The Ringer-Verse - Ringer-Verse Recommends: March 2025

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Forward March! Join your favorite Ringer-Verse and House of R hosts and friends as they gush about geek content in the latest installment of their monthly mini-pod about fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were (mostly) released recently but not yet covered in-depth on a full-length episode. This time featuring amateurish trailers! Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Steve Ahlman, Jomi Adeniran, Matt James, Daniel Chin, Arjuna Ramgopal, Charles Holmes, Joanna Robinson, Van Lathan, and Jonathan Kermah Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at the Ringer, buttonmash host, and Master of Recommendations here at Ringerverse Recommends. We have yet another entry for you today, the addition for March 2025. Your spidey sense starts tingling at the end of a month, the beginning of the next month. You can set your clock by it, you can set your calendar by it. there's always going to be a new edition of Ring Averse Recommends. And I'm always going to be here with my best friend and my Ringervis recommends co-host, Grumkin the Doxand, who joins me as extra incentive for you to watch as well as listen.

Just a little eye candy, a little fursed trap, if you will. If you won't, I apologize. You know the drill, what we do here every month at Ringiverse recommends. I and the other Ringiverse and House of Our hosts get together to tell you about some things that we have liked in the last month or so. In some cases, those things came out a little earlier than the last month, van. We love you anyway. But usually there's something fairly new and something that we haven't really had a chance to talk about at length on the main feed, and we don't want you to miss it. So we do our little clips. We tell you why we like the thing. We tell you why we

think you will like it. And we get out of here. We don't take up too much of your time. So the whole crew is here today with some friends, except for Mal. We are missing Mallory Rubin, sadly. She is still under the weather, but on the mend. Wish her well. We hope she'll be back for next month's edition, which will be the one-year anniversary of Ringervor's Recommends. Yes, it has been that long. Now, you can send your recommendations and nominations each month to ringerverse recommends at gmail.com. And I'll be back at the end of the episode to recap all the and share this month's listener nominations. For now, we will get right to it, though, there is one change this month.

Now, you may have noticed lately that we haven't been playing clips from the things that we're talking about on Ringverse and House of Art Pods lately. It's a company policy, hopefully a temporary one. We're working on it. The clips will be back. But for now, they're not. And rather just give you the unadorned recommendations, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to act out the teasers and trailers that we would have.

otherwise played. Now, I am not an actor. I am also sort of sick, but hey, if Galgadot can do it, then why not me, right? So we'll take the DIY approach to the trailers this month, we'll see how it goes, and we will lead off with my friend and yours, Daniel Chin. We're in space, it's the future, but not the distant future. Dean Martin's playing, how lucky can one guy be? Robert Pattinson. Now, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be. if you were thinking at this point, what have I done? Nothing was working out, and I wanted to get off Earth.

You're applying to be an expendable? Yeah. You read through the whole application? Yeah, I should have read through it. Once you die, we'll print a new version of your body. They made me work my ass off on one mission after another. Every time you die, we'll learn something new, and humanity moves forward.

Oh, wait, he's alive. It's fine. Back to Dino, Big Finish. Ain't that a kick in the head and seen? Hello, Ring Reverse listeners and watchers. I'm Daniel Chin. By now, you might have already heard about Mickey 17, how it's struggled at the box office,

how it's losing money for Warner Brothers, but I'm here to say this movie is still very much worth your time. Mickey 17 is directed by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, and it's his first movie since Parasites swept the Academy Awards in 2020. It's definitely not on the same level as that Best Picture winner, or even some of the other great films he's made, like memories of murder or the host. But it's still very much unpart of,

with, if not better than other movies he's made like this that are Hollywood co-productions like Snowpiercer and Oksham. And more than that, it's just a fun sci-fi adventure with some very entertaining performances in it. Mickey 17 is based on the book Mickey 7, written by Edward Ashton. It follows the life, or many lives, of a man named Mickey who's signed up to be an expendable for a space colony. Played by Robert Pattinson, Mickey dies as part of his job, and he dies a lot. This technology has been created in the future that allows you to essentially make clones of yourself. And so the government uses Mickey to perform experiments and dangerous research tasks as they try to expand human civilization to a new world. The movie certainly has its flaws,

