Retronauts - 540: Kirby, Part 5

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

We've covered every Kirby platformer to date over the course of four episodes, so what territory is left to trod when it comes to Nintendo's pink puffball? If you're a Retronauts listener, it may not surprise you, but Kirby has starred in a shocking amount of games that involve more than just left-to-right traversal. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Ray Barnholt, Henry Gilbert, and patron Andrew Oliveira—who sponsored this installment—as the crew examines the many, many Kirby spin-off games. This episode is so exciting, you may have a mass attack! Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 50+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

This week on Retronauts, we tilt, tumble, stack stars, block balls, and have a mass attack. Hello, everybody, welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackie, and this episode is called Kirby Part 5 because it is the fifth installment in our Kirby series and the final one for now until they make at least, let's say, five new Kirby games or until 10 years passes, whichever comes first. This has been a very comprehensive series, and we'll be covering in this one the many, many Kirby games that aren't traditional platformers. Before I go any further with this intro, who is the special patron who sponsored this very special episode today, who's with us on the line? That'd be me, video game enthusiast, Andrew Olivera. And you've heard Andrew several times over the past, I think, two, two and a half years in this Kirby series. And it's because of his patronage, we're covering everything Kirby has done in detail.

So thank you once again, Andrew, for supporting the show and being on the show. Before I go any further, who is our remote guest today, our other remote guests? Hi, it's Ray Barnholt, aka Tinkle Popo. Hello. That's right. And who else do we have today in the same room with me? Hey, it's Andrew Gilbert. still waiting on his claymation Kirby special. Yeah, when is he going to find the meaning of Christmas?

When's that happening? By the very least Easter. Yes. Oh, definitely. He looks like one of those little eggs you find, right? He'd suck up all the eggs, too. Oh, Kirby's his great ones. He's been yarn before.

What other crafts can we do? Can we do balsa wood Kirby? That'd be good. Chainsaw sculpture, Kirby, I think. Yeah, is next. So we've done about four of these. We have a lot of games to go through today. So we've all given our Kirby biographies except for Ray and Ray, I've been saving this one for you.

I reached out to you for like every one of these Kirby ones and you told me I want to be on the one about the spinoff game. So Ray, what is your Kirby history? Right. Well, not to mischaracterize or anything. I have been there since the beginning of Kirby. I played the Dreamland and Adventure and Dreamland 2. Those were all great. Then I just sort of slipped off of the mainline games once Superstar and Dreamland 3 were coming out and stuff.

like that. And then just kind of like fits and starts with the mainline games. But I always enjoyed the spinoffs, which we'll talk about, of course. And that's sort of the same thing with me in like Pokemon. Like I've played, I like the Pokemon spinoff games a lot more than the mainline ones. And it's because I'm not like super emotionally evolved in Pokemon, of course. It works the other way for things I'm more involved in. Like I love the mainline Dragon Quest, for instance. Most of the Dragon Quest spinoffs are kind of meh. So Kirby's, Kirby's on that other side, but I don't hate Kirby games or anything. It's just another thing that didn't really stick with me the whole time.

You know, and it feels like to me, at least within the past five years, these side games have really slowed down. And I think the most offerings we've seen have been mini games that are in other bigger games or things like the 30th anniversary game we saw last year that is a very, very slight. I forget what it's even called. 30th anniversary game. Yeah, it's the one where you're rolling through courses and eating things and growing, big as you eat the things. Oh, Dream buffet. Dream buffet, thank you.

Yeah. Okay, yeah. My wife bought that for $15 and it's worth about eight. But, you know, it's, it's very, very slight. But that was his 30th birthday present, I guess. Well, even games like Forgotland now just have the mini games in them. Yeah. Like, yeah, they.

With things like Robobot and I think one other game, it's like you can either buy the full game or just buy the mini game separately if you want. Yeah. I like that he even can star in his own smash games. They're like, you know, hey, you probably play. Kirby now because you like him in Smash. Well, here's a Kirby game that's like, you know, just the Kirby characters and their own version of Smash, brother. It's the Oops, All Kirby's version of Smash that they sold in a box. Sakurai goofed up at the Kirby Factory. Oh, it was

intentional. So Andrew put together super comprehensive notes. We're going to cover everything. We might have to gloss over a few things just because there's a lot to cover here. But we're going to start off with things that are barely games and some of those are various flash games that were online not made by hell I don't think they had any official seal of approval

on them but they're exactly what you would think they're cheesy web games from the early odds some of them are matching games some of them are just little puzzle games it looks like one called speed eaters was just a flash port of an existing mini game in the amazing mirror but back

in the day when you had a new product you would often make a really simple web game for kids to play to get them excited for said products. Well, you're telling me four kids didn't really roll out the big money for web development. Hey, they had a lot of money for a lot of things, but web development, I guess, was not one of them. But I just wanted to mention any other, like, I want Andrew to let me know if you have any other thoughts on these because there's not much to say about some of these things. Yeah, I got a little ridiculous with these admittedly, but, you know. Yeah, you got an encyclopedia.

going here. Yeah, we are starting our own Kirby Wiki on this podcast. A little bit inside baseball, but holy hell, this thing is. We go over a few other things. Three Google pages. Yeah. So we have, there's a Kirby board game, not really, you know, a board game you buy a Toys or Us, but it came with Wendy's Kids Meals, and it's a very shoots and ladder style game in which there's not even a dice. There are just cards you draw to tell you how many spaces you go and sometimes you get sent back. It's a very simple, simple baby board game. I boycotted those Wendy's Kids meals for Kirby because I just did not go right back at characterization. I do not like.

Was it him he didn't like or was it the little kids he hung out with? Because he was dead on. Yeah, he was dead on. He's exactly what you want him to be in that. But I get it. You got to have two little kids with it. I probably said this on the last Kirby when you did. But look, I get it.

Kirby doesn't talk. They don't want him to talk or have a voice. So it's like, okay, then we have to have two annoying blob kids with them to say dumb crap. Come on, Henry. It's like a throwback to the old 80s cartoons, you know? Need a kid and a dog. They're like the super friends, pals, right?

I hate, well, I hate the Wonder Twins, too. I don't like those guys either. Well, yeah, actually, there's other friends. The Wonder Twins are better than the other kids with the WonderMond, whatever. This is not anything to do with Kirby. These are other podcasts that we're pitching here. So we also have Kirby of the Stars, magical tower of Metal Land.

It's a coin-pushing amusement game, and it's one of the many children's gambling games that are in Japan. Yes, when I think Kirby. gambling. I think winning big. There's like a slot machine in this thing too. If you watch Game Center CX,

you'll see at all of these little arcades he goes to, there's always some kind of child gambling machine, which I think is good. Get them started early. Of course. We also have Game Boy Bath games made by Takara. They're basically the water games that you would get if you're a little kid born in a certain age,

in that it's just a little screen filled with water and you push buttons to shoot air to get like pieces into place. They had versions of this in America. There were Mario ones, I believe. I had like a generic basketball player one who would like shoot baskets when you push the water button or the air hose button or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, those are really cool.

They came in these soap bottles that looked like Game Boys. So very neat, very Japanese. And also something called Kirby Game Boy Shape Puzzle the Star. which is a sliding tile puzzle that looks like a game boy and it might be electronic we don't have a lot of detail about it but I hate anything to do with sliding tile puzzles

and I think kids should not be exposed to them they're awful. Evil, evil. And speaking of which one more very slight thing is Kirby Slide, aka Kirby Puzzle which is a single card e-reader game which is just a slide puzzle and it was basically a contest distributed through Toys R Us in late 2003

and yeah this is all that was just like a special here kid here's a free game bad news it's a sliding tile puzzle game so you know

don't play it's a video game so it's better I guess so I need the physicality if I need to like my brain can't interface with that kind of puzzle I at least need the physicality

of having the pieces in front of me to even wrap my head around or start wrapping my head around it yeah I want to pinch my fingers in between the slides yeah injuring yourself is a big part sliding tile puzzle games and eventually you can just snap it and just place the tiles wherever you want around once it's broken i i always like the idea of e-reader stuff and

giveaways like this how well you know that you mentioned andrew in your notes that like it was put in nintendo powers in the u.s or distributed to choice or us like but yeah the e-reader like i again i'm a mega nintendo fan even i didn't buy an e-reader i never stooped that low even though i wanted those extra levels but now uh you can just get them in the distributed versions of the games like Mario 3 that's right yeah the listeners can't see me but I'm raising my hand like a sucker because I buy oh well Ray you know it was 20 years ago we were all younger had a lot to learn about the world absolutely and then Andrew you put this in the dock too also very interesting here a Kirby prize card it's not a game but it was part of another contest

and at E3 2002 Nintendo was giving away these promotional e-card packs and I believe there were 10 first prize ones and only one has been located and that just sold on eBay last year for $10,000. That's crazy because I went to E3 2002 and I never remembered even trying to get these things. So I think I missed out completely. Maybe the swag bags were so big at that point. They just got lost in the shuffle. It just fell into an extra large t-shirt, went through the wash, disappeared.

There's a plastic bin right behind me of all my E3 memorabilia. It could be in there, but I don't think so. I have other things. I, on my last move, I tried to sell off some E3 chotchkes on eBay. And I, I feel like I only sold like two or three of them, like at minimum cost. I did not get anything for $10,000. There's not a lot of awareness for that stuff, unless, of course, it is an e-reader card, something that does become sort of a, you know, a rare ROM, so to say, you know.

In which case, yeah. There's some kind of data on there that can be salvage. So that's another thing. and we also can go over the supplemental media so we went over the Kirby right back at you anime last time there was a few manga series running one is called

Hoshino Kirby and I believe this is like the story of Day Day Day in Poooo-Poo-Land or something is that was that what the translation is? Sure seems like it, yeah that's what I think it is. That's my guess these are the words I know in Japanese We all know monogatari

His story, yes But, yes, this was published from 95 to 2006, and it's a gag manga for kids where Kirby's like a little mischievous elementary schooler. And Viz Media had plans to release it in 2010, but this was canceled. And we had three compilations of this in English, I believe. Is this the one that came out as Kirby Manga Mania, Andrew? I believe so, yeah. It's weird that we got one compilation of the Super Mario Kun. manga but as Mario Manga mania but now there's three of the Kirby ones in English but I went online

because I love the Super Mario manga it's so cool it's not it's very naughty in France there are now 29 translated volumes in the French language but we get one because I think Nintendo realizes it's a little too naughty for Mario's presence in the States he needs to that nice we need a nice clean Chris Pratt figure to symbolize Mario absolutely France loves her manga though and so that's just a natural fit, I think. It makes sense to me, but I'm still resentful. The French are much better at appreciating the Japanese comic art than Americans are. I heard this from localizers in the U.S. of like that they said, oh, you think the Japanese side cares about what American fans think.

Like they care about their local audience and they care about France. And then maybe if you're lucky America's third in what they care about as far as audiences. What do we ever do to Japan? I'm not going to answer that question. We're going to move on, though. So we have a Kirby of the Stars manga serialized in the 2000s, the Kirby right back at you manga. And all I could find about this, Andrew, is that it was available via the show's American websites. You could read it there, at least portions of it.

