122 · 1943: The Battle of Midway

• The most crucial and decisive battle of World War II is about to be fought
• Manual: http://www.thegameisafootarcade.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1943-The-Battle-of-Midway-Game-Manual.pdf
• Introductions
  • If i had to describe 1942 it would be BEEP BEEP BEEP
  • Our last Capcom game was Legendary Wings
• Overview
  • The Battle of Midway was fought between the Imperial Japanese Navy commanded by Isoroku Yamamoto and the United States Navy commanded by Chester W. Nimitz. This battle took place just 7 months following the Attack on Pearl Harbor on June 4th, 1942. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor as well as their tactical victory at the Battle of the Coral Sea, Yamamoto firmly believed that an assault near the small island of Midway would lead to a decisive victory for Japan. This ended up being a decisive victory however not in Japan's favor.
• Gameplay
  • The NES version of 1943 introduced the ability to improve the player's plane by permanently upgrading certain aspects of its abilities.
    • offensive and defensive powers, the maximum fuel level, and its special weapons and their durations.
    • initially very few weapons are made available; more can be attained from power-ups by putting statistic points into "special weapons ability"
    • WHAT WAS YOUR LOADOUT?
  • Fuel Gage
    • Was it ever really enough? I should like it, because it allows you to endure multiple hits, BUT I really hated the fuel idea. The levels are very short bursts so the idea that your plane would be out of fuel seems kinda silly. Couple that with tying it to HP and it really doesn’t work out.
  • SHMUP Loop
    • Power Ups - Trading off between that and fuel
    • Enemies - Nice to have different sizes of enemy planes
    • Design - Improved from 1942 but still generic since it’s mostly over sea.
    • Boss Battles
      • Giant ships with many points to target. If you don’t kill everything you have to restart that part of the boss battle.
  • SHMUP with a Password
    • 24 stages
  • Improvement from 1942
    • port was also handled by Capcom rather than Micronics, so it’s a big step above the original’s NES port
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • 1943: The Battle of Midway Mark II
    • Most of the graphics and sounds have been reworked, and the game has been made more "extreme"
  • 1941: Counter Attack - 1990 Arcade
  • 19XX: The War Against Destiny - 1996 Arcade (First to use CPS-2)
  • 1944: The Loop Master - 2000 Arcade and GameTap
• EGL

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

00:00 The most crucial and decisive battle of World War II is about to be fought. 1943, Battle of Midway.

00:23 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, today we are playing what's not really like our first sequel, but it's like a sequel to a game that we really didn't like.

00:50 You guys hated this one. I did. I hated it very much. Yeah, I was not a fan, particularly because I remember playing it as a kid and thought it was going to bring back all the nostalgia for me. And really, I just was frustrated. Yeah, it really, it really brought, put a bad taste in my mouth for all of the shmups to come.

01:08 Yeah. And you know, it's funny because at this point now, like 1942 might have been our very first shmup. But now we've played so many of them and really just games from Capcom and Konami. They just continue to put like shmup after shmup. And Capcom, the last game we played from them was Legendary Wings. And I find that to be a very forgettable shmup. What about you guys? I didn't hate, I didn't hate Legendary Wings, but I also don't remember much about it. Yeah, the same as Joe. Um, but no, I was just gonna say, I don't remember too much about it. I remember being very similar. Like, it's just as if I remember being like a middle of the road. Yeah, it had like vertical and horizontal shmup levels. Yes, I do remember. You were like an angel.

01:53 It just, I don't know. It wasn't a lot of connective. It flew into that thing's mouth, right? And there was like a bonus level in there and like things like that. Is that the one I'm thinking of? Yes. That's exactly the one. So we got rid of the beeps in 1943 here, but we also, we got rid of a lot of things. So I think just to give an overview of what 1943, the Battle of Midway is all about. The Battle of Midway was fought between the Imperial Japanese Navy, commanded by Yamamoto, and the United States Navy, commanded by Nimitz. And this battle took place just seven months following the attack on Pearl Harbor on June 4th, 1942. Right. Which is what gives it the name, 1943. We had hardcore history right now.

02:36 I thought it would be funny if I gave an overview of the actual Battle of Midway. But it is, I think it is important. And now an interview with a Navy pilot from back then. I think it is important though, because in the history of it, we learned that it took place in 1942, not 1943. Which makes it just funny that they, their best option to name the sequel to 1942, not wanting to do 1942 to, they just named it the next year, which is not when the battle took place. That's great. I love that name in convention, but I don't understand, is the subtitle literally Battle of Midway? Because I don't see that written anywhere.