but it's a fun spin on the concept of cloning that Patton makes fantastic use of, and his performance is worth the price of a mission alone. Panson is just incredibly weird in this movie, playing in multiple roles, and he's really just established himself by now for being a true movie star with tremendous range, from Good Time to the Batman to his voice work in the English dub of the boy in the heron. This guy continues to amaze, and it's getting harder and hard to believe that this is the same actor that played Cedric Diggery and Edward Cullen back in the day. Plus, Stephen Young is in this movie and he's great in everything. I don't know how much longer Mickey 17 he's going to be around in theaters for, so give it a chance while it is. And if not,

honestly, it'll still be a great movie to stream at home on a weekend soon enough. Close up on my eye. We're in space again. It's all your fault. Moody atmospheric music. I'm Isaac Gonzalez. I look just like her. What second of Aaron Paul? Abnormal activity detected. Bloods bat around the walls. Pool of blood on the floor. Steam obscuring my face.

Oh shit, something just slittered across a corpse. Where am I? Who am I? I don't know what happened here. But when I woke up, there was no one left. Hey, what's up? This is Arjuna.

Here with my March Ringiverse recommends. This month, I'm going to recommend. the movie Ash. It is a small sci-fi horror movie that is in theater. It's limited theaters right now, but I definitely recommend it. It's a little piece of original IP. Small, you know, intimate kind of sci-fi movie, 95 minutes, a quick watch. Definitely not for the faint of heart if you're a little squeamish or you're not a fan of horror. Maybe this isn't the one for you, but I still, you know, I'm not a huge horror person myself, but I love sci-fi. And I think this one is definitely worth a watch. You know, it is something that is kind of a throwback to some

classic, to some classic sci-fi movies that are out there. And it's just a little bit refreshing, you know, like you want to support smaller movies, original movies, and this is definitely one that's worthwhile. It's a movie that kind of makes you think. It is, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say it's the greatest movie of all time, but I definitely think it's worth a 95-minute watch. It's worth seeing in theaters, seeing with a few friends, talking about it, and just seeing the respect for the craft.

You know, if you're a movie fan and you like movies, this is one that was, you know, an interesting one that they made, one that they kind of made on a small budget in a really kind of small way. But I think it definitely lands and impacts and it's something that's definitely worth to watch. So go check out, Ash. There's a new darkness overtaking Gotham, driving the city mad.

The only light left is from the fire in the streets, casting shadows of rats on everything that was once good. Fear is their weapon, but they're not the only ones who can use it. The rat king will stop at nothing to destroy my city. How far will be? I go to destroy him. When the bat falls, the rats rise. Hi, it's Van Lathen.

This is my Ringerverse recommends for the month of March. I got a new Oculus, okay? And this Oculus came with Batman, new Arkham game. So I have to tell you guys something right now. I think it's called Arkham Stories. I'm not sure. Not sure what it is, but it comes with the Oculus, okay? Steve was giving me a lot of shit about the fact that the Oculus is 500 bucks.

All of you guys have played these PS5, 7, 6, that shit is expensive too. If you, I'm recommending something to you right now, it's Batman Arkham Stories. I think of it. Batman, it's Batman Arkham Shadow that Argentina just told me, I am Batman. That's it. I'm Batman when I play the game. Okay, now I'll tell you guys, if you're a little dizzy, sometimes you take a little time off of the game and you do all of that stuff,

the game is fantastic, though. The new Oculus Quest, if you can buy it, it's the Quest 3, all right, is this very good, it's a good system. I'm going to say something that is controversial. I bought a very expensive VR system, and it was from Apple, and Zuckerberg, who I despise, said that his VR system was superior to the Apple VR system in every way

and Zucks was right. I just started using it. And one of the reasons why is there's nothing as cool as Arkham Shadow on the Apple Vision Pro. You're throwing people around as the bat. You're doing stuff. You're solving crimes. You're fighting as the bat.

Bat, bat, bat. All of this stuff. There's another game called Win Baseball that I can actually get in the baseball cage. I can get in the batter's cage and hit 90 mile an hour fast balls right in my living room. Look, I'm never leaving home again. And it's because of the Quest 3, but it's specifically because when night falls, I am Batman. And if you get the chance, you should be too. That's my ring of reverse recommends for the bunch of wonderful harsh.

Soothing pastel colors Peaceful piano music Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-ha da-ha in the heart of Tokyo. Discover how a house. He spotted a nice little house, so he decided to take a picture with his phone. What are you taking a picture of? Oh, sorry, I just thought you had a nice house. Hmmph.

Well, I'll be going then. Have you had dinner? Becomes a home. All right, for my Ringerverse recommends this month. I'm going to pick one of my favorite manga, available probably at your local library, if you want to support them, support your local library. It's called Harry Asume.

He's not damn weed. Nigga, would you, like, let me, I'll let you do. You are, hey, get out of my brain. Go, go. Talk of the fucking weed. He doesn't say. Get on. Finish my shit.

Anyway, my weebass is recommending Harry Asume. It is written and illustrated by Kygo Shenzhou. And the reason I'm recommending this is because it's one of, honestly, just a perfect slice of life genre where basically a niece, who is studying at art school, goes to move in with her cousin, who is given a house by one of his old women friends who dies. And it's just a very heartwarming story of these cousins coming together. There is honestly just story beats about everything,

about what does it mean to have a passion? What does it mean to quit your passion? What does it mean to find out who you are sexually and within the world? And it's one of these stories after four of us. volumes that I read that every single time, I'm just my heart is warmed. I learned something about the world and it's just a very, very sweet series. So I think if you have teenagers, honestly, if you're someone who has ever been an artist or who's ever been searching or questing, I think it's just a phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal award-winning series that I think everyone will

enjoy. So Heria Sume is my recommend's this month. Everless runs north to south, and its waters brim with grammar. Children muttering over their schoolbooks today think little of grammar. Grammar is tedious, difficult, slow. Grammar is a shackle placed on language, correcting who into whom, can I into may I? Grammar and grammarians are constables, sternly watching while you split infinitives, narrowing their eyes at spliced commas, while smacking semicoloned truncheons against their palms. But that is not the truth of grammar. There was a time when grammar was wild, when it shifted shapes and unleashed new forms out of old. Grammar, like grammery, like grimroar. What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation, but a transformation,

one thing into another? She runs, she ran, she will run again. She will run again. Now where were we? Ah, yes. Oh, hello, it's me, Joanna Robinson here at the end of March. Happy March. I am here with a book recommendation. The River Has Roots by Amal El Motar. Amal wrote, This is How You L. Time War, a book that Mallory and I were absolutely obsessed with. And this is another sort of shorty book from her with beautiful language. This book is set in partially in the land of fairy. So if you love a Susanna Clark book, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell or Pyreneesie, a Susanna Clark book, if you love a Neil Gaiman book, man, if you love the wordplay and riddles of a Terry Pratchett book, this is something that you might enjoy. It's very much like a fairy tale with a capital F fairy. And it's really, really beautifully written about two sisters. It's also based loosely on. I want to say my favorite murder ballad, but I think it's the only murder ballad I know, which goes by a bunch of different names, cruel sisters, the two sisters, the wind and the rain. It has a million different permutations, but if you know that ballad, that's sort of a loose framework for what the story is. And yeah, there's riddles. Inside of this beautiful book, there's like, you know, this beautiful little book, it's a quick read,

it's a quick audiobook listen. It's like three and a half hours on audiobook. There's all these beautiful illustrations, which make more sense as you're reading the book. And then the audiobook, if you decided to go that route, I did both. I sort of went through twice. The audiobook is narrated by the actress Gemma Arderton, who you might know from Prasya or Tessa the Derbervilles or a million other things that she's been in. with this, like, she's doing this, like, beautiful Midlands accent, and there's a bunch of music plays a key role in this story. And so, if you want to have this book partially sung to you, that is something you could experience with the audiobook. But in either case, they've really

