NES box art for Milon's Secret Castle, the cover of NEStalgia episode 119

119 · MILON'S SECRET CASTLE

▶ Game info

VerdictSkip it

GenrePlatformer

ReleasedSeptember 1988

SeasonSeason 4

DeveloperHudson Soft

PublisherHudson Soft

May 15, 2020 · 48 min · transcript available

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Milon lives in the land of Hudson, where people use music to communicate with each other. However, Milon does not possess this ability. One day, he decides to visit Queen Eliza, who lives in Hudson's Secret Castle, but finds that the people have been robbed of their musical instruments and the castle overtaken by the Evil Warlord from the north region. Milon must explore the depths of the mazelike castle while defeating monsters that roam its corridors.

SHOW NOTES

Manual

Milon's Secret Website

Milon's Secret Game Boy Game

DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure

Milon no Hoshizora Shabon: Puzzle Kumikyoku

Saturn Bomberman 10-Player

Famicom Rocky Manga

Our verdict: Skip it

Hudson Soft made and published this 1988 platformer, in which a bubble-blowing kid goes into a castle to rescue a princess. The back of the box can't decide whether it is Milon's Secret Castle or Hudson's Secret Castle, and the castle is actually called Castle Garland. We were lost for most of it. The game is a collection of answers you will never find, with no questions to go with them.

How it works

You walk around a castle hub, go into rooms, and run, jump and blow bubbles, your only attack. You hunt for money and clues that lead to the bosses locking off each floor. The hub is thin, mostly poking in and out of doors. Metroid and Super Mario Bros. 3 got far more out of their hubs and maps.

What doesn't

Guess and check. In the first level the money is hidden in the walls with nothing marking it, and the blocks all look alike, unlike Mario's three kinds. It comes down to shooting everything until you find what you're looking for.
The shoes. The shop that sells the shoes sits behind a block you push by running into it for a few seconds, then shooting the blank space behind it. The shoes let you use springs, and then you need a shrinking potion and a boxing glove. We only know because we looked it up.
The boss. It waits in a window on the overworld, and the arena can look empty, like a glitch. The first boss is a bat-winged dog you hit in the head.
Taking damage. There are no invincibility frames, so touching anything hurts until you move. Linger on the overworld and a thunderstorm chases you, even hitting you during a door animation when you have no control.

Worth knowing

A honeybee hidden in every stage flies away once you find it, and it is the Hudson Soft logo. We also found a fan site, Milon's Secret Website, with every level graphed on graph paper, and we called it beautiful that someone cared this much.

The bottom line

Skip it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. Joe praised the look and some enemy designs but called it "nowhere near an essential game" and wouldn't give it a play either. His theory is that talented people made the puzzles, the answers and the assets and were not allowed to speak to each other. Sean's best praise was "a silky smooth 60 frames per second." We agreed a good game may be hidden in there, but a ROM hack that spells things out might not make it more fun.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

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

Mylon's Secret Castle. Welcome to the land of Hudson's Secret Castle, where people use magic to communicate with each other.

And welcome to NEStalgia, chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And, you know, one thing I want to clear up right away is that the castle is actually called Castle Garland. So is it Mylon's Secret Castle, Hudson's Secret Castle, as was alluded to in the back of the box, or Castle Garland?

We're in the Wild West right now. We're in the Wild West of everything's got different names and the game can say different things as the actual thing that you're reading with the manual. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I love that the back of the box in like one paragraph contradicts itself. It's like, this is Mylon's Secret Castle. Welcome to Hudson's Secret Castle. Whose secret castle is this? I don't know. Yeah. And I don't think anybody ever actually takes ownership over the castle.

Because there's just, you know, this is the typical plot of, you know, going to a castle to find a princess that you have to rescue. And that's all you care about. And, you know, that's really all there is to it. Have you guys heard of Mylon's Secret Castle before? I had never heard of it. It rings a bell. I feel like it's just a name. Maybe it's been since we started this podcast that just, it just has an enticing name to me. But, you know, Secret. I'm interested. But, yeah, I never saw gameplay or anything of it. Joe, that's a great point of enticing titles. Because this one's not too bad. But, you know, there are some NES games that have great titles that don't quite deliver. Can you guys think of any?

Gunsmoke. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Gunsmoke Delivers. No, I'm not talking about Gunsmoke. I'm sorry. It was the other one. You're talking about Gumshoe. Gumshoe. Because you were real excited for that before it came out. I feel like there are others I'm trying to think now. Honestly, I feel like most of them. NES had some cool titles in mostly terrible games. Galaga Demons of Death is a recent one where it's like, oh, it sounds really metal. And then it's not. That sounds metal in the way that a lot of these games are going so over the top with their titles that I already know they're going to be bad. Right, right. All right. So let's just get into the meat and potatoes of the podcast here because I'm sure we all want to talk about this game.

