237 · All-Pro Basketball

• The Crowd is Roaring and the Pressure is on…
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Can it be All-Pro Basketball if the teams and players are fictitious?
  • Maybe that’s the name of the league
    • What the hell is going on with the team names
      • New York Slicks (New York Knicks) - funny word play
      • Chicago Zephyrs (Chicago Bulls) - no reference to Bulls at all
      • Boston Redcoats (Boston Celtics) - Uh, the Redcoats were the guys the people in Boston were fighting
      • Seattle Sonics (Seattle SuperSonics) - literally just removed the SUPER from the team name
      • Los Angeles Breakers (Los Angeles Lakers)
      • Dallas Stallions (Dallas Mavericks)
      • Phoenix Wings (Phoenix Suns)
      • San Francisco Bayriders (Golden State Warriors)
• Gameplay
  • This is five players on a full-length basketball court, but a bit of a twist on the “full length” part.
    • Fade to black at half-court to show the “other half”
    • And let’s not forget perspective. This is a top down 5-player basketball game. Double Dribble was a 3-on-3. Jordan vs Bird was 1-1 and Hoops was 2-2
    • Jump and shoot being the same button (B) while A is dedicated to Pass
    • Slam dunk animations…where have we seen this before?
    • Defense, the biggest problem we’ve seen in NES basketball games
      • And it’s not really solved here
    • The tournament component
• Developer
  • The game was published by Vic Tokai, but developed by Aicom.
    • Interestingly, they will make another Basketball game on the NES but for the American Sammy corp. We’ll play that game in 1990 as Ultimate Basketball. Will be interesting to see how they change between publishers
• EGL
• Next week - Archon: The Light and the Dark
• NEStalgia Byte - The Portopia Serial Murder Case (fan translation)

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

00:00 The crowd is roaring and the pressure is on. All Pro Basketball!

00:20 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. Today begs the serious question, just in the title alone, can it really be All Pro Basketball if the teams and players are fictitious? They could be fictitious professionals though. Yeah, I guess I have no arguments about the concept of them being professionals in maybe, maybe that's the name of the league, right? Like maybe it's the All Pro Basketball League.

00:54 And, you know, and they're just the players of that league and we just don't know them because they're not from our universe. Yes. This is in the Watchmen universe actually.

01:05 And inside that league, what the hell is going on with those team names? You don't like the New York Slicks? So the New York Slicks, right? Funny wordplay. Right. I like that. Funny wordplay on New York Knicks. Then Chicago Zephyrs. No reference to Bulls at all in that. So not sure what the joke is there. Then the Boston Redcoats.

01:31 The Redcoats were the guys who the Boston people were fighting. Yeah, I feel like that would offend many a Bostonite. And is it supposed to sound like the Red Sox? That kind of sounds like it. There's mixing sports now? Yeah, that must have been what it was. I think the Redcoats one is the biggest offender. But even then they get lazy and there's the Seattle Sonics, which they just removed Super from the team name. The Seattle Super Sonics basketball team. They just said, oh, if we get rid of Super, right? At that point, just call it the New York Knacks, right? The Knack is back, baby.

02:08 Big time. I feel like the New York Slicks is just as close as New York Knacks, honestly. I think you could do that, though. New York Knacks, Chicago Balls, Boston Celtics. Well, that's really what they are, right? Celtics, Celtics. Well, you're supposed to say Celtics, but... Right. Yeah.

02:30 Other ones, I guess I might as well mention them since we're bringing them all up. Los Angeles Breakers instead of Lakers. Which makes more sense. Love it. Dallas Stallions instead of Dallas Mavericks.

02:43 That works, too. Yeah. Phoenix Wings instead of Phoenix Suns. Now, Phoenix Wings is a great name. Don't get me wrong. Okay, like, I appreciate that team name. Again, Phoenix Suns, they're like, you know, they're still doing the same thing, the Phoenix pun, right? But, like, just different types of Phoenix. Okay, so this is... Maybe it's a reference to Icarus. That's a reference to Phoenix. He flew with his wings too close to the sun. Yeah, but it's got to somehow connect to the sun. Okay. I love what Joe just did there. Wow, you're right. Like, I get that Phoenix have wings, but... Man, the Watchmen universe is lit.

