376 · Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight

• General Info
• Released by Capcom for NES in 1990.
• Side-scrolling action platformer, not a traditional fighting game.
• Marketed as a sci-fi spin-off of Street Fighter.
• English localization changed protagonist from Kevin (original Japanese version) to Ken (from Street Fighter).
• Plot
• “A LITTLE BACKGROUND”
• Set in 2010, where interplanetary travel via warp gates is common.
• Ken, now a scientist, creates a substance called Cyboplasm to enhance organisms.
• After his partner Troy is murdered and Cyboplasm is stolen, Ken goes on a galactic manhunt.
• Twist: Troy faked his death and plans to build a superhuman army.
• Final twist: Ken was secretly dosed with Cyboplasm himself. (Jaws theme playing, Total Recall erased memory)
• Ken defeats Troy and returns to Earth to stop the spread of the substance.
• Gameplay
• Player controls Ken, a retired martial arts champion with cybernetic implants.
• Objective: Defeat target enemies to gather energy and open a portal to the next level.
• Must enter portal before timer runs out or lose a life.
  • That portal SFX is pretty great, like a glow and all music stops
• Ken can:
  • Jump, wall-climb, hang, and perform flip jumps.
  • Fire energy projectiles in multiple directions with punches or kicks.
  • Upgrade projectile power with capsules (up to 5 levels).
  • Gain additional power-ups like shields and backup fire support.
• Damage reduces power level; death resets it to base.
• Level Design & Structure
• Many “levels” are just multi-screen rooms with a single enemy and warp gate.
• Some stages require defeating multiple enemies to spawn the gate.
• Static levels and auto-scrolling ones.
  • The first autoscroller requires near perfect timing to clear the area
  • The second autoscroller is vertical, how does Ken climb on water?
• Includes psychedelic "interlude" zones that serve little gameplay purpose.
• Sometimes re-used bosses appear unexpectedly in these zones.
• Difficulty & Learning Curve
• Brutally hard from the very start—early boss likely to kill players repeatedly.
• Defeating the first boss feels like a rite of passage; skills learned there help throughout the game.
• Gameplay requires mastery of directional shooting, backflips, and angling shots.
• Weapon weakens when Ken takes damage, making fights harder.
• Enemies often attack from awkward angles, challenging the player’s timing and positioning.
• Specific Challenges
• Auto-scrolling level with back-and-forth motion and tricky timing.
• Boss with a snake companion that can drag Ken into a sub-level.
• Final level includes a boss rush + 2-part final boss under strict time limits.
• Reviewer couldn’t finish the game as a high school rental due to time constraints.
• Localization Differences
• Japanese Version:
  • Protagonist is Kevin Straker, a Galaxy Police cyborg.
  • Enemies are "Parasites" – humans/aliens enhanced by parasitic insects.
  • Troy is Dr. Jose, the scientist behind the Parasites.
  • Kevin himself is revealed to be a Parasite in the final battle.
• English version heavily altered to connect to Street Fighter lore.
• Common myth: only the US version referenced Street Fighter — false; Japanese title also includes the name and Kevin appears in official tie-ins.
• Reception
• GameSpot: Criticized Ken’s cyborg backstory; compared to Street Fighter movie’s Dhalsim changes.
• 1UP.com: Called it a “bastard offshoot” with “terrible localization.”
• ScrewAttack: Not a bad game, just extremely hard; marketing hurt its reputation.

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

00:00 Street Fighter 2010, The Final Fight.

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. I said 2010. Do you think people were doing that back then? Was it actually Street Fighter 2010? That's a good question. I'm going to say 2010. Really? You're not even doing the N10. 2010, yeah. Yeah, I guess it would have been... Now the more I'm thinking about it, I guess it would have been... Because 2000 was like, that was the sexy future title. 2000, you know?

00:55 2010, maybe not, but that's what I called it was 2010, you know, last week when I first heard of this game. It's just funny because we were doing 1990 just fine, right? Like, you just take the two digits together and you just say those... Yeah, I was kind of annoyed by the whole, like, 2013.

