From Knights of the Old Republic to Rogue Squadron and Super Star Wars, there have been some great Star Wars titles over the years. Unfortunately, there’s been more misses than hits and the worst Star Wars games are legendarily bad. With Jedi: Fallen Order releasing soon, you might want to check out some older titles. Just make sure you skip the 10 worst Star Wars games as they definitely aren’t worth revisiting at all.
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Worst Star Wars Games | Kinect Star Wars
If there’s one disappointment to come from the advent of motion controls, it’s that we never got a truly great game featuring a lightsaber. While the Wii at least had a few fun distractions, the Xbox 360 instead got Kinect Star Wars, a terrible mini-game collection that showed little respect for the source material. The best mode, at least if you like to embrace cringe, was the Galactic Dance-off. Essentially a rip-off of Dance Central, it had characters dancing to Star Wars-themed parodies of famous songs like “Hologram Girl” instead of “Hollaback Girl.” It’s exactly as bad as it sounds, but at least we got some fun videos and memes out of it.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars (Famicom)
A lot of early licensed games weren’t totally in-line with the properties they were based off of. For example, one of the earliest Dragon Ball titles was turned into what we now know as Dragon Power. However, they typically had some semblance to the source material. The same can’t be said for the Famicom title that was simply named Star Wars as it has Darth Vader transforming into a giant scorpion during his boss battle. Yes, you read that right. The former Anakin Skywalker has a lot of powers and abilities, but becoming a predatory arachnid was one of them.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Demolition
There have been a lot of awful Star Wars games and they’ve gone across a wide range of genres. Making a Twisted Metal rip-off using the Star Wars license isn’t even that bad of an idea, but sadly the PlayStation and Dreamcast title wasn’t nearly as good as the titles it was trying to imitate. The game’s action was simply too slow and dull compared to better vehicular combat games, and the controls were far too sloppy. This was more WWE Crush Hour than Twisted Metal, and nobody wants to play that trash.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon
How do you mess up a game that is about flying the Millennium Falcon through space and getting into intergalactic dog fights? Flight of the Falcon sounds awesome from a base level, but sadly the game was terrible. The Game Boy Advance was a poor platform for it to be on as it had lagging graphics and repetitive levels that were way too long. There’s nothing redeemable about this one, and it might just be the worst title on this entire list.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Jedi Arena
There’s nothing greater than the fantasy of wielding a lightsaber and going to battle. That was the thought process behind Star Wars: Jedi Arena, a 1983 release for the Atari 2600. However, instead of an awesome action scene, players instead used their lightsabers to reflect blasts from a Seeker ball. It’s a very underwhelming way to implement lightsabers, even if it did work well with the paddle controller. The simplicity has made it age very poorly and through a modern lens it is definitely one of the worst Star Wars games.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi
Once again, the idea was good here but the implementation was way off. A Star Wars fighting game should have been awesome. After all, you’ve got lightsabers, different types of aliens, Chewbacca, and all types of weapons to use. However, Masters of Teras Kasi played horribly with an overly simple fighting system and a terrible story that was essentially a waste of the player’s time.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Want to see something that hasn’t aged well? Check out the full-motion video cutscenes for Rebel Assault. While cool for its time, the rail shooter isn’t any fun to play. It can’t reach the highs achieved by contemporaries like Star Fox, and it doesn’t have impressive graphics as a saving grace anymore. Its sequel is slightly better, but it still sucks.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Rebellion
Perhaps the most missed potential comes in the form of this 1998 release. A 4X strategy game taking place within the Star Wars universe sounds amazing, and yet this absolutely wasn’t. Unit management was a mess to use, the gameplay was overly complex and came with a 170-page manual that players were expected to read through. Ultimately, it just felt like a chore to play and wasn’t any fun.
Worst Star Wars Games | Star Wars: Super Bombad Racing
While it’s easy to see why LucasArts thought that a Star Wars kart racing game would sell well, they were in the wrong. Super Bombad Racing did so poorly that the previously announced Dreamcast, PC, and Mac versions of the racer were canceled after it underperformed on PlayStation 2. Nearly every aspect of this was a bad idea as cool villains like Darth Maul had cutesy chibi-like character models. Nothing about the game truly felt like Star Wars. It was more like someone had modded Mario Kart, took out most of the fun, and then slapped on a Star Wars license at the last minute.
Worst Star Wars Games | Yoda Stories
Have you ever wanted to just be Yoda’s errand boy? Well, is Yoda Stories the game for you. It is a procedurally generated adventure game that has the player endlessly completing tasks for Yoda. From rescuing people in danger to finding an object, it’s basically just a never-ending list of fetch quests. The PC original is pretty awful, but the Game Boy Color port is even worse. But at least it ends after 15 levels.
