003 · CLU CLU LAND

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00:00 This week on Nostalgia, we're going Clu Clu for Gaga.

00:18 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every North American release for the NES. This week's game, as you might have heard on the intro, is Clu Clu Land. But first, here's a little bit about who we are. I'm Sean Tresmond. I'm Sam Smith. I'm Joe Costu. And I'm Mike Esposito. It really was a little bit about who we are. I cannot give any more information because the last, I think it was the first episode, I tried to ask for some information, and Sean said he wouldn't tell us where he worked. I'm still not going to tell you where he worked. I think I'm okay with not going too much further into... Okay, yeah, I mean, they don't really care about us anyway, so let's just get right into it.

00:59 Uh, let's get some initial impressions. I gotta say, I didn't, I didn't read the manual for this one. I'm usually the manual guy. I did not read the manual for this one. Just kind of went in blind. I should have read the manual. There's like, there's... You learned your lesson. I didn't, I don't know, I was so frustrated with how to move and how to do anything, that like, I just died over and over and over and over and over again. So, initial impressions were, this game is cute, I like the music. Our first NES game with music. Yeah, yeah, I did like the music. Who knew it would take that long? Three episodes. And it was colorful, and it looked, I don't know, it looked like a real game, which I appreciated.

01:36 Joe, that's about it. That's about it. Initial impressions? Uh, so I mean, yeah, I was a little confused at first two. I also didn't read the manual, but as I started, uh, kind of figuring out the controls, that's when I started to think like, oh, this is, I kind of liked that it was, it was different. It was like, it's kind of like, it felt like a Pac-Man type game, but I, but it, I liked

01:52 that it was, as you figure out how the controls are actually functioning, you have to strategize differently on how you're moving based on like what, which peg you're hooking onto and which side you're hooking. Um, but I thought, you know, I kind of liked it. Yeah, yeah, going off of what, what Joe said, and I think we'll, we'll go into it, uh, more in detail later. Uh, I, I did like the way that it felt.

02:12 Um, I also had no idea what I was doing when I booted the game. So I didn't go to the manual. I just went to Wikipedia and that the first like three, uh, the first three lines of that entry pretty much told me what I was missing. So it's a pretty simple game. I don't think it really has much going on, but I, I enjoyed the little bit that I played. Uh, and my initial impression, I was actually like kind of surprised about even what this game is. Like I've, Clu Clu Land is actually like a pretty big release for the, uh, for Nintendo at least like it's one of the games that they continue to kind of re-release and port.

02:47 And I mean, there's a, there's a 3DS version. Uh, now there's, well, it's like a 3D classics. So it's the same exact game, but just in like 3D mode. Uh, there was a VR system version of this. There was an e-reader version of this. It was an animal crossing, like as like a, you could own it. There's so many different versions and I've heard this name for so long, but they actually play this game and see what it's all about. It feels insignificant. Like it feels like it's just kind of like a game that Nintendo like had their hand in. And, and that's kind of all it ever became. Initial impressions are kind of over. So let's talk about like the game in general.

03:28 Uh, anybody have any strong feelings about Clu Clu? I mean, so I, I, I'm just going to say I, I have a feeling that I might be the only one. Maybe I, maybe I've only, I've only talked to one person in this room about it before. Maybe I'm, I'm jumping the gun here, but I think I might be the only one who, who liked it. I liked it. If I'm wrong. I enjoy it. But did you like it or did you love it? Like, what are you, what are you saying here? I didn't love it. I didn't love it, but I, I didn't, I can see why people might find the controls very frustrating, but I didn't, I didn't hate it.

03:56 I thought it was again. I mean, I wouldn't play it again the same way that I don't sit down and play Pac-Man. And I'm not saying this is as good as Pac-Man, but I felt like this was like, oh, it's like a different way of doing a very Pac-Man like game. It's not for me, not necessarily for me, but I had fun while I was playing it. I agree with that. I totally agree with the Pac-Man thing. I can't put on, like, I can't put my finger on it though. Why I feel like this is Pac-Man other than you're a circle going through a grid. Right. Fighting ghosts.

04:19 See, I don't. They're sea urchins. Yeah, I looked that up afterwards. They are sea urchins. Yeah. They're sea urchins. And they actually. And you have so not. Sam, not for nothing, but I'm a little disappointed because they're in Smash Brothers as items.

