Video Game / Rogue Squadron

"Rogue Squadron, where's our cover?!"

Rogue Squadron is a series of Star Wars Legends aerial and space combat games based on parts of the X-Wing Rogue Squadron series.

In 1996, at about the same time that the first novel of the X-Wing series was coming out, LucasArts decided to make a space combat game, similar to the Hoth level in Shadows of the Empire. Factor 5, the company they contracted, wanted to make games that let people play though action scenes from the films. At that time, Lucasfilm was not comfortable with video games drawing directly from the films. Then someone looked at the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comics and realized that they could use similar settings, putting characters from the films into new missions. A series of three shooter games called Rogue Squadron (for Nintendo 64), Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, and Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike (both for Nintendo GameCube), kicked off in 1998. The first game is set between Episodes IV and V, but several missions make use of events in Legends, like the Emperor's rebirth; the next two games are set between and during points of the movies.

The second game is widely recognized as the best—for instance, they got Denis Lawson, the original actor who played Wedge Antilles in the movies, to voice him—and the third is usually considered to be the weakest, largely due to incorporating ground missions that have iffy controls (though it also has the second game included in it, playable in a new co-op mode)—however, this may depend on how important multiplayer is to you (the third game is the only one with such a feature).

To tie in with The Phantom Menace, a cheat code was hidden in Rogue Squadron which allowed you to unlock a Naboo Starfighter for play. Factor 5 later released the Spin-Off Star Wars Episode I: Battle for Naboo on Nintendo 64, which is very much in the vein of the Rogue Squadron series (albeit with new ground-based vehicles as well as the flight combat), and was equally well-received and successful. By the same token, to tie in with Attack of the Clones, Rebel Strike had a mission where you ended up on Geonosis and could find a hidden Delta-7 Jedi Starfighter, one armed with Slave I's Seismic Charges.

After releasing the three games, Factor 5 went on to make Lair. Reportedly they were sick of the series. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well and Lair was critically and commercially panned, eventually leading to the closure of the studio.

The first game was later ported to PC operating systems as Rogue Squadron 3D, and is available from GOG.com and Steam. See also X-Wing and TIE Fighter, games to which the Rogue Squadron series is in many respects a Spiritual Successor. 2020's Star Wars: Squadrons presents itself as the most recent spiritual successor to the Rogue Squadron series.

A Rogue Squadron film set in the Star Wars canon was announced, to be helmed by Patty Jenkins, who confirmed that its writing will be influenced by the games and books in which the squadron appears. It has since been shelved indefinitely.

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This series provides examples of:

• Ace Pilot: Luke, Wedge, just about anyone in Rogue Squadron. Kasan Moor herself was also an Ace in the Imperial 128th prior to her defection.
• Adaptational Badass: The Naboo N-1 Starfighter is at least twenty years old by the time of the original trilogy, but as a bonus ship it beats out modern fighters in almost every category, doing nearly everything the X-Wing can, but better. The same goes for the Jedi Starfighter in Rebel Strike, though with less of a reputation due to only appearing in one game.
• Adaptational Wimp: The World Devastators in the first Rogue Squadron are significantly weaker than how they were portrayed in Dark Empire. For starters, in the original source material of the mission, the World Devastators required a Deus ex Machina to take down (courtesy of R2-D2 uploading the shutdown codes), whereas in this game, you have to take down the shields, and also shoot out two of its "legs," thus forcing it to crash in the water.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Across all 3 games you will be switching out pilots on a regular basis. The first RS has you play as Luke Skywalker almost the entire game, with the exception of the Battle of Calamari, where you play as Wedge Antilles. Rogue Leader has the most pilot changes, with the first three missions playing as Luke, until a mid-mission switch to Wedge, who you play as for the rest of the regular missions. You do play as Luke in a couple of bonus missions, as well as Darth Vader in the alternate reality missions. You also get to play as Han Solo in one bonus mission, and if you use the Millennium Falcon in the "Strike at the Core" mission, you get to play as Lando Calrissian. Rebel Strike has an equal number of missions for Luke and Wedge, in addition to one mission as Arvel Crynyd ("Green Leader"), the pilot who crashed his A-Wing into the SSD Executor's bridge in Episode VI. Granted, all of the ships handle exactly the same regardless of who you're playing; it's just the knowledge of who's piloting your ship.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In Battle Above Taloraan, accidentally blowing up civilian Tabanna Gas containers doesn't count against your Friendlies Saved score in order to keep the mission from getting too hard, but don't push your luck as destroying too many of them will result in an instant mission failure.
  • In Strike At The Core, once you make it into the second Death Star, if you crash in the tunnel, you will restart at the start of the tunnel, as opposed to continuing the level like on the surface of the Death Star, which usually results in a game over.
• Arc Villain: Moff Seerdon serves as the antagonist for the third chapter of the first game. You confront him at the end of the last mission of this chapter, but he is not a Final Boss because you get a post-Return of the Jedi Legends mission in the V-Wing as the true final main level of the game after you get past him.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • In Rebel Strike there's a mission where you fight a squad of TIE Hunters inside a giant spherical force field. If you touch the force field, you will die. The TIE Hunter pilots didn't seem to get that memo.
  • The enemies in Rebel Strike will fly headlong at you when they attack, making for extremely easy shots as they basically fly into your crosshairs. In fairness, this was likely done to fix the frustrations in Rogue Leader where enemies would constantly fly behind you and tail you incessantly and there isn't much you can do about it.
  • Darth Bob the Suicidal TIE Fighter Pilot: the anonymous TIE Fighter who will crash into you during the Battle of Endor in Rogue Leader. Bob may be a subversion; the AI doesn't seem to be programmed to run into you, it's just that there are so many fighters in the level that it's difficult to foresee or avoid collisions.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Battle for Naboo focuses on Lt. Gavyn Sykes, A.K.A. Bravo Six, who only appeared in The Phantom Menace for little more than a few seconds as one of the pilots that was sent to attack the Droid Control Ship.
  • This also applies to the Naboo Starfighter; in the first game, it's a well-hidden bonus ship that needed a double code to unlock. In Battle for Naboo, you acquire the ship midway through the game as your default starfighter.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Advanced Targeting Computer upgrade in the two GameCube games. It makes the targeting computer button a toggle rather than having to be held down, and allows you to move the cursor and command your wingmen to target specific enemies. Unfortunately, the command aspect of the upgrade is difficult to handle, and most missions' medal requirements require leaving the targeting computer off for a set percentage of the mission time or worse, not using the targeting computer at all. This leaves the upgrade only useful on a few missions, such as Rogue Leader's Endurance mission where the medal requirements don't have a "maximum TC uptime" requirement at all. It's also a late-game upgrade (in Rogue Leader in particular, you pick it up on the very last main mission), meaning that it's not even useful for minimally beating the game.
