393 - The Immortal

The Immortal. When nightmares come to life, you find out you're not immortal! And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of Every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. So we... Are you immortal? Are you not immortal? That was a confusing box. I can confirm that you are certainly not immortal in this game. In fact, I feel like you're more mortal than I am in real life in this game. Yeah, he had glass bones and paper skin. Yes.

This is a... Well, rather than talk about what it is first... Let's talk about what it isn't. No, but anybody ever heard of The Immortal before? I certainly didn't hear about this game. I didn't know anything about it going into it. no yeah i hadn't either and i don't think it's like a big thing but it's another one of those games where like someone gets to put their name in front of it like will harvey's computer classic the immortal and it's like

Remember somebody else did that and we were like, isn't that like a Sid Meier thing? But apparently this was just a trend back then because I don't know Will Harvey either, but I looked up on Wikipedia. This is his last game. Well, I know. I know that EA back in the day was like, oh, like, you know, art, like video games are art, artists should be credited. And like, even in the, like, even in the.

instruction booklet for this they have like like high school photos in there of the people that made the game and just like okay guys calm down but yeah but i mean that's the exact opposite of what they are today so it's like yeah But I guess that makes sense. Electronic arts artists. Maybe that's maybe that was what they were going for. But yeah, I'm not ragging on this guy. He made a pretty cool game here and he had a couple of other interesting things. He had a lot of like.

internet stuff after this where he like founded a company that was just like first it was about network latency problems then it was about instant messaging then it was about 3d worlds for socializing but you know obviously not like second uh second life or something like that it was just more for i guess i don't know businesses or something like he just kept trying new things with computers uh

I don't know if any of those things were successes or not, but I think it's just interesting that, like, you know, now exploring this podcast, we're seeing so many people get the moniker in front of the title of these games. The Immortal is a pretty cool title, though. I think this is one that would, just based on the box art, make me at least look at it in the store. I think the box art is pretty cool.

It's not as cartoony as everything else, and it's got intrigue. And how many games do you play as, like, a really old person? Yeah, you're so old. You're just like an old man. You're, like, old. I don't know. I thought that was interesting. I actually feel like every game that we play as, you are like...

In your prime, like, either a kid or an adult who is, you know, like, setting out on a grand adventure that only this person's equipped for. This is, like, the exact opposite. You are... a really old, unnamed wizard or apprentice to a wizard who enters a dungeon of sorts, a cave, I guess.

Because they're trying to follow, I guess, messages that they were tracking down from their master, Mortimer. And Mortimer, like... sets them out on this journey but like we don't have much information about this guy and all we have the ability to do is like shoot fireballs and fight but we learn that

We're in some kind of isometric, trap-heavy action-adventure game where there are as many ways to die as there were in Shadowgate. Yeah. But it's, it's interesting because it's so differently, it feels so much like Shadowgate, but it plays so different. It kind of really threw me for a loop being like this action adventure Shadowgate. Like it just didn't.

It took me a while to adjust to that. I don't know about you guys. Yeah, I thought it was in Shadowrun for a second. It's really just the isometric viewpoint. the the the vibe is more like i guess mature this feels like a more like between the marketing materials and and just sort of the first few moments of

exposition and gameplay. It's like, oh, this is a different vibe than usual. Yeah. And I guess in Shadowgate, you have all these ways to die that are... based on choices you made which sometimes can feel you know crazy that like oh that led to this or whatever but in this it's like there's a lot of ways to die and sometimes it's because of choices and sometimes it's because you just

You're playing the game. Yeah. You just walked in the wrong direction and you could have, you know what I mean? It feels a little cheaper to me in this game that the shadow gate like elements in this game feels cheaper to me than it does in something like shadow gate.

I think that in both this game and in Shadowgate, it becomes pretty apparent very quickly that they're going to try and kill you in as many ways as possible. And I think, yeah, in the first five minutes of this game, you will die in five different ways. Yeah. So you just kind of take that into account. Sure. But I guess what I'm saying is that like Shadowgate, I'm like.

all right i know that like if i do this that might be some kind of trap or if i do that it might be like i'm gonna try it and let oh shit it was a trap but like this is just like All right. I wonder what's over. Oh, there's a trap. I couldn't have possibly seen it. There's no way I could have known it was there. Joe, isn't that because Shadowgate is kind, you know, obviously it's a point and click game, but if it's more turn based in nature, whereas the immortal is.

real time adventure game, uh, where you are experiencing these same puzzle mechanics of like using things from your inventory and applying them to the environment. But because it's happening in real time, there's also just like,

that you said you're just walking and then you die you know yeah right like so many things were invisible that it felt like it just felt like the game was attacking me you know and like i i didn't even really have time to adjust for it like why make it invisible i guess that's Maybe I'm getting into much deeper things that we're trying to get into right now, but it just felt cheaper to me a lot of the times, the way you die. And so there's...

Two modes of the game, if you will. The game starts in the isometric viewpoint, and that is where you're just kind of navigating through the actual cave or dungeon. There are traps, switches, pits. all kinds of environmental hazards. There's also like other, so there's two different forms of enemies. There's enemies like goblins that will approach you and force you to go into the second mode of play, which are these.

1v1 close-up duels uh that we'll get into in a bit because i think that deserves its own section but then there's also these bats and uh other uh like mostly bats yeah mostly bats but like I think they're actually like, they're described as vampire bats. So like, could they turn into just...

Dracula's as well? You know what I mean? Would they wear the cape and everything too? I don't think they do. That assistance to Dracula. I think you could use... vampire bats are also a colloquial term for some regular bats in real life.

