070 · STAR VOYAGER

Early notes

• September 1987
• Developed by ASCII Entertainment. Only 6 games from them on the NES. They dissolved in 2010 long after their exit from Video Games.
• Published by Acclaim who previously brought us 3D World Runners which while being a few weeks back from us is still the same month as Star Voyager
• Originally called Cosmo Genesis
• Controls - https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Star_Voyager_(NES)
• The player's primary goal is to eliminate all enemy fleets before they can surround the stationary CosmoStation Noah.
• Can also visit 8 planets, 5 other space stations, Asteroid Field, Black Hole
• 10-Yard Fight footsteps as you get into cockpit

Show notes

• Introductions - Espo (Mike, Sean, Joe, Sam)
• Development History - Espo
• First Impressions - Everyone
• How to Play
• Tales from the Manual
  • The Story
• Gameplay
  • The HUD
  • Planet Power-Ups
  • Space Stations
  • Combat
  • Asteroid Field
  • Black Holes
• Music
  • Intro similiar to Star Wars? - Espo
• EGL ;P
• Post Show - Space
  • I will probably ramble on about space here - Sean
  • S P A C E

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

00:00 Star Voyager, adjust your warp meter, check support systems, laser cannons, defense shields, enemy location, and strap yourself in for the ultimate star fight. Star Voyager, and welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. I'm Joe. And I'm Sam. All right, guys, what's going on? Uh, we are talking about Star Voyager today, not to be confused with Star Trek Voyager.

00:44 I didn't think about that. Oh. Wait, wait, Sean, did you just say that you didn't even think about that? I don't know. It just felt, it felt unique. This, this game definitely gives off a vibe to me that it's riffing on like Star Trek, Star Wars, even that TIE Fighter arcade game. It's giving me those vibes. It feels too lonely for me to say that, but we'll get into that. Okay. Uh, you know, just a little development history here, just to start us off on Star Voyager. Uh, there's not a lot to say about this game. It's very hard to find information about it online. And a lot of people like haven't even like posted their playthroughs on YouTube, which you know means that it like is a rare feat to actually play, let alone beat this game.

01:24 Uh, it's. Yeah, I'm watching one right now, but it is pretty rare. Yeah, it's, uh, there's like a complete playthrough one, uh, by long plays, the people that do those long plays thing. And I thought that one was like the best one to watch in terms of like seeing the whole experience. For sure. So it was developed by ASC2 Entertainment. Uh, and has anybody heard of ASC2 Entertainment before today? No. No, I saw that though. I thought it was interesting. It sounds like a strange, like military designation, but no, I've never heard of it before. Well, I know like ASC2, uh, art, you know? Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, is that it was like a reference to that, but. Oh, okay. I've, I, okay. I know ASC, but I call it ASC.

02:08 ASC-E. Yeah. I'm not calling them ASC only because I think I should spell it out like the way it is, like ASC2. But, um. I see. There's only six games from them on the NES. Obviously, this is, uh, the first one of theirs, but, uh, they are no longer around company. They dissolved in 2010, and that was long after their exit from video games. They were more like, um, they were more like computer parts in Japan and stuff like that. They had relationships with Microsoft and the like. It's a very confusing thing. I'm not sure why they decided to jump into video games, but.

02:44 Maybe that, yeah, maybe that explains why this one's such an odd entry into the NES. One thing I do remember about them is I think they developed the RPG maker for the PlayStation 1. But that could be wrong. I don't know if they made it to the PlayStation 1. Really? I thought that.

03:02 Oh, wow. Okay. I meant like in terms of making video games. Like, I feel like they kind of shifted away from that in like the late 90s. They shifted away from video games. But you might be onto something. I mean, I don't. I never played the RPG makers. It doesn't feel out of place that these guys would go on to make an RPG maker just because of how much complexity you would need an RPG maker and how they seem to like to put some complexity in their games. Yeah. And on the publishing side, we have Acclaim, who previously brought us 3D World Runners. I'm sure everybody remembers 3D World Runner.

03:34 Oh, of course. That was the Square Enix. Well, Square at the time. Just Square's first game on the NES. And Acclaim published that one as well. And I know that seems like a while back for us guys. That's like a few weeks now. It's still the same month as Star Voyager. Oh, my God. This is a pretty dense month. Yeah. We're still on September 1987.

03:57 The game was originally called Cosmogenesis, which I think is a way better name. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Other than that, there's really nothing else about this game that's like neat. That's it? You mean as far as like development and stuff? Development. Yes. Like that, ASC2 did the whole like, they made this game. They only made 6 other games. Acclaim, you know, obviously we know Acclaim, but they haven't really done much yet. And then the game came out in Japan in 86 as Cosmogenesis. And now it's here as Star Voyager. I would have preferred Cosmogenesis. Yeah, it definitely has more of like an exotic name. It's more interesting of a name.

04:34 Star Voyager is too straight to business. Yeah, I wonder if it was because of Star Trek or Star Wars. I feel like it has to be in relation to Star Wars or Star Trek really. But like either one of those, I mean, I was talking about the TIE Fighter game earlier, that arcade game. This plays pretty much like that with the exception that there's like planets to explore and space stations and stuff. But we'll get into that because we're going to do our first impressions. Sean, take me through it. All right. So Star Voyager to me was sort of like the predecessor to Eve.

