210 · The Adventures of Dino Riki
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Somewhere in the land of dinosaurs, a hero known as Dino-Riki sets out to battle against the beasts of the ancient times and prove man's right to survival amongst evolution.
SHOW NOTES
NES Longplay
Adventure Island
Hudson Soft made and published this in 1989: a vertical shmup where a caveman replaces the spaceship, and you can also jump. We joked that it is the prequel to every shmup ever. The shmup half has good ideas, and the jump drags the whole game down.
What works
- The weapons. You climb from rocks to a fist, axes, boomerangs and fireballs. The order makes no sense, and it caught us off guard every time. Each step is a real upgrade, and fire is the best: hold the button and it sprays in a V, acting as its own turbo.
- Hearts instead of lives. A hit costs a heart, some speed and a weapon level, not the run, and you can rally back.
- The look. Colorful, bright, with great dinosaur and boss sprites. One level has bones that rise out of the dirt, walk at you, and sink back in. The pause sound rings out like someone cared.
What doesn't
- The jump. The screen scrolls and Riki walks forward on his own, so if you do nothing you walk off the edge and die. Platforms jerk along under you. A running jump slingshots you past the target. It is the most frustrating part of the game, and in some levels it is everything: a long run of lily pads in the first stage, and a desert with a hundred-plus sand traps side by side.
- The fairy wings. Hold jump and you hover, still shooting enemies below, until you let go. There is little reason to use them outside the long jump sequences.
- Too much at once. Fast, sweeping enemies, each throwing several shots, make the patterns meaningless. Joe kept getting hit without seeing what hit him and felt it came down to luck.
- Weak bosses. The scrolling stops, the small enemies are gone, and the boss attacks rarely. Fire blows up its shots. They felt like a break from the rest of the game.
- Macho Riki. Grab the icon with his face on it and he becomes a giant who throws copies of himself. It is the same sprite, not even a new pose. We hardly ever found the icon, and it barely matters.
Worth knowing
Our fix: make the player walk with the screen, so nobody falls off by accident. We also joked that the whole story is a caveman discovering DMT.
The bottom line
Skip it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. Without the jump it is an average shmup in caveman clothes, and with it, it sinks lower. Joe felt like a teacher telling Dino Riki he has so much potential.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- In Prehistoric times where Dinosaur creatures ruled, The Adventures of Dino Riki began
- NES Longplay
- Introductions
- SHMUPs are generally associated with spacecrafts so Hudson Soft said what if we go all the way back to the beginning? The prequel to every SHMUP really. You can’t prove Dino Riki didn’t happen in the Gradius universe.
- Yet isn’t this really more like commando/Ikari Warriors?
- Overview
- players take control of a caveman in this vertical shmup where you throw rocks and other projectiles at dinosaurs. Also, you can jump!
- Gameplay
- The standard SHMUP controls
- This is where I feel that mix between Commando and 1942
- The Jump
- A neat idea, but the way they laid out the levels to incorporate the jumping is ridiculous.
- Power Ups
- The ultimate power up being a bigger more muscular version of Dino Riki who then shoots…himself at the enemies.
- Remember Amagon? Also a game where a scrawny character gets bigger
- The game comes down to how good you are early on. Collect plenty of power ups and hearts and you’re likely to last a lot longer
- Worlds one, two, and three are one stage each and have checkpoints, but world four is four stages with no checkpoints.
- The Spread
- Shoutout to my article on NEStalgiacast
- The standard SHMUP controls
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- None! But for more Hudson Soft cavemen games please see Adventure Island
- EGL
- NEStalgia Byte - Exerion and Formation Z
- Next week - Air Fortress
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
In prehistoric times where dinosaur creatures ruled, the adventures of Dino Ricky began.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. When you think of shmups, they're generally associated with spacecrafts. So I guess with the adventures of Dino Ricky, Hudson Soft said, well, what if we just go all the way back to the beginning and make the prequel to every shmup ever with the caveman times? Does that sound right? Do you guys think that's what this was going for? I guess so. Yeah, prequel. Prequel. I was waiting for Jar Jar to show up. Right. You can't prove that Dino Ricky didn't happen in the Gradius universe.
Actually, you're right. I mean, you know, there's those, those, there's, uh, volcanoes that kind of like tell you that, you know, there's probably a dinosaur somewhere. Um, cause you know, when there are dinosaurs, there's always going to be volcanoes. So I, I think it follows. Yeah. This is less like shmup feeling to me. It has like a commando Ikari warriors vibe going for it as well. Like, yes, it is a shmup, but I guess like when I look at it from this top down perspective with the art style and everything, it was also giving me commando vibes. Did you guys pick up on that as well?
Yeah, it actually gave me commando vibes so much that it, that it's sort of, it's sort of, uh, surprised me and frustrated me when it didn't play like commando. Because it really feels like it, to me, it feels like it should have that, uh, that sort of, um, gameplay. I think it's really just the fact that you're shooting straight forward, which like suddenly separates it into the shmup world for me.
Yeah. When I, when I first booted it up, I'm like, Oh, finally, one of these land-based, uh, shmups or whatever we want to call them running guns, uh, finally did the thing where you're always just shooting in one direction. Don't have to worry about it. Um, so yeah, I, I felt the same thing.
