lieselstarwarsgames | Entries tagged with lando calrissian

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens – the Lego Star Wars game I both have and haven’t beaten. How is that possible? Well, when I first got the game on Steam, it wouldn’t run right on my older computer. The animation lagged to the point of the game being unplayable and no matter what I did, nothing seemed to fix it.

Shortly afterwards, I got the 3DS version of the game and beat it. It was a lot of fun, but I still haven’t touched the Steam version since, even though I did get a new computer in January of 2017. Why? Probably because I had grad school and writing projects and other games to play.

So now, the moment of truth. Is the game playable on my current computer?

( Prologue (image-heavy) )

All right, I think we’ve waited long enough. Time to finish the game! (Or, at least finish Story Mode.)

( Level 36 )

Current Music: "Dead Man's Party" - Oingo Boingo

Well, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga’s release has been postponed and there’s currently no word of a new release date, but that gives me more time to finish the Lego Star Wars games here.

( Level 32 )

Time to finish off Empire Strikes Back!

( Level 30 )

Welcome back to Super Return of the Jedi! Now that we’ve played Wicket for a few levels, it’s time to go back to our normal heroes. We begin the next level with Luke telling Leia about their heritage.

Luke is the only playable character in the next level – he’s going off to turn himself in. Now it’s nighttime on Endor and it’s PRETTY!

I especially like how you can see the Death Star in the background. It also feels good to be a spinning death machine again with Luke’s lightsaber, though of course the level still doesn’t make things easy. You’ve got to jump and jump again on these movie platforms and if you miss, you hit the moving wheel-thing and lose health.

And of course, it doesn’t get easier when you get to the top and find yourself surrounded by stormtroopers, electrocuting walls, and laser turrets. But hey, it’s a nice bridge.

This level is a MAZE, going from bridge to forest to bridge and up and down moving platforms. You’ll probably find yourself running into dead ends, but at least there are plenty of hearts around.

Also, Luke sometimes shrugs when he stands idle, but it’s not as awesome as Han’s shrug, of course.

And I don’t know why, but I found these blue lights pretty funny.

After riding a lot of moving platforms, it will suddenly get darker and you’ll run into the boss.

Those two droids look menacing, but the actual boss is the ship, so that’s what you’ve gotta focus on slicing up. If you have the Heal Force-skill selected and use that when necessary, the ship should go down without too much trouble.

And hey look, finally Lando gets to do something in one of these games!

Not gonna lie, this next level’s kind of awkward. It’s yet another one of those shoot-TIEs vehicle levels, but instead of being in the cockpit, the camera’s positioned on TOP of the Falcon.

You’ve got to rotate the camera to rotate the Falcon’s top gun and shoot a certain number of TIEs. Yeah, at the time this would have been impressive to see, but now it just feels weird. Fortunately, it’s not a long level, and then we go back to Endor.

Gah, what’s with the lighting in that picture? It’s like the bunker’s sepia-toned. Anyway, if you pick Leia for this level, she’ll be in her fighting garb – and she can finally use a blaster!

Maybe the game developers wanted to make up for her not being playable in the previous two games by granting her the honor of being the only playable character with THREE different outfits in the same game. Anyway, I just wanted to show you that. After I took this screenshot, I reloaded my save state and picked my beloved Han.

The bunker is of course full of stuff that wants to murder you, but that’s to be expected by now. Stormtroopers, electric fences, hostile droids, and lots of gun turrets. Funny thing, when you shoot one of the big guns, it sits there smoking until you leave.

Once again, you’ve got a shit-ton of moving platforms to ride and while you’re riding you pass by cannons that shoot fire at you because why not? The Empire really, REALLY doesn’t want you here. You’ll also run into these annoying walls that you have to shoot through. Hopefully you’ll have found some blaster powerups by the time you get to them.

If you manage to get through the maze of moving platforms and enemies, you’ll find a speed powerup that sends you going SUPER fast, which is hilarious to watch, but it doesn’t protect you from getting hurt. Finally you’ll find yourself standing on one of those destructible floors with a convenient arrow showing you what to do.

