425 - Kabuki Quantum Fighter

Semester snart, då ska du tänka Sass Holidays. Ett nytt sätt att resa med Sass. Srädda sig din resa i en enda bokning, med flyg, hotell och allt däremellan. Just nu kampanjpriser på alla resmål. Boka d perfekta semester med Sass Holidays. Kabuki, Quantum Fighter, Earth, the Future

And welcome to Nestalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm strong. And I'm Joe. And was the back of the box just like random words? Yeah, you're right. It's like Earth, the future. Uh I don't have the back of the box present right now, but I know I specifically um i picked that.

Just to fool around with the back of the box. There there was a lot more like plot details, but then there was just one sentence that said Earth the future and I was like, Yeah, let's fucking go with that. Like that sounds awesome. So it's not really either the beginning or the end of the back of the box. It was in there, but I picked it and that's the rules. You're allowed to do that. You should just pick a like a bunch of random letters and rearrange them into whatever words we want to say.

Yeah, I mean is anybody really ready for the future? Not n not twenty fifty four. Twenty fifty six. Well I'm definitely not ready for that. Joe, Jesus Christ, did you p did you even play the game? I played the prequel. So twenty fifty six coded that I don't know how you miss that. Uh yeah, it but it is uh Kabuki Quantum Fighter. Uh it's twenty fifty six. A rogue virus has hijacked the planet's defense supercomputer.

Uh interesting that it's just super computer. Like there's just one. What's the super it's the supercomputer. Like the rest of them are just like regular computer.

What happened? Did one company win? Like right now we're in a state where like every company is building their own supercomputer or data center or whatever you want to have it is. They're gonna be so there there would be data centers, but this is just supercomputer with with no S. Well basically over enough time and I guess the thirty years until whatever year that was, um, uh is enough time for them all to sort of grow together.

And then here's the problem. That defense supercomputer, it's the one controlling the nuclear weapons. didn't even have a password. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No nuclear codes. The nuclear weapons themselves are being controlled by the uh by the computer. And uh it seems like basically all all everything uh they've run out of options, so they're gonna uh

Upload uh you, the player character's uh consciousness, directly into this machine as binary data and fight the virus from the inside. This kinda sounds uh A little relevant to what's going on today, right? Like we we're a couple of years away. Maybe it doesn't even take'til twenty fifty six before we start uploading consciousness into the clawed to fight back. Yeah. Yeah, it's like it it's a little bit of Terminator, a little bit of Tron. Um

And I I did hear that this was based on the some movie and then they took out all the movie elements. But like I know we're making fun of the story of this game, but I I at least appreciate that it's whatever this is as opposed to like the Zork Glaps are invading and you have to stop the Zorkglaps from like the mothership from getting here. It it it's got a little bit more nuanced than that. I I appreciate that.

Yeah, I I liked it too. I mean I I can't pretend that it's not just one giant exposition dump, but like it it is it wa I was I was invested, you know. It it was uh you know, it it got me.

And the player characters is uh Colonel Scott O'Connor. Um Scott Connor, that that's kind of Sean, you mentioned the Terminator reference. That's kind of close to the c you know to the Connors of the Terminator universe. And um when he enters uh like how does it work? Does his mind enter the computer? Is he physically in the computer? I think it's a good thing. Physically in there. Isn't he in that like he's like laying in the Yes, he's lying in that thing.

A an image of his brain was made and uh his uh hi hi his like consciousness has been copied into the computer and is now doing the thing. Do you think all of our consciousnesses have like that hair? Yeah, let's go. Yeah. Now here's the interesting thing. Did you know that uh when he entered that system The system used a image of his great great grandfather, who was a Japanese kabuki actor, and so your digital avatar fights with the traditional costume, white face paint.

And extremely long red hair of a traditional kabuki actor? And they do bring this up in that intro movie and they just sort of like it. That's normal. Like that wasn't it? They do. Thank you. I am proud of doing that Yeah, does that mean that this guy's great great grandfather was like somehow just like deeply embedded in this guy's subconscious? Or was it just like no no, it's like it's like a Assassin's Creed thing where like your DNA has memory?

What was then a few झाल झाल झाल The Assassin's Creed thing. Yeah. In what? In what? W was kabuki like really big in Ireland? Why Ireland? His name's O'Connor. Oh right, right, right. Yes, good. Yeah. Very good. Kabuki, do they like fight with their hair? No, never. But they just they just happen to have long hair. Yeah, because honestly the like fighting with your hair thing, we didn't mention it, but you fight with your hair. Yeah, he's banned at it.

So silly and also so cool to me at the same time. I love it. It actually is convincing too, like the animation for it and everything. Like I believe that those whips of the hair are doing significant damage, at least in a digital world. It should be doing damage to yourself as well though, like with the whiplash. Yeah, well but but when it's your digital body you don't have to worry about your digital bones. Is there not like digital CTE?

There actually probably is, right? But who's simulating that? Is it the AI? Because why can't the AI just simulate him feeling bad? Yeah, the the AI should just be like running the sadness program on him as a defense and like This is not... I don't know.

I think that the AI is try like it's you know, this is all it trying to get a hold of this program so it can run whatever it wants to. It's like a it's like your computer trying to f locate a virus. You know? I think that's what all these enemies are, are parts of the AI trying to do it, so don't worry. They're the white blood cells.

Yeah. Uh this was developed by Human Entertainment. We always like to call them out because that's just it's perfect when they make especially games about AI and call themselves Human Entertainment. Uh but published by uh Hal Laboratory, you know, the the Kirby and Smash Brothers people. Um that so I I don't really know if it has any of that DNA, but we've seen some other games from them before.

Uh I think, you know, the manual and certainly like everything we've been talking about so far commits hard to this like science of consciousness being uploaded to an AI framework. And then as Joe mentioned, the Avatar fights with his hair. So there's like this gap between the game's pretensions and its reality.

And I I think that's actually where the charm comes from, because the gameplay itself is actually kind of fun as a result. It's just really silly that the plot is so serious, but the game is actually kind of whimsical. Yeah, but I also think that the seriousness of the plot can sometimes be read as like over the top like Cool.

You know, over the top cool in the sense where it's almost a parody. I know it's not, but it feels that way. Like I feel like if it were made today it would be par parodying games like this. So like I kind of read it as like, Oh, this is like so fun because it's like trying to be so crazy serious and it's and it's not.

It it's kinda like how, you know, the the costume design in The Matrix was cool and now whenever you see somebody like that, they're usually like dancing to like goth electronica under a bridge. Yeah. Right, right. Uh a and you know, I think it's obviously done on purpose that it's mixing a very old art form in Kabuki with a futuristic outlook, uh, with AI and uploading your consciousness into a machine. And even the title, like Kabuki Quantum next to each other is Pretty crazy.

You seem to be a little worried about the consciousness angle.

I don't think I'm worried about it. I think it's like just a neat approach to then like y to take a a very traditional, exclusive to Japanese art form o of kabuki uh theater. And then like bring that over to America. Like they they surely could have they didn't have to keep that part. They could have localized it a little bit. Yeah, I'm surprised that they didn't change the'cause everything else is so sci fi and then you just got the sky. Mm-hmm.

The coolest thing about maybe the aesthetic of the game though is that before you even take control of the character and start playing the game, The game opens on a w wall of text of what looks like real assembly code, uh, you know, showing instructions of the of the game running with uh Scott O'Connor uh appearing in front of it. It it you know, it it holds a interesting blend uh uh a fourth wall break there of showing the game code and him entering it and then the game actually starting.

I I really appreciated this just as like the presentation of it. Uh I I don't I you see it a lot more now, like with like glitchiness as just an aesthetic choice and um I I wasn't expecting something like that. So it was a cool touch. I appreciated it. And I'm certainly no expert on kabuki theater, but

Uh outside of the main character, I don't think there's any other part of the identity of of that in this game. Uh so I'm I'm sure that the the face paint and and the clothing is all accurate to the to the kabuki time period, but otherwise that's it for the game, right? Yeah, I guess we'd have to zoom in a bit to to to to tell if it was period accurate.

No yeah, but sure. But even just the idea of it, it it it it's only in the way that the character looks, right. Not even in like the enemies or a or the it doesn't feel like you're part of a stage play. Right. In i Kabuki theater, that's the one where like there's the um like the percussion, right? The like really like Yeah. Well the map but but right there's that like really like uh I don't know, that distinct sounding percussion, right?

