The Ringer-Verse - 'Pikmin 4' and the Nintendo Franchise Draft | Button Mash

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Ben and Jess welcome you to 'Button Mash' with their impressions of 'Pikmin 4' and the 'Pikmin' franchise (09:45). Later on, they draft their personal favorite Nintendo franchises throughout the years (26:07). Finally, Ben sells Jessica on the latest video game television adaptation, 'Twisted Metal' (70:01). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer, and with me as always is the Barbie to my Oppenheimer. Jessica Clemens Solo, Jessica. Hi, Appie. Have you seen Oppenheimer yet? You saw Oppenheimer. I have not yet. No, this weekend was my wife's birthday.

I was out of town. I saw zero movies. I feel completely out of touch with the zeitgeist. Yeah, you need to go. Take her for her birthday. A late birthday gift is the double feature of Oppenheimer and Barby. Right. I was thinking on that topic, I was trying to think about video game equivalents to

Barbenheimer. And it's sort of tough because you can't really do a double feature with video games. Like, Oppenheimer is a long movie, but it would be a very short video game. There's not enough. time in a day or a weekend to play two entire games. Not to force Steve back into this, but Steve brought it up on Mint Edition that the double feature was Animal Crossing.

Yes, Doom Eternal. Yeah, I was going to bring that up to it. I think that's the closest equivalent, at least in recent years. March 20th, 2020. Did you get in on the Doom Crossing phenomenon? No, I played Animal Crossing, but I didn't do the Doom part. I did. And both games were entertaining in different ways.

So it was like Barbie and Opparheimer. They made you feel good about the medium. Like, wow, look at the very different ways that video games can be good. What a wonderful art form. And also, each one came out like a week into the U.S. version of the pandemic. Right. So the timing was in some ways extremely not ideal. And in other ways, I guess each kind of offered a different way of coping with the mood we were all in at that time, the pandemic fear and frustration.

I guess just the uncertainty of it all. It's like maybe I can put this out of my mind for the moment and just take out my fear and frustration on some hellspon and just like take a shotgun to everything. Or if I want to mellow out and have some laid back peaceful scenery and decorate my house and basically be an indentured indentured servitude to a raccoon, I will play Animal Crossing. It was the best of both worlds. It was the best form of escapeism at a really hard time. life. During the pandemic, my roommate, both got Animal Crossing and I played it for too long. It was a sick, a sick time for me in Animal Crossing. And I loved it. So that's why I didn't have time for any other thing, just Animal Crossing. I think we all felt that way. I mean, those of us who

were stuck inside and on lockdown and had extra screen time on our hands, I just said, like, it's tough to do a video game double feature because video games take a lot of time. But a lot of us had a lot of time those days. So it was kind of good to have the double feature. And now that it's relatively safe to go outside and sit in theaters again when I stay inside and play video games, it's by choice, not necessity. And I made that choice for a part of this weekend, for a good reason, despite my wife's birthday. Yes, this weekend was Barbenheimer. You talked about it. You and Steve and Jomey on Mint Edition. We've got coverage of both movies and the double feature phenomenon elsewhere on the website and the podcast network.

But you know what else came out on Friday? Pickman 4. Didn't get quite as much attention, maybe, but also, it was interesting. I was waiting for, but then I, do you think it was because there's just so much other stuff going on, especially with Barbie and Oppenheimer, that it kind of very much overshadowed Pikman 4's release? Yeah, I don't think Pikmin 4 would have been a pop culture phenomenon on the level of

Barbenheimer regardless. Oh, no. It did suck some of the oxygen out of the room. There was actually a Wikipedia editing war where people were going back and forth about whether Barbenheimer should have its own Wikipedia page or just be mentioned in a section on the movies' Wikipedia pages. And some people were actually arguing that Pickman should be included in the Barbenheimer phenomenon. I don't know whether we would call it like Barbinheimerman, Barbicmanheimer. Barbin Olomar.

It doesn't work quite as well. It's unfortunate that his name does not work with Barbie and Oppenheimer, and I feel bad for him. I think that's an underrated aspect of the Barbenheimer success story is that each movie has a one word and one name title, so you can blend them fairly easily, whereas Animal Crossing, New Horizons, Doom Eternal. I don't know if you go with Animal Eternal or Doom Crossing or what, but it's just not quite the same. Anyway, look, we love video games, but three is a crowd. Pickman doesn't get to be part of Barbenheimer, but it does get to be part of this podcast because we will start with some spoiler-free impressions of the game. And then, in honor of Pickman and this month's 40th anniversary of the Famicom, the Japanese

predecessor to the NES, we're going to do a Nintendo franchise draft. And we will construct a roster of our favorite Nintendo series. We will indulge our inner Nintendo kids. And I'm sure this won't get quite as contentious as maybe a house of our draft. But we'll see. We'll celebrate each other's picks. We'll see. Genuinely, I've known you for a very short period of time, Ben, but I knew which ones you were going to grab.

And I kind of framed mine to be like, let them grab it, Jessica. Let them take it. Because I think you can still make this work without them. But I did put them as my first pick regardless. I still put them as my first pick. Yeah. Well, that's very considerative of you because, say, Mallory Rubin, she's known me for a very long time. And if she knew what I was going to pick, she would move that up her draft board

so that she would make sure that I did not get to take it. So I just, I appreciate the sentiment here. And also, we're buried in the lead here because, hey, we have a name now. This podcast has a title. Yes. Yes. It's button mash. We are button mash. No longer are we just a generic ringerverse podcast. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we have a title and a logo. It feels official. I'm excited about this. It's very sweet. I love it. I'm obsessed with mashing buttons, and I'm excited with our name, and I'm excited with the art.

And I'm just excited that it finally happened. It kind of feels like a weird goodbye to the ring or verse, just like how we had just no name before. But now it's like, no, this is a channel that we do. We talk about video games. Let us talk about video games. Yeah, they can't get rid of us now. Yeah, yeah, you just named it. You just named us.

You can't get rid of us now. A lot of work went into that. It took us some time to find the right name in arts. So now we've just, we got to stick around for a while. And obviously, not all of the games we cover will be button masters, but we've mashed a lot of buttons in our day, you know? Regardless. Regardless.

And Pygman, I kind of did. I got it was going crazy in Pikmin 4. Yeah. Even games that aren't button mashers still have some button mashing in them, even if it's just like mash B to escape this monster that just ensnared you in Pikmin, and there's always going to be a bit of button mashing involved. So we're button mash. We hope you like it.

We like it. So today we're doing Pikmin 4 plus the Nintendo franchise draft. And then I'm going to give you a recommendation at the end of the episode because there's a new video game adaptation out this week on TV, twisted metal. And just to tease it, I kind of love this show. I didn't think I would. But I will sell it to you at the end of the episode. Just a bit of housekeeping before we get to our Pickment.

in our draft, you can email us. Of course, we're going to keep the same email address, I think, so you can continue to email us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. Always happy to read your letters. And we will give you the programming reminders coming up on the feed. Hey, this is Secret Invasion finale week. So we're pulling out all the stops. We are going to be covering Secret Invasion on all the shows,

Midnight Boys on Wednesday, House of R on Friday. You, Jess, Easter Egg's video coming. over the weekend. And you are also working on some bonus video content, as I understand it. I'm working on the Gen V, the boys spin-off show, breaking down the trailer right now, and had to take a break to talk about our video games. But very excited about that, too. It's going to be very fun. It's very gross. I would hope so. It would be a disappointment. It would not be the boys if it were not gross. So we will get right into Pickman, which I'm excited to talk about and also kind of fascinated to see where it ends up in our draft and where it fits in the Nintendo Pantheon,

because it's been around for quite a while. I wouldn't say it's one of the most successful, prominent Nintendo franchises, but it's beloved in its own way. So it was created and produced by Shereo Miyamoto. So in that sense, it is a name brand Nintendo series, right? It's got the pedigree from the man who gave us Zelda and, Mario and Donkey Kong and all the rest that comes from that same mind. And there's this possibly apocryphal origin story of Miyamoto being inspired by gardening.

You know, he was getting into gardening. He was watching ants kind of carrying things and moving in a line in his garden. And he thought, what if there were a game about that? What if you could control a whole lot of little creatures in sort of a garden-like setting? The actual origins of the series seemed to be a little more complicated than that initially. And also, you fall in love with those ants and then you watch them get eaten by slugs. Yes, right. Yeah, you definitely develop a fondness for the pickman that perhaps you don't for ants.

