One of my favorite NES games, had it as a kid. You aren't supposed to get stuck on the seaweed barriers underwater, you are intended to just shoot them and they lower. And you get your air back by surfacing.
Thank you for your content my man, I’ve watched a TON of NES and general video game stuff on UA-cam, since the beginning basically, and you still somehow provide a fresh take. You’ve shown me games I haven’t seen and told me things I didn’t know. 10/10 Channel.
@@BigOleWords it’s cool and relatable since you’re around the same age (I was born in 1983). Crazy to think how the stuff we grew up with is now “retro” and “vintage” and we are obviously old enough to experience nostalgia for it! I knew this day would come…I just didn’t expect it so soon!
Your videos have become absolute must watch for me. They are short, funny, informative, thorough, and just fun. It doesn’t hurt that I really love the NES and I appreciate that you actually play these games and don’t go off of internet knowledge or fuzzy nostalgia. I can also see how you are growing in your comfortability of talking “to a video” (I don’t know how else to put it, talking into a phone, microphone?). Keep it up!!!
Man, sucks that this game was so damn difficult, it had great potential with awesome graphics and rad color palette. I never understood why early game developers felt the need to torture their players with near impossible-to-beat gameplay.
I had T&C Surf as a kid and I remember seeing the cat in a tuxedo on the box or manual but I could never figure out how to play as him. It still haunts me to this day.
Oh, wow. I played this game a lot. It was pretty awesome. I never found it super difficult (but then again, I did play it a lot). The stages definitely vary a lot with their difficulty. The river surfing stages tend to be pretty easy. There were lots of ways to glitch the game, particularly in the desert stages, where you could sometimes get on the other side of the rock barriers and just effortlessly coast along avoiding all the obstacles. The game certainly has charm, like in the stage that turns out to be a sun-induced hallucination ("The Blue Desert", I believe). The soundtrack is pretty cool, too. This may have been one of the last 8-bit NES games I bought before I got the Super NES and I pretty much just bought SNES games after that.
Wow I don't know how I missed this, and I worked in a eb as a kid and don't remember this one beautiful work this was a game only kids like us back in the day would sit and play for hrs and hrs..great review thx for showing this beautiful game grafix,color speed and control why couldn't al games been made with this quality.
4:07 The word you're looking for is "Misserfolgselbstvertrauensundkonzentrationsschwund" (loss of self-confidence and concentration through failure). Also, I genuinely wonder if this gorilla inspired Funky Kong in any way. The similarities are pretty obvious, though they may also be coincidental. P.S.: I made that German word up, that's not a thing ;D
Man, first you hit me with Wally Bear and now Thrilla's Surfari. I am getting all kinds of weird nostalgia on this channel. Do Bad Street Brawler or Ikari Warriors next!
I'm so glad I found your channel. Ive been enjoying your back catalog. I had a buddy when I was a kid that pretty much only wore Bart Simpson and T&C surf company tshirts. He was obsessed with the characters. Which is funny cuz Im a cascadian (obvs) who grew up in the mountain desert of the cascades. Surfing was like...not a thing. I can actually say tho Ive played this game. My obsessed buddy had it. He was so excited when he got it. He refused to acknowledge it was shit, even when me and our other friend he invited over to show it off were like this game is really bad. He kept trying to play getting more and more frustrated at all the cheap deaths while we were like lets play mega man or mike tyson or castlevania. Anything else! Finally he got so pissed he stomped up and turned the nes off and was like i dont want to play nintendo anyway, lets go outside. He never admitted how bad it sucked. I had completely forgotten about that day till you showed this. Thanks!
You didn't gain health from the vine. You gained health because your head was above water. Thats how it works in the underwater levels. You regain health by finding air pockets. I had this as a kid and used to beat it even back then. I didn't even know there was an infinite lives cheat code for it until right now.
Dude, as a skater/boarder back in the day I would have been all over this and I do enjoy the original T&C Surf Designs! Awesome to see your channel blowing up man, although I could tell early on that it was going to happen!
Yeah my buddies were way into Skate or Die and 720 so we would've been all over this...if the Sega Genesis weren't everywhere at the time ;) And thanks! Crazy to see.
Good times had playing Skate Or Die and 720 with friends :) Pretty decent level of difficulty in the skateboard games though that made for some good (unforgiving) challenges! I hear you, Sega Genesis games were pretty amazing at the time.
The only thing I remember about this game from when I was a kid was the fact that it was brutally hard and I was straight-up amazed when I kept seeing the main monkey guy explode into pieces that was amazing to my young mind.
