102 · RAMBO

• Back of the Box
• Manual
• Introductions
• Pack-in-Video
  • Really small company. They are gonna bring us Predator, Die Hard, and Knight Rider for the NES as well.
• Based on the film Rambo: First Blood Part II
• Overview
  • Rambo is a side scrolling platform game where the player controls Rambo with his mission to Vietnam.
• Gameplay
  • The game starts off with Colonel Trautman asking Rambo whether or not he wants to leave the prison and start the mission. Players are given a choice, but cannot advance in the game unless "yes" is chosen.
  • Similarity to Zelda II (which isn’t out in the STATES yet)
  • Easy to get lost, unclear what to do.
  • In the Japanese version, the experience meter is replaced by an anger meter, however, it functions exactly the same.
  • The ending sequence allows the player to throw a giant kanji character (怒, Ikari:Anger) towards Murdock after returning to the base, which inexplicably turns Murdock into a frog.
  • the Japanese Famicom version contains staff credits. It is unknown why this was left out of the USA version.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • The Movie!
  • Rambo (1985 video game)
    • Also based on First Blood Part II
    • The game is viewed from an isometric perspective, and follows the movie's story. The player, controlling Rambo, has to find his lost equipment, locate the POW camp, rescue the hostages and make it back to the extraction point, while being pursued by constantly respawning enemies.
  • Rambo (2008 video game)
    • Rambo is a light gun shooter developed by Sega for the arcades in 2008. Based on the films Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988).
  • Rambo: First Blood Part II (Master System video game)
    • An overhead action shoot-'em-up in the vein of Commando and Ikari Warriors.
  • Rambo: The Video Game
    • An arcade rail shooter video game for PS3/360
  • Evolution of Rambo Games
• EGL

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

00:00 Rambo, Freedom is Everything.

00:18 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And guys, Sylvester Stallone is in the building, but not for this podcast. Yeah, and not this building. Oh, he's here for us, man. He's here for us. I would just, yeah, I actually, statistically, how much time do you spend in buildings on any given day? Most of the time. So I'm taking a good guess that even if you're listening at a different time than we're recording, he's most likely in a building. Right. Guy like that, that old, can't be exposed to the sun that often. Yeah, it's nighttime. So you're using like every building as the building?

00:58 Yeah. Well, if there's one building that we can just say is like, is actually inside out, like the oldest house. The whole world is inside that building. Right. The earth is the world's first house. Yeah. And so when somebody says like... The ozone layer is its roof. Yeah. If we say like, Sly's in the house, like we just mean he's on earth.

01:13 True. All right. Which is why that was wrong in 1969 when somebody said, Neil Armstrong's in the house, and I was like, actually, he's on the moon. He's on the, he's in the other house. He's in the shed out back. He's in the outback shed house. The outback steak house. I would go to the outback shed house. They would serve like... If I was the moon. Yeah, why not? They got those gloomin' doomin' bloomin' onions. That's why they call it, that's why they call it the great outback shed house in the sky.

01:41 What are we doing again when this is one of our years? Mike, you met Sylvester Stallone, didn't you? I did meet Sylvester Stallone one time. This is serious. I met him at like, I used to do like catering work when I was like ending my teenage years. And he made a film with Robert De Niro and I like served him and his wife and or his girlfriend.

02:01 Robbie D? Yeah, Robbie D's. Yeah. And she only drank a very kind of champagne that was very expensive. Oh, of course she did. And you had to make sure you were like pouring it in front of her. It was like a weird thing. But you know what? Celebrities. Bougie. No, it's like they just have a very... It's so bougie. It's a definition of bougie. I know, but I'm just saying like they can barely understand what it's like to be human. It's true. So just let them do these weird things.

02:24 You know, like she didn't ask to... Like she didn't say like, so what's your deal? You know, she didn't ask for any small talk. She just wanted the champagne. You're a fucking pleb. All right. Well, one thing you should know about Rambo is that this is not based on the movie Rambo.

