249 · The Uncanny X-Men

• It’ll take all of your mutant powers to defeat Magneto
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
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  • X-Men
    • Kinda confusing ever since the beginning because even issue #1 had Marvel Girl
  • Fav X-Man?
• Overview
  • Choose your X-Men Sueprhero and an AI/2nd Player Superhero to enter any stage of your choosing. Clear the area of constantly spawning enemies as you try to get closer to the Supervillain at the end of each stage. All levels are played Top-Down
• Gameplay
  • The most interesting part of the X-men are their unique powers. How unique does each character feel?
    • Wolverine - Melee combat
    • Colossus - Melee combat
    • Nightcrawler - Melee but can walk through walls (loses health)
    • Cyclops - Projectile combat
    • Storm - Projectile combat and can fly
    • Iceman - Projectile combat and can fly
  • 2 player because the X-Men are always a team, how did the concept pan out?
    • You can easily be screwed if your teammate isn’t nightcrawler because AI can get stuck.
    • AI feels like a liability, maybe they should’ve taken note from TMNT and made it so you could cycle through the X-Men characters by pausing
  • if you can kill one type of enemy you can kill them all
  • According to the back of the box It’s up to you to defeat Magneto of course that’s if you can even find him
    • Hidden code after beating each level plus needing the box
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Wolverine - NES 1991
    • side-scrolling action game
  • X-Men arcade game 1992
    • Probably the most famous X-Men game. And lets as many as 6 people be the X-Men at once
  • There are 52 X-Men Video Games
• EGL
  • very simple and repetitive. I don’t feel like I’m the X-Men while playing this game. Which is the bare minimum they should’ve hoped to accomplish.
• NEStalgia Byte - Kid Dracula

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

00:00 Uncanny X-Men. It'll take all of your mutant powers to defeat Magneto.

00:20 And welcome to the Nostalgia Black Friday Special. For an unlimited time only, we're bringing you the biggest savings in podcast history. Over 250 episodes of our show completely free. And as a special doorbuster. For our Patreon subscribers, they are getting this episode on Thanksgiving.

00:45 You too can save, not your money, but your time when you join our Patreon and get access to certain episodes hours earlier. So stampede over now and pay for your discount. And listen to this episode again on Cyber Monday for double the savings. And I'm Mike.

01:09 Can I speak to your manager? That sounds like the perfect kind of Black Friday lingo to continue this conversation, Joe. Thanks. That's me. I'm Joe. Yeah, we're recording. I'm Sean. There's no better way to get into an episode on Black Friday than to talk about all the savings of your own time when you don't have to play the game anymore. You can just listen to our review of Uncanny X-Men on the NES. I've been waiting all Thanksgiving for this. Like I ate some food because my family made me.

01:45 Um, but now I'm here and I'm ready to spend some cash. Yeah. I mean, I hate when I have to work right after Thanksgiving on Black Friday, but here I am. Joe, do you have any actual experience in retail on Black Friday? I do. I do. Uh, I used to work at Sears. Uh, shout out to Sears and my old Sears crew. Uh, and I actually liked it. I actually, oh, I loved working at Sears. I just made commission and I loved working on Black Friday because I made commission. So it was, uh, usually a pretty fruitful day. How old are you? I know, right? You know, this was in the forties.

02:20 I just don't, but that's why I loved it. Listen, that's why I love it. Not to make this a Sears episode, but you get me going about Sears and I'll go on. That's why I loved it because in, you know, in 2014 or whenever it was 2013, when I was working there, nobody goes to Sears anymore. Yeah. So, and all my friends work there. So we just hang out. There were no customers. And then we get like one or two customers a day. I sold appliances. So that was still enough commission to make more than I had made in other part-time jobs. And then I would just hang out with my friends the rest of the day. No customers.

02:48 Plus the fact that we made straight commission meant that they couldn't tell us to do anything else because we weren't getting paid to do any other tasks other than to sell. So it was great. It's like you were a mutant who had mutant powers to sell appliances, to sell washing machines. I'm an ex-employee and an ex-salesman. Ooh. Oh yeah. Ex-salesman. The uncanny ex-salesman. Yeah. Yeah. It was uncanny that I worked at Sears. Mike, what? Well, I have a question about, about X-Men. Sure. Um, the price, you can get it for $12 on eBay.

03:23 Um, no, this is actually a real question about nerdy things, but is, is uncanny X-Men like the original like name of the, the, the property? Is that like a, a section of X-Men-dom? Yes. It's a section. It's a section of, of the X-Men. So the uncanny X-Men thing is, uh, is the original, like the very first issue of X-Men, the creation of the X-Men, if you will, did not have them be known as the uncanny X-Men. It was just the X-Men.

03:57 So what makes like, what, what, what makes uncanny X-Men different? Come on, you're, you know this. Yeah. Well, no. So it's like weird because there's also like what's giant size X-Men too, because that's like also a very, uh, in demand issue of the X-Men series. But it's like weird, like in the canon, is that a different run of X-Men? Like what's going on? Basically, they change the names of these things when, um, when like new characters are introduced or, uh, so for instance, like the uncanny X-Men, I believe started with like issue, uh, like maybe 67 or 94.

04:34 One of those two, um, they started just referring to them as that instead, kind of like how, you know, the Spider-Man is the amazing Spider-Man, but then there's also web of Spider-Man and spectacular Spider-Man, right? It's like the differences is like the story that there's kind of stories that they're telling and who the audience is for. But then like giant size X-Men was like an entire, uh, new idea of X-Men. Like, uh, that one had like now Wolverines with the X-Men and stuff like that instead of being like a Hulk villain. Um, and they're all like seven feet tall.

