Welcome to The All Things Nintendo Podcast. I'm Brian Shea and this is a weekly podcast to discuss all the biggest news and games from the world of Nintendo. After a fun episode last week which included a draft and some in-depth discussions about two new apps from the world Nintendo, we are back on that new release grind. This week we have two new games to talk
about and we'll be doing that right in the main segment. But joining me to discuss his review of Mario & Luigi Brotherships, a brother ship, and a whole lot more, it's IGN's Logan Plant. Logan, how are you doing? Hey Brian, I'm doing alright All Things Considered. I know there's some viewers right now thinking, oh not this guy, he's going to talk bad about
Mario & Luigi again, but yeah here I am, happy to be here. Yeah, it's always a fun experience when you review a game that people are excited about and you don't give it the glowing review that I think some people were expecting and I'm sure you've been feeling some of the fall out of that but we will be talking about that in the main segment of this episode and before we get started, I wanted to provide an update on two apps that we discussed in last week's
final segment. During last week's show it was brought up that Nintendo music was available only to those who subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online plus expansion pack. Several people reached out to correct me. After checking it is actually available to anyone who subscribes Nintendo Switch Online in general. Apologies for not catching on that and correcting that
initially. And there also is a small piece of news, but news nonetheless, since we're on the topic of Nintendo music, Donkey Kong Country 2's soundtrack was added to the app this week which makes it seem like they might be adding these soundtracks at a pretty rapid clip. Have you had a chance to check out the Nintendo music app Logan? Yeah, I have. I downloaded it moments after it was announced last week and I think it's fun. I think it's a cool thing that
they're doing. I wish the lineup had been a little bit larger at launch. I think not having tears of the kingdom is just ridiculous. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Breath of the wilds there. No tears. I'm tired of Nintendo already kind of acting like tears of the kingdom doesn't exist with a llama with Nintendo music. It's just not anywhere. But I really like it. And then they added Mario Wonder the day after the app came out last week. And I really like that soundtrack. So that was a nice
surprise. I see. Yeah, I'm enjoying it overall. It's bizarre. It's not muscle memory for me to go click on that instead of just clicking on Spotify. But I've used it from time to time. Yeah, it is frustrating that Nintendo does not want to put their music on streaming apps and they want to kind of leverage this weird like proprietary app. But I'm glad it is. It's one of those things where it's like I always like talk about how Sonic origins when that came out. And it was like all right,
you have Sonic one, two CD three and knuckles. But the three doesn't have like a lot of the original music. And it's in my opinion substantially worse in terms of the music department. But it's like all right. Well, if this is the only way this game is going to be available on modern systems, then I guess I'll take it, right? Like I'd rather have this like worse version with like the
the music I'm not a fan of than not having Sonic three at all. That's how I feel about this. I would rather have the Nintendo music be in its own app off to the side and like for subscribers only than not having Nintendo music available in an official capacity at all. So I mean, I guess that's kind of where I'm at with it. But I am enjoying it. I think it has cool features. It has, you know, that ability to loop it on like different time intervals. If you want to just put like an hour
of aquatic ambiance from Donkey Kong Country, you can do that. And you should do that in a stressful time such as this. That is like one of the most chilling songs like I'm not chilling like that that sounds scary. Calming songs, chill songs, calming songs that you can listen to from any video game ever. It's like that. And like was it dry, dry docs from yeah, from 64, from Mario 64. Those are like two of the most like calming songs ever. And Fenn and Drana Driffs from Metroid Prime isn't one
of the ones you can loop, which is a bummer. You can't set that one to be 60 minutes. And that's one of the best Nintendo songs ever. Yeah, there's some weird emissions like that. Why can't you do that for every song on there? And then the soundtracks aren't all complete either. Yeah, it's it's kind of weird, but it's Nintendo. So sometimes stuff like this is bound to be weird or at least start out weird. Yeah, and it's also I think dire dire docs. I said dry, dry docs at that. No sense. It's a
water level. So yeah, I mean, it's so strange to me that like there are so many emissions, but like they're kind of approaching it. I think like they did with like Nintendo Switch online. And like virtual console where it's like, yeah, we could just throw everything ever on there. But like people would lose interest. And we want them to keep coming back to this app. So I think that's ultimately the the route that they're taking with this. And it does seem like they're following that model.
If for no other reason than to keep people coming back to the app rather than just like making their dream playlist like we all want to, it's like, yeah, I don't know. It's kind of wild to me that they're like slow rolling us on music that we could just go on YouTube right now and listen to the vast majority of. Yeah, it's just another easy social media win for them. It's it's exactly like the NSO library. Like you said, which frustrates me that every time they do
something cool and new, we start from scratch with it. But yeah, as we near their final release of the year, their final major one is brother ship putting up fitness boxing three, but that's not going to draw major attention. And then after that, we're looking at Donkey Kong and not much else early next year. It's easy for them to just on a Tuesday afternoon say, Hey, Donkey Kong Country
2 soundtracks on Nintendo music now. And that just keeps people plugged into Nintendo. It keeps people involved in their NSO accounts and their Nintendo accounts, which as we learned from their financials is very important to them. So yeah, it makes sense why they're doing it. It just is annoying that there's only 25 games or so to start when there's hundreds of games that I'd like music selections from. Yeah, especially I appreciate that they did the Metroid Famicom
disc soundtrack. Yeah, cool. But then they also did the NES. Metroid. It's like, that's a double up. Like why would I understand like it was different capabilities, different like technology that and they could express different sounds with the disc system versus the the Famicom slash NES cartridges. But man, I feel like we could have done something a little bit different with the starting line up there. Yeah. Also, I have spent significantly significantly more time in Pokemon
TCG pocket. And I wanted to get my updated impressions to kick off the show. So I last week said that like I didn't really feel hooked by it quite yet. And my guest was fairly negative on it. I have come around on it pretty substantially. I am enjoying it. I'm, you know, checking in the app all the time. I'm doing battles. I think the battle system is a little bit shallow. But overall, it is fun to take part in. It's nice to have a quick version of like the TCG battle system.
Like if you wanted to play like a full fledged like TCG battle, I can do TCG live. But like going into pocket, it's like kind of like the casual mode, the fast pace. Like you're going to get in and get out hopefully in like five or six minutes to finish this match. And I appreciate that. There's times where like, you know, I'm watching TV or like I have YouTube on or podcasts. And I'm just like, all right, I want to get a quick battle in right now while I'm listening to this podcast.
Yeah. And that's easy to do. It doesn't take very long at all. And I can do like, there's an laparice event happening right now, laparice ex event. And I was able to, you know, complete all of that stuff. Just like in a fairly reasonable amount of time. I think they did a good job developing it for the mobile audience, which often veers towards like, you know, bite sized experiences. You can get in. You can do the stuff you need to do and you can get out. And for that, I love it. I'm
really falling in love with the collection aspect. And I do think that it would absolutely benefit from getting another expansion of cards in there sooner rather than later. Maybe not as aggressively as Nintendo music is expanding its library. Like we don't need like, okay, Pokemon TCG pockets out. Now we have another expansion out this next week. Like we don't need that. But like, I think they should establish a pretty aggressive clip to keep people coming back because I'm all, I'm, you know,
I think I'm a fairly casual player of this. Like when I look over at some of my peers who are like playing constantly and they like have like almost like a completed collection. But I'm already to the point where I'm getting a lot of duplicates when I open these booster packs. I know those serve a purpose like increasing flair and everything. But like, it's not like a meaningful, like, a meaningful way to like improve your collection. If I wish you could trade that in for like the
card point. So whatever it is that you can use to buy the cards you're missing. I think it would, this game would really benefit from having a wider net of cards to pull from. But what are your impressions of TCG pocket? I haven't gotten to play it yet. I've been lost in Concordia. Oh, we can do brother ship. But I've been following it closely. I actually installed it right before I hopped on this call with you because I'm excited to jump into it. But it's just incredible
how when Pokemon does something like this, they just take over. Pokemon Go was bigger than this feels right now at least. That was a phenomenon that you would go to get ice cream at your local ice cream shop. And there was a line out the door because it was a Pokestop. It was madness. But this is kind of similar to that and just how it seems to be capturing people. And I think that like Pokemon Go, people complained about the battles at start. People complained there weren't all
the features if they wanted. But it's been a living breathing thing for nearly a decade now. And I see the same for this. And I was actually wondering is trading live yet? Can you trade your duplicate to other places? See, that just seems like a huge thing that is missing that will just go crazy if they ever add that in. Remember Pokemon Go didn't have trading in the in the beginning either. So I mean, I guess there may be following that roadmap. The thing about Pokemon Go though was
that was like a social thing, right? Like you would go out, I would go for walks to play Pokemon Go. And you don't have to go for a walk. I was watching YouTube videos and just doing battles on Pokemon TCG pocket. So like I don't think that it can reach that level of phenomenon.