02:41 Because that movie doesn't exist. It's based on the play. No. There's no movie called Rambo. I just want to make that clear. Like there's no Rambo one. The first movie is called First Blood. True. Then the second movie, which this game is based on. Yes. Is Rambo First Blood Part Two. So the first movie is not Rambo First Blood. It's just called First Blood. Never knew that. Yeah. I guess like then everybody started to realize like, oh, Sylvester Stallone, like that's a good, like he's playing the titular character, name the thing after him. I thought it was Rambo episode four.

03:14 First Blood. Well, that was the intention. They were going to do the three episodes later on, but they. A new First Blood. Right. They couldn't figure out the de-aging technology at the time for Sylvester. Sure. But I think it's just worth mentioning that like Rambo obviously is like part of that whole action explosive blockbuster thing going on with like. Movies. Yeah. Movies at that time like Terminator and Predator, Die Hard. Yeah. These kinds of things.

03:46 Golden Age of action. Yeah. And it's no surprise though that the company that makes this Rambo game for the NES pack in video. First time for them for us. They also make Predator, Die Hard and Knight Rider for the NES as well. With Nicolas Cage. Knight Rider is the talking car. Oh. TV show. Feeny. With. Oh, I'm thinking of Ghost Rider. Oh, yeah. With Hasselhoff. Yeah. The Hasselhoff. Yeah. You don't Hasselhoff. All right. And we won't ask him to come on the show either.

04:18 For anybody who was disappointed that we didn't get Sylvester after I said we were going to get him last week. I'm sure he's listening. Yeah. So you can say that you listen to the same podcast as him. Yeah. And he accepts fan mails. If you want to write something saying like, hey, I really was disappointed that you didn't go on Nostalgia, maybe write to him. Just do that. Yeah. Collective experience. Yeah. We've been asking you guys for so long to share the podcast with people that now we think that it's a better strategy to share with people your frustrations about them not listening.

04:47 Yeah. Rather than telling them to listen and be like, you know, like I know we're best friends, but I'm kind of disappointed you don't listen. Get passive aggressive about it. Yeah. Like, you know, stop talking to them without letting them know why. This is like really end of the podcast type of talk we're doing here. So I was going to actually ask you, Joe, what happens in this Rambo game? You want to give me like an overview?

05:07 Do you want to talk about this side scrolling platform game at all? Uh, it's very much. I feel like it's very much trying to like scratch a similar itch as a Contra. I forgot the name for a second.

05:20 Um, but it also I've never seen Rambo, but I feel like it's it seems like it's following the movie really closely. Is it not like there's like cut scenes? Yeah, it's definitely following the movie pretty closely. You're going back into you're going back into Vietnam to rescue some prisoners, but you're not you're not supposed to rescue them. You're supposed to only take pictures. No, no, no. No, Joe. Remember, there was no part in the movie where I asked. I'm just saying when asked if like he wanted to take up the mission, he said, no, I would like I like it better in prison.

05:50 And then the game never starts. Oh, right. That's right. You have. Yeah, that's very important to get that out of the way. Uh, what Sean is referring to is that at the very beginning of the game, uh, Colonel Troutman asked Rambo whether or not he wants to leave the prison and start the mission. Players are given a choice, but you cannot advance in the game unless yes is chosen. Thankfully, when you choose no, you don't get like a game over screen. You just get Colonel Troutman saying you have to say yes to proceed.

06:22 No, he says you can't play the game. You can't start the game unless you say yes. He knows he's in a video game. He's like sweating bullets. He's like, no, like we, I can't do anything else until you say yes. Like, so you're just presented with those same options over and over again. Uh, I think that, um, Contra, you know, maybe like I could understand how that would help like visually set up the game cause this one takes place in Vietnam and that one took place and like the jungle somewhere. The jungle somewhere. Yeah. But I think this game actually comes pretty close with a game we haven't played yet, but is already out in Japan at this point, which is the Legend of Zelda 2.

06:58 And that's pretty much just like a, like a engine dump, isn't it? Like it's the same exact game. My understanding is, is that if it's not, if it's not an engine dump, it's at the very least it's modeled. It's basically like using the same design philosophy as Zelda 2 was, which is interesting. Yeah. I don't know if they actually like reached out to Nintendo and were like, Hey, help us. Like, you know, can we get the Zelda 2 code or engine and we'll make it with Rambo instead. But you said, so Zelda 2 is out in Japan at this point.

