271 · Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum
You are Dash Galaxy, a fearless space explorer. You have just landed on a strange, alien planet thousands of light years from Earth. Your mission is to make your way though the maze of rooms and return safely to your ship. To do this you will need to enter every room and collect all of the objects that can be found in it. Your oxygen supply is limited, though, so be sure to hurry!
- You've fought your way out of tight spots a hundred times, in a dozen solar systems. But you haven't seen tight til you accidently land in the mental ward of the universe!
- NES Longplay
- Introductions
- The title has that 50’s sci-fi thing going on
- Overview
- Platform/Puzzle game where you play as Dash Galaxy, navigating a series of rooms looking for keys to continue climbing the asylum.
- Gameplay
- The Jump
- Walk/Run
- The player also has a limited oxygen supply.
- Dash's only weapons are a limited supply of bombs and remote detonators.
- Dash can become invincible each stage by collecting ten stars.
- While the rooms are side-scrolling action puzzles, the floors have an overhead view, and include difficult block-moving puzzles that can trap you
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- None, Data East and Beam Software
- EGL
- Next week - Destination Earthstar - Naturally the place you go after the asylum
- NEStalgia Byte - Chaos World
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum. You've fought your way out of tight spots a hundred times in a dozen solar systems, but you haven't seen tight till you accidentally land in the mental ward of the universe. Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And that's it. That's us. We're dropping like flies over here. It's too bad what happened to Joe. Right. He checked himself into the mental ward of the universe and we wish him the best. He's going to recover. He should be back in early 2028 at the very latest. That's what I've heard. But for real though, if Dash Galaxy is in the mental ward of the universe and he's fighting a bunch of bad guys, are these bad guys or are they just mentally unwell people who maybe don't even realize the actions? That they're doing. Now, you're talking to me as if like, you know, that I read the manual. I did not.
Like, as if like, maybe there's some context in the manual about what kind of insane asylum we're in. Um, but I just sort of saw it as a bunch of puzzles, you know, uh, without insanity. Right. So you're thinking this is like Arkham Asylum where like only the world's worst people have been put into the alien asylum. Only the galaxy's worst people. Galaxies. Right. The world's worst people are on Arkham Asylum. But reference our Batman episode for that. But in Dash Galaxy, in his universe, there's just one gigantic alien asylum. Presumably its own like, you know, cool Death Star looking space cell that like they just house people in. It's like a planet that was turned into a prison.
Oh, I like that. Yeah. Now, are you making that up? Absolutely. I'm making that up. Oh, okay. Good. Here's the thing about Dash Galaxy in the, um, in the alien asylum. When you start this, well, first off, before you even start the game, if you just look at the box for the game, it looks like it's, uh, one of those like 1950s sci-fi things. This is clearly like a parody of that. But then when you start the game, it has this like cartoon drawing of Dash Galaxy in the alien asylum as if it's like some cartoon show that you didn't know. So the whole thing is either like it's parodying something else or it wants you to believe that it's like part of a larger franchise. But best of my knowledge, Dash Galaxy in the alien asylum is just this one NES game.
Yeah, that's, that's pretty strange. It definitely sort of markets itself as part of a larger IP at late, at least just like with a name that cumbersome. Right. You have to say the full title every time. Dash Galaxy in the alien asylum because presumably there are other adventures like James Bond. Do we ever do that though? We don't say like James Bond in Dr. No. I mean, I think in some contexts you might, but, uh, that's not like the proper noun of the movie, right? It's just Dr. No. Right, right. And James Bond in Dr. No, if you know the movie, that sounds more like a porno parody.
Both of those people are characters. So have at it. I guess what it more sounds like is, uh, uh, it's another like Ray Gunn, Ray Gunn sci-fi thing. Uh, Buck Rogers would be like Buck Rogers in the adventure of the, uh, tourniquet machine or something along those lines. Whereas there'd be more Dash Galaxies and things like that. But no, it's just this. Right. So the, yeah, maybe this was just the start and then it could be spinned off into anything. The, the whole like 1950s sci-fi, uh, aesthetic, Star Trek aesthetic, whatever it is. Um, does it carry over into the game though? Or is it just kind of in the art?
