415 - StarTropics

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Star Tropics, Tropical Adventure of Epic Dimensions. And welcome to Nastalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. In terms of you know, best thing to have on you during an alien invasion. Are you going for the yo yo first? Always. I s if I'm a pitcher, yeah. What else would you want? What's another object that a pitcher would use other than a yo yo? Like a picture plant?

Like a pitcher, like a baseball pitcher. Oh oh I mean I I would have said something along the lines of like uh like very fertile soil if if you were talking about it. I don't really know what else. Why why do you that's the main weapon of the game and it's also not something that he had ready. Like i it's something you have to acquire.

Right. I mean I I I could I sort of uh get the leap in logic where it's like, oh, he throws a baseball but then the baseball's gone. So you need something that like you can throw that'll come back to you. Like I get where they were trying to go. But you know, I don't know if it exactly translates.

I guess what was he supposed to be doing? Like he didn't even have any luggage on him. Was he like going on vacation? I didn't really quite Well I have a question about that, uh, Sean, because I was going to ask this and I I I don't think it's this, but The way that the game starts. You could argue that Star Tropics is one of those very popular Izekais uh right now in media where like

And Izekai is where you get transported into the game. You know, like the from you're from Earth and then you go into Jumanji. So this is ready player one? Yeah, well, it's like a whole genre now. It's got it's got its it's got its its own like Wikipedia page and everything, but like we don't really know a lot about Mike before the game starts. a and I guess he just like his his uh uncle lived here.

his alleged uncle. And so you could just assume that he lived here, but like why does he start on what looked like a helicopter pad? Like it does feel like we're missing some pretty important information about how he got Yeah, I I think that well first of all, the whole his name being Mike thing kinda threw me for a loop because I had just gotten done naming myself. Um or I guess it uh naming the save my my own name and then it's Mike and I'm like does Mike know the people that did this? Like

Did you do this to me, Mike? And I ha I have an even better story than that. I was playing on Nintendo Switch online and uh with the NES uh package on there. And I named it because the character entry screen looks so much like the Legend of Zelda. I was trying to be a little cheeky and name myself Link.

Just to see if like they would do anything about it. And it still called me Mike, but that that freaked me out, Sean,'cause then I was like, Wait a minute, is this like a Nintendo Switch online thing where it knows my name? Yeah, no, they're like, We know your name's Mike Blink asshole.

Right, right, right. So they just start calling me by my name? There's a moment in Doki Doki literature. I was gonna say it, but that could be a spoiler. It could be a spoiler, but come on. Who's gonna play that game if they haven't already? That's true. That's true. That one listener who comments right now. Mm, that's too bad.

Reframing in a second, let's get away from Mike and the yo yo. Star Tropics is a top down action adventure game for the NES. is uh very often compared to The Legend of Zelda, but I think we're all gonna say that it's not the Legend of Zelda pretty quickly as we get into it. Uh, it has its own, like, Tropical uh hence the star tropics vibe uh going on there and all of the uh islands and towns having named after Cola.

I didn't figure this out until the end of the game, and so I'm very sorry to say this, but the um The villain of the game is a guy named Zoda, and I finally figured out that that was supposed to be Soda in relation to the cola. uh naming convention of like the the world and everything. So I I thought that was kind of cute in the long run. Wow, I I didn't I didn't put that together, but yeah, I I thought that it was uh it it was just tryna be cute with food names.

It only did the one food. Yeah, I mean it caught the cola thing. I mean th it's just like it's trying to there's like banan girl. Banan debt. The the the sick the sick daughter. Oh yeah, I guess I never really thought of that as banana. I thought it was like Bernadette or something. It's like how in Dragon Ball Z all the characters are named after vegetables. Yeah.

Or clothing. Um I I I did appreciate that like it was just interesting that they like were trying to go with this like This idea of what like Americans like where it's like cola and you know, baseball and fat uncles and just like it's just like, Oh, this is what it's like to be American. Everyone has this experience. But honestly it was just like

It was interesting'cause this feels like such a Japanese game, but like the setting feels like weirdly American but also tropical. So like Uh uh you know, it's an it's an interesting mix where you're like all on islands, but it's like, oh, this is like a regular American boy, but then it's also still like wizards and you know, fortune tellers and monsters and it just Different for uh the NES.

And it was developed by Nintendo. Uh Nintendo R and D three and Locomotive Corporation developed the game together, published by Nintendo. The here's the interesting thing, never came out in Japan. It was released in North America um When we're recording in nineteen ninety and later in Europe but this game

even though it was made by Nintendo We're recording in twenty twenty six, just by the way. Not not Oh yeah, that's a good point. We're not living in nineteen ninety. Uh you didn't find a very you didn't find the very first podcast. But we are the only video game podcast. True, true. Go on. Uh no, I just think that that's like it's you know, the NES is having its probably its biggest moment ever when you think about

uh the compilation games that we're gonna be talking about that they re-released like Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and World Clash Track Meet all together. They had the uh four player uh adapter and we're making games for that.

Uh it just feels like right now is like the height of the NES and then we're also getting this you know, cr Christmas release uh of Star Tropics where it's like, you know, this is the big game for the holiday and it's not a surprise that it kind of tries to borrow some things from Zelda. while being its own thing here. And I I just feel like, yes, I agree with the um

It's funny that the islands are cola and stuff like that. But the larger like Little kid going out on and I guess we'll debate how young this guy is, but little kid going on an adventure that kind of goes over his head, similar to down to the receiving of the yo yo being the Legend of Zelda, you know, it's dangerous to go alone, take this. Like this does become a pretty big adventure from what starts a relatively small scale of just

Small little town, enter dungeon. Like the first couple chapters don't necessarily give away like how big this game can get. Well I mean you do escalate to uh talking to animals and and and saving like a and having that kind of interspecies communication pretty quickly. Um so I mean it's not it's not a crazy shift. Like it but once that happens, then aliens is kind of like a foregone conclusion.

You'd think that it goes from talking dolphins to aliens just like that. I mean, it's just not once you got talking dolphins, all bets are off, is what I'm saying. Sure, I guess once you have a giant snake in a cave, all bets are off. Sure. Okay, I'm glad we're in agreement.

Uh so talking about Legend of Zelda though, uh I don't know. I actually outside of the menu system looking alike and everything and the top down part of it, I think that these games are very different. Do you guys agree? Um in there are more different like it's not a complete Zelda clone. I think that there are tons of similarities and tons of difference. Like it's like they took chunks of Legend of Zelda and then built other stuff around it, is what it feels like to me. I mean the dungeons like

Very, very similar, but then have these mechanics that are completely never anywhere to be seen in like any Zelda game that I'm aware of. So it just Yeah, i I I think the answer is kind of both, if that's not a cop out. Yeah, it b it borrows a lot of the visual language of Zelda. Um, at least the first one. And then

Uh the gameplay itself is a completely different genre. I wouldn't even call this game action adventure. I would say that it's almost more of a puzzle game than I know that there are enemies that you fight, but everything else like between the grid base movement and uh just how you actually go forth um within the game is much more like puzzly than anything. So yeah, I think it's uh it's wearing it's definitely wearing a Zelda coat of paint.

Yeah, I mean even the like for the as far as the similarities like in the in Donjins, I mean the way that you fight, yes, you have a yo yo, but I mean it's pretty much your sword and if you have enough health you you it have a pr turns into a projectile and there's like, you know, items to turn the lights on and there's different like clothes you can wear that give you different power ups and things like that. Like that all is like it feels like the DNA of Zelda. But yeah, like you said, the

the tile layout and like the the c the actual platforming that's in this game gives it like a totally different feel. So it's like I don't know. I i I do think it is I I I wouldn't go as far to say like, Oh yeah, this isn't really like Zelda at all, just kind of looks like it. I think it's very, very similar to Zelda, but like it's not just a straight clone. Like it has a lot of its own stuff too.

You play as Mike Jones, a teenager who Mike Jones Yeah, Mike Jones classic, uh, who travels to visit his archaeologist uncle, Doctor Steven Jones.

And quickly gets pulled into a rescue mission by uh the town chief or mayor or whatever they call'em in the game. It escalates quickly into ancient tech sci fi and ghost town and Evil ruins and I guess there's a larger mystery behind the disappearance of his uncle even But does Mike Jones read as this deliberate teen hero, like that you would see in a in a movie, an American movie specifically, or does he feel unusually plain for a Nintendo protagonist?

