Wart's walkthrough levels 6-12

[Guest Darth Wart]

LEVEL SIX: CORUSCANT

 

Welcome to Coruscant! I was here two days, playing ten hours a day. This level is not only really hard, it’s really long. I mean REALLY long. So long it has to load twice!

 

Reeve Thompson, LucasArts production manager, had this to say regarding the dizzying length of this level (in an interview culled from http://ant.com;features/askjedi/index.php3):

 

“Q: Why did you make the Coruscant level so long?

 

A: Ha! You'll have to ask the level designer Carl about that one. He just started building the level and kept going, and going, and going... In the end we knew it was long, but we also loved all the individual elements that went into it. The taxis, the air vents, the walkways... We tried, but we couldn't come up an agreement as to which parts we could cut so we decided to keep them in….”

 

So get going already.

 

Kill everybody in the first hall and hop on that first taxi. Warning: bend all your energies to killing that green guy who hops aboard your taxi – he is extremely dangerous. (Evidently “Acongo wongu, Jedi” is Ishi Tib for “That’s my taxi, you ugly American!”)

 

My basic suggestion for this level is to beware of the green guys. They’re the strongest of the thugs, and they can take up to four hits to knock out, depending on the strength of your attack. The real problem with them is that they attack you with a combination, the last blow of which is a vicious uppercut which, if it lands, will send your character flying back 20 feet. (Try not to think about how inexcusably absurd this is.) I don’t care what fancy combo you’re using; those blows will stop you mid-stroke. Frequently the result is that you fall off an edge to your death.

 

The way to avoid this is to avoid engaging the green guys unless your back is against a wall, or unless there’s walking space directly behind you. That’s one good thing: when they knock you back, they knock you STRAIGHT back, not at a slight angle, like Maul does. So just make sure there’s something for you to be knocked back to.

 

“xyler8” writes: “When you encounter an orange/green mercenary, run back the way you came. He will follow for about 20 feet and stop. At that point, he’s frozen – you can tiptoe up to him, slash him up, and move on. If you move a couple feet past him, he unfreezes. This also works with the blue mercs, but they will still fire after stopping.”

 

Another general thing to do on this level is to avoid – if you can – blowing your enemies off the roofs with such techniques as Qui-Gon’s L2 + triangle. You’re not getting any point credits for the deaths, no matter how dramatic they were.

 

We on the JPB board are aware of countless roofs and buildings to which, by various means, you can gain access (even without a Gameshark), even though doing so was probably not intended by the programmers. But since, as of this writing, none of these have led anywhere, I will decline to describe how to get to them in these pages.

 

Lastly, when you commit suicide on this level, hoping to double back, don’t simply jump into the nearest abyss. Pick a distant rooftop you think it might be possible to get to, and jump. Explore. Every once in a while you’ll be surprised to see your guy land safely and rack up some special surprise.

 

Kill everything you can and then go touch the first checkpoint. And then (you guessed it) leap to your death. Then go back and blah blah blah. You can return all the way up to the point where you got off your first taxi. But remember, for these hijinks to work you’ve got to live with this guy until the NEXT distant checkpoint, or you’ve got to do it all over again.

 

A couple things about this area: there’s a randomizer on the roof in the middle, where the orb droids are. There’s also one of your special items on a roof you can jump to right of that -- that one’s not obvious.

 

Once you’ve doubled back and cleared everything out, get on the taxi (no need to jump). From there, jump across two more cars and proceed. You know that part where you go up your first flight of stairs? There’s a roof near that (at 7:00) you can jump to for a 1,000 point bonus.

 

From there, cross the bridge with the two black droids. Then enter an area and fight more green guys. Don’t neglect the extra life on a separate ledge just off to the left as you leave this area. And I would suggest taking that challenge (and THEN the randomizer). Why? You’re probably about to die from a fall in a second, but not because your “levels” were low. If you do manage to live through this next section, you’ll have 500 extra points.

 

Note: Some players use THIS checkpoint as the doubling back point. “Jericho” writes: “There is an extra life early in the level to the left of a staircase and just before the sliding roof jumps. Grab that first then let yourself die and retrace the first part of this level for the points. That way you don't actually lose any lives.” That would seem to be an advantage. The reason I use the other point is because the ensuing section (up to the NEXT checkpoint) is more difficult to live through.

 

From here, jump onto that sloping roof, and just as you’re about to slide off, jump to the next roof. Jump from rooftop to rooftop, killing droids. Frequently it’s possible to jump up and down from the roof you’re on, enticing them to leave their “post” and come over and harass you early. That way, you know you won’t be blown out of mid-air when jumping to your next destination. But this is the first thing everybody learns here.

 

Eventually you’ll work your way to what seems like a dead-end: an impossible-looking jump confronts you to that bluish building with the force-up and the air vent on its side. You know the one.

 

Strangely, the program will let you make this jump without any special “tricks,” although why your character should be able to leap farther merely because the camera’s higher is beyond me.

 

You can jump directly onto that roof for the forceup, or, if you prefer, you can target your jump to land on the air vent, in which case you’ll be neatly blown over to the next rooftop. In any event, step on that air vent you must, or you won't progress. It took me a long time to figure this out when I first played—“Surely they don’t mean for me to jump THERE!” (Since I wrote the above I’ve discovered that it’s just possible to make it directly to the teetering edge of the tall yellow building, but I wouldn’t recommend this.)

 

But they do. Keep going from rooftop to rooftop using these air vents (jumping while you’re airborne has no effect).

 

You arrive at last at to a platform with three goons. Kill the goons, touch the checkpoint.

 

This next part held me up for agonizing hours.

 

When you hop on that car, the boss monster, a tall thin fellow with white skin, appears and says archly, “We’ve been waiting for you.” Don’t try to follow him. This was my mistake: I lost about 40 guys here because I thought you were supposed to get back on the platform from which you came and go running after him. You aren’t. [Every so often you can successfully deflect the laser back at the guy who shoots at you right before the animation, but you can’t kill him. That would require two hits.]

 

When he says “we’ve been waiting for you,” run and jump toward the ship that he’s on. (Actually you’ll be transferred to the new ship if you simply stand motionlessly on the rear part of your ship, but this is risky.) And stay there; your old one is about to explode. Before he loads, you CAN (if it amuses you) jump on the first ship, then immediately back to the platform where the checkpoint was, thereby “stranding” yourself. The ship will leave without you, but it’ll be back in a few moments.

 

And by the way, congratulations on making it to this checkpoint. That means if you doubled back like I suggested (and you live through the rest of this level), you’re going to easily clear the 51K you need to max it out.

 

NOTE: Make very certain you have killed all three guys on that platform before hopping on that ship. If you don’t, this boss won’t load at all and you’ll just be stuck on that ship, unable to move. You’ll have to exit and restart the level. At first I thought this was because my overall score was low (I like to play this level on “mad-dash” mode; my best record yet – 12 minutes, 37 seconds), but no; it’s the death of those three guys that causes him to load (unless you die and are taken back to that checkpoint, of course).

 

Also, when your “new” ship moves down a little (caution: the wings are not solid ground), there’s a space with two green guys to your right to which you’re obviously expected to proceed. Duh. But if you look to the left, you can see the roof of a building to which it looks like you might be able to jump. On that roof is a green guy with a challenge-up icon. You can’t jump over there (an invisible wall will stop you in mid-air), but on occasion you can take that guy out with some kind of long-range attack. Many people (including me) thought that there was some secret to getting to this enigmatic building; that it “led” somewhere, or that it was a vestige from an early draft of the game. What we failed to realize is that that building is simply the second-to-the-last building before the platform with the checkpoint (the one immediately after the one with the ultimate powerup). You were already there. And that green guy and the challenge icon are only gonna be there if you didn’t get them the first time around, or if you later died and were re-placed at that checkpoint. So that’s one mystery that’s over.

 

In any event, wait for the taxi to come up, and jump across it to the next section. Kill, maim, plunder.

 

After you kill the goons on that tiered thing (and Adi’s bubble is superb for this), you’re gonna die. Here’s why:

 

You’ve got to slide down that sloping terrace to the next sloping terrace, and from there to the next roof, then to more of the same. Meanwhile the black droids are firing at you, and there’s no way of taking them out BEFORE you start leaping.

 

Here’s how Darth Wart does this part: I slide down the first roof, then jump to the second. Here I stay, continuing to slide down and jump back up lamely while the droids shoot at me. I’m waiting for the lower droid to fire twice. Once he does, you can time your jump to the next roof knowing you won’t get pegged in midair. (Happily, if you get nailed while you’re on one of these sloping roofs, your character will “hang on” at the bottom, thereby preventing you from dying, even though he’s clearly not in possession of his faculties. The only danger is getting caught in midair.) If you have problems with these droids refusing to “come down” after you’ve jumped to safety, merely run toward 6:00 a little; they’ll follow you.

