YMMV / Shadows of the Empire

• Awesome Music: The soundtrack, composed by Joel McNeely. Special mention should be given to Imperial City and The Destruction of Xizor's Palace. The video game's soundtrack (which has a mixture of music from John Williams' soundtracks from the original trilogy, McNeely's sountrack and other original pieces of music also composed by McNeely) is no slouch either, with an incredibly dark and foreboding main theme. The Nintendo 64 version of the game is one of the few games on the system to have a fully-orchestrated soundtrack!
• Best Level Ever: The Battle of Hoth had already gotten a decent rendition in Super Empire Strikes Back, but this game just took it to the next level. While the rest of the game has aged like milk, this one still holds up, as the level's flight controls are a lot more suitable for the game's engine. The last mission, the Skyhook Battle is a close runner-up for this title. Hoth was such a well-received level that they spawned a whole other series.
• Breather Boss: While most of the bosses in the game are pretty brutal, the Loader Droid is a walk in the park by comparison. Its attacks are much less damaging than those most of the other bosses, assuming it ever gets the opportunity to actually attack you in the first place, as circling around it makes it all but impossible for it to hit you. Any difficulty in the battle tends to come more from the clunky aiming controls than the droid itself.
• Breather Level: On Jedi difficulty, the Asteroid Field level is much easier than the downright brutal Battle of Hoth and Echo Base levels you just completed, and serves as a nice change of pace before you're thrown into Ord Mantell and Gall.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Go here.
• Event-Obscuring Camera: The game boasts a "Cinematic" mode which has no practical application whatsoever besides allowing you to see Dash's face. Even the normal camera modes are hellish when it comes to the game's platforming segments.
• Fridge Brilliance: In Wraith Squadron a disease research center has a plasma bomb array capable of wiping out the entire center and the city blocks around it ready to activate the moment a leak is detected, and it's considered a sensible precaution. Considering the bacteriological research outpost on Falleen did not have one and Vader had to resort to heavy turbolaser fire from orbit to stop the contagion from spreading to the whole world, killing 200,000 people in the process, one may realize why the disease research center had the plasma bomb array...
• Harsher in Hindsight: Go here.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: When Guri is defeated by Luke, he spares her and asks her to come with them in order to reprogram her. She rejected the offer, responding that she'll die if they try. Later, Guri decided to, and her effort was successful. Well done, Luke!
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Go here.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Gunnery Sergeant Wrenga Jixton, aka "Jix", was an Imperial trooper court-martialed after his failure to participate in the destruction of a city on the world of Falleen. Later saving the life of Darth Vader to become an Imperial Agent in return for leaving his friends alone, Jix infiltrates Jabba the Hutt's palace and swoop gang to safeguard Luke Skywalker, keeping Luke alive even after being forced to kill one of Jabba's men. After planting the dead man's code book on an injured swoop member, Jix departs with his mission complete and his enemies none the wiser while remaining in Vader's service.
  • Evolution, by Ron Randall, Steve Perry, and Tom Simmons: Savan, the niece of Prince Xizor, seeks to avenge her uncle and take over Black Sun. Disguising herself to gain a seat on the council of Vigos, Black Sun's lieutenants desiring Xizor's position as Underlord, Savan plays the Vigos against one another. Exploiting their differences to cause strife and borderline wars to keep them from allying against her, Savan disguises herself as an antiques dealer to operate in secret. Savan intends to obtain the Human Replica Droid Guri as an assassin and take over the criminal organization for good and all.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • IG-88, and his horrifying alien speak. The introduction cutscene to his boss fight in the video game scared many a young player back in the day.
  • The sewers. It's entirely possible to be instantly killed by dianogas in an early stretch before fighting them on a regular basis. The level is hell for people with a fear of underwater creatures.
    • And the music. The dark, dank sewers were scary enough without it.
    • The video game only had parts of the regular soundtrack, but parts of it are fairly foreboding as well, especially the title theme, which is used for many of the cutscenes, which is possibly one of the darkest and foreboding theme tunes in Star Wars history.
    • The dianogas are able to sneak up on you on numerous occasions, but there's nothing worse than the fight with the giant dianoga at the end. The doors shut, the water rises, the music spikes, and you see the giant tentacles of the beast. Even worse, you know it's going to happen but the game won't proceed otherwise.
  • The Gall Spaceport music, especially the Scare Chords. Fittingly enough, it's also Boba Fett's official theme.
