This game contains some strobing lights in a couple places so I've marked the times in the video when the flashing happens. It's not the worst I've ever seen but just a heads up for any light sensitive buds out there :) 2:00 - Strobing Begins 2:06 - Strobing Ends 4:14 - Stobing Begins 4:42 - Strobing Ends
It seemed like in the 90s that there were tons of games that rocked the 'biomutant' aesthetic. Tons of purple and green and weird monsters and slime. It's strange that for all of the '8bit revival' games that came out, that they all seem to lean more on the fantasy aesthetic as opposed to 90s gross out culture
@@daryl4841 Oh absolutely. It seemed liked that shooters were very much on board when it came to David Cronenberg levels of flesh. Also, you just reminded me of Contra Shattered Soldier. That has a ton of gross 90's body horror. It wasn't as playful as the 90s stuff though.
Their work wasn't perfect but I think Kid were a very underappreciated developer, they have a certain style across all their games that stands out in the crowd, it's something that remains appealing to me even if they can be difficult at times and I just enjoy looking at them.
I suck at shooters but I've always really liked this one even just for the style and aesthetics. Love the well-defined sprites and colour choices and I enjoy playing it even when I get slaughtered. :) And that strange angled perspective was also used in some stages of Zen - Intergalactic Ninja. Another nice addition to the NES action game library. :)
I also balked at the true ending requirement initially and anticipated writing my own review without fully completing the game. After sleeping on it, though, I decided to throw Isolated Warrior back on the next morning and give it one last go. I ended up pushing all the way to stage seven on a single life and finished it shortly thereafter. It’s amazing what old-fashioned level memorization followed by a good night’s sleep can do. ;)
Yeah, it's doable if you have a good time to play with a clear head. I did it for a review on a forum back in, like, 2016, and it only took me a few tries. The thing that always got me was accidentally popping wheelies and screwing up my jumps on the motorcycle stage. Pit deaths got me way worse than the bosses!
I got this game in my Easter basket back when I was... 11. Be frugal with your bombs. You need them for the boss fight. Mastered it to the point that I could send the bombs into the bosses movements for longer damage time.
I've had a boxed copy of this game in my collection for years. Think I got it at an old rental place back in the early 2000s when you could find such treasures. It's a fantastic title. Little difficult but I still play it when I get the Nes Advantage out.
Amazing to see a fellow KID fan out there!! i fell in love back in the 90s with the company with the awesome hidden gems Low G Man and Isolated Warrior, played both to death and still have my copies like pure gold. Nice video!!
I love this game. Once I got past the freaking motorcycle stage, I could clear it pretty easily, but that level made me curse like a sailor. I think I'm ruining my 8 year old son with NES games. I turned him onto Legacy of the Wizard by showing him how the game is divided up for each character, and we did the first 2 crowns together. It's bad enough that I have him playing old games with me, but now he's digging the oddball stuff, too...
@@BigOleWords With Legacy of the Wizard, once he learned that the big room with the dragon is a hub with ladders off in 4 directions, a direction for each family member, it started making more sense to him. It gets a lot less cryptic when you know that each of the 4 crowns is off of one of those ladders, and each area is designed for a power-up specific to each family member.
I had this game when I was a kid, and still have it of course. It’s a fun and fair game with the right amount of challenge, except for… losing your current weapon’s upgrades entirely when dying. I think my trick was to quickly switch to W immediately after dying (like there was a short window in which to do that), so that I always kept the L upgrades. Or maybe when I thought I was going to die? I’m not sure. In the end I managed to beat the game once I had the Double Player controllers; the slowmotion button (basically Turbo for the Startbutton) helped me with one boss.
I've actually beat this game several times years back without dying. I'm probably not as good at it as I used to be these days. There's a LOT of variety that goes on here. I think the biggest issue with it is trying to align your shots properly. There are also hidden secrets in the game where you can acquire extra lives and power-ups. For the most part, if you die in the game, you can only blame yourself. KID was also responsible for Summer Carnival '92 Recca for the Famicom. But get the ROM for it and put it on an Everdrive and you're all set, especially since the original cart for that game goes up for a new car now.
Isolated warrior have some ressembles with Zen in two-three stage. I think Banana Prince also was develop by KID. I don't remember but maybe Doki Doki Uenchi(Troll in Amusment park) was also made by them
@@BigOleWords Both of those game have potential but lack in good level design. Banana Prince levels are mess, and I think this game need to be on SNES with this detailed graphic. Doki Doki Uenchi have intesting gimmick but levels looks unfinished from design wise. They both need good shake
Low g man and dragon warrior 1 got me back into retro gaming when I was like 17 . I never looked back. I'm 30 now. Still Play retro almost exclusively these days. Almost forgot about low g man but Honestly I randomly thought about it last week. Weird
Glad to hear that I'm not alone in hating the jumping in Dino-Riki. I made another attempt to get good at the game last year and would still regularly lose runs to the lily pads in the first level even though I could routinely get a lot deeper into the game.