04:32 Oh, that's from this? Yeah. The guys they pop up. Oh, no way. Okay. It took me, I don't know how many games and how many deaths to realize that when you press B, you shoot like a thing that stops the bad guys. And so I almost beat the first level so many times and then I would just die from these guys. And then one time I was like, oh, I should try pressing B and see what that does. I don't know why I thought because I had just been using the like the two buttons.

04:55 Right. That just made it significantly easier. And then I was starting to have a good time. And by that time I had a better grasp of the controls. And I thought that even though the controls were a little bit weird, they were fun. Like it was a really interesting way of handling. I think something we need to get out of the way here, though, is a problem we haven't run into yet on nostalgia. And that's kind of like the objective of the game.

05:19 Yeah, I never really talked about that because 10 yard fight, the objective is to play football and win. Baseball is to play baseball and win. In Klukuland, you're like this bubble. I think that's actually your name, too, is bubbles. You're a fish. Aren't you a fish? I don't know. I don't. For some reason, I'm thinking that the character's name is bubbles. But anyway, that's not the important part. You're like this round balloon looking thing, fish thing. And you have to kind of like move across this grid to reveal these ingots or ingots, right, that will form a shape. Usually they'll form some kind of pattern.

05:51 And once you reveal the pattern, that's the end of the stage. And you move on to the next one. You kind of have these sea urchins that move around the screen and try to like basically if you touch them, you die. And I will say that the hit boxes are kind of crazy because you could be like rounding the corner of one of your, you know, one of your turns.

06:10 And all of a sudden it's like they're they just show up. The thing that bug me the most is they can sometimes if they see you in their line, if they have you in their line of sight for more than two seconds, they'll just charge at you. Did you notice that? I did not notice that. Yeah, they'll charge. They'll charge. They'll go really fast all of a sudden. Does it look like a charging animation though? Or does it look like they just get fast? They just go fast. Yeah.

06:33 I kept my I was having such a hard time with the controls in this game of just figuring out like which direction pad I needed to press, whether it was like so just an instance if I wanted to go up, depending on which way my character is facing, that would be their up on the D pad or right on the D pad. And that was kind of like, I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah. What made the difference for me was when I when I kind of realized like, OK, I'm not

06:56 choosing which direction I go. I'm choosing which hook I'm throwing out like a hook comes out and hits a peg and like, oh, if I were going in this direction and the hook goes out, hits a peg, which direction would that turn me? Took me a little while to realize that that's what was going on. Yeah. But once I started thinking of it that way, that's when I kind of was like, oh, these are like these are very even now.

07:13 I don't know if I have seen a game with controls like this. Exactly. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed to admit that I never overcame the control, not saying that I didn't continue playing, but I never overcame the controls to this day. I probably will not be able to. It's definitely not intuitive.

07:29 Yeah. But I think the one an interesting thing about this game, and I don't think it's talked about a lot in in games that are there this early in the NES where the most complex action that you're going to make is just like if you press left, your character will move left. I think like I'm going to use one of those silly game criticism words like this is the first game where it actually has a unique like kinesthetic like game feel. It actually has a flow to it. Like you it took us a while to actually understand that pressing this button has this effect.

08:05 But I don't think there are many games that especially this early in the NES that have this sort of flow to it in that the bounces feel good when you hit those lines that turn into trampolines or just the feeling of rounding one of those. Yeah, it feels good. I feel like once you get it a little bit. I'm like, I don't know if this really applies. No, I think I can see that. Like once you feel like you have a handle on the controls, it's kind of it's fun.

08:31 You know, it's kind of fun to move your character around the space. I think if you're really good at this game and I was checking out like some high scores, which were just insane, they were like over 2 million points, you know, like they went all the way to like level 299. I think that's when the game ends. Just if you're that good at this game, it must feel good to be a master at this game because you're just so in control of what you're doing. That being said, and maybe this isn't a demerit because most people should read the manual.

08:59 But the fact that we're saying that the controls are unintuitive, like when we touched on it earlier, the entire object of the game is just like, am I collecting these ingots? Yeah, it took me a little bit to figure it out. The fact that we had to look it up, I think that's something against it. It is kind of unclear what you're doing, like why those ingots are forming. To be honest, once I figured out what you're doing, which is like trying to uncover the full pattern, I think that's kind of the biggest flaw of it because like there's not really a way to be like to know what unless you played and memorized the patterns to know what pattern you're trying to. You're just like you're blind looping.