05:08 Or I actually don't know when the first Elite came out. Maybe it was before this. But it's it's a very lonely game. It's a very almost like meditative game, which I guess I'm going to I'll get into later. But this is probably the least action like purse per like moment in an NES game that I feel like I've I've ever experienced in this in this chronological exploration exploration, as you might say. So I at least appreciate how unique it is. Joe. Yeah, I like that. It's I shouldn't say like I noticed that it's it's not exactly like as exciting as another like space fighter game would be. It's more of like a simulator.

05:53 So I was very interested in the way that it it takes you through this game where you have to do almost like almost work to get to get things to work. It's almost making you feel like you're running a spaceship and you got to do some calculations and you got to do things like this. And it's it's not necessarily fun, but it's but it's interesting. And that that caught my interest at first. Great. And Sam.

06:14 So my first impression was just like, whoa, this is this really looks pretty 3D for, you know, just a bunch of dots on the screen when you're looking around in space. I thought that it just had a really a really interesting atmosphere because that's kind of all this game is really not all it is. But that was the thing that struck me the most kind of along the lines of what everyone is saying.

06:37 You kind of really have to manage the ship. You have to know about the ship. And it just creates this very kind of solitary atmosphere like people in I watched a YouTube video on this and people in the comments or one guy in the comments was saying how they they used to turn off all the lights when they would play this game as a kid and just pretend that they were in the ship.

06:56 And I can totally see that. I can see someone doing that because it is pretty immersive for an NES game, I think. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really cool, actually, to do something like that, because my first impression when I when I booted up the game and saw the HUD of like the spaceship you're in was similar to like those moments when you're on like when you're on like a plane and you see what the pilots control. And there's like all those buttons. Yeah. And you're like, they can't they can't be pushing all of those buttons.

07:25 Right. But, you know, I'm sure there's a there's a reason for each of those things. And like looking at the HUD in Star Voyager is kind of the same thing. It's like, I'm not really going to need all of this. Right. Like there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. There's eight different like HUDs to look at. And then also your arrow aiming arrows, which I don't really feel like aim that well, but they're like those mirrors on the inside of your view. Turns out you need them all. Yeah. And don't try and figure them out without looking. You're not going to just figure out what they'll do.

07:55 Yeah. And so I think that's why immediately like the next thing I want to talk about is the manual, because you're really going to need the manual for this one. And I feel like we'd be doing our listeners a disservice if we didn't explain properly how to play this game.

08:10 If, you know, if they didn't know what we were talking about, if you haven't experienced Star Voyager, I don't even know what to picture for you. It's like a first person cockpit game where you're just like seeing a bunch of white dots, which are stars. And you have to explore the I guess it's like, is it a solar system that you'd be exploring? The thing about this game is that it really does not know much about space.

08:35 They say that like the sun is dying and like the galaxy will die with it. But, you know, a galaxy is, you know, billions and billions of stars. So I think that's not the wrong word. It's a solar system. Well, yeah. And also to that point that if you the stars have like this parallax thing to them where they like they look like they're like zooming right past you like that. It's not really how stars work. Like they'd be they're so far away. It's not like they're floating in front of you. Like it looks cool, though. It does look very cool. I wish real stars were like that. You also need something to pass by. Right. Like something has to feel the motion. You feel like you're going somewhere.

09:10 So in the manual we have there's like a bunch of little things that they tried to do to explain. They do give you a nice like story thing. The abbreviated version is basically that like you're exploring Space Galaxy 9 and there's a problem where this army of other like alien fighters, I guess you want to say. They're going to attack your Cosmos station, which is like your space station. And you have to basically take them out before you before they take out your specific station. There are other space stations, but it's fine if they get those. The Moloch war drivers are the big bad here. I mean, that sounds pretty epic. I'd watch a movie about the Moloch war drivers.

09:53 Hey, fingers crossed. What was the what was the human food in the in Scone? Oh, the Neptunians. But but oh, man ham. Man ham. Yeah. It was the the evil pirate narrakeen. Yes. OK. This time you can play the role of the Cosmos station. Noah. Yeah, it's very strange. I don't really get the name. Well, is it going for the arc thing? Yeah. Is that where like everybody went? Is that where all of humanity is now? Like to preserve?

10:26 We're sort of thrown into like in medias rest here. All of humanity is on the Cosmos station, Noah. And then you have like they said, one guy. There's one ship. Everybody's here. But we got one little like fighter pilot here. Yeah. And also everyone else is busy. They got stuff to do. That is the cut scene at the top of the game, though. There is like one small cut scene where you watch your guy board the flight. And the weird thing about that is that they use the 10 yard fight steps.

10:53 Which I feel like we're going to hear those forever. But it's just another thing that it's almost it's it's almost laughable how this apparently huge space station has one dink ass hanger. Well, I'm assuming that everyone else is on is on other missions. All right, cool. So for for gameplay, let's talk about the HUD first. So I mentioned that that one has there's a lot going on there. There's like eight different screens to look at.

