Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles (Multi) Review

Some reviews arrive on SPC for no purpose or contextual reason other than--"I just finished this one, and wanted to share my thoughts, despite being late to the party." This review for Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles' remaster is one of these reviews! Either way, enjoy!

The Phantom Menace Strikes Back

Do you have any guilty pleasures as games? That is, do you have those games that you play and enjoy despite them not technically being that good, or even just plain awful? Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles is such a game for me. I originally stumbled upon it around its release on the original PlayStation. Being a big beat-em-up fan and finding myself especially hyped by the then-new Star Wars movie prequels like so many back in the day, I dived headfirst into the game. 

That was over 25 years ago, and Aspyr, making a point to dip into the well of old Star Wars games time and time again, is back with yet another remaster. This time around it's conspicuously for a game that isn't the most well loved, but at the same token, the publisher has sort of exhausted most of the fondly thought of 3D games as is. Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles marks the return to a galaxy far, far away and in a gaming context, it definitely feels like a long, long time ago as well.

Right away, the visuals of Jedi Power Battles have definitely gotten some sprucing up. Character models and levels are more detailed with increased geometry and polygons, widescreen support is available, reflections on some surfaces are included, and it's just a more impressive showing. It's sort of akin to looking similarly to what my 13-year-old self thought the game looked like when I originally played it. John Williams' sensational score complements and accentuates the action, offering stirring symphonic sounds that fit the exploits on screen. However, some audio balance issues do present themselves, though, especially in the eighth level, a brief but agonizing auto-scrolling vehicle level. It's here where the zooming and firing of the vehicles is extra blaring and loud, obnoxiously so. 

Honey, I'm hooooome!

While the graphics have gotten a boost, the gameplay is pretty much tried and true, for better or worse. Yes, Jedi Power Battles is essentially Star Wars: The Beat-Em-Up. It takes one of many playable Jedi characters, and heck--even some non-Jedi for fun, like Darth Maul and Jar Jar Binks--and has you scurrying through relatively linear levels, hacking, slashing, and fighting your way through robotic droids, mischievous smugglers, and other fiends to fight which stand in your way. There is a fair amount of platforming to be found as well to split up the action, as well as bosses in the end and middle of some levels.

Mace Windu losing to a nasty bug? That's a Mace Win-don't!

Speaking of, the game consists of ten levels, many of which are taken directly from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace movie, such as battling through the Trade Federation ship at the start of the film, rescuing maidens in the city streets of Theed, and of course, a duel with Darth Maul to round out the game. There are plenty of liberties taken to fit the film and make it work for a game (such as the aforementioned rescuing of maidens, locations and events in the game that don't happen in the film), but unless you're a stickler for Star Wars, it won't bother much. 

What may bother, especially if you don't have any nostalgia for the original PlayStation and Dreamcast game, is that Jedi Power Battles is not exactly the most competent, tight-feeling game. The controls are awfully stiff, attacking can feel clunky, and enemies have tons of health when you'd think a droid would easily go down from a Jedi's lightsaber strike. That said, as an improvement, jumping and performing the necessary platforming the game tasks you with doing doesn't feel anywhere near as bad as it did at least in the PS1 version. Just be mindful of your shadow when leaping! 

Cut through these droids with your lightsaber like butter.

Levels have some interesting set pieces to them to also keep things feeling interesting. The city of Theed level has your character running along the streets, occasionally reaching the palace, but not before being able to pilot a tank, causing destruction and blasting away at enemies on your journey there. Coruscant, which is the longest level in the game, sees characters hitching rides and jumping from flying vehicle to flying vehicle, carefully and cautiously running on rooftops, and soaring across chasms via lifts from vents. Meanwhile, the palace cliffs level changes things up by putting you at a crunch for time--needing to rescue six pilots before time runs out.

Qui-Gon Jinn uses the Force to make these fiends feel the pain.

Being a beat-em-up, points are the aim of the meta-game. Not only do you net points for hitting and defeating enemies, but you also can nab them from collectibles and power-ups scattered around stages. Sometimes they'll be in pure point form, while other times, like the skull icon, will result in a challenge, where your character's health and force meters are cut in half in exchange for a mighty amount of points. Points are great for getting high scores, sure, but they're also worthwhile at the end of levels. 

Here, depending on how many points your character got in the completed level, they can earn up to three different bonuses. These range from a choice between more health or force (HP or MP, in RPG terms), a selection between one of three new combo attacks, and even extra force abilities, used with a shoulder button and attack button combo. These, of course, use energy on your force gauge, but are powerful and great crowd controls moves.

Always two there are--unless there are three droids surrounding you. 

