226 · Goal!

• The Soccer Invasion Has Spread To Your Living Room
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • STARTING WITH A QUESTION
    • LATE TO GAMING writes - After playing through so much of the NES library are there certain genres that have you surprised you guys by being more enjoyable than you expected? Or genres you normally don't like, but have found NES games in the genre that you've really enjoyed?
      • I’m gonna go a little opposite here and say I’m not having a great time with Beat Em Ups.
      • BUT a few sports games have not aged as poorly as I would’ve expected. Golf, Lunar Pool, RBI Baseball, and those aren’t even the ones on the essential games list
  • First soccer game since well Soccer
  • The idea of the soccer invasion back in 1989…it doesn’t feel like much progress has been made
    • It’s not high li level of failure
• Overview
  • Another game in the Jaleco sports series. The object of the game is the same as in real football; one team must score more goals than the other to win.
• Gameplay
  • Soccer Gameplay
    • Presentation
    • Hooking/Slicing Shots and Passes
      • Hold B and press UP to give the ball a forward spin and make it go farther, and also press DOWN while holding B to give the ball a backspin and shorten the length of the shot or pass.
    • Headbutt the ball
    • Slide Tackles
    • Simple 2 penalties - Offsides and tripping
      • Like in real soccer, however, the referee does not always see the play, so penalties are not always called. It’s up to you to decide if the risk of getting called is worth making the play. Getting called for a penalty simply means the other team gains possession and gets a free kick from the point where the penalty occurred.
  • The teams matter (individual stats)
  • World Cup - Play as one of 16 international teams.
    • Actually starts at the pool round which is great
  • Tournament
    • Play as one of 8 American cities and compete in a single elimination tournament.
  • Shoot Competition
    • Play as one of 3 star players and attempt to score.
    • You get five tries to get past two defenders and the goalie to score. After those five tries, get five more tries to beat your previous score, or see if a friend can beat your score.
  • With two players, the players can either play on the same team or against each other.
  • Vs. Mode
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Goal! Two
  • Goal! SNES
• EGL
• Next week - Godzilla Monster of Monsters
• NEStalgia Byte - Tower of Druaga

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

00:00 Goal! The soccer invasion has spread to your living room!

00:21 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys, we usually start by talking about like, I would do like, hey, so what do you guys think about soccer? And we'd laugh about it and we'd make some cute jokes or whatever.

00:42 But we're not going to do that this time, I promise. Instead, we are going to actually start with a listener question because somebody took the time to write in to us at www.nostalgiacast.com. You just hit the little contact button, fill out the question. It goes to an email that I can't give you like I don't know the domain. So just anyway, that's how we get the emails. And then this is the like, only fourth time this has ever happened. So we're going to answer this question live. I can't wait. All right.

01:12 Late to Gaming writes, After playing through so much of the NES library, are there certain genres that have you surprised or maybe are more enjoyable than you expected? What about genres you normally don't like, but have found NES games in the genre that you've really enjoyed? Sean, you first. Wow. Okay. So the first question is regarding genres that I did not expect to like, correct? Correct. All right.

01:42 I'd say that I was always kind of dreading at the beginning of this podcast, just how many shmups that we'd have to play. Um, and cause like, I just never really was a fan and, uh, had a, I just thought they were overly simplistic and yada, yada. Uh, but, um, and I'd still say that they're not my favorite, but I would say that, uh, playing, playing through them on this podcast has shown me that, uh, that they can be done well. And it's like, there is a lot of creativity that goes into differentiating, um, a good shmup from the crowd, even though the crowd is, is pretty thick.

02:29 Um, so yeah, I'd say like that, that's, that's where I would, that's where I'd place that. And then for the second question, if you have an answer for it, it's fine. If you don't, uh, genres you normally don't like, but have found an NES game that you do like in that genre. Oh man, it's, it's, it's almost the same, um, with like, you know, Gradius and, uh, the, the several other, uh, shmups that we've put onto the essential games list. Um, yeah, I, I, I guess also, um, there, like the, the contra types, like the, the running guns, I, I are also in the same vein cause they're kind of almost the same genre.

03:12 Um, but there's been some, there's been some good stuff in there too. Joe, how about you? Well, as far as, um, genres that I didn't think I would like, or, or, or that surprised me, I don't know if you'd even consider this a specific genre, but like going all the way back to Duck Hunt, I mean, just like Zapper games in general.

03:33 I played Duck Hunt when I was a kid, but it's one of those things where like, I hadn't played it in so long and I just did not expect the, I did not expect the Zapper to be so accurate. So I, and I also really loved Freedom Force because of that same thing. And I, I think that that surprised me, um, because I thought I was just kind of misremembering, you know, or like my memory of when I was a kid was just like, oh, this is fun because I'm shooting at things and there's feedback. But like who knew how accurate I was really being?

04:02 Um, now I realize how, um, how cool that really is. And, and also like, I guess this is a genre, I'm really being a liberal with the term genre and what it means, but like, this is a type of game that I didn't really realize existed on the NES, but like was not something that would have sounded like an appeal to me on paper. But we have, we've had games like Golgo 13 and like Bayou Billy, both of which were not like great overall.