03:15 See, I'm under the impression just looking at like the instructions manual, that it has it in there. I actually don't have the box art for reference, but I thought it was there. Yeah, it's definitely on the manual. The important thing too though, Sean, to your point, Sean, there is that this was an arcade game for a long time before it became an NES game. So it is possible that they didn't feel the need to include the Battle of Midway. But I also think in Japan, it wasn't referred to by its actual historical battle. And instead it was called like the Battle of Valhalla or something like that. Yeah, that would probably ruffle some feathers. Right. Yeah.

03:54 But if it is, was originally an arcade game, is it possible that it did that thing that we've seen a lot of other things do where when it gets ported to the NES, it just gets like an arbitrary subtitle. Well, this one's not arbitrary, but just gets a subtitle to differentiate it or make it feel like a different experience. No, because I know it had Battle of Midway in the arcade because they wound up eventually releasing like Battle of Midway Mark II. Gotcha. They got very creative. They didn't just call it 1944?

04:22 Or 1943 too? Yeah. It was Battlefield 1949. It should have been 1941.8 over two days. Oh, God. They're really limiting the... They're really 3.58 over two days. They are limiting themselves though. Because 1944, 45 is the end, right? So like you can only have like three games left at best. Well, I think that after that they would go like 1944, like January, and then like February. Yeah, 1944 January 1st. Then 1944 January 2nd. Yeah, it'd be fun. And in many ways, that is a Tetsuya Nomura naming convention.

05:07 So we're not going to talk about the arcade game, but I think it's important for everyone to know that the NES version is the version of 1943 that introduces the mechanic that lets you improve your plane by divvying out like various progression points to your fuel gauge or your power or your defense in the arcade. In the arcade, none of that was there. You just had the standard plane that you found in 1942, and you just continuously kept going, you know, throughout each level, never upgrading or changing your ship.

05:44 Yeah, I mean, I like the concept. I played through it a couple times with dispersing my skill points or whatever you want to say in different areas. I couldn't really feel any different. It didn't feel much different to me at all. But it's cool that it's there. Yeah, I felt like, I mean, I don't know if I experimented enough to really say which ones I thought were the best. But I ended up putting a lot of my my points into either offensive power or energy level. And I and I'm not sure how much use I would have gotten out of some like defensive power, which sounds like it would be helpful. But at least for the way I was playing the game, I don't think it would have helped me that much.

06:28 Just because your your your defensive power like defends you until you get to like one hit left and then you die. And I spend most of the game on one hit left and then I die. So like it just postpones that a little bit for me.

06:43 And I feel like offense was was the most useful for me. Yeah. So you guys didn't have like a specific loadout that you preferred when you started the game. They let you distribute three points across the five different categories, which are offensive and defensive power, your maximum fuel level and special weapons and how long those special weapons like the duration on them. I never touched the special weapons thing.

07:09 But for me, I found that the maximum fuel level, the energy thing that Joe was referring to, I found that to be the most important thing because it's the only thing standing between you and this being a regular shmup where one hit kills you. Yeah, I also didn't touch the special gauge that much because everything about this game is so accurate as far as any S game can be up until the idea that this plane can like summon the power of weather and Zeus like lightning bolting you.

07:44 So I just didn't I just chose not to do that for aesthetic reasons. Yeah, I preferred in 1942 when you got to just do like the barrel roll to get away from enemies. Yeah, you can still do that.

07:56 I think if you use special too many times along those lines, it's the same button, I think. Yeah, but it but it does. It does make it. It almost incentivizes you not to ever use it to get away from enemies because then you waste one of your special attacks. Yeah, that's you know, I thought that was a little bit of a flaw not to not to. Praise 1942 over 1943 at all.

08:21 So before we talk about like the actual game, I want to talk about this fuel gauge because it's the most interesting part of this shmup, the one that differentiates it from all the other ones that we played on the NES so far. And the idea basically is as we talked about here is that it was in it was think of the fuel gauge as your HP level.

08:39 So if you have 99, you it counts down from there. So you whether you're playing or not similar to that Dragon Ball game on the NES where like no matter what you do, the HP just keeps going down. But it also goes down if you get hit by something. So you don't just take one hit in this shmup. You can theoretically take like seven or eight on a good day before you deplete your fuel. But even if your fuel is at zero, you still have an option to take on one more hit and then you'll be gone for good. My question for either of you is, was this was this really enough, though?

09:13 Like I should like the fact that I don't it's not a one hit KO game. It allows you to endure multiple hits. But I really hated the fuel idea because the levels are the levels are very short bursts of interactivity. So the idea that your plane would be out of fuel seems kind of silly. And couple that with tying it to something like HP and something that just continuously falls down. It really doesn't work out. I never really found myself being able to manage my HP to be high enough by the time I got to a boss battle.

