Just to Clear the Air, Jedi Survivor has Some Decent Gameplay, Despite the Cutscene Stutters/Freezes

[Frag Maniac]

I would be lying if I said this game didn't have post worthy moments. It's understandable why it's much maligned, the cutscenes after all are a great way to showcase the more story rich parts of such a well written franchise, yet they make you wait sometimes several seconds through a massive freeze, or at the very least repetitive stuttering. They play fine once they get going, but entering and coming out of them is face palm time.

So I decided it might be worthwhile to show a few gameplay clips. These are pretty short, the longest, which is the first one, is barely more than 4 min.

---SPOILER WARNING!---

Dagan Gera Boss Fight

I didn't bother capturing the cutscene leading into this fight, as it would have taken a TON of editing out frozen frames. I even had to remove several seconds worth in the fight itself where it had a cutscene in the middle.

The story about Dagan Gera is kind of sad, he was a Jedi whom fell in love with a planet called Tanalorr, and decided to use it to train initiates. When the Jedi Order decided to abandon the planet, he rebelled, and got put in a Bacta tank for 2 centuries. Cal finds him there and frees him, but he is so bitter toward Jedi he tries to kill him.

This guy is a bit intimidating. He is so sure of his abilities even with one arm, he slowly walks straight toward you, with his jibblies jingle jangle jinglin, without so much as an athletic supporter! Talk about COCKY!

Force Tear - Fractured Resolve

Force Tears are just a very short mini game where you race to fix a disruption in the Force, while facing imminent death as the corruption rapidly jumps back and forth. These can be hard to predict and/or time, and can take several tries.

Riverbed Watch

This is a small enemy camp situated atop a workbench, which as it's name implies overlooks the riverbed. It has mostly basic Battle Droids, but also a few B2 Battle Droids, a BX Droid and a Raider Grunt. The B2 Droids can be useful when near other enemies, as you can Force Push their grenade launcher shot back into them. Of all of them, the Raider Grunt and especially the BX Droid need to be taken seriously, as they are faster and have fairly effective melee attacks.

Fort Kah'Lin - Part 1

This is a mix of more of the same enemies of Riverbed Watch. This time however, I got in some good Force Pulls and Pushes. If only I'd reacted quicker to that B2 grenade!

Fort Kah'Lin - Part 2

Here I sneak into a hangar behind a troop transport ship to take on a Purge Trooper wielding a large axe-like weapon. Unlike Electrobaton, Electrostaff, and Commander type Purge Troopers, so far in my searching I haven't found any separate designation for this one, which is disappointing. He is escorted by a BX Droid Hybrid, which carries a Blaster that it uses when out of range of it's melee weapon. There's a few basic Battle Droids as well, and a single B2 Droid, which came in handy as an obstruction for the Purge Trooper on the walkway I lead it down, then Force Pushed it's grenade attack back at them. There was also a basic Battle Droid at the start of the battle that held a grenade above it's head while charging me, and one higher up later on that threw one, which I managed to kill the BX Droid Hybrid with via Force Push. It's odd though that none of the Jedi Survivor enemy wikis I've read say anything about basic Battle Droids carrying and throwing grenades, as I find it makes them both intimidating and useful.

Fort Kah'Lin - Part 3

This is a mop up of waves of enemies that drop down from the aforementioned troop transport ship just outside the hangar. This one has a wave of 2 BX Droids and 2 BX Rifle Droids, so I tried using Confusion, a Force ability where you trick enemies into fighting for you a short while. I don't know if it's a bug, or that I was too far away from other enemies when I first used it, but the Raider Grunt I first tried it on attacked me while it was still highlighted green. There was one peskly BX Droid that just kept rejuvenating after getting it near death, so I finished it with Slow.

 

[drivinfast247]

The game runs beautifully on my new system. My old one with a 5900x, not so much.

Even with a 7900xtx, my old system had lots of stutters and ran below 60fps @ 4k w/out ray tracing enable. Now, I'm averaging 80fps WITH Ray tracing enabled.

 

[Frag Maniac]

The game runs beautifully on my new system. My old one with a 5900x, not so much.

Even with a 7900xtx, my old system had lots of stutters and ran below 60fps @ 4k w/out ray tracing enable. Now, I'm averaging 80fps WITH Ray tracing enabled.