After blasting through the floor, you’ll find yourself spinning around on a giant wheel.

You spin Han right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round, right round . . . oops, did I say that out loud? Well, Han actually gets sent off on a whole SERIES of wheels, each of which has a big gun in the middle that you have to take out and a helpful arrow showing you which way to go.

After the maze of wheels, guess what, you’re in a maze of TOWERS. Enter a tower and it transports you to another tower, always guarded by enemies – though you can use the respawning enemies to your advantage if you keep killing them and collecting the hearts they drop.

And guess what? After the towers, you get . . . MORE WHEELS! It’s almost like the Empire doesn’t want you to blow up the shield generator or something!

You think that’s enough? Of COURSE it’s not enough! Then you run down a hallway where there periodically shoot GIANT LASERS that electrocute you like there’s no tomorrow – in addition to smaller laser gates that ALSO electrocute you. Fortunately, if you manage to get through it alive, there’s a large heart and a blaster powerup waiting for you, but getting through the hallway alive is a challenge. Hopefully you have full health when you start.

The boss is – you guessed it – the shield generator itself. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a screenshot, but this thing looks super-menacing with a GIANT LASER, and you’ve got to fight it WHILE hopping around on constantly moving platforms. Fortunately, it’s really vulnerable to Han’s grenades, so if you’ve stocked up a bunch of them, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Well, now that the shield is down, it’s time to join Luke inside the Death Star to confront Vader and Palpatine. We’re almost at the end!

I shouldn’t even have to say at this point that everyone and everything in the Death Star want you dead. The stormtroopers and hostile droids apparently didn’t get the memo about how Vader wants to turn Luke to the dark side. Anyway, after fighting your way through a wave of enemies, you’ve got to jump your way through these platforms.

Looks simple, but most of them SINK DOWN as soon as you step on them, so you’ve got to have lightning-fast jumping. Also, as you jump up, you’ll be able to collect LOTS of health swords than increase your maximum heath. While that may seem like a blessing, that’s also a sign that you’ll NEED them.

Like for example, you’ll need them for . . . THESE things.

These droids are huge, they’re relentless, and they take a billion hits to kill. Make sure you have full health and the Heal Force skill selected and pray that you’re faster than them. Fortunately, they end the level. Now it’s time to join Lando on the Falcon again.

This is one of those simple “shoot X number of enemies” vehicle levels, with some nice Mode-7 to boot.

You’ve got to fly around the Death Star’s surface and shoot twenty TIEs before they get you. Fortunately, most of them drop hearts when you kill them, so this level shouldn’t be too hard. Afterwards, it’s finally time for Luke to face Emperor Palpatine himself.

Palpatine’s theme sounds nice and creepy in its 16-bit rendition too. Anyway, even though Palpatine just talked to Luke, since this is a video game, Luke still needs to get to the throne room. Compared to some of the other levels, it’s not too too hard to get through – the way is pretty straightforward and the enemies are numerous but manageable, especially since there are big hearts placed fairly frequently.

Of course, there are still a bunch of elevators to ride and a bunch of tiny platforms to hop on – and wherever there’s a door, it’s guaranteed that an endless wave of stormtroopers will come out.

You’ve got to keep going up, and up, and UP – Palpatine’s throne room is at the tippy-top of this seemingly-endless tower, but you feel a rush while doing so since you’re so close to victory.

Eventually you’ve got to face ANOTHER one of those giant droids. Oh crap.

You can’t outrun it, either – it will just keep following you. Your only choice is to kill it. Yeah, good luck with that. The level doesn’t end after you kill it, either. Instead you go a little ways forward, hear Palpatine cackle in the distance, and run into one of his guards.

Why is the guard’s robe purple instead of red? Did the programmers decide it fit better with the level’s color scheme? Ah well, the important thing is that it’s not hard to kill. THAT’S the end of the level, and woo boy, we’re almost there! Almost there!

Now Luke needs to face more guards – and now they’re in their proper red robes, so I don’t know why that one guy was wearing purple. Maybe he’s a rogue guard or something.

