227 · Godzilla: Monster of Monsters

• The Great Movie Monster in Video Games
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Let’s talk about Godzilla. Where do you stand with him?
• Plot
  • In the year 2XXX, the mysterious Planet X appears when Pluto and Neptune switch positions in the solar system, and its inhabitants begin an attempt to conquer the Earth, using a legion of space monsters (though some of these creatures were in fact from Earth) as their primary attack force. The King of Monsters, Godzilla, joins forces with the guardian monster Mothra and the forces of Earth to repel the invasion forces.
• Overview
  • Godzilla Monster of Monsters separates levels across multiple board games. The player controls the Godzilla and Mothra pieces on the board and must eliminate the other monsters off the board in order to advance to the next board. Traveling between spaces on the board results in a short side scrolling experience to simulate traveling. When the players pieces meet the monsters pieces that starts a battle similar to a fighting game
• Gameplay
  • Godzilla
  • Mothra
  • Board Game
  • Side Scrolling levels
  • Monster Battles
  • Flickering sprites - the art is really well done, but it’s constantly flickering because of the amount and size of sprites
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters on NES
  • Godzilla on Game Boy
  • Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee
  • Kyoei Toshi - a game I can’t believe exists. I’d call it Cloverfield the video game
    • The objective of the game is to escape a city ravaged by battles between giant monsters (kaiju), giant robots, and heroes from the famous live action and animated Japanese film and TV series Godzilla, the Ultra Series, Gamera, Patlabor, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
• EGL
• Next week - Jeopardy Junior
• NEStalgia Byte - Tower of Druaga

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

00:00 Godzilla, Monster of Monsters, the great movie monster in video games.

00:23 Nostalgia 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. Joe, you want to give me like your best impression of Godzilla's roar?

00:38 Sure. Let's hear it. All right, here it is. Joe, that was incredible. I never heard a more spot on performance. How do you do that? You know, I've seen a lot of Godzilla, you know, since last week, since the episode that we recorded totally last week, one full week ago. Now, Sean, what's your familiarity with Godzilla? Yeah. Oh, not the impression. Not this out. Yeah. Okay. Um, you know, the first Godzilla that I ever watched was the Matthew Broderick 1998 version. Um, and then after that, I kind of dabbled in the Japanese, uh, originals. Uh, so that's to say I don't really have too much of an exposure to Godzilla. And I think the new movies are kind of trash. So, uh, that's my, that's, that's my history.

01:38 Godzilla has such an impossibly long list of media that we couldn't possibly, uh, sum it all up that there's a separate podcast for that. You know, I'm sure you could find a Godzilla podcast or a monster or Kaiju podcast somewhere. I just think it's really interesting how Godzilla just morphs with the times, uh, a, a creature that used to come out of the water and attack Japan as some reference to the atomic bombs that were dropped on them then became their only defender.

02:07 Um, as if like, you know, the American military teaching the, uh, the Japanese how to live after world war two was now like also the representation of Godzilla making sure that they were safe the same way that he caused their destruction. A lot of political commentary there from Godzilla and then just complete zaniness for a really long time after that, where you can't even really take those movies seriously because if you do, you'll have a bad time. But if you watch them a little, you know, under the influence, you'll have a great time.

02:38 Uh, there's a lot of weird stuff happening in those films. And then yes, as Sean mentioned, uh, the Americans have tried to make Godzilla their own with, uh, first the Matthew Broderick film, but then, uh, 2014's Godzilla and the, uh, three following films where he, uh, even goes on to fight King Kong again. Those films mean nothing to me. They're a waste. Uh, I don't like them at all. So I guess you could say I hate Godzilla.

03:08 Uh, I liked Shin Godzilla. That was fun. Yeah. That's a cool one. Sean, you want to talk about that for a second? Um, yeah, that was, I don't know if it's like a, a reboot because I can't, I don't really know if it's a series that, that makes any sense in, as in context. Uh, but it was just like a, almost like a dark comedy version of Godzilla that wasn't trying to also be goofy. It was, um, just a different take. I, I, I guess I really don't know how to describe it because, um, of how little exposure I have to the original Godzilla's. So interesting. Yeah. Well, you did pose a good question there about just like the, uh, chronology or canon of Godzilla.

03:52 And, uh, it's actually separated by eras. There's, um, the, um, Heise era. And, uh, I'm going to say these things totally wrong. I'm just going to stop calling them by eras. But you get the idea that they're broken up kind of by the companies who produce the films and those kind of reset the, um, you know, the, the, the canon altogether. So yeah, you can watch any Godzilla movie and not need to know all the lore of the previous 20 movies. And it still has like political commentary. It's just like a bit more deadpan.

04:26 And so here we are with Godzilla monster of monsters, which I called out at the end of last episode, but it's worth saying again, the title irks me because, uh, he's referred to as king of the monsters.

04:38 Um, I, I don't know where monster of monsters comes from because is monster of monsters supposed to be that the fact that there's all sorts of monsters in this game, not even from Godzilla's franchise. Is it because you, you as Godzilla are, are killing, going around killing these other monsters? Like you're their monster, even though they're the attackers, but yeah, you, you're the, you're the knock back, uh, you know, like you're the one that, uh, uh, that, that is a monster to the monsters and you, they, they all think you're really mean, uh, because you fight them and kill them all the time.

05:17 So just to get into the plot here, it's the year two X, X, X, which is weird because usually it's 20 X, X, right? And now they haven't even disclosed what hundredth. Well, cause they know that this game will still be very popular in 21, in 2100 and they like to want it to always, but not in the year 3000. No, no. That's when, that's when this game will probably feel aged.

