"Jaden, I'm sending you to Hoth, where I saw a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Rosh, I'm sending you to the planet Byss, where the Emperor was reborn. Good f'ing luck with that. Don't come back." On reflection, having Echo Base log the Rebellion's flight information as they escaped? It's a miracle the Empire didn't swoop on them all right away. Good thing Vader got fixated on the Falcon...
@@smartalec2001 To be fair. When Luke got to Dagobah. The Empire has already evacuated from Hoth since all but one transport made it off world. And that transport was bombarded.
@@aresnir2725 Republic Commando is definitely not better. KOTOR is amazing and I replay it every couple of years but I keep coming back to Jedi Academy every single year. KOTOR is very turn based and the dialogue and story are amazing but it's not the most engaging gameplay. Jedi Academy has fun lightsaber, gun, and force play and the CPU's are fun to fight. Is it the strongest story in the world? No probably not. But is it fun? Definitely.
@@jakewilliams1344as a kid I always wished for a KOTOR 2 type story game with Jedi academy saber and force combat. It would easily be the best Jedi game ever created
I remember picking up Crosscurrent book and finding out that Jaden Korr was the protagonist. The book wasn't a jedi academy tie in or anything. He was just another jedi on another adventure. I found things like that super cool, making old EU feel very natural and genuine instead of feeling like a plotted out story. He also kept his Z95
Not only do I love that you talk about my favorite Star Wars games but you go in to lore and backstory of everything and how it links together. I am old glad such a young guy like you still carries the legacy.
Considering Male Jaden’s performance, I would assume any stiffness to be on account of the directors. Not only do I think Jennifer Hale’s performance is better, it works so much better for the dark side ending.
16:50 - This screen interface actually appears in SW Episode II - when Obi Wan is looking for Kamino in the Jedi archives. This is the sort of attention to detail I love to see.
Great video, I love Jedi Academy and it's the only Jedi Knight game I played growing up. A few tricks I wanted to impart: 1) Force Lightning is OP as well. It's an instant kill for most non-boss, non-lightsaber enemies. And is by far the easiest way of killing the Assassin Droids. Force Lightning level 3 instantly kills the droids as soon as their shields go down. 3) Force Protect even at level 1 makes Vjunn 1 less annoying. 4) Force Absorb is OP against dark side users, esp in fights, where there is no ledge to Force Grip them away. 5) Force Push is best way to handle Hazard Troops... or bring a concussion rifle of your own. 2 shots kill Hazard Troops and triviliases the Byss level.
I prefer the Story of Outcast, but the gameplay and setpieces in Jedi Academy are definitely among the best out of all Star Wars games. I love this game.
To think they're still working on the Movies Battles mod after so long is just impressive and shows not only the dedication, but also the depth of the games longevity.
Too bad Disney screwed it up by calling it Legends. The Disney continuity should have been Legends, not the OG Expanded Universe. Yes, the Disney continuity did give us The Mandolorian, and Star Wars: Rebels, which are great shows, but other than that, it isn't needed. The Expanded Universe was already fine enough.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this great series. JKA is a great game! I always laughed at the post-mission briefing with Kyle's or Luke's talking head. The facial animation matched the speech well enough, but once they stopped talking the face jumped to a default position that looked like they were deeply disappointed in you. "Thanks to you, Jaden, those terrorists couldn't crash the train as intended. Good Job!"
I love how you make your reviews into little stories as well as what feels like a history class. Those are my favorite kinds of reviewers on RUclips and you are no exception. 👏
While I'm fortunate enough to be able to point to about a dozen different games (of wildly different genres no less) and say 'that was my childhood', this series in particular is a bit special to me, and I'm really glad that you covered it in such detail. I think, in more ways than one, the JK games are more relevant now than they've been since their day, and more people learning that they even exist can only be a good thing.
The Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series was one of my favourites as a kid. It's been a treat watching these and reliving the memories. Dark Forces 2 was always my favourite. Keep up the awesome work, dude!
I'm only halfway through the video so far, but just to share my experience with everyone: I was never a huge fan of the saberstaff (not bad, just not my thing), but I decided to give it a try during my last JA replay and it completely turned me around on it. It was super-good at slipping through an enemy's defenses, but the real kicker was that you could switch one of the blades off and use the basic single-blade style if need be (complete with the saber throw). I'm just glad that there's mods out there that let you change your saber at each checkpoint (or anytime, even), so you get more time to try it out!
in the dosunn prison mission, you can actually grab one of the parked AT-ST’s and walk it around and battle the other AT-ST in it (provided you don’t kill it on your way in). the AT-ST is fun to walk around and has fleshed out unique weapons, and is just another example of the rushed development of this one
Such a great game and series. Back when Star Wars was such a great setting to enjoy. Thank you so much for these retrospectives, I enjoyed them all. I think I'll fire up the game for another playthough, it's been a long time.
I think there’s more proof to things being one takes. When she’s supposed to say “how do I know this isn’t another trick” Hale’s Canadian accent came through and she said “twick”. Yeah that’s something one would normally fix with a second take
Honestly the multiplayer section of this game is worth its own video. Back in the day the modding community around this game was insane. The multiplayer maps, skins, objects, whole conversions on servers that turned the game into virtually an MMO was insane. While I was active in the OG CoD2 and later CoD4 community, the JK3 multiplayer community and guilds were something else entirely. Without a doubt it was one of the most foundational aspects of my life. I was bullied a lot in primary school at the time, and had a few friends but throug the online community I found a place where I was not only accepted but loved and celebrated. It was the most immersive roleplaying experience I have ever witnessed. We had a Jedi guild, we all had our own little Jedi personas that we maintained even outside the game. We had ranks from Padawan to Jedi Master and the Padawans were assigned to masters to teach them how to be better at multiplayer combat and taught them about Star Wars lore. We had our own drama, kids turning to the dark side trying to take over the guild, or we would turn our real life conflicts and fights into epic Star Wars-style conflicts and let lose ingame while staying in character the whole time. I even wrote a little novel turning our adventures and gaming sessions into a proper Star Wars story. Truly it was an age of legends.