Yeah, I think there's actually like a species of bat that's called a vampire bat. And they just attack people as frequently as this wizard gets attacked in this game? Yeah, but they do have capes and they do have weird Eastern European accents. Got it. Great. Because the bats in this game... They don't trigger a 1v1 combat. They just are in the isometric view. They just melt you. Yeah, they just kind of, once they fly around the room, but once they latch onto you, they're on you, and you must...

shoot off your second means of attack other than in the 1v1 duels, you have this fireball projectile, which is not great. It was tough for me. to really aim this thing. And I don't know if that's because of the isometric or because of how enemies move around and such, but the bats became a nuisance because the bats feel like, at least on some level...

They are a, uh, a don't stand there and, and wait, uh, like timer thing where it's like, you know, Hey, Hey, you gotta keep moving. You gotta stay active. Right. We don't want you to just sit in here. But at the same time, it's like, okay, well, now there's bats here, and it's likely to take off just as much of my health as a fight with a goblin. And, like, that doesn't feel equal. Yeah, I think it's good.

Because in the beginning, I thought that this was just going to be a thing that was going to pester me the entire time, and I did not know that I could kill it with the fireball. So I would just get... destroyed by these things um until i realized like oh i could shoot it and i i think once you realize that you can just shoot it and yes it's a little harder to aim but it's not as big of a deal as

Like the first impression of like, why is this thing always nagging me? And the majority of the game happens in this isometric view where you are, you know, where you're doing the puzzle solving. This isn't something where you're. prompted by texts and such. You go into your inventory to find specific things and use them in specific locations, but you have to be in the right spot triggering the correct events. And some of them are very...

I don't want to say complicated or anything, but they're very nuanced puzzles that aren't just like, okay, I'm here and I pulled this item out of my inventory. You do need to know a little bit that I feel like... in some ways can only be found out through the very detailed manual. There is a manual here that looks like it was two separate booklets. So there was like the instructions booklet for the game.

that explains like the just the basic controls and how to do stuff and includes a complete walkthrough like you would have in a strategy guide for the very first level of the game just to kind of tell you

you know go through this door open this chest fight these two goblins like just literally explaining all the various scenarios you can get into because the first level of the game is kind of a tutorial of sorts of the kinds of things you'll encounter in the game but then there's like this second

book the codex of the serpent is what it's called and it sounds very epic but it's the entire game including that first level again in the form of hints that i feel like if you don't have this book a lot of the puzzles are going to go over your head or you're just not going to think to be like, well, how was I supposed to know I need to stand on this square and pull out this thing? I wonder if this was almost like a DRM of sorts. Absolutely, right? Because there's enough text in the game.

already between like which also give you hints like being in having your dreams read out when you rest and just the each moment of dialogue between different characters there's a lot of text here so they could have put all this stuff in the game I feel like but yeah this other book that you're talking about this this came with the game yeah

Oh, yeah, yeah. Not a separate strategy guide you buy. This is like another booklet. Similar to how some games come with maps and such. Like the Final Fantasy. That always came with a little first dungeon walkthrough, I think. But that, I think, was in the instructions manual. Don't quote me on that. I don't have a boxed copy. Yeah, that was the same booklet, yeah. Yeah, but this is like, Joe, since it doesn't seem like you got a chance to look at it.

Which is fine because GameFAQs nowadays will have all the information that you would have needed anyway. But for players, it's interesting because it has, like, one thing that I thought was a neat addition in the...

in the early levels is those will the wisps that attack you and i was reading the strategy guide and uh you can control these will the wisps like instead of them attacking you you can cast a spell so that they basically uh you know uh surround you and create uh like a force field before you take damage they'll attack and they won't last the entire game of course but it's a neat little thing of like

Not necessarily a mandatory puzzle, but rather than being attacked by these things, you could turn them on your side. So it goes through this whole like text of. Legends have told of wayfarers being attacked by Will of the Wisps. I reckon such stories were the products of childish imaginations. And this goes on for like a full paragraph. But then at the end, it's just like...

Maybe I can devise a spell to bring them under my control. It's like, it doesn't really leave much. It's like, you know, you'd only have so many things in your inventory at that point. It basically held your hand there at the end. However, you do still have to make the connection of what a Will of the Wisp is because they were just fireballs. That's true. That's true. But I think that's a recurring thing with every single one of these things in this.

in this guidebook is it's like if you just read enough into it you will know what exactly to do in that exact circumstance provided that you have all the stuff in your inventory because an interesting part of this game is that like There's nothing you shouldn't pick up.

Right. There's nothing that like, oh, you know, I'll leave that behind because I think my inventory is getting kind of full. Like, no, you should pick up every single thing. I think the manual tells you that, too. Just like there's no such thing as a bad thing in this game. But like. For instance, in level two, there are these green slimes on the ground that, you know, if you touch them, you know, it's instant death.

There is a merchant that sells a potion for it that's going to help because there is one particular room that I'm sure speed runners figure out an exact way to skip over it. But most likely this green blob would touch you. if you didn't have this potion. He offers it for 100 gold, which is impossible to have. So you have to refuse his offer. So that he, you know, as like your way of bartering, you're just like, no. But he goes, oh, okay, okay. Have it for 80 then. And 80 is all of the gold.

that you could have collected at that point in the game. So if you missed any gold, you still can't afford it, but you needed to pick up every single piece of gold in the first level in order to afford this thing in the second level. Now, could you refuse him again?

No, he won't. I mean, yeah. Continue playing the game. Yeah, because that would be an interesting way to teach you a mechanic. It's like you have to refuse because you can't afford it. Now you know you can refuse and then you can do it more or something.

I want to test this, you know, this way that like the game maybe held your hand that I didn't get because I didn't read the manual. But the first part where I got really stuck and I had to look up in game FAQs. Is at the end of level one, you have to go to this room with like a staff and you have to, you have to, you have to pick up the amulet.

You have to hold it up to the light. It asks you, do you want to hold it up to the light? Yes or no? Yes. Then you have to read the inscription, but you don't read the inscription. You say no to that. Yeah, you do say no to that. Yeah, those things in that order is the only way that I could found. To open the door to move on. Was there something that taught you that? The thing that teaches you that is that you burn and are incinerated when you read the...

When you read the inscription. And that happens at any point. At any point in the game. So that happened to me and I thought, okay, so this is not the point where I'm supposed to use this amulet. Because I died. I didn't think like, oh, I have to still hold it up to the light.

but not read it. I don't know. Maybe that was just me not trying every possible thing, but I was like, okay, this is not the point for it because it's letting me read it and when I do, I die. I guess what my point... my counterpoint to this would be is that each of these levels is pretty self-contained and like like mike said before like you have a very limited inventory so there's only so many things that you can do

And also, when you die because you were burnt to a crisp by reading the amulet inscription, you are respawned not too far away from where this happened. And even if you were to lose all your lives... You're just going to have to, you're not really losing that much progress. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not sure. I, I'm not sure. I agree only because of all the, you have to take this amulet. You have to stand by the staff.

You need to, which, why would you know that? It's not, you need to hold it up to the light. It's not a staff though, right? It's, oh yeah, I know what you're saying. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. The staff leaning against the wall. You have to stand by this staff that there's no indication, unless it's in the manual or something, like the staff gives off light.

reflects off an amulet or something like that then i then corrected but like you have to do that you have to hold up to the light if you read the inscription you die which does encourage me to think okay the amulet's not it You know what I mean? Why would it ask you, why would it ask you to those two things? Do you want to?

Hold the amulet up to the light. Then why would it then ask you the second one? I get the amulet. I hold it up to the light. This is exactly what happened to me. I get the amulet. I hold it up to the light. asks me do you want to read the description i do i die okay okay let me try not holding up i get the amulet again i hold it up to the light i don't read the description nothing happens because i'm not in that room at that staff there's there's too many layers there

I just don't know how to get all those things together. Why would I know to go to the staff and do those things in that order? Because it's in the manual. Why did you use the amulet at the staff in the first place? I didn't. I googled it. I looked it up on a game. I used the amulet just when I got the amulet. I was like, what does this do? I mean, I did that too, but I didn't know to do it at the staff. I see.

Can we go back to the staff for a second? Because I don't have that part of the gameplay in front of me. What is the staff? Are you guys talking about the light that's shining through the room? Is that what that is? That's the sun. Yeah, but it's leaning against a wall. No, that's a beam of light.

If it's a beam of light, then I get what they were going for, and that would make more sense because you're holding up to the light. That did not read like a beam of light to me. It looked like Gandalf's staff to me. Okay, good. I thought you were attaching the amulet to the staff that may or may not be in a shaft.

light no there is a hole in the wall that is causing the sun to peek through that part at once only one time in a millennium does it happen and you just happen to be here uh and now you it says This mechanism can be tripped every thousand years by light. Use something shiny dot dot dot. So it's telling you to use the amulet.

And when you put the angle up there. That makes sense. But then it's still, it just, it hit me because that did not read as light to me. It read as a stick, you know? Yeah, I know. I hear you. It doesn't, it doesn't look great. I know what you mean. Yeah. Okay, now that we solved that, I agree with you that it sucks that the amulet, that reading it causes basically, it's like everything, does it like...

Everything in the room just goes up in flames or something? Like, what is the idea? Like, you die by reading it? But then, like, this sort of ties into the end of the game, though. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And you having tested that and dying.

like tells you that you should not do that at the end of the game. I don't know. Yeah. It also tells you that you shouldn't do it again. You know, to your point, Sean, that like Joe, if you do it once and it says like, okay, hold it up to the light.

next time just don't read it but hold it up to the light and you would have seen that the trap door opens to reveal the ladder but that that's that is what i did just not realizing that that staff was the light that i needed you know what i mean where's this light that i need to you know

I understand. Also, full disclosure, I did not beat the game. So I don't know if this comes back and it's important at the end of the game. That's also something that I did not. It's very important, but we have to talk about the end of the game.

towards the end of the episode just because it's so nuanced and I feel like we need to get through a few other things as well. So, like, I'm glad that we were able to dissect a puzzle on that level. I don't think we can do that for every puzzle in the game.

but you know just just to stay i'm gonna go and do it yeah sure go for it if you just stay on this exploration aspect of it right you don't have to like go to the next puzzle after that or anything but there does become this thing with the goblins where at first they are just like a brute force enemy that you should...

be attacking, right? Like, they are on the offensive. They tell you to stay away from them. If you approach them, then you have to fight them. I need to chime in real quick about the goblin thing. So, at no point... in this game are the goblins are the goblins like on the offensive you are in you are an infiltrator you are invading their space they're in their own little fight that you are not a part of

and yet you massacre them in the first couple levels, so you were never in the right. They were going to kill that other guy who gives you the key in the first level. You don't know who that guy is. That's just some guy. They're always warning you that, like, hey, don't take a step forward. Like, hey, don't come near me. And yet, there you go. You're coming near him. Like, of course you're going to get into a fight.

Yes, I agree with you. The goblins weren't asking for it. They were not. That's just those fantasy world rules where it's just like, if it looks human but isn't, we're just allowed to kill them in math and we're still the good guys. And, of course, the goblins evolved through the levels to be something that, like, well, there's this war that they're having with the trolls, and...

You don't have to necessarily fight the goblins. In fact, there's some that you're just going to be in for a world of hurt if you try to. But the goblins are the introduction to the other part of the game, which is this, you know... one-on-one combat system that is nothing. It's not a real-time isometric thing. It's more like...

rock'em sock'em robots kind of thing. That's a perfect description. You have specific positions that you can be standing in either attacking or ducking and depending on...

where the enemy is attacking or ducking and where you are, that will register as a hit, a miss, or a hit in their favor towards you. Because even when you try to duck, if you are not ducking in the... uh opposite direction of their of the enemy's swing you will just be hit by their club or whatever they're attacking you with and so as a result it's a very involved combat

system that happens incredibly fast at the beginning of the game. Like with no warning, you are brought into a fight that you just don't have the muscle memory for the controls yet. And so I don't know about you guys, but... For me, this wasn't, you know, easily my earliest death was just dying to a goblin in a fight. Yeah, it took me a while to kind of get the feel of these fights. I just button mashed. And I was, at least for the first couple...