Some people like ants. Some people torture ants with magnifying glasses. I don't endorse that. But in Pickman, you're going to love and lose some pigment and it's going to be tough for you. But there was kind of a more complex origin story. It was in the works for a while. And they had this idea of like it'll be different AI creatures. and there will be different chips in their heads to control their behavior,

and then gradually it morphed into this little plant-like species. And Miyamoto has loved Pickman all along. I don't know whether his enthusiasm for the series is mirrored by everyone's, but he loves Pickman. He is still involved. He's still doing interviews about Pickman in a way that he isn't with, say, Zelda, where he's kind of handed off the reins to the next generation. That generation has been there for decades, too,

but he is more involved. He's like doing press about Pickman. He intended it to be the next Mario. He intended it to be accessible for everyone at the time. And it came out initially 2001 for GameCube. That was the first Pikmin. The sequel, Pickman 2, 2004 for GameCube also. And then there's been long gaps between subsequent Pikmin games.

So Pickman 3 came out for Wii U in 2013. A lot of people. skipped Wii. A lot of Nintendo fans just got to skip that console generation. Maybe you picked up Pickman 3 for Switch sometime later as I did. And then Picman 4 just came out this past week, but has been in development for a very long time. Miyamoto said that it was very close to completion in 2015. Oh my God. Almost 10 years later, he said scrap it. We're reworking it. We're We're reworking it. Take it away.

I don't know what took so long. It's still very recognizably Pickfin. He said it was very close to completion in 2015. Yes. That is almost 10 years ago. It's a really long time. It's like multiple console generations. So it was sort of stuck in some kind of development hell.

But it's turned out really well. And it's get good reviews. People like it. I like it. And there's been sort of a separation. And there was a Nintendo developer Q&A where some of the developers talked about this, but between Pickman 1 people and Pickman 2 people, because the series has sort of evolved over the years. I mean, the basic framework of the series is sort of the same,

but Pickman 1, it was a little more intense. It was a little more stressful. It was like you only had a certain number of days to get everything done. And if you didn't get everything done and reassemble your ship and find all the parts, then it was just kind of game over, or you got this sort of like dystopian ending where your little spaceman, Captain Olmar, he just didn't escape

and he like turned into half a Pickman person and it was just not necessarily a field good ending. And then in Pickman 2, they kind of said, relax, you know,

take your time. Like, you don't have to finish it in any set amount of time. There were caves and underground areas as there are in Pickman 4 that didn't have a time limit.

So you could just sort of explore and collect And I think a lot of games undergo this evolution. We've talked about Jet Set Radio versus Jet Set Radio Future, the sequel, where it went from time limits to no time limits. It's just like, take your time, you know, grind on these rails, enjoy the music. Or yeah, I agree. Or even, I guess, 2D Mario to 3D Mario, you know, no more time limits. It's just, you know, go around, take your time, find the shines, explore the space.

I don't know if it's just the arcade legacy of video games where, decades ago, it was just sort of assumed that you would have a countdown. But I think over time, they've kind of relaxed that. And philosophically, I am much more aligned with that. I don't like a countdown. I don't like a timer. Don't rush me. Don't rush me.

I'm happy. But I think it works in certain games, but I do think for something like Pickman, I'm just like having more fun before it's dark. And I'm like, now I have to stop. Or you make it so far in the map and you're like, oh, God, I have to run back and stop this and stop my pigment for giving me. and shoveling all this stuff. I don't know.

Yeah, I guess in some, because sometimes I do really like having a time limit. I'm also that person that likes torturing myself where in any game that's like, yeah, you have to eat or you're going to just fall over. I'm like, oh, I love this stuff. I love keeping as close to reality as possible. But for Pickman, I'm like, no, I don't want that. But I think it's because it's clearly a fantasy game or like fantasy fantasy, where I'm like, oh, I'm a little kid in a garden.

Yeah. I'm a little kid in a garden. See, I kind of hate that. I hate what it's like, I have to feed myself. It's like, I know. I have to do that in reality. It's hard enough. And then you do it in the game.

I know. It's like in the game, just, you know, give me permanent health and just let me do my thing. I completely understand. When I say this, I completely understand what people are coming from. But my favorite upgrade in Animal Crossing was you can actually collect ingredients to make bigger meals. You don't need the meals. But now I make very saucy meals. And I'm like, oh, I love this.

Make this as close to reality. Again, I play these games for escapeism. So I need it as close to reality as possible. Yeah, see, I'm like escapism. I wanted as far away from reality as possible. You're like, give me something different. Yeah. Well, speaking of big meals, I guess each Pickman has progressively gotten bigger and longer.

If you go by on how long to beat just the average playtime, it went from like eight hours in the first one. And there wasn't really any flexibility because it was, again, like you had a certain number of days to complete it. Each day was the same amount of length. so there wasn't much wiggle room there. Then Pickman 2, 11.5, Pickman 3, 13, Pickman 4, 14, but I'm guessing that's going to go up because that is probably skewed by speed runners. You know, people who've beaten it already

because they had to review it or they're Pickman super fans and they played it all weekend. But the completionist play-through, it's like 30 plus hours. There's just a lot more content in this game for better or worse. Yeah, so Miyamoto has talked about why Pickman hasn't been a bigger success. Like, it's a modest success. But in the grand scheme of Nintendo franchises, it's, well, we'll see where it ends up

on our draft board. But he's talked about how it's sold maybe a couple million copies per Pickman. And he thinks it's because, A, maybe it's just the trauma of Pickman death, as we talked about, right? I mean, you have to get used to just the plaintive cries of expiring Pickman. I don't like it. It is, it is, okay, I'm sorry, but it is pretty dark. It is, because it's also like watching a very cute character just get destroyed.

And it also could be like beyond your control. You don't have enough room in their little onion home or something that I'm like, wait a minute. No, please don't all die. I collected too many of you. Yeah. And it's pretty traumatic for, and I think it's also like, it's like marketed for kids. Like you're looking at the art. You're like, yeah, this is for children.

And then my child is like, wait, what? Right. What? Yeah, I mean, you could die in a lot of Nintendo games, but generally, you know, you fall down a pit or something or Link just slumps over. I mean, when the Pickman die, first of all, they're incredibly cute. And then they emit these little screams. Like, if you have a whole bunch of Pickman die at once, there's no more guilty feeling in a video game than that. And fortunately, I guess Pickman 4 has.

this rewind feature where if you get to the end of a day and you left a bunch of pickman out on the surface or you just had a whole bunch of pickman die, then you can back up a bit. It has some auto saves. So you don't have to restart the whole day. You can just go back a bit and undo the deaths, which I appreciate. I haven't done it yet. It gave me the option, but I kept maxing out like how many pigmen I had. So I was like, if I rewind this, I just have to watch them die again. Right. I was like, there's not enough room. There's not enough room. And I was like, so I don't want to watch them die again. And they really punish you.

They're like, hey, just so you know, here's the amount of pigment you lost this round. And I'm like, thanks. I counted myself. I also counted their little screens. They make sure you know. Yeah. Yeah. He thinks that that adds some stakes, right?

That you actually feel bad about pigment dying. That's true. Also, he says, you know, he thinks that there's either a reputation or a reality that the game is kind of complicated, control-wise, right? Or there's a lot of depth and complexity to it. Maybe it's a little less pick-up and play than, say, a Mario game, right? And there's some truth to that, too, I think. It's kind of like, are you a big real-time strategy RTS person?

