The Ringer-Verse - ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Review | Button Mash

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Down the pipe and into the Flower Kingdom, Ben and Jess are talking all things Mario today with the release of ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder.’ They begin by discussing their histories with the ‘Super Mario Bros.’ franchise (0:00) and its evolution in 2D/3D gameplay (12:00). Later on, they chat about their likes and dislikes of the game (30:00) before producer Devon Renaldo joins to deliver a hot take on Nintendo’s direction, the company’s upcoming releases, and the successor to the Switch (1:09:00). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone. I'm Mallory Rubin and I am thrilled to tell you that House of VAR has a new podcast feed. Joanna Robinson and I will now be with you twice a week with more of the deep dives you've come to know and love on the ring of universe. In addition to exploring all of your favorite nerd culture new releases, we'll have nostalgic revisitations, hype meters, hall of fame inductions, tropes courses, drafts, and more. All bad babies are welcome as we dive into Star Wars, Marvel, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and beyond. Follow the new House of Our feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severe, active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor

if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. Transport your senses with Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection at Sephora. Sprits on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze with he fresco paraizzo. Embrace a floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with cheeky bikini. Or capture sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. And welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom.

It's a me, Ben Lindberg, a senior editor for the ringer. And with me, as always, smoking some of that AAA wonderflower, which is legal in California. It's Jessica Clemens. Ben, what happened? What's going on? Did Super Mario Bros. Wonder get to you? You are two for two already. We're all just tripping ball.

this week if we've been playing Super Mario Wonder. I mean, this is the game, right? This is the hook. Mario is high in this game. And so are we on this game, I guess, because we're back for our second episode of the week, this time to talk about Super Mario Brothers Wonder. The first mainline Mario game in six years

and the first true 2D side-scrolling Mario game in more than a decade. Another day, another great game to discuss. I don't know if we'll agree. it's a great game. But the internet, the critical consensus, certainly agrees that it's a great game. You and I may differ slightly. Are you feeling spoiled, overwhelmed, numb, just the succession of high-profile incredible releases

that we've gotten this month and this year in general? I honestly can't wait to talk Game of the Year when December rolls around because there's no bad choice, but there are so many good choices. I don't know how we will pick one. I think we're going to have to make a score sheet to, like, allow points for, like, miscongeniality, like, once we didn't expect to do well, because I think miscongeniality, if it is not the winner, is Boulder's Gate. Like, it, like, no one expected it.

And it came through. But anyways, no, I'm not numb to them. I'm very excited. This is a great year for gaming. It's incredible. Every time you bring it up, I always compare it to, you said, like, the other good years of gaming was, what was it? Was it, like, 90.

98 is a class. Because I was like, I think that was technically my favorite year for games. And then this one, because this one was really good. Yeah, there are other contenders. We'll get into that when it's all said and done. But yeah, we're going to need a lot of honorable mentions on our game of the year list. Yes, one of the top 10 would not be enough, I don't think, to give the flowers to all the games that deserve them. And I don't just mean wonder, flowers.

Have you considered the possibility that the come down from the high of this year could get a little rough? like the hangover in 2024. We've all been just like carousing, getting high, just letting it all out in 2023, great games every week. And next year, it might look a little thinner, right? These things, they go in cycles. I hope that my biggest hope is that I didn't,

I don't expect this all the time. You know, I feel like this year was, it was a long year still, and we were all playing games. So I'm now expecting the same thing next year. And I'm like, I better at least get four games that I've been,

expecting for 20 years of my life to come out this year. Like this year was insane for, it was also the games that were like, yeah, you haven't seen this game in 10 years. And I'm like, wait, what? Why are you guys all doing this one year? Yep, yep.

We're doing Ballersgate again. We're doing just every franchise is back. It's just the industry kind of collectively blew its load all at once. There's a lot of crude imagery on this episode. I apologize to everyone. I'm in so much support of you. I don't know. Is it the Halloween spirit?

Interesting energy. for me today. But one reason this year is so stacked is that a lot of games that were supposed to come out last year got delayed, which, you know, that tends to happen. And then they all came out this year. So next year, looking ahead, and we'll probably do a full episode on this at some point. But, you know, you've got Final Fantasy 7 rebirth and Star Wars and Eldon Ring DLC and maybe finally new Hollow Night and Hades and Persona and Prince of Persia and Stocker and Tekin. I could go on. And of course, there will inevitably be a bunch of great games. We are, even anticipating. But you know what? They could release zero games next year. And I think I could

comfortably go the whole year just subsisting on the backlog of games from this year that I haven't had time to play. Just take 2024 off. It's okay. We'll catch up. We're way behind. We can go back and play Liza P. Yeah, exactly. Well, while we're looking ahead, let's let everyone know what's coming in the ringerverse. The Midnight Boys Loki Episode 4 recap will come out on Friday, followed by your Jess's splash page breakdown on Saturday and House of Ours Deep Dive on Monday. Also on Monday, more button mash. I will be out in L.A. for our Ringerverse Live show next week. And so for the second time ever and the first time in North America, you and I will pod in person to talk about Allen Wake 2 and Five Nights at Freddy's.

The funny thing is that sounds so crazy to people, but people that remember our podcast that we shot in Sweden. was also in-person, but just not North America. This will be our first in-person pods not recorded in a cube in a hotel lobby. Oh, yeah, this will be an actual prepared, like actual studio. Yep. Which we honestly need for this podcast because it's going to be a horror-themed one. Right. Yes. Yeah, we've got to get my live horrified screams somehow. But we will get to all of that soon.

And remember, you can always write to us at Ring or Verse Game. gaming at gmail.com. So this episode, a Mario-centric episode, I don't think we need to do any spoiler warnings for Super Mario Wonder, not because we're going to hold back, but just because you can't spoil a Mario game, can you? I mean, I hate to break it to everyone, but Bowser's up to some shit,

and it doesn't go great for him in the ends. That's, I will say that much. I hope I didn't just ruin Super Mario Brothers' wonder for anyone, but if you played any Mario game ever, I think you probably knew that was what to expect, right? And before we dive into Wonder, let's set the stage a little, Super Mario Brothers, a fairly famous franchise featuring the titular Mario Brothers, starring the elder brother, Mario, last name, also Mario. This is where we need Mal to drop in with a have you heard of him, lad, but I know you all have.

Just the two of us have not gotten to talk about Mario yet. So what's your history and level of familiarity and affection for the mushroom kingdom? I love the mushroom kingdom. I love the mushroom kingdom. No, I love Super Mario. I've been playing it forever. We all have. We all played everyone that came out in the 90s.

I think that's like my top one was the NES one. And I think the Super Mario three, was that three? and world are clearly always tied at number one. But that Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy brought me back into the world. And I hold on to that for life. Super Mario Galaxy would be my number one if those two other games were not big staples in my life in gaming. But I played them all.

It's just those three are like definitely tops. Yeah. Formative foundational games for almost everyone, really. Whenever you grew up, Mario was probably a fixture of the game landscape at that point unless you go way, way back. So just a quick recap, you had between 1985 and 1990 for NES and Super NES, you had Super Mario Brothers, one, two, and three, Super Mario World, right? Just innovative, franchise defining, precedent setting, stone cold classics, just defined what a Mario game was and is and probably will always be to some extent. Then you also

had Super Mario land, the Game Boy game, and its sequel in 89 and 92. Then there was a really long hiatus for 2D Mario in which Nintendo focused exclusively on making Mario work in 3D. So you had Super Mario 64 and you had Sunshine. Oh, yeah, sunshine. Yeah, people forget about sunshine. I always forget about sunshine. My bad, sorry. It's kind of forgotten. You know, it's not quite up in the Pantheon, but I had a nice time with it. No, it was very cute. I just, I completely forgot about it. Keep going. Yeah, I mean, it's easy to forget about great Mario games because there have been so many of them.

By the way, apologies in advance if I slip, if I lapse into saying Mario at any point in this podcast, because we New Yorkers, we say Mario as Mario, and I've tried to put that behind me, but sometimes it comes out. It's one of my only regional accent aspects is that I sometimes say, Super Mario brothers. Super Mario brothers, yes. And I go all the way back. I mean, my very first game that I owned was the original Super Mario Brothers, the Super Mario Brothers Duck Hunt dual cartridge for NES. So I've never known gaming without Mario, really, and few of us have.

Then, so after that long hiatus, that long drought for 2D Mario, you had new Super Mario Brothers, which comes out for DS in 2006. Yeah. And then 2009, you get new Super Mario. Brothers Wii, which by that point, almost 20 years had elapsed between 2D mainline Mario console games, then you get New Super Mario Brothers 2 for 3DS and New Super Mario Brothers U for Wii U. And I would say the consensus on New Super Mario Brothers, the title didn't fit the franchise so well because it was a throwback.

It was retro. I mean, intentionally so. A lot of those games were good, even great. But I think kind of the consensus with some distances that they were sort of the same old Mario, right? Like it was the same old sort of formula and some innovations, you know, adding multiplayer, but largely it was kind of resting on the familiar foundation and doing it well, but maybe not innovating, not pushing it forward, not making it seem new, even though it said new in the title. Was that your experience?