09:36 And you can kind of figure out like which, you know, what. Blindlessly. I tried to gloss over it. You're just trying to blind level. Alright. But you can sort of figure out like as the pattern is forming like, okay, it's probably going in this direction, but still at the beginning like you have nothing to go on. Like you just have to search for the beginning of the pattern. Once you get to those later levels where you just speed up, I feel like you get rid of some of that issue because you're just going through so many of that. Yeah, you just start uncovering things.

10:03 But I also did like it took me a minute to realize that the the urchins, I guess they can't pass the coins or whatever those things are. Oh, really? When you when you unlock something, you're you're making a wall. That's so you can stay on that side of it. And that part I did appreciate that it was also you can destroy them permanently. Yeah. By pushing them up against. Yeah. You hit them with your little beam thing, whatever that is. Then you push them against a wall, which also just feels good. Yeah. The beam feels good. Yeah. It feels good to destroy. Right. But what about those annoying holes, too? And that like you just kind of like fall into. I mean, I think there has to at least be like a third, a third obstacle.

10:39 I think that I also think you can get away with just, you know, putting a block there or something. I mean, that's what your if you're just swinging over it. That doesn't count as fall. Yeah, that's true. Right. I think it's that's fair enough. And I think like something interesting about this game, too, is like this one actually feels like an arcade game. Yeah, that's ported over to the NES. The first the first two games we played, the sports games, they kind of feel home constantly.

11:01 You know, they were out in arcades somewhat. But like this one to me actually just kind of feels like you your whole objective is just to continue to like master the high schools, get the high score. Like that's the objective of the game and like compete with your friends and family over like, oh, what I did. And like like an arcade game, it doesn't have much depth beyond the first. Like you can you can get the entire experience of this game in three minutes.

11:29 Yeah. It felt like a lot more action than like, you know, you're constantly moving. You're constantly, you know, you working towards your objective. And what about and this is just something I just remembered, but we were talking about the holes. What about those rubber bands that just appear out of? I don't know what they are, but they just appear. Yeah, it's like they just show up all of a sudden. It's like it's annoying that they show up. The urchin was following me like right behind me. I just go right into him. And it was kind of the same thing where like the first one it was like you're screwed. But the second one I think was usually symmetrical.

11:59 Was am I wrong? I think so. Then you kind of have an idea of like where the other one or the other ones might be. But that might not be the case in later. Right. Sure. But I also think that they if you don't you don't have to uncover them in a level, but I think that they are kind of fit into the pattern like, oh, like if the pattern looks like a face or whatever. Oh, there'll be the eyes or something like that. Maybe it was just my imagination running wild. But so I'm going to kind of step away here for a minute. I'm going to still be here, of course, but I feel like I'm kind of leading this discussion into a let's talk about everything that's wrong with Clue Clueland. So I'd love somebody else to just kind of take over and talk about, you know,

12:35 some things and feelings they had about the game. I mentioned this before, but I really enjoyed the music. I thought that when like, you know, when the game was over and I heard the game over music, I think I feel like it created a feeling, you know, whereas in baseball or 10 yard, 10 yard fight or something, if there's like a turnover, it's just like, oh, OK, now there's a turnover. It definitely it definitely scratches a much more primal itch in that, like, since there aren't all these different abstractions layered on top of each other, like the rules of a sports game, it it has more opportunity to give you that feeling of failure once you've

13:15 hit that game over screen. Yeah, it feels a little more like you're on the edge of your seat playing it, like you're a little tense up trying to make sure you don't fail and everything, where it's like,

13:24 especially especially baseball, but also 10 yard fight was like a little more strategic or like thinking, OK, what am I gonna do next? Yeah. But I know I know you're talking about like in sports, you kind of know what to expect and what like what happens if you do well and happens if you don't. But in this, it just kind of happens unexpectedly. And it's just like defeat, you know? Yeah. And I think that that's I didn't get that from the other games so far. And I already touched upon like just that it's just interesting how much this game has a feel all its own that a lot of I just that I just wasn't expecting out of a launch title on the NES. Right.

