Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 299: Worst of the Best

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

In this blast from the past, Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Steve Lin, and Jason Wilson get together to talk about the worst games ever created by our favorite developers—and do our best to find a glimmer of goodness in the bad.

You're listening to Retronauts, a part of the Greenlit Podcast Network, a collective of creator-owned and fully independent podcasts, focused on pop culture and video gaming. To learn more and to catch up on all the other network shows, check out Greenlitpodcasts.com. This week in Retronauts, I put the spite in GameSpite. Hi, everyone, welcome to this episode of Retronauts. I am Jeremy Parrish, your host Pro Tem.

Well, not Pro Tem, just for this episode. And I'm here with some cool people in the studio, and we're going to talk about video games that we hate. But we're not just going to be negative, because that's cliche and boring people are always an only negative. We're also going to shine a little ray of sunshine onto this conversation and try to take ourselves out of our own bitter, worm-eaten hearts and see the world from the perspective of people with more joy in their lives.

That's right. This episode is called The Worst of the Best. And we're going to talk about our favorite developers and publishers, the favorite people who make video games, and the worst things they've ever done. And if that sounds contradictory and terrible, I apologize. But I thought it would be kind of a light, fun, interesting, frothy topic. I think there will be some lively discussion here.

We'll see. We're at the end of a two-day recording marathon, so Bob and I may be a little punchy, or we may just be a little asleep. I don't know. But fortunately, we're not the only two here in the studio. Of course, Bob is here. Bob. Hey, it's me, Bob Mackey.

See, it's Bob. Warning up front, dangerous opinions to follow. Oh, Bob is very dangerous. It's his middle name. Bob D. Mackey. It's actually Wayne, but I prefer Bob Dangerous Mackey. Okay, well, if you decide to docks him, look up Bob Dangerous Mackey. Yes.

And also, who's that next to Bob? Oh, it's Jason Wilson. Howdy, folks. And usually I'm here when I talk about things, it's nice and cheery and happy. And at first, I was worried about this, but I realized I have some really crappy shit to talk about. Yeah, I mean, it sounds Jason like you had to sort of reach deep. beyond the boundaries of therapy and, you know, things that have been pushed back and regressed in memory to dig up the things that have hurt you and made you sad.

But I'm glad you were willing to, you know, expose these psychological scars. Yeah, and then I remember the game I gave the worst score ever, too. Oh, yeah. Is that on the list? It is on the list. All right. We will get to that. But first and finally, the fourth person in this here studio.

Hi, I'm Steve Lynn, and I have been playing some terrible games the past couple days. I just wanted to catch up. I didn't actually mean for anyone to actually have to play these. I feel like, you know, I was hoping that just the dark memories would be enough to fuel this podcast. But I admire you going a step above and beyond. Yeah, you know, there's some dark memories. And then I had to sort of narrow down my list. So I had to try, like, is this really worse than this?

And kind of get a couple minutes in. All right. You know, the list part was actually the most entertaining because we were talking about our favorite developers and publishers. And I was looking at, for example, Obsidian. And it was like, I kind of like all their stuff. And none of it is really bad. And that's okay. And then I looked at BioWare and I said, well, you know,

Mass Effect was, the last Mass Effect was horrible. Stupid MDK. But I didn't play enough of it to really count. And then I remember 2011, the floodgates opened. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, yeah.

So I think all of us will have some opinions. and this game was inspired by, or this podcast topic was inspired by a Nintendo game. And we'll get to that one soon enough. But as I was thinking about this particular game and how much I hate it and how stupid it is and how I resent Nintendo for not letting it die, I was like, you know what? Maybe I should talk about that and just sort of exercise it on a podcast. And so here we are. I brought you all into my therapy session, and it's free.

I'm getting free therapy. Can I lay down? Yes, you may. Okay. But only if you take your mic with you. So before you start, Steve's a very positive guy. Yeah, well, you're a very positive guy. I'm very positive.

Why did you choose two positive people for this? I don't know. I just thought it would be an interesting mix of people. And I don't know. I wanted to get you guys on the show. So it doesn't always necessarily have to be for a reason. It could just be like, hey, I just want to hang out with these guys for a couple of hours. So there you go.

And we do have to say positive things about these games. Oh, I don't know. I can save you anything. I really have a couple of these. Well, you have to, you have been a journalist, so it is your responsibility now. Steve is the only one. You were never a game's journalist, right? No, I was never.

Okay, so you're accused from this. You don't have to be objective. Good choices for me. But the rest of us have been in the trenches, and we have learned what it means to see things from both sides. And so we're going to exercise those muscles and see what we can do. But anyway, here we go in a dark, dark journey. We're going to see where we come out. All right, so to kick things off, I'm going to start with the topic that probably is going to make people the angriest

because it certainly has, in the past for me, I have weathered many, many years of abuse and people, like a decade, no, more, it's 12 years now. People still bring this thing up because I reviewed it, and I didn't like it, and I was honest about that in my review. And it's from a publisher that I really respect, really like. I've been a fan of theirs for 30 years or so and I like most of the stuff they produce even if it's not always for me I'm like I can appreciate that the fact, you know, like objectively this is a good quality game. But in this case

no, I do not think this is a good quality game and its existence angers me. So the publisher in question and developer is Capcom. You know, Capcom. They've done a lot of great things in life. They make Mega Man games. They've made Strider. They've made duck tails. They've made so many things that I love,

1943. What a great company. Bionicamando. Oh, my God. Who does a lot? Mega Man Legends. Geez, everything. Resident Evil.

They're so great. Oh, but then one day, back in the dark, dark age of 2006, they produced a PSP game called Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins. And I hate this game so much. And I was given it to review

for OneUp.com and was like, wow, I don't enjoy this. And I said so. And then a bunch of people on other publications as if Davis were like, hey, so you like retro games and PSP games and stuff. So could you review this for us also? I was like, okay, sure, freelance work, why not? And it didn't really stop.

I didn't really stop to think that maybe one person expressing the same opinion across like four different platforms was not really fair to the game. You know, so I just kind of like accepted these jobs and no one was really coordinating. So that's on me. I should have said, you know what? I've already said my piece. Let someone else express why they hate it instead. So, yeah, that game got less than a medium score from me on one up and an OPM and I think an EGM.

Maybe somewhere else, too. I just reamed it. And it came from a place of utter sincerity. I genuinely dislike this game. And, you know, I don't hate Ghost and Goblins in itself, like the series itself. Like, I am not a huge. huge fan, and I'm not really that good at these games, but, you know, I can at least appreciate what they went for, but there was just something about Ultimate Ghost and Goblins that

did not click for me. I don't know, where do you guys stand on this game? Like, do you think that I'm crazy, or do you also say, yes, Jeremy, this is a pile of steaming poop? I never played it because of your review. All right. Mission accomplished. I did want to, so I looked it up while you were talking because I knew it was still online.

The NeoGov thread from this era is still online. I've never read that thread. I just know better. If you don't mind, I just want to read you, like, three sentences that will show as sad as we are about the state of, like, just the world. I feel like video game fans have gotten a little better over time. Oh, yeah, yeah. So here are three sentences from one comment, and they're all being very mean to you, Jeremy. And I'm sure.

I'm someone who has read a lot of mean comments about me, but here it goes, and this is not my own words. Well, what is the title of the thread? Oh, it is, you can look this up for yourself, and you can read a lot of the, near-death threats. It's called official ultimate Ghost and Goblins U.S. thread. Special guest, did you comment on? Which is a special guest? There was another thread that was just like

Jeremy Parrish is disgracing Zift Davis and must be fired or something. Oh, well, this is even worse. Okay. No, I mean, that was the title of the thread. It was like 20 pages long. Feel free to edit this out. I hope Parrish gets AIDS. I hated him before the Goals and Ghost Review, but he

deserves punishment for his 100% and completely useless reviews in general. That's a death threat. That's a death threat. I can't necessarily fatal. Did he even get the name of the game wrong? No, it said before the G&G review. But that was me.

But it's just like, I'm reading these comments, and that was like the cleanest one I found. What is the name of the person who... His name is White Man. Oh, well, there you go. But, yeah, they've cleaned up a lot since it became Reset era. But boy, I don't even know if that person was banned for that,

but just like, that's how mad people were. Oh, no, no, no. People didn't get banned on that forum. I'm thinking of something awful. Yeah. But, I mean, that's how mad people were about that. That just still blows my mind. Yeah.

I tried playing that game back when it came out, and I couldn't get past the first stage. It was so hard. Now, granted, I'm really horrible in action games. You know, I play role-playing games. I play strategy games. That's my thing. And I love the old ghost and goblets. I love that.

Goals and ghosts. Yeah. Even though I was horrible at them. This game was so bad that. I played it three times. I said, this is a waste of my time, and it's going to hurt my hands, and I never tried it again. So when this game came out and I was working on the review, the woman who is now my wife, we were dating at the time. We'd been together for about a year, and she was used to me, you know, playing games for review.

And for the first time, she was like, are you okay? Like, when you play that game, you seem really angry and your breathing gets really, like, intense. and I'm actually a little worried for you. Like, I don't think it's healthy for you to play this game. Like, she was actually concerned for me because I was so angry about the crappiness of this game. And, you know, like, when I play tough video games and take a beating from a tough video game, I'm like, oh, that sucks. I get frustrated, but like anyone would.

But there was just something about this game that really just, it felt like a personal assault. I don't know. Yeah, well, I think. And then I read the, you know, then, then, the Neo Gap thread came along, and that was actually a personal assault. But yeah, this game was very, very, I don't know, it was hard

in a bad way. Yeah, I think you answered the question early on, but did you like the first one? Or, you know, did you like Ghost and Goblins before? Because it has sort of that difficulty level that 's way up there, and then this one kind of up the end even more. So it was

an extremely frustrating game to play. Yeah, I'm like super crappy at all of them. I openly admit it. But, you know, like, I enjoy kind of the meanness that they have. Like, they're those games, the kind of games that the designers, I feel like they spend a lot of time sort of watching other people play. And we're like, okay, so someone's going to do that. Now I need to do this to counter it.

