Level 63 - Caravans in Space!

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, just giving you a bit of a heads up of something new that I'm trying for Remember 64. Another way to hear from you, the listener and viewer of the show. VoiceCast.app slash Remember64. VoiceCast is a cool new thing that I found from a couple other creators that have been using them. This is a great way to send an audio message to the show. It's something that you can share about episodes, games, things you want us to cover.

[00:00:27] Sure, social media is a way to do it, but this is a way to actually have your voice on the show. It is completely free. VoiceCast.app slash Remember64. Leave us a message. It's completely free. You can do it on your phone, you can do it on a browser, and you can find the link on social media as well and at the description of this episode on your podcast app of choice. Alright, on with the show everyone.

[00:01:22] Welcome to Remember64 where this week we're going to the arcade? arcade? Sort of? Space? And who knows where else? Hello everyone, welcome to the show. If you're a returning listener and viewer, hi, welcome. And if you are here for the first time, also welcome. Here on Remember64, we play and discuss the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between for the Nintendo 64's library. We will cover them all, whether you like it or not.

[00:01:50] My name is David Petrangelo and I'm dodging lasers, picking up random power-ups, and holding down the A button as long as humanly possible until my thumb gets sore, which, let's be honest, at this age, happens in about 20 to 30 minutes. So that's where we're at at this point. Jiggy, look back with me again. Hello? Yo. I can say my thumb holds out a little bit longer because I'm a little bit younger, so I get a solid 45 minutes before I start cramping up. Impressive. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Impressive works there.

[00:02:19] But I pretty much spam the big laser anyways as much as I can, and then I die when I don't have it. So, there you go. You're not dodging? You got to dodge, man. You got to, that's the skill. Yeah. No, it's not me. It's not really my style. Not your style? Okay. All right. I just puncture a giant laser through everything. It's not about the nuance. It's about the aggression. Just approach it with aggression. Exactly. Hey, whatever gets the job done. Gets you to point A to point B. That's what really matters. So, we have a guest for this episode.

[00:02:46] Someone brought the game to our attention to cover this on the show. Writer, gaming, sports lover, head of the great newsletter, website, blogs, all these different things. A lot of great work out there. Mark Normandon is on the show and brought Star Soldier Vanishing Earth to our attention to Remember64. Mark, welcome. Thanks for having me. I figured no one else was going to bring that game up. Which I guess is kind of my thing. Hey, you know what?

[00:03:15] I've said this a bunch of times and say it to pretty much every guest that I may maybe even said it to you when we were messaging each other. If it's a game I haven't played and in this case, haven't really heard of, I am more, I'm actually more excited because I'd like to play something that's new. But retro is something that you don't run into too often. So, and especially on a console that I played growing up. So, this is awesome.

[00:03:41] I guess just before we get into the game itself, let's talk a little bit about your work out there. Because I mentioned a bunch of things that you're doing and everything, but I'm sure you do a much better job of explaining your work. So, Mark, tell us about yourself. Well, on the gaming side, I have a retro newsletter. It's a retro XP. It's on Beehive now.

[00:04:10] I moved from Substack earlier this year. Excuse me. So, I've got some of the importing growing pains there, but I'm catching articles that didn't move over and updating links and all that happy stuff. Yeah, I've been writing that for, what is it, 25 years now, I think. Oh, it's been that long. Hey, nice. That's awesome. Yeah, I kicked it off with a project where I ranked the 101 best Nintendo games.

[00:04:40] Like Nintendo published, Nintendo developed games. And by the time I finished it, I didn't like the list anymore. Yeah, I can relate to that. It took, I don't know, like 18 months to do it because instead of just like doing like here's a list, it was like I'm going to write a feature on every single one of these games. Right. And I'm like, I played way more than I ended up writing about in ranking, you know? Right. Right. Yeah. Well, yeah, because you got to whittle them down a little bit, right?

[00:05:06] So, yeah, I mean, there's something like I can't remember the exact number, but there's like 1400 Nintendo games, you know? Jeez. So, you know, people, if people got really mad about something being like ranked 90th instead of like in the top 20, it's like we're talking about like a fraction of like a percentage point of a percentage point difference. Yeah. You know, we're talking about, we're talking about the top 3% of the games they've ever made, you know, like you can chill out.