04:31 Like they're not like that, like not our favorite games, but like just the, these games on the NES that we keep kind of running into that try to do everything, which is a flaw. But like, to me, to me, it's like, it's just really interesting how they tried to do it all and how they incorporated it, incorporated it into the gameplay.

04:49 So like, similarly, like there's, there's not a, there's not a zapper point in Golgo 13, but there's like a first person shooting part. And like you, I would think that that sounds awful.

05:00 It's actually kind of functional and it's kind of fun. And like, you know, maybe I'm not, uh, maybe I'm still kind of like marrying the, uh, just the interest I have in like how those games are made and how they like, how they found like workarounds to problems and stuff to like, I don't want to be confused. Using that to like, was, did I have a lot of fun with it, but like just something about those games, whenever I, whenever we get something like that, it always kind of fascinates me.

05:25 And I'd say for myself, you know, I'm kind of surprised at, you know, the few sports games, uh, that we played that I've liked, you know, um, I, I don't hate sports games in general, but I wasn't expecting older sports games to be any good. You know, it's like, we have the modern day solutions to this kind of stuff.

05:44 What could the NES games bring us? But if we're expanding the definition of sports games, you know, you got golf, lunar pool, RBI baseball, you know, and those are just the ones that aren't even on the essential games list. Forget the three or four that we do have on the essential games list. I'm really surprised at how they can feel so different because of their eight bit limitations to sports games today that I don't really feel like the comparison matters. RBI baseball and baseball stars are just as interesting, um, in terms of, uh, you know, baseball games today. Like they're just doing something completely different. They scratch a different itch.

06:19 So, uh, sports games in general, I think, are something that like have negative, uh, connotations in the video game world just because they become super cheap afterwards and they don't matter because they're yearly installments. But I, I'd say, you know, relook at some of these if you haven't, if you skipped over them, the episodes, because you thought that, uh, you played them long ago and there's nothing new to explore there. They do offer something different. And what a great segue because we have another sports game today.

06:46 It's our first soccer game since, well, soccer by Nintendo, uh, back in the, uh, the original launch, uh, the black box games. That was the only other soccer game we've had so far. So rather than call it soccer as well, or something confusing like football, they decided to call it goal, uh, which I think is exciting. Keep in mind, this is a Jaleco game. It's another game in the Jaleco sports series of things. They also make, uh, bases loaded.

07:15 Uh, they're making a few of those, but, you know, we've noticed that the one standout for Jaleco games is the presentational aspect of it. The way that they make the sports try to, uh, you know, have a little more realism to them or a little more, uh, simulation involved in them. Would you guys say that you felt that with goal as well as the other Jaleco games?

07:37 Definitely. Oh yeah. I remember, um, like when I first put it together or sorry, the first time I turned it on and just saw that they were going for this like faux isometric style. Um, I was like, okay, this is definitely going to be a different experience than the much more, uh, primitive soccer. Um, which definitely had a more arcadey feel. So yeah, I'd say that I could kind of tell that this was going to be a different experience.

08:07 Yeah. I feel like so far with like most sports games, at least like, uh, something that, that would control similar, like a hockey game or a soccer game. Um, there's these features that kind of help to make it less of a simulation and more of a, more of a game where it's like, when you want to pass to this player, like somehow you aim at that player and you pass and then the ball will go to that player.

08:28 Like, uh, maybe I'm even thinking of more modern games where it's like, okay, I, I, I see who I want to pass to. I'm going to pass and my player will pick it to, to the, to the teammate I want to pass to this. It's like, you have to actually aim in the direction you want to pass. You have to actually aim in like the direction you want to shoot and like, and then you, and then you have to control the receiver and actually get the ball, which like, I feel like is something about it is like looser, but more realistic because of that, which I don't know I'm getting ahead of us here, but like, that's like the first thing, at least that I noticed when I play this game is like, it feels a lot more like fluid than other soccer games.

09:05 That's one of the, the, the main points that I wanted to bring up too, if we wanted to move into like general game feel or gameplay. Yeah, I think we should talk about gameplay. Uh, I just wanted to mention just because I've been saying Jaleco over and over again, that it's important to note that, you know, they're the publisher and slash developer things of these games. But the real developer of these games is that ghost company Tose that we keep hearing about over and over again, who just like, don't put their name on anything, you know, like you won't see them on the credits, but they're making, uh, these games. But I would say Jaleco is more involved in these sports line series of games and, and how they all kind of take on a similar feel.

09:46 Yeah. And, um, one, one thing that I, I always kind of have in the back of my head when it comes to a soccer game is, uh, like, cause FIFA is pretty like codified now. And I, I know that, um, it's, I think it's one of the most successful game series in the world. So, uh, what the, the legacy of, of older games, like, I didn't really know where that started. Like, was it with the first EA soccer game or where did that start? And one of the things that I think is, uh, one of the defining features of a FIFA game is just the, the, the feel that the ball is a separate entity than the player.

