Chrontendo Episode 49

The 49th episode of Chrontendo. This episode covered the end of September 1989 and the first half of October. 15 games, including Ducktales, the first in Capcom's series of Disney NES games.

The games covered:
Thunderbirds
Twinbee 3
Maharaja
Meiji Ishin
Back to the Future
NFL
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
DuckTales
Fester's Quest
Sky Shark
Koushien/Little League Baseball: Championship Series
World Super Tennis/Top Player's Tennis
Venus Senki
Famicom Mukashibanashi Yūyūki
Hokuto no Ken 3

Yes, after long delays, here it is:
Chrontendo Episode 49

(only one more episode away
from our 50th episode - yay).

So today we're gonna finish up
September 1989 and move into October,

surprisingly enough.

However we still have to pass
through some rather murky waters,

om, as we finish up
September U.S. releases with

three games from L.J.N., including
a rather infamous movie adaptation.

But we also have a very fondly
remembered game from Capcom [and]

also an actual game published
by Nintendo, themselves.

We will also see another installment
in one of my favorite ever game series.

(Yep! It's another
"Fist of the North Star" game).

Alright!
With that said, let's get started.

There were a total of six games
released on September 29th

and we covered two of them last time,
including "Uninvited",

and we'll start today
with the remaining four,

including "Thunderbirds"
from Pack In Video

(who tended to specialize in
T.V. and movie license stuff).

We've already seen "Rambo"
and, uh, "Predator" from them.

This intro has some nice
multi-layer scrolling effects.

Obviously, "Thunderbirds"
is based on the well-loved

1960s British T.V. show
of the same name.

While it's more of a cultural
touchstone in the U.K.

than it is in the United States,

I suspect that most people
who grew up in the '70s or '80s

encountered it at some point.

It was a somewhat, uh,
common sight on American T.V.

via syndication,
during those decades.

The original T.V. show was
broadcast from 1965 to 1966;

the original series
only lasted 32 episodes.

Created by Gerry
and Sylvia Anderson,

Thunderbirds was one of several
T.V. series to feature, uh,

"Supermarionation", which basically
means, uh, fancy-ass marionettes.

Others from them included
"Supercar", "Captain Scarlet",

uh, and "Fireball X.L.5".

The Thunderbirds consist of Jeff Tracy
(in the bottom corner there)

and his five sons,
each of which drive a, uh,

super high-tech
"Thunderbird" vehicle.

Oh my God!

Why are you jacking off
in front of your kids?

The story here is

that the Thunderbirds
arch-villain, The Hood...

(who was sort of a stereotypical
Fu Manchu/Yellow Menace-type villain)

...he's gonna' start, uh,
wrecking shit, using meteors.

Hood gives the Thunderbirds
a 60 day deadline to turn over

their, uh, special
Thunderbird vehicles to him.

As a result, "Thunderbirds"
doesn't have a life system,

but rather a time limit.

You have to finish
the game in sixty days

and you can die as many times as you
want, in that sixty day time period.

We've seen some pretty good
Shoot-'em-Ups, um, for the N.E.S.,

but this is definitely
not one of them.

It's about the most generic uninspired
thing you can possibly imagine.

Ships fly down at you and you shoot them;
there's also turrets, and tanks, and things.

The tanks are actually super annoying,
since their projectiles move very fast.

[They're] pretty much impossible to
dodge, if you just happen to be in their

line of fire, so you'll have to memorize
where the tanks are going to appear).

There's a very basic power-up system.

You can upgrade your main gun
twice and get two orbiters

that act like "Gradius"-style options
or little planes that fly next to you,

as in the, uh, "1942" games,
and... that's about it.

When you die, "Brain"
(the Thunderbirds science guy)

chides you for damaging the ship.

Despite, uh, seeing your ship
explode into a million pieces,

Brain says it can be
repaired in three days.

So the sixty day timer counts down
every time you complete a level,

and loses three days
every time you die.

Also, getting killed returns you all
the way to the beginning of the level.

I didn't encounter any bosses, exactly,
in this game, but many levels end

with some kind of roadblock that
you have to fight your way through.

The game is not strictly linear;

you can select the order in which
you visit the different locations.

Depending on the type of
location, you'll be given

one of the five
Thunderbird vehicles.

Oh, God, I hate this level!

Is this game trying
to make you vomit?

Geez! That's some laser!

For a game based on a T.V. show,
the narrative structure is pretty weak.

The levels feel kind of pointless.

A level begins,
you shoot some guys for a bit,

and then the level just ends
and you get some dialogue

explaining that now you've gotta'
travel to some other part of the world.

The levels' themes are mostly
just borrowed from better shooters.

This looks like "1942" or one
of Toaplan's military shooters.

So, basically, it's just a bunch of
completely uninteresting shooter levels,

kind of tossed together, and a
licensed property slapped on top.

For some reason it was deemed worthy
of a U.S. release by Activision,

who kept the name "Thunderbirds"
and the characters' [names],

but didn't otherwise reference the T.V. show
anywhere in the packaging or the manual,

even altering the iconic logo.

I'm not even sure why
this game was created.

Thunderbirds were hardly
a fresh property in 1989

and there wasn't a remake or anything
happening at [that] time, as far as I know,

so this does seem like kind of a strange
choice for Pack In Video to put out.

So, just like another game
we'll be seeing later this episode,

it was a pretty strange choice
to license, for a video game.

Let's move on to a
somewhat better shooter.

From our good buddies, Konami,

it's "TwinBee 3: Poko Poko Dai Maou"
(or "Great Devil King, Poko Poko").

Real quick, let's take a
look at the menu screen.

There's an Options
menu at the bottom.

Here, we can choose, uh,
two difficulty levels:

Easy (which is... pretty easy, and
that's [what] we'll be playing today)

and Hard (which is pretty damn hard),
but no Normal difficulty.

So, here you pick your ship
(either TwinBee or WinBee)

and choose how many lives ya' have.

For the purpose of my sanity,
I'll give myself ten lives.

You can also pick which stage
you wanna' start on.

This is the third and last
TwinBee game for the system.

Earlier, we saw the, uh,
the first "TwinBee" game,

which is a port
of the arcade game.

Then, in 1986, there was a
console-only sequel "Moero TwinBee";

this was released
in the U.S. as "Stinger".

Now, three years later,
we have "TwinBee 3",

which I'd say is
better than the first two.

The main distinguishing factor in TwinBee
is the system of collecting bells.

When you shoot clouds, bells pop up;
gold bells give you points.

Shooting the bells will change the color.

For example, blue bells are speed-ups;
white bells give you a double shot.

If you keep shooting them,
you can get even more options.

Um... However, this can be a
bit tricky (uh, shooting them)

when you're also in the middle

of shooting at enemies
and trying to dodge them.

It is very easy to
accidentally shoot the bell

and change its color to
something that you don't want.

And one very, essential part in
TwinBee is to avoid the blue bells.

Getting a few will speed
you up sufficiently,

but accidentally continuing
to, ah, pick them up

will make your ship way too
fast to accurately control.

TwinBee uses a "Xevious"-like
double weapon system.

Um... You fire your main
weapons at airborne enemies

and drop bombs
on ground enemies,

complete with a little
"Xevious"-style targeting reticule.

Bombing things will
sometimes reveal hidden items

(like a question mark that
destroys all the enemies onscreen

or, here, a better weapon power-up).

You can get a laser beam
weapon from the bells,

but the spreadshot is only found
in a few places in the game,

when you bomb the correct item.

Probably the best part about
"TwinBee 3" are the bosses.

They're actually all
quite odd and creative,

in a very sort of goofy way,
such as this guy:

a, uh, leather and spike
clad Buddha,

who divides into smaller and
smaller versions of himself,

as you, uh, wear down his health.

After, uh, beating a boss, you can
(under certain conditions)

play a bonus level to collect
yellow bells for points.

And this is pretty much
the extent of the game.

Uh... Each level
has a different theme.

This is a sea-themed level.

You can drop bombs on starfish,
shoot jellyfish and whales,

and also large white butterflies
for some reason

(which are normally not
found out in the ocean).

The boss is quite odd;

these three guys are
performing a musical number

and the music is
actually pretty wild

'n' the whole, uh, boss fight
is actually reasonably amusing.

As I mentioned,
Easy mode is pretty damn easy.

A couple of reasons for this,
aside from the enemies being

much less aggressive,

is that you can actually
take three hits before dying.

The first two hits, uh, will
blow each of your arms off.

When this happens, a health refill
will drop, which restores your arms.

When you do die, you can,
uh, keep your power-ups,

if you go grab the spirit
of your [departed] ship

before it flies away to heaven.

This boss is also
pretty creative and amazing;

um... you shoot out the little
fellows living in the dragon's teeth.

