how to partner welcome to another episode. I can't do the accent. You don't need the accent. Just the
characteristics. Just get that lean back on. Get those hands back together in the center. There you go.
Give me that edge. Welcome to another illustrious episode of your favorite
podcast, Pocket Cast. I'm Ed. With me today is my fabulous friend Fletcher.
That's me. Yes, thank you for being here today Fletcher. I really appreciate it.
I do what I can. Fight through sickness, illness, and anything spiritually unholy just to be here
with you. I appreciate that brother. Of course. I appreciate that a lot. This is a special,
special day. We have a special treat for listeners at home. This is a squeakless episode. We've got
no seats. We've got no seats. No squeaks. None of that frou-frou shit. We ain't sitting. We're
standing. I don't see that on TikTok. I see a lot of podcasts come up. Everyone's sitting. Everyone's
lounging. It's not good for the knees. That's right. Or the back. Or the back. The soul. Mine's
screaming right now. Probably from sitting all day. But it didn't start until I was standing.
That's the evil coming out of you. That's right. Radiating, radiating away from me. Praise.
Praise be to Mario upon this March day. Our Lord and Savior. Our Lord and Savior. Hallowed be
thy name. Mario Christ. Super Mario. Super Mario Christ. Oh, you know that there's a hack of that.
Someone's made that game where it's still Mario, but they've replaced all the sprites with Bible
related things. Oh, dude. There are some insane Christian video games. I'm not even saying this would be
Christian. I hope this would be a non-Christian making this game. Oh, just a straight up rip. Just a fun ass. There's no
squeaks, but there's some thuds. My proclivity for absolutely smacking the shit out of water
bottles wantonly is insane right now. It is insane. If I was a water bottle, I wouldn't want to be anywhere
near you. It would be dangerous for you. I'm like five for five right now. Taking my water bottle away
from you. That's a good call. That's a good call. We played the new amazing Super Mario Bros. game.
New Super Mario Bros. I don't think there's a they, the in there. That's the one we played. Yeah, I remember that.
I looked it up probably like 15 times and I could not get the name straight. I was like, it's the new
Super Mario Bros. 3. I remember you sent me the message. You're like, what game are we playing? I was like, I can't. There's so
fucking many of these games. Let's play you say that because on my card I have new Super Mario Bros. 3.
That is a game. That's a hack someone made. Oh, it's a hack? What? Very cool thing about this game is that the DS
version, because there's new Super Mario Bros. which is on the DS, there is new Super Mario Bros. 2 which is on the Wii U or yeah something.
Maybe it's a 3DS. Okay. There's just new Super Mario Bros. same title on the Wii. Okay. And that's one way you can do co-op
running through and fucking with each other and throw each other off. Oh, what? Dude, that sounds fun as fuck. Yeah.
And which was originally supposed to be in the DS version, but they cut it. What? What? Yeah. All right. So as I was saying, this
version that we played is one of the most it's out of all those, it's the easiest one to hack. And for a long time, the Mario games and
2D platformers have been where modders, hackers, game designers and makers kind of start cutting their teeth at, you know.
Ah, okay. I'm going to reskin this Mario game. That's the easiest type of modding. Still not easy. Right. But that's where you get
into it. And then, okay, now I'm going to learn how to modify the game. Huh? Yeah. Okay. I would not have known that. There's ones
where they put Sonic in the game. What? And so you can now play through it to Sonic. That's fucking sick. Okay. There's a lot of
cool modding that they have people and modding is a weird word because you hear modding and you think like download the files.
But I just mean like they modified the game. A hack, I think a ROM hack is probably the most accurate definition of what I'm talking about.
Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. That's fucking dope. Okay. I did find that in searching for this game on a few occasions.
There's a million of them. Yeah, that makes sense. That's pretty cool, actually. I didn't know that. I guess it's the original OG
internet predecessor to the Mario Maker games. Yeah, I guess you could say that. Yeah. Yeah. I can see where you're coming from on that.
I've seen some insane shit on that. I've never played it. Fucking wild. But I always like to see to the levels that people's kids make.
Monsters, dude. Yeah. Like what the fuck? Just impossible levels. Or some are just silly and weird and just like they don't make any sense at all.
All right. All right. We'll run it. But you start a kid doing that at three or four.
Then they're gonna be pretty good at that later on. Yeah, no shit. I can feel my nose just continually getting stuffier and stuffier.
And then it will like relieve. And then so my voice keeps going like up, up, up into my nose like this.
You know, I hadn't actually noticed it until you literally just started talking. I knew immediately what you were about to say.
Yeah. That's disgusting. It's life. Yeah, it is. I had pink eye last week. This is my last day of taking drops.
I shouldn't even be near you right now. Nah, it's fine, dude. I haven't touched poop in at least 12 hours. Yeah, that's really good for you.
Yeah, I guess. That's what everybody keeps telling me. I saw something a lot of people said that this game was kind of poop.
What? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this might be the first like time I've sat down and like attempted to play like an actual Mario game that wasn't a 3D Mario game.
I fucking loved this game. Yeah, that's how I felt, too. And even like when I first played it, I loved it. Coming back to it, I loved it.
And I was thinking about some of the comparisons they make are kind of some fair comparisons, like going from Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World to this one.
You don't have nearly the amount of power ups. Oh, so that's I think a main complaint there.
And I think the majority of the complaint is actually kind of on the series, the new series itself, because it doesn't grow like the old Mario games grew.
But it's like those were groundbreaking and like game defining things that they were doing.
So, yeah, sorry, you can't build the wheel twice. Once you build the wheel, you have to end up making like the fucking Ferrari to have any more.
And yeah, fair. It doesn't have that. And I can see why you would have that expectation coming out of Mario.
But I thought it was a good fucking game. I enjoyed this. I love the the feel of the amount of control you get on Mario.
