045 · IKARI WARRIORS
It's like Commando, but now there's tanks! And terrible porting! And the ability to softlock yourself out of the game! But is it fun? Just listen and find out! For more NEStalgia as well as show notes, articles, and more check out www.NEStalgiacast.com
Ikari Warriors is our first SNK game on the NES, though SNK didn't handle the port; Micronics did, and we groaned at the name. The box art gave us "Ram Bros": two shirtless guys in headbands and camo pants who are clearly Rambo in all but name (the Japanese Rambo sequel title is where "Ikari" comes from, roughly "fury"). The game is a Commando clone with vehicles, and we kept coming back to the same complaint: it sounds more fun than it plays.
What it gets right
- Vehicles and set pieces. Tanks and a helicopter show up along the way, and you can walk through water. A river with a bridge gives you a real choice: cross in the tank, or climb out and wade as a soldier. Hidden mines were something Commando never had.
- Two players at once. Both of you share the screen, which beats Commando's take-turns approach, and lives aren't shared, so a weak partner doesn't drag you down. Running someone over in the tank got a cheer. Playing it together was clearly the better way to take on an army.
- The tank is the fun part. You can stop, aim, and move again to control which way you shoot. We kept saying a tank-only game would have been better.
- Scale. There are only two areas, but each is about as long as a full Super Mario Bros. run, going from jungle and swamp to a cramped base. We admired the idea of crossing one huge level, even though nobody got far.
- An intro cut scene, which the NES hasn't given us much of.
Where it falls apart
- Clumsy on foot. Your soldier takes a moment to turn, sometimes in a little circle, and the gun lags behind your direction change. Enemies are faster than you, so you can never put space between you and them. Everything blinks and runs a split second late.
- It lost what made the arcade game special. The arcade original was a twin-stick shooter where you walk one way and fire another. The NES port isn't that, and the arcade version, we were told, is a completely different and much tighter game.
- Little explanation. Nobody knew what most power-ups did beyond the one that clears the screen. Climbing out of a vehicle (A then B) worked maybe a quarter of the time, usually when it was about to explode. Early on we blew up our own vehicles, thinking they were targets.
- A long dead screen. After your last life you stare at an empty screen for about 30 seconds. That's where the continue code (A, B, B, A, A) goes, and we only learned it partway through. Even with it, one of the hosts never reached the end of stage one.
The bottom line
Skip it. Sean said nay, Sam said he really enjoyed it but wouldn't call it essential, and Joe, the deciding vote, said no because Commando is head and shoulders better and the difficulty feels unfair rather than fun. That made four nos. We talked about whether a worse port of a better arcade game should ever reach the list, and agreed it would have to be very good, since the NES version's one advantage is that you can find it on eBay instead of buying a cabinet. If you want Ikari Warriors, go find the arcade version. Family fun, said one voice, but not essential.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Ikari Warriors, America's arcade hit comes home.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Michael Esposito. I'm Sean. I'm Sam. And I'm Joe. Guys, Ikari Warriors, I know I sounded like I hyped that up, but just I gotta remind everyone who's ever listened to any episode of Nostalgia, because it's important, because you might think I'm crazy otherwise, I only read the back of the boxes for everything. That's the thing in the front. Yes, yes. The back of the box. But we're talking about Ikari Warriors, developed by SNK, and this is our first SNK game for
the NES. But unfortunately, they didn't handle the port that was Micronics, who's gonna do... Oh, Micronics does a lot of bad ports. Yeah, and they're gonna do a lot of ports, period.
But, you know, SNK is going through right now like a 40th anniversary of sorts. They're like a really old developer, I don't think people know that. Mm-hmm. You know, just because it hasn't been covered so much. Yeah, 40 years. Yeah, it hasn't been covered so much. Yeah, and all of their early games are like lost to time. Like, they just, they cannot be found.
And then we're talking like, you know, minuscule things like Breakout and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. They didn't, you know, it's a Breakout-like. SNK Breakout. Yeah, SNK's style of Breakout. But SNK is a cool company in my book. They make all the King of Fighters games. Yeah. And speaking of which, the two main characters of Ikari Warriors are in King of Fighters. Wow, I gotta say, I'm looking at their picture right now.
Are you referring to the box art for Ikari Warriors? That glorious, that glorious travesty. And for those of you unfamiliar, we're trying something new on Nostalgia. We did it last week with BurgerTime, but we're gonna do it again with Ikari Warriors. We're just gonna look at the box art real quick. Cause you gotta remember, like, that's half the experience of like, 1987.
I go to the game store, I'm buying the games. I'm going by the covers of these boxes. Exactly. Like, similar to how you would shop for records that way. Like, you would look at the album art, which is weird. Because that's not a judgment of any good album. No, no. But here we are looking at the cover. Any impressions just on the cover? Yeah. This is, when I saw this, I thought of Rambrose.
Rambrose. Yeah. Which is funny because you're obviously referencing Rambo, right? Yeah, but they're bros there. Yeah, but like, that's clearly what SNK was going for actually. Yeah. It's got the headbands. Rambo First Blood Part 2 in Japan, the title was changed to be like, Rambo Ikari something.
Oh. And like, so they took Ikari from that. And I think Ikari kind of like, loosely translates to anger in English. Yeah. Or something like that. I read Fury. Fury. Yeah. So like, you know, there's clearly like a Rambo like mood here. And you're, you know, the environment is like you're in a jungle-esque kind of thing. So let's talk about, let's talk about Ikari Warriors, guys. Everybody's so quiet. Well, I'm just going to tell you, I'm just noticing on the cover for the first time here,
behind the blue headband guy, right behind his arm with the gun in it, there's another guy firing like a beam out of his gun. You guys see that? It's like a straight line beam. Do you again have a different box art? No, this is the same way we checked it. I think it's just a stylized like, it's like a, it's like I'm shooting, but it's not a bullet because that would be like weird to see, I guess. I don't know. I just do. I do like though that we have the ghosts of their, their three quarter profile right behind them in a slightly more, a slightly more dramatic view.
It's them remembering themselves from the past, you know, it's like, it's like here they are in the jungle, but remember when they were in training, it's like, it's crazy that it's not, you know, you would think it's like their mothers. You know what I think is funny? No. They got camo pants, but they come off the plane shirtless.
Well, they're also two guys looking to take down an army. So at this point, you know, why wear a bulletproof vest? Yeah. You should be able to do it. Yeah. And Joe, I just want to point out now that we're finally understanding what you're talking about with that laser thing. That's not a laser. That's like, you know, when the bullet goes so fast. It's a very like stylized version, but it goes very far for like, they just like these neo-Nazis have like advanced technology that only they can use and stuff like that. And yeah, I said neo-Nazis. These, that's what these guys are in the game. In Vietnam? They're neo-Nazis because here's the reason why.
At the end of the, towards the end of the game, like in, you know, like in the headquarters, which or whatever, whatever have you, um, because I don't really know what it is because it's such an abstract looking thing. But like when you get to towards the end of the game, they have like a swastika in the,
uh, yeah. Yeah. Well, not in the NES version, the arcade version. Okay. Yeah. I don't think a swastika would have ever got a Nintendo family seal of approval on it. So yeah, they obviously would have never let that into a Nintendo game, but it's in the arcade version. And since there were no like changes of anything for the NES version, like there's no direct call outs to anything different. Unlike how, you know, Russian attack actually like changed the story a little bit for the NES version. This one, we just have to assume that there's still neo-Nazis. As you usually do with these changes. And so you play as a Colonel Ralph and second Lieutenant Clark.
Uh, I, I'm not joking. And, um, you know, you might recognize them from King of Fighters and Metal Slug six and seven. These guys are all over the place. I like how SNK almost does like super smash brothers, but for all types of things, it's like, you know, everybody's coming to every game, wherever you can find them. Here they go. So basically this is just like a commando clone though. Yeah. But they're also not, um, Colonel Ralph and second Lieutenant Clark in the American version. I'm pretty sure they're just Paul and Vince.
Oh, right. That's the nickname. That's their nickname. Okay. It's just like, I'll pull it out of a hat. Like these have any relevance to each other. I just feel like this is all funny. The naming convention stuff, because then the mission of the game is still to save General Kawasaki. Like regardless, like that does not get changed. So whether you're Paul and Vince or Ralph and Clark, you're always trying to solve General Kawasaki. American boys, you know, a couple of American boys, clearly American boys too, by that box art. Those guys are like, you know, the definition of like a, a Rocky Rambo crossover. 80s Americans.
I really like Ram bros. Yeah. Ram bros. That was very slick, Sam. Thank you. Sean, do you want to take us through, you know, like maybe the objective of the game? All right. So you, um, you're just doing one of those, those commando things. One of those normal suicide missions. You guys against an entire army, no other army to back you up. You, you, you, you scroll up pretty much. And then, uh, I think, uh, the thing you have to point out for this game is it does set it apart and then it gives you vehicles.
And I never knew while I was playing. I mean, I did, I found out, but the first few times that I even got to a vehicle, I just saw them as these glowing things you had to blow up. So I would blow up my vehicles. It's like, you guys don't read the manual. It's so frustrating. You're the manual guy, Sam. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, I read it later, but anyway, it's just commando, but with vehicles. And this is a, this is a thing though. Commando clones, like commando was incredibly successful, came out a year earlier.
And, uh, you know, it was killing it in the arcade. So of course every other company is going to rush out their own version. And this is not the only version that we'll see, you know, but right now it's the second time we're playing this kind of style of game. And it is a little worse than like, you know, you play Kung Fu and then you play Trojan, you know, it's like, you know, there's enough differences there and things going on. This one is just kind of like, oh, well they added vehicles, but it's also like a lot like less tight.
Yeah. I think I enjoyed commando. I actually, I think I can't remember. I think I would've put on my top five of maybe it was number five or something. If it was, it was number five, but, um, but this was not fun. This game. I don't know. I kind of, I liked this game. I think that there were, I think the controls are kind of clunky. Like the movement, like your guy, I don't know why I have to wait for my guy to spin around when I'm moving in a certain direction. That's no annoying. But when I'm in the tank, I think it's more fun. I think if this game was like just tanks, it'd be a much better game.
Maybe you're right. So it's a vertical shooter where you're just kind of like, you know, going through enemies and then, uh, you know, like a tank will show up and you can get in the tank and then a helicopter will show up and get in the helicopter. Never saw the helicopter. Yeah. The helicopter is later into stage one, but you know, it's kind of cool that they included these things. I think there's a lot of like nice little touches, but I, I first just want to talk about before we even get into that, I do want to talk about the commando cloneness of this because we already have a point in reference for us and for our listeners who have listened to the commando episode.
So, you know, if we can just like kind of go around the room, you guys tell me like, what didn't this game do for you that commando did it? I didn't like commando. Commando didn't even do anything for me. That's a fair point too. I don't think that I like that style of game. I don't think for me, it comes down to whether I like the style of game or not though. I just knew like right away, I recognized the commando similarity and I was like, okay, I could take or leave commando. Let's give this a shot. I think it came down to like the tightness of the controls. Yeah. Because it's like, everything is a lot slower. Everything is blinking rapidly because of the sprite frame limits. It doesn't feel one to one. It feels like everything is clunky.
It happens like a split second later. But at the same time, there are things in this game that I like more than commando. Like I like that there's secret mines in this game that you can hit. But the fact that, you know, the guys are fast, they're always going to be faster than you and you can't really put enough space between you and them and the shooting is kind of clunky. It detracts from it a lot. Mm hmm. You also have a finite amount of ammo.
Yeah. I mean, you can. The ammo can be a problem if you aren't picking up the. No. Yeah. I'm not saying you can't get more, but I'm saying that like, you know, it's another I don't really have. I never had a problem with them. Sorry. They took no, they, you know, like I understand what you're saying, Sam. Like they did take a couple of like details that again, like commando didn't like landmines are really cool. Vehicles are cool. Being able to walk in the water. Yeah. But it's just lower. I mean, so you got to strategize a little bit.
Just around in commando. So yeah, that is kind of cool. I think it's cool. And I think that. Yeah. I think they made some positive steps towards it. Sorry. I'm. You keep cutting me off. You got it. But yeah, but we, you saw me. I would, I was just playing commando before we got on the podcast a couple hours ago. So, um, John Madagari warriors or command. No, I was playing commando. Oh yeah. Uh, because I was like, Oh, this is like, I, cause I, you were talking about how commando is a better game. Yes, correct. Um, and I still feel that way.
And I was like, Oh, let's see. And commando is, it's just so much tighter. It's such a tighter game. But I think that there are things in this game that I like more than aspects of commando. So I'll say that. Okay. I felt like with the car warriors, I think it's going to kind of kind of go back to what you guys are saying about the controls, but I felt like it was just a little more of a frustrating experience. Yeah. I felt like everything was dragging and like, I felt like I was trying to push forward and everybody moves really slow.
And yeah, like, like Sam, like you said, when you turn around, he doesn't just spin around. He has to like walk in a small circle. Yeah. That's really annoying. So if someone's coming up behind you, it takes you like a few seconds to turn around and you're never going to catch them. And it doesn't make any like real life sense at all.
Right. It seems like a weird programming bug. And it really only happened for me though, when I like stopped on a dime and then tried to like move in a certain direction. I would do that little circle thing. It wasn't like, but there's still like a half second delay when you're like changing directions and your gun like shifts over slightly. Like it doesn't shift when you move. Here's my, here's my biggest issue with it.
Like just them making a Kari warrior for any S the, the thing that was cool about a Kari warrior in the arcade was the fact that it was like a twin stick shooter. Like you could be walking in a direction and firing in a completely different one. Really? Yeah. It was a completely different experience. Like this is not, um, that was their twist on the genre. Yeah. This is nothing like what made that game interesting.
And I don't know if, if it even needed to have been ported, if that, if they couldn't do. Well, I mean, the answer is of course it needed to be ported because the NES is a runaway success now. And it's like, we got to get on board with this. The problem is, is it's a lazy port where, you know, clearly the, I mean, if you look at the arcade version, it's, you know, Sam said when I showed it to him, it's a completely different game. Yeah. You know, it's really cool. It performs really well. It's obviously tight.
There's, um, you know, there's a lot more visual cues as to what's going on in the atmosphere and stuff like that, but I don't want to bash the game too much. So, you know, Sam was kind of getting into it earlier about these little details, but I, I just really even appreciate the way the game starts. We got a cut scene. It's a cool cut scene. How many cut scenes have we had in NES games so far? Yeah, there's not been many, but Commando had one, right? I mean, sort of. Sort of. Well, it's just the helicopter dropping you off. Yeah. Well, then it's part of the game. And Russian Attack has several. Yeah. And, um, also didn't, um, Kung Fu have the save Sylvia thing? Yeah. That was like after the first level. It was the second level. Yeah.
That's when you get your mission. Like, oh yeah, that's one. Yeah. We forgot to tell you, this is what you're doing. I like the idea that in the first level, you're just training in the dojo and then all of a sudden it's like, you're like, wait, what?
Yeah. But I thought that, that, that, that intro cut scene thing was kind of cool. And I think like, you know, the way that, uh, two player is implemented is like a nice touch because Commando is just like character, you know, player one goes, they died. Then player two goes in Ikari Warriors, even on the NES version, two players playing on the same screen. Like that's, that's a very cool thing.
And Sam and I got an opportunity to play that and had a lot more fun with that version of it. Yeah. I think that was a lot of fun. I think it makes more sense for, you know, at least two people to take God and army. Yeah. I do always think that this kind of multiplayer is better than what Commando did where you alternate. Yeah. I like the idea that it's a game where you're playing together. Yeah.
But to go back to Sean talking about the, uh, the twin stick part of it, there is a, you know, and it's a very small thing, but Sam opened my eyes to this about when you're in the tank, you can control how you shoot. Yes. Yeah. By, by, by, by stopping and then adjusting and then going again. I think that's cool that they, it's, it's, it's a problem. It's the solving of a problem, but it's not elegant. But again, I think if it was just a tank game, it'd be more fun. Cause I, I, when I was in the tank, I was having the most fun.
I agree, but I, I don't think I would still, I really still don't think I would like this game very much. It changes the game too much for me. Like, you know, if you just like for me, even like playing in the tank was like, it was like a cool touch. I wouldn't want to play the whole game in the tank. I guess that's fair. I guess it's just cause the, the walking around was so, like, was so janky. You're supposed to be an Ikari warrior. But the only reason I feel like I agree with the tank thing is because yeah, I really didn't like walking around. Yeah. I felt like it controlled very poorly. Yeah. And you're frustrated.
I guess it's just the tanks just control better. What's everybody's thoughts on the difficulty, the difficulty of this game starts off very difficult, but I think you can learn it pretty fast. But then you like, you get to a point in the game where you're like, I should be done by now. Yeah. I agree. It is impressively long. This, this whole game get, I mean, does there, does it tell you that you, you got through stage one? Like it stops the game. I could not get through stage one.
I kept thinking cause it keeps tricking you. It keeps thinking like, Oh, here's a wall. This is going to be the boss. And like, Oh, I beat that stuff. I keep going. And there's like a tank. And I'm like, Oh, I'll beat this. And I found one of the old cheats, which was as soon as you lose your last life, you can just hit it. Continue by going like a, a, b, b, a, a, cause it's one of those like a, b, b, a, or something is continue.
And I kept doing that every time I died. And I could not even just through sheer force of will get to the end of the first level. There was a point where I started to wonder, are there levels in this game or is this just a really long level? So the way that it works is, uh, you're, you're both kind of right. Uh, there's two areas in the game total. They are incredibly long. I would put them in length to like a full game of super Mario brothers, you know, like, like that's how long these, these levels are.
And so there's kind of like, you know, they call them area one and area two. Wow. And creative. Yeah. Area one is like, you know, kind of storming up to like, you have to go through the jungle into the waters, take the helicopter, do all this stuff. And then area two is more like you're at the base now and it's like really confined spaces.
And it's, it's even more difficult. It seems like such a waste that it's so hard to get there. Like, I feel like most of the people that get this game are never going to get there. Sure. But I think that, that, you know, it also offers something, something different and
unique in the sense of how it handles like a level, like it's just an incredibly long level. Yeah. Even though I didn't get through any of that, I give them, I give them props for that. Cause I kind of, just as you are describing that, it sounds kind of cool. Like, Oh, I'm kind of actually traversing this environment and seeing like the progression of like, now I'm in the swampy area, I'm in the jungle area. It's like a point A to B thing that you can like very clearly see. Yeah. I think it's kind of cool that like every time I got a little bit further, you know, like when the first time I saw the helicopter, I was like, Whoa, you could do a helicopter too. Like that was cool. You know? So yeah, the sun says that.
So yeah. All that stuff is really cool. And the, the, it's the little details in this game that make me like turn around on it a little bit, but that's why, you know, I wanted to start with like the complaints first, because I think that like, it's very easy to talk about all these nice little details that the game does, but you have to remember like all of its shortcomings too.
Any straight thoughts Any thoughts on this one? I wasn't sure what some of the power-ups were. We figured out that one kills all the enemies on the screen. Yeah, the K. What's the P? I don't know. I don't know what the rest of them are. But there's also an icon of a pistol. Oh, there's the icon. Honestly, I have no idea. And there's some that could be rockets if you're in the tank, and some that do. I'm not really sure. You asked this question without knowing the answer? Yeah, that's what questions are for. That wasn't a straight question. It was a straight thought. All right, here's a straight thought. I thought that the dying animation was way too annoying. Yeah. Oh, I'm spinning and I can't get up.
I think we're going to say the same thing. But when you die the last time, it's like here's 30 seconds for you to think about it before we tell you it's a game over. Yeah, exactly. 30 seconds where nobody's on the screen. I mean, that's just for you to put in any code that you want. Oh, yeah, I didn't know there was a code. Right, but not knowing that there's a code, that's how I felt too. I was like, can I just start over? Do I have to hit reset? Maybe it's to encourage people to just press buttons to try and do something. That's true. Maybe they'll discover it. Maybe they'll find the code, yeah.
But I was actually going to bring up something different, Joe, weirdly enough. I thought we were in sync. When you're in the helicopter or the tank, how do you get out? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It says in the manual that you press A and then B, which works sometimes.
But if you get shot enough that your tank is about to explode and you do it, I felt like it worked 25% of the time. Yeah, I died a lot. I was almost afraid of the tank at some point just because I'm like, I'm going to get in that death trap. I guess it's a very realistic way to represent you getting trapped in a burning vehicle. Yeah, sometimes you can get out, sometimes you can't.
