Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - Extensive Star Wars Retrospective┃History and Analysis

we'll meet again WEP I can't wait following the success of Jedi Outcast Lucas Arts obviously asked Raven software to make a sequel a proposition which Raven readily accepted this time though things were going to be a little different they wanted to make a followup that was bigger with a more fleshed out combat system more worlds to explore and a final resolution on plot elements left untied from the previous game that sequel would include the story and act as the final entry in the Jedi Knight series it was called Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi [Music] Academy Jedi Academy was made with a one-year development cycle and thus released on September 17th 2003 much like its immediate predecessor Jedi Academy also saw a vast multi-console releasee finding it way onto the mac and returning to the Microsoft Xbox and PC although Kyle katar is returning on this adventure he is not the protagonist this time around instead we'll be getting introduced to a brand new hero one that we'll get to customize ourselves Jaden core a canonically human male with dark hair and gray eyes but who can be portrayed in a number of different ways depending on how the player creates them I'll talk more about that later unlike Jedi Outcast Jedi Academy did not see a GameCube Port meaning Nintendo players who enjoyed the previous title would have to try and requisition a PC Mac or Xbox to enjoy this last entry of the Jedi Knight Saga I decided to go with the PC version as it's readily available on steam can be easily modified to run at 4K resolution on widescreen and it's how I played it as a kid I opted not to make any other adjustments this time around because honestly the game looks great it doesn't need a reshade or a mod although there are plenty of mods out there if you want to have some fun with it I like the vanilla Jedi Academy experience and so that's how I decided to play it of course I did make a few adjustments to the configuration document to run it 4K widescreen but that was just a matter of adding a few lines of text Raven software built the game upon the same technology from Jedi Outcast meaning we're back on the idtech 3 engine again which is fine because they Honestly made some incredible improvements to it in the year they had to make this one the saber combat is much improved with a variety of new moves and possibilities the force power system has been revamped to closer mirror the earlier entries in the franchise like dark Forces 2 and Mysteries of the Sith and we've even got a couple of Minor vehicle sections now which bring about some much needed range to the gameplay offerings what Raven was able to accomplish here in the one year they were given to develop the game is beyond incredible and you can feel it really taking full advantage of the idtech 3 engine so what's the story behind this exciting conclusion to the Jedi Knight series well this was released just one year after Star Wars Episode 2 attack of the Clones premiered in theaters and you can sort of feel the impact of those prequel films meshing into the DNA of the pre-established expanded universe throughout this title you'll see what I mean as we play the first thing we have to do is create our new hero we can't name him or give him a backstory or anything but we can customize him or her and even create our own lightsaber kind of for what it is the customization isn't awful but I'm personally not a huge fan of it the whole thing feels kind of scattershot and inconsistent some of the species options have more clothing choices than others and the gender options aren't very evened out our choices are a human male a human female a kelor male a rodian male a Twilight female or a zabra female human for both sexes and two different alien species for each sex I guess the idea was to maximize potential choices this way but I don't love it for one the character's voice only supports the human selection if you pick a rodian then you're just going to sound like a human guy talking the whole game the clothing options are super limited too and a lot of them just downright don't look very good in my opinion and if you pick male you can choose to be black or white but the human female only has light-skinned options which feels a little unfair I love the idea of customizing your own Jedi Padawan to embody and I even like the idea of playing as aliens but the team did not have enough time to execute this idea in a capacity that does it any justice they would have been far better just keeping the available selection strictly human and offering more skin tone choices hairstyles and clothing options granted this is just my opinion on the matter but this feels Half Baked to me personally not to mention that the lightsaber creation also feels Half Baked they should have given us more Hilt choices here there's only nine hilts to pick from and five of them don't look very good I wish we'd had like 15 or even 20 this idea is so cool in concept but I just feel like when I was looking at it nothing really looked cool if they were going to go for this create your own Jedi experience then they needed to tighten it up a lot drop the alien choices and let us customize our humans with more options and give us more saber hilts again I like the option to play as aliens but it's not done well in story as it's clearly written with a human voice and a human character in mind so just own that then they only had a year to make the game so just be honest with what you're able to offer anyway for this playthrough I'm running the default male Jaden and I'll do a female Jaden for the non-canon Dark Side Run where I talk about it later with our Jaden decided and our saber created We Begin our adventure towards Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy to learn the ways of the Jedi [Music] Knight we'll be arriving at the Academy in just a few [Music] minutes that would be so great aren't you excited we're going to be Jedi learning the ways of the force building a lightsaber of course you already have one I'm going to get one of those stupid training Sabers and I wouldn't worry about that I can't help it I want to make a good impression you seem really nervous aren't you I mean well why would you be you already have a lightsaber so you're probably way ahead of me I'm rash by the way um what's your name Jaden so where'd you get that lightsaber well it's kind of a long story I found myself on hold on [Music] Academy T Yin Runner 2 do you copy loud and clear we made an emergency landing several clicks west of the academy is everyone all right I think so good we'll send a shuttle to pick you up can you lead the students to the nearby masasi Temple affirmative Academy we'll meet you [Music] [Music] there Jedi Academy does quite a few things differently with the way it opens its Story the game opens on Yavin 4 where our shuttle has been shot down this is where we're tasked with escorting one of our fellow prospective students to the temple as there's some aggressive Wildlife between us and there one of the biggest things Jedi Academy does is start the player with a lightsaber which is really lucky because not only does Jaden use it to fight off the local fauna he also ends up needing it to keep him alive here shortly it's not explained why Jaden has a lightsaber before he's even arrived at the Academy but he does as our fellow student rash leans in to ask how Jaden got it the ship is shot down and the game never gets around to explaining it after that but you know me and you know I'm going to fill in that L detail right now in one of the books starring Jaden it's explained that just days before he wound up on that shuttle he went into an intense dreamlike state where he constructed the lightsaber while in his uncle's Workshop Jaden had been living with his uncle on corusant for some time but after his uncle saw the weapon Jaden had created and realized that Jaden had no understanding of what just happened his uncle made made immediate arrangements to have Jaden sent to the Jedi prium on Yavin 4 to learn the ways of the Jedi now since we know in our experience there's no such thing as luck the explanation here is quite clearly the force that's why Jaden has a lightsaber and why he was on his way to the academy when the game started good thing he had it too so he could defend himself from this dark Jedi attack someone who looks suspiciously like the reborn from Kyle's running with danon's followers [Music] [Music] for what huh what who are you Kyle katar At Your Service welcome to a day in the life of a Jedi what happened we were kind of hoping you could tell us I saw a huge flash of light and ran over to find you just lying unconscious do you recall anything I I saw three people one was holding some sort of scepter and it was glowing that's all I can remember a scepter that sounds bad are you able to stand yeah yeah I'm okay I sense a disturbance in the force you always sense a disturbance in the force but yeah I sense it too it could just be residual Dark Side Aura from this Temple perhaps Kyle why don't you stay here and investigate I'd love to why don't you take the kids back home now be careful Kyle everyone follow me to the shuttle I think that that was Luke Skywalker I can't believe it I'd like to welcome all our new students to the Jedi Academy here we will train you in the ways of the force you will learn to defend yourself with a lightsaber you will also study diplomacy history and more it has been the practice of the Jedi to assign each student to a Master however since there are still so few of us we will be assigning multiple students to one master so Ron you will be assigned to master horn I can't wait to begin my training Raj pennon you will be assigned to master katar Jaden core you'll also work with Master katar now let's begin with your first lessons and may the four force be with you and there was nothing but the area around the temple felt strange like its Dark Side Aura was gone troubling but let's look into this later your students are ready to get started Master katar it's an honor to be serving under you first off just call me Kyle titles make my skin crawl secondly you're not serving under me I'm going to teach teach you and you're going to learn that's it I I I'm sorry I I I didn't mean to offend you don't worry Raj you didn't I've been offended by professionals now let's see what you two kids can do follow me to the training grounds of course Jedi Academy is going to take a little time to teach us how to play the game and interact with its various Force Powers I'll go ahead and say this now this game is the first time the force was really Unleashed I think I used the force more times in this one game than I did in all of the other games in the series put together every ability is more powerful and there are a lot more of them to play with this little training session is well integrated and fun too as Kyle leads us through a little Temple Run where we get to play with our powers it's neat and also lets us make use of our saber to fend off a handful of the local fauna everything is going smoothly hey hey Jaden this should keep you busy till I finish the course what the hell Raj man what a dick hopefully that doesn't remain a consistent trait of his [Music] [Applause] [Music] character what took you so long Jaden nothing you're sure it was nothing to get to the next area you must must pull a lever somewhere in the room but you can't reach the lever with your hands remember to examine your environment carefully I love how they've given the force sense ability a role in the story mode this time around it was featured in previous games but only as a multiplayer ability this time we can use it to help us solve puzzles across the game's various levels which is a really cool idea and adds to that Jedi power fantasy finally we get to the end of the training course and relink with rash and Kyle so did I win it wasn't a competition I'm sorry I I'm not the one you should be apologizing to it's no big deal you said yourself this wasn't a competition hey it was just a joke I didn't think it would if that Droid was set to Luke's training regimen it would have killed Jaden what were you thinking Jaden I'm so sorry I I can't believe I I mean I wasn't trying to save it rash Jaden you have a right to be angry but believe me when I say you don't want to feed that emotion I understand Master katarn apology accepted rash good that's settled and remember it's Kyle yes Matt uh Kyle sure thing Kyle okay you're both ready to start putting what you've learned to use let's see how you do in the real world Kyle I did some research on that strange mark from the clothing we found at the temple it is the symbol of marar ragnos a Sith Lord that died almost 5,000 years ago 5,000 years are you serious oh wait of course you're serious while you're out training your students be on the lookout for information regarding a group affiliated with ragnos Sure Thing Luke well that's that then looks like there's a weird cult going around doing things in the name of a long dead sick named marker ragnos expanded universe fans may have also caught that muffled mention of Corin horn that's good fan service which is nice because we'll have some bad fan service here shortly this is where the game opens up and gives the player some limited autonomy this Galactic map menu is where we will select which missions we want to do in whatever order we want to do them and you only ever have to do four out of the five available to you the game is split up into three acts and each Act features five selectable missions one of which will always be optional whichever one is optional is up to the player but you do have to complete at least four Every Act I actually really loved this system it made me feel like a real Jedi back in the day looking at my Galaxy map and heading to the planet to accomplish my missions they even bothered to show where the planets are relatively on the galactic map and it's really interesting idea for how to handle these missions and we're starting off strong of course all right let's get this over with honestly this is probably the worst mission in the game in my opinion and I'll get to why in a second anybody here I guess they're out Luke's info is good these are definitely freelance cargo ships I've got a bad feeling