The Ringer-Verse - The All-Time Mario Games Draft | Button Mash

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Ben recruits game journalists (and ex-coworkers) Chris Plante, Maddy Myers, and Joshua Rivera to draft the greatest games featuring Mario, in honor of the upcoming 40th anniversary of 'Super Mario Bros.' First, they share their origin stories as Mario gamers, discuss what makes the character so versatile, and speculate on what Nintendo might announce for the franchise's big birthday. Then they select the all-time greatest (and weirdest!) Mario-centric releases across several genres.Intro (0:00)'Super Mario Bros.' 40th anniversary draft (24:55)Outro (1:47:20)Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Chris Plante, Maddy Myers, and Joshua RiveraProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Nexus feed for all things fandom. It's a me, Ben Lindberg, senior editor at the ringer, ButtonMash host, and person whose plumbing skills are limited to replacing a toilet flapper, and that's on a good day. Much like many a Mario game, this episode supports four players, and I will introduce the other three to you now. In Super Mario 64, Mario's model consisted of 752 polygons. This podcast consists of three people who use.

to work at Polygon. Chris Plent co-founded the site and later served as its editor-in-chief. He's now the host and founder of Post Games, the podcast, and Substack. He's also a co-host of one of my favorite long-running gaming pods, The Besties. Chris, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Of course, Maddie Myers is the former deputy editor of Polygon and Kataku before that. She's now a freelance writer and one of the hosts of another of my favorite gaming pods,

triple-click, as well as the X-Men podcast, The Mutant Ages. Hello, Maddie. Hello, thank you for having me. I'm excited to get into it. Get competing. Exactly. Get your game face on. Get your draft. Oh, it's on. Skills ready. Finally, Joshua Rivera was an entertainment writer for Polygon and Kotaku and every other website. He is now freelancing for several of those websites, including The Ringer from time to time. Last year he wrote a piece for us about Mario and Luigi Brotherhip and the history of comedic Mario, which he came on button mash to discuss.

So Joshua, welcome back. Hello, I have zero podcasts, but I'm hoping you're the last of podcast. It means that like I'm just bringing winning energy to this one. Yes. Yeah, it's your pent-up podcasting energy that you have not been able to release in any other media. I feel a little left out because I'm the only non-polygon person on the call,

but you're the only non-podcasting. Collie got a job there now, man. Sorry, is that too? Too forthright? I think they're looking for people. But would I want to? Would I want to work at a post- Chris Joshua, Madden Polygon.

Yeah. I do miss reading you all together at the same site. Polygon was way better with you and your other departed ex-collegrolegs than it is without you. I am glad that I can still here and read you elsewhere and that we could make this mini reunion happen now that you're scattered to all of the various corners of the internet. Still blogging, still podcasting somewhere out there. So happy to have you all. And thank you for all that you created together in

separately during your polygand days. Thank you. I'm sorry to talk about Mario. You know, it is the one that brings us all together. It is the one joy that pulls us through the darkest of times. Yes. Mario is the great. Yeah. Unless you call it Mario. Well, see, that's the thing. We didn't invite Russ.

So we don't even have to get into that. It's okay. We have no Mario Sayers online at this time. I am a reformed Mario Sayer. Wow. Are you really? As a New Yorker, I grew up saying Mario. It must have grown up in New York.

This podcast is my final boss because I will now have to attempt to pronounce it, Mario for an entire episode, like the rest of the world does. Every now and then, it's like I don't have much of a regional accent except for saying Mario instead of Mario and one will just slip out from time. Is this our first fight? I mean, you're out numbered. I think you lost this one. I'm not going to argue that I'm right.

I have decided to change my ways. I've mended my Mario pronouncing ways. But we'll see. Sometimes it just comes out. I will say that I am pulling for you. And that's not just because you edit me sometimes. Yes. Yeah, we don't anymore.

So we're person and on a girl on that. Yeah, it's true. Producer Devin will be on watch for my Marios, if any, comes out in Colombino after the podcast. And we are here to discuss Mario, and we've gathered really to wish an early happy birthday to Super Mario Brothers, which is turning 40 next month. Mario himself, of course, is pushing 45 at this point. Also, canonically, the character is 24, I believe, according to at least some. Mario Cannon, but he's always had more of a middle-aged vibe. Maybe it's the mustache, but he just doesn't really read his 24.

Yeah. He also has a full head of hair. Perpetually friend-zoned. Yeah. Yeah, no, he's 45. I mean, 24 barely finished your plumbing apprenticeship. And we all know he's like fully through. He's master at this point.

We trust him to fix our pipes. So like, it just doesn't make any sense. got to be old time on that. The actual birthday of Super Mario Brothers is September 13th, but that's the day after Borderlands 4 comes out. We might be busy, so I figured why not get ahead of things. Beat the birthday rush. We'll be the first on the internet to do a Mario ranking slash draft in honor of the 40th. Plus, we just did a top 25 Games of the Century episode last time on ButtMash and somehow snubbed Mario altogether. So this time, we will make up for that by drafting nothing but Mario games.

It's just all Mario all the time here. And we could do a draft of mainline Super Mario games to stick with the anniversary theme, but that would, I think, miss what makes Mario so special, which is that the man is a chameleon. He's a shapeshifter. He is the most malleable mascot. And sometimes he's been a plumber, sometimes not. Sometimes he's been a New Yorker, sometimes not.

Sometimes he's had nipples, sometimes not. and the internet is intensely interested in his nipple status. As little temporonies that could, you know? I was going to say same to everything there. Your nipples are permanent, I take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not going anywhere. Way to brag.

His first name is Mario. His last name is also Mario. I believe that is also canon, at least sometimes. but what strikes me about Mario, and we could, there have been, I think, more than 20 mainline Mario or Super Mario games, but there are more than 200 Mario games of all kinds, at least, and that kind of depends how you define it and what counts as a Mario game, which we may or may not argue over at some point during this podcast.

But what stands out to me is that he can just be in any game and has had success in so many genres, which you can say is a credit to Mario. And also, if you wanted to be a hater, you could say that that's because there's not that much to Mario as a character. And so he can be kind of this free-floating guy who is just the blank slate. He's the straight man. He just kind of works everywhere.

And if you read the origin story of Mario, like he exists only because Nintendo couldn't license the rights to Popeye, right? So that was, we could have had Popeye. and we could be doing a Popeye draft right now if Miyamoto had had his way originally. And he was like originally called Jumpman, but then he was named Mario because Nintendo of America had a landlord named Mario. So sure, he's Mario. He was a carpenter because he had overalls and because Donkey Kong was on a construction site. So first he's a carpenter and then he switched to plumbing because he kind of looked like a plumber, I guess. And because the spinoff of Donkey Kong,

it kind of made sense for him to be a plumber. Like, he just will be whatever he has to be. And there's a Miyamoto quote from 2010 where he said, with Mario Brothers, we had a setting, of course, that was underground. So I just decided Mario is a plumber. Let's put him in New York and he can be Italian. There was really no other deep thought other than that.

And that is why Shigero Miyamoto is a genius. Mario has a lot of personality, though. I agree with you that he's very malleable. I think we all would agree that there are things Mario could do that would seem un-Mario-esque or would seem out of character for Mario. Like, I think he has an unflappable joy most of the time or just kind of never seems too upset about anything that happens to him. Like, those are kind of just inherent Mario qualities.

They go with the jumping, jumping for joy. That's how I see the guy. Yeah. He's a no hurry-no-worry guy. He has a mustache. That doesn't change if he were to change. If he didn't have a mustache, that'd be messed up. That would break cannon.

I don't know. I think there's more personality to Mario than it might initially seem. Over what, 200 games, you've got to have a personality after a while. A little bit. Do you remember what your gateways to Mario were or your war portal, perhaps, to the Mario universe? Because I started with Super Mario Brothers, the original on the combined Super Mario Brothers duck hunt NES cartridge, which I got several years after it came out. So this dates me, but it doesn't date me quite as much as it sounds like that would date me. But I guess I go back to the beginning with Super Mario Brothers, at least. Either of you or any of you have a memory of how you found your way to Mario,

or was he just kind of always there? I mean, for me, the great thing about Mario in the early days is you can just lie about everything, and it still could be true. Like you said Mario is like the anniversary of September 15th. I can just tell people it's October 20. which is like the day I was born, right? And technically, like,

came out in October, I think, maybe. Nobody knows when these games actually came out. They kind of just throw darts and they make up new dates. It's lost to history.

Yeah, it truly is. I mean, I just remember it being around as a kid. My parents were just tinkers. They loved breaking things open and seeing how they worked. And like growing up in the Midwest,

it just was there when I was like two or, three because that's right when it was making its way through Walmarts across the country, you know, starting in New York and working its way westward. So I just remember that when my mom was cutting people's hair at night, I would be put in front of Mario and that was like the means of distracting me. And I was one of the proto-screen kids. So it was just, yeah, Mario has just always been part of life. My first console was a Game Boy. So the first Mario's I played were Super Mario and Super Mario Land too, which are still very near and dear to me because I loved those games,

because obviously, you know, I didn't have that many games total. I only had like five or six Game Boy games. So I just played all of them a million times. So I played both of those games a million times. But also my sister had a Game Boy as well, and she was way better at games than I was, probably because she was two and a half years older than I was. But I was extremely jealous by how quickly she could beat Super Mario Land One. She, in my heart, is the first speed runner I ever encountered because she just got as fast as she possibly could at playing that game. And that one, I think, is kind of hard. I haven't played it since I was like six years old. It's probably not hard at all. But I remember thinking Super Mario Land One was pretty hard. And then Super Mario Land

2 is much easier by comparison, which was big relief to me at that age. So those are some core childhood memories I have. I'm trying to catch up to my sister. Mario's pretty foundational. When I go back and sometimes dabble in games that I played at that age, I think either this is easy or this is bad. Or it's way harder? It's way harder and worse.

