200 · Strider

• The free world relies on your success
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Episode 200!
  • Special Announcement
    • Nothing about NEStalgia is changing
    • Most requested feature - The Website
    • $5 patrons get access to NEStalgia Bytes
    • More bonuses along the way for everyone!
• Overview
  • The player takes control of Hiryu, the youngest ever elite-class Strider. In this sidescrolling platform game you must locate clues to the progression of the story to unlock the other levels
    • Is that a unique idea? Is it different than collect X number of things to move on
• Gameplay
  • Exploration
    • Size of levels
    • Slope City
    • The Tubes
      • can enter from below (by jumping) or above (by crouching). The player will then be moved along the path of the tube until they reach the exit. Tubes may or may not allow the player to enter from both ends; it is possible for a tube to send the player back to a much earlier part of the level, or even a different level entirely, with no convenient way to return.
  • My problem with Metroid but WAY worse
    • Backtracking
    • Revisiting areas
  • The Cypher
    • Hiryu’s main weapon
  • Triangle Jump
    • Jump at Lvl 5 replaces the need for the triangle jump mostly
  • Tricks
    • These power ups are acquired as you level up
    • Cost a certain amount of energy
    • Only selected via menu and require a good amount of energy
    • Do you prefer EXP or this pre-determined nature of buffs/playing field.
  • Passwords
    • Of particular note, each time the player requests a password, the game ends with a brief description of the game's progress so far (which depends on Hiryu's current level) and gives a title for Hiryu's next adventure, similar to a television series or anime.
• Story
  • Set in a dystopian future during the year 2048
  • A secret organization of hi-tech ninja-like operatives known as the "Striders"
  • Hiryu is summoned by the organization's second-in-command, Vice Director Matic, to assassinate his friend Kain, who has been captured by hostile forces and has become a liability to the Striders.
  • Instead of killing him, Hiryu decides to rescue Kain from his captors; he is successful, and also recovers a recording from Kain concerning a suspected criminal plot.
  • With the help of his fellow Strider Sheena, Hiryu uncovers a conspiracy between a certain faction of the Strider organization and an unknown organization known simply as the "Enterprise" (headed by a man named Faceas Clay)
    • which involves the development of a mind-control weapon codenamed "Zain".[3]
  • In the course of finding and destroying these Zain units, Hiryu learns that the faction of conspirators is headed by Vice Director Matic himself.
  • Hiryu eventually tracks Matic to an orbiting space station where the two Striders face off; after a brief battle Hiryu bests Matic and kills him. Afterwards Hiryu locates and destroys the last of the Zain units, Mother Zain.
  • In the epilogue, it is revealed that though Hiryu was asked to return to the Strider organization he instead opted to retire. The final credits show him discarding his weapon and walking away.
• Box Art
  • The Soviet Union, at that time 3 years from collapse, was selected only as the visual inspiration for the "Enterprise" empire by the design team staging the packaging design.
  • Same guy who did the design for Tengen Tetris
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Arcade game was developed at the same time but it is different
    • The arcade version was just move level to level
    • Unlike the arcade game, the NES version of Strider closely follows the same storyline depicted in the Strider Hiryu manga, which involves Hiryu fighting against his former Strider allies.
  • Strider II (1990)
    • European developed sequel to Strider
    • No Capcom. No Nintendo systems
    • They also kinda made the game twice. For computers and then for Genesis
  • Strider 2
    • 199 Arcade/Playstation game
    • Made by Capcom
    • Set 2000 years after Strider, same villain and a clone of Hiryu
  • Strider (2014)
    • Reboot of the NES game, but for PS3/360 generation
    • 2.5D
  • Osman - 1996 Arcade Game
    • Unofficial Sequel to Strider
    • Most of the same staff, but Capcom not involved
  • He’s also in all the MvC games
  • And the Japanese only TRPG Namco X Capcom which is a damn shame
• EGL
• The Podcast
• Next week -

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

00:00 Strider, the free world relies on your success.

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. I'm Mockrider. And I'm Sam. That's not true. You are not Mockrider. I am Mockrider. Everybody's Mockrider. I thought I was Mockrider. No, no, no. I thought it would be nice to have a little callback to this episode.

00:43 Well, it's the 200th episode. Very exciting. Lots to celebrate. And I'm sure, like, for all of our listeners, it's also quite a celebration for everybody who's been listening for 200 straight episodes. You know, we can go around the table real quick and just talk about our thoughts on that. Sean, let's start with you. 200 episodes. Is it a big deal? I mean, like, it's pretty much four years. That's a lot. I didn't really expect this to go on for four years, if I'm being honest.

01:15 But I think, yeah, that's a big deal. It's a lot. Joe, did you think we'd make it? I thought we'd make it. But, you know, I was never sure. I was never sure. When we started, I was like, you know, maybe we'll lose interest. But no, I think our interest, if anything, has just ramped up as we go. So, you know, I'm excited to have gotten this far and to keep going.

01:39 Sam, did you ever think you'd come back? Of course. I knew I'd be back. Yeah. I'm like, I've mentioned this to someone on Twitter. But I've just been kind of focusing on music, which kind of sounds like pretentious. Like, I'm really just focusing on my music right now. But like, it's not. I'm in a band. We practice a lot. It's like, it takes up a lot of time. Because you have to like practice before the practice too, which is, you know, a lot of time. Homework practice. Yeah, it's homework practice and regular practice.

02:14 So, I don't know. I will be back. I can't say in what capacity, but this is something that is dear to me. And I want to continue to be a part of it. And, you know, however I can. Sometimes I do like a homework practice for just speaking about things. It doesn't really, it doesn't really pay off that well because I still fumble over words a lot. But when I'm not recording the show, I'm usually trying to exclaim opinions on things.

02:44 And, of course, this being the 200th episode means that it has been a little more than three years of nonstop recording of nostalgia episodes. We started with 10-yard fight back, the published date was February 9th, 2018. But we recorded it actually in early January. It was one of my New Year's resolutions for 2018 to start a podcast. And all four of us made an appearance on that. We did 10-yard fight, baseball, Clu Clu Land, and Duck Hunt all in the same record. Guys, what were we smoking back then? Wait a minute. No, we did Duck, we did out of order. We did Excitebike. And then we went back and did Duck Hunt for some reason because we didn't have the zappers yet. Yo, that is great trivia. You are the master of the trivia over here.

03:35 Wait, we did Excitebike first? Yeah, Excitebike was day one. It was some real demo tape shit. Like, we had one mic talking into it from across a room. Sounds terrible. Go back and listen. Yeah, you can definitely tell.

03:49 It's so bad that I actually put a disclaimer in front of those episodes. I think those first four episodes probably Excitebike instead of Duck Hunt saying like, hey, you should just know that like a lot of people think that this is an okay podcast and this is not okay, but you should listen to these episodes, but also listen to the newer episodes because they're a little higher fidelity.

04:11 Of course, you know, I just want to take one moment to thank our audio producer, Chris, who has been with us on the whole ride too. He doesn't speak, but you might know him as an occasional voice actor on the show. He plays a couple different roles. I won't say what they were because that would spoil the magic, but we've had some fun moments with Chris as well, and we couldn't do this without him on the show. So I just wanted to give him a quick shout out as well, even though he insists still on not speaking. Come on, Chris. He has a mic. He could speak right now if he wanted, but... We do have a very special announcement though for us and for fans of Nostalgia.

04:47 We've been paying close attention for the last probably like three years, you know, since the beginning of the podcast really. We've been asking the listeners, what do you guys think of the show? What matters most to you guys?

05:00 What was surprising was is that the most requested feature out of anything for Nostalgia was something that was kind of always there in the beginning and was one of the main like concepts of the show. But then when we lost, you know, like the ability to just continue to fund it, like we were losing money on it, we shut it down. And that was the website. The website is something where people constantly tweeted us being like, Hey, what happened to this? Or why isn't this working? And we were trying to explain to them like, you know, it's just something that's just not profitable for us to run.

05:33 But we know that's what a lot of you have been asking for is, you know, when can the website come back? And how can I give money so that the website could come back? And, you know, we were really appreciative in general, just the sentiment too, that like the website was something that you guys wanted to see. But we couldn't just ask for money for a website. That's not like, that's not who we are. That's not what we set out to make the show was the show has never been profitable.

05:57 It's an expensive show to run, but we love doing it week in and week out. And that's why, you know, we're looking at, well, how can we have the website? How can we make something new for listeners? And how can we make sure that this show, Nostalgia, the show that you've been listening to for 200 plus episodes,

06:16 continues to be the same exact thing without compromise? So we're bringing on advertisements. And that's not true. We've actually done some advertisements, but they're gone. Yeah. They're gone. If you go back to older episodes, they're not there.

06:31 But new episodes sometimes have answered, but then like those are also designed to be removed. It's pretty smart. Trust me. It's like one of those things where we always record the episode without the ads this way. They can be removed later. So what we decided on doing is, you know, nothing about Nostalgia, this show, the show that you subscribe to every Friday,

06:49 nothing about that is changing at all. You will still be able to get this episode and episode 201, 202, 203 every Friday without compromise guaranteed to you. The new thing that we are offering on a special thing that we have in the show notes, a link to our Patreon page is for just $1 a month. That's all we're really asking for is $1 a month. You are helping fund, you know, the, the, what we need to have this website up and running. We do it through Squarespace. So it's not too much per year or anything like that, but just the costs of us maintaining the website and using Squarespace and all that.

07:34 We're going to make a special thank you page to everybody. And you can, you know, let us know obviously what you want to be titled as in those things. You don't have to use your real name. But this way, you know, everybody knows who's helping get this website back up and running because, you know, whether you're someone who's going to contribute or not to this Patreon, that is something that a lot of people are asking for. And so we think we should give everybody the chance to make this a feature.

07:59 That said, we're not going to wait for people to, you know, to hit a certain amount of subscribers before we launch up the website. We're comfortable taking that cost on. And, you know, the website will come back and we're happy to say that all the information that you need from Nostalgia and to catch up will be there very soon. Web 3.0, baby. Yeah, I can't promise it'll be up when this episode's up, but it will be up very soon.

08:24 In addition to that, though, for people who are big fans of Nostalgia and want more of the podcast, more than what we offer here as a chronological exploration, we are offering for $5 a month access to a new show called Nostalgia Bites. That's B-Y-T-E-S. Get it? These are bite-sized episodes delivered once a month. Like it's bite-sized. So like a bite out of food. Right, right. A bite out of food, but it's a computer bite. Yeah. B-Y-T-E. Yeah. These shorter episodes are once a month. They are exclusive looks for these $5 a month Patreon subscribers who basically it's going to take a look at the Famicom library.

09:13 And we're going to look at the games that you can play without any Japanese language requirements. You don't need to know any Japanese. You can, as long as you have access to these Famicom games, you can play them just like we're going to play them. And we're going to look at them. Again, it's only once a month, so it's not every Friday or anything like that. But we're hoping to not just look at all of the Famicom games and say like, oh, this is, yeah, this is another one. And it's the same thing that we played kind of as this other episode, but it's this. No, this is going to be looking at some of the best and unique Famicom games.

09:50 And, you know, I hope, I guess like, you know, the hope is that everybody will also play along and experience these for the first time. Because the hook of nostalgia really is you guys have all played these games or are familiar with these games. And you're hearing a younger generation's take on what these games, you know, are like today with the modern lens. But with Nostalgia Bites, I'd argue that there's probably not too many of you guys that have delved into the, have dived in to the Famicom catalog. And that's what we're really hoping to have access to here with Nostalgia Bites is we can all experience something new together for the very first time. Again, it's just $5 a month to get access to that. You'll get a special RSS feed.

10:36 And you'll still get, obviously, the thank you on the Nostalgia website and all that. But there's definitely going to be more bonuses along the way for everyone, though.

10:46 We're looking into other ideas. You know, we, I don't want to promise anything. But we're always thinking about other types of shows we can do or other types of bonus content we can give you guys. So while we don't want to promise that directly, Nostalgia Bites is something we can promise. And we're really looking forward to that, that first episode, which, you know, for more information, definitely check out our Twitter.

