Level 63 - Caravans in Space!

Hello everyone, just giving you a bit of a heads up of something new that I'm trying for. Remember 64 Another way to hear from you, the listener and viewer of the show. Voice cast dot app slash Remember 64 voice cast is a cool new thing that I found from a couple other creators that have been using them. This is a great way to send a audio message to the show. It's something that you can share about episodes, games, things you want us to cover.

Sure, social media is a way to do it, but this is a way to actually have your voice on the show. It is completely free. Voice cast dot app slash remember 64 leave us a message. It's completely free. You can do it on your phone. You can do it on a browser, and you can find the link on social media as well and at the description of this episode on your podcast app of choice. All right, on with the show, everyone.

Welcome to Remember 64, where this week we're going to the arcade sort of space and who knows where else. Hello everyone, welcome to the show If you're returning listener and viewer. Hi, welcome. And if you are here for the first time, also welcome here on Remember 64. We played this and discussed the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between for the Nintendo 60 Fours library. We will cover them all whether

you like it or not. My name is David Petrangelo and I'm dodging lasers, picking up random power ups and holding down the A button as long as humanly possible until my thumb gets sore, which let's be honest at this age, happens in about 20 to 30 minutes. So that's where we're at at this point. Did you look back with me again? Hello. Yo I can say my my thumb holds out a little bit longer because I'm a little bit younger, so I get a solid 45 minutes before I start cramping up.

Impressive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, impressive. But I pretty much spam the big laser anyways as much as I can and then I die when I don't have it so. There you go. You're not dodging. You got a dodge, man. You got It's the skills. Yeah, no, it's not me. It's not really my style. Your style OK. Yeah, I just puncture a giant laser through everything. It's not about, it's not about the nuance, it's about the aggression, just approaching the

aggression. Hey, whatever gets the job done, gets you, gets you to point A to point B. That's that's what really matters. So we have a guest for this episode. Someone brought the the game to our attention to cover this on the show. Writer, gaming sports lover, head of the great newsletter, website, blogs, all these different things. A lot of great work out there. Mark Normandin is on the show and brought Star Soldier Vanishing Earth to our attention to remember 64.

Mark welcome. Thanks for having me I I figured no one else was going to bring that game up, which I guess is kind of my thing. Let's go. Hey, you know what? I've I've said this a bunch of times and say it to pretty much every guess that I may maybe even said it to you when we're we're messaging each other.

If it's a game I haven't played and in this case haven't really heard of, I am more I'm actually more excited because I like to play something that's that's new, but retro is something that you don't run into too, too often. So, and especially on a console that I played growing up. So this is awesome. I guess.

Just before we get into the game itself, let's talk a little bit about your work out there, because I mentioned a bunch of things that you're doing and everything, but I'm sure you do a much better job of explaining your work. So, Mark, tell us about yourself. Well, on the gaming side, I have a retro newsletter, The Retro XP. It's on Beehive now. I moved from Substack earlier this year.

Excuse me. So I've, you know, I've got some of the importing growing pains there, but I'm catching articles that didn't move over and, you know, updating links and all that happy stuff. Yeah. I've been writing that for. Is it 20? Yeah, five years now, I think. Oh. It's been that long. OK, nice. That's awesome. Yeah, I kicked it off with a a project where I ranked the 101 best Nintendo games. Like Nintendo published Nintendo developed games. Yeah. And by the time I finished it, I

didn't like the list anymore. So. Yeah, I can relate to that. I don't know, like 18 months to do it because instead of just like doing like here's a list, it was like, I'm going to write a feature on every single one of these games, right? And I'm like, right, I played way more than I ended up writing about in ranking, you know? Right, right. Yeah, Well, yeah, because you got to whittle them down a little bit, right.

So. Yeah, I mean, there's something like, I can't remember the exact number, but there's like 1400 Nintendo games, you know. So you know, people if people got really mad about something being like ranked ninety 90th instead of like in the top 20, it's like we're talking about like a fraction of like a percentage point of a percentage point difference. Yeah, you know, we're talking about, we're talking about the top 3% of the games they've ever made. You know, like you can chill

out. Yeah, people get mad no matter what. In in that one O in that one O 1 is there and because, you know, obviously it took some time like you mentioned and stuff, are there any particular ones that you were like, Oh yeah, maybe that could have been anywhere on the list or Oh yeah, maybe that was like really close to making.

Is there anything that like stands out like that, that like if you were to do it again and maybe do it in 18 days instead of 18 months, like what would you know what I mean, like? Yeah, I had, I had a couple of just missed. 'Cause that's always, that's always tricky when you sort of make like even just like a personal list of a top five or ten, right? It's like, oh, what was 11? What was 14? You know, like so close.

We'll see. What was funny about this is like I'm remembering #100 was like linked to the past, which people got like mad briefly mad about, but like I used it to explain like there the the next two D Zelda was a better game than this. There have been better Zelda than this. It's like if we're going to get through a list where like 10 Zeldas make it, 1 of the ones you love is going to be back here.

And it's like, I understand your childhood has its grips on you or whatever has its grip on you or whatever. But like they made better ones with better temples with you know. Yeah, the mechanics are updated, the the UI, the the HUD, like all those types of things like that makes a difference. So if you've got Link to the Past that far back, yeah, you know that like you were leaving some great games off. Like I didn't put, I didn't put Super Mario World, I didn't put Yoshi's Island.

Yeah. I mean, they're both, they're both great. But it's just like we're talking about like if that's the level we're working with where like Link in the past barely made it, then it's like, Oh yeah, some stuff's going to be left off, of course. But there's also a little bit of like trying to include, you know, there's so many, there's so many Mario games, there's so

many Zelda games. So at some point you're kind of like, well, instead of adding another one of those to when I want to put in like Drill Dozer on Game Boy Advance, you know, like in I think in like the 90s or whatever, Like, but it's like you're not going to, if you just go by like what's popular, you know, what was critically acclaimed, then you're going to miss out on like, hey, they actually did a lot of other really cool stuff that maybe people didn't play or they

forgot about. Yeah, 100%. So like I kept off Kirby Planet Robobot, this game that I really love, Orbient, I don't know if you remember the We Wear series where they did the art style games. Looked at that sounds familiar. Orbiant was really great. I can't remember what that it was called on the because they had like a a Gameboy advanced version maybe just in Japan. But yeah, there were there were there were a lot of them.

That's like I would like to I would like to jump if I do it again and I would like to to rearrange some of it yeah, I'd probably do like 151 because haha, Pokémon, you know, but. The only Pokémon on that let's let's be honest. It's also like, you know, I did it in, I did the list in 2020 and finished in like spring of 2021 maybe. Right. And then it's like, oh, here's Metroid Dread. Yes. Oh my God, yeah. Shit, Oh can I?

Can I swear on this? You can swear as long as you man fuck it swear as long as you as much as you. Like I like to ask first but. It's fair enough. You know, that game comes out and I'm like, oh, this game's amazing. It's getting fucked up my whole list. Yeah, you know, like. Or like or like messes up even, like just your Metroid picks, right? Like, like even just that alone

within that franchise, yeah. Well, cuz it's like, OK, so the remake of Metroid 2, part of the reason I ranked it like as well as I did is because it was the only kind of Metroid that was like that. But now it's like Metroid Dread is like an exponentially better version of that game. So not only do you have to find a place for Metroid Dread, but you have to bump that one back. Right, right.

That's. I mean, I don't know if I have to care about all this stuff, but like, I like Mario Galaxy better than Mario Odyssey. But because I had Mario, because I had Super Mario Galaxy 2 ranked really high, highly, I moved Galaxy back a few spots behind Odyssey because it's like, well, they're so similar. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I don't know if I twisted myself into weird pretzels I didn't need to, or doing that stuff made it work better, but it's five years later and I'm still

thinking about it, so you know. And you always will be. Yeah, it's just gonna happen forever. I'm, I'm, I'm glad I brought it up to make sure that you don't get any sleep tonight. Yeah, you're welcome. So I transitioned to after I finished that list, you know, I was like, cool, I have a good base. I got like a good I'm like back in writing about games because I

used to, I used to cover games. I like briefly didn't leave sports, but I stopped doing sports quite as much And I, I did more games and I was like an editor for a, an indie digital magazine and I left games for a bit cuz it was like, oh wow, I'm just constantly playing things and moving on to the next one. And I don't think this is very fun anymore. But now like kind of picking and choosing what I want. And I do freelance work for pace a couple times a month.

Nice. And you know, some of the places when I can get the, if the assignments, But that's, it's nice cuz I'm kind of pick and choose what I'm doing. And you know, I write about like 100 games a year at Retro XP, but it's what I want to play anyway, so it's not. So if I start to feel like a huge task or job or something like it's just, it's different. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if I start feeling like I'm falling behind on something, it's like, well, don't play an RPG.

