#codex games

For all the preconceived notions about the game in the beginning (thanks PatStaresAt, kinda biased me there a little), how I kinda didn't like it because I was expecting something different. I came to really love it in the end. After divorcing myself from the feeling of that it's never gonna be the original, 2 does manage to live on its own. It has it's own charm and quirks that make it just as good as it's predecessor.

I can't say I'm not satisfied with it though.

I'd say the whole game is fucking good, but it has some detractions that really knock all of those 10/10 game reviews down to an 8.5/10. Like some of the mini games are fucking hard and required to get to the next part of the story. It'd be fine if the mini games were optional or side quest only things, but to have some of them locking progress is fucking bullshit. And yes, I am fully admitting that I am straight out bad at some of them. I was also bad at Rufus and final phase of Sephiroth because I brute force the game. I employ no skill or strategy. Strongest survives and strongest is me! But it's fucking hard to brute force mini games and most of the time you can't, which is annoying as hell when many of them require precision and I have no precision.

But yeah, the ending's got me emotional and shit so I'm gonna just chill and relax and try not to cry and go crazy until the final game is out which is too long a wait.

Finished the game. And I don’t know how I feel about the ending. It feels very meh. Like it should have been the 2nd game in a trilogy and knowing that Respawn wanted to do three games just makes me feel that even more.

It felt very Rey at the end of Rise of Skywalker, except worst because in Rey’s case, it worked because everyone was pushing Jedi/darkside stuff on Rey and she was just pulled along for the ride, versus Cal being conflicted and having no true resolution and stuck with his conflicting feels and maybe that’s the point? That the Jedi are dead and we all make our own path now, but I feel like that’s such a cop-out. Like, the Jedi were always a philosophy along side a people and as long as anyone wanting to do good in the galaxy does good, they follow the philosophy, you don’t have the powers to do it. Idk, maybe I read too much meta on this stuff that it feels a bit hollow for me.

But I knew Bode was going to die, but I was still so sad about it. He just wanted to be a good dad and failed along the way. He’s a good example of why attachment is bad and love is good and when you get too attached to something, the darkside slips in all insidious and what not. So great job to Respawn for their wonderful characterization of Bode!! Kudos for understanding that assignment and getting it very very right!!

Though I am a bit disappointed with the overall lack of Empire as an enemy in the game, despite it being the overall motivation for a lot of background plot. Like, I was hoping an Inquisitor would show up again, instead of like in the beginning and the surprise resurrection of Ninth sister. I’m actually really surprised they didn’t go for Fifth brother, considering that his death wasn’t explicit in Battle Scars and that Ninth sister seemed very much dead in Fallen Order. For a moment there, I almost thought Bode was Fifth brother, before I remembered that wasn’t possible because Fifth brother wasn’t human.

But I just looked it up and it seemed that it couldn’t be possible to put him in the game because he was in Kenobi and then Rebels, so he was a busy guy. Oh well.

Anyway. Overall, Survivor is a solid 7/10 game. The story is iffy, but has it’s moments. The game play is SUPERB. The music and sound are good. The character development is great! The graphics are lovely. I only had one hard crash and a few minor things that clipped through one another, but it didn’t really detract from anything. Respawn did a great job and I had a really fun time playing it!

I’m getting close to the end, probably could finish up the story tomorrow. But BOY DO I HAVE FEELINGS about this game. BOY HOWDY I have feelings.

Starting with Battle Scars. The book that came out before the game. You should probably read it if you want the most context for the game. You can definitely get by without having read it, but you will miss out on huge plot points in the game. Battle Scars does heavy lifting for almost everything that happens in the beginning and it gives so much context that it’s almost disgusting.

Which leads into the yeah, you can tell that Respawn definitely wanted to be a trilogy because there just feels like something is missing. I feel like it’s the huge chunk that leads from Battle Scars to the game because it feels like a ton of Cals’ emotional turmoil happened in that time period and because we didn’t see it, it makes the beginning of the game so jarring. Because when we last left Cal in game, he was good. And in book, not so good, but not as he is in the beginning of Survivor.