Whereas in previous titles, it's and I think it's maybe just because of the animations or I don't know.
I mean, it's also they took a lot of his 3D movement mechanics. OK. And brought them into a 2D realm.
Got you. And that gives it that more fast jumpy. See, you get what I'm saying?
I do. But I do disagree with you on a fundamental aspect of your perspective.
And that is that you liked it. I fucking thought it was trash. You thought what was trash?
Just the movement. I think the big Mario is a slippery little fucker that can't stand still.
And he needs to chill the fuck out and maybe just like take some static inputs slow.
You're going too slow. Now, I mean, I feel like going fast was absolutely an issue for me.
Did you watch the Super Mario 3 speed run that I sent you? Fuck. No, I did not. Oh, man.
I did not. That is I brute forced the shit out of this game. I meant to I meant to save it and like watch it like today or yesterday or something like that.
Totally forgot about it. We'll watch it. And I think you'll see what I'm talking about.
The best way to play a Mario game is like it's a Sonic game. Just full throttle.
See, I was I was crawling through those games, too. See, hold that run button and fucking jump.
Yeah, but like there's like gaps and shit. You can jump on things. You can jump on things, but like there's gaps.
There's gaps. And that's what I was telling you about is pulling yourself back in the air.
When you watch anyone speed run these games, or that's good at these games, they're jumping and
then turning back to where they jumped from. Like just immediately. Yeah, just immediately when you jump.
If I'm jumping to the right as I'm jumping, as I'm hitting that jump to the right, I'm now going to flip my character so that he's facing the other way so I can pull him back over if I need to.
If I'm fucking that jump up, because when you're doing that fast enough, your momentum is launching you.
Okay, yeah, we did talk about that and I totally also conveniently very much forgot about that also.
So that's kind of a bummer. Yeah, you experienced it in a juvenile way.
Truly. Yeah, it's in the truest truest fashion. Absolutely. So having played Super Mario World recently,
you prefer that movement over... No, they're both dog shit. He's a slippery little bastard.
What's your preferred 2D platformer? Do you have one?
I'm gonna give you a hint for yourself. Honest to God, Croc.
I know Croc as a 3D platformer. Oh yeah, dude. 2D, baby. I don't know 2D Croc. Oh man.
I think I had it for the GBA. It might have been a color game. It sounds like a color game.
I think it might have been. Croc, I feel like timeline wise radiates me towards more of Gamecube,
because Croc didn't make it on a PS1. It's really sad to hear because we've had this conversation before,
and initially I wasn't aware that Croc had more games, much less 3D titles. I was like, what the fuck?
I could be wrong, but I think it's originally a 3D title. What? And I could be wrong.
I could be wrong. It could be an older game than I realized, but I think of Croc 1 as a 3D platformer on the PS1.
Croc 2 is the same way. It's one of the first games that I had, and I really enjoy it.
It's a hard game because it's tank control. I was gonna say, isn't it tank control?
Yeah, and I've gone back and played it. As I got older, I always wanted to go back and play Croc,
because now that I am saying this, I'm really thinking that it was one of my first games.
Yeah, same. Absolutely one of the first, like Donkey Kong Country, Croc.
Game of War Color. Absolutely. I don't remember if I got a Zelda game immediately, but I definitely
had those two, and I absolutely got my hand on like Seasons and Ages. Oh man, a golden era for young Ed.
I remember going to a Boy Scout camp, and there was a kid in our troop. He was one of the older kids.
Yeah. He had a Game Boy. I'm assuming Keller with him, but I almost want to say it was actually an OG.
Either way, he was playing Link's Awakening, and anytime he died, he was restarting his game.
Oh shit, OG hardcore, huh? Damn, dude. He beat it like that on that trip.
For the first time and shit? Well, I mean, it wasn't his first time beating.
But I mean, under that restriction? But his first time beating it on that restriction, yeah.
Fucked, yeah, dude. It was pretty badass. That is so sick.
That was a wild experience. I think that was one of the things that really made me be like,
I want to play this game. Oh, so then it's such a like,
I feel like Link's Awakening is to the handheld Zelda games. What this game was,
the Super Mario World, right? The new Super, no, just new Super Mario World. Jesus Christ.
No. No? New Super Mario Bros.
Fuck me, dude. New Super Mario, okay. That game, fuck, the comparison I'm making is that this game
is to the handheld Mario games, just because it's like, from my perspective, having played
basically none of them. This game seems to be, like you said, the blending of some of the more
fluid movement styles and maybe actions taken. Like just the movement over, it has this
3D taste overhaul. And from my perspective, also a pretty major graphical and stylization overhaul
as well. The last handheld Mario game, original Mario game to come out was on the Game Boy.
And then this one. Gotcha.
So yes. Fuck you. Yeah, okay. Look at me knowing shit, making
invalid points. You had Mario Bros. on GBA. You had
Mario Bros. on the Game Boy Color even, but they were just ports of the console version.
Right. Gotcha.
So you had the GBA, excuse me, the Game Boy Mario games were called like,
so they're Super Mario World, so this would have been Super Mario, I wish I could remember,
but it's similar to World, but it's not World. Gotcha.
And they are Mario games. Okay.
But they are very different. You might like those better, because it is a little bit more
sturdy, slower paced Mario. The bosses are really fun. The worlds are really cool and interesting.
The one that's on Switch that you can play, that's on the Game Boy emulator.
Oh yeah. I think it's like the second or first world that you're in, you're in a tree. And so
there's sap coming down and up in certain parts, and it's like jello basically. So when you start
to move through it, you like slow down. And if you keep hitting jump, you'll stay up and you still
just kind of move slowly. And they use that as platforming elements. What? Yeah.
Dude, that's sick. Yeah. That's a Game Boy game.
God damn, dude. It's a good one. I remember really enjoying that one.
Doing a lot with the little man. Yeah.
