The 40k Lorecast - Bonus Episode - Retro Recall with John and Tom

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Double Dragon 2 is a classic of the Nintendo Entertain System. Are our memories correct? Is it still fun after 30 years? Let's find out.YoutubeSpotifyOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Pebl: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Shopify: https://shopify.com/loreAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey everyone, this is John. You likely don't know, but I started another show called Retro Recall. It's a podcast for visiting the video games of my youth to kind of enjoy the magic and fun of them all. I'm doing it with Tom from the Fallout lore cast and the Lord of the Rings lorecast. It's available on both podcasting platforms, but more importantly, it's available on YouTube as it's a quite visual show. Give it a listen, and if you like it, all the links below to our YouTube and Spotify to hear more. Thanks. Have a great day. Billy and Jimmy Lee are ready to avenge the death of Billy's girlfriend, Marion. Way to be a solid bro, Jimmy.

Could at least act like you care? Get over it. And embark on a quest of punching, kicking, harder punching, bigger kicking, throwing two buttons guys, A and B. Actually, in retrospect, though, this game is a pretty solid inspiration for Street Fighter 2. If you look at some of the moves, but more on that later, that's not all. If you are going on a chewing gum and kicking ass mission without any chewing gum, How would you dress for the occasion? Well, obviously, you'd do it in jorts and a jean vest.

How else could you get the proper flexibility and range of motion for all those kicks, punches, punches, bigger kicks, and bigger punches? What kind of footwear would you choose? Wrong, barefoot. Anyone who spent time in a pre-nuclear war in New York City can tell you, the only way to truly experience that city is barefoot. So join them as they kick-ass, tick names, and likely contract tetanus amongst other things.

fighting through such incredible early 90s topics as post-nuclear war in New York City, a helicopter with a broken door, an undersea base, an evil forest, and an even more evil, evil mansion, all to finally fight a final boss who may make zero sense whatsoever, but it's still fun as hell. So, John, you made me play Double Dragon 2, and so now we're here to talk about it. This is the thing we're doing. You play it. I granted you the great luxury of re-experiencing double dragon two.

Right, right. You had probably forgotten about. And now it's back. Right, right. So, yeah, so thanks for that. Yeah, I'm tearing these guys up. Oh, thanks for that. Yeah, so you and I've been playing Double Dragon Two, and now we're doing this show.

Now, this was your idea, right? So, like, you want to explain what we're doing here for everybody? Yeah. So this is the whole idea here is let's go back and revisit these games of our youth. Because we all spent incredible amount of hours in a basement, you know, wherever it was in the house, the TV was that had the Nintendo or Super Nintendo, whatever it was playing these games. And much like a lot of old TV shows, you have these really strong, in my opinion, positive memories of these games. This is the thing I remember because if you jump off of here and they hit you, you fall down the hole. and then you lose a life.

So I'm definitely not going to do that. And I think that despite the graphics, despite the lack of buttons you can press, I think these games are still just as fun today as they were back then for us. I'm not sure if you were 14. Your first was like Nintendo Switch. You're like, why?

Why did you ever play this? But I think it's awesome. And these games really were fun. Maybe not all of them, but some of them were very, very fun. and hilarious. Right. So, okay.

So that's what we're doing here. And you and I, and so you're John, I'm Tom, so everybody knows our names. And we're going to figure out if these old games hold up. And we're starting with Double Dragon 2. That's not fair. And I think everyone needs to know. For no reason, by the way. For no reason.

Randomly, yeah. You were just like, hey, let's play Double Dragon 2. We both played it when we were kids. And you and I are not completionists. We're not speed runners. In fact, until recently, we hadn't even played. played this game in like 35 years or something, right? Yeah.

I mean, I don't, I don't think I play. I know I had not played this game since well before the internet was available for me. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. And then I think I played it within like the first year or two. It was out. And then I probably never played it after that ever again.

Exactly. Yeah. So, okay, so that's what we're doing. We're going to find out, does this hold up? Also, because you dragged me in here, I gave you a challenge. And I wanted to see who, which of us could get further in the game. Like, this isn't the only thing we did.

Of course, we played a lot of the game. But then we went back and gave one attempt to see how far we could get before we got hit or killed. And we're going to reveal who won and lost that at the end of the episode. And the loser had to play one of the worst NES games ever. This is the punishment. And you're going to get to see whoever lost suffer through some of that real quickly at the end of the episode. So that's that's coming up. But before that, we're going to cover some other fun stuff.

We're going to go over some fun facts. You're going to hear some of our reactions. They'll be intercut into the episode. And then there's also, you know, just little stories and things we'll tell as we go. So here, let's get into it. You have prepared what, a bunch of actual facts about Double Dragon 2? Let's go into. So Double Dragon 2 was released in the U.S.

January 15th, 1990. So the number one song in America when this was released was another day in Paris. by Phil Collins. And I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what that song sounds like. You don't know. Oh, my God. I can play that song in my head because I think I hear it in Publix every time I go to the grocery store.

Oh, God. Yeah. I probably know it. I just don't know the name. It's one of the way. If you played it, like, oh, yeah, of course I'm aware of that. Yeah. It's not the one with the cool drum solo, the drum solo, that do, do do do.

That's in the air tonight, which was like a decade before that. It's like chill older Phil Collins. Oh, okay. Okay. The holiday you repair it. I can't do Phil Conno. You get it. You get it.

So this is just to kind of help people until what was going on the time. Cool thing. The movie Tremors was released almost within a week of this game coming out. Hulk Hogan defeated Mr. Perfect in the Royal Rumble. So good luck Googling all of that. John McEnroe also became the first player to ever be kicked out of the Australian Open for what was the correct call on the part of. The judge.

Okay. Okay. Did you, do you, did you watch tremors as a kid? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember, I think I watched it at like, some friends and we got together and somebody rented the VHS of it. And I remember being kind of actually scared. Like, as like, you watch it today and it's super goofy and it's like the effects don't hold up.

