Triple Click - Jason Played The Switch 2

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Thanks to yesterday's Nintendo Direct, we now know a lot more about the Nintendo Switch 2, from the price (high!) to the release date (soon!) to the fact that omg they showed Silksong for three seconds and said it's coming in 2025, which means it MUST come out this year since when has a console maker ever been wrong about when Silksong is coming out???Also they announced a bunch of other Switch 2-related stuff, and Jason actually attended the press event and played the thing, and Maddy spent all day directing coverage of it, so they got on a zoom call with Kirk to talk about all of it. And then they both went to sleep and Kirk stayed up to edit the episode and write this episode description.One More Thing:Kirk: The Princess Bride (William Goldman)Maddy: The Residence (Netflix)Jason: Saga Frontier 2 LINKS:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Man, wouldn't it be crazy if Nintendo announced a Switch 2 exclusive new FromSoft game that looks just like BloodBorn and then it turned out to be multiplayer? Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games and the console reveals to you. Jason just got back from a Nintendo press event where he got to play a bunch of stuff on the Switch 2. So, I mean, that's what we're going to talk about on this episode. Let's get into it. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shrier and I just played the Switch 2.

And I didn't. I wish I had. In case people were wondering, in case you out there are a midnight listener, you wake up in the middle of the night, Eastern Time, or maybe your time zone allows you to listen. As soon as we air and you're wondering, why is this episode nine hours late? It's because we need to wait to hit the embargo because I just played the switch two. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the direct. There's a lot to talk about.

But Kirk, first, some preamble. Yes, some preamble. We are listener supported. you all know that and a lot of you signed up to support us during Max Fund Drive and we really just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Yay, thanks. Yeah, to everybody who signed up. And if you weren't able to sign up, but you still want to get that lowercase G gamer pin, there is a pin sale going on.

There will be an ad for that, I think, during the break. So you can learn more about that then. But really, yeah, just thanks everybody who signed up. We really, you know, we can only make this show because you all support us. And it's really cool every year that all these people sign up to support us to continue making this show. So yeah, that's really the main thing. The other thing to mention is that every month we do a bonus episode for our supporters. And we mentioned this on last week's stream, but to put it on the show, this month we are going to do a beans cast on Severance season two, which will be very exciting

because Severance season two is pretty crazy. A lot of stuff happened. So there will be a full spoiler cast of that going up in April for supporters. And of course, there is a ton of old bonus content as well in the feed that you can listen to. So yeah, thanks everyone for being a member. Thanks for supporting us. Let's talk about the Switch 2. Jason, take us away. Yeah, man. Okay, so big week, Nintendo had a direct where they announced that the Switch 2 is coming June 5th for 450 US dollars. Pricey. Pricey console. Just a big, big ticket item. Can we just say that right out the game? We can. We can say that. They sure did give it a big hefty price tag. Now, didn't they? hefty and it's really $500 because that's the bundle with Mario Kart and that's what everyone is probably going to want to get.

I mean, you could just buy the console with no games. I suppose you could just upgrade upgrades to the kingdom if you never played it and just played that. If you've never played like, I don't know, SIF 7 and you really want to get a switch to play Sive 7 thing. With the JoyCont Mouse. That's how you're going to play it is with that mouse. Nintendo and that's a whole bunch of stuff. But to take you all behind the scenes, I was watching in New York City, from a midtown venue with a whole bunch of other press and analysts and Nintendo people

because there was a big launch event for the system where press got to, we all kind of watched the direct live stream together. It's funny to imagine that you're actually watching the people on stage in the little white room and the camera might actually show you. But instead, you're just sitting in a room watching the same thing that we all watched. However, was the version that you watched? Was the audio screwed up in the version that you watched? Great question.

sure wasn't the version that I watched. It sure was. I don't think so. Lucky. I think the version we were watching was the Twitch one. I don't know if you guys were watching the YouTube version. Oh, we were? No.

I was watching the Twitch version and both YouTube and Twitch got screwed up at a certain point. It was a lot of people were like hooting and hollering. So like some of the audio is drowned out. That's kind of weird. Hooting and hollering. I mean, this crowd, like, it's a mix of like you have your reporters, you have your influencers. But then you have people who hoot and hollering and who even knows who brought.

You know what got the most hooting and hollering was the announcement of GameCube games. So maybe that kind of shows you the crowd. I'm kind of not surprised about that. That was a big hit in Polygon Slack. So I could see that being the case. A GameCube controller with a C button. Also, we got some hooting and hollering for the From Software game because nobody knew that it was going to later be revealed to be a multiplayer game. But we'll get into that.

And so then after watching the direct, I got to go play. play a bunch of games. I played Mario card. I played Metroid Prime 4. I played Donkey Kong Bonanza. I played some third party stuff. I played Nintendo Switch to Welcome Tour and we can get into all of that. But I figured- You play Welcome Tour, yet another game announced on the stream. Yeah, that's an interesting one. And I want to get into all that and we can kind of go kind of beat by beat and talk about our impressions of the direct and I'll chime in with my hands-on thoughts because I got to play some of this stuff.

But first, let's do some overall kind of takes. After this week, after all the information that we just got, how are you two feeling about the switch two? Is it the type of thing where you're like, I really want one. I can't wait to have it on launch. Maybe I'll wait. What are you two? Let's kind of give some overall impressions. Maddie, why don't you start?

Sure. I mean, I want one at launch. And I had to get over my disappointment that Metroid Prime 4 still doesn't have a release date. I pre-wrote a news post saying it would have one. It remains unpublished. Someday it'll come up. The saddest unpublished post. At least you can use that one day when it is finally announced.

It's like the opposite of a pre-written obituary. Exactly. Exactly. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. Everybody who pre-writes posts. A lot of journalists listen, right? Anyway, so there is that. But I also really am curious about Metroid Prime with a mouse.

I was very hesitant about this. this one. So I want to hear about that, Jason. But just in general, my big picture thought is, I was kind of surprised by how hardcore gamer coded this direct was. A lot of tech talk, a lot of hardware specs, descriptions. Zelda has an app now called Zelda Notes and it has achievements. Like even the idea of a Nintendo game having achievements is kind of fascinating to me. The price of the console being so high. I just, I think it signals a shift for Nintendo. Maybe not a huge one, but, but it's a shift that in tone and just in how they're describing the console and how they're marketing the console. So that was interesting to see them kind of doing a more

boilerplate console announcement. I mean, there's even a two in the name. That's very Sony of them. It's interesting you say that my read on it, I don't think you're wrong, but my read on it is that this whole marketing cycle leading to June is kind of the early adopter hardcore appeal to those people type thing, especially the hardcore Nintendo fans who maybe don't have other systems and will be really excited to play games like Eldon Ring on the Switch too because they've never played those games before. Or they want to play them on the go and don't have a Steamneck or whatever else. I mean, it feels to me like this is reaching the early adopters because they know that like no matter what they're going to sell out all their consoles in June when it comes

out, what they want is to reach the broader audiences by the holiday season, because that's when more people will be buying consoles for their kids, getting Mario Kart, getting whatever's available for the holiday season. So that's when we'll start to see more of the kind of like, I don't know, like the type of marketing that we saw with the C button section of the direct, where it's just like actors like talking about how they're very natural ways of playing games together. Just a really long, chill trailer of people just having fun little conversations while playing Mario Kart. It was like the most slow chill part of the track. The other component here is, of course, that Mario Kart is a launch game, which is like the ultimate system seller.

