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1990/Nintendo Review by Polas - 3/15/02 ....Requested by MacDaddy Mike.... |
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1990/Nintendo Review by Polas - 3/15/02 ....Requested by MacDaddy Mike.... |
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 | Introduction |  |
There are several things Nintendo is known for. One is an incredible amount of innovation and fun games. Another is milking something for all it's worth. With the third installment of the heralded Legend Of Zelda series headed back to the roots of the first game, and with it not coming out until the eventual dawn of the Super Nintendo, Nintendo needed a Zelda clone to tide people over. They decided to rip as much as possible from the first two games, modernize the story and game itself, and stick in some new elements for good measure. Startropics was born.
As you can see, subtlety wasn't Nintendo's strong point as far as comparisons are concerned. And it wasn't lost on gamers, because on one hand, Startropics is a very good game, and has gathered a somewhat substantial cult following. On the other hand, Startropics has plummeted into the realm of the forgotten as far as mainstream video game history is concerned. At the time of its release, Nintendo Power magazine treated this game as the second coming of Link, and devoted 2 issues to it. I am in possession of these issues (21-22), and bits and pieces will be scattered across this review for your amusement, as well as to illustrate how damned condescending NP is to its reader base, a trait which remains to this day. But, they did do a Startropics edition of Howard & Nester, and you just don't fuck with Howard & Nester:
Anyway, it turns out that the guy's wife makes Howard a sandwich, and Nester gets the Sub-C to sink by breaking it. Yeah, I know, you can sleep a lot easier now. To NP's credit, I did get most of the enemy/item names from there, instead of having to search my closet for the manual. Yes, I actually own this game; bought it and the sequel for 4 bucks when I found them buried under a shelf at Toys 'R Us a few years ago. Speaking of the game itself, probably about time I started talking about it, huh?
| The Story | |
Remember the in-game Zelda story? Well, Nintendo programmers improved their English a tad since then, but it's still far from perfect:
You get one of these little intros at the beginning of each of the eight "chapters" (levels, dipstick), but perhaps I should elaborate. The main character is Mike Jones, a 15 year old little punk that happens to hail from Seattle, Washington, which is right down the block from Nintendo HQ. He's good at baseball, and, well, I'll let him tell you.
That's basically what it comes down to. And no, my scanner doesn't suck, the pictures were actually drawn that grainy. Instead of listing all the enemies, items, and other crap at the outset, I think we'll tackle this bad boy chapter by chapter and see how it goes. I'll list the items and enemies by the first chapter they appear in, and if I'm off on one or two, tough shit, because Chapter 3 is like 10 times longer than any other and I stopped paying attention for awhile. Here we go.
| Gameplay | |
Chapter 1
Chapter 1, as you might expect, is the "get you used to the game" chapter. You begin by landing on C-Island, which is famous for being somewhat shaped like a C.
No game of this nature would be complete without its fair share of villages, so your first stop is Coralcola. You have to talk to all the funny shaped people before you're allowed to speak to the Chief, who looks about as much a chief as my old Italian bowling coach Joe. He's even got the same gut and mustache.
His main purpose is to tell you that he let your Uncle get kidnapped, and to give you a yo-yo. Big help. Oh, and he lets you know that you need to take a hidden tunnel to get to where your Uncle's assistant and lab are, so you'll have to go find his sister. You poor bastard.
She isn't lying; support is about the only thing you'll get from her. She also yells at you if you die. It's at this point that you realize there are two main aspects of play, similar to both Zeldas. There's the overworld, in which you can't get hurt and do no fighting (Zelda II):
....and the underworld, which is similar to Zelda 1 in design. All the fighting takes place here:
Since we're now ready to put the smack down with our imposing yo-yo, I'll run down the items and enemies that first appear in Chapter 1, as well as do even more comparing to Zelda by using our friend the parenthesis:
YO-YO: This is one of the only games this side of Mother/Earthbound in which a yo-yo is your main weapon, so you damn well better make use of it. Remember the Diskarmor from Rygar (which is essentially a giant yo-yo in itself)? It works pretty much like that, fling it out in front of you, it comes back. It can eventually be upgraded, which is extremely helpful if you're routinely getting your ass kicked with a toy that extends 2 feet in front of you.
