251 · 8 Eyes

• CONTROL MAN AND BIRD IN A FIGHT FOR THE EIGHT JEWELS OF POWER
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Welcome to 1990. Some of us are almost born!
• Overview
  • side-scrolling action/adventure game similar to Castlevania. Instead of a whip you have a sword and a trusty falcon that you can send around the room to attack enemies or trigger remote switches.
• Gameplay
  • In single-player mode, the player controls both the falconer and the falcon. However, the game also offers a cooperative mode where the first player controls Orin and the second player controls his falcon in a mode which offers greater flight capability.
    • Two Player Co-Op with very unique abilities
  • Selecting the Stages - 8 castles, each an evil duke who controls one of the 8 jewels
    • After you defeat each of the dukes in combat, for example, you’re treated to a little scene where the two of you sit down together and have a nice cup of tea, as served by a grinning skeleton waiter!
    • At the completion of each level, Orin receives a new sword.
    • Orin doesn’t carry all these swords around with him to switch between at any time in an inventory menu. Instead, each new sword replaces the last.
    • Clues in the instruction manual hint at the ideal stage order.
      • Each new sword you get is colored differently. This is no accident. Rather, it corresponds to the color of the gem that the boss weak to that sword holds. So match the color of every new sword to the colored illustrations in the manual and you're good to go.
  • Castlevania Clone
    • The architecture
    • The enemies
    • The stairs
    • The Sub-Weapons
      • You can carry multiple and change on the fly but they drain your ability to use them very fast
  • More platforming than Castlevania and few if any death pits
  • After the House of Ruth has been cleared and the 8 Eyes recovered, the player must return the jewels to the Altar of Peace. At this point the jewels must be placed in a particular order, or the game is lost. Hints about the order of the jewels are also hidden throughout the game.
    • you’ll need to arrange them on the Alter from left to right in the correct order to trigger the ending scene. Determining this order requires you to locate the seven hidden scrolls hidden in walls over the course of the game. Each one holds a tip like “Purple is next to Red.” With all the clues, it’s a very basic logic puzzle, easily worked out on a piece of scratch paper.
    • ALTERNATE ENDINGS
      • TAXANTAXAN
      • FINALSTAGE - this is not given so not sure how you find this?
      • True ending is just a push about how great a developer TAXAN is for making one of the hardest games (their words)
• English vs Japanese
  • post-apocalyptic future vs 1800s Balkans
    • Orin the Falconer and his fighting falcon Cutrus VS Baronet Sir Julian James Bond, the greatest swordsman in all of England. Sir Bond infiltrated the Balkans along with his pet eagle, Cutlass.
• Development
  • SEE OTHER DOC
• EGL
  • Almost everything I like about this game comes down to the cool IT TAKES TWO style couch co-op. But even that doesn’t fix the pacing issues of combat, platforming and progression.
• NEStalgia Byte - Kid Dracula

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

00:00 Eight Eyes, control man and bird in a fight for the eight jewels of power.

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. Guys, welcome to 1990. The year of my birth. Yep, I'm almost born. Yeah, but we think we called out on the 1989 Best Of episode that we're gonna like, find out what game was closest to when we were born and then that will be the game that you must play for the rest of your life. I can't wait. Hopefully it's a good one. I mean, you can roll the dice. I can't wait to play whatever shmup came out on my birthday for the rest of my life.

01:26 You're cursed. Asymmetric. Yeah, asymmetric couch co-op. I mean, it's sort of like Sonic in Tails, but worse? Not worse. Less emphasis on the Tails, you know? He was almost like another Sonic, whereas in this it's your bird. I think he's a falcon.

01:51 It seems asymmetric in the sense, I mean, in a lot of senses, but one of the senses is definitely that like one character is a lot more robust in his like options than the other. Yeah, it's like if you had to give, like if you didn't just give your little brother an unplugged controller, but you wanted to minimize the damage he could do, you'd play 8-Eyes.

02:14 But I will say that I think that there's definitely a lot of potential for actual like help to become from second player. You know, like I don't think it's like, I'm trying to think of another example. You know, like, I mean, it's not exactly the same because it's not co-op, but like Duck Hunt, we found out you can plug in the other controller and control the ducks. And it's like you barely even notice that there's a difference. Yeah. And this is like, okay, you can be a significant help as player too. Yeah. And I don't know about you guys, but whenever I play a game for Nostalgia, I try to go in as blind as possible.

02:50 And when I first started playing 8-Eyes, I was like, oh, this is just another one of those side scrolling action games. Like it felt like a Castlevania clone in some ways. But instead of a whip, you have a sword. And then all of a sudden I realized that like I was controlling the Falcon. Like it wasn't even obvious to me at first that I was the one doing it. It felt like a mistake. Like, oh, the Falcon's moving when I'm moving and stuff like that. And then I realized like, oh, there's a whole like control scheme for a one player to be both the hero and the Falcon at the same time.

03:23 It does work better with two players, no doubt. But they give you the option to, you know, I think that's better than having a computer controlled AI Falcon. Like if the game is built for two players to one be, you know, one be the hero, one be the Falcon. As a one player experience, you can still try to bring in the reins as both of them.

03:44 Yeah, I read the manual before I booted it up and it was describing sort of how they were going to go about this. Um, and I was kind of intimidated by what they were saying. Like, it's almost like a trope, uh, on this podcast. How often we talk about like, oh, there's only so many buttons on the controller. And it's like what they're trying to do, um, to like how many mechanics you can fit onto this controller kind of. And now you have to control two characters. And when they give you these two characters, uh, you're, you're kind of like the controller is fighting with itself to control them all.

