Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Kirby and the Forgotten Land Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

IGN's Tom Marks joins us to review Kirby and the Forgotten Land, we give our thoughts on the first round of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC, and Andy talks about the Ghostrunner DLC. Follow Tom: https://twitter.com/TomRMarks Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:04:33 - Housekeeping 00:06:26 - Kirby and the Forgotten Land 00:40:52 - Ads 00:59:00 - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass 01:06:43 - Ghostrunner DLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes. Join by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. How you doing, Tim? I'm doing real good. Congratulations is in order. Greg Miller, a voice in the new upcoming Ghostbusters game called Ghostbusters. Spirits Unleashed.

Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed. This is the first time I think I've known about a game I'm in this far in advance. So, like, I learned the name yesterday, and it has been hard to make it stick. I won't say multiple times today. I've been writing tweets and, like, fucking open up the FAQ. Like, what is this thing called? After just being Ghostbusters forever. What do you have to say about this?

I know you talked about a lot of shows, but what's the quick pitch here, Greg? Quick pitches, yeah, if you didn't know, Ilfana, the folks found on Friday 13th and Predator Honeygrounds are making a Ghostbusters game. It's 4V1. I've played it. I'm in it, so you can take my opinion of a grain of salt, but I'm a big Ghostbusters fan who often says I don't like Ghostbusters. stuff. So you figure out what you want to do with it. I really enjoyed the demos I have played of this game. I think it looks really cool. I think it is also Ilphonic owning what they have made mistakes about in the past before where they are they know they can't miss with this one. They are aiming for the you know to shake this thing of being the buggy developer. They are very intent on making their servers and getting you into match making way quicker. And more important most importantly I think is that you can play it offline. You don't need to play it online. They are not this is a four of you one game, but you can play all with AI.

iBots if you want and there is a story mode to it and i think that's the interesting thing about it right as you level up your characters and your ghost in the game because you obviously are playing as a ghost or the ghost busters uh you are unlocking story beats that are pulling you through a narrative so you could just play it all offline if you want to uh but for me who's already had his dreams come true with ghost busters the video game happening and being able to play uh a tale where i was in a ghost buster's movie the third ghost busters movie at the time uh this is another dream come true for me to drag all you clowns out there and like you know go out there and customize more proton pack and my suit and everything else.

I'm going to, I'm going to go pro in this game. You know what I mean? We joke around a lot about trying to be good as nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. I will be the expert at this game. Speaking of, we do have the nitro rifle. Andy Cortez joining us. Do you think that you're going to go pro as well, Andy? I mean, it doesn't take much to catch up to Greg and skill level.

We saw what happened when he had Mario Golf for at least two and a half years before it came out on Nintendo Switch, and then I hopped in day two immediately dominated him, so I have no problem with... Here's what I want, right? Here's what I want. Because, you know, jokes aside, you and I love each other in a very, very weird fashion. Just like, it's just creepy. A lot of people say it's weird.

Mostly from one side. From one side, mostly. Like, it's rarely from my end, yeah. No, no, no, don't worry about it. You know what I mean? But, like, I think we should, what I want us to do is, like, get really good at the game and just go out there and clown people out because it'll just be us as the four ghosts. You and me, blessing maybe.

I'm not going to make him commit. Maybe we get Nick in there for the comedic relief, you know what I mean? And then we go out there and we just destroy kids as trying to be ghosts. Well, we had a blast doing that in Predator. Right. And that's what I'm saying, yeah. The amount of times that, like, we played Predator just at night for fun. It was like, it was a lot.

It was a blast. So, yeah, I'm definitely, I'm looking forward. Whenever you all are into a video game, I get excited because it's like, I get a chance to just go fool around with you dudes and have fun. Full crossplay. There you go. I know crossplay is something that excites the new face of video games blessing at a yoia junior. What's up, Tim?

Tim, you look great, by the way. I don't know if I have, if I've had the chance to tell you this on content, but you look wonderful. I think like three times you've told me, and every time it just gets better and better. I'm going to keep telling you. I'm telling you. Thank you. I really, really appreciate that. And it took three minutes and 49 seconds for us to finally introduce this man, but it's been

even longer. I can't believe we've never had you on anything before the show. We were talking about that. It blows my mind. It's such a small and big industry at the same time. The one and only from IGN.com, Tom Marks. Oh, please, please. I got to say, it was really nice just like soaking in all the love there because it was,

it's just, it's just a fun, warm feeling on this show. So many, like, you guys like each other so genuinely. I love it. Yeah, that's what they say. Let us know the comments below how much love we have for each other, how much hate we have. I don't know. I've heard it both ways because I can, I can feel it. Okay.

Good, good, good. That's what matters. That's what matters. Of course, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast where each and every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. You can get it on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games or Roosterteeth.com. You can also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we'll be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show ad free, if you wanted to watch live as it's being recorded, and if you want the exclusive post show, you've got to go to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games, just like our Patreon producers. Gordon McGuire, Fargo Brady, Pranksy, Dan, Golden Spider, B, Tyler Ross, Delaney, Twining,

first responder, ND, Julian the gluten-free gamer, James Hastings, and Casey, Andrew, have all done. Thank you all so very, very much. But if you don't have a buck to toss our way, when you're out there buying video games on the Epic Game Store, use our creator code, kind of funny, and that will help get us money without costing you anything else extra. And they're doing a really cool thing right now where all the money made in Fortnite right now is going for the next two weeks is going straight to relief efforts over in Ukraine. So that is awesome.

Please go help them. And then it helps us. It's just helping everybody. So it's just great. Good guys epic over there. But enough of that stuff. I want to get to the housekeeping here. Of course,

we have Tom Marks here to talk about Kirby. I'm very excited about that. But we've had a lot of other games cast love going on recently. We had the Ghostwire Tokyo review that went up a couple days ago. You can check that out right now on all the places I just mentioned. And then also, you want an even deeper dive into the Ghostbusters game that we just talked about a little bit. Greg talked a lot about it on PSI Love You. Isn't that right?

That's right. It's a little episode featuring me blessing that then escalates into you, Barrett, Paris, and Lucy James. Because you never know what will happen on PSI Love You, XOXO. Exactly. But without further ado, let's get right into it. Kirby and the Forgotten Lands. I want to just start off by saying major shout out to Nintendo for the, amazing embargo that they had.

We've had this game for like two and a half weeks. And I feel like in recent times, that's been the opposite story for a lot of developers, where they're just like throwing games. They're like, good luck. The embargoes in a day and a half. And I'm like, thank you, Nintendo. Thank you very much.

But Tom, you reviewed the game for IGN. I want to know what your thoughts are, but also I want to know what score you would give, what score you're giving it at IGN, but also what score you'd give it on the kind of funny scale, which is one to five. one being terrible, two being bad, three being okay, four being great, and five being amazing. I think probably pretty similar between them, probably a four on your scale, because I'm giving an eight on mine.

