Super Star Wars
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 The Force will be with you! Always!
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Super Star Wars is a run-and-gun video game series based on the original trilogy of Star Wars. The series focused on the events of the first three original films.
List of games
- Super Star Wars (1992)
- Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1993)
- Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1994)
Why They Rock
Overall
- Each game is a side-scrolling run and gun gameplay much like Contra with you having to fight multiple incoming enemies.
- When you're not playing in a side-scroller you play in vehicle segments. You get to drive and fly things like the landspeeder, X-wing, speeder bike, and the Millennium Falcon.
- Each game there are multiple playable characters with different abilities. In the first two games, you play as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, but in the third you get to play as Princess Leia and Wicket.
- Each game has multiple bosses with the roster growing with each new entry with some being recognizable like the Rancor, Sarlacc Pit, and of course, Darth Vader, while others are entirely unique.
- Super Star Wars (A New Hope) has 8 bosses, The Empire Strikes Back has 11, and Return of the Jedi has 14.
- Each game manages to accurately recreate the sound effects from the movies including the soundtrack by John Williams.
- Great graphics that were considered cutting-edge at the time.
- There are power-ups the player can acquire that can be found by destroying objects or by exploring.
- Plasma shield - Temporary invulnerability
- Thermal detonator - Clears screen of enemies
- Health (Small and Large) - Regains health
- Time - Increases time to finish the level
- Bonus - Multiplies the number of points by 2
- Health Sword - Increases size of health bar
- Extra Life - One more life
- As you progress through the games you can find multiple blasters that can upgrade your blaster.
- Laser blaster (starting blaster): Functions just like in the movies.
- Flame blaster: Launches a blast of fire at its target.
- Proton Seeker: An explosive projectile that has homing capabilities, allowing it to follow its designated target.
- Rapid ion gun: Fires a powerful rapid ion blast at its target.
- Plasma Wave blaster: Launches destructive waves of plasma.
Super Star-Wars
- The port to PlayStation 4 and PS Vita added a save feature making the game a lot less brutal.
- Compared to later entries, this one does have a gradual learning curve, unlike Empire and Jedi which start difficult and don't let up.
The Empire Strikes Back
- The game makes many improvements over the original.
- This game introduces a password system, meaning you can now go to specific levels instead of having to beat the game in one sitting.
- There is a Double Jump, making the platforming much easier.
- You can now run and shoot at the same time.
- All three characters now have special abilities.
- Han can throw bombs.
- Chewie has a Spin Attack.
- Luke can collect 8 different Force powers during the Dagobah levels: elevation, mind control, slowdown, saber control, saber deflect, invisible, heal, and freeze.
Return of the Jedi
- Instead of the game arbitrarily spawning the player back to a certain area after death, there is now a checkpoint system in the form of R2-D2.
- The last Millennium Falcon level uses a first person view for going through the Death Star which is pretty innovative for a SNES game.
Bad Qualities
Overall
- The entries after Super Star Wars don't introduce any new weapons.
- Due to the limitations of the SNES, the game doesn't give an entirely faithful adaptation to the movies as some crucial scenes like Obi-Wan's death, Luke's fight against a hallucination of Vader, and the reveal of Vader being Luke's father is skipped.
- The lightsaber is actually inefficient in some cases as you have to get in close with enemies and you're likely to take a hit.
- Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi didn't get a save function when ported to Virtual Console like Super Star Wars did.
- Unlike the first game, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi don't have a gradual learning curve.
- These games are infamous for their frustrating difficulty. This is primarily because so many enemies spawn in at once and things like debris from destroyed objects hurt you. This has lead to a number of levels and bosses that can lead some to drop the games entirely.
- Many qualify, but the final level in Return of the Jedi is more well known because while there are no enemies at all, you have to navigate a series of tunnels that can suddenly twist and have walls popping into your view and this is all done while trying to Outrun the Fireball. Crashing into the walls slows you down, damages you, and the fire catches up and drains your shields the longer you stay in the fire. Because there are no enemies, this also means no shields and health items. If you lose a life, you get to start it all over from the beginning.