05:40 So it's in this year that the mysterious planet X appears when Pluto and Neptune switch positions in the solar system and its inhabitants begin an attempt to conquer the earth using a legion of space monsters, which I swear only some of these guys are in Godzilla movies. Like it's just, it's just weird that they choose to just choose other, uh, kaiju monsters as well. But, um, they're going to use these space monsters as their primary attack force to travel from planet to planet, even though the only planet that has any life on it is earth.

06:15 They said, you know what? Screw it. We're going to fuck up all of them too. We're going to take down Mars. We're going to take down Jupiter. It was probably not a fair fight. Uh, anyway, it's up to the King of monsters, we're not the monster of monsters, Godzilla, who will join forces with the guardian monster Mothra and the forces of earth to repel the invasion forces. And how would you achieve something like that in a video game?

06:38 Why not a board game? Well, hold on. Before we get into the board game, I, I just want to like the premise of this game doesn't make any goddamn sense to me. Like, well, please, please tell us why. Because you've got Godzilla and the, the good thing about Kaiju stuff is it, it immediately gives you like a setting to work with. You place your character next to big buildings and it's, it's already unique and a new experience in a video game. Uh, like, like, you know, minus maybe rampage, but that's partially based on Godzilla. Um, and then you've got this game where it would rather you play among like giant rocks, uh, on desolate and desolate landscapes.

07:29 Um, and that just, for some reason have like tanks on them, even though it's apparently hundreds of years into the future. Like, I don't know why they couldn't just re contextualize why you'd be fighting all these monsters into like, you know, in cities. It was just, it's just a much more interesting looking area. You know? I don't know.

07:48 Yeah. A hundred percent. It's also, to sort of kind of go off of that too, is like in these first few levels where you're like fighting, yeah, just these rocks and there are tanks and like what look like fighter jets and like, like satellite dishes. Like you're not fighting us, right? It's not, it's not like the, like the, a military from earth that we're fighting, right? We're fighting these, these other giant aliens. Do they just have like mini people armies that they send to?

08:15 Like, well, why is everyone, why are there these tiny little tanks? When then like later on the levels are like, oh, there's more monsters and there's big things. But like the first few levels, it's just like, it looks like, like, it looks like earth's defense forces like forgot that you're not, that you're on their side and just decided to attack you. It's very strange.

08:33 So I really tried my hardest to break down what is the, the board game here. Um, and we, we can go from here wherever you want, but I'm going to try to describe the whole game, uh, to the best of my ability. So this is what I wrote down and what I think ultimately describes how you play this game.

08:50 Godzilla monster of monsters separates levels across multiple boards. The player controls the pieces of Godzilla and Mothra on the board and must eliminate the other monsters off the board in order to advance to the next board. Traveling between spaces on this board results in a short side scrolling experience to simulate traveling your piece from one position to the next. When the player's pieces meet the monster's pieces that start a battle similar to a fighting game. Huh?

09:27 What? Does that, wait, are those your words? Those are my words. Why? The fighting game thing was funny. Well, I think it's similar, you know, like you're trying to think of the layout, right? So the first one is more of like, at first I thought it was going to be a shmup because of the Mothra levels, but it's really just more of like a side scrolling thing. But when you think about like the way to describe these kaiju versus kaiju scenes. Sure. You know, it really is just like health bars and just the two of you on the screen. I guess the boss, the boss, but I was thinking the, uh, the scrolling level. No, no, I, I get what you're saying then.

09:59 Um, yeah, I'd say that's, that's pretty, uh, that's pretty accurate. Um, the, so, okay. So the board game aspect of it, like, do we think that this was necessary? Well, here's my first thought on that, Sean. I played by their rules first. I moved my pieces. I traveled through the side scrolling levels. I approached the monsters. I fought them.

10:25 And then I like pause the game for whatever reason. And I went out and did some stuff. And then when I came back, I said, why did I move at all? That was me taking damage. That was me coming to the monsters fight weaker. Why don't I make them just come to me and refuse to move my pieces and have them come close? And I played the game that way instead where the monsters approach me. I first kill them. And then I navigate through the side scrolling levels to get to the other end of the board. I did not even think of that.

10:54 That sort of illustrates, um, where this, okay. So on paper, this whole situation is very cool. Like, have, like adding tactics to your, to your game and like having this almost meta game in terms of like, oh, I, do I want to meet him on a battlefield that has like this layout or that layout? Or like, do, does positioning matter? Like, does he have an advantage of, if, if he attacks me? Do I have an advantage if I attack them? Do I have an advantage if my monsters are, uh, sort of flanking them? Um, but the answer to all these questions is no. Um, it's, I don't really know what the point was for this. Um, and, cause like those are all great opportunities to add depth to this game. And they didn't seem to do that. It was just, here's an extra layer.

11:49 Yeah. I, I feel like, um, it, the only thing that, that is affected by when you move where is like, oh, sometimes if you're low on health, you want to make sure you do another regular level to gain your health back before fighting a boss. And it like sucks if the boss then just comes up to you while you're low on health.

12:08 But otherwise, like, yeah, I, I needed more, either more things to be happening between turns or like from the enemies where that like changes my, my strategy of like the path I want to take. Like, or like, yeah, like I hadn't even thought of doing like an advantage to you attacking versus being attacked like that. That's also a good, uh, a good way to make it like a little more robust. But, you know, also just have like, okay, here's harder levels over here, but there's some sort of reward over here. And, you know, yeah, like reasons to navigate. That's not just to get there in the, in the shortest amount of levels possible to just save you time, which is kind of like what I was doing.

12:48 Or even strongholds that you have to defend, like a reason to move around pieces and strategically, like, think about where you want to be on this map. Instead, the board game element of it just prolongs the, uh, the parts of the game I like the least.