I mean, Link's pretty plain. You know, like he's he's like a template for you to put yourself onto, to project your own personality onto. But he has the fantasy element going for him. He's not just like you. You know, I feel like Mike is very like this is a human boy. And that he doesn't have like

He doesn't have anything like you could say Mario, right? Human man, but technically they mushroom kingdomified him and made him more than just a human man. I guess I guess in that sense if seems intentional where it's like, yeah, he he is the I mean, other than being like an ace pitcher, he is just like Oh he's just like an everyman and you can like put

You can just say like, Oh yeah, he's just like me. He's a kid growing up in the United States'cause the only place is a good thing. Yeah, ace pitcher, you know, uncle who's a scientist on tropical islands, helicopter private helicopter rides just like me.

But um but like yeah, there's not he he doesn't talk is what uh you know, like a lot of these old uh JRPGs and stuff where like the protagonist doesn't talk so you can be like, Oh, he's me or like I'm do I'm treating him like I would the way I would behave in this game. Yes, you're right about that, that he kinda does have a a link persona in in that regard, that he doesn't uh he's a silent protagonist who just accepts what's going to him. And I always wonder

Are they just leaving without what he says? Or is the whole rest of the world like, That was fucking weird. Guy didn't say a word to me. Like I think protagonist are kind of like having you mentally self insert uh what a conversation would be like, you know? Yes. I agree with that take, and that's why Link will talk in the Legend of Zelda movie. Ha ha. Oh he's gonna be voiced by Chris Pratt, isn't it?

Why not? It could be both and then they save on money when they bring him the movies together for the Super Smash Brothers movie. How much does the story actually motivate you moment to moment versus uh like the gameplay? Like

This is trying to tell a large story. Are you buying into that at all? Or is it more like this is a fun game and I just want to keep exploring this world? Yeah, there was uh the the the story's pretty weak. in this game. And there's there's a lot of like funny moments. Like the Uh like you get talking to your rob in your ship. Uh and then talking with the dolphin and then finding out that there's a uh that there's like a an Amazonian place

Um and talking to all of the shirtless mayors. Like that's fun. It's it's cute. It's it's like funny. And ha has a sense of humor to it, but like th at no point does this like at least in the amount that I played, is there m is there much of like a high stakes plot happening? Yeah.

I'm never like invested in it like I would be if I'm watching the Shawshank Redemption or something like that where I'm like, Oh wow, what a well told story this is. But as far as adventure game kind of like this kinda kinda gives me and I you know it's funny to say this'cause it came after this, but like

original Pokemon vibes where I'm not like oh no one's writing home about the the amazing story in Pokemon, but it was always enough to be like, oh, to make me feel like I'm on the adventure. Like that's As much as I do love like a Final Fantasy where the like I'm I can like really think about like what's going on.

Sometimes this is all I need. It's like the story is just being told through like, oh, I'm exploring the world, there's an environment and like it's pulling me along. But as far as like am I driven by the story or am I driven by the gameplay, I think this game is like really Designed if this is their intention designed very well around driving you forward without you having to even like really pay attention. Or like, you know, to the story itself. Like it usually is like

It's not an open world like Zelda where you have to figure out where to go. It it corrals you to the next part of the story every time. You have to kind of take it in chunks. So it's like that's what drives me forward, but I appreciate that there's this little charm and I can feel like, Oh, here's a little lived in world. Yeah, exactly. There's charm. That's not to say that I I think it's bad that there was uh that that like I wasn't getting sucked into a a really

uh thoughtful story. Like I also prefer this to every other cookie cutter like Uh whether it's a a fantasy RPG or if it's the a a a schmup where the alien race has invaded Earth and you're the only ship that can save it. Like it's like it's better than both of those. Give me weird sci fi tropical uh goofballery over that every day. Yeah, and I wonder i you know, I I I wonder if there's if this is kind of like a lost art of having like a world your video game world just be

Sort of told more through like you exploring, just talking to people. There's a quick text box here and there. And then like So the story is kinda just told through like the gameplay in that sense. And it's not trying to be this big heavy story. And I'm going back to Pokemon'cause that's what I remember falling in love with when I played Pokemon Red, like in nineteen ninety seven.

But like now when I play a Pokemon game, it's like, oh here's here's eight minutes of cutscenes. Then you walk for you walk for five minutes, there's eight more minutes of cutscenes and like we also didn't like make a really good story. Pokemon, I swear, like Uh, like I think I watched before I played it, I watched like a YouTube video of uh Legends Arceus whenever that one came out. And I was I swear I was scrubbing through the whole video just trying to land on a spot that wasn't a cutscene.

Like I'm just like why like it this isn't a good it's not happening based in the story. That happened to me with the most recent one too, Legend Z A. It was like I was like, Oh, let me see what this game's like before I buy it and somebody upload the entire game and it was just cutscenes. And not even like

Not even cutscenes with dialogue and action. It was like text boxes. Just heavy text dumps. And like, hey, that's like maybe okay if you have like a really good story, but like Pokemon's not known for that. And like if this game, if Star Tropics had like only heavy text comes with this crazy story. Like I gotta say I probably wouldn't care.

You know, it's just more about like, Oh, I I can fill in the gaps with my imagination for this. Like there's nothing that important like this isn't that important of a story that I need to know every detail. So like I th I think that that Like I kinda miss games that do that. You know, I I I like there being some of both.

So I played the entire game and I will say, even if the story, whether it's cheesy or grand or you know, whatever, if it's just told in the background It is it does have a set piece every single chapter, which I like one that they even broke them up into chapters that you have this pacing of like, you know what?

Today I'm just gonna beat chapter five, right? Like that's your goal and then you go and do that thing and then you can move on with your life. It's not like, oh, I wonder how much more I have to go here B I just like that like Even though it was all in the tropics and everything and that the uh that the dungeons themselves always played the same music track and looked kind of exactly the same. That the actual like story beats were, you know, whether it was w uh

getting the parrot or uh with the fortune teller and dressing up like a w a girl to get into the town. Like there's a lot of memorable moments in this game. It's just kinda weird. And maybe this is my like twenty twenty six expectations, but it's just kind of weird just how linear this game is. Like it it tricks you into believing that it's more like Zelda in the sense of like go wherever, do whatever. It's like you have to do exactly what it wants you to do at all times.

Um even even in the dungeons, like there is no bomb this wall to uh, you know, explore these optional side parts of the dungeon. It's just kinda like there's a few things like that, I will admit, but for the most part It's a straight line that like if you broke out the map for this game, you could just take a red Sharpie and draw the line of like you do this, then you do this, then you do that. There's no backtracking unless it's forced into the story itself.

I so I'm just kind of surprised a little bit about the the Zelda comparisons in this regard because to me, this feels like what a lot of people were nervous Zelda was going to become during the three D Zelda era, like with Skyward Sword and everything before Breath of the Wild. People were like, This shit's all linear and you just go wherever you're told and you just do that temple and you know, they wanted it more like

I guess what Breath of the Wild would become. And here we have Star Tropics kinda doing that. But maybe it works well because it's a two D eight-bit NES game where the gameplay is enough to maintain your attention and enjoyment.

Yeah, and that's why like I I I specifically meant that like it takes the visual language of Zelda and then it puts the game itself, like, on top of that. Um and I think the places where It is most obvious that you're railroaded in places that you wouldn't think like the world map is super like gated and the even the towns you have like specific tracks you have to go through to like make sure you talk to everyone and uh you have to go Around in a circle in that one big town where at like

Uh in order to get into like the main building you have to go into like a thicket and uh it wasn't a very good thing. What did you think about that with the very first town? Making it so that you had to talk to everybody before uh I didn't notice that Right, you know? I didn't notice that you had to because I was just going to talk to everybody anyway, but like I read after the fact that like people would

get kinda not stuck, but they would have gotten like tripped up by like, Oh, I have to go find this person to talk to or they won't let me through. I thought I just like did hit a trigger that made the guy get out of the way. Um But like one trigger, not a a like a list of things I had to do. Um but like it I I just meant more so in like the the actual layout of these towns that you have there's like a a circuit that you have to go through.

Um but Yeah, it it's it's weird that it's linear in in like a in the visual world that it it it like sort of is telling you that it's more open than it is. But I don't know. It d I don't think it'cause the game isn't about that. That like those are just sort of like the glue holding all of the the dungeons together really. And The l last thing I'll say about story specifically, like I think that this game has a lot of things that happen.

