When Doom first hit the market, it was a game changer in more ways than one. While first-person shooters were around before, and people had been modding games for years, Doom took both of these concepts to the next level and allowed for the creation of both a new era of mods and a new era of creative game design. One type of mod that became popular for Doom was mods that created levels based on Star Wars, especially the Death Star, and people took note of this.
LucasArts set to work on making its own Star Wars FPS inspired by those fan mods and using the proprietary Jedi engine, and thus came Dark Forces and the Jedi Knight series it spawned. While the later games in the series would bring in a variety of force abilities and additional forms of combat, the original Dark Forces was very much a Doom-style game and it was all the better for it. The Jedi engine was a versatile engine capable of doing much more than what was done with Doom, and this could be seen in the more complex levels, combat and enemy design, which were of a much higher quality.
Dark Forces was amazing but over the years, other games have passed it by, so when NightDive Studios rebuilt Dark Forces in its KEX Engine for Dark Forces Remaster, I was very excited to see the results and I must say I am impressed. Every aspect of the game has been given a massive overhaul with visuals that look like how you may remember the game looking, along with the option to see how the game actually looked back then. Obviously, memories enhance visuals as the years cause some details to fade, but the remaster is nothing less than a work of art.
Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster understands that the core assets of the game are its biggest strength and Nightdive went out of its way to make sure the visual upgrade feels authentic to the original looks and that it still maintains a retro feel. Numerous quality-of-life features have also been added, such as new accessibility options, for those who require them. Getting the option to tone down some of the flashing lights was an exceptionally welcome feature, especially since photosensitivity has meant I can no longer play some classic FPS games, and the multitude of control features including gyro aiming all feel right. This is not even mentioning how Dark Forces Remaster comes with quite a lot of bonus content, such as concept art, design documents, reference footage filmed for cutscene animation, and more.
One addition I enjoyed from the extras was even a fully playable version of the prototype level that was used in promotion for the game. It should be noted that fully playable means that it can be played through, but Nightdive did not go and actually finish the work that was left undone with this level, so its difficulty is very much unbalanced, and there are missing visuals that were left unchanged. Still, it is a great addition because it gives a look into a part of this classic game that has not been seen as much.
On the Nintendo Switch version, the game functions relatively well in both docked and handheld forms, and the visuals hold up well. You can still appreciate even the minor touches to see all the work that went into making this game. There are some framerate issues, but they are being worked out still and will no doubt be fixed with a future update.
I would have liked to have seen some other modern touches like mid-level saving, but what we do get is a version of Dark Forces that feels so right. We have sharp image quality and excellent controls and we can easily swap between the older and newer looks of the game to truly understand how much of an overhaul the game received. The result is that Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster is an excellent and faithful remaster that gives us the ideal way to play the classic game on any platform, and we can experience just how fun and innovative it was even for a game that some wrote off as a Doom clone. Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster is not one to miss, so give it a try and May the Force Be With You.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