13:04 You know, I would be totally fine if a very long side scrolling level led to one particular boss fight that had to be finished right then and there. And that was level one. And then you never see that, that type of, um, planet again. And you never see that enemy again. But instead, the game just continues to have you go through, uh, short bursts of, uh, side scrolling levels to then fight enemies for a certain amount of duration. And then that concludes the turn and the battle isn't completely resolved.

13:41 So now you have to extend it to the next turn and then the next turn after that. And you got to think about, like, why, why is there so little payoff to, like, the positioning of, like, you know, the tiles and the type of board? Like, yes, the boards change between level to level. Like, after you move to the next board, it's not the same exact hexagon layout or anything like that. But it still doesn't make it any more, like, complicated. Like, oh, this one, these monsters are going to corner me or something like that. It doesn't happen.

14:13 And the fact that they repeat monsters, too, it just feels like a lot of this game, the longest parts of it, you know, are the repetitive parts. Yeah. One thing that, if I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, I don't think that they were really, because Godzilla, you don't think of, like, oh, tactics, turn-based strategy. Like, that is not what I would expect. So maybe they weren't going for that. Maybe they were going for, like, how in most of these movies, uh, you know, Godzilla and whatever enemy he's facing, like, they meet several times. And it never is really, uh, uh, it's resolved until the very end of the movie. Like, maybe that's part of it.

14:54 But, um, I don't know if this was the best way to go about it. Like, I don't know. That's just me spitballing. Yeah. I mean, I didn't hate that, like, I mean, I did hate that the battle just ends randomly after time. But I, but I, I didn't hate the idea that, like, sometimes, like, if you, if you really get an enemy's health down, they might retreat to, like, the next level. And then you're like, oh, shit, I gotta deal with that guy later. So, like, that added, like, a little bit of, like, thinking, do I want to take this risk and go in and fight him with my health slow? Or do I want to give him a chance to flee and, and go heal myself?

15:28 I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm reaching for, for that as a, as, like, a positive element of that gameplay mechanic. But, but, you know, that, that was not a negative in my eyes. But it's still, then you get to the next level, you see where the guy is, you see where your goal is. And no matter how different the next level is, no matter how, you know, complex the layout is, you can always just immediately trace the straight line from where you are to where you want to be. There's nothing stopping you from going, like, exactly the most optimized path every time. So, like, all those other little levels feel kind of like a waste. Unless you're, like, a completionist.

16:06 Mm-hmm. Godzilla is a massive, slow, destructive kaiju with atomic breath. How well does this game encapsulate those, uh, those descriptions of Godzilla? Does it feel like you're playing as Godzilla when, when it's his turn? Um, I guess the one thing that I think worked is, was just, like, how plodding he is. Um, less so in a, uh, this controls really poorly and more like, okay, the jump is super long and, like, kind of short in comparison to a lot of other games. Um, you move relatively slowly. Uh, so, that sort of adds some weight to him.

17:13 But, um, I don't know if it was, it wasn't done perfectly. I think that there are definitely different ways that you can sort of, uh, communicate that without, uh, some of the other things that they did in this game. Which was just make everything feel so resistant to, to your movement. Like, any time you get hit, there's, like, a ton of, uh, of knockback. And I, maybe that makes it feel a little bit more like that. But I, I, for me, um, it, it, it felt not entirely thought out. Yeah, the, the feel of playing as Godzilla, especially at first, I hated it. I thought it was terrible.

17:57 I, I don't want to say that it won me over. But I came around, uh, over time. I did start to feel like they, they did a decent job of, of something you don't see that often, but of making you feel like you're the boss. And everyone else is, like, the player. Where it's, like, it is hard to take you down for the enemy, at least in the, in the early levels. And eventually, it, it, things get more dangerous and stuff. It is hard to take you down. And it's also really hard for you to avoid hits.

18:27 It's, like, things are just shooting at you. You're getting hit. And you've got to, a little bit, like, manage your, manage your health intake. And make sure, like, ah, I'm picking up health a lot. Which, sometimes, it's very generous with the health drops. But, like, I, I did feel like you're, you're the boss in the sense that you're really powerful. But also in the sense that, like, you're not as agile as, like, the player normally is. You're, you're kind of clunky in that sense. Which is, like, what bothered me at first.

18:53 One, because it felt like it was impossible for me to die in the first stage. That went away. It definitely felt possible to die when I died a lot later, in later stages. But, um, but two, just because, yeah, you are just this big, giant, the biggest target on the screen. Everything's attacking you, but you're also, like, the most dangerous thing on the screen. I would just argue that with Godzilla being hit by everything, that sounds great to me. Like, yeah, he's massive. You see all the times in the movies that, uh, the military throws everything they have at him.

19:26 It's not that I think, you know, oh, he shouldn't be taking damage or anything. It's the knockback thing. Like, I've never seen Godzilla take a missile and be like, I gotta move two steps back to fight off that missile blow. It's like, in this game, especially because it does the side-scrolling thing where it locks you off from the area you just walked from.

19:47 You're just always, when you get knocked back, you're kind of, like, put in a corner. And that's true of whether you're Godzilla or Mothra. You just kind of get stuck back at the... Mothra's even worse. Yeah, exactly. You get stuck at the closed portion of the side-scrolling map. You don't, like, get pushed forward or anything, which I argue could even be worse, honestly, because then it's like, there's no consequence. But you just... I would have taken more health damage than this knockback feature. I would have allowed that instead.

20:21 Yeah, that was, like, especially in some of the bosses where there's no way to really halt the other kaiju from moving towards you. Like, you can't, like, you can't get spacing down because it's just sort of pushing into you. So that just means that you're going to get locked into a corner for however long the AI decides to push into you before it retreats a little bit. But, like, it became...

