385 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

A nightmare on Elm Street. It's a horrible nightmare come true.

And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of... every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Sean. That's it today. Maybe Joe was captured by Freddy Krueger because he's not here. It's true. Whenever somebody that I expect to be somewhere... isn't somewhere, I blame the dream demons. The dream demons or the dream warriors? Because they could have saved Joe.

Well, no, I mean, yeah, those are the good guys, right? I never saw that one, Mike. They're the good guys, the Dream Warriors, but I'm saying technically, if somebody gets captured in the Dream, then they just didn't do their job. I saw the... What I think is considered the fan canon, which is you watch the first one, you watch Nightmare on Elm Street, and then you watch Freddy vs. Jason, and then you stop.

Interesting. Okay. Now, I feel like the first, I want to say the first three, Friday the 13th, which the third is the Dream Warrior, but even the second one is like, you know, it's campy, but it's whatever. You mean nowhere on Elm Street? Yeah, what did I say? Friday the 13th? Yeah, yeah. Never seen Friday the 13th. I don't know. I'm just lying to the whole audience now. I'm just trying to boost my cred. I'm like, first three, Friday the 13th. Speaking of...

If I could change subjects without changing subjects. Uh-huh. Freddy Krueger, Jason, Michael Myers. Yeah. Is Freddy the scariest of the three? Freddy is the least scary. The least scary. He's the funny one? Because if Jason or Michael Myers, if they called me a bitch, I don't think I would be that scared. I'd just be like... I'd either be intimidated because he has knives for fingers, or I would just be like, why is this guy calling me a bitch? Like, what did I do? Right, right, but...

I think I was going more on the appearances, you know? Like, the other two hide behind a mask. Yeah, I guess. Freddie, like, you can't hide behind that burnt skin. But he's got such a silly outfit. Like, the striped shirt and the... Stupid hat. Right. Yeah, okay. It's kind of goofy. You're saying janitors are stupid? I'm saying that if a janitor... dressed with the intent of scaring me I would say you're doing it wrong got it okay fair enough the video game A Nightmare on Elm Street is not

Really based on the first game, it's more closely based on the third one, the Dream Warriors, which is, you know, I think in the fan canon, that is one you include. This game was developed by Rare and published by LJN. That's a weird combo. Haven't we seen this before? Rare and LJN? Like, together? Wasn't, like, Friday the 13th, that wasn't Rare.

I don't think so, but it was LJN. It was LJN. It just feels like there's enough, like, shared between these that I would have expected Rare to be involved, too, if they were involved with the other one. But if they weren't, then this makes me feel... Very confused. I looked it up for you because I don't want you to, you know, have to be confused. Nobody wants to be confused in life. And Friday the 13th, oddly enough, was by Atlas.

Oh, wow. Okay. LJN still, but Atlas. Yeah, yeah. So you can't escape the LJN factor, but as we know, they're just the publisher. They don't have like a hand in this stuff. So with Rare developing... Well, as we've learned, Rare had a strong start on this chronology, but they're also likely to put out some garbage as well. They gotta pay the bills. Yeah, exactly. Turn the lights on. A couple of Jeopardy games won't hurt anybody.

A couple board games here and there. It's all fine. All I'm saying is that when I'm coming into this game and I see Rare and LJN, I really don't know what I'm going to get. And what we wound up getting is...

You know, you play as the Dream Warriors, one of the four. You can play actually up to four players if you have the rare NES four score accessory. Four players at once does sound really cool, especially with a... nightmare on elm street theme like what what's that game uh maybe it is just friday the 13th uh that that pc game where like uh

You know, you play as the... Yeah, you play as the... Yeah, it would be Dead by Daylight or Fry the 13th or any of the ones that are of that mold. Yeah, I get what you're thinking. So, yeah, you get to be one of those teenagers with their dream... warrior powers as well and you have to collect the bones of freddy krueger scattered across because the bones are their money yeah that's how they the bones are essentially uh

like, the keys to Freddy Krueger, right? He died in a fire, but with the bones still being around, he's powerful. It's true. You have to... Once you get the bones, then you... you can get the stones. Yeah. Uh, and Freddie will, um, Freddie will show up in the game too, though. So that's like a little confusing, right? It's like, all right, I'm collecting his bones, but he's in the game. But of course that happens because just like,

Castlevania, Simon's Quest, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This game has like a day and night cycle with the real world and the dream world. And anything that you do... in the uh in the game counts down a clock to eventually falling asleep and then you're in the dream world where things change just a little bit but more importantly uh because you're a dream warrior

In the dream world, you're also more powerful, not just the enemies, and so you'll be able to use your dream warrior abilities. Sean, sounds like a pretty cool idea for a video game. Yes, it does sound cool. I will say that. Now, do you think that going with the Dream Warriors route, that the whole game should have just been...