11:18 You know, I don't want to I don't really want to walk through what the what the HUD does and stuff like that. But I'd love to get impressions on whether you guys thought it was actually useful or just super confusing. So I'll jump in here. I think that I'd say at least 50 percent of the HUD is just navigational, whether it's your speed, which is sort of so basically most of this game is about resource management. And you've got like these nine energy crystals which count for everything. And that's in the top right.

11:51 They will be your health. They will be what gets loaded into your I guess your your jet engines. But basically you need you use these to go into warp drive to get from like, you know, sector to sector. And you I mean, if we're going to go into each HUD element, I feel like I need to explain what like what you'll be doing most of the time. I mean, you're I'm happy to have you tackle that, Sean, if you'd like to. I guess I just meant more like is is the does the HUD just have too much going on for you? Are you are you feeling like it's helping you play the game?

12:26 Yeah, I think that this game would not work without the HUD with with all the elements. I don't think there is an element on here that is is like minutiae that could be used without like you could play the game without that element. I think it all needs to be there. Yeah, I think once you realize what everything does, suddenly suddenly it doesn't actually seem quite as confusing, confusing anymore. It might still seem a little tedious, but but you understand what everything's doing.

12:53 And it's all kind of like pretty a pretty like functional system because most of the time you're playing this game, you're just going to be jumping from system to system. You're going to need that gyroscope. You're going to need to know how fast you're going and for how long to go that fast. So I didn't really use the gyroscope. What did you use it for? Well, it's sort of just a an abbreviated version of your map on the pause screen.

13:18 Right. And you need to make sure that if it's a long jump that you're always pointed in that direction. But I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself here. Yes, I think we could talk briefly about like what that is. So that gyroscope essentially has like two coordinates. There's letters and then there's numbers. And so your map has like you got to go to H8 if you want to take down the bad guy because that's currently where he is.

13:41 So you have to line up the H and the 8 in your gyroscope to make sure that you're going in the, you know, direct, you know, in the direction. It's more like a compass. You know, if you just go to your, you know, you press select and you go to your map and you move your orange dot to where you want to go and then you just jump back and hold B. It'll just go there automatically. You don't have to move to it. Yeah. But then while you're like warping to it or whatever, you're light speeding to it, you'll drift off course.

14:09 Oh, really? Right. And then you want to kind of be just like slowly just nudging yourself to stay on in that straight line. Yes, that's true. You'll nudge yourself off course because you're going so fast. Actually, you'll notice that you're like kind of at one point you're spiraling, you know, you're kind of like in circular motion. The stars, I don't know if that's actually because of how fast you're going or if that's just to simulate that like things are blowing by you so quickly.

14:32 But then also Sam, to answer your other thing is when you go into the map and select where you want to go, like let's say it says H8. When you come back out to the HUD, the HUD automatically changes to that new location. Oh, okay. That's cool. So if you were at like I9, you would, after selecting in the map H8, you would change from I9 to H8 in the main screen too.

14:53 Okay, cool. Before we, I mean, we have gotten pretty deep into this, but I do just want to clarify that one of the main like pillars of how you navigate in this game is, and it is a very navigation focused game as I mentioned, but basically the entire game world is sort of segmented up into like discrete sectors on like a little piece of graph paper, basically, where it's divided by letters and numbers.

15:22 And so you have to know where you're going if you want to do anything in this game, and you have to know how to use that map. I think so much of this relies on just like knowing how to use the tools you've been given because there is no in-game explanation. So that manual is really all you have. Like the manual is almost like a, you know, like instructions for the cockpit, you know, like if you were the actual pilot, you would need to read over that manual to understand

15:48 what you're supposed to be doing in the ship. Exactly. And one little nitpick I have about this whole, but like the whole spatial maneuvering in this game is, if you can follow with me, the map is just this 2D plane where it's like a, you know, like a map on land. When you move in space, when you're like playing the game live, basically, if you're pointing left or right, that's, let's say the letters and pointing up and down, those are the numbers.

16:20 So it's almost like, do you know what I'm getting at? Like this isn't really a pure, like the map and the game itself don't really make sense. Yeah. I mean, like, like obviously it's a 2D game, but like, it's hard to, it's hard to understand from just hearing us talk about it, but like fundamentally you're moving in 3D. Yeah. Like you're, you're moving, you got an X, Y, and a Z axis, but the, but the map is just like a, like, yeah, like a map of land. It's just a flat map. So it's hard to like really understand like what it, what you're looking at on the map. Yeah. Basically the Z axis just isn't as good as NES tennis.

16:54 Exactly. This has a very advanced, advanced broken Z axis. But I do think it's, it's, it's a necessary step, Sean, if, if, if you want to be able to track things down. Like, I don't think that the NES would have been capable of like having you go through a cube. Oh, totally. Yeah. How, yeah. How else would you do it? But I get it. I just think it's a, it's counterintuitive from like, I guess somebody that's been trained on three dimensional games. Well, we even have this problem in, I mean, like all of us play tabletop gaming too. And we have this problem with a star Wars X wing.

