Action RPG's #3

StarTropics (1990)
By: Nintendo R&D3 Genre: Action RPG Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES
Also Available For: Nothing

This game is unusual in that it was an NES game made by Nintendo themselves but only released in the US and Europe, with poor Japanese players having to do without. This has probably happened with certain types of sports games or tie-ins to things only popular in the west but this was an action RPG - a genre more popular in Japan than maybe any other! It's also, oddly, a game I never heard about in its day from magazines or other gamers, only learning of it later from collectors. It has, however, intrigued me since then, mainly due to its name and the images it conjured in my head - something to do with spacey, sun-bathed alien worlds overflowing with lush vegetation and glowing sands, punctuated by curious creatures and hiding some sort of magical adventure. The other day I was oafing around in my garden and decided it was time to see what the actual game was like, and if it bore any relation to the version I have been having visions of for many moons. Join me as I venture forth, into the mysterious tropics...