By some coincidence, the random game chosen for me on the week of Star Wars Day is a Star Wars game. Super Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi, or Super Return Of The Jedi as we always called it, is a game that I spent a lot of time with growing up. The same is true with the other games in the Super Star Wars trilogy, the first of which I actually wrote a Random Game Wednesdays post on all the way back in 2016. I was mostly positive on that first one, but what about this third one?

Much like the first one, Super Return Of The Jedi is primarily a sidescrolling 2D action platformer. It mostly follows the story of Return Of The Jedi, but takes some pretty extreme liberties for the sake of it being a video game. Remember how Luke just kind of strolls up to Jabba’s palace to rescue Han Solo? Well, apparently he actually first drove a speeder through the desert, jumping over bottomless pits, and then ran around on foot hacking up various creatures with his lightsaber. It’s really silly, but it makes sense for making a video game level.

Speaking of that speeder, the game features several vehicle levels. These are the classic, Super Nintendo Mode 7 sections, reminiscent of games like Super Mario Kart and F-Zero. These help break up the action, and they do look pretty impressive. That being said, compared to the early ones in the other two games, which include shooting Jawas on the way to their Sandcrawler in the first game and taking out AT-ATs in a Snowspeeder on Hoth in the second, this first speeder level is pretty lame. It’s just cruising along a slim path, avoiding rocks and jumping over cliffs. My memory of the later ones are more positive, but I didn’t play them for this post.

When you get to the more standard platformer levels, you get a choice of who to play as. In the first couple levels, your choices are Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca. Luke has his lightsaber and force abilities. Chewbacca has his Bowcaster, allowing you to blast enemies from a distance. Leia is in her disguise as the bounty hunter Boushh and has a staff. She really just seems like a worse Luke and I’m not sure why you’d pick her, other than it’s pretty cool to play as Leia in an action game.

Unfortunately while the basics all seem to be in place, the game’s difficulty is just too much. Enemies come at you from every direction and take way too many hits to kill. There’s bottomless pits everywhere and you simply don’t have the best control when trying to jump between platforms. I’ve always said that of the trilogy, the first game is my favorite because it’s actually possible. That’s a game that I’ve beaten multiple times with no cheats. Both Super Empire Strikes Back and Super Return Of The Jedi are games that I primarily experienced with level skips and invincibility codes.

One of the early examples of it being too difficult is the boss of the first platformer level. Remember that robot eyeball thing that checks out C-3PO and R2D2 before being let into Jabba’s palace at the beginning of the movie? Well, here it’s gigantic and attacks the player by electrocuting them. I didn’t even get close to beating this thing as either Luke or Leia. Thankfully, Chewbacca can keep his distance and just keep shooting, and that’s the only way I was able to win.

Super Return Of The Jedi is a game that I have a good amount of nostalgia for, but it’s one that I have a really hard time recommending. Visually, it’s a great representation of the movie, and it’s cool to be able to play as all these characters. But it’s just too difficult and I don’t have fun playing it. If you really need to play an old Star Wars game on the Super Nintendo, I still think the first game is the way to go.