By Neil Merrett
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, released on PSOne in 1999, developed by Big Ape Productions & Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles, released on PSOne in 2000, devloped by LucasFilm Games and HotGen
Of the numerous Phantom Menace games launched around the movie’s release in 1999, two pieces of software sought to tell the same story of Jedis, doomed heroes, sacrifice and Jar Jar Banks in very different ways.
Upon its release some 25 summers ago, the world waited with bated breath for the first new Star War in 16 years.
The film aimed to give cinema audiences their first trip to a ‘Galaxy Far Far Away’ for more than a decade. It also sought to begin to provide a definitive answer to the question – where did it go so wrong for Luke Skywalker’s dad?
The Phantom Menace – subtitled Episode 1 – would introduce audiences to the young boy that would ultimately become Darth Vader. It was a conceit with strong dramatic potential that – if nothing else – made for an iconic poster of a small child leaving a very ominous shadow in his wake.
The film, upon its eventual release, was a box office smash that arguably left many critics and fans of the series at the very least underwhelmed.
A few dissenting critical commentators and future gaming bloggers would continue to argue – sometimes under their breath – that the movie was the best of the three prequel movies charting the eventual fall of Anakin Skywalker.
It is fair to see that this might be faint praise, but at Squareblind towers – there is some affection for the memories of summer family trips to the cinema and an ice-cold lager as a teenage treat.
In cases like this, a film can be fair less important that who and how is it being shared.
But as the years go on, there is arguably something interesting unpinning a dumb summer blockbuster of puppets and green-skinned battle droids.
After all, here was a story of an idealistic boy, starting out with childlike wonder on an epic space adventure with princesses and demons and noble nights. It is also one that the audience knows will end up in tragedy for its heroes.
It also charts the first personal steps and mistakes that will have seismic impacts for a galaxy of individuals – all aportly through the loss of one unconventional mentor that considers that a young slave discarded and exploited in the arse-end of nowhere might choose a little something better in life.
For all its colourful computer generated space battles and swashbuckling, the Phantom Menace is an oddly a melancholy tale about what it costs to follow our dreams into the stars and what we might lose open the way. It was also a veritable merchandising behemoth for selling toys.
It was a tale perhaps that was ultimately better captured best by John Williams’ conducting and scoring, than it was in any particular dialogue or plotting within the film.
Outside of the eventual audience reaction to the movie, the western world, for a few heady months in the summer of 1999 was obsessed with the Phantom Menace.
Here comes the games
One example of this audience fascination and hunger for exploring Darth Vader’s back story was reflected in the decision to release three videogames based on the same movie within the space of less than 12 months. Other space shooters and arcade titles would also follow.
One of these games, Star Wars Episode 1: Racer was a spin-off of the game based on the main set piece moments from the movie that was actually the only game allowing player to take the role of Anakin himself.
The other two games would attempt to retell the story of the movie, albeit with very different approaches. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was a top down adventure game where the player would assume the role of multiple characters including the Jedi Obi Wan Kenobi and Quo Gon Jinn allowing them to explore and interact with characters and locations ripped straight from the film.
This was an opportunity for gamers to live out dreams of being a jedi knight at the height of their powers/hurbris by letting them broadly choose how best to bring peace and justice to the galaxy. This was mostly done by waving your laser swords at robots and criminals and just about any other character in the game.
One option to play through the game was to simply use your jedi abilities and the force to battle endless armies of droids and other malcontents with your lightsaber and force abilities.
The digital version of Star War’s force – the highly mystic and unknowable spiritual power harnessed by the Jedi – was in the official Episode 1 tie-in game primarily triggered by pushing the triangle button on the PlayStation controller. It was ostensibly used for pushing robots on their arses or off ledges, but that was initially enough for Star Wars fans to pretend they might make a functional Obi Wan Kenobi.
Fittingly for a game developed by Lucasarts – a company well known in the 90s for its well written point and click adventures – the player could attempt to talk their way in or out of trouble by selecting a series of dialogue options to charm or intimidate characters. In some cases, they might even be allowed to use the Jedi mind trick on these weak willed enough – or not too obsessed with money.
It was also entirely possible to play throughout pf the game as a violent thug that can largely bully their way to victory.
Why go through the rigmarole of earning the trust of the underwater Gungan species, when you could murder them all with a Lightsaber. As Youtube critic Flandrew points out, there was almost a sophisticated sense of choice of how you chose to be a jedi. You can also paly the game as a comedically absurd jedi murder simulator.
The game was not programmed with any kind of morality system that would be incorporated to later Star Wars games such as Bioware’s highly acclaimed RPGs.
For the Phantom Menace, there were very few interesting consequences for embracing the dark side.
However, it did reflect a rudimentary approach at world building and choices. Often the violent path also put the player into highly challenging encounters with creatures and aliens much more powerful than even a jedi.
