096 · ICE HOCKEY

• Back of the Box
• Manual
• It’s fast skatin’, hip checkin’, high scoring action. Lead your team into center ice, over the opponent’s blue line. Pass over to the point and set-up for the tip in – Score!
• Introductions
• Development
  • Hideki Konno, the designer of the game, later went on to direct classic Nintendo titles such as Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and Luigi's Mansion.
• Overview
  • The objective of the game being to get more points than the opposing player by hitting round, black pucks into the opposing goal with a hockey stick.
• Gameplay
  • five players including the goaltender, as opposed to six in real life.
  • Teams
    • USA, Soviet Union, Sweden, Poland, Canada, Czechoslovakia
    • Different types of players - Nintendo is learning Sports Games SLOW
      • fast, weak, and feeble, but is good at the face-off;
      • average in all qualities
      • slow and poor at the face-off, but very powerful, both in body checking and shooting strength.
  • Face/Off
  • Offense versus Defense
  • Goalie Controls
  • Fighting - Penalty
• Famicom version
  • Includes JPN instead of Sweden
• Codes
  • No Goalies - On the title screen, press and hold A button and B button on both the first and second control pad, and press Start button on the first control pad to remove the goaltenders from play.
  • Frictionless Puck - On the team select screen, highlight the team you wish to control. Then press and hold A button and B button on both the first and second control pad, and press Start button on the first control pad to cause the puck to continue moving until it is brought under control by a player or a goal is scored. If the puck becomes airborne, it will continue to fly around the rink until it touches someone to bring it to ice level or enters the net for a goal.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Stick Hunter: Exciting Ice Hockey - JPN Only
  • Crash 'n the Boys: Ice Challenge - JPN Only
• EGL

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

00:00 It's fast skating, hip checking, high scoring action. Lead your team into center ice over the opponent's blue line. Pass over to the point and set up for the tip in. Score ice hockey.

00:27 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Joe. I'm Sean. And I'm Sam. Guys, how we doing? Excellent. Yeah, and yeah. Collectively, good. Okay, good. Now that I heard everyone else talking. We voted before. Yeah, I wasn't sure, but now I know. We're good. Feeling good is in the essential games list. Okay, cool. Great.

00:48 Sean, specifically, how are you feeling? Because we're doing an ice hockey episode and that's kinda your jam. Yeah, I mean, it's also kinda your jam, Mike. Oh, okay. I kinda think of you as the guy who got me more into ice hockey. Really? Yeah. Oh, that makes me feel so much better. Fantastic. Well, yeah, no, I mean, I love ice hockey. I was very intrigued to see how this would be done here.

01:08 And, you know, it happens. Yeah, absolutely. And Sam, you had a funny way to describe ice hockey to me earlier today. Yeah, it's like cold tennis. Yeah. Wrong. Yeah. Elaborate. Cold soccer is better. Nah. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's like cold billiards. Technically, they could play soccer in the cold. You don't really play tennis when it's cold. It's like cold croquet. Right. Sure. If it's cold and there's tennis, then they're just like, they're indoors.

01:37 You know? And then it might as well be hockey. Yeah, but hockey is indoors. It can be outdoors, though. Joe, you have a brother who plays hockey. I have a brother who plays hockey. Yeah. I mean, played hockey. He's older than me. It'd be cool if we just leave it in big. Yeah. He's a hockey coach, I think, right now. Very cool. Yeah. All right. So, you can see that this episode is gonna be, like, you know, you're dealing with a lot of experts. Yeah.

01:56 So, we're gonna definitely be the final authority on ice hockey and all future hockey games that come to Nintendo. But, uh, we should probably talk real fast about development because I managed to just, like, scoop in, like, one development fact. Usually, with these kinds of games, you don't get anything. It's a sports game made by Nintendo. You know, it just appeared one day in the headquarters. Yeah. And it's like, oh, we should release this.

02:18 You know? Like, there's nothing on baseball. There's nothing on tennis. There's nothing on volleyball. So, I thought it was nice that I could get that. Hideki Kono, who's the designer for ice hockey, later went on to direct other Nintendo titles like Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World 2 Yoshi's Island, and the Luigi Mansion series. Wow. That is impressive. It makes me wonder if, like, is he a hockey fan that just wanted to do that, or did he get assigned to make ice hockey? Well, it kind of feels like, you know, just to recap the sports games we've gotten from Nintendo so far, they haven't done any repeats yet. Yeah. So, it kind of feels like, oh, we forgot about that other fourth major sport in North America. Yeah. So, we should make that one.

