StarTropics (1990) [NES]

Everyone has expectations. You just don’t want to have them dashed, so you’re quiet about them.
-Josh Radnor

When people reminisce about the NES library’s forgotten legends, StarTropics usually gets a mention. A small game with large aspirations, this top-down action/adventure title charmed the pants off gamers and critics upon its 1990 release.

But before we dive into the 8-Bit Review, we need context. StarTropics was developed by Nintendo’s R&D 3. Primarily responsible for hardware innovations, the team occasionally delved into game design, most notably Punch-Out!!. While developers typically created games for the Japanese market, lead designer Genyo Takeda decided their new project should be geared towards the Western Hemisphere.

The result was the rare example of a game only being released in North America, not the other way around. From the relaxed setting of tropical islands to a host of Western references, StarTropics leans into its target audience, creating a game that feels oddly “at home” for us Americans.

You play as star baseball player Mike Jones who travels to the far-flung land of C-Island to visit his Indiana Jones-esqe archaeologist uncle–wait for it–Dr. Jones. Upon landing, he quickly learns Dr. Jones has gone missing. Armed with his trusty yo-yo, a submarine, and his plucky sense of adventure, Mike embarks on a quest to find his uncle.

Along the way, Mike meets a cavalcade of charming characters. From rotund village chiefs to his ever-upbeat submarine robot, the game is filled with memorable moments. As Mike descends into the mystery of his uncle’s disappearance, the game shifts from lighthearted island adventure to bizarre arenas and areas. In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I’ll keep the details close to my vest, but suffice to say the game goes to strange, unexpected places.

But how does it hold up now? Can the lovable world of C-Island and its quirky denizens continue to capture the imagination or does its bizarre control scheme and face-grating difficulty scratch the shine off this well-regarded gem? Time to find out.

 Visuals: 8/10

The charming world of C-Island is depicted through a simplistic but endearing visual style. The game trades graphical fidelity and detail for bright colors, large non-NPC renderings, and an easy, breezy, aesthetic. As the game descends (or ascends) into the surreal, the art design keeps pace. Assets in the game rarely feel recycled, creating a varied world that’s a treat to traverse.

The shining visual stars are the impressive boss battles. From giant octopi to screaming Easter Island heads to truly terrifying creatures, the big baddies look stunning and imposing due to their size and design. Even your basic enemies vary with each level and are thoughtfully created. Nothing here is top of class, but the design is unique and engaging.

But they’re not without flaws. Objects, enemies, and even projectiles occasionally mix with the backdrop, especially in underground lairs. Villages, while peppered with amusing characters, lack visual distinction and come off bland overall.

The overworld map leaves a lot to be desired as well. While not a major source of concern, the barely 8-bit fidelity makes it feel like it’s from a different system, let alone game. Like everything else, the scenery changes with the story, but I never had a great time exploring non-dungeon environments.

But none of that seriously hampers the visual variety and sheer joy the world of C-Island has to offer. It’s a treat for the senses.

 Audio: 8/10

StarTropics‘ OST is a charming and pleasant blend of island adventure themes and harried battle tunes. The main overworld theme is fantastic as it bounces and pops, nicely setting the tone for the journey ahead. Similarly, the dungeon track amps the intensity through driving bass and an urgent main synth line. The boss battle track appropriately soundtracks the manic bullet hell of the encounters, while cruising around in Sub-C (your trusty submarine) presents a languid, laid back vibe akin to sailing the open seas.

Sound effects are fine and workmanlike for the most part. Smacking enemies with your yo-yo produces a satisfying crunch while exploding doors feel equally bombastic. Everything else serves its purpose in an unobtrusive, 8-bit NES way. (spoilers: highlight to reveal) And let’s not forget the masterful cover of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” as the Americola sinks to the bottom of the sea. Considering the game was made for American audiences, the joke lands beautifully. And the song is public domain, so why not?

Gameplay: 4/10

At its core, Startropics plays in two arenas: cruising a top down overworld looking for new areas to explore and Legend of Zelda style dungeons. Despite its size, variety, and creativity, the world of StarTropics is essentially a straight line. I’m a “gotta find it all” style player and I was disappointed to find little in the way of secret passages and hidden nooks. While there’s occasional traversal puzzles (a particularly repetitive water portal section springs to mind) and barely hidden pickups, it’s never challenging or interesting enough to break up the tedium.

On the other side of the spectrum, dungeons are where the bulk of the gameplay lives. Startropics‘ lineage and inspiration is clearly tied to The Legend of Zelda with all the pluses and minuses of that title. Mike’s main yo-yo weapon functions much like a sword and is upgradable with time. Every area also contains at least one special weapon designed to make the boss encounters easier. Despite having to awkwardly navigate to a sub menu to equip those weapons, your tools of the trade are helpful, if not cryptic.

Where StarTropics differs is in movement. Everything in the game, from block jumping to standard walking, is grid based. Tapping the directional button snaps Mike to a visible or invisible square – only it’s not a snap. With every directional tap, Mike has a half second turn animation which slows the game and messed with my timing. It may seem like a quibble, but when Link is infinitely nimbler in a similar setting, it makes the extra movement tax harder to swallow.

On top of the restricted freedom of movement, enemies are not required to conform to the standard. They have free range, making many of the rooms closer to puzzles than true action. Around the midway point, I got used to the controls, but the journey there was a frustrating one.