In the adventures of Dino Ricky, uh, players take control of caveman Dino Ricky. I actually, it, maybe it's just Ricky. Maybe he's not Dino Ricky, uh, formally. Like maybe his parents didn't name him that. Anyway, you play as him. It's a vertical shmup. You start off throwing rocks, you upgrade to other projectiles, and you're throwing these things at dinosaurs, giant insects, birds. You get the idea. Uh, also you can jump in this game, which is, uh, a weird thing to say, but you know, you don't do that in shmups necessarily. You don't think about, uh, the planes.
So here we are with, uh, Dino Ricky and not those planes. I mean, yeah. Do you mean like the, the dimensional planes? Yes, I meant the dimensional planes. The great planes. Okay. So I think I did a good job of, of just setting up everything that you need to know about this game, but we do have to talk about the game, even though we're saying it's just a shmup. What about it? Uh, in terms of, you know, shmup, uh, tropes, controls, things that we're used to when we talk about these kinds of games, what things stood out for you guys?
Well, the first thing that stood out for me is like, you know, the, the power up tech tree doesn't make any goddamn sense to me. And I know that this is like, you know, it's not very, uh, core to the mechanics of the game, but I just find it strange that you start with rocks and then, you know, you pick up your little power up fist thing. And then you switch to butterflies, like right off the bat, totally confused.
Um, after butterflies, uh, I think you get boomerangs, which a lot, which makes a lot more sense, even though like a lot of things in this game, it's sort of an anachronism. Um, and then after that, you just immediately go to like, you know, sorcery and you're now throwing fireballs. And, uh, so I just was completely caught off guard at every moment. I guess if they wanted me to be like on my, uh, like waiting, uh, with bated breath to see what the next power up is going to be, they succeeded. Um, that was the final power up, Sean, the final power up. Yes. There's one more after that. Okay. Hold on though.
Because like, I got a lot of power ups in this game and I had the fire many a times and I never once turned into Macho Ricky. So I guess we could talk about that. Well, Macho Ricky, just, just so this way everybody's clear. It's very much like that game. I'm a gone. If you remember, we did that a couple, uh, like dozen episodes ago where you play as like a little kid and in the jungle. And then if you reach your full capacity of power, you basically just become the bigger, like caveman like version of Amagon.
Well, that's, what's happening here with Ricky. He goes from Dino Ricky to Macho Ricky, but I'm pretty sure. And Joe, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but you need the, uh, Macho Ricky icon. You have to pick that up. It's like his face on the, on the power. Never found that. Never found it once. Yeah. I think that's true. I actually only became Macho Ricky once and I didn't know how.
So, but I saw some playthroughs I was watching. It looks like there is something that I pick up that, that requires it. But I just wanted to mention it because you were mentioning all the projectiles and I, you know, I don't know if we're all aware of what the projectile is when you're Macho Ricky, but you become this, you become this giant muscly caveman and you throw a bunch of giant muscly cavemen that look exactly like you. You astral project. It is the weirdest looking thing. I mean, that power up, you have essentially, uh, ascended in the game and you're now experiencing what the dinosaurs never could.
Well, I always forget if it, cause you know, just my history and biology, you know, it's so long ago since I learned this stuff. Did the cavemen used to do that? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, basically this is, uh, I think the entire story of the game, um, is a caveman that has discovered DMT and, and, and sort of has to deal with that. And that's, that's pretty much it. Yeah. None of this is even happening. If I remember correctly, Hudson soft actually found this exact story on like one of those caveman paintings when they were going through ancient caves and they just recreated this story, uh, which is part of history. It's I'm just so happy that finally video games are, are trying to, to create real art.
To go back to the Dino Ricky weapons, right? Which are probably the most interesting part of, uh, you know, this shmup there's, you start off with just like throwing rocks and then you move up to, um, the ax and the boomerang and eventually like the fire torch and everything like that. But what do these power ups actually mean for you in terms of like surviving in this game and being able to take on enemies more? Like, did you feel like there is a distinct difference from power up to power up or was really just like the animation and how many you were able to fire changing?
Well, well, Mike, what was the ax? The, uh, well, I'm referring to the manual here. So I think the ax is the butterflies. So, well, okay. Yeah. Why'd they call it an ax? It's definitely not an ax. They're literally butterflies. Um, unless that's just their very strange way of, of rendering butterflies. I thought it was that like caveman-y looking like rock that's like, that's got, that's like bound into an ax or something or, you know, like, so it kind of looks butterfly-ish, but I can see it. Do I, do I just have some weird, like, am I having a stroke while playing this game? I don't know. I see what you mean by butterflies, but I can also see the like Flintstones ax.
Okay. All right. I will grant there be, they being axes then. But, uh, to answer your question, um, yeah, I think there is a, a clear superiority to each, um, to each weapon as you get it. Um, whether it's fire rate, um, or spread, um, like the fire is, is insane. Like you could just, like the fact that you can hold the button down and, and it kind of acts as its own turbo button, um, is, it means that it's like, it should be the most powerful one. And I think even just the first step from, uh, rock to ax slash butterfly is, um, enough to be useful.
Yeah. I think so much of this game kit for me came down to crowd control. Like, like if I, if I had good crowd control, I was having a much better time than when I had no crowd control. Because I think there's just so much going on on the screen that at least for, for my play style, I really need to be able to take as much out, um, as quickly as possible or else I just have no chance in avoiding all of these enemies that are just everywhere. So, so yeah, each, I guess I hadn't really thought about it, but I, now that we're, now that we're discussing it, I do think that each power up, they do a good job of evolving it appropriately with each, uh, with each pickup.