STAR: Get five of these, gain back one heart. Left behind often by many enemies.
MEDICINE: This is one of those items that confused the hell out of me at first, because it's a "magic" item, which means you have to press start, then down, to use it. Always read the instructions. Refills several hearts at once, can sometimes be used more than once. Usually found in hidden rooms.
HEARTS: Found in the single, double, and quadruple variety. Enemies leave behind single ones, but not as often as stars. The other varieties, you'll have to get off your lazy ass and find them.
CHEST: Stuff is in there. Mike is a limp-wristed little wuss, so you'll have to hop around between green tiles like an idiot until you find a switch that opens it.
TORCH: Doesn't light up anything, just allows you to shoot fire a short distance. Bleh.
JELLY: (Zol) If you need help beating a Jelly, just leave.
NOCTO: (Keese) The pissed off, faster orange versions don't come until later. They just fly around, pasuing on occasion so you can whack the crap out of them.
LOOPER: (Rope) Like Ropes, they charge if you walk in front of them. However, they remain stationary until then. Purple ones come later, and are faster.
RATTUS: (Those mice from Zelda III, although this game came first) They just have a habit of moving around really fast. Yep.
There's not really much to the C-Tunnel. The basics of killing recycled Zelda enemies and solving semi-recycled Zelda puzzles are introduced, and there's one concept you're going to have to become very familiar with: tiles. Good old dependable tiles, not unlike those lining the floor of your bathroom, except that these are bright green. They're pretty prevalent throughout the game, so pay attention. In most cases, enemies can't hurt you while you're on them, but you can't strut right on to one, you have to jump on, same goes for getting off. Yeah, I know, you're easily entertained, aren't you? Mike can jump the length of one tile, and many puzzles involve jumping from tile to tile to make progress, find switches, etc. There are more types of tiles, but that comes later. So after some basic ass kicking and tile jumping, you end up at the first boss.
Since pretty much everything in this Chapter has to have a C before it, your boss is of course the C-Serpent. He just kind of stays there spitting fire occasionally, which is a good time to jump to the side. Then, waste him with some torch shots, or if you were a moron and used them up, get in close and use the yo-yo, which is a smidge more dangerous. Soon, you'll meet up with Uncle J's assistant Baboo (...) who says something about the kidnapping and gives you access to the Sub-C.
Chapter 2
At the beginning of this chapter, you sail in your newfound submarine right into a female dolphin. After an incredibly annoying series of beeps and noises that are supposed to constitute a conversation between the dolphin and the ship's computer, you find out that her son was kidnapped. Mike decides to help out, and I'm sure this leads to something, but damned if I remember what it is.
The overworld here consists of navigating your funny little orange ship through mazes above and below the surface, talking to the lighthouse couple (as seen in Howard & Nester), and finding a code that sinks your ship so you can find where that little pain in the ass dolphin is. You'll find all kinds of wacky crap on your way, and here's some of it:
BASEBALL BAT: Used for whackin'. Really, that's about all it does. It's powerful, and best used against the boss, along with another item...
BIG HEART: Like Heart Containers, they add hearts to your lifebar. They're found in similar looking hidden rooms, accessible from the Overworld.
SNOWMAN DOLL: This thing only appears once in the whole game, and as such only has one use. While it's not essential in defeating the Chapter 2 boss, it helps out a good deal, particularly if you suck, by freezing him in place.
TRY YOUR LUCK: A variance on the boring old 1-Up system, grabbing one of these will spin it around and either add or subtract up to 3 lives.
PUFF: (Zola) Puff surfaces in different areas and spits a little fireball at you. Pretty tough to kill unless you're really close, pain in the ass level varies by surroundings.
MUD-O-FISH: I'm not even going to ask. It looks something like a cross between a salamander and a trout, and as soon as you kill one, another one scrambles after you. Much like a blind date with an overweight smelly person, it's therefore best not to remain horizontal for an extended period of time, since that's the only way they attack.
