Triple Click - The Joy of Super Mario Odyssey

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

It's time for Triple Play, in which Kirk, Jason, and Maddy all play the same game. This week, the three of them are going deep on Super Mario Odyssey, released for the Nintendo Switch in 2017. How does it compare to previous Mario games? What's the multiplayer like? And why is this game such a complete and utter joy to play? Let's discuss! 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 | @tripleclickpod Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

The Odyssey is an epic poem by Homer about one man's 10-year saga to return to his family. It's also a sweet Mario game. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we're talking about Super Mario Odyssey, a game full of joy and one that is worth playing during these times of stress. How does it compare to previous Mario games and what is the multiplayer like? Let's discuss. I'm Jason Trier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers.

And here we are. Here we are. Hello. It's nice to see both of you. Here we are. Once again. Back at it again. Another app. On Triple Click.

So, before we get started, a couple of things, you can always reach us at triple click at maximum fun. org. And we get a lot of emails from people. Thanks everybody who's written in. It rules. It's nice to hear from other human beings to know that we're not alone in the world. In this universe. This is the only way we have of finding out if we're alone in the world or not.

So you better email us. It's true. It's true. We really need this. Also, this is our first full month, I think, this month, the month of May will be our first full month on Maximum Fun. We just put out that Final Fantasy 7 Beans cast, a special bonus for members, though that will be out for everybody in a couple of weeks. I hope that you members all like that. And this is also where we get a sense of just how many of you are signing up, though I know a lot of people are signing up to become members, which is super cool. Thank you so much if you signed up to become a member. Yes, to support us. And if you would like to support us making this show, you can go to maximum fun.org slash join, and you become a member of maximum fun. And that gets you a bunch of cool stuff. Though if you join just at the basic tier, you get bonus episodes of every maximum fun show, including triple click. And if you want to specifically support us, you kind of select us. They give you a big grid of shows that you can click on. And you can click on all the shows that you want your dollars to go toward. And we would very much appreciate it if your dollars went toward our show.

so that we can be paid for making this show. Consider it, you know? Yeah, just think it over. Actually, before we get started, I have a point of business to discuss with you too. Okay. This is very important, and I think that we need to discuss it. That point of business is Jason's child. My baby has carrot all over her face, and she is saying she wanted to say hello and grab the microphone.

Okay, point of business. This is very important. So, as many of you know, at the beginning of this year, while we were still on split screen, we all came up with predictions for the year, and we have a whole bet going. Whoever wins gets to force the other two people to play a game of their choice. So we all decided at the beginning of the year. One of my predictions... You always say force.

You say the word force every time. It's because it is forced. Yes, we must play the game. All three of us picked amazing games that the other two people get to play. Have to play. Have to play. Have to play. Have to play.

Or forced to play. Well, I say forced because playing Kirby. Planet Robobot is like really got to be forced to play it out. It's such a good game. Jason hates playing Kirby Planet Robobot but I won the predictions last year so he has to complete playing it. He was forced to play it. So

as many of you know, this year one of my predictions was that another company would pull out of E3 the way that Sony has. However, there is no E3 and so we've given a lot of thought to this like and talked about this a little bit where like all these companies are pulling out. Are they going to be

week. Exactly. What if they're technically part of E3, but now there is no E3? At first they were like, we're going to do a digital E3, but that didn't happen because nobody wanted to be part of it. They wanted to all do their own thing. Yeah, of course. So here is my proposal.

My proposal, and I would like you to do, let me know if you agree or disagree, is that we nullify that prediction. And I just pick another prediction right now for the rest of the year that that fits into that slot, that takes the place of that slot. it's kind of a disadvantage for me. It's both an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that we've seen half the year already. The disadvantage is that we've seen half the year already. So I only have half the time in which this can take place. But the advantage is that obviously now I know about coronavirus and I know that the world is a shit show. So I wouldn't predict anything that might be disrupted by coronavirus. Although actually the prediction I have in mind is pretty ballsy that considered. So what do you guys say? Yay or nay? Maddie, what do you say? I'm down. I'm down as long as the prediction, again, tries not to take into consideration everything we've learned in the first half of the year, which I get is a difficult proposition, but I think we'll be able to evaluate it once you share your prediction. And it's a long-e it's fair. So I also am okay with this pending hearing the prediction. If it's, you know, I think we still have veto power over this because we haven't heard it. Yeah, like if the prediction is it's going to be really hard to get a switch on Amazon, then I'm not okay with it.

Right. Animal Crossing is going to do well. However, I will say that I am enticed by you say that it is a ballsy prediction. So I want to hear what it is. Okay. You guys ready? I will give it to you. So my prediction is that Final Fantasy 7 remake sequel, part two will be out next year. It'll be announced this year for 2021 release. Okay. That's, uh, I'll take it. That's fun. Yeah, that's a good prediction. I hope that's true. I like it. I like that prediction. I just have a good feeling. Okay. So we're officially substituting the E3 one with this. We are amending your predictions for next year. Fantastic.

All right, so let's get into the topic for this episode. We are doing yet another new segment. This is, you know, the nice thing about a new podcast is you get new segments all the time. And this segment is known as Triple Play. And I just played a little sound effect there to mark that this is a triple play. This is a new segment. I hope it ruled. It ruled.

I'm sure that it ruled. I actually don't know what it's going to be yet. But triple play is going to be what it kind of sounds like when all three of us have played a game and we talk about it. There will also be double play, because sometimes only two of us will play the game. And I suppose single play it could technically be a thing that we're going to avoid that. It's a lot more fun when at least two of us have played a game. Single play is just a circus played something in monologues for 30 minutes. We did a lot of single play back on split screen where I'd be like, I've played this immersive sim.