Jedi Power Battles isn't a button masher type of beat-em-up, so it's nice to have a series of combos to utilize on enemies that keep their guard up in order to pierce their defenses. Fortunately, your characters, too, can block and defend themselves. Most characters can block and deflect laser shots with their lightsaber, apart from Queen Amidala who uses a blaster. With a proper parry and timing, the shots can be deflected back into enemies to eliminate them instantly. Certainly fighting blaster fire with blaster fire, and it's darn satisfying to do--even after performing a block for the hundredth or so time. 

Deflect those blaster shots as Darth Maul (originally an unlockable character in the PS1/Dreamcast game).

If you're looking for Jedi-ing (that's an awkward verb) it up with a buddy and have someone you can coerce into playing the game with, Jedi Power Battles has local co-op available. While this isn't ideal for the hardest difficulty, Jedi Mode, or for going for high scores (as lives are shared between players and easily lost in co-op, but scores are separate between players), it's quite the fun, force-filled time, slicing up foes, leaping through levels together, and setting your sights on saving the galaxy.

Or don't and take 'em to the chin like a champ! Atta' Jedi!

Jedi Power Battles isn't too lengthy of a game. One nice thing is that all levels are available immediately from the word "go" instead of needing to play through them in a set, linear order. This also means that losing all your lives doesn't mean you have to begin the game from the beginning or any inconvenience like that. It makes returning to levels or going out of order very much possible, allowing for less rigidity and more freedom in the game's structure.   

Really, Jedi Power Battles is a guilty pleasure of mine. I know it's not a great game mechanically, but the pieces fit together for an enjoyable enough romp. I love tossing a thermal detonator for an oh-so-satisfying small, contained explosion to send a group of foes flying. I enjoy hearing Yoda giggle upon picking up a power-up. And I liked extending my lightsaber to double its size in ridiculous fashion with a power-up as well. Frustrations from glitches to game crashes (especially in Coruscant, the longest level in the game, unfortunately) hampered my fun at times, but overall, I felt my time with the game was worthwhile and didn't feel my nostalgia was ill-founded. Yes, the Force isn't necessarily strong with this one, but Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles won't exactly turn its players onto a path to the dark side, either. 

[SPC Says: C-] 

Star Wars: Demolition (PS1, DC) Retro Review

With several Star Wars-related announcements happening this past week, I decided to finally dive in to my backlog and try out a Star Wars game of a unique type, to say the least--a vehicular combat game in the vein of Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8. It's Star Wars: Demolition, and here is the SuperPhillip Central retro review!

Car Wars

Much like the Star Wars movies and television projects have varying levels of success and quality to them, the games, too, also delve into various degrees of success and quality, too, all within the galaxy far, far away. And much like any long-standing, running franchise, Star Wars as a series dabbled and continues to dabble in a wide range of game genres and types. It's especially interesting when the games go out of the norm of what you'd expect from the Star Wars franchise. 

Take Star Wars: Demolition, for example. The game was developed by the team behind the Vigilante 8 series of car combat/destruction games, and much like that series, Demolition features the same gameplay style. It's essentially a Star Wars take on Twisted Metal, which was pretty popular on PlayStation back in the day, and has since seen a resurgence in interest due to the Peacock "Twisted Metal" show.

Battles in Star Wars: Demolition are mighty intense at times!

The gist of Star Wars: Demolition is that Jabba the Hutt has created a twisted game of sorts where various outlaws and characters throughout the galaxy see themselves thrust into vehicular combat in one of eight arenas across the galaxy. There's Tattooine's Mos Eisley, as well as another level on the planet featuring the infamous Sarlacc Pit from Return of the Jedi. You can even throw other competitors into said pit with some spirited maneuvering. There's the icy planet Hoth, the swampy marshes of Dagobah, the multilevel Cloud City, and the capital city of Naboo. The original trilogy and the then-recent prequel movie are well represented here. 

Hoth features mostly wide open, icy expanses with turrets, AT-ATs, and snowy slopes to take cover behind.

Arenas in general are relatively open. There are plenty of places to move around, though I did notice moments where I felt I got stuck unfairly on the scenery, making myself quite vulnerable to attacks from that result. They feature opportune locations for staging intense fights, spots where you can teleport in between to get out of a dangerous jam in a jiffy, and methods to duck around cover to avoid attacks.

There are nearly a dozen characters to choose from in Star Wars: Demolition, each possessing their own vehicle with their own stats in three categories: armor, speed, and charged attack power. From Wade Vox and his Landspeeder, General Otto and his AT-ST, and even Boba Fett in tiny jetpack form, each character feels different and contains unique abilities and weaponry.

