¶ Intro / Opening
26th. Summer belongs to the Super.
Your powers are gonna start kicking in right about
Now.
This does not look like this is gonna end well
Your savage, I knew
What Superman like? He sees the good in everyone. And I see the truth. We haven't been formally introduced.
Theaters June 26th. Get tickets now.
CONAN THE MISTERIES OF THINE IN AN AGE undREAMD OF Where barbarous kingdoms battle for survival in a savage and unforgiving land, you stand alone.
🎵 Music
¶ Podcast Intro and Game's Missing Plot
Nastalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike.
I'm Sean.
And I'm Joe.
You know, that was a pretty conan. Yeah.
Well I forgot corn.
Pretty heavy plot drop there at the top of the episode.
Oh wait till you read the manual.
Okay.
¶ Manual's Story and Conan Lore
I right wait till you read the manual is right because if you play the game there's no plot. The game literally just as soon as you hit start it just drops you right into the game. And then when you finish a stage it just automatically transports you right to the start of the next stage. There is nothing in between anything in terms of story, but yeah, when you go to that manual, I think it's Seven pages of stripes.
Yeah, and it like starts out like the beginning of like a novel. You know? It's like a chill of wind ran through your hair as you
Start strong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't read much further than that. But I will say my biggest complaint about the manual is that this game, I well I'm sure we'll get into it, but like you need a lot of um there's a lot of information you need. There's a lot of questions I had while playing this game. But this game starts and you got like the regular like warning and the Nintendo seal of quality and then you've got a blank page.
And then you've got nine pages of dense story, and then you've got like a page and a half of like controls and instructions that I feel like do not give me all the information I need, and that's it.
Yeah.
Maybe we could have cut back the story and the blank page a little bit to give me a little more information on how to play.
Well, I mean w when the page is intentionally left blank, but b if they if they don't do that they get arrested. Just just as Right. Just just to note that.
I forgot about that.
Um, so basically it starts out with, you know, kind of strong pros for a a a video game manual and then it just sort of devolves into telling you everything that you're gonna do. Um, which I think is like a necessary ingredient for every great story. I I need an old man to just sort of like expose the entire story to me before I experience
Well do you think maybe you're supposed to play the stage and then go back to the manual and read the paragraph and then go to the next uh stage? No.
Because it's no right. It it doesn't say like please wait to read this.
It's like a choose your own adventure book.
And the s the story overall is just uh
Yeah.
¶ Conan's World and Reskin Origin
Yeah, Conan seeking the throne and um a mysterious old man, uh named Mnemonios, I think is how I'm gonna pronounce that. Namonios. Uh he materializes out of Conan's campfire, I guess as as you do back then. And he tells'em that the key to the kingdom is recovering uh the four sacred urns. Uh and it's just like
Maybe the game was better off without a plot. Like maybe it was better off when I was just jumping time hopping around and fighting uh what appeared to be to me at least like not even a cohesive time period. Like there was Romans and then there's Vikings and then there's uh like you're in hell at the start of the game, like with skeletons. I'm
I'm not entirely like how c are are are any of us like familiar with Conan as Conan, Conan, O'Brien Con Conan. Like d I all I know is that it's like sword and sandals, quote unquote, and that it's just sort of like kind of a like a sexier, grim, dark fantasy world than than usual. I don't really know much
Well, I think that's a that I mean, I'm not saying I'm a fan or anything, but I think that is good to ground yourself in, is that this doesn't take place in any you know, it's a it's a made up world, uh Which I don't think I have the name of that world in front of me. I thought I did actually in my notes somewhere. So it'll come up with it. But yeah, you know Yeah, it's got it's got sorcerers, thieves, monsters, uh you know it's
It it but it's pulpy, so it's like simultaneously trashy and mythological at the same time. And i Conan originally was a uh from a pulp magazine in like the thirties, the author like quickly committed suicide after like shortly after writing the stories. That's not funny. I don't know.
