The game stars the titular group: Twin siblings Juno and Vela and their dog Lupus. After witnessing an attack on the not-Endor planet Goldwood against the not-Ewok Tribals by the bug forces of the evil emperor Mizar (not to mention getting attacked themselves), the group decided to come to to the aid of the Tribals.
Originally designed as a cutesy shooter, it got aDarker and Edgier makeover halfway through development and ended up better for it. When the game begins, the three Jet Force members are separated and have to take their own individual paths to theBig Bad's headquarters. Once they reunite, they're given upgrades (Juno and Vela get jetpacks, while Lupus is transformed into a tank) and are allowed to visit each others' previously exclusive levels. This is necessary forOne Hundred Percent Completion, which then unlocks the true final level and theTrue Final Boss.
This being a Rare game, it also contains a good amount of their characteristic humor, such as furry dice in the cockpit of the Jet Force Gemini ship and a major character with the distinctly un-Sci Fi-ish name "Jeff". The main criticism comes from theOne Hundred Percent Completion quests, which range fromteeth-grindingly hard tohand-bangingly unintuitive.
Beating a Dead Player: Anything that's not a boss will continue to shoot at you after you've died. In the case of the final boss, he settles back down on his floating rock and laughs in your face or does avictory fist pump.
Cutscene Power to the Max: In the pre-boss cutscene on Eschebone, Lupus uses his hovering ability about 8 times longer than he can in gameplay. In several other cutscenes, he hovers a good deal higher than he can jump.
Evolving Title Screen: Depending on how far you were into the game, the title screen would change in order - Juno running solo, Juno & Vela running, the whole team running, the whole team running in their upgrades,the whole team walking on the Federation homeworld in celebration.
Expy: Magnus. Think Yoda, only with floppy ears and greener.
The Federation: The Union, although only briefly mentioned in-game and in the manual.
Free Sample Plot Coupon: Cruelly inverted. When Mizar escapes from his palace after Lupus easily defeats him, he threatens the characters to redirect an asteroid to blow up planet Earth. Aware of this, King Jeff tells the protagonists that there is a huge mothership that will help them intercept the asteroid and find a way to stop it, but it's missing twelve pieces. Eleven of these pieces are scattered through the galaxy, so the three characters have to do aFetch Quest to retrieve them. The 12th piece, technically the first, is in Jeff's hands, buthe won't give it away until all 282 missing Tribals in the game are rescued. He doesn't even care if the aforementioned asteroid manages to hit Earth in the meantime.
Gotta Catch Them All: The ship piecesand the Tribals. As in, you need to collect all the ship parts to get to theFinal Boss, and you need to rescue all the Tribals,everywhere, to get all the ship parts. That particular side-quest causes the latter half of the game to drag.
Guide Dang It: Considered the game's primary weakness.
A good example is the second level. To progress, at the bare minimum, the player needs to shoot a panel in an easily missed segment of a room, located in a different room than the objective is, with no clue as to the location (and no indication is given that these panels are not decoration!). For more fun,100% Completion requires finding more of these panels throughout the level, all hidden in even more out-of-the-way places!
Probably the ultimate example, though, is the sheer obscurity of what you need to do to get one of the ship parts needed to take on the final boss. First, find a hidden passage so you can do one of the Floyd racing/shooting minigames. Then get a Gold rank on said minigame, which requires pretty much memorizing the path and the things you need to shoot. This will give you a set of earplugs. Now, take these earplugs to abear on one of the hidden planets. No, the game doesn't tell you anything more than the fact that the bear is having trouble sleeping because of all the noise Mizar's troops are making.
I Surrender, Suckers: If you catch a Drone unarmed, they'll raise their hands up in surrender. Often if you turn your back on them they'll pull out a grenade, and... Bye-bye, large portion of your health!
Karma Houdini:Jeff's brother Barry, who created the persona and robotic body of Mizar, gathered an entire army of marauding insects, murdered and enslaved countless members of his own tribe,slaughtered Juno and Vela's entire fleet, and was willing to pilot an asteroid on a suicide mission to destroy the Earth. All because he was jealous of Jeff's power and status. His only punishment seems to be a stern talking-to because he apparently "hadn't meant for things to go this far." Right.