05:08 Uh, in the, oh, I get you. Yeah. No, no, no. It's just giant size because it was like 64 pages or something like that. Oh, okay. All right. So canonically uncanny X-Men is no, like, is not on some different universe than like what had come before it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's just, they just kind of started branding it differently. Think of uncanny X-Men no different than new mutants, which was another run of the X-Men. That's just like, it features different X-Men in it, but the X-Men, because that's, it's trickier than Spider-Man, right? Spider-Man's one dude. He's whether it's spectacular or amazing.

05:42 Oh yeah. Yeah. He's not always one dude. That's true. But for the most part, he was one dude throughout the history of things. Yeah. And then with the X-Men, it's like, this isn't like the Fantastic Four, because there's still always just four of them.

05:55 The X-Men is like, you know, mutants in general are considered X-Men in this world. And so, uh, the number of X-Men, I think at one point was really large. And then, uh, I think it was like over 600 or whatever. And then they did like a, a big comic book event like they do every year. And they did one where they just like killed like half or almost all of the mutants thanks to, um, Wanda. Oh, that's great. The Scarlet Witch. Hmm. Yeah. Well, it's particularly confusing, the uncanny thing to me, because nowhere in this game that I could find, does it say uncanny X-Men. That's true. Even the title screen just says Marvel's X-Men. Yeah, it's just on the box, I think. Oh, yeah. I think it was in the manual. I didn't actually look at the box art.

06:41 But I feel like the uncanny X-Men, uh, thing, like, like that's good branding, right? Like to, because that's what the comic book was probably being referred to around that same time. So it'd be like calling a game Spider-Man and not the amazing Spider-Man. Like the, the most popular comic series for Spider-Man was, and still is, the amazing Spider-Man. That'd be a real amateur move. Be like, I don't get it. Is this game not uncanny?

07:07 I guess my point is that, like, what, you know, what, the, the PS4 Spider-Man, that's called Marvel's Spider-Man, correct? It would be like if the box said Marvel's Spider-Man, but then the title screen just said Spider-Man. I'm looking at my box right now, and I think it just says Marvel's Spider-Man, yeah. Yeah, but I think that's what the title screen says too, right? True that. Right. So you have a branding issue right off the bat on the titles. Bad game. Yeah. That, you're just not going to let them walk away from that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

07:36 Kind of confusing, though, that they're called the X-Men at all, right? We've been saying X-Men, X-Men, X-Men, but even issue number one had Marvel Girl, who's not in this game, but she's a woman. I don't know. They tried to demean her and call her just a girl, but, you know, where's my X-Women representation? Why is it X-Men? I feel like it's just more of a, it just sounds better as a word than, like, X-Citizens? X-People. X-People, X-Citizens. Yeah, I mean, I'm assuming that the men was coming from, like, the sort of, like, dated version of men, which was referring to just, like, mankind. Yeah, like, you know, human. It doesn't really use much anymore, but.

08:20 X-Men. Maybe it's just, like, X-Men. Well, you know, it's interesting, because comics of this time period, the early 60s, you know, they had women superheroes like Marvel Girl and Miss Invisible on the Fantastic Four. But even Miss Invisible, like, she, she's, like, still relegated to doing, like, the chores for the Fantastic Four as well. Like, she's still responsible to, like, clean the headquarters. And they, like, talk about it.

08:49 Storm wasn't in the original X-Men run, so I don't know if they ever were misogynistic towards her later on in the run, but. Well, I'm sure, you know, law of averages. Right, right. But Storm was not in original X-Men. And the original X-Men, I think I could try to get them off the top of my head, but Cyclops, Angel, Marvel Girl.

09:13 I feel like, is it Iceman? What is that guy's name? It's, like, an Iceman. Yeah, Iceman. At least that's what it is in the game. Yeah, and one other. But who knows what it is on the cover. No, it is Iceman. It is Iceman. I know. And then one other that I can't remember, but people are going to yell at me. They're Nightcrawlers. I'm just cheating. I'm looking at the issue. It's Beast. Oh, you're talking about the comic. Yeah, the original run. Yeah, sorry. Right now. Okay. We're still just talking about the comic, but if we want to move over to the game, that's fine. No, no, no. I'm down to keep talking. I like to learn things. Do you have a favorite X-Men? I got more Sears stuff.

09:50 You know, I think I'm pretty basic, and I'm a Wolverine fan. Maybe I'm just a Hugh Jackman fan, though. Like, I don't really know how much of Sony's X-Men. Is it Sony? It's Sony, right? Whoever makes the X-Men movies.

10:10 Fox. Yeah, them. I don't know how much of Hugh Jackman's performance was inspired by the actual Wolverine of the comics, but I like him. I'm kind of not super familiar with most X-Men stuff, so most of my knowledge is from maybe the one Fox movie that I saw, or the two Fox movies that I saw, and from anything in the MCU that's starting to reference. So I don't have much to pull from. I mean, Wanda? I don't know. I think Magneto has a pretty cool reason to be evil. I think he's a pretty well-rounded villain. That's true, yeah. And how much longer is the Magneto villain thing going to make sense?

10:51 You know, like, we're so far away from World War II now. He's just going to have to be really, really old if they want to keep that going. Well, he could be frozen on ice or something, like Captain America. That's a good idea. Let's do that. Done. When I buy Disney.

11:12 I'm easy. I'm a fan of Cyclops. I just like the idea that he just wears, like, as a kid, I didn't even think it was a power. I thought it was just sunglasses that he wore that shot out those beams. And I was like, oh, that's cool. Anybody could be Cyclops. Like, Spider-Man, impossible for me. I'd have to be bit by a spider. Cyclops, I just put on some cool headgear.

11:32 That raises the question, though, like, of Cyclops' pre-visor. Like, when he was born, did he have this power? Like, did he kill the doctor that delivered him? And, like, things like that. Like, I don't know. I want to see that origin story.

