Welcome to a new edition of Retro Corner and for this month I am dedicating my reviews to the Star Wars movie. Disney, who has produced these yearly films of the series called a "Star Wars Story" will now release one about Han Solo. Most of you already know how I feel about the Mouse Empire's crappy canon. The only reason they decided to produce this film was to sell it to the Original Trilogy fanboys and purists. You know the same crowd who complained about the Prequel Trilogy, despite the Originals having the same flaws, yeah those people. Of course, the other reason is to milk this franchise dry to make back those 400 billion dollars they spent on Lucas Films. In this edition, we check out Super Star Wars for the Super NES based on the film of Episode 4. Back in the 90s, Lucas Arts was the game studio for Lucas Films and a side company. They were solely used for gaming and would take properties from their parent company and produce titles based off these series. It's no surprise that Star Wars would see a game release from this studio. Another interesting aspect to consider is these games produced by Lucas Arts are not license titles of any kind. Gameplay The concept here bears a resemblance to JVC’s NES version as you can pick between Luke, Han and Chewbacca. Each character has a different set of abilities from Luke’s blaster and lightsaber to Han Solo's dodge roll. It was fun to switch them up when the option came up for certain levels. Luke was my obvious pick as he had both a lightsaber and a blaster that you can switch between. Even his slide ability came in handy compared to Han’s dodge roll and helped get passed many of the enemies' and bosses' attacks. With the lightsaber, it's a double edge sword as you can push enemies and even bosses back when jumping in mid-air with a roll. However, there’s a chance you could take damage during the attack in-between if you are not vigilant. The jump mechanic saw an improvement compared to its NES counterpart and the player can make proper jumps between platforms and attacks. It generates fluid movement between the levels' hazards and enemies without forcing the player to under or over-estimate a jump. Along the way you can pick power ups that can increase both your blaster power and health. However, if you lose a life or start a new level the health bar reverts back to where it was at the start. I always found this an issue and not just with the upgrade feature for health but the bonus items. They could have at least given a penalty where every time you lose a life it gradually reduces in length. The shields are another power up and act as the Starman of the game. My only issue comes from the damn thing not lasting long considering the difficulty of the levels on Tatooine. The last one isn’t really a power up but a point booster in the form of a Darth Vader helmet. Upon picking these bonus points will award two times the amount for an enemy you destroy. Picking these up in sessions will multiplie from 2 to 16 times and causing the player to earn even more points. Honestly, the points system is meaningless as who’s going to care how high your score is in a Star Wars game? The vehicle parts are truly fun where you shoot down the number of enemies required to progress. They even put the iconic Death Star attack and trench run to provide a cinematic feel to this part of the game. Compared to F-Zero and Contra 3, this was the best Mode 7 gameplay because of the flying and shooting mechanics. The gameplay had a solid design especially for a title based on the film, however, the overall concept had many flaws. The difficulty spikes remain a problem throughout the game as every enemy constantly respawns. It's not just one area but all the levels and in every part of the stages has too many respawning points. Unless you absolutely memorize these stages will be the only way to know when they are coming. The issue is similar to the original Ghosts N Goblins, but the problem for Lucas Arts is Capcom already corrected this type of flaw in that series. Lucas Arts should’ve studied Super Mario World instead if they wanted casual gamers to get into an official Star Wars title. Let’s not forget how ridiculous it was to upgrade your health. So why am I allowed to keep the weapon upgrade but my health returns to where it was at the start? The game is already hard but taking it away even when completing a stage without dying is utterly ridiculous. Then the lack of a password system kills it for me because of the difficulty. I can tell the studio had no experience at the time when this project saw development. If the game is not going to have a battery pack, then they should’ve developed a password system. It was even a standard feature so why they would not add this in puzzles me. You would figure the gameplay would come off better on a more powerful system then the NES version. Yet, Lucas Arts clearly hasn't learned anything from the NES title that got bugged with many problems. Rating: 7.8/10 Graphics/Presentation It wasn’t very often that license games got any special treatment in the graphics department at the time. However, since Lucas Arts is the developer it doesn’t count as a license title and the studio actually did a good job. During the 90s, not many of these games used the proper locations and characters that were found in a movie's universe. I could tell Lucas Arts took it upon themselves to check out the competition and looked at Capcom's Disney catalog of games. Starting with the enemies, you will find them all in their glory from the multiple alien types to several kinds droids. You will run into Jawas, droids and Tusking Raiders on Tatooine to the storm troopers on the Death Star. Even some of the bigger enemies like the Sarlacc Pit and Mantellian Savrip from Dejarik a chess style game will act as bosses. Speaking about the bosses, any avid Star Wars fan knows that Luke and Han