History YMMV / JediKnightDarkForcesII

* GrowingTheBeard: This game is the point where the series began to truly set itself apart from other first person shooters of the era by introducing [[MagicKnight Force Powers]] and [[LaserBlade lightsabre]] combat. While the original ''Dark Forces'' is fondly remembered by PC gamers, ''Jedi Knight'' and its sequels are considered classics and triumphant examples of SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames. It helps that Kyle literally has grown a beard in this game.

* MagnificentBastard: The [[FallenHero Dark Jedi Jerec]] is a powerful Miraluka and former Inquisitor who uses his connections and talents to forge a [[KnowledgeBroker massive information network]] and to convert Force-Users to the Dark Side while keeping them loyal to himself. Using his own schemes and abilities, Jerec [[PlayingBothSides seemingly serves many warlords for his own interests]] and gain the location of the Valley of the Jedi. Jerec is later able to find the Valley before facing hero Kyle Katarn, stopped just before [[GodhoodSeeker he can achieve near omnipotence]] himself.

* PanderingToTheBase: The expansion pack features a surprisingly big amount of content from Creator/TimothyZahn's so called [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Thrawn trilogy]]:
** Mara Jade as the main character.

* SequelDisplacement: While revered as a classic of the FPS genre, this game, along with its [[VideoGame/DarkForces predecessor]], is much less known and talked about than either of its sequels (whose graphics still hold up well even today, which cannot be said about the first two games).

* HilariousInHindsight:
** A major character in a ''Star Wars'' work played by an Asian actress. Jan Ors beat [[Film/TheLastJedi Rose]] to the punch by two decades.
** Maw surviving [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe being chopped in half]] is exactly [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars what would end up happening to Darth Maul]] 15 years after ''Jedi Knight'' was released.
** Jerec's plan to utilise power from the spirits of dead Jedi is remarkably similar to Palatine's claim that he has all the power of the Sith in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker''. And Rey ends up using the combined powers of all the Jedi to defeat him.

* InstantExpert: Kyle is given exactly zero Jedi training (apart from implied Force visions of Rahn) and when he is provided with a lightsaber, he seems to regard it as more of a handy weapon rather than anything Force-related. And speaking of the Force, he knows positively nothing about it. Just a few in-universe hours later that doesn't stop him from [[spoiler:beating a Dark Jedi who has presumably been trained in the ways of the dark side for years]]. Of course, the fact that he can potentially fall to the dark side based on the player's actions [[spoiler: and does during the expansion pack]] deconstructs this trope.
* MoonLogicPuzzle: At one point in Level 10 of the expansion pack you need to blow up two security cameras in order to leave the room. Why that would ''open'' the doors rather than shut them for good is anyone's guess.

* PortingDisaster: The initial release of the game on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. The original game and ''Mysteries of the Sith'' were basically thrown onto Steam with no fixes for their various limitations as Windows programs developed in 1997. Most players on modern systems were greeted with the games being unable to start or display correctly, the cutscenes and menus being shown in a window while gameplay was fullscreen, no background music (due to the game using CD audio for it) and the games crashing ''constantly'' during loading and menu screens, effectively making it impossible to even ''resume'' the paused gameplay without loading a savestate. Luckily, a patch for ''Jedi Knight'' dropped in mid 2016 made the menus and cutscenes run in fullscreen, fixed the crashes and restored the music (all of which had been already fixed in the Website/GOGDotCom version), with similar fixes for Mysteries of the Sith dropping a year later.
* ScrappyWeapon: The Bowcaster in the base game was poor enough, but the Carbonite Gun from '' Mysteries Of The Sith'' takes the cake. With its pitiful range and the sheer amount of ammunition required to achieve the desired effect, literally any other weapon in the game would be more efficient to use. And it [[HarmlessFreezing doesn't even kill them]], requiring a follow up attack to smash the carbonite encased enemy to pieces. Its secondary attack is a simple PistolWhipping, which does nothing the fists don't already.