It was like, yeah, we've missed this. This is still fun. they're still good at cranking out these 2D Mario games, but it's sort of same old, same old. I remember getting it on my DS and being like, this is fun. Yeah. But it was like,

it did feel like the exact of the old game. Right. And that's why I was like, oh. And then I just didn't. Yeah. Not to say it was bad. Not to say it was bad. It was very like, because I like that I could,

it was my handheld first Mario game. So I was like, oh, this is great for me. I can take it on the road. Yeah, right. I mean, Nintendo. stays making Mario games in every form. Lots of spin-offs, lots of systems. And they're good at it.

They have a whole lot of experience at it. You were naming off every Mario game, and it's insane to hear it. Because when you said Super Mario Sunshine, when you're naming these off, I'm like, oh, yeah, I played all of these. It was just that, like, during this time, we're also playing, like, Smash Bros.

And we're also playing Mario Kart. So, like, every time my mom was just, my poor mother was bundling all these gifts for me and just getting me those three packages every time along together. And that's why they're starting to blend with me. I'm like, yeah, I guess I did have that one on DS, but I also had Super Smash. And then I also had this.

So I'm like, damn, in between those little times we're just more Nintendo games that feature the same character. I know. I'm just talking mainline Mario here too. I mean, so many spinoffs that are accomplished and famous in their own right, just Mario everywhere you look. And meanwhile, in 3D in this era, you're getting Galaxy and Galaxy 2, which we love, right? And you're also getting Super Mario 3D land and Super Mario 3D World, which are 3D games with sort of a throwback 2D structure kind of hybrids.

And then most recently, you had Odyssey in 2017 and Bowser's Fury in 2021, which was bundled with the switch release of Super Mario 3D World. And Odyssey in Bowser's Fury are maybe the most 3D Mario. yet they added some open world aspects to the formula. And the reason I recap this is that it means that it's been 11 years now since the last full-fledged traditional 2D Mario game, new Super Mario Brothers You. It might not seem that long if like me, you played it when it came out for Switch in 2019,

but it's been a long time. And that's the backdrop for Super Mario Wonder coming along, bringing back 2D Mario on a console, and trying to redefine what that means in 2023 after almost 40 years of this franchise. And we can talk about how successful it is at that task, but it's been described by Nintendo, by the producer of this game, Takashi Tizuoka.

He said there was a sense of crisis about 2D Mario. What is 2D Mario? What do we want that to be? How do you feel, or how did you feel coming into this about 2D Mario versus 3D Mario. Were you clamoring for more Mario in two dimensions? Or were you just like, you know what?

I like the 3D stuff. I'm good with this. I thought when I was going to play Mario Wonder, it's interesting, when going back to what you said about new Super Mario Bros, that's what I was kind of expecting to get. I was like, oh, it's just going to be new Super Mario Bros. It was going to look like a lot of the same. I saw the trailer and I saw everyone talking about the pieces,

like the new characters and stuff. but I was still like, oh, yeah, here's the underground water level. Here's these things. Like, I'm just going to do the same kind of stuff. So I was expecting that. And then getting into it, I think what they really strive for is more just like how beautiful it is, the design and just like making it remarkable. And I was like, oh, this doesn't, I don't know what this is.

I don't know what this is. And then getting into the maps, it didn't feel like the 2D Mario was. I don't know. Maybe it's because it is so, the design is so heavy. that I was like, this isn't the 2D Mario I know. It feels, it looks so different that it makes it feel like the game's different. Yeah, right. And hopefully in some good ways, I think in some good ways.

But there is kind of a cross-pollination that has happened here where, you know, you've had 3D models in the 2D Mario games for a while and you have a 3D world map, right, in this game where you can walk around from world to world. But it's still the side-scrolling. largely retro formula, at least visually, but, you know, a lot more luster, just a lot more gloss and much more pretty than it used to be, of course. But same, you know, if you drill all the way down, you're running and jumping, right? I mean, that's always what Mario's been and you're doing it from side to side and you're hopping on Gumba's heads and you're trying to avoid

stepping on stuff that would be spiky and would hurt and falling into bottomless pits, right? So it's the same in that sense, but also there are a lot of people who've worked on the 3D Mario games who worked on this game too. So they're kind of bringing that, that aesthetic, that essence of the 3D Mario to 2D. And I think that was important because I'm not going to say that 3D is just inherently better than 2D. That's definitely not the case. Like there are a lot of genres that work just as well, if not better in 2D. And there are a lot of franchises that have their 2D and 3D incarnations and I like both of them. Like when we did some Zelda pods on the feed earlier this year pre-button mesh,

we were talking about how you have this new open world 3D model for Zelda. And then you have the more old school self-contained, linear dungeon-based 2D Zelda. And I was saying that I still pine for that. You know, I will still ride for old-school Zelda even though I like the new more open-ended Zelda. Because those are very different. It's very different gameplay, very different experiences. So I sort of wanted Nintendo to find a way to keep giving us a taste of 2D Zelda while also making these massive 3D Zelda games. I don't know that I felt that way about 3D Mario because in a sense I felt like 3D Mario kind of displaced 2D Mario, right?

Just like, yeah, superseded it because it's not like a totally different game exactly. You play it in a different way, but you're platforming in both cases. And it's just that the 3D games give you more freedom, another dimension, right? And so there's just, it's bigger and you can explore more and in different directions. But fundamentally, it's the same sort of gameplay in a kind of core way. And so in that sense, I felt like maybe 2D Mario is not obsolete exactly, but just feels a little outmoded. You know, it's been kind of shouldered aside by the 3D version of the print. franchise. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out for myself, is it me missing and loving the nostalgia of

the 2D or just not really hitting it for me in Mario Wonder? Because maybe it's just a little bit of both, but it's like, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is, it's so interesting because even reading the interviews that they did, they were like, yeah, what we liked about the 2D was everything was hidden and we liked all these little surprises and stuff. And I was like, yeah, I see that in Super Mario Rose Wonder, but it also just kind of feels, in the nicest way, lackluster to me. It didn't. And I'm like, and I'm like, is it the nostalgia from the 2D games that make me like, be like, well, this is great? Or is it that I'm just like, what's missing between these two that I wanted more of? Maybe it was the challenge from the other, the old games, because this one doesn't really have

that many challenges, even when I do like that they give you like three stars, four stars, four stars, Five stars, it's hard. But even the five stars weren't that hard. But it also, again, it's Super Mario. It should be accessible for anybody of all ages. And I would be able to play this with a very young, young, young child. Yes, right. Yeah, I'm higher on this game, I think, than you are not in a smoking Wonderflower's way.

Hey, I love the Wonderflower. I love, I cannot tell you how much, how immediately I started looking up the mamas. Because I was looking for like any kind of stuffed animal. Right. Yeah. So that's the thing. I think there's some inherent restrictions and limitations of 2D Mario. I think they made a valiant effort here and a mostly successful one to try to really reinvent

2D Mario. I think there's only so much you can do that while retaining that essential Mario-ness that we all know and love that feels so familiar to all of us. But they really tried to go back to the drawing board of this. So you mentioned some interviews. We were reading the Ask a Developer series that Nintendo does where they talked to several of the people who worked on the game. And first of all, one thing Nintendo always does well is that they come into these things saying, let's make the best game that we can. We're not going to rush this thing out, you know?

And they said prioritize content over schedule. They started developing this game with no deadline, no target release. It's like, let's make something good. And when it's good and we're satisfied with it, then we will put it out. which is sort of the same thing that they did with Tears of the Kingdom. And not every studio has that freedom, right? Because a lot of them, they have these corporate overlords that have to have games come out in certain quarters for the earning statements, right?

Or they're just sort of on a low budget and they just have to get their game out so that they can get some revenue so that they can pay people, right? So Nintendo's kind of in this unique situation where they go back so many decades and people expect a certain level of quality, the seal of quality from Nintendo. And they have the freedom to just say, let's take our time, let's experiment, let's figure out what this game is.

So that's just almost antithetical to the way games are mostly made now. And I don't know that many other companies could look at the Nintendo model and say, yeah, we'll just take our time. We can hold up. Also, Nintendo has a million games. They just literally released,

they had Pickman and Breath of a Wild. Like, you're insane. Yeah. But it does feel different. It does feel different. Like, it feels very different. And I want to commend that, first and foremost, because after that interview, I was like, yeah, it does feel different. You guys spent a lot of time.

And I like, you can tell that they did spend a lot of time being like, what did people want in the other games that we couldn't give them? And now we're going to try and do this. And I was like, oh, this is really fun. I like how you guys are exploring. I just, and again, we said this last podcast, it might still hold up that this month, I have played a assassin's, Queen Mirage, Spider-Man too, like all these other games where I'm like, oh, I'm jumping a building,

stabbing this man in the neck. And then I go to Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and I'm like, why is this bull? Why is this bull here? Why am I playing Yoshi again? But there are parts like that, having the, was it the badges? And the badges and you change them and the design,

I ended up using the hat the entire time because I just love the design of it and how when you flow it out and they like whisked the wind behind it. I was like, this is just gorgeous. I was like, I'm very in love with this. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to talk about the best badges in the game because there is a lot of replay value, I think, in wonder. And it's funny talking about playing this game while we were playing other games. I will say, after some of the gigantic games we've played this year, nice to have a game that's over in 10 hours or so, right? That is true. Again, there's a lot of variety.

