399 - The Silver Surfer

Silver Surfer, you are all that can stop the universe from entering an endless age of darkness and distress. 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. This is the dude from the Capri Sun commercials.

This is Alex Mack. I don't know if I get that reference. Alex Mack? Oh, Nickelodeon. Come on, man. Nickelodeon employee or Alex Mack. Secret World of Alex Mack. Classic 90s Nickelodeon show. She turned into goo. Like, she turned into, like... really shiny silver liquid yeah yeah no no call it chrome goo um and she would like break into government establishments yeah she was uh she was

Just splashed with a chemical called GC-161, if I remember correctly. Wow, okay. I used to love that show when I was a kid. I know. This is the dude, actually, who's on...

That classic rock album, Surfing with the Alien, Joe Satriani's Silver Surfer. which actually got into a huge dispute with Marvel recently and had to be removed from the cover after 30 years of being on it. There's no sense of, he's been there long enough. I think we could win that argument. Turns out you can't.

They gotta sue the T-1000 then, too. I guess, right? Yeah, like, who did it all? I mean, is Silver Surfer the first, like, silver being to ever appear in anything? Well, was it the first silver surfing being?

Oh, that's true. I forgot about the surfer part of his persona. Well, keep in mind that the silver surfer himself doesn't do the thing that the T-1000s do, but definitely the thing that the Capri Sun kids do, and that is that metallic... like oozy gooey form it's like we it's uncomfortable right to like watch kids oh yeah robots sure but like kids are drinking capri suns the next thing you know they just turn into like ooze

It's like when they turned into the gusher heads. Remember when those kids ate the gushers? Oh, yeah. They became the shape of the fruit. Yeah. I've always been kind of weirded out by the Silver Surfer. I don't really know any of his lore. I just know that he's always kind of naked, but in a way that, you know, like some other, like when I think of that guy, that's basically a rhino whose name I forget from the X-Men.

I don't see him. Oh, no, that's probably, I think that's Spider-Man. Yeah, the guy's name is just Rhino, by the way. Sure, the Rhino guy. I don't see him as naked, even though he's clearly not wearing any clothes. This guy is very naked.

Yeah, he's like very human naked. Yeah. Yeah, but also like he's not because it's kind of like he's wearing this chrome thing, like whatever that is. So this is a naked man under the... under just chrome stuff yeah exactly because that's just like what galactus turned him into now and i don't know anything really about the silver surfer but is this chrome like an exterior or is he this is he the t1000 like is he

just completely comprised of like a liquid metal. Right, right. Well, no, I don't know where the liquid part's coming from because that's the part I want to make clear. The Silver Surfer, he's solid. He doesn't melt or anything. Yeah, exactly. And another thing that should be noted is, like, it's not a costume. He's not doing, like, Captain America and putting on a costume. This is just, like, this is now his form. But he wasn't always this way. Yeah. No, but he wasn't always this.

He used to wear clothes. Okay, but he's not anymore. He was not a human, but he was. You know what I mean? Yeah, humanoid. His name was Norin. Get this last name. Rad. Get it? Because he... fucking serfs that's rad as hell that is pretty rad and he was created by jack kirby and stan lee whenever you say stan lee and someone you should always just probably assume that's the other person who created the character

So I'm going to give a lot of credit to Jack Kirby here. First appearance in Fantastic Four, number 48 alongside Galactus. That's a pretty big deal. They came as a pair, and Silver Surfer usually is. um the herald of galactus although as we mentioned in our punisher episode sometimes uh whoever the herald of galactus sometimes it could be the punisher it could just be whoever uh the punisher is a nice boy

No, no, no. So he's like kind of, you know, to Earth's problems, he could be like, oh, my God, this guy's a villain. But to the cosmos, he's like a hero.

You know, it's just that like Earth and the universe don't exactly have aligned goals, if that makes sense. It seems pretty, pretty messed up. Right. So think about the Silver Surfer as somebody who like for a very long time when introduced. was seen as a villain because of their allegiance or rather, you know, enslavement to Galactus. And he eats people. Yeah, Galactus eats the entire planet at once. Oh, okay. Got it.

But the Silver Surfer eventually became such a popular character that they were like, well... You know, it'd be a great idea. Give this guy his own comic book. And so Silver Surfer number one came out and they were like, well, you can't have a comic book like that if the guy's going to be a villain. So they started writing like more like, you know.

morally gray stories for the silver surfer where he's not exactly silver maybe yeah morally silver um and so that happens that happens pretty early on so if uh fantastic four number 48 was in 66 by 68 he's got his own line And then in the 80s and 90s, he becomes a huge part of like the grander.

marvel galactic universe stuff with like the infinity gauntlet like he played a huge part of that even though he didn't play it in the movies obviously um he's the only person who's able to like with the assistance of adam warlock like stop thanos from wielding the Infinity Gauntlet. So like the other Marvel superheroes are just kind of like distraction fodder for these more epic superheroes on the cosmic scale like the Silver Surfer. So the Silver Surfer is kind of a big deal.