God, I miss the raw majesty and wonder of those games, but through the lens of my,
Christ, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year old self, I don't fucking remember.
Oh my God. That's wild to me. I still can't get over things like that.
What, that it was so long ago? Oh, that year like 12.
Oh yeah. I was in second grade. I was in second grade when I got my,
first grade when I got my Game Boy Color. Oh shit.
Yeah. No, I'd already been through the most traumatic experience of my life by that point.
Games are fun. Games are fun. They take you away.
They do, man. This game definitely took me back to
playing it the first time. And I fucking, the giant mushroom, people call it gimmicky.
Dude, I thought it was awesome. It was so fun.
I've only been able to pocket that one one time. And like one, that mechanic alone is sick.
Yeah. But I, I'm, well, I am admittedly terrible at this game, at Mario. It's, I'm like,
I think I got a lot better through the course of my play over the last couple of weeks.
Still pretty dog shit, but like I found some skips. I think I didn't actually play what I
thought was the correct way to go. Yeah. It's like, I think it was World 3 on the castle.
It's the one that's got like the rotating platforms. They have to jump between where
you can get up on top ropes. And then you can like do like a running jump and land on like a
little ledge just on the wall up high. And then you can like wall jump and flip up and then go up.
Well, look at you go. Oh dude. It was a bastard. It had like this,
this like upside down U shaped box that had no bottom. And it was on a trolley trail thing.
And you have to like hit the switch and then you have to just continuously wall jump between the
platforms as it's going elevator. Oh, I think I do remember that.
Bro. But it goes straight to the boss. The wall jump. What a fucking fun,
cool mechanic in every game. Any game that I play that has a wall jump or like a wall grab or
anything where you can actually interact with that wall. It feels so good. It feels great in
this game too. I will agree the requirement to like press and hold the direction of the wall that
you're touching and then putting the jump input as opposed to just being able to like,
I think more modern installations of this mechanic, you just kind of tap the button
or direction you're going, hit the jump button one time, you're good. You have to like press it
when you touch the wall. I like it better.
I like it better. Once I understood that that's the first few times I was like, what the fuck?
It took me a minute to figure it out. But yeah, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty freaking
precise and it allows you to like just kind of like hang and like slowly fall off the edge if
you want to take a second, which you have to do in that little box scenario. Cause if you get into
the corner, then you just bounce off the top immediately and just drop. Oh yeah.
And it's not a lot of space. It's like maybe like two and a half Mario's tall. It was a pain in the
dick, but I got really good at it. I had a lot of fucking fun playing this game.
That's like one of the most satisfying things about Mario games in general is the element of
if you die, if you lose all your lives, you have to restart the world.
Yeah.
So you might've just barely got past the second level the first time through.
Oh, oh yeah.
Now it's given you fucking hell. So now you're going to become a master at level two.
Right.
And then get back to level three and realize that was the one that was really giving you a
hard fucking time. And then you're going to master that one after having to now go back to,
it's so satisfying to go through a level that was really hard. And then after having done it so many
times, you're just like, I can't believe this is ever hard to me. Like this level.
Yeah.
That was the one I told you about six five was the world that gave me hell.
It's an underwater level. It's got whirlpools in it.
What the fuck?
It's got these, the green fish, I think that like when they see you, they'll kind of like
actually change their trajectory towards you. Whereas the red ones just like keep swimming.
These ones like see you and they'll fucking, but if you're too low or too high as your smallest
Mario, they won't, they can't get you.
Okay. Okay.
So there's just certain things about that level where you just, it plays you because
we have been feeding you this pattern for these past levels. And now we're trying to kill you.
If you follow that pattern.
Dude, this shit's so like intelligent game design immediately comes to mind.
Like the game absolutely fucks with you and like it escalates, I think beautifully in difficulty,
at least for me as a relative beginner. And I mean, I failed. Well, actually, okay.
So the first time I found that fucked up elevator, the wall jump one,
aced it the first time. No problem. Died immediately to the boss.
No problem. We'll do it again.
No, 15 dead repeats. Like I was losing my fucking mind. But like you said, you get to be a master
at something at a mechanic or just learning a level and it's annoying as hell, but then
it's super gratifying. And then you get to the next point and it's just like, go fuck yourself.
Jesus, like this is the first two levels of this world. What the fuck? It's not even like a
midway point castle or a big boy castle level. Like Jesus level eight, just fucking.
Yeah. Played 10 seconds. And that's me going from, and mind you, so you're when an interesting
element about this game is level four and six or four and seven world fours and seven or.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Those two are both hidden. Like you have to take a special exit out of
the level to get to that level. I could not find the one for four.
So I don't know if seven kind of teaches you some more steps, gets you hardened along the way.
Yeah. Because when it does it, it takes you from six to eight and going into eight, you're just
like, what just happened? It just got mean. This isn't fun right now, but it does become funny
because that's when you get to just go fucking fast. Just go for it. Know where you need to slow down
at. And then for the rest of the time, like just starting to memorize that level, fucking blast
through it. It's fun. It's really fun. The moment they introduce the bullets at you.
Oh yeah. Cause you can just like bounce off of them.
Yeah. And start flying through using that. And if you don't touch the ground and you keep
doing that, you can start ranking up lives too.
Well, at least that's how it was on the old ones. I didn't try it on this one.
Okay. I think, yeah, no, it is. Cause you can do that trick with the shell. Yep.
Oh, I forgot to even try that. Yeah. And it's kind of a precise trick. I think I've
could never fucking figure it out. Oh shit. Doesn't, doesn't sound like my thing. I will.
I'm not good at the timing. I'm, I'm constantly landing right in front of a goomba. And then
it's like, are you fucking kidding me? That is the most frustrating feeling.
You're going kind of fast. You're feeling good. And then you just land right where you think you
should. And it's not, there's a goomba right there. They knew exactly what you're going to do.
