Level 59 - 3D Pocket Monsters

Hey, if you want variety in your gaming podcast and a whole bunch of awesome people having a great time doing it, you can check out the Superpod podcast network at superpodnetwork.com. This is where you can find remember 64 our video and audio podcast blogs and also other shows such as a novel console, fine time gaming and collecting. Press B to cancel. You have the 3D O experience, retro wildlands, Superpod saga, pre-order bonus and more. All of these shows are awesome,

doing great stuff. Check it out superpodnetwork.com. A battle. He's over this place. It's a battle for destiny, a battle for glory, a battle for. Welcome to Remember 64, where this week we're going 3D with our favorite pocket monsters. Hello everyone, and welcome to the show. Hello again if you're returning listener or viewer and welcome if this is your first time joining us here on Remember 64.

We are playing and discussing the good, the bad, the ugly and of course everything in between throughout the Nintendo 64's library. My name is David Petrangelo and I am so, so glad that these two games we're talking about only have the creatures that I recognize because my old man brain can only hold so much useful information. Yeah, that's right, I said useful, not useless.

All I know is that my go to Bulbasaur is the Gen. one equivalent of whatever the Gen. two equivalent is that one equivalent of that one Jiggy. Look back is here with me again Jiggy. Hello. Yes, you know, I heard once there was a study that said you can only have 150 meaningful relationships at a time. So even in the 1st generation, we were one too many. We're just one too many, right? So. Maybe. Don't count the evolutions. I don't know. They pushed us too far, even as

children. Yeah, they did. They did. Oh, they really? Oh, did they ever. Kids these days, they oh, boy. OK. And you know what? It's not just the two of us this time, man. We got another guest. This is great. It's super exciting. Been dying to have Eric on from the unlockables for quite some time. The Kingdom Hearts extraordinaire himself, Eric from the unlockables. How are you, man? Dave Jiggy, I'm doing great. Thank you guys so much for having me on. I love remember 64.

I love the Nintendo 64. I have great fond memories of it. And yeah, this has been a long overdue. I know that. Dave, I think you and I last year connected on a episode of of Josh from Still Loading Show, I believe. I think we did Mario Kart, Super Circuit, Super Circuit. That's it, man. Yeah, and that was kind of our yeah, that was kind of our first in face meeting. And ever since then it was was like, yeah, I need to I need to come on your guys a show and and do something for sure.

But yeah, shortly after that or around that time I had my first child and that kind of pushed back literally my entire life. But at a point now where I where we we were able to make it work. So it's awesome to to be on here. It's awesome to to finally collaborate with you guys and I'm really excited to talk about one of my one of my most fondest memories from my childhood here. Yeah, we're talking Pokémon Stadium and the second one as well.

So Pokémon Stadium 1 and two, we figured we loot them both together 'cause there's a lot of similarities and why not, right? Different games. But you know, we'll, we'll talk about it as we go along. Before we do get into it, though, let's talk about the unlockables a bit. I mentioned the Kingdom Hearts extraordinaire.

Let's chat about that a little bit because I think as of the day that we're recording, you just released the last or second last episode in a very long string of awesome episodes about that franchise. Let's what's what's going on there, If anyone doesn't know. Yeah. So as of as of today, as of this recording, the, the episode on the final game that we played in the series, which was a Kingdom Hearts melody of memory came out.

And yeah, I, I started doing a Kingdom Hearts complete series analysis and retrospective on my show. And that is what my show has mostly become known for in this kind of community of, of podcasters and content creators. We have. And I started that mostly out of the, you know, I kind of see the chatter on the Internet about the series where is people like, first of all, Kingdom Hearts is like my favorite game series of all time. It's a, it's a series that I, I absolutely love the death.

And you know, I am not so naive as to know that gets a little crazy, gets a little weird sometimes. And I see a lot of that chatter on the Internet from people who are mostly on the outside looking in how crazy the Kingdom

Hearts series can get. So my catalyst for creating that miniseries within my show was kind of to to go through all the games, break them down, break the story down, breakdown the themes and kind of analyze and talk about all that stuff and make kind of like a companion guide for anybody that was like curious to get into the series. Because as everybody knows, Kingdom Hearts, infamously, the story gets a little bit dense, a little bit crazy. There's and all the games kind

of tie into each other. So it's, it's really, if you choose to undertake a playing of the Kingdom Hearts series, it's very much something that you don't have to, but I recommend playing all the games in the series and tying them all together. So that was kind of the the catalyst of, of that journey of that miniseries. And yeah, as of today, I, I wrapped that up. It took me two years and and nine months to go through all the games and write all the scripts and record all the

episodes. And that was over 47 hours of content across 29 episodes. So yeah, very. Impressed. Yeah, it feels like. It feels like it's very, very thorough. It is my most complete attempt to just analyze and describe and share the thing that I love most with, with everybody who who chooses to come and engage with it. So that is yes. Now I need to stop you and I've got to say, describe the plot to Kingdom Hearts in 20 seconds. In 20. I even know that's crazy and

I've only played like the first. Two games literally impossible because there's there's plots on top of plots. So it depends on like which one you want If I was. To to say like a synopsis. Elevator pitch, that's what. It's called Yeah Boy from island gets mystical key sword and fights darkness and the elderly. That's pretty elderly. Yeah, those are two separate things. Interesting. Yeah, sometimes there. Sometimes separately. OK. Disney. Disney's there.

Yeah, yeah, Mickey's there. He's kind of like a Jedi master. Goofy's there, Donald's there. Yeah, kids, Final Fantasy characters are there, so. And if you added like another 10 seconds, could you explain the nobody heartless situation to me? Because I played through one and two and I still don't really understand. Yes. So the heartless is the darkness in person's heart made manifest then Nobody is the empty shell of the body that is left behind when a person turns into a

heartless. So yeah, just because you become heartless does not mean that you die. Your body can be left behind and you act like an empty, emotionless husk. And there's some really deep themes around like depression and like accepting yourself and all that kinds of fun stuff that gets brought into that sort of madness. But yeah, there's Don't Give me If you want to make this a Kingdom Hearts episode, we could be here for four hours. So just be careful where you're

taking this. Tread Tread lately Jiggy tread lately not. It's. Just yeah, yeah, I mean that is it is very impressive, man, like honestly and and it's great that all of that is is part of a franchise and game series of games that you love so much. Now before this my my question, my sort of semi follow up question is like had you played all these before you did this or were there a couple like blank spots that you filled in sort of

as you went? Yeah, I'd played all of them with the exception of I didn't finish the the mobile games, which had a more of like gotcha element to it because those spanned like several years of existence. So those were the only real blank spots that I kind of had to go back and and fill in. But other than that, every mainline game that's been out, I own all of them on original hardware. I own all the collections multiple times over physical on Steam.

So yeah, it's a bit. I've given Square Enix enough of my money. Because of you're keeping them afloat because some of their games apparently don't do well enough. Which is just like what? Crazy. Yeah. Anyways, they say that you should support the series that you love. And I've, I've certainly supported this one because I want more of them. So there you. Go King of Hearts 4. It's coming. Hopefully. Sometime. Here it looks dramatically different. I don't know how I feel about it

but. Sorry, we're at we're out of big shoe territory. So that's great. We're in regular shoe territory. I don't know what that. Means regular shoe territory. Probably symbolic. It's. A sign of something. It's a sign of something. Whatever it is, it's a sign of something. Yeah. OK, so that's awesome. Check out the unlockables. If you're a Kingdom Hearts fan or anywhere close to being a Kingdom Hearts fan, check it out. That's the place to go for sure. And.

Understand Kingdom Hearts. Or and and to understand. Yeah. He passed the test. He gave a great synopsis of it. He can't confirm, so there. You go. More details. To come. More details. It's a great companion piece. If you're like I said, if you're, if you're playing the series through yourself, it's a great companion piece. Just so like you play the first game, listen to it afterwards like it's at least I think so.

I'm patting myself on the back obviously, but I, I, I'm very, I'm very proud of it. Yeah, no, you, you damn well should. Absolutely. You put some hard work into it. You'd pat yourself on the back as much as you want. OK, so let's, yeah, let's talk. Let's talk Pokémon Stadium. Let's talk about I either one of these. Erica let you catch your breath for two seconds. Jiggy, what is your what is your

experience with Pokémon Stadium? Either one of these going in before the last, you know, couple weeks when we said we were going to play this. 100% no experience playing Pokémon Stadium. No no no no no no no. Let me finish. No experience playing Pokémon Stadium by myself. I only played Pokémon Stadium 1. That's still interesting though. That's still interesting to me. At a friend's house and we my cat is. Licking, licking wires right now. We both noticed at the same time somehow.