03:04 Some would call it the first minor sport, but that hurts my feelings, so. Yeah. And what other, like, sports are they missing, really, at this point, now that ice hockey's been fulfilled? Well, they got football, they got basketball, they got baseball several times, and they've got hockey. So, I guess they could go to lacrosse. So, they went soccer, too. And soccer. Yeah. Yep. Lacrosse. I got a big uptrend of any lacrosse games in 2019.

03:29 Cricket. Cricket would be good, and that would hit that European audience. Bowling? Yeah. Bowling would be great, too. I don't even know if we're going to get a bowling game, to be honest. We bowling. I only like bowling games that have that, like, spinny sphere in the arcade machines. Oh, yeah. Yeah, those are fun. Actually, Wii Sports Bowling is the pinnacle of bowling games. Sure, I forgot about that. You know, like, I'm serious. That game is like, everybody bought Wii Sports just because it came with the console, but everybody was playing that bowling one. Just so we need cheese.

04:00 Yeah, it is. Or throw it behind you and scare everyone. Right, yeah. Just over and over and over again. Yeah. Anyway, Sean, I'm going to throw this to you. Can you tell us the objective of ice hockey? So, in the game and the sport of ice hockey, your objective is to put the rubber puck into your opponent's net and make sure it does not go into yours via hockey stick. Sounds great. Six, plural.

04:28 Well, yeah. Multiple sticks. You failed to mention that part where it goes on ice. Oh, yeah. It goes on ice. You wear skates. You must skate. Yeah, you shouldn't wear shoes. That's probably the first tip I would give to any prospective hockey player.

04:45 But, I mean, you know, they miss, this game does a very basic job of providing the rules to this sport. It feels like the baseball version that we got. Kind of. For baseball, where it was like, you know, if you hit the guy, it's like, it just goes right through. Yeah. But this one has a major rule change in that there's five players instead of six. True. I think that that was probably for the best, considering the size of the playing surface in this game. It would have been crowded with all six players per team.

05:20 But they also like made it to the blue line doesn't mean anything. There's a lot of weird like omissions in the rule book in this game. But, you know, it's still, you know, it's still hockey. Yeah. You forgot to mention that after the face off, it's nonstop mayhem on the ice. A battle to the end. Will you be the champion?

05:40 That is in the object of the game section of the manual. Oh, well, that is in the NHL rule book. I forgot about that. A battle to the end. Yeah. It's weird because there's like, you know, hockey, I feel like it is the one that there are certain rules that if you're not a fan of the sport, you just won't know, like icing and stuff like that. And they chose to include that.

06:03 They put icing in. Yeah. It seems like something that isn't necessary at this level, at this primitive level of ice. I was surprised to see icing. Right. Like let's have that rule in there. I do think that it is probably one of the more useful rules to put in there because, you know, you could just keep, you could make your opponent infuriated if you kept icing the puck. Yep. And team wise, you get to choose between the United States, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Poland, Canada, and Czechoslovakia. Do you feel like they left anyone out?

06:36 Mexico. Good call. Joe, did they leave anyone out? I think. Antarctica. Yeah. Like a penguin team. Oh, that'd be a cool unlockable. The continent of Antarctica, it's already frozen. They probably ice skate all the time. Where are the ice climbers as like a bonus unlockable characters? Like, you know, I'm just getting creative. I don't know what Nintendo's thinking. Why isn't Mario the ref? Who did you have in mind? Who did I have in mind? Uh, honestly, like maybe something like, uh, like Germany or something like that. Eh, Germany doesn't really do well. Yeah. That's true.

07:06 Well, in the Japanese version, the Famicom version, uh, they, they actually replaced Sweden with Japan. Which I think makes sense. Right. I don't think, you know, like you want to have like, I want to play as that team, but I don't know about you guys, but when I first started the game up, I did choose USA. Yeah, of course. As the team. Because you have USA. Right. I'm not like a blind patriot, but at the same time, like, I feel like I would pick the USA. I mean, you saw a miracle. You can't not do that. Yeah. You always hit the big USA versus Soviet Union. That's, that's what I did for my first match.

07:35 Absolutely. Uh, so let's just get into the gameplay. Why not? Uh, there's, there's a couple of different types of players. Sam, would you like to break down for us these different players? I'd love to. Uh, so you got the skinny ones, which go really fast, but don't shoot very hard and get tackled very easily. Tackled. Not checked. Checked. I don't know the terminology.

