Retronauts - Retronauts Micro 046: 8-Bit Superhero Sampler - Superman and The Uncanny X-Men

Episode Date: September 5, 2016

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... some guy riding the subway! On this episode of Retronauts Micro, join Bob Mackey, Chris Antista, Henry Gilbert, and special guest Chris Baker as the crew dissects two of the earliest (and worst) superhero games the NES has to offer: Superman and The Uncanny X-Men. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com, and check out our partner site, USgamer, for more great stuff. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

Hello everybody, this is Bob Mackie, your host for this episode of Retronauts Micro, and I'm here to give a little preamble that is thankfully not a disclaimer this time. I just want to fill you in on what this episode is about. So anyhow, I recently asked the great Chris Baker to come in and talk about his ultimate prevailing speciality, and that is superheroes. He's swaying of Marvel stuff used to work for Marvel. Now it works for Gazillion, and he is the perfect guy to talk to if you're talking about superheroes, aside from our friend Henry Gilbert.

Anyhow, I intended for him to come in originally to talk about 8-bit superhero games, and he did exactly that, but I assumed it would only take about 20 minutes of his time. In fact, it took over an hour of his time, and instead of just making this one micro, I'm going to split it in half like King Solomon, but with all the baby murder, and I'm just going to make this two different micro episodes that will each be a little over half an hour. Now, I know you probably want to hear this as one episode, but I am in need of microcontents and this is perfect and if you don't like it well I'm sorry but normally a micro episode should be around 10 minutes that was the plan and these are much much much much

longer than that so I'm hoping that you will be understanding and enjoy this conversation I'm just splitting in half neatly as neat as I can and if you stick around past the credits I've got a great surprise for you that's a little fun and I think is something that you'll smile at so please enjoy this episode and thanks again to Chris Baker for coming out to the laser time Pedram Apartment and recording with us. Please enjoy. Hello, everybody. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackey.

Today's podcast topic is it's an 18. bit superhero sampler. That's what I'm naming it for now. We'll see if that changes when I think of a real title. Let's see who else is here today. Who is right here. Excelsia or Bobby. This is Chris Anteastern.

You, son of a... You stole somebody's catchphrase that he stole from somebody else. Hi. This is anybody but Stanley, you're stealing my bit. Hey, this is Henry Gilbert. It's collaborative. Usually the biggest comic book fan at a podcasting table, but maybe not today. No, you've been outclassed by our special, super special guest.

In terms of comic book fan, I don't know if I would claim that. But my name is Chris Baker. CB. I, uh, yeah. Chris is living the dream. And Chris, what is your role in life currently? Uh, currently I work at gazillion games, the creators of Marvel Heroes 2016. And I'm having Chris on this episode because he's in town, number one, but number two, he wrote a book called Wrong.

Retro games, you messed up our comic book heroes, which basically catalogs how badly retro games portray our favorite comic book guys and gals and everyone else on this show is going to know way more than me because like in terms of comic fandom I chose the I chose the you chose poorly cup in that I followed anime

and manga and everyone else followed the American comics so I'm now a skeleton watching anime and you guys are like Indiana Jones watching Superman I only know most of what I know now because of wrong Chris's book which is super fun man the screenshots are a lovely touch

what I didn't most of our friends write books and don't put in screenshots can't stand it got to have pictures and Chris you have a history in the games press correct can you go over that just so we know you're qualified to talk into this microphone I was at the official US PlayStation magazine from 2000 to 2004

nice I had some of those awesome demo discs yeah I did enjoy them I probably put it in there maybe you opened the magazine and sometimes all the time I read those things cover to cover and yeah so a lot of this comes from Chris's book, a lot of this comes from my own memories, but I do want to go over kind of like the most notable NES superhero games in just how, how they're mostly bad and how really just in

general, even if they are good, they're not capturing the essence of these superheroes. They're kind of just like, it's another game, but you're playing as Batman, or it's another game, but you're a Ninja Turtle for the most part. And I did want to start with Superman, 1987, a KEMCO game, and I'm going to start off by saying this, and no one is allowed to comment on this on the Retronauts blog or Neo-G Gaff or whatever. I'm going to say, this is the Dark Souls of Superman games. Now, everyone drink. And I want to say this because this game was baffling to me as a kid. My friend, Adam, had it. And I believe he would just sit down with this game for hours, just trying

to figure out how it worked. Like, nothing makes sense. Hitboxes don't function as they should. There's like a billion superpowers. You have to pay to fly. Yeah, and Chris Antista, you and I believe, Brett and probably Henry, too, you streamed Superman for the NES. We did. I also made a video that with the help of your book called, I think it's like stupid thing Superman does in games. It's great. Great video. Because there is a couple cases of him what needing to be kissed. Is it kissed