Nice "Hell comes to Frog Town" reference you got there. thats a DEEP cut..... I seen a TAS speedrun of this, and its is unrelenting. can't imagine the hours that went into it.
In many markets for FamiClones, there were bootlegs of this game being sold as Contra 8. It was the Japanese ROM where they only changed the title screen. None of us knew this wasn't a Conta game but were surely confused when we didn't see Konami's name. I remember borrowing this from a friend & thank God for its password system, this game is so tough I couldn't complete it in a single sitting. I'm thinking of revisiting this, preferably with a complete English language ROM.
@@BigOleWords thats what they really are. Some of the speed runners out there are nuts. How they can remember every last detail about a game and just own it, is impressive. 👍
I used to consider this game one of the hardest NES games I've played. I couldn't beat it, not even come close. Than years later I managed to beat it and only lost a single life during my playthrough. Dying is allowed to reach stage 7, continuing is not. There seems to be some conflicting information about this on the internet.
It's funny because i played it on a stream after I'd finished this video and I kinda zoomed through it until the fourth level! I could see how playing it on repeat would eventually yield results.
Hey James, just wanted to address some of what you said. 0:09 KID Isn't as well known as the big devs like Capcom Konami Taito and Natsume but I'd say there are bigger deep cut developers than KID. KID made RECCA: Summer Carnival '92, Sumo Fighter, the entire Memories Off franchise and even the absurdly great Pepsiman. 1:10 No idea who the hell translated the manual. According ot the manual for _Max Warrior_, the original Japanese version, L = Laser Shot and W = Wide Shot. 3:14 Max Warrior/Isolated Warrior is impressive for the NES hardware on account of it's isometic presentation. the NES can only display four colors per 16x16 square of the screen. Because this game is presented on a slant, the tiles have to be colored to accomidate that, which means that ajoining tiles to make up a slanted area need to share colors, making them appear as if they are part of the same object when they are of course, not. This makes the game more bland looking than game design more fitting to NES's PPU capabilities. The wavy bridge wffect is using the scanline counter of MMC3 to shift the entire background layer side to side in a calculated timed manner. Notice that the blue bridge is surrounded just with a black abyss. This is to hide the effect and make it convincing. Simple stuff, but neat. The laser and bridge effects are even simplier. Those are simply repeated background tiles moving in a scrolling sequence. 3:34 This has to do with the limitations of the NES color pallet. The NES pallet heavily favors greens, blues and purples where reds, oranges, browns and yellows are extremely limited. KID as with most late NES developers used high contrast colors to make games appear more vivid and leave the lack of color implied so the player would fill those details in with their imaginations. This wasn't just KID who did this. Tons of Sunsoft, Konami, Natsume and even Capcom games did this too.
@@BigOleWords Other isometic games I can think of for the NES is Pac-Mania and Snake Rattle 'n Roll. They too suffer from the colors issue due to attribute clash because they present isometic. The NES doesn't care; it has to obey the four color maximum rule per 16x16 pixels pallet and background four pallets total. This is why these games also look rather drab compared to other games. There is a workaround to get more colors - the MMC5. That allowed individual pallets per 8x8 pixels instead of every 16x16, allowing for far more detail in color. But the MMC5 was expensive to produce and came out at the tail end of the system's life so not many games used it.
I have a soft spot for Isolated Warrior. it was one of the last games I got for the NES as I was 15 when my mom gave it to me for Christmas. My mom always picked up oddball sleeper games for me during the holidays as those ones were usually the lower-priced titles at the time. I played the hell out of the game, but I could make it to Stage 4, which is utterly ridiculous it's so hard. I still enjoy picking it up and playing it now and then!
I don't know if it counts. But the Adventures of Tom Sawyer had shoot em up stages where you were in a raft and had to dodge obstacles and jump over bridges. I think that technically counts as platforming shooter sections.
I fucking love this game the graphics the way to move, the cutscenes and the mechanics. I actually knew about this one with emulators but it was more than 20 years since that. Very nice game so sad they never done anything more or a sequel. I think its dificult but not wayyy dificult, it is accesible i start to get problems on the last 2 levels. There are some warp zones hidden on the game that you didnt mentioned, as i remember they skip almost all the level and get you to the boss instantly. There is also another last level if you didnt continue or die i dont remember well
The gameplay actually looks kinda interesting- I’m going to have to check it out. But the title… Isolated Warrior… its an OK title but I thought up like 7 better titles just off the top of my head, (and they are all alliterative). How about: Quarantined Quasher? Pandemic Pummeler? COVID Commando? Socially-Distanced Strangler? Restriction Ripper? Medical-Ward Mangler? ICU Iceman? Ok- I’ll see myself out.
never played this game but loved the others. KICK MASTER and GI JOE ATLANTIS being my fave. btw, SWORD MASTER needs an ep unless u did it and i missed it, that is one hidden gem that i am happy to say, more people are finding it out lately.