 

Of course, if you’re playing with Plo or Adi, you should use your protective thingie (L2 + S) to guarantee you won’t be shot out of mid-air during your leaps. This section is a lot easier with either of those two characters, provided you haven’t foolishly misspent your Jedi’s special item.

 

(On the second sloping roof, you might notice a lightsaber powerup—don’t bother.)

 

On the section after that, where you have to fight all those green guys on another tiered-like building, I find it’s best to entice them down level by level till they get to the “main floor” where you’ll have more room behind you should they knock you back.

 

Get the checkpoint up there. Do the ensuing catwalk sequence (between the air vents) walking, not running. These are not Jedi-friendly air vents. Methodically block all fire. Be prepared for the green guy in the center to come running out at you while you’re still on the catwalk; he uses only his fists.

 

Should the wind take you away, for a while your character will rise off-screen and still have an “arrow” indicating where he is and that he’s still alive. Don’t get any ideas; he’s dead. Just wait a second.

 

Hop aboard the purple taxi and pause. You’ll need to take care of those two guys on the left (the only ones who will fire at you when you’re here) before jumping to the platform over there. And then (as always on Coruscant) green guys have priority.

 

From there, you’ve got to leap across a row of moving taxis to the next section. I haven’t discovered a way to reliably kill your offscreen enemies at this point in advance; so you must time your jump with two things in mind: the presence of a taxi beneath your feet and the laser shots that fly regularly through the air. If you find yourself moving away on a taxi because you didn’t jump to the next section fast enough, remember that you can jump back on to the next taxi indefinitely.

 

“Weasel” might be able to help, though: “Although it may take some time you can kill one of the guys by moving down the edge of the platform before getting on the taxis. The guy in the upper right will have his rifle poke into the screen which seems to allow him to actually hit you and thus the deflection trick comes into play. This doesn’t really help all that much as you still have to deal with one guy as well as the jumping, but it may seem a little less stressful. This doesn’t seem to work in twoplayer though, since I guess the camera just can't get the right angle when it has to deal with two Jedis."

 

From this section, there’s another series of roofs and attendant block droids. Adi’s L2 + X is highly valuable here, particularly on the first one. Make sure you only use ONE jump to go from roof to roof on this section; two jumps will keep you in the air longer and increase the chances that one of the droids will peg you in mid-air.

 

When you step on that elevator platform, the second stage of this level loads, and there’s no going back (the elevator counts as a checkpoint; notice also that it fills up your bars, but depletes your special items). Many people have suggested they should have made a Coruscant part one and two, since this level is so unreasonably long. Such suggestions, of course, are futile at this point.

 

AFTER THE ELEVATOR

 

You might notice around here certain black droids hanging in the air that won’t fire at you no matter what you do. When you get below them and jump up, they float up even higher. Game bug. The only way I’ve ever been able to get them, after countless failed strategies, is with Mace’s sword-throwing thing (and once with Qui-Gon’s long distance force attack). From that moment on, Mace was my favorite character. (I originally thought that these non-firing droids were hovering over ANOTHER rooftop, toward which you were expected to make a blind leap of faith; I can assure you that is definitely NOT true. This is also not true of the mysterious poles you see that seem to be connected to a nearby rooftop, e.g. just when you come off the elevator. Traps all.)

 

Note that on the second platform after where you came off the elevator, there’s a small ledge up there with two guards and one of your character’s special items. [David Moseley]

 

You’re gonna fight some more guys, then take an air vent across to another floating ship (presumably the boss’s ship again). If you’re playing in “mad-dash mode,” make sure you give said ship a chance to arrive.

 

When you jump down from that ship, you’ll be on – you guessed it – another platform fighting – you guessed it – more green goons. You see that little brownish building at about 11:00? Jump up on it; it leads to a semi-secret area with the coveted 2,500-point bonus.

 

And you will not be able to max out this level unless you fleece this semi-secret section, unless you do a LOT of deliberate backtracking. I say “semi-secret” because, although it’s spelled out in the Prima guide, it took me several trips through Coruscant before I “discovered” it. When I first did Coruscant with 55K, I was giddy with excitement. But now, because of this section, I rarely finish with less than 60K. Just remember to go back as far as is safely possible each time you croak.

 

And do not neglect to notice, when you return to this platform, that there is a building 6:00 from the stairs leading up out of it. On that building is another extra life (with droid).

 

When you fight your way down to the next landing, three clowns will jump off a taxi and have a go at you. Jump on this taxi and ride it to the platform at which it stops.

 

Fight more goons on this next aseptic landing (it just occurred to me: despite the obvious problem Coruscant seems to have with thugs and lowlifes hanging around on its rooftops, the mayor certainly doesn’t have any littering or graffiti problems to be ashamed of, does he?)

 

There’s another taxi waiting for you.

 

Hop on it. This second taxi’ll take you for a short ride. Then it’ll stop. You’ll have to jump over to the next taxi and kill everybody there. I don’t care if you’re able to off them all from the taxi you’re on; you have to physically step over there for the game to go on. Then get back to your taxi quick; the one the goons were standing on is about to be involved in a little accident.

 

Your ride continues a short ways, then you must hop onto a (barely visible) platform and kill another guy. (The rooftop accessible from this point has a randomizer on it). Get the checkpoint.

 

Be careful. This part is difficult for many.

 

Your task is to jump onto one of the taxis running below. If it helps, turn the sound down on your TV; it can be misleading. Position your character in such a way as to allow you to see the taxi coming in under the bridge as well as exiting; this will help you time your jump better.

 

“Position yourself in the middle of the platform and be prepared to run and jump. Once the ship has disappeared under the platform run and jump straight. Only one jump is necessary and you should land right on the craft.” [Jericho]

 

A thrilling little ride, this. (All that happens is that a guy whom only Captain Panaka can kill—unless you have a Gameshark—will shoot at you from a distant rooftop). But listen carefully. Right after that, on the same side as the shooter, you’ve got to jump off the taxi onto that whitish part of the upcoming blue building. If you don’t, you’ll be “scraped” off the top of the taxi by the approaching overway. I don’t know why, but I find it’s best to run toward the back of the taxi for at least a couple steps before making this leap – it seems to help.

 

Scamper up to the right and kill everybody. You must kill everybody here; a politely-worded memo simply will not do. And kindly notice to your right, near where all the black droids mass, there’s an extra life on a ledge.

 

Continue clambering from platform to platform, leading the Jedi life.

 

For a while there was a rumor floating around the internet about a possible glitch in the game: when using Adi, when you get to the part where there’s a guy on the platform above you and one on the platform beneath you (both directly to the right), use her L2 + S, step in close to the lower guy, and you’ll be taken directly to the boss monster. I personally haven’t been able to get this to work, or not work, as the case may be. I should note that if it did, you might be in danger of finishing the level with less than the necessary 51K.

 

THE BOSS MONSTER OF CORUSCANT

 

Easier than you think.

 

First stage: keep him off camera, then run at him madly. At about two body-length’s distance, swerve. The ball should be thrown where you were, providing you with a slashing opening as he stands there foolishly admiring his handiwork. The only thing to watch out for during all this is that if you’re on the same linear path as the balls, they’ll explode immediately without first clattering around on the floor, as you’ll doubtless discover.

 

Second stage: a little harder. He teleports around, taking potshots at you. Stand in one place and block his fire. On occasion you’ll be able to deflect it back at him, but the real way to damage him here is by waiting for him to appear next to you and whacking him a good one when he does, before he’s able to get an attack off. Watch out for his energy balls, though. When he starts throwing them, that’s your cue to keep on the move. There’s a lightsaber powerup in the right alcove.

 

Third stage: mainly unimaginative hacking here, although he takes a breather a couple of times during which he sends his goons after you. What can I say about fighting strategy at this point? Have at this macrocephalic ******* with everything you got: grenades, force attacks, your lightsaber, a rubber band, whatever.

 

Seriously, use your fastest horizontal slash.

 

NOTE: If you have a Gameshark with “infinite jumping,” you can discover many interesting things about Coruscant (although invisible walls still prevent much of the fun):

 

1. Ever wanted to catch one of those elusive taxis that run just in the distance or just below you? (Some people have theorized—and others have mendaciously asserted—that if you did so it would lead to a secret area where Ki-Adi-Mundi would be unlocked.) Well, there's no way to get over to many of them fast enough. Dozens of lives were spent verifying this. (And before Darth Wart avers that something is impossible, believe me, he investigates thoroughly.)

 

2. In the three or four cases where you can, not a single one of them are "there." They're completely insubstantial, and though I did catch a few, I fell right through them.

