Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles – Review

I remember the good old days when I had friends over at my place to play games like Star Wars Demolition and Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles for hours on the PSone (the slim version of the PS1). Jedi Power Battles wasn’t your typical beat ’em up game. While it only had ten levels, the game was hard, definitely hard. In most cases, we ended up losing all our lives on the sixth level, Coruscant. But that didn’t stop us from playing.

We kept leveling up our favorite characters to increase their health and Force points, unlock new combos, and eventually beat the Coruscant mission and made it to the final level, The Final Battle, to face Darth Maul—which I recall as one of the most difficult boss fights in a Star Wars game. I had an amazing experience years ago with Jedi Power Battles, and I was happy to learn when it was announced that it would get a remastered release.

Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles loosely follows the events of the first prequel entry in the Star Wars franchise, The Phantom Menace. You can choose from a variety of available characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Adi Gallia, Mace Windu, and Plo Koon. Each had their own unique set of Force abilities and combos, and I believed Mace Windu was overpowered because of his abilities. Additional characters are unlocked by completing levels, such as Queen Amidala, Captain Panaka, Darth Maul, and Ki-Adi Mundi (which was exclusively available on the Dreamcast version).

Combat was simple, yet hard to master, thanks to the unpredictable enemy attacks. You can smash the Square button to swing your lightsaber for quick light attacks, while the Triangle and Cross buttons serve as heavy and medium attacks; you can also combine attacks to start a combo. Even though its combat mechanics are fairly simple to understand, the outburst of rage every time you run into a droid and can’t immediately block the blaster fire because of an animation lock is real.

Timing your sprints properly can save you from imminent demise, and the same goes for performing combos. You can’t cancel a combo mid-animation to block, leaving you completely vulnerable. You also can’t move while in a block stance, forcing you to either time your parries of incoming blaster shots to send them back at your enemies or just avoid them by running around until you’re close enough to destroy them.

Even though the combat is still clunky and outdated, Jedi Power Battles is surprisingly fun, to be honest. I would be lying to myself if I said I hated it, because what made me love the game back then was how stupidly enjoyable the combat mechanics were.

Aspyr intended to keep the same old bugs that most of us who played the game in the past found hilariously funny. Sometimes I wished the Austin-based studio could have fixed some of those glitches that forced me to restart a level from the very beginning because a handmaiden respawned in a place I couldn’t go back to anymore. But I think that’s what made Jedi Power Battles what it was, and some may believe this was a lazy remaster by Aspyr, but I don’t think so. Taking away what was supposedly fun in the past would be more of a disservice to the fans who loved the game.

Regardless of the things that weren’t fixed, Aspyr did us a service by giving us what was once absent from the PS1 version but is now available in this remastered version of Jedi Power Battles. From the training room where we can go head-to-head against a second player to playing as Ki-Adi Mundi in missions (both of which were exclusive to Dreamcast), I can happily experience those things without having to think about getting another console.

Even though the bugs and glitches weren’t addressed in Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles, I still enjoyed the game tremendously, as it brings back memories of the good old days and all the rage after getting killed by clankers because of an animation lock. It’s refreshing to experience such a classic fun Star Wars game again on modern hardware, it makes the kid in me want to go back to the early 2000s just to sit in front of my CRT television, put the disc in, and push that power button.