Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection

Genre: Compilation / First-Person Shooter

Players: 1-16 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

(Note: There are multiple Star Wars bundles on Nintendo Switch. If you want a breakdown of which bundles contain which games, please check this page.)

Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection is a Compilation of visually-improved ports of two First-Person Shooters, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, first released on PC in 2002 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2019, and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, first released on PC, Mac, and the original Xbox in 2003 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Here’s what I thought of the games in this Compilation:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Score
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast	First-Person Shooter	1	C-
tl;dr Jedi Outcast is a First-Person Shooter originally released in 2002, now cleaned up and ported to the Switch. The characters and story are as classic as ever, but the gameplay has aged very poorly, with terrible level design, bullet sponge enemies, a stingy autosave, and a slew of other problems. It’s still a game that’s full of charm, but by today’s standards it’s hard to enjoy this game.
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy	First-Person Shooter	1-16 Competitive (Online)	C-
tl;dr Jedi Academy is a First-Person Shooter with some Third-Person Action originally released in 2003, now cleaned up and ported to the Switch. The gameplay here is improved in some areas over the previous game, but worse in others. Terrible level design, bullet sponge enemies, unreliable lightsaber controls, a lacking story, and a shallow and not especially fun online multiplayer mode are some of its major flaws. Overall, this is a game that only the most diehard fans will enjoy.

While both of these games are beloved classics on the PC, they have not aged well at all. The controls are unwieldy, the level design is unnecessarily confusing, and enemies seem to take absurd amounts of damage before going down. While the story and characters here are still phenomenal, and these games make great use of the Star Wars license, I think you’d get much more out of viewing a playthrough of these games than actually playing them yourself.

Okay, well let’s say you want to play these games anyway – is this package a good value? Well, unless you absolutely need to get the physical versions of these games… definitely not. Each of the included games can be purchased on the Nintendo Switch eShop for $10… or you can get them combined in this package for $30. I suppose it’s some consolation that both of the games are included on the cartridge with no additional download needed, but I’m dubious that this is worth $10 extra.

While the Jedi Knight games were legendary back in their original release, they simply don’t stack up to more modern First-Person Shooters, and Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection makes matters worse by charging an extra $10 just to get these games together in a Compilation. Unless you have a huge fondness for these games or need to buy anything and everything Star Wars-related, do not buy Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection.

tl;dr – Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection is a Compilation of visually-improved ports of two First-Person Shooters, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Both games have aged very poorly, with terrible controls, confusing level design, and bullet sponge enemies. However, this Compilation makes things even worse by charging $10 more than the cost of buying these games separately. Unless you are a die-hard fan of the original games wanting to get a physical copy of them on Nintendo Switch, do not buy Star Wars: Jedi Knight Collection

Grade: D+

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