There's no game in the world that can sell consoles better than Mario Kart. Kirk, what were your kind of takeaways from all this? I agree that this event like this, direct doesn't necessarily indicate a new strategy for Nintendo. It just felt like they kind of chose the way that they wanted this to come off. And they were trying to convince all the people who are going to get really excited about getting a $500 switch with Mario Kart that they can then, you know, buy a bunch of upgraded versions of Zelda games for it.

Like it is definitely appealing to people like us. As for buying one, I mean, yeah, I'll buy one, but I think we all will, or we'll try to get Nintendo to send them to us because we're going to talk about them on the show. So I don't even, I don't think that my decision there really stands for much. But I do agree about the holidays and the difference between this June launch and what this system is going to look like at the holidays. I always think of my sister's family and their kids as the kind of prototypical Switch family where their only game console is a switch. Like I said earlier, they didn't actually know about the Switch 2. I think they'll probably hear about it now.

But again, even then, I think it really won't fully get through to them. until the holidays, because that's when it's going to be, you know, there's a bunch of more stuff announced. There's maybe, by then, they've announced a few more of the kind of family games. Like, they love Animal Crossing, so maybe there will be something there, or just a couple more of those types of games announced, and it'll become a much more enticing purchase for them than it would be buying it at release date when, yeah, it's also going to be a total pain to get, and there's probably not going to be enough of them, and so on and so forth. But, yeah, I mean, I thought it was a really fun directed. It had been a while since I'd watched that kind of event just live with everybody.

And I had a great time. I didn't even mind getting excited and then sort of feeling a little faked out about that from Soft King. God. We'll talk about that in a couple of minutes. Yeah, my initial impressions were I was, at first I was kind of like, man, there's a lot of stuff on here that I've already played before because there was so much focus on third party publishers. I was actually, I was laughing. I was thinking about blue sky posting something but didn't. But I was laughing because there were headlines a few days ago that were like,

nobody has a Nintendo switch to DevKit, like all these developers. Did you guys see those headlines? Yes, I did. It was like a rumor that was floating around. And I saw those and I was like playing Blueprint so I didn't like say anything. But it was, I had not heard that. I had heard something else entirely that a lot of people had devkits and it was smaller studios that don't have them. But like I had heard that like Ubisoft had all these plans to release all sorts of like Star Wars.

I think it's just the first of games they'll release on the switch too. And EA and take two. And so then seeing all these companies come out and be like, bam, bam, bam, EA, take two. Like, they're all here. CD Project Red is releasing cyberpunk. Borderlands is coming to switch. It's a launch day game.

All these games are coming to Switch too. So that was not, it was a little surprising how much focus there was on that as opposed to first party stuff. And really the first party stuff was very limited. I was a little surprised we didn't see future Nintendo developed games coming to Switch to. Really, all we've seen is all they released is, so they have Mario Card on launch day, Metroid coming later this year, Donkey Kong coming in July. And was there anything else?

Maybe that Muso, Nintendo, Zelda Warriors or whatever, Hyrule Warriors, but who cares about that? I was surprised there wasn't like even a teaser for a new Mario game coming this holiday or something like that. Yeah, I was expecting something like that. too. And I would kind of count Donkey Kong as within the launch window at six weeks later, but I feel like three months from now, none of us will remember that. You know, it'll be a launch game in all of our minds. But it is pretty narrow. And I mean, I kind of thought Metroid would be in the mix there. Not to keep bringing it up, but it's weird. So just to finish the kind of point, that was my initial impression impression on that I was thinking about it more. And I was like,

okay, this actually makes sense as a way to start selling and start going to market with this console, because this is kind of the table setting. This is like, here's what we've got in the near future. And then I very much expect them. This is not inside info, but I very much would predict that in June, they come out with a new like E3 style Nintendo Direct where they're like, here is a bunch of first party stuff coming in the next year. And that's when they're like, here's our big holiday game because they don't have one of those yet.

And that's when they really start just like hammering on this thing. And this felt more like this is the console. This is what it can do. We're showing this third party stuff to give you an idea of like the power level that we have here. Now we have a system that can actually play cyberpunk. Sort of. I'll get to that in a bit. Now we have a system that can play games like Madden and yada, yada, yada.

All the new stuff. Like we have that here on Switch 2. Here's a little bit of stuff that's coming to launch. Here's a few indie surprises. Enter the Gungeon 2. New Delta Rune stuff is coming up launch. Yeah, Delta Rune's a launch day. That is a good one.

That's like a surprise potential banger. Can I ask a Delta Rune question since I guess it probably won't come up again? You have played some of it, Jason, is that? I have. I played the first chapter. He's since released. Delta Rune is, of course, the quote-un sequel successor, let's call it, two undertale.

It's kind of like a parallel story. And he has released the first two chapters. I believe for free. Yeah, that's right. And the second two are paid. And the second two are paid. And so this is a whole package of the first four chapters that's coming to switch to on launch day and coming to all platforms on June 5th. And then there's going to be more.

I don't know exactly how many more. I think he said. That's my question. Is this the whole game? No, this is not the whole game. That's too bad. He has said upcoming chapters will be added as free updates. That's cool.

But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, there's. there's, I think he said that we're seven of none of a hundred but yes, there are definitely more coming. This is not the whole game. An unconventional release schedule. Definitely unconventional. That was my question. I'm waiting to play that until the entire thing is out.

Yeah, I mean, I think it feels like four chapters. Maybe that's enough that you can play through it and get a feel for it. I'll probably still wait. But anyway, so I, after kind of being initially underwhelmed at the lack of first party stuff, I, by the end of it and by the time I got my hands on things, I felt like, okay, this actually makes more sense. than I had originally thought. And to me, it seems like the right move.

I think that there's definitely some sticker shock with $450 to $500 for getting one of these things. But I don't know, maybe people are prepared for that. Or maybe they're not because everything is about to get extremely expensive. And so nobody's going to be able to afford this thing. Yeah, this was also the day, as we're recording this, that a bunch of tariffs were announced to be rolled out. So who knows what the three.

of us might end up paying for the switch too. Yeah, I really wonder if the price will change. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to imagine changing when they already committed to this price. I mean, I feel like maybe the sticker shock won't happen for people because during the pandemic, when I bought Dina a switch, they were so much more expensive because people were just reselling them at a massive up charge or whatever you want to call it. And that's what I did because I wanted to get her one with Animal Crossing.

And I think a lot of people were just like, yes, which can easily be $500. That's normal. I bought one during the pandemic. And that's how much it cost. So I wonder if maybe that's why people will just not feel any type of way about it. I haven't really seen that many reactions to the price online, to be honest. Maybe it'll kind of unfold over the coming days. But like that wasn't a big reaction that I saw, even though I expected it.

Yeah. There's other aspects of the console that I think are kind of nickel and diming, including you have to You have to pay, you don't have to pay for backwards compatibility, but you do have to pay for enhanced editions of games like the Zelda games. Although I believe there's also parts of it that are included if you have the online and expansion. There's some games that will be included. But regardless, you're paying something for that thing. And also, let's talk about the first game I want to talk about because this, it was a shocker that they are charging for this. Nintendo Switch to Welcome Tour, which I actually, I think that the direct made that seem like something a little bit different than it actually is.