This feels like the end of the Star Wars journey you’ve gone on. I hope it isn’t and from the video…it seems there are more videos to come. Can’t wait. Brilliant look back at this series.
I used to play this game on Jedi Master mode and when I did a dark side playtrough I found myself stuck with the duel againts Kyle. That man is a beast and he has a lot of unique animation and moves, like a grab-punch-smash move. Plus he kept healing himself. That is why Kyle Katarn was and will always be the best!
This game was one of my favorites growing up and still is. It was my entry to the Jedi Knight series games, as I was too young to understand the darkforces game I had for my PS2, but this was much easier for my to play, and it was so much fun playing split screen with my friends after school! Thanks for doing a video on it!
Also for what it's worth, I think your issue with that cutscene might be less to do with the voice-acting and more to do with the timing of the lines. Her delivery is fine, but the pauses between some lines go on a bit too long, which makes the whole conversation feel awkward and kinda robotic. Like, "I wouldn't worry about that" cuts off the tail-end of Rosh's line, and the beat before Rosh replies is maybe a half-second too long (possibly *because* her line cuts Rosh off). The same goes for when Jaden says her name; the pause between that and "where'd you get that lightsaber"? is weirdly long. It's very Sonic Adventure 2-esqe, but it's less goofy and more uncanny.
I think it's also different attitudes conveyed which the timing exaggerates. Male Jaden comes off as reassuring (albeit dismissive), while female Jaden seems more curt and dismissive.
I remember that, for some weird reason, my original play of the Outcast had a weird bug that made me play as the Twilek in the most boring outfit regardless of what I did in the costumization menu. So I'm stuck with her being my own head-canon Jaden Korr
A little known detail: The game generates Jedi NPCs based on the character creator options and the game will exclude your chosen race/gender from the generation pool, meaning that if your character is a human female, then the game will not generate human female Jedi in cutscenes and the final missions.
Loved all the mods for this game. Played through the storyline as Dave Draiman from the band Disturbed complete with his grunts from his music added as combat sound effects. 🤣
Great video and great game! I remember the hundreds of hours I played Jedi Academy with my younger brother, spending those afternoons completing the different missions, laughing at some ridiculous fights between ncps, trying to do epic stunts and fights... good times. I agree with what you say, it would have benefited a lot from having more development time, I think that's the main problem. But it makes up for it all with something very simple: it's a lot of fun. I think the engine is very good and has a lot of potential, and it made certain processes easier for the developers, who (with the time they had) focused on perfecting the lightsaber fights and the interactions with the force powers, which were ultimately the things that made this game so memorable (at least that's how I see it). Without a doubt one of the games I had the best time with in my childhood. I played it many times, always varying the race and sex of the character, although my favorite was always the Kel Dor version of Jaden. I also liked that you included lore about the protagonist and the other characters. I didn't know much of it and I always like to learn from the Expanded Universe. Thanks for covering this great series.
I’ve always thought that both endings should have had another set of missions to undergo after the final bosses. The light side ending almost makes you think you will get more based on what Kyle and Luke say. If we got 5 missions of Jaden as Master just doing hard missions that don’t connect but you do good across the galaxy would great. Then 5 missions for Dark Jedi Jaden where she does various missions that connect for a purpose, where she tries to commandeer artifacts or technologies that might give her the edge and against Kyle and Luke and the academy Jedi.
I’m glad you mentioned Coran Horn’s name drop. You neglected to point out Streen and Tionne’s name drop. Maybe you just decided to leave it out. Thanks so much for the work you put into these videos. Looking forward to your Kotor videos in the future and hopefully Republic Commando.
This is and still is the best game of all time. I loved everything from Jedi Knight Jedi Academy from my childhood on the pc. I played it alot even then and now to escape reality and the canon of current star wars. Because to me this is True EU Canon and will always be canon in my eyes.
After many years, I have finally gotten around to playing Jedi Academy. Even though the game is old, it does have a certain charm and some of the most fun lightsaber combat. Pulling enemies directly onto your sword, flinging them off cliffs, changing between a single blade and a second blade to surprise your opponent..... It also just has a lot of interesting places. The Tomb on Chandrilla and the Gangster Mission on Coruscant are probably some if my favorites- and considering that Lanik Racto has a bust of Marka Ragnos in his office, I take that Gangsterboss either as an art collector....or it was forced onto him by Tavion to remind Racto who he will serve. After all, a similar bust is on Taspir. I kinda have to disagree with you on the Dark Side Ending. While, yes, being forced to kill his own student would be great for Kyle....it wouldn't be great for the player. Aside from TFU and maybe Vampire the Masquerade, the evil Ending is usually always the big, fun powertrip where you get to conquer everything and get ultimate power. It doesn't have to make sense but it has to be cool. And I think Jedi Academy definetly manages to do that. Fighting your way through your own allies and challenging your Master.... that's pretty cool.
Thanks for doing videos on this series. I'd never played them before, but your video on Dark Forces pushed me to finally play them, and I don't regret it at all.
