410 - Little Ninja Brothers

Little Ninja Brothers, now go out on your journey to save the once merry world, Chinaland. 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 China land is a, is a world, not a theme park. Yeah. It's like, you know, land there's like Somalia and Somaliland.

I didn't know that, actually. I honestly don't know the difference. I don't know anything about it. You could say two things. Maybe it's referring to the same thing. Okay. There's also Hollywoodland. Yes, but what I'm saying is they're saying it's a whole world. The once merry world of Chinaland. It's a land, but it's also a world. We all live in our own little world. I guess Chinaland world is flat.

I'm flat, baby. I talk about flat Earth so much. Right. I talk about the flat Earth so much. I'm not sure how often we talk about it on the show. We don't. Is this like our fourth flat world joke? The Earth is round for anybody who wants to hear it. Spherical, one might say. Not needs to, but if anybody wants to hear it. Yeah, exactly. The Earth is round. And this game is a top-down... Unfortunately, it looks flat.

overworld unfortunately that's a negative in this for the game no I just have negative for me because I was saying that the world is round and then here we are okay I'm sure that you could get to the end of the world at least in Kingdom Hearts you can

But it's a top-down overworld RPG story, ARPG, beat-em-up battles game. Where you play as Jack and Ryu, two little ninjas, hence the name. Get a little of those guys. They're brothers, too. And they're wandering China land to stop the Yoma clan and their leader. Blue Boltar in what is kind of like a rather large, sweeping, Final Fantasy-style RPG story. It has, as I mentioned, those ARPG fights.

But there is like, you know, the idea of a quest and going to towns and collecting information to figure out where to go next. And there is even some light turn-based battling.

with the bosses. So this game has a lot to offer. Maybe most importantly, the headline here, you can play as Jack and Ryu with a... with another player you can do a cooperative experience here where at any moment uh in your file you can just have another person show up and be like hey you want to just play this rpg with me that's kind of nuts complete

like drop in drop out co-op multiplayer have we seen that before on the nes like that i didn't know that i guess i just now that i think about i don't know why it wouldn't be possible but it just seems like something that is illegal on the nes It's illegal. Yeah, I was very surprised. And the convenience store, it really is convenient in that regard. I appreciate it a lot.

I just didn't have anyone to share it with. Same. Well, this is another one of those. Well, Joe, don't say same. Did we play this together? We did. This is one of those ones that we played. I don't remember. That's why when I booted this up, I was like... We already played this game. And then I was like, oh, this must be Kung Fu Heroes. And I looked back at that like, this doesn't look anything like that. You and I played it, but for like a minute.

Yes, yeah. What we did was, because we just wanted to see how it worked, because obviously we're not going to start a sweeping RPG in the middle of the night. But what was interesting was... You guys had a sleepover? We did. You slept over the night before. Yeah, but you guys didn't invite me to play Little Ninja Brothers is all I'm saying. Yeah, we were like, it's only two player. We can't let him know about it. He'll get upset. And...

what we found out was that uh there is no like there is no separate jack and ryu they are a package deal and so like the second player just has whatever the first player has as well you don't like have separate equipment for that second character. So that's the little trick that they're doing. It does seemingly, I should say, make a big difference in these battles. It doesn't look like it gives you...

oh, you're playing two player, you're going to have double the enemies to fight or anything like that. No, yeah, it doesn't. You just halved the difficulty because you have a second person. Exactly. I think that the whole game is balanced for having two people play, and I'm sure we'll get to that later. Yeah.

But, you know, on the map and in towns, it feels like a Dragon Quest parody in a way. Like, it's not taking itself overly serious, but it follows the same kind of story beats as one of those fantasy RPGs. When a fight starts, obviously it turns into that Kung Fu Heroes. Joe, I don't know if you actually remember that game, but we did record it many years ago. Yeah, I actually listened to that episode this week. Okay, great. That is the...

