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Watch my full playthrough here
- Released: 1992
- Published By: Ultra Games
- Owned: Physical (Cartridge only)
I recently rewatched the original series of Star Trek so I thought it would be fun to play through some of the games I remembered as well. In 1992 Ultra Games released Star Trek 25th Anniversary for the Nintendo Entertainment system (NES). Ultra Games was a child company of Konami that was created to get around Nintendo's limit on the number of games a single company could release in a year. To coincide with the anniversary, there were also games released on the Nintendo Gameboy and PC platforms published by Ultra Games and Interplay respectively.
Story
The game is a sequel to the events of the original series episode "A Piece of the Action". While it is not necessary to have seen the episode before playing, it does reference characters from the story as well as others like Harry Mudd. At the start of the game the Enterprise arrives at the Sigma Iotia system, where they start encountering fluxuations in the gravitational fields. While investigating, a tear in space opens up and flings the enterprise off to an unknown part of space. In the process, the ship is damaged, and the dilithium crystals are drained, leaving the enterprise stranded in a decaying orbit around an unidentified planet. You must take control of the crew in order to repair, refuel, and return the ship to Federation space so that you can investigate the cause of the disturbance.
Gameplay
Star Trek mostly plays like an adventure game. You explore areas, collect items, and solve puzzles. When beaming down to planets, you can choose from Spock, McCoy, or a number of experts to form your three person away team. These experts will be able to give you specific information depending on the situation, and also help with things related to their field. For instance the security officer is able to provide some extra firepower in a tough situation. A phaser and tricorder are the only items you start with, the rest being found along the way. While on the ship, you can use the D-Pad to turn and face different crew members, and the A-Button to interact with them. If you are in ship to ship combat, the D-Pad controls the ship, the A-Button fires phasers, and the B-Button fires photon torpedoes. When on an away mission, the D-Pad moves Kirk (the rest of the away team will follow), the A-Button uses the tricorder on nearby objects, and the B-Button fires your phaser. In all cases the Start button brings up another menu from where you can use items from your inventory, and perform some other tasks.
Notes
The symbols in the temple on the first planet are the same symbols used on the album Led Zeppelin IV.
I am not 100% sure, but I think the store on Sigma Iotia II has Nintendo Entertainment Systems for sale...
Subjectively...
As a kid I remember renting this game multiple times as a kid. I don't think I ever beat it back then but I do have fond memories of it, so I was glad when I found a physical copy to buy. Replaying it now I was pleasantly surprised on how well it held. up. The graphics while on away missions are very impressive for the NES (although the graphics on the ship range between good and a little scary...), and the sounds/music match the iconic cues of the source material pretty well. From a difficulty perspective none of the puzzles are particular difficult, especially if you follow the old adventure game strategy of writing things down. The story had me engaged even if it was fairly short. Unfortunately due to it being an adventure game, there is not much replay-ability to this title, and if you know what you are doing, it can be completed in under 90 minutes. There are lots of places you can visit on the starmap but sadly most of them aren't relevant to the story. Having said that the game feels like I am playing through a good Star Trek episode and is worth returning to it again when I want a nice, compact Trek story to play.
I have been playing some games for upcoming Game Cats on the Digital Lethargia Twitch channel.
References
- Moby Games: https://www.mobygames.com/game/star-trek-25th-anniversary__
- GameFAQs: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/563461-star-trek-25th-anniversary/data
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_25th_Anniversary_(NES_video_game)