Sailor Moon: La Luna Splende (Nintendo DS)

 In the name of the moon, where did this come from?!

So, I have absolutely zero authority to talk about anything Sailor Moon. I feel it is important to preface the open with this statement, out of truthfulness and honesty. My history with Sailor Moon as a series began when I was a kid, I remember seeing episodes of it on satellite TV, as I was clearly one of the privileged few. It was actually my younger brother who was watching it, he couldn’t have been much older than 4 at the time. I have a memory of my initial reaction being quite incredulous, he was watching a girl’s show, society had clearly trained me well to perpetuate patriarchal viewpoints. On reflection, I do feel great shame in this, being an ignorant child is an excuse that only takes me so far. At the time, however, I may have even told him that this was a cartoon for girls, but he didn’t care or pay me any attention, he was always the more progressive of the three of us boys. Alternatively, just like I was a dumb, 10-year-old child, he was a dumb younger child and didn’t care what he was watching. I wish my memory was better at times, I’d love to dissect what happened next or even the thought processes at the time. It might have been a few days or weeks later, but at some point, I sat down with him and watched an episode. Perhaps multiple episodes. I can’t say for certain how many episodes I watched in total of the DIC dub of Sailor Moon, but I had clearly taken in enough for it to leave a reasonable imprint on me. Despite this, I had never really followed up too much on the show or media, even when I entered my full-blown weeb era. Perhaps this was because my springboard at that point was Love Hina and Azumanga Daioh, romantic comedies and slice of life are, and remain, my bread and butter when it comes to Anime and Manga. 

 

I say I never followed up too much, when I learnt about emulation from friends at school, I was lucky enough to acquire a hand-me-down laptop from my Dad. It was an old Windows 95 machine, but it was just enough to get 16-bit games emulating on it (perhaps poorly). I went to a known, totally “100% trusted and safe”, site for ROMs at the time and I remember finding the Sailor Moon RPG, Sailor Moon Another Story, translated from the French version and I played that for a couple of hours. Back then I wasn’t particularly good at finishing what I started, which is still true to this day but I am getting better at it. The game itself was enjoyable from memory, it is probably exactly what you want from a Sailor Moon RPG. From there, I was always one to clock Sailor Moon stuff whenever I saw it, but I always kept the series just beyond arms reach. I am not sure why I did this, and I am sure some psychiatrists could have a field day with my thoughts and behaviours. I am reminded of the line from “The Goes Wrong Show”, where one of the characters, Dennis, is described as “Medically Fascinating”. That’s a phrase the Wife and I use to describe me quite often. So, despite years since then, with my peak-weeb phase, my time spent studying Japanese and being, possibly problematically, a typically white boi with an interest in Japan. My actual knowledge and experience with Sailor Moon had not progressed any further. So, with this all in mind, shall we talk about a Sailor Moon game?

 

Sailor Moon La Luna Splende is, in my opinion, an absolute anomaly. Developed by Open Sesame, a Japanese developer who I had initially struggled to find much information on. I was fortunate enough to find a GameFAQs entry for the developer with a list of games they had developed. Most of these were games exclusively for the Japanese market, with the odd game here or there for North America, like Reel Fishing II and III. On GameFAQs’ list they state that Sailor Moon La Luna Splende was released in March 2011, about two weeks after the Japanese release date for the 3DS. This late release date into the DS’ life is important, and I will swing back to that later. I haven’t actually mentioned why this game is such an anomaly, and that is because it was only released in Europe, specifically, it was an Italian release. I would love to understand more about this, how this game came into being and why was it the first and last Sailor Moon game after a massive drought of games?

During the 16-Bit era, there was a plethora of Sailor Moon games, at least 9 of them on the Super Nintendo alone, these came in a variety of different genres. Beat-em-ups, puzzle games, 1v1 fighting games, and a JRPG (As referenced earlier). Incidentally, of all these types of games, it seems that the 1v1 fighting games were the most prolific, with fighting games extending into the next generation with PS1 and Sega Saturn fighting games. I’ve always that quite the curious choice, particularly as these fighting games tend to focus on the Sailor Senshi fighting each other, perhaps for strange story reasons, fighting games love to have weird stories to justify everything going on. I would be awfully remiss if I did not acknowledge that there were numerous educational or edutainment games in the mix as well, in fact there is possibly more of these kinds of games than there were of the fighting games. By 1998, there were 20 Sailor Moon video games, mostly, in the Japanese market. It is a few more years after this point, 2001, that the Sailor Moon games go quiet. Which, actually, shouldn’t be too surprising. The Manga and Anime had finished their run in 1997, and there wasn’t a new series until Sailor Moon Crystal in 2014, three years after Sailor Moon Le Luna Splende’s release. There is a logic to stop doing games as the Manga and Anime stop and the series slowly leaves the mainstream, being replaced by other similar or more popular shows.

That’s exactly what I would be thinking if the series had almost never left popular consciousness. Are you aware of the Live Action show from 2003, or the years of Sailor Moon stage shows? To a certain extent I almost feel like a live action adaptation of Sailor Moon was a given, due to the popularity of it, and as for stage shows, well, slight digression, but we are so far from the actual original topic I feel no shame in taking us on an additional detour. When I was studying abroad in Japan, some of my friends took me to a theme park, in part because there was a Hatsune Miku event happening there and they knew I had fallen into the Vocaloid pit, I was able to purchase a really nice Senbonzakura shirt at the time, shame it doesn’t fit me anymore and god knows where it is now. But whilst I was there, we also watched a stage show of Kamen Rider, which I won’t lie, I didn’t understand a single word of, but the stage craft and choreography was absolutely top notch. Stellar content and I was enthralled. The point being, I am not surprised that Sailor Moon stage shows were, not only a thing, but ran from 1993 up to 2005, which were produced by Bandai, and then picked up again, being produced by Nelke Planning from 2013 onwards. I should note that there are elements of this that don’t come as a surprise, but when I was scrolling down the Wikipedia article on the Sailor Moon Musicals, I did have a moment where I had to ask myself, when does this all end?!

 

So, I somewhat reiterate my earlier question, why was there this massive drought of Sailor Moon games? That I can’t answer and anything else I say on the matter would be purely speculation on a subject I know even less about than I do on Sailor Moon itself. It does make the release window of Sailor Moon La Luna Splende even more baffling though, that it is in the middle of the period of time where Sailor Moon was “absent” in terms of new media. At this point I refuse to accept that it had ever disappeared or become diminished from public consciousness. A Sailor Moon game released during 2005 and 2013 would not have done badly, is what I am trying to suggest and assume. So, shall we finally talk about La Luna Splende? This feels like the longest time I have ever spent rambling about other areas tangentially connected to a game I have talked about. Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon was a long ramble about mechanics, but was still relevant to the game in question. The last 1,500 words here, god knows what is going on there.