Let me talk about it for 20 minutes without breathing. And, you know, that's fun for me. So, Kirk, what game are we playing this week? This triple play topic is going to be a game that a lot of listeners have probably played a little game called Super Mario Odyssey. That's what we're going to talk about, because we all went back and played it again, and we all played it when it first came out, and now we are going to discuss it with kind of the benefit of some hindsight

and also just because it's fun to talk about Nintendo games. So I want to start this conversation by hearing, well, both when you first played this game and what that experience was, just sort of what the setting was, why you were playing it, how much you played of it, and then also how much you played more recently to discuss it in this episode. Maddie, why don't you go first? Sure. You're going to remember it, Kirk, because I described exactly when I first played this game. And it was not when it first came out. It was when I, like, I think Jason was on paternity leave, so he's not. going to remember any of this from split screen days, but there was this time when my car, the hood of my car flew off on the highway and the only game that I felt like playing, maybe you were there, Jason, the only game I felt like playing was Super Mario Odyssey, which I believe I had already

started at one point. Then you could throw your hat at the car because now it doesn't have it. It was really because this game has just the right mix of non-stressful and stressful elements. Like, it's just stressful enough that you can sort of be engaged by it and stimulated mentally by it, but it's also a game where you just kind of wander around and find things at your own pace if you so choose. You find the moons at your own pace. And I don't know, it really hit the spot in that moment. But now I have just inextricably associated the game with that one time when the hood fell off of my car when I was driving down the highway, which is good or bad, depending on how you feel about Super Mario Odyssey. But yeah, that was my, maybe not,

it wasn't how I started playing the game. It's just the entrenched association that I have with the game. So I guess I didn't really answer your question. I never beat it the first time around, and I'm hoping to beat it this time, because I actually think the game is really great. So I restarted it. I do know the spoilers of the ending because there were so many funny comics about it at the time. But yes, the ending is awesome. And I'm excited to see it this time around. But Jason, why don't you say the first time you play this game? Well, so I played it when it came out. I believe Kirk and I did an episode or at least a couple episodes of split screen back in, I think it was October of 2017 or November of 2017. It was the fall

of 2017. It was right after the switch it came out. It's the same year as Zelda, Breath of the Wild. So it was like quite an opening solvo for the switch. And well, really, I played it at first played it at E3 of that year. And I remember mine's being blown when they first showed the trailer. I remember I watched it before they actually, because we got to watch the direct that year in like a backstage room and Nintendo's booth. And so it was the day before they actually showed it live. So I had to keep it secret that like he could control a dinosaur and stuff because that's that they showed in that opening trailer. And it was really, really, really fun. So yeah, I loved Mario Odyssey. And so on this recent play through a couple days ago, I pulled it up on my switch and I had

left off in darkest moon, which is the very, darkest side, which is the very, very end. It's like the gauntlet at the end of the game. which is like this incredible trial where you have no checkpoints and you have to get through this gauntlet of tough obstacles. And if you die, you have to start all the way back from the beginning. It's the hardest thing in the game. And so I played that a little bit. Did not, I've never beaten it. Did not even bother to try to beat it. And then I started a new game just to play through a bunch of the earlier stuff to see like what it did. Because I haven't played it in a while. I want to see what it was like. And a couple of things are noteworthy about this game. It's super fun, obviously. But one of the

things that I think really makes it stand out from other 3D Mario games is that in other 3D Mario games, the Mcuffins that you collect, the stars or the shines or whatever, feel like they all have a lot more weight to them than the moons and Super Mario Odyssey. So like, you go off and you pick, like, I'm going to do this one challenge to get this one star and you get the star and then you're booted out of the level and it's like, okay, that was one of the levels of the game. But in this, a moon is more like a collectible and you're going around and you collect them and you stay in the same level. You don't get booted out. So it's an interesting, it's got a very

different rhythm than the other games and that there's a lot more backtracking and moving around and poking around and collecting and yeah, it just feels very different. It's very Metroid-y. It's actually, it reminds me a breath of a while, as we talked about quite a bit back then

in the way that it just like subverts a lot of the formulas. And yeah, the other thing that I think is really noteworthy about this game is that they're no more lives, there no more one-ups. which is just an interesting choice that you can't get a game over. The worst thing that happens to you is like you lose a little bit of progress, which is it feels like Mario moving like into the modern area,

getting dragged into the modern era. Or into a Kirby direction, perhaps. So you hate that. Although, yeah, it's not, it's not as easy and monotonous and boring as Kirby. But the one place that they just cannot seem to innovate, cannot seem to like leave tropes behind is that yet again, and Bowser kidnaps the friggin' princess. And it's just like, I'm so sick of that trope.

I don't want to see it anymore. Anyway, I talk for a while. Kirk, what are your thoughts going back to this game? So I have a whole interesting story for how I played it just now. I've been playing it for the last few days. It's been delightful. To go back to when I first played it, yeah, Jason, you and I talked about it on the show. I think that was my primary outlet for talking about it.

That was such a big year. I reviewed the Switch. You reviewed Breath of the Wild. We were like on fire with Switch stuff. That was a great video. year. Yeah, it was a heck of a video game year. Yeah, that game, you know, Breath of the Wild is one of my most favorite games of all time. I just love that game and I still love that game, where it's partly just because I like Zelda more than Mario, but Mario Odyssey was never quite that for me. Like,

it just, it was more of this really wonderful thing that was incredibly well made, but just a little more of like a candy-coated confection and a little less of a like thing that I want to live inside of for weeks at a time. And I still feel that way. It doesn't have the death of Zelda. Yeah, and it doesn't have to. Like, I'm not even really making that a mark against it. It just, the two games are always linked for me in a kind of dumb way that doesn't even

make sense. It's just they came out in the same year on the same system. It makes sense. They both have like damsels in distress wearing pink and they're blonde and they're both like Nintendo games and they have some trappings that are somewhat similar in certain ways. And they both revolutionize. They both like switch up a lot of things that had been stale in the formula. their respective series.

