041 · RUSH'N ATTACK

• RUSH’N ATTACK - UP FOR A LITTLE GUERRILLA WARFARE?
• Developed and Published by Konami. Arcade first in 1985 and came to NES in April 87
• ARCADE VERSION
• The player takes on the role of a United States special operations soldier infiltrating an enemy military base in order to save multiple POW's from being executed by firing squad.
• NES VERSION
• The player's objective in the NES version was changed from rescuing prisoners to destroying a secret weapon being developed in the enemy's headquarters.
• Additionally, a 2-players co-operative mode was introduced as well, allowing two players to play simultaneously
• Rush’n Attack: Ex Patriot is a sequel for 360 and PS3
• Marshaling Area (Missile Base)
• Airport
• Harbor
• Air Base
• On the Base
• In the Base (Hit the missile 12 times)
• Knife
• 3 Shot Flamethrower (ARCADE ONLY)
• Four Shot RPG
• 3-pack of Hand Grenades
• Pistol with unlimited ammo (Time sensitive)
• The Famicom version features a few differences from its NES counterpart by allowing the player to continue up to three times after a game over and if the player loses a life in the Famicom version, his character will respawn at the very spot where he died instead of being sent to the last checkpoint
• https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587593-rushn-attack/faqs

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Russian attack. Up for a little guerilla warfare? Very well done. I mean, it's Thursday.

00:24 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. I'm Sam. And I'm Joe. All right, Full House today, guys. We're talking about Rush and Attack. Rush and Attack. Yeah, it can get tricky. You know, I don't want to do it. Let's just call it R&A. R&A. No, no, no, no. It's Rush and Attack. It's developed and published by Konami, who we haven't been too hot on them. No. But, you know, we'll give them a chance, right? Yeah. We'll give them a chance. This was in the arcade first, 1985. It was in the arcade. And then it came to the NES in what is now in our timeline, April 1987. Happy April, everybody. Hey. Yeah. You know what they say about April showers?

01:12 Bring May flowers? May showers. Tomorrow. It always rains. May showers. All right. Especially in Siberia. This does take place in Siberia. It takes place in Siberia. So it's a... No, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are no good Siberian jokes. So it's like a rush... No. So literally it's a... Just... And that brings us to the essential... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, okay. So let's just talk about it real fast. I want first impressions from everybody. So Sean, what are your first impressions on Russian Attack? My first impressions are as follows.

01:51 Little tidbits. Wow, this guy can take an entire army with a knife for the most part. Two. This is another game that feels just like Kung Fu. Hold on a minute. I don't want to gloss over that for a second, okay? That's a real problem with this game. He goes in with a pocket knife. He's like, screw this. I'm going to take down the whole... You know, this is worse than Commando. In Commando, you came armed at least. And he said, I'm going to go from the back. This time he has to scavenge his equipment.

02:23 Yeah. You can only take Russian weapons. I'm sorry. Unnamed enemies' weapons. Thank you. Who happen to be in Siberia. Yeah. Well, to be fair, Siberia is only mentioned in the arcade version. Yes. I don't think it's mentioned in the NES version. Okay. And three, it's actually got some pretty good background art. And it's, for the most part, non-repeating. So, I dig that. Sam? Those were kind of similar to my thoughts. It was, one, background art is pretty good. Yeah. You know?

02:58 Um... Uh... Two, this kind of feels like a lot of the side-scrolling action platformer games that we've seen. You know, this reminds me of Trojan, because we played that one pretty recently. Pretty recently. And it's like, oh, it's another guy with another knife thing. And when guys come at you, they can't touch you, but they're going to come at you from both sides of the screen.

03:18 And the AI is like, kind of bad. Like, you can climb on top of stuff, and they won't follow you. Some enemies will follow you, if they're a little bit smarter. But for the most part, guys will run past you. But if they followed you, that'd just be a pain, because then there'd just be even more enemies. Anyway, it seems like, first impression is like, oh, it's one of those games where there's like a ton of people that are following you as you're trying to move right across the screen. Yeah, where they're coming from is who knows. And then they're like, first immediately going into the sky, so I guess there's going to be upgrades and stuff like that.

