(soft music) - What's up everybody, welcome to IJN Game Scoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. And joining me here in studio, our parishioner, I'm with Limone, baby. With Limone, Nick Limone is here. - I'm back, baby. - And Justin Davis is here as well. - Scoop, but I'm not in the studio. - Not in person, but in our hearts. - Oh. - In our hearts. Got a great show for you this week. We're gonna be picking our best, what we think of the best games available on the Nintendo Switch online service. We're gonna be taking a look back at the GameCube, which has recently turned 25. We got it, it's a listener mail episode. Lots of good listener mail questions in this week. - But first, we recently talked about how much we like Star Wars Galactic Racer. Pear has already finished the whole thing. - What, finished the whole game? - It's not, look, it's like about 15 hours of campaign gameplay. - Okay, look you bad. - Like, good players can probably do it faster, like Nick. - Is this the second coming of burnout? - It's, it's really, really good. I mean, I just, I started it and everything just, everything from the setup to the sort of reward system, to the speed, to the feel, to the sound design. I was, I mean, it's Star Wars. - It, it for a first time, it's not a first time developer, but like the studio's first game, it's, it's insane. It's like such a cool Racer, it really, like I was worried that I was gonna be put off by the rogue light setup that you have to like replay things and you can bail out in the middle of a championship. And I was more of like a, you know, I was thinking, I'm more of a purist, I want a championship. And when I, when I finish it, then I unlock the new levels. This totally works. It's the reward, the risk reward mechanism in this game is so freaking good. You can like, pick your path on a map and you can choose to do the more difficult challenges that could knock you out in one or two goals. And like, you get better parts for it. And so once I became more courageous, I was most successful in the game. I went back and I watched episode one, okay, which I don't recommend to everyone, don't do it, don't do it. - My kid, the way, the look and feeling, how it replicates that, you know, there's, obviously there's the tattooing Boonta Eiff track. It sounds exactly like it looks exactly like it feels like it. And once you soup up your pod racer, by the end, it's, it's almost, you have to have the force to be able to make it through. It's insanely fast, yeah. Like you haven't seen this in the footage yet. It's just nuts. Yeah, the game looks incredible also. - Yeah. I booted this up because I needed a little bit of a palette cleanser, incredible opening. - Yeah. - I just love, it does the Forza Horizon thing where it kind of sends you on different snapshots of different racers, very cool setup. But I was like, let me just jump into the good stuff. Like I want to jump into the arcade mode. I jumped immediately into Sabolba and the pod racer, immediately blew up. It was so fun, it was so fast, I was definitely not prepared for how fast this game was going to move. But I look forward to actually taking my time, getting invested in the story mode and jumping in, but man, it is beautiful. It's not a unlock, a more powerful cooler car kind of game. It's not a unlock new level kind of game. Like the progression is all about specking out your vehicle and some of that stuff carries over. Obviously like the powers you can unlock, you can then regain and they weren't always, they aren't always open from the beginning. But the way Sabolba in particular is woven into the story, like he's just hanging out and he's like this retired racer from a bygone sport that's no longer been done. And he's like, he's just shooting the shares when you talk to him and he's like, oh yeah. That's a really good Sabolba. Oh, great. And he's just like oozes cool too in this game. Yeah, I mean, I can't say enough good things about it. I think it's a little light on content overall. People are upset that it doesn't have split screen multiplayer, but it has online multiplayer. And they just expanded the number of players I can play. It's like one of those games. If they do issue additional sort of campaign chapter packs, there's street chapters in the game and they add another two planets or something, then I think it'll have the right amount of content for me. But oh man, I think everybody should play it. It's just so, so well made. Just so many great ideas. And in the end, I walked away and said, I'm glad they're completely messed with the championship set up from games because it is like when you win, it feels so good in this game. When you actually make it to the end. It's well that within two months, we got galactic racer and zero company, which is also fantastic. I was telling Perry, she'd play that next. Yeah, I was playing Fire Emblem guy. You're a Fire Emblem guy, so. I am in this, I'm unfortunately, I also have to play Fire Emblem, what play? I watch a lot of Fire Emblem and then it lets me play it once in a while. Yeah, yeah, that's a big share. It is a very, very wordy game this time around. I like over the last generations. But I mean, galactic racer, so far is my favorite game of the year. Wow. It's my number one. And you know, we'll see where Fire Emblem and Castlevania and obviously there's a game called GTA, I think. I've never heard of it. A Zelda Ocarina of Time Remake. We'll see what it ends up being, but right now it's my number one. Cool. Very good choice. All right, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Remember you always reach us at the email address,
[email protected]. Just like Alan and Appleton Wisconsin did, who says, I am an older gamer. Same. I have owned, sorry, I'm an older gamer that recently bought a Switch 2. This is the first Nintendo console I have owned since the NES. My console journey went from the NES to the Genesis to the PlayStation where I have remained a PlayStation fan ever since. The first thing I didn't switch to is download various classic libraries, but there are a lot of games to wait through. I think they're over 220 something games on there right now. So he says, other than the Zelda games, what are the best games to play from the classic libraries? I don't know why he's discounting the Zelda games, but maybe he's like, yeah, I know I've got to play Zelda. Boy, you already know some. OK, all right. And he says, what are the games have I missed that I should catch up on with the Switch 2? And I think it's interesting because I always like picking the best from these lists are available. But what he's asking is like, I've missed out on Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, GameCube, presumably Game Boy and Game Boy Advance. It's like, he's missed on, yeah, it's by picking the best games. You're also sort of telling, this is the story of