I think.
You're making me like nervous laugh.
No, like he you know, he wrote this and then immediately did the sorry it's not.
He was so yeah, he was just so embarrassed by it. But no, uh it di it got a revival and the reason, you know, why I think this game is made is it it mostly got revived through Marvel comics in the nineteen seventies. And then uh in eighty two, the film starring a uh Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he was like
still new to movies like that. So that was a great role for him to to play into, but also like people were like, Holy shit, I you know, they weren't really like exposed to this guy a lot before this. So he kind of like owned that Conan role. So like by by the time of the release of the game, like it is kind of a household name. There's there's there's a lot of media attached to it outside of just the the original pulp fiction. Not the Tarantino.
We got yeah.
You know, now here's the origin story that you're not gonna find on the on the back of the box. This game is not a Conan game. It is a lightly like uh lightly, I mean like it is basically just a reskin port. of um a uh British home computer title uh called Myth, History in the Making. And that went out on um computers like the Commodore sixty four and the Amiga And it's a completely different thing where in myth the protagonist is a teenager who uh is in modern times.
falls through a uh a wormhole and has to fight his way through different time periods. Greek, Norse, Egyptian mythology. You see where it's coming from? So it's like you can't just
say that Conan's gonna fight Romans, like that's not how any of this works. Like y you have to uh you have to agree to his world and I feel like that's why the manual is trying to do so much makeup on the like, you know, oh let's make sure we get all that um you know, all that franchise stuff in there and all like that world building because it's not in the game.
¶ Deep Dive into Conan's Mythology
But that also makes me wonder and I guess I wouldn't have this problem if I knew anything about Conan, but It like did they just make that shit up too? Like is that even conin stuff? All these names of kingdoms that they mention?
It's a great question. Let's find out if Aqualonia is a real i and it is. It is the it is the primary fictional kingdom in uh in the Conan and the Barbarian story.
I I will grant them that.
Okay. And it's it's uh the the not the world, but the nation is Hyborian. The Hyborian nation.
Okay, wait, so then what's hi then what's Equalonia again?
Aquilonia is the kingdom.
And it's that's not
Nimodia? What they say they say the Nimodean sky? Okay.
Wait, I thought Mnemonium was the guy who appeared in the camera.
Was he? It says the Namedian sky had turned black an hour before.
Ooh, what page are you on?
One.
Yeah.
It's the second sentence of the
So Namedian has to be the earth then, right?
Okay, so maybe that's the whole planet.
Yeah.
And the nation is not the kingdom and the nate is the is the kingdom inside the nation or is the nation a part of the kingdom?
Uh, now wait, now Namedia uh is another uh kingdom. It's a n so there's so there's the kingdom of Namidia and then there's the kingdom of Aquilonia.
And it's a big thing.
I know.
A chill rushed through the Sumerian's hair, then the median sky had turned black.
I'm sure people love us finding this stuff out on the fly, but uh I'm trying to I'm literally trying to like zoom out. Like I need like a Conan map and I just need to figure out and it's like very hard to zoom out beyond the kingdoms. I don't know why.
Okay, that's just
Right, the that's like the the the setting, right? The Hyborian like
I see. Okay. So Aquilonia is like it's like it's California. And then there's Zengara which is Which it's like New Mexico.
I'm telling you right now on the wiki there is an impossible amount of nations, uh like that that belong to this, like the it th th I didn't realize how much world building there was.
I thought it was all just desert, to be honest.
I I'm seeing this is AI overview. It's from Reddit though, but uh Conan the Barbarian takes place in the Hyborean Age, a fictional prehistoric era of Earth.
Okay, well that's doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I don't you know. Sure, it takes place on Earth, but everything is completely made up, like all different
Is it like Middle Earth? Is this just like early Earth?
