136 · BUBBLE BOBBLE

• THESE ARE TWO HUNGRY DINO-MIGHTS AND THEY'VE GOT BUBBLE FIGHT’N FUN DOWN TIGHT
• Introductions
  • BUBBLE BOBBLE DOUBLE DRIBBLE DOUBLE DRAGON F ZERO
• Overview
  • Similar to Mario Bros. Bubble Bobble is a platforming arcade game where each level takes place on a single screen. You can play as one of two dragons (Bub or Bob) and use their bubble blowing ability to capture enemies and then burst them inside those bubbles by colliding with them. Each level has a certain number of enemies that must be defeated in order to advance.
• Story
  • Another Japan and North America conflict of stories...
  • "Baron Von Blubba" has kidnapped the brothers Bubby and Bobby's girlfriends and turned the brothers into Bubble Dragons, Bub and Bob. Bub and Bob have to finish 100 levels in the Cave of Monsters in order to rescue them.
• Gameplay
  • Character Design
    • Let’s talk about something we usually don’t talk about
  • Is it satisfy to blow BUBBLES and BOBBLE your enemies?
    • Enemies turning into fruit
  • Levels and Variety
    • Bonus Items
    • Different enemies that are fun (reminds me of Stinger)
  • That 1 Music track
  • Continue right where you left off as many times as you like
  • Co-Op
    • Laura and I had the chance to test the Co-Op experience
  • LEVEL 100
    • Actually a boss fight
      • Baron Von Blubba looks like shit in the manual.
    • Completing Level 100 in single-player mode reveals a message stating that the game has not truly ended and a hint to the player: "Come here with your friend." If two players complete the game, they see a "happy end", in which the brothers are transformed to their human selves and reunited with their girlfriends.
    • This ending also includes a code that, when deciphered, allows the game to be played in the faster and more difficult "super" mode. If this mode is completed with two players, a second "happy end" is displayed in which Super Drunk (the defeated boss) is revealed to be the brothers' parents under the control of some outside influence. The brothers return to normal and are reunited with their parents and girlfriends.
• Development
  • Taito already brought us Legend of Kage, Renegade, Elevator Action, Arkanoid. It’s clear they have a focus on Arcade sensibilities.
  • Mitsuji SHOTS FIRED
    • MTJ: To be honest, Taito’s games then seemed kind of cheap and lame to me, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. They didn’t have much style or sense. Compared with Namco’s offerings, they were very much lagging behind.
    • MTJ: The reason I selected bubbles is for the simple reason that I thought it would be really fun to have a screen full of bubbles everywhere. When you think “bubbles”, of course, you think of popping or bursting bubbles, and that bursting action is tied into my idea of “pleasure” gameplay.
  • Mitsuji hoped his game would appeal to women, specifically couples that visited arcades. As such, he decided to make Bubble Bobble focus largely on its two player co-operative mode. He made bubbles the core mechanic as he thought they would be a fun element that girls would enjoy.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • SO MANY sequels and we still have BUBBLE BOBBLE PART 2 on NES so let’s just cover the basics
  • Bubble Bobble was first released in the arcade in 1986 (not that late of a port to NES)
  • Final Bubble Bobble - Genesis 1991
    • now has 200 levels
  • Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 (ported to NES in 1991)
    • Now that the dragons have turned back to humans you play as them and their ability to shoot rainbows
  • THE GREAT BUBBLE BOBBLE 2 DEBATE
    • Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2, the first "sequel" to Bubble Bobble
    • Bubble Bobble Part 2, released on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy
    • Bubble Symphony, also known as Bubble Bobble II in some countries
  • And of course, if you can believe it Bubble Bobble also has a spinoff called Puzzle Bobble better known as BUST A MOVE.
• EGL
• Next week - Cobra Command

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

00:00 Bubble Bobble! These are two hungry dino mites and they've got bubble fighting fun down tight.

00:21 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. Guys, they're not really dinosaurs though, right? They kind of look dinosaur-like. I would say they are. Yeah, they've got the spines on their back and everything. Aren't they described as dragons? Are dragons dinosaurs? They're, you know, related. They're both made up, so it doesn't really matter. Nobody says potato though. No, it's not that they're made up. It's that they existed alongside humans.

00:54 Both of them. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's a good explanation too. And, you know, Joe, we have to get this out of the way just to get it out of your system. Bubble Bobble, Double Dribble, Double Dragon. Double Dragon, F-Zero. Would you like to enlighten anybody? I said it in the last episode actually to get it out of my system, but... Well, I'll start it up again. Would I like to tell everyone? Yeah. Yeah, there's a great YouTube video by Nirvana the Band the Show. I don't want to spoil it for you, but if you want to get some good Bubble Bobble, Double Dribble, Double Dragon, F-Zero action, check it out. It is the best part of...

01:56 It's a song. I'll spoil that much. You can play on a single contained screen. You can play on a single one of the other levels that you put them in. And you burst them by kind of like colliding with them. Each level has a certain number of enemies that must be defeated in order to advance. What do you guys think? I think I'm really proud of that one. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. It's a really good one. It's a very easy to describe game. Yeah. But it's weird though, because when I saw the promotional material for this stuff, I was expecting a very different game.

02:41 Because when I was a kid, I had Bust-A-Move and I thought that this was going to be like Bust-A-Move. Because they have the same characters in them. Those dinosaur things are not what I thought they were going to do. Yeah, it's actually funny enough, Sean, because we usually do this in sequels and spinoffs. But it's the exact same thing because it's actually a spinoff in Japan called Puzzle Bobble. And they just renamed it for North America? They just renamed it in North America to Bust-A-Move, but I think Puzzle Bobble is really clever on Bubble Bobble.

03:17 You need the context. Puzzle Bobble was the... I'm confused. What? Puzzle Bobble is the spinoff of this game or this game is a spinoff of... No, Puzzle Bobble is the spinoff of Bubble Bobble much later on. But it's just weird that only Japan got that neat pun added to it and we just get a whole new game called Bust-A-Move. Yeah, it was very strange. Maybe they thought we were like, we Americans don't like puzzles. Yeah, maybe they thought that out. But we love dancing.

03:48 Yeah. Okay, and Sean, just for the record, do you want to describe Bust-A-Move to people so they know why it's not like Bubble Bobble? Yeah, so Bust-A-Move was a puzzle game in which you had to... It was like a match three, but the hook for this one was that you had to launch a random sequence of colored gems at gems that are sort of coming down from the sky. But you had to know angles and geometry. It was almost like pool in a way.

