lieselstarwarsgames | Entries tagged with famicom

Well, we just rescued Leia, so we’re going to Yavin 4 now, right? Right?

Oh, silly me, why would I think this game would follow the movie? No, of course we have to go to HOTH now, because that makes sense, right?

Or maybe it’s not Hoth, maybe it’s another snow planet, but since Hoth is the only snow planet we see in the original trilogy, I’ll just call it Hoth.

Well, you hop around on ice blocks and kill enemies. Some ice blocks will start melting as soon as you step on them, so you’ve got to jump fast. Eventually you run into . . . this wolf guard thing.

No, I have no idea who he is or what he’s saying. Maybe he’s saying, “The Wampa called in sick today, so I’m filling in.” Or hell, maybe he’s Vader again. Anyway, touch it and you die and it won’t move, so off to GameFAQ again. You’ve got to call up 3PO in the start menu to get the wolf to move, I guess he speaks the wolf guy’s language or something?

Well, pass the wolf guy and you’re back to trekking through the ice. You run into a stormtrooper with a jet pack at one point (“They fly now?” “They fly now.”)

And what the everloving hell, you run into a WHALE. You have to get 3PO to talk to the whale (maybe he’s saying “Weeeeeeee neeeeeeeeddddd tooooooo fiiiiiiiinnnnddd his soooooon”) and then the whale will give you a ride. What movie are we in now?

The (ahem) whale takes you to a bunker full of death traps. Melting ice platforms, falling icicles, and spikes everywhere. And more blind jumps, because those were so much fun last time. I think the whale wanted to kill Luke.

And Vader’s back. Maybe he’ll turn into a Wampa – any bets?

What do you know, he DID turn into a Wampa! For once I was right about something!

Well, this fight is just like the others, except Wampa Vader jumps around a lot. After the battle, you levitate out of the bunker and find Chewie . . . frozen.

Did Chewie offer himself into the carbon freezer in Han’s place? I don’t even care anymore – let’s just save Chewie and get out of here.

Oh, and when you save Chewie, he gives you Wookiee kisses. Seriously. Maybe Luke’s going to have an orgy at the end of the game.

Once you’re back in the Falcon, you get a message from Han. Oh great, what weird planet has he managed to get himself captured on? By the way, this is the first time Han’s appeared in the whole game.

I’ll imagine that he’s saying “Kid, wake up! You’re havin’ a Corellian whiskey-induced nightmare!” Anyway, what’s next? You guessed it, more TIE Fighters. Shit, I like shooting TIEs as much as the next Star Wars-loving gamer, but they REALLY overdid it with this game.

Well, let’s see where we took a sidetrip to this time . . . wait, we’re on Yavin 4? WE’RE ACTUALLY ON YAVIN 4??

Wow, maybe this game will actually follow the movie for the last part, you think? Oh wait, Han’s probably captured somewhere for some reason, so let’s go find him.

Luke heads into the deep, dark jungle, jumps on some platforms, kills some creatures and stormtroopers, the usual stuff.

Well at least it’s straightforward . . . wait, no it’s not. The jungle keeps looping around in circles. Crap, NOW what?

Okay, you’ve got to levitate to find a secret door and you end up in another room full of death traps that might be inside a tree. Sure, why not? At this point I’ll accept anything.

You’ve got to jump around spikes and disintegrating stone platforms, one wrong move and you’re dead, but after a successful run, you find Han in what looks like an Ewok cage.

Are there Ewoks on Yavin 4 now? Did they capture Han for dinner? Nothing surprises me at this point.

Han gives Luke a brotherly hug when you free him and . . . OH MY FUCKING GOD, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HAN???

Blond Han. BLOND Han. FUCKING BLOND HAN!! Okay, those Japanese characters HAVE to be saying “Thanks kid, now do you have any hair dye removal? Those damn Ewoks dyed my hair blond while I was sleeping.”