Lois Lane to get his life back? He kisses Lois Lane in the Atari 2,600 game. Which is barely like anything. Like it is four colors of splotches, no sound. She does move her leg in the air. Which at the time actually was

kind of an innovation. There were really games that had character animations. You can only make out like a stick with a pillbox head. Well, I think it was also like, wasn't it the first game that paused, wasn't it the first? Yeah, it did a lot of like It's the first superhero game, right? Yeah, it's Superman, and it's also the

first game that ever came out around the time of a movie. Right. But as far as the NES game goes, what movie is this based on, because there's like Zod in it at times, and I believe it's tied in Superman 2 maybe?

Like, what is the story behind this NES game? Does it like relevant to any movie or Superman product in existence? It is obviously inspired by Superman 2. Okay, too, that's right. but it's not like a Superman 2 video game. No. And I have to say this, Chris,

like your book gave me context for this game that explains everything. So, I mean, it's an NES game and early NES game from 1987. Everything is very squat, very cute. And I'm like, I saw the character designs in your book

and I'm like, oh, I totally get what this is. This is like the gag manga version of Superman. Because if you look at the back of the Japanese box, which I found online, you can see a normal Superman turning into a squat like manga character. So that's the entire premise of this,

game I think in Japanese it makes more sense. Like this is sort of like a weird parody sendup of Superman where it's like kind of like a humorous take on Superman, which I don't think was communicated at all in the American version. It's definitely lost in translation. It's like mature Superman is on the cover. But then when you start the game, it's like Cheeby Statue of Liberty is talking to you and telling you what to do and telling you you are Clark Kent as if you didn't know. Yes. And if you get hit enough, you become Clark Kent as if you're Arthur and Goson Goblins. Exactly. Yes. Your suit falls off. Well, you have to go to like the shipping, the shipyard to fight the Chinese gangs

and then they turn into ghosts and you do have to take the subway so getting around is the hardest part like because the game doesn't want you to fly everywhere there's certain places only accessible by with Superman. It's a very Japanese point of view like of course you'll take the

train to go to the next part of Metropolis why wouldn't you? It's a jarring sequence because he's so much smaller than everybody on the subway everyone else on the subway is a good two feet and he reaches their shins at the most I think size. They're like, you know, they have like normal people dimensions

and Superman does not. Yeah, it makes no sense. Man, what else was silly about this? Well, and he climbs ladders. That's what you're ruining my Superman's stupid things he does in video games. Superman climbing ladders is like the most, the most wasted sprites I can possibly think about. It's so

unnecessary. And yeah, that he changes back to Clark Kent when he takes enough damage. So they're like, ruining his secret identity. And yeah, I think the cover does of the American version, it sells you, this is Superman. Like, this is the Superman

you see in comics. It's, I believe it is like classic art they get out of like the design book for, there's this amazing thing of just, it was an internal document at DC in the early 80s of this is how you draw every character.

And it's where they get, if you see licensed pictures of DC heroes and they look like they're from the early 80s, like they look kind of retro, they're straight out of that book because the character designs are just perfect. And so it's out of there too, but

in the case with all of the games we're going to talk about today, they all are a lie. Like the cover lies to you. A total complete lie. Some of the best box art and most deceitful. Yes. And it's cruel. Superman rarely flies in this game. It's sort of

like a fast travel option. You have to unlock, I believe. And instead of flying, like I think just everybody just jumps 30 feet in the for no reason. Even Clark Kent just jumps everyone can jump feet in the air. At least five times. It's like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon almost in terms of like the wire foo happening. The only way I can explain this game

is the name Kempco. Yeah. Because they have been in charge of some of my favorite characters ever and made the absolute worst. The biggest abominations ever. Are we talking about Crazy Castle, Chris? Crazy Castle, Roger Rabbit, Donald Duck game. Like, they're all disgusting.