I think it's great. I think it's a lot of fun. It is, it's just really good Kirby, you know, like Kirby often kind of diverges into gimmicks sometimes, which can be hit and miss. And this is the, you know, it goes to 3D, but man, it's just really fun. And it's really well-designed levels. And yeah, I think it's a really, really great Kirby game. Yeah, I am absolutely blown away to say that I am giving Kirby a five out of five, seeing that it is amazing. And I do want to say, like, just to get ahead of it, it is definitely a low five for me. But I was debating the entire time.

Am I giving it a four? Am I giving it a five? And I think that to use the IGN scale, this would probably be a nine on my scale there. So that makes it the five out of five for us. I do think that this is an amazing game. I think the more I played it, and I think crossing the halfway mark is where it really solidified for me, where I'm like, yeah, I'm going five for this.

This is something truly special. I've never loved a Kirby game. I enjoyed ones here and there. Obviously, Superstar is a classic, but I never thought that it was a classic in the same way. We talk about a lot of other Super Nintendo games like Mario World or Link to the Past or Super Castlevania or any of that. And then as it went on, getting to things like Kirby's Epic Yarn, like Tom, you were talking about the kind of more gimmicky things that Kirby does to kind of stay relevant.

A little fun here and there, but I feel like the overall package has never really spoken to me as anything more than just okay, especially when you start comparing it to other platformers and things like Mario or even like other mascot of you platformers like Crash Bandicoat or, you know, like the other things that were similar. ukulele. Yeah, exactly. Or things that are similar to this style of game like Sack Boy's Big Adventure that came out a couple years ago at the launch of the PS4, 5, PS5. But I think that with that, this is the first time, this being the first time Kirby's been in a full 3D adventure, I really think that this stands closer to the Marios of the world than any Kirby game we've ever had previously.

And I think that that's kind of the biggest starting point for me that I've been so wowed at that those eyes what the hell's going on Kirby? I don't want to get it twisted like one of my biggest kind of criticisms of prior Kirby games is that the challenge just isn't there. The difficulty is just non-existent in any way,

shape, or form. And I don't think that this game is as difficult as some of the more challenging things in some of the later levels of 3D or 2D Mario games. But I do. think that the challenge is always fun and it's never too easy. Like everything that they have you doing kind of feels like it has a purpose and is enjoyable to get through.

And there's more than a handful of things that I had to try 10 times before I completed. And I thought that that was a really cool thing. But what do you think about that? No, yeah, I think that's definitely a good point. Like Kirby, to give my background, Kirby is my favorite Nintendo character. Like just straight up. I mean, I love Zelda and I love the Mario games and all that. I'm not like hating on the others.

But I love Kirby games. I always play the Kirby games. And this recently, there's been kind of a tendency to lump Kirby into the same sort of wheelhouse as the Yoshi games as like, oh, those are just their easy games for kids, right? Like, which is not like, you know, that's a fine thing to make. Nintendo is for all ages or whatever and they appeal to a lot of different audiences. but this game I was worried was gonna be like

I think the last one was Woolly World no crafted World Yoshi's Crafted World was the last one Yes which was really fun but also had some levels in that game

where you could literally just hold right on the stick and press jump occasionally and do nothing else and get to the end of a level and like that was mindless difficulty right whereas this game is again like you said not

like super hard but it has moments where it does push you and it does make you move around and like think about how you're using your powers think about how you're fighting those bosses right or or think about some of the challenges especially like the challenge levels that they have that are off to the side that are optional that are really really satisfying and i love that this game can offer both sides of that blessing uh yeah like i i when you talk about this game right tim i feel like we're pretty similar nintendo fans in terms of like our history with kirby and how we look at platformers and all these things right where uh well

was it, I guess a year ago? Was it two years ago when a Super Mario 3D world plus Bowser's Fury came out? Last year. I remember playing through that and being like, okay, this is what I love, right? This is what I want out of a 3D platform, or out of a platform in general, which is like the diverse levels, the different like mechanics, like that Nintendo level of game design, where it is, hey, let's introduce an idea. Let's take this idea to the end of it and let's introduce something else and let's

keep that flow going. I feel like there's such a strong level of, you know, variation in how you play. And specifically when you talk about level design in Super Mario 3D world that I really love. One of the things that stuck out to me when they announced Kirby and the Forgotten Land was how different it looked just setting-wise. Because, like, you know, there are the memes of, oh, this looks like the last list of Kirby, or this looks like near automata, right? Or like an entirely different game.

It looks like post-apocalyptic Kirby. Is it, because use the sackboy big adventure comparison, right? is it still level based in terms of each world kind of has its own different gimmick to it? Like am I finding water worlds? Am I finding snow worlds? Is it like that? Or does it fall into that forgotten lands?

Like, no, everything is dilapidated jungle type thing. It's a little mix of what you're actually saying there. So there are distinct worlds in terms of visuals, but the gimmicks aren't tied necessarily to those worlds alone. Like the gimmicks you're talking about in this game is called Mouthful Mode, which is, yes, it's already funny as is. And in the game, it's funny. Like Kirby kind of takes on, like sucks in a car in his mouth,

and all of a sudden you control a car. Or like random things like a safety cone or a wall or a vending machine. Like, it's really bizarre shit that lets you kind of like traverse the environment in different ways. But what's cool about it is it is not in place of the traditional Kirby copy abilities that you're, you're getting from the enemies. You can suck in an enemy to get the sword power up. And then, as you can see, they're actually Barrett. If you can scroll back just a little bit for when he's the stairs, you can see he has the hat on still.

So he has a power up and then is able to- Architecture. Like, yeah, no, it's wild. Mario and Odyssey can throw his cap and suddenly do, you know, he takes on these awesome powers. and Kirby is just, you know, and now I am a footstool. I think that that is kind of the coolest thing about this. And like I'm going to say a statement that I feel like throughout this conversation will break down in different ways.

But this game has a lot of elements that I love from other Nintendo games, where it very much has the kind of gameplay level design of Mario 3D world in terms of what Bless was talking about, of there's intricate platforming, But then there's also introducing a concept of a gameplay gimmick, and then leveling up that gimmick throughout the world that you're playing till by the end of it, you're like, oh, wow, I'm using this in really creative ways compared to when it was first introduced that I really enjoy. But then it's kind of mixed with the absolutely grandiose, insane epicness of the Mario Galaxy series,

especially when it comes to the music and the way the whole thing's presented, mixed with the kind of ability capturing that Kirby's always had, but it feels more similar to Mario Odyssey in this to me, of like the abilities are really kind of being used in very cool, unique ways to combat enemies, but also to traverse the levels. And it results in like some combat encounters

that are way more Dash and Perry Andy Cortez style than I would have ever expected from a Kirby game. Like it's never quite a platinum game, but like it feels way more, like that that I think it has any right to, but it works. And all that combines together to being this extremely weird game that is its own thing. Like I'm comparing it to all these other things, but it is all of those things in this, in this giant pink wrapper, mouthful mode, that kind of results in something that I think

is so special because, plus talking about the last of us, aesthetic of it all, that is pervasive across the entire game. Like, no matter what the world or level is, everything has this kind of weird abandoned 90s. feel. Everything is extremely colorful, but like off just a little bit. It kind of makes it weird. But the game starts off with you being like marooned on this beach and then you like walk through a jungle and almost immediately you're in this like apocalyptic looking world. And I'm like, we straight up went from naughty dogs crash bandicoot to naughty dogs last of us in like two minutes in a Kirby game. What the hell are we about to do? And the title screen hits and it is one of the

