This Secret Castle is a DISASTER! | Ranking the NES, Episode 41

[@knightdehumidifier]

The Memorial Day weekend, please take time out of your partying and celebrating to pay tribute to the brave men and women who died heroically in the great Dynowarz, and tragedy that befell on Spondylous. It's not too much to ask.

[@poposterous236]

a moment of silence for those we lost ok that's enough

[@darrnellnott07]

They were neither suckers nor losers. Respect to the proud people of Spondylous

[@BenGoodsonModular]

The new Spondylousian culture that emerged after the Great Dynowarz was a period of enlightenment and great peace between warring nations. Until those fucking space dinosaurs came back.

[@dyscostic]

Congratulations! You've completed another GREAT game from Bandai!

[@d.s.i.6722]

This year we honor the low gravity men, the Master Chu's AND the Hu's, drunkards they may be. We honor the brave boys who patrol our Motor cities, the busters of ghosts, and those who defend Dynatron City. Never forget the sacrifice of those who left their lives on the sandy beaches of Bungeling Bay, and the entirety of Spondylus as a whole.

[@Smeatbass]

I know Milon's Secret Castle is a bad game, but my mom loved it. Watching her for hours bang her head figuring it out, and calling Nintendo Power, was a highlight of my childhood.

[@showlectro]

That's super cool. I had a similar experience with my mom when I was a kid but it was with Dragon Lore, a PC adventure game we had gotten from my uncle. Fun memories!

[@Cloudy573]

SHRINK WHEN YOU TOUCH THE GLOVE

[@NewAgeRed]

But we grow when we smell the glove. 😏

[@shanenewman1747]

I was there when Jeff had the pinball run of a life time

[@Alucard-A-La-Carte]

And then GFB tried to take it all away...

[@TevorTheThird]

I always love this aspect of watching another person play a game; while watching Jeff painfully play through Milons Secret Castle my big take away was "Oh wow, this look amazing. I should definitely play this." Different strokes right? Makes the world go round.

[@winter816]

Jeremy Parish covered Milon's Secret Castle in his NES retrospective in the context of being a proto-MetroidVania iirc. These early games with exploration based gameplay always fascinate me.

[@jeremyquiros5483]

I had a similar experience watching Jerma play Just Cause 4. Everyone was trashing the game, but watching him goof around in it made me want to play it. So I did, and I had a blast. Yeah it was a step backward from 2 and 3, but it was still a lot of fun on its own.

[@houdin654jeff]

Because I feel it needs to be said any time it comes up, Tony Hawk named his son after the movie Hudson Hawk. His full name is Hudson Riley Hawk, he goes by his middle name for obvious reasons.

[@milkslurper]

i used to clock out of my shift hella early cuz i get bored to tears at the end of my week. now jeff consistently posts these like two hours before my shift is up and every friday it's like aight whatevs ill hang out and get paid to watch these old games.

[@OneDollarWilliam]

You know how when you're a kid, and you just get stuck on a movie and watch it over and over again? When I was maybe 12 years old Hudson Hawk was that movie for me. I loved the style of it, I loved idea of synchronizing a heist by singing showtunes, I loved Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard devouring scenery like beavers on angel dust, I loved the impenetrable proto-Dan Brown plot. I have not seen it in probably 30 years, but I still think of it a one of my favorite movies. Never played the game though.

[@topherprothero2274]

Milon's Castle was one of my 7 NES games growing up. Whenever I would explain it to a friend they would be confused with how insane it seemed to be.

[@eXiLe824]

The sequence starting at 1:19:11 to the first game over is hilarious. Jeff painstakingly tiptoeing through the whole level while repeatedly being instantly killed by those sudden, loud security cameras almost functions like a Marx Bros or Abbott & Costello physical comedy sketch

[@schtive81]

Castle of Dragon really does have some impressive music. It also has a real clean audio sample at the start of the game. If this was a list for best NES soundtracks, I feel like a lot of the games in the bottom would be at the top.

[@nomchonks]

jeff had one chance to learn wolf move and blew it. unforgivable

[@jkrycz]

It's interesting that Konami put Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego out. Had Nintendo ended the limit on games per year per publisher by that point so there was no more need for stuff like the Ultra shell company or were they just developing little enough for the platform at this point that there was no opportunity cost to publishing a port like this under their own name?

[@MikeYohe]

Had Milon as a kid and found it completely impenetrable. Still do to this day. I wish there was a hack or something that made it more playable, because I always wanted to like it.

[@nekomancer105]

Jeff! Have you played Yoku's Island Express? It's one of the best "doing more with pinball mechanics" games I've ever played. It's a cute little metr... sorry search-action game... where you play a little dung beetle rolling a ball around, delivering mail and honking at stuff with your noise maker. It's very cute and has some neat ideas and you can 100% it in about 10 hours. Highly recommend!

[@MissAshley42]

Science may have finally gone too far. That Milon rating is outrageous!