03:20 I've never even read Watchmen. Eh, it's whatever. But the fact that the Phoenix Wings and the Los Angeles Breakers are better names than their actual real counterparts... Like, the Phoenix Suns, it sounds like, oh, you know, it's really hot out all the time. Whereas there's no wordplay with their city name. And the Lakers, that's an old holdover from Minnesota. There's no lakes in LA. It's crazy. It's wild. But LA is in lakes. Ah. The La La's.

03:59 This is a five-player full-length basketball court game. But a little bit of a twist on the full-length part, right? It's not actually a full-length basketball court. The game has an interesting technical workaround for that. Sean, do you want to walk us through what that caveat is? Yeah, so it only ever wants you to play from a perspective from half court to the net on the top of the screen. So anytime you cross the center line, you're going to get a little black screen and a second and a half delay where the game just flips everything around. It flips the color of the actual color of the court and changes the team name. And now that is the other side of the court. And it's definitely an experience.

04:57 Yeah, I don't even know if you can possibly describe it and have it translate to just how jarring it is when you're playing. Like, it is, it is, it fades black. Your player that you have selected that usually has the ball just, like, zooms over to the other side, like, to the mirror side of where it would be if you were to suddenly flip it. And then it fades back in and you're going the other direction. It actually shows the warp for some players.

05:26 Yeah. And it's not even, like, a perspective shift where, like, you see it rotate, which would probably be harder for them to do. But it's just, like, even more confusing because it's, like, yeah, you know in your head that, like, oh, okay, this is showing that it's rotating. But it just looks like you zoom across the court and everyone's, like, changed positions.

05:43 Like, your brain isn't wired to recognize that as, like, oh, we're just looking from the other angle now. Right, but the turnover to the other half of the court is not an insignificant amount of time spent for that change either. It's almost like a loading screen in a console that doesn't have loads. It takes a significant amount of fade out and fade back in to resume action.

06:06 And, you know, just think about it's almost, in some ways, it's like a stuttering action. And that's true, and it is hard to get around, but the alternative, and I'm sure that they could have done it this way, is it just immediately flickers and it's the other screen. Like, it just redraws it, and there's no delay, and you're just as confused and disjointed. I think this is actually the lesser of two evils if they wanted to actually play it this way.

06:36 I'd have to see it the other way. It does sound like this would be the lesser of two evils, but I assume that the reason for what they did here, like letting it fade out and having you see your player move to the other side, is so you can have that, like, split second to, like, orient and be like, okay, I'm going this way now. That's definitely it. I don't think that works as well in practice as it does in theory, though. And I almost feel like maybe if I knew it was coming every time, I could just be ready to keep moving. Because it takes away everyone else on the screen. So I know where I am, but I can't, I can't, my brain can't place everybody else on the screen where they would be.

07:14 So, like, as soon as they pop up, I'm like, oh, all right, well, they stole the ball because I didn't know they were right in front of me, and I ran right into them. Like, if it was just immediate and then I was expecting it, it would still be really, really freaking difficult, actually. So I don't know what I'm getting at here. But, like, it might be, it might be a little. I don't know if that's just, like, it would be too much for the console to handle to, like, transpose every sprite at once. Yeah. But I know exactly the feeling you're describing.

07:44 Yeah. You know what they should have done, actually, now that I'm thinking about it? It's just built the other half of the game on the other side of the court. Well, Joe, keep in mind, you know, we have played full-length, full basketball courts before. It's the perspective that is causing the issue here. In Double Dribble, it was a full court where you never had to worry about the loading screen on the halfway mark. It was both sides.

08:07 However, that game was playing from a side perspective. So you were almost like a fan sitting in the bleachers, right? Whereas in this game, because of the top-down perspective of it, I can't imagine how you would feel controlling it when the hoop is, you know, like. Facing the other direction, yeah. Yeah, facing the other direction of which all play seems to be directed at. You know, there's a reason why. But as long as, and I get what you're saying, but as long as you can see the net.

08:40 Well, that's the problem. Why is it any different? You either have, I forgot, there was a game, I forgot even what sport, but there was a sports game that had that weird, confusing perspective shift. Like where it would be the net sort of falling away from the backcourt.

09:04 And that's how you see the net. Like it doesn't make perspective sense, but like it allows you to actually see the net and shoot. It'll just be very confusing. The other way they could do it is to just show the back of the net and whoever is playing on that side is going to have a hard time.