[00:05:36] Yeah. People get mad no matter what. In that 101 is there and because, you know, obviously it took some time like you mentioned and stuff. Are there any particular ones that you were like, oh yeah, maybe that could have been anywhere on the list or oh yeah, maybe that was like really close to making it. Is there anything that like stands out like that? Like if you were to do it again and maybe do it in 18 days instead of 18 months, like what would, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I had, I had a couple of just missed.

[00:06:07] Um, cause that's always, that's always tricky when you sort of make like even just like a personal list of a top five or 10, right? It's like, oh, what was 11? What was 14? You know, like so close. Well, see what was funny about this is like, I'm remembering number 100 was like linked to the past. Right. Okay. Which people got like Matt, briefly mad about, but like I used it to explain like there, the next 2d Zelda was a better game than this. Right.

[00:06:36] There have been better Zelda than this. It's like if we're going to get through a list where like 10 Zelda's make it. One of the ones you love is going to be back here and it's like, I understand your childhood has its grips on you or what it has its grip on you or whatever, but like. Like they made better ones with better temples with, you know, different mechanics or whatever. Yeah. The mechanics are updated. The UI, the, the HUD, like all those types of things like the makes a difference. So if you've got linked to the past that far back. Yeah. You know that like you were leaving some great games off.

[00:07:05] Like I didn't put, I didn't put Super Mario worlds. I didn't put. Oh, she's island. Um. Yeah. I mean, they're both, they're both great, but it's just like, we're talking about like. If that's the level we're working with, we're like, yeah, the past barely made it. Then it's like, oh yeah, some stuff's going to be left off. Of course. Um, but there's also a little bit of like trying to include. You know, there's so many, there's so many Mario games. There's so many Zelda games.

[00:07:34] So at some point you're kind of like, well, instead of adding another one of those, do I want to put in like drill dozer? Um, on Game Boy Advance, you know, like in, I think in like the nineties or whatever. Like, um, but it's like, you're not gonna, if you just go by like what's popular, you know, or what was critically acclaimed, then you're going to miss out on like, hey, they actually did a lot of other really cool stuff that maybe people didn't play or they forgot about. Yeah. A hundred percent.

[00:07:58] Um, so like I, I kept off, uh, Kirby planet planet Robobot is a game that I really love. Um, uh, orbiant. I don't know if you remember the WiiWare series where they did the art style games. Oh, look, that sounds familiar. Orbiant was really great. Um, I can't remember what that it was called on the, um, cause they had like a, a Game Boy Advance version, maybe just in Japan.

[00:08:27] Um, but man, yeah, there were, there were, there were a lot of them that it's like, I would like to, I would like to jump. Yeah. If I do it again and I would like to, to rearrange some of it. Um, yeah. I'd probably do like one 51 cause haha Pokemon, you know, but, um, the only Pokemon on the list. Let's, let's be honest. It's also like, you know, I did it and I did the list in 2020 and finished in like spring of 2021 maybe. Right.

[00:08:56] And then it's like, Oh, here's Metroid Dread. Yes. Oh my God. Yeah. Can I swear on this? You can swear as long as you, man, fuck it. Swear as long as you, as much as you want. I like to ask first, but it's a, you know, that game comes out and I'm like, Oh, this game's amazing. Yeah. It's getting fucked up my whole list. Yeah. Like, or like, or like messes up even like just your Metroid picks. Right. Like, like even just that alone within that franchise. Yeah. Well, cause it's like, okay.

[00:09:22] So the remake of, um, Metroid two, part of the reason I ranked it like as well as I did is because it was the only kind of Metroid that was like that. But now it's like, well, Metroid Dread is like an exponentially better version of that game. So not only do you have to find a place for Metroid Dread, but you have to bump that one back. Right. I mean, I don't know if I have to care about all this stuff, but like, I like Mario Galaxy better than Mario Odyssey, but because I had Mario, because I had Super Mario Galaxy two ranked really high, highly.

[00:09:52] I moved Galaxy back a few spots behind Odyssey because it's like, well, they're so similar. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. I don't know if I twisted myself into weird pretzels. I didn't need to, or doing that stuff made it work better, but it's five years later and I'm still thinking about it. So, you know, and you always will be. Yeah. It's just going to have me forever. I'm glad I brought it up to make sure that you don't get any sleep tonight. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome.

