The miNEStry: An NES Podcast
The miNEStry founders, Archbishop Dracul and Father Avram, seek to inspire their 8-bit parishioners through methodical and ceremonial scrutiny of the library of games on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The miNEStry: An NES Podcast
"Kabuki: Quantum Fighter"
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Tonight we are reflecting on Kabuki Quantum Fighter which was developed by Human Entertainment Inc, published by HAL of America and released in North America on December 21st of 1990. Human Entertainment was also known for developing games like Monster Party and Fire Pro Wrestling with HAL of America being known for their delightful Lolo games on the NES.
Tonight our visiting Deacon is author Christopher Hopper.
Christopher Hopper is the bestselling author and voice actor of more than thirty novels, short stories, and audiobooks. His books have reached #1 on Amazon and Audible for science fiction, space opera, exploration, alien invasion, post-apocalyptic, space adventure, and military sci-fi. They’ve been nominated for or received numerous accolades, including the Audies, Silver Moonbeam, Lamplighter, Clive Staples, Pluto, DragonCon, and SOVAS awards.
The miNEStry founders, Archbishop Dracul and Father Avram, seek to inspire their 8-bit parishioners through methodical and ceremonial scrutiny of the library of games on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Good evening and welcome to the ministry. I am Archbishop Dracool, and alongside me is Father Avram. Our treat is to inspire our parishioners with reflections on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Tonight we are reflecting on Kabuki Quantum Fighter, which was developed by Human Entertainment Incorporated, published by HAL of America, and released in North America on December 21st, 1990. Human Entertainment was also known for developing games like Monster Party and Fire Pro Wrestling, with HAL of America being known for their delightful Lolo games on the NES. Father Avram, would you like to introduce tonight's visiting deacon?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Tonight our visiting deacon is author Christopher Hopper. Christopher Hopper is the best-selling author and voice actor of more than 30 novels, short stories, and audiobooks. His books have reached number one on Amazon and Audible for Science Fiction, Space Opera Exploration, Alien Invasion, Post-Apocalyptic, Space Adventure, and Military Sci-Fi. They've been nominated for, or received numerous accolades, including The Odyssey, Silver Moonbeam, Lamplighter, Clive Staples, Pluto, Dragon Con, and Silvas Awards. Welcome, Deacon Hopper.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, gentlemen. It is an honor to be with you tonight. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01He's known for developing the NES game based on the 1964 television show Gilligan's Island.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and it's apparently a lemon of a game. I don't know why anybody would want to play a game based off of that show. It would be interesting as like a maybe a point-and-click adventure, but as a Nintendo game, I'm not really entirely sure.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't sound very appealing to me either. It's rumored that those who embark on it never actually return.
SPEAKER_04Wise. Proceed, Father Aaron.
SPEAKER_01Hiroshi Haruna and Takashi Arai were both programmers on this game. They also worked on the 1989 Monster Party and six Pokemon games for both the 3DS and the Switch.
SPEAKER_04I think it was Takashi that was actually the Pokemon developer. Hiroshi was the developer on Monster Party, and that pedigree is pretty strong because Monster Party is an awesome game. A lot of fun, a lot of charm. Highly recommend it. And it won't break the bank. I I don't know what the going price is, but I know it's not an expensive game by any stretch. Pokemon. I played one. I I played them all. Hang me, I don't care.
SPEAKER_03Those games breed like rabbits. My children have played them, so we're hoppers. We breed like rabbits. Our rabbits play those games. I feel like there's something in the ether there.
SPEAKER_04Please proceed, Father Averon.
SPEAKER_01Takeshi Onozaki and Koji Tomura. Additional graphic design. They also worked on Fire Pro Wrestling 3 in 1992 for the TurboGrafx 16 and Dark Legend in 1995 for the arcade. I never played either one of these games actually.
SPEAKER_04No, neither have I. I but I do know what Fire Pro Wrestling is, and I know what it's done for the wrestling genre. It's an institution as far as wrestling games goes. So that that speaks volumes. Dark Legend, I have no idea what that is.
SPEAKER_03I've never heard of it until just now. The only thing that stands out to me is 1992. I learned how to masturbate that year.
SPEAKER_04The Lord of Nintendo is always watching you. This is true. Please continue, Father Abram.
SPEAKER_01Masaki Hashimoto and Takahiro Wakuda. Music and Sound. They also worked on Monster Party for the NES. And the Adventures of Gilligan's Island.
SPEAKER_04Yes, uh Monster Party I remember being you know good music. Adventures of Gilligan's Island. I can't really speak to it because I've never played it. I own it and everything, but I just don't wanna I don't wanna waste my time with this. Let's bring up another thing here. It's 1990, right? And there's somebody in a boardroom somewhere said, you know what IP we need to bring back? Gilligan's Island. Who kid in 1990 gave a sh about Gilligan's Island?
SPEAKER_03You you bring up an excellent point, Archbishop Dracoul, because I was just thinking to myself, of all the American IPs that made it across the Pacific. How how has this title found its way into the hands of three different developers now? I mean, I remember the show. I I don't think it was that memorable that we said, hey, this needs to be a game, damn it. But apparently it had an impression on that culture.
SPEAKER_01So go Gilligan. My first initial thought was like, maybe they were trying to make it more like, hey, this is a family thing, and you know, Gilligan's Island is a great family show, kind of, and uh uh, you know, maybe maybe that they were trying to appeal to the adults uh and and and branch out. Because remember, the the th the one of the main things that they were actually fighting um in America, Nintendo of America was actually fighting the idea of video games being a children's toy.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And because of the ve of the of the great video game crash. So they were fighting that idea. So maybe maybe this has something to do with that.
SPEAKER_04It's not exactly like they were fighting it. They actually started it. The only way they were able to get the video games back into the homes of the American people was to tell them that it was an entertainment system and not a video game system.
SPEAKER_01Right. But that and that's sort of what I mean. Like maybe, maybe grabbing an IP of a TV show, right? Because I mean there was more more IPs. Oh yeah. Rocky and Bullwinkle. Yeah, there is there's all sorts of older IPs that they that they snagged along the way.
SPEAKER_04The Three Stooges comes up too. That's another one. Yep.
SPEAKER_03I I think it's a valid point, though, because you do have uh the the trajectory and the history of anime and isekai um storytelling was predominantly told for adults. The we we in the West just assume that the cartoon is childlike and therefore for children, but that's not the history of of Eastern media. Right. And so I yeah, I'm keen on on what you're saying there, Father Avram. The you know, I'm thinking of even Robotech and its history, it had to be packaged for children for the sake of licensing and merchandising, but was dealing with very adult themes. So I think this is I think this is interesting that we have g Gilligan's Island again, perhaps as you're suggesting, as a way of inviting the adult into the platform that is quote unquote for kids, but maybe never really was in the eyes of the creators. I mean it's pure speculation, but it sounds plausible.