funniest moments I've had. And like, funny because I'm laughing at it, but like, they know I'm laughing at it. And it's just this weird going through the fourth wall that they just commit to through the entire game. Tom, do you think that I'm, I'm hitting the mark with that? No, you're dead on because I, I'm not going to lie. Like, I wasn't sold by the mouthful mode thing at first. Like, I thought Carby or whatever people were calling it was funny, but I didn't think it was like, I was like, this is really weird for Kirby. And then there's a moment in that opening title scene that that you were talking about where it like gives you the title card where Kirby's driving and he kind of like lifts his bumper and waves his little near arms like because he's just like having a good time

driving and I was like oh Nintendo knows what they're doing here right like they they lean into the absurdity of it enough that it just it it just becomes really fun and it just becomes really like playful with itself I will say I did get a little bit like not tired of because it's a pretty game, but like it was kind of funny that like every, because there are different themed worlds. Like every world eventually ends up on like a rusted rooftop at one point or another, right? Which was like a little bit disappointing. But the worlds are so pretty and so very kind of thematically that I didn't really mind that all as much. You know, it it does a really good job.

I think you're right of just like you said, committing, right? If it if it had just done a little bit, it would have been maybe in an awkward spot. But since it really just does lean into it. It's really wonderful. And going back to the kind of way the game is set up, so Bles was kind of asking about the level to level gameplay. Like the way that it works is every world, which there's about six of them,

has like a handful of levels, like five or six levels each, one being a boss level, and then the rest of them just kind of being more traditional platforming levels. After every single platforming level, you unlock two challenge levels like Tom was talking about. And those levels are totally, totally based on specific abilities.

So you'll unlock two challenge levels per level beat. One will be for the bomb ability, one for the sort ability. And as you do these challenges, they each take between like two and five minutes. If you complete them, you get this certain type of currency that you can use to upgrade abilities later. But there's also a like target time to beat that's kind of like the more hard mode that you can get into. And that to me is like where it really got extra fun.

Where am I, okay, I want to get that beat the target time. And that resulted in me kind of going back. And like I was saying, there were some things that took me like 10 times to be able to accomplish. And that was satisfying and something I really didn't expect from a Kirby game at all. These levels reminded me more so of the Mario Sunshine levels without flood. And I was shocked that they kind of make up half the game at the end of the day when you look at what Kirby in the Forgotten Land offers. and I was just really impressed by the gameplay challenges that they presented. Yeah, and you made the comparison to Sackboy, right?

Sackboy had similar sort of challenge levels, right, where they did these little timed things. And they're a great way to sort of just opt into as much difficulty as you want because there were definitely love. But I like how varied they are. Like some of them, like the sword one might be a combat arena where you're fighting a bunch of guys as quickly as you can, whereas the one for the cutter might be,

using the cutter all around like this mechanic of the cutter coming back to you. So you like throw it out and then reposition yourself so it'll hit buttons on the way back. So it's doing things both that you are doing in levels but kind of amped up and then also doing things that wouldn't be doing in normal levels in a contained way. So they're they're really creative. Andy Cortez. I don't like when I look at Kirby, I don't know much about this man. Like I think I know.

Kirby from Smash Bros. And I never really played any of the other Kirby games. Obviously, we know the gimmicks and Smash has kind of taught me mostly, most what I know about the guy. Were there any mechanics that you

were really excited to get your hands on and then you found that they kind of like were, you know, less exciting once you started using them? And then vice versa, were there any ones where you're like, oh, this is probably going to be shitty. And you're like, oh, wow, good job Nintendo. You did it. Kind of like all of the mouthful modes for that second one, to be honest.

Like I was, I was really thought that, you know, the mouthful mode for like a giant pipe, like, how are they going to make that fun, right? And they managed to keep reusing it in different ways, in creative ways that I think that was really impressive to me. Go ahead, yeah. I was going to say for me, it was more kind of like I didn't expect to enjoy upgrading all the abilities as much as I did. I thought that it was going to be more like, okay, I like the sword.

I like this or that. I don't really care about all these other ones. So I don't care about upgrading them at all. But I found it ended up being a lot more like a Ratchet and Clank game in the way that I was like, even if I don't like this weapon, it is fun enough to use that I want to play through it to upgrade it all the way because it's satisfying.

And like they kind of create really cool challenges, especially with these challenge modes, that kind of like grow with you. And like Tom was saying, like maybe the core game like these like platforming levels don't really take advantage of them too much, but these challenge levels absolutely do. And what's really cool is I really like how the economy works in this game.

So there's a lot of collectibles and all the collectibles kind of feel like they're feeding into each other in ways that is very, very motivating. And actually I want to go back to something that Andy brought up that I think really will contextualize this to a lot of people that have listened to me talk about video games for a long time. This game's made by Howell Laboratories. Howell Laboratories is the same company

that originally created Super Smash Brothers on the N64. Sakurai, the director of Smash Brothers we always talk about, is the creator of Kirby. So a lot of Kirby games and gameplay elements, or a lot of Smash Brothers elements, are legitimately just ripped straight out of Kirby and not just the characters and weapons, but the way the characters move and feel

and just like the overall vibe of the game, and especially collecting collectathons and all that stuff. And you guys know me, I love my spirits. I love all that stuff. This game delivers that 10-fold. Like it legitimately has like trophies from Smash Melee. They're in this game. Like it's the exact kind of same same thing.

And it's fun to kind of like go out and collect them all. Those might be my least favorite of the collectibles in this game. But there's there's those. And the main thing is there's these Waddle D's. So the little Kirby homies that you know, they're like light red. they're out there and they all get captured or some shit. Who really cares? It doesn't matter.

But every level you just kind of are trying to get to the end and then you win and you rescue like three of these guys at the end. Tim, I'm sure they wouldn't be happy about you minimizing their trauma. Exactly. That is true. They're captured whatever. But I mean, they would appreciate me because I'm going out there and I'm trying to save each and every single one. Good job.

I'm proud of you. Okay. But like you could beat the level and that's it. Or like traditional Nintendo platformer games, there's the challenges, right? Like we played Mario 3D World last year, Andy, and we wanted to get all the green stars, right? And get all the extra stuff. Don't get the Taduki, all of that. This every single level has these like optional challenges to rescue more Waddle D's in the level.

Some of them are very, very simple, like beat that beat the miniboss without getting hit. some of them are more like obscure and you kind of got to think a little bit. No, but too crazy. But it's like, find the hidden tower. So you're always kind of exploring the level and trying to find where is there a tower? Oh, there's one. I should probably try to like find a way to get over there. And it's satisfying enough.

