The betrayal was time based, so you could ignore the mines and still progress. I never knew that until I saw it on the internet, years after I last played the game. I nearly wept - all those deaths for no reason!
The series was brutally hard. That's why I'm not jumping for joy over the hints it will be re-released. I have memories of being an ace pilot; it would be crushing to go back and start again from the bottom of the skill curve. Dearly as I loved the games, I think it would destroy my memories of them. Once upon a time I knew the game so well my friends said I flew like a jedi. Now I'd be a pretty explosion.
The final missions of X-Wing Alliance were horrifically difficult. Flying through the second death star's structure under constant fire, slipping through spaces with no margin for error at all. I didn't think they could make anything nastier than the trench run mission in X-Wing; I was wrong, so very wrong.
It took something like 40 minutes. I shot off the shield generators first, then all 6(?) of the engines - it nearly reached the jump point to escape so it was a close call - and finally chipped the hull away. I can't remember why I decided to do this; the mission was successfully completed. Once I knew I could do it, I took down a bunch more in later missions.
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