I don’t blame you if you’ve never beaten Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on PC or PS1. Out of all the video game tie-ins developed around the first of the Star Wars prequels, the main retelling was (and still is) a fascinating hodgepodge of genres.
On the surface, the action-adventure adaptation of The Phantom Menace looked (and sounded) pretty solid, given the median level of movie tie-ins back in the day. Almost 25 years later, I’d say it plays well enough, too. However, it remains one of the weirdest (by far) Star Wars games ever made. Mind you, it’s tonally far more in line with the movie than Jedi Power Battles, but it’s also oddly unfocused and kind of an acquired taste.
If memory serves me right, The Phantom Menace was the third PS1 game I was gifted (the first two were Spyro and Dino Crisis). After being enamored with the movie, this game felt like a dream. It was beautifully rendered, and John Williams’ excellent OST was exquisitely weaved into the levels. On the other hand, the gameplay and controls felt confusing, to say the least.
I knew that stuff like Dino Crisis was “for adults” and thus could be harder to navigate and control. My innocent expectations for movie tie-ins were different, though. Why did LucasArts put out such an obtuse game to promote Star Wars’ return? Despite my many qualms about the game, however, I slowly managed to get through it. The more levels I explored, the more baffled I was by the overall direction. That’s something I could notice when I was less than ten years old.
Jedi Power Battles was a way a looser retelling of The Phantom Menace, but it was quite straightforward and approachable, which is why it ended up becoming my favorite take on the events of Episode I. Fast-forward to early 2024, and the release, which used the movie’s title, is far more interesting to revisit and study closely.
I’ve emulated the game several times over the years, as I couldn’t be bothered to pick up and use my PS1 CD, but the recent PS4/5 release was a fantastic opportunity to own the game legally on modern platforms. With an adequate price tag and a handful of QoL improvements, I can’t wait for Disney to dig up more Star Wars oldies in the future. I’m ready for Jedi Power Battles to come home next.
Anyway, revisiting The Phantom Menace has often been frustrating due to its infamous camera angles and the dreadful platforming sections, but otherwise, I’m surprised by its lasting appeal. We simply don’t have many video game tie-ins like this anymore. Well, we barely have video game tie-ins at all. In the age of Star Wars expanding its history and genres in every direction and across many different mediums, it feels like the fans’ (and Lucasfilm’s) obsession with canon has greatly reduced the chances of getting Star Wars games that are unabashedly strange.
In The Phantom Menace, you often spend more time chatting with Star Wars NPCs (dialogues with choices were a thing!) and figuring out puzzles with the help of the Force than cutting through Trade Federation droids and other evildoers. There’s no character progression, yet RPG elements take over the equation in more than one mission. Shockingly, you can even lock yourself out of completing the levels by offing key NPCs, yet the game keeps going unless the one character that absolutely shouldn’t die (besides yourself) perishes.
A fun experiment is to kill Anakin’s mother in front of him during the Mos Espa level, causing the soon-to-be-Jedi to spaz out, angrily tell Qui-Gon to piss off, and simply wait at Watto’s for nothing to happen, as we’ve successfully changed Star Wars canon. Keep the murder spree going, and the entirety of Mos Espa descends into madness. It’s wild and the opposite of watertight game design. Honestly? It rocks.
Even without “breaking” anything, The Phantom Menace’s rendition of the movie packs a handful of hilarious subplots, such as hell breaking loose right before the famous podrace sequence or unknown mercenaries kidnapping Queen Amidala in Coruscant, with Captain Panaka (also playable) going all bad cop and alone versus criminals. What could’ve been a risk-averse, Jedi-action-focused take on the movie gradually becomes a funny “what if-ish” version of the Naboo crisis. Also, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon will use all the firepower available to them to melt down their enemies.
Star Wars games like The Phantom Menace and Jedi Power Battles are far from the only loose interpretations of Star Wars canon (maybe I’ll write about more of those in the future), and much of the “LucasArts era” magic was to simply mess around inside one of the biggest fictional sandboxes around. While I’m really thankful for the high-quality, canon-friendly Star Wars titles we’re currently getting, I can’t help but think we’ve been missing some wackier, less serious stuff in that space. Whether it’s a new podracing title or Legends stories in which the power levels are full anime, maybe it’s time to let some Star Wars games be odd and playful again.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is available for purchase on Amazon.
