281 · Burai Fighter

• Defeat the Burai using massive weaponry
• NES Longplay
• Manual
• I played this SHMUP wrong for the first 5 minutes
• Multiple direction shooting
  • Section Z
• Horizontal and Vertical Movement
  • The player is expected to keep up, as getting stuck on the edge means the player character dies.
  • At times the player may find a gap at the side of the screen. When the player moves into the gap with correct timing, the orientation of the screen changes and takes them into a secret room with some power-ups.
    • STAR FOX 64
• SHMUP vs Rail Shooter
• Power Up System
  • The three guns that have unlimited ammo are the laser, the ring and the missile. Picking up a symbol will switch weapons and it will increase the player's counter of that weapon by one. If the counter hits five, that weapon reaches level two. Weapons can be boosted to level three.
• player can deploy cobalt bombs that inflict damage to all enemies on the screen; they do not damage bosses
• Every boss is weak against a particular kind of weapon.
• Choose your difficulty
• Plot
  • The Burai, a race of evil super-brain aliens, have launched their plan to conquer the universe with their army of half-organic, half-robot creatures - the robo-mutants. It's up to the player to stop them! Strap on your jet pack, and get ready to become the ultimate Burai Fighter.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Burai Fighter Deluxe on Game Boy
    • The "Deluxe" part refers to the added versus multiplayer mode through the link cable functionality that is included with this Game Boy release.
  • Space Marauder (the color version of Deluxe for GBC)
    • It doesn't include the Vs. mode.
• EGL
• Next week - Code Name: Viper
• NEStalgia Byte - Downtown Special: It's Kunio-kun's Period Drama, Gather Everyone!

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

00:00 Burai Fighter, defeat the Burai using massive weaponry.

00:19 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, I played this shmup wrong for the first five minutes. Oh, I mean, I played it wrong for the first maybe 30 to 40 seconds. Is that in the sense of like the direction you're facing related? Isn't it funny that like, first off, Joe, that there's a way to interpret how I could be playing it wrong, but also that like, we could be playing show many shmups on show many on this system and on this chronological journey.

00:59 And just in life, everybody has to eventually play a shmup. And yet I'm still finding out ways to play them wrong. And so, yes, this game has multiple direction shooting, which we'll get into in a minute. But there is a way that it wants you to do that multi-direction shooting that just wasn't clicking in my brain for the first few playthroughs of this game. And I was like, wow, I was so convinced that the game couldn't be that bad that it had to be me. And so I took the time, figure it out, try some things, eventually figured it out. It's a fine game. I'm happy to report. I did get further than the very first set of enemies.

01:39 That's really big of you, Mike, to just know that it had to have been you. Yeah, but you know what's funny about that, too, is like that the very first enemies that you are greeted with could be the ones to be your downfall. Like, it's not even like there's some kind of, you know, oh, I was playing and I was getting by, but then eventually, like, there was just too many enemies and I wasn't shooting correctly, so I just gave up on the game. It's the very first enemies you run into this game that let you know, like, no, if you want to defeat enemies in this game, you're going to have to figure out how the shooting works.

02:13 So let's maybe... I could say that... Let's stop pussing around, right? Let's describe what we're talking about. Yeah, go into it. Go for it. So basically what Mike and I both experienced, and maybe Joe, Joe, did you experience this too? If we're talking about the same thing, once you explain it, I'll confirm that that was what I experienced. Okay.

02:33 Um, basically, yeah, there's eight different directions you can fire in, and like many games that you can fire in eight different directions, like, that it feels like you always have to be firing in the direction that you're moving. But once you start holding the button down, then you realize that you can continue firing in the original direction and move freely. Yeah, I did experience that exactly as well. Okay. It's crazy that that could be an issue that all three of us would run into not talk about until the day of the episode. But I'm glad we all were able to overcome it. I would venture a guess that 90% of people who play this game have that... that didn't read the manual have that issue at first.