07:56 Well, tackle, no man. I agree with that. I mean, technically it's a tackle, I guess. Uh, then you got the, the stocky ones, which don't move as quickly, but they have really good shots and will tackle or check harder and won't fall as easily. And then you just got your average Joes, which are just kind of right in the middle. I was kind of surprised at the average Joe thing. Like they couldn't really come up with like a triangle system of like three things. Like, like, you know, like this guy's good at the face offs, but he's bad at shooting, but he's also good at the other thing. And then just swap those.

08:30 I didn't really think about that. The average thing was like, I don't know, after playing around with it for a little while, I figured out it's just like, yeah, just pick the average guys all around. Cause then you're pretty much just like safe in all areas. Cause I don't know about you guys, but controlling in this game, like who you want to pass the puck to. It's kind of messed up. Yeah. It's kind of messed up. I just want to make sure I have the same guy all the time. Yeah. Um, I think that, um, I actually did like the mix of different kinds of players. Um, because you do get to choose the makeup, uh, and like you get to choose the way that you want to play the game.

09:02 Um, you, I was considering just picking a bunch of bruisers and just steamrolling everybody. But I thought that like, no, I like that the skinny guy is, can just be like a face off dude. And then you just win every face off with that guy. I don't know. It was also faster too. It's faster. You can set them up.

09:21 Um, no, it was cool. Right. And I think just, just the option to have different types of players available is like, that's good progress on Nintendo's end to, to keep figuring out like things they should add to these sports games. Cause it's like one thing to be able to choose teams. Mm hmm. And then it's like, you can actually customize your, your roster is, is something that we didn't see in their previous sports games. So I thought that was neat. And then it's only like a, a, a hop, skip and a step. And then you've got people arguing about Madden ratings, you know? So. Right. Yeah. When is too much detail?

09:51 When, when you hit that? I was thinking it's kind of like backyard baseball or backyard hockey, I guess, in this case with, you know, very basic stats that some people are better at, at some things than other people. You know, it seems like it's kind of approaching that direction. Which again is something I agree with for, for this kind of primitive version of hockey. It, it only needs to have the, the triangle. The rock paper scissors. Yeah, exactly.

10:14 Like, like that works. So, so let's just get right into it and just talk about the face off. Any, any thoughts here about like the implementation of that? You know, did it feel like, did it feel like you had actually like, if I hit this button at this exact time, like I'm going to steal the puck first? No, to me it felt very, just mash the button as fast as you can and you probably will just win. Yeah. I won 89% of my face offs, I think, just by using a skinny dude. I, I don't think I won a single face off. I don't know what I was doing wrong. Did you pick the slow guy?

10:46 Uh, I'm not sure. I think I just picked whoever was closest. I will say it wasn't, it wasn't immediately intuitive how to, how to arrange, how to choose who takes the face off. Yeah. In the manual it explains it pretty well, but, uh, but when you're just trying yourself, there's like a weird, yeah. Yeah. Cause they cycle in and out. Swaps two players and left and right swaps the other two. One and three are tied to up and down and left and right are tied to two and four.

11:11 And I kind of think that's fine. Yeah. You know, like I wouldn't have wanted it to be like, you only cycle through the up, the up button on the D pad and then you have to cycle through all four of them. Yeah. I was thinking that would actually be better. Just cycle, make a circle, cycle through all four of them. It's just like, you don't have to think about like, wait, which ones are up and down? You see, I found this entire system to be completely foreign to me. I didn't understand why this was a system because I don't know why you can just have your positions. Like when you select your characters, like that sort of like center winger to defenseman.

11:44 Why wasn't it always just like that at the face off? Right. Yeah. It doesn't really happen on the ice in a regular hockey game. Right. Yeah. The center just takes every face. Send in the right wing guy. He's got this one. And also it's not like you're changing who you pick based on the matchup with the computer, right? You're never looking at like, oh, he sent that guy in. I got to bring him. Yeah.

12:04 So yeah, I think that's like that. Yeah. It's not the best implementation of it, but also I didn't like that. You can mash the button to win the face off because I agree. That's the easiest way to win the face off. I remember in like for the N64 Wayne Gretzky's 3D hockey. If you just mash it, they won't drop the puck. Like they'll wait for you to settle down and then they'll drop it. Like you know, it's like a guy just slapping his stick against the ice. Yeah. You don't even see that animation in this NES game, but that's definitely asking for too much. So I won't say I'm counting that against it.

12:37 We're not going to break down like passing and shooting and offense and defense. We're not going to talk about strategies really, but I would love to talk about just the core gameplay and how you guys felt about overall control of your team and shooting and stuff like that. So thoughts? I think it's, you kind of have to talk about that at least on a surface level.

