the whole "Startropics is Zelda" thing

[CKY2K]

You know how you always hear about StarTropics being vastly compared to with Zelda, and then sometimes being said to be a ripoff?

Isn't that kind of stupid? Wouldn't that mean all other topdown games are a ripoff of Zelda? There isn't THAT much that came straight from Zelda. The only thing are the hearts and the dungeon design.

The game was probably influenced by Zelda, but I don't think it can be called a straight rip off. Zelda built the bridge for these type of games anyways, and like I said before, that would make every other topdown game a Zelda ripoff.

The mechanics of the game is surely different than Zelda. In Startropics, you're literally tied down to a 16x16 grid, while in Zelda, you are alligned to a 8x8, grid but you're not really snapped onto it.

If anything I'd say Startropics is influenced by Zelda, not completely made to clone the gameplay.

[Michael Jones]

One reason that you didn't mention which I think leads a lot of people to believe that ST is a Zelda ripoff is the file select screen, which is pretty much the exact same one as in the Zelda games but with a few additions to it. Especially since it's pretty much one of the first things that you see when you start playing so that impression ends up staying with you throughout the entire game which can lead to one feeling as if the whole game is just like Zelda. That's always been how I've seen it, I believe that Nintendo pretty much reused the file select screen since it worked great in Zelda so they felt didn't see any reason to create a new one for Startropics (don't forget that very few games saved back then, especially ones that were made solely by Nintendo so it's also possible that they didn't have any ideas for a new save screen or were just too lazy to make a new one ).

So to say that Startropics is a Zelda ripoff? Absolutely not. But I will agree that Startroppics was definitly influenced by Zelda, just as a ton of other games have been, but you don't see people going around calling them Zelda ripoffs (except for maybe 3D Dot Game Heroes, which is one of the greatest games ever IMO ;D).