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The Top 25 Video Game Villains of Every Subtype Imaginable
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<blockquote data-quote="CC13" data-source="post: 118346" data-attributes="member: 1151"><p>Zoda is indeed the answer I was looking for! Could StarTropics finally get a long-awaited third entry? I wouldn't count on it, but the two we did get are great! Keep reading to find out why:</p><p></p><p>18. Zoda (StarTropics)</p><p>Developed & Published By: Nintendo</p><p>Platform: NES</p><p>Year of Release: 1990</p><p></p><p>The IP holdings of large video game publishers tend to have an odd remit. Even more so than most large media enterprises, video game publishers' holdings tend to center around a few large franchises, with various odds & ends playing supporting roles in their portfolios. Nintendo tend to do better than most at playing up their lower-tier franchises, but even they have a seemingly endless supply of properties left by the wayside. The archetypal such property is usually one that the Western fans care more about than their Japanese counterparts, so given that StarTropics was explicitly designed to appeal to Americans and was never released in Japan, it's not terribly surprising in retrospect that Nintendo left the series behind after just two entries.</p><p></p><p>Before we go any further, I must bring attention to one of the best feelies ever packed with any video game. At a certain point in the game, you will be asked to soak a letter from Dr. Jones in water in order to find a number you need for a puzzle. You have no such item in your inventory, but getting the copy of the letter found in your <em>actual game manual</em> wet will reveal the number (I have heard at least one nightmare story concerning this—DeceasedCrab, one of the better-known Let's Players out there, did a Let's Play of StarTropics, where he intimated that he had reached the aforementioned point in the game, gotten confused, and had previously disposed of his letter...because he had gotten it wet). In case you're wondering, the dipping process is simulated in the Virtual Console release of the game, so there shouldn't be any issues there.</p><p></p><p>The gameplay is nothing that anybody who's played Zelda II hasn't seen before, but why is StarTropics so much more readily accepted than its inspiration, which is considered a series black sheep in some circles to this day? There are several reasons for this, the most pedestrian of which is that Zelda II actually did significantly muddle with its predecessor's formula. This is actually a fairly common phenomenon with video game franchises on the NES, with Castlevania, Final Fantasy and even Super Mario having notably divergent second installments (though Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually a mere dolled-up installment, rather than a true sequel to Super Mario Bros., this can also be applied to The Lost Levels, with its backwards warps, poison mushrooms and near-impossible requirements to reach the true end of the game). StarTropics, on the other hand, had no prequels to measure against it, giving it much more freedom to stand or fall on its own merits.</p><p></p><p>In addition, the game knows how its mechanics work and designs every single dungeon around those mechanics. Movement in StarTropics is very limited, with only direct horizontal & vertical movement being possible and requiring extended D-Pad presses to actually move (if you only tap the D-Pad, Mike will turn in the direction you tapped, but will not move). However, you automatically jump from platform to platform in the direction you move in, greatly reducing the frustrations of your limited movement. This sort of design philosophy–turning a weakness of technical limitations into a distinctive strength–permeates much of the 8-bit era's greatest hits and shines through here.</p><p></p><p>However, StarTropics' greatest asset is its great sense of humor. This is the sort of game where having bananas in your ears makes sense in context and you are expected to find the fact that every city and country in the game world has a name ending in -cola hilarious. Goofy puns abound in both games (for starters, Chief Miracola's daughter has the unfortunate name of Bananette), pop culture references are par for the course (including a well-hidden allusion to Nintendo Power mascot Nester) and the game does not take itself even a little bit seriously. In addition to lending the game a unique charm, StarTropics' sense of humor helps mask some design decisions that may not have aged so well, including the old trope of having to talk to everybody in order to advance to the next part of the game and the fact that you lose all your items & only start with 3 hearts if you die during one of the levels.</p><p></p><p>For his part, Zoda fits right in by not fitting in at all. This may seem strange at first blush, but Zoda is every bit as over-the-top as everything else in the game, just in a different way. You only really start confronting his evil plan in the seventh of eight chapters in the game, while he only introduces himself in the final chapter, where he rants at you telepathically about how he will destroy you just as he destroyed the Argonians (for those interested, this is the event that causes Mike to stick bananas in his ears–doing this can apparently block alien telepathy). Also, both his character designs are as stereotypically villainous as they come–in his humanoid form, he looks like an armored medieval warlord with red eyes and an imposing horned helmet, but his true form is actually a Giger-esque alien; Zoda's first form is the first boss of Chapter 8, while his true form serves as the final boss, complete with a vomit indiscretion shot after you defeat him. Even more bizarrely, in the in sequel, StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge, you must defeat <em>three</em> separate Zodas across Earth's history: Zoda-X, Zoda-Y & Zoda-Z.</p><p></p><p>StarTropics was actually pretty popular in its day, serving as something of a last hurrah for the venerable NES before Nintendo brought the Super NES stateside, as it was the last original title Nintendo published on the NES in North America before the Super NES arrived in August of 1991 (StarTropics II actually filled a similar role, being the penultimate officially released NES game, with only Wario's Woods coming out subsequently). However, as previously mentioned, neither game has seen a Japanese release in any form, even on the Virtual Console, continuing a vicious cycle where the games are unknown in Japan, so Nintendo essentially pretend they don't exist, so they never release any new StarTropics titles and so on and so forth. Any change to this would most likely require a massive outcry from the North American fanbase, but never doubt the power of Super Smash Brothers–I seem to recall another yoyo-wielder-fronted series that began to get more mainstream exposure after being featured in that franchise. Either way, though, StarTropics deserves your attention, especially once it gets re-rereleased on the Wii U Virtual Console (you WILL put these games on there, right, Nintendo?).