Namco's Star Wars: A New Hope

[Alex Parkinson]

So back in 1987, Namco made a Star Wars game on the Nintendo Famicom based on Episode 4: A New Hope. They took several liberties from the film's plot, as the game revolves around Luke Skywalker trying to rescue the main characters from the movie (R2-D2, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C-3PO, Princess Leia and Chewbacca) from the clutches of the Galactic Empire. In order to do this, he travels around in the Millennium Falcon, which is only piloted by Chewie and Han in the film. On each planet the player visits, they have to face a boss in the form of Darth Vader, who is being impersonated by various shapeshifters such as a giant scorpion, a pterosaur, a shark and a Wampa respectively. The real Darth Vader is also fought in the game, once on the Death Star and once on Yavin 4. Other liberties from the film's plot include the usage of the lightsaber and the Force (The latter of which Luke learned very little of until Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back), the appearance of the icy planet Hoth (Referred to as Tina in-game), Luke having black hair instead of sand blonde in-game, and some planets such as Kessel being geographically different from their film counterpart. The game is also relentlessly difficult, as the player dies in one hit and upon dying three times, is sent back to the beginning of the game regardless of how far the player has advanced into the game.

 

[ButterCashier]

I've never played it but from what I've seen and heard it looks good.

 

[Alex Parkinson]

I've seen the Angry Video Game Nerd play it, and I've seen a bit of World of Longplays playing it, but I try to avoid viewing the game footage as much as I can, because the scorpion boss aggravates my arachnopobia.

 

[Wendy O. Koopa]

@ClawgripFan9001 Oh I hear you. I'm afraid of spiders myself. In fact it freaks me out to think that millions of years ago there were insects and spiders as big as a human being. Also, interestingly, the plot of Luke trying to rescue everyone in this game unlike the movie sounds exactly like the plot for Episode V The Empire Strikes back, without Luke learning Vader is his father.

 

[Alex Parkinson]

@ClawgripFan9001 Oh I hear you. I'm afraid of spiders myself. In fact it freaks me out to think that millions of years ago there were insects and spiders as big as a human being. Also, interestingly, the plot of Luke trying to rescue everyone in this game unlike the movie sounds exactly like the plot for Episode V The Empire Strikes back, without Luke learning Vader is his father.

Guess Namco was going for a mix of A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back when they decided on the plot for the game, huh?

 

[SiFi]

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[Alex Parkinson]

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Well, that's certainly interesting.

 

[Alex Parkinson]

Thought I'd post about this game again since I'm watching a playthrough with an English translation patch, and one thing I found funny is that when you rescue Obi-Wan Kenobi from the abandoned temple on Kessel, the dialogue box shows Luke shaking hands with Obi-Wan, though to me, it looked like they were holding hands like they were lovers. Given that the dialogue box for rescuing Chewie shows our furry friend smooching Luke on the forehead, and now that I've seen this scene with Obi-Wan, it seems that Namco also snuck a couple of dirty jokes into the game, even if it wasn't their intention.