Level 59 - 3D Pocket Monsters

[00:00:01] Hey, if you want variety in your gaming podcasts and a whole bunch of awesome people having a great time doing it, you can check out the SuperPod Podcast Network at superpodnetwork.com. This is where you can find Remember 64, our video and audio podcast, blogs, and also other shows such as A Novel Console, Find Time, Gaming and Collecting, Press B to Cancel, The 3DO Experience, Retro Wildlands, SuperPod Saga, Pre-Order Bonus, and more.

[00:00:28] All of these shows are awesome, doing great stuff. Check it out, superpodnetwork.com. A battle moves over this place. It's a battle for destiny. A battle for glory. A battle for...

[00:01:18] Welcome to Remember 64, where this week we're going 3D with our favorite Pocket Monsters. Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Hello again if you're a returning listener or viewer. And welcome if this is your first time joining us. Here on Remember 64, we are playing and discussing the good, the bad, the ugly, and of course everything in between throughout the Nintendo 64's library.

[00:01:41] My name is David Pietrangelo and I am so, so glad that these two games we're talking about only have the creatures that I recognize. Because my old man brain can only hold so much useful information. Yeah, that's right. I said useful, not useless. All I know is that my go-to Bulbasaur is the Gen 1 equivalent of whatever the Gen 2 equivalent is. That one. The equivalent of that one. Jiggy Lookback is here with me again. Jiggy, hello.

[00:02:11] Yes. You know, I heard once there was a study that said you can only have 150 meaningful relationships at a time. So even in the first generation, we were one too many. We're just one too many, right? So maybe you don't count the evolutions. I don't know. Jiggy Lookback. Jiggy Lookback. They pushed us too far, even as children. Yeah, they did. They did. Oh, they really? Oh, did they ever?

[00:02:41] Jiggy Lookback. Kids these days, they... Oh, boy. Okay. And you know what? It's not just the two of us this time, man. We got another guest. This is great. It's super exciting. Been dying to have Eric on from the Unlockables for quite some time. Um, the Kingdom Hearts extraordinaire himself. Eric from the Unlockables. How are you, man?

[00:03:03] Dave, Jiggy, I'm doing great. Thank you guys so much for having me on. I love Remember 64. I love the Nintendo 64. I have great fond memories of it. And, uh, yeah, this has been, uh, long overdue. I know that, Dave, I think you and I last year, uh, connected on a, uh, episode of, of Josh from Still Loading the Show. I believe I think we did Mario Kart Super Circuit, if I remember correctly. Super Circuit. That's it, man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was awesome. And, uh, that was kind of our, yeah, that was kind of our first, uh, in-face meeting. And ever since then, it was, was like, yeah, I need to, I need to come on your guys' show and do something for sure.

[00:03:33] But, uh, yeah, shortly after that or around that time, I had my first child and that kind of pushed back literally my entire life. But, uh, at a point now where we were able to make it work. So, um, it's awesome to be on here. It's awesome to finally collaborate with you guys. And I'm really excited to talk about one of my, uh, one of my most fondest memories from my childhood here. Yeah, we're talking Pokemon Stadium and the second one as well. So Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2. Uh, we figured we'd loop them both together because there's a lot of similarities and why not, right?

[00:04:03] Um, different games, but, you know, we'll talk about it as we go along. Uh, before we do get into it though, uh, let's talk about the unlockables a bit. I mentioned the, uh, Kingdom Hearts Extraordinaire. Let's chat about that a little bit because I think as of the day that we're recording, you just released the last or second last episode in a very long string of awesome episodes about that franchise. That's, uh, what's going on there if anyone doesn't know. Yeah, so as of, as of today, as of this recording, the, the episode on the final game that we played in the series,

[00:04:33] which was a Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory came out. And, uh, yeah, I, I started doing a, uh, Kingdom Hearts complete series analysis and retrospective on my show. And that is what my show has mostly become known for in this kind of community of, of podcasters and content creators we have. And I started that mostly out of the, uh, you know, I kind of see the chatter on the internet about the series. Whereas, uh, people like, first of all, Kingdom Hearts is like my favorite game series of all time.

[00:05:00] It's a, it's a series that I absolutely love to death. And, you know, I am not so naive as to know that, uh, gets a little crazy, gets a little weird sometimes. And I see a lot of that chatter on the internet from people who are mostly on the outside looking in how crazy the Kingdom Hearts series can get. So my catalyst for creating that mini series within my show was kind of to, to go through all the games, break them down, break the story down, break down the themes and kind of analyze and talk about all that stuff.

[00:05:26] And make kind of like a companion guide for anybody that was like curious to get into the series, because as everybody knows, uh, Kingdom Hearts infamously, the story gets a little bit dense, a little bit crazy. There's an, all the games kind of tie into each other. So it's, it's really, if you choose to undertake a playing of the Kingdom Hearts series, it's very much something that, uh, you don't have to, but I recommend playing all the games in the series and tying them all together.

[00:05:50] So, uh, that was kind of the, the catalyst of, of that journey of that mini series. And yeah, as of today, I, I wrapped that up. It took me, uh, two years and nine months to go through all the games and write all the scripts and record all the episodes. And that was over 47 hours of content across 29 episodes. So, um, yeah, very impressive.

[00:06:11] Yeah. It feels like it feels like it's very, very thorough. Um, it is my most complete attempt to just analyze and describe and share the thing that I love most with, with everybody who, who chooses to come and engage with it. So, um, that is, yes, now I need to stop you and I've got to say, describe the plot to Kingdom Hearts in 20 seconds.

[00:06:35] In 20, I even know that's crazy. And I've only played like the first two games, literally impossible because there's, there's plots on top of plots. So it depends on like which one you want. Um, if I was to say like a simple synopsis, basic elevator pitch, that's what it's called. Yeah. Um, boy from Island gets mystical key sword and fights darkness and the elderly.

[00:07:01] And that's pretty much the elderly. Yeah. Those are two separate things. Interesting. Yeah. Sometimes there are sometimes separately. Okay. Disney Disney's there. Yeah. Yeah. Mickey's there. He's kind of like a Jedi master. Goofy's there. Donald's there. Yeah. It gets his final fantasy characters there. So, and we added like another 10 seconds. Could you explain the nobody heartless situation to me? Because I played through one and two and I still don't really understand.

[00:07:26] Yes. So, uh, the heartless is, uh, the darkness in person's heart made manifest. The nobody is the empty shell of the body that is left behind when a person turns into a heartless. So, yeah, just because you become heartless does not mean that you die. Your body can be left behind and you act like an empty emotionless husk. And there's some really deep themes around like depression and like accepting yourself and all that kinds of fun stuff that gets brought into that sort of madness. But, uh, yeah, there's, don't give me, if you want to make this a kingdom hearts episode, we could be here for four hours. So just be careful where you're taking us.

[00:07:59] Tread lately, Jiggy. Tread lately. Yeah. I mean, that is, it is very impressive, man. Like honestly. Um, and it's great that all of that is, is part of a franchise and game series of games that you love so much. Now, before this, my, my question, my sort of semi follow-up question is like, had you played all of these before you did this or were there a couple like blank spots that you filled in sort of as you went?

[00:08:24] Yeah, I'd played all of them, uh, with the exception of, I didn't finish the, the mobile games, which had a more of like gotcha element to it because those spanned like several years of existence. So those were the only real blank spots that I kind of had to go back and fill in. But other than that, every mainline game that's been out, uh, I own all of them on original hardware.

[00:08:46] I own all the collections multiple times over, uh, physical on steam. So yeah, it's a bit, I've given square Enix enough of my money. Because of, uh, you're keeping them afloat because, uh, uh, some of their games apparently don't do well enough, which is just like what crazy. Yeah. Anyways, they say that, uh, you should support the series that you love. And I've, I've certainly supported this one because I want more of them.

[00:09:10] So there you go. Kingdom Hearts 4, it's coming. Hopefully sometime. It looks dramatically different. I don't know how I feel about it, but it's all right. We were at, we're out of big shoe territory. So that's great. We're in regular shoe territory. I don't know what that means. Regular shoe territory. Probably symbolic. It's a sign of something. It's a sign of something. Whatever it is, it's a sign of something. Yeah. Um, okay. So, uh, that's awesome. Check out the unlockables. Uh, if, uh, you're a Kingdom Hearts fan or anywhere close to being a Kingdom Hearts fan, uh, check it out.