You DO understand though that most whom have issues with the performance are not having FPS problems, just stutters and freezes going into and coming out of cutscenes? It WAS made clear with the partnership between AMD and the devs though that it was designed to be optimized for Ryzen CPUs, so it's understandable it runs better on AMD CPUs.

Running THAT poorly on Intel CPUs is not at all acceptable though, especially something as simple as cutscenes. The 13700K I'm using is no slouch, and as you can see in my sig, is more than adequately cooled and ventilated by the cooler and case I'm using.

Apparently AMD paid them a ton to sabotage the game for anyone running an Intel CPU.

 

[drivinfast247]

You DO understand though that most whom have issues with the performance are not having FPS problems, just stutters and freezes going into and coming out of cutscenes? It WAS made clear with the partnership between AMD and the devs though that it was designed to be optimized for Ryzen CPUs, so it's understandable it runs better on AMD CPUs.

Running THAT poorly on Intel CPUs is not at all acceptable though, especially something as simple as cutscenes. The 13700K I'm using is no slouch, and as you can see in my sig, is more than adequately cooled and ventilated by the cooler and case I'm using.

Apparently AMD paid them a ton to sabotage the game for anyone running an Intel CPU.

I'm not doubting your system. Was just stating that I had issues with my old PC. The stutters were upsetting.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I'm not doubting your system. Was just stating that I had issues with my old PC. The stutters were upsetting.

No I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying it doesn't make sense that it would run THAT much better on a CPU that's basically outmatched in most every way by the 13700K. So the only conclusion to draw is that the game is made for specific hardware.

This pretty much makes it clear for anyone though that it's not my CPU that's to blame, it's AMD & EA's nefarious partnership.
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-13700K-vs-AMD-Ryzen-9-7900X/4137vs4132

There are games with far better graphics that don't stutter at all. It's clearly a choice they made to cater only to select hardware. EA keep claiming they are improving performance and stability across all platforms, yet after over a half dozen patches the problems persist. Maybe they should just admit it was only intended to run well on the latest AMD hardware instead of lying.

It's OK though, I get it, EVERY chip designer cheats a bit here and there. I'd still rather back the hardware that's used the most, if for no other reason than they get the most title endorsements. We ARE reaching a whole new era now where even higher end competing hardware is made to look like dog poo when it shouldn't though, so I'd say on this title they took it too far.

On a lighter note, I see that Disney chose Ubi's Massive dev team to make Star Wars Outlaws, the same team that made Avatar Frontiers of Pandora. Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is an excellent example of a title that is far more detailed graphically than Jedi Survivor, and runs at just as good FPS, without stutters. I'm thinking this is why they chose Massive to make the game.

Regardless how AMD or Intel think, the smart publishers go with endorsement that won't cripple performance, especially for such a large group of players as those whom buy Intel. The pushback from fans can dwarf anything the chip designer offers. I hope EA learned their lesson by this, after all, Disney owns the IP, it's up to THEM to choose whom develops the games.

If this new Jedi series is to be a trilogy, which many feel it is, I sincerely hope Disney let Massive develop the 3rd and final installment. I feel this series deserves to be at the very least a trilogy, if not more, and I also think the huge SW fanbase deserves better than publishers that sell out to biased optimization. Big titles like this should be enjoyed by as many players as possible.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Here's some more clips of the game, a boss fight, and several Bounty Hunter fights. I normally rock a Cross Guard or Dual Blade stance, but here I used Blaster stance for all the Bounty Hunter fights. Reason being pretty much all of them involve foes with firearms, many having an unblockable shot. Double-Bladed stance deflects shots fast, but it can't deflect unblockables. Besides, I kind of dig the way Cal twirls his Blaster before holstering it. There's a bit of air swatting going on, because I find the game's target lock is a bit too confining to movement, especially if you have it on auto lock. When you're faced with just one enemy that is as formidable as Vader, then target lock makes sense, but I didn't use it for the Bounty Hunters.

Darth Vader Boss Fight

This fight takes place at the Jedi Archives on Jedha as the Empire is invading. As Cere rushes to download the archives and give the drive to BD-1 to get it to the Mantis, Darth Vader appears.

This fight happens in 3 phases. The first two are pretty easy and can be done quickly with little to no health loss. The third phase though is very hard and takes careful timing of dodge, parry, and attack. He comes at you like a tank and his unblockable combo is long and the last half of it is deceiving because he's no longer highlighted red.

This fight is well done. It's very cinematic, the saber sounds are awesome, and it's actually one part of the game that performance wise, runs pretty smoothly. This has me thinking the whole game could be and should be stutter free for the most part.