  • In a very specific instance, the V-Wing's homing cluster missiles in the final mission of the first game. Normally the cluster missiles are incredibly powerful and can be used to shred enemy fighters, but if any of the missiles from a salvo do not find a target in a short amount of time they will immediately nose dive into the ground. This means that when you're protecting the Mon Calamari cities, you're just as likely to bomb the buildings that you're supposed to be protecting if you fire off homing missiles above the cities, which can result in a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Balance, Speed, Strength Trio: The starfighters you can control in the series often fall under these categories. Some examples include the X-Wing (balance), A-Wing or TIE Interceptor (speed), and the Y-Wing or B-Wing (strength). Of course there are some ships that excel in speed, firepower and shields, like the Naboo Starfigher or the Buick.
• Battleship Raid: Various bosses in Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike.
• Big Good: General Madine is the guy giving orders for the majority of the original missions. In the first game, you rescue him on Corellia, and from then on, he acts as Mission Control. General Rieekan also serves as this whenever Madine isn't around.
• Boss Battle: In addition to the Star Destroyers in Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike, the original game's "Moff Seerdon's Revenge" stage pits Luke against Seerdon in his armored shuttle the moment all other Imperial targets in the level are destroyed (you have to blow up every single enemy in the map to make Seerdon appear, meaning you may have to hunt a few TIEs across the stage). The Seerdon boss fight comes complete with the Imperial March replacing the stage theme as the boss theme. Destroying his shuttle and killing him completes the mission. He's technically not a Final Boss, as there's one post-VI mission after this stage (the one with the World Devastators) before the main game is over.
• Broken Record: A bug on the Rebel Strike version of "Battle of Endor" causes Lando's "WE GOTTA BUY MORE TIME" clip to play ad nauseum.
• Beam Spam: The Star Destroyers in Rogue Leader, definitely. Any direction that you approach will send a wave of deadly and accurate lasers towards your craft's central axis; and since this isn't Star Fox, barrel rolls won't save you from the endless waves of TIE Fighters on your back, either. "Razor Rendezvous" is an example of this.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The humble X-Wing may not have any super-fancy capabilities like the A-Wing's speed boost (the X-Wing has to close its S-foils and therefore forego firing to go faster), the Y-Wing's proton bombs, or Ion Cannons, but the X-Wing's balance of firepower, speed, compactness, and durability means that on nearly any mission where you can choose between multiple different ships, the X-Wing is the best choice for earning gold medals.
  • The Y-Wing is also this trope to a lesser extent. While the most sluggish of the rebel fighters, it has great shielding, ion cannons, and strong proton bombs (moreso when you get the spread bombs in later installments), making it the go-to for anti-ground assaults. The game's description of the ship states it as such.
    General Rieekan: The Y-Wing is The Workhorse of the Rebel Fleet. It's not quick or flashy, but it gets the job done.
• Boss-Only Level:
  • "Razor Rendezvous" in Rogue Leader. You in a B-wing versus a Star Destroyer. "Attack on the Executor" in Rebel Strike pits you against three Star Destroyers and then the Executor itself, a Super Star Destroyer.
  • The Coruscant bonus level in Battle for Naboo, where you're a Naboo Fighter chasing down Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator.
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • The Coruscant bonus level in Battle for Naboo. Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator has almost no means of attacking you save dropping a mine on occasion, but it's a very fast and small target that can take a lot of damage. It turns into a very tedious game of cat and mouse, all while flying through the claustrophobic skyscrapers of the city and dodging the traffic.
  • The Endurance Levels of Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike. Rogue Leader pits you up against 100 waves of TIE Fighters, and you have to complete them all within a certain time limit (which can run up to hours on end) to get medals. Rebel Strike puts you in a similar situation, except you're on-foot and fighting 100 waves of Stormtroopers instead.
• Call-Back:
  • "Ambush at Mos Eisley" in the first game features a number of landmarks from the Original Trilogy: Mos Eisley, Beggar's Canyon, the Great Pit of Carkoon, Jabba the Hutt's palace, and even the area where C-3PO and R2-D2's escape pod landed, down to the half-buried Krayt Dragon skeleton. Artoo will also start chirping excitedly when you fly over the escape pod itself (which is still embedded in the sand).
  • During the first game's "Defection on Corellia" mission, Han Solo unexpectedly arrives in the Millennium Falcon, and saves a Rebel pilot from TIE bombers in a manner similar to when he saved Luke at the Battle of Yavin. For bonus points, he even shouts "Yee-haw!" as he shoots the bombers down.
  • Remember C-3PO's offhand remark that the Empire might send them to the spice mines of Kessel in the first film? You get to visit that planet in this game...twice.
  • Near the end of the Taloraan level, you reach what looks like a mini-sized Cloud City, and Kasan Moor remarks that it reminds her of the planet Bespin.
  • Part of the cheat code to unlock the Naboo Fighter in Rebel Strike is BFNAGAIN (Battle for Naboo again) referring to the spinoff game Battle for Naboo.
• Casting Gag: Crix Madine and Wes Janson in Squadron and Leader (and Kol Kotha in Battle for Naboo) are voiced by Terence McGovern, one of the four voice actors for the stormtroopers in A New Hope (he famously said the "These aren't the droids we're looking for" line).
• Character Select Forcing:
  • Enforced on all Rogue Squadron missions at first. The first time you play through any level, you must take the designated ship. On Snowspeeder levels you are never given an option, since it is impossible to beat AT-ATs with any other ship. The first game will allow you to use a Naboo Starfighter in Snowspeeder levels... the level will just be impossible to complete. After beating the level once, most missions allow you to choose other ships without penalties, averting/downplaying the trope. At last, when you collect all gold medals, you are given almost complete freedom to pick any ship you'd like - and sometimes it is easier to beat missions with ships that weren't allowed before, such as an A-Wing on "Raid on Sullust", a level designed for the Y-Wing.
  • Battle for Naboo enforces the trope more rigidly: you can only deploy a craft you have unlocked, and since most levels are designed around to exploit land-, air- and watercraft, most of the time the player's choices are restricted most of the time. An odd exception to this enforcement is "Naboo Bayou", an aircraft mission, but one may play with the Swampspeeder and get a kick in the teeth, since it is impossible to complete the mission this way.
• Competitive Balance: The ships have the following balance tropes associated with them:
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • X-Wing: Described as "an almost perfect balance of speed and maneuverability"—armed with four laser cannons, missiles, shields, and s-foils which allow you to go faster at the cost of not being able to use weaponry. It also has the benefit of an R2 unit to fix low shields at the eleventh hour.
    • Snowspeeder: A swift, fairly fast ship with dual lasers, and the only vehicle to feature a tow cable weapon, which is needed to take down AT-AT walkers (because of this, any mission in the first game that has the AT-AT as an enemy(ies) will restrict you to only the Snowspeeder no matter what the mission is; the second game will force you to switch to the speeder during the mission when the walkers show up). Its only significant handicaps are its low flight ceiling (as it is a repulsorcraft, and not a true starfighter) and lack of shields.
    • The T-16 Skyhopper in the "Tatooine Training" levels—best described as "X-Wing Lite", it has the speed and maneuverability of the X-Wing, good shielding, adequate laser cannons, and can be equipped with missiles or proton bombs.