01:16 Like, people would say that. I was like, just say 2013. It's fine. It took some time. I used to say, like, I was born in 1990. Yeah, obviously. Because that was, like, the common parlance at the time. Right, yeah. And imagine telling your kids that, you know? I was born in 1990! And, like, do I get, like, a weird southern accent when I get older? I move to the south? You'll get there. It'll happen. Yeah. Happens to everybody. Legally.

01:48 Also, 2010 in 1990 is only 20 years away. That's my math. Good math on that. Yeah, that is good. What are they expecting to happen? Like, this is not that far in the future. Yeah, we're... I was gonna bring this up. Weren't we... I was talking about this on the podcast recently. I was talking to someone about, like, why doesn't anyone just, like, really just bet, you know, you can make it as far out as you want and then you never get proven wrong.

02:13 I... I will say that when I was younger, I'd think that we'd be, you know... I think what happened is that we have... We had that kind of technological, you know, stuff happen. It just happened in the worst possible, like, corners of technology. And I think if we focused a bit more on having cool robots that shoot, like, you know, weird balls that hurt you, then we would have been there. We would have gotten there. They're called drones. By 2010. Exactly. Yeah. We have those. We're just not using them on Americans. Not yet. I mean, that could age poorly, but I don't think so.

03:01 Anyway, 2010 isn't even the scoop here, so I don't know why we're focusing on it. The real scoop, of course, is that this is a Street Fighter game. You heard that right. Street Fighter 2010. The final fight, which is funny because there was only one Street Fighter before this, and it was not called Street Fighter 1. It was just called Street Fighter.

03:19 But it's kind of funny to think that they were like, we should expand this very successful franchise of which we've made one game so far, and we should make another iteration that's not a fighting game, but is some kind of, like, action platformer, you know, shooting game. And let's also make it the final fight. So this way there's no ambiguity about whether we're going to continue this franchise or not.

03:42 Like, they really planted a bunch of different flags in here, and I don't know how much you guys know about Street Fighter or not, but almost nothing in this game is, like, reminiscent of Street Fighter other than the fact that the main character's name is Ken, and obviously Ken is one of the original Street Fighter characters. Well, I mean, I know very little about Street Fighter. I will say up until this moment, I was not aware that this is only the second game in the Street Fighter series. Oh, yeah. I thought that this was, like, a weird, a much weirder departure. Like, I thought Street Fighter had been established as a series already, and then they were like, oh, here's this.

04:25 So now it's still very weird, but it's not, we've seen this with so many other genres where the second game is just, like, completely not the same thing as the first game. Yeah, if you take it from that context that we've kind of, I guess, just observed, this is totally normal. And I think that we're having, at least Mike and I, maybe not Joe, we are letting our future knowledge of the series sort of color our expectation here. But none of that shit happened yet. Yeah, and I think I'm letting that happen, too. Maybe even more so because I've never played them, but of course I'm familiar with them.

05:05 So, like, I'm just like, yeah, it's a fighting game. And I'm just thinking of everything I know about all fighting games, and then I'm playing this, and I'm like, this is nothing like what I've always thought Street Fighter was. Well, even Street Fighter is nothing like what you'd think Street Fighter is, so. Yeah, that's a good point, Sean, and I think that's worth saying, is that Street Fighter 1 is not Street Fighter 2. Street Fighter 2 is the one that changes fighting games forever, changes arcades forever.

05:34 So that hadn't happened yet. So it's also totally fine, again, whether you notice the NES trend of, like, well, the second game's always a little bit different. It's just also fine that they're, like, experimenting. I mean, it's Capcom, right? So they're just, like, figuring out what to do as a company, even. And so a side-scrolling action platformer that's not a fighting game, that's not really a franchise yet, it's fine.

05:58 It doesn't really matter. It's just, like, you kind of want more of, like, I guess what was in the Street. Like, because it takes place in the future, and there's all these aliens and stuff, it's not really that close to even, like, being part of Street Fighter, even if it is just, you know, oh, Street Fighter, but a different genre. It's like, this isn't even really, like, that world. No, we get one offhanded comment in the opening crawl that said, Ken, you know, he won the Street Fighter tournament, and then he put that all behind him, and then he got his degree, and then he became a mad scientist, I guess? Or at least, like, a part of a mad scientist duo?

06:44 And so, yeah, like, all of that's put behind him, like, Ryu isn't in it, that's the only other Street Fighter character that we would know at this point, and he's not there. You say Ryu. Hmm? You say Ryu. What should I say? I would think Ryu.