So when they try to evade the obvious death trap, they die in a different way instead. And Super Goals and Ghosts, which I recently played for Super NES Works video, that really does a lot of that. And it's actually admirable. It's like the levels will actually metamorphose and change and shift in ways that exactly anticipate how you're going to behave. It's like Super Mario 2. That is actually clever. No, like more so than Mario 2.

Like I admired just like the sort of mean-spiritedness of this because it does become like a direct challenge from the creators, from the designers to be like, no, no, we've got your number. What are you going to do about it? And I think that's cool and fun. Like it's enjoyable. But in Ultimate Ghost and Goblins, there's just none of that. It just feels sloppy. It's a 2.5D game, you know, it's polygonal. And that usually brings in a host of problems for games like this.

It's really hard for people to make a game that feels responsive and tight and precise in the way that proper 2D games do with polygons. And this has that floatiness. It has that sort of sense of like everything is a little ambiguous, like, what is the edge of this? where are things colliding, and just the overall design of it. It just feels not clever in the way of super ghouls and ghosts, but just sort of cheap and chaotic and haphazard. And I just could not enjoy it.

The one thing that I appreciated about it is that unlike the previous Ghost and Goblins games, you don't have to beat the final boss and then start over at the beginning of the game and do it all over again but harder. It's just one cycle through. do that. But what you do have to do along the way is find secrets that are hidden, so you go back and replay levels. But that's a different expectation than starting from zero and doing it all over again. But this time you've got to use the special weapon that's hidden somewhere along the way that you can only get in the second pass through. So I do appreciate that about the game,

but I did not enjoy a single minute of playing this video game. And it's just, it's flabbergasting. Like, how did Capcom let it get out in that state? Now, they did release a, remake or sort of an update called Ultimate Ghost and Goblins Kai, which from what I understand, goes back and corrects a lot of the problems with Ultimate Ghost and Goblins and is a much more enjoyable experience. And I haven't played that because I just don't have the wherewithal to subject myself to that game again. But, you know, if they did, you know, they truly did recognize the deep flaws in the product

that they created and went back to amend that, then I respect that. You know, you really should give it a try some time. I should, but I only have so many years left in my life. So I got to, you know, maybe. Just an hour. That's a precious hour of my life. 10 minutes, maybe. To see what that first level is like.

I'll do it someday. I promise that I will try this. I feel like I owe it. But, you know, the whole experience, like the Internet was extremely angry at me after my reviews came out and thought that I had some sort of ax to grind with Sony and the PSP. They took it really personally in a way that I didn't quite understand. Then I kind of leaned into it and provoked them and that was stupid of me and I shouldn't have done that. But, you know, I'm only human.

And I was still kind of new in the journalism thing and young and brash. Not the wise old man that I am now. Anyway, so that's my pick. As for good, you know, I did compliment it for the fact that it does not have the same sort of taxing second quest that the previous games do. so what is good about the game I don't like the graphics I don't like the controls I don't like the level design

it doesn't crash I guess that's a mercy good box art it has great box art I will say that if the game itself looked as good as the illustrations that accompanying it

if that's what the game actually looked like I'd probably think a little more kindly of it because it's a beautifully illustrated game I think it's Shinkiro art so it's just

it's lovely but the game itself is like bad colors, bad designs. Everything is like chunky, kind of low polygons, light effects that just don't flatter. But I'm not saying good things here, which I'm supposed to be doing. So something good is that...

It didn't delete system files when you took it out of the cartridge? No, I mean, I don't want to... Because I have games that actually delete system files on my list. It didn't uninstall my entire PC, like Myth 2. Is it the first polygonal guy wearing boxers or shorts? I don't know. Was there a 3D metal?

slug at that point? Oh. Oh, well, with hearts. No, they're blue stripe. Totally different. Gotta go with hearts. Okay, so there is that. No, I mean, it does at least...

Was the music any good? The music was okay. It wasn't as good as the classic chip tunes. But, no, I will say that, you know, it did represent at least an attempt to go back to the classic Ghost and Goblin style, and the series had become Maximo at that point. And that was like, everything is going to be the 3D. sort of over-the-shoulder perspective, which I don't think is right for that series. So I would have rather have had a, you know, a Gargoyles Quest sequel, but I do appreciate

the fact that they said, okay, we're moving into, you know, a generation where the people who grew up with these games are older and they have the desire to see these franchises brought back, and at the same time, maybe we can bring in some new players by doing something a little different, that looks different. So they meant well, but they just really whiffed it. So anyway, now you can write me. Now you can write me some more hate letters, post Neo Gaff about how much I suck. I don't care. It's fine. I said my piece. Who's reading NeoGaf these days? No one. David Jaffe

maybe. Oh. Well, we'll revive the post. Right. Yeah, feel free to bring that thread back up. I, you know, that's fine. Whatever. I've said my piece, and now we can move along to Bob, and we're going to have a fist bite right here in the...

Listen, I got a real problem with this whole series, and this is the... I think I have to single out one of the games this can be it, so it's the saga games and I'm just I really am just doing this to troll Jeremy sorry I forget his name who's the guy Akitoshi Koazu

Yeah he I love him Fool me once shame on you Fool me twice shame on me Full me six times I am the most shamed man on earth I try to play All of his game so many times

And I don't know I don't know if Jeremy you can tell me why they're good or why you like them But I feel like I'm being trolled And this was the ultimate example of that for me because it's like I love Squarespace RPGs on the NES and the Super NES

and of course the PlayStation I'm playing Final Fantasy 7. I love it. What's next for this great comedy? Yeah. This was the ultimate like, oh no, I don't know if I like Square games anymore. This was a kick in the teeth. I can definitely understand that. I didn't like it at first either. I was like, what is

happening? It's ugly. It's confusing. It's just a baffling, confounding, and aggravating experience. And I didn't, like, I tried playing every character. This happens whenever one of these games comes out. I was like, okay, this will be the one I get. And then, like, after five to ten hours, I just want to rip it out of my system and break it and over my knee.

The music is very good, though. It's beautiful. I listen to the soundtrack. He's so good. I listen to the soundtrack when I write, I don't even think about the game. But, yeah, this game, and I like Saga Frontier, too, a little more. It eventually got too weird and hard.

but, like, this one out of all of them, and I've tried all the ones that came out in English, I feel like it really let me down. And Square has made worse stuff, but this just came out at a time when I could not have liked a square game the most, and I hated this game. Yeah, I mean, this was the worst possible follow-up to Final Fantasy 7. Like, this is what they picked to say,

oh, you love RPGs by Square? Well, here you go. Love this. I dare you. It was a strange choice. Now, my question is, you know, in Japan, did people love it? I think Saga has a pretty good reputation over there, yeah. I don't think it has, like, a huge fan base, but I think it's a very loyal fan base.

And they've had a more consistent experience with the Saga games. Like, they got all the Super NES games that are supposedly very, very good and were never localized. And, you know, I think they just had like a more kind of an even learning curve. So I think they knew what they were getting into more so with Saga Frontier, whereas there had never been a game released in that series under the name Saga. when that came out. And, you know, the last games that had come out were the Game Boy games as Final Fantasy Legend. And the series had changed a lot over the course of the Super NES' lifespan. So I can definitely understand why that game left some deep scars.

It took me a while to realize that, oh, actually, I see what they're doing here, and it's interesting. You know, I read it it when it came out. I played it for five hours. It was like, eh, I think I'll just go back to my PC games for now. It didn't do anything for me. But, you know, I think why those people in the United States who don't care for it could be because they're just missing out on all the context. Yeah, I think I wasn't eased into it as like a Japanese gamer would have been by playing the Game Boy games and Super Nintendo games. And then this new entry on the PlayStation, I feel like I was missing a lot of the context and I feel like I still am.

Although recently on like iOS and Android, didn't they just release like Romancing Saga 2 or something? Yeah, it's also on Switch. Yeah, that's so weird. They just re-made that. game on its own? Yeah, actually, Romancing Saga and Romancing Saga, too, both Super NES games, have received remakes in the U.S., Romancing Saga for PS2, and Romancing Saga 2 is, you know, the game that just came out last year.

So there is that, but, you know, it's kind of like 20 years too late. And supposedly Scarlet Grace, the PS, or the Vita game, that's only come out in Japan. Supposedly, that's really good. Oh, actually, no, it just came out on a bunch of platforms in Japan. I think Steam and some other, I think, I think that's right. I know it was announced for multiple platforms, including Switch. Supposedly, that's really good because it gives you a few different characters you can play as, as usual. But instead of being like a traditional RPG, it's more like, I don't know, like you have a world map and you just move from point to point and you have events at these places.

And so you kind of, it's more narrative focused. And then the combat system, the battles are sort of like set like you have, if you go to this place and do this event, then you will fight this battle. and supposedly the combat system is really good and not super confusing like Saga Frontier so interesting maybe that will be the one to change your mind but I'm not a baby like I enjoy games that are you

that take a lot of work to figure out like Monster Hunter and Residents of Fate and all the Souls games and Bloodbourne like I love games that take a long time to figure out I just could I had no like means of figuring this out it felt like they I don't know maybe I don't know I'm going on for a while but can Jeremy explain to me why you like these games

can you articulate that and have you finished any of them? I'm just curious. Finish them? No. You don't, of course not. You just think, well, I got to the very, I got to the final boss of, I want to say,

Acellus's story in Saga Frontier. So that's like a 20-hour commitment right there. Then the final boss just wiped the floor with me. And so I was like, wow, I don't understand what just happened or any of the systems, but I managed to bluff my way this far. But yeah, I

think these games have really interesting mechanics and systems. Once you figure them out. Such as? Such as, okay, so one thing is the characters all have life points. They have hit points and they have life points. When your character runs out of hit points,

they start losing life points. And you cannot recover life points, except by some very arcane means. So if you get into battle and you don't heal your character properly, then you'll just keep losing life points. That's it for that character.

They're gone. Like, they are dead forever. So you have to watch out for things like that. It has like a skill learning system where, you know, the more you use a specific skill, the more that becomes powerful. And if you use the right combination of skills, which is not explained within the game, but if you, like, stumble on to these things, then your characters will learn new skills based on the previous skills. So there is kind of like a trial and error element to it. But I don't know, like just the fact that you have multiple characters, each of whom has very different scenarios. I like that part.

