426 - The Krion Conquest

The Cryon Conquest. If you are out there, please comment And welcome to Nestalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean! And I'm Joe. Thanks for coming, guys. We were out there. You heeded the call. Uh so I guess we'll do this episode. Yeah. Yeah. I've got my uh my wizard hat. And uh Bruce. Easily. Control Broom. Sean, are you are you a magical girl? I'm so magic, bro. That's pretty bangin'. Right. That's straight bussin', Sean. Francesca.

Francesco. That's actually what she says at the beginning of the game. Ha ha. And that explains that. I am Francesca. Yeah. First of all, this is a carbon copy of like the setup from last week's episode where like robots attack the earth and stuff, but um instead What's attacking the earth is so hot, right? So hot right now. And instead of, you know, finding some twenty five year old expendable like military man.

to uh copy his brain waves and enter the uh enter the matrix, you just summon a witch and she says, I'm Francesca but she also kinda has like the facial expression of Kevin James in that meme. Right. But but let me ask you something. Would you rather she say happy birthday? Like Frosty the S Snowman, right? Isn't it a little better to just say your name when you when you introduce yourself? I am Francesca. Everything she says after that is not a not not pertinent. Yeah. Yeah.

I yeah, I'm like not even sure like I needed her to say something more. I just needed to know like where did she come from? How did this guy summon her? Like What's going on? Legally legally she has to say I am Francesca so that the people at Capcom don't think she's Mega Man. That's true. That's gonna be a huge problem in this week's episode is that we are basically playing a lawsuit. Uh I don't know how they got away with this one, uh, but they did.

Uh, this is um this is a Mega Man clone. Uh arguably the first, right? I don't think we've seen anything come this close. I mean, technically, just last week again, we did have a game where like you gained a new power every time you beat a boss, but that's not Like that's not lawsuit worthy. That's just kind of like a good idea. That's not even in this game.

Right, right. This game you just have them all. It's like you forget forget going to different places to get your powers. What if you just started with all of them? This game's better than Mega Pass. Well, maybe we should decide that over the course of the episode, uh, preferably m i at the end of the episode if you don't mind, if you guys could just uh wait till then. Thank you, thank you.

Uh the pitch, it's nineteen ninety nine. Um it's it's not really that. It's nineteen ninety one in in chronological It's twenty two. It's twenty tw twenty twenty six here, but it's ninety ninety nine in the game. Uh and as Sean mentioned, aliens are attacking Earth. An alien robot empire called the Kryons have invaded Earth and uh their forces are immune to every conventional weapon tanks, missiles.

The whole military playbook is out the window. That's all we got. Ex Except the one thing that we have yet to figure out how to monetize money. Uh magic. Magic. And um w magic is not something that we have yet, so we uh the solution of course, find a witch. Enter I am Francesca, a young witch for hire, apparently the only practitioner of magic. um in the world, but this world seems to have magic, right?

I mean, uh if it's not magic that brought her there, like I mean that that doesn't imply that there might be other magic aside from her, right? Yeah, I I I assume so. So maybe maybe I'm implying that she's the only practitioner of magic, but she's certainly the only one looking to save the day. Uh so she sets out alone to um use her magic to dismantle the Cryon Empire um through f basically four stages. Anything I missed? No, that's it. That's Oh great, that's the game.

Yeah, yeah. So uh th the the Mega Man stuff, like it it is true. Uh this feels very Mega Man. Uh I'm pretty sure they traced Mega Man's Sprite and then just and just put like a witch hat on it. Um the whole like the like the the health works the same, the powers kind of work the same, but uh there's no like ammunition to them. Uh Even when you die you it looks exactly. Explode the same way. Blatant.

But like all that being said, this this game does feel different uh because like it's so much more based on how you get around the stage. Like I I feel like That is true. There there's a lot of navigating and there's a lot of constantly switching uh your weapons. Like in Mega Man, it's kind of a Oh, I know that the boss is weak to this, so I'm going to use this power up that I acquired in the previous stage. This game notably

Notably does not have a stage select screen at all, so you don't get to choose like which one you're gonna tackle first. So it does it's missing that from Mega Man. But then yes, I agree with you, Sean, that it is a lot of times you have to use the uh God damn broom. Right. To to propel yourself forward because the the other wi the other option is to just jump into a pile of spikes. There is no reasonable way to jump otherwise uh across these platforms. You have to use the broom to navigate.

