Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Kirby Air Riders Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

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Recruitment for Arknight's Enfield beta test two has officially begun. Head to Enfield.grifeline.com and complete the recruitment survey for a chance to join beta test two when it starts on November 28th. Yo, what's up? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, November 19th, 2025. I'm one of your host's blessing, Adioia Jr. joining me is Tim Moong, Goethe's. I'm sick. I have a cold. It sucks. So I'm home. My first time. in the home setup in over a year, it feels like crazy, crazy to be here.

I appreciate you not coming in and getting more people sick. You're doing the responsible thing, Tim. I am, I am. But it's still an exciting episode because we're also joined by the one and only IGN's Logan Plant. Logan, welcome to the show. Hey, what's up, guys? Thanks for having me back. Yeah, nice to see you again.

I want to talk about a couple things since we've got you off the bat. One, NVC, how's it going? NVC is going great. Yeah, I'm really proud of what we've done. done this year over on Nintendo Voice Chat. We recently just did two episodes breaking down our top 100 Nintendo games of all time list that I know

you guys are going to talk about maybe later this week, so that was a lot of fun. We did an episode earlier this year, kind of looking back at Satoro Oada on the 10th anniversary of his passing, and I'm really proud of how that tribute turned out, and there's so many Switch 2 games to talk about. We're talking a ton of Kirby Air Riders this week. Next week, we're

doing a Metroid Prime trilogy retrospective ahead of Prime 4 in two weeks. It's a super busy time, and yeah, you can check that on the IGN games YouTube channel or on your favorite podcast service. Logan, I want to let you know, I listen all the time. Like NBC, especially the Logan era of NBC, I will say, has been the thing that is my background whenever I'm just like clean in the room or whatever, I'll throw it on the TV. And it's always, always a fun listen.

Thanks so much, man. Appreciate it. Also, Logan, I love that you brought up the top 100 because people in our community have been asking about it. They've been wondering, when our blessing and Tim going to react to IGAN's top 100 games and it is happening in a jam-packed episode of gamescast this Friday, we are putting aside KHD so we can do a two-hour-long games cast going through IGN's Top 100 game by game.

We don't know what's on the list. I mean, we could assume what's on the list, right? But we don't know the order or anything like that. And so look forward to that on Friday for all the people that I've been wondering. Very excited for that. Awesome. I'm so interested to see what you guys think. Oh, yeah.

But remember this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us to the kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast to get all of our shows, ad free, and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be a part of the show, some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube superchats as we go.

Somehow it's coming for you. January 28th, we're doing a live in-person in-review event as part of SF Sketchfest. What movie are we doing? The Missing Link in our Marvel in Review ranking. Howard the Duck, so look forward to that. Tomorrow's schedule is going to be a bit different for the shows. We're going to be live with Gamescast at 10 a.m. Pacific Time to live React to the Xbox Partner Preview event happening.

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If you're a kind of funny member, today's Gregway. It's 16 minutes of Greg on Travel Days and what the kind of funny podcast means to him. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney, the song, twining. For now, let's start with topic of the show. It is our Kirby Air Riders review. Tim has played it.

Logan's played it. Logan's reviewed it for IGN. We're going to talk all about it. Starting off, I want to let y'all know that you can send in your super chat. So you have questions about Kirby Airwriters for the guys to answer. Of course, Kirby Air Riders can only be described as a fast-paced vehicular action game. I have no idea really the words to put together. But that's what Nintendo says.

That's how Nintendo puts it on their website. Tim, I want to start off with you. What is your review of Kirby Air Riders? I want to start by saying that y'all know this. I am a Nintendo fan. I am a Sakurai fan. In fact, Sakurai might be my favorite video game creator there ever was. And a lot of that has to do with the love, the care, the passion that he has for video games, for Nintendo games, for Sakurai games.

There is so much understanding of just fun and value and presentation. And what matters to old school gamers, I would say. And old school gamers still exist. They have evolved. They've changed. There's modern gamers. There's online multiplayer. There's all of the stuff.

But at the core video games, there was just a level of fun. And I feel like Sakurai always tries to make games that tap into that core bit. And when we talk about Kirby Airwriters, we are talking about a game that is the definitive version of a game that probably didn't need a definitive version. I never ever would have assumed that the six out of 10 Kirby Airwriters on GameCube, a cult classic to an extent for one of its mode, city trial, I never thought that it would get a follow up, let alone one with this much love and care put into it within the first couple months of the Switch 2's release. A lot of baffling decisions being made here, but the question is, did it pay off? I'm going to start here by saying,

I'm giving Kirby Airwriters a 7 out of 10, but I love it a lot more than that. That it to me is the critical number of where I'm looking at. This is a good game. I think there are a lot of frustration points that kind of get in its way to make it great or amazing or a masterpiece. But the love and care and passion, the fact that this game exists,

it is going to really, really touch people. I think there's a lot of fans, Nintendo or otherwise, that are going to find a lot of fun in one of the most unique, game experiences they'll ever have. And this was seen all the way to the end of the vision. They really pulled something off here.

It is not what you think. This is not Mario Kart. I keep saying this, but you look at it and you're like, oh, it's a cart racer. This is to Cart Racers, what Smash Brothers is to fighting games. But I'm not even saying Smash 1V1 Final Destination. I'm saying Smash with every single item on insanity. That's what this is compared to cart racers. But the battle mode more than.

anything. I think this is more similar to twisted metal than Mario Kart, but we'll get into that later. Awesome. I got so many questions just based off of that. But Logan, I want to throw to you. You, of course, reviewed it for IGN. What are your thoughts on it? And what did you give it on the IGN scale? Yeah, I gave it an 8 out of 10,

which means that it's great. And I think that what Tim said is spot on. Soccer Eye games are also my favorite. He is also my favorite creator ever. I love Smash Brothers. I freaking love Kid Icarus Uprising. And I was so excited that he's returning to Kirby Air Ride, which was a childhood game for me. I have a lot of nostalgia for it. Six out of

ten is right on the money. This was a sequel, I never thought would happen. It's crazy that this exists at all. But it's the ultimate realization of a flawed concept. And it's so much bigger and better than the original that it feels like jumping straight from Smash 64 to Smash Ultimate without the four sequels in between. It's just like, here's the first one. It's flawed. It's a little bit rushed. It doesn't have much to it to here's everything you could pretty much ever want from a Kirby Air Ride game. It's incredible. I think the biggest hurdle to it is the gameplay, which isn't as good as Mario Card. It isn't as good as Smash Brothers. It's crazy off the rails. This single button, sometimes two buttons, but it's really still mostly a single button game. It's weird to

wrap your head around. And sometimes it works really well. And sometimes they push this control scheme past its limitations in modes where it doesn't really work at all. But everything surrounding this package of this gameplay that is really mixed elevates it to be something better because of how much there is to unlock, how much there is to customize, how many different modes you can play, how actually good the online integration is in a Nintendo game. Like this is one of the best examples we've seen, not a very high bar, but there's a lot of online things you can do in Kirby Air Ride. It's just stuffed with content. It is the ultimate treatment for Kirby Air Ride, and I love it so much. out. All right, there's so much to talk about here.