Yeah, and like this, the Kowazu always creates the most interesting characters. I mean, one of the games or one of the scenarios starts as like you're a character and you're in prison. You've been wrongfully imprisoned and you have to kind of prove your innocence. And another character is a superhero who has to keep his secret identity hidden from the world. And another one is a robot just like trying to find robot god or something. Like these are all very interesting. But like, I don't know. to me, I feel like the sort of

just the sense of like Kawazu doesn't really care if people like his games. He's just like, I know the games I want to create and if you don't like them, that's okay. I realize people don't really like my games that much or they're not super popular, but they're the games that I believe in. And I really

admire that. I admire him maybe more than I do the games. Well, I like the Octopath Traveler because it reminded me a lot of saga, but with systems I can understand, but also I appreciate Saga more for being weirder because I felt like Octopath Traveler was like way too self-serious about

these very boring, bland stories it was telling. And I was like, why can you just be weird and still have all these stories? So yeah, that's one thing I do appreciate about Saga, just how weird it is, but the weirdness of the systems and how I feel like everything is very arbitrary is something I don't like. Well, you know, Octopath Traveler has done well enough that

it could get a sequel. And maybe that's an example of like, okay, well, you know, this worked, so now maybe you could go off and be a little more weird with it. I like that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, given who it was developed by, I don't know that they'll ever do that. But on the other hand, I feel like the saga series, the weirder and more difficult the game is to get into, the better the characters are. Like, unlimited saga is almost impossible to understand.

Like, I don't think anyone except KwaZu understands it. I don't know if he does. But the characters are great. Like, one of the main characters is something you never see in video games. She's like a pirate who is, I don't know. I think, like, her husband passed away and she's a mother. Like, you just, you don't see characters like that in video games, you know, a middle-aged woman who decides, you know, I've had family tragedy and I'm going to become a pirate. That's weird.

That's different and interesting. So, you know, I like the fact that those games really think outside the box, even if they do think so far outside the box, I'm like, what box are even talking about at this point? But I definitely get why people don't appreciate Saga. and I don't want to make that sound snooty. Like, don't enjoy Saga. I can certainly see that. So, Jason. So I'm going back to 1989.

My games are all, I started gaming with either, you know, television, Atari arcade games, and PC role-playing games. One of my favorites was Polar Radiance. Its follow-up in 1989 was Hillsfire. And for somebody who plays a D&D role-play game. game where you have a party and you have the tactical combat that was in Polar Radiance and you play HillsFar. It was a what the hell is this moment. Why?

Well, okay, so HillsFar was from Westwood Studios, which would go on to make the I and Beholder games and then Command and Conquer. I mean, really good developers, really good people. You know, it was published by SSI, which made so many really great games. Why did I not like this one? Well, first of all, you don't have a party. And it's a D&D game. This is like the action game, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It was an action game, and it wasn't a tactical role-playing game with the choices and the character of involvement that you get from D&D. So right there, that was bad. Weaker systems. You don't level up in the game. Your only combat is in the arena area.

You ride a freaking horse over obstacles, unless you have a horn of blasting, that he can blast the obstacle away. And worse of all, you're in Hills Fire, and it's being ruled by this big evil dude. And magic's not allowed, but you can still roll up a cleric or a mage. But you can't cast spells. So what good are they? They're not.

Especially a mage, because you are weak, and you're sitting around. It's like, oh, I can throw my dagger at you. Oh, wait, there's no combat. So what am I good for? You're not good for anything. Okay, so if there's no combat, then why does it matter that you can't cast? spells as a mage. Because at first level, you still might want us

have an identify spell or, you know, a magic spell to see if something's magic. And there is the arena area where you can do something. Right, but how does this game even work? It didn't. Okay. Not in my opinion. Now, it does do

a couple really nice things. Okay. What really trying to do, maybe is a question? Well, trying and one part actually really succeeds. But I'm not sure that really is relevant, but I'm going to talk about it anyways.

So it was the first attempt at taking a D&D formula outside of like Atari adventure and trying to make more of an adventure game out of it. And you got to respect that. That was innovative for the time. Still wouldn't be innovative now if you're trying to make a good adventure game. Had some really good storytelling. They tried to bring it to NES and the NES port was even worse. But the part that was really good was it had some really great lore about the city of sales far

in that part of the realms and that was in the manual with a short story and that was cool so the manual was good yeah but not all those games

had little short stories to them and this one did so I liked that and you know it would be nice if we got stories with your role-playing games

that are kind of outside the game okay fair enough so you found something good to say about it oh yeah and there's people who like this game

and yeah that's great You guys could go enjoy it, but, you know, coming off of Polaradiance and going to Curse of Azure Bonds, which was back to the, you know, party-based D&D real game, you know, it's just weird, fitting in there. But, you know, Westwood went on to be phenomenal studio, made, you know, Command and Cocker, which, you know, EA is still trying to figure out what to do if they just put out their mobile game for it now, which was kind of more like a MoMA than a mobile game, and people think it's actually fun to play. Great for now. But, yeah, I just, it really rubbed me the wrong way then.

I can understand that. Like, yeah. Especially as, you know, the big avid D&D fan I am. Right. Well, I know what a huge game, a huge hit pool of radiance was. And just how big an imprint, an imprint and impression that made on people. So I can definitely understand why you would go into this as a follow-up and be like, I've played the NES version.

And I'm like, what's happening here? What am I supposed to be doing? It was bad. It's good to know that I'm not alone there. Yeah. All right. So that was your first pick, and it sounds like you're very passionate about it. Well, yeah.

Steve, do you have a similar sense of rage about your first pick? Well, if you want me to pick one that's rage, it's probably not the first one. But I will, you know, I'll go with rage first. So the second pick I had was from Nintendo, and this was one of the, hey, what are the worst games that Nintendo has ever made? Is it even a game? Yeah, in fact, I think that is a question to ask here. So it's Stackup, which was the second Rob game, and it's not really a game. Or rather, the game itself doesn't feel sort of finished, I guess, is the best way to put it.

One of the things I realized was Bunny Boy, who runs Retro USB, he does the Christmas carts and things like that. He has a demonstration cart where you can control Rob. It's more of just explaining all the different commands. And that in many ways is more fun than Stackup. Didn't he do a Christmas cart that used Rob for like a Blinking Lights kind of thing? Yeah, yeah. Actually, he does like, it helps coordinate all the arms and everything. Now, with Stackup, I don't remember this.

Yeah, so stackup was a game where instead of the gyros on the side of Rob, you had these little platforms and then these colored disks, basically. And so you had to grab the discs. And it's kind of like that, what's that pyramids, I think, where you move things from one stack to another or you need to, it looks like this and then you need to make it so it looks like something else. So it's controlling Rob to go left, right, up, down, whatever, to pick up the right pieces and make. the stacks. But the weird thing, well, not weird, but technical limitation is the game doesn't know if you did it or not.

Yep. Yeah, Rob doesn't have any way, like, it can just see flashes of light on the TV screen. It has no way to check and see have they correct, like, stacked things up correctly. So whatever win-lose condition is entirely based on the player saying

like, well, I did it right, or I did it wrong. Right. And the thing is, you can say I did it without doing, nearly the moves that you would need to do. And you figure there's a check, right? It's how fast you do it and how many moves you took to make that change. But if you, say, for instance, move Rob left once and hit the start button and say you did it, it'll be like, all right, it'll start, like, putting on all your bonus points.

Well, since the honor system. Yeah, pretty much. It reminds me of those VCR-Lycan games, where it's just like, you decide if you won. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's very much a case where I feel like, you know, just looking at the timeline on this, it really seems like they just needed to get some sort of packaged good to put alongside Rob at the NES launch. So they kind of put together a tech demo and we're like, it's a game, here you go.

Sounds like a debug mode for Rob, just like, will he do this? Yeah, yeah. They produced it in incredibly small numbers. It's one of those few early NES games where the only version that exists is a Japanese ROM and a converter, like a clip that it plugs into. So they didn't actually remanufacture it for the U.S. the U.S. release has the Japanese title screen on it, just like Giromite. But Giromite actually, you know, got, I think, a bigger production run. Yeah, I think, yeah, Jarum.

Because it was a pack-in, whereas Stackup was like a separate game they had to buy, and it cost more than the others because it had the chips and the attachments in it. So, yeah, like, no one bought it because why would you pay more money for a stupid game that isn't even a game? Yeah. Well, the funny thing is... Is it cool to watch Rob do his thing? He's so slow. He's very slow and noisy. It's noisy, yeah.

Yeah. It's like, there is some novelty in watching Rob do stuff. But if you had Rob, you probably had Gyromite and already got to see that novelty. And gyromite, like, playing with Rob actually does become an interesting and challenging puzzle game. Like, you can, you can cheat at gyromite by just pressing the buttons on controller, too. But if you play it the way... you're supposed to. I actually think gyromite's really fun and interesting and challenging because it really is like spinning plates, like literally.

Like you're doing a lot at once and you kind of have to keep multiple things in your mind and, you know, be mindful of where your guy is on the screen and where the discs are. But stack up has none of that. Yeah. And it is sort of incredibly complicated for such a terrible game because they had to manufacture the discs and the platforms and everything else. And the box is different. It's kind of like Trey.

And so I get it. I mean, we've talked in podcasts in the past why Rob was so important to the NES launch. It was sort of the deflection and people gravitated towards Rob so I can see them, hey, we need to have more software. We've got a tech demo. Let's just put that out as a game, right? Just put something out there so that there's something that's sitting next to Rob, to your point. Right.

So there is like a second mode in Stackup where there's like a grid. Oh, yeah, the bingo mode, is that it? Yeah, you're like controlling the professor and moving up and down and stuff, but it's still not that fun. And again, there's no internal mechanism to see if you're playing correctly. So it's just kind of like play correctly or not, who cares?

Are the chips at least a good substitute in case you were seeing a few checker pieces or anything? Well, they're weird, they're conical at the bottom so that they stack well, so you could flip them over so you can use them as... They're really well-designed chips, Yeah, they have a good feel.

Like, you know, they're 30-odd years old now, and they still have pulled up really well. Yeah. Oh, you could use them as monster truck obstacles. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, why not? Yeah. Okay.

