NES Works 106: Sesame Street 1-2-3 & Star Soldier (Patreon)

Published:

2023-08-09 12:16:49

Imported:

2024-04

Tags:

Hi Tech Expressions Naxat Rare Ltd Sesame Street Star soldier Takahashi Meijin Taxan Zippo hudson nes nes works star force

Content

Well, we've hit that point in NES history where we'll begin seeing lots of questionable filler content for the console courtesy (?) of Western devs and publishers. In this case, Hi Tech Expressions makes its NES debut by hiring Rare to produce a port of its PC edutainment game about Sesame Street muppets counting numbers (though—not The Count?!); Rare in turn hired Zippo to do the work for them. We've seen arrangements like this before, such as with LJN commissioning Atlus to make games for them which Atlus then subcontracted out; now that Western studios have begun adopting a similar policy, the circle is complete and sustained mediocrity is assured.

Which is not to say the new 1989 season of NES Works will be all duds. On the contrary, ’89 and ’90 arguably saw the NES at the height of its commercial and creative power.

But first we have to get through games like Sesame Street and Star Soldier, which definitely are video games, but the kind of games that have more interesting backstories than gameplay.

As for the hosting segments on this... I recorded these intros and outro at the library at Marufukuro, the hotel built into Nintendo's Showa-era HQ in Kyoto. I'm not sure they turned out so well, but on the plus side, I did drag a terrible VHS camcorder to Japan, so I suppose that's something.

Files

I love to count to 16 shots! Ah hah hah! Sesame Street 1-2-3 and Star Soldier | NES Works 106

The NES bursts into a new year, screaming headfirst into 1989 with the fiery, hardcore, all-time classic... Sesame Street 1-2-3? Hmm, well, perhaps not the first-footer your local Scot would consider an auspicious beginning to the year, but it does speak to the evolving nature of the platform at this point in history. The NES has finally reached a level of market saturation in the U.S. that justifies putting out basic arithmetic exercises for very young children... and, hey, at least it looks and sounds pretty solid. Then, Astro Grover takes a left at Albuquerque and ends up in a complicated morass of a game: Star Soldier. Well, no, the game itself is profoundly uncomplicated—shoot, get power-ups, die, repeat—but it has an unusual backstory, having largely been copied from another company's homework, turned into a significant gaming culture event in Japan, and then published belatedly in America by a completely different publisher who would go on to copy it for their own homework. Yes, 1989 promises to be raucous indeed. Production notes: Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more! Why watch when you can read? Check out the massive hardcover print editions of NES Works, Super NES Works, and Virtual Boy works, available now at Limited Run Games (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/books)! Look forward to SG-1000 Works: Segaiden Vol. I in August and Metroidvania: The First Decade in 2024. NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 720 with xRGB Mini Framemeister.