This is real Star Wars. They say Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy have the best lightsaber combat ever. It’s very easy to believe.
These games have amazing jedi gameplay. You can swing your saber and unleash force powers while running and jumping. You can swing your saber in multiple directions, and utilize multiple styles and techniques. You can mind trick stormtroopers into shooting each other. You can throw enemies around with force grip, and fry them with force lightning. You can even pull a Disney, and throw your lightsaber away.
Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy have a few important differences. I’d list them like this:
1. Story-
“Drain the Force? How could anyone do that?” -Random Jedi.
That’s pretty much how I feel about Academy’s story. I can overlook this though, since The Valley of The Jedi in previous games is also a crazy plot device. Basically, the galaxy is threatened by generic bad guys, and Jaden Korr, a new jedi, beats them all. Academy is very episodic, and is more like a jedi career sim than a legit Star Wars story. Most levels in the game are individual missions, and the game isn’t focused on the main plot most of the time. I don’t fault the story for being a simple “OP MC jumps in to save the galaxy” kind of thing. What kills it is Jaden Korr, the customizable main character. Jaden has no personality, no defining characteristics, no desires, no goals, no nothing. You can’t relate to him, you can’t help him find the right answers, and you can’t make more than one meaningful decision for him. You can choose to turn to the dark side, but that decision only comes toward the end of the game, and it only changes the final boss encounter, and the ending cinematic. Academy is about a customizable blank slate who conquers all, but, unfortunately, you don’t get to customize the blank slate’s character. You only choose which career path the blank slate follows after the game is over. You might say that this is an inevitable result of a game that allows you to create your own protagonist, but I say that that’s just an excuse to cover the fact that the developers put no effort into allowing the player to like their own character. Outcast doesn’t have any story decisions for the player to make, but it makes up for that by actually being entertaining. It also has Kyle Katarn as the main character, and Kyle is fun. The writing in Academy is not good, but it’s not so bad that I wouldn’t recommend the game. Outcast is easily superior in this aspect, though.
2. Lightsaber and The Force-
This is the whole point of Academy. You can’t customize Jaden’s personality or life story, but you CAN choose Jaden’s appearance (and gender), force powers, and lightsabers. Yes, lightsabers is plural. You have a single, normal lightsaber for much of the game, but, two thirds of the way through, you can choose to wield two lightsabers, or a saber staff like Darth Maul uses. You get to choose the hilt and blade color for each saber. (No red saber without mods or cheats, though.) You also get to pick and choose your force powers. There are core force powers like jump and push that rank up by themselves, but then there are 8 other powers that you get to choose from. This is an old game, but the variety in sabers and force builds still gives Academy plenty of replay value. I admit, I play Academy more often than Outcast for this reason. Academy also has more moves that you can use with each saber style than Outcast does, which are all listed in Academy’s datapad. (Outcast doesn’t tell you about them, you have to discover them yourself.) In Outcast, you don’t have a lightsaber for the first few levels for story reasons, and you can’t use heal for half the game. In Academy, you have a lightsaber from the very beginning, and it’s possible to start your first official mission with the ability to heal. This has a great impact on difficulty, of course.
3. Difficulty-
Academy is WAY easier than Outcast. In Outcast, you are sometimes expected to die just to learn where snipers are, and some levels are beyond frustrating on higher difficulties. There are a few enemies who can get you with a cheap sneak attack in Academy, but none of them will kill you with a single shot like they do in Outcast unless you aren’t healing for some reason. The main threats in Academy are force users who can heal, and enemies with a new and ridiculously powerful “rifle” weapon. The sith I can deal with, but that “rifle” is super annoying and such a cheap tactic. Even that doesn’t down you in one blast though, and there are ways to deal with it. It’s nothing compared to the crap Outcast puts you through. The ability to choose your force powers in particular makes much of Academy almost pitifully easy, even on jedi master difficulty. Each force power has 3 ranks, and a force power can be ranked up before each mission, so it only takes 3 missions to acquire a max rank force ability that can be used to easily sweep your hapless enemies off the map. The last few levels have tougher enemies, though. You might even have to fight them if there isn’t a ledge to throw them off of. Overall, I think difficulty was handled a bit better in Academy than in Outcast. Better to have a good brawl with only a handful of enemies at the end of the game than to unfairly die every 2 minutes to sudden sniper fire for half the game. (Jedi master difficulty in Outcast is extremely frustrating, and that may or may not be influencing this part of the review. On the other hand, in Academy I can attempt perfect runs where I never die, even on Jedi master difficulty.) At any rate, I would describe Outcast as the more immersive story game, and Academy as a sweet jedi power trip.
In short, play Outcast when you want story (or difficulty), and play Academy when you want to rule the galaxy with your force grip. Overall, I feel like Outcast is more dear to my heart as a nostalgic Star Wars memory, but I feel like some people might choose Academy instead.
