Star Wars Episode 1: Racer - Platinum Trophy Guide

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer is a solid port of the classic Podracing game that originally released for PC and N64. You can read my full review for the game HERE.

Achieving the Platinum is rather easy and should only take you 3-6 hours depending on skill and how many cheats you want to use from the start of the game. For example, activating invisibility will definitely get you closer to that 3-hour estimate.

[UPDATE 1: There has been reports of several trophies not unlocking on Patch 1:01. Please be aware.]

[UPDATE 2: Since this guide was originally published I have had it pointed out that three of the trophies were changed on the server. A very odd occurrence. Please note that I have updated those three trophies now]

Introduction

Some quick tips for playing:

To boost you must be accelerating (R2) and then hold up on the left analogue stick. You’ll see the boost charge in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and when full you press X to boost.
Beware that boosting for too long will overheat and damaged or blow up your racer. You’ll hear the sounds of your craft overheating.
There’s a handbrake (O) but for the most part, just letting go of the accelerator and tapping around corners is the best option.
You can also drift, but it’s not super-obvious you’re actually drifting so I’d ignore (L1) unless you know what you’re doing.
Buy two pit droids. You can then buy really cheap parts in the junkyard, race with them which repairs them and get full trade-in value for them after. You can downgrade your items to do this if you want.
Only buy upgrades for your racer from the Junkyard and never overpay from Watto directly. You’ll need as many credits as you can to buy all the podracer upgrades

CHEATS

I had no issues testing any of the following cheats I’ve posted below and still unlocking trophies. However, another user has reported that using several of the cheats including autopilot (which I don’t include as a cheat here, because I never tested it) caused several trophies not to unlock for them, including the one for beating all races in first.

So when it comes to the cheats, you might be best to play it safe, but as I say, the ones below I did use before unlocking all my trophies and had no problems.

At a minimum, make sure you beat the final race you do for winning all races with NO CHEATS enabled.

To enter the following cheats you must click into a new profile and enter the following codes by holding L2 and using L1 to type:

Invincibility RRJABBA
Mirror Mode RRTHEBEAST
Debug Mode RRDEBUG
Unlock all Cheats RRTANGENTABACUS

To activate any of these you must pause the game when you’re in a race and enter Left, Down, Right, Up on the D-Pad. This will enable the cheat menu and let you enable and disable things like invisibility. You can play the entire game with that on if you’d like (it won’t be as fun) but some of the harder tracks still require skill to win, so it’s best to not get used to it as a crux.

Platinum Guide

You’ll earn the following trophies as you play through the first 21 races across the three circuits.

Make sure you race to be first and restart if you’re going to lose. This also means you can set each race to ‘winner takes all’ for higher credits earned. You’ll need all the credits to buy all the upgrades and there’s no way to earn extra credits post-game. As long as you only buy cheap stuff from the junkyard and restart any race you’re going to lose, you’ll be fine.

Complete Amateur Podracing Circuit
Complete Semi-Pro Podracing Circuit
Complete Galactic Podracing Circuit
Come in first place
Finish your first race
Reach 700 MPH
Reach 1000 MPH (Note: if you’re struggling with this, I achieved it on ‘Andobi Mountain Run,’ which is apart of the ‘Galactic Podracing Circuit.’ There’s a massive straight about half-way through the track and I got 1000mph without even trying here.
Set a new lap record
Purchase your first upgrade
Max out your Pit Droid Crew (I bought all Pit Droids ASAP before any upgrades. This means you can also cheese the Junkyard to make sure you have enough credits by the end of the game. You do this by downgrading a really damaged part, racing with it once so it’s fully repaired and then sell it back for your original part, plus some extra credits.
Perform a boost
Perform a boost start (Tip: like most racers, this simply involves pressing accelerate at the last moment after the countdown)
Unlock Bullseye Navior
Unlock Wan Sandage
Unlock Teemto Pagalies
Unlock Fud Sang
Unlock Sebulba
Unlock Aldar Beedo

You’ll have beat the main game now but there will be a few trophies remaining as well as one circuit with four races left in it.

If you’ve got enough credits now you can just begin buying up each top-level part for your racer. I had enough for all but one at this stage but grabbed the last part following the next race I did. Either way, you’ll earn:

Purchase all of the best upgrades

Now jump into any race you’ve already beaten and play as Sebulba.

During the race, you’ll want to do a couple of things. Firstly, double-tap the triangle button to activate Sebulba’s weapon. You want to hit 10 enemies with this. If you just go out of your way to spray every other racer you’ll get this quickly.

Hit 10 enemies with Sebulba’s weapon
Win a race with Sebulba

After that trophy pops proceed to activate boost and press triangle once to taunt your other racers. This should grab you two trophies, one for taunting and another for taunting while boosting. Finish the racer after this (you may need the credits.)

Taunt your opponents
Taunt during a boost

Now go unlock invisibility and mirror mode (codes at the top of this article) if you haven’t already and jump into any race with Anakin Skywalker. Pause at the start of the race and turn on both invisibility and mirror mode in the cheat menu.

If you didn’t get it by naturally playing you can turn on invisibility and then hold down boost until your engines catch fire. You won’t be in danger of blowing up so you can just hold R1 to repair them for a trophy. After you get that trophy just proceed to finish the race with mirrored mode left on.

Complete a Mirrored Race
Repair your engines from “warning” status back to stable as Anakin

Now you only have the four ‘Invitational Podracing Circuit’ races left. These are the hardest tracks in the game and invisibility will help for 3/4 a bit, but in ‘Abyss’ you can fall off the track for most of the race and invisibility won’t help you with that. So pick your favourite racer with the best stats and jump into each track.

Finish all four races in the first place and you’ll grab the remaining trophies as well as the shiny Platinum Trophy.