11:07 But we'll also be talking about it here on the podcast as well. Guys, anything you want to say about this new Nostalgia Bites? Any excitement? Anything you want to tease or anything like that? I am excited. I really look forward to us having a home on the worldwide internet superhighway again. And I can't wait to get into the Famicom stuff and brainstorming about what else we can throw onto that old Patrioni.

11:39 Yeah, it's exciting to try these new games now from a different perspective. We're getting these games that might be totally different than anything we've played and little extra bonuses. And yeah, likewise, whatever we can come up with down the road, too. You know, some other things that we can do, other types of episodes. It's really fun to be able to branch out. So I'm just excited for the website so I can finally figure out, is NES baseball haunted?

12:08 Which is our most requested article because I think strictly because we reference it so much on the show. But yes, soon everybody will know if NES baseball is or is not haunted. We don't take a firm stance on it. But it's up for all true believers to understand and to make their own final assumptions for.

12:27 I just – one thing, if you don't mind me sounding like a broken record here, I just want everyone to know that we sincerely appreciate how much the show has grown. And that's why we made the decision of whether you're a $1 a month subscriber, a $5 a month subscriber for the bonus podcast, or you don't subscribe at all. We're not removing anybody's access to nostalgia, this podcast. It's very important to us that everybody who's been on the ride stays on the ride.

12:56 We couldn't have made it to 200 episodes without the growth we've been seeing. So even if you can't pledge any money to whether the funding of the website or the new podcast, we want you guys to know that the best way you can support us is just through word of mouth. Telling your friends, hey, I've been listening to this show for X amount of months or years I've been listening to this show, and I think you should too. That is the number one thing that this podcast needs is just growth.

13:24 And we've been diving into our own pockets a lot throughout the show's run to do advertising or to run stuff on Reddit or do the Game Jam. All those things are with our own time and effort and money and stuff like that. So we really appreciate just everybody who comes in and listens every week because it is a consistent growth. We've only ever seen the numbers go up, and we really appreciate everybody who's doing this. And if I could just jump in real quick, I will say that one of my favorite things to do now is to sell out. So this is really playing into my strengths. I can confirm that, yeah. Sean sells out a lot.

14:22 Anyway, we do have an episode to talk about. This is not just some kind of celebration thing. We won't be reviewing the Essential Games list. We won't magically put Zelda II on the list today. Never going to happen. We have a real schedule of things to do, and that is mostly to talk about Strider.

14:38 The Capcom, I think to some people this is a classic, but I found that to be a little confusing in terms of information because they developed an arcade game and this NES game at the same time. So I'm not sure which one was actually the revered one. It feels like my research led me to believe that the arcade one is the one that's more famous in terms of longevity. But this NES game was well-received at the time, and it's kind of like an early mix of the games that we've been getting, like Ninja Gaiden meets a Metroid-style game. Would you agree with that assessment, guys? Yeah. I've heard someone compare it to Bionic Commando also. Oh, that's a good comparison, yeah.

15:20 Yeah, I can definitely see that. It's like a lot of these games, I mean, even back to like, so there's some elements of like Metal Gear in here as like you're finding clues and you got your home base that you communicate with and stuff. I think it's like, it feels like it's on that same path as games like that that we've had intermittently.

15:39 Yeah, like a strong, it leans on some sort of story that actually comes out through the gameplay a bit more than your standard NES game. It's got some cinematic elements, so I can see that like Metal Gear comparison there.

15:59 So in this game, you play as, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but I think it's Hear You, or Her You for all I know, but you take control of the main character who is a, he's the youngest ever in the elite class known as Strider. They're like a secret organization that probably is responsible for a lot of the, you know, the Illuminati stuff of the world. And in this side-scrolling platform game, you play as him and have to locate clues, which are kind of like floppy disks, and interrogate members of either rival factions or of your own faction.

16:35 And these clues are required in order to continue progression in the story and unlock other levels, but also move further along in previous levels too. There's some degree of backtracking, moving forward, moving the story along, and power-up system that requires you to kind of like go back and try your new power-ups in places that were already familiar to you. Not much unlike how it was in Metroid where you would acquire, say, you know, missiles, and now you can open up doors specifically with missiles and stuff like that. I feel like, you know, on paper, it's a pretty solid idea. Not that it's anything too original, right? We've seen this all before.

17:15 But the one that stood out to me is the idea that you have to collect clues, almost like, you know, a detective, you know, get the next beat in the story, in order to then go back to your main hub, analyze the files, and get an idea of where you need to either go back to or where you need to go next. Sean, any thoughts on that? Yeah, I really like that element of it.

17:40 The files aren't... There's a lot of games that do something like this, where there are the things that are revealed to you in the game are how you have to progress. I guess like it's sort of been done in, like, Castlevania II and semi-adventure games like that, where, oh, you have to learn this information from some NPC. But at least in this one, it's a lot more clear.

18:09 And that there's a whole system for it. Like, you go back to your base, and you use your computer to analyze, and it's not super on the nose, but it gives you an idea of where you have to go. I really like that. It's sort of like you're piecing it together. And I just like the idea of a home base in general to sort of tie the game together.

18:37 So, yeah, I was a big fan of that. Yeah, and it makes that home base like sort of the catalyst to, I guess, what would be sort of like Metroidvania-y, where you have to go back to the home base and then like go somewhere you've already been, but now with the new tools you have. Yeah, it's like a central room.

18:54 Yeah. But I was going to ask you guys, would you, because I feel like this game has like elements that it acts like it's got these RPG elements. But I can't decide if I would call it more of an RPG or more of like Metroidvania. Because it gives you... I'd say it's more an adventure game. Well, right. But I mean in those elements that you're like, in the elements that give you that progression, you know, that like, oh, I can't get past this wall until I get this item.

19:20 I think the difference here is that like an RPG would be system-based in terms of how you progress. Whereas in this, like there are specific moments where you level up. It's like when you talk to a specific character and you can't, I don't think there's any sequence breaking. Like you, we will always level up when you talk to these characters. Right. And that's what I thought too, for the most part. But I just thought it was interesting that they like, we sort of talked about this recently in the boat game, which we just played and I can't remember the name of it. The Cove triangle.

19:53 But we sort of talked about this recently, the idea that like, it's giving you like this, it's almost by calling them level ups and letting your health and your power move up every time. I almost felt like it was giving me the illusion of like, oh, it's an RPG and I'm growing. But really it's just, I've passed this part of the game, so I've unlocked the ability to do this. Like, it's very linear in that sense. Not that that's a bad thing. I just thought it was interesting that it, I don't think we've ever seen that kind of thing presented as like levels. Yeah. Because levels usually associate it with like my own skill, you know, rather than just like how far I got in the game.

20:26 Yeah, I agree. It is kind of misleading, but I guess it's not really hurting anything. No, not at all. I just thought it was interesting. Yeah. Joe, if I could pose the question to you, would you have preferred, you know, we've seen in games like Rambo, I don't know why that comes to my head, but, you know, where killing enemies gains you XP, even in an adventure, action adventure style game. We've seen that version of that. Did you prefer something like that? Would you have preferred that like, as in Strider, like for enemies you kill, you then level up experience to gain like more points in your health bar,

21:04 or learn new tricks? Or was it better to say like, no, you have to complete this kind, you know, like the next step in the mission based on the files you analyzed, and then you get this like fake level up. So by the, based on the way that this game is designed, I think that the way it is, is, is the correct choice for them. I agree. Because it, because it locks you behind these things and, and, and lets you kind of like experience this adventure in like the, the optimal order that they want you to, where you're learning things as, as you need to and stuff. Um, so I wasn't trying to argue that it should be that way, but I think like,

21:37 you know, if they, if we wanted to like entertain that thought for a second, I think that there's room for it to be like the items you get, you get from the, from the enemies and the levels, as far as your health and your HP and your, what do you really call it? The mana or whatever, your energy bar that levels up based on your experience and the other stuff that you need to progress levels up based on where you are in the game.

21:57 I think there's room for that. I don't think it's, it's necessary, but yeah, I think this would have to be some kind of immersive sim for it to, to actually work like a system based level up system. I think that with how, uh, since you don't really have that much latitude in how you complete this game, the way they have it now is fine. But you know, Joe, you did remind me, uh, and it is a different style game. So Sean, your point's not wrong here. Uh, you reminded me of Rygar, which, uh, you know, has a,

22:27 uh, you know, kill a lot of enemies to get, uh, stronger and, you know, gain more HP, but you don't necessarily like gain a new, like breaking items or, you know, like that would destroy the, the level based design that they had set up for you. Uh, that could have been interesting for Strider if it was, uh, if that's just how your energy and health were earned was through like, you know, experience points, but then the, the items you acquire are, are level based. Yeah. You know, it feels almost like it's like, okay, that sounds like more of just like this Christmas list wish of like, Oh, that'd be cool to have. But like, in no way is that a complaint about what we do have here.

23:04 Yeah. They'd have to rework a lot of stuff because this game also has that fun NES thing, uh, where enemies just spawn and spawn and spawn. So you could just stand in front of an, an enemy conveyor belt and, and just keep like spamming attack and then you're max level. That's true. I hadn't thought of that.

23:36 Is the collecting of the floppy disks, a unique idea, or is that just the same as, you know, we've seen in other games collect X number of things and you'll be able to move on from that particular level. Uh, you know, I'm kind of drawing some blanks here, but you know, even early, yeah, go ahead, John. Well, it may not be a unique idea. It, the context of it is at least, unique where,

24:02 it's, I guess it's based in reality enough that I kind of buy it as like, Oh, I need to find this so I can figure out where to go next instead of the game. Just only literally letting me go to where I need to go. Um, and it's, it's a little bit less contrived, uh, than a collect X amount of X, X amount of Y. Um, because in the fiction of the game, like make finding information via, floppy disks makes sense. So I, I at least liked the, uh, I at least liked the context of it, if not the mechanic itself. And I also liked the idea of like, you're looking through the levels for these things. And it's not that like you're getting to the end, like the way that the game is constructed, where you have to like return to levels and go back and search.

24:53 It kind of, it makes sense that you're like searching for like, like Sean was saying, it makes sense in like the scope of the story. And also in terms of like how the levels are, like if you were just getting to the end of each level, if it was like a linear, a linear thing. And then at the end of each level, there's like data for you. And it's like, Oh, okay. Like, this is the information I need to get to the next level. And then it just sends you to the next one.

25:17 Like that wouldn't be as engaging. I don't think, but I think that the way that the levels are constructed makes sense with this narrative as well. Yeah. And that fact that you're searching also coupled with the fact that the things that you, that you find don't always, I mean, sometimes they do, but they don't always just unlock a new place.

25:33 Like sometimes they just give you information, like actual real life information that you have to apply, you know, out here in your own brain before you can figure out where to go. It's not like it just says you got this, your character knows what's going on. So now the new place is unlocked. It's like, you got this. I'm like, Oh, maybe I got to go, you know, go back to, to Australia where I already was, or a bad example. Cause that's the last place you go, but you know, like somewhere that you've already been and like reminds you of something or tells you, it gives you real context, which makes it feel like a little more like you're in charge rather than the game is just guiding you.

26:04 Yeah. And so like setup wise, it's great, right? The idea of collecting these floppy disks and then going to your home base, analyzing the information, receiving, the Intel and being like, okay, now either, you know, like a new place like Egypt might've opened up or actually have to go back to a previous level. And, uh, you know, with my new power ups, try an area that I saw before that I wasn't quite sure what was going on there, but maybe now my new power ups, or as they're referred to in this game, tricks will, will do something for me.

