StarTropics

StarTropics
Studio	Nintendo R&D3
Publisher	Nintendo
Senior Developer	Gen'yō Takeda
composer	Y. Hirai
Erstveröffent- lichung	December 1, 1990 August 20, 1992
platform	Nintendo Entertainment System , Wii ( Virtual Console )
genre	Action adventure
Subject	Adventure , science fiction
Game mode	Single player
control	NES controller
medium	Game module , download
language	English
Age rating	USK PEGI
PEGI content rating

Star Tropics is a by Japanese video game company Nintendo in 1990 in the US and 1992 in Europe for the Nintendo Entertainment System posted to action adventure . It was developed by the US-based designer Gen'yō Takeda , who was also responsible for Nintendo's Punch-Out !! was responsible. Since January 2008 the game has been available for the Wii game console via the European Virtual Console .

action

The teenager Mike Jones, an avid baseball player, accepted an invitation from his uncle, the archaeologist Dr. Jones, on the fictional tropical island of C-Island. When he reaches his laboratory , he only meets Jones' assistant Baboo, who explains to Mike that his uncle is missing. From Baboo he receives a submarine equipped with a robot called NAV-COM, which is reminiscent of ROB , with which he goes in search of Dr. Jones does. In the course of his trip, he visits various fictional tropical islands and gradually reveals the secret of his uncle's work and his associated disappearance.

Gameplay

The game is divided into an overworld as well as various villages and dungeons. In the upper world and the villages, which manage without fighting or action sequences, the game is reminiscent of classic Japanese RPGs of its time due to its graphic style, especially the bird's eye view . The player's task here is to talk to people, find important items and discover hidden passages. In particular, the waterways, which are explored above and below water with the submarine, are often built like a labyrinth.

In the dungeons, which mostly represent caves and underground passages, the game graphics, which are otherwise characterized by small sprites, are replaced by a more detailed representation. Here, too, hidden passages must be discovered. There are also various puzzles - mostly switch puzzles - to master and opponents to fight. For this purpose, the protagonist uses a yo-yo received from the residents of C-Island and can be expanded during the course of the game, as well as baseball bats, baseballs and other mostly unconventional weapons. In addition to a power reserve that can be expanded with items, there is a limited number of lives available, which are renewed after the dungeon is over. When all lives are used up, the player is reset to the beginning of the current dungeon, but otherwise has no negative consequences to fear.

The game, which is divided into chapters, is linear throughout and leaves the player with little freedom of choice regarding his travel destination, the tasks to be done or the way in which they should be done. The module has a memory function.

Production notes

StarTropics had a letter from Dr. Jones to Mike. In the later course of the game, this had to be immersed in water in order to obtain information that was important for the game. In the Virtual Console version, this letter is included in the digital game instructions.

Despite the predominantly Japanese development team, StarTropics never appeared in Japan.

successor

The official successor to Zoda's Revenge: Star Tropics II from 1994 appeared as a game module exclusively as an NTSC version in North America, but was also released as a download for the Virtual Console in Europe in July 2009. The gameplay is very similar to that of the first part, but the tropical setting was given up in favor of a story about time travel.

reception

The game was largely positively received by the trade press. The German magazine Total! judged the gameplay to be "a successful mix of different genres that can be very exciting for a long time". The Internet portal IGN rates the game with 8.5 out of 10 points.

Web links

• StarTropics at MobyGames (English)
• Review of the game with gameplay video on nescenter.de
• English-speaking fansite for StarTropics

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Dates of the first publication on gamefaqs.com
2. ↑ N-Sider.com: StarTropics: Credits ( Memento of October 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Product information for the Virtual Console version on nintendo.de
4. ↑ Release list on nescenter.de
5. ↑ NintendoLife.com: Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II Review. Retrieved May 22, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Michael Anton: StarTropics Archived from the original on July 26, 2015. In: Total! . July 1997, p. 55.
7. ↑ Rating of StarTropics on ign.com