[00:09:39] But that's the place to go for sure. Um, and, uh, understand Kingdom Hearts or, and, and to understand. Yeah. He passed the test. He gave a great synopsis of it. Can't confirm. So there you go. More details to come. More details. It's a great companion piece. If you're, like I said, if you're, if you're playing the series through yourself, it's a great companion piece. Just so like you play the first game, listen to it afterwards. Like it's at least I think so. I'm patting myself on the back, obviously, but I'm very, I'm very proud of it. Yeah, no, you did. You damn well should. Absolutely. Um,

[00:10:07] you put some hard work into it. You'd pat yourself on the back as much as you want. Um, okay. So let's, uh, yeah, let's talk, uh, let's talk Pokemon Stadium. Let's talk about either one of these. Um, Eric, let you catch your breath for two seconds. Jiggy, what is your, what is your experience with, uh, Pokemon Stadium? Either one of these, uh, going in before the last, you know, couple of weeks when we said we were going to play this? Uh, 100%. No experience playing Pokemon Stadium. No,

[00:10:37] no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me finish. No experience playing Pokemon Stadium by myself. I only played Pokemon Stadium one and two. That's still interesting though. That's still interesting to me. At a friend's house. Okay. And we, my cat is licking. Your cat is licking wires right now in the background. We both noticed at the same time somehow. Sorry. That was a potentially

[00:11:03] dangerous situation. So I just wanted to end up being a Christmas vacation thing where the cat just Yeah. I'm like, please no, please. No, that's not, no casualties. What do you think? Uh, at a particular friend's house and we would just do multiplayer and just battle and pick, pick our Pokemon. And we did a thing where we'd have to, we, we each picked our team, but we'd have to like cover our eyes when the other person was selecting so that we couldn't like, you know,

[00:11:30] just do cheap type advantages and stuff and no legendaries. That was a rule. No legendaries. Cause why? That makes sense. That makes sense. So, uh, so sorry. They, so you only, okay. So you only did that. Did you guys ever do the, uh, the transfer pack stuff at all? Or was it all just the rental or whatever? Didn't do the transfer pack stuff though. I had one, uh, just never did it. Yeah. We just, we just, I mean, you kind of both need one too, right? Otherwise it's not really

[00:11:56] fair or quite the same. I think it's kind of what it is. Dave, like we've talked about in the past, I had an entire team of Pidgeots. Yes. What am I going to do with that? Fly baby fly. Great team. That's a great team. Yeah. You're just never touching the ground. That's actually pretty sweet. Um, I have, I have, uh, I don't know. I think I, I have a decent

[00:12:21] amount of experience with this, with this franchise, mostly the first one. Um, I think because that's just at the time and I grew up playing, uh, the first gen of Pokemon and that's pretty much it. I've said this before in the other Pokemon episodes, uh, we played even talking about puzzle league when we played at JG last year. Um, you know, it was like, Oh, I've never played this game before, but I recognize some of the Pokemon and this is an interesting way of doing it. And to me, this was

[00:12:50] kind of the same thing. It was like, Oh, I get to do battles and I get to try out my stuff, but pretty much like I had one friend, I think who had the first one. And then I would rent the first one every once in a while. There was only one game boy, one transfer pack, um, one game, one Pokemon game in our house. So it was like, even to sit down and play with my brother was sort of like, Oh, it was only the rentals. It was only the, you know, going that way. And I just, we'll talk about this as we go, but it's just like without those,

[00:13:18] you know, actual Pokemon, I feel like my, the draw single player is just not there. Um, there's something about that that just doesn't quite work for me. And I think that's my biggest sort of revisiting takeaway of this. Um, I played this, this time mostly on my steam deck because I kind of had to play it. And so I emulated it and had to sort of play it sort of on the couch or in my kids room or, you know, things like on the go, sort of speak. So, um, I didn't do any of the

[00:13:46] transfer stuff this time, even though I try to, because what I tried to do is play Pokemon blue before I booted this game up. And I got three gyms in, I was dedicated guys. I wanted to get as many as I could. I got three gyms into the game. Uh, I restarted, I picked my Bulbasaur. I got in there and I was like, Hey, this is great. I still, it still works. I have my original cartridge in my GBA that I played it in. Um, it has like me and my brother sort of, I don't know. It's hard to see,

[00:14:16] but I feel like I've shown this before, but it says AP on there, which is my brother's initials in pen. And he rubbed off the fact that I put DP on there and then wrote over it. And we sort of thought about whose cartridge this was. Um, but, uh, who's laughing now I have it. So, um, and it still works. The battery is still alive on it somehow. So, um, what's that? Yeah. Give it another

[00:14:42] year to a run that borrowed time. I know I shouldn't have said it. I jinxed it. I'm going to turn it on now. It's not going to work. Um, all right, Eric, what about you? Let's, let's, uh, actually before we even do this, because we haven't had you on the show yet. What's your Nintendo 64 experience? How about that? What was it for you as a kid or as an adult or coming into, you know, these last couple of weeks? Um, yeah, what's the story,

[00:15:05] man? My Nintendo 64 experience is so weird. It's, it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. So, um, it's funny that I'm coming on and talking about this game because I remember getting my Nintendo 64 and it was the Pokemon stadium bundle. So it came with Pokemon stadium. It came with the transfer pack. So this had to have been a couple of years. I mean, this one came out, what? 98, 99, 98. So it had, yeah. So it had to have been like two years after the

[00:15:31] console initially, initially launched. And I was just in the, the height of Pokemon mania, the, the Game Boy games, the cards, like literally everything. Yeah, me too. So my Nintendo 64 experience was really weird because I know a lot of people initially at launch got, you know, the, the games that everybody thinks of as synonymous with the 64, like, especially like Mario 64. Um, up until recently I hadn't played any of the, what people would consider like the,

[00:15:59] probably the high tier and 64 games. I hadn't, I didn't play Mario 64. I didn't own it. I didn't play Ocarina of time. I didn't own it. Star Fox 64, GoldenEye, Banjo Kazooie, like all the games that people think of, like when they think of the N64 didn't own a single one of them. I owned weird shit. I owned Gauntlet Legends, which is like one of my favorite games. I love Gauntlet Legends. Um, army men, Sarge's heroes. I think it was the second one. I owned that

[00:16:24] one. Yeah. There's like five for some reason. So I just owned like a lot of like weird off, like the beaten path kind of N64 games and like nothing that was actually made, but like the actual like Nintendo IP. So it was really, really, really weird. And I was playing an N64 at the same time as I had like my PS one and like a super Nintendo as well. So I was kind of like switching back between and forth between all of them. So yeah, my N64 experience was like

[00:16:52] super weird. And like everybody would always talk about like how great Mario 64 is and how great Ocarina is. And you know, these seminal best games of all time. And it wasn't until my late twenties, uh, that I played Mario 64 and I played Ocarina of time for the first time last year. So yeah, my, my N64 experience is kind of like all over the place, but I have been going back and I've been slowly like filling in some of the gaps. Um, last year I was, uh, I got the opportunity also to play

[00:17:20] Wave Race 64, which, which that game actually like surprised me and that kind of blew me out of the water. Like no pun intended. Um, it's like, that's fine. And like how like beautiful the water graphics were in that game. I was like, what are we looking at? Like it looks, I thought it looked, it's incredible. It was such an early game too, which is just crazy. Yeah. They had that like, I had that figured out like out of the box. I don't know. But, uh, so, so yeah,

[00:17:45] I've been going back in and like filling in some of like the marquee N64 games as I've gone back, since I've gotten into the podcasting circle, I've like gone back and played like more things that I've missed when I was growing up because I was obsessed with like Pokemon and, and when I, when things would come out, I would just obsess over them and like miss everything else that came out. So, um, yeah, very, very weird. We're very, very weird. And 64 experience like Pokemon stadium. And specifically, I already mentioned, I got the, the bundle that had the N64 Pokemon stadium,

[00:18:15] the controller and the transfer pack. And I know for a fact that I just ate this game up, specifically the first one. I had the second one too, but I remember I put way more time into the first one. Um, I would import like all my Pokemon. I had like the whole Pokedex, like maxed out to level a hundred because of the rare candy glitch, obviously. And I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. And so I would just go through like the tournaments and like, just destroy everyone. And, um, one of my fondest memories that is me and one of my best friends at the time,

[00:18:44] we spent like a whole summer, we got all 151 Pokemon into the hall of fame on Pokemon stadium by going through the gym leader castle. Like he would come over and we would just go through that with different teams until we got every single Pokemon into the hall of fame. It was nice. It was absolutely nuts. And, um, one of my other favorite things too, was when we'll talk about this as well is, um, it had the, uh, the game boy tower that you could play Pokemon on game boy on your

[00:19:10] TV. And if you had progressed far enough in the game, you could get like the little sticker add-ons like the do duo sticker that lets you play in like double speed time. And going back now and experiencing the gen one games, like those games are slow as fuck. So being able to play it like double speed back then, super cool. So yeah, I, I play, I'm sure I know I played this game to death. I didn't play the second one as much because when gen two came around, I feel like I was kind of petering off of Pokemon a little bit. Like I love gen two. It's, it's probably my favorite

[00:19:39] generation just because of the nostalgia factor. But, um, I was discovering things like shortly after that, I discovered like final fantasy nine and kingdom hearts came out. So like my love affair with square Enix and RPGs kind of started and I kind of petered off Pokemon. So, um, but yeah, I have a lot of nostalgia, a lot of nostalgic love around this game, but, uh, going back to play it now is, is interesting. And I think we'll get into that here in a second. Yeah, no, let's, let's dive in. Cause I think I'll start a little bit. Cause it's a little bit of what I, what I said. I,

[00:20:07] again, I've had, like, if you, if you tell me to name more than five gen two Pokemon, like, and had a, and you know, can't even make a full team. Like I can't, like I literally, I can't even have, I can't even have six Pidgeots worth of, of, of, you know, mind space to be able to name. Like I honestly, I can't like when I wrote that little intro thing, I said, I had to look up

[00:20:35] that name. Like I, I do not know. And I played through gen two completely for the first time. Uh, similar with you with, uh, with Ocarina was some, was last year around this time last year. Uh, interesting. Yeah, it was, it was actually, no, it was a little bit later, a little bit later. Anyway, regardless, it doesn't matter what it was. You at least know the starters, the gen two starters offhand. No, I don't. Okay. I know what they look like. Like I know,

[00:21:03] I know what they look like, but like I, if you show me a gen two Pokemon or like a two and a three or a two and a four, I'd be like, Oh no, that one's from two. That one's from four. Like I could identify that the names, no chance. Right. If you threw a gen one in front of me, I know all of them and I haven't played a Pokemon game or gen one for 20 years, at least, you know, consistently enough to be able to like refresh my memories every once in a while. I'd pick up blue or whatever.