about this listen stay here and guard the entrance to to the Docking Bay if anyone tries to enter or leave detain them I'll head over to the crate Cantina and ask around I know some people there I do really like this idea of mimicking the master Padawan Dynamic we saw in The Phantom Menace by having Kyle be the master and letting us play as the Padawan as we go on little missions it's a really cool idea a Jedi me no not yet I'm one of Kyle katar's students he's talking to some locals we're investigating a cult that's been cropping up everywhere you must be Chewbacca why are you [Music] here Leia Orana wow must be important business look I love fan service I think putting cool things into products to appeal to your demographic is not only fine but it's good there is a point however when it's so tasteless even I don't like it opening the game's first mission by letting us fight off a band of mercenaries alongside Chewbacca because Han just happens to be here at the exact same time we're here investigating is so stupid not to mention the level design of this mission is just horrendous it's actually painful to play this Mission you've already seen the whole thing too it's just the hangar Bay with our ship in one port and the Falcon in the other the marks put a tractor on our ships and we have to go disengage it that's it not to mention it's set to the backdrop of tattooing it's just the worst level I hate it guarding the tractor beam controls is a reborn acolyte at least we're getting straight into the saber combat this time no waiting around but it looks like this fool can't even keep up with an untrained Jedi Padawan no wonder Kyle is wiping these guys out by the Dozen I'm guessing these are leftover reborn from danon's trip to the valley or maybe not either way we take him out and we finally get the tractor beams offline so we can meet back up with Kyle and get the hell off this rock well actually we're just moving to a different part of said Rock but still oh did I miss something good to see you too chewy guess these Merks didn't want us here that's High Praise coming from a wook thanks I think these mercs aren't cheap someone in this cult must have a lot of credits or worse it's backed by The Remnant listen we got to get back to Luke and tell him what's going on can you tell Leia about the cult if he hadn't shown up when he did I'd have been in a whole lot of trouble yeah well the way chewy tells it you held your own nice work jaas never around when you need them tracks maybe they've already come and gone go see if you can find their sand crawler they might have stopped in that Canyon I'll talk to the moisture Farmers see if they know anything about this cult all right don't worry jawwa are pretty friendly yeah jaw was maybe friendly but tuskin Raiders are very much not so a Smuggler R5 Droid picked up some audio of some people talking about a Sith cult but he got scared and sold the theme to a group of nearby Jawas so naturally we have to go find where that Droid is now and hope they haven't totally scrapped it yet this mission is overall actually pretty cut and dry most of them are actually but this one in particular is just a matter of cutting our way through these tuskens and finding the sand crawler and when we find said sand crawler we get one of the only puzzles in the entire game no really Jedi Academy only has like five or six small puzzles across his entire runtime and this this one's not even really a puzzle to be honest it's more like reminding you that you have Force Powers with that done we can keep going I think the team went out of their way to totally address the two biggest criticisms of Jedi Outcast with this game and it shows those criticisms being one it took way too long to get to your lightsaber and two the abundance of puzzle solving damaged the overall pacing and fun of the game well this game answers both of the criticisms by starting you off with a lightsaber and pretty much removing any real puzzle solving there's a small handful of little environmental puzzles like that throughout the game but honestly most of these missions are just fun levels meant to have fun with there's the R5 Droid let's get this thing out of here and get back to Kyle I was starting to get worried any problems not unless you count the sand people I ran into well you're still in one piece so you must have handled yourself all right let's get this Droid back to the academy so how's your training going I've been sitting on a few errands nothing exciting same here I guess that's just how the training works I thought it was just me ever wonder if your master is holding you back you know making sure you don't become too powerful why would you say that well Kyle doesn't seem to really Foster my talents I've gone on a couple of missions with him but doesn't let me do any of the really important stuff H maybe he's observing you you know seeing how you accomplish your missions I wouldn't worry about it I'm not so sure what do you think Jaden well I ready to get back out there did I interrupt something no not at all well I'm ready let's go looks like Raj isn't enjoying his training very much so far but we've got our own training to get back to and for our next mission we're headed to the planet bakura where are you Kyle I've been waiting here forever well I can't wait around I've got to do something so why are we on bakora well it's important to remember that we are training as Jedi so while a lot of the game's levels like the previous two will tie into the Sith cult plot line some of them are just unrelated side quest Adventures as part of our Jedi training in this case the Jedi prium has recently been asked by some officials on the planet bakura if they could send a Jedi to investigate a a power station they've lost contact with according to the request officials of the planet's governments have sent teams to investigate what's happened at the station but lost contact with them as well shortly thereafter now you might be wondering why would a planet's government reach out to the Jedi of all people for assistance on an issue like this why not ask the new Republic or send in their own military or anything well I actually have an answer to that question it's not talked about in the game but Luke happens to have a personal relationship with the prime minister of bakura a woman named gariel Capas their relationship is detailed in the book The Tru at bakur and depicts that although Gabriel isn't fond of Jedi at the time of their meeting she and Luke eventually become close in fact that book makes it clear that they even had a thing for each other but agreed that they could not pursue a relationship due to their separate responsibilities she wasn't prime minister at that time but she would go on to take that position by the time this game takes place which means it's all too believable that she would feel comfortable having her people reach out to Luke for help when she's worried the Empire might be involved because in the aforementioned book she sees firsthand that Luke knows how to take on the Empire so when we have a situation like this one where a group of Imperial Remnant soldiers are running around a power station trying to set bombs to blow things up you can hardly blame her for reaching out to Luke for help and I'm sure Luke was glad to help given it such a good opportunity to put his Jedi Order In Action remember k was supposed to be here with us right now so it's not like he was trying to put a Padawan in danger or anything anyway we eventually managed to shut down the bombs scattered around the base and clear out the remaining Imperial forces it's not really a major mission and doesn't contribute to the main plot but it's a really fun little side Adventure that Sparks the Intrigue of lore guys like me not to mention that despite being mentioned in a ton of EU content this game is one of the very few times we get to actually see bakuro so that's cool also this is the first mission we see Jaden's personal star fighter a z95 head hunter onto our next mission Luke has told us there's a group of merchants stranded on a planet called blil they were shot down after a runin with the Empire apparently so they sent out a distress signal and the prium picked it up so Luke is giving Jaden a shuttle and sending him on a quick solo Rescue Mission should be easy enough [Music] right [Music] hello hello hey you there thank the force you've come this place is what was that in case you couldn't tell from that cut scene alone this is one of the most unique missions of the game actually I think this is one of the most unique missions of any Star Wars game there's no one to shoot no Imperials no mercenaries cultists or dark Jedi just you a busted ship some wreckage to scavenge from and a horde of deadly sandb or worms anxious to get their jaws on you overall the mission is actually really easy it's really just a soft platforming level where the consequence of touching the sand is attracting one of the many worms to your location I don't know how they came up with this I mean yeah it's very clearly inspired by Dune but but still what did the conversation look like when they were discussing how this level would go I can remember playing this level as a kid actually it was so crazy that this was in a Star Wars game I loved playing this one and trying to outrun the worms it was a level I look forward to playing because I replayed this game over and over as a kid and this level was always one of my favorites the parts we need for our ship are scattered across this area so getting to them is where the challenge is like I said earlier this entire level is just platforming but it's fun and you can even mess with the worms by luring them around the map by shooting the sand I even used to make them eat thermal detonators as a kid to see if I could kill them you can't by the way if you're hoping I've got some cool lore about blind or these sand bers then I hate to tell you that there isn't any in Universe the blend system is actually far outside of every major hyperlane and since there was seemingly nothing of value here and the one habitable planet was just a big desert with no visible or apparent life forms no one ever came here the merchants who crashed here did so out of necessity after they got pulled out of hyperspace by crossing paths with an interdictor Imperial cruiser that didn't want its presence to be known so there's nothing here the whole system is Barren of course in a meta sense the reason there's no lore is because this planet was created for this game and doesn't appear in any other media even still I like to imagine to myself that there's some kind of Side Story of a character who's living somewhere on this planet like a Jedi who escaped Order 66 and fled to blendal to avoid The Purge and has learned to tame and live among the worms in dunesque fashion kills them for food rides them you get the idea that'd be sick anyway we get the parts we need put our ship together and get the hell away from this system to never return Kyle then tells us the new Republic will Mark the planet as hazardous so no one will have to see that Terror of a world again then Jan punches the weekway right in the can anyone hear me we're under attack somebody's trying to blow up the tra the message is coming from that cargo tram down below you take the Trap I'll take care of these ships welcome to corellia a planet that's surprisingly under utilized in Star Wars media in my opinion Kyle and Jaden were coming to corellia to meet with a contact in the city of Coronet the plan was to link with some of Kyle's contacts about the cult activity but as you saw we intercepted a distress signal from a nearby cargo tram under assault so here we are and again I think this mission is awesome the speeding feeling of the city flying past us the intensity of the rain pelting our lightsaber blade evaporating on contact even the fact that they bothered to animate Jaden covering his face from the lot of rain like this it's vibrant and exciting of course you've seen the whole level now though because this is just about all it is the whole time well actually there's one or two times it differs like now as we confront a cultist warrior as it turns out most of these cultists are in fact leftovers from danon's reborn movement he really was cranking them out by the Dozen and the remaining members seem to have rallied together under this cult dedicating themselves to the ancient Sith Lord marar ragnos of course some of them come from a different method which I'll talk about later also you might have noticed how often I'm using the force grip ability on this Mission well I maxed it out first because it's the single most useful SL overpowered Force Power in the whole series all of the other powers are pretty wild but this one in particular is straight up broken and you will see me abusing it to just throw so many people off of cliffs and other elevated locations throughout this video Kyle there's a bomb on the tram disarm it quickly you're about to enter a heavily populated area seems me worthy another bomb and another cultist well we know we're in the right place oh that wasn't so bad okay mission accomplished bad news Jen the tram is speeding up I think they're going to ram it into the station you have to get to the control room and stop that train these mercs are insane they're all going to just sit here and let this thing crash into a populated part of the city with them on it doesn't matter I've got to stop this thing oh and this dude thinks he's going to stop me but he's just going to prove how overpowered the grip ability is in this game well that was was too close great work Jaden I took out those ships so I think we're in the clear now I have called you all here to relay some disturbing news someone sliced into my personal records and accessed some highly sensitive data about places where I felt a strong connection to the force places like Cloud City Hoth and bis what could they get from that besides a tour something nasty I believe that the scepter Jaden saww was somehow used to drain the residual force power from the sa Temple drain the force how can anyone do that I'm not sure but I've learned from the Jedi holocron that devices were created in the past that could absorb and store Force energy those people Jaden saw may have discovered some way to harvest Force Power with that scepter which could be dangerous indeed so what are we going to do we'll have to investigate any locations for my records that includes all of you students Corin you're going to Wayland Kyle I need you to look at the Valley of the Jedi finally some real action why would they be stealing Force Power I don't know you worry too much Jaden I bet that these cult guys can't take on a Jedi well we're not Jedi yet we're just students you may be just students but you're both well on your way so don't rush it Jaden I'm sending you to Hoth where I had a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi I imagine there was a pretty strong AA there Raj I'm sending you to the remains of the planet bis it's very remote so I doubt the cult has been there don't stay too long the Imperial Remnant may still be operating in the no problem that's everyone then May the force be with all of you good luck call me if you need any help man rash is insufferable anyway we're touching down on Hoth now and on the outskirts of Old Echo base no less a really cool for us to get to visit and our boy Jaden is even dripped out in appropriate [Music] attire nothing is Master Skywalker wrong about this place what's that I guess I'd better check it out that's right Jedi Academy is introducing a new mechanic to the Jedi Knight series ridable mounts once again I don't know what the meeting looked like where someone pitched the idea that we should be able to ride a Tonton but man am I glad they did it doesn't control very well and it's incredibly short-lived but I thought it was fun also when I say incredibly shortlived I mean we spend less than 5 minutes riding a Tonton across the entire game and there's only one other Mount which I'll get to later well would you look at that a Wampa he's about as sturdy as you'd imagine too well until he picks us up and we have to give him the old Empire Strikes Back treatment not sure if you've noticed yet but Jedi Academy has an insanely eclectic offering of planets and biomes to visit I complained about dark Forces 2 only really showing us three planets but Jedi Academy has already rectified that issue in full and will continue to do so throughout the rest of our play time let's grab another Tonton and make our way through this blizzard cutting down a few Stormtroopers while we're at it okay that's an atst and we're riding around on a very organic and killable ride so let's let the poor thing go free before we get it killed and grab that turret to put that atst down and there's the entrance to Echo base and the remnant has straight up occupied the whole establishment because things can never be easy in the life of a Jedi as a fun little Easter egg we can actually fire the bases ion Cannon though it doesn't do anything neat all right stay focused we need to figure out what the Imperials are doing here and if it's related to the cultists trying to drain Force energy well this all looks familiar fans of Empire Strikes Back will love this mission for obvious reasons and of course you yes you are a fan of Empire Strikes Back because otherwise I can't fathom why you would be here although this is an admittedly short section it's still fun and whatever chance chances these Troopers stood against an overpowered Jedi to start with basically evaporate the second combat becomes Corridor based just what are they guarding down here anyway Command Center to allora allora here we've just finished downloading the data the rebels must have erased everything during the evacuation fortunately the computer kept logging their flight information and and we found Rogue Leader's flight trajectory when he left ha from it we've been able to determine that Skywalker went to deoa deoa that sneaky little Jedi this isn't good I better find this allora all right well they know Luke went to DEA after leaving Echo base now and there's some kind of cultist Captain down here too we better no not the taon Skywalker didn't mention it in his journals he must have been trying to protect something well done my Apprentice meet me there ah you must be the saber wielding Troublemaker who neutralized our perimeter guard are the Jedi stretch so thin that Skywalker sends children to battle the disciple of ragnos I love how she says that like it's some kind of established or recognized group you've been around for like a month relax so now we have to face down this cultist in the hanger of echo base and she puts up more of a fight than the other reborn we faced something's different about her the whole encounter doesn't last long however before she feels outmatched and bailes out on us we'll meet again WEP I can't wait so they know about deoa Master Yoda hid there knowing his presence would be masked by the planet's strong dark Sidora if they find it did you find anything on hath nothing they must have already taken the force energy from there just as others have reported besin Endor corusant everywhere Kyle what about Bish Raj hasn't returned he's long overdue and we haven't heard from him I sense he's still alive I'm going to bis to look for him I know some people that can get me into some of the outlying Imperial outposts I'll see what I can find out very well what about me I want to help rash is my friend you can help help by staying here and completing your training Kyle's right there are still missions for you to undertake and we can't neglect the training of one of our most promising students promising yes due to your heroics on hath we are promoting you to Apprentice thank you Master Skywalker Master uh [Music] Kyle we're at Padawan now and although the situation on Hoth was pretty dangerous there's still a lot of people who need help out there and still so much left for us to learn which brings us to the Planet of narr the prium got word from a mining Guild on that planet asking for help after a group of their Elders disappeared these Elders went to the local Hut's Palace to negotiate a treaty between said Hut and their guil but never came back the guild suspects the worst but has asked the new Republic for help which sent word straight to the prium which is why we're here now it's not specified which Hut we're dealing with here just that he's a local Crim Lord so I'm betting his lower level among his species based on that fact unsurprisingly the palace security is very unhappy to see us and negotiation seems totally off the table so I guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way ah so he's holding the elders prison ER but what would a Crim Lord want with a group of harmless miners hurry get us out of here before the rancor comes ranor the ranor oh that is one big Rancor it's got to be at least twice the size of the one Mara faced back on tattooine what the hell is it with huts and big nasty alien beasts Kell dragons rancors man why can't they just have a normal pet for once either way we escort the first batch of prisoners out of here and one of them informs us that there's three more groups of them locked up around the arena and then gives us a key to access the other areas which leads us straight into a gambling bar ah I see so that's what's going on on here the Hut is using them for bait in a betting game patrons can place bets to see who can escape and who can't we're a Jedi we can't let this continue so after freeing the remaining groups of Elders we have to go face off against that Rancor and kill it to put an end to this whole operation there's not much to say about the planet of Naro regarding relevancy to the overall lore but what I can tell you is this the whole planet basically gets genocided a few years after this during the use in vong war you can actually kill multiple rancors in this level because once you kill it another one will spawn as I learned but I'm pretty sure canonically there's only one here unless they literally do have multiple rancors locked up here for the sake of the bedding parlor which actually maybe that is what's going on either way with at least one Rancor dead and the prisoners freed our work here is done let's get out of here and on to the next task we're headed to zanu 5 to meet up with a local Spaceport worker who claims he's got info about this cult we're after and he's asked us to meet him at an abandoned Outpost a few kilos outside of the city of zoren head but since the terrain is Rocky and uneven we'll sit down in the city and rent a vehicle to help us get there that's right we've got a vehicle Mission although it's not the first vehicle mission in the series it's the first one to let us use a swoop bike and it's actually really fun too I know it looks stiff on the screen but that's only because I'm bad at it the swoop itself doesn't actually control bad that's not to say it isn't hard though in fact getting used to using this thing was a challenge in itself but it does make for a really climactic set piece unlike anything we've seen in this series so far you can even use multiple swoop bikes across the level if yours takes too much damage and you'll get plenty of opportunities to swap out as you play anyway there's our contact are you the Jedi yes tell me everything you know about the Disciples of ragnos please make it quick though I ran into some trouble back there and it might be following me we should go inside it'll be safer C must Sith spit I have to get out of here for those who don't know Sith spit is a swear word used by characters in the expanded universe so we're back on a swoop bike now and as you're seeing there's a few different things you can do with it each swoop bike comes equipped with a small front-mounted turbo laser and a boost functionality of of course since we're a Jedi though we can just wave our lightsaber around until we hit something feels way cooler to play it that way they actually put a decent amount of work into this too the swoop bike feels fast and responsive the combat with other swoop bikes feels intense but fair the learning curve is difficult but satisfying and they even bothered to program it so the slow motion mechanic that normally only kicks in when you kill an enemy also hits sometimes when you ramp a hill and gain some air there's a whole separate yet flushed out mechanic here which makes it really weird that this is the only time we ever see this in the whole game we never get a sequence like this again this is it this is the climax of the Jedi Knight series vehicle sections the only other thing even remotely like this are the ridable tontons from Hoth zanu 5 is an interesting planet for this to be occurring on too since it's a mostly Barren Planet located in the wild space region on the galactic map further away even than the outer rim zorin head is pretty much the only real sub settlement on the planet and it's run mostly by swoop gangs Smugglers and spice Runners ramping over a cliff we make it back to zor head to grab our ship and get back to the academy to report what happened and head out to our next mission a mission that has us fighting alongside General wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron himself this facility is lightly defended I don't think they expected us to find it my targeting computer will lock on to your beacons place them on key structural points then get out of there fast I'll be flying in lasers blazing if everything goes as planned we'll have the defenses down before they know what hit them we're currently landing on a mining station in atmosphere of a gas giant called Krill door a known source for mining a valuable resource called tibana This is actually another unrelated Mission having nothing to do with the main plot regarding the cult of marar ragnos instead the new Republic has asked for a Jedi's assistance in taking down this tonic gas mine being used by the Imperial Remnant to help deal a blow to their resources oh yeah and this Mission sucks I don't really understand why either because it has all the makings of a really cool level we're fighting the Empire on a floating platform placing beacons and watching wedge blow up entire parts of the station I mean it should be cool but it isn't it just ends up feeling really dull and not fun at all also there's several ragnos cultists here on this station which seems like an incredible coincidence but whatever I don't know I I sort of feel like this was rushed together given their one-year development time I just didn't like it very much personally and it added very little to the overall experience Beyond just being an extra mission to play with after placing the last Beacon and watching wedge blow the command center to bits we head back to our ship and move on to the next mission one where we'll be heading back to my favorite planet in the galaxy did you think you could just barge in here and take me into custody Jedi ah corusant Galactic capital in Jaden's home planet yeah this is where Jaden is from originally a natural-born street rat from the Metropolitan City Planet itself anyway let's talk about what just happened and why we're even here would you believe I did that multiple times while recording for this video yeah anyway this is Jaden's home world and it's even where he built his lightsaber while living with his uncle orm a man who took him in following the death of Jaden's adoptive parents who died in a shuttle crash when he was only a boy he never knew his real parents Hey look it's a coro2 exod drive speeder as seen being piloted by the Assassin Zam wazelle in Attack of the Clones it's actually really cool to see how the release of the prequel films affected the portrayal of certain things in Star Wars games like this game was released about a year after episode 2 and you can see little ways it was affected by that film if you're paying attention I've gotten distracted what the hell are we doing on corusant well the prium was contacted by the new Republic about a mysterious influx of illegal combat droids flooding the black market recently and they've asked if a Jedi could go and sit down with one of their suspects named lanic ratto to try and feel out if he's behind it or or not well as you saw for yourself lanic wasn't interested in having any conversations with us and instead tried to kill Jaden by blowing up a bridge with us on it fortunately for us that plan didn't work and now we have plenty enough evidence to take him in for attempted murder honestly my only problem with this mission is how short-lived it is I have such a blast with this level and you guys know how much I love running around doing Jedi