And the broom kind of works like how you would expect um Mega Man's dog to work in in like, you know, that it it it acts as a platform that can be a spring. Mega Man's dog's name is what? R um Rush. Roll? Rush? Roll Roll is the girl. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't know where it was. like Mega Man. I know that. Yeah. I mean like do you would you say my dog's full name to other people or would you say Mike's dog? That's it. I'd say. Phoebe just too. foster confusion.

Okay, great. So now everybody knows my dog's name is Phoebe and they can just say Phoebe. More out of the house. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, who told you that? Um

We we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, so I just wanna I wanna bring us back a second. Uh this was uh this was a game developed by friend of the show, Vic Tek. Yeah. It's been a minute since we had Vic on the show. Uh, but in Japan, this game, just like last week's episode, I'm seeing a lot of parallels here. Uh it was a different game. It was Magical Kids Doropee. Um Yeah? That was I I read and I I didn't didn't confirm that it was based on Wizard of Oz?

Correct. The wonderful Wizard of Oz, uh, which is uh why the protagonist's name is Dorothy, because that is a literal Japanese uh translation of Dorothy, uh using their So in this original version, was it still about like robots attacking and everything? Who's the tin man but a robot? That's a great point. That's a great point. And we're going to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And then

You know, here's a weird thing. The Wikipedia section, uh, it's an odd claim and it leads to a dead link, so who knows if this ever even is true. But it claims that some of the developers for Victicai, uh, objected to having a girl as the protagonist because they believed the NES was for boys and players couldn't relate to a female lead. I did it. It feels like a weird thing to include without a source. And then they mentioned something about like eyebrows, which I thought was funny.

Yeah. Um and I was like some some some weird fan must have just put this information here. This is this is a part where I do not trust Wicked. Right. It's female character erasure. Yeah. Yes, yes. Um I mean what what what did you guys think when you saw the broom? When I saw the broom as a power, I thought it was like gonna be cool, like it was gonna be easy to use.

Well, when I first like summoned it or whatever you'cause it's like a gun that you shoot and then the room appears. Kinda weird. But the i when the first time I did it I was like, okay, it's just a platform that can't move that I can use to like jump one extra step. Took me a very long time to realize that it can move, and then much longer time to realize how to make it move. It was just like move and then I And and move in different directions. Yeah.

Right. And it's like and I I'm still not sure I can fully explain it. The gist of it is that like if you're standing on it, the direction you're facing, once you fire a shot, the broom will move in that direction. Yeah. But there's like other rules to it that make it like if you like do one thing wrong it'll disappear and you fall to your death and I don't know.

It's strange. It's very strange. So uh I think Joe and I had a similar like uh sequence of discovery where first I just used it as a platform and One one thing I will give this game credit for is it allows you to be wrong about how the broom works several times before it actually matters. Uh And so first I thought it was just a platform that you could stand on and jump off of and then I realized oh you shoot in a direction and it goes that way, but you then just keeps going that way.

And so like, okay, so it's like a single-use, like moving platform. And then you realize that if you then continue to shoot in different directions other than down, uh it can move in those directions and you can kind of

like thread it through some platforming needles and yada yada. Um but then you will also just randomly fall off because you also free walk around it. Um so I had a lot of like it I I really dig the the idea of this broom and how they're sort of integrating it into the level design and like a lot of the segments of these levels are mini puzzles about using the broom, but it's almost like the game is too much about the broom and the broom is too hard to control for it to be that.

I don't know. I'm done. She's a witch. Why why can't it just be just one press of left on the D pad makes it start going left? One press of up on the D pad makes it start going up. Like that's just Because you move as well. Yeah, but why not just not have that be? But then what would you do? Like wait till you collide with something? Jump! You're off the broom. Bye. Hey, look at this guy solving video game problems. Game developer job.

Which well what's funny is also like, you know, we're talking so much about the broom. There you have six spells in total, but I I think it is right to focus on the broom because it's not even that it helps um, like get around the stages. It's necessary to get around the stages. And a lot of times they will make it so that you basically have to

thread the needle using the broom where it's like very specifically like make sure you spawn the broom in this particular spot or else you will just collide with the wall and fall into the spiked pit. And that ultimately becomes like a different kind of game than the rest of this game, which is very much like a Mega Man inspired shooter

uh, you know, against a bunch of enemies and giving you creative solutions for that because the rest of this game has like you have um you have a normal shot, you have your freeze shot, you have your a bouncing ball shot, and they teach you about these things pretty Uh like in a friendly way where there's an enemy very early on that just constantly is

throwing uh projectiles and if you know, there's just no way to get around it. You you have to figure out like, I think I need to figure out a way to shoot this guy. And you try to shoot up and there's a wall in the way. And then eventually you're like Oh, I have this bouncing ball thing, like maybe I could arc it so that I could he can't touch me, but I could hit him and it i it will work and it feels good even though it's like the most obvious thing when you finally pull it off.