I guess I want to start off with the single button thing, because that's something that I, you know, going back to the original Kirby Air Ride was a feature of that game, but something that you hear in a game coming on 2025, a game that you guys are describing is the definitive version, the smash ultimate of what a Kirby Air Ride is. So for them to keep the single button or, you know, two button layout there, was that the right move?

That is, that's the question, man. And I think that that's kind of the bet that they made here. And I don't think there was a world that exists that Sakurai made this a modern controlling game because then it's not the vision that they had. I feel like this all goes all the way back to the original Kirby games. The idea that, yes, there is Mario and yes, Mario runs and jumps and controls a certain way. Kirby, you don't need to be scared of falling down a hole because he can just kind of float by holding up, right? very different compared to what other platformers are doing at the time. And it's more about the creativity than the challenge necessarily.

And I think that with Kirby Airwriters, they really challenge themselves to be like, all right, we want anyone to be able to pick up and play this game, even if nobody understands it. They're going to have fun with it to some extent because it is so simple to wrap your mind around. It is just one button. One button does every single thing. You move the stick and the one button makes you go. It makes you stop.

It makes it turn. It's like it's crazy how many. things the one button does. And I think personally, undeniably, that's to the detriment of the quality of the video game, because there are so many modes that I think the frustration wins out where even actually I think in any mode at the end of the day, the frustration of the controls at some point, whether I'm losing or winning or whatever it is. At some point, I'm like, oh man, I really wish I could use more buttons for this.

but it's still super fun. It's like, that's the thing is like it's the commitment to the vision that kind of allows the fun to be had. But I do think that there was a stubbornness that gets in the way of this being something for everybody. So yeah, I think stubborn is a very good way to describe some of Soccer Eye's decisions across all his games. I remember when Brawl's cutscenes got posted online. So he said, I didn't like that. So Smash 4 gets zero cutscenes. That's just that that's to the detriment of that game.

And you're right, sticking to this control scheme, almost like he wanted a shot at redemption. Kirby Air Ride was not critically well received. And so he's like, I can do it again and I can do it better. They did. They absolutely did it better.

But still, it's like if Mario Kart to fire your red shell, if you had to hit the accelerate button, it's strange. Why there should be an attack button in Kirby Air Riders. It would make so many modes better. But instead, A, does everything, except launch your special final smash type move.

A does everything else. And the context of what A does, it seems simple. But if you're introducing this to new players for the first time, it's not. Like they will mash A when you're supposed to not mash. You're supposed to just let your machine glide forward. And they will push the stick forward, which drives the machine into the ground. And they, like, it's just not natural at first. And then when you finally get the hang of it, it's very fun, but still not very precise.

Yeah. And, you know, taking that one step further, I feel like so much of the game is, based on not just choosing your favorite vehicle and character and running with it, but understanding that these characters are vastly different in the way to control. So while it is just a single button thing, there are the however many machines, right? Every single one feels radically different than the other. It's not like Smash Brothers where there's this kind of default understanding of a move set.

And yeah, there's variations here and there. There might be like classes of fighters that you're going through, but every single character jump is jump and attack and special and all that it is still the same concept with this the the machines function fundamentally differently like some of them will a will cause them to stop and some a will cause them to go and some a will cause them to turn it's it's very wacky but like it works this is a game that if you just listen to it and just let it take over, that's where I think it really starts to get special and beyond good. There is elements that are great of this game.

I just think that overall, there's so much in the way of it, maintaining that at all times. I want to set the table more for people who might be listening and either didn't play Kirby Air Ride or might be listening as, oh, there's a new games cast out. I want to check it out and want to learn more about the game or what it is. First, I want to read a blur from Nintendo's website that explains a little bit more, right? It says, pick your rider, pick your machine, and mount up for competition. Take on your rivals in frantic arena battles or fast-paced races on the ground and in the air. Use the boost charge button to break and control your turns as your machine automatically fights for top speed.

Fill your boost charge gauge as you drift around the bend and release it to trigger an explosive dash. Tim, I'll start with you. What is the definitive Kirby Air Riders experience or is there a definitive Kirby Air Riders experience? I mean, I really do think that it is just, it's this game in its totality is the definitive experience. There are three different main modes. There's air ride, there's top ride, and then there's city trial. Air ride is the closest to a traditional race Mario Kart style thing. Just get to the finish and beat everybody else or destroy your opponents before they get to the end, like F0 style.

And Top Ride is the same thing just from a different point. perspective top down. It plays like those old school like top rally any S and S&S games. Definitely, I think, a low light of this game's modes. Yeah. And then there is city trial, which is you're in a semi open world for five minutes going around a city, collecting a bunch of stat boosters that are going to affect your machine when you go into a mini game at the end of it, competing against others with all of those stats, uh, your character and then there's road trip which is the single player mode of this game that kind of combines all of those in a very world of light meets subspace emissary style game

that's yeah and I'm sure we'll talk a lot about that yeah Logan is that do you agree as far as well how Tim is describing the definitive experience of this game yeah and really what's cool about it is that like a smash brothers you can really stick to the modes that you like and still unlock most of the things that you would want to unlock. Characters, there's a checklist board, which is one of my favorite parts of any soccer eye game, and it's very good in Kirby Airwriters, where there's 150 achievements for each of those modes that Tim just describes. There's 750 total, because there's also 150 for online.

And those, like, Waddle Do is unlockable on multiple of the achievement boards. And the first time you unlock him, through city trial, you unlock the character. And then the second time you unlock him, you get a costume for him. So no matter which achievement you do first, you get the character first, then his alternate color. So if you just want to unlock all the characters and stick to the modes you like, you can do that. You can get all the machines through the in-game store with in-game currency. There's no microtransactions in this game at all. So it's just super flexible.

And I think that's partially why I landed on in aid is, yeah, there's some low lights, but it's so flexible and so customizable that you can really meld this into be whatever you want it to be. And focusing on the stuff you love, I think it's amazing at times. So I want to go back to what Tim was talking about with road trip, right? You described as subspace meets Word of Light. And, you know, I like both of those things. Subspace I like for the story. World of Light, I like for the references and, you know, how deep it goes and far as as customization and all that stuff.

How does this sit with you as far as, I guess, in that comparison, would you call this something that's as good as a subspace, as good as a World of Light? Oh, man. I almost don't even want to answer that question because, like, to directly compare them more than just saying they're similar is, I think, not fully accurate. I will say I had a fantastic time with road trip. That is where I spent most of my time with this game. I think I'm about overall 16 hours into this game so far.

