NES box art for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the cover of NEStalgia episode 174

174 · Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

▶ Game info

VerdictSkip it

GenreAction

ReleasedApril 1989

SeasonSeason 5

DeveloperAdvance Communication Company

PublisherBandai

June 13, 2021 · 34 min · transcript available

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novella "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", which follows a respected doctor who develops a serum that transforms him into the embodiment of his darkest thought and desires. He becomes a slave to his alter ego and is ultimately destroyed by it.

SHOW NOTES

Dr. Jekyll Longplay

Magnavox Odyssey

Romeo and Juliet Game

AVGN Dr. Jekyll

Jekyll and Hyde (2001)

Our verdict: Skip it

Advance Communication Company made this for Bandai in 1989. The goal is a race to the church to marry Miss Millicent, and if your stress meter fills, Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde and you land in a demon world. We found it absurd and bad in fun ways.

Jekyll's London

Everyone is out to get you. Guys walk in front of you, drop a bomb and run off. Kids fire slingshots, birds fall on your head, and the black cats are harmless until they start bugging out.
You can only walk. You can't run from a bomb, and we couldn't find a use for the cane. Crouching in front of a bee or fly makes it vanish with a little boop, the only interaction we found.
Designed to stress you out. As we put it: "the problem with a game designed to stress you out is that it stresses you out. And that's not fun."

Hyde's demon world

Hyde's world is mirrored, so you walk right to left, and it auto-scrolls. Now there are real enemies, and you have the psycho wave, which is on the front of the box. It dips below the ground and loops back to hit things from behind, and you can't control it.

Reach the spot you got to as Jekyll and you die. Hyde is more fun, but only because Jekyll is so awful. We never fully understood the bribery system, where you pay people to stop being jerks with money you find as Hyde.

Two endings

Reach the church as Jekyll and that is the bad ending: no cutscene, just the end, and you reset your NES. To see the wedding, you need your stress meter full near the church so you can become Hyde on the final level, where the lightning bolt that kills you is gone. Then you beat a floating demon head that vanishes and reappears and takes many psycho waves.

Worth knowing

The reputation. The Angry Video Game Nerd made a 48-second video of how fast you die, and Wikipedia lists it among the worst games of all time. Joe would score it down with the ones and zeros out of ten but says plenty on the NES are worse.

The bottom line

Skip it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. Joe doesn't think it would be a good game even if it were executed properly. Sean called it bad in fun ways, but still bad. Mike was sold on 40 more minutes by the first bomb drop but won't say you should play it, and says anyone can find out what it is about in 10 minutes, so it goes on our fastest games to play list.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

Click a timestamp to play from there. Landing a little off?

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

Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde, Dual World Challenge, Jackal's London, and Hyde's World of Demons. 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, obviously we're all familiar with the source material, the curious case I think it is of Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde. Benjamin Button, yeah. Yeah. Did that, when you, you know, like, forget about if you read the book or not, did that scream video game for you?

Yeah, it's just that they didn't have video games yet, so they were just waiting. I think it was probably the original intention was to be a video game, but technology wasn't there yet. There's really something about Victorian era allegory that like really gets that high score feel to it. I don't know. I was hoping for one. Is this like, is this, is this where we start? Like, shouldn't we start with the Odyssey? Where's that game? Where's Romeo and Juliet?

Yeah, Romeo and Juliet is a dating sim already, I think. In 1985. The Odyssey is actually the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. So technically, I guess that works. Right? I think you're right. Yeah, I think in our next podcast, we'll do a chronological exploration of every book released in North America.

Gonna start with Mall Flanders. Anyway, so obviously, because we all agree that the book needed a video game. It makes sense that if you're going to make a video game on Dr. Jacqueline, Mr. Hyde, it would essentially boil down to a race to the church to marry Miss Millicent. And not Maleficent, as I keep wanting to say, I think it's Millicent. So it's not the evil dragon woman from Sleeping Beauty. It's just a nice, normal woman who wants to be married. But that's where you would pick up the plot for this game. You would say, if I'm going to make a Dr. Jacqueline, Mr. Hyde game, it should be about a race to get married.