gone to a lot of trouble to embellish Amal's beautiful words. I will say the audiobook has, like, a little bit of extra sound designed at the beginning that made it a little hard for me to into. There's like a lot of babbling. This takes place around a river. It's a lot of babbling brook sounds. Hetermus. But the singing is beautiful. And the book is beautiful. And I really recommend it. The river has roots. Amal El Motar. I hope you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy that, I hope you enjoy whatever it is you decide to read or listen or watch because of Riggerversa recommends. And we'll see you next month. Bye. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it

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Yeah, yeah, for sure. One story. Everyone is chasing the feeling of a win. Everyone makes it look so easy, told from eight sides. I feel like I'm barely hanging on. We'll make it work. We always do. We always do. Somebody has to lose. This is the big one in the game of life. No matter what happens, you are all winners. It's about how you look at it. Happening? Tonight is our moment for redemption. Are you not entertained? Better not blow it. Wow, what an intro. Great job, whoever brought that trailer to life. It's your friend Ben, back again with my recommendation.

As the Ring of Versus resident parent, I have a recommendation that might appeal to the parents out there, and their kids, and also kids at heart. You don't have to have kids or be one to like this. It's called Win or Lose, and it's a streaming series on Disney Plus made by Pixar. Yeah, that's right. Pixar made a TV show. Pixar's first ever original series.

Were you aware of this? I feel like it's been kind of under the radar. But Pixar, company that gets ample coverage here at the Ring of Erson House of R, you may be familiar with Inside Out 2, the top grossing movie of 2024, or Elemental, the most watched movie of 2023 in my household. thanks to my daughter. So if you're looking forward to LEO, which comes out in June, you don't have to wait until then for a Pixar release. This is a show that comes from Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates, who've worked on a few previous Pixar projects. They conceive this while they were working on Toy Story 4, so that's the pedigree here.

This is a story about a softball team. So if you want something that's timed for spring and MLB opening day and the beginning of baseball and softball season, season. This should be right up your alley. Eight episodes, each one follows a different member of the team or someone connected to that team. Maybe it's the umpire. Maybe it's a parent of a kid on the team. And each time you sort of run through these events, you get to know them better and you get to know the team better. So there's a little bit of a Rashaman going on here. It's not conflicting events. You might think it would be kind of repetitive, but it's not. It's additive. We see things from someone's perspective, and then you get a glimpse of something,

and then you learn much more about that character and that team and that championship game that it's all building up to. It's Pixar, so obviously it's going to be touching, and it's going to be funny, and it's going to be heart-rending at times. And here's the best endorsement I can give it. Really, it's not just recommended by me. It's recommended by my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Sloan, who this weekend was saying,

can we watch Bluey? which is what Sloan says every day and every weekend, and usually we say yes. But this time I said, hey, could we watch Win or Lose this series that I've been meaning to check out? And she said, okay. And I thought we'd get about five minutes in before she started asking for Bluey or Doc McStuffins or Frog and Toad. We got five episodes in. And in fact, here's a photo. If you're watching this, you're about to see a photo of me and Sloan, Sloan sitting on my lap,

looking super excited middle of episode five. There she is. If you're not watching, she is sound asleep. But she didn't have a nap that day, so it's understandable. And again, we made it five episodes in before she conked out. So that's pretty good as these things go. The only bummer about Win or Luz is that there is one character, one storyline, that was re-edited after the presidential election, which I'm sure is just a complete coincidence.

to remove any references to this character being trans. She's played by a trans actress. She was explicitly trans originally. Is not now. They just excised that whole aspect of the character. And that's a bummer from a representation standpoint, obviously. And it's also a bummer in that you can kind of tell that something was changed here, that there's something about this character's arc that just doesn't quite fit right.

You don't know exactly what this character is going through to prompt these reactions, and it's because something is missing. Now, I knew that that thing was missing before I watched. Maybe if you didn't know when you watched, you wouldn't notice, but to me, it's fairly apparent. However, there are a lot of nice life lessons. It's well written. It's well-acted. No big baseball-slash-softball flubs. It's not really a famous cast.