[@AquaShibby3000]

Let's carefully evaluate the science

[@ice_queen9]

where in time is carmen san diego was one of the first games i ever played on our computer :] . we had windows 3.1 but of course most games didn't run very well on it, so i played it in ms dos. the big encyclopedia that came with it might still be at my mum's place somewhere in a box

[@vookatos]

Had Milon as a kid on Russian Dendy, it was a Japanese copy too. Kinda funny how knowing what the text on floor 1 says doesn't help in the slightest and that I had as much knowledge as anyone.

[@daneofurexistence]

I had Milon’s Secret Castle as a kid, and I’d always play it up until I had zero idea of what to do(which was typically around the second floor of the castle) and play something else. I look forward to seeing the science on that one today. Based on the title….its going to be a scientific anomaly. EDIT: One of the coolest pinball machines I’ve ever played was some sort of hurricane-themed table that would trigger a fan on the machine to start blowing air at you when certain conditions or scenarios started happening. Simple idea, but as a little kid in around ‘91-ish it was amazing. Can’t remember the name of it unfortunately!

[@cactrot83]

Same. I could get to the point where I needed to navigate the towers (only because there was a whole extended family banging their heads against what to do in this game), then I'd get stuck in their looping pattern and that was the end of the game.

[@daneofurexistence]

@@cactrot83 I like that the extended family was involved haha

[@cactrot83]

@@daneofurexistence My grandma owned this and a bunch of other games. My grandparents and four families worth of parents and cousins would play various games in that library during holidays and visits. It was a fun way to experience stuff like Zelda 1 and 2, or where wall meat was in Castlevania, etc. In hindsight, the reason our Milon progress petered out was probably that I was the most mechanically skilled player in the family, so only I could get as far as our aggregate knowledge would allow, and then I couldn't figure out any of the remaining puzzles myself. :/

[@daneofurexistence]

@@cactrot83 My Grandma really liked Bubble Bobble 😁

[@cactrot83]

@@daneofurexistence Same! Maybe we're cousins.

[@AntiSocialHero]

Remember in the 90’s when you could get individual tables for Epic Pinball PC as a promo for when you rented a few movies? I think we had almost all of them.

[@GoodOldDaysGaming]

I actually enjoy milon's secret castle because it was one of the first games I ever saw my dad play. I used to watch him beat it, so it's cozy to me.

[@BananaHace]

Any time I see NES Pinball now, my mind wanders to BillyMC.

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

When Castle of Dragon was placed over Battletoads, I died a little inside.

[@furrymessiah]

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the SPONDEELOOS

[@Duneadaim]

My Lons Secret Castle

[@piratapequeno]

I grew up with Phantom Fighter (my dad used to play more games than me, and he said he ordered it off of an infomercial on TV, of all things). It's certainly unwieldy, and the distance-based combat is hard to get used to, but there's really nothing quite like it, and it's one of the first things I think of when I think of the NES, up there with Mario. As for the animation stuff, Jeff never even got to a building with polished floors, which has full reflections for both Kenshi and the kyonshi. It looks fucking awesome. Also, that intro scared the shit out me as a little kid! Also, I've never forgotten almost any of the music from it. In case you couldn't tell, I've played the shit out of that game (and watched my dad and cousin play the shit out of it), though it took me years to get to the point where I could beat it on my own. Also, the password system is fucked up. I'm bad at drawing, so those playing card suits made me fuck up a lot of my written passwords because I couldn't tell which of the shapes I had drawn.

[@papabaddad]

I remember me and my brother trying to play Milon's growing up and just being unable to progress past the first screen lol.

[@digitaldemigod]

Yay! Starforce! I’ve been waiting for this one. I loved this game and I still play it every so often. I apparently borrowed it from my best friend and never gave it back…. But he married my sister so we’re even. I think this game feels good, moves good, sounds good, I always get the music stuck in my head out of nowhere. It’s probably the best top down shooter of this type on the NES. But I suppose the science will tell us.

[@kayinnasaki]

My favorite indie Game Designer, Sylvie, loves this games and has made incredible works inspired by it like the Metroidvania "Sylvie Lime" and writing this out I feel like a crazy person who is just babbling but for real you have the Milon hammer and you can turn into a lime what more do you want

[@fisk0]

The thing with Ocean is that they put out quality titles in certain genres, but not in others. If it was a simulation or strategy title, you were pretty much guaranteed a good time if it had Ocean on the box. If it was a platformer you wouldn't.

[@funforalgernon]

I’m reminded of the time Carl Winslow fell asleep watching Hudson Hawk (which was played for laughs) and dreamt his daughter Laura and Steve Urkel were married in a dystopian future. I’m sharing this because it’s important to know that everything associated with Hudson Hawk was a nightmare.

[@Discospawn]

"Did *I* do that?" -Bruce Willis (tragic, because of his dementia)

[@GreatistheWorld]

If you’re ever in the mood to hoot and holler, the Mr. Vampire quadrilogy of films fucking own bones. They’re so good

[@piratapequeno]

It was so crazy seeing Mr. Vampire 3 a few years ago after having grown up with Phantom Figher. "Oh, so THAT's why there's a little kid kyonshi who just follows you around!"