For those of you that don't know what Mylon's Secret Castle is, it's a platformer in which you have like this castle overworld that you then like go into different rooms. And those rooms turn out to be like puzzles or platforming stages, I guess you could would be better to describe them. I think I think Mike's overselling that. It's not really an overworld. It's more just you walk outside of a castle. But I think it's important to make the distinction that nothing can happen outside the castle but exploration because in a way this is kind of like a really early Super Mario 64 in which like the castle is your navigation. But you go into the different rooms to explore those worlds.

Sure. I think it's also important to mention the overworld so that we can then talk about just how purposeless it is and annoying it is. Yeah. So just to continue, you go into these rooms of the castle. You're searching for money and clues that allow you to find these bosses that lock off each floor of the castle. So you can't get to the second or third floor until you defeat the boss. And so you pretty much just have to run, jump, and blow bubbles, which is your attack, to get through the levels and achieve victory.

Sound good, guys? Yeah. Sounds good. Can we talk about the actual story for a second? Please. I know they actually do a good job of including that in the manual. You know, they do as good a job as I guess they can. But they're talking about Mylon, which is your character, your bubble-blowing, side-scrolling character.

And like the world that he lives in, everybody speaks through song or just communicates through song. I don't really know exactly. But apparently your character can't communicate at all, which I think if you're going to establish something like that, you have to at least give us a little bit more than just like, oh, he's going to go and volunteer to help the castle dwellers for this.

They're being invaded by the Empire in the North or something. But if he can't communicate, if there's no music, then how is he even talking to these people? Do you guys have any understanding of what's happening in this game? I'll be honest. I just skimmed the story after playing the game. And I didn't know that it actually meant that music was their only way of communicating. I thought it was just that maybe I just didn't. I missed that. But I thought music was just like important to these people and he couldn't sing. No, I think it was quite literal.

Yeah, I interpret it that way as well, that the people use music to communicate. First sentence, people use music to communicate with each other. So there you go. I guess maybe I just didn't think that that was their only way of speaking, like that was their language. But I guess that is what it means. And it's not so bad to like include some, like, you know, you feel bad for Mylon. Maybe he's the chosen one in some regard because he can't use the music. Like who knows what happened. But it doesn't matter in the scope of the game. There's never a point where like the shopkeeper says like, what's that? Can't understand you.

Like, right. Well, well, like I said, I started I started reading this after playing the game and I had no idea. None of this. I mean, not that it's not that it's always like clear in these NES games what the story is, but like nothing that was written in this story prologue was clear to me in while playing the game. It's a porn plot.

In so many ways, sure. I didn't get that vibe because Mylon looks like a little boy. That's not true. And you're twisting my words, Mike. I'm just saying that there is this idea of a plot, but there isn't one there. Well, when you're talking about this game, I feel like the first thing you want to talk about is just that stupid way Mylon runs throughout the entirety of the game. Please elaborate.

So usually in real life, I don't know about you guys, but sprinting is a thing that like you have a lot of energy for at first, but then, you know, you get tired and you slow down. And in video games, the way they handle that is either you have like a stamina thing or like you hold down a specific button to sprint. I have never seen a character who starts off with like 30 pound weights attached to themselves and then throws those off to the side and start sprinting. What is he building up momentum for running?

Yeah. Tell me, Mike. Mike, I mean, you're a runner, but what's your burst? Can you go from zero to 10 miles an hour immediately? Immediately? I wouldn't say that I could go immediately, but I would say that in the thinking of sprinting, right? You start off fast. You don't start off like walking and then jogging and then sprinting. No one needs to like momentousize themselves for that. You just kick off the blocks.

Doesn't Mario sort of do that too? Doesn't he? I mean, he starts out a little slower. I mean, maybe it's a little smoother of a transition. Yeah, that is basically like the definition of building momentum. Right. I think he's sticky though. He's got sticky shoes.

I think the difference between momentum between someone like Mylon and the way that Mario works in, say, Super Mario Brothers 3 with the P meter is that that meter is gradual. And actually, like the way that it happens isn't that you start off with like no weight and room to jump around and stuff like that. It's that it's a gradual climb. Whereas with Mylon here, you start off feeling like you're unable to move a little bit.

And if you jump, you just kind of like jump straight up and down. And then you build up all this speed and then it immediately goes away because there's no part in any particular level where there's a long stretch to build up speed. Yeah, I agree. Mario games are designed to like run to the right. So like. Yeah, definitely. I'm not saying that Mylon's Secret Castle does it well.

I'm just I just understand why it would be like you start out slower and get quicker as you go. What you're arguing for is isn't so much bad control of the character. This is just the levels designed in this game are not conducive to the way that you want to play. Absolutely true. Yeah. And so let's talk about these levels.