04:26 And, um, it almost, it's almost like compared to the two player that I've seen, um, playing as both Orin and Cutris, the name of the bird. It's kind of like you get your arm tied behind your back or something.

04:43 Yeah, I think that there was, well, I, I, let me, let me ask you guys this. I don't know how much we want to get into the co-op right off the bat. I mean, it seems like it's a lot about co-op. So, uh, let me ask you guys, did you guys play with another person? I did. You did? I did not. I also did not, but I, but I messed around in other ways with the co-op. But, uh, Mike, how was it?

05:05 You know, it does work. Uh, it's probably, like, I still think it has that effect where like, because I was doing it with my wife. So it's like, you know, you could try to convince her to play first. Then you tell her she's got to be the Falcon. You know, it's like, and the Falcon, um, can, the Falcon actually can be very useful because it can attack certain enemies that the, um, what'd you say his name was? Orin? Orin is the thing on, is the name on the screen. Okay, yeah. So Orin can't attack certain enemies, but the Falcon can. So that can be very useful and make, and make that player feel useful. And then there's also things like hidden in the wall that the Falcon can only grab.

05:43 And the things hidden in the wall are easy to do when it's just you, you know, like as a single player thing where it's like, all right, now I got to be the Falcon for a second. Like that, that part's achievable, but the, um, the attacking part is more like, uh, you know, you want to be on, uh, you almost want to be like on the staircase below them and then take control of the Falcon and start, and start fighting. So that kind of stuff proved really useful, but I do think that the Falcon still feels like a, a little brother.

06:09 See, I, I'm, I found that there were, there were enemies that weren't even, I mean, I noticed the enemies that you could only attack with the Falcon, but there were some that you could choose both that I thought it was just more efficient to use the Falcon based on their positioning or like, oh, I'm going to jump down. I'm going to get stabbed immediately just because it's like one of those traps sort of, but I can send the Falcon down there and he sort of flies above.

06:29 Um, so like I, I found it almost equal playing solo of times I wanted to use the, maybe not equal. I mean, maybe, maybe 60, 40. Now are you playing, cause you said that you've found a way to do this. Were you playing the two player just with two controllers? Yes. Okay. So, cause that, cause the thing that, the thing that I think is a total miss on this game's part is like when you play one player,

06:53 it still gives you that tool of the Falcon. It clearly wants this to be a robust one player experience with both things, but it doesn't work the same. You can't move the Falcon. I mean, unless I missed how to do it, you can't control where the Falcon is going while you're quote unquote controlling the Falcon. You just control when it attacks and it just swoops from left to right of the screen. That is, that is sort of how it goes about.

07:17 Um, and I just didn't have the mental bandwidth. Like I was always, I was either like trying to just jump and then I would accidentally, uh, send the Falcon out or I'd be trying to send the Falcon out and I'd just be crouching maniacally. Uh, I think maybe I should try this game again, playing it your way with, uh, with my imaginary friend holding the second controller. I mean, it's still not perfect, but the way it works that way is that it's the Falcon still just flies side to side. If you just leave it alone.

07:50 Yeah. But you can use the, the D pad to, to move left, right, or up down, which is something you can't even move up and down with the Falcon in one player. So like what I would use the Falcon a lot for would be like, I'm on a top platform. There's an enemy below me that I don't want to jump into that pit with this enemy. I send the Falcon down to kill it.

08:08 Um, but it's still, I mean, obviously still not perfect when you're using two controllers. Like I would still basically have to stop with my main character and start controlling the Falcon. But to that point, I almost feel like it could have been, you know, a solution they could have done is like press select to switch to the Falcon. Yes. You're stuck standing still, which is why it's still better with two players, but at least you have control.

08:32 Yeah. I wonder why they didn't choose the select option. Cause I thought about that too, Joe. Uh, it is worth mentioning that they did include in the manual a note that you don't have complete freedom of movement in a one player game. So they weren't like trying to hide it. They, I, they knew their own limitations too, but they didn't tell you that on the back of the box. They waited until you bought the game to tell you that the Falcon's a little useless without a friend.

08:55 So yeah, I think like, you know, the, the co-op thing makes it very unique. And, uh, I, I do think it's worth trying it out because that alone kind of gives it like a plus one factor. If, you know, if you're scoring this thing, uh, on a scale, like I would say like one point alone is just for the fact that like a, another player can jump in and actually do something that isn't just being, you know, another, uh, or in.

09:21 Yeah. And we give, we, we give multiplayer games a lot of credit on this show. So, um, it's definitely, I should be, I should be trying this. But as, but as we're going to get into, I'm not quite sure that, uh, two player asymmetrical co-op is enough, uh, to go through everything, uh, that this game offers. It's not, it's not enough of a cool factor.

09:45 And, um, I think no better way to start than to just, uh, walk through like how the game kind of lays itself out. And that is that it takes the, uh, I always call it the Mega Man style of approach where you can, uh, select the stage you want to go to. There are eight castles, each with an evil duke who controls one of the eight jewels, not eyes, but the jewels are the eyes, the jewels are their eyes. I don't know. Uh, but that's the idea. You're collecting these jewels from these dukes. You got to go to eight different castles and the order that you go to them, unlike Mega Man kind of does matter.

10:17 See, when you defeat a duke, you get, uh, you get a sword of a certain like color. And then that sword is only powerful on one specific duke in another castle. And if you don't go immediately to that duke, you'll lose that sword. Uh, for whatever reason, you can't like have an inventory of your swords. You just get the next color and you drop, like, let's say you picked up the green, you just drop the green and grab the red. And now you have to figure out that. So there is an actual like optimal, uh, order level, which you could argue Mega Man does. But what I'm saying is that Mega Man gives you the freedom to say, I want this power up. And then you have it for the remainder of the game.