14:02 So one thing that I noticed right away and you know, I don't actually know if this is like the true source of where this came from, but the ingots are the ruby in Legend of Zelda. They're the exact same sprite. Wow. Is it actually I remember thinking it looked like it, but is it actually?

14:21 I'm not saying it is the I'm saying it's the like if you put them next to each other, it is. Yeah. But I'm not saying that like they used it. They used it in reference, but they probably did. I'd have to imagine because they're both Nintendo games, you know, or at least published and somewhat developed by. But I think that's just crazy that that like, you know, something so big in in gaming starts here before, you know, like like the biggest stamp that is probably made is saying like, hey, here's the design for the ruby in Legend of Zelda. Why do the work twice?

14:54 And also how many in like one? I don't know exactly how it works, but one square of pixels that it uses to make a rupee is like how many how many possible things could you make in that? Or it's like, well, let's just use that. Like, right, right. Mm hmm. Does anybody else have anything that they they want to add here or? I think that's about it. Yeah, I feel like it was pretty simple. I think since you guys are mentioning the control scheme, I think it is worth bringing up that they're more than anything. I think it's a spiritual successor on the Game Boy Advance.

15:22 DK King of Swing is this game that kind of does the same thing, not in the sense of being on a grid, but you play as Donkey Kong and you grab these like you're almost like rock climbing and you swing around and then you launch yourself and you grab the next like peg on the rock climbing and move around and around in that similar style. And funny enough, you know, the Klu Klu Land, I think we were calling him bubbles, the red character. He can be unlocked in that game as kind of like a reference to the origins of DK King of Swing.

15:55 So it's kind of like his I guess his only other major appearance besides all of these ports that have been throughout the year. So I guess if they're porting this as many times and bringing it to virtual console all these times, somebody, you know, somebody's playing some fan base clearly is established for this game. Whether that's us, we will determine now in the Essential Games List.

16:27 All right, it's the Essential Games List. And since this is only episode three, I'm going to break it down real fast for the people that don't know yet. Basically, this is our Hall of Fame for the NES, but not in the way you might be thinking. No, we're not looking at these games based on if they were worthy of the Hall of Fame during the time that they came out. We're looking at these as are they essential in today's world? You've got your PS4, your PC, you've got all these hot new games. You've even got a Nintendo Switch now. You know, it's like there's good games on that, too.

16:56 Is it worth it to go back to the NES and play these games? Well, that's what Essential Games List is going to tell you. We're going to vote on it. Everybody's going to give a final verdict. And it needs at least 50% of the vote to pass into the Essential Games List. If you're wondering what that list is, you can always check it out on NostalgiaCast.com. But it might be empty. Currently, it's empty. And if you're yeah, if you're listening to this episode later, I mean, you might go there and see some games and be like, I didn't hear these episodes yet. Well, we didn't record them at this time.

17:26 So let's just kind of get right down to it. Who wants to take us through their final verdict of Clu-Cul-Land? I think that this is overall, I think it's a fun game. I don't think it goes in, you know, the Essential Games List. I don't think it goes in the jank folder either. I think that it definitely... The first game, not in the jank. Yeah, I think it's its own game. You know, it's not like a... It feels very solid for what I like for what it was trying to do. I think it accomplished it really well.

17:51 But it's just not something that I would really enjoy personally to like go back to. Okay, I'll say that of... So this is episode three, and of the three games, I think this is the most playable still. But I wouldn't say this is an essential game. But I do think it's people who like, you know, little arcade games on their phone and things like that might enjoy this game. Oh, yeah. But I wouldn't put it on my essential games list. On a phone. That'd be interesting.

18:17 I wonder how that would control you. I would maybe play it if it was on my phone. Yeah. Okay. A little honorable mention there. I'd play this if it was on my phone. Maybe. Although if I could play this game, I could play other NES games on my phone. So then maybe not. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just meet people who are into that kind of game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big part of the culture now is people who like arcade type games again.

18:37 So yeah, I think it's interesting to look at, but definitely not essential. All right. And where I kind of stand on this is I definitely think, you know, in terms of an arcade game, it does bring some unique gameplay. It's definitely different than the other two games we played. And it's an interesting, it's an interesting game to launch on the console with because you do kind of need those those arcade spaces since that was what was big at the time. But this game gets repetitive fast.

