Get Played - 40 Years of Super Mario Bros.

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Heather, Nick and Matt look back at 40 years of Super Mario Bros! They talk about some of their favorite entries in the series, what makes Mario endure, their first Mario experiences and more! They also talk about WarioLand for the Virtual Boy (prior to the Nintendo Direct announcing it's return), Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the book "A Theory of Fun for Game Design" by Raph KosterCheck out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpodMusic by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Elfen Lied go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. And now in honor of Super Mario's 40th anniversary, we present a clip from Get Played in 1985. Hey, y'all play this new game, Super Mario Brothers? Yeah, it's really, really good. I'm really enjoying it. So the game involves moves movies. moving from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen. And so you can walk, but you can also jump.

Yeah, I kind of don't see how it's going to really cut on. Guys, I'm sorry. You guys, you know that TWA airliner has just been hijacked. Wait, what? There's 133 people on board. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a hostage situation. Ah, I don't know.

It's 1985, and this shit's crazy. That is crazy. Do you think it's so crazy that I should cancel wanting to go to the movies? the breakfast club later? No, no, no, no. You know what? You know what? I'm just going to turn off the news for a while and try and focus.

Yeah, let's try to focus. What are you guys talking about? You're talking about Super Mario Brothers? Yes, Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Oh, is that the one with the robot? Well, yes, they have Rob, the robotic operating buddy, but actually not involved in playing the Super Mario Brothers game at all. In fact, what you use is it's like a joystick, but it's like a little square

that you hold, and the buttons you press with your thumb, not your finger. It's a little bizarre. And you move with a D-pad, which is like a cross that you can press different directions. It's definitely an adjustment, but

you know, I'm enjoying it. I'm sorry. I can't focus. I just heard about the Achillespie. It's a cruise ship. Oh, my God. A cruise ship's been hijacked. Jesus. It's just a cruise ship and a plane. It's 1985. That's so crazy.

Crazy. I got it. Guys, real quick, I'm sorry. I hate to take a break real quick. I'm just so thirsty. I've got to take a sip of my new Coke. Boy, that looks good. I got to have one of those. Ah, man, that's new Coke for it. It's really good. Drink or stink? I think it's a... You know what? I miss the old Coke, but there's no way we're ever getting it back. So I guess it has to be a drink. Those days are gone forever. I like, just back to the, the order of the day. Here's what I'll say about Super Mario Bros. Although I guess I guess you, it's spelled B-R-O-S, but I Yes, it's actually brothers. Yeah. Bross? Yeah. Bross, yeah.

I was so confused by this. Super Mario Bros. Because also there's only one of him. Yeah. You can, so there's Mario. Well, here's a thing. Yeah. There is a second one if you go into two player mode.

No shit. So you press the select button on your controller, which again is like a square that you hold, and you can press Start to go to two player mode. I'm so sorry to interrupt. Yeah. I don't know if you guys saw this. What? Hulk Hokeon and Mr. T.

Just defeated Paul Or Berndorf and Rowdy, Rowdy Piper. Not Piper. Yeah, Piper, he took the fall. It's WrestleMania 1. Yeah, it's WrestleMania 1, which I assume it's got to be more WrestleMania. You're not doing K-Fabe, are you? I'm not.

No, fuck. You know what that means? No. Goodness that the hostages on that plane all got out of. Totally safe. Oh, okay. That's good. We, yahoo, and let's a go, as we celebrate 40 years of Super Mario Brothers this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, Tiger Weiger along with their third host, Mr. Games, Meta-Badaka. Hello, everyone.

Wow. Very affected. We should give some context for, I mean, like, I guess, everyone. Because we're not primarily, primarily a video podcast, though we do release some clips. You have a, Matt is currently wearing an Oasis bucket hat and sunglasses as well. And sunglasses inside.

Yeah, Heather did the sunglasses the other day, and I thought it was really cool. But I did see Oasis when they came here to the Rose Bowl. Wow. And I bought the bucket hat. This was an after concert purchase. I already been in the merch line. Wow. My wife and I loved the concert so much that we both bought bucket hats.

Fuck yes. That's incredible. It was just good stuff, and I figured I'd wear it because, honestly, to honor my friend Heather, but also, I was like, I got to get on record that I wore the hat at least once. Yeah, pretty exciting. Pretty good stuff. And you know what? You kind of forget that you're wearing it. Yeah, it's a different type of hat.

Oh, yeah, I don't forget. No, you don't forget. You're looking right at me. But you put a bucket. Really the only thing I can see. You put a bucket hat on. Also, the funny thing, the reason we got two. One did not fit both of us.

Well, you're not going to share a bucket hat. No, no, no, no, no, we kind of thought we could get away with getting one. Yeah, sure. If they had one that was, like, magic and fit both of our heads. If you got a tiny little head, I got a big one. Yeah. What are you going to do? But it kind of feels different than a normal hat.

I'm usually a hat wearer, right? Baseball cap kind of guy. Right. Yeah. You put that hat on, you're sort of just like, okay, like, I know this is on. This hat's shrouding my whole peripheral vision. Yeah. I can see the hat in my, you know, in mine eyes.

Yeah. But after a while, you kind of just get used to it. It's kind of just like part of your head. It's like, I, are people going to look back on this era when baseball hats are so omnipresent and kind of like be like, but I know it's not the same as like back in the 50s, you know, when businessmen all wore hats. But I mean, that was like, I feel like the first half of like the American century was just like like men by default were wearing hats. Yeah. A top hat. Yeah.

Well, yeah. But these, whatever the standard sort of business. hat is. I don't know what... Fodora? I guess it's a Fodora. Oh, I see what you mean. You know what I mean? Like, there was like the standard businessman look for a while and those kind of,

those kind of fell out of fashion, I guess, in the 60s. So do you think that the future is going to have no baseball cap? Well, I do, no, I just wonder, will it be the sort of thing because there's where it's like kind of a curiosity where there will be an occasional baseball hat in the same way you'll see an occasional fedora in the wild. But like, you'd see a picture of a bunch of people all wearing baseball caps now at, you know, at a baseball game, certainly. I was going to say, yeah, I was going to say a baseball game.

Yeah, good place to wear one. Yeah, but I don't know, just any sort of crowd shot. I feel like there's a lot of people wearing baseball hats, and that's not always going to be the case. No, that's, that's true. I wonder what the next hat will be. Who knows? Maybe we'll, maybe we're done with hats. Bucket.

You think it's going to be bucket? I don't know. This is the only one that I have. Back. Wow. Bucket. Actually, you're right. You know what, Heather's right, actually. Welcome back, Bucket Hat.

Rancher producer, Shell Chen. Do you ever wear a bucket hat? I own a few bucket hat. I feel like you're mostly wearing baseball hats. I like the idea of a bucket hat, but I don't know why I just don't like it on myself. Got it. Would you say hat by default? Is that kind of your standard look?

It depends if my hair is washed or not. Got it. I had never purchased a luxury good from one of the big brands, the Berberies, the Louis Vuitton, the Gucci's. I never purchased one. But Liam Gallagher wore a Gucci bucket hat. Wow, that's pretty good. And he took a lot of flack for it because he's a man of people. Yeah, of course.

So he stopped wearing the Gucci Bucket hat. But I was like, I have to go buy my first ever luxury good. Yeah. So I saved up some pocket change and I went and I purchased the Gucci bucket hat. Yeah. There is no time in my life that is appropriate to wear it. Yeah. You can wear it here.

I can wear it here. I kind of broke the seal. Anyone can do whatever they want now. Well, I mean, that seal was long broken. All right. There we go. You're ready for next week. Nick comes in the Borat singlet.

Heather's Char. Actually, yeah, the Char Helmet was the real steel breaking. That's right. What char helmet? You're right. You're right. I forgot. Yeah, you're right.

Did Char guest on the show? No, no, no, no. No. No, you know it. I love charm But hey I know that I'm sort of wearing Like a different thing

And I'm kind of putting out Maybe a different vibe right now It's still the same old me Yeah that's what I like about it, Matt Is that I know at its core It's still the same old you No matter what accent you're speaking with That's right

I might try a different couple other ones later You know what I'm going to do a change right now I'm going to take off the sweater Because it's getting a little warm And I'm going to put on my glasses Okay Did I change something What do you got?

I'm making. put on a sweatshirt, but like Heather said, it's a little warm. Yeah. It'd be kind of insane. Lay her up, why don't you? Did you have Matt, as Heather steps out to fetch her spectacles? Yeah. Had you seen Oasis before?

I had not, no. So this was my first time. Obviously, they'd been away for a long time. They broke up and got back together. but I just appreciate the arc as a brother myself. Sure. I guess I've never gotten to any scrapes in that way with my brothers. But also I just think they're so funny.

So it was nice to see. Honestly, like the show was obviously, Heather's such a big fan and talked of it very highly. Yeah. And so I knew going in that it was going to be great. But it was honestly like maybe the biggest concert I've ever been to in my life. Biggest? Yeah, probably, in terms of, like, the scope and, like, the number of people there? The number of people, yeah, it was, I mean, two nights at the, at the Rose Bowl, what's that, that's, I mean, I don't know, it's like, 85,000 per night.

85,000, yeah, it's like, it's quite big, but then also just, like, I don't know if I've been to a show that had such. Stakes is not the right word, but, uh, you know. Vibe. Vibe, yeah, yeah, like, you know, you go see like a band you like and stuff. They're, like, promoting an album and it's like, it's great and it's fun. And, and, you know, you get to see. your favorite band but like that was like such like uh i felt like everybody was all on the same page and just loving it it was really really cool yeah yeah i guess my equivalent was seeing the simpsons live at a hollywood bull i did see that you know what i actually immediately take back what i said got to see a voice actor uh in real time do a voice he shouldn't do he put on a vest to indicate that he was changing characters you're right okay and that's Honestly, I was confused up until that point.

I'm glad he'd just put on the best. Yeah, I'm glad it started and stopped there. Look, we could talk about concerts all day, but this is a video game podcast. Is it? I think it's a gift podcast. All right. I think maybe we got to give Nick a little gift. What?

