Game EXP: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Bayonetta 3, & Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (SD & NS)

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Systems: Windows, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/X/S, Stadia

Release Date: November 15, 2019

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Respawn Entertainment

Time Spent: 31.6 Hours

[The Reason:  Honestly, it was because I just never got around to writing about it. I played the game, I had a mostly great time, and then I moved on to other games, Celeste maybe, and when I thought about the game, I felt a little overwhelmed at what to write about, which turns out was the theme for all of the games listed today.  That's pretty much it.]

I am going to be brief in my article about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as played on the Steam Deck.  As far as a Star Wars-themed third-person action-adventure exploring game in the vein of Dark Souls meets God of War, this was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed exploring the time between Episode III and Episode IV (or between the end of the second season of Star Wars: Rebels after Vader disbanded the remaining Inquisitors which is to explain why you never hear/see them in A New Hope. . .See, there I go again, and one of the key reasons why I found this hard to write in the first place, is so many connections to past characters and events that it is easy to get lost in tangents).  

I had a couple of issues with the story early on, especially with BD-1 just showing up, latching onto Kal, and feeling like I somehow missed a cutscene where Kal questions the intentions of this droid where everything else on the planet is hostile and killable.  Don't get me wrong, I loved BD-1, its design, its personality, and its penchant for diving headfirst into any box/crate with a hinge, I just felt that there was something that I missed because at one moment there was no droid, and the next Kal had a shoulder droid buddy.

There were times when I overthought the game design such as running into the same stormtroopers in the same locations after resting at a bonfire. . . sorry, Jedi Meditation Circle.  From a game design perspective, I understand that you need things for Kal to kill to gain experience to fill out his skill augmentation tree, otherwise, you would need to have location/context-based skill learning (which does exist here for a couple of Jedi specific skills) a much smaller skill tree, and very little feeling of customization.  I get it.  But if I think too hard about it, it seems silly lore-wise, that enemies could respawn as they do, especially the wildlife.

Because a fair amount of this game focuses on exploration, I did try to 100% each area/planet I was on, although I know that I missed a few BD-1 item boosts and I did not find all possible paint coats for the Stinger Mantis, this ship piloted by Greez Dritus; although I did actively find all of the plants for Greez's hydroponics bay/window/nook.  While there were cutscenes of Kal interacting with his shipmates, Greez and Cere Junda, I would have liked there to have been more of these interspersed between traveling to different planets.  Nothing plot specific, but just moments to have Kal interacting.  Maybe some lightsaber training with Cere, going through movements or cooking with Greez.  And not make a mini-game out of it (which I could see someone wanting to give the player something to do), because Star Wars does not have enough moments where people just sit and talk, or perform an activity that is not directly related to the plot.

Anyway.  I thought Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order hit a lot of the notes I was looking for in both a well-designed (for the most part) game and a story within the Star Wars canon while not being in the position to "save the universe," but just another story in the universe.  I know I will eventually get to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, but considering I waited three years before playing this, I will likely get to the sequel during the Steam 2026 Winter Sale.

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Bayonetta 3

Systems: Nintendo Switch

Release Date: October 28, 2022

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: PlatinumGames

Time Spent: 12h 47m 20.23S

[The Reason:  There are so many different ways I tried to write this article, and a lot of them came back to constantly comparing and referencing the previous two Bayonetta games.  So much so that I found myself no longer talking about Bayonetta 3 itself specifically, but how it was different.  I also found myself torn between liking a lot of what was in this game, and purposefully spiting other aspects of the game and level design.  On top of that, there are so many different genres in this one game that I briefly considered writing separate articles for the open world exploration, the combat, the kaiju combat, the boss combat, the Umbra Trials, Jeanne's stealth missions, to say nothing about the overall story and the world of Bayonetta going forward.  And that is why we are here.]

Did I like Bayonetta 3?  Yes, I think so, for the most part.  There were several evenings that I started playing the game and was forced to stop around 2:30-3:00 AM when the battery on the Switch flashed 5% battery power at me.  I found the combat engaging most of the time and as 85% of the game is centered around combat, that is an important mechanic that you have to get right.  Although I had plenty of issues with the Umbra Trials, that is a combination of a skill issue and a game development issue punctuated by my lack of skill.  While this game emphasizes replayability by telling you of additional tasks after you beat the level, I found myself only replaying a single level once, not including the times I had to replay one of the Jeane-focused levels.

I recall reading people being upset about the ending and while somewhat unexpected, it did kind of make sense.  Was I sad that Bayonetta and Jeanne didn't "end up together," sure but Bayonetta's relationship status throughout her entire life always felt kind of fluid.  I think my biggest takeaway was that I was able to better follow the story in this game than the previous two games, although I did still consult the Internet for a couple of finer points; like how/why Luca was now a rampaging interdimensional werewolf because that seemed like it needed more screen time (although I could have done with fighting that bastard a lot fewer times).

I honestly do not even know where to start with this game.  