12:57 If you're going to talk about how this game controls, because it's one of those games sort of like soccer and also sort of like volleyball in which you, when you control your, your skater, you're controlling most of the guys on the ice. Um, which is really weird to me. Um, because no matter what you're doing, you're controlling your goaltender while you're also controlling a skater directly and most of your other teammates like indirectly.

13:26 Um, which can sort of cross some wires. And for me, it was a very confusing way to control a game. I'll say that with the controlling all the other players was a little confusing. I mean, cause it's like, they're all part of one. You're, you have like fine control over the one player and everyone else is part of one like blob of players that kind of moves the way that you're controlling. But I liked that you were controlling the goalie at all times.

13:51 I, I, I would have, I wouldn't have liked to have to switch to the goalie to, to try it just before, you know, someone took a shot. I had some, some issues with the goalie parts where I would try and rush and get in front of a shot with a defender and then realize that that is putting my goalie completely out of position and leaving the net wide open. And I got scored on tons of times doing that. Right. I mean, I agree that that, that that's not ideal, but I just can't think of a better solution.

14:16 But maybe like a, like double tap a button and it switches to the goalie automatically or something like that. But to me, I feel like I, that, or at least personally, I feel like that would cause me

14:24 more, more problems having to, to think to switch to the goalie in time rather than just to immediately be able to react by moving the goalie where I want him to go. Hmm. Just because of how quickly you might have to react. Gotcha. I, for me, I'm thinking of, cause you know how if you hold B then, I'm going to everyone kind of rushes back to when you're on defense and you hold B, everyone rushes back to your goal. I think that in that case, it makes sense to hold B and then you can take control of the goalie and everyone else rushes in front of you. You know? Yeah. I guess it's just an opinion.

14:54 Yeah. Cause yeah, I think so. A preference, I guess. I would have almost liked to have a situation where if you're at a certain point, let's say you're in like the center ice, the people you're not controlling, not that they like magnetize themselves to a position, but that they have a general whereabouts sense.

15:12 Cause it kind of seems like if you're heading in one direction, the other players on your team just know to basically head in that direction with you, but don't really have any rhyme or reason to like help set up a shot or like this guy's going to be kind of near the goalie or something like that. If anything happens like that, it's strictly luck. You know, it's not like you can go around the net, uh, from the back end, pass it to a guy in front and then you take a quick slap shot, you know?

15:38 Yeah. I kept having this problem where whenever the goalie, my goalie had the puck, all my guys would just skate to the other side of the ring, uh, and rink and, um, and then there'd just be one opponent standing right in front of the goalie. And I would try and pass to someone around him and no one would be around. And then it's that wires cross thing because you are still controlling a skater while you have the, while you have the puck as the goalie. Yeah. Um, that happened not only when I, when I would recover the, the puck, but also when I'm, you know, when I'm trying to defend against this onslaught of shots and I I'm focusing on the goaltender, like trying to save everything.

16:22 And, but I'm also trying to get like a skater in there to disrupt the play. But because my, my focus is split, the, the skater I'm controlling is like just going to the other end of the ice on his own. Right. And you can't just, you can't just leave the goalie to his own volition because then he'll just be moving out of the way. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. And how did you feel about when you are in control of a character and then you attempt to pass? How did you feel about how you switch control between players there in relation to the puck being passed to you? I felt like that didn't even matter because I couldn't pass correctly. Like I couldn't get accurate. I wasn't born. I feel like I couldn't get accurate passes a lot of the time.

17:04 I think it might've been more risky, like in a, in a more traditional arcade style hockey game that you might be used to, you would have taken like bigger risks on how to pass. Right. Like, oh, I see that guy all the way over on the other side, but he, but we're still on the, uh, on the offensive. So I'm going to send it over to him and the puck is just going to kind of like, you know, um, shoot over, shoot over to him. It's just going to be drawn to him where in this game you have to, you have to retrieve it. Right. Yeah. You have to kind of like go after it. So I guess what I mean is, is like you kind of switch characters in the middle of a pass.

17:38 And so I'm wondering like, did that, did that throw you guys off? Did that sometimes make it so that like you're still in control of the first character and now because you have to pick it up from the second character, you're kind of like going away from it. It definitely threw me off a little bit just, just because of like prior knowledge of how other hockey, my limited prior knowledge of how other hockey games have worked in the past or in the future. Um, but, um, but I, I, I was actually going to ask if, because I wasn't, couldn't even remember if it's changes your control in the middle of the past. Cause I didn't even really notice a disconnect. Like I was able to quickly retrieve usually.