Good work. I especially liked the siren song bit. I won't spoil it for the other watchers in case they stop by the comments first. :) RE: accessible shooters, that hidden gem that literally no one has heard of ever, The Guardian Legend is a good one. I also really like Trouble Shooter on the Genesis. I liked Forgotten Worlds as a kid, but am less into it now. I generally don't like "shooters" or SHMUPs as they're called these days. I'm glad you said "shooters" in the video, cuz that's what I called them growing up, and FPS has assumed that term in current vernacular.
For another shooter that requires a perfect playthrough, try Cloud Master on the Master System or Famicom. It takes the first three levels (out of five) to reach max power and if you die once, it's all gone with no hope of recovering power.
Another one of these games that has gone from being around $40 for the last few years to now being $80-120 lol. It’s hard to get over how inaccessible it he hobby is now. I guess I just have to shell out for everdrives or whatever for all the games I don’t have
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu you would think with that being the case that these games wouldn’t be accruing so much value lol. Idk, I’m just not really set up for emulating easily, but I’ll eventually put in the effort with an everdrive or some method
I’ve never made it very far into this one. Like you said, even after getting used to the jumping, the difficulty after dying is unbelievable. I’d rather play Kickmaster!👊🦈
Been awhile since I’ve rocked this one. I remember some levels having some secret areas or warps or something with cut scenes attached. Ever encounter any of those?
Youre really selling me on KID as I binge your videos! Ive only played the first GI Joe and Pepsiman of their games! Oh as a fellow nonshooter fan, i do love cute em ups, because at least theyre cute/zany before I die. You may like Harmful Park, infinite continues baby! The best way to beat games after take no damage codes!
This totally reminds me of the one stage in ZEN. Looks like Konami did it better, though I have never played this one. Ruh-Roh, new job might have me late a couple of thursdays.....may have a new canine audience! Keep up the stellar work, my friend.
Kickmaster is by far the best KID game. King's Quest is another ground shooter like Dino Riki but you can't jump in that game. A unique genre for sure. This is one of those games that feels like it's a port of an arcade game but AFAIK it's not. Screw getting the best ending. No dying once is brutal and a bad design. Even by NES standards. It's reasons like that why the Game Genie was invented.
Got this game as a Christmas treat, I was honestly surprised by the quality and grew to love it, challenging but fun. By the time I pushed start I could feel the KID vibe and strong similarities to Low G Man. I went as far as doing 5 loops, I literally have to force myself away from it. And can confirm you can die but not use a continue in order to access the last stage. Some extra info here. The second loop is considered the last, will show credits, but it's harder (start every new life with 3 hp instead of 5, and lose all bombs upon death, not only one bomb level as in first loop). Also if you're in Europe, this is a €10 game, go buy it. Kid/Taxan games were published by Nintendo here, hence I suppose they produced a lot of cartridges and advertised heavily. I can clearly remember this game being reviewed and praised in local magazines in Italy. I'd better stop now, get dinner and maybe play some Isolated Warrior. Thanks for mentioning this game.
I gathered Focusing (L) is Laser & Spreading (W) is Wide Shot. The W is also shaped like a spread shot while the L is KINDA shaped like a focused laser beam, but I’m reaching lol.
Yea i had this game as a kid, gotta admit i never finished it. It was too damn difficult and to top it off i had a bootleg NES clone ( google Ending Man / Terminator 2 console ) that did not play the game properly ( a rare occasion because most games ran flawless on this NES clone ) , so at times the game's image went all fuzzy like it had noise static. Needless to say i stuck to other games :p
KID (the developer) games were always awesome. They had a distinct style most other games lacked. They were just...cooler. Better looking. This, Low-G man and Burai Fighter were weekend rentals for a long time for me.
L for laser and W for wide dose sound better. Localization was the wild west in the NES days. This game would have destroyed me back in the day. Kinda glad I never heard about it.
Hey Bro great video as always!! Before I started watching your channel, I never heard of (KID). Now I love this game developer!! They should have made you a hype Man for the company!! Isolated Warrior is an amazing NES game. But holy crap is this game hard and totally unforgiving!! But even when I die I still wanna try one more time... This game definitely has a little bit of Gradius or Salamander in it. If you loose all your weapon power ups, then your screwed!!! This game is kinda a Shmup, maybe that's why I like it so much. Thanks for introducing me to this game. Your the Man!!!! 😍👍👍
Has there ever been a video produced either by AVGN or anyone else, showing the developers of the games playing there own creations? How did this pass and get the Seal of Quality by NES ?
