This prequel era Starfighter game starts right before the Trade Federation Blockade of Naboo and is a blast to play. There are three starfighters flown throughout the main story involving a pirate, free trader and a Naboo pilot.
While a blast to play it had a learning curve as I am not the best pilot especially in enclosed areas with no room to dodge. Even on easy I crashed and got shot down a lot. The final level is a nightmare even on easy (and I notice I’m not the only one to say so, judging from the many rants and few walkthroughs I found.) But the story is good and I did get the hang of it.
Apparently there are extra bonus missions in a ‘Special Edition’ for Playstation 3. I’d not know of those as I’ve only played PC. It was also available for Original XBox. Unfortunately mine died before I could play that and doesn’t work on the 360 I replaced it with!
To me, this is a very under utilized era, right before the Phantom Menace. There were a few comics, a couple of books and the Obi-Wan for XBox game. But it’s a shame there wasn’t more expansion for these background characters, as the original trilogy got. (See Wedge Antillies and Rogue Squadron for instance.)
Starfighter Basics:
The starfighter you fly:
- Naboo 1 Starfighter (Rhys Dallows and Essara Till)
- Havoc (Nym’s Starfighter)
- Guardian Mantis (Vana Sage’s ship)
The Pilots you Fly as:
- Rhys Dallows – Cadet, Bravo Squadron (human)
- Vana Sage – Freelance pilot (human)
- Nym – Feeorin pirate
Other Characters featured in the game are:
- Rheti – Toydarian Salvager, pilot of a freighter called Zoomer
- Essara Till, leader and trainer of Bravo Squadron. (human)
- Wrench, R2 astromech unit, Rhys’s co-pilot
- Bravo Leader (Ric Olie), is never called by the name, only call sign. It’s not the same voice as the movie but its definitely him based on the battle.
The Story in Starfighter
The Queen of Naboo is to meet with the Trade Federation, only to find it was an ambush. Only with Bravo Squadrons self sacrificing combat skills will her ship escape the trap. But the cost is high for the pilots.
From here Rhys’s life collides with the Toydarian, Rheti, which leans to Vana Sage, and Nym. In spite of their differences, they all have one thing in common. A determination to stop the Trade Federation plan. For Vana and Nym it’s a bit of payback. They were her employers who tried to kill her. For Nym, they destroyed his base. And for Rhys, its for his homeworld and the people that were killed defending the Queen.
I really enjoyed the story, its an interesting independent story that starts separate from movie events but then interweaves with it.
Ultimately, you as Rhys aren’t really there to destroy the ship. That is Anakin Skywalker of course! But he has to stop the Mercenary, to wrap up the events that set him on this course.
Gameplay
The controls: admittedly not easy. For some reason it refused to recognize all my Logitech F310 Controller buttons, leaving me some short. And I reprogrammed a few to be easier to hold at the same time (shoot and slow or speed up for instance) The thumb sticks were fine at steering though.
I do not want to know what hard mode is, if this was the easy level. It was so much more difficult than previous levels it was crazy.
Since you CAN find walkthrus for most anything BUT the last level I’ll give a few tips I found and used. To my amazement I finally won (without cheats). Here is one on Youtube by Praying Grantis. They are using third person POV (where you see the ship). I couldn’t do this due to the inability to get all my controls to be accepted.
Mission 14: The Final Assault
- You have to destroy all the receiver dishes with starfighters and 6 turrets shooting at you with plasma bombs. Starfighters may crash into you. I missed doing it in 2 minutes for a bonus, probably because shooting the turrets was a higher priority so I could continue without the pesky bombs.
- Finish destroying the fighters.
- Merc shows up then. You can’t kill him out here. But eventually the shield to the hanger opens so you can fly in, the Mercenary will either precede or follow, still shooting plasma. There are 2 droid fighters in walk mode to take out and 2 turrets overhead. They may not pack the wallop of the Merc plasma but they take your shields down. I slowed down & took the 2 walking droids before I flew in, and alternated dodging the Mercenary while shooting the turrets.
(Taking all the turrets – 2 in this room, 2 in the next, is a bonus. And far more critical than the earlier ‘under 2 minutes’ one.)
The shield to the outside goes up again so its just you. The Merc goes into the next room. DO NOT enter yet (the doors close and trap you) but zoom in and shoot every walking droid you can see, just keep circling in the other room to do it. You also need to use zoom in to hit the 2 ceiling turrets.
- Finally, he flees into the next room through vents. There are 3. One in the floor that’s blocked by boxes to shoot. One on the upper left that is a maze of red energy barriers. And one on the right. I took that one. Shoot all the metal barriers for convenience and the last walking droid at the end.
This part is I needed to keep repeating thanks to the darn walking droids lowering my shields:
Now your in the room with the Mercenary but there are several walking droids down below that can lower your shields while you are shooting at the Mercenary (and he at you). So take a shot at them and get them out of the way if possible. Take your time. When you’ve got the red lock you can shoot the Mercenary with missiles. If your shields get low retreat to the vent and next room again. When you come out the other side, you may see some narrow rectangular hover vehicles below – they can shoot so if you take them out while your waiting for shields to recharge, that will help later.
Keep going back to the room with the Mercenary and shooting him til HE retreats into the vent.
- Then follow. Hopefully you’ve got all the enemies in here out of the way so you don’t have to worry as you chase each other around. (If you didn’t you either have to dodge or take an occasional shot to get rid of it.) Don’t let up at all on the Merc – it will give time for his shields to restore. It’s long and tedius and you’ll know you have him when you hear talk about the ship blowing up (Anakin got in and is causing havoc, not that you see this part.)
- Finally, retreat back to the other room again and shoot out the shield controls (your droid, Wrench, marks it with the targeter). That lets you dart out the side hold where the energy field was.
Continuity & Lore
Sadly the only character we see more of from this game is Nym. He shows up in the games Star Wars Galaxies, Jedi Starfighter, the book Star Wars Galaxies: Ruins of Dantooine, and his own comic book arc, Starfighter: Crossbones.
I’m really sorry about that as I would’ve enjoyed more on them. After all, comics and books took Rogue Squadron and Wedge Antillies from a brief movie screen stint to fan favs. I think these characters had potential.
