The game serves as a scene-by-scene recreation of the film, but with various deviances from the plot. The playable characters are Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Captain Panaka and Queen Amidala, who each have different weapons and abilities at their disposal.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The game reveals what Captain Panaka and Queen Amidala were doing while the Jedi went to the council on Coruscant.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: The game's version of Watto is considerably less obnoxious compared to his film counterpart. While he still dismisses Qui-Gon's offer of payment in Republic credits as worthless,note he immediately suggests wagering half the normal price of a hyperdrive generator on the podraces as an alternative, is readily amenable to escalating the bet to include Anakin's freedom so long as Qui-Gon puts up either Amidala's ship or Anakin's podracer as collateral, and hands over both Anakin and the generator without much fuss afterwards.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: After five levels of playing as Obi-Wan Kenobi on and around Naboo, Qui-Gon Jinn becomes the playable character for the next three levels (Tatooine), then Captain Panaka for one level (Coruscant), then both Obi-Wan and Queen Amidala alternating for the last two levels (back to Naboo).
- Anyone Can Die: The player can kill literally anyone, even civilians, children, and main characters. There can be repercussions, however. If any major character dies, the player has to restart the level or reload a save game, and in the Tatooine levels the guards will come after you if you murder civilians.
- Artificial Stupidity: During levels where the player must guide Queen Amidala, she frequently gets stuck on corners and in other places.
- Ascended Extra:
- Captain Panaka, who has a somewhat minor role in the film, is a playable character in the game.
- Ann and Tann Gella were Twi'lek twins who only showed up as fanservice extras without any dialogue. Here, they have a substantially bigger role arranging an audience with Jabba the Hutt for Qui-Gon.
- Attack Drone:
- One of the Theed Missions has the player gaining access to a probe droid, which assists by firing lasers at battle droids. Doubles as a Continuity Nod; the droid looks exactly the same as Luke Skywalker's training droid in A New Hope.
- Darth Maul has his own probe droids in the level you fought him. They can be quite distracting if you didn't take them down before facing Maul.
- Awesome, but Temporary: The Portable Missile Launcher and Thermal Detonator are significantly more powerful than the other weapons, but are in very limited supply.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: One of Darth Maul's attacks is a force push, which the playable Jedi also have the ability to do. There is even a cheat which can make the Jedi force push look and behave like Maul's.
- Beating A Dead Player: Jabba the Hutt's champion will continue attacking Qui-Gon after he has already been killed and the Game Over menu has appeared.
- Chain of Deals: To pad the events of Mos Espa, you have to perform a series of trades to get enough money to pay Watto and the final parts of Anakin's podracer.
- Container Maze: Shows up in the Coruscant level, where the player (as Panaka) must guide the queen through a maze of sorts. It's one of the most frustrating parts of the game, not because it's difficult, but because it's tediously long.
- Continuity Nod: The Mos Espa Arena level features nods to the original film trilogy including an explorable sandcrawler, a bar reminiscent of Mos Eisley Cantina, and cameos from a Wookiee and Max Rebo.
- Cut and Paste Environments:
- Padmé's section of Assault on Theed is basically the same level as Escape from Theed, except you progress in the opposite direction. Justified, because the earlier level is about a desperate fleeing of the city all the way to the spaceport, whereas the later one is about retaking it, progressing from the spaceport back to the palace.
- The Encounter in the Desert level takes place in the first area of the Mos Espa level.
- A Day in the Limelight: The Coruscant Mission where Captain Panaka is playable, being the one and only opportunity for the players to assume Panaka's role. He even gets a boss battle at the end, in the form of a Bounty Hunter leader.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Jar Jar has far less screentime in the game than in the movie, showing up in the second and third levels in important roles, then only making a few cameos in Qui-Gon's levels, and eventually disappearing altogether in later missions. The Battle of the Grassy Plains happens offscreen.