@@BigOleWords so i had to beat stage 5 again and start stage 6 with power ups to beat it…my question now is can i beat stage 7 by inputting the code only? When i do this i start with no power ups and am quickly overpowered by the many enemies…if its not possible why even bother giving us a pssword for stage 7? 😆….i came to the conclusion that shortes way to get to stage 7 and actually have a chance at beating it is by starting stage 5 with the 2nd quest code and not dying once at all 🤦🏻♂️
This game contains some strobing lights in a couple places so I've marked the times in the video when the flashing happens. It's not the worst I've ever seen but just a heads up for any light sensitive buds out there :)
2:00 - Strobing Begins
2:06 - Strobing Ends
4:14 - Stobing Begins
4:42 - Strobing Ends
I just found your channel and subbed right away! Awesome content! Keep up the great work! Check this shit OUTTTTttttTTTT!! lol
Even withou epilepsy, a lot of the terrible games make my brain want to bleed out of my feet.
It seemed like in the 90s that there were tons of games that rocked the 'biomutant' aesthetic. Tons of purple and green and weird monsters and slime. It's strange that for all of the '8bit revival' games that came out, that they all seem to lean more on the fantasy aesthetic as opposed to 90s gross out culture
Somehow the NES just missed the Boogerman era of gaming :)
Let's not forget that Garbage Pail kids game that just came out a while back.
Love these body horror graphics. Abadox is another great one. Guardian Legend has some good gross stuff too in certain levels.
@@daryl4841 Oh absolutely. It seemed liked that shooters were very much on board when it came to David Cronenberg levels of flesh.
Also, you just reminded me of Contra Shattered Soldier. That has a ton of gross 90's body horror. It wasn't as playful as the 90s stuff though.
Society is too watered down for the gross out.
Isolated Warrior looks like more well executed version of what the NES Back to the Future game tried to do.
King's Knight for sure. World Runner, probably although I never thought of it as a shooter but I guess it kinda is!
W for spread is usually referring to the word "WIDE" for a wide spread of bullets in shooters/STGs.
If I had to guess, the L is probably for "Laser," and the W is possibly "Wide". Like wide beam.
Their work wasn't perfect but I think Kid were a very underappreciated developer, they have a certain style across all their games that stands out in the crowd, it's something that remains appealing to me even if they can be difficult at times and I just enjoy looking at them.
Completely agree. It took me. Along time to realize that all the games were connected but once I did I started to really pick up on the KID aesthetic.
Oh my god!! you just unlocked a childhood memory from 30 odd years ago.. i used to have this :)
Nice, maybe I have your copy ;)
Still got mine. (Including the gamebox)
I suck at shooters but I've always really liked this one even just for the style and aesthetics. Love the well-defined sprites and colour choices and I enjoy playing it even when I get slaughtered. :)
And that strange angled perspective was also used in some stages of Zen - Intergalactic Ninja. Another nice addition to the NES action game library. :)
That Zen level is harder than most of Isolated Warrior since the platforming is more precise, but i way prefer that game over IW.
I had this as a kid I still suck at it lol. As a kid I hated it but now I want to learn how to play and beat it
I also balked at the true ending requirement initially and anticipated writing my own review without fully completing the game. After sleeping on it, though, I decided to throw Isolated Warrior back on the next morning and give it one last go. I ended up pushing all the way to stage seven on a single life and finished it shortly thereafter. It’s amazing what old-fashioned level memorization followed by a good night’s sleep can do. ;)
That’s one of my struggles with streaming. All I want to do when things get hard is sleep on it and come back the next day!
Yeah, it's doable if you have a good time to play with a clear head. I did it for a review on a forum back in, like, 2016, and it only took me a few tries. The thing that always got me was accidentally popping wheelies and screwing up my jumps on the motorcycle stage. Pit deaths got me way worse than the bosses!
L for Laser, W for Wide.
I got this game in my Easter basket back when I was... 11. Be frugal with your bombs. You need them for the boss fight. Mastered it to the point that I could send the bombs into the bosses movements for longer damage time.
Siccckkk
One of my favorite Nes games and my favorite ground based shoot em ups.
I've had a boxed copy of this game in my collection for years. Think I got it at an old rental place back in the early 2000s when you could find such treasures. It's a fantastic title. Little difficult but I still play it when I get the Nes Advantage out.
The advantage would go a long way!
The K.I.D. games like this one were heavily overlooked. Burai Fighter, Low G Man, Isolated Warrior and Kick Master.
Solid lineup!
The "W" stands for Wide Shot.
Amazing to see a fellow KID fan out there!! i fell in love back in the 90s with the company with the awesome hidden gems Low G Man and Isolated Warrior, played both to death and still have my copies like pure gold.
Nice video!!
KID rules! I talk about them all the time, even right at this minute as I work in the Trolls video :)
Those GI Joe games are SO good. Childhood favorites. Actually never heard of this one you're featuring.
Both rad games
Jumpins! I've never even heard of it let alone play it 😄
I love this game. Once I got past the freaking motorcycle stage, I could clear it pretty easily, but that level made me curse like a sailor.