But they're not like all really I wouldn't say that they are like together a story. Like yes, the thing is. the uh uh there's the dolphin and all of that, but d none of those things really have to do with each other. Yeah, it's just like your wacky adventures on your way to find your uncle. Things happen. Um but yeah, as far as the um as far as the the linear the linearity, I guess.

Um yeah, it did throw me off at first because even just like, you know, oh, we're playing Star Tropics, let me look up what it is like looking at like a screenshot of it. I'm like, oh cool, like an open world, you know, overhead game. And that's not what it is at all. But I think that if for me, like, if I'm not like going into it be you know, it I'm not I haven't wasn't a Zelda fan until this podcast really, you know, particularly.

So like I didn't grow up with it. But like yeah, if I had grown up with The Legend of Zelda and then it got like really linear uh you know, like this, I would be yeah, I'd be pissed'cause it's not a Zelda game. But like there is room for both of these things and like what I want. To me, this is like like uh playing Like I c I could play the Witcher. And I can play Uncharted, and I like them both.

And like to me this is almost like weirdly like a an old version of like what Uncharted does now. Or like Uncharted is like you can only it's extremely linear and it's always just You're going down like th to this thing, you're seeing what's over here. You maybe explore like a tiny little area, tiny little area. That's what this was. It's like we know the story we want to tell you. We're just gonna have you go on this exact adventure and like

Yeah, like we're we're not like pretending you have this crazy freedom. You're just gonna go from here to here to here and this is the story you're gonna tell. And like I I was surprised at how I did find it like a little refreshing.

'Cause I love an open world where you have to figure it out yourself. It was kind of nice to just be like, cool, like I'm making progress, you know, like really like of no merit of my own. It's just like the game is corraling me into progress, but it felt kind of good.

Yeah, I agree with that take. I I think for sure that this could have gone the way of a um an actual overworld um Final Fantasy style where you can explore things in your own order but then you get to that town and it's like, Well, you're just not You're just not there in the story yet. Like congratulations for getting to this town, but there's nothing to do here. It's like it's not that kind of game, and so I I have no qualms about that.

Sean started talking about the dungeons, so I think it's good to get to that. As we mentioned, you're going from uh town to town in this game, but along the way, the to kind of complete the chapter, you always have to find the dungeon and then you go into um

uh you know the that's where all the combat and all of the uh puzzle like stuff in the game is because there's th there's two different methods of movement. There are uh just There's normal land where anywhere you walk you can just walk like you were in the overworld. And then there are these tiles which require a different kind of movement from the rest of the game and that you are doing uh you're jumping from tile to tile. And while I don't

quite understand how these tiles look in a uh 3D capacity. Like if if we were to get away from the top down view, why you have to jump onto them and hop from them and why you're able to like hop across larger land things than you would b otherwise be able to. But it's not just about these tiles acting as a different kind of movement. These tiles have secret tiles in them that uh

have like a foot icon that when you step on the tile, it reveals a uh a secret button. And at first I was just kind of like, well, why wasn't that just the button? Like why wouldn't you just touch the button and then that does the thing? Like you found the secret. But I get that it's it's all about the game is about movement and

dealing with the combat while trying to progress. And so a lot of these secret spaces, uh, especially early in the game, are just optional things. Things that you don't necessarily have to do but will reward you with Cool power-ups or um a way to replenish your health, or even um an additional heart, which is uh a big bonus.

that you certainly would need eventually. Like maybe not early on. Uh the game I think does a great job, especially in the early dungeons, of making it not feel particularly challenging while also getting you used to the idea of like what these dungeons are, what you're gonna be doing in them.

And also the kinds of things you should avoid. Like there is a in the very first dungeon, I believe, there is just a room that if you go into it, you jump to your death. There is nothing else to do in that room. And so it's kinda like teaching you, well, you know, uh anything can be behind these rooms.

So uh approach with caution. Granted, that doesn't mean you die. Uh you just take a you just lose a little bit of life. But it's uh it's a uh but you don't die though like losing all your hearts, right?

Are you talking about the one where you fall into like if if you into the water? Yeah. I th I thought that killed you. Like it killed me. Okay, so uh yeah, I'm just misremembering then. Um So so that okay, I guess that does kinda suck because when you die, you don't just go back to um the previous room. Uh, which which you might think you would, but uh you kinda have to d I think the worst part about any dungeon is if you do die because you have to do a little bit of backtracking.

It's hard enough, especially in the later dungeons, getting far enough to make progress, let alone c uh re-tread old ground.

Yeah, so there's like two things you gotta get used to here and and one is the new movement rules. Um it is it is a very like thick and chunky like grid based movement, even when you're not jumping between these tiles that we were talking about. Um, that can be

really interesting to get used to and I think it is good that these early levels are easier because of that. Um but even though they are easier like throughout the entire game there's a lot of just like I wanna call it like bitch ass game design or like It it they're they're like kind of making fun of you for certain things. Like that room that Mike was talking about where you jump into the water that is like it's a trap. There's so many traps in this game.

Uh which I c I kinda like. I appreciate it. Uh because I was playing on Switch and had rewind ability, but if I wasn't playing on Switch and I spent all that time and then died uh because I fell for one of the game designer's tricks. I might have been a l a little bit more annoyed with it, but I get it, I appreciate it, I play Frumsoft games, so uh I'm I'm not like I'm not mad, but it it kinda had that that vibe to me.

It it is interesting too how like you know at the beginning the yeah, the the movement stuff that we're talking about, it starts out as like, Oh, this is weird and you're getting used to it or whatever. But like by the end, like the movement becomes kind of part of the puzzle. Like especially, you know, you're talking about uh Mike, you're talking about I guess it's not a movement thing, but you were talking about like the um

You know, y you step on a pressure plate and then s that opens a button and you step on a button. Like a lot of times the order that you gotta step on things matters in a certain way how which door you enter a room from and there's a secret door that leads to another pressure plate that you know whatever or like something's coming for you you gotta but you gotta hit

You got you gotta kinda figure out the order that you're gonna press the pressure plates before the thing gets you. Things like that. It's like it it gets clever with these puzzles.

with like incorporating these puzzles into the this game design. Yeah, that's why I wouldn't say that it need like they needed to change this because the whole the whole game is so designed around the way that you move, but it is not how you would expect to have to move. Like to have to kind of buffer like the the way that you're facing before you can walk in that direction, it almost feels more uh

Like kinda like you're drifting through the the game. I don't know how to really describe it. It's possible to mi you know, using that, so it's eight frames. that requires you to to turn. Uh essentially. So you can't you're frozen while you are uh putting in the next input of which direction you wanna face. This isn't the kind of game where you can be facing forward and then just press right on the D-pad and jump in order to jump to the next tile. You have to first

turn to the right and then be able to jump to that tile. So it's kinda like Your brain reworks it out very fast, but It is like two presses when it could have been one, but it also would have been graphically weird. It would have just been a questionable thing to to to do it any other way because they clearly designed the game around that uh that input delay

Especially given that like there's a timing mechanic to a lot of these like platforms and stuff, the ones that that vanish as you have to time out your jumps and get back to safety. It would be weird if you didn't have that and you were just able to kind of roam more freely.

I did, after playing through the entire game, I did download a ROM hack that didn't remove this the the facing directions, but did make it so that instead of eight frames, it was one frame. And it make A lot of combat a a lot easier in the way where it's like they probably trivial. Not yeah, trivial. Uh they probably didn't want that to be the case and they designed specifically

I'm thinking about even just projectile stuff. Like when you're able to get out of situations so much easier, that kind of stuff gets a lot like You don't have to worry so much about, well, I'm on this platform right now and I might be in a corner. It's like you'll be able to get out of it faster without the eight frames. And so it's something I complained about like in my head while I was playing the game at first.

But by the end of it, it just becomes something that like yeah, occasionally still I was like making like an error where I I was turning but not able to like get away from the the attack. Quick enough because you have to turn and then move. And I would have liked to have just moved, but the game wasn't designed that way, so you can't really count it again.

Yeah, I kinda had the same the same thing. At the beginning I was a l I was like, What the heck is this? But then and honestly not too far into it. I was pretty used to it. Like I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted and when something like that would happen. It felt like yeah, that was supposed to happen to me there because I wasn't I didn't I didn't play I didn't get out of there playing by the rules. I just didn't get out of there quick enough. Like I I knew the rules.