Run! And no one knows. Forums or suckers or suckoids. This valley is just one long smorgas board. But as a kid, I was just like, oh. Oh my God. This is terrifying. Yeah, I have, I've seen that movie way too many times, if I'm being completely honest. And I reference it more than I probably should.

I don't know why. Yeah. I also have friends of mine who are very envious of the couple's gun collection. Okay. And they're working actively to copy it. So good for them. Sure. Yeah.

But Double Dragon 2 obviously is a sequel to Double Dragon 1. Both of them were originally arcade games. Double Dragon One came coming out in 1987 in the arcade and then porting over to Nintendo in 1988. We didn't cover it because it doesn't look very good, as you can see here. It was just, it was heinous. Double Dragon II was released in 1988 in the arcade, but two years later came to NES. And this was good because it actually was ported over well. it looks good, the graphics hold up.

Although they did actually change some of the story a little bit, namely changing the final boss, which is weird. Yeah. The final boss had a gun, which seems like cheating when all I have is my hands and my feet. Right. Right. Whatever. Additionally, the game was a massive success.

They sold over a million copies from the first year. It's actually one of the most successful launches Nintendo had. It was well reviewed, although this is an era where when I say well, reviewed, there is no reviewing companies, guys. There's all the people we go to today to look for game reviews, most of them came into existence in the late 90s. So when I say well reviewed, someone's older brother told you it was a cool game. Yeah, or yeah, there wasn't really the internet and there were a few magazines, but they were

also, there were things like Nintendo Power, which was basically just marketing material for Nintendo. So of course, they were going to review things well. to take the review from the company that made the game and makes all the money from it telling you this game's awesome it's the old line of like it's like your mom telling you that you're pretty it's nice yeah yeah exactly i got a grade in the curve games actually pretty simple though the part the reason i really and nostalgic to a lot of these games by the way is these games were quick i think i did a full play-through of the game in a little over an hour versus today where you buy a game and if it doesn't have 40 hours of play We're like, oh, this thing's tiny. This game is short, nine stages. Right. That's it.

And although you did have to play on the hardest difficulty to get the real ending. Right. I do like that about this. That was something that's a Nintendo invention, which, because we didn't have 100% completion scores. Right. Also, it was originally an arcade game. And so the difficulty on arcade games was supposed to be harder because that would make you put more coins in. But then by like 90, whatever year this was that you said,

By 1990, Nintendo had figured out that people didn't want the difficulty of an arcade game because they didn't have to keep putting coins in. They just wanted to be able to get through the game. So this is a little bit easier than some of the games that came earlier, but it's still difficult enough that if you don't play it well in cheese, some of the bosses, you're not going to make it to the end, and then you'll have to start at the beginning. You have to play over again or whatever. No.

How come I can't reach him with my... This dude, are you kidding? Are you freaking kidding me? That's how they kind of patted out the experience in those old games. So one thing that's fun about these games is you had an A button and a B button. Yeah, there were two buttons on the controller, which sounds crazy today. Because, hey, oh, we bought new controllers to play all these retro games. I got the new Pro 3, 8Bick Doe.

I want to say do, but I think people say, Do you know it's something earlier I've got right one you can also use an Xbox controllers yeah yeah but yeah but but look how many buttons look at all the buttons that's insane any of them but two just two two buttons and they do a lot with those two buttons so so like to their credit I was skeptical going into this but because so many things come back to me playing these old games whoa okay the final boss of level three is treadmill with a big hole in the middle we want you to be able to do lots of moves, but you only have two buttons. So you can push one button,

you push the other button, you push both buttons at the same time, you hit buttons while you are in a specific position, and then you do an uppercut because you're crouching, and then like all of those little details. So you do the knee thing, and then you do like the spin kick, if you click it in the middle of the air. So they were very creative in their way of actually utilizing the controller to give you more options, which I thought was really cool. And I kind hadn't even thought about in 35 years. Well, yeah, because we're so used to it today. I mean, that's what makes these games funny as it is.

It is like you have one button for punch and kick. Yeah, you got to turn away. Which one you're doing. Yeah, you look away from the enemy to kick, which it was like, wait a minute. Was this a thing? By the way, if I want to kick you, I kick you when you're behind me. All right, punk rock lady. Kick.

Kick you in the go nads. In the lady nads. There's something very action movie about that, by the way. if you watch it because the, and the hero was always fighting someone from the front. And someone sneak up behind them and they would yeah, real quickly. Yeah. Go back to the fighting in the front. Or like Ninja Turtles, the Ninja Turtles movie.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, all that stuff. But that's where all this is. You were limited. And I think, too, we should mention on these games is I went and pulled it. So on my computer, I have cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is 84 gigabytes on my computer.

Yes. The game that we're reviewing here is 257 kilobytes. Kilibytes. Kilibytes. Kilibytes. Which means from a coding standpoint, for anyone here who codes or who don't code, you know this, you have to have actually a really tight code to make it fit in 257 and not have errors. Because if you give me unlimited code, I can have fun extra bits.

So every piece of this game was actually rather meticulously made in order to have it functioned way it does. This is, if this looks hard, it is. Right, right. And on one of those old cartridges, if you had games that were larger, by 1990 they could make the games that were larger, but they had to have more chips in the cartridge, which would cost the manufacturing more, which means they'd get less profit. So being efficient with their code was a profit-saving measure. I mean, we're talking about a time where, I mean, I don't want to go into the cost of a floppy disc but yeah they were not cheap yeah yeah and that's where we get into some MS DOS games we can talk about that but it is and so that's what these games they didn't have as much because even with the buttons

you mean how hard you press down on the jump button determined how far you jump this is really just I mean we saw that today obviously but this was yeah mind changing for a lot of people yeah it was it was innovative for its time for sure but I still stand by this game also I'll be can the reason I told time to play this first is this is a game I owned as a child and I actually had beaten as a child and I really did love it. And I was excited to go back and see what happened when I went to play it again with a lot of fear, if I'm being honest, about like, hey, this thing I loved as a kid is going to be horrible. It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't own it, but my story is, especially during the summers, my mom would take us, my brother and I,

who's a year and a half younger than I am, so we were close in age. We would go to the video rental store. And you could rent a game for a dollar for seven days for a week. So all summer long, every week, we'd go back to the store and rent another game. And both of us got to pick a game. So Double Dragon 2 was one of those games that I think we rented multiple times. These guys are thinking they're bad dudes here. Because we liked it a lot, but I didn't own it. And so there was definitely a point in time where I absolutely never played it anymore.