The direct made it seem like kind of a guide to the system. I don't know how much... Like a tech demo or something? It didn't even like a game. But when I actually got hands on with this thing and it's more like a collection of mini games. And if anything, it actually kind of reminded me of Mario Paint of all things because you're using the mouse. And so like one of these mini games, you have to use the mouse and you're controlling this little thing. You have to dodge falling minds that get increasingly faster.

And you just are playing this fun little mini game where you just have to move it around the speed, move it around the screen using your mouse. And it just felt like a Mario Paint mini game. There's another where you're quizzed on the frame rate of certain things that are moving. And it's like, is this 60 frames a second or 120 frames a second? That's pretty funny. I joke to the guy, the attending. I was like, this is an internet forum.

argument come to life. So does that game not work if you're not playing on a 120 hertz TV? That is a fantastic question. I don't know. That's a very good question. It's like those touchscreen games for the switch that don't work when it's dark. Exactly. Well, it's like, well, it reminds me of one two switch or reminds me, well, I guess

one two switch they charred for it. But it reminds me of Nintendo Land or like Wii Sports. It's kind of like here's a pack-in thing that's just like some fun little mini-games that you'll enjoy, that'll show off the new console. And so it is shocking that they said they are charging for this thing, because it seems like such an easy win to include this for free and just give people something fun to play around with. And who would buy it?

Like, I don't think I'm going to buy it. I mean, some people probably, but do we know what the price is? You never know. No, they haven't said the price as far as I know. I can't imagine it'll be more than like 10 bucks. But it would be a very fun pack-in, kind of like Astros Playroom. I mean, it seems like it's got this kind of your character and you're walking across this like model of the switch to you. And you can go from the left joycon area to the screen area where you ice skate around the screen to the right joycon area.

And within this are mini games and you earn badges by like doing well in the mini games. And you could use those badges to unlock other mini games and other stuff. And it seems like a great tech demo. And hopefully they change their minds because it is truly bonkers that they were charged for that. Yeah, that's something we didn't really talk about when we talked about console launch lineups, but can we take this as the stand as a show that all consoles should come with some fun piece of software installed on the console so that if you get one is a good take. You open it and then there's just something fun you can do.

Yes, that is a strong take. Yeah, there should be a cute pack-in game. Something. Games should, consoles should have that. Can I say something? Okay, so when I was at this event, I went up seeing a lot of people. I hadn't seen in a while. people I've been seeing at Nintendo events for a decade and a half now, which is, I mean, a little surreal.

Terrifying, yeah. And had a lot of conversations with people. And this one guy, I won't name him, but he's listening right now because he told me he's a big triple-click fan. And this guy is pretty high up at Nintendo. And to him, I just want to say, please, make this game of packing because... We know you're listening to. Yeah, I mean, it will really, it will really... It will make this console a better offering.

And the PR win of being able to say, we listen to your feedback and we're just going to tie this into the console is like such a victory. Anyway, here's the system seller. Mario Kart World. We got to talk about this. That was kind of the thing I played the most. I played a couple different modes of it.

It looks phenomenal. This is a game that is going to sell a bazillion copies. So for some context here, Mario Kart 8, I don't know how many people know this, but if you count Mario Kart 8 and Deluxe, so the Wii version and the Switch version, it is the fifth best-selling game of all time. Yeah. Set more than 75 million copies. What are the top four just because I'm curious? I think I could guess, but tell us. So the top four on Wikipedia are Minecraft is number one, GTA 5 is number two, Wii Sports is number three, and Arc Survival Evolved is number four. I saw that and I was like,

there's no way that's true. I think it's counting like copies installed. So like downloads and subscriptions and stuff. So I'm not sure if that's a real number. But regardless, Mario Kart 8, let's just say it sold more than 75 million copies because we know that. Mario Kart 8 is almost as good as good as arc survival evolved. That's the takeaway.

Almost is good. The most popular game that we all talk about all the time. Mario Kart World is going to sell maybe not quite as much as that, but is going to be bonkers. It is a lot of fun. It is really cool. There are three modes. So there is a, or at least three modes that I saw.

The main mode, which is just you're racing. I raced against a colleague from Game Informer and beat him. Just want to brag a little bit. I played, I played as the cow because there's a cow in this game. Yeah, you can play as the cow. It's a beloved Mario character. And when you win, you get a crown. And so you have this cow.

I had a cow on a bicycle with a crown. I got a great photo that I showed you guys. And the second mode is called Knockout Tour, and it is so frantic and fun because it essentially is Battle Royale with Mario Kart. And so you start with 24 people, and then there are five checkpoints. First checkpoint, bottom four get eliminated. Next checkpoint, bottom four get eliminated. Next checkpoint, bottom four get eliminated. Oh, wow.

This is taking place on one course within the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know how Mario Kart 8 works exactly, but with this game, It seems from when I played, like, the laps aren't full circles around the entire course. It's just, like, one humongous course and the checkpoint circuit. It's sort of depends. There are, like, Mount Wario is, like, the throughcompose kind of deal. But then some of them, you know, are just a circuit course.

Some of them lap. Okay, that makes sense. And you have multiple go rounds of essentially a circle or like a figure eight or something. Got it. The Mario Carts I've spent the most time where they're, like, entirely laps. But, yeah, this one has some of those. But anyway, so this mode we were playing. So it's so frantic because it'll be like,

like stay in the top 16 to get past this and you see the milestone ahead of you and you just are frantically trying to get in number 16. I came in second out of 24. I was very sad to not make it into first. That's a great idea for a game mode for Mario Card. I'm kind of shocked they've never done that before. It is, it is perfect. It is going to be so much fun.

I can imagine exactly how fun it is. And obviously if you're just playing with like your family like four people or something, everybody else's CPU, so it's just the four of you trying to, like, stay ahead. Incredibly fun. And then the third mode, and this is the weirdest one, I only got to play this, and it's kind of like the lobby while waiting for my knockout tour match to fill up. But this is the free roam mode where it's like Forza Horizon style, like you were just driving around a massive open world and Mario Kart land.

I didn't get a sense, like, I don't know if they're going to be like goals or objectives or modes or quests in that mode. I guess we'll see. because I didn't get to play with it much, but very curious about that. But even just the piece gameplay, I mean, obviously it's Mario Kart, so it hasn't changed very much.

And it feels amazing. You drift. You've got items. It looks phenomenal, all running at least 60 frames a second. I can't really tell if it's like 60 or 120, but looks phenomenal, running incredibly smoothly.

The animations are amazing, all these flourishes that the characters have. I was just so impressed by that. It feels like it is a system seller, it is going to help move a bajillion of these Switch 2s because people will see this game and be like, holy crap, I have to have the new

Mario Kart. And I'm not even like a huge Mario Kart guy, but this game playing this game made me think, oh man, I want to play this with my kids. I'm very excited for this game. And so I imagine a lot of people will just buy the bundle and be like, okay, this is all I'm going to be playing for the next month with my family

and friends and stuff. And especially combined with the new kind of chat features that they talked about. It feels like it'll be a really good, like, online play thing. The three of us could stream it using the new game chat C button thing. Yeah, we can press the C button, which you have to pay to use, it seems like. You got to have a Nintendo search online account. That's right.

That's right. They're going to lure you in with a free C button that will eventually be a paid button. This is the standard, right? I mean, you have to pay to play online. Yeah, I mean, that's, it's just funny that there's a button. I don't know. But to be fair, Yeah, I mean, to Kirk's point, like, would you really want to use this if you're not, like, you only would use this if you're playing online anyway. So it kind of makes sense that it's part of that package.

