StarTropics
Keeping that second chance train going, another present day trend that we haven’t seen Nintendo mess around with much is ARG features with their games; and I feel like there’s one prime candidate for them to experiment with in time for E3.
I’m talking about StarTropics, an old NES series of games that were unique in a variety of ways that were really ahead of their time. The first Nintendo IP to be developed with exclusive Western and European distribution in mind, and it pushed the boundary of puzzle design through elaborate questing and exploration, or even soaking a packed-in prop letter until it gave you the answers you needed to move past a particularly troublesome area.
Instead of it being a Zelda-lite venture, the revamped take on Mike’s quest to save his Uncle Jones can play out like a narrative Point 'n Click that can incorporate an NFC scavenger hunt that doesn’t necessarily have to Amiibo related. Nintendo has dabbled in NFC trading cards with Animal Crossing and Mario before so why not something with StarTropics, or even a special page that you can scan out of an issue of Game Informer (that one is a stretch I know but hey, it isn’t completely farfetched when you think about the company we’re talking about here.)
There’s a lot of charm still left in that Sci-fi island adventure, and I think Nintendo would be remiss to neglect the recent nostalgia that it generated for the game after it was recently bundled with 29 other games on the NES Classic that they released late last year.
Published Mar. 29th 2017