 

3. Occasionally the taxis are running so far below you that you are not allowed to "drop" to that altitude, even gradually. Once you pass a certain invisible line, the program will kill you, even if you're on screen and centered. Some of the taxis are unreachably below that line.

 

4. As for the promising-looking buildings in the distance, you actually can land on about 70% of them (and from there, you ain’t going anywhere). In the other 30% of cases, the roofs are insubstantial.

 

5. You can sometimes lower yourself to the level of the traffic, and have the stream of cars run “through” you (when you get there, the cars are flat and tiny).

 

6. As you may have surmised, Coruscant's got no floor; it’s just a bottomless black void.

 

7. It’s possible to land on the perch the boss monster waits on while his goons are going at you. Nothing there but a couple of cigarette butts, though.

 

 

LEVEL SEVEN: RUINS

 

Welcome to the Ruins, a cool-looking level that’s home to one of the most maddening bugs in the entire game. What’s more, many people consider this level very difficult to max out without “cheating,” i.e. doubling back. A definite must on this level.

 

Get the long lightsaber behind the tree and start down the hill.

 

GLITCH ALERT: make sure you get that yellow thing before you finish making your way down to the bottom of this hill. If you don’t—and try to retreat—an invisible wall will keep it tantalizingly out of your reach until you’ve killed practically every droid in the area.

 

You know the routine: kill everything, rifle droids first. Probably a good idea to stand around until all the droids have emerged from the neighboring dimension (I mean it: throughout this level they literally come out of nowhere). Simply running off after you’ve made a superficial clearing of the area can come back to haunt you later.

 

See that pit with all the computers? Get the yellow thing first, then hop down (once you’re in there, you can only rarely come back this way, although I have done it).

 

I don’t know of any “trick” to this pit: simple martial prowess. The droids come in what seem endless waves. Try to keep the majority of them offscreen until you’ve taken care of whatever’s close. (In this game, a monster’s IQ seems to drop about 100 points the second he’s not on screen anymore.) Don’t neglect to search among the computers for goodies.

 

Personally I stand below that ledge where they all drop in for the party. You can typically take them out one at a time before the lynching mob has a chance to gather.

 

The plasma droids are best handled by a long-range force technique, provided yours doesn’t suck wastewater. Mace in particular shines here. WARNING: They’re not fooled by Adi’s invisibility gag at all.

 

Don’t neglect that extra life up there on the ledge. But don’t explore the ledge above THAT too thoroughly; more “invisible voids” await you there. Did I mention to kill everything as you go?

 

Eventually the waves of droids will stop (trust me), and you can move on.

 

Here’s the critical trick to this level:

 

Once you get to the dilapidated bridge, touch the checkpoint and leap into the chasm WITHOUT SETTING FOOT ON THE OTHER SIDE. When you're resurrected in that exact same spot, work your way back into the pit with all the computers and kill all those guys again. Just don’t cross the bridge until you’re finished.

 

This is a tricky backtrack; you've got to make sure you live until you get to the NEXT checkpoint (after the bridge) for it to work, but if it does, your points will be through the roof.

 

One major problem: sometimes a game glitch will stick you in that pit with all the computers and the camera won't scroll you out. This happens about half the time, I'd say. Occasionally I get the program to scroll me out by pressing diagonally to the lower right of the screen, but this is hardly reliable. This glitch sometimes goes into action your first time in the pit, too, although that seems to be rarer.

 

If you’re backtracking and you get stuck like this (and you will), here’s my advice. Make sure you get the extra credit up and left of the pit. Then, jump to your death from the highest cliff into the computer valley below. You’ll be placed back at the bridge again for another chance, and no loss of life. This time, run like mad past the plasma droids and (especially) the rifle droids without engaging, even if they nail you (and they probably will). Don’t pick up any goodies in this area either. Then, beginning from the left side of the pit (wisely beginning with the extra credit), start clearing the area again, systematically, left to right. The game should allow you to move out of the pit by the time you’ve worked your way over to the rifle droids. No guarantee though.

 

In my opinion this is the most serious glitch in a program already famous for its glitches. And it IS a humdinger. Where’s the QA, Lucas?

 

Once you’ve done all that a second time, continue with the next section.

 

THOSE CRUMBLING PLATFORMS

 

There’s an ultimate powerup to the left just before you jump onto that first platform where that droid is.

 

WARNING: Do not go for a swim in this level. The green water counts as an abyss. For all your exotic Jedi powers, you are evidently incapable of a simple backstroke.

 

The giant lightsaber you get near the next checkpoint is just a trick to get you to hurry through the next jumping sequence in your eagerness to stab something. Don’t give in. Take your time, watch your shadow. I would not recommend trying to get any of those things on those mini-ledges; none of them are worth the risk.

 

Speaking of that checkpoint, seize it and then backtrack two platforms. See the platform there in the corner? If you can manage to jump to it and survive you’ll get a 2,500-point bonus you can’t see from where you’re standing. The leap isn’t easy, though. You must run toward the ledge, then, just when you hear that swooshing sound that means you’ve fallen, jump once. At the height of that jump, jump again. Just make sure you’ve touched the checkpoint before you try this. But “ChosenOne” doesn’t like my MO. This is what he suggests: “I found an easier way to get the 2500-point power-up on Level 7….I’ve found it’s easier to backtrack to the spot where there are two ledges, the top one empty and the bottom one has a randomizer on it (this is just over the spot where the annoying plants live and where there are about 100 kreetles to kill). Jump to the top ledge and you can jump to the next ledge which is just around the corner. This can be a little tricky because you have to jump toward the corner and then jump again past the corner to reach the ledge (if you’ve made it this far you should be able to make this easily.) Now just single jump across ledges until you get to the corner platform with the 2500-point powerup. This method definitely takes a little longer but is definitely more reliable than the leap of faith to the platform.”

 

Kill the kreetles methodically, one at a time as they approach you. NEVER allow them to gang up on you or you might never escape. And don’t dismiss them as unworthy of your Jedi attentions, either. Each one is worth 100 points, same as a droid. Make sure the swipe you’re using touches the ground, though, or you may find yourself swinging haplessly through the air while they eat off your feet.

 

It helps to lock onto them, but NOT near a tree; that’ll throw everything off. (The trees, incidentally, are utterly invincible, lock-on ring notwithstanding.) Give the Kreetles your full attention the minute you hear that distinctive clicking. There are not, as I at first thought, endless streams of them on this level. Kill all the ones they give you and you will be left in peace. Your lock-on mechanism, usually reliable, plays games with you around these trees: you won’t be able to unlock from the tree and “toggle” to the insect biting you, causing you to be bitten more.

 

Did you get that free credit? I’ve always thought it was obvious but apparently it isn’t to some. “Not far after the 2500-point powerup, before you get to the wall with two exposed ledges with columns (and a few kreetles on the ledges) in the corner there is a “tree” next to a pile of rocks. Jump on this and jump to the lower ledge. From here double jump to the left pillar and jump across the pillars to the last one. From here double jump straight up to the window frame. The credit is on the ledge to your left. After getting it simply drop to the unseen ledge at 6:00." [ChosenOne]

 

There occasionally occurs a bug on this level (no pun intended): the kreetles don’t hurt you. Obviously, they’re supposed to be able to hurt you (and with the worm in Level Two they always do), but sometimes I’ve noticed on this level that even if you’re surrounded by a giant swarm of them, no damage is being done to your character. Maul Clone theorizes: “[On this level] they don't hurt you themselves, but rather just impair your movement so that plants and droids can smack you. And at the worm, nothing else is attacking so they have to do damage. Makes sense.”

 

Note also that the trees barely damage you, despite your pathetic grunting (Qui-Gon is egregious in this department).

 

When you make it down to the ground again, be sure to check behind the tree for the giant lightsaber.

 

See that yellow thing? A trap! The health-up itself is on solid ground, but the area just right of that is a pit. Once you fall or jump into it, a deluge of droids suddenly appears from all sides to ensnare you If you’re wise to them and try to kill them all without hopping into the trap, many times the droids will fail to appear until you oblige. Come on. Give them a break. Hop into the stupid trap already. Although you won’t be able to see what you’re doing while you’re down there, just keep hacking away until nothing is moving. It took awhile for it to dawn on me, but there’s an ultimate powerup down there (on singleplayer anyway).

 

Notice that behind the giant tree just east of this pit (just in front of the bushes) is one of the three Gungan artifacts (the location of the other two having been described in the sections for Tatooine and Naboo). It’s only worth 50 points, but if you have all three, you can unlock “secret” level 13: Gungan Roundup. Note that if you failed to get the other Gungan artifacts on your trips through those levels, the game doesn’t require you to collect them all with the same character. (Many people are confused or mistaken about the nature of these artifacts; what nobody is mistaken about, however, is that “secret” level 13 is hopelessly sucky.)