The game’s simplistic and somewhat clunky combat also meant that players were not also guaranteed to survive encounters with a large army of droids, not matter how experienced they were in the game. This required some element of strategy and even skulduggery for a player to succeed. It also, whether intentional or not, suggested that it wasn’t much fun to be a Jedi Knight.
In the late 1990s, players might well have found the prospect to harness some of the more cinematic aspects of the force. This included manipulating a limited number of other characters or objects with the force, as well as the ability to reflect laser blasts at opponents.
Yet the player’s capacity often appeared random and hard to plan for. A plyer standing in the middle of a corridor of battle droids was susceptible to certain laser blasts, while reflecting others back at them. It was therefore probably not best to take on loads of baddies at once.
Lightsaber battles were equally random in nature.
Rather than evoking the more sophisticated sword play of the movies, the player largely swings their lightsaber left and right n a manner akin to a child playing with a stick might.
As a meditation on the power and influence of the Jedi – the official Episode 1 game appeared to posit that the jedi were a highly fallible organisation that were perhaps not really up to the task of overcoming gun-totting robot armies.
It is perhaps an effective simulator for a story about the gradual collapse pf the jedi order as an effective and all-knowing peace keeping body.
By contrast, Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles took many of the same plot and situations in the Phantom Menace movie and forged them to a multiplayer brawler game with a whole host of special moves.
The force in this game could be used to underpin a whole host of special attacks that can be unclocked.
The game wads this time played exclusively as one of five members of the Jedi order. This included Samuel L Jackson’s Mace Windu before he managed to talk George Lucas into letting him have a purple lightsaber for Star Wars episode 2,
As one might expect from a game where your laser sword is your primary tool for interaction – the game was much more dynamic in terms of its action and how the player weaponised the force.
This is not a game remotely concerned with winning over or charming individual to your cause.
It was more an attempt to capture the frenetic action of a jedi as a force of righteous justice, while also evoking the popular arcade beat em up brawlers that dominated 80s and 90s video game arcades.
Perhaps it’s most interesting and entertaining innovation was the blocking system. For Jedi Power Battles, the player could hold down a block button where they would raise their lightsaber in anticipation of gun blasts ir melee attacks. Here, they could more or less block a large number of later blasts and attacks until the stamina bar was full.
However, successful use of this mechanic in the game was to develop a sense of last minute timing. Hitting the block button just before an attack hits the player would see the attack being returned straight back at the shooter. It had the advantage of looking quite cool and cinematic, while giving the player a satisfying sense of control in your abilities.
Though Jedi Power Battles is somewhat limited and rudimentary compared to the combat mechanics seen in modern brawlers. More recent Star Wars games have adopted the rebound mechanic as an effective means of conveying what it means to be a jedi.
Short of a few vehicle sections the game is almost entirely based on combat with battle droids and boss. This leads the player facing a menagerie of enemies including giant insects, galactic mob bosses and lightsabre wielding Sith Lords while unlocking new combo attacks or force powers.
There are also a few shoed-in platforming sections that can feel punishingly hard to judge correctly. They also somewhat detract from some of the game’s focus on being an elite knight of a strangely dogmatic politicised order.
Likewise, the game’s final confrontation with Darth Maul descends in to just trying to land attacks and swing a lightsabre at the character – rather than recreating the stylistic choreography of the movie’s high flipping dual-bladded battle to the death.
‘A happy ending’
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Jedi Power Battles is the decision to completely change the plot of the game in line with the conventions of videogame brawlers.
In this game, the Jedi ultimately triumph – no matter which character the player chooses. Even Liam Neeson’s Qui Gon Jinn is able to survive the final battle in what is a pretty big difference from the movie’s plot.
Ultimately, completing the game means your lightsaber abilities overcome all, including the titular Phantom Menace with the power of righteous combat and hitting things.
When you reduce a story almost entirely to a mildly entertaining system of combo attacks, evasive rolls and well-timed blocks there is nothing the Jedi can’t do
Jedi Power battles is not a game about the abuses and limits of blunt power. If anything it’s a celebration of the power of kicking bad guys assess with laser swords.
The game, especially compared to the other Phantom Menace tie-in, is simply an excuse to enjoy the cathartic appeal of being a great jedi and winning the day. You’re main aim is to learn how best to use a lightsabre and smack people around with the force.
Much like the character of young Anakin Skywalker, broader explorations of how we should use the powers we are given, and are in turn shaped by that same power to act ‘in the right way’ must wait for another day and other games.
With the force as their ally, the player has a galaxy to liberate and little time to look at the systematic failings of a quasi-religious order and how it seeks to uphold justice and fairness in a universe facing the complexities and challenges of war.
But fear not, in the intervening decades, Star Wars movie and games have come much more to explore the limits and difficulties of relying on the almighty force as a simple solution for a complex world – whether audiences were ready for it or not.
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