260 · Kings of the Beach
Kings of the Beach is a two on two beach volleyball game. You must quickly move your team about on the sand performing serves, thumps, and spikes to not only out-perform but also out-smart the opposing team.
Konami made this for Ultra Games in 1990: two-on-two beach volleyball with real pro players and a tournament that ends in Australia, though the screen is not upside down there. We never know what we're getting from an NES sports game, and this one surprised us. It is simple, and it works.
What works
- Few inputs, good feel. You set, spike, serve and block. A, B or both together hit the ball, and the D-pad steers it afterward. We were shaky at first, then it felt fair, and a higher difficulty was a decent challenge.
- The ball moves like a volleyball. It is fast when first hit, slows at the top and speeds up again. Next to other sports games, it moves the way a volleyball should.
- It looks good. The sprites are clearly defined and fairly realistic, and the ball has texture.
- Arguing with the ref. Argue too much and you get a yellow card, then a red. We went back and forth on whether a game that knows the right answer should add bad calls. Playing an older brother, you would just want it to say who won.
What doesn't
- It locks you in place. Get under the ball and the game holds you there. That probably helps with depth perception, but it blocks undercutting for a direct spike.
- Not much to it. There are three tutorials for three moves and little to the tournament. Over time it could get stale.
- The computer. Skip the aftertouch and it becomes a juggling game of four people volleying. Later it gets almost too good, which sent us into Mario Tennis on the N64 and Birdo.
Worth knowing
- Real players. Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos have bios, and you can't pick who you play as except in versus. In 1990 you would need a library and a sports atlas to look them up. Two characters are made up, and Lester is from the Skate or Die series.
- Four players. The NES Four Score puts two on each side, not four against two computers. Joe hadn't tried it, but figured it is "definitely a multiplayer" game.
- The greeters. Winning a tournament seems to get you a bikini-clad greeter. By the second one, the one-piece is a two-piece.
The bottom line
Play it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. It does almost exactly what it sets out to do, but there is not enough substance, and it is one iteration of the sport on the NES, the same reasoning we gave NES Golf. It is a fun one-on-one or party game, not a must-play unless you are looking for it.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- Dig it!?
- NES Longplay
- Introductions
- Overview
- Play as Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos. The game features three modes of play: practice, match play and tournament.
- Gameplay
- Tournament
- progress through five beaches (San Diego, Chicago, Waikiki, Rio de Janeiro, and Australia) filled with increasingly challenging opponents as you attempt to win it all.
- Characters
- Smith and Stoklos are joined by Ron Von Hagen, Tim Hovland and Mike Dodd as the only 'real' volleyball players featured in the game
- EA spiced up the competition with some notorious characters from other games, including Hard Hat Mack and Lester from Skate or Die and Ski or Die.
- the ability to 'argue' calls with the referee, which occasionally allows players to get a point overturned. However, if players argue too much, the referee may penalize them with a red card and deduct a point.
- Tournament
- The original game box had a press-on body tattoo inside.
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- EA would never make another Volleyball Game.
- EGL
- Next week - The Magic of Scheherazade
- NEStalgia Byte - Bio Miracle
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Kings of the Beach!
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. And while I'm sure we'd all love to be playing some beach volleyball right now, it's the winter, and we actually just had our first snowfall in New York City today, which was like, they wouldn't shut up about how it was a record that it like hasn't snowed in January in New York City for like the first time in 155 years, which is really just shorthand for the first time since it's been recorded, because they didn't record snowfall like that before 155 years ago. But we had to be respectful to, you know, our listeners down under because it's summer there.
And that always throws me for a loop. How many, how often do you guys think about the fact that like when you're freezing your ass off that it's actually summer for like half this world? Yeah, it's really weird because like, like if I were to travel to Australia like a day before my birthday, then I would have my birthday delayed by like six months and then like backwards as well. So if you just keep traveling, like from north to south, north to south, you'll never age, at least on paper.
That checks, that adds up. There's absolutely no flaws in that line of it. Well, I think it's just that the flight itself takes that same amount of time. So technically you're aging in the flight, right? Like it takes like six months to get to Australia.
Something like that. Well, they really are just flying you around and then they land you somewhere in South America and tell you something like that. That's true. I think they're not about that. Sean, very on brand of you to mention Australia though, because not only are they one of the beaches you can play as in Kings of the Beach. Didn't mention. You can't, you can't play as the beach. I should have, I should have said that correctly. What I meant to say was that's one of the locations you can go to in Kings of the Beach is Australia. But also we have listeners in Australia based on information that I get from Anchor, our like podcast host. So, you know, hello. I don't know. How do they say hello? Good day. Yeah.
