316 · Castle of Dragon

• Princess Amoreena has been carried away by the evil offspring of Darklarza The Dragon Master. Geraden, Duke of Menlary, needs your help to defeat the hideous
• legions of the undead to secure the instruments of Darklarza's demise!
• NES Longplay
• Manual
• I read all that because it’s the only text on the box and just sounds like word salad
• ATHENA is the developer, not to be confused with ATHENA the game. This is the team that made Championship Bowling
• The look of the game
  • Has a stutter to it and a lot of flashing
  • The animation is somehow more detailed yet janky?
• Lack of info online and the manual. But the pictures in the manual are nice
• Overworld map similar to Castlevania and Wizards & Warriors
• Gameplay
  • Hack and Slash
  • Lack of feedback
  • 16 bars of Health. You only get one life
    • Up to 64 bars of health
    • While you have no continues you'll restart the game with the same life meter and weapons as when you died.
  • Select to pause
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • No sequels
• EGL
• NEXT WEEK - Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
  • Not Chippendales which could have been an entirely different video game probably not with the NES Seal of Quality.

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

00:00 Castle of Dragon. Princess Amarina has been carried away by the evil offspring of Dark Larza, the Dragon Master. Geradin, Duke of Menlari, needs your help to defeat the hideous legions of the undead to secure the instruments of Dark Larza's demise.

00:35 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And I had to read all of that because it's the only text on the box anywhere on the box, so I just decided that's that's gonna be the back of the box. But it just kinda sounds like they just threw a bunch of names that people created for the very first time together for no reason.

01:03 And I'm not sure I'm even following because of how, I don't know, like how weird those names were. I was like, wait, what are they doing though? So... I've been saying this about NES games for years, and I think this is just one of the worst offenders, not just like the first offender. Now, did you actually think that this game was just made and then they were like, all right, let's come up with some shit to say about it? Or do you think the developers had lore in mind like this while making it?

01:36 That's a great question. I would like to think that you always at least have some idea of what your game is about before you go ahead and make it. However, these names, like, I don't know, is that like a, is that a writing tip? Like make your characters' names as out there and hard to pronounce as possible in order to keep people intrigued? Like, I'd be pissed if this was a book and I had to keep reading Princess Amarina, uh, and Dark Larza and Geradin every time I... You're not a big fantasy, uh, fantasy story guy. Oh, I hate fantasy stories, yeah. I see that this is maybe not exactly par for the course, but it's pretty close to, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of names like this in, uh, in fantasy.

02:20 Yeah, I mean, the thing is, and again, I've said this about a lot of NES games, it just feels like they had a Mad Libs, uh, like, booklet, and that was how they're going to create the plot of their story. And, uh, and yeah, in a lot of these games, they end up with just like a bunch of syllables that end up being the names of things. Like, Amarina or whatever, like, that's normal enough, but the, the ones that there's a lot of conflicting consonants that just, you know, doesn't really work out. Yeah, Dark Larza sounds like a Pokémon. Yeah, I can't tell if it's Dark Larza or Dark Klarza. Let's go with Dark Klarza. No, that sounds like a candy bar now. Dark Klarza. Left Dark Klarza or right Dark Klarza?

03:11 This game was developed by Athena, not to be confused with Athena, the NES game we played a long time ago. This is the team that made Championship Bowling. Uh, surely you guys remember Championship Bowling in great detail and are ready to recap, uh, and also find similarities and differences between Castle of Dragon and Championship Bowling, correct? I feel like we did, we kinda gushed about Championship Bowling, didn't we?

03:38 Like, it was just like, wow, I can't believe they, like, simulated this, and it feels right, and... We did say stupid shit like that. Yeah. And this is like, oh, maybe they don't really have a handle on the NES hardware, or as good of a handle as we thought they did. Yeah, like, the whole time I was playing Castle of Dragon, I was like, man, this doesn't even feel like Bowling.

03:58 Yeah. That's very funny, Joe. Uh, before we talk about the actual game, let's talk about just the look of the game, uh, because this is, this does feel a little different than other NES games, and I don't know if that's me pointing that out specifically, or if you guys felt the same way, but something about the sprite work, uh, both of the player character, the enemies, the backgrounds, you know, everything going on in this game, it just felt a little off-brand. Did, were you guys feeling that too?

