Main Features

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, developed and published by Aspyr Media, was released on March 13, 2024, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One and Series X, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Nintendo Switch.

It is an action and adventure game, with elements of FPS and RPG, based on the world of Star Wars, especially the original trilogy, featuring two games: Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront II, both initially released in the early 2000s.

The Power of Nostalgia

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection revived the first titles in this series in a release that resembles a remaster, however, it is noticeable that it is an extremely dated game, possessing its charm and characteristics, but clearly showing its age.

Starting with the game's story, which obviously speaks for itself, as it is a timeless classic, but we can choose which chapter we want to play, from which arc, and with which "class" of character.

Thus, starting with the first game offered in the package, I can say that everything works in a very analog way here, in terms of mechanics, tutorials, and especially gameplay, but it is quite an interesting experience currently, as it allows for a comparison of the evolution of games.

In Star Wars Battlefront, we can choose whether we want to play the campaign alone or if we want to play multiplayer matches, which work basically like Battlefield, for reference.

Both the campaign and the multiplayer follow the same pattern: a giant battlefield, with some objectives to be completed in order to advance in the story or defeat your opponent (in multiplayer).

The most interesting part is the fidelity to the story itself, even going as far as using excerpts from the movies to provide context.

Regarding the second game, Star Wars: Battlefront II, I noticed a clear improvement compared to the first game, in basically all aspects, everything is more intuitive, more well-developed, the movement and especially the gameplay are more enjoyable and provide fun without the constant frustration that the first game has.

The dynamics are identical in both games, in terms of how the game modes work, however, despite being identical, the second game excels in the overall package.

Combat and Battlefields

Regarding the combat in Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, regardless of the game, there was a point that was quite challenging throughout my experience, leaning towards the negative side, as despite being a re-release of a classic game, there are some factors that could be improved to better suit modern gameplay, the impression left is that they updated the graphics and released the same game from 20 years ago.

The combat mechanics are based on a class system, varying between the races and warriors of the Star Wars universe, from Jedis, Storm Troopers, and Droids, each with a different gameplay style, different weapons, allowing the player to choose what to play with, as long as the mission allows for this change (in campaign missions).

It is worth noting that miracles cannot be performed on such old games, but it is certainly possible to improve quality of life aspects and especially try to innovate in some areas, such as enemy hitboxes, or even our movement. Fortunately, the developer promised some patches with improvements and a bit more quality of life for both games.

Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection features games that are inevitably full of personality and certainly evoke nostalgia in players, however, unfortunately, it came with many problems, much of which is mainly due to the age of the initial project, the artificial intelligence is subpar, both for enemies and allies, you practically fight alone in most missions and in terms of multiplayer, for me living in South America, the latency is absurdly high, making the game almost unplayable.

Overall, Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection is fun and turned out to be a novelty for me, as I was able to experience older games that I didn't have the opportunity to play at the time, and despite its flaws being evident, the initial promises of the developer were not fully realized at launch, however, I hope for a significant improvement in the game over its "new life".

A Release Surrounded by Criticism

The release of Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection was somewhat turbulent, especially among Star Wars fans, despite the comprehensive package offered, the problems and false promises ended up compromising the players' experience, who were not willing to invest a considerable amount in the games just to feed their nostalgia.

The game, in general, is very easy to play, when tutorials are available, they are quite intuitive and accurately indicate the mission objectives, the controls are simple and even clunky, and the graphics are completely outdated and completely out of current standards, a detail that is acceptable for the purpose of this release.

The game is localized in several languages, however, some languages with considerable communities of fans and players are missing and would certainly benefit from a translation, at least textually.

The game's audio is surprisingly good, the voice acting is great, with excerpts from the movies at certain moments and fits well with the characters, the soundtrack is excellent and follows the Star Wars saga standard.

A Possible Attempt at Recycling

My experience with Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection was good at certain moments and terrible at others, there is no talk of optimization as it is essentially a game twenty years old, any computer and console can run it very smoothly.

However, in terms of gameplay and quality of life, the first game in particular (Battlefront) is by far the worst of the two, in addition to the latency in multiplayer being a factor that completely hinders players outside the servers from playing with quality.

Furthermore, the game at launch simply seemed like a recycling of the same game, but with a very high price that does not correspond to what is offered, with nostalgia not being a sufficient factor for the pricing.

For this review, the game was experienced on PC, using the Steam platform. I thank Aspyr for providing the access key.