But it does have a lot of, you know, kind of like grassroots excitement behind it where it's like I've heard people that are not like nest like I was in line at my coffee shop and like two people were talking about Pokemon TCG pocket. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Now, granted one of those people's phone rang and it was the the one of the songs from Zelda. So yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I, I think that TCG pocket is a fantastic
foundational experience. And if they can build on it and find new ways to engage the player base, like I can go on right now. And, you know, I can play battles until like to my heart's content. And that's fine. But like if you lose, you get absolutely nothing, which is a bummer. And if you win, I think it's kind of modest rewards. It's not anything super special. But like, so I can play whatever I want, but I can go on there and I can do everything that I need
to do every 12 hours or so. And be like, you know, done. I can just close it out. I think they need to come up with like a way to like reduce that bounce rate and make it so that if I open up that app, if I want to engage with this more, and I can be meaningfully rewarded for that. Like whether, I think that this Lapras EX event is a really good way to do that because you have a set number of like energy that you can use. And then you play these AI battles against the CPU trainer. And,
you know, once you use your five attempts, like you have to wait for it to recharge. And then it once you get to the higher levels, you get like a card, like a single card pack. And that has RNG for like, I think it's like six or seven different cards. And one of the cards that you have a chance to pull is the Lapras EX that this event is built around. So that's a good way. Like I was pleasantly surprised to see an event like that. I do think that they they recognize that they
need to give people more stuff to do. And that's probably why this event exists. But I think that the potential is there. And I'm having a better time now than I was when I recorded last week's episode. Very cool. Yeah. I'm excited to check it out. I'm of the generation that grew up going through elementary school as Pokemon cards were popping off for the very first time. So there's a ton of nostalgia there just for that experience of opening booster packs and seeing what you're
going to get. And I've moved on from collecting cards physically. So to have this choice to do digitally, I think one of the reasons besides being busy with other stuff I haven't started it yet is I'm just a little scared of it and how much time and potentially money I worry I could sink into this thing. But it's super cool. Yeah. I'm enjoying it. I did have people reach out and they were kind of bummed that like we were kind of crapping all over it in last week's episode.
And I did kind of couch it in like I'm still very early in my impressions. It's not it hadn't grabbed me yet. I would say it's not nearly the the way that you know Pokemon go had grabbed me after this amount of time that I've put into it. But it's definitely something that I have moved to like my home screen. It's no longer like on the second screen or in a folder or anything like that. It is right next to my other mobile game Marvel Strike Force that I play every day.
And yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how DNA continues to grow this app because it does have a lot of potential. Nice. Before we move on to the news now is as good a time as any to remind you that you can support all things Nintendo through various different methods. The best way is through the Patreon page which offers bonuses like early and ad free episodes access to the community discord priority for Q&A episodes. And if you come in at the $10 level you get an entire second
weekly podcast called all things gamers. Other ways to support the show include the merch shop on tpublic.com and my YouTube channel which you can find at Brian P. Shay. All right Logan let's get into the news. We have a Nintendo financial report. I love this time. Yeah. It's always like a sleeper for like getting like one or two really good tidbits. And that is certainly what happened here.
It gave us a couple of big news items and some modest financial updates. So the first thing it this was said in the financial report but I think a lot of people especially in the US experienced it from a tweet from the Japanese Nintendo account. And you know they mean business when they say this is insert Nintendo. So this starts with we're used to like this is Miyamoto but this is this is for Okawa president of Nintendo. At today's corporate management policy briefing we announced
that Nintendo switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo switch. Nintendo switch online will be available on the successor to Nintendo switch as well. Further information about the successor to Nintendo switch including its compatibility with Nintendo switch will be announced at a later date. So that very brief quote gave us a lot to break down here. So first of all three items right. Backward compatibility that was the number one deal breaker for me if it did
not have for switch two like I would be like really upset with Nintendo if they did. All those fears are gone. I mean we were pretty much betting on the fact that that would be the case that they would have backwards compatibility but like you never know with Nintendo. They're the wild card. Number two Nintendo switch online is going to continue through switch two and number three compatibility with Nintendo switch. There's something there that is beyond the software it sounds
like. So what is what do you make of this like kind of trio of announcements that they fit into a single tweet here? Yeah it's huge it's it's good to know this was something that with all the rampant switch two speculation there's been all the podcasts I've done about it all the people I've talked to about it. That's always been just a given to me. This thing's going to be backwards compatible. I
was not worried about this whatsoever. So to get that confirmation is really nice. I think the remaining questions are that last point that you mentioned compatibility with Nintendo switch. What are they talking about here? Are they talking about there's some sort of performance boost on switch one games when you play them on switch two or whatever the successor is going to be called is there or is it just saying oh if you're playing Mario Kart 8 on your switch two you can still play
online with people who are playing on switch one is that kind of all they mean here. And then another interesting point is they're saying Nintendo switch online is going to be part of the successor. Is that kind of half confirmation this thing's going to be called a switch or are they open to changing that name if this thing doesn't have switch in the name. So yeah it's it almost raised more questions than it answered but I am really glad that we know that we'll be able to play the
enormous library of switch games on the successor. Yeah I have so many so many games on my switch library and also we did have another quote that I pulled from the the PowerPoint deck that they presented at the financial earnings I access that and here's what it's a longer one so buckle in quote until Nintendo switch there was no easy way to have consumers purchase and gameplay histories carry over across platform generations as a result our relationship with the consumers
was interrupted when a new system was purchased. The introduction of Nintendo account made it possible to tie consumers history to their personal account enabling Nintendo to maintain a continuous relationship with the consumers across platform generations. We have communicated that we plan on making an announcement regarding the successor to Nintendo switch during this fiscal
year which is and ends in March. We believe that it is important for Nintendo's future to make use of Nintendo account and carry over the good relationship that we have built with the over 100 million annual playing users on Nintendo switch to its successor thus we will make Nintendo switch online a service based a service based on Nintendo account available to the successor to Nintendo switch. So I mean there's not much more that was spelled out there than what we got in that tweet but you
know a little bit more context I suppose. Yeah and then I think there's one more little line in there that has really flown under the radar and it's on a different page than that one and it's just talking about the backwards compatibility and it says something like on the switch successor
users will be able to purchase switch software so they're basically saying the eShop as it is is moving on it's going to be on the next thing so and it's basically a ps4 to ps5 situation is what it's sounding like you can buy every ps4 game on ps5 pretty much and it sounds like that's
what it's going to be with switch 2 which I don't really think they've done before you can go and access you could go and access the eShop channel from the Wii U but they didn't put full retail games on Wii for digital download of a time and same with DS to 3DS you could buy DSi where but you couldn't go buy Super Mario 64 DS so this is really the first time with this transition that you can just buy Splatoon 2 on switch 2 as it was on switch and that's really interesting and I
think it's a really really good decision. Yeah it would feel woefully behind the times if they did not allow for that because every one of their competitors does that I mean Xbox made it a mission for them to to go out and make it so that everything is forward and backward compatible with
the introduction of the universal windows platform playstation followed suit pretty aggressively with the ps4 to ps5 jump and you know now here we are and Nintendo is finally aboard that train as well because yeah man it was a pain to get any digital purchase I remember like the the only thing that you could transfer from Wii to Wii U was your virtual console purchases and to get them on the Wii U menu you had to pay like 80 cents or something like that to just pop them over it
was insane. I swear to god if they make us pay 80 cents to transfer us which games to switch to I'm gonna be furious. No way yeah but now for the actual financials that they released during this presentation first the switch has crossed the 146 million mark in sales which is just over two and a half million since the last report in August it is also sold 1.3 billion units of software.
