Ever since Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy (JO & JA for short) , every Star Wars game has struggled with lightsaber combat.
The thing is that the Jedi Games don't "look" very impressive but the Lightsaber manages to feel very different to traditional Melee weapons in other games:
Before talking about those games more, let's look at the SW games released since then that have had lightsaber combat.
The Force Unleashed 1 & 2 were met with mixed reviews, but the implementation of force powers was generally received very well. The lightsaber combat though was rather unsatisfying and simple.
Battlefronts' lightsabers feel like glowing baseball bats and the melee combat itself is more wildly flailing around than using a Saber with style and precision.
Fallen Order actually seems to be much better than TFU and Battlefront, with a combat system that's more remeniscient of Dark Souls, although there are still a lot of comments talking about the sabers acting more like glowing baseball bats (I actually don't agree with that perception anymore)
So, what makes a "good" lightsaber combat system and what can the newer games learn from Jedi Outcast and Academy?
There are a few points I personally think that matter in that regard:
- Dismemberment. Quite simply, the Lightsaber is supposed to cut through everything and dismemberment immensely helps selling that visually. We all don't remember realisticsabercombat_1 for nothing. As Disney does not seem to want any kind of dismemberment on Humans, at least in Fallen Order, they seem to work around that by using droids.
- Always doing damage: what I really liked about the Jedi games is that the Saber had a constantly active hitbox, even outside of the attack animations. You could kill an enemy by simply touching him with the Saber. This is very hard to do with a traditional, moveset-based combat system and the reason why I think the "perfect" star wars game gives the player a more direct way to control the Lightsabers' movement. Maybe something like For Honor could act as as a base idea. JO and JA actually did this very smoothly with a neutral position that had the tip of the Lightsaber pointed towards the enemy. This, together with the always active hit box, allowed the player to basically simulate free-form "mini-attacks" outside of the canned aimations by moving the mouse around.
- Building on that: quick deaths by one fatal blow. In my opinion, what made the Jedi games' combat so good was that one good hit could kill the enemy, unceremoniously and swift. In Fallen Order for example, normal enemies also die by one hit but there seem to be a lot of canned finishing-blow-animations that kinda take the edge of how quick a lightsaber duel can be over. It disconnects the player from the immediate action.
- Hit reaction: I absolutely dislike how enemies physically react to getting hit with a lightsaber. They should not be pushed back by the hit or even be launched in the air like with a normal sword (.... a normal video game sword) , but be cut through like butter and more or less collapse on the spot. The Lightsaber feels more dangerous the less the Enemies actually physically react to it. (This is also something that would be greatly helped by a good dismemberment system.) As seen in the gif above, that's something I think Fallen Order actually does quite well.
So, that's all I got, what are your thoughts on this obviously highly important topic?
The thing is that the Jedi Games don't "look" very impressive but the Lightsaber manages to feel very different to traditional Melee weapons in other games:
Before talking about those games more, let's look at the SW games released since then that have had lightsaber combat.
The Force Unleashed 1 & 2 were met with mixed reviews, but the implementation of force powers was generally received very well. The lightsaber combat though was rather unsatisfying and simple.
Battlefronts' lightsabers feel like glowing baseball bats and the melee combat itself is more wildly flailing around than using a Saber with style and precision.
Fallen Order actually seems to be much better than TFU and Battlefront, with a combat system that's more remeniscient of Dark Souls, although there are still a lot of comments talking about the sabers acting more like glowing baseball bats (I actually don't agree with that perception anymore)
So, what makes a "good" lightsaber combat system and what can the newer games learn from Jedi Outcast and Academy?
There are a few points I personally think that matter in that regard:
- Dismemberment. Quite simply, the Lightsaber is supposed to cut through everything and dismemberment immensely helps selling that visually. We all don't remember realisticsabercombat_1 for nothing. As Disney does not seem to want any kind of dismemberment on Humans, at least in Fallen Order, they seem to work around that by using droids.
- Always doing damage: what I really liked about the Jedi games is that the Saber had a constantly active hitbox, even outside of the attack animations. You could kill an enemy by simply touching him with the Saber. This is very hard to do with a traditional, moveset-based combat system and the reason why I think the "perfect" star wars game gives the player a more direct way to control the Lightsabers' movement. Maybe something like For Honor could act as as a base idea. JO and JA actually did this very smoothly with a neutral position that had the tip of the Lightsaber pointed towards the enemy. This, together with the always active hit box, allowed the player to basically simulate free-form "mini-attacks" outside of the canned aimations by moving the mouse around.
- Building on that: quick deaths by one fatal blow. In my opinion, what made the Jedi games' combat so good was that one good hit could kill the enemy, unceremoniously and swift. In Fallen Order for example, normal enemies also die by one hit but there seem to be a lot of canned finishing-blow-animations that kinda take the edge of how quick a lightsaber duel can be over. It disconnects the player from the immediate action.
- Hit reaction: I absolutely dislike how enemies physically react to getting hit with a lightsaber. They should not be pushed back by the hit or even be launched in the air like with a normal sword (.... a normal video game sword) , but be cut through like butter and more or less collapse on the spot. The Lightsaber feels more dangerous the less the Enemies actually physically react to it. (This is also something that would be greatly helped by a good dismemberment system.) As seen in the gif above, that's something I think Fallen Order actually does quite well.
So, that's all I got, what are your thoughts on this obviously highly important topic?
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