This is hands down the best of the Super Star Wars games. Its level design is the perfect blend of challenging and rewarding, its gameplay is finely tuned to a T, its superFX chip missions are the best (with the exception of the Endor speeder bikes mission that one just sucks), and oh my god; this is honestly one of the best looking SNES games I've ever seen, the fight with the Rancor looks amazing not even just for SNES standers.
Is the game still ball bustly hard- yeah a little
Does the first level still the worst level of the game- once again yeah it is.
Regardless If you were to ask me which one to get into I'd say start with this one.