09:23 So this is, and the other basketball games that we've played from this perspective, just, they made it just a half court game. So they didn't have to worry about this. So they definitely painted themselves into a corner with this problem that they had to solve.

09:40 Yeah. I mean, I guess I hadn't really thought about like the difference between like this and like blades of steel, which does go up and down. But, but you need to see this tiny little net with the backboard, which is an important part of it as well. You can't just like erase the backboard. Yeah. To, you know, I mean, but you can, you could maybe cheat it to look clear. I mean, you know, and then you see through it like very clear and just like, oh, okay, there's a backboard there. I don't know. Maybe I'm, maybe it's easier for me to just throw these ideas out there than for someone to actually program it. But it feels like it would be worth, worth a shot.

10:17 I just think, especially in top down games, like even games that aren't sports games necessarily, like in Zelda, right? Like just even the way dungeons are designed or gameplay is designed, it's like, yeah, you can, you can move south, right? Or downwards on the screen. But even the way that things are laid out, it's like, that's the exit point. Like you're always entering from either like north, south, east, northeast or west after that.

10:44 Like top down games just seem to have a more following upstream direction to them, especially in these earlier games. So maybe there is just like a challenge with perspective when the bottom half of the screen has to be what you're filling in. Yeah. And when you're playing a Zelda or anything like that, like the action isn't happening at that point. Like whereas the net is where you're going to be focusing on.

11:12 In Zelda, you're always sort of focusing on stuff that's in the center of the screen or near center. It's not, I believe it would have been a really weird experience that way too.

11:24 So this is five player basketball. We've had double dribble, which was three on three. Jordan versus bird, which was one on one. And hoops, which had a one on one mode, but also had a two on two mode. So we have never experienced like a doubles really. This is five players is what you're supposed to have in basketball. It didn't bother us at all in double dribble. If anything, it was fine because of the 2D elements of the game. More more players might have been bad for for the way that the game was playing out. Five players here. Does it make a noticeable difference in in strategy or in realism or in like?

12:06 I guess I'm saying like, did you utilize the extra players any more than you would have in say double dribble? So no. So in a like if I'm just looking at screenshots of a game like, oh, yeah, that looks a lot more realistic. It's actually five on five basketball. And in any like one little moment, that's true.

12:28 But that like for the game to actually feel like the five on five was necessary. Like I would want to see like an actual like strategy for basketball. Whereas in this, it's just a bigger crowd to pass through and more opportunities to get stolen from. So there's more hazards for sure, but it's they're not playing basketball. There's no picks and rolls. There's no box outs. It's just they're chasing you. And there's some defensemen that are staying behind to like just get in your way.

13:02 Maybe this isn't necessarily an issue with the five on five nature of it. But but it did seem to lend to add to my confusion a little more. But there's just so much going on on the screen, especially not to keep coming back to this perspective shift. But that made if there were if there were just, you know, six players on the court at any time when that happened, might be a little easier for me to kind of get my head around it when we when we switch to this other side of the court.

13:28 But when I first started, well, I think it was my second game. I played the Slicks versus the Breakers and and their their jerseys are like one of them has like a has like a orangish red uniform. And the other one has like a brownish red uniform.

13:45 So I was very confused. And there's like a tiny little like same color as both uniforms one above the head of the player that you're controlling or arrow rather. And I'm just like, I'm like, I don't know who I am or where I am or what like a lot of that got very confusing. And I think if you thin to the herd of like how many how many players are on there a little bit, then that would that would maybe help. If you're on the slick side of the court and you're playing as them, you've got your player in red on a background of red. You've got the red one above your head to make sure you know who you are.

14:22 And then any the player that you're designated to pass to at any time has that red arrow pointing down. So all you see is red. And this is exactly what you were saying. But it's impossible to play that way with with just when every piece of information just blurs together. I like I was passing to no one. I was like trying to throw from half court. It was it was a very disorienting experience.

14:51 Yeah, if anything, the momentum of the gameplay relies on just you figuring out where you were once the fade out stops. And then just kind of rushing the net. You're not thinking about like, where's my team on the on the court? Like, who should I who's open? It's like there's not really like much time for that. You know, you might as well just keep trying to get the slam dunk like slam dunks are the way to score points in this game.