Legit one of the most underrated games on the NES in terms of music/graphics/cut scenes. Multiple different feeling genres, simple enough. It's fun. As far as the bosses I would always just run around the arena and avoid the projectiles while throwing more coconuts at him than should be allowed on the screen. The Shark used to bully me, there's an almost safe spot near his mouth but sometimes you get eatten cuz it's not actually safe. Also you were getting your health refilled because you were above water, breathing, like super mario 64 lol. I dunno, I was able to beat this as a child, and there's also a warp that gives you 9 lives. And it IS possible to not pick up any coconuts on the Baby Blue Desert. I can't wait until someone requests that I beat it on stream tbh as I only play games I own on original hardware...and also every single mega man rom hack for 1-6. I have 15 hard/impossible/tas/zip hacks left :/ The exploding monkey is still one of the most brutal things to be on an 8-bit game.
great channel. a few things about ze video... 1: the original game was one of the mainstays around our house. Never knew about the sequel... 2: the gameplay looks badass. 3: sure there's glitches and all, but the attitude of this game is really unique. I want very much to play it now. I like your presentation. Rock on
That "experience" you were referring to I call the Dark Souls paradigm. Get the boss down to one hit first time then spending the next 5 hrs getting wrecked by everything else including basic enemies you've murdered a thousand times before
I absolutely never finished the first level of this game, but always loved the aesthetic of it. Thanks for showing me what the rest of the game looked like! 🙌🏻🤣
If the deadlines are tight then I get that. I think it would be good for views though so the video is more obviously a review and not like a quick gameplay video or something
@@HaydenTheHistorian Yeah I've thought about some sort of design element like a logo or border to help show it's a Big Ole Words video. Anything but an outlined picture of me with a perplexed look on my face.
Imagine me binging all your videos last night, only to wake up to a new video today :) This was such a wild game, I remember it being featured in Nintendo Power and i wished I was able to find a copy as a kid! But playing it later in life... I'm glad I didn't! It was super bland! (But I sure did love the T&C Surf Designs characters! I had so many bright pink Thrilla visors!)
Thrilla's Surfari is pretty fun, especially if you can get some speed going! It's difficult, though, like you said. The unlimited lives code isn't a bad idea, though I'm surprised that you didn't mention the coconut shell game, where you can get a bunch of extra lives at the end of each level (except for the fast one the developers pull on you with the Baby Blue Desert). Did you find any of the level skips? There's one in the first surfing level, for example, that you can reach by going against the obvious flow and jumping off of a waterfall. Between the skips and the shell game, I got pretty far in this as a kid. I never actually beat it until much later though, using save states.
I had played this game sometime last year and it was one of those games that grew on me. Yes, it's frustrating but it's still fun. There was another game that I enjoyed on the same level and I think it was big foot or monster truck rally.
I vaguely remember these guys being on a line of children's clothing back when I was a little kid, but again vaguely. Seems like something that should have followed Rude Dog and the Dweebs example and been a Saturday Morning cartoon. Nice to know that, despite being balls to the walls frustrating challenge, they actually made a decent game. And Rare did this, correct? There's NO way I can't look at Thrilla riding on that fish and not thinking it's a prototype for DK riding Enguarde in DKC.
Neat! I'm surprised AVGN hasn't made a video. I loved T&C, and it was one of my favorite things to draw as a kid. This on the other hand looks like a big NOPE! It's funny, usually the games you say nobody played are the very ones I had.
quite proto-mascot platformery - looks fun, makes me appreciate how Crash Bandicoot had top notch level design to tie goofy graphics and challenege together to some degree - nice !
Yes we have this game in the collection and no we never played it yet. After watching this maybe a quick play just to experience the maddening difficulty lol. Awesome review 🍻
I played the first game a lot as a kid seeing as practically everyone had a copy of it and no one had the sequel. We probably would have thought it sucked if we did play it though after watching this vid
Honestly, this looks like a lot of fun. There was barely anything as fast-paced on the NES. It really captures the feel of the game's extreme sports theme well. I would have been tempted to play this if you hadn't pointed out its punishing difficulty. Although there are playthroughs of the game on the site that take 30 minutes tops, so obviously it's possible to get good at it and it's not just purely cheap difficulty that's left to chance. And one huge plus for the game is that it has a nice story. Rescuing your bikini babe girlfriend is a neat rewarding ending, compared to all the plain text "The end"-s and "CongratuRations" you got after completing even decently good games on the system. Those made you feel like your effort was wasted even if you enjoyed playing the game. Conversely, I would have loved seeing this game's ending as a kid.
