Ice Climber (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
1,108A playthrough of Nintendo's 1985 NES game, Ice Climber.
There is no ending to the game. There are 32 mountains, and once you've finished them all, the game loops back to the beginning. I clear all 32 mountains in the video.
Ice Climber was a US launch game back in the fall of 1985, being one of those iconic "black box" games that nailed the arcade style of the day extremely well, showing off the true potential of the new console.
While it's never been among my favorites of the early Nintendo classics, I've always like this game. It never deviates from the simple formula it establishes right from the beginning, but it doesn't need to - it works well. The biggest hurdle for the game, I really do think, are the controls. The whole momentum/jump correlation makes it really awkward until you get used to it, and even then you'll still find yourself flying into a pit because you misjudged the running distance needed to make a jump. It's not big of a deal - it's just not quite as immediately player-friendly as Super Mario Bros. and the like.
There was also an arcade version of it produced for the Vs. system which added more levels and enemies (and I believe in that one and in the Japanese Famicom version you could club seals? it's been awhile). It was additionally ported to a load of platforms. I've put gameplay from the Japanese PC-88 version by Hudson in the card link.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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