When it comes to discussing long forgotten Nintendo franchises, there are plenty of usual names that will pop up time and time again. Kid Icarus, Punch-Out, F-Zero, Chibi Robo, and the Mother series are just a few examples of franchises that have grown quite the following over the years, but don’t get any new games whatsoever when compared to Nintendo’s other money-makers like Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Kirby, and others. But when it comes to those games, at least they still get some recognition from Nintendo, such as with references in other games like WarioWare, and plenty of representation into Super Smash Bros. Some franchises don’t get that kind of recognition, and are forever stuck in the past as being a small series that Nintendo tried once or twice, and then never get brought back ever again for any kind of reference or new game. One such franchise that has had this fate would be with Zelda’s short-lived sister series, StarTropics.
I had wanted to check out StarTropics for a very long time, as I was wondering what the game was all about, and why Nintendo left it to die after only two installments. I had played it for a little bit in the past, but since I am a fucking idiot, I couldn’t even make it past the first town, as I didn’t know I had to talk to every NPC. But now that I am older, smarter, and much more stubborn, I decided to fully dive into StarTropics to see what it was all about, and now that I have fully finished the game, I can say that it is a pretty good time. There are several aspects about it that do bug me, and I definitely wouldn’t play this over something like Zelda, but I would definitely say that any fan of the NES should check it out at some point.
The story takes place after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where Jones has been abducted by the aliens at the end of that movie, and his long-lost nephew, Mike, has to go and save him… ok, no, not really, but that is basically exactly what happens in this game, the graphics are pretty charming, being very reminiscent of the original Zelda, while also having plenty of detail that gives it plenty of personality, even if a lot of the environments blend in together, the music is pretty good, but like with the original Legend of Zelda, there aren’t too many tracks, so expect to hear the same music tracks a lot, the control is good… but also pretty frustrating at points, especially when you are trying to walk around in dungeons, feeling incredibly restrictive and delayed, and the gameplay is inventive, yet familiar at the same time, combining different elements together to make a pretty unique package for the time.
The game is an 8-bit adventure game, where you take control of Mike Jones, the most bland and boring protagonist ever seen from Nintendo, travel to plenty of different islands and dungeons, take out plenty of enemies that will impede your progress, gather plenty of health items, tools, and additional weapons that you can use to help you out throughout your journey, and fight plenty of towering bosses that will put your movement and attacking skills to the test. For the most part, it is your typical adventure game for the era, and in many ways, it is pretty similar to the original Legend of Zelda, but in many other ways, it differs from that game, such as with the case of having multiple gameplay styles.
The first gameplay style is a top-down adventure perspective similar that of Final Fantasy, where you travel around to many different islands and villages, talk to people, gather information and items, and locate dungeons and caves. However, like with Gargoyle’s Quest, I feel like this perspective is unnecessary, as it only serves as a way to get you from Point A to Point B, and nothing more. Sure, there are optional things you can see and do in these sections, such as finding Big Hearts to increase your health, but that is about it, as it is mostly just about you reaching the next main point of the game. Despite this though, I will say I really like this style in this game, as it does have a lot of charm to it, and I like seeing all the different places you go and the characters you meet. Not to mention, I love how stereotypically American everything is, with all the islands having “cola” in their name, Mike being a baseball star that also plays with yo-yos, and having several phrases spoken throughout that you definitely wouldn’t hear anywhere else, such as “jamming bananas into your ears”. The only thing it is missing is about a dozen bald eagles, rifles firing off 24/7, and having all the characters being fat as fuck. If those things were in this, then it would be the true American experience.
The second gameplay style is found in the dungeons and caves, where the main meat of the game takes place. You traverse through plenty of these dungeons, using your yo-yo and plenty of other weapons to take out plenty of enemies, gather plenty of items to help you out, and either fight bosses at the end or activate something to solve puzzles in the overworld. That, or you just move onto the next section. Like with the overworld sections, I really liked these segments, and I found going through these dungeons and solving these puzzles to be pretty satisfying. With that being said though, I did find it to get pretty repetitive as I kept going, and while I do like the puzzles, a lot of them just involve hitting squares and buttons, with not too much variety in between. Then again, the original Zelda was mainly like this too when it came to dungeon designs, and I didn’t mind it there, so I don’t mind it too much here either.