04:26 And I thought it was fun. I had a lot of fun with that game back in the day. Yeah, I mean, it's to the point now where it's not even like a spinoff. It's just its own successful franchise. I think they're still doing Bust-A-Move games. Yeah, I just thought it was a weirdly named first version of that. So I was very surprised. I mean, Bubble Bobble's just confusing in general, though, because this is another classic case of a conflict of stories between the Japanese game and the North American game. I don't know if you guys bothered to read the manual for Bubble Bobble, but they had a story in there that was more like a comic. And it's not at all what I've read is the actual story of Bubble Bobble.

05:05 Please enlighten me. So the story that I've read is that, you know, a villain named Baron Von Blubba has kidnapped the brothers Bubby and Bobby's girlfriends and then turned the brothers into the Bubble Dragons Bub and Bob. Now Bub and Bob have to finish 100 levels in the Cave of Monsters in order to rescue them. I'll say that that's not my Bubble Bobble. Right. Your Bubble Bobble is just two dragons going on an adventure through a fun cave, right? Yeah. And they like to rhyme.

05:39 They're actually pretty OK with everything that's going on as long as everything stays lighthearted, you know? Yeah. There's a very lighthearted message at the start of the game, too, that's just like, let's have a good story. And, you know, everybody have fun. It was very cheerful. And I just thought, like, who says that? Like, let's have a good story.

05:59 Like, you're in control of the story. You're the one who's telling it. Yeah. Maybe it's like they're about to go. Now it's the beginning of a fantastic story. I wish every book started like that. All right, everybody, let's have a good book.

06:11 It's like a coach before the game. Yeah. Let's all make sure we don't make any spelling mistakes and have a good book. Yeah. That's exactly what I was getting at. But, you know, before we get any further into the game, can we talk about the character designs of Bub and Bob? I really like them. There's something about these guys that has, like, a mascot quality to them. Very mascot-y. I would say they have a sensuousness to them. A sensuousness? Okay.

06:39 No, it's nice. They're simple. They're simple, but they're still distinct. I think that's what makes them a standout to me. Absolutely. It's like, and also, like, just the fact that you can differentiate, like, between Bub and Bob, even though they're pretty much just color palette things. It reminds me of, like, the original Mario and Luigi, where the only thing that made Luigi different was that it was green instead of red. Yeah. Like, it was just green Mario, and that was, like, how that joke started. But it's the same thing with Bub and Bob. I would say the green guy, at least in the illustrations in which there's a little bit more detail, the green guy looks a little bit more worried about what's happening. And the blue guy just looks blank.

07:20 But that's if they ever decide to illustrate their eyebrows, which it seems to be pretty rare. Well, it is also funny, because in the manual, it differentiates, oh, this one's Bub and this one's Bob, but it only does it in the black and white portion of the manual. So I still don't know which one's Bub and which one's Bob. I assume Bub is just the player one, but...

07:40 I wonder if that's just a result of your, like, because you're reading the manual online, correct? Yeah. Yeah, so I wonder, like, if you paid for, like, an actual version of the manual, if it ever came in color. Because that's just, like, so strange. The manual cover's in color. I mean, what's printed in the manual is not in color. I mean, I think it's just literally a scan of the, you know, the Nintendo seal of approval is in color. Ah. Okay, yeah. I mean, look, I believe you. You know, I believe that there's not, like, a separate version of this that's just the black and white edition.

08:09 That's sort of what you were trying to tell us. Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, I don't think you do believe me. Let's move on from this. Let's get away from character design, because that's kind of, like, out of our element anyway. We're not illustrators. We don't know really how to critique that kind of thing. And let's get into what we do know how to critique, and that's video games. So let's talk about just, like, the core gameplay loop here. Is it satisfying to blow these bubbles and bobble those enemies?

08:35 Well, I think, I mean, as someone who has said a lot of times that, like, arcade games usually just don't do it for me. This one, it just, I don't know, something about it, maybe because of all the arcade games we've played so far, have given me, like, an expectation. But, like, the controls, first of all, feel pretty good, compared to some other stuff. I mean, like, it's, like, definitely still a little floatier than, like, a Mario or something, like a Super Mario Brothers, rather.

09:02 But otherwise, like, it doesn't feel as janky as a lot of other, like, arcade games like this that we've played. So that's the first thing that stood out to me, because by looking at this, I thought, okay, this is going to be, like, an Ice Climbers style, like, level of frustration. But totally is not. Yeah, I would say that this game also gives me similar feelings while I'm playing it as something like Joust or even Balloon Fight.

09:32 All the single screen games, like, the physics-based single screen games all sort of give me a similar feeling, because this is, I would say that this game still has a little bit of a physics element to it with, like, the way the bubbles move around and your interactions with them. So it has that, like, yes, they're static environments, but you can still express yourself while you're playing with them, just by how you deal with your bubbles, you know?

10:04 Yeah, I'd like to talk about just the bubbles, too, there for a minute, because there's, like, a bunch of different types of things, going on on any particular stage, even very early on in the game, where there's the bubbles you blow, which seem like, it's probably a limited amount, but it's a lot of bubbles, given, you know, the state of the game. And then there's bubbles that just kind of pop up that have, like, they're, like, special bubbles that do different things for you.

10:27 And then there's all the different enemies that you also, like, when you capture them into bubbles, you don't have to, like, burst them right away, and they're kind of floating around on the screen, too. So there's this kind of, even though it's on a single screen, it invites a lot of chaos into the game in a meaningful way, though, you know? It's sort of like your bubble bubble juggling. Yeah, okay. Juggle juggle. Sure, yeah, that's what they were actually thinking about calling the game. I know about that.

10:53 Juggle juggle. Here's the thing, though, Sean. So, because you brought up the juggling thing, did you ever at any point feel overwhelmed by all this stuff on the screen? Because that's usually something we talk about, that, like, in Shmups, there's just eventually a point later on where they just add too many enemies to the screen, and you're more likely to die.

11:11 I wouldn't say it was a feeling of being overwhelmed, but it was definitely over time, over the amount of levels that I played, more things started to happen. But it wasn't, like, an anxiety-inducing thing. It was just like, oh, this is just more stuff. And I don't know what the difference is there, but I felt it. There does become, like, quite a saturation of things on the screen, but the thing about it is that most of the new things that are appearing on the screen are usually helpful things.

11:41 It's not like enemies just keep spawning and overwhelming you in that way. So maybe you might get overwhelmed with, like, choices of, like, okay, do I jump on the bubbles that are already here? Do I make a bubble to jump on? And stuff like that. But otherwise, I don't think I was overwhelmed with, like, oh, my God, there's too many enemies around. That's a good way to describe it, I'd say, yeah.