[00:21:30] Or I'd play stadium or it's fine. No problem. But like, man, so all of that being said, because of all of that and my very limited extended universe of Pokemon, not like, I don't, I don't, I've never had a desire to go back to these games because unless I've had my own Pokemon in here playing it solo, at least to me, I hate to say it feels kind of boring.

[00:21:55] It just does. It's just the same thing. Oh, now a commercial is playing in my video. Keeps playing over and over and over again. The same slow sort of battles. And, and I'm just like, okay, like, like you said, the first two gens, especially one, it's a slow, they're slow moving games, you know, like you're until you get that bike, it's like, holy shit, let's go, buddy.

[00:22:22] Pick up the pace. Like you got Pokemon to catch and, and a, and a rival to fight and let's go, man. Oak needs you to fill out that Pokedex. Come on. Um, this game kind of like these games kind of feel that way to me because it's like, I don't need to see, like, it's cool. I think, I think as a kid and not knowing what they really look like, I think it's a really cool idea to get these Pokemon, put them in a 3d space and show you what some of these moves look like. I think

[00:22:52] that's great. It's a great representation of what's been going on for dozens and dozens of hours of how many times you've played either one of these games, the Game Boy games at the time. Like, I think that's great. And some of them still look pretty cool. Some of them, I forgot what they look like. I was kind of surprised. I still liked that aspect of it, but aside from the visual aspect, I was like, all right, I've done this. You know, I've, I did a couple of the gyms on each of them, played a couple of the mini game things. And I'm like, all right,

[00:23:23] I got my fill. I've got my Pokemon fill. And somehow, even though gen one and two move pretty slowly when you're not battling, I still would rather play the in-between stuff somehow than just the battles. There's something about maneuvering the environments that was enough for me to be like, well, I'd rather actually play the full game than just the battles. And I don't know, it's kind of a weird thing because what do you do in between the battles? Unless you're finding random Pokeballs that have a

[00:23:52] potion or something. And what are you doing? You're, you're running into random encounters, which kind of suck, but that happens so often, especially in the first one. But somehow I wanted to do that over playing these games. I don't know. I'm in, I'm in a really weird space. So anyways, now, now, now, now I need to blast you for that. Please do the random encounters. That's what I lived for the random encounters. What is wrong with you? Oh my gosh, dude. Fine. Like you never knew what you were going to find. You're going to find a fucking zoo bat is

[00:24:22] what you're going to find or a rat. That's what you're going to find. You don't know that. What if you find something legendary? What if you find a shiny? Like there were so many you're not variables. Well, I mean, I, I'm talking just, I'm talking just these two, just these two and more, more specifically one. Cause that's where most of my experiences, but anyways, continue. Sorry. And two is better. I will say I do prefer gen two.

[00:24:48] It is honestly the game itself is definitely better now that I played it all the way through. Like it's, it's better. I just don't have that same, you know, nostalgia for it and that's it. But random encounters really? Oh man, you are younger than me. Jesus. Yeah, I was. And you know what? I'm going to say something that is because of me being younger and playing this game as a kid, I would have been somewhere around like the age of six or seven or so when I played this and

[00:25:18] the transfer pack, I did not understand how that worked. Okay. And I knew, I knew you could, I knew you could connect Pokemon. I knew you could play Pokemon on the TV. And that's what caused a problem for me because I was like, Oh, I can play my game boy game on the TV. And I had a friend that had a super game boy on the super Nintendo. So I assumed it was the N64 equivalent of the super

[00:25:43] game boy. Right. So I remember just like popping that in, popping in random game boy games, flipping my N64 on and off and be like, why isn't it working? What am I not getting? That is totally fair though. That's totally fair. And the funniest part was I apparently just like gave up on the whole transfer pack situation, like, but like mid trying to do a game. So when I like

[00:26:08] re like grabbed all my stuff, right. And got my transfer pack, like I found my transfer pack and I pulled it out. It had a quest for Camelot in it because that was the game I was trying to get on TV because for whatever reason. And then that got randomly thrown onto switch online, just like in the game boy library. I was like, I can finally do it. Yeah. I can finally do this dream. It's full circle.

[00:26:35] My life is complete. You can die happy now, Jiggy. Now it's, it's for Camelot. Finally. So what, like, did, so I, you have, you have both cartridges, I believe. I think they're in the background behind you there. Yeah. Did you play both? How did it go? Like, did you, did you, did you transfer anything? That's the question. I did not. Or did you just try and play Camelot again? Yeah. No success. No, it didn't work. I don't know why. I still don't understand.

[00:27:06] I, I kind of did what you did. Played a little bit of the, the gym castle or whatever. And, um, I honestly do prefer to stadium two, uh, for a couple of reasons. One, the cartridge looks dope as heck and it's gotta be noted because it's like gold and sparkly on one side and silver and sparkly on the other. Yeah. Which is amazing. Um, I also just, it's pretty cool on it too, honestly, like the box art on both are pretty sweet. Yeah. Yeah. They look pretty cool. It is. I do like that. They have your, I don't remember if they have it in the second one, but the first one has a little spot to put

[00:27:35] your name. It says like this, let me, let me pull it up. Yeah. Go grab it. Let's go show and tell. Come on. I didn't even recognize that about the first one. I did not. I left it blank purposefully, but yeah, it says like, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Mine's somewhere, somewhere buried for it. Yeah. This game cartridge belongs to, and then put your name on it. And I don't know how I have a copy that doesn't have a name on it. Mine doesn't either, which is why I didn't even think about it because

[00:28:02] that's amazing. I bought like a re like a, you know, I bought a copy off, I don't know where it was, eBay or whatever it was, but I just love the look of this. The stadium team card is so cool. That's slick. And it's gotta be the only one that's like that too, right? Like, cause even the stickers like shiny too, like it's cool. I don't, I don't know any other N64 games that are like a half and a half. Look, it's pretty cool. Not unless it's like a repo or something. Right. So, um, yeah,

[00:28:29] I will say like Pokemon stadium, like for me, it's all about battling with friends, like, and having an online element on switch online probably adds quite a bit of value to it. I would think. Right. I mean, it is essentially, let's just put it in a 3d space and let's see, like, let's watch these epic battles. I mean, that's, that's the draw and two just is automatically better because it does have more Pokemon.

[00:28:57] Right. Like honestly, that's all you need. I'll throw, throw Bayleaf in there. Um, here's a question. There it is. That's one of the ones I can recognize. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. If you want the gen two starters, cause we never told you it's a total dial, uh, uh, Chikorita and Oh my gosh, I want to say Cyndaquil. I was like, I wanted to say Typhlosion, but I'm like, that's the evolution. Um, yeah, they were pretty sweet actually. They were really cool. I think gen one and gen two had equally amazing starters.

[00:29:26] They're cool starters. Yeah. I picked Mr. Mr. Water dragon dude. Uh, when I played it, I wanted to pick something. Yeah. Yeah. He looks cool. Like, I feel like he looks cool with some of the starting three at least. I don't know. I mean, that's why people pick Charizard, right? Is because he was like, he's fire. He's a dragon. Like, I think that's why it was like, that's dope. Or you can have a turtle with cannons. I mean, yeah, eventually. Yes. Ha ha. I, I, I picked the leaf. So

[00:29:53] come on. Bulbasaur is underrated for sure. I love Bulbasaur. Oh my God. He can use cut. Bulbasaur is pretty cool. I don't know if any other guys can use cut. I don't think so. Right. Um, cut is huge. It's one of the first HMs you get. It's huge. You gotta, you gotta have somebody who can use cut early and not have to worry about it. Um, it's almost as important as fly, which I had six pidgeots. You can fly six times. Flying six opposite directions. Yeah. It's sick of an army of pidgeots on you. Yeah. For sure.

