242 · Dig Dug II: Trouble in Paradise

• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Dig Dug 2 presents the idea that all islands are Paradise, and that tells me that the devs never visited Long Island
• Gameplay
  • No longer underground. Why?!
  • Top Down View
  • "fault lines" on the map
    • If both ends of a system of faults reach the water, the ground surrounded by them will sink into the ocean, killing all creatures on it, including Taizo himself if the player is not careful. The points earned from this depend on how many enemies are killed at once
    • Essentially you’re carving off chunks of this island with the enemies still on them.
  • You still have air pump though
  • Level Select
    • After the title screen is in place, press Start + Select + A (this may take a few tries).
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Dig Dug: Digging Strike - DS 2005
    • Not exactly this, but basically the top screen is DIG DUG II style and the bottom screen is DIG DUG style gameplay. So you’re kinda doing both at the same time.
  • A reimagined version for PC titled Dig Dug Island, featuring online multiplayer, was released in 2008 exclusively in Japan. However, the game's servers were shut down in just under a year, leaving it unplayable.
• EGL
• Next week - Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II
• NEStalgia Byte - Don’t forget to check out Dig Dug. Patreon.com/NEStalgia

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

00:00 Dig Dug 2, Trouble in Paradise.

00:18 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Sean. Sean, it's just us today, which is fine. That's not Trouble in Paradise, right? Joe's still gonna come back.

00:37 He's lost in Paradise. Oh, okay, I gotcha. Yeah, we'll get there. And, you know, speaking of Trouble in Paradise, Dig Dug 2 presents the idea that, you know, I don't know, like, all islands are Paradise because every map that you play on in this game is on an island, and that's where the trouble is happening. Oh, man. Wow, I did not. I did not put that together. Yeah, and I'm thinking, like, you know, these guys never visited Long Island.

01:04 No. Because that's not Paradise. Or Three Mile Island. I don't even know what Three Mile Island is. Oh, that was a place in Pennsylvania where we had a nuclear meltdown. Whoa. Yeah, you should read up on it. It's pretty fun. Also, we played Dig Dug 1 for the Nostalgia Bites podcast, which is, like, a Patreon-only thing. So we have, like, a weird thing where some of our listeners, the ones who are nice enough to give us money,

01:33 they know a little more about, like, what we think of Dig Dug than, you know, than the guys who are coming in cold here and just experiencing Dig Dug 2. Two questions to follow up on that. One, is it weird that they wouldn't just port Dig Dug 1 over when we've gotten so many other arcade ports? And follow up on that, do you feel like the fan base who gets Dig Dug 2 is missing anything by not getting Dig Dug 1 first?

02:00 I think we actually brought it up in the episode that we found it strange that Dig Dug wasn't released. I mean, because it was an early game, there wasn't, there aren't too many of those launch titles, and it could have just as easily been one.

02:15 But, I mean, compared to this game, there's enough of a difference where I would say if they'd never played Dig Dug, then they might be missing out by not hearing us talk about the first one. Yeah, that's a good point, because if you only played this one, or if you played the first one, I don't think you're expecting this, especially in 2022 where you've seen Dig Dug imagery. I've never seen this version of Dig Dug before, which is just a, it's funny, it's like only Dig Dug in name and inflation. Yeah, I was, I was thinking about that where, like, usually it takes several iterations or several versions of some kind of game or property for the name not to mean anything anymore, but it only took this franchise one.

03:10 And I don't know what we're digging for anymore now. Like, Dig Dug made sense when you were digging underground and getting rid of these monsters and clearing out the way for things. Now it's like... Demolition Man. Well, I was guessing, yeah, like, maybe they dug out of the ground. Maybe Dig Dug was the first game, and this is the Dugging part.

03:31 But the thing that this game... Okay, so, should we go over, like, the premise? Yes, please. Okay, so, as opposed to in the original Dig Dug, where you are just, like, a lowly excavator with some kind of inflation device to fight monsters, you are now tasked with destroying tiny islands that are infested with the same enemies that we had in the first game. But now you're destroying the island, not so much digging out the island, by, like, not really planting charges. You're just jackhammering fault lines, and then the island just falls into the ocean.