So there's some good use outside. Right, right. I mean, for a good thing, to say something nice about stack up, I think that the fact that it was easier to get Rob to move around because of that, because of the mode, even if you're not stacking the chips, if you wanted to. sort of program Rob and have it go through all the motions, this was pretty much the only way to do it, right? And I know some people was like, I just want to watch Rob move around.

And so that's what you could do with StackUp. Yeah. Okay. So, and StackUp, you know, to me sounds like, you know, just like, oh, it's a robot for you should have pick up sticks, you know, you're trying to pick something up. Yeah. And in a later kids game called Stackup, where you actually take sticks to pick up blocks, to make a stack of blocks just with these little sticks.

and it's actually quite fun with little kids. Yeah. You know, Jeremy, you just mentioned that the quality, I guess, of the chips themselves and the platforms is good, so they didn't cheap out on that. Right, yeah. Nintendo keeps a, they maintain a certain level of quality. I mean, they were still, and they're like, we make toys phase of their life. So, you know, these chips might have been like some product they had just on hand.

They were like, we've got these like poker chips or something. I don't know. I've always kind of wondered about that. that, but they are well made. I will say this positively about StackUp. If you were one of the kids who bought it back in the day and kept it, cash in, you're rich. That game is worth so much now.

It's like $1,000 boxed. Yeah. Well, I think I do like the way that box looks. And when I was collecting, it's like, you know, it's like triple wide. And so it takes up a lot of shelf space, but it's, you know, really dynamic. So it's a rarity. It is. Yeah.

Yeah. Is Stackup one of the? things they won't even reference in Smash Bros. It might be that. They reference Rob, but I don't know if they'd reference Stackup itself. Yeah, you'd have to reference that like bug thing, right, that flies around.

Right, or maybe like the chips or something. Yeah, yeah, the chips. Well, we'll see. Maybe. They're still adding content to smash brothers. So, yeah, that's the one that when you play it, I just, I can't imagine opening that up

on sort of Christmas Day or something and just trying to squeeze some element of entertainment out of it. All right, on to round two, and I'll go first again unless someone wants to mix this up. Should we just keep going in the same order? Yeah, sure. Let's do it. Yeah, unless somebody feels really passionately about something,

they want to talk about. No. I guess since I'm going to mix up my order, though, of selection, since we're talking about Nintendo, let's just pile on Nintendo. And also an early NES game, the game actually that inspired this entire podcast is a Nintendo product. I think Shigero Miyamoto himself worked on it, and I hate it. I think it sucks, and they keep bringing it back, and I don't know why, and I wish they

would stop. It is Urban Champion. And this is a game. that, okay, like, I can understand that in 1984, when it first came out in Japan, it was probably pretty interesting to have what amounts to, like, a primitive proto-fighting game on a console. It looked pretty good for a 1984 video game, so I'm getting the good stuff out of the way. It is an attempt to, like, sort of create a one-on-one fighting game, and on top of that, it does have like a link to Nintendo's previous work because it is based on a boxing game that was Game and Watch.

So they took the mechanics of Game and Watch boxing and kind of turned it into a fleshed out colorful video game where your two dudes standing in front of a colorful cityscape and you punch it out with another guy and your goal is to knock the other guy into a manhole, an open manhole, an open sewer. and there are some cute little touches like occasionally people try to drop flower pots on your head from the windows above because you're creating too much noise and occasionally a police car will drive across with its sirens blaring to kind of you know like patrol the neighborhood and when that happens you and the other combatant both sort of like duck to your opposite sides of the screen and whistle nonchalantly it's cute there's like cute touches but this does not amount to a fun video game like the combat is extremely basic and really repetitive and dull. It's just a cumbersome game. And as cute as the police thing is, it's really frustrating to have the other guy on the ropes and have him work to where he's about to lose. And the cops come and you both retreat to the opposite side of the screen and you both meet up again in the middle because you lose all that progress.

So it just feels like it's a constant uphill battle. And, you know, as much as it's like kind of a fun, zany little, cartoon experience. It isn't a fun, zany little video game experience. Now, I have to ask, you never got to a fight at school where, you know, you're going out with somebody.

And then the teachers come in, it's like, oh, no, let's all stop, stop, this is all stop. And then you go back to it and after a teacher's college. As a school kid, I was a disciple of Captain Picard, and I believed in peaceful diplomacy as the solution against all enemy threats.

Yeah. I was just sick of dodging flower pots getting thrown at me. I know. I don't know. Do you guys have feelings about this game? I have feelings about this game. I watched your video. Was it an ESWorks video?

Yeah, yeah. And I didn't know the context of that. It is, it has the mechanics of an LCD game. It just, the mechanics of the game are of an LCD game. That explains everything. Like, an NES game should not have the mechanics of a Tiger, electronics game or a game and watch game. That's why it feels the way it does. And I love the personality of the game.

It's like the very, like, early comic strip attitude, a lot of, like, old Nintendo games have that I really love. It's like the child of handicap or something. Yeah, yeah. Just like the Popeye-ish kind of world, a lot of Nintendo games took place in. I really like that. But it is just an LCD game, but with better graphics, and that's why it's like not fun. But it's weird Nintendo loves it so much. Why is an Urban Champion in Smash Brothers?

The guy, the dude, he would have like one attack. They still have four unannounced DLCs at this point. God, don't jinks up for us, Bob. Now, was an Urban Champion also one of the first games that came over on the Wii's virtual console? Yes, right? It came over pretty early on virtual console, and yes, on 3DS, they remade 10 games with 3D effects, and for some godforsaken reason, Urban Champion is one of them. Like stuff like Zevius, that's cool, like adding a 3D effect to Zevius,

where you have like two planes of action. That's really cool. Adding a 3D effect to Kid Icarus, which had like blank, empty backgrounds before. That's cool. Urban Champion, hey, I don't need that. I remember the first time I heard anyone really talk about. this game was you talking about your hate from that. Some things never

changed. I hated it 11 years ago on Retronauts when it came out on virtual console and I hate it today when thankfully it has not come to Nintendo Switch online but you know it's going to show up at some point. Now a friend of mine had it and we played it and it was rather

innocuous to us. I mean we didn't really like it. We didn't really hate it. It didn't really feel much of it. I think my friend resented that he... Spit money on it? He got it as a gift because he was on his list of like, oh, I want these, please. That was his fault, wasn't it? Yeah, I think he resented it for that.

But, you know, if you ask him about it now, he's like, I could talk about how much he hates it. Yeah. I mean, it was a really attractive box, I guess. I mean, I talked about N.S. Yeah, it's like a big pixel art style. Right. And so for me, when I saw it for sale at the time of the NES, it was one of those games. Like, I do want to play that someday, but there's so many other good games that are.

they're coming in, so I didn't play it until maybe a couple years ago. And, you know, back then, the box was so important. Yeah, I was intrigued by the box when, you know, the first, NES first came out and I was like, ooh, I need the system. Oh, that game looks interesting. But I played it and said, wow, dodged a bullet there.

I could have spent $25 on this stinker. Yeah, good thing I'd have spent two bucks on the rental or something, right? That's the way to do it. I'll say one good thing about the game is that I predicted the men's fashion choice of the late 90s of wearing the long-sleeve shirt underneath the short sleeve shirt. Oh, yeah. Probably a lot of our listeners are just like that right now, I'm guessing.

I'm doing that. Oh, my gosh. Jason is an urban champion. Who do? I didn't even punch me into a manhole. Hey, my fashion is frozen in time, too. I'm wearing flannel right now. It's fine.

Bob, what's up? So mine is so bad that no one even makes fun of it because we all just feel bad that exists. It's a Nintendo game and it's Wii music. It's not a game, Bob. It's an interactive bullshit simulator. I don't know what it is. It's the Ravi Drum simulator. I remember so much change it for this.

It was the first time, I think, like, our daddy let us down, and by that I mean Shigeru Miyamoto. And it was the real, like, it would happen at the same time, actually. So, like, Will Wright had Spore, and Miyamoto had Wii music, but at least Spore seemed like a good idea. We music was just like, oh, oh, grandpa, nobody wants this. Go sit in the corner. And then, like, no one even thought, no one thought about it, no one played it, no one remembered it. It was just such a mistimed, weird thing that the Wii needed more games. period, and especially

from someone like Miyamoto who really spearheaded this, we all felt like we just wanted another idea. And you know what? I'm sure you can have fun with this maybe, perhaps, but boy, it was like the first real letdown from somebody that we really like so much that it's been a race from history

that I'm sure a lot of you listeners out there like, oh, right, we music, okay, yeah, I forgot about that and there's a good reason. I did. Yeah. I mean, the thing I remember most about it was the announcement, right? Yes, that's a huge part of it, too. Like, a lot of these are philosophical choices for me, and the announcement of the game

was just like, oh, we need a cool we thing. Oh, Miyamoto has a new idea. And then it became that, yeah. Yeah. I think I understand where the genesis of this came from. Like, you know, they had a huge hit with Wii fit. And, you know, these kind of non-game applications that did interesting things in sort of non-traditional game spaces.

And Miyamoto was, you know, he's into music. He likes playing banjos and stuff. And I'm sure he was thinking, well, I'm going to transform this passion of mine into something similar to, like, when I got a dog and made a huge hit with Nintendo dogs and when I decided to get into shape and created a huge hit with Wii Fit. But, yeah, this just didn't work. I don't know who it was for or why they thought it was. And if you look at, you know, if you look conceptually at the Wii boat, there's so much you could have done with that in a music environment. it. And we music didn't do any of it. Yeah.

Well, I mean, the Wii that installed place, right, was people who just bought it for Wii sports, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's do something else with these things that someone who likes bowling might do, right? And like, oh, people like music. Let's give them something to do with the Wii mode that includes music. I get where the inspiration came from, and, you know, Miyamoto did change a lot of his personal habits into games, but with this, I feel like Nintendo had better success with other creativity suites

like Mario Paints and WarioWare Do Yourself and even things like Super Mario Maker all are in the same wheelhouse of just like creativity suites with some game like elements, but Wii music just felt like really, really off and not as inspired, not

as gamey, just not what anyone really wanted. And I don't think that audience who played Wii Fit or Wii Sports was just like, yeah, Wii Music is next. I think it sort of ended with Wii Sports or Wii Fit for them. Yeah, I feel like it could have been, you know, a $10 downloadable title and people would have been like, oh, interesting. But as a like, not just a retail release, but, you know, sort of like this is our big thing.