The guards will jump you REALLY fast and they can slide from side to side in the blink of an eye, so you have to be on your toes. You can slice open the little containers that look like trash cans and hope they have refills of your Force meter, because you’ll REALLY need that Heal skill to face . . . DARTH VADER HIMSELF!

His fighting pattern is pretty similar to his pattern in the ESB game – he’ll jump up in the air, land, then start swinging his lightsaber around. Keep swinging at him and keep healing and he’ll go down.

Of course, then Palpatine starts taunting Luke and Luke snaps out of it, which means now you’ve got to fight the mighty Emperor himself.

As you can imagine, Palpatine is a bitch to beat. He flies through the air shooting lightning in all directions. You’d BETTER heal whenever you’re low on health or you’re doomed. You’d also BETTER not waste those Force power refills in those trash can things. Moreover, his lightning can even zap holes in the floor that you can fall through. If he zaps enough, you won’t have anywhere to stand. It takes quite a few tries, but MAN, is it satisfying when you finally beat him. Oh YEAH, take that, Sidious! Fall down that shaft only to be reincarnated thirty years later!

Of course, then poor Anakin’s got to die too.

But the game’s not over yet. We’ve still got to blow up the second Death Star, remember? Now it’s time to go inside the Death Star in a 3-D Mode-7 perspective. It’s pretty neat, but unfortunately, the emulator I’m using is causing the screen to flicker every few seconds, so I can’t provide a screenshot. It’s still playable, though, and it’s still neat to see something so ambitious. This level is extremely straightforward – just fly through the Death Star while shooting TIEs. Of course, once you’ve hit the core, then you’ve gotta get out before the thing blows.

Here it is. The LAST level. It’s just like the previous level – except everything’s on fire and the fire’s going to catch up to you unless you’re super-fast. I’ve got the same screen-flickering issue as in the previous level, so no screenshots.You’ve gotta hold down B and try not to collide with anything or touch any of the explosions and it’s GODDAMN HARD.

In fact, I have a confession to make.

I used a cheat code.

Yeah . . . I used an infinite health cheat code to get through the level because I was so goddamn frustrated. I made my way through the previous games without resorting to cheat codes, but this one BROKE me.

But anyway, the Death Star blew up and we get fireworks and a party (why does Luke look like part of his neck got chopped off?).

And a few friends joined the party from beyond the grave!

(Not a word about how Lucasfilm WAH RUINED THE ENDING BY PUTTING HAYDEN IN – this was long before that anyway.)

Also, HOLY SHIT YOU SEE PALPATINE BEHIND THE CREDITS AND HEAR HIS CACKLING DURING THEM! That proves it! The game developers saw into the future and KNEW that Episode 9 would bring him back! It was all planned!

Or that’s what I’d say if I were a conspiracy theorist. Anyway, this was an awesome conclusion to an awesome game trilogy. It’s still hard-as-nails and someday I WILL try to beat that last level without using a cheat code, but the environments are beautiful, the gameplay is challenging but fair (except the last level), you can play FIVE characters, and like the previous two games, it screams Star Wars through and through.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5.

Now, we’re going to be doing something a little different. I know I’ve been playing these games somewhat chronologically so far, but now we’re breaking with that and skipping ahead a few years. Why? Because Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga comes out on May 31st and I think there’s no better time to reflect on the awesomeness that is the Lego Star Wars games.

Yup, join me soon for Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

Welcome back to the insane difficulty of Super Empire Strikes Back. We just fought our way through the snow and the Imperials, but we’re not off Hoth yet. Now it’s my Han’s turn to take the spotlight as he makes his way through the collapsing Rebel Base.

Han’s sprite is wearing that trademark ESB blue jacket, which is awesome in itself, but of course everything is out to kill him. Literally the moment you start the level, a beam falls from the ceiling and it’s nearly impossible to avoid it. Then there are the laser cannons, the stormtroopers, the flames shooting up from the floor – how will Han ever survive to get stabbed by his son in thirty years?

There are also these platforms that go ZOOMING when you step on them. It’s quite a harrowing ride.