Not really. Me neither. I get really irritated, then I usually look it up. Yeah, right. So this is like a starter set for an RTS. It's like, you know, an RTS with training wheels. Like, Baby's first real-time strategy game. Like, it's enough for.

me. You get up to 100 picmen. They're different types. You have to separate them and send them to do different jobs and they all have different capabilities. And that has also gotten more complex over time. So initially there were three different kinds of Pikmin. And then there were five and then there were seven. And now there are nine. And they're all different colors and shapes and different kinds of capabilities. But it's not so complicated that I feel overwhelmed by it. So it's like dip in my toe into the RTS pool. I also like that you probably, because you really like pigment, you're probably playing it in the strategic way. I am like, oh, this pickman's the cutest. So I'm going with this one. I'm like, it runs very cute. So I just had like a bunch of

ice pigment. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, they're so cute. And I just kept having them run around and do things that didn't help. But it, yeah, I got more attached to that than I did the actual like playing of the game. I was like, these pickmen are incredible. Look at them all go. I feel a little judged by the game almost because it has this concept of Dan Dori. right? This Japanese concept, it keeps plug in Dandori, which it says is the art of organizing your tasks strategically and working with maximum efficiency to execute your plans quickly. And I feel like if I'm not being efficient or organized or quick, then the game is disappointed in me, sort of. It's like all the characters are like, we work really hard and we have to rescue each other. You know, it's always like there was a crash landing on some Earth-like planet and you have to recover your crew and you have to. reassemble your spaceship. And again, I feel a little bit judged if I'm not going about it efficiently. But I find it to be pretty relaxing now, despite the deaths, you know, you can break it up. Like, there's still days, but there are really as many days as you want. It's like roughly 15-minute

long days. So you can break it up into small doses. You can kind of pick it up, play a day, put it down, pick it up again, right? And it's got this sort of, you know, relaxing music and laid back garden scenery and the Pikman and your characters are tiny so all the human size objects are gigantic, which is very cute and funny. So yeah, it's nice scenery. It's a good time.

It's a very cute game. It is interesting to hear why, because I've never really gotten into Pikmin as well as probably a lot of people have. So it's interesting hearing and be like, well, it's probably because we kill them in horrible ways, but it also is strategic and no one really

wants to do that. And I'm like, oh, I guess the appeal was like with Alamar he wasn't really featured enough for me to like want to play it because we had him in smash and then you're like oh this is an okay character the map's really fun but I don't really know this is how I got into a lot of my

Nintendo games whereas I was like oh I played this person in Smash I really want to go venture out and find that game and play it and Alamar I was like this guy's okay it was like playing with the yoga instructor I was like this is fine yeah maybe that's part of why it's not more popular like the Pickman

are popular. It's associated with the Pickman, but the playable character, you control the Pickman. You're not the pickman yourself, really, and maybe it's just that Olamar and the other protagonists are not necessarily as memorable. In this game, you play as one person typically, and Picman 3, it was three different characters, and that got kind of hectic at times. You can play at co-op, and I did play Pickman 3 co-op with and we were at each other's throats at the end of that. It did not go so well. Good to know. Good to know. Good to know. Hey, good to know. The podcast. play pickman co-op with. Podcast people listening are now like writing down, they're tracking.

We've talked about a lot of games that you can play co-op without getting mad at people. And so far, I think it is only it takes two. I think it's the only one so far. Another game where you're tiny and you're walking around gardens and the scenery is gigantic. Yeah, love that kind of game. So there's just more Pickman in this game than any previous Pickman game. It's sort of a synthesis of all the previous Pikmin games. If you never liked a Pickman, I don't know that you like this one.

but if you haven't played a pickman, I think it's a good place to start. And there's just, you're getting more bang for your buck here. Like, it's a longer game. There's a lot more extras. There's a dog in this game, more or less,

Oaxi, who's just a great little sidekick character, and you can ride around on him and put all the pickman on him. And there are all these different extras and items and just there's a lot more to it. I don't use all of that stuff necessarily. The basic gameplay is sort of the same. But the appeal of just throwing,

up to 100 little differently colored characters at something and watching them all work together, watching them carry something, watching them attack something, watching them just ride on the dog's back. That never gets old for me. I just, I like watching Pickman almost as much as I like playing it. It was very sweet. And then when I did want to go a little bit quicker, I would just have him use his scent to find where I had to go next. And I was like, oh, thank God. But like, it is, it's kind of weird, like, watching the Pickman all. And it's, it's, It'll be like, it takes at least five pickmen to do this. And I was like, I'm going to send 20.

I was like, I'm going to send 18. See how they all carry it. Yeah. See how they all work. And then I lost them. And then I was like, where'd they go? And then all I heard over the column was like, oh, poor little pickman. I went, wait, what?

And I ran after my pigment and they were being murdered. And yeah, and all I hear is the little cries of my babies all dying. And I'm like, wow, this makes me want to keep playing the game. I am going to be weirdly numb to my baby screaming. me. My sweet little ice, my little ice, Pickman with their little tummies running. Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. Well, we recommend Pickman. You should all go play Pickman. We'll be playing Pickman. And one of the nice things about Pickman is that the market is not saturated with pickman content. You know, a new Pickman comes out every decade or so. And I'm like, okay,

it's been a minute. I miss those little plant people. Let's go. You know, I don't need a new pickman every year or two. But every 10 years, yeah, I'm good. I'm ready. My hype meter is recharged for Pickman. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehouser returned, and this time they're taken on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehouser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning, and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount.

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may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. We will see where this places on our draft. Who selects it, if anyone selects it? If anyone selects it? It's a crowded field. So I mentioned this month is the 40th anniversary of the Famicom's release. This was the predecessor to the NES.

Those systems arguably saved video games. And by video game standards, 40 years is a really, really long time ago. And when I was really getting into games about 10 years after the Famicom came out, Nintendo at that point was almost synonymous with video games. It was like people say Xerox or Kleenex, you know, like brand names to talk about an actual item, a tissue. People would use Nintendo to refer to video games in general, whether it was a Nintendo system or not. And because of that formative influence, because Nintendo was such a big deal and has been for such a long time, it's had an eternity compared to other companies to build up its IP into these legendary

beloved franchises. And so we are going to draft them today. And there are a bunch of them. I said we'd select 10 each. We'll see if we get that far. But you can draft, I think, just based on personal preference or you can consider the overall impact or popularity or legacy, whichever way you want to go with it. You know, if you wanted to say, like, here are my desert island discs or cartridges, like, if I could only play 10 Nintendo franchises for the rest of my life, here's what I want.

Or if you want to sort of assess it, it's just overall impact. However you want to play it, you can choose your own adventure here. Yeah. I'm studying my list very hard. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm confident in my list.

The thing that sucks is like in my 10th spot, I wouldn't necessarily put any of these people in the 10th spot. It's just that like I was like, I don't know if these, I don't know. I don't know. And we'll talk. You guys will figure out all the five people I put in the 10th spot. And you'll probably be like, this shouldn't even be on the list. Right. Yeah. I mean, I imagine our top 10 might look semi-similar, but yeah, I'm sure it does. as a draft and we're taking picks that the other would take, then we'll have to go a little deeper on the draft board potentially here.

But we can do a mix. It can be your faves. It can be the popular favorites, however you want to play it. But just a few ground rules. So first, we are including games developed or published by Nintendo. So we can take games that Nintendo developed and published. It's just all Nintendo all the way. Or games that are very associated.

with Nintendo because Nintendo has published them but are not necessarily developed by Nintendo. You know, Nintendo has a lot of frequent collaborators and partner studios like Game Freak, for instance, which is associated with Pokemon, or Hal Laboratory, which has done Super Smash Brothers or Kirby or Mother and Earthbound or Intelligent Systems is responsible for Fire Emblem and Paper Mario and Advance Wars and other things. And Camelot does Golden Sun and the Mario Sports games. So there are these long, almost second-party relationships. Sometimes Nintendo ends up buying these companies and bringing them in-house.

Sometimes it's just a long productive partnership. But a lot of the games that we think of as Nintendo properties are not necessarily developed by Nintendo, but we wanted to include them here. That means that we can't draft a game that is not developed or published by Nintendo, even if it came out on Nintendo consoles. So, for instance, Mario plus Rabbids, right? Mario is in the title and in the game. But that is a Ubisoft or Ubisoft developed and published franchise.

Okay. Second ground rule, spin-off franchises are their own entities. So if you draft Super Mario Bros. You don't get Mario Kart and all the Mario Sports games. And if you draft Pokemon, you don't get Pokemon Snap or Pokemon Stadium, right? They are their own thing. If they're a series in their own right, then you can draft them separately. Okay.