04:12 Which reminds me of... I forgot who it was, but it was some... It was some, like, representative in Congress in the 90s who thought that, like... That an island could capsize if something, like, was too heavy. And it just, like, displayed a very strange understanding of what islands and land masses were. He must have played Dig Dug, too. Yeah, I think this might have been where he got that preconception.

04:42 And I think you did a great job describing the game, but I feel like more emphasis needs to be put on these fault lines, because that's ultimately, like, that's the hook of the game, is that there are these predetermined spots on every island. And every island isn't the same. It's not just, like, a giant square or a rectangle. It's, like, unique shapes. But there are these fault lines that are placed. And in a way, you know, there's not much user experimentation.

05:07 But there are, because they carefully place these, there is a chance to get incredibly high bonuses if you strike the lines in the right connection. So this way, a large chunk of the island falls off. It is possible for you to also fall off the island, but that's the risk and reward system of this game. Yeah, I mean, there are kind of puzzles in that way where there is sort of, like, an optimal cutting route.

05:37 But you also have to be mindful of where the enemies are and make sure that, like, they're not on your chunk that isn't going to fall off. Or just trying to optimize the amount of enemies that you're going to get rid of at once.

05:52 And it can be really satisfying when you get, like, a nice combo of, like, oh, everybody fell off and I'm fine. In the beginning of the game, it's very obvious, right? Like, they're almost spelling it out for you how the fault lines work. And, like, most of it's already connected. And you just have to finish the one line, right?

06:09 But later on in the later rounds, it's almost like no lines are connected yet or even, like, made. And you just have to figure out where the poles are and kind of put it together. And I'm not saying it's the hardest thing in the world. But it's definitely one of those things where if you don't pick up on the concept, the later part of this game could involve a lot more of you just inflating enemies and blowing them up to death rather than separating land masses to score maximum points.

06:38 Yeah, and I guess, like, something could be said about whether the learning curve or, like, whether that's too steep or too easy. But I think that they do give you an opportunity to learn.

06:55 But, yeah, like, I guess, do you think that it's too fast, like, going from easy to hard? I think it's fine. Even if it is, like, you know, I mean, I don't know how many rounds are actually in this game. But let's say even after the 10th round, if it starts to get a little more difficult, I feel like that's fine for these kinds of arcade games. And that's, like, again, that's the whole risk-reward thing, right, is that if you spend too much time creating fault lines that don't lead to anything, the enemies are going to start to, you know, close in on you. And then you weren't focused on taking them out.

07:27 So it's just I feel that it could be one of those things that if you don't play this game long enough, like if you just focus on killing enemies, you can probably get through all the rounds. And then it comes down to another thing that, you know, nostalgia always hates on. It comes down to just score, right? That theoretically no enemies in this game are so unstoppable that you would be trapped or unable to solve a puzzle. This is still an action game in some regards where you are in control of your own destiny. It's not a puzzle-solving game.

08:01 So there's a lot going on here where it's like, I don't know, the skill level matters but only really for points. Yeah. Um, because there is enough of like a stun lock when you actually like just shoot your inflatomatic at an enemy where even if you've got a couple piled on top of each other, you should be able to get rid of them. So it really is just, it's putting a lot of focus on does it feel good to destroy the island and are you motivated enough by points to do it?

08:34 Um, but I'd say that like when it comes to comparing this game to the original Dig Dug, uh, where you're sort of like creating a maze for yourself and the enemies to go through and really the only other environmental, uh, effects are like manipulating the rocks that fall down once you kind of get rid of the support below them. Um, and I'd say that while, uh, yeah, like there's, um, that, that game had probably, that was more focused on just inflating enemies. Cause like you could totally ignore the maze aspect and just do the same thing here. I think in Dig Dug 2, um, the fault lines take a bigger prominence than anything that you could do with the mazes in Dig Dug. That's a good point.