Oh, and if Han stands idle, he’ll twirl his blaster Western-style – HA!

This level’s a bit of a maze. The zooming platforms can go up or down depending on the direction you choose and sometimes you find yourself at a dead end. Who knew that Echo Base had such a convoluted layout? However, you’ll find blaster upgrades and other powerups at some of these dead ends, so it’s not too frustrating.

Eventually, Han runs into a . . . what IS that thing?

Is that a droid? A stormtrooper? A stormtrooper droid? Whatever it is, it wants Han dead FAST. It can eat up your health super-quickly, but fortunately it only takes a few shots to kill. But then just a few steps later, there’s ANOTHER one.

Oh, and did you think they were the level bosses? Nope, the level keeps going after you kill them. Han heads outside and strangely enough doesn’t freeze to death even though he’s not dressed for the weather at all.

And then comes the REAL level boss – an insanely deadly Imperial combat vehicle.

Like with most of the vehicle bosses, you have to shoot off the weaponry before you can do damage to the boss itself. If you have grenades, USE THEM! Once the weapons are all shot off, the thing starts zipping around erratically and it also dispatches bombs because why wouldn’t it? Shoot the damn thing like crazy.

And what do you know, Han still hasn’t found Leia. Maybe she’s already taken off without him. Anyway, this level is pretty much the same as the last one, except now you’ve got droids chasing you too. Oh, and the level boss is . . . A FREAKIN’ AT-ST WALKER!

Yes, Han has to take on an AT-ST walker all by himself without so much as the Force to help him. I knew he was badass, but this is SUPER badass.

This battle’s actually easier than it looks if you have full health and the highest blaster upgrade. Focus on shooting off the AT-ST’s gun, then shoot at it like crazy and it goes down fast, then head over to Leia, who looks like she’s saying “What TOOK you so long?” Well, Your Worship, I only had to take down an AT-ST walker in order to get to you, no biggie!

Well, Han and Leia take off in the Falcon and we get a bit of their banter.

And this probably means we’re going to be shooting some TIE Fighters, aren’t we? What's a Star Wars game without shooting TIE Fighters?

Yup, we’re shooting TIE Fighters, and asteroids – we’re in the asteroid field, after all. You’ve got to shoot fifteen TIEs before your shields conk out, which is easier said than done given how the rocks are EVERYWHERE. Just keep your finger on the trigger and your eye on the radar.

Funny thing, though. After you shoot all the TIEs, the screen shows a hyperspace jump. Ummm . . . don’t
the game designers remember how the Falcon’s hyperdrive was DAMAGED? That’s like, a major plot point of the movie. I mean, these games never promised to be 100% faithful to the movies, but it seems like animating the hyperspace jump was an extra bit of work they didn’t need.

Anyway, now we join Luke on Dagobah.

But before we find Yoda, we have to find R2, who’s gone missing. I guess he got spat out much further than he did in the movie.

Dagobah’s pretty atmospheric. The sound effects give off the feeling of being in a swampy area and the environment is nicely detailed.

You can also get your first Force power here – once again, it’s levitation. These early SW games seem to really like making Luke levitate. Anyway, after cutting through a bunch of swamp creatures, it doesn’t take long to find R2.

For some reason I really like the picture that goes with the cutscene of Luke finding R2. I don’t know why, but I find it adorable.

There’s not much to be said about the next level – it’s just some more fighting through the swamp to get to Yoda. Well, piranhas and alligators chase you relentlessly, but if you keep lightsabering them it’s not too difficult to find Yoda.

Yoda delivers a lengthy speech about the Force which ends with his most famous quote . . . well, half of it.

I mean, seriously, why did they cut off “There is no try”? Did they run out of words? Why not cut out some of his Force speech then? Seems pretty weird to slice off the ending of his most famous quote.

Anyway, the next level has a bunch of Force powers for you to collect that will become super-useful throughout the game, but you need the levitation Force power from the previous level in order to get them. So, if you didn’t get the levitation power, you’re screwed.

