Lit The Dark Forces Saga

At the time which Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 was made, the only Dark Lords of the Sith that existed were Darth Vader, Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow, and Exar Kun, and Exar Kun used a blue lightsaber and Darth Vader used a red one; Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow did not use a lightsaber. There was no connection between Sith and red lightsabers. There was no connection between "red lightsaber" and "dark side" at all -- Leia used a red lightsaber, and even after Episode I, Adi Gallia used a red lightsaber. It wasn't until Lucas made an off the cuff remark to Samuel L. Jackson which happened to be caught on film that "good guys used blue and green, bad guys use red" that this was immediately printed out on fancy paper and framed on the wall at Skywalker Ranch and treated as gospel -- or, perhaps more appropriately, some immutable physical law of the universe.

 

It seems that everything started copying everything after that point. And I'm not just talking about Star Wars.

 

That whole planet is one great big smorgasbord!

 

I loved doing that Force Pull thing to Rodians in Star Wars: Obi-Wan. They'd raise their hands in a panic and run away. Say what you want about that game but it was fun for kids.

The only thing really similar to the civilian thing is in The Old Republic; on Makeb there are level 1-8 civilians who stand very close to mobs. If you use any AOE at all the poor guys will either die or they'll be aggroed and you have to run a significant distance for them to ignore you. There's no way to "help" them, though; they just sit there and cower from you, even if the enemies you killed were threatening them. I really need to find an excuse to buy and play DF2: JK sometime.

 

Oh no, if you want some good civilian slaughtering SW action there's Bounty Hunter and the utterly despicable Episode I game which gives you the opportunity to massacre everyone in Mos Espa as Qui-Gon.

 

I guess your focus really does determine your reality.

 

I take it as canon that Qui-Gon's "unfinished business" was precisely that.

 

I didn't say I wanted to slaughter them!

 

...oops.

 

In my playthrough so far, I've killed a few civilians. I hope I wasn't too evil!

I did light side for Jedi Academy earlier. Killing Rosh was tempting but I wasn't man enough to face Katarn.

 

Just spawn an endless amount of Rosh Npcs and murder away.

 

I always felt bad killing Rosh; sure, he was an annoying twerp, but it would be like killing a thirteen-year-old kid (which I think he's supposed to canonically be). Forget the fact that Jaden's about fifteen, too...it's still messed up!

 

I also find the light side powers in Jedi Academy to have more utility than the dark side ones in whole: heal, protect, absorb are really useful, coupled with choke and lightning if you're doing every mission, otherwise lightning is more useful for scrub non-reborn. I never found much a use for mind trick.

This is probably one of the flaws of Jedi Academy, though. Given the modular nature of the level ordering and power selection, the map design can't really factor in what powers you have, so you're limited in creativity of level design like in Jedi Outcast. The only extent which it could be incorporated was by the three tiers of five maps which pretty much just took into account your Force jump level.

Another element which I enjoy about all the games in this series is the world design. I don't think any of the new planets that these games created were particularly boring. Granted, I don't think that Jedi Outcast invents any apart from Kejim and Artus Prime.

Edit: I don't think Rosh and Jaden are supposed to be that young, despite whatever Kemp might have written. I'd say they're both 18-19 at minimum, at least in the context of the game itself.

 

It's a pastiche of what Del Rey's version of YJK would be.

I really liked Jedi Academy. Not for the plot or writing or anything, but for the amount of continuity porn. Bast Castle FTW.

 

I always love using protect, absorb, and heal (if I'm not using an invincibility cheat to get through faster). Choke and lightning are good for a lot of levels but you're right, mind trick is practically useless–as is dark rage, IMO. Force drain is fun when you have invincibility, if you just deactivate your saber and walk–not run–forward, stand point-blank to an enemy, and use drain so you reach forward and suck their life out of their face. Resume stalking forward, now with 110% health, and do this to every enemy in the level...it's creepy but fun. But it's pretty much useless without invincibility to allow you to get in close.

 

It's not just the civilians in JK; it's which Force powers you allocate stars to, too.

 

That makes sense. Kind of like in Academy how if you use all dark side powers, Luke says he senses your future is clouded; of course, it doesn't affect anything since you can have a bar full of dark powers and still be the happy-go-lucky save-the-day hero.

 

It's all Telekinesis To Me: A Memoir by Jaden Korr.

 

Star Wars Insider #31 has an interview with the writer/lead designer, Justin Chin, and he says that in writing the game, he immersed himself in the things that inspired Star Wars, rather than Star Wars itself. I believe Veitch approached Tales of the Jedi the same way.

Slightly off-topic, but I think this might be part of the problem -- if you believe there's a problem -- with the Expanded Universe now is that it's so self-referential it has become stagnant, because writers look only to the prequels and existing Expanded Universe to inform their writing. There's exceptions to this, but I think that this is the reason why everything feels so derivative and bland now.

 

I have only played Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. I got into the Dark Forces Saga with the demo for Jedi Outcast at the Gateway Store, so when my parents got our Gateway computer, Jedi Outcast ended up being the first computer game I ever played. Unfortunately, I have currently misplaced my copy of Jedi Outcast, so I can't play it at the moment, though I did make sure to get the demo.

 

Does Jedi Outcast give all the enemies red sabers?

 

Yep yep.

A mix is certainly required.

 

If my like wasn't enough indication, the answer is yes, to the point rules for lightsaber color was red equals Dark Jedi and any other color is fair game for the Jedi in Jedi Academy.

 

Yeah. Desann, Tavion, and all the reborn wield red lightsabers.

I'm kinda curious about Lucas' thought processes behind the color orthodoxy. Anakin doesn't have to change to red immediately upon becoming Darth Vader because they're "not mood rings," but Dooku deliberately chooses to switch to a red lightsaber unprompted? I suspect Anakin would have wielded a red lightsaber, if not for the fact that the lightsaber he wields has to be blue for Luke.

The reason I mention this is it is apparently just natural that Desann would adopt a red lightsaber upon killing Havet Storm and ditching the Jedi. Maybe his lightsaber was red all along and his reborn guys all have red lightsabers in emulation of their master and it's all just a big coincidence.

 

Then you missed the entire rest of the season, which was some of the best trek in recent history, not to mention by far best of ENT. Like, seriously, you watched only the bad parts of season 4...

But that's getting off topic.

Seriously though... Dark Forces 1 and 2 were my first real exposures to the EU. They will always hold a special place in my heart, especially 1.