Kili Oso Bounty Hunter

As Caij says, this guy has a "small army" protecting him. Thus I included the battles to get to him on the Timeworn Bridge. It takes place on Jedha, and you have to work your way to the Sanctuary Temple to get to him. This is one of the two top tier Bounty Hunters in the game, so it's a pretty epic battle.

Selfin Jook Bounty Hunter

This is one of the bottom tier Bounty Hunters, and takes place on the Observatory Understructure on Koboh. This fight is very short, and even a bit comical. You can literally kill this boss with enough Force Pushes. At some point, his jetpack will run out, and he'll be stuck not able to boost back up. As he was at this point, he said, "Finally, somethin to do"! I imagined one of his team suffering the same fate earlier, whom had descended MUCH farther than him saying, "Do what, see how long we can hover, I think it's not very LOOOOOONG"! I jumped off the deck myself, thinking it would kill me and I could play it over, but I forgot it takes several falls to kill you on Jedi Knight mode unless your health is very low.

Mash Bounty Hunter

This is a level 2 tier Bounty Hunter on Shattered Moon. He has one guard working with him that is easily dispatched. Mash however has a pretty strong attack, but if you lure him out of the dark tunnels onto the platform outside, you can use the support for the zipline you take to get there as a shield against his attacks.

Vaslyn Martz Bounty Hunter

This is another level 2 tier boss, and takes place at Fogged Expanse on Koboh. This is a spot that is dark and foggy, and she has two guards with her and they all have firearms. It can be tough to keep this one under control unless you try to separate them and manage to Force Push some of their grenades back at them.

Yuhong Bounty Hunter

Yet another level 2 tier Bounty Hunter, this one found on Jedha. He has two guards, one with a jetpack, the other on ground with dual pistols. For some reason they let Merrin help you on this fight.

BTW drivinfast247, had you played Koboh before saying the game ran smoothly for you? I ask because I've seen even people on the latest gen high end Ryzens say they will wait until the game is fixed before playing past Coruscant. The intro plays smooth for literally everyone except those below min spec.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Here's 6 more vids, 3 Force Tears (2 platforming, 1 battle), and 3 Legendary Enemies. I found these while on a trek to collect more stims, as I found out you can carry a total of 12. Two of them in fact you have to fight a couple of the Legendary Enemies shown here to get.

This is still my first playthrough, so I'm still acquiring skill points and wondering how best to spend them, and what tactics to use with each stance, so the combat against tougher enemies like these is far from polished yet.

I'm using Cross Guard and Dual Blade stances here, but plan to switch to Dual Wield when I get all the skills for it. I have more Perk slots now though, but have far from collected all the Perks, which will be my next goal now that my stims are maxed.

Force Tear - Fractured Determination

This is a platforming Force Tear that involves dashes through green shields, wall running, a well timed lache off a bar, and a sequence of dashes to get to a portal you fly through. There's also a lot of precise directional changes required, but you can rest at the bar swing, and the grate you use it to jump to. which is also often required for timing.

Legendary Enemy - Sutaban Alpha

This beast is in a cave and although he doesn't pick you up and slam you like some do, he has a swatting flurry that hits hard. Clearly I need to change stance and tactics for fights like this.

Force Tear - Fractured Endurance

This is a battle type Force Tear against waves of B1 Battle Droids. It starts out with melee droids, then firearm droids, then grenade droids. The Cross Guard stance is a bit more effective here with it's long reach, and ground slam. Dual Wield may have made it easier to get into position quick enough to Force Push grenades though, and it deflects shots faster.

Force Tear - Fractured Momentum

This Force Tear is accessed via the cave just outside of Greez' quarters in the lower level of Pyloon's Saloon. This is another platforming Force Tear, this time involving well timed jumps between zip lines and changes of direction. In the 2nd half of it you need to do some dashes through green shields, then dash/double jump to higher zip lines. The blue orbs are high voltage and insta kill you if touched. The hardest one to avoid is one that comes whizzing by just after the first grapple, so you have to double jump right after changing direction to avoid it.

Legendary Enemy - The Mire Terror

This is a VERY nasty Mogu in Viscid Bog on Koboh. There's another Mogu with him, but he is FAR easier to kill, and only the Mire Terror has a health bar. I used Dual Blade here, since I did not have the powerful saber throw skill yet for Cross Guard that can hit multiple enemies in a line like I thought I did. So I really only had my Hurricane attack that allows an extended twirl flurry, a bit faster dodging than Cross Guard, and a throw that more often than not didn't connect.