12:01 Yeah, and there's, like, a limit to the amount of rules in this game that, like, are established, you know? And that never, like, changes or becomes more dynamic. It's just that the, you know, the enemy variety increases or the way that the platform is, like, sorry, the way that the stage is platformed out. It's usually into, like, cute, like, shapes of a heart or shapes of a smiley face. You know, like, those are the things that change every stage to make them fun.

12:25 But the actual, like, rules of the game is just blow the bubbles onto the enemy and then burst them. So it's, like, there's not a lot going against you. You know, it's not as overwhelming as, say, in a shmup where you have to be, like, checking in every single direction and watching out for this enemy who moves a different way or shoots a different type of thing. Or there's a hazard on the stage. You know, there's no hazards other than the enemy.

12:49 Yeah, and you mentioned that, like, the different, like, layouts of the levels. And I think that that, you know, in addition to your description of the game, those, like, the different layouts of the levels are really important to understanding the game. Because for me, that's what kind of makes this game. I mean, I think that not every level, but a lot of the levels are actually pretty cleverly designed in a way where you have to think about it very differently than you might have had to think about the last level.

13:15 Granted, there are a lot of misses where it's just like, oh, okay, they just made, like, a funny design in the middle of this one. But there are some where, you know, the physics of the platforms there, you know, where, like, you have to, you can only go through them when you're going up and you get stuck in them when you can't go down. You have to, like, go back around. It makes you have to think, I'm doing a poor job of explaining that, but it makes you have to think about, like, how to approach enemies. Yeah. Where enemies can get stuck. You don't want to get stuck in a small space with an enemy, but you can go around. You can loop around the top of the screen and back to the bottom to get to places that you might not have been able to access.

13:47 There's just, the level design, like I said, some were kind of lackluster, but a lot of them were pretty cool. And it's frequently changing, too. No particular stage takes all that long. So you're constantly feeling this progression of, like, level one, level two, level three. You know, it's like, you can get to level 18 in this game pretty fast in a first-time playthrough, you know?

14:10 Yeah. Particularly because there's no real consequence to dying. You can start back at the level that you died on. But I also just meant the pace of the game, Joe. You know, like, how it's not like each level is a five-minute-long adventure. Right. You know? Like, I kind of like that they kind of come in 60-second or less bursts.

14:27 Yeah, and they're all sort of, like, just their own. Like, it's definitely also a puzzle platformer because, well, so a lot of them are just, like, fun little, like, pixel art backgrounds that you have to navigate. Some of them are definitely designed to be approached in a certain way, and there are little, like, traps sprung that you can fall into and also funnels that the enemies can, you can very quickly dispatch your enemies.

14:56 So, I mean, it's, like, it's hit and miss, but they do get creative with the level design in there. Yeah, there's a level early on in the game, maybe in, like, the teens,

15:08 where that idea of, like, puzzle platforming really comes out to play because, and I think this is the one you're talking about, Sean, with the funnel, where you can't get in there, and all the enemies are in there, and you have to figure out how to use the power-up bubbles, how to get those to, like, slide through the funnel and take out the enemies that way because your bubbles won't reach them otherwise. Yeah, that's one of the ones I was talking about. I think it was heart-shaped. Yes, it was kind of heart-shaped. Yeah, it might have actually been the heart-shaped level, but it was definitely like a heart.

15:40 I think that was a necessary step, though, for the game, too. Like, it didn't have to make the game any more complicated. Now you instead had to think about how you approach the enemies because you can't use your bubbles to just blow. Like, I like that bubbles don't transcend through platforms, or when you do blow a bubble and it goes up into the stage because they kind of just float upwards, that it doesn't catch an enemy. Like, you can't trap an enemy by getting at a bubble that you blew earlier that just happens to, like, collide in with your enemy. I'm glad that that detection was removed.

16:14 It was a part of it at some point? No, I'm saying, like, that you could argue that, like, any of the bubbles that you blow on stage should be able to catch enemies, but it's only in that very first instance that you blow it that it's able to capture an enemy. Yeah. Once it starts rising, it cannot capture an enemy. You can burst it for maybe, like, 10 points or something like that, which is kind of fun. Yeah. But, you know, it would have been a weird consequence

16:43 to just be able to blow bubbles freely, and if any enemies happen to bump into those bubbles, they are now captured. I would say, though, that if there was some tweaks to other elements of the game and you, like, that skill ceiling of, like, oh, can you get this guy with just a rising bubble, I think that would be interesting as well. But you're right. The way that the game is at this very moment, that would have been a little goofy.

17:13 Yeah, I think that it's also kind of cool that, like, you know, you shoot the bubble, and while it's on its forward path, on its immediate forward path, if it's a direct hit, it'll capture the enemy. But otherwise, it exists, it can't capture the enemy, but you can still use it to your advantage to help you get to higher places, you can jump off of it, you can ride it to the top of the level.

17:32 And I thought that was cool that it's, like, you have, it's the same move, but you have multiple uses for it. And I don't know how you guys felt about this, but, and maybe I wasn't following exactly with how the game wanted me to understand the platforming of the levels, but later levels that have a lot more platforming in them, there's kind of, like, some weird unspoken rules to what you can collide into, and what you can pass over, and what you can land on,

18:01 that just isn't that well communicated to the player, and is distracting in a way, because you kind of think, like, oh, I can get over this, this, this, and this, but then it turns out it's actually all just solid. It's basically, you can only pass through a platform from below, and even if you're trying to jump to another platform, if you accidentally clip one between you and the other platform, you will land on that one. It is a little annoying, but I guess you can, if you get better at figuring out the arc of your jump, you can get rid of that, but yeah, it's this weird feeling like, oh, I can jump through this, but I can't throw a bubble through it, and it's sort of like this weird, like, feeling one thing and seeing another,

18:54 but no, I get what you're saying there. Yeah, I was actually a little disappointed at one point, because when I first started playing it, I was playing it with a friend of the podcast, Mark, who I've mentioned before, and a couple other friends,

19:06 and we at first thought, like, because there are different textures of the platforms you're on, I started to notice, like, oh, like, when it's this texture, you can jump through it from the bottom and land on it from the top, and we'll learn that, like, each texture has a different type of physics, and then later they'll start introducing new, like, old textures in with other textures, and you just remember what each one does. It never really does that. Like, it's just all new textures.