Each character's vehicle has two attack types: there's a weapon that is exclusive to them and one that is loaded onto their vehicle. The former is used with R2 while the latter type is utilized with L2. For instance, Aurra Sing uses a sniper rifle with virtually unlimited range from her Custom Swoop to shoot foes from afar. This bullet can also bounce between baddies. Whereas the Wookie Quagga's Episode I Battle Tank, the AAT's Tank Cannon is a massive blast that will assist in bringing down even the biggest of opponents. Meanwhile, some character/vehicle-exclusive weapons like Tia and Ghia's Snowspeeder-exclusive tow cable really have limited utility. It's great for tethering opponents and dragging them around, perhaps even into Tattooine Dunes' Sarlacc Pit, but beyond that, it's quite useless, really. 

That giant blast will give this Wookie's opponent a major Naboo-boo!

Within skirmishes themselves, players have three colored meters to keep an eye on. There's the red weapon energy gauge, which depletes with each shot, whether with primary or secondary weapon use, that when fully depleted means that that vehicle cannot use their weapons. Either going to a red zone on the map where weapon energy can be replenished, picking up a red weapon from a destroyed roaming droid on the map, or biding one's time to have it sloooooooowly fill back up is what will refill it. There's also a blue (shields) energy gauge and once a vehicle's shields are totally gone, they'll have to worry about their green gauge, which is their health. Once the latter is depleted fully, it's demolition time.

Holding down the L2 (for picked-up weapon types like concussion missiles, proton torpedoes, and thermal detonators, for instance) or the R2 (for a vehicle's primary weapon) will charge a given weapon to bring a bigger bang to an opponent if that attacks hits. Still, even charging your weapons will deplete your red weapons energy in a faster fashion. Fully holding down the R2 trigger to four complete levels of energy is how you use that character and vehicle combo's exclusive weapon. Combining the L2 and R2 triggers together and successfully striking an opponent is also how you get Force Hits, which are important for gaining credits in the Tournament and High Stakes modes--more on those modes shortly--and also how you can provide a super-impressive (and demoralizing for the player on the receiving end) fatal blow to a demolished vehicle.

The vehicle types each feel and look unique. What else can you say when your opponent is riding a Rancor!

Outside of setting up battles, Star Wars: Demolition features a relatively small range of modes. The main one which is where solo players will spend the most time in to unlock characters in is Tournament mode. This is a set of four battles in four different planets, the order and opponents depends on the character chosen. It pits you against one other opponent to begin, then the next battle includes an additional opponent, until the final, fourth battle where the maximum amount of competitors await. 

Through personally destroying and demolishing opponents, defeating them with final blows, and getting a high Force Hit multiplier, you'll get awarded with more credits. Credits are important because not only can you spend them when you're in red and blue zones in maps to replenish weapon energy and shields respectively, but if you earn 10,000 or more credits by a single Tournament run's conclusion with a specific character, you'll be one step one closer to unlocking new characters/vehicles to play as, including the ultimate unlockable: the villainous Darth Maul from Episode I, whose awesome special weapon pulls out his trademark double-edged red lightsaber to deliver damage to other opponents in an up, close, and personal manner.

Darth Maul takes to the desert with his double-edged lightsaber!

Other modes in Star Wars: Demolition include High Stakes, where you bet credits for your victory. Losing means you walk away from whatever your bet was, but winning, especially against a tougher CPU player, means you are rewarded with a copious amount of credits for your victory. There is also a Droid-destroying mode separate from every other mode, where the goal is to hunt down roving Droids by either ramming into them or shooting them from afar and getting a high score within a three-minute time period. 

Star Wars: Demolition plays well enough, though its visuals are severely limited by draw distance from the PS1 with textures not really rendering until you get close enough to the environment. This is especially noticeable in the Naboo arena where steps simply look like ramps from far away, and only start resembling steps when you're practically on top of them. Vehicles look great, however, and the level of destruction that is on display as they deteriorate from damage is really impressive for a game from 2000 and on the PS1, too. Sound-wise, the music is appropriately action-packed and the character voice acting with the spoken one-liners in and out of battle are well done, also. The animated rendered cutscenes that play as rewards for either winning or losing Tournament mode are a nice little prize and little time capsule of the era.

