337 · Circus Caper

• High adventure under the big top
• NES Longplay
• Manual
• Ever been to a big circus?
  • What do you think of the circus?
• Circus themed levels
• How do you jump over the crocodiles in the very first stage?
• Many of the levels can be avoided altogether by just walking backwards and back through the curtain from where the player begins. This will take him right to that level's boss battle.
  • All you need is the block item
• Do all the minigames make sense? Bonus levels:
  • guiding a bear to jump over flames
  • avoiding boulders in a car
  • Using Rodan as target practice
  • meeting Godzilla at the circus grounds.
• PLOT
  • In Circus Caper, a boy named Tim takes his sister Judy to a circus show. However, the two siblings can't afford to enter. A clown offers the children tickets if they beat him in a dice game. After beating him, the clown says there is only one ticket left, so Tim lets his sister go in. After the show, Tim goes to pick up his sister, and is greeted by Mr. Magic, who has kidnapped her. Tim then enters the circus to try and rescue his sister. At the end of the game, Judy reveals to Tim that she was going to be used as a knife-throwing target, and the two go home.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • In the Japanese version, based on the anime Moeru! Oniisan, Yukie has been kidnapped by Dra Gon, a dragon.
• Essential Games List Vote
• Next week
• NEStalgia Byte

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

00:00 Circus Caper, High Adventure Under the Big Top.

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys ever been to a big circus? Emphasis on big there. You know, not like one of those like local carnivals that your church throws or something.

00:39 Well, define big. Like I feel like you're trying to like gatekeep right now. I am gatekeeping because there's like the circus, right? And then there's like the actual circus with, you know, someone's gonna get shot out of a cannon. There's an elephant. There's probably a lion going through a hoop. Like that stuff I've never seen. I mean, I've been to like a Ringling Brothers at some, I feel like, you know, that's like a, that's like a big traveling. That's a big. Yeah, that's a big circus. Did they do any of the things I mentioned there? I don't know. It was like five.

01:14 Can you get somebody who was there to maybe like eyewitness? Because I think like that will- If you're on the podcast right now, call them up. It will influence your vote. I feel like if we know if you've been to the big circus or not. The big circus. You'll be happy with your, your gatekeeping will be intact here because I don't think I've ever been to anything that I would call a circus. The big missed opportunity in my childhood. I saw, I saw like trapezes and like fire, hoop fire, hoops of fire. At the circus or just like for a gymnastics competition? On the way to the circus. No, it was at the Ringlings.

01:45 Got it. Oh yeah, sorry. The thing that you don't remember but now suddenly all of a sudden the details are just pouring out. No one's never been to a circus. He's just, yeah, he doesn't want to be gatekept. I know how it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'll continue to give us little sprinkles of information. Yeah, as it comes back to me throughout the episode.

02:02 Joe, you've never been to the big circus but have you ever seen a big elephant like in person? I must have at a zoo or something, you know? What kind of answer is that must have? What is wrong with you guys tonight in your memories? You think I remember elephants? I don't remember anything, you know that. An elephant. I've got the memory of an elephant. Yeah, the elephant has an unlimited amount of potential to remember things and you have a apparently very limited amount. I should just make a zoo like where the animals already are. Hey, whoa. This is my idea.

02:35 Sean took my idea. I, it's okay. I know that for a fact none of us have been to the big circus because one of the most common things that happen at anybody at the big circus is for their sister to be abducted by, check my notes here, Mr. Magic. Is that his name? I don't like that. Yeah. That's weird. That is weird. That is sort of the mantra of this game or at least my mantra while I was playing this game. I don't like that. Is I don't like this. This is weird.

03:08 Yeah. And it's funny because half of all video games from the eighties and nineties are about a woman getting kidnapped. Like usually a princess or I think there's been other times where it's been like your sister, but something about this one, like every time I'm like, this one's creepier. There's something creepy about this whole situation. Maybe it's the clowns or Mr. Magic. It's disconcerted throughout the entirety of this game. Like this is an ominous game.

03:32 Yeah. And they're like, every time you get to someone, I mean, not to get way ahead of us, every time you get to someone that like you thought had your sister is like, ah, no, so-and-so took her now. Like, ah, yeah. It's like, what the heck? What is going on here? Why is everybody kidnapping this little child?

03:45 It's worth noting though, too, in other video games where like a princess gets abducted, right? Like that is a political conflict, right? Like there's something going on where people are exchanging, you know, tactical information or necessities to try to sway some kind of geopolitical power. Yeah. Like in Mario. Yeah, exactly. Bowser wants something with the Mushroom Kingdom, right? It's not just like Princess Peach is specifically, you know, like Donkey Kong is in the wrong for kidnapping Pauline more than Bowser's in the wrong for kidnapping Peach. That's a hot take. I think that's true. I get what you mean. Like there's a means to an end, whereas in this it's very obviously just like evilness.

04:37 Child abduction. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But I mean, I guess to get real nitpicky, is it, I mean, isn't it canon that Bowser just like is in love with Peach? Yes. Well, who knows? No, it's actually it very reason. I said, who knows?

04:56 Shigeru Miyamoto. Can we just all fight the whole podcast instead of talking about this game? I thought that's what the podcast was. I think what it is about. Okay, sure. There's the child. There's a child abduction, but it's also just like how I don't know if it's just a poor translation or if it's like if it was like a David Lynch on purpose kind of thing. But like just the weird way that everybody talks and the weird like pauses that happen combined with the art. Like it's almost like a horror game on purpose. Yeah. And we said last week we're going to figure out who worked on this game. And it looks here like David Lynch was the scenario writer.

05:38 That's funny. And you know what else is weird about the plot? It's very heavy at the beginning and then just kind of then you have your goal right of just go find your sister. But the plot is broken up between a completely skippable cut scene at the beginning before you get to the main menu. And then like as soon as you press start to play it like resumes where where it left off in the skippable part. So it's like if this was all important. Why did you why did you just put the whole cut scene behind? Well, isn't it like isn't the skippable part just saying like there are events in town and one of which is a circus.

06:21 And I mean, again, like that you don't really need that info. No, but you know what actually Sean you do need that info. You're right. You bring up a good compelling point that I don't think you meant to bring up, but I'm going to reward you anyway. Actually, he was saying the opposite. The introduction. You're rewarding me. The introduction makes it seem I guess I why they split it up was because the introduction makes it seem like it's going to be a fun grand time where you play a video game of you and your sister doing like different carnival rides or, you know, alley games and stuff midway stuff.

06:55 But instead, then you press start and a mysterious clown like tricks you into only your sister getting inside. Then Mr. Magic shows up and reveals that he has your sister. Now, not like I have kidnapped her. Here's the ransom. Just I have your sister. Now, like, give up. What does he want? Right. He's not saying. Yeah, he's not saying like, and if you don't. Yeah, if you don't give me money, you know, I think it's the implication is is known. I don't think that that's what they were going to would be my guess. Anyway, you get into the game.

07:34 You get into the game. Obviously, circus themed levels. Are they though? Everything is just scaffolding. Yeah, but you're like clearly in the side, the tent. Sure. It's a big tent. It's a big circus. It's a big tent circus.

07:51 And the first level in the manual, it just says clowns assault upside down clowns winged clown. Other attack. Wait, other is. Oh, others attack Tim. I guess you're Tim. You are Tim. Yeah, the latter half of the scene is an air battle with flying human rockets and shells. It's like they're doing my work here for me. They're literally just laying out what the entire level, including the boss is, and then gives names to all the enemies.

08:23 And then and then also like legal names in case they need to be identified by the police, which is like really funny. It's like upside down clown whose name is chap face clown who is angel fat, a human rocket who is Captain Joe. And it's like that's those are all still could be aliases chap angel fat Captain Joe. But then you get to the tightrope artist and that's just Julius. The monkeys name is Leonard in case anybody cared. And the piece artist is Lino. Why do they give the name? I don't know. Why do they give the legal names?

08:59 I didn't read the manual as has been like a theme recently. Yeah, I also didn't. But I mean, a lot of these like I like the first the first boss like you described the first boss. That's a that's a clown. Is that what you're saying? Um, yeah. Is it though? Or is it a monstrosity?

09:25 Both maybe? I mean, yes, absolutely. Like everyone like, you know, they're they're humanoids. You're kind of just running. Maybe they have jet packs. Maybe they maybe they're monkeys. Maybe they're trapeze artists. Um, but you're fighting people until you run into this circular demon clown. Right, which, uh, it just looks like it looks like a bag of the clown tricks came alive. Uh, I don't like it at all. I am. I assume Mr. Magic's behind it. Uh, but it looks like yeah, it is like I think it like his bag of tricks.

10:05 Ah, ah, okay. Okay. Now that it's like that just dawned on watching. But the boss was the moment for me where I kind of realized that like, oh, this might be like working off of Castlevania one energy, like something about just the entire, uh, layout of the fight and then looking at the UI as well. I was like, ah, kind of like looks like Castlevania and I'm using whatever projectiles the game chooses to give me at any given moment, like hammers or soccer balls or, uh, giant blocks, which we'll talk about, uh, in a minute, all these things, um, throughout.

10:39 And actually now that I look at, yeah, I think it is a bag of tricks. That's really cool. Actually, Sean, that's not a monstrosity. It's a monstrosity that it's alive. It shouldn't be alive. Abomination. But it's a creative boss. Is it though?

10:53 Yeah. Maybe by like the physical art design. I guess if you're fighting a bag of tricks, I guess that's creative, but it's just a circle boy. Cause each of the bosses, I, except for one that I fought were like all look different at different patterns, but also they were all sort of like, you keep them at bay by just like hitting them rapidly with, you know, with your punch or with one of your power ups. And like, they just can't move at you quick enough.

11:20 It was like one of the things where you feel like you're breaking the game and not actually fighting the boss the way it was intended. But I don't know how else to do it. How else to do it. Yeah. But you, you jumped right ahead to the boss of the first level, but did anyone else have trouble getting over the crocodiles that are one second into the game? I had trouble with this game from the moment it started.

11:40 Uh, the, I'd say that, yeah. Well, the crocodiles first, it doesn't look like you should touch them at all. Then it turns out they turn into, uh, platforms. If you wait for their mouth to close, which I guess is fine. But every other enemy in this game, uh, it does that thing that we thought we were kind of done with, uh, very early on in the NES where it's like, oh, this is just going to keep respawning forever. Like everybody just responds forever. And it turns into a complete morass of enemies jumping up and down in weird timings. And you're probably going to get hit. Uh, and you're, you're, uh, and you're, uh, your health. I don't think you really get any iframes. So it just keeps going down.

12:28 Um, it's one of those games. Yeah, that's very, very frustrating. Um, and there's a lot of other situations, not just the crocodiles where like, you know what you're supposed to do, but you're just like literally like a rapid fire stream of like clown boys coming at you and there's nothing you can do, but get hit. Like you have to have health. I did the crocodile thing. That wasn't my biggest complaint about the crocodile moment. The, the, my biggest complaint.

12:53 Once I learned that you can jump on them because it was kind of annoying that I just had to guess that even though everything I had learned about this game so far made me think I shouldn't jump on them. Once I learned I could jump on them, the timing seems kind of random. Or, or at least not, not uniform for when they open up their mouths and close their mouth. So like so many times I'm just in the air like, okay, they're about to close the mouth. I try to time it right. And it like opens, it closes the mouth and I'm in the air. And just before I land, they open their mouth and I die. And like that happened a lot to me. So getting past those crocodiles was a, was a relief. Which is a game over.

13:30 Yeah. It's an automatic game over. And it's a revelation too of like, it took me a minute to figure out like, oh, their mouths closed. Like I should have noticed that to Sean's point, that's actually kind of clever level design, but it's not communicated well enough. Like I feel like I would have thought like, oh, I should try to like get onto the, um, the side of the stage somehow or climb the ladder that led to the high dive. I actually think that the, um, the only little piece of game design that was communicated well was that, uh, what was the whole crocodile thing? Because you can't clear that jump any other way.

14:11 Right, right, right. I'm just saying it took me a moment to realize that like, that's what I actually have to stand on those. Like, I just didn't think the game would let me do that. Right. And my, my first, I mean, I actually, before trying to jump on the crocodiles, I thought, okay, I must be able to swim in this game. So I just jumped in the water. There's no way I'm hitting one of those crocodiles. Like, if I know anything about crocodiles, it's don't jump on them.

14:32 True. Uh, but you know, there are plenty of other games and stuff where you see someone jump on, on like the, the top of the mouth, the jaw of a crocodile. It's just this sprite work made it a little, took me a little longer to figure that out. Items you might find at a circus, a hammer, yay or nay?

14:51 Absolutely. I mean, I guess like somewhere like behind the tent. Hammer throws, not hammer throws, hammer jugglers. Someone's hammering down, um, to hold up the tent, right? Those, uh, little nails all around. Yeah, yeah, the stakes. Yeah, the stakes. Bricks. Uh, yeah, bricks. Will you find bricks anywhere at a circus? Yeah, small brick walls that you can place in the air. Great, yep. Okay. Soccer balls. They did that at Ringling Brothers. Oh yeah. Uh, I think that before we had the Olympics, soccer was only played at circuses. Makes sense. I can imagine like there's like a lion with like a soccer ball on its nose, like a sea lion instead of like a beach ball. No, it's a beach ball. A sea lion, a lion, a beach ball, a soccer ball.

15:42 What is a sea lion doing at a circus? A sea lion? That's a big thing in a circus. No, it's huge. It's a lion. You're thinking of a land lion. No, there's a lion, but they also have like, what about the sea lion thing with the soccer ball on its nose? That's like, yeah, that's like sea world. Yeah, that's like. Is that a circus? Is that an aqua circus? No. The aqua circus is not the big circus, Joe. I'm Googling it. The big circus.

16:03 I'm Googling it. Okay. A yo-yo. Is that a yo-yo? That's what they say it is, at least in the manual. It does spin around you. So I guess it's a really big yo-yo. It's like the size of Tim, but I buy it. Okay. So it's a yo-yo and maybe that's just something that he had on him. And then like, you know how in Resident Evil 2, Sean, sometimes you have the knife and then you can lodge that into enemies, but then it like gets stuck in them and you have to pull it out. Yeah. Maybe that's what's happening with the yo-yo is like after a certain amount of time, like Tim gets it stuck in an enemy. It gets tangled. Right. And then like, that's how he gets another one later. Like you can only have so many yo-yos on hand. I buy it.

16:47 Last item. Most obvious for circus. A bomb. I haven't been listening. I've been frantically scrolling through hundreds of images of sea lions with beach balls on their nose at circuses. At circuses. If you're eight years old and your sister was just kidnapped, I think it's fair game to use a bomb on all your enemies. I don't remember a bomb.

17:14 I didn't get the bomb either, but it's probably just a testament to how little I played. Yeah. Let me, let me explain what happened with this game. So, uh, I, I dealt with it. You know, I, I was able to trudge my way through this game. Um, only defeating bosses by using a turbo button. Um, and then level three. It is. You, you know, this, this one is sort of like spooky. There's like spiders and stuff. And there's these enemies that you can't hit with a punch. Um, so you just kind of have to jump around them or die. Um, but then I got to the right side of the level. Um, and then it wouldn't let me progress.

18:04 And then I gave up. So I got like, I didn't get to the third boss, but I'm pretty sure I got to right before the third boss. I don't know if it was a bug or if like, there's just something else that you have to do. Yeah. There is something you have to do that you would never ever know. What do you have to do? You have to like build a brick wall and jump up and jump up and jump up and jump up and into the right corner. And there's no like space. They're like, Oh yeah, there's a door up there. They think you just jump into the right corner and it's like, you've progressed. That's crazy. Yeah. I just watched a video of someone do it. And that's how they, that's how you get to the next boss.

18:38 But you missed the, well, I didn't get much further past level four, but I did beat the third boss and I, you missed what I, at least to, as far as I've played the most unique boss in the game. Is it a sea lion? The lion tamer? Well, yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't a sea lion. It was a tiger. Oh. The white tiger.

18:58 And you do not fight him. You play a game with him in which you sit across from him and up, there's a plate between you and on the plate rapidly, either a piece of, like a piece of meat appears or just a bone appears. And as soon as the moment the meat appears, you have to press A to grab it before the tiger grabs it. But if you grab a bone, you lose a point. And whoever has more points after 60 seconds wins the boss battle. Yeah. I'm telling you, man, this game's cursed.

19:30 I thought this was the most fun boss battle of the ones that I played because I didn't have to just spam A, you know? Oh, I'm seeing it now. He's describing the rules. He calls it a teriyaki battle. Yeah. As one does.

19:44 Right. Joe, since you seem to have gotten the furthest, allegedly Godzilla's in this game. Any truth? Oh. I did not get much further than the moment I just described. So that is, that's something I learned. Uh, you know, some games I find so confusing and just like outside of the realm, uh, beyond the pale, if you will, that I just have to see like, who reviewed this? What were their thoughts? And the one that I found, the one review that I found was like, he doesn't just review NES games like all these other guys do.

20:22 Uh, he's just, he just does like Godzilla stuff. You know, cause apparently this game is made by Toho. Um, which I just didn't know they made games and the, like, it's, it's a complete, like, complete out of context thing. He just sort of shows up and asked how many times can Godzilla do it?

20:44 And there's like a mini game where like, I think he just does jumping jacks. I don't know. But, uh, Godzilla exists as a mini game. Godzilla. And apparently also, uh, that like bird thing that you shoot, apparently that's Rodan. So, uh, it's like a whole, I don't know how true that is. That doesn't look too, you know, like size wise, even that doesn't look like a Rodan, but, um, that's kind of funny. So there's just, I guess cause Toho made the game, there's some Kaiju stuff in it.

21:14 Uh, I understood the assignment of the other bonus levels where it's like, you know, you and a bear jumping over some flames or yeah, just, you know, totally normal stuff. Also, I don't know about you guys, but since that's the very first mini game you get, uh, with the bear and the flames, did anyone else think it was like jump rope and you couldn't move? Oh, I didn't actually get this mini game. I didn't know that the first thing you could do was enter a mini game. So I kept walking forward. The first mini game and only mini game I got was, uh, the jalopy.

21:50 Right. Which, where is that going on? Like, is that inside the circus? Is that all happening inside the big circuit? It's the big circuit. Yeah. That's why it's so big. That's why it has to be so big. They have miles and miles of tracks surrounding the circus. Yeah. I mean, if Godzilla is just hanging out at the circus, it is a pretty big circus, but the mini games actually are, um, a nice touch here. Okay. They, they do help break up the gameplay of otherwise, uh, barrage of enemies always attacking you. You're always in danger. Uh, you can die at any second. And then the mini games are just like, you know, fun.

22:30 Nothing's locked behind them just for points. Uh, I'm glad they exist. I'm glad at the absurdity of them. I wish they would have tapped more into the circus thing and less about like drive a car and avoid boulders. Yeah. Like what are games you play at? Like a circus or carnival or something. Yeah. Like fill up that thing too. So that the fill up that thing with water. So that the balloon pops above its head. Right. What's that game? I did. I did enjoy the, the one you're the, the jump over the fire one. That was kind of fun. Yeah. Once I figured out you can move, I really liked it. Yeah. I liked that. There's like a specific.

23:04 Sprite for when your bear catches fire and dies horribly. Uh, it fits. Well, there's also a, it fits. There's a very specific sprite for like your character bending like Neo from the matrix. What's that about? It is the coolest and stupidest duck that there's been ever. I don't think it actually makes you lower. Yeah, it does. Well, like, I don't know if it literally does, but you, but things on a certain level will not hit you when you do that. Okay. Just more things that, that make this game just kind of ominous.

23:40 Yeah. And the game doesn't really even want you to play the entire experience. Uh, I don't know if you guys saw this, but, uh, basically for any speed running strategies, this is not a glitch. This is intended. You can just, uh, defeat enemies until you get a block power up, use that block power up to go back to the beginning of the stage. Which theoretically you got one from an enemy right at the beginning of the stage anyway, and drop a block and jump over the curtain to then skip ahead through the whole level and go right to the boss of said stage. Why? And you can skip every single level that way. I really, I don't like that. I just peeking behind the curtain.

24:24 I mean, I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. Because, you know, presumably, unless this is in the manual or something, that's a secret that people wouldn't figure out for a long time. And then if you figure it out by word of mouth, it's like, it's like the cheat code. It's a cheat code to just face the bosses. But you got to do a little something extra rather than just punching a code. I guess. I think like, if it's something that if somebody that doesn't really know what they're doing can accidentally do immediately, I don't know how secret it is.

24:57 But I... It does require some thought, I guess I would say. I suppose. Because the... It's not like, put a block and then this thing that looks like you can enter it, you enter. Instead it is, put a block here and jump over, basically like Super Mario Brothers 1 style, like jump over that part of the underground level so that you can get to the warp zone. You're right. Basically the same thing. If it's just the warp zone, basically, then I guess it's fine.

25:29 But Circus Caper, the long play is at least 30 minutes long. For anybody who actually plays the game, it's going to be a bit longer than that because you're going to die a lot. But the speed run is just seven minutes for a perspective of just how... Just how fast it can be beaten when you just take the block and jump and skip the entire level portion and just fight the bosses.

25:52 Damn. Oh, what are the keys for? Do we know? I think they just let you to the next level, right? Is that it? I believe so. And doesn't it... Yeah. And so basically like, if you have four keys, you beat four levels. Like you just get the key at the end. So it's just a counter. It's a counter. It just shows that like, oh, you're this far in the game. Right, right. You never use those keys. It would be cool if at the end, like, you know, to face Mr. Magic, you had to go behind

26:17 the other five doors and, you know, you had to open them up with the keys or whatever. But that's not... That's not what they did. Yeah. I'm just trying to like scrub to the end and make sure that's not... They're not used, but I don't think they are. No, I think in the manual, it just says they're referred to to show you your progress. Gotcha. But again, the key is just like, that's a Castlevania thing as well, right? Like after you beat the boss and you get the... Is it a heart, right? Big heart? No, that's like Zelda.

26:51 Well, Zelda sometimes depends what you get, but in most ones now when you beat the boss, you get a big heart that gives you an extra heart on your HP. I'm trying to think of what they give you at the end of Castlevania. Each boss, you get something. Oh, it's an orb. It's an orb. There we go. Don't write in. Don't email. I do play the games. I know what I'm talking about. I remember the orb. Yeah, you remember the orb, John. I ponder my orb. And at the end, you have to hand all the orbs over to Dracula so that you have permission to fight them. And that's what the orbs are for and that's what the keys are for in Circus Keeper.

27:26 I think it's time, you know, we're 28 minutes into the show or give or take. I think it's time to stop talking about Circus Keeper. Yeah. And reveal that it was actually an entirely different game in Japan, also made by Toho based on an anime. It looks like it's called Moru Oni-san. And in that game, the protagonist's maybe sister girlfriend. I don't know. I didn't look into it enough. This girl is kidnapped by Dra-Gon, who is a dragon. Very clever.

28:04 And it's not circus themed at all. The game is really different. It's pretty crazy. The backgrounds are different too. Everything. Yeah. Bosses, you name it. Like, it is pretty interesting that they just said, well, nobody knows. Like, we spent so much time making this game based on our anime in Japan, but nobody's going to play this on the NES in America, which is selling so well. Why don't we reskin it as a circus game? Because Americans love their big circuses.

28:37 It's funny because now that you mention it, like, the game, even though we mentioned that like the gameplay doesn't really reflect circuses, the backgrounds and stuff, there's a lot of circus imagery and almost now it's like almost comically so much circus imagery like that they were like worried it wasn't going to come across as a circus. Because in the first level, there's literally stands full of clowns, like clowns watching in the audience that are sitting. But do you see the way they're sitting? They're sitting in shapes, like in formation, so they spell out circus in giant letters. Oh, I didn't notice that. Just in case, like really trying to drive home, like this is a circus.

29:19 Yeah, but I couldn't tell you enough, like it's a completely different game. Is Godzilla still in it? Now that's a good question. And unfortunately, nobody reviewed, nobody reviewed, no, nobody reviewed this game to the point where we would have an answer for you. Like I wouldn't, I wasn't able to play it. Yeah, it's okay. But in this game, you can swim. Can't swim in circus caper. Yeah, you can, no, no, like there are swimming levels. Like it's more like Super Mario Brothers than it is its own port circus caper. It's like, I'm telling you, they're different games. It's kind of wild. It's pretty weird.

29:58 The anime translates to the burning wild man. Uh, never, never seen that one. The burning wild man. It was a shown in manga from 87 to 91. So there you go. But random fact, uh, circus caper though, uh, to get back onto topic, uh, no sequels and spinoffs other than the fact that there's a whole nother game, uh, which is weird. Uh, but circus caper is a game that we now have to get to that point in the show where we always get to, um, you guessed it. That's right. It's the essential games list.

30:39 I've done it more eloquently in the past, but, uh, this is the future now and I plan on doing every episode just as clumsy as that. I plan on delivering all future essential games list, uh, introductions just as poorly as I'm reviewing this game. No circus capers, not terrible. Uh, it's just not, it's not, it wasn't enjoyable for what it was. I didn't feel like I was having a good time at the circus, mostly because I was at some kind of haunted circus where they do God knows what to your sister.

31:06 We, we savor at the end by defeating Mr. Magic, but really at like, at what cost? Like what, what happened already? Like while we were in there, you know, really fucked up shit. I'm sure because a lot of, a lot of fucked up shit happened to Tim too. Like at this circus, the things he saw and the things his sister saw, well, I don't think they'll be, uh, rolling the dice with any mysterious clowns going forward. And you can count me in on that as well. I will not be rolling the dice with this game any longer. I got as far as I was able to tolerate.

31:41 Um, mostly because it's hard. It was hard for me at least. Uh, but also, I don't know, other than the mini games, I wasn't really enjoying the side scrolling action. They laid out here because of how often you get hit and things just pop out. I think of the popping out. We didn't talk about enough. Things just pop out. They don't like, Oh yeah, they don't like spawn. And then you fight them. It's like, they just pop out and they surprise you. It's a lot of people going, boo. You know, like that's what's happening in this game a lot. So no, not for me. Sean, what about you?

32:13 Yeah. I, I don't like this game. Uh, I, the, the, the mood and the tone is, it's very disconcerting. Um, I like that. I think that's really between. Okay. So I think this is just something about circus themed games. Cause I, I own, I've owned another circus themed game for the super NES and it was like Mickey and Minnie's circus adventure.

32:43 And it's actually, I'd say it's a good game, but it's still kind of like gave me nightmares. And I'm not somebody that's like afraid of clowns. Like I think that's kind of dumb, but I think if the game is circus themed, it can, it can't help, but just like feel off. And this game feels off. And that's not even just to say that the game is creepy. I think that the game actually, in terms of game feel feels off. The jump feels wrong. It changes from level to level. Um, the way that you just exit stages is random.

33:21 Um, the enemies, like Mike said, just sort of pop out of nowhere. Your punch sucks. Um, and sometimes you have to kick and your kicks suck. Uh, the game does not feel good to play. Uh, and I, yeah, between the vibes, which are all off and the, the feel, which is all off. I cannot recommend this game. It is bad. Avoid it at all costs. Joe, what's the vibe check?

33:52 The vibe. I think Sean described the vibe check pretty well. Um, at least as far as the theme and the atmosphere of this game. It's a little weird. But, um, yeah, overall, the, the main gameplay, the bosses, none of it, uh, is anything to write home about. Definitely, uh, not a particularly fun platformer.

34:14 Um, I did like the mini games. I actually thought that they were, as far as mini games go in this type of game, uh, they were pretty, pretty interesting. I mean, the, the car one was cool just cause it was surprising to see the car thing. I mean, really, if I'm looking at it, uh, objectively, it's not a great, even like car racer, but, but it was fun to have that, that breaking it up. I liked the jumping over the, um, the fire because it was just a unique little game because you're controlling two people, um, but still avoiding all these obstacles. And then, uh, there was like another one where you're shooting things out of the sky, things like that, the, the grabbing the teriyaki was kind of cool.

34:51 Those were like the highlights of this game for me, but they were, they were small blips and what was otherwise, you know, just another fade into the background, tedious platformer that, that didn't really have a ton of, uh, amazing game design. So I'm going to say definitely not essential. Definitely. At the end. I like that. Definitely. I like that. Definitely.

35:15 Uh, yeah. Okay. Next week we might have better luck. We're playing a game called Crystalis, which a lot of people have hyped up. Uh, how do they hype us up about this stuff? Well, they write into the show. They can write in. Um, you can do that by going to our website, nostalgiacast.com. Clicking that contact button and writing up a little form. Uh, feel free to tell us good and bad things, but if you're going to say a bunch of bad things, you might as well say one good thing. I mean, you're listening to the podcast. If you're writing in, you'll listen. So you kind of outed yourself. You're technically a fan. And then if you, uh, want to talk to us even more, you can talk to us on the discord.

35:53 Forget this. A dollar a month. That's it. I don't know if that would sound expensive. I'm sorry. It's actually really cheap. It's really cheap. Can you believe that we're charging a dollar a month for the discord? It's not just the discord.

36:10 It goes actually to make it this way. The website's always up and running too, which is nice. Yeah. We have to keep putting money in the, uh, in the toll thing by the side of the road. Go daddy. Yeah. Go daddy requires money. You need more quarters for that. It's all go daddy until it becomes stop daddy. Whoa. Joe, you sounded like you were going to say something.

36:36 I was going to say that you get more than the, than the discord. Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were going to say actually you get less. Actually. Yeah. You don't get any of that. We just take your dollar. Yeah. That's actually the, the $2 tier is actually just, the $2 tier is the same as the $1, except for we take the other dollar. Right. But then we have a $5 tier, which is great because that one actually does give you access to a whole nother podcast.

37:00 Oh, no, they're podcast where, uh, we play the Famicom game. So I don't think we're going to play the Japanese version of circus caper on that show, but we might, uh, if you tell us to, that's, that's another cool perk. You can tell us what to do on the discord. Um, we have to do it within reason. Uh, no. Yeah. We have to do it. I like that. We have to make demands. Yeah.