282 · Code Name: Viper

• Deep in the jungles of South America, you’re on the mission of your life
• NES Longplay
• Manual
• Where does this guy Viper get off not wearing pants?
• Do you think this is how Countries actually handle Drug Cartels? Find their locations and send one man to take down 7 bases and rescue hostages?
  • Main Character Syndrome
• An action-platform video game developed by Arc System Works and published by Capcom in 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
  • Arc System Works
    • Blazblue, Guilty Gear, Dragonball FighterZ
    • Double Dragon IV
  • Capcom always on a run with the NES, but a bit of a tear lately too:
    • SF6, RE4, Monster Hunter, when will they give Mega Man and Castlevania the big boost
• The player takes the role of Kenny Smith, code name "Viper", an agent of the 98th Special Forces. He is assigned by his superior, Commander Jones, to investigate a large drug syndicate that covers most of South America (Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia). Smith's objective is to rescue a missing agent in each of the syndicate's seven hideouts and uncover clues of the Syndicate's true mastermind
• South American Setting
  • All rock formations in South America have trick doors
• one of two weapons (pistol or automatic machine gun
• Optional Hostages
  • Mandatory Hostages
• Enemy Colors assign their powers
• Optional Platforming
  • Hidden walls don’t create invincibility
  • One step to a platform of a lower ledge causes a frozen drop
  • Can’t high jump while walking
• 8 stages, 3 difficulties…is it enough?
  • The layer to the difficulties
  • you only get passwords after completing THREE stages
• Sequels and Spinoffs
• EGL
• Next week - Conflict
• NEStalgia Byte - Fuzzical Fighter

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

00:00 Codename Viper, deep in the jungles of South America, you're on the mission of your life.

00:21 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. That's it. Just the two of us again. Oh, yeah. Not that Joe hates Codename Viper or anything and refuse to take part in it. Just one of those situations where you just get the two of us for a nice little more casual episode. Yeah, it's always just like a bit more sensual.

00:51 I did forget to adjust my cadence on the introduction. So I think I might have tricked you guys into thinking there was a third person. So yeah, I might have even left a little beat in the audio there to make them think Joe was coming and then he just didn't. But speaking of, you know, being very casual and everything, the Viper guy, is his name Viper? Is Viper? I'm thinking he's the guy whose Codename is Viper, right? Codename Viper isn't like... It's like Kenny something, I think. Oh, okay. So is Viper the Codename of like the weapon?

01:25 I think it's drugs. Drugs. Okay. So Viper is like cocaine. I mean, you've been to some parties. Yeah. Like... Okay, great. But this guy, the main character that you play as, I mean, he's incredibly casual. Where does this guy get off not wearing any pants?

01:43 I think he's wearing khakis. Sure, but they're the same color. Okay, I know that the NES has a limited palette, but they're the same color as his face. So therefore, it looks like, if you didn't know any better, it looks like he's just wearing like a green jacket and green boots. And he's just got no pants on. And he just immediately, scene one, he walks right into the, you know, the boss's office. And he's like, you know, I'm here to kick ass. And they're like, put on some pants and don't show me your ass.

02:14 All right, here's... Okay, no. I was gonna say that it gets away with it by having, you know, pant-looking textures in the sprite. Right? But if you're looking at it with the intention of seeing bare legs, you will just see bare legs. Like, it could just pass as the outlines of, you know, thighs.

02:41 Yeah, it was not my intention, Sean. I wasn't hoping he wasn't wearing pants. He's just unfortunately not wearing any. I think there's, I think there might be some psychological looking to find things going on with how you're viewing him. Sean, do you think this is how countries actually handle drug cartels? Like, on a government level, they find the locations, send one man to take down the seven bases and rescue all the hostages? I mean, isn't that what the CIA was doing back then? Like, I thought... One at a time, huh?

03:16 Yeah, just, you know, there was that one contra, right? I don't know much about the history of the three-letter agencies, you know? Yeah, no, I have no idea, actually. So that was an earnest question. I wasn't trying to be funny or rhetorical. I'm genuinely concerned if this is how our governments handle gigantic drug cartels, specifically located in South America. That's a choice for a setting. I mean, you gotta keep the budget down. Oh, but yeah, the setting. Yeah, this is unique. Yeah, we don't usually go to South America. This feels like we're on vacation. Now, was Contra in South America before it went to space?