That sounds terrible. I'm sure it was like a 280P image at best, I bet. Hey, kids are reading scantilations all the time back then. so maybe people are reading that, maybe. And then there's more Kirby manga. We're going to get to the game soon, by the way. So we have Kirby of the Stars more Poo-Poo-Poo Hour, and I'm seeing this ended in 2016. And Poo-Poo-Poo-Land is where he lives, by the way, because he eats a lot.

And then we have Hoshino Kirby, everything on today's diary in Star, Kirby Puzzle Planet. These are other ones serialized. But again, out of all the Kirby manga, like decades of it, we, basically got three volumes in English. Nintendo works really closely with Koro Koro that comic group like, because I see this in

Andrew's notes too, but like I remember in my over a decade ago when I was writing, you know, news stories as news editor for a game website that Koro Koro Koro would be where especially Pokemon announcements would happen in, would be happening.

Now, now Pokemon as a company I think is much more universal they're like look a comic book a comic in Japan does not get to reveal a new Pokemon for the first time a month ahead of any stuff in America like they are a

global franchise with global launch dates now but cora cora used to be where you get a lot of Pokemon news from yeah apparently they have a ton of video game related manga and it's interesting how selective Nintendo is with what they bring over because um Splatoon

all of the manga from the first series was translated and brought over in English. But then, like I said earlier, Mario, that manga is kind of mostly left in Japan. They took forever to translate the Zelda manga and bring it over here, like the Majores Mask and

Aquarine of Time manga adaptations. I'm not sure if there's been Pokemon manga after the initial run. I'm sure there has to have been. Okay. Yeah, it's part of the machine of marketing Pokemon, but I think it's somewhat limited

in its exposure here. I think they sell, but it's not a key plank to the American sales of Pokemon. I think the YouTube channel Mother's Basement has a video on the initial Pokemon manga and how horny it is and how it was cleaned up for the States. Oh, really?

Because they hired a hentai artist and some of his impulses came out in the Pokemon manga. So I believe Mother's Basement, if you go there on YouTube, you can watch a video about like what they change because it was very inappropriate for this. Finally, we've arrived at video games, and the first one of the video games,

and the first one is one I really like and that's Kirby's Pinball Land. It's from 1993. It was available on virtual console. So I think this might be the first Kirby episode we've recorded since all the virtual consoles shut down for good. So you had your chance. We can't go back in time. You can't

download these unless you go online. Hopefully you listened to us on the previous episode to tell you to get to the 3D remake of well, not 3D remake, but as 3DS remake of Kirby's adventure. That one's great. And Hal has a long history with making pinball games dating back to the early 80s.

Revenge of the Gator is probably the one that kids in America are probably first played, not knowing it was a Hal game or even who Hal was. But yeah, this is a game I got when it was new. And I had Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket. And it was the choice that ever could have to make. Do I walk down the road of Wario land or do I travel the road of Kirby's pinball land? And I chose Kirby. And that's why I became a Mario fan much later in life.

but I did not regret my decision because I played the hell out of this game. It's so good. Right. I would say, yeah, pinball land is the great gift money game for kids. I would say back in those days. It's just like you probably already have the mainline one and then you're going to get this little spin off that you hadn't really cared about until right then. And it makes so much sense to start with pinball for Kirby because he's a little ball that rolls around. So totally makes sense.

And with Hal's background in virtual pinball video games, though, I didn't give this one a shot because I think it was the Christmas before I was burned by Sonic. No, it would have been this Christmas. Sonic Spinball. Not good. Yeah, I was burned by it. I was like, I hate this. Pinball is not for me anymore, I guess.

I like Sonic spinball, actually. I think it does a lot of interesting things to this kind of genre. and not to be the you know naysayer here but I'm not crazy about this game I feel like it's really really simple the physics are spot on I love the physics That's what I like

You know Andrew I can understand your point there For me I love the video pinball as a kid And I still like it today But I think the other pinball games were too hard So this one was so much more approachable and not frustrating I mean I really tried to get into pinball quest And I couldn't Like the NES pinball was very very basic

basic and the physics felt weird. But this is the first one where everything felt right. But I didn't have access to the Genesis and Alien Crush and Crew Ball in those ones. So I'm sure those were good too. Have you seen this economy lately, folks? Sure, it's never been good in my entire adult lifetime, but now that I'll soon be Bob Mackey property owner, there's never been a better time to start saving. And a great place to start is the old entertainment budget. For example, I used to spend over $100 a month on streaming services. Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime, you name it. But since I started using ExpressVPN, I've been able to cut back and save so much every month. Let me explain.

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I don't need to pay extra for Paramount Plus just to watch it. And at less than $7 a month, ExpressVPN pays for itself and so much more. It's a no-brainer. So if you want to get way more shows and save money while you're at it, go to ExpressVPN.com slash Retronauts. forget to use my link so you can get three extra months free. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-V-S-V-N.com slash Retronauts. ExpressVPN.com slash Retronauts to learn more. Yeah, the only thing that released out to me when I played it for the podcast was the

transition between tables or sections of the table where there's a flash of white. It just kills me every time. And Revenge at the Gator does it too, just blinding for like a split second. Yeah, I guess they couldn't find a better way to transition from screen to screen. And, yeah, I mean, it's a fairly short game, but I liked as a kid that it was a game I could finish and sit down with and try to get high scores. But there are three levels and you work your way to the top to fight three bosses and then eventually you fight King Day, Day, Day, Day. All the theming is there. All the music is there.

It's very cute. I would say it's colorful, but there's not a lot of colors. but in terms of just like the sentiment of the game it's a very colorful game but in general I like what hell does with pinball and this game's engine eventually led to Pokemon pinball

in the Game Boy Color with its own rumble pack and weirdly enough I never played those but I knew who made them and I knew they were good but obviously those are much more popular the Pokemon Pinball series I played it a little but I listeners to previous Kirby ones will know that

I had to, with Kirby Games, I had to get over my feelings as a big brother who viewed it as little brother games because my little brother played this one a lot. And of course, if your little brother likes something, you look down on it as a big brother. I'm just like, oh, well, this is the baby game then. Well, now the little brothers. Yeah, attitude. Well, now all the little brothers are 37. So, yes, yeah, that is, yeah, he'll be 30.

turn to 38 this year my little brother I guessed it correctly this game's for 37 year olds I'm 41 but I mean there's not a lot to say here I think it's a very well made game I know Andrew you said it was a little too simple for you yeah I mean this is even after Kirby's adventure so there's no incorporation of powers

or abilities at all and it's just like go for the high score there isn't much more to it but I mean mechanically it's great you know yeah i feel a little bit differently so bob you mentioned the theming and i think that's a really crucial thing that this game sort of started because you know without it we wouldn't really have Pokemon pinball or the wacky mario pinball land or Metroid prime pinball and stuff like that so there's a lineage there that i think is important and worth noting and i also think that it works a little bit better than Pokemon pinball because it has kirby stuff and themeing and

Kirby as a character as the ball is kind of a neat thing. There's a bit more Kirby type gimmicks in it. And Pokemon pinball, you're just like playing with the Pokemon ball and you kind of have to imagine that you're properly catching Pokemon or something. And like it doesn't feel all that much like you're in a Pokemon world. It is just a Pokemon pinball table. With Kirby, like it is kind of in universe in a way. Yeah, you're right.

Because I mean, when you're playing Pokemon pinball or a real life pinball game, you're working through the world of like metaphor. But in the Kirby's pinball land, you are Kirby. You are controlling Kirby. He's there on the screen. He dances when you win. When you fall through the bottom, you can shoot back up. That's one thing I really like about this game is that when you go down the gutter,

there's a chance for you to recover because you have this little platform. If you hit it at the right time, you can go back out. Yeah, like is a strong word. I'm always bad at that, but yeah, it takes a lot of getting used to. No, it's smart like in both cases with Sonic Spinball and with Kirby that they both games thematically recognize of like this may a mascot character can be a cute ball. So let's pick a spinoff game that involves it being a sphere. And that's exactly what happened with the next game on our list here.

Kirby's dream course. I believe this is called Kirby. Is it Kirby Ball or Kirby Bowl in general? Japanese. I think you could read it more as bowl, but yeah, I'll leave it up to the experts, honestly. Yeah, but it is, I mean, it's set up to be a golf game and it kind of is, but it's also bowling and it's also golf and it's also Kirby with his transformation abilities, which weren't in the pinball game. This was co-developed with Nintendo EAD, and originally this was something else called Special T-shot. But as Nintendo does a lot of the times in their history, they say, make that a Star Fox game, make that a Kirby game. Give it IP that people recognize and like, we can't start new IP with an idea like this. And I mean, Special T-Shot didn't look like it was involving new characters or anything. It looked like it was just setting out to be a fun golfing game.

Yeah. And the prototype of Special T-Shot did get out there. So you can't play it. I think it was, they actually did release it on Satellaview. So people plucked it from there. And anyway, my point is that Kirby's dream course can be pretty difficult and challenging. Special T-shot is probably more so. So they actually smoothed some things out for the Kirby version.

And it is a bit of a better game. I still not, I still don't completely grok it all the time, but I respect it. I know a lot of people love it. Good for them. Yeah, I mean, it takes a lot. It takes a lot to get to used to, like I said. I think I usually tap out on this after about two of the courses. Yeah.

Because it starts off. And the mechanics are made. It's a howl game. The mechanics are great. It feels great. The physics are good. There are so many ways you can maneuver Kirby, put backspin, top spin on the ball. There are so many different ways to control the character.

But as you play more and more, you realize, like, oh, this is a puzzle game. And there's a certain order of operations to everything I have to do. And a lot of the holes are finding out, like, which order of enemies to take on in order to get to the hole successfully before you run out of turns. And that kind of prescriptive design, I kind of bristle against that because a lot of it just involves losing lives until you figure out what they want you to do. Thankfully, this is on the Switch online virtual console, right? Yeah, yeah. And I played it some. The first time I played it was on the Supranes classic, but really for a very limited amount of time.

was one i bounced off of kind of quick but i i i didn't play this when it was new but i did i do recall being impressed by it by seeing it on like a demo reel at toys or us because again the the isometric thing and the fake well not fake 3d but you know it's like it's 3d but it's not really 3d kind of deal was impressive to me in 1995 as a kid yeah i mean as a kid i didn't like this game at all but as an I've grown to appreciate it more. And if you're going to play this play it with the Nintendo Switch online

and that way you can just rewind and if you screw up, that way you're not constantly, yeah. It's a lot better to play that way, even if it is, you know, you're still learning the game and you don't want to get, you know, too out of it.

Yeah, unfortunately this game has lives in it, correct? And that's what really makes it hard to figure out some courses because they only give you so many tries until you're sent back to the beginning and that's why the save states are come in handy because you can just cheat the system

and just save at the beginning of every hole and then figure out what they want you to do. I do remember that this game had a very cool feature and that instead of entering your initials for your save, you drew a little picture. I remember that being pretty cool. It's also funny that like this had

an actual like story mode fully cut for America and just to find out that it was probably, It makes so much sense. It's like, well, yeah, we wanted to save half a megabyte of cart space, which is real money in selling this game in the United States. It wasn't until I saw the Game Center CX episode about this that I realized there were cutscenes. I also didn't know it's a standard, well, it's not a standard golf game, but it's a fairly straightforward game until you get to the end and then there's a boss fight.

