This first game was suggested by my friend Nariman, in what I believe to be an attempt to show me the "dark side" of PS1 gaming. (Yes, bad puns are essential to my writing process) So let's dive right in.
A Long Time Ago etc, etc, etc......
So, I feel I have to lead into this by saying that I don't play a lot of fighting games, as they often bore the hell out of me. But, given that this is a Star Wars game and anything with those two words on it fills me with an unnatural lust that would make the Roman emperor Nero blush, I was excited to play this game.
It starts out promising with a pretty decent title card and an opening movie full of flipping and lightsabers and blasters and all the shiny things that make Star Wars amazing. The menus are cut and dry, in what I consider to be pretty typical fighting game fashion. Then the excitement got kicked up in the character select screen.
I mean, look at that! What Star Wars fan doesn't find the hologram chess board and giant floating head motif glorigous!? The portraits aren't even bad looking, considering it's a PS1 game.
The roster is a little light at first, but with unlockable characters like Darth Vader, Mara Jade and a Stormtrooper that I can only assume is the very same one who smacks his helmet on a low hanging door in Episode IV, you have something to look forward too. Plus, all the original trilogy mainstays are here, barring the droids and Lando Calrissian (I assume he was left out because even the likeness of Billy Dee Williams was too fucking awesome to be contained on the disc), so it's hard to complain too much. And then the game begins....
Round 1.....FIGHT!
My first thought when the fighting started was, holyshitthisgamelooksawesomeandthesoundisfantasticlookatthebadassbackgroundstuff!!!
Honestly, the backgrounds are awesome. Excellent stages like the Rancor Pit (pictured above), Hoth, Degobah and Bespin (both inside and out) are very detailed and vibrant. They all have unique background action, like snowspeeders doing flybys and Slave 1 just hanging out on the landing pad and the ambient noise is authentic and ripped straight from the movies.
So for the first few moments of gameplay I was blinded by the aesthetics and found it all quite enjoyable. It wasn't until I started to pay attention to the controls and feel of the fighting that this game began to stink like the inside of Darth Vader's codpiece.
The fighting is done at a snails pace with little or no flow to any of the moves. Attempting to string together combos is almost impossible and every movement feels labored, as if everyone on screen is fighting through molasses.
Weapons come into play whenever you want, giving the game a cool soul caliber-esqe element, but they are completely imbalanced. The blasters are basically made to be cudgels until you get your special meter up and then they become a single shot waste of energy, since that one shot barely does any damage anyway. A lightsaber plays like a Louisville Slugger (which is actually pretty fitting in Luke's case) and you get some pretty fancy force assisted moves with your special meter filled, but they are overpowered in comparison to anything else and just eat up half your life bar if they even come near to hitting you.
And while those basic mechanical problems are enough to make this game nearly impossible to enjoy, the major problem is......
Yeah, remember all those really fancy levels I was talking about earlier? The bad news is THEY ARE THE SIZE OF A FUCKING POSTAGE STAMP!!!!
For some levels, that would at another degree of challenge and understandable, like the landing pad on Bespin. But no. It's not just that. It's every.....damn.....LEVEL!! There is no excuse for a ringout on the snowfields of Hoth! IT'S THE SAME ENDLESS EXPANSE OF FUCKING SNOW IN EVERY DIRECTION!!!
Now, I understand the technical limitations of the system and that making the ring a uniform size is essential for the character mapping and polygon count and blah blah blah, but the damn ring size got me killed me so many times it was all I could do not to cast the controller into the nearest Sarlacc pit in a fit of righteous fury.
The Saga Continues......?
So, after all that, what do I think of this game on a whole, you ask (I assume, so that it gives this review some purpose)?
Well, it does look pretty good for it's time and if you just want to watch Han take out Boba Fett or, for some reason, watch a Sandperson beat the shit out of Leia with a gaffi stick, then it could still provide a few moments of fun. Assuming you actually get to do more than side step your way out of the unimaginably tiny ring seconds after the match begins.
Its visually appealing, yet impossible to enjoy for any length of time due to dismal gameplay, unbalanced move sets and severely limited ring size. And though I hesitate to dismiss anything related to my beloved Star Wars, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna feed this game to Gentleman Shark and try to forget how may times I watched Luke fall over into the snow and die like a bitch.
Okay Nariman, you win. By Ringout. Go forth and revel in your hollow victory.