And I feel like that's where like the kind of challenge that I was really like, this game has more to offer than I would have ever expected. You get these Waddle D's and as you collect them, they get sent back to Waddle D's. town and they're building out the town and the more you get the quicker they make some flavor town yeah exactly uh they start to kind of populate this this town we're seeing um god this b-rolls incredible for what i'm saying thank you barrett but um there's like different things where there's like this little restaurant um that they can kind of heal you when you buy the the items and stuff these are the the trophies i was talking about um and then there's also the weapon shop where you upgrade

all of your your different abilities and each one has a couple levels of upgrading to go. And every time you do that, eventually in the main game, you're unlocking even more challenge levels. So there's sword challenge level one, but then there's also sword challenge level two. And then sword challenge level, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And that kind of loop of constantly like,

all right, I'm going to play through the main level to unlock as many Waddle Ds so that they're building something in the town. But to buy stuff in the town, you need these special stars. You get the special stars by doing the challenge levels. I just think they did a really good job. It's not revolutionary. but I think they did a really good job of making sure that the economy of it all made sense that everything you're doing is a step that you want to be doing to get the next thing.

So it's all adding on to you wanting to continue to play, wanting to continue to do everything. Yes. And so where I'm at now is I beat the game and I'm trying 100% it. Like I'm trying to go back and get everything. And I'm having a great time doing that. I think currently I'm at like 90% done of everything. And it's with rare exception, I've had fun the entire. time. There's a bunch of

mini games on top of it as Waddley Town starts to build up like the we even saw a little bit there. Once you get the restaurant going and you can like buy the food, there's also a restaurant mini game where you can take up a part-time job and be a little chef, you know? Or there's a fishing mini game or there's a bunch of

mini games and most of the mini games are reminiscent of old Kirby games. So there's one that is straight up just the tilt and tumble from the OG handheld Kirby games and stuff. And those are some of the only challenges that I have not yet completed on its most challenging because it is very hard.

But Tom, what do you think about those? Yeah, the mini games are fun. And I like that they bring that legacy back from old Kirby games. Also, Andy, you saying you hadn't played much, you only knew Kirby from Smash. The funny thing is, did you ever play Subspace Emissary,

the campaign for, I think it was Super Smash Bros. Brawl? I was on Wii, right? I think so. I think that's where that one was. I, like, it's something that I think my friends and I were like, oh let's try this now let's go back to multiplayer mode like that's fair kirby for me was always the

platformer because i even like i had the old school game boy one like on the fat game boy and i remember thinking even at the time like is kirby just a thing that exists so that we aren't oversaturated with mario games like because i didn't find a whole lot of difference in what kirby was and also i was like you know five years old at the times but uh yeah i just don't I never really, forever, for whatever reason, I was never pulled to new Kirby games, you know? Yeah. And Kirby, for me, has always been like,

it's less about the platforming, and it's slightly more about the combat and a lot more about the variety. I think that's why, you know, Kirby's superstar for Super Nintendo or whatever is such an iconic game, because it's not one game. It's like eight or whatever,

and it's all crammed into this one thing, and they all have a little bit of a different flavor to them. And the reason I brought up Subspace Emissary, although this is a little bit of a tangent, is like, Sakurai created Kirby, and he literally just backdoor made a Kirby game in Smash Bros. Because that's what that is. That campaign of Smash Bros.

is just full-on a Kirby game where instead of powers, you have Smash Bros. characters. And so it's cool to see how much that series has evolved. And it's cool to see this game kind of make a jump that it wasn't making up until now, right? Like, Mario made the jump to 3D and the N64, right? A lot of other games have already done this. And so it was neat to see them try this.

And I think it has worked really well. I mean, I think that's something really interesting too, which is me being a lifelong Nintendo fan. Like, I remember the N64 when they first announced Kirby and the Crystal Shards. I was so, so excited because I thought it was going to be the 3D Mario 64ization of Kirby.

And then it totally wasn't. And then they announced a Kirby on GameCube that was that, and it ended up getting canceled. Like there's a trailer out there you can find. This is that game. Like this is it finally fulfilled. And like I actually think that it's such a great timing for it because I do think that it was the Mario 3D World template

that works best for Kirby, where I think this is a legitimately like amazing game, not in just like, oh, it's the best Kirby game. Like I think that this is a game that Nintendo Switch owners should give a real shot. Like, switch, during the Switch era, I think Nintendo's done a good job of kind of either completely revolutionizing their franchises or, kind of just giving them just enough of a fresh coat of paint that they feel more relevant than they ever have,

like things like Luigi's Mansion, right? Like Luigi's Mansion 3 being what it was, it's like introducing that franchise to so many new people. And I think that this team really took that challenge on. They were like, we need Kirby to mean something more than it's meant in the last decade because there are millions of switch owners out there that are going to give this one a shot. This is going to be Kirby's highest selling game of all time, like easily. Like, I wouldn't be shocked if it ends up being the highest selling one by double by the end of its run. Because the highest selling one, if I remember correctly, it's only at like $5 million right now.

So I do think that this has a lot of potential. And I think that the word of mouth on it, the mouthful of words on it is going to be very, very positive. Tim, Tim and Tom, just based on like time of completion, I think that's a really important thing for me with this game. because it's something that interests me, but I don't want, I probably have like another 300 hours in Elven Ring left. You know what I mean? So, Tim, you were mentioning all those extra stuff that you were, all the extra things you were doing in this game.

How much of your enjoyment is kind of dependent on those extra things? Like, do you feel like that significantly enhanced your experience? And if not, how much, how quickly could I beat this game? Yes, it definitely significantly enhances it. I do think that those are the things that take me from a four to a five. And again, it's the low five. Like this is what would take me from an eight to a nine is all that extra stuff. But the game doesn't present it like it's extra.

And the coolest thing is like we were talking about earlier, even the challenge levels, they're two minutes long. And you get the reward that you need to get just completing them. and none of them are difficult. So it's just two minutes, you're done. It's doing it under the best time. That's the challenge. And you don't really get anything extra for that

besides just kind of feeling good. But it's clearly like it was designed for you to feel good. So I think that they do feel like they're kind of part of the main game. And I think that doing all the extra challenges, like just to get the reward for it, would probably combine to an hour extra gameplay total. Okay. But then the total gameplay for the game itself, like, I don't know.

I want to say it was like six hours or so to beat the game. Oh, sure. If you wanted to just kind of rush through it, probably even quicker. Because it's linear for all intensive purposes. It's more 3D world than Mario 64 for sure. But there's there's post-game content. There's a lot of extra stuff. Like I am probably like 12 hours in.

so far. And I probably have another like four to go to 100% at all. How much time are you spending in a Waddle D town? Because that seems really cool, right? Like that was the thing I saw the trailer and I was like, okay, that seems like it's going to be a small part of the game. But the way you talk about it, it sounds like everything is kind of contributing to it as you go and as you do all the extra stuff. Are you then going back and spending a lot of time there or is it really just like a check in every now and then? Tom, I want to hear what you have to say about this, but I want to answer first quickly because it ties back to Andy's last question too. I feel like the Waddle DTown section,

it really picks up into like latter half of the game when you like start to have just a lot more collectibles by default. I think that it's a really slow go for the beginning and it's not interesting at all. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is really interesting. But it definitely like,

it took too long to get to the point for it to be cool. Yeah, you check in pretty regularly because you're constantly, you get blueprints that you can then use. You go back to town to buy, to spend those stars that he was talking about on upgrading your abilities. So you got to like do that occasionally. But I agree.

