Welcome to a new edition of Retro Corner Reviews and we tackle an original game from Nintendo called StarTropics. It is considered a sleeper hit since ST came out later in 1990 after SMB3’s massive success. Another thing that didn’t help ST is the releases of other major games like Castlevania III, Super C and Final Fantasy. You can see why it became a sleeper hit that year and even the first Mega Man went through the same thing. StarTropics is considered a dungeon romper/adventure game mixed with some RPG elements. The theme is about an American teenage kid named Mike Jones who visits his uncle Dr. Steven Jones on C-Island in the South Seas. When Mike arrives on C-Island and enters Coralcola Village, he finds Dr. Jones missing from his lab. It turns out Aliens lead by an overlord named Zoda abducted his uncle for his information. Mike must travel across the South Seas to rescue Dr. Jones and find out what Zoda has planned. Nintendo does surprise us sometimes with these one off titles but then again, I can’t really call it that. ST received a sequel in 1994 for the NES so technically this series is considered a onetime thing. It’s one of the old series Nintendo never went back to aside from the Fire Emblem games. Gameplay If you played overhead type games like Zelda and any NES RPG, most will feel right at home. ST takes its elements from Zelda where the player ventures into an underground level. There you face off against varying enemies from animals to monsters with a boss waiting at the end. Similar to Zelda, the player solves puzzles in some rooms. What makes ST stand out is Mike who instead of using a gun or sword to battle prefers to face the dangers with a yo-yo. It's classic Nintendo for you as Mike battles the forces of Zoda with a fricking toy. Along the way Mike picks up additional things based on baseball items. It differs between long and close range style weapons and has double the hitting power compared to your default attack. Usually, these should get used either in a tight spot or against the bosses since they cause twice the damage. I guess we can see where they got the idea for EarthBound because even the characters in that series use weapons unfit for battle too. As you guessed, progression is set on a linear path, despite there being an overworld. However, the overworld is designed in an RPG fashion and it’s quite limited to what we are used to. Meaning, you can’t go back to previous locations once they are done thus moving the player to the next one. If some go into the game thinking it will have the same controls as Zelda, then disappointment is sure to follow. The controls for Mike feel stiff, and he doesn’t have the same fluid motion as traditional adventure titles. Think of ST as the Dark Souls of its day considering the game can feel unforgiving at times. My advice is be careful when navigating the stages as some of the enemies can take almost two hearts away. One of the key elements ST borrows from Zelda is solving a room’s puzzle to progress. The first caption has Mike explore a long chamber that has a hidden wall on the left side of the room. They must navigate through each open section looking for the black crack on the floor to reach a group of tiles. That is the type of puzzling solving I love where it gives me a vague hint to figure out. Even solving these would unlock a hidden door leading to other areas with extra items. However, if you are not careful when figuring out a challenge could lead the character to losing a life in those death rooms. Now, the bosses were quite challenging and even more compared to those in Zelda II. It was a combination of the stiff controls and their fast movements is what truly made this a ball busting experience. However, each boss didn’t have cheap difficulty especially when the game gives the player a chance to strike. At least the developers programmed some as puzzles to solve as seen by the caption on the right. Here you had to push the boss back enough to step on a switch so a hole could open at the end forcing the thing over. I do find ST a little disappointing that it’s this linear and the exploration was taken out of the equation. When you play Zelda, Willow or Crystalis, it’s an instinct to explore to see if there is anything we could’ve missed. Of course, exploring a level is still there as each one has a secret area to find items. It’s just not the same without the traditional way of playing the adventure genre. Nintendo obviously was going for something different than they usually do for these one off titles. Doki Doki Panic was one of those releases and when compared to the original Mario gameplay it hosted different platforming mechanics. They probably wanted a more straightforward progression compared to the complex designs of Zelda. My only gripes come from losing a life then having to restart at the beginning of the level with three hearts. In adventure games usually, the player has a chance to restore their health from a certain spot or enemies dropping health. Unfortunately, the luxury is absent and only if you find hearts in a secret area is the sole way to restore your condition. When entering the secret spots within these caverns there is a chance you will come into a room that kills Mike. EAD should’ve designed hints for the player to figure this out on their own. Like a marking near the door or on the floor to tell us vaguely if there was a death room ahead. Another problem is the difficulty of Zoda’s Ship, and it was like trying to navigate a harder version of Ganon’s Lair. Between the respawning alien fighters and the labyrinth-like level design made this almost impossible to pass. Along the cavern sections are the special items to pick up and are used regardless of what enemies Mike faces. The left caption shows Mike using a power shoe item that allows him to destroy enemies from across the screen. Unfortunately, this special weapon only appears in a couple of stages and would have helped later on. However, the developers thought removing them from your inventory after completing a level was the best idea. The most interesting