The fourth and last regular stage
is a, uh, so-called dungeon level

(though [it] looks like it takes place
in a mine, rather than a dungeon).

It then moves into a flooded
area with Roman-style columns.

Again, [I'm] not really sure what
the theme is supposed to be, here.

Ah... And here we have, uh,
this very rare torch item,

which does nothing upon getting it,
but then the next bell you hit

will drop a power-up for
temporary invincibility.

The least interesting boss follows:
a sea serpent which simply pops up

and shoots lightning at you
(really nothing too special, there).

Finally, we get to the last level:
a surreal level full of magic hats,

cannons, electric fans,
playing cards, and Jack o' Lanterns.

It's pretty frantic, since
cannonballs are indestructible

and the fans will cause you to
sort [of] lose control of your ship

and sort of push you
around a bit on the screen.

However, this isn't nearly
as interesting-looking

as the earlier levels,

with its plain green and blue,
uh, checkerboard design.

The final boss, however,
is absolutely nuts looking;

I mean, just look at this guy.

It's not immediately
obvious what to do,

but it's simply a matter of
shooting out the bottom of

the floating island
he's sitting on.

And, the fact this is so easy is...

makes this final battle,
kind of, a little anticlimactic.

"TwinBee 3" is hardly the
best shooter on the FamiCom.

On the other hand,
compared to all the other

mostly terrible shooters we've been
seeing lately, it's pretty playable!

(I wish they hadn't put that large
bar at the bottom [of] the screen

that shows your score, as it takes up
quite a bit of, uh, vertical space.)

It's cute, the levels and
enemies are mostly charming,

it doesn't feel
unreasonably unfair or cheap.

Quite frankly, the TwinBee series
wouldn't really take off until

the next arcade game,
um, "Detana TwinBee",

which we'll see on
the, uh, P.C. Engine.

Either way,
it's still a lot better

than the other two
shooters this episode.

Alright, moving right along, here,
here's one from Sunsoft: "Maharaja"

(a rather unusual Adventure game

that's, like, got all
mixed up with an R.P.G. game).

While it was published by Sunsoft,

I think it may have
been developed by Quest.

Now, this was never
released outside of Japan,

but we do have a fan translation,
here, that'll sort of help us

appreciate the game a bit more.

Checking out, like, the...
the graphics, you'll see

some of the character design
in this is actually pretty good.

So, apparently there were, uh,
limitations in regards to

the number of characters
they could squeeze in

on the menu panel
on the left hand side.

Thus, uh, for example, om,
"see" becomes "S.E.",

"show" becomes "S.H.O.",
and... and so on.

I guess they, om,
when they translated this,

they didn't... they didn't
actually do the hacking to, like,

you know, change the, uh,
the character width,

or something like that.

So, you happen to find, uh,
the Maharaja's box in a river.

You bring it to the Maharaja,
who treats you as an honored guest.

However, that night
a princess reveals to you

that you are going to be
killed the next day

in some kind of, like, sacrificial
rite, or something like that.

Um... So far this is a very
by-the-numbers menu-based Adventure game.

Om... The first thing you do, here,
is to find your way out of the palace.

There's no obvious way out,
since the only exit is guarded,

um, but eventually you'll figure out
there’s, like, a hidden door

that can be unlocked
by moving a statue.

And you are, of course, um,
some kind of chosen one,

who's destined to save the
world or something like that.

Um... The actual game world
is set up just like many

many other Adventure games.

There's basically a series of,
uh, sort of, connected screens

you can travel among,
using the menu commands.

So, for example, from the Swami,
you can move to the town square,

and from there you can go one step
over to the weapons shop, or ...n...

in another direction to the inn.

And there's a shop that sells,
like, consumable items as well.

Also, right next to the
town square is a jungle.

And, uh, here you...

is where you can actually find
enemies and random encounters.

These battles work
just like every other J.R.P.G.

Um...
There's a menu option to fight.

Eh... You can use magic,
use items, and so on.

You'll gain both gold and
experience from winning battles,

and as you gain levels,
you can learn spells

(or mantras, as
the game calls them).

Now, once you figure out
you can bribe Ganesha

by giving him an item,
you'll be able to talk to Shiva,

who has, sort of, like, an...
an animé character face, here.

Now, whenever you talk to him,
you can learn new mantras

if you've reached
the sufficient level.

The first two are a Heal spell
and a Teleportation spell,

which are actually, uh, pretty
useful, when you think about it.

After that, there's lots of
other spells that can be used in battle,

such as a fireball spell and
a spell that freezes an enemy,

or one that prevents them from
using magic and... and so on.

Pretty much, kind of, very,
sort of, typical J.R.P.G. spells.

So, this hybrid Adventure game/
R.P.G. system is pretty unusual.

There were a couple other games
that attempted similar ideas

(for example Square's 1987 F.D.S.
game, "Cleopatra no Mahou",

which we covered back in Episode 20,
and "Kujaku Ou" from Episode 35).

Now, one issue, here, is that,
unlike the giant overworlds

found in R.P.G.s, the area in which
you can move around is somewhat small.

I mean, everything’s, like,
really really close.

You don't actually
move around a lot.

The jungle is the,
uh, the first place

in the beginning of the game
you can actually encounter enemies,

but it's not that big - only
around six by six squares.

So, you have to spend
a great deal of time,

being... just, sort of,
like, you know, going...

going back and forth, in order
to actually gain a few levels.

There's really not much, like,
exploration of the world in this game.

Eventually, you'll
find the towers,

if you take the correct
path through the jungle.

The enemies in the Iron Tower
are quite a bit stronger,

and you'll need to gain several
more levels to get very far.

So again, you need to
grind in the Iron Tower.

As far as dungeons go,
the towers are pretty dull.

They're simply a, uh, a... a
regular straight path going forward,

with a constant stream
of enemies at each step,

and then a boss
battle at the end.

So, once you get all the way
through the Iron Tower,

you'll find an item, om, in a
chest that will unlock the door

connecting the Iron
and the Silver Towers.

But to leave the Iron Tower,
you have to backtrack

all the way to the front door.

Then the only way into the
Silver Tower is to go all the way

through the Iron Tower again,

and then travel down the long hallways
of the Silver Tower, and so on.

So, these rather long,
completely linear dungeons

are actually pretty
damn monotonous.

"Maharaja" doesn't really satisfy
as an R.P.G. or Adventure game.

There's not really much exploration,
as I mentioned;

there's nothing really in
the way of puzzle solving.

It's a...
it's a very curious oddity.

And it's not exactly poorly made.

I mean, the quality of everything
seems relatively high,

but the, sort of, lack of
variety may frustrate you.

One last Japanese game from September:

It's "Meiji Ishin", from Use Software

(publishers of such terrible
crap as "Bats & Terry",

which made my
Worst Famicom Games video).

So far, none of the games we've seen
from Use have even been remotely good.

This one, however, is
at least a little weird.

It's sort of a combination Adventure
game and Military Strategy game.

It's basically
two different games,

sort of, stitched together
into a Frankenstein game.

"Meiji Ishin" is what we call
the Meiji Restoration.

That is the period in the late
19th and early 20th century,

which, uh, resulted in
the overthrow of the shogunate

and the reinstatement, um,
of the Emperor as the actual

ruling power in Japan.

Obviously this game
is very Japanese-heavy

and will not be [of]
much interest to most of us,

but we will still take a
quick little look at it.

I think you might be
playing as Saigō Takamori

or some other historical figure
(not sure who, exactly).

The first part o' the game has you
traveling to Edo to gather allies.

The second half
switches over to

a simple math-based
Military Strategy game,

based on, I think, the Boshin War
of the 1860s (I'm not sure).

Not having the patience to
get through this, you know,

kind of a long game,

I'll be looking just
at the first half, today.

You have the typical action menu on
the right hand side of the screen,

with the, uh, standard options
of Move, Look, Talk, et cetera.

The opening section [of] the game
is basically one of those, you know,

"press the A button to advance"
kinda' deals.

You might call it a
"walking down the road"-

simulation game,
because you do a lot [of]

walking from town to town.

You often need to speak to a guard,
each town, and show your pass or something.

You'll also have these very
uneventful encounters along the road.

Uh... At one point someone
comes up behind you,

and keeps tapping [you] on the
shoulder until you turn around.

Good stuff.

Eventually some excitement happens when
you get trained in the combat system.

Later in the game you'll
actually encounter enemies

and need to fight them, and
this guy trains you how to fight.

When green or red dots appear,
you need to press the D-Pad

in the correct direction
and hit the correct button;

green dots are defense
and red are offense.

So, doing these correctly
will keep [you] from losing life

and will cause you to
do damage to the enemy

(though this guy, you really
can't actually do any damage to).

After you've passed
this training exercise,

you have to do it another
three times. (Great.)

