izigame.me

WOOOO a re release i certainly didn't see comin but.... a welcome one!
I guess ill talk about the game in general before i start comparing the changes....
But yeah as you can tell from the title, the game is set during, Du nuuh, Phantom menance! you fight droids, and monsters and mayhem OH MY! a fun throw back to the early 2000's where 3d brawlers were still being toyed with. you have several playable characters all with their own move sets and forces powers. You can play as the iconic, qui gon, obiwan, or mace windu (personal fave, his super is busted.) as well as some new faces, at the time.
you ahve ten action packed levels, full of powerups and platforming fun, as well as little hidden secrets. you'll journey form the trade federation ship from the start of the movie, to the swamps of naboo, to the palace of theed, all leading to the climactic fight with darth maul! (don't cry spoilers, this is spoiling a fight for a movie from 26 years ago..... oh god phantom menace is 26 years old.....) Otherwise this game has solid, for the most part movement, decent platforming and some surprisingly fresh game play for a game so old.
Now on the the comparison. I've had the privilege to actually find and play the original power battles on ps1. and.... im not gonna lie there's things with the remake that have surprised me. First off, the new game, while the models are obviously tweaked, look FAR better than it's original. (never gonna miss wobbly ps1 animations.) and the controls feel about the same but with far less jank i think. you can toggle between modern and classic controls, (mostly just swapping moves for the ps1 version of them) you can select all the original characters and even either give them the saber color form canon (or canon to the intro) or the original game, odd choice.... but nice! (like in game, windu's is blue!)
I think most surprising of level design. they've completely remodeled sections of the game to make some of the platforming more doable! like extending platforms, shrinking larger corridors, or straight up redesigning sections of the game. Ill have to give the original a full run through to see all the differences, but having gone through at least the trade fed ship, there's so much they've changed. Ill probably add more to the review one i do.
Another major change form the original, New secrets! you can now find new credit and challange pick ups. you'll still have to finish the level to keep them, but other than some of the original powerups, (healing, force refill, extend, damage, so on...) the new little secrets are a nice addition to veterans of the original to give them reasons to go poking in area's that were empty before!
Ill probably add to this, once i play more of this remaster.
Now on to my... nitpicks.
I know that things have certainly changed in 25 years, difficulty has certainly faltered since then. though this means of balancing the game a bit more is more a double edged sword.
First of all there is far more power-ups, Mostly force refills so you can keep topped up. despite how much you use (you can only use two force powers per full bar.) and these constant refils will make it a bit too easy.
Enemie Ai is still sorta janky so, the newly rebuffed controls and less janky movement, makes it far easier to maneuver around them. but i think to compensate for that they added far more enemies. so... balanced out i guess.
There are also far more checkpoints and there now a pick up. .... not sure how i feel about that. they place them in rather obvious paths. i'm sure you can avoid them to make your own iron man mode. but im sure there are some that will be harder to avoid than others.
and lastly, for now, and im not sure why they did this. they gave you the ability to play every level from the start. Ill have to test this more but in the original you had to start from the beginning to level up and continue the game, unlocking the levels as you go. so the life of this game could be quite short.
Then again, in the end, it's still a fun game to come back to, even now, 25 years later. So... Fair play i guess.
Now i know we got bounty hunter and Racer from Aspyr (thank you so much for continung to remaster my childhood for new gamers to enjoy!)
..... But can we get that Sick, Revenge of the sith game next? You know... the reeealy good hack and slash one made by the people that made the lord of the rings ones.
Pretty please!?