Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles Review – A Flawed Blast From The Past

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After the debut of “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” in 1983, the series mostly stayed out of the limelight for almost two decades. However, with the release of “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” in 1999, the franchise made a grand comeback, accompanied by an abundance of merchandise, books, and, inevitably, video games. One such game was titled “Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles“.

First released back in April 2000, exclusively for PlayStation, “Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles” was met with a mixed response upon its debut. Much like other Star Wars games, it left an indelible mark on some fans’ childhood memories. In 2025, Aspyr Media is revisiting this nostalgia by porting “Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles” to modern systems, but the charm of yesteryear may not be sufficient to overlook all the imperfections in this updated version.

Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles is a Fun But Flawed Piece of Nostalgia

Jedi Power Battles” is an action game where you fight through numerous Battle Droids on multiple levels inspired by the movie’s settings. Despite being relatively straightforward, it’s been remembered fondly for quite some time due to its challenging gameplay.

Playing Jedi Power Battles can be quite a tough experience, and this can sometimes be beneficial and detrimental at the same time because of certain aspects of its outdated game design. For example, formidable enemies help keep players immersed in the gameplay, but when combined with the game’s notorious floaty platforming mechanics, it can quickly become aggravating as many enemies have the ability to toss the player off the map. The frequent deaths made even more annoying by Jedi Power Battles‘ arcade-style life system, which forces players to replay an entire level if they die too many times.

As a gamer immersed in the Star Wars universe, I’ve got to say that what sets Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles apart is its captivating diversity. Each level transports you to fresh Star Wars locales from The Phantom Menace, each with its own tailored layout that seamlessly fits the environment and introduces an engaging vertical dimension to the gameplay. The roster of playable characters in Jedi Power Battles is impressively diverse, featuring six distinct Jedi, each with their unique combos, Force Powers, and attack animations.

The sound design in this game is quite varied, with John Williams’ memorable score being skillfully utilized across different stages to fit each level’s mood. However, the integration of sound effects could use some improvement. Although they are realistic, there aren’t many distinct sounds in the entire game, which results in a lot of repetition. This repetition is most noticeable when a stage features a specific type of enemy, like the Tatooine level filled with Tusken Raiders, where you’ll hear nothing but tribal screams for the full 20 minutes of that level.

Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles Drops The Ball on its Biggest Selling Point

A significant aspect that drew people to Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles initially and with its recent release by Aspyr is the ability for two players to play together in a cooperative manner. This feature allows them to fight side by side across the game’s ten campaign levels and several bonus stages. However, it should be noted that this aspect of the game has not aged well.

Sharing the battlefield with waves of Battle Droids can be an enjoyable experience, but it becomes apparent that there are flaws in the system when two players try to move independently. At the time, this was a common feature in cooperative games, however, the screen-drag mechanic in Jedi Power Battles is particularly punishing. The game requires players to stay very close to each other, or else one player risks being pushed off-screen, which can disrupt the cooperative play experience.

In close-quarter fight scenes, it works well, but synchronizing jumps in “Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles” makes the game’s tricky platforming sections incredibly difficult, as both players must time their jumps perfectly or one might pull the other into danger. To be truthful, this can result in some amusing scenarios initially, but the humor quickly wears off and won’t sustain throughout the entire 4-hour duration of “Jedi Power Battles“.

In a cooperative game setting, boss battles can become significantly harder if team members aren’t closely positioned together. Bosses may arbitrarily switch targets, even in the midst of an ongoing sequence of attacks, which makes it challenging to discern their attack patterns. This results in the boss encounters feeling less like challenges that test one’s skills and more like endurance tests that require patience.

Fundamentally, playing Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles cooperatively seems to worsen every aspect of the game, which is unusual for a side-scrolling brawler, and possibly not how fans recall it. To be clear, these issues were present in the original game, but they become more prominent 25 years later due to the significant advancements in the genre.

As a gamer, I’ve been finding the 2-player mode in Jedi Power Battles a bit wonky, but the lighter pressure of the multiplayer setting has me chuckling at its quirks rather than getting frustrated.