I think I'm ruining my 8 year old son with NES games. I turned him onto Legacy of the Wizard by showing him how the game is divided up for each character, and we did the first 2 crowns together. It's bad enough that I have him playing old games with me, but now he's digging the oddball stuff, too...
That’s awesome! Legacy drives me crazy so that’s cool he’s into it
@@BigOleWords With Legacy of the Wizard, once he learned that the big room with the dragon is a hub with ladders off in 4 directions, a direction for each family member, it started making more sense to him. It gets a lot less cryptic when you know that each of the 4 crowns is off of one of those ladders, and each area is designed for a power-up specific to each family member.
I love this channel! No one else ACTUALLY shows games that no one else does! True hidden gems.
Hey thanks so much! Glad you’re into the deep cuts :)
Some others delve into the real oddballs…
I had this game when I was a kid, and still have it of course. It’s a fun and fair game with the right amount of challenge, except for… losing your current weapon’s upgrades entirely when dying. I think my trick was to quickly switch to W immediately after dying (like there was a short window in which to do that), so that I always kept the L upgrades. Or maybe when I thought I was going to die? I’m not sure.
In the end I managed to beat the game once I had the Double Player controllers; the slowmotion button (basically Turbo for the Startbutton) helped me with one boss.
Haven't played this yet but I did have Burai Fighter back in the day and I did not get far in that one.
Looks challenging. Oldschool gaming felt more challenging regardless of hardware limitations.
This is a very challenging one
I don't look too shabby.
I'd definitely have a crack at it.👍
My first game on the NES, played the shit out of this. Great memories
That’s an interesting intro to the system!
I've actually beat this game several times years back without dying. I'm probably not as good at it as I used to be these days. There's a LOT of variety that goes on here. I think the biggest issue with it is trying to align your shots properly. There are also hidden secrets in the game where you can acquire extra lives and power-ups. For the most part, if you die in the game, you can only blame yourself.
KID was also responsible for Summer Carnival '92 Recca for the Famicom. But get the ROM for it and put it on an Everdrive and you're all set, especially since the original cart for that game goes up for a new car now.
You sir are a wizard!
I’m callin’ it.
0:55 King's Knight and 3D World Runner may qualify. Paperboy?
I thought I already replied to this! Kings Knight for sure! World Runner I would’ve never thought of as a shooter but y’know I think you’re right!
I loved Low G Man as a kid, it had just enough challenge to keep me playing and good weapons to make it fun. I rebought that one recently
I wonder if W was meant to stand for Wide shot or something like that
Makes sense!
Isolated warrior have some ressembles with Zen in two-three stage.
I think Banana Prince also was develop by KID. I don't remember but maybe Doki Doki Uenchi(Troll in Amusment park) was also made by them
You are correct! I’ll get to both at some point in my PAL series :)
@@BigOleWords Both of those game have potential but lack in good level design. Banana Prince levels are mess, and I think this game need to be on SNES with this detailed graphic. Doki Doki Uenchi have intesting gimmick but levels looks unfinished from design wise. They both need good shake
Low g man and dragon warrior 1 got me back into retro gaming when I was like 17 . I never looked back. I'm 30 now. Still Play retro almost exclusively these days. Almost forgot about low g man but Honestly I randomly thought about it last week. Weird
Young gun over here! :)
Glad to hear that I'm not alone in hating the jumping in Dino-Riki. I made another attempt to get good at the game last year and would still regularly lose runs to the lily pads in the first level even though I could routinely get a lot deeper into the game.
I think now I’d give it more of a chance but I seriously could not get past those lily pads at the time
For my birthday I got Adventures of Dino Riki.
To this day thinking about it gives me cold sweats.
Woof that’s a tough break right there.
Nice "Hell comes to Frog Town" reference you got there. thats a DEEP cut..... I seen a TAS speedrun of this, and its is unrelenting. can't imagine the hours that went into it.
If I could find more ways to work Frogtown in I would!
he's ready to save the universe AND take an 80's aerobic class!!
Heyo!
In many markets for FamiClones, there were bootlegs of this game being sold as Contra 8. It was the Japanese ROM where they only changed the title screen.
None of us knew this wasn't a Conta game but were surely confused when we didn't see Konami's name.
I remember borrowing this from a friend & thank God for its password system, this game is so tough I couldn't complete it in a single sitting.
I'm thinking of revisiting this, preferably with a complete English language ROM.
I love those Contra 1-14 games! Was the character any different?
@@BigOleWords Nah, they didn't bother to change Max. Besides, every dialogue was written in Japanese, so we had to ignore that.
There's a no death run on YT by LeTrickyboy in 22 mins. So it can be done.
There's always a wizard out there!