11:47 I'm sure it's hands-ers. Yeah, Cyclops year one. Give us the birth of Cyclops. Yeah. In the Uncanny X-Men video game, you do get to play as Cyclops, as well as, I think Sean was kind of rounding them out for me, but it's Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Storm, and Iceman. Yeah, sorry. And you choose your X-Man superhero and also choose an AI or have a second player choose their superhero to enter any stage of your choosing. So it's kind of like Mega Man, but not really.

12:33 You enter a level. You clear the area of constantly spawning enemies in these levels as you try to get closer and closer to the supervillain at the end of the stage. All levels are played in this, like, top-down Zelda dungeon style with you and your partner X-Man in the stage.

12:52 I think the most interesting part of the X-Men are their unique powers. So, guys, how unique does each character feel? Well, there's, like, the two powers, right? In X-Men? Yeah, what do you mean? Yeah, yeah.

13:08 Those who can punch and those who can punch. Do they punch? Is that what they're doing? They're, like, hand-butting. Yeah, some, like, swipe at you. Like, that, I, yeah, all the X-Men are either swipers or spewers. Um, and, so, basically, in the game, there are two attacks. Some of the X-Men can, uh, shoot a, a vaguely themed projectile, uh, at an enemy, or they can just sort of lunge and, like, presumably punch, um, if they don't have lasers that come out of their eyes or ice cubes that are generated from their chest or something.

13:49 Um, and that's, those are the weapons. Yeah, and it kind of, it kind of adds, adds fires to that age-old debate of what's more powerful, a weapon that you can fire at someone from a distance out of harm's way, or, uh, not doing that.

14:05 Some would say that there's more honor in sort of just vaguely swiping at someone. Right, right. Yeah. But it is, yeah, it is, you know, I did not see, um, much of a reason to ever choose a character that didn't have a projectile weapon. But I'm not an honorable guy. No, I get it. But, like, Wolverine, for instance, is a, is an X-Man who would, X-Man, I'm making him, like, singular now.

14:28 Um, I love it. I don't know what the singular is. I'm just, we're just gonna roll with it and say that they're X-Men, even if they're talking about them singularly. So, Wolverine would just attack with his claws. So, in this game, they've made it so that, uh, whether it looks like he's attacking with his claws or not, it's melee combat for him. And Colossus would attack with his fists, I suppose. He's really strong. Uh, and so it looks like exactly the same thing. And doesn't, basically, the difference between playing Wolverine or Colossus means nothing. It just, it's, like, style points for you, whether you like a certain character more.

15:01 Yeah. I mean, there are some vague stats. He's probably faster. Like, Wolverine's probably faster. Right, right. And we can talk about how much those things mean. Yeah, in the game. Um, but, uh, Nightcrawler, who is also melee, he, at least they, like, gave the, um, the teleportation thing, where he can just walk through walls to simulate the idea of him teleporting.

15:23 Like, that actually feels like a step in the right direction of making a character feel unique, because it even comes at the expense of hit points. So, you know, like, they, like, I feel like there's gotta be at least one thing that they could have done that only, like, Colossus can do to the environments. Like, he could break the walls. Yeah. Or, like, shake things or something. But they didn't do that.

15:46 They didn't. Or, like, couldn't, couldn't, I mean, isn't Wolverine's whole thing, he, like, regenerates? Couldn't he just, like, slowly regain health or something? Right. I think that just gave him more health. Yeah. Yeah, but I like your idea, Joe. Just, because, yeah, he is immortal. In that sense. But, I mean, right, right. But, yeah, I actually didn't know about, what is it, Nightcrawler? I didn't even know about his special power. I mean, I did try to play as everybody, but, you know, I must have just not realized that I could walk through walls when I played as him. I don't think I played as him for very long. You were just respecting the boundaries. Right. I was like, I know what the developers wanted here. I don't want to glitch.

16:24 Well, yeah, that's exactly what it looks like, too, though, Joe. It's not, it doesn't have a cool effect. You just walk through the environment. No. It doesn't, it's just to pretend the idea of teleportation because they couldn't figure out how to let a character teleport in this game. Cyclops, Storm, and Iceman are the projectile people.

16:45 However, Cyclops is the weakest of the batch because he can only do projectile combat. Storm and Iceman get the ability to fly, and I get it. Like, Iceman must be, like, flying via the snow that he's generating and riding, like, an avalanche or something. Yeah. But Storm, I don't know. Like, you know, that makes sense for her, for sure, to fly. And also she shoots, like, lightning bolts instead of the laser beams that Cyclops shoots out. And then. It kind of just looks like fire, but I, I mean, they describe it as lightning, so I'll take that. Right, we're being nice.

17:19 Yeah. And that's, that's how these characters feel. And, you know, Joe, you were saying, like, you know, the stats might be different and everything, but I don't know if it's just the amount of enemies in this game or whatever, but it didn't feel like the difference between Wolverine and Colossus meant anything through my, you know, a bit limited playtesting with them.

17:43 Yeah, I mean, I, I agree. I mean, I think that, I believe that the stats are different because they say they are. I don't believe it because I experienced any difference. Like, like, I think that you all, like, you get, you get, you pick up health so frequently. There are just so many enemies. You kill them really pretty easily as anyone that you are.

18:04 Apparently there are some speed differences, but you never really need to move that fast or anything. I mean, there's a couple of times you got to, like, get through a sliding door quickly or something, but, like, I don't know if, like, your speed stat really contributes too much to that, like, one step you need to do. Um, so, yeah, like, I'm sure that there is, like, some damage calculation happening where it's, like, your projectile is more powerful, but, like, most enemies die in, like, one or two hits anyways.