10:57 Uh, eight eyes takes a different approach where it says, no, you're just going to get this duke's sword. And then if you don't use it on the other correct duke, get ready for a grind fest boss battle. Yeah. Like it's, it's mostly, um, like it's just a way to pad the length. Like there's, you have to do trial and error. Like there's, it's not that like there's anything fun with these swords. It's just, it's, it's basically a key item to make the next fight easier. Right? Right.

11:27 It doesn't, uh, it doesn't do anything. It doesn't have a, like, you know, this sword, uh, has a beam shoot out of it when you swing it. Like nothing like that. To be honest, I didn't even realize that that was what was happening. I just thought I kept getting a more powerful, powerful sword. And maybe I lucked out a couple of times because it maybe twice I got to these bosses and they were okay. But there was one boss I kept going back to and I just couldn't beat. And now I understand that maybe I just didn't have the right sword. Like every time I would go back to this level, this boss was just never any easier.

11:54 Yeah. Should we talk about the context behind these levels? Like the story of the game? The story of the game is great, Sean. So go for it. Okay. So in the, you know, in our version of the game, you apparently play as, uh, somebody in the post apocalypse. There was a nuclear war and hundreds of years have passed. And now we've basically reset our technology and our, uh, like such as, you know, what weaponry and our interests such as falconry, um, to something around the 1800s in some places and something around like the BC era in some other places. And all these dukes got these jewels that were formed at the core of a nuclear explosion.

12:45 And if the wrong people get their, their, their, their hands on them, uh, it could, it could blow up the world again, I guess. Um, but it's, it's just funny because like, there's this whole convolution for the, the game in the American version, but it's very simple in, in the original version where it just like, it just is the 1800s. 1800s. And you know, what's interesting too about like, forget even the whole like plot difference of 1800s versus like distant future after a nuclear apocalypse.

13:22 After the nuclear apocalypse, I'm supposed to believe that like all of these countries just exists exactly the same way that they always did. And with the same stereotypes too, like all of these guys, the, the Spain guy is like a sword fencer. The Arabian guy just has like, you know, the Lawrence of Arabia hat for no reason. It's like all these things that they didn't change anything about them. And then the Africa guy is just their token black person. It's like, this is all like crazy stuff to, to just suggest about the distant future when they could have just taken the easy route and kept the game the same way. But I guess maybe, you know, in 1990, nothing was hotter than the atomic bomb.

14:03 Yeah. There was still the Soviets that we had to worry about and, uh, you know, the cold war, cold war. But I guess the one thing that in, in the manual, like, okay, uh, you've got this, this grandiose architecture and all this stuff that makes it look like the 1800s. But if you look into the manual, you get a gun, then it's really just like a Beretta.

14:26 So that, that sells me on the post apocalypse. That's the one piece of future. That was the thing that I was like, oh, there's a gun in here. But yeah, until honestly, uh, until knowing the story, I was like, okay, yeah, whatever. It was just a gun. Like, no big deal. It's like a fantasy world. Maybe it's like a, maybe then I was thinking like, maybe it's like a, like a bloodborne type situation. Yeah. It's like, but what is that? Like, uh, the silver bullets. Yeah.

15:14 Now the manual shows you the eight dukes that you'll go up against, and next to each of them is a jewel that they represent. So you've got one's a black sphere, the other one's a diamond, so on and so forth. Sapphire. What I found was interesting, and I did not know this in my playthrough, I knew this in my research going afterwards, is that the sword that you get from defeating a certain duke, based on its color, right? So say you've got the green sword, you would then go back to the manual,

15:50 and if you look at the Italy boss, the Italy duke, he has the sapphire, or emerald, sorry, the green emerald. That green sword means that he is weak to that emerald. So the color of the gem corresponds to what the boss is weak to, and in no way do they lay that out in the manual, it's just like a hint. But like, wow, what an interesting way to just like, you know, that's the key, right? Like somehow there's a decipher there. Are they color-coded in any way on screen in their sprites?

16:25 The sword is, like in the top corner. The sword that you have is, but it's the duke. To my knowledge, that's not the case. Yeah, see, because that would be, I think that would be much more useful and cool where you can, I feel like that would be, I'd be more likely to like pick up on that. Yeah, but see, that allows them to sell the game on Blockbuster. Yeah, yeah. You know, like they can't, they need you to buy the manual with the game as well.

16:47 Yeah, but when back then, oh, you mean like a separate manual that doesn't come with the game? No, no, no, no, I'm saying, I don't think Blockbusters ever gave you the manual, did they? Well, no, but Blockbuster, if there was anything really necessary, they would like put like a little text blurb on the back of the box that like gave you some information for some games. Right, and the one guy who figured this out. Sorry then, I thought that you got manual, I mean, I'm talking at least like PS1, PS2 days, I thought you got manuals, but I don't really remember.