SPINISTAR: This little bugger gets itself all wound up, then flies around the room crazy silly style in diagonal patterns. I guess it would be a combination of the Traps and those spinning tiles from Zelda, but let's not get too picky. Plus you can kill these things with a well-timed yo-yo whack.
OCTOT: (Octorok) Instead of spitting rocks, these things have perfected the ability of tile hopping, rivaling that of your own. Since, unlike most enemies, they can track your cowardly ass across tiles, strategic hopping and attacking without falling into the water like a 'tard will be necessary.
This level isn't much more difficult than the last one, although it does introduce the tiles that submerge and surface. After awhile, you find out that the baby dolphin was kidnapped by a giant octopus for reasons unexplained. From now on, whenever people ask me why I haven't been updating, I'll just say "giant octopus" and be done with it.
Ah shiznit, I already told you how to beat him. At first, he stays at the top of the screen firing ink balls at you. Now, knowing full well you can't hit him from your position, and that you'd eventually get tired of dodging and jump in the water to end your meaningless existence, he still rushes in for a closer look so you can freeze him there and belt the shit out of him with a bat. Bosses generally aren't vert smart, is what it comes down to. After you save the dolphin, the mom dolphin thanks you, and leads you right into a storm that wrecks your ship. Nice.
Chapter 3
This is the part of the game where you decide whether or not you like it, because as previously mentioned, this chapter takes about 17 times as long to complete as any other chapter in the game. No particular reason why that is, they just lumped a bunch of portions of the game that could have been individual chapters together in order to fit the story better. I'm not looking forward to all of this damn typing, but regardless, here are the Chapter 3 enemies & items:
MORNING STAR: When you stumble upon a village comprised solely of lesbian gladiators, the head one feels sorry for you and your stupid-ass yo-yo, and gives you this. It's longer and more powerful than the yo-yo, but the catch is that you need to have 6 or more hearts full to use it. I never got that logic; is Doki Doki Yuenchi the only game that makes your weapons MORE powerful as you get your ass kicked? I mean, if you're totally eating it, you should get all the help you can get.
ROD OF SIGHT: In the Graveyard section of the chapter, lets you see Minies. Sounds pretty useless, but you won't be saying that after you smack right into a bunch of them, smartass. Also, killing certain Minies sometimes triggers stuff. Good stuff.
CLOCK: Freezes enemies for a limited time. Yeah, I know, surprises abound. Sometimes it just slows enemies down though, making you look like quite the jackass if you're not prepared for that.
BOLA: Ripped straight out of Batman's utility belt, you can chuck these things across the screen at enemies.
SLINGSHOT: Does the same fucking thing as the Bola, just in a different area. That reminds me, once you leave the Underworld and enter an Overworld area, you lose all your items, except for your primary weapon. Sucks to be you.
LANTERN: Unlike the Torch, this actually serves the purpose of lighting dark areas. Imagine that.
MIRACLE MIRROR: Reflects the spells of the Dimhags. Don't ask, I'll get to it.
DODO: Wander around slowly and aimlessly. That's about it.
NINJA MONKEY: Doesn't matter what they can do; it's a freaking Ninja Monkey, isn't that enough? I wish I had a Ninja Monkey. The only question I have, is how does having wings on your back make you a ninja? Ah well, the mysteries of the monkey are many.
BONEHEAD: Rather than fathom the illegal substances that were inhaled to spawn the design of this thing, I'll just tell you that when you get anywhere near it, it charges at you like a mad ....ostrich with a skull head, and does so until you elude it by rounding some tiles or a body of water and create some distance.
GADFLY: Much like real flies, they fly around in hard-to-smack patterns and bug the hell out of you. Get it? Bug? I rule.
MAD MUDDY: Like Puff, he emerges from the depths all scary-like and spits crap at you.
BONEDOG: See Dodo. They really should have split this chapter up.
SKULL: Instead of walking around aimlessly, they hop around aimlessly. A little faster than the generic-ish enemies, however.