Sorry, that's great potentially dangerous situation. So I just ended up. Being a a Christmas vacation thing where the cat just. Yeah, I'm like. Please, no, please no, that's not no casualties. Here. Oh, I did this at a particular friend's house and we would just do multiplayer and just battle

and pick, pick our book. And we did a thing where we'd have to, we, we each picked our team, but we'd have to like cover our eyes when the other person was selecting so that we couldn't like, you know, just do cheap type advantages and stuff. And no legendaries. That was a rule. No legendaries because why that? Makes sense. That makes sense. So, so sorry. They so you only OK, so you only did that.

Did you guys ever do the the transfer pack stuff at all or was it all just the rental or whatever? Didn't do the transfer pack stuff though. I had one, just never did it. Yeah, we just, we just. I mean, you kind of both need one too, right? Otherwise it's not really fair or quite the same. Yeah. I think it's kind of what it. Is Dave, like we've talked about in the past, I had an entire team of Pigeots, yes. What am I going to do with that? Fly, baby, fly. Great team.

That's a great team. Yeah, you're just never touching the ground. That's actually pretty sweet. I, I have, I have, I don't know, I think I, I have a decent amount of experience with this, with this franchise, mostly the first one, I think, because that's just what I was playing at the time and I grew up playing the first Gen. of Pokémon and that's pretty much it.

I, I've said this before in the other Pokémon episodes we played, even talking about Puzzle League when we played at Jiggy last year, you know, it was like, oh, I've never played this game before, but I recognize some of the Pokémon and this is an interesting way of doing it. And, and to me, this was kind of the same thing. It was like, oh, I get to do battles and I get to try out my

stuff. But pretty much like I had one friend, I think, who had the first one and then I would rent the first one every once in a while. There was only one Game Boy 1 transfer pack, one game, one Pokémon game in our house. So it was like even to sit down and play with my brother was sort of like, oh, it was only the rentals. It was only the, you know, going

that way. And I just, we'll talk about this as we go, but it's just like without those, you know, actual Pokémon, I feel like my the draw single player is just not there. There's something about that that just doesn't quite work for me. And I think that's my biggest sort of revisiting take away of this. I played this this time mostly on my Steam Deck because I kind of had to play it.

And so I emulated it and had to sort of play it sort of on the couch or in my kids room or, you know, things that on the go sort of speak. So I didn't do any of the transfer stuff this time even though I tried to because what I tried to do is play Pokémon Blue before I booted this game up and I got 3 gyms in. I was dedicated guys. I wanted to get as many as I got. I got 3 gems into the game. I restarted, I picked my Vulvasaur. I got in there and I was like,

yeah, this is great. I still it still works. I have my original cartridge in my GBA that I played it in. It has like me and my brother are sort of, I don't know, it's hard to see, but I feel like I've shown this before, but it says AP on there, which is my brother's initials in pen. And he rubbed off the fact that I put DP on there and then wrote over it. And we sort of thought on whose cartridge we thought about whose cartridge this was, but who's

laughing now? I have it so and it still works. The battery is still alive on it somehow so. End of the year that. What's that? Yeah, yeah. Give it another year or two. Yeah, you run that borrowed time. I know I shouldn't have said it. I jinxed it. I'm going to turn it on now. It's not going to work. All right, Eric, what about you? Let's let's actually before we even do this because we haven't had you on the show yet, What's your Nintendo 64 experience? How about that?

What was it for you as a kid or as an adult or coming into, you know, these last couple weeks? What's the story, man? My Nintendo 64 experience is so weird. It's it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. So it's funny that I'm coming on talking about this game because I remember getting My Nintendo 64 and it was the Pokémon Stadium bundle. So it came with Pokémon Stadium, it came with the transfer pack. So this had to have been a couple years. I mean, this one came out what,

989998? So it had, yeah. So it had to have been like two years after the council initially initially launched. And I was just in the the height of Pokémon mania, the the Game Boy games, the cards, like literally everything. Yeah, me too.

So my Nintendo 64 experience was really weird because I, I know a lot of people initially at launch got, you know, the, the games that everybody thinks of as synonymous with the 64, like especially like Mario 64. Up until recently, I hadn't played any of the what people would consider like the probably the high tier and 64 games. I hadn't, I didn't play Mario 64. I didn't own it. I didn't play Ocarina of Time. I didn't own it.

Star Fox 64, Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie, like all the games that people think of, like when they think of that N64 didn't own a single one of them. I owned weird shit. I owned Gauntlet Legends, which is like one of my favorite games. I've loved Gauntlet Legends, Army Men, Serge as Heroes. I think it was the second one. I owned that one. Yeah, there's like 5 for some

reason. So I just owned like a lot of like weird off like the beaten path kind of N64 games and like nothing that was actually made but like the actual like Nintendo IP. So it was really, really, really weird. And I was playing an N64 at the same time as I would had like my PS1 and like a Super Nintendo as well. So I was kind of like switching back between and forth between all of them. So yeah, my N64 experience was like super weird.

And like everybody would always talk about like how great Mario 64 is and how great Ocarina is and, you know, these Seminole best games of all time. And it wasn't until my late 20s that I played Mario 64 and I played Ocarina of Time for the first time last year. So yeah, my, my N64 experience is kind of like all over the place. But I have been going back and I've been totally like filling

in some of the gaps. Last year I was, I, I got the opportunity also to play Wave Race 64, which which that game actually like, surprised me. And that kind of blew me out of the water, like, no pun intended. It's like. That's fine. And like how like beautiful the water graphics were in that game. I was like, what are we looking at? Like it? Looked real. It's. Yeah, I thought it looked incredible. It was. So it's. Such an early game too, which is just crazy.

Yeah, they had that like a life cycle. They had that figured out like out-of-the-box, I don't know.

But so, so yeah, I've been going back in and like filling in some of like the marquee and 64 games as I've gone back since I've gotten into the podcasting circle, I've like gone back and played like more things that I've missed when I was growing up because I was obsessed with like Pokémon and, and when I, when things would come out, I would just obsess over them and like miss everything else that came out.

So yeah, very, very weird. We're very, very weird N64 experience like Pokémon Stadium. And specifically, I already mentioned I got the the bundle that had the N64 Pokémon Stadium, the controller and the transfer pack. And I know for a fact that I just ate this game up. It's specifically the first one. I had the second one too, but I remember I put way more time into the first one. I would import like all my Pokémon.

I had like the whole Pokedex like maxed out to level 100 because of the rare candy glitch, obviously. And yeah. And so I would just go through like the tournaments and like just destroy everyone. And one of my fondest memories that is me and one of my best friends at the time, we spent like a whole summer. We got all 151 Pokémon into the Hall of Fame on Pokémon Stadium by going through the gym leader castle.

Like he would come over and we would just go through that with different teams until we got every single Pokémon into the Hall of Fame. It was it was it was absolutely nuts. And one of my other favorite things too was when we'll talk about this as well, is they had the the Gameboy tower that you could play Pokémon on Gameboy on your TV. And if you had progressed far enough in the game, you could get like the little sticker add-ons like the Doduo sticker that lets you play in like

double speed time. And going back now and experiencing the Gen. one games like those games are slow as fuck. So being able to play it like double speed back then, super cool. So yeah, I, I play, I'm sure I know I played this game to death. I didn't play the second one as much because when Gen. 2 came around, I feel like I was kind of petering off of Pokémon a little bit. Like I love Gen. 2. It's, it's probably my favorite generation just cause of nostalgia factor.

But I was discovering things like shortly after that I discovered like Final Fantasy 9 and Kingdom Hearts came out. So like my love affair with Square Enix and RP GS kind of started and I kind of petered off Pokémon. So, but yeah, I have a lot of nostalgia, a lot of nostalgic love around this game, but going back to play it now is is interesting and I think we'll get into that here in a second.

Yeah, No, let's, let's dive in because I think I'll, I'll start a little bit because it's a little bit of what I, what I said I again, I've had like if you, if you tell me to name more than 5 Gen. 2 Pokémon like and had A and, you know. Can't even make a full team. Like I can't. Like literally I can't even have.

I can't even have 6 pigeots worth of of of of you know, mind space to be able to like I honestly, I, I can't like when I wrote that little intro thing, I said I had to look up that name like I, I do not know. And I played through Gen. 2 completely for the first time. Similar with you with with Ocarina was some was last year around this time last year. Interesting. Yeah, it was. It was actually. No, it was a little bit later, a little bit any regard. It doesn't matter what it was.