Nintendo during this time. So I like that. This is Nintendo's journey. I got to look up for games are actually available. I mean, I got, I've replayed a bunch of these games on the service. Like, first of all, if you have the subscription with expansion pack, you obviously have more games, right? You can play N604 and GameCube on top of it. But even even the old library stuff is really good, right? We see Dr. Mario here, which is, by the way, the N64 version with four player, is one of the most addictive multiplayer games you can still play on any system. But it's got all of the good Mario's. So you didn't mention Super Mario World. You got to play that. Super Metroid has two fantastic GBA Metroid games. That are, that feel as fresh today. And then we get to Fire Emblem. It has two incredible GBA Fire Emblem games. And then an even better GameCube Fire Emblem game in Path of Radiance. And then on GameCube, obviously, you have Wind Waker and Super Mario Sunshine, some really with cool games, yeah. I was going to ask if you would recommend Fire Emblem on GBA, because unfortunately, the Advanced Wars games are not available. No, the two GBA games are very good. We'll eventually get them. But the Advanced Wars Erasure, it's just, I can't abide it any longer. Well, we get as fire, we're on Fire Emblem game number 45. 'Cause they made a remake. Yeah, I think you can't. Yeah, they wanted people to buy the Reboot Camp. Unfortunately, that's missing the fantastic chunky pixel of the Advanced Wars games. It's like half the reason I like playing them in the first place. So Fire Emblem, you'll be surprised how good the GBA Fire Emblem games are. They are very chunky looking like sprite wise, but you get so used to it. And then the battle animations say, all hand-drawn, they're so good. Yeah, the way the Pegasus Knights swoop in, it's, I actually think it's cooler looking than what you get today with the fully articulated stuff, just because of the craft involved. Yeah, I think the GBA ones are my favorites, actually. Have you played Path of Radiance? The Gamecube? Path of Radiance, I think it's still the high bar, in my opinion. That and Awakening, I think, are still my favorite Fire Emblem games. But the GBA ones, like Sacred Stones, fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, and obviously Nintendo Service has some big gaps, namely that because Konami and Capcom and Square put out their own collections, you don't get all the great classics, but there's some good Genesis games on there as well. Yeah, Castlevania Bloodlines. There's another one I had on the tip, but apart from Genesis, like Super Nintendo, I think obviously Super Metroid is a no-brainer. I think you've got Earthbound on there, and let's jump to GBA. I mean, you gotta play Minish Cap. I think you can also pro-tip if you're listening out there. You should make a Japanese account, that way you get access to the NSO Japanese store that has different releases. You don't really need to understand Japanese in order to play them. I think it's also included in the English store, but on the GBA specifically is Kuru, Kuru, Kuru, Dean, which is where you are, just a rotating-- - Good, good, flat piece of wood, but you have to basically navigate. It's very fun, it sounds boring. It is super duper fun, but N64, Paper Mario, you gotta play Paper Mario. Easily, I think the best RPG, and maybe the only RPG on the N64. - Yeah, and then obviously-- - So it's a mystic quest, but it was a little bit kiddie, but, yeah. - Oh, it's Quest 64, you mean? - No, that's not in there, but a Banjo-Kazui, a Banjo-Tui-Eye in it, and they're really, really good. - This is Kuru-Kuru-Ri.
Kurukuru. Kurukuru means to turn in Japanese. So this was a whole, they used to be localized as irritating electric stick and like weird names back in the days. And then yeah, this is the Nintendo one. But yeah, the, the rare games are there, right? So you've got, except for like Mickey Speedway, you've got Jet Force Gemini, which with the default player controller setup is completely unplayable. It's really funny. And the, the button mapping by default was, was always terrible. But now you can customize. But Banjo Kazooie is, is such a great platform. It's new to this day. It runs really nicely on the machine. Banjo 2E is actually improved because the frame rate is better than the original I-N64 release. And then yeah, Donkey Kong 64, if you want to play a game that looks like the Banjo games, but is just not as inspired and kind of just worse. Yeah, it is. It really is. It has good moments, but it's so disappointing in how the puzzles unfold versus the Banjo games. Great intro though. So at least do yourself a favor and listen to the DK rap. Yeah, so it has some really cool worlds and, and ideas in it too. But it's just a little bloated. A game I like on the N64 that I was actually genuinely surprised is on the NSO. Windback. It's a third version cover shooter. I really like that game. I think it holds up and I think it's weird that it's on the NSO. But. There you go. It was basically Temu Metal Gear back when it came out like it was. We wanted something like Metal Gear on the N64, so we're all hyped and we're like, man, it's fine. Also cool for cool points. Demons crest on the Super Nintendo. Very good game. That's the Capcom joint. Good, good Halloween game too. Super ghouls and ghosts is also on that, which is also very fun, but very hard. And you need that rewind feature for it, which is great. There's a bunch. I mean, I, the N64 NSO, I mean, you know, Goldnye is on it. Yeah, 1080 snowboarding is on it. It's still the first one you playable and super fun. Way for it. Sign in punishment is worth playing. Oh, yeah, you got to play that one. Yeah, there's actually, I mean, like you hear us talking about it. There's unfortunately a lot to catch up on, but, you know, you know, your favorite genres. It's only 30 years. What you absolutely need to do is play both versions of Nobu Nagas and Vision and Vision. Yeah, you don't need to do this. Okay, Monpuzzle League. It's just like, there's just so much to do. I was, I mean, I think did the person writing in, they said we didn't need to do NES, the starting with the SNES. Yeah, he had an NES. So, yeah. Oh, well, I just like, I think that out of the NES, like obviously Mario 1, 2 and 3, but like the game that I'll go back to and just pop into and play is punch out. Like, well, it's just a perfect video game, like punch out of the 10 out of 10 video game that I don't think it's talked about enough. I agree with you. I agree with you that punch out is perfect, but also super punch out. It's also very good. And that's on beautiful. It's zero GXs on it. Yeah. Slept on game on the Game Boy, Super Mario Land 3, Wario, Wario Land, is that what it's called? Wario Land 3. Yeah. That and Super Mario Land 2, the six Golden Coins, fantastic Mario games. Super Mario