Then, it's back on the road.

Eventually, at some point
(well into the game)

you'll have real fights
with real enemies.

Um... I think that's still
a while into the point...

a while after the point
that I got, though.

This is definitely the most
obscure game this episode.

It doesn't even have its own,
uh, page on Japanese Wikipedia.

The first chunk of the game
is so repetitive

(I mean literally just
walking down the road

and talking [to] the
same people over and over)

so I can definitely see why this
has been completely forgotten.

Well, here it is:
another one of those games.

L.J.N.'s "Back to the Future",

developed by those boys
from Down Under, Beam Software.

Beam Software's résumé was
erratic, to say the least.

We've already seen the U.S. version
of "Airwolf" and "Bad Street Brawlers",

from them, both of which were just
incredibly dull and sloppily made games,

though a few years later
they would actually produce uh,

"Nightshade" and "Shadow Run".

So, yeah, pretty weird company, in
terms of the quality of their output.

Their name is mostly associated
with hastily produced crap, however.

The movie came out in 1985, but
this game is clearly released to help promote

"Back to the Future II", which would
arrive in theaters in September of 1989.

There was an earlier "Back to the Future"
computer game, which is completely unrelated.

This game is hated and despised
for a number of reasons.

One of them is that there is
not much connection to the movie,

in terms of the actual gameplay.

The majority of the game
is spent, uh, doing this:

walking around town, uh, in a series of,
sort of, obstacle course-like levels.

These are timed forced-scrolling levels.

So, they sort of resemble a, uh,
vertical Shoot-'em-Up, in some ways.

I suppose the inspiration might
be Atari's "Paperboy" game?

The object, here, is to, uh,
keep collecting clocks,

in order to prevent the
timer from running down.

Touching anything other than a clock
will cause you to fall down.

This means avoiding
women with a hula hoop,

random guys who charge at you, garbage
cans, park benches, and little fences

(or whatever the hell those things
are, on the edge of the sidewalk).

Most dangerous, though, are the
enormous bees that fly around,

since they fly directly at you

and normally try to circle back
around you to hit you from behind.

Hitting anything causes you to fall down
and, uh, sort of flop around on the ground

(and this will result in all
the clocks around you vanishing,

so you lose valuable time
whenever this happens).

Once you reach the end of this
section, you move onto the next.

Uh... This is actually the same thing:
walking down the sidewalk.

You do this four times in a row,
until you reach Lou's Diner.

Then you get one of four minigames
that appear in "Back to the Future".

The first one has you throwing root beer floats
at the dudes that try to rush the counter.

If one reaches the counter, they'll grab you
and toss you down the bar into the door.

Keep in mind, you have to hit
these guys directly in the head.

Aiming for their bodies will not work;
the root beer float will just,

sort of, float right through them.

It's not that difficult, in theory,
but missing once will cause you

to lose the level, and you need
to knock down a hundred guys.

Then it's back to the walking sequences.

Eventually you'll get to the library,
where you encounter the next minigame.

Your mother throws hearts at you
and you try to catch them.

Well, technically you aren't catching them;
you're blocking them with a textbook or something.

But if you don't want the hearts to touch
you, wouldn't you just, uh, be dodging them,

as opposed to trying to, sort of,
catch them with your book, somehow?

I don't really get the concept, here.

So this pattern repeats four times: some walking
segments, then a, uh, different minigame.

The walking segments do
have a few extra features.

You can grab a bowling ball, and throw it
at enemies, and (even better) a skateboard,

which allows you to move much faster.

Now, it's really easy to get
knocked down off the skateboard,

but it goes so fast that even
if you remain on it, for, like,

just, like, a few seconds,

you're almost guaranteed to be able to
finish the level before the time runs out.

The game actually has two sorts of timers.

[Do] you remember in the movie, there's that
photograph that Marty had with his siblings,

and they started to, sort of, fade away, as,
um, time progressed throughout the movie?

Uh... Here's actually
the photo from the movie itself.

And then compare this
to the photo in the game.

Wow, those guys from Beam
really went the extra mile, here;

it's like looking at
the exact same picture!

Anyway, if the picture
fades completely, you die.

Aside from this sort of thing,
it almost feels like

the people who made this game
had never actually seen the movie.

My main issue with "Back to the Future"
is that there is no cohesion

between the different parts.

It's essentially a handful of
very basic minigames, kind of

awkwardly crammed together,
and the individual games feel like they

could easily be from the Atari 2600 era,
in terms of gameplay.

And none of these are, uh, little
minigames are actually very original.

I mentioned, uh, the the traveling sequences
re... resembling "Paperboy".

The minigame in Lou's Diner,
where you throw root beer floats,

is basically the same thing as
the old arcade game, "Tapper".

And the game in the library,
where you're catching the hearts

is really not that different
than the old Atari game, "Kaboom!".

After you complete this
guitar playing section

(which is actually really easy,
once you kind of wrap your head around it)

you make your way to the final section,

where we need to race the DeLorean
to reach 88 miles per hour.

However, I think the lightning
melts the roads, which slows you down,

so you need to avoid all the, ah,
the spots where the lightning has hit.

And then, on top of all the other crap
this game throws at you,

if you fail at this part, even once,
you get a total Game Over.

I mean, quite frankly I recommend abusing
the Start button, throughout this game,

which pauses it, so you can
actually see in advance

where the lightning is going to strike, and
then you'll be able to avoid it a bit easier.

It's weird that they used a pause button on
a game mostly built around fast reaction times.

I mean you can use the pause button to
pretty much beat the minigame levels,

like involving catching hearts
or catching guitar notes,

but pretty much everything else in this game
is completely absurd, so why not this as well?

Anyway, having actually played this game,

I can now understand why
people really really hate it.

Oh man! Number 2 in today's
shitty L.J.N. game trilogy, "N.F.L.",

(despite being the first N.E.S. game
with an actual official N.F.L. license)

is almost forgotten today.

It's sorta' stuck, forever living in the shadow
of its far superior ah, rival, "Tecmo Bowl".

So, when we say “N.F.L. license”, uh,
this

means that the real team names were used.

The names of individual players
were not used,

since that would actually be
a completely different license.

For game select, you can choose to
play an American Conference game

or a National Conference game
or InterConference or Super Bowl.

I'm not really sure exactly
what the difference between

Super Bowl and InterConference is,
but of course, these allow you to choose

an opponent from, uh, the other conference.

So, as we see, this does, in fact,
use the real life team names.

But for the players we only
get the position names.

You have the option to upgrade a
player, but doing so will penalize you,

by supposedly making it more likely
you'll have a penalty called on you.

Now, it's not a hundred percent clear
who developed "N.F.L.",

but it appears that Atlus
was somehow involved

(um, as they were in
several other L.J.N. games).

Possibly [Sanritsu] may
have also been involved?

According to the manual, Tom Bass
(coach for the Buccaneers and the Chargers)

was "instrumental" in the development
of this game's "authentic action".

Bass had written a few books
on football tactics

and used to give seminars, aimed at
helping women understand [football].

Of course, what exactly he did
on this game is anybody's guess.

So, basically that... everything that, uh,
Tecmo's uh, football games do right,

this one does completely wrong.

The little arrows over the heads indicate,
uh, which player's being controlled.

But actually controlling anything is
sometimes needlessly complicated.

Whereas "Tecmo Bowl" is,
uh, pretty damn intuitive

in terms of how you play it,
doing stuff in "N.F.L". involves, uh,

pressing a series of buttons
that you'll need to, uh, refer back

to the manual a few times, in order to,
kind of, read up on wh...

you know, what the hell
you're supposed to be doing.

However, the biggest stumbling block for
playing "N.F.L." involves calling plays.

Much like "Tecmo Bowl", you select
[an] offensive or defensive position

by pressing a combination of buttons on
the D-Pad and using the A and B buttons.

However, Tecmo's game actually
displays diagrams of the plays.

"N.F.L." has you entering your plays while
looking at the scoreboard, for some reason.

Nothing really helpful in determining
what play you wanna' use.

The manual has this, uh, also
not very helpful list of plays,

but doesn't tell you the right
button combinations to press.

You see, originally this came with
a couple little fold out play sheets

that gave details about the plays
and how to select them.

However, the play sheet seems to
have almost, kind of, completely

disappeared down the memory hole.

I couldn't even find a
good photo of it online.

A few listings for complete-in-box copies
of "N.F.L". didn't even have the play sheet.

Now, obviously you can find guides online
that'll tell you how to input each play,

but this game is pretty much completely
unplayable without having that information.

So you can't just, like, you know, buy a
loose cart and pop it in and start playing.

One other weird little thing:
most resources call this "N.F.L. Football",

yet the box cover, the game, the manual
– everything calls it just "N.F.L.".

A little strange.