We're here and we're finally presenting our Australian fan base in a game that Australia. What's that? I mean, all the guys that I see like bios for are all from California. So I just didn't realize how much of like Australia is in this game. Well, aren't there like five beaches that you go to? I suppose. Yeah. So it's the beach location is like first it starts off with like San Diego, then Chicago and then they're like, no, let's take it up a notch. And by the end, you're in Australia. Is it Chicago and beach? I don't know. I'm just, I'm literally just giving what the game gave us, you know? Wow. Can't do much more than that. I only played on the one. Yeah.
It is a good question though. What happens in the Chicago beach? Is that just like, is that even in Chicago proper? Like why say Chicago? Yeah. Some goofy stuff. Well, I think sometimes I'm imagining that like beach volleyball leagues will have to like just make big beaches.
Oh, I see. It's not top. Okay. I see that it's saying like, oh, you're in San Diego now. I guess I never read that. Well, you don't have to read that because, you know, to your point, Sean, the, the gameplay experience doesn't change between San Diego, Chicago. It's not like, you know, in Australia, the whole screen is upside down when you're playing. They didn't do that. That's true. You have to do that on your end. Which way does the toilet flush though? Up. Which way does the water flush in the, in the ocean behind you and the, at the beach? Right.
Uh, okay. Enough silliness. Let's talk about this game. Uh, Sean, you mentioned that you thought the guys are from California. I'm sure most of them are because that's where a lot of these great, uh, beach volleyball players are from, but these are actually some real beach volleyball players. Um, Sinjin Smith, Randy Stoklos, um, Ron Von Hagen. What is up with these names? Like, do the, do you have to have a somewhat like, these are like reminiscent of baseball players in the early 1900s.
I actually did not know that there was like a professional circuit for this. And I thought that they were made up until like I was on the Wikipedia page and they had pages. So, um, were you aware of these guys before we played this game?
Uh, absolutely not. And I, I, you know, this is no offense to any particular sport, be it beach volleyball or what I'm about to mention with darts. But like, if, if there's a league for darts and, and they travel and they do stuff, then surely there must be a league for most things. Darts is a, is a very, you know, it's, it takes a lot of talent to hit those things as precise as they do. And especially when they get like right underneath it too, like you just find like the smallest crevice of things to like land right on it. How do they have such precision?
Incredible. But nevertheless, that also means that like, no, I wasn't surprised to find out that there are professional beach volleyball players. I just didn't know these guys is it, you know, they're, they're trying to make them seem like you've seen them on ESPN or something like that. I guess that was more my point because yeah, well, I'm, I was aware that there is like leagues for stuff like, uh, like darts.
I don't remember there being a game released with like the likenesses of professional dart players. Yeah. It's interesting because especially I got to imagine 1990, this information would be so niche. It's not like, even if you had the game, you could Google these people and you're not watching them on TV. So it is interesting that they, you know, still took the effort to like, to make these based on real people. You'd have to go to like a library and borrow a sports Atlas or something.
Yeah. But anyone who's into beach volleyball, which would, you know, be somewhat of this target audience. I think most people would just, we'll just get this game regardless. But like, you know, if you're into beach volleyball, an endorsement always helps. Right. I don't think that, uh, I don't know this for a fact. I'm just throwing it out there. I feel like Tony Hawk's pro skater, the games, not maybe not all of them, but I feel like those games sold better than a game titled just skate, which is maybe a better game. But I feel like because you get the brand endorsement of somebody like Tony Hawk, right?
It's like, you might as well get the best beach volleyball player too. Right. Even if you don't like, thankfully it didn't name the game, uh, Sinjin Smith's beach volleyball, right? Like they did give it a clever name, but like, you know, if you're, if you're familiar with beach volleyball at all and you see those guys, it'd be some kind of selling point. Yeah. And I also think that they're maybe not in 1990, maybe so, but like, I think there's a, there's a period of time where Sinjin Smith's beach volleyball would sell even if people didn't know who he was. Cause they're like, Oh, this is legit. It's got a professional volleyball player endorsing it.
Right. That's true. We've, we've seen that even just with, um, with some of the golf games, which I'm not saying those guys aren't, um, great golfers, but sometimes you get surprised of like, okay, I guess they couldn't get the number one player. So they said, well, just, you know, even baseball that happens a lot.