Land the original. It doesn't, it's fine. It's really cool looking. Yeah. But, yeah, it's not the Mario Land series got exponentially better as they went along. But man, the Wario sprite is so good in Super Mario Land 2 and in the Super Mario Land 3. But then if you also, if you get yourself a hundred dollar plastic virtual boy case, you can play a really good Wario game, a very good Wario game. Probably the only really good virtual boy game, but, you know, Jack, what is the Atlas Jack Frost game? It's pretty solid on the virtual boy too, not. Yeah. Just, so what we're saying is that just play them all in order. But if you say, if you see made by Jaliko, it's okay not. So they're about 30 games you should skip. One more I want to shout out is a Chibi Robo on the game. Yes. It's on Nintendo Switch. So it's a fantastic game. Very cute game. I want to shout out paneled upon, which is what's released here as Tetris attack, but Nintendo put it on Switch Online as pound upon because they weren't going to license the Tetris name again. That's right. Which by the way, it's got to be one of the most disingenuous things Nintendo has ever done. Release that game as Tetris attack. It has nothing to do with Tetris. They had the license, but it's a fantastic puzzle game and its own right. So we'll just put this out as Tetris. That's right, paneled upon. The paneled upon is a fantastic game. Yeah. All right. I think those are those suggestions. That would keep Alan and Appleton Wisconsin disease. That's 400 hours plus right there. Good luck with that. Yeah. Yeah. For 400 hours plus is Fire Emblem, Path of Radiance and one more game. We didn't even mention Donkey Kong 94. This is Charlie Gadson in San Diego
, California. He's got a two-parter says, "Hello, soup. Happy 25 year GameCube launch anniversary." That was a couple weeks ago now. In recent years, the GameCube has gained much more popularity than it did during its lifecycle. Has it? A quick look at its sales numbers. It really is astonishing how little it sold about 21 million units in five or six years. A paltry return for a system that truly has some all-time greats. What is some of your favorite GameCube memories? And since hindsight is 2020, what are a few things Nintendo could have done to make the little guy more competitive? I mean, more games, more first-party games. But I mean, it has some pretty great library. It's some decent ones, especially in early life cycle, especially. We never quite understood why it didn't pop, but it definitely had something to do with image and how it went up against the PlayStation, which at that point had become a sort of a cool, grown-up lifestyle brand. And then when you saw the GameCube console, first of all, it didn't look as cool. I really appreciate the design. And I love that it did something different. But it was just sort of like lots of stories of the limitations of the system, where it's different. And it didn't have a clear online strategy. And yes, the disk only holds this much data. So there was all this sort of stuff around it. I have that one, the Panasonic Cube. It's so cool. It's always broken because of DistraySucks. But when you now look back and you look at the lineup, it's freaking insane, right? You guys talked about Rogue Leader about that game. That came from the third-party side. And then first-party, you also had Timesplitters, third-party, really good shooters. But this is the system with Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine. And like, yeah, just some of the coolest games that Metroid Prime are infinitely replayable today, which is what you should be doing on Nintendo Switch online. But was it an opening salvo at launch, though? Because I feel like there was a little bit of a drought up at the beginning, because Luigi's Mansion was like the only real game at launch. It didn't launch with Mario, yeah. Well, but in the same, so it wasn't launch day, but like before the end of the year was smash. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, so that's like an Alps system. You know, and Luigi's Mansion. It's like, it's not bad with regard to like, first three months of the console. So it was a very powerful machine. Like, Metroid Prime, Rogue Squadron, and the Resident Evil remake, I think those are like some of the best-looking video games available at the time. Yep. And it had a really just overall, like, a great library. I think, I think the damage had been done in the early 90s. Like, as soon as Sega started telling people, Nintendo is not cool. Nintendo's lame. It's for babies. A lot of con. Yeah. Well, and then the sort of, like, they could never escape that reputation. The switch of Final Fantasy to the PlayStation during the N64 age. I think everybody realized that Nintendo was really good at making cool games in 3D. And then it got to this GameCube era where like, I mean, honestly, Pound for Pound, the GameCube was not just competitive. It outperformed, you know, the PlayStation in many ways. Like, it was displaying in 480p. So like, if you go and play Star Fox Adventures on Nintendo Switch online now, you can pop it into widescreen. It looks almost like a modern game because the GameCube was set up for 480p. And so some of the smarter developers were already adding widescreen modes, early widescreen modes to their games. And so it was competitive. It had expansion slots for modem and all of that. Remember PSL, Fantasy Star Online? Yeah. You could actually play online, which was one of the few games that you could do that with. Everything on paper looked really good. And then it launched with Luigi's Mansion. And so you didn't have that must have Mario, new experience effect that you had even with the N64. Yeah. I have a real soft spot for the N64. It came out when I was in high school. And I was just getting to be old enough that like, you know, we were driving to each other's houses and stuff. And and something that hasn't been mentioned yet, although some of the games have is that it had a holdover from the N64 with its four controller ports. And so the GameCube was the party console. Like that was like, that was a really big deal. And so like, just I don't know how many hours, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of hours of Super Smash Brothers melee and Super Monkey Ball wanted to Monkey Target and the other mini games. And some of the Mario parties were pretty good. And just like, Perry, you did mention Time Splitters too, which, you know, I don't know that I ever played it on a PS2, but like I surely must have been a superior experience in the GameCube with its four controller ports. So like we played, we played a lot of Time Splitters too. Like more, like for me in that era, I was playing Halo 2 and Halo, you know, a Halo 2 online. And then time Splitters too with my friends. Like that was like the routine that I was in. So your favorite memories are multiplayer. Mine I think are centered around