04:26 Yeah. This, this feels like an off-brand game. Like, everything felt too crunchy, and they, uh, there was, like, weird intersections, and there's no iframes, and everything just sort of, like, feels half-baked, and I, I know that, you know, we don't like to start out something, we don't like to start out these episodes immediately going into, like, qualitative stuff, but it, it, this feels like a ROM hack of something, or, like, something, like, kind of home-brewed.

05:02 If, if by off-brand, if you're, if you mean, like, off-brand compared to good NES games, then yes, I do feel like I, we have had, I have played some, like, platformers that feel like this, and it's immediately something I, I don't enjoy the feel of it, where it's like, I don't know, because it's all, it's, it's kind of trying, it kind of looks like it should play like Castlevania, but it certainly doesn't, you know, like, it, it feels much clunkier, and it's a lot more, like, I don't feel like I have as much agency in this game, as far as, like, getting away from enemies, and, and anything like that, because it feels like

05:37 it doesn't, it just doesn't control well enough for, to give me those opportunities. It has a weird thing where, like, both sprites and background art is sometimes, like, more detailed than other things, like, the bats in this game are, are just, like, whatever, they're just kind of, like, thrown together, you're like, yeah, I know that's a bat, but it doesn't

05:55 look that good, or what have you, but then some other enemies are like, wow, that's a really detailed sprite, but it's just lacking animation, like, there's, like, maybe three or four sprites total of animation for those characters, and so they just wind up appearing janky. Even the, uh, character that you play as, he doesn't, like, pick up his feet when he walks, like, he moves with his knees.

06:20 Yeah, I mean, the art, the art looks fine, like, on its own, like, I guess, like, the screenshot test, um, whatever art's on the back of the box, like, it, yeah, this, this looks like a real video game, but you're right, once everything starts moving, and especially once you start interacting with it, um, the cracks start to show.

06:42 Yeah, uh, one thing that just, it just stood out to me so much, and I think it's like the, I don't know, third or fourth level, uh, where you see the night sky in the background, and there is a parallax scrolling of the night sky, where, you know, the, the mountains, I don't even know, it's, it's, it is, but it's so, there's only one thing that is on a separate layer of the scrolling than the sky, and that's the moon, which doesn't make any sense, because, like, the stars are all just, like, whizzing by the moon as you're moving, as if the stars are, like, way closer to you than the moon is.

07:17 Wow, that's something I didn't even notice. Like, if you go back to that level, you'll not unsee it, and it was just, like, so distracting the whole time. I mean, obviously, I'm being a little, uh, silly with how nitpicky I am being here, but, but since we're talking about the backgrounds. There was just a lack of info in general, both online and in the manual, um, the, the pictures in the manual are very nice, and look like something you might find in a bestiary, but the, uh, actual details are lacking in this, and so I do wonder, both as a developer of just Castle of Dragon and Championship Bowling, and I'm, I'm sure we'll run into them again, uh, but they're not, you know, they're not a common name developer,

07:55 their, their game here isn't getting off to the best start. Is this a, is this a forgotten kind of game? Is this the kind of game where, um, it's not doing enough new stuff for us to talk about, and so therefore I'm kind of like, oh, well, I wonder what I can find online, and then when you find less online, you're like, hmm, maybe I should add that into the show, and we'll just talk about how there was nothing to talk about. You see what I'm getting at? I mean, I've got things to talk about here, because you, you seem to have more information than me. Like, I, there are so many things I don't understand about this game.

08:28 Like, I don't, like, let's, let's just start at the very basics. Like, that, again, I didn't read the manual. I probably would have had a lot of things solved for me if I did. What is the blue bar doing?

08:42 What is the blue bar? That's, isn't that your, like, um, sorry, isn't that, like, your experience? Experience? Okay. I mean, I buy that. I just didn't know, I just didn't see it, like, going up or down, like, like, when I did anything. Uh, it was really just the orange stuff that would go up or down, which I assume was my health. Um, and, uh, another thing, how do the power-ups work? Like, how, like, when you pick something up, sometimes you'll get, like, a super version of it, and you'll get, like, this sort of, like, blade beam sort of thing, and then it will just stop working all of a sudden. There's nothing that tells you how long it lasts, how much, like, how many slashes you have. It just stops working.