26:32 But before we get to like, you know, exploration and all that, it's worth mentioning that the actual execution presentationally of these things isn't as great as we're making it sound. And I'm not saying it's terrible, but it does have its flaws. Uh, number one, just being the presentation of the floppy disks. I found that to be very strange how they don't, they're not like immediately present in the room. Sometimes they'll just drop down from the sky. Uh, or like people will,

27:00 you know, even with your power boots and stuff like that, like they're not there, but then when you slide into the area or, you know, walk enough into the area, the boots just happened to, to spawn from thin air. I don't know if they were trying to like present it as like, Oh, you know, if you saw them, then you would know to go there. You have, we have to encourage exploration, but I didn't like how, how they just spawn out of thin air in those places, especially with, um, the characters that give you information. Uh, you know, if you run into like some of the scientists, or stuff like that,

27:29 they, they trigger like a cut scene of just text, but then after that, then still a floppy disk or a power up will just randomly spawn. Then you've collected that power up or say it's the, the floppy disk. Now you are stuck with, uh, the only possible way to go back to your ship is backtracking through something that you've already done. Uh, which is, which is only tedious, right? You haven't acquired a new power up that now makes going back backwards easier or anything like that. You just have your floppy disk. You need to find out what the information is on it. And you have to do the whole level again,

28:06 backwards. And by, when I say whole level, it's not too long of an experience, probably like five minutes or so, but you have to do everything you just did once more in the opposite direction. And it doesn't encourage like taking a different path or a different, uh, series of tubes. Uh, I think actually sometimes, sometimes it does. Yeah. Like, you know, it's very, um, it's really inconsistent. Cause there are some instances where it will let you walk out the,

28:35 like the most recent door that you walked in. And then you're just back at your base. And then there are the ones that you go into that series of tubes. Um, and it conveniently lets you out very near the beginning where you can get back to base. Um, but then, yeah, there are several instances where you have to backtrack the entire, the entire map. And like, it doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which, uh, like key items trigger one or the other.

29:04 Um, so it, it, it's, it's odd. And I, I also agree. It's, uh, it's tedious at best when it, when it ends up being like that. Even the explanation of like getting back to your ship though, like going to the very edge of the level where you started and just jumping. And this time you magically just like jump all the way. I'm assuming it's a teleport, but like, it just looks like you're jumping into the sky and going back to home base.

29:30 It's just strange thing. Uh, and I'm not saying that they should just make it like a, a start menu thing where like you just press the select button, which is your menu, uh, screen. And then just saying like return to base, like maybe that was the right answer, but I'm sure they could just power up for that. Yeah. I guess, I guess my, my biggest point was just that,

29:50 you know, in Metroid, a game that I gave a lot of criticism to for its backtracking and it's a confusing overall map, everything looking kind of the same in this game, the backtracking doesn't mean anything new for the player. You're just doing what you've done, or you're just wasting time to go back to the base. It's literally just a, can you survive with your health in time to get back to the base? I'm not saying that's the worst design thing I've ever seen.

30:21 It just with, with the story progression and everything, it only just adds another layer of, of filler, right? Joe, any thoughts? Well, I want to play devil's advocate on a couple of these points. I totally see what you guys are saying, but I, I do, I, I was almost going to present this positive of,

30:40 of, of like appreciation of the game design that they put into it. Cause I thought most of the levels where you have to backtrack, they designed them in a way where like, you know, maybe you're going, when you get there, you go to the right and you go into a cave and you go up and you come back around to the left, but they design it in a way where like, maybe after you talk to the person you need and you get the, the item you're looking for,

31:02 you drop down close to where you started or, or near a tube that will take you all the way back to the beginning or some way where they, they've almost designed some of them not necessarily as like circles, but as ways where you, they, they put you near tools that'll get you back there easier.

31:19 And I thought that because they did it that way, they got a little bit of the best of both worlds. They got immersion, but they didn't make you go back through the whole level every time. I'm not saying there was never a time. I'm trying to think there might've been one time or one or two times where like you do have to go back like a tedious amount, but, but I, that didn't bother me so much. I thought that the, that the level design sort of was a solve, for that almost,

31:42 especially with these tubes. It just seemed, it just seemed kind of like scattered how it was applied. Yeah. And I definitely, you know, didn't, hadn't even thought of it until you said this, but like, yeah, there's definitely some weird times where just like, Oh, you got your objective. All right, just you're back at your base now. And then other times you have to walk all the way back, which I thought is like weird. Like it's a little inconsistent. And like, there was not, um, yeah, there was not like a, like a, a, a like mind. And like maybe one person's design one level and one person design, the other. So I, you know, I feel, feel that part, but also to, to address what you said at the beginning, Mike, about, um,

32:18 about the, the floppy disks or the items that you're looking for just spawning. I also thought that that was kind of a means for them to make you talk to the person who's standing there. Like they, they would get you to talk to them and like, make sure you don't grab the, it just felt like almost like a technical reason where it's like you get here, something's going to happen. You talk to this person, then the floppy disk will appear because you've got the information. He said, here, take this, take this disk or here's my information or here's what I know.

32:44 And, and like, yes, it's a little weird that just pops out of thin air after you walk away a few seconds later, which I did think that was weird. And I was thinking at first, that would be really annoying if I missed that because I left too soon. But I don't know if you noticed, it actually does not ever let you leave until you pick up that floppy. Once you're on the disk with a, with an important item, it won't let you leave that screen until you pick up the disk. So like you can't. So in the end, I feel like it was sort of weird that it was there, but it didn't hurt anything because it's, it functionally, it was the same as,

33:14 as it being there the whole time. Yeah. I mean, those are all good points. Uh, and I don't want to harp on this too much, but just to, to make the Metroid comparison again, it's just that in Metroid,

33:24 the only reason you ever backtrack is either you're lost, which is a negative reason for backtracking, but it's kind of on the player's, uh, responsibility to, to not get lost in this world. So that's kind of on you, or you've acquired a new power up that now like has new implications for the entire world. So as you're backtracking, you either use your new power up to your advantages or, or open up new paths, right? That you previously couldn't. So you're not really backtracking so much as opening up new, new doors in the layout of these worlds.

33:59 It is very segmented so that when you return to an old world, it wants you to think that like your new tricks or your new boots matter more than they really do. You know, like you get the magnet boots and you go back to the first stage and it just enables you to go into that one room where the, uh, bricks were glowing. And then it like, you know, you have that aha moment that the magnet boots without let you access a new area, but that's like, that's it. And then you still have to backtrack from that after the fact. So it's not, it's not really opening up anything new. It's just, this was our way of making sure the player didn't get to this point in the level beforehand. And now they can.

34:40 Whereas Metroid has like this whole, you know, world around it where you can be in one particular place. And now the power up that you receive has implications for every area you go to. This one still makes it more like I was in stage one. Now I'm in stage two. Technically I'm going back to stage one, but it's really just stage three. There's nothing new to really do from the previous part of stage one. I just move forward in the level where I previously couldn't. Yeah. I agree. You're saying, yeah, I do see what you're saying. Yeah. And I don't really like when, when supposed power ups are really just keys. Um, I guess all the boots really are.

35:23 Um, but I, I still think that if this were, this is preferable to just a standard, like level one, level two, level three, keep going right or, uh, right down left. I think that, um, having to apply some kind of critical thinking to how you're progressing. It just, it's still like a thing that, um, that this game benefits from. Um, it's, you know, it's not a lot, but I think that that adds a bit to the experience of the game.

35:56 And to add to that, I, I think that Mike's point is valid, but I also think that, um, you know, it's, it's different kind of game. The levels are set up differently. It's not one interconnected world. And so when you return to level one, uh, and you know, you're like, Oh, now I know exactly where I need to go. You can kind of breeze through it.

36:20 And it's, it's like, it's a different feeling than returning to a new, to a different area or to a new area at Metroid with a power up to then explore the next area. It's kind of,

36:32 you know, you're, it's different. It's different goals. Yeah. I agree with that. And it's, it's almost like the, these areas are not, you know, first of all, none of these levels are like long enough or, or quite frankly, difficult enough that it like ever was really annoying for me to backtrack. And it does feel, you know, while backtrack, Mike backtracking, might get annoying sometimes too, but like, it does feel a little bit like these are just like environments that you get familiar with, you know, it's like, okay, like I know that place. I know how to get around here. It's just like, instead of feeling like levels that feel, they feel like places, which I know is weird because it's still side scrolling, but it feels like it's like,

37:07 I don't know. Weird, weird analogy. Bear with me for a second here, but like in Skyrim, you, you backtrack, but it's like, okay, but you're going back to a place you've already been and, and, and you're doing something differently or you're, you're, you're doing something different. I know this is not really to be compared to Skyrim in any way. And I know that also, you know, that like what you're saying,

37:26 Mike, is that there's not much different to do now because of the powerups. And I get that, but I guess for the immersion sense of it, where it's like, okay, I know this area. Now I have what I need. I can go back and like, this is a place I'm familiar with. I, you know, like I do feel like I've been on missions here before. Like while the police station isn't, doesn't look like a police station, like it's still a very memorable game space so that like, I know that every, every level has these memorable areas so that it doesn't feel like you're going from one box room to another.

38:01 And Joe, I will remind you that the point of this podcast is to compare these games to Skyrim. That's true. That is very well done. I'm allowed. Yes. And just to connect, to connect Sam and Sean's thoughts there for a minute about like the level design, which I'm not completely against. Remember, I didn't say these were terrible things. I just, just criticisms that I had.

38:19 It is, it is good that you are always after analyzing a file, you are given the option to go anywhere and that you can choose wrong. Like you can go to a level that you may be like misinterpreted, which, which I'm not quite sure, but you know, the translation sucks at times. So it is possible that like you misinterpret what you're supposed to do next. Go to a older level thinking like, Oh, now I have something new and discover that you don't. Right. And that's the same thing as getting lost in Metroid.

38:50 So it can happen here. And that's again on the player. Like the game is giving you the freedom to explore all these worlds. It's not saying stage five, you know, it's not saying like, okay, stage five, you're back in Egypt. And now you've got, you know, now you're in the pyramids, right? It doesn't, it doesn't do that for you. Instead, you have to make that decision. So I do, I do like that. And I like that there's a, an ability for, for freedom and to be wrong. Since we're talking so much about exploration, just a couple of things about these, these levels in particular, you know, the size of these levels, Joe, you mentioned they weren't particularly long or difficult, but when you compare the size of these levels, the, the tube system,

39:35 the frequency that you visit them. And also, you know, something that I'm not sure if these developers just like discovered this mechanic and we're like, oh, well we have to put this in this game. Nobody's doing this. But for some reason, slopes are just all over this game. The people who made this game love slopes. And maybe it's because Super Mario couldn't figure it out until Super Mario world. But this whole game is designed with like, you know, oh, in the future, all cities will have slopes. And, and I don't know what that's about, but that's certainly a mechanic of these levels too, other than just the typical action platforming, because those slopes actually play off with momentum and they play off with how you,

40:16 how you traverse. So, you know, I know that's a lot to throw at you guys, but I just wanted to hear some highlights or some criticisms you have about any particular level in terms of the exploration in these levels. Sam, if you don't mind, can we start with you? Sure. I mean, I, to be honest, I didn't play too far into this game. I only stayed around the first level really.