10:32 And the fact that, uh, your movement is going to be dependent on like, does it make sense that you kicking a soccer ball, like, can you turn on a dime with that? Like, no, you can't. Um, and with soccer, soccer, like the original soccer game that we played on NES, it very much felt like a hockey game where it just sort of, the ball is taped to your feet. Um, whereas in this, like, it actually felt like I was trying to corral this thing. And especially with passing, um, that sort of aftertouch of, um, you directly changing to, um, the character that you're passing to before the ball even gets to you.

11:17 Um, that definitely gives it like a much more simulation feel like how Joe was saying before. Right. The manual describes those as hooking and slicing shots, which I'm sure are the correct terminology and everything. I'm just not familiar with soccer, but that is an inclusion, uh, on this kind of soccer game that I'm, I'm impressed with here. You know, it's something that first you just decide to whether you want to, you know, pass or shoot or whatever, but then you can change the direction of the ball doing a hook shot or a slice shot after the fact, almost an aftertouch where you hold down the B button and press the, uh, you press the up button to give the ball a forward spin, uh, the down button to give the ball back spin.

11:58 And that extends or shortens the length, but you can also hook a little bit. It's this way it curves and has, has a nice touch to it. And I think where we are with this game is Sean, you really summed it up. Well, with that, the ball is kind of its own character, Joe, you were talking about maybe what some people would describe as the frustrations of not being able to auto pass. Uh, you see other players around you and you want to pass to them and the ball just kind of has a mind of its own based on where the player is facing.

12:29 But to me, that makes more sense, right? Yeah. I want to say I was not considering that a negative or a frustration. No, no, I know. I'm saying, I think people would think that's a problem at first is that they aim for the particular character and the ball just kind of, especially with a pass one, you know, it doesn't have nearly as much power as a kick.

12:47 And it doesn't necessarily land in front of anything that you might want it to land to. I'm of two minds on it because, uh, I, I think the, uh, the fact that it, you, your, what are your pat, what I, what I was trying to bring attention to was sort of the, what is now kind of a natural feel in a sports game is like when you pass the, the game almost intuits, uh, depending on your directional input, like where you're trying to put it.

13:19 Not quite like exactly what your input was, but like, oh, there's, there's a, uh, I'm detecting another, uh, player in this area. And this, and the player has put this input in. So this pass is going to go kind of in that direction. Whereas like, no, like if you, um, it will go exactly where you point the D pad. And I'm not saying that, I don't think that that's great. I think that there, uh, could have been some sort of pass assist on.

13:53 Um, but I, I also think that the fact that it gives you control of the, player you're passing to immediately, like that was, that was what I was praising. Whereas the kind of, uh, slapdash passing in general, I still, it feels a little half baked. If you, if that makes sense.

14:14 Well, what I, what I think like, I like as the concept or even as, you know, the implementation, like the actual fact that you kick the ball exactly where you, where your input is. And it's like, you, you, it's, it's, it feels real like that. Like kicking a real soccer ball, you know, you're, you're kicking in that direction and your other player has to pick it up. And I think that's a really cool feature. And, you know, it just depends on what you're used to and what you like. But like, if you're, if you wipe clean all of your expectations of a soccer game,

14:44 personally, I like that. I think that it doesn't play well with some other mechanics of this game, namely the fact that you can only turn on exactly four points. Yes. And I think that that's what ruins it. So like, I, there is frustration to it, but I think the frustration comes from like other parts that don't work well with it. Yeah. tell where you are on the field. Um, you know, the direction you're going, but that, the sort of like 30 degree angle or I don't even 25 degree angle off of, uh, like true North, I guess is what we'll say, uh, makes it kind of difficult to, to move as you want to, because I kind of felt myself, uh, trying to use my D pad directly.

15:39 Uh, like what I'm seeing on the screen, I'm trying to move my character into the screen that way. But the thing about the way this game controls is like up or down just means up or down field and not exactly like the, uh, perspective that you're seeing.

15:58 Do you know what I'm saying? Like the, how you're not actually going straight up or down at any point. Up the screen. But the D pad is giving you that. Yeah. You're almost always moving diagonals too. You know, you're, you're kind of hooking either, uh, up into the left or up into the right. Um, moving up is almost like moving right in this kind of angle. So, uh, I would also like to question just the amount of information they put on that particular field.

16:28 You know, this is, this could be a plus for some people because a soccer field is rather large, but I felt like not always knowing where players were in the, in the layout of the actual like soccer field really hurt my experience because you do kind of have to sometimes because the enemies are always coming close to you and they, uh, you know, they have a sliding kick that is kind of devastating and doesn't have really a way to defend against it. Sometimes you have to get loose of that ball, but you don't know where your other players are and you have to kind of just pass it off as a, well, I hope that they then give me control of somebody who's close by.

