Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II

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Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II

North American boxart
Developer(s) Nintendo IRD
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Designer(s) Genyo Takeda (producer, script writer, director)[1]
Makoto Wada (director, character design)[1]
Yoshiyuki Kato (character design)[1]
Takashi Kumegawa (music composer)[1]
Y. Hirai (music composer)[1]
Shigeo Kimura (chief programmer)[1]
Platform(s) NES/Famicom
Release date Flag of the United States March 1994
Genre(s) Adventure game
Mode(s) Single player
Media 4-megabit cartridge
Input methods NES controller

Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II is a video game software released only in North America in 1994. It was developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System as the sequel to the 1990 game, StarTropics. It is the second to last licensed game released on the NES, Wario's Woods being the last.

Contents

[edit] History

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Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (December 2007)

[edit] Storyline

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Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot.

The game's main character, Mike Jones, went back to high school after his previous journey. Later, he received a telepathic message from Mica, one of the survivors of planet Argonia and daughter of Hirocon whom Mike had saved in the original StarTropics. She told him how to decode the cipher that his uncle, Dr. Steve Jones, found on the Argonians' escape pod. Mike visits his uncle, who was now living in Seattle. Dr. Jones was hard at work researching the cipher when Mike found him. Dr. Jones believed that the answer to the cipher had something to do with the Oxford Wonder World, a book that he received from a wise old man some time ago. After using Mica's message to solve the cipher, Mike held the book and spoke the cipher out loud. As he said it, he was transported through time to the past.

[edit] Chapter One

This is only a storyline chapter that gets players up to speed about what has happened since the first game. He then starts going through a journey of time and space.

[edit] Chapter Two

This takes place in the caveman era, the Stone Age. First the player heads through the snowfield, there are traps in the snowfield that cause Mike to fall into a very small dungeon only using throwing rocks to eliminate the pigs in the dungeons. Once he has passed this area he enters a cave. Mike meets up with Tink, who gives Mike an axe. Mike also meets Pikazo, who has written on the wall a specific pattern of shapes. The chief of the caveman wants Mike to help them free their kids from the large, cannibal boar Yum Yum. Mike goes into another cave and runs into a part of the dungeon that has three passageways, one is a square, one is a triangle and another is a circle. It appears Pikazo knew the correct passage to get through this part of the dungeon. Mike then meets Yum Yum. After beating Yum Yum, he frees the kids and discovers a block. Mica then telepathically reaches Mike who tells him that Hirocon wanted him to discover the tetrads that are located at specific periods of time, it appears that the block he discovered was a tetrad. Mike uses the Oxford Wonder World to go to another time period.

[edit] Chapter Three

Mike ends up next to the Nile River across from the Great Sphinx of Giza and the Pyramids of Giza in the nation of Egypt, and running into Cleopatra who wants him to bring her the pizza that has been taking forever to get to her. After going through a dungeon and defeating a gigantic scorpion, he rents a camel and runs into the pizza man riding on a red turtle (similar to a Koopa Troopa from Super Mario Bros. 3) and he runs back to give it to Cleopatra. Cleopatra takes him to the next tetrad and gives him a dagger (provided that Mike did not receive a dagger from Jack [of all trades] earlier.), however the pyramid it is in has a barrier set up, and he cannot pass through. He heads north to a grassland labyrinth to track down a monkey that gives him the Psychic Shockwave, which removes the barrier. He proceeds to find the tetrad after defeating a reanimated Sarcophagus and its mummy. Upon touching the tetrad, Mike is flung to another time period.

[edit] Chapter Four

Mike finds himself in front of 221B Baker Street in London, England. He comes across Sherlock Holmes who tells him of suspecting a robbery of a curious stone by a creature known as Zoda-X at the museum tonight. As Mike heads to the museum to meet Sherlock, a police officer comes along and arrests Mike for being suspicious, but Mike breaks free and heads to the museum only to find the stone is a tetrad, but before Mike gets it, Zoda-X steals it, and Mike tracks him down and goes into the sewers of London. First he battles one of Zoda-X's creatures, an enormous brain. Mike seems to have caught Zoda-X. However, Zoda-X scampers away, leaving a trail of glowing footprints that leads to Sherlock Holmes at the museum, who concludes there is also a Zoda-Y and Zoda-Z, and Mike goes off to another time period.

[edit] Chapter Five

Mike Finds himself in the American Old West in front of a town that just struck it rich by finding a gold mine. What Mike has to do is blast his way through the now collapsed gold mine at the right spot in order to continue on. Just before the final dungeon, a donkey gives him the super psychic shock wave. He proceeds to another dungeon and after this dungeon, he finds the tetrad and goes to another period of time.