04:00 That's a great question. I don't know where Contra took place. You're drawing a lot of Contra parallels, so I guess you're trying to let the audience know that this game, Codename Viper, is a, like, action game, action platforming game, very similar in control to Contra. Well, okay. I didn't mean to do that. I was more so using Contra in that, like, you know, 70s spec-op term. But you're right. I mean, it is a side-scrolling action game. I don't think it really feels like Contra, though.

04:35 It looks like Contra takes place in Central America. That's a twist. Okay, that's close to South America. So, Codename Viper is actually what happens when you die in Contra. That creates a new timeline where Codename Viper happens because, basically, the cartel was able to move, the alien cartel, of course, was able to move out of Central America and move down to South America. Especially the parts of South America that are just littered with...

05:04 with trap doors. Or, like, hidden doors. Or, like, what do you call those? Like, joke doors? Yeah, I have that as the only thing in my notes for the South American setting is that, like, South America, where all the rock formations are trick doors.

05:20 Like, what is this? The Flintstones? What's going on? It's really funny. Like, so one of the main ways to interact with this game, there's, you know, lots of jumping. There's usually several different, like, planes of action you can alternate between. But when you're not just shooting left or right or jumping between two different, like, levels, you're hiding in a trick door or you're finding damsels in distress tied up on the other side of a trick door. Like, you never actually interact with the people that you're rescuing or the things that you're finding, especially, you know, like, skeletons. You're just sort of, like, absentmindedly exposing them to the player.

06:09 And, you know, the character never actually saves anyone. They just accidentally trick the door. And it's one thing to have that in, like, the first level with the, as I mentioned, you're in, like, the jungle and these rock formations that you can kind of tell, like, oh, they have, like, a bit of a carving around them. Like, I might as well try that out. And that's how you figure out that the hostages, skeletons, or nothing is hidden. Oh, sorry, power-ups as well, hidden behind them.

06:35 But then, like, that's actually, when you find out that that's just a part of the gameplay and no matter what the location, they all have trick doors at every different setting. It's like, oh, it's not, it's suddenly not as cool anymore. And, like, sometimes they look like they kind of belong. Like, some of them look like doors, but they always work the same way, you know? It's not a regular door. And we're only talking about it because, yeah, that's really the only other mode of interaction.

07:04 You mentioned that Viper might have a name. I don't know if you, did you give a name? I think it was Kenny. Okay, it's Mr. Smith. Maybe in the game it's short for Kenny. But it's Mr. Smith in the manual here. Controlling Mr. Smith-the-viper. And it has a cool, like, hand-drawn thing of him holding two Uzis. And it just says Mr. Smith in quotation marks. So, clearly, that's not his real name or whatever. That's just his government. Yeah, his government-assigned name.

07:35 This guy's suffering from some, like, main character syndrome, though, right? Like, being the only guy to go down and take down these bases and rescue all these hostages. And then he also has, like, there's mandatory hostages and there's optional hostages. And that sounds kind of crazy to say out loud.

07:52 Well, you know, if you're gonna, if you're trying to rescue the president, I mean, that's not, that's not what happens in this game. But I imagine, you know, there are games in which you're trying to rescue the president and you might, may or may not be a bad dude. But one might assume that if an organization has kidnapped the president, then there's likely other hostages around. So, one might say that the president is the primary hostage to rescue, you know?

08:25 I get it. But I would, I would argue that in this case, where all the sprites kind of look the same, right? We shouldn't, we shouldn't leave anybody behind. Especially if we're only sending one guy down. It's not like, oh, don't worry, the other, the team of, the backup team will come afterwards and kind of, like, make sure everybody's secure later. The whole team of backup people come, like, right after you've cleared, you as one person clear the way. Yeah, they just kind of, like, come out after you leave the level, they come down, they go, alright, I'm just gonna tap on some things, find out what's real. They just start knocking on all the rocks, seeing if any trick doors open or anything. I heard there was a trap door in this level.

09:05 I, uh, I appreciate that all of these primary hostages already have, like, explosives on them. And, like, they are giving you their one explosive so that you can get out. I mean, like, with them, I guess, presumably, but they've already got the tool to escape. They just were waiting for your permission. This is also a game where the enemy colors assign the power level of those enemies. So, even though they all kind of look the same without, uh, there are a few exceptions for, uh, enemies that use, like, a specific kind of weapon.