Doesn’t sound so hard . . . except that the screen autoscrolls. Dammit, I HATE autoscrolling levels in platformers. Oh, and to top it all off, you’re fighting on top of some big long snake . . . thing that takes up the entire length of the level. Maybe a space slug came to visit Dagobah.

Well, I’ve gotta get the Force powers, ESPECIALLY Heal. Heal does exactly what it says, though I’m not quite sure how you can Force-heal yourself given that Force-healing involves transferring energy from one person to another, so how does transferring energy to yourself work?

And what do you know, the boss is the head of that giant snake thing we’ve been walking on.

I don’t think it appreciated Luke walking on its back. Anyway, this battle is pretty much designed for you to have Force healing, so make sure you use it when you’re low on health. You have to take out its four eyes AND its nose before you can do any damage to it, plus it constantly spits out this little caterpillar things that do damage to you. After you take out its eyes and nose, it’ll speed up and go crazy, but now you can hurt it. Also, when it lights up to indicate that you hurt it, the ground you’re on lights up too since you’re on its body and all. Pretty cool.

Well, now we rejoin Han and Leia as they land on Bespin . . . though I’m not quite sure why they went to Bespin in this version if the Falcon’s hyperdrive was never damaged, but whatever.

Anyway, we’re back to controlling my Han . . . and you’d think he’d get clued in that Lando’s going to betray him when everything on Bespin’s trying to kill him. Right from the start, hostile droids and cloud cars are EVERYWHERE, all shooting at Han before he even gets off the landing platform. There are also a bunch of platforms that I guess have trouble supporting Han’s weight, since they start sinking down as soon as you land on them. So basically, you have to keep jumping, and jumping, and jumping – though if you’re not careful you’ll end up taking a flying leap.

It doesn’t fare any better once Han gets inside either. The hostile droids are still all over the place, along with a zillion clones of Zukkus the bounty hunter. Han really should get the hint that Lando’s gonna stab him in the back. Oh, and there are moving platforms, because everyone loves moving platforms, right? Moreover, you have to double-jump to get on most of the moving platforms.

Eventually, you’ll get on one of those platforms that takes you down, down, down, past many levels of stormtroopers, and then you get to fight off a bunch of Bossk clones. At least I think they’re Bossk, but they do a lot more acrobatics than Bossk does.

This level seems to take forever, but that might just be because of the ungodly number of enemies Han’s had to fight off. Oh look, you also run into Dengar. Han really should take the hint that it’s not safe here.

AND we run into IG-88 – looks like Boba invited the whole gang of bounty hunters over. Even better, IG-88 has a gun that can FREEZE Han. The effects wear off in a few seconds, though – otherwise he could just ship Jabba a frozen Han decoration right now.

Dear God, this level will eventually get you wondering “Where am I? Haven’t I been here before? Am I going in circles?” But then finally, FINALLY you reach the boss, a giant ship that looks like Slave 1.

You have to shoot off all the ship’s weapons in order to defeat it. If you’ve accumulated a good number of grenades from shooting who-knows-how-many enemies, this fight is a cinch. Then afterwards, Lando FINALLY greets Han.

Lando’s cape is also blowing in the wind – nice effect. Anyway, the greeting must have been interesting in this version of events.

“Hey Han old buddy, good to see you!”

“Thanks. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the droids and stormtroopers and bounty hunters that were all tryin’ to kill me, would you?”

“Nope, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

For the next level, Han and Chewie set off to find 3PO – and I gotta say that I love Han’s blaster pose in the cutscene.

And now we finally get to play Chewie as he goes searching through the garbage bowels for 3PO. He also gets to kill a bunch of Ugnaughts who are just doing their jobs on the way.

This level’s full of lava pits – and I mean a LOT of lava pits. Moreover, most of the time you have to leap on pieces of junk to get across and there will be laser cannons shooting at you directly above the pieces of junk. It’s practically impossible to jump across one without getting hit. However, at one point you get to ride a crane across the lava.

And what do you know – you get to fight the boss over lava too. The boss is some giant vehicle piloted by an Ugnaught.