It only really, it's really just in that intro, uh, because otherwise this, I mean, it definitely has a sci-fi aesthetic to some extent, but it gives off more like early Prince of Persia vibes, at least with like just the, the way that your character is anatomically correct to a weird extent. And like the jumping kind of feels like it's supposed to be, uh, physically possible and like low gravity at least. And, uh, then the overhead like puzzle segments, uh, feel more like a, a standard like JRPG to some extent slash, uh, I don't know. The, the, the, the look is all over the place.
Yeah. So that's a great point, Sean, because it, it, it switches between puzzle and platforming. So the platforming is your traditional side scrolling levels. Um, and then the puzzle element is this, uh, overhead view similar to Legend of Zelda or something where you're pushing blocks to then like, um, you know, you could soft lock yourself if you don't push the blocks correctly, but you're pushing them to reveal entrances that lead you into the platforming sections. Inside these platforming sections, you're collecting items, um, of which like, it's kind of unclear to me which items are the actual important ones, or if you should just be about collecting everything.
Uh, but presumably there's like a key that you want to collect to continue climbing the asylum through each floor. And you know what floor you're on because there's a nice number on the rug. At least they took the time to put the numbers on the rug. Everybody does that, right? Like in your house, you have, uh, the number one on your first floor and the number two on your second floor.
Yeah, I just have the one floor, but it does say three on it. Yeah. It says three on the one floor? Oh, because you're on the third floor. I'm on the third floor. Yeah. Got it. Well, that's helpful. I only get the one. Yeah. Right. And everybody should do that just to help people who don't know your house that well. Like, think about it. The alien asylum might be one of the most dangerous places on earth, but at least they took the time to label it for Dash Galaxy. Yeah, that was the one OSHA rule that they didn't break.
Sean, you familiar with the box art at all for Dash Galaxy? You can take that as a no. Hold on. Uh, yeah, totally into it. I, I see like, you know, it's kind of like Mega Man for some reason. Yes. I think it's the same face. With the very photorealistic face. Yes. Yeah. Like the, the ultra human. I don't know. This guy looks like, he looks a little better in shape than Mega Man. He kind of looks like a football player who then became a space cadet. I'd say that this is, that the same guy, like this was him before he turned 50. Like just before he turned 50. Right, right. And then Mega Man is him after he turned 50. So if that's Dash Galaxy, can you tell me where he is in the video game? Uh, like he's there. I don't know. I don't see that guy.
They don't even have the same color hair, let alone any of the same uniforms, these white gloves, these black boots. Like none of that. The character in the game couldn't look any different than that. The character in the game looks like they're wearing like a Star Trek, you know, blue suit. Um, it looks like, you know, the, you know, the, the memo that got sent to art was just like a man surrounded by the enemies from the game that we developed. And you'll, you'll get references for those, uh, in, in like a cyber, like a cyber setting.
Um, cause like you can, I can recognize some of the enemies like that, that bird is all over the place. Like some of those snakes and in some areas, but yeah, it's just, that's not him. Right. They just forgot to tell them what the actual main character of the game that you see all the time on screen looks like.
But nevermind. Okay. So dash galaxy couldn't make it. So now you're here. We'll just make that the story right now. It's you instead, the player, uh, going through the alien asylum, forget about the puzzles because that's it's, they're not really puzzles. The same thing over and over again, where you're just pushing blocks and yeah, sometimes there's hazards. Sometimes there's not.
Um, but you're just using those as a means to get to the meat of the game, which is this platforming thing where you described very accurately as like at the, at, at its simplest, it's a Prince of Persia wannabe when it comes to the way that the character controls and the way that it wants you to handle the platforming. But that's kind of where I would draw the line between how this is like Prince of Persia, because otherwise this is a, um, like a wizards and warriors style collectathon where it just wants you to collect all these different symbols.
