A Thorough Look at Star Wars: Dark Forces / Jedi Knight
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- This is a video retrospective and critique about the five games of the Dark Forces / Jedi Knight series, released from 1995-2003. It looks at them as part of the broader legacy of the now-defunct Legends timeline, trying to hold on to what's meaningful about them in a time when Star Wars is so much more polished than it used to be. Spoilers throughout.
__TABLE OF CONTENTS__
Intro-- 00:00
Star Wars: Dark Forces-- 00:42
Star Wars: Dark Forces: Jedi Knight-- 18:47
Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith-- 40:26
Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast-- 58:03
Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy-- 1:22:30
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If you enjoyed this video and want to contribute to the production of others like it, please consider donating through the crowdfunding website Patreon: / noahcaldwellgervais - เกม
"I am a fool and a stoner. I need to be able to make errors."
As good a metric as any for determining whether a game is too hard for you.
I'm a fool and stoner who's beat all souls games and sekiro. The souls games are masterpieces... I hope one day Noah will play them and fall in love as I did. I hope the same for you if you haven't gotten around to 'em yet!
think i'm getting that tattooed on my forehead :)
or maybe my linkedin bio
If only more people would say this - preferably in the presence of a lead designer who thinks the original steam release of Dark Souls was the height of game design.
@@GB-sh9st I'm waiting for Noah's thoughts on Dark Souls series too. Did he play them?
"I first played Jedi Outcast when I was, like, fourteen. A bootlegged copy on a burned CD with the CD key scribbled on the top"
And there we go, a tsunami of nostalgia. My early to mid teens summed up in a single sentence.
That's exactly how I first played Jedi Outcast as well. It was quite surprising to hear that on the video, lol
Back in the day, my CD key was in a ReadMe on the actual disk.
That line about “how most players are willing to forgive anything a game actually does if they’re enamoured with what a game wants to do” hit me hard. There’s a beauty when we see what a failed work wanted to be or could have been.
I agree, reminds me of Gothic 3.
Does this analysis sum up Skyrim or what?
@@jak1165 A lot of open world games :)
Or, put another way: my strange addiction to Cyberpunk 2077.
Honestly that's nearly any game that's widely lauded. I was going to snarkily respond with Dead Souls, but you could say this about Dwarf Fortress or Call of Duty
George Lucas about Dark Forces: "oh my, it's too violent..."
George Lucas about The Force Unleashed: "what an amazing game!"
During Dark Forces era was the time that some were worried that video games might be bad for kids.(It was the time that there were complains about the Mortal Kombat and Doom type games for being "violent")
@@DaraG-sn2nj you mean like was still being presented in the media at the time of TFU?
People only really stopped taking that seriously ~2017
@@llamaczech If 92 = 1992 = the year you were born, I don't think you fully grasp just how massive the moral panic bullshit over video games was in the 1990s. The US Congress had very serious hearings over the matter, legislation ACTUALLY PASSED and wasn't just impotently gestured towards. It's literally the only reason the ESRB and PAL rating systems exist at all. It was something that society hadn't really dealt with since the attempts to kill comic books in the 1950s for THEIR alleged corruption of the youth.
Like, think about it. If my first sentence IS true, then you ARE old enough to remember Jack Thompson and his crusades against video games - especially the _Grand Theft Auto_ franchise. But if you REALLY think back, the guy was perpetually the butt of an embarrassingly bad joke and was never TRULY taken seriously. All throughout the 2000s and the 2010s and now into the 2020s, the notion of video games corrupting the wayward youth has been either a joke or an incredibly transparent attempt by politicians to score cheap political points and simultaneously make it look like they're actually addressing a big societal problem without the presky burden of having to actually, y'know, DO that. Which they continue to do despite the fact that for 20 years now basically anyone with half a brain is able to tell immediately that is what they're doing and most likely will call them out on it.
Not quite the same in the 1990s. It was taken much more seriously. The most popular narrative about the Columbine School Shooting of 4/20/1999 (worst 4/20 EVER btw) was that those two kids did it because they got bullied...and because they allegedly played _Doom_ one time. And that wasn't JUST what the usual group of pearl-clutching moralists were pushing, that was what literally EVERYONE ON EARTH believed. So strong was it that even though most everyone knows that the worn-out old bullshit excuse of "kid did horrific thing cuz they played a video game once" is both worn-out AND a load of shit, a LOT of them STILL & TO THIS DAY just uncritically accept the narrative that 2 kids allegedly having played _DOOM_ to some extent at some point was somehow one of the key, primary factors as to why and how Columbine happened.