17:07 Yeah. I turned it over, um, in like the, uh, opponents and, and I was like, okay, now they're going on a bit of a break and I'm sure my defenders will show up eventually. And now it's past midfield. And I'm like, there's definitely like two or three more guys on my team. And like, it turns out that they were like all in like the goal box. And I was like, what are we, what are we all doing here? Like there's, there, there should be like maybe a couple like floating indicators on the, uh, perimeter of the screen to sort of like show you where other guys are. I don't know. So there could be some quick fix, but that did happen to me a lot too.

17:59 There's also, uh, you know, since we're talking about the slide tackles and stuff like that, there's the ability for both the player and the opponent to do the slide tackle, but only obviously if they are the, uh, defending, uh, opponent and only if they are within actual range of the ball, you don't have a actual like slide tackle button that you can kind of, uh, you know, anticipate and try to slide into the opponent. You have to be already like lined up with them. And then that is how you will be able to perform the slide tackle. That is more like a, um, nifty way of stealing the ball. I don't know. I felt like that should have just been a dedicated button.

18:41 I agree. And that also sort of, uh, puts more like onus on the player of like, oh, you're going to get like yellow carded or red carded if you spam this and end up doing the wrong thing. But it would also give you the opportunity to, to like do some really cool defensive plays like in FIFA games. Like there's, there's like definitely a really cool feeling when you come from way out and just time it perfectly and end up just tipping the ball away.

19:13 I don't know. I think you're right that the whole like context based nature of this, of the tackle button kind of removes a little bit of the drama. Sean, you mentioned the penalties there and there's only two there's offsides and tripping, but it's framed almost like in real soccer, you know, the referees don't always see the play. And in this game, sometimes the penalties are just not called. It's up to you to decide if the risk of getting called out on the play is worth making it.

19:43 Is that like in video games, right? Is that actually a neat mechanic that the referees aren't perfect and that they won't always call that play specifically in something like soccer too? Or is this just a, I wish they would call it every time because it doesn't make any sense to just randomly decide whether I should push my luck or not. Well, thankfully with offsides, like that is such a, uh, a bedrock rule in soccer that

20:11 it, it won't be randomized. Like you're either offsides or you're on sides. And it's not like a football game where the penalty itself has to be abstracted into like a mistake that a player is making like a false start or something. Um, and it's actually like where you are positioning your players. And if you did it wrong, you're going to get called. So offsides I think is done fine.

20:34 Um, whereas, uh, yeah, if it's something like, uh, tripping where you are mistiming, uh, your slide tackle and hitting the player before the ball, I don't know if we're there yet with, with this game because there's already kind of like so much of a mess in, in terms of like when players get next to each other that it just turns into like this weird, like sprite dance where they keep changing their perspective and the ball is kind of like close or not. And it's just not, it's not precise enough. I think to whether you can have it be all the, it should be all the time or none of the time. Um, in this case, like you can't really have those edge cases, um, like in more modern games where they're just more, it's a more granular experience.

21:33 The last intricacy of the gameplay I feel like we should discuss is that you have the ability to headbutt the ball. If you can, uh, you know, if the ball is low enough on contact where if it comes across your player, you can press the A button to, uh, launch your head at it. And it creates a cool graphic with the soccer ball to definitely feels like it has now bounced off of someone's head and is heading in a more upwards direction, uh, in the, against the opposite, uh, directions the ball was heading in. But I, I felt like this also required a certain timing that, or maybe a certain, you know,

22:09 level of the ball to be on the field that I couldn't quite see with the graphics. So when I was able to pull this off, it was really cool. I just thought like, I should have been able to do it maybe a little more. It would have made the game a little more back and forth. Um, maybe it would have made it too easy to, uh, to answer the opponent's passes and kicks.

22:28 But, um, that was just my personal feeling. Yeah. I was only able to pull it off one time and I actually only had it, uh, used against me like one or two times. So it felt almost like inconsequential in the overall gameplay to me. Yeah. And in terms of like how, how often you should be able to actually execute that, I don't know how much of that is just the controls and not really knowing the timing or how much of that is like in this game, there are stats. Like each player on each team, uh, has a different, uh, stat for any number of, uh, categories. Like, I mean, the most obvious is speed. Um, but like there's like seven or eight different, uh, little stat categories that it's tracking of like how good each player is.

23:19 Um, so maybe that's part of it. Um, and also why depending on which player you're, they all look the same. So you're really just going by where they are on the field, um, to know which one you're actually using, but maybe that's why it felt kind of hard to do, uh, over and over. I don't know. That's an interesting point because I feel like that is an overlooked part of the game that they are, they are making you overlook. As you mentioned, you're not, you're not necessarily keeping track of who is who they don't have like player number icons next to the players when you're controlling them.

23:56 So the only thing you really have to go off of is the position listed on these rating charts. They give ratings, uh, out of scores of, I believe one to 10 or zero to 10, even some are zero to three as well. I think. Okay. Got it. So, okay. Got it. So maybe some of them are like five to 10 and zero to three. Like nobody scores a two on a 10 category because these are professional soccer. Um, but you know, they do it for dribbling, kicking, speed, tackling ability, shoot ratio,

24:26 mark and ball keep. And then the goalie has a whole separate, um, slew of things too that matter. But I think it's interesting that these things are programmed, but they're kind of for the actual like gameplay computer experience. You know, like what the teams, just where the teams feel a little different in terms of what the players are good at, but it's not something like, um, a base. You know, like a football game where you actually think about the individual players stats to be like, oh, well, this guy has a great arm. So put them out in right field so he can throw into home, you know, or this guy's really strong. So put them in, uh, the fourth position.