15:19 Three pointers are, you know, are challenging probably on purpose. They're not impossible. They can be pulled off. But for the most part, it's just you in the computer rushing for possession of the ball and then immediately just making sure like who's blocking my path to the net. And most likely the five players on your team and the five players on their team. Most of them are doing very inconsequential things that might matter in a game where momentum wasn't so quick, where like scoring points wasn't happening so fast and play wasn't shifting so often. Yeah. And like that, I was kind of complaining about the AI earlier, but there is some like rudimentary like teammate AI.

16:01 Like if you're rushing the net, like someone else will be there with you on the break. So if you wanted to pass, even though you have to kind of just stop where you're going and then pass, you can't like pass in stride. You can either pass or jump pass.

16:19 So there's some of that like there is an outlet usually if you're being blocked entirely, but you've got an open guy. But other than that, it's just sort of a crowd. And then it's also just fighting against knowing where you are, like you were saying, Mike. Thank you.

17:20 I think defense turns out to be the biggest problem, maybe not just in NES basketball games, but in sports games in general on the NES. And I don't think anything's really being solved here that, you know, like I was like, oh yeah, defense feels great in this game. The options they give you for defense though, both a like standing block and a jumping block. I don't know. They felt more responsive than I was expecting for this kind of game.

17:45 I wasn't, I wasn't able to pull off steals as often as I would have liked or, you know, block shots successfully. But it felt responsive and it felt like I understood what those actions were meant to do. And that's not high praise or anything, but in a lot of these basketball games, it does kind of feel like you're just mashing the button while you're next to the player and hoping that you steal the ball. Whereas this one felt like it was showing me what I needed to do a little more clearly. So I'll give it that kind of praise. Yeah, I agree.

18:14 Whereas I feel in other games, like there's a lot more stickiness to defensive inputs where you, like your timing has to be impeccable and you don't really know what the timing is. Whereas when you press the defensive posture button, it immediately does it. It doesn't matter if you've got another input pressed or not.

18:37 So that's good. But I had like maybe a one in 10 success rate when trying to steal. Whereas I feel like the CPU had a much higher success rate. But when it comes to the jump block, I feel like the only instance where that was ever taken into account was when you're rushing to the net to defend against like a layup or a dunk. Like if you're jump blocking at the moment, the CPU is tossing up like a three pointer, like there's no way you're interacting with that.

19:13 It's not, you're not going to steal it out of the air. You're not going to block it from, from that three point line. It's going to either make it into the net or bounce off the backboard. Like you just, you know what I mean? Like there's, there's very limited interaction from what I experienced. Yeah. I, sometimes I feel like, I feel like, uh, it seems like you should be blocking it. Like it feels like the ball goes right through you sometimes when you're trying to block.

19:41 And, you know, on the opposite side on shooting, um, I guess first talk about the slam dunk since we were saying that's the, uh, maybe the most used path to scoring in this game. Uh, the coolest part obviously are the slam dunk animations, but when you play the NES chronologically, like we do, it's kind of a, a tired trick at this point. A lot of basketball games seem to do this, uh, zoom in on the slam dunk. And what was once maybe a, a neat novelty is now like, am I supposed to be going back to the old games and seeing like who did the cut scene better? Like who made it cooler? Like, cause I, I don't really care. Um, it's nice.

20:18 Uh, I don't, I actually feel like it's the other thing that disrupts pace of play in this game. Um, granted there's animation on it, right? And, uh, there is both a, a win and fail state for your slam dunk. There is a chance that it won't go in. So that's nice. Not a guaranteed. There's two win states. Oh, okay. Well, like two win animations, you know, there's one where, where there's someone attempting to block and failing.

20:43 There's one where there's no one there. And then there's one where someone actually blocks. Right. Okay. That makes, yes, that's true. Um, I guess my, my point being that, you know, it's nice that they're animated and that they show what might've been happening on the action screen, but it just disrupts the, uh, you know, and this is, this is crazy. This is what I was talking about with pace of play.

21:00 This game moves very quickly, but it spends most of its time in pause modes between cut scene animations and fading in and fading out at the half court line. So that whenever you're actually doing anything, you're maybe doing conscious button actions for like two to three seconds before you're then like interrupted with either a fade out or a cut scene. Yeah. And then like, there'll be times where, uh, the computer opponent, if you're playing against the computer, uh, they'll cross the half court line and then whatever their code to, to advance to the net just gets broken for a second. And they'll just walk back and forth across, like across that line.