And I have done all of the challenges for the road trip mode over various playthroughs of it. And I just love it because it does kind of allow you to get a taste of all the different gameplay modes. And you get the cutscenes that we've been seen teased out through. a lot of the Nintendo Directs and all of that for this game. And there are cutscenes that were made by the same team that did the Wii U and 3DS Smash Brothers reveal trailers as well as the ultimate reveal trailers. So their style is perfect. Like I am obsessed with the look of these cutscenes.

They are so cool. Bad ass as hell. Weird as hell. Just like every Kirby game, it's like, how is this the story of this game? I can't wait to see what happens next in the most bizarre way possible. And that's the thing that's different than World of Light versus Substance Emissary. The gameplay of this functions more like World of Light that it is kind of like a randomized challenge that you're doing that's based on something of the Kirby lore.

And then after you do a bunch of them, you get a cutscene. That's more similar to Substreet Emissary. And I like that. Having said that, Kirby's not Smash Brothers. So the Kirby lore and all that stuff, it doesn't have as nearly. as much of like the, oh man, I'm so here for it when, you know, Mario saves Peach from Link, like that type of stuff. Like, you're not getting that.

You are getting some great stuff. I don't want to overshadow that. But it's just funny. It's, it's Sakurai committing to being Sakurai in every way possible. And that's such a compliment, honestly. Yeah. I mean, I want to you, I want you to speak more on that because at the top of your review, mentioned that, you know, this is very much a Sakurai game and has like that Sakurai

energy to it. And for me, the Sakurai games that I've played the most have been Smash Bros. And so when I think of what I love about Sakurai, so much that is drenched in Nintendo characters and all the crossover aspect of it and hearing music from all these different games and all that stuff, right? Like, you know, the Sakurainess that I attach to why I love his games, a lot of it is that. What about Kirby Air Riders maximizes what Sakurai is known for? All right.

I love that question. And at some point, like, I would love to just have a deep dive on Saccharize history with you, Bless, because like there is so much you can understand

about where Nintendo is at today, just following the lineage of his games. But going back to Kirby's Superstar on the Super Nintendo, which I think is probably what most people would say that the best Kirby game from that era. For sure. When you play a superstar, it is a collection of like,

what was it, six different games in one. Like, I don't even want to call it a mini-game collection. It was more of like a game collection. Like, there was a ton of different style games that you're playing. And one of them was great cave offensive, which is you running around a big map, collecting like these stat power-ups that eventually you have a fight at the end. Very similar to Smash Run.

Very similar to Kirby's Air Ride. Like, there was just like a lot of DNA that goes through all of his games that you start to see a lot of patterns and a lot of reverence for his own. characters and for his own style of platforming. Like you look at a Kirby game and how it controls platforming-wise, and you look at Smash Brothers, they're the same thing. And when you look at the Kirby character and how the world of Kirby is like, some would say, overrepresented in Smash Brothers, it's because it's Saccharize Baby, right?

So playing this is so funny because you boot up the game and it just feels like endless modes. In the same way, you play brawl, even going back to Smash 64 and Melee, like, the break the targets, home run challenge, board the platforms. Like there's just a lot of value in modes of taking the gameplay and applying it in different ways. And this is really like, all right, we have this gameplay style for the Kirby's Air Ride. How do we apply it to as many different game types as possible?

And I think for the most part it works. There are some that are a little less fun than others. I think the top ride like Logan was saying is like it feels a little less than. but Sakra even said in the Nintendo Direct, I know it's not as good, but it was in the original game, so I had to do the definitive version here. It's like, okay, cool.

But yeah, it's funny to me because I do feel like Kirby Air Riders, compared to some of the other games I was saying, it has all of the, you know there's Smash Brothers, the main mode of Smash. Yeah. And then there's like all the other modes. And they're kind of like your least favorite part of Smash Brothers. that's what this game is

it's all the least favorite parts without having that one core this is the thing this is the like what it's all about and everything else just kind of goes into that but similar to the modes that I like least in Smash Brothers least doesn't mean I don't like them it just means I like them least compared

to the other stuff the way that Sakra has this like challenge board and the way that he incentivizes you to want to do all the things that you didn't think you wanted to do makes you start to learn how those game modes work And then you're like, wait, I actually do like this. And like Logan was saying, these challenge boards that are in pretty much every single

Sakurai game. It's like an achievement system, trophy system, but built in the game. It's kind of brilliant because each mode in this game has like a big picture that you're like unlocking parts of, 150 challenges per style. There's four different boards. So there's a lot to do. And every time you happenstance complete a challenge, it unlocks that little block on the challenge board, but it also unlocks what the challenges are in the adjacent blocks.

So now you know, oh, I need to be my rival three times or I need to do this or I need to do that. And it really incentivizes you to want to continue to fill that board out. And I think that it's that infinite loop of gameplay value that starts to strengthen the overall experience where you're not looking it as this mode, this mode, you're kind of looking it as this game. Interesting. Yeah, and I compare that to Mario Kart World, which I did not think had enough to do in its open world, but it spent all this time building. And that's what Kirby Airwriters does better is it gives you a reason to keep going back. And that checklist is always accessible at the press of a button. You pull it up on this clipboard because this whole UI is like a office with a little

knickknacks on the desk. And then you pull up the clipboard, you have the checklist. And this is an innovation for the Sakurai checklist. For the first time ever, you can hit the start button on a challenge and it will set up the requirements for that challenge in that mode. If it's like, you need to win this race as this character against this level of CPU, hit start, it loads it, boom, you're there in Air Ride, ready to hit start. It's so smart in how it does that. And it makes this a really good single player game, too. It's not just fun with friends because you do want to go into a race and think, I'm going to focus on winning the race, but I also know I need to defeat this enemy without making it mad to unlock a little checkmark. And you'll unlock ones you never knew you needed

too just by playing because you'll just happen to complete objectives. It's just brilliant. And I've played for 30 hours, I think. And I still have 150 achievements left. And I'm planning to get them all because it's just continuously fun to keep returning to it. Logan, what mode got the most of your time? I know Tim mentioned that it was the story mode that I already got the road trip. Road trip.

Thank you. Logan, how did you spend your time in the game? City trial was my number one. That is the Kirby Air Ride mode from the original and it is even better here. I think it is just so unique. It's such a unique battle mode to drop into a map that has slight variations each time you drop in and 40 different events that can take place. Sometimes it's foggy everywhere and you can't see where you're going.