Yeah. Oh my God, Like play a few arcade games and you've caught up like. Man, there's so many like RPGs or like big games that come out even like in the last like few years. I'm like I want, I want. I think I'm going to love this game. I just do not have the time and I wanna play other things and I wanna make sure I have enough attention to the games that we're doing on this show.

You know, like, I don't wanna let these ones slide, 'cause to me, this is the, this is the most fun I've I have when I'm playing games is playing these things 'cause I don't know. It's just, it's, it's great whether it's new or whether it's something I haven't played in a while. So. So I yeah, I kinda get that feeling, I guess. I guess the question is, is there a particular N64 game that you think or, or is there 1?

I don't, I should have actually, I knew I knew this list was something you had, but what is the highest ranked N64 game? I know I'm I'm kind of like picking at the at the scab of you being like, Oh, everyone's going to be upset about this or about that pick, but I just I just want to. I want to let anyone will argue. Actually, no. People would argue with OF. Course, there's always. There's always. Someone it's Majora's Mask is

the highest ranked one. Nice. Nice. But I think the people who would argue with me are once you say Ocarina of Time, but sure. Yeah. And on Green of Time's great and it's influential and it's important, but one of the things I was doing with the list was completely removing influence. My argument was essentially like, if you're talking about how important something is and you're using that as a qualifier, then it's like you just end up with Super Mario Brothers number one and and like.

You know, I mean not on this list in particular. And Tetris, right? Like it's like those, like the two games. Yeah, so like, you just you kind of back yourself into those situations. So that's why it's like if someone says, well, walk her into times more important than Majora's Mask, it's like, I don't care. Like Majora's Mask is a better game. It's better right now. It was better than it's better now. But that's what I care about, is what's the most fun to play

right this second. Yeah. What? What can you go back to multiple times since like those things, those things come in here, Yeah, even for a large game like that. I was gonna say, it was like I was, I was guessing that you were going to say Ocarina of Time, but I'm glad you said Majora's Mask because I prefer Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time and I've argued about that. I've been arguing about it for 25 years now. There you go. Yeah, We, we, we played it for

the show. We haven't done Ocarina of Time yet. I Majora's Mask was like when we did it, it was the first time I played more than just a few minutes of it. And I played the entire thing. So like that was just last year, the year before.

So it was really recent for me. Ocarina of Time I grew up playing, but that's because it feels like everybody had that game and it was just that that title like you mentioned, but I haven't played that game in at least 20 years, at least longer than the first, like opening half hour.

So when we get to that, I think that's gonna be interesting too, because now I'll have a more recent memory or a memory at all of Majora's Mask and I can compare the two and not not that one has to be better than the other and blah, blah, all that kind of argument or whatever. But like they do, they do

absolutely. I am crazy to think otherwise, but it would just be interesting that kind of from my own perspective be like, oh, now, now I can really sit here as an adult and not as you know, a 14 year old or 12 year old playing it and like really think of like the nuances and things like that too, which could be cool so. That's great. I can run down, I can run down quick. Which N64 games made it actually? Yeah. That'd be neat.

So Blast Corp, I was, I should say, I was very specific about like, so like, if Rare published it, it doesn't count, you know, and certain things where it's like, it has to be Nintendo had to have published it and it has to be something that like, did not get released in a bunch of other places. OK, Gotcha. So, you know, like they published some like Dragon Quest remakes or whatever, and it's like, that's not a Nintendo game. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

Yeah. I mean, you hear people talk about this sometimes there's some websites that'll be like brand new Nintendo game and it's like, excuse me, it's like a Square Unix game or something. And it's like that's on a Nintendo system. It's not a Nintendo game. You can't. That that's the thing I think of all the time when, when you like for anyone that has has Netflix or anyone people that don't work, it's like, oh, it's a it's a Netflix movie or Netflix production.

It's like, no, you just bought it is what you did like you just bought. REST development, That's yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, that except friends like what the fuck you talking about? You know, like shit like that, like it's, I get it. That's just how the industry works for that stuff. But also like, no, like I know you're, they're fooling people by doing that. I know they are and that's why they do it. But you didn't make this. You just sign the check.

You know, after the fact it was after it was even done. You're just paying for the distribution, right? It's just anyways, ANYWAYS, tangent. See, see jiggy tangents all over the place. You can't take me anywhere these days. Last Core and then Star Wars Rogue Squadron and my excuse for including that had to do with the fact that actor 5 Vince Nintendo to make the expansion pack commercial. Because it. Was supposed to just before the 64 disk drive. Yeah, the DD.

That was, you know, it was supposed to be just a developer side thing and they were like, well, let's make that like commercial thing. Honestly, like if I redo this list, I'll probably take that off cuz I'll be, I think I'm gonna be, I think I'm gonna be stricter about some stuff. OK, All right. Paper Mario. Yes, yes. Godwin. Game Pokémon Snap. I had three N64 games in a row, Paper Mario, Pokémon Snap and then Super Mario 64.

Probably a lot earlier than people expected to say, but right there, neck and neck with sunshine, I like them. Oh nice. Pretty much equally, but in different different ways. I gotta, I gotta play Sunshine. I haven't played, never played it, never played it really.

Good, I guess just I have puzzle league just as like a series here, which has an N64 entry yes yes over battle 64 that's another one I'll probably take off but Nintendo published that in in Japan. OK, so, and it's the only you know, it's not like there's there's Tactics Ogre, but Ogre battle is like this separate. It's a separate thing. Yeah, that that is 1 where we need to like give ourselves lots of time. I hear so. It's so good, it's. Nice and long.

Apparently, yeah, you will enjoy the time you spend with it. Great, then awkward enough. Time, then sin and punishment. Oh, man, that's one that me and Jiggy were gonna play. And then and the last one. And then I had a kid. And then I didn't do anything for six months. I forgot about that. Yeah, we, I gotta, I gotta pick it back up. I don't think I finished it when we said we were gonna cover it so. It is amazing, yeah. Starbucks 64. Yeah. And then Smash.

I don't like the N64 Smash Brothers, but I include the whole series as a a thing here. That's another thing I did with, like, I don't want to write about Smash Brothers six times or whatever, you know? Yeah, but it's like Smash Brothers series. It's very important. Mario Kart series like that kind of thing too. Like. Yeah, I actually did for Mario Kart. I did a double dash and eight.

That's because Double Dash was, I think, the first of the amazing 3D ones, and it's very distinct from the rest of the series. None of them, none other ones are like it, like that's it stands on its own for sure, yeah. Exactly. And all the other ones are kind of like working up toward what Mario Kart 8 is. And Mario Kart 8 is the best of those. Yeah. So yeah, pretty much. I have Mario Kart World.

Hey, it looks I I was, I had my even though I have a somewhat limited experience with double dash. I was kind of hoping they would add that as like a mode or something, but maybe they will, you never know. Maybe there's a there's a rumor going around. NSO so. Yeah, they probably will.

That's true. There's a rumor going around that there's going to be the potential of like getting off your cart and running around, which I don't know if that's true, but it'd be awesome if you could imagine if you could like play with a friend, be driving Co-op like around the world. You both hop off your carts and just like swap. Swap the car. Why 'cause you're like running from the cops and you need to like switch cars so they don't know who's who. Like is that why it'd?

Be kind of awesome. Or like, you know, you run into something and your and your buddy crashes and they have to like jump onto your cart and that's how the double dash starts. I'm sure that's super easy to figure out. I'm sure they can figure. I'm sure they got this. No, that's an easy programming. No problem. I I make games, I know how things work. Yeah. And then, and then I guess Majora's Mask is up there. Where? Where was Majora's Mask actually in that? In that list, anyway. 4th.

Oh, fourth. Nice. Oh shit. Damn. Top top ten, top five. That's awesome. Sweet. OK, so check, check out mark. Where can where can everybody find it again? That's part of retro XP I assume. Yeah, it's Retro XP. It's now dot B Live, which has two IS in it. I don't know why, but yeah, retroxp.beehive.com. Sweet. I'll put I'll put a link in the show notes too, so if anyone can't remember or doesn't write it down or whatever, I'll make sure it's in there so people can link straight to it.

You can find that list and all the other games that you've been playing and covering and stuff. So OK, we're going to get to Star Soldier Vanishing Earth in just a second. I just want to make sure that I let everybody know that you can find us across the Internet. Of course you can because that is where you find this show. Remember 64 on all your podcast feeds. Give us a rating and tell your

friends. That is the best way that more people can find us. And whether it's just through discoverability or it is just word of mouth, that is probably the two most powerful things you can do as far as getting shows out there to everybody. So make sure you do that. You can also find us on YouTube as well. Remember 64 where you can find some ridiculous shorts that I have ideas and random sleepy thoughts on at 2:00 in the morning that I create, which is the last couple that I've done.

And I'm like, oh, I have this crazy idea and I can't sleep because my kids crying. So this is what I'm going to do. Also some gameplay videos, every once in a while I will stream as well. Very inconsistent with that, but I try to share some hours every couple weeks with playing some games, whether they're 64 or otherwise. And patreon.com/remember 64 show. You can support the show for as little as a buck a month.