You know, I don't know about you guys, but I did not start off with the manual. This looked like a pretty straightforward kid friendly game to me. And I laugh at that idea now because when I was playing through this game, at first I just had a hard time understanding what I should even be doing in any particular level. Let's talk about the let's talk about the very first level. When you go in there, there's no door to escape. There's no door from where you came. The money is all hidden in the walls with no particular indication of where they are. You know, there's no like, oh, these blocks look a little different. So this is the money. I this is why that like when I play 2D platformers or at least.

But when I play a platformer on this system, I end up having to look at the manual. Like I look at maybe like 80 percent of all the manuals of the games that we play. But if it's a game like this, I need to read the manual because I know that they have such a weird way of setting up their goals and objectives. And a lot of them that I knew that I was going to not understand something. So, yeah, everything that you just described, you need the manual to see.

Right. But I think that the problem then becomes not even like, do you not understand how to play? It's just that even once you know how it works, the way it works, you're still not going to. There's all these little little things you have to do. You have to you have to hit certain bricks with bubbles to find money, but also to find important objects and to open secret doors.

You have to shoot tiles like literally even if it's just even if there's nothing there. Shoot one specific tile to unlock a door. I mean, that's like what the game is, is a series of tasks that have no indication as to where they are or how to do them. There's nothing leading to like some puzzle or like, oh, this would make sense. If I if I shoot this, I'll get the door. No, just shoot everything until you find what you're looking for.

And that's what that's what was frustrating to me. Pretty much. It was that there's some way out of this level. I probably am supposed to get something while I'm here. You have no idea. You just it's just guess and check. Yeah. And I mean, there are some instances where like there is enough of a language established, like a level design language that like you can guess like, oh, this is probably going to have a secret of some sort. Or like I'll be able to break this so I can get out of this little section.

But I'd say 45 percent of the time you're wrong. But did you at least get the idea that that like some of these had some design to them? I mean, maybe if I'm thinking like now that you're mentioning it, there's like, okay, there's a couple of times where there's like three, there's like two bricks and then like a movable brick, which which trust me does not look like you wouldn't know it's movable unless you look it up. But I guess I saw a pattern of like that a couple of times, maybe a few other times, little things. But even the things that you are supposed to do, you don't really even know what your goal is.

Like right off the bat, I'm we're in this this first level. If you finally like uncover all the things to open the door to get out, you're just now out of the first level.

You haven't progressed. Yeah. So and, you know, I I stumbled around until I kind of figured out what to do with a couple of them. I think I had to look it up to figure out how to like get past to get like past after the first two levels, like what I'm supposed to do.

And then after that, like every time you solve something, I don't feel like you've learned some piece of information that will help you next time. Yeah. And so I think we should talk about just that that process for discovering secret rooms or secret shops or ways out. Like, you know, Joe, you were calling it a lot of guesswork and stuff like that. But what did you guys actually do to find anything that was hidden in these in these levels other than just spamming the blow bubble button at every single brick?

Because that's clearly not like that's not effective. It's a waste of everyone's time. It's not going to make the game fun. So how did you try to at least like engage with this game? Well, I mean, I'll just say that I could not figure this game out. Like as much as I just sort of defended its very core game loop, I was stuck on the first floor the entire time I played this game. I basically just played the first two levels and went to the shop a few times because I just couldn't figure it out. So that's really all I could do was run around, blow bubbles, try different walls, like just gawk at these at the secret areas that I knew it was possible to get to. But I couldn't for the life of me find a way into.

So, yeah, this was a very frustrating experience for me. Yeah. And for the record, what you're supposed to do, I don't know how you would know, but what you're apparently supposed to do is there's I think in the first level, there's a secret place where you can buy.

Honestly, I don't even remember what you're buying. The shoes, right? You're buying something. Is it the shoes to help you jump, right? Yeah, the shoes that help you jump. Yeah, the shoes that help you jump on springs. There are springs there. You can't use them unless you're wearing the right shoes that are compatible with springs. I thought that was just supposed to be like, I thought that was just like wooden platforms to mix up. Because I don't know if everybody here knows how springs work, but springs don't let you bounce off of them unless you're wearing compatible shoes in the real world. I forgot about that. Yeah.

So then once you buy those, you have to collect enough money to get like a shrinking potion. And then once you get the shrinking potion, it tells you this at least. Then you have to go to like a boxing glove to shrink down. Oh, I owned the potion and I saw the glove like in the corner of the screen. You couldn't get to it because you didn't have the springs, right? Yeah, so I didn't have the spring trademark shoes.