And I just want to, I mean, just the nostalgia I have right now for you just described is awesome. of like going to a store picking a game out based on its box art, by the way. Yeah, it's not like you. Well, we had to go off of it. It's like, I'll be honest. I mean, my 40s now. This is kind of how I buy wine. I think it's basically the same system when you're now.

I'm like, I don't know. This one's probably good. They put effort into the label. Yeah. But that's how we would buy or buy or rent video games. And it was rentals. You're going there like, I don't know what they're going to have. And sometimes you went home with something that was either.

impossible cough cough battle toads or just terrible cough cough lots of them right right or you trusted the nintendo seal of approval and that didn't always that didn't always mean it was good it was supposed to mean it was like oh this is one of the better ones but didn't always yeah some of the and i mean also truth is and we're going to review some other games guys i mean some of these games were light years hard yeah you go back and it's just like what yeah we've already played a number of them because we've been like working on future episodes. But yeah, like you've mentioned a few times. Well, I got, I got so far and I had to put in a cheat code in order to keep going.

I did cheat because I can't, I can't beat this. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm an adult person. I have, I have a family. I have a child and I'm getting wrecked by something that's 257 kilobytes. Right, right. And decades of experience playing other games.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I am not the person. I'm not the nine-year-old who was playing this game. I am, no, yeah, still, I got nothing. Yeah, I got nothing. Yeah, some of these games are incredibly hard. But let's talk about Double Dragon 2 and what makes it awesome. So, yeah, what makes this awesome?

Tell me, tell me about what makes this awesome. First of, it's an 80s action movie. It is everything 80s about it. You have two characters, you play one of them, and they just are going on a ass-kicking mission of punching things. That's all it is. It's everyone I meet. I'm punching in the face or kicking in the face.

That's it. You also have random spikes on everything. Right. Just to watch me, it was my mind. Which is weird because the Warriors movie was in the 70s, but same general concept where we're going to put random spikes on our clothing. Yeah. And everyone is wearing, this was true 80s, the tightest things possible.

I mean, it is tight pants after tight pants after tight pants after tight. pants the whole way through. Right, right. And it's in gaudy colors. Like, that's the other thing. It's like, these are bad ass, like, gang members. And all of a sudden they show up in like bright, vibrant colors. And it's, no, it was the 80s.

That was fine for the 80s. So, okay. Yeah. And what I like is if you get into some of the 90s games, you don't see full Jenko jeans, but we start seeing some of the outfits change a little bit where the clothes get a lot looser. Right. I do wish at least one person in the game was wearing an 80 style sweater.

but we didn't get that lucky. Although there is a guy and a member's only jacket. So I'm going to cover him shortly. Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. Nice.

But speaking of that, you do the entire game in jorts and a gene vest, and I'm pretty sure barefoot. It is 8 bit guys. It's tricky. Yeah. Shows. Yeah.

We keep laughing about this. And I keep going between, okay, is he actually in jorts? And he's just wearing flesh-colored boots? Like these are supposed to be tan or brown or something? Or are, does he have like jeans that are tucked into his boots and he's wearing boots? But there's only so many pixels. You can't really tell.

Yeah, I think he's barefoot. And the reason I think he's barefoot is because I watched a lot of 80s fighting movies. And everyone was always barefoot because somehow it was a belief that you were able to fight better without shoes on. And there is some semblance of truth to that. You know, the UFC, they don't wear shoes anymore. but that also might just be because they don't want people kicking him on the face with shoes on. I actually spoke to the matchmakers about that. But, you know, it's just one of things.

But yeah, they are. He definitely is not wearing gloves. That much is very clear. That's true. Or sleeves. Right. Those two were clear. Right.

And in some of the box art, he has tape on his wrists, like the brothers, have tape on the wrist, but not on the hands. Yeah, also I love that. So I should mention that I did tie boxing for many years. And I do love the idea that these people taped up there. wrist so they wouldn't spring in their wrist but didn't predict a single knuckle because those are going to be just fine i don't it doesn't matter knuckles are hard is steel yeah these are well they are you know billy and jimmy lee they're job they have a lot of experience this is all calluses apparently

just not so works but i like the idea i guess so yeah yeah yeah and in every it's it's like the karate kid right like this idea of like this these younger guys somehow can take on in this entire now obviously the karate kid does not take on an entire gang he gets his butt kicked a lot until the end of the movie. Well, I'm taking more big trouble, little China. Yeah. I think this is supposed to be more like is like just, all right, I'm just going to, I'm starting here and I'm going there and everyone in between, I'm punching in the face.

Right. Right. And yet somehow at, I don't know, I mean, these guys are supposed to be really young. They're supposed to be like brothers who, you know, like 18, 20 years old, something like that. And yet somehow they have these like steel fists that have been punching faces for years. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, why wouldn't that work?

I mean, that's what, uh, Dutt and Dutch, duck, uh, the guy from Bloodsport. It's duck or Dutch. It's one of those. I don't remember. Whoever Jean-Claude Van Damme? I want to say, no, it's Dutch. Is it Dutch?

Is it Dutch? Is it Dutch? I'm so bad at names. I'm so bad at names. I've just seen it. I can picture him in my head, but I can't tell you the name. Yeah. 80s movies, some of them, like, if I've seen it, I haven't seen it once.

That's kind of how I explain anything from that era. It's like I've either not seen it. Like my wife is still mad. I've never seen dirty dancing. Never seen it. But I've seen Commando dozen, two dozen. So it's just...