Anyway, this is the, uh, one football game
that you should definitely "pass" on.

Our third and final piece of unrepentant trash
from L.J.N. is "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".

And we have one of those classic
Rare “wall of text” screens, here.

I mean, geez, just look at this!
What's with the flying question marks?

And look at the "Who Framed" text;
is that really the best they could do?

Why is there such a huge space
between "Who" and "Framed"?

There is just so much typical,
"Who gives a shit?", attitude

from Rare in this game.

Now, I assume you're all
familiar with the movie,

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?",
from 1988.

Produced by Steven Spielberg's
Amblin Entertainment,

it was an odd mashup of Chinatown and
American animation of the 1930s and '40s.

Bob Hoskins plays a detective,
named Eddie Valiant,

who gets involved in the
murder case of one Marvin Acme,

who is having an affair with Jessica Rabbit,
wife of the cartoon star, Roger Rabbit.

Acme's missing will
(a major plot point, in the movie)

becomes the crux of the story for this game.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is,
I suppose, an Adventure game, of sorts.

The object is mostly to go around town,
collecting items.

Some of these items will
help you advance the story.

Now, when you put it like that,
this sounds kinda' like "Déjà Vu",

but in this game the idea is implemented
very very very differently.

The first part of the game
takes place in Los Angeles,

where you walk around the street and
explore a series of almost identical buildings,

all the while trying to avoid
getting hit by cars.

Inside a building,
you will find numerous rooms,

which are always full of tables,
chairs, dressers, and desks.

You can open the desk and dressers,
in hopes of, uh, finding a piece of the will.

Of course, 99% of the many
many drawers have nothing in them.

Aside from that, you will find items
just lying around on the floor.

Some [of] them are unique quest items;
others are usable items.

There's, uh, stuff like wallets
(which contain money),

items for dealing with enemies,
and so on.

For example, the whistle will
summon Benny the Cab.

You can use him to
drive around town quicker,

and he's required to access
later parts of the game.

Now, aside from its impressive
combination of live action and animation,

the one thing that stood out
at the time, in this movie,

was the huge number
of guest appearances

from various cartoon characters
from different studios.

In the days before
extensive cross-branding,

["Who Framed] Roger Rabbit?" accomplished
what seemed to be the impossible act

of getting Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny
together in one cartoon.

I mean, at the time this seemed,
you know, virtually miraculous.

Of course, none of these other characters
were available for this game,

so the concept of Toon Town has been
reduced down to basically almost nothing.

Toon Town does appear later in the game,

but it's actually a lot like Los Angeles,
with different-looking buildings.

["Who Framed] Roger Rabbit?" is one [of]
those games that tries to do many things,

but doesn't really do any of them well.

It looks like an open-world Adventure game,
but there's really not much interesting to

find.

Exploring L.A. mostly just involves
walking up and down streets,

entering a bunch of these
identical looking buildings,

and picking up
randomly scattered items.

You talk to people but,
unlike in Sierra or LucasArts games,

no one ever says anything
even remotely interesting.

There are also some action bits,
like shit falling on your head

when you try to pick something up
or, uh, animals that attack you

the second you enter a screen,
uh, which kill you in one hit.

And if you're not careful, this can
happen over and over and over.

Birds will fly out of the sky
and pick up Roger

(which also kills you),
cars will run over you (killing you);

everything in this game is all
just so awkward and wrong.

For example, um, you walk around
the street, using the D-Pad,

you know, exactly like
you would expect.

When you hop in Benny the Cab, suddenly
the control scheme completely changes.

All Benny does is make you move
around the streets faster, yet

(for some reason) Rare decided

they needed a completely
different control scheme for this.

On foot, the Up button moves up;
in Benny, Up button does... nothing.

They went through the trouble of actually
creating this second control scheme,

which adds absolutely zero to the game!

And that's the weird thing about Rare!

I mean, it's like,

they're not... lazy, it seems;
they're not exactly cutting corners.

They put effort into things that do
not enhance the game experience

(and quite possibly detract from it).

Among other odd things,

sometimes Roger gets
captured by these two weasels

and they tell corny old jokes (you
have to choose the correct answers).

This feels like something Rare,
sort of, threw in as filler.

I mean, does anyone
actually enjoy these parts?

To me, when the weasels grab Roger, it's like,
"Oh, great. Not... Not this crap again.".

There is some sort of logic
to some [of] the puzzles.

For example, you can't enter this club
until ya' find the password

(which is placed, of course, in
some random location in town).

When you enter the club,
you find Jessica Rabbit.

You can try to talk to her, but she'll
tell you to find her phone number

(which I'm sure is also randomly
hidden in one [of] the buildings).

There are tons of items in this game
- usually with one very specific use.

For example, there are separate items for,

uh, fending off the wild, uh, cats,
dogs, and snakes that attack you.

There's lots of one-time-use items, like
a password or Jessica's phone number.

You can see which item you have selected,
up there at the top.

However (get this)
at various points the weasels will attack.

We have to fight them, but there's not
just an attack button you can use.

No, you actually have to select your fist
(or weapon), [at...] from the items menu.

And this is done by (I shit you not)
holding down the Select button

while you scroll through every item,
until you reach your fist.

And you cannot move,
while you're doing this,

because you're using the D-Pad
to browse through the items.

So, often you'll have to, sort of,
stop going through the menu,

move away from the weasel
(so he doesn't hit you),

and then start going
through the menu again.

The actual fighting is quite awkward,
and you can lose a life

if you get hit too many times.

Apparently, you have a life meter,
but it appears to be invisible.

And those little "P"s that appear
[across], uh, the bar at the top, there?

They, apparently, don't
represent your life bar

(and I swear I read through the manual
and it doesn't mention them at all)

so who knows what those actually do?

There's so much weird shit like this.

Like, when you start winding up your punch,
you can't move while doing so,

unless you were already moving
when you started winding up the punch

(then you can continue to move).

Was this intentional
or is it some kind of weird bug?

In some ways, this reminds me of the old
Atari 2600 game, "Raiders [of] the Lost Ark".

There's a lot [of] things [you] have to do,
in a very specific fashion,

but the game is very obtuse about it.

So, you just, sort of, wander around randomly,
hoping you'll be lead in the right direction.

Even the manual doesn't tell you
what any [of] the items do.

Some [of] them (like the password)
get explained in the context of the game,

but what do rattles do?
(What about baseballs? The cigars?)

Even purchasing items from
the store is really not that clear.

You need to select a wallet
from the items menu,

and then use it while you're
actually standing right...

directly next to the item
that you want to buy.

In what other game does buying
from a shop work like that?

I mean, it's weird!

So many games are so intuitive,
with how the basic controls work,

but here you walk into your...
a store, and you're like,

"Uh... How do I actually buy this shit?".

It's not even clear what
Roger Rabbit does in this game.

I mean, he follows Eddie around everywhere,
but it's... he's pretty much just window dressing.

You can't control him, and he's
totally useless, for the most part

(at least in the first half
of the game that I played).

I guess they couldn't figure out any other
way to, sort of, work him into the game,

so he's just, sort of, like, this fellow
who shadows you everywhere you go.

I can't think of many games that
just fail at so many levels at once.

It's actually completely exasperating.
It's really an utterly bizarre game.

Well, here we are - the big game this episode:
Capcom's "DuckTales"

- the first in a series of very successful
Disney games from Capcom

(and I mean very successful).

Supposedly, "DuckTales" was Capcom's
biggest selling N.E.S. game.

It was, of course, based on the
wildly popular animated T.V. show,

that ran from 1987 to 1990
(which was, itself, based mostly on

the duck comics of Carl Barks
from the 1940s through the 1960s).

While Barks did not create Donald Duck
or his nephews, he hid... did introduce

lots of characters like Uncle Scrooge,
The Beagle Boys, Flintheart Glomgold,

Magica De Spell, Gyro Gearloose,
and many others.

Barks' duck comics were among
the most perfect comics ever created

and the "DuckTales" T.V.show was
basically a tribute to Barks, in many ways.

Capcom released this in the U.S. first

and then gave it a Japanese release
in January 1990, under the name,

"Wanpaku Dakku Yume Bōken" or
"Naughty Duck Dream Adventure".

The rather strange English text
found in both the, uh, beta of the U.S. game

and the Japanese game states that,
according to Scrooge,

the most important treasure
is "Dream and Friends".

Capcom had a pretty fruitful
relationship with Disney,

and this was the first Disney game
that they actually developed themselves.

They had published
"Mickey Mousecapade" in the U.S.,

though that was actually developed by Hudson,
who published the original Japanese release.

"DuckTales" continues Capcom's streak of
quality Action/Platforming games for the N.E.S.

We'd previously seen "Bionic Commando", "Strider",
and of course the two "MegaMan" games.