I couldn't disagree with your take on the Alien character customization anymore. I've played this game many times since the age of 10 and never as a human. There was a petition to make the KelDor Jaden's canon race.
I was floored as a kid with the combat sandbox that the force powers and environments provided. I had a hard time with the Taspir Alora fight, always getting eviscerated when I tried to fight her "properly" with lightsaber. Since force users won't block your pushes or pulls when they have their backs to you, I would usually just cheese it by hiding behind those trapezoidal structures and jumping and force pulling her while she wandered around looking for me. If I sent her flying high enough she would fall to her death on the way down, which was quite a surprise the first time. In times after I've sent her so far up that she goes over the invisible barriers of the platform and falls into the lava below! Surprising things that I haven't seen in many other games.
11:44 This was a cool reference to Corran Horn, but interestingly the Vong War books said Corran hadn't taken an apprentice even several years after this game.
Watching this for the third time. I'm addicted to your star wars vids so when I run out I rewatch them lol. Brownie points for caring about the Tonton's safety.
You did a great job covering the whole series. It was one of my favorites growing up (particularly JK:DFII and MotS), and you did them justice. Well done! Glad to subscribe and see what you put out in the future. I've watched all of your Star Wars videos to date and look forward to more.
There is a mod of this game, that actually continues the story of dark side ending, called escape from yavin 4. the plot is hell of a lot more involved, and is much more darker. though i must warn that its a fan community effort, so expect cringe voice acting.
The Chandrila Jedi tomb was the level for the demo. I played that over and over as a kid so it's also the level I always think of when I picture this game.
The Force is unleashed huh. I think that happened a few years later.😊 And then sadly, the Force got leashed permanently. 😢 Real talk, this stuff kinda depresses me. We were suppose to get Jedi Knight 5, Kotor 3, Imperial Commando, Battlefront 3, Force Unleashed 3, etc. Alot of that stuff, was actively beeing worked on too. The longer i live, the more convinced i am, that even what we got, was a damn miracle.
I like the dark side ending. Kyle and Jaden both surviving gives the ending an intensity that leaves you desperately wanting to know what happens next, but still feeling satisfied. Like the ending of Empire, for example. I got that vibe from it.
iirc, Vjun was also used in the young jedi knights books, i believe it was Jacen and Jaina who found Obi Wan'S lightsaber there after vader took it after striking him down in ANH (it could have been Anakin Solo, i cant remember off the top of my head)
I love all entries in the series, but this will probably remain my fav (hopefully we'll see another entry and hopefully we won't have to wait for Disney to completely collapse). Mechanics are just too fun, and story and its presentation are still pretty cool. For obvious reason a bit less focused than JO, but has a lot of that charm and loads of diversity in locations, objectives etc. I spent an ungodly amount of time in multiplayer duel mode and on browsing JK3files back in the day for cool mods. Interesting vid, thanks!
One of my all time favorite Star Wars games and games in general, really loved the character customization and different lightsaber options. The EU novels that continued Jaden’s story after this game were pretty good too if I remember correctly.
There was just some weird shit there. Like Jaden's mind getting shunted into a clone body and his apprentice cutting off the fingers he had previously lost from the new body so he wouldn't notice when he woke up.
Fuck the amount of EU nods in this game is staggering. Going to Correlia, Vjun, Bakura, Korriban and hearing Byss and Wayland name dropped along with Corran Horn and Streen. Boba Fett and Wedge in their post OT glory, Jaden flying a Headhunter. Getting to see the EU version of post Imperial Coruscant. God if only we got a fourth game set during the Vong war. Though I've always questioned why Luke sent Roche to Byss. The secret throne world of Palpatine Reborn, home to the most fanatically loyal members of the Empire, one of the most potent dark side nexus sites to ever exist. That is not the kind of place you should be sending an inexperienced student alone.
I know you said you ran it without mods but I can honestly reccommend the enhanced edition mod. You get new lightsabers, including making your own, more costume options and more force powers. The unlimited force mod is great too
It's worth noting that the Jedi Tomb was also one of the levels available in the Demo version of the game back in the day, I didn't own the game until quite a while later, but I played that Demo a *lot* for that level. The other level in that Demo is the Chewbacca level, that level may not be good, but you can really see why they picked those 2 levels specifically.
Jedi Outcast and Academy has the best Lightsaber combat in any Star Wars game still to this very day Also the speedrun for this game is amazingly broken and fun to do on your own when you realize how exploitable the terrain is along with the game utilizing the Quake 3 engine if I remember correctly which was all about building up speed with strafe jumping and moving in a diagonal direction with elevation boosting in Academy. But Jedi Outcast used it way more better than Academy
Star Wars: Obi-Wan for Xbox was originally intended to be a game in the Jedi Knight series according to the book Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts so perhaps it'd be worth analysing next.
I should take a shot every time a Star Wars character who just popped out of nowhere has a lore that's too big to summarize, but that would be dangerous. Better to have a few shots and proceed to the nachos.
Force Grip lvl 3 was also my favorite power in Outcast and in academy, sometimes you could trigger the normal enemy fall animation even onto Reborn warriors if you were fast enough with the flicking, or my favorite was instant smash their faces into the floor, quite sure there was a second or split second time to perform these action before they force pushed you or when flicked entered into "force jump" state and landed safely.
Personally I only played Alien Characters in JKA . Mostly as a Zabrak and Twilek and I think it s great to have this choice because it s one of a rare SW game when your can' do that. I agree the Rodian is a bad idea if you don't have voice to match. But to me it s important for the roleplay to keep the aliens. Humans feels really bland in comparison.
