StarTropics (NES)

Developer:

Locomotive, Nintendo R&D3

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Release Date:

1992 (1990 in NA)

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Systems:

NES

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm thinking about how much StarTropics' title screen reminds me of the title screen of Metroid. They've got the same 'text floating in front of a twinkling starfield' look. Though Metroid has fewer palm trees.

StarTropics is fairly well known among people who aren't me, but I never played it myself. In fact I thought it was a SNES game until I looked it up. I'm still not sure how it plays, but if I had to guess I'd say it was probably going to be a little like that Secret of Evermore game I wrote about in January. The two games definitely share one thing in common: their titles both start with the letter 'S'. Also they were both developed with a Western audience in mind and never got a release in Japan. They even left it off the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer (aka the Famicom Mini) despite it being one of the 30 games that came with the NES Classic in other regions.

It was produced and written by a Japanese game designer though, Genyo Takeda, who was apparently also responsible for a: putting battery backed-up save RAM in the cartridge version of The Legend of Zelda and making that a thing, b: sticking an analogue thumbstick on the N64 controller and inspiring Sega and Sony to do it too, and c: holding the Wii back so that it was a generation behind the Xbox 360 and PS3. He became the manager of Nintendo's hardware development division in 1980 and didn't retire until 2017, so he was a fairly influential guy during the entire history of video games. Plus he produced Punch-Out.

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I left the title screen on for a bit to record the stars twinkling and got this scene of a helicopter flying down to a crescent-shaped island as a reward for my patience. Then it just ended without any hint of what it was about.

It's so much like the start of a Jurassic Park game that I was expecting to get a picture of characters stepping out of the helicopter while gazing in amazement at a massive brontosaurus in the distance, but I guess I'll have to start the game if I want to see what happens next.

Oh by the way, I simulated the transparency of the rotor blades by merging two frames together to show what it looks like instead of what it's actually outputting, so this is a FAKE SCREENSHOT. Could've been worse though, I could've stretched the shot to 4:3 and made it all fuzzy.

Yeah I can believe this game's by the people who invented the The Legend of Zelda save system. It's even got the same ELIMINATION MODE, which presumably either turns the game into a battle royale or lets you delete saves.

That REVIEW MODE is new though. I don't usually check a game's manual, but I was curious and it seems to be a way to replay the chapter you're on from the start without losing (or gaining) progress. "True Gamemasters always try the review mode, just to be certain that they haven’t missed any important clues," apparently.

Right, I need to come up with a name for my dude and I'm not calling him 'Ray' this time, because that'll just make writing about him awkward. It can only be eight letters long... no I'm not calling him 'Hardgrit' either. Who do I know who wore a blue shirt and flew to an island on a helicopter?

CHAPTER 1: PRELUDE

Ah, the chopper in the intro was headed to a place called C-Island. Not as good as B+ or A Island, but it's alright.

Wait, could that be Dr Indiana Jones they're referring to? That's cool, because I decided give my guy the name 'Dr Grant', like Alan Grant from Jurassic Park, so we're both in the business of digging up relics. We'll be able to talk about what does and doesn't belong in museums!

So I'm not getting my picture of people getting off a helicopter huh? I'm not getting anything in fact, just a man dancing on a tiny helipad. We're definitely in the 'everyone's constantly running on the spot' era of RPG design.

I decided to walk over to the left, seeing as every other direction leads to a cliff, and waited for the first surprise random encounter to drag me to a battle screen. My hike was entirely uneventful however and I soon spotted a town halfway up the island. There's mountains preventing me from going any further so I might as well go in, see if Dr Jones lives here.

Whoa, this place looks pretty bad even for a NES game. I think that scruffy mess of tiles to my left is supposed to be the top view of a thatched roof. Buildings here only get to be three dimensional when their roof is hidden.

I went around and had a chat to the NPCs to hear their one line of dialogue, but they didn't do much to help poor Dr Grant find Dr Jones' lab. No one's selling anything either, which isn't great seeing as humans need food and drink to survive. One of them at least told me that the town's called Coralcola but that probably just made Dr Grant more thirsty.

It's like we're having a dance off and I think I'm winning.