17:20 Anyway, it's not even that cool of an inclusion because like you said, Joe, it's not, it's not even obvious. Like it'd be cool if they almost put in like a, you know, hey, pay attention to the jewels that the bosses hold, you know, as like some kind of call out, but it's just not there. So I just question the, all this to go back to the very beginning of what we were talking about with the selecting the stages, I question like why that even,

17:47 it's not some elaborate puzzle. It's just something that you might find out as a happy accident later on, years later, you know? Like I only found this out because of game FAQs. How many people are really gonna put together that the color of the diamond in the manual corresponds with the color of the sword that they are weak to in the game? Yeah, I don't know. It's almost like if they really wanted to make this player friendly, they would have just laid it out as a level one, two, three, four. And again, it's just kind of padding otherwise. Yeah, I think it's like they, they,

18:24 they were like mixing two different things. It's like that you could, they like it being separate and, and, or whatever you call it, like freedom of choice of which one you go to or whatever. I don't know why I'm like fumbling what this concept is. You have the option, but then also they want like this puzzle element, but like without giving you that information, like I feel like you could have both those things by saying, yeah, you got to figure this out. Like you got to figure out the color coding between the two of them. And then that gives you the incentive to play a different thing and say, okay, where should I go next?

18:55 If you do it the other way, it's, I feel like, I mean, yeah, it does feel like it's just artificial padding, like just trial and error. Or because they already have like a puddle, not a puddle. They already have a puzzle, like built into the end of the game where like, you know, you get all these, you get all these jewels and there are like, while you're playing the game, you get the, the hint scrolls that tell you how you're supposed to arrange them. It's like that. That's already your puzzle. Like don't add more.

19:22 That's if you're lucky enough to find all those. If you find them. Yeah. Right. Cause those scrolls say, you know, it's not the most intricate riddle or anything like that. It literally just kind of lays out the, you know, the put the black one next to the pink one or whatever. I'm not, I'm not saying exactly what it says. Yeah. It's a Resident Evil puzzle. You need, yeah, you kind of need all of them to then figure out like the start and end points. If you just have like one of the scrolls, you might know which two are next to each other, but not even where they should be placed on the altar, which is, which is the end of the game too, which is kind of weird. It's just that once you get to,

20:00 once you beat all eight Dukes, you wind up at the house of Ruth, complete, complete that stage. And then it just has, okay, now place the jewels on the altar and enter the, the, the ending screen. It feels kind of weird. It feels like you should put all eight jewels down. And then that accidentally summons this thing that like everybody was nervous was going to happen. Right? Yeah. You should be the reason the world ends in this. Or, you know, the, the trick, you know, like you were tricked into spawning the monster that is going to end the world and now you must defeat it. Final boss. Yeah. I like that. I feel like that's a final fantasy trope.

20:37 Yeah. But I think like you actually have to beat the game three times. Right. And that's, that is true to get the true ending, but you won't notice anything different if you just beat it once for whatever. Yeah. Remember that beating it once requires you to probably take the optimal route of knowing exactly which color sword represents which boss. And then also knowing, uh, all of the scrolls that hint at which, uh, jewel should be placed on which part of the altar. If you knew that, you would get to the ending that would reveal that the password to play the harder difficulty is the name of the developer twice. Taxan, and you play through the game a second time, you get all the way to the end.

21:20 And it's still kind of, it says like, wow, like amazing job beating the harder difficulty. Like not many people have made it this far, but the hints that there might be something more, but then doesn't give the password for the, for how to get to the third. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's just crazy. Like I found this out online, which I imagine like was done through looking at code or something, or maybe it was given away in a magazine at one point, but the code is final stage.

21:46 And that sounds like it's going to take you to some secret boss fight or, you know, like the house of Ruth, but backwards now or something like that. But instead it's just playing the whole game again. So you're the final stage. Everything's faster. But they're considering that the, like they're considering that a stage. The whole game is just a stage, right? Like now you're on the final stage of the game. This is stage three. And I'm not sure how you find it. I'm guessing, like I said earlier, a magazine, but that is how you get the true ending, which is really,

22:17 it starts off as congratulating you, pretending like, as if like you're the first mortal, whoever got there, but then kind of turns into like this push about how great a developer tax an is for making one of the hardest games on the NES, which is, which is their words. Like they're saying like, we did this, like we made it a hard game. I don't think that's what you'd be proud about. Is that like, yeah, we made our game so hard. Ha ha. And I don't even know, like I didn't, I didn't even beat this game once because I was fumbling over the controller so much with this goddamn bird.

22:50 So I don't even know. Maybe if like you and Joe, like had a sleepover and spent eight hours with this game, you guys could do it. But I, not in any world would I be able to. All right. Sleepover. How long to beat puts it at two hours and 38 minutes. Um, which I guess is like, that's gotta be just the one though. Right. Even if it's not the one, I'm just saying like, that's gotta be a great player because I, I spent two hours and 38 minutes with this and didn't even beat the game.

23:18 Yeah. I think that's, if you know, first of all, well, the, the color coding trick and you know like where to go and you know where all the, you know where all the item, the scrolls are like, if you're playing this for the first time and you're playing it blind, it's going to take a lot longer than that. In my opinion. I think so.

23:43 I use the words Castlevania clone at the top of the episode. I was obviously referring to just the first one because the first Castlevania and second one are pretty different. And what I meant by that is really like almost everything that I could think of with the architecture, the enemies, the way you climb up the stairs really slowly and how you climb up the stairs,

24:03 the sub weapons, because that is like another thing where a lot of the sub weapons are even the same kinds of sub weapons like the boomerang and stuff. However, eight eyes does let you carry multiple ones and change them on the fly. But the trade-off is, is that using these sub weapons in Castlevania was you destroy things and get hearts and then like five hearts equals one use of your boomerang, which sounds like a lot, but you're collecting hearts all the time. In eight eyes, I felt like I was depleted of my sub weapon use very quickly.

24:36 Yeah. It felt like you really had to kind of save it and collect as many of those crosses that give you more sub weapon energy, whatever you want to call it. They have to collect to use it. But yeah, it did feel a little more like I have to save this for when I need it. And I, I agree that like between like, this is just going back to the, the, the similarities in general.