Yeah. And it's important to remember too, that like this particular game comes down to how well you perform early on. Uh, if you're, if you like really learn this beginning stages of this game and collect like all the possible hearts that they give out to you and, and power yourself up appropriately, um, you have a large enough spread and pretty powerful weapons to take on most things that are, uh, to Joe's point, like involved with crowd control.
And they give you some, they're pretty generous with the hearts here, but granted, if you keep taking hits, you're always going to be stuck around like the three to four range, but you can have like, I think at one point I had like eight hearts after I like figured out the layout for the stages and stuff. You can have a lot of hearts and hearts in this particular game.
What makes them interesting is that's your, um, your health meter here. So it's not the typical shmup where you take a hit and then you lose your life automatically. And whether you respawn or restart the stage, that's what usually happens in a shmup in this game. When you take a hit, um, you lose a heart. And I think your power up goes one down, correct?
Yeah. That's really the biggest difference here. And, uh, I think what sets us apart is, is that like you, your, your punishment for getting hit is your speed goes down, your, your power up goes down and, uh, your heart goes down, but it doesn't go back to like one or zero or however you want to think about it. Like you, all you need to do is rally a little bit and you can get back to where you were.
Um, which I, I kind of wished for a lot of our previous shmups, um, just because I'm used to more forgiving games now. And yet if you are playing this for the first time, um, and you don't, uh, know to like, you know, be great early on, get everything you possibly can, uh, just to, to, just to have the best advantage possible, which sounds silly.
But I, I really want to reinforce that idea that like, as long as you play your cards right at the beginning, it helps your experience throughout the entirety of the game because you basically just have more health, more power ups, like just to go off of and, and can be a little more risky. Whereas if you're playing with very few hearts and no power ups, you're going to have a hard time of like keeping, uh, the chance to get stronger.
So with this game, while all that's happening, if you play this for the very first time, I was surprised by the amount of enemies and, uh, the patterns of these enemies, like right away. Uh, they're, it's not something where they introduce, you know, Oh, these guys come down in single file. These guys kind of, you know, moving horizontal lines to your vertical, uh, scrolling.
It's just like, you get pummeled with rocks and birds that just move in like sweeping fashions very, very fast compared to the speed of Dino Ricky. And that was like surprising to me to the point where I actually had to pull myself back a little bit and figure out like, all right, how do I take down these guys? Cause I can't just like keep fuddling around with, you know, with them just on the screen.
Um, yeah, I, that was like the biggest thing that I noticed too. I think probably maybe because I haven't played a shmup in a while, but man, there was nowhere to go. Uh, with, yeah, I think that they did have interesting patterns and unique patterns for each enemy, but they would just throw them all at you at once. So the patterns meant nothing because, because to the player, it's just a bunch of crap coming at you and like this crazy web. Um, I think as far as, uh, as far as like avoiding and dodging things, this was one of the hardest, um, shmups that I can remember to, to just not take a hit.
Yeah. You end up having to just like sort of stare at yourself and just spray and pray. Um, and like, you know, in your periphery, well, at least for me, uh, in your periphery, just sort of like get in front of, uh, what you can see coming for you and, and then just focus entirely on dancing around the projectiles that you can't destroy. Um, and it was almost, there were almost times where I kind of wanted a return back to, uh, the old way of doing things with commando, uh, just to get rid of the guys that got past me. Uh, because then it just turns into like, oh, I'm getting hit.
Like, there's no way about how I'm like, if I can avoid it, it's just going to happen. And that's why the power up system is so important with the spread feature of like, uh, you know, how far you spray your, your attacks because the fire one, for instance, I know it's the strongest one, but that naturally just shoots out in a, um, like a rapid V like shape where it switches between left and right.
And you don't necessarily have to move around the screen, but if you move around the screen, it helps even more obviously. But that spray of just like, oh, well this could hit anything and hits everything often really helps with control. Whereas if you just had like your rock and you're just throwing it around, I mean, I guess that's the point, right? You're supposed to feel powerless with just the rock as opposed to fire because fire is what made man so strong.
But you know, it's like the, the spray here accounts for more than anything. And I'll just say that that's a good mechanic in shmups. I think it's important to think about how you, um, how you attack and what your plan of attack is in these shmups. If you want to get better at them, quick shout out to an article I just wrote on nostalgiacast.com a few weeks ago, uh, which gives a bunch of tips on how to be better at shmups. And one of them involves, uh, that very said spray in the adventures of Dino Ricky. Is it a shout out if it's your own work?
That's who I'm shouting out. I'm shouting out me. Oh, okay. Great job, me. From the past. Me from the past. Just like Caveman. Yeah, sure. It's like a different guy. Like every seven years, all your cells change over or whatever. That's like a totally different guy. That was seven years ago. It was only like a week that he wrote, that he wrote it. But I mean, I'll grant him that. Yeah, it's a shame I said a few weeks because I could have argued that this was written in the Caveman times and you wouldn't be able to prove me wrong.
Well, a few is subjective anyways. Right, right. A few weeks ago in the grand scheme of the universe was Dino Ricky. Yeah. The most, uh, unique idea for this shmup is also arguably the thing that is most controversial about this game. And that is the ability to jump. Uh, we, we briefly discussed this in the overview, but I think for those of you who need a clearer understanding, the whole game obviously takes place on land and they've included a bunch of pitfalls, um, water, uh, sand traps and stuff like that, that you would, uh, be required to jump over. So they included a jump button as the secondary thing other than your attack so that, uh, you know, for a brief moment in time, you are in the air before you land back down.