Third, it has to be a series, so you can't draft a one-off. So, for instance, Eternal Darkness on GameCube, a great horror game. Even I like that game, despite my scarty cat tendencies as a gamer, that was published by Nintendo, but it's a one-off. It never got a sequel. Or Arms, for instance, the fighting game on Switch, Nintendo developed and published no sequel yet. It's just a standalone game. Can't call it a franchise exactly in the sense that. these other games are franchises. So it has to have sequels or a sequel at least. And I think

that's it. This will be a little less complicated than the drafts where we have many different categories and there's a ton of strategy involved. We're just going to take our favorite Nintendo games and then you can all just judge our lineups when we're done. Okay, perfect. All right. Perfect. Perfect. Steve, could you do us the honor of determining the draft order here? Yes, I will resort to the ancient and honored method of a coin flip. Thank you. What coin? I just need to make sure it's not already.

This will be Google's flip a coin application. Not a physical coin. I'm just making sure it wasn't clearly. Oz are slightly skewed in that way. But Jessica, how about you do the honors of calling heads or tails? Okay. Tell me when. Now.

Tails. It is tails. Ooh. So you may pick your order. If you wish to go first or second, I'm guessing you want to go first. Yes. I'll go first. I have to go first.

I got to go first. I got to go first on this. I feel like there's a clear top two in this draft. I think. I think. I think. I'm going to take what I think is one of the top twos. Yeah.

I know Steve would draft Wario wear number one for sure. Would you, Steve? I mean, given that the fourth one is the best one, it'd be up there. Maybe. Maybe. I'm taking my first one that I'm just going to snatch right now. After you clarify a lot of things, I'm taking Zelda. Yeah, okay.

I have to take Zelda. I think I clearly like it, but it's a fan favorite. Got to. Got to snap it. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a clear number two, right? It's either the legend of Zelda or it's Super Mario Brothers. And in a way, I kind of didn't want the number one pick because I think I would have felt

pressure to take Super Mario Brothers number one. But number one in my heart is Zelda, right? I mean, it's like Super Mario Brothers, which I will take with the number two take. Oh, that's a great surprise. Ending the suspense for everyone. I'm glad. I'm glad. Yes, we are selecting Super Mario Brothers in the Nintendo franchise draft. But I feel like I probably would have taken it number one if I'd had the option just because it gave rise to so much else, right?

Like so many spin-offs, right? So many characters. The whole Mushroom Kingdom verse comes from Super Mario Brothers. 100%. I'm torn because when I got into games, like I think I've mentioned before, my seventh birthday, I got an NES and I got Legend of Zelda, the gold cartridge and Super Mario Brothers duck hunt on the combined cartridge. So, like, both of these franchises go back to the very beginning for me and for a lot of gamers. But I think Zelda's my favorite. Like, if I had to say, you know, time spent or enjoyment derived from a franchise, I think it would probably be Zelda.

So interesting because mine is absolutely Super Mario. I, Super Mario is where it started for me. That is mine. Well, not mine as it's everybody's, but in my family, I was like, this is where I started. This is what got me. And it just went off. It completely went off for me. But I know how the audience is.

Yeah. I know they would also choose Zelda too. Yeah, I think so, right? In terms of just like fondness or I don't know. Like both are similarly influential and groundbreaking, I think. I think the characters that you get from Super Mario is like what you get attached to and there's more to get attached to

when it comes like character-wise for that because I think when I'm playing Zelda I'm like yeah here's like my top two and this is also all I have but in Super Mario you're like I'm gonna weirdly attach to everything more merch which is clearly I am a sucker for merch

and easy to like cling on to so it's like yeah I think just so much stuff spanned it from Super Mario that's like I of course I would choose this and my heart is my number one. But in this draft pick, I got to choose as my number two. So we almost had opposite rationales.

I was like, I would take Zelda for my heart, but I feel like Super Mario Brothers has maybe had a greater impact. You know, it's just like the recognizability of Mario is probably higher than any other video game character, right?

I mean, when Nintendo wants to break into movies first unsuccessfully and then three decades later, very successfully, it's Mario that goes first. Right. Watch it. It was a good movie.

The original, you're going to defend. No, I wasn't, but I liked it. It was a weird movie. It was definitely trying things. Let's act like it is not the funniest thing in the world. Let's not act. It's very fun to watch. It is a product of its time.

All right. And look, I think that Zelda, you could make a great case for choosing it now because I feel like it has kind of taken the lead in terms of just like what's pushing the boundaries, right? Like what's kind of the standard bearer? for the Switch and for Nintendo as a whole, like innovating, right? I think it's probably Zelda more so than Mario at this point. You know, who knows?

Maybe the next Mario game pushes things even more than Odyssey and Bowser's Fury did. But right now it feels like Zelda is just like laying new groundwork when it comes to video games in a way that Mario maybe hasn't as much in a while. All right. We've got a lot of picks to make, so we should keep going. Is it your next pick? Is it?

Yeah, I figured we could just alternate instead of, snake here. I don't know that there's that much strategy involved. Yeah, I was like, then we just, yeah. Okay. Once you clarified things, it blew it, it blew it out my mind. It blew out my mind a little bit. And at first, I wanted Pokemon Stadium as my second. It was groundbreaking for a lot of people.

But I think I'm just going to take Pokemon. Is that I think Pokemon the game like overall, we all love it. I download that. I pre-order that every time. I was like, if Ben takes Pokemon, I'm stealing Pokemon Stadium because that was like the first for me. That's where it started. Well, you could take both.

You could draft Pokemon Stadium later in the draft. Am I allowed to? I thought you said that you can use. Yeah, no, these are separate. I think Pokemon Stadium is its own spin-off entity, right? So if you drafted- Oh, I shouldn't have gave away my plan. No, that's all right.

Yeah, look, spoiler, I'm probably not going to draft Pokemon Stadium. It's all yours. But, but yeah, I mean, this is the smart move. It's a good. Pokemon Stadium is a good backup in case you do take one of my other ones that I really That's why. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Pokemon, again, not developed by Nintendo. A lot of people think of it, just part and parcel with Nintendo. It's a Game Freak franchise, really. But in terms of just like pop culture impact and everything that it's spawned, again, like, we're not necessarily giving you everything that goes with Pokemon. You know, like you're drafting the games here. I don't think that necessarily means you get like the show and the trading cards and Detective Pikachu and Pokemon's, you know, it's, but the games themselves, even the mainline Pokemon insert

color here, right? Maroon, silver. Massive, yeah. Green. Massive, massive games. I have, we, for my videos for the Ring Reverse, we made, I brought in a bunch of my own stuff and a lot of it is Pokemon stuff. I have like gangars and mimicues, but I also have my Game Boy Advance and it has my Game Boy

Green in the little as a cartridge. And little Easter egg, we had to take it down because Legal was like, I can't show this? This is straight up the Nintendo game. I'm like, oh, yeah, Nintendo will come after you and sue you for all yours. So be very careful. I was very proud of it. I love the games, but I love Pokemon.

I've been following Pokemon forever. I pre-order every Pokemon. I love Pokemon. That would have been my pick. Good pick. All right. Then I will be forced to take, but I will be very happy to take Super Smash Brothers. I'm sorry, but I've got to take the franchise that encompasses all of the other franchises, right?

I mean, you said it earlier on the episode that you were introduced to, exposed to some Nintendo franchises through Smash, right? And then maybe you went on to play them or maybe you just know them as, oh, that character's in Smash, right? A lot of people know it. That's the significance of Super Smash Brothers. Like, there have been a lot of copycats and imitators and games that have attempted to pit various characters together and brawl against each other, some of which have been good and successful. But they're all just trying to be the phenomenon that is Super Smash Brothers, right? So, and it's become, I mean, look, it's not like a Fortnite level phenomenon when it comes to every game can be in this game. But there are so many characters, not even just from Nintendo games, that cross over into Smash.

Now, it's that kind of platform. It has a life as a competitive game, right? Even though Nintendo seems to shut down competitive gaming events anytime it has the chance, it's still persisted as there's a Smash community, right? It has an afterlife. People are still playing decades-old smash games and finding new ways to get good at them. There's some people, when you bring up this list, they're going to just choose you because you put smash.

It's an easy game to play if you're just trying to play co-op against someone else. Good button-mash-er. Great, great button-mash-er game. This is what sometimes, and I'm not saying this as a dig, but like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, I wish could be more like Super Smash Bros, where it does keep a lot of the same tools, and it's not that hard to button mash.