25:00 That, yeah, the sub weapons are, are, are very similar. The way in which you accrue them is different, but, uh, and, and the walking cycle and, and the stairs. But I think the one thing, the most, the most important part of this similarity is not similar at all. And it's between the whip and this sword. The whip feels good to, to, to lash. Is that, if that's the verb for whip to whip. Um, whereas this dinky fencing sword, it, it's one of the least impactful weapons that we've played since that other medieval game with the, the, the ghouls and ghosts or one of those. Not, not that one where, where the, the sword just sort of like wiggles in your wrist. If you remember that game from, yeah. Yeah. Wizards and Warriors.

25:52 Yes. Least impactful weapon. I wouldn't have thought this was quite to that level of bad. I think that it was normally like, well, at first it was fine. I think what the, you know, the problem was just that every other enemy with a sword or some sort of handheld weapon had one that was just like,

26:12 like 125% the length of yours. Yeah. So you go from the reach of a whip to the reach of this thing. Right. That's a pretty big difference. Yeah. But so I felt like I had to just always like time my hits, right? Like wait until like, I'd have to like wait and like watch the pattern of every enemy and see like, when is their moment that they're not attacking for a second? That's when I can like take a quick step in, stab, take a quick step out. Yeah. It was not ideal. Yeah. That's my biggest gripe with this game is that that changes the pace of play and makes going through the levels,

26:45 especially the longer they are a chore because every enemy is kind of like this fencing match, which is something we, but all of us called out as really cool in Zelda two, the adventures of link here. Here it's not as cool because you have to like go in, strike, run back, go back, strike. And yes, it's not every single enemy, but a good amount of the enemies, especially, um,

27:08 you know, as you get further on into the stages and, and then cover like, you know, some different ones, it requires like, you know, Oh, I can't just go around this enemy. I can't just hop over them or I can't just take a different route. Like I have to face off against this enemy and I have to figure out like how many hits do they even take before they'll be done? You know, like it really slows down the game in my opinion. And especially as one player,

27:32 the, the Falcons, not, um, you know, it's something you have to do from afar as well. So that doesn't help really with the pace of play either. Yeah. I think like with any criticism of the actual mechanics of this game, you just have to by default end with the qualifier and all see a have to worry about the goddamn bird.

27:51 So, yeah, well, that's why I think that what we're talking about with this, like go in and jump out, uh, with half of the enemies. That's why I ended up switching to the Falcon so often, but you know, what really doesn't help the pace of play is putting down one controller, picking up another controller and then over and over again, every time you want to switch. So it was not a great solution. Yeah. Depending on how you,

28:14 uh, adjust to the, to the different enemies though, too, sometimes it can feel like, the sword is like a, is like a knife, like a kitchen knife, because you can get pretty close to these guys and still not make contact with them. Uh, I guess that's more of like a hitbox issue, but it just made me feel really powerless to them at, at certain points in the game.

28:34 Yeah. And then I feel like it compensated for that a lot with, and I don't know if this is a negative or a positive. I think in some cases it's a negative, some it's a positive, but you just have so much health that you can kind of like suffer through this sword and just tank tank hits for a while until you realize like, Oh shit, no, I don't have any health up for this level, but like you have a lot, you can take a lot of hits.

28:57 Yeah. I think that's necessary with just how encumbering the, uh, the, the actual combat is in this. Yeah. And it makes me wonder if they changed your HP bar as an afterthought when they realized like, wow, this is not, uh, ideal combat. Something about this, the way this orange guy walks to, and, and his sprite design. It looks like it's like a skeleton with hair and a red cloak around him. Like his bones are very pronounced when he walks and it just, it's unsettling to me, but Sean, you know, the plot. So maybe that was explained as like, you know, part of the fallout. Yeah. He's a ghoul. I would imagine that. Yeah. He's just got very pronounced bones now.

29:42 Well, speaking of skeletons, Sean, since you're the story expert here, do you know why after every level you are served your next power up by a skeleton on a platter at a table? It is so weird. After your cup of tea. I love it. I love that. Like somewhere off camera with each of these dukes, he's just like, uh, all right, I give up. Uh, let's have, let's have a quick talk about how we're going to, uh, we're going to get the rest of these jewels. Oh, ah, yes, my, my ghoul companion servant, uh, will come and serve us tea.

30:15 And I don't know what it's about. I don't know what it's about. I love it. Between the music and the weirdness of the, these, like these post boss scenes. Um, it really does set a weird vibe, but I'm here for it. And that's something that is not, uh, explained by it being the 1800s. No. Oh, people were more polite to each other back then. They would, they'd be like, I can see defeat. Let's have a cup of, in life and in undeath.

30:46 Yeah. It is enjoyable though, that the skeleton, after he serves the tea and, and the sword, uh, he, he walks away, but it looks like, it looks like to me, at least he's laughing about it. Like he finds the whole situation funny as well. His, but his mouth just like chatters pretty fast. And I, I, I associated that with laughing. Cause otherwise he's like saying something under his breath to us. And I, you know, no skeleton servant would be rude. No, not in this world. He's laughing with us.

31:16 A couple of things it does right on the Castlevania, uh, side of clones is that, uh, there aren't any like pits, at least that I, uh, saw like no, like, uh, infinite pits or, um, the, the platforming in the game was a little more varied than Castlevania one was. Uh, I guess I'm talking more about how you control the jumps. The jumps weren't like super stiff and the knockback wasn't like ridiculous. If, if any, actually, I can't remember now if there was knockback. Uh, the, the jump, I remember realizing that I really liked the arc of the jump. Um, but I don't know if it, if that was more or less sort of propped up than, uh, than in Castlevania.

