Snow Bros
Manufacturer: Toaplan
Year: 1990

Other versions
Winter Bobble (bootleg)
1990

snowball's ready for further attacks

Figure it out: a quite bizarre place in some forgotten Japanese county, an undefined era and an incoming danger hangs over two joung ladies' heads. An evil entity kidnaps and locks them inside of the top floor of a tall building in a while. A horrible torture chamber is there for the two, and it's protected by two large stoneheads; the upper part is a mouth fulfilled with trusks, and the girls are tied there, hanging and wishing someone's help.

The news bounce everywhere as a rumour, and they finally echo to Nick and Tom's ears. Being two brave brothers, they immediately move in order to help the females, and enter the first chamber of the tower. They know there's a lot of foes to fight... and this is their story.

Each floor (50 in total) is made of an unique huge room fulfilled with platforms where each character can walk, slip and jump... take care not to fall in few of those nasty pits or you won't be able to come out of there. Each room is populated by odd enemies (ninja, owls, ugly dwarves, even genetically modified lizards!), few of which are not really dangerous and simply walk/jump forth and back; other enemies will charge our cold heroes or attack by throwing flames or daggers.

Nick and Tom are snowmen, so they obviously attack by throwing snowballs against enemies. To kill all of those cute enemies you'll have to throw as much snow as necessary in order to cover the whole of them. You can use the giant snowball to climb platforms or you can lift it to an upper level or throw it against other enemies (make sure to throw it quickly before snow melts or enemy will set him free and get upset!).

the first boss is all but hard
a pinball-style stage

The thrown snowball will bounce around the screen until it reaches the bottom platform corners - then it disintegrates. Whatever enemy touched by the ball is killed and becomes a juicy cold dish (sushi plates, icecreams, etc.) or a magical potion that's necessary to increase our snowmen's skills. Also, if all enemies are killed with a single shot, a precious rain will fall from the sky: quickly get all those scrolls since they're worth 10.000 points each!

Red potions make our heroes walk faster; blue ones power their shooting capability up; the yellow one makes their shoot's range longer. Lastly, there's a light green potion which is a sort of invincibility: the snowman becomes a sort of air balloon having the ability to smash any enemies on screen for a limited time.

In the end, if you're lucky enough to find and collect a blue round icon with a snowman's face on it, a "special game" will start and last around 30 seconds: all enemies disappear, and four Pacman-style creatures will fall from the sky. You'll have to quickly kill as many as you can, because each of them is worth a letter: collect SNOW to get a bonus life.

But if you're not quick in completing stages, a sort of pumpkin-ghost appears and hunts for the snow brothers, even releasing more ghosts from its mouth, who will reveal themselves as incredible hunters and melt the brothers into water.

At every ten stages/floors our heroes are challenged by the local guardian, an enormous terrible creature, extremely snow-proof resistant - often very hard to beat!

a bomb-blasting frog?
damned twin penguins!

As all levels are complete, Nick and Tom can finally engage the nasty stoneheads to the final battle. Those are placed each on a side of the screen, shooting bubbles: some are empty, some other containing potions, fireballs, hedgehog-like creatures and so on... All bubbles float to the upper edge of the screen and then explode against the tusks, making their content fall down. If the snowmen are hit by bubbles, they'd be entrapped inside and fly to their terrible destiny: being smashed by the tusks. Also, the stoneheads' mouths close slowly, making the battle area smaller and fight harder!

After completing the last stage, the cute girls are finally free, the sun rises again from the horizon, warming a beautiful grass and, as in a sort of advertisement, the sun changes into a winking snowman's head. Game title, congratulations, game over... that's all!

flyer

 

Ratings

PRESENTATION: 78%
2-players simultaneously game
option available. Nice demo mode.
Useful descriptions of items and
their effects.

GRAPHICS: 85%
Nice characters sprites and
quite good backgrounds.

SOUND: 81%
Great tunes and pleasant
sound effects.

ORIGINALITY: 75%
Odd characters for such
a classic gameplay...

HOOKABILITY: 88%
Nice looking characters make
this videogame attractive
almost immediately.

LASTABILITY: 72%
You will play it for
long, believe me!


OVERALL: 82%
After the Bubble Bobble series,
Snow Bros is the best platform
game emulated by RAINE!

Zaxxon1Storyplot and gameplay are deeply inspired to Bubble Bobble, though I especially appreciate the great phantasy and originality in characters' design. Graphics quality is good: bosses are noticeable indeed but the remaining is not such excellent. Sounds are average. I'd appreciate much if there were more sound tunes... Presentation is very good, featuring brief descriptions of items and powerups, and showing a game demo. Playability is fairly good, but I really can't stand the fact of falling in pits and having to wait for my character to be killed by ghosts. I personally prefer Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros. 2.

RedhotI always thought that few platform games would ever reach the same quality as Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands... Snow Bros. is a really nice game, but it lacks "something" in order to let us me consider it really funny and lastable. Graphics are good, but bosses are a little too static, enemies all look the same and sounds are average. I can find nothing exceptional in this product: it's another good platformer though not so good to compete against some older videogames.

MADrigalI always admired Snow Bros.' hookability, that's a very important feature for all arcade games. And I played it so often during the 90's, again and again... But it played in a different manner than Bubble Bobble - its main counterpart: it's harder to learn and manage it, action is slower and often requires lot of brain and speed... and it's soo poor of variety in its power-ups! This is a real handicap if compared to Taito's masterpiece.
Luckily enough, there's something really great, which makes the overall quality a great game: graphics is shining, snowmen and enemies are so much cute and funny, music is perfect for such a "childish" videogame, gameplay is pure genius. It's a very tough game, but it deserves to be played seriously - at least on earlier stages.
 

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