Yeah. And when they were showing how it worked, they used Mario Card as the example that everyone's playing just to like show off how fun it is to play with friends and it was very pandemic coded this whole section of the direct where they're like, you don't even have to leave your house to have a great time with all of your friends. And I was like, yeah, I know when y'all developed this part and it makes totally. little sense, really brought me back to that time period. Man, yeah. You know, another feature that they announced around this time was the fact that you can now do what I think you used to be able to do on the DS, which is play a game and beam it over to somebody who's sitting there with you with a switch to? Yes. I thought that was pretty cool, that they're adding that, I mean, kind of re-adding that functionality

or adding it to the switch. That'll be pretty fun for a multiplayer. It is very cool. Yeah. Should we talk about Metroid? Yeah. Yeah, let's get to it. Maddie, have you just been waiting eagerly to talk about Metro?

I've just been waiting for you to tell me if it's any good. And, like, how is the mouse feel? I really thought this would be a launch title, but no, still just 20, 25. So they're still staking their claim for this year, but they're not sure when, I guess we'll find out. So, yeah, I played this game. There's a demo of this game. I was actually a little surprised. Like, I didn't know there was going to be a demo of this game until I saw the demo itself

and was like, holy crap, there's a Metroid demo here. Because the way it was set up at this venue. was that they kind of funneled you. There were a lot of people there, so they split us up into groups and funneled you through this kind of sequence of events. Anyone who goes to the Nintendo experience is going to have a same sort of experience because this was what will be available to the public in a couple of days. And so the first funnel was like a Mario Kart room, then another Mario Kart room to check

out more games. And then they opened you up to a big show floor that seems like it's only going to be third-party games when you get in. First thing I saw was like Hades 2 over here. And I'm like, looks cool. but this is just Hades too. I played it before. It looks exactly the same.

Then I saw Metroid in the corner and was like, holy crap, Metroid is here. So yeah, I played Metroid. The mouse takes some adjusting. So the way that it works is you have your left controller. You hold it in your hand. Your right controller, you kind of flip it around and you put it on the table and move it around like a mouse. And you can use that to aim like it's a point and click shooter. But you're still using Z-lock.

because the game is designed around Zilak, and you have to use Z-Lock to dodge and strife, and that's how Metroid games work. Yeah, that's how friends always work. So you're not getting a free aim. You're kind of z-locking and then also kind of aiming with the mouse, which is a little strange. You also, when you're holding the joycon in your right hand,

you have the joystick is like kind of where your right thumb is. And just naturally, if you played a Metro game or any first-person shooter, you kind of want to move that to control the camera. But when you move that, it doesn't control the camera. You have to move the mouse to control the camera. And that takes them getting used to. The kind of the position, if you're used to a mouse, the way most mice have the kind of the left and right button are on a pretty similar plane. So your two fingers that are using the mouse are kind of parallel on a vertical plane.

With this, because of the way the joy icon is shaped, your right finger is a lot lower than your left finger, which is another weird thing to kind of try to get used to. So definitely took some getting used to you. I was standing for the demo, which was probably also kind of made it a little tough to get a feel for it. But here's the thing that people might not realize, and this is like awesome. You don't have to change any settings or do any toggles to switch between mouse mode and controller mode. You literally just pick it up and it switches for you. So I'm playing on the mouse, I just pick up the right joycon, and then I'm just playing in normal mode. So it is the most seamless thing.

There is zero transition or anything. You just do it. You just can flip back and forth just immediately. That's nice. I mean, on a lot of PC games, they can do that now, and I really like that. Cyberpunk comes to mind where you just start playing with a mouse and the keyboard, and it goes to a mouse and the keyboard, and the whole HUD shifts. And then you grab the controller and the HUD shifts again.

So driving, I would always play with the controller. This is exactly, that is exactly how it feels. It sounds to me like Metroid is maybe not the best example for the mouse, since it seems sort of like the first time that they're using it, but I can imagine this being really useful in Splatoon, and there's more precision aiming in Splatoon. And then if they want to put Call of Duty on this console. Well, they're going to put Fortnite on it.

Exactly. That also made me think, like, are people going to be really competitive? Any game with aiming, I could see that being really great. Also, games that are kind of built from the ground up for this. Metroid clearly is a game that has been a development, I think it was announced six years ago. Yeah, 2017. But then it was rebrand. It was announced 2017. Wow. That's eight years ago.

But then it was rebooted. Yeah, yeah. No, I know it was rebooted. But yeah, I'm just thinking of the announcement. I only know that because of this news post I wrote that no one gets to read yet. Right. Okay. Yes. You have all the context in front of you. So yeah. But surely, you're just going to tell us everything that's in that post over the course of this episode. Yeah, right? So it won't go to waste, Maddie. You're like recycling. It's important to recycle your posts. It's important to just remind everybody when exactly Prime 4 was announced, how long I personally have been waiting for it. Everybody needs to know these facts. You can describe the screenshot at the top of the pose.

At least you got Metroid Dredd in the middle there. What a great game, you know? Phenomenal game. Anyway, the game, all we saw of the game, the demo itself, is just the kind of like intro level. So there's not really much to say about it. You're not trying any new Samus Powers or anything. It just feels like Metroid. Yeah, you don't get to try the psychic suit or whatever.

Yeah, nothing. Nothing. It's just like the first boss you're just shooting. Cool boss. You have to use your. power. Like you have to, um, uh, he shoots out. There are a lot of different, uh, mechanics that he has. He like, will shoot out, um, two different types of like damage waves. And one, you have to use your , um, work ball to get under it. And the other, you have to double jump to get over it. So like,

pretty cool. Classic Metroid stuff. Classic Metroid stuff. Yeah, it, it felt like Metro Prime four, which, it felt like exactly what I'd expect. There's nothing new about it. Um, and, uh, looks amazing. Uh, also, I think they said that will be capable. of 120 frames per second on the switch two. So that's pretty cool. It is cool. 60 frames a second in handheld mode. So that is perfect.

That is where I will be playing that entire game. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it'll be really fun in handheld mode. I'm excited for that. Yeah, it was good stuff. I also played Donkey Kong, Bonanza. Yeah, how was that?

Yeah, it's... This looked fun too. You get to destroy a bunch of stuff as Donkey Kong? It's very silly. I don't think it'll be... I think it'll be one of this B-tier Nintendo games where it's just like... a little fun, but like, not the game of the year contender that like a Metroid might be or even a

Mario Kart might be. It's very silly. Or even like a Mario Odyssey that I think people would have expected to be what was announced today. It's like a 3D Mario. I'm still kind of holding out hope that there's one of those coming later this year. But I will say this game, it actually kind of reminded me in structure of Mario Odyssey because the way it works as you play is Donkey Kong. It's very slapstick. There's a lot of funny moments of him just like making silly faces. and going after bananas. And I'm not sure what the plot is. It's a Nintendo game.