07:00 Whatever, Ryu, Ryu, potato, potato. Okay, I like it, yeah. I actually like, that's a hot take, in my opinion, calling him Ryu. I don't know if it is or not, but, like, I've never heard of that. Maybe it is. No, I like it. I don't really talk about Street Fighter with people that often. We're here for the hot takes. No, I still don't know how to say the other guy's name. Ken. Gilly? Dalsim? Gilly?

07:21 Guile? Guile, yeah. Colonel Guile? Yeah, I was doing Gilly for, like, the longest time. I was like, huh? Blanca? Who's that guy? He's got the best theme, though. He's got the best biceps, too. Oh, okay. Not Chun-Li? She's got the best thighs. No, that's best thighs. All right. Yeah, they should have made a Chun-Li side-scrolling game, but whatever. We're here to talk about Street Fighter 2010 as a little reminder for everybody.

07:47 Sean, you were talking about all that plot stuff that they dump on you. Were you talking about that part of the game that, as soon as you boot it up and it says, a little background? And it hits you with, like, an impossible amount of text that you're like, there's a little bit of background? Like, I thought it would be, like, one screen of just, like, you're Ken. Your best friend Troy has gone missing. Find him. But instead, it's like, it's 2010. Interplanetary travel is now, like, a thing.

08:15 Ken, who was a martial artist, is now a scientist. His partner Troy has been murdered. And cyboplasm, as if we're supposed to know what that is, has been stolen. So Ken is going to go on a galactic manhunt to find it all. Okay. And didn't Ken, didn't Ken, like, invent the cyboplasm, too? I wasn't clear if he invented it or if Troy invented it. Well, I think, you know, they're partners and best friends. So one would be argue that, you know, maybe they both had a hand in it. I just would think that Ken wouldn't be okay with that because isn't the cyboplasm what's also making all of these weird aliens that you're fighting? If you, you know, if you read the deep lore, it's only if you overdose on it.

08:58 Ah. In small doses. So what are you, what are you small dosing? Is it just a drug? But, like, what do you get out of regular doses? It's a cyboplasm. Oh, it's a cyboplasm. And when you take small amounts of it, it makes you live longer and be better and healthy. But if you overdose on it, then you turn to a superhuman evil guy or even a super alien evil guy. I see.

09:28 Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that the, uh, this opening crawl here gives you everything you need to know. Um, I particularly enjoy how the first couple sentences kind of remind me of, like, like a middle school, high school, like English class writing exercise opening where it's like, Ken had no interest in the frontier. Then his partner, Troy, was killed. Or maybe even more like a young adult novel, the back of the book would start like this. Yeah. It's very, uh, it's, it's, it's like very surface level edgy.

10:00 Yeah. So the game has, uh, many stages, but each stage isn't like a traditional side scrolling platformer level. Uh, you do have to do some platforming and, and find your way around it, but there isn't like a, you start here, find the exit. Instead, you're greeted with a screen right before each level starts of which enemy is basically your boss. Uh, it's referred to as your target. The one you have to eliminate in order for the, um, I don't know, like the warp zone, uh, to open up, to progress to the next stage.

10:33 So it, in some senses, you know, like there are other enemies and there are, there's platforming to do, but a lot of it is just trying to fight like the particular boss of that stage as fast as possible and getting out of there because there's not much, there's no like, you know, missable items or a currency to acquire. It really is just take down the target and move on. So I guess they were trying to mimic like the idea of, uh, you know, like street fighter, like this is your opponent for this, you know, like this round one, like, and, and you have to beat them in order to move on. They're still kind of bringing that element of it into the game. I, I guess.

11:15 It feels like, uh, it's, you kind of have like, they're trying to go for this, like each level, at least at first is like this arena that you have to fight this guy in or this like landscape where it's like, it's almost like a boss rush at first, it seems like. And then later on it branches out into other things too. But it's like the first level is like, oh, this looks like a level, but there's just this boss running around the whole level. Well, granted it's small, but it's like a, it's like a, it's like a cutout of a platformer with a boss battle going on in it.