21:43 And I just kept, you know, taking defensive posture. I'll, I'll steal it eventually. No, they just, they break out event like after a full 25 seconds. So a lot of it is waiting to, for the computer just to score.

21:59 But it does feel satisfying when you block the slam dunk. Yeah. When that specific animation where that's, it's again, taking you out of gameplay when that happens, like that, that feels good. But I, it's more satisfying to me to actually steal within the actual game.

22:16 Right, right. Um, and then the other thing I want to talk about, uh, offense jump and shoot being the same button. Uh, I feel like this isn't the first game we've seen this in, but we're, we're talking about a is a dedicated pass button. So, uh, if you press the B button to jump while you're on your arc, right, you must then push the B button again at a, at a different point to launch the ball out of your hands and towards the net. If you push the A button, you will just wind up passing it instead.

22:47 Uh, if you don't do anything, you're traveling. So, uh, that's no good. It takes like, I feel like there's something that happens to you at the beginning of the game that you, you probably just like notice and be like, oh, that's annoying. You'll, you'll get better at not doing it. But I wrote it in my show notes because it was something that happened to me pretty often early on in my gameplay, uh, of all pro basketball.

23:06 I'm not sure what they would have done though. Like a kind of does need to be the pass button. So if there is going to be a jump, it also needs to be the shoot, right? Like a can't be both pass and shoot.

23:18 Well, this is actually one of the most, uh, in addition to the perspective, one of the most modern parts of this game. Like, like I, I never really thought about it as a jump and shoot button. I just thought of it as the shoot button. Um, because there should never be a point where you're shooting flat footed. Uh, so in, in any modern basketball game, like you're going to start each time you want to shoot, you're going to jump first and then you're going to like have that second press for where you want to release. So that, that felt more natural to me than I guess it did for you.

23:58 Well, compared to, I think, I think it was a basketball game that I've talked about this before where it's like in an, in a rudimentary compared to today's standards video game about basketball or some other sports too, where it's like basketball, particularly you're not aiming the ball.

24:16 So I always felt like, at what point does it feel like it's your skill or it's just luck if the ball, if the ball, you know, it's just one button press. It's not like you hold it down to get a harder throw or anything like that. So it's like, at what point is it like, do you have control over it? It's that timing. And this, yeah, this made me feel that timing a lot more. Cause it's like, it made me feel like if, if I, if I made a shot, it was because I released the ball at the right moment at the, at the, at the right time in my jump. And if I missed, it felt like I didn't. And it always felt like there was a way I could have done it. And I, and like, I could have done it better.

24:57 And if I played this enough, I will get the feel of it just like you will in like, in like any real sport, you get the feel of it. You kind of get the muscle memory. So like that felt, and I'm sure it's been the case in other games we've played too, but it felt a little more obvious here. No, I agree. Uh, because like going back to how we've been describing, at least how it feels to, uh, try to play defense, um, where you're, you see your input reflected on your player immediately. It, this seems like the most responsive in terms of just base controls basketball game that we've played. So that's where I think that, that feeling comes from where it's actually starting to click.

26:06 And there's a couple different options of, of play. There's the one player tournament mode. There's a two player match. There's, um, versus, and then there's also a watch mode. Uh, you know, I'm always here for that. It seems like sports games in, on the NES, almost all like must have a watch mode, which kind of makes sense, right? It's no different than watching sports on TV. You're just watching computers play now instead. I joke. It's no different at all.

26:33 Um, what I really wanted to get into about talking about these different modes is the, the tournament component of the one player mode and how that's not really like, they don't really building it to anything. And I, I think they're crazy for expecting people to play. I can't remember if it's 24 or 32 rounds of a tournament with only eight teams in an entire league. Anyway, especially when the teams don't like, yeah, the, they give the players different names, but, um, they don't have different stats. They're the same exact players on every single team and they might look like they're shorter than each other, but height doesn't matter, uh, either.

27:11 So none of these like little quirks that they build into the teams matter from a gameplay perspective. So it's just all, um, useless in the tournament mode. Uh, essentially it's like a record keeping thing if you really wanted to have it, but otherwise you're better off, uh, just going into, uh, like a, an exhibition match. Yeah. I know that in the manual, it says that each team has slightly different stats and each player on those teams has slightly different stats. But I mean, I, I didn't play enough to notice like there, the differences must be very minute, um, because they all seem to control the exact same way.