Do you get married? Oh yeah, absolutely. Like, not in general, like in real life. I mean, like, I couldn't beat the game. So is there like an end screen where you get married?

Sean, there's two endings. Okay. So, I'll save it for a little later. But yes, you totally, that is the goal of the game. I guess you're right. You wouldn't know that if you didn't read like the manual or anything. Like, you wouldn't know that you're walking with purpose to get to a church. But look at the way he's walking. Obviously not enough purpose. Yeah. That's definitely purposeful. There's a twist, of course, on your walk to the church. Because as Dr. Jekyll, if you are walking to the church and become too stressed, according to your stress meter, then Dr. Jekyll will transform into Mr.

Hyde. And you will find yourself in the demon world. Yeah. I was a little confused about that. I know I have not read the book. Is the demon world just the way Mr. Hyde sees the real world? Right. Is that just like London on acid? Yeah. Like these demons you're attacking are just these people that you're seeing who all deserve to be attacked because all they do is attack you when you're Dr. Jekyll. That's sort of a meditation on, you know, having a very bad temper.

So, you know, the man that actually, no, a man dropping a bomb is already like, that's just uncalled for. So, he deserves to get like punched. But I would say that like, yeah, when you see a bug that flies in your face, you might think of it as a brain with legs when you have like this weird skin condition called Mr. Hyde syndrome. But I think it's sort of like that. Joe, you mentioned that everybody in the town, you know, of London, they're just they're just dicks to you. But it's worth mentioning that they just never would allow a game like this at a, you know, a tourist agency for London or anything. It's just completely misrepresentative.

If I played this game before I ever went to the UK, I would think that London was significantly worse than New Yorkers, you know, I mean, they're as Sean mentioned, they're dropping bombs. They're they're shooting you with like, is that a slingshot? Yeah, those little kids are with the slingshot. And then apparently it's just open carry open season for everything out there hunting in the middle of the streets. It's it's really like they need to get tough on crime in London. Yeah. And they only they only shoot at the birds they're hunting when it's right out directly over your head. So the bird will fall on your head.

And the cats are like they're fine, right? Like, oh, just a black cat. No big deal until they start bugging out. Did you notice that? Like there's something about the cat enemy specifically that just like he won't hurt you unless he's having a seizure. Yeah, but that that I think is the most true to life. OK, yes, I could I could understand that. Cats are harmless until. Yeah.

So, yeah, this this game is really just about nuisances in city life. And in some ways. OK, I mean, we just broke down like so many enemies in the game and stuff like that. But, you know, in a game where you are just able to take a stroll, right? Like all these terrible things are happening to you, but you can't really fight back. You have a cane, but I couldn't find many uses for it. You have you have your speed of walking, which you can't like decide to run if you see a bomb. You have so much chaos going on. It's just no wonder that the stress meter fills up so quickly.

Yeah. This sort of like blast game where an Amagon where all the enemies just sort of like run at you like, yeah, there's some placement. But there's always like at least four or five enemies running around. This is sort of the same level of like clusterfuck where there's always going to be a little boy with the slingshot.

And every few meters is going to be a guy dropping a bomb. The cat's going to come. Sometimes you'll get people that just want to run at you and knock you over. However, it's really I mean, yeah, it's like the stress meter. The stress meter is this is really stressful when you're in like normal London land. Yeah. But in this game particularly, I feel like the what you're that element you're talking about where everything's kind of just coming at you is like by design. Like they want it to be to feel to feel like not impossible. They want it to feel like unfair and stressful. In my opinion, it seems like that like the point is to stress you out. And the problem with a game designed to stress you out is that it stresses you out. And that's not fun.

OK, but would you I would make the argument that they didn't intend for this game to be hilarious. And yet I was cracking up while I was playing this game. I couldn't of how ridiculous it is. I couldn't bear to laugh when I was this angry at the game. I get why you would think so. If I was watching somebody play this and I didn't particularly like them very much, I would also laugh.

See, I have almost like the reverse of that, Mike, where I thought like halfway through the game, I was like, this game is trying to be funny, but I don't find any of it funny because I'm so pissed off also. But like I thought maybe that like I don't know, but I thought maybe that like they did have a sense of humor when making this in some in some instances. Oh, they definitely do. Like, you know, like a bird pooping on you constantly like that. That's so relatable.

