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A Small Rant.


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(I previously posted this in another thread, but felt it deserved it's own thing.)

 

I just think this game is the perfect place to have non-lore-based characters.

 

I'll give you an example:

 

 

Look how awkward that looks, compared to the fast-paced, over-the-top combat of Jedi Academy which is good for any type of player, its good for Game of Thrones-esque battles, all the way up to DBZ-esque battles and beyond, and its also good for particularly powerful super fast characters like Sephiroth, Vergil, and we've even seen that the flash and Superman are possible.

 

When compared to this:

 

 

They just aren't comparable, clearly one is more suited to those characters, and almost any character would be suited to Jedi Academy.

 

Let's not even bring up GTA V:

 

 

Or L4D2 (which is relatively cool, but you can only kill zombies, and still doesn't stack to this game):

 

 

OR Skyrim:

 

 

No, none of these games stack up to what can be had in Jedi Academy, it has one of the most robust combat systems of all time, and with enough dedication, the game could be the next g-mod, with FAR better combat, but people are so focused on just star wars characters that in 2017 it doesn't seem like that's even a possibility, not that that's an issue since this is a star wars game, but it could be SO much more, its MEANT to be so much more.

 

The game can even be JUST as good for effects as G-mod. Once again referencing Cloud vs Sephiroth, I'm sure stuff like Meteor and Supernova could also be possible with gfx, modeling, new animations, and new force powers created, making them ultra-authentic. If thats possible, then anything can be for this game. Sure there are limits but there are less limits for options for combat in this game through modding then practically any game, and that INCLUDES Gmod.

 

And if the game should be focused on Star Wars only, people shouldn't be focused on making a new Luke skin every other day. "Here's my version of Luke. Here's my version of Luke! Yeah but this is my version of Luke guys!" It's true the models can only get better as modeling technology does as well, but instead of porting this model of Luke, and that one, and that one, and the next one, and even modelling them, how about new stuff? If we worked as hard on releasing NEW star wars models instead of sticking in our comfort zone with Luke, among others, we'll never make any progress as a community. We want Jedi Academy to be known as the ultimate star wars game, and thats why we need new models cranked out, whether they be Star Wars or non-Star Wars, ports, models, kitbashes, and skins.

 

It's true, we are getting new stuff, but they are mostly generic soldiers. It's cool that we have Rex and all that but I'd imagine a lot of people wanna play with some comic book and novel characters, on top of ones from the movies.

 

Think about all the people we have in place of people we COULD have, we have Tiplee and Tiplar for gods sakes, but some big names have never seen the light of day in this game.

 

What about big names, what about some Niche stuff like from the comics and the novels, like Vestara Khai, Ben Skywalker, and a DECENT Darth freakin Caedus.

 

It's actually crazy that we don't have a decent Darth Caedus yet, there have been some made but they don't look much like him at all.

 

We can do so much more with this game, never have I had more motivation to try and learn the ins and outs of modding a game, this game deserves to be so much more then it is.

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As far as stuff from other franchises go, it's all the matter of taste. Modders do stuff for:

- the popular demand, as they obviously want their content to be well received,

- their own personal taste and preference,

- for their friends.

 

Now, it's not a case of right and wrong obviously, but more of a common taste. I guess you will find most people completely disinterested in stuff that's out of character for the game. Besides GMod, I've never seen people hyped to make their game a platform for out of character stuff. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, people can like anime characters in a Star Wars game for whatever personal reason, but let's just admit it's really not something that hits the taste of many. You bring up the example of Skyrim, but as far as I can say, these mods with stuff from other franchises is neither very popular nor expected. It's just that Skyrim has like twenty times the modding community we have for JK3. You'll find that this stuff makes the similarly small percentage of the stuff available as here, but since Skyrim has 50x as much mods, the similar small percentage is equally higher. Sure, maybe it's 2% for Jedi Academy and 5% for Skyrim, but it's still a minority.