[00:30:23] That'd be amazing. Um, yeah. Eric, how was it? How was it revisiting? How'd you play it? First of all, like how was, how'd that go? Like, uh, what was the dealio? Yeah. So I have some, I have several thoughts. Uh, uh, I would like to also throw my hat in the ring for the random encounter thing. Dive in. Let's go. First of all, um, random encounters were, I know that the tide of opinion has shifted drastically against random encounters in, in the modern age. Uh, but back in the day when I only got like two games a year,

[00:30:51] like I would just grind random encounters all day. Like that was my childhood. It'd be like, Oh, Pokemon, just, just fight random Pokemon or like even final fantasy nine. Like the first RPG I ever played was just like, I would just spend all day like running around, just fighting, fighting monsters. Like that's just, that's what you did back then. Like at least you got something out of it. That's what you had to do. Uh, as an older gamer, I appreciate it less. Um, and from what Jay said, it sounds like we were about the same age when, when this stuff kind of all hit, hit the mainstream here. Um,

[00:31:19] so I, I have a preference for one over, over two. And it was only because I'm, I have a specific memory about Pokemon stadium too, that I was doing the, the gym leader castle, uh, thing where you like go through, you fight all the gym leaders. And, uh, there was this event, like a three fourths of the way through where like team rocket attacked you. And one of the team rocket grunts had like a Pokemon that like new explosion. And for whatever reason, like it was a wall that I like, just, I could not get past. Like every time, like I throw,

[00:31:47] I like bring like my best team. I'd be like, fuck you. I'm bringing Mewtwo. I'm bringing Mew. Like I'm just bringing all the heavy hitters and I could not beat him. And then like, I'd be down to like my Mewtwo and he'd have two Pokemon left. And then he'd just be like, Oh, explode. And that would just kill my Mewtwo. So I got really pissed at, at Pokemon stadium too, for like whatever reason, I'll just be like, I'm going to go back to Pokemon stadium one because whatever reason that is, that is a reason like that's, that's come on. That's like, that's bullshit. Like, come on older me now could probably build a smarter team around that

[00:32:17] younger Mewtwo. Yeah. All you do is just recruit a jiggy. Yeah. If he was up and flew up in the air, like the guy just would have blown up and killed himself. So like, that would be an easy problem, like around the solution around that problem, like literally right there or something. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. But yeah, I remember, I remember getting it at the, at the height of, of Pokemon mania. And the, the transfer pack was such like a novel thing because, you know,

[00:32:46] that was kind of something that everyone kind of like dream talked about. Be like, Oh, it'd be so cool if there's like a Pokemon game on the TV and to like, not have to see the Pokemon on, on your game boy. And so I think the novel thing about Pokemon stadium around that time was like what, what you guys were saying was like seeing the Pokemon in 3d, like that was kind of, kind of like a fulfillment of that wish. And then you wouldn't get something like that again. I mean, yeah, I think he had like the Pokemon Coliseum games on GameCube, but like you wouldn't have like a full,

[00:33:14] like 3d experience of like Pokemon until I think it was sword and shield was like the real Genesis of Pokemon making the jump, like to the big screen in like a meaningful way. So this was, was really, it was really a novel idea. And like, of course at the time with, with pokemania sweeping everybody, like this was a slam dunk idea. Like there's no way this was not going to not be successful. And they really had the two elements that when I look back on that era of Pokemon and what made those games successful, uh,

[00:33:43] in Pokemon stadium. And when it was the ability to have your Pokemon that you caught with the transfer pack and then the multiplayer element with, with your friends, the battling and the trading. And like, that's the two pillars that were really the driving force of Pokemon in those early days that kind of predated the internet. In a lot of ways, it was talking with your friends on the playground. It was trading on the, you know, on the swings and trading cards and having your friends over for a sleepover and everybody link cabling and battling. Like that was, it was a whole experience.

[00:34:12] Like it's so hard to like, and I think that's where like a lot of like our nostalgia and gen one is rooted because like not now a lot of the younger kids are like, gen one fucking sucks. And those games are stupid. And you're like, listen here, there's only 150 or 151. There's only 150. Um, but they, they don't understand. Yeah. They don't understand like the, the social phenomena around the games at that time. And I think probably the closest thing that these games that they maybe have experienced would be like the summer that Pokemon go came out and

[00:34:42] everybody was just like, that's just like running around everywhere. That was the closest thing to like what this was like. And so, um, I think just the ability to play with your friends and have the Pokemon from your game made it feel like a really like personal experience. Yeah. Playing it now on the switch online, uh, both versions is it, what you don't have that transfer pack element. And that really strips out like those, it's cool. You can battle online with people.

[00:35:12] That's really novel, but without the, the personality of like the team that you make, the team of your Pokemon that you handcraft and train and build up, it just feels so like, I don't want to say solace, but it feels empty a little bit like that. And like half the stuff, half the stuff you need the transfer pack to do. Like you can't use the lab without the transfer pack. You can't use the game boy tower without the transfer pack. Like it's a lot worse in the first one than the second one. Agreed. Agreed. And I'm sorry, but the,

[00:35:41] as a person I've played every generation, I've, you know, looked at like, I've dabbled a little bit in like competitive and stuff. Um, being stuck with the rental Pokemon, a lot of the rental Pokemon are garbage. They're like, they're bad. Their move sets are bad. Very basic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. It's like, bad moves. They're like, they're like, you have this amazing Pokemon. Like I, I'm just throwing out an example. This is not like a real thing, but it's like, you'll have like Moltres, right? A legendary bird. And then it's like,

[00:36:11] it's got Lear or something. And you're like, what am I going to use Lear as Moltres? I was going to say like, yeah. Tackle or something. You know? Yeah. Like the one, the one I was going for immediately. Cause I know it's really good in gen one. Alakazam was when I was like picking and like the move set on Alakazam fucking blood. It doesn't have psychic. They do like confusion, uh, like, uh, kinesis and like two other moves. They're just like useless. So you have like this really good. And, but like the, if you go to like Abra,

[00:36:41] the first form Abra knows fucking psychic. So you're just like, like, what are we doing here? Why would you get rid of it? Yeah. She went on. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing too. Right. It's like, it doesn't matter which evolution you pick. They're all level 50. Um, and they all have pre chosen, uh, move sets and stuff. And like, that, yeah, you're right. So solace for some reason is the first thing that came to mind too, when you were, when you were talking, but it's like, there's the investment isn't there.

[00:37:11] And I think because you're not embodying the trainer themselves in this, you're just throwing the poke balls out. You're just picking the things you're, you're not, you're not embodying anything in this, in this game. So all you really have is what you've worked towards, which is your move set and your Pokemon, regardless of what level they are, when you transfer them without that, it's just press a press, you know,

[00:37:40] or down C or whatever the, you know, and then again, and then do it again and then do it again. And it's like, okay, sure. I played, you know, another castle, like, Oh, is that, did what's his face just, just explode over there? Self-destruct. Indeed. Voltorb or whatever, whoever is that supposed to be? Uh, Volt Volt. Oh yeah, Volt Volt. Yeah. They all have names too. Like the, yeah. CC. Look at that. Yeah. He named them all. I was laughing at the names a minute ago. It was like Volt Volt, CC, uh,

[00:38:10] Jigglypuff is Jig Jig, which immediately my eyes were drawn to. There you go. Right. You're in this game. You're in this game. You don't even know it. Um, I think that's the, the CPU teams though. Yeah, it is. I think unless, yeah, the CPU teams are there. Yeah, I think, I don't know. I'm, I'm, we're watching like a long play thing of, of, of it. It's not anything I played, but, um, yeah. So I, look, I, I, I, I think again, I think they're cool. I, I don't know about any of the mini games,

[00:38:39] if they're really worth sort of digging into it. When they came to switch online, I was like, Oh, this is a great idea. You can play people online. And I remember trying, this is like at least a year ago when they put it in, maybe even more, they've been on there for, for a decent amount. I haven't, I haven't subbed to switch online since like early 2024. I kind of just let it lapse and I don't really miss it that much in, in this moment. Um, but, uh, I'm sure that'll change when the next one comes out. But, um, I,

[00:39:08] I like, I was excited for it. And then I hit that same wall that you were just talking about where it's like, Oh, but okay. Like, am I better than the other person? I don't know if it really matters because there's not a whole lot of like extra skill involved. And maybe they just have a really shitty move set that it, that's what makes me lose. And it's like, well, shit. Like, all right. Well, onto the next one, I guess, you know, I,

[00:39:36] I didn't find replaying either of these, uh, the last couple of weeks to, to feel that difference. I think too, looks a little cleaner, you know, and, and I think it's playing them on switch online for what I remember at the time. And Eric, you can tell me otherwise, but they've done a decent job of sort of smoothing out some edges in those games in general on switch online. Like, I think, I think their, their emulation of them on the, on the system has been, um, decently, decently done. So yeah,

[00:40:05] things look a little nicer than probably if I, when I, the one that I emulated is probably what it looks like very close to what it was. If I had the actual cartridge, which is a little bit chunky and muddy, but I think largely the games look okay too. I don't know if you guys felt any different. Yeah, they're fine. I think it's, uh, for a first go around in 3d Pokemon. Yeah. Yeah. I actually think, I actually think the Pokemon models themselves are really good. The environment's pretty basic, but like the Pokemon themselves look pretty good. And, um,

[00:40:35] we really didn't get this part. I, I guess, I guess we did have someone ginky, right? You were saying Coliseum and stuff. Um, but that's it really. I, yeah, but we didn't really get lots of 3d Pokemon until like X and Y. Yeah. It's certainly not a mobile and the sprites got wicked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I guess, Oh, actually, nevermind. We're missing a huge thing that would have come out just after this,

[00:41:05] or I guess in between would be snap. I guess snap. You saw a lot of these same models. Oh yeah. I forgot about snap. Yeah. Great. Electabuzz here. I'm like, Oh yeah. Where do I know that? I remember throwing an apple at you. Exactly. Exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. I fed you apples. Um, and you went to go get your buddy. What year was snap? Was that the, was that the same year? Uh, I think it was 90. Yeah. 98 or 99. I'm going to look that up. Actually. Great question. I wonder if they just use some of the same sprites or some of the same, not the sprites,

[00:41:35] but some of the same models. Yeah. Yeah. They look definitely looks the same. Yeah. And Electabuzz does too, which is why it clued, clued into me. Uh, so I'm sure they use reuse some of the assets. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. Um, if they didn't, that'd be kind of silly. Um, extra work. Yeah. Extra work. Like, yeah, I think in terms of playing them on the switch online, um, I thought that the presentation overall, and I thought to, uh, looked a lot better than, than one.

