StarTropics

StarTropics was designed for the American audience. It is unique among the huge library of Famicom games to be one of the few released specifically for North America and Europe, and not Japan.

This game combines elements from a variety of games popular during the 8-bit era: Dragon Quest styled overworlds and towns, rpg elements, overhead Zelda-esque action and puzzles... StarTropics combines these elements to make a perfect Nintendo game.
So what happened to the series? Why did this game fade away to obscurity while other Nintendo games continue today? It came out during the end cycle of NES games before the launch of the Super Nintendo in North America. By the time it's sequel hit the shelves, everyone I knew was already playing a SNES. Also the creator and designer of the game was more in charge of hardware than software titles... These combined factors could have ended StarTropics' appeal to a broad audience, but the game itself is a great testament to all 8-bit game genres rolled into one.

Nintendo Power put this game on the cover of issue 21, with a full game guide that continued into the following issue. There's no reason not to believe that Nintendo was hoping for a State-side smash hit. StarTropics wins for originality at the end of the NES's lifespan, as well as a creative twists that combine many game elements gamers had grown to love.

Development

The man who developed this game isn't known for his software titles. He is Genyo Takeda who was mostly in charge of hardware designs throughout Nintendo's video game history. As part of the former Nintendo Integrated Research and Development team, he produced the Punch-Out!! Arcade games, as well as a few other arcade titles. He was the man in charge of Wii development, making it one of the most incredibly successful consoles for Nintendo. The Wii's casual gaming approach is attributed to Takeda.

Advertising:

I remember this commercial from 1990. It features live actors mixed with game-play, and manages to spoil the entire game. Not bad for a Nintendo commercial in North America. It was initially hard to find the original commercial for StarTropics. But wait a few days and the internets will provide. Here's the best quality version that I was able to find. Love the 90's gamer stereotype.

As the commercial states: "...Every chapter is like another adventure! It's almost like a whole slew of games in one!" which emphasizes all the different styles of game play mixed together in this unique NES title.

Interestingly enough there was a Nintendo promotional video which stared the same actors found in the StarTropics commercial. It features interesting views on old Nintendo advertising, packaging, and references in popular culture in the early 90's. That guy in the Mario suit is freaky looking. 

Art

The box art was simple enough, which is surprising for a North American NES release. I would have figured that there would be florescent colors, gigantic catchphrases, or misleading characters, because it was the early nineties... I guess that would have to wait for the sequel. Looking at the box art, I'm impressed with the clean simple design. Nintendo seems to be doing everything right with this game: lots of advertising, an issue or two of Nintendo Power coverage, and a push to get fans of every type of adventure games to try this. 

Music

The music is nice, and was composed by Y. Hirai. As far as I could tell he only composed the music for StarTropics and the sequel, Zoda's Revenge. Here's an interesting remix of one of the dungeon themes. Catchy tunes throughout the game, and the end credits song was a nice reward for playing through all 8 chapters.

Results

So the player plays a kid named Mike, sent to find his missing uncle in a tropical paradise. It totally makes sense. Like in Konami's The Goonies, Mike is armed with his trusty yo-yo and incredible pitching arm to defeat enemies and find what happened to his uncle.

A wise woman. 

The movement of your character is difficult to describe. It isn't fluid like Zelda, and it feels more like a tank-like game controls where you point your character in a direction and then hold that direction again to move that way. The way the action portion of the game is set up make it feel like you're jumping around a grid. Jumping mechanics are confusing at first: you can only jump in place if you are not adjacent to water, or a tile. However you can jump more than one square to a tile or over one square of water. If you attempt to jump to anything farther than two squares you will drown or die. These tiles are scattered throughout the caves found in the game and require thought and careful jumping in order to reach switches and buttons that open doors and chests. I find that the movement mechanics are interesting, but adaptable. I wish they were more fluid, because I find that Mike's movement can be jerky, and sluggish around obstacles and enemies. 

Colorful over worlds

Parts of this game are difficult. I think I've died on every single screen of every single cave dungeon. Timed movement and jumps are tricky to pull off because of the moving mechanics that I mentioned earlier. I've also run into areas that just require memorization to get through... which means inevitable deaths while testing out platforms or looking for switches. Once I've figured out these points, the game becomes much easier. The length of some of these caves is cruel, with multiple halfway points, cheap deaths, dead ends, and difficult puzzles. Hidden doors and passageways are not always evident. Getting past enemies and surviving to the end boss is crucial. 

Nintendo's R.O.B. Robot makes a cameo as NAV-COM in this game. 

Items are scarce. Enemies randomly drop stars which accumulate to hearts, or hearts, but both are rare sights indeed. Enemy movement is either erratic or they home in on Mike, and with the jerky grid-like movement, makes them difficult to avoid.

The NPC's have great designs for an 8-bit game

That being said, the first two chapters of the game seemed like a warm-up for the nightmare of chapter 3 and beyond. The long caves and boss encounters were very... umforgving, but completing each dungeon was almost rewarding. I would say that I did get frustrated on a few screens, but it wasn't a game stopping rage quit kind of frustration. It was more about learning from mistakes and applying that to the game to overcome challenges. Chapters 4 and 5 were a breeze because they were more involved with the plot of the game rather than tough dungeons and boss fights.

Here's a hint to the player to ACTUALLY dip a letter included with the manual in water to reveal the coordinates. Very interesting idea, and something that wasn't obvious to most players.  

The end of Chapter 6 sucked. It leaves you with no instruction and assumes that you'll just run into the hidden passages and move forward from there. Tough design! I felt like I played worse and worse the more times I died, and the game mechanics severely tested the limits of my frustration. The game itself seems to drag on and on by this point. I kinda just want to kill an end boss and be done with it.

You get swallowed by a whale!

The ending was... interesting. In chapter 8 you are tasked with finding three cubes in order to save earth. After you find your uncle and enter a spaceship, you have to defeat the end boss Zoda, who looks incredibly like a Xenomorph, and escape before the ship explodes. The cubes unite and....  it turns out they were actually...trapped children (?!). Alien children. Their planet exploded and they were trapped in the cubes, but now want to live on Earth. And that's it. you win. Thanks for helping. Mike suggests they all go fishing and the end title sequence begins.

Alien elf children? ok. 

The end credits were nice- with full screen cut-scenes of the major points of the plot, as well as a zoom out into space "the end" screen. I've made some gifs to show the interesting art design in these cut screens. It just shows the extra attention to detail that makes this game pretty awesome.

I feel like I can't ignore the fact that the game had some bad mechanics towards the end of the game, which were partly made up for by lots of health items and more powerful weapons. Because health items were rare during most of the game, you eventually came to a point where you couldn't possibly fill up your life meter without special items only found in the final chapters. Every time you died you only started with three hearts, which meant that you would inevitably die over and over in a single hit from enemies. Because your weapon effectiveness was based on how much life you had at any given time, you would also lose the ability to kill enemies if your life got too low. Interesting at first, but totally troublesome by the end of the game. 

I feel like I've been complaining the entire time about the game experience I had while playing StarTropics. All the weird mechanics aside, I really enjoyed the game and thought that it was very original compared to other titles of the time. I wish I would have played it twenty years ago, because I probably would have liked it more. I liked the setting, the funny characters, and the interesting puzzles. Very cool and definitely an original NES game worth playing... once.

Victory!

Statistics
Deaths: 110. Continues: 37. Saves: 8 Time: 5 hours. Levels: 8. Points: 86040

Buy It Here: Startropics