And like I knew how it worked and like yeah, I put myself in that position. I knew I would have died. I didn't even get to where I am today playing by the rules. If you think about the octopus boss fight, right, that That's one that I at first I thought was very challenging. I was like, what the hell? Like the spread is everywhere and how am I supposed to dodge any of this stuff? Then once you figure it out, it's actually a really fun boss fight. But if you don't have to

uh like take the time to turn in addition to jumping, you can get out of any of those projectiles. Like you it doesn't matter where the hell you are. You could just j say, okay, they're shooting to the left, let me get over to the right. Here it's uh it take you know, because of it being slower, you have to kind of watch where the spread is going, whether it's from left to right or right to left. Like you have to kind of bait the octopus.

and then hop start hopping away in order to avoid that attack and then get back into place because he's most likely going to then swim up and approach you, uh in which case you can then attack. And there's you know, just another fun example here is like the things you collect in dungeons are only good for that dungeon and so a lot of stuff in those dungeons are designed around the the boss fight or the types of enemies you'll encounter.

And in that octopus one you'll acquire both a baseball bat and uh it's like a snowman um icon. But which you know, i the game obviously probably the manual would have probably told you, but the game doesn't tell you anything about it. And uh the snowman is uh a representation of like a freeze enemies, a stop time thing. And so you can use that snowman that you found earlier to freeze the octopus and then you can use your baseball bat to hit'em like crazy. And this way you don't have to

Hit with the yo yo like two or three times and then go back to the whole projectile spread attack and hope to bait him back in. The yo-yo Is is is a fun weapon and a fun idea, but it is a very basic weapon with a very limited stretch, and I think you have it for way too long.

You mean until you upgrade it? Yeah, until you upgrade. That's what I'm saying. Like I think it it you have that item for way too long, and even once it upgrades I kind of hate that it's based on how much hearts you have that dictate uh like what weapon you use. It doesn't really make sense

that based on how many hearts you have, you have the shooting star or eventually the supernova, and then you go back to the yo-yo. You should have just been able to like, now I've just upgraded my weapon to the shooting star, and that's what I have now because it really sucks. to have the yo-yo in the later dungeon. Yeah, I figured that was j I mean, to me that felt very Zelda.

I mean not getting it later because in Zelda you have the the the like projectile sword early on, but just that like you need all your hearts in Zelda to shoot the sword. Right, but you collect other swords in the original Legend of Zelda and they don't go away. True, true. And you know, the the weapons that you collect in this game other th other than the yo yo slash shooting star or whatever

they are like only exist in the dungeon you collected them in and then they're gone. Which is interesting because it feels like it's also like part of the puzzles sometimes. Yeah, but I sometimes uh I I at first I was confused by that, but then it it felt m like much more freeing. Um, like I could just trust in the game giving me what I actually need in the dungeon instead of like

I guess I should save these baseball bat swings for when I think I'll need them. Right. Your baseball bat ammo. Yeah. I guess it would be durability or something. Yeah. Yeah, I guess yeah, we're thinking the baseball bat cracks, right? But like even if you don't hit anything, a swing and you're like, Well, it's one step closer to breaking now. You swing that hard. That's how good of a baseball player he is. Well pitchers usually aren't great batters. Unless you're Otani. Fair. There you go.

Now forget the um Forget O time. Forget my forget my other complaint about like, you know, the shooting star downgrading to the yo yo with health. Just Can we go back to the yo yo for a second? Like, I do feel like it does suck just in terms of of range and how many times you have to hit enemies with it. It's not the m it's it's a fun idea, but it's not the most fun thing to do. No. Uh I it's at least I'm at least thankful that they that it does stagger enemies so that

even though they they might be moving towards you in their animation, like hitting them with the yo yo will at least maybe let you get in another hit on the yo yo. Uh Uh it w w when they're stronger, it's you're probably still gonna get hit by it, but you you can probably take a cobra with just the yo-yo. But I do agree that it's not like it's not fun. I I I'm I I'm gonna have a really hot take here.

But I'll say that I not necessarily that like I think it's better, but it felt better to me using the yo yo than using Link's sword in Zelda One. Oh that is a hot take. Thank you for using the term correctly. Link's sword is is much shorter range and and in my memory it is slower. I could be wrong. It probably is about the same. But this felt Fine to me.

Like uh it almost like the Rygar weapon, you know? It's like uh you can kinda hit a lot, you can hit really fast, rapidly. Yes, a lot of enemies do take a ton of hit. But even like the mummies in in some of the like the mid mid levels and stuff, that they take like ten hits, like I feel like I can stagger them enough and like kind of button mash to kind of keep them out of my way. Uh, because I can stay

Two or three tiles away from them and still hit them. Whereas in Legend of Zelda, Link can only stay, as far as I remember, one tile away from an enemy to hit them with a sword. But I feel like the sword hit more of a punch, didn't it? Like it's like Well probably when you upgrade the sword, yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying strictly on like my ability to control it, this felt yeah I like I I think I was better at this game than I am at Legend of Zelda because I'm I'm not great at like these

Two D Overworld tile based action games. Like, you know, I was so used to JRPGs of this style that like playing like an action game as Link when I first played The Legend of Zelda, I was like, man, like I'm not good at this because I'm used to either Either this is a game like this is going to be like turn based or strategy based, or an action game is going to be like a 3D world where I'm like

Playing Ratchet and Clank or something. Don't forget, Joe, that you know, you do have the bombs, the boomerang, the arrows, you know, in Zelda. comparing it to those, I'm just comparing to the Link source versus the Yo Yo, this felt better to me. I mean it feels like this does uh this is spammable where the the sword really wasn't unless you were like right next to the enemy. Um I j I I I it's not even like the range that um I think it's like it's just certain enemies

And maybe it's mostly just later enemies where I kinda noticed like it really sucks to get hit by anything because not only does it make it like, oh, you know, they do more damage, so how many more hits can I take? But it's also like now my weapon's worse too. And these later enemies are pretty brutal. Uh they're fast. They're uh there's a lot of them, they fight differently than just like

uh collision detection. So it just became one of those things where it was like, oh man, maybe it goes back to my original complaint here, but I just wish that once you upgrade from the yo yo to the supernova that like we're we're done here now and and that's the forward progression.

Uh speaking of the shooting star one, the middle upgrade, that that's the up that first upgrade you can only receive it if you have um enough heart.

Uh, so th if you missed any of the optional hearts along the way, you might be able to receive it but you can't use it. Um but you but you definitely won't be able to use it until you have six or more hearts, which is another funny like Breath of the Wild thing that I didn't mean to compare it to here, but uh in Breath of the Wild you have to have a certain amount of hearts to be able to pull the master sword.

uh which you can find right away if you know where it is in the game, but you need to have like I I I think it's like twelve hearts or something in order to successfully pull the Master Sword out. That's what this reminds me of, like by gating it. The shooting star you you don't get it until She Cola, which I think is like chapter four or five in the game.

And just wanna talk about Chicola for a second, because that's the one where you have to uh talk to the fortune teller and dress up like a girl in order to enter. And the woman at the gate, uh, won't let you enter until you're dressed like a girl. But when you are dressed like a girl, she says, Oh, you must be from Chicola and it's like, Because I look like a girl? Like are is this where all girls are born? Right.

All girls are from Chicola. What were the other girls doing? Like someone else said, Oh, you must be from Her Cola. Like, oh, there's another there's another and it's just so funny to me that like everyone it's like Oh, there's like there's regular guards and then there's she guards. Like they're not regular guards because they're women. It's just like everything was she.

Like it was like, Oh, th this is the She warrior. These are the She guards. These are the She it's just like I think they're just guards. Like I will admit that this is where I got stuck. Um, because instead of what I learned later of going around the back to find the fortune teller, I sort of left that area and then went to the haunted place and then kind of got stuck in that So Oh yeah. Uh th this is where my chronological Uh exploration of any every NES team in North North America.