03:22 Because, yeah, when I think of a shmup, I'm thinking of, like, you... unless you have some power-up, you should be pressing the button each time you want to fire. Uh, because that's, like, part of the skill, right? I mean, I don't really understand shmups, but I've always felt that that was one of the reasons. Um, and then...

03:42 There have also been other shmups where this is sort of an issue. Like, what was the commando? Like, yeah, you could fire in several different directions, but you always had to be walking in that direction. So I just figured that that was the thing. You know what? It didn't take long, but it was a sort of, like, aha moment. So maybe we're just dumb enough to be able to experience that aha moment. See, I had almost, like, the opposite of an aha moment, because I was playing for a while, very frustrated. Every time I would, you know, obviously try and go in one direction, I would turn that direction. And then, you know, and I kept dying, and I was doing it a lot.

04:18 And then, like, after a while, I kind of stopped noticing it. And then a while later, it just suddenly dawned on me, like, oh, it hasn't been happening anymore. Because I just slowly, just naturally started holding down the button as things got harder. And I was like, I don't remember when that stopped. But then I, like, realized, oh, okay, this game's not so bad anymore. Like, but I don't remember the moment when I realized it just slowly started to happen for me. And what's funny about that very first group of enemies is that they kind of home into you from, you know, first they're spread out, and then they are closing in on you.

04:52 So there isn't really a way to avoid them. You kind of have to shoot them to get past them, because you're in a narrow space, and the enemies are heading directly towards you. So you either have the option of being, like, a very skilled shooter, and while moving, also, like, having twitch-like reflexes to go back into shooting straight on and taking out the next variable line before moving in another position and shooting that particular enemy down. Like, that requires some sharp shooting. Instead, to Sean's mention, is that, like, by holding down the button, something that you would usually think would fire one single shot, it now fires shots over and over and over again. Not in, like, a turbo sense, but definitely in an unexpected way.

05:39 And once you figure that out, all of a sudden, the multiple direction shooting really frees up this game and makes it really cool and kind of reminds me of, you know, Section Z, a game where the A and B button were being used for the A button would shoot to the right and the B button would shoot to the left. So as they are on the controller, it would make sense, and you would be able to switch on the fly. Here, you're able to shoot in all cardinal directions and move freely around the screen at the same time. And I know that doesn't sound revolutionary, but because it is eight directions, it certainly

06:15 gives you more power than any horizontal or vertical shmup did in the past, where you're mostly just shooting a linear line until you get power-ups that give you spreads and the like. Yeah, it solves this issue that I've had with a bunch of other shmups where, like, as soon as you pass something, it's just still a threat behind you, but you can't do anything about it. And yeah, I think Section Z did that too, but this also gives you the option to shoot up or down, and it, you know, you do start to notice that, like, some of the enemies are designed in a way where you gotta think, like, oh, I have to get beneath this thing and shoot up at it, or, you know, get around its armor.

06:52 So at least it wasn't just, like, a function, but it's like, oh, the game was somewhat designed around it too. Yeah, it also just sort of feels cool to, like, get at, like, a diagonal angle to get maybe, like, a turret than in any other shmup would be almost impossible to hit before you, like, get to a certain point in the scroll and just sort of just snipe it, you know, just sort of drift in and snipe it, you know?

07:20 It feels cool. So other than how you shoot and what power-ups you receive, one of the biggest identifiers for any shmup, especially these 2D ones, is whether it's a horizontal or vertical shmup. And we've seen many examples of both, and in fact, we've seen examples where stage one is horizontal and then, psych, this is also doing vertical stages and you switch between them. That's cool. But in Burai Fighter, they're actually horizontal and vertical stages all at once.

07:53 It's kind of a on-rails shooter, I think, like Star Fox 64 style, where the player is expected to keep up with the movement of the screen in any particular direction it's scrolling, because if you do get stuck in a corner that you can't navigate around because the screen has scrolled past that point and you have missed your exit, you will die. You will be, like, crushed seemingly by the end of the screen, which doesn't really make any sense. It's not, it's never implied that the Burai are capable of eating the universe behind you, but that is what's happening. Well, I mean, yeah, it's a Mario thing, you know? Yeah, but I would have a lot to say about those two. I'm not saying that it's permissible, I'm just saying that it's not unheard of.