[00:10:19] So I transitioned to, after I finished that list, you know, I was like, cool, I have a good base. I got like a good, I'm like back in writing about games. Cause I used to, I used to cover games. Um, I like briefly didn't leave sports, but I stopped doing sports quite as much. And I did more games and I was like an editor for a, an indie digital magazine. Um, and, uh, I left games for a bit cause it was like, Oh wow. I'm just constantly playing things and moving on to the next one. And I don't think this is very fun anymore.

[00:10:48] Um, but now like kind of picking and choosing what I want and I do freelance work for pace, uh, a couple of times a month. Nice. Um, and you know, some other places when I can get the, if the assignments, uh, but that's, it's, it's nice cause I can kind of pick and choose what I'm doing. And, you know, I, I write about like a hundred games a year at retro XP, but it's what I want to play anyway. Mm hmm. So it's not. So if I start feeling like a huge task or job or something, like it's just, it's different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:17] If I start feeling like I'm falling behind on something, it's like, well, don't play an RPG. Yeah. Okay. Like play a few arcade games and you've caught up like, man, there's so many like RPGs or like big games that come out even like in the last like few years where I'm like, Oh, I want, I want to, I think I'm going to love this game. I just do not have the time and I want to play other things. And I want to make sure I have enough attention to the games that we're doing on this show. You know, like, I don't want to let these ones slide.

[00:11:44] Cause to me, this is the, this is the most fun I have when I'm playing games is playing these things. Cause I don't know. It's just, it's, it's great whether it's new or whether it's something I haven't played in a while. So, so yeah, I kind of get that feeling. I guess, I guess the question is, is there a particular N64 game that you think, or, or is there one? I don't, I should have actually, I knew, I knew this list was something you had, but what is the highest ranked N64 game? I know.

[00:12:12] I'm kind of like picking at the, at the scab of you being like, Oh, everyone's going to be upset about this, about that pick. But I just, I just want to, I want to let people know. I don't think anyone will argue. Actually, no people would argue with me. Of course. There's always, there's always someone. Um, it's Majora's Mask is the highest ranked one. Nice. Um, nice. But I think the people who would argue with me are ones who say Ocarina of Time, but like, yeah. And Ocarina of Time is great and it's influential and it's important.

[00:12:37] But one of the things I was doing with the list was, um, completely removing influence. My argument was essentially like, if you're talking about how important, um, something is and you're using that as qualifier, then it's like, you just end up with Super Mario Brothers number one. And, and like, you know, I mean, not on this list in particular and Tetris, right? Like it's like, those are like the two games. Yeah. So like, uh, you just, you kind of back yourself into those situations.

[00:13:07] So that's why it's like, if someone says, well, Ocarina of Time is more important than Majora's Mask, it's like, I don't care. Like, Majora's Mask is a better game. It's better right now. It was better then. It's better now. Like, that's what I care about. Yeah. What's the most fun to play right this second? Yeah. What can you go back to multiple times? Things like those things, those things come out. Yeah. Even for a large game like that. Yeah. I was going to say, I was like, I was, I was guessing that you were going to say

[00:13:33] Ocarina of Time, but I'm glad you said Majora's Mask because I prefer Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time. And I've argued about that. I've been arguing about it for 25 years now. There you go. Yeah. We, we, we played it for the show. We haven't done Ocarina of Time yet. I, uh, Majora's Mask was like when we did it, it was the first time I played more than just a few minutes of it. And I played the entire thing. So like, that was just last year, the year before. So it was really recent for me. Ocarina of Time, I grew up playing, but that's because it feels like everybody had that

[00:14:03] game and it was just that, that title, like you mentioned, but I haven't played that game in at least 20 years, at least longer than the first like opening half hour. So when we get to that, I think that's going to be interesting too, because now I'll have a more recent memory or a memory at all of Majora's Mask. And I can compare the two and not, not that one has to be better than the other and blah, blah, all that kind of argument or whatever. But like they do, they do. Absolutely. I am crazy to think otherwise.