SPEAKER_01Agreed.
SPEAKER_04I think, Christopher, we're gonna have you back for Golgo 13 because that makes no sense. That that was a game that was based on a highly sexualized and violent anime, and it was a Nintendo game that had sex in it, and you got your you got your health back.
SPEAKER_01It's like okay. The Goggle 13 is really probably the first occurrence of regaining health for sexual activity that then was cloned by Grand Theft Auto.
SPEAKER_04And well, then you can argue Zelda 2.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but that was like that was kind of like um indirect, right? It wasn't it wasn't obvious, it was kind of assumed.
SPEAKER_04For those who don't know Zelda 2, you'd be walking around, and when you're in a town, you'd be walking and you'd be talking to people, and every once in a while you'll talk to somebody and they'll say, Come on in the house with me, and you'll go in the house. And you sometimes you would actually see the inside of the house and you'll get like an item or something like that. Other times, however, you you'd talk to a woman and she'd be like, Oh, quick, come on inside with me. Go inside, I will restore your health, and then your health bar goes up, but they never let you see what's going on inside. Like, what else are you supposed to believe?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it's true. I there's there's no that yeah, it was it was very much like because we're not showing you, we are showing you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is a great this is a great larger commentary that I think will be uh suspended for the night, but a fantastic commentary on uh Western purity culture as compared, compared and contrasted to the worldviews of other cultures.
SPEAKER_01Specifically Japan in this case. Specifically Japan.
SPEAKER_04Kabuki Quantum Fighter was given some pretty good reviews back in the day. For example, Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the score of 92 out of a hundred. And one of the reviewers named Martin actually claimed that Kabuki Quantum Fighter was more intense than Ninja Gaiden.
SPEAKER_01That's insane. I I I think he was paid.
SPEAKER_04I will say this. When I first read that, I hadn't experienced the later levels in the game. And now that I've gotten a little bit further, I I actually kind of agree with this. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Well, we can definitely go back and and uh revisit that. I agree that it's intense, but Ninja Ninja Gaiden is is an intensity that is d much different than Kabuki Quantum Fighter, for sure. And we can we can go into detail on that when we get into uh uh gameplay later. Uh but but yeah, I I I would say although it depends on what his definition of intense is, I suppose.
SPEAKER_03I would agree. It's very difficult to compare things to icons and keep a straight face. Ninja Gaiden is an icon. And I think it's fine to point toward it, but to say it is more intense than I think is a stretch.
SPEAKER_04But you could argue that this was said back in 1990. I would I would say that Ninja Gaiden wasn't really as big of an icon as it is today.
SPEAKER_01Ninja Gaiden was released in 1988. So this is the review is uh two years after that. So I think I I would say that it's pretty safe that by 1990 Ninja Gaiden was a very well-known and critically acclaimed uh game, and I think that this reviewer knew exactly what he was doing by dropping the name, and by doing that, he actually probably just kind of boosted the signal of Kabuki Quantum Fighter.
SPEAKER_04To continue on, on a scale of five, Nintendo Power gave the following: a 3.6 for graphics and sound, a 3.6 for play control, a 3.5 for challenge and lasting interest, and a 3.7 for theme and fun.
SPEAKER_01Those are pretty good review scores. Now they are. They are very good. They're very good.
SPEAKER_03What why do you why do you laugh there, Father Averon?
SPEAKER_01Oh, we'll get into it later.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So there was a commercial created in 1991 that had absolutely nothing to do with the game.
SPEAKER_03This is a fantastic commercial, by the way, I just have to say. Unless it's Colgo 13.
SPEAKER_04Oh my. We couldn't find any posters or flyers representing the game, but it was heavily covered in the February 1991 issue of Nintendo Power, and they had level breakdowns and everything like that as well. Also, storytelling with Archbishop's cool. When I was a kid, I remember this. They covered this on Video Power.
SPEAKER_00Digital Trends Network Online. We will now view an NES game from March 1991. Computey Quantum Fighter. Image, please. The hero of this game, Mr. Scott O'Connor, is the scientist who has entered a huge computer to fight a constantly mutating evolving virus. The enemy should be simple, identifyable screens. Data transmission complete. Data trans network returns your body to full human mode. Thank you for not smoking. Good day.
SPEAKER_04I remember distinctly seeing the character whip his head down with his hair and attacking with his hair. And I was like, oh my god, this looks so freaking cool. The problem was the distribution of these Nintendo cartridges were like really it was really strange. Some people in some areas of the country would get certain games, while others elsewhere got different ones. And it was really hard to find them. This was pre-internet, so it's not like you can necessarily go online and order it. So you were it was almost like a regional thing. I w I remember looking for it, and I couldn't find it.
SPEAKER_01I think Nintendo of America really did their homework with how they were going to distribute the games and which areas, which demographics the games would sell the best.
SPEAKER_04Even the video stores wouldn't have certain games. Like that that you'd see in like Nintendo Power or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't think the video stores are actually going through the catalog one by one and selecting games. They were probably saying, Hey, Nintendo, like, whatever games you have this month you're gonna send me, right? And then Nintendo would say, Hey, here's your games for the month. That's how I imagine this going down. I I would have to hear differently. Like it'd be really interesting to hear from somebody who actually managed one of these stores back in the day, just to see or or manage one of these franchises, like Toys R Us. Like somebody from back in the day that actually managed a Toys R Us chain that could say, oh yeah, this is how this would happen with Nintendo of America. Because my I would eat my hat if it was not that way. If it was not like, hey, these are the games we're getting this month. We have to make display cases and put out the flyers and sell these games. Like that's that's probably how that went down.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and and like not to beat a dead horse here, but I remember wanting Golgo 13 because I played it and I rented it, and it was nowhere in the stores.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's very strange. And and God only knows how that that rental place even came by it, right? It could have been like it could have been through any number of exchanges, like they have their own networks, and they're like, hey, this this game is not renting here. Why don't we swap games and see how it goes? Like, there's you know, like that's doing business, like they're they're trying to figure out like different channels. I imagine if I was running a store, that's what I would do. I would, you know, build a network of video game stores or video rental places and be like, hey, let's cross-reference a list of games that aren't renting and maybe swap places and try to make some money off of them. Like, who knows how that rental store actually got the game. But if it wasn't in the retail stores, but it was in the rental stores, my guess is it was something like that.
SPEAKER_03Do you have any rental store stories, Christopher? Trying to kiss girls in the aisles. I was a nerd in a in the aisles with video games. Girls in the late 80s and early 90s weren't really into nerds, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That changed. Oh, it I married the homecoming princess, so yeah. It just takes 20 years. I would like to submit for admittance by the council to someone who worked in retail. Now, I don't have a name to put forth to the council, but I do think that would make a great addition to a future examination.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we would we would love to hear your recommendations for sure.