Yeah, and they both represent different schools of Nintendo design sensibility. Yeah. So I like the game. I liked playing it. I definitely got better and better at playing it, even though Mario, like I said, I didn't play a lot of Mario games. And I've never felt really very great at it at playing it. Even though it feels really nice to play, it's really bouncy, it has that great Nintendo

feel. I still just like can't quite master where I'm jumping and like who I'm landing on. Do you use the motion controls? I do. I go back and forth, but I do use the motion controls. They make things easier. But there's just a matter of the jump in this. Like when you jump and you have to land on a Gumba, I just, it's like I'm not that good

at it. So I've never, it's probably that I've just never fully mastered it and gotten into that, like, oh yeah, like, boom, I'm in the groove thing with this game. So it just a little bit is like, I really like it. I really respect it. But I don't totally love it all the time, even though I acknowledge how good it is. Replaying it, I've actually been playing it with Emily, who does not play a lot of video games, but Animal Crossing has been her sort of gateway into games.

You're her gateway drug. It really has been. She really likes Animal Crossing. We've been playing it together. That's fantastic. That makes me so happy. And it's kind of a nice progression from Animal Crossing to Mario because it's a lot of the same controls that Mario does introduce a camera, which significantly complicates

things for someone who doesn't play a lot of video games. But that's been fascinating, watching her play Mario, the things that she's struggled with. I don't want to spend all my time talking just about her. and like, you know, whatever, her, like, struggles and, um, overcoming. Yeah, but I haven't played a two player. So how does it work, at least? So that we've also done.

So we started just handing, I just was like, I want you to play and I want to see how this works. And then we started playing two players as well, which is really cool and really interesting. It's much more interesting than I thought it would be. So starting the game, I will say, Jason, just to echo what you said, man, yeah, starting the game with like, Peach being kidnapped by Bowser does suck. Like, I really, I was like, man. Like, this one is so great.

like, we're going to get married, raw. And then that's the whole, like, framing of the whole narrative. It's too bad. So we started the game. I was like, Emily, you're going to play it, and I put it in assist mode. Have either of you ever played in assist mode in this game? So, assist mode is great. What it does is you, it makes it a game a little bit easier. You have twice the health, and you replenish health by just standing still. Nice. So it's actually really great because you don't wind up in the situation where you've, like, fucked up a jump five times, and you're about to die and have to restart. And you're like, why do I have to die and restart?

Can I just, and you don't have to just wait. I want to just do the jump now. Right. But I don't want to feel the pressure of like if I, because it's just going to take me back three seconds. It's kind of the thing we were talking about last week with like lost progress. It's like I'm just going to cost me like three or four minutes where I'm eventually going to get it.

So why can't I just keep trying until I get it? Assist mode lets you do that because you can just stand still. But then if you're in a boss fight, you're, you can't really stand still in a boss fight. So if you're in that kind of a challenge, you still have to have some skill to get through it. So that works really well. It puts little blue arrows on the ground and the arrows tell you exactly where to go, which is nice. So it, well, it's nice and maybe not nice if you follow it too closely. Yeah, that seems really, yeah, it doesn't seem pleasant. Especially for this game,

because there's so much exploring involved because you have to find the moon. The fun part is discovery. Yeah. Well, so what I found that was interesting was for the sand world, the sort of the sand kingdom, the first real kingdom that you go to, what's nice about it is that, So here's how it kind of worked for us. Emily wasn't totally clear on what was going on in that world. When Mario lands in the sand kingdom, everything is frozen. And there's ice all over everything. And so there's a lot of things you could interact with and puzzles you could try to solve, but they're frozen and you can't do them yet. And that's, it's kind of this video game literacy thing going back to Triple Click's first episode, where you know if you've played a lot of games, you see that and you're like, oh, okay. And Mario's shivering. You're like, I'm supposed to go take care of. this and then the level will open up and I can go back through it and I'm going to have another chance. Well, it does show you like when you get there, it's like, oh, there's a light on top of the fortress there. So that's where I'm supposed to be going. So it's not, it's very, yeah, it's like signposting where you should go to take care of the problem. Yes, but if you've

never played a video game, like that's true, but having arrows on the ground, just telling you where to go so that you can progress to the next phase is really good. Yeah, that's a little more helpful. It was, it was, we found, it seemed like it was helpful for her. I guess I would have to ask her to know for sure, but it seemed like that was very helpful. And so then once you unlock all that, the game makes it so clear that there's all the stuff that you can do that you kind of stop noticing the triangles. And it also makes falling into a pit just sort of more forgiving. Like it's just, you kind of come out of the pit and you don't, there's like a whole death animation or I don't really remember what happens if you fall in without it. That's great. Yeah, it makes the game less punishing.

And so then playing two-player is really cool, the two-player in this game. So one player controls Mario and one player controls Cappy, the hat. That's how it works. So what I thought that meant was that basically one person is doing all the playing and the other person just kind of controls the hat when the first player throws the hat. Like the Star Collector version of Mario? Exactly, right. That's not how it works.

Actually, it changes the game. So Mario is running around and Cappy is for. floating above his head. And Cappy is his own whole character. And when you're controlling Cappy, which is how we've been playing, I've been having Emily B, Mario, and I've been Cappy, you can just take Cappy off at any moment and just go fly around and do whatever Cappy does. So if there's like a whole bunch of Gumbas coming at you, you can just go like, and like just delete them all with Cappy. There's no like duration, there's no like limit on the duration that Cappy can be flying through the air like there is when you're playing single player. So it gives you a significant advantage. But

But it's also kind of weird because you can't, like, you can control the camera. Both players can control the camera, which is a problem and it requires some communication because you can just like, I would just grab the camera and be like, oh, look over that. And I'd be like, don't do that. That sucks. So like I was trying to look over here. It's like really disorienting, yeah. Right.