I was okay just button mashing. I mean, I could button mash and get through one or two battles, but I would lose so much hope that by the third battle, I'm dead. And I think I read this somewhere, but I don't have it in front of me on my notes, but I believe I read... that it's not just as the encounters go on but based on like the amount of fights that you have each fight the goblin like ai is more intelligent than like the previous one so if you skipped

The first two, the third fight you would have had will be like the first fight of the game, if that makes sense. It was kind of counting up based on your encounters. that they get smarter and smarter, that's an interesting system in itself, too. Smarter and smarter. What could they possibly...

Is it just like reading your inputs better? I don't know if it's reading your inputs better, but I can tell you with certainty that button mashing will not work beyond the first level. Oh, I know it didn't, but I'm saying that my first death was dying from a worm. uh okay and that like the my first fights were were pretty were pretty survivable that's all i'm saying got it i i guess i was just trying to play the game system and as a result it was like i

Every time I tried to duck, it was not in the right direction. It was like, oh, I finally pulled off the duck, but I'm leaning into his attack instead of pulling away from. It reminds me of... Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, there is a, like, boxing minigame that you have to do this exact thing in where you have to kind of, like, pull away from the punches, but you have to know.

what punch they're going to throw based on this like small, slight tell that they have. And every enemy has a different tell. It was like that level of frustration where I'm like, ah, I just pushed the wrong buttons. Like, because the way that you duck. And the way that you attack are somewhat similar because they're D-pad pulls plus the correct button input.

Sometimes my brain would just screw them up and what I meant to be a duck would go for an attack, but I already knew that the enemy was attacking. It created a lot of awkward encounters for me where I was losing a lot of health. often because of how bad I was at these combat encounters. Maybe the avoiding the system kind of saved me at certain times then because I was just not really thinking about it as hard. And because like you could just like kind of brute force it for a while. I don't know.

No, I hear you. I think I was in my own head too much, if I'm being honest. I think it was one of those situations where I'm trying to use the game systems and I just can't even, I can't think like that. I can't think about... ducking versus attacking correctly enough that I'm playing its rhythm-style mechanic game. I also think that the mechanics or the game systems that you're trying to play with are just unclear.

like what you're exactly supposed to be ducking. And so, yeah, I just didn't really get it. I'm guessing, and that's something that I just... I just decidedly didn't look at the manual for, but I'm assuming that's in there. I mean, is it clear if you read the manual? Yeah. But I didn't. I was like, I'll figure this out. And I sort of did.

And that combat system remains throughout the game, so the rest of any combat happens in the real-time space where you're just firing off your projectiles. Eventually you can do other cool stuff like ride a magic carpet and...

use items in your inventory to cast specific spells or turn enemies against each other. These are all part of the... puzzle mechanic more than intended like uh consistent combat solutions it's not it's not like yeah they're not systems they're just they're not systems puzzle uh like features

But the the first level if we if we go back to that Just because I think it's an easy like it's easy things to talk about the The room with the arrows that shoot out uh if you don't walk in the intended path would you have would you have ever even thought that there was an intended path not to trip off the arrows like they're pretty easily dodged and it's just kind of like it happens so i just thought like oh this is that room where like it

motion detects that I'm walking through it. I'm going to assume that Joe didn't know that there was an intended path because that's like the... We saw that in the manual. Yeah, you're exactly right. I had no idea until this moment. I just thought, yeah, this is the arrow room. Yeah.

Okay, so Joe, here's a solution that you definitely knew about because it's communicated to you in-game, which is weird, right? That there are certain things communicated in-game and others that aren't. There should have been at least a hint for everything, I suppose. But the... uh, the shade enemies that, uh, appear in the dark rooms, right? You're warned about that. Uh, so surely you lit those torches in that room using your fireballs. So this way you get that nose, right?

Yes, yes. Yeah, that dead guy is, yeah, yeah. So do you think the game would have been better if it was more like, you know, exploring to find notes that, almost like Elden Ring style, like players left behind? You know, these things that like give vague hints about like what's coming in the room ahead. Should that have been a constant thing instead of just like randomly giving off? I mean, I don't know if it has to be notes, but yeah, like.

Maybe if I had read the manual, I would have been a little higher on a lot of this stuff. But, like, it's not just the puzzles for me. It's the traps that really frustrated me. Or just be like, I'm just dead. Like I'm just dead all the time for things I can't see. And sometimes it is like, oh, I can see it and I can sit here and figure it out and then I can move. But doing that for like every.

you know, what felt like every room, every couple of steps, I got to figure out what's next. It, it, it wore on me. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I agree. I think that the, uh, a lot of the, adventure game logic stuff is front loaded and once you've tried to use bait in a random area and get eaten by a worm or get incinerated by an amulet you're kind of desensitized to that and, and it like when the future puzzle logic stuff, like.

running into a goblin that says that he'll never give you a thing and it's all his and I'll never give this to you literally. And then the room before that you find, or like maybe two rooms before that you find a ring called like the ring of complacence. Or something. Yeah, yeah. Compliance. And it's like, oh, I should probably use this here. And then you use it, and he gives you the thing. It's not really that big of a logical jump, but when you're just walking across a floor that...

has spikes coming out of it randomly, and then you think you see a pattern, and then spikes just break that pattern and kill you. Like, that's annoying. And that just means that you're supposed to die enough and memorize the floor. Yeah, and I do not think...

uh it's praiseworthy but it's certainly intended right the game the game was even promoted as such as like uh you know you will die a lot you know so it's definitely intended by the developer to like oh you know like they went through the trouble of animating a lot of these too so it's like look at all these crazy deaths and they were toned back in the NES version compared to the computer game but like

I don't know how I feel about that because I agree that it's frustrating almost to a point that makes you want to quit the game. But it's not so punishing that like when you die. provided you have lives remaining, that you lost so much progress. This could have been a much worse game if you only had one life or if you start at the beginning of the level if you died. I feel like...