You can get pre show chats, you can get some exclusive episodes where I talk about other games that I'm playing that are not from the N64 and you can get everything every single episode nice and early, usually at least a week or just just a little bit, sometimes even more than that. So all that stuff is available for you there. And what am I forgetting Jiggy? I feel like I'm forgetting something I. Thought you did. Great. Oh my God. I. Thought you did great this time.

Yeah, thanks. Five stars, which is what people should rate the podcast. Boom, boom. Thank you. Well, as long as Jiggy said I did a good job, I feel like I did a good job. So let's let's get to it. Let's talk about Star soldier vanishing Earth. Mark, I know you've been talking for a little bit, but because you're the guest and because you chose this game, one briefly sort of touch on your experience with the 64 in general and why this game in particular?

Cause at least for me, like I mentioned earlier, it's not a game that I have any familiarity with. So for me it felt like, oh, this one came out of left field.

But for a lot of people, yourself included, it did not so. Yeah, I don't know if I go so far as a lot of people, but so I got an N64 not quite at launch, but I don't know within that first year, you know, God, I played, I think the games I probably played the the game I probably played the most on it was was Perfect Dark, which I know, even though that was late, I just kept playing it and playing it and playing it, you know, for years after.

I can't I can't imagine I played anything else as much as I played perfect dark on that. But I don't know, I just I love that I love that system. I love the controller. That's it's probably I, you know, I'm not I like, I like emulating. I'm a really kind of like original hardware guy when you can, but I understand that's not always feasible. You know, I'm not going to go out and buy a 3D O. So I got to figure out another

way to do things. The N64, though, is like the one system where I, I don't want to emulate anything. And part of that is part of that's visual, you know, it's actually, I, I feel like people give it kind of a lot of shit for what like the visuals look like. But I think they're playing through like standard cables on ATV, you know, the like hooking it up to ATV, it shouldn't be hooked up to or whatever and playing it, it's like 60. 4 on your on your 50 inch TV. It's like that's like.

It's like, yeah, of course it looks terrible. Anything from that that era is going to look worse in that condition, in that. I've got yeah, exactly. I've got my 60 fours hooked up like through S video to a nice CRT in the basement and it looks awesome. You know, and whenever you try and play so like Star Fox 64, even if you try and play like the Wii, you know the version on like the Wii U, you know, you're supposed to you're supposed to like dodge quickly by pressing AC button.

But now that has been mapped to an analog stick and like the amount of time it takes to like double tap an analog stick compared to just pressing the C button, you know, it kind of it like messes with the experience. It just doesn't feel right. And that's the case for so many of the games. Like something is just off in the controls all the time. So that that's the one where I'm like, no, I want to play on original hardware. Bring back the C buttons.

They only brought one back. Only one and you can't do anything with it. You just press it and it's not really gameplay related as far as we know so. It's, it made me a person who went out and bought a copy of like, I like, imported a copy of Senate Punishment, you know, 'cause I'm like, yeah, I had a lot of fun playing it on the Wii. And like, they adjusted the controls and it was fine enough. And then I played it like in, you know, the way you're supposed to with the controller

that it was designed around. It's like, oh OK, I like this even more now. Yeah, I mean, Jiggy, you're you're you're on this page for sure where it's like that, the control. I mean, I think it sounds like all three of us are, but like the controller is something special, right? Like, I know that's something that you definitely write home about for sure, yeah. It's it's, it's, it's an. I'm not going to say it's an it's not an unpopular opinion, but it's not a popular opinion.

I I go back and forth with so many people about it, but I also like the GameCube controller and people also give me Flack about that so. I do not, I do not like it, although I have far less experience with it than I think a lot of people. But I just I just. I find it really awkward. That little yellow sea nipple is amazing, I love it. Sure, I just don't like the D pad. That's my only complaint. About it, Yeah, the D pad's too small too.

Small that's kind of like so that's a controller that was designed after everyone went OK, like 3 dimensional movement one right we don't need the we don't need digital anymore right whereas the N64 was that perfect blend of like we don't quite know which way things are going yet so like let's do everything and I I I. And I would argue that let like, especially in like the original, sort of like an actual Nintendo controller, like the joystick feels great on the 64.

Like it it to me, it has always felt like it really makes sense. Like you're like you're describing where it's like, oh, no, this is this is what it's supposed to feel like. And I feel like that's always the case with the joystick. You know, some games handle controls better than others, no matter what, no matter what console you're talking about. But I find that that's always been a strength of it.

And then when you get a reproduction controller, like one that's digital or whatever, it's, it's not the same. Even if you're playing the same game, there is a difference there. Yeah, yeah, the the shame that they and the sticks kind of break over time or or get loose over time. Mine snaps. Cause the actual mine. Snap Plane. Earthworm Jim, OH. Man, the actual, the actual movement and the precision of that stick is so good. Like Sony didn't touch that until the PlayStation 4,

basically. Like, as far as like a comfortable stick that does what you want it to do. Yeah. I would I would argue the PS5, but that's just my opinion. That's the that's the only that's the only one I I'm just not a PlayStation controller fan in general. I think the five is the one that feels the most comfortable, but I'm just not a fan of the layout of the joysticks being in the middle. And that's just not my thing. That's just. That's funny. I like the everything in

particular. I like the original. It didn't have joysticks and like, that's fine. And then it's like they slapped, they slapped those twin sticks on it and I'm like, I don't like these sticks and I don't like the placement and I don't like anything about this anymore. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair. So OK, so why Star Soldier man, is this like like one of the games that you were always playing grown up, like along with sin and punishment in Perfect dark or No way OK.

No, this one I didn't play until I was an adult. Really after so when the, you know, the we had Virtual Console and that really got me going on like turbo graphic stuff and you know, Hudson's various shooters, a few of those games made it on

to the Virtual Console service. That's where I was introduced to like Superstar Soldier, Final Soldier, Soldier Blade and then Star Soldier, Star Soldier R, Superstar Soldier RI, can't remember what they called it, Star Soldier R. I didn't realize there were so many. There's a bunch I don't. Think I knew that when I. Was looking it up, it's wild how many there are.

Wow, yeah. So Star Soldier, Star Soldier R was basically just a caravan mode and they they kind of introduced it with like here's an online competition. That's how we're, like getting you into this kind of game because, you know, caravan modes had like kind of fallen by the wayside by it was like 2008 or whatever. And like, that's where I found out, like what that even was.

Yeah. And I played it and played it and played it and played it. And, you know, I had some pretty high-ranking scores because I was playing probably too much. Justin. Yeah. Then like Justin. Then going back, then going back and finding like oh cool. There's also like I didn't have an NES growing up. Like I was old enough, but I just didn't have one. My cousins had one and they didn't have any shoot em UPS or anything.

So I'm like, oh, there's star Soldier and there's there's Hector 87 or Starship Hector. And like, oh, they did. They did a Parodia style game for star soldier with Bomberman in it. Star Parodier on the on the Turbo graphics. And that's. Crazy or on the PC engine, I guess. So it's like, oh wow, there's a lot of these and then I find I mean I'm like, oh, you know, the N64 doesn't really have a lot of

doesn't have any shoot em UPS. I don't there were not many shoot em UPS and it's like, oh, there's a star soldier game on it like cool, I love star soldier. So I ended up buying a in a cartridge. I don't think it cost too much. You know, I don't it didn't sell super well or anything, but it's like not incredibly rare and not held in high enough regard for people to straight up gouge on it or. Right. Not, not back then. Probably now if I look it up, I'll be like, oh. That's what it cost.

Shit, Yeah, probably. But you know, when I whenever I got it, it was like pretty reasonable. Yeah, but that was like as long as it was. Oh yeah, it's $55 now. 55, yeah. Yeah, my, my price charting that is absolutely not what I paid for. I think like that and and you know what, as long as you purchased it before like 2019-2020, you probably got it for a much more reasonable price. Yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm thinking, I don't think I even paid $30.00 for it. Yeah, so.

So you sort of like, you sort of like fell in love with this one as as you did with some of the others or was it more of like sort of a process or like what's the? It's a very, it's different than the others by a considerable amount. OK, so this kind of introduced the the chaining for scores. Oh, this is the one that introduced that. Oh, OK. I thought, cuz I thought that was an interesting idea that I I was picking up on as I was playing it. Yeah. Yeah, they had different ways.

So the score, the way you'd boost your score and in like the turbo graphics ones is there was all the stuff to kind of destroy all over the place that like weren't enemies. There's like, oh, destroy as much stuff in the area as you can and you'll find bonuses and you'll you'll get. Which is kind of common in games like this I think. I feel like that's not super rare, at least ones that I can remember playing. Girl I don't even know if what name what game or what game I'm thinking of but.

Instead of like, instead of like buildings or kind of destructible environments, it was straight up just like there's all this shit everywhere, just like it's all organized and you clearly are supposed to like that box, that box, that box. Oh, I see. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. And it's, you know, some of them had different colors and everything like, oh, there's items under that color and there's you know, so this one kind of went in a different direction.

I mean, first of all, it's 3D. But yeah, the chaining was new. And it's kind of like, you know, a cave that developer and started making shoot em UPS and Dodam Pachi did a big thing with with chaining that was like integral to the whole experience. And it's interesting, like the score focus stuff with first for star soldier games was really more about the caravan mode, not the the main gameplay.

The main gameplay was like a bunch of stuff is going to try and kill you, see if he could survive, you know, and the real old ones were kind of more about scoring, but it was in like it was because of the caravan stuff as well. So this is the first one where emphasis on scoring in the game, like in the main game itself, became kind of the big deal. But it's also like. Not because it's trying to

explain it to people. If anyone hasn't played it or doesn't know quite how they do it, what they do is basically, and correct me if I'm wrong, if this is pretty much on the basic level of how it works, you just, you basically it has like this really, really quick timer in the top left corner and you have to basically always be shooting something in order to keep that multiplayer going. And it counts how many shots or how many things you are hitting from zero to thousands and

thousands. So you can get up to almost, you know, I, I assume I never did this, but I assume you can get through an entire level, always hitting something or getting very close to that. And the more you do that, the more multiplies your score and you kind of go from there. And you can use your different weapons and obviously your movement and stuff to sort of make it happen.

But you know, the, the levels and the enemies are pretty much set up so that if you are able to and understand the levels or be able to read them and the all that kind of stuff, you can keep that number going up and up and up. And the it's almost, is it one second, like half a second where it resets. So it's really fast. It's fast, yeah. It's. Super, super fast. So it is really a a skill based

thing. It's not just hey, let's just see what the number can be. You really have to think about what you're doing on top of trying to survive in a game like this. Anyways, I just thought I would yeah, get to that. Yeah, So they hadn't done that sort of thing necessarily before. So it's kind of a different approach, different development

team than had been going. And they, they kind of based the, the, the graphics in PGPC engine Star Soldier games on compiles blazing lasers, which was a huge change to do the series like that in the 1st place because the original, the original Star Soldier was based on Tecmo's Star Force. Oh, yeah, that's right. I had that. I wrote that down the notes, too. That's Star Force. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they did the Famicom port for it and then Tecmo did the

the NES one. But so Hudson did, they had their first, their first caravan festival, which I don't know if you know what they did for the caravan festival. No, I don't. So they had they had a big yellow van with AB on it, which is because it's Hudson, but they would essentially drive a chosen game found Japan and let people play it. And you would like, you know, there's people are trying to like best high, do like the best

high scores. And it was it, they became these very popular tournaments to the point where it was like, OK, specific games were made with caravan, the summer caravan in mind. And then they were competing caravans as well because of the success Hudson saw with this stuff. So they made, so this first one happened, they they used Star Force even though they just were responsible for the port. So they were like, oh, we should

make our own game. So they made, they made Star Soldier, you know, as like their original work. And it's very like, it's different than Star Force, but it's very clearly like it could be a sequel. If you didn't know anything, you'd just be like, oh, this is just what happens when you release a game like a year or two after the the year after the previous one. Yeah, but then they, you know, they just kept making it like that and they introduced the caravan mode into into these

games over time. So you could just like at home, like here's your two-minute challenge, here's your 5 minute challenge, right? Which this has in that time, yeah. Yeah, and now you see, like the caravan stuff has gone on so much. It used to just be like Hudson and Max AT and a couple

companies. And now there's a lot of like all those arcade archive games have caravan mode, which is, you know, the two-minute or five minute challenge and Terra Ren, who does a lot of like throwback shooters to the time of like Compile and Star soldier and all that stuff. A lot of those games have caravan modes in them too. So it's cool that it's it's persisted, you know, but it got started with like Hudson driving a van around and being like, who wants to see who's the best of Star Force?

That's crazy. How much? That's the answer. You know, those vans are floating around somewhere and they're probably like so exclusive. The dude from Top Gear probably has it. Oh, yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone's going to have it, it'll be those guys. Yeah. Did you? So you play this a little bit later and stuff? Jiggy, what about you? I think you mentioned that you. I had this. You. Oh, you owned it. Oh, wow. I. Owned it. Yeah. I had this as a kid.

And you're so cool. I don't. I never had. Any of this kind of shit. So OK, let me let me explain why I had this. This was like. You have to explain. Just say you're you sat at the cool kids. Well, it's OK. I got the N64. Obviously, I'm a, I'm a, I'm younger.

I got it in 99, OK. And so because I was on that back end, I think I've said this before, but we've had my dad and I had the opportunity to go to places that were like, we were also in that like spot where like movie rental stores like started closing down and stuff. So we would go and like there were several that were just closing down and just getting rid of inventory. This is one of those games that I just randomly thought, hey, this is kind of cool.

We just added it to the pile. Like my dad bought me like 40-50 games. Like it was awesome. This is one of them. I played the crap out of it, never beat it, but I really enjoyed it and I liked. I played as the blue ship the most, but if I had to pick between the ships, I don't know. The green 1 was pretty cool too. I think the red 1 was my least favorite. I had their names and everything pulled up here, but we don't need to get into that quite yet. But we.

Will we'll get there. We'll get there. I just love the special, like just flying around. It's I really love Starfox 64 and in my mind this was very similar to that, just like it's different. But it was, it was like giving me Starfox 64 vibes. So it was like another sort of another outlet for me in that way. But yeah, I just thought it was really cool and fun fact about this. So closing out my mom's house, she was selling her house and and moving and it was going through old stuff.

This is one of two games that I found the box for. I had the box for Star Soldier. It, it wasn't like super great shape, but it was like intact. And I was like, this is pretty dope. And I, I don't remember, I think at the time I looked up like an inbox copy and it was something stupid like $300 or something. I'm like, oh. My gosh. Yeah. It was pretty cool. It was just cool. You want to know what the other game was? You're going to love it. I mean I had.

Two boxes, they were right on top of each other like they were flattened out and I had them and the other one was Superman 64. Yes. Yeah, it was. It was awesome. Yeah, 2 equally caliber games, obviously. I swap between them, you know, play Superman, play star soldier, play Superman. And you know what, I could see that, like you said, like, oh, I played this shit out of this, but I never beat it.

But it it's it's kind of one of those games, especially at a younger age, where that's totally fine. You know it. It's. It's kind of hard like. Dude, I found it. I found it hard. I'll I'll get into sort of the details of like why I suck at this game, but like I was like, what the like it's is something wrong with me? What am I do? I can't.

I thought I was good at these games growing up and I I just, I just was not so. Did you if you look at, if you look at like, you know the boards like where people talk about shoot em UPS? Yeah, yeah. And they're like, oh, this one's so easy. Whatever. It takes like no time. And it's just like easy for you because you were a person who posts on a board. Specifically.

Yeah, like, yeah, most people, yeah, it's gonna take some doing, you know, come on. Like, yeah, I can beat it or whatever, but I'm not like, Oh yeah, that was a cinch or whatever. It's like, no, this is, this has its moments. And if you like, play the wrong way or you use the wrong kind of ship or whatever, or you, you never master the dodge, you know, the reflecting thing like. No, I could. That's gonna be really hard. I I like it, but I couldn't. I definitely could not.

Master is not a word that I would use in my experience playing this game. I'll tell you that. Jiggy, did you? Did you have some time to revisit it and stuff? Which would you think if you did? I did. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I was having fun. I feel like I played it very similar to I did when I was a kid. Like I popped in and I was like switching between the ships. Like I play like I basically just played till I died. And then I'd be like, do you want to continue?

I'd be like, no. And then I'd go back and then I'd swap my ship and then I'd be experimenting with all the weapons and stuff. I just thought that was super cool and I still think the blue one's my favorite. I remember the blue one being my favorite. I think it's still my favorite, although the main weapon is not my favorite. The green one's way cooler I

think. But I also like was looking at the stats, which is something I never really paid attention to as a kid, but I'm like, do these really affect it? I don't know if I could really. I don't know. Like it, it's just like move and roll and stuff and I'm like, I don't know if it's that dramatic of a change that it really makes

a difference. Also, too, it's like because I didn't like I didn't, it's not like I played this for hours and hours and I like I wasn't endlessly playing this in the last couple weeks, but like, wouldn't you just look at the move and roll bar and be like, I'll just take the one that's maxed out? That's the best. That's exactly why is that. Just the best one. Like why take the one that's half half that? Like what? Why wouldn't you just wait?

I don't know. But the the weapons that I mean, that's what you have to like play around with. That's that's what you have to. Play around with the weapons with each ship. Yeah, those are really the deciding factor, and they each have unique weapons and they feel different and it's kind of awesome. Yeah, Yeah, I did like that. It was unexpected. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Mark. So the it's funny, they have the multiple ships here because the other star soldiers star sold.