Yeah. Where are the save points? Oh, they hadn't been invented yet. Yeah, I should have gone back before this show so I could have more concrete non-sixth years old thoughts on this. But nope, I'm just going to preserve those memories in Amber forever. Yeah, it was not very discerning as a critic at that age. It was kind of whatever happened to be given to me for Christmas or something was my favorite game because it was my only game, which was a huge point in its favor.

Joshua, any Mario origin story? Oh, man, it's fuzzy for me. I'm willing to agree with Maddie that Super Mario Line was hard, but it was extra hard for me because my cartridge didn't seem to work. Ooh. Like something was wrong and there was like a level you couldn't get past. Blowing on it. Yeah, well, I mean, that was the thing. So for me, it was like a hazy, I had like this busted Super Mario Land cart.

And then I had like friends who had Nintendo's or Super Nintendo's. And we played Mario Land or Super Mario World together. I don't remember which came first. I mean, like I know what order they came out in. But I don't know what order I encountered them in. So it was kind of, which we'll probably talk, we kind of start talking. out here was a social thing for me. I was a social Mario player the way that I am a social drinker.

And that's still kind of like how I think of it. Like, now I'll play Mario games by myself. But like they were always a thing I played with other people. Usually when I was visiting, because I didn't have really a lot of Nintendo devices growing up. It was a Sega boy. Yeah. Everyone's been there during the console wars era when that was a real thing.

And if you were willing to cross enemy lines and you had one console, but your friend had another, then you would invent excuses to go to that friend's house, not just to see the friend, but really to see their video games, at least in my case. But it is okay to play Mario alone. It's not like going from social drinking to drinking by yourself. It's like, uh-oh. It's not necessarily a dangerous thing. Maybe people shouldn't intervene if you're playing Mario by yourself.

It's actually fine and healthy. and we shouldn't be worried about you then. Okay, if you say so. So now that we've established our credibility as Mario commentators, we've got our bona fides, we've played Mario for decades, and thus we are at least semi-qualified

to draft the greatest Mario games. And to do this, we will be drafting games in certain categories, seven categories, which is more categories than we typically use, but there are so many Mario games that we just had to expand our palette a little bit here. So what we're doing is we're going to select 2D platformers.

So we have a separate category for 2D and 3D platformers because there are so many Mario games. And I guess you could conceivably select, say, one of the 2.5D Mario games in either category, new Super Mario Brothers. If you want to fight about it, we could. We also have a racing game category, which pretty much means Mario Kart, but I called it racing game. And we have a sports game category. So many options, so many sports, incredible athlete, Mario. You wouldn't know it necessarily to look at him, but he is extremely versatile.

And we have an RPG category, which pretty much is Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, or Mario and Luigi. Then we have a category that I've just called Weird Game. And I'm thinking of this as not necessarily the best Mario games that are also somewhat weird. but just the weirdest Mario games. So these don't have to be good. The weirder, the better. And in fact, it might be inversely correlated with how good they are,

but just the weird ones because the Mario back catalog contains just a lot of interesting experiments and licensed games when Nintendo was more likely to just say, yeah, sure, you can use our character and put them in whatever. And then finally, as we often do,

we have the wild card category, which can just be anything so you can double up. in one of the other six categories, or you can just slot something in there that doesn't really fit into any of the other categories, because, again, it's just such a multitude. Mario contains multitudes,

and so we have a slot here for everything. Just a couple of conditions. I think the main criterion here is that Mario has to be a lead or co-lead in the game. Again, we can quibble, we can argue, but you can't draft. say Luigi's Mansion, which would otherwise be my number one overall pick, or Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. That's what I'm pissed about, man.

I know. Those are good. I know. I know. It can't just be someone in the Mushroom Kingdom universe and Mario is in the game in some capacity. He has to be prominent in the game. And as a rule of thumb, is his name in the title. Okay.

It's probably a pretty good guy. That's helpful because I do worry that there are some games where, maybe Mario isn't the main character, but Mario is like the star, like the face on the box, by far. Right. For instance, Mario Party, which contains many playable characters. It's a party, but also it's Mario branded. Yeah. Mario is hosting the party.

He is. He's the host, and so therefore he can be drafted. Yeah. But Super Smash Brothers, for instance, would not be eligible, even though he is just a as playable in that series. It's not Mario Smash Brothers. So it doesn't count. We can object to this as we go, if necessary.

I guess the only other condition maybe is that each game is eligible to be drafted only once. So if someone select, say, Super Mario 64, someone else can't say, aha, I am selecting Super Mario 64. DS. The second version is kind of encompassed by the first version. So not remakes, remasters, upgraded versions. If you draft a game, you get all of its incarnations through the ages. And then lastly, I guess along those lines, no compilations. So you can't draft Super Mario All-Stars or Super Mario 3D All-Stars and say,

I have taken all of the games in that package off the board, although that would be a clever tactic. But I'm telling you right now, it will be banned. So I think that's all that we have to cover here. Anyone have any questions about how this draft will work? I can win under these conditions, sure. You think? All right.

We'll see. Okay. I mean, a lot seems to depend on what order we go in, too. Like any draft, whoever goes first gets to pick what is considered the winning. I mean, I don't know. In some of these categories, there's some societally agreed upon best marias. I'm not saying I agree with every single one of those, but. Yes.

there are some consensus favorites within certain categories, but I don't know if there's a number one overall across all categories. I would agree with you. That's why this is hard. Yeah, right. So there's some strategy if you want to slot a game into wild card or a specific genre, but mostly we'll just be drafting the best available talent, and Devin will tell us in just a second, who will be drafting first.

We can do snake draft format also. So if you get the last pick, the consolation is that you get to pick twice in a row. as we circle around. One thing before we kick off the draft, since we are drafting a few weeks before the official anniversary, is there anything that you all are hoping will be announced if Nintendo announces anything, which to this point it has not.

Nintendo always inscrutable. You never know what they have up their sleeve, if anything. But is there something that you are hoping for that the big 4-0 we get time to that announcement or that anniversary next month? I personally would love them to announce a collection of, let's say, four random old games that look slightly better. They charge $60 for it and you can spend it for six weeks. If they could do that, I would feel like we all live.

And for a limited time only, I do. So that they then make it unavailable after a short time. Right, like Mario 99 style or whatever. I like, they should make it not playable anymore. Yeah. Yeah. It's like mortality makes us appreciate life, right? Like if we didn't have an expiration date, we'd all be bored, maybe, or so they say. So it's like this Mario game will self-destruct in however many months. And then it makes it more precious while you can play because there's constantly a clock ticking down.

Mario is missing. They were telling us all along, you know? We should have listened. Yeah. Just like there's a clock when we actually play Mario, just the fleeting impermanence of it. Memento Mori. So special. Yeah. Memento Mario. I just love the idea of like a losing my edge purse about Mario. I was there when Mario All-Stars was only around for six months.

Everybody thought it was crazy. We could get away with a lot at this point. That could happen. That's what I would like. Just make Super Mario 3D All-Stars available again. It's like Brigadoon or something. It's just it comes back every five years. Super Mario has a anniversary.

and they let you buy their game again for an exorbitant price. They let you buy it. And we do it every time, even though we shake our fists and curse them every time. Yeah, maybe a Super Mario 3D All-Stars, except you can get it again. And now it has Galaxy 2 in it because Galaxy was snubbed last time, only the original included. What we'll probably get is, I don't know, maybe like a sneak peek at the movie or something like that. Yeah. That does seem plausible.

Well, I mean, there's always a freaking rumor going around, right? The last one I saw was like, which I would hate, but it was like a new Super Mario Brothers collection, right? Did you all see this? Oh. That they're collecting all the New Super Mario Brothers games, which I guess is cool because it gets two and new Super Mario's the first two. Back in circulation, I guess. Out of jail. Yeah, out of jail.

Out of non-purchaseable jail. My sincere thing is I want a Mario baseball game. Oh, yes. Super Slugger's sequel. Yeah, it's been too long. Yeah, they do this because they make us constantly drag around their old hardware for the rest of our lives. So I still have my N64 and all my Nintendo systems because otherwise I might not be able to play those games again, except when they appear and then disappear yet again. I guess we're all thinking small.

I mean, the big announcement would be a new 3D Mario, right? Which is possible. Yeah, which instead Donkey Kong Bonanza exists. and now I question everything in my life. I mean, I loved that game, but I also would have expected that to have been a Mario game. I mean, we all did. And here we are with a really fun Donkey Kong game instead.

I'm sated. My appetite for more Mario is quenched, at least for now, after beating Bonanza. But I would welcome more. So we'll see. We'll see. I look forward to the direct, if there is one, or a tweet that says,

This is Miyamoto. This is Miyamoto. That's how I would start all my tweets if I still tweeted. This is Winberg. Anyway, Devin, do you have a draft order for us? I do. All right. Hit us.

All right. Chris, you are going first, followed by Joshua. Ben, you are somehow number three again. Wow. And now he's serving us out. Okay. Okay. So we've got...

Playing for myself here. 28 picks to make. Just scratch. the surface of the Mario universe. And in theory, we will put this online on the Ring of our social channels, and we can have people vote and determine the bragging rights and who won the draft, quote, unquote. Well, Chris, no pressure. You have all of the many Mario games laid out before you, and you can take your pick.

