Introduction

Startropics is a hybrid puzzle-action adventure NES game released only in America in 1990. It takes elements from The Legend of Zelda and combines them with overworld exploration segments to create a pretty unique game, even for the early days of the NES. We play as Mike Jones, a high school student from Seattle with a reputation as an ace pitcher. Mike is on vacation at a string of tropical islands, visiting his archaeologist uncle. Unfortunately, Dr. Jones goes missing shortly before our arrival, spurring Mike into a perilous adventure across the tropics. Along the way we'll encounter elaborate traps, unfair puzzles, and some stiff controls. Startropics is both a difficult and an unfair game, and I'll be going into detail about the game mechanics and difficulty curve in the action stages.