25:02 So this way, maybe he could hit a grand slam or have more players on base available to him. It's very, um, it's very much for the actual programming of the game. And then they probably just said, well, we have all these numbers. Might as well make it more useful and put it, uh, put that information somewhere within the game. Yeah. And I couldn't really tell because I only play it as two different teams and I think the differences may be so granular. And also like the fact that each player, like it all just sort of melts together.

25:33 Um, cause you never know which position you're playing. And all of these players are shifting positions so often that like the, like the, the forwards may end up like what may end up in like a midfielder position because the ball's moving around so much. Like you can never really tell. So it just, it didn't really have too much of an effect. Maybe it made each, uh, opposing team feel a little different, but they all seem to average out because there wasn't too much discrepancy between stat lines.

26:02 I don't know. Yeah. I mean, personally, again, maybe I just don't have the, the eye for it because I haven't played this game enough. You know, I played two games also, but, um, you know, maybe, uh, like, like for me, it's like they could have lied. All those numbers could just be a lie and I would never know. Yeah. They put numbers on the screen. Like I can't tell if those are actually accurate. I can't, I don't notice any difference between the other players. They all look like the rollercoaster tycoon guests to me. Yeah. That's true.

26:41 The one thing you have to give them credit for though, and feel free to tell me if this wasn't your experience and I just suck at the game. You have to give them credit for making soccer feel like how it is on TV, where it is impossible to score goals. And it is a low scoring style game where when you do finally get the ball in the net, you're thinking like, okay, I'm up by one and I feel like I can win this, you know, not like the computer's going to answer back right away.

27:07 They, they, if they, you know, if they get the presentation part, right. Like we were always talking about with these Jaleco sports games, I feel like this part was the most true, maybe not the most fun. Right. I think, uh, nobody goes to, uh, play NHL 22 just this way. They can miss the net a thousand times, right? Like you want to, you want to score like seven times in a game and feel good about it.

27:29 However, I think Jaleco again is just going for something more simulation strategy, skill based for the time. And I think they've pulled it off pretty nicely here because getting, getting the ball, even just over to the net and then dealing with the defenders and the goalie and getting it by them does require, uh, you know, a pretty skillful setup. And I'm not saying it requires advanced playing. Like you need to know all the ins and outs of the game in order to score goals. I scored goals. It just felt like they were earned.

28:00 Yeah. And I think that, uh, that's more so just the pace of the game. Like in, in even in an NHL game, you're going to go from one end of the, of the ice to the next, uh, pretty quickly. Whereas, yeah, there's a, there are 11 guys that you have to get through if you're starting from your, your own baseline, um, before you can even attempt a shot on net. So some of it is just because it's soccer, but I also think that they did a pretty good job in terms of balancing with like, if we're going to say all of the gameplay mechanics that they've put together are like the way you want to do it.

28:41 We also have two different modes here before we get into the third type of game. Uh, the first mode being world cup, where you play as one of 16 international teams and true to the name, this actually starts at the pool round, which I feel like is very important to be part of the world cup. You don't just go into the single elimination tournament round. You, you have to play, uh, for the points to even qualify to get in to the bracket style. And I thought that was really a nice touch because the only other option is tournament mode where they've made it a single elimination tournament. But to change it up even there, it's not the 16 international teams.

29:25 Now it's eight American cities. And I feel like that is a nice touch to, to change this around. And I'm not sure what it was in Japan. They probably just made it 18, uh, Japanese cities, but I feel like that is a really cool touch to both make those modes feel different in terms of teams you have access to, whether we feel like they change all that much and to also make them feel different of like, there is a purpose of going to tournament mode to maybe play a faster style tournament and then world cup to be more methodical and, um, longer lasting.

29:57 Yeah. I thought it was neat. And I always thought, I also thought it was funny that, um, in the manual, uh, because they don't like, there aren't individual stat lines for each team that there's one for each international team, but then for the American teams, they'll just like, this is France or Miami. Like each, the Miami American team is just a cookie cutter of the French team.

30:25 Yeah. Uh, so I thought that was, I just think it was cool that, um, that I guess that was like the MLS teams at the time was the MLS a thing. I'm not entirely sure. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. Is the MLS even a thing back then? But yeah, those, most of those cities do actually have MLS teams now. So must be something about that. Mm-hmm. And then the third mode is a shoot competition where you play as one of three star players. I'm assuming these guys are real. Um, I didn't see like a messy or anything like that, so I didn't recognize these names, but I'm assuming they're real.

30:59 And, uh, it's just a, basically a one-on-one with the goalie where you get five tries to get past, uh, sorry, two defenders as well. You have to first get past the two defenders and the goalie to score. After those five tries, uh, you get five more tries to beat your previous score, or you can, you know, hand off the controller to a friend and see if they can beat your score.