19:32 I thought you had learned a secret of the game. No, it seemed like it was going that way, and then it ends up just being like, no, they're just all these different textures, and they seem to do the same thing, but sometimes I feel like they did different things, and it was never clear, like, can you only jump? I think in the end you can only jump through things from the bottom, but there were some times it felt like that didn't work.

19:55 Maybe that was just because of little, like, weird glitchy things in the game, but I just was excited with the idea of, like, oh, there's these, each of these different textures behave a different way, and I'll have to learn what they are, and it's just kind of not true. It might even have to do with, like, how close the platforms are to other platforms, like collision detection that just pushes you back out or doesn't let you get through at all. I think that's correct as well.

20:24 So, I don't know about you guys, enemy designs in NES games, they're hit or miss for most of the time, but I always think about Stinger, a game that is currently on our Essential Games list, as, like, peak enemy design because it was just so wacky and goofy and, like, every single level just introduced, like, a whole new set of enemies each time to the point where you're fighting, like, microwaves and televisions at a certain point. I also do love to fight saxophones, for sure. Oh, yeah, it was a giant saxophone, right? Yeah. That was an enemy, a boss battle, actually.

20:57 In Bubble Bobble, even though these aren't necessarily, like, as creative as a microwave or a television, they had a Stinger-like quality to them, and I thought all the enemies were really, like, fun and playful and not, like... Yeah, there was nothing that was, like, in my way. I think I could even argue that some of these enemy designs are more creative than a microwave or a television.

21:17 I think that since they're all distinct and they're not ugly and you're never really wondering what they are, I think it works. And, like, for 8-bit design, I think that's one of the biggest boxes you have to check is just as long as you can distinguish between them. And they do introduce a lot of new ones, like, as you go. Even, like, later in... I mean, I didn't... I guess there's a lot of levels in this game. I got to, like, somewhere in the 40s or 50s. But even then, there's, like... 100 levels. Is it only 100? I thought there was, like, 140, and then I thought there were two versions. There's 200. There's 200?

21:57 It says that there's game one and, like, there's 100 and some levels in that, and then there's game two that you can only play after you beat game one. Oh, okay. There's a man in there somewhere. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know that those were... I thought you have to play through the game and, like, a harder thing, but it turned... Because I didn't beat the game, obviously. So I see what you're saying. After you beat the first 100 levels and you have to go play, like, the secret mode, that's a whole other 100 set of levels.

22:25 I believe so. Yeah, which is crazy. But my point being that, like, even in, like, that far into the game, they're introducing new enemies that look distinct and look... You know, at one point, there's, like, something that looks to me almost exactly like a proto-pet from Ratchet & Clank, if anyone is a Ratchet & Clank fan. But, you know, it just, like, it has that level of, like, character to it. And each thing has its own distinct character design to it. Yeah, and a lot of these also look like they belong in a Mega Man game, too. You know? Yeah, they have that style to it. Yeah. So I think, you know, we're definitely hitting, like,

22:58 the right amount of... For an arcade game, too. Like, the graphics are nothing... They're nothing impressive, but they're also simple enough that it just works. It wasn't distracting. It's not, like, poor today. It's still, like, a fun visual game to play, too. Right. I think it shows that, like, it's not necessarily about how good the actual graphical fidelity is. It's just, like, the design is that good. Like, using those graphics, it's just designed well. Yeah. So we were talking about

23:27 the platforming and how that was kind of confusing at times. And the only reason why I really brought that out at the start anyway, because I'm sure that there is an established rule to how the platform works, but I was bringing it up more because if the pace of the game is part of the enjoyment of everything, nothing... nothing stinks more than when you're kind of, like, stuck on one thing and you're waiting for an enemy to come to you or to come around to an area that you can access, and then you just have to hear that one music track over and over and over again while you wait. And whether you're waiting or you're playing, it's only one music track. Yeah. It's sort of turned into wallpaper for me.

24:08 It wasn't annoying enough for me to get that upset with it like many other games do, but it's definitely a con. Yeah, I do wonder how long the loop was. Was it 10 seconds? Was it 30 seconds? I couldn't focus long enough to count, but I do wonder because you would think that maybe every 10 levels you could change up the music a bit or just the pitch or something, but we got what we got, and I think if music's the only complaint, I mean, you know, we already have a lot of great soundtracks on the NES. I'll forgive Bubble Bobble for not including more than one song, I suppose. Yeah. This game isn't that bad because there are better games.

24:56 And Joe, you mentioned this way early on, but you can continue right where you left off as many times as you like, so there's really no reason not to beat this game for any of us. We just, I guess it couldn't hold our attention because you can just continue until your heart's content. You just, you have three lives, I think, when you start each game, but as soon as you die, they give you a password, but as long as you haven't reset your cartridge, you can just go right back into the level, no password needed. Oh, yeah. I guess it's just weird to me that a game that the loop, like the gameplay loop is so simple that it does have a password thing.

25:34 Like, I would expect this more adventure games or action games with very distinct levels, but I guess, like, yeah, if there's an end state and it's 200 levels away, then you better have a password system. Yeah, I think it actually comes back to that let's have a good story thing. You can't promise you're going to have a good story and then make people start at, you know, the very beginning every single time they want to play the game. Right. I mean, what is the, do you see a story?

26:00 No, no, no, I'm joking. I'm saying that they said there's a story, so you could argue that this is an adventure game, Sean. That's true. You're right. But I, again, I think this might just be my, because of my personal preference against, you know, about arcade games, but for me, just since it's not my thing generally, the ability to just pick up where I left off is essential to me. Not saying this is an essential game. That's an essential ability because for an arcade game, I don't want to die and have to redo levels I already did because I think that's where I get kind of bored with the loop. So it was nice to be able to just continue to move on even after I died. I know that's not necessarily like the, um, the, uh,

26:43 purest video game, purest way of playing things, but for this game, I really appreciated it. It does make me wonder for how many people in the whole world love Pac-Man, the original arcade game. How many of them have seen like level 10 of Pac-Man? You know, like you, you play that game, you probably die within like the first five stages or so, and then you put in a quarter and start from the beginning again, and you're totally fine with that. You know, everybody's fine with that. Uh, and to be honest, I was fine every time I like went back to this game as we, as I was playing it through the week. I was fine starting from level one again. It's, it's, it's fine. Like I didn't bother to remember the passwords.

27:20 Yeah, I did the same thing. I wasn't very good at the game, so I never got that far, but I never felt like I was missing out on much. So, uh, the, the first few dozen levels were, were enough to hold me over. Well, you can miss out though, Sean, because, and we all did, I assume, uh, because we didn't say, talk about level 100, but level 100 is actually a boss fight. Yeah, there's like a crystal ball or something, right? Uh, that's Baron Von Blubba.