20:50 That was just very frustrating. Yeah, I think particularly the one boss, which is, like, the easiest one. It's, like, that squid-looking thing. It's, like, the easiest one, but it... For some reason, like, it will always push you in a corner. Like, the other ones I felt like I could keep at bay a little bit. But that one was just, like... It would keep me in a corner. It wasn't even doing damage.

21:09 It was hitting me, not doing damage, but, like, would keep me on the left side of the screen. Very frustrating. All right, so that's Godzilla. Now let's talk about Mothra for a second. Mothra was who I moved first. So when I was going through the side-scrolling levels, I actually thought, like, oh, maybe there'll be different kinds of levels, whether you're playing as Mothra or Godzilla. And Mothra had more of a giant Gradius feel. You know, like, oh, it's just a giant ship in a Gradius level. And maybe the Godzilla ones will be more, like, destruction-based and having to destroy everything in front of you. And there's just an onslaught.

21:51 Whereas Mothra might be more of a shmup. Mothra is not more of a shmup. That was me just reading into the situation way too early. Instead, it's the same kinds of levels and stuff. Except for now you have the ability to fly and hover over or under a ton of stuff to just avoid it if you're lucky enough to not get stuck in a knockback loop. What did you guys think of Mothra? It definitely felt more shmup.

22:18 And the one thing that stuck out to me was that, like, one of its primary attacks, you had to use the start button, which I thought was weird. Especially that it didn't really, like, carry over between the two of them. But that was my first impression of Mothra. It's like, okay, shmup and weird controls. Well, Godzilla's main attack is also the start button too, right? Yes, the atomic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, um, yeah, I thought that Mothra... Well, one, we already talked about the knockback, but this is not knockback. This is, like, reset. It's like you get hit no matter where you are in the screen, it'll reset you exactly to the very bottom left corner no matter what.

22:57 Kind of a weird decision. The other thing... I didn't hate playing as Mothra. One, because you could fly under or over things a lot. So I kind of skipped some parts and levels. But there were aspects of it that I hated. One being the knockback. Two being the fact that her wings are so high up above her hitbox or whatever, and they don't... Like, they stop at the top of the screen. So really, you... That, like, when her wings are at the top of the screen, you, like, the body of your main area, your hitbox, is pretty much at the middle of the screen. Which means that anything from the set, from the middle of the screen up, you can't reach.

23:38 Because there's an invisible ceiling right at the top of the screen, apparently, that stops you going. Like, really, if you're thinking realistically, you should be able to fly all the way to the top and the wings could just get cut off at the top of the screen. Like, and just go, you know, clip into nothing up there or whatever. But it doesn't let you do that. So it's very... It's like you only have half the screen to work with, but the enemies have the whole screen to work with.

23:59 Yeah, and the only thing that I can think of in terms of, like, why the decision was made to make Mothra get knocked to the floor every time he got hit is to sort of counter the fact that you are more agile. And I guess just increasing the punishment for getting hit when you have a much smaller hitbox than with Godzilla.

24:19 But I think that could have been handled in a way that didn't feel as, like, as punishing. Like, I get that, yeah, it should be... There should be some consequence and some balance and trade-off between the characters. But that... Like, when you take away my own progress by that much, it just... And I did get, like, stun-locked pretty often, like, even in the regular levels, where my life was just draining because I just kept getting hit in the same spot every time without being able to move forward. It just, like, that was too much.

25:03 Let's get into those side-scrolling levels now that we've talked about how both characters control, because there's a couple of interesting features here. One is that the hexagon tiles are represented by a type of terrain, so you do have different landscapes that you will come across based on where you land. So, if you cross...

25:22 If you go across these tiles, you'll have to complete their side-scrolling levels and, you know, as one complete stage. So, one thing that's really cool about that is that if you choose to move the maximum amount of spaces you can, you can move a little further with Mothra than you can with Godzilla, it makes it into one extended side-scrolling level, granted that ends at a particular stage and then just fades you into the next one, but they must all be completed successfully in order. There's no break between them or anything like that.

25:53 So, if you cross from wilderness to volcano to jungle, the first stage will be the wilderness stage, followed by the volcano stage, followed by the jungle stage. If you cross wilderness, volcano, volcano, you've just got the same volcano stage twice now. So, you kind of have to maybe think about which types of terrains you're better off dealing with and which ones you want to cross through, so this way you don't have to deal with, if you're me, the volcano levels at all, because the volcano itself is very frustrating and something that shoots a significant amount of projectiles that will bury you into the corner of the screen very quickly.

26:29 What did you guys think of, first, that mechanic for stacking on the amount of side-scrolling levels that you, the player, choose to take on? Well, I think that, like, theoretically, that adds a little bit of what we were complaining was missing, where it's like there's a little bit of thought to go into, like, there's a little bit of purpose for all these different spots on the board, where you're like, well, there's the quickest path, but those are the hardest types of level, or, like, I'm not good at that type of level, so maybe I can find a path where I don't have to do as many of those.

27:00 Unfortunately, it felt like, so far, I mean, I only got to, like, Jupiter or whatever the third or fourth one was, but it's like maybe it gets different later on, but, like, that's, like, halfway through the game, so it's like,

27:14 it felt like, so far, it did not feel like any of those levels were too much more of a problem than any other level. I mean, the volcano levels, too, I did try to avoid if I had the opportunity, but it didn't let me, it didn't, in practice, didn't make me, like, have to think about a strategy, and as far as it going, like, oh, I can only go two, I can only go two, um, two spaces now, and then I won't have to fight as many levels, which I think is actually the question you asked.

27:47 Um, same thing, though, it felt like, in theory, that's great, it's like, I don't have to go that far, because my health's low, but it's not like, after that, you, oh, well, now I get health pickups, or something, or now I get something in between levels. No, I just have to then, next time, next turn, eventually keep going, and my health is where it was anyways. So, it didn't really make a difference. Like, it would have, if they, if they had some reason to go shorter, and, like, then maybe you get a reward in between to, like, up your health, I could see it, but they didn't go all the way with that.