11:46 Yeah. Well, one thing that I, I had to do immediately upon building this game up was just put it out of my mind that this was street fighter because I would be bending over backwards trying to make connections between them and like, oh, it's kind of a fight. No, it, it, I, I guess. Yeah. They're more arenas. I think that's a good way to describe it, but it's not even. Like an arena for a boss. Like there are, there are levels where your target, because yeah, it tells you in the beginning of each level, here's your target. Um, it could be a boss like enemy, but it also could be like a regular mob that you just have to kill a bunch of.

12:27 And they, they play around with that like layout a lot. Like it could be, as you were describing, like kind of a, a cross section of a platformer level. It could be a literal arena, like in a basement fight club situation. It could be a, uh, an auto scroller. It could be some like, uh, trapper keeper dimension where you fight frogs. Like it, it's, uh, it plays around with that format pretty regularly.

13:00 And the target enemies from the beginning are pretty strong. And, um, it's not that they have like versatile move sets or that they're, uh, treated like boss fights. They're just kind of enemies that have a particular, uh, attack pattern and, um, you have to deal with it. But Ken, you know, it's like, you're given a lot of the tools, not everything that he can do, but you're given a lot of tools at the beginning, but it's not something that like you, you would know at first, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

13:29 Like you're not good with Ken right away. So the, the bosses or the target enemies are very tough, but Ken doesn't feel particularly strong. If anything, it's like his projectiles, like disappear, like just too close to where they should, like if they just extended out the whole screen, it would be a little bit better. Uh, or, um, the, the, just the, the range of his, of his jump and stuff like that. Like he just doesn't have a great move set until you learn how to use it, which is something you need to do like instantly. You instantly know how to have to know how to use everything that he can do because it will affect your enjoyment with this game.

14:10 Yeah. Like you guys were mentioning the like lack of pickups or the lack of like a currency or something. And that kind of exists in like little upgrades to enhance the, uh, just the, I guess the range in power of your attacks. Like you end up becoming pretty overpowered with those upgrades, but yeah, you start off

14:33 just having to kind of master this very non standard move set, uh, that yeah, go ahead, Joe. No, I mean, I, I was just going to say that I, I, I kind of wished that there was like another mode to this game. Like there was story mode and there was maybe just like battle mode or arena mode where you can kind of get used to your move set before you just jump into this. Like there's not even a menu. The game just starts like, like, so like, I, I don't know. I feel like so many games like this just have that kind of random, almost arbitrary, like

15:09 practice mode or like just one-on-one fight mode. And I think in this case it would be kind of useful just to kind of give my bearings. But I think, you know, it doesn't take too long to, to get a feel for it. I mean, he's, he's very acrobatic. Like, um, at first it feels, uh, a little too complex. And then you start to get the hang of things. You start to understand like, oh, if I jump in this particular way, I actually do a backflip, which if I also hit fire at the top of that backflip, I can shoot down, which is really helpful because I can't shoot down in any other circumstance.

15:46 Um, so yeah, I mean, you get the hang of it. Yeah. And it, and it does, it does feel good to control. Like it's not, it's not floaty and it's not like honestly looking at it, it looks really cool to watch someone else play. That's good at it, but I'm not sure by looking at it, like, is this going to be one of those games that's kind of clunky, but when you play it, it does, it does feel very responsive and it does feel, you do feel kind of bad-ass when you can pull things off. Yeah. And I think that's what I was trying to say. Um, but I just couldn't do it as well as you did, Joe, is that like your instinct might be to just attack the enemy, right? Like just get in their face, shoot your projectiles.

16:25 Um, and you're just kind of jumping and shooting like you would in maybe, uh, like a contra or something, but Ken can do backflips. He can, uh, hang on to the walls. He can, um, he can, uh, like have different ways to basically scale these platforms. A little bit of pole dancing in there. Sure. Why not? But like all those things help because you're really not supposed to be like super aggressive on these enemies because they will hurt you back and you don't have a lot of health.

16:55 So it's better to like learn about how to use the backflips. And later, like, um, you know, you get those, you get that one projectile that kind of like swings around you in an arc. And it's like, it's very important to like learn that arc. So this way you can deal with enemies from behind you and stuff like you wind up having a pretty versatile move set. It's just that at first you're probably just thinking it's a running gun where it's really more about, uh, you know, not, not the dodging of it, but the, the platforming itself plays a large role. Yeah.