17:28 If listeners are familiar with that, it's a, with miniature spaceships on like your table and you, you have like certain movements, but we always say that that's like a tough thing because you, there's no, like you can't suspend them in the air with strings. Exactly. They're just colliding into each other. They just run really low. And that's more like, like why wouldn't they just go up or down in the tabletop game? But in this game, it actually breaks Euclidean geometry, but I forgive it. I just thought it was worth mentioning. I think it is worth mentioning.

18:01 Another thing worth mentioning is that there are also like planets in this game that you, you can't explore, but you can visit. Yeah. You just sort of go to their welcome center and most of the time just get back up and leave. But, but sometimes, sometimes the welcome center has like this strange representative that just gives you an upgrade to your ship. The red, the other planets representative is like, well, you landed on our planet. So here's an upgrade. And, and that's kind of like, it's a little tedious, but that's kind of like your bread and butter of how to, uh, how to get stronger and like stand a chance.

18:32 That is the only way to get an upgrade. Correct. As far as I know. Yes, that is the, well, there, sorry, there is one other, but, um, but that's the only way, that's the major way. Ah, yes. I didn't, I landed on, I think three planets and I didn't get a single thing from anyone. No one liked me. Yeah. I had a bad like RNG too, where I landed on like four or five and just ended up seeing a cityscape and getting back up and leaving. And it takes so long to land too.

18:58 It's good. It's a cool visual though, for the time. It is. It definitely breaks up the monotony of space. And that's kind of like, you know, I'm sure we were going to bring this up eventually, but that, that reminds, the planet part reminded me of No Man's Sky. The game that came out on PS4. I think that No Man's Sky, it's definitely more spectacular when you're, when you're landing or taking off. It, it's, it accomplishes the same thing in terms of just like what it's showing you. Like it actually does a pretty good job with the technology of showing entry, landing, leaving and taking off again. I think it actually did a pretty good job of that.

19:38 Sam and Joe, you guys have not played No Man's Sky, right? I've played it briefly. I haven't played it at all. What, do you notice any similarities, Joe? Yeah. I mean, that, that was my, that was honestly like one of my initial thoughts was that like, well, this, this feels like trying to deliver the same kind of experience that No Man's Sky is as funny as that sounds. Like, obviously there's not, you know, procedurally generated or how, whatever you call it for No Man's Sky. But, but it's just the idea that you're just exploring space.

20:04 You are, you are incentivized to, to find random planets and see what's on them in order to just upgrade your ship and fight things. Like there's not like much else to it, but there's, I don't know, cause I haven't played like enough of, of Star Voyager, but like, it feels like there's actually a lot in this game, even though it's spread out very far.

20:23 Like it feels like you would be playing this game for a very long time if you were to try to beat it. I mean, the official count, sorry, you can finish your thought right into this, but the official count, Joe, just for anybody wondering is eight planets, five space stations, not including the, the Cosmos station, NOAA, which is the one you have to defend. Then there's an asteroid field. There's a random black hole.

20:44 There's monoliths to find along the way. And there's a base ship, um, if you're in need of like repair. So I, there's a lot, there is a lot there. Yeah. And considering the amount of time it kind of takes you to get to these things and, and you got to refuel and you got to, you know, always be kind of paying attention to that stuff. Like it's, it's a, it's a lengthy experience. And I think that you're right. It is a lengthy experience, but I think that's only because how difficult this game is. And because with no man's sky and even to an extent elite, which, uh, I did look it up and it turns out, uh, precedes this game by a couple of years. They're more exploration based games where you are like, that's one of your goals, um,

21:26 to, to find planets that are interesting to collect resources. Whereas like, yeah, you're, you're collecting resources in star Voyager. Um, but you, this is a very focused game in like what you should be doing. You should be like sort of, you should be hopping from space station to space station with a couple stops of planets along the way to get upgrades and refuel as efficiently as possible. And then destroy, uh, the Morlock war drivers or Moloch, whatever as quickly as possible. While there are like, you know, eight planets and however many space stations, like they don't have anything really going on except for a couple of cool, like landing sequences.

22:57 All right, so I think we've talked a lot about the maneuvering and the different things you can run into, but we haven't talked at all about combat, and that's definitely going to come up when you eventually want to try and beat the game. It's one thing to just explore the world, but in order to beat the game, you do have to take down the Moloch warriors.

23:17 And this is probably where I got the most frustrated. I was still frustrated with, like in the beginning, how I didn't really know how to navigate, but I got over that. Actually fighting these guys was a huge pain in the ass for me. I don't know how you guys felt. Yeah, I felt the same way. I felt like maybe if I played this for a really long time and got better at it, I would kind of get used to the feel of it, and maybe it would be a little easier, but it was a little jarring to me.

23:42 Not necessarily, like I don't think this is always going to be a bad thing when it happens like this, but I think that the whole game is so much about, it feels so much like you're not controlling a ship in a video game. It feels like you're piloting a ship. You have to do all the things, you have to kind of monitor all the controls of the ship. But then I feel like when you jump into battle, it feels like you're in a video game again. It feels very much more reaction-based, which I think could be a good way to break it up and make it interesting, but I just think it's so difficult at first that I think it's kind of jarring. Sam, any thoughts on combat? I think it takes so long to get to the actual fight.