I'm already not great with the right thumbstick and now suddenly it's moving on its own. Even though the game sometimes moves it on its own anyways. Yeah. But it can be hard when you're trying to be capy and then like, you know, she's running away from some guys, they're behind us. I can't see what's behind us anymore because she's looking forward, but I want to be back there doing stuff and I can't because there's only one camera. So it's kind of an interesting, it was a more complicated thing that required us to navigate it a little bit more than I was expecting. But then once we got there, it was actually really

fun. It worked really well. So wait, what happens if you control something? Do you both control it? No. No. Mario controls the thing that you take over. So it's helpful, though, because I found throwing the cap was the hardest thing for her. Like, I would think for a new player, that's kind of the hardest thing is aiming and throwing the hat and getting it in the right place. So having someone else be able to do that is nice to just totally be like, nope, I'll just totally get it on the thing it needs to be on and we can move forward. And yeah, it just is like one less thing to worry about. You could do it the other way too where like the more experienced player plays Mario. And that would I think work even better if you're like, you're just the hat.

stuff if you want to. But it actually kind of worked well this way, since I thought it was more fun to watch her trying to learn. I mean, the cool part about the game is that you can possess all these other things. Like, that's cool no matter what. That's like what rules about this game. You get to be a tank and stuff. Right, the Kirby of it all. Like I think that it's very curbiish. And having played Planet Robobot since playing this game for the first time, I was struck by how, oh, this is an Nintendo mechanic. Like, this is something that they've basically explored. I mean, He's a little bit different in Kirby, obviously, but the same kind of an idea where to solve a puzzle you need to do this. So that made me just think about how each Mario game has its own thing.

And Jason, I thought you might have some thoughts on this. Like, does every Mario game have one defining wrinkle the way that this game has the hat and the possession? Yeah, well, so the original Mario came out and that did its thing. Mario 2 was a whole different thing. We don't get into that. Mario 3 had introduced the Tanuki suit, which let you fly, which was a whole new, World. Then Mario World introduced Yoshi. Right. Sure, Yoshi's his own mechanic. He really is.

He is. You could argue that Mario 64, the whole thing was the camera, because that was unprecedented. Like, the idea of a 3D camera was just, like, that you can control. It was just done, there's nothing like that ever. And like no timers and sort of just this different approach where you can explore and, you know, it kind of has that, that feel to it, that, the Mario 64? It's, there are timer. in 64, I don't think so. No, not in the main world, no. When you go into a level, aren't there a timers?

No? I don't think there are timers. I think, okay. I believe that there are not. Fair enough. But yeah, and that was the big thing. And then was, what's next? Sunshine.

Sunshine did the flood, the water thing. And that was its whole gimmick. And then Galaxy. So you had like a vacuum cleaner or something. Or like, what do you have in Sunshine? I've never played Sunshine. Sunshine, you have flood, it's called. It's like your water shooter.

It's not a vacuum cleaner. You spray water to clean up, graffiti and stuff. I guess I just, I'm thinking of Luigi's Mansion, too. They kind of are, because you were a thing on your back. Yeah, there's a vacuum and vacuum. Yeah, similar. And sprays or poles or sprays.

You can, like, you suck in water, spray water. It's really fun. That's a good game. When that's released on Switch, we got to talk about all these scenes because they're so much fun. Yeah. Sunshine is so good. Galaxy, I think the gimmick is kind of just being in space.

I don't really think there's like an item gimmick, really, other than just being in space, which is gimmicky on its own. And then, yeah, and then Odyssey, the gimmick is the hat. That's your big gimmick is being able to throw the hat and control things. And then I guess there's 3D land, which the gimmick was the 3D and 3D world where it was like the multiplayer. Yeah, there was the cat suit. I don't think if you play much 3D world?

Yeah, I played all of it. That game, was that game good in the end? I played some of it and then I sort of didn't love it. Yes, it was all right. That's another one. That's another one that's going to come to switch. be a lot of fun. That's true.

I guess that would be fun. All these games will just be amazing to replay and such. But yeah, Mario has always had these gimmicks. That's always been just kind of a defining trait. But really, Odyssey is like unlike any of the others because of the thing I mentioned and because of the idea. Like every single Mario game until now was structured in the levels. And like you do a level.

It's over usually in 60 seconds, give or take, a little bit. Sometimes a little longer and it's like a Bowser's Castle, a more complicated stage, whatever. But usually it's over in a couple of times. couple of minutes of the very least. And it's like this bite-sized enjoyment, you get the flag and suddenly Mario is off to the next level, off to the races. Or in the 3D Mario's, you're going around and you're collecting things. And so like you're revisiting the same worlds over and over again, but they're change, they change every time and they're like open up new paths for you. So like in Mario 64, based on which star you select, you might have a totally different experience within the

same world. So like sliding down the hill with the penguins or like going to fight the king babam on top of the hill. It's all totally different experiences, but they're like bite-sized things. And then once you get the star, you're ejected from the level. So just the idea that like in Mario Odyssey, you can go around and collect 20 moons in a single play of like one big world. It's not even, it's not structured as levels anymore. And that itself is just really interesting and unique and just makes it feel very different than any of the other Mario games. Right. And you don't have to collect, like you only have to collect as many moons as you need to get to the next world if you want to, there's more moons than that that you could collect. So there's this whole idea of like 100%ing a