It also drops bombs because of course. Like with most of the other vehicle bosses, you’ve gotta shoot off the weaponry before you can do actual damage to the machine – but this time you have to make sure you don’t fall into the lava as well. After you take it down, you find 3PO . . . who isn’t blown up.

So if 3PO didn’t get blown up, did he just go wandering into the garbage bowels or something? Well now we’re back to controlling Han . . . and he looks like he’s in the carbon freeze chamber

Has Lando betrayed them yet, or did Han just go wandering into the carbon freeze chamber for fun? Anyway, remember those cranes that picked you up against your will in the Mos Eisley levels from the ANH game? Probably not, but this level is FULL of them. If one picks you up, it will quickly drain your health, so you’ve gotta shoot them before they can do so, which takes ages. Fortunately, they drop a bunch of hearts to replenish your life.

Of course, shooting the cranes is made even more difficult by the ice cannons that can freeze Han before he goes to the big freeze.

Not only that, but sometimes you get to ride on moving platforms past the ice cannons, so Han gets frozen over and over.

Han’s getting a sneak peek of what’s going to happen to him very soon. Oh, I also got this screenshot of Han being frozen mid-jump. Pretty funny.

So who’s the boss of this level, you ask? Oh, nothing much, just a HUGE crane thing that spits fire and ice!

Or wait, is that the carbon freezer? Is Han fighting the actual carbon freezer? Well, whatever it is, it looks menacing, but there’s actually a certain spot to the right where you can stand and shoot it and it will hardly touch you at all. So yeah, if you stand there, this boss is super-easy.

But alas, despite Han putting up a good fight, he still got put in the BIG freeze.

And now that Han’s made his temporary exit, I think it’s break time. We’re almost at the end, people!

Current Mood: blah

Yoda told Luke to go after his friends. I’m sorry, I just can’t get over that. Yoda told Luke to go after his friends. What next, will Yoda be telling Luke that yes, there’s totally still good in Vader and they should try to save him from the dark side?

Well, I’ve still got to finish this game, so let’s go back to the insanity. Luke flies over to Bespin and he’s immediately greeted by enemy cloud cars, some of which are orange because why not?

Basically, you fly around and shoot the enemy ships and TIE Fighters. You can fly behind the clouds, which is kind of cool, but, ah, I have a question. Since Vader wants to turn Luke to the dark side, why is he sending the TIEs out to shoot him? Seems that shooting Luke down would be counterproductive to Vader’s plan.

Anyway, after you get all the ships, Luke lands on Bespin and I have no fucking idea what he’s wearing now, so make up your own joke here.

Seriously, they replicated Luke’s snowsuit from the movie pretty well in the Hoth levels, so what’s with these weird getups now? Anyway, the music’s still dropping in and out, but that’s to be expected by now. After killing a couple of probe droids, you run into Lando, who’s white.

Not just white, but like VAMPIRE white. My God, did they run out of brown pixels or something? This game just keeps getting weirder.

Lando doesn’t bother introducing himself and just says R2 can shut down the laser beams for a short time. Wow, R2 actually gets to do something! Just up ahead are some laser gates, which R2 lets you pass through – by getting himself electrocuted in the process. Yup, the little droid hurts himself so Luke can go through.

Of course Cloud City is crawling with stormtroopers because why wouldn’t it be? Shortly after this, Leia contacts Luke via . . . the Force? Or did she leave a message in R2? I don’t know, the point is that there are bounty hunters everywhere.

After some more R2 electrocution, you get attacked by a bounty hunter that I assume is Zukkus. He does lethal somersaults that can kill you instantly, depending on your health level, so the boosted lightsaber is a must.

Get caught in his somersault and you’re pretty much dead, so the best strategy is to jump over him while he’s shooting at you, let him somersault in the other direction, then lightsaber him when he’s somersaulting back, repeat. With the lightsaber boost it doesn’t take long to kill him.

After killing him, R2 electrocutes himself for you some more and you run into another bounty hunter who does gymnastics at you. I’m not sure who this guy is, but after you kill him, he’s got a clone to fight after a conveyor belt. Oh, you know what’s funny? If Luke dies on the conveyor belt, the belt carries his corpse on its merry way.