Like once you've established the buildings and you can go back there and you can check in on lots of little different things, it's not, it's not like a full town builder, right? Like it's not like if, oh, I'm totally blanking on that. JRP, Nino Kuni. It's not like Nino Kuni, right?

Or Nino Kuni too, where you're like, going to be going back to your town to manage things a lot or whatever. it is it is very much just sort of like a hub that you can like buy an item or play a little minigame here and they are upgrading it i was thinking dark cloud like when you guys first started talking about it because like i fucking love dark cloud going into the dungeons finding the parts and then bringing them back and then building the town and then hanging out of the people okay i don't know why i'm just i'm immediately reminded of the chow section in like sonic adventure sonic adventure it's definitely more chow do you have any investment in it i would kind of i would say it it's more chow mixed with the castle from mario sixty four and i think that might that might sound like too high praise but i think the chow things should balance it out a little bit to be realistic like it it's cool because there's there's a at the end of the day probably like 10 different things to do in the town and the town itself has secrets that you can kind of unlock

um and there's like like one of the areas that you the buildings is like a post office and the post office gets like mail and you can kind of use these like codes that you find hidden around the town to unlock letters that Kirby gets. And so like you're incentivized to kind of explore the entire town. It's not that big of a space. Like honestly I would say it's probably as big as like Comet Observatory for Mario Galaxy. Okay. So you're like kind of like going around the whole hub world.

But it's I think it's way more interesting than Comet Observatory. So not quite Mario 60. but a step up from Galaxy. It's cool too because there's a lot, one of the things I really like about this game that's real subtle is there's just a ton of tiny little details that are really, really nice, right? Like it's got people, people talk about

that kind of ethereal Nintendo polish, right? And it feels like this game has that for sure. And so there are thresholds where it's like once you've got 50 wattledees, this building will get built. Once you've got 60, this building will get built. But also on top of that, just as your population increases, the population of the town

actually sort of gets a little more bustling. So once you get the little restaurant, you know, there'll be an empty table out front. But then as you get more Waddle D's, maybe one Waddle D would be sitting there. And then you get a few more. And then there's like two having lunch together. And it's like there's a lot of cute little things like that.

Yeah. And it's cute things that kind of make you feel nostalgic for things that like I didn't really care about necessarily at the beginning. But like Kirby gets a house that's at Waddle D town. I know, exactly. So you go into this house and the house kind of starts. to populate as you explore and like get different things. And there's like a storybook that appears at some point.

And you can look at the storybook and it's like reflecting on his older adventures. And like as you're like it's just kind of like a fun picture. It's almost as if he's taking pictures throughout his life of all the different things he's done. And when you're looking at them, there's like a description you could read and like them using another thing. And you're like, whoa, what is that? What the hell is that? Yeah. it's pretty cool stuff

and like it's just dumb little things but like I just, Tom was talking about the Nintendo kind of magic and polish and I do think that this game has it in a way that like Kirby Star Allies which was the last game released on Switch like really just kind of felt like alright we just got to put something out. This felt like it's so much more than that

like this is a core Nintendo game. Yeah Tim you mentioned like you know feeling like he just had to put something out and I feel like Kirby's been that for a while in terms of I feel like every year there is at least one Kirby game that comes out and I'm like really wow another one after playing this one do you feel like we're gonna get more of this do you think we're

going to get more of this plus all the other Kirby shit we usually get like where do you think Kirby goes from here I think we'll always get the random spinoffs and the Kirby Robottobot or whatever it's called like there's always going to be that stuff but this game is going to perform this game is going to be something

we get sequels for and I am very very excited about that is there really a Kirby game every year they make a lot of spinoffs Like they made two different arena fighter Kirby games that are like mobile. I think they're also on mobile and you get like got the like timed thing where you can only play so much in a day unless you pay real money. Like so they've done a lot of stuff like that with Kirby. Yeah.

There's another one coming out. I think this year that got announced that I got to double check because I think it was like a low key kind of like not free to play but that has those sort of vibes kind of thing. But usually they're there like it is like yeah, here's the arena fighter one. Here's like another just random two D one. like here's one for 3DS. Like there's a pretty good rotation of Kirby games. Looking at it, last year was the first year since 2013

where Kirby did not have a game. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, the Arena Fighter 1, Greg, was a lot like the, what's that, what was that built-in 3DS game where you would just take your little dude and go do quests and things of that nature

on the 3D, like you would, I would meet another character and I could like tape? No. It was the one that wasn't street pass, Right, that's what you're talking about. There was a few past and there was the other one where you like went through and people had different colored shirts, right? Wasn't that any part of it? Yeah.

You get them with the thing. Yeah, it was like you were just like a little RPG character and you would just go through like this. Oh, with the dragon. That's the boss, right? I haven't ever got that far. I'm not pro. Jesus. The funny thing about that Kirby Arena fighter or at least one of them, because I think there's two.

The one of them was like basically like monster hunter low key because you would fight bomb. and then get specific items from them that you could then use to craft things. Like it was like very weird. They do weird stuff with Kirby. Yeah, definitely. I think to your point, like there's, I agree. I think this is going to do well enough and be well enough received that hopefully they start doing more stuff like this, right?

And and who knows because 3D world didn't get 3D world to, right? Like 3D world didn't change the course of that of the 2D Mario, quote unquote 2D Mario games. but I feel like it's going to be more impactful this one too Kirby Yeah, I mean, I think in defense of Mario 3D world there That was the second game compared to 3D land, right? And then we did get Bowser's Fury I just think that the Wii you kind of muffled the game a little bit there

That's fair, that's fair But yeah, we'll see. I imagine that we'll get more 3D world as well in the future But Mario is just kind of in a weird place right now where we also haven't gotten a new 2D Mario game at this point since 2013 when the Wii you launched, not counting Mario Maker. Yeah. Yeah, so that's pretty crazy.

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Get 15% off your first order by going to cutsclothing.com slash kind of funny. That's c-U-T-Sclothing.com slash kind of funny for 15% off the only shirt worth wearing. Could it be. Now that we're back, I mentioned a little bit earlier, but the music in this game is just absolutely,

absolutely incredible. Like it is so good, it is so hype, and it makes the game so much more enjoyable. Every single song in this game is a slap and a half. The main theme itself is as good

as the Mario Galaxy soundtrack. And like, that is like the highest compliment I can give for this type of game. It's the same composer that did the original music for melee and Smash 64. So, like,

they know what they're doing and they make everything you're doing feel epic. And like you are, making something dope happen, even when you do this little pink puff ball. And I think that that is like the coolest thing is this juxtaposition between this cute, adorable guy that you are and the adorable friends and enemies and everything and how epic it all feels.