[00:14:30] Um, but it would just be interesting to kind of, from my own perspective, be like, Oh, now, now I can really sit here as an adult and not as, you know, a 14 year old or 12 year old playing it and like really think of like the nuances and things like that too, which could be cool. So, um, that's great. I can run down, I can run down quick, which N64 games made it actually. That'd be neat. Uh, so last core. Oh, I was, I should say I was very specific about like, so like if rare published it,

[00:14:59] it doesn't count, you know? Um, and certain things where it's like, it has to be Nintendo had to have published it and it has to be something that like did not get released in a bunch of other places. Um, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, you know, like they published some like Dragon Quest remakes or whatever. And it's like, that's not a Nintendo game. Yeah. That's right. I mean, you hear people talk about this sometimes there's some websites that'll be like brand new Nintendo game. And it's like, excuse me, it's like a square Unix game or something. And it's like, that's on a Nintendo system.

[00:15:29] It's not a Nintendo game. You can't. That that's the thing I think of all the time when, when you like for anyone that has, has Netflix or anyone, people that don't where it's like, Oh, it's a, it's a Netflix movie or Netflix productions. Like, no, you just bought it. It's like, it's like, you just bought it. Rest in development. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That exact friends. Like what the fuck are you talking about? You know, like shit like that. Like it's, I get it. That's just how the industry works for that stuff. But also like, no, like I know you're, they're fooling people by doing that. I know they are. That's why they do it.

[00:15:59] But you didn't make this. You just sign the check, you know, after the fact it was, after it was even done, you're just paying for the distribution, right? It's just anyways, anyways, tangent. See, see jiggy tangents all over the place. You can't take me anywhere these days. Last core. And then, um, Star Wars rogue squadron. And my excuse for including that had to do with the fact that, um, factor five convinced

[00:16:28] Nintendo to make the expansion pack a commercial. Oh, it was supposed to just before the, uh, 64, uh, this drive. Yeah. The DD and that was, you know, it was supposed to be just a developer side thing. And they were like, well, let's make that like commercial thing. But honestly, like if I redo this list, I'll probably take that off. Oh, cause I'll be, I think I'm going to be, I think I'm going to be stricter about some stuff. Okay. All right. Um, uh, Paper Mario. Yes. Yes.

[00:16:58] And Pokemon Snap. Oh, I had three N64 games in a row. Paper Mario, Pokemon Snap, and then Super Mario 64. Probably a lot earlier than people expected to see it. Um, but right there, neck and neck with sunshine. I like them. Oh, nice. Pretty much equally, but in different, different ways. I gotta, I gotta play sunshine. I haven't played, never played it. Never played it. Really good. I guess this stuff. Oh, I have puzzle league just as like a series here, which has an N64 entry. Yes. Um, ogre battle 64.

[00:17:26] That's another one I'll probably take off, but Nintendo published that in, um, in Japan. Mm. Okay. So, and it's the only, you know, it's not like there's, there's tactics ogre, but ogre battle is like this separate. It's a separate thing. Yeah. That, that is one where we need to like give ourselves lots of time. I hear. So. So good. It's nice and long. Apparently. Yeah. You will enjoy the time you spend with it. Great. Then. Then sin and punishment. Oh man.

[00:17:55] That's one that me and Jiggy were going to play. And then, and then, uh, and then I had a kid and then I didn't do anything for six months. I forgot about that. Yeah. We, I gotta, I gotta pick it back up. I don't think I finished it when we said we were going to cover it. So, um, it is amazing. Yeah. Um, star Fox 64. Yeah. And then smash. Oh, I don't like the N64 smash brothers. Um, but I included the whole series as a thing here.

[00:18:23] That's another thing I did where it was like, I don't want to write about smash brothers six times or whatever. Yeah. So it's like smash brothers series. It's very important. It's Mario cart series. Like that kind of thing too. Like, yeah, I actually did. Um, for Mario cart, I did double dash and eight. Um, because double dash was, I think the first of the amazing 3d ones. And it's very distinct from the rest of the series. None of them.

[00:18:52] And then other ones are like it. Like that's, it stands on its own for sure. Yeah, exactly. And all the other ones are kind of like working up toward what Mario cart eight is. And Mario cart eight is the best of those. Yeah. So yeah, pretty much. Um, I have my heart world. Yeah, it looks, it looks, it looks, I was, I had my, even though I have a somewhat limited experience with double dash, I was kind of hoping they would add that as like a mode or something, but maybe they will. You never know. Maybe there's a, there's a rumor going around on NSO.