You have a gift for Nick. We got a gift for you, Nick, and it's not wrapped because, I mean, come on, who cares. But there you go. It's a little gift from the podcast. the year. What the hell what on earth is this? Okay. Open it up. Okay. I'm I'm unboxing this with relative ease I would say. Users guide cyber tool. Wait a second. Cyber tool in the sense of this being a Swiss army knife. A classic of Victorinox. Is that the brand? Yep. Wow. Look at that. You see the logo on and everything. This is great. I'm a knife guy now. It's a it's both a

regular knife, but it also has a bevy of computer and glasses specific tools. Wow. So that it is not a bunch of shit that you probably would never use. Oh my God, be careful. I almost just got myself. What the fuck? The good

thing about this is that you'll never struggle to open a box again. Yeah. The flip side of it, though, is that you accidentally cut off your hand. Yeah, we saw that That, you know, when you were unboxing your minions gift that you were struggling, and we saw you do that as the same with the Death Stranding box.

I don't think the listener doesn't know about the Minion's gift. We got, that was off pod. Minion blind boxes. We did. That was a lot of fun. Thank you, Benick and Heather all got the same one. Look at that. It's got like a computer screwdriver.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I don't know what you call that. Oh, it's like a hex screwdriver. Yeah, that's nice. Very nice. Hey, how about that? Very snaz. It's really cool.

And we've got some different heads that looks like you can swap in the hair? Oh, how about that? Oh my goodness. What a gift. Thank you so much. This is so thoughtful. Look at that.

Soon we'll have them in our own bodies. Knives? Yeah. Oh, no. Thanks for the weapon, everyone. I can just put this in my bag. Is that the thing I can just carry around remaining in trouble? Yeah, I also carry a Swiss Army knife at all time.

I'm a knife guy now. Yeah. My EDC includes a knife. Yeah, there you go. Just remember to, to take it out of your bag before you get on a plane or they will take it away from you forever. Which my grandpa, who has

a boot knife at all times, forgets every time he goes somewhere he's not supposed to have a boot knife? He's got a boot knife guy. How many boot knives is he lost at this point? More than a handful certainly, quite a few. And he's always so mad. Yeah, I would be. They're really nice. He's a sicko. He's a sick free. It's cool to

carry a knife. Everybody should carry a knife. They're handy tools. I think I should get one. Yeah. Thanks so much. This is a Look at that. Wow, how about that? It would have been funny if the box was hard to open, and then when he got it open, that's the... I did think about wrapping it in, like, duct tape.

Yeah, so if you ever get something like this, now you could open it. This is an absolutely true story. One time I was in Japan, and I had my cell phone with me, but I was following somebody around in the city and having a good time. And then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person. That's a true story.

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plus free shipping. Use code Get Played or click the link in the show notes to claim your discount. That's Indicloud.co, I-N-D-C-L-O-U-D-D-C-O.C-O. Use code get played for free shipping plus 25% off your first order. Fill out their quick survey when you order to support this show and make your week way more enjoyable, all thanks to IndyCloud. What are we talking about on this video game podcast? It's not a concert podcast, and it's not a gift podcast, actually.

It is a video game podcast. It's a video game podcast? Yeah. All right. And the question that we ask on this video, video game podcast is about some video games we've been playing lately that question is what are you playing what are you playing what are you playing what are you playing people are always asking each other what they're playing that's right but have we asked ourselves in this country

what should we be playing oh interesting i posit that to you wow makes you It does. Wait, who wants to go first? You, Matt? I'll go first. Matt, what are you playing? Thanks so much, Resident Evil. You're welcome.

Look, Silk Song's out. What else am I supposed to be doing? Right? Yeah. I'm playing Silk Song. You don't need to do anything. Hollow Night Silk Song. As someone who recently finished Hollow Night, as I'm sure, as I know you mentioned on the podcast.

Yes, that's right. Recently finished Hollow Night. People are upset about my percentage completion, but credits is credits baby i'll get back to it at some point but i'm playing silk song and i just have to report that i beat two bosses pre-patch and that's just i have to just i just have to say it i have to say it don't i i beat uh more wing and i beat um the oh shoot what's uh what's what's what's she called ranch the uh sister uh sister splinter sister sister splinter didn't this happen to you Also with Eldon Ring, didn't you beat a boss free patch?

Sounds like me. Sister Splinter sounds like they made Ninja Turtles woke. But yeah, they announced that they're putting out a patch, I think by the end of this week at some point, or, you know, beginning in next week that they're going to. uh decreased the difficulty of some of the early game bosses at least some of the act one bosses i just had those two were specifically mentioned and i just had to just get in there and say that i beat them pre-patched i will say you know that the the the sitcom developers obviously worked in that for what seven years as someone who has worked in development um on bad games to mediocre games but have worked on games i will say you experienced that ratchet effect of difficulty in development

just because you're replaying the same thing over and over and over again. And even if you have playtesters, that feedback will sometimes come that it's just like you have to be really, really hyper-conscious of what is a first-time player experiencing. So I understand how something like that can happen,

especially if you spend a lot of time with it. It's similar to the sort of thing that I think happens with, you know, sometimes you hear about with when they're filming comedies that, and I've certainly witnessed this where you have a good script, but they start to do improv on set because they're just like, well, we know these jokes.

And then something new that's coming up is like, ah, that's like, we like that because it's new, but it's maybe not, not any better than what you've already established. It's just that that one's not surprising to you. You know, it's kind of hard to trust yourself at a certain point. Right, right. But then also like this game, obviously it was in development ever so long. And it was originally intended as DLC. Right.

Yeah, that's going to be part of it, too. the difficulty at the beginning of this game would have been more toward the end of the last game, right? So you would have been more primed for that. I just, like, it's kind of interesting. I haven't played Silk Song, but it's interesting to see the discourse about game difficulty that for the first time

does not seem like get good toxic. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like that's always the case. And for whatever reason for this one, people are going to, people are able to have a slightly nuance like, maybe this is this is not quite balanced or arguing the other side

but like something other than just saying that anyone who's has an issue with it is unskilled. I do think people are being big babies because I've just seen a lot of the like I do think it I think it is admittedly degrees harder

than Holland I having just finished it myself right? Because like some of these some of these enemies are, they have really fast attacks. So, like, sometimes you're losing, like, two damage immediately. You only have five to, five or six to start, I think, or something. So you're, like, you're losing, like, half your life instantly, like, with, like, basically, like, one hit. And so you're just, you can then kind of scrambling.

But then you do get these other abilities that, like, I don't know, you get them kind of quickly that then make things a little bit easier, too. So, like, it's just about, like, just relearning how to, like, play this game, like, at a slightly more elevated way because like even Hornet we talked about this last week hornets um down slash that you can use to like pogo on things yeah is diagonal so you have to like learn where to position yourself but also if you're like on the thing like let's say it's like this like floating rows or something and that's the thing you're pogoing off of if you're on that like exactly it doesn't matter where you land as long as you hit it as you're like hitting the

the rose basically it still works wow so like you have to just really like learn how to like finesse like what you're trying to do but i'm just i'm really enjoying the world is so much different uh so much more uh it's it's different than uh hollan night and like it's a it's a there's an act structure and there's quests and stuff and i'm just really really enjoying the very obvious seven years of work that like went into it it's just it's not just like here's more of it, it's like, this is elevated hollow night. It's like, it's, it's, I'm just really, really appreciating it. Ranch, how are you

enjoying it so far? Um, I think I'm past a 20 hour. Whoa. Wow. Wow. Um, yeah, incredible game. So happy to have this like world expanded and I think I've, I've unlocked like the wall climbing. Yeah. And, um, yeah, finally, feel like, I think there was like a part where I was like very stuck until finally I got that ability and now I feel like I'm unstoppable. I'm at the widow right now.

I don't know if that. Oh, yeah. I have not beaten her. No, she's tough. Yeah. She's really tough. But I'm, I'm going to maybe go back to some areas now that I have the wall jump and see what, see what kind of looks and crannies I can find because that's the thing that I'm doing is I'm smacking

everything and I'm, you got it. I'm just trying to go everywhere that I can to see, you know, what I can find. But yeah. That's the game to me. It's just like hitting everything and finding a secret passageways. I said last week, or maybe, you know, in previous weeks,

that Death Stranding was going to be tough to be for Game of the Year. Uh-oh. And I kind of, I'm like, this is just like such an incredibly designed game that, like, it's just unbelievable. This is like an easy game of the year contender. It's been a great year for game.

Yeah. Like, I know that neither of you played Kingdom come with Dilverns too but that was a phenomenal huge game this year Expedition 33 people loved as well Expo 33 Stranding

Silk Song lots of great Bonanza Bonanza Bonanza Oh banana Oh banana That's right yeah So I mean I'm playing Silk Song

I'll be People are finishing it Which is crazy to me You know It always happens Yeah I just am like That's like it's very impressive It's extremely cool

But I wish I'm not even out of Act 1 yet But I'm enjoying all the stuff There's like some weird Like these pilgrims that have rosary beads And that's like one of the main currencies in the game And you gotta take them down So you can get rosary beads

And those are scarce And then the things that you use to The things that you buy with them Cost a lot of money Or it costs a lot of beads So then when you don't have them It's so frustrating But I can't wait to know what's going on

Or what the lower reason is that they have rosary beads. It's just, it's extremely good stuff. I'm just, I'm loving it. I, like,

it's funny because, like, there were definitely in times in my life when I was, I mean, I'm thinking when I was younger and I was single

and unemployed, um, uh, or, or just during the summer. Yeah. And just having, like,

like Final Fantasy 8 was one of those games that like, I beat in like one week. It was like insane how quickly I blazed through that game. Just because I was like not doing anything else. Yeah. I was just putting like, 10 hours into the game every day because school hadn't started yet, you know?

And like, the thought of doing that now sounds, I mean, it sounds great. It sounds amazing, but then also just like the way I feel like my body has changed since I've gotten older, like that would just be an absolute, that would be an absolute disaster to me. My hands have been getting sweaty playing silk song.

That doesn't happen to me. Right. I'm nervous. Yeah. I don't know. Sounds like paradise. But that's what I'm playing silk song, baby. I love it.

Wow. Heather, what are you playing? Well, I'm back on Persona 5. Wow. Switch to I don't like how it up-reses the game. It looks like, you know, watery bullshit. But I love the game, and I will continue forward towards beating it. But the truth is, I did beat a game this week.