Wait, who's Mike? I'm not Mike, I'm Dr Alan Grant, ace palaeontologist! I guess I was just labelling my save slot earlier, not my character.

I might as well go speak to the village elder then, seeing as there's nothing else to do here.

Oh no, Dr Jones has been kidnapped! Even worse, I'm the only one who can save him... because no one else can be bothered. I keep trying to tell him I can't help but the village chief won't take 'no' for an answer.

I eventually gave in and said 'yes' to escape the 'but thou must' loop, and he handed me a yo-yo then sent me out to slay monsters with it. It might look like a toy but it's very powerful in the hands of an ace pitcher, apparently.

Personally I can't take anything he says seriously, not while classic platform game hero Putty is right there staring at me.

It's all I can see! And I'm not alone on this, I asked someone else what they saw when they looked at him and they said the exact same thing.

I left the town hall and went across town to a building I wasn't allowed in earlier, theorising that it must be the entrance to the monster caves (because there's nowhere else I can go). There I met a strange woman with a punk haircut holding a tiny balloon that looks like a skull.

I really wish she'd stop doing that with her hand.

She reveals that Dr Jones was abducted because he found a secret in the lost ruins and many wild monsters await in the dark below, but I'm still a bit confused why I have to do this alone. I didn't sign up for a test of island courage, I'm just a baseball player who came to look at a dude's lab!

Oh hang on, I just checked the box and it turns out that by putting the game on I did sign up for a test of island courage. So, uh, never mind.

Hey the game has an autosave feature! That's not something I expected to see on a NES game in 1990. Could StarTropics be the first ever console game with autosaves? It seems plausible considering who made it, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

TWO SCREENS INTO THE DARK BELOW

Oh it's just like Zelda now! Except Mike uses a yo-yo instead of a sword and everything snaps to an invisible grid. See how precise my movement is? That's not deliberate, he'll only walk from tile to tile. Plus it takes two button presses to walk in a different direction, as the first tap just makes him turn around (or I can just hold it down).

FOUR SCREENS IN

Seems that sometimes I have to hit a switch to open the exit instead of just killing all the enemies. Like this red one that just appeared when I jumped on a green box in the corner out of curiosity.

The jump button's another thing that separates this from Zelda, and my jumps are just as grid-based as my walking. If I jump forward now he'll go to the next green tile, and then to that red switch, with no risk of overshooting and landing in the water. Weirdly he just jumps straight up into the air when there's regular ground in front of him; jumping over enemies is forbidden.

Oh, something else I've noticed: Mike's got a bigger sprite down here, but he switches back to his overworld sprite when I pause...

... so that he can hold up a big "PAUSE" sign! I guess he holds up similar signs when replying 'YES' and 'NO' to people, as he never seems to actually say anything in conversation.

One mystery I haven't solved yet, is what the stars do. Sometimes enemies drop stars when they die and when I collect five of them the counter resets.

SEVEN SCREENS IN

Ooops.

That was my fault for not paying attention, though in my defence I had every reason to assume that he'd just stop when he reached a gap he couldn't jump. Taking a whole life off me for one little mistake is a little harsh though, especially as I've been kicked right back to the start of the dungeon as well!

Oh, if you're wondering why I went hopping around instead of going on one of the two perfectly good exits I'd already opened, it's because I thought there might be a switch to open a third exit hidden under one of the green tiles.

AFTER REPLAYING SEVEN SCREENS

I was right, there was a third exit!

But, uh, treasure plz? Why won't it let me open it? Oh right, I have to jump on the green tiles, obviously. The solution is always to jump on the green tiles.

Opening the chest got me 25 flaming torches, which is 25 more than I need right now considering how surprisingly well lit this underground cave is, but I'll hang on to them anyway.

TEN SCREENS IN

SNAKE!

Different enemies move in different ways, with slugs just slowly roaming around and rats spinning around on the spot before picking a direction to go for a bit. What snakes like to do, I've just learned, is wait until I'm lined up with them horizontally or vertically, and then charge right at me.