- Anakin, as well, with most of his major scenes from the movie (the Podrace, destroying the Trade Federations Droid Control ship) occurring offscreen.
- Artoo and Threepio only appear in the Mos Espa Arena level but have little involvement in the plot.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Darth Maul doesn't become Half the Man He Used to Be after he's killed, unlike in the film. You don't necessarily have to push him down a shaft.
- And with The Clone Wars revealing Darth Maul surviving, this also became Death by Adaptation.
- Equipment Upgrade: A cheat will upgrade the Light Repeating Blaster to become significantly more powerful.
- Escort Mission: Oh so many of them. Jar-Jar at certain points, but Padmé gets the biggest amount of escorting. Notably, at least one of those has you escorting the decoy Queen Sabé, but the only way the game itself confirms this is if you kill the handmaiden at the end of the level.
- Falling Damage: If you fall from too great a height, you die instantly.
- Fantastic Racism: Qui-Gon senses that Obi-Wan "looks down" on Gungans, and Obi-Wan even calls Jar Jar a "worthless creature".
- Fixed Camera: The game has absolutely no camera control.
- Gameplay Ally Immortality: While the game makes it appear otherwise, partners and escorts can't actually be killed. Whenever they get shot, they simply are stunned for a while but they then continue as if nothing ever happened, and no amount of enemy fire will kill them for real. In fact, the only way to "truly" kill them is to walk so far ahead of them that the game accidentally de-spawns them out of the world.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Captain Panaka's default weapon.
- I Fought the Law and the Law Won: An ironic variation. Despite being a seedy Wretched Hive, if you start murdering civilians in Mos Espa, the game will not stop spawning enemies (who are likely criminals rather than City Guards) to kill the player.
- Involuntary Group Split: Happens three times with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. On the Trade Federation level, Obi-Wan falls through a hole while Qui-Gon progresses over it, in the Gardens of Theed level an AAT destroys the main bridge before Obi-Wan has a chance to cross it, and in Escape from Theed, an AAT once again separates them by shooting an archway down, blocking the path.
- Jerkass Hero: The player has the option to make rude and unpleasant comments to other characters, such as telling Anakin he isn't good enough to be a Jedi and telling a woman she ought to lock her doors immediately after barging into her house.
- Late Character Syndrome: Captain Panaka and Queen Amidala are only playable in the later levels and have fewer abilities than the Jedi.
- Level in Reverse: Padmé's section of Assault on Theed is the same level as Escape from Theed, except backwards.
- Magnet Hands: Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon can climb platforms with a lightsaber in their hands without any risk of harming themselves.
- Monstrous Scenery: The third stage in the underwater city of Otoh Gunga have several gigantic aquatic monsters lifted from the film, including the Opee Sea Killer and Colo Claw Fish, swimming in the background behind the city's force-field walls.
- Morton's Fork: Your last dialogue tree playing as Queen Amidala. Nute Gunray asks her if she's decided to sign the treaty, to which she can say "You will pay for your actions, villain!" or "That's impossible!" He'll send in battle droids after the queen regardless of the option.
- No Fair Cheating:
- The game refuses to allow the player to use the cheats for more weapons and full health too many times.
- If any cheats are used, then the player's rank at the end of the game is "Cheater".
- Non-Lethal K.O.: In the Encounter in the Desert level, the game will end if the replacement T-14 hyperdrive generator gets destroyed. It's up to you to stop Darth Maul from doing this.
- NPC Road Block: In the Mos Espa Arena, your path from the 7-Gee Lounge to the stands will be blocked by drunken fans. They will move after you place your bet with Watto.
- Press X to Die: Entering the following cheats kills you: "donttttt", "rrrright" and "kill me now".
- Reflecting Laser: As Captain Panaka, players can earn a Light-Refracting Laser which bounces off surfaces until it hits targets. This firearm is unique to the Captain, unless the player uses the All-Weapons Enabled cheat.
- Regenerating Mana: The force push meter rebuilds after a few seconds, provided the player doesn't keep using it within that time.
