Jedi Knight Jedi Academy Review

Written: 02-06-2022

This game maintains the same great lightsaber and force combat of Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast but adds in new powers and abilities. This gives the player more options and makes combat more varied. In addition, you get the choice of which powers to improve after each mission which means you can build your character how you want. The combat is easily the best lightsaber combat I've seen in a game; it is visceral, varied and fun.

Furthermore, the game is laid out in a way that makes it clear where you are supposed to go most of the time, other than in a few places, unlike Jedi Outcast. This removes some of the frustration and necessity for a guide which was required to make the game more smooth in the previous game. However, this more clear level design removes some of the complexity and can result in slightly less interesting levels. In addition, the chose a mission structure prevents the story developing in each mission and instead this only happens in specific missions. This makes the chosen missions slightly less interesting. These missions are still good but they don't have the punch of Jedi Outcast's missions.

The story is a direct continuation of Jedi Outcast but you don't need to have played Outcast to play this. You play as the student of the main character in Outcast and a few plot points carry over but nothing too major. Throughout the game you go on jedi missions helping the galaxy and a dark side cult slowly forms in the background. Later, you are tasked with hunting for and trying to stop the cult. The story is pretty simple but it works and the appearances of Luke and Chewy from the films feel pretty natural too.

All in all a great game and an excellent sequel to Jedi Outcast. Combat is improved from the previous game and level design is more clear. In general, this is more accessible than Outcast and is an improvement in most ways but I think I still enjoyed Outcast more. I 100% recommend this and Outcast. If you like Star Wars and haven't played these you should. The graphics are a little dated but look really good for the time.

As an aside, I also found a really cool mod for this game called Galactic Legacy. This allows you to make custom scenarios from basically any Star Wars time period. People have made models for the Clone Wars, Knights of The Old Republic, the Original trilogy and basically anything else you can think of. There are also maps to fit all these time periods. When you load in you can spawn any characters you like and set their teams and then fight them or watch them fight each other. It also has some battles replicating scenes from the films and some others the mod authors added for fun. A massive mod that is still being worked on and allows you to do tonnes more with the great combat system in the game. I'm going to go and play some more of that now.