You won't recognize that many names or voices other than Will Forte, who plays. as the coach and maybe a few others, but I would really recommend it. It's short, short enough for the attention span of a three and a half year old, and also for however old you are, because I don't want to presume how old or how long your attention span or my attention span is, and I won't test it any further by extending this recommendation. I will just remind you one more time to check out win or lose the new Pixar animated streaming series on Disney Plus.

Forget all the Captain America movies. you may have seen this year. No, seriously, forget them, please. Pretend they never happened. Especially that one that came out last month, which was sometimes kind of compared to the Winter Soldier, but wasn't really like it at all. Why not remember the original Winter Soldier instead? The comics, I mean, from like 20 years ago, the ones that that that good Captain America movie from like 10 years ago was based on. Yeah, that's the stuff. Those are some good Captain America memories.

What's up, everybody? Steve Allman here for the month of March with your Ring of Verse recommends. It's going to be an oldie but a goodie and a newie. The Marvel Premiere Collection came out with their reissue of Captain America, the Winter Soldier. What makes it different this time is that it's like this like cool trade paperback

that's like very like compact and like you read it at a cafe. you can take it a lot. It's a lot more easier to carry. This has got a new forward from Sebastian Stan and an intro by Ed Brubaker, seminal work from him and Stephen Epting. What makes a Winter Soldier so great is pretty much it's like one of the most seminal Captain America reads that you can ever experience. Bucky making a turn for the Russians and implying them as a rogue agent. Everything that basically inspired the hit and one of the greatest MCU movies that we ever have is right here in this book. I can't possibly recommend it more. But also check out the rest of the Marvel

Premiere Collection. They have Tonehisi Coates' Black Panther run. They have Daredevil Born Again, if you're just now getting into the show, and you want to read that comic as well. A bunch of great classics are out there. Check it out. The Marvel Premiere Collection is my recommendation. Pda, but da, but da, ba-da-da-da-ba-dipa-bom. When you're set up to lose everything you love, Bata-p-de-p-d-p-d-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-h. Hey, Mitch, Atmarnathy is about to find out. And the whole world is watching. B-de-pb-d-p-d-p-d-p. Let the 50th Hunger Games begin. What's up, guys? Joe Me here, and I'm not Joe, but the Jane-J connection can also recommend a book.

I am recommending Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. That's right. We're back at Pan Am, this time talking about Hey Mitch Abernathy and his story. And now he became the drunk, sad person that we saw. We met all those years ago in the original Hunger Games book. I thought I was done with the series. I was like, I'm not even reading the Snowbook. I can't do it.

But the homie Erica, she let me know that this was the heat. So I checked it out and when I tell you, you're not ready for what happens in this book, it is painful, it is emotional. Real, honestly, you should have seen the tears I was crying. Real guttural stuff. His girlfriend, his family, like just everything surrounding his life is pain. And you learn what makes Hamich who he is. I cannot recommend it enough.

I think I'm all the way back in on Pan Am now. I got to go order the snowbook. I got to lock back in because this was that gas. As much as it hurt me in the chest, much as I lost tears to this book, this is unfortunately that heat. Check it out, wherever we get your books. Try to buy independent if you can, but, you know,

and I'm not going to judge you. Sunrise on the reaping. Check it out. Comic pages flipping. Marvel logo, Marvel logo, the most dangerous mutant in the world. Da-na-da-da-da-na is Charles Xavier. Ten-na-da-da-da. How will his escape from prison?

Divide the children of the atom. Charles Xavier, Charles Xavier. Cyclops beam, Cyclops beam. And what is his mission? What's up, Ringaverse? it's Kerm here, so you already know what that means. It means I somehow convinced Ben to let me talk about X-Men comics this month.