24:26 Kind of like what Joe was saying, by the time you get there, you're just kind of caught off guard by how fast-paced everything is suddenly. That is part of the, that's part of why I have like soft feelings for this game is that... Yeah, I don't think that's a bad thing. Yeah, I think that the pacing in general is one of the, like the most unique aspects of this game, where it's mostly just meditative, like stroll through the solar system, is what I'm going to call it, where you're just trying to get better, trying not to waste all your fuel moving around,

25:02 and then all of a sudden all these guys are after you. And while the fighting itself is not fun for me, because it doesn't feel like, it doesn't feel like the fighter jets or the TIE fighters are fighting me. It feels like the game is fighting me. Right. I think that's, sorry to interrupt. I think that's kind of what I'm trying to say about like it being hard. It's not hard in a good way where it's like designed hard. It's like hard to control a little bit, because I feel like that's where it like it throws me off. Yeah. Whereas I think that,

25:31 I know this game isn't simulating like coordinates and positions. It's really just all of these fighters are programmed to move around in relation to you. So when you're trying to aim at one, it seems like they are just programmed to move just before you fire, or move like as you're firing so that you almost will never hit them. It takes like a lot of patience just to deal with the combat mechanics in this game. Yeah. I feel like on paper,

26:00 it's actually a really cool thing to have this minutiae broken. Like it almost feels like there's like a buildup to the battle because of how monotonous everything before it is and how you're preparing and you're adding onto your ship. But then I think it just falls short in the combat in the way it controls. I'll say, I'll just add in here that the, my major complaint with the combat system is that I do think that the, the dog fighting, you know, even from a graphic standpoint is actually really well done. There's a lot, it's not just like you versus one of the ship. There's a bunch of things to target. Um, they're not all the same kind of ship. They attack differently too.

26:35 And I felt like all that stuff was nice. But I think that the, to summarize the control issue that we're having, for me, at least it was the speed at which you travel. I felt like sometimes I was like losing them. So I'd speed up and then I would immediately blow past them. And then I'd have to orient the ship again, try to figure out the right speed, come at them. And, and long story short is that there really isn't like a sweet spot for the speed. No. So you just kind of get stuck. Yeah. And that it's sort of, it sort of goes along with, you know, blowing past planets accidentally or blowing past space stations, but these guys are moving too. And it's just, yeah, there's no like, obviously this isn't 2015.

27:18 So there's no like match to speed button or anything like that. It's just hard to, it's, it's hard to do anything when, when you got guys around, even if there was just like a combat speed where you're just sort of like hovering in place and you, and you sort of move forward a little bit, but it kind of takes you right up to the same speed when you're trying to like travel. Obviously it's not like the light speed, but if there was just like another,

27:39 like almost like an, even if you could like, if it was like an idle setting where you can just kind of nudge yourself forward a little bit, but I always feel like you go too fast. And then there's the, the asteroid belts, I think is an interesting touch because you know, you're not trying to shoot them down or anything. You just have to like navigate your way through them. And this makes me really think of like star Wars too.

27:59 And that scene in a new hope where they're like going through the, um, going through, is that an asteroid belt that they go through? Why am I picturing an asteroid belt? It is an asteroid field. Uh, that is because they, well, at least in the first, at least in the first movie, it's because, you know, Alderaan or something along those lines, but right. So not like a real asteroid field. It's just the remains of that planet. Well, now it is, but in empire, it is an asteroid field, right? I'm not entirely sure. The odds thing, like never tell me the odds that.

28:30 We are not the best star Wars nerds, but I'll tell you at least in one of the prequels, they went through an asteroid belt as well. Uh, chasing after Jango Fett. Oh yeah. Regardless,

28:42 moving, moving back to asteroid fields as they appear in this game. If you've found yourself in an asteroid field in this game, you were, you did something wrong because either you were just curious and you were wondering what that like four dot icon was on the map. Um, or you have gone off course while you were trying to get somewhere else. Because I think when you're in hyperspace or subspace in this game, if you choose a, uh, coordinate that is behind the asteroid belt,

29:12 you will just find yourself there. And, um, you have a very high chance of just dying. So it's really just a, a navigational hazard, which also goes for the black hole. Yes. But the, there is also Sean, uh, we have to talk about the space streams because those, things are also like, uh, astral currents that can make you just go in directions. You don't want to go. Space streams. I don't even know about that. Hold on. What are you talking about? Yeah. There's like,

29:39 randomly by chance, you might just be like distorted out of, out of your direction and be at, lose control of your ship and kind of be pushed into a different direction. In hyperspace? No, this is just, this is just something that happens. It's the, if you look at the manual, uh, it's right near the asteroid belts and the black holes, the space stream. It's just a random occurrence that went to the black hole, but, um, the space stream isn't as deadly as the black hole. The space stream just will kind of, it'll act very similar to like a hyperspace, but without you controlling where your coordinates are. Oh, weird. I didn't find any of those.