27:47 Ah, okay, I didn't, I didn't know that there was an actual fight. Yeah, Baron Von Blubba looks like absolute shit in the manual. It looks like a blob like the other characters, but it's actually, yeah, it's a pretty cool, uh, giant enemy sprite that, uh, you have to attack with your bubbles and, uh, avoid at all costs because if, you know, anything touches you, you die. Uh, but it's, it's just like a,

28:12 it, you just shoot a bunch of times. Nothing, nothing really changes. There's no like, now you gotta blow bubbles into these bombs and hope the bombs like connect. so there's no bubble, uh, technique here. It's just like, your, your bubbles are now just a, uh, just a, a gun. Yeah, exactly. They're now a gun and he just has like, uh, I have no idea how many hits it takes, but I imagine it's more than 20. So like, you're just gonna have to be patient, wait for your opportunity because there's not that many platforms so you can't just like, follow him all along the screen and, and keep shooting bubbles at him. You have to dodge his stuff and then go in for the attack.

28:50 But, uh, you know, I, I'm just surprised that you can go 99 levels thinking you're playing the same game over and over again and then all of a sudden it's a boss fight. That's a kind of cool reward, I think. I think it's really cool. Yeah, I agree. That would make me get a double take.

29:05 You know, like, I don't know, I just wouldn't be anticipating that. It's kind of like, you know, in, uh, Ocarina of Time in Legend of Zelda when you all of a sudden, if you, you know, if you were a kid and you didn't read any of the things coming out for the game, when you pull out the sword and then you jump seven years and everything's changed, it was like, it's a whole new game now. I thought I was done. Like, so I like that. Let's not, let's not do, let's not compare it to that. But, you're right, it is, it is surprising.

29:35 I always like to go to the most extreme examples, Sean, because you know there's somebody who now thinks that, uh, Bubble Bobble is like, on the same caliber as Ocarina of Time. One of the greatest games of all time. And then there's Bubble Bobble. And really, they're, you know, they're both the same thing at the end of the day because they're video games. All video games are equal.

29:54 All video games, yeah, you're right. I think that I've never preferred one game over another. I just like to push buttons. Are video games an essential game? Yeah, we should do that, uh, on episode 715 for sure. Right. Now, when you complete level 100, though, against, uh, Baron Von Blubba,

30:39 it depends what happens next based on many different things. And I just, I think this is crazy, but it reminds me all the way back to Ghost and Goblins where after you beat that game, it says like, ha, you thought you beat the game? This was just an illusion. Like, go back to the beginning. And then you fight, like, everything a lot harder. And once you beat it the second time, it doesn't give you the illusion garbage. It actually gives you the true ending. That's kind of what happens here because when you complete level 100 in single player,

31:12 it reveals a message stating that the game has not truly ended and that you need to, like, bring a, come here with a friend, essentially. It's like, oh, it's like, you didn't do this the right way. Bubble Bobble is strictly a two player game. And if you come here just by yourself, we'll never give you the true ending.

31:30 I don't like that. I don't like that at all. I don't like that one bit. If I, if I choose to play this game on my own, on my own dime, you better, you better believe that I don't want any friends. Like, this is, this is what I'm here for. So give me what you owe me. I just think it's strange that you can, that you can beat the entire game and it will never let you like progress to the second set of 100 levels unless you do it with a friend.

31:59 Here's the, here's the workaround. You just start two player. You let the other player, just nobody controls it. You let it die right away. And then you just play the rest of the game by yourself because he doesn't come back as long as you don't die. And then if you die, you just do that again. You never have to interact with another human in person again. Or you could just be like an only child,

32:16 Joe. That could happen. It's a, you know, like I just say, like there could be situations where kids just don't have friends to like. That's what I'm saying. So you just, you just don't, you just plug in the second controller and just let the other character die. And then you can just play the game yourself and still get the good ending as if you play it on two player.

32:33 Got it. And then, and then a message would be revealed that Baron von Blubblah knows that you never touched any of the inputs on player two. So you like to play Castlevania. Castlevania. Yeah, exactly. But here, here's the kicker. So, okay. So you do bring a friend over and you both complete the game. Now your first time you were like, oh man, I thought I beat it, but now it tells me I need a friend. Now you do it with your friend and it gives you this whole, like, here's a happy end.

33:01 And, uh, you see the brothers get transformed back into their human selves and they're reunited with their girlfriends, which is the Japanese plot. So it's just like, I guess they didn't want to talk about it in the manual of the game, but it's still in the game's code. And then that ending just includes, like, a code to play, uh, the difficult super mode of the game with the next hundred levels. And if this mode is completed with two players, then you get a second happy end, as they call it. and a, uh, the boss of the game is revealed to be the brothers parents under the control of some outside influence. Wait, come on, hold on. It's specifically the brothers parents.

33:47 Yes. Not your parents. Yeah. Not your parents. It's the, it's bubbly and bobbly's, uh, parents. So, Oh, the brothers, plural. It's their parents. Oh yeah. Not Bob. I thought you were saying he was like the parent of Bob, the brother of Bob, but not Bob's parent or whatever. That's funny. I like that. No, no, no. No, No. I was very confused there. No. I thought you were actually saying that it's whoever you brought over as a player too. Like it's their parents.

34:13 Cause their parents said like, Oh, our son never goes out. So we need to change, uh, this kid's game to make it as, as we have to invite our friend, our kid out. It's a very personalized. Every, every bubble bubble is personalized.

34:30 This just feels confusing to me as like a, a sequence of states for an end game. Like there's, there's three different endings. I guess four, if you count the game over screen is just like failure screen. Uh, you know, so like technically there's four endings, one where you die, one where you don't have a friend, the one where you thought it was a, happy ending, but you haven't, uh, saved your parents yet. And then finally the one where you save your parents and your girlfriends, and then you all get married together. Like, like this polygamy thing. Like, no, it's more like that episode and your girlfriends. It's like that episode of the fresh Prince of Bel Air,

35:03 where Will gets married to Lisa, but then Lisa at the altar says no. And it's like, Oh, that's weird. Like what's going to happen next. And then Lisa's dad proposes to Will's mom right there. And then they get married. It's kind of like that. Huh? I like, which one came first. I wonder who, well, I guess, I guess this came before fresh Prince, right? So they probably took it from this. Yeah, they probably took it from this if I had to guess, but, uh, they also, I mean, fresh princess has a history of stealing from NES games. Cause they also took the concept of,

35:36 side pocket, you know, where it was like hustling in pool and stuff like that. Did they, did they take it? We talked about it in that episode, uh, for side pocket. I'll have to go back and listen. Yeah. The references go all the way back. That's the joy of going through, uh, 130 something episodes with us is that if you go through all of them, you'll get every single reference. So don't be like almost everything we say is a reference to a previous episode. Yeah. So don't be like Sean and not listen to the episodes. Uh, even when you're in them, apparently I listen sometimes. I think it's just crazy that you're in the episodes and you can't even be bothered to remember.