51:08 - They actually are a joke, if you have the right weapon... the DEMP gun. It cuts through these assassin droids like a hot knife through butter :)
You NEED to cover the Movie Battles mod in a full video. It's saber system is so complex, far better better than vanilla snd you can play the campaign with the modded system!
The saber wielding bad guys you fight in the early missions aren’t reborn they’re just Ragnos cultists. The only reborn you fight is during the Azura fight or whatever name that red tweilek is it’s been almost 15 years since I’ve played it. And I believe you fight 2 more with tavian
Rewatching this video all the way through this time, and I’ve noticed that almost NO ONE who reviews this game fights the reborn master on the bridge at the end of the first part of Taspir III. He’s insanely. All 3 reborn masters are almost harder than the final bosses. Fuck I love this game lol
Your videos are so well put together, I love sitting down and watching you break down these classics. One thing I'd love to see at some point is a retrospective of the SW:KOTOR games, I'd love to hear your thoughts on them since I noticed you use their OSTs in quite a few of your Star Wars retrospective videos.
Sorry for spam commenting on this video, last time. You're funny sometimes, man. It should be cool "But it isn't" gets me every time I watch this. Maybe I should stop smoking, but at least I laughed! :D
I remember the first time I played this game (after playing Jedi Outcast multiple times and becoming a fan of Kyle Katarn). My English wasn't too good back then and the prompt to kill or spare Rosh went by too fast for me to comprehend. I've only seen that the crosshair showed him to be an enemy, so I killed him not realising it makes me go dark side. When it came to the final boss battle, as Kyle walked in, I was like "noooo, I don't want to kill Kyle!" and when the end cutscene started where Jaden shoots him with the scepter and practically buries him under a bunch of rocks, I was so devastated as I thought I killed him. I was relieved to find out he survived but genuinely felt guilty for turning to the dark side. Although I had no problem with killing all the other Jedi who I've come across. :D To be fair, they attacked me first...
I'll definitely take half-baked with more alien options any day. The alien species are criminally underutilized in Star Wars and the option to play as anything other than a human is frustratingly rare
This game was one of my favorites as a kid. So many cool mods for it too. Though on complaint is that I never liked what they did with Tavion in here. Not that she needed a redemption arc exactly, but to follow up "I'm not brave enough to die" with her just being a mustache twirler was pretty underwhelming.
it should be called Star Wars: Jedi Academy: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Knight III: Dark Forces IV
You don't happen to watch AVGN do you? Because that's very close to his "Star Trek VII - The Next Generation Part 1"
Electric Bogalooo
And knuckles
Lol I absolutely love it. So, let's abbreviate it now. SW: JA: JO2: JK3: DK 4.
Lol this made me laugh
"Jaden, I'm sending you to Hoth, where I saw a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Rosh, I'm sending you to the planet Byss, where the Emperor was reborn. Good f'ing luck with that. Don't come back."
On reflection, having Echo Base log the Rebellion's flight information as they escaped? It's a miracle the Empire didn't swoop on them all right away. Good thing Vader got fixated on the Falcon...
"Rosh, don't come back" I mean, can you really blame anyone for that?
Typical evacuation measures are a couple of random hyperspace jumps.
@@smartalec2001 To be fair. When Luke got to Dagobah. The Empire has already evacuated from Hoth since all but one transport made it off world. And that transport was bombarded.
"I don't care for the player customization."
I dunno, I remember that Twi'lek girl did a number on our generation.
I definitely remember doing a lot of replays of this game... And I don't remember even considering any other character model worth looking at lmao
Twi'lek girl was almost the only possible character to play. Though Zabraak girl was also a tasteful choice.
Man of culture
@@SSSauceyBunsToo bad there wasn’t a post-game where you could continue your character’s story.
Holy based
"you always sense a disturbance in the force....." Man, kyle and luke make a great duo 😅
Luke was pissed😆
Favorite line in the game. One of my favorites in the series. Kyle was always a breath of fresh air.
Luke Skywalker was the closest thing Kyle Katarn had to a brother, when you think about it.
The best Star Wars game. I'm so glad people are finally realizing how amazing it is. I literally play it every year!
It was good at the time, but definitely not the best SW game ever. KOTOR and Republic Commando are better
@@aresnir2725 Republic Commando is definitely not better. KOTOR is amazing and I replay it every couple of years but I keep coming back to Jedi Academy every single year. KOTOR is very turn based and the dialogue and story are amazing but it's not the most engaging gameplay. Jedi Academy has fun lightsaber, gun, and force play and the CPU's are fun to fight. Is it the strongest story in the world? No probably not. But is it fun? Definitely.
@@jakewilliams1344as a kid I always wished for a KOTOR 2 type story game with Jedi academy saber and force combat. It would easily be the best Jedi game ever created
@@nica2411 Man that would be so cool!
@@jakewilliams1344 why you don't like Republic Commando?
I remember picking up Crosscurrent book and finding out that Jaden Korr was the protagonist. The book wasn't a jedi academy tie in or anything. He was just another jedi on another adventure. I found things like that super cool, making old EU feel very natural and genuine instead of feeling like a plotted out story.
He also kept his Z95
Both of his books are pretty good.
I still personally headcanon female Jaden and male exile but I do want to try these books.
THE SCREAM WHEN YOU SAVED THE TAUNTAUN BRO I DIED
This was coming from the gut lol
Tha "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" I felt it
So did the tauntaun
The way Kyle screams at 1:04:06 and then asks if you're ok like he didn't just shriek absolutely sends me 😂
Kinda surprised you missed the drivable AT-ST in the prison level
The use of kotor-2 music is fire!!!
Gotta dodge copyright.