Eh... First: Lucas had decades to adjust to videogames since then, and second he was refering to the gratuitous merciless fusillade of gunfire. Swordplay is broadly acknowledged as a more noble and moderate form of violence, which is ironically illustrated in the star wars movies by how the more 'civilised' jedi resort to sabres rather than the contemporary firearms.
@@dildonius I don't know that the concern at the level of violence in video games was entirely unwarranted. Certainly the moralist Jihad was way over the top, but the wanton violence in video games was something that had never been seen before. Obviously any effect that they do have we now know to be so minimal that they cannot be detected, but the idea that media can have an effect on the viewer, especially a young impressionable one is emphatically reasonable.
'was that those two kids did it because they got bullied...and because they allegedly played Doom one time.'
It was way more than that. He was a hobbyist who retreated into his love of videogames... probably because he was bullied, again.
1:43:09
"But Winemaking? Really? A man of your talents?"
"It's a peaceful life."
My thoughts exactly when the Winemaking hit.
"It ain't much, but it's honest work."
"Holy shit Mara Jade got to star in her own game?!" was basically what flew into my mind as soon as you said the name. Well done.
that was my reaction too when I first found out, before immediately downloading and playing it XD
Same here! I loved the original Zahn trilogy and wish I'd known about this game at the time, when I was youthful and un-jaded and might have had the patience for it.
@@susan_beaver un-Jaded :P
@@susan_beaver Susan, you have the patience.
Mara Jade is also a character in the surprisingly fun PSX fighting game Star Wars : Masters of Teras Kasi . 💜
Kyle Katarn saying he was done with all the lightsaber shit and settling down as a farmer?
Now that's a great ending to a Star Wars story.
Imagine if Luke Skywalker, Jedi Grand Master, retreated to his own farm on a lush, green world (maybe even Naboo). And his successor visits one last time only to witness him becoming one with the Force, coming full circle and rhyming with Yoda's death but on a more positive note.
Pro tip : watch movies at flixzone. Me and my gf have been using them for watching a lot of movies lately.
@Angelo Hank Definitely, I've been using flixzone for since december myself :D
@Angelo Hank Definitely, have been using flixzone for months myself :D
@@PurpleLightsaberAlex Pro tip: those three comment about "flixzone" above my comment are probably dumb bots. This comment thread wasn't even talking about movies to begin with. Like wtf?
"Im a fool and a stoner, I need to be allowed to make errors" pure gold
If you ever release merch, I humbly request a "Oops! All Inscrutable Bullshit" t-shirt.
I cannot hit "ME TOO" hard enough.
I didn't get the joke :/
@@eternalreturnal There's an older Cap'n Crunch cereal, "Oops! All Berries", which is a box of just the berry-flavored bits from a Capn Crunch + Berry mix. It's easily memeable.
@@DarkThespian gonna look that up. I'm not American, so some of this stuff goes over my head. Thanks!
Please.
Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy both had a huge impact on my life because, through their multiplayer modes, I met friends who a decade later I still talk with through its clans, and most importantly led down the paths that have defined my life with modding that turned into studying game design at university, which enabled meeting the love of my life, and eventually morphed into my career in game development. Jedi Academy in particular was of enormous personal significance to me and is the game I've probably replayed more times in full than any other. Flawed and dated as the series may be, I'm so excited to see you having made a video on the games that have made me the person I am today.
The modding community for that game was one of greatest ever. It impacted my life in the same way as you, crazy how influential these games were. Hosting a dedicated server and making friends from around the world was some of the most fun I've had in multiplayer games.
That source code leak did wonders for the game's longevity.
@@remembertotakeshowerspleas355 I thought nobody was using that. Thank god they are
JK2 and 3 were such chill multiplayer games. Our clan would often jokingly say that they were the best interactive chat rooms. Honestly though, they were right. And to this day, there is no other online game that mimics that awesome duel-and-talk atmosphere that JK2/3 lended themselves so well to.
@@arnox4554 That's a good way of putting it... I was pretty heavily involved in the Academy's multiplayer for a while... As you say, the "proper" servers were mostly just the local clan standing around chatting and dueling.