17:30 And actually, particularly because the way the punch or like the projectile, whatever works at the beginning where it doesn't go very far, I didn't even really consider it a projectile, even though technically it is. To me, it looked animation wise. It looked like it was your punch with this like extra kind of anime slice that comes out of each, each jab. That makes sense because there's also like a kicking one, right? Right? Yes. Yeah. And that, that kick, that's the one I think we were talking about that arc. Yeah. It's so cool. It's the coolest looking thing. I thought it was really cool until you described it as anime.

18:02 Sorry. I ruined it for you. Yeah. So after you defeat the target enemy in a stage, uh, you'll gather enough energy to open up the portal to the next stage. You have to enter that, uh, that portal before a, um, before the timer runs out. But the timer is really just like the amount of time that the, like, there's no like countdown clock. It's just the, the gate itself. But I like that portal sound effect, like all the music stops and it's like this glowing sound of just like this humming thing. And it does have a sense of urgency to it, but I will admit that like the first time a gate opened up, I just didn't know about the timer and I just timed out.

18:48 Yeah. That's stupid. Um, I think that's really stupid. There is an actual timer like in the bottom right too. Oh, okay. Um, so you can run out of time. I mean, there, there's a, the portal has its own timer, I think, but you can also run out of time in the regular mat, uh, the regular level and then you just kind of die and have to start over. I don't really understand why this game has a timer.

19:12 I guess we've always kind of had a question about that. Yeah. I don't understand why any game that's had a timer that we've ever played has a timer. But they cut it close here. Like in Mario, like you can forget that there's a timer. Yeah. Because it's, they give you way too much time anyway. It's like 240 seconds. Yeah. But they, you can cut it pretty close in this game. Yeah. I'm never, I'm never, I mean, I shouldn't say never. I mean, there's, there's probably a time and a place for a timer in a game, but I just feel like we were just throwing them around willy nilly back then where it's just any, a platform. I put a timer on it. You know, I don't understand. Might be the first game with two timers.

19:48 Yeah. Really? Overlapping timers. But that first timer, that first portal timer that got me too. And I, and I did suspect at a moment, like, is there a timer going on? But I didn't know what I was supposed to do because I, and that's the only time I really remember the portal appearing somewhere that wasn't right in front of me. So I was just like, well, do I go to the right? Do I go to the left? And the portal was like down below. Yeah. So then I was like, oh, is that what the, what the sort of gameplay loop is, is like you defeat the guy and then you have to find the portal before the time runs out. But that didn't really, at least for as far as I played, that didn't really come back again.

20:22 Every other time the portal just appeared right in front of me and the time limit was kind of arbitrary. I guess on paper, the, the whole get to the, get, get to the teleportation zone in time is supposed to like make you think about where you were on the level at any given moment and be able to have that memory of the map and to, to, to search. And then just to know once you failed a couple of times, but I just don't understand what it's adding. Like that's, that's how I see it on paper, but I don't think it's actually adding anything to this experience. So when are they going to add, um, you know, classic enemies like, uh, cross stack and slagma to the street fighter roster? Who are those people?

21:06 Uh, these are just, these are just enemies in the manual, but it's like so funny because it's just like, again, like that's a good deep cut though. Right? Like I feel like there's this one guy named Basher, like get him in there. Street fighter seven. Let's go. I'll be honest. Troy.

21:21 Any, any, any street fighter that I play from this point forward, I'm going to be like, this doesn't feel like street fighter to me. That's so nuts. You would piss off so many people. That's great. Most of the levels are, uh, either like, you know, traditional platforming stages or single screen stages with, with like a boss fight. Uh, but occasionally you'll get the auto scrolling levels and I just have to point my frustration

21:48 at the very first one because it requires like near perfect timing to clear the area, uh, for the auto scrolling, because basically what it does is it makes it so that within the period that the camera is scrolling, you need to go all the way to the right of the screen, go all, jump up a platform, go all the way to the left of the screen, jump up a platform and go all the way to the right of the screen again. And there are things in your way at the same time.

22:17 Obviously you have to shoot those things out of the way. Not a big deal. Obviously it's a platformer. You should have to jump on the, uh, you know, reach of these various, uh, levels, but the scrolling, if you didn't start at the, like hugging the right side of the wall, when that part of the level appears, you will just be crushed by the level. And that's a pretty bad design.