things in these bustling Metropolis cities so I just thought it such a shame that the whole level is honestly pretty short but it is fun the whole way through and one of my favorites from the game and there's a pair of ragnos cultists hiding out in his building guarding him I guess he was doing business with them or at the very least attempting to negotiate a deal to sell them some of his assassin droids or something either way we can make pretty short work of these cultists and go confront this two bit Thug how did you get up here no matter if it's trouble you're looking for you came to the right place Jedi damn it more assassin droids these things are no joke either those Shields will cut through your health almost instantly if they touch you so we can't get close enough to attack and they'll bounce any Blaster shots we fire right back at us I've been using thermal detonators on them so far but I'm all out so we must rely on the power of the force force speed that is the one flaw in these shields is that in order to compensate for their sheer strength they can only stay active for a few seconds at a time before temporarily shutting down to prevent overheating which wouldn't be enough for a normal person but for a Jedi that short Gap is all we need that'll teach a Jedi to break into now let's talk about these assassin droids uh okay where is your Factory hiar if you don't hurt me I'll tell you where it is you're coming with me well with that out of the way we head out to the planet dosen to investigate a transmission picked up that mentioned the cult of ragnos although we were given orders not to engage the cult if we found them here it looks like we won't have much of a choice drop your laser sword Jedi and maybe we'll spare your life or perhaps you'd like to take your chances so my Jedi friend what do you think of our accommodations well why don't you come down here and find out h feisty good good I have a proposition for you you see it can get dreadfully dull around here so I'm up for a bit of sport I'm going to let you out if you can make it back to your ship you're free to leave but if I catch you I'll have to shoot you after all you are an escaped prisoner hopefully you'll prove more more of a challenge than a bounty hunter I had to kill a few days ago of course I've never hunted a Jedi before and if I refuse to play along well then you can rot in your cell I'm sure someone might come looking for you eventually let the games begins great now we're being hunted for sport by a fat kawaiian monkey lizard with way too much time on his hands must have been a trap from the start a fake lead once this guy picked up on the fers asking about the cult of ragnos working with the Imperial Remnant meant to lure us here and kill us man I got to say the Empire really fell apart after what went down at indoor split up into various factions under various warlord likee leaders and making a constant stream of awful leadership decisions if they're putting a psychopath like this in charge of anything then they were clearly better off under Palpatine I can't imagine thra ever suffering a psycho like this to be in charge of anything even if they did just relegate him to running this prison that lunatic is named Rax joris and he's the warden on this small prison hidden here on the planet dosen it's another planet out in Wild space beyond New Republic influence and as such makes a perfect spot for an imperial Remnant prison station like this but there's no one else here no really this place is Barren beyond the Imperial presence which suggests that either they planning to use this prison for something down the line or far more likely it's supposed to be holding prisoners of value and RX just keeps setting them free to kill them for sport which is exactly why you never let a greasy lunatic be in charge of anything he said himself there was a bounty hunter being held here before Jack set him free to hunt him if the remnant bothered to ship you a bounty hunter here for imprisonment then that clearly means they wanted him alive for something you fool honestly I'll be doing the Empire a f favor by putting this guy down he's more of a liability to them than he is a danger to us as for the mission itself it's really straightforward you're stuck without your lightsaber for the whole level since Rax has it on him which is honestly kind of an interesting idea since it forces the player to take advantage of the game's FPS combat a feature that's almost never used throughout the rest of the game because well I mean you pretty much never need to the layout is just a series of corridors with one of the more interesting bits being this firing range we can play with and it's also the way out of this building and into the courtyard which is where we have to take on an atst but luckily this thing fires grenades so we're good of course we still abuse the hell out of the force while here grabbing enemies by their throat and slamming them into the ground to break their neck it's just too easy you're doing well Jedi too well it's time to end this game now he's mad because he's losing well sorry Rex that's not how it works you made the rules and today's going to be your final game chasing him through the building we find the main hanger where he set up a dramatic stage for a big Showdown well played tragically I can't allow you to tell anyone about my little operation farewell Jedi yeah no worries about that you won't be alive by the time anyone hears about what you were doing here it seems I underestimated you Jedi well that was fun let's get back to the academy and see what they have for us next the Disciples of ragnos are getting bold they've managed to siphon Force energy from every site that was mentioned in my journal we still don't know what it is they're planning to do with the energy though it's imperative that we track down the leader of this cult but how if they've already hit every place in your Journal there are several places I didn't mentioned by name that they've discovered like deoa my fear is that they may use clues in my journals to discover other places we need to beat them to these locations considering how we lost a student last time we must be very cautious everyone will travel in pairs Kyle Jaden you'll be going to vun vun isn't that just a big dead rock it also happens to be the location of one of my father's strongholds okay so it's a big dead important rock streen you and T this ought to be interesting I'd heard rumors that Luke had been to vune but he never really talked about it vun is dangerous the dark side is strong there oppressive be extremely careful sure Luke don't [Music] worry [Music] great looks like somebody's home Luke sure knows how to pick them we'll sit down in that Canyon and try to sneak into the castle well here we are vun an environmentally deadly planet and home to one of Vader's personal castles first thing you may notice is the toxic green acid rain that kills you if you're in it for too long and gameplay-wise one of the biggest hassles yet our welcoming party is here right away too a new type of Imperial Trooper they may look like Phase 2 dark Troopers but they're not these are called Hazard Troopers they're massive heavily armored and only partly human in order to reinforce the armor as much as possible any Trooper selected to become a hazard Trooper must have their arms and legs removed and their torso surgically integrated into the hazard armor if effectively making them cyborgs that's real that's literally what they are because of this their armor is damn near impenetrable they can survive being in highly toxic or radioactive environments and even be unaffected by the vacuum of space the only real concern is that occasionally the spots where flesh Meets Metal can become infected but the suit is conditioned to flush the area and inject antibiotics their helmets are loaded with a 3-day supply of backa infused air and they carry around a concussion rifle making them insanely dangerous which is why the best way around this is to mind trick them into killing each other instead of you the level overall isn't bad but a decent portion of it does end up being running from cover to cover so we can avoid the acid rain the interior bits are pretty fun though pitting us up against a strong multitude of Remnant troops and cultists also in case you didn't notice yet this is the first time we actually get to fight alongside Kyle in a mission and he is exactly as overpowered as you may have imagined sometimes I just stand back and let him take on an enemy just as see it happen it's a really cool moment and the only time something like this happens so it's fitting that it all happens halfway through this game after all this time we get to fight side by side back to back with Kyle katar it's a great sequence pushing a little bit further we encounter a couple of Thai bombers hovering in the air just waiting to ruin our day when Kyle points out something interesting take cover guess they're expecting us now okay we'll have to get to that turbo laser and take out the bomber first oh well would you look at this conveniently placed anti-air turbo laser I know you're going to say this is too small to be a turbo laser but you're wrong and you'll see why in a later video this is indeed a turbo laser we'll have to get to that turbo laser and take out the bomber first told you while we fight our way to that turbo laser let's talk a little bit about vune there's actually quite a bit of lore behind this world but I'll just be covering the basics it's drenched in Dark Side energy due to to a planet-wide experiment with midichlorians that drove everyone insane and made them kill each other tying back to the same old attempts of Mad Men to infuse the force with people that mon mothma talked about in Jedi Outcast this happened over 30 years before the empire fell during that awful moment one of the planet's residents recognized what was happening in flood taking her young son off to corusant to learn the ways of the Jedi that son was named wh malaru and not only did he appear briefly in Revenge of the Sith but also few Comics too though he was unfortunately executed during Order 66 rip it's a pretty fascinating planet and even has some relevance during the Clone Wars but back to our objective we need to find and infiltrate the so-called Bast castle and see what we find from there okay the turbo laser should be on the other side of this door it's locked there was a control room back there wait here and let me know if I get it open a Jedi ominous I wonder where this leads a of course it has to be a garbage pit doesn't it well let's go no one ever said being a Jedi was glamorous straight fall into the castle trash compact huh well at least we should be able to make our way into the castle from here this is a much more straightforward level where we're just ascending up while cutting through everything that gets in our way there are a few hiccups along the way though this lift is locked down too maybe this switch oh come on uh-oh Jaden watch out this is another environmental puzzle and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it took me longer than 15 seconds to figure it out but you just force push the clearly different colored water pumps all right cool and we're on the Move Kyle relax kid I've seen tubes like this before we can ride them to the top good idea we can feed the energy back into the machine and overloaded Jaden are you okay yeah I'm fine where are you I'm not really sure I'll have to catch up with you go on ahead without me well we're separated from Kyle but we're in the main Castle now so that's a plus this is the mission that really tests your skills as a Jedi you'll be facing more cultists than ever before and more of them will be better trained than any you faced so far so as I fight my way through this hellish Dark Side Palace I'll talk a little bit about the castle itself the first thing I have to say is that the design for the Castle's exterior was inspired by a sketch by Ralph mcari depicting what would have been Darth Vader's Castle in The Empire Strikes Back film obviously this never showed up but the fact that the concept itself didn't go to waste and found new life ref 20 years later is awesome if you don't know who Ralph mcari is he was one of the lead Architects behind the aesthetic vision of the original trilogy with his concept art illustrations his work was also featured heavily in the shadows of the Empire multimedia project although Bast Castle does apparently predate Vader and the Empire as Count Dooku spent some time here studying the dark side energy here at one point it's a leftover Relic from the royalty of the planet from before the experiments that drove the population mad although it's all been occupied by the The Remnant now it was left abandoned for years following Vader's death oh look this must have been used as a training room for Vader looks like the cultists have retrofitted it for a similar purpose using the Assassin droids they bought from lanic ratto back on corusant H someone didn't like Vader much that statue being knocked over is a nod to the dark Empire comic series it's actually a whole subplot the statue was put up by a man given the task of managing the castle named cedris ql who had the stat statue put up out of his admiration for Vader the clone of Palpatine at the time ordered the statue torn down but cedis ignored it and was eventually killed by another human named Zer nist who then assumed the responsibility of maintaining the castle Palatine then ordered him to tear down the statue after cedis refused to do so and Zer promised it would be done but also ignored the order although this was due to being busy not out of love for Vader then in a final showdown with Luke Scott Walker in that very room Luke uses the force to knock the statue down and ends up crushing Zer and killing him ironic I sense your presence Jaden Raj what are you doing here the Disciples of ragnos brought me at first I thought they were going to kill me but I was wrong about them do you realize how much power there is in the Dark Side Kyle was holding us back Jaden you should feel the power it's beyond anything you've ever imagined rash what are you saying you're a Jedi no no I enough talk rash destroy this puny Jedi so we can complete our task yes if you're too weak to join us Jaden then we can't let you stand in our way only a Sith