32:01 Yeah. I mean, it feels like, uh, a good jump on like probably on the, like, uh, on the curve of NES jumps so far, but there is still a, uh, it's not up there with like the perfect jumps. Like there's still like a, feels like a little bit of a delay or like a cool down to your jump or something that like makes it feel ever so slightly sticky. I hear that. You know, as good of a game as Castlevania is, uh, that jump can get really annoying at times where you actually have to be at the edge of the platform in order to successfully make the jump between the pits. So between this having a better jump and not having, uh, any pits, I, I'd say that that is a step in the right direction. Put a check mark next to improve jump.

32:48 And what about the puzzle element to these stages? There's these switches that need to be flipped or turned on by the Falcon and they don't really evolve at all. Let's just turn them on and the doors will open. Otherwise you can't proceed. Yeah. I don't think it ever was. I feel like it was, it's like one of those things that like doesn't add or really subtract much for me. It just felt like a little bit of like a maybe artificial way to, uh, incorporate the Falcon again. Right. Because otherwise it's like, you know, you have to go from either left to right or up to down, uh, to navigate through these stages. You can't,

33:26 you can't like cheat your way, uh, through the door at the end. So what's the point of like locking it other than to say like, well now you have to go back around and look for that, uh, switch. Yeah. I don't know. I guess like it did have like a timer on it too. So like there were some times where I think I could hit the switch myself and then run over there. And then there were other times where it's like,

33:46 yeah, it doesn't, I think that maybe the idea was like, oh, you, you have to get, send the Falcon out so you can get to the door in time, but it never gets hard to get to the door on time. Cause you can just stand at the door while you're sending the Falcon. Yeah. I guess you'd have to defend yourself. I don't know. Give the bird something to do. Yeah. Did they give the bird enough to do, uh, forget about the whole fact that another player can, can be the bird. Just the, the fact that the bird can mostly just either attack or, um, or pick up scrolls or flip switches. Is that enough for like a Falcon's job?

34:25 Um, I don't know. I guess, I guess I would, I would like to see power ups or something for the bird. Just, I know it's ridiculous. That sounds just to make it feel like it's as robust as player one, but like otherwise, yeah, that's everything player one does. It's just player one has more tools to do it.

34:44 Yeah. I guess I would have liked them to play more with the Falcon only parts. Like if you, you know, if you really wanted to embrace both two player and as a single player thing, if there were certain areas in levels that only the Falcon would be useful in, and it was kind of like, whether you're playing as one player or two players, this is the section where you really have to like focus in on your, um, you know, your Falcon skills and your movement and, and, uh, puzzle solving or something, it would have seemed a little more useful.

35:14 I, you know, they don't have to go as far as like locking off sections where you're just the Falcon or, or something like that. Or that, you know, crazy stuff like now the Falcon can pick up or in, and, uh, fly around, uh, with him. I don't, I don't need, you can't do that, Mike. Well, that's true. You know what? I actually just had like a slight change of heart right now while thinking about it. Like as far as does the Falcon need more?

35:40 Uh, I think that from actually, and again, I haven't played a two player, so it's hard, like, you know, hard to really judge that. But I think that what the balance is, is that the Falcon can fly and has that mobility, but can't use power-ups or projectiles. Whereas the guy, I'm not going to use their names. I don't remember that. Or Ryan, whatever. Uh, the, the guy can not, doesn't have the same mobility, but can use a couple of projectile weapons and, and, you know, has a little bit more of an arsenal. So like that, I, I like that conceptually. Yeah. Otherwise you're just like, just get another guy. Like you were talking in the beginning. Yeah. Or just be the Falcon because you can do everything the guy can do and fly.

36:23 But the, my thing is almost on the opposite. Like my criticism here for the one player experience, the fact that both Oren and Cutris have their own health gauge. Like for me as a single player, uh, I don't want to have to watch two different health gauges in addition to how much power I've got left in my magic item or whatever. Uh, it, and especially because they're kind of like shown in reverse, like it, it goes down to the left instead of down to the right. Uh, it was very, it was kind of hard for me to read, but, uh, I think in the single player experience, because you aren't in direct control of this goddamn bird, you shouldn't have to worry about the bird dying.

37:10 Maybe that's me thinking the game should be too easy, but, uh, I, I also just, there's too much going on. That's another thing that I think when, if I heard you say that before I had played it, I would totally agree. But again, having played it totally differently where I'm stopping, picking up another controller, then using the bird, I didn't mind having the two health bars because like, actually I would sometimes use that to my advantage where it's like, okay, Auron is, is weak right now. I'm going to send in Cutris instead. But like, I don't think that would work the same way. Yeah. I specifically meant the, the designed one player experience. I think it does serve a purpose. I guess I keep forgetting that I did not play one player.

37:57 And I just, while we're talking about like the individual stages, uh, I said architecture, but I really meant like the graphics of the game and the way it all looks is stylized like Castlevania. Yes. Kudos to the people in the manual though, for the names of some of these enemies. Uh, sometimes we do highlight funny names. I can't remember which games they are, but this one really, uh,

38:20 leaned into that. It, it, it knows that it's being funny. For instance, the skeletons are named yoga, uh, because they have, because they're sitting cross-legged in their picture. And for no other reason at all. So I have to think that like, whatever the explanation was for the Japanese version of why the skeletons exist in the 1800s,

38:40 this was the photo that was provided to them. And they had to include it in their manual. They couldn't just hire another person to draw the enemies again. So they use those and they said, all right, well, this guy's sitting cross-legged. So he's yoga. And, uh, this guy has a scimitar. So he's scimitar Sam. Uh, you know, uh, this guy is just a normal person. So we'll call him ugly. I, I particularly liked cross boy and sir slice. I just like the idea that like in the post apocalypse, there will be a guy walking around in like a cloak with a scimitar. He called himself scimitar Sam.