[00:19:23] So yeah, they probably will. That's true. There's a rumor going around that there's going to be the potential of like getting off your cart and running around, which I don't know if that's true, but it'd be awesome. If you could like play with a friend, be driving co-op, like around the world, you both hop off your carts and just like swap. That would be smart. Why? Cause you're like running from the cops and you need to like switch cars. So they don't know who's who like, is that why? It'd be kind of awesome.

[00:19:49] Or like, you know, you run into something and you're in your buddy crashes and they have to like jump onto your cart. And that's how the double dash starts. Oh, I'm sure that's super easy to figure out. I'm sure they can figure it. I'm sure they got this. No, that's an easy programming. No problem. I, I make games. I know how things work. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, and then I guess Majora's Mask is up there. Where, where was Majora's Mask actually in that, in that list anyway? I'm curious. Fourth. Oh, fourth. Nice. Oh shit.

[00:20:20] Damn. Top five, top 10, top five. That's awesome. Um, sweet. Okay. So check, check out Mark. Where can, uh, um, where can everybody find it again? That's a part of retro XP. I assume. Yeah. It's retro XP. Uh, it's now dot be live, which has two eyes in it. I don't know why, but, um, yeah. Retro XP.beehive.com. Sweet. I'll put, uh, I'll put a, uh, a link in the show notes too. So if anyone can't remember or doesn't write it down or whatever, I'll, I'll make sure

[00:20:50] it's in there so people can link straight to it. You can find that list and all the other games that you've been, uh, playing and covering and stuff. So, um, okay, we're going to get to star soldier vanishing earth in just a second. I just want to make sure that I let everybody know that you can find us across the internet. Of course you can, because that is where you find this show. Remember 64 on all your podcast feeds, uh, give us a rating and tell your friends. That is the best way that more people can find us. And, uh, whether it's just through discoverability or it is just word of mouth, that is probably

[00:21:20] the two most powerful things you can do as far as, uh, getting shows out there to everybody. So, uh, make sure you do that. You can also find us on YouTube as well. Remember 64 where you can find some ridiculous shorts that I have ideas and random, uh, sleepy thoughts on at two o'clock in the morning that I create, uh, which is the last couple that I've done. And I'm like, Ooh, I have this crazy idea and I can't sleep because my kid's crying. So this is what I'm going to do. Um, also some gameplay videos every once in a while I will stream as well. Uh, very inconsistent with that, but I try to share some, uh, hours every couple of weeks

[00:21:50] with playing some games, whether they're 64 or otherwise. And, uh, patreon.com slash remember 64 show. You can support the show for as little as a buck a month. You can get a pre-show chats. You can get some, uh, uh, exclusive episodes where I talk about other games that I'm playing that are not from the N64. And you can get everything, every single episode nice and early, usually at least a week or just, just a little bit, sometimes even more than that. Um, so all that stuff is available for you there.

[00:22:18] And, um, what am I forgetting, Jiggy? I feel like I'm forgetting something. I don't think so. I thought you did great. Oh my God. I thought you did great this time. Yeah. Thanks. Five stars, which is what people should rate the podcast. Boom. Boom. Thank you. Well, as long as Jiggy said I did a good job, I feel like I did a good job. So, um, let's, uh, let's get to it. Let's talk about star soldier vanishing earth. Um, Mark, I know you've been talking for a little bit, but, uh, because you're the guest

[00:22:47] and because you chose this game, um, one briefly sort of touch on your experience with the 64 in general and why this game in particular. Cause at least for me, like I mentioned earlier, it's not a game that I have any familiarity with. So, um, for me, it felt like, Oh, this one came out of left field, but for a lot of people, yourself included, it did not. So, uh, yeah.

[00:23:10] I don't know if I'd go so far as a lot of people, but, uh, uh, so I got an N64, not quite at launch, but, um, I don't know, within that first year, you know, um, God, I played, I think the games I probably played the most, the game I probably played the most on it was, uh, it was perfect dark, which I know, even though that was late, I just kept playing it and playing it and playing it, you know, um, for years after.