SPEAKER_04I I if if you know somebody who owned a mom and pop video store back in the day. Oh man. Yeah. That would be an amazing conversation that would be had. Let us discuss the seven categories for which we execute judgment on Kabuki Quantum Planer. Category one is the narrative. Deacon Hopper, we invite you to read from the manual.
SPEAKER_03A reading from the manual. The setting. Earth. The future. The defense computer protecting the entire planet has been invaded by a constantly mutating, evolving virus. Only one man, Colonel Scott O'Connor, has the courage to risk his life in an untested miracle weapon. Converted to raw data and transported into the circuits of the computer, Colonel Scott's molecular structure is transformed by the untested image transfer system. Into the circuits of the giant computer steps, an unlikely superhero, the quantum fighter. Six huge levels of exciting action. This is a reading from the manual.
SPEAKER_04So we should probably mention before we get started that the Japanese version of the game is a tie-in to a 1990 movie called Zipang, Japangu. With the main character being a 15-year-old boy named Bobby Yano, who transforms into his samurai ancestor, Jikoku Goku. References to the film were taken out of the international releases. And the name was changed from Bobby Yano to Scott O'Connor. Because that name fits so perfectly with the game. Anyway, my pros for this for the story is I think it's quirky, intriguing, and given the time, very different when it came out. So different, in fact, that they didn't really know how to market this. And that's apparent in the freaking commercial. And my cons being I wish they didn't rename the main character to Scott O'Connor. It really sticks out in a bad way.
SPEAKER_01I I kind of get the sense based on what you just said, because I I actually didn't know what the original names were. And I was curious about it, but I just never really looked into it. I kind of feel like Nintendo of America literally said, There is no way that we're gonna be able to get the American public to pronounce any of these names. So therefore, let's strip them down. Let's not even mention the grandfather's name. We're just gonna focus on Scott O'Connor. And we're gonna call it Scott. We're just gonna go with Scott O'Connor because this is the American public we're talking about here.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna take it a step further. I actually think it's a controversial opinion, but you gotta think the war ended like just over 40 years before this. Like, there is still probably some d animosity towards the Japanese, and I even remember people being a little sheepish about the Nintendo. If you think about the the the hurdles that Nintendo had to make to get the Nintendo Entertainment System into the homes of the American people was astronomical by itself just because of the video game crash. But the fact that they were Japanese and there was just a major war just over a generation ago. That made it that much more difficult, and I feel like Nintendo America was made to censor a lot of that stuff out on purpose.
SPEAKER_01I I think you're totally right about that. Because it it totally makes sense. I mean, um, and we're kind of going, we're kind of dipping our toes into uh waters outside of the scope of the ministry. However, it's definitely safe to say that uh, you know, we've all heard the trope that in times of war, um, you ingrain in the heads of your people that the enemy is less than human. And we had just 40 years prior stepped away from a war uh with, you know, Germany and Japan, where there were ads, the the government had ingrained into the heads of the public that these peoples were less than human and worthy of going to war against. And so to strip their names from this kind of assuages the systemic racism that was propagated through the public during that time. So to change the name from Jigoku Gokura Kumaru to being nameless is a huge step and just kind of is very telling of the times. Because remember, it wasn't the kids that were buying this game. Sure, it was being pitched to kids, as we talked about with the commercial, but it was the parents, and the parents the parents heard all of that stuff from their parents who actually fought in the freaking war. Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know there was absolutely a meeting in which the CEO, CFO, sitting down with the head of marketing and bringing all of the data from tests and polls, and uh you know that they're lobbying for pretty sweeping changes, knowing this game will not sell unless it meets certain criteria. Um and what's what's even more interesting to me, and these are on my cons list, uh, is the the fact that the grandfather's name is is erased, that's yeah, that's significant, but it's so selective because the the prologue mentions the grandfather, but mentions that he's a famous kabuki star. Like, in other words, his his role as as a Japanese dancer and entertainer and slash samurai ancestor, like it's so absurd. Because nobody knew what a kabuki star was. Like, like that the who can I don't know who that you know, I'm 10. I don't know who that what that is. And so it's ironic that the selective nature of the sieve that was applied, the filter that was applied, um, would do just what you talked about, Father Avram. And then and then there's this, there's this other aspect where Scott O'Connor immediately, I go to 1984, Terminator, Sarah Connor. You you can't get any more, you know, white American Irish than O'Connor or Connor. And I think that again, you you are playing to a market. And that's not inherently bad. I could speak at length about that in my own novel writing and publishing. There are very specific avatars that you are creating content for. But when you when it's when it's so obvious that things have been kind of arm wrestled one way or another, and then done so selectively, where certain things got through and others didn't, it just makes it it make it makes the tie-ins absurd. Truly absurd. And and here's the problem. I would say on the pros, that, and and you you touched on this earlier, Archbishop Dracoul, which is that the premise is incredibly forward-thinking. I'm thinking of to present day, 2024, we have Elon Musk with the first Neuralink. Think about that for a second. This is forecast, and then there are other works of science fiction that did this before. But in terms of a video game, going mainstream, forecasting, like I've been waiting for the Elon Musk of my present day since I was a child playing the NES and directly connected to this moment of mass media, of seeing someone ingested into a Tron-like origin. And I think it's brilliant. So, as much as I can look at the absurdity and and the tragedy, arguably, of the filtering that went on, there's also praise to the forward-thinking premise that we have in the game.
SPEAKER_01I I I would agree with that. I I'd like to kind of, now that we're kind of, I think, completed with the liberal arts analysis of the narrative, which is fascinating in and of itself. I I'd just like to say what my notes have here, which kind of echo a lot of what um Deacon Hopper has stated, which is the story was convenient. But they did attempt to add flair to it. And I am gonna go so far as to say that they were riding on the robot android uh uh craze of Dare I Say It, and I know I know I mentioned this, and and Deacon Hopper mentioned this, I know I mentioned this a million times in our journey to Silius episode, but they're riding on the robot android android craze of Terminator. And this was this kind of theme was obviously a silver bullet back in the day, because of games like Metroid.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And and and movies like Terminator. And they definitely embraced the mother brain vibes with this game, um, which I will get into more detail more detail later, because I think there's there's other categories that that uh explain that in deeper detail, but um, but very much embraced the mother mother brain vibes.
SPEAKER_04Now for me, the music in this game was very it was meh. And it could actually be shrill at times, and I found myself muting the audio and listening to music while I played it. The probably the best track on the whole soundtrack is the very first level, and that was probably completely intentional. Sound effects for the era were pretty standard. I did like how they incorporated sound into the gameplay a little bit, which we'll get into, but I was really disappointed that they didn't use the Delta modulation channel or otherwise known as DMC for voices and sound effects in this game. And the funny thing about that is usually in Nintendo games they stay away from that because it it requires a lot of space. But I didn't see anything necessarily in the game that would cause them to not use the DMC.