Now to the High Republic. I don’t give a shit. Like, I haven’t really kept up with the books or comics, which is the entirety of the High Republic. So that’s another huge chunk of plot that I have next to no interest in. And High Republic is sort of interesting, but it’s not Old Republic Legends interesting that made the Kotor games really cool. Which unfortunately, leaves a whole bit of meh for a large chunk of the game.

But there was a really cool recanonization of a Legends race that I was so happy to see, then, after the boss fight, kinda disappointed in. And that was Rayvis! My Gen’dai buddy!! We got the GENDAI back!!!!! Unfortunately, they made them uncool and easier to kill, which, absolutely LAME!! He barely even pops out any tentacles!! Probably because of hardware limitations, but still. Where’s my fiercesome basically immortal tentacle guy!! Boo.

Then we have the force tears which is a toss up between oh my god fuck no please don’t be the fucking platforming on and oh thank god it’s just the boss fight ones. Whichever junior level designer made those platforming levels deserves the most amount of pain inflicted upon them. They are absolutely terrible and it really breaks game immersion when your sitting there for 30 minutes to an hour trying to make the fucking jumps but constantly falling into the goddamn abyss instead.

The exploration is pretty much the same as the first game, except much larger on the main hub world. Which as cool as that is, I actually would have preferred variety and had several smaller sized worlds, versus a giant hub world with many areas. But that’s a matter of personal preference and me being nitpicky and wanting more star wars planets to explore instead of getting, like, three, and one of them is Jedah and we’ve been there in Rogue One.

Another thing in the games favor is that it doesn’t take away your powers at the beginning of the game like in every other sequel known to man! You start out with all your powers from last time and get knew ones over the course of this game! They even give you a fucking GUN!! FUCK YEAH!!

Now to the feelings part because oh boy it’s a doozy.

Bode Akuna. At first I was all like, this man is a bounty hunter. He’s Boba Fett in disguise. He’s a Mando. He was pinging my radar off so bad I just knew something was up with him and I was FUCKING RIGHT!! But I was off because I did not see it coming!! He was a JEDI!! MY guy was a Jedi spy!! I about died when it happened because jfc I didn’t even understand what had happened at first. My man was a jedi!! I was still reeling over the fact that he kill Cordova!! Which we’ll get to in a minute. But the whole time he was contacting the ISB and telling on Cal and aaaaaaaaaaaa. I knew it was too good to be true, but I loved him!!

Oh, and you also get to play as Cere and it’s a really cool sequence!! And it all leads up to a fight with fucking VADER!!!! And Vader kills Cere. And Cal is just devastated. And Greeze is devastated. And Merrin is so sad!

Turns out, Cordova was alive the whole time!! And he wasn’t Malicos. That was a twist. And Cordova and Quigon were friends???? 

Oh shit, I also forgot about the puns. A girl’s name is Mosey and she basically tells you to Mosey on over to the mayor of the town. And Bode doesn’t bode well. Like, I feel like this was on purpose.

God there’s so much in this game that I’m probably forgetting but there are so many good moments in it despite it’s flaws, and there are definite flaws. But it’s also a long, long game if you are aiming to explore everything.

Like I said about the ME2 insanity run, but trying to do this for awhile and after completing ME2 insanity; I felt kinda bold and said fuck it, why not!! And I got it done!! xD

This time with 282 saves. Though I did keep track of deaths this time and it was 123. So I might have undercounted last time. But ME3 insanity was actually a bit harder unlike ME2 insanity where it was like normal mode in some places and then the difficulty spiked real high in others.

Only have two trophies left to get, level up guns to level 10 and the platinum and I’ll be doing that in a couple minutes.

I’d like to thank PatStaresAt’s vods for the blue prints of my success. I’d like to thank myself for saving nearly 600 times. I’d also like to thank myself again for taking it slow and not getting super frustrated when I would die.

Now I just need to do the punching trophy and I’ll have platinumed the game!!! I’m so excited!!

[Breakdown