It is nice though that Chicola like is just full of uh you know women warriors and not women, yeah. Hey, warriors. True. We talked about in the dungeons, uh, that, you know, those tiles have the secret um the secret steps that you have to press on in order to uh progress. How How much of that is actual like puzzle solving versus like I I I enter a room, I'm just stomping on every single tile just to see what happens. Well there's still like it it's not just

like process of elimination there. Like it there's also like when the the lights turn off, like there there was one room where the The lights turn off and you at first I thought like, oh I'm just gonna have to memorize what happened here, or like, oh, did I did I like pick up a torch that I can turn on? Like but no, there's also like

Th there's other tools that you can use to sort of navigate safely. Uh, like you can trigger the uh the cobras to sort of come at and they and come out and they kind of show you by their line of attack what is walkable and that you see like which one that you're actually going tha that you'll actually have to jump to by which one gets closest to you. So I thought that some of that stuff was very un uh not unique, but what was clever.

Um and kind of like a uh a a more like intuitive puzzle design. Um but yeah, there are definitely rooms where it is that, where it's just jump on it.

Yeah. In the overworld, um, other than going from town to town, you also uh acquire a uh submarine, uh known as the sub-sea, and uh there's a familiar friend uh as your co-pilot. It's Rob. Does look like'em. Is it meant to be? I think it is. I I think it's meant to be him. Uh just too similar. But yeah, he's not named Rob, which is weird. But Joe, I get where your hesitation comes from because it's now been five years since they released anything related to Rob.

for the system, but I I I think it's too it's too similar. It's it can't be a coincidence. Yeah, I mean I'm not even really like hesitating. I just hadn't even considered it. I forgot like didn't even realize. There was a possibility. But I like stuff like that. Like I kinda like How how like uh y I you almost wish that Mario did have a cameo in the game. I mean maybe he is that mare in the first uh in the first town. He kinda looks like him. Big belly, big mustache.

I don't know. That one maybe I I hesitate. Yeah, no, that one I hesitate on too. But I just wish like, you know, th there's more than enough references to go around on things, why not? Uh but that that submarine has a lot of uh unique systems in it to traverse, but it's all kind of just You can't use this until you find X, you know, so there's the A submarine that you can't you can't actually go under the water. Right. And only in specific places until you put in like a code.

And uh like I saw later in the game there's like a there's an o obstacle that you have to get past, but all you have to do is go under the water for that. Like the submarine is a boat. Just call it a boat. It should just be a boat. And uh once you do get that ID code from um a uh a note in a bottle left by your uncle, you will be able to dive uh down into whatever the black waves are

And those black waves just lead out to another one, so it's kind of um just like A to B. It's like a little passageway, basically. Right, a little passageway. And then there's also other ways to read too of of you don't need a uh code to do this next one, but you can see a kind of this uh these waves coming out of this one tile, and that means that you can swim uh kind of through the the land that you're seeing there. And that one wasn't as confusing as the on land equivalent.

of just, oh yeah, you can see mountains, but don't worry, you could just enter those caves. Yeah, just push right into the mountain. What the hell was that about? Was that ever mentioned by any NPC in the game? No, but you found it on your own, didn't you? Uh sure. I had nowhere else to go. Yeah, I guess that's just it. You just gotta push up against like I I would I would usually complain about that, but when there are so few options of what to do next Uh it it it it felt like

It it it felt intuitive enough for me, so I'm going to think there was usually a visual indication. A subtle, subtle one, but like it'll be like a shade. Right. To me it was just the fact that the the mountain range was going to like a place that I could see a heart. So I was like, Oh, maybe there's a way to get over there uh and I was right. But uh I will I do agree that it is it's not very well communicated, but it I did get it.

They were a little cruel about the heart one too, because there are three possible entryways. uh, tr via the mountains ta to reach that heart and only one of them is an actual passage. So you might get discouraged if you try l the first two and just be like, Oh, I guess you can't walk through these mountains after all and walk away.

But yes, you have to do it um to get to the bottle, right? That's the only way to get to the message in the bottle. I I thought that was the the underwater stuff, but No, you can't get underwater until you have the message. Oh you're right. You're right. There you go, same thing.

Uh, okay, and and then just some other these are just some other memorable moments I wanted to talk about. Uh the uh rod of sight in the ghost town. Uh I keep calling it ghost town, but I guess it's like just a ghost town that then reveals itself to be like a ghost dungeon, right? I thought just a graveyard that you can like enter one of the graves.

Yes, you can enter one of the graves. That's true. Uh and then when you're in this ghost thing, there are some uh Like there are some ghosts you can see and then there are just some that are like hidden and if you use the rod of sight Uh enemies that uh and f at first it's like enemies that would have attacked you.

Uh like you could see they're d they're taking damage from you uh or you're taking damage from them and then when you use the route of sight they appear to be able to attack them. And then there's other rooms where like they're hidden in the walls and stuff. And like that's the only way to clear them out.

I think that's a good use of a puzzle, but it's also dumb. Like it's it's like requires you to make sure you use the rod of sight in in the room to test it. But it it it worked in as far as like getting me to feel like I solved a puzzle because I was like I had already learned two things that some doors open up when you kill everything on screen and some things can't be seen on screen. So when I came into a dead end for a long enough time, I'm like

Okay, well is there s is there an enemy here that I'm not seeing? And like there was an e basically an enemy that's just like a switch because it's not gonna attack you or move, but like I don't know, I thought it was kind of a cool little puzzle. Because you solve it without like needing any like external clue. It's just like all your contact

up to that point kind of gave you the the tools you need to solve it. I might not have known about the rod of sight and that's why I got stuck here. Oh god but there's also a bunch of like false exits. You can't like th that is really discouraging to just end up like back at the entrance and you have to go back in. So Well and to be fair, the only reason I knew about the Rat of Sight is because

Uh, I was looking for the crystal ball, which you're trying to get so you can get into Chicola. You gotta talk to the you know, the fortune teller or whatever. I was looking for a crystal ball and I saw the rod of sight and I was like, What the heck is that? That looks like the end of this dungeon. There's a thing there that kinda looks like a crystal ball, maybe. So I grabbed it, nothing happened. I was like, Great, I got the crystal ball and I went back. And then it wasn't.

So then I realized, okay, that must be an item I can use and then I had to go all the way back and then realize, okay, this is like I can use this in my inventory. In chapter five Uh, you learn of uh a man named Captain Bell, who in sixteen eighty uh battled with pirates and uh now his ship is uh kind of just like stuck there, uh on the island. You learn that he's British, so he's from Britain. He's not from Britann Cola.

So there's Americola, but then there's also just Great Britain in this game. Like what's happening? What are the rules of the geography? Yeah, I think that's where w when you know uh when America was discovered, that's where the timeline from our real timeline to this timeline diverged. So fourteen ninety two. Yeah, and it was uh it became Americola and then that split off into Star Tropics universe, and then America split off into our real universe.

I can dig that. Yeah, I think that's in the manual. Also in this chapter, uh, chapter five, is the probably the most interesting puzzle in the game, uh, the piano. where you have to put together two different sets of clues in order to figure out uh using do re mifa sola ti do, uh you have to figure out the uh correct sequence to hop on the piano And it's a giant piano and to the scale of Mike it makes it look like they're making an exact reference to big here. Did you guys feel that as well?

I didn't get to this part in the game but I I I uh whenever I see a giant piano you can walk on, you know that's what I'm thinking, so I I guess it de like it yes, definitely is very big coated. I think I got more Goonies from it because it's like the piano that opens a door. You know, like the or I don't remember what it does in the Goonies, but they have to play the piano in a certain way to I don't know.

Oh no, is that walk on it in Goonies? You didn't walk on it, but yeah. It was It's a good call though'cause it you know, the whole game also has kind of with the pirate stuff, the Goonies vibe. But I think Big being released like two years before this game probably makes it more of a I mean, a likely poll, right? I really didn't know what when it came out, but I I I will always agree with that. Big piano means big. Great. I guess Joe, what I was saying is it's my idea, so it's right. Oh, okay.

Well I don't want to be fired from the podcast, so I don't want anyone to think though, because I jumped ahead to chapter five, that uh I wouldn't talk about uh probably the most famous part of this entire video game, uh which I'm sure None of us experience. Uh based on how we play these video games. But There is a tracking frequency, uh, that uh Rob needs on the sub C in order to g uh to make any forward progression.

And uh the hint is given in game, but the only way to uh actually reveal the frequency requires you to own a physical copy of this game with a manual. Uh it's not just enough to just own the cartridge itself. You need the manual because you will be dipping a part uh a letter uh that was included in the box. in water and that will reveal the frequency code needed in order to uh progress in the game.