omg i forgot all about this!!! i had this as a kid and it was responsible for my grandparents first hearing me curse and grounding me from the NES for throwing my controller lol insanely hard but entertaining
Got this game as a kid. I’ve beaten it legit several times, for it took a good 2-3 years for me to beat it the first time. It’s really hard, but fair once you get good at it.
i had this game as a kid and a minute in im already baffled there was a desert part i spent days playing this game not realizing how little i played of it
Wow, congrats, this game is impossible! I really wanna hear your thoughts on captain skyhawk. Can't wait till Thursday. Great work as always. Big Bird can always rely on you, Jimmy.
Actually I *have* played that game in the early 90's at the tender age of 6. Though I never past the first level :( but I definitely remember a surfing gorilla that's associated with the Ying/Yang. There's quite a bit of games that 'no one has played' but maybe you can help me out: I do remember this NES platform game about about a cat wearing a trenchcoat (?) that had all kinds of gadgets which includes a retractable punching glove that can also be used as a grapple and swing as well as a pink fat bird boss with a bow on it's head as a boss fight. It was actually pretty fun but I cannot for the life of me remember it's name. I'm sorry for not describing it enough but I definitely remember playing it.
Both games were good in their own ways. Thrilla's Surfafi was an improvement to me as a kid because the levels actually changed (even though the first game was still lots of fun.)
You trying to come up with a term for almost beating a level on the 1st try just to not come that close multiple tries afterwards is a great idea. Happens to me way too often on retro games 😂
The Game Over Screen Gave Me Nightmare's when i was a Kid i know he fly's to heaven but the look on his face... just scares me.... i did rent this also and took it back the next day after i saw this screen. years later i beat this with a emulator but still.... also i don't get how you would die if you slid on your butt on stomach after crashing on a skate board... i bet after he loses his skate board he walks around and get's killed by the wild life. still i never knew of a INF lives code.
Well now I know where Donkey Kong Country got its idea to chase the protagonist underwater with octopuses. P.S. I agree with cheats. Games are supposed to be for fun and I already beat all six Mega Man games on the NES without cheating once; I don't need to do it again!
The game was hard because you were playing it wrong, you have to play it without trying to be safe most of the time generally it's better to get frustrated and go through it as lazy as possible. Like with the rocks in groups of three with the enemies coming or shooting at you instead of taking the path which will ensure that you have to dodge the enemies you go to the bottom and jump over the rocks and hit the small amount of land between them. Also there are a bunch of short cuts, the first I think is the first water level where you just keep forcing yourself to go right after the big waterfall which warps past the worst stages. but you have to play it as a button masher and like a game of memory while hoarding as many coconuts while getting good at the coconut game, do that and it's much easier.
Ohhh I've been wanting to get my hands on this one for a while, it looks really amazing. In terms of speed I think ot also is beaten by the umreleased game "bio force ape", have you -checked that shiiiet ooout?
My collection is now at 554, but I don't have this one. It looks insanely difficult. I wonder if someone like Arco can get through it on just the lives provided. That's 8-bit sexiness right there. lol Another question: do you have every licensed game, or are you just missing Stadium Events?
Damn that’s pretty deep to not have some Thrilla! Official yeah I’m short Stadium Events and maybe 10 or so PAL exclusives including a couple big ones like Devil World and Rod Land. One day maybe!
It looks like the creators never played it or dont play games, like they just said we want this to be challenging so just hurry up and put a bunch of obstacles out there on the screen with no rhyme or reason; chaos... Which is what makes it kind of an interesting game funny enuff.
Man what are you talking about, “games no one played”; I played the hell outta this game… when it was available for rent at our local grocery store. I got to the first surf stage once, that was about it, but it was fun for what little I got from it
Man that trash-spewing shark would have scared the sh*t out of me when I was a kid. I doubt I'd even get to that stage given how hard this game is though.
Even tho the sequel is a more straightforward game, I'll stick to the impossible to beat (can it be beat?) first one with its like 3 different levels. More characters, and way more fun! PS, its not cheating if it makes a game fun or playable!
Wait, you mean Donkey Kong Country wasn't the first game where a gorilla rides a large fish underwater? That's bananas!
I wonder who would win in a fight, DK or Thrilla ?
That was my initial reaction as well…totally had visions of DK water levels.