 

You’ll move on for a ways, killing kreetles, until you come to a checkpoint. (Notice that the kreetles only appear near trees? They’re hoping you’ll try to lock on to the kreetles for more accurate blows but will wind up locking onto a tree instead and end up getting bitten to death – or at least severely weakened -- right before the final battle. That’s how they get ya! Engage the kreetles in the open spaces between the trees, where you can lock-on all you want.) There’s an extra life in the bushes near this area.

 

Take the checkpoint. If you’re low on life, simply jump into the water and backtrack from where you get resurrected. This trick will enable you to go as far back as that last jutting pillar you jumped from (although not easily – invisible walls), killing the droids near the trap again and all the kreetles along the way.

 

If you choose to do this, get those yellow goodies last. Those kreetles can take a serious toll on even the best Jedi’s health bar, and you’ll want to be plenty healthy for the upcoming boss monster, since there are no powerups during that sequence I’m aware of. Keep in mind again that this strategy assumes you’re going to vanquish the Gungan boss on THAT GUY; if not, you’ve got to do the backtracking thing all over again. I’ve explained this before.

 

Incidentally, at 5:00 from the abovementioned checkpoint, there’s a kreetle trying to get at you, inanely hopping up and down out of God knows where. I don’t think you can kill that kreetle, but amazingly, the area in which he’s jumping is NOT another one of the program’s “invisible voids.”

 

Wait for the Gungans to port their arms before you strike, obviously.

 

THE GUNGAN BOSS

 

Many people report this boss giving them problems, but I’ve never had any difficulty with him. Simple machete-style hacking. Make sure, however, that when he starts throwing those balls around, you ain’t in lockon. At that point, you’ll just want to run circles around the arena until he comes down again.

 

I read a good suggestion about this guy: “I’ve found the best way to avoid the energy balls that the boss tosses is to stand right up against the rock that he stands on [straight in front of it]. He always tosses them out and away and the blast radius doesn’t hit you.” [from Jericho]

 

The first thing to remember (unless you’re Qui-Gon) is that the health you came in with is all you’ve got to work with. I’ve been unable to find any goodies concealed in the “arena” for this final battle, nor anything special in the trees preceding it, for that matter.

 

What seems to work best here is your back-and-forth horizontal slashing attack; all of the basic characters have one. What definitely WILL NOT work is any “heavy” attack, such as a giant, lunging attack (typically running triangle). He’ll just prod you in the belly.

 

Mace Windu is especially weak against this boss. When playing with him, I would suggest making sure you’ve the necessary 30K BEFORE you get to the part with the host of Gungan guards; this way, you can’t use any more points. So simply jump through the guards until you get to the last three. Kill them; the boss will load and you’ll be stronger for this battle than you would have been if you had gone through all the trouble of killing those Gungans.

 

Three separate times when I fought this boss, I killed him so quick (with “ultimate saber”) that when he collapsed and disappeared, I was stuck there. The screen didn’t freeze; I could still move around, but I couldn’t escape. My solution: go to the far right of the screen and begin double-jumping frenetically. By doing so you should be able to keep your character off-camera for at least five seconds, after which time you’ll be killed. Then try again from the last checkpoint. I know it sounds funny, but try not to kick his ass so fast this time.

 

Another glitch: when you think you’re about to kill him, make sure that he’s either in front of that monolith or to the right of it. If he dies on the left of it, you may not be able to escape the subsequent animation (he’ll keep walking idiotically into the monolith) and you will have to re-start the entire level.

 

 

LEVEL EIGHT: STREETS OF THEED

 

The easiest level by far. If you love 80’s-style video games, you’ll love this one. It’s basically just a souped-up version of Atari’s “River Raid.” I’ve never failed to score less than all three bonuses at this level, even when I was screwing around, exploring.

 

Some notes:

 

There’s no way to crash your STAP into the ground. You can’t get that low. The only way you can crash is by running into a building or other obstacle; you couldn’t crash into the ground, the water, or any of the droids if you tried. Nor, despite appearances, can the enemies shoot you (even the rifle droids); nor is it possible to mow them down with your bike. It took a few runs through this level for these things to dawn on me.

 

Don’t worry too much about aiming; just get the baddies more or less in your path. Your gun aims for you.

 

Square is brake, but it’s easily possible to max out this level by flying slowly—and safely—through it. However, if you put the acceleration on, your STAP will be able to go higher, and you’ll be able to shoot the more valuable droids high up on the ledges. There is of course an obvious danger in doing so.

 

Needless to say, there’s no way of getting off the bike.

 

Obviously, the lower you fly, the more droids you’ll hit. On the other hand, the more likely it’ll be that you’ll run into something. Ergo the basic challenge of the level.

 

There seems to be no penalty for autofire: simply keep triangle pressed. Steering back and forth needlessly as you do so seems to increase the number of droids you kill; just make sure you’re not doing this in the section where you’re supposed to be blowing out those gates. (Steering back and forth usually causes your cannon to fire only at the ground directly below you, hence by the time you see the gate it’s typically too late.)

 

And your main concern on this level is precisely that: getting those portals blown out before you need to go through them. The gates take one clean blast; the iron doors too.

 

There’s a section near the where the locks begin where you’ve got to hug the side of the screen to make it over. I don’t know why; it’ll look like you can make it simply by flying centerwise, but you can’t. You’ll see what I’m talking about soon enough.

 

There’s only one thing I don’t understand: high in the air just before the series of black drawbridges (if that’s what they are), there’s a gold point bonus floating in the air on the right of your screen (I believe this level doesn’t have a silver one). As of this writing I have no idea how to get it. I’ve tried everything: flying high, shooting it, etc., etc. If you know how to get this, please e-mail us.

 

Note that this is the only level where you can kill those rolling droidekas in one shot.

 

I don’t know why I’m even writing this; nobody has ever had problems on this level. If you are having problems, keep them to yourself. Everybody’ll just laugh at you.

 

 

LEVEL NINE: PALACE CLIFFS

 

Hidden to the left of you as you begin is a 1,000-point bonus. Don’t miss it.

 

You know those little ledges near the beginning that “crumble” when you step on them? You’re SUPPOSED to step on them, then glide off. If you avoid them by jumping, you’ll waste precious time and increase your chances of croaking (the game is ridiculously unforgiving about permissible falling distances on this level).

 

The best suggestion I have for acclimatizing yourself to this level is going at it once, leisurely, without worrying about those stupid pilots. Take your time, get everything, kill everything, learn how the terrain is laid out and where you’ll need to be going. You can always adopt my “mad-dash” mode once you know the layout well.

 

Probably your first mistake will be to assume you’ve got to kill everything that moves (including getting those unpleasant randomizers) in order to reach the 14K necessary to max out this level. Not true.

 

This is another one of those levels that everybody plays differently, yet NOBODY I know frees five pilots first and THEN goes looking for points, so don’t do that. Such a strategy does not strike me as very efficient (if you free all six pilots, the round will end anyway before the timer does).

 

Here, more than on any other level, you’re going to have to develop a modus operandi that allows you to glide effortlessly from perch to perch, knowing when to jump, knowing when to drop, knowing when to pause so the droids miscue their fire. Smooth it out. Dropping down, when possible, is far more efficient timewise. Take the time to explore and learn where those stupid invisible walls are. Currently I can max this round out and rescue all six pilots with 156 seconds left! (I should note that’s on “ultimate lightsaber.”) If you want to get all your characters to 10/100 and unlock that special Sith bedpan, you’re going to have to master this level at some point too. It’s easy; what would be hard is if the route changed every time you loaded it (you didn’t hear that, Lucasarts!).

 

And that’s another thing: you only need to rescue five of the six to proceed to the final battle with Maul. There have been some doubts about this on the JPB board; I can assure you, if you’re not worried about points and only want to progress to monsieur Maul, you only need to rescue 5. If you don’t believe me, rescue five and stand there until the timer runs out. Make sure you have five, though. Then watch what happens.

 

Despite the fact that the manual says you’re going to “climb” the cliffs leading to the palace, the first thing you’ve got to do is DESCEND, before the true climb begins on the other side. This confused me at first.

 

When you climb to the other side, there’s a pathway leading more or less up to the left just about where that yellow thing is. Your path is to the right, but if you do go to the left, you’ll score a few more kills and an extra credit. Don’t do this if you’re in a hurry; only if you know the level well and are trying to max it out.

 

Unlike on level four, the potted plants here are not killable.

