So let’s talk about these characters a bit. If you weren’t, then we’d recommend that you try some of the other games out there before buying this.” ![]() “As with many of the NES games we’ve seen so far on the VC, the suitability rests on two key factors - if you were a fan of the game back in the day then you will probably want to play this. The two-player co-op mode is even preserved in the Game Boy Advance version thanks to the GBA Link Cable, allowing for two Game Boys to link up for some icy action! Ice Climber for the GBA e-ReaderĪs far as overall quality goes, perhaps Damien McFerran from NintendoLife put it best in a look he did in 2007: I do think it’s cool that the Game Boy Advance version got released both on a cartridge and as a set of e-Reader cards, though! The standard Famicom, international NES, and Game Boy Advance releases are all virtually identical, with that note applying to releases such as, say, the Wii Virtual Console. Indeed, the Famicom Disk System release is pretty much arcade-perfect, save for a loading time here and there, thanks to the power of floppy disks. There’s a proper stage selection screen and an animated intro that, as far as I can tell, are only in the arcade and Famicom Disk System releases. Most versions of the game are virtually identical, though. ![]() While some versions of the game contain as few as 24 mountains to scale and some have up to 48, I always found myself clocking out after, at most, 10. You’d think the I ce Climbers would have some proper winter boots, but apparently not. Yup, some stages make you stiffly slide around randomly. And sometimes there’s random ice physics! Sometimes you’ll think you have a jump perfectly lined up only for the platform you gotta reach be surprisingly out of reach. Sometimes you’ll just phase through platforms you thought you were dead on with. Ice Climber, on the other hand, doesn’t have any of that. is known for its tight controls, momentum-based jumps, and having a degree of control even when in the air. There are also enemies such as polar bears and giant birds and, of course, the infamous Topi – who was a literal baby seal you got to club in some Japanese versions! Along the way, you’ve gotta try to beat a time limit and collect vegetables. You play as a blue boy, Popo, and pink girl, Nana, as player one and player two respectively as you break blocks and vertically scale the mountain. The Famicom release would follow shortly after and, as intended, they are incredibly similar. Ice Climber itself would see release first in the arcades in 1984 as a standalone standup VS. “The first game that I programmed, Ice Climber, was my warm-up on the NES, then I dove into the fascinating task of working on the code for Super Mario Bros.” Though that latter title would go on to become much more iconic, it still left an impact on Morita, with him seeing it as a warm-up for his later project. Ice Climber – the game, not the kids – was produced by Kenji Miki, who would later also produce NES Open Tournament Golf, and p rogrammed by Kazuaki Morita, who would later do programming work on the original Super Mario Bros. ![]() A Flyer for the Nintendo VS Arcade System system specifically and then directly ported to the Famicom at a later point.Ĭase and point: Ice Climber. arcade system.įirst launched in 1984, a lot of the games would either be ports from the Famicom or be created for the VS. The developers there wanted to have Famicom versions of their games be nearly exactly like their arcade counterparts!Īs such, they developed an arcade system that was basically just a Famicom shoved into a wooden box with some controls and a TV. Often times we hear about video game companies creating scaled-down arcade ports for home consoles.īut Nintendo was different. Functionally the same to each other, the Famicom and later NES would become a global phenomenon – though that’s a story for another time. You love to see it.Īnd two years later, it would be slightly retooled and redesigned into the system the West would come to know as the NES. They even had a video game console out on store shelves: The Famicom. Thanks to arcade hits such as Donkey Kong and Mario Bros., the hundred-and-some-year-old Japanese playing card company had found huge success in the realm of video games. This was perhaps one of the biggest years in Nintendo’s history. To understand quite literally where the Ice Climbers came from, we have to go back to Japan in 1983.
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