Oh, man. I'm going to take a pick from the group that I feel the least confident about. because I don't care about Mario role-playing games. Mario should be jumping up and down across platform and he should be playing golf. He should be doing all these things. This isn't where I want to spend my time and I respect that they have great writing

in a thousand-year door. And that Super Mario RPG was like good-ish if you weren't playing Earthbound. But like most these games are my personal hell. The best thing you can hope for is to find a random sex toy and origami king and feel like you totally waste your time. So I'm going to pick

Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story for our piece of shit. I'm so sorry. I was like this is Joshua's category that you're disagree now. In all of his favorite games, I'm not saying I like them

because I don't. Before we started drafting, we were saying, oh, we're going to be friendly. and that last in one pick. I just think it's great that Nintendo made one for fans of Vore. They said, we want you to be able to eat them up. And then they made, I love anything that lets me go, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in a universe that I'm already familiar with.

And Nintendo had already done this with Zelda. And then they were letting us do it with Mario. and while I am not really into the turn-based combat, the world is so cool getting inside of Bowser's guts. It's like an Epcot exhibit made by Nintendo, transitioning to a video game. Also, there's like a disease that is spreading through the mushroom kingdom.

It's so good. That turns so good. All of the toads into these giant inflatable balls that will roll around, and it just looks like a knockoff of, like, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's so good. It is borrowing all of the best inspirations. So I am going to take that.

And then I will feel more comfortable not having to think about RPGs, the rest of it. Yeah, you just cross that off. It's like dragons plague and dragon's dogma, but Mario, but make it Mario. And it's a little like when you go inside someone's belly in a Nintendo game, it's often disturbingly gross. Because you just replayed Akarina, Maddie. So you've been in Jabu Jabu's belly recently. So you know what I'm talking about.

I mean, not least because Princess Rudo is yelling at you the entire time. That's a huge downside of that level. But yeah, also, it's gross. It's gross. You get lost a lot. God, he's a guide. I'm not too proud to admit it. No, that's okay.

Yeah. So there are two ways you can go with a draft. You can go with best available talent. Just take the best game regardless of category. Or you can factor in positional scarcity, which is what Chris just did, went with the weakest category, at least as judged by Chris Plant, perhaps not by. Joshua Rivera. Well, Joshua, I guess you're on the board next or on the clock,

so you can either take what's remaining in RPG, or for you, I guess it's a deep category, so you could probably draft all day in Mario RPGs. I'm going to go somewhere else. I am going to go for the 3D Mario, which I'm considering the wide receiver slot right now, or just sort of like if you're doing fantasy drafting this year, I feel like you want a good wide receiver,

I feel like running backs are onto the, Klein. And so don't do 2D Mario, do 3D Mario in your Mario draft first. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to go with Galaxy. Super Mario Galaxy is my 3D Mario pick of choice. I kind of, you know, I give a lot of respect to Mario 64, which is probably the one I played most, but I'm a grown-ass man. And doing the 3D Mario shit when Mario's like upside down and on spheres, that is crazy to me. I don't know how anybody does it. I have a hard time imagining a room when someone describes it in a novel. And these two just built that shit in a video game. So, you know, I am the most impressed by it.

I put it on the TV and it looks, you know, not as good as it could, but it looks still great. I don't know. It's got that lovely orchestral score. It introduced Rosalina, is that her name, right? And her little star pals. Those guys are great. Love them. And, you know, very little to hate about Mario Cat.

Unless you, you know, have motion sickness. Yes. Yeah, or motion control sickness also, I guess. But I would say the critical consensus has hardened into Galaxy 2 being the better games. So are you disagreeing with that or are you just going with Galaxy on an originality influence perspective? Yeah, I disagree with that for those reasons, for the most part. I also think it feels more like a game. you can get lost in, you know,

Mario Galaxy 2, I think, is careful to always show you what's going on, right? And, like, I don't know. The cool thing about all these Mario games, particularly the 3D ones, is that, like, you feel like you're discovering the world in the game with developers, right? You feel like you're playing through the ideas

as they have them. And, like, I don't know. I think Galaxy does that better for me. That's why. Fair enough. All right. I am up next. and with the third pick, I guess I'll go with a 2D platformer

and I'll take a game that has an argument as maybe just the best Mario game. That is Super Mario World. And probably the best-selling S&ES game, leap forward for the franchise, just kind of brought together all of the elements from the first few games, the original N-E-S-E-E-S game,

games and just harnished the power of the super Nintendo at the time. And so it was kind of mind-blowing. This was another thing where I was going to friends' houses and playing it at their houses at the time because I did not have an S-N-E-S yet. This just has aged well. It just feels like it kind of did everything well. You got your, you know, Yoshi is involved here. He's introduced in this game.

That adds a whole element to the gameplay. I'm not sure that 2D Mario has ever surpassed Super Mario World either before or since. Wow, strong claim. Yeah, I don't know if that's wrong or if I even disagree with it. I'm just amazed as we do this exercise that it's like running a fantasy football league with only four players. There's just so much. You're getting stars with every pick. Yeah, I didn't even have it on my short list.

I'm like, oh, that's weird that I didn't have that on my short list. on my short list. That's one of the greatest games of all time. But I don't know I hadn't thought of it. It's not on my list. And here's the thing. I don't disagree with our review. I think it's, you know, a genius video game. One of the best to ever do it. I just don't like how it looks now. I don't know. I woke up one day and I looked at it and I was like, I don't, I don't like that art, you know? It was a weird day to wake up. Like you weren't even looking at it. You were lying in bed. You know what I don't care for?

How that game looks. My dog's not cute anymore. Well, no, yeah, I think there's just something about, like, the, I don't know, like the flattens of the colors or something. I don't know. It just might be, like, they lean into sort of, like, the colorfulness and, and add little flourishes and animation and character design as they go on, right? that sort of like, I don't know, just like speaks more to me now, where it's sort of like as I pay closer attention to like those fine details. But, you know, again, the games rock solid,

the most insane special courses they've ever done, I think. Yeah. Like, I still have nightmares about tubular. Yeah. I think, I think Miyamoto has said that this is his favorite Mario game for whatever that's worth, he would know, I guess. So I'm deferring to authority. Miyamoto says it's the best.

Joshua Rivera says it's not. I mean, he also made three pickman games. Hey, we will not have any slander on this podcast. Me and Ben or Team Pickman. Yes, he would make many more Pikmin games if they let him. I think they had to kind of take the dev kits away for Miyamoto, or it would be nothing but Pikman, which would be fine for me. All right.

Well, Maddie, you now have the honor of making multiple picks back to back. I do. Pretty exciting. So I'm going to take a page from Chris Plant's book in that the RPG category is extremely weak for me in that I have played very few of them. So I don't even feel that confident about any of them. However, one Mr. Jason Shrier for my podcast made me play Super Mario RPG. And I got to admit it's really funny. I really like the writing in that game.

I enjoy the kind of fan fiction-esque portrayal of Bowser as a. guy who's deeply insecure. I like how, from what I understand, the other RPG Mario games kind of take that idea and run with it to varying degrees of success. But I can't speak to that because I've played so few of them. So I'm just going to put Super Mario RPG in the slot and I feel good about it because I enjoyed my time with it. And that is that.

I guess now I get to pick another category. Yeah, that's the game that spawned all of these spin-on. RPG franchises. So I think it gets points for influence, certainly. I think it holds up. I think it's a strong pick. Yeah. Yeah, it's still pretty fun.

It's not too long. Thank goodness. I've been forced to play far longer RPGs by Jason. We don't need to talk about. We couldn't do here. But I still haven't forgiven him for that. Anyway. Next, I'm going to go.

I'm still mad. Actually, it's been you. I still talk about it. It's fine. Next category. I'm just going to land grab this one. Mario Kart 8 for racing game, y'all. I spent so much time playing that game.

Also, Mario Kart World is fine. We don't need to get into it here, but I do feel like some weird decisions were made there in terms of just trying to make that game open world. and I think part of why those problems exist is because Mario Kart 8 is such an incredibly good Mario Kart game that has so much to offer, that it was really hard to iterate on it.

And also, there was a lot more cart customization in Mario Kart 8 than there is in World, and that meant that there was actually a tiny but adorable e-sports scene for Mario Kart 8 that I really enjoyed covering when I was still covering e-sports back in the day at Kataku, and just really dig that game. The multiplayer is fun. I played that game with strangers on the internet

and just had a wonderful time with it. All the courses are great. I can't say enough good things about Mario Kart 8. It's simply the good Mario Kart. So I'm just going ahead and picking that. I'm taking advantage. Why not? A good Mario Kart, I would say.

We'll see. Both of you. Both of you are insane to me because I can't imagine being like, that Mario Kart, that's the one. I knew it. I don't know. That's why. They really got the riverbending right on this one.

The blue shells when they hit, when you're doing the bullet bill in that one, the bullet bill, that speed is tuned just right in that one, but not so much in World. They really got it wrong. I don't know. There is a certain similarity among Mario Carts. There is.

There is. Which is part of why I'm like, I may as well just go ahead and pick my favorite one here, because that way I'm leaving the rest of you. I'm sure it's the best-selling- Some other Mario Carts, whichever ones you bought. Most popular Mario cart. You get the box in there, of course.

Yeah, sales juggernaut. Okay. All right. Well, it's back to me. And I guess since there's a run-on RPGs here, I will select one also. And I will take Paper Mario the thousand-year door, which I guess gets me the remake as well.

I considered the original Paper Mario, still on the board. Still some good Game Boy games out there. Still some choice Mario and Luigi selections out there for Joshua when he gets around to this category. But Paper Mario, the Thousand Year Door, holds up well, very funny, very well-written, and now remade and easily accessible on Switch. So probably my favorite of the Mario RPGs. A famous one with good reason. I mean, I've never beaten it, but that's a me problem.

Yeah. I can still recognize its greatness. Yeah. Okay. I also forgot we were doing a snake draft or else I would have grabbed that. I forgot I had to account for Ben here. Yes. I've listened to it away from you.