didn't face any aliens of that kind in the film. I find it a little hilarious that the Sarlacc Pit got designed like a worm that came out of the ground of the first stage. It's interesting how this concept was a prelude to the 1997 special edition film of Return of the Jedi. In the digital remastered version of Jedi, the Sarlacc came out of the ground but not as a worm. Only the mouth as a beak comes out instead, so I don't know why they thought this was a worm. I also noticed a game piece from Dejarik called the Mantellian Savrip posed as a boss for the Mos Eisley Cantina stage. I'm not saying this was a bad choice as it fits the level but why wasn't Ponda Baba (the alien who threatens Luke) wasn't the boss instead? I guess some things needed to get changed around because the Mantellian game piece was bigger as opposed to Ponda who was the size of a man. The environments were as close to Star Wars that we gamers got at the time. The Mos Eisley and Death Star levels had the most efficient designs and didn't come off generic as seen on the desert portions of Tatooine. The 16-Bit technology on Super NES also employed a graphic style known as Mode 7. Think of it as an early Super FX graphics as this feature helped create a 3D effect to a certain extent. Even though only three stages used this (two on Tatooine and one on the Death Star), it still looked good. In fact, I'll go as far to say the Mode 7 detail showed a more brilliant design than on F-Zero and Super Mario Kart combined. The presentation apparently boasted some of the best features found in a movie game. The scenes from the film are still presented but as digital compressed images for apparent reasons. The icing on the cake was the soundtrack and the studio emulated it using a MIDI format to synthesize the music. Its evident this style is a far cry from the quality the games would get years later as seen in Shadows of the Empire. Regardless, it still sounded good on the Super NES's sound chip and a 16-bit mirror of the official album. There are a few problems I noticed with this version, despite the studio's efforts to produce quality graphics. On Tatooine, I encountered a few enemies that felt odd even for the Star Wars universe. I would run into large snakes that came out of ground and giant red scorpions on the desert stages. As you can tell none of these felt like they belong because do you recall them appearing in the film? I sure don't and way to pull a TMNT 1 NES move with adding enemies that have nothing to do with the product. There are still staple characters in the universe found in the game but these couple of examples got added for the sake of it. Sure, it isn't as bad as the missile balloons or the fire man but its these types of creatures that makes them look out of place. Overall, this is among the best of the movie base games you would find back then in terms of featuring good graphics. Rating: 8.2/10 Features/Content Out of the many things Lucas Arts did the best was adding nine cheat codes to unlock. The idea of cheat codes was the finest features for retro gaming as it gives more for the players to mess around. The staple features of enabling extra lives, invincibility, stage skip, and Debug modes are all included. It can make up for no password system and the ridiculous difficulty of the entire game. However, the problem stems from the fact that unless you received magazines like Nintendo Power back then would be the only to find out these existed. The one thing that gets on my nerves is using the second controller to input the codes. Again, I can’t understand why these developers pull this crap as every game before that always used a one player controller. I highly doubt programming is the issue as it’s a cake walk to add this to controller one. There are two ways to program codes with one, a designer either picks controller one to input the cheats or two, use a password system. That’s just 101 in game programming and controller two shouldn’t even be considered to enable these features. Nevertheless, using these cheats did make it easier to complete the game but as a double edge sword. Rating: 7.1/10 Final Rating Lucas Arts produced a solid version based on the classic film and its actually better than the NES game. Most of the problems in the gameplay and level design got fixed on Super NES with decent challenges. The game is still difficult but the jump mechanics helped for better platforming and action based attacks on the enemies. The graphics were pretty great for a movie based title as not many license games saw any good treatment in that era. Most of the stages looked accurate as you would see in the film with Mos Eisley and the Death Star having the best designs. The presentation came off as great as the other movie based titles like Aladdin on the Genesis. The still compressed images of the scenes and the synthesize soundtrack from the official album came off great in more ways then one. The Mode 7 graphics even saw better use compare to the early Super NES titles such as F-Zero. It provided a 3D effect with realistic detail on the environments with its design only getting better in the sequels. Of course, Super Star Wars isn't without its flaws as the difficulty and lack of a password made it hard. A password system remained a key feature in gaming back then if a company didn't want to shell out money for a batter pack. It didn't help that every time a stage got completed you health would return back to its default position. Of course, there are the cheats to enable, but unless you had a gaming magazine was the only way to know they existed. Even on that occasion I shouldn't have to use cheat codes to enjoy the challenges of these levels. Gameplay: 7.8/10 Graphics/Presentation: 8.2/10 Features/Content: 7.1/10 Final Rating: 7.6/10 Good
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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