18:31 So, I don't know. I, I, I never really felt the difference between anything. Yeah, I also, um, there's a, there are, so there's speed, strength, uh, I forget what the other two are, but one of them is willpower. Power, endurance, speed, and willpower. Yeah, I don't know what willpower is supposed to signify. Um, it, if it has to do with, like, maybe you take less damage, then, I don't know, maybe just give that person more HP. I, I don't know, like, I, did you guys, do you guys know what willpower is?

19:04 I should, but I don't. I mean, I remember actually making a mental note of, like, I gotta look that up. Um, I did read through, I mean, admittedly, I wasn't, like, super thorough in reading the manual, but I don't remember seeing it even in the manual. I think they just listed them.

19:18 These are the four things. Right, that's what I was gonna say, Sean, is, like, I'm, I'm not sold that, because, yeah, you're right, Joe, they're not listed in the manual. I, you know, I went back and even checked, like, game FAQs to see if, like, the guide on there says, like, what these hidden stats could mean. It's not even mentioned at all. Um, so I wonder if this is, like, one of those marvel.com things where, uh, people get really upset about this, where they give, like, a power scale to every Marvel character that's ever existed. And when you're ranking, like, 2,000 characters, you're bound to just have, like, erroneous eras, where it's, like, uh, you know, Spider-Man's power is a 7 and Hulk's is a 9.

19:54 It's, like, Spider-Man would get lit up by Hulk. Like, two power points isn't even, like, that big of a difference. And those are made up. I'm just saying, like, there's many examples of stuff like that. I wonder if this is just for creative flair of, like, what their stats could be, uh, based on, like, you know, the, to give them some building without actually building it out into the gameplay.

20:16 I will state that I did feel a difference with speed. So at least speed, I feel that is a real thing, uh, those differences. But, yeah, the one that, the willpower, I don't even know what it means, so I don't know how to prove that. Some players just give up. If they have low willpower, then the AI computer just stops. It describes you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

20:58 It's two players, always, because the X-Men are always a team, right? Uh, you can't just be one X-Men. It's not the Wolverine game. Uh, we'll play that one. Well, I think that they, I think that they also don't know how to, like, singularize X-Men. So I just always make sure there's two players on screen. They just dodged that conversation. They didn't want to ask, they didn't want to ask Stan Lee at the time. They were like, can we say X-Men? Like, probably not.

21:20 No, no, no, no. But it brings up a good point of, like, you know, when you have a team idea, in modern games, there would be, like, some kind of, like, puzzle solving of, like, you know, teaming up these two characters means that the gameplay is going to play different than if you were Storm and Nightcrawler, right? But instead, it's just kind of, like, you're tied down to this AI player if you don't have a friend. Or, you know, you're tied down to your friend's choice, too. But the AI one has the ability to, like, get stuck and just end the game for you. Basically softlock itself where it can't figure out how to move around the wall.

22:01 And that's, like, a, that's just a huge problem that, like, you know, in my experience of playing this game, I ran into it in my first 15 minutes, so I can't imagine playtesters didn't notice that this could happen. And so you have to play, like, with Nightcrawler to really guarantee that that won't happen because at least he can teleport through the walls.

22:22 Oh, you know what? I didn't even think of that. But, yeah, it seems like whatever they did with this AI model, like, it is, it's just way too rudimentary. And maybe if every screen was just a, like, a field of enemies with no obstacles, like, maybe it would work then. Even though I've seen the AI completely glitch out and just start walking back and forth, shooting projectiles over and over. Like, many times. Like, within the first 30 seconds of playing.

22:57 Maybe it would happen less. But they, you know, they didn't want it to be a complete bore. So they made you have to walk around things. But their AI does not know how to do that. But, yeah, I guess Nightcrawler fixes that. Yeah, I mean, I was initially kind of, like, before I played it, when I just kind of saw what was going to happen, a little impressed. Because I couldn't remember, like, what other games have we played in the NES that had an AI companion? No, I can't think of one. Have we? Yeah, I feel like that was, like, I was, like, surprised that that was, that that was happening, you know, that was doable. Then it made sense once I booted it up and it just doesn't work.

23:38 But at first I was like, wow, that's pretty ambitious for the NES. And I don't know really anything about coding video games and stuff. But I know that, like, for enemies, it's usually a, like, a heat-seeking missile kind of thing. Where it knows your placement and just the enemies behave a little bit randomly. But they also know where you are and try to, like, shoot at you or move towards you. In this game, you can see that happening.

24:04 But because, like, walls are in the way, it's kind of funny that sometimes even enemies will act, like, really stupid. And just, like, hug the side of a wall thinking that they're shooting their projectiles at you. But they just constantly repeat them into a wall at Infidium until you come to them. But the AI does that too. So really it's like you're tagging along with, um, it's like a rescue mission thing, you know, where you just have to, like, hope that, uh, your AI character survives alongside you. I don't think you're penalized if they die, though. Like, you can just play on without them. But, uh, that's hoping that they die and don't get stuck.

24:45 If you can kill one type of enemy, you can kill them all. There's, there's different sprites for enemies. But the idea is just attack the enemy and, or shoot the projectile at the enemy and then it dies. Nothing behaves differently in this game. It's just kind of like a smorgasbord of ideas of not even things that I recognize from the comics or anything. I'm not really sure, you know, you could, you could complain about the constantly respawning enemies. You could complain about the designs of the enemies. I think the most boring thing is just that the behavior of the enemies and how you just have to kind of, like, deal with them is the worst part of this game. If they were, if they were fun to fight, that, that'd be a different story.

25:31 I'd say, yeah, the only difference, like, there are different sprites and those different sprites move slightly differently. And then you've got some that are different shapes. Like, you've got little snakes that run around, but only their head is a hitbox, I think. So, uh, they may as well just be, uh, um, uh, just be another, like, single square wide thing. Um, and I guess, like, yeah, I mean, it's not like, it's all just, like, palette swapped, but there really isn't any difference in terms of their strength or, uh, how hard they are to kill. It's, it's pretty boring.