Just like "Bionic Commando", this uses a
rather unusual mechanic for getting around.

Scrooge can [walk] and jump,

but the only way he can attack enemies
is by using his cane as a pogo stick.

Now, this seems absurd.

Canes don't have springs in them, for one,
nor do they have a place to put your feet

on,

and if you look closely at Scrooge's sprite,
you'll see that he's actually completely

bent over to the point where his torso
is almost touching the ground.

He's holding onto the cane with his
hands and the top end of the cane

appears to be pressed
up against his chest.

Attempting to pogo like this would either
impale him on the cane

or at the very least shatter his sternum,
yet Scrooge (very improbably)

is able to bounce around all over
the place like this, unharmed.

Not only can Scrooge jump
higher than normal, using the cane,

but this is the only way that
he can directly kill enemies

- by impaling them on the end of a cane
(which is, I'm sure, a very horrible way to

die).

All this sounds really cool,
except for one problem:

initiating the pogo jump
is slightly too complex.

You need to press A to do a regular jump,
then, before hitting the ground,

press Down on the D-Pad,
and hold down the B button.

This doesn't sound like much work, I know,

but I don't quite understand why it
has to require three button presses.

The thing is, you use the pogo jump constantly.

I mean (just a reminder) this is
the only way you can kill enemies;

if you do a regular jump
and land on an enemy, you die.

Many many jumps in this game can
only be done, using the pogo jump.

Other than that, there are lots
of weird little issues with it.

It seems that if you are running,
then jump forward into a pogo jump,

you will, like, stop moving forward
when you hit the ground,

and it can be hard to initiate
the jump in very tight quarters.

Sometimes, when you're, like, landing
on a narrow platform, when you land,

you'll actually come out of the pogo jump.

And, you can still die,
while trying to pogo jump on enemies,

if you don't hit them exactly right.

For example, right here, I thought I
was going to land on this Beagle Boy

but, if we look at it frame by frame,
we see, yes, I'm getting quite close,

cane isn't quite lined up right,
and "Blammo!" there I go.

At the end of each level, you'll encounter
a boss battle; here's the first one.

Unfortunately, all the bosses are pretty
simple variations on the same fight.

The boss moves around and you
need to pogo and land on his head.

Then, after a few times, he drops the treasure,
and then you return to the Level Select screen.

For the most part, the main objective is
simply to find the exit of each level.

However, while you're in there, you can
also search around for money and items.

Uh... Gems and diamonds
are found everywhere.

They fall out of the air;
they're also inside treasure chests.

You can [either] only take a rather
straightforward path to the boss,

or you can explore around a bit
more and find various detours

and alternate paths,
in order to get more treasure.

You can also occasionally
find helpful things,

like ice cream and cake,
to restore your health

(though I'm not sure that birds
can digest dairy products)

and, in a couple cases, you will find
an item that extends your health bar.

There's also a couple
hidden special treasures.

Once you defeat the second boss,
Magica De Spell,

(who is, incidentally, the only boss that
is actually taken from the cartoon,

instead of being just some generic monster)
you then go on to the African mines.

However, you immediately
run into one of your nephews,

who tells you you need a key,
in order to proceed.

And the key is found in...
the previous level.

Yeah, you actually have to immediately
return to Transylvania and look for the key.

Fortunately, it's a very short trip to
the room where the key is kept.

The mine level is kind of strange and th...
the path to the boss [is] actually quite short,

but there is a much
longer meandering path,

where [you] can pick up
lots of treasures and money.

While playing "DuckTales",
it reminded me a lot

of the N.E.S. version of
"Strider", aesthetically.

Just like "Strider", there is
a vibe of, you know,

"Here's the cave level, here's the jungle
level,.. oh, and here's a snow level!"

The computer thing cr...
Scrooge uses between levels

is very similar to the one "Strider" uses.

Of course, "DuckTales" is
much simpler than "Strider".

There's no special items that
give you any additional abilities

(other than the life bar extension)

and there, [you know], are a couple
extra lives found here and there.

But there's not much backtracking, other
than that brief return to Transylvania.

It's pretty much a matter of wandering
around the level until you find the boss.

I mean, sure, there's exploration, but there's
not much to find, other than diamonds.

And the question is, "Why look for diamonds?".
Your money counter is basically just a score.

Diamonds don't do anything in the game.

There is no actual in game
benefit to picking them up.

You can't spend them at
shops or anything like that.

The only thing they actually do is impact
the ending, which we'll get to in just a bit.

The other thing that bugs me is the lack of
any kind of game story or narrative drive.

"DuckTales" was aimed at younger audiences,
so there's not a lot [of] dialogue,

but this doesn't really make great use
of the "DuckTales" license.

I mean, this could easily have been developed
as something else entirely different

and then the sprites swapped in
at the very last moment.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie just appear in random
places throughout the game for no reason

and don't really do anything.

And why is Mrs. Beakley in the diamond mine?

Or, why is Bubba in the Himalayas,
frozen in a block of ice?

It's interesting that people always
complain about "Back to the Future",

for, like, not being faithful to the movie

("Did they even see "Back to the Future"
before making the game?")

but really, did anyone at Capcom
ever see an episode of "DuckTales"

or were they just handed
character model sheets and told,

"Stick the characters in there, somewhere.".

Even the instruction manual
doesn't offer any kind of story,

other than simply, you know,
Scrooge is looking for treasure.

DuckTales is pretty repetitive
and most levels are quite similar,

with just the background graphics
being a little different

(like, in the jungle level you climb up vines
and, on the mine level, you climb up chains).

The Himalayas level is about
the only level that, sort of,

finds a way to use the environment
to alter the gameplay.

That is, if you try to pogo on the snow,
you'll get stuck (which makes sense, of course)

and it does use falling icicles
and slippery blocks of ice a bit, as well.

Now, please don't think that I'm telling
you that DuckTales is a bad game.

It's actually pretty good!

I mean, it's sort of unambitious, when compared
to Capcom's other recent Platform/Action games,

and, whereas "MegaMan 2" was a labor of love,

"DuckTales" feels like competent guys
making [a] game that they were paid to make.

Everyone loves the Moon Level music,
and yeah I will admit, it's pretty darn nice.

1up.com once put this game at number 9
on a list of the best ever N.E.S. games,

which seems (quite frankly) insane to me
and I grade this as a solid B... maybe a B-.

So, once you've found all five treasures,
something of a plot twist occurs;

your treasures all get stolen, somehow,

and you get a message, telling you
to come to Dracula Duck Manor

(which turns out to be
the Transylvania level again).

As someone pointed out, this was,
uh, produced by Tokuro Fujiwara

(designer of "Ghosts 'n' Goblins")

which might explain why you have
to play through this level twice.

So you make your way back to
the same boss room as before,

then face the final boss:
Dracula Duck.

He's a bit trickier than the other bosses
(which are all quite easily beaten)

um, but here you actually
need to land on a bat,

in order to bounce high enough
to hit him on the head.

All this seems to be a, uh, Castlevania...
(parody? homage? rip off?);

I'm not quite sure.

Once defeated, uh, Magica De Spell
and Flintheart Glomgold appear

and say that they will
race you to your treasure.

I don't even know which one
is supposed [to] be talking...

or, for that matter, how Magica or Flintheart
are even connected to Dracula Duck,

but you do get this very silly little race,
where all you do is climb straight up the

rope.

There's no way to lose this,
unless you deliberately try.

Now, there are three possible endings.

There's the regular one (this one),
um, but if you have, uh, ended

the game with more money,

you get a picture of Scrooge
on a larger pile of treasure,

and if you beat the game with no money,
you get a pic of Scrooge looking,

you know, sad
because he has no treasure.

Overall, it's a nice game.

I wouldn't put it among the top tier
of Capcom masterpieces

but it is better than 90%
of the crap on the FamiCom,

and it did inaugurate Capcom's
series of high quality Disney games.

Oh no!
It's "Fester's Quest"

- one of the most hated and despised games
on the Nintendo Entertainment System

(probably not hated as much as
"Back to the Future", though).

Now, it might not be clear, but, uh,
Uncle Fester was moonbathing one night,

when a spaceship
kidnapped a bunch of people.

Gomez must protect the family,

so it's up to Uncle Fester to
rescue all those poor Manhattanites.

It's not even clear what
this game's name is.

The title screen says,
"Uncle Fester's Quest: The Addams Family";

the box art just says,
"Fester's Quest".

This was developed and published by Sunsoft,
and only released in the U.S. and Europe.

What's it like?

Well, do you remember the parts
of Sunsoft's "Master Blaster"

where ya' got out of the tank
and the game became sorta' like a

top down "Commando"-type game?

Well, just imagine an entire game of just
those parts and you'll have "Fester's Quest".

The game takes place in Central Park,
I assume, as well as the sewers below.