08:45 But it's kind of funny, we saw that in Mario with a consistently scrolling stage in one direction at a constant speed, and then in this one, it's just sort of like taking you on a tour and it gets distracted and it'll go up and down and not random places, but it's kind of silly. The sort of movements that the camera will make to either deviously lead you into a trap of pickups, unless you're skilled enough and you've played it enough times to know exactly when it's going to reverse course.

09:27 But it kind of gives it a very, it feels kind of silly when it just changes direction randomly. Most of the time, you can chalk it up to like, okay, like the game is kind of co-piloting, like it knows where I'm supposed to be going. So like, this is why my character, you know, because canonically, you have to imagine that this character has control over where he's going, right? Like he's deciding to go these places.

09:51 Yeah, in the deep lore, he has agency. But I mean, it's just like, that's what I think of when I think of like any other shmup that's scrolling like that, where I'm like thinking, okay, like, yeah, the scrolling, I'm not really considering that like, oh, part of the story. That's just part of, that's just a gameplay mechanic and I need to be going to the right. So it's going to the right.

10:09 But this way, it's like, oh, so we're going up. But then like when I get to one spot, it just suddenly completely reverses course when I'm in like a shitty spot and goes the other way. Like there's no reason for my character to do that. No, no, no. No, it's simulating your indecision. Yeah, that's right. And it could be the death of you. The thing we're trying to stop the Burai from doing is controlling the camera. They have taken control of the world's cameras. And as a result, if we don't take them down, we'll always have to move to their will.

10:41 Yeah. And I guess like to that point, though, like in seriousness, like while in any side scroll or like auto scrolling level of Mario and stuff, like, yes, the camera is like one of the adversaries. But in this more than anything, it feels like, wow, this this camera is like working is like trying to kill you sometime.

11:01 And I gave a Star Fox 64 shout out there for the rail shooter thing I was suggesting the game might be because the camera guides you. But there's also even a little more truth to that, because if you are able to find certain gaps in the levels, things that look like, hmm, I wonder why it laid out like this, you can actually, by going into those gaps, cause the camera to then switch orientations and lead you to secret rooms with power ups and stuff that you would have otherwise been able to

11:34 access. And that is very much a Star Fox 64 thing where, and other rail shooter games too, where like, you know, you have to, uh, in the very first level of Star Fox 64, like you have to do a certain, uh, set of objectives in order to be able to do a barrel roll. No, they don't do a barrel roll. But, uh, in Star Fox 64, the first level, you have to go on, you have to save a specific character and you have to go under these, um, these structures in the lake. And by doing that, by going under all of them, something you might not think to do, but it kind of like the game nudges you towards it.

12:06 It will take you through the waterfall instead of going through the normal stage and you'll actually fight a completely different boss and everything. And that's a much more involved idea than what Burry Fighter is laying out. But still, uh, the idea is there. And so I ask you guys, is Burry Fighter a shmup or is it a rail shooter? Are they exclusive? Are they mutually exclusive? I don't think they are, but, uh, I just wonder like it does rail shooter.

12:31 I would say, yeah, actually. I mean, I hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it, uh, earlier, but like, that's exactly what it feels like. I mean, it's, I, I, I'm just not used to seeing that kind of thing in a 2D style, but I don't see why it wouldn't apply. Well, then I, I would say that then shmup is just a subgenre of rail shooter. Well, yeah, I guess I, I would agree based on that also. So like, yeah, I guess so. Or the other way, right? Unless rail shooter, huh? The other way, rail shooters are a subgenre of shmup. No, no, I guess you're saying that like a shmup, a regular traditional shmup is still on rails. It's just going in one direction.

13:07 Oh, interesting. Yeah. I, okay. So yeah, all side scrollers then by that nature are rail shooters? No, because you don't, no, because a side scroller, you are the agent of the camera. Like the camera follows you. You're still on rails. Oh, right. So every auto scroller. Every auto scroller. Yeah. Sure. I guess I would, I just wouldn't call, I would just call it a shmup to simplify things.

