What’s the story?: The final chapter in LucasArts’ Super Star Wars trilogy: Super Return of the Jedi features the same solid run & gun (or slash) platforming as its predecessors. Just like the first two games in the series, a few “Mode 7″ vehicle levels are thrown in to mix up gameplay. With the series now moving to a 16 Meg cartridge, these stages happen to be the most enjoyable in the trilogy. Princess Leia & Wicket the Ewok have also been added as playable characters in specific stages of SRotJ – bringing the total number of playable platforming characters to five (Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke).

Force Powers are now much easier to use in SRotJ. In SESB, pressing the select button would call up a sub menu with your Force Powers listed on it. You then had to select one by scrolling to it with either shoulder button – then execute it with the “X” button. This was very tough while avoiding waves of enemies. In SRotJ, the select button will do the scrolling in the upper left corner of the screen, no need to stop your movement. Simply hit “X” to unleash the power and “X” again to stop it – easy. The Force Powers that remain are Freeze, Vanish, Deflect, Heal, and the Force Saber “Toss”. The other powers from SESB have been removed from SRotJ completely.

The final improvement is the addition of two new playable characters in a few of the game’s stages. Leia (who comes in every outfit depending on the stage) and Wicket the Ewok (who shoots arrows in every direction), are the newcomers. As in SESB, each character has a special move by pressing the “X” button. Leia gets Chewbacca’s “Spin”, and Wicket gets what seems to be a concentrated Arrow shot. Wicket’s stages in Endor were some of the more enjoyable in the game.

Whats not to like:The main problem with SESBwas the extreme difficulty found throughout every stage, as well as the overabundance of Hoth stages (and enemies) to open the game. In SRotJ, developers slightly toned down difficulty (slightly), and stages are spread much more evenly. The biggest issue here is the fact that most of the stages are way too long. For example, “Inside the Rancor Pit” is a HUGE vertical stage which lasts forever and ends up feeling repetitive. This fault is found in many of the levels in SRotJ.

The game’s Speeder Bike and final trip to the Death Star’s core are both a bit of a let down, especially when compared to the the other vehicular levels in the game. It’s obvious the SNES is graphically being pushed hard here -back when this game was released these stages looked alright, today, not so much.

Check out some of the more important boss battles in the video below. Luke vs the Rancor, Leia (in Slave outfit) vs Jabba, and Luke vs the Emperor – just to name a few. Most of the game’s “flying” stages are also shown.

Score
Overall
For the final entry in the SSW trilogy, developers almost gave us the perfect 2D Star Wars game. Controls are tight, graphics are fantastic and the minor gameplay tweaks really add a nice polish to the series. The only thing holding this one back from being the best in the series are some of the most repetitive, longest, and annoying levels in the entire trilogy. This doesn’t mean SRotJ isn’t a fun game – if you’re a Star Wars fan you’ll have a good time, and with the entire series now available on the Wii VC at $8.00 a piece, you really can’t go wrong with any choice. My pick for best in the series goes to the original which in my opinion has the least annoying gameplay of the three - despite it missing a password feature. May the Force be with you.
User Score: (1 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)  Loading ...