Handheld gaming is more than a compromise of power and portability. Whether it’s the ability to play anywhere, multitask or hold an entire console in your hands, it’s a special experience consoles have never replicated. In a world where high resolutions and teraflops reign supreme, we take a look at a portable relic every month and reflect on what makes it memorable. Be warned, spoilers may occasionally populate these articles.
Star Wars is one of the biggest media franchises in history. The Star Wars movies, literature and games have been entertaining audiences for close to half a century. Fan reception across all the entries has been divisive. While the original film trilogy is universally regarded as some of the greatest sci-fi films, the prequel and sequel trilogies were much more divisive. The same level of inconsistency can be found among the Star Wars games.Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republicis regarded as a masterpiece, while Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi is a guide on how not to make a fighting game.
In general, games based on movies have an inconsistent history, with a good game tending to be the exception to the rule. Long after the original trilogy was released, games based on the three movies were released for the various Nintendo consoles in the early ’90s, including Game Boy. This month we’re taking a look at a monochrome game based on a movie that raised the bar for visual effects.
Member Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic?
A Long Time Ago, On a Game Boy Far, Far Away
The Star Wars universe lends itself extremely well to video games, at least in theory. The variety of alien lifeforms, spaceship battles, an endless variety of environments and the Force is essentially magic. There’s limitless potential in bringing Star Wars to gaming. Even in the ’80s and ’90s when gaming technology was more limited than what we would expect to see in a modern-day take on Knights of the Old Republic, there was plenty of fun to be had in arcade shooters and action platformers. Star Wars on Game Boy is a 1992 port of the NES Star Wars which was released a year prior.
The plot of Star Wars is so well known that devoting a paragraph to the story seems unnecessary, but we have to hit that minimum word count somehow. In a tale of familial ignorance that rivals Oedpidus Rex, deadbeat dad Darth Vader has unknowingly kidnapped his daughter Princess Leia. Before she is taken into captivity, she records a rescue message into a droid which is sent out in an escape pod which happens to reach her unknown brother on a sand farm.
Vader’s son/Leia’s brother Luke Skywalker is now the caretaker of the droid C-3PO, which Vader built in his younger days, and meets Obi-wan Kenobi, the Jedi who trained Vader and also cut off all his limbs, condemning him to living out his remaining days in a mobile ventilator with robot limbs. The luck Leia had in inadvertently orchestrating an interstellar family reunion of sorts suggests that they should buy a million tickets for space Power-Ball, but Vader later destroys her home planet of Alderaan, so I guess her luck runs high in both directions.
Back on Tatooine, Luke, Obi-wan and the two droids search for a way to get off the dust ball they call a planet and end up in a wretched hive of scum and villainy known as Mos Eisley Cantina. It’s here that they meet a scruffy-looking nerfherder by the name of Han Solo and his hetero life mate Chewbacca the wookie, or Chewie for short. They knew Han was the right man for the job as he shot Greedo dead in the middle of a crowded Cantina. Han was an outlaw and scoundrel, the type who wouldn’t think twice about taking a pre-emptive first shot. In the era of the Game Boy, these were simpler times and there was no debate over who shot first. Now that the crew is assembled, they are ready to infiltrate the Death Star to rescue the princess, then taking advantage of the fact that this impenetrable space fortress has one two meter fatal flaw in its otherwise indestructible design.
That might not be the best synopsis of Star Wars ever written, but it covers the bullet points. And that can be said about the story in Star Wars on Game Boy. It does a good job of following the plot of the movie. Granted, given that games and movies are completely different media, a fair amount of liberties always need to be taken or else the game will be boring to play, but even with the liberties taken, it doesn’t seem too far removed from the type of story one would expect from an 8-bit game based on Star Wars.
A Little Short to be a Stormtrooper
The player begins as Luke Skywalker but one of the earlier objections is to collect the other characters. Other playable characters are Leia and Han, but based on the extra lives and ability to use a lightsaber, the game encourages the player to primarily play as Luke. While not playable, other important Star Wars characters play a role once. Obi-wan can resurrect Han and Leia, who weren’t blessed by the Force with extra lives like Luke. C-3PO can provide information about current events, while R2-D2 can help the player map their way through the Death Star.
For an early Game Boy game, Star War is ambitious in that it tries to weave three different playstyles into itself. During the platforming sections the player will have to fight enemies that range from recognizable foes from the films to giant alien bug-like creatures while constantly jumping to various platforms and over pits. There are a couple first-person sections, such as sitting at the gun turret while the Millenium Falcon navigates its way through an asteroid field and while sitting in the cockpit of the X-wing dogfighting with Tie Fighters. Lastly there are the sections with an overhead view, like driving the landspeeder across Tatooine and flying through the trenches of the Death Star.
Impressive, But it is Not a Jedi Yet
As mentioned earlier, the game follows the story of the movie, but does take liberties with how things play out. Luke cruising around on his landspeeder in Tatooine is a huge chunk of the game. It’s a crucial part of the story, but this segment of the adventure feels disproportionately large compared to the space more iconic parts of the film were given in the game. The controls may have been fine in 1992, but they do feel janky with modern sensibilities, especially with the platforming sections. It’s a short title and can be completed in about half an hour if the Force is strong with the player. This game is representative of an old school challenge, though. Partly because it is designed to be challenging and partly due to tech limitations of the platform where enemies often don’t appear on the screen until they are practically hitting the player.
Star Wars isn’t the worst action game on Game Boy, nor is it even a contender for the worst Star Wars game. It’s decent if it can be found for cheap and can be a fun way to kill an afternoon. Its main appeal is for people who live and breathe Star Wars and does make for a decent addition to the collection. As far as just being a game is concerned, it’s worth a single play through, but once the Death Star has been obliterated, there isn’t much reason to revisit it.