It would've been nice if there was like a Like a your character theme that had that or something. And then we're not going to be able to the environments themselves, I wouldn't say they'll they don't look nothing like a computer, but they're certainly not what I would think the inside of a computer would look like. It looks more like a biological corruption of a computer like there are

There are living, breathing parts of this thing. There's one screen where there's just a bunch of not just one, but a bunch of beating hearts and stuff. I it it looks like or you know W it's a lo it's very alive and maybe that's on purpose, but you would expect maybe more circuit boards and and things of that, not body horror machinery. Yeah. It kinda jumps back and forth between stages. Uh and some of'em are even just like, oh it's just all bones. All bones everywhere.

Um but again, like, I don't think that the original that this game like was supposed to be about this originally, like the Japanese version at least. So I'm just supposed to give it a pass? No, I'm saying that like it just makes sense that it doesn't And I I like because I almost I wouldn't say that uh that I wouldn't necessarily that I wouldn't expect all the biological stuff, it's that or that I would expect

I'm sorry. I wouldn't say that I would expect there to be more circuit boards. It's that I would expect there not to be the biological stuff. Because there are circuit boards and that it does feel like that. But then it yeah, it's like it's almost like the computer was corrupted by an alien. Or something.

It it looks more like dark fantasy than cyberpunk, but maybe it was a deliberate metaphor for a biological virus sent entering the AI, uh you know, maybe the Maybe that even though it wasn't intentional, as Sean's trying to point out, it it could be interpreted that way.

So to get into the combat we have uh obviously the hair based combat. Oddly though when you crouch, you don't then like crouch and whip your hair, you resort to your punches. So you you are capable of punching. You are capable of dealing damage that way. You just choose to attack with your hair. Uh what is the what is the range like?

Well the hair is way better than punching, for sure. Which it bothered me a little bit, like I just want to use my hair when I'm crouching, but I wonder if the punching is hair. Banging while you're crouching? In real life? Yeah. Yeah. This is what makes it realistic. No, that you I can headbing while I crouch. Saw it the only time I do it. Ha ha.

Um, but I uh I the only reason I th could think of that they would put the the punching when you're crouching is maybe to make you appreciate the reach of the hair and be like, Oh yeah, see that's why we're using the hair. It's so much better than the punching. Yeah, it feels crunchier too. There's a little bit of a delay. And or or at least you kinda have to let the animation play out. And that, coupled with the fact that it does more damage, at least it feels like a a better tactic.

And your other button is for jumping, which of course there are you know, there are platforms and such, but there are also uh hooks on like built into the walls I guess. Uh maybe they're floating. Uh it's a computer. Anything can happen, I suppose. Uh there's these hooks that you can grab onto and they allow you to uh swing and you can uh just tap A for a short swing or hold down for a full arc.

Uh that gets a little tricky, especially when there's a lot of hooks and the a long way to fall down. I noticed that sometimes I would just instinctually uh go when I grabbed onto the next hook, begin to start swinging from it and then leap off of it most likely into an enemy that I didn't intend to.

Uh, but there is also uh, you know, he has a little bit of that Ninja Gaiden wall climbing ability as well. Uh you'll see more hook swinging than you will wall climbing, but they're both present and spice up the the platforming. It's not to say that these stages are um you know, they're they're more horizontal side scrollers than they are vertical, but they are they do scale

up a lot and the and the idea of like having branching paths isn't there, but there are like different ways to approach. There isn't always just the one way up. Yeah, and is it a you think it's a hot take for me to say that uh I think the way these hooks work is how I would have how I wish The grappling hook worked in Bionic Commando. Like I just feel like this is how I want that to feel. Yeah, no, it is. It's just real.

Smooth. Yeah. Yeah. And it like makes you feel pretty badass the whole time. Like I and never I'm never like, oh I gotta stop and think, how does this work again? It's just kinda like it's just kind of intuitive after you you kinda get the hang of it.

Yeah, I think the one thing I wasn't ready for though is just like letting go of the A button when you land on the next one in order to just hang there. Like I I for some reason, because you're holding down a from the swing and you're releasing, when I get to the next one, my instinct is to then Press A again to like confirm it. Not to You know, like not to let go of it.

uh unintentionally fell to damage or death um because I was still getting the hang of it. But over time you get the hang of it.

