Super Star Wars (SNES)

Like regular Star Wars, except a little bit more Super.

I'm guessing this started off on paper as decent looking piece of artwork, and things really only started to go wrong after they scanned it in.

They've taken the intro of the movie from the Star Destroyer coming to frame, to the launch of the escape pod, and managed to fit it into one scrolling picture. There's explosions and blaster fire going on too, it looks alright.

Luke ready! Enemies ready! Go!

I'm immediately assaulted by seemly endless flying enemies and scorpions. I keep blowing them up, they just keep coming.

Wow, I just noticed the face in the top left.

Yep, that's definitely Luke Skywalker.

The enemies can drop hearts when they explode, which restore a tiny bit of my health. But the things often disappear before I can get to them. If I'm careful I can just about get hold of as much health as I lose.

Wow, I've found a spot where enemies don't respawn infinitely. I can finally catch a five second break from blowing up wildlife.

You know, I have no idea what I'm even doing here. I don't remember Luke ever wandering off into the desert on foot and blowing up scorpions in the movie.

Oh crap it's the Sarlacc pit monster! Aren't you two movies too early?


ONE DEATH AND A LEVEL REPLAY LATER.

How am I even supposed to dodge this? I can jump pretty high but I can't float. Maybe I'm supposed to jump over the other side of the level the second I see him pop up above the sand.


ANOTHER LEVEL REPLAY LATER.

I wish I could say I'd finally mastered this boss fight, but the truth is I just stood there and shot him. He just didn't come and attack me this time.

Well that's gonna screw up Super Return of the Jedi a little. Unless Sarlacc's got a twin brother.

Look down Luke, there's a robot waving at you! He's right there man, you don't even need the binoculars, just look down a bit.

It seems we're going off to rescue R2D2 from the Jawas then. Wait, this never happened in the movie! Though this does work out as a better deal, as he doesn't have to buy them this way.

So Luke climbs into his landspeeder and... wait, he's in the landspeeder now? If he could have done this at any time, why did he go wandering off and blowing up scorpions? Was he just bored?

Oh right, Luke climbs into his landspeeder and then drives around for a bit aimlessly because I have no clue where I'm supposed to be going. These little Jawa things keep throwing grenades at me so my first plan is to blow them to up. And then eat their hearts to steal their vitality.

Ah, I killed the prerequisite number of Jawas, and my objective was revealed to me. Weirdly the landspeeder can move around without these jets on, but not turn. Turning around and boosting forwards burns jet fuel, which I need to refill by blowing up little metal tower things and collecting the tank from inside.

Luke decides to leave C3PO in the landspeeder and chase the Jawa's sandcrawler on foot. I hope he remembers where he parked.

These hatches on the side can be destroyed with gunfire, but they seem to repair themselves off screen if I leave them and come back. Which is annoying.

To be honest, I wasn't enjoying this game much at all. Each new level seems to introduce fantastic new ways to piss me off.

But then I collected the seeker power up, which means I have infinite homing missiles! Look at them arc gracefully across the screen, wiping out every annoying turret, flame hatch, and Jawa automatically.

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against run and gun gameplay, it's just that I'm kind of in the middle of a tricky platforming bit here and I could do with less things shooting at me while I'm trying to land my jumps.

Oh crap, misjudged that jump. I need to land and wait for the right moment to try again. These platforms keep moving up and down so I need to time it right. Plus there's no double jumping in this so I have to make sure I do a super jump by pressing up on the d-pad.

If I screw up even a single jump, chances are I'm going to be falling all the way back down to the bottom and I have to do it all again.

(Though I didn't actually screw this jump up, I'm falling onto a platform just off screen.)

Damn, how many turrets does this things need? Well I guess the answer is 'more than this', because I'm getting past them without much trouble. It helps that I can just stand on top of them.

What the hell is this? When did I collect this weapon power up? I try to fire off homing missiles and instead the game gives me blue balls.

Damn, I can't seem to cycle back through the weapons I've collected.

Well that's annoying, I collected another weapon power up and now I've moved up to plasma. I guess if I want my homing missiles back I'm going to have to get Luke killed and start collecting weapon power ups from scratch.

Wow, who left a lightsaber here? But it's turned on, don't they realise how incredibly dangerous that is? Actually, judging by all these flame jets built into the walls I guess they don't actually give a shit.

Sadly this lightsaber actually just extends my health bar. Though that might actually be more useful than an actual lightsaber now that I think about it.

Okay, what the hell? This forcefield automatically activates when I get close. I tried to slide past it, but it appears too quickly. I can't destroy the emitters, I can't find a power box to blow up or an alternate path.

I had a brilliant plan. I walked away from the forcefield, then slid back towards it while it was deactivating, so it didn't have time to come back on before I was through.

And then a robot shot me! Not just any robot, one of those bloody walking boxes. The ultimate humiliation.

Oh that's just great. I step onto a lift and it drops me onto some spikes.

Wow, not only did I fail, but now I've got Darth Vader rubbing my face in it. What an asshole.

I could continue playing from the forcefield bit, but I think I'm done with the game now. It seemed to want to throw a screenful of hazards at me every chance it got, so that I'd have to constantly grab hearts from enemies to survive. It's not a terrible game, I just didn't find it very satisfying to play.