By You distinguish the padawans from the poodoo
May the Fourth be with you! We’re re-releasing this compilation in honor of Star Wars Day after giving it a thorough review, so after your Andor marathon, make sure to set aside time to explore the finest video games the Star Wars franchise has to offer.
The Skywalker Saga might have concluded in 2019, but Star Wars is never truly finished, is it? Especially in the realm of video games. Covering systems from the NES to arcades, Star Wars has made its mark on nearly every gaming console ever created.
Here, we’ll examine nearly every Star Wars game on Nintendo consoles in the West, arranged from least to most favored by you, valued readers. To keep it organized, in cases where a game appeared on various platforms, we’ve chosen to mention the lesser of the two — typically the handheld version — in the entry of the other. Keep in mind, this list is fluid and driven by each game’s User Rating within our database.
So, join us on an expedition to a galaxy far—you know the rest. We start at the lowest ranks, so beware that the Force is not particularly strong with many of these…
Top Star Wars Games of All Time
42. Star Wars: The New Droid Army (GBA)
This isometric platformer set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith puts you in control of the sulky young Skywalker in this tedious action game. Considering its platform, the visuals and audio are acceptable. However, it is otherwise monotonous, repetitive, and painfully slow. Anakin, you’re breaking our hearts.
41. Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles (GBA)
With adequate animation and sound (especially for the system) and tedious, finicky jumping mechanics, Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles falls into a lamentably familiar pattern of handheld Star Wars titles. While not as horrendous as others, and slightly more energetic than New Droid Army, it’s still a similar tale.
Perhaps developer HotGen aimed to authentically capture the thrill of The Phantom Menace‘s trade disputes, in which case they succeeded. Some may consider the non-canonical blue lightsaber held by Mace Windu on the cover inexcusable, but we were too uninterested to mind.
40. Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon (GBA)
Anyone who has exclusively played Star Wars games on a Game Boy deserves your sympathy. Retro Nintendo handhelds offered many opportunities, but a high midi-chlorian count was not among them.
Flight of the Falcon ranks as one of the most dismal Star Wars games ever, flaunting Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon on the cover — the two most iconic elements in the Star Wars universe — and tarnishing their good names. Like all dreadful Star Wars games, the allure of the logo misleads you into thinking ‘ah, it can’t be that bad!’, but our review conclusion encapsulates it perfectly: “Flight of the Falcon is a very bad game. As such, you should not play it. Regardless of how cool the screenshots look or how promising the premise sounds, just remember that the Force is not with this one in any way, shape, or form.”
Han, my dear, you deserved better.
39. Star Wars: Yoda Stories (GBC)
It’s essential to remember that while Yoda is a cherished character, this game was released before we witnessed him wielding a lightsaber in what is easily the best scene from Attack of the Clones. Despite the title, in Yoda Stories, you play as Luke Skywalker in a top-down adventure as he slices snakes in half with his lightsaber. How bad can that be?…
Quite bad, as it turns out. ‘Slow’ is an overly generous term, and the entire game is a technical fiasco. It’s tempting to blame the hardware, but then you look at Link’s Awakening and recognize what could have been. Link’s Awakening this ain’t. Poodoo, plain and simple.
38. Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones (GBA)
Ironically, the weakest film in the saga spawned one of the most lackluster Star Wars games ever. Normally we’d hedge such a statement with ‘arguably’, but Episode II is undeniably poor in some aspects (except for Mace Windu’s undeniable prowess and that memorable Yoda scene at the end — we remember liking that).
The accompanying GBA game is a tedious side-scrolling brawler that lacks the artistic refinement even the most mediocre Star Wars games possess. Coarse, rough, and frustrating, indeed.
37. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (NES)
A rather bland 8-bit platformer where you portray young Skywalker traversing variations of locations from the movie, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back could not be more average. For kids eager to play as hero Luke, it was a mediocre distraction, but nothing beyond that.
A Game Boy version also exists, but if you’re itching to experience the best film of the saga in game form, you’re far better off opting for the 16-bit ‘Super’ version. In fact, LucasArts didn’t even bother creating an 8-bit Return of the Jedi — the developers simply skipped generations and started anew with Super Star Wars on the SNES.
36. Star Wars (NES)
Yet another platformer. To be fair, it did an acceptable job of providing some variety and touching on the main characters and settings of the film, but it’s ultimately quite forgettable (and unforgiving).
The token Game Boy version increased the difficulty while minimizing screen space, but arguably the most fascinating of the 8-bit versions is the completely different and earlier Famicom title developed by Namco in 1987. ‘Fascinating’ because it’s not hesitant to significantly deviate from the source material, featuring Darth Vader transforming into a scorpion. Not ‘fascinating’ due to its quality, unfortunately.
35. Star Wars: Episode I: Obi-Wan’s Adventures (GBC)
Another entry quick to check the ‘uninspiring’ and ‘repetitive’ boxes; if you think the isometric escapades on the GBA were challenging on the eyes, Obi-Wan’s Adventures brings that style of gaming back
A console generation in an ‘adventure’ set simultaneously with the occurrences of Episode 1. It’s not terrible, merely unappealing and entirely unremarkable.
33. Star Wars: Lethal Alliance (DS)
Another Ubisoft contribution, Star Wars: Lethal Alliance features a Twi’lek named Rianna on the cover, which is arguably the most thrilling aspect of this third-person shooter.
Replacing lightsabers with blasters, the narrative includes both fresh and familiar characters (Kyle Katarn makes an appearance) and involves the heist of the Death Star plans before Rogue One came along to reset the canon. With obligatory touchscreen antics due to DS, it is certainly not bad, just standard.
Star Wars merits something superior, don’t you think?
32. Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes (DS)
A connection to the film and television series surrounding the events between Episodes II and III, this action platformer serves the same old story. Uninspired, unengaging, unexciting—choose your descriptor. At least the truly awful games elicit some emotion beyond mere discontent. Republic Heroes is just excruciatingly, painfully average.
We’re off to find our thesaurus because our vocabulary for ‘unremarkable’ is dwindling.
Gavin first contributed to Nintendo Life in 2018 and joined the site full-time the next year, progressing to the role of Editor. He can currently be found buried beneath a Switch backlog as extensive as Normandy.