    • The Flash Speeder in Battle for Naboo; a fast hovercraft with an accurate cannon and missiles.
    • The Police Cruiser in Battle For Naboo, essentially a poor mans Naboo Starfighter with slower speed, less agility and weaker firepower (although its Proton Torpedoes put it slightly ahead of other craft that use concussion missiles).
  • Fragile Speedster:
    • A-Wing: A very fast and maneuverable hit-and-run ship, handicapped by its weak shields and weak default missiles.
    • V-Wing: A ship of average speed (save when it deploys its Scram Jets) and has no shields equipped, but it has the ability to trigger devastating rapid fire mode laser cannons (which is prone to overheating). Its claim to fame is it's Magikarp Power with regards to cluster missiles, particularly with the seeker upgrade.
    • TIE Interceptor: It has the advantage of devastating laser cannons, and is fairly fast and maneuverable, but has no secondary weapons and is completely un-shielded, making it a very vulnerable target.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • Y-Wing: A slow bomber craft ^note (notably, Luke said they "move like a sleepy Hutt" in the first game, and the strategy guide says it handles with the grace of a bathtub), not worth crap for dogfighting due to its slow firing, tightly bound cannons, but can kill anything on the ground^* (except AT-ATs, unfortunately) with its proton bombs (which regenerate in the sequels), and it can take more of a licking than the other ships. It also has the novelty of Ion Cannons, which allow a enemy target to be disabled rather than destroyed, as well as the benefit of an R2 unit for quick shield repairs. The second and third games made the Y-Wing much more maneuverable, making it viable (though still not ideal) for dogfights.
    • B-Wing: A cross between the X-Wing and the Y-Wing, designed for taking out capital ships (read: Star Destroyers). Slow moving, but armed with three blasters, a double-complement of proton torpedoes, and an ion cannon. Like the X-Wing, it can move slightly faster by closing its S-foils, and like the Y-Wing, it has tough armor and shields for surviving turbolaser fire.
    • The AT-ST in Rogue Squadron ^note (hidden as an easter egg level, playable in the PC version via a code) and Rebel Strike; not very fast moving, but very heavily armored, and equipped with brutal lasers and missiles.
    • The AT-AT, used very briefly in a mission in Rebel Strike. Very slow moving, but has devastating laser cannons and is very heavily armored.
    • The TIE Bomber in Rebel Strike; essentially a TIE ship armed with homing missiles instead of lasers.
    • The Heavy Stap in Battle for Naboo; slower than the Flash Speeder, but has slightly better firepower to make up for it.
    • The Gian Speeder in Battle for Naboo; much slower than the Flash Speeder, but makes up for it with two heavy-hitting cannons and a devastating front cannon that can be charged up.
    • The unlockable AAT in Battle for Naboo. Very slow moving, but armed with two heavy laser cannons and a projectile bombs.
    • The Trade Federation Gunboat, somewhat slow moving but armed with two laser cannons and short-range projectiles.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Some of the bonus ships.
    • The Millennium Falcon in the first game (its maneuverability got Nerfed hard in later installments, making it a Mighty Glacier instead.) Its most notable feature is the auto-targeting, rotatable and heavy-hitting quad guns.
    • Naboo Starfighter: In the main Rogue Squadron games, it can be best described as "A-Wing Deluxe"; it's faster and hits harder, but can take more of a beating. Like the X-Wing and Y-Wing, it also has the benefit of an R2 unit for last-minute shield boost. Its appearance in Battle for Naboo was slightly nerfed in regards to speed and firepower (considering it essentially replaces the X-Wing), but is still no less useful of a craft, especially when it replaces its substantially weaker counterpart, the Police Cruiser, midway through the game.
    • The Sith Infiltrator in Battle for Naboo. Fast and armed with two sets of lasers that will mow down anything in its path.
    • The Swamp Speeder in Battle for Naboo, basically a Flash and Gian Speeder mixed with a gunboat; its much faster than the standard gunboat, and has two fast firing laser cannons and a third heavy cannon.
    • The TIE Advanced X1; not only is it more durable and faster than the standard TIE, its ability to use cluster missiles gives it an extra edge in firepower.
    • The TIE Hunter in Rebel Strike, basically an X-Wing mixed with a TIE fighter (with a dash of Y-Wing); faster than the standard TIE ship, is equipped with shields, missiles and ion cannons.
    • The Jedi Starfighter from Rebel Strike; its faster than the A-wing, deals far more damage with its lasers alone, and it has devastating seismic charges as a secondary weapon—and they regenerate over time!
  • Lethal Joke Ship:
    • Slave 1 in the second game starts out as a Joke Ship, but with upgrades becomes a Lethal Joke Ship. It's slower than the Y-Wing (if you can believe that), is a huge target, has lousy shields, and its bottom-mounted blasters are awkward if not impossible to aim with. So why would you ever use it? Homing Cluster Missiles.
    • The Buick, a Lethal Joke Ship available only with a cheat. Tiny (smaller target than an A-Wing), good speed, agility and shielding, and it mounts cluster missiles. In a bit of Lampshade Hanging, part of the code is WHATTHE.
  • Joke Ship:
    • The TIE Interceptor in the original Rogue Squadron—while fairly fast and has hard hitting lasers, its lack of secondary weapons and shields can be a serious liability.
    • The T-16 Skyhopper in the original game's "Beggars Canyon" level, the only level you play it in. Its bulkiness makes it hard to turn safely, and its only weapon is a slow firing, useless laser cannon. The sequels give it some new features, like faster (but still weak) lasers, ion cannons, torpedoes, and bombs, but that's only because the ship is used in the tutorial level (and nowhere else), and needs that equipment in order for the player to learn how it works.
    • The Imperial Shuttle in the Rogue Squadron sequels; a slow moving, bulky craft with weak shields, no secondary weapons, only two unremarkable laser cannons, and a useless folding wing function. The only upside to the ship is the rear-mounted cannon to clear out pursuers. You can use the Shuttle in both alternate reality missions, and one of them is physically impossible to complete with the Shuttle.
    • The Naboo Bomber in Battle for Naboo; imagine a Y-Wing made even slower, with slow-firing lasers, no Ion cannons, and armed with only six proton bombs per ship. There is a reason it's only used for one mission in the game.
    • The standard TIE Fighter in Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike. As with the TIE Interceptor above, it has paper-thin armor and no shields or secondary weapons, but it's also slower and has tightly-bound blasters which make it a pain to hit fast-moving targets with any accuracy. Run a few missions in it and you'll see why the Empire usually flies them in packs.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!:
  • No matter how efficiently you shoot down attacking fighters, the captain of any Rebel ship you're escorting will harangue you about how close the ship is to destruction.
  • In the Death Star Attack, the Rebels mission control will tell you to ignore the guns and concentrate on the fighters if you dare to shoot even one of the Death Star's turbo lasers. Which you will be hearing a lot, thanks to the ridiculously high enemies killed total you need to get the gold in the mission.
• Cool, but Inefficient: You can hijack a TIE Fighter in the Rogue Leader mission "Imperial Academy Heist", and while it may be cool to slip through the campus unnoticed to get to the shuttle, you won't get a gold medal this way because the stealth aspect means you won't be shooting at as many targets or completing the mission in record time.
