Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles review – A return to chaos

25 years after its initial release, Star Wars: Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles is back for a new generation. This side-scrolling beat ’em up platformer was one of many games released under the “Episode 1” banner from 1999-2002 alongside the movie tie-in, Racer and multiple titles for the Gameboy Advance. Since their release, these games have had various re-releases onto new platforms. Now, it’s time for Jedi Power Battles to make its way onto new consoles. Is it good? Let’s discuss.

As a kid, this game had me absolutely obsessed, and watching the trailer, two of the biggest new additions I was excited to see were the canon Lightsaber colors and the new characters to play.

Lightsaber colors are a small thing to some and mean a lot to others. I fall into the latter group. In the original release, several of the characters had Lightsabers that were a different color than they would have in canon. For instance, because Mace Windu, Plo-Koon, and Adi Gallia had not used a Lightsaber at this stage, their colors were made up for the game. Mace had blue, Plo had yellow, and Adi had orange/red. Since Attack of the Clones and Clone Wars, we have had canon Lightsaber colors for all three, which have been included in the update to Jedi Power Battles. There is also a choice to leave the color the way it was originally. While the color doesn’t change gameplay, it is nice to know time was put into this aspect of the rerelease.

The new characters are extremely hit or miss when it comes to their usability throughout multiple levels. For instance, it was really great playing as Padme with her blaster and grenades, until you face an enemy in which deflecting the bolts back is the main way to pass the level, such as on Tatooine. I also have a nitpick with the jumping for the bonus characters. It just feels weird that Padme and Panaka can do the same muti-jump the exact same way that Jedi do. It would have been great to provide them with their own animation, such as a grappling hook or a jet-pack. With all that said, characters like Darth Maul and Ki-Adi-Mundi fit right in with their Force abilities and their ability to deflect blasters.

Levels in this game were always hard to get through. As a kid, I remember getting through the first two or three levels and then it all depended on my patience that day if I could get through more. With the new release, they’ve opened up all levels from the start of the game. So I was actually able to jump around and play all of the maps without any issue. This is great for those players who are picking the game up just for the nostalgic fun of being able to play whatever levels they want without having to force themselves to complete every mission.

The music is John Williams’ score from The Phantom Menace played over and over. For me, that’s perfectly fine as I listen to his music quite often. However, it might start to get tiring if you struggle with levels. On the other hand, something that could and should have been fixed were the irritating sound effects that go on way too long. For example, in the second level you’ll have Jar Jar making a squealing noise almost the entire level, which is taxing to say the least. But throughout levels such as Theed, Tatooine, and Coruscant, there are many sounds that just keep going, whether it’s an enemy glitched out while exploding, or just really loud background noise. This can cause a fun playthrough to become too much for some playing.

This isn’t a remake, it’s not a remaster, but it is an update, and I felt like the updates were extremely hit or miss in the actual execution of the game. The additional characters could have had just a little more time or attention, the game’s audio direction could have been updated to get rid of the annoying moments, but the game is as I remember it from 2000, and is a fun time for the time you want to put into it.

See below for our list of partners and affiliates: