059 · THE 3-D BATTLES OF WORLDRUNNER
Light years from earth, there's a world in trouble and pain. Graz, the alien Serpentbeast, and his gang of galactic thugs are terrorizing the eight worlds of Solar System #517. The citizens are losing ground fast--and hope. They need a hero to save their solar system from disaster. For more NEStalgia as well as show notes for this episode visit www.NEStalgiacast.com
- Square joins the NES 3rd Party
- Published by Acclaim in North America
- Hironobu Sakaguchi
- Nasir Gebelli programed - Born in 1957 in Iran. Moved to America. Joined Square in 1986. The company was excited to have him for all the work he had done in the early days. He is more noted now for programming Final Fantasy 1-3 and Secret of Mana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3EmtTpoEa8&t=108s
- Nobu Uematsu composed
- How it works : From the bottom of the screen to the middle of the screen there are objects placed with decreasing height, say 10 at the bottom and 1 in the middle of the page and everything in between. Every "strip object" is masked using a mask with the same height as the strip movie clip itself (1-10). Inside the strip object the image is placed and scaled, smaller scale for strips with smaller height, to give the appearance of perspective. -
- Like Space Harrier by SEGA
- Anti Piracy measure - https://tcrf.net/The_3-D_Battles_of_World_Runner
- Sequel - JJ: Tobidase Daisakusen Part II - Fsmicom only. Cart. Utilized actual 3-D. Last game for Square before Final Fantasy
- Jack makes an appearance in Square's Chocobo Racing as the final secret character.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
The Battle of a Lifetime comes alive in 3D. The 3D Battles of Worldrunner.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys, we have a new party member. Yeah? Square Enix. Well, Square for the time being. Is it Square? Well, Square right now. It's just Square. Yeah, like the credit card company now? Right. Their other division. Yeah, yeah, their other division.
It feels right to say Square Enix though because you want to record them. Never feels right to say Square Enix. Wow, that's such a weird stance to have. I don't know. I still think of Squaresoft. I still think Squaresoft sounds better. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you guys are like PS1 players. Yeah. So I can understand that the Square and... Representant. Enix. Like, I always thought it was Enix growing up as a kid. I don't think it has a pronunciation.
Okay. It's just Square. It's silent. It's a silent word. Yeah, they just called Square at the end of the day. Yeah. It is telling that Square got the front of that. You know, it's not called Enix Squared. Well, Enix was failing. Anyway. Well, speaking of failing, that's a great segue into Square. Yeah. They're failing at this point in their company. It was... They were founded in 1983. They were trying their hardest to, like, make video games.
83 through 87 are like the dark ages for them. Yeah. Just like when they started through now. Yeah, yeah. To now. So, they're finally trying something that will hopefully be, like, unique enough to stand out on a system. And that is the 3D Battles of Worldrunner. Guys, can I get some first impressions that aren't just, wow, this game simulates 3D? I mean, it's not much more than that. It's really just a gimmick game. Like, you can jump, and you can run, and then you can fire shots of things. Kamehameha waves? Is that what they call them? No, no, no. That's Goku from Dragon Ball Z. Oh, what is that? That's the...
I know what you're talking about. Yeah, oh, okay, okay. Okay. Sorry. I thought that people, like, the common parlance of the, you know, the fan community of this game called them Kamehameha waves.
Not so. Anyway, like, yeah, then you fight a giant snake at the end, and the snake's pretty cool. That's about it. Great. Joe? Yeah, I mean, the first thing I thought was, oh, this controls pretty well for being, like, trying to be 3D, with a big asterisk next to that statement, which I'll get to later. Um, yeah, it controlled well. It was fine. It didn't blow me away now as a person in 2018, or if you listen to this in the future, whenever. Right. But, uh, it probably would have been, like, pretty mind-blowing back then. But. Especially because, uh, well, hold on, I'm gonna hold off on that thought for a minute and just talk about, like, this is the first game in a while that we've done that isn't necessarily, like, notable.
Uh, you know, like, like, isn't in the general public's perception of NES video games. So, maybe we should just talk a little bit about, like, what you do in this game. Sure. I thought I covered that. What? You run and you jump. Yeah. In the 3D battles of World Runner, I think you play as Jumpin' Jack?
Is that his name? Is his name? Uh, I. You are trying to save the solar system now. I know that. They might have just changed it to Jack. But, yeah, you play as Jumpin' Jack, I'm gonna call him, because pretty much all you do is, to Sean's point, you just jump. Uh, running is kind of, like, simulated for the most part, but you can control the speed at which you run. Yeah. Uh, and then there's, like, basically, like, you run on, like, what looks like a sphere. That's how they simulate the 3D. Yeah. And then there's, like, black holes every now and again, and you gotta jump over those,
and you gotta keep doing that until you get to the end of the level where a boss worm shows up. Uh, and basically that's when the game becomes Space Harrier. Yeah. If anyone's played Space Harrier for, um, that was on the Sega arcades, and I think is, like, now available on, like, all sorts of virtual console and downloads. Sega really likes to continue to pump that game out. But this was, like, Square's, like, thing, like, that's popular, so let's do that. Mm-hmm. And they did that, except for the NES mode comes with an added fun bonus of, like, if you hit the select button, now it's 3D. Now it's, uh, red and blue glasses 3D.
And I thought that I actually, like, fucked up my game when I first pressed select, and I didn't realize that this was an actual 3D title. Yeah, it doesn't really, like, I don't know, it should have said something, like, it should have been in the options mode or something. Like, you just select on and off the 3D graphics at any time. It's like, when does that become useful?
Like, I'm wearing the glasses, and I just want to turn them off for a second. I mean... But I'm still wearing the glasses. Well, I think it's just if you don't have the glasses, you keep it off, and then... Oh, yeah, you're right. I see what you're saying. You should have, like, the option before you start playing. Before you start. You shouldn't be able to, like, just change mid-level.
Right. I want to be playing in 3D now. I mean, this game, I feel like I didn't have them, but I feel like it would be easier if you have the faux 3D glasses on, because I had some issues with perspective, I would say. Let me ask you this, though. Was faux 3D ever good? Like, that red and blue 3D? I was never blown away by that, even as a kid. I mean, nor was I, but I think it might have helped with parallax.
In fact, this is my moment now. This is my moment in the sun to call out to any of our listeners. If anybody knows what game I'm talking about, I'd love for you to link it. It's barely even a game, really. But it was on Windows 95. Your favorite system. You wore red and blue glasses in real life. And in the game, you went through, like, a dinosaur museum.
And the dinosaur, like, there was this T-Rex that could chase you in 3D, and it was terrifying because it'd come out. And the music was ultra creepy. If anybody has that, like, knows what that's called, send it to me, because that would just, like, really break my perception of reality to see that again after all these years. Maybe you hallucinated that. I don't know. That's what I'm saying. You know, like, it's like, certain things you've heard sounds when you're young, you know? Yeah. And, like, you never hear them again. And then when you finally hear them, it, like, reawakens a part of you that you didn't remember. Mm-hmm.
And, like, that's what this game would do for me. Wow. So, there's a dinosaur game where you play in 3D on Windows 95. Blow my mind. You can try putting that string together in Google. I've never found any success putting those three terms together.
Okay, back to the game. The game. 3D World Runner. So, let's talk about, so you were talking about, like, difficulty with perception and, like, telling when the, like... It was never, it was never like, oh, I kept dying because I didn't know where the ledge was. It was more just, I can't hit these elevated... Okay, so while you're playing the game, you are also trying to collect stars.
I guess they... I mean, maybe, though. Yeah. Like, you don't have to. You don't. There's absolutely no... I mean, it's a points thing. They're there, so you will naturally try to touch them. Unless you're on the wrong part of the map, because, like, you can only ever face forward in the map. You can't do, like, a full 360 turnaround. Mm-hmm. But you can be on, like, the wrong side of the map in the sense that you might never see those stars in an entire level. Yeah. I think that's just strange design choices. Sure. Like, they should be weaving in throughout the level. The stars felt a little to me like, like, I don't know this at all, but I was thinking they said at the end, at the end of development, they were like, wow, this is so empty.
Like, we gotta put stuff in this game. Yeah. Same thing with the enemies, right? Yeah. I mean, it's sort of like the coins in Mario. They sort of guide your... I mean, there's no choice in where you're going to go if you're gonna take, like, a low or a high route in this game, but it sort of guides you. You know? It's stuff that's there. But what I meant was, if I'm trying to hit the stars, because, you know, shiny object, Pavlovian response, whatever. Sure. I could never hit the ones that were floating.
I had a very hard time with that, too. Yes, I agree with that, yes. Uh, because also, like, it's not necessarily like a maximum peak jump if it's floating. It's like, it could be like three-fourths of the way to the ground. Mm-hmm. It's like, there's no way to tell how close the ground is. Yeah. It doesn't really even, like, cast a shadow. No. Yeah. That would've been helpful. Shadow physics. Yeah?
Oh, I don't know. Okay. I thought you were doing a shout-out to the game or something, like, you were falling it out. No, I was doing that. Okay. Yeah. Um, so I looked into how it was done. Oh. You know, and this is the blurb to make it easier for everybody. Uh, from the bottom of the screen to the middle of the screen, there are objects placed with decreasing height, say, ten at the bottom and one in the middle of the page, and everything in between. Every strip object is masked using a mask with the same height as the strip movie clip itself, so one through ten.
Yeah. Oh, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one, one through one
It kind of tricks you into thinking like, oh, it's fully 3D because you can go left and right and it's not like a straight path. But really, you're just running forward.
It's just an infinite scroll thing. It does make me wish that Slalom and Mach Rider had like those red and blue glass options. You know, like that would have just been neat. I'm sure somebody has done a ROM hack for it or something because I can't imagine it being hard.
But someone will correct me on that. So that's how it works. We talked about difficulty. How does it play, though, for you guys? Like, did you have fun with it? No, I felt like like when I died, it's not that I felt discouraged.
I just felt like, do I really want to go again? Like there wasn't again, you're not there isn't much trying to like pull you to the end of this, except for the prospect of fighting the worm or seeing the new like background map. And you have to fight worms a lot. Like once you get to the later levels, it's just worms. It's worm central. And I don't know. I never really felt motivation. I read that as like this is an early interpretation of the Internet that Jumpin' Jack is climbing through and there's a lot of like viruses.
I mean, that would be a more interesting way to see it, but that's not the story. Yeah, that's definitely not the story. Do you know the story? The story is that some guy, he has a name, I just don't remember it, who is a worm, invades the solar system.
And he brought all of his worm friends. And like you just fight planet to planet. Are they planet eaters? Maybe. Great. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out what they're doing here. I think they're just like, I mean, they definitely sent down the little goofball enemies down onto the planet. So yeah, they're invading. And all the planets sort of look like the bonus stages in Sonic.
Sonic 3, is it? I think even Sonic. Oh, I mean, yeah, I'm thinking of Sonic 1. Yeah, where you have to collect all the balls. Yeah, but don't even say that, because I love that bonus level of Sonic 3. Oh, I know. No, I mean like. You know, like, do not say. It's okay. I'm just saying that that's what the ground looks like. Yeah, yeah, the ground does look like that.
It feels like Sonic 3 definitely got inspired by that in some way or another. But like, the gameplay loop, if that would have been the gameplay loop, I would have been way more interested. Because they actually made it into like a puzzle. I thought that's how it was going to be. But then like, when I tried turning, I just sort of strafed to the left and I could tell there was nothing on the other side. Can I jump in here real quick on the gameplay?
So, I'm not too hyped on this game, but I did. I think I did have a better time than you, Sean, at first. Because for a while, I was like, oh, it's kind of. It's kind of. It controls. Like I said, at first, it felt like it controls nice. And the running, the jumping was good. I did initially, like right away, thought like there's not enough to this.
But in the second world, I felt like there was a little more to do. And, you know, I never had, I didn't have right away the idea that like, do I even want to try again? I was still like enjoying it enough to try again. But once, I only got to World 3. But once I started really kind of trying to like, now it was getting a little challenging.
And then I was failing. I was like, I don't want to go through all this again to get back to it. But, and my biggest issue became what I initially took as being very, very fine-tuned controls. I kind of ended up thinking like, wow, these are really touchy controls. They are. Because you can completely, I don't know if you clip through them, but you can miss the stars.
Right. Even when you're like right next to it. Right, definitely. And the worst part, I think, is in World 3, there are all these springs you have to jump off of. Yeah. And you go over these long chasms. But now in Level 3, there's these chasms where in the middle of the chasm, there's like a spring in one spot. And you have to land exactly on that spring. And the controls are so touchy. Well, that's what I thought you were going to talk about, actually, when you mentioned enjoying the game at first. Because, I mean, like, you know, yeah, I'm forced to play this game for the podcast.
So I was enjoying it as much as one can when they're playing something that they have to. For work. You know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it wasn't, a lot of times I pick up a game and I'm like, not a lot of times, but several times so far I've picked up a game. I'm like, wow, this is not fun, but I have to play it. Exactly. I didn't feel quite like that. Exactly. When I was done, I was like, no, it was satisfying. I'll never play it again.
And that's what I was getting at. But then, as you mentioned, it gets to a point where, you know, this game demands, like, a certain kind of precision that almost becomes, like, memorization. In the sense of, like, how small the landing zones are for you before you have to jump again. And so you wind up, like, if you didn't land right at the beginning edge of that landing strip, you have to immediately jump again. Mm-hmm. And then you have to, like, kind of guess, like, was I supposed to do a full A press or, like. Because sometimes, like, the vanishing point, you don't even see the end of the jump yet. Yeah, it's kind of crazy that, like, it escalates like that because I would say the first two worlds are, like, fairly enjoyable.
Yeah. They're relaxed enough, I guess. Yeah, relaxing enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, like, to the point where it's like, oh, I might consider this game, like, okay. And then the later levels are just, like, ridiculous that I just, I don't know.
It's something about, like, difficulty curves in games. And I understand it in these older games. It was, like, part of the challenge being built into, like, how do we make this game, like, worth this amount of money? Exactly. You know, and it's, like, well, difficulty curves were, turn out to, like, not be the answer. So to any publisher that is making games today, it's don't make your games harder. Make them, like, more interesting. And this difficulty curve, to me, didn't even really feel like it was intentional.
It felt like the idea of what they were doing, jumping across this chasm to the spring that you can see in the distance, it doesn't sound as difficult, but it's just their controls are so exact and so touchy that it's, like, it's very difficult to actually land on that spring. Makes you wonder if they tested them. Yeah. You know? I feel like this game, and if you've ever been on your phone, or maybe you have an Android phone, or I don't know which phones don't do this, but you lose service, whether you're on the subway or you're just in a dead zone. So in your browser, your browser will just turn into, like, a T-Rex jumping over, over, you all have iPhones, don't you? I do have an iPhone.
Okay. Anybody that has an Android phone knows what I'm talking about. I can't, it's okay. Wait, is this the Windows game that Mike was talking about? It's on your Android? He had me with T-Rex. I was like, oh my gosh. You play basically just a jump over shit game in your browser when you can't, when you don't have service, and that's basically what this game is. Like, it's got another dimension. It's actually got two other dimensions.
But yeah, that's all I see in this game. I don't know. No, I agree. It's not like we're about to go just, you know, we're not about to go on, like, a 30-minute rant about this video game. We're not going to go, like, in-depth and figure it all out. Like, you know, yes, there's, like, different elements added, and yes, there's, like, a way to approach it and stuff like that. But, like, honestly, if we talk about that here, what fun is left for you at home?
You know? Like, just, honestly, just boot it up and play it and figure it out. Like, what I think I came away with is that it was a neat idea only on paper by the end of it. Like, an idea that almost, like, wasn't worth actually making because once you make it, you realize, like, oh, this is actually really flawed, and we have to wait for better hardware. I think the saving grace, I don't know how well it did, but the saving grace would have been the fact that people were like,
no, it's 3D. It's, like, it's so cool. Right. You know what I mean? And because of the novelty of the running in, quote, unquote, 3D. I feel like maybe that's going to be the way that maybe if, maybe there'll be a podcast in the 2040s that looks back on the early VR games. Like, and we play, like, Job Simulator, and it's like, yeah, this is considered, like, the best game for a time, but all you do is, like, push buttons, and, like, yeah, it's cool that you push buttons, but, you know? It's true. No, I definitely agree with that. That's why I personally have not even gotten into the VR world yet, just because it's like, this is first-generation stuff. Like, I will wait until they figure out some kinks. Yeah. And give me something worth purchasing.
So, Joe, you had mentioned that you didn't know how the game performed. Spoiler alert, it did not perform well. Square really needed a hit, and this didn't necessarily help them. So they are met with more trouble, and they're on a, they're basically on a sinking ship at this point. They better come out with one final game in the fantasy genre. Yeah, yeah, but since this is, since this is Square, we should talk about who was on the game.
First off. Some of your names. Square. Well, let me first say this, though. So, Square published the game in Japan, but they didn't have, like, you know, they weren't a big enough company to go and publish it in North America. So, actually, Acclaim. Acclaim, yeah, who I think we all know. They're not still around? I don't think so. I don't think they're still around. I think they folded many years ago.
But they published this game in North America for Square, and on the team for Square, we have Sakaguchi, who is, I think everybody knows him, who's big on Square. Where he's the Final Fantasy guy, essentially. Yeah. The guy people point to for all references of, like, Final Fantasy's influence and development. Because from Final Fantasy I all the way until Final Fantasy V, he was essentially, like, the director. And then Final Fantasy VI, he became more of, like... A producer. Yeah, a producer.
And he was on Final Fantasy, I think, all the way up to 11? Yeah, I know he was definitely in VII. He was involved in the PS1 Golden Age. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, well, the producer title has, like, it's kind of vague, you know? Like, when you get to the producer level, it's like, I'm sure that they have, like, Final Saiyan on a lot of things, and that is important.
You know, like, the director kind of has to present to his producers, you know, like, these are my ideas. But I don't think, like, when I see producer in a game, I don't necessarily think, like, oh, this is the guy who made this game. You know, like, it's not a big of a deal. Like, when I see Miyamoto now as, like, executive producer in the Mario games, I think it's just more like you present, like, core ideas to him, and he says, yes, run with that. You know, I don't think he's, like, saying, show me the, like, the 30th star in the sand level. Like, you know, it's like, that doesn't really happen. You know, I'm actually looking... Oh, no, I see now, yeah.
Hironobu Sakaguchi, producer, Final Fantasy VII. All right. Yep, and I think he eventually retired from Square, at least. I don't know if he's out of video gaming in general. His last game came out last year, so I think, like, he probably still does stuff. He even did, like, a little movie directing for a while.
Like, guy's all over the place, but he definitely has talent if you're responsible for directing Final Fantasy I, IV, playing a role in VI, and then producing VII through XI. Like, I think that's definitely really cool. So that's Sakaguchi in a nutshell, and, of course, we'll be talking about him plenty on Nostalgia as Square starts to make hits instead of misses. And then we have Nobu Uemetsu, who I think everybody knows as the Final Fantasy music composer.
As of this recording, he is not feeling well, but he's not. He's still with us. Oh, he's not feeling well. He's not feeling well. He has taken a leave of absence until January of 2019, so hopefully everything worked out. Yeah. Who knows? This episode might be out in January of 2019. And hopefully everything worked out, but it wasn't, like, no cancer or anything like that. He was just, like, under, like, an illness and just decided to, like, sit back.
Huh. Which I think, like, makes sense. The guy has been composing music since this game, at least. Yeah. And he's still doing it, like, nonstop. Yeah, and talk about, like, no misses. Like, he's pretty much had, like, all his music. Like, for all of his games, does he have a bad, well, all the Final Fantasy games, is there a bad example of the soundtrack? I could listen to any variation of the Final Fantasy theme, like, the actual main theme for the series. I could listen to that in any version, and I'm like, that's still, like, very regal and majestic. Yeah. You were going to say something, Sean.
No, just that it was choice. Okay, great. Yeah. Um, what did we think about his music on this game? Uh, I forgot about it already. Right? You know, I mentioned this to you guys before we started recording, but I, at one point, I had this weird death animation. I should have died. The death sound, the music went off like I died, but I kept playing. It sounds like I'm describing a dream I had or something.
But I kept playing, but the music had stopped. And it was only at that moment that I realized, like, wow, this music was really repetitive, and it's, like, kind of nice to have a little silence now. Right, right. Because I, I don't think it was because the track... Who says that when they're playing a video? I think this is really nice to have some silence right now. Well, I think it was, I don't think the track, I liked the music when I first booted up, but it was just the fact that there's only one song, and there's eight worlds, and they're all kind of long. And just, like, after a while, it's like, any music's gonna get repetitive. Well, that's the thing. I was like, no one's about to critique Nobu because of this, this album.
Like, you know, he really started off with a shaky ground. It's like, no, it's just not a lot to do. Like, you know, he wasn't really, like, doing any world building with this music. Like, it's just music for a game that is a repetitive loop on itself, you know? Yeah. So that's all I have to say about that. But interesting now, now I'm gonna get into someone that no one probably knows about for, unless you're, like, deep in on retro video games, but Nasir Jebeli, or Gebeli, I don't know if the G is hard or soft.
Um, he was the programmer for the game, and he is also the programmer for Final Fantasy 1, 2, and 3, and Secret of Mana. And those are, like, the games that he's really known for. But what I mean, like, programmer, I'm talking, like, he was the main programmer.
Born in Iran in 1957, okay, uh, moved to America and programmed a bunch of stuff for, like, all those, like, Apple II computers, IBM computers, like, whatever they had, he was programming games for. And Square was, like, really excited to, like, work with him. Like, a Japanese company excited to work with an Iranian-American in these early video game days. I just think that's, like, so interesting to begin with. And then this guy just having, like, all of this, like, knowledge and, uh, Square's, whoever was the head of Square at the time was basically saying, like, we need to make a pseudo 3D game for, you know, to, like, give us something different for the system.
And, uh, Nasir knew immediately, like, what to do and how to do it. Huh. And programmed the entire game. So, I think that that's really exciting, uh, that he did that. And he actually is still alive today and did a three-hour-long interview about just, like, all of his programming knowledge from, uh, from this game, 3D World Runner, all the way unto, uh, Secret of Mana. So, I think, like, if you have three hours to spend over the course of the next couple weeks, I would seriously consider listening to this if you're at all interested in programming because it's very, like, digestible information. He's not, it's, it's back when programming was simpler, too.
And so, he's not talking, like, zeros and ones, you know? He's talking, like, in a way to make you understand how his, basically, like, his design philosophy. That is definitely, uh, really cool, though, because whenever I, I watch, um, the, the, um, the credits of any game now, it's either a very, like, anglicized, uh, like, name or a very Japanese name. Right. Yeah, just to, to see that international flavor jump out is pretty cool. Yeah. Uh, and, of course, you know, like, he's gonna program some pretty badass games for us down the line, so I think that is exciting.
One thing that I didn't talk about with the game, though, that I'm gonna bring up because we're talking about the programming now, did anybody ever, like, boot up the game and then, like, it already starts on, like, a game over screen? I thought that that was just how it was because it seems very, like, it has a very arcade feel, and it sort of just looked like that, um, that standby state of a lot of arcade cabinets. Almost like, almost like that's the way they get the game over screen to come up is that it's always there underneath everything.
Right. But... I just thought that was, like, such an odd choice to not have, like, a menu, really. Yeah. Like, there's no, like, you know, I'm not asking for game A, game B, like, the 1985 launch games, but I'm saying, like, at least give me, like, a title screen with, like, some, some options. Yeah. I don't think that I... You're saying it came up game over and you just had to press something and then you started the game? And then I started the game, yeah.
Oh, I'm pretty sure. Maybe I just didn't notice. And this was not every time. Pretty sure I had a menu. This was not every time. It was not every time. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Was there a menu? No, I didn't. I don't think I had a menu. I think there was a... It didn't just start right into the game. No, it doesn't start right into the game, but you have to hit start and then the game, like, starts up. It's not like, here.
Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention to it, but I just remember there being some sort of over screen at the beginning that wasn't a game over screen. Mike is now going to perform a radio play version of how to start this game. Mike? No, I definitely will not be doing that. We can move on for a second, though, as I get the definitive answer on that.
Did you guys know that there was a sequel for this game? Oh, geez. Yeah. And while I mention that fun fact and then I just, like, leave it, like, throw it out there and then take it away, Joe, there is no opening title thing. There is. So it starts right on the game over thing. This makes for a great podcast if I just look at it. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's amazing. I'm glad I'm here to see that. The game looked like that?
Yeah, I don't even remember. No, I just... Maybe I was just on autopilot to start the game. There's just something really funny about that that, like, we can't even remember how we started. I can't remember the goddamn game. How did we get into the game? It really sounds like a dream again. You never know how it started. And then you looked down and you weren't wearing any pants. So they did get a sequel. I'm going to butcher this, but I think it'd be funny if I gave it a shot. So it's... The sequel was called JJ Tobodasi Daisaku Sen Part 2.
It's, like, Part 2 is in English? Part 2 is in English, yeah. Okay. And JJ is jumping jack, obviously. And it was Famicom only, so we won't have to get around to it. Thank God. Famicom only, it did still utilize the whole 3D thing with the select button. And interestingly enough, it's the last game from Square before Final Fantasy. Wow, they almost gave it up. Kind of like one last failure before their last attempt. Like, just interesting that they would keep going into that. This is the series that made them think they were going to fail.
Essentially. Yeah. And then, did you guys know that there is an anti-piracy measure put into the game? Oh. Oh, what do we got? Yep. So, essentially, there's, like, two games are programmed into the game itself. Like, two different codes. Okay. And the way that it works is that if the checksums all come back good, as you put the game into, like, a real NES hardware, it'll load up the option B, which is, like, the full game. Okay. And option A, which is programmed first for a reason, is just this screen with a message that I will read. The message is, I would like to thank you for your interest in my game. Unfortunately, you will not be able to play this illegal copy. But the good news is that you can purchase this game from your computer store.
Sincerely, Nasir. Wow. That's, like, a very... It's very polite. Yeah, it's a very nice way to go about it. It is a nice way to go about it. Just to get back into it, that option A thing, though, is there because that's what would load instead if the checksums didn't work out. But the reason why that was done is because if you were copying, and this doesn't happen anymore, but if you were copying from a cartridge to a ROM back in the early days, it would most likely just grab the information from the first set.
So it would just... Ignore the rest? Ignore the rest because it thinks that it's grabbed the game, essentially. Like, you know, it's useless to just grab all data and translate it raw. So it just grabs what it thinks it needs. And so it just yoinks all that illegal information and then just ignores the side B. I'm pretty sure, though, that this also is only possible in the Famicom Disk System version because that's how you get the side A and side B. You know, like switching the disks. Yeah. I don't think that... Did they switch... Do you have to switch disks in this game?
There's a side up and side down. It's a four-disk game. You don't know that? Yeah. For all the Famicom Disk System games, this is a little cool thing. There's a side up and a side down that you do yourself. Like, you don't ever, like, you don't ever change out to a disk two. Like, take one disk out and put it in another disk. But for all Famicom Disk System games, there will come a point where it will ask you to, like, switch to side B. And it's just a button that you press on the Famicom Disk System.
Interesting. Yep. So that was this. Obviously, though, this one you wouldn't even have to flip the game. They would just do the checksum no to flip the sides. Huh. Yeah. And so that is... Neato. That is the anti-piracy thing. Jumpin' Jack will return, though.
But only in Square's Chocobo Racing. Oh, dear. He is the final secret character in Square's Chocobo Racing for PS1, maybe? I would have seen it as PS1. Yeah. Yeah, that would be my guess. That sounds like a PS1 game to me. And... Well, what a payoff for everyone who put the work in to unlock the final character. Yeah, like... Right? Like, who else would you hope it would be? Anyone. Like, anyone else.
I think that's just really funny. Like, you know, you almost think, like, oh, maybe it's, like... Maybe it's Sakaguchi himself as the final secret character. And then it's like, no, how about Jumpin' Jack?
Yeah, that's how... That's probably the reception in the kid's bedroom as he unlocks that character. It's just dead silence. Like, who? Who is this? Who dat? That also makes me think of, you know, we talked about this a long, long time ago in episode three with Clu-Clu-Land, where...
Bubbles. Which is the name of the main character, Clu-Clu-Land, is an unlockable character in DK King of Swing. And people are probably just like, what is this? What is this? Is it a circle or what? Yeah, like, what am I playing with? It's a circle with eyes. It is the NES art, too. It's not like they really, like, updated it. I don't know if you could update that. I think it... I'd like to see... I'd like to see Bubbles for Smash. Yeah. DLC.
It's definitely gonna be a... What do they call them? A ghost? A ghost of another character? Oh, yeah. Echo. An echo. Come on, the game's out now. You should know that. Yeah, an echo of Mega Man. Yeah, a Mega Man echo. We haven't even gotten to Mega Man games yet, but they're coming up. They're coming. All right. Anybody have any... Okay. Yeah? Yeah. I have a straight thought. Yeah, that's what... Yeah, exactly. Everyone knows. So, first, I just wanna... Did you guys read the manual? Did you guys check out the enemy names? I didn't, but I'd love for you to tell me. So, there's a couple that I think are interesting. Like, the main circles are called Menacing Meanies.
Oh, yeah. Some of my favorites, I'll just give you. There's a little plant that doesn't look like a Venus flytrap. It looks like a different... I don't remember what they're called. It's a different plant that eats flies, and it's called the Venus Die Trap. Wow. Yeah. There are these TVs that are, like... That attack you, and that's called Mean TV. That's my favorite.
What is it called? The hands. The hand is called Mr. Hand. Wait, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, Mr. Hand is funny, but also, like, Mean TV is funny just thinking about, like, the idea of that being, like, a real thing, like how you were saying Venus flytraps. And it's like, you go home, you know, you go to Best Buy, you buy the TV, you set it down. That night, you're in your bed, and you're like, oh, no, I bought a Mean TV. And it's like, it's coming. Yeah, Mean TV was my favorite because it's just, like, so... Like, they just weren't even trying.
Or they were trying, you know? Like, who knows what that name is in Japanese. Maybe. Oh, that's true. Maybe the translation was just incredibly, like, lazy. Years later, wasn't trying. Yeah. Also, to correct myself, it's not Mr. Hand, it's Hand Man. Hand Man. Yeah. They're all Hand Man. Hand Man for Smash.
Oh, yeah. No, Hand... Those things were annoying. You fight Hand Man at the end of Smash. You think of, like, Hand Man, and that's, like, so weak, and we just had last week, we had, in Legend of Zelda, Wall Master. Wall Master. You know, like, those floating hands. Those things are intense. A lot of hands. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, also, that's a better name.
Oh, yeah. Hand Man or Wall Master. Give me Wall Master. For sure. And it would actually kind of make sense in this, because these things really wall you. Like, that's what they do. You're running, and they just, they copy you exactly, and they just block your way. It's very difficult. What? They're like, hey, stop. Yeah. I thought you were telling me to stop. I thought I was, like, bringing back repressed memories of Hand Man for you. Joe, what did they call the columns in the game?
Kooky columns. I don't know. I love that you just made that up. But, like, Joe, I joke, I don't think that that would be categorized as an enemy. But these are, there are columns in the game. And you can just, like, bump into it. I think that's pretty funny. But the columns are, like, they give you items. Like, that's what they're there for. Yeah. I accidentally took a magic mushroom, and I died.
Yeah. That's the only bad item it'll give you, too. Yeah. I would like to have you take the magic mushroom, and then, like, it would just, like, make the screen all wavy. It's all wiggly. But then that's, like, really lazy, because people have done that so many times with, like, Super Mario Bros. Not in 1986. Flash animation. You know, it's, like, Super Mario Bros. flash animation things, where it's, like, he eats the mushroom, and then he gets high. Ha ha. Get it? On Newgrounds? Because weed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
There was a Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom. Does that mean anything to any listeners? Probably not. Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom. Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom was a flash animation series. And I'm just rambling, but in case anybody wants to listen. This is just all about, like, games that you loved as a kid. Well, it was, like, a flash animation instead. That was, like, a four-part movie that was very well thought out, done by one guy. He also did Mario vs. Sonic, the flash animation. So, consider him one of the early, what would you call those, auteurs of flash animation.
Definitely had a style. Yeah. You know what? I think this reminds me of Shrifty Five, that song that was on, like, Albino Blunt. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. We'll stop talking about this. Okay, yeah. Joe, any other straight thoughts? Yes, actually. Yeah, please. It's the one that everybody's waiting for. I like reacting to your thoughts. Because towards the end of the, I don't, you know, I don't bring this up a lot, but towards the end of the level, I paused the game.
Did you guys pause the game? I did. This one actually is kind of funny. I did pause the game. I did pause the game, and I knew that you would say something about this. It's not worth it. This isn't the pause. Let's bring it up. This isn't the pause sound. No, I know. You don't think this is worth it? I thought this was, this is the first time we've had something like this, where you pause the game, and he turns and faces the camera, sits down, crosses his legs, and falls asleep. Yeah. It was like, that's a lot of thought that they put into it. He's like, hey, loser, you're boring me.
It just makes me wonder, if they had taken their focus off of the pause animation, where could they have diverted that to elsewhere? And think about all that extra memory that went into programming that. They could have probably put a full game in there.
I would have just even liked to see, like, you know, that kind of thought put into the animations of the enemies. Yeah. They just kind of like, they just really like, they exist. Yeah. They just exist in this world that I control. Because, like, you're not really controlling Jumping Jack, right? You're controlling the entire planet. Yeah, exactly. Like, I feel like I am the planet trying to help Jumping Jack fend off all of the, like, almost like I'm causing mini earthquakes that cause him to jump at varying lengths. Or you're just dropping away from him. He's not joking. I'm pulling out of the solar system.
Okay, Joe, keep it coming. I think that's my last straight thought. You don't even have, like, a half-baked thought. You don't think either of those were half-baked? A quarter-baked thought. Sean, I would love to hear a quarter-baked thought from you. Give me a quick hot take on this game. Um, I think that the worms, like, it's interesting that if you try to, if you hit a piece of them, like, things like little balls, if you hit a piece of them in the middle, and the middle part disintegrates, it still moves like one worm. Like, why? What's holding the worm together? That is true. Yeah, it's the least believable part about this game.
The worms also remind me of, like, the cactus enemy from Super Mario Bros. 3. Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Is it in 3? I think it's in 3. Or is it in World? Well, it's definitely in World. Okay. But I think it started in 3. Maybe it's in 3 as well. We'll find out in 500 episodes. Yeah. Okay, guys, admission. I almost just ended the show earlier. I, like, completely forgot that we do a thing called the Essential Games List. I was about to be like, that's it. That's all the time we have. But, no, we have to do the Essential Games List.
Okay, guys. Essential Games List time. Give me your votes. And, you know, also tell me your favorite thing about this game after you give your vote. Sean. This is different. Okay. Yeah, well, you know, I'm spicing it up a little. Yeah, this is spicy. I vote no. This is not essential. Okay. But your favorite part. My favorite part of this game was, like, obviously. I don't know. Okay. Sean had nothing. Sean did not have a favorite part. That tells you something about this game. Wow. Okay. I like it, though. Would you be able to tell me your... You know what? Actually, I do have one. Okay. It's at the end. I didn't beat this game, but, you know, like I do, I watch the end. Like I do? Yeah.
And basically, when you beat this game, there's a screen where, like, Jumpin' Jack is just standing on the right side. No, on the left side of, like, a black screen. And it is very drawn out. Like, each of the things, each of the worms that you fight come out, and they all say, like, one word. And then Jumpin' Jack responds with one word. And then that worm leaves and comes back, and they have another, like, mini conversation. And all they're saying is just, like, help? It's like, what? It's like, code. And, like, it just tells you, like, a code for how to, like, I don't know, like, get more lives or something.
Like, that's the end. The ending animation is just an endless conversation between Jumpin' Jack and the worms that he's defeated to give you, like, a weird code. Wow. I feel like there's, like, a conspiracy theory there. I like it. I did not beat the game and did not care to look at the end of the video. I wanted to see the lore. I wanted to see how it ended. You got that deep lore. That 3D World Runner deep lore going on. Joe. I realized a little bit during this episode that, like, a lot of things that I say, and maybe it's just hard on a game, but there's a lot of things that I say don't really leave the audience on the edge of their seat as to whether or not I'll vote this essential. So you've probably guessed I'm not voting it essential.
But my favorite part, besides the pause animation, was probably, I don't know, it was just cool to look back on it when I'm done and saying, like, huh, that was interesting. It was funny. It was cool. You like to reminisce about the game. Yeah, I like to, like, realize that it's over.
