Slusy's Full Review: Star Wars Episode 1 Jedi Power for Dreamcast
It's pretty apparent to me that I'm bored when I find myself staring at the Dreamcast racks at Blockbuster, trying to find something among the few games that are actually in stock when I'm there that I don't feel would be a complete waste of money. (Side note: My problem with Blockbuster isn't that they have no selection, but that they only have one or two copies of each game, so that no matter when you go, all that's left is some obscure game about zombies and Tomb Raider 35: Lara Breaks a Hip. But I digress.) I spotted Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles and figured that it wouldn't be too bad; I'd heard bad things about the Playstation version, but I figured they had plenty of time to clean it up for the Dreamcast release.
So I get home and pop it in, expecting to be under whelmed. After all, not only was it still at Blockbuster, meaning no one snapped it up as soon as it came back in, but it was a licensed game to boot. (Typically, in my experience, licensed games tend to be of a lesser quality than non-licensed games, because the developers either have to rush it out to capitalize on the movie/TV show it's based on, or they simply do a shoddy job, because they assume that the license will sell copies no matter what the game is actually like.) So I enjoy the opening cinematic, which looks pretty incredible, but I, the skeptic that I am, know that a cinematic does not at all reflect how the game plays. So I start the game, bracing for the worst. I was actually surprised.
Now, I'm not going to tell you that this is a hidden treasure, or the best game you've never played, or anything like that. It's not. This is, however, a fun game, if you can get into it.
Basically, Jedi Power Battles follows the plot of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace fairly closely. You play a Jedi, though you are not restricted to Qui-Gon Jinn or Obi-Wan Kenobi. You can choose from 5 characters at the start, including Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, as well as Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson's character, for those not in the know), Adi Gallia and Plo Koon, who are lesser known Jedi. Other characters, such as Queen Amidala and Captain Panaka, can be unlocked later. Using your character, you fight through the plot of the movie, starting in the Trade Federation ship and progressing all the way to the final battle with Darth Maul. It's kind of cool, playing through the movie plot, and though the game does diverge on occasion (for example, there is a level which involves saving handmaidens from battle droids in Theed which I don't remember from the movie), it sticks pretty well to the movie plot. It therefore goes without saying that if you didn't like the movie, you might not like the game's plot either.
The game itself is played beat-'em-up style, like the old Final Fight games. You run around, slice through waves of battle droids with your lightsaber, kill a boss and then go on to the next level. It's not rocket science, so if you're looking for a deep adventure game, don't bother with Jedi Power Battles. However, as a pure action game, it is kind of fun. They throw different variations out, like a level where you get to control a Trade Federation tank, and other things like that, which keeps the gameplay from getting too boring. You can also play in two player cooperative or versus mode, for added fun. The game has a few flaws (which I'll address a bit later) but the game, as a straight action game, is pretty cool.
The game would be a whole lot cooler, though, if it weren't for the shaky controls. Your character moves with either the analog or digital control, which is fine. He also can jump and has three attacks with the lightsaber: vertical, horizontal, and heavy. The problem is how these four actions are mapped. For some odd reason which I don't understand, the designers mapped jump to the B button, and the others to A, X, and Y, respectively. The problem with this is that the A button is traditionally used for jumping, and when you've played so many action and adventure games where jump is A, it's hard to get used to that in Jedi Power Battles, jump is now B. What's worse, this game only allows you to choose from a handful of control configurations, none of which have jump mapped to the A button. Honestly, why can't the player choose what control scheme suits him or her best? (This is a pet peeve of mine in general, and particularly in games with awkward control schemes.)
There are still more confusing controls, though. The right trigger is set to Lock On and the left is set to block. I've never used Lock On, nor have I ever found a need for it, because it's easy enough to attack what I want to attack without needing lock on. The left trigger being set to block is fine, except for the fact that the left trigger, when pressed in conjunction with A, B, X, and Y, uses several special abilities including force abilities, which are sort of like super moves in a fighting game but not as impressive. The problem here is that one has a tendency to begin attacking while they are still blocking. As a result, on several occasions, I've blocked with L and then pressed X (for a horizontal attack) and accidentally wasted a Thermal Detonator (which is a sort of hand grenade, and in extremely short supply). Again, it's little, but it's annoying.
Graphics are hit-and-miss. The characters are extremely recognizable, in that it's easy to tell that Mace Windu is Mace Windu and that battle droids are battle droids. Unfortunately, the textures are rather bland. I have a really hard time believing that every building in Theed looks exactly alike. Also, I noticed some cracked textures, like windows that were only drawn halfway and what not. The animation is also rather choppy at times, and though I don't have the ability to visually determine frames per second that some do, I can say that I didn't notice much slowdown when the screen was crowded.
Sound is better, though. Much of the background music is taken from the movie's soundtrack, primarily different versions of Duel of the Fates. (You can't go wrong with Duel of the Fates, I always say.) Sound effects are pretty good; they get the lightsaber sound right, and you hear it every time your character swings his weapon. Other weapon sounds do sound like their theatrical counterparts. Voice acting, what there is of it, is also passable; I actually believe it when a character screams for help.
So, this is a decent game, overall. However, it has some serious gameplay problems which really get in the way of my enjoying it. The first is only having 5 lives to play with. Why? Haven't we gotten past this idea of having to start all over after failing a certain amount of times? This wouldn't infuriate me so much if the game wasn't so arbitrary about when you lose a life. For example, you can get shot at repeatedly by a battle droid and live, but if you take one false step and fall, that's the end of that life. What happened to bringing the character back with a little less life? After all, that's what all the cool games are doing these days…
Secondly, I don't like how the game restricts your movement within the level. To illustrate my problem, there is a level in which you need to rescue seven handmaidens from Theed (which I mentioned earlier). However, should you miss one of these handmaidens, and you go too far, you can't go back to get her. Tough luck. What really infuriated me about that level was that when I got to the end, knowing that I had rescued only 6 because the game wouldn't let me go back for the seventh, the game informed me that I had failed my mission. Fine, I knew that. However, I lost a life (again, this was extremely arbitrary), and was started out at the beginning of the level to collect all seven handmaids again. Not only was I kept from completing the mission by a design flaw, I was punished for it. The real kicker is that sometimes there are sections that you can't enter, but battle droids or other characters will be able to go into and out of. (You actually run into an invisible wall of sorts, and can't go any farther no matter how hard you try.) As my girlfriend, who played the game with me, put it, "They can go that way, why can't we?"
Finally, since this is a 3D game, there needs to be camera control, which there isn't. This becomes a problem when battle droids ambush you from off screen and there is basically nothing you can do (other than knowing the level inside and out) to defend yourself from these attacks. This is simply foul play, and some simple camera control would have solved the problem.
I know it seems like I have a lot of complaints about the game, and I do. It is actually fun, though; it's just more frustrating than it needs to be. If you're a hardcore Star Wars fan you'll probably enjoy this gamed, but if not, rent before you buy. I can't recommend a purchase because the game has a lot of things that aren't polished, but it definitely warrants a rental to see if it's fun enough for you to overcome the frustration. It's not the best game in the world, but Jedi Power Battles is worth a try.
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