit the play space to a few densely-packed blocks. The Evil Within 2 is full of content but never overwhelming.

Since this is a survival horror game in which resources and ammo are scarce, there’s actual incentive to explore thoroughly and complete optional objectives. The same experience system from the first game returns as well, so while stealth is important in The Evil Within 2, avoiding encounters altogether (which can be done more easily in an open environments) deprives players of the green gel needed to progress through their skill trees.

Most importantly, developer Tango Gameworks (with John Johanas taking over as director) populates Union with emergent encounters that prevent players from feeling too comfortable, and this surprise is crucial. At one point I walked into a house and almost immediately realized I’d already been inside and raided it for items. But then I noticed a pile of bodies that hadn’t been there the first time, and as I headed back out, the door opened and in came two enemies dragging fresh corpses behind them. Moments like that make The Evil Within 2 worthwhile.

Unfortunately, those moments are the exception. Most of The Evil Within 2 is as linear and scripted as the first game, only now it lacks the wild imagination. Set pieces are less memorable, most of the bosses are just regular old humans (with bullet sponge health meters, no less) and the game is sorely lacking in enemy variety. I have no idea why zombies are even in this dreamscape, let alone why they comprise roughly 90% of what players fight.

The trade-off was (I assume) intended to be a more personal story that explores Sebastian’s inner demons, but the writing offsets this by being really bad. Characters taunt each other with witless one-liners, the game can’t seem to decide on a main villain (or what any of their motivations are) and the stakes are clear as mud since the rules regarding this mental universe have never been properly laid out.

This was all largely true in the previous game, but Tango didn’t expect us to care back then. So, when The Evil Within 2 abandons the open-level angle in its final third to focus on Sebastian’s plight, it falls flat because there’s no emotional core. I don’t recall if the original established much about Sebastian’s family, but this sequel does absolutely nothing to make me care about his daughter that I’ve never met.

As such, we’re left with a sequel that’s every bit as incomprehensible as its predecessor but nowhere near as energetic or thrilling, where even its rogues gallery of baddies (including a spasmodic singing lady and what I can only describe as a giant semen monster) are wasted on uninspired insta-death stealth sections. The Evil Within 2 offers a few solid scares, some glimpses into a more promising game, and a lot of unexciting bloat. In such a crowded release season, it’s gonna take more than that to earn a recommendation from me. But hey, at least they got rid of the letterboxing. That’s a step in the right direction. Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is currently available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PlayStation 4. Approximately 23 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. (Admittedly, three or four hours were spent on that damn falling-block shooting gallery mini-game.) There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Mature and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity and Strong Language. Don’t let children within a mile of this game.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is subtitled, but since this is a survival horror game, the HUD doesn’t offer a lot of information and sound plays a big role in navigating environments and being prepared for enemy attacks. Players who have difficulty hearing can expect a slightly tougher difficulty.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.