Also, I'm not sure if it's a glitch, but I saw in our two-player game, I saw Sam run over someone and they died, and I thought that was a nice touch. I did it twice, so I don't think it's a glitch. I'm not sure if I took damage. When you're in the tank, it's like you're a powerhouse. I don't know if I took damage from that, but I don't know. I don't care if you did. I'm saying it's nice that at least the person died, too. Yeah, that's nice. Nice.
It just went face-to-face with a tank, you know how annoying it would be if they came out the other side? Like, I'm not done with you, buddy. A ton of damage. Tank starts on fire. And I would say that there's some nice set pieces throughout this game. I like those bridges. Yeah, I think it's interesting because it makes you think about how you're going to attack. You know, there's people across the river from you and there's a bridge and you're in a tank. You can be like, all right, I can either cross the bridge on my tank or get out of the tank and cross the river as a person.
So hearing you guys describe it, I'm like, wow, this sounds fun. Yeah. But then I got to remind myself, no, I had a terrible time with this game. That's what I'm saying. It's tricky. But it sounds so fun. I think it could have been a great game. And it is a great game on the arcade version. I highly recommend the arcade version. It's a good game. Like, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that, like,
it's so easy to talk about, like, all the cool things about this game and then remember, but wait a minute, the controls stink. It's easy to die. I barely can shoot my gun. You know, it's, in theory, these things work, but then they don't when you pop in the game and turn it on. Yeah. Exactly. It's a near miss. Yeah. But don't worry, because we got two more Ikari Warrior games coming up in the NES lifespan. We have Ikari 2, Victory Road. Some Pokemon references.
And Ikari 3, The Rescue. Which, don't confuse it with the rescue operation that you're doing in this one. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the game, you do rescue General Kawasaki, so it's like, I don't know why they're saying you don't rescue him, and, like, who knows. But later that same day. Thank you for neeming that out. All right, let's get into the Essential Games List.
All right, it's time for the Essential Games List. And if you don't know what that is, check the older episodes. No, I kid. And yes, I'm reading a prerecorded script, only I'm not. To confuse people, this is the... This is how the Essential Games List works. We just kind of go around and we confuse people with how we feel about this game. We say we don't like it, we say we do like it. It doesn't matter in the end, because all that really matters is if you vote yay or nay for the Essential Games List. But we're not talking about are these games essential for the NES? We're not talking about 1987. I'm not talking about 2017. I'm talking about 2018.
Are these games worth playing today when you have access to every other game that's ever come out? Clearly you have time because you're listening to the podcast. So let's see how you guys feel about this. Sean. All right.
I don't see as many pros to this game as my colleagues here. I do like that they tried to jazz up the commando version. I mean, sorry. They tried to jazz up the commando-like genre with vehicles and, you know, tanks and helicopters are cool.
And I like the long level lengths, but I don't like long levels of frustrating gameplay. And that's all I really felt while I was playing this. So it's a nay for me. That's a nay for Sean. Remember, you need two votes to be in the Essential Games list. Sam. I really like this game. I had a lot of fun with it. I didn't know that there was the continue code that you can do, but knowing that now kind of boosts it on my... Like, it makes me like it more.
You know, I think that if I had an NES back in the day, this is a game I would want because you can play it with someone also, which I think is really cool. And it's not even you can play it... Like, it doesn't detract from the experience playing with someone. It's not like you share lives or anything. So if you play with someone who sucks, then, you know, it's not like they're making you suck. They're just doing a little homework, you know, for you, and then you're just going back to kicking butt. Yeah. So I like this game. I had fun with this game. I think the controls could have been better. But that being said, it's not... I don't think it's essential.
But it is a game that I really did enjoy. All right, Joe, you're going to be the deciding factor here. If you vote no, it cannot be in the Essential Games list. Well, I think I'm going to vote no. There you go. I think that Commando is head and shoulders a better game, which also wasn't in our... I don't think anyone voted for Commando.
Truth. But I think that this game being so poor with its controls combined with, as someone mentioned it earlier, the fact that the enemies kind of like are fast and they come up on you, it's not really a good way to avoid them. It just kind of gets... It gets difficult in a way that's not... It doesn't feel like a fair difficult or a fun difficult, at least. So it makes the whole experience kind of frustrating to me. This game is cool. It's got a lot of nice little set pieces. I think in the same way we talked about Russian Attack having amazing background pixel art,
this game has it kind of like in its atmosphere and its tone and you can tell where you are and I like that you can go in the water and play with the vehicles and stuff like that but then I remember how this game plays and I immediately don't want to go back to it and I think that's crazy that something like that you know something like a game that I'm interested in playing until I actually start playing it and I'm like oh right I don't want to touch this.
