"Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II" - Gamecube

I didn't own this, but I owned Rogue Squadron III growing up (they're very similar). I'm pretty sure I picked it up out of a GameStop bargain bin for $5 and took it home, played it for one afternoon and decided it was too hard and shelved it for the next decade. Sometime in high-school though, in an effort to beat some of the games I had shelved over the years, I remember taking it down and playing through it, but to be honest I don't remember much about it.

Rogue Squadron II, as you might have guessed, is the sequel to another game called-- again, as you might have guessed, Rogue Squadron, that came out on PC and the N64. They were both co-developed by LucasArts and a company called Factor 5. You know the former most likely (they basically just make Star Wars games now, but once upon a time they made point and click adventures like Grim Fandango, and Monkey Island), but the latter are more obscure. They're the developers for the Turrican series on SNES and Sega Genesis, and they also supplied the sound compression technology that allowed Resident Evil 2 and Pokemon Stadium to exist on the N64.

The composer on the game, aside from the Star Wars soundtrack stylings of John Williams, is a fella named Chris Huelsbeck, who composed the soundtrack for Turrican 1, 2, and 3.

And if you hadn't noticed, the game is a Star Wars game. It encompasses the events from the original trilogy.

So let's hop in and play it and see what we can see:

Oh yeah. You definitely want Ackbar on the title screen.

----- Playthrough -----

In Rogue Squadron II you'll play as one of two people depending on the mission: Luke Skywalker, and Wedge Antilles, both of whom (as far as I know) are definitely Star Wars characters. The game encompasses all three of the original trilogy movies, so the missions in the game are key points from that movie trilogy.

That's him alright. Star Wars man, for sure.

You'll be given control of one of a variety of ships for your first playthrough of each of the 10 missions-- they all have various weaknesses and strengths as you'd expect: some are fast and strong but defenseless, some are meatier but slower, etc. In some missions, you'll be able to pick the one you like from 2-4 ships given as options, once you've beaten it once.

Your ship has a handful of things it can do: by using the joystick you can fly (obviously), the triggers control your speed, Z allows you to roll the ship, A fires your lasers, B fires your missile/bomb (depending on what kind of ship you have), and holding B sometimes charges a shield disabling photon beam.

You may be surprised to learn that you'll use it to disable some shields occasionally.

By holding X you can also enter into the cockpit view which is nice if you're looking for some immersion in your 2001 Gamecube game, but I found it significantly easier to pilot the ship and see my surroundings in third person. Holding Y will bring up your infrared visor (which will also put you in first person temporarily) which will highlight enemy ships purple and targets gold. You'll also be able to issue commands to your two wingmen with the d-pad.

Got all that? Good, because the game isn't going to tutorialize to you about it and there will be multiple pop-quizzes, so you better keep your manual handy.

Quick, which button deploys the cable!? WRONG, SCUM-- you're demoted to Rogue Janitor.

In each of the ten missions you're asked to do a variety of... things... which people just never seem to be able to do for themselves. There's actually quite a bit of variety in the missions-- from moment to moment you may find yourself tying the legs of an AT-AT (the giant four legged metal robots), then switching to ground support for troops by shooting smaller walkers, to being charged with defending a transport from TIE fighters (they look like a little like bowties so I assume that's the name's origin).

They even managed to get an escort mission in here somehow...

Once you've bombed the Death Star, gotten your bois off the snow planet, checked some asteroid fields, captured some gas canisters for the rebels, and bombed Death Star the Sequel out of the galaxy you'll get your credits cutscene.

At that point, you can go back and play all the missions again if it the need so grabs you-- this game has some punishing gold medal requirements, and unlocking medals will unlock various things (some extra missions, some extra ships, some extra videos...), and I can imagine you killing quite a few hours trying to get those gold medals if that's your thing.

----- Impressions -----

How long did I play?

3 hours

How much did I beat?
I finished the 10 mission story.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

This is perhaps where the game struggles the most. It's easy enough to figure out how to control the ship, and there's a tutorial for that purpose if you need it, but for the most part playing with the controls will teach you everything you need to know quickly.

Where the game struggles is intuitively telling you what the heck you're supposed to be doing. Objectives are generally marked gold in your infrared visor, or otherwise show up on your compass or are explained in cutscenes. This is all nice, except when how you interact with the objective isn't clear, or the game randomly decides not to inform you of something.

I actually just got killed three times there but that's the only Game Over screenshot I got, whoops.

There were multiple times in the game that I didn't know what to do and had to look it up online lest I be punished with another return back to the beginning of a 5-10 minute mission. For instance, there is a mission where you're tasked with capturing a TIE fighter near a base, but nothing pops up to inform you how to do this. It turned out there is a small little man running around near the base, and when you shoot him, you're able to take the TIE fighter-- but honestly I don't know how I would have known that (perhaps he turns gold in the visor, to be fair I actually didn't look).

Not to ramble, but the game also has problems with introducing things behind your back-- for instance further waves of enemies being dropped into the level without giving you any warning that that's happening. There were definitely multiple missions I failed from allies getting destroyed by enemies I hadn't been informed entered the level while I was off tackling the objective actually given to me by the game. These things can be figured out by repetition, but it can be frustrating.

Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel? Too difficult?

It's pretty tough! Just clearing the missions presented a pretty marked challenge for me at times, with some missions taking me 5-6 attempts to clear. I don't think there was more than one mission I cleared on the first try. The game's not terribly difficult, but stringing together lots of small successes to make a full mission can require an amount of perfection that is difficult to achieve. And that's just for beating the mission-- good luck getting the gold medals. I got a couple bronzes and one silver on my trip through the game.

Just remember: always be killing; never be dying.

The game's pretty rewarding when it's going well, though. Shooting down enemy fighters is fun and they provide satisfying screaming engine sounds as they burn and explode. It's pretty hype. There's a lot to like in the moment-to-moment action of the game. It gets particularly satisfying and fun when, in one of the last missions, you go up against literally more than a hundred ships on screen at one time.

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

Apparently around 3 hours. I'd expect to easily take 8-10 to get all the secrets and get gold on all the missions though. Seriously, it's hard.

Presentation: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

Rogue Squadron II is a big winner in both of these categories. Given, they kind of cheated on the music because most of it is just ripped directly from the movie soundtracks, but they ARE good soundtracks. The recognizable and booming tracks from the movie make great background music for the various adventures in the game, supplemented with some tracks by our Turrican composer friend. He did a good job of using the source material for a good OST-- this depressing sounding version of the Imperial march cracks me up.

Graphically, the game knocks it out of the park. It's clear they were really pushing on what the Gamecube can do, which is even more impressive for such an early title. The game looks excellent, and good even by modern standards. Lighting, shadows, and glow effects are all surprising good, textures are much better than expected for the era, and the framerate stays completely solid despite all that.

If not for the 4:3 resolution, this could easily be a PS3 game.

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I don't really like ship games and I don't really like Star Wars, so on those fronts, honestly not really. I honestly enjoyed this game enough though that I don't think it really matters.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

I think so. A game this short and this good looking is cool enough for a Gamecube title, but it still holds up and is actually even pretty fun to play, despite all its flaws. You may occasionally want to snap your controller in half after failing a mission for the fifth time for what feels like stupid reasons, but there's a lot of "one more time" appeal, and while playing you'll be having a good time. I think this one has to go on THE LIST.

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