 

PROGRAM GLITCH: You know that series of tiled patios at the very “bottom” of this cliff system near the huge waterfall, where the extra life and all the potted plants are? Work your way up the cliffs to the right. Kill that rifle droid and get the yellow thing on the solitary ledge behind him. Continue again on your way right; you’ll come to another tiled balcony, then another, one flight of stairs up. Be extremely careful climbing the next two little cliffs up from that; the ol’ invisible void problem. Try to perch your guy on the outermost part of these ledges. If you move too close to the “wall,” you’re history. This glitch really yanks my chain, too, since it’s clearly right in your way. With most of the others one could always argue that you were asking for trouble straying off the beaten path like that (although I would reply that the game encourages such exploration by hiding crap in the bushes).

 

As for the pilots themselves, pick the easy rooms first. Unlike the maidens on Level Three, you don’t have to “touch” them to rescue them, only kill all their guardians. The upper middle room is the hard one, but there’s an “ultimate powerup” just outside. There is, however, no obligation to enter the room once you’ve grabbed that powerup.

 

Annoyingly, your time is ticking away while these despondent-looking pilots go through their “thank you” animation. Your paddle should be all the way to the right or left during this, so you can hit the ground running the second this pleasantry is over.

 

 

LEVEL TEN: FINAL BATTLE

 

Here you're going to meet Darth Maul a total of five times; the fifth time is the final battle, occurring after the colored maze, although I divide the first meeting into two because he moves to a previously inaccessible room.

 

When you enter the maze, don’t bother scouring nooks and crannies for goodies; I’ve never found anything here except invisible walls and Maltese crosses. Proceed to the animation (there’s no way of bypassing it if you’re in a hurry); Darth will load, and the fight is on!

 

Relax, almost every character has some unbeatable thing that you can just keep using over and over again until you win. Almost. Plo is very wimpy here (see below). I should note that Maul is easiest with Queen Amidala (!); the problem with her is that you’ve got to have beaten Maul already (with Obi-Wan) in order to unlock her.

 

Other than that, battling Darth Maul is easiest with Qui-Gon and hardest with Plo Koon. The reason for this is that Plo Koon is simply very slow and unable to defend himself against Maul’s rapid combos, and also that due to (what has got to be) a program glitch Darth doesn't seem to have any defense whatsoever against repeated XX combinations by Qui-Gon. Hence he is easily disposed of with that character.

 

(Note: using said XX combination with Qui-Gon, it is possible to back Darth into a corner and continue whacking him on the head in a cruel repetitive pattern. This is especially possible in the first room, where he can be easily tricked into getting in the corner. Don't waste your time. I and a friend of mine did this for about a hour and a half, just whacking him on the head by constantly pressing X, tediously racking up a score of 15,000! Two problems: you only get a measly 5 points for each konk, and Darth must have drunk a lot of milk when he was a kid because he has one hell of a noggin. 3,000 blows to the cranium and he's still as good as new! [And we later lost all 15,000 points when that character died and we were re-placed at the beginning of the maze.] So don't waste your time or thumb muscles with this. The program simply won't let him die until the final room, which you'll recognize immediately from the movie.)

 

Basically, the way this level works is that you have to hit Darth a certain number of times before you’re allowed to move on to the next battle. You’ll know when you’ve hit him because he ooomphs. So if you have a character weak against Maul (like Adi) and your strategy is to simply avoid him until he leaves you alone (as is possible on Tatooine), think again. You must damage him a certain amount at every stage for this level to progress. (How much damage? 10 hits in the first room, 12 in the second, 10 on the first electrical bridge, 12 on the second electrical bridge, 6 in each of the three pre-final rooms, and 21 in the very last room.) Damagewise, strong hits (i.e. Plo’s heavy attacks) count just the same as feeble hits, until the very final room (the one with the pit).

 

Also, you can run around and stuff; but try to fight with Darth on the right of the screen and you on the left (except after the color maze, when you want him 12:00 of you). The reason for this is that when he’s had enough, he’ll turn and run offscreen to the right. But if you’ve trapped him on the left he might not be able to do this, and the battle will continue longer than it needs to (and increase the chances that you’ll be killed during this confrontation). If you’re hacking him to pieces nonstop, give him a breather every so often to see if he’s ready to run.

 

PROGRAM GLITCH: Thanks to “Maul Clone” for providing what has got to be the game’s craziest bug, done right here. After beating Maul in the first room, he’ll open up that second room. Run after him. Right at the point where you’re where Maul is (as far left as he is), go to the bottom of the screen and double jump, aiming right. This should open up the second half of that second room. As it scrolls out, move to the bottom right corner and double jump again, moving right the whole time and double-jumping. If done right (if not you can circle back and try again), this causes the forbidden reactor room to open up, and Maul will follow you, void-hopping, through it. If you make it to the first laser bridge without giving him the beating you were supposed to, there will be two Mauls! If you think you rock at this game, this is where to test your true Jedi prowess. Not only is fighting two Mauls nearly impossible, but it’s also enormously difficult to jump carefully through the ring system with a Sith Lord on your ass. The tricky thing here is that if you want the bug to continue, this puts you in the curious position of having to keep the first Maul safe (if you hit him more than 12 times he’ll run off and the bug will end), while attacking the other, and having to tell them apart at all times. If you’re able to make it past the second electrical bridge (nearly impossible), the first Maul will follow you into that hallway, up the elevator, and across the forcefields! Incredibly, he invariably dies at the windmills. Since he insists on jumping from perch to perch, he always gets caught by the wind, so unfortunately the glitch ends there. One thing: I would like to point out that when you try to get such bugs to “work,” you open up the possibility of other strange things happening, many of them NOT amusing (e.g. your second double jump, the one that opens up the reactor room, will frequently result in your unexplained death; and when one Maul is hopping around insanely directly beneath you, this can cause your guy to start revolving around him weirdly—and dangerously.) Lastly, sometimes I can’t get this bug to work at all.

 

THE REACTOR CORE

 

On this level, whack every computer you see. This is important because if you don’t, the windmills won’t shut off and they’ll blow you into the stratosphere. (If you’re in a hurry you only have to take out the computers with the giant red buttons.) Note the invisible wall 6:00 of the first health-up in that vast reactor room.

 

Another Jedi writes: “. . . when having to move from a higher ring to a lower ring in that cyclopean arena, the best way is simply to fall off, and then jump, moving, back toward the lower ring. This wasn't obvious to me, and it took some practice.” (It just occurred to me that these vast chasms are not, as I thought, aboard some space ship, but in the bowels of “the palace’s generator core.” Roomy palace, this.)

 

The third battle, occurring on the first blue force field bridge, is trickier: not only do you have to live, you have to avoid behind thrown back into the void. Keep the ground behind you, not to your sides.

 

Note that while you’re on the rings, it’s possible (with practice) to also hop UP them. You might choose to do this if you want to take that challenge, THEN the powerups.

 

There’s a lightsaber thingie behind the light just before you go up to the first battle up there; it might help you a little.

 

ShadeShifter also informed me: “There’s another credit in the stacked ring section of the power generator area. It is on the third ring [down] hidden behind the energy. I think that you can see it better from the second ring.”

 

At the next stage, after the vertical rings, when you’re walking on the final catwalk (the last battle with Maul before the elevator), be aware that when the view changes, you’ll have passed a point of no return. So don’t fight thinking that you can retreat to that stack of rings; you can’t.

 

As you have doubtless learned, whenever you engage Maul during this level, you should fight with your back to the walkway, not the abyss. When Maul knocks you back (and he will), he sometimes knocks you back at a slight angle, unlike those green guys on Coruscant. Keep this in mind. (All that was necessary on Coruscant was keeping some kind of straight ground behind you; here you’ve got to be more centered on the walkways.)

 

When you’ve damaged Maul enough during THIS sequence, your character will “freeze” momentarily as Maul makes his cowardly getaway.

 

PROGRAM GLITCH: You know that checkpoint right before the droids? Kill the droids first (as if I need to keep repeating that) and then get the checkpoint. But whatever you do, DO NOT return to the area from which you entered. I’m serious. Maul will inexplicably be there again (this time facing the rings from which you originally came) and you might not be able to exit until you do this whole battle all over again.

 

After you come up the elevator, there’s a thousand point bonus to the left. Don’t miss it.

 

THE BLUE FORCE FIELDS

 

You have been jumping across them in a panic and frequently dying, right?

 

Here’s the pattern:

 

One jump to first ledge. Make sure the white line doesn’t run across you.

 

One jump to next ledge. Make sure the white line doesn’t get you.

 

One jump to resting ledge. Kill droid.

 

Rest.

 

One jump to next ledge; did you know you can stand here between the two white lines and have a cigarette, even though you (visually) appear to be in danger? Two jumps to the next platform (the one with the forceup on it). The droid there usually leaps to his death before I get there.