09:29 I think that that's how it works. That's just how it works. I think that's the answer to your question, is, like, it's just, yeah, you just get it, and you have it until it's gone. And, like, it would be nice to have, like, some indication so you can kind of, like, you know, parse it out as needed. But also, it's like, you don't really necessarily, like, control that anyways. Anyways, you know, like, sometimes you might just have to use it right away, because you have to use it, because there are enemies coming. Maybe it's timed, yeah.

09:55 And, like, I have these questions. I think they're running on timers. Okay. I have these questions, because I even watched a speedrun of this game. Apparently it was at GDQ a couple years ago, or maybe this year. I don't know. One of those years. And the run lasted, like, maybe 10 to 15 minutes.

10:14 And even the person running the game really couldn't explain a lot of these, like, a lot of the things going on in this game. I just find it very hard to believe that we, that I just don't understand any of it. Well, I would agree with you that this stuff is not spelled out, nor does it seem to matter.

10:35 But the blue bar thing, to go back to that, because I said it was experience. It is experience. But just to talk about, well, what experience of what, when you defeat enemies, and I guess that's a question on my side, too, because, like, what counts as an enemy is a little different. Like, it doesn't seem like the bats count, but enemies that fight back count. So maybe it's, like, just specific enemies that give experience. But when you kill those, that raises the blue bar, and when you fill up the blue bar, then you get, you know, like, you get another increase of your life meter.

11:12 So you can have, like, you just basically can have, like, 32 bars of life when you're fully leveled up. But that's the other thing that is frustrating. I mean, it's nice that you get these extra bars of health, but you don't know how many bars you have left. Or how, like, that you even have. Yeah, because it's just going over it. It's not like, it's not like in other RPGs where, like, it's a series of colors. And so you're like, okay, I got rid of the purple bar, now I'm on the yellow bar. Yeah, I noticed that if I had, like, the blue armor, sometimes I would think I was about to die, and then I would just go to the orange armor.

11:50 Is that sort of what's happening? It's like that, but the armor, I think, actually makes it a little more clear what's going on because you also have a, you know, you look different. And so, like, when you lose that health meter, then, you know, you also lose your armor. This is more like, no, once you fill up that bar, now you have, you know, you don't, you don't, like, look any different. You just get another meter.

12:14 Yeah, right, because the armor doesn't directly correlate to your health, right? It's like addition to your health. Yeah, it's basically like any, it's like any item pickup in the game. Once you lose, once you lose that armor, you don't get to, like, regain that health and put the armor back on.

12:30 Yeah. So, like, so from the, the, the standpoint, from the health standpoint, you are looking, not the health standpoint, I'm not looking at this from the health's point of view, but you know what I mean, talking about the health, uh, you are watching it go down and then you have another full bar and it goes down another full bar and just one of those times when it hits the bottom, you will die.

12:52 But you just don't, I mean, you can obviously be keeping track in your head, but it's easier said than done sometimes. And sometimes, like, when I first played it, like, I didn't even know that, like, I was getting another bar of health. There's just no feedback in a lot of these things in this game. Even at the most basic level, like, when you, when you land a hit with an enemy, it just doesn't feel like you did that a lot of the times.

13:11 Like, sometimes you'll get, like, a flash of, like, you did damage and sometimes nothing will happen. And, and sometimes it'll also, like, eat your inputs. And it, it doesn't, it's so funny. Everything in this game is communicated by flashes. Uh, I have that in my notes that, like, it's just a lack of feedback.

13:28 Uh, enemies don't even knock around when you hit them. They just glow white for a second and that counts as a hit, blah, blah, blah. Uh, but you know what's interesting about, you know, the, the amount of health since we're on the subject of, uh, leveling up and getting more health and all that.

13:44 It, it's imperative of a, this is like a hack and slash style game, if you will. It's, uh, it's supposed to be more like a Castlevania action adventure style game. But I say hack and slash because I don't think the defending works as well as, or maybe, like, I'm not good at defending, but I mostly found myself just spamming the attack button against these enemies when I was in close corners with them because it was hard to defend against them. What'd you guys think of the combat system?

14:15 Yeah, I ended up just sort of sacrificing health just to get a, get the fights over. Um, again, I also don't understand like how the flail works because I'm pretty sure that I've like, when I use the flail, sometimes I'll just damage myself.

14:33 And that, that was also, uh, like disconcerting, but yeah, I, I was kind of not really worried about defending myself or evading. I was just trying to get the, the, the whole fight over.