Not only do I love that you talk about my favorite Star Wars games but you go in to lore and backstory of everything and how it links together. I am old glad such a young guy like you still carries the legacy.
Considering Male Jaden’s performance, I would assume any stiffness to be on account of the directors. Not only do I think Jennifer Hale’s performance is better, it works so much better for the dark side ending.
The SWTOR music you added in the Chandrila mission was such a good touch. I was hoping you'd mention that the tomb is for our Jedi Consular character!
16:50 - This screen interface actually appears in SW Episode II - when Obi Wan is looking for Kamino in the Jedi archives. This is the sort of attention to detail I love to see.
When a game is made by developers who care, we notice.
Damn I never realized that. Good catch!
So the Jedi academy is running on the equivalent of a 486?
Great video, I love Jedi Academy and it's the only Jedi Knight game I played growing up.
A few tricks I wanted to impart:
1) Force Lightning is OP as well. It's an instant kill for most non-boss, non-lightsaber enemies. And is by far the easiest way of killing the Assassin Droids. Force Lightning level 3 instantly kills the droids as soon as their shields go down.
3) Force Protect even at level 1 makes Vjunn 1 less annoying.
4) Force Absorb is OP against dark side users, esp in fights, where there is no ledge to Force Grip them away.
5) Force Push is best way to handle Hazard Troops... or bring a concussion rifle of your own. 2 shots kill Hazard Troops and triviliases the Byss level.
I was looking for someone to make these points. Lightning and protect were always my top priority powers.
25:42 I like how you are just torturing the storm trooper with your lightsaber lol
I prefer the Story of Outcast, but the gameplay and setpieces in Jedi Academy are definitely among the best out of all Star Wars games. I love this game.
To think they're still working on the Movies Battles mod after so long is just impressive and shows not only the dedication, but also the depth of the games longevity.
Ironically, this was my starting entry to the Jedi Knight / Dark Forces series.
The EU will never die. Kyle Katarn and NJO for life
Too bad Disney screwed it up by calling it Legends. The Disney continuity should have been Legends, not the OG Expanded Universe. Yes, the Disney continuity did give us The Mandolorian, and Star Wars: Rebels, which are great shows, but other than that, it isn't needed. The Expanded Universe was already fine enough.
O.G. Expanded Universe _for life!_
Eff Disney's fan fiction!
@@ChaseMC215 fuck the mandalorian and rebels.
@@Jedioutcast mando and rebels are great dude. well except mando s3
Too bad Disney is terrified of strong white males, Kyle Katarn deserves a comeback. "Katarn" certainly has a better ring to it than Andor.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this great series. JKA is a great game! I always laughed at the post-mission briefing with Kyle's or Luke's talking head. The facial animation matched the speech well enough, but once they stopped talking the face jumped to a default position that looked like they were deeply disappointed in you.
"Thanks to you, Jaden, those terrorists couldn't crash the train as intended. Good Job!"
I love how you make your reviews into little stories as well as what feels like a history class. Those are my favorite kinds of reviewers on RUclips and you are no exception. 👏
While I'm fortunate enough to be able to point to about a dozen different games (of wildly different genres no less) and say 'that was my childhood', this series in particular is a bit special to me, and I'm really glad that you covered it in such detail.
I think, in more ways than one, the JK games are more relevant now than they've been since their day, and more people learning that they even exist can only be a good thing.
26:42 You will note the crashed freighter is an ACTION series transport, a IV or VI or something. Same series of ships as Talon Karrde's Wild Karrde.
The Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series was one of my favourites as a kid. It's been a treat watching these and reliving the memories. Dark Forces 2 was always my favourite. Keep up the awesome work, dude!
I'm only halfway through the video so far, but just to share my experience with everyone: I was never a huge fan of the saberstaff (not bad, just not my thing), but I decided to give it a try during my last JA replay and it completely turned me around on it. It was super-good at slipping through an enemy's defenses, but the real kicker was that you could switch one of the blades off and use the basic single-blade style if need be (complete with the saber throw). I'm just glad that there's mods out there that let you change your saber at each checkpoint (or anytime, even), so you get more time to try it out!
No, the real kicker is that you can literally kick people with it equipped lmao
51:16 ... The DEMP weapon is in the game so as to deal with the droids easily. Fight takes ~10 seconds using the DEMP.
in the dosunn prison mission, you can actually grab one of the parked AT-ST’s and walk it around and battle the other AT-ST in it (provided you don’t kill it on your way in). the AT-ST is fun to walk around and has fleshed out unique weapons, and is just another example of the rushed development of this one
So you CAN use them. I thought about trying them out, but I was sure that it wouldn't work.
Well, now I have something to try out next time.
Such a great game and series. Back when Star Wars was such a great setting to enjoy. Thank you so much for these retrospectives, I enjoyed them all. I think I'll fire up the game for another playthough, it's been a long time.
I think there’s more proof to things being one takes. When she’s supposed to say “how do I know this isn’t another trick” Hale’s Canadian accent came through and she said “twick”. Yeah that’s something one would normally fix with a second take
Didn't even notice that but you're right. This game deserved more time to develop.
That speeder bike level was my favourite level in this game back in the day. Would play it ove and over.