I can't, it's a good thing I can't say the word soldier right now, right after the star. That's not important to what we're doing or anything. The older Star Soldier games. Oh, OK, OK, OK, OK. One ship but you had multiple weapons and you could go especially after. Like pick them up or something. Yeah, yeah.

And especially after blazing lasers where they like combine because that was the compiled style of doing things was like you're experimenting by combining different things together and getting kind of attacks and weapons that you wouldn't have had like on their own or they're upgraded in some way. So here they just instead of having you, you know, you can make whatever your weapon is stronger, but you can't switch your weapon, right? Right. Which is not how the few of the

previous ones worked. But instead they're like, OK, what if we take three of the established weapon types from these games and make each of them a ship? Right. Which is kind of a different way to do it. And previously the the the bombs which here what are they X arms? Like X arm? Yeah, I think it's X arm, yeah. So those would be like you would have, you'd have options maybe flying around your ship and you could like sacrifice them as a bomb kind of.

So it's a different situation than here. But here they do more than like screen clearing bomb thing, limited, limited use, you know. So it's an interesting, it's like a bunch of new stuff and then like old stuff, but kind of presented in a different way. Yeah. Do you so you have you have obviously much, I mean especially compared to me, but you have more experience with like the variety of these games or just this this franchise or

series or ones that are similar. Do you find, do you personally find that this one is like it's different, but is it quote UN quote better or is it just it's doing its own thing or do you like the differences or what do you think? It's doing it's own thing. I think it I think it does a good job with the thing that it's doing as well. I but I also think it's very it's easier to miss what this game's trying to do and then not have a good time with it.

I feel like if you don't engage, you know the other ones again, since they're just throwing stuff at you and you're trying to not die. If you were trying to not die also, which feels like a pretty like that should be your goal, right? Without much thought. Whether you can do it or not is like separate from whether you're like, yes, I'm trying not to fail. Right, of course. So you can like engage with what

the game is doing very easily. But here it's like if you don't engage with the chaining system, you're not going to score all the points you need because the game is expecting you to die. But you'll have like it's giving you lives very generously, but you have to earn those lives by scoring all these points with all the you know, and it wants you to find those hidden levels because the hidden levels are like cooler. The hidden levels are better than most of the regular.

I I saw them, but I never actually got the chance to play them. Like I, I didn't know that there were any. And then when I was looking up more of the games, like, oh, there's hidden level, like I just again, I just was not good at this game. I just, you know, I just, yeah. They just give me that little like, yeah, they're like here when you see this, we're not telling you what to do, but like this is a moment where you

should figure something out. They're it's tough moments because it's like, oh, here's 6 blue ships, there's one red ship. If you destroy a single blue ship, you will not unlock the the secret level. But if you like. Wait. Long enough, blue ship will kind of retreat and then the red ship will be left all alone and you kill the red ship and then you know you'll fly over the space station or through a Canyon or something that you wouldn't have anyway.

You still have to survive long enough to like get to the end. It's not like it brings you right to the special level, right? But the which? To Jiggy's point, the the that's sort of a shared Starfox 64 type thing too, right? Where if you find out what you need to do, you sort of solve that mini like real time puzzle and then you move on to like a different.

Path it's it's got a lot of similar elements to something like Starfox or Starfox has a lot of similar elements to something like this, I should say. Right, because it would have come before it. Yeah, or or it's cool. It's it's. Really the perspective that's like dramatically different. It's just like top down versus, you know, and this is more like a rogue light type situation. Well, it's yeah. It's like if you fail to, you can beat Star Fox 64 without

being any good at that game. Yeah, You know, Yeah. Come very close at least, yeah. Yeah. And then it's like I played for 40 minutes and I don't know if I enjoyed myself. But if you it's, again, if you engage with the game the way it wants to be and you get much better at like taking down a higher percentage of enemies and you find the secrets and then you're like, oh, this game rules. This game's actually amazing. There was so much. There's so much this game has to

offer. I just have to be willing to, like, engage with it and notice it and want to be part of what it's doing. But yeah, I remember, like the very first time I played it, I was probably, I feel like I was too young to really get it. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, I was like, well, yeah, that was fun. But like. What am I doing? And then I went back to it. I went back to it later and played more and was like, actually, this game like fucking rules. This game rips, right?

But they took some time. There's one mechanic, I'm just curious if you know what it actually does if you press down. I think it's down on the C button. You do like your little thruster. Yeah. What the heck does that actually do other than just make a big? Change the speed of your ship so it says the is it actually, Yeah, in the top left corner where it says like low, medium, high, Yeah, that that's that's your speed. No kidding. So it's there are times where you want to go slower.

I think it's more noticeable with some of the ships in the you know they show the speeds when you're doing the like ship select. I think it might be more noticeable for some of them than others. OK. Just like the the jumps in in velocity are are more significant less? I didn't know. I was like, what is this doing? And I kept tapping it and I didn't know. So the only reason why I figured that out, or I mean I ended up looking it up, is how I didn't just naturally get it.

But like with these games, if you're emulating it, for example, which I did, I've said this before, it's like what a help to look up the manual, you know, because I probably would have told you right? What I did was like, what is that mid thing in the top left? Like what is what is that mid? What like mid power? Am I not picking up enough points? Like what it what am I only doing? OK, like what does that mean? So I looked it up and it was. It was the speed otherwise.

I wouldn't even question that. I'd never even like. I was just like mid OK at. Least this one starts. At least this one starts in the middle because I think there's some of them where you start on the lowest speed and you're like, wow, I feel like I'm flying a tank through space tank controls. In space, what I didn't I didn't really get into a lot of variety of of choosing different ones. Maybe I should have and that would have helped me out or whatever. I had a pretty good time playing

this game. I I don't know, it's weird because there was the one the most experience I have with this genre of game where it's the. We're supposed to just take out the Reds there. That one, yeah, that's one of the ones. See, I probably was just like, blow everything up. That's that's my and. That's what I would do, yeah. Sorry to.

Interrupt No, no, it's it's it's good to know because now when I get to this level next, which I I, it's easy to pick up and play this game, which I think is a big plus. I I enjoy that about just like this genre or these style of games, Mark, because you have like a decent amount of sort of experience with games like this or ones in the franchise and

stuff and similar. The one of the games, it's one of the first games I remember playing because it was like a demo and we had computers that basically didn't run anything. And this was just before I got my SNES was a game called Raptor. I think there's a subtitle to it too. That's the, that's the game in this genre that I played the most growing up. And it was like A2 level demo on my cousin's PC.

And like, that's what it was. And it's, you're just like a, you know, a, an army ship and you're flying and you're just trying to survive basically and stuff. So that game wasn't that intense and it's one that I just remember the most. And then I turned this one on and it was like holy snikies, Like I got to think about what

I'm doing here. And then the dodge, like you said, is a big part of it. And like, I don't know if these games are my thing anymore because like, I enjoyed it, but I, I wasn't like, Oh, this is incredible. This is like the, the, this is like exactly what I wanted from this type of game. Or maybe I'm just not good at it. And that's what ruined part of my experience. Again, I don't think it's, I don't think it's like a really on the game all that much.

I think part of it's my own fault, but it didn't click in the way that I thought I might have. And I think maybe if I give it more time and I'm sort of like, like we're sort of watching someone right now as we talk, sort of basically know exactly what this boss is fight is gonna do and how. Yeah. They're not. They're not even using the the the reflect thing. They're just like. Literally. Just like if I said in this

quarter, I avoid everything. Yeah, which which is a skill in itself, right, to know how to do that when where all those things yeah, memorization. It's it's it's memorizing boss patterns and stuff that's or just in general a game like this, memorizing the patterns of all the ships leading up to that point too, right. That's a big part of it and a way to to multiply that score that we were talking about.

So I don't know that I would ever get to that point specifically, but I think if I put maybe even just a little bit more time or a couple more hours or something, I'd be like, this is like really Jelly and really clicking. So I think I might have missed that just a touch. But I do see how this is a pretty nuanced game, but like

below the surface kind of thing. So I think on surface level, it just looks like, like I mentioned on my silly little quip off the top, hold on to the A button and just try to survive essentially. And like you, I guess you could do that. You probably won't do great. You'll maybe make it a couple of levels if you get lucky with

your pickups and stuff. But to get to that 4th, 5th, 6th stage, which I think there's six in total, you, you need to know what you're doing when you get to like 5 and 6 especially. Yeah, yeah, the end, the end game, the last, the last secret area and then 5-6 are like, that's hard. The whole game was like this. A lot of more people would have put it down earlier. Yeah, Oh, yeah, yeah.

And that, and that's actually true because like the first stage is is pretty simple and pretty easy and like, I think, you know, that that the progression of the difficulty I found actually totally made sense and was was really good. I kept getting my ass kicked in the sixth one, like I just I couldn't get past it. And and that's fine, you know, that's that's part of learning the game and and whatever, right. But yeah, I liked it.