I knew what I had to do, but I didn't know how to get there. So, and I know we're getting into the nitty gritty right now. Where was this secret shop? I think it was in the first level. The only reason I'm saying I think is because there were a couple little weird hidden things. I think the one where the shoes were was in the first level. There are three tiles like I was talking about, two that are destructible. And then you can run into the tile for like a couple seconds and you'll push it out of the way. Then you shoot the blank space that's behind the tile and it turns into a door and behind the door is a shop.

Sean, he's not even lying. That's the absolute truth and I only know this. I had no idea. I only know that because I looked it up because no way I would have figured that out. And Joe, earlier when you said that there are movable tiles and we keep talking about like tiles like, you know, you could just like in Mario, you can break tiles like sometimes. But in this game, there are random tiles that you can break. I had no idea that you could physically move a tile from one area to another.

I thought you were just miss saying breakable tiles. No, most of them you can't move. And the only reason I know this is because the video I watched actually calls out that, I think it was Angry Video Game Nerd. He calls out that like you will run into this tile for like three seconds before it'll start to move. So most sane people would have stopped trying to move it by that point anyways.

You're just running, running, running, and then it moves out of the way. Yeah, I think also, Sean, just another thing with the Mario tiles that makes them so intuitive is that there's three different kinds. You know, there's the block, which is a brown brickish looking thing that you know that if you hit it, it will be gone forever. Then there's the question mark block, which you can hit for rewards. And then there's just kind of like the after the question mark block's been hit, those solid brown blocks that you know won't do anything. In this game, they all look the same.

And I understand. I was just trying to describe like the actual act that you're doing in the game. I totally understand that Mario is different because it is clearly communicated to you what block does what. There is a weird scenario though, and I know we keep harping on like this first thing, but I think this is as far as most people are going to make it. So for the ability to go to any room of your choice is possible. Like you don't have to start in the very first room that we keep calling room one. You can go to the third room and get to that part where you need the spring of the shoes and not have the shoes yet. And you can still get through that stage without having the shoes.

But you would have to know that a very particular block on the right side, only one of them, you could shoot all the other ones, nothing will happen. But only one of them will actually burst open and make a hole so that you can skip the part that would require the shoes. And you can go to the next segment. Now, how you would ever know that is also, again, just limited down to guesswork. But also, if this whole game has got like this Metroid-style collectibles thing where, you know, like, oh, you don't need all the upgrades in the game, but they'll certainly help.

In this one, it seems like, yeah, you don't need the shoes, but then actually it turns out later you still need the shoes. Like, it will – it's only there to tell you, like, because you couldn't get past the second part of the stage. It would just let you pass the first part of the stage. So this way you can get to the exit, but it wouldn't actually let you, like, beat room three. You would have to then be like, huh, wonder what went wrong in that room. Oh, maybe I need a pair of shoes. Yeah. Joe, it sounds like you were able to make it to some of the boss fights, though, did you? I made it to the first boss fight, which was, I mean – What a disappointment.

So, yeah, you just shoot at it. I mean, you know, it moves back and forth. You shoot at it. It is still, I think, a little challenging just because it's so – like, at that point, your health's probably already pretty low. And, like, you got to hit it right in the head, I think. You have to hit it directly in the head. And it's a dog with, like, bat wings.

Yeah. I just assumed it was just, like, a pretty generic dragon thing. But then after that, once I beat it, I – honestly, that's when I'm like, okay, I'm not – I'm not going any further than this.

But, yeah, it was – honestly, I don't really have too much more to say. It hops around. It drops a little crystal ball afterwards. And then you move on to the next area. And then you put down the game and you look up a video so you can talk about it on the podcast. Well, you know what's funny is I'm glad you brought up the boss thing because I think the most important thing is finding the boss. Because I don't know about you, but it's not communicated that, like, he would be in a window. It's just a window. Right. Yeah. I went into the window.

Like, it was actually the first place I went into. Like, I just – I didn't even realize I pressed the up button and I was transported into this place. And it's just, like, empty. Like, you show up and it looks like there's, like, a trigger fault in the game. Like, a glitch happened. Like, because you're in a place that you're obviously supposed to use as an arena and nothing's happening.

So, I mean, yeah, it's interesting that they left it there for you to just find. But it doesn't seem to – I don't know why it's there. I don't know why. Yeah. I – that was the other thing is because I also went in once before the dragon was there or whatever he is was there. And then when I went in later after I had done the stuff that we talked about earlier, bought those different things, I'm not sure what exactly I did that triggered the boss to be there.

Like, thinking back on it, something that I did made it so the boss was there. But, like, even that was unclear even after I did it. Yeah. Yeah, I think now that you mentioned that, I don't actually – because I'm surprised to hear from Sean that you were able to get in that room but nothing happened. Because I only went in there and he just happened to be there. But I must have done something but it's not communicated.

