This game has ALWAYS intrigued me...I played it at my cousins house once when I was 4 or 5 and never had a chance to play it again. It's one of those weird childhood memories everyone seems to have with certain video games. Thanks for answering my childhood questions I had and saving me time and sanity 😂
Can we all just ponder the fact that there was a period in media history where "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" became a meme for old cartoon shows and comedy skits, and how everyone under the age of 70 only knows this story through reference? Me? I got mine from an Ernie and Bert skit on Sesame Street. Ernie wants to meet the doctor because he always wanted to ask him, "What's Up, Doc?" That's where I know it from.
It should be noted that, as explorers went, Stanley and Livingstone were some of what we would consider "the good ones", in that they believed in preserving and presenting the native cultures the found as they were, rather than updating, colonizing, or in other ways changing them to suit then-modern sensibilities.
He was unfortunately duped into working for King Leopold who did horrific things, and he expedition parties were vary large, so he didn't have control over the rear groups, who also did some nasty things.
OMG, Thank You! I've been trying to put a name to this weird fever dream of a game for years. This was one of those compellingly cursed games I played as a kid. This, Rambo, Faxanadu, Dr. Chaos, Phantom Fighter and Ghoul School almost felt occult to me for how bizarre they were.
Compellingly cursed is a great way to describe those kinds of games, for real. Few more NES games to add to your list, even: Godzilla, King's Quest V, and Wall Steet Kid.
This looks like it is a sequel to Super Pitfall, especially the 30th Anniversary Improvement Hack. And yeah, this game looks like it has some potential to be actually interesting. Maybe it will get a Rom Hack of its own someday...
I'm gonna be honest with you... This video totally made me want to play this game. ;) The footage you showed, the game's conceit and structure, the absurdly busy graphics, the music you were playing from it in the background... It honestly all seems right up my alley! I've never even heard of this game before, and I know you just spent 15 minutes explaining why it's a game that's best avoided, but... like, seriously, I live for this sort of ambitious, clunky, obtuse nonsense! That might as well be my favorite genre of game. This seriously looks like it was made for me! Heheh. Initially, I was just going to comment about something else, but after watching this video all the way through, I felt compelled to mention this as well! I guess this is what happens when you're the sort of person whose favorite Castlevania game is Simon's Quest, whose favorite Zelda game is The Adventure of Link, who actually enjoyed both Super Pitfall and Deadly Towers (and feel the latter in particular gets waaaay more hate than it deserves!), and who spends most of his days playing games for the MSX microcomputer standard. Heheh. And that's actually what I was going to comment about initially: there is a rather famous Spanish-developed game from the late '80s that was sold on cassette tape for a number of different European and Japanese microcomputer standards called "Livingstone Supongo" (Livingstone, I Presume), so between that game being basically omnipresent among retro computer software and this game... existing... I get the sense the tale of Dr. Livingstone was a lot more popular in the '80s (at least in Europe) than we may realize. The retro computer game is pretty fun, albeit frustratingly difficult. Basically, you are -- as with this game -- trying to find Dr. Livingstone. But the trick is, you can't jump. Instead, you have to rely on a giant pole you have with you, and pole-vault over obstacles and -- in some cases -- across whole native encampments and such. You also have some weapons with you, like a boomerang (?) and a knife, which you can throw. And every item (the pole-vault, the boomerang, the knife, etc.) is used by pressing and holding the fire button to "charge up," then letting go, and the amount of time you held the fire button for determines the velocity of your pole-vault, the angle and speed of your throw, etc. So yeah, it's one of those games. ;) But it's pretty novel, for what it is! The NES title looks a lot more fun to me, though. I may just have to snag a copy sometime -- I really think I'd enjoy it. Will have to add it to the list of supposedly "bad" NES games I've never played that I'm pretty sure I'd like -- a list which so far also includes Dr. Chaos and Ghoul School.
Ghoul School is good, it's always been good. Strong contender for the best Absolute/Imagineering game they ever made, to be honest. Feels about as ambitious as A Boy and his Blob and almost definitely more fun.
@@evenmorebetter Good to hear somebody say that! I almost always hear people trash it for being too repetitive or for having monsters that take too many hits to kill, or for not being able to hit monsters too low to the ground, etc. Which are all fair criticisms, to be sure, but whenever I see people reviewing the game with them, I'm just entranced by the footage on-screen. It looks sooooo cool to explore, and the music in the hallways is a certified banger!