It was so cool, you'd have all these clan with their own structure of advancement and ranks... Going onto another clan's server truly felt like a diplomatic mission where you'd try to make friends and make friendly relationships between the different groups by beating their best fighters in duels and complimenting their skill.. It was almost like a tiny mmo community.
The larger clans I joined even had their own clan map and skins.. good times.
It's refreshing that so many of your reviews are mostly so positive. How you recognize the limits and failures of older game design but praise it in its context and how it has its own unique advantage over more elegant and modern ideas. It makes your retrospectives so much fun to watch
A
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Shout out to everyone on the Massassi Temple that spent their teen years trying to make their own levels and mods for Jedi Knight.
Brings back memories! Like the first time someone FLEW A TIE FIGHTER into the canyon and smoked us all in multiplayer.
Jedi Knight Academy Lugormod... fuck bro
@@JZjzred I've been trying my hardest to remember what the clans were back in the day. I remember the multiplayer community being absolutely vivid in 2005-2010 era.
man those were the days!
I tried to find clan tags or something from my old hard drive but came short. I'm pretty sure my first player name was Brendan or something like that but later I changed it to the classic "The" with red font. There were evenings when the clans got together outside the Nar Shaddaa map, you know where you could somehow levitate on top of the buildings, outside the actual map design.
Also, wasn't there a custom map that someone designed with a Yavin exterior, a mansion of sorts with a hamster dance song constantly playing? This had to be pretty late in the "boom".
“I’m a fool and a stoner, I need to be able to make errors” god tier analysis
"Pain is no excuse to hide from who you are and what you can be to other people"
That's really resonated with me personally. It's just what I needed to hear right now. Thank you.
Noah, I've been a fan for years and want to say your analysis has gotten SO GOOD. The fact that you're able to comment on mechanics and story and context of release all at once, how they all feed into each other, just...all of it. It's so good. You're really good at this.
I know the live action segments in these games are notoriously cheesy, but I just gotta say the facial acting from Kyle Katarn at 35:25 is genuinely impressive.
He manages to portray rage, surprise, fear, regret and sadness with a single expression.
We are literally ONE STEP away from a Knights of the Old Republic analysis
I don't know why, but I'd really like to hear him talk about Jade Empire out of the whole BioWare catalogue. Maybe because it's less talked about and is a more ambitious but flawed game.
Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please
I was about to say, now that he's touched on Star Wars, and he's already made a Thorough Look on Mass Effect, it's only a matter of time.
@@Davidesrajohn Sounds right up his alley then.
One day we will wake up and see kotor 1, 2, and Swtor. I may go create a character just to look for him possibly getting footage
KYLE KATARN'S BEARD!
Funny to see you you here
You are fucking everywhere man
As a former student of history, I am really liking this crossover.
Stop following me 😨
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
This video made me reinstall dark forces 1 last night, played up to 7th level without stopping. Forgot how advanced this game was for the time and the shift-movement to dodge was way better then traditional hit scan detection.
All that in-depth look and you didn't even mention Kyle Katarn's ultimate moment... when he kicks your arse in the Dark side ending of Jedi Academy.
Seriously, that battle is brutal and Kyle uses every power he had in outcast against you. You don't even win, you just escape, with Kyle promising to Luke that he's going to track you down and bring you back to the light.
Great video though, I wasn't expecting to watch a two hour retrospective, but you kept me hooked.
So I went into the last fight of Mysteries of the Sith thinking it was just another boss fight and used throw lightsaber attack power only to have it activate the good ending cutscene. I loved to imagine Mara Jade being like, "Yep I totally meant to throw my lightsaber aside."
Hahahaha that's awesome
You got the good ending just by using saber throw? How tho?
@@geoffreyparker2786 I think the good ending is to throw the lightsaber away and stop fighting.
You know. It had been my headcanon that in the disney star wars expanded universe, Kyle Katarn did all his stuff, helped destroy the Empire, retired to a nice planet and took up wine making, unbothered by all the galactic drama.
galactic sam neil lmao
The actor who played Kyle in the 1997 game did take up wine making methinks
Didn't rouge one ensure he was written out.
Jason Court, indeed makes wine but has acted recently & is on TH-cam.
Almost all of the comments are about his Jedi Knight role & I am there for it.
@@drifter402 I think you could probably assume it was the DS2 that he got the layouts for, with the aid of many Bothans :P seeing as were already in the land of headcanon.