07:31 It's out in Japan at this point. So yeah, it's not like Rambo influence. It's like, that'd be crazy if we. Yeah. It's important distinction. I'm glad that you brought that up. But I, I think that this is a really neat decision for, for like a, a action movie video game. Like very easily, this could have been Contra, right? You just start off as Rambo in the jungle and you just start shooting it, everything in your way to try to.

07:53 And at the end of the level, there's like a prisoner of war, you know, and you got to free him. But that kind of sounds like Ikari Warriors, right? Like I think that sure. Commando was the one where you free the prisoners. As an action, I mean, again, I didn't see this Rambo movie, so I don't know if it leans more towards the, uh, the, the hardcore action or if it's more of like a action drama. It's an action drama. Okay. That's an apt, that's an apt description. But, uh, I think that something like Contra lends itself more to a pure action movie because,

08:27 uh, when I think of Rambo, I don't think of Rambo just sort of walking around with a knife and killing snakes, which is what most of this game is. That's true. And, uh, yeah, I actually don't recall that happening in the movie at all. I don't remember like a scene where he's like wielding knives and has to like fend for himself in the, in the jungle. Against dozens of snakes and wasps. Against just like animals in general.

08:51 Yeah. It just doesn't really happen. So, but, but you know, this wouldn't be the first time that like, there are a lot of wasps. There are a lot of wasps. But like, you know, they take liberties with how these, uh, how these stories are told. They take liberties, but then they'll put in like very weird scenes. Like they're just hanging out on a boat. Like, uh, I'm just trying to fit this into the whole like adaptation video game.

09:14 Where is it grounded? Because we didn't mention that there are also like floating human skulls that like swoop down on you. There's this magic element too. Yes. Okay. So there's a, there's a lot unclear, but I think the important part for our, for our listeners at home is that this is very much an action adventure game where you're given like a, a mission of sorts and you have to actually like proceed to the next area.

09:39 And then you're like, you're kind of like locked into that area, but you have choices of like, go north, go south, like find this thing. And, and you can get to talk to different people and it's not so much like, like, there's not like, you know, oh, you got to talk to like all these different NPCs and gather intel and stuff like that. It's pretty straightforward. But I think like that, that's important to know about this game because in a different version of Rambo, I feel like you would have just gone left to right and clear through the stages. This one actually sets up like missions.

10:12 And I, I actually appreciate that they were trying to do that with like setting up the missions and having like, it feels more like an adventure game where it's like you have to go and you have to talk to this person before you can get the information you need. I just think it's the wrong property. And maybe like it's trying to be a mix of like the wrong two types of game. Yeah. But, but I appreciate that they're doing that because I feel I'm hoping that this is like kind of hinting that we're moving that direction more.

10:38 And that's how, you know, I always talk about how like, that's the direction. That's the kind of game I like is like an adventure game. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I just think they've, the execution wasn't, there was something off about it. Yeah. There was something off about it because we've already had, um, a kind of bare bones style game like this in Rygar. Yeah. And I felt like Rygar was more clear in its approach, even if it did just kind of say like, Hey, go around and explore and you'll, you'll think you'll find these things. Whereas this one, the hints from everybody are very vague about what to do next.

11:10 And oftentimes if you knew what to do, like if you looked at the strategy guide, you could get to the next mission or the next segment, whatever you want to call it within a minute or two, you know, like if you followed a guide, you could be this game very quickly. But the, the, the fun part of it is supposed to be figuring in this out for yourself.

11:28 I just don't think that turns out to be very fun when the clues are incredibly confusing. The first half hour of this game for me, uh, went something like, uh, I'm, I, you know, I refuse the call several times and then I finally accept. And then I go around the base talking to people like they tell me to do. And then I get sent onto the jungle and then I go right. Um, and then I get to this little shack and a guy tells me that I'm an outsider and, uh, there's no boat.