After fighting THREE of these guys and going through a maze of conveyor belts, you can fight and steal another AT-ST walker. It can walk through laser gates and kill bounty hunters like nothing, so you feel like a badass as you go back through the maze to go through the laser gates R2 wouldn’t go through earlier, where you can get a new Force power. Of course, then you have to go all the way back the other way.

After some more exploring the maze, you get to fight Boba Fett, which is tedious. Even with the lightsaber boost, it takes forever for him to go flying away – and that’s if you survive to the end of the fight.

When Boba goes flying off, you run after him and see his ship take off. Leia tells you that Boba has Han and to go after him . . . wait, go after him? What do you mean go after him? For that matter, in the movie Boba took off and . . . OH SHIT, they’re about to REALLY screw with canon, aren’t they?

Oh fuck me. Just FUCK ME. Yes, Luke takes off in his X-Wing to go after Boba. You’ve got another flying level where you shoot at Slave 1 . . . which has frozen Han on it. Um, tell me, Luke, isn’t trying to shoot down Boba’s ship kind of counterproductive to saving Han when Han’s STILL ON THE SHIP?

Also, Boba’s ship sounds like birds tweeting when it shoots at you . . . for some reason. I’ve given up trying to apply reason to this game. This battle’s also FRUSTRATING AS HELL. It only takes a few hits from Slave 1 for the X-Wing to blow up and it’s nearly impossible to get a clear shot without taking damage yourself.

With an INSANE amount of patience, you eventually blow up Boba’s ship (with Han on it? I mean, we don’t see Luke actually rescuing Han, so did Luke just kill his best friend?) and return to Cloud City because, yeah, that’s how things went in canon, we all remember that from the movie, right?

Oh wait, take a step and Han thanks you and says Leia’s in trouble. So . . . Luke not only rescued Han, but he also woke Han up from carbonite . . . by blowing up Boba’s ship with Han on it?? Or was Han never frozen in this version of events – with how much they’ve fucked canon up, it wouldn’t surprise me if they skipped the whole carbon-freezing thing.

And why is Leia in trouble? Aren’t she and Lando and Chewie escaping in the Falcon? Oh fuck it, there’s no telling what’s going on now.

Maybe the game developers made the game so difficult on purpose so no one would see how they’re butchering canon. Well, they didn’t count on people eventually inventing save states.

Anyway, back to Cloud City. Only a little more of this game to go, people! More conveyor belts, more bounty hunters, more gears, more stormtroopers, more music dropping out after five seconds, it’s business as usual. There’s a super-irritating spot where you’ve got to fight a whole bunch of bounty hunters in a row – the best course of action is to do your best to jump over them and run away, then when you’ve got the space to do it, levitate over them.

Eventually you run into . . . another Zukkus, except this one’s turquoise, so maybe it’s Zukkus’s brother or something, who knows?

Kill him and you find Leia, who also looks like a vampire. Maybe there’s a vampiric curse going around Bespin, it wouldn’t surprise me at this point.

Leia warns you that Vader’s here and oh boy, I can’t wait to see how they butcher the “I am your father” scene.

Luke and Vader both draw red lightsabers (just go with it) and we hear Vader’s voice saying “The Force is with you, young Skywalker,” which I’ll admit is pretty damn cool. After that we get a cool 8-bit rendition of the Imperial March which lasts a full TEN seconds before it drops out instead of five! WOW!

I think this game is getting to me.

Anyway, plow through some Ugnaughts and stormtroopers to get to Vader and WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK??

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Vader is using a blaster. DARTH VADER is using a blaster. Let me repeat that – DARTH FUCKING VADER IS USING A FUCKING BLASTER!!

I got nothing. Seriously. I think my brain just shut down from the madness that is the NES Empire Strikes Back game.

Oh, and that’s not all. Sometimes he swaps out the blaster for a lightsaber . . . which is BLUE.

Apparently Vader and Luke thought it would be fun to switch lightsabers. O-kay, there’s a spot on the left-hand side of the screen where Vader can’t hurt you, so the battle’s real simple. After the battle, Vader vanishes while saying “Impressive,” so was he Force-projecting himself or did he just leave? I can’t tell what’s what anymore.