Let's forget about uh you know, the fact that like anybody who rented this at Blockbuster was screwed. Let's forget about how it requires uh modern day gamers to just look up the code on Google. For the time, is this a great idea or is this just DRM? Yeah. It's a good thing. And like you throwing it out or your parents throwing it out. Yeah, right.

Then getting stuck that way. And I mean it's You didn't read at the bottom it says note this letter is very important, so please hold on to it till the end of the game. Oh, I didn't I didn't see that. I'm j I'm joking anyway. Like it does say that, but it's like it's in such small text that it's like

Come on. Like you're making it seem trivial. Um, I think it's a great version of what it's what it is. I just don't think that kind of thing ever is like well, I guess because of the things you mentioned, because of like, well, what if I don't have it anymore or like what if it's thirty years later and but nobody has it anymore. It it's funny because I also remember the like it Met Metal Gear Solid is the only other game that I can really think of this kind of stuff with, with uh Merrill's

Kodak frequency being on the back of the box. I didn't I I genuinely did not put together that that they literally meant the the C D case. Um but I remember renting that and I think Blockbuster had or whoever worked at Blockbuster and was labeling these uh

the these discs actually had the presence of mind to put Merrill's Kodak frequency on the back of the box. Oh interesting. Uh that I was saved from that once, so Um but I I also understand that uh that could have happened in in this day and age. It it is funny though because that is the only other one that I know of too and I never knew that like something predated it so much.

Kojima's so uh he's not even unique. Yeah. Yeah, he but he pretty much just just rips off other other artists, you know. Never never an original thought from that game. But he he did invent COVID. Oh, did he? And he also predicted the AI uprising, so he's pretty good. He's got a good track record. I'll I'll I'll stand by for the snatchers. That's next. Uh, here's here's an interesting thing on that piece of paper as well.

Uh the part that would have clued me into that this is important, not the small text that says this is very important, so please hold on to it. It's the text above that that says. Caution, do not taste, eat, or otherwise consume this paper. That tells me something. They didn't warn me about eating the rest of the manual. And what what is covered under otherwise consume? Are you going to snort it? Well, yeah, there's a couple more orifices. Standing standing very still for a set amount of time.

Everybody will understand that reference. Of course. That's why we record the show so that everybody understands everything we say. Uh, no, but in all seriousness, this is something that uh is required. So uh it's a little unfortunate that we have to do it this way because uh Sean, you played on Nintendo Switch uh online as well. And they did not uh do anything cool to fix this. It is just something that you have to Google or uh read a guide for.

But here's the weird part. It when this game came out on uh either Wii or Wii U virtual console, they actually did make like a little like landing site where you could virtually dunk the paper in water to reveal the code. So why not just include that in the Nintendo Switch Online?

That's really funny. I also don't know why they wouldn't do that. But I also thought there might be like'cause I I don't really play even though I pay for the service, I don't really play too many of these games on the Switch. So I was actually surprised they just didn't even have a manual. Um so I guess they they they've just like it's just low, low priority for them.

We talked briefly about the bosses. Um s we don't have to go like line by line or whatever on each boss fight, but I will say uh the snake that you first the giant snake that you fight in the first cave How m like fucking cool is it when you kill him and then you go into the other room and you just see his fucking bones everywhere? You know, like it's like I I wasn't expecting Yeah, I don't the I don't know how many games keep the rotting carcass of the enemy you just defeated on the screen.

It's not it I don't know. Especially in the NES I mean. And then there's like uh you know, most of the bosses are just like hit them a lot and eventually they'll die. The uh the one the lava level. That boss threw me off off because there's no way to hurt it. You have to uh click the switches to separate it from the main part of the island so that it sinks. And like just none of that worked.

For me. Like I was just gonna say the app that was like my favorite boss. I thought that's the thing. No, it's a great it's a great puzzle once you re realize it, but I'm saying like the rest of the game doesn't work like that. Like separating things doesn't make them sink. They're over separated. You you you press the thing and and it's separated. You you see, okay, clicked it and it's now it is separated from the thing. Like that's the only thing you can do. I don't know. I f thought it was

You know, I thought it was clear that it was going to sink. I don't know why. You're right, like nothing else sinks. But like I I thought that that was like it felt like a boss battle, but I wasn't like fighting in the traditional way. It was like a very nice changeup to me. It's okay for me to have bad takes. Well you said it though, so it's gotta be it's gotta be right. You're the owner of the podcast.

Maybe this is a bad take too, but at the same level I was very frustrated by uh that like long passageway where uh you can see there's nothing but tiles to your left and right. And it's just it's just all the way up in both directions. And if you choose the left path, You just keep jumping for a really, really long time until it's a dead end. Yeah. And so it's an end design all the way back. Right, right. It's like

That part already frustrated me and that's right before you get to the boss. So maybe I was just a little fed up at that point with the dungeon. Yeah, I might have just gone the other way'cause I don't remember that. Maybe I it's a fifty fifty chance. Yeah.

And uh the last thing I want to say is, you know, with the aliens and everything, um the the boss fights there, uh I mean th those whole those these those entire last two levels, uh when you're on the uh First you're on the UFO and then I think you're in the alien no, maybe you're always in the UFO. I I can't remember if you're just going deeper into it or if you're now on the alien planet. But

All of those enemies are tough. Uh, especially like the beginning of the when you're on the UFO. I just wasn't expecting the like the dungeon to work like that. Like I don't know if you guys got to that part or can see it on video, but it's all anything you can walk on is tube based. And anything that looks like it might be land isn't land at all. Like it's all just floating uh pipe structures that you can walk on. And so I immediately just kinda fell to my death.

uh when I first got on here because I was like, oh that's just uh that's just land. And it's like, no, it's not land, but then it's like, how does this ship work? Like I guess they're aliens, so they don't need it to work like how we use things, but it was a little bit of a I mean I think I would have

Learn pretty quickly that that's the only thing you can walk through. Oh yeah. You learn the first time you do it. Like, oh that's not land. Okay. Moving on. And then in uh in the final chapter, there are technically three boss fights. And uh the first boss fight is for me my favorite one in the game. It's what I think the game should have ended on.

Uh, it is this fight with Zoda where it's his giant floating head and then he has um hands come in from either the left or right and uh kinda swipe at you and grab you. And it just like it's a it's a perfect fight, but I guess like it it doesn't make sense for the yo-yo. Like if you were hurt enough with the yo-yo, you can't like necessarily reach him unless he got just close enough to you. So you would have to uh have the supernova for this one. But it was a really well done boss.

Then you proceed to um immediately after that get a uh a pill which restores all your heart. And i it is all of them by that point. You'll have uh I think twenty hearts. And so you're I think you're in good shape, but you might wind up like me in the second boss fight against uh the the main engine, I think is the official name of this boss. But this is a tricky one because there are two trapdoors where the only part to hit the main engine is.

and enemies with like that are basically stormtroopers with very um heavy damaging uh projectiles, they pop out of them and then you have to go on those trapdoors while they're shut and wait for the engine to open up so that you can hit the uh the piece in the middle But then that piece closes and stormtroopers come out or you fall through the door. It's it's a whole bunch of things that can go wrong. And while the engine is shuttered, it is repairing itself.

So you have to hit this thing like pretty much as hard as you can, as fast as you can, as long as you can, uh, so that it doesn't repair itself completely, so you have another shot to whittle it down the following time. And while you're doing that, you're getting hit by things, or you're falling through these trapdoors, which reset you back so that you have to go track down to the main engine room again.

And you're probably taking enough damage by this point that the pill you got might have dropped you back to yo-yo. And what sucks about that is there is no way. And this is confirmed. There is no way to hurt the main engine with your yo-yo. So that really sucks. Yeah, that is not forgivable. Right. You you will be able to get um some limited gun ammunition that you can replenish.