There are now more than 34 million members of Nintendo Switch Online and you know the most recent new big release echoes of wisdom sold over 2.5 million copies and then Furukawa also said that there's no change to their plans to announce the switches successor by March 2025 which we heard in that longer quote and then my favorite part of these presentations aside from the big news that they always drop we got an update to the top 10 selling Switch games of all time so one Mario
card 8 Deluxe which has now surpassed 64 million copies. That's incredible. Yeah with 2 million more this quarter or something like that it just keeps selling it's never going to stop and I mean it might continue if it's since Switch software is compatible I mean it might take a Mario Kart 9
to really slow like pump the brakes if you want to pardon the puns there. Number two still Animal Crossing New Horizons number three smash ultimate four breath the wild five Mario Odyssey six Pokemon Sword and Shield seven Pokemon Scarlet and Violet still has not overtaken its predecessor the only change was eight the Legend of Zelda tears of the Kingdom leap frog Super Mario Party which is at nine now and then number 10 new Super Mario Brothers you Deluxe. Are you surprised
that there's no Mario wonder on this list a year later? Yeah a little bit honestly I would have thought that it would have quickly passed new Super Mario Brothers you Deluxe but it's just it's that thing that even if a successor is better than the previous game it doesn't mean it's
gonna outsell it Super Stars is so much better than Super Mario Party and it's several million behind that one just because Super was the first one on the console and a lot of more casual people out there oh why do we need this one we have a Mario Party on Switch so I guess it's the same thing there but man wonder is so much better than Mario you and I wish that it had performed a little bit better. Yeah it's one of the best 2D Mario games of all time. I mean I was kind of hesitant I was
like it might be the best 2D Mario game since Mario World. Easily yeah I mean it's a little fight to the death for Yoshi's Island so I don't want to uh or if they even consider that a Mario game because a lot of people like no that's the start of the Yoshi franchise. Yeah all right before we wrap up the fiscal stuff uh let me ask you about this we you know Farakawa has repeatedly said he they're going to announce the Nintendo Switch 2 before the end of
this fiscal year which is March 2025. Do you think we hear about the Switch 2 before the end of the calendar year of 2024? I've been feeling like it's a coin flip this whole time and it's every day that passes it gets increasingly less likely just because we're closer to the end of the year but them coming out and saying this backwards compatible thing yes it was part of the strategy of showing
their shareholders hey we know you're worried about console transitions we did really really poorly added a couple of times ago here's why this time will be different and this was just one of many things folded into it right they talked about Nintendo music they talked about the theme parks they
talked about all this way they're reinforcing the importance of an Nintendo account so that's the real logical reason they made this backwards compatible announcement now but couldn't you also see part of it is saying to the consumers who were considering picking up a Switch this holiday
season any games you buy you'll still be able to play on the next thing so I still could see it but at this point the fact that it didn't happen before this shareholders meeting I kind of thought that was the cutoff and that maybe at this meeting is when they would talk about it after revealing
it to us last week or something like that I'm feeling next year at this point in time that's what I'm thinking as well I think that they want to ring as much of the the switch one sales as they possibly can yeah and I don't think that they want to announce it before Christmas because they
want to get as many sales as they can for this holiday season and then you know maybe early next year you know there's traditionally a February Nintendo Direct maybe we get a switch two director maybe they do what they did for switch one where they have like a stage show like a live stage show which is such a rarity for Nintendo these days but in the world of Nintendo Direct where they actually have these developers trotting out maybe they bring out like you know all the big names that they're
going to have developing for this thing and that comes back talk about the mystery thing is making hey I'm saying Hitotaka Miyazaki is going to walk out on that stage and I think it's going to be like a definitive edition of Eldon Ring or something that's crazy going to be coming to all systems
but it's primarily like being marketed it's like hey it's coming to Switch I think that's like a prediction that I had I also chose that in the fantasy draft last year or last week so I may also want to try to come come across as being a little psychic in that regard yeah but yeah the fiscal
results always give us a little bit of discussion to be had on this show let's move on to the next news item I've talked a little bit about the big stardew valley 1.6 update that hit PCs earlier this year concerned ape the developer kept saying that there were various complications that prevented
it from coming to consoles at the same time and I know a ton of people were waiting for this one before diving back into the game and that day has finally arrived this week he took to Twitter to announce the 1.6 update was available on consoles this past Monday and I found the story over on Nintendo life.com there are a ton of updates that get added through this patch including new spring time event new meadowlands farm layout new mastery system lets you upgrade after maxing out your skills
and several new items and recipes look at where are you at with stardew valley I'm at that I played it for 30 or 40 hours when it first came to switch had a great time and just just can't commit it's not a life game for me you know you can only pick a couple of those that you come back and play
every single week or every single month and it's not one for me but as someone who did grow up playing a bunch of harvest moon games it's just started values a masterpiece it's it's the best to ever do it and the fact that it just keeps getting these updates and I love seeing news like this
that finally brings the console version in line with what PC players have been enjoying for a while so yeah just just great news all around and I'm excited for haunted chocolate here that's a game that I'll be playing when it finally comes out at some point yeah and I mean in a recent interview
he did say like he wants to finish this game like he wants to like focus on haunted chocolate here he's like yeah like I've wanted to keep supporting stardew valley but like I really want to focus in finish haunted chocolate here because I feel we've been waiting on that almost as long as we have
Hollow Knight silk song yes I'm not a stardew valley guy I'll be completely honest it's not because I don't like it I tried playing and I played it for like maybe like two hours and I was like okay this is cool I'll come back to this because I think I had something else I had to play and then I just
never went back to it I've had it on my switch since it came out on switch and I've just never gone back to it because there's always something else to check out and there's always something else to play and that's the the hardest part about trying to keep up with all the new releases
in this industry is like you're never wanting for new things to play there's always something else and when like I'm trying to stay like up to date on all the biggest games as they come out like that sometimes comes at a cost and that cost and I'm not not looking for sympathy here
the cost is I just can't go back and play some of these games that I've always wanted to go back and play or I fall behind and I just never I'm able to catch up and I just have to kind of like you know like when like you're playing a sports game and like the announcer kind of falls behind a
little bit like they're still talking about like the last play when the next play is starting then they just like clear the queue basically and just jump to the like the the current play yeah instead of having to catch up with all the the the plays that they missed that's what I feel
like I do a lot of times or it's like okay well I missed this game that came out like two weeks ago because I was playing this other game rather than trying to catch up I'm just going to jump to the game that just came out unless it's something I really wanted to play yeah now that happens
all the time like Star Wars Outlaws that's when I was gonna play came out of busy time just never got to it so yeah it's it's I mean it's a really great problem to have like I'm not complaining about it but yeah it is a fact of being in the industry yeah so Star 2 Valley 1.6 available now
it should be a free update for anybody who owns that so you know go check that out sounds like it's a pretty substantial release for fans of that game so I hope you enjoy it to close out this segment I realized after publishing last week's episode that I completely forgot to shout out
that Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles X was finally making the leap from Wii U to switch meaning that we will have the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series on Switch so Xenoblade Chronicles X definitive edition includes graphical improvements new story content and other things that Nintendo
hasn't yet announced the original game received an 84 on Metacritic game and former only gave it a 7.25 out of 10 IGN was much closer to that that Metacritic average giving it an 8.2 out of 10 where are you at with the Xenoblade Chronicles series because this is another one of those that I
have just completely missed the bowed on yeah Xenoblade is one that I'm trying to get into because it's one of the only major Nintendo series left that I don't play every single new entry that comes out and three is the one that really really grabbed me it's just it has an excellent story the
combat's really cool and it is one of the most technically ambitious games on Nintendo Switch and X is one I thought was lost to time I thought it was one that was never going to get picked in the big Wii U school yard pick and I'm so happy that it finally did because it's a weird kind of