26:11 And I don't know if that comes down to just the repetitiveness of, it doesn't matter, like, really which X-Men you are, because, you know, because you can only either shoot your projectile or, or hit them. I don't know if that's what makes it boring, but I'm thinking about this game as, like, something where it doesn't really matter, like, what you're, you might as well just dodge everything and keep moving forward, uh, to get to the boss. Because these enemies, they're just, like, in your way. They're not really, like, causing much harm, right?

26:45 Yeah. Well, it's, it's not even, for me, it's not even, like, moving forward. Like, the moving forward part, even. Like, I, I kind of started doing what you're saying, is, like, I kind of stopped paying too much attention to the enemy unless they were in my way. Or I needed health, which was an easy way to just get more health. But moving forward is even, like, not super clear.

27:04 Like, I feel like there's this aimlessness to the, to the, to the whole game as a whole. Like, in general. Where I'm like, oh, I don't know. I mean, I guess I could go this way. And, like, no, you can't. But there's no wall there. You can't go there. There's a wall here, but you can go through that one. Like, or, you know, you can go past this part. Like, I'm just like, I don't.

27:20 It's not, it doesn't feel like a dungeon or a puzzle or a maze. It just feels like a mess. Yeah, I wasn't sure for most of this game where I was supposed to go. And so then I thought, okay, maybe it's a, like, you have to kill a certain amount of enemies. And it's sort of like a, like, it's a clear of the stage. And then I ended up just doing that for a while. And then I ended up stepping on a, some kind of sprite that was supposed to be some kind of entrance or something. And I went somewhere else. I'm like, oh, okay, maybe I'm making progress. And then I did that for a while and didn't know where the hell I was. I eventually made it to a boss. But I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know how to get back.

28:08 Yeah, well, that's the other thing. I mean, in the manual, it gives you your objective, which is, like, get to the boss, beat the boss, whatever, and then get out. But, like, getting, even the beginning of the stage is just, like, you just get to a spot. And it's like, all right, you won. And it's not even, like, a door you have to get out. You're just like, oh, that's the spot. There's nothing marking it or anything. Like, I guess you have to remember exactly the spot you started in. But, like, they're big stages. So it's like, just the whole thing feels aimless.

28:32 I'm thinking about another team-based game we had, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And not that we were, like, fond of that game or, you know, maybe we weren't as harsh as people might have expected us to be. But that game kind of made the Turtles feel at least a little bit different with the way that their weapons were. And you live-swapped them as opposed to, like, being forced to, like, drag Donatello through the stage. You could just choose to be like, now I'm going to be Donatello or now I'm going to be Raphael. And mostly that was just to manage your health and make sure you, like, you know, continued on.

29:08 But, you know, that's a game where, too, there's, like, the idea of just going across level to level and finding the end point. But it didn't feel as obtuse as this. And I don't know if that's because that game was a side-scrolling platformer where things were maybe laid out a little clearer or more what we're used to in this top-down thing.

29:30 Specifically in, like, that space level. I don't even know if it's space or not. But I think the difference between this game and that game, like, despite the most obvious things of, like, you know, it's a side-scroller. Things are a little bit more clear with that. And it was less of a hassle that you didn't have to deal with a dumbass AI companion. I think what was different with Ninja Turtles was it had an idea of visual language.

30:08 And you kind of knew, like, what was a hazard, where you were supposed to go, what was walkable and what wasn't. Right. This space level that I was talking about, I guess, like, a ship that you're on, it's very unclear, like, what's walkable. Because some things are, like, transparent, other things. Yeah, like, even what's a door and what's not is weird in this one. Because there's, like, blue circles and red circles and squares and, like, those things are the doors. I'm like, what? This is almost like a, like a, not an MC Escher.

30:45 It feels like a collage of, like, mismatched patterns that, like, it has an idea of, oh, this one's always going to be the floor. And this one's always going to be the wall. But, like, either the, whatever the difference is in the actual programming of the game of, like, oh, this is, like, the nav mesh. And this is the art for it. Like, they were misaligned or something.

31:11 What it feels like to me, to be honest, is that, like, you have glitched out of a, like, 2D, you know, like a game like this. But, like, you know, and you glitch out of, like, a Final Fantasy game or, like, a Pokemon game or you get, like, a glitch city or something. And it's just like, oh, the textures and tiles are all over the place that, like, exist in the code. But they were not placed here by humans.

31:31 Yeah. According to the back of the box, and I read this, it's up to you to defeat Magneto. But, of course, that's if you can ever find him. The game only gives you the five stages, and it's not as simple as beating all five stages like you would in, say, Mega Man. And then, you know, Dr. Wily reveals himself. Now Dr. Magneto reveals himself.

32:09 That's not what happens here. Instead, you're supposed to put together that at the end of each of these stages, the, like, congratulations thing that you've, um, that you receive at the end of each stage is giving you, like, bits and pieces of a code that when you put those code words together across the five levels, you would then realize, like, oh, I need to look at the box of my game. Like, the box I bought with this game, which has the remaining pieces of the code. And then you put the code together for that and input that into the menu screen, and that's how you unlock the Magneto level. Are they asking way too much?

32:53 There were clues on the box? On the box. Sorry, not on the box. On the cartridge, right? Oh. Yeah, it's on the cartridge, I believe. And it tells you, it tells you the code that you get through the game tells you to, like, look at the, um, to look at the, now I can't remember if it's the cartridge or the box. You got me questioning. But wait a minute. The code, how do you get this code? It's code words that are on, at the end of each level. So say you beat the Scarlet Witch, um, not Scarlet Witch, the White Queen. Um, say you beat the White Queen level, there's a message there, and then there's code words in that message. So you just take those pieces of that code word.