There's something about the way that they handle the fact that you will die often that makes it, like, known between the player and the game that, like, oh, this is intended. I'm supposed to be dying often. Like, I registered that right away. And I feel like it might be this kind of forgotten style of gameplay that comes out of... the the the world where people had only one game to memorize and stuff like that then there there probably is more of an audience for you know people who

want to I don't want to say memorize a game but like want to get so good at a game that like they know the levels inside out and like that was like such a bigger thing of like really knowing oh like this is where you got you got to do this this and this and you got to like figure it out people

People would spend a lot more time in this game to learn it and then show off to their friends, like, I can get through this. And I feel like that's kind of lost on me these days because it's just so removed from the way I play games now. I'm going to grant both points that like, yes, I even went into it earlier in the episode that like when you die, it's never, you're never losing that much progress, but it doesn't make the frustrating moments less frustrating.

To get into some of the later puzzles and such, or not even that much later, the Goblin King, when you run into him... It's not an encounter you should take on. And in fact, if you wind up wearing, you get a ring from one of the trolls that lets you look like a goblin. If you wind up wearing that and talking to him, that's an instant death.

So you can't fool him by trying to be one of the goblins. But you have to do this thing where you plant these spores on a dirt patch in the room. Leave the room. come back into the room with the Goblin King, give him the water that you found, and then, you know, for saving his life, he gives you both a clue and a key. But then in the following level...

If you gave him the water, he lets you pass easier and warns of the trolls that are coming ahead. So there is some payoff here between choices you make. There technically isn't just one solution to this game. Like we said, you could try to outrun those green blobs rather than use the resist potion. There are other paths. It just makes the game that much more hard.

Yeah, I think it's funny that just going off of your amoral nature and how you're breaking into this conflict that does not concern you. that you then trick the king into thinking that you saved him, and you had nothing to do with him being poisoned by spores. Even though you were in the room just a second ago. Yeah, I mean, it's partially his fault. He probably should know better, but...

You also didn't correct him. It's true. In, I think it's level five, it might have been level four, there is maybe like... The first instance that we have on this show of like meeting the developers inside the video game. Did you guys know about this? I didn't. At this point, I was just trying to get through it, and I did not finish the game, but I did watch a later run of this whole coffee thing happen.

Yes. So it seems like you can find the room and see the developers who are in normal clothes, mind you. They're not dressed up like wizards or anything. And they request a cup of coffee. And if you don't... have the coffee pop beforehand uh you know and the ability to make the coffee like you just would think like oh they're just like that's a funny joke about how developers are overworked and they need caffeine to stay awake or whatever

But you can actually bring a cup of coffee to them. And by doing so, they give you... overpowering body odor that knocks out every single enemy in the game because you smell so much, which is also probably a commentary about gamers. on some level. So, like, the devs really got in there and made this. I don't know about yet. It's so funny, though, don't you? Well, I think the basement-dwelling computer thing was there right from the beginning, Sean. Okay, all right, all right.

But that is just such an interesting inclusion that, again, totally optional. You don't need to find this little Easter egg. Obviously, it will kind of... break the game you still have to solve the puzzles but no more enemies uh to deal with and um it's just one of those things that like you know again even though these puzzles are a little like use the use this exact thing at this exact spot

There is a charm overall to the game once you've figured it out that I think makes you want to keep going. You solve the puzzle that was kind of annoying and you're like, I kind of can't wait for the next annoying puzzle. I wonder what that says about you, Mike. Yeah, maybe it only says that about me. I don't think you guys were agreeing. Well, here's the thing. What you're saying in the game you're describing, I'm like really excited about. I want to play this game.

and i'm not saying it what this game wasn't that i'm saying i don't think i gave it the chance to be that and like i when i started as i was playing it i'm i was like this is like i'm really intrigued and i really want to get further in this but i just

I just wasn't enjoying the moment to moment gameplay. And like, I almost feel like the way you're describing, I want to go back and play it with that in mind, because I kind of did want this to be like a, like what Shadowgate was for me, but in a more action setting.

And I think I was just more disappointed, but like everything you're saying, like hits the kind of thing that I want to do, but I just was not, I was just getting all frustration and like none of that satisfaction. And Joe, I think that's because it's worth.

don't you think it's worth mentioning that like the, the actual controls of the game aren't all that tight and that that creates probably this experience that you had where you weren't exactly feeling it. And it was, you know, like I think like, I'm describing the fun parts of the game, but it's worth mentioning that it's not exactly the tightest controls we've ever seen, and the isometric is doing it favors from a graphics department, surely. Like, this game...

Looks amazing for an NES game. Yeah, it's a beautiful game, yeah. But I don't think everything is pulled off as easily as saying it in this podcast. Yeah, definitely. With the movement and with the goblin combat, you know? The movement I eventually got used to, but isometrics are always a little weird to get the hang of. But even once I was used to it, like...

Having movement that isn't perfect and having traps that are one tile off from each other that'll kill you, that's a recipe for a little bit of frustration, too. I think that the puzzle design has highs and lows, and you can really start focusing on the lows when you get speared from the floor 15 times in a row. So I kind of agree with both of you here. It's funny, Sean is like taking my position, my normal position, where I'm like, I'm always like on the fence.