Go play the arcade version it's so much better even today it's not like you know still head and shoulders above the rest but I think it's worth a try so definitely go try and seek out that arcade version but for the NES version it's a bad port and hopefully Micronics can try a little harder in the future but I think we all know where that's going so I'm a no everybody's a no that's four no's so this thing is not getting on the essential games list. One thing I want to add that this game it seems like the kind of game that you would play with your parents.
Really? What? I didn't know if you were going to get punked in me No no no I feel like it's like oh like I feel like my dad doesn't like video games but I feel like he would like this Oh my dad just got back from Vietnam Yeah Oh that's a good point that's the 80s I don't know like this is a pretty like video game video game when I think of video games of the 80s I could see this in my head like what makes you think it's any different because it's like I feel like if I was like a dad and my son's like or my son or daughter you know is like playing That's what NES golf is for Yeah That's a dad game
It's like oh there's these two shirtless dudes fighting people like yeah we'll give that a shot and then you die who cares they keep playing and you're like alright you're doing great and you go and you have a beer I guess I can see what you mean it's like it's easily accessible like your goal is shoot the bad guy Yeah yeah you know and you're like a shirtless guy in a headband I don't know I just I saw
some kind of parent playing with a kid for this game specifically Yeah yeah Let me just throw it out there that you know and I'll probably throw one of these in the show notes but this is at a time where like video games are feared by like some parents in the sense that like my kid's playing these games where he shoots people he's gonna grow up and be a murderer you know and then like the news would like do coverage on this that like the local news and this will continue for decades the local news
will like come to like people's houses and she'll be like yeah they just always play the Nintendo and then it shows like them playing Genesis you know it's like this is just like a misinformed time for parents so like I'm sure there were a couple cool dads and moms out there who like already played video games and now wanted to like play them with their kids or something but like that's like that's really not happening for the most part I see it as that well I'm glad you heard it here guys Ikari Warriors family fun but not essential
and one last little thing I want to throw and one other sorry sorry but I don't think that I don't think we've done this yet but I cannot imagine if there is a port that ever gets on the essential games list
that is somehow the worst version of a like a much better like arcade game or game on a different on a different console like I just don't think that we should do that it just doesn't really make sense if you think about how we're talking about not just the NES we're talking about every game that you have available to you and it's like well you would have a better version available to you that's a good point however there are some things that like the NES version changes enough that it's yeah I mean if but I think like if it's on an apples to apples basis and it's just that much worse it would have to be very good it would have to be still very good I don't know yes I agree
I think the only thing the NES would offer to something like that is that you have it in your home yeah keep in mind yeah arcade is like you know it's very hard to I always say you know play these games but you're good good luck tracking them down like you know any verse system game is near impossible to find any like Akari Warriors you're not going to just find that at like you know the nearest arcade you're going to have to seek it out major metro too right so you know it's not it's easier said than done and I do agree that like you know the NES has at least the fact that you know you can just go on eBay and find it and not spend $700 on the cabinet
so that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia join us next time for Castlevania Castlevania and be sure to play it yourself if you can you like to play Castlevania okay thank you for that I'm sure somebody enjoyed that yeah I enjoyed it oh good okay there's the fan again speaking of enjoying stuff if you're enjoying the podcast why not hit that subscribe button and continue to listen to us we publish episodes every Friday and we will continue to do so as long as there are NES games to be played in chronological order wait do we have any more what do we have any more we have we have a few more okay yeah in North America yeah that's what I was gonna say they have to be in North America yeah
unfortunately the Japanese ones and maybe we'll do a special sometime but you know we do have special stuff yeah we do have special stuff on the website that's www.nostalgiacast.com and on the website you can find all the previous shows download links to the episodes in case you just want to have like offline versions of them we also have show notes and detailed thoughts and articles who knows what you're gonna find on there it's a lot of fun we also got a Twitter and Twitch YouTube Facebook all that stuff so definitely check that stuff out and that's about it so I'm Michael Esposito you can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter and I'll talk to you soon p p p p
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