Sailor Moon La Luna Splende is a puzzle platformer game for the DS. The title itself is apparently based off the 2^nd season of the anime in Italy, though the characters and events are more grounded in the 1^st season. I was actually quite excited to start this game, and I did have to have a bit of a think about the DS’ capabilities as I have spent so much time in the last two years playing older games that I forget that the DS is capable of reasonable music and video quality. Luminous Arc was a DS game that features an animated introduction with a vocal song and featured voice acting throughout the game. I bring this up because I wanted to set a bar that could be expected and, as if anticipating something, I lowered that bar ever so slightly. After all, I was not expecting Moonlight Densetsu to come out of the speaker. If anything, this got a different kind of anticipation brewing, perhaps the Italian opening for Sailor Moon? That would be rather novel, wouldn’t it? So, after a quick initialisation screen, developer and publisher screens, it jumps straight into the title screen of the game. Is that it? The music on the title screen may be something from the series, I can’t confirm, but this was not a good sign. “Disappointment is an understatement” would be a cliché to say, it feels like a missed opportunity, and I don’t know enough about licensing fees for games, perhaps the developers could get the name and characters, but other elements would have cost significantly more.

Starting the game, you have a choice between the adventure mode and images. I assumed images would be a form of CG gallery, but images is a very tacked on mode where you can create and save “custom” images utilising a variety of stickers. These stickers are collectible in adventure mode and is the only part of the game that utilises the touch screen. This is somewhat reminiscent of those parts of those activity packs you would find on PC. I should note that a DS game that under utilises or doesn’t use the touch screen should not be taken as a red flag. New Super Mario Bros uses the touch screen for the main game very sparingly, providing you that additional item slot that you can tap in to switch power-ups. Though that game also featured a collection of mini-games that were all touch screen focussed. Sailor Moon’s implementation almost feels bottom of the barrel, the kind of thing I imagine someone would do if they had just learnt that the game there were developing for the GBA was going to be either have a dual release on the GBA and DS, or that the development was shifting to the DS after spending the last 8 months as a GBA game and a looming deadline. This is when I remember, that this game came out in 2011. The last published GBA game was in 2008, and I have reason to believe this game probably started development in 2010. I feel like I am falling down some kind of rabbit hole and flinching at my own shadow.

So, let’s finally talk about the game, I apologise this does all come across as a whole load padding, but I want you to understand the mental journey I undertook since completing this game. Going into the Story mode we are presented with an introduction that utilises a static screenshot of Sailor Moon’s friend Naru, laying in a bed at the nurse’s office at school. She has apparently collapsed at school and not woken up. Dialogue is delivered in small little cut outs of images of the various characters, credit where it is due, they is a number of different images used to convey emotions of the lines being delivered, even if a few of them are just Sailor Moon and Mars jabbing at each other. Luna explains that Naru seems to have been put in this state by Youma, and that Sailor Moon and her companions will need to unite their hearts so they can enter Naru’s dream world to save her. With the premise out of the way, you are given the first world you can enter, the Flower Garden, upon selecting the world you also get to pick which of the 5 Sailor Senshi you want to play as. Having character choice in games is always nice. Interestingly, on the character select screen, you can only scroll through them in one direction, so if you decide, I want to play as Sailor Mercury after scrolling to Mars, you can’t scroll backwards, you must cycle through all the other characters again. A decision had to be made to have it work that way. After you select a character you are, and I hesitate to say it this way, treated to that character’s transformations sequence, from the anime, with one screen displaying their transformation phrase and the 2^nd screen playing a rather crunchy looking video clip. The music used is possibly something from the original soundtrack, though it doesn’t feel like the appropriate music to play for the transformation sequences. If this wasn't the correct music, there was an opportunity here and I don’t know for what reasons these music or voicelines were not incorporated, perhaps cart size limitations? DS roms range from 8MB to 512MB, so if you did skimp on the cart size, I can see there being limiting factors. The lack of an all bells and whistles opening is becoming more apparent.

Before we start playing, we are given a quick overview of the game controls and some mechanics. We can jump, drop down through certain platforms, we have a projectile attack and we can push blocks, either by walking into them or shooting them. Walking into them will move them along a tile at a time and shooting them will push them until they can go no further. On the top screen, there is a number of squares, 20 for the Flower Garden, this functions as a map for the world. In 10 of those squares you can see blue crystals. At the bottom of these squares is a tally showing how many of those blue crystals you have collected. A square is also highlighted in blue shows you which square you are currently starting in, and a little border around the square highlights which square you occupy. As you go through into new squares, you will see what squares they branch into. Now, depending on which Sailor Senshi you select will define which square you start in, and what areas you can access. From there, you need to gather what crystals you can and make your way to the world exit. This sounds pretty cool, but I should note that all Senshi play the same, and the only limiting factor blocking off certain areas and items are blocks that only a specific Senshi can destroy. For example, Sailor Moon can destroy yellow moon blocks. What this ultimately means is that for each world you play through, you will be going through several of the same rooms and puzzles multiple times. This probably wouldn’t be too bad, but if you are playing this, the first thing you may notice is how slow certain things are. Moving platforms and even your character move at the speed of dozing sloth. Tedious repetition doesn’t bother me too much, I am a Musou game fan, but slow-moving tedium is teeth extracting levels of pain.

So, after you have cleared a world with one character and collected a number of crystals you are expected to do the same with each and every character until you get all 10 crystals. After you have acquired them all, you are taken to the a story event and a boss fight against Lord Kunzite (Or Kaspar in the Italian version), our reoccurring boss encounter for this game. The boss fights are all simple affairs, though, execution is once again a little questionable. You spend some time dodging some projectiles, attacking Kunzite when he stops attacking for a moment to dramatically swish his cape. After you have hit him once, you switch to another Sailor Senshi and repeat the process another 4 times. Once for each character. Once you deal the last hit, a video clip of that Sailor Senshi’s signature attack will play, once again, in silence, and the battle will be over. Play the next story beat and unlock the next world, in which you repeat the structure of collecting 10 crystals by utilising all five characters, to fight Kunzite to then unlock the final world. Wait. Final world? Yes, there is only three worlds in total. Now, something I will admit, with each new world, a new element is introduced, in the second world, there are explosive blocks, and in the final world there is a lance “enemy” that you can bait into stabbing into nearby walls and use it as a platform. It adds some extra dimensions to it all and means that the game doesn’t get too stale, I guess. Another thing to note is that each subsequent world is slightly larger than the previous one, meaning more rooms to traverse, though the final world doesn’t have as much repetition to it, graciously.

So, with all that, you can understand there a fair amount to feel a bit meh about when it comes to Sailor Moon La Luna Splende. But. I’m struggling. Mostly with some of the puzzles, and that is not a lie. Typically, when you enter a room, you’ll pause the game to allow you to scout out the map, and try to figure out what you are supposed to do, and there will be times when you say to yourself, “What do they expect from me here” and you’ll reset the room in frustration as you box yourself in once again. There are times that this is not the easiest game in the world, it does provide some level of challenge, or perhaps I have severely underestimated my acumen when it comes to puzzle solving. You are not just solving puzzles to traverse the rooms and get crystals, there are also treasure chests that pose additional levels of challenge and consideration, though admittedly, all these contain are the stickers used for the Image mode, and the only reason I went out of my way to collect them all was because someone within the RetroAchievements community created achievements for this game. That’s also why I know this game exists.