So you're using these controls to fight King Day, Day, Day, at the end, which is very strange. But it's interesting. But I think we are all on the same page that it is a little. little too hard. And I think the Nintendo online save states kind of alleviate that, that problem. That's right. But it is really either love it or you hate it. Even back then, I think there are people who really love this game and put it on like, you know, their top five or whatever. And I get it, like I said, but for some people, yeah, it just kind of bounces off. Much like Kirby bounces in that game. Has anyone played the multiplayer? You know what? I never got a chance to play the

multiplayer with anyone. This is a solo rental for me. Yeah, that's true, though. Multiplayer does enhance a lot of games, and this would be one of them. Yeah, how does that work, Andrew, the multiplayer in this? Yeah, I mean, it looks like there's a competitive mode with four specific courses, and you accumulate the most stars to win. Yeah, I think, like, just dialing the focus in on one course against another person removes a lot of the tedium of trying to make your way to the end of a course with limited lives.

I think just like it's a little burst of this kind of gameplay might be more fun than, going through an entire course. And in couch co-op too, or couch versus would add a lot to it. Yeah. So yeah, that was Kirby's dream course. And we're moving on now to Kirby's Avalanche. So in the year of 1995,

you had two options. You could either encounter the mean bean machine or Kirby's Avalanche, pollo, pollo, off the table. Interestingly, each of these games was dressed up with a different IP. Yeah, much like spinball and pinball, right? Yeah, yeah.

Similar situation. Henry, which one did you play? Oh, I think I know. I did go with the mean beam machine on both game gear and Genesis. Rentful on Genesis owned it on game gear. And I was looking, maybe you know more about this right. I was looking into when was the first time Pollo Pollo came out as Pollo Pollo. It might have been in 1999 for the NeoGeo Pocket Color.

That sounds about right. Yeah, but then there was a GBA one later in this country. But even then they like, it was like a halfway. name for a little bit called Puyo Pop, right? Yeah, like, yeah. Like, they still didn't have the, the guts to go, I, I've been thinking about this a lot lately that they, I, I view it as an American media crisis point or watershed moment where when it was accepted that Pikachu and Pokemon could make a billion dollars

in America, would not be regarded as too weird a name, that you could call something Puyo Pop in America or, clearly I just watched Common Rider, Shin Common Rider. And just thinking about how, like, before a Pikachu, when they released it in America, they had to call it Mast Rider. And then after Pikachu in America, they would call it Common Rider for branding in the U.S. as well. Thanks, Pokemon. You help some things get over the line. I don't think we need to describe Pollo Pollo or the gameplay. I do want to note that this is one of the few games, possibly maybe the only game, that Kirby has full dialogue.

Yeah. Because in Pollo, Pollo, the characters have cutscenes and they talk. to talk to each other. So when you're doing it with Kirby characters, you have to do the same thing. So Kirby talks, and he's actually quite rude to the... Yeah, he's a dick in this game. And I can tell you, Saccharide's not at all involved in this game. Right. Yeah. This is angry eyes Kirby as a character, man, this this rude, talkative boy. Yeah, yeah. I'm surprised they didn't draw them on for the game. Yeah, like, so I'm looking at the cutscenes now and Whispy Woods is like saying, please don't tread on my roots. It would not.

not be wise, and Kirby steps on the root and says, I feel like apple pie. I'm not making this up. See, it makes sense for Robotnik and his grounder to be this rude, but, but not, it's not Kirby. That's why it wasn't released in Japan. Kirby's just too mean in it. They couldn't take it. It was called, it was called Ghost Trap in the UK, I guess, because Thatcher outlawed nunchucks

and avalanches. Also colored jellies. Oh, yeah, yeah. What, mate, you supposed to eat these jelly? That's what they sound like. Yeah, Bob, I will point something out, and this is not any sort of judgment on you anything. This is just a humorous observation.

Yes. The way you're pronouncing the game is really what Kirby tends to say as a language. Oh. The game is Puyo. Puyo. I was saying Poyo Poyo. Yeah. Now, yeah, I should have played.

Again, this was another one I skipped because I had the Robotnik version. I, for some reason, I always, I mean, it also just feels wrong to me to play a Puyo game on a Nintendo thing. I associate it with a Sega or non-Nintendo thing. Did you play the Switch one, the Pollo Pollo Tetrus crossover? Yes, yes, I did. Okay. Actually, a funny story with Retronaut's co-host, Jeremy Parrish. I remember we both were at the TGS.

where it got announced and we played it. And I enjoyed it, but I liked it more. I played it once it came out. But from my demo, I was saying to, I was eating a meal with Jeremy and saying like, yeah, I play that, but it basically just is. You play Tetris while another person plays Puyo Puyo. And then Jeremy's like, and isn't that great? Like I was like, yeah, okay.

They didn't really cross over. They just kind of sat next to each other, those two properties. Yes, yeah. I mean, like, Pollo Poyo, it's very available. If I could describe it, my own judgmental opinion is it's like a better version of Dr. Mario. And I've never liked Dr. Mario. I think, Ray, do you like Dr. Mario? Is that correct?

I got some sentimentality for Dr. Mario, but I also like Puyo Puyo quite a bit. And as a side note, the best version of Puyo Puyo, I think most people agree is Puyo Puyo 2. And the best version of that is actually on Super Famicom. And you can play it now on Nintendo Switch, even on the American side, Prio Prio 2 remix or something like that. And it is actually pretty good. So even though, yeah, I'm also with Henry that it is closely associated with Sega even back then. But it's actually a very solid version on Super Famicom.

I'm going to play that one. I've seen it tantalizingly there on the Switch online right next to Panel DePaul. And I'm like, I should play this too. It's the most feature rich is what I mean. Yeah, I played a few rounds of it with my wife just because I was like, what is this and we had fun with it so yeah it is good the most of the japanese language games i've played on that is uh the pick cross game because i'm i'm a pick cross sicko that's the type of brain i have but only not all the time but once i started i'm like oh yeah i love pick

ross every every time So we're going to move on to Kirby's blockball released in the States in 96 and Japan in 95. It's essentially Kirby plus Arkanoid, right? Basically Kirby 8 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. and Wozniak and created this game. He grew a little turtleneck. Don't give jobs any credit.

You know, he's co-credited on it. I know the Was did all the work on it and then Steve took the credit. Yeah, but I think, I mean, at the time when this came out, I didn't have an income because I was 14. And I'm sure my thoughts were like, that seems neat,

but that's an old style of game. And I only have so much money to spend on newer game. So I really ignored this one. And I played it on my 3DS, and it's really good. It's like, it's what you think it is. It's Kirby Arkanoid, but because Hal made it, it's very, very well made. And the only thing that's missing is a little dial to turn instead of, you know, using the D pad. Well, sorry, I don't mean to correct you, Bob, but it was actually mainly developed by R&D1.

And then Hal came in at the end was like, this isn't Kirbyish enough. Oh, okay. Added a bunch of Kirby stuff to it. So R&D1 kind of just said, okay, we'll figure this out. I guess because they made Alleyway, right? So this is kind of like a spiritual sequel to Alleyway. They were told they couldn't make Alleyway too and instead maybe. It's a complicated world we live in and one that spawns many questions.

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it's a must watch for anyone interested in this industry. And you can watch the entire series for free with no ads right now in 4K with real captions made by a human on YouTube. Go to Doublefine.com slash retro to start your psychodicy. That's doublefine.com slash retro. Well, it's funny to me because this was the most of all the ones we've talked about so far. This is the one I played the most. Like my brother got it for this was a family road trip.

I would guess based on the release dates, this would be the summer of 1996. And I was playing Donkey Kong, 94 a ton, and he was playing this one. And occasionally we would trade. And when I play, I was like, wow, this is great. And I never really had played a breakout game before this. So that's why it felt really revolutionary to me. Breakout is so awesome. And but yeah, when Allieway came out, I regret not playing Allieway.

But when it was new, because just the title sounded so boring to me as a nine-year-old when it was, no, sorry, eight-year-old when it was a new Game Boy game. I was like, Allieway, well, what even is this? I'm going to take a safe bet and play baseball. Can't lose there. It's funny hearing all the praise for breakout style games because, I mean, as far as this game goes, I think it's exceptional as far as a breakout game can be. But, man, controversial take. Are breakout games good? I love breakout games.

I feel like, I feel like. Here's my counterpoint, if I may. I'm a big Arkenoid fan, actually, and you can hear me talk about how great Argonoid is on those title episodes of Retronauts. this game kind of bored to me um i i think uh it just kind of has a slow ramp up and maybe that's me as just the arcanoid experienced person who wants it as fast as possible from the beginning and jumping through levels and things like that and ding dong bing bing bong all the way back and forth that little ball as soon as possible i don't get that in this i'm not i don't totally get it you know it's just a little bit slow and um like

between this and pinball land i'd rather play pinball land and uh i don't know but i like that kirby can like puff out and give you some extra you know gives you an extra chance like it makes yeah it does make it easier for you and if you're if you're if you're very experienced and breakout then yeah it's like you don't that that is a nice little gimmick i do like the curvyish gimmicks they added but in the same way like it's the the sprites are too big i think it fills up too much of the screen and so part of the boring feeling for me is that this this this this play field is a bit too small there's not a whole lot to do and hold not a whole lot going on especially when they add like you know different paddles on the sides and the top and bottom and stuff it's just like

i feel like it it just feels a little little teeny bit half baked for me but that's just me yeah i can understand your issues there right because i feel like while kirby's pinball land is like an approachable version of pinball where there's a lot of cushioning built in this also has a lot of cushioning built into the Arkanoid experience because I like this, but when I try to play the original Arkanoid, I am just dead in seconds. I'm not good at it. And this, it's, it's slow, you're given a lot more chances. It's not instant death if you slip past the paddle. I do like those safeguards. And it is fun just to watch the Kirby ball bounce around and hit things, ultimately. I still have it sitting on my 3DS. I bought it. That was another that my 3DS purchases was the

block ball. But I, I mean, yeah, it's funny talking to Ray about this. I think, Ray, you were one of the people evangelizing, importing the DS dial. And I followed your instructions and played Space Invaders Extreme and the Arkenoid extreme with the dial. I was telling all my coworkers, too, like, don't look at the dial. Look at it. Look at the dial. Yeah. I think they, I'm pretty sure they put a lot of those games on iOS.

Like Taito, I am always seeing. the Space Invaders ones. I'm not sure about Arcanoid. Because that's after Square bottom and Square loves the iOS. They're different games. Yeah, Henry's specifically talking about Arcanoid DS, which they made a special paddle for that you could hook into the second slot.

Yeah, yeah. I was really jealous of that, but I was not making a lot of money, so I did not get it. But, yeah, if you can get the dial, those games feel so perfect. Well, now you can just get the EGrit 2 mini and spend even more money to get a similar paddle control. It's even more accurate.

Well, Dio would do you no good in this one because you can actually go across all four sides. You have a paddle on all four sides sometimes. Too much to do. I think it's needed. That's a lot of dimension to the game. I need four paddle controllers. Oh, man, that would be fun. Have you move all your hands all around, all the sides of it.