[00:42:04] Cause I kind of played them in an afternoon back to back. And I just thought everything about two's presentation was, was a lot better. I thought that 3d models were a little cleaner. Um, I thought like all the menus and like, uh, the screen where you select your Pokemon, that stuff all looked a lot better. Pokemon stadium one. I was just like, all this looks like something I could make it in, in like Photoshop. And like my graphic design skills aren't like top tier. I'm self taught. So I feel like they definitely up the presentation level for the, the second generation. But, um,

[00:42:33] I really think they missed an opportunity on the switch online because my thought process would be, if you're going to put out Pokemon stadium, then on the, the game boy offering for the online, you should put the game, the Pokemon games on there and then somehow make that work into like, Oh, you have saved data on the switch online for Pokemon. Use that in Pokemon stadium. Like, I feel like that would, that to me is a no brainer. 100%. Yeah. Maybe they not put Pokemon on game boy in the first place. And just in general,

[00:43:02] why is it red and blue not on there? Or yeah. Or is it like technology thing? But I feel like they can make that work. Like, yeah, there's gotta be a way to do it. Maybe it's not as simple as we think it is to like transfer that data over, or maybe there'd be some weird thing where you have to make sure it's saved on the cloud, which would be fine because you have NSO at that point anyway. So it's like, okay, that should be fine. But like, that would make a huge difference. They would have so many people playing these games. I think if you could do,

[00:43:31] this would be a different experience to even like single player and multiplayer. Cause then you're taking your personal teams to go and, and fight people online. So I think that's a, that's a way more interesting prospect than, than what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say Jiggy the first, one of the first things that came to mind plays, I know it's completely different game obviously, but I mentioned puzzle league before. And one of our, like the main disappointment that we had in that game was we couldn't understand why it didn't matter what Pokemon you picked. Like the elements and all that, like it, nothing mattered.

[00:44:01] You could, you could do fire and water and it made no difference. At least this next N64 Pokemon game. It mattered. True. At least we got that back. It was, I'm going to sound by it here because it's, it's legendary of the, Oh, here it is. Here it is. I just love it. There's no time. There's no time. You can't explain it. There's no time.

[00:44:30] That intro to that game is amazing. You have lots to do. There's lots to explain, but there's no time to explain. Get going. Like what? What's that? All Professor Oak says. And then he just, I wish I could help you, but there's no time. Shout out to Professor Oak. Classic. The legend. Classic. And speaking of sound, I didn't get a chance to record. Actually, maybe I could actually play the sound on here. I want to see if it's going to show up. Can you guys hear that?

[00:45:02] Come on, announcer. Let's go. They're staring each other down. Oh yeah. They strike fighting poses. Fighting poses. Here's a Pokemon. Oh, who is it? Oh, it's Gengar. God. It's borrowed underground again. Again. Yeah. I think, I like the announcer guy. I like this guy. I think it adds something to it. I wish I could do that for a Pokemon game,

[00:45:31] but I would change the way, I always say Pokemon. Like, yeah, I feel like we all say Pokemon. I, no, I would, if I'm naturally like, just so I would probably say Pokemon. Like, I like, I like when they emphasize it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's what it's supposed to be. Yeah. Who is that Pokemon? Yeah. You know, it's like, I really emphasize the K. Yeah. I just love it. It's amazing. It's got a little, a little accent on it. That's, that's why. That's,

[00:46:00] I think I shorthand up to Pokemon, but I think people tell me I have a little bit like that, like Midwest Chicago, Chicago and like draw a little bit. So that's probably just that. Could be that. I mean, I don't know. how would I, all of us, we all have something. Yeah. I'm sure I have a Canadian accent that I have no idea exists. I'm sure everybody hears it. Would you say you have no idea about it? I don't know any about it. I can't, I can't hear it. I have too much maple syrup in my mouth.

[00:46:30] I don't know. I can't hear it while I'm in the igloo. It's, it's good. I like it. I, there's some repetitive things as, as you're going to get with any game like this, but it adds a little element that you don't get. Otherwise, again, the 3d part is obviously the big draw here, but at least you're getting a couple of things. You know, you got music going the whole time. At least that guy's sort of commenting and he's not just saying a lot of generic things. Cause sometimes there's, Oh,

[00:46:59] he actually says what the move is. He'll say the name of the actual Pokemon. Like those things I think are an added bonus here to just sort of picking random, you know, just playing any, any other Pokemon game that would be, that would be on here. So, and I don't believe that there's any, there's that minimal voiceover or like intro video in, in puzzle league. I don't think that there's any voiceover in snap.

[00:47:26] So I think you're pretty much getting the gist of the sort of, you know, voiceover, at least music is, isn't all of them, but like getting a lot of that here, which again, you got to put a lot of stuff on this cartridge. I thought they did okay with that. So it's something, it's not the best. I wonder, I wonder if looking back because my stupid little kid brain would have just been like Pokemon, like amazing. Like no matter what it is, you know? Sure.

[00:47:54] But I wonder how many people may have been disappointed that this wasn't a fully fledged, like 3d Pokemon outing, like the handheld, you know, I can't help, but feel like if this released and I was like how I am now, I'd have been like, why didn't they just make it like the game boy games, but like in a full 3d environment, like it's cool, but it almost makes this game like being assuming it was a full priced release as well. Yeah. I'm sure. Like I'm thinking in terms of that, I'm just like,

[00:48:22] it feels more like an accessory and you need to have the game boy game rather than a standalone title. Yeah. Which for me brings it down. Like, like it's got cool elements and stuff and it's not bad, but it's just like, you have to keep that in mind. And especially at the time, like you needed those things, you needed a game boy game. You needed the transfer pack. I don't know. Did like, did they all come with the transfer back? Like Pokemon stadium one. I'm sure you could buy the cart cartridge separately.

[00:48:52] I didn't own it. So I'm not sure. I doubt you. I doubt they all came with it. The only, I mean, I, I, this is actually really funny. I actually should have messaged you guys this when I saw it last week. I went to one of the used game stores or one of the very few there in my area and they had three, three, I don't know how they got three, but three sealed with the transfer pack game of, of this, of the first Pokemon stadium. Like, you know, like a big box. Yeah, it was the big box, but like, you know, like stupid price, right? Like,

[00:49:20] I think it was a few hundred bucks or something stupid like that. Like, like these places will charge, but I was like, Oh yeah, this came with, like, picture that one. Um, I don't know. My, I had a transfer pack and my friend did, but he also had the game. I have no idea if he, um, if it, if he bought them together or whatever, I assume he would, but yeah, sorry, Eric, you're going to say, yeah.

[00:49:50] So I'm just doing some background research. We guys are saying some stuff. So there, what there is an inbox version that came with the transfer pack. So it was game and transfer pack. Yeah. Uh, there's one on eBay right now. That's authenticated and factory sealed going for $1,150. Oh boy. Oh Jesus. Yeah. The one I saw was, I think for something, uh, yeah, which was, which is our enough. I was like, no. Um, also like the whole point is like, they have that transfer pack. You got to open it. That whatever. Right.

[00:50:20] That's just, that's just the state of, of these collection things at this point. So, yeah. And I was also looking at, um, the announcer. So the announcer was, uh, he, a voice actor, American voice actor named Ted Lewis. Okay. Um, he was also the announcer in the anime and he, his voice, like he voices tons of characters in the anime. Like, of course, uh, he's voiced like major characters, minor characters. He's, he's voiced like Pokemon. So, uh, that's actually kind of a cool little tie in there.

[00:50:50] I didn't, I didn't know that. Cause I always knew that the announcer voice sounded like the one from the anime, at least in my memory. So I was just like, I have to look that up real quick. So Ted Lewis, shout out. Nice. Legend. All right. Way to go, Teddy. Um, um, the other thing too, is when Jiggy, when you were mentioning the, like maybe being disappointed with this, I wouldn't be surprised if that's a thought I had like for sure at that time, um, thinking great. Maybe I didn't see a commercial or I didn't see it in a magazine ad or something. So I wouldn't have, wouldn't have known the difference, or maybe it didn't really tell you.

[00:51:18] And it just showed you what the battles look like, you know, that that's kind of a thing that they would do with like a, you know, a print out on like a, a one page and Nintendo power or game pro or something like that. Um, what I did find though, when I was looking up some of the development stuff for this is like a lot of early ish games in the first, like two, two and a half years of this console was that it was supposed to be a 64 DD game, which would have given it more memory, which is possible that at that time, that's potentially what they wanted to do.

[00:51:49] It doesn't say that explicitly when I looked it up, but it did say that that's what's the plan was to make it that. So like, you know, even if they did do that, I would be surprised if it's just as long, if it's like a 30 hour game, I doubt that's what it would have reached, but maybe it would have been a three or four gym thing and, or a two gym thing. And then you play the, the, the league or whatever. I keep forgetting the name. Um, maybe, but they would have had to make sure they found a way to at least get all the Pokemon in there, at least for the first one,

[00:52:18] like would have found a way, but that was scrapped just like every other thing that was, you know, 64 DD plans, right? It was never, never going to be that. So, um, I, I have a, I have an add on part to that if you're interested, cause I, I went down a weird rabbit hole with YouTube videos and stuff. And, um, so yeah, the 64 DD thing, a hundred percent accurate. And then it got, it got turned into, uh, a game. And this was actually a Japan exclusive game. First cut. It was called pocket monsters stadium.