40:40 So, my only criticisms, I guess, would be that there are like holes you can fall in and then you have to like redo sections. But, but, you know, then you can, you've learned not to fall in the holes. So, again, not the, I don't have the most expertise on this. Most of my research for this was like watching speed runs and watching other people play this. Yeah, they're, they're not fun. Um, that basically the, the slope mechanic, I think is, is really great on paper. Um, it, like the fact that you move faster downhill is very intuitive. Um,

41:21 but, uh, there, there's such a, it, it's such a discrete change. Like it goes from, you move at this rate to you move at this other rate. And then when you're going up hills, I think it, it's very, it's a very extreme, uh, change in speed. Like you are so much slower and it makes attacking anybody up or down a hill, uh, incredibly tedious. Um, and then you've got the camera issues where, it'll sort of follow you right at the edge. So you can't really see where you're going,

41:55 uh, making it even more dangerous that then I think it should be where I think it should be just like your character is centered, uh, more or less at all times. Uh, it's, it's pretty, I appreciate that they tried to do something with this, like with the level geometry and, uh, like the topography of it. Um, but it leaves a lot to be desired. Yeah. I'll say, I think the slopes, uh, I agree. I think that in general, they're not, uh,

42:24 yeah, it's like, it's nice that they tried it. Uh, they, I don't think that they, uh, they, they nailed it by any means, but I'll say that it was a little bittersweet for me at sometimes, like I hated going up slopes and, and jumping and, and, and it always taking me a second to be like, wait, why aren't I jumping as high? Why aren't I going? And like, it always felt like kind of slow and tedious. Um, I, I did sort of like the fact that if you want to get a higher jump, you can always run down slopes and use that to pick up speed. And then you can jump higher. Uh, and I feel like that was built in a lot where you have to do that, which sometimes I'd be like, wait, why aren't I jumping? And then when I did that, I remember thinking a lot like,

43:02 Oh, this, this works well, this, this mechanic of, of going that way. Like, I think that's the one thing about the slopes that work. Although even with that, they don't, it doesn't really feel like you're speeding up, gaining momentum. It's just like you, you come to understand that that's what's happening. Um, so even that's kind of flawed. I think, I think those are all solid points and I don't have too much to add, uh, except for the tubes themselves. Like, you know, I worry that they would have just instead made game, the whole game just slopes, right? Where you just like, the only way to scale upwards is through, uh, is through these longer, these longer slopes because they really,

43:40 uh, took that to advantage so often. And I thought like it was cute in the Egypt level to represent a pyramid, but it's, it's kind of bizarre how frequently these slopes show up. So I don't, I'm not sure what the solution was, but the tubes seem to act as both a gateway so that you can't like freely progress through areas. Um, you know, you can only go in the particular direction that the tube has set up. So if the tube has the up arrow and you jump up, you will be able to go up it, but you can't then crouch down and go back down it. So I, I guess like in some ways they just act as, as warp pipe gates, uh, and, and means of traverse that don't involve platforming,

44:21 but I'm also just not sure how necessary they were. They could have probably have just made these pipes exclusive to like removing backtracking. And then for the remainder of the level just had made it platforming obstacles. Um, anybody have anything to add about these tubes? I think it might, it might not be, uh, something that you feel in the actual moment to moment gameplay, but I think it at least provides some variety in like the level layouts. Like even with the slopes, like while they may feel like garbage to actually use, they at least make levels look more interesting. And I think that's sort of the same thing with the, uh, with the tubes just being, um, like changing the, uh, like, like changing where things are on, like on a map,

45:13 um, so that you're not always just going right or left. Like you can, it's sort of like mixes and matches, um, uh, like your, your mind map of this game. Um, I, I don't really know if I'm being entirely clear, but at least like aesthetically is, I feel better than, um, just moving in the same direction the whole time.

45:37 I also feel like functionally there, they, they are, I mean, I know it's, it's still just another way of removing backtracking, but even on a smaller scale, you'll run into a tube that you can't go through. You'll go through a large chunk of the level. Maybe you run into a tube. You can't go through. And also a direction you want to go, you know, or something you want to get in you somewhere else.

45:57 You want to go, you go through another large chunk of the level, even a small part of the level and you get what you need. And you're like, Oh, now I got to get back there. But now there's the other end of that tube. You couldn't get into it. And you could ride it back to where you started. And this is, this is something that I do know like a lot of, you know, like, like I know some,

46:14 some like 3d platformers that do like ratchet and clank. You used to always do things like that. So you wouldn't, so you'd go on your adventure and it would kind of set up the way you're going to get back there. And then you get there and like, Oh, I can get right back to where I need to get. And I don't have to do that part all over again. And I feel like the tubes do that. And then they also like lead to some interesting, like I won't say puzzles, but interesting ways to think about certain,

46:37 certain elements of the game. Like there's, I remember there's one part where there's a bunch of tubes that will all let you go down, but not back up. And, and it's all in a row. You're standing on them no matter what. And there's enemies on them. So you want to crouch, but now you have to think about like, I can't crouch here because that'll put me back down at the bottom. And then I got to come back around and do it all again. That's true. And I forgot. There's interesting mechanics, maybe not as many of them as, as you know, as they could have done, but, but I think it adds,

47:00 yeah, it adds to the gameplay both like to help you. And then also to present challenge in some, some instances. And not to contradict my previous self. I am totally in fan. I'm totally a fan of whenever these tubes remove backtracking. Obviously I'm not saying, I'm not saying they shouldn't exist at all. I just thought it was a weird decision to remove some platforming elements in favor of these tubes that just,

47:26 you know, push you from area to area. I think a more succinct way for making the point that I was trying to make before is that it's sort of, whether or not the actual gameplay changes as much and sort of like the way that Joe was saying, it at least makes it feel like there's a bit more verticality because having these, these tubes that you can go up can also like allow for the designers to like make you be able to fall more. So it just, there's, there's a lot more latitude with the way they can design these level levels with that mechanic. I like the tubes.

48:09 Tube's good. There you go. That's really all you need to know. Tubes, tubes good. I think they're cool. Back of the box stuff right there. Yeah. The tube should have, if anything, Heru should have gotten on like a float or something, you know, like a lazy river style float where he then goes into the tube. That, that would be the only thing missing from the tubes in my opinion. I think that at the start of the game, there should be one tube that takes you through the whole game. To the end of the game. The whole game. You just, you just ride the tube when you get to the end and, and you kick the bad guy in the face on the way out. Sounds like a super Mario maker level.

48:45 Okay. So forgive me if this isn't true. Um, and, and that we've seen this before, but I think this might be one of the first games that I've seen that really embraced the entire, uh, the idea of a, uh, like the sliding, like, like power sliding, like cool, uh, cool military guy, uh, sliding under things. And, and, yeah, I mean, it beats Mega Man to the punch. Yeah. Mega Man is also a Capcom game. So it's pretty surprising that, uh, you know, there was something, in a Capcom game before Mega Man that has his signature slide. Um, and you could do the sliding here for like,

49:24 uh, you know, as long as you want to in certain areas. Pretty much. Yeah. So, uh, agreed. Kudos to that. Sean, I don't want to go too far though into, into the tricks and stuff. Cause we haven't really talked about. You're really a trick. You know? Well, you know what I mean? You, you have to, you have to learn. Okay. The, the slide. You don't start with it. Okay. Fair enough. Right. Uh, I just want to talk about, you know, the character, um, not on like a, you know, personality level, but just, we talked about the levels he lives in, but we haven't talked about how he controls. Right. And, um, you know, he's got the, the sword, which is I think called the cipher.

50:03 And I'm not sure if it's like a, a sword with, uh, just like a normal sword or if it has like some kind of special, like, it's like a laser sword or something like, yeah, it's like a laser sword.

50:12 Um, all cool stuff, but he also has, you know, like he has that going for him. He's a member of the strider elite class. So he has like some skills of his own that enemies can't perform and stuff like that. but then he also has some interesting ranges of movement, uh, in terms of his, his jumping and, um, you know, his size and, and, and the scale of the levels themselves. I don't want to continue to be the guy who criticizes this game and then tells you guys how to, you know, like how to, or what you should react to. So if you don't mind, Joe, would you just tell us your thoughts?

50:51 Yeah. I'll hear you. So, so I, as far as his movement, he's got a couple of, a couple of things that we chat, we chatted a little bit about this actually before the episode started, but there's a few things in this that me personally, I started out thinking this is weird. It's hard to control. It doesn't work. And I'll never get the hang of it. And then ended up thinking, Oh, this actually works decently well. So one being you can wall bounce or wall bounce is the wrong term. I know that has different meaning in like a triangle jump. Yes. Triangle jump, which, which allows you to, to jump off of the wall onto another wall, you know, kind of like parkour, scuds, parkour style.

51:29 And that is very finicky to try and do. You, you have to like hit the, the, a button the second time at like the exact moment that you're hitting the wall and changing directions on the D pad. So it's not like a quick, like I'll jump up there. And I, and that was very annoying to me at first now. And, and the other one is the sliding is like, uh, so you said Mike, that sliding is not,

51:53 uh, is not, you don't start with that. I don't remember getting that, but maybe I just, maybe I just, it's the first thing. Yeah. It's the first thing you get. I'm pretty sure. Oh, okay. Maybe that's why in the first level, it's like you, um, you're, you're introduced to a point where you then have to like, you know, you're like, how do I get out of this? And then you gain the ability to slide through the little square, uh, hole that you have. I see. Okay. Well, well, both of those things, the wall jumping, the sliding, they both feel very,

52:22 they feel funky at first. I feel like, okay, like I really got to like sit here and think, and I got to hold down and then the direction I want to go in. And then the A button or B button, I can't remember to slide. And I got to, I got to just rapidly be tapping the, the jump button as I'm perfectly changing directions on the wall. And that felt annoying. And, and my personal experience over like the movement in this game is throughout. I just slowly like got the hang of it and it was never great,

52:49 especially the wall jumping, but it was, it was doable and it was not anywhere near as bad as I originally thought. When I, when I started it, so I don't know if that, that explains everything that we want to talk about. And if someone else wants to jump in and save me with the, I mean, I thought that jumping in general, uh, was, was pretty,

53:09 it didn't feel great. Um, the, he takes a weird arc. There's a weird floatiness to, uh, the apex that it just doesn't feel like the, you, you have the same momentum. It feels very artificial. Um, if you jump into a wall, uh, you'll just sort of hang there for a second sometimes. And it's not giving, it's not there to give you a window of opportunity to jump off the wall. It's just, you're interacting strangely with the level geometry.

53:38 Um, and, uh, there, there are a lot of times where you have to do that wall jump thing. And it is not easy. And I was basically just, I had to use my, I had to use the, um, turbo, uh, to, to get it to work most of the time. And I know that, yeah, if I played it enough, I would probably find the muscle memory to do it correctly. But, uh, I think it needed to be, have like a, a slightly larger window of opportunity to do that. I didn't have as much of an issue with sliding. Um, it,

54:10 it's, it was, wasn't as hard to do. Um, and it's not always necessary, um, to do it. Um, and I think like your movement speed has some really weird variations again with slopes. And I think slope sort of play into how this character feels in general, because there just are so many of them. Uh, so,

54:32 uh, at least the attacks are like, there's no, those feel tight. Um, even though range feels a little, uh, short at times, but in all, I think that this character doesn't feel the greatest to control. Yeah. And I really do think that comes down to the jump and I, I don't even want to harp on the trial triangle jump because that is something that you can kind of, if you could just get to the point where you learn the high jump, I mean, I know it's like level five, so it takes a long time, but like, if you could just make it through one or two,

55:06 like, you know, you're not, you're not triangle jumping for an infinite amount, right? It's not like you have to constantly be bouncing off the walls. It's just like you get to these points where you're like, huh, I, I can't really progress any further because my jump doesn't reach these next things. And then you find out about the triangle jump and you, you just basically have to bounce off one wall and it gives you enough height to then get to the next one. It's not like you have to bounce, bounce, bounce. So it's not, it's, it's not preventing progress or anything. I, I really feel like they shouldn't have even done it though, if we're being honest, because it's not, it's not tight enough.

55:41 It's not, it's not as consistent enough even, you know, because it's not something where there's wiggle room on when you perform the next jump action, because it requires such precision. It can, it can be one of those things that just stalls up gameplay similar to backtracking where, you know, you're doing it eight or nine times before you successfully landed. And then once you successfully do it, it's like, cool. I don't have to worry about that for a little bit anymore. But just the fact that you even have to worry about it is a little annoying. It's not an enemy. It's you. You should be able to do these things. The game is not a particularly challenging platforming game,

56:14 but that's besides the point. The actual jump problem I have, and I don't know if this is just limited to my copy or whatever. I didn't see anything really talking about this too much online. The jump has a weird thing where it, like holds you in place. Yeah. Sometimes. That's what I was talking about with like getting stuck on level geometry with the. Okay. Yeah. I'm glad I'm not the only person who experienced this because I feel like that is the stuff that actually bothered me. And I think that has to do with, you know, the way they were designing these levels and maybe the reason why they had so many slopes and stuff like that is just like,

56:46 it's almost like you hit your head on an invisible block in super Mario brothers, you know, where like you're jumping and then you just aren't like you're, you're either frozen in place or you just go right back down. You don't make a full jump. I was fine with the, the speed of the character, the, the attacks of the character, even all the tricks you learn are, are good things that give you that eventual range, right? Like your, your initial weapon is kind of like the shortest stick you have, right? But like, it still works. And then every trick just makes it more powerful than the, the cipher that you were given.

