Nintendo has become pretty damn good at making old games feel new again by simply porting them over to the Switch, and the latest examples to benefit from the company's Bacta Tank treatment just so happens to be two of my personal favorite titles from the Gamecube era - Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and its sequel, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.
Originally revealed via today's Direct, fans were treated to a surprise announcement that Jedi Outcast was coming to Nintendo's portable console. However, it was later clarified by way of the official Star Wars website that Jedi Outcast would come out later this month, with Jedi Academy releasing sometime in 2020.
What began as a Doom clone, the Star Wars Dark Forces franchise really started to come into its own with its second entry - Dark Forces II. This marked a favorable departure from essentially being a re-skin of popular FPS's of the day toward becoming a fully-fledged, narrative-driven action game. Most Notably, Dark Forces II was the first entry to include the coveted Lightsaber as a usable weapon, as well as a skill tree for Force Powers.
With 2002's Jedi Outcast and the 2003 followup Jedi Academy, the series managed to improve on the foundations laid by its predecessors in virtually every aspect, and to this day still offers some of the most satisfying lightsaber-play one could hope to find in a Star Wars game. With their inspired interpretations of the events following the fall of the Empire and the rise of the New Republic, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy both feature story-lines that rival any found in the extended universe.
Even though it's nearing 20 years in age and graphically past its prime, The Jedi Knight series still holds up as being of the best Star Wars experiences in gaming. At the very least, it gives Star Wars fans a glimpse at the competent, badass Jedi Master that Luke Skywalker was supposed to be.
