Spoilers! Missing in Action Proto Ending

[Silver Back]

I've been playing the Missing in Action prototype a little here and there, and I finally turned the switch for invincibility and played through what I could. I level skipped when I got stuck falling through the floors in the sewers to see the rest. Just a couple of thoughts. 

 

I don't think it's news to anybody that this could've been a decent game for the 7800 library, and I think the big guy in the jacket and the all black doppleganger (both in the sin city level before the embassy) at the end of the same level were meant to be bosses.  Obviously nothing was coded but I would bet money the big guy would send continual soldiers at you until you knock him out, and the guy in black was gonna be stronger and faster than others, possibly with some of your roundhouse moves.  But as is they either stand still or fight normal.  Speculation of course. 

 

 In the waterfall stage I found a way to select items, although none do anything that I could tell. It seems if you held down the right or second button it would cycle through what you've picked up.  Again I'm sure this is known but I hadn't seen it until today. 

 

Spoiler

But what I was really shocked by was the ending. It's all text and not too impressive, but at the end it says thank you Vietnam soldiers. You've finally won. Now of course the game takes place trying to escape a Vietnam prison, but I was old enough to hear the stories and see the effects of this war on my family members. Our American Vietnam men were not thanked for their service when they got home, and not only suffered over there but here as well. I wasn't expecting to read that and it hit me in the feels. Probably the only 7800 game to ever or will ever get that kind of emotion from me.  And if you don't know about Vietnam or how the American soldiers came home to less than welcoming conditions, you may want to look into it just a little. And then thank a Vietnam war vet if you have the chance. Okay off the soap box. 

 

I put my true reason for posting in the spoiler box as it does reveal the ending of the game. But it's a shame this game wasn't released, and I was shocked that an ending to a 7800 game could make me feel something I wasn't expecting. I'm not sure if that was the intent and I doubt I will ever know, but I just wanted to throw it here for discussion. 

 

Thanks guys.