Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, whilst also taking the time to include some lengthy gameplay, to give you the reader, the chance to shape your own impressions and views whilst watching and reading. In this installment, we’re covering Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection by developer Aspyr.
Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection: (The Explanation)
Star Wars Battlefront is a video game series that I have wanted to play for a long time but it was never available on any game system that I had owned at the time. Releasing in 2004 and its sequel Star Wars Battlefront II a year later, I missed out on both these classic games that were held in quite high regard.
Thanks to Aspyr, 20 years later I can finally play these games in Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection and on the Nintendo Switch to boot. Although I am grateful to finally be able to play these games, I do have doubts on whether they will live up to my hype, and most importantly, have they aged well? So, without further ado, let begin our Explain and Play review.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Star Wars Battlefront series, it is a first/third-person action game where players take on the role of a soldier in one of two warring factions: the Republic against the Separatist Army, the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire, and the Resistance against the First Order. In Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection, only the factions that appeared in the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy are available as the sequel trilogy wasn’t even an idea yet when both games were initially released. In fact, Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith had just come out with Battlefront II releasing alongside the film’s DVD release.
Getting back on track, your role in Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection is to engage in combat alongside your side’s army and defeat the opposing forces across battlefields on familiar locations from the Star Wars universe like Tatooine, Coruscant, Naboo, Hoth, and Endor. You are given a number of objectives like capture all the command posts or wipe out enemy forces but you only have to complete one objective in order to claim victory.
Each side has a set number of reinforcement tickets that allows players to respawn into battle when they fall in battle. Respawning costs reinforcement tickets so the more times you or your teammates fall, the more tickets you will lose. Once the number of reinforcement tickets reaches zero for a team, they are defeated. Capturing Command Posts is also a good tactic as it limits the respawn points available for the opposing team. Losing all respawn points will force the losing team to try and reclaim a Command Post in 20 seconds or they will be forced to surrender.
Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection features both Single Player and Multiplayer modes with the latter allowing two players to play locally and up to 64 players to duke it out online. In Battlefront I, the missions are very much the same as the multiplayer modes in that you only have to wipe out the enemy forces to win. In Battlefront II, however, the single player experience is more filled out with extra objectives like taking down shield doors, destroy control panels, finding a Sith Holocron and taking it back to base.
As far as gameplay is concerned, both games play relatively the same with the exception of a few notable differences. You cannot dash or play as “Hero” characters like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo in Battlefront I although they will fight alongside you in the game. In Battlefront II though, you can play as hero characters (and villains) who are much stronger than the standard units that you can play as in both games. In one mode, Hero Assault, two teams duke it out solely as Heroes and Villains and must reach a score of 180 points by defeating the opposing team to claim victory.
Combat is quite similar to that of typical first-person shooters in that you are armed with small arsenal of weapons like blasters, rocket launchers, concussion grenades, and the like. Much like the locations, and characters, all weapons are based off of those from the Star Wars universe. Your choice of weapons, however, are limited to what a certain soldier has as their loadout.
Each faction has a standard unit, a sniper, a rocketeer, and other specialist soldiers that are best adapted to certain fighting techniques. Like getting stuck into the action? play as a standard soldier. Prefer to take potshots from afar? use the Sniper. However you like to play shooter games, there is a particular unit that may be suitable for you. You don’t have to stay as the same unit throughout a battle either. When you fall in battle, you will be given the option of where you wish to respawn and be given the choice to change your unit. In Battlefront II though, you will be given the extra option of being able to simply change without respawning by visiting a command post and pressing X.
As I touched upon before, there are vehicles that you can use that include but are not limited to, like Speeder bikes, Tie Fighters, AT-STs, Naboo Starfighters and X-Wings. If you find yourself needing got cover ground quickly, choose a Command post that has vehicles at the ready to tear across the battlefield. You can also take part in space battles and infiltrate enemy cruisers to sabotage them from the inside.
I am glad to say that I am having a lot of fun playing Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection on Nintendo Switch but I must admit that while the gameplay is fun and makes you feel a part of something bigger, there are a few issues that I must address. First off is controls. They can be exceptionally sluggish at times and movement pace is slow at best. I get that walking speed has to be slower than the vehicles to make them look like the vehicles move faster across the battlefield but the running sound doesn’t really match up with the actual movement speed. The first game doesn’t have a dash function but the second game in the collection does and it doesn’t feel much faster, if at all.
Another issue is the aiming controls. I feel like I have been spoilt with Gyro controls in modern remasters of classic games as there are none at all in Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection, meaning you must rely on twin stick controls and they can be sluggish at best. It is all too easy to overshoot whilst aiming and it becomes particularly difficult when trying to line up a sniper shot on a moving target (or even a stationary one) when just a slight touch will send the reticle too far the other way.
I also find that the flying controls also could do with some improvements. It maybe that I have become too used to modern flying controls in games but trying to 180 vertical turn to get yourself back into the action feels like a military operation in itself. I have managed to pull it off a few times but have no idea on how I did it and it is a little annoying it isn’t a more simple process.
Lastly, while there aren’t that many cutscenes in the game, the few that are have not been ported very well and look blurry at best. As far as I know, they are taken directly from the films at standard resolution and they may have looked alright on TV’s back in the day but they, look incredibly blurry in the Switch version at least and sometimes, the screen even crackles up like a scratched DVD that has been watched too many times.
While I do live in hope that some of the game’s issues may be improved upon to make it run more smoothly, The Switch version seems to run generally well, even when playing online. I know a friend of mine has had a number of issues involving the game crashing a few times but I have yet to have it happen to my during my playthrough. That said, I have experienced crashing in a few of Aspyr’s other games, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection suddenly crashed on me the next time I played it.
On the whole though, If you are into battle royale kind of games and love the Star Wars franchise, chances are you will enjoy Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection. The gameplay is where the real fun is and where you will be spending most of your time. The maps are pretty well designed and are pleasing to look at and being able to play as a Stormtrooper, Imperial Pilot, Rebel Soldier, and even a Wookiee makes this game much more entertaining for me. After all, I grew up watching the Star Wars films and I do love Star Wars games that capture epic scenes from the films like the Battle of Hoth, Battle of Endor, and Battle of Naboo. If you haven’t played a Star Wars Battlefront game before, now is a good time to get into the action.
Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection: (The Gameplay)
Game Specifications:
Developer: Aspyr
Publisher: Aspyr
Platform: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Category: Multiplayer, Action, First-Person
No. of Players: 1-2 players (Offline) 1-64 (Online)
Release Date: March 14, 2024 (EU & NA)
Price: $35.01
File Size: 33.7 GB
Nintendo.com Listing
