We love The Phantom Menace and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to celebrate its 20th birthday. This episode is all TPM, so join us as we look back at the movie’s marketing and merchandise, our favorite TPM moments, and the film’s legacy.
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Join us for our latest Power of the 90s episode devoted to discussing all of the Star Wars books, comics, toys, and content released in 1996. Well, everything besides one notable giant multimedia project spanning all of those mediums that we’ll cover on our next episode (yes, it features Prince Xizor, Dash Rendar, IG-88, and a whole lot of pheromones).
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Wookieepedia Entry for 1996 (https://goo.gl/VCdZjj)
Rebel Scum – Power of the Force II Basic Figures (https://goo.gl/yHvioV)
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Ryan and John return to the 90s to discuss all of the Star Wars books, comics, games, and merchandise releases from 1994. Join us as we look at:
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Ryan and John return to the 90s to discuss all of the Star Wars books, comics, games, and merchandise releases from 1993. Join us as we look at
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The Super Star Wars games were super popular upon their release and they played a significant role in bringing a new generation of kids into Star Wars at the time, so I’m thrilled to be playing them for our Power of the 90s series. The games are known for their sometimes brutal difficulty, and that’s certainly part of what I remember about them, but after revisiting Super Star Wars with my copy of Volume 42 of Nintendo Power by my side and exploiting a secret free life-farming area, I had a surprisingly smooth experience playing through the game. And it’s absolutely worth tracking down Super Star Wars (even if you don’t have nostalgic memories of playing as a kid) for it’s bright, colorful visual interpretation of the Star Wars universe, it’s 16-bit renditions of classic Star Wars themes, and its giant green womp rats! Check out the videos below to watch my recent playthrough of the game with Star Wars in the 90s-focused commentary.
The Blockade Runner Plays Super Star Wars – Part One:
The Blockade Runner Plays Super Star Wars – Part Two:
The Blockade Runner Plays Super Star Wars – Part Three:
The Story of A New Hope As Told By Super Star Wars SNES (1992):
It occurred to me while recording my playthrough of Super Star Wars that the story screens are so impressive that they would be fun to break out and cut together as their own video. It actually reminds me of reading a children’s picture book version of A New Hope, only with excellent 16-bit visuals and sound!
Nintendo Power:
Super Star Wars TV Commercial:
In case you were wondering if you want this game or not (you do), check out this sweet television ad from the time of the game’s release!
We’ll be back later this month with our Power of the 90s episode cover all things Star Wars in 1993, and we’ll definitely be posting our playthrough for Super The Empire Strikes Back too! Whether or not we can beat the game remains to be seen…
The Empire Strikes Back on the NES is first up for our Blockade Runner Plays videos for covering 1992 for The Power of the 90s. Our play through covers the first 30 minutes or so and features some ice cold 8-bit gameplay in Hoth’s icy caves, battlefields, and bases.
These pages from the March, 1992 issue of Nintendo Power provided some helpful tips to players getting their hands on Empire when it originally released, but I found them pretty helpful all these years later too. Empire didn’t get the Nintendo Power cover for this issue, but Darth Vader does grace the cover of the November, 1992 magazine (more on that in our next Blockade Runner Plays).
Click the image below for a gallery featuring the Nintendo Power images (or open them individually at full size from there if you’d like a closer look).
I’m also including a pic of the NES cart from Moby Games, but follow the link to their site for more developer and publisher info as well as screen shots, box art, and more.
Unfortunately I don’t have the manual on hand to scan, though I did find an advertisement for the Game Boy game (which Ryan grabbed a copy of recently). This version looks like it was published by Capcom in the U.S. and Ubisoft in Europe, but it was also developed by Sculptured Software and is presumably very similar to its NES counterpart.
NES Empire is definitely worth a look or play if you get the chance, and I definitely enjoyed my time with it, but as far as I’m concerned the Star Wars games main event would follow later in 1992. Stay tuned to our Power of the 90s coverage for 1992 as we’ll be diving into Super Star Wars next!
Check out the first 30 minutes or so of Star Wars on the NES in our second (and last) Blockade Runner Plays video for our Power of the 90s series covering 1990/1991. I play from the start of the game up through the first part of the Death Star, so the video provides a pretty solid look at the first third or so of the game.
I’m also including Nintendo Power’s coverage from its September 1991 issue (Volume 28, the rest of which you can read here on archive.org). It’s a fun look at what games coverage, Star Wars or otherwise, was like in 1991 and it’s also super helpful if you want to play some NES Star Wars yourself!
The game’s manual also includes some helpful info as well as some fun graphics and character write ups (Star Wars’s manual can be found at Digital Press’s site which also includes a ton of other game manual scans for numerous consoles). You can also click on the image below to view the entire manual as a pdf.
You can also find some information about the hint book mentioned in the video here, or check out this eBay listing for the hint book (which includes a couple of pictures).
I just recently learned that there is a totally sweet tv commercial for the game too. Check out a dastardly Darth Vader taking on a super-heroic mom in this fantastic ad for the game:
While you’re at it, why not check out comedian Mario Cantone (for some reason) shilling for the game on some sort of video game-related tv show:
Finally, check out the Moby Games page for NES Star Wars for more info on the games development and release as well as screenshots from this and other versions of the game if you’re interested in the differences between them that I briefly mentioned in the video.
Check out some video footage we put together of Attack on the Death Star for the Sharp X68000 as part of our Power of the 90s series. The game was released in Japan in December of 1991 and features an incredible wire-frame style look and some cutting edge (for the time) audio. It’s a super cool game that not many Star Wars fans in the west seem to have experienced, but it’s totally worth checking out either through this video or with your own play-through if you can track it down!
The Blockade Runner 