28:20 And, and, yeah, I think, like, yeah, there, it's true that there are different hazards in each different, like, biome, um, but, like, the main difference is the coat of paint, and, like, while, yeah, there's gonna be a volcano, um, in the volcano ones, there's gonna be another, like, vertical, uh, hazard that, that may, that kind of just acts like the volcano, but now it's sort of painted like a big vine, um, that's gonna give you just as much trouble. Um, so, I, I didn't really see too much choice, um, in how, in where you navigated. It was just, like, do I want to play the green level or the red level?

29:01 Huh. Yeah, I get that. Uh, it's also important to mention, although I, I didn't put, um, much stock into this part of the game, maybe, maybe it would have improved my experience, but the side-scrolling levels were just so difficult that I tried not to spend a lot of time in them, but apparently, you know, that's how you level up in this game,

29:21 is by doing these side-scrolling levels and, uh, racking up points and then becoming a stronger monster, if you will, uh, to take on the other monsters. That's only possible in the side-scrolling levels. I, I'm sure you also theoretically level up because it's point-based, uh, by defeating the monsters themselves, but it just won't, uh, it won't bring the same amount of points that a side-scrolling level could bring.

29:49 That is true. Um, I didn't really put all that together at first. Um, I didn't really, I thought I was just like, oh, I'm on, I'm on level one. Um, and then I realized that I was, like, still on level one after the first level. So, um, it, yeah, it, it's definitely, like, you can grind, and I think that if you let a, an enemy monster just sort of linger, it will also level up, if I'm not mistaken.

30:18 Um, but, uh, I don't know if that added enough depth for me to, to like, like, oh, that's why this is there. Yeah, because the grind is not particularly fun anyway, so, like, you know, like, to, to then level up, like, yeah, you could, you could say, well, you have the choice of sticking around and leveling up, or moving on and not being a high level, but sticking around leveling up is kind of like the part of the game that I think would get really tedious if you're doing it more than you have to.

30:48 So these side-scrolling levels lead up to the monster battles, which happen when, uh, your pieces and the, uh, enemy's pieces are next to each other, adjacent to each other on any particular hexagon space. It asks you if you want to fight this monster, you, I guess you do have the choice to say no. Um, but, uh, you should, you should probably fight the monster unless you're, like, really low on health or something. These monster battles, I understand, Sean, the disconnect when I was describing the game that it's a fighting game. It's not, but I thought that was, like, the most apt way to describe it visually.

31:22 However, these, these fighting, you know, you versus the monster thing, I feel like they couldn't have tried any less to make these actual kaiju battles fun and exhilarating and feel like big, massive fights where, like, you punch this guy and he gets blown back or falls down and he punches you and then you're down. Instead, it just happens in this, like, blank black space between you and the monster and it's just really a, if you're Mothra, it's, like, treating it like a shmup boss where you just shoot around it and try not to get hit by it. Or if you're Godzilla, you're just kind of trading off blows and hoping you have enough power to keep doing atomic breaths.

32:05 Yeah, it was, like, what, why would you, why would you, I understand that there are large sprites, but there are also large enemy sprites in the side-scrolling levels with backgrounds and stuff, but, like, that's the only explanation that I can have for, for you to fight these giant monsters, like, not in some epic backdrop. It doesn't even have to be an epic backdrop, just, like, something. A color. I didn't, yeah, I definitely didn't, yeah, get some, put some color on the screen. I didn't understand that at all.

32:37 Um, yeah, these were, like, just very basic boss battles. I mean, even, like, what is it, Maguera or something like that? Maguire? I don't know what the heck is that one monster. Yeah, Maguire. Maguire, yeah. Um, from accounting. Yeah, when you fight him,

32:58 I, I noticed that I could just totally cheese it by, by just tail whipping, it would lock him in place. I could just tail whip, tail whip, tail whip. Even doing that, like, I'm just tail whipping over and over again. His health is just going down. He can't even move. Even doing that, though, I still can't beat him within the time limit, so then I gotta go back and just do it one more time, because he's got, like, a little bit of health left, but it's, like, I don't know.

33:21 It's, it's the same, what I was doing to him was the same thing that some of the other bosses do to me, just, like, ram me into a corner, and it's, like, there's nothing I can do. I feel like I'm just hitting buttons, and sometimes his health's going down, and sometimes my health's going down. Well, good news, he's on every single planet. Great. It's, like, you know, you defeat him once, shame on him. You defeat him twice, shame on you. What? You're gonna beat me again. Yep, can't, can't get fooled again. Um, all right, so, you know, the monster battles, though, themselves, like, yeah, the sprites are pretty nice, you know, Sean mentioned they were big. They're as big as Godzilla and Mothra.

33:56 Uh, you know, I'd love to believe that, uh, Varen or Hedorah or Baragon, like, Gigan even, I mean, he's a huge Godzilla enemy, including, uh, they even have Mechagodzilla and Ghidorah in this game. I'm just listing off every freaking enemy at this point that you can fight in a boss fight, but the point being that, you know, they don't really have, like, a wide variety of moves that makes these guys, like, super interesting. For the most part, it's punching and kicking or some kind of, you know, projectile-based thing.

34:29 Kind of underwhelming. I guess I really did just want, like, a choose-your-own-character fighting-style game where, like, you actually do have move sets, but we're just not there yet. Street Fighter 2 hasn't happened, so it'd be really strange if Godzilla Monsters of Monsters was the one that introduced the fighting game mechanics that everybody would come to love. What's the, uh, the fighting game from the 90s where you're just a bunch of, uh, dinosaurs? The dinosaur fighting game? Do you remember this? Uh, oof, that's tough. Um, dinosaur fighting game. Is there any dinosaurs in Killer Instinct? No, it wasn't Killer Instinct.