Um, whatever they mean, some probably are just for points. Some are for other things. Some are for invincibility. I wasn't keeping track. I was just collecting them. Um, and then I'm just collecting them. But, uh, along the way, uh, other than the platforming, there are enemies that are just kind of in your way. And the only way to deal with these enemies are bombs that you don't have. You just have like a very limited supply of bombs. You start with none. You have to find bombs. And then when you do have bombs, they're very quickly go away. So just don't worry about the bombs and instead think of yourself as the, um, you know, the most impressive man in the universe who just doesn't kill.
I mean, so, okay. I know that at least one of them is a key to open the door back to puzzle land over the head puzzle land. Um, and then I'm pretty sure that the, one of them is bombs. You can, you can get more bombs by picking them up in the side scrolling area. The rest, I have no idea what they are, what they're for.
Um, and one thing that I like, I know that you can use the bomb in either, in either setting, whether it's the side scrolling, like platformer or the puzzle part. Um, I always just reserve the bombs for the puzzle area because they can be used to destroy those like laser gate hazards. Or I believe even if you, if you do soft lock yourself, you can just destroy blocks. Um, and so I, I saw them more as a tool for that, uh, than to try and like destroy these enemies. Cause otherwise your health, they give you a pretty generous amount of health and the, there are no like eye frames. So you're just kind of continuously taking damage if you intersect with an enemy, but an enemy or a projectile, but like you, you, you're pretty well protected.
Yeah. And you mentioned the health bar, which is actually your oxygen meters. Um, I don't, I never thought of this before, but I suppose if you get hit by an enemy, it would make it harder to breathe. So that would also make your oxygen meter go down. There's no like separate hearts system where if you run out of, uh, hearts, then you're also dead. It's just oxygen, but the oxygen is something that you constantly, um, you know, you need to measure that because basically the time that you in the room, you're like running out of oxygen. However, this is quickly solved by just leaving the room. Every time you enter a room, you get a new fresh supply of oxygen.
So is dash holding onto the oxygen and not letting the player control when they refill? Or is there like little like oxygen, uh, tanks between the rooms that the aliens left for him? How is he refilling the oxygen and why is it so plentiful? It's every single time you exit and enter a room. All right, here's where, here's my Canon guess. Basically the areas between each room have airlocks and they have all the oxygen and he's, and there's like little plugs that he plugs is like belt oxygen pack in. And so every time you sort of pass between rooms, he's just refilling off screen. It makes perfect sense.
And you might think shame on us for not reading the manual and not knowing what these items mean, but I would offer the opposite, right? Because when you let, let me break it down for you. The other items that you can find are detonators for your bombs. So this way you can control when they go off, uh, stars, which if you collect 10 of them, allow you to become invincible for a short period of time.
Please note that that also makes dash galaxy 10 times weaker than Mario at the, at the least because Mario just needs one star, but dash galaxy needs 10. Uh, you can also pick up oxygen flasks because it wasn't enough that they just regenerate between rooms. There's also time to pick them up in between areas inside the same room. And then there are lives, which are more rare. Those are the hearts. Um, but those give you a full life. And then there are switches of which you must turn off all the switches in each room before you exit in order to consider that room complete. Ah, switches. And those are like the, they've kind of look like metals you'd get in a, in the war, right?
Uh, yeah, that's a, you know what? I didn't think of it that way, but I see it. I see it a hundred percent. It wouldn't, it would make more sense if they were just anything other than the, like, cause they look now the way I interpreted them as light switches. So are you flicking all the light switches into the off position? I guess that's what they're trying to do.
Yeah. This is like a, you know, Oh, like this place was really bad for the environment. So we need you to power it down. I like that. Um, I don't know why the door's unlocking whenever the power goes out, but, uh, you know, fail deadly. No, that makes sense. The power, the power on is keeping those doors locked. And so the only way to escape is after you've turned off all the power. Yeah, it's a terrible design decision, but who am I to, to, uh, second guess the alien asylum corporation?
Right. And now follow up to my point about shame on us for not reading the manual. Well, it's not really shame on us because should you need to read a manual to understand the purpose of all these different items? Like, isn't it a little strange that we just played through the game and no items were particularly like out of reach or strange to us that it was like unclear what we should be doing. It just felt like, all right, I guess I'll just grab all this stuff because it's kind of just there inconsequentially.