33:37 No, this is too much. Like, there's no way that anyone, like, is either going to, I mean, yeah, people could probably sink some hours into this game if they were, if they really had nothing better else to, nothing better to do. But, the lateral thinking that you need to have, like, to figure this out is too much without a guide or, like, just something in the manual. Or why even have it locked behind a code?

34:09 I don't know. Yeah, that's, yeah, I mean, if, I guess if it's, like, I mean, I can understand the, like, the attraction to doing something like that. Like, oh, this is so cool and unique and interesting because it, like, brings in something physically in the real world and whatever. But, like, it doesn't make for, it doesn't really make any, like, difference in world than just having, like, okay, you beat all these bosses, you've unlocked it. Like, I get that they're trying to make it, like, a puzzle or, like, something you have to figure out and you'll be satisfied for figuring out, but that's just.

34:40 But, because, like, in the most famous use of this, Metal Gear Solid. Right. The game literally tells you, look on the back of the box, snake, look on the back of the box, or something along those lines. In this, like, is it being clear like that, or is it just words that you're supposed to put together and then maybe figure out it's also on the box? Like, Mike, do you know? I do. Give me a second, though, because I want to read the exact code, but I do know that it does tell you to look at the cartridge. Okay. Well, that's a little bit. I want to have the exact code.

35:18 Also, I've never played Metal Gear Solid, but, yeah, I am aware of that puzzle, and I'm never sure. I mean, you're a fan, Sean. I mean, how is that received? I mean, it's pretty clear that on the box, it's like a scene that doesn't actually happen in the game, and the screenshot. It's like a screenshot showing parts of the game, and it's just Snake saying, Meryl. And you're trying to figure out the frequency for Meryl, and there it is. Once you're like, oh, maybe I should look at the box, then you find it. Right. But I guess, I mean, how was that received by fans?

36:02 A lot of people think it's really clever, and they liked it. Yeah. I guess I could see it being clever, but also, I mean, again, I mean, Metal Gear Solid is a very story-driven game. I feel like I would just be totally, like, taken out of it. I'd be like, well, yeah, but what's the context within the world of what I'm looking at? That is true. I guess when I was a young lad, context was, the nuance of context wasn't that important to me. Yeah, fair. Okay, so it gets crazier than what I was describing.

36:33 Great. Right? Because what happens in the game, all right, is, let's say you beat the Juggernaut, okay? It shows you on the screen, in all white text, you managed to break through Juggernaut's screen of defenders by pushing constantly towards your objective. You have beaten the enemy once again. Time to select a new challenge and test your fighting ability. But according to the cutting room floor, certain parts of that text were supposed to be red, and this was the information that I was given, so that's why I didn't realize that it's not. Because I didn't remember that. So it's the same text, okay? The same thing I just read to you guys, but instead, the red parts, which were the code words, were screen by pushing select end.

37:25 And if you took all of the hidden messages across Battle Through a Living Starship, the Subterranean Confrontation, all these levels, you would get the last mission can be reached from the mission screen by pushing select end. Seek the advice of the L from leader, and then able is spelled A-B-E-L so that it would be label from two different words, the L in leader and able from another section, able to make it to the final mission. So you have to push select. You know what? I like this more. You have to push select, and then you go to the cartridge label, and it just says in the bottom right over by where all the copyright info is, it says plus B plus up together on start. I kind of like this, actually. No, this is so stupid.

38:28 I remember seeing the red text. I kind of like it in the sense that it's, you would think like, okay, there's something weirder. Because I did think that. I also remember noticing that able is spelled wrong. Yes, able is spelled wrong. Because it's trying to make label.

38:44 I still don't know if I understand why contextually the X-Men are solving this puzzle. Yeah, like, is there a Riddler equivalent? That's what bothers me. But, like, it's not as ridiculous of an idea that someone would figure this out as I had thought. They should have made it so that you put a magnet up against your television, and that certain image quality screens would change, and that would cause you to understand what you have to do next. Yeah. It would also ruin your TV. Yeah, yeah, but that's fine. They also sell TVs. Maybe the listeners don't.

39:18 But, yeah, context still bothers me, and the fact that you probably just, you know, I mean, for most of the rest of history, most people probably won't have the original label. So, I mean, I don't know how much of a longevity they thought this game was going to have, but that bothers me. But I want to, like, walk back my initial hate for the idea about at least it being, like, impossible. Because I think that this would be something that someone could figure out because they're pretty clearly words that you're meant to look at. You know what? I'm keeping it, but my reasoning is only Kojima can do it.

39:57 I just think it's crazy that it requires how many special enemies, which I didn't even think there were special enemies in the stage. It was not even something I was actively, like, keeping track of. But by killing 30 special enemies in a stage, that's what causes the correct text to be displayed read, the keywords. Okay, well, also, I missed that, too. I don't like that either. No, but I'm saying, like, so think about it, you could beat the level and the text would either be all white or it would be, like, oh, because you killed 30 special enemies.

40:30 Something that is, like, you know, in Super Mario Bros., when you land on an even number, that many number of fireworks happen, right? Like, that's something fun and cute and happens right there. The payoff is over. This is something where it's, like, well, they never told me, like, in the manual, like, make sure you kill 30 special enemies or anything. Or even explained why I was getting red text this time. But then you also have to, like, because these levels aren't in a particular order or whatever, like, because you get to choose. What if you get them in, like, a different order and then you have to, like, now think about which order they come in to understand the hidden message?

