Super Review: A review of the first levels of every SNES Star Wars

Super Review

A review of the first levels of every SNES Star Wars

By Dakota Gilliland

I can already hear you. “Why would this nerf herder only review the first levels? Why not just review the game as a whole?” I wish I could tell you it’s because I’m punk af and will do things how I want to, but the truth is I never got past the first level on most of these games. I made it to level three once on Super Jedi, but these games are HARD! My mom divorced my dad when I was 2 years old and lucky for me, she remarried a dude whose son had an SNES and all three classic platformers. SCORE!

Super Star Wars

Pterodactyl birds, Alaskan bull worms, and scorpions. Oh My! You begin this level as Luke in the Dune Sea on Tatooine. Your weapon is a blaster which is fine for this level but proves pretty worthless in the later levels. Getting dive bombed by bird creatures is a recurring theme throughout the series and is more annoying than anything. The boss of this level is the Sarlacc Pit Monster (couple movies early, I know.) His attacks are pretty weak. He can hit you with his tentacles or by throwing rocks. What makes the boss fight difficult is the fact that the entire frame is set in a pit of quicksand. Keep your finger on that blaster and you shouldn’t have many problems taking him down though.

Super Empire Strikes Back

I’m not sure where it officially ranks, but Empire was DEFINITELY the hardest for me. You begin the level as Luke on the frozen planet of Hoth. We have, however, upgraded our blaster for a lightsaber. (I also want to add that these games are absolutely beautiful. There’s just something about that classic 16 bit artwork that gets me all warm and nostalgic.) Not only have you upgraded from your blaster, but you also start this level with a TaunTaun that you ride like Yoshi. I mean, this thing is pretty quick. Enemies you’ll bump into on this level include ice spikes that shoot from the ground, these spiky ice porcupines, and (you guessed it) dive bombing birds. At a point in the level, you enter a cave in which you fight miniature Wampas and eventually end up fighting the mama grizzly. The Wampa boss fight is pretty tough. He takes up the entire frame and can do damage with his arms and ice breath. Although you have your lightsaber, you definitely want to go with your blaster on this one. It’s much more powerful than the one from the previous game. Especially if you power it up.

Super Return of the Jedi

This is my favorite of the game and film series. Wanna fight about it? This level begins as you battle  your way through the entrance to Jabba’s Palace. This time around, you can choose your character. This level lets you choose between Leia, Luke, and Chewie. Leia is the popular choice, but I like to use Chewie for his spinning charge attack. Remember those tiny bird creatures from before? Well they’re back. And they’re big. They randomly will pick you up and carry you back to various parts of the level and drop you from the sky. Not too frustrating if you weren’t trying to land on tiny floating platforms. Most of the time this means falling to the bottom floor of the level, or to your death. The boss of this level is the little robot from the movie that C3 and R2 meet at Jabba’s gate except 50x bigger and will not hesitate to crush you. He’s actually not too bad if you use your character’s charge attack. He was pretty tough to beat as a kid and I’m sure Han is eternally frozen in his carbonite prison on many cartridges around the world to this day. - GAD!