SPEAKER_01They definitely could have. I thought the sound was pretty generic, but it's very obvious that the interstitials, the title screen, and the boss fights were the tracks that they put the most effort into musically. Either that or they just happened to be the best ones, I'm not sure, but the the it just seemed like those were much more polished than the rest of it, but it still wasn't nearly the best I've heard. I feel like after level three, i it it's kind of where all the level music starts falling apart. Level four was horrible to listen to.
SPEAKER_04That was what I was saying when I mentioned Shrill. Level four was the freaking worst.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It it really was. I I I heard it and I was like, man, this just doesn't fit. Like it suddenly is a different soundtrack, and I'm not sure what's going on. Which maybe echoes back to some of the gameplay things that we'll mention later, but it it just wasn't good at that point. And you know, they kind of redeemed themselves a little bit with stage five. Um stage four was definitely the worst soundtrack, but but still, stage five wasn't great. Um the sound effects were okay, they matched the gameplay, there was nothing that really stood out, but it was nothing to write home about either. There were many games prior to 1990 that had much better sound design than this game.
SPEAKER_03I agree. Agreed. I would say that I look for music and sound effects to be memorable, to the point that I might not be able to hum them, but I will have an instant dopamine hit of nostalgia and a connection when I hear them outside of the game context. For me, this game did not have that.
SPEAKER_08Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03I could maybe, as I'm playing, yeah, get used to the sound, get used to the musical themes, uh, ones I did not like, uh, but in terms of separating myself from this over a period of months or and or years, and then thinking, oh yes, that's quantum fighter. That's not gonna happen. So now that would be my biggest complaint. A reading from the manual. Energy hearts are left behind when some enemies are defeated. They're in different places each time, so don't skip any. Memory chips can be fired at enemies from close range, medium firepower, but can be constantly replenished. Keep your supply as high as possible. There are extra lives to be gained by defeating some enemies, but you'd never know where they might be. Look for them. Each stage you finish will give you a new weapon to use. Push the select button a few times to find out what weapons are available to you at any given time. The fusion gun throws missiles straight ahead. Long range, lots of power. Great against enemies you don't want to get too close to. Quantum bombs, spread out in three directions. Short range, but high firepower, handy against enemies that are above you and hard to reach. Loads of firepower. Dynamite sticks can be thrown in mid-air, greatly increasing its range. Takes a while to master, but worth it against the bosses. The bolo travels in the direction thrown and revolves rapidly, disposing of all enemies in its range. Can be used against enemies that are reasonably close. This is a reading from the manual.
SPEAKER_07Praise before the incorporated.
SPEAKER_04It really scratched that action itch for me. The fact that you use your hair as a primary weapon is incredibly strange, but works surprisingly well.
SPEAKER_03It's just the greatest. That forget pistol whipping, folks. This is hair whipping. It's just I wish I came up with it. It's so awesome. It's so awesome.
SPEAKER_01And it seems to herald to the headbanging vibes of the time. I was watching a playthrough of this game, and after defeating a boss, the player just started headbanging, and I was like, oh my goodness, that captures everything that this was meant to be.
SPEAKER_03So if we could, your highnesses, go back to audio for just a moment. I would like to submit that a possible alternative and a more memorable one could have been an ode to late 80s metal or even a prophetic forecasting of 90s grunge. Wow. That's deep. That's a really cool thought. Could you imagine taking a video snippet 30 seconds and dubbing in any of our beloved music from that era? It could work. I think it would be amazing. Skid Row comes to mind.
SPEAKER_04Lastly, for the pros, the gameplay mechanic of trading chips for life bars during the boss fights really brought a lot of depth to approaching the situations and the levels. Like you were forced to use discretion because you knew that the boss level was coming, and if you happened to get there, you wouldn't definitely need it. Or it kind of made you think of other ways of getting around the obstacle. Now, with that in mind, you better not sit and think for too friggin' long because there's a time limit. Which for me was one of my cons. I don't think there should have been a time limit in this game. The ducking attack has zero reach. Like you have to be right up against the enemy for it to register. You can't jump off of ladders. You can only let go and fall, which doesn't sound like that big of a deal. But in a game where you're like doing flips from your hands off the ceiling, and you you have to fall off a ladder, you can't like jump off the ladder. That was really disappointing. The ramp up to the difficulty is insane. It's not a learning curve, it's a frickin' wall. And that wall is level three. Once you beat the second boss, you enter a climbing level that suddenly requires you to have lightning reflexes, exact timing, and pixel perfect accuracy in how you negotiate the level. After defeating this climbing level, the difficulty subsides for a little bit for the side-scrolling levels to follow. But there is one other climbing level in the game which is incomprehensibly more difficult. I could not beat this level, regardless of how hard I tried. I just kept falling. And a lot of that has to do with how the physics of interacting with a moving platform or element affected you in your travels. And I'm gonna get into that later on technical, but I'm pretty sure it's probably in you guys' gameplay cons.
SPEAKER_01I thought the movement itself was pretty smooth. Although, for a platformer in 1990, I feel it could have been better. At this point, you know, you you have to understand, like, this is this is riding on the backs of every single platformer game that has been released in the past, you know, five years at least of development. And and and there were a lot. And there were there were a lot. I mean the platformer was the genre that the Nintendo was famous for, right? And that's that's what they they literally designed the system based on a platformer game, um, which was Donkey Kong. That was the the game that they they designed the platform for.
SPEAKER_03So um and I would even go so far as to say that was an ode to pitfall. I'm thinking of Atari. I'm thinking of you know the v the original left to right scrollers, you know.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01So there were there were tons of platformers that they We're riding on the backs of, and it could have been better for 1990. The mechanics I felt were very interesting, but somewhat goofy. We've mentioned the hair thing. In all seriousness, using your hair as a weapon is a pretty funny notion, right? So it's kind of silly. It's kind of interesting that they decided to use this to as the main weapon. But besides all that, there are some very cryptic things I found in the UI that if you didn't read the manual, you wouldn't know about. And it would make you fumble around. At the very least, you'd fumble around, if not just ign not know it existed entirely. Number one being trading in memory chips for life. And then the other one being switching skills and weapons. Playing the game back in 1990, I would have never sat there and figured that out. I would have played the game and been like, man, this game's hard, and that'd be it. And I wouldn't know all of the things that I needed to do in order to play the game to its fullest.