22:40 Yeah. There are a few moments in this where I feel like it's designed in a sense that you couldn't possibly do it without lucking into it on your first try where, yeah, I'm, I, I'm walking and it's a straight path and there's a ceiling above me with a, with an opening that I wouldn't need to go through because it's a straight path. And suddenly wall appears in front of me. I got to get to that ceiling, but I'm, I had to have been positioned already in a spot where I can get to that ceiling in time.

23:06 If I didn't know the wall was coming. I guess the balance here is that you do end up just starting over like right, right there if you were to die on that first like turn, I guess. But I don't think that's a, that that's a perfect excuse because any kind of upgrades that you've gotten to make your projectiles actual projectiles instead of that, uh, God forbid anime punch that we were describing before. Uh, yeah, you're just going to go back to that. Like you, you, you've lost all your power and now you got to do it again in a weaker state.

23:46 So it's, it's not great, but it's, I also, it's, it's not the worst sin. There's another, uh, funny auto-scrolling thing. I think it's in the second auto-scroller actually. The second auto-scroller, instead of it being a horizontal scroller, it's a vertical auto-scroller. And it looks like it's like waterfalls or something, but Ken can hug onto those and climb up the water. So he's climbing on water. That, that brown shit. Yeah. Like it was, it was it sand, but even still like he's climbing up falling sand. Like it's pretty strong. Don't they understand the concept of liquefaction? Write that down, Joe. Um, God damn it.

24:32 The answers in the 400th episode are going to be all Sean. That'll be the twist. Come on. Haven't you guys seen Dune? No. Come on. I have. Yeah. It's like a sandworm thing. Doesn't matter. Let's go. All right. Yeah. Well, there was no sandworms in this. I guess there were actually though. What were those? There was that one desert level. That's a vertical. There was like an enemy that was a sandworm or like a worm at least. Yeah. It was a worm. Target. Yeah. He was like a sandworm.

24:58 He was like a little bit like the cactus thing from Super Mario. I was almost saying cactuar, which is from Final Fantasy. So no, the cactus enemy from Super Mario where if you shoot the like head, it kills the whole thing. But if you shoot the tail, it's slowly like you could. Yeah. Like any worm slash snake in an NES game. Huh. Mario didn't invent anything.

25:25 Sometimes when you enter a warp zone, you don't go right to the next stage. You go to like, I don't want to call it a bonus level. It's kind of like an interlude or like a little break, but like it still matters and it's still something that happens. And like those sometimes like will have previous bosses that you fight and they just like keep appearing and you have to like fend them off or whatever.

25:47 It's like, I don't like that. Why? I don't need like a test of agility after I just beat. The whole game is like a boss rush if you think about it. Yeah. Joe kind of said that, right? I mean, I think the thing is it's a trope where, you know, this early boss that you thought of as really tough in the beginning has been like demoted down to a regular mob.

26:14 And like now that's sort of showing like, oh, I've got some, I've got some mastery going on here. Like this, this didn't take, this didn't take much at all. That's what, that's kind of at least how I see it. What I find confusing is that they'll do those little like stopover hops and there's nothing there. It's just, you get out of the teleportation bubble and then you jump into another one immediately after.

26:41 Um, you also mentioned the, uh, I don't know what you called it, the, I don't know, warp zone or something, but I do have to bring up, maybe my favorite thing about this game is the, the method of interplanetary travel where you just sort of like go from one planet and it just goes like, and you just like, like, just like with no manfare at all, it just like spits you right into the other planet. You just splat into it. Like the, the, they took, put no thought into like, how would a spaceship move or anything? They're just like, just act like you're throwing a, like a wet paper towel at a wall.

27:18 Like that's what it'll look like. That's what I was thinking too. And obviously we have to finish the plot here with, uh, you know, Ken trying to track down Troy's murderer. There are some cut scenes throughout where you just see, um, like the eye of this guy who's talking to you and it's like, is he in the room with you? And then he like leaves? Or is this like, is this like two people on like a phone call kind of thing? Where we just don't see the diagonal, you know? Like I'm not sure how they're talking to one another. Maybe he's like in his head or something. Troy's trying to make contact with me.