09:28 I'm, I'm with you for the most part. I think Dig Dug 2 definitely allows for more customization and options in general in terms of, like you were saying, you mostly would focus on inflating the enemies in Dig Dug 1. And, you know, if you got a rock to land on them, great. But that was probably more luck based than, uh, this fault system. Um, however, I don't know, Dig Dug felt, Dig Dug 1 felt more claustrophobic and that you could screw yourself over if you were focusing on inflating a particular enemy.

09:59 Especially with the way that they can, the enemies can burrow without creating, uh, new escape paths for you. And they could, uh, pop out that way. In this game, because the land masses are, are pretty large, especially as the game opens up more, uh, and tries to become more difficult with removing the land masses. They give you more land. There's a lot to, like, remove yourself from and not get trapped by enemies.

10:21 So I feel like it's just a trade-off thing where the underground aspect was maybe more claustrophobic but simpler. And now this rewards players who, um, you know, who try harder. You don't have to try, I guess, is the whole, like, argument I'm making here. It's like, you don't have to try to be good at this game because of that stun lock and, and the inflation and everything. But it's not going to be satisfying to the, compared to the person who, like, tries to destroy the land masses and take care of multiple enemies at a time. I don't know. I would find the game very boring if I just inflated every enemy. Oh, yeah. There's, there's not enough, there's not enough to that to make it more than, like, a few minutes of enjoyment.

11:03 And I guess that brings up a good question, Sean. Is there enough here to justify, uh, you know, is this a full game? Or is this falling into the usual pitfall of an arcade game where it was better when you put 25 cents in and got what you got and then you walked away from it?

11:21 Yeah, I think it, like, as a, in relation to what I just said, where if it was just the inflation, you'd get, like, a few minutes of enjoyment out of it. This, with the fault lines, I give it, like, a good 20 to 30 minutes of enjoyment. Uh, it's definitely not Super Mario. It definitely doesn't have the same staying power as a game that isn't obviously designed for the arcade first.

11:51 And they just needed some pretty obvious improvements in, uh, I don't know when Dig Dug 2 came out in arcades. I, uh, I want to say, like, 84 or something like that. But it just needed some obvious improvements for 1989 that I think would have really fixed this game for the better. Just, just think about how many enemies they could have also introduced per, maybe every 10 rounds, right? Like, now there's this new guy who's a little more complicated and, uh, he's actually immune to your inflation. Or, uh, he takes more pumps. Yeah, or he can jump, right. Jump, jumping's great, see? Little things like that, I think, would have, uh, would have improved it.

12:27 Um, maybe even something to break up the rounds, uh, like a bonus, uh, thing since they're so focused on the high score. Or, uh, I'm kind of surprised that those things aren't there. But we've seen them in a lot of other games. I think that's what this is missing, is that it's a very straightforward game that, uh, kind of perfectly balances, uh, I think of it like a Kirby game.

12:46 You know, where it's like, Kirby is easy enough that you can just float over all the enemies and you can just inflate all the enemies in Dig Dug. But if you wanted to also approach the game from a high score mechanics perspective, or in Kirby, if you wanted to play, like, the hard mode, uh, which is only unlocked after you beat the game usually. If you want to do that stuff, it's there, and it's fun for skilled players who already, like, got their fix. I feel like Dig Dug 2 kind of needed that, you know, not new game plus, but, like, after you complete all the rounds, a harder difficulty mode or something else. Like, now do it without being able to inflate enemies or something.

13:23 Or it has charges or something. Right, right. But when we were talking earlier about, like, a learning curve, at least about how the fault lines work and the arrangements, like, that's really just if you're trying to play the game how it was designed. And, like, there really isn't too much of a learning curve because, like, you could just ignore them, like we were saying. Uh, I think, like, when, in terms of these levels, there really isn't too much of, like, like, if there was actually difficulty increasing, uh, that would be, like, a different game. Because really all that's happening in this one is the levels are different. Different arrangements, not entirely, like, harder arrangements.