I should've dodged out of the way, but I figured I could kill him with my yo-yo. Turns out they take more than one hit though, so he drove through me and I lost a heart. Also I'd ended up standing at the junction by this point so I got hit by the other snake too and lost another heart. I survived though and opened up another box full of flaming torches!

ELEVEN SCREENS IN

There's bats too, and they like to bounce around diagonally. Which isn't good for me, seeing as I'm locked to this grid. I'm not going to be nimbly dancing around between them, slipping through the gaps. I have to be careful not to trigger the snakes until I'm ready either, though they'll be easy to kill now that I know how they work.

I take back what I said about snakes being easy.

Those flaming torches turned out to be fireballs, so I switched weapon and jumped forward to throw a few his way... trouble is that he can also spit fireballs and I didn't have enough hit points to survive his first barrage.

I wasn't kicked all the way back to the start of the dungeon this time though. More like four screens back... to the place just after the box with the flaming torches I need as ammo. But it's okay as there's another box right after it and I'm sure 25 will be enough.

This time around I jumped on some green tiles and unlocked a room containing a secret jar of mysterious red liquid. Then I jumped on the tiles in that room and opened up another room with another secret jar half-full of mysterious red liquid! Is it the same liquid? I don't know, it's a mystery.

Though it's pretty clear that the game wants me to keep on jumping onto ever single bloody tile just in case there's a switch hidden under one. Speaking of which, do you reckon that if I jump on these green tiles it'll open up a room with a third jar in it?

Oh well. Secret room #3 contained instant unavoidable death. Welcome to 80s game design... in the 90s.

That was my last life so I just got game over'd. Fortunately it autosaved at the start of the dungeon so I won’t have to go speak to the village elder again at least. That's a step up from Zelda, which puts you back at the start of the game when you load your save.

So I replayed the whole dungeon from the start again, got into the secret jar room, and accidentally jumped into the instant death room again because I wasn't paying attention. I'm not even listening to a podcast right now, I really am trying to focus on what I'm doing!

Imagine this repeated for a minute and twenty seconds and that's how this fight played out.

The snake boss wasn't so tough though now that I know his routine and I soon made it to the north end of C-Island. No sign of Dr Jones up here either, but I did find his submarine and his robot!

No I’m calling you R.O.B, because that’s your name.

I (automatically) gave R.O.B. the sub's ID code I (automatically) picked up from an NPC outside and got the thing started, so now I can use it to rescue Dr Jones! Wait, how does Mike know where to go?

CHAPTER 2: DOLPHINS

Oh, I guess he doesn't know where to go; the game's left it to me to steer.

Hey, maybe this is where I'm supposed to use that letter that you dip in water to reveal a secret message! The one with "CAUTION: DO NOT TASTE, EAT, OR OTHERWISE CONSUME THIS PAPER" written on. Probably not.

I'll just keep sailing to the right and see what happens.

Whoa, that was fast.

I got another 'but thou must' mission here from this dolphin, and I couldn't even say "Sorry but I don't speak 'dolphin'," as my response, so now I'm stuck rescuing their kid I guess! R.O.B. is translating for us by the way, this isn't some kind of English-speaking dolphin. That would just be crazy.

Okay I'm going to keep playing until I find the missing dolphin and then I'll be turning the game off. I think that'll be enough time to make a fair assessment.

SOON, AT A NEARBY ISLAND

There's no town on island #2 but I did find a guy in a lighthouse who's really keen for me to meet his wife. They live in separate houses on other sides of the island, separated by a really unhelpful tree, so I guess she's not so keen on his company right now.

Well I can't get walk past the stubborn tree and I can't sail around the island with this shallow pale blue water blocking my path either, so it seems there really is no way for me to get to this guy's wife right now.

Oh I see, there's really subtle shimmering effect indicating which walls I can drive through!

I went to visit the lighthouse keeper's wife and she told me about a bottle that had washed up on a beach nearby. Maybe it contains a message with a vital clue!

I guess I'll never know, as the beach is over on the other side of those mountains where I can't get to it. The dark wavy tiles seem like an obvious hint to submerse my submersible to slip through an underwater tunnel, but I haven't found a button that makes it dive yet.