19:05 It's not exactly what I would consider a good time. I just think that you've seen like four or five levels. You've probably seen most of them. I can't imagine the people who brought themselves to all 299 levels. It's an impressive feat, and I'm sure it gets a lot harder. I don't mean to talk down to anybody who goes further than the first five, six levels. But for me, that was that was my exit point. So I have to say that this is not an essential game.

19:30 And just a quick defensive of Clu Clu Land, even though I'm also going to throw it back in the heat. Spoiler alert. It's it's basic. I mean, like, yeah, you could play one or two levels and understand what this game is and what it has to offer. It does have that unique bit.

19:47 But so is Pac-Man. But it doesn't drive me like Pac-Man. And I think the interesting thing about Pac-Man is, is that like the ghosts, you know, the ghosts get faster. The maze, you know, like the eating the pellets is satisfying, whereas revealing the ingots here isn't as satisfying. Sure. Like it feels more random than eating the pellets. I'm going to argue with that. I personally don't like Pac-Man. I don't I don't think it's fun. But you have to admit that Pac-Man has lasted like as a. Yeah. But if I if I had the choice between between Pac-Man and Clu Clu Land, I think I'd play Clu Clu Land. Oh, there we go. Well, yeah, that's a hot take. That's a hot take. But that's just me. I just don't I get the ghosts give me anxiety.

20:30 You know, and say, oh, which one pinky pinky pinky his eyes. The fish. I'm sorry. The. Oh, and then there's Clu. What are they? The urchins? The sea urchins don't give you anxiety. Well, you can attack them at any time. You're right. That makes me feel way better. Once you. I did the same thing you do, right? It forgot that you can attack, which is kind of what I think about. It's kind of ridiculous. It's his only thing he can do. Yeah. I didn't know he could do it. Yeah. But but once you realize that you're kind of the powerhouse in that situation.

20:55 It feels good because then you're just like swinging around stuff and you're blasting them and you're pushing them against walls and you're hitting trampolines. I don't know. I feel like you can kind of groove with this game more than Pac-Man for me. And I will also say sorry. Sorry. I know you're kind of in the middle of your. Your final very good discussion. But I will say that I did think it was somewhat satisfying to reveal those pieces once I realized that the urchins couldn't pass them because then I could be like, yeah, that's right. Like I'm over here. Like I'm. Yeah. Like I'm protecting myself with these. But yeah, I see what you're saying about the dots, too.

21:27 But I basically covered everything. It's it's definitely God's redeeming qualities. I don't think it's fair to say that just because it's simple that it it doesn't need to be praised just because of comparisons to many other arcade games. But I don't I think it's got unique features. But those features don't aren't enough. Not on the list.

21:54 On the list. And that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Duck Hunt and be sure to play it yourself if you can. For more Nostalgia, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen and be sure to check out NostalgiaCast.com. That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A cast dot com. On the website, you'll find links to the show and show notes as well as our other platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Thank you so much for your support of Nostalgia. We thank you for spending time with us. I'm Michael Esposito and you can find me on Twitter at Esposito Film and I'll talk to you soon.

22:35 All right. So we'll just kind of ease our way right into the post show here for if everybody's cool with that. Yeah. For this one, I kind of want to talk about just like, you know, your experiences at the arcade as a as a child. OK, can I actually before can I bring one thing up? Absolutely. What does what does everyone think is the the first NES female protagonist? It's like Ms. Pac-Man or like it makes me think. I mean, like it's so much later, but it makes me think of Sam. Yeah, Sam is wait. That's 87, I think. So, I mean, from what I know that these are the first games, I think it's bubbles from Clu Clu Land.

23:16 So, yeah, because when you earlier when you were saying he did something, I remember when I was reading through everything, I was I remember thinking that they were calling her she. So I just I just looked it up and yeah, it's a it's so I imagine it's the first female protagonist. I'm going to go out of a big milestone for me. I'm going to just apologize not only for calling she a he, but also because that's just going to be something that's going to happen often. When I look at like eight bit figures, I probably just assume.

23:41 Well, and back then it was there were not a lot of female protagonists in games. I just assume that they're male and that's awful. Does this include Japanese titles also or? I don't I'm not saying this is official. I'm just saying based on NES. Yeah, if you said Famicom.