Was it essential? From the same series. No, it was not. It was actually a skip it. Oh, shit. But that... That series is called Super Chinese in Japan. And that's kind of confusing. Do they call it that in China as well? Super Chinese China land world. Yeah, exactly.

and so that was super chinese one this is super chinese too and it's like kind of a big difference because the kung fu heroes game is like an arcade game and now they're taking that element of that arcade game and making it how you do random encounters instead of the traditional turn-based battles where you just kind of input your commands. What do we think about that? I'm calling it ARPG, but it is kind of more like...

beat-em-up or brawler gameplay element in this RPG. I like the idea of moving from sort of like remixing this whole... random encounter like jrpg thing and actually having it be not just a menu that you're interacting with uh i think that's a fun mix uh joe what were you gonna say

I was just going to say at first, I do really enjoy this. It was kind of the same thing. I love a JRPG. I love turn-based combat, but it is really cool to see it switched up. But I can't pretend that I didn't get... a little tired of getting into these battles after you know a few hours of play but like I mean that's true for turn-based combat too so you know I don't think it's a I don't think I think it's a it's a nice refresher for sure

Yeah, what's worse? Cycling through the same menus through really, like, you know you don't really need to fight these guys, but they just keep coming? Or... having something a little bit more engaging but a bit more of like a time waster like what what is uh what's the worst kind of grind i mean i hate to say it for me personally because i'm always kind of a big defender

of turn-based combat uh among the friends of mine that aren't into that but uh i think that that might be worse if you're like a lot of turn-based games now i really do think need to like balance it in such a way where you're not just doing a bunch of menuing over and over again for you know for for 20 hours of just grinding where there's no strategy involved

whereas this at least yes is a time waster but at least there's still that twitch reflex thing so it's still every encounter still can feel a little different because enemies can move differently whatever you're in a fight it it's close but i do think that this does

help mitigate that a little bit for like I agree a turn-based game where like you're you're so deep in you just gotta grind and it's like well there's no fun anymore you're taking a very active role uh when you're doing this kind of brawler based combat where you actually like can't just

turn off your mind and spam a on you know the generic attack button because you know that you're stronger than the enemy and they might chip away a little bit of damage but nothing a potion can't solve in between battles that kind of repetitive grind but it is missing Maybe more of the, like, in-your-head story flair that turn-based combat sometimes gives of, like, how...

you know, like the decisions you make and like the story you create in your head of that battle is more exciting than the battle that plays out here in this like, all right. And so I just like. move up the screen and I punch this guy in the face and he's gone and then I punch this guy and there's still guys around but for whatever reason I think I've cleared enough guys so the battle just decides to end. It's kind of weird that you don't have to like kill everybody.

In order for the battle to end? It's like, did they run away? What happened? Because they kind of get blown away. Yeah, I always thought they ran away. I like Joe's interpretation here. I've never, I think in a generic...

uh random encounter i don't think i've ever had a story in my head about how a turn-based battle went but um i would find i did your description of it of like oh you killed enough of them

and that just means it's over. That is weird, but Joe's description of they run away, I like that one better. I also find it kind of interesting the way that you have to only... only kill a certain amount because again gameplay wise it can make you like decide like well who do I want to fight here sometimes you have multiple

forms of enemies on the screen at once and like one's a real pain in the ass and the other's not you can hope that there's enough of the other one to just kill all of them and avoid the one you don't want to fight and then they'll run away does that affect the amount of experience you get I don't know Yeah, I don't know either, but I always avoided the weird, like, crunchy balls with teeth and everybody else. I hate those little totodile heads. Yeah, yeah.

