I can definitely see how people would consider this a Doom clone, but I would rather say it is inspired by Doom. Basically what happened here is that they wanted to make a DOOM-like game (at that time, the term FPS wasn't as widespread), but in the Star Wars universe.
This is how Dark Forces was born, and it follows the adventures of Kyle Katarn, the individual sent by Princess Leia andI can definitely see how people would consider this a Doom clone, but I would rather say it is inspired by Doom. Basically what happened here is that they wanted to make a DOOM-like game (at that time, the term FPS wasn't as widespread), but in the Star Wars universe.
This is how Dark Forces was born, and it follows the adventures of Kyle Katarn, the individual sent by Princess Leia and the Rebels to steal the plans for the Death Star. Yes, that was way before Rogue One was a thing and it is now considered to belong to the Star Wars Expanded Universe, meaning it is no longer considered canon, as Rogue One replaces that part of the story.
Stealing the Death Star plans is only the beginning, as the adventures of Kyle Katarn in DF1 take you through various missions and levels, a couple of them heavily inspired by DOOM in terms of design.. I am looking especially at Mission 2 - Talay (Tak Base), as well as Mission 5 - Gromas Mines, which for me have the heaviest Doom vibe.
There are 14 missions in total, and while the game is not necessarily hard, you can't save mid-level and you have a limited number of lives to use, meaning there are some checkpoints where you respawn if you die, but it's like 3 lives per level or so. You can find extra lives during the level, but the lives system is pretty much the worst thing you can implement in an FPS. Given those were the early days of the FPS genre, I would say there are some extenuating circumstances, as they were most likely experimenting with the system, but this, unfortunately, made the game very hard to play in this day. You die a lot not from difficulty, but from bad level design and falling to your death, which makes it annoying that there's no save system and you are often forced to restart the level if you encounter a more complicated platforming sequence that you can't handle well from the start.
Because yes, it has a lot of platforming elements where you can easily die, and this combined with the lives system makes it a hard game.
The game has aged, and unfortunately it hasn't aged as well as I would have wanted it. I love the cutscenes, I could watch them indefinitely, as some of my earliest PC gaming memories are of the first Dark Forces cutscene with Darth Vader, which was the thing that triggered my love for Star Wars, but the clunky gameplay doesn't warrant more than a single playthrough for old time's sake.
I know there are fanmade remasters in the work, perhaps if something new and better polished, with the lives system removed (or at least a save system implemented on top) will appear, I would give it a chance at replaying, but in these conditions, and in the game's original form, I won't even go back to playing it on original hardware. It's not worth the stress and headaches you get when you have to restart the level.
Note that this is the only game in the series that doesn't feature lightsaber combat, as Kyle Katarn becomes a Jedi later on, during the events of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. This is even more reason not to replay it, since lightsaber combat, albeit clunky in its direct sequel, is a vital element of this series.
I will give it a 7 just because it's a classic, but you're better off playing Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, or any subsequent title, for that matter, from the series that started out with Dark Forces.… Expand
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