[SPOILERS] Jedi: Fallen Order (Story Review)

It starts off with Cal working as scrapper on the planet Bracca. The only person he trusts is an alien named Prauff (might be spelled wrong). One day, he uses the Force to save Prauff, and it leads two Inquisitors (the Second Sister and the Ninth Sister) to Bracca, along with a bunch of purge troopers. Cal barely manages to escape his confrontation with the Second Sister, thanks to a former Jedi named Cere and the captain of the Mantis (which is a starship) named Greeze. Cere then takes Cal to the planet Bogano, which the Empire has no record of, and tells him to go into the ancient temple. He does so, discovering a droid called BD-1 on the way. Cal then discovers a recording of a Jedi master named Cordova, who hid a holocron within that very temple. The holocron contained a list of all Force-sensitive children across the galaxy. But the holocron is locked away, and it can only be recovered by someone who follows in "Cordova's Path". The Zeffo people were a particular interest of Cordova's, which leads Cal to travel to the Zeffo homeworld, which is annoyingly named Zeffo, making it complicated. (I'll simply refer to them as the Zeffo people and the Zeffo homeworld.)

On the Zeffo homeworld, Cal discovers a tomb. In it, he finds pretty much nothing, except perhaps another lead. He finds, established in the walls of the tomb, bark from trees from Kashyyyk, establishing his next destination. He seeks out Tarfful on Kashyyyk, but comes up empty after his raid on the Imperial prison with Saw Garrera. One of Garrera's rebels assures him she'll keep an eye out and let him know if she finds Tarfful. In the meantime, he returns to the Zeffo homeworld to investigate further. The next tomb he finds has already been raided by the Empire, which frustrates him. He faces off against the Second Sister, who reveals herself to be Trilla, Cere's old apprentice, who had been given up to the Empire by the former Jedi. Cal manages to escape. He tries to return to the Mantis, but bounty hunters intercept him and capture him. He breaks out of their prison thanks to Greeze and the Mantis, and gets back on track. He confronts Cere about her past, and she makes a futile attempt to avoid the topic. She's saved by an incoming transmission, in which Garrera's rebel reports that she's found Tarfful, and sends the coordinates.

Cal traverses the Shadowlands on Kashyyyk and makes his way to Tarfful, who reports that Cordova had a fascination with the top of the Origin Tree. Cal makes his way up there, where the Ninth Sister confronts him. He manages to cut off her hand and shove her off of the canopy, then continues his quest, where he finds a message by Cordova that explains how to open the Vault on the Borgano temple: a device created by the Zeffo people called the "Atrium", which is apparently what the Empire had taken from the second temple on the Zeffo homeworld. With no other options, Cal travels to Dathomir to find another Atrium in the dark temple on the planet. He's interrupted quickly by a Nightsister who accused him of trespassing, and told him that Jedi murderers were not welcome on her planet. Cal has to fight his way past many Nightbrothers, until he finds a mysterious wanderer, who's extremely cryptic. He does warn Cal, however, not to journey near the dark temple. Cal does, anyways, and finds himself in a vision. He relives Order 66, and feels the guilt of his master's death. Then his vision forces him to fight his master. After delivering the final blow, the vision fades, and Cal finds himself with a broken lightsaber. He leaves the temple, which is when he learns that the mysterious man is a former Jedi named Taron Malicos. Malicos, who claims to still be a Jedi, tries to tempt Cal with the power of the Dark Side of the Force. They're interrupted by the returning Nightsister, who accuses Taron Malicos for being a hypocrite, and again threatens Cal. The Jedi padawan flees on the Mantis, where Cere tells Greeze to set a course for Ilum.

On Ilum, Cal reconstructs his lightsaber, and fights past a bunch of Imperials. Upon returning to the Mantis, Greeze once again sets a course Dathomir. Cal faces the vision again, but this time, yields to the vision of his master, who then reminds Cal to trust only in the Force. The vision fades, and the path ahead of Cal is cleared. He moves forwards and encounters a less hostile version of the Nightsister, who reveals herself to be named Merrin. She leads Cal to Malicos, where the two Jedi face off. Malicos initially overpowers Cal, but thanks to Merrin's assistance, Malicos is defeated, and Merrin apologizes to Cal, who then corrects what she thought she believed about the Jedi. Cal retrieves the Atrium from the dark temple and then offers a spot on his crew to Merrin, who declines. Cal shares his past with her, and Merrin decides it's time to stop waiting for revenge, and time to start discovering her destiny. She does, however, bring up a concern: wouldn't retrieving the holocron only endanger those children, rather than keep them safe? Cal disagrees with that logic, however.