What's Yavin IV? Why, it's for vehicular combat nowadays! (Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

If you're looking for a competent and capable Twisted Metal clone that takes place in a galaxy far, far away, you could do much worse than Star Wars: Demolition. For instance, you could play absolutely nothing, as that's pretty much you're only alternative as this was the only Twisted Metal-style Star Wars game that I know of! You'd be worse off, I'd argue, because Demolition is rather good. It won't take you that long to see every piece of content, play every mode, battle in every arena, unlock every character, and such (so a full-priced purchase back in the day would have been gut-wrenching for me), but the ride there is indeed enjoyable. With it being a cheap purchase and accessible via PlayStation 5 and 4 as part of PlayStation's Classics line, there's no real adverse risk in trying this game out. You'll most certainly like it, especially if you have either a fondness for Star Wars, a love for Twisted Metal, or a combo of both. Just mind the corners and don't get demolished yourself!

[SPC Says: C+]

Top Five Star Wars Games

May the Fourth be with you! It's Star Wars Day, a holiday that celebrates all things Star Wars. (May the 4th, "May the force be with you." Hardy-har-har.) With this relevant day, it makes some sense to think back on some of the best Star Wars video games ever created. After all, this is a gaming enthusiast site of all things. This top five list puts my favorite games set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away under the microscope and details why I love them so much. After you've read my choices, try to use a Jedi mind trick to make me understand why you agree or disagree with my picks.

5) Super Star Wars trilogy (SNES)

We start with the earliest Star Wars game on this list, Super Star Wars. Sure, the trilogy took liberties with the story, as many lucid fans won't be able to recall the times where Luke Skywalker took on a Sarlacc in its own pit with nothing more than a lightsaber or Chewbacca platformed and shot his way through Bespin's Cloud City, but these said liberties opened up the way for some exciting action-platforming moments. The games were quite difficult too, especially Super Star Wars, offering limited lives and even more limited continues. The followups, Super Empire Strikes Back and Super Return of the Jedi gave players a more lenient adventure when it came to difficulty, such as bestowing helpful passwords instead of requiring players to restart from the beginning of the games. This trio of 2D platformers with some cool Mode 7 vehicle sections are my favorite early Star Wars games.

4) Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (PS2, GCN, XBX, PC)

If the idea of playing through a Star Wars game and mastering the powers of a Jedi gets your midichlorian count rising, then Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast should be the game that you run, not walk, to. If there was a Force power that you saw in the original trilogy, then you could most likely do it in Jedi Outcast. For all the times that past Star Wars games attempted to make you feel like a bad ass Jedi yet failed to varying degrees, Jedi Knight II gets it totally right. Slash off Storm Trooper extremities, Force push enemies off of high-up platforms to the bottomless abyss below, and reflect enemy lasers with your lightsaber. Not only did the single player campaign continuously ramp up the action, but the multiplayer component included kicked some serious Bantha butt too. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast was the real deal when it came to becoming a Jedi from the luxury of your couch, all without the need for all that tedious training with Yoda.

3) Star Wars: Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II (GCN)

Nintendo's GameCube had a stellar launch lineup and one of its strongest games out of the gate was a Star Wars title, Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II. The followup to the Nintendo 64 Rogue Squadron was bigger, better, and more beautiful than ever before, still looking dynamite to this day. But its the gameplay that truly shines, putting players in the cockpits of all sorts of vehicles like X-Wings, Y-Wings, Speeders, and even the Millennium Falcon. Both familiar levels from the Star Wars films like the Battle of Hoth, the trench run at the Death Star, and the Battle of Endor, complete with a massive fleet of TIE Fighters to blast out of the stars, and brand-new locales made for a space fighter that was pure action and pure awesome.

2) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC, XBX, iOS)

Giving players one of the most interesting stories set in the galaxy far, far away, BioWare really took no prisoners with its first RPG offering featuring the world of Star Wars, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It takes place an even longer time ago, way before what happens in the original trilogy. The game pulls no punches, delivering characters to love and cherish with compelling backstories, an intriguing narrative demands players engage with it through multiple play-throughs, and the game is so good that you'll want to do so, especially with the game's final plot twist, one that will stick with you for a very long time. Like Jedi Outcast, Knights of the Old Republic delivered a delightful feeling of being an all-powerful Jedi, and the RPG elements made you constantly feel like you were making progress in being a stronger believer and user of the Force. The game is by far one of BioWare's greatest and one of the greatest Star Wars games around to this day.

1) Star Wars Battlefront II (PS2, XBX, PC)

While DICE delivered a gorgeous first-person take on the Star Wars Battlefront series and is set to have a new entry that seems even better later this year, one that looks to be absolutely worthy of the Battlefront moniker this time around, it's Pandemic's second going with the original Star Wars Battlefront series that shines the brightest for me. This third-person shooter allowed players to switch between different classes depending on what play style they wanted. Maps were expansive and granted the ability to enter various vehicles for some high-powered offense. When enough time had passed, players could take on the roles of one of the Star Wars series' most memorable characters, such as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Yoda, and even Chewbacca. DICE did well with its iteration of Star Wars Battlefront, but it hadn't beaten Pandemic's sophomore effort, Star Wars Battlefront II, my personal favorite Star Wars game of all time.