09:44 I think. Go ahead. Go ahead, Jeff. I was just going to say I completely agree that it was I think it's a really cool idea and it should be something that works better. But I think that that coupled with the fact that your fuel gauge or HP or whatever you want to call it is constantly draining no matter what. Like it's almost like a time limit that makes it so like almost always if you get fuel.

10:08 You'll run out of it by the time you find more fuel. So like I feel like once you get to zero, you're never in that level going to get back up to max or to more than a few hits. I thought that it was fine. The thing I was very critical of the draining health gauge in in the Dragon Ball game because it just reaching zero is game over for you. Like that didn't matter what you were doing. Didn't matter if you were like a pixel away from picking up some replenishment or the end of a level. It just ended right there because you were out of life time, whatever unit.

10:48 But in this game, if it gets to zero or zero ish, like you can just sort of cruise there and sort of act like a normal shmup where if you get hit, you die. So I think that it was an all right amount of leniency on the game's part.

11:06 I mean, really, the fact that it drains, I guess, isn't that important to me. It's just if you can't get those red planes that if you get all of them, it drops some energy, you're kind of shit out of luck. So it makes you more wary of picking up energy pickups when you can. Yeah. But I didn't have the same problems you guys had with it. See, because I do still feel like that you could accomplish that, though, without because it's a shmup and because, I mean, probably the regular player gets hit enough times where I think you're still going to want to like manage your energy level as much as possible.

11:47 Whereas when it's just constantly draining, it almost feels like you have very little control. It's just when you find an energy thing, pick it up. But it's going to drain whether you're playing good or you're playing bad. So it felt like after the first 30 seconds of the level, you're back to playing just pretty much a regular shmup with like a little boost once in a while. Not saying that it's anywhere near as bad as Dragon Ball was, where like at least this doesn't completely hinder you. You can still play this as a regular shmup.

12:17 But that's what made me feel like the intent that they had behind putting it in there was kind of lost because... I guess some of it could be like the... We're seeing more of the negative here because we see the fuel as like your baseline should be 64 or 99 or whatever your max is. But really, any amount that you have over 20 is sort of a bonus. So if it's draining, it's just like you may as well be a bit more risky while you have this extra life than you would otherwise.

12:55 I don't know. I guess it just depends on how you want to look at it. Yeah, that's fair. I'll agree with you there, Sean. I think that's an interesting thing that I didn't consider not being a pro player. But if you're a pro player of shmups, having the fuel gauge not countdown might almost make the game too easy. And so this kind of keeps it at a level playing field and almost is like a fun advantage for newbies, but also something that they have to remember to deal with.

13:52 I think that's a good thing.

14:09 You were talking about the trade-off in the power-ups that you get from the Red Plains, which is like a traditional shmup trope where like a series of enemies come down that are slightly different colored. And, you know, if you kill all of them, you'll get this power-up to appear on screen. And I like how that's communicated now in shmups, just like a untold law. You know, how do these things happen? How do all developers like communicate with each other and say, this is what we're going to do? It's called sublimation.

14:38 Devastation. Got it. And so once you kill all those Red Plains, once you kill all those Red Plains and you get like a POW symbol or something, you could just take that or you can keep shooting at it and you can get,

14:51 you can turn it into a spread weapon and you can also turn it into like a larger amount of fuel until a certain point where it just like is a permanent, like it can no longer be changed into anything anymore. And it's like the maximum amount of fuel you can collect. That is something I didn't even notice. I didn't know that you could keep shooting it and it would morph. I just picked it up immediately. Oh, it's funny. Yeah. It's really weird. As you, as you keep shooting it, it changes like its icon a little bit. And then it ends with like what looks like two fuel canisters as the final thing. I thought I might be wrong, but I thought that once you get those two fuel canisters, if you keep shooting it, you'll turn it back into the POW symbol.

15:34 Oh, you know, I never shot beyond that because that it didn't keep moving forward when I shot it, but that's something that might be true. I didn't, can you confirm that? I'm pretty sure I did it earlier. I was playing a game to refresh myself. Can you prove it right now, Joe? Yeah, I have, I have proof, but, uh, but you can't see it. Uh, I'm pretty sure I did it earlier. I can't, I can't confirm, but that's, that's how my memory works.

