Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Many reviews compared "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" to one of its inspirations, the Battle of Hoth flight combat level in "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire", considered one of that game's best elements. "GamePro" remarked that "Rogue Squadron" "enhanced the flight model with true pitch, roll, and bank mechanics". IGN praised its inclusion of "upgrades, more enemies, better sound, and stunning second-generation graphics". The Nintendo 64 version received mostly positive reviews, and received an aggregate score of 85 percent from both GameRankings and Metacritic. "GamePro" named it one of the best games released in 1998. In a 2008 retrospective, IGN's Levi Buchanan stated that the game revived the "Star Wars" license on consoles through well-paced gameplay, a story tied into the "Star Wars" canon and visuals that made it "one of the generation's top stunners".
Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
The game was met with critical acclaim, as GameRankings gave it a score of 90.04%, while Metacritic gave it 90 out of 100. David Trammell of Nintendo World Report gave it nine out of ten and called it "a visual and aural masterpiece. The game has all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a next-generation game including bump mapping and 480p support on the visual end, and five channel surround sound via Dolby Pro Logic II on the aural end." Marc Saltzman of "Playboy" gave it a score of 90% and stated that, "The combined package of beautiful graphics, intense action (including force-feedback rumble support in the controller!) and familiar Star Wars ditties all work together to create an immersive, outstanding experience from beginning to end." In "The Cincinnati Enquirer", he gave the game four stars out of five and stated that, "If there was ever a reason to purchase this compact new console, this is it... [but] there's no multiplayer mode. It would have been fun to fly alongside or against another player in some of the missions." Alex Porter of "Maxim" gave it a similar score of eight out of ten and said: "More than a Jedi mind trick to make you buy Nintendo's new whiz-bang console, this is the closest a video game has come to recreating a "Star Wars" movie."