0:00

You are listening to brought to

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you this week by stamps dot com and hello

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fresh. This week

0:06

in you will be

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the service of the satan.

0:32

Everyone, welcome to retro episode four

0:34

hundred and ninety eight.

0:36

In this episode, we're not doing

0:38

anything momentous. We are maintaining momentum.

0:41

We started up a series talking

0:44

about the history of Taito earlier

0:47

this year, and we've got

0:49

to see it through. And don't think we're going to see

0:51

it through this episode, but we're

0:53

going to make momentum. We're going to, you know,

0:55

progress, push forward, whatever

0:57

you call it. Yes. If you have

0:59

missed these these episodes, the previous

1:02

episodes about Titan's history because

1:04

they were pay walled

1:06

on our Patreon. You can find them at

1:08

patreon dot com slash Retronauts,

1:10

episodes four hundred fifty one

1:12

and four hundred and sixty three began

1:15

our Taito odyssey. And where

1:17

we last last left off, I

1:19

believe we were somewhere around nineteen

1:21

eighty eight, nineteen ninety nine, talking

1:23

about titles move into home

1:26

consoles. So before

1:28

we jump right back into that and maintain

1:31

this continuity of discussion, why

1:33

don't we introduce ourselves?

1:35

I'm Jerry Paresh, but you probably knew that because I think

1:37

I said it already. But with

1:40

me here, this episode, we have the

1:42

same people who have been talking about Taito with

1:45

me. So please introduce yourselves,

1:47

Brandon. Hello. I'm Brandon

1:49

Sheffield, creative director of Microsoft Games.

1:53

I

1:53

like I like I like especially

1:55

the the f three board. That's my favorite.

1:58

And we're probably not gonna get there today,

1:59

but someday, think I think

2:02

we might I think we might get there. Okay. Maybe

2:04

we'll touch on this the beginnings of the f

2:06

three. Actually, yeah. The origins. Yeah.

2:08

The f three origins. But Taito

2:10

is great. Let's let's all n j.

2:13

Who else is with us?

2:15

Hi. It's Ray Barnhold. Back again,

2:17

I am full of protein and caffeine.

2:20

I just listened to Wayne. I'm ready to go.

2:22

Let's talk about Wow.

2:24

That's the full the full hat trick right

2:26

there. Right. Alright. So

2:29

I believe we had just, like, two last

2:31

little things to talk about in nineteen eighty,

2:34

some famicom games. I guess, NES

2:36

games. One of them ended the game. one of

2:38

the not. Yes. Eighty eight. And

2:40

those two games are demon sword and

2:42

a kira. Two very different

2:44

games. Let's talk

2:46

about demon sword first. It

2:48

it just in passing because it

2:52

was the sequel sort of to an

2:54

NES game that had previously been published

2:57

by Taito here in the US

2:59

called The Legend of Cage, which we discussed in the

3:01

previous episode. this is,

3:03

like, I guess, meant to be

3:05

a sequel even though there was actually a legend

3:07

of Kage two many years later. So

3:10

maybe it was just they said, wow. We really like

3:12

guys with sorts who jump a lot

3:14

and said, okay, let's do a different very

3:16

vertically. Very vertically. Yeah.

3:19

And Swiss one of those games that it's not it's

3:21

like a spiritual sequel because he uses the same sort

3:23

of mechanics, but it's not like in the same universe

3:26

or anything. I think it's

3:28

a cool game though. I think if budgeted if a Colgate

3:30

didn't do it for you back in the day, then check

3:32

it out because, like, the NES

3:34

port of Colgate has kind of simplified graphics

3:37

and a lot of people didn't quite get it.

3:39

But demon sword is a bit more graphically

3:41

complex, more of the era. It's a bit

3:43

it's still fun, I think. I

3:45

feel like if we if we as youth

3:48

called

3:48

it, legendary cage, then we should

3:50

have to call this, like, demonsward or

3:52

something. Sure. Demondsward.

3:55

Demondsward. Yeah. So

3:58

this I didn't really play much of

3:59

this back in the day, but

4:02

I do appreciate the fact that compared to the legend

4:04

of Kage, it has a more structured

4:06

design Kake is really

4:08

just sort of like these big empty

4:10

spaces that you jump around in and try

4:12

not to die. Until you get

4:14

to sort of the the final stage of the

4:16

four, where it does have a little bit

4:18

of an interior interior castle structure.

4:20

But here, it's much more like that throughout.

4:23

So it's not so much about just like leaping

4:25

blindly and sailing

4:28

around, throwing sure again. It's much more about

4:30

kind of navigating caves

4:32

and castles and other structures that

4:35

have a more definitive sort of, like,

4:37

physical design to them, which -- Right. --

4:39

I find that more satisfying. Yeah. I think

4:41

it's just it's just one of those games that's emblematic

4:44

of that little

4:44

period of NES games where things were starting

4:46

to get more structured and complex

4:48

and had some meat to them, I think. It's

4:50

got some hot cut scenes too. No

4:53

idea? Of

4:53

course, the cut down is the cinema scenes.

4:56

Yeah. That's what it's all about. Every

4:58

time you guys hear your your

5:01

seven bladed sword classic

5:03

legendary weapon that you

5:05

get to use that gets more more

5:08

goddamn blades on it as it goes along.

5:10

I mean

5:10

Yeah. It's like it's like that Saturday

5:13

that lives kit with the the razor blades

5:15

and they just keep releasing more and more

5:17

more and more complicated blades. This was

5:19

actually in my introduction to George Lucas.

5:21

Oh, okay. There You're gonna That's

5:24

right. How are you gonna be general

5:26

read this? I don't even know. This

5:28

was actually my introduction to the

5:30

shihihihihiko, the

5:33

the legendary seven bladed sword that

5:35

shows up in a lot of Japanese

5:37

media that has kind of a classical Japanese

5:39

slash full glory and legendary

5:41

bent to it, especially in the

5:43

eighties. I feel like the the eighties

5:45

was kind of, like, the

5:47

zeitgeist slash resurgence for

5:49

that particular sword you saw it in,

5:51

like, Man, I feel like I saw

5:53

it in Samurai troopers. I don't wanna a

5:56

hundred percent someone's gonna correct me

5:58

on that, but I feel like I saw it in there

6:00

is definitely in in some

6:02

some eighties, animes as well. Okay.

6:04

Yeah. Yeah. This

6:05

was the game that made me realize, oh, that's a

6:08

thing. That is a like, you know, when I

6:10

started seeing it in in other places, I

6:12

I realize this is probably not a

6:14

demon sword reference. They're probably all

6:16

pulling from some sort of common, like,

6:18

legend or story or something. And it turns

6:21

out gosh, started, I was right.

6:23

I love in older games

6:26

when you

6:27

see something that that that

6:30

takes you onto that journey where you're

6:32

like, this seems like something

6:34

that everybody

6:35

making this game knew about.

6:37

what what what does what does what does that mean?

6:39

And and it just, like, brings

6:41

you into another place

6:43

of legend where it's, like, everybody

6:46

knows the story of, like,

6:49

Taito or whatever. But

6:52

for a lot of us, We

6:54

just discover it through a video game or through an

6:56

anime or something like that. And it's like, oh, wow.

6:58

Everybody everybody really understands

7:00

this story. This is like this is like the

7:02

brothers' grandma over there. I

7:04

I love when when a a video

7:07

game can be the thing to do that just

7:09

through, like, this this

7:12

sword looks crazy and then you look into it and it's

7:14

like, oh, it's actually it's

7:16

actually

7:16

like a legend. It's a long

7:18

standing legendary item. Yeah.

7:20

love that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I

7:22

I feel like growing up as

7:24

an American in the pre internet

7:26

age, a lot of what

7:29

I do, you know, revisiting old media,

7:31

old import media now, like Gandham and

7:33

Godzilla is just kind of reverse

7:35

engineering, all the things that I grew

7:37

up playing and watching without

7:39

really understanding like, oh,

7:41

there's this kind of common pool of

7:43

references that is totally, literally

7:45

foreign to me. that, you know,

7:47

they're being drawn upon by the creators, but I'm

7:49

not aware of them because it's outside, you

7:52

know, my cultural experience. And, you know,

7:54

when I make those connections, it's always

7:56

pretty exciting say, oh, there's

7:58

a thing. That's cool. I remember

8:00

that. You know, even even something

8:02

like in in the NES version

8:04

of Strider, the final boss is

8:06

a horribly mingled localization of

8:09

the name Yugoslav. And

8:11

that was probably the first time I ever saw,

8:13

like, you know, the Eugrisil. The

8:16

the Norse tree of

8:18

legend, the world tree -- Yeah. -- right, world tree.

8:20

But now, you know, I that other places. And

8:22

I'm like, oh, that's what they were doing in that

8:24

game, but, like, it didn't come through because I

8:26

didn't know what a Utrecell want Utrecell

8:28

wants. And, also, that's not what they actually

8:30

called it. It was, you know, some garbled

8:33

re translation of a

8:35

romanized or like a, you know, a name that

8:37

was taken from

8:39

the

8:40

norse into katakana and then back into

8:42

English. Just terrible. But, you

8:44

know, it's it's kind of fun to, like,

8:46

you know, sort of,

8:48

put together those puzzle pieces.

8:51

Anyway, that's that's more about demon sword than

8:53

I thought we'd actually have to say. So It's good. You wanna

8:55

hear a little little little side note

8:57

about that? Yeah. Yeah. translation thing.

9:00

So I was I was in Japan

9:02

just a couple months ago exhibiting

9:05

at the Tokyo game show. And

9:08

And I met a British

9:10

person in in Isakaya,

9:12

and we were talking about, like,

9:15

the transliteration of

9:17

English words into Japanese

9:19

and how and I was kind

9:22

of like, in

9:23

a blase way complaining about

9:26

trying to figure out the right wrong way

9:28

to say an English word because

9:31

it

9:32

you have to like, when when

9:34

an English word gets translated in

9:36

into Japanese, as a loan word

9:38

through katakana, it's it's

9:40

like, Aacomb is air conditioning,

9:43

and and you have to remember to say it

9:45

that way because otherwise it doesn't make sense to

9:47

anybody. But he was saying

9:49

to me that sometimes it's

9:51

not like the the

9:53

the specific way to say in English word.

9:56

Like, we all know that Taito part

9:58

time job

9:59

in in Japanese comes

10:02

from Arbit,

10:04

the the German word for work.

10:06

but some things that you might

10:08

think are English are actually not. So

10:11

when

10:11

they say, it's and

10:15

that sounds like you're saying an

10:17

English word wrong, because it it it

10:19

like kapu would be closer. But

10:21

if you actually look into the origins of

10:24

it,

10:24

kopu is closer to a

10:27

Portuguese word for cup.

10:29

And a lot of those ones where

10:31

you're like, It sounds like English, but it's just

10:33

a little bit wrong. Actually

10:35

come from Portuguese because obviously the

10:37

Portuguese

10:37

came to Japan. first before

10:40

any other

10:41

western countries. And it was

10:44

particularly interesting to me with

10:46

with the word cup because

10:48

Coke Food sounds just like English

10:50

but wrong, but in fact, it's Portuguese

10:52

but slightly weird. the

10:55

end. Yeah. And then you have

10:57

this game where instead of saying shiki

10:59

Taito, we say demon sword or it's

11:01

a demon sword. Yes. Bringing

11:04

a full circle. Alright. So the other the other

11:07

notable nineteen eighty eight Emicom

11:09

release from Taito is

11:11

Akura. which is, yes, an adaptation

11:13

of the movie, not the manga,

11:15

doesn't have all that stuff

11:17

about, like, postapocalyptic Tokyo,

11:19

you know, and all the little armies fighting.

11:22

No, it just ends when they put the

11:24

jars together and they explode. And

11:26

then everyone has like a existential

11:28

experience. So that's that's kinda

11:30

tough to translate into an

11:32

APID Famicom game. So

11:35

this is actually one of the earliest

11:37

examples I've I've found of what

11:40

we would kind of consider a visual novel.

11:42

It's really just, you know, the

11:44

text being played out and

11:46

then occasionally you have some choices

11:48

you can at least, you know, from what I've seen and

11:50

played. Yeah. On

11:51

on home

11:54

consoles maybe because Yeah. Yeah. On

11:56

home consoles. for sure. Yeah. because on on

11:58

Japanese PCs that that was probably,

12:00

like, some of the earliest stuff that got done

12:02

and people are doing that. Yeah.