15:57 I liked the spread weapon too. Um, the one that shoots out like three directional, um, ammo. But again, that is tied to like a limited amount, uh, of like, you only get like 12 of these in your capacity. And like, yeah, that happens in like, in terms of ammo in games and stuff like that. And we've even seen that in like guns, uh, gun dot smoke. Uh, but you know, I just thought it was weird here because in a shmup, the whole idea is like, once you have that power up, that's like, now your ship's a little more bad-ass. Now it's like, okay, your ship's a little more bad-ass for eight shots. Yeah, I guess this game isn't really going for the same power fantasy that something like Gradius is.

16:36 Um, what they're going for instead, I'm not really sure. Um, but. This is the gritty World War II game that we've all been craving for. Yeah, exactly. Uh, yeah, I didn't mind the, you know, the, the different, the power up only lasting for a little while. You know, I think we're just used to like, yeah, the ability to customize or add new things and keep them until you get hit. Um, but that didn't bother me. It's, it just, it's almost like getting, it's not the same, but it's like, it's like getting a, the star in Mario or just getting something that gives you like a temporary boost in any number of games. Joe, what did you think about the, the enemies throughout the game?

17:11 I thought it was pretty nice to have different sizes of enemy planes, uh, constantly on the screen with you. So you'll have like some really big ships that can offload smaller, sorry, really big planes that can offload smaller planes. And then you have bigger planes that shoot ammo back at you. You have, uh, boats that, uh, can attack from, uh, that thankfully you don't have to like, you don't have to bomb them. You can just shoot them. What did you think of all that? Uh, I thought it was, I thought it was a nice variety. I mean, to be honest, the thing that stuck out to me the most about the enemy variety or about the enemies in general is that they did something that I feel like you don't see in a lot of shmups where they don't just,

17:48 you don't just fly by you and then are gone forever. They like fly up to you in like a formation and they flip around and they turn back like they, like a plane would do like, like an enemy would do. They wouldn't just fly by you and then just keep flying forever away from you. Uh, I thought it was interesting that they, they fly in little formations up to you to attack you.

18:07 Um, some of them, like, and like you said, there's a variety. There are some that have bigger ones that come from behind you and shoot off little planes. It was, it was nice to see a little variety, especially if you're thinking back to 1942, where there was a lot less of that. And Sean, what about like the overall design of the game aesthetically? I will say that this is like 1942 remastered. Uh, it, I actually went back to, to, um, play 1942 for a bit after I played through 1943

18:38 and it's, it's like a whole new generation. Like the, the, it performs better. Uh, the music is actually music. Um, and the, uh, what, the places that you're flying over are actually, they look kind of nice. Like there's some parallax going on when you're in the first stage of a level, when you're above the clouds and you see the ocean beneath it. And then, uh, at like, I don't know, like two thirds of the way through, it'll say that it found, uh, uh, a water-based target and then you get closer. And so I don't, I really, I like the art in this game. I think that it, it has a nice aesthetic going for it.

19:21 Yeah, I think, I think you said it best there with the definitely an improvement or even remaster over 1942. I, I kind of wish that they, uh, you know, and I understand why, if it's the Battle of Midway, why there's so much sea, but I wish we would have gotten like some other landscapes just to, uh, you know, just to see what they would have done with the design of like a mountain range or something like that. I guess that would be the Battle of, of Mount Everest, Mike. Right, whoops.

19:54 You know, it's funny is, is like, aesthetically, like, you know, all those things are great. And like Joe said, the variety of enemies is fantastic. But did you guys ever notice that if you shoot in just like some odd places every now and again, you get some really weird icons in this game. At one point, like a cow revealed itself as like a power-up for me. Did you guys see that? I did not see the cow. I only saw an elephant, a pink elephant. I think that was a cat.

20:22 Because I, yeah, I was wondering, because I couldn't find it in the manual, but when I saw it in the game, it was so clearly an elephant to me. And then I looked back in the manual and there's no elephant. Maybe the cat, but even that doesn't look anything like what I remember seeing. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. It's super funny. They don't do anything. They're just for like bonus points. Like the cow doesn't give you like the power to shoot milk, unfortunately.

20:45 I think if you max out your offense power all the way, you get milk shooting. Well, Joe, you joke, but there is an option, right? Like to continue on. Like you wouldn't know it if you're just passively playing this game. But if you're shooting all over the screen, there are other opportunities to continue to progress your ship to be even better. Did you guys ever get a chance to like attribute more points to your ship towards specific loadouts?

21:13 One time, I think before like the third boss or something, just before the boss battle, it was like, yeah, and then the screen just randomly was like, oh, here you go again. You can, you can. Yeah, I got one. I don't remember if I picked something up that allowed me to do that or if I just had enough points or if it just happens at that point in the game.