MINI: (Ghini ... hey, that rhymes) As stated earlier, the only way to see them is with the Rod of Light. Usually they remain stationary, but not always, and in that case, you're screwed without your rod ... er, yeah. Killing them can open doors or activate switches.
MUMU: (Gidbo) Not quite sure what a mummy has to do with fatwear, but eh, we press on. Actually, these guys are very much like their Zelda counterparts; slow of foot, but do heavy damage if they close in on you.
DIMHAG: (Wizzrobe) They shoot the spells at you the same way Wizzrobes do in Zelda 1, but here, you can reflect the spells right back at them a la Zelda II. And yes, that's the only way to kill them.
MR ARMSTRONG: Whoever came up with this name either deserves a sticker or a kick in the ass, I haven't decided. That said, they rise up at the floor and playfully chuck a ball at you. I almost felt bad killing them.
GOGGLIN: (Those red eye things from Zelda II, you know, after you get the raft) If these things have their eye closed, you're good. If the eye opens, your ass is taking some damage when they fly at you. Unlike the red eye things from Zelda, you can bitchslap these things with their eye closed and still take them out.
FROPPA: They attack in the same fashion as the Mud-O-Fish, but look like balding bird creatures in green pajamas. I think that's about all that needs to be said.
BIG BULLY: This creatively-named fellow beats the shit out of you if you get close, worse than the Mumus even. So keep your distance.
Like I said, you begin Chapter 3 shipwrecked by a storm, and your objective is to get your ship fixed. If only it were that simple. For starters, your fate rests with a guy that looks like this:
...So basically, it's the Chief from before with a perm, a stupid mustache, and wrapped in a burrito. The only way he'll fix your ship is if you save his fat daughter, who's been sleeping for a long time because of some evil presence, which is everyone's favorite explanation for everything. The only guy that can cure her is some hermit dude on a mountain somewhere, and to get there, you'll have to go through:
...an underground tunnel with rows of sinking tiles, a fake exit, and the bola, just to reach the village of the stupid known as Miracola....
...plow through a molten tunnel full of Mad Muddies, a boss and homing fire to find the lesbian village of Shecola, where a fortune teller will perform the first-ever sex change seen in a Nintendo game, allowing you entry, as well as prompting that pedophile-looking guy to hit on you....
...yeah, did I mention there's another underworld area in between, since you need to go into a graveyard (what's an adventure game without a graveyard?), beat another boss, and waddle around in the dark, jumping straight into water pits if you don't have a Lantern? Well, there is, and you have to get though it to drain a lake, since that idiot fortune teller I mentioned dropped her crystal ball in there. Not only that...
...you're damn right I'm fantastic, having gone through four lengthy underground areas, two bosses, and a temporary sex change, which allowed me to get the Morning Star from a chick that looks like this:
Yeah, she's not a dike. OK. All you do in the next chapter is wander around a damn maze until you find a cigarette lighter, and this one had all the aforementioned crap. And speaking of those two bosses, let's meet them:
....
First up is Magma, a boss which actually switches things up, since he's invincible and all. Therefore, you're going to have to hop around all those little tiles looking for the two that activate switches, and then hop to whatever tile the switch appears, all while avoiding fire in both breath and ball form. Or, you could just look at the damn picture, which shows you where everything is thanks to my hard work. After you trip the switches and send him into the drink Donkey Kong style, you'll be off to (much later and in a different area) fight Maxie, a cute play on "Mini", the name of the regular ghosts. At least he's the first boss since Chapter 1 that isn't "The something". Although he looks like he took about 2 minutes to create on MS Paint, Maxie can be quite a pain, since there's a bunch of pot fire and Minis coming at you while he flies in erratic patterns. But I have faith in you, loyal reader ... all right, that's a lie, but I'm tired of this chapter and want to move on.
When that geyser shoots you up to, at long last, the Hermit, you get the stupidest sounding spell in history.
Ye gods. But it does work, and the Chief's fat daughter wakes up and asks for a banana cream pie, and hilarity ensues ... no it doesn't. However, it concludes the neverending Chapter. Hurrah.
Chapter 4
Starting off, things kick off as they normally would, find a new, albeit chiefless village, and talk to the local morons.
