StarTropics
- Genyo Takeda ( producer, director, script)
- Makoto Wada ( character design )
- Y. Hirai (Composer)
Star Tropics is a published by the Japanese video game company Nintendo in 1990 in the U.S. and 1992 in Europe for the Nintendo Entertainment System action adventure. It was developed by living in the USA Designer Genyo Takeda, which is also for Nintendo's Punch-Out! responsible recorded. Since 11 January 2008, the game on the European Virtual Console for the Wii gaming console is available.
Action
The teenager Mike Jones, in his avid baseball player who accepts an invitation from his uncle, the archaeologist Dr. Jones, on the fictional tropical island of C- Iceland. When he reached his laboratory, he meets only at Jones Assistant Baboo, which Mike explains that his uncle is missing. From Baboo he receives a with a to R.O.B. resembling robot named NAV -COM equipped submarine with which he sets out in search of Dr. Jones. During his trip, he visited various fictional tropical islands and also airs gradually the mystery surrounding the work of his uncle and his disappearance in related.
Gameplay
The game is divided into an upper world and various villages and dungeons. In the upper world and the villages, which do not require combat or action sequences, recalls the game because of its graphic style, especially the bird's eye view of classic Japanese RPGs of its time. A player's task here is to talk to people to find important items and to discover hidden passages. In particular, the waterways, which Wehrden explored over and under water with the submarine are often constructed like a labyrinth.
In the dungeons, which usually represent caves and underground passages that are traditionally the small sprite game graphic is replaced by a more detailed presentation. Again, hidden passageways must be discovered. Furthermore, there are various puzzles - usually switch puzzles - to cope and fight opponents. For this purpose makes use of the protagonist of a product obtained by the residents of C - Iceland and expandable in the game yo-yos and punches baseball Gern, baseballs and other most unconventional weapons. In addition to an expandable Items by force is depleted there is a certain amount of lives available, which are renewed after the end of the dungeon. If all life is used up, the player is at the beginning of the current dungeons reset, but otherwise has no fear of any negative consequences.
The chaptered game is continuous linear and allows the player hardly freedom to decide his destination, the tasks to be performed or the manner in which this would be done. The module has a memory function.
Special
Star Tropics was a letter from Dr. Jones at Mike. Later in the game it had to be immersed in water to obtain a key for the game information. In the Virtual Console version of this letter is included in the digital game manual.
Despite the predominantly consisting of Japanese development team Startropics never appeared in Japan.
Successor
The official successor Zoda 's Revenge: Star Tropics II from 1994 appeared as a game module only as NTSC version in North America, but has been released as a download available for the Virtual Console in Europe since 10 July 2009.
The gameplay is very similar to that of the first part, the tropical setting was abandoned in favor of a plot about time travel.
Reception
The game was received largely positive from the trade press. The German magazine TOTAL! assessed the gameplay as " a blend of different genres that can fully delight even for a long time ." The Internet portal IGN rated the game 8.5 out of 10.