18:16 Um, so I guess then allowing it to change control of the, of the player to the player you're passing to, or that it seems like you're passing to in the middle of the pass was really helpful. Yeah. I agree. Cause even though I wasn't great at passing, I think that the mechanics of controlling the next guy makes sense because after you pass with one guy, you kind of don't really care about him anymore.

18:37 You know, I mean, you care where he goes, you don't want to control him. So your focus would be on the guy that you're passing to. And it would be a nightmare to try and have to switch players in the middle of that pass manually the way you do when you don't have the puck, because that's just, for me, it's just like, uh, just hit the, what is it? The B button until you get the player you want. Like there's no really way of deciding where, which direction you're going to change to.

18:59 And then, you know, trying to, trying to shoot into the goal there, there's a thing there for me where like, you know, you can hold it down for like an actual slap shot. Like you see your stick go in the air. I'm cool with all that. For some reason, sometimes I felt like if I just tap this thing, I wouldn't even, it wouldn't shoot the bus. That's a mechanic. I think that's a fake. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I didn't know that until afterwards when I read the manual. Don't ask me why I read the manual afterwards.

19:25 But when I read the manual that you could do that, which I thought was, was interesting. It, it times how quickly you press the button. We haven't had that yet. Have we? Where you can, I guess like Mario does that. Mario Jumping. A lot of games did it, but I wasn't, that's an enlightening answer from you guys that it was a fake. Cause I was always trying, cause you don't, there's no really like, it's a subtlety in the animation. So I almost felt like it was like, oh, did it not register?

19:48 Because I, I don't know. I feel like the fake didn't do anything to the computer opponents to be like, oh, he's, he's going to take the shot. Like let's move. It's almost like it would only be useful, I guess, if it read better and it would only work in a two player. Right. One last thing on offense though.

20:05 If you do get it in the net, uh, the, the victory celebration is very strange because they all like go into the center ice, but they just kind of become like one blob of a thing. No, they're all hugging Mike. I know, but like, I don't know. I would have just appreciated them like maybe skating around in a circle in the middle of the ice or something. Do they do that? No. In real life? They don't do that. You're right. They usually just pummel each other.

20:32 But they also don't go to the center of the ice to celebrate. They just do it right then and there. The 80s were different. Yeah. They decide to meet. Like this is where we meet after we score. Yeah. That's what they're actually, that's why the face-offs there. They actually say like, when we score, we come back here. Yeah. Exactly. Home base. Okay. I'd buy that.

20:48 Now let's talk defense because it's a little different in the sense of you can be as aggressive as you want. And the only repercussion is like a fight sequence that for me was just mash buttons. Yeah. That is what it is. I like that they tried to put penalties in there somehow because there's no way that you could hook somebody, stick somebody. In this game, there isn't any depth of simulation for that.

21:22 So instead it's just like if you get into a scuffle for the puck, then immediately that means that you've done something wrong. Whoever, yeah. Whoever like starts it is like, that's it. Get in the penalty box, which was cool to see. I like seeing the penalty box and like actually playing four on three. Yeah. No, four on five. Four on three. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I liked seeing that. I thought that was a nice touch. But the fighting thing just seemed like I thought I was going to be greeted to more of like a one-on-one. Not an everybody gets in. It goes into punch out mode. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or even just, you know, simple like A to punch, B to block.

22:00 I would have been fine with that. I would have liked it. Yeah. A more direct hockey fight thing because, you know, it's not a hockey game without it. Yeah. And also, you know, and this applies to offense too, but now that I'm thinking about it, as skating physics in this game, right, the drift of like as you're moving and stuff like that, I wasn't really sold on that. No. It didn't feel, it felt like they gave you maybe like an extra inch of movement after you would stop your input. And I just don't think like the stop on a, like I felt like it should have been a little more skittish. It sort of feels like Mario was on ice more than these players. Right. Yeah. Like waxy floor instead of icy floor.

22:40 Yeah. Like waxy floor and socks. Yeah, with socks. Exactly. And stealing the puck seemed to be like something that could happen. I never felt like the computers were like so much better because they steal the puck often. Yeah. From me at least. So I kind of like was happy that if they're going to be able to steal the puck from me, at least I have a chance to get it back from them too. Yeah. Depending on what kind of player or what kind of skater you're using. Yes, that's true too. One experiment I tried later on just to see if it would work is skate around the perimeter of the ring and see if anybody would like be able to catch me. The computer AI could not figure it out.