He comes at you fast and often and when he's not picking you up and slamming you around (well, me anyway), he has some AOE attacks where he slams shock waves at you or throws rocks at you. Needless to say the extra stims came in handy. This one's reward is also a stim canister that boosts your stim count.

Legendary Enemy - Gorocco Matriarch

This is a big Rhino-like creature with two horns. Now you might think, yeah, but he can't swat or grab you. Well, true, but he also charges hard and quick, and if you try to get back on the ledge you drop into his lair from to strategize or heal, he can jump pretty well too, so forget that. This is the other beast that comes with a stim canister reward.

 

[Frag Maniac]

And here's 6 more vids, these I encountered in my latest trek to get all the Perks. There are 3 Legendary Enemies, 1 standard boss fight, 1 Force Tear, and a special treat that I discovered roaming the desert of Jedha. I now have all but 2 of the Perks you can get before finishing the game. The last two I need 8 more datadiscs to buy them from Zee. This should be easy since after finishing The Path of Conviction puzzles in Jedha, all planetary maps are now marked with collectible icons. There are also 3 Perks you automatically get for finishing the game, but 2 make enemies harder, and 1 is just cosmetic, none of which are my idea of "perks".

Force Tear - Fractured Power

This is a battle of waves of a variety of enemies. Wave 1 is Shielded Scout Troopers. Wave 2 is Bedlam Raider Grunts and a Droideka. Wave 3 is B1 Battle Droids, Scout Troopers, and a Haxion Brood Commando. The final wave is a couple of big beasts, a Gorocco, and a Sutaban. To make matters worse, it appears you can't interrupt their attacks with an AOE, as my ground slam did nothing to them when charging, even if it's not an unblockable attack.

Legendary Enemy - Vile Bilemaw

This is a big beast that is vaguely similar to a Triceratops, but with no horns. It's a bit slow, but when raged it charges fast. It can shoot a stream of burning mucous at you. It can also raise up and send a shock wave at you with a ground slam. It's one other attack is your best bet at doing damage, but is a bit risky. At one point it pauses and sets up to lay on it's side and try to crush you with a roll. If you catch it during this pause, you can do a lot of damage to it and stun lock it. This took place just after taking on a Mogu getting to it though, so I had no Force left. This meant no ground slam to stun it, and getting attacked a lot at first. This fight rewards you with the Fortitude Perk.

Anoth Estra - Boss Fight

This is a Bedlam Raider Lieutenant you find in the Chamber of Fortitude. He wields a Double Bladed saber, and has two unblockable grapple attacks, one where he swings to you, the other where he pulls you to him. Both these can be dodged if you see them coming. I'm using Dual Wield stance here, and starting to get the hang of it. It has a very short static block duration, but it's pretty good for parrying. When he was down to half health he shouted "I will be the victor!" I was thinking, you trying to convince me, or yourself?

Legendary Enemy - Rancor

This is a boss you see pretty early on in the game, and most recommend you save him for later when you have more skills, perks, stims, and Force essence. It's instantly easy to see why if you try to encounter him too soon, as he is, as far as I know, the only boss in the game that will eat you if he grabs you. In Fallen Order if a Rancor grabbed you there was the option to quickly hack at it's hand to make it drop you, not in Survivor, it's insta death.

By now I had the skill to toss the sabers in Dual Wield though, and you can toss both of them. Thankfully you can also use the spot you died at in previous attempts, which is indicated by a gold waypoint marker, to fully replenish your health and Force essence. You STILL need to time dodges to avoid his powerful ground attacks though, but you can also dash at a forward angle, then dash again to get behind him. You don't want to get too greedy with hacks though.

I wasted a couple saber throws being too far away at times, but he went down pretty quickly. This fight rewards you with the Shatter Perk.

Legendary Enemy - Golden Skriton

This is one of those giant scorpion-like creatures you find here and there in the desert of Jedha that like to hide under the sand. You know it's formidable when after Cal says to Merrin, "You're,... not coming"?, she replies, "This you should do on your own." They can be hard to damage because they hold one of their big claws in front of them like a shield. It will also use this claw to try to slam it down on you, and swing at you, as well as it's tail to zap you in the head a couple times if you get caught in it's claw. It will also swing and jab it's tail at you sometimes while you're on the ground.