This was a very charming game to me. It's kind of up my alley in a lot of ways, but I also don't like those little... It's not just like, oh, I can't master this. It's just, oh, I have to memorize this. So I get where you're coming from. Yeah.

At the beginning of the game, as we mentioned, you don't have a name. You see a letter addressed to a man named Dunrick, but it says to you in the game, Your name is not Dunrick. So that's interesting, right? That is the best piece of writing we've seen in a... freaking NES game in the entirety of this podcast. I swear to God. It was an intrigue and you will eventually meet Dunrick who, surprise, surprise, has been chained. I think it's level 6 or whatever. You have to give him a ring.

in order to gain some additional inventory stuff that you'll need later. So there is this thing where you're meeting characters. You even meet his daughter, right? His daughter is Anna, the one that... That is Anna. Yeah. Okay, so... basically you're meeting these people and you aren't trading inventory for inventory or using inventory stuff to acquire new stuff. So like you always have, as long as you picked up everything, you always have what you need.

But the reason why I wanted to save the ending, Joe, for the end is because you need basically exactly everything and need to know exactly how to use it all for the final fight. In order to win the game, because there is no other way other than by... finding out that you don't have the necessary item to complete the checkpoint in the boss fight because the boss fight is not a 1v1 duel like we saw with the other enemies in the game. It is in the isometric viewpoint.

a giant dragon you and uh surprise the guy who you thought was your master turns out he lured you in here um he shows up as well but he only shows up after a certain point in the boss fight too So you have to kind of figure all these things out of like, okay, now the dragon's going to blow fire, so I need to cast blink exactly, or you only have to cast blink once, but you only get...

six exact uses of blink. So if you don't use it for each of those six fire breaths, or you find out that you don't have seven of them, you will die at any one of those. So you have to time those exactly correct. On the seventh fire breath, he does like a double fire breath. So you have to use fire protection for that in order to make sure that you...

You know, just basically don't have to you don't have to use time the input anymore. You just absorb the fire for both those blasts. Do I mention that the dragon also fakes you out on the sixth blast where he does like a he has like this huff motion and he goes back for the huff.

But then he goes forward without doing the flame blast. And then he blasts the flame as if to taunt you, saying, like, even if you figured out the timing, I can still change it at any minute. It's all crazy stuff. Then...

What is the guy's name? It's long. Just call him Mordecai. Mordecai. All right. But it is with an M. Yeah. It's something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Mordecai. Yeah. Mordecai shows up. He tells you that this has been his plan all along. The game is called The Immortal because this has the fountain of youth or whatever that he's been using for like a thousand years to stay alive.

And he needs these dragons guarded or whatever, but this dragon got free, but now it's back. He needs you to kill the dragon. I wasn't really following here, and I'm sure you said it more elegantly, but like... It did feel like it wasn't a problem. Like the dragon apparently like burned his hometown or whatever. But like, dude, this sounds like an issue between you and the dragon. Keep me out of it. So he needed you because you were going to you were going to. No, I'm sorry. You continue.

Yeah, he cast Thunder, which you also have to time your dodges for that as well, using a totally different spell. But again, you have only these things left. It's kind of like process of elimination. But again... How would you know that he's about to cast thunder? He doesn't say, and now get ready for my lightning attack, right? He just does it. Like, you're gonna die. You're gonna die. You're gonna be like, ah, shoot, I should have used that spell, but...

You have to figure that out. So this is a very long fight where everything has to go exactly right and requires your own timing mechanics. It's not just about having the stuff in your inventory. He then takes the amulet from you. And reveals that the dragon will not kill the person who holds the amulet, the thing you've been holding on to the whole time. And you have your last spell, which is some magnetic hands or magnetic power.

And you, you know, right before the dragon's about to blow fire at you, you grab the amulet back. It blows fire directly on him, killing him. And you are now able to drink from the fountain of the youth and you are. Young again, and you get to... You're with Anna. And now I understand where the title The Immortal comes from. Exactly, right? But how cool is that? You're an old man who turns young. Yeah, but hold on. Okay.

The amulet thing, from what I saw, because I did not get to this part of the game, but from what I saw, once you tank that final fire breath, that's when you use the amulet, right? And then... Once again, you don't read the inscription because you remember dying doing that earlier in the game when you were just encountering with your inventory. And that's when...

Mortimer Mordecai comes down and is like, you fool, you had to do that. We were supposed to do that, right? Yes, that's true. Okay, so that's looping it back in to the beginning. I think it's just a little weird that, you know, you're like an 80-year-old dude and, you know. Yeah, now you're getting... Anna wasn't old.

She's not old. That is also the good ending. There is a bad ending when you don't help her. And that just means that, like, huh, I guess it was weird that my master, who also, just another sidebar. You're pretty old yourself, and you're still this dude's, like, apprentice? When does the apprentice become the master? Yeah, but also, like, you're pretty old, but, like, you're not a thousand.

I don't think this guy ever revealed to you he was a thousand years old. Yeah, I don't think you know he's a thousand. But I'm saying him being a thousand, he's probably skilled enough to still have way more magical knowledge than you do. And you're like, well, I still got more to learn from this guy.

Whether you know how old he is or not. I think at a certain point in your 30s or 40s, you're going to go off on your own. Even if you don't, oh, he's still better than me, but I could probably wizard myself. I just assumed that that was a part of the... culture of like yeah like wizardry you're never done learning until like you know but man what what a convoluted final fight that like must be

amazing for the one guy who figured it out and then everybody else who read the FAQ because they were tired of getting all the way to the end and dying obviously more than one person obviously it's a skill issue for me But I do think like I'm so conflicted about just how awesome it is to have everything in your inventory and just figuring out the correct sequence of events. But it is other than like some minor timing stuff. It is just saying like.

