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