</p><p></p><p><strong>Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains</strong>: Don't break my heart, my achy, breaky heart...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CC13, post: 118346, member: 1151"] Zoda is indeed the answer I was looking for! Could StarTropics finally get a long-awaited third entry? I wouldn't count on it, but the two we did get are great! Keep reading to find out why: 18. Zoda (StarTropics) Developed & Published By: Nintendo Platform: NES Year of Release: 1990 The IP holdings of large video game publishers tend to have an odd remit. Even more so than most large media enterprises, video game publishers' holdings tend to center around a few large franchises, with various odds & ends playing supporting roles in their portfolios. Nintendo tend to do better than most at playing up their lower-tier franchises, but even they have a seemingly endless supply of properties left by the wayside. The archetypal such property is usually one that the Western fans care more about than their Japanese counterparts, so given that StarTropics was explicitly designed to appeal to Americans and was never released in Japan, it's not terribly surprising in retrospect that Nintendo left the series behind after just two entries. Before we go any further, I must bring attention to one of the best feelies ever packed with any video game. At a certain point in the game, you will be asked to soak a letter from Dr. Jones in water in order to find a number you need for a puzzle. You have no such item in your inventory, but getting the copy of the letter found in your [I]actual game manual[/I] wet will reveal the number (I have heard at least one nightmare story concerning this—DeceasedCrab, one of the better-known Let's Players out there, did a Let's Play of StarTropics, where he intimated that he had reached the aforementioned point in the game, gotten confused, and had previously disposed of his letter...because he had gotten it wet). In case you're wondering, the dipping process is simulated in the Virtual Console release of the game, so there shouldn't be any issues there. The gameplay is nothing that anybody who's played Zelda II hasn't seen before, but why is StarTropics so much more readily accepted than its inspiration, which is considered a series black sheep in some circles to this day? There are several reasons for this, the most pedestrian of which is that Zelda II actually did significantly muddle with its predecessor's formula. This is actually a fairly common phenomenon with video game franchises on the NES, with Castlevania, Final Fantasy and even Super Mario having notably divergent second installments (though Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually a mere dolled-up installment, rather than a true sequel to Super Mario Bros., this can also be applied to The Lost Levels, with its backwards warps, poison mushrooms and near-impossible requirements to reach the true end of the game). StarTropics, on the other hand, had no prequels to measure against it, giving it much more freedom to stand or fall on its own merits. In addition, the game knows how its mechanics work and designs every single dungeon around those mechanics. Movement in StarTropics is very limited, with only direct horizontal & vertical movement being possible and requiring extended D-Pad presses to actually move (if you only tap the D-Pad, Mike will turn in the direction you tapped, but will not move). However, you automatically jump from platform to platform in the direction you move in, greatly reducing the frustrations of your limited movement. This sort of design philosophy–turning a weakness of technical limitations into a distinctive strength–permeates much of the 8-bit era's greatest hits and shines through here. However, StarTropics' greatest asset is its great sense of humor. This is the sort of game where having bananas in your ears makes sense in context and you are expected to find the fact that every city and country in the game world has a name ending in -cola hilarious. Goofy puns abound in both games (for starters, Chief Miracola's daughter has the unfortunate name of Bananette), pop culture references are par for the course (including a well-hidden allusion to Nintendo Power mascot Nester) and the game does not take itself even a little bit seriously. In addition to lending the game a unique charm, StarTropics' sense of humor helps mask some design decisions that may not have aged so well, including the old trope of having to talk to everybody in order to advance to the next part of the game and the fact that you lose all your items & only start with 3 hearts if you die during one of the levels. For his part, Zoda fits right in by not fitting in at all. This may seem strange at first blush, but Zoda is every bit as over-the-top as everything else in the game, just in a different way. You only really start confronting his evil plan in the seventh of eight chapters in the game, while he only introduces himself in the final chapter, where he rants at you telepathically about how he will destroy you just as he destroyed the Argonians (for those interested, this is the event that causes Mike to stick bananas in his ears–doing this can apparently block alien telepathy). Also, both his character designs are as stereotypically villainous as they come–in his humanoid form, he looks like an armored medieval warlord with red eyes and an imposing horned helmet, but his true form is actually a Giger-esque alien; Zoda's first form is the first boss of Chapter 8, while his true form serves as the final boss, complete with a vomit indiscretion shot after you defeat him. Even more bizarrely, in the in sequel, StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge, you must defeat [I]three[/I] separate Zodas across Earth's history: Zoda-X, Zoda-Y & Zoda-Z. StarTropics was actually pretty popular in its day, serving as something of a last hurrah for the venerable NES before Nintendo brought the Super NES stateside, as it was the last original title Nintendo published on the NES in North America before the Super NES arrived in August of 1991 (StarTropics II actually filled a similar role, being the penultimate officially released NES game, with only Wario's Woods coming out subsequently). However, as previously mentioned, neither game has seen a Japanese release in any form, even on the Virtual Console, continuing a vicious cycle where the games are unknown in Japan, so Nintendo essentially pretend they don't exist, so they never release any new StarTropics titles and so on and so forth. Any change to this would most likely require a massive outcry from the North American fanbase, but never doubt the power of Super Smash Brothers–I seem to recall another yoyo-wielder-fronted series that began to get more mainstream exposure after being featured in that franchise. Either way, though, StarTropics deserves your attention, especially once it gets re-rereleased on the Wii U Virtual Console (you WILL put these games on there, right, Nintendo?). [B]Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains[/B]: Don't break my heart, my achy, breaky heart... [/QUOTE]
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