And what I've been reading is the latest X-Men crossover event in the comics, which is X-Manhunt. It's really all the big titles are looped in here. So we got Uncanny X-Men, Issue number 11, NYX issue number nine, Storm issue number six, X-Men number 13, X-Factor number eight, X-Force number nine, and then we have the one-off closer X-Man Hunt Omega, which is written by Morewa Iodell and Gail Simone, both currently writing on the main titles of Storm and

Uncanny X-Men. And so this crossover event, I'm not going to hold you. Is it fantastic? Is it amazing? Is it the greatest I've ever read? No. I think it's a couple knots above mid, though. I think it is overall pretty enjoyable and I think pretty important for where we are currently with the post-Crola run of X-Men this

seven-issue series kind of focuses on kind of a send-all for Charles Xavier it's essentially like a almost like a farewell tour for him who if you did not read the fall of Cicola

he went full-blown villain in that shit like he grew an evil beard he was using telepathy to hit on the nuclear codes he was doing all that evil shit so as me and my homies say fuck charles Xavier all my homies hate Charles Xavier

they were you force uses cross over event as a bit of like a slight redemption arc using you know recons and whatnot to explain why Charles was evil and all that to kind of preserve the character for future use while also again sending them off for a farewell

And do I think they do that perfectly? No, I don't think it's perfectly done, but there's so many other things within this crossover event that are enjoyable, that it's easy to overlook the blemishes. One, I love how it's continuing this through line that is currently taking place in the Storm solo series of, you know, Storm is beyond Omega-level mutant at this point. She's currently, like, soldier for the entity that is,

eternity. And at one issue, I think, I believe it's in the storm issue, she takes on the entire X-Men team by herself, facing off with, you know, Scott Summers' is, you know, hyper-militarized X-Men team and takes them on one-on-one, or like really like 5V-1, and kind of owns them. And that's a great moment within this series. You get an ultimate telepathal, Omega-level mutant showdown between Kid Omega Quentin Choir and Charles Xavier, that's also fantastic. And I think one of my favorite moments that we get here is continuing the overall storyline of Scott as, again, this commander and mutant chief, you know, dealing with this, you know, heightened anxiety and these panic attacks that come from someone that really in the Kukoa era just survived being a war criminal, being treated as like, not even a war. criminal or prisoner. And now having to be like the leader of, of mutant kind, essentially, you can see the weight

on your shoulders that comes to fruition in the form of like a huge, massive panic attack with optic blasts everywhere to match the lack of control that Scott feels within this series. And I love how it calls back to his battle with Wolverine and Schism without spoiling too much. I won't go further into it. But there's all these great moments within this seven-ish comic saga. They make it worth it. And I love how it's really kind of put in like a flag on this is what we're committed to with X-Men from here on out. Charles Xavier, he's, again, he's retired, he's out the way.

Krakawa, it's over with let it go. Now all these different units of X-Men have to. you know, pick things back up and create their own different segments of mutant sovereignty and protection. But overall, I think it was, you know, a really enjoyable crossover event and has me really excited for the future crossover events with X-Men. And again, last thing I'll say before I get out of here is fuck Charles Xavier. All my homies hate Charles Xavier. I'm so happy he's going to be gone for a little bit. Y'all under there. I feel good about that.

Peace. Ahem. This is the museum audio guide. Take one. 100.3. Cue the strings. The world is full of wonder, mystery, and culture. But it's also big.

And who has the time, eh? So here in our museum, we grab that culture by the foot and bring it right to you. Hey, Ringiverse. It's Matt James again from the Buttonmash podcast. I'm back with another video game recommendation this month. So a few weeks back, Sid Meier Civilization 7 came out. The seventh entry in this long-running civilization series that goes like all the way back to 1991. It's one of those overhead strategy games. Now, I hadn't played one of these

since games came on these weird circles called CD-ROMs. So it had been a while, and I didn't love Civilization 7, but it did make me remember a series that I did use to love that was kind of similar. All those old roller coaster tycoon games and like theme park for Windows, where you kind of manage a theme park, you set concession prices and build rides and stuff. And I thought, man, I actually remember loving that kind of series, and lo and behold, a few weeks ago, a new game came out called Two Point Museum. That is very similar to that and totally scratched that itch for me.