Dang. I wish I had known you were wanting to do this game. I could have done some more research beyond what I already know. Dr. Livingstone was actually a missionary doing missions work in Africa. When Stanley was sent to find him and bring him some medicine, Stanley was actually an atheist at the time. It was after his encounter with Livingstone that Stanley converted.
See now here's a great project for a romhacker right here! Some qol improvements paired with some other tweaks... this really seems like it had the potential to be a grand ol' time!
This is unironically one of the graphically most impressive NES games I have seen. Great atmosphere, amazing pixel art. Pity the gameplay is lacking, otherwise this could have been a hit.
14:46 it's nice to finally see this game get the dedicated Big Ole Words treatment, even if it belongs in the "big ideas with lousy execution pile". Nice follow-up to the previous mentions in survey videos.
Lmfao idk what about your delivery in this specific entry made your frustration so perfectly understandable & palpable, but man I could *feel* the nonsense piling up in your brain til you were about to explode and it was pretty hilarious. Another great vid thanks for making it.
How are there still so many NES games I've never heard of? I watched all the [insert popular vintage game RUclipsr] episodes. I peruse the shelves every time I go to a retro video game store. But I've never heard of this. It looks like a dumpster fire level made in Mario maker, but then the game also glitched. 10/10 would recommend.
This was a later NES release and unlike many of it's contemporaries wasn't really a "hidden gem" for obvious reasons. I think it came out the same year stuff like Little Sampson and Panic Restaurant came out. Nintendo Power did do some coverage of it and is the sole reason I was even aware of it, with it's oddness living rent free in the back of my head for 30ish years.
@Unquestionable A late release explains some things. When it doesn't look like a hot mess of random sprites, it looks quite good. Yes, the fluid animations as noted in the video, but also I was repeatedly noticing the shadow work inside caves that gave it a sense of depth. I'll be on the lookout for this one just because it's so different.
Thank you for reviewing one of my favorite games, as jank as it might be. The villagers actually tell you “though cryptically” about how you would float in that part of the map while using your propeller. I have no defense of the butterflies
Hey, I beat this game earlier this year, and it is gloriously awful! Never mind the terrible music, visuals, or controls, the fact that you have to cross a mercilessly long bridge near the start of the game that will kill you if you step on any number of innocuous areas is grounds enough for failure (I can already see you cringing and nodding your head. Sorry about the PTSD). At least the ending is rad. I'd like to see an in-depth video covering all of the "WTF" moments in the NES Tom Sawyer game. There's a giant pink gorilla that changes color every time Tom throws a rock at its face, a demon statue that summons other demons, the Japanese thunder god Raijin, and a f***ing zeppelin. It's been awhile since I've read the book, but I'm pretty sure Mark Twain didn't write any of that.
Early morning video YEAH ! Wake up everyone under that Fulton Industrial Bridge and shakem loose at the Majestic Lodge, learn some BIG OLE WORDS with the best!!
The main character has a helicopter backpack and never once thought to himself, "Hey, there's a strange floating island in the sky, maybe I should go check that out because it would be an amazing discovery!"
Stanley has intrigued me for a long time. Like you, I played it here and there, but I didn't get far. I found it charming - particularly the port village with the cute character animations, and Stanley's helicopter backpack. But I also found it a bit grating, with the choppy enemy movement and somewhat frustrating combat. I guess it's good to finally see the ending and know that it doesn't get any better, haha.
Metal mech definitely deserves the Blood Test from Macgrady. Mesopotamia by B52s is elite.....that butterfly is harsh but Stanley's sprite looks to have an amazing cod piece while the 🦋 has him. Great vid dude. Happy late turkey!
Looks quite ambitious to be honest. nice sprite work, detailed levels and quite a lot of mechanics for a NES game. Sure, it might be cryptic and difficult but that has never hindered me from loving a game.
so much personality. It looks awesome IMO. Would love more games in such settings and the map exploration like this. So sad about everything else about it 😅
You have enlightened me to Sculptured Software! One of those oddball developers with interesting technology, which the name of sounds familiar, and so do the games, but you don't associate the names with each other. All the games you mentioned they made, I know! Most of them I only knew the surface of but always looked interesting, like this one! It may be a bit janky but I really enjoyed the graphics (aren't they very homebrew-y?), music, and NES-ness of it, honestly I think I might like it idk!! I kinda like weird games like this and... idk, Dirty Harry. Also I had no idea this was based on a historical event!