Yeah. I've had a couple of levels where I just cannot get past this one point. I just
always something stupid and it's always something different and it's all bullshit.
And then I finally get past that point, take three pixel steps to the right. And then it's like,
Oh, here's your halfway flag. I'm like, cool. I've fucking one life left. Dope. Yeah. I hate
that feeling. Great. Yeah. Cool. Good for me. Yeah. I, okay. I will say though,
totally down with the plight about not getting enough power-ups. Cause that was fucking,
there's nothing like having to repeat the same level starting out as mini Mario. Like that's
in like no stocked item, nothing. And then, no, you misunderstand what I said then. Oh, what?
They meant variety of power-ups. Oh yeah. I feel that there's only like four. Yeah. I hated the
blue shell. Okay. Let's, oh, let's, uh, let's talk about the blue shell, but let's, let me,
no, I forgot what I was saying before. Anyway, so let's go straight into the blue shell.
I hated it. The worst power-up ever. I watched a fucking video of somebody using it. I was like,
dude, I have to know like, what the fuck? Like there's gotta be some God tier players out there
that are like, actually blue shell OP. Yeah, there are. It is. It's fucking OP as shit. They're just
zipping and flying through a level. I can't figure it out. I didn't know you could like go like
across the ground as the shell, just like ripping through shit. Yeah. What the fuck? Even that's
not as easy as it. Like the way that you see people play it like that, it's, that's not. No,
cause they're still bouncing off of shit. And like, you have to try to keep your momentum up.
Yeah. I don't know. Come out of your shell. And the moment you come out, you get hit and then you're
lose your shell. Oh shit. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. No, I don't, I don't know how people do it. It's
hard. But it looks like once you master it, which is what this game is all about,
it is about simple masteries. Oh my God. You master it and you fucking own it. Yeah. That first
underwater, no, not the underwater level underground. No, the over water, the one where those big fish
that just will like fucking jump up, they go kind of high. And then like towards the second half,
there's a bunch of little fish that are jumping high and I'm like, dude, this fucking level is
pissing me off. That was a call back to one of the original Super Mario bro levels. And yeah,
it immediately gave me PTSD for something. I didn't know I had PTSD for it. Like these flash
backs of like, Oh, wow. Like, you know that feeling when memories get just shoved into your
brain suddenly. Yeah. It's just like, oh, my psyche. It was that exact feeling. But I blew right through
that level and thank God. That was that first world is just like a ton of callbacks. Oh hell
yeah. I really enjoyed that. I've gone back and played through the first world a couple of like
more times, even though that's not right now. It's just nice. Yeah. When I'm taking a fucking
beating by some of the other levels, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to just have fun playing
this game for a second. Get some power up. Yeah. Come back. I did hate having to do that sometimes,
but I did. Did I tell you, I finally like stockpiled an insane amount of lives.
I'm sitting on like 24 or 27 right now. You did tell me about that. Fucking absolutely cruising,
dude. I'm just like big king dick over here. It's an incredible feeling. Yeah. I don't think I ever
had more than 15 lives. That's still pretty good though. Yeah. It was pretty good, but I know I
blew through. I came up from like two, so I'm feeling pretty good. You'll get back down there.
Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Well, maybe not. You probably won't play the game again. I don't
know, man. I really want to. I have been playing more Ace Attorney 2. Not a lot. Yep. I did a
little bit more too. Then I did do a little bit more. That third episode is pretty fucking funny
so far. It is hilarious. It is such a funny fucking game. Although I do really enjoy it. I've enjoyed
both of the last two games we've played for entirely different reasons, but good games all around.
It's a good thing there's so many good games in the Indius library.
Fuck. It's a pleasant library to dig through. Sometimes. We've done a pretty decent job,
I think. We've gotten a good variety. Yeah. We like to cover a lot. We've still got like a thousand
episodes before we have to start sweating the bottom of the barrel. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And maybe
we should get some out of the way, but it's so hard to do something you aren't going to enjoy.
Next episode, the Barbie collection. I almost wanted to. I mean we got to do it eventually.
Yeah, we do. Not next week. Let's wait until I have a daughter or something.
You think it'll be a girl? I don't know. I think I'm leaning boy is my expectations.
Just due to heart rate. You can kind of judge things based on heart rate. Oh shit. Really?
Yeah. I don't know. Shit. I don't fucking. Yeah. When they tell you that you're like,
oh, that kind of takes the wonder out of it, doesn't it? But then they're like,
hey, but it can be different. You never know. Like that's only 90% accurate.
Oh shit. That's pretty fucking accurate.
It sounds pretty fucking accurate to me. Yeah. I'm not a doctor. We're not finding out. So.
Yeah, buddy. New pocket cast baby on the way.
Little pocket cast baby. Have to get a pocket cast onesie.
Oh dude. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I like that. That's a good idea.
Oh man. Merch line coming soon. Babies. We need to take an ad break. I gotta take a piss.
Ad break. I'm not doing an ad.
Did you know that this is so funny. I just feel like that, that YouTube video game thing,
that did you know? And then I can list off the, yeah. The songs for like the, the, there's this,
the music in this game, all the characters dance to a certain beat. No matter what's going on,
they do a little like, like the little dance move. Yeah. The flower in the game. Yeah.
Yeah. The flower in the game. So when you're going through, then listen, the music is playing.
There's like, I don't know if it's the four beat or whatever, but they all have like everything in
the game, like does a little move. The flower that you can pick up that gives you the fire power.
You're talking about the like power up items. Yeah. Oh, okay. That moves the enemy's dance.
They move. Oh, what? Oh shit. This became a TikTok trend, I guess, at one point. What?
Yeah. Where people were like copying this whole idea of that, like when something's going on,
like they're mourning their fucking loved one, but all of a sudden the music gets to four beat. So
they have to do a little dance, even though it's like the saddest moment of their life.
