Ever wanted to play Legend of Zelda but couldn’t really stomach the medieval fantasy setting? StarTropics is an action/adventure game developed by Nintendo in 1990 for the NES. In case you’re wondering, yes; I too, am shocked that Nintendo has a franchise that was not remade into the same game for every succeeding console. Like the Legend of Zelda, StarTropics uses the still somewhat new innovation of battery-based saves (a battery inside the game cartridge that allows you to store and retrieve data without the need of passwords).
Story. StarTropic’s storyline is influenced by celestial references mixed with a bit of sci-fi pulp. StarTropics follows the adventures of Mike, a high school ace pitcher who plans to visit his archaeologist uncle, Dr. Steve Jones, on the majestic C-Island for the summer. You land there by helicopter one morning, head to the village Coralcola, and learn from the villagers that your uncle was mysteriously abducted! Being your uncle’s only hope (which they justify by reminding you what an excellent pitcher you are), the chief sends you into the cave, armed with the Island Yo-Yo (which you can use to great skill, also attributed to said ace pitcher status), to seek out what happened to your uncle and hopefully, rescue him. Lots of obstacles stand in your way inside, but once out of the cave, you learn from Dr. Jones’ assistant that he was abducted….by aliens, likely due to the mysterious research he was conducting. The assistant gives you an ID Code*, and sends you to his personal boat, Sub-C. There you are introduced to Nav-Com, a navigational robot that looks like a plum-shaded WALL-E.
From there, the progression of the story is fairly episodic. The story is broken up into chapters, and much of the first half of the game is about exploring the various islands, learning what you can about your uncle’s whereabouts from the local residents. It is not until late in the game where you do finally meet your uncle, and learn the secrets of his research – (WARNING: SPOILER HERE) that the meteor he was studying here was in fact, an escape pod for a war-torn alien species seeking refuge as other, more aggressive aliens nearly destroyed their entire race. It all comes down to you to enter the alien spaceship and find three cubes to summon them back and save them from Zoda, leader of the bad-aliens. Interestingly enough, you only learn his name (and his entire existence, for that matter) in the final chapter.
The story is simple enough and it really only serves to move along the game as you annihilate dungeon after dungeon. The Non Playable Characters (NPCs) in the game though are quite humorous and taking the extra moment to speak to them can be an enjoyable reprieve from the rest of the game.
Gameplay. The gameplay is divided into two parts; firstly there is an overview part, which takes place between battle stages. You explore, talk to people, and try to find plot items to progress through the game. This sometimes involves solving puzzles to gain access to the next dungeon; other times it involves navigating Sub-C through various mazes, trying to find various points where you can submerge (and essentially “teleport”) or find hidden caves, marked by a spinning circle of dots. The other main mechanic in the game is the battle stages, which will have Mike fight against hordes of various critters, zombies, and aliens with this trust Island Yo-Yo. The battles are actually quite similar to that of Legend of Zelda, with a few major differences. Mike is only able to move in four directions – up, down, left, right – and cannot attack or move diagonally. This may sound cumbersome at first, but once you get adapted to the controls, you’ll find a rhythm in moving up, turning as you slide into a square and knock a poor rat a few times with your yo-yo to destroy him.
There are weapons other than the yo-yo which you’ll find throughout StarTropics. Though you are unable to keep them between levels, they often serve as weapons with increased reach and/or special abilities. The Baseball Bat swings in a wide arc; the Throwing Star is thrown, and then splits in a T shape when the B button is pressed again. The Island Yo-Yo can also be upgraded at certain points to the game. Their upgraded versions are stronger and have a greater range, but in order to use it you require a certain number of hearts. Also, you are able to jump, which, from fairly early on, becomes just as a necessary part of getting through the game as fighting. StarTropics is littered with small platforms which you cannot move on top of; you can only jump on, then jump off, possibly to another platform. You can also jump to avoid projectiles and enemies, but sometimes the enemies are too big to be hurdled.
Getting from room to room in the level involves a lot of jumping. Jumping on platforms, jumping off of platforms, jumping between platforms, jumping on each individual platform in a room to find a footprint so it activates a switch used to open a door, jumping on the switch so you can open the door, jumping over projectiles, jumping over enemies and hazards – you get the idea. In spite of all the jumping the game requires, it is not as boring as you would think; oftentimes timing the jump when platforms are rising and sinking out of the water, or when attacking enemies adds a level tension you would find in many of the NES platformers.
The levels themselves, however, are hardly straightforward and sometimes the level designers pull some really mean tricks, probably just to get a rise out of you. In the first level for example, you might find a room that contains medicine, used to regain life on-the-go. However if you’re savvy enough, you can find a switch leading to another room, with another medicine bottle. You might find a switch again and a third room opens up. Thinking that you might get some more goodies you go on the room…only to find yourself in a room full of water, as you fall in and die instantly. Oh, you cheeky, cheeky bastards.
Although the levels are for the most part, linear, there is very little handholding to be found in the game. Thinking outside of the box and looking for hidden pathways or using collected items in the right rooms are the only way to get yourself out of a dead end or to keep from running in circles. The levels are very difficult, and oftentimes you will die, either from a miscalculated jump or because enemies can overwhelm you at points. The difficulty of the bosses range from do-able if you see the pattern, to insane projectile evading jump-fests, to bosses that come straight out of the ninth-level of hell and kill you if they so much as graze your recently growing chest hair. And when you die, you are sent back either to the beginning of the level or at a checkpoint (for the longer ones), but you start with three hearts, and any weapons or items you had on you are lost. It becomes extremely disheartening to try and rebuild the momentum lost, especially later in the game when you need to regain hearts to use the more powerful versions of your main weapon.
HDR (Hard/Decrepit Rating). Overall, this game has a lot of charm and has the potential to suck you right in if you let it. It is a hard game, and the gameplay mechanics may take some getting used to, and oftentimes you are forced to start the level over at least once due to the various little pranks the level designers play on you, but you can do a lot worse than StarTropics on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It has aged better than many of the other games I’ve seen.
*ID Codes in StarTropics are a story in itself. See below.
The Immersive Letter
by N1ntendo
A little known fact about StarTropics and the retail release comes from the ID code in the game needed to start up a specific NAV-COM frequency to travel to another level later in the game. Before Metal Gear Solid has us looking at the back of the case for a radio frequency, StarTropics has us looking inside our box for a letter from Mike’s Uncle. At first look, we see the letter as an amusing inclusion to the game and regard it as an extra bonus item for fans. Upon playing the game, however, we are told by a character in the game that in order to get the secret code to progress in the game, we need to dip the uncle’s letter in water. As gamers we frantically search in-game for said letter, only to realize that the letter included with our game includes the secret code! by splashing some water on the letter that game with the game, the code is revealed and the player can now progress further into the game. Probably one of the first instances that a game has ever made the player think and act outside the game itself.
If you are playing the Wii Virtual Console version, looking into the digital manual for the game they will give you two icons on the bottom of your screen, a bucket and a letter. If you click the letter with your Wiimote and drag it onto the bucket, it will dip into the bucket and the letter will show the secret code.
