StarTropics

StarTropics
North American NES box art
Developer(s)Nintendo R&D3
Locomotive Corporation
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Director(s)Genyo Takeda
Designer(s)Makoto Wada
Programmer(s)Masato Hatakeyama
Composer(s)Yoshio Hirai
SeriesStarTropics
Platform(s)Nintendo Entertainment System
Release
  • NA: December 26, 1990[1]
  • EU: August 20, 1992
Genre(s)Action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

StarTropics is a 1990 action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Unlike most of Nintendo's games, it was never released or intended to be released in Japan (being the second game from Nintendo to not see Japanese release besides Gumshoe, albeit this is the first one that uses conventional controls), and was released only in North America and Europe. It was produced, written and directed by Genyo Takeda of Nintendo Integrated Research & Development, who also developed the Punch-Out!! series. StarTropics was followed by a sequel, Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II, which was released in 1994.

StarTropics was released on the Wii Virtual Console on January 7, 2008, in North America[2] and on January 11, 2008, in the PAL regions;[3][4] it was released on the Wii U Virtual Console in Europe on September 3, 2015,[5] in Australia on September 4, 2015,[6] and in North America on May 26, 2016. On November 11, 2016, the game was included in the NES Classic Edition / Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System.[7] On March 13, 2019, the game, along with Kid Icarus, was added to Nintendo's Nintendo Switch Online service.[8]

  1. ^ Tibbits, George (December 25, 1990). "Slow Christmas zaps Nintendo". St. Lucie News Tribune. p. 30. Retrieved April 1, 2024. To help boost first-quarter 1991, Nintendo is launching a major new game, "Startropics", the day after Christmas, Main said.
  2. ^ Faylor, Chris (January 7, 2008). "Wii Virtual Console Gets Star Tropics, KOF '94". ShackNews. Archived from the original on August 22, 2016. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  3. ^ Groenendijk, Ferry (January 11, 2008). "On the PAL Wii Virtual Console today: Star Tropics and Alien Storm. New Japanese games on the horizon: Do Re Mi Fantasy: Milon's Quest and Smash Ping Pong". Video Games Blogger. Archived from the original on September 30, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  4. ^ Vuckovic, Daniel (January 10, 2008). "STARTROPICS AND ALIEN STORM HIT AUSSIE VIRTUAL CONSOLE". Vooks. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  5. ^ Zangari, Alex (September 2, 2015). "Both StarTropics Games Will be Available on Wii U Virtual Console in Europe Tomorrow". Gamnesia. Archived from the original on October 7, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  6. ^ Vuckovic, Daniel (September 1, 2015). "AUSSIE NINTENDO DOWNLOAD UPDATES (4/9) RUN, CLIVE, RUN". Vooks. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  7. ^ "Nintendo's releasing a miniature NES console packed with 30 classic games". Pcworld.com. July 14, 2016. Archived from the original on July 15, 2016. Retrieved September 23, 2017.
  8. ^ Fogel, Stefanie (March 6, 2019). "'Kid Icarus,' 'StarTropics' Coming to Nintendo Switch Online in March". Variety. Retrieved May 5, 2023.