09:43 But for most of the regular soldiers, uh, they just have, like, you know, if they're green, they take two hits. If they're blue, they take three hits, blah, blah, blah. Uh, do you think it's the shirts themselves that give them the power? Like, that make them, like, those shirts were, maybe they had, like, bulletproof vests underneath them, but the guys who wear the green didn't quite get that? Well, I, I think that the real, that the real thing going on here is, um, this was a time of rising fashion, you know?

10:14 And, uh, there are many fashions on display. And I think that the, you know, the, the wide range of colors in action are just showing that whatever organization that you're fighting up against, they are paying attention to, like, Prada's releases. And they are paying attention to, like, what Dolce and Gabbana are doing, you know? Like, you have to have that sense of fashion. It's a game of many tropes, uh, you know, uh, drug cartels in South America, we're just sending down one man to take care of it.

10:50 The enemies wear different colors for different powers. But, uh, the tropes just could, just kind of continue as it goes along. Remember that your goal here is to take down this drug syndicate. Uh, and obviously, you know, you're getting clues throughout between the stages. Uh, it's really actually funny, you're getting, like, this letter, uh, that doesn't, um... Written on a loose leaf sheet of paper.

11:23 Um, which I'm being actually more generous with the blanks than you would think. There's a lot more blank in there. Um, and, you know, it doesn't mean anything at first, and you're trying to piece it together and everything. but I don't know you take one look at the guy that you meet you know your boss on the first screen and it's kind of obvious that he's the bad guy right he's wearing like he's wearing like some

11:44 kind of you know Nazi regime hat on you can't outright say that with the Nintendo game released in the United States like that that can't be true but yeah there are some there are some contextual clues that that might be the twist and you know between that and the loose leaf sheet of paper which just sort of illustrates a very a very basic understanding of a term of like what a clue is and what constitutes a mystery they definitely were unique in that they had this

12:21 uh this kind of story but they weren't very there wasn't a lot of uh nuance yeah yeah because I'm actually a little confused maybe you can you seem to be an expert in the lore for Codename Viper uh so as you're meeting up with the other agents after you complete the level they're adding words to the loose leaf um is it a is it a new page like is it is it is it a page with oh this one actually has

12:52 just a little bit more information or did they just remember the specific words and add them in is it a code is that the code name viper thing like no that's that's why I'm thinking that this all has to be like an allegory you know because look maybe it has to just be more more poetic like the actual the the words on the loose leaf are maybe symbol a symbol of the the actual intel that your very scared uh

13:24 spies that you're rescuing um have have released to you um and that I think that's giving the game way too much credit though you know like it I think it's I don't know yeah yeah all right look we're being really tough on the game story but only because it's mostly generic and you can still um you know have all these issues with it uh you likened uh or we both did rather uh to Contra but does it control anything like Contra I would argue that Contra is on the essential games list mostly because of how it controls like yeah it's cool as hell and everything but like it also feels good to play Contra does it feel good to be Mr.

14:07 Smith I mean I think it like the controls are serviceable they're they're tight enough and I never felt hampered by the controls I felt hampered by the enemies like the enemies are just always ready for you and I guess that's part of what um these trick doors are for to like kind of give you a breather and enable like you're able to escape and like let the enemies reposition but like it doesn't really matter how well you control if the guy that just came in from off screen

14:44 is already firing a bullet at you yeah that is a noticeable problem but I would argue a few more issues with Mr. Smith okay um two that are because of him and one that is because of the game so uh the first thing is is that if the game the game has platforms right I wouldn't describe it as a platformer but you are jumping and moving around on certain ledges and stuff like that if you're

15:09 at the end of a platform and it's more like a ledge where there's another platform directly below so there's not a pit but um but it's like directly below and it's not even that far down uh one step onto the lower ledge of that platform causes a frozen drop where you can where you lose all control of Mr. Smith until he falls straight down into the next platform and that just feels like Atari 2600 to me like that like why did I lose like there's no momentum to him yeah I guess I didn't I definitely no notice what you're talking about I just didn't attribute too much headache to that

15:52 um because it won't be a problem you're right like because there's no if you did just fall straight down into a pit like that would suck but for the for the most part you would jump if there was a pit so you wouldn't just walk off the ledge uh so it's mostly not a problem but it does kind of become this weird quirk if you're dealing with enemies and then also get like frozen in place because you had to move off the platform to avoid the enemy yeah I guess that that's sort of uh what caused you know developers in general um to well I forget they call it like like I think they colloquially call it like the wily coyote time where they kind of give you as a player a like a split second

