296 · Dynowarz

• Cyborasaurus must be unleashed! The DYNOWARZ must begin!
• NES Longplay
• Manual
• First instance of a z replacing an s in our NES library?
• How cool are dinosaurs?
• How cool is war?
  • Apocalypse Now, and Thin Blue Line but really Saving Private Ryan is probably the mainstream example of war not being glorified.
• Plot
  • Something was terribly wrong in the distant man-made Spondylus Solar System. One by one the planets' central life support computers had been infected with a life-threatening virus while the planet surfaces had been overrun with giant computerized dinosaurs known as Robosaurs. Under attack in his laboratory on Alpha Planet, Professor Proteus, the mastermind of the Spondylus System and founder of the Robosaur project suddenly realized that this deadly sabotage could only be the work of his former partner, the deranged Dr. Brainius. Years earlier, the doctor had fled Alpha Planet after Professor Proteus had exposed him for performing forbidden robotic experiments on human subjects. At last, he had returned to seek his revenge using the Professor's own creations! But, little did he realize that Proteus had been hard at work for the past few years perfecting the ultimate robosaur, Cyborasaurus! There was only one hope to save the Spondylus System.
• Overview
  • Mechanized dinosaurs named robosaurs fight in a faraway solar system named Spondylus
• The player first controls Professor Proteus
  • Which doesn’t sound cool but he is in his battlesuit
  • 3 way spray
  • The weight of the jump or maybe the gravity?
  • He clips through platforms if the jumps aren’t precise
  • Sparse amount of enemies
• Then you play as Cyborasaurus
  • What a disappointment to go from the huge mech in the Proteus part of the stage and then just shrink it all down in scale against the other robots
  • The Cybosaurus powers and growth by collecting more of the same power
  • It doesn’t feel like like a kaiju battle and most of the enemies aren’t that smart
  • How many planets are in this solar system, there are many in the bg and they are massive
• Stages, each on different planets ranging from ice to jungle
• The goal is to get to the Artificial Intelligence Compound of each planet
• When in the AIC, Proteus exits Cyborasaurus. Every AIC has a Life-Support Computer that has been infected with a virus which must be destroyed.
• When the computer is destroyed, all beasts in the AIC are destroyed along with it. Proteus must then retrace his steps back to Cyborasaurus. Cyborasaurus then must use the Molecular Transporter outside to travel to the next planet.
• the game's cut scene animations are top notch
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • None, but this is Bandai and they know dinosaurs
• EGL
  • This feels like a Flash game a kid in the early 2000s would’ve put together and uploaded on Newgrounds.
• Next week - Ghostbusters II
• NEStalgia Byte -

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

00:00 Dino Wars, destruction of Spondylos. Cybersaurus must be unleashed. The Dino Wars must begin.

00:23 NOSTALGIA 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, is this the first instance of a Z replacing an S in our NES library? You know, the Z makes everything sound cooler. It's kind of surprising that we haven't seen that yet, but I guess it is a 90s thing. I feel like there's gotta be more, but I can't think of an example. Yeah, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say that this is the introduction to the hardcore Z.

01:00 Oh, wait. This was the first time ever. We forgot about Super Mario Bros. 3 with the Z. Yeah, the, you know, the extreme rom-hack. Yeah, Super Mario. Super Mario. You can't just put the Z anywhere over S's. Yeah, anywhere there's an S, yeah. And, um, guys, how cool are dinosaurs? I love dinosaurs.

01:20 Dinosaurs? What about robot dinosaurs? Yeah. Robot dinosaurs? On another planet. I just think of, like, there was, you know, back before memes in their current form existed, I remember there being a demotivational poster, if you remember those from, I'd say, middle internet. Um, and it was just a picture of, uh, of robots, like, in cybernetic armor. And I, and I was like, that's the coolest thing ever. And look, there's a game. I do wonder, though, how cool are dinosaurs in 1990 because Jurassic Park hasn't come out yet. Like, are dinosaurs as cool as they will be in the future? Or did Jurassic Park, like, re-spark the, uh, the dinosaurs into the cultural zeitgeist?