But like the concept is that you can dig and break things. And there's a lot of just like dirt to like shovel up and find gold under and find hidden bananas. And there's these kind of semi open world spaces sort of like Odyssey where you have to find big bananas. Sort of like you had to find moons in Odyssey. And when you find a big banana, you get a little pop up that is like the, the name of this type of banana that you've found the same way the power moons worked or it'll be like under the fossil

or whatever and so it feels a lot like that but sillier than Odyssey a lot more soft stick and just kind of silliness it seems like it'll be fun I think the three of us are going to enjoy playing it I just don't know like I wouldn't expect it it to be like revelatory or anything

like that but yeah it's fun I mean you're just you're smashing stuff you're Donkey Kong you're just going around smashing things there's no precise platforming I mean, like, one of the big mechanics in the demo area is that you see a big brick that is purple and you use Donkey Kong. You use one of the triggers to grab a chunk of this rock and then you can use it to throw at other things to, like, make them explode or dismantle them or whatever. So, so. Sure.

Smashing things. How did the switch to feel in your hands? Like, was it noticeably different? Did it kind of feel the same? So the demos were a few different ways to play the demos. One was the whole thing in handheld mode. Another was the Switch Pro controller and another was the two joycons like on that docking thing controller. The two joycons on the docking thing and the Switch Pro controller just both felt identical to Switch one.

Switch two Pro controller has under buttons, which I'm sure Kirk is excited about. I thought that was cool. I didn't see it. As far as I could tell, there isn't, I mean, DockyCon didn't seem to have button remapping. I played the Zelda, like, Switch 2 enhanced versions. Those did not have button remapping. So I'm not sure what you can even do with the underbuttons. That's funny.

I remember them announcing button remapping for the classic games, like the GameCube games that they were releasing, which was funny because I've always wanted to play Wind Waker and be able to invert the thumbstick. But now I've trained myself to play without an inverted thumbstick. So I actually don't need that anymore. And they finally added it. Anyways, they did mention remapping.

For those games, but there was no mention of it anywhere else. Funny, by the way, that they announced Winwaker, but not Winemaker HD. It's just like, here's the GameCube version. Enjoy it. And no, Twilight Princess. I know. They made a HD version of it. Yeah.

When they said, it'll be higher resolution or something. Yeah. Yeah. They're forgetting that they made an HD version already. They did. I do think with the under buttons, they did say that you can decide what buttons you want them to be. Like, they mentioned that in the direct.

So clearly, that'll be possible. Okay, that makes sense. So rather that, so it's like system level button. remapping with that. Okay, that makes sense. Like kind of how it works with the dual sense edge where maybe you have some presets or something that you can switch between. That makes sense. Something on that level.

By the way, trippy to play Zelda both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom at like 60 plus frames per second. Oh, yeah. Kind of as excited about that as anything else. I have so much Tears of the Kingdom left to play and I'm going to play the hell out of it. It's kind of, yeah. It's kind of a good excuse to replay those games or like get back into those games. I play Master mode from Breath of the Wild.

Oh, man. Oh, God. That'll be, yeah, that'll be fun. I also, I played some third-party stuff. So, cyberpunk, man. I was talking to the CD Project Red people. They seem pretty stoked that they even got the game running on Switch 2. So there's a performance mode and a graphics mode. Graphics mode is 30 frames a second.

Performance mode, I believe, is 40 frames a second, they told me. I was going to ask about that. Can we hang on 40 frames per second for a minute? Sure. I was curious if this console is capable of that, since that's something that the Steam deck has established as a kind of new norm that now the PS5 can do as well on like variable refresh rate TVs. And I was wondering if the screen on the switch two would be variable refresh rate and if some games would be able to do 40 frames per second, which would be super cool. Anyways, I don't know if you

know for sure or anything, but it's neat that they at least mentioned that as an option. I don't know the answer to that because I was playing it on a TV screen, not in the handheld. So I don't know if the screen itself is going to be capable of that. But that said, I mean, playing cyberpunk when I'm used to playing it on my PC at like 60 plus frames per second. It's hard to go to this version. And I was like, man, I said this to the CD Project Greg guys. I feel bad. But whatever, they can take it.

I was like, man, if this thing can't even get cyberpunk a game from 2020 running at 60 frames a second, that does not bode well for third party games that come out even in like two years. So while Nintendo's direct made all this big. hullabaloo about like, oh, all these games, all these third-party games are coming here. How much longer is that going to be possible? I don't know. I wonder. I mean, first off, there's a lot of games in that window in between, you know, the Switch 1 and

the Switch 2 that are now going to be playable on those things, pretty much all the games that play well on the Steam deck. And also, handheld is a pretty big difference. I mean, you know, running at a 1080p, if it can run at 40 hertz, it might look fine on a smaller screen. I've played Cyberpunk on the Steam deck. I would certainly not play it overplaying it on my PC with all the ray tracing and an OLED screen and everything.

But playing it on Steam Deck, you know, I guess I was playing it before OLED. I now have an OLED Steam Deck. But anyways, playing it on Steam Deck, it's fine. Like, it's partable, and that's pretty cool. And I don't know. I could see it being okay on the Switch 2. And I don't think that necessarily means that the Switch 2 is going to be super limited when it comes to third-party games.

It's always necessarily limited because it has to have handheld mode and docked mode. I mean, we've talked about this. Like, they've kind of locked themselves into an inherent limitation by nature of the design that everyone loves, including me. I love the fact that you can just pick it up and play it in handheld mode, but that means that it can only run games that can do that. And I think there probably is a longer term time limit on that. But also, maybe there isn't because everybody likes playing games in handheld modes so much that maybe developers just have to accept that that's something people like. And this was the thing with the Switch as well, where there would be third-party games that were kind of pushing it and that you really only wanted to play in handheld mode.

Like, I don't know, maybe some people liked playing The Witcher 3 on a huge TV blown up looking terrible, running at whatever the Switch could manage. But that game really, it looked fine in the handheld mode, and that was kind of why you would want to play it on a Switch at all. That'll probably still be the case here. So I don't know if it'll hurt them that much. I said to Radick, who is CD Projects PR guy who I've known for many, many years. I said to him, hey man, no offense, but I'm going to be playing Witcher 4 on my PC. I'm sure he was really offended by that, even though he said no offense.

Really upset about that. What else? I played some save 7, which is a hard game to demo. A little bit crusty. I played with the mouse for that too. Weird. I can't wait to try this mouse. It takes some getting used to you.

I think like it's going to take some time before I get adjusted to that thing. The main thing is the left and right buttons not being on the same plane. Like that really takes some getting used to. Just your hand being in a different orientation and that kind of inherently feeling not quite right. It doesn't feel like you're holding a mouse. It feels like you're holding something abnormal and something unfamiliar. And so that takes some getting adjusting to, which, maybe in a couple of months when we've had this thing and used it for a while, maybe we'll feel like,

oh, this is second nature to us to use this as a mouse. But I got the sense, I don't know, a very early take. I got the sense that I will be using it a lot more in traditional mode for something like Metroid than I will be for, especially with the Z-Loc thing for Metroid. But yeah, I mean, we'll see with other games how it works. And there's a lot of time for developers to get used to it. There's a lot of time for us to get accustomed to it. Could be that by the time Borderlands 4 comes out, we're all like, holy crap, this is amazing to play with the switch mouse.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited about it conceptually just because when you think about controllers and what they're really good at, the mouse is really good at being a right thumbstick. And the left thumbstick is really good at being a left thumbstick. And the limitation always runs into when you try to either make the WASD keys be the left thumbstick, or make the thumbstick be the mouse. I did it. I got them all right.