There is something about all this that feels low effort, almost a bit of a cash grab. If this was released as a budget game, I probably wouldn’t be terribly offended, though I cannot say for certain what the cost of this game was on release. The thing is, and this is what really bothers me. Sailor Moon was undergoing an international revival around this time, my knowledge of how prolific Anime was in western culture around this time is slightly skewed, I know major chain bookstores were heavily expanding their Manga sections around this the late 2000s, so maybe this all makes sense. But for Sailor Moon in particular, it was decided that Italy would be the place to start this revival, in 2010. A game tied into this revival makes sense. Pokemon proved that a multi-media onslaught works quite well, saturating the space with media and merchandise. With a series like Sailor Moon, this also strikes me as a bit of a no-brainer. You’d be capturing a new generation as well as hitting at nostalgia for my generation. But with the overall quality of this game, it feels like the attempt was doomed to fail, whilst I admit the game itself was challenging enough, more could have been done and it could be little things. Adding in voice lines and Music from the Anime would go a long way here. Ultimately, the entire package feels like a game that had been canned at some point, and then they slapped a Sailor Moon coat of paint on it, shipping it out with minimal effort.

I can’t remember if there was an actual revival of Sailor Moon around the early 2010s, but the introduction of Sailor Moon Crystal in 2014 and the Netflix Movies Sailor Moon Eternal and Cosmos in 2021 and 2023 respectively, the re-release of the original Manga and special editions, say that Sailor Moon has re-injected herself into the public consciousness, domestically and internationally. So, I suppose the next real question is, why have there not been any new Sailor Moon games since?

 

... Iru! (PS1)

 As if school wasn’t a horror enough…

 

…Iru! Is a Japanese first-person horror adventure game released in 1998 for the PS1. That’s a quirk of the English language, isn’t it? “first-person horror adventure game”, you wouldn’t say “adventure first-person horror” or “first-person adventure horror”, it doesn’t read right. It’s like how a big green dragon is fine, but a green big dragon doesn’t sound natural. But hey, now I am getting distracted by the minutiae of the English language. So, let’s get further sidetracked by Japanese language! …Iru! does have a translation available, which I am grateful for, as my Japanese is incredibly rusty these days. Of note, even the title was translated to “… They’re here,” which, contextually, works quite well as a translation; it has an ominous “They live” vibe. 

So, language digressions aside, let’s talk about the game. …Iru! is a horror adventure game set in a high school, because schools themselves are terrifying places, even more so at night. Our protagonist, Inaba, is helping set up his classroom for the upcoming culture festival, which, based on what we see in the classroom, appears to be a Takoyaki stand. He wakes up after an ominous dream involving a young girl being chased into a chapel, who gives us an ominous warning that something bad might be going down, and when the moon vanishes, everything will go to hell. Having seemingly fallen asleep on the floor, he is chastised by his classmate, Yuma, and you get back to trying to get the room finished for tomorrow’s festival. At this point, we get to get a feel for the controls of …Iru! and it works, it feels a bit floaty and cumbersome, but for the time it was probably quite a normal way to play a first-person perspective on the PlayStation 1. We do get dedicated strafe buttons, which is always something I like to have (it makes performing SR40 possible, wait, that’s Doom), but we also have the L2 and R2 buttons adjust your Y-Axis, and even after playing the game for about 6 hours I still find this a little unintuitive and press the wrong buttons.

The starting act of the game sets up the ebb and flow of the game much better than I was expecting and also gives us a decent amount of time with some of the NPCs, we get to know about how Hirose is a caricature of a fat person, Hikawa is an awful person, Ms Houjo is suspicious and that not everything is as it seems. The entire set-up feels a bit like a slasher film from the 80s, a group of characters are disconnected from the outside world, and we get a chance to dislike them before something inevitably bad happens to them. What I meant by the ebb and flow of the game, without prior knowledge, you’ll be bumbling about trying to find out which NPC you need to talk to or what event you need to stumble in on. Sometimes you are given a bit of a steer, but I felt myself frequently just running around, hoping to encounter some dialogue or be given an item that would help me progress. Eventually, we get into the meat and potatoes of everything, as tension slowly starts to bubble, the school experiences a power cut, and you know that is when everything will hit the fan.

 

So, I don’t want to get too much into the story, as I think it is something best experienced, either through playing it yourself or through a rather comprehensive Let’s Play (Not a shameless plug at all!). I should note that you it would also be good to go in blind, even if the bumbling about can be a little frustrating and can make things seem a little disjointed, but the game is relatively short, even if my first playthrough did clock in at about 4 hours, my second one was probably closer to 2. …Iru! features two core routes, and you can seemingly jump back and forth on them a little bit. I assume that depending on which route you were prominently on will make a minor difference to the ending, of which there are strictly speaking four of them: a bad ending, two worst endings and a true ending. Seeing as the bad ending and true ending are effectively the same regardless of which route you take, your mileage on replaying this game might be limited. Personally, I really enjoyed my 2^nd run of this game as the events I encountered were very different and put a different vibe to one of the characters. That being said, I think my first run had me bounce between the routes a little bit, which probably didn’t help with laying out the cleanest narrative, but there were still some clear plot points to follow regardless of this. Ultimately, though, the story is pretty good, there is enough intrigue to keep you going and featuring some predictable twists and turns if you are familiar with the tropes of the genre.

 

Being trendy before its time or more likely taking inspiration from games like Clock Tower, …Iru! leaves you defenceless and has you hiding from would-be, killers and utilising some basic puzzle solving to overcome obstacles. “Chases” are scripted, so they happen at set times in the story and the solution is typically quite simple; in fact, the game will indicate when you interact with things if you can use them to hide “in a pinch”. Unlike Clock Tower, however, when you are being chased, you will automatically go to a nearby room where you can hide, which means there are several mentioned “in a pinch” hiding places you won’t use. I mean, truth be told, Clock Tower’s chases are also scripted, to a certain extent, you just have a bit more freedom in where you choose to hide. This means that outside of these story beats, you are, by and large, safe from danger whilst exploring, even though, theoretically, there are things out there stalking the corridors. This being said, the relative safety that you have could be contrasted with a game like “White Day: A Labyrinth named School”, which has stealth elements that can prove to be frustrating as you constantly go back and forth to hiding places to avoid capture/death. I think the illusion of danger that there is something about wandering the corridors keeps you on an appropriate amount of edge, at least for that first playthrough.