That's right. I beat Virtual Boy Wario Land. Wow. Now, Nick, you think you're the first person in history to do it? No, not at all. It's a short game. It's a short game. Nick, I brought this with me so that you could see how pleasurable it is on the 3DS.

Yes. Because it is a totally different and extremely kind experience when you play it on the 3DS instead of the virtual boy. So this game that I actually own for the virtual boy, but I've never really gotten to sync. my teeth into. I found myself this weekend I was sick. I stayed in bed and had that new 3DS and I played Wario Land whenever I was awake and beat the game. It is only a two hour and change game.

But there are apparently eight endings to it because there's a ton of secrets. The game was, here, I'm going to pull up some info on it because after I finished playing it, I was like, why was this game so good? like it's a virtual boy game who the fuck like what happened but the truth is that it is a Nintendo R&D one developed game that's their

primary that's the Metroid team the Zelda team the Mario team this was the flagship title for the virtual boy and it really shows it is really really fun and really pleasant and it's

dense there's like lots of secrets in it and there's a lot of like foreground and background movement that you can do like you can uh you'll be playing in the foreground and you'll see the secret rooms in the background right like two dimensional planes that are scrolling by in in 3d and you have to figure out how to get to those zones when you go to those zones that are in the background the screen does not transition to make that the foreground you stay in the background so you're tiny and you're running around doing shit in like caves in the background

and you're tiny and the foreground is parallax scrolling over that plane so you'll get lost behind monsters or behind stuff that is your in your primary plane of of playing yeah I just experienced like I'm playing as Heather is talking I just

experienced that right now I just got a sent to the back plane and I think you can see this here yeah it's it is a cool effect and this is one of those things where the 3DS is you know, kind of magical built-in 3D qualities are really, you know, displaying their power. Yeah.

It was co-directed by Hiroji Kiyotake and produced by Gunpei Yo-Koi. Yoko is, of course, the guy who created the Game Boy. This was like his baby was the virtual boy. What's fascinating about the title as you're playing it, though, is that there is an automatic pause built into the game. game. Every 15 minutes, the game asks you to take a break. And it makes me wonder at what point in the development process of the virtual boy did they know that they had a problem. Because to the system was not marketed as also, again, if you're joining us for the first time,

what is the virtual boy? You weren't born. You're 25 years old and you were born in year 2000. You don't know what the fucking virtual boy is. Virtual boy is a table. top system that looks like a pair of goggles that the Nintendo released that was only on the shelves for eight months, you have to sit at a table and look into the goggles in order to play the machine. And it was causing headaches, some seizures. And the system was released with built-in timers that would ask you to take a break. You're going to pay me for it? No, no, no, no. I was trying to surreptitiously get chapstick out of my bag. Oh, okay. It didn't work.

Matt just got out his wallet. I just kind of figured out, like, I could just figured how much noise could I make while I'm trying to do something sneaky?

But the system was a disaster. There were only 22 games released for it. And I'd always hoped that somebody would make an emulator for it for the 3DS. And sure enough, they did.

And so sure enough, I had to leap on that, on that grenade. But they, I wonder if there was an internal conversation that was like, we should sell this as a toy instead of a video game machine. Like, oh, you play with a viewmaster for 15 minutes.

It's a toy that you can pick up and play with for 15 minutes. And then you put down and you do it, you play it, you show it to your friends, you play it another time because the idea of anybody playing a video game for only 15 minutes is crazy. Right. That's not any length of time to be playing. a video game. Like, you don't sit down

and play Mario for 15 minutes. So the fact that they had to release these games with these built-in timers means there was internal understanding that the virtual boy hurt people before they put it on shelves. Anyway, I also looked at the scores for this game.

Staggeringly low. Five out of ten. Like, people dragged this game, and a lot of it was because of the system and the timers and the fact that it's only about two hours and change long. People were like, why, I'm paying full price for a virtual boy, which I think was $3 or $400. Jesus Christ. I really want to. I should look that up while I'm looking it up. Let's see.

The virtual boy. $300 to, like, hurt your neck and make you. want to throw up. Yeah, because that's the thing is so, the experience of playing it is so nauseating. It was $179, which is equivalent to $370 in 2020. Yeah.

That's a lot. Nintendo puts out this thing, this peripheral. It's like, okay, so it's like, it's like a hammer and you're playing a game, and you just like hammer your dick and balls like to play it. I do think it's interesting that Shiguro Maimodo had minimal input on the virtual boy.

This was all a different division. And I imagine him looking at it and being like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to work on that thing. Are you insane? It looks like war of the world. I mean, I don't know the actual, how his involvement in the Game Boy, but I don't know that was so much Gumpet-Yokoi's brainchild that I could see Nintendo just sort of implicitly trusting him. I'm just like, well, this is the guy who made the Game Boy, the most successful, you know, at the time for many years, the most successful video game, you know, machine of all time. a piece of hardware of all time and why wouldn't we just say like

oh, this guy knows what the future of gaming is going to be let's let him go nuts. I like this paragraph in the Wikipedia about the virtual boy. The virtual boy was panned by critics and was a commercial failure even after repeated price drops. Its failure has been attributed to

its high retail price, unappealing red and black display, unimpressive stereoscopic effect, poor ergonomics, lack of portability and reports of adverse health effects such as headaches dizziness eye strain it is a notable outlier in Nintendo's hardware history being by far the company's lowest selling standalone console with just make a guess how many how many virtual boys were sold 16 I'm gonna guess

70,000 that I mean that's really low well I'm guessing low yeah uh okay It's six figures? 70,000 the world over? I don't know. I mean, if this thing was a true bomb. I'm going to guess it's not more than 200,000. It was internationally 770,000. Oh, really?

Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's still bad. Yeah, we just undershot it. It's better than I could do. Yeah. Matt, that's a great point. I don't think it is.

I couldn't put, you think if I put out a video game console, it's going to sell more than the virtual. No, I don't think Matt's hardware would say. I don't think Matt's hardware would work. I'm not known for that. I don't think he knows how to do it. I don't want. I don't know how to do it. Here's the thing.

If, Matt, if you actually produced a working video game system, I think it would sell more than 700,000 units. If it was good, people would buy it. Yeah, but like if I just made one as me right now, there's just no way. No. You, right now, no, no. But if you got some VC money, and you were like, I got, I've got an idea for a video game system. I can't get it soon enough. You wear it on your neck?

It's a neck pillow that you can, you blow into it like a harmonica. You have to wear it on your. neck and look in a mirror in order to play it. And it only has Kingdom Hearts games exclusively for it. But yeah, that's a, I beat Virtual Boy Warioland this weekend, which I thought was thematically appropriate for the topic of our podcast, Nick, other than Virtual Boy Warioland, what you're playing right now.

That's right. I'm going to exit out of this. I'm going to hand this back to you. It's fun, isn't it? I mean, like the, this, the, what you mentioned, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. foreground and background interactions, there was a mini game that it was playing where they were shooting hearts at the screen and you had to, or I'm sorry, hearts were scrolling from one side of the screen to the other. And then you had to shoot Wario from the foreground to the background and the other direction and vice versa to try to collect the hearts. And it was like, oh, this has a fun rhythm to it. Again, it would make your eyes bleed on the virtual boy display, but playing it on the 3DS. It's like, oh, this is pretty fun. It's a very straightforward platform. but it's a well it's a well made one the physics the final boss is a boss that hovers in between two trampolines and you bounce from one trampoling in the foreground

to trampoline in the background yeah trying to knock him in the nose as he's flying around i couldn't i didn't even think that wario would have a villain you would think it would be mario no i i don't think it's that cut and dry where mario is just the bad it's not like donkey con Rolls or where Mario is the bad guy of Donkey Kong. I guess. I'm just like, he's his enemy because he's good, right? Yeah. But I guess it's not.

I don't. He's not such a bad guy. He just likes money. I guess I don't know what the story of the game is. He's on an island and he's looking for treasure and the final boss is like kind of a ghost clown. Sure. Yeah. The more details we get about this, Heather, I'm starting to think it's not very good.

It's good. I enjoyed it. I mean, the warrior line game's not known for their story. They didn't put your sembolts. Has this ever happened to you? You've been traveling abroad. You want to watch one of your comfort shows or perhaps even a sporting event.

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Ends October 5th, 2025 at 11.59 p.m. Eastern Time. Nick, what are you playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking. I brought in a book that I've talked about on the podcast before, but I've only in passing. I've never really, you know, dedicated much, much

runway to this, a theory of fun of game design, or I'm sorry, for game design. A theory of fun for game design. This was originally published by Rave Coaster, and there's a foreword by Will Wright. I read this during the pandemic, and, you know, it's first published in 2004. And it's one of those things where it's just sort of a very readable bit of, I mean, from, the title actual theory into what makes video games work like what makes them playable what makes them fun what you should be thinking about from a developer standpoint but it's also very illuminating from just a purely from a gamer standpoint this this book which i can pass around has it's very readable it's very breezy it has a lot of illustrations it was published by

o'reilly which you know i remember back from when i was learning computer programming you would just buy like an O'Reilly guide on C++ or Pearl or whatever the fuck. Like it was more for, it tends to be very, very techy sort of computer sort of stuff. But it's a, it makes sense for this as well. A big thing that it is about is like pattern recognition, which makes sense because that's what humans are pattern recognition machines. We play lots of games that we're used to recognizing patterns and implementing and having gameplay implemented from that.

But the big thing that I took away from it is just about how games are an exercise in teaching. And so much of gameplay is just a game conveying something to you either directly with a tutorial or more elegantly, as is done in Super Mario Brothers 1, especially in that first level, through gameplay, through emergency gameplay. And yes, emergent gameplay. And we actually see that right. there's a there's a super mario brother's one illustration inside uh this book itself but like you know like here's how these objects interact with your they here's how these the player character of a player character is present here's how they interact with these objects here are the rules that are established right in super mario uh one yeah that first level will show you like a uh a

a sort of broken pyramid, like a split pyramid of blocks, and there'll be a trough in it, and you'll have to like learn how to jump over that trough. And then the next time you see it repeated, there's no trough at the bottom. It's a bottomless pit. Yes. And so like all of those interactions are just teaching you the thing you're about to encounter dangerously. Yeah.