It just, it missed the mark. Yeah. But, you know, think about that. And what I'm thinking about is, like, you know, take that Wii mount and you can just make music with it as you're, you know, you can emphasize it and you can put it in for an note or something for, you know, some sort of emphasis on another note. There's so much you could have done just with, like, this is how you make music with, you know, like your conductor baton. And it could have been really magical.

I think ultimately, though, this was before the Wii Motion Plus. And the technology was surprisingly limited with the Wii mode. Like, we've all played Wii. It doesn't take you that long to realize, like, oh, it can only go in this area. It can only know where I am in this part of the room. and it loses the Wii Moe really fast. So I feel like they were tied down to like just the very limited technology. Maybe if this is in a post-Weimo plus world, a very limited time period for the Wii, it could have been more successful or it could have been a better like experience.

But yeah, they were also limited by the technology at the time. Yeah, I think this was at least a valuable learning experience for them because, you know, they announced stuff like the vitality sensor and when that didn't really, I think, internally turn out into anything instead of. bringing it out anyway, they've just kind of quietly let it fade away. So hopefully, you know, hopefully they've kind of learned a lesson and we won't see stuff like that happen. Yeah, I mean, failure can be a very good teacher, right? And so they learned from this. Oh, especially games.

Yeah. And I like when Nintendo kind of thinks outside the box and, you know, stuff like Labo is, you know, that's not for me, but it's really interesting and I'm glad it exists. Oh, yeah, I forgot about Labo. It's a much better version of this kind of experience. Yeah, kind of like let's take video games into a, you know, a physical space, but, you know, they add that element of creativity, like something tactile where you can create things and come up with your own ideas and express yourself that way.

That's great. And, yeah, we music really needed something like that. Yeah. At least we got all the gifs from the, you know, that's all we need. Yeah, it generated memes. I still think, you know, something with, you know, even with the Joycons today, something where your painting music would be so much fun to play. Yeah, I mean, Joycons have a piano.

That's a great start. But yeah, like some sort of conductor kind of thing. I mean, they've got that in Zelda. So I feel like it's just another step to turn it into something on its own. You're going to try, me. I'm out. On Apocerpals, we talk about the parts of the Bible that a lot of people skip over. Like the wizard battles.

angel jacuzis a goat full of sins 500 drunk elephants and a man named porky party and yes that's all really in there all this and more on apocrypal's every other week on the greenlit podcast network video death loop is a podcast where we watch a short video clip on loop until we just can't take it anymore along the way we'll try our best to make each other laugh and to hold out longer than the other guy you can jump in on any episode no need to worry about continuity check out video death loop on the Greenlit Podcast Network with new episodes every Friday. Hey folks, it's Asif Khan, CEO and editor-in-chief over at shack news.com. Give a listen to our 9-5 Elon podcast about Tesla and electric vehicles and all sorts of cool stuff

over there on the Greenlit Podcast Network. All right, so let's continue on with this journey of hell. And Jason, why don't you share with us the worst video game you've ever reviewed? The lowest, was it a zero score? No, it was a three out of ten. No, that's not that bad. That's really bad for me. Oh, okay.

Do you score on a scale of 7 to 10? No, I try to score really close to what I feel is. But like for me, so I give this one a 3 out of 10 for GameSpot. It's sort of the Stars 2, which is the worst piece of crap paradox ever put out. And Paradox puts out really good games. Now, they're the publisher. They weren't the developer. But I singled this because we're talking about developers and publishers.

here. Caribos was the enveloper. But this was a game that six months later they gave out free DLC and expansions and an

enhanced edition because it had been so bad and so buggy. Six weeks after launch when I published my review, six weeks after launch, it was still crashing on me. Oh my God.

Now, okay, so it's a strategy game and in space, it's a 4X strategy game. Okay. So the first one was well received. It was a good strategy game. This one that teach you very well how to use its systems, the first one I felt did.

It was buggy. It was felt incomplete. I have no idea how the story worked because, well, it kept crashing on me. And it was one of the worst pieces of software I've ever played. Multiplayer, even, you know, several months out, would disconnect you whenever you would connect. Or it would say, oh, yeah, here are two people. and let's kind of connect to you. And then I can remember once waiting half an hour.

And it didn't connect. And this was with a very patient friend. Yeah, it was just this big piece of hot garbage. And it is, without a doubt, one of the worst technical games I've ever played. Not the worst. Because I have another one on this list that was the worst. But this was just horrible.

And the thing that made it horrible to me is, you know, Paradox has a great reputation for putting out games that run well. And it always has. In my opinion, I mean, some people might dig me on that, but I think their games run well. And this was, without a doubt, I think, the worst thing they ever put out. Do we have any information as to why it was so bad or what happened? So I never was really delved into it because by the time I was done reviewing it, it was like, I don't want to think about this game for two or three years.

And I'm kind of think it was just a rush job as several of the games on my list were. you know, when you rush something, it comes out and it's missing parts and it's not doing things it's supposed to do, and it's just untested itself. But, I mean, this goes beyond anything I've ever played with the exception of the other game on my list, another game on my list. So what's something positive about Sort of Stars 2? So I like ship the designs. That's it? I like the ship designs. Okay.

What kind of designs were they? Like, did they, were they reminiscent of another franchise? Well, okay. The human ships were reminiscent of Babylon 5, which is one of my all-time favorite series. And, you know, it is a cultural cornersteroa sci-fi in many circles. Some of the other ship designs were some of the other races and species were really cool. Some were very organic. Others were very alien.

You know, I like the artwork. Everything else. Yeah. It's good. There was something. I hope this is the last time I ever talk about it. All right. You put it behind you.

So, Steve, what's next on your crummy list? Okay, so next on my crummy list, it's a game from Capcom. And I need to qualify this, but I have put a lot of quarters into this machine when I was growing up. So hot dogs and more at my mall, they had this game. So the end more was this game. Yes, yes, hot dogs and suffering. And then I have actually owned the same. arcade machine

and it's Street Fighter it's the first Street Fighter and I own the one with the pneumatic buttons

So is that why you hate it because of the maintenance nightmare? Well it is a maintenance nightmare those things break all the time

but it was one of those games where I know why I put in quarters when I was a kid is because someone taught me how to do the

fireball but honestly controls on Street Fighter 1 are more of a suggestion than an actual thing

because Because even if you do sort of the motion perfectly, it doesn't always register. And so most of the time, when you watch, like, Let's Play's or whatever of people playing this, it's basically everyone just kind of randomly throwing punches because they're trying to do a fireball or a dragon punch. And I saw them, one of the reasons I know this game is terrible, is I found another collector that had the full arcade machine. And I said, I have to own that. Right. It's really cool.

It's got these, like, it's a very unique cabinet shape, and then the buttons. Yeah, I remember those. Yeah, and it's like, I remember. It's like, I love playing that game as a kid. I should get this. I got it, and at first I thought the buttons were broken because, you know, if, for those of you who haven't seen the arcade machine, it's these two very big pneumatic buttons, and the harder you press on them, that's sort of the light medium fears, right, or jab medium fears for the punches and kicks. and it just, it barely works, right? You think having the six buttons, you have precision control, this is the exact opposite of that.

And if I remember correctly, it wasn't like there were a lot of games where you, you know, you had pressed something, and you'd press it harder to do something else. No, I don't. In arcades. I don't remember many of those. Yeah, it was, you know, very unique, but I got it and I, you know, my friends came over. It was like, oh, we're going to play this. Probably played it half dozen times.

At first, I was like, oh, maybe it just takes some getting used from like, oh, no, this game is bad. And now I own this giant machine, and it's just sitting here. And I like the fact that it exists, but it is just not a good game. Now, was it the code that wasn't recognizing everything, or was it the fact that the mechanics weren't translating from the actual machine we're translating? So it is the code because you can actually plug that board into one with six buttons. So you have the sort of standard streetfighter control configuration, and it still doesn't work. So, yeah. And what about the video game ports for home consoles?

Do they fix that part? No. Same problems. I mean, Fighting Street on TurboGraphic CD, and then what did it come out on any other? It came out on PC. Yeah. I remember that because it came out after Street Fighter 2. Yes.

And they kind of fudged it and made it look like you were getting Street Fighter 2, but then the actual game. If you paid attention to some of the small screenshots on the screenshots on the back here, like, wait a minute. Like, they almost tricked me with that one. Yeah, yeah. But I dodged that bullet, thankfully. Did you sell it?

Yeah, so I did sell it. And the good part is I actually sold it for more than I bought it for it. It is a collectible item, right? Especially for people who really like Street Fighter, it's such a, like I said, a unique piece. But playing the actual game is just absurd. Now, in terms of things that are good about it are, it looks great for the time. So, kind of from afar, it's like really big characters.

The special moves were quite unique for fighting games at the time. You can make fun of the sort of digitized voice samples, but it did sound pretty good. And I think if you look at all the characters that show up in there, it really set the stage for what Street Fighter 2 did. and so I think that it's sort of that baby's first steps like learning a little bit about what works

and what doesn't and it was an attractive cabinet in their arcade too yeah yeah exactly definite attention grabber so I think it's one of those games where the mere novelty of it

probably propelled it maybe a little bit further than it should have gone just because people want to like oh if I punch this thing harder then it punches harder I get that so

a lot of really interesting foundational things for the Street Fighter series, which I love. But if you try to sit down and play this game, this is a miserable experience. Yeah, I mean, I've played it in collections, and not for long, basically. I'm glad that it exists and that it's archived, and I'm glad that it gave us the fighting genre, but Street Fighter 2 is definitely where that series began. Does Capcom re-released this game very often? It's on the Street Fighter collection that just came out. Like last year?

I find that surprising, actually. Yeah, it's like total acknowledgement. Like, well, this is kind of where it's starting because the characters are there. Yeah, the characters are there at least. They're not going to release it as a standalone game, but, you know, as part of a package where it's like, well, here's all the games you actually care about. And then, yeah, there's also this thing. Isn't that neat? You've got the whole package here.