SPEAKER_04Not to mention also the fact that this game is not it's not incredibly common. It's not expensive, but it's not incredibly common. So not many people had it back then. So if you did play it back then at all, you probably came with a video rental. And I highly doubt there was a manual that went with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. And not only that, you probably didn't have many friends who owned the game either.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's not like it's not like you could rely on the friend network like you know, you did back in 1985 to 1990, you know. But I I've gotta say, uh at uh echo what you've been saying, Archbishop Dracool, level three is fed. This is the first game for the ministry that I haven't been able to complete. Wow. I have not been able to complete this game. All the other games I've been able to play through. This one, level three, I can't get by level three of this game. Totally messes me up every single time. Let me guess, it it's the uh it's the flamethrower part, right? The flames throw me off, but what actually got me and and I had to go back and watch a playthrough later, and I haven't played it since watching the playthrough, because I needed to get some sort of idea of what the entire game was for this review. So I had to watch a playthrough, and what I didn't think of doing actually towards the end of level three, and when I found that out, I got even more pissed, because I almost got through level three, but it was the spike ball that waits until you are on the platform to start moving towards you.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and how you got around that is you had to go to the far left, you have to maneuver and jump up to the far left of the platform. If you're on the far left of that little platform, you won't get hit. But if you're on the right, you get your ass kicked.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, and you get knocked back down to the bottom of that death column.
SPEAKER_04And that death column, just so people know, is a series of you have to hang by your hands and do a flip up and land on the platform above where you're hanging and keep doing that. But you have to time it with the sound of the flamethrowers. And you so you swing backwards for a half second before you actually start jumping up. In order to jump up to the next level and not get hit by that flamethrower and have time to not only jump up, but have time to jump up to the next one before the flame starts up again. You have to hit you have to actually start your jump while the flame is still going. And it's a two-pulse flame, one, two, and you have to start jumping on that second pulse so you can get up there, and then you hit the button again to jump again, and then so there's enough time for you to get through that anticipation and back up to safety.
SPEAKER_01It didn't bode well for me to try to get through the game. As soon as I hit that column, I was like, oh man, I'm not gonna be able to complete this game.
SPEAKER_04It requires extremely precise timing.
SPEAKER_01Very time-sensitive design. And and and finally, little conveyor belts were totally nasty. I I could have gone without the little conveyor belts. Conveyor belts were a trope by this time in Nintendo history. I understand that. But one tile length conveyor belts, really. That that's all I have to say about that.
SPEAKER_03So for me, uh, I share so many of your pros. Uh, I thought the level design was was good. Um, you know, not groundbreaking, but it was solid, I'll say. Uh I do echo the chips to life exchange in a game where so much is really based upon your ability to be and use finesse, uh, which you've both touched on, it was the one moment where I thought strategy really came into play. And to me, to be thoughtful about what kind of resources you were expending and in what area and that trade and balance. And so I feel like that's the one place where, aside from just again, using finesse to advance, you actually had a moment to beat the house, as it were, was in that mechanic. So that that gets very high marks for me. The level end weapon upgrades, that's that's cool. Uh, and I especially in a in a place where, you know, as it was said, ducking and punching, you have to time that perfectly. I mean, the enemy is literally the pixel next to you for that to be effective. So it's like, why, why risk it? Uh, why risk the the hit point on that? Um, and so the I think the the the swing, the opposite pendulum to that would be this sense of, wow, I get it, I get an upgrade on my main weapon. And I think that was that was good. As far as cons go, I think my biggest one was actually a thematic one that does lean back toward the narrative a little bit, which is there's this cognitive dissonance surrounding the hair. So I love the hair. I think that's that's been stated. I I would love, again, for music to be incorporated there. But but this actually goes back to this idea of cultural filtering. Because if you think about it, Scott O'Connor is what? He is a colonel. I'm guessing with the United States Army. There is no colonel alive who has ever been trained in using their hair as a weapon. As an American, as a kid growing up in the 80s, a colonel in the United States Army, I'm G.I. Joe, man. I am I am Duke. I am Lady Jane. I am Snake Eyes. But the idea that a colonel, Scott O'Connor, does not use a firearm is actually absurd when you think about it. Maybe he likes Skid Row. He was a he was a closet metalhead. He could not let his true color show until he was a he was taken in by the image transfer system. So that's actually a a con for me is that there were and I'm not saying I want guns in the video game. I'm saying from a from a systematic consistency side, that is where trying to elbow this into a western market and call him a colonel, that breaks down, and that's a con. That's a good analysis.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's a deep one, but a good one.
SPEAKER_03I bow in reverence to your commendation of my thoughts. Rise.
SPEAKER_04Let us proceed to category four, which is the graphics. I found the art and the animation to be pretty damn good, with the hair attack being so satisfying to play and watch. The cutscenes and interstitials are rendered pretty nicely. Fun fact about the interstitials the code that appears behind Scott or Brian in the interstitials is actually 6502 code from the game. There is some very amazing environment art in the game. Hellish faces and organic entrails fused with circuitry and mechanical elements. There's some really beautiful stuff. However, in level two, they use warm colors as background elements and cold colors for foreground elements. From an artistic standpoint, warm colors visually pop when adjacent with cold colors. And when I say pop, they come forward in space. So you find yourself often jumping at platforms and falling through them, thinking that that's the one you're supposed to jump on. So this was an instance where a decision and graphics adversely affect the gameplay. And it wasn't only the fact that that it was the warm colors. The other part was the background had the same level of detail in this level as it did in the foreground. So not only do you have to fight the idea of I really want to jump on this, but it's red. So I it seems like I'm supposed to jump on this because that's what it looks like. But also that the factor of visual complexity is exactly the same. How they could have fixed that if they wanted to keep the freaking background red, is they could have got rid of the visual complexity on the backgrounds, and then that would have just kind of fallen back a little bit more.
SPEAKER_03Archbishop, I don't mean to interject into your exposition, but please consider this my adamant amen to everything you just said and the insanity of the incongruent surfaces and the false platforms. Amen. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Thank you, Deacon Hopper. And I have to say, this is the only level where it was a problem. So if you can get by level two and just give it a chance, well then you have level three facing you with a difficulty. But anyway, I'm just saying this was this was a graphical failure, level two, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01Amen. Agreed with that. But that being said, the detail, the animation, I I definitely think they were done really well, as you said, Archbishop. There's a lot of animated background in this, uh, specifically in some of the boss scenes, which is something you'd you almost expect to see at this point in Nintendo history. With things like I think Castlevania III had a lot of the uh that kind of thing. But it was a nice touch. It was an unexpected touch. And um extending on my comment from earlier, the mother brain vibes are everywhere. Uh especially the boss fight in stage six. Uh the final boss. It has literally pulsing tubes surging into a mechanical head with organic material for floors and ceilings. Like this is this is the mother brain fight. This is this is Hal's version of Mother Brain. And it's totally undeniable. I don't I don't think that they could deny it even if you were to ask them. Like, let's see where you got your influence, and they're gonna say Metroid. Like I it I I would I would be willing to bet anything on that. And i that's fine. I mean at this point, 1990, you had Super Metroid coming up. People were craving more Metroid, so it makes sense from a market standpoint why they would do this. I'm actually surprised that the game didn't sell more because of it. Um, maybe it had something to do with a kabuki dancer using his hair as a weapon, who knows? But maybe if they had gone with a colonel with a gun, as Deacon Hopper mentioned, maybe it would have sold more. I bet you it would have. However, uh that being said, the graphics were done well.