spin-off one it's not really locked into the main trilogy like one two and three are and I thought they were just gonna leave that one behind so the fact that Monolith gets to do this a studio which is incredibly valuable to Nintendo they work on all the big EPD stuff Zelda Splatoon animal
crossing all of it and it's awesome that they get to kind of complete their story and put the last remaining one here so I'm excited about it will I play it honestly probably not it's a huge a hundred hour game and we just talked about how hard it is to fit stuff like that in but I know
there's tons of people out there super psyched about this one yeah I I think I just want to play Zenoblade Chronicles 3 but it just keeps going back to like with what time right like I I'm still drowning in all the games that have come out this year let alone previous years I don't I don't know
like it's I've heard great things about it Monolith like you said has their instrumental in so many of Nintendo's biggest games so it's cool when they get to make a game of their own I just don't know when I'm gonna have a chance to play this when there's so many other big games to to get caught up
on and you know I wasn't attracted to playing it when it came out on Wii U and I'm a big fan of the Wii U I don't think I'm gonna be attracted when there's a lot more games to play on this system than there ever were on the Wii U yeah that's fair but it comes out on switch March 20th of next year
we are gonna take our first break of this episode and when we get back we will have two new releases to discuss we will be right back we are back and this week we have two highly anticipated games to discuss first up we have a new Mario and Luigi game it has been a long time coming as the last all new Mario and Luigi title was nearly a decade ago with Paper Jam on 3ds now we have Mario and Luigi Brothers ship the latest game in the Mario and Luigi role playing franchise Logan you reviewed
Brothers ship for IGN what are the core concepts at play with this one yeah so this is a return for the Mario and Luigi series as you just mentioned and this time around the core concepts are you're sailing this giant ship island hybrid there's some not notical navigation where you're
kind of picking which current you want to sail to to uncover new islands which you then go explore and then another new mechanic is called Luigi Logic where you're kind of directing Luigi to accomplish tasks for you he sells puzzles for you he hits buttons and switches for you he breaks boxes
to find coins for you and it's kind of more automated than it's been in the past so it's a very distinct shift from some things Mario and Luigi has done in the past which if you read my review you know I have a certain feeling about yeah let's get into it your thoughts on Mario and
Luigi Brothers ship were not overall positive we'll say you seem to have enjoyed certain parts the game you're not saying this is like some you know irredeemable piece of garbage or anything like that let's get that out there like you you enjoyed various elements of this game and it
seems like maybe overall you seemed to like your time with it but there were some heavy detractors to your overall experience so let's start on a positive note what did you like about Mario and Luigi Brothers ship well first I would just say overall I did not like my time with it I
over I like some parts of it I did give it a five out of 10 which means mediocre it very distinctly does not mean bad on the IGN scale right four out of 10 is bad five out of 10 is mediocre and that's where I landed with this one but to start out positive the combat's awesome it's
really great to have Mario and Luigi combat back after so long because it is similar to Mario RPG or Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door but it has its own distinct flavor it's all of those games use action commands where it's turn based but you want to hit A at the exact right time to kind
of pack an extra punch but where Mario and Luigi goes the extra step is with what you do on defense in Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door for example you just hit a button to block attacks and you just want a time at right so you get a good block in or you could do a super guard which will deal one
point of damage back to your enemy if you time it at the exact right time but Mario and Luigi Brothers ship and the whole Mario and Luigi series is all about learning the patterns of how the enemies attack and one of my favorite examples from Brothers ship is this enemy called the Snafter
which is this big tarot act old that will swoop in in combat and pick up one of the brothers and then he flies off screen and then you have to listen to the audio to if you hear Mario scream it means that the Snafter is going to roll Mario like a bowling ball at Luigi you have to make
sure to jump over Mario because if you accidentally land on him you deal damage to Mario but if you don't hear that scream it means the Snafter is going to swoop straight for Luigi so you can time your jump to jump and land on the Snafter to deal damage to it so every enemy has two different
tells basically and based on how it's reacting you know okay I got to jump at this time to deal damage or I got to whip out my hammer at this moment to do a counter attack and it's really really cool and I think that's the best thing Brothers ship does is it's lineup of enemies is really varied
you're constantly learning these new patterns to kind of put in your Brothers ship filing cabinet for when they come up at a random encounter later you go oh I know how to beat this one and that is just something it does really really well now before we get into the negatives here because when
I had you on last time you were singing the praises of Super Mario Party jamboree you said I have played all 18 games in this series and this might be the best one in the series what is your experience level with Mario's various role-playing games I have played every paper Mario and I've played
every Mario and Luigi and I played Super Mario RPG remake last year was my first time finishing that game I had played the Super Nintendo original but I never got to the end of it so I've played them all and this is one of the worst ones I'm on the other side of the fence with it it's it's not
the worst Mario and Luigi paper jam the last new one is far and away my least favorite Mario and Luigi that was a dark time for Mario RPGs they were very bland there were no original characters everything was very toedified just toads everywhere that you look in those games and it just felt
like going through the motions for alpha dream for their last game before they kind of went bankrupt after a couple of remakes that they made to try and save themselves so it's better than that one but it's worse than the other four it's worse than dream team bousers inside story partners and time
and superstar saga so not the return that I was hoping for all right so let's get into it what do you think are the parts of this that just didn't live up to your expectations as somebody who is a longtime fan of this franchise yeah it I said this in my review that it just it fundamentally
misunderstands why old Mario and Luigi games were great and outside of battle is what I'm talking about here in past Mario and Luigi games Luigi follows directly behind Mario you're controlling both of them as a unit to solve puzzles and while during the brother ship review period I even broke
out the superstar saga remake on 3ds just to make sure I wasn't crazy with how different brother ship plays and feels compared to those old ones and in superstar saga I walk into this room and there's this really smart puzzle with these buttons you have to hit behind these locked grates and you're splitting up the brothers and you're swapping back and forth between which brother you're controlling to hit a button to open the gate for the other one and it's just really clever and
fun to work out there's not a single moment like that in brother ship in brother ship you're pretty much only controlling Mario now there Luigi's walks a few steps behind him now so it's kind of this awkward disconnected distance it it doesn't feel like you're controlling these two as a unit anymore
it feels like you're controlling Mario and Luigi's behind kind of doing his own thing and his path thing is pretty good for the most part so it's not like he's really annoying as he's following you but it's just lost that unique ingredient that made Mario and Luigi great and then the puzzle
solving you're never hopping back and forth between Mario and Luigi there's one time where you do and it's not very good but in this game instead the L button is how you direct Luigi to do things so if you're doing something as Mario and you see a switch that needs to be hit you just hit L and
then you watch as Luigi just goes and does it for you and it's so boring and the puzzle design is so ridiculously bland and there's not a moment in this game where I thought that was clever that was cool just one none no in its overall exploration there were none where it wasn't just going through
the motions and another reason for that is because when you get to these rooms that have some of the more complex puzzles they're trying to set up for you the game stops you in your tracks pan does this big camera pan zoom over the entire room it takes anywhere from 15 seconds and
smaller examples to upwards of a minute in some of the longer examples it gets back to your characters then your new assistant his name is snoutlet he pops out a Luigi's cap and he says oh so we need to do X and Y in this room you need to go hit this switch it looks like to me let's see if that works okay so you just told me what to do in a puzzle this not already that tough to solve to begin with and it's so handholdy and that's what my least favorite things the games do when games hold
your hand I I hate it especially to this extent and people say oh it's a kids game when I was a kid I played the thousand year door that game doesn't do that and I got through it just fine and for that game getting remade this year and this being such a stark contrast to it I just did not enjoy my time with it whatsoever yeah that's I think one of the worst things that a video game can be you used it
