Upon starting a new save file, you have two levels at your disposal. In fact, perfect ways, for there are two. Y’all praise Shadows of the Empire for its Hoth level, but you should really be praising Rogue Leader’s Hoth level instead. And they knew the perfect way to introduce its gameplay.

The game was telling me, the Star Wars fanboy, I was ready to immerse myself into the movies I grew up loving. Back as a kid, as someone who hadn’t owned DVDs for the original trilogy until their 2004 re-release, that was beyond epic. This is the kind of fanservice you don’t see nowadays. No matter where you are, be it in the main menu, the options screen, the passcode screen, you’re always being greeted by footage from the original Star Wars movies. I rarely, if ever, talk about the design of a game’s main menu, but it’s impossible to talk about Star Wars Rogue Squadron II without mentioning the heartwarming fanservice that is its menu interface. In one minuscule cutscene, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II showed us what to expect from it: realistic visuals, fantastic music, and a performance to die for. It would then be followed by some of the greatest explosion effects still seen to this day, as well as great MIDI work and an ultra-realistic rendering of an X-Wing, followed by the Factor 5 logo. The introductory cutscene with the Stormtroopers dancing to the Cantina theme song served as a showcase of how many characters could be rendered at once with the GameCube’s hardware. Nintendo, Factor 5 and LucasArts all wanted to flex and prove their competence even before the game would actually begin. No, that game was Ninty’s middle finger towards its competition, proving that the ridiculed purple lunchbox could deliver visuals and performance its rivals could only dream of. That game wasn’t just Nintendo showcasing their new system was more powerful than the Nintendo 64. The one killer app available at launch wasn’t any of these games, though. The GameCube is available for consumers, as well as a top notch launch lineup, featuring titles like Luigi’s Mansion, Crazy Taxi, Wave Race: Blue Storm, and much more. You can feel the tension when the music becomes more intense. They did a good job with Rogue Squadron‘s Episode I-esque pseudo-sequel, Battle for Naboo, but the GameCube’s surprisingly beefy hardware was the solution to the company’s issues. The concept was there, it just needed more horsepower in order for Factor 5, its developer, to fully deliver its vision. It was a game that punched above its weight. You could only see a few feet in front of you. It had no space battles, its framerate could be counted on single digits at times, and its draw distance was… laughable. The original Rogue Squadron was an amazing Nintendo 64 title, but it was severely hindered by the console’s capabilities. It’s impossible to talk about Star Wars Rogue Squadron II without mentioning its predecessor first. It is the best Star Wars game of all time. I am not saying this (only) with rose-tinted glasses, but as someone who had actually played it once again up to ten minutes before writing this article. The vast majority of its games still hold up brilliantly. However, in terms of the balance between hardware horsepower, Nintendo gimmicks that actually did not suck, third-party support, and a steady output of excellent exclusives, the GameCube ruled.

Sure, it had its problems, such as the stupid storage size in its disc and the lack of a few buttons on its controller, which made porting multiplats to it harder than it should have been. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader was a launch title for the GameCube, which I actually consider to be the best system Nintendo has ever crafted.

Rogue star rescue review