You're asleep, or is there, like, is there something to this staying up mechanic? Because I actually can't figure, I feel like staying up is a punishment. I can't figure, I know. Sorry. We say that because we played the game. No, but I know that you have to be awake to get inside the new areas, if I recall correctly. You can't be asleep. The doors will be closed. So I know that that's why you have to be, but there's no benefit to being awake. And I feel like in...

In the movies, it's the reverse. You only want to be awake. You never want to fall asleep.

Yeah, so we're looking at this from several different angles. And I think even the developers were thinking about this very separate from each other. And this is all just me guessing. But I think first principles of this... of like the, the game development process here was like, Oh, well being awake and sleeping has to play into it. Right. And I think that, that they got into this whole like system of,

The waking world and the dream world basically being mirrors of each other. And then, you know, I guess one might expect that after that kind of decision, you would get to, well... The dream world has to be like higher stakes. And that means that, you know, you've got these more intense enemies and now you can be a dream warrior and now you get all these other.

things you can do, and oh no, we made it more fun to play in the dream world than in the waking world, which you ostensibly want to stay in. So yeah, I think this is just kind of a paradoxical... development decision here and very few video games are based in reality but when you start this game at the very start of this game and maybe this is more just like a mechanics question than a design philosophy thing but like

As soon as you start this game, it just puts you right into it. You're now controlling your teenage dream warrior. And a snake is coming right at you. I don't like that at the start of any game. All of a sudden it starts and there's already like an enemy, you know, scrolling in the opposite. Like, so you're supposed to go to the right. He's coming to you at the left. It's like Super Mario Brothers never.

starts with, like, a Goomba coming directly at you. I mean, almost. Yeah, yeah, but you have to, like, you have to be ready to, like, you have to confirm that you're ready to walk in the game. Yeah, you have to walk over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The snake is just already approaching you. And then here's another problem I have.

Like, I get it. It's a video game or whatever. But, like, the snakes are about the size of the guy. We're awake right now, so this isn't the dream world. And, like, snakes don't feel like they need to be.

the enemy of this game you know i feel like the the dream world stuff is like let it be whatever let it be snakes with three snake heads like sure but the the real world stuff is like just odd Yeah, I feel like if they wanted to be more thematically coherent, the whole game wouldn't have been a side-scroller, and this would have been closer to, I don't know, like an adventure game.

in the waking world where you're just sort of doing real world shit and you only get into this side scroller action portion when you're in the dream world and it's all just like nightmarish Halloween stuff. I don't think I would want to play that game. I think that's just more like a non-paper sort of thought. But yeah, I mean, it is silly. It's weird.

That you immediately are fighting giant spiders and snakes and I guess Frankensteins when you shouldn't be in any danger in the waking world. Yep, yep. And funny enough, if you want to fall asleep, if you do nothing, time does pass by faster on the meter to put you to sleep.

So you could just stand there for a little bit and get to the dream world because that's where you get your special powers. So you can be an acrobat or a, they call it a shadow warrior. That's a ninja. And then the same thing, the negromancer, but that's a wizard. Necromancer. Necromancer, I'm sorry. You know my words. Yeah, that sounded like something else. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's what I thought maybe they were saying this person does. I was like, I think she's kind of young for that. Yeah, so I guess one other thing that they sort of... I haven't seen it in the dream world, so maybe I'm wrong. But from my experience, you cannot find the pickups that allow you to become these dream warriors.

in the dream world like they you have to be awake for that so there at least is something keeping you there uh in addition to like i think well as you mentioned like the locks the doors being locked That you at least utilitarian wise need to be awake some of the time. And it's not all just fun and dream games. Yeah, that's a good point. That's another reason to have two different worlds. Do you think they should have went even further though and made like...

When you fall asleep, even the platforming sections like more difficult or trippy or, you know, like maybe maybe there could have been more motion to them. Like in the in the real world, there's stairs. But in the dream world, now they're like. you know floating blocks that move around so you have to like be more precise i think that if you go any further with this uh it's not really gonna feel like the same level or like it's it's gonna feel less

Like, oh, I'm in a different level of reality of the same place and more like, oh, I'm just in a different level. So I think it's a balancing act with that. Should you fall asleep and wish to wake up... There are coffee cups and boombox items that you can just touch, and those will wake you up. Yeah, the boombox will wake you up.