I felt that the combat felt very good in that triggering Witch Time felt easier and more consistent than in Bayonetta 2, and significantly easier overall than in Bayonetta.  I also never found myself trying to farm halos or the other form of in-game currency in that I did not go back and replay levels and with the exception of a handful of encounters (as in levels where you needed to progress in a specific direction while the level fell away under you or you died), I never found the game overly difficult to the point where I felt I would not be able to proceed.  That being said, scattered throughout each stage there are plenty of mini-quest/game-like mechanics such as the aforementioned Umbra Trials that proved to be too difficult to pass as well as mid-stage puzzles that I could not complete.  I also did not always try to find the Umbran Tears (a hidden cat, crow, and frog that would sometimes actively avoid the character) that would unlock a new version of that same level to further unlock additional outfits, weapons, and other things I did not bother with.  I guess you could say that I primarily played for the story and did not try to unlock everything, let alone try to get a Pure Platinum score on every combat encounter.

In Bayonetta 3, because the scope of the story is so much grander than in the previous two games, you play as three different characters with just as many if not more different genres. with Bayonetta traveling to different realities and interacting with different versions of herself while you also play as Jeanne who is performing her own missions in the style of a side-scrolling arcade game.  AND, you also play as the new character Viola who is trying to do just as many things that I could have probably written an entire article just about her story, moveset, and implications of her character going forward with the whole of the Bayonetta series.

There really was so much going on with this game that even now I am having a difficult time what to talk about in so short a space.  And I haven't even touched the music, which has a noticeably less jazzy sound than the previous two games (there we go with comparisons again), but I enjoyed it a lot more because of how epic the songs made not only the levels but also the stakes of the story itself.  I can honestly see myself going back to this game sometime in the future and replaying it from the beginning, or at least replaying the levels on my current save file rather than trying to start a whole new game.

And because it is a thing for games like this, here is my final score along with total playtime and playtime per stage:

(I honestly think I did better than bronze overall, but maybe that's taking into account everything that I didn't find and unlock.  I don't see myself replaying to get a better score).

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Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Systems: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One/S/X, Nintendo Switch
Original Release Date: August 8, 2017
Publisher: Ninja Theory
Developer: Ninja Theory
Time Spent: Unknown

[The Reason:  I actually started writing this article a few times while playing the entire game.  I first started when I was only 45 minutes in, which is not very far, being maybe only after the first starting area.  I wrote a little bit sometime after the fight along the bridge, and then again after I had finished.  Part of my hangup was that I felt that I could not write about the game without talking about the approach Ninja Theory took towards mental health issues and its depiction of a main character who was experiencing trauma and various depictions of psychosis, subjects that I did not feel qualified enough to analyze and critique.  I have worked with people with different intellectual disabilities, people at various levels on the Autism spectrum, and people in varying stages of cognitive decline, but this was not that and after various attempts at writing this article I found myself interjecting my own experiences working with those populations only to realize that it was not the same thing and not really applicable.  So this article ended up not being written because of in part my own lack of self-confidence and not knowing how to best approach the article while acknowledging and respecting the game and its depiction of mental trauma.]

Yeah, I loved this game, which I played for the most part with a headphone splitter so Conklederp could listen to the amazing binaural audio mix while watching.  The audio mix was a real highlight of the game, even with just regular $7 stereo earbuds from Sony, and I am glad that I was able to experience slightly downgraded graphics to have a better audio experience than I would had I played this in docked mode on the Switch through the speakers on our 12-year-old TV.  But that never really bothered me as I was partially in awe that this game was even running as well as it did on the Switch, and I know that a side-by-side comparison would show a glaring difference, but in the moment, nothing but pure amazement.

The story itself was a little puzzling at times as the combining of realities for Senua and the player only compounded the confusion about what was real, what was in Senua's head, and what was there as a game mechanic because this is a video game.  Were the creatures Senua fighting only figments in her mind, or were they actually other people that her brain was warping into hulking monsters as a way of dealing with her past and present trauma?

Overall, I really loved this game, and in a way that I could definitely find myself playing it again in the future even though I do not think that anything would be different.  However, on any subsequent playthroughs, I may reference a guide to see an extended ending sequence or at least more to the story that expands on what already happens at the end of the game.  And maybe I'll pick it up for the Steam Deck next time to play at a slightly higher fidelity, if only just to give Ninja Theory a little more money as they don't seem to be coming out with games all that often.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Some Time We Can't Erase

P.S.  Coincidentally, I also just realized that all three of these games all have a picture mode that lets you pause the game at nearly any moment and move the camera to a different angle to then take in-game pictures.  I tooled with it only a little bit in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and barely in Bayonetta 3, each because I felt very interruptive to the gameplay and I never felt compelled to stop what I was doing for a good 10-15 minutes to take a picture.  In Hellblade however, I found myself wanting to take pictures and manipulate the color palate slightly to give a higher definition to the character models, and to just see a different angle.  Like that last picture above for Hellblade was from regular gameplay against a mini-boss and not a framed cutscene.  Gorgeous game.