The rest the rest of that game I I think sounds great. Then when the broomstick becomes so much of the navigation on top of the like the shooting, it it it rem it becomes an extra element that I didn't sign up. Yeah, I think the broom overall is what is otherwise like a pretty well designed system of like multiple weapons. You know, it's like uh ev everything else like I do think well, most of the other ones have like some thought behind them and they have

good uses for them and there's there's the good like parts of the level that are designed around them. But I kind of I have a hard time like appreciating those because most of my energy is spent trying to figure out how to use the stupid broom. Now, there there's no MP or weapon energy meter governing how much you can use of these things. You can switch freely and fire as much as you want, except for the uh that Phoenix power. Which uh costs a lot of health. Uh and is is kind of not really Yeah.

Yeah, but yeah, it's not even really like it shouldn't b it should be a different button. It's not really like a a projectile power thing. It's not it's not like something you should switch into. It feels like a pretty devastating move, not something you consciously like the other ones are all like different projectiles you shoot, and then this one is just

Uh you know, you uh what is it? Pink is the color for that one, and you just turn pink and then you just spawn a Phoenix and cost a bunch of your health. It's just a confusing like p it's not really a power like the other ones are. That's why I like and I was trying to find a way to uh actually uh articulate w what I was feeling here. That's one of the things that makes this game feel like a ROM.

That like it or like a mod. That the only way to make that be a thing that you could do was to fit it into the system that was already put in place by Mega Man. Because otherwise it would be like a press. Press this button to do your screen clearer, but you only have a couple of those. But they had to fit it into the weapon select system that's already in Mega Man with this which this game is not. So it it it feels it's very derivative because of that.

Now in concept The having the six spells from the beginning, the six powers, uh, and also not having a limit to how much you can use them. That is a genuine design improvement over Mega Man's model. Like we're I'm not saying like in the actual games comparing each other, but just in theory. That is a it reads more friendly to 2026 players, just giving the players the tools right from the beginning and trusting them to figure out the application. So I I do think at at the very least, it's not

It's not a bad idea to just start with all the powers rather than acquiring them from stage to stage. The problem is is that because you have them all, there is a lot of menuing in this game. Uh it's micro menuing. It's not like

Dungeons and Dragons style, like living in there. But you are switching pretty frequently, I feel like, even in between Before you screen clear and get to the next part of the screen, you are switching even in those singular screens between different power-ups to fight different enemies. Yeah, it's a tough thing I think we've run into a couple of times where like on a controller that doesn't have not only doesn't have shoulder buttons, but doesn't even have like that many face buttons.

Yeah, having to go into a mean menu to do that rather than like being able to assign, you know, four or five buttons to like switching between power ups. I think that would make this a much more A much better experience because it's so action oriented to have to constantly interrupt the flow of the gameplay just to select something, it it does start to kinda wear on the experience.

Yeah, to to include the broom as a weapon, as Joe was saying, uh like the gun that fires the broom. Like i i is very much just like it it's necessary just because of how the game is set up, which again is like a ROM hack for Mega Man. that like that should have been a completely different like mode of interaction. Like that should if there was another button, it should have been a separate button. Unfortunately there are only so many buttons. So I understand. But it just doesn't.

It just doesn't work when you have to something that is used so frequently, like almost every screen, has some broom puzzle, quote unquote, like associated with it. that like that's the only reason that there's so much menuing. It's not because like oh there's like

There's so many enemies that require this certain like other spell, like oh you should freeze these guys but bounce these guys. Like yes, there are guys that are only there are enemies that you can really only reach if you are using the bounce. Um but eighty percent of going into that s m uh that like spell select screen is just to select the broom. Now here's my tinfoil hat moment for why Capcom didn't sue.

Because this game invented the Mega Man charge shot before Mega Man 4 came out. And so Capcom was like. You can steal our entire game, but we're taking the charge shot and putting it in our game as a result. So it's just like mutual stealing. Uh obviously not verified just like that other claim about why they didn't want a woman protagonist in the game. But I liked I like to think that um, you know

It it's here it's also like an I don't know, maybe it'll feel different in Mega Man four, but it's just kind of like a nice to have thing. Not something I even really like Focused on that much. Like charging takes a while.

Right. And you're moving between screens and there's a lot of enemies on the screen. So like it's really only useful when it's like you and one other enemy and you have some distance between you. So you can kind of like charge up the shot and then just fire it and and move on with the stage. It's kind of inconvenient to charge up when there's like four enemies or you're on the broom or something like that. It just it's not worth it.