The way the game starts, you have an emergency TV broadcast that cuts in and the Blue Boltar, the leader of the Yoma clan, announces that he's kidnapped the emperor and taken over China land.

you know that's kind of that's pretty funny uh does seeing the world ending threat via tv broadcast make this feel more modern than like the other rpgs we get where you know the king summons you to the throne room or you have to like start out on some quest that isn't really part of the main quest and then it turns out like everything was was for naught like is this just like a more

straightforward way of getting the player's attention and modernizing RPGs a little. That's a good way to phrase it. I appreciated it. I think when you said earlier that this is just a big parody of JRPGs, I totally agree with you. I haven't played the vast majority of this game, to be honest, but of what I did play... It does seem like it's just playing around with the storytelling.

tropes that you see usually and it's all just kind of nonsense and i think learning about the big bad via a tv broadcast is right in line with that so i'm a fan Yeah, because the tone of everything is kind of like just played for, not like it's the funniest thing ever, but it's played for like gentle comedy. You know, towns have fun names, NBC's crack jokes. It's...

It's a save the world story, but it's kind of wrapped in this goofy, kid-friendly packaging. Gentle, kid-friendly cannibalism and stuff like that. Yeah, sure, sure. There's moments, yes. But think about the town names, right? You have Deli Chews, which is delicious. Silly City, but it's with a C instead of an S. Silly City is fun. Right, because not only is that silly.

But it's a city where the people in the town have turned, like, they've become idiots. Yeah. And someone in, I think someone in Dillishius or whatever you call that town. says like yeah everyone over there turned stupid because of like a spell or something just funny like oh a spell went over and turned over all the citizens stupid

Yeah, and like they say, some of them like bock like chickens, others moo like cows. One of them says, welcome to McRonald's. And I'm like, oh, that's... Granted, there's a McRonald's in the... There's McDonald's. Delicious. Yeah. We do have fast food in this world. Well, at McDonald's. Why not, right? McDonald's, not McDonald's. There is one in the other city. Oh, okay, yeah. But they don't have any food because... Anyway, go on.

No, there's a town named OK. OK. Just OK. uh some other there's some other comedy though no there's some other comedy in the like in the battle commands of some of the fights against the evil queen um she has a uh an attack called be a fool which makes you like kind of confused and uh not attacked directly and stuff uh the blue boltar has an attack called i want to knock you out and it just does big damage to the to the player uh

I think all of that stuff is enough to keep their audience, the audience they have in mind at least, entertained. The question is, does everything else, like the... the rpg progression the real-time combat the occasional turn-based fights the two players simultaneous is all of that stuff working and i hate to become a company man here but is it like working in synergy with one another or is this like breaking up the game too much and there's like

There's the moments you like, and then there's the chore part of the game. Does anything feel like a chore in this game? You definitely could have used a better word. You didn't need to say synergy, Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's okay. Joe, say what you were going to say.

To me, all the things that you mentioned, I think, like, are nice together as, like, an interesting, like, oh, okay, we can do turn-based and the main combat is not turn-based, but there's turn-based boss battles, there's the overworld and everything.

The one that is a step too far for me personally is the track and field style minigames, which we haven't talked about, which are a significant part of this game, where you have to collect balloons while you're running to the finish line. We've definitely seen this style. um exactly before in a game um maybe that would be more fun with a second player but my experience with this type of of like race foot race gameplay on the nes has always been

one player, two player, whatever, has always been like, eh, I don't really enjoy it that much. So, like, that, I mean, even that, I'm not, like, opposed to the idea of having things like that in there. I just don't think that that's a great way to execute. good gameplay. I don't have that much of an issue with it. I don't think you can fail that stuff, right? Oh, you can fail. Okay, well, I didn't. I could fail.

well at least the ones that i played i didn't fail but as long as it's simple enough like i didn't have that big of a deal with it it's a nice like tutorial even though that it's adding other other like gameplay elements to a tutorial so it's not perfect but um i i found it less than less than infuriating uh i think that other parts of the game were too difficult um to kind of go back to our our typical complaint about games but uh yeah i didn't really hate that part

