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''StarTropics'' is an action-adventure video game released by [[Nintendo]] in 1990.
After a short while, Mike discovers that his uncle was abducted by aliens. After a series of sidequests involving talking dolphins, witch doctors, a giant octopus, an obstinate parrot
The sequel
The games are overhead-scrolling dungeon crawlers reminiscent of ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' with a few twists, such as the ability to jump. The first game features a distinctive control system where all player and enemy movements take place on a grid, limiting where you can stop or turn but making it easy to line up jumps and attacks. The sequel uses a more conventional system where you can stop or turn at any time. [[Contested Sequel|Opinions differ]] as to which scheme is better.
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* [[The All-American Boy]]: Mike's All-American-ness -- contrasted with and found strange by the natives of the islands he's visiting -- is a large part of the game's humor and tone.
* [[An Axe to Grind]]: The first weapon Mike gets in the sequel.
* [[Bag of Spilling]]: Because losing everything between games isn't annoying enough, you lose all of your medicine, special weapons
* [[Big Bad]]: Zoda.
* [[Boss Rush]]:
* [[Brick Joke]]: In the beginning of Chapter 8 of the first game, you jam bananas in your ears so you can't hear Zoda's gloating. In the ending sequence of the second game, a character mentions that you still have them in your ears.
* [[But Thou Must!]]: Whenever Mike is asked if he'll do something, the game will not proceed until you give the answer the game is looking for. So literally that if you're given a yes/no question, and you answer "no", the game will just repeat the question over and over and over and over until you say "yes". A few times, notably talking to King Arthur in the sequel, you can say no, but this just means you can't progress at all. You have to walk outside, come back in, and ask him again.
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Mike is referred to as an ace pitcher frequently, this skill is required to defeat a boss. It's also apparently why he's so good at using the yo-yo as a weapon.
* [[Collision Damage]]: In both games, touching any enemy or traps will do (often severe) damage. In the first game, [[Mini Boss|Mini Bosses]] and above will kill you instantly on contact.
* [[Continuing Is Painful]]: If you die at any point, you restart with only 3 hearts. This wouldn't be so bad if
** You also lose any medicine and special items you might possess, and depending on where the game places you back, you generally won't have a chance to recover them.
** In the sequel, you had a psychic attack that got weaker as you lost health, but your regular weapon always stayed the same strength, taking some of the pain out of continuing.
*** The sequel also starts you off with five hearts instead of three when you respawn.
* [[Critical Annoyance]]: It's even worse in the sequel, where the sound is much more annoying and takes a lot less damage to trigger.
* [[Dismantled MacGuffin]]: The 3 Cubes in the first game, the 7 Tetrads in the second game.
* [[Early Bird Boss]]:
* [[Eenie Meenie Miny Moai]]: Broken Joe.
* [[Epic Flail]]: The first upgrade of the yo-yo is a flail called Shooting Star and in the second upgrade, the Shooting Star turns into the Super Nova.▼
* [[Enter Solution Here]]: INPUT FREQUENCY!!! ...you kept the letter that came with the game, right?
▲* [[Epic Flail]]: The first upgrade of the yo-yo is a flail called Shooting Star and in the second upgrade, the Shooting Star turns into the Super Nova.
* [[Fake Difficulty]]: Because [[Continuing Is Painful]], and a lack of [[Mercy Invincibility]] (more pronounced in the second game).
* [[Feelies
** Even if you had the letter, it could take a while for you to realize that when the in-game characters were talking about "the letter attached to the instructions", they weren't referring to some in-game item you had to find...
** As game manuals are easy to lose and not included with rentals, this issue generated tons of calls to Nintendo's tips hotline and letters to ''Nintendo Power''. The code was eventually published in ''Nintendo Power''.
** To get around this roadblock in the Virtual Console release, the letter is simulated inside of the console's operations guide.
** It is possible to guess the right code, either by [[The Password Is Always Swordfish|guessing obvious number possibilities]], or simply brute forcing every possible answer one by one until you get the right one. It works eventually as long as you are [[Super OCD|patient to the point of obsessive.]]