Yeah, I had a girlfriend. I had a girlfriend in high school and Dirty Dancing was her favorite movie and she made me watch it with her and then I had to explain to her the themes of the movie were about the woman becoming more sexually liberated throughout the film.

So what are you trying to tell me? And she was like, no, stop. And I'm like, that's what the film is. But anyway. One same with Footloose? No idea. I'm aware of its existence. Yeah.

That's all like that. Yeah. All right. All right. So, yeah, okay. So they've got badass clothes. They punched with their knuckles and their toes. That rhymes.

I'm now a poet of some sort. What else makes this awesome? But we've also got, it just, there's something about this being pure. I mean, it's a Japanese game made about the 80s. So we've also got hilarious enemy characters because everything, and this is post-anim. Anime, obviously is older than this, but this is this idea of character. becoming caricatures. So I have a personal love in the game for the enemies.

And we actually didn't realize till writing this show that they had names. Because the funny thing about all this era is like there wasn't like a manual that came with your game. There was a box. Yeah. And the box art. Well, I mean, some of them had manuals that you didn't. Right.

Some of them had manuals. But most of the time, like a lot of my friends would never read the manuals. Like I was the kid who would like open up the game and the first thing I would do is read the manual in the car on the way home, you know, that kind of thing. Oh, yeah. If there was a manual. But if you rented it, there's no manual. Yeah, a lot of people didn't have them.

Yeah. Punch and kick. And so I like a lot of them. So a couple things I like about the game. First off, one of the first characters you bump into is a dude. And his name is normal. What's actually plural, it's Williams, but we'll go with William. I'll even call him Bill for all I like that.

He's Bill. Okay. Bill you meet because Bill cartwheels into the scene to come attack you. Like we're fighting against Cirque de Soleil. And I just really enjoy that. And this comes up a lot. And this is a common character with the whole thing, who will do a cartwheel when they come into the game and then punch you, which is both confusing and hilarious at the exact same. I think these are the moments that make you realize that this was a Japanese game.

Yeah. And that they were doing inspiration from American stuff, which is pretty common in Japanese culture. and but they were also doing like the weird Japanese thing of and Americans did this as well. This is not just a Japanese thing. But there are definitely things that happen in Japanese media, anime games where they're like, okay, wouldn't it be cool if this happened too with no justification other than just like, this would be really cool and showy to have a cartwheel happen or whatever. This is 80s, 90s stuff.

There's just stuff in there like, you know, I was talking about a friend of mine the other day where growing up in this era, Every time in my life, I've changed the propane tank on my grill and I've dropped the propane tank. I've been amazed I didn't die. Yeah, that's right. That's just 80 stuff. So in this scenario, William, how is the enemy going to come onto the screen? Simple. He's going to cartwheel in.

Very important to cartwheel in the comment. It's a way to actually instill true fear in your enemies. And at one point, he cartwheels in and throws a pipe at you, which is where was he holding the pipe? on the cartwheel. I don't know. He's just that good at cartwheels. He does one-handed cartwheels. He does one-handed cartwheels. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's Williams. That's Williams. What other, I'm sure the names get better than is named Roger or Roper. See, I thought it was Roger. It's Roper. Big more enjoyable. Dude was spikes.

Roper is just a very large guy, but his outfit confuses me because he has spiky things on his shoulders. Yes. It's not a shirt. So it looks like a punk rock style where I've just got spikes up here, on my vest, but there's no vest. Yeah. Oh, it sounds like a strap, right? So it's like, it's almost like overalls, but just the straps or like, what are the suspenders? There's spiky suspenders? Maybe it's an homage to Road Warrior where he's wearing football pads with spikes on it.

And just, it just eight. But maybe that's what they were going for is, okay, because this game, by the way, I should mention it, is set post-apocalyptic. Yes. Um, but it, it, it's in the year 19 X, X, X. So this happened in the 90s. Right, right. Some year in the 90s.

Exactly. They wrote a game that came out in 1988 and they were convinced the next 11 years, which know, within the next 11 years, we would have a nuclear war and recover from it. That's how much faith these writers had in the global society. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah.

It wasn't great. But after roper, the next one you meet is a woman who has with a shaved head in a mohawk in a skin-tight pink romper. And her name, guess what you think her name would be? We've had Williams. We've had roper. What would her name? Her name is Karen.

Close. Linda. Linda. She's the only one of these people who has a normal name. So, lindas are Karen's who just work in HR. that's they're the same they just have a better job yeah the only thing i'm hoping for is when did the song yes the song linda linda did come out in 1987 so there's a small chance small chance that this was them working in the song by the blue hearts which is an extreme for those of us

who are punk rock kids very very famous old punk rock song um linda linda linda was 1987 so maybe could be could be also also these they all come out in like two most of the time, which means that they're like... You always, you always fight. But they're the same person twice or like four times. Yeah. They all just have twins. They all have just like...

Oh, these are all clones. That's my... Oh, okay. It's the enemy has like... It's kind of like when we had those molds you could make what like Play-Doh, whatever it was. That's how they made enemies these video games. Here's this one again. Believe me, these we'll get two later where they had basically one character and they just changed

the color. Yeah. And that's whole again, but depending on the color, you how tough they were about to be right right oh he weren't great but after so after linda the next one you're gonna bump into is one of my favorites in the whole game it is a dude in like very heavy 80s sunglasses what appears to be a member's only jacket and some sort of thing on his hands that are either claws or brass knuckles and his name Gary give a guess what what what Gary that's a very that's a name that puts fear in my heart it would make sense no his

His name is right arm. He has two arms, by the way. Wait. And both them have the fist things on it, but he's named right arm. I'm not sure that's a name. Maybe, oh, no, maybe that's his like gang name. Yeah, his genus right arm. But he has both arms with nothing about his right because I fought the guys facing left and

right. So they're identical both ways. He's actually one of my favorite ones to fight in the whole game because it's actually it's one of the tougher ones. Then after that, the next, where you fight a boss, but then you're going to fight the next regular person is a dude with like flowing hair and sticks and he attacks you with sticks, which by the way, seems unfair.