03:52 And then, but mostly just try and survive until the end, is the point. Okay. Yeah. Joe? Can I first give my initial impression of Sean's initial impression? Yeah. Which is, I didn't know that this guy had a knife, even. You thought you were just slapping him? I thought he had a police baton for some reason. So when you said your initial impression, that was like, that was like a new initial impression for me. My initial impression of the game was not very positive. I didn't, I guess now looking back, it did have nice art. But, but I didn't really care for the gameplay. I felt like there's just, the first level felt like kind of easy to just like spam that attack button.

04:30 And things are just coming at you. I don't know. You can just juggle it very slowly. Smash that attack button. Yeah. I'll tell you right now, this is embarrassing, but I have to say it, because it's not a lot of things that it was my first impression. You know, I knew the play on words and everything like that. And I don't actually think that this was the setting. But when I looked at my character, did anybody else think that he looks like he's from like colonial times? Yeah, okay. Like the revolution. So not my character. Your character with the color palette that you have looks like a police officer.

05:01 Um. Maybe that's where the police battalion came from. At least in the, at least in the first level, the color palette and the, and the enemy design just looks like they're redcoats. Yeah, exactly. It looked like I was like the Patriot and they were, they were the redcoats. However. Sometimes they know Taekwondo. Yeah. I mean, you said that you. And then there's also like a giant missile that you walked past at one point. Yeah, this is alternate history fiction. Um, but you said that you don't think it's, uh, like an obvious Russia. No, I was saying, I don't think that it takes place during the revolution.

05:35 I just said that it was weird that they were like, you know, cause remember how like in Trojan it was post apocalyptic future. So imagine this was like post apocalyptic future where like the revolutionary war never ended. We, but civilization has. And it just globalized to the fact that the, the American revolution is now being fought in Siberia.

05:56 Yeah. So, uh, real fast, I just want to talk about some differences between the arcade version and the NES version before we go any deeper into the game. And it starts with the plot. Yeah. The plot for the arcade version is that the player takes on the role of a United States special op soldier. You infiltrate an enemy military base in order to save multiple prisoners of war from being executed by firing squads. Yeah. And then they show them actually struggling and tied to poles. Yeah. Wow. So it's pretty graphic. And, uh, I think Nintendo had like a family seal quality thing that they were going for. So it was changed to in the NES version, you're, um, you're no longer rescuing prisoners.

06:53 Instead, the whole idea is that you have to destroy a secret weapon being developed in the enemy's headquarters, which wound up being the, um, it's an ICBM. Yeah. The missile. Like, it's very strange that like, it actually changes like the timeline that these games take place in. In, in, in the arcade version, um, is it like the, the cold war? I mean, this is 1987, the cold war is still in full swing.

07:21 You're actually, or 1985 when it was published originally. Yeah. This is actually a hot war now where there are American POWs in Russia and you have to go and get them. Right. And in the, in the NES version, it's just like, okay, you could be like stealthily, stealthily, with air quotes, um, trying to destroy one of their weapons. But yeah, I, this is really, this is a really dark game with the implications. Yeah. And the arcade version added some other, uh, sorry, the NES version added some other cool things. Um, it added a two player cooperative mode, uh, for the NES one. And, um, it also added two additional levels. So that was like a nice touch. I think it's the airport and being actually on the base.

08:05 And, um, it also introduced an invincibility with the star, which is like a total Super Mario Brothers ripoff thing, but at least they didn't play the music during that. Yeah. And they added a, um, pistol with unlimited ammo, but it only, uh, Pretty small amount of time. Yeah. It's only, it's like a limited time thing. However, the arcade version in exchange.

08:28 Had a hella cool flamethrower. That would make your enemies pop in and out into like a, a skeleton silhouette. It was really cool. So what do you think happened? Do you think the flamethrower was just too op? I think it was too up and a little too, uh, graphic. Yeah. Those were skeletons. I mean, it sounds like a cool effect, but it sounds more like electricity than fire to me. Oh no, man. Well, it's cause you burn. No, I'm just saying the effect of. Well, you burn all their flesh off. But then back on. So then it just burns.