[00:23:39] Uh, I can't, I can't imagine I played anything else as much as I played perfect dark on that. But I don't know. I just, I love that. I love that system. I love the controller. That's, um, it's probably, I, you know, I'm not, uh, I like, I like emulating. I'm a really kind of like original hardware guy when you can, but I understand that's not always feasible. Um, you know, I'm not going to go out and buy a 3DO. So I gotta figure out another way to do things.

[00:24:06] The N64 though is like the one system where I don't want to emulate anything. And part of that is, um, part of that's visual, you know, it's actually, I feel like people give it, uh, kind of a lot of shit for what like the visuals look like, but I think they're playing through like standard cables on a TV, you know, like hooking it up to a TV. It shouldn't be hooked up to or whatever and playing it. 64 on your fit on your 50 inch TV. It's like, that's like, yeah, of course you look terrible.

[00:24:36] Anything from that, that era is going to look worse in that condition or in that. But, um, yeah, exactly. I've got my 64 is hooked up like through S video to a nice CRT in the basement. Nice. It looks awesome, you know? And whenever you try and play, uh, so like Star Fox 64, even if you try and play like, uh, the Wii, you know, the version on like the Wii. Mm-hmm. You know, you're supposed to, you're supposed to like dodge, um, quickly by pressing a C button.

[00:25:06] But now that has been mapped to an analog stick. And like the amount of time it takes to like double tap an analog stick compared to just pressing the C button. Mm-hmm. You know, it kind of, it like messes with the experience and it just doesn't feel right. And that's the case for so many of the games. Like something is just off in the controls all the time. So that, that's the one where I'm like, no, I want to play on original hardware. Bring back the C buttons. Which has made me. They only brought one back. Only one.

[00:25:35] And you can't do anything with it. You just press it. Yeah. And it's not really gameplay related as far as we know. So. It's, um, it made me a person who went out and bought a copy of like, I like imported a copy of Sin and Punishment, you know? Cause I'm like, yeah, I had a lot of fun playing it on the Wii. Nice. And like they adjusted the controls and it was fine enough. And then I played it like in, you know, the way you're supposed to with the controller that it was designed around. It's like, oh, okay. I like this even more now. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:04] I mean, Jiggy, you're, you're, you're on this page for sure where it's like that, the control. I mean, we, I think it sounds like all three of us are, but like the controller is something special, right? Like I know that's something that you definitely write home about for sure. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's an, I'm not going to say it's an, it's not an unpopular opinion, but it's not a popular opinion. I go back and forth with so many people about it.

[00:26:30] Uh, but I also liked the GameCube controller and people also give me flack about that. So I do, I do not, I do not like it. Although I have far less experience with it than I think a lot of people, but, um, yeah, I just, I just, I find it really awkward. A little yellow sea nipple is amazing. I love it. Sure. I just don't like the D pad. That's my only complaint about it. Yeah. Too small. Too small. That's kind of like, so that's a controller that was designed after everyone went okay.

[00:26:59] Like three dimensional movement one. Right. We don't need the, we don't need digital anymore. Right. Whereas the N64 was that perfect blend of like, we don't quite know which way things are going yet. Yeah. Like let's do everything. And I, I, I love that. And I would argue that let like, especially in like the original sort of like an actual Nintendo controller, like the joystick feels great on the 64. Like it, it, to me, it has always felt like it really makes sense. Like you're, like you're describing where it's like, Oh no, this is, this is what it's

[00:27:29] supposed to feel like. And I feel like that's always the case with the joystick. Um, you know, some games handle controls better than others, no matter what, no matter what console you're talking about. But I find that that's always been a strength of it. And then when you get a reproduction controller, like one that's digital or whatever, it's, it's not the same, even if you're playing the same game. Um, there is a difference there. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:54] The, um, the shame that they kind of, the sticks kind of break over time or, or get loose over time. Mine snaps. Cause the actual, yeah. Playing earth room gym. Oh man. The actual, um, the actual movement and the precision of that stick is so good. Like, yeah. Sony didn't touch that until the PlayStation four basically like as far as like a comfortable stick that does what you want it to do. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:23] You know, I would, I would argue the PS five, but that's just my opinion. That's the, that's the only, that's the only one. I'm just not a PlayStation controller fan in general. I think the five is the one that feels the most comfortable, but I'm just not a fan of the layout of the joysticks being in the middle. And that's just not my thing. That's just not. That's funny. I like the original. That thing in particular. I like the original. It didn't have joysticks and like, that's fine. Right. And then it's like they slapped, they slapped those twin sticks on it. And I'm like, I don't like these sticks and I don't like the placement and I don't like anything about this anymore. Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair.

