Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles review: Can you just sell me a ROM instead?

There's preservation, and there's whatever happened here.

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I’m sure there are people out there who are thrilled to see Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles reappear from the bowels of their nostalgic memories. I thought it was neat that one podracing game came back, since that was the one from the massive stack of mediocre Star Wars games I played as a kid. This is one of those, a weird side effect of nostalgia that makes bringing back a “bad” game appealing for a specific audience. That’s fine and good; I’m not here to dunk on an easy target. I’m perplexed, but I get it. A contradictory statement, but that’s video games.

No really, I'm not judging you

two jedi characters holding lightsabers and facing enemy droids in Jedi Power Battles
Source: Aspyr

Jedi Power Battles was originally a PlayStation and Dreamcast joint, and was also part of the era when licensed games were blasted out to handhelds as similar but different experiences sharing the same name. So technically it was on the Game Boy Advance too. Anyway, loosely following The Phantom Menace’s story, you pick a character, run through vaguely arcadey action levels, fighting droids and other enemies along the way. You’re clearing screens almost like a beat ‘em up, but with an angled, 3D view and relatively complex controls.

The appeal, I think, maybe, is having a casual-friendly Star Wars action game you can play with a friend, that tries to do more with lightsabers than just mashing a button. There are horizontal and vertical attacks, different moves that come out with different timing, enemies that know the block button exists, and a block of your own that can also repel lasers. Just like in the movies, kinda! That last part especially seems to be the true hook, because good gravy do you spend most of this game blocking lasers.

I'm glad I don't get migraines

jar jar binks being shot at by droids in Jedi Power Battles
Source: Aspyr

Fair enough; Star Wars games up to that point were mostly either PC shooter-like experiences or simple action games and platformers. This was one you could pop into your PlayStation and knock lasers back at robots for a few hours until bedtime. I get it! It’s still a chore to endure this game without any nostalgia pushing me through, especially because frankly, this version in particular is actively sabotaging itself. It’s an ugly mess of an apparent update, with character models god never intended to be seen at high resolution in all their weirdly proportioned, jittery glory, UI that looks like assets you’d only see in HR training videos at retail chains, and SFX that are so poorly mixed it’s like you’re being haunted by the ghost of an internet browser stuck on a soundboard someone dumped on Newgrounds for easy clicks. Why does the very much not in the room Yoda giggle when I pick up health, why is it so loud, and why do Qui-Gon Jinn’s boots screech like the San Francisco BART every time I stop running?

In the second level, you end up in a Crash Bandicoot-like running sequence in which you have to run alongside dinosaurs. Jar Jar Binks is there and the game repeats a loud, distorted yelping sound I’ll never be able to unhear until I’m dead every other second, and doesn’t stop until you fight some droids. He comes back a few times to make sure you’re sufficiently traumatized. I fought a giant maggot afterwards, which had indecipherable hit detection and knocked my character off a cliff after I killed it, during a cutscene. I had to redo the fight. In hindsight, that level wasn’t very fun.

I found the problem

Another action scene with droids and lasers in Jedi Power Battles. Lots of grass in this one.
Source: Aspyr

I know I said I wouldn’t dunk on this game earlier, but I didn’t say I would pretend something didn’t go wrong here with the new port. In fact, I did the unthinkable, and fired up the original version on a Dreamcast emulator. I used a CRT filter as well, because I had a sneaking suspicion that would make a huge difference. I was so right it almost hurt. The filter did its work, muting the character models and mostly disguising their odd features. But that wasn’t all. The sound effects, which were still weird, were so much softer and quieter, and mixed well with the music. Even the UI looked better and more designed, rather than the stuff in the port that looks like placeholders. Overall, while it’s still the same Jedi Power Battles at the end of the day, the vision of pizza, Mad Catz controllers, and the goofy Star Wars game you could play when your friend came over became clearer.

a screenshot from a Dreamcast emulator playing Jedi Power Battles, showing a CRT filter, UI differences from the new version. A character holding a blue lightsaber is charging at a droid
Source: LucasArts/Shacknews

I did notice I couldn’t break running with a block immediately, making the aggressive way I was playing the new version almost impossible. So there’s that, to give credit where it’s due.

To put it simply, if this was one of those retro re-releases that are basically fancy emulators with additional screen filters and save states, maybe online play as a treat, Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles (whew) probably would’ve been alright. Instead, we have this bizarre Frankenmaster that looks and sounds like the end result of someone playing with a PlayStation emulator for the first time and pushing the sliders all the way up. Preservation is important, even for games that aren’t “classics.” This isn't the preservation you've been looking for.


Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles is available now on the PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S. A PC code was provided by the publisher for this review.

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.

Pros
  • Some helpful control tweaks
  • New characters that weren't in the original
Cons
  • Visuals look awful in HD
  • SFX are weird, loud, and distorted, and they will haunt me forever
  • UI looks worse and is less helpful than the original's
  • Possible janky charm of original overshadowed by new problems
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