@@Gatorade69 Funky and Thrilla would be surf buddies
Thriila Rides a Shark and Donkey Kong rides a Sword Fish. so i would say one of each for there own?
i read somewhere that thrilla was DK
One of my favorite NES games, had it as a kid. You aren't supposed to get stuck on the seaweed barriers underwater, you are intended to just shoot them and they lower. And you get your air back by surfacing.
Yeah I had no idea! Not sure how I couldn't figure that out.
@@BigOleWords @whitehat94 is a legend in both this game and their modesty, I think the current world record holder for this game.
To date, the most realistic simulation of extreme sports published to a game system or personal computer.
Ain't that the truth!
Thank you for your content my man, I’ve watched a TON of NES and general video game stuff on UA-cam, since the beginning basically, and you still somehow provide a fresh take. You’ve shown me games I haven’t seen and told me things I didn’t know. 10/10 Channel.
I couldn’t have said it better myself! I was getting bored of NES / retro game content after so many years until I found this channel.
Thanks man I really appreciate it :)
@@BigOleWords it’s cool and relatable since you’re around the same age (I was born in 1983). Crazy to think how the stuff we grew up with is now “retro” and “vintage” and we are obviously old enough to experience nostalgia for it!
I knew this day would come…I just didn’t expect it so soon!
I got the T&C Surf Designs game during the summer of 88' for my 9th birthday. I played the hell out of that game.
Well yeah, everyone had Town and Country Surf Design 1.
@@Gatorade69 I was the only one that had it in my neighborhood.
@@Gatorade69 i never even heard of that game til the internet. :O
As a kid, I had fun but had no clue what I was doing. As an adult, I still have no idea what I'm doing 😂
Your videos have become absolute must watch for me. They are short, funny, informative, thorough, and just fun. It doesn’t hurt that I really love the NES and I appreciate that you actually play these games and don’t go off of internet knowledge or fuzzy nostalgia. I can also see how you are growing in your comfortability of talking “to a video” (I don’t know how else to put it, talking into a phone, microphone?). Keep it up!!!
Thanks player, that's all very kind of you to say :)
Man, sucks that this game was so damn difficult, it had great potential with awesome graphics and rad color palette. I never understood why early game developers felt the need to torture their players with near impossible-to-beat gameplay.
This one especially as it goes from zero to 100 difficulty on the very first stage.
Once you get the hang of it it's actually a very fun game.
It was a easy way to make a 45 minute game last longer. That's why they made them stupid difficult
LJN........nuff' said.
Limited space on a ROM Cartridge and a more tolerant viewpoint towards difficulty due to how arcade games were tuned.
I had T&C Surf as a kid and I remember seeing the cat in a tuxedo on the box or manual but I could never figure out how to play as him. It still haunts me to this day.
Surf stage, hit "B" when picking your character.
Your long journey is finally at an end, my friend...
The cat is the definately the classiest character to surf as! Tho thrilla definately knocks him off his board sometimes
Oh, wow. I played this game a lot. It was pretty awesome. I never found it super difficult (but then again, I did play it a lot). The stages definitely vary a lot with their difficulty. The river surfing stages tend to be pretty easy. There were lots of ways to glitch the game, particularly in the desert stages, where you could sometimes get on the other side of the rock barriers and just effortlessly coast along avoiding all the obstacles. The game certainly has charm, like in the stage that turns out to be a sun-induced hallucination ("The Blue Desert", I believe). The soundtrack is pretty cool, too.
This may have been one of the last 8-bit NES games I bought before I got the Super NES and I pretty much just bought SNES games after that.
It's like silver surfer and a never ending battletoads turbo tunnel rolled into one.
That's a solid comparison.
That makes me never want to play this 😂
I liked collecting the T&C Surf stuff. The cat is named Kool Kat. Thrilla and Funky would be the best of buddies.
Kool Kat is a perfect name.
@@BigOleWords It is! He was one of my favourites.
Wow I don't know how I missed this, and I worked in a eb as a kid and don't remember this one beautiful work this was a game only kids like us back in the day would sit and play for hrs and hrs..great review thx for showing this beautiful game grafix,color speed and control why couldn't al games been made with this quality.
4:07 The word you're looking for is "Misserfolgselbstvertrauensundkonzentrationsschwund" (loss of self-confidence and concentration through failure).
Also, I genuinely wonder if this gorilla inspired Funky Kong in any way. The similarities are pretty obvious, though they may also be coincidental.