feature was Nintendo including a mockup letter from the Doc himself. When buying the game new, the letter came included in the box containing a hidden message. Then upon reaching the middle part of the game, you had to wet it to uncover a secret message containing a number. It was used to progress the gameplay — shown in the caption above — by putting in the MHz provided in the document. Today, the paper isn’t needed considering we have the internet to look this up. However, that was still an interesting feature we probably will never see again unless the concept is designed into the new Nintendo theme park. Now, the thing that truly hurts this gameplay is some of the quirkiness that would annoy most gamers today. To begin, it is truly annoying that whatever items were collected are not retained once a cavern level is completed. EAD designs RPG and adventure elements but oddly enough don’t program them to stay in the inventory. Imagine playing this for the first time when you collect shuriken or a magic potion that heals health. Then when you go to use this because of being in a tight spot in another area, the item is missing. Of course let’s also bring up the fact that the magic item inventory is accessed when pausing and pressing down. Why couldn’t they use a similar mechanic from the first Zelda? The last thing is about the main weapon being reduced to the basic yoyo when your health becomes low. Even though it gets upgraded through the quest but strange how they programmed the main weapon in this way. In Zelda when Link takes damage from his full health still won’t take away the Magic Sword’s hitting points—It still causes the usual three hitting points no matter if half a heart is left. Yet, if you lose more than four hearts your yoyo goes back to the last weapon's hitting points. You had no idea how bad it was getting through Zoda’s ship when my health was low because of the cheap difficulty. EAD expects me to get through an area with a weak yoyo and two hearts left? Rating: 7.7/10 Graphics/Presentation Nintendo does it again with presenting two visuals styles alongside the gameplay. There is the overworld RPG visuals for traveling within an area and then switches to a Zelda like layout during the underground sections. I can’t tell if they took this idea from Zelda II because it used a similar graphical style. However, by 1991 having such designs makes the visuals look as if this was released in 1987. Today, the overworld looks like a pixelated nightmare similar to Dragon Quest and Zelda II. Fortunately, when entering the towns gives these environments a decent 8-bit appearance. Now, the levels had the most effort put into them as for once Nintendo took examples from other studios. These underground environments weren’t as crusty as those in Willow and went into as much detail as Crystalis. Unfortunately, 8-bit RPGs and Adventure games don’t age gracefully when compared to the later generations using pixel art. Each texture was accurate to what it’s supposed to represent beyond the overworld’s presentation. The biggest strength of the visuals came from the character sprites that illustrated the art style the best it could on the NES. There were no weird enemies as seen in Willow and each one matches up to the environment most would appear in Crystalis. The cast of enemies isn’t as diverse when stacked to those in EarthBound: Beginnings but there was still enough like the undead and ghostly beings. Now, the best ones were obviously the bosses highlighted by their behemoth sizes. That made them menacing compared to most in its genre on this system. In this part of the game Mike travels through what is called the Ghost Village in a haunted area of one of the islands. The first caption shows Mike battling undead monsters of Necromancers and skeleton heads. It was probably a unique area based on the enemies being vastly different from the usual creatures centered around the tropical themes. Now, the next caption shows the overworld designed in a Dragon Quest/Zelda II style. Everything today has a pixelated appearance in the worst ways possible due to age. That is the issue most of these 8-Bit RPG and adventure titles suffered from. It was either a simple color representing a terrain or a bunch of hues that tried replicating elements like water. Despite the effort that went into the levels, the overworld visuals do come off a little generic. It’s nothing we haven’t seen from Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy and this is a “Me too” thing. By 1990, Final Fantasy III had animation in some areas of the game’s world, so the developers had no excuse. I also noticed those single frame scenes that tried to insert a realistic design when telling the story. That was a bad mashup as ST has a cartoonish appearance. As for dungeons, there are times where their theme never changed but hosts the same patterns designs. If you remember my Willow NES review, I point out how Capcom gave broad visuals for each stage but constantly reused the same structure. Even Nintendo is guilty of this on occasions despite being a rare thing from them. There is nothing wrong with reusing certain assets to create the stages however, overly relying on them is another. Only couple of times does the pattern change and that is the crater section that has a temple like environment. Then there is Zoda’s Ship having a metal frame and electric circuitry due to the architect being alien in design. Even then there were hardly any props like statues or murals placed around. Don’t tell me the NES wasn’t capable of doing such features when many games from its library showcased some instances. Now that is a real missed opportunity considering where the plot takes place around. The cut scenes on the left image tries using the standard that Ninja Gaiden presented on the NES version to tell the plot. However, these scenes used a realistic art style which contrasts against the more lighthearted design in the other portions of the visuals. What might have worked amazingly for Ninja Gaiden for its time doesn’t provide the same effect EAD intended. The next