36:14 I don't know. Do you, do you listen to yourself? Talk a lot. I don't know. Uh, no, I probably don't. You're right. Anyway, that's enough about us. Let's get back to the game. Are there any other one to know?

36:25 I do not listen to myself. Okay. There, uh, is there anything else that we want to talk about in this game? Like in terms of the, just the things that we haven't touched upon yet, or am I free to go into, uh, developer interviews with all the good stuff? I had one quick thing. Um, so I don't know what sequence of events transpired to make this happen, but, uh, at a certain point during one of the levels, uh, I had a gigantic, uh, I had a gigantic diamond to fall into the level and it gave me like 30 something points. And I was just, I just thought it was really cool that there was a, a sprite that took up half the screen like in there that I could pick up that it's, it's a very strange comment. Uh, but it's something I've never seen.

37:11 So yeah, that's what I wanted to say. There was also this thing one time where I got like an umbrella and it let me skip like seven stages. Stages. But it actually scrolls past all the stages too, which is, uh, like, are they all just like on a film, uh, film reel sort of thing? I don't know. Well, it's going, talking about the diamonds. I actually never saw one of those diamonds, but a lot of times when I'm, when we're recording these episodes, I just have a, a play through like silently playing in the background just to remind me of things.

37:38 And this guy that's playing through this is, uh, I don't know what he's doing or how he's doing it, but like every other level, he makes like a hundred diamonds fall down. Like his must be something. There must be some strategy to that. I have no idea. Only 30 years of bubble bubble can bring you that kind of town. Yeah, that's true. Right. Yeah. Like this guy's the master of bubble bubble.

37:57 Sean, I do want to go back to what you said though, about the film reel thing, because that was a really interesting touch that I didn't even think about that. Like this is supposed to be a 100 level cave that, you're venturing down into. And they could have just very easily just done like a warp to the, to whatever level it warps you to.

38:15 So the actual fact that they loaded up each level and showed you them as you continue to descend down again, just enforces the idea that Taito is trying to tell you a story in this game. And it's the, probably the deepest story arcade game we've had to date. I agree with twists and turns all across the way. Who would have expected your parents are, the boss. Speaking of Taito, they are the ones who brought us this game and they've already brought us a few. You guys can just give me a quick yay or nay on these together. I don't need separate.

39:02 Legend of Kage? No. Yeah, not, not so much. Wasn't terrible. Renegade? Yeah. I think we, I'm trying to remember that's one of the run and gun kind of overhead ones, right? That was a pretty good one. Yeah, it was a brawler. Yeah, it was a brawler. Oh, okay. Then I don't remember. It was the one that came before,

39:20 um, it's on our essential games list. Jeez, what's that game called? Double Dragon. Okay. I'm looking up, I'm looking up an image of it. I see it now. Yeah. Okay. I remember this one. Yeah. It's before Double Dragons. Uh, it was like kind of the first brawler and then we thought Double Dragon really just perfected everything that, uh, Renegade couldn't deliver. Uh, all right. What else did they break? Oh, elevator action. 10 out of 10. Yeah. probably the perfect game.

39:44 And, uh, Oh, Arkanoid. That was good. That's the one with, it's like breakout. Yeah. That's, that was fine. Yeah. I think we just need to do for our best of 88 episode. I just need to say every game that we've played. Like, I just need to say all 140 of them and just watch your guys' reaction. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to hear that. Get ready for me to pause for a long time while I'm looking up what they were because I've forgotten the name, like to associate which name with which one of half of these.

40:10 That didn't make any sense, but you know what I mean? Yeah. We've been, we've been in 1988 for, I think over a year. Like, yeah, absolutely close enough. It will be longer than a year when it's all said and done, but I think, uh, we're going on like, week 47 or 48 of 1988. Yeah. So it'll be 50, it'll be more than 52 by the end of it. Uh, uh,

40:34 okay. So hold on because back to the title thing. The reason I listed all those games out is because it's very clear that Taito is an arcade developer who just happens to be like, yeah, port these games to everything. Like all these games, Elevator Action, Renegade, Legend of Kage, Arkanoid, even Bubble Bobble. They're ported to everything. Not just the NES.

40:54 Does that make these games feel a little less special when we talk about them on Nostalgia? No, it's still, it's still an NES game. Uh, just because it's, it's a multi-platform release doesn't make it any less valuable to the library. Yeah, I agree. Especially because I feel like the NES was, I mean, what else was it ported to? I mean, I feel like the NES was probably what most people were playing it on anyways. Yeah, I guess it depends on like, cause I always, I'm always shocked to find out like in Europe, what, what was bigger in terms of consoles than was here? Cause I, I think by now the,

41:28 um, the Mega Drive was out. So that was like a big deal in Europe, apparently, Sega Mega Drive. So I'm, I'm sure the game also came out, actually it did come out there as final Bubble Bobble. So, why would you, yeah, why would you buy Bubble Bobble, uh, on the NES when you could have final Bubble Bobble? Uh, and I'm sure it came out on like Commodore 64 and the Amiga. The Amiga was another big one in Europe too. And I'm just like, I have never even seen that thing. I'm sorry guys. I, I have always wanted a Commodore 64,

41:56 but no, the Amiga, the Amiga's got a long legacy, but that's all I'll say about that. Okay, good. Yeah. And I was, I was not trying to say that I feel that way. It's just, it's been a while since we talked about the fact that like a lot of these games that we're playing have better versions of them in 1988 on the arcade, you know, like we're playing these inferior versions.

42:15 Indeed. All right. So I've got this guy named MTJ, uh, Mitsugi is his last name. And he is the developer creator of Bubble Bobble. And he is about to fire some shots at his own company in this interview that I found over here. You guys ready for it? I can't wait. I'm ready. To be honest, Taito's games, they seemed kind of cheap and lame to me, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. They didn't have much sense of style or sense.