Because the thumbstick, if you're controlling the camera with the thumbstick, you're pushing up against the edge of the rim and then just letting the camera move, right? It has to just keep going when you hit the edge. Where when you move the mouse, you're moving one to one and it's so much more precise.

Where when you're using WASD, if you play PC games, you always run into that weird thing where you have to like map caps lock and then you're turning caps lock on and off because you just run all the time because there's only a, you know, there's an up and a down.

There's no animal. analog controls the way they are with a stick. And they make these PC left-hand things where you can have WASD instead be a stick, but then you're also using the mouse. And it's kind of elaborate, and I haven't ever used one. They're probably very expensive. It is very cool to see one of the main console manufacturers starting to play with the idea that actually a mouse could be really great if you could also use the thumbsick with the left hand. So anyways, I just am kind of excited about that just as a controller. It is, yeah. I mean, yes, it is a cool concept. You're right. And This thing, like hopefully, I mean, in theory, the Switch 2 will be the primary Nintendo console for the next six, seven years.

So there will be a lot of time to get used to that concept and maybe it'll feel really good soon. We got to talk about a game I didn't play, which is called the Dusk Bloods. Yes. Blood-born, too, you mean? God. So, like, I'm sitting next to our pal Russ Freshdick during this direct. Oh, man. We see this thing show up.

It looks like bloodbored. We're both looking at each other. Like, what the hell is this? The From Software logo appears. It's like, holy crap. They're talking about blood. We're like, what Blood Board 2 coming to Switch 2? The moon is in every other screen show.

What is going on? Then it's like, the dust blood. Like, they have blood in there. Switch to exclusive. We're all like, holy crap. Which is wild in and of itself that it's switched to exclusive. God, what a crazy thing. No matter what it is.

That's wild. Everyone's like, oh my God, From Software's next game. Switch to exclusive. This is a killer app for like hardcore gamers. Like, holy crap, how is this happening? It's April 2nd, not April 1st. Like, what is going on here? And then the other shoe drops in a press release that it's in a multiplayer PVPVE game for eight players.

And that to me is bonkers. Not only the fact, I mean, the fact that they like teased it in that way made it seem like it was something else. Like there's, it's very hard to tell from that trailer that it feels like a multiplayer game. I mean, watching it, I was like, I'm kind of getting multiplayer vibes from this. Okay, fair enough. Because they show a lot of characters that look like player characters in Frome games with like very different energies. There's Rocket Pack guy. There's cool lady with the dress.

There's a vampire dude. Like, it did feel a little like, oh, is this going to be kind of a multiplayer thing? I assume they were bosses, but okay, okay. But. No, which is a fair assumption also. Like, it wasn't clear. Also, the context here is that From Software has a multiplayer game. Eldon Ring, Night Ring coming out in a couple months.

Is this all they're doing now? They're just going to do multiplayer games now? Yeah, right. So it's like, yeah, that's what's really crazy. It seems to me like they're trying to get like one ongoing multiplayer game going so they can just kind of have that generating money because certainly they're working on another Eldon Ring or whatever, like another crowd pleaser. And they're maybe taking a couple of shots at multiplayer. But I certainly agree that when I'm watching it, I was losing my mind in our Discord thinking,

oh my God, it's basically Bloodborn 2. And it took the wind out of my sales a little bit. Here it was multiplayer, even though it may well be a fabulous multiplayer. Yeah, I mean, it just felt like such a bait-and-switch. It's especially weird because Night Rain isn't out yet. Like, if Night Rain had come out and was really good, then I would know how to feel about this. But as it is, I'm just not really sure. Yeah, I'm in the same boat.

I also wasn't as much of a Blood-Born person per se, so I wasn't like immediately heartbroken. But I was like... Nobody's perfect. All right. We're just doing multiplayer again, huh? I guess y'all are real fascinated by multiplayer right now. It's just interesting to see the team get way into that. Can you imagine like a From Software dialogue that is like where are we dropping boys? But like in elder in dialects.

I can't imagine that because that is apparently the game. We drop in the blood. And yeah, any other kind of big beats we should talk about? I think those are all the games. I played. I don't think I played anything else at the Switch 2 event. I saw that one game,

that one weird game where you're like, what was it called Dragon Race or something? Drag X Race or something? Drag X. Race. Yeah, Drag X Drive. There were demos for that, but I didn't get a chance to play it. There was the sort of murder ball,

like wheelchair basketball game. That's what I just mentioned. Oh, I didn't know the name. Yeah. I thought that looked mechanically neat, but actually aesthetically just really bland. So it just didn't, it didn't really make me that excited. I heard from people who played it that it's mechanically like a chore,

a laborious. Yeah. Like I get what they're kind of going for, but it didn't do a lot for me. Though they did, you know, they did have Silk Song there. They did say Silk Song's coming in 2025. Yeah.

They should at least mention this. They did. They showed Silk Song for one second with the, with the numbers 2025 on the screen next to Hollow Night Silk Song. That happened. Meaning it will be 2000. 25 days until Hall of Night's Lexxon comes out. That's right. That's what it actually

meant. I mean, it seems like it's coming out in 2025, but it actually means that... Well, they would never show it at a console press conference and say it's coming out and then have it not come out. No, they'd never do that. That would never happen. Oh, wait, that totally happened. It makes sense to me that it would be relegated to a sizzle

here because Xbox has the marketing deal, so it's probably going to be at the Xbox showcase, and that's when they'll announce a release date, like in June. That's my guess. That's another one. where I'm just like, maybe they never will, you know? Maybe. Yeah.

Someone, I mean, someone asked me this today. Someone was like, hey, why do you think Silk Song hasn't come out yet? I was like, we've talked about this on the show before, but like when you have a hit that is that successful, you have two issues. One is that you're financially set and you never have to worry about, you have no pressure to release a game again. And two is you have the creative pressure of having to surpass that hit. So this is what happened to George R.

Martin. This has happened to so many people. You never finish your thing. because you have those two competing, like lack of financial pressure, so there's no incentive to do it. And perfectionism. That is like, hey, you have to surpass the last thing. But that said, I think signs are pointing to that game, like actually getting released this year. Yeah, I'm just messing around.

I think they are going to release it. I thought you were going to say, I think signs are pointing to that game being probably pretty good. I mean, it's no blueprints. Which, by the way, the number of conversations I had at this event, Just about that. Just about blueprints. People wishing they were home playing blueprints. People just asking me about blueprints.

It was, it's something. That's funny. More on that next week. Yeah. We'll talk about it more. Oh, there was a bravely default HD. Yeah, I can't believe we did. One of the great soundtracks.

It's nice to see. Ask about that right off. Yeah, man, remember ideas. Oh, man, Maddie, I don't know if you know this. Here's a very fun fact. Bradley Default has a character named Adia who has this like limit break type move

that plays this amazing saxophone track and when Kirk and I were starting Kataka split screen 10 years ago my cue to him for like the music theme was like this should why don't we do something like in this style of Adia's theme and he came out came up with that banger

intro riff that we had for the entirety of Kentucky split screen Yes that was the inspiration for the split screen theme. No, it wasn't the entirety. At first, you had this kind of like NPR-ish theme, and then you did the new one. There was like a four-note shine. That wasn't even a theme song. It was like, NPR-ish. Yeah. We needed a real theme song. And yes, that was the, that was the prompt. It was like, what if we just made it like Adia's theme? And I was like, all right, I can do that. Electric guitars and saxophone. Let's go. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I realized I didn't finish a thought before,

but I had said that the switch pro-controller and the joycons felt exactly the same as the other ones. I didn't finish the thought, which is that when you're playing in a handheld mode, it feels maybe marginally different because it's bigger. So it feels a little bit bigger. A little heavier, a little heftier. I'm so used to the steam deck. I should have brought my steam deck to compare the weights. I brought my Switch OG to compare the sizes. I'm sure that's out there on the internet.