caption has Mike exploring the crater’s caverns that happen to have a temple area within. Unfortunately, this felt like the scenery was added at the last moment rather than being planned. There is no excuse for randomly placing props with a temple environment just because. Besides the Ghost Village being the only exception to an abandoned location, there were never hints in the South Seas to an ancient civilization once existing. EAD needed to place hints using those same statues and ruined shrine props through the islands sporadically. Then that would have made reaching this part of the plot compelling with extra dialogue from Dr. Jones given a short explanation. The soundtrack does capture the tropical summer tones based on areas around Hawaii. You will notice this on the overworld and when venturing through the dungeon like environments. The underground portions sounded adventure-ish that had an upbeat tone. It is one of the few tracks that I see myself going back to because of the Summer vibe. The overworld song had a much cheery tone compared to the caverns that play up to the theme. However, the tracks for the tense moments were nearly those found on cheap stock CD albums that contain generic music—To claim these songs sounded wooden is a true understatement. EarthBound: Beginnings had a similar issue with the same style of tense songs not being of good quality. They might capture the right tone matching the situation but overall, wooden by design. There really isn’t much variety to go around when a game in the NES’ late life cycle should have a great OST. While it stays true to the typical places and moments, a composer still needs a diverse soundtrack to even out the different styles. The EarthBound prequel also got this right despite some of the music sounding rough in a few areas. It is like the studio told the composer to do the bare minimum knowing this was a late stage NES title. That still isn’t a good excuse just because your sole focus was the Super NES lineup. Rating: 7.8/10 Features/Content One of the things about these one off games/series is they tend to lack replay value. However, ST has a decent campaign that can keep the player entertained thanks to its difficult underground sections. As you guessed, the player can collect heart containers to increase your health. These are usually found depending on what part of the overworld you enter at certain points of the adventure. That brings us back to the content since this was one of the issues the one off titles from Nintendo have. It is possible the House of Mario shifted their main development to the Super NES and Game Boy as the reason these releases didn’t have content. Regardless what excuse there is that truly hurts ST because once the adventure is over all that is left is to restart the game again. Even EarthBound: Beginnings had a near identical problem with no side quests aside from an archaic non-linear function. The developmental team should’ve added side quests for each area that rewards the player. That reward could be a health item, an extra life or even a new stronger weapon to use. I mean, they programmed finding hidden heart containers but apparently designing a couple of side quests in these areas was rocket science. It’s obvious this isn’t EAD’s best work because they show little incentive to give any replay value. The only reason most of us would come back is because of the concept being unique and fun to play through despite the difficulty. Rating: 7.0/10 The thing about these hidden rooms was a great reprieve to restore Mike’s health especially when low. Along the way you will come across a magic potion besides heart pieces in a set of four as seen in the first caption. It’s too bad the designers thought placing these magic potions sporadically across the game was brilliant. The player won’t stumble or discover the rooms often so when these areas are found they should take advantage of grabbing them. Now, the large heart pieces increasing the life bar are a feature straight out of Zelda. Throughout the overworld some secret areas have no hints to being present unless looking at walkthroughs previously. It is necessary to obtain these because that would make the quest a little easier thanks to each challenge being unforgiving. The point is more things should’ve been placed around to find so to offset the often cheap difficulty. Final Rating As with most one off titles from Nintendo, StarTropics delivered a unique experience again that didn’t star a plumber or a Hylian Knight. The thing about ST that makes it unique is the location of the tropical environments—That was before Zelda: Link’s Awakening hit the Game Boy where Link found himself on a tropical island far from Hyrule. The gameplay was a dungeon crawler/romper style game that hosted two different styles. There are overworld portions to enter towns and the levels but then switches to an overhead view inside the dungeons. However, ST was nothing like Zelda or the fast gameplay as seen in Crystalis due to the stiff controls thus making the stages challenging. The visual department followed the same standards that Zelda II had between the overworld and levels. There was nothing special except for the themed Hawaiian style environments. Now, the enemies were handled better by showcasing strange exotic creatures having the usual tropes based on certain areas. EAD even presented the bosses like behemoths which most NES titles couldn’t get right on most occasions. The soundtrack wasn’t the best of the NES, but the tropical theme tones made this enjoyable to listen to. The biggest issue is the lack of content that hinders me from replaying ST again—When there are no side quests in each area then you know the developers didn’t bother trying to program any. StarTropics is still one of those quality gems that were often found in the 1990 - 1994 era of the NES that one should at least try. Gameplay: 7.7/10 Graphics/Presentation: 7.8/10 Features/Content: 7.0/10 Final Rating: 7.5/10 Good
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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