[00:28:53] Um, so, uh, okay. So why star soldier, man? Is this like, like one of the games that you were always playing growing up, like along with sin and punishment and perfect dark or no way. Okay. No, this one I didn't play, um, until I was an adult really. Um, after, so when the, you know, the, we had virtual console and, uh, that really got me going on like turbo graphics stuff.

[00:29:18] Um, and you know, Hudson's various shooters, uh, a few of those games made it onto the virtual console service. That's where I was introduced to like superstar soldier, final soldier soldier blade. Um, and then, uh, star soldier, star soldier are superstar soldier are, I can't remember what they called it. Uh, star soldier are. Yeah. Um, I didn't realize there was so many. There's a bunch. I don't think I knew that. Yeah. It's wild. How many there are. Wow. Yeah.

[00:29:48] So star soldier, star soldier are was basically just a caravan mode. And they, they kind of introduced it with like, here's an online competition. Um, that's how we're like getting you into this kind of game. Cause the, you know, caravan modes had like kind of fallen by the wayside by it was like 2008 or whatever. Um, and like, that's where I found out like what that even was. Yeah. And I played it and played it and played it and played it. And you know, I had some pretty high ranking scores cause I was playing probably too much.

[00:30:18] Um, just, yeah. Then like, just then going back, then going back and finding like, oh cool. There's also like, I didn't have an NES growing up. Um, um, like I was old enough, but I just didn't have one. My cousins had one and they didn't have any shoot them ups or anything. So, um, I'm like, oh, there's star soldier and there's, uh, there's, uh, Hector 87 or starship Hector.

[00:30:44] Um, and like, oh, they did, they did a parodius style game for star soldier with bomber man in it. Uh, star parodier on the, on the turbo graphics. Oh, I missed that. That's crazy. Or on the PC engine, I guess. Um, so it's like, oh wow, there's a lot of these. And then I find, I mean, I'm like, oh, you know, the N64 doesn't really have a lot of, it doesn't have any shoot them ups. I don't know. There were not many shoot them ups. And it's like, oh, there's a star soldier game on it. Like, cool. I love star soldier.

[00:31:13] Uh, so I ended up buying a, in a cartridge. I don't think it costs too much. Um, you know, I don't, it didn't sell super well or anything, but I, it's like not incredibly rare and not held in high enough regard for people to straight up gouge on it or. Right. Um, not, not back then. Probably now, if I look it up, I'll be like, oh, that's what it costs. Oh shit. Yeah. Probably. But you know, when I, whenever I got it, it was like pretty reasonable. Um, yeah. But that was like, as long as it was $55.

[00:31:44] $55. Yeah. Yeah. By, by price charting. Um, that is absolutely not what I paid for. I think like that. And you know what? As long as you purchased it before like 2019, 2020, you probably got it for a much more reasonable price. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking, I don't think I even paid $30 for it. Yeah. Um, so. So you sort of like, you sort of like fell in love with this one as, as you did with some of the others, or was it more of like sort of a process or like what's the.

[00:32:13] It's a very, it's different than the others by a considerable amount. Okay. Um, so this kind of introduced the, the chaining for scores. Oh, this is the one that introduced that. Oh, okay. I thought, cause I thought that was an interesting idea that I, I, uh, was picking up on as I was playing it. Yeah. Yeah. They had different ways. So the score, the way you'd boost your score and in like the turbo graphics ones is there was all this stuff to kind of destroy all over the place that like weren't enemies.

[00:32:44] It was like, Oh, destroy as much stuff in the areas you can, and you'll find bonuses and you'll, uh, you'll get more points for doing stuff like that. Which is kind of common in games like this. I think I feel like that's not super rare, at least ones that I can remember playing growing. I don't even know what Nate, what, what game I'm thinking of, but instead of like, instead of like buildings or kind of destructible environments, it was straight up just like, there's all this shit everywhere. Just like, it's all organized into you clearly are supposed to like that box, that box, that box. Oh, I see. Gotcha.