Ah yes, I had a rather more ... "emotional" reaction than most of my friends and family when we saw the Mandalorian fight the Dark Troopers, because I had played Dark Forces. I KNEW just what terror he was up against!
Thanks for reminding me of the good old days, when Star Wars was Star Wars, and Star Wars was pretty damn good!
I actually missed out on the Clone Wars cartoons when they were new, I remember thinking poorly of it because I wasn't a fan of the animation when I was younger, but I ended up giving it a shot recently and it has really reignited my deep lifelong love for Star Wars. I grew up with Star Wars and saw episode 3 in theaters, but as I got older, similarly to you, it didn't really continue on into my adulthood. Clone Wars is probably among my favorite thing out of the Star Wars franchise, next to KOTOR.
I’m in the same boat, I grew up loving Star Wars but haven’t really enjoyed it until watching The Mandalorian recently and getting back into it. I was just old enough that something about the animation style of the Clone Wars put me off but I’ve started watching it recently and it’s really better than I thought it would be.
@@colt547
The Mandalorian had a similar effect on me! I was kind of whatever about it when it was announced but I ended up enjoying it (especially seeing !SPOILERS! Ahsoka!)
Clone Wars eventually became everything I wished the prequels could have been.
Fantastic show!
Dark Troopers... “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.... a long time.”
Wasn't "Dark Troopers" what they called the jetpack troopers in Star Wars: Battlefront 2? Were they supposed to be related to these other "Dark Troopers" or is this just a coincidence?
@@kenjen9861 they had to invent a "Phase Zero" to justify those Dark Troopers in-name-only
"Honey, I'm alone, come over"
"I cant, Noah is talking about Video Games."
"A Thorough Look at God of War and chill?"
"Understandable."
'Really?! I'll be right over!'
Find yourself a girl/guy who watch it with you
...somebody has certainly made love with Noah's voice in the background and I don't know how I feel about that
"Now i know how it felt to play Doom for the first time" Damn that is very high praise to be getting from someone who helped pioneer FPS shooters.
There's another shooter from Lucasarts in the "Doom clone" time period that was also story driven. Outlaws was an old west-themed shooter which still stands as one of the best video game Westerns. It had cutscenes and voice acting that were really bloody good for the time period and still hold up to this day. It's basically what would happen if you took Dark Forces and remade it as a Western.
"I am a fool and a stoner and need to be able to make mistakes." Should be a difficulty setting
I'd love a "stoner mode" in games that keeps most of the challenge intact but removes bullshit environmental deaths and the like.
@@sawbonesquad4876 Oh gravity, my mortal enemy! I shall get revenge one day!
Oh, a shiny object behind a ledge! Let me just...
@@sawbonesquad4876 thats called "incompetent mode"
I have a migraine; I am at work alone today, from open to close; my feet are already dead, but the fact that I have a video from Noah covering my pet favorite shooter of all time? That's going to carry me through the next eight hours. Thank you for giving me something so special to look forward to enjoying with whiskey and chocolate once I get off work.
Hey, good luck with your long day. Hope you get a real break today.
As someone with chronic migraines I can relate.
I can relate. The worst part about migraines is that nobody seems to really know what they are or why they even happen. Migraines don't make any sense...
@@jakobrenner2230 Yeah, it‘s a bit disheartening when you go to a specialised clinic and they tell you that migraine is still poorly understood.
Wow. It's like you took the words out of my mind. The announcement that Disney would simply deny the lore of Jedi Knight and Kotor, as well as numerous books, made me very sad at the time. The stories I've learned here have enriched my Star Wars fandom incredibly, or maybe even really got it going in the first place. Mandalorian just feels incredibly good and as a nod to those same sidequests that have such a special place in my heart. Beautiful video as always.
I just started replaying through dark forces 2 recently. It’s the game that got me into video games when I was a about 5 years old and I go back to it every couple of years. So cool to see others have so much nostalgia for the series
I was one of those kids you're describing in the Mysteries of the Sith section, the people for whom that game was basically designed. I knew almost as much as there was to know about Star Wars at that time, and Mysteries became one of those iconic childhood games that I loved beyond all reason in large part because it was the first time I could play a game in the deeper caverns of the setting.
