deuxhero
Arcane
Doing yet another playthrough of Jedi Academy (with OpenJK), and I'm onto the final strech of levels. The gameplay of this game has been discussed and (rightfully) praised a lot already. Instead I'll talk about the level design.
All fifteen selectable missions are all wildly different from eachother, in objective, design, appearance and enemy types making good use of its change from a linear story to chosen missions. One levels has you rushing forward across a train to stop some stuff going on at the front, another retrieving parts on an open map (but sandworms will eat you if you stand outside of a safespot too long), another engaging in a speederbike chase, and more. Gimmicks never really repeat, and the extremely obtuse puzzles and level design of Outcast (which is the primary reason I don't replay Outcast that much) aren't nearly as frequent (there's still a handful, like the door that only opens when an enemy gets close to it in the mutant rancor level and some broken glass in the Hoth level that's immune to all damage but force push). A surprising number of levels can be completed pacifist (Outside of killing a handful of key holding officers, the Rancor level where you have to kill a bunch of guards to protect the hostages and the Dreadnaught level where you kill the entire 16,000+ crew are the main exceptions) and your mobility and defenses mean it actually is more practical that you'd expect to just run past enemies, even if this doesn't quite make sense.
Unfortunately that's about where my praise for the level design ends. Actual mapping rarely wowed me. There's secret areas, but they never really feel rewarding since they just give common items you won't use and lose at the end of the level anyways. I think including the original Jedi Knight's bonus force point for finding all secrets in a level would have greatly helped in this area, as would secrets that make fights easier or bypass parts of the level. Level play time varies wildly, especially if you know what you're doing: Some can last just a few minutes, others are half hour+ and start to outlive their welcome.
All fifteen selectable missions are all wildly different from eachother, in objective, design, appearance and enemy types making good use of its change from a linear story to chosen missions. One levels has you rushing forward across a train to stop some stuff going on at the front, another retrieving parts on an open map (but sandworms will eat you if you stand outside of a safespot too long), another engaging in a speederbike chase, and more. Gimmicks never really repeat, and the extremely obtuse puzzles and level design of Outcast (which is the primary reason I don't replay Outcast that much) aren't nearly as frequent (there's still a handful, like the door that only opens when an enemy gets close to it in the mutant rancor level and some broken glass in the Hoth level that's immune to all damage but force push). A surprising number of levels can be completed pacifist (Outside of killing a handful of key holding officers, the Rancor level where you have to kill a bunch of guards to protect the hostages and the Dreadnaught level where you kill the entire 16,000+ crew are the main exceptions) and your mobility and defenses mean it actually is more practical that you'd expect to just run past enemies, even if this doesn't quite make sense.
Unfortunately that's about where my praise for the level design ends. Actual mapping rarely wowed me. There's secret areas, but they never really feel rewarding since they just give common items you won't use and lose at the end of the level anyways. I think including the original Jedi Knight's bonus force point for finding all secrets in a level would have greatly helped in this area, as would secrets that make fights easier or bypass parts of the level. Level play time varies wildly, especially if you know what you're doing: Some can last just a few minutes, others are half hour+ and start to outlive their welcome.
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