This is a neat idea, but I feel like the way they laid out the levels is where this goes wrong. If you just had some occasional, like, areas where you have to jump over a pitfall or a, um, a sand trap, that sounds great to me, right? Like, okay, cool. That's just part of the level. But when you put in the desert stage, a hundred plus sand traps all next to each other, then it's like, what, what that, no, the jump isn't necessary anymore.
Now you have to use that other power up that gives you fairy wings to stand a chance against this. So before we like use the fairy wings as the crutch on this, let's just talk about pretend that you could only jump. How does that mechanic work for you guys? Are you feeling good about it? Did they make a mistake? No, because look, the whole game is, is a treadmill. And the thing about that is, um, so you're going to continue to move forward. You're just going to continue to walk forward regardless of what's ahead of you.
Um, but that, that does not really, it's not conducive to how the jumping mechanic works because when you jump, uh, you're trying to get some kind of, uh, precision as to where you land. And I'm not even like, this isn't even touching upon, uh, the precision of the drum itself. It's just the positioning that follows. Um, so you'll end up in a situation where you're jumping on a very small platform and then you have to fight the game itself to stay on the platform. Um, because you're moving with the screen. And then you got situations where the platform you're on is a very jerkily moving platform itself. So now you're fighting against the scroll of the screen and then this platform.
Um, because if you do nothing, like as, as, you know, as opposed to a regular platformer where if you do nothing, you just stay on the platform. If you do nothing, you walk off the edge and die. And this is where the game kind of falls apart for me because the, um, that is the most frustrating part of this game. And it, it becomes a major part of it. Like, it's not just the thing that you, that you run into, uh, in certain sections. Like there are certain levels where that is everything.
And I, yeah, this is the most poorly implemented platforming section of a game I've ever seen. Um, yeah, I think that, um, personally, I feel like a jump in a shmup like this could be an interesting and unique idea. I mean, I don't think there's any problem inherently with thinking like, okay, it's a shmup, but you have to jump over gaps. Um, but the thing is, you know, for the, if you're, if you implement a jump into your game and this is just my personal preference. And, you know, maybe people might disagree with this, but I feel like the jump shouldn't be absolutely fucking horrible.
And in this game, the jump is horrible. It is really like, I like, I guess it's really kind of what, uh, what Sean said, where you, in like thinking of like, I'm thinking of like Super Mario Brothers 3. I know that's a side scroller, but there are auto scroller levels.
The level doesn't scroll independently of you. Like that, that's just like another way of saying what you were getting at before, where you'll walk off the platform. Like the platform moves and you don't. That's the problem. Like that's what, like the platform will just slide out from under you while you're standing still. So like, yeah, if you're, if you're on a platform waiting for the next platform, you have to be walking with the platform. It's as if you have no interaction with the platform. And then the jump itself is really hard to gauge if you have momentum.
Like there are, there are a couple of times where it's like, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure like the momentum of the scrolling of the screen actually pushes me forward a little bit. Or maybe the screen, I guess, just scrolls under me when I jump. But there are some times where something is so close, I need to make a tiny jump and I just jump without moving at all. And I land on the next thing. But there are other times I need like a little bit of a bigger jump and I'll jump, I'll like run forward and jump.
And I will fly all the way across, I'll fly like so far forward, way overshoot it. I have no idea the momentum of it. So I was like excited about the jump at first, but it just, it was, I was fighting it the whole time. It just didn't work. Yeah, basically if you, if you jump without any other directional input, you're basically like, yeah, the screen is moving under you. And that ends up being you moving a little, a little bit forward. But if you jump with any kind of momentum, you kind of slingshot yourself.
And it's, it's really hard not like to, it's, it's really hard to, to gauge whether you're going to do one thing or the other when you're trying to add any kind of position to it. Um, so between that and like, I feel like we're talking about relativity right now.
But how does that like equals MC square? Like it's, it's kind of a pain in the ass just to wrap your head around how platforming works in this game. Even just thinking about how they, uh, implement it, like how they explain to you that this is something you're going to have to be doing in this game. In the very first level, there are, uh, there's water that you cannot fall into, but they put, um, you know, lily pads on it.
So this way you jump onto those pads and they give you like one directly centered lily pad immediately on the screens. This way you're like, oh, that's where I must go. And they're large to be fair. Like it's not a small little, a tile or whatever. So you go jump on that and you know, you can still screw that up. I think I did my first time, but if you land on it, then they give you another lily pad and then another one and then another one. And it's just a series. It's not even just like jump once.
Okay, cool. Now you've got the concept. Maybe later we'll reintroduce some more jumping or multi jumping. It's right away. It's like now jump again, jump again, jump again. In fact, they do this kind of, um, execution more than just the one-off jump or pitfall every now and again. They do the execution where it's just, here's a thousand jumps in front of you or a thousand situations to jump around. That it's almost like they were making the game, building out the levels. And then later on they were like, you know, we're going to add this jump mechanic. So you've got to add pitfalls into the levels.