21:32 But yeah, it happened to me once. That's interesting because there is like, and I don't know if it's specifically just the flower power up or if other power ups, sorry, not power ups, the bonus characters, if other bonus characters allow for it as well. But if you shoot in certain places on the screen, even if there's not an enemy there, you might notice like a registered hit.

21:53 And so if you shoot at that area, like, and it doesn't have to be anything. It could just literally be the sea, you know, blink and you'll miss it. But if you shoot at that a few more times, a special bonus character will reveal itself. And in my case, a flower did. And when I went into, when I like ran into the flower, what wound up happening was it took me to the progression screen and I got to attribute another point to another area.

22:17 Huh. Okay. So it's pretty cool that you have that option to like, you know, continue to upgrade your ship outside of just the start menu. Yeah. Otherwise, the whole system is kind of worthless.

22:33 Because it's got, it's got all of these spaces. Right. And you only have three points. Yeah. It'll make sense that you'd be able to do that. I did, not to go off the rails here, but I did just, I'm watching a video of the game right now and I did just find the elephant in this video. That's 100% an elephant. Yeah. It's an elephant. Yeah. Maybe we could put it in the, a link to an image of it somewhere or something, but like, it's an elephant, but it's not in the manual. I'll link it in the show notes and we'll write to Nintendo. And ask them why they made this blunder.

23:06 You know, something else that's interesting, since we're talking about, you know, the progression of this. And I know Sean, you said it was kind of obvious, but like, I don't know. I felt like I really didn't care about the progression system of this at all. And maybe it was good. It didn't matter that much, but like for something, that's a really cool idea at the start of your game, like, okay, customize your ship, right? Like that idea goes away really quickly. And by like level three, I've completely forgotten that like my ship is, unique to like a loadout that I've chosen.

23:34 Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, it's because I didn't notice too much of a difference. And I guess if you're going to have something like that, there better be, uh, there better be a visible difference between the stats that you're using.

23:56 And so, you know, at the end of most levels there, or maybe all of them, I didn't get too far in this game. Uh, there's a boss battle, uh, which is either like a giant, uh, ship or a giant plane or a bunch of ships. Uh, and you know, there's many points to target. It's not like just shoot the core or something like that. Like we've seen in other games.

24:17 What did you guys think of these boss battles? I found it kind of weird that if you don't kill everything on the screen, you have to restart back to that part of the boss battle, but with everything else still dead. But I don't think you have to kill everything. I think you have to get like a passing grade in the percentage of what you, what you, you know, I mean, if you miss one gunner on, on the boat, then you have to restart and then kill that gun on the boat. I didn't think that was true. Maybe for just the boat. I definitely, for at least one of the boss battles, maybe two that got by with like 60% or 70% or something.

24:53 Especially that there's one that's like a giant plane towards the end. I, I beat that with like 60% and it let me move on. Then there were, you know, the first two I might've gotten a hundred. So I don't know, but there were definitely other ones where like, I would go back through and kill and get like 95% even. And it would let me move on.

25:10 It's just, it's strange that like your copy of the game would allow you to be so mediocre. I think it's heard of me. So it just knows like, it knows like that I don't like shmups. He's not going to be able to do this. Yeah. Like they probably listen to the podcast. They know how much I hate shmups. They want to get a good review on the podcast.

25:28 So you're getting developer copies. Yeah. They're sending me. We, we only choose things that we're paid to talk about. So far it just happens to be every NES game in order.

25:40 Now, Joe, let me, let me ask you something here because, you know, I understand both sides of this. So do you think that the, the passing grade argument is like better for the gameplay or do you think you should have to 100% destroy the ship? I mean, I don't feel too strongly on it. I think it is weird to not make you have to 100% destroy it. It was interesting that there, that there were times where you can like,

26:06 where you could win with like getting like, you destroyed 95% of it. Like, go on, like get out of here. But, um, I thought it was just more interesting that this was a different style of boss battle regarding, like whether you have to kill the whole thing or not, that like you fly through, you fly past it. And then you, if you didn't beat it, it like starts you over. It's like, keep going, like keep trying. No, I just think, I just think that this, this is ridiculous because if you, if we're talking about, just get rid of the context of the specific video game we're talking about, you're asking, uh,

26:39 in a boss battle, should you have to defeat the boss? Or should, like, if you get his health like 70% down, should they just say like, okay, you kind of did it. So, uh, here's level two. Like, no, that's not in any video game. Right. I know. I agree. That's what I said. It's, it's, it's unique. I mean, it could be unique that like, I don't think that it's like, just because in every other video game, it's always defeat thing completely. If you're fighting, uh, like a literal warship and you destroy 80% of it in, in like a real battle, did you fail?