Mario game, which I would guess is also new. I haven't played every single Mario. Yeah, and it gates you similar to the other ones. Well, so there is, in like Mario 64, for example, there are gates. And so like there are 120 stars you can collect total, but you only really have to get 60 or 80 or something to get to Bowser and finish the game. So that does happen in pretty much every Mario. There's always like secret stuff and stuff you don't have to do in order to finish the game. But yeah, this idea that like you you would go back to worlds and just like hunt for moons and I spent a lot of time when I originally played it just going back and like exploring all of New Dong City just meticulously to hunt for every single moon that I could find there and it's a lot of fun the one problem

of the system though is that like the moons that you find sometimes you'll just find random ass moons like oh look over here behind the waterfall there's a moon the fact that that is the same yeah the fact that that is the same reward as like a moon that you get after some just like the darkest side, like the most challenging puzzle or gauntland in the game is a little bit of a bummer. Like I wish there had been a progression system of rewards of some sort. But still, I like it a lot. I don't mind that. Yeah, I wonder about that. Right. I wonder about that because so I was thinking about this also in watching Emily play who does not play a lot of platformers and plays very, very differently, even from me, and I'm not that good at Mario, she plays very tentatively. You know,

she moves very slowly. When she's got to jump over a gap, it's like, let's go very slowly up to the edge. We're going to try to jump, even though a lot of Mario is about momentum. You have to be moving forward. You have to be running. Like, even how you do a standing long jump, you kind of run a second and then jump. It's just sort of, it's like a weird thing you get a feel for playing a lot of platformers. And then how, when I started playing, I'd be like, well, here I'll, you know, if there was like, just good things she couldn't get across. I'd like, okay, well, I'll get you across. And I was remembering all of the advanced move set from this game, which is so cool. I remember Chris Kohler at Kotaku. Yeah, I wrote this post about like how to do the hat,

triple, like skip. And I had completely forgotten it. And then it was a lot like actually, Maddie, you'll relate to this. Jason, actually, you play guitar, whatever, you'll relate too. How your fingers remember musical patterns that you haven't practiced in years. And then you're like, ah, hell, how do I play this? And then you kind of just are like, just don't think about it. And your fingers kind of start doing it. And you're like, oh, yeah. Yeah, okay, right, and then you kind of get it back. It was so similar where you throw the hat, you do the like forward dive, you hit the hat, you bounce off of it and throw it again, and you can do another dive. So it's like you get so much forward movement.

And I remembered I started running around and I was like, I use this all the time in this game. Like it's a constant thing for me. I use it to get up to places I'm not supposed to get. I use it to get across chasms that are too far. I use it in boss fights to stay in the air when there's stuff on the ground that can hurt me. It's like everywhere I go I use it because I feel kind of slow otherwise. And it just struck me how the game gives you all these moves from the very beginning. You don't unlock new things like in a Metroid, for example.

But you do kind of gain a better understanding of how to use the backflip to get to a high place or use the roll or something like that. Right. Well, because it's so exploration-based. And as you're walking around a world, you'll just be like, well, I think I can get there. And then that'll be enough to inspire you to open the action menu and remember. remember what all of your freaking moves are and then you practice them and then you're like, oh, yeah, okay, there's all these different ways that I can get up really high or go further in the air and you just use them. But that was what I'm, that's when I'm finding so much more pleasant

the second time around. Like the first time I played it, I don't feel like I just cherished wandering around the world as much. I guess I just didn't really have that vibe when I was playing it. I was more like, I want to see the next thing. I want to see the next world. But this time around I've just like been wandering more. I don't really care if I get 100% of all the moons, but I've just been like, man, it's nice to just trip over a moon. Like, it's nice to just look at something and be like, that looks kind of weird. I wonder if I can go through that waterfall or like go around this corner that it doesn't look like you should be able to go around it, but it turns out that you can.

And that is so fun to me in a game. And it's why, like, Metroid so much is because it rewards that kind of place so much where you're just wandering around and you're just like, oh, that wall looks kind of weird. What do I think is over there? Let me just mess around over there and see what's there. And I don't know, it rules. It's such a great feeling when you discover something, too. Like, there's nothing like it.

Totally agree. As I've been playing, I'm kind of glad I started a new game because I've got a game where I didn't do all the bonus stuff like after the final, the first final boss. So I had a fair amount left, but it's all that kind of punishing boss rush stuff that you were talking about, Jason. We're starting over from the beginning. Yeah, I'm kind of more laid back to we got to the next world. Well, no, there is some stuff after the boss that isn't the punishing stuff. There's some fun stuff.

You get to this world that is like a nice little spoilery, fun Easter. Oh, I got to that. I did that, I guess. To what you're talking about. I guess we won't spill the beans. But, you know, playing it again from the beginning was nice, only because there's a thousand things in this game that I haven't found. And I just got to, like, sitting with Emily made me see it a little more freshly and just be like, this is so cool. Everything in this is awesome and funny and carefully made.

There's little animations. The one, you know, there are those cactus balls that you knock over, and when they split open, there's, like, liquid inside of them because they're cacti. And it's just this really nice, like, and it breaks open. There's so many little animations like that and little details that if you're just kind of going slowly, you can really appreciate it. It's a very joyful game. And you got to see that frog animation at the very beginning again where Mario

enters the frog for the first time, which is like the most alarming thing I think I've ever seen in the Mario game. It's really weird. Where he's like diving into his body. It's like existentially horrifying. Yeah, where he's like diving into the frog's subconscious and the game just. goes ahead and shows me this like very long cut scene of you entering frog brain dimension and like fully becoming the frog and then you get to be the frog. I just, I don't know. I saw it again and I was like,

I thought this was wild the first time. I probably talked about it on split screen the first time and now I'm talking about it on triple click because that scene is just, I don't know. I don't even know how they came up with this. But here we are. Do you guys have favorite, uh, favorite worlds in the game? favorite areas in the game. Oh, I mean, mine is obvious. My favorite area is New Dunk City, which we haven't gotten to yet, but we need to play. Because of the jazz musicians.

Because the band is so good, the way that that's done, the way that's executed, the way that the band actually adds the instruments that you're gathering as you bring them on, and the music starts to have it. Plus the finale, I mean, the thing this game does with the 2D, where you go into the wall and you play an old-school Mario game is so great.

