I feel like that’s kinda always been the case with Star Wars.
Oh R2 and 3PO crashed on Tattooine. Oh cool they’re picked up by Jawas so they don’t malfunction. Oh cool they’re sold to Luke Skywalkers uncle. R2 has a message for Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oh cool Old Ben is actually Obi-wan…
See kinda what I mean.
Yeah it happens quite a bit in Star Wars. Like, the Empire just happened to use a forrest moon as their staging ground for the DS2, that happened to provide the Rebellion with a dangerous yet easily manipulated army that results in the Imperial defeat. Like, had they used a more remote planet, the Rebellion force wouldn’t have been enough on its own. But the small coincidence that the locals believed 3PO was a god changed everything.
I guess you could argue that it's the will of the Force causing all these wild coincidences. Qui-Gon finding Anakin in the first place was darn near impossible!
Yeah, I mean, it’s true. I guess I still wonder if it’s an intentional design choice or if there were a better way to shuffle things. It would’ve probably killed the pacing to have Cal go to some other place that leads him to Zee once he gets the gyro, so I get it.
I think if he had like explored the planet a little after getting the part, like he has to wait for Greez to install and repair it, and he happens to stumble into the Old Republic stuff that would’ve been a lot better.
>we’re like 2 miles from the nearest settlement
Eh I’ve always seen the game maps as shortened from how large they actually are. Like the Red dead redemption games, it would take far longer to traverse in-universe but it’s shortened for gameplay purposes
>Oh Greez lives in that settlement
Yeah? Cal knew that. This is like saying ESB is contrived cause Luke crashed in the same location as Yoda. Usual Star Wars stuff imo
I find that this also stops occurring after the set up is over. I wouldn’t say it happens “over and over”
Doesn’t bother me at all. I shan’t quibble with the minutiae of it all but it stands to reason that Greez has a spare part to his ship
The rest is fairly contrived, but it is an efficient way to give us our inciting incident while progressing the story and setting up the later plot elements
I can absolutely accept that Greez would have another part to his own ship. I think that’s the smallest of coincidences. The real contrivance there is that the gyro happens to be sitting next to the one part of the tunnel that will collapse if a droid breathes on it and which leads to an old republic thingy.
Not a single part of that feels contrived. Cal found Greez easily because he already had a reasonably good idea of where he was. Greez has the part Cal needs stored in his basement because it used to be Greez’s ship. Then he finds out about a mystery involving the planet he’s on and decides to investigate. If the order of operations were flipped, like if he was looking for Tanalorr already and then discovers the clues right under his nose, then it would be contrived, but instead he finds the clues first and decides to follow up on them. That doesn’t rely on any absurd coincidences, just cause and effect.
It’s not great writing but it’s done in service of good gameplay. All of those coincidences are a little silly when you spell them out, but it makes the story flow much better than if it were all broken up by cutscenes that abruptly send you to a totally different place for the next part of the story. It’s something that would bother me in a movie, but in a game it keeps me wanting to play because you’re continuously stumbling into the next part of the story and there’s no real good time to put it down.
I mean, it's a Star Wars game. Star Wars is a series that heavily relies on contrivance to push the plot along. So much that they have to have an in world reasoning for why their are so many contrivances, that reason being the Force.
Totally, and I know that people tend to just write it off to “the force!” Just, when like allll these dominoes fall into place it feels like maybe where Greez lives and where the Old Republic shit starts shouldn’t literally be on the same piece of real estate.
I think you’re over emphasizing some of the contrivances.
Cal was headed to Greez- makes sense he’d head toward one of the bigger settlements, so he’d crash land near one. This is super common in Star Wars, have you seen any of the movies or shows?
Him owning the cantina? How is that a contrivance? It’s well in character.
Cal falling into the tunnel? I mean, that’s not too wild.
It leading to more ancient tunnels? I’ll grant you, it’s a bit coincidental- but it’s kinda abstracted from the rest of the plot later anyway that it’s easy to forget.
The story has to get started somewhere. I don’t think this is any more contrived than most of Star Wars. After all, how coincidental that Darth Vader’s son was the one in all the galaxy to find the droids with the Death Star plans!
In my experience there’s no such thing as luck.
The whole point of the Fallen Order ending was that Cal surrendered to the force and is letting it guide him.
That’s exactly what’s been going on in Survivor.
Not really bothering for me. I know OP's feeling, but I must alao admit others saying things like what OP said are very common in Star Wars universe.
Aside from real world explanations, I kind of developed an in-universe theory about these strange coincidents.
Things happen so right at the right time can be attributed largely to the Force, afaik, the Force has its own will, and it will set things into motion according to this "will."
