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| GENRE |
| Action/RPG |
| DEVELOPER |
| Nintendo |
| PUBLISHER |
| Nintendo |
| NUMBER OF PLAYERS |
| 1 |
| WORTH PLAYING TODAY? |
| yes |
BUY NOW AT
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Star Tropics
Developed by Nintendo of America and released in time for Christmas in 1990 this classic NES game was never released outside of the U.S. Despite being written off by many as an Americanized Zelda clone, StarTropics is a thoroughly enjoyable action-RPG. In the game you control Mike, a 15 year-old high school baseball captain, on his island-hopping quest to save his Uncle, who was mysteriously kidnapped. Your only weapon on this quest is the mystical yo-yo given to you by the chief of the Coralcola village. Will it be enough to defeat the monsters and solve the mystery of your uncle’s mysterious disappearance?
visuals
Visually the game shows quite a bit of maturity from what was common on the NES. The game sprites are clean and well animated. Mike’s character sprite is large and has a variety of movements and motions. Likewise the enemy sprites are simple but diverse, with many different large and well animated boss characters. The colors used are vibrant and vary by level to express the different moods, from the bright and colorful islands to the gray and dingy space levels, a trait lacking from a good many NES games. Overall I was impressed to see that, outside of the overworld, which uses fat deformed characters, the graphics in the game stand the test of time.
audio
The music and sound effects in the game are classic NES: everything sounds tinny and synthesized. The music loops, which can be irritating, but most of the songs are catchy enough that it is forgivable. Overall the sounds are of a good quality and the game uses nice musical cues for bosses or other level events. The sound effects lack variety. For the most part it is just a repetition of the noise for hitting a trigger, a switch, and for hitting and enemy. There are also some limited wave and dolphin sounds that show off some of what the hardware can do, which isn’t much be today’s standards.
gameplay
This game is extremely challenging. I remember when I first bought this game it took three solid weeks before I was able to beat the game. The game plays much like the original Legend of Zelda, where you move through dungeons screen-by-screen. After clearing a room of enemies, solving a simple puzzle, or triggering a switch, you move onto the next room. Each dungeon has at least one boss. The bosses are consistently harder as the game progressed but it’s still just a matter of memorizing their patterns. The dungeon levels serve to break up any potential monotony and to move the story along. There is also some limited exploration in the Sub-C submarine. The game’s controls are simple, A jumps and B attacks using the super yo-yo or a variety of projectile weapons. The yo-yo itself is twice upgraded during the course of the game until it becomes the all powerful supernova, which, like the sword in Zelda, sends out projectiles when the character has more than eleven hearts. The life system exactly copies that of Zelda, where damage is measured in hearts that are awarded or found during the game. Movement, also like Zelda, is only in four directions.
multiplayer
N/A
overall
This is a great game and remains one of my favorites to this day. It is also a perfect example of the type of game an old-school gamer would be talking about when he is telling you these kids today wouldn’t know a difficult game if it bit them. This is a lengthy and fun with a story that is unintentionally funny to boot.
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