[edit] Chapter Six

Mike finds himself in Venice, Italy. He goes into Leonardo da Vinci's house to find he has been petrified. Mike then goes through Leonardo's "toolshed" dungeon to find a pick and an axe to set him free. Leonardo explains that someone named Zoda petrified him when he refused to give the tetrad's location. Leonardo then gives him a Katana and allows him to ride his flying machine. While flying, Mica telepathically contacts Mike telling him that the Zoda's went to C-Island and hypnotized Dr. Jones into telling Zoda how to time travel and to warn Mike that Zoda could be setting up a trap for him. When the flying machine lands, Mike is on an island with a mansion that houses the tetrad. When Mike finds the tetrad, Zoda-Y appears, and then sends him to another time period.

[edit] Chapter Seven

Mike appears in Transylvania and enters an enormous mansion which is a gigantic maze that Mike has to travel through. The dungeon involves not only fighting creatures, but also a particularly difficult series of switches that open certain passages. After battling zombies, bats, and mummies, he eventually comes across and battles Zoda-Y, who has manifested as a cloaked vampire-like fiend. After defeating him, Mike recovers the tetrad and travels to another time period.

[edit] Chapter Eight

Mike is in Camelot, home of Arthur, King of the Britons. Arthur asks Mike to eliminate a dragon that has been causing his people trouble, and he becomes a knight of the Round Table. Once Mike battles his way through one dungeon, he is greeted by Merlin, who reveals that he has watched Mike from afar during the quest, and proves it by transforming into several innocuous characters Mike has seen before (first as a monkey from Ancient Egypt, then as a donkey from the American West, and finally as an owl, which he appears as before he transforms into the other two and ultimately his true form etc.). Merlin then gives him the ultra psychic shock wave, and then Mike proceeds to fight the dragon and find the last tetrad, he has all the tetrads. However, Mike can't figure out how to put them together. At this point, Mica telepathically contacts Mike who tells him that the final Zoda, Zoda-Z, has struck C-Island and are holding Mica, Dr. J, and the other Argonian children captive.

[edit] Chapter Nine

Mike finds himself on C-Island, when he arrives to Coralcola, he finds all of the villagers have become wild boars except for the young fisherman who also notices some weird noises coming from the tunnel. Mike enters the tunnel (which is almost an exact duplicate of the one in the first game.) Mike then battles the skeleton of the C-Serpent that he killed in the first game. Then he enters a room that leads him to battle most of the bosses that he's already killed, and finally Zoda-Z. He then frees the Argonians and goes back to Coralcola. The chief of Coralcola helps Mike put the tetrads together (he claims that Tetris is his middle name.) By doing so the tetrads reveal Hirocon, the leader of the Argonians. Hirocon explains that Zoda attacked his people, sent the escape ship to Earth, and had his essence transferred to the tetrads. They head back to Argonia to rebuild their society.

[edit] Gameplay

The first overhead map view in the game Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics 2.
The first overhead map view in the game Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics 2.

Zoda's Revenge runs through nine chapters, although the first is story-only. Each chapter besides the first takes place in a different time and place and holds one or more bosses, multiple areas, many weapons, medicine, obstacles and puzzles. And while the original StarTropics took place almost exclusively on a series of tropical islands, its sequel takes place in a variety of locales, such as a caveman era, Ancient Egypt, the Wild West, the Medieval Times, and England in old time periods.

During the game, Mike meets many important historical and fictional figures throughout his journey through time. These consist of Cleopatra, Merlin, Sherlock Holmes, Leonardo da Vinci and King Arthur, who help him to achieve his goal, finding the tetrads (Tetris pieces) and defeating Zoda's three clones.

Unlike the original, Mike is no longer limited to moving in "squares" (a common complaint from the original game, the inability to move diagonally and shoot diagonally while bosses could shoot diagonally), and now can move in 8 different directions . He now uses various weapons, including Tink's Axe, Cleopatra's Bronze Dagger, and Leonardo Da Vinci's Katana, as well as an upgradable projectile magic attack that he learns from Merlin called the Psychic Shock Wave, as opposed to the Island Yo-Yo (Island Star in the Virtual Console version of StarTropics), the Shooting Star and the Super Nova he had in the first game. Of note, the main weapon in this game, axe, dagger or katana, stay once you find it, unlike the first game. Instead, the strength of the Psychic Shock Wave is dependent on the number of hearts.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f N-Sider.com: Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II. N-Sider. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.

[edit] External links

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