23:17 They would pretty much just skate like directly behind me. And when I was going in a circle, they wouldn't try to cut me off on the back end. They would just stay behind me. It was pretty pathetic. Yeah. You just got to score and then just run out the clock. Hockey players aren't really known for their intelligence. Score once, run out the clock. That's the game we play. And goalie. We have a goalie that you're in control of. I know you guys voice a lot of frustration over the goalie control. But did you feel like you were able to stop goals? Yeah. Or was it? Yeah. The guy's a brick wall if you're in front of a puck. Yeah. There's no five hole.

23:51 Yeah. It's a good term. Even if there's no bounce off or anything like that. Oh, no. I mean, he gave up rebounds like a trampoline. Yeah. I think if the opponent fires with a slap shot, it'll bounce off you immediately. Right? No matter what.

24:10 That makes sense. Yeah. That's what I've been noticing. Because otherwise, I feel like I could cover it. But I feel like there were a couple of situations where there was just a guy right in front of me just firing off shots. And my goalie just wouldn't catch it. It just kept bouncing. But I feel like he was doing it so quickly and so rapidly that they couldn't have all been powerful slap shots. But it might be player dependent. Maybe that was one of the husky slap shot guys. Right. Husky boy. Husky boys. Yeah. Who just is better at shooting. Yeah. Like a Ty Domi.

24:41 You're going to have to tell us. You're going to have to tell us all who that is. You don't know who that is? No. That's okay. All right. Great. Can we just talk about like overall presentation of this sport here in this game? Because I think, you know, baseball, when that came out, it was episode number two. Right? That was very bare bones in terms of like what they were giving you. Remember, we always joked about how you can't even control the outfielders and stuff like that.

25:23 Do we feel like this is doing a great job of like presenting hockey? Like the energy and rush of it all? Or is it not translating well in 8-bit? Maybe it's because of baseball and my memories of that game that I was expecting this to be actually more primitive than it was. The ability to choose different players with different stats, I was not expecting in this game. But that being said, I think the rest of it is like a pretty basic example of hockey.

25:50 But definitely plays better than baseball, which you couldn't even field in that baseball game, right? Or was it you? No, you couldn't field it. Yeah, you couldn't control the fielders, but you did control where you threw it to. So at least in this, you can, for the most part, play the whole game and not have to just watch. Yeah. I see it kind of similar to soccer with a couple, one or two things that they added. You know, that's it. Like speed and... And soccer just had more flair to it. Yeah. With the halftime show and everything. Yeah. I like that we've got Zambonis in this. Yeah, they're Zambonis. I was kind of disappointed with the game. It was a little sloppy for me.

26:30 I guess the speed of the game is nice. That is well represented. But everything else just feels like it's nowhere near what 94 will be. Right, right. And in terms of your options, too, it is nice that they give you different clock intervals and clock speed and stuff. So I appreciated all of that. I also would have liked, or rather I did like, that the different teams had preset combinations that I don't think were representative of how those teams actually play. But it was just kind of cool to see, like, oh, if you select the Soviet Union, they actually have prepared big guys, you know, like big thugs. And then, like, if you pick, like, Canada, it's a bunch of speedy guys. And if you pick Poland, I forget. It's, like, more a mishmash of everybody.

27:21 So I like that those things were done for this game. But I almost wish that there was, you know, like a little more flair to the whole game in general and not just, like, well, we've constructed as much of the ice hockey portion as we can. So let's not worry so much about, like. So you want, like, different arenas for each team? Or what are you talking about? Yeah, no, I think that's, yeah, I think that's kind of what I'm getting at. Or maybe even just, like, more time spent on, like, the presentation of the teams, you know, like USA and actually seeing, like, a red, white, and blue jersey on them. Or, like, you know, a crowd that actually, like, has some things going on in it, you know?

28:04 They turn their heads. I was just going to say, they look at each other once in a while. But we've kind of, like, seen elements of these things in all of Nintendo's sports games. So I feel like it's just a matter of time until they all become one. But I'm not so sold that it's going to happen in a Nintendo-developed sports game. Yeah. So, like, somebody is going to crack this code.

28:22 It's just not going to be Nintendo because it seems like every single time we get, like, one push forward but some forgotten lessons along the way, too. We get more a representation of the rules of a sport, you know, sometimes better than others, and not so much, like, the spirit of the sport. Yes. Which I think this sort of misses. Fair. Which is, I think, what I was trying to say. Yeah. I appreciate you throwing that out there. Set up better than me. For sure. Did you guys know that there are codes for this game? No. Cheat codes that you can put in. Did not know that. Okay. The first one is a no goalies code.