You could get a lot more length out of it if you want to, but you can finish it in that amount of time. And also, we were talking last time about the extent. elaborate boss battles in Spider-Man. Kind of relief to go from that to just jump on Bazard Jr.'s head a few times and you're good. First round. One take only. Total opposite, right?

Just cakewalk compared to those Spider-Man bosses. Yeah, I was going to pull my hair out and throw myself off my balcony because of Spider-Man too. This I was just like, oh, I'm getting irritated. It's so slow. But it was also that like, even those boss battles was so fun. I was like, this, this just, and it still had that nostalgic piece. It just looked great. I was like, this is so fun.

I was like, I'm squashing them. Yeah. I'm squashing them like I used to. As with almost all Nintendo games, it's just, it's well made. It works. It doesn't glitch out. It doesn't crash. It's so polished.

We said that about Spider-Man 2, and it's true. But even in Spider-Man 2, I encountered the occasional crash or glitch. I got the weird glitch that some people got where for a while your Spider-Man turns into just a tiny white cube. Oh, you got that? I got that at the end of the game. Yeah, like Miles, most of his body disappeared during a cutscene and it was just his floating head and I was like, wait, is he invisible now?

No, it's just a glitch. And then I got the floating white cube where you're swinging around and fighting as a cube. I don't want to derail and I truly don't. It's just that I wanted to note that when I was playing Spider-Man 2, I got in my 16 rounds against Craven in round 2. One of those 16 had to be restarted because my Spider-Man zooped up into the sky and was zooping above the arena. And it was like a small little square of the mansion and I was stuck in the air.

And I was like, if I have to reset this game, I'm going to lose my shit. And I did. Yeah. You don't have to worry about that with Nintendo. Very rarely does that happen. There may be glitches, item duplication glitches and you can get extra one-ups. But I don't really run into that stuff. It doesn't really affect your play through.

So the way they tried to differentiate this game. So development-wise, really they just threw shit at the wall, right, and saw what would stick. That's how they approached it. They basically got their team together and said, what ideas do you have? Like, what weird ideas have you just been sitting on? Put them on Post-it notes. They had 2,000 total ideas, just like little vignettes. Like, what if there were a level that did this?

What if there were an item that did this? And they put that together, and a lot of that ended up in the game. And you can see that where sometimes you'll be going through a level and there will be something you have not seen before in this game or maybe any Mario game. And it's just for that level or maybe just for a sequence of that level. And then they toss it out and it's just like you could have built an entire game on that mechanic possibly. And you've got so many ideas. You just used it for this part of one level and then it was gone again. So there is constant surprise.

I mean, Wonders in the title. that's what they're trying to evoke a sense of wonder in you and surprise. And I think they largely accomplished that. Oh, yeah. One thing they said is that what was wondrous in old Mario games initially is not wondrous anymore. Like at first it was like, wait, I can hit my head on a block and a coin comes out. I can pick up a fireflower and I can shoot fireballs. Like, this is amazing, right?

But now that's just standard. That comes with the territory. That's every Mario game. What's the difference between wonder and whimsy? Because this is definitely a lot of whimsy too. Complete whimsy. Yes. If there is a setting, and I hate to be this person, I hate to be this person,

if there was a setting to turn the background flowers off, I would have. I was going to ask you about this. So for people who haven't played, there are flowers, not the wonder flowers, just regular flowers scattered throughout the level that when you pass them, they will say something, right? They will have a message for you and a text box will come up. You can turn off the voice of the flowers.

You can do that if you want to. You can just make it text only. Why don't you tell me this before I play these games? Okay, what we have learned this week is that you need to check out the settings venues in video games. I just start the games. I just start them. And then the reason I also, to be fair,

to be completely fair, the reason I start them is because I'm putting myself into the audience, the viewers, like the people listening, the people that are playing the games, I've never played the games, I'm like, you guys aren't looking into the settings. Like, I'm imagining, like, if I gave my controller to my mom, who does play video games, but, like, just never has played this one, she's not going into the

setting. She immediately just starts the game. So unless the settings are forced upon her, like, Diablo or the Assassin's Creed, they're like, oh, can you do these? But this, no, it isn't. So I just go in, and I did not know that, God, I would have shut them up so quick. They, it was, ah, it was, it wasn't even like that annoying.

It was just like, I would be like going and they'd be like, speed it up, slow poke. And I'd be like, shut the hell up. Yeah, you're not the only one, although there are people who enjoy the flowers. I kind of like the flowers. It was not. At first I thought it was cute. And then it was like 20 and around. Yeah, that's true.

But they keep your company. It's kind of nice. You get the positive reinforcement. Like, hey, you know, you're doing great. Keep going. No, it was making fun of me. Sometimes. But yeah.

But we got a new year's resolution for you in 2024. Check the settings. I don't know if it's that uncommon to look at the settings. You're like, you finish the whole game and you're like, but what if you could change the difficulty level? Wouldn't that be amazing? I didn't know you could. I knew there was a difficulty setting.

I just thought you did. I didn't know you could change it in the middle of the game. Right. I think, honestly, make sense for someone like me. That you would think like, oh, once you set it in stone, you just can't change the levels, like make a second game where you could have an easier level. That's what I imagine, because I'm an idiot. You can sometimes change the difficulty levels midstream.

What will I think of next? This is next-gen gaming. Groundbreaking. Yeah. Oh, God, those little fucking flowers. So lots of novelty, lots of little ideas like that. This is taking part in the flower kingdom, not the mushroom kingdom, hence all the flowers, right? And the difference, the major new mechanics here, A, you have.

the badges, as you said. So you've got, I think, 24 badges that you can unlock over the course of the game, and they confer some special ability on your character for that level, as long as it's active, right? And it's just a wide range of possible badges and abilities. It can be things that save your bacon, you know, you fall into a pit and you can bounce out of it once. It can be things that affects how high you can jump or how long you can glide. It can be some very silly, extremely whimsical stuff, right? Things that make it more fun or actually make the game easier or sometimes more entertaining or, you know, things that will tell you that there's a secret somewhere near you, right?

So there are many, many ways you can play this game with the different badges and also 12 playable characters, although mostly they're just different skins for the same character. they control the same mostly. I played as Navit because I was like, oh, this is a cute thing. And it took me, just like the settings thing, too long to realize that this character does not get injured. Yes.

I just thought, I don't know, I thought I had a badge on that just made me succeed. And I went, I thought I changed the badge. And then I looked it up and they were like, oh, yeah, Yoshis and this character are simpler characters that just don't get injured. It's for like the younger audience or people They just want to play without getting killed.

It's funny. I was going to start one of these pods by asking you what settings you typically change when you start a game. And the answer obviously is none. It depends on the game. I always go to the menu. I go to the settings first. I'm like,

ooh, what can I change here? Often I will, are you an inverted controls or non-inverted controls person? Non-inverted. Okay, me too. So I will always make sure it's non-inverted. And then I will always bump up the sensitivity,

not to brag, but I like to bump up my sensitivity a little bit, just to move the camera around a little more quickly. But I always explore the options. Again, it depends on the game because you know me with the fighting games. Like, yeah, I'm going to change my settings because they're my fighting games. I'm normally playing on a PC, so it's a mouse and keyboard. The only thing I have to change is like the WASD key. Just to make things easier for myself.

But like, Nintendo, I'm not changing the settings in Nintendo. Apparently not. I'm not. I'm trying to think of a game where I do, I do normally turn my sensitivity so down, because I hate it. I hate it. I'm,

I don't aggressively play a lot of things. So I'm like, I can't move too much. But it genuinely, I'm mad because these are bad examples, but yeah, Super Mario, I don't change my settings.

Or Spider-Man. Anything where you're someone red and blue who jumps, you're not going to change the sentence. The thing is, I keep, I'm trying to, like, defend myself. and I know that I would lose in court with this.

Like, I recognize that there's no saving me. I don't know why I do this. And I do it when it, because I know in fighting games, I absolutely do it. Shooting games, I absolutely do it. But I'm usually playing on my PC. Yeah, I guess every other game I don't. We need a button mash equivalent of midnight court so we can hash out these differences in a formal way. I'm playing for the audience.

I'm playing for the viewers. I'm playing for the people that don't change. Definitely don't change the settings. No one does. It's just, you know, such a niche thing, you know. Also, okay, so how much do you want to bet that even if I did check the settings immediately, I would have seen that and it would have translated to me like, oh, these are the flowers that talk. Right.

I would have been like, I don't know what this setting means. Yeah. I mean, you might not know what that meant before you started the game. What are you talking about talking flowers? I was like, oh, I love the talking flower. And then I'm like five rounds in like, oh, man, I hate this flower. Yeah, sounds good in theory. In practice. Maybe it's overkill.