12:04

It's an excellent it it does take

12:06

the the movie

12:08

character designs very clearly,

12:11

which

12:11

is kind of fun to

12:13

see. It's got a

12:15

it's got a neat kind of a neat

12:17

look to it. Not super interactive

12:19

though, I guess. Yeah.

12:21

I mean, they they managed to condense a

12:23

lot of, you know, like, film themselves down

12:25

to those tiny little boxes to fit

12:27

as many of them into the game and and the rom

12:29

as they could. So it has some compromises,

12:32

but it actually has a

12:34

really huge amount of text for a

12:36

fanic comp game. Yeah. That's kinda

12:38

bold, I would say, for a movie

12:40

that you would kind of naturally assume would be turned

12:42

into, like, an action platformer on family

12:44

common lists. The fact

12:46

that it's just kind of like AAA

12:48

real story that just plays out.

12:50

It's kind of interesting. Did

12:51

you all see the unfinished Akura

12:54

platform game on the

12:56

Genesis? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

12:59

looks for the analytics. Yeah. Yeah.

13:01

This is probably a better choice. One is probably

13:03

yeah. So I think in in light of that, this is

13:06

probably a good direction. Although, you

13:08

could have I don't know, take download

13:10

on the PC engine and just slap

13:12

a Keura on it, and it would probably We

13:14

don't really do well. Yeah.

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15:19

So moving

15:21

on to nineteen eighty nine, Titan published

15:23

in the arcades. Quite a

15:25

few games that aren't necessarily, you

15:27

know, all timers. I don't know that there's

15:29

anything on here that people are gonna

15:31

be like, oh hell yeah. That is one

15:33

of the all time greatest video games of

15:35

all time. but

15:37

they're definitely, you know, really solid

15:40

sort of I wouldn't say second

15:42

stringer. That sounds derivative. Just, you

15:44

know, like, the games that don't necessarily

15:46

didn't didn't necessarily change the

15:49

industry, you know, don't

15:51

necessarily land at the top of anyone's all

15:53

time greatest lists but

15:55

are still really good fun. Just good

15:58

solid video games. Yeah. There's a few I

16:00

really like exploring ideas. Yeah.

16:02

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. The

16:04

first I kind of I was

16:06

gonna say I went to alphabetical order, but I actually

16:09

didn't. I have no idea what the order

16:11

that I put these down and was. I think I

16:13

was in a few state or something. But I the

16:15

first one I put down is Don DoCo Don.

16:18

I guess maybe I put this one down first

16:20

just because I love the

16:22

Famicom disk system versions cover art,

16:24

which is one of those little like miniature's

16:26

Taito. a little gnome. He's a

16:28

little gnome guy. It's a great little photo. It's

16:30

like someone someone gussied up

16:32

a lawn gnome and, you know, turned it

16:34

into Box Art. That's great. That's really good.

16:36

But, yeah, there's another check

16:38

and pop bubble bubble bubble type game. Go ahead.

16:40

Yeah. They

16:40

hit things with mallets. they

16:44

jump around. I I played the PC engine

16:46

version, of course, which is also

16:48

very good and also has good cover

16:50

act. Yeah. I think I mean, Don

16:52

Donco Don was never gonna it

16:54

hit the

16:54

big time, but I think

16:57

it's it's quite successful at doing what it

16:59

tries to do, and it's named after an

17:01

Anamadipia, which is always

17:03

nice. But Yeah.

17:05

III think it's very good and it's

17:08

actually surprisingly still affordable on the

17:10

PC engine compared to

17:12

most, like, action games or

17:14

title games in general. So --

17:16

Mhmm. -- get it while you can. Yeah.

17:18

I I compared it to bubble

17:20

bubble But I guess it's more like fairy land

17:22

story. It has more of that stuff to it.

17:24

You're you're a whimsical little

17:26

fantasy creature, hitting whimsical

17:28

little fantasy creatures with a mallet

17:30

The structure, you know, it

17:33

is very much that that

17:35

fairylands story bubble bubble style

17:37

where you clear a level of enemies, and

17:39

collect the items that they turn into and you have, like, five seconds to

17:41

kind of clear up the stage and then you're taken

17:43

to the next level. But, you know,

17:45

at the same time, You can

17:47

you can throw in any corpses, which you can never do in

17:49

bubble bubble. You just popped them. But

17:52

here, you're using their bodies as

17:54

weapons. That's dark. But, you know, that's

17:56

kind of that's enormous for you as it

17:58

should be. Yeah. This game is

17:59

it kind of, to me, is

18:02

somewhere between

18:02

Fairlane's story and, like,

18:05

Masubaku a panic. So not

18:07

the full evolution of

18:09

the single screen platformer

18:12

style, but but kind of a a

18:14

stutter step. to get to

18:16

the to the end game, which I which

18:18

I think means the bongo panic kind of is

18:21

Okay. Okay. I don't know that that

18:23

Taito? Yes. You talked about Liquid Kids?

18:25

Liquid Kids. 000 right.

18:28

Okay. Okay. So Don Don Doako

18:30

Don is can't

18:32

I can't say it the proper way. Don't do good.

18:34

Don't do good. Don't do good. Don't do

18:37

good. Is yeah. It's charming.

18:39

It's cute. If you'd like that style

18:41

of game, you would like this one. I'm sure it's

18:43

on I feel like it's on the the

18:45

egress mini two. I think I

18:47

don't

18:47

have a list of games here.

18:49

I also misspoke on the the Mizabaku.

18:51

It's Mizabaku diveoken is

18:53

is what? And

18:56

I there's something else with

18:58

panic that just inserted itself into my

19:00

brain. But, yeah, liquid kids. I forgot

19:03

the the English name for

19:05

it as well. Don Doco

19:07

Doco Penech? That's

19:09

right. And Don Doki turned into

19:11

yes. Turned into a Mario Mario

19:13

Brothers two, and That's right. Let's

19:16

just confuse everyone and and

19:18

keep swirling the differences. Yes.

19:20

Exactly. Ray, do you have anything to add on

19:22

this one? Or No. Not

19:23

really. Not not a big fan of

19:25

the dough doughnuts. Really?

19:28

Okay. That's Well, not that I hate

19:30

it. mean, I don't play it that much, but do you have

19:32

any patience for you? Oh, well.

19:35

Yeah. Noam

19:38

nightmares. That's right. Yeah. Okay. I understand. Those

19:40

guys are scary. Speaking of little

19:42

guys, the next theme on the list

19:44

is Flippel, aka plotting.

19:46

which is involves a little guy who kicks

19:49

blocks. And it's a puzzle game

19:51

about matching blocks. And I

19:53

don't I don't

19:55

really I'm not very good at this And maybe it's because I

19:57

discovered it through Game Boy

19:59

doing a

19:59

retrospective video on it,

20:02

but Maybe if you if you saw everything in

20:04

color, it would make a little you know, just would

20:06

read a little easier. But and that's

20:08

a very strange system where

20:10

you you kick a block and it

20:12

flies into a stack of blocks and that

20:15

causes some blocks to

20:17

disappear but not others and

20:19

you have to kind of think like four steps

20:22

ahead because you only have a limited number of

20:24

moves. It's very challenging. So it it

20:26

actually makes sense, it's just

20:28

really not intuitive. It it's

20:30

basically, like, if you

20:32

hit a block from

20:34

above, it'll get

20:35

rid of the block. If you hit

20:37

the block from the side, it'll

20:40

replace it.

20:42

And in order to hit it from

20:44

above, you have to or,

20:47

I mean, you can also replay you you have to make

20:49

three. You have to match three. So if you do, you

20:51

can match three horizontally as well. But in

20:53

order to hit things vertically, you

20:57

have to throw

20:59

it

20:59

against these, like, inverted stairs

21:01

that are above and

21:04

then make sure that

21:06

that then box down into the

21:08

correct area that you're looking at. It

21:10

it is it's a little brain

21:12

warpy and I don't feel like it's super

21:14

works, but it actually kind of

21:16

feels to me like it set

21:18

the stage for the this

21:20

is very obscure and

21:22

probably incorrect. But the the

21:26

SNK puzzle

21:28

game that was in King of fighters two

21:30

thousand one. They had, like, a

21:33

a side horizontal well puzzle games

21:35

that they made that was versus, and it

21:37

feels a little bit like this game

21:39

to me. It's it's

21:41

a Maybe it's mostly the horizontal

21:43

movement thing. But,

21:45

yeah, it's it's it's an

21:47

odd 1II still can't wrap

21:49

my brain around it, but it feels

21:52

like somebody somebody could.

21:54

You know, I'm glad I'm not alone

21:56

here. I think I have an easier time

21:58

understanding it and playing it than I

21:59

do soul dam from jeal from

22:02

jealico. Interesting. It

22:04

is though yeah. Very hard

22:06

to explain. Yeah.

22:08

Both of those

22:09

games, I guess. But, yeah, I I like

22:11

it. It's charming in a in a in a in a certain way

22:13

because I think it still has

22:15

a title cuteness to it because you had to

22:17

have a little player character. It's like

22:20

blob sort of almost like a puyo, actually.

22:22

Yeah. He just moves up and down,

22:24

yeah, kicking things. And you matched

22:26

one of the the type of blocks that you match is the

22:28

title logo, which I -- Yeah. -- I I always

22:30

enjoy when they slide that in

22:32

there. Yep. I mean, that's five stars

22:34

right there. Do you

22:36

feel that they are speaking truth when the tagline

22:39

says an exciting puzzle game?

22:41

Yeah. I mean Yeah. Yeah.

22:43

I don't know if you think, wow. This was

22:45

exciting. Yeah. I like I don't know how Crackle jazzed

22:48

up.

22:48

Well, yeah. I don't even remember the

22:50

music that much. How about that? Is am I jazzed by

22:52

the music at least? I'm not sure. I think once

22:55

once you once you

22:56

get it, it could be exciting. I but I

22:58

think it's starts out as a confusing puzzle

23:01

game. Yep. So they they should've they should've

23:03

had that be their tagline. Yeah.

23:05

Confusing puzzle and

23:07

that's that's gonna win the kids.

23:09

Mhmm. Alright. So

23:11

I've I

23:11

looked it up and confirmed that Donoco

23:13

Don is on the egress

23:16

mini two. nice plotting

23:18

AKA flipble is not I'm

23:20

afraid.

23:20

Doesn't

23:21

seem to be very

23:22

sad. Well, I guess, you're not gonna be able to

23:24

be confused then eager two

23:27

genes. Nope. You

23:27

have to find your confusion elsewhere.

23:30

Yeah. You you it's just the it's on the

23:32

regret Taito. instead. The

23:35

next game on this list,

23:37

however, is on the Yggdratoo mini, and

23:39

that is violence fight

23:42

is way up there. Good old

23:44

names of great

23:46

titles. Like, you know, like, revenge of

23:48

vengeance. aggressors of dark combat. Like

23:50

-- Yeah. -- it's it's top tier.

23:52

Just like it is what it says in the

23:54

box. It's violent and

23:57

you fight. Also sits right

23:59

next to the Japanese version of Tarok

24:01

two, violence killer. That's

24:03

right. Yes. Yes. Very

24:05

good. So this

24:08

one, not one that I've actually played

24:10

myself, but looking at, you know, watching their

24:12

videos of it, It seems to be kind

24:14

of taking that

24:17

China warrior thing, you know,

24:19

the c the PC engine game with

24:21

the gigantic sprits

24:23

that was a very sort of

24:25

linear altered beast ish sort of

24:27

game and taking those huge

24:29

big s sprites into

24:32

more of a traditional fighting game

24:35

with different sized

24:37

arenas, some that have, you know, movement on

24:39

different axes. And also

24:41

sometimes you fight tigers. Yeah.

24:43

Yeah.

24:43

Very interesting. It's kinda like a one

24:45

on one beat them up in a way

24:47

almost more than benefiting game. I mean,

24:49

it still has, like, zoning

24:52

and all that stuff, but it it feels

24:54

a little more beat them up belt

24:57

scroller to me because you do have that

24:59

third axis, sometimes.

25:01

And

25:03

and also because of the

25:05

the lack of combos

25:08

and super moves and and stuff like

25:10

that. So it it gives me a little

25:12

more of I think it's it's

25:14

a hand drawn pit fighter. It's

25:16

basically Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. That's right

25:18

now. Pitfighter. Actually, I think this came up

25:20

before pit fighter. Maybe they were with a

25:22

large figure spreads and things like your ass. Right. Yeah. But

25:24

it's it's very similar

25:27

plain. It also gives

25:29

me fisted the North Star vibes.

