The Dark Side of Star Wars games.
By all accounts, Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles is a bad game. Sure, you may have nostalgia for the 25-year-old title, but it was bad then as much as it is now. Character models were not impressive even for the time, and the blurry textures and level design were an eyesore. While its story is wrapped around the events of the Phantom Menace, nothing here would even convey the slightest narrative thread of that film. While certain aspects of the game can be charming, this is a bizarre choice for Aspyr to remaster, especially given its lukewarm reception back in the day.
From the Trade Federation ship, the Swamps of Naboo, to the climatic fight with Darth Maul, Jedi Power Battles has you running, jumping, and swinging a lightsaber or wielding a rifle as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Plo Koon, Adi Gallia, as well as previously locked characters, Darth Maul, Queen Amidala, Captain Quarsh Panaka, Battle Droid, and Ki-Adi-Mundi. Thankfully, all these characters are unlocked from the start with more to unlock afterwards. You can also change the color of your lightsaber, finally allowing Mace Windu to wield his purple lightsaber.
Each character has their own range of skills and stats, but this information isn’t conveyed to you on the character select screen. Playable in co-op, this unique beat’em up has you hacking, slashing, and shooting at numerous generic bad guys, battle droids, Tusken Raiders, and various other threats thrown at you. While combat should feel impactful, most enemies ignore the attacks and can easily juggle you endlessly, often over the edges of most cliffs or platforms. That said, you can also run past enemies with no consequences as well, making most levels extremely trivial. While there are two vehicle missions, they both disappoint with their simplicity and control scheme.
When you do engage in combat, you never feel powerful, even after leveling up. Characters have a weird loss of momentum when attacking and moving forward, causing you to whiff a lot of your attacks. While melee-focused enemies are fine enough, those with ranged attacks can often, and will often, hit you and knock you down. It’s also pretty common to be hit immediately after the slow animation to get back up then allows you to be knocked back down again.
You’ll explore levels and find items that trigger your force abilities, which is odd considering we were also told the Force is all around us. Collecting items or health pickups comes with an amusing Yoda sound, which, to be honest, was the only real joy I found with the game. Levels will also hide collectibles that aid in rewards when you complete the level. That said, since the levels are so straightforward, it’s pretty hard to miss any of them.
While the port is from the Dreamcast version with the choice of using the PlayStation’s original UI, this remaster does very little to even make it appear to be a remaster instead of just a straight-forward port. Textures are painfully bad with some not even having transparencies to fit their placements. In one level, the sandpits’ texture is cleary just stamped there with the square border around it easily seen.
Star Wars has been a franchise with fantastic audio. While the music is fine, since most of it is just lifted from the films, it has a bizarre choice for its audio when it comes to the dialogue. Some characters barely talk, and those that do, have nothing much to say. There are sound clips from the films, largely when it comes to Anakin, but the battle droids don’t even have the high-pitched voice they are known for. That’s right, I didn’t hear one “roger roger”.
While there are a few mini-games to try, they amount to a race that isn’t even remotely fun, a mode where you play as a Droidekas that you’ll never play twice, as well as Gungan Roundup to wrangle Jar Jar Binks, as well as a survival challenge that has you defeating 100 enemies to earn a reward. While there are cheat codes and features like Big Head mode, there is no menu to find them. In fact, I accidentally triggered big head mode in a mysterious fashion, and had to play through the entire game from level 2 onward with this feature since I had no idea how to turn it off. This made platforming a chore since I could barely see what I was doing.
Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles Remastered could have been a charming beat’em up and fixed the list of issues that plagued it several years ago. However, with no real changes to gameplay, visuals, or its structure, Jedi Power Battles is the same bad Star Wars game it was 25 years ago. While co-op can alleviate some of the tedium and frustration in the controls, platforming, and combat, there are simply better games out there that also provide a better playing experience.
Developer - Aspyr, Lucasfilm Games LLC, HotGen
Publisher - Aspyr, Lucasfilm Games LLC, THQ. Released - January 23rd, 2025. Available On - Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC. Rated - (T) - Violence. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.