13:35 I, aside from a few of the levels. Yeah. I mean, generally when I think of rail shooter, I do, I do think of obviously like the camera moving in all different directions and stuff. So like, that's what would differentiate it for me, like at least in what, how I, what I would personally consider it. But I want to point out that there are some levels. I want to say they're like bonus levels where you're not on rails, but you're still like kind of controlling it like a shmup, which is, I don't think we've ever seen in a shmup game. Yeah.

14:06 It's sort of, um, I mean, not, it, it's not in any way like Zelda, but it's like a top down, uh, and yeah, Zelda also didn't have the camera follow you, but it's a top down, uh, you are controlling where the camera goes. It's also sort of like a, uh, a hide, not hide and seek, but you're trying to find something you're trying to maze. Yeah. It's not really even a maze because you can cut right through the lines. Um, it's, it's more so space. Yeah. It's space. Something there. Make sure you, if you pay attention to the screen prior to the level, because otherwise you may just play it forever.

14:45 Um, wait, what, why, what is that? It's the map. Oh, I wait. Oh, there was a map on the screen. I literally just was playing it for a while and lucked out and found something. Wow. That's crazy. But it only, it only, I was just flying around and I was like, oh, there's like an enemy. There. So I'll, I'll shoot it. And then I'll shoot it. That was it. I didn't, I didn't play the sec. I didn't get far enough to play the second version of that level. So yeah, I think I just lucked out. It's a weird way to do it.

15:13 Cause it's not, it's not especially interesting. Like, no, no, it's not. Mike, do you have any thoughts? I don't have any thoughts on that. Um, I was actually going to move on to another thing, you know, another schmuck trope, which is the powerup system. And, uh, in this game on your UI, you can see you have laser ring and missile. And those are your three guns.

15:37 Uh, they have unlimited ammo. So there's never, you know, a preservation method here, but there are these red orbs that you pick up and, um, they, they seemingly switch on the fly between L M and, uh, R for laser missile and ring. And S. What's that? And S. Uh, oh yeah. What's the S for? I think just speed. Speed. Okay. Yeah. Um, and so when you pick those up, it adds to the counter of the laser ring and missile. Uh, if the counter hits five, then the weapon, uh, reaches level two and then eventually you can boost them to level three, but nothing beyond that.

16:18 And so in a weird way, uh, cause I do see a lot of these orbs, you know, in playthrough you, um, you know, you get pretty powered up pretty fast in, in this kind of game. Uh, especially with all of the different types of weapons you have, uh, it, it's great to feel powerful and shmups and everything, but I actually question if they did it too fast here. Um. Like even in Gradius, a game where like, you know, in a single stage you can get, uh, most of the power ups by carefully collecting all the options. You still have the option to choose how you would like the power ups. In this, the red orbs are pretty plentiful and you can, uh, time them. So this way you make sure that you get the one that you're in need of to upgrade.

17:06 So, um, you know, I, I, I wonder if they could have, um, either made them not so powerful, I guess, or if they could have just focused on like making it so this way you don't feel fully upgraded so early on.

17:22 Yeah. I, I guess the, the counter is every time you collect a, a pickup that is not the one that you last picked up, your, your firing, uh, pattern, I guess changes entirely. Like there's only, like, I couldn't really get a perfect handle on what was going on because it seems that if you have everything maxed out, you get this like great omnidirectional fire, um, that you can either have mostly going into the corners or mostly going, uh, like in a cross pattern. But if you're, if you're picking them up and you're not fully maxed out, you, you're either getting sort of a spread with the, uh, the rings or just that, uh, that straight on shot with. Right. It's whatever you picked up last.

18:19 Yeah. So I figure like, it's not that none of them are perfect and it's more so you're sort of switching between near at the later, like numbers of each power up, uh, you're just sort of picking what kind of fire you want. And it's not really getting fully upgraded until you've pretty much maxed everything out. In addition, players can, uh, uh, fire bombs, which they have a limited supply of that, um, you know, destroy the enemies on screen. But interestingly, uh, maybe in a first, these don't do any damage to the bosses.