Honestly the multiplayer section of this game is worth its own video. Back in the day the modding community around this game was insane. The multiplayer maps, skins, objects, whole conversions on servers that turned the game into virtually an MMO was insane. While I was active in the OG CoD2 and later CoD4 community, the JK3 multiplayer community and guilds were something else entirely. Without a doubt it was one of the most foundational aspects of my life. I was bullied a lot in primary school at the time, and had a few friends but throug the online community I found a place where I was not only accepted but loved and celebrated. It was the most immersive roleplaying experience I have ever witnessed. We had a Jedi guild, we all had our own little Jedi personas that we maintained even outside the game. We had ranks from Padawan to Jedi Master and the Padawans were assigned to masters to teach them how to be better at multiplayer combat and taught them about Star Wars lore. We had our own drama, kids turning to the dark side trying to take over the guild, or we would turn our real life conflicts and fights into epic Star Wars-style conflicts and let lose ingame while staying in character the whole time. I even wrote a little novel turning our adventures and gaming sessions into a proper Star Wars story. Truly it was an age of legends.
This feels like the end of the Star Wars journey you’ve gone on. I hope it isn’t and from the video…it seems there are more videos to come. Can’t wait. Brilliant look back at this series.
Oh I'm not done with Star Wars. Got many more games to cover, including KOTOR
I used to play this game on Jedi Master mode and when I did a dark side playtrough I found myself stuck with the duel againts Kyle. That man is a beast and he has a lot of unique animation and moves, like a grab-punch-smash move. Plus he kept healing himself. That is why Kyle Katarn was and will always be the best!
This game was one of my favorites growing up and still is. It was my entry to the Jedi Knight series games, as I was too young to understand the darkforces game I had for my PS2, but this was much easier for my to play, and it was so much fun playing split screen with my friends after school! Thanks for doing a video on it!
Also for what it's worth, I think your issue with that cutscene might be less to do with the voice-acting and more to do with the timing of the lines. Her delivery is fine, but the pauses between some lines go on a bit too long, which makes the whole conversation feel awkward and kinda robotic.
Like, "I wouldn't worry about that" cuts off the tail-end of Rosh's line, and the beat before Rosh replies is maybe a half-second too long (possibly *because* her line cuts Rosh off). The same goes for when Jaden says her name; the pause between that and "where'd you get that lightsaber"? is weirdly long. It's very Sonic Adventure 2-esqe, but it's less goofy and more uncanny.
I think it's also different attitudes conveyed which the timing exaggerates. Male Jaden comes off as reassuring (albeit dismissive), while female Jaden seems more curt and dismissive.
Your videos are always a pleasure to watch Evan. Thank you for creating this awesome series. Keep up the fantastic work man!
I remember that, for some weird reason, my original play of the Outcast had a weird bug that made me play as the Twilek in the most boring outfit regardless of what I did in the costumization menu. So I'm stuck with her being my own head-canon Jaden Korr
A little known detail: The game generates Jedi NPCs based on the character creator options and the game will exclude your chosen race/gender from the generation pool, meaning that if your character is a human female, then the game will not generate human female Jedi in cutscenes and the final missions.
Really like how they tied the old republic with Barsen Thor’s tomb on chandrila.
One of my all time favorite SW games! Image a new academy game with Hogwarts setup, Jedi Survivor combat and Mass Effect dialogue.
ah that 1:29:44 instant floor slam felt just perfect :D
and 1:31:23 felt nostalgic and personal :D
The game behind my name. The absolute best, and the dueling scene in multiplayer was incredible
Loved all the mods for this game. Played through the storyline as Dave Draiman from the band Disturbed complete with his grunts from his music added as combat sound effects. 🤣
Must have felt indestructible
Omg i was waiting for this video, this is definitely my favorite game in the Kyle Katarn saga
Great video and great game!
I remember the hundreds of hours I played Jedi Academy with my younger brother, spending those afternoons completing the different missions, laughing at some ridiculous fights between ncps, trying to do epic stunts and fights... good times.
I agree with what you say, it would have benefited a lot from having more development time, I think that's the main problem. But it makes up for it all with something very simple: it's a lot of fun. I think the engine is very good and has a lot of potential, and it made certain processes easier for the developers, who (with the time they had) focused on perfecting the lightsaber fights and the interactions with the force powers, which were ultimately the things that made this game so memorable (at least that's how I see it).
Without a doubt one of the games I had the best time with in my childhood. I played it many times, always varying the race and sex of the character, although my favorite was always the Kel Dor version of Jaden. I also liked that you included lore about the protagonist and the other characters. I didn't know much of it and I always like to learn from the Expanded Universe.
Thanks for covering this great series.
I’ve always thought that both endings should have had another set of missions to undergo after the final bosses. The light side ending almost makes you think you will get more based on what Kyle and Luke say. If we got 5 missions of Jaden as Master just doing hard missions that don’t connect but you do good across the galaxy would great. Then 5 missions for Dark Jedi Jaden where she does various missions that connect for a purpose, where she tries to commandeer artifacts or technologies that might give her the edge and against Kyle and Luke and the academy Jedi.
I’m glad you mentioned Coran Horn’s name drop. You neglected to point out Streen and Tionne’s name drop. Maybe you just decided to leave it out. Thanks so much for the work you put into these videos. Looking forward to your Kotor videos in the future and hopefully Republic Commando.
I left out Streen, but I did a little section on Tionne though, it's in there.
@@evprince Sorry, I must have missed it! I appreciate the lore exposition and hearing someone else appreciate the post-Endor EU. Thanks again!
I really enjoyed these two videos man I deeply appreciate that you went as in-depth as you could. well done bro
Love to see it, lots more on the way too
This is and still is the best game of all time. I loved everything from Jedi Knight Jedi Academy from my childhood on the pc. I played it alot even then and now to escape reality and the canon of current star wars. Because to me this is True EU Canon and will always be canon in my eyes.