And the field events are required to how you unlock new techniques. So. They are not like, even though they feel like this kind of optional minigame thing and they're even a selectable thing on the main menu when you boot up the game of do you want to do the adventure or just the field events, which feels like a crazy...

thing to say deliberately I want to play this game right now to do this track and field style thing it is it is a it is a mandatory section that it does get kind of like even though they switch up like how like how the races go it is always just kind of like get from get get from the left side of the screen to the right and even when you have a second player who can you know you're like competing against it's not like

It doesn't change anything about the stakes. It just becomes something that you come up with against your other player of just like, yeah, I'll race you there. But you both still get the technique because you both share everything in the game. The loop of this game, though, is still the same as almost every other RPG around, and that is just walk around the overworld, find a story beat, fight random enemies, clear a dungeon or a boss.

And then you're collecting these bells. How many of them are there? Like seven bells. Yeah. And once you have all those, presumably you'll be able to save China land. But in the meantime... The game kind of has this overworld that most of these NES RPGs have, and most RPGs in general, where it's like, it pretends...

It's a non-linear thing where you can just go wherever you want and everything, but there's enough story flags in this game to basically put you on rails. You have to go to this town to do this and then this town to do that.

There isn't like this sense of, you know, you can wander and stumble into enemies that are tougher or whatever, but like there isn't this exploration that is happening. It's just kind of like. You're almost playing a little detective work to figure out, like, where do I go next? Where's the next bell? Yeah, and I don't think that's a crazy sin for the game, especially considering that...

When I think of any of the games that we've played, or any of the JRPGs that we've played so far, they aren't huge open worlds where you can do whatever you want. There might be more ways to get off track, but there's always like the critical path that you got to go through, right? Yeah, that's true. I think Final Fantasy rewarded more of like revisiting stuff and going off.

the beaten path but it didn't it wasn't like you know they were locking it behind vehicles you needed specific things whether it be a canoe or an airship in order to get to the next story beat and little ninja brothers is just doing that in a different way Yeah, weirdly enough, with all the things that they've added and thrown into this game, which sort of complicates it, it actually feels like a simplified version of most RPGs. Which, again, isn't a bad thing. It's like...

It's easy to pick up and play. I feel like you could, you know, I think someone used the term kid-friendly. I mean, I think it is very kid-friendly, except for that moment Sean was referencing. But it's like, it's just something about it being like...

straight uh like on rails ish quote unquote makes it feel a little more like yeah this is just like uh this isn't about like going off the beaten path this is about just like kind of getting through the adventure does the format change of going to the the brawler arpg battles uh does that enhance the experience here in the sense of we talked about the difference between that in turn-based combat but like could you now see a version where it's like

now every random encounter is actually a Tetris-style puzzle game. Or it's like, now everything is a platforming thing where you have to climb up a certain thing faster than the opponent. Can you do this with every... genre available could you make a shmup rpg i'd play it i would i would give it a shot regardless of what uh whatever weird genre you're mashing up i would i would try it um Because I think that it is a genre that really benefits from messing with the expected mechanics.

Yeah, I think there's a game that I remember playing that I think we'll eventually get to. It's like Gargoyle's Quest, maybe? Okay. From what I remember, it is an overworld, like, top-down... i don't know if it's fully rpg but it felt like an rpg back when i played it when i was a kid um but you get into you go to levels or you get into it i guess it's not encounters now that i think about it you go to like levels

or you go to fights, you fight enemies that are platforming levels. I find that interesting, like, walking around on a Final Fantasy-like map, and then going to platforming levels. I guess that's Zelda 2, but, uh...

but um yeah but um i forgot i was gonna say something about oh i think that the to me where it fails at doing this is not in like the mashing up these two genres it's I do think that there's a little bit more jank than I prefer in the actual ARPG segments of this game I think that's where if you're going to do this, you need both parts of your game or all parts of your game to be equally as polished. I agree with that. Yeah, because I think...