But you touched on one of the other big differences about this game, which is the difficulty, or at least the difficulty options, right? Because you can play as Yoshi or Nabit and you cannot take damage from enemies or from stepping on stuff. You can still fall into pits. Oh, yeah, you can still, yes. Yeah, but that's about it, right? And so if you have someone who doesn't want a hardcore challenge and wants to just get through the game and, you know, sniff the flowers and smell the roses, then they can do that. Or if you have a kid, right, someone who's getting introduced through, which is more and

more relevant to me. My daughter watched me play this game. It won't be long before she will be playing it herself. And so to have that option, I think, is nice. And generally, the difficulty level of this game. So some of the individual stages are challenging. Like, I don't think they're, you know, torture factories. They're not going to be up there with the hardest Mario levels ever.

but there were some that gave me a bit of a challenge. The thing is, though, that you basically can't get game over unless you really try. I mean, you can buy infinite extra lives more or less because you just, you collect some like, you know, stuff throughout the levels that allows you to purchase extra lives. And so you can keep racking those up. And between that and the abilities and other difficulty options, you know, you can just keep taking cracks of it, and it's not like you're going to have to restart or anything. So individual levels might be tough at times, but the whole experience is very forgiving, right?

Which is not a bad thing, but I guess if you're craving super retro ultimate challenging Mario, then this might not, you might not get your fix here. I think I can't agree with that more. I think this is, I love the new stuff they put in it, especially putting in like characters that don't get injured as, or they can still fall in holes. But I love all of those, those additions so much, because I just think it's really sweet. And it's so, it's, I don't know,

I immediately went to like, yeah, it's for everybody of all ages. Let's also remember that. I mean, we work talking about, like, such nerd things that it's like, yeah, there's also, it's for everybody. We're all different ages. We're all different levels. And this way, you can just play it forever. And you can play as different characters.

And also, if you get too cheap and don't want to keep buying the, the extra life and you just play as Yoshi and not die unless you fall into a hole. That's kind of what I did because I was like, what if I wanted to be cheap and just not do this? But then I ended up buying like 18 life and just wandered around. Yeah, it's not a soul's like. It's Mario, right? And I guess it would be nice if you could use Yoshi or Nabit in non-easy mode

or if you could use any of the other characters in easy mode because you either have the option of using Yoshinabit. It has to be easy or you can't use them at all. But otherwise, I think it's all right to have a low barrier for entry here. And as you said, the stages tell you the difficulty level via the number of stars. So if you want to start slow, you can. And also the game is nonlinear by 2D Mario standards. So you can go to one kingdom first or another and you can wander around and you can take the levels in the order that you want.

So I think that's okay. And, you know, if you don't like the badges and you kind of just want to play, old school style, you can. Well, the badges are really fun. The badges are great. They're very great. Yeah. If you wanted just retro retread throwback, you don't have to use the badges.

You don't have to find the wonder flowers. You can play this as sort of your standard straight-up Mario, but I think you would be missing out. Also, I think coming in the wake of the Super Mario Brothers movie, one would imagine that that has created a new wave of Nintendo and Mario fans. Nintendo hopes we'll be buying this game. And so if you have a young audience that maybe got bitten by the bug from that movie, and now you're introducing this game, I guess it behooves Nintendo to make the on-ramp

a little less steep, right? Just to reach out a helping hand and say, here's your first, you know, baby's first Mario game, right? But still satisfying for the Nintendo adults in the room. Two things. One, going back to the adults and the children in the room, there's a trailer or, like, little promo video that Nintendo did a while ago, whereas, a man working really hard, had a briefcase, had a trench coat, he's really tired, he gets home,

he plugs it in, and he's playing games. That is literally this game. Yeah, that was the best example of the kingdom. Yeah. I remember when I watched that, I was like, damn, that's me coming home from shooting a podcast. He's like, beaten down by life. Yeah. Yeah. This is me. I'm like, damn, my car's in the shop. I'm laid on my bills, but at least I have tears of the kingdom. But the second thing I was going to add was if you do play as those characters that don't get injured, you don't get those boosts that we get. You can still use the badge because I was still using the hat, but you're not getting the flower. You're not going to turn it into an elephant. You're Yoshi and you're staying in Yoshi. Yeah. The other, I guess,

major difference about this game is the Wonderflower, which we've been teasing all along. So this is hidden within every level. There's a Wonderflower, at least one Wonderflower, that just totally transforms the level. I mean, this is psychedelic. This is true. dripping, this is like turning pipes into like snakes. Yeah, essentially, yeah, this is like, this is LSD brought to Mario. I mean, this is just like, and transforming the game in, I think, as you said, whimsical ways and really creative ways at times. Like when I sometimes finished a level and I didn't find the Wonderflower, I felt like I didn't

really see it. I felt like I didn't finish. Like I had to dive back in. That's you. Yeah. I thought about it. that. I thought about that and I thought of you immediately because I would go to the next level. And I was playing it and my roommate and Olivia would watch and they were like, you missed it.

And I was like, I'm not going back for it. I was like, I'm not going back for it. I'm going to the next level. Yeah. I'm not, I don't need to get everything. If I missed a big purple coin, I wasn't going to go back for every purple coin. But with the Wonderflowers, I felt like that was the hook. That was the draw here. It's like these are these wacky ideas that they've been collecting and putting on post-it notes, I want to see it. And some of them are just wild, right? I mean, the piranha plant symphony musical level. I love that. Yeah, amazing, right?

I forgot. I forgot about that. Yeah. I shook for that. That was, I was in love with that. Though the game was like not my favorite, to be fair, and like the Super Mario worlds, Super Mario, all of the games, that for some reason took me by storm.

And I could imagine someone. writing that on a post-it note and putting it on a wall. It's like, are you high? Yes, actually. Do you see the post-it? Is there a way to see the actual post-in-notes? Is that online or they just talked about it in the interview? There were a few images in that interview of some of them, but no, not all of them.

I would love to see all of them so bad. Yeah. And they had some wild ideas like, you know, giant Mario who takes up the entire level and like says, boeing when he jumps. That's fun. They were good at it. they were working on a live commentary track, like someone would be narrating your playthrough.

They should do a DLC. And dude, oh my God, that would be so. These are these men that have been in this game. Because those producers were like, yeah, I've been here for like 39 years. And I was like, you guys, your creativity is out the roof at this moment. You're like, I am done doing what we've done for 39 years.

Now I want to do something crazy. And we can. We have the resources to do it now. having a bastion style just commentator who's narrating what you're doing, that would have been wild. I would have loved. I guess we would have loved it, honest, not to be a Debbie Downer, but if I was playing with a child, they'd be like, what is this? And I'm like, this is so inside.

Is this the director? It sounds good in theory, but then like the talking flowers, it turns out to be too much potentially. Oh, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all. It's funny, though, the continuity that you brought up. I wanted to mention that because it is unique. I mean, it is a singular thing, the fact that the people who make Mario games and Zelda games are the people who've been making Mario and Zelda games since the start, right?

Like longer than we've both been alive. It is incredible. The producer of this game, I mentioned, Takashi Tizuka, he was the assistant director and game designer on Super Mario Brothers, the 1985 original Super Mario Brothers. You guys, that's literally great. That is the craziest thing. And he loves that place. He enjoys it so much. He's been there.

She also was a director, game designer, writer on The Legend of Zelda, the original. It is unbelievable. Now, that's not to say they don't have new blood. They do,

and I think that's vitally important. But, you know, you have Tizuca in this, you have Koji Kondo, who, the legend, the icon, who came up with the Mario music.

All the amazing Mario and Nintendo sounds you know. know, he did the sound for this game. He's still there working on these games. It is unbelievable. There was a thread about this the other day that I was just marveling at. This was Max Nichols, who works at Bungy and was noting that Super Mario Brothers, the original, was made by a team of five people. Of those five, four of them worked on Super Mario Brothers Wonder. It's like, once you're into 10, it's like the Hotel California, you can never leave. You know, You never want to.

It's amazing. It feels like the more I'm hearing more about Super Mario Bros. Wonder, it just feels like they were like, yeah, we've been here for a really long time. And now that we have time to like do whatever we want, we're going to make a game of whatever we want. It's like, I love, I'm now sad that I'm like, I didn't like this game as much because I'm like, this was the creators, producers, all of them, writers, being like, hey, here's a bunch of ideas that didn't pass the test for these other games. but we can put it in this one. Yeah, exactly. Like, we're just being creative.

And I'm like, oh, no. I wish I liked it so much more. Yeah, I guess you can say it's like the rejects. These are the ideas that didn't pass muster before. But I prefer to see other ones. I think it's like, it's just the, they get to be as creative as they want. There's no, even if the cup was so big and deep for the other games, this one is now like an entire mansion.

Like, yeah. The world's endless. The world's our oyster. We have all the time in the world to develop this. Do it. Figure it out. Blow it out. Go crazy.