02:07 What about, like, Power Rangers? When did that, when did that start? Yeah, that's, yeah, it's 91, I think. 92, 93, maybe. 93, maybe. This gave me very Power Ranger vibes. Yeah, well, Power Rangers also is a thing from, uh, you know, it was a Super Sentai in Japan. Right. So, it had been going on for much longer and earlier than, um, Power Rangers. But yeah, I, I think about just dinosaurs in general when I was a kid were all the rage because of Jurassic Park, not necessarily because it was fun to learn about dinosaurs. No, no, no. Jurassic Park really did kick off the, you know, the pop culture being into dinosaurs phenomenon. I don't think it was really a thing before this, uh, but it still is now. So, dinosaurs are cool, but how cool is war?

02:56 Oh, just as cool as Jurassic Park. I was wondering what movie came out that, that sparked that was, like, Saving Private Ryan and suddenly everyone was like, oh, war. Nobody was really into war, uh, until, uh, Dunkirk came out.

03:13 Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Because I was actually going the same route as Joe with Saving Private Ryan, you know, like, Apocalypse Now and the Thin Blue Line kind of did the, uh, whole, like, war shouldn't be glorified thing. Before that, most war movies were like, look at these heroes, like, this is amazing, war is amazing, we're the greatest country.

03:31 Saving Private Ryan with that, uh, opening D-Day scene really makes you realize, like, wow, war is a very terrible experience and people die quickly and there's no remorse and it just happens. Uh, so I was going that route, but Sean, I, uh, I like your fun answer of nobody cared about war until Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, a movie with very limited war. Well, like, 2017 or something? I mean, I'll also state that nobody being into dinosaurs before Jurassic Park isn't quite on the mark, but, uh, it's, it's definitely more true with the, with the Jurassic Park thing. What was that 90s movie about the destruction of Spondylis? Oh. That really sparked the hype. I think, wasn't that a, uh, wasn't that, like, Bridget Jones's diary?

04:18 Right, right. The Land Before Time, the original one, came out in 1988, so, technically, that is the, probably the movie that kickstarted Dinosaur, like, you know, Resurgence.

04:31 Or maybe Land Before, oh my god, you just said Land Before, or maybe, uh, uh, was that, what was that movie with the claymation dinosaur fight, uh, from, like, the 50s? Was that Land of the Lost or something? Oh yeah, Land of the Lost, yeah. Yeah. We just, we should stop, like, placing our bet on when dinosaurs get popular, because we keep immediately undermining it. I think they were just always cool. Yeah. Did King Kong fight a dinosaur also in the original? Like, on his island? I think so, yes. Yeah. I think that was... So, 1933 really was, like, the establishing point for dinosaurs.

05:06 All right, all right, we're done. The point being, of course, the dinosaurs in war are dino wars. It's like, I think they just thought of two really cool things, combined them, and then decided to completely not deliver on that premise. But, before we get into the game itself, it's worth mentioning the plot, because if there is going to be a giant dinosaur war, you better have a pretty good explanation for why it's happening. And so, you know, just rather than break it down, I'm just going to read the entire plot, and then Sean and Joe, as two guys that are currently playing through some, you know, some latest Game of the Year contenders in both Starfield and Bouldersgate 3, maybe you talk about how this plot holds up. So, here we go.

05:47 Something was terribly wrong in the distant man-made Spondylous solar system. One by one, the planet's central life support computers had been infected with a life-threatening virus while the planet's surfaces had been overrun with giant computerized dinosaurs, known as Robosaurs. Under attack in his laboratory on Alpha Planet, Professor Proteus, the mastermind of the Spondylous system and founder of the Robosaur project, suddenly realized that this deadly sabotage could only be the work of his former partner, the deranged Dr.

