Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
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| Released for the Nintendo 64 in North America on December 8, 1998 by LucasArts, and developed by Factor Five and LucasArts, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is a third-person space shooter set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe |
1998 was a banner year for the Nintendo 64, as the console finally experienced a regular game release schedule, composed of some of the best games of its tenure, including The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the greatest game of all time. 1998 is certainly the year I dedicated the most time to the 64, as while I played it often in 1999 and 2000, it had to split time with my new and mighty Dreamcast during those two magnificent years. December of 1998 was a particularly huge month for the console, with long anticipated games like Turok 2, NBA Jam, BattleTanx, and South Park finally hitting shelves. However, my most wanted game that month, purchased on the day of its release, was Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
With the 1997 Star Wars Special Editions still fresh in the national consciousness and The Phantom Menace, the first new Star Wars movie in 16 years, hitting the big screen in 1999, Rogue Squadron hit shelves when excitement for Star Wars was near an all-time high. My excitement for Star Wars was certainly at an all-time high, and Rogue Squadron didn't disappoint. Now, playing it 25 years later, I feel that its numerous pros, and few, but certainly noticeable cons are still the same.
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| Member Star Wars? |
Upon booting up Rogue Squadron, it becomes immediately clear that LucasArts and Factor Five aim to impress. The animated studio logos involve swooping dogfights and explosions, captured by dynamic camera movements, set to thrilling music. The start menu features a high resolution photograph of the legendary Luke Skywalker, stepping into his iconic X-Wing starfighter. For the vast majority of the game, Rogue Squadron puts the player into Luke's flightsuit, as he takes on missions with a crack team of pilots who form the titular Rogue Squadron, between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
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| LucasArts dynamic logo screens of the 90s were works of art! |
While the player can switch to a less effective first-person cockpit view at any moment they choose, Rogue Squadron is designed around third-person, terrestrial-bound flight combat, in 3D environments. The gameplay is mission-based, and fairly high octane, with combat coming fast and furious. The controls are spot on, as it's easy to change directions...in any direction, and even hold direction while turning the given ship on its axis. One thing that stands out here is that the player can't just blast away and hope to annihilate all of the small Imperial Tie-Fighters (the chosen cannon-fodder of the dastardly Empire) zooming around the screen. Using the aiming reticle while firing lasers at rapidly moving enemy ships is a bit like duck hunting: you have to lead them. Skill and experience is necessary to consistently blast apart your enemies with success.
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| Member Jawas? Member the Sandcrawler? |
The Star Wars universe includes a large variety of fighting craft, and thankfully, the player is allowed into the cockpit of many of them: X-Wings for general dogfight missions, Y-Wings for bombing missions, A-Wings for missions where speed and stealth are necessary, Snow Speeders when heavily armored ground foes like Imperial Walkers have to be destroyed by tow-cables. The developers do a great job of providing a diverse and large amount of missions, from general dogfighting ones, to escort missions, to search and destroy tasks, to rescues, to base defenses, with the diversity of missions--and the game's difficulty--vastly increasing as the game goes on. Late missions are particularly tricky, as parameters for success and windows of time grow more and more narrow.
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| Member Cloud Cars? I member! |
Overall, the gameplay is generally satisfying. There are a few missions that are more needlessly frustrating than others, but for the most part, Rogue Squadron is a blast for Star Wars and non-Star Wars fans alike. Ironically, Rogue Squadron's biggest disappointment comes from what is otherwise the game's strongest overall asset: its production values. Factor Five's groundbreaking compression techniques were highly touted before the game's release. The 64's library had struggled to compete with the rival Playstation's ability to offer games with a high quantity of voice-acting and high quality music, mostly due to the low storage capacity of the console's cartridge format. Factor Five declared they would change that, as their compression skills would allow for vast quantities of voice work and near CD quality music, along with higher quality graphics. Rogue Squadron's actual environmental textures and 3D models, i.e. ships and structures, do look great. Ships feature an incredible amount of detail, down to R2 units on top, and ship lights and exhaust in the back, along with real-time lighting when weapons are fired. Explosions and smoke effects are fun. The game's framerate even runs at a fast and furious clip. The graphical issues in Rogue Squadron don't involve anything the player can see...it's what's obscured from their view that's the problem.
