Snow Bros.
Snowball-throwing snowmen twins rescue princesses across 50 stages.
Snow Bros. is a 1990 platform video game developed and published by Toaplan for Japanese arcades, later distributed by Romstar in North America and Europe. Players control snowman twins Nick and Tom through 50 stages, using snowballs as weapons to rescue the princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi. The game earned an award from Gamest magazine and gained a cult following, with ports to multiple platforms and a sequel released in 1994.
Quick Facts
- Composer
- Osamu Ōta
- Platforms
- Arcade
- Game Boy
- NES
- Mega Drive
- Android
- iOS
- Genre
- Platform
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Snow Bros. is a platform game reminiscent of Bubble Bobble and Tumblepop. Players control snowman twins Nick (blue overalls) and Tom (red overalls) through 50 increasingly difficult stages, with a boss at every tenth stage. The objective is to rescue twin princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi from captivity. The plot summary varies between regions and versions; in the NES port, King Scorch cursed princes Nick and Tom into snowmen and captured princess twins Teri and Tina. Players throw snow at enemies until each is completely covered and turns into a snowball; partially covered enemies cannot move until they shake off the snow. Once an enemy becomes a snowball, players can roll or throw it, and it rebounds off walls until shattering. Any enemy the snowball rolls into is eliminated, and other stationary snowballs start rolling when touched. If all enemies are taken out by kicking one snowball, bonus money falls from the sky. Taking too long on a level summons an invincible evil pumpkin head that can be stunned with snowballs or snow shots; it eventually spawns ghosts that travel freely and seek the player, and these ghosts cannot be killed or stunned.
Development
The Amiga version of Snow Bros. was created by Ocean France, the French division of Ocean Software, which had previously worked on conversions such as Pang and Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2. Marc Djan managed development, and Ocean Software acquired the license after the European Computer Entertainment Show in September 1990. Work began immediately after programmer Pierre Adane finished converting Pang. Despite receiving almost no support from Toaplan, the team aimed to make the Amiga port as close as possible to the arcade original, playing the coin-op machine from start to finish and using it as reference for animations, graphic techniques, and enemy AI. Development was done on Amiga and Atari ST systems, with custom software written to animate sprites and build stages as a jigsaw puzzle using low memory. Artists Philippe and Lionel Dessoly, along with Francis Fournier, adapted the arcade artwork, using an ST set-up for maps and sprites, while Pierre Loriaux handled sound design. New additions included cutscenes between stages, and Adane replicated the original gameplay speed, though alterations were made for playability. Co-op play was removed to maintain a stable frame rate.
Release
Snow Bros. made its arcade debut in Japan in April 1990, published by Toaplan, with Romstar handling the North American release and a European launch later that same year. Osamu Ōta composed the soundtrack. On October 21, 1990, an album featuring music from both Snow Bros. and Out Zone, including arranged tracks by Ōta, was released exclusively in Japan through Scitron and Pony Canyon. The Game Boy port, called Snow Bros. Jr., was developed by Dual and first hit Japan on May 24, 1991 via Naxat Soft, with Capcom bringing it to North America in January 1992. This version is single-player only, so the story was changed: one of the twin snowmen is kidnapped, and the other sets out to rescue him. Technical limits of the Game Boy meant bosses that originally fought in pairs now appear alone, and potions got new shapes because the system lacked color. After the 50 levels adapted from the arcade, the Game Boy version adds ten more. The Nintendo Entertainment System version, known as Snow Brothers in the West, was developed by Soft House and released by Capcom in North America in November 1991, then in Japan by Toaplan that December, and also in Europe. It introduces a new opening story where Nick and Tom are human princes turned into snowmen by the demon King Scorch. The Mega Drive version came out only in Japan on May 28, 1993, published by Tengen, and is the sole console version developed by Toaplan. It adds a new opening sequence and 20 extra levels after the original 50, where players can switch to the twin princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi after the snowmen are kidnapped. This version appears on both the Japanese and Asian Sega Genesis Mini. In 2012, ISAC Entertainment released an enhanced version for iOS and Android. Ten years later, in 2022, Snow Bros. was included in the Toaplan Arcade 1 compilation for the Evercade.
Legacy
In 1994, Toaplan released Snow Bros. 2: With New Elves, also called Otenki Paradise: Snow Bros. 2 in Japan. It was the company's last arcade project, as Toaplan went bankrupt around the time it came out. A similar arcade game, Nightmare in the Dark, appeared in 2000 from AM Factory, published by Eleven/Gavaking and SNK for the Neo Geo MVS. Two years later, a Mexican studio called Syrmex Electronics produced a hack of the original Snow Bros. titled Snow Brothers 3: Magical Adventure. It swapped the snowmen Nick and Tom for soccer players who kick balls instead of snowballs, and while it added new background art, the level layouts stayed close to the original. This was Syrmex's only game. Today, the rights to Snow Bros., its sequel, and many other Toaplan titles belong to Tatsujin, a company founded in 2017 by former Toaplan employee Masahiro Yuge. Since 2022, Tatsujin has been part of the Embracer Group. A revival for the Nintendo Switch, developed by CRT Games, launched in 2022 through Daewon Media Game Lab for digital copies and Clear River Games for physical ones. A direct follow-up to Snow Bros. 2, called Snow Bros. Wonderland, hit PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch in November 2024, developed by Tatsujin and published by Clear River Games.
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