A long, long time ago…25 years ago, to be exact:
The 90s were a great time for adding “Super” to the names of things to indicate they were better than other things – you had Super Metroid, the Super Soaker, and the Christian ska band the O.C. Supertones:
This was especially true in the case of feel like about a quarter of my SNES library starts with the word “Super” – there are seriously so many of them. An entire trilogy of those “Super” games was based on the original Star Wars trilogy. Each one generally follows the plot of the game on which it is based, with a mix of platforming and Mode 7 shooter/racing levels. The games do a good job of feeling like Star Wars – the presentation is very good, down to the opening title scrolls:
Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is, as you’d expect, the last in the series. It seems to have tried to learn a bit from its predecessors in a number of ways – the Empire adaptation is notoriously difficult, to a rather extreme degree. This one tones things down quite a bit (though it’s still pretty unforgiving at times). Because it’s later in the series, Luke also starts the game with a lightsaber and some cool force powers – in Super Star Wars, it takes several levels to get these, making the opening ones a bit uninteresting. Jedi also has some really sweet and intense boss battles, such as this one against some sort of frog guy:
One of my favorite thigs about this game is that there are several different characters you can play as, and that each level has a different group to choose from. For instance, you can play as Leia on Tattooine, or as Han Solo when traversing the Sarlacc Pit…
…but when the time comes to fight the Emperor, there’s just one choice:
That fight absolutely sucks, by the way. While I can’t deny that they’re cool and enjoyable, I feel like the games in this series, Jedi included, struggle to make the leap from “good” to “great.” While the level of action and variety in the levels is great, the Mode 7 stuff feels noticeably weaker overall, in part due to some serious framerate issues when there’s a lot going on (this is an issue in some other levels as well, but it’s worst in the Mode 7 stuff).
The levels are also sometimes utterly huge, which is a bit of a double-edged…er, lightsaber. In some instances, I was shocked at the vertical size of a level – I’d slip off a small platform and begin to fall, certain that I’d eventually just die, only to find that there’s a lower area 10 screens down that I can traverse instead. It’s fun to explore some of these areas, though with the game’s overall difficulty it can also be quite frustrating to have to start a big level over.
If you’re a Star Wars fan, or just want to try some interesting and challenging platformers, this is certainly a series that’s worth checking out. I recommend starting with the original Super Star Wars and taking it from there – Jedi is a solid starting point as well if that’s the one you come across. They’re all pretty affordable, too, since the whole trilogy was re-released near the end of the SNES’s lifespan. Nintendo released a “million seller” version of Super Star Wars in 1996, while THQ re-released the other two to coincide with the theatrical release of the “Special Editions” a year later. You know those, the ones that everyone liked?
Oh, right. Maybe they should’ve just put “Super” in front of the titles.
Next week’s game also has “Super” in its title, though it’s much, much older nd simpler than all of this weird ‘90s nonsense. See you then!