They all return to Bogano, where Cal uses the Atrium. He discovers a vision in which he has a Jedi Grandmaster, training many Jedi padawans. Then the vision shifts as the Empire attacks the padawans, and Cal finds he can't protect them all. The vision shifts again, and Cal can now be seen wearing Inquisitor armor, and wielding a red lightsaber. He finds a mirror of himself as a Jedi padawan, becomes angry, and smashes it, which ends the vision. Cal turns and finds the holocron and retrieves it. Then, the Trilla drops in and duels him. Cal manages to best her, but she manages to steal the holocron and flee while her lightsaber shares her past with Cal. Now understanding what Cere and Trilla went through, Cal finds it within himself to forgive Cere, and the crew goes to infiltrate the Fortress Inquisitorous (probably spelled wrong). The two Jedi fight through the fortress, though separately. Cal ends up locating Trilla, and beats her in a duel once again. This time, she's hopeless before him, and he has retrieved the holocron. Cere shows up and talks to Trilla, who then displays a conflicted expression before Darth Vader shows up and kills Trilla for failing him.

Vader then hurls Cere off a ledge and chases Cal, who barely manages to escape...but not for long, as Vader anticipates Cal's path and intercepts him. Cere, who didn't actually die, intervenes, and the two of them together barely fend off Vader, but Cal realizes it's going to be a little too close, and shatters some glass. The building then starts flooding, forcing Vader to send all his concentration on keeping the flood away from him, while Cal and Cere swim away. The two are saved by Merrin shortly before they would've drowned, and Cal awakens with a lightsaber wound from his confrontation with Vader. He goes against Greeze's advice to rest and moves to the lounge, where he finds Merrin, Cere, and BD-1. Cere tells Cal that he succeeded, and they've obtained the holocron and can begin rebuilding the Jedi Order. But Cal thinks about his vision and Merrin's warning, and has a change of heart. Activating his lightsaber, he destroys the holocron and tells Cere that the childrens' fates are now with the Force, and they cannot intervene and endanger their lives. This concludes the story of the game.

Obviously, Cal and Cere can't survive forever. Something'll happen, and they'll die or retreat to the Unknown Regions. This leaves options for the following possibilities:

1) Perhaps the Jedi Archives are incomplete. Maybe Yoda was wrong. Maybe there were more Jedi than just him and Luke left. After all, how would he know if Cal survived after all?

2) A sequel video game, which I would totally be up for. EA apparently has one last Star Wars game they're going to make before their license expires; perhaps it's a Jedi: Fallen Order sequel. This is the most likely future.

3) Maybe they'll add a DLC to Jedi: Fallen Order. If it costs money, there'll be backlash, however if it's free, it'll give me more content to play and make me more satisfied with EA's latest game.

4) They'll add to the story in some other form of media. Maybe a movie, maybe a book, maybe a comic...but something. This is honestly the least likely (by a longshot), but I would be excited if Lucasfilms did a Jedi: Fallen Order movie.

5) This is also incredibly likely, but nothing happens. We never figure out what happens to Cal, though he suffers from some demise before A New Hope. If EA's other Star Wars project (which is reportedly in creation right now) isn't a Jedi: Fallen Order sequel, this is the most likely option, as EA may not get to renew their license. 

I've gotta say, though, I love the story in this game. It's gripping, keeps you entertained, and flows nearly with the world around you. However, while I usually just play games for the story, I must say, I was hesitant to follow the story; I wanted to explore each and every planet as much as possible before following more of the story. My one complaint is that the game designers said the game was linear, however you'd get to choose which planets to go to first. I went to Dathomir before Kashyyyk, but it turns out, to get anywhere in the Dathomir storyline, you need to unlock double-jump, which is unlocked deep within the Kashyyyk storyline. So you definitely couldn't choose the order in which you completed the story, you could only visit some small sections of planets before you were interrupted.