Dual Wield wasn't working well for me against it. It IS a quick enough stance to dodge with, and also quick enough to dash in after it swung it's claw to damage it's weaker parts, but I always took far more damage than it did doing so. So I switched to Cross Guard. Unfortunately I had wasted most of my Force essence on failed attempts with special attacks and saber throws in Dual Wield. The Cross Guard ground slam does stun it though, and you can get in a lot of damage using Slow even briefly, while refilling it some. Had I started with such attacks, it would have gone down a lot quicker.

This fight rewards you with the Unflinching Perk.

Small AT ST Convoy - Spamel Fight

This is something fun and hilarious I discovered you can do in the Jedha desert. It's a quick way to dispatch one of the many small AT ST convoys seen patrolling this desert. All you do is run at the AT ST while on a Spamel, and make the beast swing it's head at it by tapping the attack button at the right time. Eventually after several such attacks it will fall and blow up, often killing a few Troopers escorting it. This is a great and easy way to get XP.

I did not foresee this fight coming after having just taken on and captured the battle with the Golden Skriton, so unfortunately the first half of it was not in good condition having hit the ShadowPlay Instant Replay key before the Golden Skriton fight was fully written to file. Thus I had to omit the first half, which had a huge amount of gigantic freezes with LOTS of frames missing.

 

[iTRiP]

Spoiler: Gameplay.

Too bad that the player cant finish off the opponents like in the first game, and this game has some great key input combos never seen in pc gaming towards the later levels of the game

Recalling my playthrough, I somehow managed to find settings that worked fine on my pc, had a mostly smooth and clean play, note this was when the game was just released, I hadn't played it again since, but reading this thread might incline me to go for a play again someday, Then again seems like the dev's intentionally scale the optimization of this iteration VS the previous one, suppose it's understandable games have to sell hardware, but with Survivor it was just a bit poorly done and too obvious, luckily as I had done for my current setup, most players ought to be able to find settings that result in acceptable game play.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Recalling my playthrough, I somehow managed to find settings that worked fine on my pc, had a mostly smooth and clean play, note this was when the game was just released...

How far did you play though? Many have said upon fist impressions that it plays smoothly, but the intro at Coruscant literally plays smoothly for everyone. Koboh however doesn't play very smoothly.

 

[iTRiP]

How far did you play though? Many have said upon fist impressions that it plays smoothly, but the intro at Coruscant literally pays smoothly for everyone. Koboh however doesn't play very smoothly.

Well, if I recall correctly, Now it's been some time since I made a complete playthrough. So if I'm being honest my biggest issue whilst I was busy playing Star Wars Jedi Survivor, was that some of the crucial game mechanics did not function properly, besides, like I said before all smooth gameplay for me, maybe I had just matched better settings. Just recalling one such incident, remember getting to an obstical that seemed to be created to hinder progression, and boy did it hinder my progress, I was truly shocked by such an gameplay progression hindering occurrence, for lack of better description that I actually stopped playing, totally against my wishes to just sit and enjoy a game for as long as I desire. So what I did is I deleted my save game, also against what one would do, wishing and aiming to explore, enjoy and have an unhindered goodtime. But I went back in the game as soon as possible, started anew, same settings and according to expectations and the obvious monetary and preparational cost I had cleaner play as exepected all things considerred.

 

[Order 66]

I thoroughly enjoyed playing through Jedi Survivor, so much so that I felt sad when I finished it. I did notice a lot of stutter even on my relatively high-end rig (7700x and rx 6800). I'm not sure how it would perform at 1440p. I wonder if it would be worth it to replay the game on my new mini led HDR 1000 monitor.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I wonder if it would be worth it to replay the game on my new mini led HDR 1000 monitor.

There's the new NvTrueHDR mod for Nvidia GPUs, which works great on Dead Space 2023. Jedi Survivor however does not lend well at all to mods of any kind or even very mild OCs. I suspect the reason I got tons of artifacts the other day may have been my having dropped the timings on my RAM two clicks each. There was only one spot in the game that was problematic though, and only on one side mission (the save the Jawas one). No other games have had such a problem, and I ran a full memtest86 test after dropping the timings, 4 passes each on 13 tests, zero errors.

 

[Order 66]

There's the new NvTrueHDR mod for Nvidia GPU

I have an AMD GPU, so that doesn't help me.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I have an AMD GPU, so that doesn't help me.