Little Ninja Brothers could have gone the route of Willow or Crystallis where, you know, you just like fully embrace the ARPG thing and the whole time it's in this brawler view. Right. This bigger thing. And then you just, you know, you just explore the world that way to cut it up and break between them. Doesn't doesn't interrupt the flow of gameplay by any means.

But it does create this kind of repetitive task in the sense of the same way traditional turn-based battles do it. But in this game... How much do you, you know, like in a turn-based combat game, You eventually gain some kind of crazy ability, whether it's magic or a job system or some other unique hook that like, you know, a summon or something. Does this game have that kind of expansion of the brawler section where the gameplay at the two-hour mark is different than when you started?

you get the like you get like maybe not quite as big of things as you get you do get some stuff you know you get like better i don't know i don't know if it's like you have a gauntlet or something you have better punches later as you as you purchase things you can get projectiles you can get like little power-ups like that but yeah the gameplay is still the gameplay um so it's hard to say but i mean it i feel like it like goes a little ways along that path

I think that there are certain commands you get too that can change, not magic, but in the sense of change up the gameplay to feel different, but it doesn't... And maybe this is just specific to me, but it doesn't feel as rewarding as when you unlock skills in a turn-based game where, granted, you're not in direct control.

But now there's more like of a strategy element to it. And that's just maybe me not digging this brawler mechanic to it. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, there is definitely something totally.

totally different about like playing a Final Fantasy game and having some kind of like Ultima attack that you can't really do if you're like the one fully in control at least in this game but I think it also like it does add stuff I think it's just And not to circle back on the same thing, but I think just the weird janky hitboxes and some of the weird controls even make some of those power-ups not that easy to use, so it doesn't feel like I'm getting that much more powerful.

Yeah, I think that, like, my being a fan of the whole, like, genre remix doesn't... It doesn't... especially mean that i had a lot of fun with the combat in this game i think that it's a great concept but the execution in this specifically uh wasn't entirely on the mark Thank you. Thank you.

And it's worth mentioning that like, you know, the RPG progression of having levels, equipment, you know, reporting into the town stuff is all here too. So there is this like, if you're under leveled, those... Even though they're real-time fights, they can be grindy. It's not just like, oh, you know, I still just have to punch this thing a certain amount of times. It's like, hey, you have to punch it a lot if you're underleveled. So there's still a balance.

in the same way that there is in you know a skill check in the turn-based combat where you can't just like plow through this game faster because because the mode isn't a turn-based combat it still checks you on that progression scale that all RPGs do. And that's not even to mention that there is actually turn-based combat in this game against the boss fights. And it is simpler.

than the likes of its contemporaries but it has it still has stuff that you like don't you know it's not just like okay and now we're term-based and do you want to punch defend flee it's not that kind of bare bones I don't know if anybody else has any thoughts about that yeah I mean this is another one where I really like the idea I actually really like the idea in general of just

all combat, all regular enemies are action-based, and then the boss battles, where turn-based really, really gets fun, that is the... that is your... that's always turn-based. I think what it didn't do well, and I don't have a good solution for this, maybe this is just always a problem if you make a game like this, is that by the time you get to some turn-based combat, you're like, okay, what am I doing here? You're not like...

the fun of getting to like a boss battle in a regular turn-based RPG is like you have all your strategies down you've been planning all this stuff you've been building your character in a certain way you get to your first turn-based encounter in this game and it's like I guess I'm like

kind of starting from scratch here. Now, I didn't beat this game. I'm sure that if you play through the whole thing and you're on, you know, you've fought seven or eight other turn-based bosses, now you've kind of got a strategy down.

but it does feel like there's less of that time to, like, really adapt and, like, change up your style. I don't know. That's just me coming at it from, like, a, uh, more in a theoretical perspective. But, uh, I didn't get enough... turn-based uh experience in to like really have an opinion how it works in this game i do think it's kind of weird that there are boss battles that are not turn-based like it feels like if you're going to pick one pick one or the other but uh yeah i don't know

yeah i don't know why they did this at all i i think that they've well whether or not you you think that there's enough here in the standard combat um The fact that they're now creating an entirely different system for fighting certain bosses, I... I just think it's just strange in a weird use of resources. Like if you've spent all this time creating a battle system that is completely different than the way that you're going to fight certain bosses.