I mean, like... It's really cool. As much as the game is this huge, departure, the fact that it's so tied in this loop with other Mario games and bringing you back to the originals in that way, I think is really clever and really cool. So yeah, for me, it's... Yeah, the finale you're talking about with the Donkey Kong stuff. The song. Yeah. And yeah, so one of my favorites, Maddie, you might not have gotten this far on your original play-thru. Maybe you will this time around is the, I forgot what it's called, but it's the area later in the game

with lava and cooking. It's like a cooking themed area and you have to go around and there all these bunnies with chef's hats and there's a lot of like ingredients, giant like vegetables that you kick around into lava and there are forks you can control. It's kind of gross. It reminds me of cloudy with a chance of meatballs. It's kind of got that sort of disgusting vibe where there's lots of big food. It is. It is the cloudy and the chance of meatballs's world. It sounds great. I'll try to get to it. And you control these forks and like you can fling yourself controlling the forks.

It's a really fun, fun world. But yeah, all of them, all of them have some, some good stuff. Maddie, do you have a favorite? I don't know if I have a favorite. I'm in the water level right now and I don't know. It's just so cute. Like all the little fish and the little mermaid fish are just freaking adorable. Like I just like that in this game you can just walk up to NPCs and talk to them and it's like an RPG Mario and just add something to it that everything is so freaking adorable. Yeah, I think there are a couple of water themed areas. There's like a lake one and then there's another one and a later on that you will see. Yeah, but there's a lot of good stuff in this game. Very creative, very like, very much like, I like it. I like it when you're

playing a game and you can tell that the developers just had so much fun making it and just like put all this joy into every, every nook and granny. And it's interesting because I'm thinking about how like we're all about to play The Last of Us 2 in a few weeks. And that is going to be like And it's so similar to this game. Yeah, they're really just like the same game. It's going to be like depression, depression packed into every corner of the game. So it's an interesting contrast between And like joy, joy, joy to this is miserable. Like you are going to be changed emotionally by playing with. Yeah, it is.

Well, so that is our triple play for this game. I want to hear from listeners, I think we all do. So if you have thoughts on Mario Odyssey, if your opinion of it has changed over the years, feel free to write in, triple click at maximum fun.org. And yeah, I'm going to keep playing it. It's really fun. I recommend anybody listening if you want to play it with a significant other

or someone who doesn't play games. Give it a shot. It's pretty fun to do two-player in that way that I was talking. about. So that was pretty cool. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing. Hey, I'm Janet Farney, host of the JV Club podcast. Ah, high school. Was it a time of adventure, romance, and discovery? Class of 95! Or a time of angst, disappointment, and confusion.

We're all tied together by four years of trauma at this place, but enjoy adulthood, I guess. The truth is, it was both. So join me on the JV Club podcast where I invite some great friends like Kristen Bell, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nunez, Neil Patrick Harris, and Kegun Michael Key, to talk about high school, the good, the bad, and everything in between. My teenage mood swings are getting harder to manage. The JV Club. Find it on Maximum Fun. Judge John Hodgman won a Webby in the comedy podcast category.

After 10 years of production, Judge John Hodgman has finally won, the Susan Lucci of the Webbys. What is Judge John Hodgman? Comedy writer and television personality, John Hodgman, settles disputes between friends, family, co-workers, partners, and more. Is machine gun a robot? Should a grown adult tell his parents about his tattoos? Should a family be compelled to wear matching outfits on vacation?

Listen to Judge John Hodgman to find out the answers to these age-old disputes and more. If you haven't listened to Judge John Hodgman, now is a great time to start. Judge John Hodgman is available on Maximumfund.org and wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back just in time for one more thing where we each talk about one more thing that we want to talk about on this episode. Maddie, why don't you go first? What is your one more thing? Okay, I have a sad story to tell you guys on this day.

Oh, no. Oh, no. So I, you all listeners may recall that I bought my girlfriend a Nintendo Switch a couple weeks ago. It was very hard to get one. Very, very difficult to get her Nintendo Switch. and she loves it. All she wants to do is play the Nintendo Switch. She plays Animal Crossing for more hours than she wants to admit to me. I think it's adorable.

Her island looks a thousand times better than mine ever did. And she has significantly outpaced me in this game because if you give a dedicated Sims player a copy of Animal Crossing, they will probably be better at it than you and care a lot more about the aesthetics of their island than I ever did. So I was loving this. I was enjoying it. was just like, great, yay, my girlfriend's a hardcore gamer now. And then last night,

her switch just bricked itself out of nowhere for no reason at all. And it won't turn on anymore. And she tried a hard reset and she called Nintendo today and they tried to do a remote reset of the switch and they could not help her. And Nintendo's repair stations are closed because of COVID, of course. And so she needs to wait. and just mail it into a repair station. And we thought about returning it, but the place where we bought it is only willing to give me a refund. They're not willing to replace the switch.

And getting another switch could be very difficult. So she's going to just. I've seen it like up on GameStop a couple of times. Yeah. I would return it and like look online and just check every day for it online. But that could take weeks because it already took a long time to get the switch in the first place. So it's really like. months for you to wait for a repair station to be open. That'll take way longer.

Unclear. Yeah. I mean, so basically we're just like on, it's not, this is episode one of what will be an ongoing saga, I guess, where I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen. But I really feel for her because like this just went from being her favorite thing every single day to just being a place of plastic like instantly. And if this weren't happening in the middle of a pandemic, it would just be like, oh, easy peasy. We just get the switch repaired. Done. No problem. But of course. her very first gaming experience. This is an important gaming experience to just have your device suddenly break, right? It kind of is. The heart is breaking for your girlfriend. I know. I feel,

I feel bad for her, but, oh well. Important question. Is her Animal Crossing save in the cloud? Well, so I looked into this, and Animal Crossing doesn't do saves in the cloud, but it is tied to your Nintendo Switch online account, and they let you recover it if your Switch was damaged, which this qualifies. And I think you only get to recover it the one time. but that is also an aspect of this that I am waiting on tenter hooks to find out about. Like when she gets a different switch, is it going to work? So yeah, I guess I'll let you guys know how it goes, but I'm really crossing my fingers that Dina can get a switch again because I'd like her to have one again.