Well, it's dark as shit. I like that. Fine. Well, some of that shouldn't send it to me.
Cause I don't even know how to look for that. I had some fun looking up facts about this game.
That's fucking, that's wild, dude. That's kind of cool. Yeah. I think. Yeah, it is. All the
characters do a little, a little grief. I did not notice that. I thought they were just walking
around doing the thing, just being assholes. It's a quick little thing. You know, yeah.
I think it was just to kind of make the music a part of the game more so, you know, like it really,
it causes a little bit more immersion. Yeah. No, that's fair. I see that. I did love this game.
It was really, there was some cool like moments of discovery where I was like, I wonder, I wonder if
like there's, there's one green pipe cave tunnel thing that you can get into. It's just one of
those, which is like a single screen room. And then there's a green pipe on the other side to exit,
but there's nothing in the room. And you're like, what the fuck? There's just one Koopa fuck boy.
Um, but like the green tunnel exit pipe is like on one, like row of blocks. And so you chuck,
you know, you have to pick up the shell, chuck it down and it just bounces between and it slowly
breaks the, the one under the pipes. And then you have to do like a running crouch or, or take
damage and become little baby Mario or whatever, you know. And, uh, I fucked it up like three
times trying to figure out like the right way to time it. And just, yeah. And I was like, I, like
I was, that was kind of what I was thinking on how to do it, but I kept fucking it up. So I had to
reset and like, God, voluntarily, like restarting a level is, that's a judgment call. Is it worth it?
Almost souls like in that way, like, I know it kind of crossed my mind multiple times. Yeah. Like
just, I don't know, just the way the progression feels, I want to give it credit of being in similar
flavor and I'm making an exact one to one here. Like everybody chill the fuck, you know, I would
sit back down or whatever, but like, I still get some of that like rogue light flavor to it.
I mean, it's like the grand papi of. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Any flavor you get, you're probably
right. Yeah. That's, that's a good point. Actually. It's all, they're all, they all have roots. There's
a mechanic in this game that I despise that I see in so many 2d platformers that, you know, obviously
take it from this. If an enemy touches you, it hurts you. But like my, it makes, that makes sense
in these games because they don't have, most of them don't have an attack. They're just moving,
right? Like the hammer bros throw hammers. Some of them throw fireballs at you, but most of them,
they're just walking around. Yeah. When you get into like a Castlevania type game,
if I just bumped into you and you didn't swing your sword at me, I don't feel like that should
hurt me because it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt the enemy. Yeah. And that's a way,
it's a mechanic that made sense in this game. And then in every 2d platformer from there on,
when you play one where it doesn't happen, you will notice it and you'll never want to go back
to any other platformer. That's totally fair. Cause I'm like, you're talking about it and I'm,
I'm right there with you, but I'm, I've never like perceived that mechanic so individual,
like individualistically. Like it's just, I mean, obviously I knew that and you know,
right? Like you don't touch enemies. I just, that's, I took it for granted. That's what I'm
trying to say. Yeah. Um, and maybe that goes back older than Mario as well. You know,
I feel like it's got a, I'm sure if I was smarter than I am, I could sit down and think of one
pretty quickly, but I can't. So yeah, probably. Yeah. It seems like a mainstay of like video
games. You know, speaking of like heavily influential things, there's a heavy, heavy burden
that had weighed on us of like, do we do a, do we talk about this at the beginning or do we talk
about it? Yeah. We were, yeah, we were trying to figure out when we should, when we should bring
it up. So obviously by the time you've heard this episode, you will know that Akira, Tari, Akira,
Akira, Tariyama. I had it perfect earlier. Yeah, I know. Um, passed away. Yeah. The creator of
Dragon Ball Z. It was just the father of childhood. Of Dragon Quest. Um, not, I mean,
he's the artist for Dragon Quest. Right. Right. What I didn't realize until seeing all these posts
was the amount of like influence Dragon Quest alone has. Yeah. Is the shy guys that have gas
masks are based off of Toriyama's character. Cause you know, manga artists have a little character
that they draw. That is where they got that from. No shit. Uh, because he's got kind of a gas mask
deal and like a hood on his character. Sure. Yeah. Okay. You look at, what was that show? Desert
Punk. Dude, Desert Punk was so formulative for me. There's so much in that. And then the Pokemon
comparison of the monsters you see in early Dragon Quest game compared to what you end up seeing as
Pokemon, tons of influence there. Yeah. It's the list goes on and on and then the fucking Dragon
Ball, Dragon Ball Z, you know, that just speaks for itself. That's the, I saw there was a joke
that it got taken out of hand, but people took it seriously that the cartels put on a ceasefire
to be like, we got more in this fucking loss here, man. The creator of Dragon Ball Z died.
Well, not to, not to be a, a boomer approaching Facebook as, as truth in the same way that I
basically look at TikTok, YouTube and Reddit, which is basically how I consume information
across those three platforms. Let's be real. Yeah. So diving head first in with no thought of
what's actually going on for real. Supposedly like cartel crime on the day's new episodes would drop
was at its lowest because everybody's at home fucking morning. They're like, Hey, everybody
chill the fuck out. Don't fuck with me right now. I, I believe that. I believe that 100%.
Absolutely. Yeah, dude. It doesn't matter if you, because right now we're 30 year olds, right?
And that means there are plenty of other 30 year olds younger and older. I mean, it's, I think it's
a pretty wide spanning because we didn't get Dragon Ball until way after everything that we're
getting even later. Yeah. And you're not alone in that, you know? So I, and then there was those
things where I didn't realize, like I did, but I hadn't stopped to think about it until hearing
about his passing that how much Dragon Ball Z like was important and dude, like how so much
influence it's like, have you seen those posts where it's just a collection of all of the different
TV shows that reference? Well, the TV shows, but like it's like the excerpts from the written
statements by a lot of these other artists that were so heavily influenced and just they're
commenting on his passing. No. And some of these are like almost a eulogy, like it's just, it's
incredible, but it's just from so many, dude. It's everyone. And then you've got these like
artists collaborations where it, you know, representing, like I saw this one that some
artists had drawn up. I don't remember who it was, but it was, the representation was a bunch of kids
like at like a summer scout camp or something, and they're all around to like a fire pit.