 

Something I haven’t touched on, is the overall presentation of the game. In my opinion, this game looks fantastic. Now admittedly, I play pretty much all my Retro Games via emulation,, and I am not tech-savvy enough to know what is going on to make old games probably look better than they would have on official hardware, on an old CRT, plugged in with composite cables. What I can say about the game, though, is that I like the aesthetic. PS1 horror is an aesthetic that seems to be widely loved; this is evident by the number of indie games that utilise this style. Character models look decent to me, and whilst some of them do look a little derpy at times, and the less we say about Hirose’s walk cycle, the better. Sometimes, finding items can be a little challenging at times; things like keys tend to have a little glint that shows up in the darkness, but some other items can elude you at times. Another part of the game’s presentation I want to touch on is how there are plenty of unnecessary spaces ranges from bathrooms, locker rooms, classrooms, and plenty of locked doors that remain locked throughout the game. Half of those locations do not even have events that take place in them. I actually quite like this, the game world of …Iru! feels, by and large, like it could be a familiar space, a real place, a real high school somewhere in Japan with a layout that feels out of someone’s childhood. The basketball hoop on the roof terrace by the observatory is probably the only thing that came across as wildly out of place, beyond the more obvious, sinister things.

Personally, I found a lot to enjoy here, the atmosphere that …Iru! Captures is quite solid; the mystery and the intrigue kept my attention throughout, though I must admit, there was a plot point I had totally forgotten about by the end of the game, but by that point I was more concerned about the perils the final act had introduced. The puzzles in the game aren’t too complicated, you won’t have to reach for the moon for the logic to solve them, you won’t be picking up hundreds of items to shove into your inventory, and there is only one item in the game that is “useless”. The music can be a little grating at times, but that is because I spent way too long trying to figure out where I was going and listening to the same loop over and over again. The opening act can be a little slow, and depending on the kind of person you are, you might find this incredibly frustrating, or you might be like me and find yourself getting a little sucked into the mild dramas of some of the characters. It was unfair to say that the opening act gives you reason to dislike the characters; there are only a couple of them who come across as terrible people who deserve comeuppance. If you enjoy slower-paced horror experiences, like Clock Tower, I genuinely believe you will have a good time with this, definitely a game to crack out in the evening and sit there in a dark room to play!

My let's play of ....Iru! Is available here.

https://youtu.be/I-9z9S-iBzY

THE Daibijin/Demolition Girl (PS2)

Apparently, there is a way to totally mess up a game featuring a 100ft tall woman…

 

I am sure there is a really good way to textualize a long-protracted sigh, though I suppose this long sigh really needs to be vocalised to indicate the level of disappointment present here. I feel that sums up my final thoughts on Demolition Girl absolutely perfectly. Demolition Girl is a budget PS2 game and part of the Simple2000 Series. The Simple series is a budget line of games published by the company D3 Publisher, part of Bandai Namco, and consisted of games developed by a bunch of Japanese studios, such as Sandlot of Earth Defense Force fame, and Tamsoft known for Oneechanbara and Senran Kagura. It comes as little to know surprise that Demolition Girl came from the folks at Tamsoft. That’s unfair to say about Tamsoft, they have also worked on numerous Simple2000 games such as Party Girls, The Catfight: Joneko Densetsu, Love*Upper (Also known as Heartbeat Boxing in Europe), but they also have some full price retail games, such as Dream Club and a couple of Ikki Tousen Games. Okay, so dragging the company and pretending they only have a portfolio of softcore ecchi games is actually unfair. Their library of games aren’t all suspect, they worked on the Choro Q games, also known as Penny Racers outside of Japan, a rather charming looking series of racing games that utilised Takara’s line of miniature car toys as vehicles. They also developed the Battle Arena Toshinden games, a true 3D fighting game series released in 1995.

So, the Simple2000 Series got its name for being the retail price of the games in the series, Simple2000 games were sold for 2000 yen, which when I converted that price today (23^rd February 2026) it was about £10 and right now the jury is currently out on whether or not the entire series line is a scam of sorts. I’m being incredibly mean today, and I apologise for that. There is no shame in being able to provide budgets title into a market, for some this might be the only affordable vector for them to play video games, and as long as the games are playable and are able to provide a level of enjoyment I say there is no harm to it. It should also be said that just because something is a budget title, it doesn’t mean it is, by default, a bad game. The Earth Defense Force series started in the Simple2000 line with Monster Attack and Global Defence Force and is, quite frankly, one of my favourite series of games. Alongside the Simple2000 games, there were a couple of other lines, like Simple1500 which has over 100 games under the name, some of them being basic board game or sports simulators, whilst others were more ambitious and absurd, such as Power Shovel, a game about driving a digger and using it to complete numerous challenges, like crushing a car, or rescuing turtles. Power Shovel is, in fact, an absolutely fantastically quirky game that I really need to get back to.

I can probably talk about the Simple Series for days, but alas, I do not have that kind of time. So, let’s get our focus back on Demolition Girl for now. Demolition Girl is the Western release of Simple2000 Vol: 50 THE Daibijin. Demolition Girl features Riho Futaba, a fictional model and reoccurring character in the Simple2000 series, being turned into a giant by some unknown tentacled aliens for, what I can only assume are, destructive, world conquering reasons. Immediately, we have some fantastic levels of absurdity but sadly, this is where everything starts to fall apart. With a Western Title like Demolition Girl, featuring a 100ft tall woman standing near a city, you would think that this game would allow you to play as said Girl and go on a bit of a destruction tour of various locations. Alas, no, we play as the Japanese military’s response to the appearance of the enlarged Riho, a response that seems quite well equipped for dealing with oversized bikini clad ladies. The game features a short story of 6 missions and, some credit where it is due, they are all different.

The first mission is primarily a recon mission, and I feel this is the mission that the majority of in-game screenshots are taken from when doing a cursory search online. Piloting a helicopter, you are tasked with scanning the newly made giantess Riho, gathering measurement details of her breasts, waist, buttocks and head. For science reasons, obviously. I should probably talk about the first thing you notice when you start playing this game. It controls terribly, it is hard to explain why it is terrible, it all just doesn’t feel good, everything feels stiff and sluggish making manoeuvring much harder than it needs to be. Perhaps this is what it is like to pilot a helicopter, I have no clue, perhaps my experience with helicopters in games like Grand Theft Auto, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, and Jungle Strike have ruined helicopters for me forever. So, let’s elaborate on my comment about the well-equipped response. Besides the scanning device you get to acquire Giant Riho’s three sizes, you have the option to bring 3 additional support weapons into the first two stages. These include items to help temporarily stun Riho for a few seconds, these include a giant cake, a metal bowl to drop on her head, pepper, and an item confusingly called Pinc-nezGlasses, which is actually incense. All these items keep Riho in one spot for a few seconds, as she animates her way through her response to these items, providing you a decent window of opportunity to scan her.

 

Following the scanning, and confirmation this is in fact Riho Futaba, and not some giant monster who just so happens to look like her, your next mission is to sedate her which involves using giant syringe missiles to hit her in various locations indicated on the games HUD. Locations include front and back, from her head down to her knees, in fact there is a quest in the game to complete this mission having successfully hit both of her breasts. We’ll touch on quests later, as they are probably the best thing the game has going for it. But it was during this mission I learnt of terrible design choice relating to missile-based weapons. You have unlimited missiles, which after firing and hitting a target will rearm themselves. There was an important step there, “Hitting a target”, if you don’t understand how the missile lock-on system works, which I didn’t until I finished the game, if a missile flies off into the void, it won’t rearm until it hits the edge of the map, and this can take a while, meaning you will be stuck with no syringe missiles for, what feels like, forever. It took me a while to understand that this is what was going on, I mean, it certainly is one way to encourage you to be accurate. The other thing that is quite challenging, is knowing exactly where you are aiming, you have a reticle on screen but it never feels like your shots are going remotely near it, this is particularly frustrating during the final stage.