Sorry, we can get to the game in a second. But aside from surfing, which I'm sure he's very good at, what else can he do? In terms of what? How does he fight? Yeah, with his fists. Okay. Is he super strong or is he just... Or he just got a cool surfboard and he happens to be made of metal. No, I don't think he's doing, like, surf tricks on Spider-Man. I don't think that's how he's handling. Yeah, but that's the problem, though. It's like Silver Surfer has, like, cosmic powers. So, like...

He, you know, he's like one of those like superheroes has like the ability to manipulate energy, right? Like things that are just like stupid. on the on the scale of like when we're talking about guys who fight rhinoceroses you know like it's it's like obviously the silver surfer is going to win that battle so he has yeah he has the superhero the superhuman strength he has

Probably, I don't know, he's probably like invulnerable to a bunch of things. You know, it's like Superman scale where it kind of becomes boring. But it's interesting because he doesn't deal with Earth on a daily basis. He deals with like larger like. Galactic problems. Magic realms. Actually, that part...

It gets weird. And I know that you're referencing the game there, but we're going to have to unpack that towards the end because it's a bit of a spoiler for the end, so we'll save it. But I actually think he deals with that stuff a lot less, which is weird that it became the game setting.

The game was made by Software Creations, published by Arcadia Systems, and it is a shmup, which is interesting because I guess, like, I've now been trained. by most of the shmups that we've played on the NES to be vehicles and not people. I'm not saying you have to be in space to be a shmup, but you generally are a vehicle.

And to just say like the Silver Surfer as a shmup, like couldn't like you just you could make any superhero a shmup game, right? Like Spider-Man's a shmup and he just shoots webs. Captain America is a shmup and he just throws his shield. Yeah, but I feel like it does. I mean, I guess if they're just walking like in gun smoke or gun dot smoke, as we called it. But like, I feel like, you know, Spider-Man is tough because you have to be.

you have to sort of be auto-scrolling. Well, we kind of just did that with Punisher, and I think this still could fit your definition, Mike, of a shmup, because... Who's to say you're controlling Silver Surfer? It looks like you're controlling his surfboard. And he just happens to be riding you. Unless, you know, I don't know the lore, maybe... Maybe he and his surfboard are one in the same, but I'll let you get into that.

No, they're not the same. That would be funny, though, if that was a plot thing of we just have to steal his surfboard and then he's powerless. You would consider Punisher a shmup? I think it was auto-scrolling. Yeah. And you had basically the same amount of control over your character as you would in a shmup. It just happened to be in a different axis. Yeah, I guess that's true. Something about the perspective.

Like what would you consider like time crisis? What is that? I was calling it a shooter. And it probably is more of that. But if we're going to start to get like. existential on what a shmup is, then I feel like you could make the argument at the very least. Right. Well, there's definitely no denying that Silver Surfer is a shmup. And I guess I'm just saying that that's a rather boring choice for a superhero game to be a shmup because it's...

Just kind of like fire a bunch of projectiles at enemies as the stage auto scrolls. And I feel like half the fun of being the superhero is flexing off your powers. Right. This game doesn't. Give you the opportunity to do much, much cool things other than just fire off these projectiles of which I would say like.

Silver Surfer does have the ability to manipulate energy and stuff, so sure, he could be doing this in the comics, but this isn't like his primary means of attack is firing off beams. I guess that's why I had to ask, because what you really do in this game is... be on a surfboard and shoot what could just be a generic projectile that like you could put like elmo uh as the guy on the surfboard and it would still make sense you know what i mean i don't know

I don't know why I brought Elmo in this. You're just always trying to bring Elmo into things. And Elmo don't like that. I'm sure. This game also, as a shmup, doesn't...

Doesn't stick to one point of view. It does both side scrolling and overhead stages alternating. So the game is mostly known, at least on the YouTube side of things, for being an incredibly difficult game. But I feel like that is mostly because of the angry video game nerd, which is, I don't know who needs to hear this, not a historical account of video games, but a entertainment production put on.

for you, the viewer, to enjoy the content that you're watching. I wouldn't say that when I was playing Silver Surfer, I thought it was the most difficult game we played. Sure, it's very difficult, but it's not frustratingly broken by any means.

There's definitely some design choices that make it feel like that, though. Well, the hitbox. The hitbox is absolutely one of them. The other two being... just the amount of sponginess to some of the enemies, especially when you first start off and you don't really have any power-up stuff going, that if we were playing...

like Gradius or something they would all be like one hit kills it's not so much um and then the I think it's just like some of the stages it's kind of unclear what isn't is not a uh Something you can sort of travel over. I mean, it's got to be the biggest offender. That was, yeah, that was very prominent for me. Oftentimes it looked like I could, you know, something was in the background. It turns out to be in the foreground and then something I'm avoiding for like.

several tries and then i realized wait a minute this isn't this isn't even here it just looks like it's here yeah yeah right um i i also had sometimes had issues with uh enemies just kind of like spawning at times that i couldn't have possibly Or at least it feels like I couldn't have possibly reacted to it until I had died once and known it was coming. So that was kind of frustrating.