Yeah, it seems like it's a it's it takes place occurring between the sinking of Atlantis and the rise of known
Oh, that is important. Yeah. You know what you are right. It the the the the Atlantis thing is is important in Conan Lore.
Okay.
¶ Unconventional and Flawed Jump Controls
Well, back to the game. Uh huh. There's no better way to talk about this game than to start with that uh there are two jumps. There is there is jump straight up in the air, which is performed by uh not the A button, not the B button, it's the up button on the D pad Something that we are known not to love, but we will
Bicy always thought that it couldn't get worse than that.
I'm an up is jump apologist, so I've never really had an issue with it, so
Right, right, right. We're gonna accept it because they have also decided that in this world uh of the Hyborean age, down is also jump and it is the it is a longer jump, it is like a a leap a leaping jump, so this way you cover a lot of ground. And so realistically you find yourself pressing down to jump in this game more than you do up to jump. And I just Don't I don't get it. Uh ne like it is could have just made
Unforgiven.
The leaping jump up and to the right, right? Like you could have just made it a uh like a uh diagonal uh on the D pad. Down to jump, as Sean just said, is completely unforgivable and is just there to fuck with the player.
Cause there is a way to also like there's also a third jump. You can also like kind of press up and to the right at the same time. And kind of do a less a a less like uh flourishing uh forward jump. It's just like you would never you only do that accidentally.
Bye.
Um, well all right, I'm gonna have maybe the hottest tick here and I'm prepared to uh to to be disagreed with heavily. But I felt better using down to jump than I did up to jump. It's like you think.
I don't I don't even understand how that's
I'll t I'll tell you how. I've up to jump felt we it felt like stiff or something. Down to jump felt like a a different mechanic. I'm not saying it felt good, but it felt like Like you're doing some kind of like spring action. Like you you you pull down and then release to jump.
And that does that didn't feel that weird. I mean, it felt weird to me, but it didn't feel as bad. It felt more comfortable to me than up to jump. And maybe because it's a different jump and that pushes you forward as well. But like yeah, it didn't feel that like at at first I was like, What the heck? But like I was like, okay, I'd still rather do this than up the jump. I know, I know, but that's that's where I stand.
I I kinda get what you're saying, but But but that this is like if this were like a physics-based like Octad thing, like
I I'm not saying it makes sense for the game. I'm just saying it felt better for me to do than up to jump.
I'm I am not claiming to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I had to remind myself that down was jump a almost every time I wanted to use it. Like it like anytime I needed it, I had to be like, Oh right, I have to press that down button on the D like it wasn't It was it I've been taught for so long everything against Down is jump that it's like you had to forget it was in your arsenal, but you have to use it.
A lot, uh, uh specifically in that first stage to cover the kind of ground needed to get between platforms. So the game is also telling you like You know, get used to it. Like not even like, oh, you know, there's this other way to jump and it's the down button. It's like, no, d use it a lot. We're gonna make you d we're gonna make you do it.
And so there is no uh there is no way around that. And it is the kind of thing that made me like go to the manual. That's what started my look to the manual, was like is that true? Down the jump and it and it do my eyes excuse me? It says even it says it ev but it words it worse in the manual. Up is jump straight up and down is jump in the direction you are facing. Like
Yeah
I don't know if that's a a great description of what's happening with either jump.
Now uh I I like here's my hot take. I I think that having the the jump button also be like you have to Hold down a button like hold down attack and then press down and that's how you kneel slash pickup item. So it is now doing that that same direction is now doing two very different things um with a very strange modifier. Uh I think that that's like it's almost like they're fucking with us at this time.