The coffee only exists in the waking world, though. That keeps you from falling asleep. Oh, my bad, yes. But both those items can kind of be like... they can be a positive but they can also be seen as a negative like the boombox if you are if you did collect the icon and you are the dream warrior the boombox is almost like a poison mushroom you don't want to touch that and you know sometimes it's placed in a in a bad spot where you're like

I'm going to jump over this but not land on the boombox. Well, that's just sort of how this entire game is. Like, in terms of just enemy placement, like, there are times that if you don't have a... If you don't have a power-up that allows you to shoot projectiles, you are just guaranteed damage at times in this game. So which Dream Warrior was the most fun, or maybe the most broken? I mean, I like the javelin guy.

even though his jump kind of sucked, but you could just switch back to normal you to make those jumps. I know that the Necromancer, not the Necromancer, I know that the Magician... Right? Is it the same thing? It is the necromancer is what they're calling it. I was saying it looks like, you know, they got the wizard hat and everything. Yeah. Like a wizard, but yes. He can levitate.

And I guess that's more useful in platforming. But I think the bigger hurdle here is just so many enemies on the screen that I just needed to take them out from a distance. Yeah. And they all they all get the projectile of their choice. So like the ninja has the Shoryuken and the the acrobat has the javelin and the necromancer has the fire.

spell uh but but the the hover thing is you know those are different you know because like the the ninja has like an attack animation for it it does like a flying kick ah yes whereas the acrobat has like this somersault that goes a lot higher so i think that there is some like there's some good use

For the acrobat, even if he seems like it's like, isn't that guy just like, couldn't he exist in the real world? Ninjas and wizards could also exist in the real world, but like, can they really? No, but even like ninjas, like ninjas. There's a difference between what a ninja could be in the real world and what a ninja is in fantasy novels, right? I think that a ninja, if they have a smoke bomb, then they can just turn into dust.

But can't ninjas also, like, clone themselves and do other things? Like, I don't know. Isn't, like, Naruto a ninja? Like, doesn't he have, like, those kinds of powers? I don't know anything about Naruto, but I thought that that was just, like, an animation thing, you know? Yeah, I'm pretty sure, like... I'm pretty sure ninjas have more powers than just being someone who's stealthy. Okay, I mean, I guess I have to believe you. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I'm making it up, so who knows?

You were talking about the enemies and stuff, but, uh...

Let's get into the real reason anyone's playing this game, and that's the Freddy factor, Freddy Krueger. It's a little like...

It's a little weird, right? It's almost like a little disappointing. I don't want to say it's outright bad, but it's just disappointing that the only way to encounter Freddy is at the end of each stage after you've collected all of his bones, you fight like just a... small part of him that's like a chain chomp version of his whatever yeah it's all chain chomps yeah it's just like a bunch of beads connected together and then like either his head or his um his claws yeah

I think that is very weird. But, you know, the actual fighting Freddy happens, I think, when you spend too much time in the dream world. And then the... The screen just changes to the title, Freddy's Coming. And then that kind of, you know, either hypes you up or allows you to feel some dread. And then you have...

the full sized or like, you know, human sized Freddy fight where he doesn't really do much. Um, I think he just sort of, he just sort of like waves his claw around. He's like, ah, I'm here. Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. But that's kind of what he does in the movie, though, too, right? Like, he kind of fucks with the people in the game, too. Sure, sure. Makes sense.

He could kill you. That is a Freddy fight that can happen multiple times. Yeah, but that's not what it's building up to, right? No. You're collecting the bones and then you fight. This is a timer. Yeah, exactly.

I guess I appreciate more the, you know, the Freddy's coming thing, like, has some tension to it, you know? Like, that is kind of spooky, and I could imagine being a kid and being scared by that kind of messaging, you know? If you remember in... This is the first... this is uh yeah this is friday the 13th this is mr x this is nemesis yeah friday the 13th was like you know at any moment jason is somewhere in the game and like you could run into him and i guess that this has like a

has like an even more fear factor thing to it because you know that like it you know like it's just a matter of time now like you screwed up kid uh i just feel like It didn't need to get into horror game territory. It's clearly trying to at least give the kids some kind of... In Friday the 13th, you were powerless. You were trying to avoid Jason until you were ready to take him on.