* [[Fission Mailed]]: At the end of the first game, Mike escapes from Zoda's exploding spaceship, only to end up in the middle of the ocean. Mike briefly swims towards the left of the screen, then struggles to keep afloat. His head goes under, and you hear the usual "you just lost a life" jingle. The screen fades out... and then you're suddenly back [[Where It All Began]], courtesy of the dolphin from Chapter 2.
* [[Friendly Playful Dolphin]]: Mike rescues a baby dolphin {{spoiler|so that the mother can help guide him in one chapter
* [[Giant Hands of Doom]]: The first phase of the Zoda fight involved these.
* [[Guide Dang It]]:
*
** It's made slightly more cryptic by the fact that the musical tune that must be played is "Do Mi Sol Fa Do Mi" which has been warped by generations of parrots playing the telephone game into the final "Do me so far, do me
* [[Heroic Dolphin]]: Mike rescues a dolphin in the second stage. {{spoiler|[[Androcles' Lion|It returns the favor at the end of the game]].}}▼
** Before the Internet made walkthroughs widely available, you were screwed if you didn't have the physical letter from Dr. J that came with the game. And if you couldn't decipher the clue, you were screwed even if you ''did'' have it.
▲* [[Heroic Dolphin]]: Mike rescues a dolphin in the second stage. {{spoiler|[[Androcles' Lion|It returns the favor at the end of the game]]
* [[Indy Escape]]: The Megatons parody this by virtue of being giant ''bowling balls''.
* [[Insurmountable Waist High Fence]]: Both games are filled with barriers that appear extremely short, but nonetheless cannot be jumped over.
* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: This is the best weapon Mike can get in ''Zoda's Revenge''
* [[Killer Yoyo]]: [[Iconic Item|Mike's signature weapon.]] Surprisingly, he never wields one in the second game.
* [[Lady Land]]: Shecola.
* [[Mercy Invincibility]]: The first game had only a little bit, but the "snap-to" motion of the controls mitigated how much damage you'd take a bit. In second game, on the other hand, the snap-to was done away with and there was no mercy invincibility ''at all''. If you more than let an enemy brush against you, you were guaranteed to take at least 2-3 hits off it, adding a great deal of [[Fake Difficulty]] to the game.
* [[Nintendo Hard]]:
*
** Level 8 of the first game is an odd aversion. During the section where Mike has to destroy the spaceship engine, there's a secret (but easy to find) room Mike can fall into with an infinitely respawning super-vitamin that restores his entire lifebar, so if he messes up he can just fall into a hole, get the vitamin and try again. Then after the engine is destroyed, there are a few screens full of infinitely respawning Zoda-spawn that are very generous when it comes to dropping life refilling items.
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Historical variant. In the second game, Mike meets Cleopatra, Sherlock Holmes, Leonardo Da Vinci, King Arthur
* [[Nostalgia Level]]: The final level of the sequel is a recreation of the first level of the original game - including an undead version of the first game's first boss.
* [[One-Hit Kill]]: Physical contact with any of the bosses in the first game is instant death.
* [[Psychic Powers]]: In ''Zoda's Revenge'', Mike gains the ability to shoot Psychic Shock Waves. [[Fake Difficulty|Too bad their power is dependent on his life meter.]]
* [[Revenge of the Sequel]]: In this case, literally inverted. The second game in the series is ''Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II''.
* [[Ring Out Boss]]: The robotic alien that you fight at the end of Chapter 7. You have to shoot him relentlessly to push him far enough back so that you can trip a switch to make part of the floor disappear and then keep shooting him until he falls into the void. He can be killed from damage but it is far quicker to push him out
* [[Sequel Difficulty
* [[Sequel Difficulty Spike]]: Mostly due to the control scheme and combined with [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]] if you've played the first game. The raft-jumping sections are notable for their cruelty for the fact that you can walk right off the raft into the water/pit if you're not extremely careful when jumping.