Yeah, I'm sure it's somewhere. But I brought my Switch OLED to compare the sizes. I didn't really get enough time with it to compare like the OLED screen versus the LCD screen. So we'll see. That feels like it's going to be a downgrade, which is unfortunate. Yeah, the LCD screen. But it generally, like, other than the size, if a normal person picked up the switch two,

they would just not be able to tell any difference between that and the switch. It is, like, functionally identical. The biggest difference is probably the way the joycons attach. And so instead of little buttons on the back, you have these triggers that are a lot heftier, a lot surterier. You have to really press them in to detach.

And then you have the magnet attachments rather than the rails, which I think is an improvement. Seems like a win. Yeah. Did it feel cool to take the joycons on and off? Yes. Yes. It is fun to take them on and off. It seems like it would be very sad.

But it was fun to take the original switch icons on and off too. Yeah, that's true. It was fun to put them on. Taking them off is a little bit more fiddly. That little button. Well, I mean when I first like demoed it and got to play around with it, it was like fun to to take them on and off. I am anything's fun.

Yeah, exactly. Then you do it a billion times and you almost break it seven times. Then it's less fun. What else? Yeah, it feels functionally the same. Was there anything else that stood out to you guys? Didn't get to test out any of the C button stuff. That wasn't there.

There were GameCubes there. They looked fine. They looked like GameCube games running well. And they had a GameCube controller there or just the game? Oh, I didn't see if they had the GameCube. But I mean, that just looks like a GameCube. controller. Yeah, which I do think it's funny that they're never going to let that controller die.

Like, as a company Nintendo has just had to preserve that for Smash players for no one else. But you have to like make an account to pre-order it. I feel like there are just so many GameCube controllers sickos out there who are going to buy that thing, who have 17 different versions of the GameCube controller released for every single possible platform. Speaking of which there are a lot of peripherals this time around, like there's a webcam, which we didn't talk about, but it's part of the C button of all. That extra USB C4. Sanalone.

Yeah, like they're going to have a webcam that's 50. but you can also just buy your own, I guess. I guess as my closing thought, I'm really curious about the peripheral game on the Switch 2 and if people are going to start using kind of off-brand mice for one. I'm really curious if people get that working. And just in general, the fact that there's those multiple USBC ports feels like an invitation for people to get super weird with the Switch 2. I'm excited to see what happens when people actually have it in their hands and they can

get all PC gaming about it. Yeah. So we saw a few indie, cool indie announcements. Enter the Gungeon 2 was a fun announcement. I wrote about those guys, Dodgeroll and Enter the Gungeon in my second book, Press Reset. And one of the things they told me that I captured in the book is that the Switch really boosted their sale. So it's not surprising to see them come out and support the Switch 2.

Same with Super Giant with Hades 2. Also not shocking. It seemed like the like top tier indies in Nintendo's view made an appearance there. Obviously, Delta Rune was there. I was surprised that we didn't see Yacht Club games. I really thought they would be there with their new game, Mina the Hollower. Maybe we'll see them over the summer and we'll be able to do some sort of announcement. And yeah, I really think this really feels like the kind of the setup for like another big kind of E3 style sequence of announcements, which is what they did.

with the Switch 1. If you look at the marketing strategy, they had with that game, they did a hardware teaser, sort of like Switch 2 did. That was about two months before a blowout, just like what just happened this week for the Switch 2. And then they launched the console. So that was January the blowout. Then they launched a console in March. And then they had a Big E3 showing in June. And what they had done, they teased Mario Odyssey in January, but then they really, they showed it off in June. Like you didn't know anything about it until June, not even the hat stuff and like controlling things until that June E3 event. So again, I wouldn't be super surprised if they had some big holiday title, maybe a 3D Mario, that they were saving to reveal in June. Yeah, we'll see.

We will see. And of course, the three of us will get our hands on this thing more when it comes out in just two months. Day before Summer Games Fest. So I might be scrambling in Los Angeles to go and like try to find one. We'll see. We'll see how things go there. Yeah, that timing is very funny. I don't know. Very strange timing.

And yeah, obviously we'll be talking more about this thing. But that's what we know so far, $450. Very curious to see if people got this thing. All right, why don't we take a break? And we'll be back with one more thing. A special thank you to the Max Fund members who joined, boosted, or upgraded their membership during this year's Max Fund Drive. And as a thank you to everyone who supports Max Funn,

we're excited to announce that this year's pin sale is now open. This year's proceeds will go to Transgender Law Center to support their continuing work and advocating self-determination for all people. Everyone at $10 per month or more can purchase MaxFund Drive pins featuring shows from across the network. And all levels are able to buy our 2025 exclusive pin featuring our rad pal Nutsi of the Squirrel. For more info, head to maximumfund.org slash pin sale. And as always, thank you so much for your ongoing support. Since 2017 Maximum Film has had the same slogan, the podcast that's not just a bunch of straight white guys.

Ooh, we've learned something over the years. Some people out there really do not like that slogan. Listen, we love straight white guys. Well, some of them. But if there's one thing we can't change, it's who we are. I'm Ify, a comedian who was on strike last year in two different unions. I'm Dreia. I've been a producer and film festival programmer for, decades. And I'm Alonzo, a film critic who literally wrote the book on queer Hollywood. You can listen to us, talk movies and the movie biz every week on maximum film.

We may not be straight white guys, but we love movies. And we know what we're talking about. Listen to maximum film on maximum fun or wherever you listen to podcasts. And we are back. I'm going to go fast. So I'll go first. I played a game called Saga Frontier 2. that was kind of shadow dropped or day one launched. Yeah, shadow dropped last week during the Nintendo Direct that was last week. Did you get, do you guys remember there was a Nintendo Direct last week too? Sure do. And that is a weird-ass game.

I don't know if you guys have played any saga games, have you? No. They're so fucking weird, man. They're so strange. There's a Skyd Square inix Kowazoo who's been there since the 80s, and he just gets free reign to make these weird-ass games. This is a remastered version of a PlayStation 1 game that I had remembered playing on the PS1, which is one of the reasons I wanted to check it out. And, man, it's still frigging weird.