Also bugs out when you go like when you change between screens. Like if you're mid-charge and you do one of those like weirdly slowly scrolling changes to a different like a a different screen. Uh you will not be able to continue charging. You will not be able to shoot it at half charge. You just have to let go and try again. And I know that's like super nitpicky.

But if we're comparing it to Mega Man, who in those later games, like that charge shot feels good to do, uh that just it's it's very strange feeling. Yeah, I... I did at first use the charge shots a little more when I could, you know, see something coming up. I could charge it up, you can kinda run towards it and and use it. But I've I found

that a lot of the like use cases for charge shots were very interesting ideas that you never really needed to use. Like the one might like the one that I thought was the most interesting was the shield. You can you can place a shield in front of you using the charge shot. And

And then that is like yeah, it's literally like a barrier you can stand behind and then you can shoot through it, enemies can't shoot through it. Very cool. Almost never is there an opportunity to charge up and then have the shield that takes you know, li a small enough amount of time that it's worth charging up to have the shield. You you're gonna get shot while you're charging up. You know, like it's like it's like a cool idea, but it's just not implemented nicely.

Joe, I'm like ten minutes late now to that conver that point you made about the how the broomstick should control, but isn't that exactly how Rush does control in one of his power ups, like when he becomes like the jet form? Don't you just get to free move with the D pad and then once you jump off that's just it? And like when you're back on Is that also how like G.I. Joe's But we we cause b only because we just played GR J. Isn't that also how he controls with the jetpack? Bye. Yeah.

That's it. Yeah, I guess I was just thinking like specifically the one one comparison to Mega Man there. It's like it did work there where it was just like, Yeah, and then when you wanna get off you just jump off. Yeah. But until then you can freely move it with the D pad.

I think there's also um it's reminding me of those like platforms in I think they're originally in Super Mario Bros. three, but they're probably more often in Mario Maker. They're like platforms with arrows on them. Yes. And you jump on it, you press up and it goes up, you press left and it goes left until it disappears. Um I'm not well versed. Picture in the The ones you have to follow, like they make their own path.

No no. This is like there's no it only happens like in Nurse. I think it only happens in World Seven. Yeah. Yeah, right. Um just that we're not ragging on the power-ups though, it is worth mentioning that like obviously the default power up is f the default shot is fine. And the ball one is great. Um it's n it's not always useful. It will you know, you need to No, I'm just saying you could fire at literally nothing'cause it it would be one thing if the ball's literally just kept

spawning around in the screen, they they expire after like three touches to the wall. So You need an enemy that is in an awkward position to use it. Mm-hmm. But that is a a positive. It sucks that the Phoenix thing requires life, but it also thematically makes sense that um, you know, to rise from the ashes of requiring a sacrifice. Uh, but like, you know, that's another good power-up. It's a it works against bosses too, which is good. Um the the freeze one

That's the one that it was a felt like a missed opportunity. Cause you you freeze the enemies, but you can't then like use them as platform. Yeah, that's a thing. Um I I would think too that I mean just in like more modern games with a freeze mechanic that they would that they would also be like you could just shatter them and sure their debris would sort of be a uh

uh the projectile in itself. Um, that wasn't really the case. Um but I mean I guess it's like a it's like a very niche tool to get through And I must also stop enemies. Yeah, I used to. How often do those how often do those fire things even show up? Yeah, I think it's just like mainly in one stage. Yeah. Right? Like There was at least like a an environmental use case for that that it was like designed around. Um Продолжение следует...

Yeah. Freeze in um in the underwater levels and then you just like freeze the entire environment. Yeah, you're stuck then. Yeah. Um these are called uh going back to the directional lifts from Super Mario Bros. 3 and I uh I posted a picture in the Discord for everybody but the listeners to see. Right. The users. But if any listeners wanna see it when this episode releases and you're a patron, let me know in the Discord and I'll post the picture there too.

And they're called directional lifts or you're calling Called directional list. You gotta pay to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta pay to see everything. Yeah. Here for free. Right. Hear anything you want for free. You wanna start seeing stuff? You gotta you gotta cough it up. Uh brother. Uh and then there's the the the shield power as well, which um it uh it

if you hold down the charge long enough it um it has a barrier that reflects projectiles. This thing's almost useless in most of the stages because the heat of the combat requires you to basically fire something immediately or use it immediately and that neither one of those things can happen. So the shield I did not find as useful. May maybe somebody else wants to tell me I was wrong.

