JEDI ACADEMY on Console is a Little "Maclunky" but Still Fun
Aspyr launched Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy last week on the Nintendo Switch and PS4 and they were kind enough to send me a copy on the Switch. I’ve played a little on the PC years ago, so I was crazy excited to relive the excitement. I downloaded my copy, went to play, and it just felt odd.
So, the first odd thing to me was the fact that the game feels like an old PC game even though I wasn’t sitting at my computer. The visuals haven’t really been touched outside of providing support for the widescreen format of modern televisions. It’s not terrible, but one could always dream of some touch ups. The most disappointing thing to me was that even the logos were fuzzy and low-resolution.
The second oddity is the controls. First, motion controls are on by default for whatever reason. I highly recommend going into settings and immediately turning them off. Second, the game was made for a computer and the controls just feel a little clunky (or should I say, Maclunky?). Thankfully, you can adjust the sensitivity of the controls which seems to help, but still doesn’t feel great.
My third grievance is that there are segments of text that you need to scroll through to read all of it, but I couldn’t find out how to scroll it. I tried every control available on the Joy Con and nothing would move that block of text. That was kind of disappointing as I was trying to read through different mission briefings.
Why is this information so small and tucked into the corner?
Even with all of these less than perfect moments, the game can be fun and still holds an excellent story. You can play as a variety of races, but I did find it odd that the races were tied to different genders. For example, you can make a Kel Dor male character, but not a Kel Dor female character. In addition, the multiplayer works. There was a hiccup that allowed crossplay between Switch and PC players (to the great demise of the Switch players), but it works and can be a lot of fun.
The PC version of Jedi Academy is probably still better, but the console version still has fun to offer fans who want to train under Luke Skywalker. The Switch does have the added bonus of letting you play the game on the go, too.
