Hey everyone, my name is Ash and welcome to XPN Gaming! Recently I had the absolute pleasure of playing a game for review that I can safely say was one of my favourite games I owned as a youngster. Originally released in 2000 on the PSone, Star Wars: Episode 1 Jedi Power Battles was one of the games me and a good friend would play over and over again and as I didn't own a copy, I would pop round to his house so we could play it as often as possible! The game is a very loose retelling of the first prequel movie, seeing you play alone or with a friend across a variety of stages based on areas from the film. Unlike the movie however, you can play as a selection of characters who weren't necessarily present (i'm looking at you Plo Koon, you sexy, yellow lightsaber wielding beast!). The game takes place in a 3D side scrolling perspective and is filled with combat and plenty of platforming sections. I won't sugar coat it and pretend the game wasn't rather janky at times, especially around the platforming sections, where many, many, MANY lives were lost due to poor vision and depth perception, but I loved it all the same. Now some 25 years after its original release, it's been brought to modern platforms by Aspyr.
Now I will say, I only ever played the PSone version of the game, and after it released there it did get a Sega Dreamcast port that did include a variety of improvements including improved visuals, unlockable characters, changed lightsaber colours etc - and its the Dreamcast version that has been "Remastered" here. I say remastered loosely, because other than a few slight tweaks and a better resolution, there isn't much to really say and it just feels like a re-release on a new platform. Now if you didn't like the jankyness of the original releases, and you found the platforming to be too frustrating to deal with, then I would say stop reading this review and go find a different game to play. Whilst there is a modern controller layout option in this release, the core gameplay is still just as frustrating as it always was, so don't expect miracles there.
Ok so lets get to the positives about this release. The graphics look great, much sharper and improved resolutions on the original models as well as better lighting and a solid framerate. A small but welcome improvement I found is that easy mode also gives you more lives than the original did too, which is VERY needed. All the games levels are unlocked from the start, as well as the bonus mini-game levels that were unlockable on the original. The game also has the unlockable characters from the Dreamcast release ready to go from the beginning (plus it allows you to switch lightsaber colours too) and there have been even more characters added to the game that can now be unlocked as you play (most of these are in game bosses). The game does still have some negatives though, for instance because this is a remaster of the Dreamcast edition of the game, there is a lack of destructible environments to be found. We would always rush in and see who could smash everything as quick as possible to get the most points. Another disappointment is the lack of a better save function. The original game featured some truly awful sections of platforming and rescue missions that could be failed pretty easily. The problem with them was if you failed, you had to go back to the beginning of the level and restart from scratch. Adding a auto save or checkpoint system so you merely started before the last section would have improved this massively.
I will say that whilst the game does look to be a massive improvement over the original PSone release, the game did get a big improvement when it came to the Dreamcast, so a chunk of the things i'm praising above may simply have been there already, but whilst the control scheme is still stiff, it really does feel better than ever to play.
The fact that the gameplay has been changed so little is probably why I like this release so much. It's absolutely dripping in that awful, early 2000's game design that so many PSone games suffered from, but still were exceptionally fun to play. I 100% recommend playing this on split screen co-op with a friend, yes the platforming is twice as hard with two people navigating a single screen, but the experience is just so much more enjoyable than playing alone. I really wish I could reconnect with my old friend Al and we could spend an evening sat on the couch playing this one more time. This honestly isn't that great of a remaster, it feels more like a port of the Dreamcast game which runs on a 4K television, but and it's a big BUT, the charm of the game still shines through and if you have never tried it, then this is the best version to play through (bar the lack of destructible environments... Boo whoever made that decision!). It wont be for everyone, the platforming will be too twitchy and awkward for some, and the combat may be a little tough at times, but if you want to play a good retro Star Wars game I cant really recommend many better! Here's hoping that we see more games from the golden days of gaming get remasters in the coming years - Star Wars Demolition in particular needs to come back!
XPN Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (Gold)
Star Wars: Episode 1 Jedi Power Battles is AVAILABLE NOW!
A copy of the game was provided for this review! A huge thank you for that! I played the game on PS5. If you liked this review, please check out my review of the Soul Reaver 1&2 Remasters HERE!
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