Despite having a massive collection of NES roms I've collected over the years and numerous sessions of rom roulette with pulling up random games to try, at best I may have tried this game once but I vaguely remember it. More than likely I fired it up once, felt the frustration of it's broken controls, told myself, "no thanks," and forever mentally blocked it out. You know during rom roulette when a game makes you grimace, from then on when you ever see the beginning letters or words of the game you skip over it? That's basically been me with this game for about 20 years now that I think about it lol. 🤣
I think the comparison to Magician is perfect. Interesting enough to draw you in but clunky to actually play. One of those other titles you rent when they offered a two-for-one deal. You’d play it for a while, getting frustrated, then switch over to the other game and never touch the other one ever again
My entire experience with this game was reading the Nintendo Power coverage of it and thinking it was an odd choice of subject for a game. Like pretty much every game they covered it was a glorified advertisement which made the game look at least some kind of fun, which was of course very hit or miss in accuracy. I do remember it being a later NES title so got very overlooked in favor of the newer SNES stuff.
I actually like how this game looks! Never played it though and I'm glad you did for me. I'm in the market for a nice new emulation machine and hopefully this game will be on there when i find what I'm looking for, just so I can get as frustrated as you! Fuck yeah! Thanks! 😂
I’m looking at a lot of this art and wondering how hard it’s being hit by the old “have to see it on a CRT” issue. Because it manages to thread the needle of impressively beautiful and headache-inducingly hideous at points. That huge waterfall background in particular. There’s just something about it that kicks in instant eye strain even as the high effort of it all is clear to see.
Never heard of this game. I wonder if AVGN would have shitted on it if he knew (let's assume he doesn't) about this game. But bugs aside it looks pretty solid game IMO.
It is pretty solid. Nothing mind blowing or revolutionary, but it's solid for an NES game, with some cool "big ideas" or whatever that make it more interesting than average.
Someone hand this game to back in the day konami/capcom/sunsoft devs, its almost playable minus the enemies! 😂 This honestly makes this game seem more doable than blind playing an import..
Nah, I think it's a solid 6.5 to 7/10, especially considering the actual shovelware on the system. It's frustrating, and I would call it a "guide game", but it feels like a decent Pitfall sequel or some such to me.
This game really does seem to be pure potential - the kind of thing that was created and released too early. Magician was another good example too as mentioned in the video. Both should have been 16-bit titles, at the earliest. So much possibility for good gameplay and evidence of real effort that went in that I just can’t hate either game, at least from a distance! I know they’re both nightmares to play. Someone Smarter Than Me(tm) should try their hand at recreating either game in some form. I know I’d be interested to see.
its not as bad as he's making it out, the gameplay I would call "average" to slightly above for NES (remembering all the pure shovelware it has). The potential is what makes it more interesting and worth giving a try.
When most retro reviewers are losing their shine and appeal, when a friend who loves nes games is totally inapprochable, when a person who is drunk on snes games is making bottom tier games content only and sticking it to his viewers, and when the lord of the sega games is just, well, pretty meh lately, we can always count of the the man who speaks, old but big words, for some some quality content.
I actually like the Koei videos! I get it, they’re a huge complex part of the NES library that totally fits this channel (and SNES Drunks channel) perfectly. Doing them all in a row is masochistic, but it must feel nice to get them all out of the way. I’m dreading talking about L’Empereur or Gemfire.
An ambitkous game considering the amount of levels and detailed animations... but ambition certainly doesn't always mean quality. The sheer amount of deaths due to obtuse, unexplained pitfalls or monsters that are only passable once you trial and error your way into learning their patterns AND how to bypass them using clunky controls... Funny thing is, I can see this game honestly finding an audience precisely because of how hard and unfair it is- I think there're gamers out there who'd feel all of this comes together to form a true exploratory challenge that you really have to hunker down in order to overcome, and a part of me can't hate on that- God knows I love some truly obtuse and jank games myself. But without nostalgia's rosy luster (and far less time and far more options these days so I don't HAVE to sit and drain as much sustenance from the one game I'll get all year), I don't think I'll dive in to find if this is the type of bullshit I'd be down with.