42:47 Compared with Namco's offerings, they were very much lagging behind. The reason I selected Bubbles is the simple reason that I thought it would be really fun to have a screen full of bubbles everywhere. When you think bubbles, when you think bubbles, of course you think of popping or bursting bubbles. And that bursting action is tied to the idea of pleasure gameplay.

43:14 Bubbles are the future. I can only imagine that this guy gave the interview with his boss in the room. This very uncomfortably fidgeting in his seat. Like, did he still work there? Yes, he still worked there. He's like a Taito legend. Wow. And, yeah, he obviously goes on to, after Bubble Bobble's success, he pretty much like, goes on to make a bunch of other games for them. And, I just think it's, I think it's funny that, he says, and I don't have the whole quote here, because I'll just link to it in the show notes. But, he goes on to talk about how, like, compared to Namco, you know, like, oh, Namco was doing this, and Namco was doing that, and Taito was doing, and eventually the interviewer just asks him, why didn't you go work at Namco?

43:59 And, he says, like, straight up, he's like, well, I thought my ideas were pretty good, and I thought I'd stand out at Taito, because their games were such garbage. Like, I thought I would stand out if I, like, made a game for them. I appreciate the honesty. Yeah, there's something about that. He also, uh, admitted that, like, he thought that, uh, Bubble Bobble would appeal to women, and,

44:21 that, that would get away for couples, to visit the arcade, uh, and get, like, twice the amount of quarters. So, he decided that Bubble Bobble would focus largely on the two-player cooperative mode, and he made Bubbles the core, the core mechanic, as he, and this is his own words, I'm not trying to say anything. He made Bubbles the core mechanic, because he thought they would be a fun element that girls would enjoy. Okay. I mean, it's not the worst logic in the world. Sure. But what would he have put if it was just a game made for men? Just sharks.

44:55 I also just think it's funny, like, he seems to, like, have really put a lot of thought into, like, Bubbles, and, like, how Bubbles are, like, it's like he's, like, an entrepreneur who's, like, trying to, who's trying to, like, sell Bubbles to you. Yeah. Like, listen, like, Bubbles are the future. He went to, like, Big Bubble, and he told them, he told Big Bubble, he was like, you guys are just not, you don't understand your market. Your market's not outdoor activities, your market's video games.

45:20 Yeah. Yeah, I just imagine him, like, sitting in the, sitting in, like, the chair in the interview, just, like, leaning back, legs crossed, just, like, very comfortable, saying, like, well, you know, like, he, like, he knows that, like, he's, he's hot shit, because he's talking about Bubbles. Just like, you know, when I invented Bubbles, you know, I always thought, I always knew everyone would love them, and just seems very, like. So is he, uh, is he, like, the patent holder for any bubble-like technology in video games? In my canon,

45:50 it kind of looks like a bubble. Like, is, is he to blame for that? He's just a consultant for Bubbles in video games. I see. You don't, you don't have to ask him about it, it's just more or less, like, if you want Bubbles done right, you should talk to MTJ first. It's also a respectful thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, like, I imagine him, like, the Steve Jobs of Bubbles. Like, he changed the world. The Steve, the Steve Jobs of Bubbles, the Dark Souls of Bubbles,

46:19 the Citizen Kane of Bubbles, he's all of those things. And nobody ever talks about his contributions to Bubbles, but I'll, I'll leave that there. Well, you know, I brought that up earlier, Sean, and I, maybe I was just talking out of my ass, but, like, do you think that it's called Bubble Bobble because you blow bubbles onto the enemies and then bobble them?

46:38 Like, it's bobbling in action. Is that a verb? I would say that's precisely why. Okay. Yeah. Can you bobble something? Like, is that a verb? I have no idea. I think that it's a, it's a sound that sort of sounds like what you're doing. Yeah, I always thought bobbling was like, if you're, if you're holding something and you're about to drop it and you kind of like bobble with it for a second, you, you know,

46:57 so it's like, kind of fits. You're bobbling these bubbles. All right. And we're going to be bubbling bobbles for a while, guys, because we do have a ton of sequels. We're just not going to talk about them because we still have a whole nother Bubble Bobble game to play on the NES. So, I'm just going to cover the basics if that's okay with you guys. All right. Me. All right. And we'll do, you know, in the Bubble Bobble part two episode, not that it's part two, that's the name of the game, Bubble Bobble part two.

47:25 We'll cover everything else then. But so Bubble Bobble was first released in the arcade in 1986. And I thought that was like, oh, that's actually not that late of a port to the NES. Like usually these games come out in like 82, 83, and then they get over here in 88. So only two years to make it over to the NES. I thought that was pretty good. It's a great turnaround time. Great turnaround time. You know, congrats to everybody on the development team. Yeah. And final Bubble Bobble is, it came out in the Genesis in 1991.

47:52 And this one now has 200 levels. So that's why I questioned your source there, Sean, about like, does this one have 200 levels? To be honest, I still don't know. Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe, no, I'm just saying, maybe it's 200 different levels in the Genesis one. Maybe. Anyway, I think this is like a lesson that you never call something final

48:11 in front of anything for games that you want to be successful franchises. Final Bubble Bobble doesn't sound good to me. And I'm not talking about Final Fantasy because that would be like calling it the final Final Fantasy. You know what I mean? Like, it already had an established title. No, man. Final Fantasy was that. Like, that is Final Bubble Bobble. Right, but I'm saying like, Final Bubble Bobble is not, if that was the first game that ever came out was called Final Bubble Bobble,

48:39 then that's fine. Like, you know, that's fine. I get it. I don't get it, but I get it. Here, it's almost saying like, we're never going to make another Bubble Bobble again. This is the final Bubble Bobble. Yeah. Like, I don't think Square was saying we're never making fantasies ever again when they called it Final Fantasy. I think they were saying we're never making a game ever again. Yeah, exactly. Alright, so after Final Bubble Bobble,

49:02 Rainbow Islands, the story of Bubble Bobble 2. Okay, that sounds weird, right? Because don't we have Bubble Bobble Part 2 on the NES? We do. However, there was also this game called Rainbow Islands, which also likes to call itself Bubble Bobble 2. And that's a game that also comes to the NES, and we're going to have to play that in 1991. It's just that they lose the Bubble Bobble 2 mention, I guess because it would be confusing. to have Bubble Bobble Part 2 and the story of Bubble Bobble 2 come out in the same year. So instead, it's just referred to as Rainbow Islands.

49:36 And you play as Bubbly and Bobbly in their human form because it's actually a continuation of the story. So now that the dragons have turned back into humans, you play as them and use their ability to shoot rainbows.