deals in absolutes all right here we go a showdown against one of our fellow students from the academy who seems to have been corrupted by the dark side and is now working alongside the cult of marar ragnos and it's a pretty competent boss battle too although the real trick is ignoring rash and taking on these big cultists who keep using the scepter to heal him repeatedly they're pretty beefy too like they can take some serious damage the fact that this whole scene takes place in one of Vader's personal meditation Chambers is actually a fantastic fantastic set piece I'm loving the whole thing eventually we're able to kill his bodyguards and without their help Raj doesn't really stand a chance against us and we make short work of him although we don't quite get the chance to put him down [Music] permanently Kyle I oh did you really think I would give up my new Apprentice so easily Tavon you should have killed me with you had the chance katar your pathetic Jedi Mercy is a weakness that shall cost you your life and the life of your Academy's students but not you my dear Raj come yes Tavon Rush [Music] no fool your petty friendship cannot compare with the power of the dark side so is this what it's come to Tavon stealing scraps of the force like some sort of Intergalactic parasite spare me your self-righteous pity katar you may have shamed me when you spared my life but that was before I found this now I have a new master one who has promised me the power to destroy you and all the Jedi ragnos what can a dead Sith Lord give you everything I have ever wanted not that you'll be around to see [Music] it I can't keep this up for long hold on we looked everywhere after getting free but Tavon had already taken rash and fled so now we know who was leading this cult but that doesn't explain why there are so many dark force users some of Dan's leftover reborn were with her as for the cultists Jaden has a theory if the scepter can store the force maybe it can release it too Tavon could be using it to empower her followers corrupting disciples with the dark side of the force that would explain a lot did you get a good look at the scepter yeah I bet it belonged to ragnos we need to figure out what Tavon plans on doing with it if we're going to stop her agreed you are going to need to build a new lightsaber to replace the one you lost while we try to figure out what tavon's next move is I'd like you to take a more active role at the Academy sir Jaden you handled yourself exceptionally well in vune to confront three dark Jedi and de feat them took bravery and skill for your efforts I feel you are ready to join our ranks as a Jedi Knight congratulations Yes Master Skywalker thank you both Jaden after the battle I felt the anger seething inside you you may be a Jedi Knight now but you still must Beware of the dark side yes Kyle I'll try not to fail [Music] you act three of the game opens by letting the player build their new lightsaber but with the addition of being able to choose dual wielding two lightsabers or even building a double bladed lightsaber which is just so badass I love this the literal only issue here is that we don't get this until the last 30% of the game for the Canon Jaden I opted to go with the Dual wielded Sabers making one green like his previous blade and the other orange to show a similar progression to Kyle's going from a green saber to an orange one in dark force it's like poetry they rhyme although he does canonically have two Sabers after the game one of them is the saber he lost on vun after it's eventually retrieved from Bast castle and he repairs it so technically I should just be using the orange blade but orange is his canonical saber color I'll show footage of the saber staff later when I cover the dark side playthrough though we're a Jedi Knight now and armed with two shiny new lightsabers so let's get back out there let's punch in the coordinates for our next mission and get moving before we're too late well here we are not only are we currently entering an ancient Jedi tomb but also another one of the best levels of the game it's the first level up on the roster after getting to build your new lightsabers and it's literally just an entire level of fun platforming and cool lightsaber battles across an ancient underground Jedi tomb I mean what more could I want it's fantastic also this is the level I always had in mind when I would think of this game for many years because it's just so satisfying to force grip an enemy and straight up throw them off a cliff I just love it so obviously the cult is here to drain this tomb of its Force energy but where is here the crystal Canyons of Shanda the planet of chandrila is densely packed with lore being not only located among the core systems but also the home world of man mothma it's mentioned across numerous books and other media though is rarely seen depicted keeping it relevant however we need to talk about the tomb we're in specifically the game only clarifies this to be the tomb of a Jedi but not which Jedi so looking that up we can figure out that this massive tomb was built for a Jedi only known by the title given to him by his Masters the barsen Thor this is a really interesting fact and obviously it was added retroactively given that the barsen Thor was created for the Old Republic MMO several years after this released but they did go back and tie it into this game having this be the burial ground of his character so now over 5,000 years later these cultists have come to drain the force energy from his resting place and it's up to Jaden core to stop that from happening and like I mentioned earlier this is one of the most fun missions across the game the platforming is so smooth and easy thanks to the control of your Force jump though this is a beautifully constructed tomb the only way to ensure no returns to disturb the barsen Thor sarcophagus is to bury it for good and with that done it's on to our next mission which leads us straight to a Spaceport on the planet to nav but why would the cultists be in an inner Rim planet known mainly for agriculture and farming well this is where the captain saw the cultists doesn't look like oh well that was unexpected the Jedi are here all right so we've stumbled upon some kind of genetically altered Rancor it's bigger and it's green what exactly did we just stumble into well what I can tell you is that like I said earlier this area is a Spaceport which is why there's such an abundance of massive crates being moved around I'm guessing either being put on or taken off of a ship this Rancor on the other hand is a bit of an oddity when that cultist spotted me he immediately ran to let this thing loose but why and also why is it here did they bring it here as it turns out yes they did it's no coincidence that the Disciples of ragnos have come to tab their plan was to set this thing loose near the city of Pand and while it created chaos by destroying the place and the local authorities were distracted by trying to stop it they would go in and essentially sack the city for credits arms and resources to better equip their cause honestly it's not a bad plan but something tells me they weren't counting on Jaden showing up here which is why they panicked and just set the thing loose here in the Spaceport and it's no wonder the Jedi got tipped off either look at how many cultists are here here and how few of anyone else is and by few I mean zero it looks like they've killed everyone else here before that happened though someone probably got suspicious of whatever giant cargo container was holding this thing and tried to get word out to the Jedi prium either right before or as they started slaughtering everyone here it's actually kind of sad as for the rancor itself I couldn't find any concrete information on whatever was done to it but we do know that the expanded universe is no stranger to mutants we've talked previously about how dark side Alchemy can be used to alter a being on a genetic level changing it to something else entirely called Sith spawn such as gork and pck whom died at Kyle's hand on the suon star this isn't the work of the forest though those massive green containers on its back suggest this to be a more traditional work of science everything I'm about to say here is pure conjecture given that there's no information on this creature or how it came to be in the game Star Wars galaxies players were able to find a geonosian biolab hidden on Yavin 4 where a multitude of different aliens were found being mutated by geonosian biogenic experiments which altered the genetic makeup of the beings by utilizing techniques Mastered by their geonosian scientists that facility became compromised decades before the events of this game but the reference still exists could this creature be a result of a similar biogenic experiment perhaps also gean ocean science particularly knowledgeable fans might suggest that this is a chrysalid Rancor a sithspawn Rancor made from Dark Side Alchemy and while I think there are some striking similarities you'll notice that these images depict them without the massive jutting tubes of green liquid because no such thing would be needed if Dark Side Alchemy was all that was at play here however I'm willing to indulge that it could be a combination effort given who we're dealing with it's by no means a stretch to imagine Tavon doing some dark side Alchemy on this thing and then also sending it to someone for additional modifications maybe even a Hut who funded it in exchange for some of the profit should the plan to sack the city go as intended it doesn't by the way again pretty much all of that is mere speculation but I think it's fun to play around with the lore we've been given personally I'm settling on this being a hybrid sithspawn chrysalid Rancor infused with geonosian biogenic alterations Jaden kills it by trapping it between a dur steel crate and a Force Shield thereby crushing it to death we'll have to let the tab government clean this up because Kyle and Luke just informed him that Jaden needs to head straight to the planet Yara to investigate the existence of a highly Advanced cloaking [Music] device looks like that's the one this thing is apparently powerful enough to cloak an entire planet and because of that it may very well be too powerful for anyone to have access to so Lucas suggested we just destroy the thing outright so why is a superpowered cloaking device being hidden on a random no-name Planet like this well leave this place great now we're fighting nree what the hell are they doing here according to our Intel from Luke about this planet The prium Scholar ton solusar went searching for it in the holocrons they had available after a mention of it made its way to Luke the planet Yara was once home to a very primitive race of beings called the yarans naturally but upon discovering the planet Jedi Master Broden Kel verdox decided that the yarans were not ready for exposure to the Galaxy and said about constructing a cloaking device to hide the planet from Galactic sight until they were ready this was sort of his life life's Mission he recorded this in a holocron of course that was given to the Jedi Order at the time of course we're led to believe this was hundreds of years ago so the idea of the Sith was a distant memory and the Galaxy had been at peace for thousands of years when this occurred well none of that mattered because Vader found the planet which of course he did and then proceeded to wipe out the entire species leaving it a Barren Planet except for the NRE he stationed there to guard the device in case he ever wanted to do something with it I'm pretty sure he had the NRE do this because he wanted his actions and the knowledge of the device to be hidden from the Emperor or anyone else but him so now that's why there's so many noi here they've been here for over a decade guarding this thing on Vader's command as for the cultists it looks like they also found out about it and had similar ideas of using it for their cause bringing along a handful of Remnant Stormtroopers to clean these norre out guess we were right on time the mission itself is actually one of the more fun ones offering up a great overall set piece a healthy dose of minor platforming and a great set of levels to cut through some enemies this is also the only level we fight noi which is in itself pretty cool as we haven't seen them since Mysteries of the Sith this is a great way to tie us back to that and help keep everything feeling connected reaching the top of this ancient Tower we plant a few bombs to destroy the device and take a Swan Dive to freedom I don't sense the dark side here Kyle me neither that's not good Tavon must have been here already an imperial dreadn I'm going to get us out of here they've got a tractor beam on us I can't break free okay here's the plan I served on one of these ships back in my Imperial days you disable the tractor beam and I'll trigger the ship's self-destruct ready ready as I'll ever be is it even really a Jedi night game if Kyle doesn't get to blow up some some kind of Imperial vessel after Jaden took care of the cloaking device on Yara he returned to the academy and Kyle asked Jaden to accompany him to the planet bis where rash was abducted by the Disciples of ragnos before we even made it to B however the Ravens claw got tractor beamed and captured by an imperial dread knot which means our only Mission here is to get off of this thing alive it's one of the most straightforward missions of the whole game in my opinion and also one of the hardest that is if you don't have access to the Jedi mind trick p the dreadn is loaded with Hazard Troopers whose concussion rifles will basically turn you into a mist of particles before you even see it coming so really your best bet is to mind to trick them into shooting their allies instead of you doing that makes things way easier let's see if we can do something about these Tie fighters while we're in here like I said it's a short Mission but getting to fend off a group of Stormtroopers back to back with Kyle does make for a climactic ending to an intense roller coaster of a mission [Music] with that out of the way we can head back to the academy and get to our next mission where we'll be going to a little planet you may have heard of called or Manel this is our last selectable mission of the game and Kyle tells us it should be easy just head to an abandoned