Producer: JVC, Capcom
System: NES, GameBoy
Year: 1992
Overview: One of the earliest games released based on one of the most popular movie sagas of all time, but does this one match up to the excellent movie?
Story: As the first NES/GameBoy Star Wars game was, this game is based off Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. Only this time, the entire game is from Luke’s perspective; Han, Leia, and the others are absent as PCs.
Graphics: Luke isn’t quite as detailed as before (and his lightsaber isn’t supposed to be red), but he doesn’t look like an SD character anymore either. The backgrounds look good, however.
Sound: Again, there’s plenty of recognizable music, and it isn’t mixed too bad.
Gameplay: The game more closely follows Luke’s trek through the movie than the previous game did. Luke makes his way through the ice caves of Hoth, and rides a Rogue fighter against Imperial ATAT walkers, then heads for Dagobah, searching the jungles for Yoda and honing his Jedi skills, and lastly battles his way through Cloud City for a final showdown with Darth Vader. Luke can discover Force powers to help him out which have a variety of effects, such as strengthening his lightsaber and allowing him to levitate. Like before, there’s no difference between the NES and GameBoy versions.
Challenge: Aaaaaaaaagh! This one’s even more insane and cheap than the first one. The only way I was able to get as far as I did was with an emulator’s save state function, and even still, I haven’t been able to beat the damn thing. Screw the Force, what Luke needs is a less sadistic level designer.
Final Rating: 5.5/10 Like before, this game suffers from the horrible difficulty more than anything, which makes it far less fun overall.