But not when it's like there are 15 birds that are trying to poop on you constantly while you're also trying to dodge a barking dog. But no, I get that. I just couldn't remove myself from the situation.

Okay. And I see what you guys are saying. Like maybe they were trying to be funny or not. I just I don't know where I fall with a game like this because, you know, the goal of the game and what the game actually does are completely against each other. If you're supposed to just like be able to do anything in this game in any reasonable amount of time before transforming into, you know, Mr. Hyde. Like I don't see it. I'm constantly being Dr. Jackal. Okay. Now I'm Mr. Hyde. Okay. I finally got back to Dr. Jackal. Now, you know, maybe I make a little more progress.

It's nice the way they set up the Mr. Hyde part. This way you can get back to being Dr. Jackal. But like, you know, I get the identity crisis theme, right, that the book and the game are going for. But it just felt unnatural when I was playing this game. I felt like I was going nowhere. For a guy who was supposed to be at a wedding, I felt like I wasn't going to get anywhere. I so I was able to get some progress as Jackal just by sort of taking my time and trying not to let too many things like cross my path at once. And that is incredibly difficult.

I found that, like, you know, you can jump over the cat for sure. You're going to get hit by the dog at least once. So you can just like, you can tank that. I found that if you crouch in front of a bee, like, I don't know, like you eat the bee or something and it just goes away and it doesn't do any damage.

So, like, I was able to get to the second screen. And that's when I always would turn like that. That's the farthest I've been able to go without turning into Mr. Hyde. So I could make progress, but I always, like, just died eventually. So I never beat the game. Yeah, I also didn't beat the game. But did you what you you're saying you died as Mr. Hyde or did you get back to Jekyll ever?

I have been able to get back to Jekyll, but I always would die like for real this time as Hyde. Gotcha. So in Jackal's version of the of the game, you know, you are just you're going left to right and you're trying to walk and avoid all the obstacles. But if your stress meter does fill up, you go into Hyde's demon world, which is a mirrored version. So now you're going right to left.

And for some reason, they've decided now it's going to be like an auto scroller where you must go forward. And, you know, maybe that's just part of the trance that Mr. Hyde is in. That's how I kind of read it. Yeah. But now, like, there's, you know, now there's like actual enemies, not just people. And you have what's called the psycho wave, an ability that I'm not sure was ever in the book. But, like, you can attack enemies with a psycho wave.

And it's actually such a big selling point that they put it on the very front cover of the box. You can you have you have a projectile weapon. We got to put that in the front of the game.

Just something about that's funny. But so as Mr. Hyde, you kill all the monsters. And I think once you get to the spot equivalent to where Dr. Jekyll reached, that's when you that's why that's like that's the end point. Like you will you will be killed. Right. So you have to you have to abate your anger before you get to the to the part in the game where you were reached as Dr. Jekyll. Yeah, that's sort of how like if you got I don't know, like however many steps forward as Jekyll, if you get to that many steps forward as Hyde, the game's over.

Which would make sense why they did the auto scrolling thing. Yeah. Well, that's one thing I wasn't clear on at first either. I didn't really know that I was walking back to my death and that I would die as as Mr. Hyde if I reached the point of Dr. Jekyll. I thought that you would that you start at the same point and start walking backwards undoing your progress, which I thought would have been kind of interesting. I don't I don't really understand why. I mean, I guess we don't need like a plot reason, but I just thought I was weird. Like, why does he is that something from the book if he goes to the same place?

OK, so there are two ways to read this. I don't really know which one's correct, but I think they both make sense in different ways. The first one is you're literally walking back to your house or your your lab or whatever. And I think that's a like that's gamey, but it makes sense as like you just you know, you if you get back there, you've lost all of your progress. So you're dead. You may as well start over anyway.

And the other one that makes sort of a bit more like narrative sense, if you can call it that, is like you would make it to your wedding as Mr. Hyde. And that would be messy. So that's also kind of a lose condition. And so maybe that's a way to look at it. But from from what I understand is that you start as Dr. Hyde at the end of the level and walk. It's Dr. Jekyll. I'm sorry, Mr. Hyde. You start as Mr. Once you change into Mr. Hyde, you start at the end of the level and walk back towards the beginning of the level. Correct? I'm not sure.