So you've learned the skill. Like here's what the, here's what the rule. And we're just going to keep riffing on the rule and we're going to keep finding different ways to spin on it. another example of this which I think is like really really concrete is the game inside which we've talked about but that is just like a whole series of like hey here's this new thing and this is how this works and mess around with this for a little bit okay you got it let's move on to something else here's another new mechanic here's another new rule set we're going to teach you this and then we're just going to get to test you on it basically and I just kind of liked how like like straightforward and elemental that is you know it definitely has some some some some some Some parts, especially towards the back end where it gets, first off, it is very much in that early 2000s discourse about what about video game content, you know, back when like Grand Theft Auto was like a hot and dead or alive extreme volleyball were like hot button issues. So some of that sort of bleeds through. But I do think like it's, it's not like it's a prudish book or anything like that.

It's just more like talking about how whatever the content of the game is, it should be, it should not be superfluous. it should not be gratuitous. But I don't know. I really, if anyone hasn't read this and is just looking for a book about video games that isn't like, I feel like they're generally about like why a studio failed, if you're just looking for a video game book that's about something else, I think it's like it's, it's interesting how little, again, theory exists about this emergent art form. And this is just like the most digestible sort of sort of Bible for it.

Yeah, I don't know. I figured I'd bring it in. Why not? Thank you, Nick. Thanks for sharing it. I'm going to recommend that to a friend of mine who's trying to make a game. Hey, there you go. That's good stuff.

I'm going to recommend a virtual boy, WarioLand, to anybody who's got a 3DS, the TAC, and wants to download Red Viper. Well, it was the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. And here we are. We should note we are recording this before the Mario 40 Nintendo Direct, so we don't have any context, any break. making news from that. Yeah. But we figured we'd talk about it anyway because, hey, this is a notable occasion. Can we do a little speculation?

Yeah, please. Do you think they're going to announce a big new game? I'm guessing no. Okay. But, yeah, if they do, it'll be like a tease only, nothing concrete. Because, like, the Bonanza team was the Odyssey team. So I would imagine that they would be back for whatever the next Mario is. So I would assume that we're not getting a new 3D mainline Mario for a few years.

Yeah, have we seen like a, like, is Mario Wonder like a Switch 2, you know, upgrade game or anything? That makes sense that that could be good. Because I could see something like that being the announcement. But, hey, I would love to be wrong. I'd love for there to be a new mainline Mario that's announced. It'd be great. Maybe even, what do you call it, a release of Galaxy 2 could be nice

because Galaxy 2 is not being able to switch. switch to the switch at all yet that can be nice i would love it i would love it uh i bet you will get news about the new movie because that comes out i think in april the next mario movie i think the new one comes out in april wait in 2026 that's that they they they knocked that out quickly i mean i'm sure they were they had it in production before yeah the first one even came out i think it's in april at least that's a quick turnaround pretty pretty soon wow yeah so they got to start marketing the movie wow uh at some point but yeah i'm guessing that we'll get maybe some new tracks, maybe it's too soon for new tracks for Mario Kart.

I don't know. Could be. But who knows? It's an hour-long direct, which is longer than normal for them. They did announce, so I know that this isn't going to be part of the direct. They did already announce an additional set of alarms coming to the alarm. Did they actually announce that? They did.

I'm glad they did it outside of the direct. I would have been mad if they took up some time in the direct with that. I think it's, I think it's Kirby. who's coming to the alarm Wow I'm not gonna buy the alarm oh You're not You do not need to buy the alarm

You don't need to buy the alarm I love it I'm so happy I got it Are you using it? Every fucking night Wow Every night I go to sleep With the sound of

Animal Crossing As my sleepy sound Which plays like a little Lullaby Sort of like Wind Down music Yeah And then in the morning

I'm surprised By which villager comes to visit me and what they have to say. That's pretty good. And the music that they play. So sometimes it'll be KK Slider and he'll be like, but sometimes it'll be the fucking like bird at the airport.

And he's like, oh, fuck, I got to get up. Do you think it'll ever be Catch up the Red Duck with green hair? Could be. I don't know. I love Catch up the Red Duck with Green hair. It's a surprise. It's blathers and he's just talking all day.

You're like, dude, go to work. Come home. He's still at it. What fuck, dude? We get it. You love bones. Yeah, I mean, who knows what the fuck will happen? Maybe they'll confirm the size of Luigi's hog as speculated from that Mario Tennis still.

You don't think they're actually going to do that, do you, Nick? They might happen. Who knows? It'd be kind of crazy if they're like, actually, it's an hour long because at some point, we're getting nasty with it. We know what you sickos want, and we're going to get a little freaky in the direct. No, yeah, I mean, I think that what's, it's nice because there's going to be non-Mario stuff in this direct, too, but like, you know, I think Saturday is the actual anniversary. So they'll get, they'll have, they have to get something out like for, like they can't get,

they can't let a 40th anniversary go by without something. 40 years of Mario. Yeah. That's fucking horrifying. Specifically Super Mario Brothers. Mario, the character, predates Super Mario brothers. Right, right. Of course.

He was in Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. And Mario Brothers, the first instance of the name Mario in the title. I had a question for you guys. Because I don't think I know this. Do you guys remember your first Mario memory? I absolutely do.

And this is actually a big thing that got me into video games and specifically console gaming. So my brother, my older brother, my older brother, Nate, had a very good friend in elementary school that lived on our block, just lived on the one street over. So he'd walk around the block and go to his house. And his parents were Japanese immigrants. And so he had,

I mentioned this in the podcast before, he had a Japanese Famicom in his home. Wow. And I played a Japanese Famicom prior to the domestic release. I mean, I'm that old and I was also that young at time prior to the domestic release of the NES. So Nintendo and Mario were already on my radar. This is just one of those wild things or just happened to know somebody who had a Japanese console at the time when the only console I knew was the Atari 2,600. You're literally the kid on the playground who's like, I've got a friend who's got a game machine. One hundred percent. And I'm playing Super Mario Brothers and also Super Mario Brothers The Lost Levels, which was Super Mario Brothers 2, Japan.

Yes. I'm playing both of these before Super Mario Brothers I'd played on the NES. And so I remember encountering poison mushrooms in Super Mario Brothers 2 and just knowing that was a thing. And that, that again, becomes a thing that you tell, like, no, there's a part two that has poison mushrooms in it. I'm serious. And then Super Mario Brothers 2 comes out.

And it's a completely different game. It's re-skinned dokey, dokey panic. you look like a fucking asshole. But I mean, like, it's, I'm serious, it's seven inches flaccid. I'm talking about Luigi's dog as a child at elementary school. Anyway, I went to the South Park School. So, yeah, I do remember that, like, vividly. And that was a big thing.

I was like, holy shit, I want to play. I got to get one of these. And that was part of me and my brother talking my dad. At the time, we played other, we played computer games. My dad at a Commodore 64. home, but we're like, we talked my dad into getting an NES when it was out in the U.S. And then I remember playing the shit out of Super Mario Brothers when it came out then. Wow.

Cool. Yeah. What about you, Heather? Well, first experience of Mario is a Donkey Kong cabin, which I would get an allowance. It would be a buck. I would break it into quarters, and I would play Donkey Kong. I had a pizza restaurant near my parents' plot of land at that point in Wisconsin. Wisconsin.

My first experience of Super Mario is that my cousin had a Nintendo and I went over to his house and his mom was extremely good at Tetris and he had Super Mario. What? I said that rules. As a kid, you don't know what that mean. But like, we would watch her play Tetris and be like, wow. because you were idiots. We didn't know how to like be good at Tetris.

It's also, and I'm sure for our younger listeners whose parents played video games, they probably watched them playing video games growing up, it wasn't a common thing. Like there was still a generational thing where a lot of people who were of the, I guess, baby boomer generation, them like, like a parent playing a video game was a little bit like,

whoa, you got a cool dad. Yeah, rapping granny. Yeah. But that was my first experience of Super Mario Because I was a Sega kid So there was, I don't think there was a point Until after the Genesis

That I had a regular Nintendo Wow Yeah, yeah My first Mario experience came Later than most It was weirdly for It was when I played Super Mario World

for the Game Boy Advance. Okay. Because my first console was PlayStation, no Mario there, and for a long time, the only Game Boy games that I had were just Pokemon games, because that's like why I got a Game Boy was to play Pokemon. Yeah. And so I didn't, I had not had any real Mario experience until, until that one. But that's like starting with, like, it's like if your first song was like stairway to

heaven or something, you're just kind of like, oh, this is cool, this shit's good. Yeah. This is great. like I'm starting with one of the best Mario games, uh, and I like played that like, like, so much like each,

each save file had like completed, uh, like runs of like that game just because it was just like something I just played so much. That's really cool. And, uh, I, I really, really loved that. And then,

because like, yeah, my uncle that played video games was not really like a, he had Nintendo stuff, but like by the time I was interested in video games, he had moved on to like, you know, Genesis and, And which was like, I think maybe, what, like the older, like cooler kids like that, maybe a little bit more.

And then PlayStation, of course. So I wasn't seeing Mario or any of his ilk. I was looking at as a child. I was looking at the Super Mario Advance series because on the Game Boy Advance because those remakes where I did play, I guess, all of them. I'm looking at this list now. But it's one of those things where it's just like the way they're titled is so confusing. So Super Mario Advance was Super Mario Brothers 2 slash Super Mario U.S.A. Super Mario World was Super Mario Advance 2.

Yoshis Island was Super Mario Advance 3, which is also Super Mario World 2. Yes. So I guess the full title, Super Mario Advance 3, Super Mario World 2, Yoshis Island, or vice versa. And then Super Mario Advance 4 was Super Mario Bros. 3. They couldn't even make the 3's line out. No, they couldn't. And they also just didn't need to do that. It's so stupid.

But it's also delightfully Nintendo. It is very Nintendo. But then my first, like I played Super Mario 64 on the DS, right? That was my first experience with like a 3D Mario, which is kind of insane. Yep. And then my first full mainline 3D Mario wasn't until Odyssey. Wow. Which is my first Switch game.

And that was like my first, like, Nintendo home console. Wow. That is a long journey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, now, like, he's, like, I mean, obviously, he's just, like, one of the number one guys. He's, like, the number one guy. He's a good guy. He rocks.