P.S.: I made that German word up, that's not a thing ;D
Hahaha damn it Peter you had me excited!
I would have suggested Videospieleschwierigkeitsüberraschung, but that’s my B1 German at work!
Man, first you hit me with Wally Bear and now Thrilla's Surfari. I am getting all kinds of weird nostalgia on this channel. Do Bad Street Brawler or Ikari Warriors next!
I actually talked about both in list videos!
Wally Bear: ua-cam.com/video/3KqQZYvmZJ4/v-deo.html
Ikari: ua-cam.com/video/gFdUaVtVHYs/v-deo.html
I'm so glad I found your channel. Ive been enjoying your back catalog.
I had a buddy when I was a kid that pretty much only wore Bart Simpson and T&C surf company tshirts. He was obsessed with the characters. Which is funny cuz Im a cascadian (obvs) who grew up in the mountain desert of the cascades. Surfing was like...not a thing.
I can actually say tho Ive played this game. My obsessed buddy had it. He was so excited when he got it. He refused to acknowledge it was shit, even when me and our other friend he invited over to show it off were like this game is really bad. He kept trying to play getting more and more frustrated at all the cheap deaths while we were like lets play mega man or mike tyson or castlevania. Anything else! Finally he got so pissed he stomped up and turned the nes off and was like i dont want to play nintendo anyway, lets go outside.
He never admitted how bad it sucked. I had completely forgotten about that day till you showed this. Thanks!
Hahaha I definitely had a few friends exactly like that. Me, I'd admit it sucked, but then still keep trying to beat it :)
You didn't gain health from the vine. You gained health because your head was above water. Thats how it works in the underwater levels. You regain health by finding air pockets.
I had this as a kid and used to beat it even back then. I didn't even know there was an infinite lives cheat code for it until right now.
That's so crazy, i had no idea and thought I was just breaking the game!
Dude, as a skater/boarder back in the day I would have been all over this and I do enjoy the original T&C Surf Designs! Awesome to see your channel blowing up man, although I could tell early on that it was going to happen!
Yeah my buddies were way into Skate or Die and 720 so we would've been all over this...if the Sega Genesis weren't everywhere at the time ;) And thanks! Crazy to see.
Good times had playing Skate Or Die and 720 with friends :) Pretty decent level of difficulty in the skateboard games though that made for some good (unforgiving) challenges! I hear you, Sega Genesis games were pretty amazing at the time.
The only thing I remember about this game from when I was a kid was the fact that it was brutally hard and I was straight-up amazed when I kept seeing the main monkey guy explode into pieces that was amazing to my young mind.
Haha right?! It’s blows my mind every time I see it!
Thrilla is one of my very fav games of all time. Everyone I have ever had play it says immediately how great the control is. What a smooth game
Legit one of the most underrated games on the NES in terms of music/graphics/cut scenes. Multiple different feeling genres, simple enough. It's fun. As far as the bosses I would always just run around the arena and avoid the projectiles while throwing more coconuts at him than should be allowed on the screen. The Shark used to bully me, there's an almost safe spot near his mouth but sometimes you get eatten cuz it's not actually safe.
Also you were getting your health refilled because you were above water, breathing, like super mario 64 lol.
I dunno, I was able to beat this as a child, and there's also a warp that gives you 9 lives. And it IS possible to not pick up any coconuts on the Baby Blue Desert. I can't wait until someone requests that I beat it on stream tbh as I only play games I own on original hardware...and also every single mega man rom hack for 1-6. I have 15 hard/impossible/tas/zip hacks left :/
The exploding monkey is still one of the most brutal things to be on an 8-bit game.
hahaha that makes so much sense about the electric vine!
great channel. a few things about ze video...
1: the original game was one of the mainstays around our house. Never knew about the sequel...
2: the gameplay looks badass.
3: sure there's glitches and all, but the attitude of this game is really unique. I want very much to play it now.
I like your presentation. Rock on
Hey glad you liked it!
It's called an "ollie" on a skateboard when you jump off the ground. Those actually look like really sick backside shifty ollies... extra stylish.
I could’ve sworn in Tony Hawk Pro Skater that they were called “skatey hops”!
That "experience" you were referring to I call the Dark Souls paradigm. Get the boss down to one hit first time then spending the next 5 hrs getting wrecked by everything else including basic enemies you've murdered a thousand times before
Haha that’s it! I just need a more retro sounding term than that ;)
@@BigOleWords you could go with GnG (ghost n goblins) effect or Rick Dangerous as retro examples
I absolutely never finished the first level of this game, but always loved the aesthetic of it. Thanks for showing me what the rest of the game looked like! 🙌🏻🤣
It took me years to stick with it past the first stage!
Had no idea this game existed. But the name Thrilla's Surfari is rad.
Yeah it is!
Yay! One of my favorite rentals as a kid! Always thought the speed was so cool!
Nice dude! Definitely a fast one for the racer ;)
I like the new thumbnail design! I think it's a lot more effective than before
haha I wonder why! ;) Honestly the cutscene images were to amazing not to use, but I don't think I can do this with every review.
If the deadlines are tight then I get that. I think it would be good for views though so the video is more obviously a review and not like a quick gameplay video or something
@@HaydenTheHistorian Yeah I've thought about some sort of design element like a logo or border to help show it's a Big Ole Words video. Anything but an outlined picture of me with a perplexed look on my face.
Imagine me binging all your videos last night, only to wake up to a new video today :)
This was such a wild game, I remember it being featured in Nintendo Power and i wished I was able to find a copy as a kid! But playing it later in life... I'm glad I didn't! It was super bland! (But I sure did love the T&C Surf Designs characters! I had so many bright pink Thrilla visors!)
Damn, I'd kill for a Thrilla visor...
Thrilla's Surfari is pretty fun, especially if you can get some speed going! It's difficult, though, like you said. The unlimited lives code isn't a bad idea, though I'm surprised that you didn't mention the coconut shell game, where you can get a bunch of extra lives at the end of each level (except for the fast one the developers pull on you with the Baby Blue Desert).
Did you find any of the level skips? There's one in the first surfing level, for example, that you can reach by going against the obvious flow and jumping off of a waterfall.
Between the skips and the shell game, I got pretty far in this as a kid. I never actually beat it until much later though, using save states.
I did not! I heard that there were some, but I gotta be honest I just put my head down and trudged through this game.
I had played this game sometime last year and it was one of those games that grew on me. Yes, it's frustrating but it's still fun. There was another game that I enjoyed on the same level and I think it was big foot or monster truck rally.
Back in the day, we all suffered a little extra hard when these were are only options :)
Man, I used to love this game. I thought it was the closes thing to DK Country. Thanks for bringing it back
It really does play kinda similar in sections!
Dude, always happy to see a new video from you. I revisit them often and you've been my sleep playlist for a while too.
Sleep playlist?! Love it!
I vaguely remember these guys being on a line of children's clothing back when I was a little kid, but again vaguely. Seems like something that should have followed Rude Dog and the Dweebs example and been a Saturday Morning cartoon. Nice to know that, despite being balls to the walls frustrating challenge, they actually made a decent game. And Rare did this, correct? There's NO way I can't look at Thrilla riding on that fish and not thinking it's a prototype for DK riding Enguarde in DKC.
I think it's Sculptured Software, but I definitely see the connection.
Neat! I'm surprised AVGN hasn't made a video. I loved T&C, and it was one of my favorite things to draw as a kid. This on the other hand looks like a big NOPE!
It's funny, usually the games you say nobody played are the very ones I had.
Yeah this is definitely a perfect candidate for that dude.
quite proto-mascot platformery - looks fun, makes me appreciate how Crash Bandicoot had top notch level design to tie goofy graphics and challenege together to some degree - nice !
And it kinda plays like a 2-D Crash but way less fun!
Yes we have this game in the collection and no we never played it yet. After watching this maybe a quick play just to experience the maddening difficulty lol. Awesome review 🍻
It's been on my shelf for so long I almost forgot it completely. I know y'all know the feeling!
I played the first game a lot as a kid seeing as practically everyone had a copy of it and no one had the sequel. We probably would have thought it sucked if we did play it though after watching this vid
It's definitely way less accessible than the first one.
Honestly, this looks like a lot of fun. There was barely anything as fast-paced on the NES. It really captures the feel of the game's extreme sports theme well. I would have been tempted to play this if you hadn't pointed out its punishing difficulty. Although there are playthroughs of the game on the site that take 30 minutes tops, so obviously it's possible to get good at it and it's not just purely cheap difficulty that's left to chance. And one huge plus for the game is that it has a nice story. Rescuing your bikini babe girlfriend is a neat rewarding ending, compared to all the plain text "The end"-s and "CongratuRations" you got after completing even decently good games on the system. Those made you feel like your effort was wasted even if you enjoyed playing the game. Conversely, I would have loved seeing this game's ending as a kid.
It is fun in theory. I spent several hours playing every level with savestates amd I will still describe it as one of the hardest NES games
I've really missed these old school game reviews. You earned a sub
Glad you like em' :)
omg i forgot all about this!!! i had this as a kid and it was responsible for my grandparents first hearing me curse and grounding me from the NES for throwing my controller lol insanely hard but entertaining
Hahaha if only they knew how hard it was
Got this game as a kid. I’ve beaten it legit several times, for it took a good 2-3 years for me to beat it the first time. It’s really hard, but fair once you get good at it.
You are a wizard then!
Those underwater level look suspiciously like 8bit predesigns for Donkey Kong Country
Yeah for sure!
It looked like you were supposed to jump off the scorpions projectile.
That is one fast paced game
Ha maybe!
I played it. Very fun game. I also skateboarded, so that helped. Im sure plenty of skateboarders played this game
i had this game as a kid and a minute in im already baffled there was a desert part i spent days playing this game not realizing how little i played of it
Trust me you aren’t missing anything!
Wow, congrats, this game is impossible! I really wanna hear your thoughts on captain skyhawk. Can't wait till Thursday. Great work as always. Big Bird can always rely on you, Jimmy.
Captain Skyhawk? Honestly I think I've played it once. Pretty sure there's some flying ;)
Marble madness meets top gun
Never knew about this one. Guess i wasn't on my NES much in 92. First game was fun as hell in 7th grade.
It kinda rightfully flew under the radar at the time ;)
I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this game at all. Just when you think that there’s nothing new under the Sun.
I've probably had this game for ten years and never played it. Hiding in plain sight!
looks like donkey kong took heavy influence
For sure!
Double Headed Pterodactyl Rhino! Thank you, I've been pondering a new band name for a while now, and boom, you hand it to me on a plate 😉🤣
I'll play bass!
Ok, if Rare honestly didn't rip off those underwater levels for Donkey Kong Country, that is a hell of a very specific coincidence. :O
Right!?
Actually I *have* played that game in the early 90's at the tender age of 6.
Though I never past the first level :( but I definitely remember a surfing gorilla that's associated with the Ying/Yang.
There's quite a bit of games that 'no one has played' but maybe you can help me out:
I do remember this NES platform game about about a cat wearing a trenchcoat (?) that had all kinds of gadgets which includes a retractable punching glove that can also be used as a grapple and swing as well as a pink fat bird boss with a bow on it's head as a boss fight. It was actually pretty fun but I cannot for the life of me remember it's name.
I'm sorry for not describing it enough but I definitely remember playing it.
Rockin’ Kats!
@@BigOleWords duuudee!! Thank you so much!! 🙏 that’s the game!
On that scorpion pit part did you notice there’s a Tusken raider on the top of the screen shooting a rifle?
Yep! Love it.
I loved this game as a kid. Though I never could get very far.
It’s brutal
Both games were good in their own ways. Thrilla's Surfafi was an improvement to me as a kid because the levels actually changed (even though the first game was still lots of fun.)
A Guerilla surf on jungle I love NES logic
They've bot got their charms...and whatever the opposite of that is!
You trying to come up with a term for almost beating a level on the 1st try just to not come that close multiple tries afterwards is a great idea. Happens to me way too often on retro games 😂
The Funky Kong prequel we never knew existed.
Funky’s Surfari!
Best game ever. I wish I had a copy.
That was a great game. Pretty unforgiving but a lot of fun.
It’s got a lot of charm for sure :)
I love t&c. Never played this one...
The Game Over Screen Gave Me Nightmare's when i was a Kid i know he fly's to heaven but the look on his face... just scares me.... i did rent this also and took it back the next day after i saw this screen. years later i beat this with a emulator but still.... also i don't get how you would die if you slid on your butt on stomach after crashing on a skate board... i bet after he loses his skate board he walks around and get's killed by the wild life. still i never knew of a INF lives code.
Hahaha I never really thought about what kills him when that happens. Love that!
Well now I know where Donkey Kong Country got its idea to chase the protagonist underwater with octopuses.
P.S. I agree with cheats. Games are supposed to be for fun and I already beat all six Mega Man games on the NES without cheating once; I don't need to do it again!
Those games are at least possible without cheating!
The game was hard because you were playing it wrong, you have to play it without trying to be safe most of the time generally it's better to get frustrated and go through it as lazy as possible. Like with the rocks in groups of three with the enemies coming or shooting at you instead of taking the path which will ensure that you have to dodge the enemies you go to the bottom and jump over the rocks and hit the small amount of land between them.
