Playing a much anticipated game on its release date (or “Day One”) is always exciting. However, that also means you have the chance of running into some well-known “Day One” issues. Many of these problems end up being fixed through early patches and updates, while others may stick around for future updates.

I first played Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order when it was released in November of 2019 on my PlayStation 4 Pro. I remember running into many technical problems. Still, there was nothing too intrusive or game breaking. I mostly ran into strange animation hiccups. I also found some glitches that were noticeable but not enough to ruin the full experience.

Earlier this year, I replayed Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. This time the upgraded next-gen version on my PlayStation 5. It was a much smoother experience overall. Maybe it’s better to play some of these big AAA titles a few months to a year after they release.

Why not sit back and enjoy your backlog while the dev team updates and enhances the game experience before you take a crack at it. Horizon: Forbidden West came out over a year ago, and I have still yet to play that game. It’s currently downloaded and waiting for when I do finish Star Wars Jedi Survivor. If you wait long enough you may even have the chance to pick up the “Game of the Year” edition, featuring a fully-optimized version, equipped with any post-release content.

NEXT BIG THING

As a gamer, I’m always excited for the NEXT BIG GAME — whatever that may be for me. There have been times where I tell myself I don’t need to play a game right away, only to find myself driving to Best Buy on release day to pick it up. Of course, with Summer Game Fest happening later this week, I will definitely be adding more games to my upcoming hype list.

Currently, everyone I know with a Nintendo Switch is playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I was lucky enough to find a Collector’s Edition at Target, so I picked it up. However, I did tell myself that I wouldn’t start Tears of the Kingdom until I was fully done playing Star Wars Jedi Suvivor.

I lasted only two weeks before finally jumping back into Hyrule in Tears of the Kingdom. Although this is a single player game, it has become a shared phenomenon across the internet with players sharing their crazy builds and wacky puzzle solving tactics. This was part of the reason why I had to start playing early and break my own rule.

Right before I started playing Tears of the Kingdom an update was released to correct a strange “duplication glitch.” By starting the game after this glitch was patched out I totally missed out on taking advantage of its benefits. Now, I’m not the type of player who usually exploits a glitch in a game, but I now will never have the chance to do so. By waiting a couple of weeks to start the game I missed out on this.

Back to “Day One”

Playing the next-gen upgraded version of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order earlier this year was such a great experience that (1) I knew I wasn’t going to be able to wait on playing Star Wars Jedi Survivor, and (2) I thought how can they even improve on this game? They did, but I’ll talk about that in a later post.

For now, I wanted to focus on some of the technical problems I have experienced during Star Wars Jedi Survivor. After two playthroughs of the original game and having a better experience with the next-gen version, is it worth it to wait?

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What are some of the problems I ran into while playing Star Wars Jedi Survivor?

Some of the smaller problems, which I had experienced previously in my first playthrough of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, included delayed loading of textures in cutscenes and menus, strange animation hiccups and glitches, plus a few times the game froze when exiting. This last one could have been a bigger problem if my save file was corrupted, but luckily I just had to close and reopen the game and everything was fine.

That first batch of problems includes things you might notice, but that don’t really take away from the gaming experience. These are mostly the types of problems I ran into with my first playthrough of the original game. Things that make you think, that’s weird, but let’s keep going.

I also ran into some bigger problems in Star Wars Jedi Survivor. First, there were many items and even passageways that I knew Cal had to interact with to move on. However, the interact option would not appear on first contact. Instead, I had to move around and approach the subject once again (sometimes more than once) before being allowed to interact and continue. Luckily this game has great level design,
so I almost always knew when this was happening and what my objective was.

At one point I knew that I had to Force Push a particular object to unlock a path and advance. I continued to Force Push, but the object would not budge, or even become highlighted. I was instead forced to exit and reopen the game before I was able to move the object and continue.

The most frustrating problem was during the final boss fight. I have posted a video below of one of the glitches I ran into during this fight (*Spoiler Alert: Do not watch this video if you haven’t reached the final boss fight). I ran into other forms of this during the fight as well. In the end I had to lower the difficulty for this boss fight because I was becoming frustrated.

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So, was it worth it to play Star Wars Jedi Survivor on “Day One?” Even with these problems, I’ve still had a great time with this game, world, story, and the characters. My advice is that if you still haven’t played this game, you can probably hold out a bit longer for a better optimized experience.

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Another reason why I had to play this game early is because myVGBC.com was given a review code by the publisher. I am almost done with the game and cannot wait to share more about the actual game and not just the technical problems I ran into.