Sometimes these portals appear that warp you to different parts of the map. Sometimes a boss comes in and whoever lands that final hit gets just a ton of stuff rewarded to them. Sometimes there's like these really far off islands that you need to try to glide to. Build a glider good enough to get there and you'll be rewarded with either like a legendary machine or a ton of parts to boost your machine. It's just really, really rewarding to intimately learn this small city. It's like this game is super deep

where Mario Kart World is like, why it is an ocean? This is very, very small, but very, very deep. It's all about just learning this content and getting better at it and knowing it intimately. It's the same with the courses too. You've got to know the shortcuts. You've got to know the right enemies to attack

and all this stuff. It's just really smart in that way. How is it compared to the original career ride? And, you know, when it first got announced, and for me, as somebody who didn't play Kirby Air Ride, I think it was talking to Tim and Tim was talking about how City Trial was such a highlight of that original game. Does it feel improved? Does it feel like a step forward for what you want out of a sequel? It is. It is City Trial turned up to like 100. It's crazy. I played a bunch on the GameCube over the last month to get ready for Kirby Air Riders. And there's four people on the map and you'll drive around. You'll get like 20, 30 power ups and your car doesn't feel crazy at by the end of it.

And in Air Riders, they're 16 players. You'll get 120 to 140 power-ups. You are hanging on for dear life by the end of it. Because your machine is sometimes out of control, and it's just way bigger, way faster. When you kill a rider, you can steal their machine, and it does the Smash Bros. Knockout, Red and Black, zoom in that Ultimate does. Like, it is just way more intense and frantic.

And, yeah, I think it's way improved and way more fun. For a mode, I already really liked in the original. I think it's perfected. Like this is the definitive version of this game. And Sakra, I was saying that there is no DLC for this. There are no micro-transactions. This is the complete game. And it really is.

Like, they went all out to make sure that this is impossible to make better for what it is. I don't think that's for everybody again. But I do think that if you enjoyed city trial back on the GameCube, oh, my God, you're going to love this. And bless, this one's kind of for you. Like, the energy of N64 side modes, like Pokemon Stadium, minigames and all of that, that's what this game is, just like turned up to a thousand. Logan said earlier, it's like if Smash 64 jumped to Ultimate, I think that's actually an amazing way to put this in terms of its polish and really like dialing in the modes

and stuff. I do think that it's, that's not necessarily fully a compliment, though, because I think skipping the melee of it all is not necessarily the best move because I think that that honed the game in in terms of the mechanics of the fights and turned to, from just a party game to being potentially more, whereas this I do feel like is more on that party side, but it nails that party side. It is pure chaos.

It is pure little kid fun. Like the city trial and the other modes as well, but city trial specifically, it reminds me of like being a kid going to like a carnival and having unlimited tokens or tickets to play all of the games. And you're just like overwhelmed with like how much fun you can have at any given point. And city trial blessed really reminds. me of the stuff that I know you love from being a kid. And it's like, imagine if those games

were just turned up to a thousand and polished in a modern sense. Are you going to love it now? I don't know, but it really is the definitive version. Yeah, I mean, City Charles is one that I got to check out during a preview at packs. Actually, I played with Logan, actually. We were at the same station. Yeah, we did. We Logan and Andy, right? And we all had, well, at least I had fun with it, right? Like, it was a good time then. Um, I'm curious, though, on what online, looks like for it. Like, do you guys get to try out online? Is, do you guys see a, I guess, a tale for how much people enjoy this?

Is there, I know you kind of talk about it being more of a party thing, right? And you say that it's missing the melee. Is there a competitive slant that you could see for this going forward? Did you try the online, Tim? I did briefly. Online and multiplayer is never really my thing. So, but I popped in during the public test, actually. I mean, go for it.

I played online with Nintendo for a few hours in what's called The Paddock, which is kind of the new lobby system for Kirby Air Riders. And if you remember, Smash Ultimate had the arenas where your little token would enter into this boxing ring and four people at a time could fight and the rest could sit in the stands and spectate. In calling this, like the ultimate treatment of Kirby Air Ride, the paddock is just a way better arena. out. This is a brilliant online multiplayer setup. It supports up to 32 players at once that run around this cute lobby on foot as their favorite Kirby character. And there's this garage on the side where all their custom machines, which we haven't even touched on yet. You can't fully design machines, and it's amazing. They all pull into the garage and you can see what everyone's built and buy them for your own game. And then anyone in this paddock can set up a match. You can set up a city trial,

a top ride, or an air ride. And then anyone in that lobby can hop in. And it doesn't just have to be one at a time either. Like I could set up a city trial. Tim could set up an air ride and Blessing could hop into either one he wanted. They're going at the same time. And so people are just filtering back into this lobby, seeing what's been set up, hopping in. It's great. And you can invite friends seamlessly to these lobbies.

And that's not even the only way to play online. There's also quick matches and ranked matches, which take place in matchmaking completely outside of this paddock thing. So I think that this is one of the best examples I've seen of online integration in a Nintendo game. Will it be competitive? Probably not. This is really a party game first and foremost.

Like I don't really see there being a huge competitive scene for this. But in terms of actually linking up with friends or playing with strangers, it is really easy and really fun. Nice. I got a few more questions for you guys about Kirby Airwriters. We also have upcoming on this same episode, a Dragon Quest 7 reimagined a preview along with a preview of Final Fantasy 7 remake Integrate on Switch to you coming from the one and only Roger Bricorney.

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Orframes.com promo code, kind of funny. This episode is brought to you by Factor. Fall always feels like there's just so much more stuff to do. Shorter days, busier routines, back to school. It's all just a lot. That's why so many of us here at Kind of Funny Love Factor. Their chef preps, dietitian-approved meals make it easy to stay on track and enjoy something comforting and delicious,

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and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. And surprise, we're doing a special live recording of InReview as part of San Francisco SketchFest. What movie are we doing? it's a Marvel movie we've been avoiding for years but it's finally time it's Howard the Duck baby we're doing it live it's going down on January 28th grab a ticket at kind of funny dot com slash sketch fest before they sell out and we're back I want to start off continuing our talk about city trials because during the break asked you if there was any talking points we wanted to get to

and Logan you mentioned that you had you had some beef with city trials yeah this is a little bit of that stubbornness to commit to that original vision that we mentioned a couple of a couple of times where city trial is five minutes of building this machine, and it's all working towards a stadium mini-game that you compete in, and winner of that mini-game wins the city trial. And it can be a drag race or a free-for-all melee or like a target flight where you're trying to hit the highest number of points or something like that. And there's a bunch of different ones to pick from. But the way that city trial picks its stadium is very random, and it leads to situations where

if you're playing online, everyone in the lobby gets four choices of what minigame to go into. then all four of those are played. So if the three of us are playing together and we have three different types of machines, there's a very good chance we don't even compete against each other in this, like we don't even get to fight our friends. We might just fight CPUs. It's like, oh, well, I lost to a level nine CPU. Did you guys win yours? It's like, that's just, it doesn't fully click for me. And then Local has the complete opposite problem where everyone does go into the same one, but it's still by this vote system at the end or randomly selected. Those are only two choices. So you can either all vote.

