"Ice Climber" - NES/Famicom

----- Introduction -----

Now, here's one that surely lots of people are familiar with. I'd be willing to bet most people haven't played it in a long time, however.

Ice Climber is a little mountain climbing game featuring two Eskimo-lookin' children. The English and Japanese releases of this game actually feature some different sprites, interestingly enough. I've never realized this, but I've played both of them, because the multi-cart we had as a kid had both the Famicom and NES versions of this game on it. I didn't realize until 5 minutes ago though that they were slightly different. The Famicom features seals as enemies, while the western release has these... little... yeti creatures.

... what the heck is that?

I'll be playing the Japanese one for this review because, I dunno. Seals are cooler, I guess. Team Seals vs Team Tiny Yeti.

This is another Nintendo R&D1 game (the last was Balloon Fight) and Akito Nakatsuka makes his return to give us some more sweet ear-ticklin' in the form of music for the game. The last time we saw him on this blog was Excitebike.

Anyway, let's climb a mountain.

An ice mountain.

----- Playthrough -----

Ice Climber only blesses us with one mode, for either one player or two players. It turns out I'm not that good at playing two player modes alone, so I'll stick with one player this time.

The premise of the game is pretty much as expected. You may have guessed your goal is to climb a mountain, covered in ice. You'll do this by walking back and forth and jumping with A, which can sometimes knock blocks off above your head when you hit into them and allows you to jump up to the next layer.

Trying to hamper your progress, or really maybe just combat your wanton destruction of the environment, are some seals and birds-- the birds just try to murder you, whereas the seals are a little more interesting. They'll arf arf their way out onto the ice to look for holes you made in the mountain, and when they find them, they'll go retrieve a block to cover the hole back up. Because nature always takes care of itself.

Which is why you should always feel free to destroy the environment.

Along the way, you may encounter a polar bear who will stomp on the ground and force the mountain to move down a level, some slidey tiles that act like a conveyor belt, and clouds that are impossible to land on unless you have incredible accuracy and talent.

Eventually, once you get up there, you'll be tasked with completing a bonus round, wherein you attempt to collect vegetables and climb to the tip top of the mountain, followed by grabbing the feet of the bird flying around up there. These bonus levels will kick the crap out of you for awhile. They're super hard compared to the rest of the game in my opinion, but I guess that's why they're bonus.

I honestly never managed to do this a single time as a kid.

Ice Climber is also one of these early Famicom/NES games that compensated for the lack of a password system or save battery by just giving you... a literal level selector on the main screen. By pressing left or right, you can select any of the 30-some levels in the game and go straight there, if you die and want to continue where you left off.

Naturally, that warrants going to the last level in the game immediately and giving it a playthrough.

To get the full experience, just imagine the cloud is moving at 800 mph.

Once you beat the last mountain, the game just loops over on itself and the mountain count keeps on going up. I went from 32 to 35 and then I'd had enough of replaying the first few levels.

I never saw that as a kid either.
I've also never heard this word, "winner," what does this mean?

----- Review -----

Innovation:

Does the game show anything not yet seen on this system/ever before?

Ice Climbers is certainly a new bag of tricks compared to anything else on the Famicom so far. This is kind of like the first real platformer we've seen, in the sense that in this one the goal is to jump through the level to reach the end.


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Spitting Rage:

Does the game make you want to tear your own organs out of your body?

The bonus stages are doggone hard. One thing that can piss me off about the game is the edges of the platforms. You seem to go straight through them at times, and bonk your head without even being close at others. You really have to get the perfect trajectory down to put yourself as far in on a platform as possible if you want any hope of landing on it.

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

I'd say it's hard to misunderstand the purpose of the game, and to be honest all your abilities are pretty figure-out-able as well. Pressing A jumps, and the first time you do it you'll be at a ceiling so low you can't help but knock a piece out. Pressing B swings your hammer, and just that animation ought to tell you what it's for, but if not then a little experimentation hitting things with it will get you there shortly.

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Satisfying Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel?

It's kinda satisfying to grab that bird at the end, but for the most part this game feels more like trying to avoid things that kill you rather than performing satisfying actions. It's kinda like Pac-Man-- killing enemies is just a way to get them to leave you alone so you can focus on the level... but clearing the level isn't really that satisfying either, until the end.

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Game Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

Pretty shallow. There's not much strategy here, other than the basics, and it's mostly down to playing the game correctly rather than thinking about it. Timing and spacing are the two main things you have to worry about here. You don't have that many other tools at your disposal.

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Sound Design: 

How's the sound?

The music is pretty good as has been a staple for Nakatsuka so far, but I don't like it as much as some of his other outings we've seen on this blog. I like the bonus stage theme the best, though. The other sounds in the game are fine, nothing really jumps out at me. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to say that it does on the Famicom, it's mostly about the music with these games.

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Graphics:

How's it look?

Pretty good! I like the sprites of the animals. Everything is easy enough to pick out for what it is. Even the vegetables.

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Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

Maybe a little for the fact that it's nostalgic and I played it a fair bit as a kid. Honestly, as an adult, I'm not sure this game is really that good. I like it for its place in Nintendo history (and it's a bit more well known than some others, supposedly because it was a pack-in for the UK NES release), but it's still not amazing.

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Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

Mostly just to experience it. I don't think the game really holds up enough to stand up completely on its own. I like it in an affectionate kind of way, but not in the "I'm having fun," kind of way. Maybe a little, but... hard to recommend outright with no conditional.

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