- In the same game, the two levels that force you to play as an Ewok. Not only does the Ewok make annoying sounds every time he jumps or gets damaged, his weapon, a bow and arrow, is the worst due to its slow rate of fire compared to a blaster. He also has no special abilities compared to Luke or the other characters. The levels you have to use the Ewok in have tons of jumping and climbing sections and some of the climbing portions force you to shoot arrows into tree trunks to make improvised platforms.
- The inside of the sandcrawler in the first game is also notorious for pulling several nasty tricks in quick succession, such as cramped hallways where it's difficult to dodge enemy attacks, laser barriers that can only be surpassed by sliding and even then you're still bound to take damage, platforms that unexpectedly fall directly into insta-death lava as soon as you land on them, turrets mounted everywhere that slowly chip away at your health but don't drop hearts when destroyed to make up for it, a boss that is fought over a pool of the above-mentioned lava, and to top it all off, only one checkpoint which is very far from the boss. The following levels are generally much easier, giving you plenty of room to jump, featuring more sanely-spaced checkpoints, and giving you the lightsaber for some added power.
- The Cantina boss from the first game and the side scrolling snowspeeder stage from the second. Both are examples of levels that can either make or break a streak due to the fact that they unfairly bombard the player with a barrage of enemies and random attack patterns. If done successfully you continue onto the next level, but die once and you can kiss either a majority or all of your lives and continues goodbye.
- Darth Vader boss fight in the second game. The difficulty doesn't come for actually trying to hit Vader, that's simple enough. The frustration comes from Vader sending tons of objects towards you meaning you have to jump around to destroy all the objects around you, but you're guaranteed to be hit. The Invisible force power helps with this, but without it, the fight is nearly impossible.
Super Star Wars
- This entry is the one that has aged the worst.
- The bosses don't have a special theme song, and their health was represented by a health bar with the boss's name on it rather than a series of dots next to "BOSS".
- There is no Password Save, and you have to complete the game in one sitting.
- The ships and vehicles you drive in the first game spin around after taking too many hits. In the latter two games, they fall to the ground.
- There's no Double Jump. Instead you have a Super Jump which grants you extra height, but you have to start the Super Jump while already on the ground.
- Han and Chewie's base weapon is the Flame Thrower, while in subsequent games they begin with the Blaster.
- Special abilities (such as Han's grenades and Chewie's Spin Attack) are not present.
- For some reason, you can't run and shoot at the same time, which goes against the idea of run and gun.
The Empire Strikes Back
- This entry bumps up the difficulty to the point where the game is regarded as one of the hardest, most unforgiving games on the SNES.
- Missable Content: While the addition of force powers is great, you have to find them and you can easily miss them. This in turn, makes the aforementioned Vader fight nearly impossible.
- This is the only entry where you can't select what character you want to play. While this makes sense from a story stand point since Luke is away training, that doesn't excuse why you can't play as either Han or Chewie in the other levels since they're together until Han is frozen.
Return of the Jedi
- Darth Vader is a pretty weak boss. One would expect him to be quite difficult like every other boss in the game, but it doesn't take too many hits to down him. Justified since Luke had finished his Jedi training and learned to not fall for the dark side's mind games. However, there is another boss fight right after against the Emperor himself and is incredibly difficult (especially since the fight destroys the platforms you have to move between).
- Princess Leia during the level aboard Jabba's sailbarge is a game-breaking character, thanks to the already enormous damage caused by the chain she swings when combined with her special attack.
Reception
The entire Super Star Wars series earned mostly acclaim from both critics and fans. Its graphics were considered cutting-edge for their time, with the driving stages employing Mode 7 graphics, a primitive form of 3D of which the Super Nintendo hardware was capable. Particularly well-received was the game's lush sound, with its accurate representation of the film's famous John Williams soundtrack. On the negative side, the entire series would develop a notoriety for its unforgiving difficulty, which would often frustrate even skilled players.
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