Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (NES)

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Platform: NES Year: 1991 Developer: Sculptured Software Buy: Amazon

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is a platforming game that is based on the famous movie of the same name. The player takes the role of Luke Skywalker who must stop the evil empire. While the gameplay was awful, the game did bring some new things to the table, like a bunch of digitized sound effects.

Screenshots

The title screen. Hey, Luke! Cows go 'Moo!'

Music

The music is taken from the movie. The game's composer, Paul Webb, said that this is where his 15 minutes of fame came in because the composer from the movie, John Williams, gave Paul the original handwritten sheet music. The game has a sound test which contains official names of the songs. All of the songs but the Cantina theme do not loop. Paul Webb would later go on to compose the SNES Star Wars games, which sounded like they were taken directly from the movie!

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Programmer	Length	Size	Listen
01	Title	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	1:03	2.42 MB
02	Vader	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:39	1.49 MB
03	Luke's Theme	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:16	615 KB
04	Yoda's Theme	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:11	446 KB
05	Cloud City	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:07	311 KB
06	Victory	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:24	923 KB
07	Cantina	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	1:02	2.36 MB
08	Happy One	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:03	147 KB
09	Happy Two	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:03	143 KB
10	Triumph One	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:05	218 KB
11	Triumph Two	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:09	379 KB
12	Empire	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:08	328 KB
13	Danger	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:03	148 KB
14	Love	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:17	625 KB
15	Yoda One	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:20	772 KB
16	Yoda Two	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:12	468 KB
17	Yoda Three	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:17	670 KB
18	City	John Williams	Paul Webb	Ken Moore	0:09	374 KB

Credits

• Ripper: Matrixz
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Music Trooper: Paul Webb
  • Not Credited Composer: John Williams
  • Not Credited Programmer: Ken Moore

(Sources: USA, Japan)

Only the text differentiates between the USA and Japanese version. Other than that, they're exactly the same.

Game Rip

Formats	Download	Size
	Download	12 KB

Ripping NES music is a very arduous process that is beyond the scope of this site. The music was recorded in the sound test of the game using VirtuaNES.

Releases

USA Title: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Platform: NES Released: 1992-03-?? Publisher: JVC     Spain Title: Star Wars: El Imperio Contraataca (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back) Platform: NES Released: 1993-??-?? Publisher: JVC     Japan Title: スターウォーズ：帝国の逆襲 (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back) Platform: NES Released: 1993-03-12 Publisher: JVC