Uh, Sean, I believe you mentioned in our Genghis Khan episode, Mike Piazza, who was the, uh, greatest Mets catcher and, uh, he got a baseball game and he was never the best in the league or won any MVP voting of any sort, but they gave him an endorsement and a deal for, uh, Mike Piazza strike zone. So why not? Right? Like I, I hear you, Joe, they're probably, especially with a name like Sinjin Smith probably could have sold well. Yeah. I know it's also just for like a different international audience, but there's also, uh, this Don Bradman cricket.
So I imagine like maybe Don Bradman is the Mike Piazza of cricket or like, you know, I didn't know who Dave Mira was before Dave Mira's BMX pro skater to underground, but like, so yeah, it, I, I don't know when that sort of being like a, a video game trope, but it could have been used here. Sinjin Smith's a pretty cool name. I dig it, but not all of the characters in this game are real. And, uh, I think that's apparent with a hard hat, Mac and Lester who showed up in the, uh, skate or die series. Those are EA characters and you guessed it. EA made this game.
So, um, you know, I, I think they could have even, I don't know like where EA is in their timeline of games they've released, but I feel like they could have embraced that even more. It feels weird to only include like two characters that are make believe. And then the rest are totally real with bios and stuff. Like, I don't know. Could have, could have had a little more flair to it. Right? Well, we haven't yet reached the super smash brosification of games. That's true. This was more like an Easter egg. If anything, Lester, you know, who's Lester. And then if you played skate or die, you would know.
True. Let's just talk about beach volleyball for a second. Um, you know, the way that the game lays it out for you in Kings of the Beach is that you have this, uh, cursor and it looks like a guy who's about to serve a volleyball. Um, pretty cool design. Looks like something reminiscent of the London 2012 Summer Olympics design. They also look like Bart and Lisa Simpson a little bit. If, if anybody remembers those designs, it looks a little bit like that, but you scroll that around and, um, you can choose to do tutorials on each specific. Move that's done in this game. That's a total of three whopping tutorials for the three different moves that you're allowed to do in this game. And, uh, in those tutorials, you are forced to do just that thing.
They actually like lock you into place and then you must hit those buttons. The other ones just, uh, will not work. Uh, they won't achieve a successful result. So once you feel like you've mastered those three tutorials, it's time to, uh, go into the, uh, carnival tent and register for the big event, which is the tournament. You register there and then you go to the tournament. And, um, as we mentioned, you start in San Diego and work your way through.
The core experience of the game is obviously the actual, uh, simulation of the sport beach volleyball. So how'd they do on, uh, on setting this up? Was it arcadey? Was it realistic? Sometimes you just don't know what you're going to get with these NES sports games. Yeah. You know, this isn't my, my first, uh, beach volleyball game. You know, there, uh, there was a, it was, it was definitely a volleyball simulator first and whatever else second, but there was also a dead of a dead or alive beach volleyball.
Um, and you know what, the mechanics are almost exactly the same. Yeah. I was surprised too. It kind of feels, um, I mean, it's so simple, like really when you break it down, but it feels good. But the, I was, I was reading some reviews and I watched a couple of videos, um, that were kind of complaining about the like timing of it. And, and I didn't really get that. I thought that, uh, it felt really good to, I mean, what do you, you do three things you set, you, you spike and you serve really like that. That's really it. Um, you could also block too.
Yeah. But it all felt like at first when I was having trouble with it, it felt like it was because I was still kind of getting the learning curve. And once I got it, it felt fair. And then I, you know, graduated up to a higher difficulty. And then I was like, okay, yeah, this is like a decent challenge. And, you know, I, I thought it functioned as well as I could ask it to. And in my opinion, as far as like just the, the basic controls of volleyball.
Yeah. I think, um, uh, the, the one nitpick that I had about the controls of this game is that it, sometimes the, the game would sort of like lock you into place. Like if you ended up below the ball, it would lock you there. And that's probably for the best because, you know, depth perception has always kind of been a problem of ours in these, uh, net based games. Um, but there, there'd be times where I'm trying to sort of, uh, undercut the ball. So, and like sort of jump under it and do like a direct spike back instead of like the standard bump set spike that would give the opponent more time to get into position.