Explore the facility some more and you’ll run into Vader again. Second verse, same as the first. Again you can move to the far left and lightsaber him from there, and again he disappears when you beat him. Then you get to fight him a THIRD time and AGAIN you can just jump over him to the left where he can’t touch you.

This is the last level, right? What, after making us fight through all the grind of the previous levels, the game developers decided to reward us by making the last level super-easy? I’m not complaining, but that seems a bit backwards to me.

Vader disappears yet again, so you go through a few more Ugnaughts and stormtroopers, then you encounter Vader again on a mess of pillars.

Well, this time around Vader jumps from pillar to pillar in an extremely simple pattern. This battle’s a bit harder than the previous three, but there’s a certain pillar that he never lands on. Time your jumps right from this pillar and you can kick his ass, then he disappears again, blah blah blah.

After going through some more of the facility, you run into another one of those annoying bounty hunters – who puts up more of a fight than Vader does. Seriously. At one point Yoda interrupts you and tells you to use the Force, which is a cue to start levitating.

Then you fight Vader AGAIN and he’ll use that trusty BLASTER. After the fight, he tells you to join the dark side. Okay, so this is where Luke learns his parentage, right?

Wait, that’s all he says before disappearing AGAIN? The FUCK?

Okay, you run to the right and you run into Vader YET AGAIN (how is he teleporting all over the place?) and hear his actual voice say “The Force is with you, young Skywalker.” Okay, this HAS to be the final boss fight, so we’re going to get something EPIC, right?

Right?

This time around, he makes stuff fly around with the Force while he’s attacking you, but that’s the only thing that’s different. Oh, and there’s no safe spot where he can’t attack you either. Use the lightsaber booster and jump around a lot and then . . . wait, WHAT???

Luke . . . defeated . . .Vader . . .

Luke . . . defeated . . . Vader . . .

LUKE FUCKING DEFEATED VADER???

So . . . no parentage reveal? No hand amputation? The FUCK??

By the way, that’s the ending screen. The only thing after that is a wall of text talking about how the Emperor will strike again and the Rebels will continue their fight and blah blah blah it will soon be time for the Return of the Jedi.

Which is a lie – they never made a Return of the Jedi NES game. I mean, why would they? Luke already rescued Han, so there’s no need to go to Jabba’s palace, and he already (gag) bested Vader, so there’s no need to face him again in order to become a Jedi. Hell, since Vader never revealed that he was Luke’s father, now Luke will feel no need to redeem him. The whole thing’s been fucked up beyond saving.

I have a theory about this, though. This game came out in 1992, when the Super Nintendo had already been out for several months. The first Super Star Wars game would be released later in the year, so I have a feeling that JVC Digital Studios wanted to concentrate on the hot new console instead of the NES, so that’s why the ESB NES game ends . . . the way it does, so there wouldn’t be as much pressure to release another Star Wars game for the NES. That’s just a theory, though.

So, what do I think of this game? Well . . . it’s weird. Weird and hard, and I don’t feel the satisfaction that I felt after I beat the original NES Star Wars game, which was much more fun than this one. It really does feel like the ESB game developers either didn’t see the movie or completely missed the point of it. I get it, you change things when you adapt something to a different medium, but the original NES Star Wars game managed to keep the flavor and most of the plot points of the movie, while the ESB game just . . . ignores canon for no apparent reason. Plus, in the original game you could play as all three of the heroes, while here you can just play as Luke, which means you miss a good chunk of the plot. Even if you ignore how this game is based on a beloved movie, if you strip the game of its Star Wars-ness, you’re left with a rather average difficult platformer, and the music, blech. Why the HELL does the music keep dropping out?

The voice samples are cool, though.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

So what’s next? Well, I could go to the next console generation and replay the Super Star Wars games, but there’s actually another NES Star Wars game to try out, though it was never released in America. You thought this game was weird? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Yes, I’m trying the JAPANESE Star Wars game.