Uh-huh, but I thought of that and I have this. Oh, well, that doesn't matter because I have this. No, I have this. It's like, it winds up becoming an anime fight almost. I think the framing... specifically and i think at a wider in a wider sense like if there was any other time that you used magnetism or if there was any other time that you used like the statue thing and it was just a part of systems and then it's just sort of

emergent that it would all happen in the boss battle that would i'd probably grant it a lot more credit here and even just a smaller tweak if if it was just framed that you now had the ability to blink not specifically six charges of blink but that you just had the ability to ability to blink i think that i would this would go down a lot like this would feel a lot less contrived than

Once you pick up the blink spell, it says, don't use it six times. After that, you know what I mean? Oh, totally. That adds a lot to it. I agree that it's a shame that... all of these awesome spells have to be saved for the end and never taught to the player ahead of time, or that there aren't like... more open-ended solutions to this other than just doing exactly what the game intended through 45 inputs yeah you know it's like at least in in like okay so say like um

all right we got megaman 3 coming up so save any megaman game right like the final boss fight um you know at least you have like the freedom of movement to like no no one play would look exactly the same as another right there's like obviously like better weapons to use against certain enemies and everything but like the actual gameplay is unique here you have the ability to have movement in this fight because you've been doing it the entire game but they lock you to this like little cliff

Or island, if you will. And everybody just has to stand in their positions and act out the part. Yeah. It's all on rails from here.

But to talk about the presentation and not just the presentation of the final boss fight, but just in general, the game, we, you know, we briefly said that the graphics are awesome and I agree with that. But even just like the little touches throughout of like how. Realistic isn't the right word, but how it's trying to go for something like that with like how.

When a ladder reveals itself, you can only enter from that side where the ladder is if you try just to go any other part. Yeah, it's on the troll move. Yeah, you just fall down. Yeah, that's just another reason to die. Yeah. But, like, you know, it's a thoughtful touch. There's that one... part where you're in the raft and you're um you know with the current and everything and it's like you know i'm not saying

they did a water level or, you know, like a, you know, like look at those graphics. But like, I did believe that I was rowing that, uh, that raft and that there was like a current and stuff. Like I think that, that glug glug sprite that you. When the thing, I forgot the name of the enemy, but when that's chasing you, that glug glug sprite is like, that's got to be 60 frames a second. It's so smooth. Yeah, the whole game does run at 60.

It's worth saying. I'm sure there are slowdowns if you cast enough fireballs or had like a turbo or something. But I would just say that like... presentationally, this game is on another level, and that makes me appreciate this Will Harvey guy, because while I don't think he did the NES port, which is impressive in its own right, the original game, like...

clearly is doing something a lot earlier than what I would have expected could be done for this kind of hardware. Yeah, I do think that the isometric style... on the NES is kind of unmatched as far as like detail and I mean like what's this it's like the Was it like the last level? Yeah, that's what you're talking about with the water, right? It's like not just the rafts, but like the actual water look, like the shimmeriness of it all and everything. I mean...

I think it being this pulled out, everything's kind of smaller. It gives it the ability to look like... It's the closest to like, oh, I'm in this environment that you can be, you know, because it's not side scrolling and it's not like top down like a Zelda where it's a lot more cartoony. You know, there's just that there's a texture to it all. Absolutely.

Oh, jinx. I hope it actually matches up in the audio recording. It probably won't. It'll look like I said it first. No, no. I'll edit it that way.

Is there a, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, I'm actually going to skip these questions for a second. But for the listeners, you know, is there like a, is there anything that when you played this game back in the day. How many of you did persevere? I would be interested to know how many people picked this game up, whether it was at Blockbuster on a rental or got it as a gift or bought it themselves when they saw the box was cool.

Because of like the kid in me, like I would have died early on and I would have given up. I would have been like, man, this game is really hard and I'm not going to get anywhere. I did not like really spend time with games. I would just go back to the classics that I already knew I could beat inside and out.

I do wonder how many of you, when you were young, beat this game. Because there are a lot of times where we say, how did we beat these games when we were kids? I think it'd be more impressive if you beat this game as a kid than as an adult. yeah I'm trying to think of what like what I would be I had a game shark growing up so Right, you would have used the Game Genie in this case, yeah. Yeah, I had a Game Genie too, but I definitely used the Game Shark more often in that generation of games.

But I probably would have cheated or tried to cheat and realized that, like, it just didn't work that way. Maybe that says something about us as a generation. Yeah. I mean, I remember so many times, you know, because my first. console was the NES and I played a lot of Super Mario Brothers 3 and you know a little bit of Mega Man and a little bit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and then I would just play like

minutes of every other game and be like, I don't get this. This doesn't work. And I would just go back to my three games. And looking back, I really wish I had given more of these games a chance because I feel like a lot of them had what I was looking for. I just didn't... I just didn't know I had to, like... You know, as a kid, I didn't know I had to get past some, like... You didn't believe in yourself, Joe. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. We're talking about a 33-page manual.

uh for this game i think that alone like ain't no way i'm reading that you know like that's the problem is like i remember um for the n64 we got uh quest 64 which was like one of the only rpgs on the console, and it was my first ever RPG, other than I don't consider Pokemon an RPG, but we got the strategy guide with it. They probably told us. Well, I didn't mean Pokemon in that regard. Not in the same...

It's not in the same difficulty class. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. But, like, I'm sure, like, the Toys R Us salesperson was like, yeah, yeah, you got this game? Like, you're probably going to want this guide. Because, like, we didn't have own guides for many games, but we had it for Quest 64.

And I still never learned what I was doing because I never read that guide. It just wasn't going to happen. That's crazy. I wasn't going to read books. I read strategy guides and instruction manuals for fun. Like, just without... I don't know. I did too. I used to love that. But everything I had on the NES, I got from garage sales. So there were no manuals. There were no cases. There was nothing. But PlayStation stuff. You read that stuff. PlayStation stuff. I read the manuals.