And you know there's a lot of I don't wanna say random, but there's a lot of drops in the vertical sections of this game where you you kind of have to do a little bit of a leap of faith and just you know, you'll land unknowingly into spikes or enemies, uh, or into um

There's those like pools of water that push you into spikes. Like it's not ideal. I I especially when there's enemies. It's like you knew I had to fall into this area, you know I can't see what's below it. There's no option to like crouch and look down and like expand a little bit of the screen. So why place an enemy like right there? Like d you you'd have to know it's in the stage after playing a few times in order to avoid it. It's all punishment, Mike.

Oh right. Why didn't I yeah, it's the AI punishing guess. Everything in this game is actually flawless because a computer designed it. And it's to it's designed to make you feel the way you're feeling. Cool. Yeah. Wait, filled with dread about that or that's just a s No, no, that's that's just sort of uh the same it's a separate thought, yeah. I just felt like the enemy placement, even not even just in areas you can't see, but just in general, could have been a little better.

And while you have uh your hair to rely on, there are other attacks you can do by switching to them using uh so you have two

uh bars. You have a life bar, which obviously is your standard HP, and then you have this chip bar uh that you uh don't necessarily have maxed out but you can gain uh as you go along by collecting uh pickup The chip system use if you use your hair it doesn't cost any chips, but if you use some of the other um weapons that you unlock after you defeat a boss, uh basically it's it think think like Mega Man style, except for you're not choosing the stages.

uh you just go beat the boss and then you acquire a new weapon and then you can use that at at will uh by s by pressing the select button. To switch to the new uh weapon. Those weapons have limited use though because uh once you run out of chip, you'll um You have to go back to the hair. Yeah. Yep. You only got your hair to rely on.

I actually noticed this at first. It wasn't until later, uh like level two that I realized that in the UI there is a little thing that shows that your hair is selected. Right. It looks like a fireball. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like so I use I use Select and I'm like, oh I've got a little like pea shooter now and then I press Select again and I guess at that point I'd unlocked like a slightly more powerful projectile and it uses a lot of chip. So I ended up just really saving that stuff for bosses.

I I mostly did too. Although th you know, there were times I think like in in uh you know, like stage thr or three and four I did kinda realize, oh, I can use these early on because I get enough chip back. Like halfway through the level before I get to the boss, but I'm not sure. It is kind of random how you get chip back though.

Yeah, I mean they're just drops from enemies, right? Like it's just yeah. So like I feel like I I felt safe in that like I'll get some if I like only use this in the first half of the stage or something. But honestly, I think your hair is one of the better options to

for like a lot of just like the main running through using the enemies because you don't have to like think about what it is. I think like a some I think the the the power ups feel like they are best suited for the bosses anyways. Like so I so it was It ended up like not feeling like too much of a downer to have to save it for the bosses'cause I think I would have A lot of the times would have chosen the hair anyways in the main levels. Yeah,'cause the game is it it feels designed for melee.

Designed for hair. Yeah, melee hair. This is a hair metal game.

The chip system, even though the drops are random, it does get around this thing that we talked about I feel like a lot when we started the show, but uh has come up from time to time of just like sometimes it's just like why even bother fighting enemies if you can just move past them and it's like, well here it's you want it just where you have enough chip to go into the boss fights because

The boss fights are certainly challenging uh if you're just using your hair. Like you're gonna have a bad time trying to uh surely you could learn the patterns and do a hair only run of nothing if impossible. But Hair only. It but if you go into a boss battle with full chip health, uh or chip supply, and then you have something like the uh I think it's called the fusion gun that does the uh fireball spread where it shoots

uh diagonally up, down, and straight ahead. You could be doing three hits at a time pretty rapidly against these bosses where otherwise you might have to like try and like just s squeak in a a a hit with your hair and then go back to defense and wait for their pattern to end and land in a new place and then attack them again once. It's just like it really speeds up those boss fights in a way that's beneficial to the player. Now I didn't try this.

Unfortunately, I learned about it too late. But apparently, did you know that during any boss fight, you can pause? and press up or down to trade health for chips. No. That's a good one. Is a it is a two to one rate. So you you can trade uh and you can trade in both directions too, by the way. You can use chips to gain back health. But if you're running low on ammo mid fight, just burn up some HP to reload. It's two health to one chip. And then vice versa if you do it the other way.