So they're like, yeah, I'll just throw a thousand right here. Like I'll just, I'll just make this whole section lily pads and I'll just make this whole section wall to wall sand traps. It's, it's not necessarily the way I would have thought to even just, uh, use that kind of mechanic. You know, if you're thinking about in shooters, um, that involve planes, right? Sometimes you can do like in 1942 or maybe it was 43, uh, the extra button allowed you to do a loop de loop. So this way you were like invincible, right? You're now longer on the same plane as the, as everybody else.
The jump doesn't necessarily, um, you know, contradict that feature, but that is like, that's a better use as like an additional dodge, right? Then as opposed to an additional pitfall on top of all of these enemies coming at you as you're trying to move forward or staying on your platform even, right? Sometimes you have nowhere else to go because you, you have to jump from lily pad to lily pad, or you have to watch out for the hundreds of sand traps. So you can't really move either, but now you also have to take care of all these enemies.
I don't think there was a careful balance being applied here. I'm not saying they didn't play test it. They probably appreciated how hard they made, uh, certain sections of this game if you're not accurately prepared for it. But it's not necessarily, like, it's not a good thing to throw like a ton of power-ups and hearts all over the screen to then make it okay to be more chaotic.
Yeah, I mean, I know that we still have, like, bosses to talk about, but this is the best time that I can think to bring this up, is that, like, if I wanted to play designer for a second here, as we often do, I think the only thing that they had to change to make this a less frustrating experience is to just make it so that you literally had to walk with the screen. Like, you had to press up, and you had to, like, like, if you, if you let yourself fall to the back, the screen will push you up, but you have to be the one to actually, uh, decide you're going forward.
Then, you can be a lot more thoughtful with your, uh, platforming, and not just, like, chuck it and pray, uh, because you know that your character will accidentally walk off the screen, or off the platform, nine times out of ten. Um, and I think then you have, like, that's fine. Like, I don't know how I would, how I would think about this game if that were the case, because one of the things that bothered me so much is no longer a part of it.
Yeah, you know what, it's just kind of dawning on me right now, is that, like, what you're talking about, I think it's because they're treating it so much like a shmup that they're treating Ricky as if he's a spaceship. And the background is space, rather than, uh, than something he's, he's fundamentally attached to in some ways. There's no gravity or friction holding him to the ground, it's just, it's just the, it's space moving behind him, as far as we're concerned. Yeah, and then the water is just a danger zone.
And you gotta believe on some level they knew that the jumping was a problem because the fairy wings, which I'm, I'm calling it that I don't remember exactly what it was called in the manual. Um, that ability is one that, like, you just jump, and as long as you have those wings on your back, that jump is infinite now, until you let go. Now, granted, once you let go, the wings go away, so, you know, there's a good, like, trade-off there, a good risk factor.
But you can hover above the stage, eliminating all platforms, while also being able to destroy all enemies, theoretically, below you now, uh, as you're in the air. So there's very little, you know, um, there's very little incentive to ever think about, like, using the fairy wings for any other portion than these extra extended long jump sequences that they've made, uh, that you know are in each level. There's just gonna be a point where you're gonna have to jump a lot, so might as well use your fairy wings there, and not just for, like, a momentary bliss.
True that. So, uh, of the four worlds, at the end of each of them, there is a boss fight, uh, that you must do, uh, with either a pterodactyl, or a, uh, I think it's a tyrannosaurus rex, and a giant wasp, or, uh, you know, I don't know. A fly. Sure. I don't know. And a triceratops, and a, uh, cobra. Those are your bosses. Uh, all very menacing. But they are, like, you know, significantly larger sprites, and no longer are you on a auto-scrolling thing. You're now, like, in their cave dungeon, uh, that you've entered. So there's some thematic building there, too, to, like, a bigger fight.
What did we think of the boss fights, though? You know, a lot of times in shmups, it's, um, it's less about the boss itself, right? You just usually have to, like, shoot, uh, either a weak point or just the boss overall itself. But it's more about dealing with all the, uh, projectiles or enemies that also appear on stage. Did this game have, uh, a similar problem?
The bosses were inconsequential in this game. Like, you've, you've removed, um, all of the mooks that would pester you and, like, sort of hit you otherwise. Um, you've removed the auto-scrolling, which, uh, thankfully gets rid of all the frustration of trying to jump over shit. Um, but also that removes all of the, uh, challenge. And if you've got the fire, a lot of these bosses, like, their projectiles get blown up by the fire. So all you gotta do is sort of, like, hold down the shoot button, move around a little bit, and you're good.
Yeah, I, honestly, I only fought the, uh, first two bosses, which would be the pterodactyl and the T-Rex. But, uh, for me, it was just, I, I can't even, I can't even tell if I thought that the bosses were, were necessarily, like, really easy for bosses. It's just the rest of the game was so hard for me to, at least for me particularly, to avoid anything, to knock and hit. That, like, the bosses felt like a break from it all to me. Like, the bosses, the bosses were, like, unbalanced in almost the opposite way that bosses usually are in these older games. Where it's, like, a lot of times you'll get to a boss and it's just so ridiculously hard where, like, that really makes you think. This is just, like, the rest of the level is, like, the boss for me.
Like, after I beat the first boss, I feel like level two is the actual, is, like, the boss. And, like, oh, I can't wait to get to the next level, which is the T-Rex. Right. It's funny because, uh, Sean made a great point of the fact that they've removed everything else. But, you know, the attacks of these bosses, right, that if we're supposed to believe that they're the extra hard fight in each level, they attack infrequently as well. So a lot of time is spent, like, with them moving around the screen. And since this isn't scrolling at you, you are free to be in any other place but where they're walking to.