I think the trigger is you have the shoes and you have the – The mini? Yeah, the little potion. Right. I think that's what it is, that you have those things. But there's no, like, in-story mechanic that makes it make sense that those would make the – You know, that's what bothers me. It's like, oh, you just collect those things and you can move forward because that's how video games work and not because you use the shoes to, I don't know, get to the spot where he is or something like that.

Just to go back to the castle overworld thing that I was talking about, and I don't know if that's – It's like a hub, right? A hub would be a better word. Yeah, that's a better descriptor. Yeah. So this castle hub where all the rooms live and stuff, you know, at first it is pretty boring and everything – Even the rooms are colored the same as the bricks, which I don't think is helpful. But there are a couple of, like, neat things like that well that you have to try to, like, get to from the second floor to go down and access the well room,

which is like a cool little dungeon castle underground area. Does it look different than the regular levels? It does, yes. Oh, okay. It's like a dark blue, and I think it even has different music.

But there's – you know, like, you go down the well and then it takes you to, like, a fire room, which is just, like, a room that's on fire. And you would think I'm just making all this up because, like, why would a bottom of a well have a room on fire?

It's an oil well. And then at the third floor, it's a little bit different because there's these shrines that you can get access to. But otherwise, it's mostly just, like, poking in and out of doors again and stuff like that. And then the fourth floor is just the final challenge boss room style thing. And I think that that's very weak in terms of, like, explorable secrets in a hub.

Yeah, I mean, have – what else have we seen this? I mean, I keep saying that, like, oh, they did something new, so it should be applauded. But, I mean, I guess because I had no opportunity to see these things, I can't really give them too much credit. But, I mean, we haven't seen hub secrets before, so at least they did it. I don't know. Yeah, but that's, like, kind of saying rewarding Metroid for, like, you know, the first area is just the hub and then you take the elevators to get to the real levels.

Like, that – I mean, like, that's a more interesting use of a space, you know, than just having it be a castle that you just kind of go in and out of doors. And then, oh, wait, there's this well and some shrines. But other than that, you don't get anything. Like, I think it would be cool to find other secret rooms that have just power-ups that aren't necessary for progress, but that you could get these power-ups to be stronger than usual. Some kind of, like, RPG elements like that.

Sure. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier you were talking about Super Mario Bros. 3. And, I mean, obviously this is me taking, like, what's widely considered the best game on the NES and comparing it to this. But, like, that would be a good, like, example of – you know, there's plenty of stuff to do just on that little, like, board game overworld map that, like, at first seems like it's just to get you from level to level.

But there's all kinds of little secrets and hidden things there. Yeah. And there's things, like, that you buy in the shop, like Excalibur, the sword, but then it just – it's just your bubbles are stronger. Like, you don't actually wield a sword. Yeah. Um, and there's, uh, there's a feather that, uh, you would think would help you, like, fly, but instead it just lets you use an elevator in one specific room. You've never used, like, a feather key card?

No. Is that a thing? I love that you at least sort of believe me. I like the idea that there is a feather key card and that's, like, a cute reference. Instead it's just garbage.

Uh, all right. So, yeah, Joe, you have something? Well, one more thing on the overworld. Did you guys get the, like, lightning storm thing that was just going on? Yeah. I thought, like, I triggered something.

Um. So did I. Does that just happen randomly? It happens if you linger too long out there. I don't know why it's punishing you for just being on the overworld map. Um. But I guess if you hang out there too long, a thunderstorm happens and lightning will chase you forever now. Because I remember going into a level, finishing it, and then thinking, surely that must be over. And then it's still happening. It's just, I don't know what they're trying to do with anything that they're doing in this game. Yeah. There were probably, it seems like they were like, you know what's cool? Lightning. And then they just put it in the game.

But it bothered me a little bit because also when you would go through a door, you know, there's like a good second of animation there. It can hit you. Even once you're gone. Once you're gone through the door and there's nobody on screen, if the lightning goes through the space that you were, you'll lose health. Same thing with when you're coming out of the doors. So I kept getting hit by when I had no control over my character. That's a great topic. You know, taking damage. Because there's a lot of problems with that. First and foremost being that you don't have any invincibility frames. If you're touching anything, you just take damage until you move out of the way. And whether it's lightning or other opponents in the rooms.

There was another game that we played like this that I don't know if you guys remember that it had a similar problem. I don't know if this is the one you're thinking of, but was it Karate Champ? I think so. Maybe? That's the one where the people would come up behind. Was that Karate Champ? No, Karate Kid. And you're right, Joe. Oh, I was thinking of the one where they come up and they hug you. No, that's Kung Fu. That's really, really one. That's Kung Fu. Kung Fu. That's right. There's so many Karate and Kung Fu games. But I don't know if that's the one you're thinking of. That's the one that came to my mind. I think that that's just something that has been established already.