Like I'm so surprised by that. Did you come away thinking the same thing, Tom? Yeah, it's really, the music really does elevate it. And that's kind of also just a part of Kirby in this game, right? Because like one of the one of the sword evolutions makes the sword like twice the size of Kirby and gives you a giant spike shield and then you like go fight bosses and castles and you're like,

it's very funny for this game to come out around the same time as Eldon Ring because they're not similar at all but then you're looking at this and you're like, oh, this is supposed to be the cute one and Kirby's got a giant sword. And just dual wielding pistols is one of the abilities.

Talks to what they see that their whole family died recently. It's like, oh, this is so sad. This is depressing. I mean, honestly. Hundreds of Waddle these have been kidnapped. You can talk? Like some of the plot points in this game are shockingly dark. Like it gets really, really like, well, okay, I guess you're doing that.

But going back to the weirdness of it all, like, they just commit so hard to this, like, weird mix of the cute things doing epic stuff in ways that reminds me a lot of the kingdom hearts trailers that don't have the sound effects. Like, how weird they are. where it's like, why would you ever do this? But the game just decides to take that energy and be like, this is what we're doing. Like, this is why you're here. And you're like, I don't want that. That's weird. And then like an hour later, you're like, I am so in.

Let's get even weirder. And I realized it eventually turns to not just the weird kingdom hearts energy, but it's the energy of remember playing Odyssey for the first time? And then you see the dinosaur. And you're like, what the fuck? And then later there's the dragon level. And you're like, excuse me, this is a Mario game? Like, how does that make sense?

That's this entire game. Like, every single level has some moment that's like the dragon moment in the Mario Odyssey, where you just kind of have to stop and go, what? But then after a certain amount of time, you're like, oh, that's what this game is. It's just what moment after what moment back to back. And eventually it just kind of becomes part of its charm. I know this is always a fun question for the Switch, but how is it in terms of presentation, like both from art style and then also fidelity.

Like doesn't run good. I know like for me playing games on the switch for the last year, specifically Travis Rex, or not Travis Rocks again, No My Heroes 3 was the one that kind of broke me in terms of, man, I just want this game to look better. Did you ever have that moment playing this game? Not really.

I thought this game was really good looking and it does run well. Like I know a lot of people had performance problems with the demo and I didn't notice really any performance issues while I was playing. and there's like I talked about this a little earlier about like the you know kind of sometimes you can like be on the same similar looking rooftop or whatever but I really did think this game was really pretty there's a whole carnival level or carnival world that is just so vibrant like I think that's that's what really impresses me most about it is its use of color is super super good it is very bright and very colorful the whole way through yeah it's interesting I'm I'm torn in a lot of directions when it comes to how to answer that question because this is this is nintendo at its best where it's art style speaking very loudly and it's awesome it is very very cool the colors are amazing they're well utilized the um worlds are uniquely identifiable where it's never just oh we're

in the desert world now or oh we're just in the snow world there's always like one extra level of gimmick to that visually and aesthetically that kind of like makes it again weirder like to me we're weird is the main word to use for this game. Like it's not just a snowland. It's like a snowy London. And it's like, why? That's weird as shit. The last level was Disneyland, but for Kirby.

Like what, like complete with like the Main Street electrical parade and stuff. And it's like that kind of just constant, it's this, but that is what makes it so cool because it looks great. The enemy designs are fantastic. Like overall, it looks very good. But it did have a lot of performance issues for me. in terms of slowdown and stuff that got distracting a lot. In some ways, it kind of had that old school classic video game charm of like,

you're fighting a bunch of enemies and there's the slowdown and like it kind of use it to your advantage and like you got to play into it. It's not bad. But there were multiple times doing the challenges where I'm really trying to get my time down and shave off the seconds as much as possible. And the slowdown doesn't stop the clock from moving at real time. And that on multiple occasions, Asians fucked up my runs.

And I was like, come on Nintendo. Like, figure your shit out. Because, like, that wouldn't happen on other systems. And, like, that is kind of a bummer. And I will say, the game looks absolutely stunning in handheld mode on the OLED. I cannot believe how poppy this thing is. Playing it on my TV, I'm like, it looks good. But it looks good enough.

Like, you're not saying. I mean, like, yeah. Exactly. I'm not like, but I'm also not like, yo, this is amazing. I think this game looks amazing on, uh, in, handheld on the OLED, like the colors pop and it looks like it was made for that experience. That's so interesting to hear you, you had performance issues because I know I heard other people talk about that with the demo and I didn't see any. So I like, and I was playing on a

whatever the 1.1 model of the switch is, you know, that like weird in between not an OLED. Where the battery was better, but it wasn't like. Right. Yeah, yeah. But there's something really interesting about kind of how Nintendo chooses to develop some of their games and I don't know whether certain engines are being utilized but like I still look at Odyssey and I think Odyssey is a five-year-old game at this point Mario Odyssey and it is still one of the better looking switch games and I look at Kirby and it's one of the better looking switch games and I think a lot of that is like here's the materials that we're using and the colors are popping and the metal looks good and the water looks awesome and then it just

I don't know why they choose to use other engines aside from functionality maybe but that's why I'm always like my heart breaks whenever I see a game like Mario Golf come out. It's like just use the other end like use the other aesthetics. What why does this game look so bad and look worse than a five year old game like Mario Odyssey

and I just it's kind of a major annoyance that I have with Nintendo like maybe it's them not wanting things to start to look super homogenous and stuff, but it's like, it looks better. Like you just use whatever you're using here, you know. Some of it might be also, like, the art team and like the amount of, I guess, like, not, talent is the wrong word, but maybe it is manpower, right? Like, how many people do you have on the art team and how do, how well do they know how to

work with the switch? Because, like, you know, I look at Pokemon Legends RCS as well. And that game, as soon as I booted up on my TV, I was like, oh, I do not like how this looks. And that went from, like, the grass texture from, like, seeing the trees, seeing the pop and saying anything in that game. I felt looked disgusting on my TV and looked way better on my OLED, but that's the game that

in other aspects do so much more. And like, you know, it's not, it's not a bad game by any means. It just has an art style that didn't sit well with me versus Mario Odyssey, I'm right there with you. Like, I booted it up again recently, like a week ago. And I was like, yeah, this game looks hot. Like this game looks pretty. And I still think now,

especially what, five years into the switch after having a PS5 and Xbox series X, I look at the fidelity on games on Switch and now things become more identifiable in terms of like some of the the jagged edges I'd see on character models on in Odyssey or in Breath of the Wild right or even the slowdown that you'd get when you'd walk into the Lost Woods in Breathful Wild like that stuff sticks out to me a bit more but also like I think art style wise breath the wild and Odyssey and now it seems like curbing the forgotten lands

find ways to circumvent that and like really lean into how do we find the colors and the art direction that works for this yeah and you know a Mario Party another or other really good shot out. Like, those games are really pretty, regardless of how, you know, how you could start to see the aliasing a bit more and you can start to see those jaggies around characters. Like, they just have a really good look to them. So there's something really interesting with Kirby and the Forgottenland in terms of its style and its art where I think that we're, this is one of the first times I can identifiably see

a push and pull between their design philosophy and the tech and what they're like trying to actually accomplished with it all visually because it kind of has the same fuzzy vignette look that Link's Awakening had where the edges of the screen are always slightly more blurred, like almost like a depth of field effect to kind of like mask the issues that the game would have otherwise. And I think that it's a choice that overall adds to the design of it all. And it kind of adds to the poppy colors of it all and it makes the center of the screen like the the sharp lines and stuff stand out even more and it I think works really well but the thing that I'm kind of bummed about is this weird thing I want everyone that plays to keep their eyes out on is anything in the

distance like 30 feet or more away from your character has this really interesting um half frame rate look to it where you'll see enemies and they're moving. and it almost looks stop motion. And it is one of the coolest effects I have ever seen in a game, especially with this art style where I'm like, oh my God, if they just committed to that look and made that part of the whole experience, I think this could be something that's like truly special.