So that eliminates that distraction. But you can also shoot at them while they're just meandering around. So because they don't act as, like, a vicious creature who's, um, who's, you know, attacking everything in sight to make sure that you stay out of its way. Instead, most of these bosses, if you're well-equipped and willing to take, uh, you know, willing to take a risk of getting hit, you can usually take them out faster than they'll be able to attack you. Which is a major problem for a level that goes on for arguably way too long compared to its boss fight. Yeah. That, I agree completely with that.
We briefly talked about the, um, or I wouldn't even say briefly. I think we covered everything in the Macho Ricky thing. Uh, you know, the version where he gets bigger. But I would say that for them, that was, like, a selling point of the game and it was a big mechanic. And yet somehow it feels, it feels like it doesn't matter at all. I didn't even see it. Right, but as I'm saying, we spent so much time talking about the jumping, which really is the game-changing feature, but not something that they necessarily, like, you know, mention in depth in the manual or, uh, or talk about all that much. So, it's weird that, you know, Dino Ricky becoming Macho Ricky was, like, a selling point.
But that mechanic really is inconsequential to the game. Like, I don't even think Macho Ricky, I think you could play the entire game without ever being Macho Ricky. And as long as you know what you're doing, it's the same experience. Macho Ricky being a bigger version of himself who shoots out projectiles of himself, which sounds crazy, but it's really just the same exact sprite. Not even a different pose. It sounds like a ROM hack. It's not even, it's not even a different pose, though, right? Like, they could have sent him at least, like, you know, looking like he's, like, diving or, you know, kicking or something. But instead, it's just the same exact image.
So, it's just a, it's just a larger, uh, sprite, which probably means a larger hitbox. But otherwise, like, I don't know, the fire seemed to be doing the job. So, Macho Ricky almost could have been a moment where he's super strong and can take a ton of hits, right? Maybe the hearts don't even matter for a moment. But instead, he becomes a melee-based, um, you know? Like, where he has to, like, he can, he can punch. Like, he has a huge-ass fist. And he just can punch multiple enemies off the screen at the same time.
But you're most likely also going to, you know, have more enemies on the screen and make more contact. So, your Macho Ricky moment, while invincible, is also probably short-lived. I feel like that's, uh, also more true to what Omegon was going for. So, I'm not saying, you know, that I'm not lifting that from another game. But it seems like that would have been the actual direction to go for. I can't decide, though, if, if the, if the direction that they did go in, where you're firing yourselves at, you're at the enemies in, like, a spread.
Is, like, kind of ironically winking at themselves. Like, we know this is funny and quirky and that's why we're doing it, because it's goofy. And, like, I like that stuff in games normally. But, like, this one, like, I feel like back then it probably wasn't. It was probably, like, this is stupid. Like, you know, they thought it was. Like, if I were a little kid playing this, I probably would have been like, whoa. Like, oh, you're shooting the other giant yourself. But, like, I, like, I want to believe that they're, like, this is a funny thing and, like, we're making a weird, goofy game.
But I'm sure that's not it. Yeah, I think if you're going to go for something like that, you have to have already proven that you don't take yourself very seriously. And, yeah, I get it. There's, like, dinosaurs and, and, and, and all this silly shit. But, like, it's not that kind of silly until that happens. So, yeah, they didn't put enough down. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to throw out, like, a life, uh, life raft here, but. Well, okay, but imagine if Macho Ricky also just continued to shoot out whatever power up you currently had. But now he's just stronger. And flexing.
Yeah, and, yeah, and flexing his gigantic muscles off. You know, I don't know. That would have, I, I just am so, I guess, Joe, your, your explanation's fine, right? It doesn't really matter. Games are silly back then and made for kids anyway.
I'm not trying to think about the logic of it either. I'm just thinking, like, wow. To, the idea of, like, Mario shooting other Marios or, you know, Link collecting other versions of himself. Like, that's just, it just feels weird. It feels wrong. Sean, you're spot on with, like, the ROM hack portion of it. Like, it does feel like somebody would add something like that in. But, no, they just went for it. And I feel like, you know, as much as they messed the jump up, I think they really messed up the Macho Ricky power up in that regards of just making, it could have been so much cooler. It could have been another unique feature. Something that you want to get rather than just being like, oh, it's just, now I shoot me.
Yeah, mechanically, it doesn't really change much other than they shoot farther than the fire. But, yeah, it does, like, the more I'm thinking about it, too, the more it feels like it was just the easiest thing for them to add as a new projectile. Like, almost like it might have even been, like, an accident in coding. And they're like, oh, like, why don't we just use that as the weapon? Yeah, and somebody who knows a thing or two about game design will tell us, like, you guys don't understand. That's a bigger sprite, so it takes up more of the memory on the chip. And so they have to save resources.
Right, yeah. With the memory mapper, they have to save resources. And they can only use that same sprite as the projectile going forward. I don't care. That's not the fun part of this. That's not the fun part of this show. It's not the fun part of video games. We're not here to discuss technical limitations. We're playing this game in 2022. We'll leave that to Digital Foundry. Right, yeah. We want better stuff. And so that's what the whole point of this podcast is, is for us to talk about all the cool shit they could have done. I don't give a f*** if they didn't. We're getting sassy.