And I'm like, ooh, they got the like wheels taken off now. Yeah. And kudos to them for trying to be creative after all this time. And again, there are new people involved in the process who are bringing over the 3D ethos to this game and injecting some of that DNA. But the original people, it sounds like we're often spearheading the let's make. things up. Let's do things differently this time. And that's admirable, I think, because, I mean, look, it's unusual to have that kind of continuity almost 40 years in any industry, at any company, but in video games where the turnover is constant and layoffs are never

ending. And if you work in developing games, you just get accustomed to you finish a project. You might be moving on. And Nintendo, not at all. And I think in some ways, that could be a downside. I mean, you could get set in your ways. And Nintendo in some respects, maybe is set in its ways. But you also have this amazing institutional knowledge. I mean, if you've worked on the original Mario and now you're working on this, you've just, you've been through it all, you've seen it all, you know what's been done, you know what's worked, you know what hasn't been done, and what is still potentially on the table for you to try. And if you can maintain that creativity and that drive and desire to keep pushing things in new directions, which Nintendo hasn't always done, but I think is at least attempting to do these days, then that's the best of both worlds.

So it's just a singular situation. I would love to ask. And when I say this, I don't mean it at all in a negative way. I have no problem with us always going against Bowser and then Bowser losing. Spoilers. Yeah. But somehow going against his children all the time. time. But I'm so curious, I'm like, you guys took such a, such a different approach,

but we still kind of step to the same, the same storyline of like, hey, here's Bowser, doing it again, you're going to have to stop them, here's his children that you have to defeat. And I don't, I don't hate it at all, but it may be just might be a simple note of that it's so small and minuscule, but still keeps that like blood going for Mario. And then we have like, here's all these new branches we have. We just always, this is just a fun thing to stick with. Right. But I do want to know that they ever were like, we should maybe make a new villain? I know. I mean, wonder story is flimsy even by Super Mario Brothers standards. It is just, it's the loosest possible framework to hang a game on. And that's fine. I don't know that I'm looking for. Yeah. Story driven, dramatic, you know, fully voiced Mario. That would be a new thing. I would be into seeing that work once, maybe just to try it. But yeah, it's obviously not the strength of this franchise.

Nintendo in general, really. I mean, that's why Mario works so well as a mascot and in so many genres. He's just, he's an empty vessel. It's a mustache and some overalls and not much more to him. This is why he works. Right. You can put him in anything. He's a vessel.

Yeah. So it's nice that you can select any level from the menu at any time. I think I enjoyed that. And in some ways, you know, they push things forward. They also kind of did some things that were always present, at least in their imaginations. the technology didn't allow them to render. For instance, you see the gumbas bite you here in this game, which is kind of disturbing. Apparently, that's always been Miyamoto's head cannon.

Like, why does Mario get hurt if you run into the side of a gumba? It's because the gumbas bite you. But on NES, you couldn't animate the gumbas biting you. So that was just in his head, in his nightmares, in his imagination. And so now they're like, okay, that was always how it worked supposedly. but now we can actually animate that. And the animations in this game, I think, are much improved. There's just more detail, more expressiveness, more whimsy, as you said, right?

It's like the standard Mario animations, but there's just a lot more life to them than there used to be. This episode is brought to you by Boris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boris Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it. presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borgeshead. Backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today.

Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Bor's Head committed to craft since 1905. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more.

Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, Unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. Yeah. The whimsy part was my favorite. It fell almost camp. Yeah. Yeah.

It was very fun, especially playing like, I would always be Daisy. And anytime I turned into the elephant, I was like, oh. Yeah. I'm staying in this. I haven't even mentioned elephant Mario. Oh, yeah. Elephant Mario. Yeah.

You can be an elephant. You can suck up water and spray it with your trunk. I mean, that's the kind of game. Can you tell me what, though? Like, I get it. I completely get it. And I played the game 90% of the time as an elephant daisy. But I was like, the water trunk was good at some points, but was it supposed to be

meant for any other moment? Was there like a specific thing that the trunk was actually supposed to be like, you need the trunk for this? You can hit bad guys with it. And then you can spray water on flowers to get goodies. That's what I did. all the time. And then I was like, wait, do I need to be the elephant?

Because I was also like, I'd rather throw fireballs. Yeah, sort of underutilized the trunk. And it makes you a bigger target. But I did like stomping around. That was fun. I did. It was very, I loved me in the, I was Daisy elephant the entire time. Yeah.

And the music, I think, is quite good in this game. It's inventive. Obviously, a lot of the traditional stuff and the familiar themes, but more actual instruments. And they use digital synthesis. izers this time. And from that interview, I saw that condo, the sound team joined early in the development process instead of coming in midway and kind of getting the framework of the game and just, you know, building music around it. Music is kind of at the foundation of this game. There are a lot of levels where you're jumping in time with the music, right? Or little Easter eggs.

Like, did you notice, do you have a pro controller for Switch or are you playing handheld? I have a controller, but it's not like a good controller. It's like a good controller. It's like a third party. Okay. Yeah, if you use the Nintendo Pro Controller, somehow they made like the vibration of the controller make musical notes. Oh, that's cool. You almost have to, yeah, you have to mute the music or turn it down to hear it.

But if you put the controller up to your head as you're like running across the musical box in the game, it makes those musical sounds, which again, you might not even notice. But it's just a little touch, you know. It's just a little Easter egg and a little indicator of quality and creativity that I appreciated. I thought I told you. My controller is broken. Yeah. The joystick parts to the side of my switch, this was before the PlayStation 5 and said.

Did you get some drift on that? My cat knocked it over. Oh, right. So it's dented on the sides. So you can't use the joystick. So I have a controller. I can only play my switch on my TV. Oh, I didn't know.

I knew the cat took out your PlayStation. I didn't know the cat took out multiple systems. Yes, she's two for two on breaking my consoles. But she's good. She's just like, that one happened when she was a kitten. And she didn't know she was like in the way. And I could have had it fixed by now. But I was like, oh, it connects to my TV and still work.

So why fix it? Now I want to fix it so I can hear it. Yeah. Right. There are also some online aspects to this game, which I didn't explore a lot, right? I mean, you can, it's almost like the old indie classic journey where you can play sort of side by side with people who are also playing that level. Oh, yeah.

And you can sort of see each other, but not really directly interact or at least not, stop each other or hurt each other exactly or give each other a boost. But there are things like that and shadow players. And you can also play co-op, right? You can play local co-op. And that's probably a fun thing to do as a family, too. Like one person can hop on Yoshi and ride Yoshi. I mean, that's just another way you can experience this as a group game,

which I haven't had a chance to do yet, but I think I would enjoy. Yeah, I was going to, and then I was like, I'm not sure how I feel about this game yet. But I do know that there was a badge, I think it was a badge, that allows you to, like, plant your little self in the map somewhere. And if you die completely, you can have someone come back, and if they touch that badge, you, like, come back, even with, like, zero life. It's very, it's very intricate, but I think it was very cute because I bought it,

because I didn't know what it did. And then when I found out, I was like, oh, yeah. oh, I need a planet. Yeah, the standies, right? Yeah, the figures you can use. Yeah, I was always torn on what to do with the badges because there were some that really did help you get through the level, like the one that allows you to fall into a pit and you bounce off once

or fall onto spikes or something and you can bounce back up. That was really handy to have, but there were some that were just more fun to use. And so I was always torn between, do I want the one that's going to help me get through this level or the one that's going to make it more fun for me to play, or the one that will reveal the secrets so that I can actually find the stuff that's hidden throughout this level because it's really ingenious, you know, and that's always been a hallmark of 2D Mario,

but you would think it would be hard to hide stuff because in theory you can see everything on the screen. There's just only so much real estate. And somehow they always find these ingenious ways to hide things. It can be things that, you know, your character isn't even visible. it's like on top of the screen or below the screen or you find some secret entrance or that's why I said there's a lot of replay value here because not only can you combine characters and badges and you can find Wonderflowers and everything, but there's a lot of stuff that you

will not find on your initial play-through, including entire levels, right? So if you want to find all the secrets, it almost felt like they were taking cues from speed runners or people who mod these games or almost like hack and cheats that enable you to do different things that you can't do by default. And they just put all of that in this game. And some secrets feel almost arbitrarily hidden. Like, how is I supposed to know there was a block there in the middle of nowhere? I just happened to jump into that.

And which pipe to go into? Because sometimes it would be a million pipes. I know. I checked all the pipes. And then the flower. And this is why I hate the, this is why I hate the freaking flower. The flower would go, oh, seems like you missed something. And I was like, I know I missed it because you can go into a pipe.

in the background, you see the extra level. And I was like, I know, but there's 13 pipes, and I'm not going to jump at everyone. I'm going to finish this map. Yeah. And I think there are ways in which the limitations of 2D can foster creativity. It's like we only have so much to work with here. How can we find ways to innovate within this framework?

It's like the switch hardware itself, which obviously is a lot less high power than the other systems. But you find ways around that. And sometimes it forces you to be extra. a creative. And there were sometimes when I was frustrated to find partway through a level that you need a certain badge to get something or reach something, or at least I thought you did. You know, it seemed like there's no way I can reach that unless I have this badge activated. So I'm going to have to go out and come back in again if I want to see that. But on the whole,

I felt like they did a good job of allowing you to customize it and have your own experience without making it impendipadrible to anyone or, you know, having certain levels that you could only do one way. There are just different layers to it depending on how you want to approach playing it. Yeah, absolutely. I can't agree more. I was using, I kept thinking I had to use the bubbles for one level and then I was like, wait. Yeah.