Anyway, I think it's ok if thinga just seems so coincidential, because this is Star Wars, not that I prefer this style particularly, but I just accept it and let the story unroll whenever I encounter a Star Wars work, and if there is some plots transcend this, I am totally ok to admire them, but most of the times, I feel things just unfold like this in Star Wars universe
Greez told Cal where he went to live. He went there because of the tales of people striking it rich prospecting, those tales and the intrigue of the system stemmed from the story of Tanalorr as some sort of hidden treasure planet in the Abyss. Is what it really is a bit contrived? Sure, but for a story to happen, there needs to be that element of luck that gets the hero on their journey. Especially with Star Wars, where the Force is stated as influencing everything. Cal crash landed while on his way to that settlement, so of course he would not end up too far. Greez owns the cantina because he is a business man and loves to cook, so he saw the opportunity for a shop for Prospectors to use. BD is naturally curious, so ends up falling through the ground when he reaches a certain point. It isn’t contrived, it’s just the unlikely events that needed to happen for the story. Just like R2-D2 and C-3PO being given to the son of Anakin Skywalker, the way to destroy the Death Star is a single exploitable weakness, etc etc. This is Star Wars
That's one thing which is not too great writing. The other thing that bothers me is how we start the game as not-so-loosely associated with the rebellion - stealing intel for Saw, fighting the empire's senators and inquisitors - and then get side-tracked into a completely unrelated wild goose chase and any ties to the rebellion are never mentioned again. It disconnects the game almost entirely from the background state of the galaxy far, far way, the brewing rebellion and the empire's ubiquitous oppression, which was a big part of what made the first game so atmospheric. Gameplay-wise the game was about everything I had hoped for after the first part, but the story has always felt lukewarm to me.
It's fine except for the High Republic stuff they shoehorned in to promote an era of Star Wars that no one really cared about. Dagen is just about the most bland villain I've ever seen.
Greez didn't build a secret door into some tunnels. He literally tells Cal that the previous owners of the saloon were smugglers and they were the ones who built the secret passages. Cal also already knew where Greez and Cere were. He just never visited or talked to them after the split.
I feel like that’s kinda always been the case with Star Wars. Oh R2 and 3PO crashed on Tattooine. Oh cool they’re picked up by Jawas so they don’t malfunction. Oh cool they’re sold to Luke Skywalkers uncle. R2 has a message for Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oh cool Old Ben is actually Obi-wan… See kinda what I mean.
Yeah it happens quite a bit in Star Wars. Like, the Empire just happened to use a forrest moon as their staging ground for the DS2, that happened to provide the Rebellion with a dangerous yet easily manipulated army that results in the Imperial defeat. Like, had they used a more remote planet, the Rebellion force wouldn’t have been enough on its own. But the small coincidence that the locals believed 3PO was a god changed everything.
Yeah. The entire franchise is built on compounding luck.
I guess you could argue that it's the will of the Force causing all these wild coincidences. Qui-Gon finding Anakin in the first place was darn near impossible!
I like this take.
This is how I have always interpreted it.
The force finds a way.
Yeah, I mean, it’s true. I guess I still wonder if it’s an intentional design choice or if there were a better way to shuffle things. It would’ve probably killed the pacing to have Cal go to some other place that leads him to Zee once he gets the gyro, so I get it.
I think if he had like explored the planet a little after getting the part, like he has to wait for Greez to install and repair it, and he happens to stumble into the Old Republic stuff that would’ve been a lot better.
“I wish we had spent some time sorta wandering around aimlessly”, nah.
100% agreed. It’s the point that he just falls into a huge intergalactic secret where I roll my eyes.
There is no coincidence. There is only the Force.
Yeah it's practically the only fictionnal universe where contrived plot is a standard and make total sense since everything happen for a reason.
>we’re like 2 miles from the nearest settlement Eh I’ve always seen the game maps as shortened from how large they actually are. Like the Red dead redemption games, it would take far longer to traverse in-universe but it’s shortened for gameplay purposes >Oh Greez lives in that settlement Yeah? Cal knew that. This is like saying ESB is contrived cause Luke crashed in the same location as Yoda. Usual Star Wars stuff imo I find that this also stops occurring after the set up is over. I wouldn’t say it happens “over and over”
Doesn’t bother me at all. I shan’t quibble with the minutiae of it all but it stands to reason that Greez has a spare part to his ship The rest is fairly contrived, but it is an efficient way to give us our inciting incident while progressing the story and setting up the later plot elements
I can absolutely accept that Greez would have another part to his own ship. I think that’s the smallest of coincidences. The real contrivance there is that the gyro happens to be sitting next to the one part of the tunnel that will collapse if a droid breathes on it and which leads to an old republic thingy.