And while it's not theme parks, you're building museums in it. And it's an easy recommendation to anyone who used to like those theme park games. And in fact, it's so good that I think it's an easy recommendation for people who don't even usually play that genre of game. And the biggest hurdle I usually have with games like this is like it's kind of hard to feel. figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. The interface is weird. I don't know how all the systems really work. But Two Point Museum is so good at teaching, like, effortlessly and at a really comfortable pace.

And the menus and the interface are all super intuitive. You can just figure things out. And the craziest thing is that I'm playing it on PS5 with a controller. And I don't miss a mouse and keyboard at all. They made it work so well on a controller. It's very strange experience. But in Two Point Museum, there's a campaign mode that lets you build a bunch of differently themed museums, each with its own specific gameplay twist.

So there's a supernatural museum where you have ghosts in a containment unit. There's like an alien museum where all the little pieces of alien technology interact in weird different ways. It's a botany museum where the plants need different temperature zones to thrive. But the basic mechanics of the game are consistent across all the museums. It's really fun. You hire experts for each of your museums, and you send them out into the field to hopefully discover and bring back new exhibits that will generate buzz for your museum and bring in more guests and raise profits. And it's just a really satisfying gameplay loop. It's a really well-designed game.

You played at your own pace. It's got really cozy vibes to it. I just can't recommend it enough. It's two-point museum. It's out on pretty much everything with Switch. Go ahead and build however remaining bathrooms you want and delete them and see what people do. It's a really fun game. Just try it.

Got any decent crap games in? Why not try something besides a crap game for once? It's a VR game with over 30 million registered users. Shangri-La Frontier? A man who loves and is loved by crap games tries out a god game. Show me the power of the God game! Welcome to Shangri-La Frontier! All right, it's Ben back again with Grum Ken to take you the rest of the way.

Grum's getting a little sleepy, so I got to wrap this up. I hope I won't regret the dubious decision to act out all those trailers. Hope I helped get you hyped. Hope I can get you hyped for this final recommendation, which comes to us from a listener and was sent via email to Ringaverse Recommend, at gmail.com, where you are welcome and encouraged to send your own nominations for next month and every month thereafter. This one comes from Elaine Viseda, who writes, this is specifically for Ben and the other button mashers out there. Well, it doesn't hurt to pander to the person

picking these things, inspired by the solo leveling recommendation from the February episode, as someone who consumes a wide variety of content spanning all genres, same. In my humble opinion, there's nothing that pays more homage to gamers right now than the anime series that is currently running its second season on Crunchy Roll called Shangri-La Frontier. For a second there, I thought we were going to get through a whole ring of verse recommends without an anime recommendation. Then Elaine comes in with the clutch, buzzer-beating anime recommendation. Usually you can count on Charles.

Sometimes he'll do an anime, sometimes he'll do a manga, sometimes, nah, those are the only two options. But he went with manga this month. So, Elaine, coming up Clutch, I'm sure when you... Google it, you may have the familiar thought of, what weird anime am I getting this time? But fear not. If you could get past the normal visual baits of teenage MC in a kooky get-up, in this case a giant bird mask,

and the slew of standard fantasy characters around him, what you'd find is a gem of a show that is definitely worth checking out. As this very app description puts it, quote, Shangri-La Frontier is a popular Isakai anime series about skilled gamer son Raku, who tackles the latest immersive VR game. The series is known for its realistic portrayal of gaming culture and emphasis on player skill over brute force. The story follows Sun Raku as he navigates the game, just like Van playing Batman, meets interesting characters and hones his abilities. He encounters other games throughout the series, each contributing to his skills and providing new perspectives.

Yes, it's another gaming Isakai anime about a fictional near future, where kids are playing immersive VR games that are unfathomable to us at present. but it at least tackles what it's like to have this technology evolve in a realistic world. Unlike its predecessors, like Sword Art Online, nothing dramatic happens, like Sun Raku learning that he's stuck in that gaming world and has to deal with permadeath. While it mostly takes place inside the games themselves, they actually show him taking necessary breaks and navigating real life as a normal teenager in Japan. Just as I take necessary breaks and leave my apartment when I'm playing video games totally happens.