Now, hold on. There is one other thing I wanted to talk about, but it's probably something none of us experienced because you'd have to beat the game to know this. Worlds 1, 2, and 3, okay?
They are levels where, like, if you die, they have checkpoints built into them, so you go back to the checkpoint. But World 4, okay, is four stages within each of those. So, like, you know, World 1, 2, and 3 are one stage each, but World 4 has four stages inside of it, and there are no checkpoints at all. So, I guess it's still technically equal to each stage. You know, if World 1 has one stage and World 2 has one stage, and they both have checkpoints, but World 4 is four stages with no checkpoints, technically the checkpoint system isn't something you would notice anyway.
Because, you know, you would just think of World 4 as just a longer set of stages because you didn't know what stages were in Worlds 1, 2, and 3 because there was only one of them. I also, and I did not beat the game, so I only know the second hand, but I know that, you know, when you beat the game, you just loop and you do it again.
But adding on that, so, okay, you beat the game, you loop the game. But stage four is just like 1, 2, and 3 again. So, basically, you play stage one, stage two, stage three, stage one, two, three, and then stage one, two, three, one, two, three again. And it's like nested, reused shit. And I don't appreciate that, and if I did experience it, I would have been upset. So, you're voting this essential. You don't know that. You have no idea. Yeah, you never know until it comes. He's using his poker face right now. Right, right. What's funny is, you know, when you look up, you know, other people playing these games, as I'm sure most of us do, to figure out, like, you know, okay, how do the pros do it, right? How do I get better at this game?
I'm usually, like, not shocked to see a 20-minute long video considered a long play on these NES games. And yet, I noticed that this game is considerably short for what we've been playing recently.
Oh, yeah. And what we've been playing recently have been kind of long games. I'm just saying, like, you really could have had a bad day at Toys R Us if you could have potentially picked up Fizanadu or Dragon Warrior and you went for Dino Ricky, a game that you may be done with in a few hours, whereas Dragon Warrior, likely back then, too, because there weren't, like, strategy guides abundant. And you'd have to map it yourself. Like, that could have taken you months, maybe years to play.
Yeah, definitely. Especially if you consider that, like, I mean, I don't know what the numbers are on this, but, like, if you consider what I think is the average age of someone buying NES games in the 80s, a lot of those people are probably much younger. And, like, I would have had a, I would have taken me forever to get through something like Dragon Warrior if I was, like, eight years old.
I also may not have ever played it because, like, I spent my allowance on the dinosaur game and not, because, like, I was into dinosaurs. So, this had, this already sold me. Yeah. Oh, and I would have told myself it was awesome.
Exactly. Which is funny because, like, as much as people shit on Nintendo Power with, like, hindsight, which, you know, I think Nintendo people don't do, but, like, you know, a lot of people will say, why read, like, the Nintendo Power reviews? It was reviewed by Nintendo. Of course, they were giving their games good scores. But that magazine, especially if you trusted Nintendo, was a way to find out mostly what the good games were.
You know, you had a way to almost protect yourself. And Nintendo, you know, was guiding you towards, you know, Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda, you know, or later on Super Mario 64. Like, they were guiding you towards the games they were making, but I don't think those are bad choices to be making. They weren't necessarily giving a, you know, seven-page spread to Adventures of Dino Ricky.
Right. Well, I guess it's lucky that, like, Nintendo was, even though they were self-interestedly promoting their games, that Nintendo also just made really good games. So, having their games promoted probably worked out more often than not. I also want to state that, like, well, while this is kind of beside the point, not everyone would have had a subscription. Like, I remember, like, when I was a kid, walking into a Toys R Us and seeing that there was a new Spyro game that I never knew was coming. I had never heard of before. And so I bought it on the spot. So, you know, not everyone was informed.
So, if I see a game that looks cool and has fucking dinosaurs on it, I might just buy it. Or dragons. Or dragons, but dinosaurs are cooler. No, no, but Spyro. But Spyro's a dragon. So you would have bought Dragon Quest in direct contrast to what you said earlier. You're right. I'm fired.
And, you know, if we're just really going to get off topic for a minute, the best times for anybody to be uninformed in the days of, like, when the internet was still young. Or not young, but, like, you know, not as rampant as it is today.
The PlayStation magazine. Like, what a home run that was, too, with the demo disc. You basically got, like, 20 free games in a $6, probably $5 magazine that you could then play all those and then decide which one you were going to buy later. Like, that was a big deal, too. And I still have, like, I think almost close to 50 PlayStation demo discs still at my house. Oh, yeah. I had some PS1 demo discs that I treated like full games. Like, I played them as much as I played other full games. Yeah, I remember playing. Well, I never was subscribed to PlayStation magazine. I had a subscription to PSM, which was the independent version.
But I remember, you know, my place for demo disc was Pizza Hut. So I remember the Pizza Hut demo for Medieval. Did it have Ape Escape on it? Ape Escape was probably on it. I just didn't have... I had a Pizza Hut one. Yeah. I didn't have an analog controller, though. So anyway.
Anyway, yeah, we're getting off topic. Like, on the topic of Adventures of Dino Ricky, sequels and spinoffs, there are none. There are... There's not one. Dino Ricky is never even mentioned again. But for more Hudson Soft Caveman games, please see the Adventure Island series, which you can only see, you cannot hear, because we still, as of the recording of this episode, have not released that episode.