in your description just then and you used it in your review multiple times boring yes and like a game can be like so bad that like it frustrates you but like as long as like there's some redeeming elements where it's like it's it's exciting in this moment or like oh there was this really cool
like motorcycle chase that happened or something that like really sticks out as like that was really exciting and clever and and cool you can kind of forgive some sins of a of an otherwise like you know maybe not masterfully made game but when a game is boring that is an entirely different
level of you know not good yes and so the gameplay here is really boring and the puzzles are boring and I'm frustrated at them because of how much they've they've changed how Mario and Luigi work and I'm fine with changes right I love it when series evolve and change and improve but when
every change here feels like it's made for the worse I'm just left left wondering why did they do this well the answer is it's a new developer they've never made a Mario and Luigi before and it just really really shows but I could forgive boring gameplay in the overworld if the worlds were
interesting but they're not it's fire land and ice land and desert land it's it's like new super Mario and Luigi is how it feels it is just so bland in its world design there's not a single one where I thought I haven't seen this before you've seen it all before you've seen the story before
too it takes some darker turns than Mario and Luigi does but dark doesn't mean good sometimes I think people equate oh it's so dark so it's so great but no it's it's dark for Mario and Luigi but if your media consumption extends beyond just Mario and Luigi you've seen all these tropes
a million times and the stories as chatty as the tutorials are and it's just as constantly beating you over the head with we have to do this there's a clip in my video review where Snoutlet says the same thing and back-to-back sentences and I included it because it just perfectly
encapsulates what it is not the exact same thing but he says we have to get to the great lighthouse to plug it into our ship let's head over to the great lighthouse now to plug it in or something I'm like oh my god like just stop dude so the story's boring the gameplay's boring the world
design is boring and it runs like crap the performance is so bad it you're always in a stutter recovering from a stutter or expecting the next one and that is just the the cherry on top that cements this thing as something I do not recommend that you spend your time or money on it's just
every element of this is just it's so frustrating and it's a series I love and not to get into this too much but I've been getting so much hate for this review because it scored pretty well elsewhere and no I'm a fan of this series I adore Bowser's Inside Story and superstar saga so much and so
I wanted this to be good I was rooting for this to be good right but I have to call it like I see it and what it is is it's just a really mediocre RPG that's really a bummer to hear because I was looking forward to this I've never played a Mario and Luigi game you know I've played a little
bit of the Paper Mario series I've played through maybe the first five or six hours of Mario RPG remake yeah so I'm far from like a Mario RPG series aficionado but this looked like okay there's some maybe some cool stuff at play but like I know that I've played enough of it like enough of
this the kind of RPG games from the Mario franchise to know that like one of the main attractions in a lot of cases is like the dialogue like can be like humorous or it could be clever or it can have like some some fun puns on it or whatever it doesn't sound like that's even the case with
this one no it's not the the the humor didn't do it for me at all and I like the humor style in most Mario RPGs that they're all very different a lot of them strike different tones from each other there's some very surreal humor and some of the Paper Mario games there's some kind of fourth
wall breaking meme humor and things like color splash which worked for me at the time it's funny and this is just it just doesn't land and there's these characters that just tell these dad jokes and I even like dad jokes from time to time but they're not funny and then the the punchline here is
you just watch the wind blow as Mario and Luigi stare blankly and they they do that same bit 25 times in this game and it's just not fun to the first time and it's even less funny the 25th time and yeah it's it's brutal and I said I'm gonna have time once yeah 17 time that will really get you
exactly yeah and I think the final nail on the coffin for me here I haven't touched on yet is the final 10 hours of this game is some of the most disrespected I've ever felt by a video game it runs you in circles and strings you along to maybe the most ridiculous degree I've ever seen
in an Nintendo game think try force quest but 10 times worse it's oh no insane and you're revisiting places that you've saved before doing the same thing there's no meaningful changes to the gameplay there's really no story reason for it either and by that point I got sick of the combat too because
this game should have been 25 hours at almost every Mario and Luigi game is 25 hours it's a perfect length for these kind of bite size more family friendly RPGs that don't have the deepest combat systems only two characters in your party right 25 hours feels like the right place for these things
to wrap up this one goes on for 35 hours and I kind of be lined the last 10 I stopped doing side quest because I thought I was knocking at the door of the end and then every time they just pull the rug out from under me and they send you on some other ridiculous fetch quest and
yeah I was leaning more towards a six at the time and then the last 10 hours was like no this is just not worth your time it's it's just not and it's a big bummer and yeah I'm curious to see what the public reception of this thing is because I think that long time Mario and Luigi fans
are going to find a lot to dislike here well like you said you have a lot of people who have not played the game giving you some some advice on why you should like this game more than you did which is never fun I'm sorry you're dealing with that I've been there but like you said you gave
it a five out of 10 which as you explain does equate to mediocre on the IGN review scale if you want to read Logan's full review of super or super Mario and Luigi brothership you can find it on IGN.com there's also the video version on the YouTube channel for IGN Logan I'm I wish you had better news to bring us like you did last time last time you gave us all this this happiness and joy it's a surprise that we're gonna play an amazing Mario party game why couldn't you do that this time
I know if only they made a little bit of a better game and it's actually something I've been thinking about Brian is like just some of these developers that aren't just proven that Nintendo is handing their projects to right now it's it's hurt them this year in my opinion it's been a little bit tough because they again aren't telling us who's making it ahead of time so it's kind of a coin flip okay
is this a studio of a high pedigree we know and trust or is it a choir who I'm no shade at them they did their best but this is their first time making an Nintendo game and that's a high bar to hit and they didn't this time and yeah it's just a shame so what's the other games that you're talking
about there you tell them like Princess Peach or something else honestly I go so far as dumb as well okay that one I cause always am I really liked but I hold Zelda to the highest bar of bars because it's Zelda and a great game but for me a great Zelda game is a lower tier Zelda game and
it's a different case though where I think Grezzo is a great studio positioned to be the stewards of 2ds Zelda moving forward I think Echo's a wisdom was great and proved that they're the studio that can get it done but I think it displayed growing pains absolutely of being their first new
single players Zelda they made and I'm excited to see what they do next time I'm not saying that brother ship and Echo's are of an equivalent quality but it's just are you gonna get a tiers the kingdom are you gonna get an Echo's a wisdom right and that's Nintendo handing these stuff to
studios that they're just not Nintendo doesn't mean they're not talented but we all know Nintendo's on another level yeah and I mean Grezzo obviously did the amazing remakes of I mean links awakening and a lot of time and Majora's mask for 3ds so they've done amazing work on the Zelda franchise
but was this was this your first like fully developed mainline Zelda game they were code developers on Triforce Heroes as well but no kind of a different different category okay so yeah we're seeing a theme there with their the games that they actually develop there but yeah yeah
unfortunate that brother ship did not pan out the way we were all hoping it would hopefully you know hopefully all these people that are passionately attacking you for your opinion on this hopefully they do love it hopefully they do play it and they're like this is the game that I wanted
because then people will be happy and they'll be like okay well we disagree on this one thing and hopefully that's that's a good nothing for them but we'll say I think that everybody should just be entitled to their opinions that's just me what a crazy thought to have Brian and I don't
want to have I'm not going to position this as like a full review the way you were able to give your full review of Mario and Luigi Brothers ship but I did put a few hours into another new release that hit switch this week Metal Slug Tactics so this is a long awaited turn based tactics game
developed by Lake Year Studio and published by Dotty Moo and you know it is a Metal Slug game that is an isometric view if you've ever played Metal Slug you know the old school side scrolling shoot them up fantastic arcade games from the 90s some of my fondest memories were playing these
games in arcades I had a birthday party at the same laser tag place every like every year for like three years and they had a Metal Slug cabinet and we would always play that like while we were waiting for like oh it's our turn to go in the laser tag and yeah always so much fun I love
I have I think the the trilogy on my my steam like that was one of the first games I bought when I opened up a steam account because I love this series so going into Metal Slug Tactics you know I I didn't know quite what to expect completely different studio developing this they're using the old