49:51 Rainbows. They shoot rainbows in the same kind of way that you shoot the bubbles and then the rainbows, like, you can walk over them and you can attack enemies with them. It looks pretty neat. It has my curiosity, I'd say. Yeah, I mean, MTJ made it, so you know he was thinking, like, you know, people, bubbles were big, rainbows are really going to take off.

50:13 So this brings me to the great Bubble Bobble 2 debate, which we're going to have to settle in Bubble Bobble Part 2, but we might as well talk about it now. You have Rainbow Islands, the story of Bubble Bobble 2, which is the first sequel to Bubble Bobble. Then you have Bubble Bobble Part 2, which was released on the NES. And then you have Bubble Symphony, which was also known as Bubble Bobble 2 in some countries. Which one would you go with as the second game? What is Bubble Bobble 2? I would say the Bubble Bobble 2 is whichever Bubble Bobble is the bubbling is bubble.

50:49 Like, the one that's most similarly like Bubble Bobble. I'm glad you realized I just wanted to say Bubble Bobble a lot. Yeah. Like, not Symphony. Symphony sounds like it's just trying to, just trying to be like a music game that's probably not very good. I would say the one where you're shooting rainbows is not OG Bubble Bobble enough to be a Bubble Bobble 2. So Bubble Bobble 2, the one most similar to Bubble Bobble, is Bubble Bobble 2. Okay. And I would argue that since this game focused so much on its story that it's only fair that the one where, that picks up right after the end of Bubble Bobble 1, which would be Rainbow Islands, that would be the real Bubble Bobble 2. No, no, that's just the story of Bubble Bobble 2.

51:32 Oh, yeah. I'm glad you're keeping track of everything because I'm kind of losing track of it all. Well, we're going to have to track down one thing and that is whether this game is an essential game or not and we do that as we always do on the Essential Games List.

51:52 All right, I've been talking a lot this episode, so I'm just going to get my vote out of the way so this way we just, like, can not hear my voice for a while. So, you know, the short story here is that I had a lot of fun playing Bubble Bobble but it didn't hold my attention long enough for me to think, like, that this is a game worth everyone's time today. I think if you're playing NES games you can't miss Bubble Bobble but I wouldn't say, like, everyone needs to know about this game in the sense that, like, I wouldn't say that everyone

52:24 needed to know about other games that I happened to like but that I don't think were, like, part of the Essential Games List. There's a different list there called, like, Play It's, if you will, and I think we talk about that a lot but I don't think that Bubble Bobble meets all the Essential for my Essential Games List. So, Sean, where do you fall?

52:44 I'd say I agree with, like, just how long it held me. I could really only play this for as long as I did. Like, I couldn't really make it a long session. It seemed way too simple. I mean, yes, it gets more, there's more things to do but it's still just such a simple idea that I couldn't keep playing it and for that reason alone I can't put it on the Essential Games List. Okay, and Joe, you're not going to be able to put it on the Essential Games List but you can still vote.

53:17 Well, I'm going to start off with a little bit of a positive. I think that this really captured my attention enough to make me, like, like it more than most of the other arcade games we've played and I think you guys, I think in the past have mentioned, one of you guys had mentioned something that would be maybe an Essential Arcade Game for, like, classic arcade games and I think this would be there for me but similarly to what you guys said, I mean, we talked about how there's really not much stopping us from beating this game because you can keep picking it up and none of us beat the game and I think it was all for the same reason that you guys are saying. I also just,

53:54 after a while, I was just like, alright, I'm at level 45, seems cool, I'm enjoying it enough but like, do I really want to keep going? Like, I just feel like the loop of it was, that barrier of entry to the Essential Games List that a lot of arcade games have for me was definitely felt here where it was just a little too samey, I was just getting bored with it. I have really, as much as we're talking it up on this episode, I don't have too much of an interest of going back and playing it. It was just a fun distraction and I think anyone who plays it will have fun with it but it's not a must. You know, Joe, I wanted to mention because you said you played with Mark,

54:29 my gameplay time when I played this with my fiance, it did not increase the gameplay time. We played it for just about the same amount of time that I played it by myself. Did you find that that was also the case for you and Mark that like, you didn't necessarily like, blast through further or have like, any additional fun? It just seems weird that a game based around two player co-ops doesn't really like, doesn't hide in the experience at all. I'd be interested to know that. I actually only played it with other people so also shout out to my friends John and Steve but

55:01 between all of us I've only played it two player and I remember thinking I bet I wouldn't be enjoying it as much if I was playing by myself. That might just be personal preference but I actually never played it in single player. Unless you count the times when like somebody else dies and I'm playing alone or a lot of times I died and you know my partner started going on. So I guess that's a similar experience but I'm still, we're still all

55:21 rooting to get to the end of the level so it still feels a little bit more like team. I'd still like to, I'd also like to give a shout out to John and Steve. Thank you. Yeah, every episode John and Steve. I just, yeah, I'd like to give a shout out to my boys Aaron, Alex, Anthony, Andrew, Asher, Austin, Adam, Axel, you know, everyone with the letter A. It starts with an A, yeah.

55:44 I don't know any of those people so I'm sorry that I mentioned your name on my guest. This is usually the end of the show now. This is where we just kind of ramble for a little bit as you can see, Sean started it but I killed it. So we killed another episode and we're going to do it again next week with a game called Cobra Command. I'm looking forward to it. I would think that that would have something to do with Cobra Kai. Yeah, Cobra Kai or not Cobra Kai. You say anything and all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, yeah. No, who are those people?

56:20 Is it this Cobra? Is that like the G.I. Joe bad guys? I believe so. Okay. Yeah. So do you think Cobra Command has any tie in with that or no? I would say there's a 50-50 shot. All right. I like that we don't ever play these games before the episode. You know, like we always talk about these games like they're just like, oh, I'd like to see what that is.

56:42 Yeah. I'm not going to. They got announced in this episode. Every end of every episode for us is E3, essentially, and a new game is announced. That's right. But bad news, it's made by Data East, apparently. Oh, no. Because I went on the Wikipedia and it said, for the 1984 interactive movie game also produced by Data East, Cobra Command. I want to play that one. I'm just, Cobra Command just sounds so familiar to me. I feel like I used to have it as a kid and this is unlocking old memories. I don't know, we'll have to see once I play it, but that's it. That's the end of the thought. That's it. And that's the end of the episode. That's the whole episode. That's the end of the episode.

57:38 That's the end of the episode. Jennifer Jennifer Jennifer Jennifer