16:35 of grace when you just walk off a platform where it pretends that there is still a platform there below you to jump off of so that that feeling of getting like frozen doesn't happen you know what I mean yeah I've actually heard as recently as like the spider-man and god of war games on playstation four are like the developers were like yeah we totally do that on purpose like we make you feel more badass than you are and we save your ass half the time yeah just like those little those little things that are there to make you feel less dumb or it's being forgiving to you and I guess they just

17:14 didn't do that here yeah and then um you know he has a he's a regular jump which you can move around with so that that's great news uh it's not like when you jump you just go straight up into the air or whatever because that'd be just as weird as falling down straight but if you want the high jump which you need to get to elevated platforms that cannot be performed while walking and that one I kind of understand right like in real life you'd probably you know want to stay completely still to get the highest jump to leap three times your height yeah right you you want to like buckle down on your knees

17:52 and really plant into the ground so that you can use the the ground as a giant trampoline to jump off off of right well you don't need to do that because there are little trampolines around uh in this game you know yeah I just never understood like in track and field why we run with the high jump because clearly we'd be jumping it over much higher if we just didn't do the running part for the the standstill to jump I did at least notice that um there is at least a little bit of an indication in the character himself because if you just hold up he just looks up which is I think a useful

18:32 little tell that there is a reason for that and that is because to hold up and then jump is how you move like that uh if I feel like if he didn't look up when you just held up it would be a lot it would feel a little bit more uh goofy no you're right yeah because that would feel very stiff and there is something about that like you're not you're not going to appreciate that as you're playing the game but you know when you're when you're talking about it on a podcast you'll recognize that it kind of

19:00 intuitively helped you and I think there's a lot of examples of that in uh great platformers like mario sonic crash bandicoot like you'll you'll notice a lot of those suggestions where they're kind of throwing their body in the directions as you're even before you're moving them I think that's what feels so good specifically about those 3d mario games yeah uh and then the last one the gripe I had that isn't um necessarily on mr smith uh codename viper it's a uh the environments with those hidden walls

19:31 that we talked about those trick doors they don't create invincibility and so while I'm sure that you are able to stay behind those trick doors as long as you want uh I didn't I didn't hold there indefinitely but it did seem like I had control over it so I don't know if it times out so while you could just wait for the enemy to you know not be in the position of your trick door uh you know that's like a now you gotta wait on that you gotta be like oh shoot now he's there so I gotta make sure I don't take the hit and technically like you're you're mr smith you're behind the wall you shouldn't know that that guy is in front of you uh so you should just take the damage shouldn't be

20:09 able to see that my big gripe I I wouldn't call it controls I would I would attribute this more to the game itself but it is the way that your character responds to the environment um it's when you make contact in midair like when you jump and you're trying to jump over an enemy or jump over fire but if you jump and then make contact with an enemy uh that you're taking damage but the animation that happens both on the enemy that you collided with and yourself almost looks like you've attacked him with like a classic you know like Mario jump on head um and then it's not until you've then landed

20:56 that you realize that you've probably just died and only taking damage like that you can live and continue to play if you haven't done it before um but I don't think that there's very clear again like telegraphing of whether you've actually died damaged yourself or if that's even a thing you should be avoiding there's only two weapons in the game there's the pistol and the automatic machine gun is there enough variety there I don't know because like there really isn't too much going on in the shooting mechanics anyway like would it would do you think that there would have been a um

21:42 that there would have actually been an appreciable difference in having like a fire based weapon or like right right like a flamethrower yeah I gotcha maybe the flamethrower would be fun it'd be fun right but I guess that's what I was going for too is like so the pistol is just your uh unlimited ammo weapon right like you'll always have your trusty pistol that never runs out of um ammunition but the automatic machine gun does have a limited amount of ammunition and therefore like while it can fire rapid as like your turbo uh you have to use it sparingly and for when you really need it and

22:17 so I do think that there is a lot there for the for the switch off between those two weapons and oddly enough for a game that's trying to like introduce trick doors and you know weird platforming in the jungle and stuff like that uh there's some there's some level of realism there that you only have these guns and not like a beam wave that shoots like uh you know like it shoots a arc shot that uh can can hit multiple enemies on different grounds right like that that feels kind of cartoony so pick

