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THE FIFTH ELEMENT (PS)
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Publisher: Sony.
Developer: Kalisto Entertainment. Released: October 1998 (Europe). Genre: Action/Adventure. Other versions: PC. Posted 14th February 2025. By Shane Battams © 2025 |
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Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, a passion project the director began writing at just 16 years of age, would finally see the light of day in 1997. While critics were divided between elation and irritation, it would become one of the highest grossing films of the year. Consequently, a video game adaptation seemed inevitable, especially given its rich sci-fi world. The PlayStation game wouldn’t arrive until more than a year after the film’s release but, with film company Gaumont assisting, it certainly offered promise. Sadly, the belated movie tie-in would result in another displeasing licensed game on a console full of them. Dodgy gameplay mechanics, a poorly structured campaign and unbalanced difficulty make it far more frustrating than it is fun, and its few bright spots struggle to shine through the many woes.
Loosely structured around the film, The Fifth Element puts you in the shoes of two characters. Korben Dallas is a taxi driver turned hero after the other protagonist, Leelo, crashes into his cab after escaping a lab. It concerns five elements that are needed to protect Earth from a great incoming evil, but our heroes must contend with Zorg and his hired goons as they try to save the planet. However, like many other tie-ins on the console, the story is borderline butchered as short FMV clips add some context to each mission, but fail to tell a cohesive narrative. If you try to experience this story without prior knowledge of the film, it makes almost no sense, akin to studying A Clockwork Orange while reading the book upside down.
The Fifth Element is blighted by naff combat, ugly presentation and woeful platforming
Nonetheless, there are 16 stages, and these mostly entail the same general structure. As either character, you explore fairly large levels while seeking out key items, dealing with thugs in combat and partaking in platforming. While initially controlling Korben, you eventually swap to Leelo, and their styles do vary somewhat. Korben can wield firearms such as handguns, assault rifles and even an electricity gun to combat foes, and his levels somewhat resemble a run-and-gun game. By contrast, Leelo remains unarmed but can perform hand-to-hand combos and throw grenades but her gameplay is more geared towards platforming and exploration. It could have offered an incentive for replays, perhaps like Resident Evil’s two character systems.
Instead, the structure is a bit more laborious. After the first three missions, the selection screen allows you to choose between characters. But it’s less of a choice and more like deciding which character to clear first, as you’re required to beat the same level twice as each protagonist. Unfortunately, the levels themselves aren’t different enough to prevent this from growing tedious, as while there is some divergence due to differing abilities (Leelo can crawl through smaller gaps), you’ll still be retreading a lot of old ground. There’s so much crossover, in fact, that levels often feature the same secret areas and pick-ups, even if some items such as psionic blasts cannot be used by both of them. While this means there’s superficially 24 levels instead of just 16, it all feels cheaply padded. Not even a fun couple of levels, such as shooting ringing bomb phones in frantic fashion, can make up for all the filler.
Instead, the structure is a bit more laborious. After the first three missions, the selection screen allows you to choose between characters. But it’s less of a choice and more like deciding which character to clear first, as you’re required to beat the same level twice as each protagonist. Unfortunately, the levels themselves aren’t different enough to prevent this from growing tedious, as while there is some divergence due to differing abilities (Leelo can crawl through smaller gaps), you’ll still be retreading a lot of old ground. There’s so much crossover, in fact, that levels often feature the same secret areas and pick-ups, even if some items such as psionic blasts cannot be used by both of them. While this means there’s superficially 24 levels instead of just 16, it all feels cheaply padded. Not even a fun couple of levels, such as shooting ringing bomb phones in frantic fashion, can make up for all the filler.
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Of course, a sturdy game could perhaps ease these structural woes, but unfortunately, the core mechanics are far from optimal. The camera is the biggest thorn here, a woeful system which struggles to keep up with any part of the experience. It gets stuck on walls, changes awkwardly without notice and is slow to reset behind your character, and makes most actions more difficult. Combat, be it shooting or melee, is clunky with ropey collision detection sometimes resulting in your strikes flying past foes or shots missing at point blank range. Platforming is also dire, as the aforementioned camera woes and unreliable jumps lead to a lot of deaths. This ties nicely into the Lives system, which carries over between characters and can be replenished by finding secret areas. The problem is that the difficulty is wildly inconsistent, with some levels proving a breeze and others suffering from numerous, instant-death hazards. It can cause massive headaches when, after losing a ton of lives, you’re either forced to replay levels in the hope of reducing the deaths count, or enter the next stage at a disadvantage. All these woes add up to a miserable experience.
The Fifth Element sadly isn’t easy on the eyes, either. By 1998 standards, there’s a lot of issues that drag down the film’s distinctive style. Pop-in is rife, even in interior levels, and can see you getting shot but not knowing where from. Textures and levels look very grainy, and some parts look almost like they could fall apart with seams sticking out noticeably. Character models look okay, and protagonists even change clothing like in the film, but there’s only a handful of enemy models and they often look and animate roughly. Even stages that see flying cars and the futuristic metropolis somehow look poor. The audio fares better, mostly due to the soundtrack. Mixing original tracks with select songs from the film’s soundtrack, they manage to build some atmosphere and prove quite catchy. One original track, which often plays during time-limited levels, is a borderline toe-tapper. The effects can often be harsh though, with explosions and gunfire typically overwhelming everything else. Outside of the occasional goon’s grunt, there’s very little voicing during gameplay, some canned lines before you begin a mission and an ear-piercing scream from Ruby Rhod every time you start a level.
The Fifth Element sadly isn’t easy on the eyes, either. By 1998 standards, there’s a lot of issues that drag down the film’s distinctive style. Pop-in is rife, even in interior levels, and can see you getting shot but not knowing where from. Textures and levels look very grainy, and some parts look almost like they could fall apart with seams sticking out noticeably. Character models look okay, and protagonists even change clothing like in the film, but there’s only a handful of enemy models and they often look and animate roughly. Even stages that see flying cars and the futuristic metropolis somehow look poor. The audio fares better, mostly due to the soundtrack. Mixing original tracks with select songs from the film’s soundtrack, they manage to build some atmosphere and prove quite catchy. One original track, which often plays during time-limited levels, is a borderline toe-tapper. The effects can often be harsh though, with explosions and gunfire typically overwhelming everything else. Outside of the occasional goon’s grunt, there’s very little voicing during gameplay, some canned lines before you begin a mission and an ear-piercing scream from Ruby Rhod every time you start a level.
The combat looks quite dynamic at times, but the controls are resoundingly unresponsive
The Fifth Element, even by PlayStation licensed game standards, would get blasted by critics at the time. In retrospect, it’s easy to see why. A haphazardly assembled, tediously padded and a mostly joyless experience from beginning to end, there are only a handful of fun moments during the dozen or so hours of playtime. However, these are nowhere near enough to earn a recommendation. Poor presentation, coupled with a wildly inconsistent difficulty, and no real content outside of completing the campaign, means this effort flunks on almost every front. Even fans of the film will get little out of the monstrously chopped retelling of the story. Like listening to Ruby Rhod for ten hours on loop, you should avoid this one at all costs.
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VERDICT"Haphazardly assembled, tediously padded and a mostly joyless experience from beginning to end, The Fifth Element should be avoided at all costs." OVERALL: 2/10 |
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The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004, Xbox)
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