But not in the same boss fight. So you'll you know, you're sent s effectively resetting the room and trying again. So it becomes a really, really hard gate if you just don't either know what to do or don't like do it correctly right off the bat. Yeah, that's pretty mean. But the third and final boss is Zoda's like official final form, which is that he's kind of like this alien dinosaur looking thing. Um

And he's gigantic sprite. But what I like about this, even though I think it's a kind of a shitty final boss or whatever, in terms of uh compared to his first form It brings in the tiles uh to the fight. So the the first fight with just Zoda's head was just in a free roaming space. And it makes sense to end the game with something that requires you to kind of the Zoda has to adhere to the same rules of jumping across the tiles and so it makes sense that after doing this

for the whole fucking game that you would have to, you know, show off your skill against Zoda on this uh floating tile set. Yeah, I dig I dig he he he kinda looks like a c a cute Godzilla. That vomits. A cute? Yeah, I mean like maybe more so just as like Like the the shape of his body. He looks just kind of like a big thing. Oh, I thought you were just I thought you were saying acute, like small, like chibi. Yeah, I mean like he almost has chibi proportions uh as far as

He's a cute angled Godzilla. Obtuse. Did not mean some parts of the stuff. Just to clarify, did not mean the angles. I know, I know. Um You know who else is obtuse though, calling back the Shawshank Redemption, the warden?

How do you think it's a good idea? Yeah, from an hour ago. Because this isn't as good of a story as Shosh again. That's true. Right. No, it's di yeah, that's actually using it incorrectly, but Uh, after you beat the game and everything, uh you get these nice little like cutscenes, uh not cutscenes, um really nice pixel art of every scene, every notable scene in the game. So you'll see like uh

You'll see the the map of Star Tropics, you'll see you facing off against the giant snake. The list goes on. Where was the cameraman during all this? Like who took these pictures? Who took those pictures is a good question. You also get to see what you look like as a girl, which might be worth it for me alone. Just just getting some closure on that. Closure.

But here's the interesting thing. I don't know why we're just seeing all this pixel art at the end of the game. These should have been cutaways during those moments. Like right before you fight the snake, you see this giant, awesome pixel art. of the encounter and then you go into the fight like that would have hyped me up a little more.

And then just reuse them again at the end, sure. Like now see them all in sequential order. But I don't think we needed to wait till the end of the game to see uh This is your reward, Mike. We all know you you were itching to see what girl Mike looked like. Right. So you you gotta wait till you beat the game. Boy was I rewarded. You were. Oh, there there she is. Just just came up. You saw her. Yeah, because I did not get to the end of the game. I only got to chap the be middle of chapter six.

So I did not know that this uh all this pixel art was here. Pretty cool pretty cool uh ending like reward for an NES game that usually just says like you're done. Congratulation. Yeah. Well think about it. Even for the chapters themselves, like they they do kinda do a like uh a coming up next thing, you know, like they they tell you uh I'm grabbing chapter five.

Sub C is searching for Dr. Joe's location, but the street is blocked. It kind of like reminds you of where you were. Right. So it could be episodes. When you beat the game, Mike, did you put bananas in your ears? I did I didn't. Oh, all right. I feel like you are really like in the the spirit of the game. I'm missing a reference. Isn't that like a reference in the game? Isn't there like a isn't there an image of bananas in the ears? Maybe? Yeah, I got a making me question.

Sean, are you okay? I'm okay. I'll be okay. Just kidding. Let me look. Ears. Star Tropics. Bananas of Years Itch came up as a Star Tropics is obsessed with jamming bananas in your ears. Yeah, what is this? I don't remember this happening. Uh, so here's the thing from game FAQs. So I just beat the game for the first time. Pretty good game. I had a lot of fun. I found it quite playable even today.

Um what was the whole banana in your ears thing I saw, the picture in the card. It just came up on my on my w let's play I'm watching. But a guy kid a kid putting bananas in his ears. Yeah. I don't know why I uh uh uh we talk about those alien children at the end that you saved That's also very strange. They look very weird. Wha I didn't know that you were saving alien children. I thought the aliens I thought that's who we were fighting. My surprise when we saved them from genocide. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel bad. Uh I don't recall this banana in the years thing at all. I mean it's literally the very th last picture in that end credits like reward. Reward. We're just calling it a reward. Yeah, the reward. The secret ending, the uh deep dive deep drive or whatever it's called. Apparently Bananas in your ear is an old phrase referring to when someone isn't paying attention and I need to make it clear that this is not a bit.

No, I'm I'm looking at the same thing. It's on game FAQs. Yeah, it's on game AK FAQs, but I'm just saying, like, this isn't a bit. I genuinely miss this. That's so fun well, I didn't realize that like the bit would be that you weren't paying attention. Right. Wow.

Uh uh four D chess over here. Anyway, uh to to wrap this whole thing up, um little sequels and spin-off section here, uh there is a second game. We will play it. Uh towards the end of our lives. Uh, because it comes out in March of nineteen ninety four. So that's like twenty eighty. Yeah, I probably won't even remember playing Star Tropics at all. By then, yeah. What would you call Star Tropics too? Uh

Is it Zoda's Revenge? It is. Star Tropics 2. I would have went for more of a uh a cola pun while we're at it. You know, like Zoda's Fizz. Mr Pibb. Yeah. Cause Star Tropics like The title just sounds so like w comfortable and fun. Zoda's sounds like it's gonna be like mean. I think the whole game has that vibe, by the way. Like I do think they really did a great job with the whole

Star tropics thing, Star Wars, you know, of aliens, sci fi stuff. Like there's just the right amount uh of it at the end of the game that the whole tropics vibe is one thing and then the whole like alien thing is reminds you very much of a lot of NES games that just kind of at the end get like way too weird with it. Uh I'm trying to think of like

you know, even Contra, a game that is pretty, you know, metal throughout all of it, like as you go on, you start to see some pretty graphic alien imagery uh as you keep getting into the later stuff. And that's kinda like it does kinda come out of nowhere. In Star Tropics once you're on the UFO of like, what the hell are these things? I was fighting freaking um Ghosts.

Uh and apes, right? Like I was fighting regular animals not too long ago. You do have a you do talk to a dolphin though, so I'm saying all bets are off once you talk to a dolphin. There was uh a fan made Star Tropics three as well, uh, that I know nothing about. Uh it's called The Return, Star Tropics Three. And um It it looks like it came out like

They're saying it came out on the Nintendo Wii, but not like officially, just like it's homebrew, I guess. Hmm. But the game uses a motion sensor for hitting enemies with the baseball bat by swinging the Wii moat like you would in Wii sports. That's kinda cool. Thanks for clarifying like you wouldn't Wii Sports, the only game where you swing the Wii mode. They did that. I know. I'm talking to them.

Is this a real game? I can't figure out what's happening right now. I'm a little like I I think this is a fake game, but now I'm getting baited into thinking because it came out on on Wii. No, it's okay. It's it's a fan-made project. They trick you sometimes, man. They look so legit. Yeah. They're good. Good fans. Uh putting effort into things. Music corporations.

What about the music in the game? Thank you. Music in this game, uh I I I enjoy it, but it is also kind of like recycled a little too much. We talked about how the the dungeon music is just wallpaper music. Right. But it is but it was good. Like the first time I heard it, I was like, Oh, this is nice. Yeah, it's definitely a good track, the one track. Yeah, the one track.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I would have liked a little like I do appreciate that it's like oh yeah, again, it's like this tropical fun vibe when you're on the overworld and everything, but like hey, sometimes like things are a little more serious or like a little darker or whatever or even just Change the music so I can use something else. I think if they have one more song it would be fine. Oh, and did you guys get up to those bowling ball enemies? Oh yeah. I did see them.

Screw them in particular. It took me a long time to realize'cause you know, y I I would do a lot of like, you know, ducking into one room as the bowling ball rolls by. But do you know that you can just hit it with your yo yo? Yeah, to freeze it up for like half a second. No, not ten seconds. Well uh no okay, but functionally enough time for you to like do what thirty to forty seconds.

Yeah. But like you free it freezes for yeah ma m I mean maybe two seconds, but then you just hit it again when it starts to move and it freezes again. Like functionally you have defeated it. That is true. Um but I I wasn't even thinking about the big one. Uh I was thinking. So much worse. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when they start to like compound on each other. If there's like a pattern of'em and you gotta hit two of them and get'em to start moving, they're crossing each other at different tempos.

Nobody knows I'm not describing this to anyone who hasn't played the game, so no one knows what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter. Give it a try. Yeah. Uh and here's another thing. There's there's plenty of power ups and stuff that we didn't talk about because the game's too large, but the uh mechanic thing is very interesting because it's it's not a guaranteed one-up. It is a uh it's a coin toss, I believe, where uh you can either get a one-up or lose a light.