the industry events and the reveals for the GameCube. There were some really cool moments of showmanship from Nintendo. I mean, I remember vividly going to E3 and seeing Metroid Prime running for the first time and just going like, what, like, where did this come from? They let you play the entire opening mission which is visually and mechanically really cool and strong. And then, you know, we're like, can we capture this? They're like, sure, tap in and we plugged in, we got direct feed footage, which is like the last time Nintendo ever did that. Now they make you record footage over the shoulder and some weird stuff like that. But it was like, it just felt like they were really proud of the visual fidelity that they're outputting. And then that continued when they did the Capcom 5 announcement. And they showed off, like, Resident Evil 4 and you're like, the Resident Evil remake was incredible. The way it looked and the way they used pre-rendered backgrounds and then you get this game, you're like, wait a second. Now it looks like that in real time, you know? Did you, were you there when they revealed like the original version of RE4, like the castle stuff? Oh, that's so cool. - With the blowing curtain thing and stuff and we're like, oh my goodness. - Oh my goodness, yeah. - Isn't the game view there where your most famous meme comes from here? The Geysine 4coma photos? - Yes, yeah, that's right, where the meme was born. We, was it? - Yeah, with the Pac-Man reveal first? - With the Pac-Man reveal, we genuinely looked bored in the press conference and then a year later, we stayed for excitement picture. But it wasn't that big during that era, it just sort of grew over time, like, it metesticized into the beast that it is now, son of a gun. - We also, I mean, a lot of the, a pair you already made mention of this too, but I just really want to underscore, like the GameCube is a little bit of a reputation for being underpowered and it's just not true. - No, it's not true. - A really, really powerful console and so for me, like, yes, most of my memories are multiplayer games, but like, you know, in that era is like SSX tricky and SSX three and, you know, like, second week in a row, I'm mentioning beautiful Joe now. - Yeah! - Capcom, read out! - That's how Capcom's live are like. So these games that are not, you know, they're not GameCube exclusives. All the beautiful Joe obviously started that way, but like, I associate with them with the GameCube and that's where I played them. That's actually the first console that I played, like Tony Hawk games on 'cause I don't have the on PS1. So like, it was still getting everything that was, that the PS2 was getting, besides, you know, the Sony first party stuff in that era. And so, it was great. Like, you could own, you could get away with having just a GameCube and you didn't feel like you were like missing out. - No, and like, they were pretty feature complete, right? This was the beginning of online gaming. So it wasn't Nintendo hadn't yet bowed out of competing with online play, right? Like Microsoft really, really led the pack there and just sort of outperformed everybody on online. And so yeah, when you, I had all consoles and when I had to make the decision which platform to get something on it was usually the GameCube version. We had the comparison in the office, like usually the GameCube version had all of the features, but look just a little bit, ran a little better or had four players out of the box, you know? - I'm seeing a reappraisal online of people evaluating third party releases as the GameCube being the definitive place to play third party releases. And I'd be very curious to see how true that, how true that is for all of the, you know, multiple releases. I think unfortunately that I think the big lack of GTA is the thing that really drove the GameCube away from American audiences. Because GTA 3 was a phenomenon on PS2 and that momentum would build with Vicidian San Andreas. - You missed out on all three of those, GGS. When racing games maturing with Gran Turismo 2 and you know, just there were a couple of things going on in the PlayStation that were more sort of modern mainstream friendly that weren't happening there. But like as a reminder, like the N64 era is also notable for the absence of some of Nintendo's most beloved franchises, right? We never got another Metroid game on that platform. The GameCube was different. Like you, you, you, new franchises started, like Pikmin. - Pikmin. And that H Fire Emblem coming to the west on a console for the first time in a major way, right? Like GTA was, was obviously a handheld. And so you've got Fire Emblem, Pikmin. You had Luigi's Mansion starting off. You had Wave Race coming back. You had F0 coming back with GX from amusement vision. Fantastic race or one of the best races of all time, right? So you had all these games and then they played around with Star Fox and turned it into a Zelda like. There was just a lot of cool stuff happening on GameCube but it just felt a little underappreciated and sometimes hidden. Like the mainstream gamers were not, more not noticing them. - Yeah. I also think like the addition of Nintendo creating this kind of ecosystem with stuff like the GBA player. Like having that connectivity at launch for Metroid Prime where you would get the fusion outfit in Metroid Prime as a result of using that GBA player or eventually they would release the GBA link cable for the GameCube. So you could play Crystal Chronicles Four Swords. Four Swords Adventure fantastic game and just so fun and exciting. Like playing Wind Waker with the tingle tuner on your Game Boy Advance was so fun. - Four Swords was so cool. Like when you went into a dungeon, the gameplay shifted to your own personal device. - So good. - And others couldn't see it. The only problem is if you ran out of battery, the game would end all together because you couldn't charge and plug in at the same time. So it was all like really cool experiments that weren't fully baked. - Yeah. I think the last thing I'll say is I think the sports, the Mario sports era on the GameCube is also really strong. Super Mario Striker is really good. Mario, what with Toadstool Tour, Mario Golf, Toadstool Tour is I think maybe my favorite Mario Golf game I would have to think about it. But like it's just, it's like all of them, like the tennis game on the GameCube is pretty good too. So it was a great era. - They did everything. I mean, they literally all had Mario and Madden and like they did all this crossover stuff with the day at the time. So every single sports had Mario in it in some way. - As all sports should. - Yeah. Also, again, I think we are discounting the GameCube controllers still beloved to this day and it is a thing that is commonly adapted for third party peripherals. And I think