30:13 Yeah, I didn't either. I mean, I remember when I accidentally visited the black hole that it was, it was sort of fun in how much like dread I felt approaching it. I knew that like, once you entered the area of the black hole, you would, you would basically be, be done for, but I didn't know that the space stream would acted any way like the black hole. Sure. Can you talk more about that dread from the black hole? I'm interested. Well, it's interesting because first of all, if when you enter again, I just, I didn't really remember what the icon looked like. So I just visited the black hole because I thought it was like another space station or something. And when you get there, like when you, when you slip out of subspace,

30:57 you will see what looks like a galaxy, but it's really just like an accretion disc of a black hole. And I slowly have, I slowly realized like, oh no, but I thought maybe I could escape. But it turns out once you're in that system, you like, you can hardly steer anymore. And I thought like, okay, if I can just turn around and accelerate, I can get out of here. But when you turn around, it just shows up again on the other side. I don't know if they were going for this, like, oh no,

31:28 space time is warping so that it's directly in front of you and directly behind you. But it ended up with that effect in that regardless of how fast you're going or what direction you're walking, you're, you're moving towards, you will end up in that black hole. So yeah, it, it ended my run pretty, uh, pretty dramatically.

31:47 I remember when I got to the black hole, it said, I got a little notification that said chance of survival or chance of escape is low. Is it possible to get out of him? I think it says unknown. And I think it actually is just impossible to get out of. Oh, okay. I, I never ran into the black hole, unfortunately, because I thought that was going to be awesome. I really wanted to run into one. Um, but it does say in the manual that you shouldn't, it says don't get sucked in because there is no known form of escape. So I do imagine that like, there isn't really a way out of it once you've seen it. Yeah. You, you messed up. If you, if you know how to play this game and you end up in the black hole area, uh, you've messed up.

32:39 All right. And so I just wanted to talk briefly about the music for the game, because there isn't much, there isn't much there, but the, um, the intro sequence with the star Voyager and all that made me think a lot of star Wars as well. Very much like copying the star Wars slamming on the screen and then the like story stuff. So I don't know. Did anybody else get that vibe? I got that vibe a little bit. Kind of scrolls too.

33:05 Not in the same way as star Wars, but you know, I thought the intro song was pretty epic for a little NES game like this. It really, it got me psyched up. I'm trying to remember the intro song. Can you sing it for me? Me? Sing you the song. I don't know. Yeah. I can't remember how it goes. And yet I could try. Oh, say, can you see? Oh, right, right. Um, no, I mean, I remember it sounding like any sort of star Wars knockoff with the sweeping, uh, orchestra, uh,

33:37 orchestra of, of bleeps and bloops. But I mean, again, I, since there's no music in this game, I kind of forgot about the intro and just remember the, the, the panicking alerts of your dying vessel. Uh, once you start to get killed, there was just something nice about like the, the intro menu though, with that music, like it was welcoming. And then all of a sudden it was just like, no, this is space. There is no sound. Yeah, exactly. And if you stay on the title screen long enough, um, eventually like the ship that you fly in the game, there'll be like a little cut scene that'll show the ship coming down. And then the guy will get out of it and like wave to you being like, can we start?

34:20 I did not notice that. I guess I never waited long enough. And then, uh, one other thing I wanted to mention, uh, before we go into the essential games list here is that in the manual, there is a section called safety tips. And I don't know if this is in like every single like NES game, but I think it's worth calling out that the star Voyager manual asks that you pause for 10 to 20 minutes after two or more hours of continuous gameplay, because this will extend the performance of your game pack. What? Wait, pause. I thought it was when you were saying that, I thought it was going to be about like your health or something.

35:00 Yeah. Cause I know that's something that Nintendo does just because, like they, they're always like, Hey, maybe, maybe you should take a break because you need to go outside. But I've never heard of pausing a game, which, you know, it's still running cycles when it's paused. Like that would, that would keep the game pack from going bad. It makes me wonder though about like, you know, if you played for two, I didn't play for two continuous hours, but if like something would go wrong with the games, like coding, it needed,

35:31 it needed that pause time in order to catch up with itself. Like it's internal clock was off. I wonder if there's some kind of bug in it or something like that, because that's just weird. I love the idea that that happened and they didn't fix it. They were just like, just put it in the manual. Tell them to pause it. They put it under safety tips just so that people would get a little bit more freaked out by it. Take it more seriously. Like warning. Yeah. It's also a, um, it's considered a high precision game. Oh, they all say that. It should not be stored in places that are very high. They all say that. They're all,

36:04 like every manual I've read either has at the beginning of the end. I think that's just, that's just par for the course. So then that other one probably is too, but I've never noticed it before. I don't know about the, the pausing that one. I've never seen before. Well, did you know that this game pack is also compliant with FCC regulations? As it should be. I think, with that, with that little slice of information, it is time for the essential games list.

36:30 Okay, Sean, this is the part where you really tell us how you feel about the game. So give me your, uh, your vote, but also a little bit more about like your personal gameplay experience. Okay. So this, this is another game that surprised me, not so much in how much I enjoyed playing it, but in just like being an example of what could be done at the time, sort of like in the same vein of, uh, bungeling Bay, where it was doing macro level things that I just wasn't aware that the NES could or, or did do. I didn't know that there were any like space simulators on the NES,

37:11 but even like when I saw the title of this game and I saw that it was coming up, I had never heard of it. But in just like how realistic they could get with this thing, I was pretty amazed by it, even though it's, it's pretty archaic. Um, but I still think it, it stands as an example of different iterations on, on unique gameplay, uh, that we, that we've seen in the NES life, life, um, in the NES is, uh, lifetime so far. Uh, but that being said though, it's not particularly fun to play. I do really enjoy the, the loop of going from sort of this Zen, like, uh,

37:57 Zen, like state you're in going from planet to planet or space station to space station. It, it's just not fun there. It's too realistic for its own good at this point. Um, and, uh, I'm not, not saying that it is realistic, but for what it is. Um, so I'm, it's going to be a play it just because, you should see what they could do. It's not fun, but just, let's take a look. All right, Joe. Yeah. I think that I was, I was saying this to Mike the other day.