I I'm not gonna say you're wrong because there's other ways to go about this, but I I feel like with the enemies that look very closely to Mega Man, like the guys with the hard hats. Ja. Um they will stop firing when you get too far. And oh, it's also where like the the uh how effective your your fire rate is or like how effective like just your regular fire is, that that also ends up being the same distance. Um but when you get close and start firing again.

So I guess you could charge that up, fire it off right next to them, their their projectiles disintegrate in the shield, you can shoot right through it, but you could also just do that with time. And it it just just a very niche like use case. that it's easy to sort of circumvent anyway.

The uh stages and their evolution we have uh start off with the you know, standard learn the game stage, but that one has the fire hazards though, which the freeze spell does work on. Then the next stage is all ice, so it's Slippery and we've also seen that in Mega Man and Mario Brothers. Uh round uh round stage three is the underwater section where all of a sudden now there's a separate oxygen meter. She's a witch.

Did she need this? Can't she just cast a spell to breathe underwater for a while? Okay, there's something like if she drowns, she's not a witch. But if she doesn't drown she is a witch or something like that. This game is completely like it doesn't even fit into the witch Lore. Right, so she's not a witch because she can drown. Right. Yeah, she's just a hero. This is bullshit.

At well, you wanna hear bullshit after the underwater stage is the just the I guess like the sky stage, but it's also just the broom stage. Like you're just constantly using the broom to navigate these levels or sorry, these sections of the levels. I've never wanted a shmup more than while I was playing these levels. I also just want to go back to where I said uh that it's easy enough just to

take it out with whatever other enemy uh what with whatever other weapon that you have because I I I I think we need to we need to just like point out the difficulty of this game. Like not even just The whole idea. broom and the tedium of pulling out the broom and how easy it is to fall off the broom. But this this game's not easy. How much harder than a Mega Man game though? Just out of just out of curiosity.

Here's my my thought on this. This is because I was I don't hate a game that's that's hard like this when it's like Mega Man and I can kind of try over and over again. This game, you don't select your levels and it's linear and there's no continue. There's not even like I mean, as far as I saw, there's not even like passwords or any sort of save function at all. that to me makes it like that's where it makes it that much harder than Mega Man.

Or at least one of the things that makes it that much harder than Mega Man. Or at least in Mega Man it's like you clear a stage and then you die in the next stage, you don't have to start the whole game over. Like you you're making progress. This is this being this hard and not having that is it's too much for me. And I certainly agree it's hard. I'm I I'm not denying that. Uh I I I I just felt like it was more interesting to talk about just all of the

interesting design decisions they made than then just say it's hard'cause I feel like we do that a lot, but we don't articulate why. And this game has a lot of has a lot going on in addition to just being a hard game. Like it it's hard but at the same time

you you do have a lot at your disposal, which makes it interesting that it's hard. You would think at some point you could find some sort of exploits like, Oh, if I just hang out in this corner and use the ball, like yeah clear out the stage, but it just doesn't work like that. I mean Yeah, because there definitely are points where you like even like mini bosses that if you just p stand in a specific spot and spam the ball

you you can beat them trivially. But uh you just need to you just need to know that. And I guess yeah, you would know that over time, but I think like I could see my 12-year-old self playing this game, and just brute forcing every other thing, aside from span standing in a specific spot and spamming ball.

To go to the bosses specifically. And how they differ from the Mega Man bosses. There are no weapon weaknesses. I I think we mentioned that already, but you can't just look up which spell beats each boss and be done with it. Like how some people play someone some people like me play Mega Man games. Uh there is no health bar on the Bosnia. There's no like, you know, and here's your version of the health bar and here's their version.

You know, you're you're just fli kind of fighting blind hoping that they're close to a kill. The the actual bosses themselves though, it's they're not like unforgiving um they they they have they have like the I guess the interesting thing is that they're not just you, like a different witch, like how the robot masters are kinda like Mega Man size and have like a specific attack. They are just like

bosses that you fight uh i in a r in a regular video game. And I think that might sound silly but Not which video game. Or a non-mega man game to that point, you know? Like they're it's just basically like normal bosses, but you're still this same small puny character. And then the final gauntlet w uh uh of three consecutive bosses, uh, first it's a pink mech, then it's a clone of Francesca

Uh, which is an interesting idea, but again, a stolen concept from another game called Zelda Two. Uh so you're you know, you're fighting your own moveset. We've seen that. Um so thankfully Nintendo didn't sue the I was almost thinking of um what's his name from Mega Man three, the like proto no, is it Proto Man? Who's the one that's like the you're the yeah, Proto Man. Put him in. Yeah,'cause I was just sticking with Mega Man and I was giving me that vibe.