We don't see the
Addams Family mansion, per se,

but instead there's several smaller houses
[which] are scattered around the park

(each containing one member
of the family, for some reason).

Now, I'm sure you're all familiar with
"The Addams Family" and Uncle Fester.

He first appeared in the, uh,
Charles Addams New Yorker, uh, cartoons,

as an unnamed creepy bald weirdo.

When The Addams Family was
developed into a T.V. show in the mid-'60s

and the cartoon characters were
fleshed out and given names,

while Fester is clearly someone's uncle,

he's sometimes described as "Gomez's brother"
and sometimes as "Morticia'a uncle".

Former child star, Jackie Coogan
portrayed him in the original show.

The game draws some elements
from the character from the T.V. show,

such as Fester wielding a blunderbuss and,
uh,

somehow being able to power a light bulb.

Aside from your gun and the light bulbs,
you'll also need keys to open doors,

money to buy hot dogs
(to refill your health),

gun power-ups, as well as items
provided by the other family members,

such as various types of potions
and missiles and so on.

"Fester's Quest" is usually regarded as a
pretty difficult game for several reasons.

One problem you might
encounter early on is that

your gun's projectiles move
in weird curved paths.

The patterns actually change as you power
up the gun and some travel in a... such a

severe curve that it's almost impossible to
hit enemies, eh, as they close in on you.

Or, when you're traveling in tight quarters,
your projectiles will actually just

curve, right into the wall and
you won't be able to hit anything at all.

Once you power it up all the way, the gun
becomes an actual, like, wall of death,

but gun power-downs are dropped just as frequently
(or probably moreso than gun power-ups)

so you can very easily power
down your guns by accident.

At first glance, "Fester's Quest" appears
[to]

resemble a Metroid-vania or Zelda-type game.

You have this big maze-like overworld
and you can explore around the park,

find various helpful items, climb down
into the sewers, and come out in new areas.

In fact, the overworld and
the sewers are two big maps,

connected together at various points,

with only certain areas being... being
accessible at the beginning of a game.

However, as the game progresses,
you'll see that [it] becomes very very linear.

There's only one specific
path through the world

and while there are a few areas
that are slightly off the main path,

the game pretty much goes like this:

You walk through a path in the park
that ends in a sewer entrance,

you go into the sewer,
re-enter the park,

take the path through the park
to a building, enter the building,

fight a boss at the end [of] the building,
and then repeat

(five bosses and then you enter
the final level: the U.F.O.).

For some reason, the game throws in these
first person sections, right before the boss

fights.

There's not much point; I mean, they're
just small mazes with nothing in them.

At the end is a rather boring-looking
office door, wherein hides the boss.

All the bosses are sorta' similar to this:
a large dude who moves back and forth,

attacking you from above.

You need to dodge his attacks
(which are simple repetitive patterns)

and shoot him until he dies.

Afterwards, you exit,
and then move on to the next level.

Now, you must admit, "The Addams Family"
was sort of an odd subject for a game in 1989.

There hadn't been any new Addams Family material,
since a, uh, made-for-T.V. movie in the '70s,

and "The Addams Family" movie was
still a little over two years away.

As it turns out, this was sort of a passion
project from Richard Robbins at Sunsoft.

According to an interview on KidFenris.com
the idea came to Robbins in a dream,

and in order to get it made,
he spent a great number of, uh,

phone calls to Addams' widow in France,
trying to convince her to give him permission.

Sunsoft's home office in Japan didn't
understand why he wanted to make this game,

but obviously it was made, and it was developed
by the same team as "Master Blaster".

Apparently the lack of any sort of
save system was due to a "oversight"

and once they realized the game
really needed one, it was too late,

which brings me to the other thing that
makes "Fester's Quest" so damn difficult.

You can take two hits before you die.
What happens when you die?

You restart at the beginning...

(no, not the beginning of a level)
...the beginning of the entire damn game).

That's right, if you get killed, um, for
example, like, on the final boss fight,

you go all the way back to where you
started at the beginning of the game

[and must] go through
the entire game again.

Now, granted, you get to keep
your weapons and items, but still

(I mean, you get hit twice and you have
to start all over again?) that's insane!

Now, there is a well-hidden secret item
that extends your life bar to three notches.

In fact, apparently there's another
one of these that I didn't find,

that gives you a fourth notch.

And you do get some potions,
early on [in] the game,

but only five [of] them (and
you can't buy extras anywhere).

So, you have to play through
the game in one sitting and

basically not make more
than a handful of mistakes.

Now, after your gun,

part way through the game you
get a second weapon from Morticia

(a whip, which kinda' resembles the flaming
whip of "Castlevania 2", when fully upgraded).

This actually is a bit more
powerful [than] the gun,

but on the other hand you have to
be a bit more careful when aiming it.

The final U.F.O. level is full
of tons of difficult enemies.

Um... Though, a very helpful item you
get late in the game is the noose,

which kills all the enemies onscreen
(presumably by hanging them, I guess).

Now, should you make it this far,
luckily it turns out the final boss

(which is some kind of killer robot/
computer/metal gear thing I don't know,

but it) can be easily defeated if you still
have enough invisibility potions and missiles.

Once you've knocked out
the guns up in front,

you can just stand right here, and its,
um, remaining weapon can't hit you

and you can just fire away with
your missiles until it blows up.

And that's it!

I guess the spaceship decides to
beam down all the Earthlings, um,

back to Earth, right before exploding.

And then the happy New Yorkers
and you have a little rave together.

It's a shame that "Fester's Quest" is,
like, so close to being a good game.

Just a few tweaks and
it would have been pretty decent.

Um.. Either way, though, it actually sold
pretty well (a million copies, apparently).

So, while it's far from perfect,
it's still better than "Back to the Future".

One last game for September.
This one is also, curiously, a U.S.-only release.

But listen to this music.

Now, if you've played enough, uh,
N.E.S. games, your first thought might be,

"Now, that is some hella' British music!".

I think [it's] that little "brrrring" thing
that gives it away.

So, "Sky Shark" is the first console game
to have music by Tim Folan,

who had previously found fame
doing the music for various games

on the Commodore 64 and the Z.X. Spectrum
and, uh, you know, systems like that.

As is often the case with these
N.E.S. games that were released

in the, uh, western market only,
Taito went to a British developer

(in this case, the infamous
Software Creations,

who are also known for such, uh, N.E.S.
games as "Silver Surfer" and "Wolverine").

"Sky Shark" is a military themed Shooter,

where naturally you pilot an
old-fashioned-looking biplane.

If "Sky Shark" feels exactly, sort of, like,
uh, so many other military Shooters,

that's because it is a port of a 1987 arcade
game,

originally developed by Toaplan

(also known under the name "Flying Shark").

This game feels a lot like Toaplan's
"Twin Cobra" or "Twin Hawk".

You face off against hordes of,
uh, flying enemy aircraft,

along with tanks rolling along the ground,

[and] boats shooting at you
from the water below.

The original arcade game was nothing special,
but reasonably charming.

The N.E.S. port rips out all of the charm,
cranks up the difficulty quite a bit,

and leaves you with a game
that is not very enjoyable.

So I think you get the idea, here.

Shooting the series of red planes
will cause [an] item to drop;

usually it's a power-up
or an extra bomb.

The power-ups are nothing special;

they just add extra
projectiles to your weapon

and make the shots
spread out a bit more.

You don't have any secondary weapons,
or anything like that, here.

In terms of enemies, you get your standard
planes, tanks, mounted turrets on the ground

(you know, just the usual stuff).

Some boring bosses appear,
like this giant tank.

Don't really expect much in the way of
originality when it comes to this game.

"Sky Shark" really borrows a lot
from Capcom's "1942" series.

For example, ya' have parts
where ya' fly over battleships,

knocking out their onboard guns.

I... I guess it's not terrible.

There are some slightly irritating
things about "Sky Shark"

(like the way enemies are always shooting
at you from the sides and from behind).

It's not terribly difficult.

I guess this might have
seemed cool back in 1989

but, after 25 plus years
of better Shoot'em-Ups,

"Sky Shark" doesn't really
hold much appeal, now.

We now turn our attention to the month
of October, 1989, and it's "Koushien".

We have an almost elegiac
musical melody, here.

Then it picks up a bit.

Published by K.A.C., it seems to be
assumed that this [is] developed by S.N.K.

(though their name isn't actually found
anywhere on the front of the box).

I have also heard it described online as using
the same "engine" as S.N.K.'s "Baseball Stars".

Alright, so this is rather clearly

the, uh, Honshin Koushien stadium,
depicted on the title screen.

"Koushien" usually refers to the, uh,
high school baseball championships,

which take place at Koushien Stadium.

This is... has a, uh, a reasonably
high level of customization, here.