I wonder if he has a slave that addresses him as "master". :Ahem: Moving on. You learn that someone else from C-Island was headed east earlier, so it'd probably be a good idea to follow suit. In doing so, you get eaten by a very round whale. Yep.
You also stumble across Dr. J's useless assistant Baboo, who also got swallowed up. Putting your heads together, the best escape you can come up with is trying to get the whale to sneeze by starting a fire. If you think that's stupid, Baboo let his lighter get away while he was being eaten. Guess who's going to go find it? So essentially, this entire chapter is using the Sub-C to navigate a large, cavernous maze, with darkspots and whirlpools, until you eventually stop getting lost and get to the big payoff:
As fun as it sounds. Although the game itself is nowhere near as bad, you can pretty much liken Chapter 4 in Startropics to the Haunted House in Bebe's Kids. Anyhow, the lighter works, and the whale sneezes you into the next Chapter. If you're wondering why I didn't cover new items, enemies, and bosses, it's because there are none. Let us never speak of Chapter 4 again.
Chapter 5
We're finally back to normal, as Chapter 5 consists of an standard village intro, ONE huge underground level, and some other crap. But as we're well aware of, each Chapter presents us with a new ridiculous problem. Here's the latest one:
That's right, there's a bigass pirate ship in your way. Now see, what I would probably do is try to go under it in my damned submarine, but hey, what does Polas know, we'll just do things the hard way and run for our lives away from giant bowling balls. Before we get to that, you have to actually find a way into Captain Bell's (the asshole who parallel parked across the strait many years ago) cave in order to sink the ship.
To do this, you'll of course have to travel to a distant island ust to pick up a lousy worm, which you'll use to bribe a descendant of Captain Bell's parrot (you read that correctly), named Peter, to tell you what notes to play on a gigantic pipe organ, which happens to be installed in Captain Bell's tomb. "Nah, forget locking the door, I'll just install a giant fucking organ next to my dead body instead! Arrrr!" "Hey captain, instead of burying the treasure all the time, why not use it to buy things? Things we like?" BLAM. -Pirate logic.
WORM: Gee, can you tell I'm at a loss for new items here?
MEGATON: See, this is what I'm talking about, any game that has giant bowling balls rolling after you in narrow caverns has to be good. One hit takes you out completely, adding to the Megaton's coolness, unless you get hit, then it kinda sucks.
PINK BULLY: The Big Bully is back, but has gotten fruitier and more powerful. I would have stuck him with his purple buddy back in Chapter 3, but come on, it's not like the Chapter 5 enemy roster needs to be even sadder.
PIRATE GHOUL: Straight out of Scooby Doo, or to a lesser extent South Park, these guys are just about as dangerous, in that you'll probably only get hit if you're a cowardly hippie or a stupid talking dog.
PINBALL: Stationary until you whack them (often necessary to progress), then fly at high speeds back and forth, forcing some well-timed jumps. Between these and the Megatons, this confirms Captain Bell's love for balls of all shapes and sizes. Bad, even for me, I know.
All right, fine, there's no boss in this one. The underworld portion is fairly vast and difficult, there are giant bowling balls, what more do you want? To sink the Cap'n's ship, you have to locate a passage that leads you to a big wheel, which if turned fills the ship with water and bottoms it, allowing you safe passage to Chapter 6, where it all hits the fan.
Chapter 6
OK, it's go time. The Chapter starts out pretty crappily, as you first come across the worst-named village in any game ever:
I hope someone got plunked with a yo-yo for that. After leaving the village, you'll have to take the Sub-C around and under streams and islands using a Dragon Warrior style of navigation - that is, the ship will say something like "North 45, East 21", and so forth, until you find the spot. This is insanely annoying, especially when it starts beeping at you. Luckily, you'll (hopefully) soon find the right spot to submerge, and make your way into the ancient ruins. As you can see above, you'll find yet another bowling ball, but this one is huge and is actually a meteorite. Oh, and there's STUFF:
APPLE: The apple is the crappiest item in the game. Sometimes I'll call an item or ability useless, and I'll be exaggerating just a bit. No BS here folks, the apple doesn't do a damn thing, it's just there, in the middle of an island. You heard me, nothing; get out of here before I chuck it at your screen door.
