El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

The Spanish Knightmare spin-off.
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Pooka
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El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by Pooka »

I've been a mixture of busy and unwell recently, so haven't been able to come to Knightmare Chat. I've also been lazy in doing this forum post, which is the last of the Appreciation Weeks, so let's get this one going.

As always, this is a cross-platform endeavour. Knightmare Chat is tomorrow (and I WILL be there!), but you can always share your thoughts on Rescate here on the Forum.

Rescate is unique because I have yet to meet anyone who was a fan - unlike KM, which has the legions of fans, and Chevalier, which at least warranted a fansite. I did once live with a Spanish guy named Chico who recognised the name and sad that he'd watched it once or twice (with enthusiasm, which suggested he liked it), but I wouldn't call that fandom.

As such.

Anyway, so, Rescate.

The first thing - and the most memorable, certainly - is the characterisation of the Spanish replacement for Treguard. This changes throughout the programme, there being a huge, bellowing Hagrid-lite for one series and an older, gentler and more mature DM for another. Both have their merits, but in the case of the former, he's a lot funnier - for rather obvious Brian Blessed-related reasons. The latter is a little more helpful, but to me always seems a little aloof - he seems to WANT them to win, but doesn't give too much advice on how to do it.

Assuming you're watching the programme with Enormous Loud Spanish Treguard, once you get past that intro bit, the gameplay is rather odd, specifically if you consider the fact that in both KM and Chevalier they are going through a continuous Dungeon. Rescate seems to work on the unique basis that you have to complete an individual task in each room and then leave - often by the same route you came in.

Series 1-2 Treguard would have a fit - "the only way is onward..."

As a result, I always found Rescate hard to follow, as I'm not entirely sure what the team's target was, other than to survive until the end of an episode; in fact, I think that's exactly what they were meant to do, and it doesn't seem like too difficult a game, either. I suspect that the production team had a certain number of rooms they could cycle the team through and then the ending sequence, ensuring that they all get to the end... but I'm not sure I can get on board with that.

Then again, I'm not the target audience, so I'm not meant to. Had I grown up with this, I probably would have found KM too difficult to watch!

The end result of this is that I feel like I'm watching a computer game when looking at Rescate - individual levels played through systematically, which are designed to be completed in some sort of order to win with very little effort, but as it's not really explained what's going on (and my knowledge of Spanish is limited enough to not understand too much!) to any huge degree, I find Rescate a little disappointing.

Anyway! Thoughts?
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by wombstar »

Well this the is episode I watched
LINK REMOVED BY FORUM ADMINISTRATOR

The first half isn't to different, when the dungeoneer dies the next adviser takes over which I thought was an interesting twist.
Rescate seems to work on the unique basis that you have to complete an individual task in each room and then leave - often by the same route you came in.
Don't understand what you mean, The team in this episode didn't go back on themselves and there doesn't appear to be any tasks just survive and get through the next door, only real task I can see took place in Merlin's room when they were answering questions.


Some cool characters and new concepts for the rooms I liked, however I hated the music and the ending more so. But pretty straight forward really, overall a bit slow and boring.

Edited on 12/4/15 by Forum Administrator: This post has been edited to remove a link to copyright infringing material.
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by Canadanne »

I find this one much harder to translate than the French version, as I've never learnt Spanish so I don't have the vocabulary, and they speak so fast! Also the rules seem quite different so it's hard to follow what's going on, especially in that second series episode. (To quote from my post about it: "They meet a frog prince and give him all five of their objects. He doesn't seem to give them anything in return, and they leave. What the hell?")

I love the team outfits in this show! They properly look the part, rather more so than our contestants in their school uniforms or silly T-shirts. :P

It's quite nice that they started out with their own unique helmet design, though they had to change it when they adopted our opening title sequence.

As in Le Chevalier, it's fun to see David Rowe's rooms being altered in different ways, and they also occasionally use leftover location footage that was filmed for Knightmare but not shown here. (Weird how they used both the paintings and the real locations within the same series, though!) Again I would love to see more of these.

The host in the first series seems a nice chap, though he lacks the commanding presence of Treguard or even le Mâitre du Château. The host in the second series appears to be a total nutter, constantly ranting and raving for no clear reason. It's a shame there are no episodes from the final series online, as I'd love to see what the third host was like! The setting is meant to have been quite different, with new villains as well.

I like the White Lady who tests them in the throne room, and Uraut the witch.

The final encounters are pretty stupid, with the Lord of Evil just waving the talisman around, laughing and moving slowwwly towards them, only to fall down dead when they poke him and say the magic word! The same thing seems to happen every time. He's no Lord Fear, that's for sure. :P

It's ridiculous how the team are still allowed to win even when ALL THREE advisors are gone, as the host simply guides the final dungeoneer instead! You do have to wonder what kept people tuning in every week, when they knew all the teams were bound to win. (Supposedly there were occasional failures when they forgot the magic word, but who knows if that's true - it could be like the Knightmare urban myths, where people remember things that never really happened!)

I still haven't had a chance to write any detailed observations about those newer episodes from the first series. Really should get round to that sometime. (LOL, I just clicked CC to see if anyone had subtitled them, and got the automatic subtitles suggesting "David Beckham Kaká", which I'm FAIRLY sure is not actually what was being said in that scene.)
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by Pooka »

wombstar wrote:The first half isn't to different, when the dungeoneer dies the next adviser takes over which I thought was an interesting twist.
That happens in Chevalier too - which makes me wonder if it was a failsafe introduced into the international editions to make it deliberately easier, giving them up to four chances to win the thing![/quote]
The team in this episode didn't go back on themselves
Maybe my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I remember them doing so in at least one episode. Which series are you watching? They could've just changed the rules, of course.

I'll watch an episode or two before Chat tonight so as to refresh my memory.
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by Canadanne »

Pooka wrote:
The team in this episode didn't go back on themselves
Maybe my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I remember them doing so in at least one episode. Which series are you watching? They could've just changed the rules, of course.
The episode he watched is from Series 1 when they didn't do that. It's Series 2 where they go back out the same way they came in.
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by wombstar »

Whoops, I was a bit naughty and posted a link, got caught up in the discussion and thought it would make life easier, didn't cross my mind it was wrong. Sorry, we all make mistake. :-[

I haven't a clue what series I was watching, didn't really understand it too much, I haven't revisited the French version for ages so i'll have to give that another look.

It's the ending that seems really rubbish, 'everyone's a winner' attitude doesn't really work in KM, kinda makes the quest redundant. Then there's the Segas lol Shows how cruel our kids were treated..lol most of them whet home empty handed, truly tested and when they won that had to share what might be made out of paper mache ;)
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by Pooka »

Canadanne wrote:The episode he watched is from Series 1 when they didn't do that. It's Series 2 where they go back out the same way they came in.
Yes, I thought it might be that. I watched the episode that's available on KM.com again this afternoon, and that's from Series 2. They go both forward and backwards in this episode, I think.
wombstar wrote:it's the ending that seems really rubbish, 'everyone's a winner' attitude doesn't really work in KM, kinda makes the quest redundant. Then there's the Segas lol
Yes - it's very similar to Chevalier in that way: well, both were sponsored by SEGA! Mind you, that makes winning KM a lot more special - this one is a fun game with a free pass, almost; KM was a challenge!
Last edited by Pooka on 09 Feb 2020, 15:08, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: El Rescate Del Talisman Appreciation Week

Post by wombstar »

That's right. Sega is quite common, but a Fright Knight is extremely rare.
It just a bit too easy from what I can see, but the US version wanted a one quest per episode as well, I think we're very luck to have gotten the version of Km we had, it seems for most it was too difficult, not instant enough and way too complicated.

I didn't know there was an episode linked, downloadable from the main site, must be a reason it's allowed there and not here. I'll have to check that one out.
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