Yeah I saw that, just thought I'd mention it in case you had one not in the system by any chance, and for anyone else on a Nv GPU that is having problems with HDR not running lately in Dead Space.

 

[Order 66]

Yeah I saw that, just thought I'd mention it in case you had one not in the system by any chance, and for anyone else on a Nv GPU that is having problems with HDR not running lately in Dead Space.

I have a grand total of 2 GPUs. One is the rx 6800 in my current system, and the other is an RX 550 from an old HP workstation I bought in 2022.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Once again, a half dozen more vids for you. This set has three Legendary enemies, one of which is one of the hardest Force Tears in the game, and the other three are Force Tear multi enemy type combat, two of which have multiple waves. The three multi enemy type combat Force Tears each require using just one specified stance. All these battles reward you with a Skill Point.

Legendary Enemy - The Massiff

I had another spell where ShadowPlay wasn't working, so I captured the first two vids with OBS. The Massiff is a Magnaguard droid, which wield a staff that's equipped on each end with an energy type blade like the Purge Troopers use.

Legendary Enemy - Frenzied Jotaz

I did pretty terrible in this fight. This is a rather large, chubby beast, though it has one attack that can be hard to evade. I call it the Butt Slide Kick, as he literally slides on his rear, then extends one leg out long and fast, and it can do a lot of damage. He got me twice with this attack, only one of them doing major damage, but I don't mind so much, because it's kind of hilarious to see.

Force Tear - Fractured Cunning

The rest of the four vids I experimented with using HDR. I first tried the NvTrueHDR mod, but when I adjusted the settings in the Nvidia Overlay Filters tab, I didn't get anywhere near the results I did using it with Dead Space 2023. It actually looked a fair bit worse than vanilla in fact. I'm assuming this is because the game does not actually support HDR. I then tried only turning on HDR in Windows, without the mod, and it does look a bit nicer, but not like true crisp HDR. So the rest of these have half baked HDR.

This Force Tear requires you use only Blaster stance, which was OK with me as I already had it equipped as one of my stances, and I had I think all but one skill purchased in it's tree too. Wave 1 is two Shield Scout Troopers and several Rawkas. Wave 2 is two Bedlam Raider Veterans. The final wave is two Shield Scout Troopers and a Haxion Brood Grenadier.

Force Tear - Fractured Tradition

This Force Tear requires you use only Single Blade stance. This was unexpected for me, and I not only didn't have it equipped as one of my stances, I didn't have very many skills in it's tree unlocked. This fight is just one big battle with two B1 Melee Battle Droids, two B2 Battle Droids, Two Bedlam Raider Veterans, and a Purge Trooper with double tipped staff.

It's kind of annoying but funny to watch that BD-1 runs to hack damaged droids, then returns to you the same way, when he simply uses his thrusters to fly to you when not in combat. As a result, both droids died too soon, so couldn't be used against enemies.

Force Tear - Fractured Dexterity

This Force Tear requires you use Dual Wield stance only, which was fine by me, as it was already one of the stances I had equipped. Wave 1 is three Gorgers, and four B1 Rifle Battle Droids, one equipped with grenades. Wave 2 is two Bedlam Raider Grunts and two Rawkas. Wave 3 is several Shiverpedes. Wave 4 is a Purge Trooper with double tipped staff, and a BX Commando Droid with Sword and Blaster. The final wave is four B1 Melee Battle Droids and a Mogu. This was a hard fight that took longer than the others.

Force Tear - Fractured Malice

This fight has not one but two Rancors you have to fight at the same time. What's strange is if you explore the rooftops, this battle can be found in the starting location Coruscant. Most seem to save it for toward the end of the game though, as it helps to have a lot of upgrades. Truth be told, since these beasts move slow, it's not as hard as one might think. It only took me roughly a half min longer than the fight against one Rancor. I like that BD-1 pats you on the back after beating this one.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I've got 5 for you this time, and it brings me to the end of the game. There will be one more minimal mop up after game post of 4 videos though, all Bounties. I'm no longer using HDR in Windows, as the game's lack of support for it makes dark scenes look too blue, and bright objects like the sabers look too blurry.

Legendary Enemy - Spawn of Oggdo

As the name suggests, this is the spawn of the original Oggdo giant frog from Fallen Order, and he's MUCH bigger than a tadpole! In this game however you cannot cut off their tongue like in Fallen Order, and like the Raptor, if you get caught by it, you're dead. The tongue only reaches so far, but I find the best tactic is staying in fairly close range using Blaster stance, stunning it with a charged shot, followed by saber strikes to refill ammo.