They're all my, like, I don't know. Superman's my favorite superhero because he was the first one I ever knew about. I grew up when the movie was coming out. In doing research on this, I found out that the Japanese version's music is based on the original soundtrack where the American version's music is they just took music from another Kempco game. So I think like, there was no concern over rights at this time or anything. So they were like, uh, maybe we shouldn't do this.

Let's play it safe. But in Japan, it was like, who cares? No one will ever play this. No one's going to fly over to our country and tell us what. Let's use the John Williams music. And is it John Williams for Superman? Yeah. And like, who cares?

But I imagine that would cost like millions today. to even get away with that. I mean, I would bet in the late 80s, they were starting to get the idea of like, wait, this is licensing. Like, somebody could sue us. Yeah, nobody ever asked. I just happened to have beaten Ghostbusters 2.

Oh, Jesus Christ. And that Jackie Thomas, your love is lifting me higher song, is very much chip-tunified in the final level. And I'm sure nobody asked permission. Just like in Wayne's World had Bohemian Rhapsody. The game version, yes. And I don't think Queen got a penny of that,

of that S-NES MIDI money. That's why you can't buy that game now Meanwhile, like good old games Can re-release those Disney games Because Disney is the interactive Just says... Yeah, I have a whole video explaining why those exist It's only different in that

They made PC ports no one's ever heard of And they dump the PC ports On to Gogh because you can never play this on consoles Like how people got Final Fantasy 7 or Sonic CD Because they have the PC version Not necessarily, but when you do a like a straight-up rom-dump on PC, you don't have to go through certification, ESRB, QA, it'll never be on consoles.

Like, no one's going to pay to have that game shipped up for consoles. But yeah, that's Superman game so bad. Like, Superman's never had a good game. And that isn't even the worst Superman game. No, by far, it's not. Not even the third worst. And as bad as it is, and maybe Chris might agree with me on this. I feel like it's like a very ambitious game for being...

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I mean, like, so many powers are represented. And it's funny, like, They understand people made this game. They understand they're not very good at making games. So even in the instruction book, it's like, well, I have X-ray vision. Why can I see through buildings? Oh, yeah, Lex-Luther lined all the buildings with lead.

So you can only use X-ray vision to see invisible enemies. Yeah, X-ray vision is only for seeing invisible enemies in this game. And Lex-Luther, by the way, looks kind of like Popeye. Yeah. Like a cheapy Popeye is what he looks like in this game. The graphics are wretched and awful, like sub-SMB-1, Super Mario Brothers 1. But if you, like the image of in your book of the original character designs are actually very cute. Like I would watch an anime of like Cheeby Superman in his adventures.

It's very, very cute. But they just couldn't get a guy to draw those as sprites. It just, it's pretty bad. It starts off so well with the, a cutesy Superman standing next to a cutesy statue of liberty. Like, that's beautiful. Like, I actually love that shot. And it's just all downhill from there. And I'll say, too, when I was a kid, I played this game.

And the idea that it was bad never crossed my mind. Really? I mean, I agree. I thought I was like, am I just stupid? This game is too complicated for me. Maybe when I get older, I'll appreciate Superman N.S. I have the same thing with one of the other games on the list. But this one I didn't play until a year ago, and I was just, my mouth was agape.

What is this? Why? But Chris, I believe one of your roles as like a Marvel liaison is a Marvel, correct? I work at Gazillion. Okay. I mean, your former role, I'm sorry, was the Marvel liaison sort of to make sure everything was right, which is where this book sort of came from, right? Chris has actually filled out all his credit hours at, like, Geek University. Yes, exactly.

Like, LucasArts. I worked for Star Wars as well. Yeah. At LucasArts. But, yeah, but I mean, your job was to make sure, like, oh, this has to be correct. Yes. This has to be, like, canonical. But in this game, like, even they don't get the name of the Daily Planet right.

