Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, released at the end of 2019, is a single-player, action-adventure game. Think bits of Darksiders, Dishonored and Dark Souls combined with the Star Wars setting, music and visuals.

You play as Cal Kestis, a padawan that survived order 66. He etches a mediocre existence on the planet Bracca, salvaging spaceship parts to fuel the empire’s war machine, when an accident reveals his force powers. Cere Junda, a former Jedi, rescues him from the inquisitors, the empire’s Jedi hunters, then Cal embarks on a quest to protect other force-sensitive children from the empire.

Cal starts with minimal force powers. He learns or acquires new abilities by achieving in-game goals, which initiate cut scenes re-enacting parts of his childhood padawan training. These reflections contrast Cal’s old and current lives, help us empathize with his repressed grief and provide a temporarily safe learning environment for the player.

The levels are complex but well-designed. They are bi-directional, and the backward traversal often needs newly acquired abilities. Many short branches provide exploration opportunities. However, some require powers gained later, meaning the player must revisit old areas.

The level designers made each planet distinctive, such as the ochre sandstone and bright, yellow sun of Bogano; Dathomir’s reds, browns and sinister twilight or the vibrant, lush, green, humid Kashyyyk. Imperial interiors continue the original three Star Wars films’ styling with stadium-framed fluorescent lighting set into austere blacks and greys.

The parkour gameplay fits well with Jedi and Star Wars lore, going back to Luke’s training on Dagobah. Star Wars has always emphasized verticality to imply danger and declutter sets, such as in A New Hope’s death star.

The combat is defence-oriented, built around blocking and dodging to reveal short moments where you can attack. You eventually gain the expected gamut of Jedi powers, like pulling, pushing and jumping, and a double-bladed lightsaber.

However, you rarely feel comfortable enough to have a dominance or power fantasy. Once you can comfortably beat an opponent, the game throws in more or harder ones.

The soundtrack is standard Star Wars “John Williams-esque” orchestral, with playful woodwind and ominous brass and strings. However, other than a brief appearance from the Mongolian band “The Hu”, it lacks memorable musical moments.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is challenging. Repeatedly failing can be frustrating, but iterative learning is the path to the required and desired mastery. Dying is progress. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is essentially a puzzle-solving game, whether learning and countering enemies or combining force powers and movement to reach a seemingly unnavigable goal.

Thematically, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is about healing after trauma and loss. As Cere says, failure is part of the process and is not the end. For Cal, it is about the loss of his mentor and father figure. For Cere, it is about the loss of her padawan and estrangement from her master. For Trilla and Merrin, it is about abandonment and betrayal. These parallel the setting, both the fall of the republic/rise of the empire and the descent of the ancient Zeffo race, whose tombs you explore.

Almost all thematic treatment is during cut scenes, conversations between missions, journal entries or enemy banter during boss fights. Later cut scenes, in particular, effectively embody the “show, don’t tell” mantra, symbolism and abstractness reminiscent of Star Wars. Even the main menu theme is subdued and mournful.

Unfortunately, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order does not extend themes into missions. In other words, most of the game. It is not ludonarrative dissonance, more a missed opportunity. The player will repeatedly fail with the game’s challenging mechanics. However, respawning when you mistime a jump or an enemy defeats you may be frustrating but not a genuine loss.

Meanwhile, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s challenging game mechanics easily distract players from internalizing and examining themes. You are focused on how to get places or beat opponents, not what doing so means or its impact on the game’s characters.

One solution is involving other characters more during missions. They steal the show in their brief appearances with spot-on voice acting and scripts. Apart from BD-1, the R2-D2 substitute with the requisite cuteness and courage, Cal only briefly works with two other characters during missions

Cal’s personality is also underdeveloped. This “blank canvas” may make him a better player surrogate, but the developers could flesh him out beyond his withdrawal, grief, and the wide-legged swagger the animators gifted him.

That said, genuine love and attention to detail have gone into the game, whether it is the authentic motion blur and whoosh of a whirling lightsaber or the fantasy-fulfilling glee of briefly piloting an AT-AT. I laughed at the mundane stormtrooper banter, Cal not translating BD-1’s jokes or BD-1 beeping a Star Wars motif when hacking a security droid.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order strives to be a good game and not just a faithful Star Wars game. Perhaps this is why it lacks the signature Star Wars initial text crawl and subverts the opening star destroyer camera pan. The game is a challenging but enjoyable 35 hours to finish, more for all achievements, and worth it for action-adventure fans, not just Star Wars fans.