Why were the old Star Wars sidescrolling games so darned weird?
Maybe that's a bit unfair. Surely this is a faithful adaptation of that time that Luke Skywalker fought the Lava Beast Jawenko in the belly of the Jawa sandcrawler?
Wait, you're telling me that didn't happen in the movies? Surely you jest!
No, of course that didn't happen. And don't get me started on the paradropping stormtroopers that this game had swarming in Mos Eisley. (Odder still for me is that in every one of these games that corresponds to ANH, Luke actually steals R2-D2 from the Jawas! And when I say "steals," I'm talking armed robbery with an often double-digit body count.)
What about the time the wampa turned into a disembodied iceblast-spewing demon?
No, that doesn't seem right either.
The time Jabba the Hutt's torture droid attacked an Ewok tree village?
I'm beginning to get the idea that the game programmers only had the vaguest notion of what the movies were like.
Then there was that time that Darth Vader turned into a shark.
Officially, that's not what happened, but the official explanation-that this creature and his other "fake Vader" compatriots were manifestations of Luke Skywalker's fears-actually makes a lot less sense.
(Though I do really appreciate that the shark Vader battle took place on Iskalon, homeworld of the oft-mentioned Iskalonian school. That's a bit of cross-continuity between an obscure Japanese game and an obscure American comic book I'd not have expected.)
One last one: Apparently Obi-Wan Kenobi lives in a cave patrolled by giant flies and this rather demonic robot (who attacks by exploding his chest to fire projectiles) who guards the exit.
Considering the competition, it's impressive that this game almost manages to be the weirdest one. (The shark thing just edges it out.)
-Signing off.
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