I hope so too. This takes me back to when I first got back into video gaming and got an Xbox 360 and was like, yay, video games. I know where this is going. They've been really good, yeah. Who can imagine where this is going? Anyone who is alive and had a video game or Xbox 360 in 2007. Wow, this is so cool.

I can play Oblivion. I can play Grand Theft Auto. All these new games are coming out. What? My Xbox 360 stopped working. It seems like there's a red light for some reason. Why might that be? Oh, turns out that's a whole thing.

This is why I waited for the elite, the Xbox 360 elite. Yeah. I sent my Xbox into. be repaired, I think three times, two or three times. And it really was like, man, that was such a thing. And this, you know, I've had my switch kind of freeze or like not turn on and it's kind of freaked me out a little bit. But you've always figured it out. So I was hoping Dina's switch would comply also, because I knew you'd had such good luck with it. But no, we're very unlucky. So, oh, well. Yeah, that sucks. But it's, and it's just the worst feeling where you're like, I just want to

play the thing. And instead you're looking at tracking numbers, being like, has it been delivered to the, like, repair center in Texas or whatever and watching and waiting and winning. So that sucks. I'm sorry to hear. Anyway, Kirk, tell me about what's going on with you in Animal Crossing. All right. So my one more thing is I wrote down the twilight of Animal Crossing because it's the twilight of the game for me.

The Twilight Princess of Animal Crossing. The Twilight, it's yes. As it turns out, Animal Crossing is actually a sequel, The Twilight Princess. Cool. If you play enough, there's a wolf, I don't know. I didn't play Twilight Princess. I can't keep the big going. So I am still playing Animal Crossing.

Emily and I are playing together. It's been wonderful. It's going really well. I mean, I'm like still enjoying it. I play every day. I buy the turnups and do the thing. The new thing that I do now, I only did the turn up,

like the website that tells you where to go to sell your turnips to get a bunch of money. I did that a couple times, but it's like so easy to get money that's kind of more fun to try to play your own turnup market. And there's a website called Turnup Profit, P-R-O-P-H-E-T. Okay.

That is like a predictor where you enter your turn-up numbers and it runs the probabilities because it knows like all the possibilities based on what your selling price was at the beginning of the week, what your first day one was, like what it was last week. And this is some insider training bullshit. Yeah, yeah. It's basically like if the sock market were just like someone cracked the whole thing and was counting cards and could just tell you. And even last week I had like 500-something bells one day, which is super good.

and it told me it was coming. It's like you have a pretty good chance of a major spike tomorrow. I was like, okay, I won't sell, I'm going to wait. I didn't know there were patterns like that, but you could read and figure out. Yeah, this site seems fairly accurate to me anyways. I haven't looked super closely into it.

But that's been fun just from a like, again, a kind of a nerd numbers. I want to see, I'm curious about this point of view, just like, can I log all the numbers and keep track of how this goes? Though you do get to a point in this game where you kind of have everything, and then it's just this question of aesthetics

and how customized, like how much you want to customize it. And the more people that are involved, the more you want to keep playing. Like, I like sharing it with Emily, and that's nice. And also, my nieces are both playing and have come visit. They've come to visit me. And they just got the game, like, a couple weeks ago. So they came to my island, and they thought it was the...

Remind us how old they are? Nine and six. So the nine-year-old came and visited. Which is fun because I can send her things now. So I send her all the musical instruments I get and stuff. And she thinks it's so cool. She's getting all this, like, cool, free stuff. And she visited my island.

was like, what? Like when she saw it, because, you know, I'm at the end of the game and I've paved roads and have things everywhere. And her island, I went and visited. You know, it looks like a beginner island. It's just grass. So that was really fun. And kind of is another thing like sending her letters and being, you know, engaging with her

through the game has been really nice, especially because we can't go visit them right now. Right. So that's nice. But I'm definitely in the twilight hours of Animal Crossing or like weeks. I'm at the phase where, like, I got the saxophone. That was like kind of the thing that I really wanted to put in my... That was the final. the pinnacle of it all for you. It kind of is. Like my music room is finished. It has all this sweet

stuff. And I'm like, all the music stuff. So okay. And that's how you feel about real life, your room that you're sitting in now. You've got all the instruments now. What else is there? Right. Exactly. It is sort of funny that there's this mirror of like in real life when you start buying guitars and you're like, well, but I don't have like a Gibbs in Les Paul. Like I don't know. I could like save for that. And like you kind of get a bad case of gear acquisition syndrome. and in Animal Crossing it's kind of like, well, this guitar is really expensive, but I don't have it yet, so I should play it. But no, I'm basically done. I've been following along with, in particular, your now colleague, our former colleague Patricia Hernandez's excellent coverage at Polygon.

And she just goes, she's, her nature is to kind of cover the farthest fringes and the weirdest shit happening in a game. So it's kind of a skewed lens through which to view it. But I can definitely just, I just feel like I'm watching the community do all this weird stuff. there's that one villager that everybody wants. There's like a whole black market for Raymond and like and then hackers and like the one guy who's like, I've got all these Raymonds and I've hacked the game and I'm just giving them away because I want to fight against the people. To protest the black market for Raymond. Right.

Or even how it's kind of like a microtransactions market that has cropped up in a game that didn't have micro transactions. Yeah. And it's just the thing that happens with a game like this where if you go to the farthest extremes, it just gets so weird and interesting and intense. where the average person playing it, and I've had a fairly average experience with it, is just so far away from that that it's cool to be like, that's the same game that these people are playing, this game that I'm playing. And it feels like that's also what happens when the whole culture is kind of in the twilight of the game.