28:58 On the title screen, press and hold the A button and the B button on both the first and second control pad. Then, press the start button on the first control pad, and when the game starts, neither team will have goaltenders. You'll just be playing four on four. Did every NES come with two control pads, or did you have to buy the second one? For the most part, they actually did. Okay. It was like a selling point of the system. It would be funny if they made you buy the second controller. It's like, press the on button on your Rob on the title screen.

29:30 I actually know this because the Famicom version had the controllers built in to the system. They actually played on the side, kind of like how it switches. You put them on the side of the console. The Famicom has controller pad rests on each side, and a wire that doesn't really extend too far. But it also can unplug it, though, right? That I'm not 100% sure on. I think that's a Famicom disk system thing. Is that the disk system added the ability to plug in controller ports. Pretty sure. But for the Famicom one, it was wired and connected the whole time. That's like one bad controller can ruin the entire system? Yeah. Wow. That's kind of crazy.

30:09 And then there's also the frictionless puck. Cheat. It's the only other cheat. There it is. Lunar hockey. Yeah, you did some lunar hockey. On the team select screen, highlight the team you wish to control. Then press and hold the A button and B button on both control pads. Then press start on the first control pad to cause the puck to continue moving until it is brought under control by a player or a goal is scored.

30:32 If at any time the puck becomes airborne, it will continue to fly around the rim until it touches someone to bring it to the ice level or enter the net of a goal. So it's also a gravity-less puck. Yeah, so it essentially will just stay in the air, which is something that happened for me more on passes than anything. Like sometimes my passes would like just kind of fly up into the air. I was like, is that because I'm like holding it down too long or something? I don't know. I wasn't sure. Sure. So there isn't really a sequels and spinoffs section here today.

31:05 There are other hockey games that we'll be playing even pretty soon, honestly. Okay. But I didn't want to talk about those today or even name drop them because that's a thing for like future episodes. Instead, I want to talk about the only two Japanese-only hockey games that will come to the NES. And I actually got a chance to play them. So I'll give you like just a little, you know, a couple thoughts.

31:29 But the first one was Stick Hunter Exciting Ice Hockey. Stick Hunter. What? Stick Hunter Exciting Ice Hockey. His name, Stick Hunter. Yeah. And for me here, this one is very similar to Ice Hockey. And I actually think might have come first with the only exception being that the graphics are a little more detailed. Okay. It actually has a bigger rink. It has the, you know, like all the zones and stuff like that. You can take a face off in each, you know. Yeah, you can do that in this one too. Okay. Sorry. I forgot that detail then. Yeah. But overall, it feels like a clone of this game in many regards.

32:11 And the goalie can take like, can take the hit of a puck. And then like it can still like bounce behind him. Okay. And go in the net. I like that. So, I guess that's that part that makes it exciting. It's very exciting. It's very Stick Hunter. That's why I guess the name Exciting Ice Hockey instead.

32:29 Now, the second game, I'm kind of sad that we don't get, and that I could only play in Japanese because I'm sure a translation exists somewhere, but I could only play it in the Japanese text version. It's Crash and the Boys Ice Challenge. Who's Crash? Now, I'm glad that you asked who Crash is because Crash takes place in the Renegade universe. Remember we just played Renegade, the beat-em-up game? Okay. They play hockey now. Yeah, they play hockey now. And it's in that whole like world and aesthetic. Is that like street hockey? No, it's ice hockey. And you pick your team and everything like that. Like you choose your players and everything. And they have like a little more detailed stats to be honest.

33:14 But there's also like a story mode behind it. Like today you're playing this team and there's a whole like, you know, exchange and cut scene and stuff. And then like I didn't understand what they were talking about, but then you play that team.

33:26 Because it was Japanese. And the final score for me in the very first game, I won 16-2. Oh my God. It's so easy to score goals that I actually stopped scoring goals at a point and just tried to like try everything else in the game. That's how they scored the other two goals. It was kind of pathetic that you can just win the puck on faceoff, which you can't win by mashing. Instead, the referee just drops the puck. And then as soon as the puck is dropped, both players just can charge towards the puck. Okay, so this is like XFL hockey. Right, right. And then assuming you get control, you can immediately just like make a straight line for the goalie.