23:54 True. I'm just saying based on what I know from this podcast that as far as I'm aware, these four these first four games are playing are the first four games released. Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, there may be another one in this launch, but that's interesting to think about it.

24:09 And, you know, just because Clu Clu Land is an arcade game and, you know, in spirit, at least it kind of makes me think about like my childhood arcade experiences. And like I feel like I've missed a step in the arcade. Like, you know, I was around during like, you know, I was alive during Street Fighters, like biggest time and like Virtua Fighter and all those like, you know, big arcade games kind of having their resurgence. But I never went to the arcade as good. We didn't have one really around me like the best I had was Chuck E. Cheese. And that wasn't really like that wasn't great.

24:44 There's like movie theaters with arcades and stuff. But you're one game and it was always like House of the Dead. Yeah. And which is nothing bad about that. But as a kid, that would freak me out. Like something about low poly 3D zombies and stuff like that. Just they kind of scare me. Like, I mean, because we're all we're all we're all 90s kids here. Right. Like, I think that we sort of missed the big arcade. I think I didn't really go to money. We missed it though in the Clu Clu Land sense. Right. Like we missed those. We missed the classic arcade.

25:16 We missed like Centipede. But I think like, yeah, like most of the really good PS1, Sega Saturn games that aren't RPGs were were arcade games. Mm hmm. You know, like they were featured in the arcade first and kind of like, you know, it was like the Sega Saturn was like really big to arcade fanatics because it was like finally my chance to like play these arcade games without spending like a thousand bucks on the AVS cart or something. Well, I don't know if there's any actual like if you're going to go into the academic history of of arcades.

25:49 I don't know if this is the correct term for it. I don't think we're ever trying. We're never trying to be sure. Sure. But like we we came to we were in our adolescence and young childhood in like the second wave where like, OK, now all these games you can play just as easily on your Super Nintendo or your Genesis. Right. Like that. So what you were doing in these arcades and I did have an arcade near me, it wasn't like it wasn't the best arcade, but they pivoted to like, OK, now play these games so you can get these tickets. And it just it went away from like I'm playing this because fun. I want the highest score to like I want the goddamn tickets. Right. And I got to win the the really low tier prizes. I need that mug.

26:35 A mug actually probably would have been like 400 tickets. Now it's like 4000. For me, when I think of arcades, I think of like the the wave surfer kind of game. You're like on the actual on the jet ski, on the jet ski, turning the whole thing and stuff like that. And just games that cost more than a dollar to play. Right. That like you would see in like a Dave and Buster's.

26:57 I guess so. I don't think I've been to Dave and Buster's. Dave and Buster's has like there's a whole section of ticket games, but then there's also a whole another section of just like, you know, eight racing games stacked up next to each other. Like each person can get in the car and race each other in real time. Or, you know, it's like, yeah, it's like I don't know. So that was always impressive to me that those things exist.

27:17 Oh, yeah, yeah. Those were I always like those two. But I sucked at all of them. Yeah. I feel like you everyone just never had enough time or money to get good at them. Yeah. I feel like arcades were more than anything expensive for like. And I think they were mostly designed to make you lose to continue, you know. Well, I mean, there also was that that short burst of DDR.

27:39 I know that a lot of kids got really into Dance Dance Revolution. I had some friends that were doing that a lot of those movement games where you were pretty much the controller, just either stepping on things or like even if it's just a giant, a giant motorcycle controller. I think that had its time when we were growing up, whereas most of these arcade games are getting part of the NES. We're just like joystick one or two.

28:08 It's funny because the kind of things that you guys are scribing, I know those all very well. Like the motorcycle game and the, you know, the racing game all stacked next to each other. All these games. I'm like, yeah, of course I played those. But I'm just thinking, like, where did I play these? I never went to anywhere. You probably did it at a laser tag place. That's probably one of them. I know I've been to Dave and Buster's, but that was when I was older.

28:26 Like I didn't really go. And like maybe Chuck E. Cheese when I was a kid. I don't know. And I know this is this is true for a lot of people. But when I think of like definitive arcade experiences and I was never good at these games. But this is what I think of when I'm like, oh, that's an arcade game. I think like the X-Men arcade game, the Simpsons arcade game, like like those Ninja Turtles one.