27:12 Like if you, if you, if you stop thinking about the way our video game language is, if you're on a mission to, to take, to take down, uh, a battleship and you destroy, like you destroy 70 turrets out of 80. I think you failed. They're going to be like, good job. Did you? Yeah. No, if you, if you didn't sink a ship and you're a one man army, that ship is still getting to shore. But you never, you never sink the ship in this game. Even if you destroy it all the way, you just destroy all the turrets on it. It doesn't blow up or sink or go away. No, it just sinks off. It sinks off camera. Come on. That's true. Yeah. You didn't kill everybody. No, it goes, that's, that's you flying over it.

27:51 But yeah, I mean, I get that. Yeah, totally. It's, it's weird. And it's not the way boss battles normally work, but like, why do boss battles have to work? That like, I mean, I obviously have to play devil's advocate here, but why do boss battles have to work where you, where it's like, do the best possible at defeating it, where it's like, it's okay to have like, uh, this is a ridiculous tears of success.

28:12 No, it's Joe. No, no, no. I'm there with you because I agree. I think it's better to be like, well, you did 70% job. So he's done as opposed to when you do defeat a boss. And then the cut scene reveals that you've lost. Like, I would rather say like, okay, well I came pretty close to beating him. So just say, I beat him, then beat him. That's a story telling problem in specific games.

28:38 But are, are, if you, if you also equate it, I know it's different than like a boss battle, but if you just equate it to some games where your, your goal is to take out the enemy. And if you kill every enemy on stream, you, you 100% the game, that's like going the extra mile, but you can also be eating a boss. Doing everything. Beating a boss isn't the same. Everything in the game. It's just, that's what you got to do. I know I said that at the beginning of my sentence, but I just don't think that like,

29:05 I obviously, I agree that it is like the norm and it probably better to have to just defeat the boss entirely. But now I'm just defending the fact that like, there's, that it's not, it doesn't have to be the way every video game works. It's okay for a game to say like, yeah, if you get, if you, if you get 80% of it, you pass, but you can do better with this, with this gold and silver and bronze, or whatever, however different ways you want to quantify the tiers of success. I think it's okay to, to open that box and try something different.

29:40 Yeah. I'm just glad that we can get the hot takes on, on nostalgia for our listeners to hear opinions about like, you know what? You don't have to beat bosses. You just, you just do your best. You just do your best. It's great. Well, okay. It sounds like you're, you're twisting my, my sentiment there, but. I'm starting to think this is not how the battle of Midway actually went down. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

30:25 Ha ha ha ha.

30:37 You know, one thing we have to talk about that we haven't talked about yet is that this is a shmup with a password system, and that's because there's 24 stages to this game. That is an amazing amount of content. What do you guys think about that? I saw maybe 10% of it. Yeah, I thought that... I know it doesn't loop exactly, but it seems like it starts to really recycle a lot of its assets. I feel like I thought that the game looped after the third level because it felt like I was playing the same level, and then I realized, oh, it's a little different, it's a little harder. I didn't get too much further than that, so I don't know how much that holds up later in the game. Yeah. Mike, if you played longer, do they eventually get to land?

31:20 I did not see land. I'm sure they get there. There has to be. I can't imagine 24 stages of the same stuff at that point. You know, just loop it. You know, it's kind of crazy that there's 24, you know, I say unique, but we know that there's not that much different, but there is some kind of, like, development process to these levels. So 24 stages is just a crazy amount of a number for a shmup game where any particular, like, you know, when your fuel gauge isn't quite right and you take a hit in the wrong area, like, you know,

31:53 I'm used to, like, Life Force having eight stages. That's crazy, you know? Like, oh, you got to get through all eight. It's a journey. 24 is, like, would you travel across the whole Pacific Ocean by yourself to go face Japan on your own? Like, I don't know, but I do like a password system. I enjoy me a good password system instead of having to figure out, like, buy a cheat book and then figure out if I put it in this directional input pads, it will reveal the level select option for it.

32:25 Ah, yeah. You know, so give me passwords any day of the week. Yeah, as long as you can't, provided that you can't save it, which is obviously the preferred method. Because even passwords sometimes, I'm like, ugh, do I even feel like inputting this password or, like, writing it down and all that? Yeah, and on top of that, too, like, cheating,

32:44 you know, like, buying a cheat book or whatever is, like, it just seems weird that there's this, you know, like, left, left, right, right, up, down, up, down, you know, like, all that stuff to get these things that are clearly programmed into the game. So just give them as an option to begin with. What is the point of having them as a cheat?