After many years, I have finally gotten around to playing Jedi Academy. Even though the game is old, it does have a certain charm and some of the most fun lightsaber combat.
Pulling enemies directly onto your sword, flinging them off cliffs, changing between a single blade and a second blade to surprise your opponent.....
It also just has a lot of interesting places. The Tomb on Chandrilla and the Gangster Mission on Coruscant are probably some if my favorites- and considering that Lanik Racto has a bust of Marka Ragnos in his office, I take that Gangsterboss either as an art collector....or it was forced onto him by Tavion to remind Racto who he will serve. After all, a similar bust is on Taspir.
I kinda have to disagree with you on the Dark Side Ending. While, yes, being forced to kill his own student would be great for Kyle....it wouldn't be great for the player.
Aside from TFU and maybe Vampire the Masquerade, the evil Ending is usually always the big, fun powertrip where you get to conquer everything and get ultimate power.
It doesn't have to make sense but it has to be cool. And I think Jedi Academy definetly manages to do that.
Fighting your way through your own allies and challenging your Master.... that's pretty cool.
Rosch always reminds me of Eric Sparrow from Tony Hawk's Underground, wish there was an ending where Jaden just socks him one like that game
Thanks for doing videos on this series. I'd never played them before, but your video on Dark Forces pushed me to finally play them, and I don't regret it at all.
I couldn't disagree with your take on the Alien character customization anymore. I've played this game many times since the age of 10 and never as a human. There was a petition to make the KelDor Jaden's canon race.
I was floored as a kid with the combat sandbox that the force powers and environments provided. I had a hard time with the Taspir Alora fight, always getting eviscerated when I tried to fight her "properly" with lightsaber. Since force users won't block your pushes or pulls when they have their backs to you, I would usually just cheese it by hiding behind those trapezoidal structures and jumping and force pulling her while she wandered around looking for me. If I sent her flying high enough she would fall to her death on the way down, which was quite a surprise the first time. In times after I've sent her so far up that she goes over the invisible barriers of the platform and falls into the lava below! Surprising things that I haven't seen in many other games.
11:44 This was a cool reference to Corran Horn, but interestingly the Vong War books said Corran hadn't taken an apprentice even several years after this game.
And those were written first.
Watching this for the third time. I'm addicted to your star wars vids so when I run out I rewatch them lol. Brownie points for caring about the Tonton's safety.
You did a great job covering the whole series. It was one of my favorites growing up (particularly JK:DFII and MotS), and you did them justice. Well done! Glad to subscribe and see what you put out in the future. I've watched all of your Star Wars videos to date and look forward to more.
There's so many more to talk about lol so stay tuned.
Hands down my all time favorite Star Wars game.
There is a mod of this game, that actually continues the story of dark side ending, called escape from yavin 4. the plot is hell of a lot more involved, and is much more darker. though i must warn that its a fan community effort, so expect cringe voice acting.
Interestingly enough, a dark side Jaden didn't seem to care about the usual galactic domination nonsense.
@@Elyseon sadly never finished to know how it ends.
I expect to see KOTOR 1&2 next ;0 seriously though, I love your videos, thank you for the nostalgia overload.
They're not next because they're gonna take me a minute but rest assured I am working on them.
The Chandrila Jedi tomb was the level for the demo. I played that over and over as a kid so it's also the level I always think of when I picture this game.
The worm level was inspired by graboids from the movie Tremors. They said so in an interview back then. One of the periodicals.
The EMP rifle royally fucks up those shielded droids whether the shields are up or down. It wrecks them in about three shots at most.
The Force is unleashed huh. I think that happened a few years later.😊 And then sadly, the Force got leashed permanently. 😢
Real talk, this stuff kinda depresses me. We were suppose to get Jedi Knight 5, Kotor 3, Imperial Commando, Battlefront 3, Force Unleashed 3, etc. Alot of that stuff, was actively beeing worked on too. The longer i live, the more convinced i am, that even what we got, was a damn miracle.
Disney took a big crap on this franchise.
I like the dark side ending. Kyle and Jaden both surviving gives the ending an intensity that leaves you desperately wanting to know what happens next, but still feeling satisfied. Like the ending of Empire, for example. I got that vibe from it.
I love this game, being able to use a double blade lightsaber as a Jedi Knight is like a dream come true.
iirc, Vjun was also used in the young jedi knights books, i believe it was Jacen and Jaina who found Obi Wan'S lightsaber there after vader took it after striking him down in ANH (it could have been Anakin Solo, i cant remember off the top of my head)
I love all entries in the series, but this will probably remain my fav (hopefully we'll see another entry and hopefully we won't have to wait for Disney to completely collapse). Mechanics are just too fun, and story and its presentation are still pretty cool. For obvious reason a bit less focused than JO, but has a lot of that charm and loads of diversity in locations, objectives etc.
I spent an ungodly amount of time in multiplayer duel mode and on browsing JK3files back in the day for cool mods.
Interesting vid, thanks!
One of my all time favorite Star Wars games and games in general, really loved the character customization and different lightsaber options. The EU novels that continued Jaden’s story after this game were pretty good too if I remember correctly.
There was just some weird shit there. Like Jaden's mind getting shunted into a clone body and his apprentice cutting off the fingers he had previously lost from the new body so he wouldn't notice when he woke up.
These videos are amazing! So much nostalgia and things I missed! Keep it up
fun fact: liquid snake is among the jedi disciples.
Really, really great, thank you so much! Would really like to see you do one of these for The Force Unleashed!
I'm definitely working my way there!
@@evprince Super!
