Startropics is awesome

[A Black Falcon]

I'm in the sixth chapter now (out of eight), first dungeon (there are two in this chapter). The game's challenging, and I'll admit I've used GameFAQs some (particularly for level maps, more so than for walkthrough text), but it's a great game. Well-designed puzzles, fantastic dungeons, good combat... it's like NES Zelda, but linear, less random, and really, really fun. I mean, Zelda 1 feels pretty archaic now, with the hidden walls you can't find without random bombing things, the totally non-linear "wander around and find the dungeons for yourself" design, etc, but StarTropics feels a lot more modern in design. Sure, it has a lot of hidden passages, but they're always hinted at with some small graphical clue, if you look close enough...

Decent writing too, for a Nintendo NES game. Great tropical theme to the game as well. And some pretty good music. The whole design just works really well. This is one I'm definitely trying to finish. :)

And then I have a StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge cart sitting there too, for when I do...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well I'd say in Zelda 1 the walls you could bomb were often hinted at by looking at the map itself. Generally, if you noticed a big black square surrounded by rooms you've been in, chances are there's a way to get in that room. This is also true of a lot of the outdoor places. If there's a big strange looking rock in the middle of a field, chances are you should try doing something to get in there.

That said, the game did have it's share of completely random "hintless" stuff too, such as a huge line of bushes where exactly one can be burned along several screens, but there's no indication which one, or even that one should be considered curious.

Nonlinear dungeons were one of my favorite parts of that game though. Today's Zelda games should attempt for more of that if you ask me. "Find them yourself" worked fine as the entrances for all of them were pretty strongly hinted at throughout the game.

[A Black Falcon]

That is true, while StarTropics takes a lot from Zelda, it's pretty much totally linear. I don't mind at all, because it makes it a lot easier to play, as I said, and NES Zelda's idea of linear kind of annoys me due to its randomness, but some people may.

Still, as I said, I think I'd rather play StarTropics now, from a modern-gaming standpoint, than Zelda 1... it does feel a lot less archaic, thanks to things like how all of the hidden passages do have subtle visual clues that they are there.

For example --

-First, the standard dungeon puzzle in the game is "jump on all the tiles on the screen until you find the one that makes a button or item appear, then get the item or jump on the button." Those tiles are probably the game's defining feature in the dungeon... if you haven't played it, in Startropics 1 you can only jump straight up unless you're jumping onto a tile or across a gap. And "activate the tile-buttons" is, as I said, the game's core puzzle.

-If there is a hidden passage in a wall, there's a small bit of darker shading on the square next to the wall.

-If you can travel through the wall off the edge of the screen, when you move towards that wall the screen will scroll, showing that there's more to the right or left that you can't see.

-In the overworld in the sub, squares you can dive in (to travel to another square) are darker blue than the normal sea squares.

-In the sub, places where you can travel through a hidden passage through an island have occasional 'bubbles' or 'tide' or something animations on the squares on both ends.

-Some puzzles require you to kill an invisible enemy to make the exit appear ("kill all of the visible enemies" rooms are pretty obvious of course). You make the invisible enemy appear by using one use of a 'make invisible things visible' staff item you get in the dungeon. Each staff has four uses, and you'll get the item near the place where you'll need to use it... so if you ever get one of them, you'll know "hmm, okay, I need to use this soon, particularly if seem stuck".


Now, it's not perfect. There are still some truly hidden elements, such as:

-The dungeon you need to find in the graveyard -- you have to try to walk into all of the graves until you find the one you can go into. I can't see a visual difference between it and the others.

-Some hidden passages in the overworld, through mountain tiles particularly, are invinsible and you simply have to find them by trying to walk into those tiles. Sometimes this is obvious -- like "I want taht big heart over there, there's got to be a passage here right?" but sometimes it's trickier, like the path to one of the dungeons in level 5... you have to figure out that you need to go right at one point instead of up, which leads to a dead end. Of course, given the limited sizes of the overworlds in each chapter, you simply keep trying in that one area until you find your way; because of the linear design it's obvious WHERE you are supposed to be -- here, the only place you can be. You simply need to figure out where to go in that area.

-There is one puzzle rooms with invisible holes on the floor, where you need to figure out the path. But there's some help -- enemies, which only move on the actual squares. Watch where they go and you'll figure out where the floor is...

... even so of course a few times I've gotten stuck, not noticing things like the subtle shading of a passage, or that this room has a hidden enemy in it I need to destroy, or something like that. But still, overall, great fun game. :)

[A Black Falcon]

Whew, managed to get through 7-1... now I'm on the second dungeon of world 7. Pretty fun dungeon, really... tough, but fun. :)

[A Black Falcon]

... Yeah, that took a while. Finally beat dungeon 7-2, the second and last dungeon of world seven... on to dungeon 8, the final dungeon in the game. ... Erm, on first sight, yes, this is indeed hard. Very hard, just like both dungeons of world seven. Still though, it's an amazingly good game... hard, but amazingly good!

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, I finally did it! Wow... awesome, AWESOME game! Very highly recommended! Great, long ending, too... this is very far from a "Congraturation" ending, that's for sure. The final level and boss was pretty cool... challenging, but not too hard. The final boss was kind of a pain because he'd kill you instantly if he touched you (though his shots just did normal damage), but if you were prepared properly (with all the items from the stage) and stay away from him, he'll go down. This has got to be one of the best games I have for the NES... just a great, great game from beginning to end. It took me a while to finish (got it last summer, and I've been playing it off and on ever since), but it's oh so worth it... it's challenging for sure, but not overly cruel, random, or confusing. You're always in an area of limited size, so you know that the thing you have to do will be somewhere nearby. Sometimes there are random things like having to figure out which identical mountain tiles you can walk into, but most of the time those things are marked, with slightly different tiles for instance. Dungeons are very well designed and interesting. The tile system works well, and the game is technical and requires precision, but is always fun. I would highly recommend using a turbo controller of some kind, though! You have to press jump every time when crossing those tile fields, and that's kind of a pain when you can't just turn on the turbo for that... it's also a huge help for attacking quickly. I had turbo on for both buttons on my Advantage the whole time I was playing, that's for sure.

Anyway, awesome game, very fun, lots of challenge, but doable, has saving... for a NES game, it couldn't be much better, really. :)