57:20 But the way that the character jumps, which again, because this has platforming elements and requires some triangle jumping early on, it doesn't leave a pleasant experience in my mind with how, with how the actual character is compared to the level designs, which I actually thought the level designs were fair. If the character behaved more like a,

57:45 a Ryu from Ninja Gaiden or a Mega Man, you know, another, another Capcom game, you know, it's not impossible for them to pull this off. It just feels like they made him a little trickier for, for no particular reason. Uh, and I'm, I'm sure, you know, Joe, you'll have some reasons to, to defend this, but I just feel like the overall, these things only hold back the, the pro the, the, the speed of progress and the overall gameplay. I never felt like it was the enemies holding me back. I felt like it was myself.

58:19 I, I guess so. You're onto me. I do. I do have, I do have a, I do and I don't have a defense. Uh, so, so I, I, I agree with the jumping, uh, for me, it felt maybe not quite as much what you're describing, but for me, it felt like a lot of times when I would jump,

58:36 the best way I can describe it is that the gravity was really low for the first part of my jump. And then somewhere in the middle of my jump, the gravity got turned up really high and yanks me back down. Like, it felt like, like, yeah, my, my jump was being interrupted or, or like just, the physics didn't look right to the way it should be. And that would confuse me at first. My, my, my defense is, is that just simply that I, I didn't think it was bad enough to really hinder my experience. Like I got used to that pretty quick. and like similar to what you said about the, the, um,

59:12 the wall jumping. Like it's, it's never like that needed. Like, obviously this is a platforming game, but it never feels like you need like super precise platforming. It seems more just like I got to decide which platform to jump to. And there were times where it would feel like, oh, I can't make it up high enough to this. But those are the times where I felt like I used the downward slopes to, to, to give me momentum.

59:31 Um, so yeah, there were, there were definitely instances even without like a slope present where I felt like, why can't I get up here? Forget it. I'm just going to use my, my jump power up. But for me, there were few enough and far enough between that. It, it didn't stand out to me as a major flaw. It felt pretty, but I, I definitely felt it more than that. Like it, it affected my enjoyment,

59:53 um, enough, uh, for me to, to say like, this is part of why I, I didn't have fun at this point. Um, but I can also understand that like you got used to it. Um, and that's totally valid. Yeah. I just think the things that got me the most, I think that took me out of it were sometimes you jump and it's fine. And sometimes you come right back down, which I don't think when you're jumping near a wall. Yeah. And that, I don't know, that's especially annoying because you're trying to, uh, when you're trying to like triangle jump or well jump or whatever you want to call it. Um,

1:00:34 you know, it just messes you up even more than it normally would. So things like that made it extra janky. I thought. Yeah. And to be clear, you know, me, that, the, the good way to sum it up is yeah, that I got used to it, but you know, I, I admit that me getting used to it still does not make it good game design. It just means I got used to the bad part, you know, the bad element of it.

1:00:56 Right. You learn how to be that character. Right. Yeah. Well, I, I totally understand that. I mean, you know, that that's with any game too, is like, you know, you think about modern game design and you know, Joe, you, we always have to reference kingdom hearts whenever we can, but like when you play as Sora, right? Like you find the exploits to like the thing that works best for your kind of system. And you play those to your advantage. Like it's not necessarily the gate, the way the game intended you to be Sora, but like, that's how you play the character. It's the same thing here, right? Like the jump isn't perfect, but if you can figure it out and work around it, right. Then like, that's how you play the game, you know? Right.

1:01:41 All right. So Sean, let's move into your section. You wanted to talk about the tricks. You were, you were already talking about, it wasn't a trick, which I know it's not a talking about the character movement. Mike. Okay. Well, I will tell you right now that the slide in is definitely something that you acquire. I can say that with fact. So I am just confused on what a trick is versus anything else in this game because the boots aren't tricks, but you still acquire them. So the tricks is just limited to something that is a thing,

1:02:10 a different thing on the menu that expels energy, right? It requires energy for you to, uh, to, for you to use the tricks. Whereas the slide in and the boots do not require energy to be used. Probably for the best. Uh, I would hate to find out. I don't have enough energy to slide. Uh, sliding is, uh, in some scenarios, less effort than walking, right? That's why baseball players slide into home plate. It's less effort. Um, that's a joke. Uh, otherwise I would walk.

1:02:41 The, the tricks here, uh, are, are the power ups for, for a, um, you know, a new, a new term on power ups, right? Why call them power ups when you can call them tricks? I like that. I don't. I think it sounds silly. Like, like we're playing like Tony Hawk or something.

1:02:57 Okay. But he's not a superhuman, right? He's just a member of Strider. So these are just, well, if you read the manual, Mike, a member of Strider that is C grade. We're not even talking. A plus like here. You apparently, a C grade Strider. Hold on. A C grade Strider has the fighting capability of a team of Navy SEALs. It says this in the manual. So he's a super a and he can like conjure fire and has a laser sword. I'd say he's superhuman. Okay. What level of soldier was cloud? Okay. Well, here's the thing. He's that. This is a different world.

1:03:37 Right. So soldiers in Strider, who would win in a fight? Let us know on Twitter who would win in a fight. Well, I mean, cloud can summon Bahamut zero. So cloud. Yeah. But you know, what's in like those, those death battle YouTube videos? Like, you know, they would, they would take that summon away from him or something. Yeah. They'd find a, they would, they would remove all that. Anyway, your question about,

1:04:00 uh, power up tricks. Uh, yes. Yeah. I didn't use them. Like I use jump when I needed to, like to make it a super jump for a short amount of time. And I used medical to heal when I needed to. Uh, but I didn't use anything else. I thought that they were useless. Otherwise. Interesting. I, I largely in most of the levels didn't use them either, but I definitely found use times where I was like fighting one of those like mini bosses that sort of stops you. And a lot of those times I found that it was easier to use either fire or

1:04:30 spark, I think was the one. And then there was another one ground that you got later. That was very helpful. If there were, if I just didn't feel like dealing with something or I was, didn't want to, uh, hurt my remaining health that I used. But yeah, other than that, um, it was mostly using the cipher, but, but I did find some uses for the, for most of the tricks. For the tricks themselves.

1:04:53 Like if you just want to go through the list, a lot of them are attack based, you know, there's the, the fire, the spark, um, the, there's a ground one that I don't remember using, but it says causes flying to crash to the ground. I don't, I don't even know what that is. There are, there are flying enemies. I imagine that makes causes flying enemies. Got it. You know, this whole translation thing wild. Uh, anyway, um, you know, some of them are attack based, but it's not that I didn't find them useful. It's that the, the overall enemies of this game are not particularly difficult. Some take more hits, but they don't necessarily,

1:05:32 um, require any like precision movements or like things that, uh, make them like more, uh, challenging. I reserved my energy when possible to use something like spark against boss fights, uh, you know, which is, or even mini boss fights, just moments where it was like, cool. You know, I've got like 10 or 15 energy, three sparks will probably take this guy out. So why not just use them there? And I appreciated that. We haven't really seen games where, um, your, your power ups matter in like a meaningful way where it's like, Hey, you could do like three of this attack and it'll, it'll, or most of the, for most part, one of this attack and it will outright kill these guys.

1:06:17 Yeah. I mean, I guess like, I don't know. I just didn't see them as, uh, because I could play the game without, without it at all. And it didn't really feel like it was helping me all that much because all the enemies are, are, are pretty easy. And even the mini bosses are pretty easy to like once you, because they have a very basic rhythm. Like it, it takes more time to go into the menu, have the menu render on the screen, select what you want to select, and then go back to the game and use it. I would, I would just prefer to, to just hit them enough times. I, I don't know. It, I felt like it was a, a pretty lazily, uh, implemented power up system where I don't agree that, uh, that, um, it felt like it mattered. Okay. That's a good point because,

1:07:11 you know, the tricks, if we're comparing them and I'm not saying we all are, I'm just saying I, I made the Metroid reference earlier. So if you're comparing them to games like that, right, where like now they're supposed to change how the, how you see the world, right. And stuff like that. They don't really do that. No, they don't know. They, they, they just make fighting a little easier or they make traversal a little easier. You know, that warp one finally makes it, I mean, granted it's 30 energy points, but like it makes it so this way you can just work. That should be your favorite one.

1:07:43 Yeah. Be my favorite one. There you go. Um, these things are, are just, you know, it's weird, right? I don't want to, I don't want to like say they're cheats or anything, but they kind of diminish the gameplay a little bit because it's already pretty easy to fight these enemies with the sword. So they just make them easier to beat the enemies. And then the other ones like the jump just make it this way. You don't have to, you don't have to use the triangle jump. You can just use your high jump.

1:08:12 And the, uh, medical one just makes it this way. Like, I mean, like pills are given out pretty frequently. So you don't like have to manage your health too much, but Hey, if you're like not expending your energy and you know, you're about to come up to a bigger fight or you're worried about your health, like, okay, time to use the medical one to restore 50 hit points or eventually later on a hundred hit points. Like, you know, that's why I kind of like liking them to cheats because in some ways they're, they're too powerful.

1:08:42 They are, they are too powerful when you're talking about regular enemies. But I think that the, the solve for that is for, you know, for a large part of the game, let's say you have, let's say you have 50 energy and to do one, you know, thing, it costs five, you know, I, are you really just going to like, are you really just going to use this thing 10 times just to kill 10 enemies? Or like you said, like, are you going to save it for when it's going to matter?

1:09:06 Oh yeah. You can kill 10 enemies with it. You could also kill those 10 enemies almost just as easily with your cipher, but at least for the, for me, I know that like the, the enemies, like it just comes down to your, your play style. But for me, the, the bosses, they did help me. So I was like, yeah, I have no reason to use these in the battle, but it's nice to have them for the boss battle. And it felt like, at least it wasn't like, oh yeah, you have, it costs one energy to do one of these. So I could, I can use a hundred of these right now.

1:09:32 And then it's like, yeah, I could just go through the whole level of using it. But I do have to think about that. Like, okay, I get 50 energy. I want to at least use 30 to heal. And then I, you know, I'm going to have 20 left. So I'm really only going to have four shots with this. So like, I got to think about like how I want to use them. So like, that's why I thought, that's where I thought their value came in. Well, the worst thing they could do is just be like, no, there, you never gain any power-ups, right? Like, um, that would be strange.

1:09:58 So I'm, I'm not sure what I'm advocating for or against here. Uh, I just, overall, they didn't seem to matter that much to me. So like, yeah, they're here. Um, and they're useful in certain scenarios, not all scenarios. Uh, the energy bar is just something that I didn't really pay too much attention to. And you know, who knows? I didn't beat this game. So maybe like in the later levels, energy is something you're constantly managing and you have to hope that you get some pills to, to restore it. And you have to hope that you,

1:10:33 um, you know, don't have to rely on medical to heal yourself because you really need the ground power up to take down these flying enemies. Like, I, I think those are things that could happen. Well, the way I would describe this is the, the combat in this game needed a bit more depth to justify the, the kind of power-ups that are like, that are given to you.

1:10:59 Uh, another example is at one point your cypher gains the ability to shoot a projectile. But, um, once again, most of the enemies are pretty easy. So, uh, like I would, it would be cool to use it, uh, if it didn't take five seconds to, to power up. But because it is so easy to kill a lot of these guys, like why would I wait five seconds to kill it with a projectile from my cypher? It just seems like there really isn't much balance thought about. Like the game needs to be harder and some of the things need to be tweaked for a lot of this to really work in my opinion.

1:11:37 Yeah. And, you know, my defense a second ago was, was really just a way of saying like, this is the part of it that works. But I, but I completely agree that it, it could, you know, it should be that, you know, these power-ups really make you view the levels differently and, and change, make you feel more powerful and make you feel like a, you know, like you have a new ability throughout the whole game. Like not just to save them. So like, yeah, I agree with that. Might be the first game I can think of in recent memory that like exploring it is harder than fighting the enemies inside of it. Oh yeah. Yeah.