This can't be the only island in the area though. I'm going to go sailing and see if I can find something I can use to get me over the mountains. Like a mountain bike!

Well I reached the southern border almost immediately, but there's still plenty of west to explore!

MINUTES PASS

Yeah this isn't working is it?

I turned around to head right instead and immediately found myself back at the island again. So there's got to be some way to get through to that bottle, something I've missed...

Aha, that tiny little strip of grey next to the mountains marked a secret tunnel leading to the beach!

Inside the bottle I found a message from Dr Jones with the code to unlock the submarine's submergible system! So now I can get through those underwater tunnels to the next dungeon at last. (I also grabbed a health upgrade along the way).

I wonder if Dr Jones had to do crap like this whenever he took the sub out? I guess his adventures probably had him punching a lot more Nazis. 

Hah, this foolish snake was no match for one of the 29 single-use baseball bats I picked up! Which is good because if I'd used the yo-yo I would've taken damage.

Crap, I should've left the baseball bat equipped!

FIVE SCREENS IN

Yeah, I'm learning a very important lesson about not leaving the yo-yo equipped here. The baseball bat isn't just good against the creatures charging at me, as its circular arc makes it handy against things flying by diagonally too. The only problem with it is that the ammo counter may as well be a durability meter, and weapon durability sucks.

ABOUT A DOZEN SCREENS IN

It's the dolphin I came here to rescue!

Hold on, I'm coming bro! Wait, why can I understand him outside the sub when I don't have R.O.B. with me to translate for me? Never mind, not important. I've got 24 baseball bats here with the dungeon boss's name on them that need to be delivered urgently.

And I just threw away my last life. When the octopus started spitting ink balls at me I acted on instinct, walking up to the row of tiles and jumping to the right... except you can't walk on green tiles, you have to jump between them.

Though this was actually my second attempt at the boss, and I did much better first time around. I dodged a lot of bullets, and got some hits on him when he came closer enough to smack. Couldn't dodge them all though.

The trouble with dying in this is that the game has a habit of putting the checkpoint after the box with the special weapon ammo in it, so second time around I was facing the boss with nothing but my crappy yo-yo. Then when I lost all my lives and had to return to the dungeon entrance it started me off with only half my health! Clearly the game thinks I should stop here, and I agree.


CONCLUSION

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StarTropics is a bit like The Legend of Zelda except not as good. At least that's the impression I got after the first two chapters. You should probably ignore my opinion though because to be honest I don't like the Zelda games all that much either.

I didn't hate it either though. Sometimes when I'm finished with a game I'll have a bucket full of complaints to empty out, but not so much this time. Though the graphics are surprisingly bad at times, and if I'd realised at the time that I had to meet all the villagers and let them say their useless line of dialogue before I was allowed to enter the first dungeon I probably would've whined about that. Also I don't mind having to replay a bit of a game because of my own mistakes, but instant death secret rooms are just there to waste a player's time and piss them off. It's even worse considering that it takes your special weapons off you when you die, and you don't always have an opportunity to get them back.

The biggest issue I've come across so far is that it expects you to dodge enemies and bullets with a grid-based movement system better suited to puzzle games or roguelikes. It ain't great when the enemies can move diagonally and you can't. It's not so bad when you're hopping between green boxes, as it's nice to quickly bounce around with no risk of messing up a jump, but you can tell my heart wasn't in the game by all the GIFs of me absent-mindedly throwing my dude into the water to his death. I guess the important lesson here, for all of us, is that swimming lessons are really important.

Overall I feel confident in saying that StarTropics is a video game that was released on the NES. It's also a game I didn't feel strongly about one way or the other, though I was definitely relieved when I realised I had enough screenshots and I could stop playing it. Don't let me put you off trying it yourself if you haven't already, but you might need a fair amount of nostalgia to really enjoy this one. Or, you know, an interest in Zelda games.

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Thanks for dropping by and thanks even more if you read any of that. But my greatest thanks is reserved for the people who leave me a comment below. If it's a good comment I mean, I ain't giving out thanks for any crap replies.

There's only one last game left to go before Super Adventures takes another two month break, so if you're stuck for something to say you can have a guess at what that's going to be.