@@BigOleWords thats what they really are. Some of the speed runners out there are nuts. How they can remember every last detail about a game and just own it, is impressive. 👍
Other games in this genre maybe Kings Knight and Gun.Smoke
King's Knight, yes that's perfect!
I used to consider this game one of the hardest NES games I've played.
I couldn't beat it, not even come close.
Than years later I managed to beat it and only lost a single life during my playthrough.
Dying is allowed to reach stage 7, continuing is not. There seems to be some conflicting information about this on the internet.
It's funny because i played it on a stream after I'd finished this video and I kinda zoomed through it until the fourth level! I could see how playing it on repeat would eventually yield results.
Hey James, just wanted to address some of what you said.
0:09 KID Isn't as well known as the big devs like Capcom Konami Taito and Natsume but I'd say there are bigger deep cut developers than KID. KID made RECCA: Summer Carnival '92, Sumo Fighter, the entire Memories Off franchise and even the absurdly great Pepsiman.
1:10 No idea who the hell translated the manual. According ot the manual for _Max Warrior_, the original Japanese version, L = Laser Shot and W = Wide Shot.
3:14 Max Warrior/Isolated Warrior is impressive for the NES hardware on account of it's isometic presentation. the NES can only display four colors per 16x16 square of the screen. Because this game is presented on a slant, the tiles have to be colored to accomidate that, which means that ajoining tiles to make up a slanted area need to share colors, making them appear as if they are part of the same object when they are of course, not. This makes the game more bland looking than game design more fitting to NES's PPU capabilities.
The wavy bridge wffect is using the scanline counter of MMC3 to shift the entire background layer side to side in a calculated timed manner. Notice that the blue bridge is surrounded just with a black abyss. This is to hide the effect and make it convincing. Simple stuff, but neat.
The laser and bridge effects are even simplier. Those are simply repeated background tiles moving in a scrolling sequence.
3:34 This has to do with the limitations of the NES color pallet. The NES pallet heavily favors greens, blues and purples where reds, oranges, browns and yellows are extremely limited. KID as with most late NES developers used high contrast colors to make games appear more vivid and leave the lack of color implied so the player would fill those details in with their imaginations. This wasn't just KID who did this. Tons of Sunsoft, Konami, Natsume and even Capcom games did this too.
Dude you rule, tons of stuff I did not know beneath the surface :).
@@BigOleWords Other isometic games I can think of for the NES is Pac-Mania and Snake Rattle 'n Roll. They too suffer from the colors issue due to attribute clash because they present isometic. The NES doesn't care; it has to obey the four color maximum rule per 16x16 pixels pallet and background four pallets total. This is why these games also look rather drab compared to other games.
There is a workaround to get more colors - the MMC5. That allowed individual pallets per 8x8 pixels instead of every 16x16, allowing for far more detail in color. But the MMC5 was expensive to produce and came out at the tail end of the system's life so not many games used it.
I think I rented Low G Man when I was a kid.
Man I love this channel! You're bringing back so many memories of the game rentals that were my childhood 🤣😊
Thanks, glad you like it :)
I adore gi joe on nes! I had it as a kid, my dad picked it up from a thrift store back when NES games were junk no one wanted
Solid pickup!
Those graphics are killer to me! Lots of detail that pops! This company knew how to push the NES graphics capabilities.
This game is a bitch though.
KID was the real deal!
First!! Not a bad game at all for the time being.. by today standards is really a tough one!
All true!
I’m not great at this one!
It's brutal!
Even though this looks hard af, I’ll still have to give this one a go. The graphics look great, especially those bosses which look amazing for 8bit.
It's got a lot going for it for sure.
Zen the Intergalactic Ninja has isometric platformy/jumpy/shooty sections that look a lot like Isolated Warrior
Very true!
never heard of this game but it looks quite good, actually
It’s got it’s moments!
I have a soft spot for Isolated Warrior. it was one of the last games I got for the NES as I was 15 when my mom gave it to me for Christmas. My mom always picked up oddball sleeper games for me during the holidays as those ones were usually the lower-priced titles at the time. I played the hell out of the game, but I could make it to Stage 4, which is utterly ridiculous it's so hard. I still enjoy picking it up and playing it now and then!
Nice! If I owned this as a kid I’d definitely play it non-stop as well.
Nice! Looks like quite the hardware pusher.
They took it to the limit!
I don't know if it counts. But the Adventures of Tom Sawyer had shoot em up stages where you were in a raft and had to dodge obstacles and jump over bridges. I think that technically counts as platforming shooter sections.
Haha I never made it far enough to find that out!
@@BigOleWordsYou will if you review it. It's level 2.
Hey, I keep forgetting to ask, where is that quote in your intro from? Sounds kinda like David Cross, maybe a Mr Show clip?
You got it right on both counts!
Oh okay now I understand why that felt so familiar.
Excellent channel
Mate! Greetings from a NES fan from 🇨🇱
Hey thanks so much!