He's a good guy. I guess he's the number one guy. It's, it's pretty, I mean, it's got to be a Nintendo character, I think, right? Yeah. Like, it's him or a Pikachu, depending on, and, and I don't know. I mean, like, even the Pokemon is a bigger IP is Mario the more iconic video game character. Yeah, I think, I mean, gosh, it is kind of crazy. I think just because of how big of an IP, Pokemon,

is just like, you know, internationally. It's just like, are globally, really. It is probably the two of them at the top. Yeah. But I kind of feel like Nintendo would take Pikachu out back and... Jesus. Beat the shit out of them to make Mario their number one guy. Wow.

I think. I don't know. I don't know. I have to say... Why do they have to do this? Why? Yeah. Why would they have to do this?

They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you're like part of the family, but just for... remember that it's always Mario number one. Okay. And you put some respect on Mario's name. Okay, so it's kind of a soprano. Yeah, I'm re-watching the Sopranos of my wife. It's like the drawings I've seen of Mickey fucking Elsa.

It's kind of like that. Sure. Yeah, it's like those drawings I've sent you. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me, check this out. Pretty good drawing, right? Interesting drawing at the very least.

Photorealistic. Horrifying. You know, speaking to our first Mario experience, I have to say that I come into the podcast with a Sega bias because of being a Sega kid. Yes. But my experiences over the last couple of weeks with strange Nintendo hardware have really increased my appreciation for Nintendo as a brain. Sure. Like there have been so many strange, like a lot of Nintendo stuff is the Dreamcast. Does that make sense?

Like, the Dreamcast being a primary system for me puts other systems in the vocabulary of the Dreamcast. So the Wii is like, oh, wow, it's like they tried to make like a crazy system. Yeah. It's like the Nintendo Dreamcast. And the Virtual Boy and the Alarmo, all of these are like increasing my appreciation for the strangeness of Nintendo. and it's neat that something is ubiquitous and mainstream and straightforward and vanilla as Super Mario Brothers also goes hand in hand with a company that released like a scale. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the, if you just look at like the mainline hardware in between the Super Nintendo and the Switch, it's like what?

It's like the Nintendo 64, home consoles, Nintendo 64, that thing's fucking weird, stubbornly still using cartridges, the weird three-pronged controller, the introduction of the analog stick, which completely changes 3D gaming. The whole shape of it's weird. The whole shape of it's very strange. It's a weird, rounded boy. GameCube is weird.

Again, the stubbornly refusing to commit to DVDs, sensibly because of piracy, they have their proprietary disc format, their little discs. A thing that snaps on to the bottom of the game boy, sorry, the GameCube to let you play Game Boy games. Yeah, so you got that. It's also, it's just like, it looks,

it's a weird cube form factor with a handle on it the controller again is very bizarre the switch you mentioned the I'm sorry the the Wii rather you mentioned the Wii you of course obviously is just so fucking insane yeah and then the switch is and the switch into the switch too that's the

outlier when they just did a straight upgrade yeah they've never done that before no they've never done that before but also like I feel like their crazy swings work more than they don't though right yeah sure like I mean, like the game cube controller. I mean, still like it's weird, but it works and it has its fans and it still has its

place. They're still making amoebo. Yeah. Like, amoebo or weird. I like amybo. I think the weirder the game experience is both through hardware and software, the more it sticks with me, which is why a lot of the Mario titles aren't the most exciting or most memorable experiences of my life because they are often like just incredibly.

games. Yes. But I know you guys really connected with Bonanza more than I did, but like, I don't think about Bonanza. You know? I don't, I, I, the Mario game that I think about the most is Galaxy. And it was,

I think, the weirdest. Well, Galaxy is fucking a huge swing and it's really cool. The way it uses gravity, the way it uses spheres, it's, it's a really awesome I gotta play it. Expansion You got to play it on the Wii, man.

You know, of what a 3D Mario is. And again, just after Mario Sunshine, which was a big swing that didn't really land, it was so, it's just so invigorated this character. And it was just kind of thing of like, oh, yeah, Mario is not going anywhere. Well, part of the thing is that you're holding the nunchuck in your hand to move him around. And you're also using the button on the Wii remote. but you're pointing at the screen to collect stars while you're running around. Yeah. It was really cool.

One of my biggest things about the Wii, I think, that I don't like is that it's trying to just make me do too much. Like, I don't got to be doing all this. Like, that's, like, one of my least favorite parts of, like, switch games that make you do stuff, like, with the joycons and stuff. I don't want to be doing, I don't want to be doing my, I don't want to be doing any of that. Well, they, you know, that was the big. thing with a Twilight

Princess is just adding in some like arm movement for the swords and I was like I don't give a shit about this I don't want to do it doing this I'm waggling this wand it doesn't even feel like moving a sword you know the only time I want to do anything like that is in like a time crisis situation

with like a light gun or something yeah that rips that's so fun yeah and then obviously the like oh this will be a golden age for light gun games but then because of the way it worked it wasn't great for shooters either the Wii remote but But, like, the gimmick games of Wii Fit was mentioned, but then, of course, the Wii sports were so awesome. And that's what made that thing such a sensation. Like, just, just like, yeah, Galaxy was, Galaxy was rad.

I mean, like, for me, the NES Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers, even though Super Mario Brothers 2 was so bizarre, I did really, really enjoy it. And then Super Mario Brothers 3 is just such an incredible feat of design. that absolutely holds up. Super Mario World and Super Mario World to Yoshi's Island I both were were maybe more impactful for me.

They hit me when I was a little bit older and I could appreciate games a little bit more and I was also just like had the motor skills of a you know a 10 year old versus like a five year old or a six year old and so like it was a I like I play the shit out of Super Mario

World I you know 96 star it. I was totally obsessed with that game. I think it's still probably at least the best 2D Mario game. I know people will advocate for three. But like I played all of those growing up. And then of course, Super Mario 64, which is maybe like was kind of like a farewell to my childhood. But it was like like like like that was like a game that I just like, it's it was just so staggering. And that was another one where my friend had rented a Nintendo 60. And I remember playing it at his house and being like, I can't believe how fucking good this game is. And then I had like money that I'd saved up from like, you know, birthdays and holidays that I like, like I had a little bit of a of a stash that I just went around and I remember buying, finding one toys arrest that had the Super Mario 64 the game and then a separate target that had the Nintendo 64 console.

and I bought those two and that was basically all I had for a while but again just like such an incredible game and a game that like you would bring kids over to your house to show them

like Super Mario 64 and they'd be like holy fucking shit I can't believe this thing I know I've told my my story on the podcast before but I'll just say that my greatest association

with Super Mario 64 is when I kissed my first girl that's right yeah and but my my instinct when I brought her over to show her Mario 64 was yours was

you gotta see this it's so cool The first girl I ever kissed was on Jenny Jones as an out of control teen. Isn't that wild? Wait what? It wasn't on the show. No this wasn't on the show. The girl was on the show. The girl was subsequently on an episode as an out of control

teen. Jenny Jones is one of those exploitative 90s talk shows Nick's stories are like I know we all got stories on this show but his stories are just like they're just

it's like the metal is bent on them and you're looking at I don't even know what to think about it yeah this is coming from the the person who used to haunt the woods in a gas mask

so wait yeah hold on if anyone is to be in a glass house here yeah I'll put that rock down Let me demonstrate the difference between those two stories. One is a little kid, like, trying to make the best of a bad situation and just putting on, like, costumes as a kid would and running around in the woods versus Nick telling us that, like, some lady tried to kiss him at an eye check up. Well, that was a different thing. You're conflating stories here.

Or that he kissed some girl who's then on. the news. When I hear stories from both your lives, I just realize I'm playing. You're thriving. The optometristian

trying to kiss me is different than the girl I kissed who went on Jenny Jones is out of control TV. That lady should have been on Jenny Jones. I kiss my patience. I don't care. The audience

booing or some of them cheering me. I do think the way things are going, we need to bring shows like that back. Oh, for sure. Yeah, how was I, like, looking back on that as like, man, that was a better world. People thought things were bad then. People thought, oh, holy shit.

I can't believe we're culturally just fucking sliding into a pit watching Jerry Springer, you know. Yeah, God. Too hot for TV. Yeah, exactly. DHS exclusive. But bring it back. I'll do it. I'll be the host.

Maybe that was the steam valve for society. Yeah. We needed to have just, like, junk on television that would, I guess reality TV is what happened to the Jerry Springer. I guess so. It's wild that on Jerry Springer, they used to, like, bring out Nazis and the whole crowd would boo. Instead of inviting them on the news. Or letting them host.

I wrote down a couple. We got both sides of the issue, a Nazi and a different kind of Nazi. Yeah, yeah. This one just joined. I wrote down a couple little things They're a little silly About things I like about Mario I've got to just share them real quick

All right One I like how he jumps Jump is great The jump is good And when you can do like a triple jump in a game Like 64 or something like that That's a home run That's good stuff

Great, great physics And great feel I mean like And I also like that a lot of the jumps That got a lot of stuff That got established As far as locomotion And Mario 64

has just, like, continued on. Yes. Can I be the grouch on the show? What are you going to say about the jump, Heather? I'm going to say I love the Mario jumps across the board. Okay. Except in the new Super Mario Bros. series. I don't, well, okay, the new Super Mario Brothers we can get into.

I'm not the biggest fan of the new Super Mario Brothers games in general. You know, Super Mario Brothers wonder pointedly not a new Super Mario Brothers games. But the, I'm trying to think what the, I guess it's probably new Super Mario Bros. games. Super Mario Brothers, you, as I would say, is the best of that. But I just, I was never really into any of these all that much. I think they all, like, kind of felt kind of weird. They feel weird. I like the one for the 3DS quite a bit.

The 3DS was New Super Mario Brothers 2, yeah. Yes, because that one is just like a coin frenzy. Yeah. You just get coins. You got to get coins. There's more coins in the game than you know what to do with. The idea of collecting, like, is it a million coins in the game? You're getting so many coins.

That is fun. It's good because the noise is good, too. I mean, come on. It's just, that's good stuff. But I do think that the new branded ones are... The jump is floaty. It feels strange. Yeah, it's not quite right.

The rest of the jumps have like the perfect, like the pitch up is great and the drop is great. It's a, it's a, it's a, you feel solid when you hit the ground. Yeah. It's a good jump. I mean, I do kind of like that they're just called new because it's just like it's an easy way to demarcate these. Like, okay, these are kind of different, you know. Yeah. The shin Mario's, I guess.