The end of the game always stuck out in my memory, probably because of how long it took me to solve that puzzle. I spent hours trying to get good enough to beat Kyle, only to finally realize that the real path to being a Jedi was in not fighting. Replaying it as an adult, it's easy to see how flimsy the narrative was, but as a kid with a bigass imagination to fill in all the blanks, it was a powerful moment. I only beat the game once as a kid, rare for me but it's a savagely unfair game so also pretty much expected, but it always stood out in my memory.
Every day we get closer to a KOTOR retrospective
I can only hope that I live long enough to see both Noah and Mandalore making KOTOR I and II reviews.
Perhaps he's waiting for the KOTOR remake to come out first?
@Nagger All we know is that it's happening, and it's being worked on by Aspyr Media. There was an interview about a week ago that confirmed it. It'll be the same story but with a slightly different approach to the genre, akin to FF7 and its own remake, apparently.
Just look up 'Kotor remake' and there's a bunch of articles about it. Of course, it might all be fake or it might all not go anywhere, but still.
@Ben Falk I kinda hope Noah doesn't go for it. If he ever covered KOTOR I think he'd feel obligated to cover SWTOR as well, and I really don't want that beast to kill him.
@Nagger It'll probably end up being more of a reimagining/reboot/whatever, but a lot of people are adamant that it does exist
13:40
I feel like a lot of the "puzzles" obviously wouldn't be puzzles at all for the Empire. Multiple personnel being able to operate this stuff as well as the fact it's their own equipment, but the fact we're an outsider, not just as the character but as the player, it's harder to figure this stuff out. But the more you play the more familiar you become with the mechanics as if you are learning with the protagonist how to figure things out.
The lightsaber fighting gameplay in Outcast and Academy is still my favorite lightsaber fighting style of any Star Wars game ever
The Macy's joke got several seconds of unrestrained hysterical laughter out of me. Great delivery.
You know, every time you mention dropping out of highscool it puts me into such a state of awe considering the quality of your writing and media analysis skills
If we established mandatory pre school with walking lessons, within a generation people would think you need to go to school to learn how to walk
the expanded universe adds colors and shades to a world of light and dark. I don't remember your exact words but they were perfect. Really crystallizes a thought I could never put into words.
I remember when I played Mysteries of the Sith for the first time, I LOVED the Kyle Katan parts, the base defense and the asteroid, I died so many times trying to assault that base but I still loved it, I'm amazed anyone hated that part of the game, for me it was the best part, assaulting a base all on my own stubbornly trying to use only the lightsaber as much as possible.
Excuse me, Noah, I'm in the camp of "Yeah, I know Mara Jade is the star of Mysteries of the Sith, I've read those books, what do you take me for?"
The VHS ad at the beginning really brought me back...
I know right? a real nostalgia bomb
Seriously, "For those who remember..." took me somewhere
I was thinking "This man is about to drop more knowledge than I've seen on any 5 other channels combined!"
Same here, must've seen it a few dozen times in the days before my family bought their first DVD player.
I extremely appreciate your description of Kyle Katarn as "Himbo-esque".
I had to rewind the video to make sure I heard him right. What a time to be alive.
"Weird, there's like fifteen minutes left and he sounds like he's wrapping- wait, this is Noah. Never mind, proceed."
I feel like people always forget the Bothans stole the plans for the second Death Star, not the first
I remember looking that up when "Rogue One" came out. I had been confused on that point. Also, this video reminded me that Kyle Katarn played role in stealing the plans. I'd played "Dark Forces" back in the 90s, but forgotten that detail.
@@JonathanRossRogers wasn't there a few ppl in legends who stole the first plans of the death star??
@@kevinvassago I expect there are multiple stories about who stole the original Death Star plans. The only two I'm currently aware of are those in Dark Forces and Rogue One.
Didn't Palpatine actually ALLOW them to steal the plans, so the Rebel Fleet would attack at Endor?
Using it as bait for his trap.
@@JonathanRossRogers There were something like 6 different versions of how the death star plans got stolen in legends and they all contradicted each other. The Death Star tried to consolidate them and explain the inconsistency by saying each mission/story stole a portion of the plans. So Kyle in Dark Forces only stole part of the death star plans while the characters of other games/books stole other portions and R2/Leia put the pieces together. It's a cheesy retcon to explain away allll these different versions but it was pretty much the only solution.
I'm grateful for the new canon mostly not stumbling in such obvious ways like that.