I actually don't. I could just time my jumps better. Yeah. There is one level where the Wonderflower just, it like transported me to a quiz show where it started quizzing me on stuff about the game. Like what is the difficulty level of this course or how many of groupas have you killed in this game? It's just, it's so weird and I think wonderful, at least at times.

It's whimsy. I like how whimsy it is for the game to ask you how many people you've killed. Yes, right. Do you ever get stuck on a level and die over and over and maybe you get frustrated or you're a little on tilt? And then you come back later and ace it on the first try because that happens to me all the time. Oh, Ben. It doesn't happen to me. You know why?

Because I'm so good that you just beat the game the first time. No. I'm a little sister at heart and will always be a little sister everywhere. And my roommate loves video games. And I'll just go, Ian! Okay. And I can't do this. After like the third time, except for the reason I didn't ask for Ian's help during the 16 rounds of Craven

was because they were too busy playing a new game with their other friends. And they were like, Jessica, we're fighting. And I was like, fine, I'll keep doing this. And I kept losing. See, that's what happened. when you don't have the older brother to help you. Because even as a child, it was like that Futurama episode. Like, I couldn't beat this level ever.

My brother just had to come here and do it for me. So if you can tap in an expert, just tap in a specialist. When I live alone, I'm going to be screwed. Yeah, right. Yeah, I find, though, that many times I'll just be banging my head against the wall on something, whether it's a boss fight or a level, and I'm trying over and over again, and I'm getting stuck at the same place. And then I'm like, you know what?

I just got to put this down for a while. And I will come back. Fresh mindset. Maybe you get some sleep or something. And then the first time, I will run right through it. And I'm like, why was this so hard? What was stopping me? I would love more than anything that you're like, okay, time to play it. And then you lose again. Yeah, sure. That time made no difference. I still suck. Yeah. Okay. So it's me. Yeah. The other thing to point out, because it's kind of a contentious issue in the gaming industry these days and in a lot of industries, remote work. Right. Can you work? Can you work? work in the office. Do you have to work in the office? Can you work from home? A lot of gaming companies did that by necessity during the pandemic. And then some have sort of switched back or force people back. And as a long time pre-pandemic work from home person, I'm always in favor of

the flexibility there. And because a lot of companies have said, we can't make games as efficiently if we're doing it remotely, just want to point out insomniac, which is acclaimed and almost everything they make is great and polished and works well. They allow fully remote work. And also, Nintendo, with this game, they said in their Ask It Velper series, they did a lot of Zoom meetings, video meetings, which they haven't typically done. So the whole team would get together, whereas before it might have been restricted to some of the leads, you know, a more select group now because you don't have to get everyone in one room. They could just have everyone who's working on this game in the video call.

And they felt like that really helped because everyone sort of stayed a prize about, okay, what are we doing? How does this all fit together? And everyone could suggest ideas, no matter how wackier off the wall they were. So for this game, at least that worked really well. So just want to point that out because there's a lot of differences of opinion. Yeah. My roommate works from home completely. Yep. Never leaves the house. I hate it. But I hate it. But they also, they work in gaming and they're just on Discord 24-7. Right. That's just like the days out, not 24-7, the eight hours. But they are just, on Discord and then they're muted and if someone has a question or something, they just get on

and then they have meetings like once every day. Yeah. Yeah. So it's possible. Yeah. There's some drawbacks, but these games prove that you can make great games that way. And I mean, for me, look, it worked better for me. I enjoyed it. I still think there's something missing for me in the 3D to 2D transition that I don't know if you can reclaim at this point because this seems to me to be about the best and maybe most inventive 2D Mario game since Super Mario World, just going all the way back. I don't know how you could make a better one or a more inventive or creative one. So I wonder if what you think is missing here for you,

is that just a problem with this game specifically? Or do you think that's just the ceiling for 2D Mario now and you need that 3D hit to generate? the same sort of excitement that you got from this franchise. I think that's also true, though, is because it's like, for me, I think I broke it down to the, it wasn't as challenging as I wanted it to be. And I don't, I have not played Super Mario World in ages. So I do not know if it's as challenging.

And when I played the Super Mario on 64 recently, I was like, the hardest part about playing this now is that I'm bad with a Nintendo 64 controller. Yeah. But it just wasn't as challenging as I wanted it to be, even when I got to the five stars, or just the bosses weren't even close to the five-star challenges. But this is also, that is just me. There's some, maybe some people find it challenging. I was like, yeah, if I just pace myself very well, I can make it through this.

I just have to pace myself and be patient. And that's what I was kind of missing in this. And I guess in Mario Galaxy, which is probably the last one I really, really played aggressively over and over and over and over again, there were parts where I was like, damn, I can't do this. This is really hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's just it. Okay. Yeah. it's just that you're craving a greater challenge. I think for me it wasn't that so much as just, this is 2D Mario. This is about the best 2D Mario you can make. It's fun.

I think it's worthwhile to keep making these games. The other thing is that in the past, you had kind of a separation in hardware. So you had mobile and you had handheld and you had home consoles, right? And so handheld was not capable technologically of what you could accomplish on a console. And so you had to have a split, right? There was like a stratification. So you'd have 2D Mario on handheld,

and then you'd have 3D Mario on console. And now those things are conflated because you have Switch, which you can bring everywhere. You can dock and play at home, which I think is great. But there's no longer any pressing reason, really, to have a difference. And, you know, there has been a convergence

where you have 2D elements in 3D Mario games and vice versa. But you don't have the, the same separation because you don't have to anymore, right? It's like, so maybe that is part of the lack of full satisfaction that I'm feeling here, because I think this is about as good as you could make a 2D Mario. Like I think it's satisfying in that sense, but I still miss the freedom of Galaxy and Odyssey, etc. Oh my God, Galaxy.

I don't like comparing it's because it is in a too, D game. I'm like, compared it as a galaxy and honesty because you literally can just jump out of the map.

You can just run around if you really wanted to. You can jump from planet to planet. I'm trying to think of like, I guess what I really,

the part about the old 2D Mario games became the speed runner part of it. That's what became fun. As you like got older playing it, you're like,

let me see how fast I can jump through all these things. And you can't really, I can say right now, you could try. I don't think you can do that in Super Mario Bros.

Because there's so much stuff everywhere and in the way. There were like speed runners. You can do it. Maybe that is the challenge. Have fun trying to speed run this because this map literally has things in the middle of the air. And I love that whimsy.

But it's, yeah, I think it's like, I can't really play it that way. I'm just like being careful. Yeah. Maybe the strategy is also in like using the badges. Maybe I just need to find, to be fair, this game came out on Friday. Yes. We didn't get a lot of time to play it. So I didn't get to explore a lot of things.

I just chose things. I didn't look at the settings. I probably would have. That's sarcasm. Would you? I don't know that you would. I don't believe that. This is the worst thing in the world.

On Loki, I made a joke. I made genuinely a joke that I thought the moon landing was fake. And now people think that I believe the moon landing was fake. And just like, people are going to think that I don't check the settings for anything, period. And I'm like, you know what, too? Just know the games we've been playing. All right. So maybe Wonder was kind of caught in between for you or fell short in certain respects.

I think they set out to do something bold, and I think they did it. You know, I think we didn't even mention, I was talking about all the laundry list of full-fledged mainline Mario games. But there have been others. There have been, you know, Super Mario run, the mobile game. And then they're also Super Mario Maker one and two, which I think. Is that the movie one? That's, you design your own Mario levels. You can kind of craft your own levels.

And that I think was also part of the crisis of 2D Mario that Nintendo mentioned, because if you put those level creation tools in the player's hands, it's like, well, do we need a new Mario game or can people just keep crafting their own Mario levels in Super Mario Maker? That's funny. And so they really tried to go above and beyond to do things that you can't create in those games to just break the mold of 2D Mario. And I think they largely succeeded.

But again, I'm still like my, My appetite for the next 3D Mario game and what the direction of the franchise is, post-odd Odyssey and post-Bowser's Fury, like, my thirst is not quenched. My appetite is not slicked. I still want to see. Yeah, I want to see where that's going. The next 3-D. Next 3-D, next console with the next smash. Yeah. Like, you guys, you don't even know. You don't even know what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be plotting. I'm going to be acting wild at the next 3-D game. Did you play the maker? Did you play? No, I have not made. I don't Mario make. Yeah. That's not me. I'm not making it. I'll let Nintendo make my Mario for me.