And then the scout leader is, you know, like presumably telling a scary story. He's got like
a flashlight up in space and stuff and everyone's like, whoa. And so the scout leader is full-size
Goku. And then around the pit, you have like these kind of miniaturized like child versions of all of
these other main characters from like Demon Slayer. Yeah, I saw that one. Yeah, bro. I saw that one
and I'm just like, man, I got worked. I got spreadsheets to look at today and I'm sitting
over here crying at my computer at work. I think it was like 12 a.m. I just happened to like look
at Instagram. My buddy James had posted something about it and immediately, you know, it's one of
those things. And like I'm not, a celebrity death doesn't bother me usually. Like there's a lot of
like my favorite musicians that could die and I'd just be like, well, you know, such is life. So yeah.
This is one where immediately I had to Google it to find out if this is real. I mean, the
post that he had came from his like publishing house, you know, so it was like already pretty
real. But I fucking looked it up and I was like, yeah, that was real. And that was where I just had
to, I just sat there and I was like. Did you text me? Yeah. Like I'm glad to find out differently,
but like, or like from somewhere else, but like, that's not the day that I thought I was waking up to.
Yeah, that was, yeah, that was that one. That one like fucked my whole day up. Like I went into work
and just like so solemn, just chill as fuck. Like I was, I was just there. You been talking about now,
I feel like tear. Yeah, I just like it fucking hit, dude. I was like, because Dragon Quest 2 for me
is so, it's a game that has brought me so much pleasure. It's a game that has helped me dissociate
from terrible situations. It's a game that I still love to go back and play. It doesn't have any
negative connotations to it over, you know, we've discussed that before. It's every reference I can
think of in my life of Dragon Quest has been such a positive, enjoyable, funny experience. And then
looking at Dragon Ball Z now, I will say this and I'll get some hate for this. Dragon Ball Z made me
a violent fucking kid. Damn. I took the wrong message out of Dragon Ball Z. I think it's fair
to say. But I mean, I understand where you went wrong. If you go back and watch it now as an adult,
I think it's some fucking valuably good lessons of just being like, yeah, the toughest dude on
the fucking planet is just so nice. It just wants to eat food. I mean, he's like Buddha in so many
ways. Dude, Goku is infuriatingly amazing. The one that rocked me too was seeing the
post from the writer for Dragon Quest talking because like a couple of years ago, the
the original composer died. Yeah. And then now the artist died and he's just like, I don't,
I don't fucking like what the fuck? You know, like his, the way that his was written was just such
this just like unreal. These guys had to work together for fucking ever so hard, put so much
time into these games. And then he's just like, I'm solo now. Yeah. I'm the last one. This isn't
this isn't what I wanted. Yeah, that sucks. But it's also so cool to see Facebook just fucking
flooding with dude. So much of it and the amount of people that you're seeing post things that you
didn't know would give a shit about it. Yeah. It's kind of cool. And they had that gathering in,
I think it was somewhere in Mexico. They had the turnout that they had for all these people and
they gathered to all do like a spirit bomb thing together. Dude, I saw those videos. You're like,
oh, my heart. That is cool though. And wild, wild timing because we were going to do a Dragonball
Z game instead of this game. Yeah. Cause like mid recording, we changed up our plans. Yep.
So we ended up doing Mario, which we were supposed to, and this was not planned. Do you think it's
our fault? Yeah, absolutely. I've thought about that. It totally is. So I, uh, but we didn't plan
this either. We were, we are missing our recording day by a couple of days. Yeah. But originally we
would have been recording this episode on March 10th, Mario day. Oh, isn't that the weirdest fucking
time? So then what we did was we had planned already with last week or last two weeks. Now
after playing Mario, we would play the game that we had initially intended to play, which is Dragon
Ball Z, which would be just kind of perfectly timed. Yeah. For the episode to go along with,
you know, I was excited for the game already, but now it's, it's going to have a different touch.
I've been playing Dragon Quest 11 pretty hard right now. Oh yeah. Cause that was a game that
I think I've been playing that for like four years and I'm finally, finally getting close to, uh,
I think beating it. I don't know because that's the great thing about Dragon Quest games is they
were so good at making you be like, Oh, this game's almost over. Yeah. Like a hundred hours in.
No, man, you're halfway. Oh Jesus. I don't know if it's that extreme, but it is. That's cool though.
Fucking, I guarantee you put 40 hours in and you're halfway through the game. Not even. Not like,
and that's when like your big drop happens, you know, the plot twist or just the shocker.
That's kind of cool. And it's not even the biggest one because you're just, it's what really gets the
story going. You know, you think you're playing the game. The RPGs always do that. You think
you're playing the, you have the story. Oh yeah. And then it just, you're like, whoa, man, I'm coming
up on the end of it here. And it's like, all right, so now that tutorial is over. So now that you're on a tutorial island.
You're like, ah, what? I thought, I thought we just saved the world. Like, no, you maybe doomed the world.
Actually. And now you're actually the BBG. You're being conned at the whole time. I love that shit.
So I do, I can't, I want to do a Dragon Quest game so bad, but it's going to be a time where we have
to do like an extra long space between recording. I do. I want to be able to put some time into
a Dragon Quest game for sure. And it is also nice. There are some where you can, some of these games,
you have to grind. Some of them, it gives you a good amount of the story before it all of a sudden
is like grind wall. Yeah. So I think no matter what, you're still going to get a great taste of it.