** Levels 12-14, the three final levels in ''Mysteries of the Sith'', present a DifficultySpike so steep they make every other level in the ''whole series'' feel like cake in comparison, mainly because they take place within a Dark Force nexus that disables your guns entirely, forcing you to use your lightsaber, which is [[AwesomeButImpractical slow and clunky]]. Level 12 is not so extremely hard as it's extremely annoying - it's a BubblegloopSwamp infested with [[GoddamnedBats goddamned mailocs and dart-spitting plants]], and the occasional [[SavageWolves vornskrs]] are easily bypassed. But then you enter the [[TempleOfDoom Sith Temple]]. First and foremost, this is a Dark Side temple in more ways than one - it's so ''literally'' dark that your field light won't do you much good, meaning you have to use your Force Seeing a lot with its annoying noise. It's also full of {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}s, but what makes the spike really take off is the temple's inhabitants. The lightsaber-wielding Sith statues aren't too bad, but the others are major DemonicSpiders - the temple is teeming with the aforementioned vornskrs in every corner, and they later get joined by [[OurZombiesAreDifferent noghri]] who spam Force Lightning with perfect accuracy and take several hits to kill. It's no wonder [[spoiler:Kyle went insane]] in this place.

** Levels 12-14, the three final levels in ''Mysteries of the Sith'', present a DifficultySpike so steep they make every other level in the ''whole series'' feel like cake in comparison, mainly because they take place within a Dark Force nexus that disables your guns entirely, forcing you to use your lightsaber, which is [[AwesomeButImpractical slow and clunky]]. Level 12 is not so extremely hard as it's extremely annoying - it's a BubblegloopSwamp infested with [[GoddamnedBats goddamned mailocs and dart-spitting plants]], and the occasional [[SavageWolves vornskrs]] are easily bypassed. But then you enter the [[TempleOfDoom Sith Temple]]. First and foremost, it's so dark your field light won't do you much good, meaning you have to use your Force Seeing a lot with its annoying noise. It's also full of {{Moon Logic Puzzle}}s, but what makes the spike really take off is the temple's inhabitants. The lightsaber-wielding Sith statues aren't too bad, but the others are major DemonicSpiders: the temple is teeming with the aforementioned vornskrs in every corner, and they later get joined by [[OurZombiesAreDifferent noghri]] who spam Force Lightning with perfect accuracy and take several hits to kill.

* ThatOneLevel: After defeating Maw, Kyle is thrown back onto the crashing cargo ship and has to get to the landing bay to the Moldy Crow. On easy, it's challenging enough with a ten minute time limit (which can be increased by engaging the ship's thrusters) and little indication as to where to go. [[StupidEvil Enemies on board still try to kill you]]. On hard mode, you have one minute. [[NintendoHard Good luck]].

* DemonicSpiders: Vronskrs in the expansion pack. They're [[LightningBruiser frighteningly fast]] and will chew through your health in no time if you let them get close enough. They can also interrupt your sabre swings, leap at you while you're trying to deal with them from range, even if you are on higher ground, and can even swim. Their appearance also occurs in the sections of the game where your guns are rendered useless. If you encounter more than one of them at a time, you're in trouble.

** The mailocs that you encounter on Sulon and Ruusan take a lot of your health and are pretty [[NightmareFuel creepy]] in their own right although they do take their sweet time between placing themselves in front of you and attacking which means getting rid of them is fairly easy; your basic lightsaber hit will easily cut down even two of them at the same time, practically making them more of a nuisance rather than an actual threat (note that it's NOT the case in the expansion pack where the mailocs tend to take you by surprise, usually in much larger numbers, and your guns are disabled in the levels they appear in, so you can't take them out from long range). Training droids in some of the later stages also count, however they are easily disabled and each of their shot takes as little as one point of shield energy, less than any other enemy in the game. Sentry droids are similar if more dangerous (and encountered more often).

* InstantExpert: Kyle is given exactly zero Jedi training (apart from implied Force visions from Rahn) and when he is provided with a lightsaber, he seems to regard it as more of a handy weapon rather than anything Force-related. And speaking of the Force, he knows positively nothing about it. Just a few in-universe hours later that doesn't stop him from [[spoiler:beating a Dark Jedi who has presumably been trained in the ways of the dark side for years]]. Of course, the fact that he can potentially fall to the dark side based on the player's actions [[spoiler: and does during the expansion pack]] deconstructs this trope.

* InstantExpert: Kyle is given exactly zero Jedi training and when he is provided with a lightsaber, he seems to regard it as more of a handy weapon rather than anything Force-related. And speaking of the Force, he knows positively nothing about it. Just a few in-universe hours later that doesn't stop him from [[spoiler:beating a Dark Jedi who has presumably been trained in the ways of the dark side for years]]. Of course, the fact that he can potentially fall to the dark side based on the player's actions [[spoiler: and does during the expansion pack]] deconstructs this trope.