38:28 I think that there's like this weird set of circumstances where I have to be in the right mindset and like a point in my life where I could, I could get, sit down and like actually get really into this game. I mean, not really into it, but into it enough to like play it a lot longer and not just because I have to for the podcast. Like, I feel like I could enjoy it, but I feel like enjoying it is different than having fun with it.

38:50 I, I'm enjoying it because of the like satisfaction of building up your, your ship and, and going through these steps and, and kind of feeling the monotony of it, but feeling like you're actually doing something.

39:02 Um, and, and I am in a similar boat. Like I, I kind of am teetering on like saying, play it. And like, it might be enjoyable because it's so interesting, but it's, it's not particularly fun. And I think most of the time, if I were to pick up this game, I'd probably be like, this was interesting, but I'm looking for something else. I'm looking for a game, not just like a interesting experience. So definitely not essential, but if you, if it sounds like something that you'd be into,

39:27 try it out. It might, you might enjoy it. Wise words, Joe, uh, Sam, what do you got for us? Kind of similar to what everyone said. I thought that it was a really interesting experience. One that I haven't seen on the NES or, you know, a couple or other systems too, but that might just be my game selection. But I thought it was really cool. If you want to see like in an eight bit approach to a space simulator,

39:52 I think it's worth checking out. I think at the very least it's worth turning all your lights out and opening up the YouTube video on, on full screen, you know, but yeah, I think that it does kind of pull you into it a little bit more than I expected it would just because that's part of it. You know, you have to really experience it as to play it. So it's a play it for me, but it's kind of like what we were saying. It's not as much fun as it is just kind of satisfying.

40:21 Um, just cause you're kind of figuring things out and it does feel like exploring a little bit, but it's just a little bit too clunky to really be like addictive and enjoyable, I think. So what's the vote? Oh, the vote is no. All right. So three no's. So it's definitely not going in the essential games list, but I'll tell you my thoughts anyway. Uh, this is one of those reasons why I don't look ahead in the calendar too much for the NES. I know a lot of the good games already in the NES cause I played them as being a big Nintendo fan, but every now and again, you get a surprise. And I think this is definitely one of them, at least in terms of like what, what was done and what it is. I will say that while a lot of this game can impress someone,

41:05 there was very little I actually liked about this one. Uh, combat being maybe the only thing, but even that has a major flaw where it's like combat's only enjoyable for a few seconds before you dart past them or they pass you. So enjoy those few seconds while they're there. Uh, I appreciated that they tried to do something like this, but I do think that it failed pretty hard. I can see why, uh, ASC2 didn't make many other games on the NES.

41:32 Uh, I can't imagine this one sold that well, even though it had the whole like, this is like Star Wars and Star Trek kind of thing going for it. It's, it's neat that they went for this 3D approach. It's really hard to do on the NES and I don't blame anybody else for not trying it if we never see another one like this on the system. So this is definitely a no for me. I'm not going to even recommend that you guys play it because it's, it's, it's just a very clunky experience with not a lot to offer.

41:58 And, you know, sure. If you want to like just drift through space, I guess like, you know, let this quench your fuel, but like, it's really not going to do that because, uh, it's so bare bones in between the actual moments of gameplay that I can't imagine anybody wanting to pick this up when they have, so many other space games to choose from. So definitely a no from me. I do have a, a very quick, uh, postscript that like, wouldn't really be like a post show. Go for it. So if you are wondering what happened to, uh, ASC two,

42:33 which I guess is the first time I've ever, uh, said it that way. They kept making games, at least in the United States as age tech, uh, which was ASC two game entertainment technology. And that was the banner under which they released RPG maker, uh, games like clock tower, uh, at least as a publisher, armored core, uh, armored core, huh? Bunch of metal slug X. Like, yeah, they, they have a, a long history,

43:03 at least in the aughts of, uh, of publishing. And, uh, they, they've sort of slowed down recently, but that's what happened to them. If you're wondering, well, that's a great anecdote. And I'm glad you mentioned that. I know a lot of people love the original armored core series. Yeah. I was a fan for, uh, for a wee bit in the PS two era. And, uh, I think with that, with that neat little fact, that's going to be all the time we have, uh, for this episode of nostalgia. But, uh, as always visit www.

43:32 nostalgiacast.com for, uh, links to, uh, the show notes and links to our thoughts and other cool websites and other articles. The website really has a lot more than just like a link back to the episode you listen to. So I definitely think it's worth checking out. Right guys? Yeah. Cool. Uh, I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito film on Twitter and we'll talk to you soon.