Like this person gets sticks and you can't pick up his sticks. Other guys hit you with stuff. Oh, right. Yeah. This one hits you with sticks. They are his sticks. They don't drop. Oh, and another thing we have to point out,

anytime somebody drops something, once you kill those people who drop the thing and that refreshes to the next group, they're going to go away. You take their way. weapon. You can use it till it would like, you know, it would always flicker and then go away. No, you just get to use it. You only can use their weapon against themselves. Right. Right. So, you know, a few times I was like, cool, I got a pipe. And then I was like, oh, yeah, the enemies go away. The weapon disappears. Where did the ones? We also do like, where did you mention that there's two weapons in the game. One of them is a throwing knife. Another one is a grenade. Yes. Which do not do that much damage. No. In comparison to throwing a knife at someone. And then I'm just going, hey, no. or the grenade knocking you down.

Like, honestly, if the grenade didn't explode and you hit someone with a grenade, it would probably do more damage in reality than it does to you in the video game. But that's not important. That's also what makes these games fun, is they're just silly. Right, right.

But then I think my absolute favorite is the guy and we'll cover this later. Oh, did you say the name of the flowing hair stick guy? Chin tommai, Tami, oh, that one's tough. Chin. Yeah. Yeah. First, first word,

chin second word is tamai I believe okay but it feels foreign and I don't know what that means but maybe it means something I don't know absolute favorite character and the whole game turns out his name is Bolo which I do think is an homage to blood sport but Bolo is this massive person with an incredible mustache and the tightest white pants I've ever seen in my life I've made a It just this person was not going to have spaghetti anytime soon. No cards. No cards.

No cards. And then bleach his pants afterwards. But it's just the, and these characters were hilarious. There's this giant thing. We'd pick you up and he'd punch you or just pick up and throw you. Yes. Right.

Yeah. That's a bollo. Bolo's awesome. And a lot of these also, these ones are the bosses who then, of course, in later levels, become regular people. You just have to fight, which always kind of, right.

Common thing in these games, to Tom's point where you're trying to preserve space and data. Then we get to a bore, which is he looks, I don't know why. He looks like the Sandman to me from Marvel Comics. I don't know why, but I always think of Sandman. And that's what I thought of as a child. And I got older. And I realized I just didn't know what spray tans were in the early 90s.

So when someone was that color, I was thinking, oh, he's the color of sand. It must be like the Sandman in the comic books. Playing it now, I realize, no, it's meant to be one of those people on like Venice Beach who just gets like leathery skin colored. Right. Is this the- With bleach blonde hair. Yeah, this is the Arnold-looking guy. Oh, no, it's another, it's Arnold.

We got to fight Arnold. Yeah. Yeah. My brain was the Sandman from Spider-Man. Yeah, yeah, Spider-Man villain. Okay, yeah, not the Image Comics, Sandman mythology kind of thing. That would be a very different kind of look. Not the scary one.

But what gets really fun of the game, and I tell, we'll put some clips up so you guys can see it, is your first of your final bosses is called doppelganger. Here we go. You ready? This is the key part of the game, guys, because what I'm going to be doing here is actually fighting myself. And it's just a, it's a clone of you. But the doppelganger has a dead rip of Ken and Ryuz's Hadoon. Hadoon.

Yes. I mean, when I say there, I don't mean he shoots a fireball. He even is the hand thing. Right. And the fireball comes out. It is a dead rip. Also, we should have mentioned that you can also do the hot-de-hookin, whatever, jumping the air spinning-up things.

Right, right. That's also in this game. This game, we weren't talking six years before Street Fighter 2 comes out. Just saying. Was it six years? Was it six years? No. Let's find out.

No, it was like 93, 92, 93. 93. It was a few years, but I don't think it was six. Street Fighter 2. Oh, no, wait. Street Fighter 2 was 1991. 1991, okay. Yeah. Oh, so the game, this game came out Nintendo a year before, but the arcade is three years before Street Fighter. Right. Okay, yeah. Final boss. A lot of influence. I will admit, I have no idea what's going on there. This is a classic when you play these old Nintendo games. It's really hard to follow the plot because I'm sure there was a plan here.

But at the end of the day, as we said, some of these were arcade games, these are button mash games. You fight a final boss who appears out of nowhere, and I can't tell if he's a wizard. No, he knows the, he knows the way of the ninja. Yeah, that's all.

You're right. The ninjas. Yeah. That's all I got. Because like your level starts changing. Oh, you're also fighting him in what is listed as a like, was it was a forbidden mansion. Yeah, it's like this.

Forbiting evil. No, evil. No, evil mansion. I'm fighting him in an evil mansion. Yeah. Whereas they're going to do, there are eyes on the walls looking at you. It has been, oh, 30 years of memories coming back, guys. Oh, real.

It makes no sense. Right, right. It's fun. Right. Right. But by the late 80s, there was established lore across multiple movies that were all about ninjas and the magic of the ninja and the legend of the ninja and all of those kinds of things. and they very firmly established that ninjas were mystical kinds of warriors

that had magical abilities. So they were kind of like warrior assassins or something, and this feels very much in line with any of those earlier 80s films. Right, but one of his attacks is to put his arms out and spin directly at you like a double axle or a triple axle. That's his, he actually goes into the air.

It is a triple axle he does to hit you with like a spinning, multiple spinning back hands. What does that move called in figure skating? The triple axle he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

It's super fun, but you kind of, as it, I remember I beat it. And the game's actually pretty anticlimactic when you beat them because it's over and like, oh. Boom. You guys hear the sound effects? I hope you hear those sound effects. It appears battle is finally over. And now we get the great reveal. When's Billy and Jimmy got their revenge?

And that's the part that really matters him. At the end of the day, it's not about the journey, but the friends we make along the way. Is my girlfriend not dead? That's important. That is one 100% right. Right? This is where these games, I will be honest, do fall apart a little bit. When you then try to dive into it and like Tom saying, why are we playing this?