Yeah, right. But it's such a good, it's, yeah, it encompasses everything. It's a great game overall. It's always going to be fun for every console. Some people just buy the consoles for this. This was like, and they'll still do that. The thing is, and when I was in college, we had like Dorn tournaments of this. And they still do it.

They still do it to this day. Yeah, me too. I like made friends in college because of Super Smash Brothers. Weirdly, the original, which is maybe a product of just my age, I guess, and what I grew up playing. But I'm still really attached to the original to the point where I take my, N64 with me wherever I go, largely because I need Super Smash Brothers access at all times. Actually, I hope Nintendo's copyright people don't snite me for saying this. I'm like closing the

blinds on my window in case like a laser site appears on my chest as I'm speaking. But I just bought this thing called an EverDrive, which is basically like a cartridge you stick in your N64. Yeah. And you can play ROMs on it, right? So you kind of use your original hardware, but you can back up your games or you can get expanded versions of games. And that's why I got it because there's this community made effort smash remix, which takes the original smash and

just add stages and adds modes and adds characters. And I was like, Ben, you're saying too much. I don't. You're saying too much. Ben, you're saying too much. Yeah, this will be like, we've got to edit this out. They're going to come for you. That's perfect. I want everyone in the world to know this. That sounds amazing. But I think my brother has

that, but I'm also like, Ben, Nintendo's going to shut us down. We just got a name. Right. That's perfect. Enjoy Super Smash Brothers legally and responsibly, everyone. Please don't do what I did. But yeah, that's just the significance of Smash.

Something about the controls of that game. Like just the floatedness of it. So fun. Yeah. All right. What's next? What's your pick? And I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. Oh, no. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't want to do this. Oh, I know what you're going to do. But I know, there's nothing, after Smash, there is nothing higher than Luigi's Mansion. And I have to take it, Ben. How could you?

Ben, I know, Ben, I, hey, I feel horrible about this. But it's like, it is right, like, after you just, we just took them out. We kind of just took them all out, in my opinion, and then it's Luigi's Mansion. That is the next one for me that I was like, I genuinely, I don't know. I thought maybe you'd take something else and then I would take Smash and then you would take Luigi's Mansion. But now you went for smash, which makes sense. No, look, I'm trying to blend my personal feelings and just the stature in the culture, right? So Luigi's Mansion, I mean, I'm hurt that you've done this to me because you knew where Luigi's Mansion ranked on my personal list.

But I got to say, I don't think I would have taken it quite this high. I was worried that you would vulture this. And so I was like, how high can I conceivably take Louisville? Midge's mention in this draft. Like, can I take Luzzi's number one overall to make sure I get this game? You should have made sure you got it. Look, there are a lot of great games left on the board. There's a lot of great talent here.

But Luigi's Mansion, look, I love Luigi's Mitch. I don't know what it is. I'm extremely fond of that franchise. You're not the only one. Everyone loves Luigi's Mansion. We were talking about it right before we were on the podcast with Steve. It's like a sleep. It's not even a sleeper.

It's like everyone likes it. Those that know, no. And those that don't, don't. And it's like, Luigi's Mansion, that's why it said every arcade, like right after Mario Carr, if you go to like most arcades, you'll get the guns for Luigi's Mansion. Luigi's Mansion was just like a hit. It was a hit. And that's why I think it is honorably should be pretty high on everyone's list.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, there were, after the Mario movie came out to people, the rumors were flying about a Luigi's mansion movie. Charlie Day was trying to make it happen, right? I don't know if that will happen. I don't know if that snuck's on the list. but would watch, absolutely would watch. And as I said, I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to games.

And I feel like when I'm playing Luigi's Mansion, Luigi is mirroring my emotions because he's terrified the entire time. Scared the entire time. Yeah. We're talking about a Nintendo game here. We're not talking about Resident Evil or Silent Hill or something, but very relatable that he is just like tiptoeing around and he is completely scared of everything. That is how I feel when I'm playing any kind of horror adjacent game, even

Luigi's mentioned, but love that series going back ways. However, I can console myself with the fact that I'm going to take Metroid here. I'm pretty excited to get Metroid with my third pick. Again, like, in terms of quantity, there's not as much Metroid, but when a Metroid game comes out, it's an event, right? Yeah, 100%. We've all been waiting for a new Metroid Prime forever. I think Metroid Prime is under the Metroid umbrella. Like, I don't think that's a separate franchise. I mean, it's the same philosophically, it's the same

sort of, you know, it's a first person game, but it's Metroid, right? But whether you're talking classic 2D Metroid, you know, Metroidvania style, look, it's influential. There's a genre that has Metroid in its name, right? You have the Samus

reveal. Oh my gosh, he's not a dude like every other video game character. This is why I needed it. This is why I wanted. This is what I wanted. That reveal, I was like, I have more than peach. Like, I was so excited. Still blonde, but still I was like, I get more than peach.

It's like peach with guns. And so, a laser cannon. Yeah. I'm, well, we could, we can work out a post-draft trade. Yeah, potentially. Maybe we could swap Metroid-Oeachis, we'll talk about it. Yeah. God, Metroid's a good one.

Right. I mean, the music, the character design, I'm a sci-fi guy. So it's nice to have a Nintendo series in space, right, with this kind of harder-edged vibe and aliens. And it can be kind of creepy at times. And there's exploration. And there's that satisfying progression of, I can't get through that door. Oh, I got to go get this item. And then I can come back later.

And then I can get there. Love Metroid. So even though we haven't seen as much Metroid in recent years, there's still bangers when they do come out. And we will just wait and see when we get a new Metroid Prime. but there's enough of a body of work there that I think it merits a high placement. So what's next for you? Okay, so, okay, try to figure out if I want to go off the trail or stay on the trail and just keep sweeping up my picks. I think I'm going to go off the trail a little bit because I've been staying really hard on like the cartoon.

This is still cartoon, but like not as cartoony. I think my Metroid was my next. next to Metroid as my backup, I put Fire Emblem. Okay, all right. I think fan-wise, that's a good one. I think great to grab. I had a fun time playing it. I wasn't like super into it,

but I know a lot of other Nintendo. What do we call our fans? I will say Nintendo dogs, but that's an actual game. I was going to say that too. We could draft Nintendo Dogs if we wanted to. Hey, I'm ashamed to say that Nintendo Dogs is somewhere on this list. Was there a sequel to Nintendo Dogs? I guess does that count?

Well, actually, that's a good question. Because I don't think, I think it's just always Nintendo Dogs. It's always, well, it's different. They had it for different devices, but it was always Nintendo Dogs. There was one with cats. There was like Nintendo Dogs plus cats. Okay, it counts. You could draft it if you want.

But Fire Redble, that's a good pick. Yeah, I mean, what are there like 17 Fire Emblem games or something like that? I mean, I feel like this would be different probably if we were. talking Japanese Nintendo fans versus U.S. Nintendo fans because there are some series that are more prominent on one continent or another or didn't get releases on one continent or another. So Fire Emblem is a bigger deal in Japan. And there are a lot of American players who might just know it as, oh, those characters from Smash, right? But Fire Emblem's a pretty big deal.

So, yeah, totally justified pick here. Oh, God. What is your next one? I'm sorry. Now I'm scared. I just had to move something. And I was like, I forgot this was on my list. Well, I might take it.

It's Mario Kart. I'm taking Mario Kart. I'm sorry. Okay, it's fine. It's fine. I didn't need it. I didn't need it. I'm going to say the number one Mario spin-off.

There are many, many Mario spinoffs out there, many accomplished franchises in their own right. But Mario Kart rivals mainline Mario for popularity, right? I mean, it's as big a deal when a new Mario cart comes out as when a new Mario comes out, I want to say. like among the best-selling games on Switch and previous series, like everyone has memories of their first Mario Kart, whatever their formative Mario Kart was. It's a great multiplayer game. It's evolved over the years, obviously,

as the technology has improved. But there's nothing more intense and memorable than a Mario Kart session, especially like local multiplayer when you're a kid with your friends, whatever addition of the game that was for you. you probably have some special feelings about Mario Kart. 100%. Mario Kart is like smashed to me where it's like, it's going to keep developing.

Unfortunately for me, it's gotten so crazy that I'm like, this is too much. I'm like so irritated with on my Switch. Other people, please, no one should be irritated with Mario Kart. It's a beautiful game. It's just gotten so much where I'm like, I don't know. I didn't know the wheels did this and the body of the car is this and I need an umbrella for that.