I'll be content with that. They're pretty good at it. Well, I mean, hey, they're clearly good at their jobs. They've been doing it longer than me. Longer than we've been alive. Yeah. One other difference in this game, no more Martinette, right? Charles Martinette, the longtime voice of Mario is now kind of put out to pasture or not sure if it was

entirely a voluntary retirement or not. but he's now kind of a Mario ambassador, a brand ambassador for Mario, but he's not doing the voice. There's a new voice actor, Kevin Afghani, who did the voice of Mario and Luigi in this game. Would you have noticed if you didn't know this was not, Martinette, would you have known? Did it make any difference for you? My roommate, well, he's always been into video games, period, his entire life. But he wants, like, he's still practicing and doing,

and portraying a career in voice acting. He was the one that, like, he makes me see, differences in voice acting all the time and this was so big for him so he was explaining it all to me and I was like oh okay yeah I need to keep this noted and I completely forgot and that's why I didn't notice and I feel bad but I think it's so it's big it's huge news that's really big it is it is noticeable people notice that hey something sounds different about Mario here before it was announced that it was I didn't know it was this game that was the which makes sense because they've been doing this game for so long that yeah they right there's the changing of the guard to Chris Pratt in the movie

Chris Pratt does not voice Mario in this game. Kevin Off Gotti does. But yeah, it's not Martinette. And, you know, no shots at the legend, Charles Martinette, who's just made his Mario voice iconic. But, you know, it's the same sort of voice. So you would notice if you have a sensitive ear or if you heard that there was a change. But I don't know that it would blow your mind if you did not know coming in. Well, to be fair, I did not play as Mario or Luigi.

Okay. My roommate did play as Luigi and I didn't notice it, but I refuse to play as Mario and Luigi. Because if Daisy and Peach are in that game, I am playing as Daisy and Peach. And if Birdo's in there, then I'm playing as Bird. Yeah. Mario only says so many things, you know. So he doesn't have the widest vocal range or vocabulary at least, right? So last thing here, I guess you could see this game as sort of a swan song for the Switch, right?

which is coming to the end of its long life cycle here. Yeah. I remember pointing out on last year's Goody Pod that preceded your arrival that even without Mario or Zelda, 2022 was a great year for the Switch. This year, you got Mario and Zelda back in a big way. And I was going to say, wow, what a year for Nintendo, because you had the Super Mario Brothers movie, second highest grossing movie behind Barbie in the world, right?

and then acclaimed mainline Mario and Zelda games come out. I think both probably in the goady conversation, certainly Tears of the Kingdom is. Plus you had Metroid Prime remastered. You had Pikmin 4. So at this point in the life of the Switch, for that many bangers to be surfacing this year, I feel like that's a big year.

I feel like well done Nintendo. And then we had a conversation with our producer, Devin Ronaldo, before we started recording, who has a completely different take and such a hot take that with the ringer's hottest take podcast on hiatus for the moment, I feel like this needs to be put on tape somewhere because it's sizzling. So Devin, I'll tap you in here. Please, please.

I will swear I'm waiting for this moment because I, it could go one of two ways. It could be very good for me or very bad for me. I think what I will say to preface this is that Nintendo did bring a lot to the table. And you listed off all of the kind of wonderful offerings that they did bring. But I have to say at a certain point, is it about the quality or is it about the quantity that we are getting? And I made the very hot and spicy take of saying, in my opinion, at this current moment in time, that I believe Nintendo, with all of its legacy, with all of its glory, is the video game equivalent to the DC studios.

And I stand by it. Wow. Wow. It's, I'm, do I love Pikman? Yeah, I love Pikmin. But what did it do for the culture? Is anybody else still playing Pikmin?

Come on. No. I mean, I like Pikmin too, but, but no, but Pikmin, Pikmin's not the flagship franchise, but, But what about Mario? What about Tears of the Kingdom? I mean, you, you wait in on Tears of the Kingdom pod as well. And I know you were not as high on that game.

But, but wow, I mean, this is, this is spicy. Like, this is coming from anyone else. I'd be like, cut the mic. I can't cut the mic because you're producing. And also, I invited you to share this take on this episode. I almost backpedaled a little bit. I was like, should I come on and really dismantle Ben? And he sounds like he's having a great time talking about Mario Wonder.

I just think that. that, and part of me feels that I can't fully have this take because I have not played the game yet. I just got back from a birthday trip in Europe. I saw the posters everywhere, but I have not played the game. So I'm coming in with no experience. I have heard this podcast being taped. I've done my video game research. Heard a lot about great world building.

The very cute ties to galaxy. I don't think we're breaking the mold here, which is okay. I think gaming is definitely subjective in a very personal experience that, I wouldn't want to take away from anyone. And I think in terms of, we talked about it a little bit on this pod, when you're playing like a Balders Gate or a Spider-Man and doing the fast-paced action games, you want maybe a slice of life,

something that's a little more relaxed, something that you don't really have to think about it. Maybe Mario is what you need. I think there are better Mario franchises, personally, that, again, maybe unpopular. Paper Mario is one of my favorites. I also really love Mario Carole. art, Mario tennis.

When we get to do different things with Mario, it's in my realm, or even like Smash Bros. Melee, something that they brought back, but was fresh and something that I feel like people were really excited about. I think we've been inundated with a lot of fun stuff, but I think Nintendo is banking on nostalgia a little too much. Oof. The thing is, I don't think, I don't,

where's, where's the line? It's like, it really hit me when I heard the quality over quantity, because we, that was a lot of games. And I didn't get the earth shatteringness from all of them. The thing is, though, you're faulting Nintendo for having so many flagship franchises. It's not like they're pumping out mainline Mario and Zelda games here. These are the first ones in six years, right? They're taking their time making these things. So, yeah, they happen to have Pickman and Mario and Zelda and and and and and, right?

But each individual one, it seems like, you know, they're given these things plenty of time. They're giving them time, but you could make the argument. And I feel like we maybe talked about this. The tears of the kingdom and breath of the wild weren't that far apart in terms of some like world building. And in concept, you know what happens. Zelda's going to go run off somewhere. We got to go find her.

Link gets a sword. and now we're building things, and we're dealing with the Zonai, which is different. Yeah, narratively. I don't think they are breaking the mold with their stories. And maybe that's fine, right? Like before we started this podcast, we were chatting about Guitar Hero, and I said, if Guitar Hero came back, I'd be so excited.

All you're doing is smashing buttons on a fake guitar and with the newly updated songs of that year. We're not breaking the mold there either. But I think if we're looking at Nintendo and its positioning, of being this fairly prestigious company that's kind of driving the video game ecosystem, I think it's not fair to say that they're skating by because when you talk about the actual numbers, they're doing insanely well. But again, I think nostalgia bait is what will continue to help them.

And I think you also have a lot of older players, which is no fault to being old, that are then going to bring their kids into the fold. And then we start the generational storytelling again. and maybe that's part of it. Maybe the problem is Nintendo is a business. And businesses are going to have to keep businessing and making their money. And so maybe my problem is capitalism. I love where that I've never been more enamored with a conversation in my entire life.

That is the biggest co-sign ever. This could be an hours-long debate. It's capital. I have thoughts. Yeah, Nintendo's minting money, obviously. But that's not something we need to care about. out or praise them for, right? But I think that is a...

No, I was just going to say, what I'm more excited about is the Switch 2. If they can bring me something new there and change... Because I think what they've done well throughout the duration of their legacy is being a console business, like just the innovation to the gaming console. I don't know.

It's a fine line. But I stand by my DC take. I think we're getting a lot of... We're getting a lot of quantity. Wow. Not a lot of quality, in my opinion. Yes. I mean, look, I'm not going to say there's a lie anywhere because I know this is your earnest opinion and everyone is entitled to their personal responses to these games.

I don't think you're trying to make a hot take for hot takes's sake. You stand by this take. But I think I would quibble and say that your take is different from the consensus, right? I mean, the critical consensus, the popular consensus, I think is largely, I mean, Nintendo's making oodles of money because I think the market likes what they're selling these days, right? And the DC comp to me is wild. I feel like there is another one that is like not the DC. Yeah. I mean, DC universe, but for like on paper, not even on paper, but like in a vague way,

I get the comparison between. How about this? Kind of continually doing it. Nintendo is the backyard baseball franchise. It's the backyard sports. We had a good run. We had a lot of stuff that we loved, but at a certain point, but a certain point, the well's going to run dry.

The thing is, luckily, backyard baseball, if they dropped it today, it would sell off the markets because there's only been like two. But there's how many Super Mario's? Yeah. DC is in disarray perpetually, right? And, you know, accepting DC animation, which is great. But DC films, right? And partly it's that Nintendo is secretive.

We don't get a lot of leaks. We don't know what's going on in there. But it seems like they largely have their house in order, which is not to say that they're not messy sometimes and hated sometimes with their policies on suing everyone at the drop of a capy hat, right? I mean, the most litigious company, just fans who are trying to express their love for Nintendo's franchises and are like, like, cease and desists, sir. or, you know, all the restrictive rules that they impose on the smash community,

which has gotten everyone up in arms this week. Like, in some ways, they're very anti-community and fan unfriendly. But the actual games, I think, have largely been acclaimed and beloved lately. And yeah, it's certainly true that Tears of the Kingdom is a spin on Breath of the Wild, right, and uses the same sort of foundation and builds on it, which I'm kind of okay with, because Breath of the Wild was a complete reinvention of that franchise, right? And so I'll give you one sequel before you have to reinvent yourself again. It's hard because with Nintendo, it's like people, even that nostalgia that DC still has is like,

the games are still good. Like we still, I'm going to play every Super Smash Bros. But if there were a million vans in the world who literally stick by Superman's side and always will be, those are kind of the same people like me with Smash. It's like with Nintendo. That's why I think when we're comparing the DC to Nintendo, we're not saying like, they're a mess. There's a Zach Snyder inside Nintendo.