When we get to it, we, like I said, we aren't doing Dragon Quest. We're doing Dragon Ball Z,
which is the Attack of the Saiyans. Yeah. It looks, it looks like a 2D top-downish RPG. Yeah.
And I'm, I'm here for it. It looked like we saw like what? A trailer, I think worth of content.
And it looks, it looks pretty cool. It looks, yeah. The animation in it looks awesome. Of course.
Oh yeah dude, oh man dude.
I kinda wanna go back and watch just Dragon Ball again.
I have had that same thought.
Cause that is,
I don't know if I've ever seen either one
totally in completion.
I'm sure, I mean I'm sure Dragon Ball Z I saw
as it was airing, I remember like running home from school
to get home in time to catch the beginning of Dragon Ball Z.
If you got there too early, you would have watched
Sailor Moon for a little bit
and then Dragon Ball Z would come on.
So you start to kind of get this little bit of intrigue
into Sailor Moon but you'd never admit that.
That's so funny.
So that's what, I'm sure.
I've been told I need to watch Sailor Moon.
I've never seen it.
I remember putting it on a couple episodes
and it's entertaining but it's high school girls
so it's like, this isn't for me.
That's fair.
And also they're not really high school girls.
They're 13 or 12.
But you know how anime is, they're high school girls.
Well and yeah, that's all we'll say about that.
So I don't know if I have,
I'm sure that I watched it from beginning
to the end of the Dragon Ball Z saga.
It ends with Boo, I believe is the last one.
I don't remember which,
because Boo's not done done at the end
because what's the arc?
Because then is it Cell?
Is Cell the last one?
No, I'm pretty sure, no.
It definitely goes, because Cell is before Boo.
Cell's the green one.
Right.
So yeah, Frieza, Cell.
Cell, Boo, Evil Boo, because Boo like splits.
Oh yeah, you get Evil Boo, nice Boo.
And then after that goes into Dragon Ball GT.
Is that where you get Majin Boo or is Majin Boo?
Majin Boo is part of the Boo.
Yeah, in Z.
Right, it's in Z.
Yeah, I think it is, yeah.
It's been a long time since I've seen it.
That's where I, like I know I watched
all of Dragon Ball Z I guess.
I just don't remember it that well.
I know there's a bridged version
that people say what you should watch
because the full of it's a lot.
It's daunting, yeah.
I haven't really seen much of anything after Z.
I've seen snippets of the beginning of GT.
I remember watching it a little bit,
but that's around the time when it was like,
it wasn't cool to be watching anime.
I do remember that and my ability and access.
Well once ability and access became an option again,
I was more interested in like girls and hood rat shit.
So.
Yeah, I feel you there.
I wasn't spending a lot of time
in front of the computer back then.
There are times where I'm very appreciative
of my hood rat days.
I'm glad I got it out before I had amassed
anything real significant to lose.
But at the same time, I sometimes feel like I missed out
by not just full diving into the nerdy not leaving.
Oh.
The basement.
Yeah, just be, what is it?
I know I didn't miss out, right?
I know I did, but you're always like, man,
I wish I had seen all that shit or fully dived.
Well and looking back, especially as we kind of dive
into some semi retro stuff through the DS and this podcast,
it definitely, one, is opening my eyes to all of the stuff
that I had missed as a kid.
And some of these I'm getting to revisit for the first time
or revisit even, not quite as often as you I think,
but yeah, to an extent still.
Sure.
And I've always wanted to play Dragon Quest game.
We're gonna do that.
And playing a lot of these other games
and just reliving the joy that I had in handheld gaming,
it's great.
I do like it.
Yeah.
Like Phoenix Wright was a big one.
Professor Layton was a big one.
I'm gonna want to play some of those games.
And now you have an understanding
of a Mario game pretty well.
Yeah.
I'm kind of bummed I missed out on that
because I've been sleeping on Mario and I would never
have said it out loud,
but I was talking some shit in my head about Mario.
I was like, oh, okay, little baby game.
And then I'm playing Mario and I'm like,
fuck this game, dude.
This game's kicking my ass.
Yeah, it is.
It's wild because people talk about how you can't take
someone, an adult who isn't a gamer and put them in Halo.
Yeah.
And you have to start them where video games
kind of start home console gaming really kicks off,
which is Mario.
Yeah.
And it's a wild thing to think about having played
how we have because the first level is doable.
Second level also doable.
Third level is underwater.
And it's kind of a pain in the ass,
but you can get through it.
The whole first world you can beat.
And it just progressively gets harder,
but it does feel like it gets increasingly steeper.
Well, it does a really good job of silent teaching.
Yeah.
Well, I say, I don't know,
because I do have a background in playing video games.
And like, even though I don't have a lot of hands on
with Mario, like I've seen enough gameplay to know
that there's some shit going on under the hood.
That's maybe not explicitly defined,
but even then like playing Super Mario World with Alyssa,
like she had the, is it the Tatookey suit or whatever?
And like you do a fucking back and forth, spin dash dive,
and you fucking fly up into the air.
Fly, yeah.
Dude, she was already blowing my mind,
ripping through some of these levels.
And then she did that for the first time.
And I was like, what the fuck was that, dude?
Like what?
And she doesn't even like know to explain it to you.
Oh, she would not explain it to me.
She was like, you have to figure it out
just like everyone else.
Like you mother fucker.
And that's bullshit, because I bet.
Well, like I didn't know there was a one button.
Okay, so I learned this literally days before we started.
I think we talked about it in the podcast.
For new Super Mario Bros.
I think we discussed it last episode.
I think we might have.
I think I remember blowing your mind
that there was a run button.
Two run buttons.
Yeah.
There's a sprint and there's a more sprint.
Also sprint, but if you do them together, it's more sprint.
It's more sprint immediately instead of more sprint
after sprinting for a while.
Yeah, I remember, yeah.