08:55 Well, you know, but that's how it works. I mean, but who needs any of that stuff anyway when you have a knife? That's right. A knife is the star of this game. Yep. You know, there's six stages that you have to get through and they're all linear. You just won one section to the other. Not much platforming going on. Uh, good background art though of like tanks. And I, I really liked the Harbor.

09:16 Yeah. Cause it like, at first you're not sure where you are. You might just be on another part of the base and then all of a sudden like reveals like the bridge and the water and stuff like that. Is that the fourth round? That was the third round. Yeah. The fourth round is the air base. I feel like I just like missed the art completely. Cause I played the third round and like, I don't remember if it's standing out to me.

09:35 Luckily for you on game FAQ, um, there are actually, uh, someone like basically stitched together the entire maps of each level, but without any enemies on them and stuff. So yeah, that's like a cool, like, and you could actually, if you wanted to, I guess, like just put all six of them together too, for yourself to see like the whole map. It doesn't work perfectly. I did find that on the third round, so I was, I was going over and around people the most. I was like, I don't even feel like fighting these people anymore cause it's just annoying to fight these guys. And that's one of the things is like, you can cheese this game and just like, you know,

10:10 wait for the enemies to come to you, stab, stab on both sides and then keep walking. I think that's the way to play it. Honestly. Oh, come on. I don't even mean that. I mean like enemies on this level, I run up to the top level, jump down when I see someone coming there, like trying to like, it's easier to rush than to attack. But that's not fun. I'm not having a good time doing that. No, you just die so easily. And I also want to bring something to you for me. I didn't have fun the other way either.

10:38 Not to keep everyone on the edge of their seat. I will agree. I mean, I, I mean, I was, I like the, the, the goofball Cold War setting. I like the art, but this is not a fun game at all. No. Even like the boss in the first level and the boss in the third level. The boss in the first level was just a bunch of people. It was just a bunch of guys.

10:58 Yeah. And I just sat there spamming the attack button and that was it. Yeah. Like no one could touch me. And in the third level is the same thing. It was just with, you had to lay down and just make sure you pay attention to which side they come from. Well, yeah, but even, even the second level, Joe, that's what the dogs, right? Like the second level was with the, the jet pack guys and the grenades. Oh, okay. Which was not hard, but it was, it was the third level. Okay. Yeah. The third level has the dogs. It's like, what the heck is that? A pack of dogs? Like coming from both directions? Yeah. It's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous.

11:28 And it's ridiculous that that is like, that's the boss of this game is like, Oh, the end of the level just throw them a bunch of enemies. Like what? You know, I think at least, um, the air base did it right where it's like, there's helicopters dropping bombs, but then it's just ridiculous. At that point, the bombs that they're throwing and stuff, that's like your, and that's level four. Yeah. Worse than the volcano Joe in Gradius, you know, because here's why.

11:51 Okay. The volcano in Gradius is spamming stuff, but at least there's like a safe spot kind of thing. The helicopters aren't your objective. You have to kill people. So you're constantly moving around the stage while also trying to dodge these bombs, trying to kill the helicopters. I mean, there are people in the helicopters. To be honest, I didn't get past that level. So maybe that's why, but I was killing people on the ground level. Oh, those are just civilians.

12:15 Oh, whoops. Um, no, but yeah, no, that, that, that, the helicopters kept tripping me up because they just keep throwing grenades and I didn't, you know, when one hit KOs, that's it. You know, that's, that's about it for me. Oh, man. Um, not, not like, that's not like all I have to say. I do have a little bit more to say about the game.

12:37 Did anybody find it weird in the very first level? There's those landmines. Yeah. And you're like, you're so athletic that if you, if there's two of them next to each other, you might accidentally like way jump over the first one, but perfectly land in the second one. Oh yeah. Yeah. I've done. I've done like make it this way. You time your jumps that you'll land in the middle and then land in the middle. Yeah. It was very tedious. The jumps were too floaty to have that kind of obstacle.