 

Then there's the fact that most of the games are connected to franchises also way, way smaller than Star Wars with far less you can think about. Within Star Wars, as you have said, people mostly go for the obvious and popular choices, but look at the abundance of even the most obvious characters. As giant as TES universe is, it's really small compared to Star Wars, the amount of possibilities is simply way smaller. Not to mention that everywhere you go 50% of the modders are just the beginners that stop at the basic reskins of most popular characters, their Lukes and their stormtroopers and their Reborns. It's just you don't see that at sites like NexusMods, since they have so many of them, they just don't accept this kind of stuff any longer.

 

Another fact is that, going back to the "popular demand" part, Star Wars content fits Jedi Academy obviously. 99% of the people that like Jedi Academy like Star Wars as a universe and at least few works from Star Wars universe. Now, among literally hundreds of other franchises, you'll find only a part of them like Final Fantasy too, only a part of them like Might and Magic, and so on.

 

I really completely wouldn't care for these Final Fantasy things, they would feel out of place for me and honestly entirely useless. I don't want to play JK3 to play as my TES guys neither. I want to play TES to play with my TES favorites. And it's just the way it is for huge amount of people.

 

Not to mention you're honestly overestimating the game with all this talk of how it is meant to be "so much more" than star wars game and all this stuff. No, it's not, and there's a reason why it has never been the choice for people that do these 10 gigabytes projects for Skyrims. The engine can't support large maps, it can never support the areas of Oblivion size, it can never support their amount of NPCs you can drop, it can never get its AI to the level there is in those other games. It's nowhere a platform as flexible as the games that are used for these "overhauls" into other universes. 

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As far as stuff from other franchises go, it's all the matter of taste. Modders do stuff for:

- the popular demand, as they obviously want their content to be well received,

- their own personal taste and preference,

- for their friends.

 

Now, it's not a case of right and wrong obviously, but more of a common taste. I guess you will find most people completely disinterested in stuff that's out of character for the game. Besides GMod, I've never seen people hyped to make their game a platform for out of character stuff. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, people can like anime characters in a Star Wars game for whatever personal reason, but let's just admit it's really not something that hits the taste of many. You bring up the example of Skyrim, but as far as I can say, these mods with stuff from other franchises is neither very popular nor expected. It's just that Skyrim has like twenty times the modding community we have for JK3. You'll find that this stuff makes the similarly small percentage of the stuff available as here, but since Skyrim has 50x as much mods, the similar small percentage is equally higher. Sure, maybe it's 2% for Jedi Academy and 5% for Skyrim, but it's still a minority.

 

Then there's the fact that most of the games are connected to franchises also way, way smaller than Star Wars with far less you can think about. Within Star Wars, as you have said, people mostly go for the obvious and popular choices, but look at the abundance of even the most obvious characters. As giant as TES universe is, it's really small compared to Star Wars, the amount of possibilities is simply way smaller. Not to mention that everywhere you go 50% of the modders are just the beginners that stop at the basic reskins of most popular characters, their Lukes and their stormtroopers and their Reborns. It's just you don't see that at sites like NexusMods, since they have so many of them, they just don't accept this kind of stuff any longer.

 

Another fact is that, going back to the "popular demand" part, Star Wars content fits Jedi Academy obviously. 99% of the people that like Jedi Academy like Star Wars as a universe and at least few works from Star Wars universe. Now, among literally hundreds of other franchises, you'll find only a part of them like Final Fantasy too, only a part of them like Might and Magic, and so on.

 

I really completely wouldn't care for these Final Fantasy things, they would feel out of place for me and honestly entirely useless. I don't want to play JK3 to play as my TES guys neither. I want to play TES to play with my TES favorites. And it's just the way it is for huge amount of people.

 

Not to mention you're honestly overestimating the game with all this talk of how it is meant to be "so much more" than star wars game and all this stuff. No, it's not, and there's a reason why it has never been the choice for people that do these 10 gigabytes projects for Skyrims. The engine can't support large maps, it can never support the areas of Oblivion size, it can never support their amount of NPCs you can drop, it can never get its AI to the level there is in those other games. It's nowhere a platform as flexible as the games that are used for these "overhauls" into other universes. 