33:04 So we're talking about the idea of cheat codes in general now? We're not getting so... Don't take us out of context again. I'm not. I'm just saying, don't derail the conversation. All I meant was is that give me... If there is a level select option built into your game, whether it's via cheat codes or whatever, I would prefer that that just be available to the player as opposed to saying, like, oh, well, you know, we made this whole level select thing, but that should be tied behind, like, an arbitrary input code. I guess I... Okay, I have no opinion on that. Great, great, okay. I'm not debating cheats. Those are fine and fun, and I think they added a lot more value to games than the DLC that we get today.

33:53 Anyway, obviously we've talked about how this is an improvement from 1942, but I think it's worth mentioning that the reason, the most notable reason I could think of for why that happened is that this port of 1943 was handled directly by Capcom, and 1942 was handled by Micronix, who I'm sure you guys remember as making a bunch of Capcom's ports early on in the system, like Ghost and Goblins and stuff.

34:18 So it's a nice big step above the original's NES port because of Capcom finally being like, let's make our own NES games, not just publish them. Now, unfortunately, guys, in terms of sequels and spinoffs, this will be the last 1940X game that we play on the NES, so there's no 1944 for us. Yeah, well, it's probably still coming.

34:40 Yeah, we do. There are other sequels and spinoffs that I think are worth mentioning. We talked briefly at the beginning about 1943, the Battle of Midway Mark II, and while that's a cool name, I suppose, it's mostly the same thing, except for the graphics and sounds have been, like, slightly better off for the arcade version, you know, like they plussed up that stuff, and quote-unquote directly from Capcom, the game has been made more extreme. I believe that 100%.

35:12 What are the examples of what makes it more extreme? I honestly think just from looking at it, I think what makes it more extreme is just that they started to, like, say, okay, sure, this is happening during World War II, but what if we added in, like, crazier ship designs and, like, just made it more like a bullet hell style thing than, like, a actual dogfight? Like, what if heavy metal existed in the 40s? Yeah, yeah, exactly, Sean. Not quite with a clown driving any of the ships, but we're flying. Any of the ships, but... Are you thinking of Twisted Metal? Oh, I'm thinking of Twisted Metal. Yeah, what's heavy metal? What the hell are you talking about? What's heavy metal? Heavy metal, like, the genre.

35:56 It's extreme. Explain more. I can't follow. I don't follow you here. But Twisted Metal's also extreme, so probably the same. Was there heavy metal in Twisted Metal? That's true. Anyway. I just assume that you only speak in PlayStation 1 games. It's not... So I... You know what, Mike? You've got a lot of problems with the way I'm talking, and you're the one that's got the problems, you know?

36:19 I do. I'm... Quote that on the... Somebody quote that to me on Twitter. Be like, At Esposito Film, you're the one with all the problems. You know what? I say we go to the essential games list. No, no, we can't go there yet, because... Hold on, real fast. 1941 Counterattack. That's an arcade game. 1941 Counterattack? Is that... Yeah, they went back... Yeah, it's a prequel. And it's a counterattack to what?

36:44 A Blitzkrieg? Yeah, well, I don't know. Yeah, that's a good question. Then they say, forget about the years altogether. This is 19XX, the War Against Destiny. Okay. Well, that was right after World War II ended, right? We had the War Against Destiny? Yes, that's true. That's true. We just got word from our audio producer that the counterattack was against... was a counter to Pearl Harbor.

37:13 Got it. Yeah. Yeah, that little event in history. Yeah. Someday, people will be doing that with other world events, you know? They'll be like, they'll be like, 2021, the counterattack? What was that in response to it? It'll be like, oh, that pandemic, that global pandemic that happened. Then we attack. The war between the United States and China. Right, right. And then, what else do I have here? Oh, the last one. 1944, the Loop Master.

37:44 Okay, now it's... Yeah, I don't... Is that in reference to like the... We keep talking about the gameplay loop? Is that just like, finally mastered it? And they're just like, they're like acting like it's a good thing?

37:57 Interesting to note that it came out in 2000 on the arcade and also on GameTap. Do you guys remember GameTap? I don't think I've ever heard of GameTap. It was... It was like the precursor to Stadia and all that stuff. Like it wasn't... It was streaming video games, right? Yeah, exactly. On your... As long as you had a broadband internet connection. Yeah, and that broadband back then I think still included like DSL, so... Yes. All right. I know that this whole thing has been derailed for the last 20 minutes. So let's reel it back in here and do what this whole podcast is actually about and do our essential games list.

38:40 Okay, Joe, you are going to tell me right now whether 1943, which may or may not have the subtitle The Battle of Midway, is an essential game. I'll first say that coming into this remembering 1942, the video game, not the year, I had very low, low expectations for this. I was not looking forward to playing it. And maybe that contributes to the fact that I really had fun playing this game. It was a vast, vast improvement over 1942.

