StarTropics/Tear Jerker

• So, we're gonna talk about a little gem of a series that goes way back to the NES, namely StarTropics. It's the story of one boy, a yoyo and some of the most trollish level design to ever come out of Nintendo. Ever. Moving along now, you play through the game in search of the main character, Mike Jones's uncle, an esteemed researcher after he's been kidnapped by Prime Invader Zoda, an alien conqueror. Upon reuniting with him one act before the finale, you find out that he has been kidnapped in order to help Zoda find some very important relics that had crash landed deep under the tropical region you had been in. After a hurried reunion ending and a plea from Mike's uncle to continue forward and reclaim said items, you are challenged to the most brutal triathlon of levels yet aboard the alien spaceship that crash landed a good bit further. After each level however, you pick up a strange set of cubes that give you some awesome perks. The first one & my personal favorite gives Mike the otherworldly yo-yo known only as the Supernova, the second one gives you the maximum possible amount of health Mike can have in the game(a Godsend at that point in the game), and the last one you get upon beating Zoda for the last time. After all of that effort, a nearly botched bail out from a crashing alien spaceship and a subsequent rescue by a dolphin you saved earlier in the game, you are asked to put the three cubes together. As soon as you do, you are treated to a flash of light and then seven children from noticably different and otherworldly origins appear out of nowhere. The oldest one and the princess of their entire planet, Mica, starts to talk in her normal tongue only to pause herself and in plain English thank Dr. Jones and Mike especially for finding them and freeing them. She also tells you of how they fled from their planet due to Zoda's complete destruction of said planet but not before saying that now they were homeless. The Coralcolan chief then decides that they were all going to be adopted by himself as the game comes to its final conclusion. To put things into perspective, my family got this game launch day in 1990, and I only recently found it again and played it to the ending. I am 20 and I still had one manly, yet heartwarming tear to shed at that conclusion.
  • Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics 2 then comes along and adds to this all with a return of the Prime Invader as he travels through time in search of some very special blocks called "Tetrads". Of course, you go through the numerous trials the different times give you and eventually stop Zoda from acquiring all of the Tetrads on the same island the first game began. You then hand them over to the Chief of Coralcola who then puts them all together (because he is a master at Tetris, go figure), and just like the first time around, they are graced with yet another Argonian figure, the King of the entire planet and the father of the seven kids who was once thought to be dead with the rest of the planet. Upon finding his kids in good hands, he then thanks everyone who made it possible and just as suddenly as he arrived he departs with his children off to create a new world with them, but not before Mike chases them off towards the sunset and Mica, who at this point was Mike's established crush, promises that they'd meet again. Cue credits theme. I wish if they would make a third game every time I reach that part... I loved those characters.