All I had was because it's fun. I could not go with what's got a really dynamic storyline. because the entire storyline is I, Billy, Jimmy, Billy, one of them. I, whatever. I, my girlfriend gets murdered by said ninja wizard. And then my brother joins me to go beat up. And by the way, there's no even reason why these people I'm fighting.

Are they with the evil wizard? Are they not with the evil wizard? Yeah, I think it's implied that they're like through. Because by the way, post-apocalyptic. Right. Am I just going through a post on a like hellscape to try and find the guy? Do these work for him? Right.

Or do these just random people who get in the way? Well, the fact that he, a helicopter is employed to try to stop you. Oh. Makes me think that this is less of like, I just happened to pass a roving gang who wants to kick my butt as opposed to this dude is out to stop you from getting to him.

That's, I feel like it's heavily implied that these people work for him. Right. But, and we'll use it. the first helicopter experience as a mild plot hole it has a gun on it oh god there's no way not to get hit wait there's what the hell it does yeah and it's almost impossible unless you know it's coming to avoid the bullets by going back down the ladder yeah yeah it does have a gun at that very fixed point

doesn't really it's right one or two directions but whatever eight bit let's not let's not criticize the 8 bit. But I do, I love, like, you just feel like, why is this happening? Just why? But it's awesome. That being said, it's all so awesome. The helicopter scene, I mean, Tom, and I, Tom sent me a note during it. Is the door broken? Let's go at it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, at least we all fell out. Yeah. We're playing this game. I know, so you never would currently play it you're on the helicopter and randomly the door will just open and suck things out of it who keeps it who keeps opening the door you the opponent whatever it is and it doesn't but i like it closes again it's say it yeah and it's as deadly as to you auto door but it just it's just broken

so random on the highway would just open on you and then oh and then close again like i don't know who's opening and closing it why it's opening and closing i don't know i don't know and it's as deadly to you as it is to the other, like the enemies. Get out there. Get out the door. Get out the door. Like, it's easier to beat a lot of them by just getting them in a spot where you can knock them out the door.

Now, I will say the one part of this game that drives me nuts and it's not this game. It's every Nintendo game specifically. Falling. Yes. The ability to jump is something that for any of you who are young enough to have not played these games, you've no idea the nightmare that was jumping in a 2D scroll

game. It is highly stressful. Yeah. And most of these games employed a system where what you had to jump on would appear and disappear or you jump on it in within fall. Yep. The amount

of times I died. Yeah, the cheesy death of and you had to hit both buttons to jump. So if you just mashed it wrong. Yep. That you wouldn't jump correctly. You would also have, I mean, there was these little things where it's like, I died more

times, I think, to falling in the game than I did to combat. And that's the truth of this game, Super Mario Brothers, the Mega Man series, we have others. I mean, even actually, we get the Sonic the Hedgehog that's like the number one way you die. Yeah. It is the, this is up there. It is hard. And I'll be honest.

it does it'll take a little bit out of you it'll take a little bit out of you as you just go oh not again yeah and you watch your little life number deplete as you yeah get knocked off something like oh so i can my guy can that's okay it is what it is but there's some there's some there's a uh the evil mansion there's a piece where you have to jump onto an appearing disappearing platform in sequence i may have spent more time there than i did an all previous level levels combined. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. This is a problem we're going to see reoccur on future games as we play them as well. Yeah. But we won't get into that yet. Because they definitely had the same issue with some of the other games that we've been playing lately. But yeah. We haven't asked you.

So obviously, I'm hyping this up quite a bit. Right. Did you enjoy it? Yeah. The nostalgia of it is real. Like everything, even from the simplest point of the, the there's something about when you're a kid and you get a toy or you play a game for the first time.

There's something about the physical feeling of something or the visual design of something that elicits kind of an internal joy. That's the best way I can describe it, right? Like, I don't know if you did you play with Legos as a kid? There was something cool about just being able to hold the little Lego figure in a hand and like move the parts. and old Nintendo games feel the same kind of way because everything's so blocky and there's something so, I don't know, you see the animations

and you see the way that they designed the shape of the fist and the punch and like all of that comes back to me in this kind of visceral, joyful sort of way. I don't know, it's a very deep in your brain sort of thing. That stuff was great. And to go back and to look at it through adult eyes and the adult, you know, decades of experience,

I mean, we're both in our 40s. So, like, this, like, I played a lot of games. This wasn't as hard for me this time as it was the first time I played it when I was a kid. So I got further faster. But then I still died to a lot of the same cheesy stuff that I didn't remember was there. Like the helicopter, you know, like, twice. I climbed up to the roof of that thing and then just got shot by the helicopter. I'm like, I now, I remember now that I've seen this, that I have to climb back down the elevator to avoid it.

And like, all of that stuff is still there. So, yeah, the games are still frustrating. But from a nostalgia point of view, it really is an enjoyable thing to be able to go back and actually experience that. And I don't think it would be the same thing had I kept playing over the years. Yeah, very much. And that's the idea is we're trying to go back and do retro recall. We're going back to what was it like when these things are? Like, for me, I got little like, not.

bruised but my thumb like the edge of my thumb from just jamming the button over and over again started to get like a little like and I remember that as a child being something that you know you're holding I mean these were the Nintendo controllers which also were kind of not a sharp edge but it wasn't a soft it wasn't a rounded it was a great addition we got rounded controllers that didn't like eat into your the corner of your finger when you're holding them yeah I'm trying to mean I mean I was a small child trying to hold that rectangle controller like reach over and like the corner would dig a little bit into your thumb. Right, right.

These are silly things, but I'm getting these flashback because I'm playing the game of like, oh, that was awesome. Right. Yeah, you mentioned Street Fighter 2. When we got Street Fighter 2, my brother and I got Street Fighter 2 from Toys or Us and we got it at home, we put it in our Super Nintendo. We played that until our thumbs were bruised. Yeah.