And then it's just gotten so extravagant. where I'm like, I'm very confused on even creating a model. Yeah. But it's a little bit. Yeah, it's like smash with me, I guess, where I appreciate each successive Mario Cart, but still like the original Mario Kart that you grew up with, which is for me, the 64 Mario Kart. Like, that's going to be special.

Right? And for some people, it's horrible graphics now. Yeah, now. But, you know, for some people, that's S&ES. For some people, it's a later Mario. And I appreciate each of them, that each. have something to offer, but it's, you know, your very first Mario card. It's like the music you grew up with and imprinted on.

It's sort of the same with Mario Kart. 100%. All right. I think I don't, this is for Jessica. This pick is for Jessica. I think it is for fans too, but I'm going to take it just right now because it would hurt my heart if I don't take it. I'm going to take Donkey Kong country.

Okay. Yeah, I was wondering whether Donkey Kong country or just, or Donkey Kong, like, are those separate? Donkey Kong country is, well, oh, well, I mean, we can make it separate, but I'm, I chose specifically like Donkey Kong country because I think that one took the world by storm, especially because you needed the, what was the extra, the extra? I just, I'll give you donkey Kong. I think I think it's a package deal, you know, like, I don't know, you don't get Diddy Kong racing, but I think you get, you get, you get, you get the original like the OG donkey Kong arcade game with Mario and the barrels and the plumber and everything. And you also get Donkey Kong touch. I'll throw it all in for you. That's a good steal. That's a good deal and a good steal.

Thank you, Ben. Yeah. Right. There hasn't been a whole lot of Donkey Kong lately games-wise in terms of like I was, as I was going through this list and making my list, I was like, huh, some of these franchises, we haven't heard from them in a while, you know? Like some of these are maybe ripe for a reboot or they've fallen on harder times or we're just in a lull for these.

But yeah, I think the history of Donkey Kong. And country and sequels. Yeah. Those are classics. I love Donkey Kong country. As soon as I still have my 64 and I lost my Donkey Kong country and I had to go search high and low for that when I was in college and I found it. And still fun, still one of the funest game. There's one part in the map underwater I can never beat without my brother's help to this day.

But the rest is golden. Still great. Perfect. Donkey Kong 64 also pretty fun. I remember collecting banana peel upon banana peel. just good times with that game. Yeah, good pick. I think that fell a little lower.

But I'm going to go with Animal Crossing here. I was Animal Crossing still on the board. I screamed. I screamed because I was like, Jessica, you either take Animal Crossing or Donkey Kong. I'm sorry. And I was like, no, Animal Crossing needs to be picked up. And I'm glad you picked it up.

It needs to. Yeah, yeah. I was scared because you were talking about how you got so into New Horizons, right? My number one thing. I'm addicted. I thought you would take this earlier. Well, this is my thing.

I love Animal Crossing. It took me so long to get into Animal Crossing when it came out on the GameCube. It took so long. I was like, I don't think towns are really for me. And then I don't think towns are for me. More of a rural dweller. I don't like this. I like the forest.

But New Horizons came out, and it was so addictive. And I loved it so much. I even loved the mobile game. but I was like my breath or like how much I love Animal Crossing isn't actually to like every version of Animal Crossing and that's why I was so low on my list. I was like New Horizons got me. That destroyed my life. I was calling out of work sick to play it. And I haven't had this job. I've been here every day for this job. It's part of your job now. It's okay. Oh yeah. I don't have to call it up sick anymore. Yeah. It's all right. Sorry. Couldn't make it

today. Had to play Pickman for the podcast. That's a legitimate excuse. All right. I think I'm my next one. Am I allowed to take Mario Party? Yeah, absolutely. I'm stealing Mario Party, but I know what you're stealing next and I'm kind of irritated now that I just chose Mario Party. Oh, God. I don't know what I'm taking next.

Do you think, do tell. I think, man, I think Mario Party, by the way, great button mashing game. So the top might be the top because literal games are just like, who can click this the quickest?

Yes, exactly. Who can click this the fastest? Do you want carpal tunnel syndrome? Carpal tunnel syndrome, the game. I guarantee my friend had we sleepovers every weekend. It was only Mario Party. We were playing every different Mario Party. That's all we did.

I am 100% sure that's what gave her carpal tunnel. Like as an adult, 100%. 100%. All right. I think what I'm actually going to take, and I don't know if this is what you were thinking. From the sound of it, it probably wasn't going to get drafted by you. I think I'm going to go with Pickman here. I'm taking Pickman.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Pickman was my backup for Mario Party. Pygman was my backup for Mario Party. I genuinely was like, I think Pickman's a good one. Cross the board. Good take. So it was like, if you took Mario Party, I would have taken Pickman.

All right. Well, I've got Pickman. So what's up for you? Let's see, I've got... Ken. I've got six each so far, I think. So we're more than halfway through. I guess the second half of this will go quicker.

We can do more of a lightning round. But still some enticing talent on the board. Obvious, or should I go like maybe... Maybe... It's still odd. Both of these are very obvious. but I think it's more so like Donkey Kong, I feel like I should

put another me category in here. Yeah. And I'm going to take Kirby. Okay, yeah. I'm going to take Kirby. I have to. Kirby dropped in this draft, yeah. Yeah. That's another one that's not always developed

by Nintendo, but when you think of Nintendo mascots and characters, Kirby among the most iconic and active, you know, there have been good Kirby games lately, right? Yeah, so. Yeah.

The last one I like. Yeah. I like the last one. I was thinking of the old, like the old one. I can't remember which one it was, but I played one ages ago and I was like, I love Kirby. But then I really solidified I love Kirby when it became my main and smash. And I know. I know it's easy.

And if you want me to not be him, then that's fine. I'll choose Sammo. Sammas is my second. Right. Good pick. Okay. I'm going to go with, compared to most of these franchises, one of pretty recent vintage here, I'm going to take Splatoon.

Taking Spiltoon. I was on my list too. Good job. That was a good thing. Yeah. I mean, most of these franchises date back many decades, right? So Spletude is what? Not even quite a decade old at this point.

I mean, that makes it new. That's the new hotness by Nintendo standards. And, you know, we've drafted a lot of different genres here, which is a strength under the Nintendo umbrella. You get all different kinds of gameplay, right? And Spletoon gives you a shooter. Obviously, a Nintendo family-friendly shooter. where you're shooting paint, but still a shooter.

And there's a good competitive mode. You know, you can play online. Like, you don't think of Nintendo as an online forward company, but Splatoon has had a pretty robust online gaming community, right? A competitive scene. So I've enjoyed Splatoon, and it's still just a little, there's a little more novelty to it than there is to some of these games that have been part of our entire lives.

I don't know how many people have played Splatoon, but it's very fun. It is on, on my list. It was on my list back in one that I haven't brought up yet. So that's why I'm waiting. That's why I'm not saying what my other one is. Can I technically take Super Mario RPG?

Yes. So I was debating. I think Paper Mario is a franchise for sure. Mario and Luigi is a franchise for sure. I guess... Because the new ones... That's the only way

I have is that the new ones come me now. Yeah, but why don't we just, what if I, I'll be very generous here. What if I just give you Mario RPGs in general? So you just, you get them all. You get the original Super Mario RPG and it's an all, all inclusive package. You get Paper Mario, you get Mario and Luigi. That's a really strong pick at this stage of the draft.

Gorgeous. I'm so sad we haven't chose any of the Mario sports. We're getting there. Oh, okay, so your turn, your turn. All right. I will go there now. I think. I will take Mario Tennis, which... Oh, interesting.

For me, that's... I think that's the best. I think that's... No! I was like, I mean, hey, look, you can retaliate with your own Mario Sports franchise here. It's Mario Strikers. Really? Mario Strikers is murderous.

But it's also... Oh, I played Mario Tennis. Okay, so I did play Mario Tennis. I love Mario Tennis. But just Mario Strikers globally is so... I guess it's also like a personal preference versus fan preference. Right. Yeah.

So, okay. All right. So is this a two-fer? You're taking strikers? I'll take tennis. No. You're not taking strikers. Yeah.