Well, okay. So one, I think it takes a certain kind of game for manual reading to be. Uh, absolutely necessary. And like, you know, if it's an RPG, yeah, sure. Maybe I should read the manual and know what, you know, what this mechanic means or whatever.
Um, but when it's a game as simple as this, I think you should be able to get away with not reading it. But on the flip, on the flip hand, um, we kind of did, you know, like we still were able to understand what the game was about. Yeah. We just didn't really know what we were picking up to do it. Even though I was able to understand the game, I questioned a lot of the design decisions throughout this game. Uh, I think it's about time that we talk about, um, how, how dash controls, if that's even really supposed to be dash.
He has a weird walk run system. He has a weird jump system. Whether he decides to, um, you know, take like a very long jump, a pretty impressive long jump at that, or take a very high jump. Uh, that is different depending on your motion. If you're, uh, if you're in the run position, you will, uh, take the long jump versus if you're standing, you'll be able to jump very high.
Uh, I don't know that to be true in real life, but it is true in whatever gravity, uh, dash is dealing with here. Second off the walk versus run thing. Isn't something that is really, um, momentum based. It's just kind of how long you're holding down the D pad in that particular direction. He'll just automatically switch from walking to running. That feels like something that is solved today by like, uh, pushing down on the actual, um,
on the actual cursor. Uh, what is that? Like that pushing L three, right? Oh yeah. Toggle down the analog stick. Yeah. Right. To like toggle a sprint or even, uh, you know, I could think of a couple of Super Nintendo games that do this. When you double tap to the left or right, that activates the run mode versus the generic walking mode. Uh, neither of those things are present here. Instead, it is just this, uh, quick switch. It's really like his, his brain mentally switches to, I should run. And he just immediately starts running.
the controls in this game more than anything. More than the weird, like, let's just throw symbols all over the room. Uh, let's make it so that you can't fight enemies very often. Like those design decisions could be considered strategic puzzle things in one way or another. It's this, it's the way that you go about controlling this character in a platforming game and making that difficult. That is where I start to question, um, the designers. Yeah, it, it's like, they're definitely going for it to be a momentum based movement scheme. And like, you get that with the fact that there is a couple moments of walking before you're running.
Um, excuse me. Um, and then you've got, like, when you're on a trampoline, like, each, each, like, hop will give you a bit more, uh, a bit more height. And, uh, like, stopping is also, it takes some time. Like, it's, it's sort of like that. That, that's got the slipperiness of Mario, but it doesn't feel as good. And like, so yeah, they're, they were definitely trying to make this like a Prince of Persia momentum based game.
Uh, but it doesn't really, doesn't really hit. Like you said, that whole, that whole, like, walk to run just feels off. Like, it's like maybe a second and a half of holding down a directional button before you get to that run. And that makes some jumping fickle. So I feel like if they did execute better on this movement thing, maybe it would be a better game.
Um, but I don't, I don't really know if there's all that much here anyway. Like, even if this, even if this controlled perfectly, do all of the other factors in this, like, make this something interesting? Right. Like if you put a character that controlled like Mario or Mega Man or, um, uh, Ninja Gaiden, it, you know, if you had a good controlling character, would it be fun to have them move around this side scrolling environment and collect these items? I think the, the issue there is that it's still not just the fact that like, yeah, items are just kind of laid out and you just have to, you know, avoid pitfalls and enemies. The issue there is the size of the rooms, which are all the same space. It's just how they lay out the platforms.
There's really not for, for a momentum based character. There's really not a lot of room to do any of that kind of stuff. Like in Prince of Persia, an example you used earlier, like that is a game that purposefully designs the, um, you know, the gaps and the floors and the traps to be based on how the character controls. And in this game, I feel like most of the levels are designed without thinking about how Dash responds. Like most things are just like, you know, like the trampolines, for instance, they just feel like something that you use because they couldn't figure out any other way for Dash to travel between these two areas. Exactly. So yeah, I think that's, that's a perfect way to articulate it.