18:56 So they are encouraged to be used in the actual stage rather than like, Whoa, well, I'm just going to save my bombs for the big boss fight. Uh, won't do you any good here. Better make sure you use them when you need them. Yeah. I don't think that's the necessarily the best solution, but I do sort of appreciate it actually, because I, I find myself in games like this that have like, you know, if it's like a shmup and it has difficult boss battles, I find myself like discouraged from using the, the power-ups when I really need them. Cause I'm like, I got to save them for when like, I'm going to die if I don't have them.

19:31 And I don't know. I feel like it sort of robs a little bit of the fun sometimes where I'm like, well, I don't want to use any of this cool stuff I've got because I'll probably absolutely need it when I fight a boss. So like, you know, I think there's probably a better way of doing it where it's like you get the best of both worlds where, you know, you, there's one that works better on bosses and one that works on, you know, regular enemies. But this was still, um, I think a step in the right direction.

19:56 Right. And, and Sean mentioned, you know, that as you collect the power-ups, um, if you're not fully maxed out, you switch to that weapon. And so if you aren't at the fully maxed out stage, you might want to take advantage of knowing which, uh, weapon the boss is weak to, because these bosses do have a weakness to either the laser, the ring, or the missile, which you could use to your advantage if you figured it out on playthroughs, or if you just go on game FAQs or whatever, uh, there's an easy way to find this out.

20:25 Um, yeah, I, I do like that by making the bombs not usable, it does become a little bit of a Mega Man style strategy with the, uh, weakness. It's not that they necessarily have a weak point that you should be aiming for, although, you know, there is a, a certain part you need to hit them in. That's just the part that does any kind of damage to them. There's, uh, in addition to that, there's also like, if you had the laser, that one will, uh, you know, take out the, the boss faster. And these boss fights are, uh, designed in a cool way where they have to black out the rest of the screen in order to, um, display the, uh, awesome sprites that the bosses are.

21:07 Yeah, I like that, uh, the bosses aren't just a, uh, like, there's a lot of games where the bosses are just a moderately larger sprite that you're firing at. And a lot of these shmups, it's just like a big boat or a big, uh, a big plane. And they're all just kind of big planes. I like that this one kind of has set pieces. Um, especially when you're, you're kind of falling through a pit and there's just this weird worm that's going around. And then, uh, actually there's a lot of worm bosses in this game, but there, there are different kinds of worms. Um, but you're trying to dodge the worm and then you're fighting the actual thing and then dodge a worm again. And it's, it's fun. It's, it's good stuff. Classic gameplay loop. Worm, boss, worm.

21:58 Burry Fighter also allows you to choose your difficulty. Something that, uh, occasionally on a shmup you might see like normal and hard. Uh, Burry Fighter seems to imply that at least there's also an easy mode, but I ask, is there an easy mode in shmups? Can there ever just be a mode, uh, without it being devoid of enemies where it is the same stage, but, uh, it's actually easy. And I don't mean, uh, for hardcore shmup players, I mean for the entry level person who would really want to beat one of these games, what would it take for it to be a actual easy mode? I mean, I guess it could be either fewer projectiles coming from the enemies or like you can tank more hits or something. You get a regenerating shield.

22:45 Oh, I like that. Story mode. Yeah, I was gonna say story mode. The story. Stop the cyborg from killing all humans. Is there like a, you know how they have like arachnophobia mode now in a lot of games? There's like a, what if you're afraid of worms? Turn the worms into spiders. Oof. The buray off.

23:33 The buray are cyborgs, right? They're like, uh, I think they're described as robo mutants, but they're half organic, half robot. Um, their plan is just to conquer the universe. It's a really big plan. They realize how big the universe is? Like, did they even conquer a single planet? Yeah. But I think if you're a synthetic organism that has no concept of mortality, then the amount of time that it would take to conquer the universe is immaterial. Right. So in a game like Stellaris, is there anybody who wants the entire galaxy?