Fuck the amount of EU nods in this game is staggering. Going to Correlia, Vjun, Bakura, Korriban and hearing Byss and Wayland name dropped along with Corran Horn and Streen. Boba Fett and Wedge in their post OT glory, Jaden flying a Headhunter. Getting to see the EU version of post Imperial Coruscant. God if only we got a fourth game set during the Vong war.
Though I've always questioned why Luke sent Roche to Byss. The secret throne world of Palpatine Reborn, home to the most fanatically loyal members of the Empire, one of the most potent dark side nexus sites to ever exist. That is not the kind of place you should be sending an inexperienced student alone.
I know I love it
I know you said you ran it without mods but I can honestly reccommend the enhanced edition mod. You get new lightsabers, including making your own, more costume options and more force powers. The unlimited force mod is great too
It's worth noting that the Jedi Tomb was also one of the levels available in the Demo version of the game back in the day, I didn't own the game until quite a while later, but I played that Demo a *lot* for that level. The other level in that Demo is the Chewbacca level, that level may not be good, but you can really see why they picked those 2 levels specifically.
Jedi Outcast and Academy has the best Lightsaber combat in any Star Wars game still to this very day
Also the speedrun for this game is amazingly broken and fun to do on your own when you realize how exploitable the terrain is along with the game utilizing the Quake 3 engine if I remember correctly which was all about building up speed with strafe jumping and moving in a diagonal direction with elevation boosting in Academy. But Jedi Outcast used it way more better than Academy
Star Wars: Obi-Wan for Xbox was originally intended to be a game in the Jedi Knight series according to the book Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts so perhaps it'd be worth analysing next.
I'm really excited to get to that one.
It's a fun game and interesting to check out the less explored Phantom Menace era.
I should take a shot every time a Star Wars character who just popped out of nowhere has a lore that's too big to summarize, but that would be dangerous. Better to have a few shots and proceed to the nachos.
Damnit Alora. I wanted to hear Jadens story😤
Force Grip lvl 3 was also my favorite power in Outcast and in academy, sometimes you could trigger the normal enemy fall animation even onto Reborn warriors if you were fast enough with the flicking, or my favorite was instant smash their faces into the floor, quite sure there was a second or split second time to perform these action before they force pushed you or when flicked entered into "force jump" state and landed safely.
The grip and fling
Personally I only played Alien Characters in JKA . Mostly as a Zabrak and Twilek and I think it s great to have this choice because it s one of a rare SW game when your can' do that. I agree the Rodian is a bad idea if you don't have voice to match. But to me it s important for the roleplay to keep the aliens. Humans feels really bland in comparison.
51:08 - They actually are a joke, if you have the right weapon... the DEMP gun. It cuts through these assassin droids like a hot knife through butter :)
Movie Duels IIRC also allows you to play the jedi outcast campaign if you copy over the game files and do some renaming.
43:00 I think they are making the Rancors fight eachother for betting, and the prisoners are just used for food
You NEED to cover the Movie Battles mod in a full video. It's saber system is so complex, far better better than vanilla snd you can play the campaign with the modded system!
The saber wielding bad guys you fight in the early missions aren’t reborn they’re just Ragnos cultists. The only reborn you fight is during the Azura fight or whatever name that red tweilek is it’s been almost 15 years since I’ve played it. And I believe you fight 2 more with tavian
Rewatching this video all the way through this time, and I’ve noticed that almost NO ONE who reviews this game fights the reborn master on the bridge at the end of the first part of Taspir III. He’s insanely. All 3 reborn masters are almost harder than the final bosses. Fuck I love this game lol
Your videos are so well put together, I love sitting down and watching you break down these classics. One thing I'd love to see at some point is a retrospective of the SW:KOTOR games, I'd love to hear your thoughts on them since I noticed you use their OSTs in quite a few of your Star Wars retrospective videos.
Oh, they're coming. Just going to be massive is all.
Thanks for the hard work you have done with this video! Loved it! Keep on going ❤
27:10 ok, you got me there ;D
LISAN AL GAIB!
Sorry for spam commenting on this video, last time. You're funny sometimes, man. It should be cool "But it isn't" gets me every time I watch this. Maybe I should stop smoking, but at least I laughed! :D
I remember the first time I played this game (after playing Jedi Outcast multiple times and becoming a fan of Kyle Katarn). My English wasn't too good back then and the prompt to kill or spare Rosh went by too fast for me to comprehend. I've only seen that the crosshair showed him to be an enemy, so I killed him not realising it makes me go dark side. When it came to the final boss battle, as Kyle walked in, I was like "noooo, I don't want to kill Kyle!" and when the end cutscene started where Jaden shoots him with the scepter and practically buries him under a bunch of rocks, I was so devastated as I thought I killed him. I was relieved to find out he survived but genuinely felt guilty for turning to the dark side. Although I had no problem with killing all the other Jedi who I've come across. :D To be fair, they attacked me first...
Jedi outcast and academy are both games that I still keep as a bar to modern Star wars games
I'll definitely take half-baked with more alien options any day. The alien species are criminally underutilized in Star Wars and the option to play as anything other than a human is frustratingly rare
I cackled harder than I should have with the Dune music
This game was one of my favorites as a kid. So many cool mods for it too.
Though on complaint is that I never liked what they did with Tavion in here. Not that she needed a redemption arc exactly, but to follow up "I'm not brave enough to die" with her just being a mustache twirler was pretty underwhelming.
I've never felt so bad about thinking Kril'dor was fun. I loved that one. Chandrila too. Awesome video. I sat thru the whole thing.
U should do kotor games. Your reviews and analysis are gold. Your so knowledgeable
I will begin working on KOTOR soon