The difference between this and Prince of Persia is that Prince of Persia, while it is, it is difficult at times, like it is designed to be, uh, to get you into a state of flow. Like if, if you're good at that game, you can kind of just, everything kind of feels second nature and you can, it feels fluid to go through these levels. And in this game, it, it doesn't have that.
Like every, every platform seems to be designed to slow you down unless it's explicitly like trying to get you to like go down a series of slides and then jump at the right moment. Like those, those moments are few and far between. And then to make up for that and how like, it is just hard to get around. They just litter it with trampolines, which in and of themselves slow you down. Cause you have to get like, you got to build up height.
Um, and that was their bandaid. Um, so yeah, just poor execution on the movement. And it's not that like the platforming or the, um, top down puzzle sections are, um, disjointed from one another. Like, I think it is interesting to, uh, separate the game place this way. It's not just cause switch off all the switches. And then this way you get to the door that just takes you to the next stage. Like it is nice to break that up.
But I feel like, again, something about the design of the game, like they just feel like two separate styles. If that makes sense. It definitely is. And I'm not, I don't think that either one is at its core, a bad, like sketch of a design. Like, um, you can have, I'm fine to just push blocks around all the time. Cause I, I liked chips challenge back in the day and that's pretty much all you do.
Um, but it is just like the, I don't know if it's the size of the levels. Like you've got these pretty expansive, um, side scrolling platforming areas. Um, they're not that big, but they're big in comparison to the block sliding areas, which is just sort of like maybe 16 by 16, like, uh, squares. That's just a guess, but it feels like that.
Um, I think maybe if these were bigger and the, like there was more of an opportunity to like, think more creatively and how to get out of these like block areas without getting yourself stuck. Uh, there would be more of like, okay, like I've had enough of the side scrolling. Now I want to do some, uh, overhead puzzling and it would just keep making it feel fresh. Whereas it just in this way, it all kind of just feels like different forms of meh. What goes through your mind when I tell you that this is the same developer, not publisher developer that also made back to the future and bad street brawler.
Um, I guess I would say that neither of those games really feel like each other, nor do they feel like this. It, it would make me think that they developed this game before either of those. Huh. But it obviously didn't work out that way. And what's even more interesting is the developer, uh, beam software.
Um, you know, they, they have a, a large library of games, but just those three that I picked out, which are their three games on the NES so far. Uh, that consists of dash galaxy is a data East game. Back to the future is an LJN published game. And bad street brawler is a Mattel published game. And now those are three publishers that are also kind of like on our list, if you know what I mean. And so, um, I'm not sure like what the answer is here. Like back to the future, you, we always chalk that up as to like a licensing thing. And sometimes, you know, sometimes license games can be great. And other times they can be like X-Men and, uh, you know, you know what, you get what you get.
But dash galaxy in the alien asylum is the first one because bad street brawler, sorry to not be clear about that. Bad street brawler also kind of made sense because that was the power glove. It went with the power glove. It had even had like a special move that could only be performed with the power glove, which is interesting. Oh yeah. But dash galaxy in the alien asylum.
I agree with you that it feels like it was almost like something that was made first and then just like shelved because it feels like it's their own thing. Right? Like it's not, it's not a franchise. It's not for a toy. It's like their mascot was going to be dash galaxy. And then it just wasn't once the game came out. This, this game feels more so than I'd say most NES games that we've covered.
And I know we've played ports, but this feels most like a game developed for like a PC system that just found its way onto the NES more than pretty much anything else we've played. Between the graphical style and the pace. It just feels more PC to me. Yeah. There is something about just the way that dash looks in the game, like his, his sprite design that is so foreign to maybe like the Japanese developers that we usually see games come from. It just feels so foreign that, yeah, I agree with that. That his design alone could convince me that this is a Apple two game first and then it became an NES game.
To the best of my knowledge, it's not like that. It's, it's actually just an NES game and never got ported, which is even crazier, I suppose. But obviously all this to say there are no sequels and spinoffs for dash galaxy either. This was, uh, something that I imagine was released and did not, uh, sell well. It's also just rare to see a game that doesn't have any other, like it, maybe they're not a port, but they were co-developed for different systems. It's see, it's, and for it to be like a non first party game. And I think with all this information, the only thing left to do is, uh, put dash either in or take him out of the asylum in the essential games list.