And it is now your pick again. And you could select something from the rapidly dwindling RPG selection. I could. Or you could wait. No one else is going to grab an RPG at this point. I mean, we've all chosen. I'm so in a way. You have as much time.

as you want to think about what RPG you can pick. So strats-wise, I would actually recommend you not. I don't know why I'm telling you that. I think everyone's going to disagree with me on my two-de-Mario pick. So I'm not going to do that one right now. But it's okay if you disagree, right? Afraid of the peer pressure. No, no.

I just think no one's, it's not up for grabs. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes. So you're not worried about it. I get it. I'm going to say I want double dash for my Mario card. That's a good pick. Good pick.

Yeah. Again, see, you're all saying good pick because it is. And it addresses the thing I was complaining about, right? It's the one that feels the most different, right? You know, it's built around the two rider carts. And a lot of people, I think, like, our age, you know, feel fondly about that one in particular because, you know, it was on the GameCube, which, you know, had that little handle. so everyone was bringing it over for like pizza parties and shit.

I don't think I ever carried my GameCube by the handle. It was highly portable, but not so much because of the handle. Yeah, the handle is actually a problem because it meant that you couldn't fit it in a bag. Yeah, you couldn't put it in a bag easily. I had like a specific GameCube backpack that I like bought from a GameStop or whatever that like specifically fit it in there. It was annoying though. Yeah. Nothing else fit in that backpack either.

It was just really hyper-specific. Also, a dark horse thing that it does is that it has probably the best battle mode of all of the ones. People tend to complain about battle mode a lot and the modern ones. And I kind of, you know, I see the problem. I think World is actually pretty good at it. I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think Double Dash introduces Shine Thief, which is my favorite battle mode in Mario, where you just have to hold on to the shine. while the timer runs down.

And as long as you have it, when the timer runs out, you win. So it becomes like, I guess like oddballs, the halo equivalent, right? Yeah. You know, so it becomes like this really manic game of like trying to avoid everyone or like strategically sniping people. And it's a great way to, you know, just like make some enemies among friends. But, uh, but yeah, no, I feel like outside of that, you know, I don't really have much to say outside like Mario Kart games are good and double dash is the best one.

I like it. It was high on my board. It's distinctive, certainly, among a sea of similar Mario cart games. That one stands out. And yeah, I guess if you were playing co-op, I don't know if it was always as fun to be the person on the back of the cart. But if you could find someone who is willing to do that, there was a little more complexity, a little more strategy to it than typically playing in that way. Good one. All right. Chris, back to you for two picks. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways. Ketchup goes rogue ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty

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at your local retailer in the creamer. This episode is brought to you by Nass Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of Nass energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of Nass energy and get after it. I'm here to win. That's the truth.

So I have two jobs. I have one pick the best games, which are you? I'm no problem. And two, tear down the junk. And let me tell you two things here. Mario Card 8 is a great collection of other games. Congrats on getting it, Maddie. I'm getting a game that is all the best bits of other cool games.

I guess that's neat. The most Mario card. So we're just adding and trashed on to your picture. I'm so happy that you grabbed the game that has the best version of the worst mode. That's, I think, a huge one. You sound happy. You sound really happy. Happy to know.

Anyway, I'm going to take this little game called Mario Kart DS, which is the first time portable Mario Kart is truly Mario Kart. It's not an E-this-S-N-E-S-style junk. It's a true 3-D game, and it is not just portable. It is better than the Mario Carts that came out before it. It is as good if not better. And there's a few reasons for that. One, because it's portable, you can take it wherever.

You're not having to get a special backpack to go play your game. You can go play with anybody. Two, it is online, and it is so online that people develop snaking and all these other hardcore esports-ass styles of play. And three, and I think this is the big differentiator for it. Because it's still portable in this era of, like, Nintendo having two different divisions, portable is where you're going to try things. Portable is, like, creative space.

So that's where you're getting maps like TikTok clock where you're in a clock. And while we do pinball, where you're in a pinball. They've really figured out that there's a theme here, which is I want to be small and put in a thing. And I'm just in. The Mario games, they're the ones doing it. But Chris Pan is picking Mario games with a certain pattern. I'm just saying. I'm just saying it is, it's an absolutely incredible and historic game.

And I think it's telling that when they re-release tracks in future Mario games, they're often like, oh, and we're bringing back these hits from the DS version. That's the thing that people get excited about. I'll be honest, I can't be that. Like, the other two games are also good. But this games just better. Yeah, I said it. I'm realizing it's now also my pick again.

This is a great thing about a scene. You just did a mic drop and now you have to pick the mic back up on the floor. Okay. So I'm a little worried by something that my day, Josh said, which is he's not worried about the Judy platformer, which has me now very worried about my picture. I felt very comfortable that nobody was going to take it. So I'm suddenly a little worried.

That said, what I'm also worried about is Mario sports games. Because I feel like there is a massive A tier of Mario sports games. You can put Mario tennis up there. You can put Mario Golf of 64 up there. You can put strikers up there. But there is only one S-tier game, in my opinion. I didn't want to put that in the air. And I was hoping that you're going to get.

If you don't say Mario titles, then no one else will remember them. No one else did any research before we started, right? Mario Golf Advanced Tour for the Game Boy Advance. It's one of the... I would see a top three Mario game of any kind. And it is so good. It is such a brilliant twist on the sports RPG that nobody has been able to recreate. it. EA can't recreate it. Indie publishers have, like, kind of tried and mostly failed.

Nintendo can't recreate it. A magic spell was cast, and it was impermanent, and it was beautiful, and we have to go back and enjoy it whenever we can. One use only. It is brilliant. The golfing itself is actually excellent. The animation is gorgeous. It is making full use of the GBA's pixel style. And yeah, the RPG itself is, I mean, once you start playing it, it is truly a game if you put it on one of your emulator handhelds. Not that I would,

but if you did, you will finish it by the end-jewy. Just in case any Nintendo lawyers are listening. This is entirely theoretical. Yeah. It's also so funny. Like you start the game and you're like, oh, I want to play golf with Mario.

And they're like, buddy. you don't play golf they don't even let me look at Mario I just think that is that's hilarious that like you know it's a game about like meeting Zeus and Zeus is Mario god of golf

yes and you have to prove yourself worthy all the time yeah that's the great thing about the Mario golf games for Game Boy is that they're hardly Mario related I mean he's there but you're playing as like Neil and Ella in a dense store

for whatever reason just characters that have nothing to do with the Mario universe but then also Mario is there so yeah it's charming okay it's back to me

yeah okay all right I think for my next pick let's see now it's getting hard now you've really got a thing now I have to think I realize I took another RPG

from you and I feel I do actually feel not technically if you had wanted to I mean I'm sad too Mario golf owns yeah you could have taken that and taken it in the RPG category arguably you could have got away with it

maybe we could have our first category argument yeah we haven't had one I don't feel like we're going to have one I don't know if we are yeah we could I have one that I think we're going to have one but the important thing is I am going to pick a game now. I think just so no one friggin takes it as their wildcard or whatever,

I'm going to do Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. Okay. That is Mario because you're right. I've been wild if somebody took that as their wild part, I've really taken away your RPG strat. Yeah. The first Mario and Luigi game, which differentiates itself from what Paper Mario going forward, right?

It formalizes some stuff that you see in Super Mario RPG in a very funny way. My personal favorite Mario and Luigi gag that runs through all the games is that they start gesticulating with gibberish instead of dialogue. And it's really, really, really good. It's a good extension of the pantomiming in Super Mario RPG. It starts with, like, Toad walking in on Mario in the shower. It's basically fast times at Ridgemont High. Just a really fun game. Like Fawful is there, right?

That guy's great. I'm trying to remember from the last time I played this game like years ago. Is this the one where like Peach cries and her tears blow everything up? Like she has WMBs coming out? I mean, that's already been established as canon. It's the Peach's tears. I know we can't talk about that game anymore, but we all know. Super Princess Peach happened.

It exists. You know, I just think it's, you know, It's really funny. It has like just the right blend of like new characters and old characters, right? Before they stop doing that. And another one of those games, that's just sort of like, you know, like Chris was saying with Mario Golf, you know, it's on the Gameboy advance. And I mean, they were to make it for the DS, but I haven't touched that. Just sort of like knocks you out with how like vibrant and fun and like well considered it is.

Great game. Funny game. Now it's mine. Okay. All right. We have all drafted an RPG. We have killed that category. So now, let's see, there are two Mario Kart games off the board, right? So I guess I'm going to go with a Mario Kart. And I'm going to take Mario Kart 64, which was just a millennial right of passage, right?

If you're a millennial Mario Kart 64, was probably your first Mario Kart. and you never forget your first, and it's very much like the music that you were introduced to at the time, or the athletes that you liked, they're just your favorite forever and they will never be surpassed because they happens to be your favorite at a pure, innocent time of your life. And that was Mario Kart 64 for me. There was just no greater joy, really, when everyone with a PlayStation was stuck with their measly two controllers, unless they had a multi-tap adapter. and I had my fancy Mario Kart 64 with its 64 bits and its four player natively supported. And just the battle mode in that game, wild away many happy hours playing Mario Kart 64 with my friends.

Still have it can pop that cartridge in at a moment's notice. I still keep my N64 close just in case the need ever arises to play some Mario Kart 64. So has aged well, it was the transition into 3D or mostly 3D, at least for the franchise, and it survived and thrived in the new medium. So Mario Kart 64, a favorite from my childhood, and hopefully everyone listening and voting. I love that it's like a heartfelt, you know, remembrance of it as like the Tracy McGrady of Harvey.

Yeah, basically. Okay. Well, now it's Maddie's turn to make two picks. Wow. Okay, I get two. Oh, an embarrassment of riches. This is always exciting when I get two. It's like, what should I even do?