11:59 And so I, you know, I try to kill him a couple of times. It doesn't work. I keep going back and forth to the left and other, other screens. And I keep coming back and I just was stuck. So I, that was going to be my only play through the game until I was like, I should look this up. And I thought that you're supposed to go in another direction and talk to some woman first and then go.

12:20 But yeah, I mean, yeah. Like how would you know that you didn't say like, have you talked to my friend out in the East? Like, yeah, I liked the fact that there's like, oh, there's this story thing that like, oh, you have to, you can't get on the boat until you know her cause she can get you on the boat. But there's no indication as to like, yeah, there's, there's no reason where you're like, oh, well, where should I, what, how should I try and get on this? There's no way you can figure that out without stumbling upon it. Exactly. Which is where I think the flaws are. Yeah. And then there's also this weird, um, experience system too.

12:51 Uh, that reminds me of Rygar because you have like for each enemy you kill a number comes up that represents like how many experience points you gained. And then that kind of like determines like all your future stats, I suppose. I think so. It's kind of weird because most things early on are like one hit kills and I kind of just progressed normally. So I didn't notice if like, if I didn't kill the normal amount of things would I have, you one hit killed it, but like so much better.

13:18 Right. I guess that's what I'm wondering is like, if you would go in without much experience through this, would it actually be like impossible or close to impossible to finish this game? I'm not sure. Yeah. It's a, it's a weird call, but I did like, I did like having an experience system like that. It adds a little extra flair to the adventure element of the game. Yeah. I think, I think having stuff like that is important.

13:39 Uh, and in Japan it was actually an anger system, uh, which is cute cause it's like, it's still the same thing as an experience, but experience is like, it's flavor. Yeah. Right. I, to be honest, I'm a little confused as to how the experience works cause you, you get to 20 experience and you go up to level one from level zero. Something like that. And then I got to, then it was like in the hundreds of experience, like the next, I didn't go up another level, I just kept getting more experience. It's logarithmic. Yeah. But 20 to like, there was like 150 that was next. It should be like 20. And then I think it was like 20 actually to 300.

14:10 Yeah. So maybe the 20 was just to show you like, this is how this works and it's going to be a really long game. Yeah. But I guess like what I'm asking, uh, and I don't know how far you got, but, uh, did you feel like as long as you just play along with the game, you didn't have to like grind necessarily. I was actually also very curious cause I, there was no indication as to like, am I getting stronger really? Or like, do I feel like, I don't know what it would have been. I guess I'd have to play it again and not kill as many enemies or something.

14:37 Yeah. Cause I was, I was kind of trying to figure that out, but yeah, I didn't beat the game, but it felt pretty straightforward, which I actually think like if, if there isn't a grind required, that's, that's pretty impressive for a game of, of this time, you know, that it's not like, Oh, okay. But before the big boss at the end, make sure you just like kill thousands of snakes because. Well, that isn't even a concept yet, at least on this system, like grinding, like with, with trying to get experiences such as it's, it's sort of new on this platform.

15:07 And like, so we haven't had to grind. Uh, we had a little bit of a experience with jaws. That's what I was going to say. And I'm, I'm, I'm just saying like, again, I know what you're getting at, like grinding in like the JRPG, like, like soul sucking way. I understand that. I'm just saying like, I definitely think there's a difference between like, can you actually like play through this game and get all the way to level seven naturally, which is the level seven is the cap on this one.

15:34 Or is it a matter of like, if you want to get to level seven, you can beat the game at level six or whatever, and you'll be fine. But like, if you want to get to level seven, you do have to like, go to town on enemies for a really long time. I think that if, if you're going to have a leveling system and not just have difficulty be based on like the, uh, the patterns of future enemies and, uh, how many enemies there are, uh, like you, you're, you're, you're inviting the concept of grinding into your game. So I think that to say that like, oh, there's leveling, but there isn't that much grinding is sort of counterproductive.

16:12 Got it. I don't know. Yes. I hear you. I hear you on that one. Uh, and then the other items other than the combat knife, uh, it's kind of weird that they're all like in the top right of your UI throughout the entirety of the game, but you barely get access to any of them until like later in the game. I, I will say that I, I played through the game. I never got to fire a gun. Same. Yeah. Cause it really only happens towards the end of the game. Yeah. So. And what's actually the, I can't remember now. What's the arrow, right? There's like two arrows. There's a regular arrow. And there's another thing that looks like an arrow.