And sometimes it just, it just wouldn't let you do something like that. So sometimes it felt like you couldn't really ex not express yourself, but, uh, you couldn't really execute exactly what you wanted to execute. It's sort of like, no, you gotta do it this way. But other than that, like, I think it, it's a pretty good, um, simulation of the sport. Yeah. I did forget about that actually, but I had that issue a couple of times too, or it's locking me into place. And I, I felt a few times like it locked me into a place where it was actually not ideal. And I, and I missed because of it, but realistically I probably missed and then was blaming it on that. But it was, it's hard to tell.
Sean, that's a great point because outside of the movement being a little on rails, especially as you get closer to the net, it, it sets you up for a spike and stuff like that. Uh, outside of that, the game controls exactly as I expect it to, um, in a good way, you know, uh, there's only so many things you're, you're, you can do, you know, you only have the A and the B button or pressing the A and the B button together.
Those are your like three options for what you can do, uh, to, um, to hit the ball. And then the rest is all like directional inputs after hitting the ball and stuff like that. Or, um, you know, setting up for a defensive thing versus an offensive thing. Like the, the actual experience might get a little stale, like over time, but as somebody who was just playing this recreationally for this week's episode, I thought it was a very, like, not only competent, but it just surprised me how well it functioned as a volleyball game. Yeah. Like I kind of fell into a hole when I got, um, stuck in a blizzard earlier this, or late last year, um, of just playing Mario tennis on the N64.
Uh, and it's, it's kind of just as simple. Like there are only so many inputs and the rest of it is sort of like after touch and like, there really isn't anything about like how long you hold down the button in this game. But it's, it's really just like two buttons and how long, how long you hold down the button and the directions and that simplicity yet having that kind of control can really make a game that a simple game like this have its life extended.
Yeah. I agree completely because it's, it, it is, it just functions like a little volleyball game. You know, as weird as that sounds like, and I wonder if, you know, the simplicity of the controls, um, and, and just what was required to make it function, gave them more time to like put into the physics and stuff, which I also think feel pretty great. Like the, the, I don't know if I, it's just easier to notice in a volleyball game because of how much the ball is like being popped into the air and, and, and going up and down and stuff. But like compared to other sports games, I really noticed like, oh, that like moves like a volleyball feels like it would move. I guess. There's lots of parabolas.
Yeah. I mean, but it's like, but like even the way it just like, it's going faster when you first hit it and it slows down at the top and it speeds up. Like, I don't know. It sounds like I'm like really like looking at this with closely, but there's so many NES games. I mean, I'm thinking particularly of earlier stuff in the, in, you know, like the mid eighties and stuff that we were working with. Like we're like the physics of any projectile feels clunky and it feels smooth. Yeah. I think what, what else kind of just makes the game feel better is also because the game looks really good. Like these sprites, uh, are at once clearly defined and also look pretty realistic.
And, uh, the animation, like it's a very smooth arc whenever you hit the ball and the ball itself even has some texture to it. And there's some movement in the background, but the, but it's never distracting. Interesting. And you just got a lot of detail and crispness. I think that the, the art in this game is, is very good and expressive. If you don't know the rules of volleyball, you can only score if you, uh, if you're the one serving.
Otherwise, uh, you know, if you correctly like should have scored that point, but you weren't the one that serves. Now you get to serve and thus, um, the game can take a little longer than you might expect. It's 15 points, uh, to win the match. And if you're not using like the after touch feature of the direction pad at the right time to kind of change where you're, the ball is landing.
I found because I wasn't doing that at first, the computer almost will never, uh, mess up that kind of stuff. It almost becomes, uh, like a juggling game where it's just four people having a nice volley, uh, with the ball back and forth. You have to do some kind of touching in, in my experience of the game, at least there's some kind of touching with the deep head to manipulate the ball a little bit, or maybe be more precise about when you, uh, spike the ball to get it to hit a little harder to then, uh, hit their faces. There's a lot of, um, expression and, and character in this game though, too.
And one of the things that really surprised me was the ability to argue calls with the referee. I think that that's, uh, an incredibly like future forward thinking thing.
It's fun. It's silly. And it makes it okay that like the call wasn't correct because you have the chance to like do something about it. And I know we've talked in the past about that with like NFL games and being able to challenge a play and like, why should that be a feature in these kinds of games? But when done appropriately and, and fitting the theme, uh, or, or sorry, the vibe of the game is a very like relaxing game. And it's fun to go up there and argue with the ref and he'll even give you a yellow card and then a red card. If you argue too much, like it's, it's a nice touch. I want you kick this, you kick sand at him. Yeah. I don't quite makes the wrong call.