I could draft whatever I want. All right. I'm going to just go ahead and sneak back into that 3D category and put Mario Odyssey down because, come on. It's so good. It's just, I mean, I know I'm mostly going modern Mario's here, but some of the modern Mario's are really good. It's no shade to the older ones, but this one, it looks beautiful. The music is incredible.

The boss fights are like a puzzle that you have to figure out. That's really fun. I've replayed this one multiple times. No complaints. Just, I mean, part of this is because Josh will already pick Galaxy and I also really love that game, but I don't know. It would be kind of a tough one between Odyssey and Galaxy for me because I really, really dig Odyssey. And I think it did a lot of really cool stuff with just the idea of exploring a larger

world and having it feel like, like Josh said, like almost as though you're discovering it along with the developers. Like, you're like, oh, my God, there's a whole other thing here. I don't know. I love it. I think it's great. Maddie, I love that you and Ben have these like clear winning strategies, which like, Ben, you were like, I am going to win the hearts of every millennial. And then you are like, I am going to win the hearts of people who bought this thing during the pandemic and they've discovered the film of video games. And then Josh and I over here

are like, I didn't fight in the dirt. I didn't you. I don't know if it's going to win. I'm going to shift you with my funco pops. I didn't come in here knowing about the audience vote,

but now that I know about it, I'm just saying am I manifesting audience approval? I don't know. Could that happen? Anyway, I got a second pick, apparently. The audience will respect the sincerity, I think, of Joshua and Chris, just going with their hearts. Also, I agree with you, Maddie.

It was between those two for me as well. It's good. I mean, some of this is like, yes, it's the popular choice, but also sometimes people are right. So we can just acknowledge that they're correct. Yeah. Odyssey is great. It's really, it's the warm up act for Donkey Kong Bonanza now in my mind. I know.

Wow. I know. And I do. I mean, I do think Bonanza doesn't. a lot of different things, especially with music and rhythm. But regardless, I also am like, it'd be cool if we had another Odyssey game. And I still think we look at one someday. It just apparently didn't happen in 2025, unless it does.

Surprise dropped. I don't actually think it's going to happen. All right. Okay. I also feel like my 2D platformer, I don't know if other people are going to pick it or not. So it's, it's tough. I guess I'll go for it. All right.

So my 2D platformer, this is a hard one because there's a lot of really good ones. And once again, I feel like I'm picking one that people might be like, really? But I want to go with Super Mario Wonder on this one, actually, because even though it's also a really modern Mario, similarly,

I have a really soft spot for music and games. And I think that what this game did with music is so impressive and so just worth plugging in, headphones for and really fully experiencing. Plus, Elephant Mario is freaking adorable. And I hope just becomes like a thing in other Mario's. So between those two things,

that game really stuck with me and I still think about how great it was. And I kind of just want to put it on my personal board. This is kind of more of a personal pick as opposed to picking like a legacy 2D Mario. Although I did consider a lot of them. There's certainly some greats. But for me, it's wonder. I really, really dug that game. I think they're sort of like

you don't want to pick like the recent one because it's just sort of like, I don't know. It feels weird. I feel like I was supposed to be respecting history or something. I don't know. But also like, screw history, whatever. I don't know. The new one's good.

Yeah, the new one is good. You're just listening to piranha plants on parade on repeat. I know. That was so good. Lost my mind when I, like, I clapping like a seal. I know. You can't not. Okay.

It's back to me. And all right, I guess if you're going for the recency, the argument being that, well, it's iterative. And each one builds on the foundation of its predecessors. And in theory, they get a little bit better each time out. I'm going to go with the influence argument and take the first 3D platformer, which is Super Mario 64, just based on the fact that they had to, figure out how 3D works just as a medium. What do we do with this third dimension? This is an

embarrassment of riches also. And this is a case where even though I've played this game a bunch of times and gone back to play it, if I wanted to play just the best Mario game minute for minute, maybe I would fire up Odyssey. Mario 64 shows its age somewhat, even if you're picking up the DS version, let's say, which was an improvement in some respects. But, you know, the camera's going to fight you in some ways. I was listening to you on Triple Click, Maddie, talking about Akarina and how the camera really advanced in those couple years from Super Mario 64 to Akarina. And it was like, oh, Z targeting. This actually makes things a little bit easier. But it does. It does. I mean, you still miss that twin stick camera. And if, you know,

there wasn't a Nintendo lawyer listening to my every word, I might say that some people have found ways to accommodate that, but I wouldn't know anything about that. No, me neither. But you have to make some allowances for innovation for being the first into the breach and establishing the template for how 3D Mario would work, how 3D everything would work. Just pure influence is hard to beat Super Mario 64 in addition to the nostalgia and when it came out and how old we are and just the formative influence of it all. I just want to note for the listener that when he said that, when he made your pick, I saw Chris do a full body clunch. You just stole this. Oh, no. I saw the trigonometry happening in front of his face.

Just some quick regrouping on his face right now. Just a quick shuffling around in his personal Google Doc. I get it. I've been doing that too. It's fine. We don't need to talk about Mario. They're frantically searching through my doctor. I'm not mad.

games like, no, I still got something. I'm going to be okay. I still got some. I still got some, and I can still win. I'm going to be. Whatever. It's a deep category. Good news.

There are a lot of three deep platformers starring Mario that are good games. But yeah, apologies for vulturing, but sorry, not sorry. But you can regroup while Joshua makes his deliberations and pick. Yeah. I am going to make. So remind me again how we're qualifying weird. Right. So this is debatable too, but I would say weird is just like, you know what, when you see it, sort of argument.

But the Mario games that make you think that existed or why did they make this or why was Mario in this? If you want to go with more of a mainline mainstream Mario that has odd elements to it, you can. I feel like the spirit of the category is just the weird one-offs. just failed experiments in many cases. Not always failed, but, you know, it's just in 40 years, there have been a lot of offshoots of the franchise. So for my weird, I'm going to draft Mario and Rabbits, sparks of both.

An incredible video game. That was a complete failure. No one lost it. It is good, though, is the thing. It's a real like games critics played this one and told you that it was actually good and like literally no one else. Nobody else. It's just sort of like, you know, I played it so I could talk to Bharati about something. You know?

Been there, man. Been there. But like, you know, not to give my competition any ideas, but the first one is also very good. And both of these games are just sort of outrageous. strategy games? Like, what if you did, like, a Mario X-Con? You know, they give Mario a freaking gun. And it's sort of like,

you know, a lot of strategy games of this type, right? They get you, you get in your own head, right? And you're sort of like, ah, what's the best thing to do? You look at the percentage number, you check it again. You're like, oh, is it any different? It's the same. and you know

it makes you really anxious about the ideas but like everything about these games and sparks of hope in particular is just like about you immediately knowing what you want to do, immediately knowing everything you can do and immediately having an idea and being like wouldn't this be cool right

it's not rigid in the sense where it's like a fire emblem game right where it feels like this solution you know it allows you to be as expressive as you are when you play a Mario game and it wants you to do goofy fun things and jump on a bunch of people's heads and then also shoot them in the freaking face

and the way that it introduces all these characters and the way the rabbits that are parodies of Mario characters an incredible exercise in laughing at yours a game laughing at itself and if I need to laugh with it and I kind of

of, you know, I did write about this for the ringer, but I love Mario when Mario is funny, you know? I think, I think, the people working with Mario, some of the best teams on Mario understand how incredibly funny and ridiculous Mario is and just has a lot of fun with it

in a way that appeals to children, of course, but also, you know, adults who just sort of like appreciate the absurdity of what they're doing. Anyway, so yeah, Mario and Rabbits, Sparks of Hope, my weird tick. I adore that pick so much, and I love that, like, at least five people listening to this are going to give it a try and then make it their entire identity for the rest of the summer, which is great. It's so easy to do because it's like $5. They want you to play it.

The only bummer is it will never come out on Steam. Like, Nintendo will keep that barrier up. And I think this game would be huge if it could just be given to a larger audience or even a mobile audience. If you could get that strategy gamer audience. Yeah. It's too bad. The fact that Mario has a gun, I mean, it's Mario but Xcom. If that's not selling you, I don't know what will.

It is, I totally agree that it's a weird game. And I didn't pick them, but I considered the Rapids games among my list of weird games as well. Yeah, it's almost, it's sort of a steal because you got a good game in the weird game category, which I thought of as mostly being bad games. Well done. It's like a one-up for you in this draft. So good strategy, quite a crossover. A little bit of Mario lore that I meant to mention earlier, he has a mustache, which is the one just an indispensable part of his character because mouths were difficult to depict when you had. had a 16 by 16 pixel grid originally. So they gave him a mustache because a mouth was just hard to make. And again, that just becomes inextricable from Mario. Similarly, he has overalls because you couldn't tell that his arms were moving otherwise

because you had like three frames of animation. So you had to have the contrast in color of the overalls. And then he has a hat so that they didn't have to animate his hair. and he jumps at all because the arcade cabinet for Donkey Kong just had an extra button. And they were like, what do we do with this button? I guess he can jump, basically. So it's the whole basis for the character is just like, how do we make this easier, essentially or work around the technological limitations.

It's like Satoru Iwata said the entire design was a case of form being dictated by function. And he was voiced by Chris Marat because he was available. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. After that little lore dump about Mario, we are back to Chris, who hopefully has recovered

from losing out on Super Mario 64 by now, but you have two picks to make. I feel good. I'm getting only the stuff that I want. That's how I'm playing it. I'm going to do my platformers back to back right here. And this is how you know

that I'm not here to win. I'm not here to impress people. I'm here to just tell truth. One of the best games. That's my only job. You know, journalism. It's not always popular, but it's an important. Speaking truth to power. You know, I carry it on my shoulders. So for 3D platformer, I'll be taking the obvious pick of Super Mario Galaxy 2, the only true sequel to a 3D Mario game. And I suspect that's because they were making Super Mario Galaxy and they have, as Joshua said,

this amazing, unique, gravity-bending riff on platforming. It is new. It is strange. And only as they are finishing it, do they fully see the potential of what they can do. So this is the one time you have a Mario team going in, day one of making the next Mario game at the top of their skills. They're not figuring things out.