16:47 It's a exploding arrow. The exploding arrow. I don't think I used one of those. The only difference is that the exploding arrows like filled in, whereas the bone arrow have like jagged lines. But what's funny is, is that they don't actually like make an explode or anything like that. They just, they're just twice as powerful as the regular arrows. So, you know, but again, like that's an inventory thing where like you only have so many. So make sure you save them for the more powerful enemies.

17:11 I felt like, and maybe later in the game, cause I didn't beat it either. Later in the game, maybe this gets harder, but I felt like at first I just kept collecting throwing knives. And then I just had enough throwing knives that I would just always use throwing knives. And by the time I was like down 10, I would find another thing of throwing knives or just 10 more. Like I would just never get like below 50.

17:31 Um, I don't know what that means, but, uh, but yeah, so like I felt like throwing knives were just like my go-to. And if I ever ran out, I would use arrows for a minute until I found more throwing knives. Yeah. And then there's also the Rambo way of life in the manual. There's like this whole section that just like tries to help guide you into like things that you can do next if you're just not quite sure. It says part of what makes Rambo who he is is his uncanny sense of resourcefulness, both in combating the enemy and in simply keeping himself alive.

18:53 Here's a few tips. Explore everything you can, which automatically I'm just going to stop right there because there's that like door in the very first. Can't open the door. In the very first world or whatever world. The very first stage that you have to go through to get to to get to the jungle part. Oh, it doesn't really like lend itself to like go in there. You know, so exploring everything you can is like first I need to know what's possible to explore.

19:22 Right. Like, is it just the north south like lines that appear on the ground or is like is there like am I missing a bush that I could actually like go into to you know that that's not a great tip. Then we have take your cues from people you talk to. It's often necessary to perform one person's command or suggestions before you're allowed to go on. Great. But like we talked about earlier, if they don't tell you anything other than you're not allowed to use this boat. I don't know why I'm not allowed to use it. They should have been more clear.

19:53 Use your combat knife as often as you can. Rambo is so accustomed to and in tune with his knife that it's almost like an extension of his body. And with it, many enemies can be overcome with just one strike.

20:07 It's great. Yeah. But it's also just like, you know, don't have fun with all these other equipment that we're giving you. Make sure you stick with the knife. Yeah. If you have a choice between fighting something or avoiding it, fight it. Because in doing so, you may be awarded valuable weaponry, experience points, or life energy. Probably the best tip in the game. Yeah. Fight everything because you're going to need to.

20:28 Sean, do you want to tell us a little bit about the choices that you're able to make in Rambo? Other than the yes and no at the beginning? Yeah. I mean, you get a lot of situations where you get to, you know, you get the Bioware. Choose what you say. The wheel itself. The wheel. Except it's only like two. You can either say something that will progress the story or you can say something like, how do I look today?

20:55 Completely non sequitur. Or you can tell one of the guys that you're going to rescue that you're here to rescue him or you're just here to take pictures of him. Both of these things will not progress a story and just continue on to and you would have to select the correct response. But that just makes me wonder why these were even in the game. I mean, it's almost like they're just hoping like, well, no one will pick those. So I think they're choosing something. And it's not like it's a comedy game. It's like you're saying things Rambo would really say. You know, like, oh, that's so Rambo. Rambo. I don't remember Rambo being like a big joke master. A dig about things, too. Like, I'm going to let you out. I'm just here to take a picture.

21:43 But yeah, so I always found that to be like without any explanation. And I thought that was I thought it was cute. But it would have been cool if and I'm not saying that there needed to be diverging paths or anything. But it would have been cool if like you were locked to a choice. Like you said something.

22:00 And then as a result, like you, you know, like, oh, because you like tease the guy in the cage. Now it's like you don't get this awesome weaponry. Like, yeah, he can come back and help you. But if you teased him, he won't or something. Yeah. You know, just small, even smaller than that. Maybe it's just inventory shit. But like some reason to have choices. Yeah. It's cool up there. It gives me something to look forward to in games that may use this concept in the future. But right now it's just I don't get it.