¶ Confusing Item Interaction Mechanics
Yeah, Sean, uh you just reminded me of the second time I went to the manual, which was to how the hell do I pick up this weapon? Uh in in every stage there are hidden weapons. Uh somewhere in the environment. Uh it's it's not it's not really marked, it's not hinted at, but
Yeah, they're not impossible to find, like uh we were talking about the hidden eggs in Adventure Island 2 last week. Um there there are some cryptic clues in the manual, but What I what I noticed was when I found the sword, which I think is like purposefully made to be found, um I all of a sudden I was like pressing A, I was pressing B, I was pressing down, nothing was working and then the manual says you have to press button A plus down. But down
as you'll recall, is a jump. So you have to be holding the A button first and then go down in order to pick up the object. That is where down it to jump is wrong.
Joe.
Because now they're mapping it to something else as well.
Well yeah, and that's the same reason up to jump is wrong. You know what I mean? Like just just don't make either of those jump. But like is it m me or is there is there any reason that you would not pick up this weapon?
No, there is no
You keep the weapons.
Yeah, you feel like. You you don't even have to waste a button or combination weird combination of buttons on it. Just if I bump into the weapon, I've picked it up.
Uh but we're also like if we're gonna use that actual sound logic. Then why are there two different kinds of attacks if both of them hit the same enemies, basically? I know they the flying enemies I feel like g get hit more with like the B attack than the A attack, but let's just set that aside because it doesn't actually matter and you're just gonna button mash one way or the other. Uh Can't one of those fucking buttons be jumped?
Right.
I don't pretend to have had any concept of what was actually happening while I was fighting. I would just Sound effects you see the enemies die or me die.
You were just slap fighting the enemies. Like you you you're constantly just like poking each other and then eventually they die and it's like I'm sure I took some damage.
Yeah.
Oh, you're doing that encounter. Yeah, that's the worst part, right?
Also, you know, this is this is not the worst thing about this game, but the the the the he the HUD is kinda I mean it's not hidden. It's literally right there in the corner, but It it's almost like it's a debug afterthought. But they're like, oh, how do we keep track of oh we'll just like have this zero zero stylistic choice, no no graphical uh design element
Nothing even to represent what the numbers could mean. No, you have to put numbers there.
two and that's it. You have two and then a bunch of lines.
Uh don't you have other numbers above those lines?
Yeah, that's what that meant.
यार
Yeah. Those must be your points. Yeah. Yeah, th but I agree. That is crazy that i it is actually like uh a c it's it's a cutout. Like w like the game is uh leaking and now we're just seeing like some some numbers through the screen and and I'm I feel like Conan and everybody else can see them as well. Like if they just look up they'd be like
It's like the...
It's the full. Right. Something's going on there.
🎵 Music
¶ Frustrating Combat and HUD Issues
J we'll stick with the the combat system first and then we can get more back to the hidden weapons. Um W whether it's your default weapon or the ones you pick up, uh, a lot of these weapons have a pretty uh sh short range and you know, we talked about the the slap fighting and everything, but it just in general, like Is there any non projectile weapon in this game where combat suddenly feels not even just good, but but different or unique? Is it or is it always just like
I hit you a bunch of times, you hit me a bunch of times, and we walk away from each other, uh, you know, one of us uh more scathed than the other. Like I I don't I didn't even understand what was happening in comedy.
No.
Yeah. It's it's chaos. It's absolute chaos.
And I think it's part of it is just because the the the feedback is it's not that it's not there because they do have like sound effects and animations for hit. But they only happen Every once in a while. Like sometimes you'll be fighting a skeleton and you'll see that like oh you you actually chopped his head off and like that's cool. Or or that there's a little bit of a recoil and they don't attack you for a second. But then there's a bunch of times where that just doesn't happen. And the
That the little hit sound effect doesn't play at all, but they die anyway. And so it just you you feel very removed from whatever's happening.
Right.
And then you'll just and you don't act there's no feedback for you getting hit either then uh other than your health meter melting to the right. So uh it it's it's very strange. It's very disorienting.
I'm not a fan that Conan doesn't have a face either. That's a little disturbing.
I think he needs bigger muscles.
He definitely needs to look a little bigger, right? He pr probably looks exactly like that teenage boy i in the uh in the Commodore sixty four game. It probably didn't even change that much for him.