It’s Hard to Say This is The Definitive Version of Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power BattlesAspyr Adds Little to The Original Jedi Power Battles Experience

Similar to many previous productions by the studio, Aspyr’s “Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles” isn’t a complete overhaul or enhancement, but rather a conversion that transfers the 2000 game to contemporary gaming platforms. To be more precise, it’s based on the Dreamcast version of the game, which made significant improvements over the original PlayStation release in various aspects.

In Aspyr’s version of Jedi Power Battles, you’ll quickly spot improved graphics, particularly in terms of cleaner environmental textures and character models, along with clearer lighting effects. However, when compared to the original Dreamcast game, the overall look isn’t drastically altered. Also worth noting is that both versions run at a consistent frame rate during gameplay.

The main attraction in Aspyr’s promotion for Jedi Power Battles is the introduction of 13 new characters for its VS Mode. However, these characters disappoint more than they impress. In fact, most of them are simply types of enemies from the game’s campaign mode, and despite having unique attack patterns, their move sets are very limited, consisting mostly of basic attacks with no combos, special moves similar to Force Powers, or even a dash attack.

Among all unique characters in Star Wars, only Jar Jar Binks has been added recently, and he appears to be a simplified version of the Gungan Guard character. Players might find no incentive to select these new characters over the Jedi (including Padme and Panaka) from the original game.

In the promotional materials for Jedi Power Battles, they’ve highlighted a contemporary control system update. Essentially, this rearrangement swaps the function of ‘A/X’ buttons to allow for jumping, and assigns Force abilities to the left trigger, enabling players to access these powers without having to block first.

An interesting feature is the option to alter certain Jedi’s lightsaber hues, as the original version of Jedi Power Battles didn’t follow the current Star Wars lore regarding lightsaber colors, which was established later with characters like Mace Windu, Adi Gallia, and Plo Koon. Now, with Aspyr’s port, players can adjust this to align more closely with modern canon.

Aspyr Brings Some New Issues to Jedi Power Battles

Aspyr has had a varied history with Star Wars game adaptations, dealing with both smooth launches and technical problems. While some past versions have functioned flawlessly, others have been riddled with issues at launch. Aspyr’s Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles falls somewhere between these extremes.

While playing “Jedi Power Battles”, I encountered numerous technical problems, ranging from somewhat annoying to game-ruining. On the somewhat annoying side, there were frame rate issues in some cinematic cutscenes within the game. Additionally, enemy pop-ins were a recurring issue throughout the game, with Battle Droids sometimes appearing unexpectedly and managing to strike before I could respond.

During my gaming session, I encountered two distinct audio glitches. One of these troubles occurred while I was on the Theed Palace mission, where a Battle Droid’s STAP Speeder’s noise continued throughout the entire mission. Another problem surfaced during the Coruscant stage; for roughly half the mission, the audio just stopped working entirely.

In the cooperative mode of our game, Jedi Power Battles, we encountered an extremely frustrating technical problem. After completing a mission, the game failed to respond to any controller inputs from either player, leaving us stuck at the upgrade screen. The only solution was to completely restart the game. Fortunately, both characters’ progress was saved, but it was still inconvenient and happened twice.

Aspery’s “Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles” showcases improved graphics and user-friendly adjustments, but fails to bring anything significantly new compared to the Dreamcast version. Regrettably, this title does not rank among the top-tier “Star Wars” games available.

It could be argued that Aspyr’s unwavering commitment to authenticity doesn’t necessarily lead to an optimal player experience, as evident in their remaster of Jedi Power Battles. Despite its strong resemblance to the original game, it’s important to note that the original game was riddled with numerous well-known flaws. Over the past 25 years, these issues have only become more noticeable. The absence of any significant updates from Aspyr leaves some questioning why this game was ported to modern consoles at all.

Due to the variety of technical problems encountered and because this port may be challenging for those who haven’t played Jedi Power Battles before, it can be hard to suggest this game, especially as a starting point. However, for dedicated fans of this game or Star Wars enthusiasts in general, the $20 price tag could be justified for a brief wave of nostalgia.

Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles is set to drop on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and the latest Xbox Series X|S on January 23, 2025. For this review, Game Rant received an Xbox Series X game code.

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2025-01-24 00:08