Super Star Wars (SNES) Review
As I write this I can’t help but be overwhelmed with awe. For one thing I am a fan of retro gaming, for another I am a proud enthusiast of the George Lucas classic. In 1992 Super Star Wars was unleashed upon the world. Echoes of the hit trilogy still pulsed throughout the world despite fifteen years having passed since A New Hope’s release. Desiring to make a bit more money and to quench the insatiable thirst of the many fans, LucasArts brought out a videogame retelling of the original story, this time for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Gamers could once again revisit the tale of Luke Skywalker and his very first steps towards the way of the Jedi. SSW wasn’t back then and still isn’t a loyal adaptation of Episode IV though – during this period countless movies were turned into action oriented platformers and it wasn’t uncommon for these movie tie-ins to lose aspects of their plot as well as have other aspects added, for example the Landspeeder used by Luke Skywalker on Tatooine is now a fully enhanced turbo beast with laser weaponry equipped. Some fans will scoff at this, others will just laugh it off accepting the plot additions as a standard feature of nineties videogaming. Super Star Wars, like the movies is part of a trilogy, the rest of which will follow shortly.
The playable characters in this game are Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca. Our trio of heroes battle it out on Tatooine, The Death Star and the endless ocean of stars we call… space. Standard gameplay throughout is presented level-to-level in a slightly over endowed run ‘n gun fashion. Be it Luke, Han or Chewie, players wield a desire to kill everything with their super-powered weaponry, even the X-Wing and Landspeeder are over-endowed. This is probably required as it isn’t uncommon for hordes of enemies to outnumber you as Super Star Wars is anything but an easy ride. The difficulties present are: “Easy”, “Brave” and “Jedi”, the only one of these which is even possible for your average gamer is “Easy” and even experienced gamers tackling the first of the latter two may not reach the game’s conclusion. Gunning is only one half of Super Star Wars, the rest of it is navigating the various levels of the game. Run, jump and… die. Repeat. Run, jump and… die, again. All this is typical of any game embedded in the genre but in this case it isn’t helped by slightly unresponsive controls inherent of the original port. At least it isn’t down to bad emulation!
So, this is your typical early nineties gaming experience with a Star Wars twist. The music as expected was the standard score simplified with your typical sci-fi sound effects accompanied by the series specific hum of Luke’s lightsabre. Graphically it is as one would expect: pixelated sprites of retro delight! Oh the memories.
Wii’s Virtual Console has done it again, a perfect port of a great (yet imperfect) game. Yet SSW won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, it’s simply too retro, too difficult and quite frankly not the best example of a side-scrolling platformer available on the Wii Shop Channel. No release dates have yet been given for the PAL version but due to the popularity of the game itself, the overwhelming status of Star Wars as a brand and also LucasArts having now confirmed their desire to give their back catalogue worldwide availability, a long wait shouldn’t be expected – here’s hoping.