Okay, after you save blond Han, you can get out of the forest. FUCK, blond Han, I’ll never get over that sight. So, more jumping around platforms and killing creatures and stormtroopers, then you finally make it inside one of the Yavin 4 temples.

The game has to be almost over now, so bring on whatever insanity you want!

Well, not too insane yet, killing some stormtroopers, going down a ladder, sixteen-ton weights are falling from the ceiling for no reason at all. Yeah, not too weird.

Oh, and now I’m stuck in this room with moving fireballs and a canon shooting at you.

It’s only because of the walkthrough that I know to call Chewie here – otherwise I’d be screaming like the AVGN again. Why is Chewie the only one who can get you out of this room? How the fuck should I know? Whatever, I got this far, I’m going to beat this acid trip of a game.

And oh boy, more spikes. I just love spikes, don’t you? Apparently the Rebellion decorated their base with spikes because they thought it would drive away intruders.

Annnnnndddd Vader’s back! Is this the final battle? Will Vader turn into a taun-taun? A space slug? Hell, maybe he’ll turn into Santa Claus – nothing surprises me at this point.

Well no, Vader didn’t turn into anything. Crap. Not only that, but his lightsaber shoots projectiles now because of course it does. Maybe this is where the ESB game got the idea for Vader to use a blaster.

After you defeat Vader for the umpteenth time, Leia shows up (still blonde) and fucking kisses Luke on the mouth. And it doesn’t even have the ESB excuse where she’s trying to annoy Han. Did the game developers really NOT see ROTJ, or do they just find incest hot?

I’ll imagine the text says “I kissed my sister and I liked it.” Whatever, now it’s FINALLY time to destroy the Death Star. Luke gets into his X-Wing and, GREAT, more TIEs. They wore out their welcome a long time ago.

After the TIEs, you go into the trench and it’s kind of similar to the end of the American game – you’re flying through the trench avoiding obstacles and shooting TIEs - except you have sixty seconds to destroy the Death Star, but you can collect powerups for more time, plus you get more time when you reach a checkpoint.

This part’s actually not bad. It’s actually kind of . . . exciting. Yeah, in the very last level, this game FINALLY captures the excitement of a Star Wars movie! Why couldn’t the rest of the game have been like this?

Also, when you get a game over, the Death Star destroys Yavin 4, which is kind of funny in a dark sort of way.

Anyway, this level’s hard, but it’s hard in a fun way that makes you keep wanting to try again. Seriously, I’m feeling adrenaline here, like when I play Contra or something. Why did this game force me to slog through all the insane shit only to become awesome in the last level?

Well, I did it, I destroyed the Death Star and reached the medal ceremony where Luke and Han have goofy smiles and Leia and Han are blonde again and Chewie looks like he’s wearing pants, but I don’t care – I beat the Famicom Star Wars game!

First Famicom-exclusive game I’ve ever beaten. Anyway, my final thoughts.

Some gamers think that Americans got screwed over in the early days of gaming. Sometimes that was true – we initially only got three of the first six Final Fantasy games, it took over a decade for the Fire Emblem games to come here, Trials of Mana only just came here last year, and hell, we’re STILL waiting for Mother 3 to be officially released here. Other times people just overreact – for example, for all the whining people do, does anyone seriously prefer the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 to the one we got here? Yes, I know the American Super Mario Bros 2 was a reskin of another game, but it was a reskin of another game that was originally intended to be a Mario game anyway, so chill out.

Sorry, got off-topic. Anyway, in the case of Star Wars games, America definitely got the better deal. Even the ESB game is much, MUCH better than . . . this. Either the game developers didn’t see the movie or they just wanted to make it as fucking weird as possible. Maybe it would make more sense if I understood Japanese, but I highly doubt it.

And if you overlook the game’s insanity, the actual gameplay is . . . kind of boring. It just feels like a standard run-of-the-mill platformer with nothing special to offer. The last level is awesome, but before that the gameplay is just not very interesting.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Well, that’s the 8-bit Star Wars games. Now we move on to the next generation and when Star Wars games started to get awesome.