22:38 And I don't know about you guys, but the the bosses of this game, not nothing, nothing special about them in any particular way. You know, there's like that that robotic sphere that you have, you know, like there's there's like sometimes like a skeleton thing. Like, yeah, it's just like it's a little all over the place. And I don't really know, like, you know, like what I'm what I'm dealing with and how this relates to the mission. And it seems like they were just like, let's just make like a video game. Cool. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Make a cool boss. Like, yeah, there's a boss.

23:12 Just nothing to do with the plot. I almost don't know if the game needed like actual bosses. No. Rather than just like making sure that the objective was like completing mission. Maybe at the end. Yeah. Why not? And there is. Yeah. The helicopter. Helicopter. And then it's something like for the helicopter, you have to like like 50 grenades or something like that before it will blow up. And it's like. Can you run out of grenades?

23:40 Yeah. Right. OK. I feel like. Yeah. Unless maybe at that boss you can't or something. Yeah. Start with 10. There's the when the when you're when you run out of the grenades in the boss battle. Well, the soldiers show up and they drop from either the left side of the screen or the right side more grenades that you have to pick up. But other. But like during that time, you're kind of like vulnerable, you know. But at least the game didn't like break itself by not like by letting you run completely out of grenades without a way of retrieving them. Yeah. Right. And I think like 50 is excessive. Yes. That's that's a lot regardless. But the helicopter, that's a cool boss battle.

24:20 Sure. Right. Like. It fits. I'm saying like it fits. Oh, yeah. OK. Yes. It's it's contextually. That's a fitting ending, you know, to the game. But even maybe more fitting is the actual bone helicopter.

24:35 If it was a skeleton. Yeah. If it was a human reaper. Yes. That would be cool. Whoa. The epilogue of the game, though, it's kind of cool that like a game has an epilogue where like you just go back and figure out your, you know, like, oh, game's over. You're back at the base. But you have to talk to people like, you know, like it doesn't. There's no more enemies or anything like that. Yeah. But you have to figure out how things wrapped up. It's this game's Citadel DLC. Let's see. And the Murdoch guy who was at the base. God damn. If you press B after you beat the game and talk to him and that you will shout a kanji symbol at him that means anger.

25:18 OK. And that will turn him into a frog. Did that happen in the movie? That is the most famous controversial scene of the movie where all of a sudden it switches to traditional 2D animation by Hayao Miyazaki. And he shouts Ikari at him and and then turns him into a frog.

25:42 I wonder what that means. Yeah. Because, like, if you do that and then walk away and come back, he's no longer a frog. So maybe that's just like you're so angry that you picture him as a frog. Yeah. The symbol's really big, too. But it just doesn't, I don't know, it just doesn't make any sense, right? Like. Yeah. Like this whole game, you've been shooting all these NPC characters and nothing's been happening to them. And then you shout anger at him. You have this ability that you just didn't use. You forgot you had it. Like, you know, aside from making fun of it, that is a that's a funny Easter egg. Yeah, it's a great Easter egg. But I don't understand why. Yeah, I don't understand it quite either.

26:19 But you know what? I didn't understand most of this game. Yeah. The hints were it was a very vague, confusing game. And the Japanese version had staff credits. The US version doesn't end with any credits. You don't get to know who made the game. That's OK. They're like whatever to those. Yeah, it's fine. Any other thoughts?

26:40 Rambo. Mike, did you see these Rambo movies? No. Oh, OK. Yeah. I got a I did a catch up on Rambo First Blood Part 2 on YouTube. I like watch those movie clips. Yeah. You know, movie clips, I think is what they're called. Yeah. They're really. And they're like numbered in sequential. Like, you know, one of 10. Yeah. Two of 10. It's like. And there's just like it's for every movie ever. And half the video is just like the preview without without the clickable buttons for like the next clip. Yes. Yeah. I hate that. Bullshit. I also don't like it when things like cover up the ending of. Yeah. I don't get that.

