Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles

"Where's the Force?"

Alright, first, I’d like to say that Mace Windu is my all time favorite jedi. I was overjoyed to see him as a selection along with the traditional Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. That was before I began playing…

Game Play: 3
“Hi, I’m a nameless battle droid programmed to fall over at the mere sight of a jedi. I have to worry about friendly fire just as much as getting slashed in half by a lightsaber-wielding egomaniac”

First, you only have 2 different ways to swing your sword and 1 “deflect” position. This is fitting of perhaps the less trained Obi Wan, but this is pitiful for the others. The only other move is jump, which is used in the earlier levels almost as much as you swing your sword.

The controls are horrible at best. You have to stand right next to an enemy to slash him and even then you can easily miss him. The jump option forces you to leap straight up if you don’t begin in a run, which usually causes some serious problems.

A.I. appears to be an oxymoron in this game. The droids in the first level, for example, often end up hitting each other. When there’s a large group, you can literally stand there with your guard up and wait for them to die. It’s pathetic, really. Odds are that you’ll be killed from a bad jump than facing down an entire droid army. Oh yes, and you’ll see a LOT of droids before you’re done

There are huge gaps in the enemy ‘sight areas’. You can stand in certain places and they’ll never shoot at you. I know that the faceless minions are supposed to be fodder for jedi but this is just absurd!

Graphics: 4
Hey… Didn’t I see that tree before?

These graphics look fit for the GBC, perhaps, but not for the GBA. The terrain is block-like and consists mostly of things bordering on 2 dimensional. You run around many similar looking areas. The characters themselves look worse that those in most fan-made games. The whole thing is reminiscent of the days of Nintendo

The defeated enemies all end up destroyed in the similar fashion, regardless of where you think you slashed them. The droids from the first level are always torn into two pieces cut at the torso, for example (without spoiling the later ones).

You also frequently ‘fall through’ certain graphics when you try to leap onto them. At other points, you can stand on what looks like thin air. My favorite right now is one tree where your graphics superimpose a high portion of it (and it’s not a climbing one…)

Sound: 2

The repeating music tracks will amuse you at times while at other times, drive you to the brink of madness…

Storyline: 0
Was there a story?

I assume the game follows the storyline of the Phantom Menace, which was a pretty bad movie in itself. However, no real plot is involved. You just run around through the levels shown in the movie and kill things.

In fact, nobody even speaks except on very rare occasions.

Replayability: 0

After you go through all that frustration once, do you really want to do it again?

Buy, Rent, or Avoid like the Plague?

Playing this game has been ruled “cruel and unusual punishment.” If you want to rent it just to see how bad it is, forget about it. If you aren’t going to completely shun the game, try borrowing it from a friend who was dumb enough to buy it. Heck, odds are he’ll just give it to you!

My closing thought is about how a game called “Jedi Power Battles” could only have one jedi battle. Perhaps they thought it was more appealing than “Jedi Massacre Droid Armies”

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/15/02, Updated 12/15/02