1:12:13 Exactly. you know the biggest thing that we haven't talked about yet we've talked about the presentation of the game and the levels and backtracking and just the the world that you live in but we didn't talk about the story that strider is telling and you know i feel like it's telling a pretty interesting story with a really bad translation if that makes sense but the the overall story i was invested in you know i mean it's got that dystopian future thing it's got that whole like backstabbing um who do you believe uh secret organization has another secret organization it had a lot of twists and turns to it and you revealed this information only through either the manual or through the

1:13:14 floppy disks that you analyze so you know the story is limited but it's engaging enough that uh even though i didn't beat the game i was curious enough to like read through the rest of the plot even just the idea of the striders organization right these like high-tech ninja operatives and that you know the vice director is telling you to kill another strider because he's been captured like that's a um a convincing like start of the game that's like exciting enough it's not like super

1:13:50 generic right it's not the world is under attack you have to you're the only one who can save us it's hey your friend has been kidnapped so kill him yeah and i think like that didn't this also sort of have a manga associated with it that was sort of developed at the same time you're thinking of mongolia which is where he lives oh yes i think it's kazakhstan no doesn't he live in mongolians

1:14:15 maybe he like retired oh yeah in the you're right tired to mongolia and then magnolia when they tried to get him back in the game and he was hesitant they told him that they would kill random mongolians until

1:14:30 until he decided to join i think that's on the manual i don't remember the killing random mongolians but i'm gonna believe you because i think that a lot of uh the story is like like this isn't as um incomplete as like maybe rambo or uh like uh what's the word that the episode 13 golgo 13 um where it seems like it's it's skipping over a lot i think this is a bit more cohesive or coherent um but it does have a lot of plot you're right and it does sort of take you from plot point to plot point but that's pretty much it like i don't know why we care about kane like yes he's your friend um these are this is sort of like a uh a criticism of a of a more recent game i think where like it would

1:15:25 have the opportunity to explain why uh all these things matter uh but i do appreciate that it's there um so yeah it's it's definitely in the in top tier nes stories um which is a pretty low bar but it's no it's there it's no scoon true no scoon no um no ninja gaiden either though right like there's no there's no um it's not presentationally well done it's just a a cool story that keeps you kind of like in the moment to moment gameplay like a reason to push forward and go back to the worlds or go to the next place like they they give you the explanation for what's happening story-wise

1:16:09 rather than just i got this new stuff so i gotta go check it out you know metroid kind of had that problem right like all the storytelling is just told through uh the boss fights i guess i mean i kind of like the um i kind of like the the cut scenes like the beginning cut scene and right a couple more like spread out um so i wouldn't say that presentationally it's bad but it's just it does not have enough time to to tell much of a story yeah i'd say that like every every element of the story that they're trying to tell is interesting but really really simply done and like i think it's

1:16:49 that simplicity that that maybe makes it feel like a little in some ways a little underwhelming like i want more from this story but i do think that what's there versus it not being there makes so much difference in like how much style this game has like that's what that's what it adds for me is like mike was saying it's like i love that you're like oh you're this like mercenary organization that's like dispatched out of a satellite to different countries or something like i'm interested in that i yeah i wish there could be more story on this nes game but like you know it's it's definitely like the

1:17:24 the outline of a really good story so like it both leaves me excited and also disappointed that like i couldn't get more but but yeah it's like the simplest version of everything they try to do it reminds me a little bit of like the story in contra how it's like oh it's like bad guys but also aliens you know and aliens yeah yeah and you kind of like experience the story through boss fights and stuff but also just kind of through the environment a little bit um just in a way um not like super reminiscent of it but no i think you're right uh and the the the discs that you get are sort of just that like the the most basic flavor text you can get to at least give you a bit more context

1:18:15 and i did find the in the manual it's right in the middle of it madoc ordered here you to destroy his friend kane and threatened to start slaughtering the mongolians if here you refused

1:18:27 oh so he didn't actually do it but he threatened yeah he would have done it make no mistake madoc is ruthless he's a real asshole um speaking of metroid um you know because this is a whole thing with like there's these i feel like mike's the only one talking about metroid right yeah i feel like yeah i know the one guy who didn't put it on the essential games list you know the mind control weapon in this game is code name zane and then the final boss of this game is mother zane and that's not really too far off from mother it's the other end of the alphabet but you've got to appreciate the um the epilogue of the game too where uh i don't know if they're going for like you know it's not shocking or anything but

1:19:10 it is like a different kind of game where you know he quits he's like he's like i'm done with strider i'm done with the world like i he throws his sword and he's just like i'm uh i'm not fighting anymore and i thought that was like you know a different take for a video game character right they could have easily have just been like he will return in hero 2 or you know strider 2 yeah that

1:19:32 is the most uh the most committed to saying there's not gonna be a sequel yeah unless there is no there there is don't worry we'll get the sequels and spinoffs um passwords though have the best presentational value i don't know if you guys tried this out at all i did but you know each time that you put in a password you know wherever you left off the game ends uh with a brief description

1:19:58 of uh of like you know what's happened so far next time on dragon ball z right exactly it's like i i'm a fan of that the fact that they thought of all the different um types of passwords and scenarios you might wind up into and then uh telling the story based on that that that's crazy they even name it like the next episode like it has a name um yeah it reminds me of ninja gaiden doing it with like you

1:20:25 know the each act being its own thing and then that was like the end of the episode then they'd set up the next episode yeah fun stuff i have a quick note here on the box art um it's the same guy who did the box art for tenjin tetris with all the soviet union stuff so uh if you don't know what the box art for strider looks it's probably um the art for the podcast episode at the moment and uh the soviet union

1:20:52 apparently at the you know has nothing to do with the game obviously but like at the time it was close to the collapse or whatever and this is just like the visual inspiration for what is known as the enterprise with the you know the mind control weapon zane and all that um i just thought it if anything like that the takeaway for me was just that like the guy from tenjin tetris has a thing for like soviet union iconography um but other than that also just weird to see any kind of soviet union references in a game that takes place in a dystopian future where they don't exist

1:21:48 on the sequels and spinoffs as i mentioned in the beginning of this episode the arcade game was developed at the same time but it is a completely different game the arcade version was a level to level based game where you just had to get to the end of the level and then move forward um in the um in the arcade game it's like uh it's a different story it's very impressive looking yeah very impressive looking too and um you know a lot more a lot more relying on the combat whereas this game was more

1:22:17 uh about exploring the worlds and all that uh you know just a big difference but strider 2 roman numeral 2 was a european developed sequel to strider without capcom without nintendo systems so it was just like a different team being like we want to make a sequel to strider and they did and they also kind of made strider 2 twice so there's like strider roman numeral 2 for computers and then there's another version for genesis and apparently that genesis version is very well regarded but that's not the only instance of strider 2 so forget that they made strider roman numeral 2 twice they also made strider 2 in like strider as well yeah strider 2 uh number 2 instead of roman numeral 2 this one is

1:23:16 made by capcom in 1999 it came out uh for the arcade and for the playstation and it is set 2 000 years after strider so what i would imagine is 4048 um and i don't know why they had to go so far ahead like the dystopian future of 2048 already looked pretty futuristic but it's the same villain and again it's a clone of the main character so why even bother like just make it the same character or whatever i guess they really want that to come no this is not plausible unless it's 2 000 years into the future right and because we all know that he quit being a member of strider at the end of strider 1 so there's no way he would ever return to work that's just unfathomable not in a thousand years he said

1:24:08 then you have strider uh no numbers whatsoever in 2014 uh which is a reboot of this nes game but for the ps3 360 generation it is 2 point it's 2.5d so it's not like a 3d action adventure exploration ninja gaiden-esque game ninja gaiden being the xbox games it's not like that at all it's basically like this version of strider with a little more story fleshed out and a little more gameplay and obviously a lot longer are there as many slopes there are slopes in the game i can confirm that i can't

1:24:45 confirm the number of slopes but i was excited to see them there of course you know in uh 2014 they had figured out slopes a little better super mario world had really fleshed out the idea of what slopes could do in terms of platformers and that's really it for strider uh there is an unofficial sequel to strider known as osman which uh was a 1996 arcade game osman o-s-m-a-n not ass man and it's it's only an unofficial sequel in the sense that it is all of the guys who worked on

1:25:22 strider for the nes or maybe for the arcade actually don't quote me on that but they left capcom they're no longer uh working for there so they're like hey what if we made a game that was like strider doesn't take any of the plot elements obviously but just is is in that same vein and they made osman so uh people that should for more strider can uh can always check that out of course

1:25:45 he's also in every marvel verse capcom game he's in a ton of fighting games for that matter so that's probably where people know him more than these this obscure nes game right is like they probably know him as the guy who has the um he's got like a bandana over his face uh you know like the like the way a cowboy wears it and um he's got a large sword uh that's probably how people know

1:26:10 him in the marvel verse capcom games rather than strider but he's also in the japanese only tactical role-playing game namco x capcom instead of you know marvel or anybody else uh which is a damn shame that we don't have this game right like it's a it's not a fighting game it's japanese only it requires so much knowledge of japanese uh language and yet we'll never know how the namco and capcom characters uh got involved together because it was never ported to english huh did you expect that

1:26:45 much from the sequels and spinoffs i did not i also don't remember strider from i mean i guess i didn't play too much marvel versus capcom but i'm looking at screenshots now and it's not ringing any bells so i guess that's just one of my blind spots i see i feel like i recognize strider so i was waiting for this sequels and spinoffs to see like where else none of those things would i really have recognized them from i must have just you know must just be in the like the zeitgeist and i and i saw it somewhere but like okay so that bandana thing that i was describing over his mouth uh is part of like

1:27:18 his cape i imagine from the pictures i'm looking at but that's just not in this version so i feel like they just don't like this nes version even though they put like a lot of effort into it and developed it like it's a completely original game alongside the arcade game but i feel like they just said like okay this is what it is and it's sold okay but like we care more about the arcade version than the nes version and we're never going to speak of the nes version again well the arcade version was like what made it famous right like that's what everyone remembers that's the one that's like

1:27:50 that's yeah i think so and the sega the sega genesis version of it specifically is like the version that is considered like one of those reference points of like wow an arcade game that was ported to a console and actually plays like how i remember the arcade game you know other than yeah i know some people do that with like street fighter 2 as well but uh you know still the arcades had like a leg up

1:28:15 on those things but that's pretty cool to hear that you know and granted the sega genesis is a 16-bit console as opposed to the 8 bits of the nes but nevertheless if you want to check out strider you don't the arcade version you don't need to find it at the arcades you can just find a copy on sega genesis and and call it a day we're gonna call it a day but not so quickly we have one big thing to do we've done it 199 times and we're gonna do it for the 200th right now it's a little thing we're building called the essential games list

1:28:50 joe you first all right well it's no it's no um secret that i'm that i really liked this game it was i've been pretty high on it um it gave me it gave me the same type of feeling that i had when we played um of course now i'm forgetting the name when we played drum roll

1:29:13 give me a second i know what game i'm talking about i was just thinking about it we mentioned it rygar when we played rygar and i loved rygar um and and the reason it gives me that that feeling is a because it's like this bite-sized experience but also it's an adventure it's a it's it feels like the just the progress and the adventure of it feel really good and i like the the the the game design i like what they tried to do with the motion yes they fell short sometimes um but i think like even the the story that's incorporated and it makes me want to like get in and complete it it makes me feel like um like a reason to do that and i also think that

1:29:58 yes it's it's a little bit of an easy game i think compared to most of these these nes games but it's still an nes game it's still you know it's still gonna give you a little bit of challenge it's i think it's the perfect like bite size like hey i'm gonna play this in a couple of in a couple of sit downs and like and and beat this game and i don't know i i i feel like i'm rambling a little bit i just had a lot of fun with this game and i'm gonna give it an essential vote that is one essential vote because sam is here hey it does need three votes usually it just needs two sam you are next i enjoyed this game as well i thought that it has a lot that's going you know a lot going well for it

1:30:44 um i like how you have to revisit places and um you know a story uh i like how each level is like kind of a maze but not you know not like you get crazy lost and it kind of a maze but for me the the controls and the just like how easy enemies come down like you know how easily you can defeat enemies and the jankiness of the controls prevent it from like really being that like essential experience i think i think it's a really good game but i wouldn't say it's essential all right

1:31:28 strider cannot suffer one more no sean it's up to you and if not me then you but um so strider love the presentation gone over it a billion times now i i love the home base i uh i i appreciate of the the skeleton of the story that we got uh it's a very good looking game uh i all of the levels feel unique uh and no screen really looks exactly the same um there's some cool power stuff that you can do uh combat is okay but the the the way that this character controls is is really