31:21 This is not a fully fledged mode. This is more of just a way to play around with, uh, you know, a one V three style, uh, you know, which, which you're going to run into in the real game. I suppose it's not like they changed the actual layout of the game so that it's now, um, you know, first person or more, uh, side scrolling or something like that. It's the same exact view just now one V three. Yeah. It's closer.

31:46 So your sprites are bigger and stuff, but, but I think that this, that this mode does like shine a light on, on the flaw I had with the other modes where, where your aim is just to, you just don't have enough points on, on the circle on the 360 degrees around you to shoot. And I know you can like, you can, you can hook the ball or whatever, but it always feels like, okay, I'm right now where I'm facing, I'll be shooting right at the goalie. So I want to shoot a little bit to the left and then I turn a little bit to the left and that's 90 degrees to the left. And I'm just shooting completely like to the corner of the field now.

32:26 Like I, like I want, like, I don't know what the solution is, but like, I wish that even if you just did like, if you hit up and right at the same time, you go kind of like Northeast a little bit, but, but it doesn't seem unless I'm, unless I'm, uh, over exaggerating or misremembering. It feels like it's actually 90 degree changes, not even like 45 degree changes, which still wouldn't be great. But like, I think that as much as I love the way that they're trying to do this, I almost think like you kind of just need a joystick for that.

32:56 And in addition to that, um, I think that there should have, there should have been like, however long you, you hold down the button before releasing it. Like that should indicate power where it just feels like every pass and every shot has the same velocity, no matter like where you are. Like I want to do like a long lead pass up to my forward, but no, I'm just going to sort of like kick it, uh, maybe, I don't know, 30 yards and then it just going to come to a stop and whoever gets to there first gets to there.

33:31 Um, so I think, yeah, but between, uh, although we've been kind of saying a lot of good things about like how true of a simulation this game is for, for the NES, like it also is lacking in a lot of, uh, in a lot of places in terms of just the, the controls of the game. And it can add a lot of frustration. Yeah. I think that's important because we've been, you're right. We've been hyping up the game a little bit. I'm not sure when the time to have talked about, you know, the flaws would have been, I guess, you know, if you have flaws, list them in your essential games list vote, because that's where it would really count.

34:08 But I would argue that the, the shoot competition mode as a whole is just kind of a nice bonus thing to include. Thankfully, it's not the actual game. Uh, for me, this wasn't really something I played around with all that much. I, I do wonder if this should have been a mode where you had even more control over the ball in terms of spin and stuff like that, because as Joe mentioned, you are a little closer. So if you had any, if you had any way to have a little more fun with the type of shot you could take on net, this would have been the place to put that in.

34:39 Now with two players, the players can play against each other in the verse mode, but you can actually play on the same team as well, which I think again, is just another great feature. They're definitely, uh, thinking about, you know, a lot of quality of life improvements and just things that we, we don't expect from NES sports games. I think maybe that's why we've been so, uh, nice about the game is because yeah, these features might not be fully functional, uh, or even work all that well to begin with.

35:08 But I do think just the inclusion of these kinds of mindful modes make the game last longer, you know, in terms of something that you buy and then you have to spend your time with. I think a kid who gets goal might realize it's not a perfect game, but they have more than enough time to learn the ins and outs of this game between world cup tournament, bringing a friend in to, you know, play on the same team, uh, doing the shoot competition and trying to figure out the best way to get by two defenders and a goalie.

35:38 Like there's, there's definitely a challenge here to all this stuff, but I, I praise them for all the features they are including. Oh yeah. There's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of, uh, potential being shown here in terms of like the ideas that they're bringing to the genre.

35:54 Um, and again, it's a running theme of this podcast is like, it mostly just lies in execution, but we can tell what they were going for. And I, I do appreciate the ideas they put forth.

36:11 Kind of want to jump back a little bit to, uh, when we were talking about the isometric view. Um, I know that, that you guys liked, liked it. I, I kind of didn't, I, I feel like maybe, you know, isometric view is like one of those terms that like I've heard and used a million times and only just now I'm like questioning if I actually know what it means. But what am I thought about it was always like, it's just this slightly, like the slightly tilted view that kind of gives you this like faux 3d, right? That's what that's the, that's the intent, right?

36:44 Yeah. Um, but it also doesn't have like any, uh, depth. So, um, like you don't have that like fading perspective. It's just wherever you are on the screen, it's going to have that same perspective. Right. So I thought this didn't, didn't pull off what an isometric view is trying to do. It does not look like there's, it does not look like there's depth in the sense that like, like marble madness looks like, looks like there's Z space there, right?

37:18 This looks like it's a, it's a, it's an exact vertical soccer game that was tilted, not in Z space, just tilted on like the XY axis. And I think that's because there's just not enough detail on a soccer field. There's not, there's not depth. The soccer field is too flat to make it look like that. So I just feel like this didn't, and maybe it's just, I'm not seeing it. Like I'm looking at it, just not feel like something like marble madness does, or like on the super Nintendo, like Kirby's dream course feels like it's in 3d space, even though it's a 2d game. This, this just feels crooked.