They are going full speed off the starting line. And you can feel it. Like, what is going on in this game? is such a masterclass of design. Is it the most innovative game? No, we're not here to talk about most innovative game. We're here to talk about best game. I mean, except when we are.

Does it have a power up that lets you drill through the platforms, completely disrupting in Silicon Valley speak, if you will, a little thing I'm learning thanks to AI technologies. Oh, no. Podcast changed you, bro. I'm going to tell you. So I was talking to the robot. And the robot said, you've got to pick this one.

It's got spin drill. And I was like, are you sure? It's like, it's got Yoshi. And I was like, are you sure? And it was like, beep, bo, beep. But also, the multiplayer was better than it was in Galaxy. You can tell I'm kind of reaching here now at this point. But listen.

It's literally shrugging at that. It's as good as Mario Galaxy. If not better, I don't know if I can even agree with that. I'll say it's as good. And I'm happy to take it. I'm happy to have it. Start collecting, is it fun?

No. No. For them, it's fun. It's fine. If I had not selected Superbrier Brothers 64 or Superbrier 64, would we have been here to talk about innovation? We probably still would have been just because I, Super Mario 64 is so good.

But if you were asking me truly like, you are able to make one, video game console that has your favorite Mario games, which would you put in it? Honestly, of the 3D Mario Platformers, it still probably would be Galaxy 2. I think. It'd be tough.

It'd be between Galaxy 1 and Galaxy 2. 2D platformer. Okay. This is where it is tough, because Super Mario Brothers Wonder was kind of my, oh, nobody will pick this pick. But I do have another, nobody will pick this pick.

It doesn't make sense because I should just take Mario 3. Any reasonable person would say, take Mario 3. You have a clear path to the finish line. If you just take Mario Brothers 3. I'm going to stop you for one second

before you do this. I'm going to write down what I think it is. This is good. I think I know what you're going to. Okay, you do it. You got it? You got it down? Okay, okay, okay.

This is a game within a game. Just a little. Hold it up to the camera when Chris makes this pick. Okay. Are you ready? All right. I'm ready. New Super Mario Brothers

Wee, but no you. No you. He's holding it up. It says, it says not Penny's boat. Okay. I also almost pick this one. Here's the right. I considered taking up a wild card.

I was about to. New Super Mario Brothers you, I do actually think, and I think, I think, Joshua, we've talked about this, that I think it has the best 2D level design, like full stop, you. But New Super Mario Wethers Wii is just kind of an incredible thing that happened because it has so much pressure going on to it

that I think is kind of forgotten in time. The Wii was the casual console, right? It was not the Mario console. And 2D Mario games were not cool anymore. We had like moved past that quote. with 3D Mario. So here you have this thing that's like, okay, we want to give all these people

who bought wheeze a reminder of what Mario is. We want to make it multiplayer for the first time, which Miyamoto had been trying to do since Nintendo 64 and just like could not get to work. And because it is in the living rooms of all these people who have wheeze, we have to make it so that they actually know how to play it because it's not like the old days

where you can just trust people to learn. So we have to create entire sense. systems to make games playable. So it's the first game with the Super Guide system and the first game with the floating bubble system, where if you were playing multiplayer and you died or you just wanted to pause, you could turn into a bubble and float around. So it is inventing so much of the language of modern Mario games. On top of being just a great 2D Mario game, also, I never want to be geek in journalism.

I'm wearing my important hat. There are times in your life where you just are like, oh, I'm a sucker. I'm a fan. And playing this game at the previous session with Miyamoto, and I had made the mistake, because I did not know this at the time, you do not ask him any questions about his personal life. And I dared to ask him a question about his childhood hobbies. And I was like, shunned.

So I was like, oh, I don't know. Like, what's Bowser's favorite kid? and he like said some random answer. And then when we were playing together, he came over, pushed aside the person who was playing with me, took the controller, and then as Luigi picked me up as Mario,

threw me in the pit, and then did it two more times to make sure I got a message. And it is maybe my most cherished memory other than the time that there was an indie game festival post D-3 at the Museum of Art Los Angeles,

and all the indie game nerds thought Miyamoto was walking down the street to see them, and then he just went and saw a Rothgo exhibit instead. And it turns out he doesn't care about their games. Those were my 2-5 Mario memories. Anyway, yes, new Super Mario Brothers Wii is my pick for 2D platformer. Wow. Okay. Well, we weren't here to talk about innovation, but you did. During that category selection, I noted.

But not solely about it. All right. We're back to Joshua? Yes. All right. It's time for me to pick my 2D platformer. I've been hyping it up. I'm talking about how no one's going to pick this,

and I don't think anyone's going to pick it for their 2D platformer. But someone might pick it for their weird game. And I can't have that. Okay, okay. So my pick for a 2D platformer is Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island. Which is controversial, probably. Yeah, yeah. Because people hate the crying babies.

And I'd say you sound like a crying baby. I hear a challenge. That's kind of one of my favorite things about the game, right? Where it's just sort of like, Nintendo does this in a way that people don't tend to notice. I think there's like a Mark Brown video about this, right? Where it's sort of like they do do difficulty. But like it's sort of like, what do you want to, you know, how do you want to approach it?

And so it's like if you, your mistake, your penalty for making a mistake in your platforming, is you have a crying baby to account for, and someone's going to take that baby away. And it makes a harder version of the game for, like, the, what, the 10 to however high that counter can go, the 10 seconds, that's 15 seconds that you have on the clock, it makes the game temporarily harder

in a way that I think is thrilling and interesting. And then also remember how I was talking about how I don't like looking at Super Mario World these days. I love looking at Yoshi's Island. I think that game is beautiful. It's got like an incredible, like, it's sort of like, you know how Return to Oz is like a crazy person's version of Wizard of Oz? Yoshi's Island's kind of like that, right? Where it's just sort of like they gave Super Mario World to the guy who did drugs at Nintendo.

And they're like, what do you got? And he's like, well, this is what it's like, right? They're like, no, but I guess we have to sell something this fall. I have a lot of affection of how it looks. I love that little lullaby that plays in the beginning when, you know, you're doing it. I love the music, which I think is sort of like a fun evolution of the kind of music that they do in Super Mario World. It's a little more rich. It has a little bit more character.

And, yeah, I just think it's an all-timer. and it sucks that they never made a good follow-up to it. Yeah, I considered whether this was even eligible at first because it's often just called Yoshi's Island. Yoshi's the star, Mario, is just along for the ride, really, and he's a baby to boot. But I think based on the is his name in the title condition, I think it clearly counts.

Plus, he's on the cover, but it is, yeah. And he is on your mind all the freaking time. Yes. He is just along for the ride, but he's an important part of the experience. Okay. All right. So it's back to me. I have not yet taken a sports game or a weird game.

We also have all sorts of wild cards still on the table. Man. All right. I'm tempted to just take the best available talent remaining at this point and just sticking it into wildcard. which I guess would probably be Super Mario Brothers 3. If I could stack this on top of Super Mario World in my draft, then I'm feeling pretty good about what I have in the 2D platformer category. See, I was tempted to go with the original new Super Mario Brothers

because you took the Wii version, Chris, specifically, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a sequel. That's not like a port or an enhanced version of the DS game, right? the DS game is its own thing. And I'm tempted to take that because it was a super successful DS game. And it sort of started the new Super Mario Brothers line. And I guess was the first 2D Mario game at that point probably for almost 15 years, I guess.

But you also did start your most recent pick by saying that you could just take Super Mario Bros. 3 and win the draft. So I guess I'm going to do that. It is kind of wild, but none of us chose that. I love that you're using the Kansas City Chiefs play, you know, Strat against Chris Plant. It's like you're being beat by your own team. Yes.

Okay. All right. Well, we're now back to Maddie with two picks. Do you just have two remaining? I think I have three. I've got sports game, weird game, and wild card left. All right. Okay.

So I'll start with sports game. I'm going to go with Mark. tennis here, the original one, the N64 one. Introduced Waluigi, Babylon makes it pretty hilarious, but also I just think it's a good game. And I wanted to take a swerve after Chris Plant took my golf game. I was like, what was my runner up? It's this one. I'm not as confident in the pick, but it's still really fun.

And it builds out a lot of the Mario lore by forcing all of the characters into doubles. and that in and of itself kind of plays with the comedy of the Mario world. So, yeah, Mario Tennis 64 is going to be my sports game pick. And then for my weird game, I'm going to do Mario Teach's typing because this is an undoubtedly weird game. I don't think anybody's going to challenge me on that. But if you were to for some reason, you could just look at those big head Mario videos when people make him say stuff,

because that's what, that's from this game. Like, I don't even know if people know that because that Mario head is kind of its own weird meme. But also, I just personally have a soft spot for Mario Teach's typing. I played it a lot as a kid. You could also play a peach in this game.

Yeah, although I was also a big Mavis Beacon person. Me too, of course. I played all the typing games in school, and that is how I learned to type, and I was a very fast elementary school typist, for real. No joke. I was really into type. and then wanted to be a writer even then, so no surprises there.

But yeah, I just have a lot of nostalgia and love for Mario Teach's typing genuinely. It's all so weird and bizarre and fun looking, and I just think it's a cool typing game. They should have made more of those, but I don't think they ever did. Did they? There's just the one, right? As far as I know. Yeah, I guess you can't top perfection. Yeah, well, why make another one?

