Star Wars Episode I: Racer on the Nintendo 64 is one of those licensed games I look back on fondly. When The Phantom Menace came out, I wanted nothing more than to podrace just like Anakin, flying through canyons and avoiding deadly opponents to claim victory. While we haven’t quite been able to live out this fantasy many times through video games, Episode I: Racer will always have a special place in my heart. So much so that, when Star Wars: Galactic Racer was announced during the Game Awards, I experienced a Ratatouille-style flashback to simpler times. During Summer Game Fest, I got to play about an hour of Star Wars: Galactic Racer. While it does successfully recapture much of the charm of the N64 classic, it also offers a much deeper experience than I was expecting from a racing game.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Going into my preview, I was expecting a typical arcade-style multiplayer racing game with maybe some unique mechanics, and I would have been perfectly happy with that. Sure, Galactic Racer does offer this experience, but overall it’s a significantly deeper game with a canon narrative (it takes place post-Return of the Jedi in the New Republic’s infancy). I won’t delve into story spoilers much here so you can go in fresh, but you play as Shade, a lone racer with their eyes set on glory and revenge throughout the entirety of the campaign.

In the solo Campaign mode, you’ll play through a run-based narrative that allows you to improve your ships over time. Played through three acts, there are multiple vehicles to race with, and just as many different types of races and missions to engage with. There are naturally the traditional races, where placing first is the goal. But you can also complete Field Tests, where you test out certain flying mechanics. Finally there are Eliminators, similar to Mario Kart World’s Knockout Tour. Once you successfully complete any of these objectives, you’ll earn parts and upgrades to outfit your racers in various ways.

Upgrades can be applied to one of six available stats; Cornering, Afterburner, Resilience, Ramjet, Battery, and either Drift, Kinetic Burst, or Knife Edge, depending on the vehicle type. The ship parts you can install offer modifications to how a ship will behave, and you can equip four right from the start. Each part comes in different rarity levels, and the rarer it is, the more potent its effect.

Run-Based, But Not Kessel

But what makes Star Wars: Galactic Racer a Roguelike? It’s run-based, meaning if you’re destroyed, fail an objective, or don’t finish within the top three of a race, you lose one of your three League Entry Tokens. Once these are gone, you’ll have to start a run over. But some progression is constant, like Credits and Racer Styles, making each subsequent run slightly easier. You can be destroyed in handful of ways in Galactic Racer, like overusing the Ramjet boosts, or by being ran off the track by another racer or crashing. I wasn’t able to complete a full run during my preview time, but it appears as though there is plenty of content to experience through multiple runs.

I found there to be a bit of a learning curve when getting oriented with the game’s rules and systems, and the fast-paced and frenetic nature of the game sometimes made knowing what was a turn or not difficult to deduce at times. One of the most (and only, to be fair) frustrating things is when you eliminate another racer from an event. By ramming another racer into an obstacle or off course, the camera slows down and changes perspective as a way to emphasize your accomplishment and add some dramatic flair.

But in reality, this almost always caused me to crash once the camera returned to position. Because you’re moving incredibly fast, even in slow motion I traveled a great distance within the span of a couple seconds, and was never able to reposition to avoid slamming into a wall. A few of my runs ended this way, and I really hope the studio makes this more intuitive in the finished build.

Now THIS Is Podracing

Unfortunately, while there was an opportunity to get hands-on with the podracing part of the game, I let my time run out playing the main campaign. It’s really that fun! Luckily, Temple of Geek’s own Kurosh Jozavi got to experience it during his time with the game. Here’s what he has to say:

The dedicated podracing mode captures the wild speed and spectacle that made the Star Wars prequels’ racing so memorable, with unique racer abilities and aggressive combat. My only notable concern is the cinematic slow-motion camera that triggers after destroying an opponent, as it feels intrusive during the mode’s blistering pace and can make navigating tight sections more frustrating than exciting.

Overall, I rather enjoyed time with Star Wars: Galactic Racer despite how counterintuitive the camera can be during races. I was genuinely surprised at its depth, and its run-based campaign structure has me eager to explore different routes and try out various events when I get my hands on the full game. The amount of customization you put into your version of Shade and your vehicles is impressive, and the canon narrative will keep any Star Wars fans entertained while engaging with its ultra-fast racing mechanics.

Star Wars: Galactic Racer launches October 6 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.