41:05 I don't think this is smart at all, Joe, but I get what you're saying. It's very innovative. I mean, look, the reason, the part about this that I agree with you on is, like, I guess more that, like, yeah, I do think that it's just too missable. It's too easy. Like, there's nothing telling you that you should be looking for something like that. So you miss the first two.

41:28 It's like, what, you got to play the whole game again to get to that? Like, that's annoying. I guess I'm just saying that I don't think it's as, I think as a puzzle, I like it. I don't like the way it's integrated or it being integrated in this game. I have a question about something else. It's more so about controlling. Gosh, I hope we can answer it. We had a hard enough time getting through this Magneto thing.

41:55 I feel like we've settled that, right? Yeah. What is jumping for?

42:02 Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not quite sure. I thought that, like, when I was Storm and I was flying around that I was going to be, like, able to dodge enemies and stuff like that. But you can't. You can't. I feel like you go a little faster when you're flying. But, like, okay, but there's still a jump button for those that can't fly. I just want to know, like, is there a point? Is it just so that they could use another animation frame? Sean, it's a video game. You jump in video games. It's just the way it's done. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

42:35 There's no actual utility in jumping, but you have to have a jump button. How often do you jump in real life? I'm not very. It doesn't mean you can't. It's true. But, you know, in a platforming game or a side-scrolling action game like TMNT, you jump an awful lot because that's the way that the stages are designed.

42:54 These stages are not designed for jumping. So, you know, like, the only thing they would be useful for is for dodging enemies or jumping over enemies in that regard, I guess. But, again, I don't know why you would have to do that. Right. I thought at one point that, like, no matter who you were when you jump, you got, like, a boost of speed. So I tried to jump through some of those aforementioned, like, doors that were closing quickly that you had to get through. But I don't think that really made a difference either.

43:22 I just can't believe that that, like, just closing doors is one of the defining features of this game. Like, there's doors that close. I feel like that's probably the thing that will kill you the most. Yeah. And because I feel like this game doesn't have any iframes. It's just if you make contact with a thing that deals damage, it will just continue to deal damage until you blow up. But that is something else. That leads me to something else that I wanted to talk about. How do you know that even?

43:53 Your health isn't on screen. You have to pause the game to check your health. And that's crazy. Which, like, fine, not the end of the world, but this is, like, it seems like this is better played as a two-player game, which I didn't do. But if you play this as two-player, you're just constantly both pausing it in the middle of the action. Like, without, you know, you're like, I'm going to pause it now. Like, hold on. I'm going to unpause it now. Like, it's just weird. And you can't tell. You can't tell if you're about to die unless you pause it. You're just constantly pausing and unpausing. Bizarre. Was there anything that we loved about this game?

44:28 Special shout-outs to the sprites, maybe? No. Everything's ugly. Everything's so ugly. No, those are ugly, too, man. Yeah, Wolverine's cross-eyed. Everyone. It looks like everyone got slammed. And they all got mug shots. And they were still plastered at the police station. And this is them. This is the lowest point of these superheroes' lives. And that's just it. Yeah, this is like the scene in Guardians of the Galaxy where they're all getting, like, kicked. Yes, it's that.

45:07 I also thought the sprites, for some reason the sprites were reminding me so much of a long-forgotten NES game muscle. Or M.U.S.C.L.E. Whatever we call it. Yeah, there's a putty-like texture to all of the characters that muscle kind of had. Yeah, they're all kind of, like, squat. And, like, you know, they're all... And there's, you know, I haven't played muscle in a very long time. But I do vaguely remember feeling, like, the power sets of those... Or power, the ability sets, like, where it didn't feel different or unique enough. And I felt maybe that's also why I was thinking of it with X-Men. Uncanny X-Men. So, it's not beautiful.

45:52 It's not that fun. It's a little confusing how to beat the game. Any points about the music? It kind of sounded like digitized nails on a chalkboard. Yep, that sounds about right.

46:29 So, what's the future of X-Men look like on this console? Let's take it to the sequels and spinoffs section. And let's talk about Wolverine. But let's talk about it in, like, 200 episodes when we get there. Because that's coming to the NES in 1991. And it's not another top-down game as Wolverine. This is a side-scrolling action game. So, we got a chance for some of our notes to be addressed. That said, I don't think this game sucks because it's top-down. Right? It's just that... Oh, I agree. Yeah, it just sucks because there's... You don't really feel like you're playing as the X-Men. I feel like I'm playing as four or five video game sprites.

47:10 Yeah. And what we wanted to happen... Things that we were talking about with TMNT that we thought that I did more right than this... Like, could have been accomplished in a top-down setting. Could have been done like this where it's like there's a sense of place. And, you know, your characters have slight differences to them. And you're not stuck waiting for an AI character and all that stuff. Like, you know, it's not like that's all, like, byproducts of it being top-down. So, yeah, I don't even want to give it that, like, that out.

47:41 No, that's not an excuse. Not an excuse for this game. But if you really want to feel like you're the X-Men and you're the X-Men as a team, obviously you would want to play the X-Men arcade game that came out in, I believe it was 92. And that's the one where you can play as many as six people can be the X-Men all at once. And this is, like, right up there with the Simpsons arcade game. They're both made by Konami. Konami just makes great games back then. But then you also have...

48:13 What else? X-Men Legends, right? Was that game that was on, like, the GameCube PS2 era that has, like, a bunch of X-Men. So, yeah, you can't play, like, six people at once, but you can be all the X-Men and stuff like that and run around and do all sorts of cool shit in that game. I'm sure there's, like, many other Wolverine games. There's that X-Men...

48:35 What's that? One for Genesis that's really popular. Oh, X-Men 2 Clone Wars. I'm not sure what X-Men 1 was, but X-Men 2 Clone Wars is considered... It's probably this. Yeah. Maybe it was this. Sure. No, it looks like it was Children of the Atom, which is a fighting game, though. So, no, that's not true. See, why am I getting led in the wrong direction by Moby Games? Why are they doing that to me?