It's like, okay. Well, that's to blow your niece's mind to find out about those. Oh, my God. Yes. Yes. I feel like even telling, I wouldn't even want to tell them about some of that stuff because they don't even know about turnups. I want to text them and be like, hey, I have turnips.

for 576 spells and then I realized that they wouldn't even know what I'm talking about and they don't have like she doesn't have a phone so I couldn't even text her I was like okay slow down buddy she's nine doesn't even buy turnups yet it's totally fine so anyways yeah winding down with that game and still enjoying it in like very small doses but the doses are getting smaller and smaller every day so Jason your one more thing let's hear it what have you my one more thing this week is a TV show called Ozark and my wife and I have just finished watching all three seasons of the show. It's a Netflix only show. I wouldn't say it's good. I wouldn't say it's great. Maybe it's, it's good. It's fine. We just watched it because

we felt obligated to keep watching it. It's sort of like a, it's like a poor man's breaking man. A glowing recommendation from Jason Shire. It's like a poor man's breaking bad, except unlike breaking bad. So what I do like about it, let me start for the beginning. So it's It's Jason Bateman, and the idea is that he's a money manager for the cartel in Mexico. And he does this in Chicago at the beginning of the series, but he is forced to move to the Lake of the Ozarks, Michigan, which became Internet famous over the weekend, Missouri, which became Internet famous over the weekend because of those pictures of people at the pool in the Ozarks and violating social

distancing, like thousands of people just crammed together. So that's, that's, which is, that's the Ozarks for you, right? So he moves to the Ozarks with his family, his, his wife and their two kids, and they meet a bunch of crazy characters, and the show is about their criminal activities in the Ozarks. And both he and his wife are awful people. But so one of the interesting things that the show does is it doesn't really, it doesn't play with the pretense that like a Breaking Bad does, where it's like, oh, is his wife going to find out what's going to happen then? Oh, is this kid going to find out what's going to happen then? Because the entire family finds out in like the second episode or the first episode.

So the entire time you're watching these people be criminals and know that they're being criminals and like make horrible decision after horrible decision and like cause all this pain to all these other people in Ozark and just ruin and destruction. And it's like, I think it would be very unpleasant to watch if not for Jason Bateman being an amazing actor. And like Laura Linney, who plays Wendy, his. wife also being a really good actor. That's what I said, Laura Linney, also being a really good actor.

And see, my wife has to chime in because she's watched it all. We get live fact checking here. Yeah, that's great. And they do, they have a lot of interesting characters, but the stories are just like not great. Like there's a lot of just like cheap plot lines and emotional manipulation. Like in the third season, Wendy, the wife, her brother, comes to town. Third season, you really are. You're really watching the whole thing.

Well, I did watch all the thing. It's only three seasons, and each one is only 10 episodes. So we did, we finished the whole thing over the past few weeks. So her brother comes to town, and he's bipolar, and they do this whole, like, emotionally manipulative thing with his going off his meds, and then he does all this ranting and raving, and it's really not fun to watch. No. But you finished it. But I finished it. I mean, we felt like, like at a certain point, Amanda, my wife turned to me, and she was like, should we just stop watching this? And I was like, you know what?

We're already pocumitted. Yeah. Yeah, we're near the end. We might as well to see it through. I would have pulled out. So, yeah, it's not, like, I wouldn't recommend it really unless you really have nothing else to watch. But, like, it's not bad. It's just like, it's fine.

Like, if you like crime shows, then just watch it because it's like, Jason Bateman is fun. The direction is cool. The cinematography is good. It starts strong. There's a lot of good stuff at the beginning. No, I should say there's a lot of good stuff throughout. It's just like the last season isn't great. The last season is the weekend.

by far, so I kind of have a sour taste in my mouth from that. But, like, there's a lot of good stuff in the first couple of seasons, I will say. Yeah, I watched the first, we watched, I guess, a couple of episodes, one or two, and kind of bailed just, for me, it was that I hadn't watched Better Call Saul yet, and I was like, well, like, why am I watching this kind of off-brand Breaking Bad when I could be watching Better Call Saul, which I know is great, which this, even from the beginning, it was so dower, it was just like a lot of sad people looking bunged and stressed, and I was like, man, No, thanks.

Like, this isn't that, yeah, not my thing. But I thought you were going to say that it becomes amazing. Like, so that's actually kind of reassuring you. No, it's good. It's good to. I always like telling people, like, you don't have to watch this because there's so many shows. Oh, yeah. Even while I texted Kirk the other day, we were talking about Better Call Saul.

And I was like, by the way, you should watch the Better Call Saul episode in Breaking, Maddie. He was like, God damn it. Why are you telling me to watch more things while I'm watching this show? You told me to watch. So there's so much good stuff that I tell people to watch, like from that and the Sopranos for Maddie and the leftovers and all this other good stuff, that it's relieving to be like, no, you don't have to watch that. That's an easy skip. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, very easy to skip that one. You don't need Breaking Bad light in your life right now. Just go watch Breaking Bad instead. That is reassuring to hear.

Well, that's it. Those are our one more things. And that is this episode of Triple Click in the bag. We did it. Yay. So, yeah, we will be back next week for another episode of Triple Creek. Same time. Same Same time, same podcast feed. I will see both of you next week. Goodbye. 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. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to maximum fun.org and consider becoming a member. Doing so helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive Triple Click episode each month. Find us online at Trimumfxon. triple clickpodcast.com on Twitter at triple click pod and send email to triple click at maximum fun.org.

Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience, audience supported. All right. Let's take this way.

I'm Jason Dreyer. I'm Kirk. It's doing it. After a great start. Do it again. Wow. You better leave that in as an answer. since you leave in everyone else's outtake.