39:18 It's also, yeah, it's a weird scale of like who gets a name. Like scimitar Sam gets a name because of a scimitar or because his name was Sam. And then he picked up the scimitar because his name was Sam. And think about this. Okay. Mace. What was his name? He just, he carries a mace, but he doesn't get a name. He's not, he's not mace window. I want to say that. Okay. If he, if he's scimitar,

39:47 scimitar Sam, I think that if his name wasn't Sam beforehand, they just call him scimitar. You know, that sounds cooler. Like scimitar Sam. It sounds like someone that doesn't really respect you. gave you that name. Well, poor mace was born without a name. What are you saying about Sam the manual Smith? That's what we'll be calling him now. No longer Sam the manual. We'll be calling him scimitar Sam. Well, Sam also gave himself that name. Or was it Mike? I think I gave it to him. I don't know. It's a new season, and we're trying to bring even more information to the people.

40:48 Patron of the show and all-around friendly cool dude Stephen Greenwell reached out to me on our Discord and said he'd be happy to provide some information to the players. So I'm not going to refuse help. I asked, what do you got? And I was, you know, not sure what I would get, but what I got was an awesome amount of content. And I just want to highlight some things. There's no way I, you know, this is like its own show if I said everything in here. But I thought one thing that was interesting that we don't usually look at is like sales figures and like advertisements from the time.

41:21 And he managed to find that the game was originally priced $45 when it released. And that, you know, that's not like the standard NES game price. NES game prices were just kind of priced whatever they like deemed the value of. So like some games are $45, some games are $40, some games are $30.

41:42 The $30 game is notably Anticipation, which was like a, you know, a low-involved game. So I can understand like they're selling 8Eyes as something like, you know, this is a big adventure game. And if anybody remembers Final Fantasy III, that was like $80 when it released. And the whole idea was not that like it contained any more like it wasn't more expensive to make or anything. They just said, like, yeah, it's a bigger adventure. So we're going to charge more for these games.

42:09 Yeah. I kind of remember, you know, like games on the PS1, like when they were kind of budget titles, they'd be $20 instead of the $50. Right, right. And so it was $45 when it first came out. But then immediately, like in later this year, it goes down to $20. And then by December of 1990, there's even a like $5 off coupon specifically for 8Eyes. Like it's not for every game. It's for like Air Fortress, 720, Mad Max, Infiltrator, and 8Eyes. And the funny thing about the 8Eyes price is that it was already down to $20. It's not like it went back up to $45. So now this game is $15 in just 12 months. And, you know, for what it's worth, it's now $10.70 for just the cart on like eBay. So you still didn't make out with too good of a deal.

43:07 Inflation adjusted when you think about $15 versus now $10. Wow. So is this one of those like situations where they were just expecting it to be like, oh, this is going to be like a mega hit. And then it just didn't even come close. And they're like, we gotta get rid of these. Yeah, I mean, it just sounds like they, yeah, they overordered. Everybody overordered this game. And they need to clear that stock. Well, you know what makes this game so popular? What's that? It's position in your emulators. It's always, it's 8Eyes with the number 8. It's always going to be like the first game in your files. So. What about 10-yard fight?

43:45 8Eyes is smaller than 10, Joe. So. Yeah, but the 1. Yeah, but the 0 would count too, no? It's not a 0-8, guys. It would be, it would be after. If we're going to start arguing about emulator file positioning, it would be after 10-yard fight. You guys talk amongst yourselves. I'm going to check my no intro set right now.

44:06 Oh, shit. You can't be called out like that. Yeah, so 8Eyes is before 10-yard fight. Really? Yeah, because the way things work is that 10 is a larger number than 8. So the 1 doesn't like prerequisite. I don't appreciate your tone, Mike. I'm just saying, the 1 game, though, that does come before all of them, we've played it. What would come before 8Eyes? And knowing that 8Eyes comes before 10-yard fight. No guesses. Great. The answer is 3D World Runner. Because it is 3-D. And the 3 is lower than 8. So that's how numbers continue to work.

44:50 All right, well, this file system is not normal. Yes, this is not how alphabetically, or, I mean, no, it's not alphabetically, but if you put something alphabetically, when you get to the number part, you usually just start with the first digit, I thought.

45:03 I mean, I'm not going to, we don't have to do it on the show, but I challenge you guys to just do it. Just do it on, like, with your own files. Oh, I mean, I believe you that that's where it's coming up. But I'm saying, like, it's not, like, specific to my emulator, I'm saying, like, rename any of your files on your desktop in 8 or 10, and it's going to sort the 8 first. I think that we need to have another podcast about this.

45:24 We just count numbers. The first episode will be number 1, and we'll just say 1, and then we'll move on and record the second episode. I think we should cut it together so it's, like, blocks of 1,000 at the very least. I'm telling you, I swear in the past I've had that exact problem where I number things through, like, 15, and all the ones with 1 start going up above everything else, and then I've got to re-number them so it'll go correct.

45:47 You're not crazy. Thank you, Sean. That's the way it usually works. I did just check, and Mike is right, but I don't know how. They must have changed it in the world. Yeah, they changed it. Everyone got together behind me and your back. This is Berenstain Bears shit. It's one of those Mandela effect things, you know? Like, you guys came from the universe where they sorted by the first digit.