And then if Tim is riding a bike, bikes literally can't glide. So maybe I'll vote for the gliding one and just screw him over. And then he can't win this mini game. And sometimes it does drop hints when you're playing city trial. Hey, you might want to build this machine. But it's still, there's no choice to just say, I pick city trial. I say, we're doing drag race. Everyone drops in knowing you've got to find the fast machines.

You've got to find top speed boost stats. Like that would turn city trial into something with a lot more strategy. there's still some strategy and skill involved, but right now it's really just go wild for five minutes, see what you end up with, and pick the one that makes the most sense. It's not, let's all fight for these machines. Let's strategically coordinate to battle for the best glider,

the best racer, the best battler. And it's just, it's something that's really missing from that mode. It reminds me a lot of like tripping and brawl, where it's like, we really didn't need to add this. But it's here. And it's funny where I almost feel like the city trial, Like the five minutes of just collecting the stuff, like that's the fun and that's the competition.

What happens after is just like the fun little dessert that you get. They present it as if it's the main course, but it's not. It really is the kind of chaos of collecting. And it's kind of the energy of like, who got the most stat boosts? Who did the most things in that five minutes? Like they're the real winners. Talk to me about customization. You mentioned you can customize the machines and it seems like it goes pretty deep.

Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Tell me about it, Tim. Yeah, there's just there's, so there's a ton of different collectibles you can get. You can go in and there's a ton of different machines to begin with. So you can go in, customize each one. Like I was saying earlier, each one controls completely differently. So like, and when I say that, it's like kind of wild.

They'll give you like a two sentence description of like what this machine does and how it functions differently than the others. But I'd say for most of them, you really got to play as them and kind of feel. what the difference is because it's hard to put in words. And you will do that in city trail. I think that's actually not city trial, sorry, road trip. I think that's another great thing about the road trip mode is you are constantly doing a challenge that gets you a new machine, like unlocking a new machine, and then you are forced to use that new machine for the next challenge.

And because of that, you kind of get familiar with all of the different machines. Then after that, you can go in and customize them, customize kind of how they look. There's like, it's Saccharized. So, of course, stickers and all that type of stuff. But very fun, very cute. I don't find myself going into that too much, but that's never really been my bag. It's ridiculously customizable. There are colors, patterns, decals, accessories. You can hang like a lantern or a propeller or a wing or whatever you want on the side of your machine. And then I made different custom versions for all my favorite ones. Like the winged star has always been my favorite. So I made the winged star. It's always been my favorite. So I made

this very metallic blue and orange wing star that I just love. And then you can list that machine in a machine market. And then Tim can log on and spend his goal to buy my machine. And somebody, I think from Nintendo, but somebody built the box star, the wagon star that is just, it's a cube. They made it a game cube. And it's purple. It has the lunchbox handle. It has the four controller ports.

And it's just people, I'm never the most creative person when it comes to like this artistic customizing stuff either. I just make it the color I like and kind of call it a day. people are going to have a field day with this. I think it's like a total side game to this is build the prettiest machine, list it for sale, and then the more people that buy it, that price goes up for people that want it in the future. And it's this whole in-game market.

It's so soccer-eye and really, really cool. That's some forts of Horizon type shit. I love that. Yeah, totally. Exactly. To what Tim was saying real quick, about the different machine types, they are so different to the point

where if you're playing with newbies and they pick something, you'll be like, no, you do not want. to try that for your first race. Like there's a, it's called the swerve star, and it only turns when you're breaking. So it is like straight line, 90 degree turns, straight line, 90 degree turn.

Like it is, I love it. It's fun when you get the hang of it, but everything controls completely on its own. So you want to start people with like the warp star or the bike and just keep it simple and then explore like the Transform Star, which warps between a hovercraft and a bike when you spin. There's just like, broke my brain.

things. I could never figure that out. That was one for me that I'm like, I never did. I was never doing what I was trying to do. And I'm just like, oh my God, this is like the pat in your belly, rubbing your head type thing. Exactly. Yeah, that's great. I want to bring in some super chats from the audience. Alex Frazier writes and it says

Logan rules, KF rules, Kirby rules. Thank you so much, Alex. Craby Patty writes in and it says, if Tim worship Sakurai, does that make him sacrilegious? I like it. I like it. Thank you very. That's good. Nitro 39 says, I've never played the first one, but I love the side modes and smash games. Would I like this game?

Oh, yeah. Yes. Literally, like, this is made for sickles like you. Like, that's all this is, is the side modes from smash. But all wrapped in, and that's, again, I don't want to make that sound like I'm belittling it at all. Like, there is a core gameplay that Kirby A Redder's has, that no other game has, that is taken to the max here in all the different ways possible. like it's crazy thinking about perspectives with the top ride versus error ride like such a simple thing makes the gameplay completely different even though the game technically plays the exact same and add on battle modes versus race modes versus glide modes like there is just so much stuff in the same way that smash brothers 95 plus percent of those game modes are using the core smash gameplay to do different things like think about the home run contest it's still smash gameplay but you're doing something completely different than the traditional

you know one v one or whatever to multi-man melee or whatever it is I am gonna be such a sicko for this game like hear you guys talk about it this this game speaks to me in like a deeper way I'm like man this sounds like something I should have played if I ever owned a GameCube as a kid it's funny because it's like I don't think I would

actually I know I would not recommend this game to most people I know personally I would recommend bless that you play through road trip at least see road trip through to the end that'll give you a great idea of what this game has to offer and I think that there's a decent chance that won't be the end of your journey

with the game that you'll want to keep going because once you start getting those challenges and like when you do any of the game modes and then you pop back to the main menu one of those challenge boards pops up and it goes to jing jing jing jing jing and they started locking oh man it does something to you I want to ring on one more super chat

from Tundra boy who says what's next for Sakurai, Kitikaris, 3D smash? Hmm. The Powerstone smash? That's wild. I think it's smash. It has to be smashed. This was his, hey, get me out of the smash trenches.

Let me just do my passion. Let me make Kirby Airwriters. Everyone's like, okay, fine, Sakurai. You can do it. I am surprised that we haven't seen Kidikaris uprising ported in any way. I think that that is a game that, going back to the stubbornness of Sakurai, made sense at the place and time being on the 3DS, but even then, it never controlled great.