One shipped at two health. You you could I guess technically by that math kill yourself by just yeah uh unequally sharing um between them, like going in one direction and then being like, No, I didn't mean to do that. I like the idea of this, but I I just knowing how much o a lot of the uh weapons take, how much chip a lot of the weapons take, it almost feels like where you're gonna have enough life to make a significant amount of chip.

Right, but I guess, you know, j just knowing how powerful the those those chip attacks are at at doing damage to the boss, it could be worth even to just trade off once to do enough to have one more of the uh either the bomb or the spread gun. uh at your disposal. Or that uh what's the one word like the things just foul it? Like there's a bunch of little guys that just go foul. Like that that was very powerful. Oh yeah, what is that called? It was it had a Little guys.

Little guys, that's what it was, yeah. Those are your little guys. Um no, what are those? I don't know Started with a B. Starting with a B. Okay, I'm looking in the manual now. Um Blittle Guy Swarm. Yeah. The remote control bolos? Bolos. Oh, bolos, yeah. Yeah. Bolo ties. Perfect. That's all just bolo ties that act on their own. Yeah, and so I just want uh while I have the manual here, I just wanted to see if it actually explained trading your Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does say here in the final page.

In the it's the final page. Fighting the bosses. If you run low on energy while battling with bosses, you can get more energy by trading your memory chips, pause the game by pressing the select button, then use the upper and lower arms of the D Pet Nobody says that. Rules of the beast

The arms well they say control pad, not D pad, but lower arms of the control pad uh to swap memory chips for energy. If you use this special t technique well, you should get the results shown below. And then it has a picture, sorry. You call that technical. Can't show the picture. Or is that just like a feature? I think the technique they were saying is is if you just do that feature, you should be able to and then it shows like a boss blown up. Ha ha ha.

Uh but yeah, I think that's interesting, but it's kind of again another thing that's like Does everybody know that? Like the three of us played the game and didn't know that. Uh I guess if you know, if you have a manual you knew that, but did you read all the way to page seventeen? Yeah. Did you get to the end of the manual? Did you Actually did you actually try a little bit? Like did you did you check uh the game that you spent money on? Did you read the whole thing?

Yeah, it's like, well, you know what's funny? I know that like we talk about enjoying reading the manuals, but do you think you ever actually like Verticov. Freaking cover to cover the manual before you start playing the game. You just read whatever you got up to in the car before you got home. You never looked at that thing again? You can get there. I I I was far away from my E B games, so I had some time.

Yeah, if I if I didn't have uh if I hadn't finished the manual yet, I usually have my parents drive around the block a few times so I can finish it. Yeah.

I was there. Did you guys see the final boss of the game? That's as far as I got. I got to the final boss of the game. I did not beat the final boss of the game. So you've doomed your world. Yeah, I was like, you know what, that's fine. We'll doom it. It's pretty cool. It's definitely the most uh like Thank you. body horror thing we've seen yet where it has the mechan mechanical, biological, like you see it

Guts at all. You're actually fighting on its guts. Right? Like that's the the stage itself, like the floor is guts. Laura's guts, I played that game. Yeah. I didn't realize that the floor was like squirmy guts. I think I was just too focused on on the it just looked like lava to me because I wasn't focusing on it.

And then he's hooked up to you know, the the computer's all hooked up to that and then there's like coming out of the computer is another like uh it looks like something out of um salamander, but it's uh or Life Force, as it's called on the N E S. It's just like another one of those dragon things and it's shooting

fireballs at you while you have to try it. And and they you know they were nice though. They were nice. They gave you those little uh swinging hooks that we've been talking about. There's two of those in this stage. You would think that the boss would be smart enough to remove those by now. I did appreciate though, uh that like the design of these bosses did take into account like their little uh plat platforming

uh l the the pl the platforming gimmicks. Like the penultimate boss, like the one before this. is sort of a mech that you can climb on and you gotta climb on top of it to get to the the weak point and so at least they're taking their their unique things and using them in fun ways in the boss battles. Yeah, and just zooming out even further, I think the boss bat all the boss battles just a as a whole in this game, I think really shined for me where like they they

