Well, let’s take a look at the gameplay: up to two players control a pair of eskimos - blue Popo for Player One and pink Nana for Player Two - who scale one of 32 frigid mountains to secure vegetables. Surely, all this means Ice Climber‘s a timeless Nintendo masterpiece…right? (No, really, I died twice instantly after taking this screenshot.)ĭid I mention the Smash Bros. (“Oh, yeah, I worked on that game too, I guess.”) Regardless, the game’s a common mainstay in nostalgia-ridden NES promotion: variations are abound in WarioWare and NES Remix, cameos can be spotted from Tetris DS to Super Mario Maker, and it enjoyed a prestigious inclusion within the NES Classic Edition’s 30 carefully-culled classics. Details on its development remain scarce - going off of MobyGames’s credits (uncredited in the actual game, mind), the closest commentary I scavenged was programmer Kazuaki Morita considering his first project a “warm-up” for the revered Super Mario Bros - a throwaway comment within his enthuasism for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. for Wii U and 3DS absence (I distinctly recall an outcry against their Brawl comeback, people!), but we’d be going off-topic indeed, let us refer to their titular source material in Ice Climber: a 1985 platform-action game that first found its home on good ol’ NES. Hence my temptation to elaborate on the monkey’s paw fiasco that was the Ice Climbers’ Smash Bros.

And yet, for all their icy synergy, many younger players find themselves perplexed by their relative obscurity indeed, yours truly - as a magazine-conditioned nine-year-old overwhelmed by online E3 2001 coverage - was fascinated by their being the one Melee newcomer(s) I didn’t recognize, and my descent into their origins sculpted a mountain of my own to climb: obsessive, encyclopedic research into Nintendo’s century-spanning legacy, wherein Hanafuda cards, Kid Icarus, and love hotels fueled a passionate curiosity ascending even today. fan, what with their unique blend of co-op teamwork and trusty hammers pummeling the competition. Oh, those adorable Ice Climbers! Those nomadic cherubs have captured the hearts and minds of many a Smash Bros. Today’s review is based upon the NES Ice Climber available via Nintendo Switch Online, as well the Arcade Archives release of Vs. But why is that the case? Join Anthony on his 8-Bit Chronicles, wherein he studies the industry’s building blocks in famous coin-munchers, failed experiments, and obscure gems. The innate addiction coded within the circuit board-powered arcade cabinets and NES cartridges render them precious artifacts, their primitive graphics and relative brevity revered even today. Bleeps, bloops, and pixels: the cornerstones of classic gaming.

Nintendo ice climber