But you didn't need to by then. Yeah. By then, the game told you how to play. I just read the manual because I like to, like, I read the manual because I was on my way home from Blockbuster and was too excited and I had to consume part of the game in some way.

And I just want to say, I did have strategy guides that I read where I read them so much that the pages fell off. And I still have those guys downstairs in my basement with like, isn't this a hundred page strategy guide? Yeah, but I only have 17 pages. And that's for, unfortunately, games that I was good at anyway, like Pokemon Red and Blue or Ocarina of Time. I just loved revisiting the parts of the game that I couldn't get to again without...

replaying the whole game, so I would just look at them in the strategy guide and stuff. It was like I wasn't going to learn anything. I just wanted to... I like the pictures. I like the pictures. And I also like...

When we get near the end of the episodes to do a little thing called the essential games list. There's no doubt. The Immortal is an incredibly challenging game and at some places a very frustrating game. The controls leave a lot to be desired. And yet I like really enjoyed this one on a level that like I usually don't when we like are.

You know, like we don't have that much time to spend with these games. And as I was playing the immortal, I was like, I know I'm not good at this right now, but I want to see if I could get better at it. Long story short was I didn't get much better at it, but I did keep getting further and further as I kept playing.

and while i really like this game and probably like i'm putting it on my like man if i see this in like a secondhand shop i'm gonna buy this game because i'd love to spend more time with it I don't think I can actually recommend it as an essential game. I'm definitely recommending it to people who are listening to this podcast and finding any part of it interesting because I'm not putting it on the essential games list because the controls aren't really the greatest.

I do think that the moment to moment gameplay isn't nearly as exciting as kind of like the rush you get in your head when you do make forward progress. This is the kind of game that like is much better looking back on. than while you're actually playing it. And so to me, that doesn't fit the essential games list dialogue box where like other, other RPGs are maybe more repetitive, easier. And, you know, not as challenging in their like puzzle solutions and such, but like those games.

feel more satisfying in the moment-to-moment because you learn them quickly, you get better at them, and eventually master them. I'm not at the master part yet, and I think a lot of people who have even beat this game wouldn't say that they were masters at it so much as they were masters at reading. Either the included manual or some game FAQs guide. So while I think it's an amazing game that is very unique on the system, and I totally recommend it to listeners of this show.

I don't think it belongs on our list of the best games for this system. Sean? Yeah. I really dig the aesthetic of this game. I think it's got a great sense of humor. I think it's a... very good looking game. Um, it, and, and, you know, it is very frustrating and that's even with the, the very generous, like, continue system and the and even something we didn't mention that if you do fall down a hole a specific kind of hole you can sort of save yourself by getting another rhythm game

Uh, right. And sort of swinging yourself back out of the hole. I just wanted to put, get, get that out there that that's another little bone that they're tossing us. But I think that the, uh, the, the general. The general frustration outweighs a lot of the moment-to-moment fun stuff. And I am also just, yeah, I'm kind of on the fence between really my...

my opinion on whether like I just have annoyed moments or like, Oh, that's neat moments in my memory. Uh, so I I'm going to say it's also like definitely a play it. just to kind of get a vibe for it, but not an essential game. Joe. yeah i really do want to like this more than i did and when i booted it up i was like oh i'm excited like i'm in for for like an adventure and you know that's always what i love about a game is just like if it's a long if satisfying adventure

I think that just it felt like the game was getting in the way of itself a lot. It seems like there's a lot of cool stuff going on, but it was stopping me from experiencing it in a way that I wanted to. Now, maybe I do need to go back and like rewire my expectations a little bit as like this is like about figuring out each puzzle and solving it, like remembering them and getting back to this point and all that.

As I played it, I really didn't love it. I really was disappointed with it, so I definitely can't vote it essential.

We briefly talked about Shadowgate at the beginning of this episode. And before we started, Joe, you had mentioned that you recently picked up a copy of Solstice. Those are two games that I had on here in my notes section of just like if there was some way to bring them up.

I feel like here in the wrap-up section would be the best. Not necessarily ranking these against the Immortal or whatever, but are these games... uh complimentary are they like uh you know well i could see why i like shadowgate more than the immortal like do you how do you feel about uh these three games if you can oh what it what it feels like to me is

is maybe this is where subconsciously I was thinking when I booted it up was that this seems like it's going to be Shadowgate combined with um what's it called with Solstice and and maybe it is but I I think that like Shadowgate has that, that like story puzzle-y element with a lot of like ways to die and figuring out how to not die kind of thing. And I like that about it. Whereas Solstice has the like...

Yeah, it's a little it's it's a action adventure, quote unquote, asymmetric game that's like more cerebral. And I feel like I'm I'm instead of being an action person, I'm being more like I have to think and puzzle solve and stuff. and i love both of those things i just feel like this did not put them together if you're asking me like how where i would place these

I'd have to play them all again to get a 1, 2, 3, but this is my 3. I know that. I just don't know which is my 1 and which is my 2. I would suspect that Shadowgate is my number 1 based on how much I remember liking that. I don't know. Did we all vote?

solstice essential i got to imagine i did but i don't remember i remember really liking it though i don't think it got there yeah well one thing that uh i'm gonna throw a fourth game in in here just as Just as a bit of a comparison, in this game, there is actually like a portal puzzle where you have to put weight on a platform to open a door. And that made me start thinking of, like, why is Portal so... There's so many reasons why Portal's fun or whatever, but it's not a Twitch shooter.

or like a Twitch action game and a cerebral like puzzle game, you have time to think. And when you are trying to get time to think in this game, you've got bats coming at you. So I just think it's like.

these features don't really mix that well when you're kind of always on your feet trying to like swat bats basically and also like How am I supposed to get the spores into the king's room and get out fast enough like I just I don't think it really meshes well all together with those two different aspects of things I really hate those bats Yeah. Outro Music