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There's going to be a lot to celebrate for Star Wars fairly soon, with the 50th anniversary of the franchise coming up. The original Star Wars films have become iconic stories that are still heavily watched and discussed to this day. And with rumors about a new remastering for all three of the original trilogy films, it's going to be quite the celebration in a galaxy far, far away. But that also means it could be a great time for some retro gaming classics inspired by those Star Wars films to have a resurgence. Throughout the decades, Star Wars games have focused on a wide range of stories and characters with a basis in the first three films. Despite the prequel trilogy of movies becoming popular in the early 2000s, media that was set or based on the first trilogy was still developed and shared with fans. Some of the video games released at that time have gone on to become classics that people grew up playing and love going back to. Here are five games that every Star Wars fan needs to play if you're a big fana of the original Star Wars trilogy. The Super Star Wars Saga Super Empire and Jedi more specifically There are multiple Star Wars games that present a 2D experience that cover a lot of ground from the movies. The NES in the mid and late 80s had multiple titles based on the first few films, even though the console never had a game based on Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. But the Super Nintendo was able to get games that covered the full trilogy across multiple releases, starting with Super Star Wars in 1992. Which would be later followed up by Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes in 1993 and Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in 1994. These games were action-platformers that took a lot of creative liberties with the source material, but in favor of making a challenging platformer that Star Wars fans found fun. Being able to control characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Prince Leia, and Chewbacca was great, but even more so when getting power-ups to take down Stormtroopers and all kinds of galactic beasts. However, the game was incredibly challenging for most people, with some arguing that each game could be borderline unfair or broken because of how tedious some levels could be. The boss battles in all three Super Star Wars games were visual spectacles, but endurance matches of patience and quick reactions. All three games play very similar, with the first Super Star Wars game laying the foundation that its two sequels would build upon. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back would get changes to how characters would attack and play, while Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi would further tweak this and introduce other updates to the core platforming. Despite how difficult they are, most fans admire how much fun it was to play any of the Super Star Wars games growing up in a time before the prequel trilogy of films. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Flying a ship never felt so good When the Nintendo 64 finally arrived, it would have a group of games that Star Wars fans would constantly go back to in the years that followed. One of the most beloved games from the console's library is Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, an arcade flight game that puts players in control of their own starfighter. The game is set after the events of the first Star Wars movie, Episode IV: A New Hope, and follows the exploits of Luke Skywalker and the Rogue Squadron team as they execute missions for the Rebel Alliance. The core focus of Rogue Squadron is flying ships and taking down enemy fighters, which can be insanely fun. Its gameplay is a lot more streamlined than other flight-based games that were developed for the franchise, such as the Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: TIE Fighter series. Instead of trying to simulate what it would be like to pilot a starfighter in battle, the game makes flying much easier with simple controls, so the focus can stay on the action in the skies. Having access to multiple starships as the plot progressed made things interesting, especially with some of the unlockables that could be earned. While the game has been criticized for how harshly it judges performance in missions, it still offered a great flying experience for Star Wars fans on home consoles that looked back on fondly. Its popularity led to two sequels that were developed for the Nintendo GameCube in the early 2000s. The first sequel, Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, is viewed as a classic on the console, while its follow-up, Star Wars: Rebel Strike, was criticized for changing much of the established gameplay formula. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire A missing link between films Another Star Wars game that was a classic for many fans on the Nintendo 64 was Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire from 1996. The game is part of a multimedia event that involved multiple forms of entertainment at the time to tell one big story. The tagline often used at the time was that it was "a movie without a movie", giving fans a new Star Wars story set during the era of the original trilogy. The game, and it's other related media, is set in-between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, allowing for insight into how things came to be before Luke and his friends save Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt. The game itself stars newcomer Dash Rendar, a smuggler who is similar to Han Solo in a lot of ways. He has his own ship called The Outrider, which he uses to run various jobs for whoever will pay him the most. After the events of the Battle of Hoth, Dash and his robot Leebo end up helping Princess Leia and the Rebel Alliance against the notorious underworld group known as Black Sun. Their leader, Prince Xizor, plans on gaining favor from the Emperor over Darth Vader by trying to assassinate Luke Skywalker. While helping Luke and foiling Black Sun, Dash will eventually find himself in the middle of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. The game is a mixed bag of gameplay to help tell the story. It has the first playable 3D rendition of the Battle of Hoth, which inspired the creation of the Rogue Squadron games, as well as on-foot sections where Dash infiltrates locations. While many have debated the quality of the game with its different styles of gameplay, most Star Wars fans view the game as part of one of the last big events for the franchise in the old Expanded Universe. While it hasn't been remastered yet, fans have constantly called for the events of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire to be brought into the new Disney-Lucasfilm canon for the series. Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast In the wake of the Empire While the events of the original trilogy are legendary, some fans have always been intrigued about what happens after the movies are over. This is why there are so many stories in books and comics that are considered Star Wars Legends, also known as the Expanded Universe. Most games in the 90s and 2000s were part of this ever-growing part of the franchise, including the highly beloved Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. It's a game set some time after the ending of Return of the Jedi, and follows the continuing story of Star Wars game character Kyle Katarn. The game is part of the series that began with Star Wars: Dark Forces in 1995 for PC, and continued with the Jedi Knight name after. What makes Jedi Outcast, so popular is its take on lightsaber combat, despite the majority of the game being a first-person shooter like its predecessors. Although Kyle could use a variety of blasters and other weapons to take down enemies, the lightsaber and his force powers became a popular staple. Swinging a lightsaber required an element of precision that was fun to engage with, as well as competitive with the game's multiplayer modes. Jedi Outcast, and its sequel Jedi Academy, were the basis for mods that have been shared online, using the gameplay of the series as a basis to create new experiences for Star Wars fans on PC. One of the best ones is Star Wars: Movie Duels, which applied the gameplay of the Jedi Knight series into the context of events from the movies and television series. Star Wars Trilogy Arcade Arcade action in full effect There's nothing that screams classic gaming than playing something in an arcade on a machine. And while Star Wars is no stranger to the arcade scene with multiple releases in the 80s, things only got more interesting in the 90s and early 2000s. The Star Wars Arcade Trilogy was released in 1998, just before the beginning of the prequel saga began to grab the public's attention. It was a new take on the classic arcade games that were based on the first two films, but instead covered all three original trilogy movies. The gameplay of Star Wars Arcade Trilogy is pretty straightforward, shooting everything on screen that looks like an Imperial. The action goes from being in space, on a planet's surface, and even in the corridors of some locations pulled right out of the films. The game has three main paths to choose from at the start, which include famous battles like the attack on the Death Star, the Battle of Hoth, and the final battle above the forest moon of Endor. The shooting sections were also broken up with a few special encounters that allowed players to wield Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, including an encounter with Boba Fett and a duel with Darth Vader. Blasting through stormtroopers and TIE Fighters is incredibly fun for anyone that puts in quarters into the machine. However, as this was an arcade game, the difficulty can range from incredibly easy to incredibly difficult often. It could take a few extra quarters to reach the end, but for Star Wars fans it was always worth it. To date, Star Wars Arcade Trilogy has not gotten a full re-release or port to current-day home consoles. Returning to some original classics There will always been a deep love for the original trilogy of Star Wars films. Their sense of adventure and drama is timeless, and will remain relevant within pop culture. The many games that were based on these films are still beloved today as classics that Star Wars fans grew up playing, and are still fun to enjoy even today. Anybody with a deep appreciation of these movies will love revisiting a galaxy far, far away with any of these games. The force is very strong with them.