You can play through the
entire championships,

pick which teams are gonna'
be in the championships

(as is done on this map of Japan, here),
swap out various team members, [and] so on.

The kid giving a speech here,
uh, strikes a rather Fascist pose.

Oh yeah, [and] look at the face

of the dude third from the left on the,
uh, left hand side of the screen, there.

The, uh, team first up [gets] decided by a
game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, of course.

The soundtrack is purty interesting!

They use, like, this great
deep drum sound in places.

I'm guessing this utilized
a, uh, special sound chip.

Now, in terms of how this plays, it's not
as

irritating as some FamiCom baseball games,

though I tended to get a lot
of relatively high fly balls...

and the C.P.U.'s outfielders will catch these
balls around a hundred percent [of] the time.

As always, it can be harder for you to catch
fly balls, when playing defense, because you

can't see where your outfielders are,
until a ball gets pretty close to them.

Overall, though, it is actually a... a...
a

pretty well constructed baseball game,

however it is one of those games that got
a pretty heavily re-worked, uh, version,

released here in the United States
in 1990, under the name

"Little League Baseball:
Championship Series".

And while it's not quite as an
impressive a catch as the N.F.L. license,

this is an official Little League
baseball video game,

just in time for the, ah, 51st anniversary
of Little League baseball,

since this came out in the U.S.
in summer of 1990.

Um... Maybe it was planning on being
released earlier and didn't quite make it.

And this was actually
published by S.N.K., in the U.S.

However, when [ya'] actually
load this thing up,

all of the animations and screens in
the intro have been completely changed.

But, you know, the overall
structure remains the same.

Om... Instead of having, uh,
like, the map of Japan,

this is where you pick the teams you want
[to] actually play in the championship

from an international roster of various teams.

The Rock, Paper, Scissors game has
been replaced with the traditional thing

where you put your hands
on the, ah, the baseball bat.

The game, itself, is
[pretty] similar to the original.

The sprites of the batters
have been changed,

but the pitcher, the basemen, and the
outfielders remain exactly the same.

Unfortunately, the music gets a pretty heavy
downgrade, losing those great pounding drums.

I [really] don't wanna' sell this short,

because Little League Baseball
is actually a pretty solid game.

I love the little touches, like the pitchers,
you know, sort of,

bawling out the other players
when they fail to get a runner out,

or this absolutely marvelous
Home Run screen.

I mean, just look at all those faces
- pretty much the best Home Run screen

we've seen so far in... in...
in any baseball game and....

why are they cheerleaders
in the stands, though?

So, final conclusion: "Koushien"
(a.k.a. "Little League Baseball")

is a pretty damn playable game – really
sort of the polar opposite of L.J.N.'s "N.F.L.".

[I] mean, we have a lot of
baseball games on this console.

This isn't certainly not exactly the best,
but we've seen far far worse.

Now, we do have one last
sports game, this episode.

Ah, here's another game with a
somewhat confusing naming history:

"World Super Tennis"
(a.k.a. "Top Players' Tennis",

a.k.a. Four Players' Tennis).

Published by our good buddies, Asmik,

this is, I believe, the second Asmik
FamiCom game we've seen

(the first being a Mahjong game
that employed a, uh, manga license).

Just like that game, "World Super Tennis"
appears to [have] [been] developed

by a little company called Game Data.

It features the names and
likenesses of two tennis champs,

Ivan Lendl (who was top t...

uh, the top ranked male tennis
player in the world at... at this time)

and (a bit strangely) Chris Evert

(who was, I think, retired by
the time this game came out).

She dominated the women's tennis
world in [the] mid-'70s to late '70s.

However, um, she was, perhaps,
the best female tennis player, ever

(at least in the pre-Serena Williams era).

So, aside from Lendl or Evert, you can
create your own custom character, here

(a, [you know], boy or girl).

Now, in 1990 this got a pretty
straightforward port in the U.S.,

under the name
"Top Players' Tennis".

"Chris Evert"

"Ivan Lendl"

They added some voice samples,

and, uh, prominently put Evert
and Lendl's name in the title.

Also, one thing, they reversed the order
in which they appear in the intro;

Lendl comes comes first in the Japanese
version and Evert is first in the U.S. version.

Other than that, though, pretty much
everything's about the same.

You have multiple play modes,
for up to four players.

So, playing against the computer,
there is a career mode, of sorts.

You need to beat three opponents
to win the tournament.

After this, you move on
to several real life tournaments,

such as the, uh, French Open and so on.

So, the first dude is pretty easy.

Probably the hardest part is serving.

Ya' need to hit the ball when
it's relatively high up in the air.

In fact, the ball, to me, looks
like it's still well ab...

like, way above your head,
when you make contact.

But when I swing at the point
where the ball appears to

be at the correct height,
I always get a fault.

Though, on the other hand, I mean,
your player appears to be the same size,

[no] matter where you are
in the foreground or background,

so I guess it appears unnaturally short
while you're standing at the baseline.

I don't know; it... it's kinda' weird;
you sorta' have to swing the racket, like,

too early, in order to get a good serve.

So, using either the A or the B button, you
can lob the ball or perform a faster swing.

You can get up close to the net
and do a smash

and your racket has
a little bit of reach.

There were times when I thought
I wasn't going to quite hit the ball

and I ended up just
barely making it, somehow.

When you run around, your
player has a bit of momentum,

so it actually takes a second
to sort of stop or change directions.

I'm actually reasonably impressed
by the way this handles.

Tennis games can be a bit
monotonous, however, and I...

I really can't possibly imagine
having the dedication [to]

play this game all the way
through to its conclusion.

Uh... For each opponent, you play
multiple games and multiple sets,

so it actually takes a while
to beat each opponent.

As you win, you get "points",
which unlock new moves,

and also the opponents
get much tougher.

Now, for some reason,
in 1992 this was released in Europe

with Lendl and Evert
completely stripped out,

under the name
"Four Players' Tennis".

It's the exact same game, only they've been
replaced with two more generic players.

Anyway, I can't say I'm a huge fan of this,
but it's certainly not as awful

as some of the other
tennis games we've seen,

and it is actually reasonably
playable, at least for a little bit.

Alright, "Venus Senki" from Varie,
and apparently developed by Human,

whom we've been seeing doing quite a bit
[of] contract work, throughout the series.

Now, you wouldn't know it
from the incredibly boring box art,

but this is based on a manga and animé,
both of which were quite recent.

The manga only started in 1987. and
the animated film version, in mid-1989.

Created by veteran illustrator and
character designer, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.

It happened to come out, during the U.S.
manga craze of the late '80s/early '90s,

so it got translated into English and
published by Dark Horse pretty quickly.

The animé was released in the U.S. on,
uh, V.H.S. tape [a] couple years later.

Now, this only came out
in Japan, of course,

but we do have a very nice translation
by J2E Translations,

who are known for their Final Fantasy IV
translation from the early 2000s.

So, wow! In 2003, a comet hits Venus.

and greatly changed the landscape
of Venus and Earthlings colonized it.

Then a war happened.

Um... By the way, Ishtar, uh, Terra, and
Aphrodite Terra are, in fact, real parts of

Venus.

So, "Venus Senki" revolves around
the rebel biker group, "Hound",

(which is a terrible name
for your biker gang)

and their struggle to retake, uh,
some captured city in Venus,

or something like that.

So, what kind [of] game is this?
(R.P.G.? Shoot-'em-Up?)

Nope. It's a Military Tactics game,
in the vein of "Military Madness".

So, here's your crew.

"Carts" sounds like a name
that somehow got mangled

in translation from, uh, English to
Japanese and then back to English again.

Notice you have a level and points.

Yep, your team members get points,
as they kill enemies,

and can actually Level Up throughout
the game (pretty basic stuff, here).

These are your guys: eight bikers
and two transport vehicles.

These transports are actually, uh, really
the key to the game, in some ways.

You and the [enemy] take turns,
moving your units around.

When you attempt to move onto
a space occupied by an...

a unit from the other side,
a battle will ensue.

Now, throughout Chrontendo, we've seen,
sort of, two forms of these type of games.

There's the ones where the battles just play
out automatically (like in "Military Madness")

and generally the stronger unit wins.

And then there's the other kind, where you
actually have to do something during the battles,

and your actions will help
determine whether you win or lose.

In "Venus Senki" the
battles are fought in, like,

a little "Space Harrier"-
type, uh, minigame.

Enemies rush at you as you... and you
would have to, ah, to shoot them down.

Actually, you win by, um, a) not dying, and
b) destroying ten of these special enemies.

Lots of weak generic enemies come by you
and, in between these, [will] be, like,

these more powerful enemies,
such as these flying ships.

You [need] to shoot ten of these special
enemies, in order to defeat the entire unit.

However, these battles only last one minute.