• Cool Car: The unlockable Buick, possibly the best fighter in all of the games in the series.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: A major selling point for Rebel Strike was the fact that it included most of the missions from Rogue Leader but with co-op play, at the cost of story.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The Star Destroyers and World Devastators.
• Cutting the Knot: The opening portion of "Attack on the Executor" requires you to destroy the ion cannons on three Star Destroyers. Destroying the Star Destroyer's bridge (made childishly easy with Jedi Starfighter's sonic mines) works just as well.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The Sith Infiltrator in the Battle for Naboo Coruscant bonus level. While it barely has any means of attacking you, it is a very fast, small target that is extremely frustrating to bring down.
• Dancing Mook Credits: Rogue Leader has a company of stormtroopers dancing to the song played by the Mos Eisely Cantina band, and then holding up yellow squares that form the LucasArts logo.
• David Versus Goliath: Rogue Leader has you, in a starfighter, vs. a Star Destroyer. In the "Battle of Endor" mission, you fight two. In the "Attack on the Executor" mission, you fight three of them and then you fight the Executor itself, a Super Star Destroyer, but you only have to take out the Ion Cannons of the former to send them packing. The Executor is so massive, that you have to plow your way through its defenses on the surface to reach its weak point, the command tower.
• Decoy Protagonist: Rogue Leader switches from having you play as Luke to having you play as Wedge fairly early on.
• Defector from Decadence: The reason why Kasan Moor and Tycho Celchu defect to the Rebellion in the first and third game, respectively. They're both Alderaanian.
• Delaying Action: "Revenge of the Empire" in Rebel Strike consists of taking out Imperial reinforcements to buy more time for the evacuation of Yavin IV.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • In the first game, Luke has full voice clips for using the V-Wing's boosters and rapid-fire mode, even though the V-Wing is only canonically used during the final mission, where you play as Wedge. It would have been just as easy to re-use Wedge's voice or have no voice at all, since the only way to fly the V-Wing as Luke is to complete the final mission and unlock the V-Wing as a regular ship in all previous missions, but the devs took the extra step to make it seem as if the V-Wing was available from the start. On a similar note, if you are also able to hack the game so you can play as Wedge in a snow speeder Level, it shows that there are voice clips for Wedge when tripping an AT-AT.
  • In Rogue Leader, if you destroy any of the turrets on the Star Destroyer in "Razor Rendezvous", those turrets will remain destroyed in the next mission after the same Star Destroyer crash-lands, making it slightly easier to approach.
  • In Rebel Strike's versus mode, playing as Slave I against a Jedi Starfighter on the Geonosis Space stage will reskin the ship in Jango Fett's colors, to reenact the battle between Jango and Obi-Wan from Attack of the Clones.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Empire isn't known for its efficiency or pragmatism, but the first game demonstrates some examples of surprisingly petty and destructive tendencies. The very first mission involves saving a bunch of homesteads on Tatooine from random probe droids, then Mos Eisley comes under attack from bombers. All for no apparent reason other than maybe because Luke grew up there. The attack on Corellia is also an example - the Empire's idea of killing an Imperial defector is blowing up the whole city along with him. Yep.
• Discard and Draw: In the first Kessel mission in the first game, the X-Wing's torpedoes are swapped out for ion cannons, allowing the faster craft to fill the disable-and-capture role usually performed by the comparatively sluggish Y-Wing.
• Distant Finale: The Battle of Calamari in the first game, which is set during the Dark Empire Expanded Universe saga.
• Doomed by Canon: In the first game, two of your allies are Dak Ralter and Zev Senesca, both of whom die in the battle of Hoth.
• Dual Boss: The second part of "Battle of Endor" pits you against TWO Star Destroyers which are side-by-side. Enjoy double the Beam Spam.
• DVD Commentary: Battle for Naboo was one of, if not the very first video game to have audio commentaries. On a cartridge, no less.
  Developer: This is NPR, Naboo Public Radio.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The Naboo Starfighter is an unlockable in Rogue Squadron, released a year before The Phantom Menace.
  • Wholly unintentional, but the Easter Egg AT-ST demo level from Rogue Squadron, before the full AT-ST levels in Rebel Strike.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first Rogue Squadron game has its fair share of quirks compared to its successors.
  • It was the only game to be available on more than its Nintendo home console origin (it was released on PC as Rogue Squadron 3D.
  • Almost no missions based off of movie scenes are part of its base mission lineup. The Death Star trench run and Battle of Hoth are merely unlockable bonus missions (and both have almost nothing in common with the battles depicted in the movies). There's no Endurance bonus level either.
  • It's the only game in the series to feature a level taking place after Return of the Jedi, as its final level is based off of the World Devastator battle from Dark Empire. Consequently it's also the only game to feature the V-Wing.
  • Any amount of lives you had carried over to the next mission played. In later games, your lives were always refilled back to 3 on the next mission.
  • Luke was the player character for the entire game (except for the Mon Calamari mission where you play as Wedge). Rogue Leader only had you play as Luke for the first few missions before switching to Wedge, and Rebel Strike gave them equal amounts of missions.
  • While the game has two levels taking place on Tatooine, the Training level is nowhere to be found.
  • Laser-linking works differently compared to later games. A button toggle changes the way your lasers fired, from a concentrated stream of blaster fire to all blasters firing at once but requiring recharge time and in the case of the X-Wing, toggling between the aforementioned stream, two cannons firing or all four.
  • The Snowspeeder is always in the hangar bay, and can be used in almost every mission. In subsequent games the Snowspeeder is only usable on its original missions, and it is not in the hangar for any other mission.
  • You cannot give orders to your wingmen. In fact, you don't actually have wingmen. Instead, the rest of the squadron is simply on the mission with you.
  • If other members of Rogue Squadron get shot down, they actually just make an emergency landing and are consistently said to be otherwise fine. In subsequent games other members of the Squadron could be killed. You could even see them blow up.
• Easter Egg:
  • The original Rogue Squadron has a secret code which allows you to play a level as an AT-ST. It serves no purpose, it's self-contained and gains you nothing, but hey, you get to ride an AT-ST and blow stuff up, so who's complaining?
  • All three of the original Atari Star Wars arcade games are included in Rebel Strike as extras.
  • The flying Buick (yes, a real Buick car) from Rogue Leader. There's also a cheat code to replace the V-wing with it in the first game. It's a development team in-joke.
• Embedded Precursor: Rebel Strike has the three 1980s Atari arcade games as unlockable extras. Since Rogue Leader's Death Star Attack trench run segment had catwalks inspired by the original Star Wars arcade game, it counts fairly well. Humorously it took a while for players to find the Return Of The Jedi arcade game, with the cheat code to unlock it lampshading it since it basically reads "A third game? Yes."
• Escort Mission: A few.
  • One of these in the first game requires you to trip up three AT-ATs.