27:18 I don't understand what that is about. What's the deal? But yeah. No. The Rambo movies never attracted me. Yeah. To be honest, Sylvester Stallone. Not really. Not really a big guy for him. He's a big guy. No, he's a big guy. Make no mistakes about it. I know what you're saying. Yeah. I just didn't. I. You know, he wasn't a big sell for me. Well, maybe that's why he doesn't come on the show is because. He's on the show right now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait. I thought we went back. I don't remember where we were with that. I'm going to tell you right now that we're not just going to like leave it here because there's a lot more Rambo games to talk about. Okay. Before this game, there was Rambo. The 1985 video game also based on First Blood Part 2.

27:57 And that came out on the MSX. And the game is viewed from an isometric perspective and follows the movie story. CRPG. The player controlling Rambo has to find his lost equipment, locate the prisoner of war camp, rescue the hostages, and make it back to the extraction point while being pursued by constantly respawning enemies. Sounds fun. Watch a video. It ain't. Yeah. Well, you said constantly respawning enemies. Right. You're like, I'm out.

28:22 Then we have Rambo First Blood Part 2, the master system video game. Okay. How many movies were there again? There were other movies. Yeah, there were other movies. They just like this movie. It didn't start with Part 2. This one finally decided, though, that it's important to include the title of the movie in full. The other ones were just Rambo and Rambo. This one finally includes the title. And this is an overhead action shoot-em-up like Commando and Ikari Warriors.

28:49 So, again, sounds normal and sounds like what I was imagining the NES game was going to be. Yeah. Apparently very uninspired. Okay. Like the rest of them. Then we have Rambo the video game, which was an arcade rail shooter video game for PS3 and 360.

29:08 Could you tell which one it was based on? Yeah. No, I think this was like a standalone story. Oh. You know, like you're just playing as Rambo. This is the next chapter of Rambo. Yeah. But this one, it's interesting because there's a lot of things going on here. But at the same time, it's an on-rails shooter with Rambo. And it's almost like, you know, in the 360 time, like you could have easily have made like an explorable area. Like you could have just almost... Open world Rambo. I don't need open world, but I would have liked like some kind of like Tomb Raider-esque Rambo in Vietnam.

29:43 Instead, you just have to do whatever the game directs towards you. And then the last one we have here is Rambo. The 2008 arcade game. It was a light gun shooter developed by Sega for the arcades. And it's based on Rambo First Blood Part 2 and Rambo 3. Oh. Rambo 3, it's worth noting, came out in 1988. So I believe that this Rambo game, based on the story of Rambo First Blood Part 2 for the NES, might have been done to kind of like hype up Rambo 3 for people.

30:20 You know, like, oh, let's get this game out. Yeah. Get people excited. But there's not going to be a Rambo 3 game for the NES. There's not going to be any more Rambo games for the NES. This is the Rambo game. So how do you feel knowing that this is the only chance you'll get at Rambo? I'm totally okay with that. Great. We'll discuss this further on the Essential Games list.

30:43 Sean, you said you were okay, but are you? Right now I'm a little sick, Mike, but I appreciate the thought. Thank you for telling us. Anyway, this game, I like the idea of more in-depth stories in these games. I like the idea of a good adaptation within a video game release. I don't think that this was the correct medium, the correct genre, or the correct property to do this kind of game.

31:22 Even if it were well done, like, even if the story beats made sense within the game, the gameplay itself is just too jank. Like, the one thing we didn't really touch on is just the act of using your knife. It just feels wrong. It feels like there's this weird delay while you get out your knife. And that meant that I couldn't hit anything without getting hit first. So that just put a bad taste in my mouth of the rest of the game. Obviously, I said I didn't really get very far in it. So I'm just going to call this one an Essential.

31:56 Not Essential. There we go. All right. Joe? So I feel like they really tried to, like, have – they had these really cool ideas, but I just feel like they didn't put enough into each of these ideas to make them work. Like, they were like – it was like the beginning of the ideas were there, but they didn't build the game in a way that it supports those ideas of, like, the – I keep saying those ideas, but I mean those mechanics.

