Aged like Bobby K's man milk out in the open in a pre-Overwatch Blizzard's office [spoiler](the whole scandal was a sham, apparently - look it up)[/spoiler].
[b]Atrocious controls[/b] (even with OpenJKDF2 and bucketload of fixes) - feels like you're constantly sliding a piece of butter on a pan, or like being a Pstein pal on the Hill after the files. Dumb momentum on strafing makes the platforming or maneuvering in a firefight feel like a ballet on a minefield - you continue moving after stopping for a good half-a-second. No mouse wheel support - you might think it's not much, but imagine an FPS game (scratch that, imagine ANY game with multiple weapons\items\anything) where you can't use a mouse wheel for switching; coupled with slow switching speed - even when using number keys - makes weapon juggling painful and, as such, combat itself a chore (the "Wheelthingy" app doesn't work with OpenJKDF2, either).
[b]Graphics[/b] are in this weird middle ground between somewhat gracefully aged 2D sprites of DF1 (Remaster or otherwise) and actual human-looking humans of id Tech 3's Outcast and Academy; characters (DO NOT look up Grans' heads) are ugly wooden\plastic cutouts, weapons are...fine, but levels are probably the biggest insult: looking like barren cardboard boxes with the same tiny ugly texture tiled all over them, be it indoors or outdoors (not without standouts - early Nar-Shadaa; 1st half of Sulon, beginning of Barons Hed, the Land of the Jedi temple; the rest just blend together).
[b]Music[/b] feels a bit more generic - say what you will about DF1's OST, but the MIDI arrangements at least made it sound memorable (although you'll still hear "the SW themes" motifs - Main Theme and The Imperial March - to the point of obnoxiousness) like Dark Trooper Theme, Death Star Plans, Ramsees Hed, Ice Station Beta, Corsucant or Fuel Station; here everything just blends together into orchestral mush. Not bad, just unmemorable.
AND speaking of obnoxiousness - [b] Level Design[/b]. With the addition of Jedi powers (the entire Jedi gameplay aspect is a novel concept, but done MUCH better in the sequels, this feels like an early proof-of-concept at best), the very progression - let alone secret-hunting (which, ideally, you NEED, because getting all secrets in a level awards extra "skill points", and you won't max out your available powers - even AFTER the Light\Dark side branching part - without them, or even with them; missing 2-3 more stars even on Hard) - becomes reliant on janky early 3D first-person\third-person platforming, and that, coupled with slippery physics, becomes a snuggle struggle against the game itself. Sometimes, you get wall-colored doors that don't look like doors (again, this is basic progression, i.e. the path you MUST take to even play further, not Doom-era secrets); you get comically tiny buttons opening crucial doors that blend into the environment in pitch-black darkness or in a wall of similar-looking computer panels; you get MADDENING mid-air physics when you have to bounce inside air currents in vents for specific jumps (good luck if you're not used to hack mid 90s level design); you get "le ebin funi" mandatory fall damage sections that alternate between "tough luck if you're out of heals, bucko" and "if you jump at THIS specific angle while hugging the leftmost wall and touching your nose, rubbing you tummy, singing Kumbaya and farting Southwest with your leg up at 45° with Saturn being it its retrograde phase, you TOTALLY won't get fall damage, trust".
Had to YT walkthroughs several times to even understand WTF am I supposed to go, and I hadn't have to do it ONCE in DF1 (sans the hex room puzzle in Imperial City - looked up a text walkthrough from '96, no regrets), so "skill issue" bots btfo. The cheese in FMV cutscenes did little to offset the frustration I got from moment-to-moment gameplay, because even once I reached "the zone" and got into the rhythm, it never felt like the game truly controlled well. There are good things in here: cutscenes, Jedi powers, Light\Dark branching (although it affects only your powers, some in-level lines, 1 boss fight and the final cutscene), the story itself (never was a big SW fan, but this was a decent, if shallow, romp), the boss fights (IN SPITE of the controls), but ultimately, it felt like a chore to finish, getting the taste of how "off" the game simply plays early on.
Either get it if you ABSOLUTELY NEED more Katarn, you have EXCEPTIONALLY high tolerance for BS game design, are willing to install around a dozen different fixes ON TOP of a source port OR wait if\when Nightdive finally remaster it, hopefully they'll fix the controls.