- Ring Out: It is possible to beat Darth Maul in the final boss battle by simply force pushing him into the pit.
- Save the Princess: The Queen gets kidnapped in the Coruscant level, and the player has to rescue her and guide her to safety.
- Silliness Switch: The cheat to deactivate the other cheats also makes the Jawas on the Tatooine levels huge. There is also one that makes the walls ripple.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Tatooine town guards, being an unidentified muscular alien race who attacks with large cudgels and axes, is one of these to the Gamorrean guards. This is because the developers were told not to include characters from the original trilogy and had to change the design.
- Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The mission where you have to retrieve Anakin's ignition capacitor. It's been stolen by a scurrying little creature you have to chase around the arena. He may not look too formidable, but the abundance of health power-ups once you follow him into his hideout make it obvious you're not gonna get it back without a fight. Turns out the thief has relayed it to a large bull-like scavenger, whose lair is protected by a system of infinitely re-spawning Sentry Guns.
- Take Your Time: The events in the Mos Espa Arena level are said to take place very soon before the podrace starts, and within this time Qui-Gon urgently needs to gain money, place a bet with Watto on the race, and recover Anakin's stolen podracer part. The player can actually take as long as they want to complete these tasks and the race won't start until after they have all been completed.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The final level trades off control between Obi-Wan and Padmé from section to section, showing what is going on for both sides of the story.
- Turbine Blender: The first level has the player (as Obi-Wan) escaping the Trade Federation ship through its vents, whose structure include a massive turbine blade they can fall in, resulting in Obi-Wan being sliced into chunks.
- Unique Enemy:
- Trade Federation maintenance droids appears in the vents of their Droid Control Ship, but that's their sole appearance in the game.
- Darth Maul's probe droids shows up to assist him in the desert battle, and nowhere else.
- There's also one Battle Droid Commander (droids with yellow markings on them as seen in the films) in the entire game, whose health isn't any different from the regular battle droids.
- Unwinnable by Design: There are also crucial NPCs whose deaths won't outright end the game, but will make it unwinnable, preventing you from progressing.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- Right off the first mission, you're free to destroy the Trade Federation's harmless protocol droid who's serving you a drink. You can destroy a few other protocol and astromech droids in the same level.
- Players can choose to bail Jar-Jar out in a diplomatic way (by bribing Gungan soldiers), or simply massacre the entire population of Otoh Gunga.
- In Tatooine, you can obtain a necessary Plot Trinket by saving Tomo, a young Ithorian child, at which point Tomo's mother will give you the item in gratitude... or screw that, just kill Tomo's mother and steal the item yourself.
- The fact you can kill anyone gives you the freedom to go on a murderous rampage. Albeit, as shown in the following trope, certain characters are crucial enough to the game that killing them will end the spree abruptly with a game over.
- The player has the option to tell the bounty hunter Jym Lang where his intended victim, Teemto, is. The player can also defy this by lying to Jym that Teemto is going to the Dune Sea.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
- Killing any plot critical character results in a game over naturally, but in certain cases like murdering Boss Nass or the other Elder Gungans in his chamber will make the guardsmen kill you by throwing a thermal detonator at you.
- Going on a killing spree against civilians in Tatooine will spawn endless enemies to kill you and none of the characters will want to interact with you, preventing you from proceeding into the story. Anakin, notably, will say, "I won't help a murderer like you!"
- What the Hell, Player?: If the player goes on a killing spree in Mos Espa, Padme will warn you that there's a murderer on the loose, unaware she is in fact talking to said murderer. Anakin will also refuse to help you. Kill one of the merchants in Mos Espa, and his dying words will be "You're no Jedi!"
- You Are Fat: Qui-Gon can tell one of the Twi'lek twins that the Hutts are "extremely obese or so [he's] been told." Qui-Gon can also say, "Jabba is even more grotesque than I imagined." when meeting Jabba.