Well, I think that comes down to a huge problem with this game being a shmup is like, Sean, you said it well that in Gradius or most shmups. Everything else is also like you're a one hit KO, but so is mostly everything else aside from large enemies. When you blast them, they go off the screen. That is very untrue in this game, especially at the beginning. The surfer feels weak.

It takes a long time to get any additional orbs. You know, they're so worth it, and they change the gameplay dramatically, but it takes a long time to collect them, and your overall, like...

Power ability is collected via these letters that you pick up, F, B, S, and the orbs. But all those things aren't given out like candy. So for a long time in this game, it is really... it's really tough because of how weak the surfer is comparatively and I think that's just such a strange choice to make a cosmic being weak to like some

some enemies that like i swear i don't know where they pull these enemies out of because you'll have like you'll have like cool space stuff then you'll have like ghosts ghosts and then you'll just have like

Two 17th century cannons. It's like, what are these doing in space? Don't forget about the dinosaurs. Yes, but the cannons specifically made me question where these... where these sprites came from like were they all aware that they were designing a game under the same like uh setting or were they were like okay you're gonna design these sprites you're gonna design these sprites and then they all wind up in the same game

Yeah. Was this like intended to be a silver surfer game or did they just like kind of plop them into this other game? It doesn't feel like because. OK, so the ghost stuff, right? Like that happens in Mephisto's world. And Mephisto's kind of like a Satan-like character in the Marvel Universe. So why isn't his level more healthy? I get the ghosts a little bit, but they're popping out of doors and they're supposed to be like...

I don't know. It's kind of silly. The cannons, though, don't make any sense in Mephisto's world. But the dinosaurs kind of do make sense because then you're taking on, forgive me, I don't know his name, but you're taking on that dinosaur guy. And that's like, okay, cool. I get it. Like, he's a reptile.

He is a... Isn't Reptile also in Mortal Kombat? That's kind of funny that there's a character that can just get away with being called Reptile. I think this one has a Y instead of an I. Oh, that is so cool. That's so rad. Yeah.

yeah it's pretty good yeah uh so you know sometimes it makes sense but other times it's just like i feel like they could have leaned more into the jack kirby of it all because he designed such amazing uh cosmic worlds that i feel like they They just didn't tap into at all. And a lot of this stuff doesn't feel like it's part of the Silver Surfer's world. Well, it's funny you say that because I do, like, sure, I buy that it's not canon.

But one of the things that I was going to say that I liked about this game is that there was at least a lot of unique stuff going on with the backgrounds. And it wasn't just one repeated... tile set of a ceiling and a floor that you just had to sort of follow. And it was actually like background elements that were going on. So as much as it may not have been.

Silver surfer vibes. It was still vibes. I can respect that and agree with it. And while I was talking about the surfer being so weak, what I kind of did, call this cheating, if you will, but I feel like the real... version to play this game is just with a turbo controller once you use the turbo controller it plays like an actual smup again you you hit enemies and you hit them so fast that they do take the one hit ko's for the most part on screen it doesn't feel

Like I'm cheesing the game. You're still very vulnerable. One hit will kill you. And I enjoyed that a lot more. That is absolutely how I play this game. That's how I played it too. And I think we've played enough shmups where we don't even, like, maybe I was cheesing it. Maybe this is a completely cheesy way to play this game, but I feel like we've earned the right to do it at this point.

This is also a particularly unforgiving shmup anyways. I mean, you really do. There's not many checkpoints in these levels. I mean, the one hit.

kill like I guess that's like pretty common for shots but I do feel like these are I don't know maybe I was just bad at it but I did feel like there were a lot of very difficult to avoid enemies on that well you're a larger sprite too you know like you're larger than the vic viper and it's confusing like it it gets in my head every time because the bulk of your sprite is is the

the person the humanoid on the surfboard and then there's when you're especially in the side scrolling the uh the horizontal levels you are just you're the the tiny little line of pixels of your surfboard sticking out also counts as your sprite but like it's very easy to kind of forget about that there's a lot of times where i would go you know like i feel like i have pretty good control over where i was going but just would forget about that tip of my surfboard

And if you nick anything at the tip of your surfboard, he just goes tumbling off. And it's kind of funny to watch. And I don't know. I think something about the fact that he's a guy on a surfboard moving rather slow. makes it a little harder pill to swallow that like touching anything at all kills you because it doesn't feel like I'd be in this fiery crash it feels like oh I bumped into the wall like I didn't explode or anything I just died um so I don't know something about it just felt like

really unforgiving. Well, granted, I think that if you were on a surfboard, that would happen too. No, if I were on a surfboard, me personally, never losing my balance. Throw rocks at me. I'm not falling off. Okay, well, maybe you. Maybe you wouldn't. I'm a good surfer. But most people, if you ran the tip of your surfboard into something, you'd probably... I think that that's true if you're going a lot faster than the Silver Surfer. He's going very, very slow. I think you could correct. Okay.