They just kind of like, you know, drafted off of something that's better. And do they emulate the analog button presses? No. with the, they map it to the six buttons. So I have not, oh, that, you know, that's interesting. I don't, I don't think they've ever had a home version that relies

on, I guess it, like an analog I mean, what system would that even work on? Do any systems now have analog buttons? You know, PS2 did, but, right? I think the dual shock still retain that. Well, you only need two. Right, yeah. And you could do, use like the PS2 triggers, but I don't think they did

that. Yeah. No. And I mean, I feel like everyone would just, you know, by default, kind of use the strongest attacks. Right, right. I can see that being sort of fussy, but probably no less fussy than Middle Gear Solid 3. Right. Well, if you think about it, you know, Street Fighter 2, there is reasons you would use, you know, something light versus something heavy. But in Street Fighter 1, it's just punch the guy and try to throw a fireball or a special move, and then you might get it.

What I love about you talking about this is it's an actual arcade game. We're talking about here more than anything else. And just how much maintenance does pneumatic buttons require? Well, they're super unique. I think they're only used on Street Fighter. And it's not terribly complicated, right, on the underside, but it's impossible to find parts. Yeah. And so I think what's going to happen from a historical perspective is those are going to tear, right?

Because it's like rubberized, right, the button. And I mean, I haven't seen one in a couple of years now, but I'm imagining that those are just going to disintegrate over time. Yeah. So rubber doesn't hold up through the ages too well. Right. So unless someone, I don't know who would do this, but make sort of a reproduction of that part, like having people experience that version of Street Fighter is probably going to be incredibly rare moving forward. I mean, I will say that in the classic gaming sphere, there is no project too obscure for someone to try to, you know, fill a niche for.

like some of the cables and stuff that I've had to buy for my streaming setup, my capture setup, like who needs that stuff? It's super esoteric. But, you know, Virtual Boy Capture kits. There's like, I think, you know, the guy who's making those has done enough for like 100 people or something. So it's, you know, there are super niche markets. And I could see like Street Fighter 2 repo button or Street Fighter 1 repro buttons or something being a super niche thing that someone creates and sells for like, $100 per button, but what else are you going to do? I'm going to start a business where I just sell the uppercut button for punchout arcade machines. Or, you know, maybe someday a 3D printer comes around that can handle that. Can handle rubber? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I mean, there are some flexible printable materials, and I mean, you could cast it. Like I said, it's just like, that's a lot of work for something kind of so niche.

Right. But, you know, yeah, it was a game that I thought I really loved until I owned it. And I'm like, this is a really bad game. Sometimes having is not so good a thing as wanting. Yes. It reminds me of Dragon's Lair. It was one of those games that I suck so many quarters in. And it was a couple of years before I realized, no, this game just sucks.

Why am I doing that? Yeah. But it was sure impressive. Yeah. All right, so we'll do one more full round and then maybe finish off of the lightning round. So for my next savaging, I go with developer Hal, a wonderful little company. Just I love Hal. Everything they make seems so pure-hearted.

They gave us Kirby. I mean, what else can you ask for? But not everything they've done has been amazing. And they did go through sort of a period of doldrums in the late 80s before they really finally came once and for all into Nintendo's orbit and kind of became like Nintendo's favorite second party. And this was their very first game for the Super NES, which I played for the first time earlier this year.

And it's neat, but it's not really much of a game. And that is Hyperzone. I don't know if you guys have ever played this. I have not. I have played this game. I think I played it. Yeah. It is basically a giant rip-off of Namco's Thunderceptor, but not as good.

And I didn't realize this when I did the Super NES Works episode, but then I was doing research for an Amco podcast and was like, whoa, Thunderceptor is hyperzone except better. So and then Thunderceptor is like four years, five years before Hyperzone. So there's no excuse here. But Hyperzone is basically a first-person shooter. it's kind of like what if F0 were a first-person shooter like totally on rails so you are a ship moving around there's a mode 7 effect beneath you and then someone figured out oh we can mirror that mode 7 effect

at the top of the screen and create the impression that you're like going through I don't know it's like you're flying between two shelves like you're flying through the world's craziest bookshelf or something which sounds cool it does and it's a very impressive effect visually like It's a very fast game because it really just, like, throws that Mode 7, you know, distorted landscape effect as fast as it can go. So it's kind of like visually stunning the first time you play it.

But as a game, it's actually pretty lackluster because, you know, it's got the, you know, like in F0, the boundaries of the stages are sort of defined by that wallpaper that's scrolling beneath you. and you know it's just like a stretch graphic and everything is kind of fuzzy and hard to sort of define and it works in F0 because you're right there on the surface of the track but in Hyperzone you're above it and everything is a lot more

I don't know it's just it's hard to judge your depth and your position it's kind of got a sort of space harrier thing to it and you know on a bad port like the Genesis port of space harrier there's not enough information in the way the enemy sees scale and the way the projectile scale at you, to really tell, like, how close you are to

them and how you need to move to avoid them, this has that same problem. It's not like, you know, Arcade Space Harrier, where everything has the super scaler effect and you get a really good sense of like, oh, this projectile is that big, so that's what I need to dodge out of the way because it's about to hit me. And this has that sort of, like, depth issue. And so it's not really that fun to play. it's also not complete like this game was going to

use, it has, if you use a code you can activate a 3D mode where it uses like the red-green, the anostropic the shutter glasses. You know, they made those for Famicom and it never came out in the US for NES, but I

guess, you know, they were going to do something along those lines or they were hoping at some point to have some 3D glasses for the Super NES. So this game does have a 3D mode built in, into it, if that you can access through a code, and that might have made the game easier to play and give you a better sense of the depth and everything, but it's hidden, it's dumbied away, there are no glasses for Super NES that work with it.

So it's just kind of like a weird sort of half-finished idea of a game, and once you get past the sort of like, wow, I'm going so fast and that's cool, there's Mode 7 on top and bottom, it stops being all that fun. So I have a funny story about Hyperzone. I worked in a used game store during the transition from NES to Super Nintendo. And Hyperzone was always the game that would demo well in that when people, we let people try games out before they bought them. People would sit there for, you know, two, three minutes.

They're like, oh, yeah, I want to get this and buy it. And inevitably, it would come back within a couple days. And, you know, for half the trade-in value. So in terms of the profit engine for the store, that game just kept generating because so many people at first glance you're like this is kind of interesting

I think there's going to be something here and they end up buying and they're always like this game sucked yeah I mean there's just not much to it it's like the cybermorph equivalent for the Super NES yeah it has a really good soundtrack though it does the guy who did the soundtrack

would later go on to do like a ton of Kirby music and be a major sound guy for Hal but I have listened to the soundtrack while doing things I've just never really played the game outside of renting it once as a kid and not really feeling any way about it That's funny that now that's two games now you've mentioned that on this podcast. We're talking about not good games with the music.

It's true. Some games I don't like have really good soundtracks I listen to. Yeah. And that's a good thing to say about it. I will say I do like the weird little bit of attention to detail in that every time you change, go to a new stage in this game, you get a new ship. And not only do you get a new ship, but you get a new graphical user interface to go with it. So the game's UI is, like, changing between every stage. So you can look at a screenshot and be like, oh, that's stage four because it's the white ship with a sort of like, you know, wipeout-esque screen, you know, the interface.

It's neat. It would be more interesting if you had some control over that, if it didn't just happen automatic. It's not when you get a new stage. It's like when you go to a new stage and you've passed a certain score threshold or something, then you get upgraded. and the ships actually get better and more powerful and more durable as you go along, have better weapons and stuff like that. It's kind of like, is it such a way, like, okay, the game's getting harder, so we're going to give you a new ship now?

Yeah, I mean, well, no, it's like you earn a better ship by getting a better score. So you want to get as many points as possible, so you can get a better ship and last longer. But it is kind of neat because it's like the idea, I guess, being that you move into a new ship and it's got a new control console, and that's reflected in the GUI. of the screen, like the frame of it. You know, that's an idea. Someone can still do something. Yeah, it's a really fun little detail, and it doesn't make the game any better.

But I like that, you know, someone thought about this enough to do that. No, but it introduces a new challenge because now everything you're used to see is laid out in a different way. I mean, it's all pretty much the same. It's just like the design of it is different. Oh, okay. The aesthetics of it. Like, you know, you go from like orange triangles to like green slanted bars or something

from the power meter. Okay, okay. So it doesn't radically change how the interface works. It's just the design of it, the appearance of it. That's still cool. Changes to reflect the current ship you're in. So, yeah, it's a nice touch. I like that.

You can have someone ate that for their next year. Yeah, I mean, clearly some thought went into this game. Someone was creating it. Again, it's Hal from the heart. But it's just not that good at game itself. And I feel like Hal could have done better, but they probably rushed it to get it out as quickly as possible on Supernius as they could. Yeah.

I mean, it is very much like tech demo-e, right? It's like, hey, let's throw all this stuff. Yeah, even more so than F0. Yeah. Cool. All right, Bob. So my choice is something I've talked about before because we did a whole podcast about the series maybe three years ago. Devil May Cry 2.

So Devil May Cry 1 came out. It was a surprise hit in 2001. Just this really innovative, cool game. At the time, people were like, where is the cool 3D Castlevania game? Oh, it's this. It's really cool. It's sort of like a survival horror game, but also it's an action game. Like, you could tell it all takes place in one big,

like a mansion. So it's like a really weird, interesting evocative style that the other games wouldn't follow through on. But the sequel, especially, had no idea what it was doing. The first game was directed by Hideki Ikamiya. He would go on to be like Platinum Games guy, of course, things like Beautiful Joe and Okami and Bayonetta and Vanquish and things like that. But he didn't really know about this game.

He was not asked to make the sequel, despite making the first game. and the sequel came out less than 18 months after the first game came out like I think it was maybe like 15 months later so clearly mega rushed sequel the director is Aetano who's a big Capcom guy and he has done really good things but I think he was sort of thrown in

in and over his head and not comfortable with doing this type of game yet and it's hard to really articulate why I don't like this game and why most people don't but I think ultimately it just feels wrong It just feels wrong. Everywhere you're fighting is just big and empty.