They felt like modern action game boss battles in the sense where I I felt like s I w I was learning their patterns. It wasn't just like hit him a bunch of times before hits y he hits you a bunch of times or like, yeah, the pattern is it does this and it does that. It's like The first one was weird that like it it had a weird vibe to it because usually we're used to these big like set piece bosses with that are just giant like pieces of uh

horrific sprite work. Horrific in a good way. Uh right. And he's just a guy like you that kind of has a similar moveset and Feels like he's being controlled by a person in a way and It does. He moves fast and he flips around and he's like Yeah, it's not like this I don't know. There's just something really cool about the boss being the same size as you in any game. But then also uh I think for me the one that like really got me was I think it was the third

stage boss. It's like this like green spider robot thing that climbs on the ceiling and like and there was like there was a lot of pattern to that. And it had two little like

minions shooting around, you had to kill them first and you had to figure out how to get it to come down and then you'd have to like hit it while it was down near you and then you know you'd have to bait it into shooting at you and dodge its attack to get it to come down at you. It's just like I don't know, a level of thinking about how to tackle these bosses that we don't usually see in NES games.

The final boss is a little confusing though because it has that small little head jutting out of its bigger head that the thing that looks like a dragon and that shoots fireballs at you and when you finally uh deal enough hits to it It uh the head the head you know, blows up I guess a little bit. And then you would think that now you have to fight the bigger head. Like it's gonna branch it's gonna like take off from that and float around the screen and do crazy damage or something.

But it just continues to spew out from that head that you blew up. Now it just has a spread attack of three fireballs. And it's like I've never thought of a I and I'm Joe, I'm sure it's challenging. I didn't get to it. Um but It d it doesn't feel like a big climactic final fight when it's just like okay, he goes from shooting one fireball to three fireballs and then the fight's over.

Yeah, and like comparatively to the other bosses, it does seem like a little simpler. Granted there's two stages to it. Like you kill it and then it just gets all its health back and you know, it's headless body keeps it. Boss rush at that point too. Like you've you this is if we're counting phases as separate bosses, like this is the third boss in a row that you've fought.

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, this is like y you don't you know, you don't want to make it too challenging at this point because then they gotta go all the way back. Yeah. And uh the reveal of course that the uh computer virus came from outer space. Whoa. Oh it's like what you said. Joe. Yeah, I didn't name it now. Yep. Uh so how about that, Joe? Joe you didn't even know. I don't even know. Uh that's explained um I I think even

I think it comes from the epilogue, like after you beat the the game. It has like a very long text-driven thing and then a full credits. You never you don't see that usually. Like listing off who did the design, who were the programmers were, special thanks. I was in that. Yeah I saw you Thank you. You were you were Cha Chamaru. Uh no I was Sean. Oh, my bad. Keep getting you guys confused. Uh Well they're spelled the same way, that's why. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Um that's silent W.

I was a little disappointed with the story, even though I didn't get to the end so I didn't know my prediction already. But I was disappointed in the story that n that it it tees up at the beginning This idea that like and we don't know what'll happen to your mind when you go into this thing. Like it it'll it can change your whole it can change your whole identities in ways we we can't predict.

And like r I was like w wow this is gonna have like a crazy twist at the end where like you get absorbed into the virus or like you come out and now you wanna take over the world or whatever. It's like they're like, Oh no, I guess we were wrong about that. That was just we were just we were just speculating. Like there's nothing comes to comes from that.

It like, you know, w I was saying I like it's at least it's at least a cool concept that isn't the Zorblacks coming in from outer space and but it kind of is. Uh it just has uh a a bit more a a bit more of a hook in the beginning and then they just ignore it for the rest of the game. Right. Yeah. Not that this game is um ripe for memes or anything. I don't think it's gonna be discovered, but if all your base belongs to us can become a meme, I did enjoy that uh

the uh Scott, the kabuki quantum fighter. At the end of the game he says, This is Scott, control room. Can you hear me? And you hit next to confirm and they go Uh, Colonel, we had given you up for the dead. And he says, I'd like to return to my body now. It's just a screen that says that. It's just like his his face All nice pixel art, red eyes and everything and he's like, I'd like to return to my body now.