25:31

Even though it's not particularly

25:33

post apocalyptic, it

25:36

has The way that it's a buffness

25:38

to the Yes. There there's a there's a

25:40

buffness and there's a a buffness to some

25:42

dudes and a roundness to other dudes. Right.

25:44

That that really calls

25:47

it to mine, but also just some of the

25:49

ways that the attacks are done, like

25:51

the the that sharp

25:52

angle high kick

25:53

and the the I mean, there there's just

25:55

a few things in there that feel like they

25:58

were influenced by that. So and

26:00

also the the big

26:03

words popping out when you when you hit

26:05

people. So Yeah. The comic sound effects.

26:07

Yeah. Yeah. III like the the on the

26:09

wanna payer that pops out. Yeah. So

26:11

it might been At the very least,

26:13

they were thinking about it. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

26:16

No doubt.

26:20

So

26:29

anyway,

26:29

that's violence fight you.

26:31

Anyone

26:31

of you who owns the EGRAD MINI

26:33

two can play it now

26:35

and experience gigantic

26:38

sprites on a

26:40

tiny three inch screen. Nice. They

26:42

were intended to be playing. So then

26:44

we move on to Battle

26:46

Shark. guess introduces us to

26:48

the type of z system.

26:50

I don't know if either of you

26:52

are big tech guys who wanna talk

26:54

about this hardware, but

26:57

not, I will say that this

26:59

is pretty comparable

27:01

technologically to the SEGA system twenty four

27:03

board or the y board.

27:05

that powered a lot of the the

27:08

hyperscaler games in the late eighties, the the big

27:10

hits like GalaxyForce

27:12

two and that sort of thing It's got

27:14

two sixty eight hundred or sixty

27:16

eight thousand processors with a

27:18

Yamaha sound chip and a z eighty pro audio

27:21

processor. So basically, that

27:24

whole kind of pool of

27:26

architecture that gave us the super

27:28

scalar games, the Sega Genesis,

27:30

that sort of thing in the Inorganic, I

27:32

guess, I guess, and begin to have a Yamaha. But, you know, it's

27:34

still kind of in that like, hey,

27:36

you like Sprite. Here's a lot of

27:38

Sprite, and they're gonna get bigger and they're gonna fly

27:40

in your face. Yeah. And

27:43

who do love super scalers? And

27:45

I especially love

27:47

when someone takes the super

27:49

scaler. idea

27:50

and does something different with it.

27:53

So I I do like this game. I've played

27:55

it at California Extreme

27:57

Arcade once or twice.

27:59

It's not perfect

27:59

because it is ultimately, like,

28:02

sub hunt or something because you're

28:04

you're you've got a slow moving

28:06

screen. You've got enemies moving

28:08

across it and you are you're

28:11

you're shooting them down with slow

28:13

moving bullets that eventually get there in

28:15

torpedoes and stuff. But

28:18

I

28:18

I quite like it. because

28:20

it's I sometimes you come up

28:22

to the surface, sometimes you're under the

28:24

water. Yeah. Sometimes you're scrolling forward, sometimes

28:26

you're scrolling down, sometimes you're scrolling

28:28

to the side. that's the kind of

28:31

stuff that I appreciate.

28:33

So you got your, like, surface

28:35

surfacing mission, then you have your mission on the

28:37

surface, and then you have to go back down

28:39

It's it's a I

28:42

just love watching a big spread

28:44

scale toward me. there's

28:47

still there's something magical

28:49

about that to me because I

28:51

love when you can look at the inventiveness

28:55

of a game company. You can really see it in front of you

28:57

because it's like, okay, we don't have we

28:59

know three d is coming, but we don't quite have it

29:01

yet. So we're we're gonna fake

29:03

it. And the way that they fake it

29:05

just

29:05

becomes its own, like, its own

29:07

piece of literature in

29:10

itself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

29:12

mean, I Why did

29:14

graphics evolve at all beyond that? It's my It's

29:16

an excellent question that I will

29:18

never have the answer. is

29:21

all we need. Singer Singer really tapped

29:23

into something primal when they came up with

29:25

a super scalar style. Oh, yeah. And there is like,

29:27

when you play this in a proper arcade setting,

29:30

there is something that just deeply

29:32

visceral and thrilling about just

29:34

having all these things fly

29:36

into your face. When they get really

29:39

close, They're just big chunks

29:41

of huge pixels. I

29:43

don't know. Yeah. It may be like bad

29:45

and tacky, but it's not. It's good and exciting.

29:47

I love it. It's it's sixty

29:50

FPS on a CRT as well. And so

29:52

there's a certain kind of a smoothness

29:54

to it that that

29:56

moves along with the sometimes jerky

29:59

motion of the the

29:59

price that just it it feels kind

30:02

of otherworldly. I just

30:04

really really appeals to me, and I've noticed

30:06

that there has been kind of a resurgence

30:08

of interest among other

30:11

olds in in this

30:14

Yeah. The The the super

30:16

scaler area area is kind

30:18

of currently under development for mister

30:20

and analog pocket. So There we go.

30:22

I don't think you're gonna get the the proper

30:25

experience, analog pocket. But still, it's you

30:27

know, that's that's some place that some

30:29

of the FPGA developers

30:31

are really focusing on right now, which

30:34

has should be. Yeah. Absolutely. Sadly, this

30:36

one is not on the Egorod too many,

30:38

probably because it is a light gun

30:40

game. Yeah. And you

30:43

know, they they come up with expansions for

30:45

that thing. There's one coming out this

30:47

month, I think, or next month

30:49

that has a bunch of new games on

30:52

it. But if you plug in the

30:54

the roller track ball controller and

30:56

dial controller, it has an SD card that

30:59

loads in ten extra games. Right.

31:02

You know, I could I could see

31:04

them doing some sort of weird,

31:06

like, miniature light gun

31:08

thing for Operation Wolf and

31:10

Battle Shark and stuff like that. Operation Wolf

31:12

three, I don't know. It's never gonna

31:14

happen, but I feel like if they really

31:16

loved us, they try. It

31:18

would be really difficult because it can't interact with

31:20

the screen because it's not a CRD.

31:22

So it can't bounce the the

31:24

photons back or whatever. but they

31:26

they could probably come up with some sort of,

31:28

like, GIRA thing. It'd be a lot of work there. I

31:30

I just wanna mention also that the

31:33

arcade machine, I I likened it

31:35

to seven hundred, but it

31:37

because you you actually you're looking into

31:39

a periscope and you're shooting through the

31:42

periscope. So you're actually, like, aiming

31:45

in this periscope

31:46

thing, which probably both

31:49

made it slightly more popular

31:52

at first and then limited its popularity as

31:54

well because it's it's

31:56

kind of obnoxious, you

31:59

know, to

31:59

have to look into that screen. It's it's like

32:02

it's why the the the virtual

32:05

boy was never gonna make it

32:07

And it's all why the meta versus I'm gonna

32:10

no. You know, I'm gonna succeed. I can think of

32:12

some other reasons actually on that one. Yeah.

32:14

There's there's probably one or two more, but,

32:17

you know, the main 1II agree.

32:19

No one wants just wants to stick their face

32:21

into something for, like,

32:23

an hour Yeah. Unless, you know, you just

32:25

really love you're like, oh, I want the

32:27

aliens experience. Come on. Stick

32:29

that thing on my face. Yeah. Face

32:31

Huggies style. I

32:33

have one more nugget on this is that it

32:35

seems to be a follow-up to

32:37

another game title made called Blue Shark

32:39

from like a decade earlier.

32:41

Alright. Which is very similar

32:43

sort of thing. It's a big stand up cabinet

32:45

with a gun and you shoot the

32:48

sea creatures, although it's monochrome

32:50

and, you know, they put overlays at it

32:53

over it because as was the style at the

32:55

time. Yes. Maybe.

32:57

I don't know I don't know exactly without

32:59

knowing everyone who worked on both those games. I

33:01

I wonder how intentional that all

33:04

was. Mhmm. Let's

33:06

find out.

33:07

Kids, if you

33:10

know, right in. Anyway,

33:12

so speaking of follow ups,

33:14

We also have in the arcade here in eighteen

33:16

eighty nine, Sagaya, which

33:19

I don't know why they called it that in some places.

33:21

Otherwise, it was known as Darius two.

33:23

Yeah. And it is exactly what you

33:25

would expect from Darius two. It's got

33:27

three screens and

33:30

and

33:30

it's just more,

33:33

more, more,

33:34

more shooting, more

33:36

screen stuff, more giant fish

33:38

robots and space you have to blow up.

33:40

Who

33:40

doesn't love that? Yeah.

33:42

More crazy music. It opens with that

33:44

line about Oh,

33:47

yes. I always wanted a thing called a tootis

33:49

ishini. Yeah. That's right. Yep.

33:52

As

33:52

Will once again surprise,

33:55

no one I played this on the

33:57

PC engine and quite

33:59

liked

33:59

it.

34:00

It's the fun one.

34:02

There was there was a mega drive

34:05

version as well like that. Yeah. And III

34:07

think it was on it was on

34:10

the Mega Drive that it was renamed Sagaya.

34:12

Okay. But I I

34:15

don't know why. Yeah.

34:17

The Game Boy too. Yeah. I I was gonna

34:20

say Game Boy was also a guy. Yeah.

34:22

Who knows? And so so it was domestic area.

34:24

localization. Yeah. like, gratiest

34:26

nemesis one. I'm thinking.

34:28

Yeah. But the the

34:30

PC engine version has an arranged

34:32

soundtrack with some new songs in it.

34:34

So if you love listening to

34:37

that title nonsense, that

34:38

Zoom Tata business, you you

34:40

gotta check that person out too. They

34:44

also did a a Saturn port that

34:47

had a widescreen mode, which

34:49

is somewhat unusual,

34:52

difficult, I

34:54

imagine. Yeah. I do I did recently get I

34:56

haven't plugged it in yet, but

34:58

I did recently get a widescreen

35:01

CRT, which I'm very excited about. So I'm gonna

35:03

be trying all my wide screen Saturn games

35:05

on there. Oh, yeah.

35:07

Oh, that's exciting. Yeah.

35:10

Yeah. I Sadly, this one

35:12

is also not on the Egress

35:14

mini two. Taitto Egress two

35:16

mini. Yes. That's it. Because it

35:19

only has one screen, so they couldn't do don't imagine they're ever going

35:21

to release a triple screen mini

35:24

arcade console just

35:26

for like three, four

35:28

games that Titan built around

35:30

that that concept. But I ever say

35:32

never. But you never yeah. I was

35:34

gonna say you you never know. Anything

35:36

is possible. Oh, also the the

35:38

soundtrack to Darius two

35:40

is currently out on ship to

35:42

shore records if you wanna do. If you

35:44

wanna buy that. Yep. that was

35:47

on a recent recent episode a

35:49

recent episode of Retronauts Retronauts

35:52

Radio. I I quite

35:54

enjoy it. Yeah.

35:56

If you like here in the sharp piercing

35:58

tunes that stab into your

35:59

brain, you could do worse than than that

36:02

entire series of of -- That is the

36:04

game. -- suitada, that is that is their

36:06

their stock

36:08

and

36:08

trade.

36:22

twenty percent

36:24

increase. I always wanted

36:25

a thing called tuna

36:28

sashimi. Alright.

36:31

So

36:34

a game that is on the

36:36

Yggate Too many. If you buy the

36:39

SPinner expansion is Camille Tree,

36:41

also known as On

36:43

The Ball. Or is it Camille Try?

36:45

I I think it's Camille Try.

