 A few years back I took a look at Star Tropics, a game that's still a bit underappreciated today. It's not just tropical Zelda, although I can see how people could get that impression, but it's a fun adventure title with some solid enemy and dungeon design, an interesting story, and a great soundtrack. Now it's not perfect, it's definitely dated in some ways, like how you have to talk to just the right person to progress the story, and with how brutally difficult it can be, but it's still a good playthrough. That game was made in 1990, it came and went, before suddenly four years later in 1994 we get a sequel? On NES? Yup, that's right. It's Star Tropics 2 Zoda's Revenge, or is that Zoda's Revenge Star Tropics 2? Well whatever, either way it's pretty stunning to see a first party title made exclusively for the NES as late as 94. It was the second to last Nintendo developed offering for NES right before Wario's Woods, but even that game received ports on stuff like the Super Nintendo. But yes, Star Tropics 2 maintains that same vibe the first game had going, it's kind of like Dragon Quest meets Zelda, where you go around talking to people, gathering info and collecting items and such, but in a completely different setting, which creates a totally different vibe, while still maintaining a science fiction theme overall. Once again you play as Mike Jones, whooo Mike Jones, and the game picks up right where the first game left off. He receives a telepathic message from Micah, the princess he rescued from the first game, and she asks him and Dr. J, no not that Dr. J, to solve this weird code on the side of their spaceship, and in doing so, Mike somehow gets warped back in time, all the way back to the Stone Age. From there you proceed through 8 different chapters, or time periods really, where you help each village or whatever solve the problem of the day, which will always result in Mike obtaining what's called a tetrad, okay it's a tetras block, which will propel Mike further into the future and closer to home. But in the meantime he's gotta go through Ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, the Wild West, meeting everyone from Cleopatra, Merlin, Leonardo da Vinci, what is this Bill and Ted's excellent adventure? But yeah, the weird sense of humor from the first game is still well intact. Eventually you reach a time period where you discover Zoda, the final boss from the first game, and he's also trying to recover all the tetras blocks, so it's a race to see who can get them first. The structure here is well done, and I always dig time travel stuff like this in a video game setting because you never know what to expect next, and that was the main hook for me here as to why I kept playing through this one. Now the big make or break factor for most people when it comes to the first game is the controls. Mike could only move one tile at a time in four directions, and it was extremely restrictive, and that went a long way into making the game so difficult. In Star Tropics 2, there's a lot more freedom of movement. You can move in eight directions now, and you can even change directions in mid-jump, so that's nice. Plus there's a lot more weapons here, like an axe that you can upgrade into a dagger or a sword, and a magic projectile thing which works similarly to the yo-yo in the first game in that its power is tethered to your health meter. The weapon system here is well done since enemies will react differently depending on what you use to attack them, so that's a nice touch. And also the boss fights here are really cool since the game introduces a lot of mechanics and puts them to good use like these conveyor belts that have you zipping around all over the place, and there's disappearing platforms. It's challenging without being, you know, freaking impossible like the first game was. So the story structure here may be well done, and the combat is improved from the first game, but the dungeon structure here might put some people off. Just take a look at how the game starts right from the get-go. You slowly move through this overworld map before you fall into an invisible hole. And yep, you guessed it, you gotta defeat all the enemies in all the rooms to proceed back to the overworld map before you fall back into another hole. What is this, ET for Atari 2600? This really gets old, and it's a shame that the game starts out this way, but it does get a little easier to manage the further you progress. You still get three lives, and when you die you start at the beginning of the dungeon just like the first game, and I will say the dungeon design overall is still pretty interesting, although it's not quite as puzzle heavy as the first game, but yeah, there's no getting around how annoying that overworld map can get. There's a few more flaws here that I have to point out, like for instance, yeah, it's great that your character isn't so restricted to moving around on a grid, but the thing is, the dungeons themselves are still designed on a grid, the same as the first game, and it creates some dissonance that makes certain jumps really awkward. Plus, there are some bad limitations you'll run into occasionally, like damage loops where you simply have no place to go, other than sit there and just take a ton of damage, so that sucks. Oh, and good freakin' luck with that brutal boss gauntlet at the end, too. So yeah, Star Tropics 2 is a much more polished version of the first game, with some changes here that may strike you as improvements, or maybe they strike you as diminishment. I think most people will like the controls a lot more here, plus having more weapons is great, and the story is a lot of fun, but some people are gonna get really annoyed by the overworld structure, and the mix of the character's movement and the dungeon design may throw some people off. I also liked the music a lot more in the first game, but that's just me. I will say, if you liked the first game, you'll love this one, even though it's got its flaws. And if you've never played a Star Tropics game at all, I think this one is a better place to start than the original, just because of the controls. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.