school Metal Slug style graphics but with an isometric instead of side scrolling and we did get that Metal Slug mobile game I forget what it was attack reloaded that's what it was Metal Slug attack reloaded earlier this year on switch and that felt like this weird transposition of
of the Metal Slug franchise to a different genre like a kind of a tower defense meets tower attack genre and it also had like mobile style gotcha mechanics that I was not a fan of and I liked the overall like the core gameplay but it just didn't do it for me as I as I played deeper and deeper
and I eventually abandoned it because I was like all right they're obviously playing too much into the gotcha side of this even though it's not a free to play game on switch as it was in on mobile so I went into this with a bit of hesitancy because I was like all right well maybe
this is just a franchise that doesn't transpose well to other genres I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying Metal Slug Tactics cool it starts off and it's like man this is kind of tutorial heavy and I was trying my best to like soak in all of the the different tactics that you have to use in
order to to be successful but it I don't want to say it's as difficult as like an XCOM at least not what I've played so far where it's like just punishingly difficult from a tactics perspective and if you make one wrong move it is just the beginning of the end for your squad I don't get that vibe
at all what I do get is that like there are various elements at play there's an adrenaline meter that you build up as you go and then that allows you to use that at like for like special abilities that each character has you know there's you're positioning your characters during your turn each
character can move and then they can perform an action and so it's very very similar to most games in the genre in that regard so you move your character and then like you know the first guy that I got on my team is just like he has a pistol and he has like a machine gun and you can choose which
one you want to do they have different elements that you have to consider with that and then there is another person that I got that she's like the explosive expert obviously so she has like a grenade that she can throw short range or she can use her grenade launcher which you know has longer
range and has a bit more of an explosion radius and then there's another one who's like okay she has like a machine gun and a shotgun that you can use that are obviously good for different things so you're going around these different maps taking out enemies and there's side objectives like like
there is in the the side scrolling game where it's like oh if you happen to come across like this like guy who's been captured by the enemy you can go up and get him and free him and he'll give you bonuses there's that in this so like if you want to take a turn before you wipe out that
last enemy and send one of your squad mates over to rescue the guy who's like tied up and like bound over in like the corner of the map you can do that and it'll give you stuff so that's very cool you have to mind your ammo for these weapons because you will run out of ammo unless you use like the like when you level up you have a choice to like do different things like you can add like a new like adrenaline ability to your character when they level up or you can add like a new passive
ability and like the first one that you get in terms of like pass abilities is the sink ability where like if it's on a grid if you line up and like say there's an enemy like that is in front of you if on the other axis one of your teammates is lined up with that enemy as well and you attack them
your other teammate will jump in and attack them as well as part of your turn so it's all about positioning and everything nice there's also multiple levels to some of the maps so like if there's a guy up on like the the roof he might have a tactical advantage over you so you need to get up there
and like take him out or you know shoot a throw a grenade up there and like try to like hit him and then there's also vehicles like there is in like the metal slugs shoot him up so I hopped in a tank and I'm like going around and you actually have three shots with this tank but it moves
pretty slow so there's like a give and take there and you can even like there's a wall there was a destructible wall that I was able to blow up with the tank and open up a new path to get over there because otherwise I'd have to like climb up on the roof go over jump down and that's like taking
an entire turn just to get over there whereas if I had the tank and blew up the wall it allowed the people to just all run through there and it opened up the map so much better and there's boss battles there's enemies that hop on like so in between missions you're in an overworld map
kind of like you know like Mario 3 or Mario World and as you're going through you can choose what path you want to take to like the ultimate mission objective yeah and while you're going through that enemies will actually spawn on the fit on the the field and you can be like oh there's like a boss
battle over here let me go take that off and you know there's there's so many cool mechanics at play that I am completely sucked into this to the point that like there are other games that I need to be checking out and I'm like I want to play more of metal slug tactics and I'm not like some like
tactics junkie or anything like I love tactics games like XCOM is one of you know probably top 50 games of all time for me there's you know several other tactics games that I really really appreciate and enjoy but like XCOM is like one of the best I love Mario and Rabbits those are great games
this is like kind of upper echelon tactics for me so far right I am giving the qualifier that I'm only like four or five hours deep so yeah I'm really enjoying also shout out to T-lopes the the guy who does the soundtrack the you hear the the the song that you hear at the beginning of
every episode of all things Nintendo he did the soundtrack oh are you serious yeah yeah oh yeah that's so cool T-lopes is the the composer of the the all things Nintendo theme song ever since I took a dependent back in April so shout out to T-lopes he has done it again another
banger of a soundtrack for metal slug tactics he is so perfectly able to capture like modern sounds but with retro sensibilities yeah I mean that's why we see him on all these like streets of rage for DLC and Sonic Mania and TMNT Shredder's revenge and now metal slug tactics like
he has done such amazing work and like to the point that like I have affection for like TMNT and Sonic Mania and I want those soundtracks on vinyl because he captured the the essence of those right so so perfectly while still creating something new metal slug I don't really have a a strong
affinity for the soundtrack of metal slug but he still captured the essence of it and he still created something that stands on its own enough that I I saw that they released the soundtrack on vinyl and I was like oh don't tempt me because I I'm weak let me tell you something Logan it is
it is a stressful and dark week for us here yeah and I am weak and I am I am open to the temptation of buying a soundtrack that I really enjoy on vinyl yeah and I hope that I can resist this temptation because it is a very good soundtrack but yeah it it it's out now on switch I
it full disclosure I have been playing on ps5 but yeah I am thoroughly enjoying my time with metal slug tactics awesome but is this something sound like something you're gonna want to check out yeah I just think the pixel art looks awesome and everything I've heard about it just sounds
really really great so yeah it's on my list for sure okay so you have talked to other people who have played this or you read reviews or yeah yeah so we gave it an eight over an IGN and then my buddy Justin Korai so I think your friends with as well reviewed it over at GameSpot and liked it a
lot too yeah I have not checked out any other reception to it I mean that we've been kind of distracted this week but yeah yeah metal slug tactics I'm I I'm giving it my endorsement to this point I mean it doesn't sound like it falls apart and like the the later stages of this game but
if it does then I'll I'll get back on here and give an updated impression but for now I am very much enjoying it but Logan we are gonna take one final break and what we return will be doing definitive ranking and getting your e-shop gently wheel we right back
we are back in its time for definitive ranking a recurring segment where you take an antenna topic and give our own personal top five lists since the main segment was talking about one of the new spin-offs actually two spin-offs if you count metal slug tactics and the main one
was starring Mario Luigi Logan I want to get your top five Mario spin-offs so start it five count it down to one give me a sentence or two about each yeah it's funny because there's more Mario spin-offs than mainline Mario games at this point there's so many different franchises to choose
from but I'm pretty happy with the five that I narrowed it down to my number five here is Luigi's mansion three I think that I debated between one and three here but I ended up just really liking kind of the haunted hotel theme park vibe of three and all the different themes on each floor
that you visit the boss fights are great it's one of the best looking games on switch and yeah it's just it's a game a rare game that sold over 10 million copies that I still feel like somehow flew under the radar I just think that it's up there with the best on switch like a Metroid dread or
something like that and I just don't think it gets talked about enough but I adore a fantastic pick that is a fantastic pick I completely forgot about the Luigi's mansion three factor in my list so yeah so yeah number four number four is this is just a really personal pick Mario superstar
baseball from the game cube I'm a huge baseball fan like for for years I was debating okay am I gonna pursue like games media stuff are I'm I gonna pursue being a baseball play by play guy and I did play by play for a while in college and eventually fell off of it but baseball is my thing and
Mario superstar baseball rules and just how you can put your team together and all the different attributes and while Luigi being this tall lanky picture like Randy Johnson is just amazing and just the different ball parks are so much fun the character roster is enormous it's it's a brilliant