35:05 Okay, well. Yeah, well, sorry to get us off track, but, like... No, it's fine. We should just guess dinosaur fighting games all the time. Uh, Primal Rage is what I'm getting. That's, that's, I think, what it was. I liked that, and that's what I think this should have been, so that's the end of the episode right there. There you go. Essential. Okay, that's, but, yeah, it could have been his vote for all we know. Um, we do have a little more to talk about, though, because...

35:27 You've got the, you've got the boards, you've got the enemies, you do this one time, you have to do it a bunch of times. You do it on Earth, you do it on Mars. Also, wait, one thing about the Earth side-scrolling levels, there's, like, a giant planet in the background of some of those terrains. We're on Earth. When have you ever seen a giant planet in the distance?

35:47 Maybe that's Planet X. Oh, wait, no, Planet X is farther away. Yeah, it switched, uh, Pluto and Neptune. Yeah. Um, that's Big Moon. Oh, that's just Big Moon. Right, the Moon got closer because now everything's out of whack. Pluto and Neptune have switched places, so the Moon comes closer. Right, as it would. Uh, yes, as it would. Um, you have Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, uh, Pluto first, then Neptune, because otherwise the plot would be all out of whack.

36:20 And then you get to Planet X. But none of this stuff feels all that different. You've, you've seen most of the terrains by the, uh, second or third stage, uh, or board, if you will. And, um, I don't know. They're just including more monsters each time. I don't think that that is enough change, especially considering how long it takes to get to the monster fights, how adding additional monster fights to the board just increases the time that it takes to get to the next planet. At a certain point, you just experience fatigue in this game, and thankfully they include a password system.

36:57 Yeah, I, um, I, I could only go through a couple of these stages, um, uh, whether, whether it was because I was dying or if I was just, yeah, getting tired of, of the same stuff over and over.

37:10 Um, I, I think they could've, like, I, I, they didn't have to make it, like, go planet by planet. They could've just had, like, okay, here's act one, act two, act three, three boards. Do that. Instead of the, the, the same ones over and over. Yeah, I'm down for almost anything that improves the repetitiveness.

37:30 Speaking of the password system, though, there are a lot of fun passwords that you can put in, uh, to get some cool stuff to happen. And, and, yeah, some of them are just, like, random strings of letters and stuff like that. However, there are others that are just, like, actual words. Like, for instance, if you put in destroy all monsters with spaces between the words in, uh, in password, that will create a unique board where you can fight all the final monsters.

38:01 Oh, I didn't see that one. It's just you and all the monsters on one board and, um, you know, not, not too many hexagon tiles between you and them. Oh, oh, oh, on a board. I was thinking you meant, like, a level where, like, all the monsters, like, a boss battle with all the monsters. I was, this game can't even handle, like, three bullets on the screen at once. It's gonna handle all the monsters? That is true. It doesn't perform all that well. Um, but the other, uh, the other password that I liked was, uh, Ghidorah. Uh, just put, just drops you into, like, some debug mode with weird music. And, um, like, it's on a board, but you can't interact with anything.

38:39 Did you try that one? Yeah. I did see that one, yeah. The, the debug mode for that one. Uh, the same kind of debug thing happens if you just leave the password blank and hit, like, you know, end to move on to the next thing. It takes you to a level without monsters.

38:55 Oh. It's funny because I feel like that's something that you would easily stumble upon. Yeah. Right, right. That's how you start knowing, like, oh, I should try passwords. Like, I imagine what happens when, I haven't put a password in yet and this is happening. Imagine what happens when I start putting in passwords. They also have, uh, little abbreviations for each planet. So, like, for Jupiter, J-U-P, for Mars, M-A-R. If you just put in those three letter digit codes for each planet, that creates a, it starts you off in that particular planet, but at level one. So, if you want, like, a real challenge, you just do U-R-A and you're in Uranus at level one. Uh-huh. Hmm.

39:36 Yeah. Butts. Get good. Uh, also, uh, there's a sound test mode if you put in sound as the password. So, who doesn't like fun passwords? Look at this one. Start to end. If you, if you have the thing called start to end, it shows you the opening and then the final scene. You don't have to play any of the game. You can just watch the story. That's a great password.

39:57 Did you watch the end? I didn't watch the end. Did you watch the end? No, I was hoping you did. Okay. Well, the reason why I didn't watch the end is because I heard from a friend that there's a much more compelling and interesting story than the one presented in this game. Uh, there's actually one that may or may not have really happened to someone in real life. Sean, do you know what I'm talking about?

40:24 Yeah. So, I, when I was, you know, doing my, like, okay, what are the next couple games? Uh, and, you know, just doing some very cursory glances at Wikipedia, uh, I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for Godzilla Monster of Monsters and saw that in popular culture, it described a creepypasta, which for those not in the know is just a spooky story. That's, that was originally told online and usually has something to do with pop culture, um, about this game.

41:02 Um, and, uh, there's like, these things are everywhere. They're written about everything with varying degrees of quality. So, I, I wouldn't usually think anything of it, but, like, this was on the Wikipedia page and has stayed on the Wikipedia page and wasn't, like, removed due to, like, it being, like, not, not very pertinent. So, I was like, okay, so this is a pretty, apparently this is one of the most popular of these kinds of stories.

41:30 And it, it details the story of a haunted version of this game that, of course, was found secondhand, um, by a dude. Um, I don't know if it's, like, in high school or college or he's an adult. I don't know. Um, but, um, it was, he found it in, like, the year 2006 and it looked like a regular, uh, copy of Godzilla Monster of Monsters. But, when he started playing it, he noticed that it was, like, you know, glitching out on him, uh, in the bosses. And, well, it's, like, you know, it's fading into, like, blood and now, like, the, the HUD is getting all messed up. It's like, huh, this is a weird, this is a weird version. But, like, no, wait. Now there's new monsters.