SPEAKER_04It could have also been the regional problems we were discussing earlier.
SPEAKER_01Right. Regardless of all that, the graphics were were packaged well, with the exception of uh those uh uh false platforms as mentioned.
SPEAKER_03For me, I felt that the hair was smooth. Um a lot of the gameplay was smooth. I didn't know that about the 6502 code. That's pretty cool. Uh Archbishop dracool. I yeah, that's that's a point in its favor. I am actually, however, very unimpressed. I felt the graphics were derivative and generic. And specifically because I know they're in the wake of uh Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Gaiden 2, Metroid, the pedestals in Metroid felt like a ripoff. The the knifers um it were were lifted off of Russian attack. Uh the pulsing alien hearts were the the last level of Contra. I mean, the tie-ins are everywhere for me. I do think that 10, 11-year-old me would have gone, this is so cool. 35 years beyond that, though, I'm kind of like, guys, you had some heavy hitters developing this game. And between the lackluster execution of the some of the narrative things we've already talked about, I kind of I'm kind of going, where was the this feels like a money grab right now? But as I start to get into the graphics side, I think it's a money grab because I want to go, where's the innovation? Why are we still talking about Metroid to this day? It was an innovation. And I think it's wonderful to tip the hat to. I do. I really do. And I think we see that in the graphics. But I think it's also an insult to the creators who I'm imagining them being stressed out to create one more smash hit. I'm imagining them, you know, guys, you gotta come up with something. Okay, we'll just we'll just do all the things that are happening right now and put them all together and and here we go. And then and then it got into the hands of the marketing department and then just got shot to shit. So so I'm I'm kind of yeah, I'm kind of like, I don't mean to poo-poo it, but I'm leaning that way, going, I expected more.
SPEAKER_01I think derivative and generic is a perfect description. I think it's packaged well, I think it's uh cohesive, but I think derivative and generic is a perfect description.
SPEAKER_04Well, you know, uh level two screams of Batman and level three, they it's very much it's very much like a like a piecemeal sort of we're gonna take the best of what we can and try and mash it all together. You know, but it but the but that but that stew didn't work out entirely well. It's got its issues, it's not without its issues for sure. Uh and and fun note, at the end, they say we'll be back, which means they were trying to establish a franchise with this based off of what we said, you know, the the i the regional issues, uh, the cultural filtering. There's no doubt in my mind that there was never gonna be a second one. You know, which for me is unfortunate because I actually enjoy the game.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I agree. I agree.
SPEAKER_04Now we are going to withhold from reading the back of the box because of how identical it is to the story in the manual. The differences are minuscule.
SPEAKER_01It's almost like the marketing team just took it in or and changed it in order to avoid like self-plagiarism. It's very much the same story with just a few few words changed.
SPEAKER_04My pros for the box art is that it looks like a Jefferson Starship album cover from the early 80s, and for that I'm dropping the mic.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness, I did not expect that. So I I felt when I when I first saw this box art, um, and you have to remember, I did not play this as a kid. It wasn't really available in my area either. So coming back to this title as an adult and looking at this, the first thing I thought of was am I looking at the right thing or am I looking at a remake because this looks like a PlayStation 1 cover? It has very, very much PlayStation 1 vibes, and I can't really put my finger on it, but the the clean white box with the flashy red and blue, like it just seems like it just seems like PlayStation. It screams PlayStation 1 to me, and I don't know why exactly that is. Um, but it's very nice, right? Like they it's really well done. We've already said our comments about the back of the box. Extremely generic. It's like they just ate the story from the manual and threw it up on the back of the box. And uh and kind of used some screenshots from the game that uh actually there's one in particular. I think it's the first screenshot all the way to the left. When you look I look at it, I see Batman. It's very interesting. Obviously, Batman has like more purples in it, like that's the you're right, because that's the vibe. But it's it's like it has that same feel, and I'm gonna hearken back to Journey to Cilius. We ridiculed Journey to Cilius for putting a bunch of uh boss fight images on the back of it. This could have used one of the boss fight images, I feel. Like they just use generic platforms here. You know, uh again, I I would have to say just very much like Journey to Cilius, I feel like with the back of the box specifically, again, front cover, great. I really like it. I thought it I think it's forward thinking um in design. The back of it, it it's like they gave it to a marketing team, and the marketing team just put something together without playing the game.
SPEAKER_03100%. I think that the box art the label on the cartridge art, the booklet, and then compare that to the in-game play graphics. I think we're starting to get an image of a game that if we could be the fly on the wall of so many meetings and development meetings, ultimately was a poorly self-differentiated game. And unfortunately, it was not its fault. It was the fault of powers that were vying for uh different markets, different ideologies, and could never fully come together in agreement. Thus, even why you had some games that said kabuki, others that said quantum fighter, and other versions that were kabuki quantum fighter, and probably based on regions. So when that is hap- that that is not a unified forward thrust into a market. That is not deliberate, that's not intentional, that is haphazard, and again, a game that just never found its true identity, and we see it in the naming convention, and we see it on the shelf out public-facing image. And that's unfortunate.
SPEAKER_01It's branding confusion.
SPEAKER_03There it is.
SPEAKER_01For sure.
SPEAKER_03The commercial completely proves that theory.
SPEAKER_04Let us proceed to category six, which is fun factor. Now, I found myself personally to be very happy to go back to this game over and over again, despite the great difficulty. Uh, because I I had a lot of fun controlling the player and and and like hitting characters with the hair. Like I barely used any of the weapons. I loved the hair weapon. And it was very exciting to kind of like experience each new level that came down the pipe. And it was very refreshing for me because there was legitimate adrenaline rushes during this game that I haven't experienced since I was a kid. Like that heart-racing, body-shaking type of reaction after you defeat a boss. Like I haven't really experienced that for years until I played this.
SPEAKER_03That is really cool. I love hearing that. I love hearing that.
SPEAKER_01This is where you and I differ. Archbishop. I had fun for the first level. The second level, with the false platforms, I started losing my trust in the game. And then by the third level, I was done. And so I I really didn't have fun with this game. I think it's probably the only game so far in the history of our um ministry reviews on podcast that I did not have fun with the game.
SPEAKER_02Your words are dust on the floors of this sanctuary. My words may settle like dust, but even in stillness, they embody more substance than the fleeting echoes that fumble from the dim glow of your intellect.
SPEAKER_04Enough. Please proceed, Deacon Harper.