game and it's a bummer that golf and tennis and now even strikers live on but baseball is just gone we haven't gotten a new one since the Wii and it's it's I hope they go back to it because that first one specifically on game cube is just it's so awesome yeah I mean that that would be
one of the spin off franchise I would love to see come back yeah yeah my number three is Captain Toad Treasure Tracker I saw this little game I think it's one of my favorites on Wii U it was one of the few that really showed off the game pad to just in really effective ways adorable level
design a Mario adjacent game where you can't jump is such a good idea and all the ways they play with that and how you really have to think out these just really well constructed puzzle boxes and Captain Toad's just the perfect hero for it he's so cowardly and cute and I just love
controlling him and Toadette bouncing back between them across the campaign it's a brilliant game and the Switch version is competent too if you haven't played it it's not as good as the Wii U one just because of some of the compromises without having that touch screen on the game pad in front
of you at all times but yeah that game's amazing absolutely I will say that is on my list okay nice number two it's the game I was on last time to talk about it's Super Mario Party jamboree it has remained my favorite in the Mario Party series I've played it for 75 hours I was it 48 when
I reviewed it I just keep going there's friends that want to play and my family wants to play and I'm not sick of it it's just it's perfect it's a perfect evolution in the Mario Party formula I stand by everything I said last time I was here it's it's gorgeous it's the best game they've
put out this year awesome yeah I mean I I think that a lot of people are kind of agreeing with you that is worthy of being mentioned among the best Mario Party games ever so glad that you you are still enjoying that yeah did you play it at all did you jump into it I've messed around a
little bit but not uh not nearly as much as you know my number one I've put in far more than a hundred hours I think closer to four or five hundred hours into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe it's just it's the boring choice but I feel like it's the right one it's nearly a perfect game after all the
additions they made to it through the booster course pass the character roster is huge the animations and graphics and detail is gorgeous the track designs amazing the items are great they fixed battle mode in the deluxe version compared to the Wii U version like it's it is everything you could ever want from a Mario Kart game Mario Kart is the best Mario spin-off series and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the peak of that series and can't wait for a new one like I feel like we take for granted how great
8 Deluxe is because we've had it for so long we've had eight as a whole for ten and a half years now I can't wait to see what they do next so excited to see what is next for that franchise but yeah Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is easily the best Mario Kart game it I yeah in my opinion it's not even close
and I have a lot of love for you know some of the older Mario Kart games but like 8 Deluxe is just like everything you could want the only thing that I can ever think of to be like okay what could they add to make this better is if they added like a double dash mode yes I agreed totally that
would be that would be amazing but I don't think they're gonna do that maybe they would add that in Mario Kart 9 or maybe they just do Mario Kart 8 super deluxe and that includes or Mario Kart double deluxe oh my gosh that's great and then it just adds double dash mode and they just let it
ride maybe keep adding more stages from you know the other Mario Kart and the mobile game and yeah that's a Mario Kart that will sell another hundred and fifty copies or whatever it is it is double dash your favorite besides eight because it's mine it's probably it's honestly probably
64 and I know that's not a good pick in terms of like best Mario Kart but like in terms of like the nostalgia like Mario Kart 64 is like top for me like that in Super Mario Kart on SNES which you know I can't even pretend that like Super Mario Kart is like a very good Mario Kart the drifting
is kind of broken and like you know there's a lot of stuff wrong with that game and you look at like how you know the subsequent titles evolved but like you know from a nostalgic perspective 64 and Super are probably my two favorites but objectively speaking it probably is double dash as the
second best one yeah or maybe even Mario Kart 7 on 3d that's underrated yeah yes we're right there yeah so my list number five cap and toe treasure tracker for many of the reasons it just clever puzzles it's never one of those games like you said in Mario and Luigi brother ship we are
like this puzzles boring it's like no it's so much fun it's so cleverly designed and music is great as well yes number four this might be stretching the definition of like what a spin-off of the Mario franchise is but I'm gonna say WarioWare smooth moves on Wii nice okay I thought about
WarioWare I was close to picking this too it I guess it's not quite like Mario is in it technically because like if you like do like the retro games yeah there's usually a Mario game or two in there but yeah I mean Wario is a character from the Mario universe so I guess it counts as a but yeah
this was the pinnacle of the series for me WarioWare smooth moves was one of my favorite Wii games of all time and it's the game that every time a new WarioWare is announced I'm like could this be the one that lives up to WarioWare smooth moves and they've come close into varying degrees
in this most recent one move it it was it was pretty good it was it was it was maybe the best WarioWare since smooth moves but still did not reach that peak um number three I'm gonna go with a Mario Party but I'm gonna go with my nostalgic pick because I couldn't figure out which Mario
Party I wanted to put here so I'm just gonna put Mario Party one okay where it all began because this laid the template out for this absolute juggernaut of a franchise that like you said has 18 entries now and it is one of the most beloved spin-offs in any game really or any any franchise
like when you think of like the most well liked games and franchises Mario Party is like up there like with the casual gaming audience especially where you're like hey do you want to play a video game they're like yeah do you have Mario Kart or do you have Mario Party and it's like I have both I have many choices in both of those and there's a coin flip about which one they're going to prefer to play a Mario Kart usually wins out but sometimes they will they will pick Mario Party because
some people just want to watch the world burn now I actually very much enjoy Mario Party games mostly uh number two this might be more of a Kirby spin-off but I'm gonna say super smash brothers ultimate okay I I was wondering if smash was gonna land on one of our lists I decided not to count it
I mean Mario is still front and center in every single promotional image even though it's from Masehiro Sakurai the creator of Kirby and Kirby is often kind of cast as the protagonist I think it's hard to say that this game would exist if not for the inclusion of Mario characters or
it would exist on the N64 if like it just wouldn't be the phenomenon that it is today or still to this day you know when Masehiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata went to Shigeru Miyamoto and asked can we use Mario characters and Miyamoto said no if Sakurai just let that ride it could have been just
like a completely different timeline that we're living in which may be good now that we're looking at and now that we're thinking about it maybe we should go to that timeline maybe there's better things happening in the world yeah maybe it's the butterfly effect but uh yeah Masehiro Sakurai
didn't take no for an answer and he created super smash brothers and you know created that prototype at the instruction of the late great Satoru Iwata and the rest is history Miyamoto saw it said this is actually amazing go for it and now we have the the monster that is super smash brothers ultimate and uh like my number one pick it which is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe you just got a wonder where are they going with these franchises next like they're not gonna let either of those franchises die so like
what is next for these games that feel like the actual like this is the final form of these franchises like where they go from here so yeah number one Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with a bullet it's not even close yeah it's like okay you reach the top of the mountain now what there's there's nowhere higher
to climb I don't know what they're gonna do it's a good problem they're facing but yeah it's hard to see when ultimate was coming out and we were getting new characters and Sakurai was making these crazy 30 minute videos to show them each off I really tried to savor it because you don't know if
it's ever gonna happen again and it's the same with Mario Kart 8 like there this those series will both go on but will they ever be that lightning in a bottle that they were this generation I don't know the answer I don't want to doubt them because they're amazing but you just don't know yeah and I
I've never even brought up the the ability to doubt Nintendo because every time like I've had like that thought creep into my head like oh how is Nintendo gonna like recover from this like if they're talking about the Wii U era or even the virtual boy it's like oh man it's Nintendo gonna
is it just over for them yeah and then they bounce back with like you know amazing hardware amazing software the switch is just blowing past every other system that's ever been created aside from the ps2 and the ds and you know they have shown time and time again that they are there's a reason
that they're like the most well respected and beloved game developer in the history of the industry and they have been for 40 years and uh yeah I Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate are going to be hard acts to follow but if anybody can figure it out it's Nintendo yeah breath of