I can recommend a similar game to this. It's now like 13 years old, but they just released a remastered version of it last December. The game Shatter. It's like an arcanoid style. game it was uh it came out in 2010 it's really really good shatter's cool yeah yeah i like shatter it's it's the one of these i was able to interface with i didn't have like fluffy kirby clouds protecting me everywhere i'm starting to think that ray likes the game so much because he's good at it i mean i've played a bunch of breakout games and the thing for me is like it feels like it's

kind of reverse to like every other game you play where most games start off kind of slow and then ramp up but Breakout kind of puts you right in the middle of the action right at the start and then slowly as the blocks fade away, it becomes slower and it becomes like a battle for your patience trying to get like the last couple of bricks that you're just kind of like aimlessly bouncing around like hoping it hits the brick and you can just move on with your life. I mean, yeah, you're not wrong, but yeah, I'm a Twitch gamer. I need my adrenaline from the get-go.

I feel like there's some sort of AI built into this Kirby game. game where you're not all just waiting for Kirby to drift around the screen, hit that last block. I feel like the game kind of guides Kirby towards it sometimes. That's true. That is another thing I want to mention is that there, yeah, there's like that. When Kirby's far enough away from the paddle, the paddle automatically speeds up. I don't know if you guys noticed that. I don't think I noticed it, no. Because in some, like for example, in many, many home ports of Arconoid and stuff, you have to use an extra button to like, you know, shift gears up on the paddle to make it go a little faster because you can't compensate for i mean it is compensating for the lack of a paddle right so you

can't spin a d pad like a paddle so for this i did think it was very very clever and i this is probably my favorite part of the game is that yeah when kirby is far enough away from that paddle in the game they like turn on the toggle or whatever to speed it up so that you can catch kirby in time instead of having to hold any other extra button to do so i thought that was cool that is cool that is another little nice beginner friendly mechanic yeah so i'll give it that that again i i love i just have so much affection for breakout as a concept and how like just the idea that they just saw pong and was like what if pong was one player and like it you don't have to change all that much about pong and it it it just works so perfectly if you've ever if you've never played

a super glove ball on the nes uh with the power glove oh it's so good yeah i i feel like the one game designed for that peripheral is the is the one thing you want to play for it then there's that brawler I forget what it's called Not even featured in the wizard They should put that in the wizard You just have the guy driving Red Racer Which never worked that well

We covered it in our commentary folks Listen to it on the Patreon What else do we have? Let me scroll down here Kirby's Toy Box A lot of these games are new To non-Japanese eyes Because a lot of them are recently released

In ROM format But these are 10 known games Eight of which were actually dumped and the other two are purported to be a mega ton punch in Samurai Kirby, which are existing mini games and other Kirby games. But I noticed by looking at this collection for the Satellaview that about half of these games are basically digital versions

of mechanical handheld games. The baseball one, the Pachinko one, the pinball one, and there is this, God, there's this Kirby game. I think in this it's called like Kirby Kourou Kuru, which means like spinning around in a circle, but you launch a ball and you have to launch it at the right speed

to get it through the hole in this little thing that it spins around it and I know I had a toy as a kid where you did that and like a really crappy little toy

that would break immediately yeah of course but yeah let's not discount the fact there is basically a remaster of pinball Kirby's pinball in here sort of but yeah

it's just one screen but it does incorporate some of the elements from that game and I don't know what the distribution for these were like I'm going to assume

I mean the Setele of you that was, is that like a subscription service? I forget the, how that worked. I forget the exact business model, but yeah, you would get broadcasts every, every week or so often get new games downloaded to your memory cartridge and get to play it that way while an actual broadcast is going on or not, but that's how a lot of these games ended up preserved is that people kept them on their, on their cartridges and, yeah, dumped them. So, yeah, this, and so, you know, you would have these people.

piecemeal things like different entries in these in this kirby toy box stuff and so people the preservation part of it is like trying to collect all of them can be a challenge because you don't know who has every one or not and so yeah big mess but it's getting there yeah these seem to be fun little extras because i was watching someone play through them online they had a video for each one and i noticed none of these have music so i assume they were just like very easily made low file sizes to send out to people with this with this system yeah precisely and I believe according to your notes Andrew one of them uh has been so there I guess I guess two of them were not recovered and one of the ROMs that was dumped was corrupted so we don't know how a ball rally

is played well I mean it's considered a bad dump I mean it's probably still playable it's Probably just not like a perfect dump, whatever that qualifies at. Sorry, I call it, okay, Henry's laughing at bad dump and perfect dump. Apologies. That was very childish for me. Sorry. Very poop-centric episode today. Yes.

Serious technical terms, Henry. I think I made the first poop joke in this podcast. But yeah, I mean, this is very slight, but it's still interesting that new Kirby games are being recovered as of like 2016 and 2020. I mean, they're not full games. There's just one screen with things happening on it. but they're still official Kirby experiences. I mean, this looks like them playing around with some of the mini games that, you know,

that they came up with in Superstar as well. The Kirby and mini games make so much sense. Like I, to this day, so this just feels like even more, I don't want to say shallow, but just simple mini games that most involve the word ball, which that also just feels like they had a, You know, they're like, look, Kirby becomes a ball.

What's anything that involves balls, even Pichinko? Like, let's just have all of it with Kirby. I can see the whiteboard in the, in the conference room with the word ball on it and all the ideas. Guys, we got, well, what do we got with balls here? Give it to me. That is Kirby's toy box. We're going to move on to Kirby's Star Stacker. This was a Game Boy game that came out in 1997, and yes, this was also on the 3DS virtual console.

I didn't get this one. I thought I did, so I didn't play it. But basically, it is Kirby, meets Tetris, meets Panel Dupon. And the guy I directed this game is actually a pretty pivotal guy in the world of puzzle game design. Because it's Hitoshi Yamagami. He was a director on Panel Dupon, Yoshis Cookie, Tetris 2, Dr. Mario 64, and more. And he was basically a director on every puzzle league game up until the DS release, which I think is the first time we got.

a non-IP branded panel to pawn game in America? Puzzle League was when they finally yeah it'll never they never accepted to call a paneled upon here but Puzzle League was

yeah just simply puzzle league on the DS which I was counting the days till that came out I was a I love Tetris attack I played it there were some fierce rivalries in my home between me my brother and my mom in playing Tetris attack against each

other and so yeah i i wish uh i did not get to play then you know i think i did bring a ds with me an extra ds with me to uh when puzzle league came out to play it at least once when i visited home with my mom just be like come on mom for all time's sake let's play let's play some old puzzle league and in the old rivalries uh really flared back up and we're like all right no more in this it's been a long time since i played this kind of a game um like how does this differ from panel de pawn and how does this differ from pollo pollo poyo pollo it is closer to puyo puyo because it's things dropping down from from the top as opposed to panel de pawn being things that come up from the top or bottom but also you're flipping things around and in panel de pon so that's different

there's no real panel flipping in this one it is just star stacking it does what he says yeah i i i mean i really like the visuals of it i mean it's like you know and you've got all your cute dreamland friends in it uh for the versus stuff but yeah it's the i guess it's the drop down it's still flippy it's like oh you flip the things like uh paneled upon except it's coming down from the top like uh like puyo or tetris woods so instead of the i mean if it was just build up from the bottom then it's just uh paneled upon and they'd have to like uh you know make it officially within And I think, at the time, I think intelligence systems was pretty protective of the paneled-upon stuff. That is theirs.

I forgot that's one of their, one of their IPs. I, another Tetris attack story is that I was really kicking myself that when I got to preview at an E3 that, that intelligent systems strategy game with all the American code name Steam. Code name Steam, thanks. Is that what it's called? Yeah, no one remembers it. I do. Where else can you play as Tom Sawyer in Sakajua, I think? I played that game to completion and had to tell people like, no, it's good, it's good. But it's, to be best, it's a seven. But anyway, when I got to preview it, you know, it was all these intelligent systems people, but I was mainly talking to like the, the Russian guy who was like the only non-Japanese guy at that level in intelligent systems.

but backing him up with his with his producer and only after I left the room I was like that's the creator of paneled upon who was in this meeting with me and I didn't even get to like fan boy out at him well they would have let you ask one question about that then they would have roughed you up that's true get out of here today we're talking about code name steam that's what the PR person would say that's what we're trying to focus on today you know so let's let's keep this questions pertaining to your scumbag you're lucky I let you in here uh yeah like this uh this is fine and we'll talk about the Super Nintendo remake in a bit but yeah like still trying to innovate within the puzzle space but I feel like this is an older perspective on the Game Boy but this is before the real Game Boy revival in America

97. We're on the brink of Pokemon coming over of course it's been released in Japan already but people are still thinking Game Boy yeah Tetris Dr. Mario puzzle games well that's why Kirby got to take it over too because it was such an aging system at that point before the pocket monsters rejuvenated it in the United States.

Yeah, Kirby is usually the pallbearer for these systems. Exactly. He sucks them up and spits them into a grave. Yeah, I mean, like, honestly, the, like, Starstacker and Blockball could have been the last two Game Boy games, pre-color, then Pokemon came out. Yeah. Now the Switch is living a long lifespan like a Game Boy,

but normally games don't last that long. or systems don't last as long as the Game Boy does. Any other thoughts on this? I will say that I am a sicko on this podcast. I'm the guy whose favorite puzzle game is Yoshi's Cookie, because that's the one I'm good at. I can do everything in that game and solve all the puzzles in the puzzle mode. And I could do it from a very young age.

So many of these, I'm just terrible at stacking up combos and figuring things out moves ahead. I'm not good at them. But Yoshi's Cookie is the one I like. Andrew, any other final thoughts on these? And Ray, sorry. At least you didn't say Yoshi Oh, I don't fuck with Yoshi No, I don't like that

All that flippy floppy stuff Now game freak definitely They improved a lot since that game For sure Don't like that game I think this is a lot better than either Of the Yoshi puzzle game Sorry Bob

It's okay I mean It adds everything that you want to To a puzzle game Challenge time attack Aversus mode And mechanically it's great You know

You can create combos You know I don't think we really explained how it works but essentially you have so many stars to clear and around and you pretty much bookend

your animal friends between like a row of stars to clear out those stars okay so in a way it's kind of like Yoshi but good I'd say so yeah because in Yoshi you're trying

to stack similar creatures between the two egg parts top and bottom Yeah, but yeah, that is Kirby's Star Stacker for the Game Boy, and it might surprise you, but in Japan, there was a remake slash sequel called Kirby's Super Star Stacker, and it came out in mid-99 in Japan. This did come to the virtual console for Wii and Wii, and I thought there's probably like one other game that was a slate. No, there are at least eight other Super Famicom games that came out in 1999, and at least two that came out in the year. year 2000 oh yeah yeah and i keep forgetting that yeah there was a very long life for the super famicom super famicom long after we got like harvest moon in 1997 i was like what the hell

nintendo of america cut bait way sooner than uh than ncl did on on their system 16 bit system yeah part of that was helped i mean but don't forget like in japan they also had introduced the nintendo power kios system where you can go into a store and download new games onto a cartridge, like a blank memory slots on it. So a lot of, that's how the Game Boy and Super Famicom had a few more years left in it in Japan, although I believe that he did actually release this Super Star Sacker as a separate released cartridge as well. But yeah, otherwise, yeah, it's really crazy.

I'm glad you brought that up right because I mentioned Yoshi as the one puzzle game I like. One summer, I got really into wrecking crew 98, which was one of those Nintendo Power games, right? I think that was also a separate cartridge, but yeah, I think it was also a Nintendo Power, yeah. Yeah, and not the magazine like you said. Did that make you extra happy to see Spike in the Mario Brothers movie?