06:22 Brainius. Years earlier, the doctor had fled Alpha Planet after Professor Proteus had exposed him for performing forbidden robotic experiments on human subjects. At last, he had returned to seek his revenge using the professor's own creations, but little did he realize that Proteus had been hard at work for the past few years perfecting the ultimate Robosaur, Cyberosaurus. There was only one hope, to save the Spondylous system. And that's it?

06:52 That's it. And just to be fair, okay, you're saying that's it, but you wouldn't know any of that. You wouldn't have one clue about that if you just played the game. I didn't. I also didn't. I'm kind of because I didn't read the manual for this playthrough, but usually I will, when I play a game and I just kind of get it, I'm like, I guess I don't need the manual for this.

07:15 But okay, here's my big nitpick. We are now a level two civilization on the Kardashev scale. We have built a solar system from scratch, so I guess maybe that's actually more the feat of a level three when you can kind of like take the energy of a whole galaxy because, you know, it takes a lot of stuff to build an entire solar system. I assumed what they meant by that must have been like maybe it was mistranslated and it meant like man settled, you know, like man conquered solar system.

07:49 I suppose. But if it's actually literally man-made, then that is, then that, I mean, that's impressive. You know, regardless of that, regardless of that, why, if we have the capability to play God to this sense, why is there a, what would you call it? A robo dino? Robo dino? Robo dino. Oh, the RoboSaur program. What is the RoboSaur program for?

08:17 Is that, is it just like an entertainment system? Like, is it a 30th century Chuck E. Cheese? It reminds me of that Rick and Morty episode where the like wooden Jerry lives forever and then they do Christianity again and it's like dinosaurs again? Like we built our own solar system and it's like, well, we have to start from the beginning.

08:42 Uh, and just don't buy it. Just don't buy it. Well, I'll say that I, I, you know, obviously this is very, very campy, ridiculous and silly story, but I was actually surprised that it's like as robust as it is. When you first kind of like teed it up, I was like, oh, here we go. This is going to be the stupidest story. We've had a lot of stupider stories on this and I'm just like, wow, for, for the campiness of this game, the campiness of that story, uh, matches. And I'm like, wow, they actually like, they fleshed it out a lot more than I would expect them to.

09:12 But there is a problem though, right? That like, we haven't even talked about the game yet, but you, we've all played the game. Hopefully some of our listeners have also played the game. The plot would be shocking to anybody because there's just no semblance of it in the game at all. There's no, there's no explanation in game for why this man is jumping into this giant robosaur and fighting other dinosaurs. But you could come up with your own story. And I think what I'm getting is that it would probably be just as cool as the story they wrote in the manual.

09:43 No, yeah, I don't think this game, I mean, yeah, you've just created a game where you get to play as some semblance of a T-Rex. And they're also, they're also robotic and they have guns. Like you don't need a story for that. You don't need a, uh, a lore Bible.

10:03 All you need to have is that kind of thing going on. But I guess the question is, did they give you the feeling that you were doing that thing? Yeah, I think with like most games like this, it's like that we've been playing most of the games that are like platformers and stuff like that don't need the story at all. It's just like, it's a nice touch when they have a story.

10:25 But, um, yeah, I think, I don't know if we want to get into the gameplay, like if it delivered on like, on what it was trying to do. Well, just one, one more quick thought on the plot is that it reminds me a lot of Mega Man, you know, like you replace RoboSaurus with Mega Men and, uh, Dr. Wily and Dr. Light instead of Dr. Proteus and Dr. Brainius. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that plus some of, some of the gameplay kind of feels that way too.

10:55 So let's get into the gameplay then. Uh, the way it works is it is a platforming game with, uh, you know, some good action built into it. You play first as Professor Proteus and go through his level of, of the stage, his part of the stage, I should say. It's one complete level. And when you get to, um, the end of his level, you then jump into the CyberOSaurus and play through its part of the stage. So we'll break these down by just starting with Professor Proteus because he goes first. Um, what did you guys think of, uh, being Professor Proteus? We just said that this kind of is inspired by Mega Man in some regards. Is it fun to control Professor Proteus like it is Mega Man? Oh, not at all.