It's Daily Planets. Daily Planets. I mean, there was not a Chris Baker figure to, like, smack their hand in 1987. I'm... ...theren't... ...you're... ...and... ...and...

...you... ...and... ...with... ...and... ...the... ...and... ...and... I take a Christmas private child

So he couldn't have stepped in But yes So that was Superman I do want to talk about The uncanny X-Men Which is 1988 As someone who only discovered The X-Men in the 90s

I feel like they really took off For my generation With that cartoon I feel like I didn't even know What the X-Men were In 88 So the X-Men

The history of the X-Men was They were unpopular in the 60s They were like The low-level B book For Marvel in the 70s But then in the early 80s, it started to ramp up in popularity, but it was still never like, it was a, it didn't even get to be a monthly book until like 83 or something. And then by the 90s, it had become the

hottest book at Marvel because, I think partially because it got to be away from the major books that the more protective editors were in charge of. So they hired, it also became the book where the superstar artists were on. I was going to ask about that, like the pre-image rock star artists that kind of made books into what they were. If they weren't Todd McFarlane on Spider-Man, all the other, or Eric Larson, pretty much every other image founder came through an X book. Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, Rob Leifeld, Wiles Portasio, I just forget how to pronounce the name.

They all came through the... No one will call you on. They all came through the mutant books. And so by 91, X-Force and X-Men had launched with number one. ones and they had become some of the highest selling books of all time. The comic book bubble was expanding it would certainly never burst.

No way. It'd only get bigger. And then at the same time as that happened, then Marvel makes a deal with OGN. No, I was going to say Saban to make the cartoon. Saban. But right before that, they make the deal for the uncanny X-Men game.

And if you look at the cover, it's like the 89 X-Men. It's right before they become the blue and gold superstars that Jimley redesigned in X-Men number one, right? Mr. Baker? I would agree with that. Yeah, an interesting kind of thing I actually just noticed

doing my own kind of re-research to remind myself of all the stuff I wrote a year and a half ago. I identified as 1988 in the book. I looked on Wikipedia. It says 1989, but the copyright date is 88. The actual cover and

back, say 88. I think Do you have a good resource for, like, NES dates? Because everybody's wrong on the internet. There's no resource. Very few things have definitive dates. I think, like... That's the thing. The movies from the 30s have definitive dates.

I mean, it was a big deal when Sonic 2 came out, like, we need a street date. We need a date. People will pick this up. That, like, Mortal Monday. These, like, in the early 90s, that was the first time they were, like, real street dates that people could, like, set their watch to. Though, I did love that in the, this is a little bit of a tangent here. But I did love that in the console wars book where they talk about how, was like, it's Sonic Tuesday, but then Sega of Japan was just like, yeah, we're putting it

out three days early. And they have to just say like, the president of Sega of America was just like, fine. And they had to act like it was no big deal. It ruined their international launch day. The world was a lot smaller than even, even like 20 years ago. But yeah, I believe 88. Like, again, that cover is so like old X-Men to me. Yeah.

But it was also like such a lie to me. That was when I realized video game covers lied to me because I became a big comic book fan in like 91 or 92. And that was one of the first like comic book games I rented was was uncanny X-Men. And I was like, well, this cover tells me I'm going to play the comic book will come to life. Of course. I'm sure Retronauts has done plenty of look into LJN. Yes. In fact, Chris, you helped us with Brett a few years ago on the Jaws Friday the 30th episode.

And we found out LJN stands for Louis Jane. Norman. Lewis J. Norman, video game extraordinary. You need a video game? I am there. To me, it's let's just not. I've never heard that, but that's amazing. Because every one of their box covers

is astonishing. Yes. And every single property they have are my favorite things from that year. Freddie Kruger, Jaws, Jason, Back to the Future, and Roger Rabbit, everything ruined. And it's all contracted out to just random development houses. This was made by us. In fact, if you just gets a

child in Australia. Yeah, like a teenager. This is like some studio named Pixel who only made garbage made this game. But this is the last interactive entertainment game, which we covered in that episode, You're on, Chris. There was like back to the future. Jaws and Friday the 13th, maybe a few more. But a claim bought LGN shortly afterwards if you want to know what their credentials were or how valuable they were. But this game, I didn't play much of it. It was never available when I was a kid, but it's like, okay, you have six mutants, but three shoot and three punch. That's your variety. And you And using their powers, depletes their health, because that's how mutants work, I guess.