weapon stockpile on or Manel drop a few charges to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands and then fly back home huh there's some of the weapons right [Music] there this is a lot nicer than I remember this planet being Boba Fett this doesn't concern you Jedi just walk away look I can't do that great now Boba Fett is trying to kill us what is it about this place in bounty hunters what was supposed to be a simple demolition mission in an abandoned Temple just got a lot more complicated although the concept here is very cool this is another very short Mission you've already seen the whole thing actually all you do here is go to the east wing of the temple set a few charges then the West Wing to set a few more charges and you're done that's it there are no enemies or obstacles besides Boba Fett trying to kill you but he's a pursuer type of enemy like in a horror game he cannot be killed at best maybe stunned you have to just avoid him and set your charges to take out the weapon stock piles I will say the idea of a hidden temple on or Manel is very cool given this planet's reputation for being a giant trash sheep I mean that literally too this weapon stash is an old Rebellion age stockpile from before the fall of the Empire that much we know but the purpose of this Temple eludes me as there is no description or explanation the game refers to it as an old hidden city but this seems far more like a temple to me it wasn't always a junk Planet you know thousands of years ago or Manel was more of a trade planet and many wars were fought over it several of which included the Jedi and the Sith makes you wonder if we're really in an old Jedi Temple built from thousands of years ago following a Jedi Victory either way we're blowing it up with that done we get back to our ship and have one more short confrontation with fet but with the weapons already destroyed he quickly determines there to be very little point in sticking around no bounties on you a shame all right let's get back to the academy the time has come to put an end to the Disciples of ragnos I believe that Tavon is storing Force Power in the scepter for one purpose to resurrect Marco ragnas is that possible the force holds a great many Secrets it may be possible that if a high enough concentration of force energy is infused into a body the cells might regenerate bringing the person back to life we have to stop them no kidding so we're going to Corban huh not exactly a vacation spot corbon I never heard of it it's the burial place of a whole bunch of Sith Lords if ragnos is resurrected there's no telling what he might be able to do it will take all of our strength to stop him we're not heading to Corban just yet I just received a distress signal from rash Raj where is he he's being held captive on tper 3 it's an imperial controlled Planet a real Paradise how did he get a message out I don't no but we can't leave him there Raj could still belong to the dark side it could be a trap it could be but I'm not willing to let him die there if it isn't Kyle what about ragnos we have to go to Corban well if we're lucky we'll catch up with everyone else before the fireworks start if you don't want to help me no I'm [Music] coming well there's Tas for [Music] three I'll go in the back way if we enter from both sides we're bound to find him following the Battle of indor and the subsequent fall of a United Galactic Empire tasp 3 fell under the control of one of the remnant Warlords named artist Cain a warlord is not what he remained however nor what he fancied himself eventually putting together a movement called the pentar alignment an ambitious idea to exist as an isolationist faction that isn't just recognized as a leftover of the Empire the movement died with Cain however and was reabsorbed into the remnant along with the ruling of tasar 3 falling under control of Admiral Pion the man whom a large portion of the remnant considered to be the new Imperial ruler I say most because there were still plenty of power hungry lunatics with resources Gathering and convincing different sects of the remnant to indulge their ideas even at this point anyone familiar with palan's character would know he would have been so unlikely to have ever sanctioned this cultist lunacy nor suffered the rambling Ambitions of Tavon and her Cult of marar ragnos so this occupation is almost assuredly operating on tasar 3 without his knowledge Lord heer leader of the Empire reborn movement and the man who funded danan and Admiral F during the events of Jedi Outcast was killed only a few months before the events of this game both happening in 14 ab1 by I'm guessing and this is purely speculation that Tavon swooped in and salvaged the remaining resources still under heer's command and took control of whatever he had left troops credits whatever wouldn't have been hard to do honestly so this is like watching a fractured faction in its Death Rows more or less as for this Mission itself I like it there are three levels set on tasar 3 and at least two of them are good the third one is well I'll get to that the first is plenty fun honestly very straightforward it's kind of just an Ascension through these buildings while we carve through Stormtroopers officers and even a surprising number of reborn cultists the second level though is where things get switched up a bit first off we have to run across the exterior of the station all the while being chased by these jet Troopers who are an unbelievably annoying enemy type this Mission isn't the first time we see them but it is where they're the most prominent and it's where they're the most annoying once again by the way the grip ability is just stupid broken in the best of ways now this section is a pretty good challenge we're confronted by a pit of lava surrounded by Hazard Troopers whose armor makes them very hard to kill given the fact that there's like six of them that isn't the best way to go about the situation anyway one method is to use Force speed to try to get past them all together but another more effective solution is simply to persuade one or two of them to kill all their friends oh well that's a new one let's try that again you so the itty bitty Jedi has come to rescue his friend that's so sweet where's Raj what makes you think he wants to be rescued Tavon turned him to the dark side just like that where is he ooh someone's getting awfully angry aren't they forgetting your Jedi training look allora why serve Tavon it's not too late to join us and fight her I'm taking rash out of here make it easy on yourself and tell me where he is oh he's around I think I'll go look for him okay she has to die this brings us to the third mission on tasar 3 and it's it's really annoying essentially it's a sequence of moving from one set piece to another while having to fight cultists pretty much every time you turn a corner and allora taunting you the whole time oh but you are persistent Jedi look I love theide idea of missions where all you do is fight cultists the whole time I think that's sick but they should have held out for literally one more Mission this level really needed one or two segments to have the cultist removed and let us catch our Breath by fighting The Remnant instead it's pretty much exclusively cultists with a few Troopers sprinkled throughout the whole time it just got a little exhausting although I do enjoy the level I'm definitely not trying to bash it it's still better than most levels and most other video games that I've played but I was just feeling the fatigue kicking in a bit from the constantly repeated voice lines and lightsaber battles oh yeah and of course we've got to have a conveyor belt sequence not again you know Star Wars games love their conveyor belts then there's this section it's really annoying you can tell the dev saw attack of the Clones and theaters and immediately set to work on this level which normally I'd love to see something referential like that but this level just frustrates the hell out of me finally at the end of the level I've had enough of this Twilight so let's go find rash and put her down for good Raj Jaden you don't look like much of a captive Raj did you dream this up or was it tavon's idea no Jaden wait I was wrong please take me back to the academy I need help Jaden stay back please don't hurt me you tried to kill me and now you've lured me into a trap Jaden I was scared you have to believe me we're we're friends remember let's get out of here before allora comes [Music] back how do I know you won't betray me again you're always trying to beat me how do I know this isn't just another trick Jaden don't do it finish him Jedi wait listen to what you're saying you're you're angry don't give into it that leads to the dark side [Music] right he only fell to the dark side because he was scared afraid of dying put away your saber strike him down give in to your anger Jaden you're better than that don't give into your anger rash is telling the truth I'm sorry Raj you're right I almost let my anger get the best of me let's get out of here thank you Jaden you Jedi are blandly predictable Tavon thought that turning you would gain us an ally but since you won't be turned I guess it's up to me to clean up her mistake Stand Down allora you were no match for me on Hoth and now I am a Jedi Knight Tavon has taught me many things as well you sanctimonious [Music] fool Rush at least they bothered to actually animate a real lightsaber fight this time and so starts our final confrontation of tavon's apprentice allora it's a really solid battle and she's a well-balanced challenge I feel like given the intensity of the planet and prior locations we saw this set piece of a duel could have been much better than just a big empty storage room but it's not bad I enjoy the sequence here as a great payoff to the Tas for 3 levels and it makes a fantastic penultimate Planet climax this is normally where I talk about allora who she is where she comes from how she ended up a dark Jedi serving under Tavon but there's no information I searched she is an absolute mystery serving more as just a foe for Jaden to face off against I mean obviously she's an original character created for this game to be a foe for Jaden but what we see in the game is the beginning and end of what we know of allora's character so my head Cannon is that Tavon found a four sensitive Twilight still enslaved to an imperial Remnant officer and offered her freedom in exchange for servitude so a similar story to Bach from Dark Forces 2 although I'm just making that up this is a critical scene where the player is given a choice between killing rash or sparing him that choice dictates the ending of the game between light side or [Music] dark rush rush I'll be oh [ __ ] spit I need to get him to a back the tank go to Corban and help Luke and the others I'll be there as soon as I can Jaden I sensed your struggle with the dark side I'm glad you made the right choice thank you but it was Raj who made me see what the right choice was tell him that when he wakes [Music] up [Music] Jaden you made it did you find Raj he's hurt but safe Kyle's taking care of him any sign of Tavon not yet we're trying to locate ragnos is Tomb Master Skywalker's group landed in another part of the valley to search for it I'd better get going hey be careful this place is crawling with dark force users well here we are the final planet and the last two levels of the game corbon a cemetery of Sith Lords a most Fitting Place to Mark the end of a series called Jedi Knight these two missions much like the last one are just a constant barrage of fighting cultist dark Jedi as we descend into these ancient Sith catacombs unlike the last level though I actually really love these last two missions simple as they are there's a small bit of puzzle solving here in the first mission and it is a touch longer than the mission that follows it but they really tried to make sure you got your worth in this climactic last level the design here is fantastic the aesthetic feels very consistent to what fans of the series would expect of a catacomb on corobon it's dripping with the feeling of the dark side and there's all kinds of statues and symbols scattered throughout to really Hammer home the fact that we are on Corban right now I love that they're trying to make sure the player falls back on everything they've learned so far like with this door that requires the use of force sense to open and with certain parts requiring these massive jumps and the number of cultist we're facing it's like the game is trying to help us realize how powerful we've become because if you tried to play this level pre Hoth encounter you wouldn't stand a chance it's also notable that the entire time you're fighting your way through this catacomb you're watching other Jedi do the same thing you are stepping in and saving these Jedi will cause them to follow you and help you as you fight your way to the end this matters a lot actually but I'll get to that the depths of this C comb get more dangerous even to the point of finding a lava pit with cultists waiting to Ambush us the good news is that I'm pretty sure the last of the reborn cultists all rallied here when Tavon arrived so if we can finish this now this reborn crisis will be over and done with making it outside of the Catacombs we enter the final level and they're really delivering on the spectacle here seeing this huge Chasm with a statue of marker ragnos in the distance is appropriately Grand not to mention getting straight into saving some fellow Jedi from harm it's not a very long segment but it feels Grand and the fact that we're seeing in participating in multiple lightsaber battles as we make our way there creates a massive sense of scale of every character I've talked about so far ragnos is by far the most ancient hell he may be one of the oldest corpses on corbon although this interpretation of where his tomb is doesn't quite line up with other iterations we can easily write that off to suggesting that this tomb is the result of an excavation and up keep process meaning it's been altered throughout the centuries also man throwing cultist off cliffs is just it just stays satisfying we get one last splash of fighting The Remnant at the entrance to the tomb which is a great addition in my opinion but now there's nothing left to do but enter the tomb of marar ragnos and it's expectedly packed full of