Kyle Katarn is my favorite Star Wars character. It's awesome to see you do this series 🤘
"I am a fool and a stoner. I need to be able to make errors." Story of my life.
I might just get that as a tattoo...
The ending was just perfect. Thank you for this image now living in my head, for bringing back memories, and for a great analysis as always.
I was just thinking how much I'd just LOVE to consume some new Noah Caldwell-Gervais content
Dude, It made my night seeing this. I really like your critiques and JK2 and JK3 are some of my favorite childhood memories. Very excited to watch! Would love to see you review Kotor, Republic commando, the Rogue Squadron games, and really any star wars game.
_Warning: above is a sly attempt at advertising a channel_
@@colin-campbell A man gets a few subscribers and suddenly he can't comment on a channel anymore? Pish posh.
@@H3Vtux
TH-camrs haven’t had the best luck recently with the moral high ground, wouldn’t you say?
@@colin-campbell Not really sure what you're referring to. But I was commenting on videos long before I was making them. I'm also not so sure how much being verified matters rather than just having a lot of subscribers. I think YT just pushes high sub count channels.
I noticed after getting around 70k subs my comments were constantly getting traction, getting the checkmark didn't seem to change much.
@@H3Vtux
Why you simply need to Google what I mean in order to understand.
One small correction: it doesn't actually matter whether you take light or dark powers in Jedi Academy as far as endings go; it only matters whether you execute or spare Rosh. Also, the dark side ending is more enjoyable - you get to duel Kyle instead of a big blue ghost, which is just more interesting and fun on the face of it, and the dark side ending proper feels like something that could have been Legends canon with little fuss.
Absolutely great video, by the way. Never knew how much I wanted you to cover these games, and it did not disappoint; really put into words a lot of thoughts I've had over the years on these games and Star Wars as a whole. Pretty much my only grievances are when you get certain bits of Star Wars minutia wrong, but that's so minor it's barely even worth mentioning.
I don't think there is necessarily a problem with outcast's pathing or puzzles, its more just that it frequently uses them to extend a level at the point where it really feels like it should have ended. Like Na Shaddaa, you finally get to the end of a long and arduous level, there is a great finale where you deal with waves of enemies, board the ship to leave, and then the game is like 'oh actually, go solve a boring puzzle in a part of the map you have already visited then come back here'
Highlight of my month, Mr. Gervais! Really. Truly.
amen brother!
"excited for the eventual genre term that transcend soul-born" I wouldn't hold your breath metroidvania and roguelike are still the terms for their respective genres
Fair point, also I don't hate "soulsborne" as a name, it's just as silly as "metroidvania" as made-up words go
Soulsborne is just a horrid term imo. Even "Blood Souls" would make more sense than "Soulsborne".
I think "Soulslike" has much stronger staying power and linguistic reach than souls--borne ever will.
@@z-beeblebrox Thing is that "Soulsborne" was created by fans to include Bloodborne into the fold, quality of title be damned. Even as someone who prefers Bloodborne, I find it silly. At that rate they should be renaming it "Shadowsoulsborne" since Sekiro came out.
@@fraundakelmbrilpondaprost90 and that's why I don't think the "borne" part will last. Only dedicated fans will care enough to use it
That Macy’s joke had me cackling
The ranged weapons in both JK2 and 3 are actually very useful in certain circumstances.
The pistol and bowcaster are great for long range stationary targets. E-11 is decent for this.
The Shotgun is great for reaching around corners.
The Heavy Reapeater is good for large "bosses" like the wompas.
The Ion cannon is great against anything mechanical.
I always found the guns better than the saber against non-jedi opponents for the first third or two thirds of JK3. You get shot at less when not running in close and the blaster deflection is just not good enough until you get either fast style or level 3 deflection.
Pistol, Bowcaster and E-11 are all trounced by the Disruptor rifle. Shotgun is redundant to saber+Force powers. Most bosses are Sith and don't take kindly to most weapons. Ion cannon, yeah, that's true.
In the end though, it doesn't matter because in JK2/3, almost all the guns feel like GARBAGE. Which is really weird considering the original Jedi Knight had some damn good gunplay.
@@arnox4554 I found matters the opposite. I never played DF1, but I found that DF2/JK1's gunplay was not as good as JK2/3's. It was better compared to the saber, but with DF2/JK1's saber that's not exactly a high bar to clear.