And we didn't want to stop playing. So we put Band-Aids on our thumbs so that we could. Keep playing. And the next day, we were in such agony and we couldn't play for a little bit because we were in so much pain. But yeah. A blister. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that.

I remember that. That was ridiculous. But yeah, there was something about being able to go back and play this. And speaking of my brother, I remember playing through this with my brother. This was in the first double dragon, you had to take turns, kind of like Mario and Luigi, right? Yeah. But in the second one, you could both play, if I recall. This is actually one of, there's only a few games that had this.

that actually had a two-player option, which I think, again, there's no research into this, but I assume this is one of the reasons that sold so well because you're like, my brother's nine years younger than me, so we didn't play games together over this era. But there was a lot of kids like you who were within a couple years of their sibling. Yeah. The ability for them both to play at the game at the same time and, you know, as a parent, right, right. And I listen to them, yell at each other at whose turn it is.

It was nice. Let go. Yeah. Yeah. And that brought back nostalgia. Like my brother and I don't talk a lot. We're on good terms, but we don't, you know, he lives far away. We see each other a few times a year at most.

And he's a year and a half younger. So I was, of course, the first player one and he was player two. And always. And especially getting towards the end, like, and bosses, I remember feeling like, man, it's a good thing. My brother's here because I can agro the guy. And we didn't use the term agro back in 1990. But like, I would agro him.

He'd come up and hit him from behind. And we were able to beat the games because we could, or at least this specific game, because we could double up on everything. And that was cool. And not being able to do that in this experience left me going, you know, I wish I was sure I was playing this with my brother. Yeah, there is something about these games where you're like, I know, it's just going to your friends. I mean, that's what a lot of this show is going to be about is just going to your friend's house and playing video games with your friend. And that was, that's what we did. Yeah.

That is the 90s. And, you know, later into the 90s, some of the gaming companies figured this out. and they leaned a bit more heavily into it. But there was just something about it because we're covering a Nintendo game right here. Nintendo's whole success was the elite to bring the arcade into your house. Yes.

If you were lucky enough to live somewhere where there was an arcade nearby, you still had to have enough coins to be able to play it, but it would be there. But if you didn't, the accessibility wasn't there. Having something like this you could play was remarkable. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember other kids on my street getting a Nintendo before I did and specific, in fact, one of the kids we didn't like We would go hang out with him. He was a jerk, but we would hang out with him because we got to play as Nintendo. Nintendo. Yeah. Oh, these things are powerful, guys.

Yeah. Freaking Tim. Tim, why are you such a jerk, Tim? He lived in the big house on the other part of the street and his rich parents. And he was, anyway. Yeah, Nintendo. Oh, man. Okay.

So, so does it hold up? Final verdict, according to you, does it hold up? Very much so. I mean, I think this game is remarkable. I really do think it's fun. Here's how well it holds up. I recorded it for a full play through so we can make this show. And I kept playing it after that.

So I know this game is up. I still like, it's still fun. And I would mess around with it while having coffee in the morning. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Okay.

So for me, I mean, it's just a yes or no. So yes because, well, the nostalgia, just for that. So obviously you and I are both biased here.

But also, it does some cool stuff for its time. It was kind of ahead of the time. Yeah, there's the falling and there's the cheap falling stuff. There are moments where it feels like you should have hit the enemy, but he hit you instead. And that stuff can still feel cheap. But, I mean, we still play Dark Souls in Eldon Ring. You know, like, you fall.

Like, gravity is still one of the biggest villains across video games. And there are definitely enemies that you still feel like you hit them, but they hit you instead. Like, that is not specific to this era of games. So... I would actually argue that Dark Souls and Eldon Ring are easier and less mentally frustrating than some of the Nintendo releases. It's true. Yeah, I think that's right. And they are still very much spiritual successors to that time of gaming.

So, but yeah, I mean, the graphics are... I mean, think about the system that this was on and the number of kilobytes they had to build a game. And they were able to pack all of this stuff into... this console and make it work as close as they could to the arcade version. Yeah, it's a legit game. I think that this is definitely something that I would play again. It's definitely something that if I could corral my kids into trying sometimes and get them to try.

And I know that's something that you've tried as well. Yeah, well, I actually were just thinking, what's the name of the connection that Nintendo used for the back of a TV? Oh, the plug that went from... Yeah, because it's not coaxial, right? Yeah, it's coax. So the Atari used coaxial composite. Was composite around by the Ennis?

Before RCA, I don't know why. This is one of these random memories. I was back, I was seeing myself, could, how long would it take me to teach my child how to plug a Nintendo in? And it might have been used because it was a coaxio is that go going, but versus like the RCA's, which were tech. I'm sure they were color-coded, but the TV weighed 50 pounds. Right.

And it was pushed against a wall. So, your options were to either potential fatality of it falling on you, potential fatality of breaking the TV in the house, or reach behind blindly and try to make these connections. Yes. Yes. And on top of it, the cords were short. Like the controller, like the cord from the controller to the actual console. It was a couple feet. It was like, I don't know, four feet, five feet long.

And then the cord to the TV. Yeah. And the TVs back then were small. So I don't know about you. We would all sit on the floor right in front of the TV in order to actually like reach everything. Yeah, it was a totally different experience. Today you sit back on your big screen TV with your wireless controllers and that's a completely different thing. Yeah.

I mean, it was these things were you would lie on the ground usually. Can't leave me. I remember lying around looking straight up because the couch was too far back. Right. Right. So it was like you'd sit on your butt until your butt kind of got sore that you'd lie. on your stomach or sit on a pillow side yeah and it was all on the floor in front of the tv and yeah it was just something i don't think i i i love thinking back on this stuff because

candidly it was a simpler time yeah in my life i don't have stress i don't have those things it was the only stress i had was literally the game right right a mortgage and family and you know all this all the adults there was no job there was oh i go back to third grade whatever yeah i'll do some social studies. I'm fine. You know. Yep. Yep. All right. So I think we both gave it a thumbs up. It holds up.