Nintendo is cooking with those analog triggers. - It's so funny, was it the Wavebird controller? The Wavebird is the wireless one. - They were just so awesome. - It's a fun fact. I don't know how fun it is. But like if you play Star Fox Adventures on Switch 2 now, the shoulder buttons don't click anymore. And a lot of these games, including Mario Sunshine, were designed around the clicky shoulder buttons where you do analog spray and sunshine. If you click, he's locked in place and you can shoot around. And so with adaptations, you need to hold down like a shift key and additional button. They didn't do that with Star Fox Adventures. They instead of using the secondary shoulder buttons, they make you double tap them. So when you're flying, you have to double tap to do a barrel roll, which is fine. But when you're trying to strafe, it's almost now impossible. And there's actually a developer code in the game that you cannot execute on Switch 2 unless you have the GameCube controller for Switch. - Improved because of the click. You need to do the click. - You gotta get a GameCube controller. - Gotta have one if you want the level skip and developer access. - Hit the Wavebird, man. What a controller. I think everyone on, my production team has a Wavebird that they own that we occasionally break out for melee. - One thing the GameCube was missing that I don't think we've mentioned yet is a DVD player. - I mean, yeah. - Yeah, PlayStation not only had GTA, Gran Turismo, it was a cheap DVD player. - It was a huge selling point, you were right. And Japan got the Panasonic Q, which just to be clear is not a replacement. It's not exactly the same thing. So, but it does look cool. - It does, so it actually had a digital audio output, but that could only be used for the DVD portion. Whereas with your PlayStation, you always had digital output. It was like two machines in one, rather than an organic DVD player built in. - Yeah. Well, obviously we're all big fans of the GameCube. On to the second part of Charlie's email, I've been thinking it's normal for certain game genres to go through dark ages. For example, in the late 2000s, early 2010s, many will remember complaints about the quality of JRPGs. With that said, we're to some notable gaming genre dark ages you can think of. What are your favorite titles from that time? The best of the worst as it were. It'd be interesting to go back to see how some of these are holding up today. I thought of two genres I could think of. First of all, survival horror. In the post Resident Evil 4, era, five and six, and even like Dead Space 3, just kind of like forgetting what people liked about the series in the first place. But then Resident Evil 7, sort of in dark age, yeah. And the other one was Western RPGs. After 2015, we got Witcher 3 and Fallout 4. What did Bethesda do after that? Nothing with Elder Scrolls. Fallout 76, Starfield. - I mean, I would argue even Cyberpunk at launch was a very big disappointment. - Cyberpunk at Disappointment. - It was a big mess, although they eventually brought around. What happened to BioWare? BioWare did Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem. And it just seems like the Western RPGs of Elders, after they. I think we're seeing a resurgence now, though, with stuff like Blood of the Dawn Walker. - Oh, of course, I mean that. - It happened with Baldur's Gate 3. - Kingdom Come Deliverance, 1, 2, 3, 4. No, I mean, it's hard to say, like, some genres seem like they're kind of gone forever, but I've been around long enough to know it's like, well, look, like everything is cyclical, right? So it's like, I think about, I used to be a huge fan of real-time strategy games. Warcraft 2 is one of my favorite games. Starcraft is one of my favorite games. And every couple of years, someone tries to like bring back like you know we're bringing back
that classic RTS feeling it like it just doesn't quite seem like people are ready for it and it feels like maybe they never will be again. But for a long time point and click adventure games were just completely dead, right? Right. And they're back. They're back and thriving. They've carved out a niche for themselves. So I would kind of I would never say never. And I would argue even a game like Indiana Jones is more like the classic point and click adventures, right? Like it's more about the exploration aspects. And so there are more games that are have the courage to not be centered entirely around action, kind of like an amnesia, the dark descent, you know, these first person experiences and maybe the David Cage games, maybe the walking simulator, you know, the disparaging term walking similar. It's an adaptation of the adventure. They there are a couple of genres that are still in that sort of drought and like downtime. One is extreme sports never came back. Like there was this heyday with Tony Hawk and then Sean White and there was like freaking Ricky whatever winter bottom and it was like wakeboarding and every every sport got you get like the sort of X game treatment. And they were they were really popular for a while and then I want to say but Activision kind of ran it into the ground. Then we had music games and like I thought music games would continue forever. I'm like thank goodness. I have 19 guitars and drum kits at home. And then it just died and every freaking song I bought is on some hard drive in a in a closet somewhere never to be found again. And so those two genres have never fully recovered from the heyday. They tried bringing guitar hero back with like what four or something. I mean right now there's like the stage tour which is starting to gain a little bit of steam. They had some pretty cool activations at San Diego Comic Con where they're wheeling out a portable arcade cabinet with the guitars built in just up and down like the street in San Diego, which is pretty neat but totally agree. I got a drum set just burn a hole in my parents like shed. Yeah. And then they're like can we get rid of this? I was like no, it's going to be worth something. I think for me I think I would argue we're still kind of in that right now despite the shot in the arm that Astro bot brought the character platformer. I you know for I mean we all know platformers ended at Glover 64 and no one's ever made a good one since. We can play that and realize it's not that great. That's a joke. I don't really like that game. A chameleon twist fantastic. But like I think we we saw like a possibility of hope with something like Yucca Leili but the big kickstarter campaign for it. But I think that game was pretty disappointing for everyone so much so that they've had to remake the game as Yucca Replayly. But Yucca Leili too, the impossible there. Fantastic slidescrolling Donkey Kong S game. But I don't think we've got a truly good 3D character platformer since apart from Astro bot. Yeah. Even to them. Yeah. Yeah. Not