Right. This game is broken. This is unflatable. Right. Nostalgia numbers. If the numbers for the video games that Nintendo were making were as big as the numbers that DC is making in movies, I just don't think that many people are watching DC movies as people play Nintendo.

It's kind of more or less the same kind of idea. I know the DC is also, DC is a mess. DC as a structure. I do not stand behind when Zach Snyder was. there. I only stand by and now with James Good. And even then, I'm not going to see Aquaman. I will not be seated for

Aquaman. You're not going to see me there. But Joker, Joker, too, I'll be there. Waiting in the wings. I'll be there. Robert Pattinson's, that doesn't really involve the DC anymore? I'll be seated. I want to go see. Aquaman is the

Super Mario Brothers wonder of the DC universe. It's just whimsical and weird, not taking itself too seriously. I think, I think to just give myself a bit of redemption in case anybody, you know, I already turned off my DMs. You don't have to be mad at me. But I get it. There's a time and a place for all of this.

And I think I don't believe in the concept of over-hyping a game because, again, there's so much personal preference. And, you know, gaming is so subjective. But I don't know. This to me seemed like a very safe game to make. Yeah, see, I feel like this is unsafe, as unsafe as it could be within the same, the safe framework of 2D Mario. Like, I don't know what more they could have done to mess with with 2D Mario and still have it be 2D Mario, the platforming that people expect. Like, I, you know, I give them credit for trying to innovate and switch up the formula, you know, while still sort of, I guess, delivering largely what people love and remember. So, yes, if you're feeling some, you know, superhero fatigue equivalent for Nintendo, Nintendo

fatigue, it's just like, hey, so many Mario's, so many Zelda's. I've been playing these things my whole life. They hit certain beats. There's certain hallmarks of these franchises. I've had my fill. I get that. I would certainly understand that. I don't think I have gotten my fill.

I'm more of a Zelda guy than a Mario man in general. Zelda's my main man when it comes to Nintendo. So, yeah, or main woman, if we're talking about actual Zelda and not link. But for me, they've done enough to switch, no pun intended, to up the formula to keep me coming back and to keep me thinking, you know what, they're trying. They're trying to do new things even at this late date, although I do have not great news for you about the upcoming Nintendo release schedule for Switch, Devon, because this might vindicate you. because, and look, as I said, this is, you know, the tail end of the Switch, which has had an incredible run. And Breath of the Wild and Odyssey were launch year titles for Switch. So with all the rumors surrounding Switch 2 potentially coming out next year, I think you could see those two games and now Tears of the Kingdom and Wonder kind of as the bookends to the Switch era.

Not that there won't continue to be Switch releases for years to come. But in the coming months, there are not a lot. lot of original Nintendo developed games slated for Switch, which, you know, there's always a tapering off at the end of a console generation or a system's life. But looking ahead, you know, you have a whole lot of Mario on the menu or adjacent Mario universe kind of titles. Because you have a film tie-in, you have something that they're building on that has done really well. It makes sense to me. Then there are only two things that I want. Yeah. And it's in the next year.

There's only two things. As somebody that has purchased the extended pack of Mario Kart, I want my remaining levels and worlds. We still don't have them. I want them. And I want multiplayer in Sims 5. That's it.

It's all I want. It's all I'm asking for. Okay. Well, on the Nintendo first party release schedule for Switch, you have Wario Where Move It comes out next week. Then you have Super Mario RPG remake comes out in less than a month, which I'm looking forward to, but, you know, it's recycling the esteemed history of Nintendo. You have Mario versus Donkey Kong remake coming in February. Then you have Princess Peach Showtime in March.

Yes. Yeah. Paper Mario, the Thousand Year Door remake coming next year and Louise's Mansion 2HD. It's going to be good. So there's a lot of remakes and remasters. That's a hard one to be mad at. Yeah, but, but it is a lot of, and look, they have such an incredible back catalog and library that in many cases is not as accessible as I would like it to be, let me play Wind Waker on Switch. That is one, that is my one wish list item.

If you get your Sims request, I want my Wind Waker. But yeah, you know, it's a lot of, and probably a lot of resources going to Switch to Development. But other than Princess Peach and maybe. Metroid Prime 4 at some point, though at this point you have to figure that'll be a Switch 2 title or a cross-gen release. Not a lot that is known to be on the docket. Things are winding down for the switch. So Devin and Jess, then what do you want for the next generation? Like, this can be a larger conversation when we actually find out some details about the Switch 2. But it sounds like, Devin, you would not want more of the same as successful as the Switch has been. Would you just not

want another hybrid console that is more powerful than the switch, but less powerful than its competing consoles, sort of, you know, off-cycle release where it's in between the Xbox and PlayStation generations you get a switch, which is not going to be as souped up, but is going to be portable and is going to let you get all of that Nintendo goodness that you crave, or maybe that you've had your fill of in your case, like, what would you want? And it's always hard to predict what Nintendo will do next, right? I mean, that's part of the success of the company is that they manage to defy expectations and sometimes also have experiments that don't work so well. But do you have anything on your wish lists for Switch 2? It's a loaded question. I don't,

Jess, do you want to go first? Yeah. Do you have a wish list? I'm trying to think. I could talk all the shit I can about Nintendo and its games or anything if I had any negative things. and I'm still going to play Luigi's Mansion too and I'm going to play these other games I'm a nostalgia head and I always that's why I'm still talking about like superhero movies that come from

1960s comic books I'm like yeah I am going to play those games yeah I think that that's what they've done well with and I think it's hard to as much as I am kind of dog piling on them in this take that I have I do think at the end of the day I'm super excited for Luigi's Manston just as much as when Animal

Crossing came out. I was seated ready and played it until we couldn't play it anymore. And I will be going to get the Animal Crossing Lego set once it drops. I think in terms of maybe a console, I don't know. I mean, the Switch is fine. I personally like something that was more, like to me, the heyday was the Wii and the GameCube. I thought those were really great systems that I just thoroughly enjoyed. But the Switch offers a lot of flexibility in terms of playing on it, casting it to your TV, and I think they've done a really great job with that. I personally hate the controller, but we're not going back to the clunky, very large. I mean, if you want them, you can get them.

But we're not going back to them for the switch. That's my biggest gripe. All I'm asking for is make those controllers a little bit. Yeah, make them tougher. Because when a cat knocks it off of a dresser that's two feet tall, it's not fair that it can never be used to get properly. The pairing. The pairing is annoying. Every five minutes when it does.

disconnects. Oh, God. Terrible. Sucks. Oh, sorry. This is me griping from my own. My roommate has the older switch that literally sounds like a car engine going. And then my switch is the newer of the latest one.

And I'm literally like having a parry problem all the time. And he's always like, yeah, at least you're isn't literally dying, like literally heaving to survive. And I'm like, maybe I can't. I'm not updating this. until I can switch to. I'm not getting a new switch. Well, we will talk much more about this when we know more about Nintendo's plans, but all perspectives and points of view have been expressed on this podcast.

Everyone in the audience is represented, whether you're still channeling your inner Nintendo kids like me, apparently, or you have the hander take. Like, Devin, maybe you should have played Sonic Superstars instead, which came out last week as well. Maybe. I do love Sonic. just bring back the movie, but I do love Sonic.

So nothing wrong with Sega every now and then. Oh, no, Jess. You can play Sonic Superstars on Switch. It's so cartoony. Oh, my goodness. It's allowed to be bad. It's allowed to be ridiculous.

It's allowed to be ridiculous. Ben, take us out. We're cutting. I'm much more of a Mario person than a Sonic person. Sonic is too fast for me. Sonic is great. It's just, he rolls so fast. I don't know what to do.

My roommate of Sonic got me to play Sonic. and I loved it. And then I went to saw the movie, I went, this is very funny. Do you think we're going to get, because it's an Olympic year, do you think we'll get Mario versus Sonic

at the Olympics for Paris 20204? Oh. Yeah, that would make sense. I'd play that. That's innovative. Got the perfect tag. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, I guess we've gotten Mario and Sonic at the Olympics before. So that's just another retress. Hey, I mean, look. Connect. Maybe they'll come up with some sort of like, hybrid Apple Watch, like, kind of how we had We Fit minus, like, the terrible body image,

like, something that we can, like, latch onto our body and then we can, like, jump around and experience, like, the, I don't know. I'm giving them a lot of free IP. Weird Nintendo. You are. After. Miss Fires would be an entire podcast we could do. They're like, we're not going to listen to them. They said that we're like the DC extended universe.

All right. You have those of us who felt wonder while playing Super Mario Brothers Wonder. I just wonder those of us who didn't, those of us who were somewhere in the middle, maybe. Okay? So it's the full spectrum of the Nintendo experience on Button Mesh this week. Thank you to Devin for producing and also producing the hottest take that this podcast has ever seen or heard. And thank you to our Juno Ramik Pall for green lighting our many button mesh episodes this month, including the one that will be coming on Monday when we talk about Alan Wake 2 and Five Nights at Freddy's.

Stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for upcoming Loki coverage. Contact us at ringerburstgaming at gmail.com. We will talk to you next time. Wonder!