37:50 Yeah. I, cause I, I actually called it like a faux isometric because it is like you're describing it more aptly than, than isometric would. Um, because if you're looking at the, if you're looking at the field, like if this were true isometric, like the midfield circle would also, uh, look like it's sort of going into the screen a bit, whereas it really isn't in this. And so that all that's kind of like plays into like your mind is kind of confused. Like my mind gets kind of confused when I look at it, um, because the field doesn't, it looks kind of off. I think that it was done well enough to, um, to be like relatively comfortable to play with, which is why I was sort of praising it. But I do agree that like it, it's not perfect.

38:44 Yeah. I think that the benefit that I see from it being this way is that you now the horizontal, the, the horizontal, uh, perspective of the field is going corner to corner, which I guess gives you more space horizontally, at least in those corners, although it does then taper off at the, at the other two corners.

39:03 But, but the, the, the negative is just that it feels funky because like you said before, like up is really kind of like up left, you know, and like, and so like, I, I wonder if it was worth them kind of tilting it like that rather than just having like a, like an overhead view, like we've seen other times. Well, the problem with the overhead view that I have with the NES soccer game from the original black box series is that that, I don't know, that kind of simplifies the whole like soccer experience to a level. And maybe that's just the gameplay itself, but I didn't feel like that was exciting.

39:41 That, that felt very stiff and rigid and the camera only moved when you got to like the end of the screen and then it moved to the entire next portion of the soccer field. That felt a little less dynamic. Um, I definitely think that just having two different colored green lines across the screen and the white box around the perimeter isn't interesting enough either for, um, what amounts to most of the game design here, but I'd, I'd argue that I thought it was a step up from what NES soccer was offering. And I think that's like the key word there is, is this looks more dynamic.

40:15 Um, that was sort of how I was going to, uh, describe it as well. Um, and I think it's, it's less so about the field itself and more just the view that you have of the players. Like, I think that there's a little bit more naturalism and clarity seeing your players, um, from this perspective than you would from if, even if you went from end to end up and down instead of left and right. So I can see both sides of this, but I definitely see your, uh, you're not liking this perspective. Yeah. I mean, like, again, I like what they were going for. I just feel like it's not, uh, they haven't perfected it by any means. I am desperate.

41:30 On the sequels and spinoff side, we will be playing Goal again on the NES when it is called Goal 2. I don't know. Maybe it could have been called Score. But Goal 2 sounds weird, especially because it's not the number 2 or Roman numeral 2. It's spelled out T-W-O, and that feels wrong. I also think that you... Are you spoiling something by saying that we're just playing it again? Is it confirmed that they didn't change anything? Oh, no, no, no. I just meant we'll have our shot at the Goal series.

42:08 I can't confirm or deny it they changed anything. I don't play in advance. So I don't know what Goal 2 has. I will say, though, that since that is kind of late when we play Goal 2, there's also Goal on the SNES and the Sega Genesis and all that. So I wonder if it's like

42:28 too little too late for Goal 2 because then it's like the Super Nintendo comes out and obviously sports games in general just kind of improve with the 16-bit nature. So I wonder what we get with Goal 2 versus Goal on the SNES. But also the fact that there's multiple Goal games, that's kind of crazy. I've never heard of this franchise. Yeah, for sure.

42:52 I didn't think I was going to have a sequels and spinoff section. Something about a sports game sequel just calling itself like Goal 2 is funny to me. Like just like NHL 2. It's just, I don't know. Maybe it's just me. This is a little, this is a little bit in the weeds, but I, when I, like, you know, 12 years ago, I always thought it would be weird when like the yearly franchises got to like 2010. It was like, okay, NHL 06, 07, 08. I know that those are years, but NHL 10? Like that just sounds silly. Yeah, it's just the 10th iteration of NHL. Yeah. Sorry, that was silly. No, I like that. I also have a silly fact. When it comes to football, and I mean the European soccer, when it comes to those games,

43:44 Moby Games, which is a website I use a lot to get information for these types of games and also images for our Twitter and stuff like that, they list that there are 1,534 soccer games known to man across all various systems and stuff like that. I'm surprised that this is only the second NES soccer game we've ever gotten. That would say so too. Maybe there's 40 more on the NES we have to go through. Or maybe they're on the Famicom and they'll make great Nostalgia Bites episodes. All of them. When I think of soccer franchises, definitely FIFA comes to mind, but also I never played these, but winning 11-7 also comes to mind because of the weird title. I think the series is winning 11 and that's just the seventh one. Oh my goodness, that's so funny.

44:35 I really thought that it was always winning 11-7. I remember seeing a review of that, I don't know if it was X-Play or something, and yeah, that specific entry is in my mind as well. Wow. And apparently,

44:53 it's also just known by its official name as PES Pro Evolution Soccer, which I have definitely heard of as well, but I didn't know they were the same franchise. Oh, I didn't know that either, yeah. Yeah. So, PES, I think, maybe still going today. I think so. Yeah, it seems like the latest release was called eFootball, so they just don't give a shit about what the branding is for this. They just assume you know that it's in their line of football games and not... They're definitely like the,

45:23 like the third third party because of how, like, EA has that almost monopoly on sports games now, so it definitely shows. I have played one of them, and they're not, it's not perfect, but it shows that they're like a third third party.