This is probably why you cannot hack away at their tongues anymore when grabbed, meaning doom. Blaster stance is so effective you can stand right in front of it and a charged shot will still stun them, even if highlighted red for an unblockable attack as they stick their tongue out. It's the ultimate payback if you're getting eaten a lot.

Force Tear - Fractured History

This is the fight you get for beating Spawn of Oggdo, it's a tag team of the Spawn and his dad! This is often revered as being the toughest battle in the game, but honestly, the aforementioned charged shot followed by saber strikes method works well here too. You DO have to do more dodging though, especially while both are still alive.

This method is so effective though, I didn't have to use any Slow on the first one, and by the time I activated it for the second one, he was already ready for a finisher, so it wasn't even needed. Maybe it's just me, but I actually have a tougher time with just groups of heavy troopers and certain human bosses than these guys and the Raptors.

I think a big part of the reason I struggle with multiple enemies though is the target lock system is very clunky, whether you use Auto Target or not. It constantly wants to unlock without Auto, and lock on a target you don't want to with Auto. This may or may not be more of a problem with Mouse (which is what I use), than Gamepad, I've not asked around.

I have to admit though, the other reason I struggle with groups is me having a hard time remembering all the key combos to use for certain skills, and even just forgetting to use certain simple Force moves, like Lift, Slam, etc. I will no doubt HAVE to force myself to use such things on Jedi Master, but I will first play it on NG+, and the Dark Power alone makes up for it.

---MAJOR SPOILER WARNING HERE---

Finding Bode

This is the last half of the mission, Locate the Traitor. Little did I know they would hand you the Dark power well before the final boss fight. I always assumed you get it for beating the game. This mission actually makes you think they hand it out like candy, because it regens very fast, and lasts a long time. There's a confusing part near the end though where in trying to use it, the Attack button suddenly does nothing. It's supposed to be used with Merren at that point, but they don't make it clear how. So it's just one of those awkward moments in the game.

Align Arrays at Koboh Control Center

This is a mission where through a holo message from Santari, you find out there's another way to get through the nebula after Bode escapes again with the compass.

---MORE MAJOR SPOILERS---

Confront Bode on Tanalorr

And this is it, the final battle. This has one of the best cutscenes in the game where you fly through the nebula, so I didn't want to capture just the boss fight. Bode is very capable at battle. He uses shock, and frag mines, and a mine he can put on your chest with an unblockable move that's hard to dodge. He also has some good Blaster shots he uses, as well as Force powers, and his Force AOE attacks in the final phase are very damaging and hard to dodge. Even when you use the Dark power, it does not overwhelm him like it does others, you have to be good at blocking, parrying or dodging while using it. He uses the Dark power himself, so I see why.

This includes a cutscene at the end to put things in perspective emotionally and setup the scenario leading into the next game.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well, turns out I was a bit wrong about the mop ups. There WILL be 4 Bounty videos to come, but I forgot I hadn't checked to see if I'd done all the Force Tears. As such, I discovered I'd only done 10 of 15. So this is 5 Force Tear videos, Part 1 of the mop ups if you will. One is platforming, and the rest are combat.

Force Tear - Fractured Duality

This is a multi wave combat Tear with a Dual Blade stance only challenge, hence Duality. Wave one is a single Heavy Assault Stormtrooper, whom wield the Z-6 Rotary Blaster Canon (a sort of minigun), and have an energy shield. Wave two is 4 more HA Troopers, and a Shield Scout Trooper. Wave three is 4 more HA Troopers, and 2 BX Melee Droids. The Final Wave is 5 Stormtroopers, a HA Trooper, and 2 BX Melee Droids.

Force Tear - Fractured Punishment

This is a single combat type Tear with 3 Rawkas, and 2 Sutabans. Here I used Dual Wield stance.

Force Tear - Fractured Delusion

This is another multi wave type combat Tear. Wave one is 3 Gorgers and Soont Madas, a Gotarite Priorite Prospector. Wave two is 2 BX Melee Droids, and somehow Soont Madas appears yet again. The Final Wave is 2 DT Sentry Droids, one melee, the other melee/blaster, and Soont Madas makes yet another appearance. I used Dual Wield stance again.