 

Here’s the hard part: Walk to the next section. Seriously, you don’t need to jump, even though that’s what it looks like. Simply walk straight on to it, taking care not to do so when the moving white line can get you.

 

From here, SINGLE jumps to each ledge. Do not get panicky and start pressing circle circle. You’ll die. Single jumps. Make sure your guy touches ground after each one. Don’t freak if one of those white lines gets you; this will merely cause you to scream girlishly; it won’t kill you or cause you to fall back. My advice: if one of the white lines gets you, great! Sit there and get your bearings for a second, for that means you’re on solid ground. On the last jump (from the ledge with the lightsaber thingie on it), jump TWICE to safety. Don’t worry if you’ve been fried a little; there’s a health thingie coming right up.

 

Take some time with these blue force fields, you’ll discover they’re not as dangerous as they look.

 

(While jumping, you can “aim” your landing so you get that lightsaber thingie. But as I’ve said before, I think those toys are overrated and dangerous.)

 

THE WINDMILLS

 

Kill droids BEFORE touching checkpoint. Rifle droid, as always, has priority.

 

By the time you’ve done the windmills section several times over (and you will) you’re gonna get to be just like George Lucas himself: really good at turning off fans. A related problem: Queen Amidala seems to have particular difficulty with her blaster, getting it to fire just right into the fan consoles. She simply can’t seem to get them off (I’ve heard her palace guards have the same complaint about her). Keep shooting at the consoles from every possible angle; it’ll come. Two hits are needed, though. If necessary, she can kick and punch them. In any case, do not proceed unless the fan immediately below you has stopped. (I have seen an irritating bug here from time to time: you smash all the computers twice, but the fan doesn’t stop moving, only its “wind” stops. You can proceed across the catwalk safely in such cases, but you’d better be darn sure that you got two explosions out of that central console…)

 

Avoid jumping near the windmills, even if you’re on solid ground, except when, obviously, you need to get from ledge to ledge. The wind is likely to take you away (in what has to be the coolest way to die in this game). Same thing goes for walking along the edge –- risky. (It seemed to me that Panaka was lifted into oblivion by these windmills far more than other characters –- maybe because he’s wearing a skirt that catches the wind? Last time I fight with a man wearing a dress!)

 

One jump to move from any console level to any intermediary ledge; a second jump to correct. Make sure the second jump comes as late as it possibly can after the first; this’ll enable you to see your shadow for a longer period of time and make the necessary corrections. Don’t just hit circle circle quickly, or you won’t have time to correct any miscalculation by the time you see your shadow.

 

Then DROP straight to the next console level below. Watching your shadow here is more doable. Just don’t jump. DROP. Do not leap diagonally; simply drop from right to left or left to right, whatever the case may be.

 

Note that a fan blade occasionally stops in your way. You’ll have to wing it from here, since you CAN land on the motionless fan blades.

 

WHERE DO I JUMP WHEN I’M DONE WITH THE FAN SYSTEM?

 

When you're done with the fan system and you're at the bottom level, you'll know it because the central computer does not have a giant red button.

 

To get to the level below, simply go to edge and drop off, aiming more or less for one of those grates. You won’t die, and jumping is not necessary. You're not the only one who's died a zillion times right there trying to jump (or drop) to 6 o’clock.

 

THE COLOR MAZE

 

Before you enter it, make sure you’ve gone back to the right as far as you were able to get all the powerups in that direction, including the 2,500-point bonus.

 

As for the maze, there’re 12 rooms; three horizontal rows of four rooms each; and four vertical rows of three rooms each. You entered the maze through room 8. Take a minute to graph this out before you continue with these instructions.

 

That said, proceed through the rooms in this order:

 

8 7 6 2 3

4 8 12 11 7

11 12 8 4 8

12 11 7 6 10

9 10 11 12 8

7 3 4 3 7

11 10 9 5

 

Credit where credit is due: I didn’t figure this out myself; I got it from www.gamewinners.com/playstation (though the section from which I culled it apparently doesn’t exist anymore).

 

There is no underlying logic to this pattern. You simply have to run through the rooms in that order.

 

Note that you can whack the computers in each little compartment for some mega points if you’re shy of the 12K needed to max out this level. Just be careful about zapping yourself on the nearby forcewalls.

 

Please note that there’s a Jedi special item in room #1; if you want to get it, you’re going to have to modify my pattern, in which you never enter that room.

 

THE NERVE-WRACKING LEDGE JUMPING SEQUENCE

 

Right before the final battle, you know how you have to jump across all those gray ledges? Single jumps here (for the most part), but did you know you can safely hop across the upper part of many of those laser ledges without getting hurt? I didn’t.

 

The minute you enter the room with Darth, make like you are an Ethiopian and that checkpoint is a turkey dinner. You don’t want to have to do those damn windmills and that stupid maze all over again.

 

THE FINAL BATTLE

 

I forget where I heard (or read) this, but something somewhere told me that if you keep using the same thing with Maul, he’ll “wise up,” and you won’t be able to keep doing it. This has certainly not been my experience. To wit:

 

 To beat Maul with Mace, simply keep using Mace’s short range force thing. Maul never catches on. Make sure he’s close enough when you do it, though. You don’t want to deplete that valuable blue juice unnecessarily. Although his saber-throw has made many a droid widow, it’ll only give you one hit here (The sphere kicks butt though, if you’ve got way more blue juice than green and want to reverse that situation.) I have never successfully beat Maul with Mace using anything other than the L2 + T thing, but apparently the best move if you are forced to use combos is SSSXL2, or sometimes SSL2 [darth superiorblood]. I haven’t tested this, though.

 

 To beat Maul with Qui-Gon, simply lock on and keep hitting XX maniacally when Maul’s close enough. This picnic is discussed above.

 

 To beat Maul with Obi-Wan, simply keep hitting square square.

 

 To beat Maul with Maul, simply keep hitting XX (SS is also a possibility). Not a holiday, but it’ll get the job done. Generally, Maul is definitely quite decent against Maul (despite the brazen illogicality of such a battle).

 

 To beat Maul with Panaka or Amidala: as you’ve doubtless discovered, you can shoot him off camera and inflict damage with your laser, even though there’s no way he can get you. You coward! The problem is that if you do this TOO WELL, the program will glitch and Maul will disappear, even though you may still continue to hear his oomphs and see sparks. I’ve had extensive experience with this. The camera won’t allow you to scroll forward, and you’ll have to go back to the previous sequence, if that’s even possible. Meanwhile there might still be a mysterious “explosion” just lingering in the air where Maul was (a “disturbance in the force” because you’re cheating so shamelessly?). The best way to avoid this bug is by shooting him when he’s JUST off-camera, not very distant (though I am aware you can rack up points that way), say, maybe where you can still see the tips of his lightsaber blades. When I fight Maul with Amidala or Panaka, I shoot him when he’s on screen, but somewhat distant. Then I give him a rest every few seconds, to see if he’s ready to run. If he comes toward me, I run around in circles. Darth will follow slavishly, but at a certain point, he’ll stop and do this fancy swishing thing with his lightsaber. This enables me to put some much-needed distance between me and him, and I turn and fire. Note well: I TURN and fire. Don’t simply press R2 + fire, because there’s a strong possibility your character won’t lock on to his location, and you’ll wind up idiotically shooting at the palace walls with a Sith lord just ten feet away. So the minute you get enough distance to operate, TURN and face him. Eventually he’ll close in again. At that point, break and run. Rinse, lather, and repeat. (NOTE: Do not break out the champagne if your laser knocks him over an edge; unlike you, he’s apparently immune to falling to his death in the abysses until the very final room (and actually at that point, that’s something you’ll want to avoid). He’ll just magically reappear behind you. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if when you did this you simply won the game right then and there? That seems fair to me. Maybe at that point some Oompa-Loompas could come out and give you a tour of what was in store for you in the rest of the maze. (“And we set up these windmills just for you, sahib!”) As I said regarding the Loader Droid in level one, don’t get the idea that one swell and flawless blow will end the match; ain’t happening.)

 

 To beat Maul with Adi, use square square square three times quickly. Then back off! Wait until he approaches you again, then square square square again, repeat, repeat. Do not add anything to the square square square’s, and be sure to get out of there (un-locked-on) after just three. Him whacking you as you retreat is unavoidable, I think. Remember, if you get greedy here, you’ll get nailed. I’m not saying this operation is easy, just possible. I’ve also noticed that this square square square thing works best if you’re just to his left, not locked on and centered. Your first stroke seems to hit him faster that way, opening up the possibility of your getting in a few more whacks.