Jiggle Physics: Vela demonstrates an early, low-poly version of this.
The Jimmy Hart Version: The character select theme sounds nothing like theImperial March... In fact, the entire musical style could be called a Star Wars pastiche.
Joke Weapon: "Fish food. It feeds fish. That's it."
Ludicrous Gibs: Go ahead, shoot that lone foot soldier ant with that shiny new Tri-Rocket Launcher. If that's not gory enough, turn on the Rainbow Blood mode,which doubles the amount of blood exploded enemies splatter and paint the entire room fabulous.
Man Behind the Man:Behind Mizar is, of all things, King Jeff's missing brother.
Mercy Kill: Sometimes Drones won't die instantly. They might fall to the ground and twitch in agony instead. The player can finish them off or let them expire after a few seconds.
Moral Dissonance: Jeff refuses to give you the last spaceship part until you saveall the Tribals. Note that this essentially means despite being one of the good guys, Jeff is holdingall of Earth ransom for his people.
Sometimes the drones will surrender to you in a room with a Life-Force door. The only way to get through the door is to commit a war crime.
More Dakka: Chain guns and rocket launchers are your best friends.
There's also one type of flying drone that shows up in groups of at least 12, each of which will shoot around 10 shots at a time.
Ms. Fanservice: Being the only female cast member, Vela was likely designed with acertain audience in mind. She wears no helmet so we can see herblue hair, has a neckline along with the usual assets and of course a tiny skirt.
My God, What Have I Done?:King Jeff has one of these moments after he, in a fit of rage, uses his rather incredible magic powers tozombify the entire planet of Tawfret. Granted, that was a mistake: he wasaiming at the bug soldiers, but one of them shot him and the zombie-beam hit a tree instead...
Parental Bonus: One NPC is missing his pants. Find them, give them back to him, and talk to him again, and he'll comment that his"yin and yang" are "warming up nicely".
Press X to Die: You can run into fireplaces and other heating elements to damage yourself.
Rule of Three: You don't get a rocket launcher. You get aTri-Rocket Launcher. Not to mention that there's 3 main characters, and Cluster bombs explode into 3 smaller bombs.
Spam Attack: After you destroy Mizar's wings in the second fight, he goesabsolutely nuts and proceeds to attack three times as much as he did in his earlier phases.
Take Your Time: After defeating Mizar the first time, he flees and commandeers a passing asteroid, putting it on a collision course with Earth. The characters' own ships aren't fast enough to catch up in time, but fret not! All the player must do is embark on a planet-hopping quest tocollect parts of a ship thatis fast enough. All this time, Mizar's asteroid will remain effectively in limbo en route to Earth.
A real life Lampshading adds to the hilarity. Because the search for the ship parts and Tribals is all time consuming, many people ended up resorting to guides. Only, there weren't many guides available because the game took forever for practically everyone to complete. When a 100% complete guide finally is released, the introduction paragraph taunts the gamers with (paraphrased)"Yep, it's been 6 months since this game shipped. And it's been 6 months since that asteroid left to destroy Earth. And you STILL haven't collected everything to chase after it. But fret not, we have a guide to help you."
Took a Shortcut: Lampshaded by Magnus. "I move pretty fast. I know."
Depending on where (and with what) you shoot a Drone (or Tribal), they can be decapitated, explode in anaudible shower of blood, or collapse on the ground, twitching. And if you want to, finish the job with theTri-Rocket.
Other options includesetting them on fire or watching them jerk in agony as you slowly fry them with theShocker.
You can collect the heads of your enemies.Or the Tribals.
You can disguise yourself as an enemy, and stand outside the mook's nightclub,with the queue of 20-30 Mooks trying to get into the place and decapitate all of them with a single shuriken...
Collecting the ant heads even gets you a reward; get enough and you can use theSilliness Switch.