14:07 And it's not that I want them, because one of the ideas I think is suggested in the harder mode is to get rid of the inflation. It's not that the, uh, air pump is bad. Uh, I actually think that's, like, that's the thing that makes it uniquely Dig Dug. That's Dig Dug, yeah. I think it's the stun lock on the air pump that ruins the game because, like you said, that's the, that's the ability to just, like, hit every enemy that's around you, stun them really quick,

14:30 and then remove yourself from the situation, uh, to gain more time, you know, it's like, if, if they just made it to this way, you had to commit to your pump, like, once you lock onto somebody, it's either pump them or, uh, or walk away. And who knows, maybe the stun lock would be, yeah, that's weird. Um, maybe the stun lock would be if how long you pump them, like, they have to then deflate to come back into battle. Maybe that's enough of a stun lock.

14:58 Yeah, uh, because I know that you can just, you can continue, there's no, like, combo break if you take your attention away. They basically stay there and they'll only take another hit or two so that, like, you could just crowd control everyone. So, like, yeah, if, if it made it so that you, like, could only sort of, like, stun, but that wouldn't contribute to actually destroying, uh, maybe that would add some, some challenge.

15:30 This is one of the few games that we've played with a level select feature, which I feel like all arcade games on the NES should have just came with at this point because they were probably so popular in the arcades that for most people, they didn't want to always have to start at level one again. Uh, it's pressing start, select, and the A button, uh, all at the title screen. Might take a few tries, though, because any one of those things also enters you into the game. So, if you accidentally don't press all three simultaneously, you run the risk of, uh, entering the game normally. So, uh, maybe they should have thought about that.

16:05 I mean, did you choose to level select anything? No, I, I, yeah. I could care less. Yeah, uh, for me, the, you know, the round 31 wasn't like, oh, now Dig Dug 2 is getting somewhere, you know?

16:21 I don't think I got there. But we've ran into that, I think, at least with Dig Dug 2. We've ran into a problem with, uh, I think it was way back, Wrecking Crew, where they did let you level select, uh, and I think they had 99 levels, and, like, the 99th level wasn't, like, particularly any more challenging than the early levels. It was just, like, another different way of doing a Wrecking Crew level.

16:46 Uh, don't hold me to that, I'm not saying it's, like, as easy as level one, but it definitely wasn't, like, this, you know, now we put our hardest one. Same thing with, it was Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle, if you remember. Which, uh, isn't the title of that game, it's THE Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle. I like the first one better, but. Right. No, I know exactly what you mean, like, they're just different, they're not, they're not more difficult, there's just 32, whatever, however many levels there are, different levels, not, not harder levels. Yeah, and I actually don't know how many there are, but I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say, like, 50. I don't feel like there were more than 50.

17:26 On the sequels and spinoff side, it'd be interesting to note that, uh, there's probably a bunch of other Dig Dug games, and I think in the Bites episodes we were talking about the Mr. Driller series, which is kind of a, uh, spiritual sequel or whatever. But, um, today I want to talk about Dig Dug Digging Strike for the Nintendo DS.

17:46 Is that, like, is that now he's a baseball player? See, I was, I was hoping you would actually get it, uh, but Digging Strike does imply baseball, maybe. Um, no, you see, Digging Strike is finally, like, again, somebody at the company, um, just had, like, they had an amazing idea where they were like, what if we take, and it's not exactly this, but follow it along. What if we took Dig Dug 2's top screen style and made that the top screen, and then the bottom screen is the Dig Dug 1 style gameplay?

18:20 So, using the DS dual screen, you are, like, on the island, right? Wait, it's like, is it two, is it, it's like two planes making a three-dimensional game? Uh, almost, except for your character isn't on both at the same time, obviously. You can be, like, up on the island taking care of enemies up there and then dig a hole and go down into the, um, into the Dig Dug 1 style gameplay from the island. I feel like that is a pretty cool combination of the two games and is much better of a Dig Dug thing than, uh, what we, what we suggested this one might have been, where, like, this is the dugging part. Yeah. No, I, I, I like that. Did you, did you play it? I did, because I have a hacked 3DS, so I can do that.

