Since I'm pretty much just starting at the beginning and playing as much as I can handle, I figured I'd just put my talks about these games here.
Dark Forces and I broke up pretty early in the rekindling of our relationship. We dated off and on back in 1995. I would ask Dark Forces out, we'd have fun for a little while, but her lack of mouse support (on my Mac) and her lack of direction frustrated me. As it turns out, fifteen years has not changed her outlook on life.
But her sister... oh, her sister. Dark Forces II had everything the first game had, only better (most of the time). Admittedly, I missed the MIDI tracks, but I have a soft spot for MIDI renderings of familiar tunes. Initially I have to admit that I really missed the animated cutscenes, as the live action work in Dark Forces II is ASININE. Jerec and his cronies in particular are hilarious, especially the Snake Hair guy and the old man with razors for teeth (which are attached to the outside of his mouth and threaten to fall off if he talks too much).
But the protagonist, Kyle Katarn, grew on me after the first few levels. I got to like his hairstyle, his hammy yet dashing style, how sharply he stood out against the 1997 era FMV backgrounds. Also, Yun was in Free Enterprise, maybe the best Huge Dork movie ever made!
It took me all of five minutes to fall in love with the level design. The first level starts off very narrow and very linear, and only gets bigger from there. Unlike Dark Forces, the levels never get so big that finding a small button that you missed (or in the case of my particular gripe, a three character password undoubtedly etched in a wall somewhere in a massive level) or a pathway you didn't go down doesn't weigh you down. There are plenty of sections that loop back on themselves, and when you loop back, you know you've seen almost everything. Just go through it again. It's also really good at letting you know when an objective has been achieved, which always means that you're on the right track and that you don't need to go backwards. You've succeeded in passing that chapter of the level.
The level design is really what stands out to me the most. The gameplay is really standard. You get a ton of guns, but not many of them are actually useful and/or it takes too long to change guns that you're better off just sticking with whatever is in your hand. There are explosive weapons that are awesome, but most of the levels are in hallways or small rooms, and you will just blow yourself up instead of murder Stormtroopers.
About a third of the way through the game you get a lightsaber. Once this happens there is no real need to pull out a gun again. It's a blaster shield and it kills really fast, so it's easiest to just jump in a room and kill everyone before they know what's what (especially after you get Persuasion).
The force powers are also really useful and add a really fun element to the game, although I will admit that it's frustrating to use the force to jump really high only to get hurt when you land. You'd think there would be some way to control that...
The flaws in the game are minor and rarely interrupt the flow. Occasionally I sliced at a grate and it didn't open because I didn't do it JUST RIGHT, leading me to scour an area for an exit, only to find that it was behind the grate that didn't open. Jumping is a lot better than in the predecessor, but it still wasn't perfect. Boss battles were great in concept, lame in execution, with the final battle being particularly infuriating.
I'm excited to start playing the next game in the series now.