I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would, I think. I'll say you're kind. Of blaming yourself for this. But I will say I like this game. I think it's a good game. I'm not like I mean, I I have played a lot of shoot em UPS right a lot and like this is a good game. I like this game. I am coming on a podcast to talk about this game because. I like, I mean, hey, we've had people come on that. Superman's a perfect example where we had Jake come on and just say let's just play a

shitty game. So hey, it happens. But you know if I was trying to like turn someone on to shoot em UPS or make them feel the way that I feel when I play just like like this is not what I would suggest. Right. So, so you got, you know, you're, you're being a little hard on yourself, but like, no, I could, I could probably suggest some things to you if I, if I knew a little more about like the kinds that have interested you and you know, I might be able to show you the

one that will change your. Life I I wish, I wish I could list off how many in this genre I have played in the last 10 to 15 years. I would maybe be able to count it. I, I for sure I'd be able to count it on one hand. Like it's just, it's just not one in recent memory, at least that I could remember. I mean, they're not, they're not as popular as they were either, right? Like this was a, this was a 90s genre. It was an arcade genre and

stuff. I, I, in my experience, I don't, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would definitively be, oh, this is that game from the last, let's let's say 15 years or something. But maybe they just haven't been on my radar and maybe that's on me. I don't know. So. Yeah, so there you go. Yeah, I mean, there's actually been like a huge revival, but it's still niche. Like you have to be looking for it.

Right now, maybe that's that's that's the simple instead of me rambling for two minutes, maybe I just said should have said niche and that would have solved that well. No, I mean, they did. They did go underground, you know, they were it. Space Invaders was the biggest game in the world at one point, and then ZVS was one of the most influential games ever. Yeah. Huge in Japan, sold well in the NES, you know, and there was like a a string of all that stuff, you know, Galaga is still

super popular. Galaga's great. Oh my God. But fighting games, you know, fighting games pushed shoot em UPS out of the arcades so or at least out of like their Primo position. And then like the Sega Saturn was the system that had the most of them for like at home. And you know that didn't that's old even fewer systems and the and the N64 did by like.

A a lot decent margin. Yeah, that's the that's the one console or not, not only console, but one of the quote UN quote mainstay consoles that I have. Poof. Almost 0 experience with like I'm I was part of the problem so. I've got one, I got 1 you. Got 10 there's there's one in the store near me and I was so tempted, but I'm like, but then it's going to be an investment. I got to get into it.

It's just one thing at a time. Let's go through the N. 64, my friend have about it. We'd always hunt for games. Like for him, I'd be like, dude, I'm at a store, they have Saturn games. Like you want any of these? And it sent him a picture. I'm trying to remember what it was. It's just like the weirdest game because it's got Kirk Cameron. If you know who that is, the actor, like the 90s actor, maybe late 80s. I'm trying to think of the show he was in.

He does like a lot of Christian content now. Yeah. He's he's, he was like. He. Growing pains, Yeah, the. Older brother in growing pains. Yes, yes, and he was in this game in like the cutscenes. It was like any it was like a weird like medieval yes, it was like a weird medieval thing and it was like build your build your like fortress sort of a thing and like zombies would come at night. I don't know what this game was called. I can't remember, but I remember being the horde.

Is it called the horde? I'm actually like Google real quick. It says the Horde, yeah. That's when I look it up. That's we type in his name and video game the horde pops up. That is like one of the few games I played on Sega Saturday. Yes, this is it. This is it. I just looking at the image of the game this. Is happening in this game. Dude, it's hilarious. Well, I will say that. And the cutscenes are fantastic. The cutscenes are fantastic.

You need to just like watch the cutscene, like the opening cutscene. It's so funny we. Can do that if you want. Yeah, it's Kirk Cameron. It's totally worth it. I played a couple other Saturn games too, like Nights. And is it bug bugs? It's like, or zapper bugs. I think I'm mixing games together. Oh. This guy's streaming it. No, it's just. I think it's just bug. Yeah, Bug. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I played that one. What's an? Exclamation point.

I didn't really care for bug, it's probably a good thing didn't get that Sonic extreme. Yeah, bugs too. Yeah, I think it did, Crystal. Dynamics made the horde crystal. Dynamics made it. Dude, I'm telling you. It's awesome dude. Being a ruler is a difficult business. I thought you could handle it, but I see that I was wrong. Shall I alert the executioner, Sire? No, no, no, no. The cook along the views of my mighty.

Sword grim it. Served me well defending the Kingdom from the evil, insatiable, terrifying horde. It's just like a laugh track. It's happening. It's crazy dude. That's like when I love that game. It was so fun. I would totally play through the whole thing. I want to get a Saturn just. I love how I just played a clip from a Saturn game, whereas I can just like, maybe play the audio clip from the game we're talking about. Anyways, through all that noise, I thought the music was actually

kind of good. Yeah, it was like, it's hard to. It's hard to sit there and focus on the music when you just. Yeah, here the Open. It does slap. It is good, you know. What it kind of reminded me of. I'm a huge fan of the early double dragon games. It kind of reminded me of a double dragon. Soundtrack. Yeah, like that high pitched synth, I guess you could call it. Yeah, it does have. It does have that kind of vibe

like. Like Super Double Dragon, play that which I yeah, love that game and then play this and it, it felt similar. But maybe that's just because I have so much experience playing that particular super, like Super double Dragon game. So. Oh yeah. I was going to say Streets of Rage. I was trying to remember. I was like totally blinking. I'm like, it does have that sort of vibe, like. Yeah, it's keeping upbeat while you're beating. People. Yeah, yeah. This is our composer's first.

This was the composer's first game that he composed. He was on. He was like a sound programmer of sound effects in previous games. Oh wow, nice. But he has done most of the Mario Party games. Oh no. Pietro Shimakura, There's a lot of. Made Mario Party. That's in Mario.

Party and then when Hudson got absorbed by Tanami or even while Hudson was still existing, but they weren't doing Mario Party anymore and D Cube was formed by a bunch of former Hudson employees and like as a Nintendo studio making making Mario Party. So that's where a lot of the that's where a lot of the tech, the that's where a lot of the former Hudson devs ended up going.

Not all of them, but it's probably more former Hudson devs at Nintendo than there are in the place that like a Hudson. Look at that. We're we're full circle, OK, We started this conversation about the N64 controller and the joystick and it breaking and now we're back to. Oh yeah. By the way, the people that made this game is Hudson, who also made Mario Party, which is the game notorious for breaking your N64 controller joysticks and.

Your boom, it didn't break. It didn't break my joystick, but I had the I definitely had the he. Had the palm thing. Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too. You know, you know what blows my mind? I, I think like there, there's a certain amount of people that probably learn from someone else, like, oh, that's how you play that mini game. But you just naturally, like if you isolated like 6 kids, they all played Mario Party, they all played this game.

You just naturally know that this is how I can make it. Go spin it. Around. Yeah, you know that's true. You gotta account for that, yeah. And what's the same thing as when you, like, turn the controller so you can like slam, you know, press the button. It's like you're not gonna be able to press the. You know I do that like I. I do the AB thing I I do it sideways in a like. Yeah cuz I can I can push faster with I'm left-handed. I feel like it gives me I can do more with this one.

Left-handed especially would make a difference. Yeah, for sure. I think what I've done it's harder to do with the 64 controller just because of the shape of it. But like if it was a SNES1 or some you know what that's flat, I would put it on the floor or on the chair or on my lap and use both my my fingers to back. And forth we can't talk about this anymore. I'm having like mad Canary Mary like flashbacks right now from Banditui. I'm just like I can't, I can't.

My fingers like are getting sore just thinking about. It well, actually recently we played, we, we just played Ray Man 2 like a month ago. Or something and those mini games, those mini. Games, that's what I did. I put it on my lap and I was like, and I was like balancing it on my knee while I was playing it and I was like. Go back and forth. I would go back and forth by pressing the buttons like this. Yeah.

And then I'd be like, and then I'd switch to my finger and my thumb and then go back and forth like this. And I go and then switch back. Sorry, what was? What was that sound? What was? That and capture that sound bite that later. For future reference, I will say the I played the, I played the N64 version of Raymond 2 like a billion times.

But this last experience, I played the Dreamcast version because I was just like, I'm gonna play the different version to get a slightly different experience. And I will say the N64 controller is a much more pleasurable experience for those bonus levels. The buttons on the Dreamcast feel like mushier there. There's some they're not bad. It's not that it feels bad, it's just like comparatively they don't like bounce back as fast. So I feel like it was like holding me back are.

They smaller too. I feel like they are smaller. Smaller. Yeah, they are smaller. Yeah, that makes a. Difference. I have them stored in the back but. Yeah, but especially as like an adults like a smaller like primary button or button buttons like that would make a difference. Like if the if the size of the C buttons were the main AB on a 64 like I, I, that would feel weird I think like yeah, if that was game B, the size of those so.