Time for the amazing Super Star Wars games!

Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: "Hello From the Dark Side" - RoyishGoodLooks

So, Luke’s in Egypt. Or the Death Star. Or the Egyptian Death Star. Or an acid trip. I’m starting to think that last one’s the most likely scenario. Anyway, let’s see what’s next in this insane-as-fuck game.

Well, you go through a few more rooms with some creatures and some spikes, but nothing too interesting. I’m noticing that the actual platforming in this game is kind of dull. Anyway, soon you run into Darth Vader. Again. So he’s not a scorpion anymore. Maybe he’ll turn into a mummy this time – it wouldn’t surprise me since we’re on Planet Egypt/Death Star/Whatever.

Oh no, Vader turning into a mummy on Planet Egypt would make too much sense (damn, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say). No, instead he turns into a pterodactyl skeleton! No, I’m not making that up – here’s a pic to prove it.

This is starting to be a contender for “weirdest game I’ve ever played.” Luke says something in Japanese that I’m going to imagine is “Fuck, Dad, what was Palpatine ON when he created you??” Anyway, it’s the same basic battle as before – lightsaber Vader until he falls – except this time Pterodactyl Vader can fly around and dive-bomb you, which makes the one-hit deaths really annoying.

After the battle, you head back to Obi-Wan’s area and see that the electric whatever-they-ares that were holding him in place are gone now, so . . . I guess Luke rescued him? Do we leave the Egyptian temple or wherever the fuck we are now?

No, we still need to GET to Obi-Wan, and now we reach one of the most unfair sections I’ve ever seen in a game. See this room here? If you jump down any of these gaps, you’ll end up in another room full of spikes and you’ll land on the spikes and die.

The only way to get safely down is to climb down the ladder – which is barricaded by blocks you need to destroy. I COULD destroy them with the blaster, but the Pterodactyl Vader battle switched me back to the lightsaber, which doesn’t have enough range to destroy the blocks before Luke falls to his death. So how the fuck do I switch back to the blaster? As far as I can tell, you can’t – you have to go to the pause menu and select the picture of the lightsaber. Since I can’t speak Japanese, I had to go through every powerup in the pause menu until I learned that the little lightsaber picture causes the lightsaber to shoot projectiles (just go with it), so you jump carefully over to the little nook in the left-hand side and shoot those projectiles at the blocks without falling.

Maybe those crystals you collect boost the powerups on the start menu, I don’t know. Anyway, I rescue Obi-Wan and it looks like Luke is asking him out on a date.

I’ll imagine the Japanese text says “Ben, will you marry me?” Okay, any chance of getting back to the actual plot of A New Hope any time soon?

Outside the Egyptian temple thing, Luke can jump into a landspeeder that can bounce if you press A. It can run through stormtroopers, and you can make it go faster or slower, but it will still likely crash after thirty seconds because the controls for the thing are awkward as hell.

Moreover, when the thing crashes, Luke will likely land on an obstacle or enemy and die instantly. It took me a BUNCH of tries, but I finally made it to the end of the level, where the Falcon takes off again. So . . . I guess we weren’t on the Death Star – the Falcon apparently took a side trip to Planet Egypt because reasons. Anyway, we’re back in the Falcon. 3PO says something in Japanese that I’ll imagine is “I am C-3PO, your official drug-providing droid. Did you enjoy that trip?” We shoot some more TIEs and then the Falcon lands on . . . a sea planet? Hey, does anyone remember the DEATH STAR PLANS? Do those ring a bell?

Well, now Luke dons scuba gear and maybe he’s looking for the lost city of Atlantis – I wouldn’t put that past this game.

You swim around avoiding fish and spikes – by the way, when Luke dies underwater, he explodes into bubbles. I wish Jar Jar would show up – at least then I’d know I was playing a Star Wars game. The game developers seem to have forgotten that they were developing a Star Wars game. Hell, if it weren’t for the 8-bit Star Wars theme playing over and over, I think I’d forget I was playing a Star Wars game.