Also there are a bunch of short cuts, the first I think is the first water level where you just keep forcing yourself to go right after the big waterfall which warps past the worst stages.
but you have to play it as a button masher and like a game of memory while hoarding as many coconuts while getting good at the coconut game, do that and it's much easier.
If you say so!
Love late stage NES cut scenes
Drove me nuts as a kid
I’ll bet!
Ohhh I've been wanting to get my hands on this one for a while, it looks really amazing.
In terms of speed I think ot also is beaten by the umreleased game "bio force ape", have you -checked that shiiiet ooout?
Bio Force is the supreme speed for sure. I've never really played it though, one day!
It's like turbo tunnel from battle toads
... the game
Very accurate
5:48 Well that wouldn't go over well today.
Ooof no it would not.
How about "Erststufenwiederholungsschwierigkeitsanstieg" ? ;)
(English words would be like: First level repeat challenge rise)
I think you are the winner!
That phenomenon is known as "the yips"
We don't say that word!
@@BigOleWords MacBeth?
Definitely my favorite nes game.
Oh wow, that’s a hot take! Spicy!
2:51 That's just a Biblically accurate Metroid boss
Hahaha you nailed it!
My collection is now at 554, but I don't have this one. It looks insanely difficult. I wonder if someone like Arco can get through it on just the lives provided. That's 8-bit sexiness right there. lol
Another question: do you have every licensed game, or are you just missing Stadium Events?
Damn that’s pretty deep to not have some Thrilla!
Official yeah I’m short Stadium Events and maybe 10 or so PAL exclusives including a couple big ones like Devil World and Rod Land. One day maybe!
@@BigOleWords I know! I need me some Thrilla! lol
Looks very "Excite Bike-esque"
A little bit!
Yeah.....when a game is this difficult it makes me wonder if it was even play tested.
If it was, I feel for those dudes.
I played a lot of Thrillas Surfari
Great review James !!! 🙂
Thanks Jeff!
Omg this was my favorite game as a kid!
Oh word? Awesome!
I remember this game
It looks like the creators never played it or dont play games, like they just said we want this to be challenging so just hurry up and put a bunch of obstacles out there on the screen with no rhyme or reason; chaos... Which is what makes it kind of an interesting game funny enuff.
so im guessing this is where inspiration of funky kong comes from lol
Right?!
I use to think he was funky Kong as a kid 😅
They're very very close!
Man what are you talking about, “games no one played”; I played the hell outta this game… when it was available for rent at our local grocery store. I got to the first surf stage once, that was about it, but it was fun for what little I got from it
"This is one of the hardest games I've ever played."
[Ryu has entered the chat]
The Demi gorgan is obviously a Komodo Dragon
I love this game
Possibly a common Q on this channel, but what is the intro from? The "Check This Shit Out"?
It’s from a Mr Show sketch called “Jeepers Creepers”?
@@BigOleWords Ah excellent! Thank you. I thought it was from some stoner rock act I had missed. "Kyuss, but worse" or whatever.
Africa looks like a sideways Australia 🙏🏽
Hahahahaha
So in order to get a hot 8-bit chick, I need to be an anthropomorphic gorilla? That's so gnarly dude!
I don’t think you needed a video game to tell you that!
@@BigOleWords 🤣 Great vid as usual, dude!
Man that trash-spewing shark would have scared the sh*t out of me when I was a kid. I doubt I'd even get to that stage given how hard this game is though.
Yeah that is a really rad and huge sprite!
Even tho the sequel is a more straightforward game, I'll stick to the impossible to beat (can it be beat?) first one with its like 3 different levels. More characters, and way more fun!
PS, its not cheating if it makes a game fun or playable!
Yeah this game is impossible. Anyone saying it’s easy is a straight up liar.
It’s Funky Kong before he changed his name for marketing purposes.
Oh man, this one looks painful.
Really REALLY digging this channel
That's kind of you to say!
Lol LJN actually released a competently made game!
Almost!
I have no qualms about cheating either. Glad to see someone agrees with me. It makes a lot of games more fun because they are too damn hard
The games demand it!
The bosses are nightmare fuel.
bro i LOVED this game, if you don't play it anymore would you sell it to me?
Haha no, once it’s entered the shelf it cannot escape!
@@BigOleWords we'll see
Funky Kong and Candy Kong origin story.