Damn, James...you're a glutton for punishment. Lol. But thanks for suffering so I can experience this game vicariously. I remember seeing this title as well as the Tom Sawyer and Dr. Jekyll games in my Game Genie code book as a kid. Should all be in black boxes under Nintendo's "Literary Series". Games so boring they make the books look AMAZING.
Sure the game is bad, but look at that run cycle! So swaggy! Honestly, if they tweaked the combat and enemies a bit and added a "zelda II randomizer" element to this, it could make a splash in the modern indie roguelike market.
It’s odd that the two nes games where the protagonist wears a pith helmet are both terrible, but in the “I can kinda see the good game peeking out” sort of way.
@@namebrandmason its janky with some early insta death BS, but it's really not "awful", especially compared to Super Pitfall. I think some people are just AVGN brained.
Could Stanley steal your girlfriend?! ruclips.net/video/o8CrlRmpQ18/видео.htmlsi=5d6zlmkqk7Ko2UIv
Yes. Yes he can. That would be nice for me.
You assume I have a girlfriend
This game has ALWAYS intrigued me...I played it at my cousins house once when I was 4 or 5 and never had a chance to play it again. It's one of those weird childhood memories everyone seems to have with certain video games. Thanks for answering my childhood questions I had and saving me time and sanity 😂
Can we all just ponder the fact that there was a period in media history where "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" became a meme for old cartoon shows and comedy skits, and how everyone under the age of 70 only knows this story through reference? Me? I got mine from an Ernie and Bert skit on Sesame Street. Ernie wants to meet the doctor because he always wanted to ask him, "What's Up, Doc?" That's where I know it from.
If I remember correctly I got mine from Rocky and Bullwinkle. All I remember is the two arguing over who presumes who first.
I can’t imagine anyone under 30 would get the reference!
Wait is that what Bugs bunny was referring to? What’s up Doc?
They would make that joke any time someone wore a pith helmet. That's the only reason I ever heard of it as a kid
@@kri249 Yeah. A Peabody and Sherman segment, right? I swear I have the audio for that one somewhere.
6:30 Nobody suspects the butterfly.
Mwuah ha ha ha ha!
That cover is straight up AVGN from the episode he did with Gilbert Gottfried :D lol!
I came here to say that too haha
Thank you, that's why it looked familiar. They predicted the future.
It should be noted that, as explorers went, Stanley and Livingstone were some of what we would consider "the good ones", in that they believed in preserving and presenting the native cultures the found as they were, rather than updating, colonizing, or in other ways changing them to suit then-modern sensibilities.
Yeah they were some of the first I learned about as a kid and they actually sounded pretty cool compared to a lot from the era.
He was unfortunately duped into working for King Leopold who did horrific things, and he expedition parties were vary large, so he didn't have control over the rear groups, who also did some nasty things.
OMG, Thank You! I've been trying to put a name to this weird fever dream of a game for years. This was one of those compellingly cursed games I played as a kid. This, Rambo, Faxanadu, Dr. Chaos, Phantom Fighter and Ghoul School almost felt occult to me for how bizarre they were.
That’s quite a spread!
Compellingly cursed is a great way to describe those kinds of games, for real. Few more NES games to add to your list, even: Godzilla, King's Quest V, and Wall Steet Kid.
This looks like it is a sequel to Super Pitfall, especially the 30th Anniversary Improvement Hack. And yeah, this game looks like it has some potential to be actually interesting. Maybe it will get a Rom Hack of its own someday...
I'm gonna be honest with you... This video totally made me want to play this game. ;) The footage you showed, the game's conceit and structure, the absurdly busy graphics, the music you were playing from it in the background... It honestly all seems right up my alley! I've never even heard of this game before, and I know you just spent 15 minutes explaining why it's a game that's best avoided, but... like, seriously, I live for this sort of ambitious, clunky, obtuse nonsense! That might as well be my favorite genre of game. This seriously looks like it was made for me! Heheh.
Initially, I was just going to comment about something else, but after watching this video all the way through, I felt compelled to mention this as well!
I guess this is what happens when you're the sort of person whose favorite Castlevania game is Simon's Quest, whose favorite Zelda game is The Adventure of Link, who actually enjoyed both Super Pitfall and Deadly Towers (and feel the latter in particular gets waaaay more hate than it deserves!), and who spends most of his days playing games for the MSX microcomputer standard. Heheh.