 

This is how I beat Maul with Adi, honest. But it doesn’t work for some people, apparently. So I’ve lifted another MO from the board:

 

“…primarily use the square-square-x combo that ends in a kick. It's the same button sequence as the Plo combo used to defeat Maul, but this one is much more effective. The ending kick is almost a guaranteed hit, and it's very satisfying to kick the **** out of Maul. I don't know why. You've got an excellent shot at landing two and even three hits out of this combo. Assuming you land the kick, Maul will be temporarily stunned, which is why I favor this over the square-square-square combo that leaves you vulnerable after your final hit. Don't rush to hit the buttons as fast as you can when Maul is stunned. I took about a one-second pause before calmly repeating the sequence. If Maul does block your kick, you're going to get hit...there's really nothing you can do to avoid it. Adi is the worst character I've used at retreating from a Maul advance—basically, she can't do it at all. You might try a quick block followed by an XX combo or a long-range force attack to buy you some time. But even when Maul gets his licks in, the SSX combo is too lethal—you'll finish him off very quickly.” [stolen from Pizza the Hutt]

 

 Beating Maul with Plo “Molasses” Koon is unquestionably the most difficult feat in a game not renowned for its facility. When you do it, you’ll officially be allowed to call yourself a bad-ass mother at JPB. The problem is, despite the lengthy instructions that follow, you’re simply going to have to die a few dozen times on your own before you get the feel of what’s not working. Once you’ve gotten to that point, however, you’ll be ready to employ one of the four methods that follow:

 

Method #1:

 

“First Encounter:

 

“When you first walk into the room where Maul is waiting, target him as you start creeping towards him. Unleash the X,X,S,L2 combo just as he starts to run toward you. Do it immediately as he starts to run or even a little before. If you wait until he's on top of you, you’ll have no chance. This combo in this situation will often give you a pair of whacks on Maul to start off the sequence. If he blocks the entire salvo, hold down your blocking button and jump backward (you have to been in lock mode for this to work -- the last thing you want to be doing is running away from Maul with your back to him).

 

“From here you only need to know one combo: square, square, x. This has nearly a 50% success rate if you do it right. By right I mean make sure there's a decent bit of distance between you and Maul; don't attempt to fight him up close and personal unless you really like those four and five hit combos he'll nail you with.

 

Here's the most important part of fighting Maul: if he blocks your S,S,X combo, immediately jump back once or twice (I like the extra room two jumps back gives me, but you can back into walls very quickly that way). Repeat the combo after jumping back. When you hit Maul, wait until your swing is finished and then immediately fire up the combo again. You have to be somewhat deliberate when pushing the buttons; it's hard to do in the heat of the battle and I lost many lives when I hit the buttons too fast and ended up with a single slash instead of my combo.

 

“When you get the combo/jump back thing working to perfection, you'll have a good shot at beating him in one-on-one encounters.

 

“Second Encounter:

 

“This is in the hallway immediately after the first encounter. Know that you have one health up and TWO force ups waiting for you after this battle. So go ahead and use your L2 + X lightning force power up. It's almost a guaranteed hit every time you use it, and the two force ups will refill your force bar before the next encounter. Spare your health bar at all costs during this stage!

 

“Third Encounter:

 

“This one's the easiest, IMO. I'm not sold on the lightsaber power-up, but it does seem to offer a marginal advantage over the regular saber. If you can grab it and make your way to Maul quickly, you might be able to sting him for 3-4 combos while you still have it. Meet Maul as far out on the bridge as you can while still leaving enough room for your combo. You don't have a lot of room to backup before you hit the edge of the catwalk. If you can land 3-4 combos, you'll probably be able to finish him off with your L2 + X force power. That's my preferred strategy.

 

“Fourth encounter:

 

“The most difficult, IMO. Maul likes to lay back and sting you with his lightning. It sucks for two reasons: one, you have a hard time getting close enough to land your combos, and two, he's prone to knocking you off the catwalk. My advice here is to come in and preempt his force powers by using your own L2 + X lighting. Use it to get in close and start whacking away with your combo. Depth perception is difficult if you are on the far side of the catwalk attacking toward the foreground, so be careful using the "stick and move" strategy. And don't backup TOO far or Maul will plant a bolt up your ass. Be very wary of the edges -- make sure you'll be falling back onto the catwalk and not into the abyss.

 

“For some reason this seems to be the shortest of the five battles; it takes fewer hits to make him exit stage right.

 

“Final Encounter:

 

“This is really no different from the first two encounters. Use your combo and your L2 + X power as needed. When you get knocked down, immediately block and retreat (in lock mode) to avoid those killer Maul combos. Don't let him push you into the force field, as he seemed to enjoy doing to me. The final reactor room sequence seems to bring out the best in Maul...he's a little harder to hit from my experience, and he seems to take more punishment before finally keeling over and dying (damn cockroach!).” [all this courtesy Pizza the Hutt]

 

Method #2:

 

“I'm so proud of this strategy because it took me so long to find. Make sure you locked onto Maul. Back away from him and hit R2. This should cause Plo to hop backwards. As soon as he lands begin the combo for either X, X, Square, or Square, Square, X. I prefer Square, Square, X. But why must you jump back? Because Plo's first Square strike is extremely slow. Usually Maul will begin a combo before the strike hits and you are stuck helpless. Hopping back puts some distance between you and Maul, and starting the combo when you land lets the first strike happen before Maul can get to you. The first swing will miss, but the next to will make contact. Be prepared to counter with force if Maul blocks and begins a combo. When you’re on the tight hallways of the second half of the power core, you'll probably have to resort to an all out attack. Use your L2 + X attack freely here.” [this gem was plagiarized from ShadeShifter]

 

Method #3:

 

“I’ve spanked Darth Maul with Plo Koon, once again. This was the result of the cheap, repeated use of a single combo. Make sure you are close to him, and use square square X. The last hit of the combo will always hit him, if you are close enough. Continue this process until the Sith punk drops. Plo’s chain lightning is also useful for giving Maul a little taste of his own dark side medicine.” [courtesy Jericho]

 

Method #4:

 

When you first see Maul, zap him with your lightning, then start in with the SSX combo. In the second room, continue to zap him repeatedly with your lightning until it’s all used up. Then start in with the SSX. At that point you should only have to land a couple more blows to be released to the reactor room. If, during the lightning zaps (which nearly always work for at least one hit) you notice that he’s at that hunched-over, groaning stage (and he’s close to you), you can safely start in with your trademark combo, knowing it’ll hit. First do the combo, but since—as everybody agrees—it doesn’t work much of the time, start in with the lightning when you get desperate. Don’t die without having used up all your lightning—you might have lived! And make sure that when the two of you are going at it, you’re locked on. Also be sure to hop back some distance before unleashing the combo. If you’re nose to nose with Maul, your melodious swishing’s surely gonna get interrupted. [this one’s mine]

 

Carefully study the four methods above, and you’ll find they’re all saying basically the same thing.

 

Related advice:

 

1. In the very last room of the level, there are dark, shadow-filled corners in the bottom left and right of the screen to which your character cannot hop back. Invisible walls prevent you from getting in that area even though it looks like you should be able to. Just keep this in mind if you're fighting left to right across the bottom of the screen, something I don't advise. (This goes for any character, obviously, but the need for knowing about possible retreat areas is so much greater with Plo.)

 

2. On this head, bear in mind that in the SECOND room after the final checkpoint, it looks like you should be able to retreat back into the first room. You can't; invisible walls. So don't fight with that as a reserve strategy.

 

3. Don't ever use Plo's L2 + T or orange body thing against Maul. Ever. Both are completely worthless.

 

4. SSX is the only combo you can use. Seriously. Don't bother scouring Plo's inventory for possible combos that would be more effective; there are none. And never intentionally strike Maul with a single blow only. To be fair, though, I should note that Dave Maul claims: “I can actually do a reasonable amount of damage to Maul with just the XX combo. I use it twice, then jump out the way into the air, lock on, and start again. However, as soon as he gets one hit on you, you're stuck, and you need to improvise.”

 

5. Be aware that it's not possible to map out an exact strategy of how to defeat Plo, what to do precisely and when, the way some people use to graph Pac-Man patterns. This is because (I've come to realize) the attacks and combos that Maul throws at you are selected randomly. You'll run into the first room sometimes and he'll unleash a vicious 5-hit combo which depletes half your health. Other times, you run in, same angle, same everything, and he gives you one pissy bonk. So don't necessarily think something's going to work just because it did before when you were in the EXACT same situation and position.

 

6. Be extra careful on the jump rings and windmills; take your time. You cannot afford to be careless with your 8 lives, the way you can sometimes be with other characters; you may need all your lives (and then some).