I really think that our conversation about the box art was the eureka moment for me here where I started to realize that I want to, I want to see what that game is. What's the game that I bought based on the, you know, like, like, where is that game? Because this is like an example of a game that you, you buy it at like a thrift store and you're excited and then you open it up when you get home and it's not the same game. It's like, you thought you were getting metal slug and then you open it up and it's FIFA, you know, you're like, oh, damn it. Like I should have checked the box.
I should check the cartridge as well. Instead here, uh, with dash galaxy, I just, I really think that what they made was not so much incoherent, but just really boring. And then couple that with the control issues of being dash. And I just don't think they made anything compelling in this game. So I I'm keeping dash in the asylum. I'm voting it. Not essential. Sean. Yeah. We didn't really keep our, uh, our votes a secret, uh, prior to getting to this segment. Um, I do think that this is a pretty underdeveloped game, even though at least the ideas are more, uh, unique than the typical, uh, the typical game that we don't keep a secret about how much we don't love.
Um, but yeah, I'm going to make sure that he has to serve his entire term and doesn't get back to Omicron per CIA before dinner. What's funny about games like these, Sean, um, that are rather lackluster and that we just kind of quickly, uh, reveal our hand and say, yeah, like, uh, you know, sometimes it's, it's suspenseful when we get to the essential games. This time it's not, I don't feel like this is the last time something like this is going to happen. I feel like this will continue to happen forever on the show, especially as it gets more popular.
What's funny is, is that like in, in NES, like, I don't know, like we played a lot of garbage, but there's a lot of like good games. I feel like in today's, uh, economy with the like Nintendo switch and PlayStation five and like just the, the amount of developers and the amount of money that video games bring in. It's even harder if we had to do this chronologically, uh, for something like the Nintendo switch, because so many games get released with no guidance from anybody, no quality control.
Um, that like, yeah, dash galaxy like snuck in. Right. And like Nintendo didn't really care. And, uh, and by that, I mean about their own, uh, seal of quality, the seal quality, which I should mention on the box is like really prominently displayed. So, uh, you know, it's not a great look, Nintendo, but at least like, but at least there's a barrier to entry. Right. But today there's no barrier.
Yeah. With, with unity and all the other engines that make, you only need to like read the back flap of a, of an instruction manual to understand like go to Godot engine or whatever. Like at least there's some, you need, you need to be a part of a company or just be really good at programming to make a game, uh, in the, in these times. And now it's, it's, it's, it's just anything goes.
Next week we'll be playing destination earth star. Uh, that's naturally the place you go after an alien asylum, uh, destination earth star. Uh, do you think that's like a separate earth or is that like earth is getting swallowed by the sun? What, what, what are, I think it'd be like, uh, you know, um, earth star is just the sun. So you're, it's about piloting a ship into the sun. Okay. I like that. Um, seems like a suicide mission, but maybe that is the ending.
Uh, we'll find out next week when we actually play this game destination earth started me kind of screams shmup, which I think Sean was hinting at in his essential games list vote that he's tired of seeing that genre. Um, I don't think it's going anywhere either, just like bad games. So we'll find out if you like destination earth star, uh, be sure to tell us before next week's episode. Or if you're listening to this like three years later, it's still okay to tell us. Just email us at nostalgia cast.com or join us on Patreon, patreon.com slash nostalgia.
So you can tell us on discord or I don't know, carrier pigeon, just whisper, send it to Mike. It's going to happen. So you like that, that is your carrier pigeon address is just Mike. You were able to get that. Well, because there's only so many, see back in the day. No, but there are so few carrier pigeons these days that I believe by my records, I am the only Mike who uses carrier pigeon. So the pigeons kind of, they talk about it. You know, they know like, Oh, you're going to Mike. He's that. So it's like a union.
Yeah. All the pigeons are in on it. Whenever you, that's why you only see pigeons in like big cities. Yeah. It's like, they're all just there because that's where all the males going. Yeah. guy. Thank you.