* [[Shout-Out]]: To ''[[Robinson Crusoe (Literature)|Robinson Crusoe]]'' of all things. You can find his skeleton, although Mike thinks the initials RC must stand for "Rob Crusocola".▼
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** The sequel contains a major [[Shout-Out]] to [[Tetris (Video Game)|Tetris]], (all the plot coupons are magic Tetris pieces!) although it was removed for the [[Virtual Console]] release.▼
▲**
** The trap-filled Captain Bell's Cave in the first game, with collapsing floors, spear-shooting walls, and giant rolling bowling balls, feels like something right out of an ''[[Indiana Jones (Franchise)|Indiana Jones]]'' movie.▼
** Coralcola's chief looks suspiciously like a certain Nintendo mascot. To add to speculation, he refers to Mike as a "power player" and later proves himself to be quite the ''Tetris'' maestro.
** In the second game, '''[[Leonardo Da Vinci|Leonardo]]''' [[Leonardo Da Vinci|da Vinci]] gives you a [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Katana]]. (Which he claims he got from [[The Travels Of Marco Polo|Marco Polo]], of all people)▼
** The Egyptian pizza delivery man rides a Koopa Troopa on horseback.
* [[Songs in The Key of Lock]]: "Do me so far, do me?"▼
▲** The sequel contains a major [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[
▲** The trap-filled Captain Bell's Cave in the first game, with collapsing floors, spear-shooting walls, and giant rolling bowling balls, feels like something right out of an ''[[
▲** In the second game, '''[[Leonardo
* [[Sue Donym]]: Mike eventually comes to "Michelle" when he does this.
* [[Super Drowning Skills]]: Mike dies instantly when he falls in water... despite being very athletic and ''vacationing in the tropics''.
* [[Theme Naming]]: All the towns in the first game are named "(Blank)cola." Leading to the unappetizing town in
* [[This Was His True Form]]:
*
** In the second game, each of the three clones of Zoda has a different true form, but you only see the Zoda-X's true form as part of his death animation
* [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]]:
* [[Time Travel]]: A major contributor in the second game's plot.
* [[Totally Radical]]: Mike fell into this a bit in the second game
* [[Trial and Error Gameplay]]: There are several screens where entering is instant death.
** One of the more interesting ones is early in the first game. One room gives you a Medicine, a vital item, and opens a door to another room. This room also has a Medicine, and opens another door. In the next room... you jump straight into water, as the room has no floor. Only floating bones in the water.
** A little later in the first game, you enter a room with two tile paths leading upward on either side of the room. After jumping from tile to tile for two rooms, you have to jump upwards at the top edge of the room. One path leads to safety, the other path leads to instant death, and there is no way to know this ahead of time. Hint:
** In the Ghost Village dungeon in Chapter 3 of the first game, every single obvious path locks you into an exit out of the dungeon, forcing you to restart. In order to actually complete the dungeon, you have to ignore the obvious paths and instead find the hidden ones. Maliciously, the final fake path is only a few rooms away from the boss, meaning you can complete most of the dungeon and then have to restart it again.
* [[Unique Enemy]]: Squidos appear on just one screen in the game, mostly so you can try out your new [[Smart Bomb]] attack.
* [[Vomit Indiscretion Shot]]: {{spoiler|When you finally kill Zoda in the first game, he'll start barfing right before he finally bites the big one}}.
* [[Workout Fanservice]]: You can walk in on Alex. Even though he apologizes for being shirtless, no one's complaining.
* [[Writing Around Trademarks]]: In light of "yo-yo" becoming a trademarked term, for the [[Virtual Console]] release of ''[[
* [[You Shouldn't Know This Already]]: You have to jump on the tile ten times to create a bridge in Chapter 3, but it won't work until after you are told to do so in Shecola, supposedly because you have to shout a magic word to make it work.
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[[Category:Nintendo Entertainment System]]
[[Category:Action Adventure]]
[[Category:Nintendo (Creator)]]▼
[[Category:StarTropics]]
[[Category:Video Game]]
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