There is a story here as well, both at the start of the game, but also in the manual. There is a like six panel comic that is like in the style of a Marvel comics. That's pretty cool that you get treated to a nice little. Marvel comic to sum up the events of the game. It's kind of a weak one, though, because Galactus summons you. Totally makes sense, right? You're the Herald of Galactus. He needs you to do his bidding. Go ahead, do it.

And then he's like, there's this unnamed device that comes from the magic dimension or the magic domain that you need to collect the six parts of.

in order to stop this prophecy. It's like, that's a lot of vagueness. Like, I don't know if they were setting up Galactus to be... the big bad who like oh collect these parts and then actually it was galactus who wanted it all along for a bad deed or something and now you have to take him on they don't go that way but like it certainly felt like they were setting that up because

Why not explain what's actually at risk here? What is the magic domain? And what does this device do? And what will happen if they assemble it? Like, it takes two extra sentences as far as I'm concerned. Well, they absolutely do do that. Like you, you get all the parts for the machine and then you have to go to pick up the last part and then you get it. And then he's like, ha ha, now I can use it in my.

conquests for whatever I do as Galactus. And then Silver Surfer's just like, I would prefer you didn't. And then you apparently like just keep it away from him. and the game's over. Yes, yes. But Galactus, he doesn't do it quite like that. I agree with you that I interpreted it that way, but it really is just like...

Your quest is at an end, surfer. The forces of magic have been defeated. Now the device is all caps mine, right? And like that does imply that like now he's going to use it or whatever for bad things on in this reality. But like we still don't know. what the magic we're planning to do with it or what would have happened but okay so he's got it and you're right surfer does just you know

Rather than fight the Galactus, which would have been an awesome fight. I could picture a big Galactus sprite where first you have to fight his hands, then you have to fight his face or whatever. It would have been fun. But he just says, no, the device is too dangerous. I will take it to a safe place. The end. Like, what the hell? Okay, so I guess I need more context here because if he's like, is he like a thrall to Galactus? Yeah, like he has free will now?

Exactly. So could he do that? I feel like that's against the contract. That's the employment agreement. I don't know. Well, he was freed of those kinds of duties in the 80s. So I guess presumably at this point in the timeline, he's not exactly the Herald of Galactus, but still like open to working with the guy. Yeah, like a contractor. Yeah, right, right. Maybe he was like, you know, you just didn't pay me for the job. Wait a minute, is Galactus like a good guy across the galaxy also?

No, he eats people. So then how is the Silver Surfer, like, his sidekick, but he's, like, a good guy? Sidekick. Galactus is mostly a bad guy. There are definitely some stories where he turns out to be a good guy because, again, there are larger threats in the cosmos. But...

Silver Surfer turns out to be a good guy when he frees himself of belonging to Galat. Like, you know, like basically being not under the spell, what have you, but whatever the agreement is. Yeah. Breaks free of that and becomes an independent superhero. Gotcha. For hire. Yeah. And since we're jumping ahead to the end and we're talking about story and everything, it's worth mentioning that the...

Along the way, you have to go through a lot of stages. And the stages are long, too. Stages are three sections per stage. So one side scrolling, one overhead, and then another side scrolling. For each one of these villains, and they do this like Mega Man style, choose your path first.

It doesn't quite work because you're not acquiring the powers of these enemies or whatever. So it doesn't really matter what order you go in. I guess theoretically, if you knew where the, which one is it? The F power is the one that like. Yeah, the balls, but the orbs, we're going to call them. Okay. But the F power-up is the one that doubles your strength or whatever.

So, like, you want to collect those more than anything because that just makes you stronger against these enemies if you weren't playing with turbo mode. I guess if you knew that, you would pick to go those directions first. But for the most part, you're just kind of picking in whatever order. The game actually does recommend a specific order. They say, like, start with Reptile or Mephisto and save Fire Lord for later. I'm not sure.

Huh. I guess if I replayed it, I might be able to see why, but maybe it's just because they're easier bosses or whatever. You do all this, you take down all those guys, and you do have to enter the magic domain to get the...

the ending to face off against the final boss. Now the final boss is like, but who the hell is that? Yeah. Well, one thing I wanted to know real quick about. Just the length and just, I guess, the structure. I do like what they did with the level structure, at least internally, within each guy's world, where it sort of starts out... with a longer side-scrolling part where it's pretty much any shmup level. But then the second one is a bit shorter, and...

It's got a little bit more of like a twist to it. And then whether, because I think they also changed the order of whether it's overhead or side scrolling, excuse me, within each one.