I can't say if it's the actual like end of the level or not. Because the games, I mean, sorry, the backgrounds look so different that I wouldn't say one way or the other. Gotcha. Okay. I don't know why I thought that, but I thought that didn't make any sense because you would be you should be in the same place. I thought that the background of where I was looking so different was because I was in a different place. So I was like, why am I in a new spot? The whole point is that he transforms into. I would say that it's because you have a different mental perspective.

That makes sense. And let's talk about here, you know, Jackal's world, you know, oddly just, you know, is even though they're referring to it as London, feels kind of like its own version of a demon world. Right. Oh, yeah. And there's the gameplay of that. And then there's the gameplay of Mr. Hyde. And obviously, like the objective here is to advance as far as possible as Dr. Jekyll, possibly even the whole stage.

And then you want, you know, if you have to become Mr. Hyde because of your stress meter or whatever, then you want to transform back as soon as possible. So the game is actually saying, like, try to be Mr. Hyde for as little as possible. And that makes sense, again, thematically with everything that I know about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But did you enjoy Mr. Hyde's world more than Dr. Jekyll's? You know, just curious about, like, which actual gameplay you preferred. I mean, no question. The actual sort of like auto-scroller part is a more entertaining and less annoying gameplay.

And it's hard to sort of remove that from, like, your mind while you're playing. Like, oh, I guess I don't want to at least enjoy the moment to moment. I want to be in this land of nuisances.

So I get what you're saying, that it's sort of, it's not what you would expect from, like, what the player should want. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I completely agree that, yeah, it is more fun to play as Mr. Hyde. Although I'll say that it's only more fun to play as Mr. Hyde because of how terrible it is to play as Dr. Jekyll. It's not like it's fun to play as Mr. Hyde. I would rather have my teeth cleaned than a tooth pulled.

There you go. Yeah, exactly. You know, what's that movie where it, like, it starts at a traffic jam and the guy gets out of his car and it just, like, it gets worse and worse as things go on. And then I think the ending is actually, like, very bleak. But does anyone remember that movie? Okay, like a bad, like the bad day movie. Like, like Training Day?

Training Day is a good guess. Definitely not what I was thinking. You know, it's like, it's just like a normal white-collar, you know, guy. But I'm going to look it up. I think it's Falling Down. Falling Down is the movie. And the reason why I bring that up in this particular episode is because that's how I feel like Dr. Jekyll's day is going, you know? Like, it's such a great day for him. He's about to get married and everything. But the actual game, everyone and everything is working against you. There's never a good moment.

And I'm surprised that there's no, like, Castlevania II element to this where you can, like, talk to townspeople and they can be, like, you know, give some world building and be like, yeah, I don't know what's going on. Like, what's in the air today? Or, like, you know, it just seems strange that everyone in this game says, I'm going to, you know, like, F up this guy's shit today. Like, I'm really going to mess with him, you know, knowing that he's, like, fully dressed in a, you know, in a nice suit and everything and birds are pooping on him and he's getting bombs dropped on him. The bombs! It's crazy, guys. Yeah, like, the Jekyll parts of this game feel like, to me, what really entitled people must, like, like, how they describe their day.

Like, oh, everybody was out to get me and nothing could possibly go right. It's like this finally coming to fruition. That's sort of how I was interpreting it. I bet a lot of those people played this game as kids and that's why they're like that now.

Yeah, it even gets to the point where, like, it looks, I thought I was, like, far in the game, but I'm, like, watching a video of it now. I think I was, like, not even halfway through or maybe a little bit over halfway through. But it's, like, the third or fourth screen. It just, people just compound on you. Like, there's just no... There's no way out. There's no gaps between the people. Not even the other, not even the dogs or the bombs or the birds or whatever. Just people. Just charging from left and right. Just haul all over the place. There's nothing you can do.

It's kind of absurd. And that's what I really think happens here. I mean, I know we're not getting, like, too deep into gameplay or anything, but it's because I'm still shocked by the absurdity of the game. Like, the fact that you could have bought this and plugged this into your NES and played it. And I don't think anybody was guessing this is what a Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde game was going to be. Am I wrong? Like, did you guys actually think this was going to be the game? No, not at all. But I'll say that it...