27:54 Now are you supposed to be able to know which player is which? That's a good question. I mean, are you supposed to be able to be like, oh, pass it to this guy. Cause he's, you know, he's better at shooting. Like how could you possibly know?

28:06 Well, again, not, not comprehensive by any means. I didn't go into the game's code, but the one guy who decided to write, um, a game FAQ FAQ for all pro basketball says in his mind, pretty definitively that the players don't matter at all. And that you might as well just pick whatever team you want. So don't pick the slicks because they wind up being the same color as the court and very confusing. Wow. That was the problem all along.

28:35 Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like they really only built a five on five exhibition basketball match thing here. They didn't, they didn't really build anything else into this game. And there's only like two buttons that ever do anything. Uh, obviously that's the same thing with any game because of the controller, but they only ever do jump or pass or, um, or jump block or, you know, hand block. Uh, that's the whole game in a nutshell. And they built it around that. And then it's just like, how long can you extend that on your own? Like, how long can you draw that out? The game doesn't do anything to extend that lifespan.

29:16 Yeah. It really makes you, makes me appreciate, um, the, that hockey game that just had like those three, um, like archetypes, like the, the big bruiser, the small lanky guy in the middle, whatever, where it just immediately apparent what kind of player they are.

29:36 And, uh, that you, like it felt, they felt different. Um, whereas in this, they all just look like different skins for the same operator. Sean, you couldn't remember the game because it's literally just called ice. Okay. Just making sure that's the, that's the game you're referring to, um, which is not blades of steel, but both hockey games, uh, very good in their own different rights. Uh, did, uh, all pro basketball here.

30:01 I don't know. I just feel like even our, you know, we had a lot of criticism about Jordan versus bird and hoops, but at least they offered a lot of different modes and, and mini games, if you will, uh, to, to at least like have the, the MSRP be worth it. Right. Like you can't, you know, you can't just say like, yeah, we've created basketball on the NES because other people have already done that. So now what else are you offering? Yeah. It's, it is.

30:28 Although there's not much to like extend the gameplay. I mean, they didn't try to add their flair to it. You know, they've got their, like, they've got, there's like a, there's like sports news in between each, um, in between each play that like lets you, that kind of gives you, I guess, I'm assuming the more you, you play with this password and go through a season, get like talks about your record.

30:49 I don't know how robust that can get other than saying like you won again, you lost again. I don't know if it says like, but, um, but like they put a lot of effort into that. It seems like, and like the halftime show and stuff. And it feels like maybe that could have been, um, I don't know, work better used somewhere else. Sean posted a still of the sports news into the show chat. And if you didn't tell me that it was from all pro basketball, I would think it was from some Famicom horror game that never came to America. Or like a creepypasta. Yeah.

31:19 Yeah, exactly. Uh, very scary. And, um, who knows, you know, who knows what they're going for there. I will say the girl who does the reporting, one of the most realistic looking humans we've ever seen on the NES. Yeah, right. Well, I mean, you know, the, the dunking humans, uh, the human basketball men in this game also look very realistic. Human basketball men. That's what we call them. Yeah. They're referred to as such, um, in the, uh, in Carta encyclopedia.

31:50 Joe, it's funny that you mentioned that this game has a style though, because, um, this game was published by Vic Takai, who we like to joke is just like a one man operation. His name is Vic. Yeah. And he just makes the games, but he only published this game. It was developed by ACOM. And interestingly, they will make another basketball game on the NES, but not for Vic Takai. It will be for the American Sammy Corps. And we will play that game in season six, uh, 1990 as ultimate basketball.

32:21 Will be interesting to see how, uh, you know, they, they change between publishers. If ACOM will just deliver basically the same game under a different name and trick a different publisher into, uh, publishing the same game, or if they'll be like, oh, well, these guys paid us more. So now we'll try and we will create the ultimate basketball.

32:41 I look forward to it. I don't know. You just don't see that, right? Like how many other developers stick to like making the same kind of game, but for two different publishers? I want to say there's a wrestling thing in here.