cultist dark Jedi trying to stop us but we can make rather short work of them not to mention these guys standing on a narrow bridge next to a lava pit not a smart move there it is it is the sarcophagus of marar ragnos Tavon this stops here ah Kyle's good student you're too late soon Mara ragnos will return and obliterate the Jedi the Sith shall rule again you're delusional Kyle told me all about you how you went crawling away after he defeated you silence welp I will make Kyle katar's failure complete my victory rash's corruption and now your death will drive him to the dark side never the final confrontation starts now just us versus Tavon in a battle to decide the fate of the scepter we're really keeping in the spirit of the Jedi night games here too with this one ending in a climactic final battle in an underground Ancient Temple likee structure portrait they want as for Tavon this is the woman who's been running the show Sweeping in to take over what Remnant resources were left after heer's demise I mean I kind of got to give her some credit she isn't the best saber duelist but pulling all of this off on her own is impressive after being beat by Kyle she went to corbond found ragnos got the scepter found an apprentice took a star destroyer and a host of hundreds of reborn and Remnant Storm Troopers under her command and put together an entire cult in which she's the sole leading member not bad Tavon but it won't be enough to save you I will not cower as I did before Katan I shall not be denied by the forse Mara ragnos a mere Jedi child will not undo my return that's Jedi Knight ragnos you will near before me [Music] [Music] Jedi well that was marar ragnos if you're wondering just who he is then let me tell you that his lore is too expansive to cover here but what I can tell you is this he's from the hyperspace Wars which predates even the Mandalorian Wars and even that by a lot he's part human part Sith as in the species of Sith not the ideology he was born of an exiled Dart Jedi and would go on to pursue and attain the title of dark lord of the Sith a sought after title even then this is also when he created the scepter we see being used in the game capable of siphoning force energy and stuffing it into things which is part of how Tavon managed to have so many cultists we haven't talked about that yet but only some of the dark Jedi we've been facing are leftovers from danon's reborn Jedi the more advanced ones to be specific the less capable ones were imbued with the force from the scepter itself which helped to create even more dark Jedi for her cult with ragnos now having entered tavon's body and withdrawing an ancient vibro blade from the staff he tries to kill Jaden before his plan can be ruined it's to no avail however no this is impossible I will return Jedi one day I shall return and annihilate you all overcoming tavon's ragnos occupied body Jaden destroys the scepter forcing the shade out of her body and killing her instantly ragnos then flees back into his sarcophagus leaving us with a job well done as Jaden collapses the entrance to the tomb it's over ragnos will not be resurrected the scepter is destroyed and Tavon dead ragnos had possessed her her body couldn't withstand the corruption when I destroyed the scepter and ragnos left her body there was nothing left Jaden you did more than we could have ever hoped you have become a true Jedi thank you Master Skywalker but I couldn't have done it without Kyle don't get all mushy on me kid come on let's get out of here oh yeah and that star destroyer tavan coped from heer the new Republic sent a few Cruisers to handle that one for [Music] us [Music] I've heard from the new Republic the Imperials supporting the Disciples of ragnos have been defeated and the remaining cultists have been rounded up it seems they lost their powers when the scepter was destroyed I hope that's the last last we see of them you know if there's one thing I've learned it's never say never Raj I hope your experience has taught you the patience and humility that may one day turn you into a great Jedi Yes Master Skywalker thank you Jaden you fought bravely resisted the dark side and saved another Jedi from certain death you will be a valuable member of the Jedi Order you deserve it Jaden you're the best student I've ever trained and a Terri teric Jedi thank you both there's still a Galaxy full of trouble out there are you ready for another mission as luck would have it I am and that's Jedi KN Jedi Academy A Brave experiment on the formula of past Jedi night games that paid off in waves introducing a brand new Jedi moving the game to a less linear plot allowing players to select the order of their missions I mean there were a lot of new ideas here and in my opinion and Raven pulled it all off exceptionally well the narrative itself is really fun but it isn't very strong there's a lot of tropes cliches and aspects that are just undeniably silly ragnos is done a bit dirty and made out to be a cartoonishly executed bad guy the scepter that grants people Force Powers is kind of stupid and there is a good bit of filler throughout the game but that said those downsides are borderline negligible in my opinion because the game is so expansive and fun one of my soft criticisms of dark Forces 2 was that we only got to see three unique planets as opposed to the multiple interesting planets and locations of the original dark Forces while Jedi Academy crushed them all with the highest amount of unique planets and locations to visit across the whole series more than a few people prefer the tighter knit more concise and compelling Narrative of Jedi Outcast or dark Forces 2 and objectively they're right those games do have better stories than Jedi Academy but come on man we got to see so much cool stuff in this game I can't help but love it Jedi Academy really went all in on its status as an expanded universe entry but didn't once shy away from the opportunity to do something totally wild and all its own I know it wasn't actually meant to be how the Jedi Knight series ended but I think it serves as a fine send off to the series all the same with Tavon defeated and the last of the reborn m up on corbon the last of any major story threads started by this series have been tied up and resolved Kyle katar is a Jedi master Jaden core a Jedi Knight and the location to the Valley of the Jedi is now in Luke's hands the series has found resolve in a conclusion that genuinely feels satisfying but what if it [Music] hadn't Jedi Academy brings back a feature only seen in the series Once so far and not seen since the second game multiple endings just like dark Forces 2 Jedi Academy features a good ending and a bad ending one where Jaden stays on the path of the light side and another where Jaden Falls to The Temptations of the dark side as mentioned near the beginning of the video I opted to go with the default Jaden from the box design for the Light Side Cannon ending although I went with his saber colors as described in the novels for my dark side playthrough I figured I'd do a human female design to kind of offer a juxtaposition to that the first thing I'll say is that the voice acting for female Jaden is not great now hold on before you bite my head off here I know it's beloved voice actress Jennifer hail doing the voice of female Jaden I'm aware of how talented she is yes she's a phenomenal voice actress which is kind of the problem sure the male Jaden done by Philip zini has its faults but Jennifer hail is one of the best voice talents in the industry Bar None So I was really thrown off by just how stiff some of these lines sounded here listen and tell me if I'm being crazy of course you already have one I'm going to get one of those stupid training Sabers and I worry about that I can't help it I want to make a good impression you seem really nervous aren't you I mean well why would you be you already have a lightsaber so you're probably way ahead of me I'm rash by the way um what's your name Jaden so where'd you get that lightsaber well it's kind of a long story I found myself on the am I insane this is in no way a slight to the actress I'm a fan I just don't get what she was going for with this role it sounds stiff and forced this was by no means an early role either she'd been in dozens upon dozens of games before this one including Knights of the Old Republic where she voiced Basta lean and that was great work so I'm not attacking her but like I mean I wasn't trying to save it rash I know it's not a problem with the voice Direction at Raven and I know it's not a problem with Jennifer hail so all I'm imagining is that the developers realized they wanted to add a female player character option late in development and they tried to knock out most of these lines in like a couple of sessions so I'm thinking the whole thing must have been due to feeling rushed by deadlines and not having the benefit of repeat takes I mean it was all made in a year after all so that is kind of what this sounds like isn't it it kind of sounds like they did one take and then just moved on to the next one back to the dark side the ending you get is based on a static choice left up to the player near the end of the game whereas in dark Forces 2 the game monitored your actions and your ending was based on a some of the decisions you made up to that point it doesn't matter how you play Jedi Academy the ending is contingent on one decision that decision being the choice to either spare Raj on Tas per 3 or make him one with the force Jaden no let go of your anger why should I you yourself said how powerful the dark side was I was wrong no you were weak Jaden no oh yeah this was back when stab wounds killed people well done Jedi you have become one of us now join us with marar ragnos as our Master we will defeat the Jedi and rule the galaxy join you why should I trade one master for another the scepter of ragnos is too powerful to be left in the hands of someone as weak as Tavon if anything it should belong to me oh you think so you on the other hand are no use to me I should have killed you on hath you won't get a second chance Tavon has taught me much since [Music] then Kyle Raj I'm sorry sorry Jaden has turned you've lost both your students no you are a Jedi thank you but I've still lost Jaden where did she go oh no I've got to get to Corban Jaden what happened to out of my way way the scepter will be mine oh no I sense the dark side in you Jaden I can't let you pass I will pass whether you want me to or not when I talked about the fact that you can save Jedi and they'll help you on this Mission earlier and said it would matter well this is why because coming into this Mission as a fallen Jedi means you have to fight both the cultists and the Jedi students of the prium it might not seem hard but the deeper you get into the catacombs the more difficult it becomes it's a really cool way to add a new element to the level with this additional ending and it is cool to watch as Jedi and cultists fight for a minute and then interject out of nowhere of course the real meat of the different ending comes in when we confront Tavon ah Kyle's good student or is it I sense the dark side in you are you here to witness the resurrection no I'm here to kill you something that my old Master couldn't do but why with ragnos Reborn the Jedi will be wiped out and we can serve him as he rules the Galaxy I will no longer serve anyone I will have the scepter and its power for myself now give it to me impudent welp I will enjoy slaying you I will say Jennifer nailed these dark side lines she killed it as a fallen Jedi student even if she wasn't being given repeat takes she did not need them for this part Tavon tries to put up a fight but it doesn't last long and when she's defeated she won't get a second chance this time I will not cower as I did before Katan finish it kill me Jaden stop don't get in my way Kyle Jaden I know you're angry but it's not too late to renounce the dark side Tavon and her cult has been stopped we can end this here oh no this is just the beginning Jaden The Lure of the dark side is strong strong but it will ultimately destroy you fight it rash resisted it you can too rash was weak he was too afraid to grasp the true power of the dark side I can't let you do this jadeen then stop me master instead of a ragnos possessed Tavon our second phase of this boss battle is Kyle katar himself our old Jedi Master and the true protagonist of the series this is a really interesting battle given all of the buildup around what this means for Kyle as a character to be fighting his own student for a second time but from the opposite side now the way this should really have ended is with Kyle striking Jaden down right here and now but instead after a brief fight things go a different [Music] way [Music] Kyle what happened here Jaden has turned to the dark side and she's taken the Sor and Raj dead Jaden killed him she felt betrayed by rash and the anger was too strong for her to control I misjudged her I'm sorry Kyle I failed both my students Luke maybe I shouldn't be teaching at the Academy it's not like I've been the perfect Jedi myself no Kyle Yoda and Ben were both great teachers yet even they lost students I can still sense good in her there's always hope Kyle remember that you may be right well at least Tavon and her cult have been stopped ragnos won't be coming back but the scepter is too powerful we must find Jaden and destroy it I'll take care of it as my student Jaden is my responsibility I'm taking a leave of absence from the academy for a while if I find Jaden I'll let you know be careful if there's anything I can do to help I will and May the force be with you Kyle [Music] [Music] I see what they were going for here with the dark lord Jaden thing and all but this was not the best way to end this in my opinion that dialogue between Luke and Kyle regarding his self-doubt and concern about teaching as a Jedi has such a strong air of tragedy to it and it's a great interaction for a dark ending to the series but it would have been so much more impactful if it had been following him having killed his own best student the ending with Jaden on the bridge of a star destroyer holding the scepter just feels empty and pointless it's not like a sequel was intended with this ending in mind although I don't know maybe that was the plot of the canceled next game I'm not sure but I do know that