And most importantly, instead of being centered around a tired mystery, the show instead focuses on Sunraku's growth and enjoyment as an unconventional Sunracan's characterization is multidimensional and just a delight to watch. Clever, industrious, and resourceful to a point, sometimes he's brash and impulsive, but never crosses the too annoying or self-centered Shonen main character line. He has deep love and respect for video games, and the show clearly likes showing that. The time he spends researching, observing game designs, and working on strategies to tell him. tackle the next big challenge are just as important as watching him play. When he and his friends, also very lovable characters, defeat a boss,

it's due to their combined abilities and hard work. That alone makes each win so enjoyable. I won't say anything more, but I implore all gamers to venture onto Crunchyroll and give this a shot. As do I thank you to Elaine. Please send your nominations to Ringervverse Recommends at gmail.com. All right, it is time for the traditional recapping of picks, where I remind you of what you heard mere moments ago. But for all I know, you listen to this in installments.

Maybe you're commuting. Maybe you're just driving in. You didn't have time to write something down. Maybe you're revisiting this episode months or years down the road, trying to refresh your memory about that one thing. We recommended that one time. If so, you've come to the right place because that's what this section of the podcast is for.

So I will now recount every recommendation made this month, beginning with our lead-off recommender, Daniel Chin, who recommended the movie Mickey 17, directed by Bong Joon Ho, and already available via video on demand. Arjuna Ramgapal recommended the movie Ash, directed by Flying Lotus in theaters now. Maybe, if you hurry. Batvan Lathen, with an assist from Marjuna on the title, recommended Batman Arkham Shadow for the Oculus MetaQuest 3 and 3S. Charles Holmes recommended Hiro Yasumi by Kago Shinzo, the manga of the month. Joanna Robinson, back on the fantasy book corner,

recommended the fantasy novel The River Has Roots, a book by Amal El Motar. I recommended the Pixar animated series Win or Luz on Disney Plus. Steve Rogers, excuse me, Steve Alman, recommended Marvel Premier Collection

Winter Soldier. And fellow junior mint, Jo Mia Denneron, recommended Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. Jonathan Kerma, a.k.a. Kerm, recommended the new Marvel comic X-Manhunt. Matt James recommended the new video game for PlayStation Xbox and Windows

Two Point Museum. Listener Elaine Visada recommended anime Shangri-La Frontier on Crunchyroll, and before she had to bow out, Mao was planning to read and recommend The Knight and the Butcher Bird, a short story by Alex E. Harrow. That's all we've got for this month, but I can recommend much more content coming next month at the Ring of Verse and House of R. Keep tuning in to our Daredevil, instant reactions and deep dives at the Ring of Earth and House of R respectively. Mal and Joe will be winding down Yellow Jackets, Season 3 at House of R. And I've got good news for you. When one podcast door closes, another opens, or maybe two more open, because we have two

exciting shows premiering in April, which we will be covering on multiple shows on multiple feeds, The Last of Us Season 2, and Endor Season 2. These are the main events, people. I can recommend these without qualification already. Unseen. Relatedly, I can recommend upcoming episodes of Buttonmash. We will have 10 consecutive weeks of Buttonmash, people. No breaks for Buttonmash. This week, I will be talking about the Nintendo Direct on the Switch 2, giving you some insight into Nintendo's new system. Next week, I will be talking about South of Midnight and a Minecraft movie, and after that,

we'll be covering The Last of Us weekly on Buttonmash as well as other shows, so I'll be there. I hope you'll be there too. Thank you to Grumkin for co-hosting this episode. Thanks to Carlos Chiraboga for producing it. Thanks to our Drew Narangipal for saying, sure, why don't you do the trailers yourself? What could go wrong? And lastly, but not least, thanks to you for listening and for putting up with my cold. We'll be back to talk to you in April. Until then, we hope you'll recommend the ringerverse.