I feel like I say this about a lot of games that I don't like. But, like, it's an interesting way to make a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde game where Mr. Hyde has a different sort of goal, quote unquote. Or is, like, is undoing progress or is hurting your progress. Like, that...

In theory, that makes sense that you would want for a game like this where it's about, like, the dichotomy of your two personalities to have something like that. It's just... It just doesn't work. Yeah, like, I think back to Vampire the Masquerade. Like, if you don't get enough blood or something along those lines, you'll go into a frenzy. And, like, a whole thing about the game is you're trying to uphold the masquerade and, like, not let people know that vampires exist. And when you frenzy, like, you lose all input and you go mess up people's day and murder people. And, like, it's supposed to be, like, a thing you don't want to happen. But that sort of, like, counters itself because there's a lot of other things going on in the game.

Whereas this is... Like, it's definitely a huge part of the game. But the gameplay loop is just so ludicrous. It's hard to get on board. Yeah, and I think I understand what you're saying, Joe. Like, there's no doubt this is an interesting game. Like, we haven't played one like this.

And, you know, a lot of times we say, like, you know, well, if they fix some of the execution, like, maybe it would be a great game. I don't know here. I don't know if this is... It's just... There's so much going against it. In terms of, like, the frustrating amounts of things that happened to you. And, you know, just being in Jekyll's London. Like, just that experience is just not very fun. And it's so, like, not of the times. Like, when I look at the games that we've been playing in 1989 and before that, this just doesn't come off as, like, something kids would want to play and something that would be fun. Like, it just feels like it's completely in the wrong market.

It just feels like such an oddity. And so I appreciate all that stuff. Like, it's weird what they... You know, like, oh, this could be a way to make, like, an incredible Hulk game. If that makes sense. You know? Like, take the same exact game. Why did you choose Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Like, this could have been a great game where, like, you're Bruce Banner doing... Trying to, like, solve... But that also sounds like not a way that you would make a Hulk game where you want to be Banner the whole time. Well, right. That would be Omegon. Right, right. Right. An incredible Hulk game would be like Omegon from last week. I hear you. Yeah.

I don't know what the solution is here. They did lay down, like, an interesting idea for a game. I'm just not... I'm not down with it. It's kind of like that time that Ghostbusters was turned into, like, a... An economic simulator? Yeah, you're part of the Ghostbusters franchise and you've got to manage your money and stuff. Like, that was bizarre. So, that's what this is. It's just a very bizarre game. I don't really know how to judge it.

Well, before we judge it, we have to take everything into account. We never mentioned the bribery system. Would you like to talk about it? Yeah. I never really fully understood how it worked, but apparently you can pay people to stop being assholes with money that you find as Mr. Hyde, which I imagine, like, in the real world, you're actually just mugging these people for their money.

And that's sort of... And then giving it back to them, though? Like, giving it back to them to make them stop singing so terribly. But I just wanted to make sure that we at least touched upon that before we fully... Oh, I wasn't... Yeah, I wasn't jumping to the Essential Games list yet because I also wanted to talk about the cane. Does that really do anything? I couldn't find a use for it. Yeah, I assume that you have to hit someone a million times. More than 16 times, like last week.

16. To kill anyone because I never killed anything with that cane. And so that's like another part of the absurdity, though, right? Like, you get... The button does something and it doesn't seem like it's doing anything. Yeah. Well, even... The only time that I could interact with an obstacle or enemy was when I ate the fly or the bee. Like, that's the only thing that I could do. You ate it? It sounds like that was just like a glitch in your game. Every single time I crouched in front of a bug, it, like, gave me a little boop and then it went away. Wow. I missed that. But I don't know what that was about. But that was the only way to interact with any of these enemies.

Yeah. Well, even when you're Mr. Hyde and you interact, you have, like, a fire flower type thing. But instead of, like, bouncing off the ground, it, like, sometimes it'll go below the hitbox of the ground. Oh, that's good. Psycho. And, like, dips down and then it, like, comes back up around and, like, hits things from behind or something. But you have no control over it, so you only hit things, like, once in a while.