Anyway, we have sedated Riho, and she is now being airlifted away from Okinawa, towards mainland Japan, this is an idea that can only end well. During the airlift, the helicopters carrying her are attacked by jellyfish like aliens, lots of them, and we get to experience a new vehicle, a fighter jet, and this stage is a pretty miserable experience. Thinking on it, the controls make sense, and maybe if I was more familiar with flight combat sims, this might not be one of the more frustrating stages. In the jet, you constantly move forwards and pressing left or right on the analog stick causes you to roll in that respective direction. So to turn yourself around, you are having to roll in the direction you want and use up and down on the analog stick to turn yourself around, it all felt a little disorientating and made a mission about shooting down 50 aliens much more frustrating than it was worth. Again, on reflection, this was probably a skill issue on my part. So, shoot down 50 aliens successfully and the mission still ends with Riho being captured by Aliens, don’t you love it when you succeed in a mission in a game, but it still ends in a failure in the context of the story?

The only other mission I want to talk about in any real detail is Mission 5, as this is the only other mission that uses a different vehicle. In Mission 5, Riho is making her way to Shibuya, and you are following her in a tank on a highway that she is running parallel too. The aim is to distract her for long enough that remaining civilians can be evacuated, which takes about 400 seconds, and maybe it is just me, but when you have a visible clock counting down it feels like it takes significantly longer. In this stage you don’t really move the tank, it moves forward to keep pace with Riho, and either, the tank is superfast or she runs really slowly, because you are always a set distance away from her. You can strafe in your tank to avoid other cars on the highway, or you could just blow them up, which I am sure would be frowned upon by some, but maybe not all, authorities. To distract Riho, I guess the aim is to just shoot at her, her giant size seemingly makes her invulnerable to bullets and explosions, but I guess it would annoy her enough to make her stop running and find something to throw at you, like a car or building. Every time I have done this stage, I have never seen her get more than 50% of the way to Shibuya, considering there is a quest to beat the stage without her getting 75% of the way there, I was expecting something a bit more of a challenge, maybe?

 

Though, I think that is a good point to segue on to the Quests. Quests are challenges and are essentially baked in achievements for the game, which must have made the RetroAchievements set development much easier! The game has 25 quests in total and they range from things like, get A ranks on all missions, to beating the story mode 3 times, the aforementioned shooting syringes at both her breasts during mission 2. For a game released on the PS2, this was somewhat ahead of the curve and definitely provides additional challenge and some replay value. Completing all the quests also unlocks a bonus mission where you fight against Riho, but after that, there isn’t much to the game. There are unlockable costumes for Riho, but you would be forgiven if you didn’t realise this, as the game doesn’t tell you about them, or explain how to pick an outfit, some of the unlock conditions are also just a pain, requiring you to complete the whole of story mode using a different outfit to unlock the next one.  

Ultimately, I think I am just disappointed by the whole experience. This game strikes me as perfect meme fodder these days, but there is such wasted potential that it hurts me deep down. Sandbox-y destruction simulators can be a lot of fun and that is all this game needed to be. Heck, I would settle for a game like Rampage but instead of giant monsters, it’s just a sleazy re-skin with a bunch of scantily clad ladies. If you want to have a little bit of a fun with some friends or a stream chat, this game is one that will bring about some laughs, but for the person playing it can be a really unenjoyable experience as you wrestle with the controls and flounder for a bit on each mission, before realising the bulk of them can be beaten in a few minutes. The absurdity of this game doesn’t carry it enough and I only mastered the game because the game dared me and I took it up on that challenge.

Super Return of the Jedi (SNES)

 

An amazing end to a saga.

Box art for Super Return of the Jedi

So, I was probably a little misleading at the end of my rant on Super Empire Strikes Back. Whilst it is true that I didn’t beat Return of the Jedi for many years, this wasn’t because the game is overwhelmingly hard, in fact I would probably say this is potentially easier than the original… Up to a point. Return of the Jedi takes the improvements since Empire and adds an additional level of polish to some things. Double jumping isn’t dependent on you jumping from the ground, allowing you to fall off a ledge and save yourself with a quick double jump, checkpoints in the game are now represented by a collectible R2D2, enemy positioning isn’t as malicious, metal debris from enemies doesn’t seem to hurt you or push you around (If it did I never noticed it), and most bosses don’t come across as frustratingly spongy.

Luke is on the Forest Moon of Endor, R2D2 is seen as a collectable checkpoint

So, all in all, Return of the Jedi is a very decent time, the things that made Empire strikes back so hard seem to have been smoothed out a bit and the balance of power seems to have shifted back to the hands of the player. The only possible downgrade in this game that I can see is that Blaster power-ups don’t carry over between levels, so every time you start a new level, you are back to the basic weak blaster. Chewbacca and Han also must endure this awful tier of weaponry, no longer starting with the tier 2 flame weapon. Though Chewbacca keeps his spin attack, really making the blaster redundant, and any level you can play as Han you can play as Chewbacca. So, being able to pick between different characters is back, which certainly helps with the difficulty. Some levels only give you a single character to play as, this is more prevalent towards the latter half of the game when Luke is aboard the Death Star. But during the Jabba’s palace segment, we usually have about three characters to play as. Luke, Chewbacca, Han and in some instances Leia.

Most levels give you multiple characters to play as, now including Leia!

Yes, they made Princess Leia a playable character, and she comes in flavours! The first few levels she is in her bounty hunter disguise, where she uses a stick that functions in a similar way to the light saber. There is also Slave Leia, available for Jabba’s sail barge level, where she has a short-range melee attack with her chain, and has Chewbacca’s spin ability. There is Rebel Leia as well, available on Endor and… I don’t think she has any special abilities; she just has a blaster. Leia in her first two forms has a special ability that if you hold down the attack button for a few seconds, she will start to flash and releasing the attack button she will shout out an energy wave which just destroys… Well… Everything. It seems to reliably remove about 3 little orbs from a boss’ health bar. It is ridiculously overpowered. Talking of overpowered, you also play as Wickett the Ewok during some Endor stages, he has a little bow and arrow which seems to do some serious damage. I mean, the Ewoks do destroy the Stormtroopers in the movie, so I guess it is to reflect that.