But they're also, they're not going to do, like, Mega Man, like, X. Like, they're, like, or, you know. Mario X. He's got a gun. Who are we Sega? I think his outfit is good. His outfit is great. It's iconic.

Yeah, it really is. You got the red hat, the overalls, the color way. The only good red hat wearing Italian? It's a really good outfit. It's a great outfit. It's an excellent outfit. And I like specifically the big M on his hat. Yeah, the M on the hat is great.

And look, if anyone's wearing just the hat, you know who it is. Certainly you're wearing the total fit. It's unmistakable. With having spent so much time with Wario over for the weekend, I like his version of Mario's outfit down to, and this is something you can see in Virtual Boy, Wario Lane, because the Sprite is so big, He's got W's on his gloves.

That's really good. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's really fun. I mean, like, you know, it's been talk to death, but just like, you know, Mario's got the M, Luigi's got the L. Yeah. Wario's got the W, the upside down M, and then while Luigi has the upside down L. Yeah, it's good. The math is perfect.

It's really good. All the different colors are great, too. The colors are fantastic. There's really good. I was all to say, do you think there's room for another one? And I kind of don't think so. I think we're good. Oh, another one, what?

Another one, another Mario type. No, I mean, I think the babies kind of accomplish a lot of that. Oh, the babies. Another Mario type? Like, well, like, or, you know, another. I have a huge pitch. What's that? Where's Waw Princess?

Wai Princess is really good. Yeah, there could, I mean, a Wawa princess would be a Wai Peach. I sure I remember if there ever was a Wapiche canonically. I don't think so. Wai Peach is really good. I need a Wai Peach. What about Wunky Kong? that's good

now you're getting nuts I mean like it just makes me think of the fan created Bousette as like Nintendo should canonize Bousette Man bow wow

Bow wow what happened that made Bousette so there was a there was an item that Jerry Springer got off the TV and no we had anywhere to put Oh right

there's a crown that transmogrifies you right into a different version and so basically like of the character and so basically the logic was applied of like what if this crown was on bowser it would make bowser into bous that i'm trying to remember what game that was it wasn't that super princess peach uh might have been they need a wapiche we need wapiche for sure um i think all the noises he makes are really good you know wahu is great that's always a lot of fun but the noise

he makes when he burns his little butt oh wow wow wow wow wow wow that's really fun it was actually it was not it was a super princess peach it was new super marie brother's year U deluxe The Supercrown The Supercrown transformed Todette into Pichet And so this was like

Why that would transform Bowser into Bouset Logic is Ironclad My favorite sound that Mario makes is when he clips a wall in

Mario 64 and goes Ooh Oh yeah I know That is good You're right That is really really good

Oh Whoa there's a booette Oh Sorry Don't look at me Nick's like That's it And I think there's something to this

Because like obviously he's the hero And like bad stuff's happening usually that he has to stop Yeah But something I like about him is that he's never really too bothered by it He's always kind of like still having a good time No matter what he's doing And I think that fun That level of fun translates to you the player kind of

Well he does get scared Yeah but not the same way that Luigi does Yeah One of my favorite things that seems to be a Mario rule, like that must be up on a wall at Nintendo somewhere, is that Mickey can get revenge, he can get mischievous and he can get angry in a way. Yeah. You can see Mario determine. Yes. But you don't see him mischievous or angry or vengeful.

Yeah, you don't see him mean. And I think that's just like, it's just nice. Yeah. I really like it. Yeah, vengeful. Yeah. Like, you'll see his eyebrows go down when he's throwing like a fireball on a box art. Yeah.

But he's not, he's not like gleefully trying to hurt people. And I do think that that's what created the vacuum for Wario to fill. Yes, because he looks all messed up and mean. He is all of the, the id that has been stripped from Mario. Yeah. It's been planted in this greedy, angry. But I'm the same, on the other side of the coin. he's still kind of just having fun too

he's kind of just doing what he's doing it's just kind of like his fun's different I know I have Mario on the brain because I played a lot of Warrior I do want to I would love a game where Wario the princess is captured and Wario is like

he's trying to get Bowser's treasure that's good and then sees the princess is captured and kind of accidentally becomes a hero that's fun I like that a lot You should tell them.

How does, it's just, it's, this is, this is part of what's amazing about the Mario franchise is that Wario is like, you know, could have been a tertiary character, but he's like an iconic video game character just in general. Like he's like almost like gotten bigger than the franchise. Just conceptually, the idea of Wario is so engaging. Yeah. And he exists as basically dark Mario. But he's such a well-realized character that he, you know, he broke out.

I love the idea of the meeting where they're like, where they're like, let's make Wario, what should his, what's he like? And somebody just went, greedy. Yeah. He fucking stinks. All right, we're done. He likes boogers and shit. Because the Wario Ware games, which is, you know, that's a whole other topic but those games are

incredible. They're so, so, so fun. Those are great games and so are the Wario Land series on Game Boy. Yeah, the Warrior, yeah, those are really great. Nick, so you were saying that Super Mario World is probably your favorite Mario game? Yeah, I think so. I mean Top three, top three boys, top three. What are your top three? That's a thing. Like, I'm looking

at the whole list and it's it's, you know, is three in there. I think I think Odyssey has to be in there. Yeah. Or maybe it doesn't because I do like 3D world so much. I think Odyssey is just like a bet like a more. Like I like like 3D world. Matt, I know you have so much affection for.

But I just kind of think like Odyssey is so much more like what a 3D Mario is. Yes. In terms of the way the play spaces are structured in terms of the way the goals are achieved. that I'm just like, I kind of feel like that one is the 3D entry that I would pick. What it gets tricky after that is like, even though Super Mario World World 2, Yoshi's Island is a Mario game,

I just think of that as a Yoshi game. I feel like it's kind of a cop out to toss that in there because of its original title. I know, I think I might, you know what? I think I would probably do World Odyssey, Odyssey, And I might throw the OG in there just to be comprehensive. Wow, that's really good.

I think I'd probably do Super Mario Brothers 3 instead. World, World Odyssey, Super Mario Brothers 3. Two of mine are similar to yours. Yeah. I'm throwing Super Mario World probably at number three. Mm-hmm. Super Mario Odyssey at number two. Wow.

And as mentioned, Super Mario 3D World number one. And the reason I love it so much is that it does both things perfectly. It's a perfect marriage of a 2D. Mario and a 3D Mario game. Yeah, the sort of linear platforming in 3D. It's, and it's just, and you know, the cat stuff goes a long way. Yeah. That's like, that's, that's great. That's great. That's not. The whole cherry's great.

It's, oh, man. I even forgot about the cherry. I love the cherry. Also, I was thinking about this earlier when you were talking about getting small. Getting small and getting really big. That's just good shit. That's like fun. That's fun in any game. It's fun to get small, fun to get big. Yeah.

I think might be fun to get, it might be more fun to get small. There's another thing about Mario. gets big and he gets small. Like that's just like these are just like he gets a power up that makes him big and then he gets hit and he gets small again. Power up get you too. Yeah. My, uh, my three are

um, galaxy. Three. Yeah. Those are great choices. Here's the thing. There's so many good ones. Yeah. We're kind of all objectively right. Yeah. They're all good. Can I say another thing about my boy

Wario from a virtual boy? Yeah, you love Warrie. I love this Wario game. Yeah. When he powers up, he gets big, right? He can get small and he can get big. Power's up to get big and all of his powers are hats, right? He's got like a bird hat, a fire hat, a combo bird and fire hat. Like you get the bird hat and then you get a fire hat, then it turns into dragon hat.

The thing is, you can power up like multiple times. He takes one hit and he gets tiny. He loses all of it. Yes. And he is ugly as shit when he's tiny. I noticed that while playing that a little bit. Yeah, when taking damage, he gets small, like, imp-like. He's repulsive.

He's got, like, two hairs. That's so funny. It is so, he looks hideous when he's small. Whereas Mario, when he's small, still a charmer. Mario farts, right? Yeah, it is fart. I think it's funny. He's a fart move in Smash Brothers.

It's funny. Mario sucks. He's so good. He's so nasty. He's great. Big nasty freak. he's like and I drive a motorcycle um you know there's a couple there's Mario games I wish I can get into that I haven't like that I've tried that I just haven't really ever scratched the right

itch for me and I know that they're like beloved but like every time I've I've played three different paper Mario games oh and I can't ever really really fall in love with it in the way I want yeah I guess we're getting outside of the Super Mario franchise I mean like I do love Paper Mario and Paper Mario a thousand-year door Yeah But I could see

Just not clicking with those I mean I never really clicked with the Mario and Luigi games Yeah I tried those a few times And those are Those are great

People love those games Yeah Yeah And then same There was like a couple Of Mario and Donkey Kong ones too that I messed around With that I didn't really

Didn't really understand What was going on there Yeah And same with Super Mario RPG Which we did an episode on But I just can't ever really I bet you

It'll hit me one day and I'll appreciate it, but I just have not really given its due diligence quite yet. The Super Mario RPG remake was well done, but I do feel like that was such a time-in-place game in terms of just like a square developed, back when Square and Nintendo were on good terms, a Square developed a Mario game that had RPG mechanics was just so, it just felt like revelatory.

Yeah, and I think that, A lot of that charm was just like, again, just when it came out. Ultimately, like there have been so many games, like RPGs that have borrowed some of its conventions or just had similar, similar sort of conventions. And we've seen Mario in so many different contexts now that it's just like kind of hard for it to have the same sort of impact. He's with the freaking rabids now and doing tactical combat. I do like that first one. I played that quite a bit. It's good.

I never tried the second one. But it kind of, because I never really played a tactics game like that before. so it made me understand how to play a game like that. And it's good, it's good stuff. The rabbits predate the minions. The rabbits were from Rayman. Yeah. And then Rayman gave him up and we're like, you can be with Mario now.

But the rabbi, but I'm just saying like, another like, you know, a French developer, as the minions are also, you know, French. Yeah. Yeah. And they've got the similar sort of like madcap antics. It's just like, I don't know. I like the minions, but was there any sort of, you know, inspiration? here to be charitable? Maybe, uh, uh, uh, it could be, could it be, so wait, they predate.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the rabbits came first. Not even parallel thought. I have to think so. Yeah, interesting, interesting. I wonder how Rayman feels about all that. Getting cucked by Mario. I mean, we won't get them on the record. No, we'll never get an official answer.

