What are your favorite saber hilts from Jedi Academy?

[Circa]

I think most people will agree that the saber hilts in Jedi Academy are somewhat lacking in both style and realism (they look like they are made of plastic, in my opinion). However, when you first installed the game, at least one of the hilts must have been attractive enough for you to choose it as your weapon of choice.

 

Your choices could depend on MP or SP, so feel free to explain your answers.

 

This poll has two questions, single sabers and staff sabers. I also included Kyle, Luke, Desann, and Reborn hilts, and the ability to choose 2 for those of you that duel wield, to the singles question.

 

 

 

[Penekowski]

Katarn and Vanquisher, for sure! 

[afi]

Defender and I don't really remember the staff hilts.

[swegmaster]

Mine are Arbiter and Guardian, back then I was more a prequel fan (still hated Jar Jar), and Arbiter happened to be the closest thing to Anakin's hilt. Guardian just happened to appeal to me as a nice looking saber staff.

[lang_french]

I always found that single hilts, excepting Arbiter, were too big, too fat for (near-)human hands. When we see the sabers in Prequels, movies and EU (Legends or not), most of the time sabers were quite thin and fingers can join themselves with the thumb. With these sabers (Praetor for instance), we think that Jaden can't hold it correctly and could loose it easily.

This is bad, because all are imaginative, but this scale issue ruins all.

[Circa]

Made a quick image showing the hilts with their names, added to the original post.

 

I remember I used the Praetor hilt when I first played the game, because I thought it looked the most like a saber that would be seen in the films. I used blue for that; I thought it looked best with blue. It's way too big of a model though, as stated above. It's huge. My second playthrough, I used Firebrand with a green blade. I think those two are my favorite, followed by Sentinel. And even though Luke's hilt in JKA looks like a blocky plastic toy version of the real one, I like it as a hilt on it's own. I used that for some playthroughs after I learned how to do cheats and mods. I think Luke's saber with an orange blade looks really cool.

 

For staff hilts, Vindicator. I'm not really a fan of any of them, though.

[Jango40]

Katarn, Firebrand, Champion and Vindicator.

[Bek]

There's something about the Arbiter; it's not too cool, it's not too ugly. It's image is almost synonymous with Jedi Academy to me. I would always use it, right up until this bad boy was released. The Consul is very unique to me. It really strays away from the constant trope of a metal stick with energy coming out of it. The materials used for the hilt almost seem to be ancient. Almost like this hilt was just given to Jaden by some monk, or tribal leader.

[Jeff]

Firebrand was my fav because of the simplicity of it and vindicator for no other reason than it seemed scaled correctly.

[Smoo]

Retaliator and Defender, what the pros use on 1.00

[the_raven]

When I first played JA, I think I selected Firebrand, don't know why, must have been the huge red button on the top and the strange design. Later I went with Praetor and tried Sentinel (though I didn't like it). With Rooxon's HD saber-pack I came to love the Consul and have been using it ever since. That being said, I mostly play with staff-saber, so Champion (and minilogoguy18's 'broken' Champion) are my two ultimate favourites (though the 'broken' staves are mostly all good - a 'broken' Vindicator kinda reminds me of Stinger (the Reborn saber) ). Oh yeah, also selected Katarn, because apparently, everyone's favourite character had to get the coolest single hilt (and ditch his Arbiter, for whatever reason). Luke's saber looked too 'squished' somehow - in the movie it was thinner and longer.

I think part of the problem with the single hilts is not their size or impractical design (come on, as if anyone's supposed to successfully hold half of those hilts!) but their positioning in the wielder's hand - for some reason they're held by their lower end. Someone actually addressed this and re-positioned them to be held 'properly', and I only wish someone would combine that mod with Rooxon's HD sabers (hey, a man can wish ). The size bit, I just pretend that since Luke's New Jedi Order used standardized hilts, the wonky sizes and designs were to accommodate the non-human species as well.

 

Also: Yay! We got a new poll! Thank you admins!

[Rayce]

Defender and Firebrand from a gameplay perspective (see this thread), Arbiter for looks.

[Onysfx]

Fireband and Avenger. Simplistic and sleek designs, I like that.

[Rooxon]

Oh i am working on not-plastic-looking switcheroos for them but all i can show you for now is this:

 

But imo they are just outdated. Back in the day, this look was one of the better ones known in games (2004 for me when i first played it).

 

Adept, Firebrand and Champion are my choices.

[z3filus]

That looks sweet @Rooxon!  My favorite sabers are Katarn & Defender.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

Back before I used mods, if I wasn't using Luke or Kyle's saber, I'd use the Arbiter. It always seemed the closest to Anakin's saber (which is my all time favorite hilt), so I always used it.

[minilogoguy18]

I tried to think of it as if they had to be functional as weapons so the Katarn hilt was always the best choice due to it's simplicity and the length of the hilt. Desann's hilt was unique and very fitting to his character but as far as a JA hilt goes firebrand seems to be the most functional if it really had to be used in a fight and not just for looks.

 

All of the JA specific hilts are too short to be used with 2 hands it seems. I always liked that the Katarn hilt looked as if it could be held with 2 hands with some additional length making it more a fighters hilt rather than doubling as a decorative piece.

[BaranDoGamer07]

I've always like the Consul hilt because it's considered to be canonical for Jaden, but the Defender hilt just looked classy and stylish, so my vote is easily swayed by that. The Vanquisher staff hilt seemed to be the signature hilt for cover Jedi when the game came out, so it won my vote. All of the other hilts to me just didn't seem to be very well designed in my opinion.

[Artemis]

I eventually settled on Vindicator when I staffed because of the design and the fact that not as many people were using it at the time, compared to the Guardian hilt. Then when I picked up single, I went with Firebrand because it had mostly dark colors, and it was at the bottom of the list, so I could find it easily.

 

And I can't remember what hilts I used when I was a dual-wielding kata spammer... Those were dark days. xD

[Jameson]

Praetor and avenger. I chose praetor because I thought it looks like zayne carricks lightsaber. And avenger is Darth maul styles saber and I love Darth maul.

[Necrolifer]

Katarn and Champion for me.

[Killjoy]

Arbiter and Vindicator....
But out of the JA, I literally love lightsaber of Count Dooku and Savage Opress.

[Sephiroth]

I choose Praetor and Champion. For a long time in MP, I had used Firebrand because I heard that it makes the blade slightly longer. Ha! Boy was I fooled. Anyways, I agree that Praetor would be a much better saber had the model not been too big. I'd love a fancy redo of that hilt instead of the one that was shown in this thread. I also liked Champion mainly because of the grip reminds me of the grips on Qui-gon's saber expect the developers put the gripping all over the hilt.

[TheWhitePhoenix]

I choose Praetor and Champion. For a long time in MP, I had used Firebrand because I heard that it makes the blade slightly longer. Ha! Boy was I fooled. Anyways, I agree that Praetor would be a much better saber had the model not been too big. I'd love a fancy redo of that hilt instead of the one that was shown in this thread. I also liked Champion mainly because of the grip reminds me of the grips on Qui-gon's saber expect the developers put the gripping all over the hilt.

TBH, I always thought the Champion hilt looked like Qui-Gon's saber too. 

[Wolfeye]

 For a long time in MP, I had used Firebrand because I heard that it makes the blade slightly longer. Ha! Boy was I fooled

This may still be correct, I've seen more supportive evidence of it than evidence to the contrary thus far