19:08 And, um, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't pay for this game. But I will say, uh, I think it made, I don't know, like, it made it interesting, right, as, like, a concept and everything. And the guy who came up with the idea of combining two Dig Dug arcade games into the same thing, like, it's like, why have we never seen the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Gameplays mixed like that, uh, by Nintendo? It's a really neat idea. It's not, like, it's not an incredible game. Doesn't, uh, it doesn't necessarily do anything more for me than Dig Dug 1 or 2 did on their own. It just makes it that now they're both happening at the same time.

19:44 I guess, you know, there's no consequence for what's happening on the top screen while you're in the bottom screen, and they interact only a little bit. Yeah, I, at least I would say that maybe that makes it, uh, that, like, sort of, like, going back and forth between the two modes of gameplay makes it so that you don't really get tired of one or the other too quickly. But that's still, like, a problem if 30 to 40 seconds of being on one screen might lead you to be bored of it.

20:16 And then, uh, a reimagined version of Dig Dug 2 was released for computers titled Dig Dug Island, and it had online multiplayer. It was released in 2008 exclusively in Japan. You can find YouTube videos. However, uh, because the servers are no longer active, it's just unplayable. This is not a game that you could even emulate today. I think I saw that on the Wikipedia page, uh, and that it only ran for less than a year, so it was barely ever a game. I'm not sure what they were thinking, uh, by taking the lesser-known Dig Dug game, Dig Dug 2, and, uh, being like, oh, that's the one that's gonna be an MMO.

21:01 I guess Dig Dug 1 was too much of a sacred lamb to be, uh, bastardized like that. See, this is Namco Bandai, the same people who make Pac-Man games, and why don't they just do what they did with the, uh, Pac-Man verse, and just do that for everything? Do Dig Dug verse? Like, imagine if there was one person's the Digger, and four people are either, uh... Ooh, that asymmetric multiplayer there. Yeah, you know, the other four are the enemies, and it's like, can you stop him? Like, I don't know, this is a Mario Party minigame, right, at least?

21:35 Where it's like, you know, the 3v1, like, that's all this is, but I feel like that's a great implementation of that, and to the failure that it only ever happened to Pac-Man when it, when so many other arcade games are calling for it. I get that Pac-Man's the most iconic one, but it must have sold well, too, so just do it for all the other ones. I agree, and I would, I would spill my beer on a, uh, on a table version of Dig Dug Extreme Remix. I'll tell you one thing. The people listening to this episode are gonna spill their beer if we vote for this game on the Essential Games list.

22:15 Wait, are you saying that they, okay. Right, and I only say that because we have been, um, we've been pretty harsh on it, or not kind to it. Yeah, I mean, I guess they would spill their beer if we voted it onto the Essential Games list, but, like, we have to vote for it one way or the other, so they shouldn't be surprised by that, right? Yeah, they, yeah, they, they can't believe that, uh, for the 240-something episode in a row, we're doing the Essential Games list.

22:46 But, Sean, we always go you first. Okay, me first. So, please. It has to be unanimous today. Yes. And I will say, uh, well, I, okay, I really like the, the, the spin. I, I don't think I'm a Dig Dug purist and think that it has to be about digging holes, even though that's the name. Um, I, I really like this idea of complete environmental destruction. Um, but, the fact of the matter is that you don't need to do the most interesting thing in the game to win the game. Uh, and that's, that's a problem. So, I would say that Dig Dug 2, Trouble in Paradise is not an essential game.

23:32 And, Sean, you know, just so everybody knows it, it's you who made it out of contention. It's true. I, we, I hold the power. We make you the fall guy. Uh, that's why we have you go first, uh, just to get things out of the way. You control the momentum. I, I think, uh, your vote, you know, probably the most important one in the whole show. Eh. Well, I'm not gonna lie. Dig Dug 2 has some trouble. In Paradise.

