His name is Ogdo Bogdo. And he represents Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order at its most Souls-like.
In my review, I mentioned that Respawn’s newest game draws from many AAA wells. It’s got the wall-running of Titanfall, the climbing and pulled-back perspective of old God of War, the puzzle-solving of Zelda, the platforming of Mario, the cinematic presentation of Uncharted, and on and on. But, Fallen Order’s most structurally significant design choices draw on From Software’s challenging action-RPGs.
Each planet is built like a Yharnam in miniature; an interlocking world that becomes substantially easier to navigate once you open shortcuts. You lose your experience when you die and gain it back when you successfully land a hit on the enemy that killed you. You cash in those experience points at meditation circles that function exactly like Dark Souls’ bonfires: healing you and/or saving your progress, but resurrecting every enemy in the area.
Early on in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you will likely be terrified by a gnarly amphibian. After encountering the hologram of Jedi Master Eno Cordova on Bogano for the first time, you will likely have your head held high, excited to embark on your quest to reestablish the Jedi Order. And, then you’ll fall into a pit. A pit where a massive, armor-skinned frog creature is waiting to absolutely wreck your shit.
So, yes, on a design level, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has borrowed the blueprint that From Software has been using since Demon’s Souls. But, just as importantly, Fallen Order has adopted Dark Souls’ mischievous spirit; its willingness to play pranks on the player. Sometimes Fallen Order’s attempts don’t work out all that well. There’s a moment on Dathomir when a Nightbrother, quietly waiting for you in the corner of a room, strikes from behind and will land a surprise attack if you’re not aware. The rat-like, burrowing scazz that pop out of the ground at inopportune times, sometimes resulting in Cal getting knocked off a cliff, are not interesting or fun to fight or avoid.
Neither of these bits are especially successful. On the whole, Fallen Order just doesn’t commit to the bit in quite the same way that Bloodborne does. When I watch a GIF of the swinging wood trap in the Forbidden Woods, I laugh. When you first see the spiky log swing through the air, you think you know exactly what’s happening. You’ve played video games before: you assume you just need to run underneath it. And, then just as you begin to run, the log rolls off the chain, killing you on impact and maybe knocking you into a pit for good measure. Game designers frequently anticipate what players will do; they use color and light to guide our behavior; to funnel us along narrow paths through wide worlds. Bloodborne’s designers use this understanding of player behavior, not to help us, but to play a joke on us. They anticipate our behavior, subvert our expectations and punish us. It might make you scream in the moment. But, after falling for it once, you likely won’t fall for it again.
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Fallen Order’s surprises are rarely funny. I know where the scazz are now, but having to deal with them, on Zeppho’s mountain pass is a chore that still occasionally trips me up, not a joke to which I’ve learned the punchline. But, the one, glorious exception is Ogdo Bogdo.
There are a few factors that make the massive frog’s reveal work so well. Here are the pieces of the set-up:
First, Bogano is covered in tall grass. It’s not impassable. You can move through it, but it obscures your vision. You can’t see the ground in front of you at all. You may opt to mow it down with your lightsaber. But, after a few hot machete whacks, you’ll likely get bored with bushwhacking and simply risk running through it.
Second, Respawn uses a pair of “weenies” — a level design term that refers to large objects that are visible from a long distance — to guide you through the level. The Mantis, Cal and crew’s ship, on one end of the map and the skyscraping Vault on the other. After emerging from your first meeting with Cordova, you will likely be relying on the Mantis for guidance on how to make it back to the start of the map. And after fighting the Bogdo (the non-Ogdo version of our friend in the pit) that waits right outside the Vault, you will likely be looking for the easiest way back to the ship.
So, Third, you will be in a hurry. You won’t be hacking down plants as you should. You will fall into Ogdo Bogdo’s lair.
Punchline: the frog is mean.
Ogdo Bogdo is introduced at a point in the game when a regular enemy can easily wreck you if you’re not careful. If he lands one hit on you, the massive frog can keep you staggered long enough to slurp down half your health bar. The fight demands that you pay attention to his patterns, dodge when he performs an unblockable lunge and use your as-yet minimal Force abilities to slow him down.
Of course, part of the beauty of the Ogdo Bogdo fight is that, as in a Souls game, you can cheese it. Yes, the first yawning pit will swallow you if you’re not careful, making you easy prey. But, just beyond it, there’s a second pit, underneath which Ogdo Bogdo sits. If you manage to keep your wits about you, you can get the literal drop on him, executing a special move that will take out nearly half of his health.
But, if you’re like me, you may stumble into the monster’s cave, see that he’s a named enemy with a massive health bar and flee. After that first jump scare encounter, I avoided him until I had rolled credits on the campaign. I came back, with skill tree in full bloom, and destroyed him in seconds. Jokes on you, Ogdo Bogdo.