ANKLET: At the price of having to look like a drag queen, your shirt will turn yellow and you'll be granted the ability to leap the length of two tiles, rather than one. As you may have guessed, they appear mostly in rooms where there are many distances of two tiles. Once you leave a room, it's gone until you grab another one.
SPIKES: I think they only appear once, but they're pretty useful. Mike does this fruity little karate kick that takes out every enemy on the screen. They're basically in the game for one room only, a room which contains an enemy that appears once in the entire game, and let's move on because I'm only 2 1/2 chapters away from being done with this damn thing.
WONDER HORSEHIDE: Given such a stupendous name to disguise the fact that it's a damn red baseball that's just like every other item you can throw at stuff.
ASTERIK: (*) I've seen these in many games by many names, but never as "asterik". This is probably the coolest weapon in the game, because once you toss it in front of you, you can tap the control pad to send two blades left and right at the same time.
ARMET: A shell-like creature that boringly floats around the room waiting for you to end its pitiful existence.
SQUIDO: There's one room where a bunch of them are floating around aimlessly, here's where the Spikes come into play.
URCHIN: Exactly the same as the Silver Ball from earlier, but it's ALIVE! Bwahahaha ... yeah.
FUZZ: (Bubble) Just like the Bubbles from Zelda, these babies leave you temporarily incacpable of attacking.
BITER: This may come as a bit of a shock, but they crawl around the room attempting to bite you. I couldn't believe it either.
DAGGER: As you can see, the Daggers rise up out of the ground in a vicious attempt to rip you a new one, or perhaps forcibly violate your old one. Hope you've got jumping down.
ROCKY: (Balboa) He's kind of a pain in the ass, because he teleports in horizontal lines, does more damage than most enemies, and can only be hit when solid. Plus he camouflages into the floor thanks to lovable old NES graphics.
Chapter 6, once you make it into the Ancient Ruins, is comprised of "brief overworld mazeish sequence in cave, small but tough Underworld segment, repeat". Along the way, you'll fight enemies that range from mini to sub as far as boss levels are concerned, but since they're not the fat statues at the end of the level, I'll just go and talk about them here:
I don't know what the hell Turboss is supposed to be, or how he ended up with such a cheesy name, but he fights in the exact same way as Octo the Huge, except you don't have the luxury of freezing him with a little snowman and whacking the hell out of him this time. The Hoodoo Doll, despite having an even stupider name due to Nintendo's fear of anything mildly controversial, is somewhat of a threat, especially when two attack you at once, since they can fire in 8 directions and move around pretty quick. Broken Joe just kind of hops veritically and spits worms at you. These bosses are even less interesting to talk about than I thought they'd be. Ah well, at least it's now time for the big daddies:
These guys were pretty much built for the sole purpose of giving the Asterik a decent use, but it's still somewhat gratifying to split them in midair and crack these stupid statues' heads open. Do this while avoiding lots of fireballs and all will be well. Then, at long last, you meet up with your elusive Uncle, Julius Irving ... I mean Steve Jones, the other, less dunktastic Doctor J.
...Sigh. Everything was going so well, a simple little quest with idiotic objectives with the sole intention of finding the Doc in a tropical setting, and then they had to go and play the wacky alien/ultra-powerful meteor card. No matter how many times I have to say that, I never quite get used to it.
Chapter 7
This is where the nitty meets the gritty. Sorry. After boarding the ship, it takes off and you're stuck in what can definitely be considered a level worthy of the title of "last", because it can be pretty fucking hard at times. And here's a look at why that is:
SUPERNOVA: The most powerful of the "main weapon" trifecta, it damn well better be since you don't get it until midway through this Chapter. You need 11 full hearts to use it, but it does go the entire length of the screen. Found inside of a shiny orange cube. :Nods:
MEGAVITAMIN: On loan from Dr. Mario, one of these not only automatically maxes out your hearts, but gives you two full rows worth. However, they steadily decrease until you eventually get back to wherever your hearts were beforehand. I know, it's confusing; just follow the motto that most of my friends do, "pills = good", and you'll be fine. In the game, anyway.