Yeah but that game would get so much more attention if it DID have those models for the game, for some (rather shallow) people, player models can either make it break it for a game, having a game in which Superman fights Goku, and a game that could handle it as well as this game does, is crazy.

 

The point I was making about the game being "so much more", is that this game's combat system is basically tailor-made for superhuman sword fights, you can literally enact so many fights in this game thanks to the combat system and the physics engine, id Tech 3, opens up more on top of that.

 

The game's combat system can be modified every which way, if you wanted to actually legitimately put in the time, you could actually make it so that the FF Character's seen above, could use their signature attack, create a new force power, add new GFX and a model to back-up the GFX, voila, you have a new power that character can use, on top of the super incredibly fast-paced over-the-top combat system which goes with literally any character.

 

No game can do super-powered characters justice, especially if they have swords, no game can capture characters like Raiden from Metal Gear Rising, Superman, and Neo perfectly combat-wise, no game except for this one.

 

In terms of maps, maybe you can't have giant oblivion-sized maps, but I was never arguing for that, but I'm saying the combat system can have limitless tweaks. This game has been turned into a turn-based RPG, as well as a fighting game, in the past, the things that people have done in terms of new force powers is nothing short of absolutely amazing. Just when I thought they couldn't do stuff like that, I've seen people give forces powers that grant teleportation, creating explosions and fire from your hands, to even more.

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Not to mention you're honestly overestimating the game with all this talk of how it is meant to be "so much more" than star wars game and all this stuff. No, it's not, and there's a reason why it has never been the choice for people that do these 10 gigabytes projects for Skyrims. The engine can't support large maps, it can never support the areas of Oblivion size, it can never support their amount of NPCs you can drop, it can never get its AI to the level there is in those other games. It's nowhere a platform as flexible as the games that are used for these "overhauls" into other universes. 

 

I'm 100% sure you can create an Open World RPG with Jedi Academy. The game can totally support large maps, or at least that's what the development pics of Warzone has led me to believe. Oblivion isn't that big in reality, it's just a bunch of maps connected with each other. Same as Skyrim, if you mod it, you'll notice that all the open world areas are relatively small maps connected. Same thing can be said about NPCs, how many NPCs do you think are in each cell in Skyrim? Their whole cities are populated by -at most- 30 people.

 

Besides that, I agree with most of your point. 

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Now, it's not a case of right and wrong obviously, but more of a common taste. I guess you will find most people completely disinterested in stuff that's out of character for the game. Besides GMod, I've never seen people hyped to make their game a platform for out of character stuff. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, people can like anime characters in a Star Wars game for whatever personal reason, but let's just admit it's really not something that hits the taste of many. You bring up the example of Skyrim, but as far as I can say, these mods with stuff from other franchises is neither very popular nor expected. It's just that Skyrim has like twenty times the modding community we have for JK3. You'll find that this stuff makes the similarly small percentage of the stuff available as here, but since Skyrim has 50x as much mods, the similar small percentage is equally higher. Sure, maybe it's 2% for Jedi Academy and 5% for Skyrim, but it's still a minority.

 

This paragraph basically hits the nail on the head. JKA's community is now mostly left to the die-hard fans that have stuck around for years or new players that saw a Star Wars game on sale and picked it up and started playing or modding because they like Star Wars.

 

But if you go back to 2003-2007, the modding community was huge. There were tons of non-SW mods being made weekly. Go on mrwonko's mirror to see what I mean. I remember sometimes being surprised at how many non-SW mods were actually being made back then. And it all comes down to the amount of modders. Everyone has their own tastes and interests, and that's what modding is all about. Very rarely will you see a modder make something purely for someone else. They do it for themselves as well, because it's something they'd also like to be made possible in JKA.

 

So bottom line, what you're asking for probably just won't be much of a thing anymore. It used to happen a lot, but with the community shrinking more and more ever year, it's less likely to be as common.

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Ok, right now, I don't have the time to read the whole op and discussion, but by skimming through it, I gathered it has something to do with non-Star Wars sword-fighting characters being a rarity among JKA mods? If so, then I actually spoke my mind in a different topic, though I was talking about lack of modern non-Star Wars content in general, but most people brushed me off because...