And that's actually what I was going to comment about initially: there is a rather famous Spanish-developed game from the late '80s that was sold on cassette tape for a number of different European and Japanese microcomputer standards called "Livingstone Supongo" (Livingstone, I Presume), so between that game being basically omnipresent among retro computer software and this game... existing... I get the sense the tale of Dr. Livingstone was a lot more popular in the '80s (at least in Europe) than we may realize.
The retro computer game is pretty fun, albeit frustratingly difficult. Basically, you are -- as with this game -- trying to find Dr. Livingstone. But the trick is, you can't jump. Instead, you have to rely on a giant pole you have with you, and pole-vault over obstacles and -- in some cases -- across whole native encampments and such. You also have some weapons with you, like a boomerang (?) and a knife, which you can throw. And every item (the pole-vault, the boomerang, the knife, etc.) is used by pressing and holding the fire button to "charge up," then letting go, and the amount of time you held the fire button for determines the velocity of your pole-vault, the angle and speed of your throw, etc.
So yeah, it's one of those games. ;) But it's pretty novel, for what it is!
The NES title looks a lot more fun to me, though. I may just have to snag a copy sometime -- I really think I'd enjoy it. Will have to add it to the list of supposedly "bad" NES games I've never played that I'm pretty sure I'd like -- a list which so far also includes Dr. Chaos and Ghoul School.
Totally agree
Ghoul School is good, it's always been good. Strong contender for the best Absolute/Imagineering game they ever made, to be honest. Feels about as ambitious as A Boy and his Blob and almost definitely more fun.
@@evenmorebetter Good to hear somebody say that! I almost always hear people trash it for being too repetitive or for having monsters that take too many hits to kill, or for not being able to hit monsters too low to the ground, etc. Which are all fair criticisms, to be sure, but whenever I see people reviewing the game with them, I'm just entranced by the footage on-screen. It looks sooooo cool to explore, and the music in the hallways is a certified banger!
Looks like James Rolfe, AVGN, on the cartridge label!
I thought the same thing.
What were they thinkiiiiing?!
I can hear him now saying something like "Oh hell no, they're not putting my face on this a$$-sucking, sh*try game. Fk that."
@@RockSoup What a bunch of vomit-coated diarrhoea donkey doo doo!!
I thought it looked like Bradley
Dang. I wish I had known you were wanting to do this game. I could have done some more research beyond what I already know.
Dr. Livingstone was actually a missionary doing missions work in Africa. When Stanley was sent to find him and bring him some medicine, Stanley was actually an atheist at the time. It was after his encounter with Livingstone that Stanley converted.
To end up finding him on a flying island? Hell, I might have converted as well. XD
@@amanoj318There were some artistic liberties taken by the game.
See now here's a great project for a romhacker right here! Some qol improvements paired with some other tweaks... this really seems like it had the potential to be a grand ol' time!
This is unironically one of the graphically most impressive NES games I have seen. Great atmosphere, amazing pixel art. Pity the gameplay is lacking, otherwise this could have been a hit.
Backpack helicopter was a popular pastime along with kangaroo boxing and Spaniard-baiting.
14:46 it's nice to finally see this game get the dedicated Big Ole Words treatment, even if it belongs in the "big ideas with lousy execution pile". Nice follow-up to the previous mentions in survey videos.
I always thought Stanley looked like the Angry Video Game Nerd.
The cover looks like the cover of a Trapper Keeper.
Lmfao idk what about your delivery in this specific entry made your frustration so perfectly understandable & palpable, but man I could *feel* the nonsense piling up in your brain til you were about to explode and it was pretty hilarious. Another great vid thanks for making it.
Honestly the only other game that made me this angry was Metal Mech, and it makes sense now that I know it was the same developers!
@BigOleWords I am gonna have to rewatch that, and I think I will right now! I'll leave a comment again too 😂
This is like the only old channel I still watch from over 15 years ago that’s still uploading.
Going strong 30 years later!
At first, the thumbnail looks like a hack of Super Pitfall thats made into an AVGN Fred Fuchs game lol
This has the appearance of being an educational "Metroidvania" game.