11:37 Um, okay. So the way that it kind of feels like the OG Mega Men, um, like you go from screen to screen, uh, and there's, it's sort of a puzzle, like, uh, not puzzle, but there, it's an arrangement. It's a changed stage where there's however many enemies in places that sort of like act like choke points and you gotta shoot them. And, but everything's just all wrong. Everything feels all wrong. Your jump feels all wrong.

12:06 The clipping, uh, like, uh, just like, uh, surface detection or like collision detection doesn't seem to work that well. Um, and it sort of just stops. You get to what would, I guess, can you consider to be, so you're shooting around, you're shooting these little floating things that kind of don't look like anything. I was having trouble trying to place what I was shooting aside from like floating drone.

12:32 Um, and you're, you're sort of fighting your way to a core, uh, like a, a cyber core. And I'm assuming these are the things that you got to blow up to stop the infection and freeze Bondiolus. Uh, and then you blow up the core and then nothing happens. And then like, what's going on? Uh, do I have to walk into the core? Do I have to jump onto the core? Uh, but no, apparently this is one of those games where you then backtrack out of the, uh, the internal area, um, with now no enemies and there really being no challenge or reason to backtrack. And then you jump into your giant Megazord, uh, to move on to the next, uh, gameplay portion. But, uh, yeah, that, that was my take on, on Mr.

13:23 Brainiac's team. Uh, Professor Proteus, Mr. Brainiac's the bad guy. Same thing. Yeah. I mean, I, I pretty much agree with everything there. The first thing that stands out to me immediately is like the, the, the bad momentum in this game, uh, is very noticeable because it's a platformer. Yeah. And, uh, you, I will say that I got the hang of it eventually and it, and it became less of a, less of a noticeable problem because I was just used to it.

13:51 But it's like, we've had games where like, there's, there's no momentum and we've had games where there's too much momentum. And this does like this weird, just as bad middle ground where it's like, there's, I guess there actually still is no momentum, but, but I feel like I'm going too fast when I'm jumping.

14:11 Like, so it's like weird if I jump without like moving forward, it's like, you can just jump and stop on a dime, but the moving forward, like it just moves in a way where like, I feel like I miss a lot of platforms because it just feels so different than other games I've played.

14:26 Again, you get used to it. So, so like that is not the worst, but then the collision detection you were talking about, you, you mentioned no challenge, um, on, on the way back every time. I mean, I don't think there is any challenge that was intended or designed to be there, but the amount of times that I try to jump across these like three floating platforms, that should be very easy to jump on. And I clearly land on it. And then I just fall through because like, you need to be like at least a foot above it to land on it. And, you know, it's like, it's like, I saw my character land on it, but you know, I fall through it. Like, so there's like some unintentional challenge there.

15:01 Um, but honestly, like otherwise, like it's a, it's a, it's not good, but like I, I, I didn't find myself frustrated with much else after that. It was just boring. Yeah. I don't think it's, I don't think it's frustrating. I think the issue actually with the professor Proteus stages is that forget about how bad the jump is. And it is one of those things where it's like, maybe it's trying to do gravity or maybe like the weight of the jump is just not what we're expecting, but it, it does let you have a range of like how hard you hold down the jump. So in some ways it could have opened up some creative possibilities with the jump. Instead, the real issue is, is that even if the jump was good, the levels themselves are just really boring.

15:41 He has by default a, a spread weapon that shoots in three different directions that does most coverage of the, uh, of the stage that you're, you know, the portion of the stage that you're in. The enemies are really sparse and just kind of float around. They're not intelligent at all. They, they don't like, they don't aim necessarily at professor Proteus. They just kind of exist, uh, in the level.

16:05 And then the actual like platforming thing is like, yeah, it sucks that you can just clip through things. Cause I've never seen that before. Right. Usually platforms have some kind of, um, weight or matter to them so that like you would just not knock into them. Yeah. Bounce off. Right. But then say you're not in a pitfall one, like a pitfall will kill you, but say you're just like, oops, now I land in the spikes.

16:28 Even the spikes are just kind of inconsequential to the amount of energy that the game is giving you. Yeah. You have so much health and the, the, the, the amount of health they give you in addition to, uh, how many just safe zones or like dead zones are on these screens. Like you can, you can, you can end up in that like sort of mini boss area, shooting the core and you can pick any number of spots to just sit and shoot and not really engage with anything aside from matching a button until the thing dies. And there really isn't much challenge to it.

17:04 The only, the, the greatest threat to you in the, in this mode is the pitfalls. Yeah. And I just can't shake off the feeling of, uh, when I was playing through the game and you start with professor proteus too. So it's not the warmest introduction of like being on newgrounds.com in the early two thousands and just playing like anybody's game, like something that like people made in, in minutes or maybe hours. I don't want to underestimate these people because they were just playing around and flash, but it really does have that feel to it of just like, yeah, well, every game has enemies and every game has platforms.

17:42 And what if we just had our guy jump onto platforms and shoot at enemies? And it's like, sure. But are you going to do something with that? Like I'm waiting for the professor proteus stages to do something with the elements they laid down, but there's not even anything, uh, unique or, uh, interesting happening there. Like Sean mentioned, after you shoot the core, all right. Uh, uh, a concept stolen from shmups, you then just backtrack through an empty level. It's like, why bother? There was this thought that occurred to me while I was playing the game. Um, and I don't know if it has any actual meaning to it, but this seems to be a game that that's, it's very obsessed with routine.

18:26 Um, because in this, in this mode, you will go, you'll shoot, you'll shoot the core and then you have to walk back to get back to your, uh, to your, to your zord. Um, and then jump into it, uh, through that empty level. So if, if there isn't any, if there isn't anything engaging happening, then just the act of going back is important to the developers here.

18:49 And then this is, we haven't really talked about this part yet, but in the dinosaur segments, you will fight like a boss boss, and then they will drop a key for a door that is right in front of you. Um, that, you know, in any other sense, you could have just had it be, you beat the boss, and then you move forward to the next level. There's no reason to pick up a key and then walk to a door that is a couple steps away. So that must mean something to them too. Like, what does all of this mean?

19:21 Did you get that? Like, what, why, like, how pointless some of these things that you do are? Yeah, like, I, I guess, you know, what you just mentioned about the key wouldn't be an issue, but it does feel like what Mike said, the, the Newgrounds thing. It's like, they had these ideas, but they just didn't really implement them.

19:37 And like, I was just gonna say that, that, that Newgrounds statement is like a statement that I have searched for so many times on this podcast. Like, I've had that exact feeling, but didn't really remember the site I was thinking of. It's a template for a game. Yeah, like that is, there's been, we've had so many games that have felt like that, and that's like a, that's like a great description of like what this feels. Like, it's like, yeah, they have all the elements and they put them together in a way that you can technically play the game.

20:03 Well, before you become or jump into your cyberosaurus, there is an amazing, uh, non-animated cutscene of the cybersaurus that is very detailed and has some amazing sprite work. But before you even jump into it and have the, uh, the nice little, uh, detailed sprite there, there's like a size, uh, that you can appreciate of the cybersaurus next to Professor Proteus.

20:30 When you get back to the beginning of the level after traversing through the empty parts, you see your cybersaurus there and it's significantly bigger than Professor Proteus. We're like seeing just a portion of the head and then we are greeted with this awesome cutscene, uh, and I keep saying cutscene, but it's really just still pixel art of the cybersaurus. But it's like nicely shadowed and everything. Like, I really appreciate it.

20:53 Yeah, it paints a good picture. Then you play as cybersaurus and you're, what a disappointment. You're exactly, you're going from this huge mech to exactly the same size as Professor Proteus in his parts of the stages. So everything is just shrunken down in scale again to the other dino bots where like they, it's fine. They could have been just as big too. I would have, I would have, wouldn't have minded. But now the, you know, the cybersaurus, it doesn't feel like a kaiju battle. Most of the enemies aren't that smart anyway. So they're doing like, they're just running into you or whatever. Like they, they don't have a big plan or objective.

21:28 And also while we're talking about like the size of things, if you just think of the backgrounds, like how many planets are in this man-made solar system? There are so many moons in the background of some of these stages and they're massive moons. They're not like leftover material from the construction site. I have to imagine social on because it's like, they're not even like, oh, like little stars in the different distance. Cause they give you those. They have like some white pixels in the background to be the stars, but then they have giant moons too. And it's like how many, and they're so close to each other.

22:00 Well, I mean, I like that. Cause I honestly, a lot about this game aesthetically is awesome. Really. Other than like the, that weird, like, yeah, the dinosaur doesn't feel big when you're actually playing as it. But like, yeah, it's like, it's like what you would think is, it's like what exactly what, you know, a nine year old playing the NES would find awesome. Aesthetically, you know, you're on another, an alien world in a robot dinosaur. And you're this like dude in like a, I don't know, in like a space suit with a, with a phaser gun. Like it all looks really cool, but it's just implementation. I agree with that. The concepts definitely on paper are what kids want.

22:41 The cybersaurus does have different weapons though, which makes him better than Professor Proteus and not just playing with a, with another spread gun, which would kind of stink. So instead you have the launch fist where his fist shoots out and hits other enemies, which, you know, I probably had the most fun with that. Cause that felt kind of Mechagodzilla-y, but you know, but there is one problem with that. And that is that it has to make like a full square before it comes back to you. And so you're kind of just not doing anything while it's out there in the ether. But, uh, there's the launch fist, the fireballs, which are just a projectile thing.

23:20 The laser beam, um, which I guess is actually pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool. And it, it goes through multiple enemies. That's good. And, uh, the bomb, uh, which is the one that I didn't even bother with. Yeah. So, uh, you have those and then you build upon them. So it works on the same kind of shmup system where collect the launch fist and then the launch fist again to bring it up to launch fist two. But if you're on launch fist two and you collect fireballs, now you're on fireballs one. Yeah. You're going to spend a lot of time in this game avoiding pickups.

23:52 And honestly, like I ended up avoiding just most pickups at all because I just decided as much as I thought that the launch fist was cool. And it, when it was neat that like, I'd have to think like, oh, I want to, to attack this thing when it's closer to me. So it won't take that long for the fist to get back to me. Like there's a strategy level to it, but also you can just not do that. Use the laser or the fireball and there's no need to ever use the launch fist. And it's just easier and better and in every way. So like that is kind of annoying, but also like on paper, what, what we're describing sounds like, oh, wow, there are a lot of things. There are these four different things and they each have three different tiers of levels of power.

24:32 And, and I guess that is true, but like just somehow it never feels like, wow, I'm getting so powerful. Like, like in some shmups we've had, like that, that's the kind of thing that you read on the back of a box of like a C tier game, like over 10 different weapon modes. And it's like, oh, there's 12. So yeah, it's over 10. And it's just the four tiers plus, I'm sorry, the four types of weapons plus the three tiers times the three tiers. Like it, it, it feels very much like what we were served here.

25:12 Sean, thinking about essential game Terra Cresta, what's, what makes that one of our essential games is that as you're building up to the ultimate final form of your ship, the Phoenix, which is just, as we talked on the podcast, just so cool and invincible. Along the way, though, you are progressing and feeling great about the power ups that you're gaining on the road to the final form. On this one, I don't know if just like saying like, okay, cool. Now he shoots two fireballs at a time. Like, I don't think that's enough. It makes me feel like I should have just started with fireballs three.

25:47 I feel like a lot of this stems from that, that scale problem. The fact that you're this giant mech, mech Godzilla sort of thing, and yet you're still the size of a normal sprite from a side scroller. Um, it kind of removes a lot of the, uh, the potential for spectacle, um, that you can do with, I mean, and I'm not saying that that's an excuse because there, there are plenty of games that use this like sort of default height that still look great and, and give you a feeling of power. But if that's the whole idea is scale, this is not really the way you're going to do it.

26:28 Like, and, and so the, the, the powers that you get, if they're still trying to give him some kind of feeling of scale, they're going to give him the sort of sludgy movement that he has. You're going to have to have better power ups. And they just didn't do that.

26:43 And, and to be, to be honest to me, when I played this, what it felt like was when you play as whatever his name is, professor, whatever. Proteus. It felt like they made, they made the dinosaur level first, and then they were like, all right, let's go make Proteus, but we got to make him weaker than the dinosaur level. Rather than making Proteus and be like, oh, now it's like something that feels more powerful.

27:07 Because the dinosaur doesn't feel that powerful. The manual makes you think that because they include the dinosaur mode first. So, Joe, you might be on to something about that. Because it just felt like instead of it being like, wow, you're this badass guy, and then you get into this super powerful thing. It's like, oh, you're this mediocre dinosaur thing. And then you, when you get out, you're like, really lame.

27:32 There was one neat world building thing, if I can say that, in a platform or NES game that feels like a Newgrounds game. And that is the extra power-up or accessory that you have in the Cybersaurus weapon that is the satellite defense system. Oh, is that what that is? Yes. And it's on the screen with you if you have it, so you can see the satellite in the sky, which is a good cue to know that you still have one left. And it destroys all enemies on screen one time for you until you collect another satellite defense system.

28:10 Did I have to press select for that? Yeah, I think it was either select or, yeah, it had to be select. Sorry, yeah, it's select. Okay. And what's cool about that is, again, they're saying that we've taken over the solar system or whatever or built it from scratch, you decide. And so we have these satellite defense systems all around, and you're collecting them and using them with the Cybersaurus. It feels like a more baked-in idea to the overall plot than anything else I experienced. They didn't explain why the Cybersaurus has launch fists.

28:43 Or, again, why they exist at all. Well, we can just do whatever we want. But you're right. That is actually a pretty cool little integration there that you don't see very often. It doesn't look right, especially if you're like me and you were kind of wondering what it was, just this thing that's hovering over you at all times. You kind of think it's an extension of the UI. You know, like, why is it so low?

29:08 But now I get it. Thanks, Mike. And so if anything we talked about wasn't entirely too interesting, or maybe it was interesting, and you're like, oh, sign me up for being a giant dinosaur that then gets small, or sign me up for Flash-like stages, know that this is what you do over and over again with very subtle differences. And by subtle, I mean absolutely subtle. Like, the enemies are the enemies throughout. And the stages look the same throughout. So you just do this a certain number of times. Yeah, you get a different color background. Sometimes it looks more icy. Sometimes it looks more jungly.

29:50 But it's the same enemies. And they're just different colors. Yeah, I felt like even those aesthetic differences didn't start to be significant until the last two levels anyways. Like, yeah, there were, but I barely noticed what the difference was. I guess the jungle was earlier.

30:24 Unless I missed something, there's no fight against Brainiac or Brainius, whatever his name was. Totally beast. It just ends. Totally beast. It just ends when you get to the last stage. Like, you finally shut off the last of the artificial intelligence computers. And that's it. Virus stopped. No boss fight. You're just going to reset, like, the computer. That's like the goal of the game. You turn it off and on again.

30:57 It's not artificial intelligence computer. It's artificial intelligence compound. I guess I'm, you know, I'm trying to stay as close to the lore as possible. You're right. I thank you for that, though. On the sequels and spinoff side, there are none. But this was published by Bandai. And, you know, Bandai obviously now has Power Rangers. I don't think they always did. But they have Power Rangers now. And I think Bandai are a group of people that know dinosaurs. So kind of weird that they missed so hard here with Cybersaurus.

31:28 Well, actually, no. So I was thinking this wasn't a great game. But I actually now I'm looking at the very end. And the game does tell you that it's a great game. It says, congratulations, you finished another great game from Bandai. So I guess we were wrong. I didn't catch the from Bandai at first. And I just thought it was like you finished another great game. And it's just like, yep, we're just another game in your collection. But another great game from Bandai.

31:54 And, you know, I could do a quick search here. But other great games from Bandai include Dig Dug 2, Trouble in Paradise, Street Cop, Shooting Range, Monster Party. Okay, I mean, Monster Party was great. Let's not kid ourselves. So there we go. It only took four tries, but we got to an absolutely great game in Monster Party. Wow, I missed Monster Party. Get on it. It is weird. I got to replay my backlog.

32:22 I mean, we definitely just said that that's how it ends. But it is kind of hard to describe how anticlimactic it is. Like, you just think that you're leaving another one of those posts. And then the game ends. It would only be anticlimactic, though, if there was any kind of building to a climax. Yeah. Like, it doesn't feel like you've worked to anything. You just have done the same thing six or seven times.

32:48 And that's kind of why I probably didn't even sniff. Oh, no, I was actually pretty far because I got to stage five. And I thought maybe after stage four, that would be the last opportunity that the game had to change up literally anything. And then when stage five kind of worked the same as the other ones, I thought, like, you know what? I'm kind of over this game.

33:10 Yeah, it gets good after like 12 hours. Yeah. Well, whether we're over this game or over this episode, there is one more thing we have to do. And that is vote for it on the Essential Games list.

33:24 If my comment about Newgrounds didn't say enough, I guess I'm really not disappointed in Dino Wars Destruction of Spondylas for not delivering on its awesome title, but not delivering on even the kind of things that the game could have done as both a Mega Man and Dinosaur combat game. It doesn't deliver really on either service because the Professor Proteus stages are incredibly dull and easy.

33:55 And the Cybersaurus stages, not that they're harder, but they are just kind of tedious with the other dinosaurs that you fight off against. Like that should have been something that we spent a majority of the time of this podcast on, talking how much fun it is to fight other robo dinosaurs. That could have just been like some rock'em sock'em robot style stages or something. Like I'm not sure what I'm envisioning, but it certainly wasn't what we actually got.

34:21 And I think even by the time I got through the first of the Cybersaurus stages, I had my mind made up already about this game. And so that tells me enough to tell you that it's not essential. Sean? Yes, I've already said pretty damning things. So it's not essential. Joe? Yeah, I'll say that the pixel art in this game deserves to be in a better game.

34:48 And I'll also say I didn't, I wouldn't save my time playing this game during the game. Like I wasn't having a terrible time. I just also wasn't like having much fun. Like it was, it's not like some of these games were like, wow, this is like, it's a very beatable game. And it's like, wow, it was fun like for a couple of minutes. It was fun for like the first level or two until I realized nothing was changing. But yeah, this is, this is not a good, it's not a great game.

35:11 It doesn't like, it doesn't deliver on what's promised. And I feel like, you know, we've pretty much said it all. So definitely not essential. And that's three no's. So it's not on the essential games list. But fear not. Dinosaurs will have another day on the essential games list and on nostalgia.

35:29 But I, I'm sure there are tons of dinosaur or dinosaurs in video games. But the next example I can think of is a little game called color a dinosaur. And so maybe that one will wind up on the essential games list. Let's go. I mean, how do you screw up coloring in a dinosaur? It's definitely going to achieve its objective. You got those greens. Well, it's hard to know what color a dinosaur was. You got those browns. You know, Joe, that's a great point because I was thinking about that with the Jurassic Park thing. That like, there was a resurgence in dinosaurs in the 90s for sure. And then like, now we're starting to talk about dinosaurs having feathers.

36:08 Always. Yeah, they always had them or whatever. And it's like, who knows? Maybe dinosaurs were always robots too. Maybe dinosaurs were always cybersauruses. And we just haven't found the technology. Like we found their bones. But we haven't found their technology.