The E-11 is the E-11. It sucks because it's designed to suck because of stormtrooper accuracy memes. A game's gunplay should not be judged by a joke weapon. You should not use one except on that one level in JK3 where your pistol is taken away along with your saber. There's a reason soldier Kyle starts with the pistol in JK2 while pilot Jan chooses the Spray'n'Pray.
A lot of the other weapons have more useful alternate fire than primary. I'd almost never use pistol, repeater, or bowcaster primary fire, but I do use their alternate fire.
Yes, most bosses are jedi, but for most of the games the most problematic opponents outside of the bosses aren't. They're the jetpack troopers you can't reach to stab, the guys with the unblockable disruptor, and the ones that look like the elementals from Battletech, the Trandoshans that show up with repeaters when you still only have level one deflection in JK3, and guys with explosives. Non-boss jedi don't become really troublesome until near the end of the Doomgiver in JK2 or the latter part of V'jun in JK3 and I don't recall that they ever cheap shot you like the big armored guys or get as annoying as jetpack troopers.
@@nathanbrown8680 Although I could definitely argue about the practicality of each gun in JK2 as compared to saber+Force, as I said, it's just that the guns themselves don't feel right at all. In JK1 they had a lot of impact and oomph to them, but in JK2, a lot of them feel like peashooters to use.
Here's something to do. Get a copy of or watch a video of Unreal Tournament in play and look at the weapons and how satisfying they are. Or, hell, even Quake 3 will work. And then look at the JK2 guns in comparison.
@@arnox4554 If you mean the first UT I played some of that way back and I can see what you mean. I just don't think DF2/JK1 has any more of that quality than JK2/3.
WAKE UP BABE NEW VIDEO FROM NOAH
Moooom! It's the iconic Noah! I'm going to spit my chocolate milk mommy!
Saw this in my notifications and I was legit all like 🤩
New *movie* from Noah
hell yeah!
@@hayk3000 Zack?
I HAVE NEVER, EVER, EVER IN MY LIFE CLICKED SO GODDAMN FAST! THIS SHIT WAS MY LITERAL CHILDHOOD! I fucking LOVE you, man.
I’m picky about TH-cam videos but I have to admit this is a masterpiece of the craft. Honest to god.
Sorry about your beer man. Also, RIP in peace Kyle Katarn, AND Dash Rendar.
Rey says "I am every Jedi" and Palpatine says "I am every Sith" and the unspoken next line goes "Well that makes this convenient then
Best line in the video
Describes my entire beef with Rise of Skywalker
noah’s patreon remains my most solid investment
What a delightful surprise. Thanks for giving JK2 a fair shake. It often gets overshadowed by JKA, but having played both, the tone of Jedi Outcast left a way more powerful mark on me than Academy. They're both fun, don't get me wrong, but Outcast was my first taste of "mature" video games as a kid, and I can't help but favor it for that.
I'm in a weird camp on Mara Jade: Mysteries of the Sith was my introduction to her. And when I reached out into the Legends corpus to learn more about her, I was sorely disappointed. ("Luke's wife" seems to be her sole character trait and I feel like she deserved much better based on her showing in MotS)
What do you mean, she's featured in the stellar comics from Dark Horse and also several books I believe? (Never read any of the books post VI)
Oh my lord the nostalgia just from that opening with the VHS Trilogy ad. I can't even count the number of times I watched that growing up. I haven't even gotten more than 30 seconds into this yet and it's already made my day.
This really is a blast from the past. I picked up Dark Forces II when I was in first grade, learned how to install it on my own on Windows 95 and would play the game in the mornings before school started. I remember really enjoying the cheesy cutscenes. "The eradication of life from a star system in a whisper will be within his power."
I was 15 when I played Jedi Knight and wasn't aware of the whole dark-light forces thing, so I just chose what seemed useful. And when that scene came where Katarn strikes down Jan I was NOT ready for that. It shook me to my very core. The ending of this path was also depressing as hell. I immediately replayed the game to finish it "the right way".
Honestly, I always thought of Luke as Mara’s partner. She’s so freakin cool, and playing as her in this game is magical.
Ooh, that ending speech. Cheif's kiss Noah.
I remember rewatching Star Wars so many times from VHS tapes that looked exactly like those, and I can't believe I even remembered that intro ad.
actually, I quite enjoy the overcomplex levels in dark forces 2. I enjoy just how massive they are.