I feel nothing for Spike, I'm sorry. And I call him by his original name, and I'm shunned for it. Oh, no. I'm kidding. I don't do that. Man, I wish this would have come out in America because I, yeah, I kind of skipped over. I would have Starstacker looked like the type of game I'd want to play on Game Boy, But for Tetris Attack and also Super Puzzle Fighter, another one that was big in our family, it needed to be on the TV for TV versus like we, you know, the, the Game Boy link cable really was only used for Pokemon pretty much after, in my household after 1992.

But, but yeah, to play it on the Super Nintendo and getting all the colorful, I mean, now to look back at it, all the color, all the color, the colorful stuff for it, it looks so much better. Like, you know, the black and white, I know Game Boy is Kirby, is a natural habitat for Kirby, but I mean the colors, man, I need those colors. Yeah, and it's made to look like Kirby's Dreamland 3 with the nice colored pencil look to it, the very sketchy look to it. It's very, very pretty. And, you know, I'm sure like the frame rate, and technically it's better than this, the Game Boy version. So this is available to you. You want to play Starstacker? This is the one you want, I think. Yeah, it should come to Switch online already. Seriously. We're waiting on so many things for Switch Online. I this is going to date the podcast but I was so annoyed when the big announcement was like you're going to get the Game Boy Advance ports of games you can already play. Do you want to play worse versions of them? Yes, I know some have extra features. But still, I feel like we're being taunted. Well, I mean, for the extra features you get, you also get talking. Yeah.

though now a new generation of youth can experience Super Mario Advance 3 Super Mario Advance 4 Super Mario 3 You got it right. Yes. And you're right to be confused. But anyway, yes. This should come to switch online. I mean, Nintendo it's theirs. But you know, you can say that with a lot of things Nintendo owns that they're not giving us. It does have cutscenes though, so it depends on if it was already translated or not.

Maybe they would just do it, you know, leave the Japanese in like they did with panel de Pond. But yeah. Yeah, I can see them doing that. But maybe with a Kirby game, they don't want it to come out in that form. I can see that too. We're going to be able to be able to say it.

So now we're going to talk about an unreleased game that was basically in some very early prototype stages. That's Kid Kirby. It was being worked on by DMA design, later known as Rockstar North. So they could have been the Kirby people if things went a different way. And I think it's a good thing they didn't because I'm looking at this thing. And I'm not sure what to make of it. Because originally mentioned in a 95 issue of the Mexican Club Nintendo magazine. Oh, my best source for Nintendo News.

Yes, that's where I go. And then one of the ex-game designers from DMA, I think that stands for doesn't mean anything. That's what the studio was called. Yeah, yeah. And I think they did Lemmings as well. Are they Lemmings? The other creators of Lemmings, yes.

Sculptish. But one of the developers uploaded some assets to Flickr, and there's some videos about this online, but it's essentially was going to be a mouse game where you would launch Kirby through the level kind of like in a physics way like Angry Birds and I don't know why they landed on kid Kirby

because the person who pitched this thing did they think Kirby wasn't adults is it not kiddie enough Kirby like I mean maybe the pitch too is like that they wanted a distinct Kirby of their own because Hal was like you aren't allowed to make a Kirby game and so if you're making a Kirby it's his own thing

yeah because this Kirby has this weird lock of hair coming down its face. And I was looking at some of the concept art for this game, the non-rendered ones. And the point of Kirby's adventure is in the beginning of the game, they show you how to draw Kirby. The people who drew these curbies did not watch that intro because these are

some weird-looking Kirby. As like a 10 or 11-year-old, I could draw a perfect Kirby. That's why he's such a great character. He's just so easy to, like, put in anything. But these guys had their own ideas. Kid Kirby is a lot to take in. Yeah, and there are some renders. There's like

rendered, like, key art for the game, but I don't know what the lifespan of this was. It looks like it was canceled, but was this pitch approved? Like, what was the deal here? Yeah, no idea, because a lot of that pre-production art, like there's sort of like a mock-up of a box out there as well, but

it doesn't, it's not exactly accurate. That was like in the magazine or something, but I don't think like it's just I think it was a lot, mostly made up. My first assumption looking at these like pitch documents here, you know, that it feels to me that, especially if it was a 95 issue of Mexican Club Nintendo talking about it, that after the massive success of Donkey Kong country, I could see that a bunch of Scottish people at DMA see the, you know, Northerners at rare in Northern England. They get to make their fake 3D Donkey Kong and they're

like, well, we could make a fake 3D Kirby. You hire us for that if you're hiring British people for that. They exclaim, bless me bagpipes. I've heard they said that. I do want to point out, DMA also made Uniracers. Oh, okay. You know, Alentzel does have 3D rendered graphics. And so they did have that experience as well as just making a good super NES game.

The game, Pixar won't let you buy. Right. It no longer exists that game. There's only one in animates, sorry, no, animates unicycle in this town, buddy. Yeah, but this looked interesting. I'm glad it wasn't made in Tarnished the Kirby brand. I don't think it would have been good. And I honestly think my speculation is it was a pitch that did not get off the ground

because Nintendo had no more plans for the mouse. It feels like the Super NES mouse had like 18 months, maybe a year. If they have, yeah. I mean, Nintendo did not bring over that Mario and Mario game. made for the mouse. Yeah, and it's Adorbs. It's, though I guess this is the play at loud error we're talking about here. But yeah, I guess the kid Kirby to me looks like, yeah, A, them trying to Donkey Kong country,

DMA trying to Donkey Kong country Kirby and Nintendo not agreeing to that. You mentioned it was the play at loud error. I can see the commercial for Kid Kirby. It's like a hideous lunch lady with a big hernet, like reaches into a pile of glop and pulls kid Kirby out of like a disgusting meatloat and slams it down in front of the camera and then the kid goes what the bleep

it's funny because it's true they do it they do it we live through it folks that was our Vietnam we're going to move on to Kirby's tilt and tumble and I remember this game being lambasted in the press oh come on I'm not saying

I'm with them Ray I'm saying I know in general I'm talking to them because this was the post play at loud era this is the actually I'm an adult and video games are for me era where we felt insecure about these toy-like interactions and I will say that the technology was not quite there in terms of the Game Boy's screen I'll say that at least but the accelerometer stuff in there was very cool it would lead to other cooler games like warrior wear twisted yes that's an amazing that's my favorite warrior wear game but yeah Andrew you sent me a copy that's correct yeah I knew it came from somewhere, but it's been over a year. My only issue was the only thing I have that can play Game Boy Color cartridges is a Game Boy Advance SP. And that means the controls are reversed. They did not think ahead to put that in as an option.

So very hard to play, but I got to mess around with it. And I was very impressed by how well the technology works for this 23-year-old game. To this day, even that old cartridge. Yeah, you would think it released August 2000. And they should have known that the Game Boy Advance was coming. But, I mean, I guess the SP. The Game Boy Advance was, not the SP. Yeah.

Especially when they're working with R&D, too, they should be. Yeah, I guess they wouldn't know that it was going to get turned upside down for the SP, I suppose. Yeah. I guess the only way I can play this now is to either get a Game Boy color or hook up my GameCube with the Game Boy player. And then I can move the Game Boy, the GameCube around. You can play it like that. Yeah, a lot of people do that. Yeah.

I think that was the speed run, right? I think so. I think it's where I'm getting it from. Oh, that's great. It was noted as coming to Nintendo Switch online soon, so I assume that they're going to have accelerometer support. Oh, that's really cool. Because I see this kind of gameplay in a lot of stuff,

especially Zelda. And then there'd be later games, like, I think it's a Koro Rinpa for the Wii, where you just kind of rolled the ball around. Yeah, yeah. This kind of gameplay was not, like, just thrown out because this was not successful. People have found ways,

as controllers got more complex, they found ways to integrate this kind of gameplay into existing games or build games around this kind of gameplay. Yeah, and I mean, that's why I love this game. I'd love, you know, any sort of rolling a ball around a maze type of game to begin with. So, but having the Kirby in it and having sort of a point, you know, a plot, so to speak, is pretty cool again.

It goes back to the pinball theming, right? Like having it sort of in the universe is a cool thing and very appealing to me. Yeah, and even Kirby's, Kirby and the first. Grotland has a minigame in which you roll Kirby through like a little old school labyrinth style puzzle and that's very difficult some of those later ones yeah

Ray as the Arkinoid expert here have you ever played like a breakout style game with like gyro controls? With gyro and just like tilting to like move the paddle nothing's coming to mind so I guess not

I'm sure there was something like that but yeah but yeah Coro Rimpaw for example those are those are great series of games on weave so much like this yeah and uh i hope we see this on switch online with the obviously with the accelerometer controls enabled because i feel like the one downside that people weren't wrong about is that you don't have to tilt the game boy that much in order to move kirby around i think people got the wrong idea about the game but it's still not the ideal screen to be moving around rapidly uh even with a higher fidelity game boy color

screen it's not really made to be moved around like that while you can still identify everything you need to while you're playing yeah and at u.s release timing it's like two months before the game boy advance also yeah i mean that's the same like a month later nintendo releases two zelda games that are game boy color games so yeah that's why i didn't play this game i was already it was like i got to be these zelda i got at least beat seasons before i get my game boy advance so i do like this game quite a bit and the reason You know, the Gameboard color screen is not ideal is why I have some things to say about the next game on the list. But you can hold off to them.

Andrew, did you have something else? Oh, yeah, Andrew, please. So, Bob, you mentioned how, like, easy it is to control. And, you know, tilting it just a little bit gets you a long way. But I think the inverse of trying to remain still is kind of difficult. Yeah, when I was playing it, not like I have shaky old manhands quite yet, but I did notice. you need to kind of have like a death lock on the system to remain perfectly still. So it might be a little too sensitive, actually.

But this is one of the first kind of games I can think of that actually did this with an accelerometer in it. But yeah, we're going to move on to a game that didn't come out. Kirby's, sorry, it's just Kirby Tilt and Tumble. Kirby Tilt and Tumble 2 is this next one. Announced Space World 2001 for the GameCube. it would have attached to the Game Boy Advance as a controller, but we did an entire episode about the Game Boy Advance link cable, I think it was called.

It has a very long, annoying name. The GameCube, the Game Boy Advance Link Cable. Thank you. Whatever you want to call it. There was no clean name for it. But when we did that podcast, we saw how quickly they just destroyed all future plans for that thing. Once everyone made fun of it, once there was a disastrous E3,

once the games didn't sell as well as they wanted them to. But if they release this, oh, my God, it would have been so great. This is, I feel, Nintendo's biggest blunder. Screw. And I'm not kidding. Screw a referral. I wanted this so bad. This is what would have sold the console.

Absolutely. Yeah. But yeah. God, I wanted this. This could have been cool. And it could have worked much better with, you know, a big screen in front of you. It feels like. And it looks so good.

Yeah. And then he goes down into the Game Boy and you keep playing it on the Game Boy. I think Space World 2001 was when everyone got mad at the Windmaker footage, too. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, yeah, that's right. We should have all healed by watching this. It's going to be okay. It healed me.