42:21 Um, some monsters that hadn't even been released yet. That's, that's kind of weird, isn't it? Like, maybe this is a prototype version, um, or maybe this is a ROM hack. And, so, basically, this, this thing keeps escalating to where the game is actually sentient.

42:38 Um, there's a monster in it called Red. And there's some, there's some really great, like, amateur writing where it turns out that halfway through, he needs to bring up a story that happened earlier in his childhood that was really traumatic about his girlfriend. getting hit by, uh, uh, by a car. And then it turns out that his girlfriend is being, like, is actually trapped inside the game.

43:02 And then this red guy kills all the monsters. And then he, like, when he's playing the game, he actually has, uh, he, he can't physically take the controller out of his hand because he's got some mind stuff going on. And now the game is asking him questions about if he wants to hurt people. And it really is a fascinating read with some really goofy, like, fake screenshots.

43:26 Um, and if you're in the mood for some real amateur hour writing, um, I would look this up. It's, it's a lot of fun. And it is a little weird at times, but it's, it's too, it's too funny to be actually scary.

43:43 Yeah, I don't even know where to go from there. Um, that is incredible. I, I appreciate people who can, uh, bring this kind of, you know, life to something that otherwise we had nothing really kind to say about, uh, you know, Godzilla monster monsters here. But now we have an invigorating story about somebody who's been traumatized by the game. And actually, um, somebody that was a fan of this story, uh, has apparently at least partially made, um, a video game version of it.

44:18 Um, so, I don't know, look up, uh, yeah, look it up and see if you can fight Red the demon spider. I mean, or, or don't if you're a scaredy cat, um, because sometimes these creepypasta things are very strange. I'm thinking about that Majora's mask one, uh, that's very creepy with, uh, Ben's copy. I think it was or something like that. Oh, I've heard of that one. Yeah. It's all wild stuff. There's Pokemon creepypastas too, right, Joe? Oh, yeah. Gotta love them. Pokemon Black. There's the Lavender Town stuff and...

44:49 Yep. Uh, but I feel like other than that creepypasta, by the way, Sean, the ending of the game is, uh, Godzilla and Mothra are just kind of resting on Planet X as they look back kindly at Planet Earth, realizing that they've rescued it. And then you just get a wall of text explaining everything you just did. It's just, like, very slowly moving, and it doesn't really add on any additional details. Uh, it just says, um... Oh, go ahead, Joe. Well, I was gonna say, the game really thinks that you, you need to take a lot of time to read this, because it scrolls really slowly at the beginning, too.

45:28 Um... Yeah, I remember that. I also just think it's funny that it says that the villains, like, leave, like, a letter. They, like, write it like a formal letter that starts out with, to our deepest regret, we must admit defeat. Like, and there's, like, stuff later on, too, where it's just, like, very, like, weird. It's like they're writing, like, it's like the way they're composing an email professionally to Earth. To whom it may concern. Yeah, and then it's like, having lost our base, we now embark on a journey to nowhere in the universe. But Earthlings, like, it's just, like, so...

46:00 Right, and this isn't even what they said to Godzilla or Mothra. This is what they said in the shower later when they were thinking of what they should have said to Godzilla. Godzilla. Alright, on the sequels and spinoff side, we do have another Godzilla game. We will play Godzilla 2 War of the Monsters. If it wasn't bad enough that there were Monsters of Monsters, there's now a war of all the monsters, and we'll deal with that. Who knows, maybe one day they'll make a game called Godzilla King of the Monsters. Go figure. Also, there's a Godzilla game on Game Boy that I own, and I don't really remember, but it involves, like, also Godzilla's son, which just... Come on. Godzilla's son? Like, let's get out of this.

46:45 There's Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee, which I have to reference, because that is a good Godzilla fighting game. Now, that was on, I think, GameCube, PS2, Xbox 360, or original Xbox, I suppose.

46:58 That game has you pick any characters. You don't have to just be Godzilla, and then you are, like, set up in a particular area of Japan or other famous Godzilla landmarks, and everything in the area is destructible, but also, like, you totally have unique moves to beat the piss out of the other kaiju monsters. So that is, like, a very rewarding, cathartic Godzilla experience where you can actually take out your frustrations on the fellow kaiju monsters, where in this game I feel like I'm just hitting buttons and the enemies are glowing red to imply that something has happened to them.

47:38 But while stumbling for Godzilla games, because there's so many of them, and I was like, hmm, which ones do you handpick? I found out about this game called Kyohei Toshi, a game that I can't believe exists. It never came to North America. It will probably never be translated because it has so much dialogue, sort of, you know, takes a really passionate person to translate a game like this, and I doubt it would happen. But just watch a video. I included a video on the show notes here.

48:07 This is like Cloverfield, the video game. The objective of the game is to escape a city. You're just a regular human being, and all you have to do is try to escape a city ravaged by battles between giant kaiju, giant robots, and heroes from other famous live action and animated Japanese film and TV series. So you have the Godzilla series, the Ultra series, Gamera, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or however you say that. You have all of these series coming together as if, like, all of them just came to our Earth all at once. But what I really appreciate about it is it's like, imagine Yakuza, like, that kind of scale of, like, what Tokyo looks like and everything.

48:54 But then the actual kaiju or Ultraman, for instance, like, are actually giant and massive, and you just can't comprehend the scale. I think it really puts in perspective just how fucked we'd all be if this happened in real life. Because, yeah, while the game doesn't really damage the main player, it causes a lot of destruction to Tokyo in a meaningful way. So I was really surprised by this game. And Sean and Joe, I know I just sent you guys a video, so you haven't had too much time to digest. But any thoughts here on this? I'm looking at it now. It looks scary. But did you say you can't get damaged?