34:02 Just pivot either left or right a little bit. And I guarantee you're getting a goal. Wow. I'm sure it gets harder later on in the story. Yeah. But I do kind of want to see where the story goes, right? Is it just like a, you know, high school rivalry story? Or is it like eventually you'll fight like the demon hockey team? And what connects it to Renegade? Are you that character? Well, yeah. I remember we talked about this in Renegade that there was a whole thing where like in Japan, it's different enemies.

34:29 Yeah, it's not warriors. Right. It's not. Yeah, it's not. We Americanized it for Renegade. Right, that's right. It's a whole series of, what is that, River City Ransom, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that connects to River City. Did we talk about that right again? Yeah, we did. Oh, man. I wasn't paying attention. Yeah. I do have one straight thought, and it is in regards to the pause sound of this game. Okay. And it's been a little while since I've done a pause sound. It's not anything too extensive, but the pause sound, correct me if I'm wrong, I think is exactly the same as the Super Mario Bros. pause sound. I never paused.

35:08 I paused, and I remember it being familiar, but I didn't place it at the time. Is it just da-da-da-da? Yeah. Okay. Huh. Yeah. That's really it. Okay. I'll confirm on the Best of 88 episode if it is. You should get that notarized, too. Yes, of course. It's official. Are you kidding? Yeah. That's all I've got. You would think I have more, but I don't.

35:29 Go Rangers. No, it's go Sabres. Interesting. Sam, do you want to root for a hockey team? I go Devils because I'm from New Jersey. Cool. Yeah. I got to go Sabres. Okay. Yeah. It's the only team we have. Come on. Anyway, we have to give the fans what they want, and that is the Essential Games List. Oh. There's no real way to get into this better than to just ask straight up for your guys' opinions.

35:55 Everybody knows what the Essential Games List is by now, and no one's joining us for the first time on an ice hockey episode. So go ahead, Joe. What are your thoughts? It's already hard for a sports game to get into the Essential Games List, in my opinion, because they're all very similar. They're all doing the same thing. And this one, while I did think it was better than I thought it was going to be, it was okay. It didn't do anything that special where I'm going to vote it in.

36:19 Okay. This was a disappointing game to me because I do love me some hockey, and I just thought it was too sloppy of a representation of the sport to say anything aside from it is inessential. I don't really have much else to say. This game just kind of frustrated the hell out of me, and I blame myself a little bit for that, for not being good at it, but also I blame the game for that, for not being that good of a game. So it's not essential. All right. And just my final thoughts on this. I think everyone has said mostly what everyone probably feels about this game. I'm a little surprised to find out that IGN had this at number 100 on their top 100 NES games. Yeah, I read that. And I was like, what?

37:06 Yeah. All right. Cool, I guess. To me, there's something about this game that we never talked about in the episode, but that I felt throughout every time I- We're still in the episode. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I meant like I never really conveyed this feeling, so I don't want to surprise listeners with it, but basically every time I picked up this game, I almost like had the urge to stop immediately.

37:25 And I didn't really have that with most NES games. It's just frustrating to play. Right. Even the bad ones. There was just something about like I never really wanted to play through like a full- And you're not even like 15 minutes each period. Like it's the abbreviated like super speed, seven minutes, whatever. It's 20. It's supposed to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what I'm saying. Like across each period. And it's like I never even really wanted to play like a full three-period game.

37:50 And so I just kind of played this game in bursts. And it never really connected for me. So I'm not sure if I gave it. You missed out on how much better it gets in the third period. Yeah, you never saw the Zambonis. Also, we didn't mention Shootout. You might not have gotten to the Shootout. I never got to the Shootout. Or there's also Overtime. There's Overtime after the Shootout, which is not accurate. A goalie-less Overtime. Yeah. There's Overtime after the Shootout? Yeah, a Shootout in the first tiebreaker and then Overtime. Did this happen in the 80s?

38:21 I don't. Maybe this is some international thing. I don't think that goalie-less hockey is ever an official hockey. And hockey's only just getting good for what it's worth in this time. 1987, so it's just getting good because Wayne Gretzky at this point is reinventing hockey single-handedly and changing what it means for the game to do anything. Because before that, if you actually look at 1950s footage of hockey, it's okay. The goalies don't know how to skate.

38:51 They essentially are just those brick walls you're talking about where they just stand there and then you shoot and then they just pretend like there's anything they can do about it. I don't know. I think that there is something endearing about old hockey footage. But the thing about this game that I truly disliked is it did not convey entirely how much the Leafs suck. Well, thanks for that, Sean. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter. And I'll talk to you soon. I'll talk to you soon.