Jedi Academy is the 5th game in the franchise. This time, you play as Jaden who you can customise – choose their outfit and lightsaber, and choose between several combinations of races and gender. Jaden is a promising Jedi and is a new recruit to Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. You and another student, Rosh are assigned to be mentored by the previous protagonist Kyle Katarn.
Rosh comes across as a total brat, and not long into the game he begins to complain that the Jedi Masters are holding him back... so you can guess what is going to happen to him.
Information is stolen from Luke, and so you are sent on missions to uncover information on the evil cult that committed the theft. The levels are much shorter than what was seen in previous games, and it is a good thing, since it is much harder to get lost. There's barely any switches to press too! The poor/annoying level designs has always held the series back, but now the problem has finally being addressed. The missions are set in a wide variety of locales, and have slightly different gameplay tweaks. Sometimes, you are ploughing through enemies, while others you are locating items or disarming bombs.
You are presented with five missions to choose from, but only need to complete four to proceed to the mandatory mission that follows which advances the story. This process repeats an additional two times.
You can use your lightsaber from the very start, so even though you are given the choice of a few guns and explosives, you will barely feel the need/desire to use them. Additionally, you are given some Force powers, and can unlock a choice of powers as you complete the missions. The light side abilities are absorb, protection, heal, and Mind Trick. The dark side powers are Life steal, Lightning, Grab, and Rage. At certain points in the story, your core Force powers (including Push, Pull, Jump, Speed) are upgraded. You feel pretty powerful from the start, and it is great running around, dismembering Stormtroopers or pushing them off ledges. When you enter the final third of the game, you get a choice whether to switch to Dual Sabers or the Darth Maul-like Saber Staff, which is pretty cool.
Towards the end of the game, you will be constantly fighting the Dark Jedi (there's an insane amount of them) which makes the end quite dull. Even though I've played the previous games in the series; I've never really understood the lightsaber combat. Most of the time it seems to come down to luck, so you just randomly click the mouse and hope for the best. Other times you can easily win by activating Force Speed, then easily chopping them down.
Overall, Jedi Academy is the best in the series, but it's not exactly a series I've enjoyed.