[00:52:48] Yes. And the, the original game only had like 50 Pokemon in it because yeah, they were trying to develop it with that DD technology for the more memory. And then they were just like, Oh, this isn't working. So like, let's just slap the most like popular 50 Pokemon in there called a day and release it. So the first version that Japan got was like a severely limited version of a game that I think their intention was to like, have it be used for like official, like Nintendo Pokemon tournaments that they were having at the time. Oh, sure.

[00:53:17] And then when it came over to United States, it was like the full working one 50 called Pokemon stadium. And then that version in Japan was actually pocket monster stadium too. So one here was actually two over in Japan. Cause they had that first kind of, I remember hearing that prototype. It's, it's really, really strange. Um, but I just thought that was kind of, kind of, kind of cool. And what's interesting about that too is very often it's the opposite, right? We get sort of the, the, not lesser than,

[00:53:46] but we'll get it later or we'll get it later and it's not going to have the same features or they get to like the Japanese market. At least at that time, we'll get a couple before even get one, you know, final fantasy is a perfect example of something like that. Like in the nineties, like three versus six, three is six. Yeah. Stuff like that. Right. Like those types of things. And maybe it's the exact same game, but like, it's, it's, it's a weird sort of thing between the markets and, and the, you know, Japanese side of Nintendo and stuff. And obviously I think Sega ran into a bunch of those problems too,

[00:54:15] but that was a whole other reason. Like they just basically feuded with each other constantly. You know, it was the same company. Um, yeah. So I, I think like, um, I think doing more with this would be cool, but I do get at the time that this is what they wanted to do. The other thing I did, I did see too with this whole, you know, the background of it too, was that part of the idea of, I don't have the name. I should have written down the name of the, the CEO of Nintendo at the time.

[00:54:42] They were thinking that this would be with the transfer pack thing that you could sort of play this game almost on the go. But I guess that's kind of what like the link cable ended up being and stuff too. Like it was going to be a little bit more of a mobile experience, like stadium specifically. Um, and I was like, Oh, that's interesting. And then I thought, yeah, but that's just really what the transfer pack or the transfer cable or whatever it was for Game Boy.

[00:55:11] But I guess in 3d would have been kind of cool to kind of be able to find a way to do that. But then you also have to have the handheld that's able to do that. And like, it's a whole other thing. So they had ideas already at the time. It was just a matter of how do you implement this and do so much at once. And the 64 is already a huge step forward and technology and things like that. So, um, I, you know, it's cool. It's a small, like early iterations of things that we kind of take for granted at this point now, I would say. Um,

[00:55:41] just being able to play these games on switch online is already to be like, Oh shit. Look at that. You know, it seems like a nothing. We obviously we have a couple notes that we would add to it and like, how they could improve it. But like you can play this online. That's pretty sweet. You know, at least there's an opportunity to do that. So, um, I don't, I don't know if a lot of people play it now though, because they could just play the new Pokemon game instead of, yeah. I mean, let's be honest here. The new Pokemon game.

[00:56:10] Isn't that dramatically? I mean, is it not good? I don't know. Uh, it's okay. No, it's, it's fine. Okay. I guess there's more. I play, I played all of them. Yeah. I get, I get them all. I play them all. Um, and I just don't feel like the leaps are really there. You know, I, they always feel like behind somehow. And this almost feels like way ahead of anything they did for like 10 years, 15 years. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

[00:56:39] I don't know. I think there's, I think there's a genius to having Pokemon, whether it's intentional or not to having Pokemon be on handhelds. I think that like, if it was a home console thing from the beginning or like largely a home console thing. And until you had the switch, you'd have to play it on your couch. Um, I think being able to take it everywhere, whether you could transfer Pokemon or not, or battle or not. I,

[00:57:07] I think that's a huge reason why it's, it's so successful. But with that, like you just said, one of the big reasons, or one of the things that refreshed it was a game like this. And it was 3d and sitting on your couch. So it's like, where's that middle ground? I guess the new ones are kind of the middle ground of that, but I also haven't played them. So I'm just assuming that's the case. Legend, legends of Arceus or Arceus or Arceus. I'm, I actually don't know how to pronounce it. You don't know. Yeah. Um,

[00:57:37] that I really enjoyed that one. It's a different format, but still feels like traditional Pokemon. In my mind, the simple adjustments that they made to the formula of like, first you get to explore everywhere, which is really cool. You catch Pokemon by just chucking a bunch of Pokeballs at them, which is amazing. Right. And they have variations in the size of the Pokemon. So like you can get alpha versions of Pokemon, which are basically just giant versions. Like they're really big.

[00:58:06] So you get like a Scyther and he's like this big on the screen. And then an alpha Scyther would be like this big. Yeah. And they're like dramatically different. And then to like hunt for shinies and then to find shiny alpha variants adds just like another depth of like exploration and grinding. That's really cool to me. Like a good incentive. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very excited about the new Pokemon legends game. I think that's a really cool direction to take.

[00:58:32] And I think legends of Arceus was way better than Scarlet and Violet. In my opinion, I feel like Scarlet and Violet took elements from legends trying to improve the formula and it didn't do as good. I know. I 100%. Yeah. I 100% agree with you. I think, I think legends Arceus is like the most bold departure they've had. And it's still not even that much of a departure. Like it's not, it's not nothing that groundbreaking. Like they're just tweaking some things about the generic formula. But yeah,

[00:59:02] I agree. I thought that was better. And like Scarlet and Violet, there's some performance stuff there. It's got the bones of a Pokemon game. Like, you know what you're getting. This, this experience, specifically like going back to the stadium is fascinating because it feels like it's so dependent on the transfer pack technology. And I don't really feel like any other Nintendo 64 game really fully utilizes it to the extent that stadium did. I mean, like there are some,

[00:59:30] I like no Mario and golf and Mario tennis had transfer pack elements because there were Game Boy versions of those games. And I think perfect dark had a transfer pack element to it as well, but those are just like, Oh, I'm not dead, but, but this is like unlocked extra things I think, or in, and stuff like that. I remember if it actually had it or if it was canceled. I know it wanted to work with like the Game Boy camera. Like there, there was like a plan to work with the Game Boy camera where it could like

[00:59:56] take a picture of you and then put your face on like the model of the enemies. Yeah. Right. Or whatever. Um, I don't remember if it was implemented, but there is a Game Boy version of perfect dark. So probably it's also interesting. It's got a, it's got a rumble pack, man. It's like, it's like Pokemon, which is also an amazing game. Um, Mickey's Speedway, Mickey's Speedway, the transfer pack. Yeah. Yeah. Like the one though, I've, we've talked about this cause I love the golf games. The golf one is very similar to this. I mean, you get,

[01:00:26] I think you get more out of it with this. Like it, it improves this game dramatically. Pokemon stadium. If you're transferring your Pokemon into it with golf and, uh, and tennis, you just put your character into it. Like it doesn't, you don't level them up like you would in the actual Game Boy game and stuff. It's really just like, oh, it's another character you could pick, which is cool, but those characters are not, you know, Canon Nintendo characters. They're just generic. Right. Dave that,

[01:00:56] you know, happens to be the only person in the game that golf's left because I'm weird like that. That's how I golf. Um, I can't, I feel like there's missed opportunity with that technology. I think, I think you're right. I don't know if you were saying that earlier where it was like, if it was a thing where like, you could just strap the, the, the pack on the back of your N64 controller and play any Game Boy game on the, the TV through the Nintendo 64. That, that would feel like, uh, I mean, that way you don't have to force everybody to be like,

[01:01:25] you have to make a Game Boy tie in with your N64 game to the, you can use the transfer pack. Then it has some additional use outside of that. And it's, that seems doable because the, the Game Boy tower elements of stadium one and two were just, uh, it was just a Game Boy emulator that ran, that ran your cartridge, the transfer pack. So they could have just made the Game Boy emulator technology. And I assume like built that into the N64 and just had the transfer packing. Maybe, maybe I'm not a very smart technological guy,

[01:01:53] but to me that makes sense in my like tiny brain. So they could have figured out. It makes sense in my tiny brain. They were doing some crazy shit. Tiny brains together. They're all equal one normal brain. And we're all thinking the same thing. It's okay. They were doing some crazy shit. I'm sure they could have figured it out at Nintendo. Like, yeah, like Satoru Wada figured out how to get like the gen one, entirety of gen one onto the Pokemon silver cart and gold cart. So it's like, they could have figured this shit out. And that would have been an amazing, like the Game Boy was still going strong. That would have been an amazing,

[01:02:23] like additional use of the transfer. But the color is Game Boy color came out right. Pretty much as this game came out or very within months of this game. Like now you have these games in quote unquote color. And like, it would, it would have been, it would have been great. Any game. Like it doesn't matter what game. This has to be Pokemon game. Right. I have so many Game Boy color games. I would have loved to play some of these, like a racing game. Like if it was Mickey Speedway or something like that. Like I have a couple of Tony Hawk games, which are so strange.