although this isn't how I would have handled the dark side ending it's still a fantastic bit of optional content for players to explore and I love it for that and I can see how they were trying to make it sort of rhyme with the second game's Dark Side ending again it's like poetry narratives aside Jedi Academy has quite a bit more to offer than just its exceptional single player mode you know I have to talk about the multiplayer now especially given that it's not only the most played multiplayer of the series but it's still boasting an active community of people who spin it up even to this day just like with Jedi Outcast you can include bots in this multiplayer if you want to have some fun and experience what it was like to play it for yourself but there's also more than enough of an online community out there that you can always seek out that community and play against real people if you're really interested in that and between the additional character models Maps Force powers and the choice of multiple lightsaber types like dual wielding and saber staffs it's no wonder that this is the most played multiplayer of the series speaking of saber Styles now is a great time to talk about the way different styles play Jedi Outcast introduced a lightsaber stance mechanic which I really didn't figure out was a thing until I had already beaten the game and so I figured given the additional saber style selection of Jedi Academy now is a great time to talk about it all just like in Jedi Outcast Jedi Academy features three distinct saber stances to play with in order to vary your combat and adapt to different opponent stances honestly it's a really cool mechanic and I've been beating myself up for not figuring this out in my Jedi Outcast playthrough the first is a light s where your swings are much faster but also deal less damage I found this to be one of my favorites because of how well it can combine with the acrobatic moves then we've got our medium stance this is the default stance it's not the fastest or the slowest but it's also not the weakest or strongest a great balanced play style but often the one your opponents will be acclimated to so it's not good to lean on it too heavily lastly you can probably guess that the final one is a heavy stance that deals heavy-handed swings but at the cost of speed these moves can be powerful when they connect but due to how slow they are it can take some calculation to make sure they land you can play through the campaign with all three of these stances if you stay with a single bladed saber for the entire story if you opt for two blades or a saber staff however you can only have one of these extra stances you saw plenty of my footage with the Dual Sabers which tend to be my favorite they all come with different acrobatic or special moves too which you can play with and master for including into your play style as for the saber staff it's pretty brutal they really went for fulfilling the kind of Darth Maul fantasy with all of these moves and this thing can be devastating when you get it figured out with both the Dual or double-bladed options you can go to your alternate stance which deactivates one of the extra blades I ran several matches and had a fantastic time with it the hype is absolutely real with this game the only problem however is how difficult it was to make it run in widescreen with the single player I was able to make it run in 2K resolution with just a few modifications to the configuration file but since the multiplayer is its own executable these modifications didn't carry over I thought it'd be a simple matter of altering the multiplayer config file but it really wasn't for some reason this game's multiplayer does not want to run in widescreen it's prone to crashing and wouldn't even launch a match with the resolution I set it to unless I did it manually from the endgame console after doing some research it turns out this is a really common issue with the game it doesn't plague everyone so it may be worth seeing about it if you're excited about playing the Jedi Academy multiplayer you've got a huge selection of player models to choose from and if you want to you can even use the Character Creator to play with your own original character which is the one time I thought the selection of aliens was actually pretty cool of course I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the insane modding Community for this game I've talked about some kind of mod in my coverage of every game in this series but the mods for Jedi Academy are on another level entirely I can't talk about them all but I wanted to pick one to mention as an example for just how hard the mods go for this game and that's the movie duels mod this is literally the best Star Wars game you've never played I want to do an entire video about just this mod later when they finished working on it but just to touch on the basics movie duels is a total conversion mod for Jedi Academy that lets you play through some of the most iconic battles throughout the series they're still developing the mod but a few of the movies are already done like The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith and the team behind this don't play favorites either you can experience climactic battles from the Disney Cannon like Rebels the Kenobi series or the sequel Trilogy and for fans of the EU we can play through missions from the Force Unleash dark Forces 2 and more not to mention a multitude of what if scenarios like what if Obi-Wan confronted palpa instead of Yoda it's too much to go over here but it's just a prime example of what this game engine is capable of with the groundwork it laid and this mod is still in development so maybe when they've gotten further I'll do a full video on it but this is one example there's dozens of exceptional mods for this game including one that's very similar to movie duels called movie battles and that makes everything multiplayer but has a very similar idea it's just crazy how alive the mod scene is for this game and if you're into Star Wars or mods then it's worth owning a copy of Jedi Academy for that alone I've said this about every entry of this series but I feel like it couldn't be more obvious that Jedi Knight Jedi Academy is a labor of love this game was made by Star Wars fans for Star Wars fans the story has faced some criticism from the community over the years for falling far short of the narrative we saw in Jedi Outcast and yeah I think it's true that what we got here was on the sillier side not to mention it all felt just a little undercooked compared to the last game but I'd like to remind everyone that this was all made in a year can we just appreciate how much they were able to pull off in that sub 12mon development cycle I feel like it was some seriously hard work I mean there were tons of ambitious ideas being stuffed into this game Vehicles multiple saber Styles character creation different endings there was a lot for them to have done in such a short time not to mention how much was in flux throughout the game's creation even Jaden's name took some time to solidify with him originally being considered under a different name that a lot of you may recognize Aton Rand I'm atton I actually wasn't supposed to make it into the final game but I was created at the last minute blame my agent I was actually slated for a spin-off to Jedi Knight but I don't want to talk about what happened there yes that's a real line hidden in that game but that's for another video you can tell the team wanted to do so much more with this game too and the console you can even spawn in way more Vehicles like a flyable X-Wing tie fighter z95 Head Hunter and more which makes me wonder if we were ever supposed to get some flying missions after all of this the biggest question I'm left with is why was Raven only given a year to make this I'm glad we got it but it's so confusing to see how much potential was here yet left unfulfilled not by much though because what we got was amazing and I'm not the only one who thinks so looking at the game's Metacritic score today shows us an 81 on the PC versions of the game and a 76 on the Xbox alternative the game was praised for starting players off with a lightsaber right away instead of making them weigh through several levels before getting one not to mention its reduction of puzzle solving to streamline the enjoyment of Raven's groundbreaking combat system the less linear Mission selection ideas were a little more divisive some critics lauded it as an exciting way to feel like you're getting to be a Jed ey and see tons of interesting locations While others thought it weakened the connectivity of a single plot like we've seen in past enturies my personal opinion is that of the former I love the variety of different missions to play with and how it feels like we're really a Jedi outd doing Jedi business the fact that the Xbox version supported Xbox Live online play was a great score in its favor over the preceding Jedi Outcast which did not support Xbox Live although a lot of the criticisms I saw were aimed towards the game's visuals calling it dated and underwhelming compared to the competition of the time which is one of the reasons why I'm glad I opted to run this game with zero visual enhancement or mods sure we're seeing the game on PC in 2K resolution but it is still unaltered I don't think I get it this was only released in 2003 and from what I can tell this looks fine I haven't seen the Xbox version but I'm struggling to imagine it could look that much worse than other Xbox games did at the time although I'm not sure I guess it could have been a bad port or something you tell me if you think this looks bad for a 2003 game this is the vanilla steam version just adjusted to match my monitor's resolution that's it I think it looks great and I think it plays great too actually I think pretty much everything about this game is great there was some missteps here and there but after all was said and done this was my favorite run through of the series although I can't pretend that Nostalgia didn't play some small part in that given this was one of my favorite games growing up Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy actually accomplished what so many tiin games claim they will do by letting you genuinely experience a taste of what it would be like to be a part of the world itself custom imizing our Jaden building our lightsabers and going on missions to stop a galactic threat on our path to becoming a Jedi Knight fighting alongside Kyle katar on multiple missions seeing Luke Skywalker and his Jedi prium realized on our screens as a student and Corin horn even got mentioned early on in a cut scene although it was at one time only playable to PC players and owners of the original Xbox the game has since seen release on Modern consoles like the Xbox One PS4 and Nintendo switch to make it easier for more people to play which you really should do it if you haven't yet it's worth it for the saber combat alone in my opinion not to mention a thoroughly over-the-top story filled with monsters mercenaries swoop bikes Stormtroopers and a dark Jedi cult working to fulfill the will of a long dead Sith Lord we get to see all kinds of incredible locations some iconic like Hoth Yavin 4 or corobon and others practically unknown like Blen narr or Yara we met all kinds of interesting and color characters learned various powerful force abilities and even got to choose our own destiny between the dark side and the light what more could you even want of a game called Jedi Knight it's not a perfect game but it is a brilliant one filled with some of the best moments I've ever seen in a Star Wars property another labor of love to complete a series that feels as much like a love letter to Star Wars and its fan base as it does a collection of video games Jedi Academy may not have been the intended conclusion for the Jedi Knight series but it does a damn fine job of it all the same thanks so much for watching everyone finishing this up I actually feel sad to say goodbye to this series that's meant so much to me and to millions of others out there for so many years I can vividly remember what it felt like to sit there as a child and watch the game's slow installation screen showing me different screenshots while I watch the progress bar slowly move from one side to the other swapping the multiple discs from the massive plastic case to complete the process even if it was the fifth or seventh time I'd installed the game after having removed it before to make room for something else the excitement was always there as I got ready to go be a Jedi again so going back and covering the series with you all has been a genuine privilege coming together as a community to look back on these games with love and shed the light on them that they deserve if you've enjoyed this video and what I do here then I'd ask that you hit that like button and leave a comment telling me about your experience with Jedi Academy not only does that help me out with the algorithm but I also love seeing everyone's thoughts about the game and their experiences with it if you want to support what I do then please consider subscribing and hitting that notification Bell to keep up with whatever game I'm covering next if you're here for Star Wars then don't worry I've got Star Wars content stacked for the foreseeable future but I'm always covering other old games in between as well a quick mention that members of the channel get access to most of my videos a week or two before they go public along with various posts PS and more so if you're loving what I do and want to get in on it early then I'd be happy to have you as a member thanks again for watching everyone and as always I hope to see you in the next video but until then that's all I've got for you

Channel: Evan Prince

Views: 34,918

Keywords: star wars expanded universe, expanded universe, nightdive, star wars legends, star wars episode 2: attack of the clones, star wars, star wars eu, the mandalorian, dark forces remaster, nintendo, mandalorian, factor 5, komari vosa, disney, legends, disney+, jango fett, lucasarts, dark forces, kyle katarn, george lucas, rebel alliance, rogue squadron, attack of the clones, lucasfilms, bounty hunter, eu, count dooku, season 3, rebel, n64, review, asoka

Id: S_io1gfmgjA

Length: 135min 5sec (8105 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2024