So, if you don't manage to kill ten in that
time period, the battle ends in sort of a

draw.

Aside from your standard weak
laser gun, you have guided missiles,

which kill most enemies much
easier, but are very limited.

Once you've destroyed all
the enemy units on the screen,

you win the level,
and then it's on to the next.

So, very very "Military Madness"-like.

It's also not terribly sophisticated.

The mechanics sort of
encourage a defensive strategy.

You have eight units, so you can
surround your transports with them,

and then let the enemies come to you.

And here's the reason why:
the transports act as support units.

Having them adjacent to one of your own
units will repair it and refill its missiles.

So, there's a huge advantage
in... sort of ...in battles

to, kind of, keep your units
next to a transport at all times.

Now, I admit there is a certain
fascination with these odd hybrid games,

like "Venus Senki" or "Maharaja".

The problem with most of them is that the
individual parts just aren't that interesting.

The action sequences in
"Venus Senki" would be, like,

the most boring
"Space Harrier" clone, ever,

if they were released as a
game by... by themselves.

And there's virtually no strategy
in the overworld sections.

You only have one kind of unit,
so there's really, like, no

Rock, Paper, Scissors-type mechanics that
you see in many of these Strategy games.

You never build more units and your own army
never changes, so it's actually pretty monotonous.

And weaving two
uninteresting games together

doesn't really create an
interesting game, as it turns out,

so "Venus Wars" is, at best, a curiosity.

Holy cow!

When's the last time we saw a
FamiCom Disc System game?

Well, [I'll] tell ya' the answer.

It was "Magma Project: Hacker",
back in August,

so there've only been two F.D.S. games
in the entire second half of 1989, so far.

F.D.S. games will continue to [dribble]
out sporadically, for quite a while.

It took a really long time for the
system to die off completely.

This is the second and
final game in Nintendo's

FamiCom Mukashibanashi
series of Adventure games.

The first was called "Shin Onigashima",
which came out around two years prior.

Just like that game, "Yūyūki"
was released in two parts.

The first disc came out on October 14th
and the second on November 14th.

It was, once again, developed by
Nintendo E.A.D. and Pax Softnica.

The first Mukashibanashi game
used characters and ideas

from the stories of, uh, Momotarō
and, uh, Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

"Yūyūki" draws heavily from
"Journey to the West".

The title "Yūyūki" means something like
"Journey Record" or "Travel Diary"

([I'm] not really sure what the
best way to translate that is).

The game opens up with two
meteors heading towards Earth.

It turns out that they are Goku

(who's based on Sun Wu Kong,
the monkey king)

and a bad guy
named, uh, Gyumaou.

An orphan girl named Chao

(though you can give her
and Goku different names

when you start
the game, if you'd like)

um... she frees Goku from the
meteorite and they become friends.

Just like the previous
Mukashibanashi game,

the design here is meant to be
very very traditionally Japanese.

The text is displayed in these animated
scrolls, and they read top to bottom.

While this gives these games an instantly
recognizable and distinctive screen layout,

the window that displays, like,

the actual graphics of the
characters and whatnot is tiny.

Lots of FamiCom
Adventure games and R.P.G.s

have screen layouts that use lots of bars
and boxes and windows that take up space,

but this must be the game with
the least amount of screen space

devoted to displaying the graphical
illustrations of the game world.

If we isolate it from everything else,
we can see that it takes up

less than a sixth of the screen.

So, "Yūyūki" isn't
that great of a game, visually.

In terms of how it's played, it's actually
much simpler than the first one.

There's very little puzzle solving,
and in some ways it resembles

more of [an] interactive
storybook than a game.

Because the text speed
has been, uh, sped up a bit,

it actually moves quite a bit faster.

Everything in the first game
moved very slowly, for some reason.

Supposedly, playing through "Yūyūki"

takes about a quarter of the time that
it did to get through "Shin Onigashima".

It uses a lot of the same mechanics,
such as switching between various

characters throughout the game.

Whereas "Shin Onigashima" has been
re-released on the Game Boy Advance

and the Virtual Console, poor "Yūyūki"
has been pretty much forgotten

(though Chao and Goku make
a, uh, cameo appearance

in a couple of the
Kirby Dreamland games).

Nintendo would release another
two-part F.D.S. Adventure game

in 1991, called "Time Twist",

and then their odd little experiment
with this format would be over.

Alright, let's wrap this up, folks.

"Hokuto no Ken 3". published by Toei,
of course, and developed by Bear's

(the same guys who did the first two
FamiCom "Hokuto no Ken" games).

You might recall; I did not
actually care for those games.

And, of course, uh, Shouei System's
name also appears on the title screen

(Shouei having some kind
of connection to Bear's).

Every "Fist of [the] North Star" game
we've seen so far has been a super-basic

Beat-'em-Up, uh, but now we
finally switch things up a bit.

You see, this one is an R.P.G.

Holy crap!
Look at this!

Look at that purple person!
What the hell are you doing!?

Why [are] you waving your
arms around like that?

Uh... So, anyway, this is pretty standard
R.P.G. stuff here, with a few eccentricities.

The building on the left is
the weapons shop, I take it,

based on the teeny tiny sword
hanging above the door.

And, for some reason,
all the shops are like this.

It looks like [you're] entering
a dungeon or something, but no;

there's this long hallway and then the
shopkeeper is all the way in the back.

It's really pretty annoying.

Wandering around talking to people,
you'll find a couple characters who join you.

Uh... This isn't like
"Dragon Quest 2" or something,

where you gotta' wander around for
[a] couple hours, looking for them.

Both these guys are, like, literally just
standing around in the first tiny little town

and will instantly join you
if you talk to them.

If you must know,
these two are Lin and Bat

(characters from the, uh, second
"Hokuto no Ken" movie, I think).

There's actually a few
things in this game that

deviate from the normal
"Dragon Quest" formula.

Um... First of all, you actually start
with a decent amount of money

(enough to buy basic weapons
and armor for all three characters)!

You also have an ability
(found in the menu) to warp, um,

to other locations that
you've heard about.

And Lin has a Heal command
that can be used in combat,

which is available right from the get go.

Random encounters aren't super frequent.

Um... I suppose it's either good
(if you're tryin' [to] travel from

one area to the other and you don't
wanna' get in a fight every three steps)

um, or it's bad (if you're trying to
grind and you wanna' Level Up).

The sprite work in this game is
mostly pretty terrible looking,

but the art, um, that appears
during the battle sequences

is actually pretty nice looking (in a
very, sort of, uh, primitive sort of way).

I love the animation on the
faces when they get attacked.

It really looks like they're
getting brutally beaten up.

So is this a good game
(one that you actually wanna play?

one that'll get fan-
translated into English)?

Uh... No, probably not.

But at least it's a bit of a break from all
the

routine "Fist of the North Star" Beat-'em-Ups.

Alright. What a fascinating
train wreck of an episode.

For Best Game this time,
I'll probably have to say "DuckTales".

While I'm not a huge fan, it's somewhat
ambitious and well-constructed.

Not exactly my favorite Capcom game,
by a long shot, but honestly

what other choices are there today?
("TwinBee 3", maybe?)

Worst Game?

Many of you might say
"Back to the Future" (which I hated)

but I'm gonna' go with
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".

"Back to the Future" is crap,
but at least there's less of it.

"[Who Framed] Roger Rabbit?"
is like a sprawling mess of crap.

It's like the difference [between], you know,
your cat pooping on the floor

and the sewer main breaking
and flooding your house with shit.

"Back to the Future" I could deal with
(I mean, sure it stunk, but it was controllable).

"[Who Framed] Roger Rabbit?" was like the
one game that psychologically broke me.

I didn't want to have to play it,
think about it, or talk about it.

As a matter of fact, the voice-over for
"[Who Framed] Roger Rabbit?"

was the absolute last thing
recorded for this episode

(even after this, actually - as I'm speaking,
it has still not yet been recorded).

Anyway, next time, we have, uh,
three baseball games, a Mahjong game,

some T.V. game show games,
a Dragon Ball game...

And, on the other hand,
the game that was

translated into English, under the name
"Princesstual Orgy" is coming up.

And, just like "Jesus... no Bio Monster",

it's one [of] those games where
you see that title and you go,

"Holy crap.
What the hell could that possibly be?".

So at least I'll finally get to find out.

Before then, we'll have some more
non-Chrontendo content coming out.

On "Dr. Sparkle After Dark",
we'll cover the

very difficult-to-comprehend
movie, "Frozen Scream"

(a film that was actually quite hard to see
for years and years, until quite recently).

Just like the Roger Rabbit game, I have no
idea what I can even say about this movie.

Also, there'll be some additional interesting
stuff soon, so keep an eye out for that.

In the mean time, thanks for
watching and I'll see ya' later.