It would control so much better in modern times on modern consoles. And that game is phenomenal. All the things that we, any praise that we've had for gameplay and story and presentation and music and collectibles and everything, Kid Hickrhus Uprising has that in spades. And it's really kind of sad that, we haven't played it yet. Having said that, I'm happy it hasn't happened yet,

because now when it does, it'll be on the Switch 2. And it'll have all the nice Switch 2 things. I think it had an awesome multiplayer mode that nobody ever talks about. There was this three-on-three battler where teams had a shared health bar and your health bar went down more the stronger weapon you were using. So it was a risk to bring in like a really high-leveled weapon because if you died, your team health bar would just be eviscerated. It's a very soccer idea that was so cool.

I played the heck out of that game. I got one more from chat that I wanted to say for the end of the conversation because I wanted the content of the game to speak for itself before it ends a conversation about Price. But early on in the show, there was a YouTube chat from Sirius 1675 that says, can we talk price? Tim, I know that for you being on the show with you, this has been a big talking point as far as you not liking the price point for this game. Now that you've played through and beaten the, I guess I don't know if beaten.

is the right word for a game like this. But now that you've played the game, I beat the game. Oh, okay, there you go, there you go. You know, how do you sit with the $70 price point for Kirby Air Riders? God, it's a tough question, man. I mean, just saying, like, I don't like the $70 price point for Nintendo games. Like, I think that that's just very high as kind of the default. I do think that this game, like, if it was a more budget priced title at 50,

because I think that in a dream world, it's 40. But I think just with games being 70 now, 50 is that. that sweet spot i'd be a lot happier with it i think i could recommend it to more people uh at that price point having said that this is a 70 dollar title like the amount of content in this game it's it's a fully featured video game this is this is complete it is a complete game there's a lot to do you will get your money's worth uh if you enjoy the gameplay of this game like for sure so yeah i think 70 at first blush might be like that's wild it's not wild i just don't think it's ideal yeah It sounds like you're saying, like, as much as any other, like, premium Nintendo game is $70 is kind of what, like, how much you would say this is worth that $70, you know?

I mean, it just gets so complicated because why the hell is Mario Kart World $80? Like, I am never going to. Oh, I forgot that was $80. That's my biggest problem with Mario Kart World, period. It's like, I wish I was more upset about how empty the open world is and blah, blah, blah. I'm mad that it's $80 because I don't understand unless it was for the soundtrack, in which case, it should have been $100. Yeah. Logan, how's the price it with you?

Yeah, I think in the realm of $70 games, this one is stuffed with content. It is, I did not feel like this is a rip off at all at $70. Like, I think this is more worth 70 than Mario Card is worth 80. Totally. I think that with already a racer out on Switch 2 and this one being more niche and controlling so strangely, that a lot of people just aren't going to click with. A lot of people will try Kirby Airwriters and just not like it. That, it would have been nicer to have a more,

Like risk friendly price point at 50 bucks, like Tim was saying. I think the game would perform a lot better if it did. I hope people still give it a chance at 70. Because, yeah, if you click with it, it's totally worth it. Nice. Do we have any final thoughts on Kirby Airwriters before we move on to the next segment? I just can't stress enough how appreciative I am of this game existing and the commitment and balls it takes to be like, you know what?

This is the game we're putting out and this is how it's going to play. and we are committing all the way through with the vision that they had since Kirby Airwriters and the GameCube but arguably all the way back to Kirby Superstar and the Super Nintendo. Like this is such a privilege to be able to see video games grow,

Nintendo Games go, Sakurai Games grow. And of course, Smash Brothers is my heart and soul when it comes to video games, period. But I really love that there are non-Smash Sakurai games that are different than anything else you will ever experience and I never thought we would see this. So it's cool.

Nice. Logan, any final thoughts? Yeah, I just want to know who Tim played as because there's a bunch of characters we didn't really talk about. Mainly my first run was Metonite. And then my second one was Rick. My boy Rick, the little hamster. Hamster.

Yeah. They got a Rick in that game. Oh, bro. Barrett, can you bring up Rick from Kirby? His name is funny because your roommate Michael Hyam just posted about Rick. Let me see if I can find him. His name is a wobble, wobble. like they called him Rick

it's Rick well you're gonna die when you see Rick his name is in Dumbledore like they call him Rick that's crazy yeah yeah rich guy who'd you play chef Kawasaki who fell yeah spicy curry he's my favorite

Kirby character he's hilarious and I can't believe I got to play like a single player campaign and roll credits with chef Kawasaki it was just incredible you know chef Kawasaki should be funnier than Rick but you saying chef Kawasaki I'm like oh I know that I know that guy you know that's the home yeah he's an icon

he's getting an amoeba Like he's a celeb. Was he in Kirby right back at you? Did y'all watch that? I'm sure he was. I haven't seen that in so long. Oh man. King DDD had some accent.

Southern drawl. Yeah, he had a southern drawl. That's what it was. Man, what a show. People in chat are saying yes. Chef Kawasaki was in Kuwait. Zachari oversaw that show. No shot, really?

Yeah. And Kirby Air Ride was rushed through development to meet the release of Kirby right back at you. That's why Kirby Air Ride feels unfinished. When I tell you, Kirby right back at you meant so much to me as a kid. I watched so much Me too. That was like Saturday. That was my,

oh my God, Fox Kids. That was my prime Saturday morning cartoons era was watching that challenge showdown, Jackie Chain Adventures. Oh,

what a Saturday. Sonic X. Did you watch? Sonic X. Yes. Oh, man, what a time. Logan,

thank you so much for joining me and Tim on this review of Kirby Air Riders. Again, people should check out NBC. Logan, where can people find you generally? Yeah,

I'm online at Logan J. Plant. And yeah, just please check out Nintendo Voice Chat on the IGM games YouTube channel. We have a lot of fun over there. And thanks so much, guys. This was a blast. The episode doesn't stop here, though.

We have a Dragon Quest 7 reimagined preview and a Final Fantasy 7 remake integrate preview for Switch 2. Roger is going to talk all about it. So enjoy. Many years ago, Roger, two Titans were born in the RPG space. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. They went on to have many different installments.

Both of them, Doing the impossible. Passing the sixth installment of video games, getting to a seventh installment. Then they were so successful they kept going. And eventually those seventh installments got remade. Yes. In the forms of Final Fantasy 7 remake and Dragon Quest 7.

Reimagined. It's not a remake. It's not a remaster. It's a reimagining because Quest already got a remake. Remaster back in the day. Remake? Remake. It got a remake.

I got a remake on the 3DS. Okay, yeah, the 3DS remake. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You got to play Dragon Quest 7 reimagined. You also got to play Final Fantasy 7 remake Intergrade on the Nintendo Switch 2. Yes. Both on Nintendo Switch 2, but also Dragon Quest on the PlayStation 5. You killed it.

Right? I told you one sentence and you understood it. There we go. Cool. So I want to know all of your thoughts. Let's start with Dragon Quest. Because obviously I feel like Final Fantasy 7, we know, we know. We'll talk about how it runs.