giving us any more. Odyssey I guess. I'd be like yes. Well that continues like that. Well that's also Odyssey like look Odyssey is absolutely a 10 out of 10 game masterpiece but it's not really in that kind of arcadey platforming style. It's more in the Mario 64 like you know poke and prod and kind of it's style. So it's it is a different thing than Galaxy like Galaxy 2 is probably the last truly great like platforming focus 3D mascot platform. Yeah. The millennials yearn for their character platformers. Yeah. I feel like you know as long as we have Astro bot and Nintendo making them it feels like a lively genre whereas during the N64 age the Metroidvania had disappeared for a while right like Konami on the GBA did a nice job but like even like on consoles the Metroidvania sort of discipline. We got sympathy of the night. That's when you got the GBA ones. That's when you got sympathy of the night. Well we get to be fair though. We didn't get a Metroidvania Castlevania until the second GBA release because the first one is not a Metroidvania. Yeah. It is a castle. And then and then what game is that? Heart is not art not Arya. The one before Arya. The one that is not a Metroidvania. I don't think so really. It is. I think they're all. I think they're all. You're thinking of I know when you're thinking of you're thinking of the there's three on the GBA and three on the DS. And it was the first one on the GBA or that's a Metroidvania 2. One of the DS ones is more linear. Circle is a meadow. I think they're all Metroidvania. Yeah. Metroidvania. That's not what we're saying. You're right. I'm calling the cops. I think you're right. I think that Metroidvania has moved to handhelds exclusively when it comes to the 2D games. We did get the evolution of Metroidvania. Games like Arkham Asylum are essentially 3D Metroidvanias and obviously Metroid Prime. But now it feels like we're back to the Golden Age where we have both. We have games with item gates sort of systems where you progress whether they're and even rogue-like versions of that gameplay. And some really really excellent ones. And we're seeing a lot of Indie games go bar for bar with the greats like Metroid, like Hollow Knight go bar for bar with Metroid Dread and Castlevania. Principle. This is Aaron who says hello games who grew. Long time, listen here. You've been a constant for me since I started following Greg Miller's antics and he joined the cast. This is not to say I call myself a serious gamer these days. I usually get into gaming mode during the cold main winters and typically play one game at a time. I'm 57 so I get to count myself as having a game system since it existed way back to the Sears department store version of Pong on our Black and White TV in the 70s. I love Nintendo. I've had every console up to Switch 1 except the Wii U, of course, smiley face. So that's me. This brings me to my query. I think there is a significant population of Switch owners that never play handheld like me. They like to sit. This is Aaron, not Damon saying that. Like me, they like to sit back and take advantage of the huge TV in the living room with the pro controller. Do you think Nintendo would ever come out with a screenless Switch 2? The price would likely be considerably lower. I bet they'd sell a bunch of folks. Bunch two folks like me or multi-switch families just curious what the Omega Cups think. We got a 3DS that was not 3DS. So yes, the answer is wouldn't Nintendo, yes, if it sees the advantage, like if chip prices and import taxes remain high, they might say, hey, let's release a cheaper version that removes the screen and all that sort of complicated magnet rail stuff. And can they still call it the Switch? Well, I mean the 2DS is a good example of, yeah, they would still do it. You can call it the Switch TV. Switch home, the no switch. The difference though between the Switch and 3DS is that the Switch is the second best-selling game of all time. And it's only a few million units away from being the best-selling console of all time. But you could make a cheaper version of it, call it the Switch at home and sell a couple more units. We have the Switch at home. Yeah, I mean, I think they could, you pull out the screen, you pull out the battery, you take off the Joy-Cons, you could redesign it, it could even be a little bit bigger and then maybe the internal components could be cheaper if you don't have to create micro components to keep the weight down. Do we, I played the Switch 1 for 99% of its life, all of Breath of the Wild in handheld mode. Wow. I was living in California at the time, and we had much smaller place with one TV. And the big TV was also right next to the bedroom. And so I just, like I played in handheld mode. I didn't do a lot of TV gaming back then. And now my life, like my house is laid out differently. And now I'm not sure, I'm not sure I've ever played my Switch 2 in handheld mode. I've done a complete 180 and I have switched. So it is nice to have the flexibility and the option to, you know, play in TV mode or play on the go. I travel with it. So, yeah, when I go on vacation, I bring a Switch with me and like, you know, my family lives in Germany, that's a 13-hour flight home. I get a lot of play time done. Yeah, that's a 2% advance on fire. That's exactly what I was just saying. I got there first. Ironically, I do play games like that, where it's like the sort of missions that you can play. But I play a lot of games where I don't mind not having headphones like your Picross and that sort of thing. You got to be ready for dinner. You had to be ready for the drink car. Exactly. You don't only hear those one or two Picross tracks and three songs and you can manually switch the one when you can't be bothered. That's with that. I am 98% home only, like Doc only. And 2% is just when I travel. If I'm hopping on a plane then I'll bring my Switch in. That's the only time I operate handheld. I got a nice TV. I'm trying to use it, you know what I mean? When my kids visit and they bring their Switches when we play something like Mario Kart, then it's like one TV and then people sitting on the couch with their handhelds and we sort of do mixed display gameplay. I'm surprised. I think there are two Picross games available on Nintendo Switch Online. You neglected to recommend them. Oh, well, the old ones. They're so clunky. No, Picross, the new Picross games are so good because the interface is so fast and slick and perfect. So when you go back to Mario's Picross and you're like, she's all the way to the stone, like ting, ting, ting. I'm too impatient for that. Yeah. That is true. The new ones are quite nice because you can just mind-meled with the game and then you just become one with the game and then you're not thinking about the controls. So the Picross for the iPad generation, dude. Yeah. Okay, this is Dave from Dallas, Oregon, not Texas.
