Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (NES) Playthrough
185A playthrough of Nintendo's 1994 action-adventure game for the NES, Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II.
Zoda’s Revenge: Star Tropics II, the North America-exclusive follow-up to the 1991 classic StarTropics (https://youtu.be/Oa_5wTppDvo), was Nintendo's penultimate release for its soon-to-be euthanized 8-bit console.
Zoda’s Revenge picks up a short time after the ending of the first game. After saving his uncle, numerous island communities in the South Pacific, and an entire alien race, Mike has returned to his old life as a high schooler in Seattle.
But fate isn't yet ready to let Mike off the hook, and a few months later, the alien princess Mica telepathically contacts him with a cryptic riddle. Mike solves the riddle with his uncle, but when he recites the lyrics to Surfin Bird, he inadvertently opens a portal that sucks him in and hurls him back in time to the Stone Age. In the past, Mike does a bit of do-gooding and stumbles across an ancient and powerful Argonian artifact (a giant Tetris piece), and at Mica's request, he agrees to quest for the remaining "mystic tetrads." Thus, with a mighty "PAA PAA PAA OOM PAPA MOW MOW," Mike is whisked away to a new time and place.
The game is structured just like the first. As he galavants between eras searching for plot-driving doohickeys, Mike finds himself running errands for historical figures who, in return, offer their assistance and a generous serving of dated pop culture references. You begin most chapters by exploring the area and chatting with NPCs until someone provides you a task and points you in the direction of the local dungeon. There, you'll battle hordes of monsters, jump on tiles that inexplicably make walls explode, and tackle a boss. Once you've jumped through the requisite hoops, you'll be rewarded with a tetrad, a heart container, and another one-way trip into the unknown.
The gameplay is similar, too, though a few big changes have been made. While StarTropics leaned into its puzzle-heavy design and comfy tropical vibes to sell the experience, Zoda's Revenge places the emphasis squarely on action. The dungeons are larger but much easier to navigate, movement is no longer bound to a grid, Mike can walk and aim diagonally, and the weapons are all projectile-based.
Zoda’s Revenge is a good game, but despite being made by the same team, it feels a game that was made by people who didn't grasp what made StarTropics resonate with its fans. StarTropics' action was fit for task - it was more a means to an end than it was the point. In the sequel, the combat is fine, but it's not varied or tight enough to warrant giving it the spotlight, and the weaker storytelling fails to pick up the slack. The game lacks the personable characters and interesting scenarios that made the first one so memorable, and the time-travel gimmick turns the chapters into a disjointed series of isolated events with no overlap. It sacrifices StarTropics' heart, and for what? To have levels set in an old-time cave, an old-time sewer, and an old-time castle? To have a snarky cariacture of King Arthur punk players into a forced reset? To have an adventure that requires thumbs, not brains?
I don't mean to be overly harsh with the critique, because Zoda's Revenge is a good NES game - a very good one if you can take it on its own - but StarTropics set the bar so high that any "good" sequel was bound to disappoint. (Just like Mega Man 5 and 6!) That being said, it would've been a real boon for anyone who was still eagerly awaiting new NES releases in 1994.
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