You're not necessarily, like, unequipped to fight Freddy at any particular point. And I know eventually you do fight the full Freddy after you've... gone through everything else in a disappointing like boss rush thing where you have to fight every other boss again just to get to him but like I think that's his name though too it's the full Freddy the full Freddy yeah yeah

Frederick, actually. Yeah, Frederick. Oh, I didn't realize he was French. He's got a little bit of French-Canadian in him. Huh. Who knew? The regular enemies, on the other hand... I don't know. I think I said what I had to say about the snakes and stuff like that and the bats and whatever. It's all just fine. I don't know. Maybe you didn't even need that many. Maybe it was more of just a game where you're just trying to track down...

the bones and be good at platforming. I guess they didn't really have any other, like they only have Freddie. And then you just have to dip into the, the typical. generic horror catalog for other enemies if you're gonna have it's just weird to punch a snake in the face like nobody's doing that are there just situations where you fight like

stereotypical cartoon ghosts in the movies? Does that happen in the movies? Absolutely not. Are there evil spiders with Freddy's face? Maybe. Oh yeah, no, that's a... That is a thing. Yeah. Okay. So at least I got that. The most important thing about Freddy, I think that was lost here is like, I guess they were trying to do it with, I was talking about the chain chomp thing. Like maybe that's like, you know, um,

Freddy's head but he's like on the body of a snake it just didn't look that it didn't look that like that it looked more like just a bunch of beads connected together in the movies like he can be anything like he can he can shapeshift like you don't know you know like It's almost like it a little bit, right? Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. I guess they didn't go for that here. It would have been interesting to see more forms. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have a response to that.

Well, on a couple different notes, mostly in Nintendo Power, but also according to Moby Games, the website where I get all the back of the boxes, a little trivia here. In the game's early concept...

was to have players control Freddy Krueger instead. See, that's what I want, that's what I thought was going to happen, but I guess maybe we're not ready to play the villain. Because, like, that's where... That's where I'd get excited. Right. Imagine now you are hunting the dream warriors, or maybe not even. Maybe you're just regular teens that you're fighting against and you're collecting...

To get your bones back to returning to the real world. Maybe you don't need the bones. Yeah. Well, I mean, if they're your money, then you want to save them at least. Yeah, I mean, your whole life is in those bones. Yeah. You would be pretty upset if somebody took all your bones. I would be very upset. But even taking away the whole playing as a villain sort of thing, in this franchise, who's the one with the...

actual powers and not just from the one movie that this game isn't even named after. The one with all the powers that would translate to a video game is Freddy. So it would only make sense... To play as Freddy. I think that that makes sense. Yeah, and again, with the whole shape-shifting or different forms or whatever, they could have had fun with that. And maybe Freddy could have even went across genres.

Right? Like a little meta and like one level's a shmup and then the other one's a platformer and then the other one's like a Contra style game. Like, I could have seen it. Tetris Freddy? Why not? So how does it capture the feel? of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Is this game on any level scary? Was there a moment where you felt truly in a nightmare while playing? I don't think that there's been an NES game that has made me feel that way.

Sweet home? I mean, even then, it's an RPG, like a turn-based RPG. It's too deep in the mechanical weeds to truly be scary. And, you know, it's not like you're I also think that part of horror is just you should feel really weak and you actually have a lot more agency and.

tighter controls in this game than I think it would make sense. But no, I was never really afraid of the Frankensteins walking around or Freddy. I guess it's a little... unnerving when you see that freddy's coming but i don't think there was ever like a clarion call like uh like like oh freddy's here it was just freddy would show up and then he'd be like spooked

Yeah, yeah. Now, you play a lot of horror video games. I actually don't touch that many. I remember famously, like, the first time I was like, I'm going to finally try a horror game was Resident Evil 7. So it just shows you how long it took me to get on board with this kind of stuff. But even that I like noped out of pretty fast when actually not too fast, though, because I got to the part where like the.

the woman starts chasing you around the house that's pretty early no not the guy with the chainsaw though no that's pretty early all right never mind i thought i i thought i did a pretty good job no you got you got like maybe five or six hours into the game okay cool

So you play more of these horror games. Are there any other horror games that toy with a dream state? You know, not necessarily like how A Nightmare on Elm Street did it, but just like a game that has like a real world and a sleeping world. Um, for sure. I don't think it's as, uh, centered as in this game. Um, where, I mean, like there's, there's like modern, uh, indie games, I think like.