And then the final one is much shorter and it's just sort of like a little bit of a prelude and then the boss. So I think at least there's a good rhythm to the levels. And because it's split up that way, they never feel... excruciatingly long uh but i do agree that the fact that there are three full like sections uh it is a lot

But yeah, I don't know who that guy is. I thought maybe you would. It's very interesting because the portrait of the final boss looks like Mr. Sinister, who would not necessarily be someone whose Silver Surfer would...

you know, be like his big bad or whatever. But even if it was like, okay, Mr. Sinister is from the Marvel Universe. I totally get it. I don't know who this purple guy is. He doesn't look like the portrait of the person that we're supposed to be facing off against, like they put for all the other boss portraits.

And I don't know, it's just kind of like a, it's a bit of a pushover too. Like it doesn't feel like a big climactic final boss for this game. Yeah, he's like not even really shooting at you. You know what he reminds me of, Sean? Who was that? What was the name of that? character and he only got the name uh morador sheer shields In Mass Effect 3? Marauder Shields, yeah. Marauder Shields, yeah. The final boss of Mass Effect 3. The final boss of Mass Effect 3. Because it's like...

He just seems like he got in the way of like this purple guy just like got in the way of whoever you're supposed to face off against. You killed him, got the part, made it out. And it was like, wait, we planned something much grander than this. What are you doing? That's funny.

I haven't heard that reference in a while. Something's very weird about this guy, too, that he's kind of, like, completely naked, except he's wearing boots. Yeah, no, again, with the nude, the weird, and, like, he's got kind of, like... built-in cod piece that kind of looks like a dick I don't know it's just a little it's a bit much and all the bosses in the game were kind of just like whatever though if I'm being honest yeah

For how challenging the game is, I did think the bosses were going to be a little harder. I think it was like the first boss that I did was the level, whatever the level is, like the little pumpkin heads. And that boss in that level is just another pumpkin head. It doesn't look any different than any of the other ones. It's just like taking more hits. Well, there's also like candles you have to blow out, right? What's that? Aren't there like candles you have to blow out? I don't know.

I don't remember this. I don't remember that. Maybe it's just like spawners. Spawners for the pumpkin heads that look like candles. I don't know. Well, as I'm saying it to you, I realize that this isn't the... five the boss of the whole section is just like the boss of like one world of the section or however you want to the mini boss you know break those up yeah but still i was just like what

what's happening is things are just coming endlessly and then i realize like oh one of them is like just tanking hits and i think i just have to focus on that one uh a little weird kind of cool to see a boss that's like not a big scary guy, just like any other enemy. I guess it's kind of an interesting idea. I just want more bosses that aren't big scary guys. Yeah, come on. Even when you are fighting against...

Mephisto or whatever like yeah they're not huge sprites that all of a sudden they become like godlike characters or Fire Lord is just kind of like He's chilling in his castle or throne room or whatever and you just gotta shoot at him as the surfer. Now there's tons of other things flying at you. Projectiles. But at least he looks like a guy. And not just one of the other random shmup ships that have been flying around this whole time.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on with the purple guy, and I don't know why he has such a big gun and everything. I want answers, and I don't think we ever—I tried looking it up. I don't think anyone's ever conclusively said who that guy is.

So we should probably talk about the orbs though, because I said that they're really cool, but I didn't explain why. And this probably, you know, this is like the option power up in a lot of Gradius style shmups where, you know, you have a second shooter. But this one, as a second shooter, has an orb that can be set in three different positions so that you can have it shoot directly with you in the same direction, so whatever you're firing off at. Or you can have it shoot...

To the side of wherever you're shooting. This way you can kind of clear off enemies. That are on the same. X axis as you. Or you can have to shoot from behind. And the behind one is very situational. But there are some levels. where enemies do appear frequently from behind, and it's very nice to have this additional orb shooting from the back so that you can just kind of continue to keep focus where you need it, because this isn't the kind of game where you're going to be able to...

tightly dodge things. If something's coming your way and you haven't reacted already, chances are you're going to get hit by it. Yeah, you pretty much covered it. I think there's even been other shmups that have a kind of... Like an orb that you can situate where you want it. But there's even like a boss that I feel like is... A couple of the bosses are designed to...

Make sure that they will go a lot faster if you are diligent, not diligent, agile with your orb placement. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to be a little negative here. And I realize I'm being a little overly negative with it, but I just really couldn't care less about these orbs. I get it. I do think it's a cool idea, but I think for me, maybe it's just this classic shmup fatigue that I have.

Yes, it's something different. It's something that I don't remember seeing before, but it's also like not that different than other ways I've seen shmups try to do it. And I think I'm just at a point where I'm like, you got to really do something special to like wow me with a shmup at this point.