Okay. I'm not taking strikers. All right. You've telegraphed to that, but maybe. Strikers was my backup for Kirby. Got it. Okay. Yeah, tennis, I feel like, you know, you get your more action gamey tennis games,

and then you get your more RPG-flavored Mario tennis games. And it's just like legitimately good tennis game, but also silly and fun. And you get the Mario characters and you get power-ups. And sometimes, there's more of an RPG element. So I feel like all the Mario sports games are good, right? Like whether it's Mario tennis, Mario Golf, which might be number two for me or strikers. I love Mario Golf.

Mario Golf is really fun and underrated. Super Sluggers. The baseball games, like, it's pretty impressive that Mario just works with everything. That makes him such a great mascot. It's just like, whatever the game is, just put Mario in there. It'll be fine. That's true. Again, it's another opportunity where you're like, hey, we have all these characters and you choose.

You always choose yours. Like, when I'm playing tennis, I always double Yoshi and Burry and Burr. Bertie, or burdo. And then when I'm playing strikers, I'm like, this is Daisy. This is Daisy's opportunity to shine.

How many more spots do we have just one? We have two each, I think. Oh, two each? Oh, I have two each. Why am I acting like, I am like, I can't lose this. This should be at my bottom of the list. And the only reason I want to put this at the bottom

is because I'm like, just a shout out to the OG. I'm taking 1080. I got to take 1080. I got to take 1080. Between 1080 and Wave Race, though, was really hard because I love both of those games so much. Yeah. That's a great pick. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know if people associate that with Nintendo the way they do most of these other franchises. Yeah, they know. I don't think so. It's Nintendo. It counts. I would play that before going to school at like five in the morning. My mom was like, you have to be up by seven.

But at five, I was like, I'm going to play some 1080 real quick. And Wave Race. I would do between the two. Wow. When you set your alarm early to play a game before you actually. have to get up. That's that's an indicator of quality. I have to play. 1080 and Waver race have this really weird grip in my nostalgia brain in life where I'm like, yeah, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I was playing these two games. All right. My

penultimate pick, I'm going to take the Wars slash Advance Wars franchise. So this is one of those that existed in Japan before it first came to North America. And so people know it as Advance Wars, there were earlier editions of the Wars franchise that were Japan only, and I never played them. But just the Advanced Wars series alone, that I think is enough to get this pick for me. Because again, like, I'm kind of an RTS noob. You know, I get scared about full-on RTSs. And so like the RTS where I can just kind of like, all right, this is, this resembles an RTS. You know, it's like Pickman or it's Advance Wars. We got the colorful cartoony characters. even if it's like real weapons and war and armies and stuff, which can be kind of discordant clashing when it comes to advance wars.

It's like they delayed it when Russia invaded Ukraine, which was like understandable, but also like advance wars. But those games, I think, are just a ton of fun. And even for me, who's like not that experienced in that genre, I can pick it up and play those games. And that is why I am also, I am taking, wait, you said. No pick here. I was like, I want to take, oh, baby. I want to take Wii sports. All right.

Yeah. I want to take Wii sports. You can say whatever you want about the Wii and Wii you. But I think there is just like a time, that time we were playing the bowling game, the baseball game. We were addicted to being like, oh, my God, a physical activity game. Like in my house. I think it was like, it just took over, it took over for a minute. And I think it deserves a spot on my 10 list on my drafts.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, I would differentiate we and Wii U. One was very successful. That is true. Not so much. We all had a great time with Wii. I had them both.

So I'm like, wow, you're a diehard if you had a Wii. I still have the Wii U. It's in a bag, a target bag right here in my closet. I have not touched it since. I think that was the one Nintendo console I never owned was the Wii. And subsequently, I've played most of the good Wii games for Switch, which is nice. So I didn't really miss that much. But I think with Wii Sports, you get like the Wii franchise.

So you get Wii Sports. You get like Wii Sports Resort. You get, I think you get like Wii Fit. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I get Wii fit. I get Wii fit that told me I had the body of an 87-year-old man. When I was 16, I was like, oh, perfect.

I love this for me. Oh, man. All right. Well, this is the final pick of the draft. Gosh, still some good games left on the board here. What are you missing? What are you sad that you didn't get to draft? Yeah.

After I make my final pick here, we got to name some like just missed. But I think I will take, oh, I think I'll take Star Fox. Oh, oh, I forgot. Star Fox was, it was a backup. Oh, my God. Yeah, good. Yeah. Great, great.

I'm happy getting it here. It's, again, it's one of these where like, it's, It's been a while since the last great Star Fox game. Like, it's been quite a while since any Star Fox game, let alone a really good one. But original Star Fox, like, that was a pretty foundational game, you know, that was like one of the very first 3D games and on consoles and like maybe the first polygonal Nintendo game. It was kind of mind blowing at the time and Star Fox 64 and Fox himself and all the other characters in Smash, right? So, you know, and you've got some different genres in Star Fox. You get like Star Fox adventures and everything.

But I like flight sims and kind of arcadey flight games in general. So it's high time that we get another good Star Fox game. I think it's time to revisit that franchise maybe. So that was the only reason I considered not drafting it is that it's fallen by the wayside a little bit. But just in terms of fame and past accomplishments. It's still Star Fox. So I think just the name and the face is enough to be like people still like it, even though the games are like, nah. It's like, oh, we still like this character.

Also, hey, honestly, smash a very good character to be good at. I am not, but other people are. Yeah. All right. So we each took 10 here. Maybe we can whip up a social graphic here and see what people think. But I think, look, people are going to be mad at us, some of the snubs here. I'm mad at ourselves because there's some great games that didn't get taken.

honorable mention Nintendo dogs. Honorable mention Nintendo dogs. What else was, what were your backups? What were you considering? What do you feel bad about not taking, if anything? I genuinely feel horrible about Nintendo dogs because though it wasn't like everyone's favorite game, I had an addiction with it. I had like three dogs that I was very. My mom wouldn't let me have dogs.

So like this is the closest I could get. And I think a lot of people also felt the same way. Nintendo dogs are just like a fun game. But it's like if I'm doing a draft, I can't put it all. my top 10, you guys. Yeah. I have to take the other ones. I got to take the other ones.

If it was top 15, it would be on the list. I guarantee it would be on the list. Yeah. I considered F-0, which is another one that's sort of in the Star Fox mold of like maybe the best days are behind it, but the best days were really good. Maybe it's time for new F-Zero. Thought about Mario Golf, which I mentioned, I think probably my second favorite Mario sports franchise. Yoshi games, again, like we could quibble about what qualifies, but. Yoshi's Island and some of the other Yoshi games, you know, there's some classics star in our green dinosaur pal.

Could we have taken, like, Mario Galaxy and Mario Sunshine? No, yeah, I think those are part of what you get with Super Mario Brothers. But, but yeah, there are definitely some spinoffs for Mario that we did not get. I mean, you know, Dr. Mario and the other Mario sports games, or we snubbed Wario, Wario Ware Steve's favorite and Mario Land and all the Wario games. And look, I mean, there's some others. you know, a punchout, I guess, is a Nintendo game. But like Xenoblade Chronicles, you know, a lot of people love Xenoblade Chronicles.

I just, I haven't had a whole lot of first-hand experience, but those are very acclaimed beloved RPGs. And then, you know, probably a couple of that the real Nintendo heads will be upset with us about. We didn't take like Kid Icarus again. It's just like, it's been a while, you know, just like in terms of quantity and quality overall. I don't think it quite stacks up. And then mother slash earthbound, which is, again, it's another one of those, like, if we were

drafting these as people who grew up in Japan playing Nintendo games, maybe we would have taken those higher. But it's, it's like best known to U.S. audiences as either like, oh, Ness and Super Smash brothers or like, oh, the legendary games that they never released in the U.S., right? So there's kind of a cult classic aspect to it, but based on personal experience. I just, I couldn't go there. But thought about those, you know, Golden Sun, RPGs, I like

a lot. Golden Sun was, my roommate was like, you got to put that on there. And I was like, I don't have room. I was like, I ain't got room. Yeah. It's a really crowded field, even though we drafted 10 game teams here. It's a deep field. It's still, and I want to reiterate, it is a draft

pick. And that is why we went with our 10 each. But genuinely, if it was like, we were just talking about our favorite games that meant a lot to us, I probably first say like Nintendo dogs, unfortunately. Yeah, no, that's okay. Yeah, I thought, Excite bike, another good one. Look, I mean, we could go on.

