Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron PSP Review — Ground to Space in One Battle

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron — The Most Ambitious Star Wars Game on PSP

If someone told you that a handheld game from 2009 would let you fight on the ground, hop into a starfighter, fly into orbit, board a capital ship, and blow it up from the inside — all in a single seamless battle — you'd probably laugh. But that's exactly what Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron pulled off on the PSP, and it remains one of the most ridiculously ambitious Star Wars games ever made.

Ready to experience it yourself? Grab Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron here and fire up PPSSPP.

What Makes Elite Squadron Special

The Battlefront series was already beloved for its large-scale Star Wars battles, but Elite Squadron took the formula and cranked it to eleven. The headline feature — transitioning between ground combat and space battles within the same match — was something even the console entries hadn't achieved. You'd be fighting stormtroopers in the streets of Mos Eisley, then sprint to a landing pad, jump into an X-Wing, and within seconds you're dogfighting TIE Fighters above the planet. It sounds like a tech demo fantasy, but it actually works.

Developed by Rebellion Developments, Elite Squadron was built on top of the groundwork laid by Renegade Squadron, but with a scope that pushed the PSP hardware to its absolute limits. The result is a game that occasionally stutters and doesn't always look pretty, but delivers an experience you genuinely can't get anywhere else.

A Campaign That Spans the Entire Saga

The single-player campaign follows X2, a clone trooper created from Jedi DNA, across the entire Star Wars timeline — from the Clone Wars through the Galactic Civil War and beyond. You'll fight alongside familiar faces like Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and even cross paths with your rival clone brother X1, who takes a decidedly darker path.

The story hits all the major beats:

• Battling on Geonosis during the Clone Wars
• Surviving Order 66 and its aftermath
• Joining the Rebel Alliance and fighting at Hoth and Endor
• A final confrontation that determines the fate of the galaxy

It's not the deepest narrative in Star Wars gaming, but the sheer variety of locations and scenarios keeps things exciting from start to finish.

Gameplay Highlights

Ground Combat

On the ground, Elite Squadron plays like a streamlined Battlefront experience. You pick from multiple classes — soldiers, engineers, snipers, heavy troopers — and charge into chaotic 16-player battles across iconic Star Wars locations. The controls are tight for a PSP shooter, and the customization system lets you tweak your loadout with different weapons, equipment, and abilities.

What sets it apart from other portable shooters is the sense of scale. Battles feel genuinely large, with AI troops swarming capture points, vehicles rolling across the battlefield, and the constant hum of starfighters overhead reminding you that there's a whole other war happening in the sky.

Space Battles and Ship Boarding

The space combat is where Elite Squadron truly shines. Flying starfighters feels responsive and satisfying — weaving through asteroid fields, locking onto enemy ships, and watching them explode in bursts of light never gets old. But the real magic happens when you target an enemy capital ship, fly into its hangar, jump out of your fighter, and start sabotaging it from the inside.

Destroying reactor cores, fighting through corridors of enemy troops, then escaping before the whole thing blows — it's the kind of Star Wars fantasy that most games only dream about delivering. If you enjoy this kind of action, check out our roundup of the best PSP action games for more recommendations.

Multiplayer and Instant Action

Elite Squadron supported ad-hoc multiplayer for up to 16 players, and the Instant Action mode let you set up custom battles with your preferred maps, modes, and factions. Conquest, Capture the Flag, and Hero Assault modes gave the game plenty of replay value beyond the campaign.

The Technical Achievement

Let's be honest — Elite Squadron doesn't always run smoothly. Frame rates can dip during hectic moments, textures are muddy, and the transition between ground and space involves a brief loading screen rather than a truly seamless swap. But context matters. This was a PSP game doing things that even PS3 and Xbox 360 titles weren't attempting in 2009.

The fact that Rebellion crammed ground combat, vehicle warfare, starfighter dogfights, and capital ship boarding into a single UMD is a technical achievement that deserves respect. Running it today on PPSSPP with upscaled resolution makes it look significantly better than it ever did on original hardware. If you haven't set up PPSSPP yet, our PPSSPP emulator download guide will get you started in minutes.

Who Should Play This?

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron is a must-play if you fall into any of these categories:

• Star Wars fans — The game covers the entire saga and lets you participate in the most iconic battles from the franchise
• Battlefront series lovers — It's the most feature-complete Battlefront on any handheld, period
• Players who love variety — The constant switching between infantry, vehicles, and starfighters keeps every battle feeling fresh
• Third-person shooter fans — Solid gunplay with enough depth to stay interesting throughout the campaign

Fun Facts

• Elite Squadron was originally planned as a PS3/Xbox 360 title called "Battlefront III" before being scaled down to PSP and DS
• The ground-to-space transition tech was developed by Free Radical Design before the project changed studios
• X2 can eventually wield a lightsaber and use Force powers, making him one of the few playable Force-sensitive clones in Star Wars games
• With over 5,600 downloads on QrivitiGames alone, it remains one of the most popular PSP shooters in our catalog

Final Verdict

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron is a flawed gem. It's ambitious to a fault, occasionally rough around the edges, and asks you to forgive some technical compromises. But in return, it delivers a Star Wars battle experience that no other handheld game has matched — before or since. The ability to fight across land, air, and space in a single battle is still impressive today, and the campaign's journey across the full Star Wars timeline gives it an epic scope that punches well above its weight class.

Fire up PPSSPP, download Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron, and experience the most ambitious Battlefront game that almost nobody talks about.