Retro Review: Clash of the Lightsabers

Star Wars Episode 1: Clash of the Lightsabers is a really light game for two players. And it’s cheap.

Clash of the Lightsabers is a game that got pumped out by Hasbro in the 1999 rush to get as many Phantom Menace products on the shelves as possible and it shows in the quality of the components in this game.

The “rulebook” is just some cheap paper that’s folded a couple times.

The card stock is cheap and the “card art” is just stills from the movie which are hilariously cheesy looking. The best instance of these stills is on the scoring cards: these just use the same picture, but gradually zoomed in on each subsequent card. It’s hilarious how little effort was put into the visual design of this game.

The nicest aspect of the components are the two pewter figures of Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul. Though these figures are entirely superfluous to the actual gameplay.

But.

Once you’re done having fun at how cheap the components are, the game itself is actually pretty fun and (mostly) well designed.

This game does lightsaber combat better than any game I’ve ever played. Better than any video game, better than any other tabletop game. 

Lightsaber fights are all about wearing your opponent down and finding an opening, not about damaging your opponent repeatedly, like in every game ever made with a lightsaber.

Think of the lightsaber fights in the movies. With a few minor exceptions, when you’re hit ONCE by a lightsaber the battle is pretty much over, no matter how piddly the wound *cough* Obi Wan *cough*.

Yet despite this, every game I can think of that featured lightsaber combat involves striking your opponent repeatedly and dealing damage; damage that doesn’t take your enemy out of the fight immediately.

Obviously representing a lightsaber fight that immediately ends when someone get’s hit in a game would almost certainly be a lame game.

Well Clash of the Lightsabers pulls it off, which is what is so impressive about this little card game.

Clash of the Lightsabers captures that back and forth, the give and take, the fast flurries of attacks that happen in a saber battle, all without actually damaging your opponent.

It’s all about overpowering them and gaining the upper hand until you’ve worn them down enough to land a finishing blow.

Here’s how it works.

One of you plays as Qui-Gon and the other as Maul. Each player has a deck of cards. Both of these decks are completely identical save for the “artwork.”

Each player draws seven cards lays down three cards in front of them, lined up with the opponent’s: one for each battle in the round.

Then the first pair of cards are flipped and the fight begins.

The combat is simple. You want to have a higher total attack value than your opponent.

You and your opponent take turns laying down cards onto the battle row, increasing the total attack for that battle until either one player passes or runs out of cards.

The player whose total attack value is lower, is the player whose turn it is. So if your opponent has 5 attack out, and you have 1. You can play another 1, and another, until you have more. The underdog is always responsible for overpowering, or backing down. 

Then play proceeds to the next battle in the round, and then the third one.

Whoever won the majority of the battles, wins the round and moves up on the score track. First to win five rounds wins the game.

The strategy lies in how to manage your cards across the battles. Do you go all in swinging in the first battle? Do you hold back your cards for the last one?

Do you spread out your cards evenly?

The thematic feel of the back-and-forth nature of the lightsaber fight is surprisingly palpable.

In addition to this simple, yet effective, back and forth gameplay are the special cards. These cards do things like double your attack value, force your opponent to discard a card, or let you forfeit the battle, but retrieve all the cards you’ve played back into your hand: an extremely powerful move.

This game isn’t complicated and it isn’t particularly deep, but this cheap (in more ways than one) game simulates lightsaber combat better than any other game I’ve played.

And I need more.

In the game we only get Qui-Gon and Maul and they have identical decks.

I want Dooku and Yoda and Obi Wan and Anakin and Windu and Sidious and Grievous and Ventress and Ahsoka! And give each one a unique deck and you’ve got yourself a game with incredible potential.

Hasbro recently resuscitated The Queen’s Gambit in the form of Star Wars Risk, maybe they can revive this game and breathe it new life.

Please?

I like this game.

 

House Rules:

If you intend on playing this game, there are two house rules I use that improve the game:

1. The retreat card does not put special cards back into your hand. This makes it still very good, but not extremely overpowered.

2. This one has no effect on gameplay, but it does add a bit of theme. Since the scorecards and makers are pretty boring, this spices it up a bit.

Set the score cards in a row, with Qui Gon and Maul facing off in the middle. When one player wins a round, advance both figures towards the edge, each player trying to force the other off the edge.

After you advance, remove the last card in the row behind the player who scored a point.

Mechanically it’s identical to the scoring system in the base game, but it has a more thematic feel.