45:42 Not entirely breaking news here, Sean, but it is worth mentioning that EA no longer has the FIFA license. They refused to pay the money that FIFA was demanding, so they said they're going to make their own football game. A few weeks ago, right? Yeah, a few weeks ago, so they will,

45:59 they will try their best. I'm sure they will succeed. People are going to see EA Sports Soccer, and they're probably going to just be like, great, I never really cared whether the company that also kills hundreds of people building soccer stadiums also has their name on the game. I think they're a match made in heaven. EA and FIFA. Do you know what's a match made in heaven, Sean? Michael Esposito and the Essential Games list. Close. I was going to say Nostalgia and the Essential Games list. Well, you are Nostalgia. You're Mr. Nostalgia. You are Nostalgia.

46:37 All right, it's Mr. Nostalgia back after the world's shortest little song that we have for the Essential Games list, and I'm going to pass it off to Sean for his vote on Goal for the NES. Thanks, Mike. Goal is like a lot of sports games where I have a lot of thoughts about little minutiae and how they pull off certain features and how you I kind of do the same Essential Games list vote for every sports game unless it's like Tecmo Bowl. So, I will cut to the chase and say lots of cool things that they tried and were successful, lots of less cool things that they tried that weren't successful.

47:22 While I would say that this is the superior soccer simulation on the NES, it is not Essential worthy. Joe? Yeah, I think that for me I just really can't get past those four points of rotation. Like that, as much as it sounds on paper like a small thing, the whole game, I mean, that really changes the whole game for me and I think that that coupled with the kind of cool thing that I think they were doing by making it a little more of a fluid

47:56 style with the way the ball controls and the way the ball moves, just the way that they just really don't work together is kind of a shame because I think that that was a cool idea and it would work well if they were doing this on maybe a later system where they had a joystick or something or just had something that you could turn around more, you can be on more points of the access. Other than that, I'm not a big sports game guy in general. I don't have too much more to say about it. It was a soccer game. It had that kind of what I consider a glaring flaw, so I'm not going to vote it essential. The only thing I'll add here is that it's nice when you play these games chronologically and you're like, oh, this is an improvement over the

48:48 other ones in a genre. However, that's only one game right now and I'm confident it can still be improved upon. I think while this game has a lot of fun features, it's actually missing the excitement of what a video game brings. I wasn't actually ever feeling much joy or excitement while playing this game. I was more just appreciating it as a NES limited soccer game and being like, oh, that's neat that they did all this stuff.

49:16 Doesn't mean that it was fun and I think you have to be fun to be on the essential games list. I'm just imagining you'd be like, but why soccer? Like, why couldn't they do this with something I enjoy? Right. Well, yeah, that's true too, right? Are we all just like, is this a North American problem? If we were European, would every soccer game go on the essential games list? We put Tecmo Bowl on and that's American football. Damn right it is. That's true.

49:47 However, that's a really good game and fun today. It's all about being fun. I have a fun score. I would score this a 37. Wow, that's very specific. It's not out of 100. What is it out of? Remains to be seen. Just like the future episodes of Nostalgia, they remain to be heard. They have not been made yet. We will keep making them as long as you keep listening.

50:14 Next week, we'll be playing Godzilla Monster of Monsters, which I really just, question that. Godzilla is the king of the monsters. I've never heard anybody refer to him as the monster of monsters. That sounds like part of the dark universe. They definitely made a mistake. It's like, oh, you know, he's king of kings, monster of monsters. Yeah, so we'll find out what Godzilla's deal is next week. I like Godzilla. Show of, you know, Sean, Joe, do you guys like Godzilla? I like Godzilla. Godzilla movie. Well, Joe, you have till next week. That's not true. Don't tell them that.

50:55 And also, if you want to hear more nostalgia. We're not even going to explain that? All right. Absolutely not. If you want to hear more nostalgia, there's also a whole other show of nostalgia that we kind of teased earlier in the episode, but it's worth mentioning again. It's called Nostalgia Bites and we play the Famicom games. We just recorded the Dig Dug episode and that means that five episodes plus some bonus content and a discord are available when you join our Patreon,

51:21 patreon.com slash nostalgia. There's a link in the show notes, so just hit that button right there. We're recording the episode for Tower of Druaga soon, which believe it or not, just got an Arcade Archives edition for both PS4 and Switch. And if it's on PS4, it probably means PS5, but don't quote me on that. I guess what I'm just saying is you have a lot of options to play this game that happens to be also a Famicom exclusive. Go figure how this stuff works, but that's the year 2022 for you. Ha ha.

52:13 I am desperate. I am desperate desperate desperate desperate desperate desperate desperate I am desperate desperate desperate desperate Thank you.