13:04 There, there was. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I was going to say there was a cool moment in the second level where they have the landmines out again. And then there's some of those, uh, flying, flying sidekick guys coming at you. Those are the worst. Um, but if you time it, you thought that was cool though for real. If you time it exactly right. Cause you can get those guys midair. Um, so you jump, stab, land right in between them. And you kind of like, if you can do, there's a way to do it that I did anyway, that you're you can like quickly jump and stab and jump and stab and jump and stab over the landmines while killing those guys in this like little locked in rhythm.

13:40 And it felt, that felt pretty cool. That was probably the coolest thing I did in that game. Okay. That's pretty impressive. I was like a slack jawed while you were explaining that. Like that sounds like a lot of like that at the end of the first level where there's just like four of those guys coming at you at a time and you jump. And if you just mash the attack button enough, then you can get them all in one jump. And I just felt, that felt pretty cool too. I guess we'll take our moments of joy when we can get them in this game. Yeah. Did you, did you, did everyone else notice that when the flying sidekick guys would jump at you, the hitbox is really weird. Like when you hit them. Yes. But they had you like regardless.

14:19 Like, yeah. And that's just like, that's just a major problem with the game in general is that like, there's not enough things happening here in the, in the NES version to differentiate the gameplay enough. Like, like this game could have used either more weapons or more platforming one or the other, but like, as it stands, like dying in this and starting from the beginning of the level again, or like running out and having to start from the very beginning.

14:48 It's just like, it's not like enough, like, okay, this time we're going to do it. We're going to do it differently. It's like, well, maybe this time, you know, I'll hit his hip. It doesn't feel like you have precise enough control even over like when the, there's like some guns that shoot bullets at you. And I feel like you can dodge those, but like once you're, once you're kind of in the air, it's out of your hands. Like, well, one thing that I've been noticing, uh, just throughout the, um, the family tree

15:15 of these, uh, side scrolling beat them up, I guess is what it is right now in the, the family tree of the NES games we've had, I would keep bringing up Kung Fu and we had Trojan. And then this one I'm noticing like a troubling pattern of just these, this seems to be what they think the, the formula is right now of just sort of like a random assortment.

15:40 I know it's not random because it's the same pattern, at least in, in Russian attack. And that's how people memorize these levels and beat these games. Um, of just a bunch of different kinds of mooks that have one attack that just sort of throws that they throw them at you in a particular order. And that's a level game design. The game needs to offer something different than just a different setting and pixel art.

16:07 Yeah, exactly. That's the problem. That's the problem I have here is that, you know, dare I say like, yes, the game's a little more like refined than Kung Fu, but I think Kung Fu might've even been a little more fun. I mean, a lot more you could do. That's what I'm saying. Even though it's like, man, it didn't, I guess we find in the sense of like, yeah, Kung Fu was, yeah, it's an ugly looking game. And it's also just like, you know, that jump is very, I think it's worse. I don't know. Okay. I mean, I guess maybe I don't think this jump is worse. I just think you need this jump more.

16:39 Gotcha. In this game. So it feels worse. Right. You never really have to, you only have to jump over like little pots and snakes. All I'm saying is I hope that there is at least some step forward in the design of this kind of games before we're out of 1987 or I'm going to lose my mind. Right. Because I mean, we're going to see, this is a very easy to make game. Yeah. If you, if you know how to make games, it's a very easy to make game. And it kind of has like the Super Mario Brothers effect going for it where it's like, you know, oh, it looks like it plays like Super Mario Brothers, even though it's nothing like Super Mario. A little bit, I guess. No, I guess what, you know, you know what I'm talking about.

17:14 Yeah. Side scrolling. You jump. Yeah. You go from point A to point B and you're trying to move. Yeah, exactly. But it's like, I'm not saying it's in that realm. I'm saying like for people who are trying to bank off the success of this massively popular game, this is an easy way to like, you know, make a copycat. Mm hmm. But yeah, I'm certainly already feeling fatigued and we're only on. Game three. Yeah. Game three of our iteration. I wouldn't count Ghosts and Goblins, I guess. No, that's that's got a little bit more. It's got a little bit more to it. Yes. All right. So. The final boss in the game is a is a missile itself.

17:55 Yeah, I know. It hasn't been launched yet. Thankfully, it's not coming right at you, but you have to shoot it 12 times while, you know, dealing with all of the enemies on the screen and stuff, too. But the missile doesn't fight you. Yeah, the missile doesn't fight back. Right. And then basically like it shows like, I guess, like a destroyed base and then you running, running out of it.