It just feels like you're squandering the skills that the player has developed, the system itself that you yourself have developed. It's just this weird like half-baked version of what we're used to and I guess also not used to now that we've played most of the game the other way. So I don't know. It's strange.

Right, when you couple in the track and field stuff too, it's like, why stop there? Just keep throwing other genres at us. Make this like a huge hodgepodge of things. It's harmless enough, but I agree, Sean. It is kind of just like...

well, why didn't you, why didn't you commit? Uh, cause like it could have been a fun moment for like everything you learned in the, you know, in the normal. Cause again, a lot of the fights are just like, here's x amount of enemies coming into the screen defeat a certain amount of them and the battle's over it's like this could have been a set piece moment for you to take on a boss uh in a different way than just like

Maybe they tried that and they were like, well, then it just kind of becomes punch them in the face a lot until they start to attack, go around them and then punch them in a different area. Like maybe they couldn't figure out how to make the bosses more challenging.

Totally valid. Now, the actual length of the game, though, I know none of us beat it, but it's not a 40-hour JRPG. It's pretty manageable.

I didn't check how long to beat, but it doesn't have like too many towns or too many plot twists or too many like, okay, now backtrack through all this. It is a pretty straightforward thing. That factored in with like the... you know, the silly tone and everything, this does feel like it has first RPG in mind, you know, like stripping out the turn-based stuff, which kids like myself, and I'm not shy to say I was an idiot as a kid, but like...

That kind of stuff was like hard for me to wrap my head around turn-based combat versus like just doing the actual things. I think it's why I enjoyed platformers more than RPGs growing up was just because it's like, yeah, I just know like... There's the flag and I got to get to that. Right. You know, like there's the castle and I've got to go inside it. It's like it's a little like more abstract. So maybe this whole thing is thinking about it like a.

Kids first RPG, the battles being active, the story being goofy, the bringing a friend anytime you want. Any thoughts on that?

I know it's not, I'm not saying the game is easy, but I'm saying it's offering maybe a different experience than something like even Dragon Warrior, which was... a pretty straightforward do this then that might have been hard for kids to even just understand yeah i don't think that it's it i mean it's definitely doing something in a like a way that isn't taking itself too seriously like the whole story like you were saying the silly stuff that's going on there uh really plays into how

basic the RPG mechanics are at least from the beginning like like within the first few minutes of the game instead of I know in some RPGs that I kind of make you decide like are you going to like buy a weapon or are you going to buy some armor or are you just going to try and like rod dog this from the beginning and in the beginning of this like just like oh you can buy everything basically from the beginning

And you'll just have to you'll have to work from there. It's it seems to be like a super simple version of it. And I do appreciate that, but it doesn't seem to be taking the RPG mechanics all that seriously, at least in the beginning. And I've really only played... most of the beginning of this game because it does have a huge difficulty spike, at least from my perspective, that I just really couldn't deal with. But I'm rambling, so somebody else take the wheel.