He's just screaming about his missing arms. My hands are here, but where are my arms? 3D world you mentioned. I also 3D land on 3D S, no sloucher. that game was super duper fun really great i played some of that this weekend yeah it's well yeah you have that gorgeous uh 3d s yeah playing that that ips new yeah 3d s ll from japan oh matt i didn't have a game boy i had a game boy advanced later but i never had an o g game boy did you ever mess around with super marieland or super marion two i did not no because yeah that like i there was

maybe like when i was a kid like i i was so laser focused like i mean i was only playing playing Pokemon games were like my main video games for a long time and then it would be like you know honestly like stuff that you worked on Nick like licensed video games from movies I had just seen right like I had played the fantastic

four game that you worked on when I was a kid and like my brother probably still has it like he probably still has it in our like old room but like so I was playing a lot of like more licensed stuff like games aimed at children and then like so like Mario for some reason just wasn't on my radar because I didn't I didn't there was not he wasn't on TV or anything and there wasn't

really like like none of my friends were playing Mario so I just had no exposure to him until I like decided to like investigate myself like when I got a Game Boy advance I was like oh they're putting out these old games and they weren't you know not now cut to now but they weren't old then You know, and it's like, it's just kind of crazy to think about how long, the long tail of Mario, honestly, it's kind of impressive. I eventually got an original Game Boy, again, long after the Game Boy advanced. Like, I'll go back and get the hardware that I didn't scoop up at the time in the rare circumstance when I didn't get the hardware at the time. And I played Mario Land on the Game Boy, and it's weird. it is a weird I mean I have played it but I yeah it is a like the the main thing I remember is the physics of the fireballs they're not really a fireball it's more like a bouncing ball yeah they bounce and that it's very strange they I mean they bounce but but they have they have different like it bounces it's more like a like a like a a pong bounce like it goes off in the same angle that it hits as opposed to like kind of the loose forward sort of dribbling that that the the fireball has in the original it's strange uh

And it, also on the original Game Boy, there was so much ghosting and blurriness. Yes. And Mario, in that game, I think one of the, to talk about my virtual boy, boy, he moves really slow in the game. I think it was probably to prevent from too much milkiness on the virtual voice screens. Mario Land, the boy moves so fast that the screen becomes kind of a greasy blur. and I found that off-putting. Yeah, I can see that. Didn't like it.

I should go back and check out Mario Land on my analog pocket. That'd be a nice way to check it out. There you go. I mean, there's a reason the games that really popped on the Game Boy were like Tetris, like short-burst games, and then like Pokemon, because it's like, hey, that's a, that's a turn-based game where you don't have to worry about the sorts of things Heather's described. Yeah, yeah, and also just like, gosh, the idea that we were.

replacing batteries, I like probably owe my mom hundreds of dollars for just buying us batteries like all the time. I remember she bought us like a wall charged like a little insert for the Game Boy

Advance that had like that it wasn't a rechargeable battery but it was like you put it in place of the battery pack there and plug it into the wall. Then we were like then had to be

buy an outlet to play a Game Boy Advance so we wouldn't have to buy batteries. And let me tell you, if that thing comes out of the Game Boy Advance, screams were heard often. It was not perfect. Yeah, the speed with which my parents got me the AC adapter for the Game Gear was Sonic stuff. Like, I think probably I went through the first, I think it was six batteries on our first big car ride. and I don't know if it made it all the way, you know, in the car ride. It did not. I mean, this is the thing.

The game gear had the color display, which looked way better. But part of the genius of the Game Boy is that Nintendo did prioritize things like battery life. So it did not chew through batteries the way that a Game Gear or Atari Links did, or let alone the SIGA nomad, which was ridiculous. So I remember my parents getting the cigarette lighter adapter for the game gear in the car. Yeah. and the AC adapter for it at home. And I never, ever used batteries for it.

That's pretty sick, though. I guess so. We've talked about Super Mario Brothers Wonder on here, but I don't know. I had a lot of fun with Wonder. I had a lot of fun with Wonder. And honestly, I think about Elephant Mario a lot. I really like Elephant Mario. I wasn't blown away by Wonder.

We've had this conversation before. I preferred the Sonic game whose name I don't even remember. I think it was called Sonic Superstar. or something like that. Yeah, I really like Sonic Superstars that came out at the same time. I kind of hope that there's a switch to upgrade and then maybe DLC for Wonder.

That'd be a nice thing to get. That would be fun. Yeah. And we've done full episodes about Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. I mean, wait, we did one about three, too, didn't we? Did we do, I think we must have done three. Yeah, that sounds right.

But, you know, like, I mean, it's, this is a thing, 64 is such a bastard piece, obviously so influential. It plays a little wonky today, but it is just things like the turning radius with Mario, like some of the analog stick movement doesn't feel as elegant as a contemporary 3D platformer, but it was also inventing it. And it's a game that's almost 30 years old, which is fucking insane. Yeah. So it's and Mario Sunshine is a very flawed game with some great running around and some great water spray in the actual levels. where you lose flood, your backpacker are really fun platformers, challenging platformers. I did finish it for the first time because that was the first Mario game I did not finish

back when it came out on the GameCube when we recovered it on the podcast. And yeah, it's an interesting, weird outlier in the franchise. I think part of why I don't like it so much is I don't like gunk. Yeah, there's a lot of gunk you have to clean up. A lot of that game is just going around spraying gunk. You must not really not really be into Splatoon at all. I mean, people get mad when we talk about it because none of us know anything about Splatoon and they think it's like ignorance on purpose.

I was like, I just like don't know it. Sorry. Like I can't know everything. But man, yeah, gunk's not really my thing. I'm familiar with Splatoon because it is an alarm setting on my alarm. Ranch, you remember your first encounter with the famous plumber Mario? I didn't even, I did not know he was a. Plummer.

Wow, there you go. I just learned that. My cousins had a Nintendo 64, and I used to watch them play the 64 version. And then I would always want to play Mario Party, but they would never want to play Mario Party with me. And that's my experience with... Mario Party is a fight starter. You'll be careful with Mario Party. I was just about to say that it would maybe be fun to play Mario Party live on the show, but actually maybe it wouldn't.

Do you remember that Mario Party game? There was one of the games that involved spinning the analog stick around as quickly as possible. And so the way to do is you'd use the palm of your hand. And you would just get like this fucking like blister in the middle of your palm. It's as hard as you fucking could. I'm like told close friends looking directly into their eyes to go fuck themselves, play Mario Party. This is a, there's a time I remember in Mario Party I was playing it. And I was like, I will win if I steal my friends.

friend's star and it just had to do it I was like I got to use the ghost to steal a friend's star it's funny to be a little devious though yeah I've had so few in-person multiplayer video game experiences that I think maybe I've played a Mario Party once so if we wanted to cover it on the show it would be a brand new experience I think it would be kind of funny because we could like narrate what's going on well and then do it and then record us a lot Live becoming upset. Could be a thing to stream too sometimes. Yeah, that can be fun.

If a new entry comes out. Yeah. When was the last one was? Oh, do people think of, what do people? What do you go to Switch? Mario Party Jamboree. And then they just did a Switch 2 version of it. And people, it's, I played it at our friend's house.

The thing, it's like, they're fine. At a certain point, they became fine. Like, after Mario Party 2, it's like, these are all just the same. It may reuse the same, like, boards or, like, they come up with new boards, but, like, the game mechanics that you're doing are the same, so you can't really iterate it on it in the same way that you could, like, a 3D or a 2D Mario game.

I have a pitch for what I would like them to announce on the 40th Mario anniversary. I want, so you guys remember Nintendo Land for the 3DS? Yes. It's like a game where you play micro versions of all the Nintendo game. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you get like a tiny bit of Zelda, a tiny bit of Mario, a tiny bit of Donkey Kong, et cetera. I want a Mario land where you play mini versions of every Mario game that's ever been released. Hey, that's cool. So you get like two minutes of Mario Sunshine or two minutes of Mario 64 to achieve some challenge. And I want that game. The thing with your ideas, Heather, is that they're too good and they won't do it. like it's too good that's too good of an idea for Nintendo to be like uh who is a company that's

allergic to making money in a in a normal way um but somehow is the like most lucrative video game company on earth because they they because they know that we're in our uh please sir have another era yeah it's like whatever i mean also their games like don't go on sale they do things like that and yes they they just uh they have such big IP and they somehow have the biggest hardware on Earth still. Years after people pronounce them for dead repeatedly. It's crazy how the Nintendo is going to go third party was like a meme for like 15 years. Oh, yeah.

And then now they're just like, why, yeah, of course not. Now I guess the new thing is Nintendo is going to be bought by Apple. That's the new meme. And then it's just like, you know, whatever. We'll see if that I can't imagine that would ever transpire. Yeah. I always think things can't get worse, but I'm proven wrong every day. Let him.

I wish that Sony didn't have a. a game system because what I would love is if Sony had never made PlayStation and they bought Nintendo because the next system would be so fucking weird. You have to put your feet into this. What?

It's white. You have to chew the cartridges before you use them. What? Should we talk about the Super Mario Brothers movies at all? I mean, like, I'm a defender of the Illumination one. I know it's kind of

slight, but I do think just like visually it's such a, it does really evoke what Mario is, what playing Mario is. But I think maybe the more interesting thing is a movie we've talked about before, but is the Bob Hoskins, John Lake Wazombo, live action movie, Super Mario Brothers in name only from the 90s that was adapted by two weirdos who just took the IP in a wildly different directions and we're somehow able to get away with releasing it theatrically. It's a fascinating movie that's not very good, but is also like amazing that it exists.

Yeah, I think more interesting is correct. Not necessarily better, but yeah, it is an interesting watch if you've never seen it before. I've got the director's cut saved to my hard drive. And it is not a better movie, but it is even weirder. I'm going to bring you a flash drive. I'm going to have to see that. Really? Yeah.

Okay, yeah. I just like, so it eliminates like the voiceover at the beginning that's like, hey, back when there was dinosaurs, they got hit by a meteor. And then New York City was in the same place. Like they got rid of all that. In the director's cut, it's just like, it opens dystopian. Like, it's just so strange. I do like the illumination one quite a bit.

it is that's like a tough movie to go see uh solo opening day matinee like to be uh well kind of every movie you see is a matinee he's fucking back did you see that i did see it generational talent um it is true but like it's like in the same way that i go see these sonic movies Like 10 a.m. The Friday they come out. Sonic though, you go to see Sonic and you're like, at the end, you're Amp. Yeah.