Yeah, I g I th I think his biceps a little bigger, but like that's that's not enough.
I don't think any human gets a face in this game now that I think about it.
Yeah, even like oh okay, wait a minute. There's a I just saw this happen. There's like a guy I'm on that like gr green stage with like the tree. It's like a forest and but uh
I know what you're talking about.
Didn't get the
There's a guy who comes at you who's cannibaker he does not have a face, but when you kill him, he falls to his side and then has a very distinct looking face. Looks like Yeah.
Yeah.
It's Rowan Atkinson.
He actually and when you when he goes on his side he looks like he's in like the fetal position either crying or sleeping. Like you hit him enough.
He found that guy really quick.
Yeah, he's just That that's how good we are, Joe. We're in sync. No, there's just something about him that is uh That that's just weird that like he chose to like fall asleep. Like, you know, I'm just gonna stop fighting. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go like this and do a ball. You can't hurt me anymore. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that is what it looks like. He's like, I'm not playing anymore.
Right, right. Now, the other thing that we were talking about, um that affects the combat is all these hidden weapons that you have to find. And um there there is no way to like there the start button doesn't do anything, right? The start button is not pause.
I don't think so. I think select just brings you to a menu which ostensibly pauses.
Which is technically the pause but is really more of the weapon select screen. But the start button doesn't do anything. I'm looking at the manual now and thankfully start says starts the game. That's all it's used for. So even start could have been the jump button.
Yeah.
Mike, you you did say that you wanted to talk about finding weapons, but I think that's part of a larger thing here, uh, which is just like w what kind of game this actually is. Like we've been getting into some details.
¶ Trial and Error Level Puzzles
But
This is actually a puzzle game?
It it is. There are there are definitely and and add that too puzzles that might di they might sound interesting when we talk about
Yes, but you need to understand that that that your ears deceive you.
Right. I think that's what I'm getting at too, is that uh there are um There are some interesting uh things in this game that uh I I'll take the uh the second stage here when you're in the desert. There is uh this woman who's calling you over and uh If if you pass her Uh rather than kill her, which I think to kill her you have to hit her twenty times or something like that. It's not
Uh it's it's it's it's more than one, which I guess like makes it feel wrong to hit her at all. Um but if you if you if you pass her and didn't kill her, uh she turns uh into a snake Which um i uh basically you automatically die uh when you pass her.
I don't even know why you died.
Right, exactly. You d uh can you really infer that that's what happened?
Maybe I'll be honest, this is uh this is where my playthrough ended. I know this is very early, but I was just I died a couple times and I was just like, you know what, I'm just gonna watch a video of the rest of this because That is to death. I mean, that was clearly like a troll, right? Like they want you to think this is an innocent person not attacking, and then you just die instantly.
I think it's all a troll. So I mean, uh I think I I would like to explore this uh uh th this this woman enemy uh as well as well as the thing that happens after that or that you need to do after that but I I wanna I wanna take a step back to level one. Sure. Which is, yeah, you get the sword. You have to find the sword. It's a random drop. And you'd think that like, okay, just an item that you use to fight enemies and go to the right and
and win the game. No, you have to get the sword to then cut down a skull or or like a skeleton, which, you know, one might think is just a cool little piece of like like flavor to the game that oh you can interact with this background element, um But it's not really that that important. There's like a big like Cerberus in front of you that you have to kill.
And so you might run over there and start using your newfound sword or maybe like the fireballs that you picked up instead to shoot at this Cerberus thing or dragon chimera, whatever it is. And you just realize that's not doing any damage. You're getting ganged ganged up on by like random goblins and skeletons while you're trying to kill this thing, and it's just not working out.
Well, what you had to do was you first had to cut down that skeleton, then go down to the skeleton and then fight a devil And the the devil will give you his little pitchfork, and that pitchfork is not a melee weapon, that is a single-use.