Would you like to hear about the super Chinese family of games? Do it. All right. Uh, as mentioned by Joe at the start of the episode, Kung Fu Heroes, which Joe, I'd just be interested real fast. You said you listened to the episode. What was our like general opinion? I think we were kind of like, we found it very interesting. I totally forgot.

that this game it was like you said it was all the um the the arpg combat but it was like you like moved from screen to screen each screen was like a different encounter i think we're talking a lot about how interesting it was i don't I don't think any of us voted it too highly in the end. Yeah, it is just a top-down action brawler with no RPG elements. But yeah, then this game winds up getting that game.

inside of it and then they continue this formula of this of this franchise with basically expanding the RPG elements but it gets this weird like Okay, this one's only coming out in Japan. This one can get a Western release. Kind of like Final Fantasy was getting as well, that treatment. But I'm like a...

even less popular scale. Like, I feel like you don't hear about these games anymore, but they got plenty of them. There was Super Chinese 3, which also came out on the Famicom, and that is just a... another variation of this, they didn't really change much and they wouldn't change much until Super Ninja Boy, which is the Super Nintendo sequel that takes the little ninjas.

The Little Ninja Brothers formula and not only gives it more like a cleaner presentation or everything, it's just a 16-bit evolution of the game and expands a lot on the RPG progression side of things. not just the battles. In Japan, the Super Ninja Boy game on Super Nintendo was called Super Chinese World, kind of like how Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo. And then...

The Game Boy games for this Super Chinese series were called Super Chinese Land. So this is just following Mario in every regard. The Game Boy games are Land games and the Super Nintendo games are World games. I guess. The Game Boy games are not the same thing. They're more like action focused than they are RPG focused. And then last but not least.

There's like three releases, both Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and then eventually Game Boy Color of a fighting game version of this whole super Chinese franchise called Super Chinese Fighter. And it just is... It does have a story mode to it, a pretty meaty one at that too, but it is a Street Fighter style clone where you are just picking the character of your choice and fighting through all of the other characters.

It's like the series really didn't know what it wanted to be. But it wanted to be a big franchise. I mean, it's even copying Mario's naming conventions and stuff, so it wants to be top of mind. It's definitely ambitious. yeah super chinese just doesn't really like roll off you know it's not great like they could the little ninja brothers thing is a great title but to go from kung fu heroes to little ninja brothers to super ninja boy they don't feel

connected the three games even if gameplay is like shared. I'm just trying to think of like playing a game called like Super American Man or like Hyper America and would I play that? metal wolf rex or whatever yeah yeah but that's still like that's metal wolf chaos metal wolf chaos yeah but that's still like not in the name it's true it's true but that's like american president plus Right, when I think of Super American Man, I'm thinking of Metal Wolf Chaos.

Yeah, I agree, Joe. It doesn't seem like they had a real plan for this and they didn't continue it much longer. It hasn't seen a new release of any kind. The last release was Super Chinese 1 and 2 Advance on the Game Boy Advance, which just bundles Kung Fu Heroes and Little Ninja Brothers together on the Game Boy Advance in Japan.

And the last we hear of Little Ninja Brothers is that it showed up on the Wii U Virtual Console. So there was a chance to own it again. And really own it. Not that subscription bullshit where you... you know for for x amount of dollars a month you can play a select few nintendo it's like come on nintendo cut it out let me buy these games cut it out um if you had to recommend super chinese

uh to to somebody not that you guys ever would i know you uh but if you had to be like oh you like you want to check out the super chinese series are you giving them little ninja brothers or are you just saying like you know what kung fu heroes it's the It's the bare bones. It's the basic experience. It sums up the entire franchise, even though it's the first entry. Which one are you going with? I'm giving them Little Ninja Brothers every time. Between those two, I feel like...

I just thought one was forgettable to me. This one has some intrigue to it. Yeah, I don't remember a goddamn thing. of whatever the other thing that joe said is um i thought you just don't remember a goddamn thing i mean i don't remember a goddamn thing just in general but like that is one of the examples of things i don't remember a goddamn thing about Whereas, I'd like to assume that maybe the game that had a concept of a sort of beat-em-up, but also JRPG, where...

that you go to a McDonald's but they don't have any food because the mayor stole all the food because he wants to eat you all. Like, I might remember that one. I hope you do. I hope so, too. We have...