I would've interpreted L and W as "Long" and "Wide" personally. Mostly because I'm so used to shmup games having a spread gun called the "Wide Shot."
I fucking love this game the graphics the way to move, the cutscenes and the mechanics. I actually knew about this one with emulators but it was more than 20 years since that. Very nice game so sad they never done anything more or a sequel.
I think its dificult but not wayyy dificult, it is accesible i start to get problems on the last 2 levels.
There are some warp zones hidden on the game that you didnt mentioned, as i remember they skip almost all the level and get you to the boss instantly. There is also another last level if you didnt continue or die i dont remember well
The warp levels i didn’t learn about til after but man I wish I had, those cutscenes are amazing
The gameplay actually looks kinda interesting- I’m going to have to check it out. But the title… Isolated Warrior… its an OK title but I thought up like 7 better titles just off the top of my head, (and they are all alliterative). How about: Quarantined Quasher? Pandemic Pummeler? COVID Commando? Socially-Distanced Strangler? Restriction Ripper? Medical-Ward Mangler? ICU Iceman? Ok- I’ll see myself out.
"Viral Vengeance" is a medical novel apparently.
i liked that last one. "OK-I'll See Myself Out" coming to all consoles soon! :D
Hahahaha I love that they're all Corona related. That is the first thing I thought with the word Isolated.
never played this game but loved the others.
KICK MASTER and GI JOE ATLANTIS being my fave.
btw, SWORD MASTER needs an ep unless u did it and i missed it, that is one hidden gem that i am happy to say, more people are finding it out lately.
It’s on my list!
This looks like a game that would make great use of the Nintendo Switch's rewind feature.
Oooof yes
Good work. I especially liked the siren song bit. I won't spoil it for the other watchers in case they stop by the comments first. :)
RE: accessible shooters, that hidden gem that literally no one has heard of ever, The Guardian Legend is a good one.
I also really like Trouble Shooter on the Genesis. I liked Forgotten Worlds as a kid, but am less into it now.
I generally don't like "shooters" or SHMUPs as they're called these days. I'm glad you said "shooters" in the video, cuz that's what I called them growing up, and FPS has assumed that term in current vernacular.
For another shooter that requires a perfect playthrough, try Cloud Master on the Master System or Famicom. It takes the first three levels (out of five) to reach max power and if you die once, it's all gone with no hope of recovering power.
Yeah that is a tough game!
🤣🤣🤣 I remember I put my sister in a headlock as a kid and made her say I was the isolated warrior 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hahaha amazing!
Gigachad
Another one of these games that has gone from being around $40 for the last few years to now being $80-120 lol. It’s hard to get over how inaccessible it he hobby is now. I guess I just have to shell out for everdrives or whatever for all the games I don’t have
Yeah it’s become pretty prohibitively expensive unfortunately
All I can say is it might not be a perfect solution but emulation is certainly close for the vast majority of people.
@@JohnDoe-wq5eu you would think with that being the case that these games wouldn’t be accruing so much value lol. Idk, I’m just not really set up for emulating easily, but I’ll eventually put in the effort with an everdrive or some method
I’ve never made it very far into this one. Like you said, even after getting used to the jumping, the difficulty after dying is unbelievable. I’d rather play Kickmaster!👊🦈
This games needs a 1000% more kicks stat!
Been awhile since I’ve rocked this one. I remember some levels having some secret areas or warps or something with cut scenes attached. Ever encounter any of those?
Yeah! I didn't know about those until after I made the video and man they are amazing!
G.I. Joe for NEW underrated.
Loved this game as a kid, they could easily do a reboot or remake of this franchise as there's already a solid concept to work from
That would be dope!
Youre really selling me on KID as I binge your videos! Ive only played the first GI Joe and Pepsiman of their games!
Oh as a fellow nonshooter fan, i do love cute em ups, because at least theyre cute/zany before I die. You may like Harmful Park, infinite continues baby! The best way to beat games after take no damage codes!
All the KID titles are jammers!
Looks pretty rad
I've never played it, but this game looks amazing. Thanks for sharing.
It kinda is!
This totally reminds me of the one stage in ZEN. Looks like Konami did it better, though I have never played this one. Ruh-Roh, new job might have me late a couple of thursdays.....may have a new canine audience! Keep up the stellar work, my friend.
I don’t know if I can stream without you Matt! Congrats again on the new job :)
Can't wait for this week, my significant other is away with family in Pittsburgh, so I will be rockin n Rollin good sir
Had this game as a kid and it was really fun!
Good graphics, controls, sound effects, music, art style
Just a little too short, I should say
Too short? You must’ve been way better at it than me!
Laser focus. Wide blast.
Nice! Looks cool at least.
Kickmaster is by far the best KID game. King's Quest is another ground shooter like Dino Riki but you can't jump in that game. A unique genre for sure.