And they brought that into the world. There's so much wrong with this game. Actually, starting with the name of the game. What is the official name? Just the uncanny X-Men? I think. Okay. Because that's what's on the cover.

But if you look on the side, it's X-Men. If you boot the game up, it's Marvel's X-Men. I see. There's, like, three different names you could call this game. A lot of online resources call it Marvel's X-Men because they're going off of emulators, and they don't have the... Oh, yeah. Yeah, they don't have the actual box, but I always go with the thing that's on the front of the box. The uncanny X-Men.

Yeah, and this game has some cool features that aren't really taken advantage of. Like, there's a level select, but it's not like a cool, like, Dr. Wiley, choose your robot master thing. It's just like a black menu with white text, like you're choosing, like, Chinese takeout or something. Like, I want level two. Yeah, exactly. No, and each character is basically like a pixel square, like a different pixel square. They can't do anything, but when they use their powers, it only hurts them, which any, like, person who's read one X-Men comic knows Wolverine's power is to heal, not be hurt, and using your

claws, the coolest thing hurts, and that is hardly the last X-Men game to do that either. But the claws are just like a little, like a flash of an equal sign. Yeah, it's like four pixels. I think it's debatable whether they're actually close there. I could be the solo Wolverine game, but it's the same principle he's hurt every time he uses his clause. And that game I do remember, oh, I remember my friend Earl unwrapping it at a

Pizza Hut birthday party. And I'm like, man, you got to let me borrow that as soon as you're done with it. One week. One week later, here you go. And like, don't give it back. The only character you can play as is Nightcrawler, because Nightcrawler's ability is to like break the game. Yeah. And go and like move through the level. He bamps

around. He bamps around. It's all about walls because it's a top down, like, it's almost like smash TV or whatever a little bit, but it Way worse. It's kind of a gauntlet, which is kind of X-Men Legends. Everybody loves X-Men Legends, so why do they like this? They eventually figured it out, but yeah, again, it's another Lewis-J-Norman signature game

that is best forgotten. Oh, welcome. I think Jaws could be the only good one. Friday the 13th is okay. Another interesting thing about the level select you mentioned is that you can play every level that's listed there and not beat the game. What? because there is a secret code

that unlocks Magneto's level which is the actual last level of the game and you have to know the secret code so you can't access it through like normally playing no Jesus yeah I don't know how I don't know how you would have known it's kind of like in Castlevania too where you have to equip

the jewel and then kneel at that one certain spot yeah in the Genesis game which I think is probably not very good you have to reset the Genesis to actually be the game, I think. There's like a weird like a metal gear kind of twist, but this is not at all similar, I'm taking it.

Somewhere within like four feet of us, I have the original poster that came with that game. I mean, great graphics, a great poster. It's an amazing poster. Yeah, I'd say the worst sin that Uncanny X-Men commits is that there are lots of other bad comic book games, but they at least recognize, like,

you're paying for this to see these colorful characters and control them, and you want to see them. like there were bad there were bad X-Men games on the Genesis but they at least looked like their characters and they did their stuff like Gambit did Gambit stuff here they're just ugly stamps

on the screen so you don't even get the enjoyment of seeing that it's pretty hideous and it's just like Captain America and the Avengers the Data East NES port at least it only squanders the potential of Captain America the X-Men game sullies five people for no reason

yeah like how is this like in terms of the lineup how is this different than the Konami Arcade game which would come a few years later. Well, the Konami Arcade game takes, it takes it directly from the failed pilot pride of the X-Brit. Right, yeah. And so... Boy, I'm Wolverine.

