When Super Star Wars was released in 1992, it was probably considered to be a
very cutting edge game. It had amazing 2D graphics along with some
impressive "3D" vehicle sequences....but it also had something that you
don't see much of these days in games: extreme difficulty.
The game loosely follows Episode IV: A New Hope. Now when I say
"loosely" I mean it. It takes certain liberties with the story of the
movie so it can make the game work like...well, a game! Sure, Luke
didn't slaughter hundreds of Jawas to get R2-D2 but without these kinds
of changes the game would be even shorter than it already is (takes 3-4
hours to beat) so I think it's warranted.
Super Star Wars is a game that can be both incredibly frustrating and
yet very fun at the same time. It's a pretty unforgiving platformer and
there are no save game slots and no passcode system whatsoever so (in
true old school fashion) if you want to beat the game, you do it in one
sitting. You only get a few lives and a small number of continues at
your disposal and you better make good use of them even on the "Easy"
difficulty.
About 2/3rds through the story you get the ability to control the
smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee companion Chewbacca. Unfortunately
these other characters don't add much of a difference. With Han you
start out automatically with a blaster power-up in your arsenal and
with Chewie you get a larger health bar at the start. It doesn't add
much and these are already things that you can collect with Luke rather
easily.
Then there's the "landspeeder sequences" where for whatever reason you
have to kill a set number of Jawas before you proceed to where you want
to go. It really doesn't make a lot of sense and it's almost as if the
developers REALLY didn't like Jawas or something. Yet...like the game
itself, it's still quite a bit of crazy weird fun.
Though its steep difficulty and its strange story changes may turn off
some of today's gamers, Super Star Wars is still a whole lot of classic
platforming Star Wars fun that will test your skills and remind you how
much games have changed over the years.