It's a Star Wars game, and it's a Star Wars fan and modding community

Anyway, if I'm missing the point, I'll write again later.

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I personally cringe when i see anime character done, there is no place for those silly japanies stuff in SW game. SW is too great for it. But thats just my hateful opinion. There is nothing "More" than Star Wars, but there is so much more that can be achived in that direction. In this community enough talanted people to get some real masterpiece done, but they are not united and almost everyone doing their own thing like one man army. Projects that are in works now are stunningly ambitious and just leaving imagination in shreads, but at this rate they will be MAYBE done when i hit 30 years, though even that sounds too optimistic.
However they will not unite just because someone thinks thats a good idea, and without that happening nothing will change and things will remain how they are. Obvious, but still felt like something that must be said.

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Then it's settled - we all move to Rising and improve its combat system! :)

I don't know whether you played the game or not but slashing with your sword in Rising felt more satisfying since you could cut almost through everything in every way you wanted to. I mean sure, the JK has great combat system but swinging the lightsaber just doesn't feel as interactive as using the blade mode in Rising to cut objects and enemies freely as you wish to. I don't mean to derail the topic, but imo the JK combat system could be polished a little better.

 

And as for the non-star wars stuff, it's really unfortunate how people don't see the potential of it at the moment, yes. But it doesn't mean the stuff is non existant.

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I don't know man, Rising has actually great combat system (and imo even better than JKA's, but it'd have to be polished more)

It has a great combat system, but the blade mode is one stationary mode, and in JKA, the swordplay is one of the best, ever, like, in any game, its just fantastic.

 

You can go just as fast as in Rising, and then faster still, and you still have set animations, whereas this game can be customized to its utmost fullest.

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It has a great combat system, but the blade mode is one stationary mode, and in JKA, the swordplay is one of the best, ever, like, in any game, its just fantastic.

 

You can go just as fast as in Rising, and then faster still, and you still have set animations, whereas this game can be customized to its utmost fullest.

Blade mode may be a stationary mode, but the ability to cut almost anything like you want to sells it better for me than JKA, imo. JKA's combat systen lacks really many things (that was mostly covered with mods, but still) like blockig, parrying, lunging, thrusting while Rising has those, albeit limited in "set animations".
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I don't know whether you played the game or not but slashing with your sword in Rising felt more satisfying since you could cut almost through everything in every way you wanted to. I mean sure, the JK has great combat system but swinging the lightsaber just doesn't feel as interactive as using the blade mode in Rising to cut objects and enemies freely as you wish to. I don't mean to derail the topic, but imo the JK combat system could be polished a little better.

I haven't played Rising (in fact, I can't even find it, is that the game's full name?).

What I think of the combat system in JKA, well, 1) I disliked how the saber's been nerfed - you know, no proper dismemberment or one-hit-kills (even compared to JO! I see the point of it, but still); 2) it does have its weak spots (as I already mentioned, it's silly that the floor stabbing animation doesn't always toggle when you're attacking a lying-on-the-floor enemy), like the high-chop animation being restricted to the red style, and again, not always toggling when attacking and jumping, or not being able to kick with a single saber (without mods or other edits), etc. As to how natural the handling feels, I always thought that it's because the 'blade' isn't a hard object (you know, like a bat? but yeah, that's a lame excuse).

When it comes to regular swords in JKA, their blades are always misdirected. With a lightsaber it's not an issue because it's 'blade' can cut in any direction (theoretically)(and the 'blade' itself is cylindrical anyway), but with an actual sword - the sharp edge of the blade (the cutting one, in case it's a sword and not a saber) is always pointing to the left in vanilla yellow stance, it just looks stupid.

 

It has a great combat system, but the blade mode is one stationary mode, and in JKA, the swordplay is one of the best, ever, like, in any game, its just fantastic.

 

You can go just as fast as in Rising, and then faster still, and you still have set animations, whereas this game can be customized to its utmost fullest.

