is a 1990 platform video game developed and published by Toaplan for Japanese arcades; it was distributed by Romstar in North America and Europe. Players control snowman twins Nick and Tom as they travel through 50 stages, using snowballs as weapons while navigating obstacles and battling monsters in order to rescue the princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi. The game was later ported to multiple platforms, each one by different third-party developers and featuring several changes or additions. Versions for various microcomputers were in development, but were never officially released.
Snow Bros. was met with mostly positive reception from critics and players alike, earning an award from Gamest magazine and gaining a cult following since its initial release. In 1994, a sequel titled Snow Bros. 2: With New Elves was released by Hanafram, serving as the last game by Toaplan prior to their closure. The rights to Snow Bros. are currently owned by Tatsujin, a Japanese company formed by Masahiro Yuge. A modernized version of the game, titled Snow Bros Special, was developed by CRT Games and published by Daewon Media Game Lab and Clear River Games for Nintendo Switch, and was released in May 2022. A third installment in the series, Snow Bros. Wonderland, was released in 2024.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Arcade version screenshot
Snow Bros. is a platform game reminiscent of Bubble Bobble and Tumblepop, where players assume the role of snowmen twins Nick (wearing blue overalls) and Tom (wearing red overalls) through 50 increasingly difficult stages, each with a boss at every tenth stage that must be fought before progressing any further, in an effort to rescue twin princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi from captivity as the main objective. The plot summary of Snow Bros. varies between each region and version. In the NES port, King Scorch cursed princes Nick and Tom by turning them into snowmen, while he also captured the princess twins Teri and Tina, leading the brothers to defeat the king to save their land.
Each player can throw snow at enemies until each one is completely covered and turns into a snowball, but partially covered enemies in snow cannot move until they shake it off. Ocean Software acquired the license after the European Computer Entertainment Show in September 1990 while work on the port immediately began as soon as programmer Pierre Adane finished his task of converting Pang.
Despite receiving almost no support from Toaplan, the team at Ocean France wanted the Amiga port of Snow Bros. to be as close as possible to the arcade original, playing the coin-op machine from start to finish while using it as reference when taking notes about certain elements such as animations, graphic techniques and enemy AI.
The crew also included new additions such as cutscenes between stages, and Adane was also able to replicate the original gameplay speed, though alterations had to be made to make the game more playable. Adane said that co-op play was removed in order to maintain a stable frame rate during gameplay, which was deemed by Djan as "probably the most important factor".
Release
Snow Bros. was first released for arcades in April 1990 in Japan by Toaplan and North America by Romstar, and later in Europe the same year. The soundtrack was composed by Osamu Ōta. The same year on 21 October, an album containing music from the title and Out Zone was co-published exclusively in Japan by Scitron and Pony Canyon, featuring an arranged soundtrack composed by Ōta.
Ports
The Game Boy conversion, titled Snow Bros. Jr., was developed by Dual and first released in Japan by Naxat Soft on 24 May 1991, and in North America by Capcom in January 1992. It is single-player only and changes the story to compensate for this by having one of the titular snowmen twins be kidnapped while the other sets out to rescue him. and first released in North America by Capcom in November 1991, then in Japan in December of the same year by Toaplan as well as in Europe. It features a new story sequence at the beginning which depicts a unique origin story; Nick and Tom are established to be human princes who were cursed into becoming snowmen by an evil demon named King Scorch. and was the only console version of the game to be developed by Toaplan. It features a new opening story sequence at the start of the game, as well as 20 additional levels set after the original 50 levels, in which the player switches controls from Nick and Tom to the twin princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi after the snowmen twins themselves get kidnapped by a new adversary. The Mega Drive version is included on both the Japanese and Asian versions of the Sega Genesis Mini.
ISAC Entertainment released an enhanced version of Snow Bros. for iOS and Android mobile devices in 2012. Snow Bros. was included as part of the Toaplan Arcade 1 compilation for Evercade.
Cancelled ports
Ocean France had plans to develop Snow Bros. for various microcomputer and console platforms such as the GX4000, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1991 but none of these conversions were officially released by Ocean Software. A PC Engine Super CD-ROM² version was also planned but never released.
