So when talking about early Star Wars platformers, a lot of people always default to the Super Star Wars Trilogy. After all, it's pretty, sounds great, somewhat faithful to the general story of the movies, and
uh
Well, it's pretty, sounds great, and is somewhat faithful to the story of the movies.
But I'd like to take a moment to highlight what came before it
This game is hard. Real hard. A lot of people bounce from it because it's so hard and seemingly impossible to figure out. Your initial "sandbox" is wandering around the Dune Sea, trying to find Obi Wan, the droids, and shield parts for the Millenium Falcon. You can bypass some of this stuff, but it ends up hurting you down the road. Then you get an insanely hard gauntlet of levels in Mos Eisley where you have to find Han and then escape to the Falcon. Then you get the blisteringly hard Falcon escape stage where you are flying through an asteroid field and have to dodge space debris. Hope you picked up all the shield parts while exploring the desert. Then you get the labyrinthine Death Star stages, peppered with some difficult bosses. Then you get two straight dogfighting stages (one with the falcon and one in an X-wing), finished off by a SHMUP Trench Run stage.
Along the way, "rescuing" Han and Leia unlocks them as playable characters with unique abilities to make certain areas of the game easier (though they are never required for said areas), each of whom have one life (think of them as Zero from MMX3). Rescuing Obi Wan also gives you bonus lives that can restore Han and Leia.
If this all sounds like it's a bad game, it's not! While difficulty with the early Star Wars platformers go hand in hand, this game is difficult for reasons that are different than the Super Trilogy. While the Super Trilogy is difficult because of incredible levels of jank, between infinitely respawning enemies, questionable hitboxes, and mechanics that never quite work, NES Star Wars is blisteringly hard because it's just a hard game. It demands incredible precision...but never punishes you unfairly. Either by playing carefully or experimenting along the way, you can very easily learn the quirks of the game and suddenly the difficulty starts to melt away, like you are an actual jedi. This game actually rules and it's a shame more people don't talk about it.
uh
Well, it's pretty, sounds great, and is somewhat faithful to the story of the movies.
But I'd like to take a moment to highlight what came before it
This game is hard. Real hard. A lot of people bounce from it because it's so hard and seemingly impossible to figure out. Your initial "sandbox" is wandering around the Dune Sea, trying to find Obi Wan, the droids, and shield parts for the Millenium Falcon. You can bypass some of this stuff, but it ends up hurting you down the road. Then you get an insanely hard gauntlet of levels in Mos Eisley where you have to find Han and then escape to the Falcon. Then you get the blisteringly hard Falcon escape stage where you are flying through an asteroid field and have to dodge space debris. Hope you picked up all the shield parts while exploring the desert. Then you get the labyrinthine Death Star stages, peppered with some difficult bosses. Then you get two straight dogfighting stages (one with the falcon and one in an X-wing), finished off by a SHMUP Trench Run stage.
Along the way, "rescuing" Han and Leia unlocks them as playable characters with unique abilities to make certain areas of the game easier (though they are never required for said areas), each of whom have one life (think of them as Zero from MMX3). Rescuing Obi Wan also gives you bonus lives that can restore Han and Leia.
If this all sounds like it's a bad game, it's not! While difficulty with the early Star Wars platformers go hand in hand, this game is difficult for reasons that are different than the Super Trilogy. While the Super Trilogy is difficult because of incredible levels of jank, between infinitely respawning enemies, questionable hitboxes, and mechanics that never quite work, NES Star Wars is blisteringly hard because it's just a hard game. It demands incredible precision...but never punishes you unfairly. Either by playing carefully or experimenting along the way, you can very easily learn the quirks of the game and suddenly the difficulty starts to melt away, like you are an actual jedi. This game actually rules and it's a shame more people don't talk about it.