[01:02:51] Like that'd be cool to play on a slightly bigger screen. Yeah. Was my TV big at the time? No, it was probably like literally like 16 inches or something. Like it was nothing. It was not trying to think if there's a game like outside of like guitar hero or dance dance revolution or things of that nature that was so dependent on like an outside, like peripheral, like, like, like, like Pokemon say, I can't think of one off the top of my head besides like right behind me is it might be hard to Mario paint Mario paint. Oh, without. Yeah.

[01:03:21] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Without the most, you literally can't play that game. Oh, I think there's a couple of things. I think you could use the controller for like the music thing and maybe the actual paint thing. The actual like paint game mini game part of it. I think that's it. But like, you're not, you're not playing the same game. You're not experiencing. So if we can switch to joy cons as the mouse, we could get Mario paint on the switch on lines. Yep. Ah, the new, the new switch. I would be, I, I,

[01:03:51] when I saw that, that was something that they might be doing, like when they showed a, that, that could be a thing. And I didn't catch it when I watched that really brief sort of, it was like that wolf on wall street mean with like the, the beer. And he's like, yeah, yeah, Yeah. Mario paint. Mario paint. I was that, that I was thinking, um, uh, no, that's, uh, Hollywood. By the way, we fit, we fit, uh, we fit, it's a good peripheral. Yeah. We fit two is a good one. Uh, yeah. I,

[01:04:21] if they make another Mario paint, oof, I'm not going to rush to get a switch too, but if they make a Mario paint, I might have to push some kids out of the way. That's the killer app for you. Dude. It's great. It's crazy. I've talked about it before. I think Mario paint is one of the most innovative things they've ever done. Like, especially at that time, who the fuck thinks about adding a mouse to a cart, like a console like that. Like, I know it's, it's just a mouse, but like, I don't know,

[01:04:51] man. It's like, and sadly, it's like the only game that used it, which is a little silly, but you're talking to the kingdom hearts guy. It's not just a mouse. Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah. There's certainly crazy things that have happened. It's the king. Yeah. Nintendo was on some crazy shit in the eighties and nineties. So I mean, they wouldn't like a mouse seems like one of their more tamer ideas. I think it's just, it's a very, it's a very innovative idea.

[01:05:18] I think at the time when computers were already very minimal. So to be familiar enough with a mouse to be like, let's make a whole game about this in 1993, I think it came out like that is, that is something. And I don't know, switch to will probably have a bunch of, you know, ideas, which I hope they take advantage of Pokemon. They take advantage of Mario pain. Like, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like, I think there's opportunity there, even though hardware wise, I'm sure it's always going to be a step, quote unquote,

[01:05:48] step behind the other, the other consoles, but switch to switched it well enough. I, I don't think they really care. I just need the switch to joy kinds and not drift. And I will be happy. I never, I was lucky enough. I have a, I have a launch switch. I have the original joy cons and I have one other set. I never ran into it with mine. I got lucky. Oh, I'm jealous. Yeah. Every pair I bought drifted within six months. Really? Yeah. Really? I'm very salty about it. I've, I've bought like four pairs of joy cons.

[01:06:16] I currently only have my OLED pair. Yeah. Um, well, actually I might have an extra pair. I'm not sure. I don't remember. I never use them anyways because they're tiny. I do not have big hands, but they're tiny to me. So I can't imagine. Like for a normal person, I have, I have pretty, pretty small ish average size. And I'm like, yeah, my hands are very average size. And yes, I have to hold them like this. And they still. Carpal tunnel. It requires me for my hands to look like claws. Look at this. Yeah. Look at this.

[01:06:46] Yeah. Yeah. It's brutal. What's crazy is I feel the exact same way about the way that the joy cons feel like in handheld and stuff like that. And yet, and I think it's just because of the game itself. I still put 40 something hours, 50 something. It's probably even more, uh, probably double that of Hades on, on switch on. And I played it. It was a great game. 90% handheld, 90% handheld.

[01:07:14] Cause at the time I was commuting and it was just like, this is, and I just could not stop playing that game. It's one of the best games ever made in my hand. What's that? Agreed. I'm right there with you. I said, that's a perfect handheld game. And I'm, I agree a hundred percent. It's one of the best games ever made for sure. Yeah. Two is so good already. It's so good already. Already. I'm waiting for it to come out of early access. Yeah. I'm, I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker. I got it right away. I'm jealous. I'm like watching people through the window in the rain. Yeah. Oh wait. I'll tell you, I'll say,

[01:07:43] I'll say this right now. And then we'll stop talking about Hades. The second one is already just as big, if not bigger than the first one already. And it's early access for maybe six months as, as of us sitting here at the set. Like it was like that from the beginning. It's insane. It's insane. And it's just different enough the way that it controls and what, what the character does. That is my opinion right now, a hundred percent worth playing. So. Okay.

[01:08:13] Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. Anyways, Pokemon stadium, everybody. Pretty good. If you got a chance to get the whole bang, the whole shebang thing with the transfer packet, I think you're really going to get a lot more out of it. If you've never played snap, for example, this is a cool way to see a lot of these models for the first time in 3d in this, in this type of 3d at least. And it's just, it's, it's interesting. And it's,

[01:08:41] it's cool that they did this fun that we got to revisit it, I think still. But we, I think we're all kind of sort of on the same wavelength here where it's like without that extra investment from the transfer pack, it feels like it's just, I don't know. It feels like a very much like press a to continue. I don't know. It's a very, it's a very, it's a product of its time. Sure. And it is one of those games that I think actually,

[01:09:07] if you went back and you are a collector and you had a transfer pack, an old game boy cart with a team, like that's how you get the full experience out of this game. You can play it on switch and online and get kind of a feel for it and see what it's like and kind of test the waters. But if you really like, if you're super into it, if you're like, Oh my gosh, Pokemon stadium, this is it. Definitely go back and get the actual game and the actual hardware.

[01:09:35] And you'll have a much more complete experience. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I think it's, I think it would be worth it. Honestly, as long as it doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I think it would be worth it. You know, Pokemon stadium too is kind of expensive though. Not going to lie. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause the cart looks cooler, obviously. Yeah. And it's a later, later game too. Right. So like that always adds to it. There's probably just less of them. Yeah. Like 2000. Yeah. The first one is like somewhere probably in like the $50 range.

[01:10:05] And then a U S dollars, freedom dollars. It's Canadian. And then Pokemon stadium two is probably closer to like the hundred, $110 range. Ooh. So it's, yeah, it's a bit more expensive. You might be able to find it cheaper, but yeah, that was kind of what I, what I saw when I was looking it up a while back. Absolutely. No. Yeah. I agree with both you guys. I think it is very much a product of its time. Like a lot of gen one stuff. I've gone back and experienced lately.

[01:10:34] I think if you weren't alive for that, that time period, I can see how, if you're like a younger 20 something and you're like going back to check out retro games, how you could see that. Yeah. These games aren't really that great. If you can't play them on the hardware or in the time period that they happened. Um, it just seems like such a large investment to like, be like, Hey, if you really want the better experience of this, get an N64, get a cart, get a transfer pack and get a game boy game.

[01:11:03] I don't know how many people outside of collectors are actually going to go for that sort of thing. Um, but I do feel like with, and this is something I've experienced with a lot of N64 games. Um, a lot of the N64 experiences play better on their native hardware. I feel like, um, I played Mario 64 on the 3d all-stars collection and on the N64 and the N64 experience is just such a better experience on the actual hardware. Same, same thing with Ocarina.

[01:11:32] I've gotten a chance to play a little bit of Ocarina and I just feel like there's no comparison between playing that on modern hardware and playing. So a lot of the N64 experiences are designed very well, specifically for the N64. And I feel like this is, this falls in that category. It's better if you're in that time period with that hardware, but now, yeah, it's, it's kind of rough if you don't have that. Yeah, that's a good point. There's a lot of reason why this, I mean, the 64 has been notorious for being pretty rough and emulation, like just if you're not switch online.

[01:12:02] Um, so that definitely rings true. Um, I looked up, even if you are switch online, even if, yeah, yes. It's a gold knife, not great switch online. No, I, at the time, I remember when we did our episode on, it was right when those, those came out, those re-releases came out. You're using dual sticks or you're sort of using dual sticks on, on Xbox. It was actually okay. It was actually okay on game pass. okay. Yeah. It was actually all right. Um, except the time I think I just didn't have the switch on me or something like that. I played on, it was,

[01:12:33] it was good. I played all the way through it. It feels different, looks different, but playing it with the joystick, playing with the 64, yeah, just, yeah, it's the way to go. um, okay. Before we get out of here, I just wanted to double check. I was checking what the prices are here. Okay. So if you want to get at least the prices that show up for me, uh, one 40 for two for just the cartridge of stadium two, which is just like you said, you, one 50, something like that. Um, and one is around the $50 range.