By the way, when did Luke learn to swim? He grew up on a freakin’ DESERT PLANET.

You know, I’m one of the few gamers in the world who doesn’t hate water levels. There are games like the Donkey Kong Country games and Super Mario 64 that make water levels beautifully atmospheric, but this . . . this is one of those water levels that makes me understand why most gamers hate water levels. The controls are wonky even by water level standards and all you do is swim around and avoid fish and spikes (and of course, one touch by an enemy or obstacle kills you).

Finally you reach Vader . . . underwater. Yes, Vader’s suit apparently allows him to breathe underwater. Well, let’s see what kind of fish he turns into.

Vader says something in Japanese that I’ll imagine is “Pathetic, THIS is how you rock the breathing apparatus!” and it’s time for an underwater lightsaber fight. A freakin’ UNDERWATER LIGHTSABER FIGHT, it should be awesome, but we have to remember what game we’re playing.

Welp, Vader turns into a shark this time around. Maybe this isn’t actually Vader who keeps shapeshifting – maybe it’s a Clawdite posing as Vader. Or maybe the game developers saw the version of Star Wars where Vader IS a Clawdite who can shapeshift into different animals. You guys remember that version of the movie, right?

Well, same story as before, lightsaber Vader Shark (do do do do do do) until he disappears, then you find 3PO trapped in those same electric fence things Obi-Wan was trapped in.

Okay, HOW THE FUCK did 3PO get himself captured on this sea planet or wherever the fuck we are? Did he jump out of the Falcon because he wanted to take a swim? Seriously, WHAT IS GOING ON? Are we EVER going to get to the Death Star or did the game developers forget that it exists?

3PO says something in Japanese that I’ll imagine is “No Master Luke, I have no idea what the game developers were on either,” then the Falcon takes off and you get a message from Leia . . . who looks like she’s twelve years old, and blonde.

Is anyone surprised at this point? The game developers clearly saw the version of the movie where Leia is a twelve-year-old girl and the Falcon went to Egypt and a sea planet on the way to Alderaan and Vader is a Clawdite. Makes perfect sense to me.

What’s Leia saying? I don’t know, maybe it’s “Comparing my hair to cinnamon rolls got old a long time ago.” But hey look, we FINALLY get to the Death Star! Nice of the game developers to remember that minor plot detail from the movie.

Well, after shooting some TIEs, the Falcon flies into the Death Star and we’re finally doing something that resembles the movie! Wow, imagine that!

Of course, the excitement wears off once we actually get into the level. This level requires you to take blind jumps off platforms and quickly steer yourself to the left or right while falling before a laser beam kills you. Oh boy, don’t you LOVE blind jumps? Isn’t it just GREAT to leap off a platform and not know if you’ll fall to your death?

Many of the paths also lead to dead ends with just some stormtroopers to fight. Oh, and there are spikes. LOTS of spikes. Yeah, this game took a page from the American version of the game and decorated the Death Star with spikes, and if you even touch the SIDE of the spikes you’re dead.

I am seriously lost, guys. I’ve been going through the same passages over and over and OVER. It might be time to go to GameFAQs.

Okay, I went to GameFAQ and apparently there’s a door you have to slash with your lightsaber. Yeah, even though you aren’t able to enter open doorways, you’re apparently supposed to figure out with the Force that you can slash through closed doors with two vertical lines on them.

Allow me to quote a much funnier video game reviewer than me.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING????

You also run into green Boba Fett behind one of the doors.

And you FINALLY find Leia, who even in sprite form still looks twelve.

And oh look, she kisses Luke when you find her (and she’s blonde again). Did these game developers not see Return of the Jedi? Oh, why am I asking myself that – they didn’t even see A New Hope, yet alone Return of the Jedi. I’ll imagine those Japanese characters say “Oh wow, incest is so HOT!”