Little Nightmares might be the most obvious example. And that's also a side-scroller, I think. Is it more 2.5D? I can't quite remember. Yeah, there are games that use dreams, and obviously Psychonauts is kind of in there too, but that's not a horror game. I would say that a good horror game isn't particularly making it... a mechanic, whether you are in a dream state or the real world. I think the ambiguity plays a big part as to whether that's spooky or not.

Now, I get that the Dream Warriors figure out how to fight back against Freddy, and that's like a cool thing that happens in the movie, and it's a neat idea to change up the Nightmare on Elm Street formula. But did they undercut... What it's like to be in a nightmare too much by making it like so that the falling asleep part isn't.

scarier or, you know, because, like, if I think of, like, my nightmares, I usually can't even throw a punch, right? Like, you try to throw a punch and you suck. And, like, should that have been the idea that, like...

You have to spend time in the dream world to build up experience points to get strong? Should you have started really weak? I guess what... I keep saying I guess. What I find the weirdest about this whole... uh you just you're fighting against you're fighting against your urge to sleep and then you fall asleep in the level and now the level is different is like you are an actual narcoleptic

Like, you will be mid-jump and fall asleep, and now you're in the dream world. I guess if we're trying to use this as...

Not even just a believable mechanic, but a mechanic based at all in what one would expect about going into a nightmare. I would have thought that you'd play... a waking world level and then like you'd finish that level and now you you have to play another level that is you dreaming because you went to bed whereas this is like more of like what you mentioned like a day night cycle

where you end up sleeping wherever you were at that moment. I don't know if that answers your question. I think it does. I think it does. Yeah. See, because if the game was based off the first movie, then would there have been a bathtub level or a level where there's a mattress that tries to swallow you? I'm just trying to think about iconic moments from the first movie.

I guess the Dream Warriors really is the right approach to go, but then just call the game that? Just call the game A Nightmare on Elm Street The Dream Warriors? Make it clear? It's a little confusing, right? I don't know enough about this franchise to know whether it was... Like, maybe it's just a marketing decision. Like, oh, it's like... freddy's freddy and not that many people even saw that one and it didn't perform that well i don't know about i never saw the third

Not Friday the 13th. Nightmare on Elm Street. I don't know what it is. I've got Friday the 13th on the mind as well. But you have seen the first one? There's no shame. No, I have seen the first one, but I was probably 13 years old. Okay, because I feel like the first one, while now silly, was probably very scary back in the day, has a great hook, obviously, that like, you know, don't fall asleep, that's where he can hurt you. But like...

I enjoy that movie even today, even with all the silliness or whatever. There's a lot of blood. Yeah, a lot of blood, a lot of great tension, very good-looking young Johnny Depp. I'm here for all of it. That's true, that's true. So knowing that Freddy Krueger is in a Nintendo game, what's taking so long to get him in Smash? Wow, yeah.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that the Smash Brothers for horror, which I mentioned before, would be Dead by Daylight. I think he's in that. I think any character from a horror franchise... That's never existed has been in that game. So that's a kind of smash. I'm trying to like just see just who's in this. I guess I never really like touched.

dead by daylight but uh yeah even even the fucking bear from five nights of freddy's in the game yeah uh there's like silent hill stuff there's there's resident evil stuff there's oh yeah nemesis is in the game Yeah, so I just confirmed that he's in it. I've played it maybe three or four times. It's an alright game. It's fun with friends. It's actually the only way you can really play it, unless you play as the monster.

But yeah, I don't have too much experience with it. I hate when you look at something and then you're like, but what are they from? I recognize... I think there's a few... There's a good amount of like... Those are just the guys from Dead by Daylight characters. Caleb Quinn? Caleb Quinn. The Deathslinger? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

You know what he kind of... Do you have a reference in your head for this guy right now? Like, are you looking at, like, on Google? Caleb Quinn. Oh, yeah, no, I think that's just from Dead by Daylight. No, I mean, until I looked at this, I did not know what he looked like. All right. Well, I'm sorry to do this in front of everybody. Because you'll just look up Caleb Quinn right now. And if you're familiar.

Sean, this looks like the guy who's the first hunter in Bloodborne that you fight at the end of the game. I guess a little bit, yeah. He's got the hat. He's got the eyes. He's old. Yeah, he's got the eyes. I'm glad that Bloodborne is on your mind like that, though. I know. Now I'm just part of the cult.

We did mention at one point early on that this is a four-player game, but that's kind of nuts, right? This is not one that needed to be four players, but I guess if you can... Yeah, I know that... Joe would usually be our multiplayer guy. I obviously didn't actually play it, but I at least tried to find footage to watch four people play this. Because it's confusing, right? You would think, like, how does that work? The concept is so strange, yeah.