There will be more tilting and tumbling. Don't worry. Just what a waste, I swear to God. Someone else needs to make this or something. We need to bring back connectivity. Yeah, it's one of those things where, I mean, I feel like these, like you can put these games on anything now because every controller has so many features that just go abandoned after the first wave of games comes out you know yeah a little part of me wanted it back

for wu can you imagine oh that'd be amazing yeah no yeah uh when the weu got announced i got at that that e3 i interviewed a nintendo dev and said like hey this reminds me of the game cube game boy advanced connectivity he was very non-committal to even recognize that it happened in their past that's like at your 3dus appointments like are you're going to have like virtual boy games on here we don't know what that is did you dream this perhaps canceling this was a bigger flub than the virtual boy saying it we're handing okay i think i'm on the same page as you right yeah We're going to move on to Kirby family, a successor to Mario family,

and what this was is basically a program that you used to basically embroider Kirby things on fabric via the special embroidery machine that you hooked up to your Game Boy Color. Nintendo was doing this in Japan a few times. I know there was that sweater knitting device for the Famicom? Well, originally for the NES, yeah. Well, they showed it for the NES. Right.

Yeah. And then there was, yeah, a knitting pattern sort of software for the DIST system that did come out in Japan. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I don't think there was a machine at that time, though. But this one, there was a machine. There was an existing Mario game cartridge you could use to embroider Mario things

onto fabric. And I guess this, so many amazing things came out of the middle. the giga leak, this was one of them. So the final build of this. So if you have a 20-year-old, a 23-year-old embroidery machine collecting dust. You kept it up to date.

Do you see fabric you want Kirby on? Well, here's your chance. I do. You'd be better off just, you know, getting out a threaded needle yourself and just doing it that one. Yeah. Learn a new skill.

But a good point in your notes, Andrew, canceled Kirby game that was completely finished. So I guess technically it's more of like a program or utility, but still it was a complete product they never released. I appreciate that Gigalek, letting us know about all this cool stuff we'd never know about otherwise. Yes, Pokemon Picross and Kirby family.

More canceled stuff. There was, you know, the Game Boy Advance video series that we're all way too old for, but people that are 10 years younger than us probably love these things. That's how they watched episodes of Pokemon and Rocket Power and SpongeBob. And all of Shrek 2. Right. There were complete movies on these things. I'm surprised they never brought over Kirby right back at you.

It was canceled this release. And other things were meant to come out. Like there was like one volume of like Ninja Turtles, one volume of Yu-Gi-o, and they were going to be second volumes, but they never did that. So this seems successful enough, but I'm surprised the Kirby anime seems like a given. But maybe there are rights issues. Who knows? I mean it also wasn't a huge hit in America either that's too yeah I guess I think the final episodes

only came out on DVD they didn't even air them I think four kids had already lost lost faith in Kirby as their next or yeah from the Fox block but it's it's funny here we're talking we talk about this we talk about the Tilton tumble or even the embroidery one all these things that just a phone

does all of the time you don't have to buy these things like Well, no, your phone just does all of these things. I can have my phone make a task rabbit stitched Kirby onto something for me, right? So, yeah, that's another canceled thing. We also have Kirby Bowl 64, announced at Space World in November of 95. I watched some videos of this online. It's very cool.

It looks like Kirby's dream course. It might have been a sequel to that. And the most important thing to come out of this is that it featured a mode in which Kirby rides like a snowboard or an airboard, and this would become the focus of the game that would be Kirby's Air Ride for the Nintendo 64. I remember both Bowl 64 and

Air Ride pouring over every year in like ultra game fan and same two screenshots every year. Same two screenshots every year like man I can't wait for this and Super Mario RPG2. I can't wait for it.

And yeah. So speaking of Kirby's Air Ride that was in development for the N16 but it eventually came to the GameCube as Kirby Air Ride and like Tilt and Tumble this was also Lambass did a lot in the press

it was called like Mario Kart for babies I got to say though and I want to make it clear for the Retronauts record Kirby Air Ride rules I wish I gave it a chance Ray because I think the main point of contention was it was a game in which there was no gas button the gas was always on

you just hit the brakes and now modern Mario Kart has that as control options so I think the criticism was at the time oh it's the game that plays itself but it really wasn't I need that I need that mode for my old fingers I played I played Mario Kart 8 recently with that kind of setting

off and I was just playing it like before and by the end of the fourth race I was like my hand is kind of in a claw after this now that all the now that all the forum trolls and edgy game reviewers are completely aged. Yeah, now, now they'll appreciate it. But yeah. I remember on electronic playground,

the now tarnished name of Tommy Tolariko. He hated this game. Like how he hated most Japanese games. But I remember him saying Kirby air ride up my butt on this one. This game sucks. Get his ass. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, this was at a time when everything for GameCube was lambasted unless it was Metroid or Resident Evil. So it makes sense. Of course, a one-button Kirby game had no chance of being appreciated by adults. But I think in the end, it turns out to be a pretty good game. It's not like it's a game that plays itself.

It's just you have to rethink about it as a drift-focused sort of racing game. And, you know, Sakurai did a video about it because he's been doing these YouTube videos about all the games he's made and stuff. And so that's what he kind of said. It was just supposed to be like a sort of drift-focused thing. then you would boost out of the end of the drift and that would increase the excitement and make it more fun. And I do think that comes through in the main game. Yeah, I only got to watch videos of this. This has never released in any other format and it's pretty pricey now. But just watching the videos, I just thought, oh, this looks so like technically and mechanically sound. And I should have expected this from a halgame. But at the time, I let the awful press tell me what to do. But it was a very bad time for game culture. And this was not the kind of game to win over hearts and minds. And especially, by the fall of 2003, the GameCube was over for most people.

And they're like, we'll check back in when Twilight Princess comes out. And maybe I'll even play it on the Wii. Who knows? But yeah, it was not a good time to be a Kirby game on the GameCube. And this is the only Kirby game on the GameCube, right? I think so.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Dark times for Curb, the Curb man. Boy, after right back at you, they're just like, they're putting him in the corner for a couple years. It's not fair.

We're going to move on to the DS for Kirby's Canvas Curse, or sorry, Kirby Canvas Curse. I'm annoyed by how some of these are possessive and some aren't, and it seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of it. I think that was at that time when they were, you know, building up that brand with the four kids stuff. And so they made sure it was just Kirby, no apostrophe anymore. Ah, I see. I kind of understand. This came out in 2005. And yeah, I think there was, there were some complaints at the time that it was a little too short.

But really, nobody had played a game like this ever before. We're about five years before everyone has a smartphone and can just do things like this all the time. But this was one of the first important DS games to show people, you are going to play new kinds of games on this. And here is one of them. And I think that was enough to get you through something that would be now like a 99-cent app on an iPhone.

Yes, absolutely. But yeah, it was a crucial sort of DS game. I think, you know, that second year of DS, 2005 was really like the real flashpoint for that platform because like we had the launch games with things that are similar to Canvas Curse like pack picks or something like that which didn't really hit with anybody and then now we have you know more more fleshed out games like this and stuff that would come later like the brainager Nintendo dogs which really was the big highlight of 2005 I think but yeah Kirby came along as well and gave us something that was just like oh hey it's another it's another new

Kirby sort of gimmick, but hey, it's also Kirby. That means it is a solid game. That's core. I loved this game. I played the crap out of it. It was my big return to Kirby. And it's when I learned to truly appreciate Kirby as a man, not as a teen or a boy, but as a man. But yeah, I mean, stylistically, I loved it. I love drawing on the thing. But also like, so the DS was the first Nintendo system I could buy that I didn't buy at launch. Like I bought the 64 at launch. I bought the Game Boy Color at launch, GBA at launch. But DS, I was like, I don't know. And the reviews aren't that great for it.

But coming out soon was, I double check this, that August was when in America, Advance Wars dual strike was coming out. So I was like, well, I know I'm going to buy this for Advance Wars in a couple months. And then Kirby came out and he was getting good reviews. I was like, all right, Let's do this. Kirby will be my time killer game until I get advanced wars. And so to me, in my mind, I think of it like, yeah, a launch game. But that's because I didn't buy the DS at launch.

Like I do all on Nintendo system. Yeah, I think I waited for Mario Car 64, which might have been Holiday 05. So not too long after this. No, right. Yeah, no Mario Car, D.S. Yeah, I think that was Holiday O5 because there was like a bundle I bought it with. I remember playing it in a playing. it online in a McDonald's that that holiday season.

All the grease just made you faster. But yeah, I loved, I remember drawing on the thing to feel like, wow, I'm basically making him do like, say, a sonic spin dash by just drawing in a circle to make him go in a circle and then zoom right out of it. Yeah, the physics felt really great. Again, a how game very mechanically sound. It just feels good to draw the little lines around Kirby to just guide him through levels. and I don't believe there is there transformation abilities in this in this one Andrew do you oh yeah there are I forget how those are incorporated in this is the one I didn't have access to you I could have bought this for the Wii U virtual console but I didn't yeah I believe you hold down on Kirby and he uses his ability okay yeah I know like you don't touch the actual buttons at all on this game it's purely purely stylish driven yeah yeah I think that's probably my favorite of the games that we're going to talk about today it's probably by

favorite well maybe not my favorite ds game but i think it uses the touch screen the best out of all the ds games i've played now looking at the list of sub games in it like the the cart run i remember really loving that one like that was so fun to like get them to get to the food to go faster and like racing against the CPU like that that was a lot of fun i i do like the we you want a little more uh just because of how looks and the soundtrack is so good but i mean they're essentially working from the same framework. Sure. And we'll talk about that one soon in this episode.

So we're going to move on to Kirby Mass Attack. I really like this game. And I think people didn't give it a chance because it came out after the 3DS came out. And by that time, nobody was buying DS games. And if they were playing them, they were pirating them. That's just the fact of life. Yeah. Same old story with Kirby, huh?

Yeah. And I only have this because I believe Jose Oterra reviewed it one up and then he gave it to me because he thought I'd like it. And I still have it to this day. I played it for about two hours last night. It rules. And I wish there was a sequel to this in some way. I mean, I guess they could have done it for 3DS, but now we're moving away from touch-based system.

So I don't see it happening. But the singular expression of this idea is so good. It was rough timing because it was right. You know, in two months, they, you know, the price has been slashed. And Mario 3D Land and then Mario Kart 7 is about to come out, which bolster or, well, that sorry i'm talking about the 3d s but the d s yeah it was a terrible time to release a ds game like people are moved on to the 3ds or they're not by the 3ds but uh yeah i i really like this game's art that's the funny thing i never played it but the art oh the arts assets are so beautiful like

i bought a whole kirby art book just to like look at pictures like this one of just the piles of kirby I think also on some Japan trip I did in Akihabra I bought a couple of the figurines of just these piles of Kirby's all hanging out together And this could be the last Kirby release with 2D graphics, is that correct?

Am I wrong about this? Oh gosh. Yeah, with pixel arts. That does sound right to me. It looks so good. And the way this game plays is it's a little similar to Rainbow Curse or Canvas Curse rather.

I mean, they're the same game kind of. But instead of drawing a line for Kirby to kind of surf on, you touch the screen in order to tell him where to go. And you can also pick him up and flick him places or pick him up and carry him places. But the real point of the game is to go through the levels and eat fruit. And for every time you fill up the fruit meter, you get an additional Kirby up to 10 on the screen at once. And you need a certain number of Kirby's to do certain things.

You can flick them all at enemies. So it's sort of like Kirby meets Pickman in a way. The only thing I'll knock this game for is that you often have to return to levels to get all the collectibles. But that's not that uncommon for a game of this age. Or for like a Pikmin game. A Pikmin does that. Yeah.