Great. But Dragon Quest 7. Are you a Dragon Quest person whatsoever? A few years ago, I tried, I don't even know which one it is, I'm assuming it's like 11 or something like that, the newer one. It was on Game Pass. I booted it up. I wasn't really into JRP's turn-based J-R-PGs at that time. I was like, ah, it's not for me. I saw that Tim Rogers loves that game, so I was like, oh, let me try it out, not for me, right? So then I kind of in the back of my mind, I was like, I could be a Dragon Quest person, but not in that moment. And then, of course, years go by, I play a bunch of turn-based RPGs, I play a me now. So it was the perfect opportunity to go over to New York to play Dragon Quest 7 reimagined. My first ever time interacting with

Dragon Quest 7 and first time in a while playing a Dragon Quest game with any actual trying of doing it. But yeah, Dragon Quest 7 reimagined. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, has been remade already for the 3DS. This is a brand new remake. I don't believe

that they're using any of the code or anything like that from the 3DS version of it. Groundup remake of the game. A little but about it, it is the art style that they're going for, and specifically when it comes to the character designs, is actually based off of dolls. Like, actually, like, they made these puppets that they scanned into the game.

And that's why you kind of get this kind of handcrafted look when it comes to the characters. And when you see the actual, oh, I think I forgot to put it in the Azis ball, Throden right now or no, it's not there. But there is, like, side by sides of it of the actual, like, characters and the dolls that they made. And it's, it's striking.

It's kind of wild how well that they, were able to actually make this. And I think in TGS at a Toku game show, they had them out there and in the wild. And it's really impressive stuff. It is incredibly impressive. Like, I am not a Dragon Quest guy myself, but I obviously understand the reverence for the franchise,

and I know how good it is. But in a world right now with so many re, whatever you want to call them, I think that a Square has done many, right? Like even within franchises like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, they've done remasters, remakes. Yeah, we have the 80s. And then there's the HD2D stuff that's theirs, right?

And I think that so often we default to, oh, man, I wish this got an HG2D remake. Sure. Because that aesthetic style matches the original intent of the art of the Super Generation, Super Nintendo Generation so well for so many of these classic square RPGs. But I do think that it doesn't apply to every single thing. We've been seeing it a lot, and it does work well for a lot of things. But I love that they are, hey, how do we actually remake this? with authentic to the intent of the original art style

doing something different and it's very, you said the word striking, it is. Yes, and playing it on a PS5, I played it on PS5 and then I played it on Switch to afterwards and it looks great, it looks beautiful. It's very bright, the colors are incredible and yeah, it doesn't, you don't fully get like, you're not going for like a stop motion feel

or anything crazy like that, but yeah, you see like, it feels like they scanned in these, these puppets that they made into the game. I mean, look at that guy's character, I forgot that guy's character's name, I think I have it here, but he has just such a big forehead in the in the the actual original game but i think the puppet version of him just brings out that really big forehead too which i really enjoy i mean look at the

battle there right like it's awesome like this is what the game looked like to people playing it back in the day oh yeah oh for sure yeah uh but yeah so i i played the game i played two different saves of it they showed uh they gave one that's a little bit later in the game i believe halfway through so you get uh all a lot i think most of the uh actual companions a lot of the vocations, as we'll talk about in a second, and then I played another save a little bit later on, that was just on the Switch 2. I picked it up there, and that was like earlier on in the game. So yeah, the main save that I played was, again, later on in the game, it is a quest line where you're following a mysterious bard who inspires a town. Everyone loves this bar and like,

oh, this bar is the greatest. And then in the nighttime, he just opens up a rift and all the people walk into the portal. It's like, uh-oh, this is a bad bard. What's going on there? Yeah, I know. It happens all the time. And then you guys, you go. going there and then there's a dungeon. So that was kind of the main crux of the whole demo was me kind of going through this dungeon. And they warned us in the beginning of the demo. They said, hey, everybody, there's a boss fight at the ending of this. It's hard. People can't get through it. You know, just just be warned. You know what I mean? Take some time. Make sure, of course, go in there. Fucking, I destroy that motherfucker. I'm just a JRP expert. Did they probably lie to

all of us and say that? Say that. And then we can feel good. Every demo I never said that. Exactly, but you know, I felt good. I've been my heart was racing, you know what I mean? It felt good. It felt good to feel like I'm good at video games. But the, I would say the thing that most excited me was the vocation system, which I wasn't able to go too deep into just because of the time limits and we were at in the game. But the way that it works, and that's kind of like the calling card of Dragon Quest 7 specifically

is the fact that each of your party members have their own job. They have a job that they can go into and then that gives them essentially. new abilities and certain types of advantages in the battle. So you're able to go in there and you're able to kind of change whatever character you want into a mage or a warrior of some kind. What they have done here is that they have made it so you can actually have multiple jobs per person. You can get two jobs. They call it a moonlighting system, which I think is great. I love that.

You know, now the modern remakes, everyone has to have a side gig. It's a gig economy over there. So yeah, you have multiple, the moonlighting adds two different, two jobs. jobs in total per person. And yeah, you go in there and it's pretty robust. I mean, you can have yeah, as I said, like a mage and a warrior. So you can kind of have best of both worlds with everybody. That's what excites me going forward. I'm excited to like actually dig into the final release and see how deep they can get. How that also kind of makes it where I'm interested to see like what is the level of hey, can you just every character just gets a little bit of everything or

are you still playing the thing of like, okay, well, I want to make sure that this is a, this character is more of a mage and that is kind of the ability and the way forward there. But it is an interesting idea and I wonder how it goes for the rest of the game. But in terms of like what you're doing in this demo, it's just JRP fare, right? You're just, you're going through it's turn-based.

They have some good quality of life stuff which I enjoyed. It's not full-on metaphor where I think that game has some really great quality of life stuff where you can like fully retry every single battle that you're into. But it does have where you can go in there and you can auto-battle. You can have each of, you can go into each of your party member

and you can really fine tune exactly what they're doing. If they're saving mana, you know, exactly what you expect. But I was able to kind of breeze through this dungeon pretty fast because I really was in there. And I was, okay, this character,

I want them to save mana, this character I want them to just kind of be the wild card. And I found a good flow by the ending of it where I was just breezing through it in a way that I thought was really fun. Yeah. You felt in control of the breeze as opposed to just being... Yeah, it wasn't too easy.

It was like, okay, well, I can have this character and I'm going to play as and these characters, I know what their role is. and then I can kind of tweak it. And by the end of the boss, when I got to the boss, I was able to really tweak it, and I just kind of turned off some of them,

and I kept some of them in auto. So I thought that was pretty fun, and I was pretty solid. Full voice acting. Amazing. Full voice acting. But like, they say voice acting, but it's like,

what does full voice acting mean to you? Full voice acting, I think isn't literal from the words. I think full voice acting is cut scenes for sure. Yeah. And the majority of any story beats and stuff, if it's just random support stuff in NPCs in towns, not necessarily. Like, I think that counts as well.

