Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace is many things: a fountain of excessive merchandising, one of the most divisive films in the Star Wars franchise, and also an earlyImmersive Sim.
Wait, what? You haven’t heard about the Immersive Sim adaptation of The Phantom Menace for PC andPS1? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised - it’s not a story the Jedi would tell you. A chaotic mess of contrasting gameplay, themes, ideas, and priorities, The Phantom Menace Is far from the finest game you’ll ever play, but neither is it beyond redemption. A tremendous effort from a humble team of around a dozen developers, The Phantom Menace manages to be equal partsLegend of ZeldaandWeird West, taking root in one of the galaxy’s biggest franchises to bear such strange fruit.
The Phantom Menace is a straight adaptation of the film, if a knowingly self-aware one. It often expands on scenes to add more classic Star Wars action, even letting Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon wield ‘uncivilized’ weapons such as blasters, Gungan grenades, and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers (not that Queen Amidala or Panaka have much issue blasting fools). More daring yet, you can killalmostanyone.
They went so far as to record fully-voiced dialogue addressing if a child dies, or his mother dies - including if one dies while they’re apart, or if the one is cut down in front of the other. This is something that made it’s way into aRated T for TeenStar Wars game. Just process that for a second!
Don’t worry though, you still can’t kill Jar-Jar, though it’s very clear the developers didn’t care for the Gungan as he barely features in the game outside of any scenes that require him. They even give Qui-Gon a speech where he has to belabor to Obi-Wan to not look down on the Gungans, ‘sensing’ that his padawan isn’t keen on them. This might be one of the most sly 4th-wall-breaks in gaming, and it’s very appropriate given the aforementioned freedom to go Darkside whenever you feel like it.
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Shocking as this may be, it’s just one example of how much freedom you have in The Phantom Menace. While you might focus on the core plot, there’s a number of side objectives with unique rewards, maybe yielding a weapon early, or unlocking a new route through a level. In the Gungan city, you can play pacifist, navigating the alien culture respectfully, or you can just slaughter everyone in your way. Granted, The Phantom Menace doesn’t make this easy, with many NPCs prepared to defend themselves, armed with blasters to make you instantly one with the Force if you aren’t careful.
By contrast, you’re able to also talk your way around several enemy Nemoidians and criminals alongside various friendly NPCs, learning valuable information that can save you a headache in the future. You’d be surprised by how many secrets there are to uncover across The Phantom Menace’s brief runtime, rewarding you for engaging with its world as more than a combat arena.
This feels quaint nowadays, but bear in mind that this was a half-decade before Knights of the Old Republic, and The Phantom Menace had actual dialogue trees. You could even use Force Persuade options when playing as Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan, something the Jedi Knight games never managed around the same time. Pair this with some of the more expansive stages later in the game, and you’re in for a remarkably reactive journey. It’s even possible to soft-lock yourself on Tatooine if you murder everyone on your way to meet Anakin - a permanent consequence for breaking the Jedi code.
There’s just one problem to playing The Phantom Menace that thankfully has a solution: the balancing.
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You see, by default, The Phantom Menace is far from the most forgiving game, due to its short development schedule. The developers have since revealed they even had a functioning multiplayer mode that had to be scrapped with several maps already completed. By using cheats however, you can work your way around this, at least on PC. Not only can you massively enhance your lightsaber’s capabilities to be as effective as in the Jedi Knight games, but you can enable a camera perspective that isn’t nauseatingly pitched at an odd top-down angle. Instead, the cut camera perspective actually follows the player closely, giving a vastly more up-to-date feel even if the characters still tend to handle like strafing tanks.
This means you’re going to see the game’s render distance a lot more easily, but it’s worth it for that much more playable camera angle. In an ideal world, we could’ve swapped between both perspectives at will; it’s something a surprising number of Star Wars games have featured over the years as a mechanic. However, Lucasfilm insisted at the time that the game not be over-the-shoulder like Jedi Knight because Lucasfilm was always making weird creative decisions like this, and it wouldn’t be a Star Wars production without one inexplicable element that people hated.
I bring this up because The Phantom Menace isn’t just some curiosity worth remembering for a few minutes. It’s genuinely fun, with creative level design, and better player agency than some modern games. Yes, it’s weird, goofy, and at times wildly over the top - it’s a Star Wars game, if it was anything else then there’d be real cause for concern.
We’re never going to get another game like this. It might lack a massively branching narrative, but The Phantom Menace came out at a time when such reactivity was rarely explored, especially in the console space. It’s a shame Attack of the Clones received no successor to this style of gameplay, but we’ll always have The Phantom Menace - thanks to fan patches.
Oh, and if that all isn’t enough, you’re looking at less than five minutes of screen time for baby Anakin Skywalker! Now this is pod-racing!