[01:13:01] It looks like without anyone's name written on it too, which is, which is nice. Like an added, it's almost like an allegedly, allegedly according to the picture. Yeah, that's true. But, but, and I've done this a couple of times of a couple of Japanese games that don't really require you to read anything. Maybe with this game, maybe you do, if you don't know what the game is all about reading stuff, but you don't know any of the moves otherwise, but well, you can play around a little bit, but if you want all three,

[01:13:28] if you want all three Japanese versions of Pokemon stadium ish stadium, like, uh, it's, it's around a hundred to 120, at least in Canadian dollars. So around a hundred bucks us for all three, this particular listing that I'm looking at, these two listings I'm looking up also have the box. So easy. Yeah. Yep. And you can get the little sort of like, I think they just work on your hardware, right? So, um,

[01:13:56] and a lot of the art on the Japanese games are pretty sweet. Like if you'd like a nice looking box, you should be better. Yeah. I have the Mario golf one behind me where it's just like, basically the shadow of Mario golfing. And like, that's the, that's the thing. Like, I love that. It's so simple. It's got the different form factor too. It looks like, you know, like more modern games, uh, more vertical style. So anyways, that's that. So check it out if you can, but,

[01:14:26] uh, like, like you guys said, it's an investment. It's an investment. So it's, it's the old transfer packs are only 10 to $12 on eBay. So transfer packs aren't too bad. That's pretty good. That's surprising. Surprise. Not like the, the expansion packs, which are like fucking like 80 bucks and shit like that. It's crazy. They're so expensive. I did not know that. Yeah. They're so expensive. Cause I think they were all, they were limited, pretty limited and their availability and stuff. So, um, and at first only with Donkey Kong, I, I believe at the time. Wow.

[01:14:57] At first at the very first initial release anyway. Um, okay. Um, Eric, for we get out of here, uh, one more time, where can everybody find unlockables? And, uh, at least as of this recording, do we know what's up next? Or are we going back to kingdom hearts one? No, no. Uh, as of this recording, we're going to be done with, I think kingdom hearts and square Enix for, for a while. I need, I need a little bit of a break. I need to maybe go back to some regular, regular gaming things. Um, no,

[01:15:27] I don't really have a plan for, for what's next past that. Uh, I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break while I like maybe script some stuff or figure out some episodes. Nice. Uh, so yeah, uh, more news on that in the future. Uh, I am doing some other things. I've been posting some more like short form content and chopped up videos, just some other things of some random stuff I've been talking about, trying my hand at other social media things. Um, if you want to follow any of those endeavors, uh, all the stuff can be found on my link tree, link, tr.ee forward slash unlockables podcast. Um,

[01:15:57] that's my Instagram. That's my discord server. If you want to hop in there, uh, I will admit my discord servers more dead than most people's. I mostly just use it for like announcements related to my show. And then I am in any number of other discord servers inside of our little podcasting community here. Um, super pod saga is one that comes to mind for sure. I'm, I'm in there. Uh, but yeah, the link tree has all that stuff. Uh, Instagram. I'm not on Twitter anymore. Thank God.

[01:16:25] And my mental health is much better for that. Uh, so I believe I'm still there. You are. God bless you, sir. You are brave, man. Um, I think the, my blue sky link has replaced my Twitter link. And then, uh, yes, it's got the pod catchers, wherever the show can be found. Uh, like there's mostly kingdom hearts stuff on there. Like there's 29 episodes of kingdom hearts, but I have talked about other stuff before I've written, of course, um, short little essays. I did an essay on sweet food in two. Uh, I did an essay on, uh,

[01:16:54] the importance to advance wars for Nintendo. Uh, so just, I, I talk about stuff that I like. Um, I have some interviews with content creators on there, so they're bound to be something that kind of tickles your fancy on there. But, uh, be warned is mostly no more, uh, bullshit that you will get on my show. So, uh, if you like to get a little weird and then you, you, you F with that, come on, come on down. I'll, I'll talk your ear off. Great kingdom hearts, uh, guiding keys playlist, 47 hours long. Great for a road trip. Great road.

[01:17:23] If you can tolerate that. So, um, but yeah, no, before, before I pass back over to you guys, I just want to say thank you guys both so much for having me. I remember 64. Like, this is one of my favorite shows. Uh, this should have happened way, way sooner. Uh, dang baby being born for taking away podcast time. But, uh, I hear you. Six, seven months, seven months without turning my mic on at all. So definitely, definitely have to do this again.

[01:17:51] I'll have to look for an excuse for something that I can get you guys over on unlockables. We can talk about something for sure. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Yes. Let's do it. More games, obviously tons of games here too. So we'll have you back. Uh, that is going to happen. Whether people like it or not, it's going to happen. Um, whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, Eric is going to, whether I like it or not, it's happening. Um, Jake, you want to show my house and threaten me. So, yeah, um, all I have to do is look for your, the, the pokeballs that are behind you. I'll know exactly which house it is peering through windows in your

[01:18:21] neighborhood. Like which one is it? Be careful. It's unincorporated Indiana. So I'm not sure. Okay. Here in Canada, I don't really have to worry about that so much. So yeah, it can be dangerous looking into houses here. It doesn't worry about anything in Canada. I'm good. I'm pretty good. Yeah. I'm all right. Yeah. Unless, unless you guys have something to do with it. I have nothing to worry about. So yeah, yeah, pretty much. We'll fuck it up somehow. Some way, somehow, some way, somehow, uh, Jiggy, uh, you are,

[01:18:51] uh, kicking ass and taking names with, uh, some new stuff, uh, going on. What's, what's happening? Oh yeah. Well, we just finished a dinosaur planet, the N64 prototype of Star Fox adventures on live stream. And that was pretty fun. And now I'm going to do a full video on that one. So that's going to be fun. Just talking about my experience with the whole like dynamod enhanced version. And I learned from the community and like, just, just going over it, you know, and I got a few other things cooking. Um,

[01:19:22] I got a fancy new controller for my switch that, uh, I will be reviewing a company sent out to me. Um, I love the RGB on it. That's just my first take. I, I've had it for about, that's crazy. It looks so cool. I know. Right. I've had it for about two hours and that's, that's all I've taken from that so far. I just really like staring at it. Like, Ooh, yeah. I'm just like, wow, this is really like really good looking. Um, yeah, you know, just grinding.

[01:19:50] Otherwise playing some N64 games here and there. Yeah, man. Of course. I have a billion games and I go back to the N64. Yeah. I know this. I just, uh, I just dropped a subscribe. So I'll look forward to that video. Oh, cool. There you go. Real, real, real time people. You guys do it too. Uh, find the lockables, find Jiki look back, uh, on YouTube as well. Um, we can find us on YouTube. I'm going to start doing a little bit more streaming every once in a while. As long as the kid is falling asleep when he's supposed to,

[01:20:20] yeah, not trying to climb out of his crib. Like he's not supposed to, um, I'm my gosh, you know what you need to have? Yeah. You need to have a, a, like a baby cam where it just shows him like in the thing. Yeah. And like every once in a while you just like, or like, it's a, I don't know. It's like a challenge or something. Like see how long we can go without waking the baby or how intense something gets. I have, I have the iPad literally sitting right beside me. Cause it's, it's my, my turn or my time to watch him at the moment this evening. He's been pretty, he hasn't really moved tonight. He's been pretty good.

[01:20:49] He was a hassle to put down. He was, he's teething. It's, it's tricky. It would be a challenge if it was later in the evening, if it was close to midnight when he tends to fuss a little bit. Yeah. I don't know. There'd be a whole lot of gaming happening. So I got to do it slightly earlier in the night. So, so when you stream, you just do face your face cam and underneath that baby cam. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If, if the wife approves, I'll, I'll do it. Yeah. Every time he moves, I got to run,

[01:21:19] you know? Yeah. So I'm, I'm trying to stream maybe once a week, once every couple of weeks, I'm just trying to figure out some of the, technical kinks that really, I haven't had time to kind of work through. And at least a year from now, a year ago, I just last time pretty much did it. I'll play some games that we're going to be playing upcoming on the show. As of this recording, or as of the release of this episode, you may or may not have paper boy on your podcast app as well.

[01:21:48] I'm going to be trying to stream that. If I haven't, by the time you hear this, you can also watch the VOD if it's already done, but I'm going to try and do things like that. Try and play some new games that are on my backlog, things like that. And every once in a while. So that's going to be found on YouTube. I'm going to try and co-stream on Twitch. I don't know if I can do that or not. I'm going to just try and get as many eyeballs on things as I can. I'm being very ambitious. Often when I do that, things crumble around me, but I'm going to try. So remember 64 show is where you can find everything.

[01:22:17] Remember dash 64 on YouTube and support the show. Patreon.com slash remember 64 show as well. Just for a buck a month, you can get stuff early. You can get pre-show chats, which we had for this episode as well. And you can help us pick an upcoming game. I have polls up there now to anyone that is a patron that can help me decide to play, help me play, decide which game to play and review. That is not from the N64 and on my backlog.

[01:22:45] And I'll have a sort of a short video of that and have some of my gameplay and stuff. So lots of ideas happening. I'm going to try and make them as, as possible as possible. I'm just going to try and make them happen. I'm going to do my best. It's very Willy Wonka of you. Yeah. I'm very Willy Wonka. Yeah. And you know what? You got to drop a like and rate the podcast. Indeed. Yes. You just have to do that. Just do it. Just do it. All the other stuff I said, you can do it if you want.

[01:23:15] But the thing Jiggy said, which is of course, as always things that the very easy stuff that I forget to say at the top of the show, I say now, and that's what I want everybody to do. Same thing for the unlockables. Same thing for Jiggy's YouTube channel as well. All right, everybody. Thank you very much. Go play some Pokemon and we'll talk to you soon. I choose you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I guess I choose you. I don't know. You're kind of cool,

[01:23:45] I guess. I guess.