Leia in her Boushh Bounty Hunter disguise fighting Jabba's guards

The game isn’t without its difficulty, in fact the first stage is a bit of a beginner’s trap, as it immediately throws you into a vehicle section where you race across Tatooine in a speeder and must jump across bottomless pits. This is a very different Tatooine from Super Star Wars. You don’t have a huge amount of time to react to the first jump and chances are you will fail it, a couple of times, as you probably won’t realise you want to hold down a button for the boosters and hold that the down button during jumps to slow down your descent as you jump. Graciously, the other vehicle sections aren’t as bad and are quite comfortable, except for one… And that one, I feel it is important that it is so challenging. So, we have a speeder bike chase in the forests of Endor and some Millenium Falcon sections where you shoot down TIE fighters. But then we get to the big one, and honestly why I never beat this game as a child. Return of the Jedi has a very visually impressive first-person flight segment into and out of the Death Star as its final levels. Flying into the Death Star is not that bad, you have TIE pursuing you that will drop shield and health pick ups as you move deeper and deeper into the Death Star. But then we get to the last stage of the entire trilogy. Escaping an exploding Death Star.

The first level of this game is a Mode7 vehicle level!

The Death Star escape during Return of the Jedi is a test of endurance, reactions and fumbling with the relatively awkward first-person flying controls. I’ll give everyone a tip for free, pressing select will cycle through some different control schemes for the Falcon, at the top of the screen it will tell you which one you have selected, and I recommend using “Flat”. With Flat you can use the L and R buttons to roll the Falcon in that direction and that should be your focus in this section. Essentially, during the escape, you need to be moving at top speed to escape fiery explosion behind you, scraping walls will slow you down and you’ll eventually start losing health from the explosion as it catches up with you. The biggest challenge of this section is that it is a depth perception problem, as you move between “zones” and need to roll, it is hard to know when you need to start rolling without hitting walls and losing speed. Eventually you need to also move yourself to avoid walls that are sticking out a little bit. I make it sound relatively easy, but it really isn’t when you are in control. This stage alone was the reason I never beat this game, I could get all the way to the end and fall at the last hurdle, and my understanding was that this was a common experience for people who played this game back in the day. If the section was in third person, it might be easier, as you’d see where the Falcon is spatially, but the first person view makes it much harder to comprehend.

A snippet of the visually confusing mess that is the final level of the game

There are a few other challenging levels in this game, the Rancor boss can be surprisingly tough depending on which character you play as, Luke has a miserable time with this boss and requires a ridiculous amount of patience to beat. I have beaten the Rancor as Luke once, as a requirement on RetroAchievements, but I would probably be sticking to Chewbacca for the fight. Han fares quite well, with his grenades, but Chewbacca is the go-to for any stage where you can pick him. That’s not true, Han is very good for the boss of the shield generator on Endor, his grenades can end the boss fight incredibly quickly and can help avoid a death spiral there. The shield generator stage is the hardest stage in the game, it is the longest and most complicated. Graciously, there is a means to farm lives on this stage, but only at the first check point. Lives are not as plentiful in this game as they are in Empire, but I will be totally honest, there is no real need to farm lives unless you want a safety blanket.

Han fighting the Shield Generator Core

Much like the films, I highly recommend that you play these games in order as part of your overall experience with them. I personally feel that Return of the Jedi is my favourite, even if it had left this terrible scar on my gaming history. Finally beating this game and completing the entire trilogy has been a rather cathartic experience for me as these games really were a hallmark of my childhood, not just from a game perspective but also from a film one. Playing through these has been a blast from the past and I think anyone who was a Star Wars fan, especially of that original trilogy really should give these a look at. The Force will be with these games, always.

And to cap off the series, this is the final message before credits roll

Super Empire Strikes Back (SNES)

 

And this Empire strikes hard

Box art for Super Empire Strikes Back

So, I feel that LucasArts may have taken the outcome of the Empire Strikes Back a bit too literally when it came to developing this game. This game is short of merciless, but we will get into that in significantly more detail. Get ready to strap yourselves in, because this is going to be a rant. But let’s start with the positives, try to make this a nice constructive criticism sandwich.

Firstly, Super Empire Strikes Back does what every sequel game should try to do, make slight improvements on the original, and I feel it does this quite well. We have a longer game, that does a great job following the story beats of Empire and there is now a password system, meaning that if you do game over, you can continue, near enough, from where you left off. Not all levels have a password, with some passwords putting you at the start of an act of levels in some instances. I didn’t mention this in the original Super Star Wars, but in that game, you have two types of jump, a normal jump, and a super jump. The super jump requires you to also hold up on the D-Pad as you jump, and it is a higher jump. That’s thankfully been scrapped for a double jump mechanic. Better still, when playing as Luke, and using his light saber, which is a more important tool in this game, when you double jump, the light saber spins around you and functions as an attack. He did this with the super jump in the first game, but this feels more practical and this will probably be your primary attack with the light saber. You can now block and deflect certain projectiles, which is great and adds some depth and strategy to how you take on enemies.

Luke on the planet Hoth, riding a Tauntaun and defending himself against local wildlife

This provides a decent segue, enemies, my god, this game throws them at you in droves. If we were to compare the first level of this game to the predecessor, both games can be quite dense with enemies. Both have Mynocks, but the Dune Sea has scorpions that are easy blaster fodder, even the wamp rats can be bullseye’d with relative ease. But the icy wastes of Hoth, which I thought were, by and large, devoid of life has boar like enemies, snowballs, killer fauna, weird little icy sprites that leap out of the snow and instant death pits filled with spikes. This isn’t like Beggar’s Canyon back home, Hoth is out to kill you, and it will. Graciously for the overground Hoth levels, you do get a Tauntaun who you can ride, and damage boost your way to the end of the level. Don’t both trying to fight things on the back of the Tauntaun, it isn’t worth your time.

Luke fighting a Wompa Snowbeast, double jumping over it to avoid its ice breath attack

Enemies in places can be frustratingly bulky, if you don’t have an upgraded Blaster and using your light saber, it can still take upwards of 3 or 4 hits with that to kill the enemy. Chances are you’ll soak up more damage killing enemies than you’ll get as a return reward. This game is also stingier with those health pick-ups. We’ll stick to Hoth for the time being, but there are small bat like enemies, they don’t drop health, because in this game you are not allowed nice things. Enemies also seem to spawn endlessly, at least, that is how it feels. There seems to be a magic number for how many times enemies will respawn to continue harassing you, and it is between 4 to 8 times. So, there is opportunity to farm hearts at times and other power-ups but there are plenty of times where you will find yourself coming out worse for wear. Other power-ups drop based on a random percent chance, so I hope you are not counting on a thermal detonator or a shield item to help you overcome a certain point. Admittedly, I have just come off the back of playing a run on Jedi difficulty, where you take significantly more damage and start with less health. By the time this has gone live, I am hoping that I would have completed my Brave mode run for my YouTube channel, and this particularly hang up will be less prominent.

The Battle of Hoth level, in glorious Mode7!

