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Let's Play

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Here is my full playthrough of Super Empire Strikes Back done live on IGTV

Follow me on instagram @CabinSNES_fever to join me live or via my reviews and uploads to witness me take down all the games currently in my SNES colleciton, following on from having already beaten all 234 licenced UK releases for the NES. I only use original carts, no cheats & no save states.

REVIEW:
-It's been awhile since I last beat this one but the difficulty was not lost on me. The first installment offered plenty in the way of frustrating gameplay and the sequel only furthers the suffering.

The engine and mechanics of the game remain identical to the first, as does the powerup system. The most challenging new addition is purely how much longer this one is. Rather than limiting scenes from the movie to just one stage, there's now often 2, or even 3 for each.

Things would feel far closer to my frequent shoutings of 'this is impossible', if the addition of passwords & continues were now not a feature. Tho a game over is punishment after a 3rd continue, a password restarting you from the beginning of the stage is awarded. Since using a continue mercifully spawns you from the last checkpoint (trust me that's rare) it makes little sense to ever game over, instead resetting, using your penultimate password & playing from the checkpoint is the best bet.

Once again gameplay is shared between Han, Luke & Chewie although they're no longer switchable on the fly. Each feels more individualised than before via the inclusion of grenades for Han, a very powerful spin attack for Chewie & most enjoyably; a range of fun Force powers (collected on Degobar) for Luke. The lightsabre also; having felt redundant in the first game, now feels irreplaceable!

Password abuse aside, it's a very difficult game if you attempt anything but a careful strategic approach. Cloud City especially is just cacophony of insanity, with all kinds of bizarre & extremely powerful Bounty Hunters flying around all over the place. Farming health, understanding spawns, memorizing powerups & mastering the controls is essential to beating this game, especially on Brave or Jedi difficutly.

Most boss encounters are manageable even if the odd one can feel pretty unfair especially the Degobar Beast & Carbon Freeze Machine, the latter I only beat utilising a lucky glitch I found. However despite the difficulty, the gameplay remains increasingly fun throughout and the password renders the experience very bearable for all with a bit of determination.