36:47

But I don't It says why not try on the

36:49

title screen. So -- Yeah. -- I feel like there's supposed to

36:51

be a joke there, but I don't know. I don't

36:54

know. What does that even mean? Campbell basically

36:56

nothing. I think this is one of those things

36:58

that came out of that story that who

37:00

was at the CEO or

37:02

somebody of Taito basically come

37:06

up with a list of names of

37:08

products that will

37:09

be made or it

37:11

was like, yeah, It was like, these are gonna be

37:13

the names of games. Just pick from this huge list of

37:16

weirdo things and

37:18

make something named that, and

37:20

it will lead us to great fortune. I

37:22

think I talked about this a little bit

37:24

on a past episode here, but

37:26

they they they had that they had that

37:28

system that was, like,

37:30

somewhat religious based where it was, like, if

37:32

you can match these these four two

37:35

and its then you can make a game within

37:37

that the confines of matching those four to this

37:40

whatever's and that's why there was so

37:42

much, like, freewheeling

37:44

nonsense going on in Taito the

37:46

time. They were just, like, stabbing in any direction

37:50

because you could so vaguely

37:52

match these auspicious things. And and it actually kind of freaked

37:54

out for them. So, like -- Yeah. --

37:56

weird weird

37:59

it definitely gave

37:59

us a roster of games that

38:02

weren't really quite like anything anyone else

38:04

is doing. Yeah. Certainly

38:06

certainly Cam will try if that's

38:09

what we wanna call It was pretty different than anything

38:11

I can think of prior to

38:13

this game coming out. Well,

38:15

this runs on the I I say, whenever

38:17

I played around people, someone always walks up

38:20

and goes, is that Marble

38:22

Man? Shit. that's because they don't

38:24

actually know what marble madness is.

38:26

Yeah. But I mean, it

38:28

is explainable to some people in

38:30

some people's It's like playing doob and say, is is this is this

38:32

missile command? Right. The

38:34

other similarity is, of course,

38:36

the Sonic

38:38

CD special stage

38:40

or SonicOne. Yeah. Special stages.

38:44

That that would come later. And then there's a

38:46

Coricoropostinib, but not much more

38:48

PlayStation. Yeah. Yeah. Not much later, but a couple of

38:52

years, it makes

38:54

me wonder, whether

38:56

that is the one

38:57

point of influence that

39:00

Cam will try had It

39:03

was the the Sonic Mini

39:05

game. Would would we have it without that?

39:07

I mean, ultimately, these are all based on

39:09

the little ball and

39:12

a maze. toy. So maybe maybe

39:14

someone would've still come up with it, but

39:16

it's it's

39:18

interesting the similarities

39:20

that are there, I would say. It

39:22

completes with the the

39:24

goal at the end that in the in

39:26

the big letters. I don't know. Something

39:28

similar

39:28

in there. Yeah. So the

39:29

way this game works is it's basically

39:32

doing the Super NESF

39:34

mode seven thing a year

39:36

before the Super NES actually came

39:38

out in Japan. This ran on the

39:41

Taito one system, which is like

39:43

the little baby baby sibling of the z system.

39:45

It only has one processor, but it's

39:47

really built around rotation and scaling, but not

39:49

in the super scalar sense. In the sense of, you know, the

39:51

kind of stuff you would see a lot on sixteen bit

39:54

consoles in these, you

39:56

know, the

39:58

nineties. where stuff is spinning around.

40:00

So basically, you kinda control a ball or

40:02

like the operation Wolf guy's head or

40:04

check-in it, yeah, it's just

40:08

various objects floating through a maze. And

40:10

you don't really control the

40:12

object itself. You cause the maze

40:15

to spin around.

40:17

And

40:18

then the

40:20

object you are controlling or guiding, I

40:22

guess, is the better term, will fall

40:25

through the passages, you know, being affected by gravity,

40:27

bouncing off stuff etcetera. And your

40:29

goal is to reach

40:32

and exit with, you know, the operation Wolf guy's

40:34

head or whatever. And and

40:38

Yeah. It's

40:40

it it sounds goofy, but it it controlled with a spinner.

40:42

And it just has

40:45

a very fluid rotation

40:48

effect

40:49

that that It

40:50

just works really well. You know, it's it's a pretty simple concept,

40:52

but it was really all all about

40:54

the execution, and they they did it

40:58

really well. Yeah. It's good. It's it's no irritating stick

41:00

though. Your irritating stick kind of

41:02

takes a similar

41:04

sort of idea and

41:06

and is more irritating, which makes

41:08

it more fun. Maybe I still think Kim

41:10

will try rules though. It is, like, the number one

41:12

reason I got the paddle controller with the

41:15

egress mid MIGA two

41:17

mini, and I'm

41:18

very happy about that.

41:22

And yeah, just great level design as

41:24

well. Maybe we'll get to the Sunday, but

41:25

it is also sort of re it

41:27

was revived for d

41:30

s as welly English name is the labyrinth. They

41:32

just called it a labyrinth here, but the the

41:34

Japanese name was Mawash

41:36

Day, codon. So

41:39

not camel tribe by name, but once you look at it, yeah, it's camel tribe. So Sounds

41:41

like you are better

41:42

able to camel succeed, whereas I

41:45

usually camel fail after camel

41:48

tribe. I always like to do a nice cam. We'll try run

41:50

whenever I sit down in front of that eager

41:52

to. Nice. Criminally, though, that

41:54

d s game did not support the battle

41:58

controller. What? Yeah. That that is weird. He came beforehand.

42:00

Oh, before. Right.

42:02

Man, they should've they should've have had

42:04

the foresight and be like, oh, we Yep.

42:06

Or or patch it. pass

42:08

it. I know we need a Ramack for sure. Alright.

42:11

So so that

42:12

is a game that you can revisit in this modern

42:15

day and age. There is no

42:18

camel do or camel do not. There is

42:20

only camel no. There is

42:22

I was gonna make a yoda joke, but I mess it

42:24

up. Yes, sir. I did. We just inverted it. I

42:26

blew it. I blew it. Alright. We're gonna we're

42:28

just gonna let that lay there just

42:31

sad, empathetic. Alright. So moving

42:34

on, NightStryker, another super

42:36

star Super Scalar

42:38

type game. another game

42:40

that had kind of a closed end cabinet that

42:42

probably affected its long term appeal because

42:44

it looks really cool, but you

42:46

can't really see another person playing Taito. So

42:48

kind of fails at that, you know, that kind of crowd

42:50

drawing, crowd pleaser style.

42:52

That's that's the problem with, you know, arcade

42:54

game experiences.

42:56

It just It's it's for

42:58

the person who's already put money in as

43:00

opposed to the people who are prospective

43:02

customers. But but

43:04

it's really cool. It's like It's

43:06

basically SuperScaling's greatest hits. It's every

43:09

hyperscaler game in one.

43:11

Just all the ideas,

43:13

they're right here. Yeah. It's pretty good. You can fly around.

43:15

You can you can drive on the

43:18

ground. It moves real fast.

43:20

The ship moves incredibly fast.

43:22

It's got

43:24

the the zone choices or

43:26

at the end of the stage you

43:27

choose which area to go to.

43:30

It actually we

43:32

actually learned something valuable from this

43:34

game

43:34

when we were making our own

43:37

SuperScaler ODEAER, which currently again,

43:39

sorry, everyone is

43:42

not available play, but will be again someday eventually

43:44

proudly. But in Night

43:46

Stryker, they

43:48

have

43:48

have tunnels.

43:50

And the tunnels are it looks like they

43:52

have walls, but they don't really

43:54

have walls. They have empty space,

43:58

with, like, light dots on

43:59

them. And it's so

44:02

effective at,

44:02

like, you you

44:06

interpret a wall because, oh, there there are some, like,

44:08

pillars that go by which helps

44:10

as well. But it's it's just

44:12

a really cheap way of making a

44:15

wall. They have scaling road on top and bottom, which looks

44:17

really cool, but they couldn't they couldn't

44:20

actually make walls that

44:22

bend and

44:24

go with the curves and and look good so they

44:26

they just alternate a light pull

44:28

or a light and a pull.

44:32

And you just your brain fills a

44:34

wall into that blank space

44:36

that's there. It's it's really cool. I

44:38

love it. So kind of

44:40

night driver taken to the ultimate

44:42

extent, the the the next

44:44

level?

44:44

Yeah.

44:45

Yeah. Driver to Stryker. That's right. Mhmm.

44:47

And there you go. This also has a version on

44:49

the sega CD, which was very

44:51

poorly reviewed at

44:54

the time but I guess

44:56

people like it now.

44:58

And it's available on the

45:00

mega drive mini

45:02

two. So You can also try this ACD version, which is a little bit

45:04

expensive these days. So you might as well try

45:06

it on the mega drag mini two.

45:08

But it's it's

45:10

got the that one has a

45:12

unique look to

45:13

it because it it

45:15

winds up maintaining the speed in the

45:17

frame rate pretty well. at the expense

45:19

of resolution. And so everything's like super chunky,

45:21

super pixelated. It's it's

45:23

like it's all It's

45:25

like everything zoomed in, including your ship. It's

45:28

just really it's

45:31

got this fuzziness which I

45:33

can't

45:33

understand why people were down on it at the time, but now has

45:35

kind of a kind of a neat

45:36

vibe to it. So we're we're

45:40

checking it. So it's like, what if

45:42

you super scalar on Pico

45:44

eight? Mhmm. Yeah. It's it's a

45:46

little bit like that. It's it's looking

45:48

at that. It's like a fifty

45:50

six k demo, super scaler. Yeah.

45:52

Yeah. I was gonna say at least title kinda

45:54

had the gumption to port

45:57

it or have it ported because, like, Sega,

45:59

I

45:59

think, was giving

46:01

up porting their SuperScaler

46:03

games to to Mega Drive

46:05

at that point. So Yeah. How do

46:07

I play? You bought you bought a sega console, so you could play

46:09

sega arcade games, and they

46:11

were kinda like, I

46:13

don't know, guys. Power drift, do you really want that? Nah. We'll let it be

46:15

on PCs. It's it's actually it's

46:18

actually kind of a smart move on

46:20

Titus Taito because they

46:23

they released Superscaler games like this

46:25

on both the the

46:27

Mega City and the Saturn

46:29

when when Sega was not putting as many

46:31

of its games. on there.

46:33

And so they they could just sort of, like,

46:36

take the Sega inherent

46:38

market by storm doing things that

46:40

Sega was just like, not really doing at

46:43

that time. Yeah. Interesting.

46:45

So doing Caito does what

46:47

Sega don't? That's

46:49

right. That That just doesn't

46:51

quite work. Okay.

47:20

So we move along from the

47:22

Night Stryker to

47:24

crime city, a city

47:26

full of crime. Said And

47:28

that's what it says on the tenth. It does.

47:31

this one kind of surprised me because if you, like, showed

47:33

this to me in a police line up, I would not

47:35

say, oh, Plato game. I would say,

47:38

oh, yeah. That's data east. Right? It just

47:40

has that look. like, vigilante,

47:42

you know, Dragon ninja,

47:46

Robo cop. It it just it feels like that.

47:48

I don't know. That's a good one. Yeah.

47:50

I was just blanking out on that. I was just

47:52

thinking, like, rolling thunder like, but now that

47:54

you say it, yeah, for sure. It's definitely as

47:57

a data east It's much simpler

48:00

than rolling thunder

48:00

because you you don't you don't have

48:02

the the the dodge in

48:05

the deck. So, I you deck but not like

48:07

behind stuff. And that's kind of that leads into the

48:09

thing I was gonna say about this, which is like, I

48:11

kinda feel like a lot of titles

48:14

non cute action

48:15

games sort of feel watered

48:17

down at times. Mhmm. Like games

48:19

like this where it's like, I don't know,

48:21

humanoid characters or whatever, but this

48:24

and maybe violence fight just

48:26

seem a bit

48:28

loosey goosey.

48:30

Like, they were just all maybe all

48:32

they were doing was chasing the trend. I'm not sure. But You know, it also could

48:34

be I wouldn't be surprised because

48:36

in a lot

48:37

of these situations

48:40

in in these in these arcade

48:42

companies, you get, like, okay.

48:44

The the a team is working on

48:46

NightStryker with our new super scaler

48:49

technology, but we still have all

48:51

these old boards out here.

48:53

And so we gotta put something on there, and then

48:55

and that's how you get crime city or

48:58

whatever. Yep.

48:58

Or it could be that, you know, the company's heart was really

49:00

in just doing the cute little things and the crazy super

49:03

scalar stuff. And then they,

49:06

you know, said, well, we gotta we gotta pad out our catalog. So,

49:09

you know, here's some

49:11

contractual obligation stuff. Yeah.

49:13

I will say though the name along with violence fight.

49:16

I mean, these could be canon films

49:18

movies. It's true.

49:20

I bet I bet these aren't VHS.

49:23

Yeah. Exactly. I'm sure those are

49:25

big inspirations maybe. You can't say

49:27

that about the next game on the

49:29

list however, Wolfied, Wolfied, have

49:31

you pronounced that? which is it's it's

49:33

kicks or kicks. How do you wanna pronounce

49:36

that? Yeah.