  • The medical frigate captain in the second game, the foremost example of Continue Your Mission, Dammit! "Red Leader, this is the frigate Redemption! We're under attack!" "We've got to protect the frigate at all costs!" "Red Leader, we can't take much more!" "That frigate's not gonna last much longer!" "Red leader, WHERE ARE YOU?!"
  • Some missions in Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo have you protecting other Rebels/Resistance members in starfighters and ground vehicles that can hold their own somewhat in battle. However, they still need you around so that they don't get unexpectedly shot down, blasted, or bombed by enemy reinforcements.
• Epic Fail: In "Ambush at Mos Eisley", a Rogue Squadron pilot in a X-Wing manages to get shot down by a probe droid.
• Epic Ship-on-Ship Action: In "Attack on the Executor," Admiral Ackbar starts off by having Crynyd shoot out the Star Destroyers' ion cannons, preventing a broadside attack on Home One, which proceeds to kick the tar out of them.
• Establishing Series Moment: Whereas the original Rogue Squadron mainly focuses on original material, with battles from theatrical canon being reserved as Post-End Game Content, Rogue Leader quickly establishes that it follows the films more closely with the first mission being the famous Death Star assault, even including a modified version of A New Hope's Opening Scroll.
• Everyone Has Standards: Kol Kotha, a smuggler working for Borvo the Hutt helps Gavin seek revenge against Borvo for murdering Captain Kael, citing that he is not a slaver when Borvo plans to sell civilians in their care to slavery. He remains loyal to the cause and participated in retaking Theed.
• Evil Brit: Like in the movies, most of the Imperial officers have a British accent. The first game has a few exceptions, however, in that both Wedge and Kasan have the accent but are on the heroes' side (though Wedge does not have a British accent in either the films or the later games). In the third game, Sarkli also has a British accent, which makes his later defection to the Empire rather predictable.
• Evil Counterpart: Rebel Strike introduces a new Imperial fighter called the TIE Hunter, which has folding S-Foil wings and proton torpedoes that make it strongly resemble an Imperial version of the X-wing. The craft's description in-game even directly references the X-wing.
• Expy: The first game has a number of planets that are easily comparable to planets that have been visited in the movies. Barkhesh is a jungle planet with valleys and Massassi ruins dotting the landscape, just like Yavin IV. Taloraan is a gas giant with cloud cars, tibanna gas refineries, and a mining settlement based on a giant floating platform, just like Bespin. Fest is a snow-covered planet with a base that has a shield generator protecting it, and the Rebels have to use Airspeeders to bring down AT-AT walkers, just like Hoth. Obviously, the game is supposed to take place between Episodes IV and V, so it wouldn't make sense for there to be levels set on those planets (not counting the bonus mission based on the Battle of Hoth).
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Sarkli from Rebel Strike.
  • In Battle for Naboo, Borvo starts off as your ally before backstabbing you and murdering Captain Kael so he can sell Naboo civilians into slavery.
• The Faceless: The brief period you control Green Leader in the hanger, his face is always kept away from the camera, and obscured in shadow.
• Final Boss: Moff Seerdon in the first game (though technically he isn't, but at least for his arc), Sarkli in Rebel Strike.
• Four-Star Badass: General Madine is a Frontline General who leads commando teams. You have to provide him with cover (from bombers or walkers), but he and his team are the ones who actually complete the mission objective.
• Fragile Speedster: The A-wing, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, V-wing, the Buick, and the TIE Hunter. Very fast, quite maneuverable, but weak or no shields.
• Funny Background Event: In the "Neimodian Plunder" level of Battle for Naboo, after you save the farmhouses, if you go after one of the few remaining STAPs on the outskirts of the level, you'll find that they're chasing and firing on a tiny pack of harmless Nunas (the planet's equivalent of chickens).
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Pausing or entering the cockpit view while flying the Buick in Rogue Squadron will cause the game to crash. The N64 version of the game!
  • If you use codes to unlock the Naboo Starfighter in the first game you can use it in any mission in the game... even if it renders the mission unwinnable because it can't kill AT-ATs.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Later books in the X-Wing series, as well as Rogue One, show that AT-ATs would go down ridiculously easy to the laser cannons of an X-wing. In the game, to make it more challenging, you're stuck with the airspeeder.
  • In the first Rogue Squadron, the first mission of each chapter has an opening crawl, before showing Rogue Squadron approaching the planet from the orbit, even when they are flying airspeeders, which are suppose to be low-attitude vehicles.
  • As part of the replay value of the games, you are able to go back to re-fly previous missions, using vehicles you unlock later in the Game. This does, however, cause instances where the cutscene shows the Ship you're flying doing something it should be incapable of. Such examples include having an airspeeder being able perform a barrel roll, or having the Jedi Starfighter or Imperial TIE Fighter being able to make the jump to lightspeed, despite not having internal Hyperdrive engines.
• Harder Than Hard: Rogue Leader has an unlockable Ace Mode that you can toggle on or off, which makes an already difficult game even harder thanks to improved enemy A.I. and even tougher damage from their attacks. Beating any level on this mode notably earns you a distinct Medal alongside the standard medals.
• Have a Nice Death: Inverted in the Rogue Leader bonus mission "Revenge on Yavin": If you allow more than two Rebel transports to escape, instead of Vader being killed, he'll kill one of his wingmen as punishment.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Kasan Moor in the first game, and Tycho Celchu in the third game.
  • General Crix Madine defects to the Rebellion in the first game's Corellia mission. Expanded Universe material details that the storm commando units fought in Rebel Strike were founded and once led by him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the "Attack on the Executor" level, a Blockade Runner deliberately kamikazes itself into a Star Destroyer to buy the rebels time. It fails to destroy it, but it knocks out its shields and leaves its command tower and cannons a sitting duck for you to attack. What does destroy it is Green Leader's crashing into the bridge of the Executor, just like the movie.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Averted with Rogue Leader (except with AT-ATs which never seem to actually be aiming at the player anyways); a lot of the enemy's shooting is so accurate that the player has no way of dodging it.
• In-Universe Game Clock: Rogue Leader responds to the the GameCube's system clock by changing a few missions:
  • Tatooine Training has four phases (morning, afternoon, evening, night), and different phases have different Easter Eggs to find.
  • Imperial Academy Heist changes dramatically depending on whether you're playing between 6 AM and 6 PM: during the day, you get a Y-Wing mission where you can optionally disable the canyon sensors to reduce your chances of getting caught, while the nighttime version puts you in a Snowspeeder that can't disable them and thus has to make use of its ground-hugging property to avoid getting caught. The method of hijacking the TIE Fighter changes between the two variations, as well: In the daytime, you use the Y-Wing's ion cannon to force the fighter to land and the pilot to surrender the vehicle; at night, you simply kill the pilot with your Speeder's blasters while they're on the ground outside of their vehicle.
• It's a Wonderful Failure:
  • Fail to shoot torpedoes into the Death Star's exhaust port in "Death Star Attack" in Rogue Leader and Yavin 4 will fall to the same fate that Alderaan did.
  • While the Death Star exploding is normally cause for celebration, in Rogue Leader's "Triumph of the Empire", it becomes your Nonstandard Game Over if you don't stop the Rebel fighers in time, although with the added bonus of Vader's TIE being blown out of the wreckage.