Reception
{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="float:right; font-size:80%; text-align:center; margin:1em; margin-top:0; padding:0;" cellpadding="0"
! colspan=5 style="font-size: 120%" | Reception
|-
! colspan=5 | Review scores
|-
! rowspan=2 | Publication
! colspan=4 | Scores
|-
! GB
! NES
! AGA
! SMD
|-
| ACE
| 800/1000
|
|
|
|-
| ASM
| 8/12
|
|
|
|-
| AllGame
|
| 4/5
|
|
|-
| Beep! Mega Drive
|
|
|
| 23/40
|-
| CVG
| 90%
|
|
|
|-
| EGM
|
| 6/10, 7/10, 6/10, 7/10
|
|
|-
| Famitsu
| 23/40
| 24/40
|
| 23/40
|-
| GamePro
|
| 19/25
|
|
|-
| Génération 4
| 90%
|
| 91%
|
|-
| Hippon Super!
|
|
|
| 60/100
|-
| Hobby Consolas
|
| 84/100
|
|
|-
| Joypad
| 93%
|
|
|
|-
| Joystick
| 93%
|
| 92%
|
|-
| Mean Machines
| 79%
|
|
|
|-
| Mean Machines Sega
|
|
|
| 83/100
|-
| MDAG
|
|
|
| 59%
|-
| MegaTech
|
|
|
| 86%
|-
| Nintendo Power
|
| 12.8/20
|
|
|-
| Play Time
| 32%
|
|
|
|-
| Power Unlimited
|
| 72/100
|
|
|-
| Sega Force Mega
|
|
|
| 91/100
|-
| Sega Pro
|
|
|
| 79%
|-
| Sega Zone
|
|
|
| 51/100
|-
| Super Game
|
|
|
| 70/100
|-
| Superjuegos
| 77,8/100
|
|
|
|-
| Video Games
|
|
|
| 75%
|-
! colspan=5 | Awards
|-
! colspan=2 | Publication(s)
! colspan=3 | Award(s)
|-
| colspan=2 | Gamest Mook (1998)
| colspan=3 | Annual Hit Game 48th
|}
RePlay reported Snow Bros. to be the eleventh most popular arcade game of June 1990. Game Machine also listed the title as Japan's eleventh most popular arcade game of June 1990. Donn Nauert of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment gave a positive outlook on the arcade version. In the September 1990 issue of Japanese publication Micom BASIC Magazine, the game was ranked on the number eight spot in popularity. Den of Geek noted it to be one of the titles from Toaplan in which the company pursued other game genres besides their shoot 'em up endeavors. The arcade original has gained a cult following since its release. The NES conversion was also met with positive reception from reviewers and fans, garnering a score of 19.7 out of 30, indicating a popular following.
Legacy
A sequel, titled Snow Bros. 2: With New Elves (known in Japan as Otenki Paradise: Snow Bros. 2), was launched in 1994 and served as the final arcade project developed by Toaplan, as the company filed for bankruptcy during the game's release. A game of a similar style titled Nightmare in the Dark was developed in 2000 by AM Factory and published by Eleven/Gavaking and SNK for the Neo Geo MVS.
In 2002, a Mexican company known as Syrmex Electronics created a hack of the original Snow Bros. running on similar hardware called Snow Brothers 3: Magical Adventure, replacing Nick and Tom with soccer players who shoot soccer balls instead of snowballs, while featuring levels similar to those of the original despite new graphics and artwork added to the levels' backgrounds. It was the only game developed by Syrmex.
In more recent years, the rights to Snow Bros., its successor and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxtons Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by former Toaplan employee Masahiro Yuge, and is part of Embracer Group since 2022. A revival for Nintendo Switch was developed by CRT Games and released in 2022 by Daewon Media Game Lab (downloads) and Clear River Games (physical copies).
A follow-up to Snow Bros. 2, named Snow Bros. Wonderland, was released in November 2024 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. The game was developed by Tatsujin and published by Clear River Games.
Notes
References
External links
- Snow Bros. at GameFAQs
- Snow Bros. at Killer List of Videogames
- Snow Bros. at MobyGames