It's like a series of vignettes that jump around in history and, like, tell stories in this really disjointed way. And then they're weird mechanics where, like, you can only gain skills by, like, using commands over and over again. But then, man, I won't even get into it. I'll just say this game's friggin' weird. And there are a bunch of saga heads out there. and props to them, but this is one JRPG series that I will just never

really get into. I played a lot of the first Saga Frontier is a little more traditional than this one. This one is just super weird, man. Super weird. There's a system where, like, you control characters

and then you control their descendants and have to pass along their stats to each other's descendants. Man, it's a weird game. Saga Frontier, too, man. If you want to play a weird game, if you're, like, into crunchy, weird mechanics, DRP style,

games go check out the agron frontier too that's all i'll say about it maddie mattie what's your one more thing uh mine is a television show that dna and i watched all of i think it's like eight episodes it's called the residents spelled d ence at the end as opposed to like a plural of resident blueprint style yeah kind of yeah it's a reference to the white house which is often referred to as the residents especially by people who work there and it's a murder mystery that takes place in sort of like a closed room, White House, but it's a huge party that happens there. And this show, especially watching this after Paradise, which is also kind of a closed room murder mystery where you like see the body in the first episode and then you like solve it over eight apps. And it's also kind of like about

the White House and Secret Service. It's kind of like a weird opposite of paradise because the residence is like a goofy slapstick comedy heightened reality. like sometimes I had to really reset my brain when we were setting down to watch an episode of the residence and be like, right, I'm in a weird, goofy version of the world that is nothing like our political reality now or any political reality we've ever had. It takes place in like an alternate history where the president is like a gay man, but like that isn't even a political commentary on anything. It's just like part of a silly series of plot points, if that makes sense. Like, it's almost like an intentionally apolitical show, which that may or may not be something you're in the mood for right now.

I occasionally was like, this show might be making me feel unword from reality in a bad way. But it also made me laugh a lot. So I don't know. Uzo Aduba stars, people might know her as crazy eyes from Orange and the New Black. I think it's really cool that she gets to play so many different roles now. She plays the detective in this. And she's like just a delight to watch because she's so annoying in the way that. but like Sherlock Holmes is and is also just constantly like removing herself from scenarios

and commenting on them in weird ways. And everyone else there is like, I can't believe she's not just directly solving the mystery right away and is like irritated by her machinations. And that's always fun to watch. Randall Park is in it and he's kind of like her straight man. I always enjoy him and everything. Jean-Carlo Esposito plays the character who dies in episode one. and it's his murder that you're solving the entire time,

but you get a ton of flashbacks where you get to see him being like a really fun, persnickety house manager of the entire White House, kind of a character. So yeah, I mean, if you like a mystery and you're like okay with just setting politics aside entirely,

even though it's set in literally the White House, then you might like it. It's really silly, though. It's like almost like the movie clue levels of silly, like for lack of a better comparison. I mean, I think clue is a significantly better. Say more. I don't want to be like the movie clue.

I don't want people to think I'm saying this is as good as clue. Few things are. But it's kind of at home in that genre where it's very silly. And like, yeah, somebody died, but it's not like that. You know what I mean? You didn't mention John Carly, John Carlo Esposito, Ken Marino, Randall Park. Yeah, okay. Ken Marino's character is so funny in this.

I love Ken Marino and everything he's ever in. And he is so good in this show. So you could maybe just watch it for him. I don't know. I've got some great. This is a great cast. Jason Lee in there. Yeah.

The guy who played, the guy who played Clay Davis on the wire. This is a... Right. This is a Shonda Land show. It is a Shonda Land show. I'm at Emily's house. We're visiting their new puppy this week. And her parents have suggested that maybe we could watch this since we had watched

Richard together, but we already watched that. For that. For that exact setting. Like something to watch with your significant others' parents. I think that's perfect. But nobody, everybody will go home. I'm happy, you know? It's not going to start any fights.

Yeah. That's always best. It just seems like light entertainment. Nice. Sounds fun. It sounds good. Kirk finishes off. I will finish us off with a bit of a like a journey through several books.

So I mentioned I'm just still reading. Of course you will. Of course you will. I love this. I'm whatever. You did like three things for your one more thing last week and then tried to somehow still make that my fault. Classic Kirk Hamilton.

I mean, four more things. So I've mentioned I've been reading the Murder Bot books and Slop. Slawhouse books, which I've already talked about on the show. And so I kind of rewind myself a little bit to then talk about a book I read somewhat recently, which is Tress of the Emerald Sea, a Brandon Sanderson book that just randomly came in at the library. That's a pretty fun book. It's fine. It's very different mode for him. And the whole time I was reading it, I was thinking, man, this really reminds me of the Princess Bride. And then I got to the end. And in his afterward, he described how he kind of wrote the book in secret. And the whole time, it was a little inside

joke between him and his wife about how he wanted to write a book like The Princess Bride. And so it was clearly influenced by The Princess Bride. And that made me remember The Princess Bride, which I wanted to mention on the show. Because have either of you read The Princess Bride by William Goldman? I haven't. I've always intended to. No. So, Maddie, you say you haven't, but you've always intended to.

Almost everyone that I talk to about The Princess Bride says exactly that. So it's a very helpful response. I know, right? For a long time, that was me as well. I had never read it. I'd seen the movie a billion times. Of course. A go-to sick day movie when I was a kid.

I could quote it still by heart. But I'd never read the book, and I read it probably five or six years ago. The full title, of course, The Princess Bride, S. Morgan Stern's classic tale of true love and high adventure, the good parts version by William Goldman. And this book is fantastic, and I just want to mention it on the show. Mention it for anyone out there who's looking for some fun, enjoyable book, who's maybe seen the movie, maybe loves the movie, maybe has never seen the movie. maybe he has never seen the movie and just wants to read something really cool. It is similar to the movie, a frame narrative. It is playing with a lot of metatextual stuff, but in a much more elaborate and funny way.

I found it to be actually even funnier than the movie, which I've always thought the movie to be very funny. It's a little more arch. It's a little more, yeah, it's got a little more tart, I guess. But it's just very funny. The way the whole thing is described, it's buried in layer upon layer of meta text, where William Goldman is describing his own journey to find the, S. Morgan Stern copy of the book. But the William Goldman that is narrating the book is different from the actual William Goldman, the author of the book, in subtle ways. And you start to learn this

as you're reading it. You realize, like, wait a minute. It's like a fill up Roth. Like he wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, William Goldman did. And then he talks about that in the four words and in the asides in the book. But he says stuff that couldn't possibly be true, like about how Morgan Stern's book influenced the script for the, for Butch Cassidy, even though like the Morganstern book doesn't actually exist. It's a amazing. up book. And so the whole thing is actually like him, the reinterpreting stories that he used to tell to his kids. I think he had two daughters and one wanted a story about a princess and the other wanted a story about a bride. So he was like, I'll tell you a story about the princess bride.

And it sort of became that. Anyways, it's such a good book. It's so funny. It has a lot more about some of the characters you may love. Inigo Montoya in particular gets a much more expanded backstory. You kind of learn the whole story of his father and his town, the crafting of the sword, of course and like this epic sort of legend that becomes such an important part of his story and is in the movie, but you don't quite get as much of a sense for it. So I hope the two of you will read it because it's really, really great. I want to reread it and reading Tress of the Emerald Sea, as fun as it was, made me remember like the true brilliance of the princess bride. So that's my one more thing. I hope I will inspire some people out there to finally stop thinking, I should really read that

and go and just get it from the library and read it because it is a fantastic book. Yeah, it really sounds like my thing. I like a meta book. I enjoy that kind of thing a lot. It's just great. You would both love it. Fake stuff about a book that doesn't exist. That's all my thing. Sounds very fun. Okay, cool. That is that for this week's episode. Guys, I'm very excited for next week's episode. People might have heard me talking about a game. We've been hyping it. A few weeks now. Hiping it, hyping it. I mean, all I've been doing, all I did on the plane, all I've been doing here. It is now all I do. I too. am only doing this now. It's just eating our brains. It's all we're doing. Starting next week,

it will eat the brains of the world. All right. See you both next week. Yep. See you next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the maximum fun podcast network and if you like our show we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximum fun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods and send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

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