He needs some help. I think we can help Dave says love the show. I really appreciate the weekly gaming news and laughs I have a question for the scoop crew my social media is flooded with ads for new handhelds with thousands of classic games built in Seems like there are a few brands on the market retro kid and Teco They look very similar if not identical I'm very interested but I can't figure out which one to go with whether they are the same or even whether they are any good Have any of you use one of these is one better than the others are they all the same? Thanks for any help you can provide so We're gonna we're gonna discuss like legal backups of your own Yeah, yeah during the segment correct. Yeah, make sure you dump your cartridges. Yeah, I mean There are a lot of devices that exist on Amazon for three weeks and then disappear that come pre-loaded with 500 popular games a lot more than that Now I played contra for the first time in one of those like one in five hundred game things my cousin had Yeah, it was my cousin arrest time analog pocket which I love because the display is so good And like I just would never go back to the original hardware to play these games And yeah, you can I mean you can play a neo-geo pocket on that thing you can play GBA whatever you can play arcade games on it if they fell from the sky into the device So I don't know these particular ones. I've never seen them in action So there are a lot of retro You know gaming handhelds available today and then the prices have come way down in the there's just a lot of there's a lot of good options Yeah, I don't think retro kid or teko are one of the good options get a mew mini plus. It's 50 dollars Yeah, the form factor of a game boy and it can aim in that games through PlayStation. It's 50 dollars now. It's crazy Yeah, well one thing I'd encourage you to do is also Like I think to Paris point something like the analog pocket is this beautiful device that is like a premium product Don't get me wrong. It is very expensive It's expensive, but I think if you have all of your cartridges And you've dumped them. This is a great way of playing it in a game boy form factor But I would also recommend checking out the YouTube channel retro game core who does an excellent overview of all of these third-party Android devices and he does such a good job of breaking down the differences that between Identical looking devices. So take a look if that's interesting. I think Justin and I are big fans of the AYN Thor and Just AYN in general Yeah, I was gonna shout it out. I don't have a Thor. I have a AYN Odin. The Odin. That's right. That's right Odin is a single screen the Thor is the deal screen. Yeah, the Odin is the PSP or PS Vita form factor and the Odin and the Thor is the like 3DS form factor Yeah, so I can give you the like 60 second crash course You know Nick just alluded to it a lot of these handhelds from companies like you know Retroid or AYN it AYN They're usually Android powered and so they're they're basically running a stock or sometimes modified Version of Android like it is just an Android device and then you know They're booting into kind of like a custom interface that looks a little bit more like a video game console But you can you can back out you can get into just kind of like raw Android and so You're downloading emulators that that are you know Android emulators that if you had a Samsung phone or whatever You could get the same emulator on it, but these are obviously made to have good buttons good shoulder pads There are Windows devices too. I mean look. This is steam deck, right? There's so there's like, you know, these are these are little mini PC's So you the three pads you can go down our Linux for something like the steam deck or Android or Windows and Then from there, you know use use resources like you know Retro game Accord to figure out how to get it all configured and set up and you know back up your you're legally on copies of all your video games and they run the gamut from you know for something that's 50 bucks can play Games from the 90s or maybe a little bit newer or for $100 or $200. You know you can play games that are a little bit newer a little bit more modern Yeah Yeah, I have that me you many plus that I recommend it for 50 bucks another good option is the anbernick rg 34 xx sp which is a Game Boy Advance sp clamshell style It's only $65 and you can play through the dreamcast on that I think so I think there's pretty good hit rate with anbernick AYN and Retroid I would be cautious of anything that isn't one of those three brands just because I Know say tend to be a little bit on the cheaper side and a little more prone to breaking and things like that But your mileage may vary Yeah, well, you know do your research like there's there's like those three are reliable and it's not to say that others aren't But just like you know look them up first. Yeah, this is the me you many plus to have There's a really cool community that I want to shout out which is retro achievements where it's people go into the people go into Old video games programmers do and they add achievements to them and then if you're running You know if you're playing a game on one of these consoles and set up your retro achievements account They're logged to your account and you can master the games at 100% them when you unlock the achievement It pops up in the corner of the game like you can it's crazy the first time that you unlock an achievement in Donkey Kong Country is a wild feeling And so and it's really it becomes really addictive It becomes really fun and an excuse to go back through you know and play old games and and They do I've been following this community for many many years and they've been getting smarter and smarter about the Achievement sets it's not like do this impossible thing that no one could ever do but they're they're laid out really Thoughtfully there's a game design element to like you know like play the game in an unusual way or you know It's a good excuse to go back through and recontextualize these classic games We're definitely in a golden age of retro gaming handhelds right now lots of good options out there All right, that brings us to video game 20 questions our suggestion this week comes from someone who says Hello, Damon in the scoops my name might be hard to pronounce for you so you can call me Jay Jay Anyway, I'm from the Netherlands. I have two kids both boys So I'm pretty busy at times don't have as much time to play games as I used to but the universe provides and I was hit by a car And broke my hip and hurt my back pretty badly, so now I have some free time to play games the universe provides indeed He fell off the bottom of what a monkey's paw wish. I wish I had more time to play video games really Oh, no, don't never He says I ordered the game astral chain for the switch which is one of my back. Oh yeah looking forward to playing that I hope you like my pick for 20 questions, and I will see you on the next scoop With that let the questioning. What was his pick? Oh, well. Oh, Oh, sorry, Justin We'll be playing today by I did count though. Yeah, one of these days. It's gonna work. Okay, 19 questions lit No, that wasn't a yes Let me yeah 70s 80s or 90s none of the above Wow I wonder if it's a GameCube game. We spent a lot of time