Uh
uh ranged weapon that you have to sh that you have to fire at the dragon chimera Cerberus thing and then it disappears. It's a one hit kill and then you can keep going and then the the level goes on for way longer than you think after you like beat whatever like mini boss or whatever obstacle it is and then you move on to this like ancient Greek desert thing.
Wait, which is a worse which is a worse puzzle because it's it's not even it's not telling you like, Oh, you don't have the right weapon, like go find the right weapon and it turns out to be this one time use pitchfork. Right? Like the at least I I think the reason why I went for the uh the woman in the second level is because
She's like
telling you she's waving you on so like just with her she's just like kind of motioning with her hand. So you could assume that she's like telling you to come to her or maybe keep going, like go past her come heavy.
Yeah, exactly. You could you could maybe infer that like okay, I shouldn't pass her or I should try to interact with her or something. So there's there's something a little more there. And I agree with you, the I I I'll say Cerberus, uh the Cerberus thing is just like It it's such a it's such a chain of things that have to happen that it's kind of incredible that that the game expects you to do that with zero no just even with zero like walking you through even like you know like
Find first even just finding the sword. Like again, it is it is a hidden object. It's not like Oh, get down here and and claim the sword because you naturally go to this platform. You you have to find that first just to be able to poke that skeleton and like I don't know, I guess like Interesting, but but at the same time, like I think you're mi you you told a great story and in game it doesn't play fun at all. It just feels like you read a game fact.
And yeah, I think that like we are we are really, really generously using the word puzzle for both of these things. I think it literally is just like It's just a trial and error. It's just like get lucky. You know, there's there's no there's no information that makes you think, Oh, what if I did this or like I have to solve this? It's like just try everything you possibly can, including this thing that's yeah, one time use object that you could maybe find like it's just
It's just random and there's no like you know, maybe if you were developing the game you might be thinking, Oh yeah, like this goes here and this goes there and you're like, Okay, that's how like you you forgot to give any of the information to make it solvable by a player.
Yeah, and and I think it you know, again, this is you would have to just bang your head against the wall for long enough to solve it,'cause they don't give you any kind of hint. Th there are hints in the manual, but they are hints in the most nebulous way um And if I played this game like I play most games on this podcast, which is I don't go to an a an FAQ because then I'm just I'm basically holding somebody's hand that did play the game. Um
Then I would have stopped here. Like I would have stopped dying in front of the Cerberus thing over and over and being like this is what I'm going to use to talk about the video game, but I was so befuddled by this that I had to look up what you were supposed to do, and then I did it. And it's just every level is like this. It's just No feedback. Solve this random puzzle that you just have to bang your head against the wall if you're an actual if you're a kid when this game came out.
It's wild.
Yeah, I and I don't like that, you know, to Joe's point about uh shouldn't you just automatically pick up these items like the the the things that are useful in a stage are are not even like things that you acquire like earlier on in that stage and think of like, oh, how should I use this? It's like the The third stage uh is against Medusa and the second stage is where you get the mirror.
So if you don't have the mirror, that's gonna be a huge problem against Medusa because you're supposed to use that mirror to fire her lasers, which aga I didn't know she had that ability, but you fire these lasers back at her.
And that makes it this way you can grab her head and then you take her head to the Hydra fight and you use that because think about like you're not gonna be able to attack the Hydra with your sword. I guess you could try. I don't even know if it would take the damage, but you need uh the the high uh the the Medusa head in order to shoot the projectile to attack each of the three Hydra heads
See I this is where I stopped. I stopped at Medusa because I Okay, before we even get here, I need I also need to just explain this uh Which I know is A thing from actual mythology, but you there's also like yes, there's mythology, but then there's also just like video game expectations and grammar. The thing that you have to interact with to grab to get this item is a background element. Like it is very clearly part of like set dressing.