How are there still so many NES games I've never heard of? I watched all the [insert popular vintage game RUclipsr] episodes. I peruse the shelves every time I go to a retro video game store. But I've never heard of this. It looks like a dumpster fire level made in Mario maker, but then the game also glitched. 10/10 would recommend.
This was a later NES release and unlike many of it's contemporaries wasn't really a "hidden gem" for obvious reasons. I think it came out the same year stuff like Little Sampson and Panic Restaurant came out. Nintendo Power did do some coverage of it and is the sole reason I was even aware of it, with it's oddness living rent free in the back of my head for 30ish years.
@Unquestionable A late release explains some things. When it doesn't look like a hot mess of random sprites, it looks quite good. Yes, the fluid animations as noted in the video, but also I was repeatedly noticing the shadow work inside caves that gave it a sense of depth. I'll be on the lookout for this one just because it's so different.
Thank you for reviewing one of my favorite games, as jank as it might be. The villagers actually tell you “though cryptically” about how you would float in that part of the map while using your propeller.
I have no defense of the butterflies
Well that makes sense, I completely tuned them out!
Ya I think it's better than he gave it credit for, despite some junk and flaws (butterflies ugh)
That ending is all kinds of amazing.
Hey, I beat this game earlier this year, and it is gloriously awful! Never mind the terrible music, visuals, or controls, the fact that you have to cross a mercilessly long bridge near the start of the game that will kill you if you step on any number of innocuous areas is grounds enough for failure (I can already see you cringing and nodding your head. Sorry about the PTSD). At least the ending is rad.
I'd like to see an in-depth video covering all of the "WTF" moments in the NES Tom Sawyer game. There's a giant pink gorilla that changes color every time Tom throws a rock at its face, a demon statue that summons other demons, the Japanese thunder god Raijin, and a f***ing zeppelin. It's been awhile since I've read the book, but I'm pretty sure Mark Twain didn't write any of that.
That’s a game i can’t get more than a minute in. Drives me crazy.
It's really not awful for an NES game.
Now it's Livingstain
😆
Early morning video YEAH ! Wake up everyone under that Fulton Industrial Bridge and shakem loose at the Majestic Lodge, learn some BIG OLE WORDS with the best!!
The main character has a helicopter backpack and never once thought to himself, "Hey, there's a strange floating island in the sky, maybe I should go check that out because it would be an amazing discovery!"
To his credit, it only takes him up in two very specific areas
It's like the prequel to Lester the Unlikely
Dr. Livingstone was a missionary who brought the gospel of Christ to Africa.
Robin Hood doesn't deserve half the hate it got.
Serousely i loved that game would beat it and rent it again 6 months later
Lose on the horse section and come back to me
@BigOleWords it deserves horse hate.
Horse section is easy. Beat it first try.
Games no one played. Good pick, James. Truth.
I received this as a gift when I was a kid. It was no Star Tropics, but we played it anyway. Low key kinda fun.
He's got a board with a nail in it!
Teach you to enslave humanity!
At least the map-based kevel select was kinda interesting 😂
My damn day has arrived!
“Check This Shit Owwwttt!”
Such a weird 'license' choice. I am in a way related to Dr Livingstone. My great grandfather was adopted into a family who were his descendants.
Oh damn!
Stanley has intrigued me for a long time. Like you, I played it here and there, but I didn't get far. I found it charming - particularly the port village with the cute character animations, and Stanley's helicopter backpack. But I also found it a bit grating, with the choppy enemy movement and somewhat frustrating combat. I guess it's good to finally see the ending and know that it doesn't get any better, haha.
Awesome drawing! 😃
Thanks Scott!
Another thoroughly forgotten nes game! Great channel
Thanks mane!
Metal mech definitely deserves the Blood Test from Macgrady. Mesopotamia by B52s is elite.....that butterfly is harsh but Stanley's sprite looks to have an amazing cod piece while the 🦋 has him. Great vid dude. Happy late turkey!
Looks quite ambitious to be honest. nice sprite work, detailed levels and quite a lot of mechanics for a NES game. Sure, it might be cryptic and difficult but that has never hindered me from loving a game.
Thanks for the morning vid
Duuude, Eliminator Boat Duel is such a great game.
Not one I knew about until it was put on Switch
I've never played it and I'll trust your opinions but I must say it's a nice looking game. Beautiful background tiles.