Mario teaches typing is already there. Once you've learned to type, it's a living game. It's forever. We all are logging in every day and playing it, right? It's a live service game, really. Yeah. So yeah, those are my two. And then I've just got wild card left.

Okay. And all right, so we're back to me, and I have sports and weird game to go. All right, I guess I will take a sports game. And all right, so you took Mario T's, tennis for 64. I will take Mario Golf for 64. I'm kind of cornering the market on the Nintendo 64 Mario's here, which I didn't sit out to do necessarily, but I guess I don't feel that bad about it. I was tempted to take either of the Game Boy color Mario tennis and golf games, because those

are also excellent Camelot RPGs. Yeah. So it's a deep category. I mean, we're not even really going beyond golf and tennis so much here. I could have filled out my entire board just with those two sports. But Mario Golf for 64, completing my collection of Super Mario 64 and Mario Card 64 and also Paper Mario the thousand-year door. I mean, I guess, well, that was a little later. But there's an era. Clearly, I have a type here.

So I'm playing into it. And with that, it's back to job. Okay. This might be controversial. I'm prepared to have a debate here. I'm using a very broad interpretation of Ben's pick one version of the game, get every version of the game. And if there's a problem here, I'm willing to stand before the tribunal and accept what comes. But I'm going to say, for my wildcard, Super Mario 3D world, because it also is a includes Bouss's Fury. Yeah. I don't want you to do that. All right. I won't say why, but the reason may be obvious now.

So, Maddie is opposed. Well, I don't know. I just don't think it's fair if you include that. I'm honestly open to the groups here. Is that two games? Does that take it too generously, commission? Do you want to rule? I think you got to pick.

I think you got a pick between the two. Yeah, it's tough. We did have a no compilations rule, which I feel like this probably runs afoul of. You have to start them as two separate pieces when you turn on the thing. I think that would be the thing that, like, breaks it up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. It's a great play, though. It is. Yeah, I know. And I also feel like they're both good for different reasons. So I don't feel bad. making you choose if that makes sense. No, not at all.

They're both great games to be happy if either of them. I just had to try. Yeah, it would have been very special to take the combo. I get it. I get it. I respect the attempt. Yeah, no worries. In that case, I choose Bowser's Fury.

Because, yeah, Bowser's Fury is kind of like a smaller version of what we hope the next Mario game will be. It's like what Odyssey 2 we hope look like. There's a lot of like really incredible stuff there, right? You've got that seamless experience and encourages you to sort of like check everything out. Kind of fulfills the promise that like every Mario 3D Mario game is sort of like working towards. Right. And I think kaiju Bowser fights, like intermittent kaiju Bowser fights is just incredible.

Right. So have I told Ben before coming on here that I was going to share my favorite John and blow quote, which is a very. What? What? What? You warned me, and I still said, sure, come on. You just like share some really antisocial thing he said at some point,

and we're all like, how is that relevant? So the man not known for the most tactful opinions, but he said something so ridiculous that I respect it, like early in his career, I think it was to Stephen with Attillo in his MTV Newsdays, where he says, I'm paraphrasing here, but he calls the coins in Mario, cowardice, because it means the game that you've designed isn't compelling enough without some type of bobble for the player to chase.

Do I agree with him? Not really. Do I respect that take? Yeah, sure. I mean, he definitely lives by that because there's nothing to chase after in The Witness. There should have been more collectible coins in the way. That's what I was missing. But also, like, Bowser's Fury is kind of like the counter-regnment to that, right?

Like, you can maybe believe that and sort of like maybe the older Marines, right? I don't know. If you choose. Bowser's Fury takes that 3-D space and makes you want to go everywhere. It makes you want to find all those cat shines. I have a friend who spent, like, the weekend, just updating us all on his cat shine count. I get it. And we were like, that's nice, bro.

And it's not just about them showing off how much use they can get out of that space. It's about you encouraging you to see how much you can get out of that space, which is a subtle distinction, but I think important. And that's why Azusphiri is my wild card because you fools left it on the board. And now it's mine. They didn't tend to, but I get it. We smack down your original selection. That's still a strong one.

you had to settle for half of what you wanted. Nonetheless, good pick. Back to Chris for two more picks. What do you have left to cross off, Chris? You all think you're so smart with your Mario 3 and your Bowser's Fury stuff. But let me tell you, I am the winner here because I've been saving two icons,

two classics for Weird and Wildcard. Now let's grab them right now, right before any of you can. First up, weird game. All night, Nipone, Super Mario Brothers. I know you were all thinking it. But I'm taking it for me. The earliest and first. Is that the visual novel, the anime visual novel?

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's my private collection. You have to go to a special website for that. This is the earliest and first official fan mod. And as I've said this whole time, I am here to celebrate the new and the innovative. And I'm stuck with that exact language from the beginning. This is Super Mario Brothers plus lost levels,

but it is modded so that the enemies are replaced with the stars of popular Japanese radio network. It's like the gumbas and the prana plants. are just different radio stars. The princess is in it, but dressed as a geisha. And to explain all this, they're like, no, no, no, this one set in Viva Kingdom, not Mushroom Kingdom. In Viva Kingdom, there are microphones instead of Toad Tools.

Plus, some other bonuses, you play World One One at night, big twist, and published by Fuji TV, who made DokeyDoki Panic, which would become Super Mario Brothers 2 in the U.S. So it's just like great lost bit of history and to me one of the weirdest things that will never happen again because it is peak Nintendo making a play for its own relevance.

Again, this is Christmas 1986. This is Mario is in ascendance in Japan in a way that like Mario is not in the U.S. yet. And it's thanks to all these weird tie-ins like this. So that's my weird thing. And this was officially licensed, too. This wasn't some sort of like unofficial fan mod. I mean, it was, but also.

Definitely makes it weird. That's for sure. A weird game. No one's fighting you on that. You did it. You understood the assignment. My wild card. So with wild card, again, my brain says that I should pick like a good game.

But my heart says I should follow the word. wild and wild card and really go for it. And that's why I'm picking Mario Family for the Game Boy Color. And again, I know you're all, I can see, like, I can't believe you guys. I can't believe you did it. So some context here about what Mario Family is. To tell you that, I tell you what a different game is, which is always great for a video game, right? It's always good when you have to explain what the game is to three other games critics.

That's a good. That's a good sign. You're going to do well with the audience vote. In 1986, again, when Nintendo's like, we've got to make Mario the biggest thing in Japan, they release a game called I am a teacher, Super Mario's sweater, in which you would put in measurements in knitting age. That's my weird game. Well, the question will be, does this cut it out?

Because you would do all this, but here's the thing about this game. It sucks. Like, it's cool that you put in your info, and then you could, like, ship it off to a random company, and they would send you a sweater. Very neat. Actually, doing it in practicality was, like, next to impossible. But fast forward to 2001,

and they came up with a solve for this, which is Mario Family, a Game Boy game, where you could much more easily design your own patterns. And then, and this is so sick, you could connect via the Game Boy Color link cable to a Jaguar JN100 sewing machine and then actually make your stuff, your designs, your fabrics at home.

So it was an actual true licensed sewing. game for Mario. I'm putting the Wild and Wild Card. I'm taking Mario family for the Game Boy Color. Wow. Yeah, I'm upset because I feel like now I can't take, I am a teacher, a Super Mario sweater. You've stolen my thunder in that one.

I wanted a teaching-related Mario game of my own in this weird category after Maddie got one. But okay. There's some more good teaching ones left. I don't either. You've got some room. There's so much left to learn. Yeah, no, it's true.

That was weird. You essentially double-drafted weird games, and I respect it. I love a weird Nintendo peripheral. It doesn't get any better than like this extremely narrow use case. Just like three people ever would have done this thing, and yet they made it anyway. Yes. Okay. We're back to Joshua for your final pick.

Is that right? Yeah, hang on. I'm Googling Mario Sports games. I get it, I get it We've chosen a lot of good ones at this point So I'm actually going to go with what my first pick was going to be It's not a fun game But it is a funny one

And as I said before I love games that are hilarious Even if they are bad And it's Mario Hoops 3 on 3 For the Nintendo Diaz Which you might remember Required you to dribble with the stylus And I think

And it was during that period where Nintendo was like, remember those games? You love playing with controllers. You've got to use a stylus now. It's great, right? And it wasn't great. But when it comes to Mario Hoops 3 on 3, it's very funny. I think, if I recall correctly,

that game also has a very funny roster of characters to play from. It's really goofy and annoying to play. But you know what's goofy? Basketball. And that's why I love it. Particularly basketball games that get ridiculous. I am of the And-1 Streetball generation. I grew up watching guys yell stuff like sauce when they were making shots with names like The Professor.

And that's like, I don't know, Mario Hoops has an engine. Also, I think Mario in basketball shorts, she's very funny. Were you trying to find Mario Slam Basketball? That might have been it. I don't know. That's it. Which is less funny than I remember a game. It's pretty good, though.

Pretty good title. It might be better than Mario Hoops 3 on 3. That's what it's called. Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah, it might be it would have, like, people would have bought it. Probably. But yeah, that's my pick for sports game. I would rather pick a memorable sports game than, like, one of many good ones, okay ones.

Okay. Well, my final pick will also be a weird game. And now that I guess I can't take the sweater game that I dearly wanted to take, or I could. but it just feels like my thunder was stolen. So I strongly considered Dance, Dance, Revolution Mario mix, of course, a game that includes, I think, the song Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, public domain, probably. So that's good.