Now if they wanted to take this seriously, they'd they'd be like, Sorry, you're a copy, you gotta stay there, we're gonna delete you soon. Uh the the real Scott's over here just asleep, um, goodbye. After the credits, if you hit the B button, you get uh to go to a sound test, which seems uh you know, I've played uh Kirby's I played all the Kirby games and that's like a common thing at the end of uh the game, you get to do the sound test.

uh after you beat the game. So that's like a HAL laboratory staple. But on that sound test, other than just being able to play different music tracks from the game, It shows Scott in his kabuki form still, and he says, I'll be back. Watch for my next adventure. Are you is this the part where you say that that never happened? No sequel was ever made. Uh this is a standalone curiosity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're working on it. I'm sure Sakurai is gonna get right on this one.

And uh while there is no sequel, as Sean mentioned uh in the beginning of this episode, this uh the Famicom version of this game was a tie-in to the nineteen ninety film Zippang. Um, and I just I did not watch this movie, so I am reading off of um a description here, but The protagonist in that is a fifteen year old boy named Bobby Yano, and the threat is a Magatama, which is an ancient comet shaped bead from Japan folklore. Yeah, bead. Like or m multiple beads. Beads. Like jewelry.

Yeah. Uh but it it typically this is the twist. Those magatamas typically symbolize good fortune, a protection against evil and a sign of fertility. Oh. But but this magatama uh I guess like it's not for it's like it's not good. Well no, it's almost like yeah, it's like the black materia in Final Fantasy seven and it's just like we're facing a comet that's going to destroy uh the Earth. No no AI, no uh evil virus from outer space. Uh Well no, still something from space. Okay, yeah, space.

Right, right. Afterlife, same thing. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So th th they made up the whole like basically sci fi element aside from element. Sci-fi element, but also I think they made up the kabuki element. Wait, it wasn't the kabuki element. I don't know. I'm saying like I didn't watch the movie, but I guess like And I let's look it up together. But uh to me, I I feel like that's not what the movie was.

I feel like there's gonna turn out that there was like a scene where they mentioned Kabuki and they like had to they they're you know how like they these games always work in the most random thing from the movie? They just like made it the whole theme of the game. Yeah. If I can Command F kabuki on Zipang the film, uh which also had a manga. Uh the only the only uh found is for this game was retitled Kabuki Quantum Fighter for its western release.

Very strange. Did he at least have long hair in the I I'm asking the wrong person. Yeah, you could you could ask the right person, I suppose, but uh Sha Sean, I will just show you just to give you an idea of what the people uh just to show you how far removed we are. Yes. I'm sending this to you. The users uh the listeners can look up Zippang. It's not even close. It's just Navy men.

Right, it's n yeah, it's in the Navy. Uh th that's what we've got going on here, and they're all like clean cut guys, so I don't know where this came from. I I do love that we're so uh we're so invested in in this story that you are now calling the listeners the users. I know, I couldn't believe I did that, right. That was my um that was my marketing background. Yeah. We'll watch the movie someday. Will we? No. Let me know how it is.

What we will do is the Essential Games list. Yeah, so as I was playing this, even I was like thinking in the lens of like, do we have too many games on the essential games? It's like do I wanna keep putting games on? Because I just I don't want it to get too oversaturated either.

But I couldn't bring myself to give this a no vote. Because I I just really thought this is like one of the one of the best like action platformer, I guess, that we played. And it everything about it feels pretty darn good to me. The the the I mean the way the combat works, the way that it feels, I love the hooks and the uh like the the platforming in that sense just felt really good. And the boss battles were really easily designed or really nicely designed rather.

And I do think this was a little bit of an easier game than um than a lot of games that we play, which and it, you know, was kinda shorter, but it's one of those uh nice like bite sized experiences that I feel like you can sit down, you can play it in a night. Um I don't know. I I love the music. I loved uh I love the whole thing. So I I I'm I'm throwing it a vote.

I uh yeah, I I liked a lot about this game. I once again have to call out that I appreciate that the uh that the story is nonsensical, but in a like kind of i in a fun way. Um still wrapping my head around what the movie could have been about, but uh that's neither here nor there. Um Yeah, solid action game. Uh appreciated the platforming elements, appreciated the hair attacks. Uh I like the boss designs.