 

7. The lightsaber powerup right before the first electrical bridge fight with Maul is only better for you in terms of the points it produces, NOT THE DAMAGE.

 

8. Exit the level and re-start if you get below six lives; you'll be glad you did later.

 

9. Behold! THE ONLY ADVANTAGE OF USING PLO KOON IN LEVEL 10! It definitely takes fewer hits to kill Maul, but only in the very final room, the one with the circular pit. (Presumably this is because "Plo is strong.") Seven hits fewer, to be exact.

 

10. If you’ve done Plo solid through the game up to now, you should be starting with 8 credits. If you get below five before making it to the first checkpoint, I’d exit and re-enter the level. The chances that you’ll survive the final encounter with only 5 guys are slim. Plus imagine how frustrating it would be to do the windmill and maze parts and only have one guy left with which to tackle Maul. You’d have a nosebleed. Do yourself a favor and start fresh if you get below five guys.

 

11. Pay careful attention to precisely WHEN to hit your combo. Do not hit your combo in the middle of another combo, assuming they’ll “queue up.” (You may have gotten to this point in the game without having paid too much attention to the art of using combos; you must remedy that defect in your JPB skills before you can progress.) I myself tend to use combos sparingly since any blow by your opponent will interrupt you, forcing you to start again. But this Plo situation is different. When Maul whacks you, wait until your character recovers before you (rapidly) hit SSX. And don’t keep hitting SSX moronically without waiting for a break: once you whack him, wait until your character stops swinging before you launch a new combo. When Maul saunters up to you, there’s a brief moment when he’s right there but inactive. That’s when you SSX. My point is, hit the combo during the pauses, not during the action.

 

12. And be prepared to lose at least a hundred guys during this operation. It will likely take days before you can land upon a commixture of the abovelisted strategies that works for you, or before you luck out. Pizza the Hutt mourns that he must have lost “a hundred guys” before he hit upon his method. Move over, buddy. I easily lost three times that many diligently testing everybody’s methods (and then trying to find my own), and I’m by no means a bad player.

 

13. There’s a fine art to knowing when to retreat from Maul versus when to go at him again with another combo. Notice that he has two ways of hunching up in pain: in the first way, he’s hunched up, recovering from a salvo, but he’s facing away from you. If you see this, it’s safe to start in with your combo. But he has another way of being hunched up, convalescing: facing toward you, with his face visible and clearly toward you. If you see that, get back! It means he’s just about to strike you no matter what you do and that your combo will be fruitless. Better to get some distance between you two in this case; that’s more likely to give you an opportunity to try again. Ideally, the time to strike is when he’s bent over the first way or when he’s strutting cockily toward you, within range.

 

14. Every time Maul zaps you with his lightning, it resets your lock-on thing. When you get up, you’re gonna hafta lock on again. Your lock-on will also be reset after any attack during which you went flying through the air. And finally, your lock-on will reset after you simply jump.

 

15. Just keep in mind that aside from the fact that my method might not work for you, all four of these frequently fail to work for ME. So you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

16. Incidentally, the Prima guide deserves to be burned at the stake for remaining inexcusably silent over the MAJOR issue of the “glacially slow” Plo’s irrefragable weakness against Maul, don’t you think?

 

17. Lastly, to quote Pizza the Hutt: “When you do beat him, feel free to release a primal scream. You'll have earned it.”

 

 

ABOUT THE FINAL BATTLE

 

Remember during this final battle that when that red forcewall behind the combatants disappears, Maul’s had enough. You can let him go and he’ll scurry off. But if you’re low on life AND on a roll, maybe you should just keep whacking him. It’s been observed that if you cause enough damage here, he’ll skip the intermediary room.

 

Also, if you die and are sent back to that final checkpoint, don’t wait until your character visually appears before beginning your combo. During that second or so of blackness, before you actually appear, you’re on. (You should have learned this by now, though.) Even worse, you’re usually facing the other way.

 

Don’t hang back, waiting for Maul to exhaust his force powers to expire, like yours would. His powers never expire (until you’re him).

 

Think you’ve passed an invisible wall in those red forcefield rooms? Sort of. You can retreat as far back as the jumping ledges, provided you keep whacking Maul before you as you go (probably this is only possible with Qui-Gon). Glitchwise, however, this’ll usually cause the whole last sequence to start over from the beginning, thereby obviating the whole purpose of such a “retreat.”

 

You can (sort of) whack Maul into that shaft at the very end. He’ll hop out right away, but after he does so, he’ll be “stunned” for about half a second. It’s times like this that you gotta go to work, especially with ol’ Molasses.

 

Some people have wondered if there’s any way of bodily tossing him in. There is, but it’s glitch-city if you do. A recent post of mine:

 

“It is possible to knock Maul into the pit at the end. I have done this [several times].

 

“You're not supposed to, though, so the program glitches. Specifically, he disappears into the pit and you're simply stuck there. The level doesn't end, and there's no phone for you to use. Your only option is jumping in yourself for another try.

 

“What's supposed to happen is this: you know how when you're whacking the snot out of a droid right near a ledge, and you're backing him up and backing him up, he won't fall off the ledge? He simply "hops" back on the ledge automatically, even if he's in the middle of flailing about from your blows?

 

‘That's what Maul does.

 

“Three things:

 

“1. When he "hops" back, he'll take a breather. this can be an important opening.

 

“2. Careful. Your character will not automatically jump back like his, so it's possible to "combo" yourself right off that ledge.

 

“3. The two times I definitely knocked him into the pit and he disappeared were with long range techniques: Amidala's laser, and Qui-Gon's long-range force technique. Never been able to do this with just a saber.”

 

Some [shadeShifter] have reported that if he’s on the far side of the pit and he jumps after you, he’ll occasionally misjudge and fall right in. Same glitch applies, though.

 

And, given that the final part of Maul’s death animation is that he falls BACK and lies there, some have been led to ask what happens if you kill him just when his back is right up against that pit; does he fall in a disappear, neatly dying?

 

No. I forget who first accomplished this (I believe it was probably Maul Clone or ShadeShifter), but it wasn’t me, although I have since done it. If you kill Maul with his back against the pit, when he falls over to lie there but finds only a hole, he’ll suddenly pop up on his feet again for a split-second and face you. He still counts as dead, though, and the level is about to end.

 

Nor can you slice Maul in half, like in the movie. Least I never have.

 

 

LEVEL ELEVEN: DROIDEKAS

 

In this round, you get to be one of those rolling battle droids. You must “attack” 18 pilots, then kill the 3 Jedi at the end, all within the time limit (a count of 150), to win.

 

Don’t stand there firing countless salvos at the pilots; they’re wimps. One single hit should do it. If you’ve come out of your roll too close to them, it’s more efficient to “punch” them (square). They take a moment to disappear, so your cue to move on is when you hear them groan. That means they’re done for. But unlike level nine, you’ve got to get every one.

 

The Jedi die easily, too. Just take care of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon from a distance before you do Mace. And it’s best to do Mace from a distance, too. If you’re dumb enough to maneuver yourself into a position where all three are whacking away at you at once, you’re probably not going to escape.

 

If you’ve missed some of the pilots but manage to kill the three Jedi within the time limit, you’ll be given the “objective failed” screen, and you’ll have to start the level over, minus a guy.

 

Should it be necessary, you can do a cutesy “block” with L1, although why you would want to is beyond me, since those Jedi never seem to let up. and you can’t deflect their lasers back at them. (Although you can die in this level, you need so much damage to do so that your timer will probably run out first.)

 

Note that you can target – or at least face – your enemies here with R1. I’d recommend hitting this as soon as you come out of your roll, right before you fire.

 

I’ve never found any “goodies” in any of the corners. Nor is there any reward for completing this level. (When you do, no trumpets sound: the screen “freezes” momentarily and you’re instantly returned to the main menu.)

 

 

LEVEL TWELVE: KAADU RACE

 

(This level is unlocked by playing the game through with Adi.)

 

I know, I know. Which guy am I? I couldn’t make heads or tails out of this level at first, either.

 

You’re the Kaadu closest to the bottom of the screen. Your “speed” is red, on the lower left of the screen.

 

Run faster by alternately pressing SCSCSCSCSCSCSC as fast as you can. Careful not to hit them both at the same time. Steering your Kaadu is not possible.

 

Notice that the landscape here is a miscegenetic hodgepodge of leftovers from Naboo and Ruins. (And what about the droids at the end crowding around you and bizarrely repeating, “There they are; get them!” What’s up with that?)

 

If the race is close, there’s no way of knowing who won. Unbelievable.

 

No prize for this level.

 

 

 

 

------------------

Wart

 

Get your free JPB guide at:

http://jedipowerbattlesguide.homestead.com/JPB.html