But this wouldn’t be a serious problem if the penalty for failure wasn’t so high. Mix the restricted movement with inevitable first-time damage and gotcha instant deaths (a blind jump into a giant pond filled with skeletons comes to mind), and you have a game designed around memorization and repetition. Problem is, like its big gold cart brother, upon death, Mike starts from the beginning or a rare checkpoint with three hearts. Unlike Zelda, your weapons are gone and there’s no opportunity to wander an overworld to re-fill and re-equip. Enemies drop the occasional star and heart as health pickups, but they’re few and far between. And you have finite lives. And if you run out, it’s back to beginning of the level.

For some baffling reason, StarTropics revels in dis-empowering the player. Special weapons disappear after both death and finishing a dungeon. As you take damage, you lose crucial yo-yo upgrades, punishing players for making mistakes in challenging areas. Some special weapons, a few of which are required to defeat the boss, are never explained in the manual and require copious trial and error, problematic when you barely have enough to tackle the level. Heaven help you if you confront the octopus without a snowman or the Easter Island head without the baseball. Might as well start over.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. A well-implemented jump attack, once mastered, made combat easier and boss battles were across the board successes. Another major mechanic of the game is finding switches and hidden walls. While it might have been helpful for the game to do some sort of signaling, level design made it a non-issue. My “gotta explore it all” itch was scratched.

Once you realize the game is more about anticipation than reaction, the gameplay locks into place. Later levels are bullet hell nightmares, but the game ramps up the health pickups and weapons to make it palatable. Still, save states were my best friend throughout my playthrough.

And you can’t avoid or ignore the spice. Like its visuals, StarTropics succeeds on the back of its gameplay variety. From engaging with a whale spout to the famous “dip the physical letter from the game box in water to find the code” trick, the pure candy-coated flavor drove me forward. Much of it requires tribal knowledge on a playground (or a handy FAQ), but it’s hard to deny its inventiveness.

 Narrative 8/10

StarTropics’ core story is a straight-forward one. Mike arrives to C-Island to find his uncle missing and embarks on a quest to find him. What happens on the way is close to special. A late game reveal and twist blew my mind and opened another world of possibilities. For an NES game, the feint was stellar and elevated the story from standard to memorable.

Side quests and stories range from amusing to great. Saving an adorable dolphin from an evil octopus allowed for a heart warming moment while the colorful characters gave the story life and lift. It’s not Final Fantasy, but for a windswept island adventure, there’s a surprising amount of meat on StarTropics’ narrative bones.

 Challenge: 4/10

A common theme among retro gamers is the nature of challenge. Slap on a Game Genie and a title that took you months to complete as a kid can be blown through in twenty minutes. In the early NES days, challenge was the padding required to make a game worth your $50.

In my opinion, I can’t play a game with 1990’s eyes. Since I played StarTropics for the first time as a grizzled near-40 year old, I did so with modern sensibilities and critical values. As such, much of the challenge here is simply unfair and tuned to punish the player unjustly for mistakes and failure.

The central issue is where the difficulty is centered. Here, challenge revolves around mechanics as opposed to game design. While the world of C-Island and its surrounding environments escalate appropriately, the base mechanics make you ill-equipped to improve along with the increasing difficulty. The result is a disproportionate amount of frustrating deaths, level restarts and worst of all, playing the same stretch of game repeatedly.

Without igniting years’ worth of challenge discourse, difficulty in games can be approached with either tact or tedium. StarTropics, either through design or simply being an 8-bit game in an 8-bit world, opts for the latter. And as a modern gamer with modern thumbs, many of the game’s difficulty spikes and unfair systems are too much to ignore.

 Replayability: 7/10

Normally games of this vintage offer little in the way of replay value, and on the surface, StarTropics is no exception. Dig deeper, however, and this is an adventure worth experiencing repeatedly, especially as you master the janky mechanics. While I often chafe at the “style over substance” argument, in this situation, the game’s eternal charm and inventiveness is worth revisiting on a yearly basis. I’d have no trouble firing this up again in 2020, especially since I know what I’m getting into.

 Uniqueness: 9/10

For all its flaws on my thumbs, I’ve never quite played anything like StarTropics and I’m not sure I ever will again. For all its familiar dungeon crawler trappings, the control scheme, setting, and smile-inducing charm is hard to match. Distinctive in tone, style, and implementation, StarTropics is a singular experience for all the reasons above, good or bad.

 My Personal Grade: 6/10

Despite my multiple frustrations, countless deaths, and whispered curses every time Mike took forever to turn around, StarTropics is a game I’m glad I stuck out to the end. Like a candy-coated donut made of bubble gum, StarTropics looks the part of a classic but sadly required too much chewing to fully enjoy.

But in the end, I’m a sucker for innovation and this plucky 1990’s adventure title has that in spades. If the developers dialed down the frustration, provided true freedom of movement, and let me take my baseball with me from dungeon to dungeon, this would be the unsung classic many fans claim it is. As it sits, it’s a stylish and charming example of how poor game design decisions can mar what could be something special.

Aggregated Score: 6.8

Writer, gamer, and beer geek, The Thunder Mage conjures words from the ether for a number of sites and publications. He currently serves as Lead Blogger and Music Writer for https://www.theaustinot.com (Austin culture) and has written for Texas Highways magazine, the Entertainment Weekly blogging community, and various film review sites. When he’s not mixing literary alchemy, he enjoys chasing his three-year-old around and advocating for video game accessibility on Twitter to the git gud sect.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider becoming a Warrior of Light and join us in restoring integrity and quality to games writing. We specialize in long-form, analytical reviews and we aim to expand into a community of authors with paid contributors, a fairer and happier alternative to mainstream games writing! See our Patreon page for more info!