It doesn't have any of the character of the first game, but really the first game was successful because the fighting felt so good. Like the moves had a lot of impact. It was really fun to control despite the bad camera angles, and it just was a very visceral game. I'm allowed to say that now. But Dolphemy Cry 2 just had none of that. And I don't think anyone really likes the game.

And I've tried to go back in and play it, but I can't get more than one level in because it just feels. It feels wrong. And I like three. I liked four and I like DMC, but I can't play the sequel. It's just, it's like, it's not a bad game. It's a competently made game. But if you played the first game, you know how these games play.

If you played the third game and the fourth game and the one after that, you know how these games play. This doesn't play like what a devil make cry game should play like. Yeah, I mean, in pinball, there's a, well, actually, games in general, there's that concept of flow, right? You just sort of get into this rhythm. And it's almost, you're sort of playing. it without even really thinking about it too much. And I think DMC1 did that, where it's like, I want to chain all these things together and it's going to be great.

And then two, yeah, to your point, just it sort of breaks, right? You think you're starting some combination and then it just sort of ends for some reason. Yeah. And so you never really get that momentum that you had in the first one. It just feels wrong. I remember that. Just thinking like, wow, you know, all the stuff that made the first game cool, doesn't feel like it's happening here.

And you can see why Kamiya went on to be known as the guy who you would know for his combat system. So it is a high, he made a high, like a high benchmark for the sequels. And it took at least one dry run for that director to figure out how to make a double-make-cry game. Like three is great. Three feels a lot like one. And the future games would feel really good too. But two, I just think like they didn't have a lot of time. It was a new director.

And apparently Kamiya didn't really know about it. So he wasn't consulted or anything like that. which maybe why he wanted just have his own studio away from Capcom after, you know, being sort of insulted like that. So, yeah, I'm sure, waiting in the comments, I want to know if anyone out there likes, they'll make cry or they can tell me how to play the game or what I'm missing. Because, again, like, the best way I can describe it is that it feels wrong to me. I don't think it's just you.

I worked at a game store when this game came out, and people were mad at me for selling it to them. How dare you? I just took their money. I didn't recommend it. It's like me in Hyperzone. Jason. So I'm going to skip on my list, and I'm going to go to a different game here, one that really, you know, is the worst of a series.

And it's one of the longest-lived series of a new game. It's My Magic 9, which came out in 2009 and helped kill a publisher, a developer, and a series all in one. Ouch. Because, you know. So it was like Ultimate 9. Oh, yeah. It's funny that you say that. RPG should not go to 9.

Final Fantasy 9, that was okay. Yeah, but it's funny you see that because, you know, mind magic, you know, comes out in the wake of Ultima, in the wake of wizardry, but it does a little more. It plays with sci-fi a little more, and it's a really good series. It continues on, it continues on, and continues on. A new world competing keeps putting them out, and, you know, they kind of get a peek around the four and five area,

and then it kind of comes, you know, six is good, and then seven, eight, not so as good, but nine was rushed. It was full of horrible bugs. It's the first time that, you know, the series creator, John Van Conningham, was the one who was designing this game. Another guy, same Tim Langdon, and he says, you know, he admitted in an interview later on that it was like, oh, it's a pre-Alpha status the way we pushed it out. And, you know, for the next year, 3D-O, New World Goes Under, Ubisoft buys the series. Mighty Magic comes back with Heroes of Mighty Magic pretty much exclusively until you get Maddie Magic Clash of Heroes, which was that fun DS game. And then Mind and Magic 9, which came out in 2011, 2010, which was a magic 10, not 9, excuse me, which was a return of what the series was mostly about in the past.

It's still a really good RPG that no one really talks about except Ron Kaiser myself. But this game was just an insult to anyone who ever loved Biden Magic. And the worst part was, you know, yeah, it had all these horrible bugs and didn't work right. feel finished, it didn't feel any polish, but then they take out the little sci-fi elements like, hey, made matter magic stand out. And it was just high fantasy. It was like, well, yeah, now you take the way the thing that made Madden Magic a little more different and special.

So it was, it was just, it was bad. And please, you know, you can buy good old games and don't. It's old but not good. There should be a website for those games. Oh. Yeah, but, you know, Gog does have a number of. of bad games on it. So what's good about

Might and Magic 9? Got to dig deep. I don't know if I could dig that deep, Steve. There is nothing redeemable about that game. I mean, it helped kill a company. You know, games that do that don't really have anything redeeming about them. I guess the one thing that is redeeming about it

is, you know, coming back in an interview later on and saying that we've been. It was a pre-alpha. No, I mean, I can't... At least the creator had some self-awareness. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing redeemable about it. And I don't think there's anyone who loves Spider-Magic who would disagree with me. Even the box art was shit.

That's a bad sign. All right, well, I'm going to take your word on that one and never actually play it for myself. Yeah, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. All right, Steve, where are we at now? Okay, well, you and I share one. Okay, yeah, let's do that one. Let's do that one. So the developer is Hudson, and the game is China Warrior.

Yeah, which sure looked cool. It, oh, my. It looks amazing. I remember that. Wow, it's like Bruce Lee, the size of my screen. It shows up, I think, what, like, five to ten times in the TurboGraphics promo video. It's like every time, like, the enemy's doing the spin kick, he's punching the birds or whatever that thing is to come at you. And, yeah, it, if you just sort of saw it.

screenshot. Look how big those characters are. Yeah, I mean, that really is the selling point. This is 16 bit, okay? It's TurboGraphics 16, and you can't do this on your NES. You can't have big sprites like China Warrior. It's half the screen's height. That's insane.

NES is like, dinky little guys. Look at little Mario when he takes a hit. He's so tiny. What's you doing with your little baby? Well, it was released as Kung Fu in Japan, right? Oh, was it? Yeah, and so they, in the promo, so they actually interspersed, like, NES Kung Fu, and then China Warriors, like, look at the difference between these two games.

Like, yeah, okay, I can totally see it. This is, must be that 16-bit power they keep talking about. Right, except it plays pretty much like NES Kung Fu except worse. It's worse. There's what, like, like, no animation. His leg is on the ground or it's like, burnt. And no one hugs you in this game? No one hugs you, yeah.

No little balls full of snakes to come and bite you at your ankles. So what happened here? Was it really just like a demo to show you, you know, the guys can be bigger and all this. This is what 16-bit looks like, or was there a bigger problem? I think that it must have been like we want to have a showcase, right? We want to show what this thing can do. And it's like, hey, if we do this, we have to make some compromises on everything else. Yeah, I really feel like it was a case of they were like,

how many sprites can we put on the screen at once without breaking it? And they figured it out. And then they were like, well, that's all our data. We don't have enough room for animation. There's not enough memory on the card. So have your two frames of animation and your three enemies. That's it. You know, have your one background.

Not the first time we've talked about a game being kind of a demo-ish. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean. It's a common thing. It's either rush or it's demo. Well, not all of them, but most of the ones. we've been talking about today. Yeah.

It sold me. I mean, it absolutely did help sell me on the system because I, like, just seeing the size of the characters, like, wow, look at that. And then I bought it and I'm like, oh, no, I've made a huge mistake. I remember, I never played it until it came into virtual console. And I was like, wow, this is extraordinarily terrible. Yeah. Yeah.

I just remember how different, even when he went into, in this case, it was a software, etc. and they had the game in this whole different cabinet in this whole different area of the store and they had the system locked away in glass and nobody could, there was no demos out and nobody could play it, but it was like this little altar here for the Turbo Graphics 16.

Yeah, well, if you haven't seen it, the promotional video that they ran, actually they sent the videotape to me and I like wore that thing out. I can to this day probably say every line in that. Oh, it was a promo tape with multiple games on it, right? Yeah, well, yeah, it was a multiple games. It's the one where the guys are, like, dancing.

They're actually on the cover of the box, right? I was sent that, too, as well, yeah. And, you know, they featured China Warrior in there and a bunch of other games that said, might be coming and never came. So in terms of the good things to say about it, it helped move systems, I'm sure. It's visually impressive, static.

And I don't know if there's much else. It is a screenshot game for sure. Yeah. Yeah, like back of the box, like, oh, well, look at all these games that I can get for this thing. Yeah, other than that, yeah, it does kind of, you know, it looks like Bruce Lee. So that's exciting, I guess. That's about it. Yeah, I don't have anything good to say about it except that it made very, very good screenshots.

Yes. Yes. Well done. Well done, NEC. Or Hudson. Yeah. But, you know, they got better. This was like one kind of weird misstep.

But there were some great games on that system, and Hudson made a lot of them. All right. All right. So we are running out of time. So we're going to do one final lightning round where everyone has to give it really quickly, give one last selection. So I will start and I will say we're going back to Squarespace, a company that I really love, that I've been following for many years. And this is a game that I overlooked. I did not realize that they had published it or that they were the creators of it until 10 years later.

and it's just as well because it's a game for NES called Kings Night and I kind of see what they were doing there it is a shooter game that wants to kind of be an RPG so you control an RPG party

and it could be good but it's not it's just really kind of clumsy and broken it's not a good shooter like your party mechanic is very just it's clumsy and it's not an attractive

It doesn't have great music. It's just like all the things you expect from Squarespaceoft are not in this game. And I don't know why they released this of all things in the U.S. aside from the fact that they just couldn't bring their racist Tom Sawyer RPG over. It reminds me of Dino Riki this game. Really? Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I kind of see that. This concept was done better a few years later by Meldak on Game Boy with Mercenary Force, where you take it control. It's a shooter, a vertical shooter instead of, or horizontal shooting. sort of vertical, but you take control of a party of Japanese medieval warriors, and you get to choose which kind of warriors you put in your party, and basically you move in formation. You can change the formations up and power up your characters, and it's really interesting and unique and fun, but Kings Knight is sort of the same thing and bad.

And the one thing I will say that I like about it is that even though it's crappy and deserves to be forgotten. Final Fantasy 15 brought it back as like a tie-in thing. They released a mobile game kind of based on King's Night, and all throughout the game, the characters are like obsessed with King's Night.

Like when you go camping for the night, they'll like sit around and they'll play Kings Night on their mobile phones. It's so shameless. And I just love that they did that. It's like of all the things for you guys to do that with. You couldn't have done it with like Rad Racer or something. You had to do it with Kings Night.