I considered Mario and Wario, which is a game where you play as neither Mario nor Wario, but you play as Mario who can't see. And so you have to guide him. around while Wario drops stuff on his head. Definitely weird, but I won't be selecting that either. Instead, I will be taking Mario's bombs away, going for the video game violence aspect of Mario since we had rabbits, we had kind of the shooter meets Mario. This is a game in which Mario becomes a bomber. This is from 1983. It was released for the game and watch, and I will just

Read the brief synopsis here from the Mario Wiki. The game involves Mario, a soldier in this game. Great. Already after a good start. Yep, I'm in. On a mission to receive a bomb from his buddy on the left side of the screen and carry it to his troop on the other side. Enemy soldiers are waiting in the trees in his path, so he must keep his bomb away from their torches. One of his comrades is the heavy smoker, who is a slacker that can.

carelessly tosses burning cigars into a stream of spilled oil. So Mario must also keep the bomb from igniting on the ground. Mario earns a point each time he advances a step to the right while carrying a bomb. When he reaches the other side, he must carefully pass the bomb to his buddy who tosses it onto one of the five trees, giving Mario five points. After five bombs are tossed onto the trees, they explode on the enemy, rewarding Mario with 10 points. I wonder what Jonathan Blow would have thought of that. As time passes the torches and the fire on the ground move faster,

if Mario's bomb gets lit, he will retreat to his outpost where the bomb will detonate in his face and blow up his outpost, earning him a miss. If he reaches 300 points without any miss the points, but we're double until he does get a miss. If he has any misses at said score, every miss will be cleared instead. The game ends when he gets three misses. True to the game's wartime jungle setting, alarm monkey serves as this unit's time function. And that is the masterpiece that was more. Mario's bombs away.

Veskema's everything. It's got war, it's got Vietnam, it's got, it's got the draft. Yeah. Yeah, climate crisis. Mario's apocalypse now,

more or less. Yeah. Sad the franchise didn't go in that direction. Why didn't they keep going? Baffling. So accessible. Yeah. Okay.

The image of my hand. Oh, Jima, who? Well, Maddie, I believe. you have the honor of taking us home with the final pick. I have my final wild card pick. So it really is just like, what are the good Mario games remaining that none of us chose? And if you all let me,

I would like to put Mario Maker here. Yes. Yes. Because it's freaking Mario Maker, you guys. Do I even need to explain it? You can play a billion cool slash tariff. terrible levels made by other people and perhaps be shockingly endeared or impressed by how good some of them are or troll your friends with a level that is purposefully obscure and impossible

to understand or meet. And honestly, this game rules. I love that it exists. I kind of can't believe Nintendo put this out. It feels too good to be true sometimes, how much it lets you do. And I I'm glad that seemingly, since all of you are nodding, you're letting me have it. It's not really a Mario game in the traditional sense, but it's got his name in it, and it's a very powerful tribute to everything that Mario can be. So it doesn't fit in any of the other categories. It's got to be wild card. Anything goes.

Yeah. Are you thinking Maker or Maker 2 just for it doesn't matter? I was just going to go Maker. I didn't play Maker 2 as much, so I'm not as familiar with what it changed, but I was super into the first one. And I'm sad they didn't do this with more, like, where's my Metroid maker? Come on. Yeah. I love that. Zelda maker. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, perhaps of the wild and Tears of the kingdom, like, began as maybe a Zelda maker prototype, right? Echoes of wisdom, sort of, right? Echoes wisdom was, I think. Yeah. It's this sort of presage, this whole era of Nintendo, just kind of

putting the power in the player's hands, sort of, you know, it's all an experiment and they give us the tools and we figure our way forward. And I guess whatever this secret, not so secret thing that Nintendo is testing, the Nintendo meets Minecraft kind of online game that people have been trying. So maybe Mario Maker was the root of all of that. I'm glad someone selected that. It would have been a big miss, I think, if we hadn't. Right on. I think we're done. I think we are. Devin, we threw a lot of games at you there. I don't know whether you were recording all of these. I think I got everyone's picks.

Okay. How successful? You can fix it in post. Yeah. All right. Chris, I just went straight in order. So Mario and Luigi, Bowser's Inside Story, Mario Kart DS, Mario Golf Advanced Tour, Super Mario

Galaxy 2, new Super Mario Bros. We all night Nippon, Super Mario Bros. We have to keep in the part where Devin is stumbling over. I feel like normally this would get cut out, but we got to keep it in. Mario family to close it out.

Yeah, that was a weird one. I had to go and make sure I was going to pronounce that correctly. I'm not even going to lie. Joshua, moving over to you, we had Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Double Dash, Mario and Louisville D Superstar Saga, Mario and rabid Sparks of Hope,

Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island, Bowser's Fury, and Mario Hoops 3-on-3. Sounds like a winning team to me. Yeah, it's really good. Mario's slam basketball in some continents. Ben, we had Super Mario World, Paper Mario, the Thousand Year Door, Mario Kart 64,

Super Mario 64, Super Mario 3, Mario Golf 64, and Mario's bombs away. A lot of 664. Yes, 64. And then Maddie, to close things out, you had Super Mario RPG, Mario Kart 8, Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Wonder, Mario Tennis 64, Mario teaches typing, and Mario Maker. Nobody wanted Mario Paint. I almost picked that instead of teachers typing.

I just have such a soft spot for teachers typing. We're too busy picking bad games. Yeah, we left Mario Paint on the board. We snubbed Dr. Mario. True. Zero of Mario Party representation. That might be our biggest miss of all. I mean, maybe we should have had a separate category for Mario Party

because I don't know. Like a category that was just party games maybe? But that's tough because some of the sports games, I don't know. Yeah. I feel bad about zero Mario Party here. Wanted to recognize that whole branch of the Mario franchise that we have snubbed here. Any others that we should have selected but didn't? I don't know if the original paper Mario.

Yeah. Mario Golf and Tennis for Game Boy Color. No one took World, right? Mario Kart World still. Yeah, nobody took that. I thought about it. Nobody took lost levels, like, officially. I know Chris Pant referred to it when he was explaining his weird pick, but that was a maybe for me.

Chris Pant also made a derisive dig at the Origami King, which I thought about picking, because I think that game is also very funny. And also, insane. There are things that happen in that game. story from you about that he didn't remember you put anything fun in I do not know about yeah I just wish they made the game fun

because everything else is good yeah making the game fun weird weird suggestion but it could have worked there's a tip for you Miyamoto get up revenge for that time you threw him in lava

three times try to make it a fun paper Mario you jerk He's just house of cards and his Pickman 4 just got knocked down. Well, we got multiple Miyamoto name drops here from game journalist Chris Plain. I'm glad that I snuck into this episode. This was just a joy. This was not a Super Mario draft exactly, but it was a Super Pause Mario draft.

I think it is safe to say. So I'm glad that you were all able to participate. And I want to remind everyone where they can find your work. these days because I can't conveniently say that it's all in the same place anymore. Chris, where can people read and hear you? You can pretty much exclusively hear me and you can hear me at post games. If you've ever been like, I want a podcast about video games. It's short.

Yeah, I don't think this is the target market for that. Let me tell you, I've got it for you. And if you've ever thought, I don't want that. And I just need a show that's four dudes talking about video games because I can't find it anywhere. Yeah, not enough of us in the video game podcasting space. We've been doing this for 13 years over at the besties, and it's me and my pal, Russ Freshick, and Justin Griffin McElroy. Yep.

Maddie? I also have a gaming podcast. I feel like the main selling point of Triple Click is that it's an hour long. And you might be thinking, like, is that really a selling point? But hey, look at that runtime for every other video game podcast, folks. We have a format. We get in. we get out. It's an hour. We're not spending a lot of time talking about our personal lives. You're not

going to learn shit about us. Anyway, no, it's a video game podcast with Jason Trier and Kirk Hamilton, my lovely co-hosts. We've been doing it for years, and that's a good time. Also, I'm freelancing now. You can follow me at Minnie Myers on Blue Sky, and I post my links over there. There's not like a one-stop shop for that anymore, unfortunately. But I'm, um, I'm, writing, I'm out here, writing stories. And Joshua. Yeah, I am too punk rock for a podcast. That's good.

Maybe don't need any more. I don't know. The market is saturated. Yeah, I'm podcast, I think they're going to be fine. You know, that's not my battle. I don't need that. Thanks for the vote of confidence, friends.

You can find me appearing on other people's podcasts. No, I'm mostly right. Sometimes here for The Ringer, you can also follow me on Blue Sky at J.M. Rivera. That blue sky.com. That's how that works, right? I do also do culture stuff at Slate. Email you later, Ben. Send me some pitches.

Yeah. We'll hash them out on your button match. If you're interested, let me know your pay rates. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Ben, what do you think about a donkey con? great game. Sometimes. I'm sorry that you have all parted ways

or that your ways have been parted. I guess we could put it that way, but I'm glad that you have all scattered to the four winds, but you're still making excellent stuff. It's like when the Beatles broke up, and they all went and made some good albums solo for a while, and we still got some good music out of it, just not together.

So I could ask you if you think games media is cooked, but that's probably a separate conversation. Is criticism? Is art criticism over? probably not the prompt to surface here, almost two hours into the Seps. But independent media support all of these people and others who are trying to make their way in games media somehow, despite adverse circumstances. And stay tuned for the Ringiverse and our sister pod, House of R, where people will be covering K-pop demon hunters later this

week, as well as the peacemaker season two premiere, continuing coverage of alien Earth, and so much more, you can also contact us here at ButtonMash at ringaversegaming at gmail.com. Thanks to Devin Ronaldo for producing this episode and somehow keeping track of all of our picks. Thank you to Arjuna Ramgapal for green lighting, our continued efforts here. And thanks to the three of you. This was so fun. Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us. It's great. And stay tuned for more ButtonMash later this month when we'll be doing a double metal episode, maybe on twisted metal and also Metal Gear Solid. And plus, stay tuned next time when we'll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Waluigi by drafting our favorite games that Waluigi should have started. Summer is here, and Ralph's is your destination for hot savings. Find unique items at low prices with a wide assortment of products from our exclusive brands.

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