Yeah the little sign. What were what were we calling that? Oh yeah, bitch ass game design. Yeah. Right. Yeah, you coined the term that until until like late in the game. I think you just got lucky every time. You could also get two. I I I feel like that maybe they're maybe it's like scripted which one is the negative one. And it's like the one trap one. I I didn't like

play test it to see if it was randomized per one up, but it it yeah, it can do that. And uh that's mean. It would be funny if it was just random though and there was really bad odds of losing a life. Yeah zero, the game just ends.

And what do you think feels the most American besides the cola about Star Tropics? Is it the is it the fact that it the guy's name is Mike and he's just some regular kid? Is it the baseball items? Is it the alien part? Like w what what what to you screams America? Uh yeah, I mean I guess the baseball thing is like the the big thing. And everything else is like I think it's like a mixture of like, well I know that they're that it's meant to be American, so like I see it.

Yeah. There's nothing. There's nothing overly American. Yeah. Aside from them saying, Are you from Americola? And yeah, it it's Yeah, this isn't like Earthbound. Yeah. Which is another, you know, Nintendo uh franchise that uh has a baseball bat. And a yo yo. And regular kid. Is Mike just getting replaced by Ness? I think that I think this is basically he's a proto Ness.

Isn't that so weird that the character's name was Ness and he was on the Ness? Was he on the S on the Ness or was he on the SNS? He was on the Ness, he's on the he's in the original Earthbound as well, uh which was called Mother. Uh we'll play it on a bites episode for sure. Oh, I didn't realize What's a Bites episode? Okay, no go on Mike. Do your pick. Yeah. No, it's okay. I'll do your thing first. I'll answer your question.

Uh Earthbound is not a remake. There Earthbound is Mother Two. So there's Mother, Mother Two, and Mother Three. But in America, they are known as Earthbound Beginnings, Earthbound, and Mother Two. Because it never came out in America. Got it. Uh yeah, no, my pitch was just that uh we'll cover Earthbound Beginnings someday on our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash nostalgia. Once a month we do a Famicom game.

So you better believe that we'll do um Earthbound and I don't know, Shin Magami Tensai,'cause I believe it started there as well. So we'll just get to the beginning of every franchise eventually.

Just like every episode eventually gets to the essential games list. I said it earlier in the episode, but I truly believe that Star Tropics is what people feared Zelda would be before Breath of the Wild. an incredibly linear experience where everything is so streamlined that the next place you approach or room in a dungeon is always forward progress. There's tons of set dressing to distract you, but everything is planned down to the dialogue.

Somehow even if that sounds scathing, none of that mattered during my time playing this game and any sort of uh flaws or qualms I might have with this game, it is impossible to deny that uh this is one of the great games on the end. Uh, is it a little limited by uh the the time that it was made? Yes, but in terms of other NES games we've played.

Few have had an adventure this grand. And I know that that's funny because we were talking about how the story is just kind of whatever. I don't really feel that the story is just whatever. I think that uh it's silly, it's pulpy, it's uh chapter of the month st style adventuring, but it is an adventure nevertheless, and I really enjoyed uh this journey both.

From uh the gameplay side, from the story side, and just seeing like what they would do next, even if it is very linear, that provides a focused experience that creates a lot of memorable moments like uh the piano and figuring out the uh the Doray Mi code in order to open up the next gate. There are certainly uh things in this game that uh bothered me at first.

that I even eventually like came around on, such as the movement. It was something that I thought was going to be like, well, this might hold it off the list while I was playing, but in the end it didn't matter and I still made it all the way through this game. Not in spite of it, but alongside it. So for me, this is an obvious essential games list choice.

Joe? I I'll just come right out and say I completely agree. Uh this I I I love this game. I mean, yeah. Or are there flaws? I mean, there are flaws in some of my favorite games of all time. I mean, in all of my favorite games of all time. So this this

This is another game that was just kind of made for me. The the feeling of adventure, the feeling of progressing through this adventure was, you know, like like I love the the fact that I can like s I can say like yeah, I got to the underwater caves like that, like and it's like

That's just such a unique starting this game, you don't know that there's this underwater cave section, that there's a piano puzzle area, that there's you get swallowed by a whale at one point. Like it just feels like you went on Like a real grand adventure. And then on top of that, uh, you know, the the linearity of it.

kind of lent to what it was designed around doing. And then the dungeons, I mean, I I I really started to enjoy the the puzzle elements of the dungeon, the fact that it felt like platformy in a way that it's very hard for NES games to do in this top-down style. Um and it it you know it kind of had a good balance of like action platform and puzzle to me. Uh I I I think this is this is a great game. And honestly, and you know, recency bias here, but like this

I I I'm kind of considering this when we do our like oh what's your top ten of the year, but like maybe even uh infiltrating my top ten so far that we've played at all uh NES games. So definitely uh essential.

Sean. Yeah, great game. Um So uh I it really did have a high bar to uh to to to actually impress me. And I think that it still did. Um I'm also voting it essential. Uh I feel like people would try and rip my head off if I didn't. Um but also like it the people that d that who that do have a problem with the w w with like movement and like f feel that is like a complaint to to to to keep it out of their even like liked games like th that would need a ROM hack to

change the way that it moves. It's like, I don't know, it it feels like you're not actually playing the game anymore, man. Like it's it's just weird that that exists. uh t to me. Uh I wanted to I wanted to shout that out when when we were talking about it in the episode. So I just wanted to throw that in there. Uh I have nothing new to add to that to to your Uh.

Uh I do still think that the the story is bullshit, but I think that there's enough going on like that it it's like it's it's still like a sequence of funny or fun things. And that's good enough for me, especially on the NES, so uh

It very enjoyable game. Sean, I'm glad you brought that up about the ROM hacks too,'cause it's just something I've been thinking about in general with all of the ROM hacks that exist,'cause there's like a lot of different categories of ROM hacks and The ones that are in the improvement category are always so interesting because improvement is like such a state.

You know, like like like it's it's one thing to make a hack where uh you know, oh instead of Simon Belmont it's Mario, right? Like that's that's a cute rom hack idea. To call something an improvement I I that could drastically change the game. And I use this example on our Discord, so apologies for the people who um already heard it, but the there is a Castlevania ROM hack that removes the knockback.

And while I personally enjoy that, right, it makes the game significantly easier. Uh it makes it uh more fun for me because the later stages have uh flying Medusa heads that purposefully knock you into nothing so that you uh automatically die. That is just not the developer intention and if there wasn't knockback, they would have designed the levels differently, right? Like they they designed it with like knowing that those Medusa heads were doing that to you.

So sometimes I question uh the intentions of the improvements Yeah, it's like a a a as a statement. your encumbrance in Skyrim or if you're going to mod out like losing your souls on death in Dark Souls or something. Like I'm not saying that these are things that people do. Maybe those mods exist, but It seems like akin to that. Like you were just

You are removing a mechanic, not so much yeah, like removing a disturbance. I I'd even say it seems worse than like modding out your encumbrance in Skyrim'cause like

It's so fundamental to the to the core of this game. Where like there's just a fine line where like I I you know, I I I I'm open to some ideas of these like quality of life improvements in ROMs, but like it's a very fine line between what's a quality of life improvement of like basically a developer mistake that should have been better and what's

just you're just changing it to a different game. That like this is not the game is no longer designed around the way it plays anymore. And I think that's what like removing the uh the movement thing which like a movement thing that like uh you know maybe you know it's a It's just me, but like didn't really seem like too much of a factor on my end. Like it was not like, oh, this is unplayable like I thought it was gonna be. So yeah, I think that would that would change way too much for me.

I just thought of one more moment in Star Tropics, just to bring it back to Star Tropics before we end the episode, that was just crazy and I don't even remember what chapter it was, but it's when you're in like the You're in the sub and there it the world map gets a lot bigger. So there's a lot of different islands you could potentially land on and such and there's that hut that you land on and you go inside the hut and it's just a skeleton in there.

And you approach it and the game text box says, Who was this? And that's just like that's a meme if I've ever seen one, right? Oh wait, I have one too. Uh when you go it's very early in the game and you go uh into the lighthouse and the guy just wants you to go hang out with his wife alone. Yes. I don't know if I remember that part. That's it. That might have just been in Sean's ROM hack. It's a quality of life improvement, really. My wife's alone at home. Why don't you go say hi? I'll be here.