Remember how you argue with the ref? My like computer teammate usually did that for me, but it was always funny. Uh, and in that same vein, like if you were to like pull off a pretty sweet point get, um, then you and your teammate will just randomly like high five and butt pat or whatever.
Yeah. Um, I, I always find it interesting though. I'm curious, like I, I am of two minds about the whole arguing the call thing because like that is, that does help immersion. And that is what happens in, in real volleyball or in any real sport. But it's like, that's an imperfection in the sport because we are not computers. I can't know for sure. Like if a ball was out or something, but it's almost like we have the opportunity to fix that in perfection in the sport.
So like, I can see it both ways. I can kind of see it being like, okay, it's cool for immersion, but also like, Hey, I want to know like who really won that. Was that in or was that out? Like, yeah, no, I, I hear you. And I think the difference is, is that in, in these kinds of sports, because that actually does happen, it becomes like a part of the game, you know? Uh, certainly, certainly in tennis too.
Now, like they actually, you know, they have computer replays like nobody else, you know, they actually are able to like determine exactly where the ball was hit on the court and zoom in. And if even a little, uh, hair of the shadow, uh, touched the, uh, the white line, then it's still in, you know, like they, they can get so precise with it. But in this game, it's like, you know, you might miss a call. You might not, you know, you might not want to challenge a call or whatever.
And that's like the risk that you have to make. Like, so there is some kind of like, you know, management there, at least I'm not saying there's any strategy to it, but there's definitely, uh, you know, you have to, you have to be paying attention to the play at all times and make the judgment on whether that was in or out.
Yeah. I mean, it totally, yeah, it totally makes sense for immersion. And just because it has become part of the game, but like I said, I'm just like, I can't fully back either side of it. Like I haven't decided what like I would actually prefer.
I think, I think I would prefer it to just be perfect for, you know, just for the sake of like, it is a, it is a video game. It knows whether it's actually in or out and then it chooses to add the randomness. So that is kind of upsetting. Whereas in like, yeah, in the real world, people just make honest mistakes and that's why these things happen. And that's why we added challenges. Hopefully one day we'll just be able to have robot, um, referees just tell us, you know, the actual results of everything. And we don't have to wait, uh, to find out after the fact or through video replay that, um, oh, actually turns over my, turns out my team was screwed.
Yeah. Cause I'm thinking like, if I, if I'm playing this in tournament mode, I think it is kind of fun to like make the call. Cause I'm like immersed if I'm playing by myself in tournament mode, but I'm imagining also if I'm, you know,
if it's back in the nineties and I'm playing, you know, I'm playing against my older brother and, and I swear that like, I just won the game, but there was a bad call. And now he's like, well, I mean, you know, the ref said, and I'm like, you know what? Like I wish that the game would just tell me at that point, like if I'm playing against another human, I just want to know like who won. So there's no, so I can, uh, there's no disputes. Maybe you should just, uh, be more choosy as to when you argue with the ref, you know?
Right. That, that will have to be what it is. I often wonder how. Cause you do have recourse with like the ref, like you can argue it. I'm pretty sure it, if it did a wrong call on purpose, if you then argue with the ref, you should be able to get it. Right. Yeah. I'm assuming. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It will never actually just like stick it to you and be like, no. Yeah. I guess I'm just more okay with it because, you know, I come from a place where my favorite, in my favorite sport, we have trouble defining what a catch is. So you kind of, you kind of have to take that as it is. Yeah. I do often wonder Sean, how American football was ever played before you could like review the tape.
Like it must've been a different game. No, it was just like, you know, the ref was there. He's probably, he's probably got it. Or you thought that everything was rigged. Right. Which it is, but not in any particular way. It's kind of like how, you know, certain things are eyeballed for the most part until things get like really serious. Yeah. You know, a lot of people just get like, yeah, yeah. He was like, that was a first down. Like, you know, and then certain times it's like, all right, this is important play. Like break out the chains. We got to measure it. Like, you know, it's like other times they just give them away. But then it's like, no, it's also funny with the chains.
Sorry to get so off topic. It's because like the initial spot, like where they put the ball to then measure it with the change is an imprecise thing. Like there's like, oh, it was here. I think it's like, but then we have to measure it very precisely after I eyeballed it. Anyway, I'm we're very off topic. Yeah. No, for true chain measuring or any kind of tape measuring in sports, see bocce. That is where, you know, that's where things are legit because those balls have been untouched. They are where they are. And then you break out the measurement and make sure that you determine who's actually the closest to the white ball.