You know, we need to go back. We need to go back to the GameCube. Every Button's gotta be like that, A button. Let's just make them really big. Really. Big. But then you're gonna have a controller that's the size of the Xbox. I don't care which I like. I like that. I think that's joke. Yeah, Yeah, I think. We but it, but it wouldn't have wasted space because all the buttons would be giant. So yeah. And analog triggers. Dude, I could make the perfect controller.

Come on, somebody hire me just to design it. I don't. I don't. Give me 10 bucks. Buy me dinner. I'll just draw it for you. I'll draw you the perfect controller and then you handle the rest and I'm out. I would like to know where you go to dinner for $10. What's 10? Dollars in addition to dinner, I think. $10 was like, that's my. Mistake. I was like, and dinner, and that is what I was what I was trying to get because, you know, I'm going to milk them for all

they're worth. We're going to like Red Lobster or something. Red Lobster. Isn't Red Lobster gone now too? Maybe you'll save it. Maybe you'll save it I think. That was the only like semi cheap semi cheap fancy restaurant I could think of so. I'm going to bring this full circle in another way, since we're talking about hitting the controller really fast.

So the guy who was an attraction at the caravans for Hudson was Takahashi Mission because he could, he ended up being like their promotional guy, like he didn't do development or anything, but he was an employee for the company. He was like face of the company, like public face of the company.

They used his likeness for the Adventure Island character, but he could he could press 17 shots per second, which was huge for a game like Star Soldier. Star Soldier back in the day, because you didn't have the auto fire, you couldn't hold the button down you. Had to press you. Shot as fast as you pressed. So he could do 17 shots per second, but they actually like lied and said he could do 16 because he liked the way it sounded better.

He shaved off a shot per second, but he's just got this like inhuman press, press speed and he like designed an analog stick. Oh my God, it's an analog stick to use on the on the Famicom which I would love to like. Get That is an absolutely crazy number. It's in he can still how. Do you do that? I can't even. Yeah, like I want to see a video. It's kind of there. What does that look like? I am sure you can. You probably can't even see that it's.

Like a flash speed force thing or how how it like freezes everything, you know, Yeah. Yeah, what's what's the name of it? What's the guy's name of it? Takashi. Takashi yeah, let me see if I can find. And when you said his likeness, I thought you were about to say for the B. Let's see here I'll. The Hudson B. See if that oh, that might be it. Takashi Izuka? No, I know who that is. Yeah, that's not him. That's the guy who won't give me the chow garden. Let's see.

Oh, I dropped one in the yeah. Oh my gosh you. No, that's not fapping. That is him pressing the button super fast. Yeah, it's not. So he's like 6. They had him do the Star Soldier R1 during that challenge event. They included the second thing they did in addition to the two-minute and the five minute caravan was they did a like shots per second challenge. And. They had online leaderboards for it and everything and I think I got up to, I think my highest

was probably like 10 1/2. That's that's pretty sweet. Holy shit that's great. That's good he was still doing, you know, this is 20 plus years after he was like famous for it. And he was still doing. He was doing, he was doing almost 12 1/2 shots per second. Which is like, yeah. His OK, I'm not even kidding. If anybody's ever watched the flash on CW when he goes when they go to like vibrate their hand as like a weapon to like kill people right. His hand is doing that right now.

It's literally blurred like. Yeah, they, they didn't go around in the van and like, show off doing that. So the little controller thing measures how much he's how fast. Like that little controller that you can hear him clicking is measuring how fast he's actually pressing the button. And it has a little number that pops up and says, at least in this particular video, I think at the end, it's at 16, I think.

But I think that's this. Is going to sound bizarre, but I would love to get like an X-ray of his wrist. Just see it like in motion. Like what? What's moving in his hand? Is it, but I think it I think it's wouldn't it be like your elbow more than anything? Like I'm trying to think of like like you would keep your wrist maybe stiff so that you can like I'm just trying to think of how you would do that. And I feel like it would have to be your talking. Technique.

We got to know what muscle he's using because like for me, it just goes right to my forearm and listen, I got a pretty you know, I got a decent forearm. It's you know, look at you solid. It's solid. Look at that, look at that, flex it OK, and I can the power of youth. The power of not having a child. I feel like if we have a video of this it's gonna like be a meme online. I should stop doing. That power review Power reviews with a with a in the back.

And in the air for the for the listeners and I was doing the motion, you know what I was doing. I mean, I have the video, I have the video, I can make it happen. Oh my bad. So Hudson's no more. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Takahashi still out there, though, he he partnered in a in a game that came out in the last few years called Star Gagnant. I think that's how you say it. It's out on the Switch. I think it's out on Steam too. And that whole game is unlike a lot of other stuff where it's

like here's auto fire. This game is designed around the idea of shooting as fast as you can, then you have to press the button. But like it is built into the gameplay. It's not just like, oh, shoot a lot and you'll do better. Like the concept of keeping your shots per second up high is built into it. So I mean, you want to talk about like you're getting tired 30 minutes into playing a game or whatever.

You know, I was like playing and trying to like move up in the leader boards in that game, and I was doing well enough that I wanted to keep doing that. And it's just like, Oh my God, this is exhausting. How do you I've seen this game, it's got a whole bunch of like scores on the side and it has all these like different sort of gauges and like on your head and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen

this. Yeah, the higher your rapid fire is, the more points you're getting in addition to it, like helping you sustain the chain that you have, which gives you even more points. Yeah, that's a cool like cartoony style and stuff too. Like the art style of. It's really cool. Yeah, it was made by the company I mentioned earlier. Yeah, there's a ton of these kind of throwbacks, even though it's like a one person studio as far as I can tell. I don't know.

I don't know about the music, but yeah, like the rest of it is this one person. And yeah, yeah, he partnered with Mention and did something based on the the thing he's like most known for. That's awesome. That's that's cool looking game that actually before I sort of forget just because I mentioned the he should have put the controller. I don't like create it. I don't have a crazy I. Have an Xbox controller beside me. I'm just blown away.

That was the crazy. That was the craziest visual I've ever seen. I just can't believe his hand was just blurred it was moving so fast. Yeah, his. Like he can understand why, like the caravans took off when it's like we have to go see the person do the impossible thing and like play a game doing. Yeah, absolutely. This is five years after, I think it's five years after like, Space Invaders, which like Space Invaders blew everyone away.

And, you know, and obviously like, that's that's it was great. But like, man, it's slow moving compared to the guy who's like, watch me press this button 17 times per second. Watch me blow your mind and not break this controller by going crazy with it. Like watch like that's insane. That's some real freaking skill, man. Like that's that's really impressive. That's impossible.

Like, do you think he uses that as like a not like a party trick, but like he goes somewhere and he like, like I just imagine trying to pick up a girl or something and he's just like, check this out. He's like, I was really big in the 90s. He's just like, I'm like, OK. And. Like what? What does he carry around that little thing everywhere? He's like, Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would. It's cool. Do not. Yeah, Hey, you gotta, you gotta work with what you're best at,

man. That's you gotta do what you gotta do. I mean he has not one, but he has not one but 2 video game characters modeled after him so. You know, yeah, you said the Adventure Island. What's the other one? It's the star Gagnon. He's like. He's like a. Captain in it like his likenesses in it, but the. Adventure Island one's a little insulting, but I do remember it.

Yeah, if you see a picture of him in the 80s where he's like wearing a baseball hat and like just kind of standing around, you're like, no, OK, I see it like, yeah, that's. Oh, there it is. Yeah. That's him. How about that? Cuz I also I feel like that looks a little weird and I think I did. I think when I wrote about Adventure Island, I put the like a photo of him in a photo of the characteristics. I was like, oh shit, that is that is him. How about that?

It's not, it's not too, too bad, but yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Oh yeah. Here we go. 86. Is that what it is? Yeah. So that's, you know, people got people should look it up because it's, it's pretty. Yeah. I, I see, I see where you're coming from, Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's got a shirt on there. You know, it's unlike his video game counterpart, but. Yeah, he's just good, but he's wearing a hula skirt. There it is. The question is. It like that's him, you know, You're like, Oh yeah, OK.

Yeah, you could see it. On vacation, you know, no shirt on. There you go. This is what he does on his spare time, on vacation or just or just, you know, when he decides to cruise an island. That's, you know, Yeah, it's fine. I can't, I can't see it. It'd be still funny. It'd be like, yeah, we based this video game character off of you, the main character, really. And he's like. He stands there like, OK. This is how you see me. Are those what are those? Are those my nipples?

If you want them to be. They can be. How did you know? How did you know? Oh, they come to work shirtless on Sundays. You never see me like this was 1. Time. It was yeah, it was it was only that one time Adventure Island Game Boy. Oh yeah, these games. OK, Star Soldier everybody might might be a little hard and and and expensive to kind of find the cartridge at this point or apparently the box. Oh oh, oh oh oh did you mess with the difficulty at all? Oh yes. Oh yes, I did.

