The Great lightsaber debate

 Cut or Run

You hear a lot about the 'state of modern gaming' these days, and for very good reason given the fact that modern games are subject to some of the most frustratingly avaricious trends that sacrifice the good and fun for vapid jabs at profitability as this medium becomes steadily too valuable for the 'vampires' of the industrial world to go on ignoring. For those that bemoan the continued niche-perception that video games are subjected to in common media, know that the second that wall is breached is the moment that AAA gaming will become the new Hollywood, with all the draining exploitation that will surely engender. But until then we can argue about the genuine problems with the industry hand-in-hand with quirks of game design that some people just can't seem to wrap their heads around; key among them- Lightsabers, oh how I'm sick of hearing about the Lightsabers!

So you probably know about Lightsabers right? George Lucas' futuristic answer to the longsword, made up of cutting plasma light capable of slicing through anything and growing slowly less deadly the longer that Disney has the Star Wars Licence. (By this point getting stabbed by a Lightsaber is like getting jabbed with a hot poker- it'll leave a scar but you'll back up and at 'em in about an hour or so.) Now within the lore the Lightsaber should be a weapon unlike any other. Weightless, (although that is debateable at times) bladeless (yet just as slice-worthy as Wolverine's claws) and hot enough to literally melt a good chunk of your organs within a few milliseconds of a stab. Yes, even Darth Maul's robot-legged resurrection, as cool and hard-fought as that was, is utterly ridiculous in the face of a lore that says his entire inner torso should have been sludge. But why doesn't it feel like that in Star Wars video games?

I've seen full-throated complaints about 'modern Star Wars games' (as though this hasn't always been the case- source: guy who has played literally every Star Wars game ever made.) pertaining to the lack of cutting potential of the Lightsaber. Now to some point I do understand this, as the signature weapon of the franchise there's a certain responsibility of damaging potential for the Lightsaber which, when it isn't met, can feel disrespectful to the weapon- but that isn't what gets people riled up! People are upset that Lightsabers don't instantly cut through every enemy in the game with a single swipe and slice them into little glowing chunks, and somehow those same people seem utterly blind to the many ways creating a weapon like that, which operates in that exact fashion, would lead to a slate of less fun Star Wars games. I don't even think you need to delve into 'higher design ideals' to interpret this, just use your common sense!

But for the sake of the arguement we can bring up the one game that does actually work like this. The Dark Forces series. In those games, although specifically in the later entries, Lightsabers are brought in as this ultimate weapon that the main character can draw out in the middle of a fight and which they discover as the protagonist awakens to his latent force potential. It's a brutal one hit kill weapon, but in a  series with sprites and so lacking that visceral nature people are seeking. I think the game that people really want out of Lightsabers would be the last one in the Dark Forces series, Jedi Academy- not just because it features more freeform Lightsaber-centric combat, but because you go up against Lightsaber wielding enemies about midway through the game so we can actually go into the problems here. Although I'll leave it to the table to figure out: What do you think happens when you give the NPC's one hit kill weapons? Yeah, that's about the long and short of it.

Jedi Academy is punishingly difficult in it's later sections, and Lightsaber wielding enemies are appropriately few and far between and any battle with them turns into a mad flurry of blades where you grit your teeth and pray you get lucky- because that's what realism gets you. Compare that with the enemies of the excellent 'Jedi: Fallen Order'. That's a game which those who identify this 'problem' label as the poster child for 'bad Lightsaber psychics'. In 'Fallen Order' the Lightsaber has to swing a couple of times in order to kill an enemy, more so for heavy wielding enemies, and obviously a lot more so for boss fights. But here's the thing- Fallen Order is a lot more fun to play than Jedi Academy, from a bare basic level and not just because of the several years of general technological improvement between them. How can this be the case without that all important 'realism'?

'Fallen Order' aims to sell the illusion of the player being a developing padawan slowly getting to grips with their abilities and prowess and they fight to survive in a galaxy that is hunting them down. It presents a functional combat with timing and combos all the basic elements a simple action RPG game really needs to present a journey of steadily improving deftness. Suspend your disbelief and Cal plays the way you would want a game like his to play, with a Souls tint to it. There's challenge, room to improve, gameplay balance, gameplay options- all aspects of design that would be made totally moot if the Lightsaber simply cut through everything like butter except for other Lightsabers. So you would take screen accuracy, and sacrifice half the elements of what gives the gameplay it's resounding depth? Call me crazy, but that sounds like a really bad deal to my ears!

And let's not pretend that Fallen Order totally destroys the illusion of the Lightsaber being a powerful weapon to begin with! Cal's Saber swiftly cuts through weapon wielding mobs with no trouble whatsoever, there aren't Stormtropper chunks flying everywhere sure (which is more of a compliant to bring up with the tone of the Star Wars franchise in general than just with the gaming portions specifically) but the trash mobs do go down in a single strike! Troops designed to look sturdier, heavy artillery, meaty animals, other force users- those are the only one's that can really take a back-and-forth with the kid, and in every instance there's a suitable enough effort made on the developer's end to sell the illusion. It's really the stubborn bitterness of the player to want to be upset which is propagating the dissatisfaction at that point, and if you want to be annoyed then do the world a favour and shut up about it so you can whine all alone- but if you want to actually have an arguement, then try and measure up gameplay against the thin veil of accuracy and see which is more important in your mind. It should be obvious where I trend.

There are a great many little quirks of design that work against the fiction of the world but benefit all and require only the slightest amount of hand waving in order to forgive. In many ways the refining of development tricks across the years has been the art of reducing the gap between the functional and the believable so they become as seamless as possible. Oftentimes cries for 'realism' miss the point of what it is people even want out of games, as though removing all 'interaction colours' from game worlds will somehow elevate the game worlds to untold standards of immersion when you're stuck whacking every inch of the scenery for items because the developers aren't allowed to highlight useful interactables. How many pointless arguments in life would be prevented if everyone took half a moment to think before they moan? A genuine question which troubles me to no end.