49:38

But it's

49:40

also kind of like the final stage in Arkinoid

49:42

where there's like big threatening things

49:44

that are, you know, you have to

49:46

kind of avoid and then trap. It's

49:49

a it's a really strange one. Yeah.

49:51

It's an odd game. It's it

49:54

is very kicks like. III

49:56

land on the kicks side of pronunciation.

50:00

It's an interesting game

50:02

where you you can

50:04

occasionally get the ability to shoot

50:06

as well. You I think, almost I'm misremembering.

50:09

I believe you can. Yeah.

50:11

And you have you

50:14

have a timer always running

50:16

down, which is weird. And

50:22

yeah, played this on the PC engine

50:24

because it it got ported

50:26

there and the port was okay. I do think

50:28

the arcade original is a

50:30

little bit better. It's it's a

50:32

pretty difficult

50:35

game, actually. It's hard

50:37

to kinda hard to

50:40

get through but it's neat. I like

50:42

the the basic formula of

50:44

gathering territory,

50:45

trapping the things. I don't

50:47

know. It works works

50:50

pretty well. for me. And I like that the

50:52

logo is really confusing to look

50:54

at. It's it's like

50:57

it's such a like a metal

50:59

band. How's it gonna say? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a metal band

51:02

symmetrical

51:02

logo so that for

51:04

a long time, I actually thought it was

51:06

Voalteave. because

51:08

the d and then fee looks so similar. It's

51:11

the OXXO moxo of

51:13

of video game logos.

51:16

Right. I don't even know if it pronounced

51:18

that right. But anyway yeah. I don't know. This one is also on the

51:20

Taito Igrut mini egress

51:23

too many. And

51:26

I should spend more time with this little

51:28

device because I just played some of my favorite

51:30

games on it. but not all really weird ones that

51:33

I should have been should have

51:35

been brushing up on. Gotta

51:37

get on that vaulting. Alright.

51:40

Okay. So wrapping up nineteen ninety, we

51:42

have one last arcade game. We're not gonna talk about

51:44

nineteen nineties home games because it's pretty much just ports

51:46

of arcade games. But in the

51:48

arcade, There was one last game. Also, I think, you

51:50

know, kind of fitting for the Canon films titles that you

51:53

mentioned, Ray, and that's Mega

51:56

Blast. I think there was actually

51:58

I think there was a mystery science theater

52:00

episode about a game called Megablast -- Not

52:02

a laser blast. -- a movie. Oh, laser

52:04

blast. it. Okay. And there's also a movie

52:07

called Blast Fighter, which

52:08

is a very good name. So many

52:10

blasts. Alright. So this one ran on

52:12

the title f two system, Brandon,

52:14

we're getting closer. We're getting

52:16

closer to your your F3F2

52:18

also has has growl on it,

52:21

I think. Yes. Oh,

52:21

yeah. Question score. Look at

52:23

it. We're gonna talk about that for

52:25

sure. Love ground. So this

52:27

this kind of strikes me

52:29

as being the game that

52:31

you get when the creators of Darius

52:34

say, oh, we should do an r

52:36

type. And it's not really

52:38

r type. but it's also not really

52:40

dariahs. It's this kind of weird in between thing. I

52:42

don't know. Someone else wrote about this in the notes,

52:45

so I will step back and

52:47

let them speak as an expert. I just

52:49

have my my fresh

52:52

impressions. Was

52:52

that you right?

52:54

No. And then again, maybe

52:56

I wrote about it in a fugue state. Yeah. You wrote about a fugue state,

52:58

but I'll I'll I'll have heard Megablast

53:00

is that it reminds me a lot of

53:02

hellfire s because you can

53:05

fire in a bunch of different directions at

53:07

once. And and they actually

53:09

designed this game around being able to so

53:12

your your ship fires in four directions can

53:14

change your which

53:16

weapon is on is is in which

53:18

direction. But they actually designed it

53:20

so that it you know, there there

53:22

there are times where you have

53:24

to go down into a corridor and

53:26

there's a crate down there that needs

53:28

to be shot by your your

53:30

downward shot and stuff.

53:32

It's it's not super complicated, but they

53:34

did they did an okay job and

53:36

they got some got

53:37

some gum dummy robot

53:38

designs in here and stuff. I wouldn't

53:40

say it's my favorite, but it's fine.

53:44

Yep. That

53:46

fits. I I appreciate the fact that it is basically just

53:48

the the entire premise of this game

53:50

is let's give the player

53:54

all the guns. Let's, you know, let's have them constantly

53:56

firing from four directions at once. You've

53:58

you've got, you know, the little r type

54:02

bit but there's one on each

54:04

side of your ship, top, bottom, front, back. That's great. You're just this kind

54:07

of whirling death

54:10

machine And it

54:12

it you know, the the

54:14

the web and mechanic kinda reminds me of i

54:16

n hander, which was, you

54:18

know, a decade later, but Yeah.

54:21

The way you can swap out the weapons and

54:23

you can carry multiple types of weapons

54:25

at once. There's like one

54:27

weapon that shoots not

54:31

balls exactly, but they're they're like

54:33

pellets or something. And they kind of have

54:35

a a gravity effect and they sort

54:37

of spill out. and bounce along

54:39

the ground. So if you, you know, are in a

54:42

space where you're going downward,

54:44

it's great to have that because it

54:46

just like those those kind of collect on the ground and just blow

54:48

things up and then kinda clear out the way for

54:50

you. It just yeah. It just

54:52

feels like It's

54:54

just one of those games that's very satisfying because you're

54:57

really, really powerful. It's really kind of

54:59

the opposite of r type now that I think about it.

55:01

Just because it looks like an

55:03

r type, with the little bits. It plays like

55:05

something completely

55:08

different.

56:12

Alright. So that wraps it up for

56:14

nineteen eighty nine for

56:16

Titan. And now we move

56:19

along to nineteen ninety where

56:21

there was some cool stuff, and also some not cool

56:24

stuff. But we'll talk about all of

56:26

them. So to begin

56:28

with, we have a

56:30

game called DASH. Heck

56:32

yeah. And I feel like this is more of a

56:34

Brandon game than a Jeremy game. So

56:36

Brandon take it away. Hundred percent love

56:38

this game, Kardashian is great. It's

56:40

in Did you play it first on the PC

56:42

engine? I played it first on the PC engine. It's

56:44

a luxury engine. Very good. Yeah.

56:46

I played it first on the PC

56:48

engine. Then I much

56:50

later played it on our on the arcade in the

56:52

arcade. I actually played it first on PC

56:54

engines, second on mega drive,

56:56

third in the

56:58

arcade. The core premise

57:00

is it's a side scrolling action game,

57:02

but it has RPG like

57:04

elements where you can

57:06

upgrade your character stats level up their weapons,

57:08

buy new weapons, talk to

57:12

NPCs. It feels like they wanted

57:14

to make a bigger game and couldn't quite

57:16

get there. but it it

57:18

even it has some real,

57:20

like, adventure bits to it. It

57:22

has story. It has a part where you have

57:24

to become small so you can go into the

57:26

gnome village. You turn into, like, a tiny

57:28

little version of yourself. It's

57:30

got four players. The priest is the

57:32

best.

57:33

She's got, like, flail

57:36

that goes way out. She's not as the best

57:38

in the arcade version as she is

57:40

in the PC engine version, but she's

57:42

definitely the best there. The

57:44

mega drive port gets all

57:47

four characters but is kind of more

57:49

washed out and doesn't right

57:52

in the PC engine version, super

57:54

snappy, very vibrant colors,

57:57

but not all

57:59

the

57:59

carat weight. Which

58:00

one? I can't actually, no. I can't remember which

58:02

one lost a character. Maybe it was the Make

58:05

Driver's No Well. I should

58:07

know better. But, anyway, the

58:09

PC engine port is I'm

58:11

almost certain the first ever

58:14

working designs game. It

58:16

was either this or Paris

58:18

All Stars, which is another game.

58:20

But I believe that

58:22

Kedash was first because

58:25

I know that Pericel stars came out at the

58:27

very tail end of nineteen ninety

58:30

one from working designs.

58:32

And so I think I think this

58:34

is first But, yeah,

58:36

it's like this kind

58:38

of side scrolling action

58:42

RPG hybrid genre

58:44

game, but in arcades.

58:46

And you just don't see that kind

58:48

of stuff very often. And

58:52

perhaps it's because those kinds of things weren't that successful. Yeah.

58:54

But they made for a great console port. That's

58:56

for sure. And I loved it.

58:58

Okay. That's what I

59:00

got today. Good

59:02

music too. Yeah. This this really this

59:04

kinda taps into the you

59:06

know, a lot of stuff Capcom was

59:08

doing with magic sword, and

59:11

-- Mhmm. -- Black Tiger and, you

59:13

know, later they would do the Dungeon and

59:15

Dragons games. Yeah. But

59:18

I feel like this is a lot more focused

59:20

And -- Yeah. -- at the same time, more ambitious, where,

59:22

you know, all all the Capcom games,

59:24

I really enjoy them, but there is

59:27

a kind of almost like a mushiness to the design. It's

59:29

just kind of like a formlessness to

59:32

them that doesn't it just

59:34

feels like they didn't quite work to

59:36

their potential. Whereas

59:38

this one, it's very interesting. I

59:40

haven't played it nearly enough,

59:42

but it it feels a

59:44

lot more structured and a lot

59:46

more, you know, carefully thought

59:48

out? Yeah.

59:48

It's it's definitely got a

59:51

pointedness to it, and it

59:53

focuses more on the on the action

59:55

side to where the oh, yeah. It it's the mega

59:57

drive version that loses two of the

59:59

characters you could only

1:00:02

play as fighter and made on mega

1:00:04

drive. But -- Okay. -- especially since this

1:00:06

is, like, a on the TurboTax,

1:00:08

it was

1:00:10

a chip game too. Sounds not like they Yeah.

1:00:12

Exactly. Had the had

1:00:14

extra space. But,

1:00:16

yeah, it It just has

1:00:18

a

1:00:18

unique vibe because

1:00:21

of the the the

1:00:22

way that story is presented. It

1:00:25

it almost feels like

1:00:27

a Metroidvania even though it's clearly not

1:00:30

because you do have to

1:00:32

revisit certain areas to get to

1:00:34

a different spot. Now

1:00:36

that you have this item, you can, like, get

1:00:38

it across the bridge or you can

1:00:40

use this rope now or whatever.

1:00:42

And it isn't one, but it has

1:00:44

all these early shades of these kinds

1:00:46

of ideas, like

1:00:47

Metroid Metroid ID

1:00:50

ideas, side

1:00:52

scrolling action RPG ideas ideas

1:00:56

of telling story in a in

1:00:57

a flat plane like this. I don't

1:00:59

know. It's Taito It

1:01:02

might be because I played it as a use. But for me, it

1:01:05

was a very informative game

1:01:08

about potential

1:01:10

directions that games

1:01:11

could go. And I

1:01:14

particularly enjoy when a game

1:01:15

makes you think about

1:01:18

the potential of

1:01:20

the medium And to me when I

1:01:22

played this game, it was like, oh, but what if there was

1:01:24

more of this? Or what if they went further in

1:01:26

this direction? because it was

1:01:28

just just putting out feelers in a variety of different directions

1:01:30

without going all the way. But

1:01:32

for me, that really inspired the

1:01:34

imagination. Any other

1:01:36

the other thoughts ray thoughts, Ray? I am

1:01:39

not as informed on catash as I

1:01:41

would have liked to be, but

1:01:43

it's true that

1:01:46

it is one of those great examples of, like, trying

1:01:48

to trying to adapt sort

1:01:50

of role playing game type

1:01:52

things into the arcade. And

1:01:54

I think Namco did that a

1:01:56

lot with Draga, Dragonbuster,

1:01:58

maybe Legend of Valkyrie -- Oh, yeah.

1:02:00

-- Taito, you know, I think

1:02:02

this is I

1:02:03

feel like maybe

1:02:04

they were inspired by Sorsairian,

1:02:07

just

1:02:07

in the exact way that this

1:02:09

is set up. because that was

1:02:11

a hugely influential sort of game as well.

1:02:14

Yeah. And so this was just, like,

1:02:16

their attempt maybe to

1:02:18

get a bit of a cesarean influence

1:02:20

in the arcade. And, yeah, that's just another great example of

1:02:22

that kind of, like we were saying, a

1:02:24

genre mash.

