As the days get shorter, the nights get longer and the cold gets...well, bloody colder in fact; it can only mean that winter isn't coming, it's arrived! This means (like pretty much every other season) that it's time for some gaming (of the retro variety) that matches the mood (or weather), if you will. Thus this review, I feel; is obviously fitting for those wintry evenings.

Originally released in the arcades back in 1990 by Toaplan, the game up for review is the one and only Snow Bros./Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System (that came out the following year in '91). Known as one of the rarer games for the NES, that means it is a bit of a resellers wet dream, but that's why the gaming gods invented emulation. After all, Toaplan are dead and only scummy folk trying to cash in on your nostalgia for their selfish means on the second hand market will benefit from you paying over the odds. Just don't do it! Oh, off my high horse; this was distributed in Europe and North America by Capcom. F'ya!

Straight up? This was a game I was always intrigued to play as a kid. I only ever honestly knew it as a NES game, seeing it advertised somewhere likely I cannot truly recall but I was aware of it and wanted to play it as it looked along the lines of all those other cutesy goodies that I knew and loved at that point such as Bubble Bobble, etc. However, it never seemed to show up for £1 at Cash Converters. Thus until now it never got played…What I didn't know til my teens was that it was also released on Mega Drive (in Japan), was originally in the arcade (as previously mentioned) and was also getting an Amiga and Atari ST release once upon a time via the mighty Ocean.

Any how, let us jump into this review, already!

As with most gamey games (at least from this gen on), Snow Brothers kickstarts with some standard story time. It's presented in a nice little cut scene that doesn't actually appear as cute as you would first imagine with the super demonic looking baddie hovering over the lands of the protagonists Nick and Tom. Nick and Tom are two princes living the high life, keeping their kingdom all safe and whatnot, but said baddie mucks poop up by kidnapping the princesses and turning the titular brothers into snow men. What a jerk! Thus, your mission should you choose to accept it, is to go on the almighty quest of glory to get back the girls, smack around the villain and return N&T to their regular bodies.

I mentioned Bubble Bobble in the third paragraph which is pretty apt, as Snow Brothers does indeed play much like it. It's all fairly simple, really. A fixed platformer where you jump and snow ball your way to victory on each individual screen, broken up with boss battles and bonus stages (featuring a gosh darn one-armed bandit because gambling is win). Controls are responsive, which is all you could ask for in an arcade game such as this. Directional buttons do as they're told, B is jump and A is shoot. Your character shoots snow balls and multiple hits will cover an enemy in a large ball that you then can hit the button to send them flying down, which if said larger ball hits enemies on the way down it'll send them flying to their stone cold death.

There is multiple power ups, in the form of little different coloured potions. Red speeds up movement (and gives you a sweet cartoony animation), green blows up (as puffs out, not explodes) allowing your character to float about and knock enemies out, blue lets you get all rapid fire throwing (and increases power) and yellow lets you throw long distance (and increases power, too). You can also (typically when you beat down an enemy) nab some sweeties (lollipops, cakes, etc.) to increase your points.

Stages are called floors, so it's as if you're on a never ending quest up a stupidly tall building. Kinda like in Ghostbusters, except not at all like Ghostbuster. Stuff it, you know what I mean...