It's a good design choice to allow the player to at least get out of harm's way once they take damage. And they just ignored that. Yeah, that can be a little frustrating too. Yeah. And in the opposite realm of like your lifespan and stuff like that, there's those honeycombs that will actually give you an extra life bar so that you can continue to extend your life. Yeah. But they're just hidden randomly. There's no... They're in every single stage. You just got to try and shoot every block to find it if you really want to have more health. Exactly. And you need to do that because once you die once, that's the game.

And there's music boxes hidden in each level too, which bring you to a bonus stage that made no sense to me. It was just like this band was playing and you have to collect these music notes that just pop up from the ground. And it doesn't really care whether you collect a lot or a little or in between.

You're not rewarded or harmed in any particular way. So what I read, and only because I read the manual because I never got to play any of these levels, was that if you collect the music notes and you want to keep getting sharps, like sharp notes, but if you get flat notes, then you're penalized. So maybe you just collected everything you could and didn't notice. Which is true. Yeah. And maybe what I think you're supposed to get some reward. At least that's what I saw in the manual. So maybe they weren't clear with that either.

Is there like, even if, like, even outside of the game, is that like, even if it's not explained, is there some like reason that sharp notes would be good and flat notes would be bad? Well, sharp notes are historically proven to be the better sounding note.

Is this true? No. I don't think so. Historically? Everybody believes everything Sean says and he's just lying. Well, we all know about feather keys now, thankfully. Totally. The other hidden item in every single stage is that honey bee that just like flies away after you discover it. And that's actually the Hudson Soft logo. Hudson Soft being the makers of this game. And that's the bee, Sean. Did you see it? That's the bee I keep talking about. I saw the bee, Mike, and I recognized the bee. Okay, good. I'm glad that you'll think of me every time you see the bee. Yeah, I actually will. Yeah. Whenever you're playing this game again in the future.

I guess this counts as a hidden thing in each stage, but there's also the keys to get out or hidden in each stage, but they also only appear when you collect either $4 or reveal 15 blocks or kill five enemies. Yeah, that I didn't understand. I knew that had to be something, like there had to be some prerequisite to finding the key because the first time I played the second level, I was just stuck. I didn't know why I couldn't find a key, even though I felt like I broke everything.

Right, right. It makes sense. And I just, I have to shout out to a website because we're all talking about like looking up guides and stuff like that, but I always look for the pure dedication of people who love old NES games to try to get like the best way to inform myself about these games. And I found this website called Mylon's Secret Website, which is clearly a fan-made website by this one guy. Oh, I love it. But it's a work of art because he has like every single level graphed out on graph paper,

you know, like mapping out like this door and this is where the things are hidden. And it's just, it truly is beautiful that someone cared this much about the game that we are now taking a huge dump on. It's crazy. It's crazy that whatever game it is, you'll find somebody that has that kind of dedication to it. And I'm not going to pretend to understand it, but I sure as hell can appreciate it.

Let's all say something nice about Mylon's Secret Castle. You first. Yeah, go for it, Joe. I actually do have a good, a real compliment for it. I think that aesthetically, it's designed nicely. And some of the enemies have good designs too. Okay. That actually is something genuinely wholesome. Yeah. I mean, I think it's questionable whether or not it's truly good or just passable, but I'll allow that. Sean, something nice. Something nice. No, no, no. I'm just saying that if you're going to say something nice, at least make it true.

We're not putting it out. You don't think it's a nice looking game? That's a participation award, dude. No, no, no. I'm giving it a genuine compliment. Just because I don't like the game doesn't mean I can't find good things about it. My nice thing. Yeah, go for it. My nice thing is that hidden inside this game, like all those items and all that cash and stuff, hidden inside of this game is a great game. You just have to actually, you know, design the game in a way that all of this stuff actually makes sense. And is it just random guesswork? Yeah. I think if you used a slightly different sprite for breakable blocks, maybe had a little bit more explanation as to what was needed. Maybe some cool cut scenes. Maybe making it open world.

I knew that was coming. I don't even think it needed like a tutorial or anything. I think it just needed to guide the player a little more like on the nose. And some people would have hated that. But I think just the idea of how complicated it is to even understand the shoes thing, right? The very first collectible in the game. One of many. There's going to be many things you have to get in this game. And just I can't overstate like it's so weird that they don't care if you find out about it or not.

Like the fact that you have to push that weird block that you would never think to do unless you read the manual. And it's like, yeah, the manual is kind of guiding you. But I care about games that actually guide you through like the cleverness of the game design itself. If there were even like an arrow there telling you like, hey, did you know you can move these blocks if you want to? Like there's a shoe in here. Like things like that. Some sort of context that would make you try these things.