1:02:26

Mhmm. yeah,

1:02:28

it just it feels like a real attempt at something, and and

1:02:30

I love I love to see an attempt.

1:02:33

Yeah. Alright. So you

1:02:35

can play that one on the

1:02:37

EGRATUMINEE. And also, this next game, which is another Brandon

1:02:40

Sheffield special. It's Mizuho

1:02:42

adventures, AKA Liquid Kids.

1:02:46

Yeah. That's a good way, Brandon. This is

1:02:48

all of you. Okay. Well, and also all

1:02:50

Ray, I don't wanna I don't wanna shut Ray

1:02:53

out. Hey, I love too. You've expressed you've expressed

1:02:55

your passion for it. Actually, Ray, why don't you go for

1:02:58

Yeah. You got you guys. And then I'll just

1:03:00

just wanna give you

1:03:02

the opportunity. hey,

1:03:02

what if bubble bubble had longer stages? There, I'm done. No. I'm

1:03:05

just kidding. What if it

1:03:07

was all horizontal? I

1:03:10

mean, Yeah. But, I mean, that I'm

1:03:12

kidding. But that's also, like, the first thing that

1:03:14

popped into my head whenever I first played.

1:03:16

It was just, like, yeah.

1:03:18

It's just like the bubble bubble type

1:03:20

of gameplay, but as like a horizontal platformer. And

1:03:23

it worked out

1:03:24

really well, I think.

1:03:28

Yeah. Except you don't play as, like, little dragon guys. You play

1:03:30

as, like, little I don't know what it's supposed to say.

1:03:33

like, try to put yeah. Hipos. Okay. Yeah. I always

1:03:35

thought it was a try to

1:03:38

put but I actually just looked it up and he's a hippo. Yeah.

1:03:40

Okay. My guess was dog. So Yeah.

1:03:42

Like a dog hippo platypus

1:03:46

hybrid. Yeah. But,

1:03:48

yeah, of course, it's also a very cute

1:03:50

game just like a bubble bubble and

1:03:52

all that sort of ilk, but

1:03:54

larger sprites as well. So

1:03:57

It's even cuter. They could have even add even more cute

1:04:00

detail on everything. And that's

1:04:02

like my my surface level nutshell

1:04:04

explanation of it. I this

1:04:06

game because it's really

1:04:09

to me, it is breaking out of

1:04:11

the shell of the single screen platformer.

1:04:14

It's it's like Right.

1:04:16

Using those mechanics, but

1:04:17

using them to their

1:04:20

logical extension because

1:04:22

it is it is horizontal. It also gets

1:04:24

a fair bit of verticality to it as well. But

1:04:26

you can do all the things like hop on the on

1:04:29

on the ball or whatever. but

1:04:33

you you're throwing water balls and

1:04:35

you can increase their

1:04:37

size by holding the

1:04:39

button. And you can

1:04:41

interact with the world a lot using

1:04:44

this as it's almost

1:04:46

like elemental world

1:04:48

changing because there will be

1:04:50

fires you gotta put out with water. There will

1:04:52

be water wheels that you have to

1:04:54

spin, and then it will, like, raise

1:04:56

something or

1:04:58

it'll change how a platform works for you.

1:05:00

And

1:05:00

it just really feels very

1:05:01

well. The mechanic feels very well

1:05:04

integrated into

1:05:06

the world. and to me felt very exploratory

1:05:08

from a game design

1:05:10

perspective because it's like, okay,

1:05:12

I've got water. Of course, I can do stuff with

1:05:14

this fire.

1:05:16

But a lot of games don't let

1:05:18

you do that kind of thing. And for me,

1:05:20

it just really was like

1:05:23

It's a vision of like,

1:05:25

what if instead of

1:05:27

Mario

1:05:28

being the prototype for

1:05:31

all platform games? What if it was puzzle bubble bubble?

1:05:33

Like, if that was if the

1:05:35

single screen platform became

1:05:39

more close to the prototype of what

1:05:41

we would later have

1:05:44

in platforming games, liquid

1:05:46

kids would be, like, the the Super Mario World.

1:05:48

Not All Star, Super Mario World or

1:05:50

whatever. Yeah. It's it's

1:05:53

just a neat It's a really

1:05:55

neat extension of that

1:05:58

idea and design wise. It's

1:06:00

another one that that gets my brain going,

1:06:02

gets my noodle cooking. You know what

1:06:04

I mean? I need to spend

1:06:06

more time with this game because you make

1:06:08

it sound amazing. Because

1:06:10

unfortunately, also massively difficult.

1:06:12

It's like it's so hard it's

1:06:15

so hard to play. I

1:06:18

this is one game where while I did play

1:06:20

it on the PC engine, I didn't play it

1:06:22

as much because I really need to be feeding those

1:06:24

quarters in there because it's

1:06:28

it's it's so hard.

1:06:30

And also, they released a version on the Saturn, which is, like, five

1:06:32

hundred dollars now and you can never purchase.

1:06:34

Oh. It's very sad. I

1:06:36

don't remember. collector's

1:06:38

market. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

1:06:40

looking back to to this

1:06:42

this sort of line of game evolution within

1:06:44

Taito, water mechanics

1:06:47

were a big part of not only bubble bubble, but

1:06:49

check-in-depth before that. They were always

1:06:52

they always had this thing they wanted to

1:06:54

do with water. So you know, it it

1:06:56

makes sense that that they

1:06:58

would build on that mechanic and say, you know, there's

1:07:00

there's this thing that we've been kicking

1:07:02

around

1:07:02

and trying to find a satisfying

1:07:05

sort of evolution for.

1:07:07

Let's do that. But what also surprises

1:07:09

me is that that some of the levels in

1:07:11

this game really give me a a

1:07:13

vibe of early mega man just

1:07:16

in sort sort of their design and structure. I don't

1:07:18

necessarily know. And in terms of the way it plays

1:07:20

not so much, but it just feels like

1:07:23

like,

1:07:23

you're you're a little

1:07:26

hippo guy who

1:07:27

is doing the mega man thing for

1:07:29

him. But instead of, you know, beating bosses

1:07:31

and getting their weapons, you have water stuff. Yeah.

1:07:34

Yeah. A thing that I really like about it

1:07:36

is because they built in this

1:07:38

kind of

1:07:40

primitive fluid dynamics thing. You have all of

1:07:42

those level design wise, you

1:07:44

have

1:07:45

those platform setups. Oh, also, you can

1:07:47

you can make Sprouts grow. which

1:07:50

is -- Okay. -- is

1:07:52

full to make platforms

1:07:54

and and hidden find hidden paths and

1:07:56

stuff. But

1:07:58

yeah, it has some of that same a single

1:08:00

screen platformer vibe to

1:08:02

it where it's got, like, this

1:08:05

little maze set up for you in this in

1:08:07

this section and a bunch of enemies will appear

1:08:09

and you know that if you get them just right, you

1:08:11

can make them all like slide down

1:08:14

this maze and like a I mean, I guess it it it's just like amazed

1:08:16

that you would trace with your

1:08:18

with your pencil. And it and

1:08:20

it's it's

1:08:23

neat because they got the the fluid, like,

1:08:25

going going down into the into

1:08:27

these interstices and making all

1:08:29

the the enemies fly with

1:08:32

it. It's It's a really neat idea.

1:08:34

I feel like it's a little underappreciated little under the wire

1:08:36

and or

1:08:39

under the wire. not the correct

1:08:41

phrase. But you know what I mean? the

1:08:43

one terms of

1:08:48

how interesting it is game design

1:08:50

wise, but I think it it this genre didn't really evolve too

1:08:54

much past this point.

1:08:57

this was kind of like the end of it. It could but it

1:08:59

makes you think about how it could have gone

1:09:00

further.

1:09:05

and it's I don't know. It's it's neat. No. Absolutely. Yeah.

1:09:07

It it's it's a little bit

1:09:08

yeah. It's a bit of a

1:09:11

shame that they didn't like try

1:09:13

and make a sequel to this or anything?

1:09:16

Because, yeah, it is that sort of, I think, perfect expansion of that gameplay

1:09:18

and sort of those ideas that were started in in bubble bubble. Yeah.

1:09:20

And I

1:09:23

think, you know, you mentioned how it could have

1:09:26

been, you know, the Mario type

1:09:28

of game in another

1:09:30

universe. I think also, like, you you

1:09:32

mentioned growing growing the platforms and things. Like, that reminded me of like

1:09:34

a Yoshi game. Like, this could also have been like a

1:09:37

Yoshi game. Totally.

1:09:40

Yeah. It's it's kind of, like,

1:09:42

Yoshi, Kirby vibes, like a like a Nintendo, Nintendo,

1:09:46

b team, but we're the but a Nintendo b team

1:09:49

is, like, a somebody else

1:09:51

a team. Yeah. Yeah. All

1:09:53

those seeds of that being planted here,

1:09:55

I think. Mhmm. So there's

1:09:57

been we've been

1:10:00

talking about some good stuff.

1:10:02

Here's a little survey of badness.

1:10:05

with

1:10:05

Palimides. I admit this is another game, another

1:10:07

color based puzzle game that I

1:10:10

first played on Game

1:10:12

Boy. so

1:10:14

that does kind of skew my perspective. But

1:10:16

it's just I don't

1:10:19

know. It's it's kind of

1:10:21

doing that Tetris thing. It's got

1:10:23

blocks to descend. And it's not really Tetris though. III

1:10:25

kind of feel like this is a precursor to

1:10:27

magical drop where -- Mhmm. --

1:10:30

there's a a wall descending in kicking

1:10:32

blocks up and you have to match

1:10:34

them and make them go away. But it's not great. I don't know. You're you're

1:10:37

matching dice face

1:10:40

like the the values on

1:10:42

dice in addition to colors. Yeah. Yeah. It's just not like

1:10:45

there's no

1:10:48

big chaining there's no chaining

1:10:50

of any kind really. It's it's really just a relatively simple

1:10:56

tile match game. It it's at least

1:10:58

actiony, but it doesn't I can't say

1:11:01

it does anything

1:11:04

for me. Nope. You won't find me defending that much either.

1:11:06

Plus, I think, like, puzzle games with dice just give me hives. I

1:11:08

just bounce right off. Yeah. I am

1:11:10

I'm not a fan fan of double dice.

1:11:14

No. I'm too stupid for devil dies.

1:11:16

I can't rock it. And

1:11:18

this is just kind of plain

1:11:20

little bit bland. in in general. Like,

1:11:22

III remember seeing it when the first

1:11:25

ads for, like, the India version were showing up in

1:11:27

magazines. I was like, no. Yeah. Double

1:11:30

dice all time her name, though. True

1:11:35

of that name.

1:11:44

Alright. So if

1:11:46

Palomades is kind of

1:11:51

a disappointment, at least we have invaders ninety one,

1:11:54

which is as simple

1:11:57

and charming and colorful as

1:11:59

intermediates

1:11:59

is overly complex and

1:12:02

dull. The notes

1:12:03

here say it is the Gallaga eighty eight

1:12:05

of space elevator sequels. I don't know if that's

1:12:08

true, but kind of, not just in

1:12:10

terms of the number, but in like that fact that there's a year at the end, but also

1:12:12

just the

1:12:15

way it takes the the basic space invaders concept and throws

1:12:18

in tons of extra stuff.

1:12:20

It really breaks it out

1:12:22

of that sort of, you know, simple.

1:12:24

The invaders are marching down the

1:12:26

screen, and they're going to get faster. And, you know, it

1:12:29

preserves that element,

1:12:32

but then goes in all kinds

1:12:34

of other directions with it. It's just colorful and lively and varied and fun.

1:12:36

Yeah. I really like

1:12:39

it. I I might go

1:12:42

so far is to say

1:12:44

it's my favorite space invaders game until you

1:12:46

get to the, like, real big subversions later.

1:12:51

because extreme yeah. Like extreme. Because it's

1:12:53

got I mean, it's it's

1:12:56

got power

1:12:58

ups. It feels snappy and zippy. It doesn't

1:13:00

feel like an old game

1:13:02

anymore. You you got invaders

1:13:06

that expand horizontally and slowed, which

1:13:08

is fun. They just threw a lot in

1:13:10

here. It just feels like everything they

1:13:13

could think of they they

1:13:15

put into it, but not

1:13:17

in a way that felt bad. It still feels like space invaders, and

1:13:19

it feels like

1:13:24

the when I first played this

1:13:26

game, of course, on the PC engine, I I was I

1:13:31

was, like, So this is why people like invaders. I actually

1:13:34

didn't really get it

1:13:36

before.