1:32:19 it it it's what it all comes down to i think if this felt a bit smoother and there was just a bit more to the combat uh along with like making making battles harder or not battles but making fighting harder but making moving easier i think that this would be an essential game but it doesn't so it's not

1:32:44 i'm i'm removing it from contention with a non-essential vote and i'll just add to that this won't be a game that i'll be going back to uh i think i criticized it enough throughout the episode i mean it has a lot of like bright spots but again we're all talking about the same reasons for why it won't be on here uh i won't look for another reason to bring metroid up but you know that one isn't getting a vote from me on the essential games list certainly this one isn't uh in some ways you

1:33:13 could view strider as a metroidvania a different take on it for sure it's not it's not exactly following that formula but it's doing whatever a metroidvania is supposed to do it's almost doing it in a very roundabout way where like you can explain it but it takes a really long time to understand it and it's not quite working as well as it should and the overall like gameplay moment to moment isn't as fun as it could be so why would that kind of game go on my list and that's the kind of question i'm asking every week why would this game go on my list so yes strider's not making it but joe we

1:33:52 appreciate your essential vote we appreciate everybody who has the courage to say yes but we also appreciate those who say no it's a good balance yes and no good balance there can only be yes and no we don't allow yeah there's no in-betweens we're not done yet though with the big celebration of the 200th episode i believe that joe has prepared a little special trivia that we are hoping everybody can play along in uh it requires 200 episodes worth of knowledge but we're sure most of you are in on this right joe do you want to explain this little trivia game you've uh set up for us here yeah so i got a little a little game for us to play uh we're gonna do we're gonna do some trivia to to

1:34:37 celebrate the uh the 200th episode we're gonna look back and do some trivia mostly on who said it and what episode was it said in so i think that some of these yes of the four of us okay so i think some of these things might you might might be easy based on the context some of them might be i don't know we'll see some of them might be kind of tough um i also have a couple of bonus questions at the end but uh i was trying to think on how we should do it and my first thought was to have each of you

1:35:07 privately message me your answers so you don't hear each other's answers and i can and i can tally it up that way but i i think it'd be more interesting to hear you guys work together to hear you guys discuss and converse so instead i think that uh yeah you guys are all on a team and out of a possible point a possible 30 points i want to see how many points you can get and to give you something to

1:35:30 work against i contacted friend of the show mark pascalato who we've who i generally worked with a lot on duck hunt and anytime i needed a zapper game and a lot of other games that uh that require two players he's always he's always been been down to help he listens a lot so he he he's not heard every episode so you guys have definitely an advantage he's heard a lot of episodes and he was able to

1:35:53 take this quiz and i'll tell you that out of 30 points he got 12 right wow so i'll say that you know i i know that that he is he's behind on the podcast i know that he he he needs i think quite a bit of a handicap especially because he's not on the podcast and he hasn't heard all the episodes so i think i'm going to require that you guys beat him by five in order to win we need to get 17

1:36:18 so you need 17 out of 30 i hope we get one i hope so i don't know if i will i've got i've got like wet brain and all that fun stuff so i've weighted the question the answers a little differently so i'll tell you the point value of each answer as i do it but to jump right into it question number one somebody said it's a real love letter to ducks for one point what episode was that set on

1:36:46 a love letter to ducks you know that's it's got to be a zapper game um i feel this has to be a trick question because the oh it's not duck it's not duck hunt okay what's the one with the grenades oh uh where you wait you can still shoot ducks i don't know i feel like i need a i need a hint i don't

1:37:08 love letter to ducks hold on operation wolf operation wolf is a game um oh you know what that is that is a good call it's either operation wolf or freedom force in my mind uh because again both of them are zapper i'm gonna go with operation wolf on this i don't know i'm feeling i'm feeling freedom force though i don't know i i a love letter to ducks isn't like so recent and operation wolf is a lot more recent than freedom force was i agree i think i'd say freedom force i hate that like

1:37:38 sean no but i hate that sean said that he has wet brain and then he's gonna wind up being right you know like it's gonna be like and then we're gonna have to trust him for the rest of the the trivia but yeah i think i think we're gonna say freedom force okay well i wanted the first question you know to be a simple one so i think you guys might have overthought it a little bit the answer is duck hunt okay who said it well now that's for one more point who said it who's well that was joe

1:38:12 okay no no no well no i mean i mean you know say it but like you know i want to talk about it but like i think that you know joe is the one i i don't feel like it was joe i feel like it was sam i it sounds like something i would say but i don't remember saying it i don't i don't remember saying it either but also duck hunt was a long time ago yeah yeah it's not really joe's humor a love letter to ducks joe's not really that funny it's funny because of all the quotes that i've come here i feel like mine are the least i didn't find any good funny quotes for me next time next time i'll

1:38:44 go find the funnier quotes yeah maybe it is sam then in that case i'll say me i was like this sounds like something i would say final answer final final answer so i did want this one to be a little trickier i knew you would think it was me but it is not me however if you remember episode four sam was not present on the episode oh my goodness the answer was sean i said it was a love letter to ducks you said it was a love letter to ducks and i thought that was really funny because you were i think you were responding to something i was saying because i was very high on duck hunt

1:39:16 wow you could say i would be curious to know did is that one of the ones mark got right uh mark got the game correct but who said it wrong he also said sam oh no i think he said you mike okay i i would never say a love letter to ducks mark let's be real mark thought because i didn't specifically say love letter to ducks to him it couldn't be me got it got it okay well what's next what do you got all right question two still well i'll tell you this it's still about duck hunt so no points available there who said should i play duck hunt when i have access to life is strange

1:39:52 i know this one i'm gonna let you gotta yeah that's gotta be me that's definitely mike strange final answer yes yes it is mike i actually that is one of the only lines i remember from that show i thought that was also very funny okay number three you're getting dangerously close to a ddr by dangerously i don't mean negatively it's the rare positive form of dangerous

1:40:22 who said that or what episode let's start with um what episode for one point okay well um there was there were games that we called like rhythm games yes yeah um i think that is mike tyson's punch out

1:40:38 um the ddr thing um that's just my opinion that sounds familiar you know like i i feel like it's a trick to think because you know we're in our own heads here we were thinking that it was a different zapper game than duck hunt i feel like um it wouldn't be one of the power pad games where we always talked about ddr and that's why i'm thinking similar to sam's point about rhythm games i was always calling mike tyson's punch out a rhythm game yeah yeah this one i'm completely stumped on right now so i'm gonna i'm gonna go with you guys okay mike tyson's punch out it was dance aerobics power pad game ddr you know damn it we're so bad we're in our own heads here okay and who said it for one point

1:41:21 you're getting dangerously close to a ddr by dangerously i don't mean negatively it's the rare positive form of well sean it's either you or me that sounds like a sean i wasn't there for this one i don't know what the context of that is like a dangerous ddr i i i feel like it's me but would he really pick two quotes that are me back to back maybe that's what he wants me to think um yeah i feel like that's a me thing that's a you thing yeah okay me it was me some of these like i feel like are just almost impossibly hard so uh yeah no this is fine it's funny though to think about how little we know our own show okay new game if yeah i mean you know it's not it's not the dance aerobics again if you say vroom loud enough you might think you are racing

1:42:14 uh okay maybe art no because you actually are racing an rc pro am about rad racer yeah rad racer i was thinking this this if i guess doesn't matter what you go first but if you go um if you guess the um the game first that's worth two points because this is a toughie

1:42:34 so it's that makes me think it's not naming itself as a racing game or at least a car game but it's not um what what's is it skate or die maybe vroom because there's like a race in it no i don't know no not that impossible i i i need you guys maybe like i don't know these spark some like spy hunter oh spy hunter yeah now i like that i i would i'll be fine saying that knowing we're wrong yeah i don't think that's it but it sounds like a good guess all right spy hunter

1:43:12 it's cycross what the hell is cycle oh that oh come on with the motorcycle no i got it i got it um but who said it and who said it that was a sean thing sean said that sean yes everyone yeah sure it was mike what the heck if i say room i would never say room ever no you say it in my vocabulary i just heard you say room before we started recording

1:43:42 no i was saying zoom i was doing the zoom zoom well a lot of listeners comment on the uh the sounds in the background the new york sounds that's usually just mike under his breath going room right right it's not actual uh cars outside okay number five i and in this there's a there's a name of a character that i'm going to just refer to as he i won't say the name because it'll give away the game sure but i think he had a worm that went to the moon at some point which is pretty cool that a worm did that oh this is in the uh this was the sesame street ones

1:44:19 oh that's that's a good one worm yeah yeah yeah okay i don't recall i like that sesame street uh what was it it was one two three or was it abc no no no you played abc early it was that we only played one two three okay so sesame street one two three yes it was uh and who said it for one point i think this could be anyone yeah i'm not sure all right let's say sam correct hey wow sam

1:44:50 you know that's why you knew it though we got three points right now what you said four points right now it's like who else has a worm on the moon it's elmo all right four points next question you want oh so so this is also again in reference to sesame street one two three okay you want the child to hit that one little button those fingers those fingers aren't attached to anything

1:45:17 that's gotta be me that does sound like mike i was fighting about the menu yeah mike does get very confrontational you were defending you were defending the menu a little too much if you want me to be honest yeah there was definitely a fight between both of you i think both parties were involved

1:45:32 yes me and you were fighting a lot in that episode it was not um a friendly day on sesame street i doubt it yeah i just think that this is this is this is a hill that you would die on so okay so yeah you want the child to hit those but what was the exact quote you want the child to hit that one little button those fingers aren't even attached to anything yet yeah that's me that sounds like mike it's sean

1:45:55 what oh i tried to give you the hint that like by saying like oh you definitely both were involved in this conversation but the thing is is you are you are defending the menu or because mike is saying like mike is saying like well they they should really teach them to use the buttons properly rather than just hit all you know hit any button to go up and then you say like oh you want them to pick a menu talk wasn't really a hit was it what's that i don't know all right number eight well i'm sorry that's actually the wrong number forget the numbers next question

1:46:31 i mostly watched the kabloo saga and then i watched a lot of the garbanzo chronicles for two points what game i have no idea that sounds like you made it up right now i don't think i was i don't think i was on whatever this one was it's a it sounds like joe i'm gonna go with joe the kabloo saga and then oh wait no you know what i know what it's from do i have to say what game it's

1:46:55 from oh yeah let's do that first game for two points person for one point that's got to be that dragon ball game right what was that called it was called um oh yes it wasn't called dragon something dragon power dragon power dragon power yes and that had like weird names and stuff like that yeah um dragon power it is dragon power hell yeah yes and who said it that's two points who said it uh that's

1:47:20 again you know joe i i feel like it has to be joe because you were the answer to the last one and i feel like joe just doesn't do that he doesn't do repetitive things sounds like a you thing but i'm gonna say joe as well so joe is it you it is me because i had not watched any dragon ball and you guys were talking about all the different sagas and chronicles you watch so i just made a couple up to feel included i love it all right next question you guys know that little plastic fishing game where you have a little fishing pole that has a magnet on it and all the fish have little magnets in their mouths and when you wind it up they open their mouths that game is so much better than this game

1:48:01 i'm sure that was me because i i know exactly what i picture that in my head all right so let's go sam for for the one point correct and for two points now sam oh boy but the thing is like i don't know if it was in reference to a fishing game or to just like a bad game were you were you on the friday the 13th episode yeah but i don't think it was that one because that one at least had depth do we think maybe it was spoken of in the context of a non-game like uh oh like a rob game rob game i don't know not a rob game definitely not okay oh this is i think this is a little bit more

1:48:44 recent but not like super recent when was the last time you thought about that fishing game probably when i said that okay yeah no i know so when was that uh like a year ago two years ago i don't know i feel like if i pulled up a list of episodes i could maybe no no i'm not gonna do that and cheat uh i would say probably what about wheel of fortune were you on the wheel of fortune episode i don't think so that was a bad game yeah but i don't think it would draw that conclusion i think this was after my first hiatus we i don't know stay

