Dark Forces is a strain to look at, grating to listen to, and a headache to play.

It offers some fun cinematics and does do a handful of things that are admirably different for being a "Doom Clone" in its era, but the uninteresting array of enemies and weapons, and the not-very-well-conveyed level design makes Dark Forces a struggle to play in 2020.

LuciusXL's The Force Engine source port project is something to keep an eye out for, as I anticipate it being the most palatable way to play this game on its release.

I'd beaten Jedi Academy by the time I first played Dark Forces, and this completion of Dark Forces was well over a decade in the making. I got this game's PS1 port way back when because my older siblings' CD for the PC version was so old by the time I tried it that it couldn't play sound, and I got so stuck on one level that I dropped the game forever... Until now.

Revisiting it through Steam, I still needed to look at a walkthrough for that part, one more comprehensible than the one I tried back then. Still, I had fun throughout, especially for its retro charm. The lack of permanent checkpoints during each mission is a little frustrating, though, especially for the more challenging missions.

It's also unrealistic because the stormtroopers can hit you.

This game was fun. It's Star Wars DOOM, so of course it would be.

Levels are pretty big and labyrinthine (however, the lack of quicksaves or checkpoints make this a detriment to the game as well). Not 100% sure how Star Wars they felt, but the guns and enemies helped with that a little.

Apparently Boba Fett features in this game, but I barely remember fighting him lol

Aged horrendously

So a lot of people say this is a DOOM clone, which it isn't! It's a very unfair thing to call it, that's like calling literally any 3D shooter a call of duty clone. This game is not DOOM. It is objective based, its levels are designed way differently, it has cutscenes, the way you go through levels are completely different. It's just a different game that looks like a non-3d shooter. It's a boomer shooter simply.

The game is just way too confusing at times. There are so many puzzles and questionable level design choices, I have no clue what the developers were thinking. I had to look up where the fuck I was supposed to go after scavenging the level for like an hour 2 times. I dropped this game 3/4ths of the way through, I've seen all I need to see and the game is just a bust.

Looking up and down sucks, it gives a lil motion sickness, and the controls are just weird.

The gunplay is actually fun and fine, but the game is just more of a headache than it is fun. Also the midi music doesn't work in its favor the way it worked for the X-Wing games.

Honestly, I would've played this game all the way through and had given it a higher rating if it wasn't for the god awful level design. Just convoluted labyrinth-like design that plagues a lot of shooters from the mid-90s, this type of design is just a total chore to get through in any game.

(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")

It is unfortunate that Dark Forces is a bit of a dickhead to get running in 2021, with one abandoned attempt at a source port creating a myriad of bugs (enemies shooting through walls and doors!) and another WIP one not having important features like "enemy AI" switch on yet, I had to settle on some wild script that binded PgUp and PgDn to my mouse so I could get some sort of mouselook going.

Totally worth the hassle. With the exception of the sewer filled Anoat City level, Dark Forces is a bunch of tightly designed shooter maps, full of traps and puzzles and a variety of weapons that would satisfy any classic shooter fan. The fact that they're all part of a wonderfully authentic Star Wars experience just elevates them to something a bit special. Yes, it might be dated not only visually but also in regards to controls but when great midi renditions of that John Williams music and those instantly recognisable blaster sounds hit just right, the grey, pixelated blocks that apparently make up Nar Shaddaa suddenly make you feel like you're right there, cutting about its dark alleyways and into Imperial ran areas and seeing the noticeable shift in enemy type, you're bloody well IN Star Wars. The good Star Wars. The type of Star Wars some people dedicate their lives to being fans of.

When I finished this game I was suddenly absolutely raging that Disney binned all of this stuff.

A DOOM clone, though not as direct of one as you'd think. Dark Forces runs on LucasArts' proprietary Jedi engine, a ground-up creation that improves upon DOOM's id Tech engine in a few key ways, notably by emphasizing the Y-axis; levels can take up multiple floors, and player character Kyle Katarn can jump. Because of this, levels are quite big and objective-driven, with what the player has to do changing over the course of the given level. The easiest example is the first level, where Kyle picks up where the Bothan Spies left off and steals the Death Star plans. You first have to infiltrate, swipe the plans, then get the hell out of there. Way more to do than mowing down baddies.

The most important change, surprisingly, sits with the introduction of a lives system. Rather than restart at the beginning of the level with just a piddly pistol, Kyle respawns at the last checkpoint (often the beginning of the level...) with his ammo reserves, enemy kills, etc precisely where the player left off. The trick is that you have a limited amount of retries; run out of lives, and you have to restart the mission from the top. It's a weird dynamic to inject into something as high-energy as DOOM, but it works for the mission-based structure of these levels. It's an interesting effect where the engine is as fast as DOOM's, but the game asks to be played more slowly as a consequence of its mechanics. I get why they moved away from this design in Jedi Knight, but I dunno, there's an interesting design space here that ended up being an evolutionary dead end. If the game Outlaws (also on the Jedi engine) uses a lives system, I'd be curious to see how it feels there.

I don't like Dark Forces as much as DOOM or the later Jedi Knight games (simply a question of those games having way more for me to hold onto), but I respect a lot of what Dark Forces does. Since Kyle's Force powers haven't awakened yet, there's a much more even emphasis on the different types of guns than you see in later Jedis Knight. Cutscenes and narrative focus are really fun to see here, and I love that the game's able to play around with some of its scenarios - that one where you have to bare-knuckle brawl your way out of captivity is a favorite, and I got a laugh out of accidentally stepping into an Imperial Bathroom (or, "Refresher"? I have lots of scattered EU knowledge). Definitely not one to overlook.

It's a little too easy to get lost in the game's levels, the combat's way too easy even on higher difficulties,

but man, those Stormtroopers go down real good with a few blaster bolts. The whole game is a testament to the benefit of strong theming: Dark Forces nails the Star Wars aesthetic from the MIDI renditions of classic tunes to the wonderful sprite work and the sound design that it's endlessly fun to run through these levels mowing down 'troopers. The attention to detail on death animations really sells it—troopers flail and flop as they go down in a way most games today can't even match with 100x the budget and tech at their disposal.

A must play for any and all fans of retro shooters and Star Wars alike.