27:49 Oh, but we don't know it's Troy yet, right? Oh, that's true. We don't yet. That's okay. You just spoiled it. No big deal. But at the end of the game, yeah, it is revealed to be Troy. But did anyone have their doubts? Did anyone think like, I wonder who that could be. They're going to just like introduce another random person you never heard of. Like, of course it's going to be Troy. It could have been either one.

28:07 I don't have much respect for these stories at this point in video game history. They gave us a little background though. And the only character they other mentioned besides Ken is Troy. So it's like, if you're going to, you know, at least set up like who is the big bad, right? So if there's no big bad set up, why not Troy? And so Troy reveals that, uh, Ken has been, uh, he's been injected with cyboplasm himself.

28:34 And, uh, during this sequence, when he's revealing that, I don't know if you guys got this far. Um, I did not, but I did watch the YouTube, uh, long play and it's like a version of the jaws theme is playing in the background. A little like, which is fun, right? As it's being revealed. But then also like Troy's revealing that of course, Ken wouldn't remember that he was secretly dosed with the cyboplasm because he erased his memory. So it's like enough that we have the jaws thing, but then we got like a total recall thing going on as well. Like it's just a lot of movie stuff all at once.

29:09 Uh, I, I guess like, you know, you could have also been sleeping. Uh, it's not too much of a, uh, uh, it's not, it's not too big of like a, of a, oh shit moment, especially because we just, we just haven't really gotten to know these characters at all. Right, right. What do you mean it's Troy? Like the guy I never met in my life. The only other name that's been mentioned. It's like how in the original Scooby Doos, like the, the first person that they meet in the episode is always the bad guy. Now that's a spoiler.

29:42 It's true. He's only the bad guy. If you don't believe in, uh, I guess if you're like not a fan of tax evasion, you know, I think when I was a kid, I, I never saw any of it coming. I was like, Oh shit. Yeah. Every time. You mean it's not a ghost, which is great because then Scooby Doo on zombie Island, uh, that TV movie that actually like, no, they're like, no, it's witches and zombies. It's like, yeah, they're real. They just, they're just really bad at finding them.

30:12 Yeah. Right. Yeah. They are out there. It's just, you're not in the right neck of the woods. What I think was really unfair with a lot of those episodes is that they were always like, nah, it's just like mirrors, but it's like, this is a cartoon. Like you can make a mirror, do whatever you want it to. I know. The odds were against them is what you're saying. Yeah. It'd be like, or they'd have like an overhead projector and it would be like a 3D ghost that had like a personality and spoke.

30:37 So one thing we didn't mention, this game's pretty hard. Yeah. I didn't finish this either. I got to the, the, the, the Sandy level, like the, like, you know, the, the Sandy boss on the waves of sand. Yeah. Where you, you know, I was saying like, oh, this is cool. Like, you know, now it's sort of demoted to like, now you got to fight three, three of them. I think it was like the, it's actually the first boss of the first level, but now there's three of them. And between that stupid, like snake shark thing that keeps jumping out of the sand and them having three of them. And the fact that the ground never stays level below you, I just couldn't do it. I get, I tried several times.

31:22 Yeah. That's where I got to. And I am, I am sort of bummed. I think a little further because watching a little further there's, they introduce a mechanic that I think is very cool later in the Sandy level or in the Sandy planet where you're like swimming through sand, but there's also like platforming. So it's like, you can fall slowly through quicksand and you're fighting. And I think that's just a pretty cool, like all it is, is it's just making you fall really slowly and you can jump up and you know, whatnot. But it does feel like you're, I don't know. It just feels like a different type of gameplay that we haven't seen before. It seems pretty interesting. I didn't experience it myself.

31:56 And at the very end of the game, after Troy Lord dumps you, all that stuff about cyboplasm, you don't fight like what appears to be Troy, but I guess it's Troy in like a, in an alien suit. Like you, you, you fight this alien was pretty tough boss as it is. And when you kill him, Troy's body was like inside of it and floats up into this like, um, Eldritch horror, like version of like, now he's this blobby thing with like his giant face and his hands just kind of come at you.

