Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter was originally released for the Playstation
2 and Xbox around the time (2002) of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (episodes
1-3). Out of all the Star Wars-movies, those were always the most boring and self-serious ones, consisting of
too much lifeless CGI and romantic twaddle. They had robotic dialogue, even
when uttered by creatures of flesh and blood, and tried to appeal to a more
mature audience by throwing dull intergalactic politics into the mix.
That's why the enemy in Jedi Starfighter belongs to the Trade Federation,
which is the most boring enemy faction in the Star Wars universe. Even the
name sounds like a snoozefest. Had this game taken place during the original
trilogy (episodes 4-6), we would've fought The Empire. Had it been released
today, I guess we would've taken on The First Order. I'm just saying. In name
alone, both of those factions have a more threatening sound to them, am I not
right?
Just like in the prequel movies, I found it extremely hard to care about the
overarching plot in Jedi Starfighter. The story goes from place to place
without much explanation or exposition. You alternate between playing as Adi Gallia (the titular Jedi
Starfighter human) and Nym (a Feeorin-raced pilot). Adi has her force powers
and flies a nimble ship, with a blue HUD. Nym has better armament and pilots a
more robust ship. His HUD is red.
The pair never gets a proper character introduction - instead the plot just
throws them into a short, 6-8 hour campaign. In the opening cinematic, we
get a brief glimpse of Adi outside her cockpit, as she meets up with Mace
Windu of the Jedi Council, who orders her to investigate shady Trade
Federation involvement in a faraway solar system. That's where she hooks up
with the local resistance fighter Nym, and the duo work together to dismantle
the Trade Federation's operations there.
So I went on this 15-mission laser-cannon-blasting spree - divided into three
acts - not expecting much after such a poor story setup. But I'd forgotten how skilled LucasArts were at crafting storytelling through
gameplay. I found that the missions were quite varied and, from the second act
forward, quite challenging. The gameplay utilizes very lightweight
flight sim controls to emulate the thrill of being a space ace pilot. The
Dualshock 4 feels excellent for this sort of arcadey flight game - almost as
good as a flight stick.
The missions range from laughably easy to very hard (on normal difficulty).
With no mid-mission checkpoints, the tension can get quite intense, especially
towards the end of a 15-20 minute scenario. As usual in games like these, it's
the escort and protect missions that gave me the hardest time. Surviving and
avoiding incoming fire isn't often too hard, but protecting big transport
ships from torpedoes and bomber fire is. Some missions even require you to hit
missiles homing in on your allied transport.
I preferred Adi's missions a bit more thanks to her useful Jedi Powers,
available after a short cooldown. You get a shield, force lightning, a force
blast and a seriously overpowered ability to slow down time, which does
wonders against speedy opponents. It caused some unintentional comedy, as I
managed to beat the final "boss" before his final speech was delivered. So he
got in the awkward position where his ship exploded as soon as he stopped
talking. If he would've had a shred of intelligence, he should have just kept
improvising death threats until he landed safely on board a space carrier or a
planet, and could run to safety before his ship exploded.
Nym's missions aren't bad either. They're focused more on destruction of
larger vessels and structures. He has a fine assortment of bombs, missiles,
mines and rockets, which covers most bases. Unfortunately, most of his
supplies aren't infinite, which makes me hesitant to use them - who knows if I
can make better use of them later?
Without a good plot, space flight games always run the risk of getting
tedious, with the vast darkness of space making few missions stand out
visually. But Jedi Starfighter circumvents all this with great variation in
objectives and environments. Some missions take place planetside, some in
orbit around a planet, and yet others around asteroids or close to giant enemy
flagships. Many of them throw in nasty surprises halfway through, conveyed
through constant radio chatter between you and your illustrious wingmen. The
most exciting moments involves flying into big enemy structures or ships to
destroy a specific target inside.
The missions themselves are like short stories, with their own innate story
arcs. These are very engaging, as the stakes increase with each minute spent
in the long scenarios. The new circumstances thrown into the scenario by the
mission design turn into emergent storytelling. I learned to pay close
attention to the hints conveyed by the radio comms, as every new attack wave
posed a different threat, either to myself or my allies. After 10 minutes
spent in a mission, I didn't want to start over from scratch.
Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter still holds up. This shouldn't come as a surprise,
as it was deemed good enough to be prolonged for not only one, but two console
generations. The upgraded HD PS4 version I played (available through PS Plus
Premium) looks crisp and clear, and the only thing I could possibly want for
is subtitles. But I also realize that subtitles would clutter the screen, and
the voice recordings are nicely mixed and very audible - I rarely felt
uncertain about what to do next. And when in doubt, the pause screen clearly
states the current objective
After poor first impressions and a weak story build-up, Jedi Starfighter
fights its way to a good, solid and exciting space adventure. It feels a
little lightweight, but without the mighty gravitas of The Empire behind it,
the end result is about as good as one could hope for. I like it much better
than any of the prequel trilogy movies, and after clearing the game, I learned
that it's a sequel to a game titled Star Wars: Starfighter. I'm eager
to double back even further and see if it's equally as competent in its mix of
mission design and emergent storytelling.
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