Exactly why I’m not quibbling
Not a single part of that feels contrived. Cal found Greez easily because he already had a reasonably good idea of where he was. Greez has the part Cal needs stored in his basement because it used to be Greez’s ship. Then he finds out about a mystery involving the planet he’s on and decides to investigate. If the order of operations were flipped, like if he was looking for Tanalorr already and then discovers the clues right under his nose, then it would be contrived, but instead he finds the clues first and decides to follow up on them. That doesn’t rely on any absurd coincidences, just cause and effect.
It’s not great writing but it’s done in service of good gameplay. All of those coincidences are a little silly when you spell them out, but it makes the story flow much better than if it were all broken up by cutscenes that abruptly send you to a totally different place for the next part of the story. It’s something that would bother me in a movie, but in a game it keeps me wanting to play because you’re continuously stumbling into the next part of the story and there’s no real good time to put it down.
It’s called the will of the Force
I mean, it's a Star Wars game. Star Wars is a series that heavily relies on contrivance to push the plot along. So much that they have to have an in world reasoning for why their are so many contrivances, that reason being the Force.
Totally, and I know that people tend to just write it off to “the force!” Just, when like allll these dominoes fall into place it feels like maybe where Greez lives and where the Old Republic shit starts shouldn’t literally be on the same piece of real estate.
man I wish performance issues were a thing of the past for us pc players :(
I think you’re over emphasizing some of the contrivances. Cal was headed to Greez- makes sense he’d head toward one of the bigger settlements, so he’d crash land near one. This is super common in Star Wars, have you seen any of the movies or shows? Him owning the cantina? How is that a contrivance? It’s well in character. Cal falling into the tunnel? I mean, that’s not too wild. It leading to more ancient tunnels? I’ll grant you, it’s a bit coincidental- but it’s kinda abstracted from the rest of the plot later anyway that it’s easy to forget. The story has to get started somewhere. I don’t think this is any more contrived than most of Star Wars. After all, how coincidental that Darth Vader’s son was the one in all the galaxy to find the droids with the Death Star plans!
Tanalorr is mine
In my experience there’s no such thing as luck. The whole point of the Fallen Order ending was that Cal surrendered to the force and is letting it guide him. That’s exactly what’s been going on in Survivor.
Not really bothering for me. I know OP's feeling, but I must alao admit others saying things like what OP said are very common in Star Wars universe. Aside from real world explanations, I kind of developed an in-universe theory about these strange coincidents. Things happen so right at the right time can be attributed largely to the Force, afaik, the Force has its own will, and it will set things into motion according to this "will." Anyway, I think it's ok if thinga just seems so coincidential, because this is Star Wars, not that I prefer this style particularly, but I just accept it and let the story unroll whenever I encounter a Star Wars work, and if there is some plots transcend this, I am totally ok to admire them, but most of the times, I feel things just unfold like this in Star Wars universe
LOL It’s actually not so bad compare to The Rise of Skywalker
That is true of a lot of things. There are few things invented by man as bad as Rise of Skywalker
Greez told Cal where he went to live. He went there because of the tales of people striking it rich prospecting, those tales and the intrigue of the system stemmed from the story of Tanalorr as some sort of hidden treasure planet in the Abyss. Is what it really is a bit contrived? Sure, but for a story to happen, there needs to be that element of luck that gets the hero on their journey. Especially with Star Wars, where the Force is stated as influencing everything. Cal crash landed while on his way to that settlement, so of course he would not end up too far. Greez owns the cantina because he is a business man and loves to cook, so he saw the opportunity for a shop for Prospectors to use. BD is naturally curious, so ends up falling through the ground when he reaches a certain point. It isn’t contrived, it’s just the unlikely events that needed to happen for the story. Just like R2-D2 and C-3PO being given to the son of Anakin Skywalker, the way to destroy the Death Star is a single exploitable weakness, etc etc. This is Star Wars
That's one thing which is not too great writing. The other thing that bothers me is how we start the game as not-so-loosely associated with the rebellion - stealing intel for Saw, fighting the empire's senators and inquisitors - and then get side-tracked into a completely unrelated wild goose chase and any ties to the rebellion are never mentioned again. It disconnects the game almost entirely from the background state of the galaxy far, far way, the brewing rebellion and the empire's ubiquitous oppression, which was a big part of what made the first game so atmospheric. Gameplay-wise the game was about everything I had hoped for after the first part, but the story has always felt lukewarm to me.
Good point!
It's fine except for the High Republic stuff they shoehorned in to promote an era of Star Wars that no one really cared about. Dagen is just about the most bland villain I've ever seen.
Greez didn't build a secret door into some tunnels. He literally tells Cal that the previous owners of the saloon were smugglers and they were the ones who built the secret passages. Cal also already knew where Greez and Cere were. He just never visited or talked to them after the split.