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| Member all the fog?! |
An early frustration with the Nintendo 64's burgeoning game library was distance fog, used to obscure distance in 3D environments so the console wouldn't have to process too much information and thus slow framerate down to an unplayable level. However, earlier in 1998, marquee Nintendo 64 games like Banjo Kazooie and the aforementioned Ocarina of Time featured huge environments with high quality textures and little to no distance fog. This set expectations high for Rogue Squadron, making the game's frequent distance fog all the more shocking. Essentially, the player can only see about half a screen ahead of them at even given moment. While the game does indeed feature faster and more onscreen movement than the game's I've just mentioned, the foggy environments are still shocking, and do limit the game's otherwise timeless nature to a degree. Thankfully, Factor Five do all they can to make up for this, from beautiful environmental backgrounds, featuring gorgeous cloudy or star and moon-laden skies, to a ridiculous amount of detail in the game's presentation. Included in this presentation is the pre-mission fighter hangar, which allows the player to look 360 degrees around the hangar floor, while selecting which ship they want to utilize, as mechanics and droids scurry about the deck, and the planet housing that specific mission hangs in space outside the hangar door. Then there's the game's sound design.
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| Hey, I might not be able to see the landscape off in the distance, but at least I can see that pretty moon and clouds |
Every mission includes a voice acted briefing, heightening Rogue Squadron's immersion factor. Throughout each mission, squadron chatter is plentiful, including from the player character, a fine Mark Hamill impersonator. The voice acting cast in general is quite impressive, and includes several prominent film actors. The game's music may be a bit more divisive, though. While previous Star Wars Nintendo 64 game, Shadows of the Empire, features direct clips from the film soundtracks, Rogue Squadron features high-quality midi versions of the films' music, along with some new themes--high-quality, but midi nonetheless. On one hand, these aural textures may sound a little silly to a modern listener. On the other, they ensure Rogue Squadron sounds like a Nintendo 64 game, which is a different feel for sure, but a timeless one nonetheless, just in a different category. The sound effects--laser zaps, explosions, ship accelerations--are inarguably great, though, and their directionality in the aural field enhances the gameplay. Overall, the game's sound design is impressive.
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| Member the Death Star trench run?...wait, this is a secret level. Forget you saw this! |
Thankfully, Rogue Squadron's high attention to detail also extends its replay value. While completing the main story doesn't take very long (maybe 10 hours), the game utilizes an ingenious, optional medal system, requiring players to beat levels by a certain time limit, while achieving certain benchmarks like numbers of enemies killed or allies kept alive. Depending on how high a benchmark is achieved, players can receive a bronze, silver, or gold medal, and acquiring either all bronzes, silvers, or golds unlocks a special bonus level for each. These three bonus levels are based on key moments in the original film trilogy, and are a great reward for a dedicated player's diligence. Other unlockables include a music and cutscene theater, character bios, and even new ships...some of which are...substantial, and all of which together, substantially add to Rogue Squadron's replay value. There are even some secret passwords that unlock even more.
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| Member Dark Empire? Yes, original EU fans, we get some Dark Empire here!!! Also, of course I got all the golds. |
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| The coolest character who only gets five lines across an entire trilogy, ever! |
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| Nintendo 64 dopamine screen |
While Rogue Squadron might just miss out on greatness, it's still a highly enjoyable game that deserves a spot in every Nintendo 64 collection. It's also a must have for retro gamer Star Wars fans, particularly those like me, who adore the old pre-Disney Star Wars Expanded Universe. And speaking of expansion, a final note: this game needs to be played with an Expansion Pak. It's not technically necessary, but it's the only way to access Rogue Squadron's high resolution mode...which is the best, and certainly the best looking way to play the game. Also, a Rumble Pak doesn't hurt, either. The better to know you're getting lit up by Tie Fighters. Hey, if you're gonna play Nintendo 64, do it RIGHT!
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| Stellaluna |
SCORE BREAKDOWN
Music and Sound: 8.8/10 -- 40 minutes of speech and great overall sound design, along with high quality midi Star Wars music.
Gameplay: 8.5/10 -- Fun, high-octane, mission-based, third-person starfighter action.
Lasting Value: 8.5/10 -- The main story campaign isn't incredibly long, but there's much to unlock and achieve.
Final Score (Not an Average): 10.0/10
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