44:24 And now it's time for the post show. Post show. Well, for sure. We'll be doing the post show. What are we going to be talking about in the post show? Just like, just space in general. I thought it would be more about like, you know, your, uh, like how comfortable do you have, you know, like your personal space, like how much personal space.

44:42 There's literal space around you. Space is funny like that. You know, like I, sometimes I feel like I want people to come closer because I'm, I'm sad and lonely, but other times I'm like, yo, get off, get on my space, man. Personal space. That's why we started doing this. What? That's why we started doing this podcast remotely because we, we don't have to be in each other's space. I really like it. I like that. I can just be in my cozy, uh, you know,

45:07 tiny, uh, decrepit apartment, uh, aside from hanging out with my friends. I love it. Uh, personal space is at its toughest in space though, too. Like you really don't have a lot of personal space in space. Is that, isn't that funny? Yeah, but it's all, it's all around you also. Well, I think it, I mean, what, what are you, what are you talking about? Are you talking about like, if you're like actual outer space? Okay. So we'll start with the obvious example of like when you're in a plane, like a commercial airline plane and you only have like your little seat and you're in the middle seat and you're trapped between the aisle, you know, like, like there's no, there's no like leg room.

45:40 So you're like on a vessel, some sort of cramped vessel in space. Yeah. Cause that's not space though. When you're in a plane, you're just, no, I know, I know. And then, but then if you take like a spaceship for the most part, you know, like, and you know, there's a good, I guess you can eventually explore the spaceship, but you're still just confined to the spaceship. There's not a lot of space. You can jump into, yeah, you could jump into a cool little, uh, like, you know, space suit and maybe go out into the space. What is the space suit? And just a smaller space vessel that's confining you even closer.

46:18 Oh my God. That, that just made me so claustrophobic. I don't know. And then other than that, I mean, there's also like, you know, there's the space bar, uh, which is on every keyboard. Yeah. And that's it. That's everything that there is with space. Everything there is about space. Do you learn it here on nostalgia? What about spaces on a game board? Oh, also, I just wanted to talk about real quick on the note of space bars. I just wanted to, to, to let you all know that, uh, there does exist, um, the possibility that, um, we will all die, um, because of, uh, dark energy pulling apart each star from each other. And, uh, you know, we all just, uh, I'm going to be dead before that. So billions of years from now,

47:05 no, but, but your children's children to the 1300th power will. Yeah. But my great, great, great to the 13th power. Grandparents didn't give a shit about that, but they were, they were slugs. Right. So ours will be something that don't need. Cause they'll evolve.

47:28 That's all. Just as frozen beings. Did you want to, could everybody just give me like a space fact? I mean, that kind of was. Okay. So you're done.

47:40 uh, if you're floating around, space fact, Oh, I had a space fact. stars are so far away that you wouldn't see parallax scrolling or whatever you want to call it when you're turning like you do in the game. We just talked about. That is very true. And it is a huge nitpick of mine. I'm glad you pointed that out. I got you. Sam, space fact. Uh, if you're floating around in space and you're separated from your spaceship, just try and push off of whatever you have because, you know, Newton's laws of physics, um, say that there's an equal and opposite reaction. So by pushing off of a hammer or something that you have in space for some reason,

48:24 uh, the hammer will go away, but you'll also go away from the hammer and back towards your ship if it's behind you. So just remember that. Every object in the universe is for, it has a gravitational force attracting each other. Yeah, but that's, that's not what I'm saying though. I'm saying, Oh no, I just wanted to add on like a new thing. And, uh, my space fact is that in space, nobody can hear you scream. God fucking damn it.

49:00 Wait, what about my space? Oh yeah. My space is also, no, it was fine. My space coming back. My space was cool. I've invested in my space. You could pick music to play on your page.

49:18 Yeah, but you can't hear it in space. I think everybody was introduced a little bit to HTML back then. I made my, my page red with black text. Wow. That's very dark. Yeah, I was sort of like a, a sort of like an edge word back then.

49:37 No, that's awesome. And then you had to pick your top friends too on my space. Like Facebook never made you do that. Facebook never made you say, these are my close friends. You all, everybody else sucks. I remember that actually being a complaint to that. People had coming over from Facebook. It's like, how do I make my friends know they, they're worth, make a group or something or no. Remember those lists that people used to make, they would make like, or notes. And then they would tag friends and notes. That's how you knew. If you were tagging a bunch of notes, that means people like you.

50:11 I remember those. Do you remember those? Uh, there are pictures and like, Oh yeah, tag your friends. Uh, this person. Yeah. This person, uh, had the most effect on my sense of humor. And then you just like tag them in that square. It was dumb. Yeah. I'm glad Facebook is so much better now. It's just political. And yeah,

50:35 I love, I love reading about the fake news. Imagine it's 2020 and Facebook comes up on stage and announces that they're running for president. Did it just, just as a website, the black mirror already do that. And it's Facebook versus Facebook marketplace for, for the 2020 presidency. Oh, can you deliver the presidency? Facebook marketplace is for sure. Like libertarian or something, you know, they're coming, they're trying to get that crowd anyway. That's what I, that's all I have to say. Okay. That's, um, that's all the time we have for the post show. It was about space in case you forgot. Word. ha ha