Now, despite there being plenty to love and appreciate about this game, there are issues that do hold it back from being great. For one thing, the game is WAAAAAAAY too linear. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I don’t typically have a problem with linearity in video games, but for an adventure game, you would expect a world to explore, a sense of freedom, a taste of… well, adventure. But no, for the most part, you are just going about this linear path, having one destination to always travel to, with little to no side content in between. Secondly, this game gets pretty damn difficult as it goes on, and not even in a fair way. There will be times where you will be bombarded by enemies, with not too many options to move around or fight back, there will be plenty of rooms and pathways that will lead to traps and gimmicks that are meant to get you killed, and there are even signs that can take away the amount of lives you have! Because, you know, that is certainly fair.
And finally, one issue this game has that many not realize is that it is a guide game in the most literal sense. Most games can be beaten without the need of a guide if you just look around long enough, but with this game, you absolutely NEED one. For most of it, it is pretty linear, once again, so you won’t have that much trouble figuring out what to do, but in one part of the game, you do need a guide to get through. When you are talking with Dr. Jones’ assistant, he will tell you to “dip your letter in water”, and what he means by this is, if you bought a copy of this game when it came out, it came with a physical letter that you have to pour water on, and when you do, it will reveal coordinates you have to tell your navigation unit to proceed forward. This is pretty cool and all, and it makes you feel like you are part of the adventure, but let’s be honest here: you are most likely playing this game through one of its rereleases or an emulator, and even more likely then that, you probably don’t have that letter, so you need to look up the code in order to move on. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but come on, Nintendo, what kind of ass design is that? You all are better then this.
Overall, despite some poor design choices and some intense difficulty, I still found StarTropics to be a pretty enjoyable game, and definitely one of the more stand out titles from the NES library that I am glad I finally took the time to play. I would definitely recommend it for those who want to see what other games Nintendo has made throughout their career, as well as for those who wanna play an NES adventure game that is not Zelda, as it will definitely be the type of game you are looking for. I mean hell, it’s no wonder this game managed to get a sequel…… in 1994…… for the NES…….. yeah, they pretty much sent that game out to die.
Game #364
I had wanted to check out StarTropics for a very long time, as I was wondering what the game was all about, and why Nintendo left it to die after only two installments. I had played it for a little bit in the past, but since I am a fucking idiot, I couldn’t even make it past the first town, as I didn’t know I had to talk to every NPC. But now that I am older, smarter, and much more stubborn, I decided to fully dive into StarTropics to see what it was all about, and now that I have fully finished the game, I can say that it is a pretty good time. There are several aspects about it that do bug me, and I definitely wouldn’t play this over something like Zelda, but I would definitely say that any fan of the NES should check it out at some point.
The story takes place after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where Jones has been abducted by the aliens at the end of that movie, and his long-lost nephew, Mike, has to go and save him… ok, no, not really, but that is basically exactly what happens in this game, the graphics are pretty charming, being very reminiscent of the original Zelda, while also having plenty of detail that gives it plenty of personality, even if a lot of the environments blend in together, the music is pretty good, but like with the original Legend of Zelda, there aren’t too many tracks, so expect to hear the same music tracks a lot, the control is good… but also pretty frustrating at points, especially when you are trying to walk around in dungeons, feeling incredibly restrictive and delayed, and the gameplay is inventive, yet familiar at the same time, combining different elements together to make a pretty unique package for the time.
The game is an 8-bit adventure game, where you take control of Mike Jones, the most bland and boring protagonist ever seen from Nintendo, travel to plenty of different islands and dungeons, take out plenty of enemies that will impede your progress, gather plenty of health items, tools, and additional weapons that you can use to help you out throughout your journey, and fight plenty of towering bosses that will put your movement and attacking skills to the test. For the most part, it is your typical adventure game for the era, and in many ways, it is pretty similar to the original Legend of Zelda, but in many other ways, it differs from that game, such as with the case of having multiple gameplay styles.