Oh, and they choose NOW to actually follow the movie – you have to lightsaber open the garbage grate to get into the trash compactor and battle the Dianoga. Course, knowing this game, maybe the Dianoga’s Vader.

After you slash the Dianoga, the walls start closing in, but thanks to the walkthrough, I know to open the start menu to select R2 and contact him to shut down the compactor.

Then there’s some more wandering around the Death Star. At a couple of points you have use Luke’s Force levitation, which I didn’t even know he had until I looked at the walkthrough. Anyway, I finally found Vader.

Anyone want to guess what kind of animal he’ll turn into this time? Well, let’s see. Maybe he’ll become a snake or a lion or something weird like a giant cockroach.

Okay, I’m fighting him, but he hasn’t turned into anything. Wait, what? Vader’s actually NOT going to turn into an animal? Weird.

Also, after you hit Vader once, none of your other hits will affect him until you contact Obi-Wan in the start menu. Yeah, you can TOTALLY figure that out without a walkthrough, thanks game.

Anyway, Obi-Wan says something that I’ll imagine is “I’m too lazy to battle Vader this time, so you do it” and you fight Vader. Of course, if he touches you once, you’re dead, so this battle can get frustrating. Best strategy I’ve found is to jump over him and lightsaber him while jumping.

Now it’s the same story as before – the Falcon takes off from the Death Star and now you get a message from Chewie . . . who apparently speaks Japanese.

This is also the first time that Chewie’s appeared in ANY of these NES Star Wars games, so that’s something.

Anyway, more TIE Fighters to shoot (do we have to shoot TIEs after EVERY level?), and I think it’s break time. Here’s another Star Wars song parody.

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: "Last Jedi Knight" - RoyishGoodLooks

In Japan, the NES was called the Family Computer, or “Famicom,” and it looked completely different.

In addition, quite a few of its games never made it over to the US of A. Sometimes the reason why is unclear, but for many of them, I could guess that the reason was “because they were too freakin’ weird for American gamers.”

And for that argument I present Exhibit A: the Famicom Star Wars game. If you’ve seen the AVGN’s Star Wars Games vid, then you already know that this game is batshit insane.

And since I apparently didn’t have my fill of insanity with the ESB NES game, I’m diving into the Famicom Star Wars game.

It starts off with the opening crawl and a decent cutscene of Tantive 4 being captured, then we immediately (and abruptly) jump to Luke finding Leia’s message in R2.

As you can see, the ROM I have is untranslated, so I’m going to imagine that Luke’s saying “Oh wow, I wanna bang my sister SO BAD!” Also, why does Leia look like she’s praying?

Anyway, the Jawas grab R2 and Luke has to go rescue him and WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH HIS SPRITE?

What the FUCK? Why does Luke’s sprite have BLACK HAIR? If it’s not getting the color of Luke’s lightsaber wrong, it’s getting his hair color wrong. DO these game developers actually watch the movies?

But hey, at least they FINALLY get his lightsaber color right . . . even though he shouldn’t HAVE the lightsaber before seeing Obi-Wan.

And no, I have no idea what the thing that looks like an owl Gremlin with glasses is supposed to be.

Well, you jump around Tatooine and lightsaber different creatures until you make it to the sandcrawler. Pretty generic stuff, but at least the music is continuous and DOESN’T keep dropping out. Nothing more to say about that, so let’s head inside.

And for some reason there are stormtroopers in the sandcrawler because why not? When in doubt, stick in some stormtroopers who just walk back and forth and don’t even try to attack you.

The sandcrawler also has other creatures in it – and did I mention that you die with one hit? Shit, the US Star Wars games were hard, but at least they gave you life bars. Also, when you kill enemies you collect these blue crystal things and as of now I have no idea what they’re for. Maybe they’re kyber crystals to power your lightsaber or something.

After a few rooms, you find Darth Vader. In the sandcrawler. Yes, DARTH VADER IS IN THE SANDCRAWLER, I AM NOT SHITTING YOU.