1:13:37

get it Right.

1:13:39

This one, it actually it's really fun

1:13:42

to me. And it it has, like,

1:13:44

vertically scrolling stages where

1:13:46

your shape is actually flying.

1:13:49

when you're when you're being the tank on the ground,

1:13:51

you leave little little tank treads in the dirt behind yourself. It it just

1:13:53

it's cool. And the the power ups

1:13:56

are, like, strange

1:13:59

sometimes and unpredictable and weird. And it's

1:14:02

it's like, is it really gonna help

1:14:05

me or not? this

1:14:07

to me showed that Titan

1:14:09

is capable of

1:14:12

evolving and playing with a

1:14:14

classic with its bread and butter.

1:14:16

in a in a way that

1:14:19

can actually work. Like, they're they're not precious about

1:14:22

it in a way.

1:14:24

Yeah. I think I think attack of the lunar lunar

1:14:26

lunar lunar is a little it tries a little too hard, but this just hits that perfect spot. And, you know,

1:14:29

and there are some subversions in here.

1:14:31

Like the first time, you're

1:14:34

in a stage with the it's

1:14:36

like the shield bases above your your

1:14:38

your ship. And you try to fire

1:14:40

through them. And instead of firing through

1:14:42

them, you push them up with your projectiles. Yeah. And

1:14:44

they they move into the lanes of

1:14:46

the invaders. You're just like, oh, wow.

1:14:48

I just did something amazing and

1:14:51

cool that I didn't expect. but it

1:14:53

makes perfect sense. And yet, it's totally -- Right. --

1:14:55

it's totally unexpected. Yeah. They're really playing

1:14:59

with with stuff and kind of subverting your expectations, but in ways that

1:15:01

feel playful and fun. I mean, the the

1:15:03

freaking bonus stage with the

1:15:06

cattle mutilation. where it just says cow

1:15:08

mulation. And and you're just you're just protecting

1:15:10

the cows. They're trying to beam them

1:15:13

up away from you. But But the the

1:15:15

fact that it starts the stage with

1:15:17

the cattle mutilation, etcetera.

1:15:20

Yeah. I know. You can't you

1:15:22

can't beat it. yeah. I think

1:15:23

this is a great example of just, like, again, where Titus

1:15:25

was sort of revisiting these

1:15:27

games from, like, a

1:15:30

decade prior. So, like, quicks

1:15:32

with Wolffeed. In some respects, Ray Mayes, which we didn't talk about,

1:15:34

but that sort of is, like, a reinvention of a

1:15:37

maze game from, like, just

1:15:39

a few years prior. you

1:15:42

put these in, like, a a collection. You

1:15:44

put those three in a collection. That'd be

1:15:46

good. Like, the the title, late era

1:15:49

-- Yeah. -- new visitation series. Yeah. For

1:15:51

some reason, space invaders ninety one isn't

1:15:53

on the egress too

1:15:55

many. Yeah. Even though

1:15:56

they, you know, they they

1:15:59

give you the

1:15:59

ability to put the screen sideways and do

1:16:02

the mode. It's very strange. Wait for another expansion code. Yeah. It could be. That could be it. It

1:16:04

could be win. I feel like

1:16:06

this game doesn't quite get the

1:16:10

I don't know. Maybe it wasn't super successful

1:16:12

for them or something because it feels like one

1:16:14

that they don't bring bring back up that often.

1:16:16

When when you when you get into the collections and

1:16:18

things, I think it's in one of memories. This

1:16:20

is tied to memories. But it doesn't doesn't

1:16:22

feel like it gets real pride of

1:16:26

place. They don't bold it or anything, you know, on the the

1:16:28

back of the box. Well,

1:16:30

that's a shame. Surprisingly, a

1:16:34

game that does show up fairly often in

1:16:36

compilations and such as the next

1:16:38

game of the list, Growl, aka

1:16:44

Noonark, which I feel

1:16:46

like this is the most nineteen ninety ass game ever made. Not making nineties.

1:16:48

Nineteen ninety, like

1:16:51

this specific year. This

1:16:54

was the year of,

1:16:56

you know,

1:16:57

Earth Day celebrations

1:16:59

at school, but

1:17:02

also the year scrolling brawlers

1:17:04

and, you know, save the whales.

1:17:06

And here it is, it's final

1:17:09

fight where you gotta save

1:17:11

the whales or whatever. And

1:17:14

you can be the temple of

1:17:16

doom version of Indiana Jones if you want. Not --

1:17:19

Mhmm. -- not any Indiana Jones. Specifically,

1:17:21

the Temple of Doom version, there's no mistaking it. Of course. I

1:17:23

think this game Taito was such a weird game.

1:17:25

I love, like, the the way

1:17:27

that it starts out

1:17:30

is really so when

1:17:33

when I was exhibiting a

1:17:35

game at Tokyo game show, like,

1:17:37

twenty sixteen, group of people

1:17:39

from ARC SystemWorks came up and

1:17:41

played our game

1:17:42

gun sport, which is now being

1:17:44

released as hyper gun sport. pretty

1:17:48

soon. He was playing well, several of them were

1:17:50

playing in this one guy was talking to me, and

1:17:52

he was saying that we needed to

1:17:54

work on our one credit experience, which is

1:17:56

the like, can you

1:17:57

fully understand how to play the game? And are you engaged by the end of

1:17:59

putting in hundred yen?

1:18:02

And I feel like Growl

1:18:06

does a great job of that

1:18:09

because the very first sequence is you're in

1:18:11

this you're in this rowdy looking

1:18:13

bar with all these people. and

1:18:16

then someone throws a bomb and then you

1:18:18

have to deck under a table and everything

1:18:20

explodes and then you're fighting.

1:18:22

It's it's just like this this tiny

1:18:24

little in game cutscene that so

1:18:26

quickly is like, I gotta beat these guys

1:18:29

up. They just

1:18:31

blew everything up. I don't know. It's

1:18:33

it's it's so it's so cool. Plus, you save the animals and then the

1:18:35

animals come and

1:18:39

help you. Like, for me, as a vegetarian since I

1:18:41

was eight years old, I was like,

1:18:43

let's do it. Come on,

1:18:45

animals. Let's go get

1:18:48

him. Yeah. I don't

1:18:50

know. I'll I'll let someone else talk for a bit, but this this game I love it. I have it. I have the I

1:18:53

have the

1:18:56

Genesis version. they're they're both a

1:18:58

little different. The arcade version is better, but -- A lot. -- I think one of the women's too.

1:19:00

Oh, yeah. Like one degree deeper than

1:19:02

that, I think, is to say, like,

1:19:06

you know, in most beat them ups, the first weapon you get is usually

1:19:08

like a knife or a pipe or whatever. Right. And,

1:19:10

like, in this game, your first weapon is

1:19:13

like a rocket launcher. Right. And it's right at your

1:19:15

weapon. not just not just like a Bazooka, but it's like, yeah, like AAA

1:19:19

twelve missile rack,

1:19:20

you know, that you

1:19:22

put on your shoulder. Yeah. It's at least like the Arnold and Egger

1:19:24

holding up the the the iPhone

1:19:26

camera lens that I don't know if

1:19:28

you saw that mean, but -- Yeah.

1:19:30

-- yeah. It's I mean, What

1:19:33

a statement? Mhmm.

1:19:34

And then you and then you get swords and you get knives

1:19:36

and you get

1:19:39

whips and cuddles and regular

1:19:43

handguns, like, yes. It's

1:19:46

cool. It's

1:19:47

just

1:19:49

it's still,

1:19:51

like, stupidly macho as well with with Yeah. There's there's also

1:19:53

a a total lack of cohesion to the

1:19:56

enemies you've fight. It's on your

1:19:58

personality. It's all over the place.

1:19:59

There's like dudes

1:20:01

and turbines. There's, you know, like, businessmen

1:20:03

wearing pheasant. There's ladies and kind

1:20:05

of pencil skirts and

1:20:08

and sunglasses. There's

1:20:10

dudes in Newsy caps. One of the

1:20:12

bosses says, samurai. I don't I don't

1:20:14

even know what this supposed to be,

1:20:16

but it's just like I guess everyone who

1:20:19

who wants to kill animals or poach them.

1:20:21

Yeah. They just teamed up and are

1:20:23

like, let's let's take

1:20:25

down Indiana Jones. at any given screen,

1:20:27

you could have a newsy

1:20:29

and, like, a terrible,

1:20:31

like, Arabic stereotype and

1:20:34

then AAA bubble era Japanese office lady. Yeah.

1:20:36

It's like all

1:20:39

in one. It's not It's

1:20:41

not the usual, like, fighting game, you know, like, final fight at streets of rage and stuff. When women show

1:20:43

up, they're they're clearly, like, meant to

1:20:46

be, you know, sex

1:20:48

workers. these

1:20:50

aren't that. They're like it's like,

1:20:53

you

1:20:53

know, they should be serving tea

1:20:55

to to, you know, people coming

1:20:57

for meetings or something. It's just

1:20:59

it's very bizarre. but that just adds

1:21:02

to the appeal because it's just so all over the place. Yeah. I will say that there

1:21:05

one of the game's

1:21:07

weaker aspects is there

1:21:10

is a

1:21:11

lack of enemy variety, partially because

1:21:13

they show you all of those enemies

1:21:15

right at one right at the

1:21:17

start, and then that's pretty

1:21:19

much what you get. Like, there aren't new a

1:21:21

whole bunch of new enemies after

1:21:23

that except

1:21:24

that except for the for

1:21:26

the for the bosses. final weirdly kind

1:21:28

of looks like. To me, I

1:21:31

always thought he looked like Neo

1:21:35

mask

1:21:35

or whatever, the the the Neo

1:21:37

geo mask. You know what I'm talking

1:21:39

about? Oh, yeah.

1:21:40

What's his name?

1:21:42

Mask? Jeez. Now I draw the blank. Yeah. But

1:21:44

but his his face,

1:21:47

I was always like, are

1:21:49

they are they, like, making an s

1:21:51

and k dig. But this was I think this was

1:21:53

before that mask guy even

1:21:55

existed. So phantom mask

1:21:57

with the accuracy statement.

1:21:59

How

1:21:59

g manta? g manta. That's great. It looked like

1:22:02

g manta. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:22:02

Yeah. And of course, it turns out that

1:22:04

it's actually like some kind of an

1:22:07

alien caterpillar in the end. Oh,

1:22:10

of course. Yeah. Worst out of his body. Naturally. So, yeah, this was tied to f two. we're

1:22:12

working our way

1:22:15

up to the best the

1:22:18

best type of platform of all time. Alright.

1:22:20

So to get

1:22:21

there, we have to go through the

1:22:23

ninja kids, not to be

1:22:25

mistaken for culture brands, ninja kid. which is

1:22:27

bad, but

1:22:27

the ninja kids is

1:22:29

good. It's also like growl,

1:22:31

weird,

1:22:31

but it's weird

1:22:34

in a completely different way. Why did it lose you when?

1:22:36

It's so bizarre looking. What

1:22:38

a what a strange aesthetic, but

1:22:40

it may it's memorable. Like, you

1:22:42

you don't forget this game because One,

1:22:46

the character designs are really,

1:22:47

really weird. And two, they have

1:22:49

a lot of English text

1:22:51

in the game that,

1:22:55

you know, it takes some liberties

1:22:57

with translation and is very memorable for

1:22:59

it. Yeah.

1:23:01

Servants of the Satan. that's where the

1:23:03

the intro base is in here. Here is

1:23:06

a graveyard of you. Yeah. Yeah.

1:23:08

Indeed. Yeah. It it's very

1:23:10

strange because they they had all

1:23:12

these like, meat effects

1:23:14

and stuff that they did, and they've got, like, a weird, for some reason, like,

1:23:16

a late

1:23:18

crazy climber sequence.

1:23:21

And it does have kind of that TMNT4

1:23:23

player vibe -- Mhmm. -- and need

1:23:26

to fix these things. But

1:23:28

but the characters

1:23:30

they all look like they look like Muppets.