  • Also in Rogue Leader: Fall too far behind in "Strike at the Core" and whoever you're accompanying blows up from enemy fire for a Nonstandard Game Over.
  • Another spectacular failure cinematic is failing to finish the "Revenge of the Empire" mission in Rogue Leader: Vader gets pissed and shoots down his lieutenant.
  • If you take too long on "Prisoners of Maw", then the Star Destroyer patrol the prisoners warned you was on its way back earlier will return (though you're only told the ship is back, you don't actually see it) and Wedge is forced to retreat and leave the prisoners to their fate.
  • If you don't take out the AT-PTs in "Vengeance on Kothlis", they'll wipe out Crix and his commandos. Also taking too long to complete the mission will cause the reactor to go critical, destroying the Death Star plans with it.
    Crix: We can't hold them off! Aurgh!
    Wedge: Abort mission! The team is dead!
• It's Up to You: The rest of Rogue Squadron seem to exist solely to get shot down. They might destroy an enemy or two, but the crux of the mission is up to the player.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: AT-ATs in Rogue Leader. Not only are they immune to primary weapons, but also secondary ones (even the Y-wing's bombs). The only weapon way to stop them is lassoing their legs with the Snow Speeder's tow cable. Since this is their one weakness and they are tough in the first game, all missions in the first game that have the AT-ATs will force the player to use the speeder even with cheats activated; this is not present in the sequels, but you will have to switch vehicles when the walkers show up.
• Lethal Lava Land: Sullust, in the first game.
• Little Hero, Big War: Subverted. While most levels restrict you to Luke/Wedge/Sykes and just a few wingmen, there are also missions where you are backed up by (and/or must escort) other squadrons and ground forces that are participating in the same mission.
• Logo Joke:
  • Rogue Squadron begins with the Nintendo 64 logo ^note (or the game's title logo) being destroyed by a TIE fighter.
  • Battle for Naboo features the Nintendo 64 logo ^note (ditto) falling on top of Jar Jar Binks.
  • Rogue Leader starts off with a platoon of Stormtroopers dancing to the Mos Eisley Cantina theme while raising yellow squares—which then pans out to reveal the LucasArts logo.
  • Rebel Strike has the LucasArts logo shaking its leg to the Disco Star Wars theme—which pans out to reveal the logo is on Darth Vader's chest plate at a disco party.
• Lost in Transmission: Wedge Antilles' SOS comm link ends in static as he is being shot down by an ambush of TIE Interceptors and captured shortly thereafter.
• Marathon Level:
  • The "Endurance" mission in Rogue Leader, which has you facing 100 waves of TIE Fighters and Interceptors, along with the occasional shuttle for the breather waves. To give an idea of how ludicrously long it is, the minimum time requirement for a gold medal is three hours.
  • "Prisoners of the Maw" can drag as well, especially because you're flying the second-slowest fighter, the Y-wing.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Despite the in-game description, the Snowspeeder's controls in the first game are not the same as the X-Wing's or any other ship in the game. Since it's a repulsorcraft and can't actually fly, it can't roll on its axis with the R Button. Instead the Z and R buttons respectively operate the left and right air brakes. This lets you turn more sharply but it also means you won't slow down like normal unless you hit both brakes at once. Good luck trying to remember that while tying up a walker. In later games the speeder still can't roll, but the brake controls are now the same as the other ships.
• Midquel: Segments of Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike serve to bridge events of the series not covered by the movies—for example, the first level of Rebel Strike, "Revenge of the Empire", takes place immediately after the destruction of the Death Star (or rather, the most intense consequence of the immediate invasion from the Empire), in which Luke has to help with the evacuation of the Rebel fleet as the empire invades Yavin IV. An alternate-point-of-view version where you play as Vader destroying Rebel ships pops up earlier in Rogue Leader as an unlockable.
• Mighty Glacier: The B-wing, the Y-wing, and Slave 1. All pretty slow, but the Y- and especially B-wings are powerful dedicated bombers and Slave 1 comes equipped with cluster missiles, which can be upgraded into homing cluster missiles.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Sarkli's reasons for defecting to the Empire include not being recognized enough by his compatriots for his efforts in aiding the Rebellion.
• Musical Nod: Both Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike have a reprise of the song played during the "Jade Moon" mission in the first game.
• Mythology Gag: a minor one in the Battle of Calamari level in the first game. At one point a bit of pilot chatter includes "one-seven-decimal-two-eight" which is quoted verbatim from an AT-AT driver in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Never My Fault: In the "Revenge on Yavin" mission in Rogue Leader, if the mission is failed due to Rebel transports escaping, Vader will shoot one of his subordinates down even if it's blatantly obvious that you did screw-all to stop the transports.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • Rogue Leader is tough enough just trying to beat the game—but just TRY and get all of the medals, and you are in for absolute hell—even more so if you unlock the games Ace Mode. Especially "Endurance" in Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike.
  • In fact, Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike have a scaling difficulty based on how many medals you have on that file. This becomes a problem if you're returning to the game for the first time in a long while and are rusty, as your opponent's AI will be set to deal with someone who was chain-running the game for medals at the peak of their ability.
  • The original is no slouch either in terms of difficulty: it has several Escort Missions in which the craft you have to escort seems to be made of paper.
• No Fair Cheating:
  • The infinite lives cheat codes. It makes beating the levels easier, but because getting medals require you to not die a certain level of times in the later games, and not to mention the death animations chew up valuable time and set you further away from your goals, it won't do you any favors for getting 100% completion.
  • The EWERDEAD cheat code in Battle for Naboo. Ideally, it should make the game a breeze because it lets you kill anything in one hit, but the code affects everything in the game, including you and ships you have to protect. It makes all but a few levels downright impossible to win, or even play in worst case scenario.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • In the first game, if the player shoots down too many escorts or friendlies, Rieekan will contact Luke to return to base so he can "discuss [Skywalker's]... tactics... in private."^note (Oddly enough, this is also used for one standard game over, if the Nonnah is destroyed by enemy bombers in mission three)
  • In the first mission of Rogue Leader, you're given six torpedoes, but you must keep at least one for the Death Star's exhaust port at the end of the trench run. Waste your last one and the mission ends in failure on the spot as Yavin IV goes kaboom.
  • The typically-celebrated Death Star explosion becomes this in the "Triumph of the Empire" bonus mission in Rogue Leader, if you fail to destroy the Rebels in time. With the added bonus shot of Vader's TIE getting blown out into space.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In "Triumph of the Empire", where you play as Darth Vader and thwart the Death Star's destruction in the Battle of Yavin, you never get to see Yavin 4 blow up. Strangely, failing "Death Star Attack" by missing the exhaust port or running out of torpedoes does show the planet being destroyed.
• Old-School Dogfight: It's a Star Wars game about flying around fighters, so of course.