[@schtive81]

@1:07:14 - I feel like a lot of people called into the Nintendo Power hotline for Milon's Secret Castle....

[@beelzebufo9406]

Phantom Fighter, the original RAGE engine game.

[@Duckyofalarcon]

When you're all done I'd love a few videos looking at some of the better (or bad?) games that never came out in the USA. Would love to see when its all said and done where something like the japanese Super Mario 2 would have landed.

[@SethGolovin]

I was streaming Hudson Hawk last week and got to that laser section and just decided to move on. My first thought after savaging it on my own stream was that I couldn’t wait for Jeff to rank this one and savage it himself. Edit: Hah I actually moved on from Hudson Hawk to Phantom Fighter. Was doing a stream on movie based games.

[@Kenny-Blankenship]

Star Force is a game that I only know about because of those bootleg cartridges with a lot of games.

[@ladambell]

Hell yeah, Kirby's Pinball Land and Dream Course absolutely kick ass!

[@Alucard-A-La-Carte]

I can't be the only one genuinely shocked that Jeff hasn't seen Hudson Hawk. Not a value judgment on the quality of the movie, it just REALLY seems like the kind of thing he'd have seen. A lot.

[@Jaspertine]

Pretty sure Star Force was either the inspiration or an early attempt at Star Soldier, which became a big deal in Japan.

[@SatNightSpecials]

I conclude that "Heavy B and the Doys" is: a good one. That's all, didn't have anything else to add. Enjoy the rest of your day.

[@Dr_Mel]

I was waiiiiting for castle of dragon, hah! I spent way too much time playing this as a dumb kid. And I did on a few occasions plug it in just to hear the intro music.

[@DonNerdleone]

Thanks Jeff

[@oaeeiea]

Pinball is excellent, on Game B. The ball is faster with a snappier, more "realistic" feel.

[@jackmehoff9616]

What happens when you go though the exit on the pinball game?

[@sydneymeanstreet]

It's sad to see Mumm-ra The Ever Living reduced to a cameo role in Castle of Dragon.

[@transience242]

Milon: the new Spondylous? Only time will tell.

[@aceking121212]

Now to play the Carmen San Diego Gamecube game.....

[@ChampippleD]

I always pronounced it as “My-Lawns”

[@BenGoodsonModular]

At some point, I thought Milon might be related to Mr Do.

[@Retro64_]

Looking at that list as Gremlins 2 get's lower and lower, the more and more it needs a peer review.

[@RW-ij1ci]

Yeah I remember trading TMNT arcade for Milons..... :(

[@_JonServo]

Milon's slaps, to this day. Getting all the music instruments, having no idea which boss at the end was real, endless well runs. Collecting umbrellas until you have machine gun bubble bobble action. Yeah, it is pretty clunky, but for a kid hooked on Dragon Warrior 2 at the time, this was a great change of pace.

[@MikeydCT]

There is a Gameboy port of Milon’s Secret Castle that is a little better. I love the game, I'm not a collector and own a boxed copy

[@OrinLinwe]

Carmen Sandiego should really invest in a cellphone if she's going to go missing this much.

[@gilvy12]

you know how Jeff inexplicably loves Mr. Do? I think Milon's Secret Castle is the hate version of that, like yeah it's not a good game but good god man

[@PressBtoCancel]

The well, the well is climbable 😅

[@robertbailey592]

My favourite series!

[@nehbleh]

In most of these games, I would be too tempted just die once then throw it in the list.

[@d.s.i.6722]

5 greatest games of all time 🖐? Milon, Milon, Milon, Milon, and Milon.

[@funforalgernon]

Kenchi, come in!

[@delirium266]

Jeff Gerstmann thinks Castle of Dragon is better than Battletoads. Good Lord.

[@threeo8314]

The pronunciation of 'Milon' looks to be the second coming of the pronunciation of 'Spondylous'.

[@furrymessiah]

SPONDEELOOS will never be usurped!

[@Achoohorsey]

I spent WAAAAY to much time playing Pinball

[@Mimekiller]

Advisory Council lets boost Déjà Vu

[@rygar8bit2]

Yeah I'm waiting for Deja Vu, Uninvited and Shadowgate. He should do an ep where he only plays these 3 games back to back.

[@Roose201]

RIP World Flipper

[@oyesiamtomsawyer2]

In Hudson Hawk, that is a wiener dog and not a horse.

[@ericfuchs123]

This Hudson Hawk game looks just as bizarre, nonsensical, and frustrating as the movie.

[@nightcitywanderer]

keep it loose, Spondylous

[@sw97058]

360p gang. Pinball is one of my favorites, still fun to play, no nonsense, chill.

[@funforalgernon]

KZbin videos are 360p for only a moment following upload and publishing. 1080p60 is available seconds later.

[@BDreGameplay]

Milon is pronounced Nylon with an M.

[@josephbustamante4774]

Spondylus is pronounced Spondylus

[@BDreGameplay]

@josephbustamante4774 the five different ways Jeff pronounces it are all correct.