What's up with you, Did anyone ever ask the team, like, is there somebody here who just loves it so much that we had to put it in? I never thought to ask that, right? It might have been. Tomodda left because he couldn't make his Kings Night Achieve. Yeah, he was like, that's what Luminous Productions was going to do. We were going to make Kings Night 15, but no. Yeah, I don't know.

It's not a good game, but someone up there loved it, so God bless him. Anyway, Bob, we're just doing one more. Yep. I'll choose the less obvious one. I'm going to go with the LucasArts game, Zach McCracken and the Alien Mind Here's the thing. Bob, you love adventure games. Germans like this game, for some reason.

I don't like this game. No David Hasselhoff. Zach was on the Berlin wall with the jacket. For some reason, Germans love adventure games. I don't know why. But I don't like this game. It has a bad theme that is really tied to a specific era in American pop culture. It's about like the new age movement of the 80s, the late 80s.

Oh, yeah, like Shirley Maclean. Yeah, like that stuff. It's not funny. It's aged poorly. I feel like the theming in other LucasArts games is way better. Also, this game came at a weird half step between Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. And Maniac Mansion was like, we kind of figured it out. Monkey Island's like we did figure it out.

This is just a little too, like too many dead ends, too many Sierra-like issues in terms of like, you know, getting into a fail state and not realizing and things like that. And again, I just think it's ugly. The theming is bad. And even though some people I really love work on it, like Ron Gilbert and David Fox. So it wasn't a beat team. effort. It was not. No, this is their adventure game team for sure.

But, yeah, it's like this and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were of the same like Maniac Mansion, between Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, and they just never, they were still figuring it out, Monkey Island is when they figured it out. Yeah, it kind of sounds like they did a lot of cool things with Maniac Mansion or like, how can we

recapture that? Like, what worked about Maniac Mansion? And so they tinkered around with it and stumbled a few times until they finally were like, oh, it's this part that was good. And Zach McCracken has multiple characters. and it has like a currency system and things like that and you can spend too much money and then be screwed. Like there's too much going on.

It's too ambitious and it just gets out of control. But if you like the game, let me know why I'd be interested in knowing if I'm missing anything. Because I've never finished it. It's just, it's not fun. It's not fun. You're getting all these German emails. I won't be able to read them. But I will say good box art.

I think it is Steve Purcell. Now, you know, it's funny because there are some good adventure games have come out from Germany and some good roleplay games have come out from Germany. You guys should, you know, do a German game retronauts. I wouldn't know where to begin with that. Germany never stopped making adventure games, it seems like... Yeah, we'd have to get like spectrums and stuff in here and amigas and

things. But that's it for me. Zach McCracken and the alien minebenders. So I'm going to pick on LucasArts too. Now, they didn't make this game, they published it, ensemble made it, and it's Star Wars Collecting Battlegrounds. So it's basically Agent Empires with a Star Wars skin. Agent Empire is a good game.

In my opinion, Battlegrounds is horrible because that sort of strategy does not apply, doesn't even fit well at the Star Wars universe, you know, having to go out and get resources and build things to make those resources, you know, get those

harvesters, and I'm getting mad just talking about it. It's clunky. I felt it was ugly. The maps were boring, just blah. They didn't even look like Star Wars. I've noticed a theme in that like when a strategy game is bad, you get angry

about it. Yes, I do. I do. I really do. And it It's because, you know, there's so many good strategy games from good developers. And sometimes things... And now, granted, you know, you've got PetroGraph that made Empire War, which I felt was the actual good Star Wars Strategy Game series. This one, not so good. It was just boring.

It's clunky maneuvering. The units didn't feel good. They didn't always take good paths to get to where they're going. Sorry, Ensemble, I love you, but not this one. This one was just... Good sound effects. All right. Steve, bring it home for us.

Yeah, I'm going to bring it home with one more pal-long LucasArts. I am going to say that... Wow, I wish I had come up with him. Right. So I'm going to... This is a bit of a cheat. This is not the worst game they've ever made, but this is a bad game that is fondly remembered by a lot of people.

I don't understand why. Yeah, no, I don't either. And it is a Star Wars Rebel Assault. We talked about kind of the laser disc thing earlier, where you're sort of not really interacting with the game. You're watching a video, and it's sort of late. Like, there's things laid on top of it, right? And when you played the game as a kid, right, everybody remembers the cutscenes.

Like, everybody's talking. It's Star Wars. I mean, the John Williams score, like, all the music, I'm blown up. It's bad acting Star Wars. Well, it has that weird thing where just the mouth is moving, right? It's kind of, I think a lot of people say, I loved Rebel Assault. it was probably like the first CD-ROM game or something and once again when you're running it as a demo

it looks fantastic it's like wow that's a really cool looking Star Wars game but then actually playing it once again you're not really playing much of a game wasn't the appeal that it was just the kind of the first real Star Wars footage in almost like a decade or so just it was like oh new Star Wars content there's no movies but here's some people in Star Wars outfits running around there is something to that

that was appealed there Not to me, but I mean I definitely bought and played it and I thought this isn't a very good game but it's more Star Wars and at that point, you know, it's like I was just starred for Star Wars content

See, I was so into Tie Fighter in the X-Wing games that I didn't I didn't buy Rebel assault when it came out I played it a few years later and oh my God, I'm so glad I waited. Yeah. Yeah, I watched a friend play like a level of this and that was enough to make me say

oh no I was hoping for something more like dark forces but I'm going to just hard pass on this I'll just keep reading Star Wars novels and that'll be my fix I can live without this yeah well you started Beggars Canyon right and it's like hey here's how you fly it's like I'm not really controlling much

here but I guess I'll just kind of go along for the ride so Rob did you at least bulls eye a womperat I you know I I just don't have enough metaclorians I can't I can't target How sad? Very sad.

You know, rebel assaults kind of like the courtship of Princess Leia of the Star Wars for you. Okay, wow. Let's not go there. I could have got worse. No, it's okay. I could have got worse.

So you're saying it's full of witches, writing rancors. You know, a cool idea that just was crap. Okay. All right. So on that note, I think maybe it's time to end.

There's clearly not much auction. she didn't left in this room. So, yeah, we're going to call it a night. But thank you, guys, for coming in and relieving your souls of this dark load. I'm sure it's a huge relief for both of you. It's a relief for me, likewise, for Bob, I'm sure. Get that urban champion monkey after that. Yeah, exactly.

I never have to talk about it again. We could go dub some more the toilet after this. And just think how much hate I'm going to get about my opinions on ghost and goblins, ultimate ghost and goblins all over again. It'll be like living the best of 2006. That was a great time. My grandfather just died and people were dogpiling me on the Internet. Who doesn't love that?

So, yeah, good to relive these memories. No, I hope you don't die. Thank you. I would like not to get AIDS, actually. I think about 2006 and that's when I started working at Zip, so that's a good year for me. No, no, I'm just saying, like, that game, like, brings up some rough times for me. me. So, yeah, anyway, I'm not a big fan. But, you know, I think it's good to kind of get these things off our chest.

And to say, like, sometimes the people that we love or the companies that we love make things that we don't. And, you know, I think it's also good that we were able to look and say, oh, something nice happened there even though I don't enjoy this. I can see where someone else might. Yeah. Especially some of these older games is, you know, let the memory be. the happy members you have, just leave it there. Don't replay anything I talked about today. You were 30 years younger back then,

and that was the way it should be. Yes. All right, thanks guys for stopping in. We'll do the close-up here and call tonight. I am Jeremy Parrish, as you might have heard at the beginning of the podcast, and you can find me on the Internet on Twitter as GameSpite.

Like I said, put in the Spite in Game, Spite. This is a rare instance of me actually doing that. And, of course, Retronauts itself, the podcast that you're listening to now, is at Retronauts.com and on iTunes. And we publish more than weekly. It's like weekly plus then on alternating weeks, we publish a second bonus episode. So it's like six or seven episodes a month. And if you would like to hear them a week early before the public feed and at a higher bitrate quality with no ads, You can support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash Retronauts.

For $3 a month, you get all those benefits. If you subscribe to us for a little bit more, there are different tiers and you can get things like books and T-shirts and stuff. It's pretty cool. You can even choose episode topics if you so choose to do so. So again, patreon.com slash retronauts. And you can also find some of my other projects on YouTube, look for NES works or Super NES works, virtual boy works, etc. where I go through chronologies of entire systems. Thanks in part to Steve, who is on many occasions lent me games to photograph and to cover for these archival projects.

So thank you, Steve, for that. If I may interject, the recent one he did on Section Z is really good. Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it. You all should, you know, give it a go. So, yeah, thank you. And Steve, tell us about you yourself. I'm Steve Lynn. You can find me at Stephen P. Lin on Twitter.

I am part of the Video Game History Foundation. You can find us at gamehistory.org. There is also a Patreon and a really active Discord channel as well where sometimes we dive deep into things like the most obscure, like dizzy references you can imagine. So lots of stuff in there. And yeah, thanks for the support. Yeah. And, you know, if you do have a couple dollars, you can throw the way to the game, to their history project. You should do it because it's really worth it.

And we're getting into a point now where some things that if we don't start getting off our butts and preserving them, they're going to be gone. Yeah. I'm Jason Wilson. I'm the managing editor at Games Beat, which is Venture Beats Gaming Channel. You can find me on Twitter at Jason underscore Wilson, where I promise not to be so cranky as I have been today. Hey, it's me, Bob Mackie. I have two of their podcasts. They're both about old things, but they're cartoons instead of video games.

So they are a weekly podcast. They're called Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon. So check those out wherever you listen to podcast, download them and enjoy them. But I also have a Patreon. If you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, we offer a ton of bonus content, exclusive mini-series, exclusive interviews, and lots and lots of bonus podcasts you can only get if you subscribe at the $5 level and up. So check it out if you enjoy me talking about things. You can hear me talk about other things you might like, and that's it for me. All right.

And we'll be back. Like I said, you know, we publish weekly and then some. So we'll be back in a few days. And I promise it'll be a more positive topic. We'll talk about things we like about video games. We just had to get this one off our chest. Thanks for joining us and enduring us. We had to endure these games, so I think it's only fair, right?

Right, all right. Now I'm going to go eat fried chicken and get rid of all these bad memories. You know what I'm going to do.