the wild was a hard act to follow and tears in the kingdom I like significantly more so they can always pull it off well Logan that brings us to the final segment here it's the eShop gem of the week a chance for you to give some shine and shout out a game that might not otherwise get covered
on the show what is your eShop gem of the week yeah it's a little golf puzzle game called golf peaks and I love golf video games I think golf story is amazing but that's a little too well known to be an eShop hidden gem I think and golf peaks is a isometric golf puzzle game developed
and published by a small studio called afterburn and basically it's just this really minimalistic game where you there's a golf ball that gets placed on this grid and then you have a certain number of strokes to get it into the hole and it is like golf but a puzzle game and so it's actually kind of captain toad like in that way and kind of this isometric view the small self contained puzzle boxes and learning how the different pieces of terrain work and okay can I hit my golf wall up this ramp
well it's stop if it hits like in the bunker and it's just really short sweet satisfying it doesn't take all that long to play I don't remember the exact price I think it's six or seven bucks it's cheap so it's five five yeah yeah it's it's a really cheap one to pick up and play and I think
I 100% of this thing when it came out several years ago and I've never heard another single person mentioned this game and I really really liked it wow yeah I'm looking at some of these puzzle designs like you said it's just like kind of like a tiny little like chunk of land yeah but
there's all these different interlocking like you know cubes essentially that you have to try to put and hit across and then there's you know the the the pole in the middle with the the hole that you have to reach and the art style is very charming very minimalist and yeah it it looks like a lot
of fun this for five dollars you could do a lot worse it looks like yeah a lot of people probably have enough gold points to just get that for free probably actually but yeah came to switch in 2019 now how have I never heard of this this sounds right up my alley yeah you just check it out I might
but yeah thank you so much for sharing that and before we close out I'm gonna give you four distinct lineups of five games that would make up a theoretical first year of switch two and you let me know which one is best okay okay I'm so excited about this because I saw the thumbnail for
this episode last week and chose to not listen to it knowing I was coming on this week I'm really excited about this topic and everything okay so we're gonna we're we won't be we won't be labor this too much but the first one animal crossing Mario Kart 9 Kettaker is uprising remaster
oh come on journey and in 10 dogs okay line up two new 3d Mario new f zero a link between worlds remaster oh my goodness you're killing me final fantasy seven remake yeah and Hollow Knight silk song okay line up three Metroid Prime 4 Splatoon 4 Wind Waker remaster Halo Infinite
oh oh interesting and a tears of the kingdom remaster okay and the final lineup a new Donkey Kong country a new super smash brothers mother three remaster or remake Elden Ring and metaphor refundasio okay wow so what it sounds like the criteria was a couple new games a remaster a third
party and a port so single player multiplayer remaster third party port and then a flex position oh okay I don't like a fantasy fantasy football or fantasy baseball so there were a couple things I was waiting to hear and I heard them all and they're all on different teams and those things are kiddicrous f zero link between worlds smash brothers Splatoon 4 but I heard one team that had both of them so I have to give it to what what was team two so team two was Hollow Knight silk song Final
fantasy seven remake link between worlds f zero and a new 3d Mario yeah well new 3d Mario I absolutely can't wait for link between worlds is some days my favorite Zelda game of all time and I'm an f zero fanatic and we need a new one with how much they've been doing with the franchise so that's my
pick and also seven remake is a great pick to come to switch to that that's a really good one so that's my pick it's my favorite team so that is a Marcus Stewart's pick okay nice nice you gave you gave your vote to him here's what the listeners had to say so filthy and free on youtube says Kyle hasn't locked here but Marcus is smart so Marcus the one you picked Kyle was the one with Metroid Prime 4 and Splatoon 4 okay techno sucks on Twitter says Marcus has the best lineup Philly Yeet stake on
Blue Sky says gotta go with Charles on this one sounds like a fun list John Charles so Charles was the first one let me bring up his his full list here well my shortcut did not work so right which one was yours what do you have mine was the metaphor Elden ring
you had smash brothers I had smash brother yeah that's really I love that yeah yeah I I didn't know if I was gonna be allowed to do that one yeah because it's like all right maybe that's too soon because I we did have a if it's too like outlandish like if you're like oh I'm we're gonna do the follow-up to the tears of the kingdom yeah no then that would be a little too much okay so Charles had animal crossing Mario Kart 9 Kid Echoris journey and Nintendo's great pick I love uprising so much
so John wall on Blue Sky said I'm giving it to Marcus outlandish beats on Blue Sky says Marcus wins this one Andrew Sudak says Kyle has my vote if only for Metroid Prime and Winwaker remaster three-sword Sama on the community discord says I think the most realistic is Marcus or Kyle
minus the halo pick but the team I want most is Brian's so I I count that as a vote for me the team you want most yeah and then we have the folks over on my patreon Wambam same that Sam the gaming man says I think Kyle has it followed closely by Brian then Marcus and Charles if you swap
the remasters of Kyle's and Brian so you'd be swapping mother three for Kyle's Windwaker then Brian would have won Matt on patreon says likely going to go against the grain here but I like Charles list the most nostalgic titles with legendary party games surprise Brian didn't go with
Mario galaxy for his remaster also no Kirby mentioned would have been a great wild card unfortunate yeah Dusty Beaman over here throwing out some hate saying Hollow Knight silk song is winning votes for Marcus that game is so overrated and overhyped okay and then followed up by saying Brian
clearly won this by like miles thank you page says this was such a fun episode I vote for Marcus oh and says Marcus all the way Brian and Kyle next and Charles last Andy junkin says in this order Kyle Brian Marcus Charles no offense to anyone no it was all in good fun don't worry Jason Thompson
says if I had to pick I would go with Marcus Stewart's picks so I tallied up all these comments plus the votes on Spotify which they put a poll up for that and the winner is Marcus first and then Kyle number two nice okay I'm looking for the winning team Charles the winning team there you go
so yeah that was a fun segment I'll have to do more drafts like that in the future especially now that we're getting kind of this drip feed of switch to info doing more stuff I had another idea in the hopper as well that I'd love to do as another main segment like this but it's as you might
have noticed if you were a patron to the all things Nintendo podcast you got this that last weeks episode kind of late and the video version didn't go up until very late so it was it was a scheduling thing with having four people on so yeah thanks for bearing with me I hope you enjoyed
the episode once you finally got it speaking of other episodes for those who are not 10 dollar patrons that are wondering what's happening on the other side of the fence over on all things gamers this week I had client felt from the direct com on the show and we talked about how gaming has helped
us through rough and stressful times in our lives you know with kind of the current world events as the backdrop for that we talked about gaming as a means of escapism and I think it was kind of a cathartic therapeutic discussion that we had you know first thing in the morning after waking up to
the the news on Wednesday that you know we are going to have a president that I don't think and either of us wanted so yeah kind of looking at it as like how gaming is a centerpiece of how I have traditionally distracted myself during different times so if you want to listen to that
episode as well as the entire backlog of all things gamers remember that you can join the 10 dollar tier of all things Nintendo patreon and it also gives you early and ad free episodes of this show but Logan that wraps up this episode of all things Nintendo thank you so much for joining me
yeah thanks so much for having me this was blessed I'd like to get in on one of those drafts sometime by the way that sounds super fun yeah I have one that might be a good fit for you so I'll have to reach out to you when the time comes but thank you so much everyone for listening do
me a favor if you haven't already throw all things into the eight five star review as you know the patreon and the associated discord server are the best ways to get any questions or comments in but you can also reach out to me Brian at all things nintendo.com or hit me up on social media ad
Brian P.S.A. I'm starting to be a lot more active overall blue sky I'd love to leave Twitter completely behind if at all possible so follow me over there on blue sky or threats take your pick ad Brian P.S.A. is also my youtube channel name and if you would subscribe to that channel
it would help me out a lot Logan work and the people find you online yeah you can find me currently still on Twitter but in a similar situation trying to fully migrate over to blue sky and at both of those places I'm at Logan J plant and then you can catch me on igns nintendo voice chat
that's every Friday morning on podcast services and a video version on youtube and then I have my own personal nintendo show called toadstool boardroom and that is every Thursday morning on spotify apple podcast other services with a video version on youtube that is our show for this week thank
you again for listening take care we'll see you next time before we put a bow on this episode of all things nintendo i just want to give a special shout out to the ten dollar patrons of the all things nintendo patreon air and smith abdulla adams god
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