Or if they're, like, directly in front of you. Yeah. Like, it didn't even do the, like... Yeah, the path is wild. Yeah, yeah. It didn't even do the, like, you feel so overpowered as Mr. Hyde or anything because you actually feel, you know, a little more useful. But you still feel kind of helpless compared to most games. So is the reputation of this game fair? You know, I looked to, again, the angry video game nerd who did, like, I think this was his second episode.

And, you know, I think it's a 48-second video where he just shows how quickly you can die in the game. And a lot of people have just said, like, you know, oh, now that I've seen that video or now that I played it afterwards, like, this is one of the worst games of all time. And there's even an entry for it in a Wikipedia article on list of worst games of all time. So is that fair?

Did it earn that? Is that exaggerated a bit? What do you think, Joe? I think it depends on how big your list is. Definitely think that we've played plenty of games that are worse than this just on the NES alone. So if I were to put this in, like, if it was just, like, chunks of, like, of, like, how, you know, if we were rating it out of 10, this would definitely be down there with the ones and zeros for me. But if I were actually ranking them on, like, a spectrum, I think there's plenty that are worse than this game. I'd say that I'd keep this, like, in that list of worst games of all time.

But that video does overstate how bad it is. Like, I guess, like, one of the worst games of all time that has a reputation. Because, yeah, there are a ton of terrible games. And this one's almost unplayable. But at least it's one of those so bad that it's interesting. Not so bad that it's good, but so bad that it's interesting. Because it has such a weird and wacky way of going about its terribleness.

So, yeah, a little exaggerated in that video, but still plenty bad. Yeah, I think that's how I feel, too, Sean. Is, like, you know, so bad that it actually makes it interesting. Because the real, like, 99% of the actual bad games that have ever been created are, like, flash games that nobody remembers anymore. You know, like, do those even count? Like, probably not. You should probably only count official releases and stuff like that. But even then, still.

Like, there are games that are just, like, the game is Super Mario Brothers, but we made it worse in every way possible. Right? And those are, like, the actual bad games. Like the shovelware. Yeah. Right. They didn't do anything to change it. And they actually made it worse than the games they were trying to rip off.

This is at least, as we've been saying, it's absurd enough for me to say, like, I'm not upset that I spent some time playing this game. Like, it was an interesting experience to include this in the list of video games I've ever played. Absolutely. Sean, you were asking about the ending for the game, if he gets married or not. There are two endings. So, if you get to the church as Dr. Jekyll, then you have gotten the bad ending, believe it or not. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's the bad ending because you just, you made the game too easy. And, therefore, when you get to the church, you just see the end. And that's it. No cut scene or anything. You don't get to see if the wedding happened or not. You just get the end and you have to reset your NES.

Wow. However, if you can get to the church or close enough to the church and then get your stress meter built up before getting to the end, that will allow you to transform into Mr. Hyde. And this is the only level, because it's the final level, where you won't have to worry about, you know, reaching the same point as where you were with Dr. Jekyll because now the bolt of lightning that kills you is no longer there. And so when you get to the church, there's a big boss fight with, like, a floating head.

And I can't really tell what that floating head is supposed to represent, but it's like a demon. So I guess that's the whole, like, demon world thing. But it takes so many shots of your psycho wave to kill this thing. And like Joe was mentioning, because of the unpredictability of that psycho wave and the fact that the floating head, like, vanishes from screen and reappears. Even some of, like, the fastest YouTube videos I've seen. It takes these guys a while to kill the floating head.

But if you manage to do that, you will actually get to see the marriage of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Millicent. So at least you get that. I think it is a little strange, though, that you have to, like, fill up your stress meter on the final level like you were supposed to know that. So you can't win this game? Like, you can't go and actually, like, get to the church not being Mr. Hyde? You have to be Mr. Hyde to get the cutscene because, Sean, you have to face your demons. Oh, yes, I see. Everybody has to do that before they get married. It's like part of the counseling stage. You have to face your demons.