What do you think of Mount and Blade's combat system? It's simplistic, yeah, but they say it uses good physics, is well-scripted (in regards to the player character's stats), and actually takes a lot of practice to master (this much I know for a fact)

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Blade mode may be a stationary mode, but the ability to cut almost anything like you want to sells it better for me than JKA, imo. JKA's combat systen lacks really many things (that was mostly covered with mods, but still) like blockig, parrying, lunging, thrusting while Rising has those, albeit limited in "set animations".

Base JKA has lunging, parrying, thrusting, it just doesn't have a dedicated block button.

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I haven't played Rising (in fact, I can't even find it, is that the game's full name?).

What I think of the combat system in JKA, well, 1) I disliked how the saber's been nerfed - you know, no proper dismemberment or one-hit-kills (even compared to JO! I see the point of it, but still); 2) it does have its weak spots (as I already mentioned, it's silly that the floor stabbing animation doesn't always toggle when you're attacking a lying-on-the-floor enemy), like the high-chop animation being restricted to the red style, and again, not always toggling when attacking and jumping, or not being able to kick with a single saber (without mods or other edits), etc. As to how natural the handling feels, I always thought that it's because the 'blade' isn't a hard object (you know, like a bat? but yeah, that's a lame excuse).

When it comes to regular swords in JKA, their blades are always misdirected. With a lightsaber it's not an issue because it's 'blade' can cut in any direction (theoretically)(and the 'blade' itself is cylindrical anyway), but with an actual sword - the sharp edge of the blade (the cutting one, in case it's a sword and not a saber) is always pointing to the left in vanilla yellow stance, it just looks stupid.

 

What do you think of Mount and Blade's combat system? It's simplistic, yeah, but they say it uses good physics, is well-scripted (in regards to the player character's stats), and actually takes a lot of practice to master (this much I know for a fact)

A lot of people (including myself) HATED the one-hit kill system in JO, using a DFA attack to down your opponent in one hit was annoying, it became less a duel of skill and more of "who will hit the DFA first".

 

Sure it should be about fun, but there's no real skill when all it takes is one DFA to down your opponent. JKA still has DFA but it's VERY slow meaning its unlikely to hit anyway, and thats good.

 

Sword fighting in JKA has always felt very visceral and epic, the awesome clang of swords and shields hitting up against each other while you and your enemy are jumping around the map, its just an awesome feeling, in my opinion.

 

I don't wanna fight enemies and just keep whacking them over and over, I want something that freely allows me to fight pretty much any way I want, this game does that, I could turn this game into tons of different games completely with the mods that have been released.

 

Mount & Blade has a fantastic combat system, but its very, very difficult to learn, that game also has a great physics engine, however, its still not quite as free-flowing.

 

It's good for stuff like the famous GoT's mods, a World of Ice and Fire, a Clash of Kings.

 

But it just wouldn't look right for superhuman characters.

 

(Btw, the game's full name is "Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance", its a great game, check it out if you get the chance.)

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I haven't played Rising (in fact, I can't even find it, is that the game's full name?).

 

It's Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance .

 

I don't know why some of you consider Rising to be superior, because rising played more like a hack'n slash title (which is much different compare to JA). And the reasons that Rising was more successful were :

 

a)It is a Metal Gear game.(Which is one of the most popular franchises)

 

b)It was developed by Platinum Games which some people just buy their games for PG alone.

 

c)You can enjoy Rising by a controller but I don't think that playing JO and JA is really enjoyable via a controller .

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Blade mode may be a stationary mode, but the ability to cut almost anything like you want to sells it better for me than JKA, imo. JKA's combat systen lacks really many things (that was mostly covered with mods, but still) like blockig, parrying, lunging, thrusting while Rising has those, albeit limited in "set animatio

But that's just one aspect of Rising, its basically just flashy hacking and slashing away at everything.

 

Not to say there isn't thinking involved, but there are so many things to learn in JKA because of it's very robust physics engine that allows the hacking and slashing of Rising, but with way more options.

 

You have multiple styles that have different attacks, with each one having their own benefits.

 

Revengeance is also just a lot easier to learn and to master, once you figure out the blocking system, you can game it so that you'll never be hit, Jedi Academy just gives you a way more tense feeling during battle that I really wish Rising could give me, alas, it couldn't.