Yay upload on my birthday thank you sir
so much personality. It looks awesome IMO. Would love more games in such settings and the map exploration like this. So sad about everything else about it 😅
I have this and Metal Mech on one of the Piko evercade collections.
You have enlightened me to Sculptured Software! One of those oddball developers with interesting technology, which the name of sounds familiar, and so do the games, but you don't associate the names with each other. All the games you mentioned they made, I know! Most of them I only knew the surface of but always looked interesting, like this one! It may be a bit janky but I really enjoyed the graphics (aren't they very homebrew-y?), music, and NES-ness of it, honestly I think I might like it idk!! I kinda like weird games like this and... idk, Dirty Harry. Also I had no idea this was based on a historical event!
Dirty Harry I’ll definitely get to soon
@@BigOleWords great!! I think that game has lots of neat ideas, but no direction and terrible controls
I owned this. I just played it again recently.
Despite having a massive collection of NES roms I've collected over the years and numerous sessions of rom roulette with pulling up random games to try, at best I may have tried this game once but I vaguely remember it. More than likely I fired it up once, felt the frustration of it's broken controls, told myself, "no thanks," and forever mentally blocked it out. You know during rom roulette when a game makes you grimace, from then on when you ever see the beginning letters or words of the game you skip over it? That's basically been me with this game for about 20 years now that I think about it lol. 🤣
Thank you for this interesting and entertaining video.
I think the comparison to Magician is perfect. Interesting enough to draw you in but clunky to actually play. One of those other titles you rent when they offered a two-for-one deal. You’d play it for a while, getting frustrated, then switch over to the other game and never touch the other one ever again
01:40 into the video and I can see that this videogame Looks Really Cool (Graphic Wise) looks like something I would have picked up :)
Oh hell yes what a way to start the day right on
>Africa
>Obvious sprites of tigers
>"Jaguars"
Oh baby a TRIPLE
My entire experience with this game was reading the Nintendo Power coverage of it and thinking it was an odd choice of subject for a game. Like pretty much every game they covered it was a glorified advertisement which made the game look at least some kind of fun, which was of course very hit or miss in accuracy. I do remember it being a later NES title so got very overlooked in favor of the newer SNES stuff.
Wow never knew about this game thanks and more importantly it's looks fun to play really thanks 🙏🙏🙏
BUT... Is it better than Super Pitfall?
I actually like how this game looks!
Never played it though and I'm glad you did for me.
I'm in the market for a nice new emulation machine and hopefully this game will be on there when i find what I'm looking for, just so I can get as frustrated as you!
Fuck yeah!
Thanks!
😂
I’m looking at a lot of this art and wondering how hard it’s being hit by the old “have to see it on a CRT” issue. Because it manages to thread the needle of impressively beautiful and headache-inducingly hideous at points. That huge waterfall background in particular. There’s just something about it that kicks in instant eye strain even as the high effort of it all is clear to see.
Have you covered Kickle Cubicle for NES by chance? Great game
Eat shit Gadget is my new favorite line 😅
Wish they had made a game about Jack Renton
I played this... the pink afro monster was terrifying!! But I beat it.
I still have no idea what that was all about
IIRC, wasn't Stanley one of the people who uncovered the horrors in King Leopold's Congo?
Looks like James Rolfe AVGN is on the cover!
😂 that ending
Never heard of this game. I wonder if AVGN would have shitted on it if he knew (let's assume he doesn't) about this game. But bugs aside it looks pretty solid game IMO.
It is pretty solid. Nothing mind blowing or revolutionary, but it's solid for an NES game, with some cool "big ideas" or whatever that make it more interesting than average.
You're right that they misspelled "Livingstone."
All the same, it _is_ pronounced "living stun."
13:38 Say what you will about the gameplay, at least it's historically accurate.
And then he helicoptered off Heaven island and into the sunset.
Someone hand this game to back in the day konami/capcom/sunsoft devs, its almost playable minus the enemies! 😂
This honestly makes this game seem more doable than blind playing an import..
You very well might be the only person in the world who beat this game in 2024.
Hahaha sigh
It's like they said, lets make a new pitfall but make it even harder.
Nah, I think it's a solid 6.5 to 7/10, especially considering the actual shovelware on the system. It's frustrating, and I would call it a "guide game", but it feels like a decent Pitfall sequel or some such to me.