Well, this will save Luke a lot of time to defeat Vader now. Luke says something in Japanese that I don’t understand, so I’ll imagine it’s “Well Dad, you owe twenty years’ worth of child support!” You lightsaber him a few times and then he turns into a scorpion.

And you thought the sequel trilogy had crazy Force powers – here we have “Force-transform into scorpion!” Wouldn’t THAT have been a useful power in the movies! When you’re in a tight situation, just Force-transform yourself into a scorpion and bite your enemies!

If the Vader scorpion touches you one time, you’re dead, so you have to do a lot of jumping. When you defeat it, you get a huge crystal and I’m still not sure what the crystals are for.

Well, now it’s time to get R2 back from the Jawas who look like gobs of shit with eyeballs. Yeah yeah, that’s something the AVGN would say, but just LOOK at them.

The Jawas also speak Japanese, apparently. I’ll imagine that they’re saying. “We fucked your droid and he loved it.” Now we’re back outside and lightsabering more stormtroopers who just walked back and forth.

Oh sure, after the stormtroopers have been doing nothing except walk, THEN you bring in one that shoots and kills me in one shot. Thanks a lot, game. I’m starting to gain a new appreciation for the ESB NES game.

One generic trek across the Tatooine sands later, you get to Mos Eisley. So wait, we’re not going to talk to Obi-Wan? Or did Luke ALREADY visit Obi-Wan before the game started? Did he just have his lightsaber from the beginning because Uncle Owen wasn’t afraid that he’d follow Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade? WHAT IS GOING ON?

And guess what, we don’t even get to SEE Mos Eisley! Nope, the Falcon just immediately takes off, so no meeting Han and Chewie either. FUCK, how can you have an ANH game without going to Mos Eisley??? That’s just WRONG.

Obi-Wan says something in Japanese – okay, I guess we DID pick up Obi-Wan . . . somewhere. I’m imagining that he’s saying “You think I’m an old fossil, Solo? Well someday you’re going to name your kid after me!” Now we’re in the Falcon and shooting TIES much like in the American Star Wars game. You shoot a couple of TIES and then . . . wait, what now?

The Falcon lands somewhere with TALKING FROGS?? Okay, I know this is a universe with all sorts of weird creatures, but where were the talking frogs in the movie? Come on, show me the talking frogs in the movie! I don’t know what they’re saying – maybe it’s “Have you seen our cousin Yoda,” or “Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here,” or “Excuse me, we’re looking for the Muppet convention” – who cares, they’re TALKING FROGS, and you’ve gotta kill them! Yup, Luke is gonna lightsaber TALKING FROGS.

I have no idea where we are, either. Is this the Death Star? Alderaan? Or did Han just get Luke high? In addition to the talking frogs, there are also these weird little blocks with faces that look like Egyptian Pharaohs because why the hell not?

You can also collect a blaster here, wherever the fuck “here” is.

And WHAT THE FUCK, now there’s an actual MUMMY? AM I in Egypt?? Did these game designers see Tatooine and think “desert = Egypt”??

Well you jump around on the tiny platforms for a while until you get to what looks like an actual Egyptian temple.

Sure, why not? You want Luke to go to Egypt, have him go to Egypt. It’s not like he has a princess to save or a Death Star to blow up or anything like that.

Inside the temple, you hop on some platforms, dodge a fireball, go down a ladder, and find . . . Obi-Wan? Is that supposed to be him trying to shut down the tractor beam? Wait, IS this the Death Star after all? Well of course, why wouldn’t they make the Death Star look like an Egyptian temple? Doesn’t the Death Star just SCREAM “Egypt” in the movie?

I’m gonna guess that we have to get to Obi-Wan somehow, but this Egypt/Death Star/acid trip/whatever the fuck it is place is wearing me out. Let’s have a break, why don’t we?

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: "Last Jedi Knight" - RoyishGoodLooks