Nintendo has a long and storied history, but let us know what you think, email us, tweeted us, tell us that we drafted well or we chose unwisely, whatever it is. They're going to be like, I wish you guys you'd yell at each other more. Yeah, right. I should have been more upset when you stole Luigi's mention from me. Who would have thought the gamer, the gaming, the gaming, the gaming, the gaming podcast are actually not as competitive as you're doing. I know.

Yeah. It's like we're co-op play here. We get along great. I knew what I was doing. I felt bad and I still feel bad. I will feel bad for the rest of my life about taking Luigi's Mansion. I genuinely will. I will say that right now.

I feel good that you feel bad about it. I do. I feel horrible. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming.

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hey, I want to tell you about a TV adaptation based on a violent PlayStation video game in which a middle-aged man and a younger female character travel across a post-apocalyptic America, fighting off raiders and cannibals in hopes of making a delivery and finding a safe haven. You would say, yeah, Ben, I've seen The Last of Us. We all watch The Last of Us. this is not the last of us. That was great too. But this time, the apocalypse does not come from a fungus, but a computer bug. The younger female character, or one of them at least, is not a teen named Ellie, but a car named Evelyn.

And the game is not the last of us. But twisted metal. Twisted metal just comes out this Thursday. All 10 episodes drop on Peacock all at once. Now, I know I said Peacock, I lost a lot of you right there. But I got to tell you, I don't know if it's worth the subscription on its own. But hey, if you've been thinking, I got to check out Peacock or, hey, I already subscribed to Peacock. I've got good news for you because this series is really good.

And I am as surprised as anyone that I'm saying that. There hasn't even been a twisted metal game since 2012. But this was developed by Ret Rees and Paul Wernick. Those are the guys behind Zombiland and Deadpool. So there's a little bit of pedigree. Pedigree here, right? You know, you see those names and those projects and you think, okay, maybe. It's written by Michael Jonathan Smith, who writes Cobra Kai, right?

A lot of people love COBRA Chi on that. See, I'm slowly, but surely I'm selling you bit by bit here. Right. Starring Anthony Mackie. I've got you right there. You already had me. I mean, you are the number one fan, I feel like, for Mackey. Don't say it.

Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it a record like that, but yes. Stephanie Beatrice, right? Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Also, Samoa Joe slash Will Arnett. So Samoa Joe, the wrestler, plays Sweet Tooth physically, Will Arnett voices Sweet Tooth.

And then Thomas Hayden Church, you might remember as Sandman from the old Spider-Man movies and many other projects, right? That's good cast. It is a good cast. Like The Last of Us, it is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and PlayStation Productions. And also, like The Last of Us, it got to. stuck in development hell for a while as a movie, and then it had this breakthrough as a TV show, which has happened to a lot of video game adaptations these days, right? Originally, it was like, let's make it a movie, and then everyone realized, actually, maybe video games are better suited

to TV on the whole, because we don't have to try to cram everything into two hours here. Games are long, they're sort of episodic, they're broken into stages and sections. Maybe TV is a more natural fit for this. And I feel like Twist and Metal is a real test of the video game adaptation breakthrough, right? Like, are we in the golden age for video game adaptations? Can you make a good and popular live action video game adaptation based on less prestigious or popular IP, right? Like, The Last of Us, that was pre-packaged. Like, I don't want to diminish the accomplishment of The Last of Us. It's a great show, but it totally lent itself to being a great show, right? Because it was modeled on sort of movies slash prestige TV. And so you could just kind of

poured it right over into a TV show, and it worked with the tone of HBO and the structure of the game and the story. They made changes. They made tweaks. Some of them I liked a lot. But you could watch a movie of The Last of Us cutscenes and think, oh, yeah, this is already a good HBO show, right? Whereas twisted metal, when you hear twisted metal adaptation, are you in based on that? Are you like, sign me up for Peacock, please? I wasn't. But Having watched it, I got to highly recommend it. Like, The Last of Us was my number one pick in the house of our Hypedraft episode earlier this year. It had all the ingredients.

This one wasn't really on my radar. And then when the first teaser came out, like everyone else, I think I was like, what am I watching here? Like, it was, you know, Anthony Mackey getting beat up by a clown in a casino. And it was like, this looks ridiculous and not in a great way. And now I've seen the whole season. And it is ridiculous. But I've got to say, in a very good way. That's so interesting.

I'm so excited. And also it's like, that's good to hear for my roommate loves Twisted Metal and was like, he was like, I wasn't going to watch the series though. And I was like, well, Ben says it's a good show. So maybe you will actually enjoy it. We don't have Peacock, though. But you got screeners. So you're okay.

Your roommate can watch over your shoulder maybe. But everyone else, you might actually have to subscribe. But I'm telling you, it might be worth that. For a trial, it all drops in one day so you can just do it over the weekend. Yeah, just binge it. I binged it. And I can't get into a full in-depth review because the review embargoes not out yet, which is why we're sort of giving you a closing taste here, just giving you my big picture take.

But I had very little attachment to the twisted metal franchise. And to the extent that I played it, I remembered, you know, I get to crash cars into each other and explode cars, right? Like, it's a vehicular combat game. This is not necessarily something I want to see expanded into a series. I know some of the Twisted Metal games have a story and they have characters and there's more of a narrative. But I wouldn't have thought like, oh, yeah, natural choice for the next TV adaptation. And yet it works incredibly well. I'm so excited.

That dependent on the games, like the names, some of the characters are the same. But the basic premise of it, which is Anthony Mackey plays a milkman. He's driving across the country. He's making deliveries, right? it's not really that dependent on the game to the point where, you know, it has this like a reverent Deadpool kind of Mad Max weird action comedy vibe and like some 90s nostalgia because the apocalypse came like in the 90s or at the end of the 90s right after the 90s. So lots of 90s needle drops and cultural references. And also Mackey gets a chance to show off his comedy chops here in a way that he doesn't typically like he's been funny in things before. but he's not usually in a comedy.

No. And this is largely a comedy. And he is great. Like I'm getting like, I know he's a lot older than this, but like young Will Smith vibes from Mackey here. Like he is that entertaining. He's kind of, you know, showcasing some sides of his personality here. We haven't gotten to see at this length. So he's got some skills, some tools in the toolbox that we've only seen here and there.

But, you know, you're not necessarily seeing that side of him and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Right. So here you get to see it over 10 episodes. So I think it's partly that I had no expectations whatever for this, whatsoever for this series. And so relative to like, am I even going to watch this? Is this going to be any good? My mind was blown by the fact that it actually was quite good and I wanted to keep watching. So that's definitely part of it.

But I think, again, it goes along with the trend of like video game adaptations are not radioactive anymore. You know, like stars want to be in them good, creatives. creatives, good writers and producers and directors want to be involved with these things now. And the companies that made the game often are in many cases involved with the adaptation. And so you start to add it up and you look at The Last of Us and you look at some of the commercial successes like the Mario Brothers movie, like Sonic, like Detective Pikachu. And then, you know, you look at some of the animated stuff. You look at arcane and cyberpunk edge runners. And now you add twisted metal to the list.

It's like the video game Gold Rush is here. You know, we've shed the label. Like, if twisted metal is good, then it is time to put the outmoded video game adaptations in the video game curse. Like, we can retire that at this point, I think, just about. Oh, my God, I can't wait. Now everything's going to be made into a movie. Yeah, or a TV show.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, I gave you the hard sell on that and hopefully persuaded you in some of our audience. Maybe we'll return to it next time. But again, comes out this Thursday. And again, you can even. email us. Give us your thoughts on that and everything else at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. Remember, we're button mash. You can check out our name and our logo. We will be back under that

name and the logo next month. In the meantime, check out all of our wall-to-wall secret invasion coverage. Hopefully the series finishes strong. And we will have the Midnight Boys and Hasbar and Jess all over it in the coming days. Thanks, as always, to Steve Alman, for producing. and to our Juno Ramcapal for green lighting, buttonmash, giving us a name and a logo and everything else. Jess, always a pleasure. Glad that we are podcast partners and that we have an official podcast title. Yeah, absolutely.

Sorry for taking Luigi's Mansion. You should be.