24:11 Who's just like, that's, that's their goal? I mean, kind of any player. Right. And so maybe they, the player needs a reality check and should just be told like, Hey, focus on the planet. You've got some pretty bad shape. Um, I mean, you could say that, but are the buray really even thinking about the implications or are they just these weird, I mean, like, do they, the bosses that you fight in this game, like that snake thing, it's not, um, it's not obviously the buray, right? Like that's not one of the half organic, half robot things. I mean, I don't see any robot like features on it, but sure. Let's pretend, are they utilizing their own army or are they utilizing the planets that we're visiting? I have a lot of questions about the buray.

24:55 Oh, you got to play story mode. That's what story mode's for. I just kind of wish that we still lived in an age where this sort of story was still acceptable. Like to be able to walk into a board meeting, um, at a video game developer or whatever and just say like, yeah, that's going to be the story.

25:16 And you just not get laughed at. Just what's the, yep. What are the enemies? Aliens. Cool. What's their plan? Conquer the universe. Great. Anything else? They're also robots.

25:30 If you do beat the game, the only piece of story you might get inside the actual game is a message seemingly from Taxon telling you that it is unreal. You have beaten the impossible game. You have earned their respect. I've only wanted to be respected. I mean, I appreciate that, but I, you know, and obviously I didn't beat this game. I'm not good at this game just like any other shmup, but this felt not anywhere near as impossible to me as a lot of other shmups we've had. I agree. I also didn't beat it. Did not beat it.

26:03 Probably agree with the sentiment, although it does look at least from what I saw, why I stopped playing at least is that it does become a bit of a bullet hell towards the end, especially with the tough navigation of the narrow hallways. Is that like, if the bullets don't get you in the tight spaces, then surely the tight spaces themselves will get you because you weren't heading in the correct direction. A little bit of memorization, a little bit of muscle, a little bit of muscle memory. A little bit of brains and brawn.

26:50 On the sequels and spinoff side, I got a bit of a fun one here because you would think that you've, you guys have never heard of Bur-Eye Fighter, right? No. Well, it's not a franchise, but it's, you know, usually you hear a title like that, especially there's something about the box art for Bur-Eye Fighter. It's just so untraditional.

27:09 It's kind of cool. It's kind of poster-esque, but it's got like, it's also got this weird, like, I don't want to say minimal, but just like. Yeah, I don't like it. Yeah. It's kind of plain with the cool serpent and everything. So I don't know. It just doesn't look like an NES game. You could have fooled me and said this was on, like, ColecoVision or something, and I would have been like, sure.

27:31 Don't mind the official Nintendo seal of quality being, like, right in your face. Anyway, my point to be was that, you know, you don't expect a game like this to have a lot of sequels and spinoffs and everything. But instead, it has quite detail on Game Boy where it became Bur-Eye Fighter Deluxe. Oh. The Deluxe refers to the added versus multiplayer mode where through the link cable, you can fight another.

27:59 Did we forget the hero's name? Bur-Eye Fighter. No, no. Yeah. I was going to say, Bur-Eye the bad guys, but yes, he is the Bur-Eye Fighter. And so you can face off in a fun versus mode. Maybe you're the Space Marauder. Oh, so the Space Marauder is the color version of the Deluxe version of this game. So the NES version became Bur-Eye Fighter Deluxe on Game Boy. And then the Game Boy Color version of Bur-Eye Fighter Deluxe was known as Space Marauder, which is the same game as the Game Boy one in color. But they've ditched the versus mode. Huh. That sounds less fun. They actually lost features in exchange for color. Like, that doesn't make any sense.

28:52 Well, here's the question about that versus mode, though. Are both players on the same screen at the same time? Or can you scroll away from your other player where you're looking at something different than they're looking at? Do you know? I'm going to find out. Yeah. I'm going to find out. Yeah. Because if you're both in the same space at all times at the same time, I don't see why this couldn't have been in the NES game. You've got two controllers. You've got one big screen.