Yes, I did. There's no chance I was gonna get to the 6th stage on the normal difficulty. Not this. Yeah, I will say though, it feels, it feels very cheap to not do the regular difficulty. Like I would never do the expert difficulty like that's not me. But going to beginner like swapping it down your weapon is just automatically like the highest, which I feel like that's a fundamental. It feels like cheating. Basically. It feels like cheating.

I thought there was like. One I thought there was like at least one that you pick up that that upset a bit. No my. I'm pretty sure it just starts off Max power and that it just feels like that's like a part of the essential like gameplay like being able to pick up these power ups and retain your power ups. So it just it feels cheap and I just would recommend don't soil your experience. Like just try to get good and at least play through a couple levels.

I just wanted to highlight that. I think, I think on the normal one I might have made it to four I think so I didn't see too bad. But if the first couple would feel like a little too tough I would. I wouldn't say shy away from trying the easy one, but maybe you'll get a better handle of the way things. No, I would. Feel. I'd say, I'd say if they feel, if they feel a little tough to you, you just probably suck. I don't have to tell you, dude. Hey, oh hey, I am not

questioning. I've said that from the beginning. I do not. Question. Hey man, I'm not saying I'm good, I sucked, but you like better knowledge it you know, you got to keep practicing. You got to know where to sit on the screen so you can't be hit. Period. It yeah, apparently some of the guys that we're watching here, it's it is a it is skill, though. It is it's not one of those games where you can just sort of, you know, bulldoze your way through it.

Like it, it seems like that. It definitely appears to be that. And so and maybe the first level you can pull that off maybe. But after that, you really got to sort of focus on it, whether you're going for a score or whether you're just going to survive and get from from through each mission and stuff like that. Yeah, just try to survive. Try to survive, try to survive. Don't don't worry about the score.

You'll you'll get it. And and Mark, you've mentioned it a couple times too, but like the the two and five minute mode things, I forgot about that earlier, but I found those pretty fun. I like those sort of a bite sized thing and just sort of I, I, you know, I played up my own scores and tried to beat my own scores a couple times and two minutes feels like, Oh yeah, you can get through the first stage kind of in a couple minutes. It's up to 5 minutes.

It's like, oh, this is like it's a little bit of an endurance test too. It's not easy. And it is interesting to sort of trying to approach it with different ships in different ways and stuff like that. I I found that to be a pretty fun idea and I actually gravitated to them more than I thought I would. I thought they would just be kind of like a throwaway option, but I liked them. I thought they were pretty fun. That's the power of the caravan, you know.

Yeah, they're enjoyable even when you don't have the actual van attached to. It. Jiggy's gonna find. That Van Jiggy's gonna find the van. I totally would. Look, I wanna know. That would be sick. It's it's that or the Oscar Mayer Wiener car like I was. Get a a the dream, the dream, the dream garage. Let's see. Dude those vans are pretty cool looking. They are. Oh man, the art and everything. Yeah, it is cool. Dang, they're like school bus covered or colored, not covered,

colored. They look awesome. They're art on the side. Oh man, if I saw that pull up I'd be like, what is? Yeah. Oh, I. Did I've been lying for that? They did shoot them up most of the time for the caravans, but at one point they made, they made like a, a Bomberman one that was they made an HDTV for it essentially in like 93. Oh, what? Yeah, and they had this there and it was yeah, 10 player HD widescreen so that it could fit all the players in 1993. Right.

Yeah. Oh, I don't see the band. Yeah, was that one of the one of the caravans? Wow. Widely regarded, Bomberman 1993 is widely regarded as the first HD video game. Wow. That's a really cool fact I never knew. Holy cow. Go Bomberman. Bomberman deserves more. Yeah, that is cool looking. Yeah. People gotta look that up, look up those, that sort of big screen, sort of. That's crazy. Yeah, 'cause to be able to fit all those people. And what? Yeah, that the players and

stuff. Wow. Yeah, and it's like the only, it's like the only thing that it was used for. It's not like High 10 Bomberman was released anywhere else 'cause like, what were you gonna do? How come the system you're gonna have in people and you didn't have HD at the time, so it was like there? 'D be there'd be no other way to pull it off. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's. That's so wild. Yeah. That experience was so singular, like, so exclusive to be able to experience that.

That's awesome. Yeah, High 10. Barber, Man. I wasn't. I wasn't even. I was. I was a twinkle in my daddy's eye at that point. I. Was I was almost here, but I was just a twinkle still. I was, I was getting my SNES and and Game Boy I think in 9293, so. Now that I say that, it's possible I may have been almost here. Depends. Depends where the caravan was, right? Just kind of depends on where where that van was headed that that much. Crucial to my.

Existence that that big screen TV, the first HD Bomberman was crucial to the existence. So you didn't even know it. You learn something you learn something new everyday. Happy we can help, Jiggy Mark, before we get out of here, let's remind everybody where they can, where they can find you online and you're and you're writing too. Sure, I'm where am I these days? I'm on blue sky. It's just my name. I'm pretty sure.

Do I have? Yeah. No hyphen or anything, just mark normandin dot B sky dot social. I didn't give myself a special address or anything like some people have done. It seems like work, you know? I had to verify some shit I don't. Know. Yeah, that's enough. Yeah. Fair. My writing is retroxp.beehivethatswithtwois.com. OPI. Damn that was good. I didn't see that coming. Sign up, sign up for that newsletter. It's free.

It's a lot of words. I think today's the one I wrote published today was like 3400 words on the different shoot em up. That is even more obscure. So I'm not always writing about those that just happened to line up that way. We're just. Really good at what we do here at the show so I just. I would. If I wrote about them as much as I wanted to. I think I would probably have fewer subscribers. I try and keep it to like.

It's like I'm like I'm normal about them that I have some kind of problem that people not know about. Problem, skill color, whatever you want. He sits in his Hudson van and. I show we show up at Pace magazine a couple times a month, again, usually writing about older games, but sometimes, sometimes with a review of something new, sometimes with some kind of take on something going on in the news. Yeah, that's that's the video game stuff for the most part. Nice and jiggy March April ish

as this episode is is released. How's how's things going buddy? You're you're always busy, you're always taking ass taking names. You know, you're playing a couple games and streams and stuff. How's everything going? Yeah, Oh yeah. I've been playing Quest 64, which I've never experienced before. I think you did an episode on it right? Before or not, I've never played. OK, I've never well I look forward to the day we're going to do an episode on it. Me too. It's actually not that bad.

I I'm surprised that people always have this like notorious. At least this is my experience and I'm like 6 hours into the game maybe. And I'm just like, it's very grindy and I could see why that would rub people the wrong way. But it's very charming and it feels good to play. It's, it was interesting. I'm not saying it's a 10 out of 10 game, but I'm not saying it's a one out of 10 that I keep seeing everyone, you know, kind of talking about it notoriously.

I'm like, I'm having fun with it and it's silly and you know. It's great. You're having fun. Well, it's it's nice. Like the it's like star soldier is to the Saturn where you're like hey, this is good, but like the Saturn has better shoot em UPS like quest 64. This is a system that doesn't have a ton of RPGs, so everyone compares it to like what's on the PlayStation instead of just kind of right. Or, or compares just like Paper Mario or something, which is like, yeah, in my opinion, it's

fantastic. That's great. And and that's that, you know, I get it. I see why people gravitate towards that. So. Yeah. It's fun. So that's that's the immediate thing. And then I get a couple videos in the works. Yeah, which is? You know I always do. As as you do as you do, Sir. Remember 64 does as well. Not quite as much as Jiggy does, but as I mentioned earlier, across YouTube, across social media. Remember 64 show when I say across social media, pretty much just Instagram and Blue Sky.

That's pretty much where everything's going to be happening at this point. If you want to support the show, there's a free tier for Patreon as well. But as I mentioned earlier, you can get some stuff exclusively through 1/3 or 5 bucks a month. You can get some extra stuff there to support the show, but that's pretty much it. Just if you're listening to this when it releases and just before these episodes are about to come out, we have two really great episodes. We are getting to the point

where it's time to talk. Banjo Kazooie Episode 64 is here. We have Mr. Jiggy himself with us for so long at this point. It is about time that we got to that. So yeah, there it is. There's the Jiggy. There's the look back. There's. The rare logo. Yeah, rare logo, everything's there. So yeah. So if you're listening to this when it's when it's released, they're pretty close.

Banju Kazooie is going to hit your feed as well, as well as talking about the GBA games that were based in that franchise as well. So we want to take a little bit of a detour on an episode about that. A lot of great stuff coming up too for the rest of 2025. But thank you everyone for listening. Mark, thank you for being here. And we will talk to everyone next time. Thanks for joining us. Goodbye Remember 64 is part of the Super Pod podcast network.

Oh yeah, we are teamed up with a whole bunch of awesome people that some you may have heard on remember 64 already, but there's a bunch of different great gaming shows anywhere from Fine time to bar silence to retro wildlands. You can of course find the Super Pod Saga on there. Press B to cancel all of these awesome shows. That's we're just here to talk about great times with games, share their thoughts with you, our experiences with you.

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