Looks like Christmas comes a little late this year (or early depending on how you look at it) for StarTropics fans. I ended up finding the issue of Nintendo Power that had the retrospective (a featured column called Playback) on Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II. It is in the April 2008 issue (V227) on page 82 (the game featured on the cover is Mario Kart Wii).
Here is a transcript of the article. It was written by George Sinfield, who was one of the screenwriters for the title.
Headline for the article:
"The last adventure for the NES showcased one of Nintendo's brightest hardware and software developing talents"
A bit of text under a screenshot:
"Zoda's Revenge was a great action-adventure title for its day- it's just a shame that it was release when the NES was on its way out."
The actual article itself:
Though Shigeru Miyamoto is the public face of Nintendo game development (and deservedly so), a handful of longstanding designers and engineers at Nintendo Co. Ltd. in Japan had contributed just as much to the company's success. One member of that group, Genyo Takeda, may be best known for his numerous contributions to console-hardware development, but he's had his share of software successes, too -- particularly in the arcade and NES days. His Punch-Out!! is still a favorite among retro gaming fans, and the NES StarTropics titles are mini adventure-gaming classics that never quite got their due.
As a writer for Nintendo Power in the 1990's, I had the opportunity to help Takeda's R&D3 team develop the story and write the dialog for the StarTropics sequel. After a few phone calls, with Takeda in which he gave me his ideas for a time-travel story and the use of the seven Tetris block shapes (Tetrads) as treasures, I left for Kyoto for two weeks to work directly with his team.
Enamored with Western culture, Takeda wanted to select time periods and figures from fiction and history for the game that would be familiar to a North American audience. His first suggestion was the Wild West. From there, we spun off to the caveman era, medieval times, the Renaissance, and England's Victorian period. Eager to research Sherlock Holmes (who appears in the game), while in Japan, I bought a collection of the detective's adventures that were simplified for first-time English readers (the only English Holmes books that I could find): the sort of "see spot run" version of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
While not putting words in the mouths of game characters, I looked over the shoulders of the team members -- map builders, programmers, and artists -- as they developed puzzles and enemy encounters for the Zelda-style adventure. With lessons learned from development of the first game, the team sought to improve gameplay, particularly in the area of offering diagonal movement for the character.
When it became apparent that the original title was not going to be a big hit, the sequel was completed but its eventual release was delayed. It was eventually put into the market in 1994 (well into the reign of the Super NES) as one of the company's last NES titles (along with Wario's Woods). The subtitle, Zoda's Revenge, was promoted to the the main title because it was not clear that StarTropics II would be much of a draw.
Still, those who did play the game were treated to a quirky title with lots of humor and action -- everything that players enjoy from gaming's golden age. - George S."
We now have confirmation that StarTropics II indeed had its original release delayed. We also now have a confirmation as to why StarTropics II was not the lead in for the title, and was instead called Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II. I am personally glad the game was released at all. As I said before, it is a very good NES game, and its a shame that many StarTropics fans are still unaware of its existence. Hopefully, it will be released for the Switch Online's NES catalog at some point this year.
It is not much but it does provide some interesting insight to the development of Zoda's Revenge, as well as give some confirmations to some things that were strongly suspected among StarTropics fans.