No. I like to, when I'm done with the game, I look back and I'm like, huh, that was a fun little different experience. But not fun in the way where I'm ever going to play it again. Fun in the way that it was interesting and unique. It was neat. Understandable. It was neat. That's the perfect word for it. And I, too, will not be voting this essential because that would be a really weird tower to die on. You know, like, two people have already voted it out. And I'm like, guys, I think we should reconsider. All right. Did you see the checkerboard pattern that goes on forever and ever and ever?
My favorite part about this game is actually when you run into those columns. There's just something funny about, like, you know, being, like, oh, nah. You know, like, it's just weird that they programmed in some of these animations and then forgot about complete other parts of the game. I also would say that, and this is weird now, because I'm going to start loving this game because I'm going to start mentioning all my other favorite parts. I think that, like, we undersold the boss battles.
Yeah, we didn't talk about them much. Yeah, because they are, like, the space harrier thing, you know, like, pretty much that whole game does this on loop. And so that's a better game, definitely. But I just thought it was, like, fun to, like, all of a sudden you're like, now Jack can fly and, like, move around. And he throws out, like, power beams of his own from his arms. But, like, why doesn't he just fly the whole time?
If he can fly, why does he have to jump over shit? He can only fly for so long, and he has to save it for the boss because otherwise he would run out of flight power. All right, fine. Just made that up. I thought you knew the deep lore. I know parts of the deep lore. If you watch past the ending of the code, part of the code is that whole sentence I just said, one word at a time. Wow. One letter at a time.
Yeah. But it's actually so long, the wait time between each letter, that no one's been able to finish it. But he knows. No, no, no. Because, like, even if you beat the game, it would mathematically take, like, several hundreds of years. Yeah, if you beat the game the day it came out, you still wouldn't even be close to it. You still haven't gotten the full message. Yeah. My God. And these are all facts. This is where you come for your facts. This is where you come for the facts. Nostalgia. You also come to Nostalgia for show notes. Links to other people's websites. What was the final vote? Oh, no. Three notes. It is not essential. So you also come to Nostalgia for show notes, links to other people's shows, links to video game know-how.
Maybe you want to wonder if Shigeru Miyamoto thought much about his launch games. We're having him as a guest tomorrow. We're having him as a guest tomorrow, but not on an episode. Yeah. He's just coming by, stopping by, seeing how we're doing. Having tea. Yeah. Miyamoto's not really a tea guy. Coffee. He likes, you know what he likes? Bluegrass. The music? The music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of any sustenance, instead of food or drink.
He's a big bluegrass guy. Big music guy in general, obviously, if that didn't come off in Wii Music. You know, the hit game from 2008 that they butchered an entire E3 press conference. It's over. Definitely go back and watch that. You know what? I'll put that in the show notes for this. That was rough. Okay. So this is Nostalgia. Guys, where would they go for more Nostalgia? N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A-C-A-S-T. Yeah. I was wondering why. Dot com.
That's C-O-M. Yep. D-O-T-C-O-M. You don't have to put a D-O-T in. It's a period. That is where you go to hear about, like, more of our thoughts. You thought that you just, like, listening to our thoughts? Imagine, like, reading them. Imagine. Just imagine that. Imagine all the people reading our thoughts. If you're blind, unfortunately, that's just not going to be an option. You do not have a Braille version.
Yeah, I'm going to have to get someone, I guess, to read the, you know, to speak that. Well, I mean, you're hearing us now, so it's fine. Yeah, that's perfect. We don't really, we don't say anything that you wouldn't hear in the podcast. Instead, what we try to do with the reviews on the website is, like, get funky with it. Yeah. Give you something different. Because, like, guys, we're not stupid. Like, we know that everybody out there is doing this. We're doing this for fun. We're doing this to have a good time with you guys. So, like, mostly, like, we're not trying to give, like, the in-depth review and score it out of 10. If there's one thing I hate, it's, like, scoring an NES game out of 10.
Like, what would you, you know, like, on whose scale? Like, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, right? Like, would you give that an 8 and then be like, okay, but 3D World Runner is kind of like a 5. No, it would be like a 0. Everyone's got a different scale. Yeah, exactly. I think the number thing is weird. I think the biggest thing that I want to communicate is that, like, we don't, at least I, I'm sure you guys feel the same way, we don't, like, think we're experts.
Yeah. We're coming at this. We're coming at this as friends. The only thing about this show that has remained consistent is how inconsistent we are when it comes to how we interpret the, uh, the essential games list, how we interpret, like, just good games in general, whether we remember things about the game.
But if you think we had no idea what we're doing, just think about, like, the, the interviews with the developers and what they say in those interviews. They have no idea what they're doing either. No one really knows what they're doing, guys. Yeah, the manifesto, the thing you should take from this episode is nobody knows what they're doing. Remember the first time when you figured out that, like, oh, your parents don't actually know it all. Like, and they might not even know what's best for you.
It's true, yeah. You know, like, like, it's those moments where all of a sudden you're like, oh, wow, my perception of the world's changed. And it's like, that's what we're trying to do and show you that, like, Miyamoto didn't really, like, think, like, Mario's overall should be this color for this, you know, it's like, no, these things just happen. The red symbolizes his fiery passion for pipes.
Love it. And that's why the fireballs also come out of the pipes in Mario Brothers. See? We are somewhat knowledgeable. Yeah. I did pull a Kru Kru Land DK Swing reference out of my head. So we can do a little bit here and there. We love you. All right. We do love you. Joe? We love you. Good night. Bye.
