It's so tempting to be really annoying and insistently call this Rogue Squadron III. I didn't put two and two together until recently but somehow Factor 5 released this game less than a year after Battle for Naboo, and for an entirely new system to boot. Insane! But they really make incredible use of the hardware, despite being a launch title Rogue Squadron II still ranks among the nicest looking games on the Gamecube. The increase in horsepower between the N64 and the GCN means increases in draw distance, enemy and ally quantity, enemy and ally behavior, and the impressive implementation of real-time lighting with all the laser blasts that go flying all over the place. The gameplay has also advanced, most of all with the addition of the titular leadership mechanic: you can use the d-pad to issue basic commands to your wingmen. While this usually boils down to just telling them which major enemy type to focus on, it does mean your allies are helpful than say, your buddies in Star Fox. Though they did seem to have an annoying habit of radioing me for instructions just as I was bearing down on a TIE and couldn't take my thumb off the stick.
That said, one thing that really stuck out to me having just played the two N64 entries is how, although you are constantly talking to your teammates thanks to the command mechanic, they don't really seem all that...present? Because the first two games don't follow the movies super closely, their more original missions allow for an overarching plot to unfold that is specific to the game. In Rogue Squadron, you repeatedly recruit defectors to your cause who point you toward key Imperial bases which draws the attention of the local Imperial commander, there's some tactical tomfoolery with diversions and traps and it all culminates in a boss battle against that commander. In Battle for Naboo you follow your captain and recruit various allies against the Trade Federation and then have to rally together when your captain is tricked and killed by a traitor. They're not the deepest stories or anything but they add a ton of cohesion to the missions and I can name non-movie characters from both games. I imagine due to the success of the first game and the prestige of being a launch title, Factor 5 was allowed or mandated to follow the big movie events more closely, so Rogue Squadron II features all the iconic ship battles from the original trilogy: the trench run with the first Death Star, the Battle of Hoth, and the Battle of Endor (which is so climactic it actually covers two missions). While these battles are undeniably cool, the missions in-between just kinda idly string them together. They're still fun of course, this is a pretty minor complaint, but I just think of how every mission features lots of voice lines between you and your lieutenants, with some charming line reads, yet they barely feel like characters, and I couldn't name anyone who isn't a major movie character already.
Alright one more negative thing I think and then back to positive: the last mission is brutally hard!! Like to the point I suspect it may have been rushed. You are covering Lando as the two of you race across the second Death Star's surface and then carefully flying through its claustrophobic innards to reach the core. This part isn't too bad, Lando can die in seconds if left unattended but the level is so linear it's hard not to have his assailants in your sights at all times. The hard part comes after you blow up the core, and have to escape. There's this big instant-failure wall of flames chasing you, and I think it is kind of buggy? For one, if you crash while escaping (and you will) and the flames "catch up" to you before the death animation finishes, this fails the mission and you have to start the whole thing over. Sometimes I would avoid this and successfully respawn, but then the flames started acting really weird, accelerating and decelerating at bizarre nonsensical intervals. I would try to deliberately crash to reset it and would see the circle of flames on-screen like, dilate and retract while I was dying and respawning. It was weird and while I would love to hear the developer audio commentary for that mission I also never want to play it again.
But yeah that's right, there's commentary! The audio quality is kinda iffy and there aren't any subtitles but still, I love stuff like that and you don't see it very often for video games. There's even commentary for the tutorial level, where the developers talk about how one of the main reasons they created the tutorial is because they really wanted to set a mission on Tatooine but admitted there aren't really any in-universe reasons to do so that wouldn't be kind of weird, humorously acknowledging that the first mission of the original Rogue Squadron, set on Tatooine, is kind of weird. And stuff like how proud they are of making the sand look like sand, or the polygon count of the Star Destroyer models. I do really like the tutorial level, too. You're given twenty minutes to just fly around a big sandbox and do really anything you want. There are little lessons for almost everything you need to know about flying, a few little challenges to test those skills, and about a dozen little objects scattered around for you to find, from sandcrawlers to bantha herds to R2-D2. The tutorial also takes advantage of the Gamecube's internal clock and has four different mild variants based on the time of day. Completing every objective in all four time windows even unlocks the Naboo Starfighter for use in other missions! High-effort tutorials... they're just the best.
Game Number: 147
Year Played: 2024
Platform: Gamecube