* GoddamnedBats: The mailocs that you encounter on Sulon and Ruusan take a lot of your health and are pretty [[NightmareFuel creepy]] in their own right although they do take their sweet time between placing themselves in front of you and attacking which means getting rid of them is fairly easy; your basic lightsaber hit will easily cut down even two of them at the same time, practically making them more of a nuisance rather than an actual threat (note that it's NOT the case in the expansion pack where the mailocs tend to take you by surprise, usually in much larger numbers, and your guns are disabled in the levels they appear in, so you can't take them out from long range). Training droids in some of the later stages also count, however they are easily disabled and each of their shot takes as little as one point of shield energy, less than any other enemy in the game. Sentry droids are similar if more dangerous (and encountered more often).

* SpecialEffectsFailure: The live-action cutscenes consist entirely of actors (and a few props, such as a bed) filmed against a greenscreen and superimposed onto ''very'' cheap and simple CGI scenes. While the videos are so heavily compressed that everything appears smooth and blurry anyway, it's still very noticeable, particularly when there's some object involved that's held by both a CGI character and an actor, such as Morgan's disk. When the CGI droid 8t88 holds it, it's very obviously a flat and simple-looking CGI model, but when Kyle later holds it it's a real prop with details and reflections. It's even more blatant when Kyle gets his lightsaber - a flat, diffuse CGI cylinder pops out of a CGI droid, and in the next scene Kyle's holding a detailed, metallic lightsaber prop.

* GoddamnedBats: The mailocs that you encounter on Sulon take a lot of your health and are pretty [[NightmareFuel creepy]] in their own right although they do take their sweet time between placing themselves in front of you and attacking which means getting rid of them is fairly easy; your basic lightsaber hit will easily cut down even two of them at the same time, practically making them more of a nuisance rather than an actual threat (note that it's NOT the case in the expansion pack where the mailocs tend to take you by surprise and usually in much larger numbers and you don't have guns to take them down from range). Training droids in some of the later stages also count, however they are easily disabled and each of their shot takes as little as one point of shield energy, less than any other enemy in the game. Sentry droids are similar if more dangerous (and encountered more often).

** Maw surviving [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe being chopped in half]] is exactly what would end up happening to Darth Maul.

* GrowingTheBeard: This game is the point where the series began to truly set itself apart from other first person shooters of the era by introducing [[MagicKnight Force Powers]] and [[LaserBlade lightsabre]] combat. While the original ''Dark Forces'' is fondly remembered by PC gamers, ''Jedi Knight'' and its sequels are considered classics and triumphant examples of NoProblemWithLicensedGames. It helps that Kyle literally has grown a beard in this game.

* GoddamnedBats: The mailocs that you encounter on Sulon take a lot of your health and are pretty [[NightmareFuel creepy]] in their own right although they do take their sweet time between placing themselves in front of you and attacking which means getting rid of them is fairly easy; your basic lightsaber hit will easily cut down even two of them at the same time, practically making them more of a nuisance rather than an actual threat (note that it's NOT the case in the expansion pack where the mailocs tend to take you by surprise and usually in much larger numbers). Training droids in some of the later stages also count, however they are easily disabled and each of their shot takes as little as one point of shield energy, less than any other enemy in the game. Sentry droids are similar if more dangerous (and encountered more often).

* GrowingTheBeard: This game is the point where the series began to truly set itself apart from other first person shooters of the era by introducing [[MagicKnight Force Powers]] and [[LaseBlade lightsabre]] combat. While the original ''Dark Forces'' is fondly remembered by PC gamers, ''Jedi Knight'' and its sequels are considered classics and triumphant examples of NoProblemWithLicensedGames. It helps that Kyle literally has grown a beard in this game.

* GameBreaker: The game is devoid of anything resembling aim and it seems like your best option is just try to position your gun at the exact center of the screen... that is until you figure out that upon pulling up the map the red dot marking your current position does indeed happen to be at the very center of the screen ''at all times''.

* ThatOneAttack: Force Grip when used by enemies. You can't dodge and it does a lot of damage. Thankfully boss battles do have health pick ups.

* InstantExpert: Kyle is given exactly zero Jedi training and when he is provided with a lightsaber, he seems to regard it as more of a handy weapon rather than anything Force-related. And speaking of the Force, he knows positively nothing about it. Just a few in-universe hours later that doesn't stop him from [[spoiler:beating a Dark Jedi who has presumably been trained in the ways of the dark side for years]].

* HilariousInHindsight: A major character in a ''Star Wars'' work played by an Asian actress. Jan Ors beat [[Film/TheLastJedi Rose]] to the punch by two decades.