But instead, it kind of feels like that was a concession that they had to make to make the rest of the game run well. So it kind of throws me off where I'm like, whoa, the worst looking thing, I think actually gives more identity to what we're going with here. But I think that they still play together in an interesting way where you see the stop motion thing in the distance. And then by the time you get to it,

there's not like a jarring cut between they're not stop motion and then they are. Like it's kind of more seamless in a way where I'm like, the people technically that made this game really understood all the limitations. And they kind of worked with them in a way that is very impressive. Any other thoughts on it? Tom? Yeah, no, I agree. It's funny because I do think that that stop motione effect is probably a like a performance saving thing. Absolutely. Yeah, that's it's basically an LOD for animation.

Yeah, they did that in the new Pokemon, Pokemon Legends, right, did that as well, but to a, let's call it less successful degree, maybe. It was a little bit more distracting in that game, but I think also you have longer distances you're looking in that game than in Kirby. But I agree. I mean, like, Kirby has always been, had this feel of like, you know, it's a little toy, right? He's a very cute little thing. And it's very toy-ish and feels like that. And I like that they leaned into this idea of these almost being like little dioramas, right, that you're playing with. And yeah, I am overall very impressed with the art style. I don't know what goes into making a game perform well or better or worse in. the visuals, right? Like, it's so funny to me to look back at Breath of the Wild as just still such a gorgeous game and look at other open world games that have come out on Switch since then

and be like, oh, like, wow, people really are having a tough time hitting that bar, so that must have been a hard thing to do, right? But even that game had slowdowns at points. So it's, it's, tricky. The Switch is unfortunately aging, but I'm so happy that Nintendo can continue to find ways to make games look like this and look this good on this hardware. Yeah. And the last thing I want to say about the gameplay itself is it's a slogan. And like it is not Mario. And when you first start playing, especially the kind of like opening levels,

you're like, oh, damn, Kirby is he doesn't like to run. This is a walking boy for sure. Big old boy who likes to walk. And constantly in the earlier levels, I was like, oh, just give me an ability to like long jump or something like you can in Mario or like to roll or to something, you know. And you just don't get it for a while. And then eventually you start getting the abilities and like it does hit a point that you're like pretty much anytime I had a major criticism of the game within time it was addressed in terms of the mobility or in terms of the combat's all right. But I wish it was a little bit deeper.

And then it ends up getting even deeper than I wanted it to. So that was kind of my experience with the game overall is like coming in with very low expectations, but hoping that it was something cool and then being like, oh, you know what? This is almost cool. And then then delivering the cool thing and then one step further. So overall, I am very happy with it. I'm not bad for this. This is maybe, I don't need to kick this dead horse or beat this dead horse necessarily.

But one of the things that came up is I reviewed Ball and Wonderworld back in, you know, a year ago. Thank you for your service. Yeah. You're welcome. and I gave that game a four because it is a bad game. It is a bad video game. But it is so interesting, it was so interesting playing this game

and like looking at all of the things that Ball and Wonder World tried to do and did terribly. And then this game does so many of the same things in a very similar structure, a very similar idea with these copy abilities that are being reused and the way levels are designed and the collectibles.

But it just does them so well. It's really, it's really, really interesting to look at it in comparison to other similar games. Because I agree with Tim. I think it is not just a good Kirby game. I think it is a really well-designed game. And there you go. Moving on from Kirby, I want to talk just a little bit about the Mario Kart 8 booster pass. Barrett, if you can pop off the bench for a second, I'd love to hear your thoughts as the man that's put more time in a Mario Kart than anyone else I know.

Yeah, it was really enjoyable. we popped in on stream last Friday to check them out for the very first time. And yeah, I had a fun time. I've jumped into them a couple of times more since then, just to get more of a feel of how I feel about the new tracks. And, of course, I think all of them are tracks from other games that have been kind of ported over to Mario Card 8 Deluxe. And it was just, it was fun to jump back into that and not have everything, you know, memorand. with all of the other Mario Kart tracks

and just like get like another moment of like all right let me learn what this course is again and all this stuff and there's a lot of tracks from Tor that were ported over in these eight first tracks that we got now people have like their own thoughts on tour but like the tour tracks which felt like which were new to me rather than you know

like a re-experiencing Chaco Mountain from the N64 days and stuff like that. Like that was really, really cool. The one, um, I'm trying, I'm blanking on the, the name of it. Um, I think it was like Ninja Hideaway or something like that. Yeah. Um, that's the one everyone's talking about. Yeah. It's so cool. It's one of the coolest designed Mario Kart levels, I would say even compared to some of the levels in Mario Kart 8 in and of itself. Um, and so yeah, it was just, it got me really excited to see what we'll see in the future, uh, if anything else. Like, I don't know if I'm going to, you know, be playing these

tracks like on loop for like the next couple weeks or anything like that but it was it was such a fun excuse to to get back you know earn some more three stars on on cups and stuff like that and uh you know just jump into some multiplayer over the weekend and you know there's been some talk about like oh the level fidelity isn't up to par with like what the original tracks from mario card eight delivered and i personally don't care because you know there's the videos of people like stopping their race to like look at the details of like grass and sand and stuff like it's a fucking Mario that's literally every racing game yeah it's just like whatever like I really don't care as long as the feel of it and the music uh really like mails the kind of presentation of a of a track like

that's all I really need and we were talking about it on stream of like the music for each track was so fun and so magical in in their own ways that you know either brings you back to the old school stuff or gets you into the newer stuff with the tour track. So, yeah, I'm excited to get more and more over the next like year and a half, almost two years at this point. And it's one of those things before this first pack came out. I was like, man, we're not getting as much of like the old school tracks like ported over here.

I want more of the N60. Give me all of the N64 tracks that you can. Give me some of the 3DS tracks from Mario Kart 7. I don't care about these new tour tracks. But now I'm like, I'm down for a mix after the first eight tracks here. And that's not something I expected, even not just the Ninja Hideaway. There's like the kind of like Paris level that kind of changes. Paris Promenade.