28:47 Like those four player gigantic brawlers cabinets, though, too, where it's like each person had like their own sticking buttons. And like you could fit all four of you with not too cramped. Like those are the games I think of as like, wow, the arcade. Like you still can't play that Simpsons arcade game anywhere other than like that. And I think like Xbox 360 arcade, which is I think dead down. I think you can re-download that game.

29:10 Got to go to Barcade then, I guess. Yeah. And come to think of it, like I guess a lot of the games that I played on the NES probably were ports from arcades. I just didn't know it. Yeah. No. Yeah. And there's one there's one Ninja Turtles game that my cousin and I used to play all the time. We loved it. And I know there's a few of them and there's one bad and one's good. I don't remember which one we played. If it was on the NES, I think you probably played a battle.

29:34 Oh, Turtles in Time. Wasn't that SNES? That's SNES. Yeah. SNES, Turtles in Time. That's good stuff. But I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe I just have nostalgia glasses on. But but it probably was an arcade game now that I'm thinking of it. It was one of those drop in two player kind of kind of thing. And I think like one one last thing I'd like to say about the arcade is kind of like it's also a disappointing place. Like like it's it's kind of like a casino for kids. Oh, yeah. And at the same time, nothing like we were talking about, like, you know, controls and so that most of them suck. Like nothing really worked. So many people had played it before you like the Joy-Con.

30:09 The joystick would go like, you know, you try to go to the left. Yeah. And it would be like barely budge every other cabinets pretty much out of order. And they're setting like they're setting most of those games to to the highest difficulties to because they want to keep eating quarters. I remember I never been to a place where Pac-Man didn't immediately start on like the fastest possible speed. And like you just had like 12.

30:30 No, please. You had like two seconds with the power pellet before it went away. And it's like, what? That's not Pac-Man to me. I feel like if I was ever in an arcade with other people, I would be like playing something that's not an arcade game. You know, I'd be. Like Colibius. Like what? I'm sorry. Never mind. Like, like air hockey or something like that. You know, if it's like because I feel like there is something about that, actually, you know, bringing up a whole nother part of the arcade that we just don't think about. Yeah. Like air hockey.

31:05 Ski ball. Oh, I grew up on Ski ball. Ski ball a little bit. I feel like that's that's like kind of what I would go for over the arcade game. Over the actual. Yeah. The digital arcade. I couldn't just like drop a quarter on a game and see if it was good. If I wanted to see if a game was good, I have to pay like a dollar twenty five or something like that. Right. Just to see if it was any good.

31:23 And, you know, we were talking about Street Fighter early. It's like Street Fighter Mortal Kombat. Like those games. Think about how many quarters you had to feed to keep getting continues to really get to the end. You know, it was it was a lot harder than their console counterparts. And the other thing about like and just the death of arcades is now when you find one,

31:40 it's always just even if it's not the literal lobby, it's just the lobby for whatever you're actually there for. If you're at a laser tag place, you're just in the arcade waiting for your name to get called. Or if you got you've got a go-kart track that you're waiting to for your race or you got batting cages in back that you could be doing instead, like the all of these like multi activity places. The arcade was just like that's where you kill time.

32:08 Right. And I actually find it. I mean, sometimes when there's a, you know, the Museum of the Moving Image, I've seen arcade. Well, they actually have like, yeah, they have a pretty complete arcade thing, too, where it's like they're it's a museum. It makes me even though arcade cabins were like sort of before my time, it makes me kind of sad to see them in a museum. I'm like, are they that old?

32:30 And then they have an NES console. And I'm like, all right, let's let's let's step it back a little bit. But I mean, I guess that's what they're pretty, pretty soon they'll have an N64 in there and stuff like that, too. You know, it just it just seems so recent. And it's funny, though, too, but like we're not going to talk about this now, but like, you know, video game preservation is a huge deal. Like, you know, you're thinking like, oh, that any has really been there. But it's like, well, if not now, then well. Oh, yeah, definitely. I definitely have opinions on video game preservation.

32:58 But I'm not saying that it shouldn't be shouldn't be in there. I'm just saying it's it's sad to me that like that it was so long ago. Yeah, I think that the the post show has ran its talk. So I'm going to ask Sam to log into his computer and shut up the podcast. Sam has all the control in the podcast. Nice. I think that's a nice little ending, too. I'm just kidding. Oh, yeah. Click, click, click. Did you stop? Not yet.