46:04 Mike just edited the wiki of how to sort things, and then everybody saw that and were like, oh, shit, we got this wrong. We got to update it real fast. Sorry, this part, this isn't making it into the show anyway, so. Yeah, that's right. I got Tim Apple on the phone and told him to fix this.

46:19 Speaking of fixing things, we did fix the Essential Games list last episode, and it is a little scary to know that when we recorded the Essential Games list for 8 Eyes or any game for 1990,

46:34 it's very far away from the next time you'll get a chance to do any revising. So, do you guys feel any pressure about your Essential Games list votes for this episode, knowing that you will have, like, two whole years before you can revisit your votes?

46:50 I try to live. I feel pressure. I've felt pressure about my Essential Games vote list ever since I voted Excitebike on in episode, like, three or whatever it was, and then had to wait, like, just, like, two months to take it off. So, yeah, the three-year wait is going to be tough if I decided something is different than I thought in the first place. Look, Mike, I live my life a quarter mile at a time.

47:14 Well said, Sean. So, I'm never thinking about what I'm going to put on the Essential Games list before I play the game. And I like my emotions to speak for me, and I'm not trying to strategize the Essential Games list like you guys. Understood. With that note, it feels like there's no better time to talk about 8 Eyes and the Essential Games list at the same time than in a little segment we call the Essential Games list.

47:44 Sean, it's a new season, but it's still 2022 on the calendars, and you still get to vote first because of that rule I made in January of this year. Your power's almost over, but you still get to go first. I wouldn't call it power, you know? Well, yeah, it's all, you know, theoretical power. Technically, you could say something that makes one of us reconsider, right?

48:08 True. I wasn't expecting this. I thought that it went by the year of the show, but it does make sense. You'd be whoever's next, but then get 200 and something games for this. So, I get it.

48:24 I think Sam's next. Yeah. We've been playing this game, and I think it's been skewing negative, but it is just such a weird game between its weird quirks, and we were pretty positive on some things that we didn't talk a lot about. Like, again, this game has a lot of good music in it, and I think the art in it is pretty good. But beyond that, I just was befuddled most of the time, so I'm going to say it's not essential. Joe? Yeah, I really had a good time with it, too. I mean, I think that there's a lot of cool ideas in it. I think that the two-player probably is really fun. I would like to play it. I love the idea, the concept of the Falcon thing. In one player especially, they need to work out a lot of kinks.

49:23 It's weird to me that they would give you the same tools in one player, but they let them work totally differently. I feel like for the way I was playing it, which obviously was kind of a janky way to play it, it felt really important to use both of those elements of gameplay. The man and the bird. But in one player, it doesn't really give you enough freedom to actually use both of those. It doesn't actually seem reasonable to ever really use the bird.

49:54 And beyond that, I think that there's a lot of quality of life and other gameplay decisions that need to be improved before I would be able to put this as essential. But I will say, I think that this is a play it. I think you should check this one out. And as weird as it sounds, if you can't play with a second player, I would recommend playing with a second controller and just putting one down and picking the other up when you need to change. Get yourself in a safe spot. It's definitely not the intended way. It's definitely not ideal, but I still had a fun time with it. But no, not essential. Almost everything I like about this game comes down to the cool It Takes Two style couch co-op. But even after playing that, not It Takes Two, but this game.

50:36 Even after playing that, Joe, I think you're right that it's probably an easier and more interesting experience with a friend. But I was trying to say earlier that the experience for the friend isn't a complete game. Like, you know, Oren does so much more than the Falcon. So the Falcon does kind of feel like the little brother role. And you're not doing, you know, you're not like all of a sudden you're doing badass combos and you're like, you know, no, no, let me take this one. Like, you know, you're the Falcon. There's only so much you can do. Uh, so it, the two player, whether it's by yourself or with a friend, doesn't fix the pacing issues I was talking about in regards to combat, platforming, progression with those switches over the doors.

51:22 Figuring out what the correct order is, is also a pacing issue because you more than likely won't pick the right sword for the right person just through guesswork. Uh, forcing the person to beat the game three times, even though I don't think anybody should have to do that. It wasn't okay in Ghosts and Goblins. And it's, although it was kind of funny because that game was really, really hard. It's not okay here either because, uh, they, they do it three times and they don't even make it obvious how to do the third time. So for all those reasons, I'm out on this one. I don't think I would put it in my play it though, either.

51:54 Uh, I think it was, it was, uh, there was a lot going on in this game and sometimes that can work in its favor, but I think what this game was trying to do, it didn't even pull off there. Um, I agree. I don't think it's a play it either. Um, it just has a couple bright spots. And if you want to see more bright spots on the NES, continue to join us, uh, on this chronological journey through 1990. Who knows how many games are playing in 1990? It's like a hundred something, uh, 190 maybe even, which is crazy because we just played 90 games just for 1989.

52:28 Next week, we're going to play Bases Loaded 2, the second season. And if you're joining us on our Patreon, uh, patreon.com slash nostalgia, we have, uh, our Nostalgia Bites episodes where we'll be doing a Kid Dracula for the month of December because nothing says Christmas like Kid Dracula. And we're also doing for all patrons, no matter what level you subscribe at, there's only two levels, by the way, I wasn't going to pretend like there's some secret $1,000 a month level,

52:56 uh, just on the two levels, either $1 or $5, everybody gets access to our special Game Boy launch games episode. We're not doing a chronological Game Boy exploration. We're not about to go review every Game Boy game. It's just that it feels kind of weird to talk about Nintendo's, uh, 1989 and not cover their biggest release of the year, which is an entire new system with some very exclusive games. Fun.