Episode 111 or 113, I can't remember. But it's one of those two. And yeah, one day we're going to release that. And then we will close the loop on Caveman NES games. Yeah. The number one effect of COVID has been that that episode did not get released. A hundred percent. We do have to close one other loop, though, and that is the way that we end this podcast every week with the Essential Games List. Sean. Hey. What's your vote? Oh. You know my opinion.
A couple improvements on the formula are completely reversed, and the cons outweigh the pros in here. Whereas I think that there are some good ideas in the way they do, like the shmupy stuff. The platforming stuff is an absolute disaster and needs to be expunged. So this is not essential. Joe. I don't think I'm going to surprise anyone. But before I give my vote, just because everyone seems to know where, probably knows where it's going, I'd like to say two nice things about Dino Ricky that we missed through the episode. One is that I think that the environments are very nicely designed.
Particularly, there's one, I mean, they're colorful, they're bright, they have decent animation. The lily pads look nice, and that's it. And there's one particular level where there are dinosaur bones littered, buried halfway in the dirt throughout the level. And there's one that has this nice animation of it coming up out of the dirt and surprising you and walking at you, and then sinking back into the dirt. And I just thought that was a really nice touch.
And it gives me this feeling, that and some of the other positive things we talked about, gives me this feeling of as if I'm a teacher who wants to tell Dino Ricky, you have so much potential. If you would just put your mind to the things that you're lacking, you could be a good game. And that was one of the things that made me feel that way. The other positive thing I wanted to mention is it has a very nice pause sound. It rings out a little bit. But it's, you know, they put a lot of, they clearly put a lot of thought into the pause sound. So appreciate, always appreciate that.
As far as the negatives, I mean, we've gone over a lot of them extensively. I do agree with you, Sean, that they did some interesting things that would change up the shmup formula if they had pulled them off. But I still think that in addition to the jumping and the scrolling problems, just the enemy placement, while it looks like it is intentional in this, which is something we always talk about,
it's too much. It's too congested, at least in the beginning of the game. And there are times where that eases up. But like right away, you're thrown into this thing and enemies are everywhere. And each of those enemies are shooting multiple projectiles that are also everywhere. I felt like maybe I'm just not good at it. But I felt like so much of it was coming down to luck to me. I mean, I would be getting hit and have no idea what even hit me because I didn't see it. I was looking at too many other things. All those things combined, I'm going to say not essential. Real quick, I just want to say as another nice thing about the game.
I've been watching some footage as we've been recording. And now that I know that they are not butterflies, I can see the axe now. So it's not just like they're bad at making pixel art stuff. I just thought they were butterflies. Yes. So I'm sorry, Adventures of Dino Ricky. So essential. Yeah.
But the thing is about the axe, I was looking at it afterwards too, is that it clearly is trying to have like a, like it's rotating, like a motion, like you threw it overhead and it's rotating like an axe. But it only has two frames. So it's like up and down. So it just looks like it's flipping back and forth. So it looks like a butterfly flapping its wings. Exactly. Well, on one more nice note, I would say that it's not even just that the butterfly has now been revealed to be an axe. I would say that the whole game is actually, you know, pretty comfy looking.
And the dinosaur sprites are great. The boss sprites are great too. Dino Ricky himself leaves a little bit to be desired. But the cartoon look of him on the box is fun too. So I think like presentationally, this game has no problems. And as a shmup, it's pretty, you know, I'd put it in like the closer to the upper ends of NES shmups until we factor in this jump. Sorry, guys. This is the one thing I can't hang up on and it's killing me that it has to be this way. I'm not sure if the game would have been essential just if you take off the jump because then I think it's not really doing anything all that different. It's just doing what we've seen already in a caveman aesthetic instead of in a spacecraft.
So, you know, without the jump problem, it's kind of just an average game. But with the jump problem, it demotes itself even further. And so it's not going on the essential games list. But that doesn't mean that next week we can't have an essential game. Every week, every Friday, there is a chance for an essential game. And we are going to try next week to get one on. I'm going to racketeer and solicit for votes to get whatever the next game is. I'm looking it up right now. It's Air Fortress. Guys, what do you think? Do we have to play it? Can we just put it on the essential games list right now? If you pay me well enough, yeah. There you go. Pay him well enough. You heard it. Okay. And Joe said it's on. So don't even pay Joe.
I don't want your money. Send all money to Sean. That's Sean at Sean.com. And please don't send any money there because God knows who that is. I wonder who has that. Right. I'm actually buying that right now. Yeah, yeah. To collect Sean's money for him. Now, if you just didn't want to wait for Air Fortress, though, and you wanted something else, something else that Nostalgia is doing, Nostalgia does have another podcast now, Nostalgia Bites. And that is a Patreon exclusive, patreon.com slash nostalgia. For just $5, you can get access to all the pre-existing Bites episodes, but also the upcoming ones, such as we're doing a double feature of Exerion and Formation Z.
Now, you've never heard of those games, and there's a good reason.
Formation Z together to shmups. Find out if NES Baseball is haunted on that website as well because there's an article from 2018 on there about that. And we didn't write it. It just appeared. It just happened. Yes, exactly. Now, if you want more Nostalgia and you don't want to go to our website and you don't want to go on Patreon, you're asking for an awful lot. And I'm going to give it to you. Twitter, at NostalgiaCast, also has all that stuff. But I'm done plugging up this show because there are no more holes. Whoa. Whoa.