Or in any other video game it would be. Like if you were it would be like trying to jump on top of a mountain. that has a face writ written on it in a in a Mario game. It'd be like trying to interact with And you have to basically attack this The sculpture or or statue of a guy holding a shield however many times. Uh i it it took me a few hits. I've seen it take more hits in Let's Plays
Like more than you would think, because there's no feedback again. And then eventually the whole thing falls down and then you get this shield. Like, I don't know how you're supposed to get that. I I I don't I don't even think if I rent if I played this game all weekend.
Ha ha.
I would just again bang my head against the wall in the Medusa level, not knowing that you had to interact with some random background element for however long to to to it's crazy.
¶ Aesthetic Versus Frustrating Gameplay
Yeah, and it is like such a shame that it all is kinda like this because the like the the aesthetic design of these levels m make me like want them to be so good. You know? Like I want this to be so fun. There are some really cool
backgrounds and aesthetics and like just the I mean the one level looks really cool until you have a seizure when you're on that boat and there's lightning striking twice a second. But like otherwise it's pretty cool looking and there's like you know, the the castle level where there's like drawbridges that's like a dragon's mouth that's opening and closing like a lot of thought went into these things and it's just a shame that they all like just induce pure frustration rather than like
the the kind of coolness that should go along with them.
And I think it's also one of those things where it it it's compoundingly frustrating where you you know, it it's one thing for the combat to suck, it's one thing for the down button to be mapped to jump. It's it's another thing for like the whole game to just be a reskin of a different game that very has very little to do with the actual Conan franchise. And and then you add in all these like just
mind fuck puzzles and it's like okay what what did this game wanna be? And it sounds like it just did it it wanted to be anything but a Conan game. Cause I'm sorry, but like shouldn't a Conan the Barbarian game be like a Contra like without guns? Like shouldn't Conan just be like steamrolling people and like almost like a beat'em up and you're just going through with like crazy awesome uh melee combat and instead like D this game d he just feels stiff.
Yeah, it's almost like if it it's like a pitfall like in certain points.
Yeah.
The whole like canned animation thing rubs me the wrong way with the actions you're supposed to undertake in combat. I'd I'm just gonna repeat myself if I go on.
Yeah, I understand it.
I thought for a while, like I it kept making me think it was trying to be like somehow a little bit like Prince of Persia.
Yeah.
Yeah. Like it was something about I think something about that forward jump, it has like a almost like a set distance that it is. So like
Which is very Prince of Persia.
Yeah. But like it didn't feel like it was pulling it off.
I guess I meant more Prince of Persia than Pitfall.
Well, no,'cause I can see the pitfall thing too though, because Prince of Persia is a very like deliberate uh platformer. Whereas like this i this is like there's a heavy emphasis on the action part of it all too at the same time. And so you can't be as careful as you might like. Like you know, if you take a jump And get hit by an enemy, you just immediately you're just stunned. You just you you stop your jump.
Yeah, that's the worst taking a jump aga or or like going like a couple of times I would jump and I I landed right in like a one pixel long pit.
Yeah.
And then I would fall straight down. There'd be a platform like one inch to the left of me, but I can't move at all. I just have to watch myself like slowly fall straight down. I'm like, yeah, maybe that's more realistic, but like that does not feel like other video games. It feels like I'm just like
Helpless.
¶ Critical Reception and Conan's Legacy
Now every professional review of this game seems to reach the same conclusion, which is that uh one critic called it uh the worst NES title ever made, another described it as platforming at its worst. And uh GamePro, who uh in the past has given some questionable scores uh on these NES games that we look back on, it gave it a perfect score for challenge. Which I mean.
Okay.
I guess like technically right it is a
You're just like.
Difficult.
Like a challenge of any kind, then sure, yeah, it's challenge. Right.
But should that really like give uh it like if if that gets a five out of five and everything else is also getting out of fives and so that gets it like five out of twenty just on challenge alone, is that the right
Right. That's more of a question of like there's something wrong with your rating system if
Right.