18:20 But isn't that implying that like the missile blew up by you shooting it 12 times, but you were so close to it that you and sorry, not even shooting. You can use the knife 12 times. You could just stab it 12 times. It's a trick of perspective. It's implying that you started the explosion and here you are just like rescue. You know, you're not looking back. You're doing the explosive already following all the 80s movie cues. And then it says you have saved the world.

18:47 Congratulations. Peace has arrived at last. And it's like, that's a who? Yeah. Peace for. Yeah. I think we make this. This is American propaganda. The game. Yeah, I will offer. This is totally straight thought, but a funny insight. I saw on a YouTube page, one of the commenters said that when they grew up playing this game and they're Russian, they always thought that you were playing as a Russian.

19:17 They didn't see like. Russian attack. And it's like, what? Oh, man. You didn't think like at all. It's like funny to think now that this whole time they thought they were playing as the good guys. And then they realized they've actually been killing themselves. They're not killing themselves as the enemy.

19:53 That's, that's my thoughts on Russian attack. Uh, I will offer this as a solution that the Famicom version saw, but the NES version didn't ever get the treatment for. In the Famicom version, there's a few differences. Okay. It allows the player to continue up to three times after a game over. Oh. So you don't have to start the whole game over again. You die, you get your last life and it asks you if you'd like to continue. And then you start at the beginning of that level. Okay. Cool. Oh wait. Yeah. They just didn't, you just don't go back to a checkpoint. Yeah. Okay. And if the player loses a life in the Famicom version, his character will respond at the very spot where he died in the last part.

20:38 Wow. Instead of being sent to the checkpoint in the NES version. Sounds like that's a much easier game. Definitely sounds like an easier game, but I don't, honestly in a game that's this boring, I don't mind those adjustments. Kind of wish that the NES version got them. Yeah. Because think about it, if you're actually trying to get through this game and beat it, might as well get a couple of things to help you rather than like, be like, yeah, I'm going to go through something again. But like, with the amount of time that I put into this game, which was not that much, I mean, I was still making progress. If I had those extra continues, I don't know how long it would take me to beat this game and feel gypped out of money.

21:11 Interesting. Yeah. I don't know. All right. Did anyone play two player? No. Did you? I played it alone. How sad is that? What? No, I just wanted to see if, I just wanted to see like, if it was an alternating thing or if you play together and if you share lives. Right. It was like last night at 11 o'clock. So I just played by myself. It's co-op. Yeah. And you don't share lives. And it was actually, at the very first I was like, oh, this might be helpful because I can just let that guy be like death fodder while I kill other people.

21:44 And then he becomes, when he responds, he's invincible for a second and usually kills one or two enemies by like, just by them running into them. Who were you playing? No one. How is he killing anybody? Yeah. So when he dies, he responds and he's got that like few seconds of invincibility after respawning and enemies would just run into him and die from touching him. What? That's a thing? Yeah. But it doesn't really help eventually because you can't move past him. So you have to wait until he dies and then like run before he responds. You have made up a new way of playing all these kinds of games. I don't know. That's awesome.

22:15 Um, yeah. But I was just testing it to see what kind of thing it was and I just happened upon that. I, the game, the game personally for me just wasn't, there wasn't enough content in there for me to be like, Oh, well maybe this game will be completely different. And I was like, nah, I'm kind of convinced of what it is. I mean, it's cool that they offered that mode back in the day because to your, you know, to Joe's point, it's a good thing to test because most of the games that were two player are really just, yeah, player one goes and then player two goes. And if it's like your older brother, he just goes forever.

22:41 And you're like, when's my turn? And then you die immediately. And then it goes back to your older brother's turn. And I'm usually a pretty big like advocate of like, Oh, this game is probably better with two player, but I don't think this game is that much better with two. I mean, I haven't played it with two players, but I don't think it would be like, is there like friendly fire? Do you know? Like if you have like a bazooka and you fire it at your guy. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say no. So Russian attack did get a sequel for the 360 and the PS3.