Holy cow. So happy the algos recommended this. Kyle Katarn is my favorite Star Wars character. Love the EU. That's *my* Star Wars.
55:10 "I'm a fool, and a stoner..." me too, dude, me too
There’s always meeting at Denny’s at 2 in the morning and talking about that philosophy class we took back at community college.
In Academy, you can fight Kyle instead as the final boss if you're dark side.
A far more satisfying ending.
@@ClunytheScourge1 It's also reflective of the ending to MotS. This time you're the fallen one.
As one of the still mapping mappers for jedi academy! I love you! been with the series since DF2! Modding since JKO! ^_^
Great to see some love for the original Dark Forces, I think it was the best of the bunch. I played them all last year and enjoyed them all , but the first is definitely the smoothest in my opinion.
I fucking LOVE these intros. Never change, Noah.
"He's killed thousands..."
*Luke whistles and edges out the door while hoping everyone forgets the literal millions he has killed*.
Most stormtroopers have no souls apparently. Even the brainwashed child soldiers ones. Weird I know, but it does make killing them easier.
@@SuperPal-tr3go
"When we fight, you make them not people, so their death doesn't stick to you."
"Yeah. Picked that up in Seheron. Gotta keep it separate. Out here, anything could be a threat. You kill 'em for the team, no questions asked."
"I see it. A wall of wounds. Nothing on this side has a family."
The biggest problem with Luke in JO is just how easily he dies unless you save him. They should've made him invincible
TH-camrs: let's use After Effects!
Noah: Permanent marker and VHS.
Wow. What a compelling and nostalgic essay! Thank you for making this! I idly clicked on it from my recommended tab, not realizing how long it was. I've been sitting here for almost 2 hours straight watching it.
Well done!
The notification I never thought I’d see. Idk why but this is a series I wouldn’t think you’d cover. So excited to watch this
Jerec doesn’t have a drawn mustache, those are evil darkside user tattoos.
We all wanna pretend it's Dark Side drip but we all know it's crayola, bro...
@@FrankLoon you can be forgiven because most people don’t have the instruction manual with these back story details.
@@philipchurch8772 We can also just pretend it's scars he received when he wrestled an AT-ST with his bare hands. It all happened in a deleted montage, trust me on that one.
Those old games were such a great example of the Expanded Universe. In depth lore, a genuinely good story, lots of sci fi elements. They're always gonna be in my heart just like the rest of legends.
This was transcendantly good. I love starwars and the Dark Forces games. thank you for putting this to record for us all!
A wise man once told me...
'Recording has started.'
I had no idea what he meant by that, until now.
What does it mean?
I replayed Dark Forces 2 recently, a game from my childhood I was quite nostalgic for, but ended up putting it down after getting the light saber. I couldn't put my finger on why, but you really hit the nail on the head; that level really is a doozy.
Okay you got me 30 seconds into this because those VCR tapes is how I first experienced star wars first and that commercial for them that played before every one is the best thing ever. Well done!
Your writing is what I find most impressive. It’s astute, funny, honest, and literary. Fantastic. You’ve won a subscriber.
Always love it when Noah drops gems on us.
I'm saving your videos up for my next road trip... but here's a comment as a show of good faith.
It never occurred to me for some reason that you’d ever cover this series of games. Thank you, this was highly enjoyable and a great analysis of not just this series, but commentary on the old Legends stories as well.
Thanks for this. I grew up playing thru this entire series and I really enjoyed your retrospective and the contextual info on their place in video gaming in general. Cheers!
This will be a stroll down memory lane. Whoa.
First video I’m catching on release since I discovered your channel and binged like 90% of your content, I’m so excited
The levels in Dark Forces II are so well designed, with the landscape itself acting as the puzzle. With often vertical, non linear gameplay
Your research and articulation is some of the best I've heard of all of the retrospectives on this platform-- very brilliantly done!
Let the nostalgia flow through you! My god! The memories!
I grew up on this franchise. Massassians unite! Modding JK was my life.
_JKFiles gang where you at?_
Man I haven't watched one of your videos in a while and I'm kicking myself for it. The feeling I get from watching reminds me of having conversations with my friends and it's so enjoyable. You're exactly how I remember you from when I first stumbled upon you and that's just perfect
So glad you’re back, thanks for the long form content. I listen to your videos on loops, you have a great style IMO and I enjoy your perspective