 

I guess thats my own personal experience, but once you learn how to block, which honestly should take long before you even beat the game for the first time, you can cheat the system and you will never be hit, not once, whereas even though I consider myself decent at dueling in JKA, I am ALWAYS in danger of death in a one-on-one.

 

But it's not luck or anything like that, thats holding me back, its my own self, maybe I missed an attack that an opponent did, maybe I got caught in a saber clash, etc.

 

Many things that are my own fault will be my death if I'm not careful, and that, to me, is what makes Jedi Academy one of the best swordplay games ever, instead of using the same moves and fighting the same way over and over again in Rising, gaming the block system and losing all tension, I'm in this very huge tension-filled drag-out fight where I never feel safe, as if I could die at any point.

 

I've seen even high-level players die to NPC's in this game.

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It based on very many other things also, but anime never was among those things.

 

Anime isn't the only thing that's japanese, and even so, anime has been a source of inspiration in recent Star Wars history.

 

http://www.starwars.com/news/the-cinema-behind-star-wars-princess-mononoke-ahsoka-tano

 

The original trilogy was heavily inspired by Kurosawa's samurai films and the whole philosophy of the films is based on eastern mysticism. 

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I think the Jedi Academy combat system is superior to MGRR, but in my opinion, MGRR does two things better than Jedi Academy:

 

1. It is more satisfying to be able to reject bullets with the sword, not like the slow blaster shots that seem to be designed so that they can be deflected by the Jedi, instead of the latter increasing their speed to keep up with the shots.

 

2. To be able to cut almost any object.

 

Also I have a reason why there are few non Star Wars mods of Jedi Academy: it is easier not to replace the lightsaber by sword and that weapon leads to SW even though there are other works with energy swords but much less popular, which leads to SW mod. Compare this with another game: there are many Half-Life mods that have nothing to do with the Black Mesa event, but because the main weapons in this game are not associated with Half-Life.

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I think the Jedi Academy combat system is superior to MGRR, but in my opinion: MGRR does two things better than Jedi Academy:

 

1. It is more satisfying to be able to reject bullets with the sword, not like the slow blaster shots that seem to be designed so that they can be deflected by the Jedi, instead of the latter increasing their speed to keep up with the shots.

 

2. To be able to cut almost any object.

 

Also I have a reason why there are few non Star Wars mods of Jedi Academy: it is easier not to replace the lightsaber by sword and that weapon leads to SW even though there are other works with energy swords but much less popular, which leads to SW mod. Compare this with another game: there are many Half-Life mods that have nothing to do with the Black Mesa event, but because the main weapons in this game are not associated with Half-Life.

It's very easy, all you do is port the weapon, I personally can't do it, but I've seen people who can make very good, functional weapons in about 10 minutes or less.

 

I actually love how swords work in JKA when they are ported.

 

Even when the swords are modeled, it works very well, and I've had 0 issues using stuff like this: https://jkhub.org/files/file/671-assassins-creed-weaponspack/

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I haven't played Rising (in fact, I can't even find it, is that the game's full name?).

The game's name Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. 

 

 

It's Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance .

 

I don't know why some of you consider Rising to be superior, because rising played more like a hack'n slash title (which is much different compare to JA). And the reasons that Rising was more successful were 

It's because the sword actually feels like a real sword. It can cut through things and the attack animations actually feel like actual sword attacks opposed to simple lightsaber swings in JKA, I find Rising's combat system much more fun since JKA is a wasted potential, imo.

 

Base JKA has lunging, parrying, thrusting, it just doesn't have a dedicated block button.

The game has hardly any of these. Parrying is almost non-existent in baseJKA and it's present in MB2, the game doesn't have lunging either, unlss you are referring to grip + force pull + blue style attack/or rolling "stab" , none of these are proper lunges. And about thrusting... It's just thrusting the sword backwards. 

 

Imagine Jedi Academy getting Blade Symphony treatment... Now that'd be a perfect game since Blade Symphony was based on it iirc.

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