And I'd say that's the early... It's an amalgamation of early 80s X-Men lineups because you got Cyclops leading the newer class of the giant-sized X-Men. But then this one kind of is a mash-up of those in that you've got the leftovers from the 70s, but I think there's... It's a solid.

is there like dazzler or there's no dazzler okay colossus night crawler ice man uh you know it's all storm they're all like real yeah they're the ones you kind of stuck around as the more popular x-men they're the core ones you definitely want like in who were alive at the time in the comics and storm has a cool mohawk on the cover i love yeah i love her mohawk era like she that was a really good time for storm first she lost her powers and then shaped her head and she still beat Cyclops to lead the X-Men when she was powerless and then she got her powers back

and kept her Mohawk for a little bit and that was one of the better parts of X-Men Apocalypse that she got to keep like it was Mohawk Storm in the film too. So there was a Wolverine game I'm not sure of the year on that, maybe Chris knows but I don't know if it was any better or if it was taking advantage of like sort of the Wolverine

I feel like Wolverine was like Taz in the 90s where I was like the coolest cartoon character ever. I will actually say I got into X-Men through the cartoon. Oh yeah, me too. me want to play these two games. I played Wolverine first. I played through it. I beat it. It's just a side-scroller, though, right? It's just a side-scroller, yeah, and you do pop your claws

and you lose like three bars of health. You collect cigars to power up? I hope not. No, you collect hamburgers. Oh, thanks. And so it does. It's like Phoenix, right? I like the music in this game for some reason. It's beautiful music. And I actually, you know, from a gameplay perspective, the, uh, do I just punch them normally or do I lose health to punch them with my claws is actually a good system that kind of works from a gameplay level it just does not represent

the character well at all I also remember the sprite of him swimming is so like weird looking It's like doing like a bullfrog Kind of like It's one of the few things Wolverine can't do Yeah is that true does he sink

He's made of Adamantium medal He's he's shit He sinks I didn't know that okay So I will say also about the Uncanny X-Men That is literally the very first game I ever played where I was like this is bad

this is a bad game and I don't like it I'm going to stop it and I'm going to take it right back to Blockbuster I feel like I dodged a bullet because I was like these X-Men sound so cool but no one will rent me

this game so I feel like somebody was looking down to me some Guardian Angel was like swatting it off the shelf and like pushing me towards Bubble Bob or something like that Get Mega Man 3 do that instead of that you like Mega Man

you like Mega Man So that was the first half of our superhero sampler. I hope you enjoyed it. And the next one will be up in about a month, so please look forward to that. And before I go, I did want to play the clip that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode. And it comes from one Eric Nagel from It's Eric Nagel show on Sirius XM Radio. It turns out that Eric is a big fan of Talking Simpsons, my other podcast, and we recently gotten to touch with him, and we're on a show to talk about Talking Simpsons.

And it was there that he let me know he's also a big fan of Retronauts, and he listens to Retronauts regularly, so hi, Eric, if you're listening. And recently he had Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul on his show, who played Jesse Pinkman. He's also in a lot of other stuff, and Retronauts somehow entered the discussion, and it's not really a conversation about Retronauts, or really something that was on Retronauts. I just thought it was interesting that Jesse Pinklin was made to talk about retro games by Eric, and we came up briefly. So that's the clip. Thanks again to Eric for sending it to me and talking about us on his show, and I'll let the clip play, and we'll see you next time with a brand new full-length episode of Retronauts.

See you then. I mean, the good thing about the Final Fantasy stories, they have epic stories. Like, they're so good, and the characters are so well developed, and they always have just this great story arc. Yeah. There's, you know, a really good beginning and middle and the end is always just like heartbreaking in a way. It is heartbreaking. It's called Final Fantasy. Like every game doesn't really end on a, hey, that was a well note.

Do you know why it's called Final Fantasy? I just found out. Isn't that so great? It's so, well, let's see if it's the same answer. I was listening to our friends over at Retronauts who do the classic video game podcast. And they were talking about the first Final Fantasy. And apparently it was the last ditch effort of the production company. They're like, this is just going to be the last game we put out.

So it's going to be the first game. Final Fantasy of what we're doing. The name had nothing to do with the game. It was just like their last dream. You know what? Yeah, exactly. This is our Final Fantasy. Right.

And then it just took off. Took off. 15 games later. Right. Billion dollar franchise. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. That's doing the blind Hail Mary, you know, throw. Exactly.

Let's just see what it does. We're out of time. Oh my God, he caught it. We're millionaires. I think 110 or 115 million units. Yeah. Thank you.