14:47 Well, I, and I felt the same way because it, the game doesn't really give you a lot of options of what to do to like, I mean, defending, like just avoiding enemies. Like when an enemy is coming at you, it's just usually just an enemy walking at you. And like we said, there's not really much knockback or anything when you hit them. So it is like you're hitting as they're hitting at the same time. And when I watch a playthrough online, it looks like the, the common strategy is to like strike and then jump over to the other side and strike and then jump over to the other side, like keep jumping over your enemy.

15:16 Um, it just feels really, I don't know. It just doesn't feel like there's a, there's enough feedback to, to really be doing much. Well, because like hitting over and over again to the impatient gamer, probably all three of us as we're trying to understand this game, uh, it winds up becoming a slap fight between you and the enemy of just like, okay, who's going to go down first?

15:37 Like play chicken with the enemy of like, I'll hit you, you hit me, but I bet I can outlive you. Uh, and that's kind of how I played for a majority of this game until eventually you just don't have, uh, the health to keep up. Well, you know, like eventually you'll get to like a mid boss or, or even one of the finals, uh, boss at the end of the levels. And it's just, you'll never have enough health if you just try that method.

16:01 So you do kind of have to learn something to, something's got to give to go on. I just wish that something would have explained my option. Like, I feel like there was, should have been a button for your shield or something to fight back against these guys. It can't be, uh, the way that it works in a Castlevania or Mega Man style game where, uh,

16:22 you know, obviously in those games, there's no way to defend, but that doesn't become an issue because your, your character controls a little more fluidly than the character that you're given in this game. In this game, I don't think I can just clearly jump over enemies and expect to, you know,

16:40 get them quickly on the other side. Like, I think I'm going to take damage all the same doing it that way versus just slap fighting them head on. Yeah. Cause you, you barely move faster than most enemies and a lot of them are really tall. So you kind of have to be frame perfect when you're doing the, like an actual, like evasive jump to try and do the strategy that Mike just explained it. And then you have to make enough distance to get a hit or two in and then jump over them again, hopefully perfectly. Basically. So yeah, it's like you can either do the slap fight or you can try to go, uh, you could try to limit damage, but neither is very fun. I have another question. Yes. Uh, do we know what the fairies do?

17:30 No. I was just going to say that. You guys know what the fairies are, right? But like, yeah, but are you supposed to attack them in order to get them to do the thing? I don't know. I've tried attacking. I've tried running into them.

17:42 I thought running into them, like when they kind of fly at you diagonally all of a sudden, I felt like running into them restored your health, but I guess I wasn't. Did it? Maybe. I never, I never like was able to like have it happen and also make note of my health before and after to like confirm. Yeah, exactly. Um, so yeah, I don't know. Well, you just give you health. Um, that much I know. I guess I'm just saying like, I'm not, I'm not certain how they do it. Like I, I think you have to, as you see them come on the screen, they're only on the screen for a second. They fly very quickly diagonally. I think you have to like intersect with them.

18:18 Sure. But you see the problem there, Joe? Like again, it's the lack of feedback thing. Like they don't, Oh, I don't, you don't, you don't absorb them. They don't like do, they don't drop like, you know, like little sparkles or whatever. You just run into them. Um, and then if you check, if you happen to check your health bar, you'll be like, Oh, neat. My health went back up. But you never, you never feel that you never, uh, that never registers with the player in any other way. So I actually probably was noticing the healing at first or wasn't noticing it and then switched to attacking them, which you can do. You can kill the fairies. You can? Yeah. You can just stab them, but it doesn't. I tried that too.

18:57 But here's the thing, Sean, it doesn't, I guess it doesn't matter either way. Uh, because you're still going, you know, like any kind of collision with them just automatically grants you the health. So you, chances are you got the health too and just didn't notice it. Yeah. I'm guessing. Now the fairies for, for lore's sake, they are the soul of dark Larsa's victims that have escaped. Um, so. You're just ingesting them? Yeah. Then I guess like now they're part of your soul. Like they need a, they need a new home and they've, they're going into your body or something.

19:33 Uh, they, they leave the screen technically. So I guess they're not like, you don't ingest them. They just sort of, they rub some health on you. By my logic, what I wanted them to do was that when I bump into them, they just vanish. I wanted them to go into my soul for a lower reason. You want them to be consumable. Yes. I want consumable fairies. Well, you know, it's funny. You do kind of consume the fairies in, um, Legend of Zelda games, right? Like, and nobody questions that. Like, it's not like, oh, what happened next? So I don't think. This game is better than Zelda. Well, because now we have some closure on the fairies.

20:11 Um, well, I want to take a quick break to say something nice about this game, which we, uh, I meant to say that we kind of got ahead of, of the topic, but, uh, going back to the art, I do think the art is pretty good in this game. The backgrounds look nice despite the stars scrolling improperly. And, uh, a lot of the enemies I do think are cool, cool design. Like, well, well designed.

20:33 Yes. Well designed from a, from a, you're talking about from a graphics POV. Graphics POV, but also art. There's like, there's like this one like blue ice lizard thing later. There's that Chris thing or whatever you call that thing. There's like. Oh, right, right. I'm just saying you're not, you're not talking about combat. You're not. Just the literal pixel art. I'm talking about visual. Yes. Yeah. I agree. What about that room with like the, uh, checkerboard, uh. That whole place. Yeah.

21:01 There's like murals on the background, in the background. There's like pictures and stuff. Yeah. But it's like the whole like. Checkerboard thing is off, right? Like they tried to. Oh yeah, it is. They tried to make, it actually looks like you're walking on a cylinder. Yeah, it does. Wow. Yeah. But you know what? I, I, I, the, the whole thing where the bottom checkers are like clearly lined up wrong. So it looks like one long rectangle of, of each color instead of two squares.

21:26 I swear that's also present in Super Mario Brothers 3. Like I feel like that looks familiar to me. Hmm. Like that error. So really this game is better than, that game, this game is also better than Super Mario Brothers 3. At least equal to. I mean it's, it's, it's, it's as much of a 30 out of 30 on our scale as Super Mario Brothers 3. Okay, let me tell you my favorite thing about the game.

21:49 My favorite thing about the game is it starts out, you think it's just a Castlevania style like illustration of where you are on the map. Like you can't really pick or choose where you're going. You're just like in this spot. Then you go to the forest. They end up in the castle and you're in the castle for the rest of the game. But, when you get to the castle then you can now level select. And it's not really, again, the communication isn't really there. There's no description of where specifically in the castle you're going. You just end up on, you're just selecting different like segments of the building. And if you go to the lowest point, you end up going directly to the battle.

22:35 And it will, I think it just turns you into a frog. And then it will just take your health down to zero frame by frame. And I didn't know what I was doing. And I was like, huh, is this how the game goes? Am I supposed to figure out how to not turn into a frog here?

22:56 But you can also choose the other levels. I had to like really do some research to figure that out too. Did you guys find that? Or did you kind of just like play whatever you ended up on? It sounds like a fever dream. Yeah, I had no idea you could choose levels. You went to the basement and turned into a frog and had to fight the final. That sounds like every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized. I swear if you boot the game up, get to the first point that you can play in the castle, and move the d-pad around, you can do this.

24:01 Well, what's funny is that I didn't know that you couldn't select your stages inside the castle, and I was also going to say that that was the high point of the game for me. This overworld or map, if you will, that's similar to what we've seen in Wizards and Warriors or Castlevania, this kind of outline of where you've been and where you're going, at least they included that.

24:27 On the never-ending debate about the pausing in games and how games should pause or what's correct, this game is select to pause. Now, how do we feel about that? I don't know why. I get that you should use select to select the power-up or weapon you're using if that's how you're going to run with it. I've never seen it flipped like that.

24:54 Yeah, I feel like we've seen games where select is pause. No, of course, yeah, but I guess I'm just, for the sake of argument here, right? It's like, yes, we actually have. Pretty recently, too. I think we just saw a game that had a weird thing where you could use select to pause, but then you could press B to back out of it, which was strange. Huh. I feel like we've... Maybe that was a Bites episode. I know what you're talking about. I can't remember that game, but you're right. Yeah, it's like you could pause with select, and then it wasn't selected on pause, whatever it was. But I feel like the idea that start should be the standard pause button is like a product of the 90s, and this is still 90s for that to be.

25:41 No. On the NES, there were a lot of times where the start and select buttons were doing totally different things than what they were supposed to do, and then by the time of the 90s, it's like, okay, start is pause, and select is not select. I think by now, it's already sort of like part of the grammar of design, and the ones that that isn't the case, like start is to get to like a submenu or something, and it still functionally works as a pause like 95% of the time. Sure, but I feel like maybe that's what I'm thinking more often. I think there are a lot of times where start takes you to the menu and select just pauses, literally just freezes the game.

26:21 Definitely not. Definitely it's way more where start... It is still obviously common and very likely that start will be paused, but I feel like there's just been a lot more cases of it not being so black and white. Yeah, I think select isn't even in the bottom six options of ways to pause on the NES, right?

26:43 Yeah, up. Not in the bottom six. Up sometimes. Thank goodness they didn't choose up on the D-pad as your pause button. Sean, I think I figured it out. It was Arquista's Ring where that happens, and you probably didn't know that because I think that was the first episode that you ever missed. The only episode that I've ever missed. Yeah, so how funny that we would rub it in your face by doing like some obscure trivia on the pause section here. I thought you were missing that out of protest to that pause method. No, no, I was terribly ill.

27:14 Oh, gotcha. Now, say you took the time to learn the hack and slash system or at least how to properly defend, something that I just couldn't be bothered with and ultimately just wound up saying, well, I've experienced the game. If you did figure out how to defend, then your chances are you could make your way through this game, especially once you get the like mace weapon because that thing seems pretty op because it does like create distance between you and the enemies,

27:41 something your sword doesn't do. It could still hurt you, I think, but yes, I agree. Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Like a sword slash, no, that doesn't stop anybody from moving. And really, isn't it this whole game is like you're just stopping enemies from walking in a particular direction. Like they're not so smart that they're really trying to attack you. You're just, they're walking and you're like, hey, stop walking towards me. You're really the instigator here.

28:06 But disregard that. I don't want to get into a conversation about that. Instead, what I was getting at. Maybe you shouldn't have said it. What I was getting at was that if you did learn the systems, what you have in front of you is actually a relatively short game. Yes, it is short.

28:23 Definitely. It's definitely getting its length from how obtuse it is. Some people jumping to the basement to turn into a frog in a fever dream and thinking that's what keeps stopping them from playing the game. And yeah, I think just difficulty, whether that difficulty is from pure challenge or from poor design is up to the individual.

28:54 And there is one cool moment in the game that we probably should have talked about, but we wouldn't have because we didn't get this far. But it's worth mentioning that there is a moment in this game towards, I think it's actually the final level where you're walking towards the Dark Larza, I guess that is. And there's these mirrors behind you. And it's showing you walking in those mirrors as you're walking on the screen. And then eventually a version of you pops out of the mirror and then you have to fight yourself. And that's pretty cool. That's pretty badass. It's very Zelda 2. Yes, it is very cool. Except for the fact that in the playthrough that I watched,

29:36 the version of yourself walks out of the mirror and then they just proceed to just kind of what looks like they're just running into each other for like 30 seconds. Well, I think it's just because it's just lap fighting. But it's because it just does what you do. So therefore, you know, like you're walking, so it just walks into you. Like that's stupid, right? Again, the whole thing is like this game is actually a stealth walking simulator. Everybody's just trying to get their 10,000 steps in for the day and it's up to you to ruin their day.

30:04 Yeah, yeah. But for the another, that's another point in favor of their visual design because you walking through these mirrors is pretty cool. There's also these like pillars that have like clearly like a reflective surface. And even they're shiny, but they have this texture on it. So it looks like, oh, they're shiny, but they're not a perfect reflection. It looks very believable. And then after you defeat your reflection, the mirrors, there are no more reflections than any of the mirrors. Which I guess means that in the lore, you're also a vampire.

30:37 Once you defeat your reflection, you become a vampire. Or I guess I've never actually defeated my own reflection. So maybe that just happens to anybody. You're missing out. Hear me out. What if a series of see-through windows and that's just a guy dressed exactly like you? It's not your reflection at all. And it was just a, like, you know, it was just an illusion. And so he was just walking perfectly in step with you up to that point. And then he was like, oh, now it's time for my big reveal just to basically get into a kissing fight with you until he died.

31:11 It would be cool if they'd made smoochy noises. I was playing myself while I was playing, even though I didn't get that far. I was just making them the whole time. That would have been the first NES game with smoochy noises.

31:25 It would have been. Total missed opportunity. I think it would have been. I couldn't. I pulled Arquista's ring out of nowhere, but I don't think I could pull out another example of a game that just I don't think there's any smoochy noises. I feel like there must have been, like, you know, wasn't there, like, an enemy that, like, blows kisses in their little hearts? There must have been a smoochy noise. That sounds like an enemy to you? I think there was an enemy at one point that blows kisses in their little hearts and they hit you. And I don't remember what game it's in, so we have too many games for you to fact check. Sorry, Joe. Oh, yes. That was your mom. Actually, I think you're right. Wasn't that Back to the Future?

32:02 Maybe. The diner or whatever? Yeah, that's right. It sounds about right, but I don't remember there being a smooch noise. And it was your character's mom. Yes, because you're trying to... Sean, you must remember this now. No. Yeah, you're trying to, like, dodge your mom. However the noise, though... Yeah, I don't know if there was a noise or not, but I'm just saying, like, maybe that's a place where we can look for the smoochy noises. Yeah, I'll check that out for everybody. Or could we just make that up in the episode of, like, how we could have done it better?

32:35 Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I would have made it better by giving it smoochy noises. Yeah. I actually don't think that there's a stage where you just dodge your mom. Well, like, we definitely talked about that.

32:48 That's funny that we just came up with that made-up idea again. People are like, ah, guys, you don't know what you're talking about. And, oh, wait, nope. It's in the game. Don't worry about it. It's in the game. But the noises? This is funny. This is like we're having a crisis on the show of, like, what's even real anymore. All right, you guys talk for a second, and I'll let you know if they make noises. We know that there are more kisses in this game than there are... They make noises.

33:14 Wow. Yes. Hell yeah. All right, so this game... That's a mystery solved. It's still a missed opportunity to be the second game with smoochy noises. I bet there was another one between then and there. All right. All right, let's do it again. Hey, Joe. No, there is only one game as of right now that has smoochy sounds in it. It's Back to the Future, which was now over 100 episodes ago, but Joe can remember it like the day it was yesterday. However, there's also a sound that plays in every single episode of Nostalgia, and that is the Essential Games list sound.

33:51 Even though it's an obvious no, I feel like I came in hot on Castle of Dragon, and so I appreciate the two of you and I'm putting you on my essential co-host list for making this episode not just a hate fest of Castle of Dragon. It's definitely not the worst NES game. There are plenty of other games that belong on that list before this one. It's just that this game really isn't offering anything new. We didn't talk about any unique features to Castle of Dragon. We certainly talked about a lot of things that it might have tried to been inspired by or rather copy. However, everything it copied, I think it did worse. So yes, it's a no.

34:31 Joe? Yeah, I think this is good art aside. It is pretty definitively not fun gameplay. At least that's how I feel, and I got to imagine most people who play this are not super blown away by the gameplay of it. So definitely not essential. I sort of agree maybe we're harsh on this game, but yeah, it's not fun. Sean? I disagree. I think that this deserves all of the criticism that we get. And that is, I will admit that it's not the worst game we've ever played, but this is one of the few memorably bad games that we played recently. I feel like this was a lot more common earlier in the podcast. So I guess maybe 1989 was the last time we played something this memorably bad.

35:23 From top to bottom, the title with the grammar of Castle of Dragon all the way down to, like, what am I doing here? Why am I a frog? I'm going to remember this experience. If you didn't get turned into a frog, would you have voted it essential? No, it was just, you know, another thing. Actually, no, that was a positive.

35:48 The frog isn't even mentioned in the GameFAQ's guide. So I'm really questioning whether that's a real thing. Maybe it's not a frog, but you could turn into something. Okay, that's cool. Sean, you also mentioned, just a way to round out this episode instead of ending so negatively, you mentioned the title. And yeah, that is a strange title, right? Castle of Dragon. It feels grammatically incorrect, even though technically you can just call a title whatever you want, right? But I guess you could change it and call it Castle of Dragons. You could call it Castle of Dragoon. You could call it Castles. There's a dragon in that castle.

36:29 There's a dragon at the end of this game. Even Castles of Dragon, I feel like, makes more sense. I don't know what it is, but it makes more sense to me. Well, because Castle of Dragon implies that this person, the one you fight at the end of the game, has always been there and it's his castle.

36:47 Or at least that he... Then it's Castle of the Dragon. Yeah, it's Castle of Dragon, right? That's what's weird, right? It's not... It's not Dragon's Castle. Maybe it's made... Maybe the castle is made of Dragon. The Dragon's Castle, right? Like, that sounds kind of interesting. Or like... Or even the Dragon Castle. Castle of Dragon also makes it seem like maybe the castle is shaped like a dragon. And you're about to like... But it's not. Navigate through... Yeah, no, it's not. But like, that could work, right? It could. Castle of Dragon. Joe, give me something. He's gone. Okay, he had to leave. Of Dragon D's nuts.

37:49 And just like how after you finish this game and find out what it's worth, really about, after you finish the episode, you get to the post show and find out the actual features that were supposed to be in the game. Something like that. I don't know. That wasn't that elegant. But basically, we learned something about this game through the power of our Discord. Discord. Only available for Patreon members. I don't know. Put some music behind that or something. It'll sound a lot cooler.

38:19 Yeah, I'm giving myself notes and making this harder for something that's due in like two days. So none of this is going to happen. You're getting it as is. But basically, somebody on our Discord mentioned that if you die in Castle of Dragon, it's not like a true roguelike where like all of your stats carry over or you even had stats to begin with. But basically, any kind of that experience points that we were talking about and the weapons you had do carry over to the next playthrough, provided you didn't actually shut off the cart. So there's no save in there. But basically, when you go back to the title screen, if you just jump right into it again,

39:00 you actually are a little bit stronger. You do have your old weapons. It's pretty cool. And it does like upon testing, even though it was never mentioned in the manual and is barely mentioned online, upon testing it myself, I did notice that with each death, provided I got a little bit further each time, I was also a little bit stronger and was getting a little bit further each time because the experience was carrying over. So whether this is like an early roguelike or it's just that this game wants to make the players feel like they're accomplishing something on subsequent playthroughs, I gotta say, it's a nice touch. It doesn't change anything based on what I voted in the Essential Games list.

39:46 Guys? Yeah. I'd say like, just by virtue of the whole like anything carrying over, it's closer to a rogue light than it is a roguelike. And I really hate that there are two different variations of that word to describe the mechanics of a video game. But here we are. And it also like, I guess it's also closer to like a Souls game in that instance. But it makes you wonder, because this is so outside of how games usually work, like is this just like a, is this like a mistake? A programming error?

40:26 If it's not talked about at all in the, like in the manual or any kind of introduction to this mechanic, like it sounds like they're like, you know, upon death, revert to X place and they just forgot to like remove any. But I also don't know how programming works. It's all magic to me. So I don't know. It's cool though. Yeah. And I kind of want to give it another try, but then I kind of watch a video of it and I'm like, well, do I really want to play this game again?

40:57 But it sounds interesting. Yeah, there were other problems. That's the issue, Joe, is that on, you know, replays, it was like, okay, yeah, I'm lasting longer in the fights, right? And I'm doing more damage, but it doesn't change how awful the combat was between me and the enemies. You know, they tried to create these one-on-one moments, not all the time, but, you know, most enemies, you do have to kill them before you can progress forward. And that didn't get any more interesting. You know, it's just like, cool, now it just takes less hits. Is that really a solve? I don't think so.

41:36 Yeah, it almost feels like, I mean, I don't know, I know that this is a very adequate way to design a game, but it feels like in this case, it would just be like, kind of wish I just started at this level. Like, I kind of wish I didn't go to this level four times before I could, like, you know, make it a little easier. So is there, like, an essential hindsight list?

42:01 Or anything we should do like that? No, I think we should just say that this is why you should always listen to the entire ending song, because I guarantee you, people are only listening to this section because they, you know, either wrote to us on Twitter or on the Discord being like, I can't believe you guys didn't mention that your stats carry over, and this is how we save our ass by saying, actually, nerd, if you just listened to the end of the song, you would know that at the end of the song, sometimes we have a post-show, and most of the time it's complete bullshit, but today it's...

42:35 I didn't know if I wanted to commit to saying that. I was like, am I a jerk today, or what? I did just call everybody a nerd, so I guess I could say bullshit. I can say whatever the heck I want. It's my show.

42:50 I actually think, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure almost every episode of Nostalgia we've ever had, we come on after the song and talk about how we actually didn't know what the game was, and we learned that we weren't playing it right. We'll see you later. Thank you.