  • In the book, the explanation of why Xizor hates Vader so much: the Dark Lord of the Sith had established a bacteriological research outpost in his hometown, and when a flesh-eating bacteria got out Vader had everything within 40 km from the facility wiped out by his Star Destroyer to stop the contagion from spreading and kill all people on the planet, and possibly spread to other worlds. The death toll was 200,000 people, including Xizor's entire family. Then the Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook makes this worse by showing that Vader was actually holding back: Bolvan, captain of the Devastator, had suggested to use ammunition from Project X271 to incinerate the plague from orbit alongside all life on the planet, but Vader declared it would have been too much and ordered a more traditional bombardment with turbolasers.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: While the game tie-in is really showing its age now, it's a perfectly playable and fun third person shooter with some cool vehicle segments, creative level ideas and a great soundtrack.
• Once Original, Now Common: The video game was one of the first games released for the Nintendo 64 and one of the first third person shooter games released in 3D. It was praised as a landmark game with impressive environments for its time and for its faithfulness to the movies, right down to having music taken directly from the films in addition to its own new sound cues. Being set between the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi was a huge selling point as well—up till then, there had been no Star Wars tie-ins prior to it that really bridged the gap between the two films, and it along with the other multimedia tie-ins considerably opened up the possibilities of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe. In hindsight, however, the game has not aged well from a technical standpoint; the environments are very barren and rough looking, the combat is extremely rudimentary, and Dash Rendar controls in a very floaty, awkward way. The starfighter segments, while good for their time, simply don't stack up in contrast to the games that took inspiration from it while substantially improving the flight and gameplay mechanics, such as Factor 5's Rogue Squadron series. The rudimentary story probably won't win over newer gamers either, since you really need to read the accompanying novelization and comics to get the full story of what's going on in the game, and its novelty as a Star Wars interquel is completely lost on newer fans who are used to seeing that kind of thing regularly in Star Wars works that came after it, such as Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, The Force Unleashed and Rogue One.
• Polished Port: Arguably, the PC port of the game is a significant improvement over the N64 original, what with much more responsive controls and fully voiced, rendered cutscenes that hold up well enough till this day… that is if you're using a system this game was made for, as newer ones sure cause a few problems, although the GOG port works just fine.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: The walking stages of the game are much harder and take way longer to get through than those that have you drive a vehicle (save, maybe, for the swoop race which, while tough, is still relatively short so you don't have to worry too much about losing your progress in case you run out of lives). The third level, taking place in the Asteroid Field, for instance, is ridiculously easy in particular and can be beat within less than two minutes.
• Squick: Guri is fully equipped as a female human replica droid. And Xizor has actually used said equipment.
• That One Boss:
  • Rather fittingly, Boba Fett. He has his trademark jetpack, the same kind of homing Seeker missiles you've been using since Hoth, and a close-range flamethrower that will kill you quicker than you can blink, even if you're at full health. Thankfully, the arena has some health pick ups on the outside, and he becomes much more sluggish once he enters Slave I for the second phase, though one bad move and you might end up having to repeat a definite Marathon Level.
  • Although neither he nor Slave I will follow you outside the launchpad, where you can find extra powerups. When dealing with Slave I in particular, you can just hop between the gaps on your jetpack, fire a few shots at Slave I, then dip back down before it can fire on you. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
  • The Giant Dianoga from Sewers of Imperial City. Not only do you have to put up with Under the Sea physics, but you also have to focus on avoiding both its tentacles and getting sucked into its Sarlacc-like mouth (which will result in a One-Hit Kill, obviously). Additionally, you can only damage it via Attack Its Weak Point — namely, its always-moving eye.
  • The Gladiator from Xizor's Palace has three "forms": the full figure, its torso (with a rocket booster to propel itself around), and its head. When its second form appears, a labyrinth forms that also has some enemies inside. When the head is left, your jetpack malfunctions. And it always spams the laser (with a really big area span) no matter where you are.
• That One Level:
  • Ord Mantell junkyard. You have to jump from train car to train car, and from train to train- all with physics that will send you helplessly falling to instant death if you attempt a jump at the wrong time. You will fall a lot before you get familiar enough with the mechanics to beat the level; and at the end of it is IG-88.
  • The widely reviled Swoop Bike chase level; a level that forces you to drive at breakneck speeds through cluttered streets and levels, with countless opportunities to get stuck, slow down, and crash and burn. The only thing that salvages the level is the enemies actually slow down so you can attack them, and even then, the game doesn't tell you how to attack them (you have to use a specific button to ram the swoop gang bikes at their sides).
  • Sewers of Imperial City. For some players, it's because of the dianogas scattered throughout the level if only because you hear its roar before you see it.
  • On Jedi difficulty, lets just say every damn level (with the possible exception of the Asteroid Field, and even that one isn't a cakewalk) becomes this. Because Dash can only take two or three hits from most enemies, you absolutely have to stay on your toes through the game and be prepared for every attack that'll come your way, because even one slip up will spell death for you. It definitely lives up to the Nintendo Hard mantra.

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