Yeah. And then the um the final boss, uh, the Cryon Empress, uh, who's also a robot, uh and It's a yeah. Giant robot, pretty cool, uh good good looking visually. And um that's did you see that, boss at all? I thought I thought had a lot of nice shading on. No, I I didn't see even like this boss rush you guys were talking about'cause Uh I didn't get I definitely didn't get to it. I saw it on YouTube. I got to it on YouTube.

I got to it on YouTube. It's great. Were you playing along? Like did you have a controller in your hand? Yeah, towel or whatever. Yeah, yeah the towel, yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, you don't even bring an NES controller to your computer, you just use a towel and s Yeah, I'm like playing on a uh power pad.

Um, but you know, I'm not trying to dunk on the the the clone thing, uh the fact that Zelda two had it before. I i it's always a cool concept when you have to fight a version that has like the same exact skills as you and just show that you're better at using it than the computer. I appreciate that. Yeah. I I I I like Um like again last week we had we had bosses that were like human-shaped and player-shaped. And I like those kinds of bosses because it's not just about um like

just finding a spot to dodge bullets. It's it's almost more like a one on one fight. I was not there. Uh to uh talk about the boss you guys are talking about, but it it sounds like that's sort of what you guys are talking about. I'm just I'm just You're here. I'm here. Is that is that right? Sure. Uh you're talking to somebody who will just watch it on YouTube. Like I haven't even finished it yet. Like in on on paper? Sounds exactly right, Chuck. Weird.

Definitely the people to talk about this game. We are the people to talk about this game. I mean we were giving them thirty three minutes of good content and now we got one minute of bad content and they're quitting. Yeah. They're just gonna quit the show?

Get back to good content because I'll explain maybe why this game is so difficult, uh, in terms everybody could understand, not just well the enemies are hard or it's hard to control a broom. They just made this game hard on purpose. for uh the North American version of this game. As I mentioned, it was a Wizards of Odds Wizard wiz Wizards of Odds. That's that's a good title. Who's gonna make the Wizards of Odds game? I feel like it's like a math game. No. Only about the odds.

Movie in twenty years they're gonna make about Polymarket and Cal She. There you go, yeah. Oh beautiful. Let's copyright that right now. Um but no, it was a Wizard of Oz game and when it came to North America, um Vic unfortunately made the decision to remove all continues from the North American version, remove mid-level checkpoints.

uh no checkpoints before bosses. If you die on a boss, you restart from the beginning of not the entire like stage as we know it, but the little like acts in the stage. So if you're on two two or whatever, you start at the beginning of that. Um, and health does not refill between levels, um, and they're just pretty Scarce pickups in general for health. Um, and they despawn if you just scroll a little bit off screen. There's no memory of it.

On top of that, the enemies were also made stronger for this version of the game, requiring more hits to kill. And so when you look at all those things Uh, a game that would probably be decently challenging just using again all the systems that the game has set up for you in tandem with each other, has now become Brutal. Yeah. Uh, because it just wasn't even designed with those things in mind, and then they just turned up every lever.

I I think this is the game that I died the most in recently. Like of probably it probably the past few months. Like I just kept dying and it was hard because of that continue system Or the life system that that that just shits you back out the at the beginning of the level, like it was really hard to to get any kind of progress to see like, well I I can't just have a sample size of one level.

And so it was just very hard to to to see a lot of this game because of that. Um yeah, I was bad at this game. That's all. Oh, I mean me too, one hundred percent. And I I I just cannot uh get my head around what the purpose of removing continues. It was already in the game. They made the choice to remove it. It's not built around it's not like a it's not like a roguelike or like you're not playing a Nuzlocke.

So just like why just you already had continues, just give us the continues. I don't understand. I know that this is not an original thought, um, but I've heard it elsewhere, but like it is kind of crazy just how uh there's no No video games in general just don't have like chapter select like movies do to just like go to the part that you love the most, like now that we are forty years removed from some of these games or or thirty years f removed from some of these games, and instead it's like

You just have to play th the whole thing from the beginning to experience like one thing you might like about it or one thing you wanna see about it. Like we would have been great if we could talk about the boss rush from a playing experience. But we could only talk about what we saw on YouTube because we couldn't get there.