talking about GameCube. Is it a GameCube game? Yes I mean, he's in the action games. We know that from the astral chain. He likes platinum games grasshopper beautiful Joe This might be a little bit tough because we named dropped a tremendous number of games But have we named this game on this episode? No, what is the platinum games with a dinky little superhero? It was called again a wonderful 101. Yeah, it's all a game wonderful wonderful 101's pretty underrated. Does the game name have a number in it? No, okay, not what not wonderful 101. Yeah, and not a sequel. So that's kind of a clever question also not the 1080 sequel Yeah, exactly Could be way for a full storm. Yeah, we didn't mention it Not a game developed or published by Nintendo. No, that's five Okay, was this game available on the PlayStation 2? No, I know. Okay, not a third party. Well, I think it's I think it's PNO3 except that has a number That is a number in it has a number in it and it's unless it's an oh is this from a Japanese developer. Yes, okay GameCube Japanese developer not a number could be a sequel still if it doesn't have a number We named so many good we mentioned so many so Okay Wait, what sorry what was Japanese? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I'm cranking through Through publishers. Well, let's let's think I mean Capcom was prolific. Yeah on the on the console We named all the Capcom five surely Well, Resident Evil 0 we didn't mention. It's got a number in the title that's a good question. But it's Is this John Ra maybe do we want to go with genre perhaps? Yeah, I think it's oh, I guess I named Super Monkey Ball Well, wait, oh, wait, oh, you never said that today Well, I talked about the multiplayer and how much I used to play with my friends But also, I do think I think it's probably tales of symphonia or an RPG that I think like some like Botan kaito, so we didn't mention the game man. What a stack line up the game skies of Arcadia. That was a tree Skies of Arcadia Legends is so good. He said not bring it back. He said not published by Nintendo So it's not like custom robo or something is this a Value to buy by Nintendo is this an RPG an RPG. Yes. Oh, is it published by Sega? Yes. Oh, is it is it? Do you pirate a sky chip in it? I think so. It's this guy's of Arcadia Dude, this game is so good. I meant to shout it out when you're talking about the game cube It's so you know skies of Arcadia came out on the day
Dreamcast in to that it's not like it's not bad on that console But like they did it was ahead of its time because now everything gets re-released as like a game of the year edition or revised or enhanced edition And like this was one of the earlier games to sort of come out a few years later with some new stuff in it They added a bunch of cool like sky bounty missions where you could fly all around and like this is a game game Yeah, this looks like an until 64 game. I don't know. I don't know. This may or may not be. Maybe this is the dreamcast version What was the guy's name? It wasn't it like vash or something like that Vash some like that. Yeah, yes, dude What it like this is such a like they don't they don't really make them like this anymore The game the game is very grindy. I will say that it is not particularly fun to revisit But I think there's some quality of life stuff. You can find with your legally dumped version of the game That one of that will streamline some of the progression I'm gonna be honest with you. I like I really hold this game in high regard like I love it And then I'm watching this footage now and I'm like book Yeah, this is not this is not quite how I remember you have to be willing to deal with some job, but is this legend? Very original. This is I don't know. I actually never played skies of Arcadia. Well Ah, that's a dreamcast one. Yeah, I don't think the game All that much better find the find the game conversion. Yeah, but we also wait the here's I can the thing that it's really really great about Skies for Arcadia legends is it has a really really excellent and well-tuned and dialed in sense of adventure It's like it's like grandea in that way like you really feel like you're going on an adventure with your buds and like You're I don't know why like it's such an obvious and evocative video game theme of like you're flying around in an airship around These sky islands and like zipping in and out of clouds and like the overworld had just such a great feeling to it Um That's that's what I loved about it like it was great. Honestly the cheat code to making a good game is just make it like Nusica Like everyone loves a castle in the sky just do that Yep, this this does not look better yet Okay, it looks it looks their hands are not as blocky. I would argue this looks as good as like wild arms three on the ps2 Yeah, this was so this was originally a release on dreamcast in 2000 One year later they announced they were getting out of the hardware business and becoming a third party publisher So they brought this to a gamecube they put everything on gamecube They did originally say go was like the biggest Nintendo fan all of the sonic adventure to still beloved to some Yeah, they didn't announce this for PlayStation 2, but never it never made it out This also as I don't think part of the reason I said they should bring it back And call them cowards because I don't think this game is like ported you know second never talks about it never acknowledges it Like it's not ported. It's not on any online service It's they never got up rest and put on steam like it's just forgotten like I feel like between Between us talking and this episode posting Nintendo is gonna put it on gamecube classics Yeah, and then all of this is out of date Justin that was we like these guys were what were they talking? Really cool designs a great character design. Yeah, look at pippi long stop Here. Yeah, I had a cool combat system too And like what is it overworld where you could fly the ship around? Who doesn't love that? That's what I'm saying. It was the best Well nicely job. Thank you for the suggestion Jay and the Netherlands viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions Email them to me at the email address
[email protected] and that's all the scoops that we have for you this week Thank you pair unique thank you Justin and thank you to joe over working behind the scenes to make this episode possible My name is Damon. This is ijane gamesuit and we're out It's all around and the night when the cold wind blows No one cares nobody knows I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again For a picture of the sacred place Yay, thanks. Just like good stuff. Just in lockdown to that one Yeah, it was it was your RPG heart I meant that we moved off the gamecube segment and then I was like oh I meant to talk about more of those RPGs and then You know, then we had moved on so yeah But take like do you when you when you do this you realize how many gamecube games there are That we haven't seen again since this just so much stuff out there. Yeah Capcom 4k release of p.10.03 when's it gonna happen? See you guys later happen to that later. Thanks Justin. Bye bye. Bye Justin So here's the thing. I don't ever want to say it on the show because they'll come after me I do like
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