23:59 Well, here's the thing. All right, I think we've said everything that could be said about, uh, this game. And I, I actually think, like, we were mostly pretty nice to it. So, that's why I changed my harsh thing to just more, like, not kind. Yeah. I compliment a lot of these features. And, in fact, what Dig Dug 2 did in just one entry from Dig Dug 1 is something that Pac-Man couldn't do for a long time.

24:20 And when we finally got there, because we did record, uh, Pac-Land for Nostalgia Bites as well, when we got there, it was, like, not impressive. At least to the three of us. Uh, I, I know some people actually do have fond memories with Pac-Land. I'll just say Dig Dug 2. Uh, a much, a much better, uh, spin on, on a game without just being like, it's Dig Dug 1 with more levels. Like, honestly, that's what I was expecting.

24:47 Yeah. Because I don't look at these games ahead of time. Like, maybe if the animation was awesome for that, it would be, like, more exciting or something. Or if you could somehow chain parts of the island. Like, if they just did a little more. Yeah. And there'd be, like, cool combo animations, man. Exactly. Uh, I, I feel like otherwise, you know, whether you, the goal is to just complete all the enemies off the screen. And that's, uh, that's just not a very exciting thing in, uh, 1989 when we're having games do, like, narrative stories now and send you on quests. That's true. Yeah. We, we, we need, we need more dialogue in Dig Dug 3. I don't even know if we're gonna get a Dig Dug 3. Uh, Dig Dug Digging Strike might have been the next best thing.

25:58 But there's that Mr. Driller series. Well, I hope it's got romance. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, hopefully that's got romanceable companions. Well, next week, Iron Sword, which is actually Wizards and Warriors 2. Uh, we'll be playing, we'll be playing that. And, yeah, I think that's an interesting, wouldn't it be Wizards and Warriors 2 Iron Sword? But instead, Wizards and Warriors 2 is the subtitle.

26:20 I feel like that's, that's not the first time I've seen something like that. In video games or in general? No, no, no. In video games. Wasn't, wasn't, like, Zelda 2, like? No. Never mind. Zelda 2, The Adventure of Link. Yeah. I'm, I'm embarrassing myself right now. Never mind. That's okay. Actually, no, you're not embarrassing yourself because the, the interesting thing about that one is that's the only one that, like, drops Link's name into the title. Other than Link's crossbow training on the Nintendo Wii.

26:47 The classic. Yeah. An absolute banger of a game. I don't know. I just think, like, that's a unique thing. Like, they've already got my attention, right? We've been talking about Wizards and Warriors 2 just as much as we've been talking about Dig Dug 2 now.

26:59 Also funny that we're getting two sequels that both choose the Roman numeral 2. And guys, we can riff like this for as long as you need. So turn off the podcast whenever you want. Unless you really like that music at the end because there's also probably a skip feature on your podcast. Don't hit skip. Don't, don't hit skip. See, now, if they hit skip before that, they wouldn't know that you didn't want it. Well, I mean, that's why I try to be as quick as possible with the, I don't know. What I'm saying is if you like Roman numerals, what you want to do is learn more about Roman history because that's where that comes from.

27:36 Where, where can they do that, Mike? They can do that at www.nostalgiacast.com. We'll be publishing an article on the history of the Romans and the numerals and the war between them. The great Roman numeral war.

27:51 Yes. Two. And don't forget, too, if you were like, oh, I wanted to hear more about Dig Dug 1 or Packland since I kind of name dropped that one. Don't forget to check out Nostalgia Bites because we have a whole Dig Dug episode. We have a Packland episode. And I don't know, we're going to have lots more episodes. It's only every month, but it gets you access to a lot of other cool stuff, too. Like your name on the website and access to our Discord. We're playing games with people. We're setting high scores.

28:18 We're, you know. Discussing things. That aren't video games. Right. Yeah, we have an off-topic section. Kind of, you could expect mostly what we've been doing for the last five minutes to also happen on the Discord off-topic. So if benign subjects are more your thing. Yeah. Give us $5. I'm a big fan of mundanity. We'll be right back.