Star Wars — stories left

It is one of only two games in the Star Wars franchise that were released exclusively in Japan, the other being Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star.

The game was first announced in May 1987, and it came with a photo of George Lucas shaking hands with Namco founder Masaya Nakamura.

While domestically Star Wars was 99 out of the 100 top-selling Famicom games in 1987 according to ', the game is remembered abroad—often negatively—for its steep difficulty and bizarre deviations from the source material.

IGN also ranked it 8 on its list of the ten worst Star Wars games, due to the enemies' lack of semblance with the characters in the film, as well as the "punishingly difficult" nature of the game with its "brutally unfair" levels.

In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu, the game scored a total of 30 out of 40, earning a place in the Silver Hall of Fame. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine, it scored 18.60 out of 30, as shown below.

It also praised the gameplay, comparing it to Kid Icarus and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link with shootouts added to the mix, though it criticized the inability to skip the introductory sequence and the lack of the continue option after losing all one's lives.

IGN also ranked it 8 on its list of the ten worst Star Wars games, due to the enemies' lack of semblance with the characters in the film, as well as the "punishingly difficult" nature of the game with its "brutally unfair" levels.