And I I I've heard people talk about this before too, like we o I bought this game, why shouldn't I be able to just go to wherever? And I don't know why I don't have a good argument, but I disagree. I don't like it. I don't like that people think that I don't like the It's not a I I totally agree with you. Yeah. Well, I think I also think like there's a difference between release and like thirty years later. Like I it would be really hard at release of any game, like if you had

uh God of War Ragnarok and just the ability to be like, I just want to start the game right at the end, right? Like that's weird. That game just came out. It's a story based game. It should be like Either after you beat the game some kind of chapter select happens or um a you know like after enough time has passed the developer just like unlocks the keys. You know, it's like okay, like you can have all this now. Like you have to m m like edit your computers.

Yeah, it's like you've been trying to play this game for like four months now. We're just gonna unlock it all for you.

Right, right. Uh back to this game. Uh a follow up for the Super Nintendo was planned, um, but it it never came out. Oddly, the Japanese version of this game, Magical Kids Dorpey, did get a mobile release in Japan in two thousand and four. Um Obviously it has the easier difficulty, but I mean like how do they fit the graphics on like a two thousand and four mobile phone? We weren't even like on iPhones yet. Like what did it look like? Oh, Motorola. Yeah, g for the video version, right?

Yeah. I mean I uh they could have done it. Yep. Uh and you know, we mentioned all the difficulty changes from the Japanese version, but the you know the Japanese version of the game also had like beautiful Ninja Gaiden looking cutscenes between each uh act, you know, f followed that you know, Nin Ninja Gaiden has acts too. It followed that structure, so stealing a little bit from them as well.

And uh, you know, obviously this game yeah, this game just stripped all of that out and even modified the intro a little bit. Uh obviously f from a story perspective, but also just how much uh of the intro cutscene was there. So there's really You know, there's no narrative context for anything that's happening. But we know that I am franchise. And that's that's the only thing she says.

So by now in the podcast, if I'm Francesca and Joe's mock rider, do we know who you are yet? That's a I think he's franchised? You just said you were Francesca. Well, I mean, apparently Mike's franchise. Oh right, right, right. Me and Sean are the same person, so we're both I didn't know who was talking. Right, right. I thought that was me talking. Yeah, so you're Francesca and Makra. No, I'm Mock Ray. True, true, sure. Anyway.

Okay, and then there's also, you know, I made reference to Sean being a magical girl at the beginning of the episode, but like that is about to become it in nineteen ninety one it's probably not too hot in the West, but it is going to become the hotness with Sailor Moon and everything, so Francesca, you know, sits in an interesting intersection where Magical Girl anime is very popular in Japan.

this is being changed from a Japanese game to an English game, but they kept the magical girl element here. So the witch heroine with a costume change. I mean it's a pretty recognizable archetype today, but in nineteen ninety one it's more of like a a curiosity. I am pro Magical Girl. Um I think that uh I am Francesca is like some crazy, some crazy character development that we won't see again for like probably ten, fifteen years. Yeah, do we need all this lore? Yeah.

All this backstory for Francesca too much. Just give me to the game. Yeah. Lara Croft had just like a cutoff blue top. Now you know, we talked about the story at the beginning, the the robots only being um weak to magic. That I couldn't find like that premise or like that being a trope, uh, but I did find a lot of like

Girls with magical abilities that control mechas in Japanese media. And I I thought that was just interesting that like here she's using the magic to take down the robots, but um the you know, there are there there's certainly enough anime of like schoolgirls transported to fantasy worlds, piloting giant magical robot mechs that I was like, this is Did they just get this wrong in the translation? Had there been a mech in the third level?

Right. Should you should should it be a mech instead of a broomstick? Yeah. Or a broom mech. Or like, yeah. I I think that there could have been more of that. Um mech makes everything better. Uh Um, and just just for anybody curious, Magic Knight Ray Earth, uh, which comes out a few years after. This is the uh anime series I'm talking about, but then also uh you know, probably the most direct parallel um is the Sega Property Sakura Wars.

Where women with magical abilities use mechas to combat demonic threats. That's uh Every single bit. So wait, so in this in this trope that you're talking about Is No, I'm saying it's not a trope though. I guess like the trope that this game didn't follow. Right, right, yeah. I in this trope I mean, are they c just controlling the mechs through magic? Dochs not have like electronics No, mechs mechs are mundane, but they also have magic and that makes them The mechs are powered by men.

So the mechs are not electronic. They're just Yeah, they're... Pieces of metal that then move with metal. Get inside. Yeah. Uh or a Battler Dunbine is another. Like. Or a badler dumb. Like Aura Farming, but Thank you. You it's all about aura. Got it. I don't know why I can't say that right. Battler. I I was saying battle. I didn't know. I thought that it was Battler.

