Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Review

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(More customer reviews)The Super Star Wars video games are incredibly popular. The original Super Star Wars is among my favorite video games for the Super Nintendo. A lot of games that are based off movies don't tend to be good, but the Super Star Wars games were an exception. Super Empire Strikes Back suffers basically from what all three of them do. It's a great game, but the biggest question is: How long will you survive?
Super Empire Strikes Back follows the movie almost to a tee. Inserting it's own little moments to expand on the length of the game itself. For example, in one level as Luke you actually have to find the Snowspeeder while the rebel base is under attack by the empire. This moment doesn't happen in the movie.
The gameplay of The Empire Strikes Back is really simple. You play as either Luke, Han or Chewbacca. You don't ever have a choice of who you play as. The game puts you in the role of a character based on the storyline. It makes sense since it would look strange with Chewbacca roaming the Dagobah system, or having Luke flying through the asteroid field in the millennium falcon. The game actually plays a lot like a run and gun. However, it really does up the gameplay from the first Super Star Wars.
Each character has a blaster they can use, but each character also has a special weapon that's unique to them. Luke, of course, has his lightsaber. Han has bombs and Chewie has a spin attack. With the exception of Luke's Lightsaber you don't ever actually need the sub-weapons, but at least they're there. The levels also work in classic 2D side-scrolling fashion. You make your way from one end of the level to the other. However, there are plenty of moments in the game where you can stray off the beaten path and find plenty of power ups and other items.
There are items to gather along the way. Not a huge variety. You can collect blaster power ups to fire off a different weapon. You start with a default blaster, and can find a power up to go up to a flame blaster, heat seekers, rapid ion and finally, plasma. The unfortunate thing is that you can't have all five blasters at once. Throughout each level you'll also be able to pick up health swords. These swords extend your life gauge. It only last until the end of the level, however, or until you die. So collecting a bunch of health swords in one level doesn't carry on to the next.
There are other types of levels as well. Such as levels where you'll fly and operate vehicles. You'll fly in the Snowspeeder, Millennium Falcon and the X-Wing. In these levels you'll have to kill a certain amount of enemies before the level ends.
About halfway through the game is where it begins to get more innovative when Luke finally gets to use the force. There are a different variety of force powers. You can freeze enemies, slow down your enemies, elevate and much more. It adds more to the gameplay than most people seem to think. Force can't be used too often, though, and you'll need to refill your force power gauge by finding force power ups.
The only thing that really keeps Super Empire Strikes Back down is it's insane difficulty. Even on Easy mode the game is more of a challenge than it has to be. To compensate for the extreme difficulty level, the game has a password system, which you'll most definitely need considering how many times you will die. The passwords are set for each difficulty level. So if you get a password to take you to stage eleven on easy mode, it only works on easy mode. You can't change the difficulty to brave and then enter the password and say you're on Brave mode. It doesn't work that way. The difficulty of this game is definitely a turn off for a lot of gamers. Even expert gamers will have a tough time getting through Super Empire Strikes Back.
Graphic wise the game looks very good for its time. Watching the lightsaber effects and everything was really neat to look at. All the weapons and levels are full of tons of detail. The only real problem with these graphics is that it slows down from time to time.
The real gold of the game is the soundtrack. All the music in the game comes from the movie only it sounds 16-bit. It sounds great, though. A lot of the same music is used over and over again, though. The only problem with the soundtrack is that it isn't big enough. You'll hear the imperial march in more levels than you'll care to sometimes, but for the most part the music is outstanding.
On the whole, Super Empire Strikes Back is a great game. The biggest problem is it's extremely tough. By far one of the hardest Super Nintendo games out there.

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DescriptionIt is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed Imperial troops have driven Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy. Master the Force and you be ready for the final test!

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