I but I don't know if any of these things like put it over the like the hump of like essentialness. I I think that there's a lot of competency here. I think there's a lot of like Yeah, this is fun to just sort of play when like you're assigned it in a podcast, but like will I play this again? And I I I don't I don't really know if I'm going to. Um so I I I do think it's a play it. Uh

You gotta give credit to head banging as an attack, but I I don't know if I can put this on the essential games list. But Mike can. I can. Uh it would be two to one. I will say this about uh Kabugi Quantum Fighter. is that uh there has never been a stranger game title that then led to a uh fun experience. Uh I I reading Kabuki, I was just confused in general about like what kind of game we were going to get.

And the game we got like has very solid mechanics. I really enjoy um playing as Scott O'Connor, as weird as that sounds. Uh The the grabbing of the hooks, the swinging, the uh the use of your hair whip, the additional things you pick up uh learning about the trading the chips for the life. Like it's a very uh well thought out game, which is why especially even the boss battles. Like the boss battles are really cool, which is why I'm so confused about

The level design itself, because that's what holds this game back for me. That's what's gonna make me say no and upset Joe. is that I think you're controlling an awesome character and you're fighting awesome bosses and the story, while being like weird and sometimes nonsensical, is intriguing and keeps me

Like wondering what's going on. But the actual level design I did not enjoy. Uh I didn't like Uh you know, I mentioned that like some enemies are just placed in like really inappropriate spots and stuff like that, but I also just didn't enjoy that moment a moment of getting around with the the way that they like a lot of times it was falling through pits again to then like have to redo a lot of hook swinging sections and it's like not that that is

Not that that's bad design, but that I felt like I was being punished from playing the game I was playing a a few minutes before that. now doing something differently. And then when I would go back to going to the enemies, it would be like, oh, well now the enemies either they It's not that they aren't where I want them to be. It's just that they are spawning into places that I don't think are are are are positive on the game.

And so it's the actual getting to the bosses part of the game that bothers me, not so much the platforming or the um the abilities of the player character. I think we have a game that is like seventy-five percent there and the last twenty-five percent falled apart to just kind of be in that hidden gem category rather than like must play territory. Yeah, and I'll also just chime in and say that I I know that there are little like cutscenes sort of sprinkled throughout

Um throughout the game that that sort of just sort of mark your progress. But if I I think if they did a little bit more of that and made it better like uh the the the highlight of the story is the beginning where they give you the exposition dump. The rest of it's just sort of there as

Sort of like a uh like letting you know that a new chapter is starting. If they did more of that and made it cool, like almost Ninja Gaideny or Golgoy, Because the end like the the illustration style is nice and the story's got a cool hook and if they had more of that maybe I would have been more like uh into this as an essential game, but they kinda squandered uh a cool opening. Yeah, I can I can see that. I I will say that for as far as uh

Well first of all, I'm I'm fine with this one. You know, this is not Zelda two for me, so I'm like, alright, you know, I wanted it on, but I'm I'm okay with it not being on. But uh but I yeah, I think I just had like the the d a dif the different feeling about the level design than you did, Mike. I I I thought that the level design was great. Like I enjoyed traversing through this game. So I don't know, I think that we yeah, we just have like a

we see it totally differently for that for that part.'Cause for me, the levels were almost as good as the boss battles. Like I like I I enjoyed the the platforming and like the falling not leading to your

Well, like yeah, like the falling not leading to your death, but yes it does lead you to like having to kinda do some of it over and stuff. But yeah, I guess I just I guess I'm just trying to say like I never had that feeling where like I felt frustrated by the enemy places meant personally like I have in other games. I think that's fair. I think it's you you kind of by just saying that, like, you reminded me of times where it was like, not only did I fall, but then I would fall into like

I wouldn't call them enemies'cause you can't you can't defeat them, but you would fall into like those moving spikes and so you're like falling, then being hit, then falling down onto something else. It's like it's like that Homer Simpson It's like yeah, it's like an enemy you can't defeat and it's just like the wall. You never just go around the game punching walls and hoping that they'll open up shortcuts? Ha ha ha.

It's worth a shot. It's always worth a shot, right? Things are still being discovered forty years later in video games, so it's worth punching every wall. In real life too. It's all Minecraft.