And like allowing me to shoot in two additional directions while cool is just like, I feel like we've seen it in other ways. And I don't know. I think I'm just like, I think I'm just drained on like, yeah, it still feels like the same as all the other shmups.

this one felt even slower you know so like I don't know it's pretty upsetting that the only it's like the only real upgrade you get one that makes your thing your primary attack more powerful you've got the option orb ball um which yeah you can sort of set it up how you want but we've seen it before and then you've got the uh the b bombs which will just sort of clear your screen if you're

surrounded by normal enemies and that's about it like you would think that there's also i mean you can get multiple or so you can shooting multiple you know you're shooting only in the above three or four in the overhead sections, but if you're on a side scrolling, you just get the one anyway. Um, and you would think that if he's a superhero that, uh, ostensibly does more than surf.

if we're to believe Mike, you'd think that there would be more power-ups or more powers that he could do. So it's strange.

Yeah, if only the surfer could match the intensity of the music that was set for him in this game. Because this is another Tim Fallon specialty. And just like... This might be my favorite one yet. Like I know we talked about Pictionary and how awesome that was for the type of game it was. But this one actually makes you hype to play.

It feels larger than life, which is great for especially what's possible on the NES. It feels great to be paired up with something like Silver Surfer. I just feel like because it wasn't, there weren't so many tracks. probably the one that everybody can think of on the top of their head, it repeats often. I felt like the game could have maybe tried to match that energy more frantically throughout. Like we've played on Nostalgia Bites.

uh, Rekka, which it was an incredibly fast bullet hell shmup possible on the Famicom. Why couldn't we get something that at least matched that kind of, uh, intensity here with Silver Surfer? It is kind of weird.

that even on his board and everything, he just feels like he's drifting. He doesn't necessarily feel like you should be able to control the speed of the surfer or do fancy like... spins or turns or yeah hang 10 why can't he hang 10 but like even making the background like we've seen games that maybe don't even go that much faster than this but the background

has like an effect that makes you feel like you're going faster and that makes a huge difference but it does feel like you're trudging and it's almost it's almost a little laughable when you juxtapose it to this music because the music is like so frantic and you're just like just trudging along yeah i thought the main track was all right but i think what like my favorite and what i want more of is like once you select the dude uh

And I think between each section, you've got this, like, sort of groovy interlude. And I was like, just make that a song, you know? Like, that would have been cool. But the main song's fine, too. And we talked about the weird collision detection and stuff. But it is just worth mentioning that it goes beyond just, like, not knowing what is, like, what will kill you. But also that... the color palettes remain the same too. So there's not even like a color coded way.

to understand that like okay these kinds of things cause damage it's just decided live and you kind of have to remember it in your head that like well this wall I can go through but this kind of wall I can't go through yeah

There was a point where I was convinced that I kind of had solved it based on the way the shadows work. You can kind of tell which ones appear to be more in the foreground than others. But then I think on other levels, it... that rule falls apart and there are times where it's like okay this looks like those other background things but now I can smash into it yeah it is funny watching him bump his head though

And I just agree with Joe that I was being overly cautious as well while playing that I there is that one stage with like those fences where I was just like trying to. going down a very narrow corridor, just trying to glide through them. And then I just didn't. I accidentally screwed it up, didn't die, and was like, oh, I can do that. Great. Yeah.

There's apparently a password system in this game if you have a second controller. What is up with all these NES games having secret stuff if you have a second controller plugged into the other port? Is this a glitch or is this a...

Is this like a known thing? Did you guys ever do this with like a PS2 or anything? Like just plug the second controller in and unlock the debug mode? No siree. No, but yeah, I mean, assuming that's what it must have been, right? That's just like how they, they probably just thought like, well, nobody would ever do this.

Yeah, well, there is a two-player mode in the game, but it's just alternating. It's not two at the same time. But yeah, if you press up on both controllers on the start screen, apparently you access this password screen where you can do all sorts of...

different sections that you can start in or have invincibility or have all your weapons powered up or how many extra continues. But then there's an option for a... second quest and a third quest and i just wonder like is what is that like is that like you beat the game and like i couldn't find any note of like okay the second quest is like all the enemies are harder like it's not

legend of zelda style second quest either where it's different routes did you guys catch anything about that no um but you you so you weren't able to try it i wasn't right no okay yeah i wonder like Well, for one, if you're going to make a second quest like that, put it in the game. Like, get credit for it. Don't make it behind your debug menu that's not even supposed to be there.

It's a lot of work to not be officially in the game. Yeah, I didn't know anything about this. I got the end cinematic and then I turned the game off. Right, exactly. You would just think like, okay, whatever. Uh, I did get the NSA mag as well, obviously through, uh, safe States and all that stuff. And so it's a, it's a short enough game to experience it all, but I would not have been able to, um, beat this game on my own accord. Oh no. Oh no, sir.

Yeah, I'll be honest. I played each of the original levels a little bit and we couldn't beat any of them. I was like, all right, I got to beat one of these. I ended up beating, I'm trying to remember which one, like the... Not Mephisto, not the dinosaur. I ended up beating one of them all the way through, and I was like, that's as far as I'm going. Was it the biker guy? I got to look at the opening menu here. Macho man? Possessor?

let me let me open it up i got my little uh nes right here he kind of looked like a divorced dad but uh yeah then after that i just kind of i watched the final uh part because i was like i'm not getting there by myself unless i unless i eat Use some cheats or something. Continue. I'll find the guy that I started with. Well, while we're talking about second quests and third quests and all that.

