Good to see you again, Plo Koon.
As an impressionable child in the Star Wars prequel era, I was perfectly positioned to be completely blown away by Jedi Power Battles when it first released back in 2000. Its cinematic lightsaber combat fueled my love of the franchise, and Plo Koon was permanently burned into my brain as the coolest possible answer to the question “Who’s your favourite Jedi?”
All of which made me a little nervous about checking out the new remaster. I’ve long harbored the suspicion that the game in my memories would not hold up to modern scrutiny. And… well, I was pretty much right, but what surprised me is how much it’s made me wish that developers still made Star Wars games like this today.
The game doesn’t mess about. With a minimum of narrative set-up, your Jedi of choice is dropped into the action so suddenly that it took me a second to realise I was actually in control. You’re essentially charged with fighting your way through the events of The Phantom Menace, with a lot of extra droid fights and added diversions to do things like search Queen Amidala’s palace for her missing handmaidens or fight a giant maggot in the jungle.
The core fighting is slow and unforgiving in that way that makes you remember that what we now call “soulslike combat” is just how most action games were designed at a certain point in time. Enemies will almost always get the first attack in, so your opening move has to be a block while you wait for an opening—which can feel a bit impossible when you start getting mobbed. Commit to an attack at the wrong moment and you’re stuffed—most of the long lightsaber animations can’t be cancelled out of, so you’re left exposed to the much more rapid attacks of the enemy.
It’s frustrating at points and oddly stilted, but there’s still some real Star Wars magic to it. Block a blaster bolt with perfect timing and, of course, it’s reflected back—so ingrained is the idea that Jedi can do that that I didn’t even need to be told, I just tried it reflexively. It feels great every time
Speaking of which—if the lightsaber is the perfect videogame weapon, the B1 droid is the perfect videogame enemy. I’ve sung their praises before, and again here they’re so satisfying and funny to chop into bits. The AI is crude, but their slapstick silliness still shines through—particularly in the way they’re always accidentally killing each other with their blaster fire. Without the expanded roster of battle droids from the later movies and TV shows, the game has to lean on the B1s entirely, creating its own spread of different variants of them. Though that does drive home the game’s repetitive nature, there’s something endearing about the developer trying to bash these useless little droids into every videogame enemy type they can think of.
The remaster work itself seems solid—the game is certainly visually improved, making its environments brighter and sharper enough to be quite striking at points, despite their age. In a nod to returning fans, the original roster of characters and the full run of levels are unlocked from the start, with newly added characters (built from various enemy and NPC character models, hilariously including Jar Jar Binks) serving as your new unlocks to drive you on. Some small tweaks seem questionable—between the addition of the modern canon lightsaber colours, and the removal of Plo Koon’s force lightning animation, I’m already building a conspiracy about Disney interference—but for someone with a mostly hazy memory of the original, the broad strokes all seem about right to me.
Once I’ve beaten the first few droid patrols and have a bit of a chance to get my bearings, the next thing I notice is how much weirder Jedi Power Battles is than I remembered. Its audio design alone is bizarre—whenever you pick up any item or power-up you get a sinister little Yoda laugh, no matter who you’re playing, and any time you stop or turn there’s this scuffing-the-ground sound that’s more like a jarring burst of radio static than dust being kicked up.
Outside of its library of odd noises, there are just all sorts of off-kilter choices: level obstacles that seem elaborate but are easily bypassed by just jumping over them; martial arts-trained B1 droids that sprint at you to test their fists against your blade; an “Extender” power-up that just makes your lightsaber double in length. (You can practically hear the developer giggling whenever you grab that one.)
Unfortunately one of the oddest features is the game’s double-jump. That second mid-air leap seems to halt all momentum as soon as it’s used, just sending you directly upwards, making it nearly useless. That’s not ideal in a game with its fair share of unforgiving platforming sequences, made even more awkward by camera angles that turn perspective against you.
In fact, Jedi Power Battles has far too much fun across the board in watching its noble heroes suffer. When you’re not falling off platforms you’re getting shot by droids that are currently off-screen, or blasted by a rocket while you’re looking for an opening in melee. Boss fights can frequently only be beaten unscathed by approaching them in one very specific way, and dying means getting thrown back to a checkpoint infuriatingly far back. Hold on, I’m just describing soulslikes again, aren’t I?
FromSoftware parallels aside, without the sheen of nostalgia this is not a game that holds up well to modern action game standards, despite a new coat of paint. And yet… there is something really compelling about its arcade-y feel and simple formula. You pick a Jedi, you jump into a vaguely canon-appropriate battle, you fight Star Wars bad guys. With no concerns about telling an original story or being taken seriously as an addition to the wider lore, it’s free to just let you play with your toys.
I have enjoyed recent Star Wars games—even Outlaws, though I’m told I’m not supposed to—but I hadn’t quite realised how much I’ve missed this kind of joyful simplicity. It’s the things that really make Star Wars compelling as a videogame setting boiled down and served up without fuss or ceremony. The closest living descendant of Jedi Power Battles isn’t Jedi: Fallen Order, it’s Lego Star Wars. Going back to a game with that same playful spirit and roster of fan favourite characters, but with more challenging and well-rounded action… there’s definitely something to it, and I do miss the age when stuff like this was all over the place.
Perhaps now that Star Wars is no longer exclusive to EA, we might see a game like Jedi Power Battles again, and a new generation of kids can become obsessed with a slightly wonky arcade brawler. In the meantime, at least this remaster makes this old semi-classic easily playable again—even if that final boss fight with Darth Maul might make you wish it wasn’t.
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