Okay, yeah, that's exactly what it is. It is the main things that you care about and then just random NPCs that have the text, right? I don't know, for some reason when I maybe my brain is just broken. I think full on like everything, every word. I mean, that's, you know, there are many examples of that, right? But I think, you know, like the first Final Fantasy, that voice acting was 10. And that was not anywhere near full voice acting, right? And I think even going, even Final Fantasy 7 remake and rebirth, like not.

every single line is red. Yes, absolutely. But yeah, it's the, again, this is a very small slice of a massive video game. We only played for about an hour, 45 minutes. I was like the last straggler there because I was just, I wanted to play as much as humanly possible of both this and Final Fantasy 7 integrate on Switch 2. But of what I've played, I'm interested to the point where I have requested codes for all the Dragon quests that the HD2D ones.

Oh, no way. Yeah, I'm excited to, to dig. into that and try it out because yeah this is the teases of the world that they have said in the beginning they try not to spoil anything for us because people didn't play the original dragon quest seven in our preview event uh but they're like hey like this story isn't what it seems like this is a way darker story than you would imagine and i that intrigue me i think i'm looking for something that kind of has this nice beautiful color palette but goes a little bit deeper and gets a little twisted in there so that little tease was enough to kind of get me interested in this game i i wonder

where we're at, I think this is February, this is coming out in February 5th, 2026. So hopefully that's an empty time period. But I also believe that there's the Ocasa game coming out around there. So there's a lot there. But I, no promises, but interest. Yes. And I did also then go into the second save, which is earlier on in the game. Don't really remember much. I remember that there was a few, there was a few less party members. It's kind of right in the beginning there. You have less vocations. But I played on Switch 2. And man, it looks awesome. Runs really well. It looks beautiful and that transitions over to Final Fantasy 7

integrate which is awesome. Hold on. Before we do that transition, I want to know a bit more about your PS5 experience versus Switch 2 experience. You played mostly on PS5 and then you played some on Switch 2. How is the Switch 2 performance and how was the direct back

to back of going from the PS5 to the Switch 2? It was, well, the PS5 looks amazing, right? And then you go over to the Switch 2 and I was just happy. Like I smiled because I picked it up like, oh, it's a 60 fbs. Oh, like, sure, it's, you know, it's a Switch 2 port. I think I'm at the point now where, like, all the dreams and the hopes that I've had of the Switch 2 for years and years and years of everything's going to look crisp and beautiful and, you know, 1080P and

60. I'm at a realistic point. So was it not? It's 60 FPS. I don't know what the, what the resolution is, but there is like the level of like, hey, there's some DLSS stuff going on here, right? It's not blurry, but it is definitely a competent way to play it. And I, comparatively to me, I went to Sega recently and I played a bunch of their games and I felt like some of those were pretty not rough but like they were in a way that I wouldn't necessarily recommend people to play those versions of those

those games and those versions I would recommend people play at least from what I've seen for Dragon Quest 7 reimagined on the Switch 2 so I was very impressed by it So I guess a question for you there you're interested in playing this game where will you be playing it because this does kind of seem

like a handheld switch 2 yeah Wow okay it has to be Switch 2 yeah I mean this is that's the dream. That's why I was so happy going from the PS5 to that where I was like, oh, this doesn't feel like it's a compromise.

This doesn't feel like it's a mobile version of it. It feels like a console version of the game on the go. And that's exactly what I want. And again, it's 60 FPS, at least to my eyes, right? That felt like it.

And then going over to Final Fantasy 7, that is a little bit, not a shock, but it is like, oh, it's 30 FPS, right? Like off the rip, right? But I'm okay with it. I'm very much okay with it.

And I am the person in this office that I think is like the loudest of like, if it ain't 60 FPS, oh my god like i start talking like that but the way that this game ran on the switch two was so rock solid like i've gotten to the valky fight uh which is the robot the flying robot and i beat it and the entire time i was just kind of amazed at the visual quality of it's how much stuff was happening on the screen how crisp it looked and it never felt like it was dropping resolution

didn't feel like the dLSS was cranking up as soon as you know barrett's running around throwing throwing grenades and doing lightning and everything like that, it felt like it was rock solid. Even though it was 30 FBS, that is very much a way that I would recommend people play this game. And I was impressed. I was impressed by these two games back to back, showing me

the power of the Switch 2 and how much, I guess, care in the quality and the experience that Square Inex is putting into. And that's great to hear because you know, Square Enix, a huge partner of Nintendo for so many years and supporting the handheld

side, like the 3DS and DS side of Nintendo's hardware strategy so well that the recent commitments to multi-platform. I mean, the proof isn't here now, right? Like they are putting their money where their mouth is. And these games, I've said this so many times, they need to work. Like Final Fantasy 7 remake specifically is, I think, one of the most important third-party games to get right on the Switch because of the built-in audience that Nintendo consoles and handheld specifically in where we're out of the Switch 2.

have with the Final Fantasy lineage, the Square Enix lineage, because they've supported it the entire way through since the early, earliest days. But like in, you know, the last 20 years, Square Nintendo have been great partners together. So, yeah, it's great to see that continue. And I'm very excited to hear that you, of all people,

are hyped about how Final Fantasy specifically is running on it compared to your impressions of Yakuza, which you've been very let down by. Yeah, that was 30 FPS, but it was like a, I wouldn't say the frame pacing was off, but it just felt so motion blur city and it just didn't feel right.

It looked better, the higher, you know, visual quality, of course, because you're, you know, you have less frames, but still, it just, that wasn't an experience that I was super jazzed about. But with the amount of stuff happening on screen

and just how technically advanced that game is, yeah, that's 30 FPS, I think is like, yeah, totally fine. I would have lost 60 FPS, but that is, it actually fooled a lot of people. I saw some people that actually played it, I think at Gamescom and everything. They were like, oh, it's 60 FPS.

and it's like, no, it's not 60 FPS. It's just, it is rock solid 30 FPS. And that is what you're looking for. And that's how you port a game like that. And also February 5th, 2026, Dragon Quest 7, Reimagined is also coming day and date on the Switch 2, which is also nice to see. Very cool. So, hell yeah, I'm excited. And maybe I'll be a Dragon Quest person.

Maybe. Maybe. Everybody, you're going to hear that theme song a million times. Thank you so much, Roger, for joining us. Thank you, Tim. Gamescast, back to you. Maybe not. I'm not so sure.

This is pre-recorded. Or maybe it's in the beginning. I don't know.