32:56 Uh, I think the, like in a very deep cut modern, I think that the, the, um, the developer for the WWE games like broke their connection to 2K or whatever, whoever publishes that and then made their own like off brand. I don't know. Oh, that's it. Yeah. It sounds like a wrestling thing to happen. Yeah. It's part of the storyline actually. It sounds like that was like scripted. Yeah, exactly. Uh, all right. That's all I have for all pro basketball. So, uh, in order to close out this episode, we have to do the essential games list. It's the only way to escape.

33:36 Sean, your vote. Yeah. I mean, the game is not great. Uh, I think there's some things that worked out well for it in terms of, uh, the, the, this, the immediate control feel, but, uh, there's enough like weird breaks in play and, uh, bad visual design with red on red on red on red.

34:00 Uh, that it's just, it's not even the best basketball game on the NES. So it cannot be essential. Joe. Um, so I'm definitely saying there are more negatives than positives here, but I, I mean, I don't even think I need to get into, to all the negatives or positives for me. Even if, even if everything else about this game was great, the fact that when you cross the center of the court, it, it, it shifts perspective in the way that we talk about, no matter what else this game does, like, that's all this game will be to me because like, I can't, not like I can't like get past it in like my opinion. I can't get past it while playing it. It throws me off every time.

34:40 It's very jarring. I think that, I think that if, if they didn't do that, this would definitely still not be essential, but even this, I could see that kind of mechanic ruining an essential game. So not essential for a lot of reasons. I don't think I have anything else to add. Um, just listen to the, uh, previous 20 minutes of the show to understand why it's not on the essential games list. So I just going to vote no here.

35:03 Um, can you play the previous 20 minutes? I thought I was hoping I would, I was thinking I could do that. And then I was like, eh, I don't know. It's, you know, it's kind of gutsy. Uh, but I bet, I bet some people would listen, right? You guys are dedicated. Just in case they forgot. Yeah. Or they fell asleep. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, we, but then we're punishing the people who didn't fall asleep.

35:26 And we're going to continue to punish ourselves by playing through, uh, the NES library. It seems like I'm saying that only because it's been so long since we've seen an essential game on this list. You have to go back to episode 207 for Fizanadu, where, um, uh, what is that? We're on episode 237 now. So that is crazy long. That is 30 games. That's the longest stretch by anyone's imagination. Guys, can anything break, uh, the, the mold at this point? Like, is anything going to be an essential game before we get to the best of 1989? What's coming up? Thank you for asking, Joe.

36:07 Yeah. We have, um, our very next episode, Archon, the light and the dark, which, uh, you know, I pretend like I don't know what this is, but I, I was so curious. I had to click on it. It seems to be a chess like game. It's not chess by any stretch of the imagination, but somebody who made like their own chess style boards with other chess pieces. And so it's chess too. Yeah. Not yet. Not quite an eight by eight board, but, um, you know, it definitely seems like a ripoff of chess.

36:37 Uh, we'll see how that can be different. Maybe that's an essential game or the battle of Olympus. A lot of people have been talking about this on our, uh, discord, which you could be a member of at patrion.com slash nostalgia. They've been saying that the battle of Olympus might have a chance. And, um, that is like a adventure of link Zelda two style game that that game didn't make it on the essential games list. I'm not sure why the battle of Olympus would, but don't worry because I know episode two 40 championship bowling will be the game.

37:11 True. And if you think we're just playing bad games on the NES, don't worry. We're also playing bad games on the Famicom. Uh, we just finished up for our nostalgia bite show again, part of that whole Patreon thing, you know, the website, patrion.com slash nostalgia. You can join us for nostalgia bites. We just did pack land and now kind of, you know, breaking the bending, the rules breaking and bending the rules. If you will, uh, we are doing the Portopia serial murder case as our next episode. And that is not a game. It's not even a game. It's just a, it's just a case. Right. Yeah. We're now a true crime podcast. Thank you for joining.

37:47 Right. Uh, no, this is a game that you can't play without knowing Japanese, but thankfully it has been translated. So we are going to try a fan translation ROM hack of the game. Thanks to the ROM hacking.net community. And we're going to play that. And it seems really freaking cool. Uh, it definitely seems like it's up Sean's alley at the very least. So expect a very lengthy opinion from Sean on this game and probably me and Joe as well. Cause we all like to talk and talk and talk. I mean, we're almost going on 35 minutes or more of all pro basketball. Granted, I'm not talking about all pro basketball now, but I am talking about it now by mentioning that I'm not talking about it. I'm not talking about it now.