29:19 I can't imagine it worked that way. That would just be chaos. And each match would last a second. I don't know. I have no idea what I'm talking about here. But it just feels like that would be like a limitation that you could be playing in the same world but seeing different things, even with the link cable. Yeah. But I don't know.

29:38 Huh. So it's like you don't play the whole game or whatever. But it just is a you're on separate screens. You know, you're doing your thing on your Game Boy and they're doing theirs on theirs. And basically, it's supposed to be who can score more points. Right. But what it really comes down to, if you think about it, the way points work in this game, it really is just who can live longer. So you could really play this game without a link cable. Just figuring it out yourself. Right. The only difference is with the link cable, it looks like you get like a screen that says winner and loser if somebody dies. Exactly. Don't want to play it, Joe? And that's all it was. And they took that out of the color version.

30:22 Had to make sure they could get the color going. Do you know how hard it is to fit color into a little thing like that? Do you know how hard it is to always have a segue to the Essential Games list? That seems pretty hard. Well, let's find out on the Essential Games list. So, Barai Fighter is a really cool game. And despite the troubles I had, as I mentioned, they were my own troubles. The game didn't make them that way. Sure, they could have maybe spelled it out a little more. I'm not sure how. But they could have.

30:53 And if they would have, I wouldn't have thought any differently about the game. It wasn't like worse because my first experience was tough. It's like, if anything, it was like neat. It's like, oh, I overcame that barrier for myself. And then you overcome a few other obstacles. Namely, a bunch of enemies and a bunch of projectiles. And a bunch of cameras that just change whenever the heck they want.

31:14 But I feel like actually the way I was talking about the game was more exciting than the game I played. Especially just like the on-rails shooter and the horizontal and vertical movement at the same time. And the multi-direction shooting. Like, it all actually is working in the game and everything. It just isn't. Maybe it's just not used to its fullest potential throughout. Because I didn't find this shmup with all of those features. And specifically the power-up system with its questionable choice of like switching you, forcing you to switch between weapons until you have the most powerful version. In which case you just get the most op weapon possibly in all of shmups.

31:55 You know, I didn't really see the moment-to-moment gameplay being something that actually was like encouragingly challenging and frustratingly fun or something like that. Instead, it was just kind of like, okay, okay, like that's an idea. Write that down in my notes. We'll talk about it on the show. But it just kind of became like things we'll talk about on the show and less things that actually got me excited. And so I think for that reason, it's definitely a play-it in my book. But not on the Essential Games list. Sean? Yeah, I think mechanically, this is probably one of the best feeling shmups to play.

32:34 And it's actually the second shmup in a row that is broken with that tired idea that shmups are just a template that lazy games just get, you know, churned out. I'm pleasantly surprised with the variety of shmup that we've been getting recently. But at the end of the day, it is still a shmup. And a lot of where these games sort of separate from the pack is their vibe and the aesthetic. And I just didn't... This game doesn't have a lot of style. It has cool boss fights, and I really like the base mechanics. But the backgrounds are kind of blah. The enemies are kind of blah. And the story is... That was not even thought about.

33:31 Even as like a fun little... Like we made Burai fun with whatever we were talking about. The game didn't. So I agree. This is definitely a play it. But not essential. I'll echo you on the mechanics there. I think that the mechanics were a highlight of this game. It was... I mean, really just in the fact... Like it sounds so simple. But in the fact that you can face any direction.

33:59 Changes up the way you think about this shmup. Like compared to other things. And it really... It was a breath of fresh air in that sense. But as far as like the rest of the game. I mean, I'll be honest. You could probably take any... Like one of a dozen or so other essential votes. That I've done for other shmups. And like paste it here. And it's... And it's gonna be the same thing. Like it didn't blow me away. It didn't do anything that like...

34:24 Stands out from the rest. Other than that mechanic. Which I don't think is enough. For me to be like, yes. This is a must play. So I'm going to also say... No. Not an essential game. And so therefore it won't be on the essential games list. But that's okay. Every game gets a chance at the essential games list. Like our next game. Codename Viper. Codename colon Viper. So this way you know that his codename is Viper. Oh, good.