The first gameplay style is a top-down adventure perspective similar that of Final Fantasy, where you travel around to many different islands and villages, talk to people, gather information and items, and locate dungeons and caves. However, like with Gargoyle’s Quest, I feel like this perspective is unnecessary, as it only serves as a way to get you from Point A to Point B, and nothing more. Sure, there are optional things you can see and do in these sections, such as finding Big Hearts to increase your health, but that is about it, as it is mostly just about you reaching the next main point of the game. Despite this though, I will say I really like this style in this game, as it does have a lot of charm to it, and I like seeing all the different places you go and the characters you meet. Not to mention, I love how stereotypically American everything is, with all the islands having “cola” in their name, Mike being a baseball star that also plays with yo-yos, and having several phrases spoken throughout that you definitely wouldn’t hear anywhere else, such as “jamming bananas into your ears”. The only thing it is missing is about a dozen bald eagles, rifles firing off 24/7, and having all the characters being fat as fuck. If those things were in this, then it would be the true American experience.
The second gameplay style is found in the dungeons and caves, where the main meat of the game takes place. You traverse through plenty of these dungeons, using your yo-yo and plenty of other weapons to take out plenty of enemies, gather plenty of items to help you out, and either fight bosses at the end or activate something to solve puzzles in the overworld. That, or you just move onto the next section. Like with the overworld sections, I really liked these segments, and I found going through these dungeons and solving these puzzles to be pretty satisfying. With that being said though, I did find it to get pretty repetitive as I kept going, and while I do like the puzzles, a lot of them just involve hitting squares and buttons, with not too much variety in between. Then again, the original Zelda was mainly like this too when it came to dungeon designs, and I didn’t mind it there, so I don’t mind it too much here either.
Now, despite there being plenty to love and appreciate about this game, there are issues that do hold it back from being great. For one thing, the game is WAAAAAAAY too linear. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I don’t typically have a problem with linearity in video games, but for an adventure game, you would expect a world to explore, a sense of freedom, a taste of… well, adventure. But no, for the most part, you are just going about this linear path, having one destination to always travel to, with little to no side content in between. Secondly, this game gets pretty damn difficult as it goes on, and not even in a fair way. There will be times where you will be bombarded by enemies, with not too many options to move around or fight back, there will be plenty of rooms and pathways that will lead to traps and gimmicks that are meant to get you killed, and there are even signs that can take away the amount of lives you have! Because, you know, that is certainly fair.
And finally, one issue this game has that many not realize is that it is a guide game in the most literal sense. Most games can be beaten without the need of a guide if you just look around long enough, but with this game, you absolutely NEED one. For most of it, it is pretty linear, once again, so you won’t have that much trouble figuring out what to do, but in one part of the game, you do need a guide to get through. When you are talking with Dr. Jones’ assistant, he will tell you to “dip your letter in water”, and what he means by this is, if you bought a copy of this game when it came out, it came with a physical letter that you have to pour water on, and when you do, it will reveal coordinates you have to tell your navigation unit to proceed forward. This is pretty cool and all, and it makes you feel like you are part of the adventure, but let’s be honest here: you are most likely playing this game through one of its rereleases or an emulator, and even more likely then that, you probably don’t have that letter, so you need to look up the code in order to move on. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but come on, Nintendo, what kind of ass design is that? You all are better then this.
Overall, despite some poor design choices and some intense difficulty, I still found StarTropics to be a pretty enjoyable game, and definitely one of the more stand out titles from the NES library that I am glad I finally took the time to play. I would definitely recommend it for those who want to see what other games Nintendo has made throughout their career, as well as for those who wanna play an NES adventure game that is not Zelda, as it will definitely be the type of game you are looking for. I mean hell, it’s no wonder this game managed to get a sequel…… in 1994…… for the NES…….. yeah, they pretty much sent that game out to die.
Game #364