And it's even stranger that the UI, or the heads-up display of this game, whether you're playing it... single player or four player is the same that there's always the four player setup on your screen so it has to be pretty like important to the game right so i watched uh the the only footage i could find was like

the angry video game nerd and his friends, uh, playing it. And it is a clusterfuck. And maybe that's just them. But from the, the points that I saw them get stuck on and there's the classic, like multiplayer. like, uh, the hangups that you'll get in, like, Oh, you can't move the screen unless everyone is moving at once, which, you know, it's hard enough with two players. It's,

kind of a pain in the ass before, but then like, it seems that the physics of the game start to break down and they get stuck in holes and you can't jump high enough to get to certain things. And I don't know if that's like a hardware thing or.

if they just ran into this, it seems like the game is a lot less like, uh, stable when you have four players it's just messier though too like i really i don't think that you need three other players to get through a lot of this game i'm not saying it was easy but it's also not like

it's not the most challenging thing and if anything adding more players just makes it like more likely that someone's gonna die or fall asleep when you don't want them to you know because if one person falls asleep everybody goes to the dream world and there's only so many of those pickups like You're not going to be able to keep everybody topped up on sleep juice. Good old sleep juice. The first thing I drink before I go to bed. Yeah.

And the last thing I do on every podcast is the Essential Games list. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a very competent NES action platformer. It's just not necessarily like a fun one. Just because you can play... the game and make progress and say, yeah, everything's working, doesn't mean that everything's actually working for the best. I don't think that the Dream Warrior mechanic...

You know, it either should have been like a lot more powerful or a lot less powerful. Like nightmares should be scary and you should want to stay awake or.

you know, you should be like way more up in the dream warrior phase. You're not really that much stronger. You just like have a projectile now and a somewhat better jump. So the game doesn't necessarily feel... too different and I think that's the mistake is like it should have been too it should have been like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde even though we hated that game like it should have been something where like when you enter this next phase

uh you know or castlevania 2 simon's quest right like when you enter that other phase it's like all new enemies sure but like also different things happen like different things should have happened and that's not what this game becomes so it's kind of like the idea is there But when you play the game, I think you ultimately come up with a list of a lot more wants than what the game gives you. So it's a no for me. What about you, Sean? I think that I would appreciate this game a lot more if...

if it just tried to be more Elm street and I know that they did the whole like, uh, waking dream cycle thing. And. Like Freddy is in the game, but this is closer to more of like a game with a franchise's coat of paint on it instead of trying to gamify the movie. So I like in the whole realm of video game movie adaptations, or I guess movie video game adaptations.

I think I respect, like, Ghostbusters more than I respect this game in terms of, like, what it was trying to do. Or, like, Jaws, where it tried to create mechanics out of the... out of the movie that made it unique in that regard. And, and, and, or like, it's just the, the, the franchise is the lend itself so well. to a video game like Batman or something that it just, it just flows. Whereas this doesn't really flow like the mechanics that try to make it more Elm street are kind of jank.

and just feel kind of tacked on and otherwise it could just be any other as mike described it serviceable plat like action platformer so this is yeah not essential uh lots of things probably

Could have been done differently here. A Nightmare on Elm Street game, though, where you aren't aware that you've entered the dream world until, like, Freddy shows up or something happens could be really interesting, though. Like, as a modern take. Yeah, I'd say so. It doesn't even have to be a horror game. It could wind up being something where, again, you start off as a severely weak...

You're in a nightmare can't even throw a punch thing but like then throughout the game like you gain, you know through the powers of uh what every single video game seems to have now a skill tree uh you gain the ability to like you know have new powers in the dreams to eventually

Like, you can beat, like, that's the whole cell, right? That's another thing that happens in video games all the time now. It's like, you can go right to the end of the game and fight the boss, right? Like, you can go right to the dream world and fight Freddy, but, like, you're going to have a really tough time winning that fight without any of the powers, but, like.

Then, throughout the game, you would be able to eventually take him down. And then, I don't know, depending on the completion of what you learned in the dream. would dictate what kind of ending you got. So this way there's still incentive to 100% and learn. I am now looking forward to A Nightmare on Elm Street Breath of the Wild Edition. Exactly. And I'm looking forward to our next episode, Orb-3D. Do I have to say the dash? I think you just say Orb-3D. Orb-3D, sure. Sounds orby.

It's going to be orberific or it's going to be horrible. Oh. Bye.