Has PlayStation nostalgia gone too far? A Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles story-Adam Starkey-Entertainment – Metro

Jedi Power Nostalgia (Aspyr)

As another PlayStation Star Wars game gets the remaster treatment, is it time we acknowledged that some games simply aren’t worth the effort?

As a nine-year-old nipper, I spent a concerning amount of time playing Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles. At the peak of Star Wars prequel mania in 2000, it was the best option for living out the Jedi fantasy in local co-op, outside of physically walloping each other with sticks on the playground, with our best ‘vwoom!’ sound effect.

The mere mention of Jedi Power Battles delivers the kind of nostalgic rush Disney has been banking on over the past decade. It’s the yearn for simpler times, with an analogue TV which is barely stable, where I’m blinded by the retina-scraping white of the original PlayStation opening screen, under the cover of darkness, and when my only concern is whether I’ll be able to beat everyone else to selecting Plo Koon.

Despite the nostalgia, even at the time a part of my soul recognised Jedi Power Battles was a bad game. Even kids can recognise the quality gulf between Super Mario 64 and Jedi Power Battles, but the latter’s unfair difficulty is what made it so compelling – as me and my friends tried to scrape through the game-breaking bugs and awkward combat to make it beyond the Swamps Of Naboo. I’ve played the opening level so many times, the droid barks (‘There they are, get them!’) should probably carry a personal trigger warning.

As a result, the announcement of a remaster 25 years later comes with mixed emotions. Sure, it would be a fun revisit for an evening’s indulgence, but much like Disney’s approach to the Star Wars franchise at large, you can feel the cynical executive trying to appeal to your fond memories with reheated mush.

The new version will now have ‘modern’ controls and new playable characters, including err… Weequay? And that Loader Droid you despised. But not apparently Ahsoka, who should’ve been the most obvious shoe-in in the galaxy. £15.99, please.

This repackaging comes from developer Aspyr, who have built their name on porting old games from the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo 64. Over the past five years alone, the studio has brought back Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2 – Jedi Outcast, Star Wars: Episode 1 – Racer, Republic Commando, Knights Of The Old Republic on Switch, the original Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy, and Star Wars: Battlefront through a classic collection.

While this is promoted as a worthy example of game preservation, in this case it feels like an exercise in squeezing financial juice out of a member berry with minimal effort.

The success of the remade Crash Bandicoot and Spyro trilogies appear to have awakened a lucrative market in original PlayStation nostalgia, with Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos even getting in on the action, but whereas those feel like passion project recreations, the merits are harder to see in an objectively ropey game with little in the way of improvements.

If the market is doubling down on re-releases and remasters though, I’d personally vote to skip the original PlayStation entirely. The early 3D era, while interesting from a historical perspective, is arguably the worst in terms of games worthy of return visits. Instead, keep the PlayStation ‘inspired’ titles coming, like Crow Country or Signalis.

Jedi Power Battles won’t be the last Star Wars game to be dredged up. Not to give anyone ideas, but we’ve not seen re-releases of Star Wars: The Clone Wars or the Rogue Squadron series from the Nintendo GameCube yet, but we’re hitting a point where unnecessary remakes, remasters, and re-releases, are starting to dominate the release calendar.

We might sometimes turn to games to tap into our inner child, but for Jedi Power Battles maybe some memories are best left in the past.

Plo Koon is back (Aspyr)

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