• One-Hit Kill: The EWERDEAD cheat code in Battle for Naboo allows you to kill any target in one hit. There's a catch though—it affects everything in a level, meaning that not only can you be killed in one hit, it means your allies and buildings you have to protect can be killed in one hit by the enemy as well. This ends up making many of the levels, especially "Search for Captain Kael", "The Queens Gambit" and "Panaka's Diversion", Unintentionally Unwinnable. "Gambit" ends as soon as it begins because your ally, Panaka, will get killed just as the level starts. Getting killed just as the second cutscene triggers in "Panaka's Diversion" (where the people you have to save are killed instantly because the cheat makes them mincemeat for the enemies attacking them) can cause the game to freeze.
• Optional Stealth: You really need to disable or avoid the sensors (the method depends on what time of day you're playing) in "Imperial Academy Heist" during Rogue Leader for stealth (get picked up and the mission ends immediately), and free to blow up any TIE Fighters along the way afterwards. Especially if you're gunning for a gold medal. But you can hijack a TIE Fighter by disabling it while it's grounded (Day) or by shooting at the pilot (Night), then you can fly freely until you shoot at any target. Doing this in both day and night unlocks the TIE Fighter to use in other missions.
• Playable Menu: The hangars in Rogue Leader require you to run up to your chosen fighter to select it. Some of the hangars are mission-specific, such as the "Battle of Yavin" hangar in the temple on Yavin 4 that holds only X-wings and Y-wings.
• Player Nudge: In "Prisons of the Maw", Wedge is required to use his Y-Wings Ion Cannon to shut down a shield blocking their path. If the player doesn't already get the hint from Wedge saying to himself he needs to use them (or isn't aware that the Y-Wing has a third secondary weapon or that the button for it has changed from the original game), the Game Over/Mission Failed screen will give the player a hint that they can do it by holding down the B button.
• Power Up Letdown: In all three games you can upgrade proton torpedoes and concussion missiles to have homing capability—very useful, but locking on takes time, it prioritizes smaller targets first (even if there's a Star Destroyer between you and it) making it near impossible to target shield domes, and there's no way to turn it off. You can get around it by quickly tapping B twice, which immediately launches a non-homing torpedo/missile.
• Press X to Die: In the Rogue Leader mission "Death Star Attack", nothing stops you from using your finite supply of photon torpedoes, up to and including your sixth and final torpedo, in the first two phases of the mission, rather than the final phase when you can finally fly to the exhaust port. Meaning that you can immediately doom Yavin IV to an explody fate by firing all six torpedoes in the first two seconds of the mission.
• Pressure-Sensitive Interface: The GameCube's joystick has touch-sensitive shoulder buttons, with another button at the very bottom of each of the buttons. The GameCube installments of the series map the accelerator to the right trigger. Clicking the button underneath (depending on your craft) either triggers a rechargeable booster or closes your S-foils (giving you increased speed but disabling your weapons). To accelerate to max speed normally, you need to hold down the trigger without pressing the button underneath.
• Put on a Bus: Kasan Moor, a new character created for this game, was basically forgotten in other Star Wars Legends material. Her sole other appearance was in Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, but even there she only has a throwaway role, and her lines are all stock audio taken from the character Dak Ralter from Empire Strikes Back. Word of God revealed that she had resigned so that she may be a military adviser for Mon Mothma.
• Radar Is Useless: In Leader the mission to steal the shuttle Tydirium for the attack on the Second Death Star involves the player flying a Y-Wing to an Imperial surface base. You approach the base by flying through a canyon to hide from Imperial sensors (and knock out supplemental radar stations inside the canyon with the Y-Wing's ion cannon), but no explanation is given for how you got to the planet surface without being noticed to begin with.
• Ramming Always Works: A perfectly valid strategy for taking down Star Destroyers is flying your ship into it's bridge, especially if you don't have any proton torpedoes left. Its also perfectly possible to pull the Arvel Crynyd special on the Executor in Rebel Strike's "Attack on the Executor" level and it'll complete the level just fine since, well, you ARE Arvel Crynyd in this level and the cutscene shows his burning A-Wing slamming into the bridge even if you didn't take it out that way.
• Recruiting the Criminal: In Battle for Naboo, the RSF teams up with the smuggler Borvo the Hutt to repel the Trade Federation. This backfires when he backstabs them in order to claim the civilians as slaves.
• Red Herring: In The Jade Moon, Wedge brings up the possibility that the newly-defected Kasan Moor could be a double agent leading them into a trap, to which Luke abruptly cuts him off. Kasan's intel turns out to be right on the money and the rest of the game leaves no doubt that her defection was genuine, which makes it strange that it was brought up at all.
• Refuge in Audacity: Rogue Leader includes the final part of the capture of the Death Star II's plans... With the Star Destroyer Motivator apparently capturing the corvette Razor, where the Rebels had put the still encrypted plans, and then getting downed and exploding right after the Rebels recovered the plans for good just to make it look the Empire believed the plans had been destroyed and thus not tip the Rebels when the security on the second Death Star isn't upped.
• Regenerating Health: Although Star Wars lore, the game manual, and in-game dialogue establish that the player-controlled Rebel craft have shields, this isn't reflected in the gameplay where there's only a single health bar. Health only regenerates on ships that carry an R2 droid, as well as the Millennium Falcon.
• Replay Mode: The original game for Nintendo 64 has a cheat you can enter to replay all the game's cutscenes in order. A rare instance of a replay feature that doesn't require the cutscenes being watched for the first time.
• La Résistance: The Rebel Alliance as a whole, even aiding other planets trying to rebel against the Empire. You also partake in the Naboo Resistance in Battle for Naboo causing trouble against the Trade Federation while the Queen is gone.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Lieutenant Sykes does this in Battle for Naboo after Borvo kills Captain Kael.
• Script Breaking:
  • In "Battle of Endor", you can turn around right as the mission begins to summon the massive swarms of TIE Interceptors, instead of following the movie faithfully and only turning around when ordered to.
  • After getting all Golds in the bonus levels of the first game, you'll be able to use all fighters in most levels ^note (The exception are levels in space, which disallow the snowspeeder and V-Wing because they are not spacecraft, and any level that has at least one AT-AT in it, which cannot be destroyed by any weaponry other than the speeder's harpoon/tow cable, meaning levels with these enemies are snowspeeder-only). This includes being able to use a Y-Wing in "Liberation of Gerrard V" to disable all the ships much faster than Gold Squadron. Not that it stops you from failing the mission if their Y-Wings all get shot down, anyway.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Rogue Leader, the Death Star trench isn't barren like in the movie—it's loaded with lots of blocks which you have to swerve in and out of. This is a homage to the original Atari Star Wars arcade game, as well as one of the original flight simulators based in the Star Wars universe (though that one allowed you to "turn off" the blocks by turning down the graphic complexity).
  • Each game has a Hoth level as homage to the movies and the Shadows of the Empire mission that spawned the trilogy.
  • One entire level of Rebel Strike takes place on Geonosis, in which Wedge crash lands on the now-abandoned planet, and has to fight his way through a legion of reactivated, decades-old battle droids. Wedge gets to escape by reactivating Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter—which is equipped with Seismic Charges.