SPEAKER_03Fun factor for me, the discovery of the hair whip was awesome. I had to kind of I I died like the first three spawns into level one just because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I loved that. So again, I think this keeps coming up. So huge props there. It's kind of sad. I I don't think we've ever seen that return anywhere else. I can't think of a game. Can you, gentlemen? I can't I can't think of a game where hair was used as a violent weapon to dispatch enemies. I mean, that's just fantastic.
SPEAKER_01Just so you know, there are a number of games that feature characters that use hair attacks or their hair as a weapon, but it is very interesting to note here that none of them date before 1990. This is the Forerunner.
SPEAKER_03May we just pause in reflection upon the fact that though so much of this game was derivative, we actually have an iconic impetus. We have a catalyst to the origin of the hair whip. And that is significant.
SPEAKER_01That is really significant. Wait a minute, hold on. Hold on, hold on. There is one. Lament Although I don't know where I don't know where like what in the game, but apparently the revenge of Shinobi, this was December 2nd, 1989, one year prior, has something in it uh with featuring a hair attack, but I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_04When did Revenge of Shinobi come out exactly?
SPEAKER_01December 2nd, 1989.
SPEAKER_04Okay. And when did Kabuki Quantum Fighter come out in Japan exactly?
SPEAKER_01Ooh. Ooh. Uh oh, it's December. Okay. So Revenge of Shinobi came out in the US, December 2nd, 1989. Kabuki Quantum Fighter came out in Japan, December 21st, 1990.
SPEAKER_04I honestly believe it's a coincidence, then.
SPEAKER_01It probably is.
SPEAKER_04It probably took at least a year to develop Kabuki Quantum Fighter. The odds of Revenge of Shinobi's instance being influential for an entire game. It rides a very thin line of debate.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So hair aside, I found something that was both a pro and a con, and then I found a con. So my pro is is the hair whip for fun. The pro and the con was the difficulty. There was a part of the difficulty that I found very enjoyable. And I liked that it wasn't easy. But it was difficult for long enough of a period of time and sustained in such a way that it started not to be fun for me. So it's it's that it's just that weird place of it, it it both treated me well and treated me poorly. And so I'm a bit in inconclusive there. But it was a difficult game. So maybe let that be what it is. The the biggest con for me in the fun factor, and I'm I I didn't put this under graphics because I feel like it belongs in the fun factor category, because I look for things that take me out of the story. So kind of in the same way that music needs to be memorable. Uh, fun are things that either pull me deeper into the story or the lack of fun pulls me out of the story. And actually, one of the things that pulled me out of the game was the discrepancy and the disparity of enemy types. And it's not something we've talked about, but there were so many different kinds of enemies that I can't honestly say they all fit neatly under a same visual aesthetic or even a thematic aesthetic. You're very right. Agreed. So I get like I get Easterhead Island heads shooting fire at me, I get a a stealth suit, you know, silvery ninja doing flips over me. I I have this weird hovering boss, I have a giant robot, I have alien hearts, like it it was to the point where I literally thought they took everything they could from all of their notes and jammed it into one game. And therefore, the aesthetic or lack of uh consistency, lack of uniformity, uh jerked me out of having fun.
SPEAKER_04Let us proceed to category seven, which is technical. Pros for me, there was no NES slowdown or sprite flickering. There were things that weren't that great, though. Jumping off of conveyor belts, water, or ice was wildly inconsistent. Sometimes you would barely move, and other times you would go flying. This right here, and I wanted to put it into game gameplay, but I thought Father Averon would get mad at me because he would say that's a bug.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's a it's a physics thing. So yeah, this definitely belongs in technical.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so I put it in the right place, but it really made the gameplay frustrating at times. If you fall during the climbing levels, sometimes enemies that you haven't interacted with yet above you would disappear, allowing you to proceed with no problems. If you had fought them and defeated the enemies, however, the same logic would cause enemies to always reappear. The second part isn't as surprising as the first. Right. And it was so random. Sometimes I would fall and it would be gone. Like the enemy that was above me shooting things would be gone. I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna go. And then it happened often, though. So often that I actually thought that's how it was supposed to be at one point. Like that this certain situation where I had this wall cannon shooting a spiked ball at me. I thought it was always gonna be there. I thought it was always one, but no, I go back like three or four or five times later of playing, and all of a sudden there's two of them. What I'm saying is you could cheese your way forward by like dropping in intentionally, and sometimes that will sometimes that'll work in your favor. But you have to be careful because if you if you're fighting and then you fall, you're guaranteed you're gonna have to fight those enemies again.
SPEAKER_01Performance-wise, I have to agree with everything that you said. No crazy sprite flickering, no slowdown. Bugs, uh again, just echoing everything that you said here. Uh, but I I didn't actually notice too hard what you're talking about with the spawning of the enemies as much as I noticed the physics problems. Um Ice was horrible, specifically when jumping. Again, I've I've said it earlier, but uh the small conveyor belt platforms, you went from literally moving super slow to turning around and becoming Superman. So it it was a big problem. That's actually one of the biggest difficulties, I think, with level three, besides the sensitive timing portion of it. Uh other than that, I think everything kind of behaved well and behaved the way it was supposed to, specifically with the hanging platforms. But the fact that you could jump through uh those hanging platforms and still land on top of them, everything everything functioned the way I would expect. Um, but the physics really did stick out as being uh not so great.
SPEAKER_02Let us proclaim the end treats of our game.
SPEAKER_04Kabuki Quantum Fighter has some cheats that are accessible through something called level select. And to get to this level select, you go to the title screen, you press A eight times, B four times, right sixteen times on the second controller, then you hit start on the first controller, and then when the round one start screen shows up, you push up and down on the first controller to select the stages. Now keep in mind, it only goes up to nine. Once you go past nine, it starts going into letters, and then eventually if you keep going, it goes into graphics. The weird thing about it is level nine is actually the beginning of level five, and you have to go to A, B, or C to get to see any of the other the ending levels. I think C is the absolute last boss. And you can alter chips if you activate the level select code that I just explained, and then you can press up and down on the second controller in the game to increase or reduce the amount of chips. And unlike the cheat to swap health for chips where you pause, like we talked about, where you hit start and you push up or down to trade chips for health during boss fights, you could be you can do this at any point in the game, and the game does not have to be paused. In fact, it doesn't work if the game is paused. So, just to say that again, once you do your level select and you start the game, you can really pad yourself with chips.
SPEAKER_03This is the kind of thing that would make my 10-year-old, 11-year-old brain completely freak out and explode and go tall of my friends, and not talk about anything for a week during lunch. I remember those days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Then there's level skip. You activate the level select code, and the A button can be pressed on the second controller in the game to automatically clear the stage. That would have come in handy for you there, Father Avram on level three. Then there's a sound test, but you have to complete the game, and then after the credits have rolled, hit the hit down, B, and select buttons, and an option for a sound test will appear.
