Friday, October 28, 2016

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - 20/20 hours

I wasn't quite able to beat the game as a dark-sider. The lightning ability made short work of basically every non-Sith I came across, and Dark rage was good for the lower-ranking lightsaber duels, but towards the end I wound up having to rely heavily on Absorb and Heal. I got up to the third-to-last level, but I wound up dying so many times that my time ran out.

I could finish the game again, but I think that after 100 hours, I'm ready to be done with this series. It was mostly fun, but I don't think it's "100 hour marathon" grade fun. There were too many frustrating spots and vague objectives for that. Nonetheless, I liked being a Jedi and even if I never play any of these games again, I'll look back upon them with fondness.

I wish I could think of a proper send-off for the series. I've spent so much time with them that I'm almost afraid I've forgotten how to play other sorts of games. What's remarkable is that there were five games over the course of eight years, but they managed to stay extremely consistent in terms of story and gameplay. There weren't any Force powers in the first, and the FMVs in the second were a short lived experiment, but other than that, the series just got steadily better by any metric you'd care to name.

I admire that sort of craftsmanship, and I'm glad that I got to end my ludicrous "play nothing but Star Wars games for a month and a half" binge on the strongest entry in the series. Good-bye Kyle Katarn, though I sometimes thought of you as a self-regarding jackass, I wouldn't mind it if you got another game.

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