This game really does seem to be pure potential - the kind of thing that was created and released too early. Magician was another good example too as mentioned in the video. Both should have been 16-bit titles, at the earliest. So much possibility for good gameplay and evidence of real effort that went in that I just can’t hate either game, at least from a distance! I know they’re both nightmares to play. Someone Smarter Than Me(tm) should try their hand at recreating either game in some form. I know I’d be interested to see.
its not as bad as he's making it out, the gameplay I would call "average" to slightly above for NES (remembering all the pure shovelware it has). The potential is what makes it more interesting and worth giving a try.
@ That’s good to hear. I think all the concept needs is some quality of life and level design, then perhaps something more meaningful at the end!
3:11 Pugilist stance, put up yer dukes.
When most retro reviewers are losing their shine and appeal, when a friend who loves nes games is totally inapprochable, when a person who is drunk on snes games is making bottom tier games content only and sticking it to his viewers, and when the lord of the sega games is just, well, pretty meh lately, we can always count of the the man who speaks, old but big words, for some some quality content.
I actually like the Koei videos! I get it, they’re a huge complex part of the NES library that totally fits this channel (and SNES Drunks channel) perfectly. Doing them all in a row is masochistic, but it must feel nice to get them all out of the way. I’m dreading talking about L’Empereur or Gemfire.
This is literally the first time hearing about this.
Looks like James Rolfe on the cover.
You beat me to it ROFL 😂
Hmm kinda interesting Game and like many others some of the I didn't know :O
Dr Livingston and Dr Stanley are well known. It must be your Americanness for not knowing.
Settle down ol chap
There's also Livingstone, I Presume? released for many computers back in the day.
And its sequel, which somehow manages to be a downgrade from the first in every way. Livingstone was clearly a major IP in the 80s, for some reason.
An ambitkous game considering the amount of levels and detailed animations... but ambition certainly doesn't always mean quality. The sheer amount of deaths due to obtuse, unexplained pitfalls or monsters that are only passable once you trial and error your way into learning their patterns AND how to bypass them using clunky controls...
Funny thing is, I can see this game honestly finding an audience precisely because of how hard and unfair it is- I think there're gamers out there who'd feel all of this comes together to form a true exploratory challenge that you really have to hunker down in order to overcome, and a part of me can't hate on that- God knows I love some truly obtuse and jank games myself. But without nostalgia's rosy luster (and far less time and far more options these days so I don't HAVE to sit and drain as much sustenance from the one game I'll get all year), I don't think I'll dive in to find if this is the type of bullshit I'd be down with.
H.E.R.O. from Atari just called. He wants his back pack helicopter back.
...why does this game have bugs that shoot lightning in it--oh.
They're...'lightning bugs.'
😂 I thought that was avgn at first as Stanley but I've never heard of this game at all
Is that Rob Schneider on the cover?
Looks fun
The guy on the cover looks like AVGN
Damn, James...you're a glutton for punishment. Lol. But thanks for suffering so I can experience this game vicariously. I remember seeing this title as well as the Tom Sawyer and Dr. Jekyll games in my Game Genie code book as a kid. Should all be in black boxes under Nintendo's "Literary Series". Games so boring they make the books look AMAZING.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula?
Holy shit a game ive never heard of 😮?
This game looks pretty good, but I think it rips off Elden Ring with the bosses a bit.
This is actually a pretty cool and ambitious concept. Shame about the execution
if you like NES games, the execution isn't great but it's certainly worth trying if it gets your interest.
I remember seeing this game in Nintendo Power and thinking it could be an interesting Metroidvania. Boy am I glad I didn't get it.
Sure the game is bad, but look at that run cycle! So swaggy!
Honestly, if they tweaked the combat and enemies a bit and added a "zelda II randomizer" element to this, it could make a splash in the modern indie roguelike market.
2:20 Yes its ca;;ed an estate and just ask Tolkien about it.
I grew up being a huge fan of Indiana Jones and I constantly tried to play this game and super pitfall…they were both awful.
It’s odd that the two nes games where the protagonist wears a pith helmet are both terrible, but in the “I can kinda see the good game peeking out” sort of way.
@@namebrandmason its janky with some early insta death BS, but it's really not "awful", especially compared to Super Pitfall. I think some people are just AVGN brained.
This game has a weird charm. I think this companies problem with graphics is their color palette and their overabundance of dithering.
IVE SEEN THAT CARTOON LOL