  • The craft descriptions of the Slave 1 and Vader's TIE Advanced are word-for-word exactly their descriptions from Star Wars: Behind the Magic.
  • "Extraction from Raltiir" from Rebel Strike has the logo◊ for Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy in the plaza near the end of the AT-ST segment.
  • "Ison Corridor Ambush" from Rogue Leader pulls a rather darkly funny take on the opening of A New Hope in its own opening shot: a Star Destroyer flying overhead...only in Rogue Leader's case, its the burnt out, destroyed husk of a Star Destroyer.
• Space Clouds: Ison Corridor Ambush has Luke and company flying through a nebula to while trying to fend off TIE's.
• Space Is an Ocean: Star Destroyers literally sink when beaten. This is usually justified by gravity, most notably one in which the very next mission consists of going down to the planet and retrieving the data you wanted from its ruins.
• Spiritual Successor: The entire series is one to just the Hoth (and possibly Skyhook) levels from Shadows of the Empire.
• Smug Snake: Moff Kohl Seerdon from the first one. These two quotes sum it up best:
  Rebel scum, this is Moff Seerdon. Your resistance is useless, as you can see. I have blockaded the city, and Chandrila is now mine. You will surrender, or I will shoot you all down.
  
  Defecting to the Rebel terrorists shall be your undoing, Kasan. Unfortunate to lose such a fine officer, but the weak will die out to make room for the strong. It is the way of the universe. Farewell, little rodent.
• Squad Controls: Part of the reason the sequel is named Rogue Leader is that you can command two wingmen using the D-pad. Commands include "form up" on your flanks, "attack" sky- or ground-based targets, and "flee," which isn't used much. Getting the Advanced Targeting Computer upgrade allows you to use your targeting computer's cursor to command your wingmen to attack specific targets, but do note that many missions have "use your targeting computer for less than a set percentage of the mission time" or "don't use your targeting computer at all" as medal requirements.
• The Squadette: Kasan Moor is the only female member of Rogue Squadron in the first game.
• Stealth-Based Mission: "Imperial Academy Heist" requires you to sneak into Imperial territory for the first portion of the mission, avoiding detection from a series of sensors. The day version lets you use a Y-Wing to disable the sensors, while the night version requires you to rely on the Snowspeeder's ground-hugging properties to stay low and out of detection range. Don't bother destroying the sensors either way, since the Empire will pick up on that, causing a Non-Standard Game Over as if you flew right into sensor range. However once you're past the canyon of sensors, you're free to proceed as you wish as long as you steal the shuttle before it gets locked down.
• Superboss: When you reach the final wave in the Endurance levels in Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike, you get a one-on-one with Darth Vader and Boba Fett respectively.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The planet Taloraan in the first game is Bespin with a smaller Cloud City. Kasan even comments on how the two planets are similar. The later games feature the real deal.
  Kasan: This reminds me of Bespin. My squadron scouted it once for a possible Imperial takeover. Too small, though...
• Take That, Audience!:
  • The Infinite Lives cheat code in the first game is IGIVEUP.
  • Battle for Naboo takes it one step further; its passcode for unlimited lives is PATHETIC.
  • Rebel Strike changes it to WIMPIAM.
• Timed Mission: Several missions. The most obvious is the Hoth level in Rogue Leader, where you must defeat all enemies before the AT-ATs reach the rebel base. However, none of the timed missions actually have a timer—you just have to pay attention the battlefield.
• Token Evil Teammate: Borvo the Hutt in Battle for Naboo serves this role for the Naboo security forces after they save his ship from the Trade Federation, forming an alliance between them. Being a Hutt, the guards are naturally suspicious of him but they don't have many options for allies left. Borvo backstabs them, gets Captain Kael killed and tries to enslave several civilians, but he is thwarted and sent running back to Nal Hutta.
• True Final Boss: The World Devastators in the first game.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The bonus mission "Death Star Escape" in Rogue Leader has you gunning down TIE Fighters in one of the Falcon's turrets like in the movie rather than controlling the Falcon itself. Essentially, it's a shoot-em-up.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • If you unlock the Naboo Starfighter in the original game you can use it in any level of the game. This includes levels where you fight AT-ATs and would otherwise be forced to stick to the Snowspeeder. The Naboo Starfighter cannot destroy AT-ATs, rendering the mission unwinnable if you try it.
  • In Battle for Naboo, it's possible to play as the Gunboat in the Naboo Swamp level with a cheat code, but it makes the level impossible to complete.
• Video-Game Lives:
  • You start each mission with three lives. When they run out, you get a game-over screen and have to start back from the very beginning of the mission.
  • The first game takes away a life if you abort or fail a mission, leaving you a life down the next level you play. You can fail a mission, be docked a life, immediately be thrown into the same level, abort the mission out of irritation, and be left with one life for the next level you play. You'll be forced to eat a Game Over to get back up to three lives. All other games in the series took a much simpler approach: three lives per level and failing a mission is an instant Game Over.
• Villain Shoes: The first two games and Battle for Naboo let you do play a bonus mission as the bad guys. Rebel Strike is the only one to lack such a mission.
  • Rogue Squadron has the bonus AT-ST level, where you man an Imperial walker and shoot everything in your line of fire.
  • Battle for Naboo has the bonus level "The Dark Side", where you play as Darth Maul and defend the Trade Federation forces in the Sith Infiltrator.
  • Rogue Leader has two Alternate Continuity bonus missions where you play as Darth Vader:
    • "Triumpth of the Empire" has Vader and his wingmen destroy the Rebel fighters invading the Death Star, allowing the station to complete its objective of destroying Yavin IV.
    • "Revenge on Yavin" takes place after the Death Star is destroyed, with Vader raiding the Rebel base on Yavin IV and preventing their transports from escaping.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: "Liberation of Gerrard V" requires you to escort a flight of Y-Wings as they disable starships with their ion cannons. Even though you can potentially unlock the ability to use your own Y-Wing in that level to disable the ships, you still have to keep one of those other Y-Wings flying or you will fail the mission.
• What the Hell, Player?: In the first game, Non-Standard Game Over Rieekan will call Luke back to base for what is implied to be strict dressing down if the player shoots down too many escorts/friendlies]].
• You Have Failed Me:
  • Implied to be the fate for the Imperial governor who lost the battle on Taloraan:
    Wedge: I can tell you one thing Luke, the officer on duty is not going to enjoy explaining this damage to the local Moff.
    Kasan Moor: He may not live to tell about it. Moff Seerdon is notoriously... unforgiving.
  • Vader open fires on one of his wingmen should the Rebels escape during "Revenge on Yavin".
    Vader: This failure is unacceptable!
• Zero-Effort Boss: In Battle for Naboo, Borvo's ship in the "Borvo the Hutt" level. His ship is a huge target, moves slow as molasses at best and then just lingers around in mid air, and it has a measly laser cannon to defend itself that has practically no chance of actually hitting, much less killing, you. On top of that, if you saved up your missiles, you can end the fight just seconds after it begins by hammering the Hutt's ship with them. The real challenge in that mission is to get to Borvo and deal with the ships and missile launchers protecting him.

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