Back on the topic of this game, though, because we're not done with it. Kings of the Beach is one of those games that works with the NES four score, which was also released in 1990. It allows for four players to play Kings of the Beach, which means two players on each side, not four versus two computers. So I think that that's something extra. I'm not sure if there's really like, you know, Joe, did you play multiplayer in this one? No, no, I should have, though. I feel after I started playing it, I was like, you know, this is definitely a multiplayer.
Yeah, I was going to say it feels like there's enough here like to to just be like a fun party game. There's very little like, I don't know. It's just such a little. Yeah, there's very little stakes. It's very relaxed itself. There's, you know, it sets you up for where you need to be. And then you just hit. It's all about button timing. So as long as you can remember, B does this, A does that, A and B do this. Like, it's only three buttons you got to remember.
I think that this one is an appropriate game for the NES four score, whereas like, you know, I'm seeing on the list here are some other games like A Nightmare on Elm Street. And I'm like, is that really a four player game? Like, I don't remember. But that's I'm thinking of Friday the 13th. We haven't played A Nightmare on Elm Street yet. So we'll see if that's worthy of getting the four player game. We'll get there.
And there's not much to the whole tournament thing. But again, because it's also low stakes, it's more just about winning matches at your own leisure and, you know, going up against different opponents. The difficulty does increase, though. So it's not like, you know, if you've mastered the first beach that by the time you get to Australia, it's not going to be a big deal. It is going to be a big deal and it is going to be tougher than ever before because these computer opponents, just like I'm sure Sean experienced in his Mario Tennis on N64 bout, the computers start to get almost too good. It becomes a little suspicious.
You wonder if they'll ever make a mistake. That pink thing is kind of a joke. I forgot its name. Birdo? Birdo is an asshole. Yeah. Birdo is an asshole confirmed. And Yoshi is evading his taxes.
Birdo is an asshole.
You're a weirdo. I'm just going to say it. Yeah. Missed opportunity. That should be one of your regrets. What were they of? Like, what were, do we know? I couldn't find, I could try and do another one if you want to just try to like guess what they are for a second. But I have to imagine they're nothing like, maybe it's that cursor logo that I said looks like the one that's what I'm guessing. That's one of them. Yeah. What if it's just like the pixel art, pixel art versions of Simjoon Smith?
I'd be into that too. I would like like the whole, like a whole scene, like the whole pixel art, like court of like a game going on. That'll be an actual tattoo that you get one day. Yeah. That's if you bought the deluxe edition. It comes with a $100 voucher to your nearest tattoo parlor. No, it just gives you like the needle. Okay. And like instructions, like how to draw.
Yeah, still no pictures. So if anybody on the, you know, on the Twitter or the Discord, the Discord is only for Patreon members, patreon.com slash nostalgia. If anybody has that, would love to see it and not share it with anybody else too. It'll just be between you and us. So don't worry about, you know, this will be completely anonymous and nobody will know that you didn't use your Kings of the Beach tattoos.
On the sequels and spinoff side, EA, to the best of my knowledge, would never make another volleyball game. And I say to the best of my knowledge because that just feels wrong. The guys who made the EA Sports, like, franchise of things with so many different sports involved never went on to just like get another endorsement and do another beach volleyball game for like the Xbox or something. Like couldn't find anything. Pretty surprising. Would you have expected that there have been at least one other EA beach volleyball game or volleyball game? It doesn't have to be beach volleyball. It could be team volleyball, right?
You get like 10 people on each side. I don't know how that works in a gymnasium or whatever. That's like a different kind of game. Why do you need 10 people when this can easily be accomplished with two on each side? Right? I don't know. I don't get as excited for the team one. I would imagine that there'd be another one along the way. But I mean, you know, that's just where we are. That's how the news goes.
Oh, and this was something I couldn't confirm because I didn't get all the way through. But are you greeted with like a girl in a bikini every time you win one of these like tournaments and go to the next one? I think so. So I think that happens and I don't think it's the same one in the registration shop, but there's a lot of bikinis. Yeah. Yeah, definitely like the highest fidelity artwork in this game are the bikini clad greeting ladies. At least for the transition between now I'm seeing it between the first and the second one, the bikinis become more revealing. If you know what I mean. Oh. Like first it was a one piece. Now it's a two piece.