BLASTER: Take a guess. If you said "blasts things", you've been paying attention, Captain Obvious. The standard model gives you 50 shots, and there's a better version that gives you 20, but is a lot more powerful (Super Lazer), however, I can't seem to find the screenshot, so you're screwed on that one. Wait, never mind, here it is; damned if I'm doing the graphic over though: 
SATELLITES: They float around trying to slam into you, and the red ones also fire on your ass. Especially painful in areas littered with pits and tiles, which I'm assuming was alien technology all along brought to C Island and every other damn level in the game at some other point in history.
TROOPERS: Nasty things that take a hell of a lot of damage and dish out even more, especially the green ones, which can fire the length of the screen. Also move in quick, erratic fashion, making your life even more miserable.
Not pictured are gun turrets, death discs, electropulses, and guys that dash by you on hoverbikes, because I was spending too much time trying to NOT DIE. I mean jeez, look at this crap:
To make matters worse, the first part of the Chapter is a confusing labyrinth-like area, with paths to nowhere, warps, fake routes, and enemies up the blowhole. Once you eventually discover the correct way to go after getting roasted by Green Troopers for the umpteenth time, you'll meet the Silver Trooper minibosses. This is basically a battle of firepower, and if you come out on top, the Orange Cube is yours, and the Supernova with it. And yes, the Orange Cube was one of three that were stolen from the round holes of the meteor/bowling ball thing; best to abandon all logic in situations such as these.
Part 2 of this level isn't nearly as frustrating as the last part since it's a bit more like earlier underworld levels in its design, but there are still some areas that can be a real kick in the Somocho, such as the one with the Green Troopers and electropulses shown above. Eventually, you'll come upon another miniboss...
...yet another trooper, this one big and copper, who charges and shoots at you. Just when you're about to be saturated in the psuedo-Star Wars theme, a few more rooms lead you to:
Long range weapons get it done here, as it's a back and forth battle to knock big green & ugly off of the ledge, in addition to tripping the switch in the center that allows you to do so while avoiding his blasts. Afterwards, there's a brief overworld maze that nets you the Blue Cube, which maxes out your heart level at 16. But we're still not done yet...
Chapter 8
The final final level is a mix of side-scrolling, more troopers, and the final boss, Zoda.
You actually meet up with Zoda pretty early on, who telepathically calls you a little pussy, or something like that; I don't remember. To counter this mental barrage, Mike sticks bananas in his ears. I really wish I was making that up, but I assure you, I am not. On that note, the battle begins.
Sure, the hand sweep that kills you in one hit is all well and good, but you know a last boss is badass when he fires his eyeballs at you. But of course, in most games of this nature, the last boss isn't really the last boss. So after you blast Zoda to kingdom come, he turns into a space dinosaur and runs away. After some tough side-scrolling and blowing up the ship's engine, it is time:
Final Zoda attempts to kill you by shooting spider things at you and by trying to sit on you. He also shoots belly fire at you, probably learned from you-know-who during a journey to Babylonia. One touch from Dino-Zoda takes you out, so again, distance is important as you blast his ass to solar hell. The Cubes are safe at last...
...which I guess somehow saves the world. The ending is actually pretty good; it has a nonsensical conclusion, alien kids living inside the green cube that are all happy, exploration of a happy Coralcola, and lots of cinema scenes. So ends our long and ardous journey. Just one more thing:
| Conclusion | |
This is by far the biggest review I've ever done, and while there are certainly better games, and most definitely weirder ones, you'll still probably have a lot of fun getting through this one, unless you have to write two gigantic pages about it. I hope you liked this review, because it damn sure took me long enough to finish. So from this point on, if I ever get the urge to leave my next review to the mercy of a poll, and/or get the inclination to cover a gigantic action/adventure/RPG/whatever the hell kind of game Startropics is, please smack me upside the head with a yo-yo.
....