Star Wars:
Masters of Teras Kasi
The Emperor, tiring of the constant Rebel threat to his
plans for conquest, plays his hidden ace - Arden Lyn, a deceptively
young-looking woman who is the last known master of the ancient martial art of
teras kasi. Her mission is to hunt down Luke, Han, Leia and the other
Rebels...and eliminate them. Little does she know that the Rebels are aware of
the new threat to their cause, and are preparing for her arrival as well.
(LucasArts, 1997)
How best to describe Teras Kasi? Think of MTV's Celebrity Death Match
set in the Star Wars universe, and
you'll have a pretty good idea, sans claymation. Teras Kasi could have been more easily
titled Star Wars Ultimate Fighting and gotten the point across
more succinctly (and probably would've sold better as well).
I don't object entirely in principle to the idea of a Star Wars
fighting game. After all, who wouldn't like to take on some stormtroopers, or
engage a Sith Lord in some swordplay? But it should be a decent game, not a
combination of a Kung Fu game and a WWF game with Star Wars
characters and settings. The thin plotline about Arden Lyn isn't even sustained
by the game - if Teras Kasi was actually a relevant addition to the
Star Wars universe, there would be something in the game to
prevent such ridiculous matches as Han vs. Chewie (which is, believe it or not,
a combination that can be played). Make no mistake - there's no story,
just flying fists. And there's something incredibly incongruous about seeing
Luke, Han and Boba Fett engaging in suspiciously kung fu-esque martial arts in
the first place.
The death blow (so to speak) in my mind for Teras Kasi is the impossible-to-remember
control scheme. Each character has a "special move" whose trigger
sequence is incredibly complex. By the time you've opened the instruction
manual to see how to send Chewbacca into a Wookiee rage, he's already being
pummeled by a Gammorrean Guard.
Do I have anything good to say about Teras Kasi? Well, the
character animations are rather well done, and if you can stop for breath long
enough to glance at the background scenery, do so - AT-ATs stroll past in the
background on Endor, while Imperial Probe Droids waft through the air in other
locales. There are also decent background renderings of such Star
Wars settings as Dagobah, Cloud City and Hoth. Why these fights
happen in such unlikely places, I can't answer you, but...oops. Sorry. I was
trying to stick to saying something nice here.
And finally, I'll admit that this review comes with a built-in bias: I'm
not a big fan of martial arts fighting games. I'd rather catch a real live
martial arts competition on ESPN2 than try to fake it on the Playstation. So I
have a predisposition against Masters of Teras Kasi, but it's just
possible that others may like it. Some of us Yoda-aged codgers from the old
school of Atari just don't get these
newfangled fighting games.
Rating: 
One quarter - worth playing at least once or twice for curiosity's sake.
Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster
