361 · Gauntlet II
Gauntlet II is very similar to its predecessor. Up to four players (a wizard, a warrior, an elf, and a valkyrie) make their way through various mazes, collect treasures and magic potions, and fend off assorted creatures and ghosts.
Gauntlet II is built for a crowd. The back of the box shouts "1 to 4 players," and the arcade cabinet had four joysticks for a reason. Only Mike and Sean were on this episode, and we both played alone, so we can only talk about the party side in theory. We still liked the moment-to-moment play.
What works
- Four players on an NES. Gauntlet 1 on the NES stopped at two, and so did the home computer ports of this one. Four at once, with the Four Score or the wireless NES Satellite, brings the arcade home. Like the Simpsons beat-em-up, it plays the same alone but is more fun with friends.
- Pick up and play. The first NES game added a story and an ending, and this one drops all that for a straight arcade port. We found that refreshing, since nobody reads the side of a cabinet to learn the rules.
- Keys, switches and teleporters. You can ignore the enemy huts and play as a pacifist, but gates need keys and you can only carry so many keys and potions, so some boards play like puzzles.
- Tricks with the exit. Later levels bring fake exits, exits that open and close, and moving exits.
- The "it" enemy. Touch it and you become it: every enemy is drawn to you until you touch another player or leave the map. It turns the game into tag. Alone, it was just a scary thing to avoid.
- The voice. "The warrior now has refractive shot." The synth voice is choppy and more novel than cool now, but we enjoyed it.
- Shuffled levels. The first five run in order, then the rest are shuffled, and any level can be rotated or flipped. Mike's point: finish it with four friends and you are basically playing Gauntlet 3.
What doesn't
- Health drains with time. We argued about it. It pushes you toward the exit, but in a straight arcade port it feels like a quarter-eater, and Mike would tie health to damage and give each level a separate timer.
- Melee is invisible. Walking into enemies has no animation or sound, and some resist it and just drain you. Mostly you throw axes and arrows.
- Classes barely differ. Two Warriors are now allowed, but we never felt much difference between characters.
- Plain looks and thin levels. It is a screen full of sprites. Mike thinks most levels look thrown together and the game would benefit from procedural generation.
Beyond the game
Atari ran a contest for sequel ideas in 1986, then a second one for finding secret rooms, with a $5,000 savings bond as the grand prize and a T-shirt for the first 500 entries. Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked Gauntlet II the third best arcade game of all time in 1997.
The bottom line
Play it. We both left it off the Essential Games List. Mike called it party fun and not one of the great video games, and said the credit belongs to your friends more than the game. Sean said he would own it and compared it to War of the Monsters on PS2, a good game but not an essential one.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- For 1 to 4 players
- And Multiplayer really is the hook here right? There’s a reason the arcade game is built with 4 joysticks.
- Most Home computer versions only supported two players
- Unlike the NES version of the first Gauntlet, Gauntlet II was a more direct conversion of the arcade original, lacking any sort of storyline or ending.
- Gauntlet II is more like an Adventures of Lolo 2 than a Castlevania 2. Its an expanded version of the original game
- Multiple players can now choose to play as the same character class.
- New level designs were added, including the possibility of encountering them in altered ways by having the play-field turned in steps of 90°.
- The "It" enemy, which upon contact made a player "It" and drew all enemies towards them. The only way to release this curse is by touching another player or entering the exit, turning any level containing "It"
- New level elements were also added, adding more variety to the original game. These included "all walls are invisible", "magic walls" which changed into monsters or items when hit, "stun tiles" which stunned the player, and fake exits.
- Another challenge in the game is the possibility to find a "secret room". This can be found by completing specific achievements within a level
- The secret room contains items such as food and magic potions (extra shot power, extra shot speed, extra magic power, extra speed, extra armor and extra fight power).
- Losing Health as time elapses
- Finding the exit
- False Exits, opening and closing exits, moving exits. Feels like a gameshow in that regard
- Force Fields deal damage
- This is a game that would massively benefit from being procedurally generated cause I can’t tell any curation in the level design.
- And its not generated, but it is randomized! After the first 5, you can have any order and as mentioned previously, those levels can be mirrored or flipped
- It’s a pretty dull looking game
- VOICE NARRATION is cool
- This was the cool to way play the arcade at home, but nowadays you can play the arcade at home. And I’m not talking about MAME, its been released on many arcade collections
- Making of
- Shortly after the release of the original Gauntlet, until March 31, 1986, Atari Games held a contest where players submitted level designs, game ideas, and other suggestions for a potential Gauntlet sequel.[4][5] The winners of the contest were announced in the April 1986 issue of Atari Games' newsletter,[6] and the developers implemented some of those submissions in Gauntlet II. During the release of Gauntlet II, Atari Games held a second contest where players were tasked to find the secret rooms in the game itself. After fulfilling a certain task, the players were given a code, which they submitted to Atari Games via an entry form; the grand prize was a U.S. government saving bond valued at $5000, and the first 500 entries received a t-shirt.
- In 1997 Electronic Gaming Monthly listed Gauntlet II as the 3rd best arcade game of all time.
- Gauntlet: The Third Encounter uses the box art of Gauntlet 1 on the NES. It will not come out on NES
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Gauntlet 2 for 1 to 4 players.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Sean. And multiplayer really is the hook here, right? There's a reason that the arcade game has four joysticks. There's a reason that they're highlighting on the back of the box that it's for 1 to 4 players. This can be a single player game, but it's a lot more fun the more people you have.
I'm actually, you know, surprised that, you know, we've described that it's just whatever has the biggest text on the back of the box. I'm surprised that it was that. But I guess, you know, knowing what this game is, having played it, I guess I'm not too surprised. It's just like, you know, I'm used to the most fun you'll ever have with anything ever. And it's just very descriptive. Yes. Yeah. For 1 to 4 players feels like a spec, right? Like on the features list. The bottom right. Yeah.
But I guess what I mean is, is like, you can play this game single player. And I don't think like that would change our review of it, whether you had one or four players. But the game relies almost on a certain kind of chaos. Yeah. That, you know, more players are welcomed. It's similar to the beat-em-up games that you play in an arcade where like, you can play the Simpsons arcade game and just be Marge with a vacuum. And that's kind of wacky, but you could bring three of your friends and now you play as the whole Simpsons cast as you go through a level.
And that's a lot more like fun, even though nothing about the gameplay has changed. You don't get to do like cool things together. If anything, you're kind of like competing for points in a weird way. Yeah. It's the same thing here with Gauntlet 2 where, and you know, Gauntlet 1 didn't have the four players. That was just two players. So to have four players here really brings home the arcade experience for real this time.
Now, do you think that this was sold like with the attachment? It did not. It was not sold with the... Because what else had four players at this point? Right. So there was the four score and there was the, I think like the, it was called the NES satellite, which is like a weird wireless way to also hook up for. Yeah. I'm like, I'm sure that that had incredible lag that nobody ever wanted to play. I mean, like they bought it because they thought it would be cool to have a wireless controller.
I don't know about you, but I always wanted wireless controllers. Oh yeah, that WaveBird was cool for the, for the GameCube. Yeah. WaveBird was great because it actually worked, but you would buy like a wireless guitar hero guitar and you just wouldn't be able to play any of the songs because you'd be way out of rhythm. You know, there's a timing to these things. And this isn't the first four player game. Uh, it's certainly a great example of having four players, but I couldn't tell you what the first one actually was.
But I vaguely remember like having it be an offhand comment in some previous episode. I just can't remember. Yeah. Like, uh, I, uh, Magic Johnson's fast break, I think was the one where I mentioned it last. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. And I mean that game, that's the one where, you know, it kind of sucked. Yeah. But also like the vision of Magic Johnson, uh, comes to you in dream sequences between rounds. Oh yeah. The, the, the, the Magic Johnson apparition. Yeah. This is his game.
I think we were calling it in the episode. But to be honest, when I'm looking at this list of four player games that we haven't even played yet, none of them seem like bigger wins than, uh, than this kind of arcade conversion. You know, uh, I really think if you played gauntlet to first in a bowling alley or at an arcade and in a mall or something, and then found out you could bring that whole experience actually home.
I think that's the biggest sell for this kind of thing is similar to like what Sega would wind up doing with, uh, a lot of their, uh, Sega Saturn, but also dreamcast games where it was like, they were porting a lot of their arcade games, but also bringing with it the weird controllers too. So it was like, wow, I have this controller that only works on this one game. So I can finally replicate that weird experience I had in the arcade. And Gauntlet 2 is doing that to a bit of a lesser extent, but still entirely faithful. Uh, all the other ports of Gauntlet 2 for home computers and the like only supported the two players that the original NES game supported.
So you're saying that like, uh, all the, so all those dreamcast games have the weird controllers. Those were, uh, arcade games. So you're saying that there's like a Seaman arcade game up there. I wish there was a Seaman arcade game that you got like, uh, yeah, you had like a ticket that you had to feed it. That had your fish on it, but not, not how it works. Like the horse racing ones. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Like the horse racing ones.
Uh, back onto this game for a little bit though. Yeah, yeah. Uh, the NES version of the first Gauntlet game was not a, uh, was not like a direct port of the arcade game. It had, uh, it had some more like, it had like a story and an ending to it. But Gauntlet 2 on the NES is pretty much just like losing. It doesn't even pretend. Right. Drops all the flare and just brings you a straight port.
Do you think that, that, that is like subtractive that it's kind of like a knock on it that the, that we're just getting the arcade game and nothing extra. There is kind of this idea later on, uh, as arcades were starting to fade out that like, yeah, you would get the arcade game mode, but then you would also get like a story mode or something in a lot of those light gun games. Or, um, uh, crazy taxi was a good example of that where like in the arcade version, it's like, you just drive around the taxi, but then there was more like, not narrative, but like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Kind of a, a progress system. Yeah. Gauntlet 2 is not offering that. I mean, let's, let's be honest. If we're just talking about the differences between gauntlet one and two and not a, um, and not some semblance of a, of a like career mode, which, which has a different progression or like a more robust progression is what you would say in maybe like a, a crazy taxi. It, because it really just is level, level after level, but instead, uh, there'd also be like, yeah, that some story.
I don't think we're really missing much here. Like, do you remember the story of gauntlet? That was it ever that conspicuous or was it just like a, uh, a pop-up that might show up and say some, some words? No, you bring up a good point. Uh, I mean, we're limited in general on narratives in these games.
Exactly. On the NES. Yeah. So, you know, gauntlet two is more like, um, adventures of low, low two. It's just an expanded version of the original game. Yeah. But I'm not, I'm not entirely that upset about it. I, it's actually kind of refreshing how pick up and play this game really is. Yeah. You really don't have to read a manual to understand anything about, I mean, like you, it will help you understand what the game is, is offering. It'll help you pick a character at the very least. Yeah, sure. But I guess, but to your point, like it is very pick up and play as an arcade game should be, right? Like nobody's reading the side of the cabinet to figure out the rules, right? True, true. I mean, sometimes.
But there are like, there are some changes here too. You can't even have enemies spawn or bases where, uh, where those enemies spawn out of. Yeah, the little huts that come out of, yeah. Yeah, the huts, yeah, you gotta destroy those, you gotta destroy the enemies. Or you could do none of that. You could literally just be a pacifist and try to run through all this shit and just find the exit.
But there's also, uh, keys you need to collect to open up gates to get through that stuff. Or, uh, warp points or just, you know, other things that kind of make it not puzzly, but in a way, uh, disoriented. Yeah. Yes. Um, the way that it works with like switches and keys and balancing like how many keys you have on you and, and how many, like, I don't know what those are. Like power potions on you.
Um, cause you can only carry a certain amount, a total amount of those. Um, and, and just the way that those like, uh, like teleporters interact and, and it can be more puzzly. Than actioning in certain, in certain, uh, I guess boards you call them.
Especially because the boards have some, uh, additional, uh, design elements. Uh, there are modifiers to these levels too, such as, you know, all the walls being invisible or, uh, stun tiles and stuff like that. Like the, the, the additional elements that were added into the game, uh, not only to like change up specific levels, but also to change a level that you might have encountered in a previous run of gauntlet two can be changed by just what they do is they, uh, they rotate the whole map. So like 90 degrees.
So it's kind of familiar to you. Like it might've felt like you'd been there before, but for this playthrough, this time it's, you know, flipped horizontally or vertically in another way. So that, uh, it's, it's just a little bit different and you might not exactly remember exactly where the exit is.
Yeah. I don't know how much I'd be able to notice that because of how, uh, you know, the, the, the, the colors change and the template changes, but it's all kind of samey, but it's still a, an interesting concept.
The most interesting concept in terms of new features to the game though, I think is that new enemy, uh, described as the it enemy, where, uh, if you get, uh, if you touch this enemy, you become it. And all the enemies are now drawn towards that specific player. And the only way to, uh, not be it anymore is by touching another player or exiting the, the map. So essentially it becomes like a game, a tag and you kind of turn against all the other players because you don't want to be it. So you actually have a reason to like run into and, and, uh, affect your other players.
Yeah. It kind of feels more, more party mode than one would think from a game like this. And it's too bad that we can really only talk about these features like in concept because I only played by myself. I don't know if you recruited your wife.
I couldn't, I couldn't get her to get on board with the top down video games. If it was, if it was an actual party game, like you were describing, we might have a shot. Yeah. But I, even just the single player version of being it is a, is a scary element, you know, like you don't want to come into contact with that because it's going to have the enemies drawn to you in a way that they otherwise in, in the same stages, you know, they act more, they act a little more freely.
Yeah. It's passive. Yeah. And, and, and, uh, it's kind of, um, it, it, it's kind of interesting that like the, the pathing AI, it feels kind of like you can kite them, uh, most of the time. And if you don't want to deal with a group, you can just sort of, uh, figure out a way around certain walls. And, and, and if you're, you're patient enough, you can, you can keep them at bay.
I guess I just never became it, uh, with what you're describing because they were always, I was always just kind of trying to block them off that way. And it usually worked. You would know if you became it because it's one of the many instances of the very cool voice narration in this game. I, I think it tells you, you know, like red wizard is it, you know, and like. It takes a lot of time. It took a few like go arounds for me to even understand that voice because it's so, it's so choppy. But yeah, that is cool.
I, yeah, I do think that something, something about it at the time was cool and now it's more like novel, right? Yeah. Uh, but, but I enjoy it and I enjoy these, uh, these old voices, uh, synthesizing sounds coming out of these games. Cause I do think it adds something to the arcadey experience of it to have an announcer in what is otherwise like kind of a, uh, you know, a dungeon crawling.
The warrior now has refractive shot. Right, right. I like it. And I could imagine in an N64 version, it would be like an actual like baseball commentator style narration to it, you know, and it would feel kind of campy. But here it, uh, it has an element of, um, of freeform jazz to it, if you will. Jazz. Interesting. Okay.
I like that. Oh, what else? It's okay. So there are things that we probably talked about in Gauntlet one that we should address here that, uh, you know, just remain, uh, like losing health as time elapses still sucks. It's just not a great feature. Still sucks, but I think it's still, I think it's still an elegant way to do it. Um. I think you held that position in the first episode as well. I'm, I'm glad that I have some internal consistency cause I wasn't sure. Um, but I mean, you all, you have so much of it that it's not like you're going to run out on, on, in like the first five levels unless you're really taking damage.
No, I agree. And it, it encourages you to race for the exit. I get it. I just feel like it, it, it makes it, especially in a game that is just a direct arcade port. It makes it feel more like something that was designed to eat quarters than to necessarily like enhance the gameplay. If they really wanted to, instead of like your health could have been something that was tied to enemies attacking you so that you have to manage that. And then there's just a timer for each specific level to like, you know, like, like Sonic the Hedgehog. More Mario, yeah.
No, but they have timers in them and it's like, okay, that's a lot of time, you know? Like you, you'd have to really, uh, take your time with it to, you know, so, so you don't want to just stand still and fight these enemies and collect points everywhere. Like you do have an incentive to get to the exit, but I think tying the same thing that otherwise is also inflicted by damage to enemies just isn't a great feeling. No, no, I, I get that. Um, I just have less of a problem with it because the game is so simple otherwise.
Um, I think the problem with like the, the moment to moment gameplay that I have the most with this game, and maybe it's the same position that I held in Gauntlet. It's just that like the whole, like, cause you have two modes of attacking. There's melee and there's, you have a projectile. And it really only feels like you're actually doing something if you're shooting that projectile because melee is just walking into enemies.
And there's no special animation for when you're walking into an enemy and hitting them. And there's not really any feedback, like, audio feedback either. Uh, they just sort of disappear if you're actually hitting them. And there's been instances, certain enemies you'll, are either immune to your attacks or are just, uh, stronger against melee attacks. And then you'll just end up walking into an enemy and your health is just, like, bleeding.
Yeah, yeah. You have that? I just feel like for that reason, for the reason you were describing about just no visual effect to the melee combat, it just feels like most of the time you should just be shooting projectiles. I don't think people play this game thinking about, like, a strategy on how to approach things. Most things, you shoot at it as it's coming towards you. And then, like, yeah, I guess if you, you know, if it comes to it, right, it's great that there is some kind of melee attack. But for the most part, I think of this as just, like, you know, hit them with the balls. Yeah, hit them with the throwable axe. Yeah, I guess. So hit them in the balls, I see. Yeah, yeah. But aren't they balls?
I mean, it depends. You're saying that it's, like, an axe? It depends on who you're playing as. Who are you playing as? I just feel like the warrior looks like he's throwing balls. But I guess now that I look at it more closely, it is, like, an axe that's rotating. It's definitely not a circle. Yeah. Maybe I'm confusing it with the enemies who do just hit the balls. Yeah, the lobbers. As I know that the Valkyrie shoots arrows, so, you know.
And that's also a thing. I really didn't notice too big of a difference between these guys, which I know that in later gauntlets there is. The only one that I didn't play as was the wizard. Maybe that's a little different. My understanding with the wizard is just that he has the lowest health, but the highest damage output. Ah, I see. From a projectile.
Magic projectile. Yeah. Yeah, that would make more sense, right? Yes. But, you know, again, yeah, I agree that there's not a lot of variation in the classes, but it's a welcomed thing to have different classes. These are the same classes, I believe, that were in the first game, but now you can also play as the same class. So, previously, Warrior was like, if you selected it. Couldn't have two Warriors, yeah. Right, you couldn't have two of them. Now you can. So, all around, that's an improvement.
Do they need to really, like, feel incredibly different? I don't know, because I think that changes the way this game is. Like, at its heart, the gameplay is the same regardless of who you choose to be, right? Yeah. The elf doesn't behave differently than the Warrior in a way where, like, you're solving levels differently. Like, at the end of the day, you are just dragging your cursor to an exit. Your avatar maybe is better than a cursor.
I think cursor is actually the more descriptive way to say it. I guess video games is just cursers. And since they want you to get to the exits and they encourage that, it would make sense that eventually they would just fuck with you when it came to the exits and eventually introduce fake exits, opening and closing exits so that you have to be in them at the right time, moving exits.
All great features, in my opinion, for this kind of game that's supposed to be, you know, quick bursts of levels. It's fun to get messed around with in that kind of way. It would be worse if, you know, there were, like, more dead-end paths that you, like, had to then, like, re-navigate back through the path you just went through and find another one. And it's like, oh, that's a dead-end too.
And there's only one area of this maze that leads to the exit. Like, that sucks. Moving around in the exit is, like, more of a, like, rush to it while you know where it is kind of thing. That's fun. I was actually surprised at how infrequent it was that I found myself in a dead-end. Because even if it looks like that, there's usually, like, a breakable wall or a teleporter.
And, yeah, you can get turned around pretty easily. But the maps aren't that complex. And I did have, like, a quick chuckle in the level that you're describing where it's just all exits. Like, all of the walls are exits and you just kind of have to walk through all the walls. It was, I do also, I like those little things. Playing with its own tropes.
And I don't know how much this matters for a game that really is just a pure gameplay experience kind of game. But it's a pretty dull-looking game. Yeah, it is. I mean, the colors are vibrant where it matters. But, like, it just, it's more like here's a ton of sprites on a screen. And it's up to the viewer to just kind of, like, quickly scan the area and discern what's what. And use that as a way to move through these locations.
It's really not a knock on the game for me. I don't know what they need to do. I know what you're describing. I think that you're just talking about, like, the simplicity of it. And I think that the simplicity combined with just that there are this many, like, sprites coming at you is, that is just the aesthetic of the game. And I think it, it's still very, it's still a very unique aesthetic.
Like, there's a lot of games that I think we've played. I think we've played this game, like, before records of just, like, here's a screenshot. Do you know what game this is from? And there are so many that I could not tell you. Because they all, there's a lot of games that look like a lot of games. But I could tell you what Gauntlet is. Because Gauntlet looks like Gauntlet.
Yeah. And on that note, Gauntlet is very well branded, in my opinion. I think they have a great title. That's kind of rare. You know, it's kind of rare to have, like, a great title. It does describe the experience, right, of the idiom of going through the Gauntlet and everything. But also the idea of, like, who knows how many stages there are. I think it might be 50 or something. And you have to clear them all to win the game. Like, it's all, it's all great. It's kind of surprising. Or maybe it's not surprising that this series that, like, started as this thing didn't, like, continue to evolve into, like, nowadays. Like, a AAA RPG with this kind of name. Or at least during, like, the Xbox 360 era, maybe it would have happened.
Instead, this does feel like a franchise that, like, you know because of the title. And, again, you know what it looks like because you've seen it in magazines. But, like, I don't know if that's true for, like, the next generation of gamers. Oh, no. I mean, I know that there was a Gauntlet for PS2. I did, I think I played that. If it wasn't that, then it was a Gauntlet for PS1. So, it's not, like, a lot of games that are just stuck in the 8 or 16-bit era. Like, it did come out. But, and that was one of the few instances where, like, I did have experience with the series that we were talking about. But, yeah, I haven't heard anyone talk about Gauntlet aside from ourselves. In the last, like, 10 years.
Apparently, the Gauntlet game on PS2, Gauntlet Seven Sorrows, describes itself as a hack and slash. Was it, like, a Devil May Cry style game? No, it's just, like, it's just a, it actually is a pretty good iteration of what we're playing here. It's just, it's 3D now, and there's more inputs. So, there's a few more things, like, things that you can do. And Melee is more Melee-like. It's like a 3D, omnidirectional beat-em-up.
Oh, that sounds pretty cool. Yeah. So, it's like a dungeon crawler, too? Yeah, I guess you could call it that. You know, like, with that, because you said 3D, so, like... It's not a dungeon crawler, because I feel like that's a very specific, like, wizardry kind of thing. But, um... Right, this is still very fast-paced, is what you're saying. It's still very fast-paced. Anyways, it's kind of like if Diablo was direct control and didn't have, and wasn't as complex.
This next comment's gonna sound like a knock at the developers. And maybe it is. But I wrote it down, so I'm gonna say it out loud. I think that this is a game that would massively benefit from procedural generation. Because I can't tell any curation in the level design. Things just kind of feel like they are where they are. And maybe that's because they are also able to just be rotated at 90 degrees on a whim.
Or flipped. And it's still considered a great level. But, do you know what I mean? It's just kind of like... Yeah. Everything is thrown onto the screen, and then you are just tasked with dealing with it. Not necessarily like, oh, that's really smart that they put the ghosts over here, and the gates over here, and the key's up there. Like, just whatever. Just like, go get the key and open up the gate. I think a lot of these games that sort of bill themselves as being mazes with X, it's just always gonna end up like this. Because a maze is... It just doesn't have any spaces that would have any use otherwise. They are literally just... It exists to...
To be an obstacle in itself. And I don't find too much interest in that. But I guess I just accepted that that's what it was gonna be like. There are some... Like, the higher concept levels, I would say, are cleverly designed. But there are way more just like... Just sort of throw whatever into the level editor and see what happens than there are those like really cool ones.
Yeah. And it's not generated, but the game is randomized. Did you know that, Sean? Like, level 7 isn't always level 7? Yeah, so apparently the first 5 are locked in order. But after that, you can have any order. Yeah, I kind of noticed that a little bit. I didn't know that it was for the rest of the game. So in level 1, you can go and find the exit to level 2. But the exit to level 6 is actually more accessible. And I guess that's just for people that don't want to go through the quote-unquote early game.
So when I was trying the other characters that you can be, I would just go and find that. Skip to level 6. I did notice that it wasn't always the same level 6. Yeah, and keep in mind, not only is that great to keep the game fresh, but those same levels that can appear in any order can also appear in any order mirrored or flipped. So there's a lot of variation to it. And so I think, again, if you and four buddies beat this game, there's still an incentive to play again with your four buddies because you can experience a totally different... You're basically playing Gauntlet 3 now.
Yeah, if we're going on the super iterative version of a sequel, then yeah, definitely Gauntlet 3. Right, right. It's like when you finish Super Mario Bros. and then you get offered the next adventure. Nobody considers that Super Mario Bros. 2, but it kind of is. Actually, every different mission in XCOM is a new XCOM.
Because that is randomized. That's funny. And since I was taking a shot at the developer, I might as well give you a little making of that was included on the Wikipedia page for this. So you might have read it. I found it very amusing, so I'm going to share it with the listeners.
This is about the making of Gauntlet 2. So after the release of the original Gauntlet in 86, keep in mind we're talking about the arcades, Atari held a contest where players could submit level designs or new ideas for a Gauntlet sequel. The winner of the contest were announced in April of 1986. So like literally a month later, they were like... Wow, that's quick. Yeah, they were like, it's March of 86, give us your ideas. April, here's the winners. We're not really even reading these. We're just taking anybody who submitted them, right?
Yeah. Apparently, some of the winning ideas or whatever were implemented based on those submissions. I don't know if that's true. I don't have a way to find out. There's no citation? There's no citation for the ideas being implemented. The winners were announced, but not necessarily their ideas.
So... You know, it's not like... So the Wikipedia page is implying that the actual levels that were submitted became levels in Gauntlet 2. Yes. Which would, again, just help with my understanding. There's no confirmation of that. My understanding, again, that it could just be procedurally generated and it would be just the same. Right? They're just playing Super Mario Maker, but with Gauntlet. Yeah. That is interesting. Why isn't there a level editor in this game?
So during the release of Gauntlet 2, Atari held a second contest where players were tasked to find secret rooms in the game itself. Now, I don't know if you know this, but there are secret rooms in the game. Yes. You have to do a specific thing in the level in order for the room to appear, but that can happen. And after you, like, find the secret room or whatever and send it in, the players submitted these things to an entry form for, like, the competition for Atari. And the grand prize was a U.S. savings bond of $5,000.
Like, was it matured? Like, did you have to let it mature? I think you had to let it mature. I don't think it was, like, ready. I don't think they were holding on to a U.S. bond that was like, yep, this is at value now. So here's $5,000. But $5,000? That's crazy. I mean, that's a lot of money back then. Yeah. I mean, that's still nothing to sneeze at today. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? They're not offering anybody any money for, like, if you can find the skulls in Halo, right? They're not being like, hey, first person to find all the skulls in Halo gets $5,000. They're actually charging you to tell you where the scrolls are. Right. The skulls. Yeah. The scrolls are for a different game.
The Elder Scrolls, yeah. And then if you didn't win or if you just didn't win in time, the first 500 people also received a T-shirt. It kind of sucks. Yeah. It's kind of a bit of a downgrade. You had your chance at $5,000. And all I get was this lousy T-shirt.
So it's cool that you can play with four players and get the arcade experience at home. We talked about that at the top and everything. But nowadays, you can play the arcade at home, like the arcade arcade, not the NES version of it. And I'm not talking about with MAME emulation or anything. It's just been released on many arcade collections from Atari so that you can play the actual Gauntlet to Arcade now with four players and everything. Does that diminish at all this NES entry?
In 2025, sure. Right. Yeah, of course. Nobody cares about that in 1990. But you have to consider that with a lot of these games that get ported to the arcade, we always talk about, well, was the arcade version the best version? And most times, that's true.
I would imagine it's better on arcade. Yeah, but then you have to think about, like, well, okay, the arcade version's also how freaking expensive to experience? Like, how many quarters do they want me? Like, do you actually break even if you put in $60 worth of quarters into the arcade game versus buying the game for $60? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think I've ever played an arcade game enough to equal, like, MSRP for a full price game. I don't think I've done that. Yeah, that's true.
In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly listed Gauntlet 2 as the third best arcade game of all time. That makes me nervous because I don't really feel like we're talking about it as if it was the third best arcade game of all time. We're kind of just doing an everyday episode here, Sean. And isn't it nice to just do an everyday episode where you don't have to study a 40-hour RPG or JRPG like we did last week with Dragon Warrior 2? Yeah, it does. This is better for the work-life balance, I'd say.
Anyway, but for... I don't know. We're also coming at this as two people that played this single player. And I think if I... Maybe this is something I would say in the Essential Games list vote. But I think if I was around back then, this was a game that I'd want. And maybe I'd have a four score just for this game. Like, again, it's like mindless enough.
And I'm going to stop there because this sounds... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I actually wanted to go back to the third best arcade game of all time. Yeah, what's the first? So, yeah. Number one was Street Fighter. No, number one was probably Street Fighter 2. Okay. So, number two is probably NBA Jam. And then number three is Gauntlet 2? Like, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of arcade games. Wait, what year was NBA Jam and what year did this list come out in? 97, this list came out in. Oh, this is 97. Okay. Yeah. Wow. When was NBA Jam? 92? Yeah, something like that. Sounds right. Jordan wouldn't let himself be in the game.
Sorry, we still got Pippin. Yeah. Actually, I've heard recently that it doesn't matter who you pick in NBA Jam. They're all the same? The stats don't really matter, yeah. Huh. I didn't confirm that, so I'm just spreading misinformation. You read that on the Wikipedia page? I don't mind it. Yeah, that's where you go for misinformation these days.
And then while we're here doing what essentially is like miscellaneous information, this isn't anything about Gauntlet 2, but it's about Gauntlet. The next game in this series, Gauntlet the Third Encounter, which is not a good name. Right? Gauntlet the Third. Gauntlet the Third Encounter.
Gauntlet squared. No, sorry. Gauntlet cubed. Gaunt 3T. Were they going for like Close Encounters of the Third Kind vibe? Like, were they trying to play off that? I think it's... I think it's fine. I don't think it's as ridiculous as... You know, now you get sequels and it's always like...
Like... IP2 Reckoning. IP2 Reawakening. Oh no, I think we're done with subtitles. I feel like we're done with subtitles. I think you just get IP number 2. Yeah, but... Right? I guess the last... We're about to get Nintendo Switch 2. They're not even going to call it Super Switch. This is bullshit. And yeah, they've just been naming sequels like the name of the original games. And now they're just like pretending that these games didn't exist before. So, you know what? I'm fine with Gauntlet the Third. Okay. The Third Encounter. Just make sure you get the whole thing in there. No, no, no. It's like... What was that? Disney Channel? Beethoven the Third?
The dog? The dog. Beethoven the dog? I think it was like Beethoven the Third.
Beethoven the Third. Okay, sure. I didn't know he was the third. Who's the second? Oh, it's Beethoven's... It's Beethoven's Third. Okay, okay. Is that in reference to a symphony? It is in reference to a symphony. But I prefer Beethoven the Third.
Everybody finds a clever way to work in a reference for their third. They could have tried Beethoven's The Third Encounter. That's true. Close Encounters of the Beethoven kind. Hey, it's a dog. Anyway, Gauntlet the Third Encounter, the reason I brought it up at all, is because it uses the box art from Gauntlet 1 on the NES.
That's weird. I've never heard of that happening for another video game. They couldn't hire somebody to just draw something else? They were not accepting commissions for a new box art. They were like, we have to use one that already exists. And keep in mind, Gauntlet the Third Encounter, we will not play it. It will not come out on the NES. So they're just saying, well, nobody will notice because these kids don't own an NES. They own whatever this system is.
It's the same manual. What a weird cost-cutting measure. Yeah. I mean, did they send a manual with the game at least? Or did they just give you the manual from the first game? Yeah. Well, I've talked about just about everything I wanted to talk about. So I think we got to talk about the last thing we have to talk about, which of course is the Essential Games list.
Gauntlet 2 is great pick-up-and-play fun. And it's the kind of game that you really don't need to know anything about to jump right into, which is why I'm kind of disappointed that nobody played this game with me. I'm not throwing any shade at any specific person. But you could have played this game because it's very easy to play. It's very accessible. You don't die right away either. It is a challenging game as the game goes on. I'm not saying you'll live forever or see the end. No. Far from it. But you will enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay while you are holding the controller. And I really do believe that. I agree with Sean that if you can play this with four people, especially two or three drinks in,
I bet you're going to have an even better time. This is not the kind of game that I felt like I needed to make any forward progress in. I didn't feel like I needed to, because there isn't the story, I didn't feel like I needed to get to a certain point. Just like I do with most shmups. I don't feel disappointed when I die in a shmup and now it's back to the beginning.
It's like, no, the actual gameplay was fun. And I think that's something, not to throw shade at Dragon Warrior 2, but that's a problem with some of these older games that we now have more modern advancements for. It's like, Gauntlet 2 doesn't necessarily need any new modern features added to it to be the game that it was in 1990. Whereas like Dragon Warrior 2, we could think of countless improvements that the JRPG genre has had.
All that to say, though, Gauntlet 2 is far from a perfect game here. And while it is fun, it is party fun. It is not one of the great video games. I actually feel like the actual game itself is fun just because it's kind of mindless and you're just doing whatever you want to do. But you're not necessarily getting, you know, an unforgettable video game experience. Now, could you have that with four players?
Sure. But I think that's because of your friends, not because of the game. So I am not putting it on the essential games list and that might sound cheap. But if you don't like that, you can just go to Electronic Gaming Monthly and they'll consider it the third best game of all time. Sean? Yeah, I agree. I think that like I was saying and I kind of got ahead of myself there. This is a game I would own. But I would sort of a game I probably talked about before.
The more modern example is like War of the Monsters. Like that is a game that I think is really cool on PS2 that you're just a kaiju and you fight other kaiju and you blow up buildings. And it's like just a big playground. But I just, I really like that game just for those things. I think those things make it like a 10 out of 10 game in the same way that Iris really like how immediate everything is in this game and how you feel like you're making progress even though there's really no need to make that kind of progress.
But it's just fun in that instance. And yeah, I'd imagine that it's a lot more fun with other people getting in each other's way, especially those levels that warn you that there's friendly fire. I feel like that's something we missed out on. But yeah, I also can't say that those things make it an essential game. But yeah, definitely a good one.
So without going through the entire Gauntlet catalog here. No, I meant like Gauntlet as a franchise. Without going through it all, like would you play any like of the ones that play closer to this arcade experience? Or would you look to play even further than that? Ones that kind of tried to take the IP beyond it? Where do you stand on Gauntlet? I think that even the more modern ones, I think those are still pretty much arcade games. I could be wrong, but at least the one that I played, whether that was the PlayStation 1 or the PlayStation 2 one, it was pretty arcade-y. So I don't think it really ever went too far from its roots, but I could be wrong.
So will you be checking out another Gauntlet game? Yeah. And would it be Gauntlet the Third Encounter or Gauntlet 3, the Final Quest? It would be Gauntlet the Third. You can't call a game Gauntlet 3 after you already called a game Gauntlet the Third.
Do you know why they called it Gauntlet 3 though? I thought maybe that they were just like two different games made by two different teams with the same IP. It's not that? No, it's pretty much exactly that. Gauntlet 3 was released on like actual stuff. And Gauntlet the Third was released on the Atari Lynx. Ah, okay. So I think it was like, oh, we need a big, you know, the Atari Lynx. Obviously, Atari is the owner of the Gauntlet franchise. They were like, oh, let's get a Gauntlet game on here. Let's make a big deal about it. And then nobody bought a Lynx because it took like six batteries or something to get up and running.
So instead we got like, let's try that again. And they did Gauntlet 3, the Final Quest. And whenever there's a Final Quest, of course, you'll get Gauntlet 4 sooner or later. How much sooner? Very soon. Gauntlet 4 came out. What? Let's see. Two years after the Final Quest? Well, it's a reboot, you know? Yeah, that's true. They stopped doing subtitles. So it's just like modern games. Gauntlet. Endgame. End episode. Endgame.