34:52 So when it says... It's spelled out. Codename colon Viper. The colon is spelled out. Yeah. It's not two dots. Yeah. Oh, maybe it's a colon Viper. That's what I was thinking. Dude, it's like some kind of weird parasite that you have to... I like that idea. It's a Capcom game. So we like their stuff. Apparently it's also an Arc System Works game. Which is... They were making games back then. That's crazy. This will be our first Arc System Works game. So that's cool. These are the guys who make Dragon Ball Fighters. Right? Oh. And the BlazBlue games. I don't know. All that stuff. Maybe. Interesting. Guys, they make beautiful... They make the most beautiful fighting games I've ever seen.

35:31 Anyway, if that's not your cup of tea, the following week we'll be playing Conflict. That's what the game's called. Sounds like a board game, honestly. It's just funny because it's like, oh, any good story or game needs a conflict. It's like they might as well just call it like protagonist fights antagonist. And that's by Vic Takai, who we've played many of his games. Good old Vic. Friend of the show, Vic Vitae.

35:57 Also, trying to ask questions, but this time I'll maybe try and relate it to the episode. You know, we played a lot of shmups. So what's a franchise that you dig that you would like to see a shmup iteration into their franchise? Ratchet and Clank. A Ratchet and Clank shmup. Could you tell me maybe like a power-up or two or something that they would do? Yeah, I mean, they have so many interesting gadgets and weapons that don't just do like... They're good at coming up with things that aren't just like, this one explodes with a blast radius and this one is a shotgun and whatever. It's like they have unique things. It's like, this one sucks enemies into it. One of them turns people into flaming ducks.

36:42 You know, like all kinds of different like... You know, this weapon makes people dance. You know, I think that could be interesting in a shmup format. And yeah, in one of the Ratchet and Clank's there's a weapon that makes any enemy in the game dance. Every single enemy in the game has, in case needed, their own animation for like the way that they would dance. So like, you know, that could be cool. Out of the park baseball. But the shmup version.

37:13 And is that just like, you know, you're just kind of like tinkering with different like spaceships stats and sending them out onto the battlefield. And you're just like reviewing the battle reports afterwards. Oh, you know what? All right. No, not out of the park baseball then. Just like any kind of baseball. I just want a baseball themed shmup. I want to know how they do it. What would you be shooting? Is it baseballs? Is it bats? You're the pitcher shooting baseballs at batters. And if they make contact, then you have to catch the balls and become the fielder. But otherwise, if they swing and miss, they blow up. All right. You just developed the game for me. There you go. I'll always help you out because out of the park baseball was a reach.

38:02 You're a reach. My answer may be a little more like in the realm of things that are possible. I feel like Kirby has had some shmup-ish levels where like, you know, because he's already like he always puffs up. And then he already has when he's puffed up. He has the ability to blow out whatever air he's sucked in as one attack for an enemy. But imagine if he just had like, he was permanently inflated. And that's like the plot of it. It's called Kirby's Permanent Inflation.

38:34 And I mean, they did it with Sonic, right? Yeah. They did it with Sonic the Hedgehog. Isn't that actually like a level in Kirby's Dream Land? I feel like it was like, it's on a small way. It's already been done. But now imagine it's like a whole game with like, you know, also riding. You know, he rides those stars from level to level. It's like a little bit of like Kirby's air ride thing going on. And your power-ups can be like sucking in enemies and then like getting their power-up.

39:04 Absolutely. I mean, that's the Kirby thing. Yeah. All right. So someone call Sakurai. We figured out his next Kirby game. He did make an on-rails Kid Icarus, which is another thing we were talking about today, right? Yeah. It's a great game. Kid Icarus Uprising. Great game. Tough game to play on that system, though. That's the 3DS game, right? Yeah, yeah. You need to have like that weird attachment that gives you the second analog stick to really make it a good game. But whatever. I like the 3DS. Thank you.