May this game be forced upon you never, always. That cheap Star Wars joke sentiment fits this title quite well as it is both a joke and cheap. What was once considered a great PC desktop adventure created off the original engine for an Indiana Desktop Adventure, tanks on this system. Originally this game was pretty fun and I had played it on a Windows 95 system years ago. Sadly the game was meant as just a 5-10 minute time killer and doesn't hold much value on the Gameboy Color. This game though does have many missions for you to go on yet the randomness of it all is missing in action.
Graphics
The graphics of Yodas Stories are very simplistic, yet quite a few of the models are done quite nicely. Though the graphical models and even the moving characters are done quite nicely, the color detail is quite minimal. Looking at the pictures below you can see that the images of Yoda and Luke Skywalker consist of like 6 colors together. The levels and moving characters usually display around 16 colors on screen which is pretty sad. The animations of the enemies and Luke are very very choppy as they move around on the tileds off ground beneath their ...err feet?
Rating: 2.0
Sound
The sound effects and music of this title sadly are just as sparse as the visuals of the game. During the title, intro to a stage, item screen, and the whole playtime in the level you have just one piece of music. This tune but of course is the main theme to Star Wars. I had never thought I would get tired of this masterpiece, yet after about 30 minutes, if that, I wished there was an option to disable it. While there is only one piece of music it had been assembled extremely well, yet still in the old style of Gameboy music. The sound effects of the game are for the most part not that distinct and are pretty sparse. The most notable and best effect of them all was Luke's light saber that was digitized into the game pretty well.
Rating: 2.0
Theme & Fun
As a desktop game for PC's this game was really fun as you could pick it up off your desktop icon and play for a minute here and there being able to save anytime. On Gameboy though the game lost all of its charm. The game lost its random missions and level layout. Also missing which was very important that would offend anyone who played the original (including me) is that the save feature is dead. All the levels are staged and you must complete them which can take time before you can get a password. To have much of a chance to truly enjoy this you would have to be a real Star Wars fanatic, and likely not to have played the PC version.
Rating: 1.5
Play Control
The play control of Yoda Stories is very boring, sterile, and uninventive as they had to replace mouse movements with the Gameboy controls. Moving around on the screen you can only go in four directions, and at one tile at a time. The attack method with your different weapons you will find only can go just in the direction you face. With the poor control, and with enemies moving in that pattern to hitting a target can be difficult.
Rating: 1.5
Challenge
The challenge of this title is pretty pathetic if you can stand to sit down long enough to figure out the mechanics and play it. As you walk around you will find all the parts and items needed to get your objective done in a very straight line. When you get part A, then you will be already heading without knowing it to part B, or to the place one of them will go. At times knowing what you need to do will be a little difficult to figure out as some things just make little sense at all.
Rating: 2.0
Replay Value and Closing Notes:
If there was any real replay value to this game I could not find it. Well to be honest I found it in my deep seeded memories of the past on the PC but was at a loss to find it in this version. It's really quite sad that the game just couldn't be ported properly as there was no excuse for the lower color content, dodgy movement, destroyed save feature and so on.
Finally a truly sad chapter on the Nintendo side of the gaming world in relation to the Star Wars franchise. I can barely even mention that you might want to rent this to see if you like it, but who knows, someone around could.
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