Exactly. The game is like a collection of these answers that you'll never find with no questions. There's no actual like, yeah, there's no actual reason to think like, oh, how would I get this? Maybe it's by getting shoes. Like there's no context to that. Because I've been I've been trying to think of like, you know, how we got from here with just unexplainable reasons for for the character to do things in a game to like 2013 or something with Final Fantasy 13, giving you a recap of everything that happened, like every 10 minutes and making every every battle a tutorial battle.

Somewhere along the line, we went from one extreme to another. And just like anybody that plays games doesn't want either of these extremes. We just if you're going to have like mysterious things that you have to figure out on your own, this have to make sense within the game logic or in real time logic. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know where we went wrong. I absolutely agree with you, because I think it's why games like Mega Man X and Super Mario Brothers one, like it's a reason why they're so talked about all the time is because they set up exactly what you need to do without ever telling you like push this button to do this or hey, just so you know, this is a thing you can do. Like it just explores it within the level.

Hey, listen. So you couldn't have thought that Mylon's secret castle was the only secret castle that Mylon would be exploring, right? I mean, obviously, this is a love, a loved franchise that that has had many castles, right? It's a it's an iffy answer there. Mylon is not a mascot by any sense of the imagination. Hudson Soft will go on to do much better things like make the Mario Party games. So they didn't they didn't do too much with the character, but they did port Mylon's secret castle to Game Boy, which makes sense considering how bare bones it is. I'm sure it could fit on a Game Boy.

And they later in 1996 on the Super Famicom, which is pretty late in the Famicom, Super Famicom journey. They released a game called Do-Re-Mi Fantasy Mylon's Doki Doki Adventure.

So that still has the musical thing. What does Doki Doki mean? I would love to know. I have no idea. I don't want to have it spoiled, actually, so I don't love to know. Don't tell me. But yeah, Do-Re-Mi, that's still musical. Hopefully the characters actually talk in music in this one because, you know, it's got that 16-bit architecture.

I'm pretty sure there's no talking whatsoever because it kind of just became a generic platformer. There's no castle anymore. It's just him through like a like a rainforest. Okay. Yeah, that doesn't make sense at all. Yeah, but it's pretty colorful. There's no castle at all? There's no castle. That's a ripoff. Yeah, you would think he would like be leaving a castle in the beginning of this game and then being like, well, I'm off to the jungle.

But he's not. All right, what else do I have here? I have some Mylon no Hoji Zora Jaban puzzle Kimokoyu. Okay. Nailed that title. But that's basically what Mylon's been reduced to at this stage of his life. He's like a bubble bubble type game where he shoots these bubbles because that's what he was doing. Three colors in a row and they break off just like in bubble bubble. I mean, is that even really being reduced at this point? Sounds like an upgrade. You think that that would be the equivalent of like Mario just being Dr. Mario. Except Mario's good.

No, I know. I'm saying like... Like maybe if you just completely change the format, you have a chance of like just starting from scratch and making something that's fun. Yeah. Well, it didn't take him off the... It didn't like bring him back to life. So I assume he died there. Yeah. He is a playable character in Saturn Bomberman, which is that one weird Bomberman game on the Sega Saturn where 10 players can play at the same time. Wow. I didn't even know I had the capability to do that. Oh, that's like the best thing about that whole system. People always talk about Saturn Bomberman. If you can find 10 people in a room and put them all at the same TV.

That's cute. What I would like to see Mylon in is like, you know, Marvel versus Capcom or something like that. Absolutely. Or, yeah, Marvel versus Hudson Soft. Yeah. Or, you know, maybe I'll just make him in WWE 2020, you know? There you go. I'm sure he'd look great. And the last thing I found out about was this manga called Famicom Rocky.

And it was this like... It's described on the Giant Bomb website because they did a deep dive on it. It's described on Giant Bomb as basically Rocky the Movie, which is why it's called Famicom Rocky. But instead of him like training for a boxing fight, he's just training to play like old Famicom era video games. Okay. And so Mylon's Secret Castle is one of those games that he plays. So that's great. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's just a really weird thing. I'll link it in the show notes. I think it's always worth finding out about these weird mangas. Because this is like... Famicom Rocky is like their Howard and Nestor, I guess. What is Howard and Nestor?

Oh, Howard and Nestor was the Nintendo Power comic strip for like the first hundred issues. They had a... Howard was Howard Phillips, who was the... Like the guy who played every Nintendo game ever. That was his job. And Nintendo really marketed him as like this cool thing. Like, look, this guy gets paid to play video games. Wow. So Famicom Rocky would be like the, you know, the shonen alternative. Okay. I don't have... I'm stretching right now, so I have nothing else to say. Let's get into the essential games list.