Is like a difficulty scaler in a second quest like enough to keep you interested if that was the case here or just in general? Has there ever been a time where you were like... Huh, well, I'm not going to do that right now because I just beat the game. But if I ever go back, I'll do the second quest. I can't think of too many new game pluses.

Or just New Game Plus, where everybody scales up with you now. Did you ever actually do one of those? Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's what I always say I'm going to do with Bloodborne. is just play it again through new game plus or like uh but it i know there are some new game pluses that do more than just difficulty uh or like i guess number expansion um

I don't know. Not really. It's never been a thing that I'm chasing. Yeah, I think that's what I was getting at. I've always been enticed by the Legend of Zelda second quest.

I'm trying to think if any of the main games that I played in my childhood ever had second quests. But I think if it was a game that I really liked, that wasn't like... you know if it's a story heavy game I think it'd be kind of weird but like you know Crash Bandicoot had a second quest where there's just like other levels like yeah fuck yeah I'm doing that like but if it's uh if it's something that I'm just like

You know, like a shmup. I don't know if I just because I'm not a shmup guy as much. I think like once I beat it, I'm like satisfied. I don't want to do it again. So I think it depends. I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I'm open to the idea. Are you satisfied or are you relieved? When I. finish what a shmup i i mean most of the time relieved but i mean that we've had so i always talk about how i shmups but i feel like we've had

More than like you'd think that I'm like, oh, this is actually pretty good. This one surprised me because of how much I don't like shmups. So maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm just a curmudgeon about shmups. Like even on the episodes where I like the shmup, I have to mention how much I don't like shmups. I think there's just too many video games for me to replay.

I do replay games, but I mostly just replay from the beginning of a game, not like from like, oh, restore this save and go back and do the new game plus thing. Like it's very rare for me to do that. And I'm sure I've done it maybe. for one save one time or something. But for the most part, I don't do that. Uh, even with like the Spider-Man series, which I love those PS, uh, four PS five Spider-Man games. Like I've never gone back to do the.

hard mode or whatever that gets added in later yeah if it's just a hard mode afterwards it depends that's like a totally different thing to me if that's what this if that's what this alternate quest is is just like a difficulty scale I don't consider that an alternate quest. I consider that a difficulty mode. European extreme. Yeah. Grounded. As for the Silver Surfer, he doesn't get another game to star in.

He has other games that he appears in or is an unlockable character, but he's not the star of those games. So Marvel Ultimate Alliance, he's an unlockable playable character in that, but so are many other Marvel superheroes. Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer, he's a boss. Come on, he's in the title, but he's just a boss? Is he at least the final boss?

No, isn't Galactus the final boss? That's the cloud Galactus. Do you remember this movie? No, no, but do you remember this movie? I never watched it. I remember the... I remember the trailers and I saw the first movie, but I never saw the second one. I watched the first Fantastic Four and I didn't care to watch any of the other ones. Yeah, I didn't see this. I also saw the first one in theaters, but did not see the second one. And I remember.

Finding out that Galactus was like a cloud in the second one and being so disappointed because, I mean, I still haven't seen this Fantastic Four, this one that came out this year. So I don't know what they did for Galactus there, but I hope he's pretty freaking cool.

No spoilers. So, you know, it's like Galactus, Silver Surfer, they go hand in hand, but they are kind of also like two separate... scales of things right like the silver surfer does one thing pretty cool and that's surf and and the galactus does one thing pretty cool and that's eat Yeah, they complete each other. They have the two things that you need to be a good duo, surfing and eating. Otherwise, Silver Surfer just shows up as like...

playable characters in, like, Lego Marvel Super Heroes or Marvel Super Hero Squad, which is, like, a whole series of more kiddie-ish Marvel games. But apparently... He's coming up as a confirmed roster addition to Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Oh. Yeah. What is that? Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a retro style beat-em-up from the same developers that made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge. So that was the TMNT beat-em-up revival game that kind of, you know.

Revived. Revived, brought a lot of attention back to that series. Because then after that, they also re-released all the other ones. So maybe they'll do something like that. Because there's a lot of Marvel beat-em-up games. Obviously, everyone knows the X-Men one. But we played that Spider-Man and Friends one.

That was all right. The one where he plays like Spider-Man and Hawkeye and... Friends. Who was the girl? No, there was a girl. Yeah, yeah, she was there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Her name was just girl. It was so weird. The girl. Yeah. And Silver Surfer never showed up in Marvel vs. Capcom series. That's kind of interesting. Is he, like, too op? I think it's... I think they just didn't think of it, man.

I feel like they should have included exactly this version of Silver Surfer. He's an 8-bit sprite scrolling on a little surfboard. He does appear in...