But the chaos of all the Kirby's on the screen is fun. And I just think it's a really neat idea. And maybe they said all they needed to say with this one. But I think it's really fun. See, I dislike the whole all these Kirby's on the screen thing because you don't have direct control over them. And when you need like all 10 of them for a specific puzzle and one just kind of like is off on his own and he gets like knocked by something and dies and it's just

like really defeating yeah i think there's room for improvement here which is why i wish there was a sequel but i do like that they're forgiving in that if a kirby is hit once it turns blue and then if it hit hit again it goes up to heaven sort of like as a go so it's very pickminy but if you can grab it down and stop it from dying you can bring it back to earth and turn it blue again so they let you they give you a lot of wiggle room because i think the game understands They know it's going to be a pain in the ass If you need 10 Kirby's and you have nine When you get to a certain area

So it's either like, okay, leave the stage Or come back later, you know Yeah Guys, I have a groaner of a joke about this So I apologize in advance Don't don't think of me any differently In this game, Kirby's pronouns are he they I like it

I like it And we're all on the right side of history here Yeah I was expecting a poop joke Like a massive poop joke now i i support that as a positive pronoun joke all right yes thank you i agree and i it's weird because there's a band called massive attack and i wonder if they were uh leaning into that i don't know if they're that well known but it's right of course it's also mass effect i remember some

people making that lame joke i'd rather play this just me but yeah i like not released anywhere i just maybe think that um this is like a little tangent here but there is no reliable place to play DS games anymore. The Wii U was the most reliable place to get them. And they need to open up some sort of marketplace to make these playable again because there's so many DS games that

are unavailable now. And it was a very popular system, but so were a lot of things that aren't available anymore. The Wii U was like made for it. And then the Wii just had to be such a flop that they gave up on any. But yeah, they just to think of all of the DS games that are just

you know, are just gone or just can only be played on if you have a vintage DS or 3DS sitting around. It's, it's sad. I'm at, yeah, I think it's just, you know, same with like elite beat agents. Nobody can play that now. I will praise Nintendo though, because I have, let me think, I have two DSs and I think three or four, I have four three DSs. I pulled out my DSI from 2009. I plugged it in, and after it charged, I opened it up, worked perfectly, it's solid as a brick, and I played Kirby for two hours.

One notch went down on that 14-year-old battery. I don't know how they did it, but the DSI is the most solid, reliable thing they ever made hardware-wise. It's perfect. That's true. I can vouch. I just dug up my Japanese 3DS, which I hadn't seen

in forever, and it also was similarly during apartment cleanup. And I was like, wow, this is, it also had really retained its battery life and was still looking good dusty was all it was and mine came with pictures of an ex-girlfriend on it so not every DSI you find will have that is that a positive or a negative i'd say it was a negative it's been 14 years though they use these kirby snack attack trucks to promote them in america and it says that they came to san francisco did you guys ever run across those oh i wish i was still pretty new in the games press

I wouldn't have gotten to go see it. Yeah, if they did, I must have been gone that day because this fall I was at the IGM building via one-up, and I was working in the press when this was new and there when Jose was reviewing it. So, yeah, I was not snack attack, is what I'm saying. So we're going to move on. I want to really gloss over these if you don't mind, Andrew,

because I will be very reductive, but I think the description is accurate. Kirby Fighters Deluxe is the Oops All Kirby Smash Brothers game. Yeah. I think that's fair to say. But this would let her come out. So I mix all of these up because they have nondescriptive names. So, sorry, I'm looking at the notes here.

Fighters Deluxe is a very different game than Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. Yeah, so these two games here are basically the slightly expanded upon versions of the triple deluxe games that we already talked about. Right, right. But yeah, this is an e-shop game that is just Smash Brothers with a lot of Kirby guys. And hey, nothing wrong with that. But, I mean, Hal is the lead developer on Smash Brothers and, or is it just Sakurai's other company? Sorry. Yeah, it's Sora.

Yeah. I mean, it's all hands on deck and I'm sure Hal helps with it. But like, yeah, the secondary developer, at least from like after brawl has been Namco Bandai. Like they're the key second party or third party on it. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that is one of the triple deluxe minigames released separately, as is Dayday Dayday's drum dash deluxe, which is a fun. rhythm game with King Day Day Day Day.

I commend you for getting through that in one take. I think I did stumble. Daytaday's drum dash deluxe. Well, it sounded great. Red leather, yellow leather. I wish I had to play. That one, I wish I played a little because I did after I, I think I reviewed

Triple Deluxe. I definitely played it at the time to completion. And when these e-shop versions came out, I was like, I've had enough of Kirby Fighters. Like, I'm good. but then I was like, I don't need to play the drum dash,

but I like that drum minigame in triple deluxe. That's a lot of fun. We're going to move on, though, to Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. I was playing a ton of this on my Wii U. It is so great. It is a spiritual sequel, or just a sequel to Kirby Canvas Curse.

And it's what you think it is. It's Kirby Canvas Curse, but you are playing on your Wii U tablet. And I think the one biggest point of contention with this game is it's a Wii you game that you can't play while looking at the TV. You are always locked to that game pad and I

kind of tried to play it just by looking at the TV but you need to see at all times like where your hand is in relation to the screen because you're drawing on it constantly that is kind of a shame because this thing needs to be on a higher fidelity screen. The graphics are very very good. It's approximating

clay animation and the fact that you can only look at the low fidelity Wii U control while playing is a big crime. But other than that, great soundtrack, great gameplay. They really did more with the canvas curse idea. And I love this game. And it is not on the

switch. I feel like in the final days of the switch, we're going to see like the Wind Waker port, the Twilight Princess port, this Zeno Blade Chronicles X, Devil's Third, who knows. They need some stuff in that last year. Well, I'm assuming we're in the last year. I don't know.

But no, they need, they got to fill out that calendar with stuff and this is made for it i mean i i was so happy when this got announced out 2015 not the best year for the we you no no no but i was so excited when this got announced so i should have taken it as like oh yeah the weu is in a bad place that they are making a sequel to a game only i remember from the uh the early 3d or for the early ds but yeah i uh and i mean it was the the the clay animation not claymation that's a copyrighted term but we respect copyrights on this podcast but the clay animation style of it was so great too you know they already

had they had epic yarn and there was yoshi's woolly world and so now it's like okay let's get a different variation just like how uh you know following this there would be the the sort of also claymation ish or stop motion look of the lynx awakening remake oh yeah yeah the rank and bass link I like when they play it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I like when they play around with that kind of stuff. I wish they do it more than they do. But it feels special every time.

And I felt that that style bringing into Canvas Curse leveled it up from the DS game. It was the sequel to. I also completely forgot it was basically 10 years between releases. That's right. That long. Yeah, I think I like this one more than Canvas Curse because it just doubles down on moving Kirby around. There are no copy abilities to worry about. And you're also drawing lines to, like, protect him from hazards, like waterfalls.

You're using the lines to do a lot more than just moving him around. And when Kirby does transform, it's in stages that are just devoted to that idea. It did take advantage of the expanded space on the screen compared to the early DS that you could play around with. It's really too bad. It only lives on the Wii U. And because it came out in 2015, I would be able to. bet fewer than 100,000 copies sold of it. I'm going to bet, yeah. And, you know, I wanted

to know what Andrew thinks of this, but I think, I'm honestly surprised that this did not get a 3DS ports, because so many Wii U games made it to the 3DS, like Mario Maker, Captain Toad, Yoshi's Woolly World, there's got to be a few others. Oh, the Donkey Kong country returns? Yeah, that was a Wii game. Oh, right. But also, I think, like, Hyrule Warriors even made it to the 3DS. That was a Wii game. Right. So I'm surprised, like, this is the exception because it seems designed for the 3DS.

Andrew, any thoughts on this? I don't think that would have fixed the main problem with this, which is, like you said, like you're stuck looking at a dim like 480P screen. Yeah. And the game itself is so beautiful. It's probably one of the best-looking games on the Wii. And the clay aspect to it is,

I wish more games would do that. I want Clayfighter to come back or I would love to see like an Earth bound with the like clay models from the strategy guide as the actual game models that would be amazing do more play do more fun things like this people yeah i enjoyed playing this but again it did feel unfair that uh i'm i'm tempted to look at my tv the beautiful 720p depiction of these graphics but instead i'm locked to my my dim and aging wu game pad that is is only getting worse over time and if i have to replace it i think the Wii will just never get played again hey the battery is still holding out okay i'm hoping someday that they'll put out a mod for like an hd

screen to emulate the Wii U games. That would be amazing because those Wii U gameplay, those Wii game pads all have a ticking time bomb on them at this point. Oh, yeah. And they never even made that update to let you play his two game pads at once. No, Reggie Lied. All lies. I'm not buying that book of his.

Which I think this is the first time that player two is locked to being bandana waddle D. Oh, okay, which would become the like the standard de facto player two in Kirby games, right? Unfortunately, yeah Some people like that guy We're going to move on to Another game will be very reductive about And that's Team Kirby Clash deluxe What surprised me about this is that it's just Kirby

Monster Hunter I mean, it uses a lot of the Smash Brothers mechanics in terms of fighting But it's a bunch of Kirby's fighting One Giant Version of a Monster And just like chipping away at its health So it's not exactly a Monster Hunter But there's crafting

There's one giant enemy with a lot of HP It does feel like it was inspired by Monster Hunter. My, my only memory of getting this free to start game was downloading it and then seeing like, and here's where you buy jams. And I was like, buying jams in a, in an Nintendo game. Oh, no, this feels wrong. I think they're very fair with this one, though.

Yeah, yeah, not, not like how the like, in Marvel Snap, my current addiction, I think there's like seven types of, of currency in the game at this point. There's about to be another one at it. You love those gems. Well, they're gold bars. It's not gems, it's gold bar. Spider-Man needs $20.

Well, if Spider-Man needs $20, I'm not going to say no to him. There's my credit card. I love you, Spider-Man. And just to cover really quick, we have Super Kirby Clash, which was the Switch version of this. And this is an update to the 3DS version, more Kirby Monster Hunter. This was co-developed by VanFer.

pool and I wanted to mention them because they just went out of business as of May 31st. Yeah, that's rough. I didn't know that. Yeah, and they were a reliable Nintendo support studio who also made their own series Dylan Rolling Western. Oh, no. I was a sucker who bought the third Dylan game for 40 bucks on the e-shop

before it shut down forever. That was me. So one more sale in the bucket. You know, how many, I bet it was a very profitable final day of that stupid thing they did of shutting it down. Yeah, yeah. I definitely spent I spent $100, I wouldn't have spent otherwise if the e-shop was going to be still existing that's for sure i rewarded them

for bad consumer practices and i feel that about it um so yeah we covered those just a few things left on the plate here we have kirby's blowout blast this uh baffled me because i forgot it exists this to me andrew looks like a little preview of what forgotten land would look like although the gameplay is different the perspectives are kind of the same but it's really just about maneuvering kirby through these levels in building combos based on how many things you suck in and blow out. Yeah, I mean you get to control Kirby in a 3D

environment and you know, that hadn't really been done up to this point. But it is you know, a bit more limited than what we've seen. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like to me them thinking, will, could this work with Kirby? And I feel like this

gave them confidence to move it to the next level with forgotten land. It just feels like they often use these mini games to experiment with Kirby ideas before rolling them out into a bigger product. Yeah, I didn't give this one a chance based on that same thing. I was like, I don't know. 3D, like fully 3D

Kirby, but I do love a big old fat Kirby that is featured in this game's artwork here. Yeah. And we also have more games that you might not know about. This one surprised me because towards the end of this Kirby timeline, like Battle Royale,

Kirby clash, fighters, blowout blasts, these all All these names just run together in my head. And this one is Battle. Are we on Battle Royale? Yes, Battle Royale. This was a boxed 3DS game in the Year of Our Lord 2018. And it's essentially an online and local multiplayer Kirby game with tons of different battle modes.

