Super Star Wars: Giving Me Ulcers Since Age 5: The Thrilling Conclusion

Last week I said I'd provide a review for the two remaining games in the Super Star Wars series, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. However, I'm a filthy liar, but too bad, here they are now.

Alright, Empire Strikes Back. You start off as Luke on Hoth, lightsaber in tow, indiginous life forms randomly wanting to rape you. Luckily Luke's lightsaber is actually useful this time, though those fucking Wampa-like things are beyond annoying. Seriously, unless you get them right away, they freeze you in one swoop and hit you until you die. It's unbalanced and unfair, especially for the first few levels of the fucking game.

Once again, Luke tears the hearts out of his fallen foes and feasts on them in order to sustain his own lifeforce. The bosses in this game are much easier, to me, than in the first, but getting to them's a huge Hilary Clinton. After a few sidescrolling levels, it's time for a Mode 7 stage, and it's pretty awesome. Remember that scene in Empire Strikes Back where the battle of Hoth raged on? Of course you do, why the fuck am I asking. Controlling Luke, you have to shoot a bunch of shit down before tripping a bunch of AT-AT's up with your wire. After that you fight your way through the body of the last AT-AT (why the fuck didn't you just easily trip it up as you did the others) and take on its head in the easiest boss battle ever. Seriously, you just sit in one spot and deflect.

Unlike the first game, you can't select who you play as in this one, which sort of makes sense because everyone was split up for a lot of ESB. You control Han next, making your way though the Rebel's Hoth base, and apparently some asshole Rebel hates Han, as every gun turret and security device is set against him. Yadda yadda, you take off in the Millenium Falcon, and you get a cool first person space shooting level through the cockpit of the Falcon.

Luke arrives on Dagobah, and Yoda sets him on the path to becoming a Jedi by slaughtering all the indiginous life there as well. Man, Luke's fucking genocidal. You can earn force powers as Luke, and they're pretty cool and useful. The most useful is Force Heal, for obvious reasons, though if anyone needs it it's poor Han, because he gets stuck in the hardest fucking level ever, Cloud City. I don't know how Lando or anyone else gets around this fucking city, what with its wayward platforms and impossible everything.

Chewie's next as he navigates through a less harder but still tear inducing Cloud City stage, looking for C-3PO, who disappeared. Find him, Han's frozen, Luke sets off, etc etc. Cloud City as Luke isn't that hard as long as you have Force Jump, but save those fucking force powers up for your fight with Darth Vader. Vader's not that hard, and after 'beating' him you're treated with a cutscene reminding you that Return of the Jedi is the conclusion of the series and will be out soon. Now there's some initiative.

We move on to Return of the Jedi. This game sports a grand 4 selectable characters (the system from the first game is back), along with a 5th, Wicket the Ewok, who's playable for 2 stages. Not just playable, but forced on you. And the developers must have felt a little bad at the lack of Princess Leia in the other games, as she's available in three outfits throughout the game, including her bounty hunter disguise, slave outfit, and rebel outfit where she looks like a guy.

The first stage is a Mode 7 mode, jettin' across Tattooine to Jabba's Palace, trying not to fall down into abysses. Honestly, there's not much I can say for this game other than that it's more of the same, just more polished and a little funner. You'll still fight crazed indiginous life and animals more than the Empire, it seems, and the boss battles are pretty easy (including Vader), but the last level where you escape the exploding Death Star almost sent me spiralling into a maelstrom of madness due to its difficulty.

My biggest complaint of this series isn't the difficulty, it's what I've said a world record three times in this article: indiginous life. With all the stormtroopers, vehicles, weapons, and other tools of evil the Empire employed, why do you have to fight so many random animals and shit? Actually, this is a problem I have with a lot of old games. Apparently either the place you live is filled with bloodthirsty creatures out to kill you and the main bad guys don't care, or they actually somehow commanded all this wildlife to attack you.

Still, the Super Star Wars series is fun, especially for a fan. There weren't much Star Wars games worth playing back then, so at least we all got something decent.