SPEAKER_01The level skip definitely would have come in handy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. There would have been a lot less swearing. I I I heard you in the rectory, Father Avram.
SPEAKER_01I But I if I if I did use the level skip, I would have needed to go to confession.
SPEAKER_03But that's the beauty of confession. You can have your sins expunged.
SPEAKER_01And now, brethren, let us offer each other the body of price. In 1991, according to the electronics boutique spring catalog of that year, the game was $41.99. Now, just to put this in perspective, according to data.bls.gov CPI inflation calculator, $41.99 in 1990 is worth $95.27 in 2023.
SPEAKER_04And the only reason why we say 2023 is because that's only as high as the inflation calculator would go right now, because it's January.
SPEAKER_01Correct, yeah. And and we also mentioned the year just for posterity. But yeah, so so looking at the price of the game now, uh pricecharting.com is where we usually go to reference these things. And uh loose copy of this game you can buy uh just the card for $22.03. Uh you can buy just the box for $47.75. You can buy just the manual for $19.34. Complete in box. That means the cart, the box, and the manual $77.91. And if you want to buy a brand new copy, you're paying $155. I think this kind of puts the price range kind of in the middle of some of the other games that we reviewed thus far. But again, we run into this interesting um uh interesting situation where if you were to buy all of these things separately, you're actually going to pay more than if you were to just buy it complete in box.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's fascinating. Can we just pause for a moment too? I understand that the hollowed halls of this temple reflect on this consistently, but as I am a guest deacon in the sanctuary, I'd like to reflect on an era when video games came with manuals. I just think that is so glorious. Yes. And I still remember opening NES Games and thumbing through the manual. Like it made me feel it made me feel that my hobby was official and that it required some cerebral investment. The same way that my dad's car had a user manual. My games had user manuals, damn it. And I think that is a noble and worthy aspect of worship, and one that has been lost over the decades.
SPEAKER_04Yes, very much so. The the funny thing about it is that even the manuals we had growing up, like the ones you spoke of, Deacon Hopper, they were still heavily edited from the Japanese counterparts. Specifically the translations from the Famicom disc system to the NES, the manuals were like uh easily a like half the size, easily. And they were ch the the the Famicom Dist system, like like games like Legend of Zelda, Legend of Zelda 2, Castlevania, Kittigris, uh, all like the heavy hitters for the NES, right? They had tremendous instruction manuals, chock full of beautiful artwork. And I didn't notice until my friend got me into the the Famicom Disc system and got me some games, like some complete games, and he showed me. He's like, Look at this. I was like, Holy hell, this is crazy! Like, so much like beautiful work in here, and we didn't get like easily half of that. But to your point, the ignorance is bliss. We didn't know that, but it was a it was a momentous occasion, it was it was it was a rite of passage for each game you got to sit there on the drive home from the store wherever you're going, open the manual and read it as fast as you freaking could from cover to cover to get that experience before you get home. So all you had to do was pop the game in and play it.
SPEAKER_03You're bringing back memories. You're bringing back memories, man. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and it was and and that's gone. Now there are tutorials, you know what I mean? You get tutorials in games that tell you everything. Like, here's how you jump. It's like, well, no sh.
SPEAKER_01And it's worse than that, too, because they they take it to the opposite uh side of the spectrum where they're like, hey, remember that thing that we told you 10 minutes ago? This would be a good time to do that.
SPEAKER_03It's removed discovery, it's removed the sense of mystery, I think. And and and that's not to say that we haven't done amazing things in video games today. I mean, I'm not saying that. I I'm just I think we're noting the differences of a bygone era, and that there were really cool things about that that are are no longer and probably never will be again. So what an honor to have lived through it and been raised with it. Yeah, I agree. Behind me sits my sim rig, and every day I'm on iracing, and I get to drive laser laser scan tracks from real circuits all over the globe, cars engineered uh and designed with the actual manufacturing engineers, two spec, the physics models are right, uh, everything. I mean, like guys leave these rigs and go race real cars, right? And when you've heard that and seen that, and I love it, it's amazing. My force feedback and vite and haptic system is incredible. I feel immersed in the car. I could not do this in 1990, not even close. And so, in certain regards, I love the era I live in. And yet, there is a reason we still have an NES in our house. And yeah, it's it's not to be too romantic about it, but it's precious.
SPEAKER_04Let us now execute judgment upon Kabuki Quantum Fighter and decide which of the seven cardinal sins it has committed. Father Avon. In regards to narrative, what's your final judgment?
SPEAKER_01In regards to narrative, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed no fault.
SPEAKER_04Deacon Hopper. In regards to narrative, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to narrative, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed no fault.
SPEAKER_04In regards to narrative and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has been spared. Father Raven. In regards to audio, what is your final?
SPEAKER_01In regards to audio, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04Deacon Hopper, in regards to audio, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to audio, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04In regards to audio and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a loathsome cardinal sin deserving of hellfire and damnation. One Father Avram. In regards to gameplay, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_01In regards to gameplay, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04Deacon Hopper. In regards to gameplay, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to gameplay, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed no fault.
SPEAKER_04In regards to gameplay and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has been spared.
SPEAKER_02I invoke the Talisman of DAM Nation!
SPEAKER_04You can't invoke the Talisman of Dam. Just so everyone is aware, the Talisman of Damnation is a formal protest against a categorical decision, but it holds no credence in the presence of this assembly. Therefore, we stricken the protest from this floor.
SPEAKER_02You shall rule the day, Archbishop! SINES!
SPEAKER_04Father Avram. In regards to graphics, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_01In regards to graphics, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed no fault.
SPEAKER_04Deacon Hopper, in regards to graphics, what's your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to graphics, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04In regards to graphics and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has been spared. Father Abram. In regards to box art and presentation, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_01In regards to box art and presentation, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed no fault.
SPEAKER_04Deacon Hopper. In regards to box art and presentation, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to box art and presentation, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed no fault.
SPEAKER_04In regards to box art and presentation, and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has been spared. Father Abram. In regards to Fun Factor, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_01In regards to Fun Factor, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04Deacon Hopper. In regards to Fun Factor, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to Fun Factor, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04In regards to Fun Factor, and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a loathsome cardinal sin deserving of hellfire and damnation. 2. Father Avram. In regards to technical, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_01In regards to technical, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin. Deacon Hopper.
SPEAKER_04In regards to technical, what is your final judgment?
SPEAKER_03In regards to technical, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a most heinous cardinal sin.
SPEAKER_04In regards to technical and in the presence of this assembly, Kabuki Quantum Fighter has committed a loathsome cardinal sin deserving of hellfire and damnation. 3. Kabuki Quantum Fighter, by the authority vested in me, we redeem you of any faults which you have committed and hereby revere you as a jewel in the crown of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Those assembled are sent forth to bring the fruits of the ministry to the world.
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