1:23:33

They

1:23:37

And there there's like a a

1:23:39

zombie using a power lifter or power

1:23:42

loader from alien in

1:23:44

here. along

1:23:47

with all your your muppets. Like, what

1:23:49

what are you trying to

1:23:51

do? I feel

1:23:53

the the the notes say that

1:23:55

the visual style is reminiscent of Bonanza Brothers meets the

1:23:57

Moffett Show, which seems pretty spot on. Yeah. It's totally

1:24:00

right. And Taito

1:24:03

it's weird because, I guess, the thing that

1:24:05

makes it still compelling is it really

1:24:08

feels like it

1:24:11

was somebody's vision. like, somebody thought this was

1:24:14

a great idea. You don't you don't just accidentally wind up making a game

1:24:16

with wind at making again

1:24:18

the a

1:24:19

bunch of Burton Ernie's

1:24:22

throwing Shuriken. It's a

1:24:24

decision. Yeah. That's a

1:24:26

real decision to I don't

1:24:28

know that it was the right one, but

1:24:30

somebody made a choice and I love when you can look at a game and be like, well, you

1:24:32

decided on it. That's for

1:24:35

sure. Yeah. I mean, for

1:24:38

for as strange as the game looks, it has a great feel to it. It has,

1:24:41

like, the pace

1:24:44

and energy of

1:24:46

a really good tsunami multiplayer brawler. I mean, this is a four player brawler. So it's kind of tapping

1:24:48

into that team and team thing,

1:24:50

x men, you know, etcetera, etcetera.

1:24:55

And it it it really captures that spirit with just

1:24:57

like a ton of stuff happening.

1:24:59

Everyone's moving really fast. You

1:25:01

you've got a lot of,

1:25:04

you know, freedom to attack enemies and

1:25:06

team up and so forth. But, you know, all of Qunami's

1:25:08

brawlers, they were

1:25:11

tied to licenses. And the thing

1:25:13

about licenses is the licensers say, you know, guys, you

1:25:16

gotta keep it within boundaries.

1:25:18

This has to be recognizable as

1:25:20

the thing

1:25:22

we created. And there is no

1:25:24

such thing as the Ninja Kids, the

1:25:27

media property. No. So whoever put this

1:25:29

game together was just like, I'm

1:25:31

putting it all nothing's

1:25:32

gonna stop me. We're just going there. If I wanna go

1:25:34

there, we're gonna go there. And they do. They go there. Yeah. I mean,

1:25:38

it feels like they could have wanted

1:25:39

to make it more of a media property because it

1:25:41

has, you know, very distinct characters. It has

1:25:43

a cool logo. there

1:25:47

there's elements here where they're maybe doing the

1:25:49

reverse of khanami where it's like, oh, let's

1:25:51

rip off the game first and then we'll

1:25:53

turn it to a media property. How about

1:25:55

that? Who knows? Kinda like kinda like with Strider?

1:25:59

Yes. But weirder.

1:26:00

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1:26:21

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Okay.

1:27:59

Anyway, so that's the arcade

1:28:01

stuff for nineteen ninety

1:28:03

from Titan. You can play

1:28:05

the ninja kids. on the egress too

1:28:08

many. So, please don't miss

1:28:10

it. It's a site to

1:28:12

behold. But, yeah, I do wanna talk

1:28:14

about their home stuff in this period

1:28:16

because they did put some

1:28:18

interesting things out. Some of these were not actually title games per

1:28:21

Taito, but,

1:28:24

you know, they were published

1:28:26

by Tito or licensed from Tito. And that begins with which

1:28:29

is developed by

1:28:31

Ocean. Yeah. Renegade Renegade

1:28:34

was

1:28:34

just it was a big thing in

1:28:36

Europe. It it was it was, like,

1:28:39

on every computer platform and

1:28:41

it just was big

1:28:43

there. And so there were, like, two

1:28:45

or three renegade sequels that really mostly showed

1:28:47

up in Europe we

1:28:50

got this one target renegade on NES. But,

1:28:52

you know, it's it's, like, you

1:28:54

look at the

1:28:55

Zelda timeline and you have, like,

1:28:57

the hero of of hire like,

1:28:59

the hero time fails. and

1:29:00

you have, like, the Canon timeline

1:29:02

and stuff. Sure. This is like that with Cuneo. Somewhere, the Cuneo timeline

1:29:07

split from Renegade and you have

1:29:09

like the Western Renegade style and then you have the Japanese

1:29:11

Curio games. And, the twain

1:29:15

she'll never meet. Because

1:29:17

the Konyu games are a lot better

1:29:19

than target winning games. Yeah. Generally. Yeah. That's that's for sure. It did

1:29:20

work out though.

1:29:23

That timeline did eventually in that dark

1:29:26

timeline. Yes. Thinkfully. Except for double dragon, which had, like, two parallel time lines and this

1:29:32

essentially converged. Yeah. That's true. But yeah.

1:29:34

Can we count the movie? Yeah. Because yeah. because

1:29:38

I was gas. Yeah. And the movie kinda got in the Ogio game.

1:29:40

So Oh. Well, there you

1:29:42

go. Yeah. But Target Renegade just

1:29:48

about his good as you can expect from

1:29:50

that description you just said. I mean Yeah. It looks kinda like

1:29:52

Double Dragon as well.

1:29:54

And they yeah. Yeah.

1:29:57

It has a good reputation as a

1:29:59

micro computer game, but the NES version of Select came to the US great. I mean,

1:30:01

does it have a

1:30:03

good reputation, though? Well,

1:30:07

there's fondness for it. Okay. I guess that's

1:30:09

not quite the same thing, but That

1:30:11

that goes for a lot of

1:30:14

those micros. games on those micros?

1:30:16

Anyway, so on the

1:30:18

American side of things or,

1:30:20

you know, like Japanese side

1:30:22

coming to America, I guess, You

1:30:25

have three games that I wanna

1:30:27

call out for consoles in nineteen ninety nine. Nineteen ninety, or nineteen ninety

1:30:32

nine. the first of which is power blazer

1:30:34

aka power blade. It was called power blade in the US because it was pretty

1:30:36

heavily given a facelift. The

1:30:38

power blazer is what I wear

1:30:41

to the club with my

1:30:43

power tie. That's right. But power blade a little mega

1:30:48

man guy with

1:30:48

Arnold Swartznigger, but I'll also refine the play a

1:30:51

lot. Actually, it's a the

1:30:52

power blazer is

1:30:54

kinda rough. The power blade

1:30:56

don't know. It's not the greatest game, but

1:30:59

I have a lot of fondness for it.

1:31:01

Yeah. Powerblazer does the thing where as soon

1:31:03

as an enemy disappears off screen, it'll

1:31:05

just immediately respond when you go back into towards that

1:31:07

direction. So, like and that happens

1:31:09

sometimes in Mega

1:31:12

Man games. It happens every single time in power

1:31:14

blazer. Like, as soon as they're out of memory, they're just they're gonna come back in these exact

1:31:16

same spot, and

1:31:19

it's just, like, annoying to deal with,

1:31:21

especially when you're climbing ladders and stuff. Mhmm. And so, yeah,

1:31:23

they weren't gonna release it here as power blazer

1:31:25

because it showed up at a CES,

1:31:27

but then it disappeared

1:31:30

and was retooled in the power blade and,

1:31:32

yeah, much better? Correctly. Correctly.

1:31:34

Yeah. It was a good choice.

1:31:36

Yeah.

1:31:36

Yeah. I like this game a

1:31:38

lot. It you know, I compared to the Mega Man, and it's not just in terms of the Japanese Retronauts,

1:31:45

visual style, but also in terms of a

1:31:46

structure, you've got like five or six different areas that you have to travel to

1:31:50

and you run,

1:31:52

jump, climb

1:31:54

ladders, that sort of thing. But the difference between this and megaman is that don't

1:31:56

gain new weapons as you go

1:31:58

along. You start out with a boomerang,

1:32:03

and you, I guess, that's the power blade, which makes sense. And

1:32:05

you power that up, you know, it

1:32:07

becomes against the

1:32:10

ability to hit harder to travel further and then eventually becomes

1:32:12

like this plasma beam. At some point,

1:32:14

you can also gain a robot

1:32:17

suit. that is temporary and take some hits for you. But it's yeah. I don't

1:32:19

know. It's just it's a good example of the form. Taito

1:32:24

kind of mid NES

1:32:26

era sort of manly man kind of platform action

1:32:28

game,

1:32:32

designed

1:32:32

by a good experienced

1:32:34

knowledgeable Japanese developer. Yeah.

1:32:37

It's not to

1:32:39

me. And they really only faltered a

1:32:42

couple times on NES. I

1:32:44

mean, they really kicked

1:32:46

ass on there. Yeah. Not to me, and Titan

1:32:48

seemed to team up a lot

1:32:50

in in this era. Like, you

1:32:54

know, Kiki Kiki, was originally a Tito game in arcades, but then

1:32:56

the Paki and Rocky sequels, you know, the

1:32:58

home ports all came from nuts and man.

1:33:01

They don't really I don't like to

1:33:03

have Tito's name on them. So

1:33:05

-- Mhmm. -- that's strange. That to, like, the new But I mean, it's it's definitely yeah.

1:33:07

It's definitely, like, the Taito thing. And

1:33:10

now, yeah, now Taito is still

1:33:12

pedaling you

1:33:14

know, Kiki Kiki, Paki and Rocky

1:33:17

sequels and making new stuff. But

1:33:19

I think the latest one was

1:33:21

on Switch. It was like re

1:33:23

schooled or something. Restrying. Restrying. That's it. That makes

1:33:25

more sense. Yeah. Restrrolling is what you do in

1:33:28

power play. You don't wanna do

1:33:30

that. Yep. Yep. Don't wanna do

1:33:32

that. Anyway, yeah,

1:33:34

I'm a I'm I'm a fan of

1:33:36

this one. Absolutely. I find it much

1:33:38

harder to like Ninja

1:33:38

Cup SciShow, which was released in America

1:33:43

is wrapped in the Black Manta, which does

1:33:45

not feel like a

1:33:47

mid NES era game from

1:33:49

a seasoned Japanese developer. It's

1:33:52

very strange. Yeah. It's hard

1:33:54

to describe basically. Yeah. The

1:33:56

the visual style is

1:33:58

is a good starting point.

1:34:02

the

1:34:02

graphics are all very chunky and

1:34:04

like squared off. There's a

1:34:06

lot of flat colors over

1:34:10

over black. instead of

1:34:10

the more detailed colors and designs

1:34:13

you were seeing at this at

1:34:15

this point on NES. But

1:34:16

every all the characters have this

1:34:18

kind of like weird sort of Like,

1:34:20

their arms look too short. It's very

1:34:22

it's very odd. And it's not

1:34:25

just

1:34:25

the the graphics

1:34:27

that look European like, a European PC game or

1:34:30

console game, but the overall style of the levels is very reminiscent of that

1:34:32

too. Like, they they're

1:34:35

called kind of nonlinear and

1:34:37

you have to go through a lot of

1:34:39

doors and kind of find your way around trying to find usages and stuff to rescue. It's

1:34:43

just it just feels out

1:34:45

of place. Yeah. It is it is such an oddity, especially when you look at the

1:34:47

original game and how how

1:34:51

they also, like, redrew the cut

1:34:53

scenes and the characters and stuff where they apparently, it looks like they used like

1:34:55

stock photos of people that they

1:34:58

traced over for some of these

1:35:01

cut scenes, it's really wild wild stuff. And yeah. But you're right

1:35:03

too. It's just like the graphics and the feeling,

1:35:05

though. It just feels very

1:35:07

euro like, but it

1:35:11

was apparently made in Japan from

1:35:14

from all accounts, and

1:35:16

it's just it's so

1:35:18

weird, like, both versions of it.

1:35:20

very strange. But I guess they did try to make it

1:35:22

a thing here, and that's why it was redrawn

1:35:24

so heavily for America. Like,

1:35:26

they wanted to, I guess, making

1:35:30

it a sort of a franchise because there's

1:35:33

also in in the game, the plot

1:35:35

is just, like, Blackman

1:35:39

just very anti drugs. This is a very

1:35:41

anti drug sort of a story. Again,

1:35:43

sort of of the era,

1:35:45

I suppose. But he's just like, Hey,

1:35:47

thanks for saving me Black Man. Great. Yeah. Don't do

1:35:49

drugs. Bye now. That sort of

1:35:52

like vibe

1:35:54

to it. And He's he's very very militant. He's he's

1:35:56

saying no to drugs at every point. I

1:35:58

mean, you you have to respect any

1:36:00

drugs actually show up. You have to

1:36:03

respect that in a ninja. Yeah.

1:36:05

True. I mean, keeps his

1:36:07

temple clean. But it's only really in

1:36:09