Force Tear - Fractured Burden

This is a Tear that's a bit perplexing. It's a single battle that has a Gorocco, a Bilemaw, and a Mogu, but all three look like the Legendary versions of their species. They also seem tougher than the regular versions. Since some Force Tears have beasts that are actually called Legendary though, I have to assume these aren't quite as tough. At first this fight seemed pretty tough. Then I figured a neat way to use the Bilemaw to shield me from the more aggressive Mogu, stepping out now and then to toss my sabers at the Mogu. I did this until I had enough Force built up to use the Dark power to finish of the Mogu after downing the Bilemaw, then carefully dodged the Gorocco's attacks. Dual Wield here once more.

Force Tear - Fractured Agility

This is a platforming Tear that seems daunting at first, but once you know the route, is quite easy. To be honest, I thought Force Tear - Fractured Determination (This one > View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwD7anOqceA ) ...took more skill.
It's mainly because the floating balloons this one has allow you to pause to easily time and align your jumps.

 

[Frag Maniac]

And here we are at the very end. This is 4 Bounty videos as promised, and I found another Boss Fight as well. I also decided to add a very short clip of two of the more pesky Scavenger Droids that can be hard to catch. So 6 videos total, and there won't likely be anymore unless by chance I happen on another boss fight or two while trying to 100% the collectibles in each region.

Bounty - Corde and PR-85T

I didn't do very well in this fight. It takes place in a spot where you have to watch your step, which can limit how much space you have to fight in. Corde is a Haxion Brood Gunslinger. Her "Other Half" PR-85T is a Haxion Brood Bounty Droid, which is heavily modified by Corde having cannibalized parts from other droids.

Scavenger Droids

These are two of the more difficult to catch Scavenger Droids in the game, who typically have Jedha Scrolls. The reason you have to chase these droids is they are only vulnerable to melee attacks. If you use anything else, they will just immediately escape. The first one is literally like chasing a chicken, because it takes off in open space and you have to hope you can cut it off before it digs a hole and escapes. The second one is found in a very windy tunnel. The only way I could outsmart it was to take a death defying jump to approach it while moving with vs against the wind.

Bounty - Masi, Fenn, and Cleo

This is a fight against the Finau brothers and their Bounty Droid KLE-O. I didn't do very well in this fight either. I basically waited a fraction of a second too long to try to dodge Cleo's attacks, but was already pinned against a wall by it. As a result I got killed after defeating Fenn, and had to respawn to finish off the other two. I managed to end it in style after defeating them with a pretty cool finisher move on the Purge Trooper wielding an Electrostaff though.

Bounty - Jo The Cannibal

This is the 2nd of the two hardest Bounties, so again, there was a small army of enemies to get through. This one however managed to get the Bedlam Raiders to join in with the Haxion Brood, so it's a bit tougher than Kili Oso's gang was on Timeworn Bridge. This one takes place at Viscid Bog's Lucrehulk Core area. It occurred to me in the early part of this one that BD-1 must have some pretty high tech feet to not only resist significant wear sliding down a super long zip line cable, but they must also be made of some heat resistant material to not burn through Cal's clothes, or Cal himself!

Hytho Pixx - Boss Fight

Hytho Pixx is a Bedlam Raider Lieutenant who wields a Crossguard stance lightsaber and Blaster, and can also cloak. Two BX Rifle Droids accompany Hytho, and they can throw grenades as well. For this reason I used a defensive strategy at the start from a distance, deflecting shots and pushing grenades.

Bounty - Caij Vanda

Here's where it gets interesting, turns out our bounty taskmaster Caij, after the bounty on Cal's head has significantly increased doing her bidding, has accepted a bounty on you. Worse yet, she is how the Empire was able to track you! For this bounty I added a special treat that was at first to be a background battle song I chose because I thought it fit her. She took me by surprise with her swoop attack though, and the 2nd attempt ended up being too short to fit the song well, so I used it as an intro instead. I'd forgotten to turn off the fight music in the game anyway.

The way to handle this fight is to stay close to her, as she only does the swoop attack from a distance. If you don't manage to dodge it, you're dead. I'm sorry to say the song was blocked in Russia for some reason, but everywhere else it should be audible.

I find Caij to be one of the more interesting characters in the game, and I love how she's voiced. So it's a bit of a bittersweet ending. At least we get to see one of the most iconic characters in the Star Wars universe "swoop" in himself at the end.

Trivia Question: Besides obviously being mean and green, what do you think I saw as being this Green Manalishi's "Two Pronged Crown"?