You see Mario and you're like, I was here by myself. Well, the first Sonic movie, I feel like I had the same experience watching the first Mario movie where it was that I can't wait to see the next one. Because we don't have to do all this bullshit setting up what's going on. I'm so actually, I'm legitimately very excited for what I believe they're calling Super Mario World, the sequel to the sequel to the. The Illumination movie. Yeah, excited about that?

Super fucking excited about Zelda. Yeah. Oh, yes. But, like, I'm like, we're talking to all this stuff about Wario. They've got to introduce Wario on these things, right? You think you're going to put Wario in the Illumination one? I know they teased Yoshi at the end of the first one. That's going to be a big new ad for the first one.

I wouldn't be shocked if Wario was the tease at the end of then credits, the post credits. It'd be pretty sick. I mean, my boy. Not Wa Luigi, though. Maybe both of them together. I could see it. man jack black has bowser yet again like he's so good in the movie the peaches song a lot of fun i know we got lava chicken from minecraft but just before we had the peaches song and that was

dominating the charts back then he's a he's a entertainment magnet how strange is it to be jack black and be so bankable yeah like to be like to be they like i don't know if hollywood understood how big Minecraft was going to be before it was released. I think there was a lot of skepticism. And that dude both came out, both brought Super Mario for Illumination across the billion dollar line

and then Minecraft across the billion dollar line. Yeah, it's kind of crazy he's got, so yeah, the, the, he's that, he, like he's, him and him in the Illumination Mario and him in the, you know, the, the, the, the, uh, the Minecraft live action. are just like he's such a reason

why those succeed and it goes it shows just like how unwatchable the borderlands movie is that he is clap trap in that film and like nobody saw

wow yeah here's the thing well it's a voice performance you kind of want to see Jack though it's a voice performance in in Super Mario brothers

yeah but you kind of like you see some of a minute I don't think a live action I think if they give Jack Black one of the human roles in Borderlands like that movie is still I mean they get fucking Kate Blanchett isn't that movie? It's like Lydia Carr herself.

It's fucking insane. I wish I could read the original script that got those guys attached. Yeah. Because it must be great. A hundred drafts ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Should we do a segment? Let's do a segment. Yeah, did we miss anything Mario-wise? I don't know. I feel like we're reasonably comprehensive. So happy 40th, Mario. Happy 40th, Mario, Mario, we love you. Mario, time to get a colonoscopy.

Did you just go to blow a kiss at the camera? I was going to blow a kiss at the camera for Mario, but then Nick started talking, I wanted to hear what he had to say. I don't regret it, I guess. Man, I got that to look forward to in a couple of years. Yeah, look forward to it. Please, Doc, can I get it early?

I might be at risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they should do it. They should do it soon. I got a segment for us. It's the return of an old favorite game overtime. And to keep us on theme, for today's episode, I'm going to name some various Mario games. Oh, wow.

From the broad spectrum of Mario games, so not just Super Mario. Okay. And you're going to tell me how long they take to be. These are all stores from how long to be, and we're only looking at main story only. Main story only. So a lot of these are, of course, going to be self-report

because, you know, some of them are older, right? That's by its nature and self-reported. So these are, but this main line, main story only is the first of the three categories, right? Yes. Main story, main story plus extras and then completionist. Exactly. Okay, got it, got it. So this will be the fastest one.

Yeah, the fastest one. And I feel like probably more in line with, uh, your average play through of a, of a game like this, unless you're being, uh, you know, comprehensive and, and, and crazy. Got it. Like how I like to play some of these sometimes. Here we go. Super Mario Bros. 2 U.S. How long is it take to beat Super Mario Bros. 2 U.S.? Super Mario Brothers 2.S.A.

I think, I'm going to say the main story only is three hours. Okay. Nick? Heather? Three and a half. Nick takes it exactly three hours to beat the story of Super Mario Brothers 2 U.S. Here we go. How about this one? New Super Mario Brothers 2 for the 3D.S. All right, so this is the aforementioned coin collecting game.

Yes. You're in the... This is probably not getting you to a million coins. Yes, right. You're just trying to get... But don't you... Four hours. You have to get a million coins to finish it?

I don't remember. I don't think so. I think that's like the overall sort of... Like in the same way that there's 120-something stars or whatever, yeah. I can't remember. You said four? Heather's saying four hours. I'll say two and a half hours.

Heather's going to take this one. It's five and a half hours. Wow. Super Mario Brothers, too. A little meteor. Not nothing. Pretty nice. Not nothing.

How about this? Super Mario Galaxy. Oh, God. It's a tie game. Anybody can take this still. Super Mario Galaxy, main story only. I'm going to say 11 hours. I'm going to say nine hours.

This one's going to Nick. 14 hours. Wow. Two to one. Wig's in the lead. Big game. What a fucking video game. I got to play it. It sounds good. God, it's so good.

You know, I never played Galaxy 2. That's my big blind spot. Well, I hope it comes out on Friday so you can play it. Yeah. I would love that. And if you don't do it, Nintendo, come on, come on, dude, do it for Nick. We don't have it. How about this? Super Mario RPG. 26 hours. Squaresoft RPG. Heather's saying 26 hours. I'll go lower. I'll say 18 hours. I'm not going to price his right rules this one.

Nick is closest even though he did go over 12 hours 12 hours okay 12 hours yeah it's not it's not super super I remember not being super long but super short

so Nick's in the lead now I think he I don't think I've gotten any of them no you got the you got the second one you got the second one oh I did yeah which was new Super Mario Brothers too this next one right here

Super Mario 3D land for the 3D Okay, Super Mario 3D land. I'm going to say right at five hours. Shit, I shouldn't let him go first. Have we not been alternating? I don't know. Heather's answered first a couple of times. Yeah, I thought we've been alternating.

I was going to go with five. I'm going to go six. Going second. Made you win this one, Heather. Wow. Seven hours. Wow. There you go.

That's a big game. Big. And such as compact package for the 3DS. Virtual Boy, Wari Land. Two hours. Super Mario Just gave us a little point 3D land

I mean just just a Like it's I should replay it We don't get world without land Yeah You know I mean I know 3D world is just a better realized version of it

But 3D land is so fun It's so good I think I want to replay it I've because I've got this 3DS I've been playing so many 3DS games Wow They're so pleasant Yeah

And I love the 3D effect I love it It's it's I'm very happy that I got that system. Yeah. Maybe I'll toss it on soon. Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island. Okay.

Wait, who went first last time? You did. You did. Okay. I'll let Heather go first. Super Mario Land World 2, Yoshi's Island is a nine-hour game. Nine hours, Heather says. Nine hours.

We got to shout out the map theme. da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Good stuff. That's what we sing. The Coco-Ichi Banya song to the Yoshi's Island Map theme. Yeah. Cocoa Ichibanya.

Which? I'll say. Very cute of us. I learned to play that on the piano. I show my piano teacher. I didn't really care. I didn't know what I was. This is a food.

song, me and my friends sing. Okay. You're like standing in front of the door? Heather said nine hours. And we're not doing Price's Right Rules. That's right. I'll go six hours. Heather then gets it.

Wow. Because it is eight hours. Eight hours. Wow. And we threw away the Price's Right Rules. Nobody likes him. Yeah. Nobody likes him. I like them.

Well, yeah, in that case, you would have really liked that one. I would have. So now it's your thing. It's a tie game. We got one more. Wow, I love it. Kind of designed this one pretty good. Yeah, this worked out great.

Mario and Luigi Dream Team. How many hours to beat? Mario and Luigi Dream Team. Which one was Dream Team? Which platform was? I think the last one for the 3DS. One before Brothership, I think. For the Switch.

I have no idea how long those games are. I'll go, I'm first this time, right? That's right. Mario and Luigi dream team, I'm going to say 16 hours main line only, main story only. What is this game? This is an RPG. Is it an RPG? Yeah, it's an RPG.

16 hours, I'm like, for what? This is like the Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga games. It's, you know, like a light RPG, some action combat. So is there some like, you know, timed button presses for combat? 10 hours. Nick's going to be our winner. Wow. But I regret to report

that Mario and Luigi Dream Team to complete the main story it takes 40 hours. That is a huge game. That's a huge game. The Mario and Luigi games I had the, I'd sorted by you know,

longest time to complete for main story. And the top, one of them was like a a game that was like not released here and it's not really it's like a puzzle uh game it's like 48 hours or something but the top like two were both uh mario and luigi games and they're both clock in at 40 hours crazy uh i'm i'm bringing up uh i just i just did this i opened up how uh how long to

beat the main page um cyberpunk 2077 main story only 26 hours that's a lot of game they're giving you that's good hey Nick's the winner guys we love Mario I think we're all winners this week we all won Mario is a good guy yeah and this is a good anniversary I had a nice time talking about him that's this week's get played our producers Rochelle Chen ranch yard underscore underscore sard uh ranch anything you're streaming I beat silent Hill too let's go what's the verdict um I loved it yes and I also watched all the endings that I didn't get.

Wow. And I just want to talk about the dog ending. Great ending. What the fuck? The rumor is that Silent Hill's coming to Fortnite. No way.

Yeah. If I can run around his pyramid head with a machine gun, it's great, great day. It sort of makes him less scary. Yeah, but what if you play him like pyramid head? You just walk real slow.

Yeah, that is good. Get sniped. Yeah, you're 98. Our music is by Ben Prunty, Ben Prunty Music.com, our art by Duck Brigade Design, DuckBrigade.com, merchant kinshipgoods.com and Get Animate. Our sister show is over on Patreon. Matt, what are we watching this week? We're starting a new show. Heather, you want to tell us what it is? Well, it's time for the final season of Stranger Things on Netflix. Stranger Things isn't an anime, but it was heavily inspired and influenced by an anime. And we are watching that anime. It's Elfin Lead on Get Animate.

Wow, patreon.com slash get played. I think Mario got played. Yeah, Mario got played. Ow, oh, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. That was a headgum podcast. I'm Tignotaro. I'm Mae Martin. And I'm Fortune Feemster.

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