This is one of those games that feels like it's a port of an arcade game but AFAIK it's not.
Screw getting the best ending. No dying once is brutal and a bad design. Even by NES standards. It's reasons like that why the Game Genie was invented.
Even with the Game Genie that fourth level is practically impossible to beat.
Got this game as a Christmas treat, I was honestly surprised by the quality and grew to love it, challenging but fun. By the time I pushed start I could feel the KID vibe and strong similarities to Low G Man. I went as far as doing 5 loops, I literally have to force myself away from it. And can confirm you can die but not use a continue in order to access the last stage.
Some extra info here. The second loop is considered the last, will show credits, but it's harder (start every new life with 3 hp instead of 5, and lose all bombs upon death, not only one bomb level as in first loop).
Also if you're in Europe, this is a €10 game, go buy it. Kid/Taxan games were published by Nintendo here, hence I suppose they produced a lot of cartridges and advertised heavily. I can clearly remember this game being reviewed and praised in local magazines in Italy.
I'd better stop now, get dinner and maybe play some Isolated Warrior. Thanks for mentioning this game.
Don’t stop now, you’re on a roll!
@@BigOleWords It's thanks to you. I find this channel very interesting and prompting interaction. Til next game!
I gathered Focusing (L) is Laser & Spreading (W) is Wide Shot. The W is also shaped like a spread shot while the L is KINDA shaped like a focused laser beam, but I’m reaching lol.
Maybe!
In Japanese, the letter "W" is used as shorthand for the world "Double", which could possibly explain some of the logic...
That would make sense!
Man, I loved this game back in the day!
There’s one of those boxed in my local retro store
Youd have to be all about self torture to even enjoy this game a little bit. Isolated Warrior looks mind numbingly difficult lol
Just another day diving deep with the NES!
Honestly, I think Isolated Warrior is a Bad Ass game. Definitely Hardcore in difficulty. But beatable. Just takes a little commitment.
It's got everything going for it but man I really struggled with the difficulty.
Yea i had this game as a kid, gotta admit i never finished it. It was too damn difficult and to top it off i had a bootleg NES clone ( google Ending Man / Terminator 2 console ) that did not play the game properly ( a rare occasion because most games ran flawless on this NES clone ) , so at times the game's image went all fuzzy like it had noise static. Needless to say i stuck to other games :p
Whoa crazy!
I always sing the intro to your videos
Haha awesome!
0:17 kinda sad to see you didn't include Uncle Fester Quest and Blaster Master
Plenty of other Sunsoft games in the sea
KID (the developer) games were always awesome. They had a distinct style most other games lacked. They were just...cooler. Better looking. This, Low-G man and Burai Fighter were weekend rentals for a long time for me.
L for laser and W for wide dose sound better. Localization was the wild west in the NES days. This game would have destroyed me back in the day. Kinda glad I never heard about it.
Wide dose sounds like an ill 90s rap group.
@@BigOleWords Opening for The Fat Boys.😄
Hidden gem right there!
Funny thing I literally just got this for my nes today from my buddy and had no idea what it was
Whoa crazy timing!
Hey Bro great video as always!! Before I started watching your channel, I never heard of (KID). Now I love this game developer!! They should have made you a hype Man for the company!! Isolated Warrior is an amazing NES game. But holy crap is this game hard and totally unforgiving!! But even when I die I still wanna try one more time... This game definitely has a little bit of Gradius or Salamander in it. If you loose all your weapon power ups, then your screwed!!! This game is kinda a Shmup, maybe that's why I like it so much. Thanks for introducing me to this game. Your the Man!!!! 😍👍👍
L means Line, W means Wide
The graphics look pretty good but I don't know if I'd have the patience for the difficulty
It’ll take a few years off your life!
They stand for Long and Wide you silly goose
L= laser aka focused light
W= Wide as in spread shot.
For some reason the devs went with Synonyms
Has there ever been a video produced either by AVGN or anyone else, showing the developers of the games playing there own creations? How did this pass and get the Seal of Quality by NES ?
Y’know I don’t know if I’ve seen much play testing from this era. I would love for them to show how easily they beat this or Thrillas Surfari.
Im on level 6 is it posssible to get through it starting with no power up? Because im coming to the conclusion it’s impossible
It’s impossible
@@BigOleWords so i had to beat stage 5 again and start stage 6 with power ups to beat it…my question now is can i beat stage 7 by inputting the code only? When i do this i start with no power ups and am quickly overpowered by the many enemies…if its not possible why even bother giving us a pssword for stage 7? 😆….i came to the conclusion that shortes way to get to stage 7 and actually have a chance at beating it is by starting stage 5 with the 2nd quest code and not dying once at all 🤦🏻♂️
Wow a new NES game never play it thanks a lot and it's looks great
W is Spread because that's the shape when the gun is fired.
Dino Riki is kinda like Kings Knight
Maybe W stands for Wide Shot?