One last encounter to face, and that is deciding whether Little Ninja Brothers earns a place on the Essential Games list. Little Ninja Brothers has a great vibe to it. It feels like this manga RPG adventure, you know, good colors, lots of jokes. Not chibi like Jackie Chan was, but kind of, or at least cutesy in that way. It doesn't feel like it's trying to be intense or Dragon Ball Z. It's just trying to be more lighthearted.

Two kids go on a... Two brothers. I shouldn't say kids. They're brothers. They're brothers on a mission. And that mission is kind of like whatever. When I was reading that stuff at the beginning, it was of the episode about the plot. It was just a joke about... all these like nonsensical things and that's what rpgs wind up becoming so because the story is kind of like whatever especially like in these older games these older rpgs

are pretty basic in that regard it winds up becoming well what's the gameplay loop and i think after i did like the first time of you know explore the overworld go to the town talk to everybody figure out the beat do the random encounters, beat the first boss. It was like, well, do I really want to invest much more time in that? I think like sometimes RPGs just become like things to do.

or stories to experience and this one felt more in the things to do category and there are tons of rpgs out there so i don't think this one stands out for any other reason than that it like threw in so much into one NES game. To have RPG progression, real-time brawling combat, occasional turn-based fights, and two-player simultaneous co-op is like...

Pretty remarkable. But the only way you'd catch me playing this game again is with a second player. If Joe slept over my house again, then I would have to play this game again. But otherwise, I'm not going to. Not me. And that's why. You heard him. You guys have monster trucks, okay? Right, right, right. We have to do that, actually. We didn't do that. Nobody knows what we're talking about. It's a no. Joe?

For me, this is a definite play it. I think I got a little negative on it in the back half of this episode. I think this game has a lot of charm. It's fun. It's interesting and it's different. i enjoyed my time with it i think there's a lot there's enough things holding it back from me voting it essential namely the the combat being just a little weird i just feel like every the hitboxes are right i keep bringing it up they're very janky i i was often in a battle and like

I guess I gotta take like one tiny quarter step back before I'm actually hitting this person. Sometimes I felt like I was punching through the person, but it wasn't hitting him because my fist was like hitting on the other side of him. Weird things like that when, when... you're running into so many combat uh action combat encounters as you do in this game and they don't feel perfect to play

that that kind of compounds on itself and gets a little annoying and that and the sort of underdeveloped turn base as far as uh i played like that that holds it back but i i don't want that to say like, oh, this game sucks or anything like that. I think this is a cool game to check out and definitely like a step up from Kung Fu Heroes to me. So I'd give this a play it. Sean? Yeah, it's definitely unique.

and I'm always a fan of Unique. I do think there's enough jank here, as Joe was saying, that I just can't really... recommend playing it because of how jank it is but i i wouldn't i wouldn't judge anyone for doing so um so yeah not not my bag but Also not essential. All right. Next week, the ninja saga continues. I guess there were some ninjas. Ian, you beat up some ninjas in Jackie Chan's Kung Fu game.

Three ninja games in a row. Who knows? Maybe there are ninjas in Nintendo World Cup, too. So maybe there's four ninja games in a row. But there will definitely be a ninja game next week with Ninja Crusaders. Sounds pretty awesome. Sounds weird. Ninja Crusaders. Were they around during the Crusades? See, if it's like a European medieval Crusader, I mean...

That's interesting because it's like how the Jedi were based on samurai and knights. It's like on ninjas and medieval crusaders. I think that's always a good combination, mixing east and west. Is ninja stock at an all-time low? Like today or in 1990? No, no, today, like 2025. Is it like if you bought Ninja stock in 1990, you've lost like 95% of the value or do we think Ninjas are still like kind of a big deal?

Well, I mean, if you want to buy the dip, then you're more than welcome to speculate. But I'd say that, yeah, you've lost most of your cost basis. Yeah, you need, like, ninjas need to merge with, like... cyberpunk to get back you know it's like we need ninja punk where's that you