We're going to move on to Mega Man 2 next week, which is going to be fun because you and I've been playing that as well. And another classic game, I think a lot of people have think favorably on doing to dance because I'm so good at this game. A lot of people still speed run it today. A lot of, you know,

people still play the Mega. Mega. Man. This is extremely still popular. It's considered, I think it's because they're one of the best Mega Men. We'll find out. Yeah, it established the series in some really cool ways. But before we get to that, because that's next week, we have to reveal who won and who lost our challenge.

And John lost. So I did the challenge first and played through and got punched by the first set of the two guys who show up. And thought to myself, this is like the first 30 seconds of the game. Clearly he's going to do better than I did. All right. Here we go. Let's see if I can not get damaged.

I need to be a little bit more aggressive. Take, take, hit, hit, hit. No! Oh, no. And then you did it, and you got punched like on the first swing. The guy cartwheeled in and punched me in the face. Let's see how far we can get into this. Nice first damage.

That was quick. Just the first time. It was not idea. Oh, man. So ideal is what I had to do next. Yeah. So, okay, tell them about the game that you ended up playing. All right.

So we found a website that listed the 100 worst Nintendo games of all time. I disagree with them on some of them because some of the other extremes I had and liked, but that's not important. I picked the game cliffhanger. We made this, and we made this channel that got the goal, was talking about games that are fun. So I guess, I guess, you know, I guess that the takeaway here is that not all games. from our childhood were good. Some of them were downright terrible. And this appears to be one.

Which, you know what that is? It's based on the movie. There's a really not good movie. Yeah. Starrang, Sylvester Stallone, called Cliffhanger. And this was a game. So they would do this back in the 80s and 90s, a lot more than I was a movie,

where a movie would get a video game release. I think the most famous failure is the E.T. Yeah, obviously, which that is epically well known of oopsies. Yeah. But some of the games actually were good, Canada. There's a few games that actually were like that early Batman game on. Yeah. Yeah.

The NES maybe or some of the Star Wars games were pretty good. Yeah. You're going to get a few like that, but cliffhanger was not. Cliffhanger, first off, as you guys will see in the clips, has the graphics components of an Atari game. So it's a mountain. It's a mountain. Why don't I have sleeves on?

It was horrible. I just, yeah, watch it. Watch me play and suffer through. You're going to see some suffering. Yeah. The rule we had for the challenge is you have to play the game for at least 30 minutes. And it was not a fun of 30 minutes. It felt like three hours, I'm sure.

It's just terrible. It's just everything about this. It's like this is, it was a phoned in game that randomly also gives you the entire movie. So I guess you don't have to see the movie. you could just play a terrible video game and get all the same plot points. But you miss on John Lettgow, which you never want to miss out on John Lettgoe.

Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, there's that. So that's just a long... All right. Well, I'm sorry you had to suffer. I'm out. Done. Over.

Bye. We're going to do this again next week. And this will be a weekly thing. So if you're tuning in on YouTube or on the podcast feed, both things are available. So if you want to actually... see the footage, check out Retro Recall on YouTube. If you're happy just listening

along and enjoying in the reminiscence of these old games, then you can do that on the audio feeds up on Spotify or wherever. Also, if you want to help us out, then subscribe, come back, comment, review, do all the things because that stuff is important.

And we're committed to doing this show and bringing you different games and talking about some of the good ones and some of the really bad ones. There will be episodes that we have to cover terrible ones, and we will suffer through that. So that's exciting. And so you all know, this is a part of the Robots Radio Podcast Network. John and I both do other shows, which we'll talk about in a second. And if you'd like to be part of that community, there's a link in the description. You can join us on the Discord.

You can jump into the channel, the Retro Recall channel, and you can tell us about your Double Dragon Two experiences. We'd love to hear your stories. Become part of this, so that we have a big community already based on our other shows, but we'd love to get more of you reminiscing about the retro games that you played in your youth and all of that stuff. So come bring the nostalgia. Please do. Because this is honestly, guys, one of my favorite things is sitting on my friends talking about this type of stuff. Hey, remember such and such. Oh, my God. Like, I remember that game. There's nothing better. So come in. Tell us your experience. So we can, I mean, I say tell us, talk with us. I'll be in the Discord with you. Like, well, let's chat about,

you know, who was the dumbest boss? What was the hardest thing? Yeah. These are fun, man. Yeah. Did you play it with your siblings? Was the, Did you play it? Did you beat it by yourself? I want to know all of those stories as well. Or I mean, for something that is a cover, did you ever beat it? Yeah. There is like, like, have you ever seen the ending of Battletoads? I would assume most people's answer is no. No, yeah. I didn't, I didn't beat it as a kid for sure.

Yeah. I gave up. I mean, I'll be honest, I beat Super Mario 2 in 2014 on an emulator. I'd never been to Mario 2 in my life. Oh, wow. Until I was, yeah. It was in my 30s. Wow. And I celebrated. legitimately. Yeah.

Nice. So what other stuff do you do so people know to check out your own? Oh, yeah. So John Barcadi. I also host the, me and another person host the 40K lore cast, which is a show focusing on Warhammer 40K, the lore around it, along with the history of 40K, a show talking about, again, Warhammer 40K and the history of playing it online. So, I mean, I've been doing since the 90s. I mean, I've been gaming since the 90s and I have refused to grow up. So nice nice

Yeah me too me too So I do the fallout lore cast The Elder Scrolls lore cast and the Lord of the Rings Lourcast all of which you can get on audio feeds And some of which you can get on video versions Some more some episodes more than others Because it started as audio and some of them get turned around Into video formats but check all that stuff out

If you are looking for links and connections to all these things RobotsRadio.net has links to all of that stuff Including lots of other hosts that make really cool shows And another thing that we do with the network is we have the Rocket Club which is a program where people sign up, and I personally help them launch their own shows in order to make them successful. So come check out all that stuff.

Thank you for tuning in, and we'll be back next week with Mega Man 2. We'll see you next time. Shadow Demon, you shall not pass. Whoa!