32:21 And for that reason, and for really all the reasons Sean said as well, I'm going to say also not Essential. Yeah, I mean I think it's very clear Rambo on the NES has not been remembered by many people. And I actually thought it was surprising to find this, like, Zelda 2 link to it.

32:38 Link. But, like, for everything that's, like, cool about that, like, tidbit, nothing about, like, even describing that to me. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You ever play this Rambo game? It's like Zelda 2. Like, you play as Sylvester Stallone and you're free in prisoners of war in Vietnam. I'm not like, oh, well, I have to get a hold of that, you know?

32:59 Like, even the description alone, as cool as the, like, fact that an action movie got that kind of, like, treatment on the NES, it's like, nah, I think I'll pass. And that's exactly what wound up happening. And, yes, it's for a lot of the shortcomings of the mechanics and, you know, combat wasn't especially enjoyable by any means. I think overall this game just kind of is really only for, like, fans of that movie at this time.

33:26 Like, even now, fans of the Rambo movies would be better off probably. I mean, I haven't even played it, but you'd be better off playing the Rambo arcade rail shooter for the 360 PS3. Like, this game was a product of its time and it just has enough setbacks there that, like, just leave it not essential. One thing I will say, though, and I know that even without the prior knowledge of knowing that Zelda 2 doesn't have the best reputation,

33:56 I'm not looking forward to that if that's what this game is like. Got it, yeah. It's important to note, a lot of people do think that Zelda 2 has been cheated and, like, stepped on by the wrong people and, like, it just needs its day in the sunlight. You know, like, if only people would play it, they would understand that it's actually good. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. Now people are, like, all the, yeah.

34:18 This is how Zelda games work, by the way. Like, the newest Zelda game is the best Zelda game. And then a year later, it's the worst Zelda game. Like Breath of the Wild, right? Right, right. It's like, oh, yeah, Breath of the Wild, like, you thought that was good? You know, everybody wants tutorials. Everybody wants Skyward Sword, you know? This happened over and over and over again.

34:38 And I think Zelda 2 and Majora's Mask are, like, those two games that, like, didn't quite have that flow because, you know, the games that came before them were considered the best. Yeah. You know, at the time. So it was, like, now people are almost, like, just picking those as their favorite games just because they're, like, I'm not your typical Zelda game.

34:58 Like, Zelda 2 is my favorite. Or, like, Majora's Mask is my favorite because it's, like, an episode of Twin Peaks. You know? It's, like, okay, but, like. It's like you're reading the Reddit comments right now. Well, I'm just saying, like, look. I'm not saying that you're wrong for picking either of those, right? Like, I can actually see people saying Majora's Mask is their favorite Zelda game. And it's just, like, do you remember what a Zelda game is? You know? Like, you enjoy that game. You might not enjoy Zelda games that much.

35:26 They're a little different than Majora's Mask and Zelda 2. I wouldn't know. There you go. Yeah. Same. Yeah, you guys are going to have to do some kind of, like, Zelda marathon for charity one day. It's maybe one of my biggest, like, blind spots in video games that, like, I really wish that I was nostalgic for Zelda games. Nostalgic. You can't just co-opt the word, Mike. I have a copyright on that word. I also have a copyright on Tom Terrific.

35:51 Not a lot of people know that, but it wasn't Tom Seaver. Are you talking about Tom Terrible Brady? Yeah. I'd say that he tried to, like, copyright it. Oh, yeah. People were like, that's Tom Seaver's name. It was actually Nostalgia who copyrighted that.

36:08 So please direct all insults to Nostalgia LLC. Just kidding. We are not an LLC. We're nothing. We're nothing without you, the listeners. We love you guys. Thank you so much for listening. As you may or may not know, we've got some big episodes coming up. Double Dragon next week. Metal Gear, the week after that. Metal Gear. Yeah. You know Sean's pumped. I'm so pumped. How about a double feature of baseball? RBI baseball and bases loaded back to back in episodes 105 and 106. It sounds like this is, like, the lineup to, like, a Saturday night, like, television block. Yeah, we should make a promo, right?

36:40 Yeah. I'm telling you all this now to get you very excited for the next four or five episodes because there's going to be a section very soon where we don't see a good game for a while. In the meantime, 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.