49:31 Well, no, you just don't face the same kind of repercussions that, like, the environment face. You know, like, you could be, like, get fire breathed on, and you're going to live. You know, it's like, you'll take some damage. Right. Yeah, I like this kind of stuff. Like, I actually, I liked the original Cloverfield and that whole, like, the focus being to the periphery of a disaster like this. Or a giant monster disaster, specifically. So, no, I dig it. I'd play a translation if it ever came out. Well, have you ever heard of the Disaster Report video games? Is that also that?

50:13 They're the same people. Oh. They make those games. And I believe those games have been released in North America. At least some of them. I'm looking up now. Disaster Report 4 was released. But those don't feature monsters. Those are, like, earthquake, tsunami-style stuff. Oh, okay. I guess I'm, yeah, meant more specifically giant monster disasters.

50:38 Yes, exactly. I don't think I'm as interested in trying to survive a flood. That could happen to me in real life. Yeah. Probably in the next few years. Hopefully Godzilla never, yeah, exactly. Hopefully Godzilla never comes up in real life. Like he did in the SimCity games, right? Yeah. Godzilla is something that can show up. And then in the Super Nintendo version of SimCity, they made it Bowser instead, which I thought was really cute. But Bowser's not that big, though. But they made him big. Oh, that'll do it. Bowser can be big. Bowser was big in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. True.

51:13 You're right. I'm sorry. I forgot that we have a whole other section to do, so sorry this has been taking so long. I just started gushing about a whole other game that had to do with Godzilla. Let's gush about my other favorite section of nostalgia, which I totally did not forget about. And that is the Essential Games list.

51:32 Sean, is the Monster of Monsters going to be on the Essential Games list? Um, no. But Godzilla, Monster of Monsters, creepypasta.exe is on my Essential Reading list. So you can jot that down. Um, but yeah, I, the game, it really isn't, it's not what you're looking for. If you're looking for, like, a kaiju experience, I think still the best game for that is going to be War of the Monsters PS2 Insomniac games. And it's probably not the first time I've, I brought that game up, uh, on the show, but I think it really is an underappreciated gem of the, of the era. Um, and I imagine that Mike had a, uh, that fighting game, like a recommendation for that if you're looking for some true Godzilla stuff.

52:28 Um, but yeah, aside from the outlandish, like, internet story, um, I will forget about this game pretty quickly. Joe? Yeah, I mean, I think, like, overall, like, this game, it's not that bad.

52:45 Like, I don't know if that's going to telegraph my vote, if that's the best thing I have to say about it, it's not that bad. It's interesting at first, and it's, um, it's an interesting attempt at, at, like, you being kind of, like, the boss of the level. Uh, but, but there's just way too many flaws, way too many problems. I mean, the knockback we talked about, the, like, the game can't even, like, handle itself in a lot of times. We didn't really get too much into that, but there was a lot of lag in this game. I had it crash on me once, uh, had to start over. I don't know if you guys experienced anything like that. But, like, that stuff aside, the gameplay itself gets a little tedious.

53:25 It gets a, you know, it gets a little frustrating that you can't avoid attacks as Godzilla pretty much at all, or it's, or it's very hard. Some attacks you definitely can't avoid, which, like, could, I think, be done right in a way that's fun, but they, they got, they got a lot of work to do to get this to a place where I, I don't get bored of it or, or frustrated with it after, uh, after a few levels. So, I'm going to say not essential. Okay. And the only thing I really, uh, have to add here is just that they really did our boy dirty here. Our boy being Godzilla. Godzilla, uh, you know, Godzilla is a cool character, whether the movies are good or not, whether anything about him is good or not.

54:04 What's cooler than Godzilla? Honestly, what's cooler than Godzilla with sunglasses? Think about that for a second. Nothing is cool about this game, though. So cash money. Yeah, exactly. Um, this game, though, I would say I actually think it's worse than it is.

54:19 I, I, I agree with Joe. It's probably actually not that bad of a game, but because it has the Godzilla name on it, I'm like more offended and I took it a little more personally and I didn't like it even more because of that. If this was just, um, you know, unnamed monsters that you played up against in this board game style thing, maybe I would have been a little more okay with it. But for Godzilla, I just feel like there's so much more we could have done here. So to wind up with this, just a little bizarre.

54:48 But that's what nostalgia is, right? We're always covering bizarre titles and bizarre spins on titles. Look no further than, uh, Back to the Future for a bizarre spin on a hit movie. Next week, Jeopardy Jr. Maybe a bizarre spin on Jeopardy. What's the junior part? We'll find out. Is it, is it that Jeopardy gave birth to a son? Whoa. Just like Godzilla. Or is it more likely that it's kids questions? Oh yeah, Godzilla gave birth to a son, so why not?

55:18 Uh, also we have another show called Nostalgia Bites. Uh, it's just something I kind of like to plug every single episode to if you've heard it a thousand times. Just turn off the episode now because I'm literally not going to say anything important from this point forward.

55:30 But, uh, it's a show called Nostalgia Bites and we're doing Tower of Druaga, uh, this month. We have a bunch of other episodes that you can do if you just check out the patreon.com slash nostalgia. Nostalgia. And now for the most important piece of information. No, just kidding. See, I was saying if you stick around and you're like, oh, you might, I might say something important. Yeah, now that we got the true fans here, you know, we can talk. Yeah. Uh, Joe actually has an announcement though. Yeah. Uh, we'll be doing Jeopardy Jr. next week. I will be on that episode. Oh. Oh.. Oh.! Thank you.