I don’t think I’ve ever been as frustrated with an inanimate object in a video game as I have with this goddamn rope in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
I’ve been messing around with Fallen Order in brief spurts since it launched last November, but only recently set my mind to a serious playthrough. It’s been neat, if only because I’m a sucker for both the Star Wars setting and Dark Souls-cribbing gameplay. That said, I’m convinced that the developers at Respawn Entertainment didn’t actually want players to have fun. Movement of any kind is a chore, main character Cal Kestis is about as charismatic as a bowl of plain oatmeal, and the game punishes you for expecting any kind of consistency.
Take, for instance, the aforementioned rope. This thing is absolutely cursed. Not because of anything it does, really, but because of the way it disregards a fundamental truth that Fallen Order had taught me up to this point, namely that conspicuously hanging ropes are climbable and important.
After finding that I was unable to make a long jump en route to an important objective on Dathomir, I scanned the surrounding area for another path. I quickly came across a rope dangling above a void, with platforms far below that indicated, at least to me, that this was my detour. Upon jumping toward the rope, however, I passed right through and plummeted into the bottomless hole below. Cal respawned on solid ground, a small chunk of lost health mirroring the psychological damage to my pride.
While I would normally write off such a situation as a simple mistake, this one stuck in my craw. Fallen Order is full of ropes. Absolutely lousy with them, in fact. I’d say a good 10% of my time with the game upon reaching Dathomir had been spent climbing ropes. So why did the developers feel it necessary to completely buck the trend now? I found myself cursing this rope, even as I travelled to other planets. Sure, Dathomir may have poisonous spiders and Force-wielding witches, but that damned rope will always be my greatest nemesis.
Playing a video game can often feel like a virtual tug-of-war between you and the people who made the game. Sometimes you win, sometimes they get one over on you with a clever trick or trap. But I don’t really feel like the Fallen Order developers earned this death. I already know I’m silly for spamming attacks when I should be blocking and parrying; please don’t make me feel like even more of an idiot for following your game’s rules.
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