Another game to prove that movie games aren't all bad.
Story: Seen Episode III of Star Wars? It's loosely based on it, since it was released before the movie they changed it somewhat to avoid potential spoilers. Basic plot: Anakin Skywalker's job is supposed to be stay on Coruscant and spy on Chancellor Palpatine, but before long he discovers Palpatine's true identity: Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Anakin believes Palpatine that only by becoming a Sith can he save his wife Padme, so he joins the Sith lord in an effort to wipe out the Jedi and gain dark power. Obi-Wan starts out with Anakin, but is soon assigned to defeat General Grievous, which he does. After that he's attacked by his own Clone Troopers and must fight his way off Utapau (Planet where Grievous was hiding) and onto Coruscant to figure out just what happened, and after that he has to confront the Sith Lord Darth Vader, otherwise known as Anakin Skywalker.
Characters: Anakin and Obi-Wan have been fairly well described already. Palpatine is the mentor of Anakin as a Sith, Padme is Anakin's wife, Mace Windu's a famous Jedi Master, Yoda is the main Jedi Master, Count Dooku is the first apprentice of Sidious (Killed by Anakin early on), General Grievous is the high commander of the droid army, and none appear in more then a few cut scenes/one boss fight, they are obscure to hide most of the story because of the movie. In the first half of the game your main enemies are droids, but halfway through Obi-Wan switches to fighting mostly Clone Troopers who've turned against the Jedi, while Anakin starts with Jedi Knights he must kill and later switches back to Droids as his main enemy kind.
Gameplay: Sort of depends on your character. Both characters have their lightsabers, which can be used to attack enemies with a slash, and both can do a small jump to dodge obstacles on the floor and do an aerial attack, and can move along the level with the basic D-Pad. Enemies appear regularly, and must usually be killed in order to advance. They also have special force moves they can perform, and that's where they differ. Anakin focuses on brute strength, and favors moves that attack the enemy to kill them quickly. Obi-Wan focuses on defense, with speed to dodge attacks and heal to regain lost health. Thanks to his heal Obi-Wan is the easier character by far, since Anakin must rely on scattered health packs to regain precious health. The game is a side-scroller that stays level, never going up or down, those buttons are used to move back and forth on a somewhat 3-D plane. Most of the game is about fighting though, platforming takes the form of moving through the level. You have lives, and if you run out you must restart the level, except for a few that have rare checkpoints.
At the end of levels on Padawan/Jedi difficulty (Easy/normal) you gain customization points to add to stats, either force amount (How many force powers you can use), health amount (How much Max HP you have), or power (How much damage you do), you get nine to ten in the entire game and they cannot be moved, ever. There are also force customization points gained based on level performance, those are used to buy force moves you can perform, from basic force push/pull to advanced moves like Anakin's lightsaber throw and Obi-Wan's force heal. All force moves can be gained eventually, but because of the complicated way they appear it can be rather difficult.
Battle Variety: The most common kind of fight is the enemy fight, where you're moving along and hit an invisible off-screen wall you can't pass until you defeat all enemies. They'll appear either from the sides of the screen or from doors/elevators in the background, and all must die before you can proceed. Boss fights take the form of tanks, vulture droids, or Commander Cody, and take place at the end of a level, they usually require a method besides lightsaber whacking to proceed, and figuring out how to do it gets complicated quickly, typically you need to either deflect blaster bolts at targets or use force push to toss various objects at targets. Survival fights aren't common, there are just two in the entire game. Anakin's involves surviving for two minutes against two invincible Jedi until clone troopers show up to save you, while Obi-Wan has to survive against an endless number of Magnaguards until the Clone Troopers save him.
The final kind of fight is duels, and they take up entire levels to themselves. It's you versus a powerful dueler, either a Jedi (Anakin only), a Sith, or a droid dueler (Obi-Wan only). They typically involve dodging against the moves of the dueler by using the right form of dodge (High dodge, low dodge, force absorb, or jump), and then counter-attacking as fast as possible. Once you're memorized the dueler's moves and move order it gets very simple, but still is rather fun. Duels take place in solid 2-D, you are always on the left and cannot jump past him, and he can't get past you.
There's also a battle mode in the game that's a game in its own, and is the only thing separating this from being a GBA game (It's nothing more then a GBA game ported to the DS with a 3-D multiplayer mode). It's spaceship battling, nothing more then a death match with up to four ships, each with varying abilities and stats. In single-player you can battle up to three CPU ships of varying difficulty levels, and in varying teams (One on three, two on two, one on one on two, one on one on one on one, etc.), or battle special bots is their specific ships to unlock bonus, more powerful ships (Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon, Boba Fett in the Slave I, etc.). There are about 20 ships from various eras, most from the Clone Wars era where the game is from but some are from the original trilogy era, like Tie Fighters and X-Wings. It's almost a game by itself, and the biggest reason the DS version is superior to the GBA version. There are multiple battlefields to fight in, with varying looks and obstacles to dodge. Your basic weapon is a laser, but missiles are also available to take down enemies.
Difficulty: Rather hard. Fighting tons of enemies coming at you on all sides will result in many deaths, the upgrade system gives you powers at the rate you'll need them thanks to the increasing difficulty of the enemies you'll face.
Playing Modes: In addition to basic story and ship battle there's the bonus mission mode, that lets you do the six 3-D ship missions that were added into story mode. Most are nothing more then you pilot a ship and must destroy all of a type of enemy fighter, but a few involve racing down a tunnel through Coruscant, obstacle course style. There's no real point to it, but its addition isn't a bad thing.
Unlockables: Eight of the ships are hidden at first, as is a harder difficulty (Master, the hard mode with more powerful enemies) and new powers to use. No new story characters, Anakin and Obi-Wan are the only ones, unless you count Darth Vader as separate.
Technical Details: Graphics in the main game are GBA quality as you might expect, nothing special. The spaceship fight portion has average 3-D graphics, with dull explosions that make a lot of noise but blow away almost instantly. You cannot interact with the environment; even missiles don't dent the buildings and obstacles you'll find. The music is classic Star Wars, and really good at that. The sound is a little tame, but not too bad. No voice effects, all speech takes place in dialogue in the top screen accompanied by the faces of the characters, which change depending on their words (Angry, excited, Sith lord, etc.).
Multiplayer: Only ship fights, and multi-card only. I've yet to test it against friends, but I've fought many CPUs, and say that the battles are worth it.
Replay Value: The story mode's biggest draw is the variety of enemies to battle and defeat, but all the fights are scheduled, you always will have the same droids come from the same elevator in the same order. Ship fights add some variety, but the CPUs fight on a pattern, so it can get old if you don't have friends to battle with.
Final score breakdown:
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 6/10
Sounds and Music: 10/10
Fun: 8/10
Replay Value: 7/10
Pros
Great battles
Great variety of battles
Great multiplayer
Classic John Williams score
Cons
Battles don't change
Duels get predictable
Not much to do besides fight
Overall: 7.8/10 It's a fighting game based on the third Star Wars movie, so you can do a lot of fighting and not too much else. The game is mostly about fighting, and if you like it then you'll come back to the game a lot, but if you don't like fighting games you might just play to play Star Wars.