What else do we have? Oh, yes, the awful vehicle sections in this game. The vehicle sections are designed to frustrate and feel more a dice roll than a display of skill. Firstly, we have two mode7 vehicle levels, the Battle of Hoth in the snow speeder. You fly over the rolling landscape, that repeats the terrain layout regardless of what direction you are flying in, so you will have these hills, that make it impossible to hit your targets, but they can seemingly hit you, and because you need to line yourself up with your target, it can be hard to see if they are shooting at you, whilst you try to shoot at them. Chances are you will be taking a lot of damage even taking down little speeder bikes. The lack of any real depth perception also makes it hard, so chances are you will also be colliding with things. Graciously, dying in the Battle of Hoth doesn’t reset your progress, so for the 3 “missions” you have, if you destroy 1 AT-ST and then die, the one you destroyed still counts. The Battle of Hoth is frustrating, but the Cloud City encounter as Luke in his X-Wing is just abysmal. When I did my Jedi difficulty run of this game, I came into this stage with about 40 lives, and I left with 11. Some runs on this level were over in about 30 seconds. The lack of depth perception, combined with the viewing angle you have makes this a truly miserable experience, not only that, but you can also go under the sea of clouds, which removes your HUD when you are under there. The X-Wings blasters don’t seem to do a huge amount of damage, so you can try spamming proton torpedoes, but they can be difficult to aim. All the while, Cloud Cars are flying circles around you, crashing into you or just shooting you from where you can’t see. You must destroy 15 of these sods, and unlike Hoth, it is 15 of them in one life.

The level immediately after the battle of Hoth, the entire Snowspeeder counts as Luke's hitbox in this section.

As if Mode7 vehicles weren’t your only vehicular nightmare, you also have two side scrolling sections, one on a speeder bike and one in the snow speeder. The speeder bike one isn’t so bad, as you whizz along shooting enemy bikes before they can shoot you or drop mines that box you in a little. But the snow speeder section is torture. Considering that it is where Luke is approaching the AT-AT, and is shot down (In the movie), the fact you need to survive an onslaught of enemies with a hit box that takes up way too much screen real estate, and enemies fly behind you, where you can’t hit them… I had a game over here, I burnt through about 20 lives on my first run of a 1 continue clear of this game (On Jedi, more fool me). The best part is, if you manage to get to the point where Luke bails out, you better not die, as then you must do the snow speeder section again, and this game throws its most devious enemy at you. Grenade troopers.

Luke attempting to land a jump between two grenade troopers whilst a jetpack trooper harasses him

Grenade troopers are storm troopers with shields and they toss grenades at you, as they throw the grenade, they open themselves up for attack, unless you get behind them. Which can be tricky, as chances are, as you try to jump over them, they are throwing a grenade at you as well. These enemies are placed in some of the most obnoxious places known to man, either on small platforms they take up completely, or used in tandem with other enemies that harass you and limit your mobility. I say the grenade troopers are the worst, your biggest foe in this game is metal debris. When most mechanical things are destroyed it explodes, shedding metal debris, the shards of metal debris can hurt you and push you around. You better believe you will be pushed into pits because of this. This also impacts the grenades the troopers throw at you. The original game did this as well, but it is far less noticeable in that game.

It's not all suffering, just mostly, each character you play as has some new tools in their arsenal. Luke eventually gains force powers, which he needs to find during the Dagobah stages, admittedly, that is way after a lot of the harder Luke stages. Notable force powers include Heal, Levitation, Freeze and Mind Control. Mind Control works well against Storm Troopers, when you approach them with this power active, they conveniently face the opposite direction. A perfect tool to use against the grenade troopers. Freeze freezes everything on screen and you can defeat them in a single hit. Levitation allows you to float upwards, this force power is one of the most useful, especially during the last couple of stages. And Heal, well, that one is self-explanatory. There are a few other powers, including saber throw, deflect, slow down, invisibility. A lot of the time you’ll probably have heal prepped and ready, as that is the most useful one for boss fights and trying to get through levels.

Luke on Dagobah, learning different force powers, in his force selection menu he has levitation selected

Han and Chewbacca also get some new moves, Han can collect and throw grenades, like the ones the grenade troopers throw, and Chewbacca gets an amazing spin attack, where he double lariats everything into oblivion. During his spinning, he is also invincible to damage. Shame we only get to use Chewbacca twice in this game, and due to his abilities were much easier than the other levels around it. Unlike the first game, you don’t get to pick your characters, as the levels do their best to stick to the plot and using the plot relevant character. If I could use Chewbacca for everything, I most definitely would have, but sadly about 75% of the game is spent playing as Luke and his rubbish starting blaster and not having useful force powers until his last 3 levels. Also, I should double back quicky to talk a little about the double jump, if you fall off a ledge you can’t perform the second jump, the second jump can only be done as part of a normal jump. This is annoying at times as some platforming would probably be easier if you just rolled off the platform and jumped mid-fall.

Chewbacca delivering his double lariat special attack on some Jet troopers

Another change, that I personally do not like, is bosses no longer have a bar of health similar to your health bar with their name above it. I liked this in Super Star Wars, how else would I know that the beast in the Sandcrawler was Lava Beast Jawenko? Or that the Womp Rat at the end of Valley of Bantha was indeed mutant. Boss health bars are now displayed as balls of non-descript value. Sure, the old health bar system probably has some weirdness in values as well, but the newer style is more frustrating. For some bosses, hitting them once doesn’t remove a ball, in fact sometimes you need to hit them multiple times to reduce the balls by a half. Yeah, a half. Bosses in this game can be frustratingly tanky, and this doesn’t consider that some bosses health can’t be directly reduced until you have destroyed other parts of the boss. Super Star Wars did this with one of the Mos Eisley levels, but in that case, it wasn’t as annoying as the creatively named Habogad, the Dagobah swamp monster. Habogad is the probably the hardest boss in the game, most other difficult bosses have some relatively straight forward cheese strategies, usually involving taking a thermal detonator into the fight. I am grateful that no maverick decided that the Super Star Wars Trilogy would go for no-damage boss achievements for RetroAchievements, otherwise I would scream at some of the bosses.

Luke fighting the Wompa Snow Beast boss

Despite the game relentlessly flogging you, it does give you several opportunities to farm for lives. Lives were not as prevalent in Super Star Wars, but Empire tends to have them in groups of two or more. In fact, early on there is a secret with four lives, allowing you to farm them. Dagobah stage where you fight Habogad has about three lives hidden throughout the stage. So, you’ll probably find yourself inadvertently farming them, providing you are on a stage that would allow you to farm them. But those gaps between the chances to farm can be quite tense as you find yourself dropping lives, Empire is a game that loves to put you in death spirals, and I didn’t mention this in the Super Star Wars either, but you don’t know when and where the check points will trigger, some stages are very long, and even getting to the boss doesn’t guarantee you will restart just before the boss if you die. In some cases, this is good, as it gives you an opportunity to potential back track a little bit and nab some power-ups, but even then, that can be quite risky.