23:08 It's a Russian world Russian attack, Russian attack, expatriate name of the game. And I think Konami did this with, well, a lot of companies in general just did this during like that Xbox arcade era. Yeah. Just like, Hey, let's get the NES game and just do it in with, yeah, with new graphics and stuff like that. But I don't think, um, it didn't, it didn't have like anything really going for it. Was it like 3d side scrolling? No. Well, yeah. 3d side scrolling. Exactly. They didn't like deviate from the formula so much. Um, I'm trying to find out if I can get like a plot synopsis. I want to, I don't want to know why he's an expatriate.

23:46 Yeah. Uh, here we go. Turns out they had two missiles. Okay. So, uh, it takes place 15 years after the cold war struggle between Russia and the United States. And during a flashback, the player watches as the CIA learns that the Russians have discovered a previously unknown material called Ulysium. That could be used to create the world's most powerful nuclear missiles.

24:12 Um, and then there's some, some stuff happens 15 years later. Something new happens with Wolf Spider and Operation Angel tier. And this game, Rory Gibson of the harvest team has abandoned Russia during the extraction Patriot. Yeah. So he's the expatriate of the Russians now working for the CIA.

24:36 All right. Well, that was completely obnoxious. Yeah. And, uh, I'll show you guys a little photo of what the game looks like. Oh, that's such a great photo. Yeah. It's pretty much sums up everything you need to know. He is still using, he's still using the knife, which is incredible, but it makes you wonder if the guy in, um, in Russian attack was also an expatriate. No, he was an American Cobra commander. He's a regular, regular patriot. Yeah. Proud to be an American. Uh, let's get into the essential games list.

25:15 Why am I taking out my notes? Like I, like I, like I have to look at something to decide on whether this is essential or not. Yeah. Obviously it's essential. All right. It's time for the essential games list. Sam's already laughing. Sam, why don't you take us through, uh, explain what this is first briefly. All right. And then vote. So the essential games list is our list of games from the NES, uh, where we decide if these games are worth playing today. Whoa. In 2018 or whenever this comes out. Yeah. 2019, 2020. Yeah. Um, but, uh, uh, we reserve the right, by the way, to say that the game doesn't hold up in 2018, but does in 2019.

25:58 Like, like, oh wait, if all of a sudden people, oh, yeah, if after the great war and there's only CRTs left and NESs get remanufactured because we no longer have access to like, you know, advanced chips, because they're all being used in the harvest teams, nuclear missile program. Anyway. Yeah. So that's what the essential games list is basically all about.

26:25 So Sam, how you voting? Yeah. Just for the record, you need two votes to be essential. We didn't get an example of like, you could be playing this. Do you want to be playing that? You know? Oh yeah. Yeah. I missed. Uh, okay. Let me, let me try and do a little thing. Like, you know, uh, all right. You could be playing Call of Duty, uh, black ops, three, black ops, um, five, whatever. Uh, black ops, Minecraft, uh, free for all. Even Metal Gear Solid three snake eater. Micro transaction, the game. Yeah. You could play, um, uh, the Tony Hawk underground 2X on PSP. Or, or. You could be playing. You could be playing Mock Rider, which is a much better game.

27:08 Or you could be playing Russian attack. Russian attack. So how you voting, Sam? Oh man. You know, this game, it just, it just feels like Trojan. It feels like other games that were, that had more in them. Um, and it's just not, it's not that fun to play. So that being said, it's like, it looks, it looks cool. And it's like cool. They have different weapons, but I feel like it's just like, that's not really implemented. Well, I feel like the weapons are an afterthought. I feel like, um, yeah, it's just like, there are other games that are like this game and this is not the best one of those. And even those are not essential. So this is not essential. All right. Get it out of here. Joe. Russian attack is not on my essential games list.

27:53 Great. Wow. That was lovely. I think Sean did something similar in a previous. Should I add more? I don't want, I don't want, I don't want to step on Sean's toes. No, no, no. I think that Russian attack is not on my essential games list because it is particularly just not a very fun game. Yeah. It's, it's not fun. I'm amazed that it got a Xbox 360 sequel, which added all of these weird contrivances. Yeah. It's not on the essential games list guys. Here's the troubling thing. Last time we dealt with Konami, a Konami, whatever you want to call them. Stop saying Konami.