Joe, any thoughts on the ending? I mean, it's, again, it's, like, interesting and unique. I don't think it's necessarily something that makes a good video game. I think, yeah, I think they were just off the mark. In the sequels and spinoffs section here, the only thing I have is a video game from 2001 called Jekyll and Hyde. It was only available on Windows.

And the only thing to note here is that on Wikipedia, they don't really tell you what the game is or anything like that. But they say it was praised for its sound effects. And I thought that was funny. It's like they're looking for something to praise them about. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, but who? Like, was it anyone notable? What sound effect? Like, what? Everything's a beep and a boop. I mean, when was this? What year was this? 2001. So, you know, not beeps and boops anymore. Oh, I'm sorry. I completely blanked.

I was like, this game that we've just played? No, no, yeah, yeah. I thought maybe if it was a little earlier, if it was like right around the time that, you know, I don't even know what year it would be. But when we're hearing sound effects that are like that weird muffled, like it's like an actual recording, but it's like really compressed. And then maybe these people figured out how to like make it sound nicer or something.

But 2001, I mean, at that point, it's just sounds. And I think it's also worth remembering that Dr. Jekyll was a pretty important character in the Dark Universe. The failed Universal Studios, you know, the mummy, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll. Russell Crowe was playing Dr. Jekyll in the mummy movie with Tom Cruise. Well, who played Dr. Jekyll in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Oh, that's a good question.

Hmm. Not showing up right here, but let's get an answer because why not? That would be more interesting. Although Russell Crowe probably could have done a good job for what it's worth. I think so. Jason Fleming. Sorry. There you go. Oh, yeah. I vaguely remember this.

Where's the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen video game? I want to see that. If it's as good as the movie. It's just a race to the church again. But now as all of the extraordinary gentlemen.

I think we've exhausted our thoughts here. So we will give our final thoughts in a little thing we like to call the Essential Games List. Joe, your closing thoughts and arguments on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yeah. So earlier I said how a lot of times we talk about games that have interesting elements, but they don't pull them off properly.

And they're like, they could be good games. I want to be clear. I don't think that this necessarily would be a good game, even if they pulled it off properly. If they, like, I think it's interesting that they thought of this and they worked it this way. But I just think it's not a good translation into a video game. So I'm going to say no, not Essential. Sean? Yeah, I mean, we've already talked about really just how bad this game is.

It's bad in fun ways, but still bad. And I don't think that that fits the bill for an Essential game. All right. Look, I'm not going to hide from it. This game is absurd and it is really funny for me. I don't know. Something about, like, the first time you see, and I'm sorry that, you know, if you haven't played the game yet and now you're listening to the podcast.

The first time a guy just walks in front of you, drops a bomb, and then runs away, and then you can't do anything about it. Like, you have to just walk at the same slow pace away. Like, the first time that happens, that's when I knew I was going to play this game for an additional, like, 40 minutes. Like, I was like, okay, now I'm sold. Like, I can test how far I can go. So, no, it's not Essential. I'm not going to say you should play it, but come on. Aren't you curious? Right. Aren't you a little curious? I think everybody can find out what Dr. Jagl and Mr. Hyde is all about in 10 minutes.

So, it goes on our fastest games to play list. Joe? Yes? Are you there? I'm here. Next week, next week, Fist of the North Star. That mean anything to you? I think it means that the star, you'll be fighting the stars. It's a shmup. Very good. Yeah, the most important star. Sean, the week after that, The Guardian Legend. Does that mean anything to you? Um, like the Chronicles of Riddick? There you go. And the week after that, we have the Legacy of the Wizard, which I can only imagine is the story of the only wizard that ever existed.

So, that was a little taste of the next three games. We'll try this out some more in the future, but that's what you have to look forward to. Three games. Fist of the North Star, The Guardian Legend, Legacy of the Wizard. We know nothing about them, but there's a good chance you guys already know something about them. So, if you don't, definitely try to get a hold of these games somehow and play them.

If you do know, let us know on Twitter any, like, you know, tips and tricks. I like when people tell us, you know, what they think of the games beforehand. Gives me a better idea of the, you know, the times. What people who have played these games. The vets. What they think. So, next week we'll be playing Fist of the North Star. Let us know at NostalgiaCast on Twitter. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me at Esposito Film on Twitter. And I'll talk to you soon.