That could cumulatively make something sound better than it is.
And then I think like when when we just look at like Conan as a property, I I know we're all like underexposed to it and everything, but certainly like the eighties and nineties seem to be like peak conan stuff and it it doesn't seem like there's anything happening right now for the character. Certainly that I'm aware of.
I know there is a like weird survival game that has some audience. that gets advertised to me on Steam once in a while, but other than that I have I I have no exposure to Conan.
Well that that's that's pretty cool. Do you play just like in that universe that we can't figure out uh the name of the planet? Or do you uh do you play as
I have no idea. As far as I know it's like rust. Or uh I don't know. Uh PUBG? I can't tell.
Yeah, yeah. Uh, it looks like Conan Comics might still be i in the in the works here, just not through Marvel. Uh it's now through Titan. Uh so Marvel had a long run uh from the seventies all the way until nineteen ninety three. And then it looks like you got a second revival with Dark Horse for like fifty issues or whatever, and now is with Titan. Uh I'm not familiar with Titan the publisher, so um I'd have to check out what else they do.
But I I guess he won't be in the MCU then.
Uh uh Avengers two.
Oh Titan does the Simpson comics too. I should have known that. Never mind. Uh and I think we should all know that uh when you start talking about uh Simpsons comics and uh which uh if the cross button is the cross button or the X button, that the episode's probably over and it's time for the Essential Games list.
🎵 Music
Ciao.
¶ Final Verdict: Not Essential
I think the most praise I was gonna give this game I've already given it, which is that the the the aesthetics of the levels looked like they could have been promising. So if that's the highest praise I can give it, I mean like it it's a frustrating experience. I I even just just from the first Like the first moment of trying to control this character, it's frustrating. I don't know what my goal is, because I thought there was like something else I had to do before I fought that.
Camera thing or whatever. I it's just it's a mess. It doesn't feel good to fight. It doesn't feel good to move. Um I'm going to say certainly not essential.
Yeah, I'm not sure which publications at the time were saying those things, but I'm gonna agree that like this might be one of the worst video games I've ever played. Like it it the it and it part of it is because it's so uneven. Like I I do like the visual style to an extent. Like we were talking about
Like the lighting and it the some of the backgrounds look cool and like the music isn't bad and uh like the even like the the ideas for some of these puzzles are okay. But Playing everything that we've said about how you actually interact with this game feels. And so yeah, I think this is this is one of the worst games on this system.
Yes, and it's kind of like I feel like I could have been a lot harsher if we didn't just play Advanced Dungeons Dragons also this year, uh, which is like in my opinion, advanced Dungeons and Dragons might be even worse. than Conan, but they're definitely like they're they're competing for the spot, uh, and they are definitely bottom of the barrel uh NES games. Uh We talked about
some some of the deeper levels in this game, I don't wanna lead anyone on and think that they should try to get there. Like I did not get there. This is like me using like uh Emulator cheat codes this way I can continue to progress to at least have stuff to talk about. This game is frustratingly hard, terrible to control, and uh you know, even if you are a fan of uh Conan the Barbarian, I would still recommend.
D absolutely do not check this out because they they it's just a reskin of a different game. It has very little to do with cone. So read the manual, I suppose, if you're a fan of the of the Pulp Fiction stories,'cause at least there's something there. At least they went for it in the manual, because they didn't go for it at all in this game. Thankfully Next week it looks like we will be playing um Double Dragon Three.
And uh we we like the Double Dragon series. So it doesn't look like we'll have another uh Conan unless I mean then maybe Double Dragon will take us there. Maybe they will uh completely fuck it up. But I'm looking forward to that one. Because games like Conan and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons uh so close to each other in uh nineteen ninety one uh make me worried that we're gonna get a lot more of these as the year continues. Say something, Joe.
Something Joe.
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