28:29 Konami. Last time we dealt with Konami. Konami. Wow. It was December of 1986 and it was Gradius, which wound up being our game of the year. Okay. Yeah. Now we're playing this. What? Make that connection. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You don't even think of them. They almost like, this is the thing that's troubling about like these third party game companies. Cause even when we were talking about, we like rare, but then we saw like what was coming up and we were like, Oh, but those games aren't good. Like, you know, it's just weird how things go back then. And I would have felt really gypped to have loved Gradius and then get this game.

29:09 No, not no, buts, no, buts. Okay. That's it. I would have felt gypped because the reason why this game isn't complete to me, uh, doing the same thing at the end of every, uh, at the end of every level in terms of like, just a bunch of enemies and stuff like that. And then jump over a fence. Yeah. And also like, you know, just the way that like you control your character and even like little things like going up ladders was difficult sometimes.

29:33 Like, you know, waiting on screen for people to just get close to you is where you could stab them in the chest. It's like, aren't they smarter than that? Like, you get one attack, do they? They don't really guys. They just walk into you. You get one hit. They can only hit you one time. That's so annoying. Like even Kung Fu, they can hit you more than once. Yeah. And then Kung Fu, you can get hugged to death. Yeah. That's intense. That's cool. Not in this game and therefore not essential.

30:01 And that's all the time we have, right? I think that's it. Any other thoughts? Um, no. Good. That's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Track and Field. And be sure to play it yourself if you have a power pad. If you can do that. You're gonna need a power pad for that one. I mean, listen, you're not gonna need it. You can just hit the A and the B buttons with your fingers. If you want it. I don't. To borrow ours. Maybe reach out. Yeah, maybe reach out. You know, I'm not gonna give it to you, but it would be nice to know that you might be interested in using it.

30:35 I love it when people reach out to us at contact at nostalgiacast.com. That's how you email us. And we'll get back to you right away. We've responded to almost everybody who's contacted us. Except for Steven. Steven, sorry about that, but the question just really didn't make any sense. I couldn't decipher what he was saying. I was like, okay, yeah.

30:56 I'll definitely show you the cat that I once had. Right. So I was like, alright, that's cool. But we do respond to most people. And it's called contact at nostalgiacast.com is the email because nostalgiacast.com is our website. On the website. We do have a website. Yeah, on the website it's crazy stuff. There's just like, there's articles, there's episodes, there's art.

31:19 Yeah, there's art, there's show notes. We have a, speaking of art. We have a logo. Yeah, we have a logo and we also have a Twitter account where we post art all the time. All the, yeah. And not fan art that we then steal and post under our own name. And not things where we crop out watermarks. Yeah. We're legit. And we post the actual content and we explain it and we only hashtag it with the same hashtags over and over and over again. So it's not like it's hashtag to hell with 40 hashtags. Hashtag insta love. Hashtag blessed. Speaking of blessed. I just searched the blessed hashtag just to see what comes up, you know. That's why I had to. That's why it's important to add it at the end of your posts.

31:59 Speaking of blessed, I feel blessed when people subscribe to NostalgiaCast or just Nostalgia. I do. You know what? I do look at Mike sometimes and he just seems enraptured by joy. And I ask him, Mike, why are you so happy right now? He's like, somebody just subscribed. Yeah, and it makes me feel good. And we love subscribers.

32:23 We love you guys for listening. Even if this is your first time listening. We still love you. Yeah. Come back or don't. That's weird, right? See how it's crazy. I can say stuff like that because we are not living paycheck to paycheck by this podcast. We don't depend on it. So we're just doing this for fun and we hope you come back for fun. Who knows? All you gamer boys and gamer girls. Come on. Let's check out the haunts. Check out those haunts. It's almost Halloween or it's probably Halloween. Who knows what's going on.

32:52 We've been in this record. We should figure out the exact date that these are coming out. Yeah, probably pretty soon we should do that. But not for this one. Next time on Nostalgia, we'll figure out the dates these are coming out. Great. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter and I'll talk to you soon.