Joe, you said some nice things about Mylon's Secret Castle, so I'd like you to go first. Please tell us your essential games list. Well, I am currently watching a video of a lot of it right now, and I do stand by. I think there are some cool designed enemies here. And also, I'm noticing there... Like, you mentioned that this game, there are like things that had potential to be good.

And that is a really nice way of putting it, because really, I don't think any of the gameplay in this game is good. But I'm watching a level here where there's like ice blocks, and if you stand on top of them, they melt, and you have to kind of make it right through, which is a cool idea for like a mechanic of like getting through a sort of maze.

But it doesn't look like it actually functions in any cool way. So what I've concluded is that this game was made by a bunch of people who are all good at what they do. One person who like made the puzzles, but a different person who made the answers to the puzzles, and a different person who made the assets as the person who designed where they go. And these people were not allowed to speak to each other as they made the game. Like, that's what it feels like. There are a bunch of cool little elements that just make no sense together, that don't work together.

So yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm going to surprise anyone. But yeah, this is nowhere near an essential game. I wouldn't give it a play either. Got it. And so Sean, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you refuse to say anything nice about this game. No, you know what, Mike? So please tell us your vote. Like, now that I think about it, like this game performs really well. It always runs at like a silky smooth 60 frames per second. I didn't count any frame drops when I was playing. Very few glitches.

You know, when I ran, when I pressed right, I ran to the right. When I pressed jump, I jumped. Like, they definitely got all the basic things down to make a video game. But other than that, like, I can't really find anything really good to say about this game. So it's not essential. Yeah, I mean, really, at the end of the day, it's not Grand Theft Auto 6. It's not. So it's not going to, that's the next game that's going on our essential games list.

I could go on for a while about, like, why this game isn't Super Mario Brothers. And I think that that's important because Super Mario Brothers is like the platformer that we hold up to the skies right now. And so that's why you need to understand why these kinds of games don't get on the essential games list. But I feel like I'd just be wasting time because I'm pretty positive almost all of our audience would agree with us that this is not an essential game. There's just no way that this belongs on the same list as the other greats.

Whether there's actually a good game hidden in there, like I was alluding to earlier, I think it would require a massive overhaul. I think there's, like, a few nice ideas. But you could say that about a lot of video games. So I was, like, I was half serious, half joking on that. But I think even a ROM hack version that, like, spells things out a little more wouldn't necessarily find a more enjoyable experience. You'd have to really look into this game again and think about what you were trying to do with it. And for that reason, it's not essential. All right, guys. That's the episode. We can leave the castle. Did everybody collect $4?

Yeah, I've been panhandling at the entrance. I was unclear on whether I was supposed to do that or not. Right. And, you know, we have a good one. We have a good one next week. We have Wheel of Fortune. I love it. I love these. On the NES. I love these game show games. Not just like we're not going on the game show. Oh, we're not going to do the game show this time? Well, you know, I was thinking about that, Sean. Wheel of Fortune is not really a game that lends itself to trivia. But I also think that, you know, there's no way that our audience is going to listen to us basically play a giant extended 45-minute game of Hangman. With no visuals either.

So we're just going to talk about Wheel of Fortune, but maybe Pat Sajak will make an appearance. You better live up to that promise. Well, if I don't, all you have to do is just Google Pat Sajak Rugrats and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. You'll see a picture of a spitting image of Pat Sajak. Can we get like a – I remember that. Can we get a Pat Sajak audio deepfake? I could arrange something like that. I think that would be funny to have Vanna turn the tiles too.

The audience. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, yeah. I'm sorry if I ruined anyone's day by talking about Pat Sajak on the Rugrats. It is a scary image. Look no further than Pat Sajak's son on Rugrats. That's also something you can Google and exist. So I don't know what – do you think that – Joe, do you think he agreed to be on that? Or did they just use him wiser? I can see it clearly in my head, but was it actually like – did they actually say it's Pat Sajak or was it just clearly like – It said Pat Sajak. Dear God. I'm looking at it right now. Yeah. It's frightening, right? Yeah, it's very frightening. Did you look up Pat Sajak's son? I assume he agreed. He's got a big head. Pat Sajak's son. Oh, God. Rugrats.

What is going on with this kid? My guess – my guess would be that he agreed, but they didn't show him the image. They didn't show him the character before. He didn't have to prove that. Right. Just like how Dr. Phil didn't sign off on Dr. Lipschitz before they drew him. I'm just – Is Dr. Lipschitz related? No, no. Dr. Phil is – Dr. Phil is actually just trying to be Dr. Lipschitz. Yeah, he loved Rugrats. And I do hope that everybody just is happy that we do have a Pat Sajak Funko Pop. Oh, we do? They apparently exist. All right. We're going to have to save all this stuff for the actual episode. So join us next week for Wheel of Fortune and hopefully your fortune is good until then.

We'll see you next week.