Okay. Yeah. I kind of get what you're saying. Yes. Thank you for picking up what I'm putting down. Also, we never said it, but you don't get to choose who you play as in this game. We mentioned all those characters, but like those are just characters in this game. You have to be Sinjin and Randy. You don't get to pick. Unless you're playing like a versus, then you can pick.
Sure. But that's not, that's not my game. In Mario Tennis, that's like something they did in the newest one is that you, they had an adventure mode and you had to play as Mario. And that felt weird. It was like, what? This whole game's about all the crazy characters, but I have to be Mario? That's weird. Yeah. Then there should be like an adventure for everybody then. Yeah. Sinjin Smith is Super Mario.
What I'm getting at. Well, the thing that they might have in common is that Super Mario Brothers is on the essential games list. And we're going to find out if Sinjin Smith and the Kings of the Beach will be on the essential games list.
I had a great time with the game. I'm actually surprised I had a great time with the game. I like volleyball as a sport, as a recreational activity. We had like a net in our backyard that you had to set up. So it was always a pain in the ass, but it was always like worth it once you did set it up because you remember like, oh yeah, hitting things over the net is fun. It's fun when the net is low. It's fun when the net is high.
These are life lessons to live by. I always say that to people. But more importantly, what I really want to say is that even though this game is fun, there's not really enough substance here to be on the essential games list today. I'm surprised that we don't. I shouldn't say I'm surprised. I'm surprised that EA never like followed up on this because it works well.
So I'm not sure I would have liked to see like what a Super Nintendo improvement would have been or what a 3D version of this could have been because it's a very straightforward game. That's not incredibly difficult, but still manages to be fun. And we need more games like that. So a welcome surprise. Definitely didn't think I was going to give this kind of review when I heard we had a volleyball sports game coming up. Sean. Well, Mike, there is always that other game that I played as a child and probably shouldn't have been allowed to because of, you know, all the all the bikinis. If you ever want to play a 3D beach volleyball, just just putting that out there. Don't want to get you in trouble. But no, I mean, I'm in the same boat by virtue of it being beach volleyball. It's pretty simple. It's it's very well put together.
But yeah, there's not enough here to put on the essential games list. Yeah, it is like a little difficult for me to find the words as to like why I'm also not voting this on the essential games list, because I do think that it does almost exactly what it sets out to do. And if you're looking for a volleyball game on the NES, like this should quench your thirst for that. And I think that, you know, we're even talking about how the simplicity of it is a good thing, but it doesn't feel right putting it on the essential games list.
And I guess I would say like see our NES golf episode for like it's like a very similar explanation to me where we love that game. But it's just it's one iteration of this on the NES. I'm sure like I just feel like we've maybe evolved past it. It's it's fun. It works for a very simple, like fun kind of like one on one or like party game experience. Like you said, Mike, but I just think that it's not.
It's not something that I'm going to say, like, this is a must play for anyone who is playing video games. Like, I think you need to be like looking for this experience.
So I'm going to say no. Next week, we have the magic of Shahar Azad, which is some kind of like action RPG looks a little bit like Willow in terms of sprite design. And that's an essential game. And it also seems like it plays a little bit like potentially The Legend of Zelda, another essential game. So do you think the magic of Shahar Azad has a chance? Don't answer that, Sean and Joe. So I'm asking the listeners, because if anybody listens to this episode or any of our episodes on Spotify, recently I've added a little poll thing to say, like, is the game of the week that we're talking about an essential game?
And so far, we are undefeated. Everybody says that the games we say are essential games are essential games. And everybody says the ones we say are not essential games are not essential games. Granted, we've only been doing this since the start of 1990 with eight eyes. But still, like, you know, we're doing pretty good right now. Let's see when we can finally get some discourse in here.
So you don't have to download Spotify and listen to the app there and do all that. You can just tweet at us or you can message us on Discord. Remember, patreon.com slash nostalgia to join. You won't just get access to our Discord. You'll get access to Nostalgia Bites, our next episode, Bio Miracle. I think it's about a baby who has a magical rattle or something like that. I don't know. I'm making it up. We're going to play the game, though. We're going to talk about it in depth there. So if that sounded interesting, don't put down $5 just for that because it might not be that game. So check out Nostalgia Bites for the other, like, 12 episodes we have up. We're 13 now. You know, I don't know anymore. I'm losing track of things. Thank you.