22:46 one I suppose like don't give me just a pistol if I'm also going to be going through trick doors right like one or the other here and so I I think it's just more of an identity crisis for the game and so I kind of wish that they would have had more fun with the weapons or maybe introduce some kind of uh beat-em-up combat as well so that like you know okay you have your pistol your automatic machine gun and then also like you know when it comes down to it your fists and you can do some really cool stuff in close combat yeah absolutely I think like even if because like obviously this game

23:20 is aesthetically going for realistic but the way that the game actually operates is still very much just you know video game logic um I think that if just going back to the example of like jumping on a guy even by accident and like the the animation that comes from that like let that be like oh if you jump on a guy you kind of stun him like you don't even have to make that kill him make that just be a way to a different way to interact with the world um and sort of add that to your your toolbox instead it's just here's the two things that you can do and that's it

24:00 so there are eight stages but three difficulties uh you know the layer to the difficulties is kind of hard to uh digest in the amount of time that we play the games but my overall impression was is that the difficulties don't add anything they just uh kind of increase the amount of damage and uh you know required for the enemies and stuff like that so forget about the three choices of difficulty is the eight stages is that enough in 1990 for a game did these feel like long levels maybe these eight stages are enough to hold you over um what any thoughts there on the length of the game um I mean I think the the levels are longer than

25:12 like a typical side scroller I think um at least physically maybe not in how fast you can clear them um but there's also enough uh there's also enough variety in what these levels look like I think to um to say that I I wouldn't feel cheated and I think having the different difficulties does add some replay value I'm not saying it adds too much or that this wasn't lazy um but I think having those difficulty levels does like pad it a little bit and I think it's important to note too that these stages are not um you know run to the right and just get to the end uh you can get to the end of the stage

26:00 and just be you have to backtrack yeah you're like blocked by what is it like four crates it's like this is all that's stopping me like why can't I just go around them you need a grenade mike yeah but I feel like there should just be a guy who's just like you know no you have to rescue everybody like somebody should tell you the manual shouldn't have to tell you four crates can't tell you so something should tell you in game like no you have to rescue uh the hostage before you can move on and um I think that's what at least adds not any replay value but adds um length to the stages themselves that you

26:36 really have to explore every nook and cranny because it's easy to dodge the enemies and just continue moving right but that's not the point here the point is to explore uh the actual level and there isn't uh too much that they did with that there either I'm again I'm sorry I swear I'm trying not to complain or anything but like exploration in the same way that like searching your pants pockets for like your phone is exploring like you're just like you're just trying to to comb this level for the one thing that you need to move forward right and now capcom only published this game they didn't make it but think about uh the length of the ducktales levels and those levels are you know

27:22 small in size I would I would argue uh not not particularly large but there's a lot in terms of exploration and optional content and different yeah different paths you can take and for a game where you're supposed to try and like track down hostages it's kind of boring that it's just go to the right all the time like because you're just gonna you're gonna see all these trick doors or whatever throughout anyway and like yeah they might make them I don't know I didn't beat the game they might make them harder to detect later on or whatever but uh they should have made it more about like no

27:53 you really have to like I don't know this is a weird example but uh there was a Ronald McDonald game on the Sega Genesis where uh and there's a lot of there's a lot of things in that game that are like actually surprisingly good but one thing that's really good about them is that there's so much to do on those in those stages and yet you really don't have to do any of it right uh it's vertically long it's horizontally long there's like a surprising amount of collectibles and yet the game doesn't really care if you do any of it uh and here Codename Viper cares if you do the one thing it's asking you to do but it's not making it particularly interesting to do that thing yeah

28:29 they put in a couple like sight gags that to make it a little bit more interesting what like the skeletons the skeleton and the fact that like you're optional you're optional hostages which are really just a way to get I think extra lives or extra continues I can't remember um it's just like oh it's it's the it's the woman or it's the little boy how they ended up here I don't know um but yeah there there just isn't enough character in this game to aside from their inexplicably being zombies that too that's a thing um uh to say that there's a lot going on in these levels it's it's more so they've put a lot