1:49:21 sam it's up to you to pick a game that you remember being on an episode for and just saying we won't we won't we won't be upset with you no we won't be upset with you no uh you must do it though but it's like it's a it's a bad game though yeah i know um omegon i liked omegon you weren't i liked omegon so that was yeah wait wait what's that other game um with the russian guy um russian the russian guy no no no uh shoot best of it was like right after best of 87 or best of 88 i think it was right after best of 87 it was oh karnov oh were you on karnov that was pretty early i don't know i think no i don't know let's do karnov let's just do karnov it's not i'm

1:50:14 karnov no sam it was a rob game it was stack up no see i was sure it wasn't wet brain got it right now i have the wet brain contagious yeah he's got thunder it's contagious over internet

1:50:32 all right what do you got next question you guys have eight points right now just for the record too all right next question this one i think is a tough one so so don't be too hard on yourselves here but i think bob saget and zach efron kind of look the same

1:50:51 okay i've never had that thought before so it can't be me i i talk about bob saget pretty yeah i talk about him pretty often but i don't know what context you would have talked about bob saget uh was there an american funniest home videos game no that'd be a fun yeah that's okay so let's say it's me i'm saying it's you yeah it's sean what wow sean you can't even remember your own thoughts

1:51:18 i don't think i've ever thought about okay let me think of the context a little bit more to maybe give you a little bit of a hint towards the game because this one's like a little unfair because there's just like no context in it at all i'm trying to remember exactly what uh what brought this up and all right you know what i'll just give you a different hint see this game this game is not any like of the traditional uh game genres we usually play it's trying to do something unique i don't know if that's a lunar pool so maybe this is wheel of fortune so like like to give you the hint like to say lunar pool i would consider that like wait a second sport game or something it's the eliminate

1:51:55 why aren't you listening to joe's hints no no i hear it i hear it i i think it's the game uh uh uh it's it's like a word that shouldn't be uh like suddenly it's like a trivia game and also uh it's like a party game oh right right right then what was that trivial pursuit no it's not trivial pursuit it's oh oh um no i was gonna say i think the only reason i can i can tie this is because the cover of the game whose name i can't think of is just like a bunch of 90s people uh oh right and i think i said one of them looks like zach efron and then or bob saget and then you said okay so we i think we have reconstructed this conversation but i still don't know the name of the game yeah uh it's a trivia game well that doesn't help

1:52:50 it's like serendipity no it wasn't that recent i mean i guess it was like it was maybe a year ago oh so it's it's before it's it's 1988 then maybe i'm on the edge of my seat right now i gotta tell you guys that okay it's killing me it's not it's like one word

1:53:12 or oh wait it's like a board game too right remember we thought it was gonna be a board game yeah i don't know if it is a board game in real life no it's not like no there is a taboo no it's not no that's that's yeah that's a different game never mind oh god different thought different thought oh man rare made this game i'm i'm so tempted to just oh wait a minute joe gave us a hint joe said he's on the edge of his seat anticipation yes it's anticipation

1:53:44 yes okay i'm actually very impressed that you guys reconstructed that conversation like that was really that was really good all right that was a good um you guys have 10 points you only need two more to tie mark okay okay next up i played this game with a power pad a lot of crazy things a lot of crazy things i'm gonna go that's that's a me thing yeah that's a me thing uh and it has to be a power pad game and unless it's not oh wait wait yeah let me read it again um i played this game with a power pad a lot of crazy things a lot of crazy things it's not a power pad game then but i think i still said it yeah no that does sound like a thing you would say no no no no

1:54:35 no he's in my head now it's not me and it's not a power pad game that narrows it down to three people and 200 games no 180 games oh wait a minute wait a minute is this like one of those inside joke things where like uh you know um is this john elway's quarterback or something like you know like one of those things where like we had the power pad game that remember we recorded an episode and then we recorded the other episode on the same day but because of listeners we didn't want you know them to know so we mentioned john elway's quarterback and you had that thing where you were like

1:55:17 you know about oh okay you know like you thought he was the owner of the dallas cowboys yes all right no but it was the denver broncos games but i you know what but you know what i'm saying it's one of those things where like it's i i'm going to say like well let's let's start the baseline as i said that for john elway's quarterback club or whatever okay so you want to say you said

1:55:41 that i want to say that maybe i said that as a cover uh because you you made me feel bad um unless you want to say you said it it's either you or joe i know i didn't say it now so i feel like would you do you find yourself repeating your sentences or is that a joe thing you know lots of crazy things lots of crazy things like i think that's a i don't think you repeat yourself okay okay so i'm gonna say it's he just repeated himself

1:56:11 oh my goodness so what is it you say you take are you going with with joe or are you let's go with joe it's joe all right very good for that game huh no no no i didn't say i didn't say it was that game yet okay the episode yeah so so the game decided on that one yes oh my gosh well if it was around that time that was we were doing that was like john elway's and then we had the uh tech mobile oh

1:56:42 wait a minute it was ultima it was ultima three wasn't it okay uh ultima three with the power pad because wait wait what's you seem pretty you seem pretty confident ultima three is okay so like look here's the problem ultima three john elway's quarterback and dance aerobics are all like the same time so i could see how like you see how we're coming to this conclusion but would joe really go back and listen to the ultima three episode that was so long that episode was like two hours maybe maybe he did you don't know what joe does in his like well i hate the fact that it's either john

1:57:21 elway's quarterback or ultima three and i can't figure it out so which one do you think it is let's go ultima three i'm going with your gut with that guess you have officially pulled ahead of mark there it is yes it was ultima exodus um thank you so you got 13 points uh now you're just playing to up your score we're almost done here but i do want to give the the context to that yes you're right mike

1:57:46 uh uh we said in the episode after i think it was dance aerobics we recorded we recorded dance aerobics first because ultima three we needed more time to play even more of the game right so we recorded that first and in that you referenced something about like oh last week when we played ultimate exodus even though in real life secretly we hadn't played it yet

1:58:10 and and then sean said like well what did you play ultimate exodus with the power pad and i was like yeah i played it with the power pad and and uh or we were talking about how like yeah i definitely said that in the last episode i played it with the power pad um and then you're like yeah mike was like yeah you said a lot of crazy things in that episode so then i made a point to in that episode say i played this with the power pad a lot of crazy things a lot of crazy things let's just say you had to be there yeah long story long story okay the last one of this format then there's the two bonus

1:58:43 ones okay so this one's a little a little funky but i'll here it is somebody says it's like a training center to which mike replies that's a great point sean about it being a training center who said the initial it's like a training center that that mike replied to it must have been joe um because i think there was a thing where you guys were introducing each other and you switch names or something like that or or you were referring to each other differently um that's a classic substitute teacher prank

1:59:18 yeah yeah yeah i i i would be i would also think it could be sam when he was doing his recording his episode oh just like insert them in oh but yeah but that doesn't make sense in that kind of i didn't do that that much that was only yeah it was right right so i don't think it would be the zanuck episode so also for the for the record sorry yeah this is just for who said it not gonna ask you the game on this one okay right two points then i think joe said it yeah sticking with me

1:59:44 sticking with joe yes i said it there was no trickery of other names just sean got the credit for it but i said it immediately it's like a training center wow that's a great point sean i never noticed it until i re-listened to it right now um but i'm bitter about it okay now the next the the first bonus question and i'm sorry i actually have three bonus questions i forgot first bonus question which one of these did mike not say one unfortunately that's the role of the cards two we've got this great tiger character but what can we make to go with it maybe cereal

2:00:32 three the menu bothered me a little it just said which would you like i don't think that's appropriate language and four okay so here's one more i know i already know the answer wait i got one more i got one more i got to say the last one i was watching fresh prints on hbo max and i was like this isn't frog fractions okay guys i know the answer only because i i say all those things regularly

2:00:59 uh so even though it is a a mike ism i'm very confident that i didn't say roll of the cards oh my god that was the one i was like oh he had to have said that no i know i said hbo max with fresh prints and frog fractions i know i said that um the other the other two just felt familiar to me roll of the cards is something that i would like i probably have said but it would require it would require somebody to like find it you know like in an episode like specifically which

2:01:32 i'm not saying joe didn't do but it's more of like a mistake thing that i feel like would be like hard to catch unless the other three which are like things that i feel like i've said all right well we'll go with we'll go with the man himself so you're going with roll of the cards roll of the cards you did say roll of the cards actually oh no and here's the thing you said it and immediately realized and laughed instead of roll of the cards like you realized

2:02:01 what you said what you didn't say was we've got this great tiger character but what what can we make to go with it maybe cereal i said that but i did say it in response to a joke you made about tony the tiger which came first tony the tiger or frosted flakes so a little you know trying to make it a little tricky there for you wait real quick did we not do the game for the last question we did not we didn't have yeah we didn't have yeah that's not that's okay

2:02:29 damn i'm sorry guys it's okay crazy okay next question which episode did we not mention mousetrap and that we never actually play mousetrap we just build it of these four episodes which one did we not mention that

2:02:49 that is and and mind you i just was randomly listening to random parts of episodes and i caught this three times that we mentioned this not episodes that were anywhere near each other okay anticipation paper boy amagon othello i think that it was me who said uh that you always set it up and you don't play it and i don't think i was on the othello episode so i that's what i would but no but we've we've all said it trust me that's my thought as well so i'm actually thinking it's the omegon episode which one is omegon again it's the one with the like you build a transformer right no omegon's the one where you're running through the jungle right oh right right turns into yeah i still

2:03:38 don't know what omegon yeah he he's like he's like a weak scrawny little kid but he has a gun and then his power up makes him worse because he can only punch wow i i really want that to be a back of the box or something um i have no idea wow i hate that it's probably not omegon but the other three all like have a reason to bring up mousetrap yeah in a way you know like paper boy has mouse a red herring that's i know i i know but like i couldn't make a guess on the other three like they all have legitimate reasons for why we bring them up except for othello i guess like

2:04:13 like i guess i could hear myself saying like othello is more fun than or less fun than setting up mousetrap and not playing it i'm still gonna say omegon but you know feel free i suck at this game but oh sean you're the tiebreaker who do you believe more i i guess i guess i'll lean omegon um

2:04:37 yeah i'm gonna lean omegon i don't know at all all right going with omegon yeah yep it was paper boy oh damn whoa it almost really says how much why you brought it up in omegon like anticipation and othello our board game so like i get that but like yeah i don't remember the context but uh but you brought it up in omegon and i remember thinking well it's a third time i heard uh mouse mousetrap just lives rent free in our minds yes but just the part where you play it not the part where you you know or just the part where the trap goes off yeah yeah and setting it up and who knows how many other episodes that i didn't listen to this week you might have mentioned it in um all right final question which of these three games did we not mention twister

2:05:27 stack up stadium events dance aerobics well stack up it's gotta be stacked i feel i feel pretty confident about stack up unless it's a fourth one yeah okay uh no you mentioned it in stack up you did not mention it in stadium events really oh well wow this is crazy this is what we just how are the listeners doing you guys should let us know on twitter how you guys are doing i guess we don't really put a lot of thought into what we say yeah and also some of these were like very very like

2:06:01 obscure but 15 15 out of 30 that's a that's a good 50 with the with the curve you've passed i don't know the curve i thought the curve was we had to hit 17 yeah i don't know i don't remember the curve yeah who cares the point is we scored 15 points which is incredible yeah yeah good job guys yeah thanks for bearing with me that went on a little long but uh but that was fun yeah it's all great i threw this all in the post show good good yeah that was actually really fun to uh to hear you guys work through it and like be gritting my teeth when you say it and then move past it or get close to it

2:06:35 we should do this more yeah i love i love the trivia um and we'll be sure to play more more games hopefully nes games uh nintendo games specifically in maybe in chronological order maybe with a vote on whether they wind up on a thing called the essential games list and if we do do something like that it will definitely post on uh wherever you listen to podcasts every friday at 8 a.m eastern time uh i don't do time zone math so do your own but yeah it always happens then it's gonna keep

2:07:06 happening this is only episode 200 we've got like 700 total so we're gonna keep banging them out and hey if you're one of those new people who's like i'm interested in another podcast from these guys i'll listen to nostalgia bites b-y-t-e but they are b-i-t-e sized episodes um you can do that on patreon uh for five dollars a month again link in the show notes link on our um twitter and soon to be link on our uh newly found website which is very exciting everybody can join us for episode 201 next friday for super dodgeball we'll see you then so so