32:27 And all these enemies are spawning. And it's not like the, to be honest, having not played it, it does look like the first part of the boss is probably harder than the second part because it's mostly just about like. Like dodging the enemies that he spawns and hanging onto the walls to shoot his face. But like, it's a pretty creepy ending, right? It's like, he turns into this giant, like, cyboplasm-esque.

32:51 Ask? Cyboplasm-esque? You know, everybody knows what cyboplasm is now. No, that's gotta be the first time that word has ever been said. Everybody knows what cyboplasm is. They would have told us otherwise. They would have explained what cyboplasm is. They felt no need to explain it at any point. I love it. And I guess we could do some Essential Games List-esque thing by doing the Essential Games List.

33:23 I mean, I suppose I could have, like, talked about the fact that the Japanese version isn't, like, all in on the Street Fighter thing and only the English version, like, heavily altered it to connect to Street Fighter. But that's not important, right? For our purposes on this show, we're treating it like a Street Fighter thing.

33:42 But not for my Essential Games List vote. Actually, I was a little pleasantly surprised by this. I always heard this was, like, a piece of shit game. I didn't feel that. I felt like, spoiler, I'm not gonna put it on the Essential Games List. But I feel like for anybody who's good at NES games, this is a, like, fun challenge to try. So, like, this wouldn't be something I would recommend to gamers.

34:01 But to, like, fans of the NES, I'm gonna recommend this one. Because while it was incredibly challenging and I didn't get as far as I would have liked, I think something about the moveset of Ken makes me believe that this is not, like, a unfair hard, but kind of like a you gotta put in the hours to get the work done. Now, I'm not saying it's as good as, like, a, you know, a Castlevania level of challenge, right? Where there's a lot of rewarding elements throughout. I think, for the most part, the actual stage designs are kind of like, eh, whatever. And you have to just track down the target enemy as fast as you can and then deal with, like, learning how to fight them.

34:41 But I think that's rewarding enough as somebody who, like, probably is reviewing this game to people who have already heard about it but heard that it was bad. And I guess I'm just kind of here to, like, course correct that a little bit and say it's not great, but it's kind of good. What do you guys think? Sean? Yeah, I, yeah, like I said, like, I immediately put the whole Street Fighter thing out of my head. Because it was gonna do nothing but color it in the wrong way.

35:05 Um, and I, yeah, I, I'm pretty, I'm pretty up on this game too. I think the, just getting around and, you know, doing backflips and crawling on stuff and shooting out of my foot. Like, it feels good. It is definitely really hard. I didn't finish it. I had fun. I don't know how much, like, I don't think I had so much fun that I would vote this essential.

35:33 But, uh, yeah, this was just called 2010, the final fight. Uh, pretty, pretty good game. Not essential. Yeah, I was very surprised also. I, I mean, this game does have a fun and distinct, like, vibe and feel to it. And I, and I, I had a good time too. And I think if I got better at this game, I, I would enjoy it. But I do think overall, the game design, while cool, falls, falls short of what I would consider essential. So, you know, without repeating what you guys said, I, I, I think it's pretty cool. But, uh, I, I'm not gonna put it on there.

36:08 Um, but I am, I am, uh, looking forward to the next Street Fighter, because I'm assuming it'll, you know, build on this concept and really, uh, bring it home. So, I'm looking forward to all the future Street Fighters, which are gonna be very similar to this game. And one more thing about the, uh, Japanese version. I didn't mean to imply that, uh, it's not connected to Street Fighter at all.

36:26 It's just that the English localization, like, went a lot further to, like, so, for instance, Ken is not in the Japanese version. But the game is called Street Fighter 2010 in Japan. It's just that they didn't, like, do the extra work of being, like, well, people have to know it's, like, a follow-up to Street Fighter 1. It's, like, no, it's just in the Street Fighter universe. With no characters, plot, or anything to connect to. Or any future, uh, references.

36:53 Yeah. So, what's next for, uh, Street Fighter? Uh, 2011. Street Fighter 2! There you go, yeah, yeah, we won't get it, but, um, the Super Nintendo would. Uh, you, are you already out on SNES-Talger?

37:07 Yeah, I guess, I guess we should talk about that eventually, but, mm, today doesn't feel like a good day. Yeah, I'm kinda tired. Yeah, what do we got, like, six years or something, seven years? Okay. Yeah. We'll start teasing it slowly for the next half a decade.