I don’t hate Super Empire Strikes Back, as that leads to suffering and we know where that takes us. In fact, I enjoy the game quite a bit when it isn’t kicking my butt. The improvements that have been from the original cannot be overstated, I would say that even the general look of the game is just much better, the visuals in this game feel like a bit of a step-up with more detailed environments. Levels can feel quite overwhelming as they are not as linear as the first game some with slightly alternative routes or dead ends that take some effort to get to. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the hardest game in the trilogy. Playing this game on Jedi difficulty is not recommended, unless you are trying to prove a point. Beating this game on easy or brave is an accomplishment enough, and even if the game is openly hostile towards the player, there is a sense of pride and relief as you beat levels. The game is not impossible, but there will be a lot of lives lost and continues used until you finally beat this game for the first time. Though, would you believe that I beat this game way before I finally beat Super Return of the Jedi?

After finishing Super Empire, the game prompts you go out and buy Super Return of the Jedi to finish the saga

Super Star Wars (SNES)

The Force is Strong with this one

The Box Art for Super Star Wars

I think being a child born after the release of Star Wars almost guaranteed that you were going to grow up with it in some capacity. My Dad’s side of the family were particularly into it, in that my Uncle had a decent amount of the toys, including the old AT-AT and said Uncle also has a son called Luke, I can only assume because of his love for Star Wars. As a child, we had the black box VHS’, the digitally remastered versions, before they did the Special Editions with the added tweaks, such as that weird Jabba scene in A New Hope or the worm-like mouth on the Sarlacc Pit Monster. I should see if my parents still have all those editions in the loft… But yes, as a child I grew up with Star Wars very much entrenched into me, and you better believe this extended to the video games.

I am sure I have mentioned this a few times somewhere, but this is one of the few American SNES games I owned as a child, in fact, this was the first one. I remember the cheap looking little adaptor we had for it, which was a thing looking piece of plastic with two slots on it. One on top, and one at the back, there was a label stuck to it, the label indicated that Star Wars needed to go on the top slot, and the back slot specifically said Street Fighter 2, which we also had. For the longest time as I child, I thought it was a requirement that we used Street Fighter 2 in the adaptor. Even to the point where when we got a newer adaptor, I made sure we used Street Fighter 2 as the bypass cart.

Luke fighting Womp Rats in the Dune Sea

Super Star Wars, I have mostly gushy praise for, as far as video game adaptations go, I think this one and the rest of the trilogy, are perfect. Everything from the opening title crawl when you start a new game, the sprite work, the music, the voice samples, the sound of you swinging the lightsaber. It is all just divine. Sure, Ishambard, but what about the gameplay? I could say it is faultless, but each game has their quirks that I will talk about separately, because they deserve that much. Let’s focus on Super Star Wars, which is the adaptation of A New Hope. This is the game where everything is at its most rough, and even then, the quality of this game is stellar. The game has decently challenging gameplay, with mostly fair platforming challenges. I think there are probably three instances of the game where the platforming can be frustrating, and admittedly they are all in the first act of the game.

The game offers good gunplay as your primary means of attacking. Each character has a blaster, that can be upgraded by finding blaster power-ups, some of them hidden, some of them out in the open. There are 5 levels of blaster power in total, and honestly, as nice as the final stage is, I find the seeker weapon to be the most useful, even if it does have some behavioural quirks, like tracking projectiles it can’t destroy. The initial starting blaster is infuriatingly weak, this is a trend across the board for the trilogy, and dying at any point during a stage will reset your blaster power. Graciously, for Super Star Wars, when you play as Chewbacca or Han you start with the tier 2 blaster. That was always something I really enjoyed about the game; it allowed you to play as different characters after you unlock them. In this game they pretty much play the same, though Chewbacca’s hitbox is probably larger, but he does start with a little more health than Han or Luke. Luke also gets a Light Saber which is… Okay at best. It does decent damage, but the range is short. You’re more likely going to be taking damage as you attack things, stick to the blasters, this game doesn’t require sophisticated weaponry.

Luke Joyriding in Tatooine, blasting Jawa in his speeder

The game itself follows the core aspects of the story, changing only a couple of things up. The first level is the Dune Sea, Luke fights the Sarlacc Pit Monster and ends up finding C3-PO at the escape pod crash site, where he tells you that R2D2 was kidnapped by Jawa. I mean, it’s not film plot accurate, but gives perfectly good reasons for the levels that follow. Between most levels there is a short narrative sequence to progress the plot, with some decent artwork to go with it. Besides the 2D platformer there are a few vehicle sections that utilise Mode7 and for Super Star Wars, these work, for the most part. The Death Star battle is a bit of a confusing mess where depth perception is more of a concept and trying to avoid enemy shots is experimental. The final Trench Run is quite cool, if potentially overwhelming, but if you focus on shooting down enemy shots you will be fine.

Luke fighting Lava Beast Jawenko in the Sand Crawler

Super Star Wars can be challenging, especially on higher difficulties. There are a few moments where a death can lead to a bit of a death spiral, as some sections of the game really benefit you having a couple of upgrades. One particularly rough encounter is the Sandcrawler and the boss of that, Lava Beast Jawenko is a tough fight, where if you die and must come back with the level 2 Blaster, it is a bit of a crapshoot if you’ll kill him before he kills you. Sure, you can try to jump over his attacks, but that can be quite challenging as the range and speed of his lava shots is seemingly random. Dying and getting a game over won’t help you, as using a continue will put you at the mid-level checkpoint and not the start of the level. Another potential death spiral is the boss for the Cantina stage, do you remember that weird monster that is on the space chess board that is on the Millenium Falcon. I mean, there is a bunch of them, but there is one that R2D2 uses to defeat one of Chewbacca’s pieces. Yeah, he’s the boss of the Cantina stage, and he pulls no punches. Dying against him sets you back a little bit, but you’ll be on very few resources. Easily the hardest boss in the game. Everything after that is not as bad, though this is coming from someone who played and beat this game a lot. Don’t be surprised if you don’t make it past the Sandcrawler on your first play of this game, but this is a game where patience and perseverance will get you far. You might see a timer in the top corner, but you can let that run down to zero without penalty, a fact that I only learnt the recently, the timer is only for bonus points. Some stages and some areas have endlessly respawning enemies, this is quite helpful as almost every enemy will drop health restoring pickups in this game. So, using them to slowly regain health is not a bad strategy at times, and might even be mandatory in certain situations.

Chewbacca fighting the Kalhar Boss Monster in the Mos Eisley Cantina

Overall, it is a relatively short experience, at a guess I would say it would clock in at about an hour, providing you don’t fall into any death spirals. The shortness isn’t a bad thing, Super Star Wars doesn’t come with a password system, unlike later entries. When I was a kid, I only ever played this game on Easy mode, it is only this year that I took the plunge and played through the game on Jedi, which did take a couple of hours as I was struggling with the Cantina boss and the Valley of the Bantha. But what I will say is, if you were or still are a Star Wars fan, Super Star Wars is a game I highly recommend you check out, perhaps that is my personal attachment to this game and Star Wars as a whole speaking. Even though this one I had beaten several times as a child, it still brought me great joy to get to the blow up the Death Star and see that message, “Great shot kid, that was one in a million”.

Luke has just blown up the Death Star and Han sends him this message