29:15 of things to check when you finish the game um and you know there's some cool uh I'll call them cut scenes for NES days throughout uh with the computer and stuff I like that like you're playing on a console hooked up to a tv looking at a pixel art computer with uh like images inside that computer like that's there's some nice uh layer of depth there in the game and so I appreciate that yeah but after all that said and done you're just greeted with like a text epilogue Mr. Smith destroyed the underground drug routes where Commander Jones was involved however this does not mean he destroyed the huge syndicate that intended on conquering the world through dealing drugs uh well that's a downer

30:06 like well think about it it's like it's like saying like Mr. Smith destroyed the drug cartel but he didn't end homelessness you know it's like it's like oh I did the mission right like it's not on me to that wasn't the assignment right was like stop drugs everywhere well I think that I think it was more so that they felt a moral responsibility to not um to not allow young people to think that it takes one person to stop drug violence because really it takes all of us they they could be going for that or they could just be teasing a sequel right where he actually does end drug violence right like this is Codename Viper is just the first entry in the um Codename Viper Solid series where uh you know like the the Mr.

31:01 Smith character and the Commander Jones guy are just always at odds with each other they're they're revealed to be clones of each other yeah exactly meta real meta shit and stuff like that and that the drug cartel was actually the video game industry right dealing dealing video games to children and that you know getting them addicted at an early age so that they start playing

31:22 gotcha games on their mobile phones and get their parents credit cards and rack up huge debts so that the families have to pay the interest to the government which is owned by the video game industry well okay well you actually made this even more of a downer now like I mean I feel like that's basically what the game told me I'm not even like I feel like yes you can give me a little bit of a

31:49 creative writing credit there but for the most part that's what the game's epilogue is saying I mean all right hold on let's say let's see what the actual what the actual uh letter is the letter that you've been collecting words from our purpose is to control the whole world by drugs supply as much drugs to blank as possible and he will handle it never contact him even though he can be found at his home in blank we must execute our top secret plans now pay attention to this matter so really I think what the game is saying is that someone will always be there to explicitly stop one person from actually controlling the world like hegemonically through drugs which I think is a

32:43 valiant thing to say uh that wasn't the final letter but uh I appreciate you after we've already spoiled it several times withholding the identity of commander jones that isn't you're right that isn't I just uh it was it was blank it was mostly blank sorry you can continue it's okay no no no you really just withheld just the name and that he lives in beverly hills oh beverly hills which is like that's just funny that like you know it's not it's not like continued in south america or anything it's like you could always find him at his home in beverly hills california um that's where I want to be

33:18 yeah thank you thank you sean um okay where was I going with this oh yeah so there are no sequels uh so even though they teased it and everything there are no sequels so honestly um you know if anybody wants to revive the codename viper thing I don't know capcom's on a bit of a roll now right like street fighter 6 resident evil 4 sure they got a new monster hunter game in the works let's get codename viper in there right like let's remaster that shit and uh make it more uh meta and gritty or let's just give megaman a shot like when is it megaman and castlevania's time again that's kind of weird that they're not those are some of their biggest ips and they're not doing anything with them

33:58 I mean the other thing the other megaman stuff that we've been seeing hasn't been all that like great so maybe they just know it's hard yeah yeah and I agree it is hard but you've got to imagine there's a way to reinvent megaman right like it's kind of like sonic right nobody actually wants to go back and play sonic the hedgehog 1 um unless you know unless you love retro games but I'm saying like it doesn't it doesn't quite hold up the same way that like fans who love sonic um even the ones that don't want him to get pregnant but just the ones who I'm sorry you know like who like the fan fiction and everything um they you know they found a way to make sonic work both

34:38 in 3d 2d sonic mania was great right it wasn't just a you know like oh let's just go back to sonic the hedgehog 1 it was introducing new stuff megaman and castlevania need that uh castlevania already has like a bunch of other people have figured it out um how to do it the right way is like that bloodstained game right that's a castlevania yeah that's a castlevania clone yeah and that's a good game yeah uh so megaman just needs something throw him a bone uh and then you know last week sean I mentioned that uh you know this game was only published by capcom it was developed by arc system works and you kind of gave me like uh i don't really um care for them or know about them

35:16 and i was like they make those blahs blue and guilty gear fighting games do you care now um do you care now i think i've played one guilty gear game for maybe an hour they're very stylish games like they're they're i i'm not good at fighting games on that level it wasn't even that i i'm thinking of king of fighters so i don't think i've played oh yeah yeah no king of fighters is snk yeah uh i don't i haven't played a single one okay well they also made very recently uh well very recently is yeah you know subjective but in 2017 they made double dragon 4 oh and you know double dragon 1 and 2 are essential games in our book so uh double dragon 4 the reception uh it got a score of 49

36:05 out of 100 okay damn i thought it was gonna be out of 50 really tough okay uh ign gave it a 3.5 out of 10 and they basically give everything at least a 6 so yeah so this must be a really bad game yeah right okay so arc system works jury's out i guess right like um they're great at making fighting games but don't let them touch anything else so maybe they'll make a codename viper fighting game actually has codename viper mr smith ever shown up in one of the uh isn't he in smash brothers yeah where is as a trophy maybe um you know we're kind of rambling so i think we're just gonna stop the rambling and move on to our final segment which is of course the essential games list

36:51 i think i've uh said a lot of bad things about this game and uh it's not it's not really that bad of a game like i feel like because of the rhythm of me and sean and the groove we were able to get into on this episode you might think that this is the worst game that it is just a rather unimpressive game all around and i'm kind of surprised because i i'm not saying i heard uh great things about this game but keep in mind you know capcom put their name on it and uh they're on a roll with nes games and it did have like i don't know it did have a lot of things that i like in other nes games it's just that when you talk when you put in all the flaws that we talked about and the rather uninteresting

37:35 uh gameplay loop of finding these hostages like i kind of wonder if you just remove the hostage part and just made it about like you know it's a grueling battle through the jungle and just getting to the end actually and making the enemies harder or whatever if that would have been a more substantial game uh i've heard people compare this game to rolling thunder which um namco made and uh i i don't know if that was we definitely haven't played that no no we haven't played it but i can't figure out

38:07 um like why we haven't played it if it was an unlicensed game or something like that um i believe it was unlicensed so we will never play it but uh i i'd be curious you know is rolling thunder the better version of this then if the games are comparable should we should fans of codename viper check out rolling thunder is that the superior entry um let us know uh but i'll let you know that this is not going on the essential games list sean okay um yeah i guess that that means it's off

38:40 um yeah yeah that's how it works when there's only two it's kind of crazy um yeah i agree like we we really have just focused on negative stuff here i mean it is still uh i think it's a polished game you know the little quirks that we discussed notwithstanding like the um like the cut seat the sorry the cut scene art is is very nice like we we kind of mentioned the if the computer

39:07 like after action report thing is cool some of the animations are fun uh and but it's really just like i i appreciate that they were going for this realistic aesthetic even though they were mixing this realistic aesthetic with very unrealistic things and kind of goofy things to be honest um but yeah the risk isn't enough going on like the searching these doors for clues slash hostages it just isn't

39:39 engaging enough and the gun the gun fighting as you know the more moment to moment gameplay loop isn't engaging enough for me to say that this is anything beyond like in a kind of game so i'm going to put it on the essential ant list not not the essential games list yeah no no that's the eel instead of the egl uh next week we'll be playing conflict um we won't be having a conflict i don't

40:10 know i can't promise that yeah we might fight who knows um and then if you're interested in more nostalgia check out the nostalgia bites uh that's a special podcast that we do for patreon subscribers patreon.com slash nostalgia and there for just five dollars a month you get the idea i've said this how many times i mean do you really want me to keep going sure so for five dollars a month to get these uh nostalgia bites episodes they're fun they're the famicom games instead but not in

40:35 chronological order just however the heck i feel like it in fact i guess i'm noticing that i am sorting them a little bit alphabetically from time to time but trust me that's not the hook uh there is no hook the hook is is that you can play these games without knowing any japanese as long as you can find the english translations uh it used to be a lot more elegant than that but then we started expanding what it means so our next game is fuzzical fighter and again like is is that the name of the game or is that just like what it translates into because it was never released in north america so uh definitely there is no direct translation between japanese and english for fuzzical right i

41:16 mean that's just a thing where it either is or it is not yeah um i should point out that on the box it literally says fuzzical fighter in english so chances are you might be able to play this one um with without any japanese knowledge or knowledge of how to go to romhacking.net and uh download a dot ips file and then patch it using something like i don't know multi-patch uh you know uh or lunar ips if you use that too these are just suggestions of course we don't have a way to give you these utilities but uh it's not illegal to mention them at the end of an episode my government's not listening somebody's at my door uh they're oh we should probably wrap this up yeah um uh oh so