39:13 And I think it was, as far as shmups go, which we all know I don't care for, it was pretty fun. But it's, I don't have like too much that's like, oh, this part was terrible and that was terrible. It just wasn't, it just wasn't on that level that gets it to essential game. Like there was just nothing that makes me want to like really go back and play it again. And it's not like it was like the most fun I've had and, you know, not even close, you know, with any of these shmups. So it's just, it's just good, but not essential. Fair enough. And Sean? Well, in terms of the essential games list, I can't put this game on here. If we had a most improved sequels list, then I could put that on there.

39:56 But yeah, pretty much everything Joe said. In terms of the essential principles of podcast design, I would say that the idea of going off topic for a little bit is actually nice and doesn't mean that it's a derailing of the idea. Sean, are you telling us that we shouldn't be telling you to stay in your lane? I would say that

40:20 a podcast can get a little loose Is there anything that you feel like you didn't get a chance to say that you might want to say now? No, no, no. Not at all. But I think this will be our last episode. I'm being fired after today. By the way. All right. I will just say that it's, you know, for someone like me, it's great to find out new things like the genre of heavy metal. I thought there was just metal. I never knew that it could get heavier than metal. So, you know, what's next? Thrash metal? Like, that's crazy.

40:55 Anyway, you know what's not metal? Or what might be made of metal? I don't know. That analogy is not going anywhere. 1943 is a good game. It's, it's definitely an improvement over 1942. And I quite like a lot of stuff that's going on here. I just have it in a gut feeling kind of thing that I know this can't be an essential game because,

41:18 one, it wasn't like, it wasn't that enjoyable. It was more enjoyable to see the actual improvements over the previous entry than it was to play the game. You know, I really enjoyed just noting like, oh, that's neat. They, they fixed that. Or, oh, this looks better. Or finally, some music. But that's not enough to get you into an essential games list. You know, you're not up there with The Legend of Zelda just because you add music.

41:41 So, I don't know. I, I don't want to dismiss this game. I think it is one of the, like, okay shmups that we've, that we've gotten for the system. I think it's in like, the middle of the pack whereas 1942 is now like, getting closer to the end of the pack. It's just not up there with Life Force or Gradius for me. So, not an essential game. Wait, I did have one other, one thing I wanted to mention at the beginning of the podcast. Totally forgot. Do, do we all think that 1942

42:12 was the worst shmup we've played? I'm trying to remember other ones. It is the worst shmup I've played. Is it? Yeah, I'm trying to remember if there were other ones worse. For me, it's the worst one I can remember. But there were so many, a lot of them kind of blurting out. Hold on, I have a list for this kind of thing. Give me a second. Keep talking. Talk about whether you would want Sean to stay on the podcast or not. I'm going to submit my vote privately. Okay, very good, very good. I don't want to publicly do this, you know, on the air as we are. All right, well, it looks like there's one anonymous no.

42:46 I wonder who that could be. You know, I would say that, you know, while you might not add a ton to the show and you might not be that knowledgeable on things, that your voice is very sexy and that that would be missed. Yeah, you guys would have nowhere to go if you didn't have this silky smooth voice. Well, especially because everyone thinks me and Mike sound the same. No one would be able to, there'd be no break from the one other voice. See, now, okay, Sean, you're on the show, okay? You'll come back next week for us, okay? I'm of the opinion that you guys think that I have many rules that define a shmup.

43:30 You know, because you guys wouldn't let me rest about how I was saying Galaga's not really a shmup because of these rules. So if you're counting any game that involves spaceships and shooting, Defender 2 was the worst in my opinion. I don't even remember Defender 2. It was like four episodes ago, kid. Now you know how I play these games. We had like two, we had two episodes very close together where they were like, where you couldn't move forward. Yes, yes. But Defender 2, you couldn't move forward.

44:00 Oh, okay. Then I don't know what we're talking about. Very good. I'm Michael Esposito. This has been Nostalgia. We talk about anything we want here. Never tell content creators to stay in their lane because they can do whatever they want and they're regular human beings who have opinions as well. So with that in mind, next week we're going to have a lot of opinions about a certain game called Donkey Kong Classics,

44:24 a game that I'm not quite sure what it could be about, but I'm excited for a new Donkey Kong entry. I can't wait to hear what you guys all think about that. I'll see you then. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on Twitter on at Esposito Film. You can find Nostalgia on Twitter at at NostalgiaCast posting lots of cool stuff. Talk to you later. Bye. Love is a всё. Love is a всё.

45:00 Love is a всё.

45:07 Thank you.