Zero's ending, which Zero, I'm assuming, is from Mega Man. He appears in his ending of that. So that's interesting. Do they always... like cross over the endings of these characters stories too i always think it's interesting when you have endings for this kind of stuff because like marvel's capcom 3 has so many characters and they all got like an ending and i get it it's like 30 seconds or whatever but it's still like it's a lot of work

30 seconds across 40 plus characters. Good job. Good job, guys. For the record, it was the Fire Lord section that I beat. Oh, thank you for following up on that 30 minutes later. Yeah, we appreciate that. Well, I was looking for the in for the past 30 minutes and I was like, well, I don't want to interrupt here. Yep. So thank you for that follow up. And now we are going to close out with the essential games list. I'll put that in somewhere. Don't worry.

Yeah, I think it's kind of obvious how we're talking about this game, that it's not going to be on the essential games list. And I wasn't trying to call out the angry video game nerd by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it is worth mentioning that, like... This game is more enjoyable than the internet leads on. Like I have played a lot of really bad NES games and I wouldn't put this in the bottom 20 by any stretch.

It's a shmup, so it's kind of like you played one, you played them all, and then to this kind of level of difficulty, that helps. It helps that it's not all of a sudden inventing like all new rules for a type of game that you have to learn and play while it has like these kinds of controls. I feel like the controls are fine. It's fine. It's serviceable. It's really just.

The overall difficulty of the game comes from the gigantic hitbox and the lack of knowing what is going to collide with you and what isn't. I feel like the second-rate story is not like a... those kinds of things weren't detracting me. The fact that it doesn't feel like it's two silver surfers, like whatever, I don't really care. I was playing as a silver surfer and I acknowledge that. So it's really just the actual, like.

gameplay mistakes that bother me and get this off the essential games list i'd probably still keep it as like a skip it unless you're a fan of shmups but even if you're a fan of shmups this one's going to be tough so just keep that in mind sean Yeah, I feel like this, I didn't hate this game. I appreciate it at least. I know that it's not too Silver Surfer-y, as Mike is saying, if you know what Silver Surfer does.

But you do get like some cut scenes and the levels are at least that they have some variety to them. So I if you play it with. If you play it with a turbo button, you'll probably have just a grand old time, but it's definitely not essential. Joe.

I agree that this is not in the top 20 least enjoyable games or anything like that. I'm not sure what the internet... idea of this game is exactly but it sounds like I would disagree with it it's not like one of the worst games of all time but I still would not say this is was an enjoyable experience for me I think those little things that we're talking about that

that you know that are really the only like major flaws which is like the the hitbox the um not knowing the background stuff well those are like the only like big issues to me with the gameplay those were both by and far big enough issues for me to really frustrate me that the whole experience like I really I would not give this a play it I would say skip it yeah definitely we've played much much much worse games but

I did not enjoy this one either. It's interesting from like a comic viewpoint, though, too. We've played a Superman game, a weird one, but we did play a Superman game and we played a Batman game that was pretty good. And so DC's superheroes, they always focus on like their most important ones, even today, right? We get a Superman movie and now we're going to get a Batman movie and like you'll take it and you'll like it and we'll get to the other weird characters when we get to them.

Marvel does things a little differently. We still don't have a Spider-Man video game. We don't have a Hulk video game. We did get an X-Men one, but it was one of the worst games on the system by far. So to focus on, like, The Punisher and Silver Surfer, I mean, you know, I don't hate it, but it is, like, it's just worth knowing that, like, I know these guys were popular at this time, especially The Punisher having that movie, but...

These are not like, like Spider-Man is way more popular, even in 1990, way more popular than the Punisher and Silver Surfer. Right. Now, aren't we getting a Spider-Man game pretty soon, relatively soon? Or is that? Far off yet. There is one on the NES, right? There is one on the NES. You're making me, you made me say that almost with a question mark because you're saying it so confidently that I felt like you were looking to me for confirmation.

I pretty clearly remember there being one on the NES. I guess I'm just assuming it's soon. I don't know why. Yeah, I don't think it's soon, but I also recall a Spider-Man game being on the NES. I know that there are Spider-Man games on every system, so I would hope that there's one on the NES, and hopefully it's pretty good, because...

It's no secret I'm a big Spider-Man fan. I appreciate that we're all pretty confident that this is a game that exists. Yeah, you know, maybe I'll just surf the web. Silver Surfer, Spider-Man. I'll surf the web and find out if there's a Spider-Man game on NES. Did you start talking about Spider-Man in the Silver Silver episode so you could tee up for that? Or did that really come right off the cuff right now? That came off the cuff. Well, that's impressive then.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. You're the best podcast host, Mike. Well, while we're being candid, I should say that the surf part just wasn't intended to be a Silver Surfer thing, if I'm being honest. But then when I said it out loud, I had the light bulb of like, oh, yeah. Oh, it was subconscious. That's just how good you are, Mike. Yep, well, that's why they pay me the Patreon bucks.