Yeah, Paris Promenade was dope with like each kind of lap, lap, like changing your course and stuff like that. And there is a similar one I forget the names of. But yeah, I'm surprised that I'm just excited. for whatever they they poured over to the to the game now and kind of like redo for for the mario card eight engine and stuff like that just because it's it's it brings it back into that magical space and that i enjoyed it yeah i don't think i have too much to add because i think barrett really kind of nailed the the sentiment there but i would really recommend everyone go check out on youtube dot com slash kind of funny plays the archive of the stream we did even just watching the first like 20 minutes

of us experiencing the maps for the first time like i think really does a good job of expressing like how cool these things actually are where, sure, the fidelity of some levels is not the same as it is in the core game, but I don't think that it's like distractingly lower. And the quality of everything else is just as high. Like the music is by the same team that did the music of the core game. So if you were to play some of these levels in just like back to back with the older levels, I don't really think that you would notice any difference at all actively. And I think that that's a key thing to point out because, like, sure, it's not as.

pretty but that's because they just took mobile game and like just up res some things and added some stuff but um i think that where the real magic lies is the fun inventiveness of through in the first 20 minutes we had multiple moments where we're like oh shit we on lap two the other opponents are now coming at me so like you're on the same course and you have to dodge incoming traffic of other racers and it's like that's not something we see much of in mario cart and then playing that ninja hideaway level was like an amazing moment of all of us being just blown away by the level design and it was just a lot of us like oh my god you can go up oh my god there's this there's a jump over here like that is Mario card had its best and i it really was cool um i said this during the the stream but like it kind of feels like Mario cart is an instrument and doing this felt like playing sheet music sight reading it for the first time of like you you know how to play the guitar but you don't know how to play this song but then you start to learn the song And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, yeah, I'm a rock fucking God. And that's, that's so damn cool.

Bless, what are your thoughts on it? Yeah, I agree 100% with the things that you guys are saying. I think the one thing I'll add to is that, like, you know, when we talk about these levels, I think the thing that I love the most is how much they're willing to be gimmicky with these levels, right? You mentioned going opposite directions on the same road. You mentioned Ninja Hideauh has all these different routes, right? And, like, that's the stuff I love.

And I don't think anybody does, like, gimmicks better than Nintendo. And I think that really does shine through with these new levels where, you know one of my favorite margarth levels is oh i forget what it's called it's the it's the yoshi one though that's like very maze like that you know i don't know if a lot of other people like that level but i like that level just out of nostalgia and out of how ridiculous that level is and like you know having the question marks uh on your map till it's so you don't know where people are on the map they didn't include in the amaricart a version of that track bless and it makes me sad because it was so good in n64 it was so good in n64 and i kind of had that same

kind of the revival that feel a little bit in ninja hideaway where it doesn't like split off, you know, many directions, but being able to take the stairs versus take the right side, being able to, you know, float up in the sky versus like stay on the ground. Those the kind of, that's the kind of track design that I really dig out of Mario Kart. So I like, I like seeing that return. And I also like seeing, uh, I like having an opportunity to play the Mario Kart Tour tracks because I was never going to play those tracks in any other scenario. And so like, I think this is such a good idea to give these tracks some sort of, no pun intended, extra life. So that people are able to actually experience them if they didn't get to play Marriott.

cart tour and so I've been having a blast of it. I can't wait for them to add more tracks. And to close out the show, Andy Cortez, I want to hear you talk about the Ghostrunner DLC that you finally got to spend some time with. Yeah, Ghost Runner DLC came out on March 3rd. I've just been so wrapped up with Eldon Ring that I haven't really wanted to play anything else.

But I decided to give it a go and I was initially a little bit worried about it and I told you all how it reminded me of like, man, I love Shovel Night. And this game's really, really good. And then Yacht Club started coming out with other iterations on Shovel Night, like the king and the scepter of torment or whatever. And they weren't the exact same experience,

and therefore I just didn't find them as magical. You know, it's like we're introducing sort of new mechanics with the same formula. And it just didn't quite work. And initially, I kind of felt that way about the Ghostrunner DLC. You play as, I believe, a character named Hell, H-E-L, and it's very much like Ghost Runner. You have the sword. There's a couple new mechanics that have been added with the same sort of formula of clear

out the room without dying. There's a lot of movement. I feel like the game starts off a bit tougher in the way that Ghost Runner slowly kind of ramps up that difficulty. And this game kind of throws a lot of different elements. at you. Is this one of those DLCs where they expect you to have, it kind of feels like they expect you have come off the campaign.

Like you just finished and here's more. So like we're gonna not give you any introduction. You're just gonna be tossing the event. I mean, it definitely starts off with tutorialized things while kind of giving you story moments where you are running through and then it'll say space bar to jump and then you. Sure, sure. You know, it still does its job, right? But I think it throws a bit more, I think the difficulty is there a bit quicker.

this time around. And I was a little bit worried about these added mechanics and how they would affect my experience, but I'm loving it. I'm so glad I kind of quickly turned that corner. It's just as fun as playing through Ghost Runner, which was one of my favorite games of 2020. It's an absolute blast to play. And again, it's kind of what I love about games like Catana Zero and just you feel like a goddamn I'm cool-ass expert while you're clearing out this room and working with the different kit that you have,

and they've added some newer mechanics. So I highly recommend it. I believe it's free. I think it's a free DLC that as long as you own Ghostrunner, you essentially have this DLC. I have to double check on that. But the game's great, and I highly recommend it if you dug Ghostrunner at all. And it's another one of those games I was talking to Tim about. There's a lot of people who have been asking me, like,

how did you learn how to do keyboard mouse? And I think Ghost Runner, along with games like Boomerang X, are really good, almost like keyboard mouse tutorials. They're really good exercises to get your kind of dexterity and figure out how to control while playing a game. I think they sort of ramp up what the game asks from you in a really sort of smart way. So I highly recommend it.

Go check out the DLC. and I'm double-checked to see if it's free or not. You enjoyed it and everything else. Were you playing it though? Man, I wish I was playing an elder ring. No. No. And that's, I think, a really good mark of like a game that I'm enjoying where like I haven't

even beat it yet, but Irvine Z of Tunic where I played through Tunic and I was like, I got to fucking play this game. Like a game I've been looking forward to, I just want to be playing Elder Ring. and quickly you get kind of you get just into the systems and you start to want to get better at it so yeah I have a lot of fun with it I'm still not done with it and I plan on beating it

but yeah it's a lot of fun so if you are into Ghostrunner highly recommend it well there you go this has been the kind of funny games cast Tom thank you so much for joining us everyone make sure you go check out the Kirby and the forgotten land review over on IGN.com written

by Tom himself but Tom Where can people find you in particular? You can follow me at at Tom R. Marks on Twitter, and that's basically it. Tom Reginald Marks. Yes. No. No.

No. What is it? Somebody has guessed it. Someone has guessed it? Yeah, yeah. It already happened. Has this been going on for this long? Because like, I've known Tom for years and I still don't know.

I was listening to Beyond in 2020, and this is what happening. Yeah, there was a bit on Beyond. for like two or three years and then somebody guessed it on NBC. That's a very beyond NBC story right there. And by the way, Ghostrunner is $15, $15. There we go. That's not free, everybody. Also play the return all the LC is pretty good.

Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk about this somewhere else. But we're about to do the post show exclusively for patreon.com slash kind of funny game supporters. It is another thrilling episode of Bless Who. Until next time, I love you all by. Thank you.