Top Five Star Wars Game Series

It was announced yesterday that Electronic Arts has a multiyear deal giving them the ability to exclusively develop and publish Star Wars games. While some think this is a really bad thing (those who don't like yearly releases, microtransactions, those who only own a Wii U, etc.), there is some good that can come from it.

Fresh off yesterday's announcement, it seems like a perfect time to take note of the greatest Star Wars game series that the franchise has seen. There were A LOT to sift through, but we at SuperPhillip Central have come up with the top five Star Wars game franchises that made us become in love with George Lucas's galaxy far, far away even more than we were already.

5) Super Star Wars

This Super Nintendo-exclusive trilogy consisted of 2D platforming, running and gunning gameplay, and the occasional 3D section, where Luke Skywalker or another playable character piloted a landspeeder or even an X-Wing to mix things up. For instance, the final level of Super Star Wars featured young Skywalker speeding through the Death Star's trench to blow that baby to kingdom come. The actual trilogy (Super Star Wars, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi) followed the plots of each of the original movie trilogy rather well. The games got a second life when they were released on Nintendo's Virtual Console service for the Wii. If you have the money, you should definitely check these excellent games out.

4) Jedi Knight

A first-person shooter Star Wars series, Jedi Knight is one of those Star Wars franchises that has been consistently terrific. It originated in 1995, and featured characters from the expanded Star Wars universe of characters and settings. Levels are primarily made up of multiple missions and objectives that need to be completed before the player can head to the next. Dark Forces II incorporated an optional third-person shooter camera view to spice things up. If you ask us, though, Jedi Knight didn't need any spicing up, because the games always kicked serious Sith ass. The addition of being able to use a lightsaber in combat only made the games even more fantastic than they already were. Case in point, we at SuperPhillip Central would absolutely love to see the franchise's return into relevance once more.

3) Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or as it's more fondly known as KotOR, is a role-playing video game that was developed by BioWare, the same studio that is now owned by Electronic Arts. Small world, no? Taking the Star Wars universe and basing a game of off Wizards of the Coast's own Star Wars Roleplaying Game (which itself is based off of Dungeons & Dragons), Knights of the Old Republic started off with giving players three simple classes of characters to choose from. These classes could later in the game be upgraded to one of three Jedi classes. The game offered round-based combat where levels could be gained to expand the player character's attributes and ability range. The tale BioWare told is one of the best in a Star Wars video game. Amazing how BioWare could go from Knights of the Old Republic's fantastic story to Mass Effect 3's ending. Bah. We're just beating a dead horse here.

2) Rogue Squadron

A third-person flight-based Star Wars series, Rogue Squadron first debuted on the PC before making its own home console debut on the Nintendo 64. The original Rogue Squadron took place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, sending players right into the cockpit of an X-Wing. The subsequent sequels were released exclusively on the Nintendo GameCube, one of which being a launch title for the system. Not only were the games technological marvels (like the original Rogue Squadron was), but they allow players to relive and participate in their favorite moments of the original Star Wars trilogy. Not only that, but there were completely original missions to take on in the games as well. It is a darn shame that Factor 5 is no longer with us, as they could not only provide awesome graphical feats, but generally their games were of the utmost quality.

1) Battlefront

The Star Wars series that SuperPhillip Central selects as our favorite franchise of the galaxy far, far away, Star Wars: Battlefront puts players right into some incredibly epic confrontations. Players are placed within action-packed battlefields set in familiar locations such as Endor, Hoth, Naboo, and Coruscant. One can man vehicles and sentry guns, or opt to take the battle on foot to lead their side to victory. Star Wars: Battlefront II introduced the option to play as Jedi characters, participate in space combat, and contained Revenge of the Sith content. What followed the console and PC releases of Battlefront II was one PSP-exclusive entry in the series and one for both the PSP and Nintendo DS, marking the first and only time the series hit a Nintendo platform. Sadly, Battlefront III was canned mid-development, disappointing aspiring Jedi and Sith across the globe. Who knows, perhaps EA could bring this favorite Star Wars franchise of ours back from the grave. They certainly have the power and money to.

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Did we overlook your favorite Star Wars franchise? We probably did, young Padawan, but no worries. You can make the case for your favorite franchises in the comments section below (perhaps by using a Jedi mind trick). Just remember to use the force, of course.