Blew my mind, dude.
It took me easily six lives to figure that out.
Because like one, she was intentionally,
I swear to God, she did this on purpose.
She wouldn't sprint until right before a jump.
So like, it took me forever to realize
that she was sprinting.
Huh, that's an interesting way of playing, I gotta say.
Yeah, well you get a significant like boost
when you sprint jump.
And I've used that.
I'll just like sprint jump.
Yeah.
And it's pretty.
I think I know what you're talking about now.
Yeah, but she would just like walk
and then right before a ledge, she would just like tap.
Yeah.
Push him like at the same time almost.
Huh, bitch.
Bitch.
God, I said bitch.
Yeah.
Yeah, good time struggling through what a game should be.
Super rewarding, grueling at times, overall fun.
Killer soundtrack as of course.
Yeah.
Visually stunning as we mentioned.
I love the fact that they have a 3D model,
but it looks so crisp.
It's just, you almost didn't even notice that it's 3D
until you see certain movements.
And it just looks so good.
Like you said.
It looks delicious.
I really, I really like it actually.
It's cool.
And I got a, Morgan and Ed got me a DSI for my birthday.
Oh yeah, happy birthday again.
Over the last week or two, I forget when it was.
I'm so jealous.
It is.
It is actually so cool.
I never know.
I remember when the DSI was coming out or yeah.
And I had a DS Lite and I just thought it wasn't worth it.
You know, the upgrade.
Also I was probably couldn't fucking afford it
if I wanted to.
Yeah, absolutely.
But oh my God.
And so since then I've just always thought like,
ah, DSI is a waste of time
because it doesn't have the GBA card.
That was back in the day when you couldn't run GBA games
on a DS card.
Right.
But now you can.
Now you can.
You can bypass that.
So now DSI is the fucking way to go.
I gotta say this D-pad, so good for this game.
Oh, so Chris.
So Chris, so mechanical feeling.
Everything about it feels good, looks good.
You can change that screen brightness so easily.
Dude, and the screen just looks better.
Like it is a fairly decent upgrade comparatively.
Like, and I thought, I thought the,
what is this, a DS Lite?
DS Lite, yeah.
Yeah, I thought the DS Lite looked great.
Yeah, I did too.
Damn.
And it's a little bit bigger, but like also slimmer.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it still fits in my pocket just fine.
I took it to work on accident the other day.
That's great.
Yeah.
I always take mine to work, but usually I've left it on.
And I keep a charger at work specifically
so that I leave it in my backpack
and it comes to work with me.
I can remember to plug it in while I'm working
so that way when I get off, it's charged.
That's hilarious.
It's ridiculous.
Like I used to keep it plugged in at my nightstand,
but I would forget to plug it in.
And then somehow just taking my charger to work
and plugging it in on my desk.
Hey.
That's how I remember to do it.
I'm like, geez.
I feel so cool, I have my DS on my desk.
No, I usually like hide it under a stack of papers.
That's smart.
I'm like, man, this feels like the nerdiest thing.
Do you think people even know what that is
when they see that?
Honestly, they'd probably look at it and be like,
why do you have an external drive plugged into the network?
It's not, I swear to God.
Why are you using a 2004 hand, what were those called?
The PDA?
Yeah, the PDA.
Yeah, nice PDA nerd.
Where's your pager?
Dude, I wanted a Palm Pilot so bad as a kid.
My dad had one, I used to mess with it
and just feel so cool.
It was so cool, dude.
Oh, fuck a pager.
I wanted a Palm Pilot.
Oh yeah.
I still gravitate towards styluses.
And unless you're shelling out for something like a fucking,
oh, like an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil or whatever,
or Apple Pen, fuck off.
Well, not that that's the only good quality.
There's a lot of other standalone tablets
that are actually really good.
But most of those are in the digital creative space,
which is sensible.
That's fair, it makes sense, I guess.
I guess they need the pens.
Yeah.
I had the Samsung Note.
Yeah, where you could get the stylus.
Yeah, I remember you getting that.
Fuck, I drew so many dick pics on my phone.
That's what I did, I was drawing dicks all the time, dude.
Meetings at work, dicks.
I wanna try to use on this DSI,
speaking of which, not for dicks.
They have the PictoChat
and there's another one on there for drawing.
And it looks so fun having seen people's videos
and I'm curious just to how it works.
Because it looks like it's a very easy to learn animator.
That's kinda cool.
If I'm wrong, email us at podcastpodcastatgmail.com.
No exclamation mark in there.
Not like our podcast name.
Right, we like to keep it simple.
Yeah, we're not yelling at you over email.
Correct, we're politely forecasting the truth.
Mm-hmm, we wanna hear from you.
Do you play the game with us?
Have you played the game before?
Do you hate it, do you love it?
Do you wanna elevate your Pocket Cast listening experience?
Play the game, but with us.
That's, yeah, that's the whole idea.
Come prepare to class next time.
Yeah, have some opinions coming into listening to us talk
and be like, you guys are fucking idiots.
You're just bad at this game.
Like, yeah, never died once, beat the game,
you guys are trash, accurate, accurate.
Send proof.
Yeah, send proof.
Send proof when you're gonna come with these words.
Right.
Know who you're coming at, Pocket Cast.
Right, send us via a polite email.
Let us know.
We might send you one back.
We probably will.
But it'll be vulgar.
It'll be rude.
We're rude guys, we're standing rude guys.
We are.
This was a, I like it.
I like standing in recording.
This is nice.
I think I should have worn shoes.
I should have worn comfier shoes.
My feet are hurting from the hardwood floor.
Yeah, these are sitting shoes.
They have hardly any soul to speak of.
And Jesus Christ, it feels like my shins
are standing on the floor.
So I think on that note, we're gonna wrap it up.
Solid episode.
Squeakless episode.
That's a wrap. Squeakless.