So this was released in the post switch days with the 3DS. So I'm going to assume that nobody plays it. It probably fetches a pretty penny if you try to buy it on eBay. I am shocked that it came out, honestly. like but i guess i shouldn't because it is kirby late on a game's lifespan like that it coming out after the release of the next console like that that it totally makes sense for kirby to have that on there and if you it also feels traditional in that it is like little brother game which basically like okay that demographically nintendo identifies smash brothers is too complex for your little

brother but what or little sister i i am only thinking in my own uh home term of little brother but so of course free package it is a simpler battle royale game uh and have it just start kirby and then his many uh variations and i think this is the last kirby game on the 3d s it would have to be given its release date of early 2018 i think so yeah there would be 3ds games after that like uh battles inside story yeah remake is 2019 i that's all a dream's fault for taking so long with their remakes, but yes. Sam as Returns, I think. Yeah, yeah.

17, yeah. Yeah, yeah, these are late ones, but whenever I see this game, I just think, is this from another dimension? I've never seen this before in my life. I just never crossed my radar. Well, and I probably just thought it was like, oh, wait, now that must be another of the e-shop games, right? But no, I keep

I did not know it was a full box copy either. Probably showed up in a Nintendo Direct and you did see it and then it just slipped by you because there was something else more exciting. Yeah, I was like, oh, an e-shop game. Well, anyway, they better get to the next one. Maybe it's finally a new advance wars, as I would think every time in between trailers.

And then I think the last, oh, go ahead, Andrew. I was going to say, I think the main problem with Battle Royale is it's a multiplayer game for the 3DS. And, you know, I used to think that maybe it's just me that doesn't play online games on the 3DS. But like that Metroid Federation Forces game, that flop, that was multiplayer. you know, the Zelda, was it where you change the outfits? Oh, Triforce Heroes, yeah. Yeah, that was terrible too.

I really hated it. Yeah, they have a good track record of multiplayer games. Yeah, the infrastructure wasn't there. I will say Monster Hunter worked well, but I think it's because Capcom made it, made Nintendo, like, have it work well. Otherwise, they wouldn't put that on their system. I did play a lot of Monster Hunter online with the 3DS,

but really nothing else in terms of online gaming. You know, there was online interactions I do when I'd play Pokemon games on 3DS but yeah it was pretty rare I mean nobody was gonna play you know Street Fighter 3 online or Street Fighter 4 online on 3DS that's right that that was on 3DS

the launch game yeah Jesus Christ last last game and then we'll cover the what was the third okay let's get this one first so it's Kirby Fighters 2 I'm getting frustrated because all that I can't I still can't keep these games straight in my head it's like clash fighters team battle

I don't blame you yeah blowout uh drum No Drumdash. So Kirby Fighters 2. It's the oops all Kirby's but for Switch. That's all I'll say about it. And Van Poole help with this one. And I'm sure these are all mechanically fine, but there's just so many of these in this time period that I just, I get a little steam thinking about how many of these there are.

And then there was that 30th anniversary one, and I already forgot the name. We talked about it at the beginning of the podcast. What was that again? It was Kirby's Cake Town. Dream buffet. Dream buffet. Yeah. I like Cake Town.

I think it's a better. It's a better one. It looks delicious. I played it for about an hour, and honestly, that's the most you'll get out of it, really, because it's just, it's a racing game where as you're rolling, you're picking up things and growing bigger. And I think how much you're scored at the end is depending on how much you eat throughout the course. And again, it's decorated with like cakes and candies. It looks very good, but it's very slight.

And it feels like it should have just been a mini game in an existing Kirby product. And maybe that was the plan, but it didn't come together quickly enough. But that was his 30th anniversary gift. There could have been a better one, but that's, I think, the most recent Kirby game as of this podcast. You know, I didn't want to look too closely at the game when it came out and announced because it just made me jealous that I, you know, it couldn't travel to Japan any in the last like four years to see, to eat at a Kirby Cafe because all those, those Kirby cafes have such delicious looking Kirby food in it. And I don't even know if those are still going to be right. If I visit by early next year, even, I feel like it might be replaced with a new cafe. It won't be an anniversary.

I'm going to say more like Kirby COVID curse. He's, you know, he looks a little like a COVID ball or one of the, the shavened coronavirus. Yeah, a virus, yeah. They took the little crowns off of him. But yeah, that was a very thorough podcast about all of the Kirby side games. and I know we can only briefly talk about some of them, but boy, there were way more than I thought there were, but some of Kirby's finest moments come out in these games.

And while I feel like the platformers were floundering a bit in the aughts, there were some really good side games. So I think I was more interested in these than in the shaky odds period of Kirby before he got back on his feet in the 2010s. Any final thoughts from people who aren't me? Let's go to Andrew, because you sponsor the podcast, Andrew. Thank you once again for being on the show and putting together very great notes,

I barely had to add any of my own after playing all these games again. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, other than the ones that we were obviously negative about and kind of skipped over, they're all worth playing pretty much. I think adding Kirby to, you know,

games like pinball and breakout really fleshed out, you know, what they could do, especially on like a small handheld and have sort of like bite-sized games. gameplay and i'm kind of curious if this sort of like you know adding game characters to an existing like game format like pinball or breakout or whatnot um you guys had any instances of sort of getting drawn into games like that based on like a character of like oh you know i henry brought up sonic spinball like you know were you

sort of like I'm not really into pinball but I'll try Sonic spinball and then like and really loving the pinball genre well you know I never gave the Nobunaga's Ambition games a try until they they crossed over with Pokemon for instance that's a good one yeah yeah actually that reminds me um like any of the dynasty warrior stuff I never cared about it until it was a dragon quest or Zelda or anything like that and sports games like I had played golf games before but you know never got two into them but the Mario golf games. It wasn't just the theming because the games are very good, but I think the theming

helped a lot for me. Like, theming will help bridge a gap to uncharted worlds for me, I think. Yeah. You know, I think, talking about all these spinoffs and how so many of the recent spinoffs we talk about are just like,

and this is like dumped on the e-shop, and I really, like, it just makes me wish, it feels like the current mode for Kirby is that they do like a yearly Kirby game, but usually is like a mainline or real Kirby game. And sometimes it's a remake, sometimes not. Sometimes you get forgotten land. Sometimes you get, you know, return to Dreamline. But I wish that they did more. I wish it was more of like if they're going to do an annualized Kirby thing, you know, mainline Kirby one year, interesting spinoff the next year. And like still

play around more with the spinoffs instead of, uh, or like lend out Kirby to more side games. Like, have I'm sure there's a lot of like e-shop original games they put out now that Kirby could brighten up even more so. Hey, yeah, I mean, if the switch is in its dying days, we don't know yet, probably it's got two years left at least. We need at least three Kirby pallbearers to blow it into the grave. Right. How about a cadence of high rule except starring Kirby?

Hey, I like that. Yeah, or like Kirby RPG maybe. Yeah. But let's go that far. I mean, he already can't talk. He's the perfect RPG hero. exactly oh man that is perfect uh ray how about you uh well what can one say about kirby he's one tough cream puff uh well i think you wrapped it up yeah he's pretty angry sometimes the commercial

was correct easily one of the angriest nintendo heroes and uh smash i'm sad that there are no new smash brothers characters and it seems to be a complete collection because every time a new one came out the real thing was about seeing how they look after how Kirby looks after he eats them. That was always the most fun part. Yeah, I did like that. I'll just say once again Air Ride is good despite what anyone may have said 20 years ago. It's still criminal that they didn't make a sequel to Tilton Tumble. That's pretty much all I got. So I guess I'll wrap up here. I'll let you guys know what we are. We're Retronauts, of course. You can find us on Twitter as at Retronauts. And if you want to support the show and get all kinds of good stuff on top of that, please head on over to Patreon.com slash Retronauts. Sign up there for three bucks a month. You can get all these episodes one week at a time and add free. But you really want to sign up for five bucks a month because that gives you access to a lot of things, including exclusive episodes. Over a hundred so far. We started doing this in the beginning of 2020. So that's two per month since then. So that really adds up. So if you like the show, there's a lot of episodes you haven't heard if you're not at the $5 level and that $5 level also gets you a weekly

column and podcast by Diamond Fight. So yes, if you want to support the show and get a ton of episodes immediately upon signing up, please head on over to patreon.com slash retronauts. Andrew, you are our beloved patron. Do you have anything you want to plug in our plug section? Go forward if you do. Well, nothing for myself, but we did talk about DMA designs. So I'll shout out to NoClip who had a documentary on DMA designs, which was amazing. They talked a little bit about Kid Kirby, but nothing new. And I'll also shout out the Video Game History Foundation for being able to preserve four of those Kirby's toy box ROMs.

So, you know, please donate to them, non-profit. They preserve everything, and they do good work. They do. Yeah. And Ray, how about you? What have you been up to lately? Well, you can visit my homepage on the World Wide Web. It's R-D-B-A-A-A-A-A-A-D-Space.

That's my main link page. You can see everything I'm doing or have done. I got my podcast still going. No More Whoppers, which I do with my friend Alex. It's no morewoppers.com. We've got a Patreon for that as well if you want to check us out there. My game company is Bipel Dog. The website is bipedel dot dog.

And we make games like Blast Rush and MASH gadget for PlayDate. And, yeah, that's it's it. Otherwise, yeah, my home page, R-D-B-A-A-A, that's base. And, Henry, I know we do many podcasts together for another network. That's right. Yes, it's, if you listeners don't yet know, me and Bob are the Talking Simpsons Network where we talk about the classic animated series. Chronologically, you will hear no other podcast that goes more in-depth

and researched into the history of the Simpsons than me and Bob, Talking Simpsons. It's everywhere you find podcasts. And we also have our monthly podcast. What a cartoon where we talk about an animated series. Mega in depth. In June, we did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987, long overdue,

and we learned a ton for that one. And we definitely talk a lot about the classic Turtles games that are tied into that era too. And it's all supported on our own Patreon. Patreon.com slash talking Simpsons with tons of exclusives of us covering King of the Hill.

Futurama, The Critic, Batman, the Animated Series, and a whole bunch of movies as well. See it all for yourself. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, and Talking Simpsons is what a cartoon, wherever you find podcast. I'm, of course, H-E-N-E-R-U-I-G on Twitter. And I believe I saw Andrew trying to raise an objection during your plugs, Henry. What's going on, Andrew? I was just making fun of the fact that he kept on, like, you know, pointing out his finger and waving his hands. I get very, yeah, secret for listeners, whenever I do my plugs, I have it tied to hand motions to try to, it makes it more exciting.

It's all muscle memory at this point. He's waving in an airplane for landing. We're flagging, yeah, we're actually doing semi-four down here. Helping planes land while we podcast. You're a practiced politician, Henry. But yes, thanks for listening. Folks. We'll see you again on Monday for another episode of Retronauts.

Take care. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.