49:00 Shout out to Moby Games. That is it. X-Men Children of the Atom has an interesting history because that is, like, the one that started the whole, like, X-Men, Street Fighter, Marvel versus Capcom thing. Oh. Yeah. So, in 1994, X-Men Children of the Atom was made by Capcom, and then the success of that fighting game would go on to them, lead to X-Men versus Street Fighter. And then they were like, wait, why are we just doing two games? Why don't we do Marvel versus Capcom? And so that's how that whole, like, thing kind of evolved. And then Marvel versus Capcom Infinite, I think, was the one that, like, killed the franchise.

49:39 Yeah. So, hopefully it comes back eventually. But we don't have it as of right now. There are 52 X-Men games, though, so I can't just, like, do a... Just keep going, Mike. I can't do a true sequels in the spin-off section, right? I would have thought that you would have kept it to, like, Uncanny X-Men 2 on the NES that will play in three weeks or something. Right, right. It only came out, like, it's only, like, the third next game that came out after this one.

50:08 Yeah, only one other X-Men game that we're playing on the NES, and that's Wolverine. Otherwise, a lot of the X-Men movies wind up becoming games based off of the movies, which I think is interesting, too. Like, X-Men, the official game, X-Men Last Stand, X-Men Origins Wolverine. That was, I guess, a time when they were just making every movie was getting a video game. Yeah, I feel like the whole Fox X-Men run was, you know, the movie run was, like, right in that time where everything got a game. I mean, like, series of unfortunate events had a video game.

50:44 And this just in, the X-Men Legends games that I was raving about earlier, they got N-Gage. This just in. They got N-Gage versions. Can you imagine that? Like, that's a really, like... We should play that. That's interesting, because you can't have the same graphic that you have on PS2. You have to completely rebuild that game with, like, sprites. They probably hired some really cheap studio out of some Eastern European country to, put it together, and they were never heard from again. Yeah, it was developed by Barking Lizards, so you're probably right. Never heard of them.

51:22 Anyway, something you guys have all heard of, and you're probably sick and tired of hearing it by now, but even if we didn't hide it this episode, we have to do the Essential Games list. Sean, your vote for the Uncanny X-Men. Yeah, there really are no bright spots. There's no redeeming factors. This is just a terrible game that doesn't live up to its namesake, even though I have no real reference, except for some movies in the past 15, 20 years.

52:03 So, yeah, it's just really bad and not essential. This is a very simple and repetitive game, but it's not even easy. Like, it's a pretty tough game, you know? Like, you gotta really, like, slog through it. You gotta have high willpower stats of your own to really, like, want to play through this game. I don't feel like I'm the X-Men while playing this game, which is the bare minimum they should have hoped to accomplish when making, when you make any kind of intellectual property, you at least want to make it feel like you're engaging as those characters. You couldn't tell me Wolverine was in this game other than that cross-eyed portrait. So, no, not essential. He was drunk. He made some mistakes, Mike.

52:46 I'm actually gonna bounce off what you said there a little bit, too, because my biggest thought, like I said, I'm not super familiar with X-Men, but the one thing I know about it is that they all have very unique and interesting powers. And I think, like, the biggest crime you could commit when making an X-Men game is making it feel like you didn't, you couldn't tell if you were playing as Wolverine, or you couldn't tell if you were playing as Iceman. Like, they're all so unique, and you have such a large pool of characters to pull from. I mean, it's weird to me that, like, everybody felt so bland and, like, samey.

53:22 And that's just my, like, major, like, first thing that jumps out to me flaw. Obviously, there are a lot of other flaws that, you know, the levels were kind of an eyesore. I mean, I don't need to rehash it all. Also, not essential. Not essential. So, hopefully, this Black Friday, we helped you save a ton of time by not playing the Uncanny X-Men and instead listening to us.

53:46 Of course, the savings are always there when you tune into Nostalgia, but technically not with time because it requires time to listen to us. So, trust us, the savings are in there somewhere. Joe, where are the savings? The savings are because normally, when you want this information, you want to sit down and watch a video or play a game, you've got to sit down and commit to it. You can do this while you're doing the dishes.

54:08 You know, you're multitasking. You know, you're on a drive. You can listen to this. You know, you're learning our opinions while doing something else rather than having to have a conversation with us. Yeah, we saved you from the experience of playing Uncanny X-Men unless you chose to listen to this after playing it yourself, in which case we may have, like, triggered some kind of Vietnam flashback. And we're sorry if we did that, but there are no refunds. There's no refunds. No coupons accepted either. Don't tweet us coupons.

54:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coupons are very not cash money. This is not a discount podcast. No, no, no. No, no. We need to get in the black. We need to make profit. You are just consumers. Consume, consume.

54:56 Uncanny X-Men. Don't forget, too, that our Patreon subscribers were able to listen to this a whole day early. That's right. They got to listen to this on Thanksgiving while they were sitting with their family at the table. Instead of listening to what's going on in little Billy's life, they got to just turn this on and be like, you know, Alexa, play Nostalgia. And I bet that works. I bet if you ran a plug-in or something, I bet that works. And I bet I just turned on your Alexa by saying Alexa. Right, Alexa? But our Patreon subscribers are also going to get a Nostalgia Bites episode very soon, just like they get every month. So you're going to want that, too. That is the Just-In-Time-For-Christmas Kid Dracula game.

55:41 Ooh. Yep. Only came to the Famicom. Very festive. So, yep. The Nightmare Before Christmas, if you would. Get your eggnog ready, punks. Right. Throw out those leftovers and carol on down to Nostalgia Town.

56:17 The Nightmare Before Christmas, if you would.