You at least know the starters, the Gen. 2 starters. Offhand, no, I don't. I know what they look like. Like, I know I know what they look like. But like, I, if you show me a Gen. 2 Pokémon or like A2 and A3 or A2 and A4, I'd be like, Oh no, that one's from 2:00, that one's from 4. Like I, I could identify that

the names, no chance, right? If you threw a Gen. one in front of me, I know all of them and I haven't played a Pokémon game or Gen. one for 20 years at least, you know consistently enough to be able to like refresh my memories every once in a while I'd pick up blue or whatever, I'd play stadium or it's fine, no problem. But like man. So all of that being said, because of all of that and my very limited extended universe of Pokémon, not like I don't I

don't. I've never had a desire to go back to these games because unless I've had my own Pokémon in here playing it solo, at least to me, I hate to say, it feels kind of boring. It just does. It's just the same thing. Oh, now a commercial's playing in my video keeps playing over and over and over again of the

same slow sort of battles and. And I'm just like, OK, like like you said, the the 1st 2 gens, especially one it's a slow they're slow moving games, you know, like you're until you get that bike. It's like holy shit, let's go buddy, pick up the pace like you got Pokémon to catch and and A and a rival to fight and let's go man, Oak needs you to fill out that pokedex. Come on.

This game kind of like these games kind of feel that way to me because it's like I don't need to see like it's I think, I think as a kid and not knowing what they really looked like, I think it's a really cool idea to get these Pokémon, put them in a 3D space and show you what some of these moves look like. I think that's great. It's a great representation of what's been going on for dozens and dozens of hours of how many times you've played either one of these games.

The Game Boy games at the time, like I think that's great. And some of them still look pretty cool. Some of them I forgot what they look like and was kind of surprised. I still like that aspect of it. But aside from the visual aspect, I was like, all right, I've done this, you know, I've I did a couple of the gems on each of them, played a couple of the mini game things and I'm like, all right, I got my fill, I've got my Pokémon fill.

And somehow, even though Gen. one and two move pretty slowly when you're not battling, I still would rather play the in between stuff somehow than just the battles. If there's something about maneuvering the environments, that was enough for me to be like, well, I'd rather actually play the full game than just the battles. And I don't know, it's kind of a weird thing because what do you do in between the battles? Unless you're finding random poker balls that have a potion or something.

And what are you doing? You're you're running into random encounters which kind of suck but that happens so often, especially in the first one. But somehow I wanted to do that over playing these games. I'm in a really weird space. So anyways. Now I need to blast you for that. Please do the random encounters. That's what I lived for, the random random. Encounters. What is wrong with you? My gosh, you never knew what you were gonna find.

You're gonna find a fucking too bad is what you're gonna find. Or, or a rat. But. That's what you're gonna find. You don't know that. What if you find something? What if you find? What if you find something legendary? What if you find a shiny? Like, not a gentleman? You're not variables. Well, I mean. I I'm talking just these, I'm talking just these two, just these two and more. More specifically one 'cause that's where most of my experience is. But anyways, continue. Sorry.

And Two's better. I will say I do prefer Gen. 2. It is honestly, the game itself is, is definitely better now that I played it all the way through. Like it's, it's better. I just don't have that same, you know, nostalgia for it and that's it. But random encounters, really. Oh man, you are younger than me. Jesus. Yeah, I was. And you know what? I'm gonna say something. That is because of me being younger and playing this game as

a kid. I would have been somewhere around like the age of 6 or 7 or so. When I played this and the transfer pack, I did not understand how that worked. OK, and I knew I knew you could I knew you could connect Pokémon. I knew you could play Pokémon on the TV. And that's what caused a problem for me because I was like, oh, I can play my Game Boy game on the TV and I had a friend that had a super Game Boy on the Super Nintendo.

Yes, I had one. So I assumed it was the N64 equivalent of the Super Game Boy right. So I remember just like popping that in, popping in random Game Boy games, flipping my N64 on and off and be like why is and it working? What am I not getting? That is totally fair, though. That's totally fair. And the funniest part was I apparently just like gave up on the whole transfer pack situation like but like mid

trying to do a game. So when I like re like grabbed all my stuff right and got my transfer pack like I found my transfer pack and I pulled it out. It had a quest for Camelot in it, because that was the game I was trying to get on TV because for whatever reason. And then that got randomly thrown onto Switch Online just like in the Game Boy library. And I just remembered that I was like, I can finally do it and. That's not Yeah, I can find about this dream. It's full circle.

My life is complete. You can die happy now, Jiggy. Now it's it's for Camelot finally. So what, like did so I you, you have both cartridges, I believe. I think they're in the background behind you there. Yeah. Did you play both? How did it go? Like did you, did you, did you transfer anything? That's the question. I did not. Or did you? Just try and play Camelot again. Yeah, no success. No, it didn't work. I don't know why.

I still don't. Understand I I kind of did what you did played a little bit of the the Jim Castle whatever, and I honestly do prefer 2 stadium 2 for a couple reasons 1 the cartridge looks dope as heck and it's got to be noted because it's like gold and sparkly on one side and silver and sparkly on the other, which is amazing the art's. Pretty cool on it too, honestly like the box art on both but are pretty sweet. Yeah, yeah, they look. Pretty cool. It is.

I do like that they have your I don't remember if they have it on the second one, but the first one has a little spot to put your name. It says like this. Let me let me pull it up real quick. Go grab it. Let's go show and tell. Come on. I didn't. Even recognize that I did not. I left it blank purposefully. But yeah, it says like. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, mine's somewhere. Somewhere buried for. Yeah, this game cartridge belongs to and then put your name on it. And I don't know how I have a

copy that doesn't have. A name mine doesn't either, which is why I didn't even think about it because that's amazing. I bought like a RE like a, you know, bought a copy of I don't know where it was, eBay or whatever it was just but. I just love the look at this this. Into your card is so. Cool, and it's got to be the only one. That's like that too. Right like cuz even the stickers like shiny too, like it's cool. I don't, I don't know any other N64 games that are like 1/2 and

half. Look, it's pretty cool. It's like a repo or something, right? So yeah, I. Will say, like Pokémon Stadium, like for me, it's all about battling with friends like and having an online element on Switch Online probably adds quite a bit of value to it, I would think right. I mean it is essentially, let's just put it in a 3D space and let's see, like let's watch these epic battles. I mean that's that's the draw and two just is automatically better because it does have more Pokémon.

Right. Like honestly that's all you need a throw a throw Bay leaf in there. Here's a question. Haley, there it is. That's one of the ones I can reckon. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you want the Gen. 2 starters, because we never told you, it's a total dial Chikorita and Oh my gosh, I want to say syndical. I was like, I wanted to say Typhlosion, but I'm like, that's the evolution. Yep, yeah, sure. They were pretty sweet, actually.

They were really cool. I think Gen. 1 and Gen. 2 had equally amazing starters. They're cool starters. Yeah, I picked Mr. Mr. Water Dragon dude, when I played it. I wanted to pick something relegator. Yeah, yeah, he looks cool. Like I feel like he looks so cool instead of the the starting three at least. I don't know. I mean, that's why people pick Charizard, right, Is because he was like he's fire, he's a dragon. Like, I think that's why it was like. That's dope.

Let's. Give him a turtle of cannons, I mean. Eventually, yes, ha ha, I eventually I picked the leaf, so come on. Bulbasaur is underrated for sure. I love Bulbasaur. God he can use cut the. Poster is pretty. Cool. I don't know if any other guys can use cut. I don't think so, right. Cut is huge. It's one of the first HMS you get. It's huge. You got to, you got to have somebody who can use cut early and not have to worry about it. It's almost as important as fly, which I had 6.

Pigeons you can fly 6. Times. Fly in 6th opposite directions. Yeah. It's sick in army of pigeons on you. In Munglitch for sure that'd. Be amazing yeah Eric, how was it how was it revisiting? How did you play it first of all, like, how was how'd that go? Like what was the? What was the dealio? Yeah, so I have some I have I have several thoughts I've I would like to also throw my hat in the ring for the random

encounter thing here. First of all, random encounters were I know that the the tide of opinion has shifted drastically against random encounters in in the modern age, but back in the day when I only got like two games a year, like I would just grind random encounters all day. Like that was my childhood. And it'd be like, oh, Pokémon just just fight random Pokémon.

Or like even Final Fantasy 9, like the first RPGI ever played was just like I would just spend all day like running around just fighting, fighting monsters Like that's just that's. What she did that stuff like at least you got something out of it. That's. What she had to do as a older gamer, I appreciate it less and from what you said, it sounds like we were about the same age when when this stuff kind of all hit hit the mainstream here.

So I, I have a preference for 1 / / 2 and it was only because I'm have a specific memory about Pokémon Stadium to that I was doing the, the gym leader castle thing where you like go through

you fight all the gym leaders. And there was this event like a 3/4 the way through where like team rocket attacked you and one of the team rocket grunts had like a Pokémon that like new explosion and for whatever reason, like it was a wall that I like just I could not get past like every time like I throw, I like bring like my best team. I'd be like, fuck you, I'm

bringing Mew too. I'm bringing Mew like I'm just bringing all the heavy hitters and I could not beat him and then like I'd be down to like my MU 2 and he'd have two Pokémon left and then he'd just be like, oh, explode. And that would just kill my MU 2. So I got really pissed at at Pokémon Stadium 2 for like whatever reason. I'll just be like, I'm going to go back to Pokémon Stadium 1 because. Whatever reason that is, that is a reason. Like that's yes, come on. That's like, that sucks.

That's bullshit. Like, come on. Older me now could probably build a smarter team around that and just probably handle it with no problem, but younger me use fly. Use. Fly. Yeah, there. Yeah, All you do is you just recruited Jiggy. Yeah, if he was up and flew up in the air, like the guy just would have blown up and killed himself. So that would be an easy problem. Like around the solution, around that problem, like literally right there. Dig or.

Something, yeah. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, I remember, I remember getting it at the at the height of, of Pokémon mania and the, the transfer pack was such like a novel thing because, you know, that was kind of something that everyone kind of like dreamed talk about be like, oh, it'd be so cool if there's like a Pokémon game on the TV and they're like, not have to see the Pokémon on on your Game Boy.

And so I think the novel thing about Pokémon Stadium around that time was like, what what you guys were saying is like seeing the Pokémon in 3D, like that was kind of kind of like a fulfilment of that wish and then you wouldn't get something like that again. I mean, yeah, I think he had like the Pokémon Coliseum games on GameCube.

But like, you wouldn't have like a full like 3D experience of like Pokémon until I think it was Sword and Shield was like the real genesis of Pokémon making the jump like to the big screen in like a meaningful way. So this was was real. It was really a novel idea. And like, of course, at the time with with Pokémonia sweeping everybody like this is a slam dunk idea like that. There's no way this was not

going to not be successful. And they really had the two elements that when I look back on that era of Pokémon and what made those games successful in Pokémon Stadium. And when it was the ability to have your Pokémon that you caught with the transfer pack and then the multiplayer element with with your friends, the battling and the trading. And like that's the two pillars that were really the driving force of Pokémon in those early days that kind of predated the

Internet in a lot of ways. It was talking with your friends on the playground. It was trading on the, you know, on the swings and trading cards and having your friends over for a sleepover and everybody link cabling and battling at that was it was a whole experience. Like it's so hard to like. And I think that's where like a lot of like our nostalgia and Gen. 1 is rooted because like, not now. A lot of the younger kids are like Gen. 1 fucking sucks and

those games are stupid. And you're like, listen here. There's only 150 or 151. Yeah, there's. Only 150, but they they don't understand, yeah, they don't understand like the the social phenomena around the games at that time. And I think probably the closest thing that these games that they maybe have experienced would be like the summer that Pokémon Go came out and everybody was just like freaking was just like running around everywhere.

That was the closest thing to like what this was like. And so I think just the ability to play with their friends and have the Pokémon from your game made it feel like a really like personal experience playing it now on the Switch Online, both versions, is it what you don't have that transfer pack element and that really strips out like those.

It's cool. You can battle online with people that's really novel, but without the the personality of like the team that you make, the team of your Pokémon that you handcraft and train and build up. It just feels so like, I don't want to say soulless, but it feels empty a little bit like that. And like half the stuff, half the stuff you need the transfer pack to do. Like you can't use the lab without the transfer pack. You can't use the Gameboy tower

without the transfer pack like. It's a lot worse than the first one than the second one. Agreed, agreed. And I'm sorry, but the as a person, I've played every generation I've, you know, looked at like I've dabbed a little bit like competitive and stuff. Being stuck with the rental Pokémon. A lot of the rental Pokémon are garbage. They're like they're bad, their move sets are bad, like their stats are bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like they.

Purposely are great. Bad moves they're like they're like you have this amazing Pokémon like I I'm just throwing out an example. This is not like a real thing, but it's like you have like Moltres, right? A legendary bird, And then it's like it's got Lear or something. You're like, when am I going to use Lear as mole? Trays. I was going to say like tackle or something like, you know, like tail Wick.

The one I the one I was going for immediately because I know it's really good in Gen. 1 Alakazam was when I was like picking and like the move set on Alakazam fucking it doesn't have psychic. They do like confusion, like kinesis and like two other moves. They're just like useless. So you have like this really, and but like the, if you go to like Abra, the first form, Abra knows fucking psychic. So you're just like, like, what are we doing here? Why would you get rid of it?

Yeah, you. Went on that's insane yeah yeah, that's the thing too, right. It's like it doesn't matter which evolution you pick, they're all level 50 and they all have pre chosen move sets and stuff and like that. Yeah, you're right. Soulless for some reason is the first thing that came to mind too when you were when you were talking. But it's like there's the investment isn't there? And I think because you're not embodying the trainer themselves in this, you're just throwing

the pokeballs out. You're just picking the things you're you're not, you're not embodying anything in this in this game. So all you really have is what you've worked towards, which is your move set in your Pokémon, regardless of what level they are when you transfer them without that, it's just press a press R or down C or whatever the and then again and then do it again and then do it again. And it's like, OK, sure, I played another castle like is

that what's his face? Just explode over there self destruct. Indeed. Volt or whatever, whoever is that supposed to be. Volt. Volt Oh yeah, yeah, they all have names too, like the Yeah CC look at that. Yeah. He named them all. I was laughing at the names a minute ago. It was like vault fault. CC Jigglypuff was Jig Jig which immediately my eyes were drawn to. There you go. You're in this game, you're in this game. I want to know.

What to me? I think that's the the CPU teams though, Yeah, it is I think unless. Yeah, the CPU teams say they're really. Teams. Yeah. I think I don't know. I'm I'm we're watching like a long play thing of of, of it. It's not anything I played, but yeah, so I look, I, I, I, I think again, I think they're cool. I I don't know about any of the mini games, if they're really worth sort of digging into in it. When they came to switch online, I was like, oh, this is a great idea.

You can play people online. And I remember trying this is like at least a year ago when they put them in, maybe even more. They've been on there for for a decent amount. I haven't, I haven't subbed to switch online since like early 2024. I kind of just let it lapse and I don't really miss it that much in, in this moment, but I'm sure that'll change when the next one

comes out. But I, I like, I was excited for it. And then I hit that same wall that you were just talking about where it's like, oh, but OK, like am I better than the other person? I don't know if it really matters because there's not a whole lot of like extra skill involved and maybe they just have a really shitty move set that it that's what makes me lose. And it's like, well, shit, like all right, well, on to the next one.

I guess. You know, I, I didn't find replaying either of these the last couple weeks to to feel that difference. I think 2 looks a little cleaner, you know, and and I thinks playing them on Switch online for what I remember at the time and Eric, you can tell me otherwise, but they've done a decent job of sort of smoothing out some edges in those games in general on switch online. Like I think I think their their emulation of them on the on the system has been decently, decently done.

So yeah, things look a little nicer than probably if I when I the one that I emulated is probably what it looks like very close to what it was if I had the actual cartridge, which is a little bit chunky and muddy. But I think largely the games look OK too. I don't know if you guys felt any different. Yeah. They're fine. I think it's for a first go round in 3D Pokémon. I actually think, I actually think the Pokémon models themselves are really good.

The environment's pretty basic, but like the Pokémon themselves look pretty good and we really didn't get this part. I I guess. I guess we did have some on GameCube, right? You were saying Colosseum and stuff but. That's it really. I yeah, but we didn't really get lots of 3D Pokémon until like X&Y. It's certainly not a mobile. And the sprites got wicked, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I, I think, I guess, oh, actually, never mind.

We're missing a huge thing that would have come out just after this or I guess in between would be snap, I guess. Snap, you saw a lot of these same models. Oh yeah, pretty of a snap. Yeah, obviously very different game, but like I'm looking at Electabuzz here. I'm like, Oh yeah, where do I know that I. Remember throwing an apple at you? Exactly, exactly what I was thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I fed you apples and you went. To your Bunny, was snap. Was that the?

Was that the same year? I think it was 90, yeah, 98 or 99. I'm going to look that up, actually. Great question. Wonder if they just use some of the same sprites or something. Not the sprites, but some of the same models. Yeah, yeah. Definitely looks the same. Yeah, and the electabuzz does too, which is why it clued clued into me. So it came out almost exactly a year later. I'm sure they use reuse some of the assets, that would make sense. If they didn't, that'd be kind of silly.

Extra work. Extra work like. Yeah, I think in terms of playing them on the Switch Online, I, I thought that the presentation overall and I thought 2 looked a lot better than than one because I kind of played them in an afternoon back-to-back. And I just thought everything about Two's presentation was was a lot better. I thought the 3D models were a little cleaner. I thought like all the menus and like the screen reselect your Pokémon.

That stuff all looked a lot better in Pokémon Stadium 1. I was just like all this looks like something I could make in in like Photoshop and like my graphic design skills aren't like top tier. I'm self-taught. So I feel like they're definitely up the presentation level for the the second generation, but I really think they missed an opportunity on the Switch online.

Because my thought process would be if you're going to put up Pokémon Stadium, then on the the Gameboy offering for the online, you should put the game, the Pokémon games on there. And then somehow make that work into like, oh, you have saved data on the Switch online for Pokémon. Use that in Pokémon Stadium. Like I feel like that would that's me as a no. Brainer 100% yeah. Maybe. Why would they not put Pokémon on Game Boy in the first place? Just in general, why is the red

and blue not on there? Or yeah. Or is the maybe? It's like technology thing, but I feel like they can make that work like. Yeah, there's got to be a way to do it. Maybe it's not as simple as we think it is to like transfer that data over. Or maybe there would be some weird thing where you have to make sure it's saved on the cloud, which would be fine because you have NSL at that point anyway. So it's like, OK, that should be fine. But like that would make a huge

difference. They would have so many people playing these games. I think if. You could do that. This would be a different experience too, even like single player and multiplayer, because then you're taking your personal teams to go and and five people online. So I think that's a, that's a way more interesting prospect than than what it is. Yeah, yeah, I'll say Jiggy, the first one of the first things

that came to mind plays. I know it's a completely different game, obviously, but I mentioned Puzzle League before and one of our like the main disappointment that we had in that game was we couldn't understand why it didn't matter what Pokémon you picked, like the elements and all that, like it nothing mattered. You could, you could do fire and water and it it made no difference. At least this next N64 Pokémon game it mattered. That's true. At least we got that back.

It was I'm trying to find my sound bite here because it's legendary of the here it is, here it is. I just love it being selected for this event is. Such a well, there's no time to explain everything. There's no time. There's no time. You can't explain it. There's no time. That intro to that game is amazing. You have lots to do. There's lots to explain, but there's no time to explain. Get going. Like what? What's that? All, Professor Oak says. And then he just.

I wish I could help you, but there's no. Time, but there's chance. The Professor Oak. Classic, Legend, classic. And Speaking of sound, I, I didn't get a chance to record, but actually maybe I could actually play the sound on here. I want to see if it's going to show up. I guess you're back. One announcer. Let's go. They're tearing. Each other down. Oh yeah. They strike, fighting, potent fighting. Some Pokémon. Oh, who is it? Oh, it's dango.

It's burrowed underground again. Again, I, I think I, I like the announcer guy. I like this guy. I wish I could do that for a Pokémon game, but I would change the way I always say Pokémon. Like yeah, I feel like we all say Pokémon. I no, I would if I'm naturally like just so I would probably say Pokémon like. I like, I like when they emphasize it. It's supposed. To be Pokémon, Yeah. That's what it's supposed to be, yeah.

Who is that Pokémon? You know, it's like, it really emphasized, like, hey, I just love it. It's amazing. It's got a little, little accent on it, that's that's why. That's I think I shorthand to to Pokémon, but I think people tell me I have a little bit like that like Midwest Chicago, Chicago in like draw a little bit. So that's probably just that. Could be that, I mean, I don't. Know I mean that would all of us.

We all have something. Yeah, I'm sure I have a Canadian accent that I have no idea exists. I'm sure everybody. Hears it, but just say you have no idea about it. I don't know any abood abood it. I can't. I can't hear it. I have too much Maple syrup in my mouth. I don't know. I can't hear it while I'm in the igloo. It's it's good. I like it. I there's some repetitive things as as you're going to get with any game like this, but it adds a little element that you don't get otherwise.

Again, the 3D part is obviously the big draw here, but at least you're getting a couple of things. You know, you got music going the whole time.

At least that guy's sort of commenting and he's not just saying a lot of generic things because sometimes there's oh, BB actually says what the move is. He'll say the name of the actual Pokémon like those things I think are an added bonus here to just sort of picking random, you know, just playing any any other Pokémon game that would be that would be on here. So and I don't believe that there's any there's that minimal voice over or like intro video and and puzzle league.

I don't think that there's any voice over and snap. So I think you're pretty much getting the gist of the sort of, you know, voice over at least music isn't isn't all of them. But like getting a lot of that here, which again, you got to put a lot of stuff on this cartridge. I thought they did OK with that. So it's something it's not the

best. Thing I wonder something, I wonder if looking back, because my stupid little kid brain would have bit just been like Pokémon like amazing like no matter what it is, you know? Sure, but I wonder how many people may have been disappointed that this wasn't a fully fledged like 3D Pokémon outing like the handheld.

You know, I can't help but feel like if this released and I was like how I am now, I'd have been like, why didn't they just make it like the Game Boy games, but like in a full 3D environment? Like it's cool, but it almost makes this game like being assuming it was a full priced release as well. Yeah, I'm sure like I'm thinking in terms of that.

I'm just like it feels more like an accessory and you need to have the Game Boy game rather than a stand alone title, which for me brings it down like like it's got cool elements and stuff and it's not bad, but it's just like you have to keep that in mind. And especially at the time, like you needed those things, you needed the Game Boy game, you needed the transfer pack. I, I don't know, did like did they all come with the transfer pack like Pokémon Stadium one?

I'm sure you could buy the cartridge separately, I didn't. Own it. So I'm not sure I I doubt you. I doubt they all came with it. The only I mean I I this is actually really funny. Actually, I should have messaged you guys this when I saw it last week. I went to one of the used game stores or one of the very few there in my area and they had three. I don't know how they got 3 but three sealed with the transfer pack game of of this of the first Pokémon stadium like you

know. Like a big box. Yeah, it was the big box, but you know like stupid price, right? Like I think it was a few 100 bucks or something stupid like that. Like like these places will charge. But I was like Oh yeah, this came with like I forgot that it that it could have come with the transfer pack. For some reason in my mind, before I saw this in on the shelf, I was like, oh, I could picture this number 2, but I could not picture that one. I don't know.

My I I had a transfer pack and my friend did, but he also had the game. I have no idea if he if it if he bought them together or whatever. I assume he would. But yeah, sorry Eric, you're gonna say. Yeah, so I'm just doing some background research. You guys are saying some stuff. So there what there is an inbox version that came with the transfer pack. So it was game and transfer pack. There's one on eBay right now that's authenticated and factory sealed going for $1150.

Oh boy, Jesus, yeah. The one I saw was I think for something. Yeah, which was, which is enough. I was like, no, also like the whole point is like they have that transfer pack, you got to open it that whatever I that's just, that's just the state of of these collection things at this point. So yeah. And I was also looking at the announcer. So the announcer was a voice actor, American voice actor named Ted Lewis.

OK, he was also the announcer in the anime and he has voiced like he voices tons of characters in the anime. Like of course, he's voiced like major characters, minor characters. He's he's voiced like Pokémon. So that's actually kind of a cool little tie in there. I didn't, I didn't know that 'cause I always knew that the announcer voice sounded like the one from the anime, at least in my memory. So I was just like, I have to look that up real quick. So Ted Lewis shout out.

Nice legend all. Right, way to go, Teddy. The other thing too is when Jiggy when you were mentioning the like, maybe being disappointed with this, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the thought I had like for sure at that time thinking great, maybe I didn't see a commercial or I didn't see it in a magazine ad or something. So I wouldn't have wouldn't have known the difference. Or maybe it didn't really tell you and it just showed you what

the battles look like. You know that that's kind of a thing that they would do with like a, you know, a print out on like a A1 page and Nintendo Power or game pro or something

like that. What I did find though, when I was looking up some of the development stuff for this is like a lot of early ish games in the first like two 2 1/2 years of this console was that it was supposed to be a 64DD game, which would have given it more memory, which is possible that at that time that's potentially what they wanted to do. It doesn't say that explicitly when I looked it up, but it did say that that that's was the plan was to make it that.

So like, you know, even if they did do that, I would be surprised if it's just as long. If it's like a 30 hour game. I doubt that's what it would have reached. But maybe it would have been a three or four gym thing and or A2 gym thing and then you play the the the the league or whatever. I keep forgetting the name.

Maybe, but they would have had to make sure they found a way to at least get all the Pokémon in there, at least for the first one, like would have found a way, But that was scrap just like every other thing That was, you know, 64 DD plans, right? It was never gonna never gonna be that. So I think that was I have. An add on part to that if you're interested, cuz I went down a weird rabbit hole with YouTube videos and stuff. And so yeah, the 64 DD thing

100% accurate. And then it got it got turned into a game. And this was actually a Japan exclusive game first called it was called pocket monsters stadium. And the original game only had like 50 Pokémon in it because yeah, they were trying to develop it with that DD technology for the more memory. And then they're just like, this isn't working.

So like let's just slap the most like popular 50 Pokémon in there called they and and release it. So the first version that Japan got was like a severely limited version of a game that I think their intention was to like have it be used for like official like Nintendo Pokémon tournaments that they were

having at the time. And then when it came over to United States, it was like the full working 150 called Pokémon Stadium. And then that version in Japan was actually Pocket Monster Stadium 2. So 1 here was actually two over in Japan 'cause they had that first kind. Of I remember hearing that. Prototype. It's. It's really, really strange, but I just thought that was kind of kind of kind of cool And what's. Interesting about that too is very often it's the opposite, right?

We get sort of the the not lesser than, but we'll get it later or we'll get it later and it's not gonna have the same features or they get 2 like the Japanese market at least at that time. We'll get a couple before you even get one. You know, Final Fantasy is a perfect example of something like that. Like in the 90s, like. 3 versus 6. Three is 6 yeah, stuff like that, right.

Like those types of things. And maybe it's the exact same game, but like, it's, it's it's a weird sort of thing between the markets and, and the, you know, Japanese side of Nintendo and stuff. And obviously I think Sega ran into a bunch of those problems too, but that was a whole other reason. Like, they just basically feuded with each other constantly. The same company.

Yeah. So I, I think like I think doing more with this would be cool, but I do get at the time that this is what they wanted to do. The other thing I did, I did C2 with this whole, you know, the background of it too, was that part of the idea of I don't have the I should have written down the name of the the CEO of a Nintendo at the time. They were thinking that this would be with the transfer pack thing, that you could sort of play this game almost on the go.

But I guess that's kind of what like the link cable ended up being and stuff too. Like it was going to be a little bit more of a mobile experience, like Stadium specifically. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then I thought, yeah, but that's just really what the transfer pack or the transfer cable or whatever was for Game Boy. But I guess in 3D would have been kind of cool to kind of be able to find a way to do that.

But then you also have to have the handheld that's able to do that and like it's a whole other thing. So they they had ideas already at the time. It was just a matter of how do you implement this and do so much at once. And the 64 is already a huge step forward in in technology and things like that.

So, you know, it's cool. It's a small like early iterations of things that we kind of take for granted at this point now, I would say just being able to play these games on Switch online is already to be like, oh, shit, look at that. You know, it seems like a nothing, we obviously we have a couple note notes that we would add to it and like how they could improve it. But like you could play this online. That's pretty sweet. You know, at least there's an opportunity to do that.

So I don't. I don't know if a lot of people play it now though 'cause they could just play the new Pokémon game instead. Of yeah, I mean, let's be honest here, the new Pokémon game isn't that dramatically, I mean. Is it not good? I don't. Know it's OK. No, it's, it's fine. OK. I guess there's more. I played, I played all of them. Yeah, I get, I get them all. I play them all and I just don't feel like the leaps are really there, you know, I, they always feel like behind somehow.

And this almost feels like way ahead of anything they did for like 10 years, 15 years. I don't know. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think there's, I think there's a genius to having Pokémon, whether it's intentional or not, to having Pokémon be on handhelds. I think that like if it was a home console thing from the beginning or like largely a home console thing and until you had the Switch, you'd have to play it on your couch.

I think being able to take it everywhere, whether you could transfer Pokémon or not or battle or not. I, I think that's a huge reason why it's, it's so successful. But with that, like you just said, one of the big reasons or one of the things that refreshed it was a game like this and it was 3D and sitting on your couch. So it's like, where's that middle ground? I guess the new ones are kind of the middle ground of that, but I also haven't played them so I'm just assuming that's the case.

Legend legends of Archaeus or Arceus or Archaeus. I'm I actually don't know how to pronounce it. I actually don't know. Yeah, that I really enjoyed that one. It's a different format, but still feels like traditional Pokémon in my mind. The simple adjustments that they made to the formula of like, first you get to explore everywhere, which is really cool. You catch Pokémon by just chucking a bunch of pokeballs at them, which is amazing. And they have variations in the size of the Pokémon.

So like you can get alpha versions of Pokémon, which are basically just giant versions. Like they're really big. So you get like a Scyther and he's like this big on the screen, and then an alpha Scyther would be like this big and they're like dramatically different. And then to like hunt for shinies and then to find shiny alpha variance adds just like another depth of like exploration and grinding. That's really cool to me.

Like a good incentive. Yeah. I'm very excited about the new Pokémon Legends game. I think that's a really cool direction to take. And I think Legends of Archaeus was way better than Scarlet and Violet in my opinion. I feel like Scarlet and Violet took elements from Legends trying to improve the formula and it didn't do as good. But I have no, I, I 100%, yeah, 100% agree with you. I think, I think Legends RCS is like the most bold departure they've had.

And it's still not even that much of A departure. Like it's not, it's nothing that groundbreaking, like they're just tweaking some things about the generic formula. But yeah, I, I agree. I thought that was better. And like Scarlet and Violet, there's some performance stuff there. It's got the bones of a Pokémon

game. Like you know what you're getting this this experience specifically, like going back to the stadium is fascinating because it feels like it's so dependent on the transfer pack technology. And I don't really feel like any other Nintendo 64 game really fully utilizes it to the extent that stadium did. I mean, like there are some I like no Mario and Golf and Mario Tennis had transfer pack elements because there were Game

Boy versions of those games. And I think Perfect Dark had a transfer pack element to it as well. But those are just like, oh, unlocked, but but this is like unlocked extra things, I think, or and stuff like that. I don't. Remember, if it actually had it or if it was cancelled, I know it wanted to work with like the Game Boy Camera. Like there there was like a plan to work with the Game Boy Camera where it could like, take a picture of you and then put your face on like the model of the

enemies. Yeah, right. Or whatever. Interesting. I don't remember if it was implemented, but there is a Game Boy version of Perfect Dark, so probably. It's also interesting. It's got a it's got a rumble pack, man. It's like Poke. It's like Pokémon Pinball, which is also an amazing game. Mickey Speedway, Mickey. Speedway. Speedway. Yeah, Transfer pack, yeah. Yeah, like the one though I've we've talked about this because I love the the golf games. The G1 is very similar to this.

I mean, you, you get, I think you get more, I would have it with this like it, it improves this game dramatically. Pokémon Stadium, if you're transferring your Pokémon into it with golf and and tennis, you just put your character into it. Like it doesn't, you don't level them up like you would in the actual Game Boy game and stuff. It's really just like, oh, it's another character you could pick, which is cool, but those characters are not, you know, Canon Nintendo characters.

They're just generic Dave that, you know, happens to be the only person in the game that golf's left. Because I'm weird like that. That's how I golf. I can't. I feel like there's missed opportunity with that technology. I think I think you're right. That's exactly.

I don't know if you were saying that earlier where it was like if it was a thing where like you could just strap the the the pack on the back of your NCC 4 controller and play any Game Boy game on the the TV through the Nintendo 64. That that would feel like. I mean, that way you don't have to force everybody to be like you have to make a Game Boy tie in with your N64 game to that you can use the transfer pack. Then it has some additional use outside of that.

And it see that seems doable because the the Game Boy tower elements of stadium 1 and two were just, it was just a Game Boy emulator that ran that ran your cartridge to the transfer pack. So they could have just made the Game Boy emulator technology and I assume like built that into the N64 and just had the transfer pack. And maybe maybe I'm not a very smart technological guy, but to me that makes sense in my like tiny brain. So they could have don't. Worry.

It makes sense in my tiny brain. Well, they. Were doing some crazy shit. Tiny brains together all. People 1 normal brain and we're all thinking the same thing. It's OK. They were doing some crazy shit. I'm sure they could have figured it out at Nintendo. Like, yeah, like, so Toro WADA figured out how to get like the Gen. 1 entirely of Gen. 1 onto the Pokémon Silver card and Gold

card. So it's like, they could have figured this shit out and that would have been an amazing, like, the Game Boy was still going strong. That would have been an amazing like additional use of the transfer. That the color Game Boy Color came out right, pretty much as this game came out or very within months of this game, like now you have these games in quote UN quote color and like it it would have been it would have been great. Any game like it doesn't matter

what game. It doesn't have to be a Pokémon game, right. I have so many Game Boy Color games. I would have loved to play some of these like a racing game, like if it was Mickey Speedway or something like that. Like I have a couple of Tony Hawk games which are so strange, like that'd be cool to play on a slightly bigger screen. Was my TV big at the time? No, it was probably like literally like 16 inches or like

it was nothing. I'm trying to think if there's a game like outside of like Guitar Hero or Dance Sense Revolution or things of that nature that was so dependent on like an outside like peripheral. Like like it's like like like Pokémon say. I can't think of one off the top of my head besides like. Rhythm is might be hurt Mario Paint. Mario Paint. Oh, without. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, without the mouse you

literally can't play that game. Or I think there's a couple of things I think you could use the controller for, like the music thing and maybe the actual paint thing, the actual like paint game, mini game part of it. I think that's it. But like you're not, you're not playing the same game, you're not experiencing. So if we can switch.

To joy cons as the mouse we could get Mario paint on the switch on lines or just Yep. The, the new switch, I would be, I, I, when I saw that that was something that they might be doing, like when they showed a that that could be a thing and I didn't catch it when I watched that really brief sort of it. Was like that wolf on Wall Street mean with like the the beer and he's like. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Kind of like, yeah.

Mario Paint. Mario Paint I was that that I was thinking, no, that's a a. Hollywood, by the way, we fit. We fit, We fit. Two, that's a good peripheral. Yeah, we fit 2 is a good one. Yeah, I if they make another Mario Paint, oof. I'm not going to rush to get a Switch too. But if they make a Mario Paint, I might have to push some kids out of the way. Man. That's the killer app for you, huh? Dude, it's great. It's crazy. I've talked about it before.

I think Mario Paint is one of the most innovative things they've ever done. Like especially at that time, who the fuck thinks about adding a mouse to a console like that? I know it's just a mouse but I don't know man. And sadly it's like the only game that used it, which is a little silly, but. You're talking to the Kingdom Hearts guy. It's not just a mouse. Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah. And there's. Certain things that have

happened. Yeah. Nintendo was on some crazy shit in the 80s and 90s so I mean they wouldn't like a mouse. Seems like one of their more tamer ideas. I think it's just, it's a very, it's a very innovative idea. I think at the time when computers were already very minimal.

So to be familiar enough with a mouse to be like, let's make a whole game about this in 1993. I think it came out like that is that is something and I don't know, Switch tool will probably have a bunch of, you know, ideas which I hope they take advantage of Pokémon, they take advantage of Mario Payne, like I you know,

all that kind of stuff. Like I think there's opportunity there, even though hardware wise, I'm sure it's always going to be a step, quote UN quote step behind the other the other consoles. But switched it switched it well enough. I I don't think they really care. I just need the the switch to joy kinds and not drift and I will be happy. I never I I was lucky enough I have AI have a launch switch, I have the original joy cons and I have one other set.

I never ran into it with mine. I got lucky. I'm jealous. Every pair I bought drifty within six months. Really I'm. Really. I'm very salty about it I've I've bought like 4 pairs of joy cons. I currently only have my OLED pair. Well actually I might have an extra pair, I'm not sure, I don't remember. I never used them anyways because they're tiny. I do not have big hands but they're tiny to me so I can't imagine. Might be like for a normal person. I have. I have pretty pretty smallish

average size. Edge I'm like, yeah, my hands are very average size and yes I have to hold them like this and they still. Carpal tunnel requires me for my hands to look like claws. Look at this. Yeah, look at this. Yeah, yeah, it's brutal. What's crazy is I feel the exact same way about the way that the joy cons feel like in handheld and stuff like that. And yet, and I think it's just because of the game itself, I still put 40 something hours, 50 something.

It's probably even more, probably double that of Hades on, on Switch on. And I played it. It's a great game, 90% handheld, 90% handheld cause at the time I was commuting and it was just like this and I just could not stop playing that game. It's that's the perfect game to my handhelds too. What's that? Agreed. I'm right there with you. I said that's a perfect handheld game and I'm. I agree 100%. It's one of the best games I ever made, for sure. Yeah. 2 is so good already.

It's so good already. Already. It's I'm waiting for it to come out of early access. Yeah, I'm. I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker. I got it right away. I'm jealous. I'm like watching people through the window in the rain. Check it out. I'm like, I'm yeah, oh, wait, I'll, I'll tell you, I'll say, I'll say this right now and then we'll stop talking about Hades. The second one is already just as big, if not bigger than the

first one already. And it's been early access for maybe six months as as of us sitting here at the like, it was like that from the beginning. It's insane. It's insane. And it's just different enough the way that it controls and what the character does. That is, in my opinion, right now, 100% worth playing. So OK, yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Anyways, Pokémon Stadium,

everybody, pretty good. If you got a chance to get the whole bang the whole shebang thing with the transfer packet, I think you're really gonna get a lot more out of it. If you've never played Snap, for example. This is a cool way to see a lot of these models for the first time in 3D in this, in this type of 3D at least. And it's just it's it's interesting.

It's it's cool that they did this fun that we got to revisit it, I think still, but we I think we're all kind of sort of on the same wavelength here where it's like without that extra investment from the transfer pack, it feels like it's just, I don't know, it feels like a very much like press A to continue. I don't know. It's a very. It's a very It's a product of

its time. Sure. And it is one of those games that I think actually, if you went back and you are a collector and you had a transfer pack, an old Game Boy cart with a team, like that's how you get the full experience out of this game. You can play it on switching online and get kind of a feel for it and see what it's like and kind of test the waters. But if you really like, if you're super into it, if you're like, Oh my gosh, Pokémon Stadium, this is it.

Definitely go back and get the actual game and the actual hardware, and you'll have a much more complete experience. That's all I'm gonna say, yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I think it would be worth it. Honestly, as long as it doesn't cost an arm and a leg I think it would be worth it. Pokémon Stadium 2 is kind of expensive, though not exactly. OK, Yeah. Because the cart looks cooler, obviously, yeah. And it's a later, later game too, right? So like that always adds to it.

There's probably just less of them would be. Maybe like 2000? Yeah, the first one is like somewhere probably in like the $50 range. And then U.S. dollars, Freedom dollars, it's Canadian. And then Pokémon Stadium 2 is probably closer to like the hundred $110 range. So. It's yeah, it's, it's a bit more expensive. You might be able, you might be able to find it cheaper. But yeah, that that was kind of what I what I saw when I was looking it up a while back. Absolutely.

No. Yeah, I, I agree with both you guys. I think it is very much a product of its time, like a lot of Gen. 1 stuff I've gone back and experienced lately. I think if you weren't alive for that, that time period, I can see how if you're like a younger 20 something and you're like going back, check out retro games, how you could see that, yeah, these games aren't really that great if you can't play them on the hardware or in the

time period that they happened. It just seems like such a large investment to like be like, hey, if you really want the better experience of this, get an N64, get a cart, get a transfer pack and get a Game Boy game. I don't know how many people outside of collectors are actually going to go for that sort of thing, but I do feel like with, and this is something I've experienced with a lot of N64 games, a lot of the N64 experiences play better on their native hardware.

I feel like I played Mario 64 on the 3D All Stars collection and on the N64 and the N64 experience is just such a better experience on the actual hardware. Same, same thing with Ocarina. I've got a chance to play over to Ocarina and I just feel like there's no comparison between playing that on modern hardware and playing. So a lot of the N64 experiences are designed very well specifically for the N64. And I feel like this is this falls in that category. It's better if you're in that

time period with that hardware. But now, yeah, it's it's kind of rough if you don't have that. Yeah, that's a good point that there's a lot of reason why this, I mean, the 64 has been notorious for being pretty rough and emulation like just if you're not switch online. So that definitely rings true. I looked. Up even if you are switch online. Even if. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's Goldeneyes. Not great. Switch online.

No, it at the time, I remember when we did our episode on it was right when those came out, those re releases came out. You're using dual sticks or you're sort of using dual sticks on Xbox. It was actually OK. It was actually OK on Game Pass. OK, yeah, it was actually all right, except the time I think I just didn't have the Switch on me or something like that. I played on it was it was good.

I played all the way through it. It feels different, looks different, but playing it with the joystick, playing with the 64 just yeah, it's the way to go. OK, before we get out of here, I just wanted to double check. I was checking what the prices are here, OK? So if you want to get at least the prices that show up for me, 140 for two for just the cartridge of Stadium 2, which is just like you said, GE 150, something like that.

And one is around the $50 range it looks like without anyone's name written on it too, which is nice. Like an added. It's almost like an added. Legendary A legendary. Picture. They would use that as the picture. Yeah, that's true. But but, and I've done this a couple times of a couple of Japanese games that don't really require you to read anything. Maybe with this game. But this game is all about reading stuff. But you don't know any of the moves otherwise.

But well, you could play around a little bit, but if you want all three, if you want all three Japanese versions of Pokémon stadium ish stadium like it's it's around 100 to 120, at least in Canadian dollars, So around 100 bucks US for all three. This particular listing that I'm looking up, these two listings I'm looking up also have the box. So easy. Interesting. Yep. And you can get the little sort of like, I think they just work on your hardware, right?

So and a lot of the art on the Japanese games are pretty sweet, like if you'd like a nice looking box. Usually better, yeah. I have the Mario G1 behind me where it's just like basically the shadow of Mario golfing. And like that's the, that's the thing. Like I love that it's so simple. It's got the different form factor too. It looks like, you know, like more modern games, more vertical style. So anyways, that's that. So check it out if you can.

But like like you guys said, it's an investment. It's an investment. So it's it's looks. Like transfer packs are only 10 to $12.00 on eBay, so transfer packs aren't too bad. That's pretty good. That's surprising. Surprising. Not like the the expansion packs, which are like fucking like 80 bucks and shit like that's crazy. They're so I did. Not know that. Yeah, they're so expensive. I think they were old. They were limited, pretty limited in in their availability

and stuff. So, and at first only with Donkey Kong I, I believe at the time, at first, at the very initial release anyway. OK Eric, before we get out of here one more time, where can everybody find unlockables? And at least as of this recording, we know what's up next. Or are we going back to Kingdom Hearts 1? No, no, as of this recording, we're going to be done with I think Kingdom Hearts and Square Enix for for a while. I need AI, need a little bit of

a break. I need to make it go back to some regular, regular gaming things I don't really have a plan for, for what's next. Past that, I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break while I like maybe script some stuff or figure out some episodes. So yeah, more news on that in the future. I am doing some other things. I've been posting some more like short form content and chopped up videos.

Just some other things of some random stuff I've been talking about trying my hand it other social media things. If you want to follow any of those endeavors, all the stuff can be found on my link tree linktr dot EE forward slash unlockables podcast. That's my Instagram. That's my Discord server if you want to hop in there. I will admit my Discord servers more dead than most people's.

I mostly just use it for like announcements related to my show and then I am in any number of other discord servers inside of our little podcasting community here. Superpod Saga is one that comes to mind for sure. I'm I'm in there. But yeah, the link tree has all that stuff. Instagram. I'm not on Twitter anymore, thank God. And my mental health, yeah, my mental health is much better for that. So I believe absolutely you are God bless you, Sir. You are a brave man.

I think the My Blue Sky link has replaced my Twitter link. And then yes, it's got the pod catchers wherever the show can be found. Like there's mostly Kingdom Hearts stuff on there. Like there's 29 episodes of Kingdom Hearts. But I have talked about other stuff before. I've written short little essays. I did an essay on Suikoden 2. I did an essay on the importance to Advance Wars for Nintendo. So just I I talk about stuff that I like.

I have some interviews with content creators on there. So they're bound to be something that kind of tickles your fancy on there. But be warned, it is mostly Nomura bullshit that you will get on my show. So if you like to get a little weird and then you you F with that. Come on, come on down. I'll I'll talk your ear off Great Kingdom Hearts guiding keys playlist, 47 hours long, great for a road trip. Great Rd. tripping if you can tolerate that.

So, but yeah, no, before before I pass back over to you guys, I just want to say thank you guys both so much for having me. I remember 64 like this is one of my favorite shows. This should have happened way way sooner. Dang baby being born for taking away podcast time but man. Yeah, yeah, because. Like Dave is the. Same exact 667 months. Seven months without, yeah, turning my mic on at all. So. Definitely, definitely have to do this again. I'll have to look for an excuse for something.

I can get you guys over on unlockables. We can talk about something for sure. Yeah, man. Yeah, let's do it, Yes. Let's do it more games, obviously tons of games here too, so we'll have you back. That is going to happen. Whether people like it or not, it's going to happen. Whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not, Erica is going to Whether I like it or not, it's happening. Jake, you want to show to my house and threaten me so.

Yeah, all I have to, all I have to do is look for your the, the poker balls that are behind you. I'll know exactly which house it is. Peering through windows in your neighborhood. Like which one is it? Be careful. It's unincorporated Indiana, so I'm not sure. I'm strapped, OK, here in Canada I don't really have to worry about that so much so. Yeah, it can be dangerous looking into houses here I. Just don't worry about anything in Canada it sounds.

Like, I'm pretty good. Yeah, I'm all right. Yeah. Unless, unless you guys have something to do with it, I have nothing to worry about. So. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. We'll fuck it up somehow. Some of these in. Advance some way, somehow, some way, somehow, Jiggy, you are kicking ass and taking names with some new stuff going on. What's what's happening? Yeah, well, we just finished Dinosaur Planet, the N64 prototype of Starbucks Adventures, on live stream, and that was pretty fun.

And now I'm going to do a full video on that one. So that's going to be fun. Just talking about my experience with the whole like, Dynamod enhanced version. And I learned from the community and like just just going over it, you know, and I got a few other things cooking. I got a, a fancy new controller for my switch that I will be reviewing a company sent out to me. I love the RGB on it. That's just my first take. I I've had it for about. That's crazy, it looks so cool.

I know, right? I've had it for about two hours and that's that's all I've taken from that so far. I just really like just. Staring at it like. Yeah, I'm just like, wow, this is really like really good looking. Yeah, you know, just grinding. Otherwise playing some N64 games here and there. Yeah, man, of course. I have a billion games and I go back to the N64 every day. I know this I. Just I just got to subscribe, so I'll look forward to that video. Cool there. You go real real time people,

you guys do it too. Find unlockables, find you can look back on YouTube as well. You can find us on YouTube. I'm going to start doing a little bit more streaming every once in a while. As long as the kid is falling asleep when he's supposed to, not trying to climb out of his crib like he's not supposed to. I'm Oh my. Gosh, you know what you need to have?

You need to have a like a baby Cam where it just shows him like in the thing and like every once in a while you just like or like it's, I don't know, it's like a challenge or something. Like see how long we can go without waking the baby or how intense something gets. I have, I have the iPad literally sitting right beside me because it's it's my, my turn or my time to watch him at the moment. This evening he's been pretty, He hasn't really moved this tonight. He's been pretty good.

He was a hassle to put down. He was, he's teething. It's it's tricky. It would be a challenge if it was later in the evening, if it was close to midnight when he tends to fuss a little bit, yeah, I don't know if there'd be a whole lot of gaming happening, so I got to do it slightly earlier in the night, so. So when you stream, you just do face your face gaming underneath that baby Cam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If if the wife approves, I'll do it. Yeah.

Every time he moves, I got to run, you know? Yeah. So I'm trying to stream maybe once a week, once every couple weeks. I'm just trying to figure out some of the technical kinks that really I haven't had time to kind of work through and at least a year from now, a year ago, it was the last time pretty much did it. I'll play some games that we're going to be playing up coming on the show.

As of this recording or as of the release of this episode, you may or may not have Paperboy on your podcast app as well. I'm going to be trying to stream that if I haven't by the time you hear this. You can also watch the VOD if it's already done, but I'm going to try and do things like that. Try and play some new games that are on my backlog, things like

that. And every once in a while, so that's can be found on YouTube, I'm going to try and Co stream on Twitch. I don't know if I can do that or not. I'm going to just try and get as many eyeballs on things as I can. I'm being very ambitious. Often when I do that, things crumble around me, but I'm going to try. So remember 64 Show is where you can find everything. Remember Dash 64 on YouTube and support the show. Patreon.com/remember 64 show as well.

Just for a buck a month. You can get stuff early, you can get pre show chats which we had for this episode as well. And you can help us pick an upcoming game. I have polls up there now to anyone that is a patron that can help me decide to play, help me play, decide which game to play and review that is not from the N64 and on my backlog. And I'll have a sort of a short video of that and have some of my game play and stuff. So lots of ideas happening.

I'm going to try and make them as as possible as possible. I'm just gonna try and make them happen. I'm gonna do my best this. Is very Willy Wonka of you. Yeah, I'm very Willy Wonka. Yeah. And you know what? You gotta drop a like and rate the podcast. Indeed. As you just have to do that, just do it. Just do it. All the other stuff I said, you

can do it if you want. But the thing Jiggy said, which is of course, as always, things, the very easy stuff that I forget to say at the top of the show, I say now. And that's what I want everybody to do. Same thing for the unlockables, same thing for Jiggy's YouTube channel as well. All right, everybody, thank you very much. Go play some Pokémon and we'll talk to you soon. I choose you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I, I guess I choose you. I don't know.

You're you're kind of cool, I guess.