I I meant to say Battler every time, but I kept saying Battler, like it's like Batman's Riddler uh co combination fusion, the Battler. Ha ha. That that's their ship name. Yeah. Anyway. Right. But like yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. But instead I'm just gonna say the essential games list.

I do wanna start by saying I think we were m maybe a little mean to this game. Like everything we said was true, but like I I think if you listen if we listen back to this episode we're gonna be like, Well, this was like one of the worst games we've like it just sounds like a really bad game. I think this game I I think it's a play it, you know. I think that uh I think that it had potential and it squandered this potential to be at least a hidden gem.

And and I don't think it got there. So like I in the end, I don't think that it is an essential game by a long shot. And I think the the biggest thing that tips it over the edges, no continues. I I might have had a little more fun with this game if I could like Play it. Yeah.

But and like get further and like really try on different things without having to start the whole game over again uh every time. Um but like yeah, it's got some some cool things, some cool design and it's some cool choices and yeah, i it it falls apart if you look at it too closely. But like I I I do think that like

It's it uh even if it's not a plate, it's a try it. Like, you know, I I I don't think this is like one of those games where like, wow, atrocious, like definitely don't touch this, but it did not reach the levels of essential by far. Sean. Yeah, no, I don't I don't wanna make it sound like this game is completely irredeemable. Um I I even alluded to it earlier that like it does a good job uh like actually giving you a tutorial in a way. Like it it teaches you

It teaches you ways to use the the broom and it lets you like kind of only sort of understand the broom uh until it makes you fully understand what the broom is before half the game is broom. So It's it's It understands what it's doing in a way that a bad game really wouldn't but It also like just does not have it just does not have like a good vibe of itself.

Um, it's it's there's too much of certain things. There's not enough of others. Uh they made it way too fucking hard to play the Western version of it. Um So the the game is the game has some competence. But they do not like manifest in a great way. It it seems too punishing to uh it it just in its own like. in how it presents itself to truly be like playable. And I'm not saying that the no you know what I am gonna say that this game is not very playable.

Um, but it it knows what it's doing, so it's not terrible, but it's just not great. So it's just not it's not essential. I wouldn't go so far as to say play it. I yeah. Um go on, Mike. Yeah. I will go on. Um and yeah, I'm not gonna recommend most people play this, but I do think this is a play it for Mega Man fans. Like I do think you have to if you didn't know about this,'cause a you yeah, you have to

I don't think it comes up. I think you have to find out about this game and see that it's a Mega Man clone. I don't think it's like talked about in those circles. So definitely try this if you're a fan of the Mega Man games and haven't played it yet. I think you'll come away appreciating Mega Man more because it's not so simple to just like

drop in all the same tools and call it a day. Like you do have to flesh out the, you know, the the screen by screen design and the power ups have to mean something in the actual gameplay, not just be powers that You can call upon whenever you want.

The interesting thing is if we go back to the whole magical kids Doropee thing and if that had been localized and if if they kept the cutscenes and they restored the continues and heck if they even did some of my other complaints, like if If freezable enemies could be made into platforms, right?

Does that make it essential? Like if it just fixes all those things? The answer is no. Like that those things help make this a more playable game. It doesn't make it any it doesn't give it any better shot at being on the essential games list because no one is saying remove the witch element and remove the broomstick, like those things are staying in the game and those things are going to frustrate the hell out of player.

Mega Man finds a balance between like using the new powers that you acquire across the stages. in an appropriate like Save them for the bosses or when you know you have to take care of a specific enemy, otherwise you just uh you stick with the generic pea shooter. Here, it's like you're constantly in those menus all the time, and all of them feel a little jank as power-up.

The game has really cool ideas. I agree with Joe that we might have been a little too harsh in the episode for the sake of discussion and we found way more to critique, but ultimately uh, you know, this was never something I even thought about for the essential. It's amazing that Capcom did not sue Vic here and put him out of business, but uh it will be amazing if we are not sued next week when we record Peter Pan and the Pirates.

uh our next game on the essential games list, I feel like Disney will be coming for us as we uh Mike it's Fair use. Sure. Um apparently Peter Pan and the Pirates is not based on Peter Pan Yeah, right. Not based on um or PETA pan, the uh Mediterranean fast food joint. It is based on a television uh an a sorry, a cartoon. I'm learning as I'm going. A cartoon

Of Peter Pan and the Pirates that was on uh Fox Kids for an entire year. So entire year though, sixty five episodes. They almost got to that magic one hundred number. So Right, right. Uh yeah, it's so close, Joe, right? Sixty five one. Yeah, that's like pretty much it. It's right there. Right. Uh but I like Peter Pan.