[00:33:13] Yeah. Okay. And it's, you know, some of them had different colors and everything. Um, like, Oh, there's items under that color and there's, you know, um, so this one kind of went in a different direction. I mean, first of all, it's 3d. Right. Um, uh, but yeah, the chaining was new and it's kinda like, you know, a cave that developer had started making shoot em ups and Dota and Pachi did a big thing with, um, with chaining that was like integral to the whole experience.

[00:33:41] And, uh, it's interesting. Like the score focus stuff with first for star soldier games was really more about, um, the caravan mode, not in the main gameplay. The main gameplay was like a bunch of stuff's going to try and kill you. See if you could survive, you know? Um, and the real old ones were kind of more about scoring, but it was in like, it was because of the caravan stuff as well.

[00:34:04] So this is the first one where emphasis on scoring in the game, like in the main game itself became kind of the big deal. Um, but it's also like, cause to sort of explain it to people, if anyone hasn't played it or don't, doesn't know quite how they do what they do is basically. And correct me if I'm wrong, if this is pretty much on the basic level of how it works, you just, you basically, that has like this really, really quick timer in the top left corner.

[00:34:30] And you have to basically always be shooting something in order to keep that multiplier going. And it counts how many shots or how many things you are hitting from zero to thousands and thousands. So you can get up to almost, you know, I, I assume I never did this, but I assume you can get through an entire level always hitting something or getting very close to that. And the more you do that, the more multiplies your score and you kind of go from there and you can use your different weapons and obviously your movement and stuff to sort of make it happen.

[00:34:57] But you know, the, the levels and the enemies are pretty much set up so that if you are able to, and understand the levels or be able to read them and the, all that kind of stuff, you can keep that number going up and up and up. And the, the, it's almost, is it one second? That's like half a second where it resets. So it's really fast. It's fast. Yeah. It's super, super fast. So it is really a, a skill based thing. It's not just, Hey, let's just see what the number can be. You really have to think about what you're doing on top of trying to survive.

[00:35:27] Um, and a game like this. Anyways, I just thought I would, yeah, get to that. Hmm. Yeah. So they hadn't done that sort of thing necessarily before. Um, so it was kind of a different approach, different development team that had been going. And they, they kind of based the, the, um, the graphics and PG PC engine star soldier games on, um, compiles blazing lasers. Hmm.

[00:35:53] Um, which was a huge change to do the series like that in the first place. Cause the original, the original star soldier was based on, um, Tecmo's, um, star force. Oh yeah, that's right. That I had that. I wrote that down in the notes to that star force. Yeah. Yeah. And they did the Famicom port for it. And then, uh, Tecmo did the, the NES one, but, um, so Hudson did, they had their first,

[00:36:19] um, the first caravan festival, which I don't know if you know what they did for the caravan festival. No, I don't. So they had, they had a big yellow van with a B on it, which is cause it's Hudson. Um, but they would essentially drive a chosen game around Japan, um, and let people play it. And you would like, you know, there, people are trying to like best high do like the best high scores. Yeah.

[00:36:47] Um, it was, it, they became these very popular tournaments to the point where it was like, okay, specific games were made with caravan, the summer caravan in mind. And then they were competing, uh, caravans as well because of the success Hudson saw with this stuff. So they made, so this first one happened. They, they used star force, even though they just were responsible for the port. So they were like, Oh, we should make our own game. Make what? Yeah.

[00:37:14] So they made, they made star soldier, um, you know, as like their original work. And it's very like, it's different than star force, but it's very clearly like it could be a sequel. If you didn't know anything, you'd just be like, Oh, this is just what happens when you release a game like a year or two after the year after the previous one. Yeah. Um, but then they, you know, they just kept making it like that. Um, they introduced the caravan mode into, into these games over time.

[00:37:42] So you could just like at home, like here's your two minute challenge. Here's your five minute challenge. Which, which this has. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and now you see like the caravan stuff has gone on so much. It used to just be like Hudson and max at, um, and a couple companies. And now there's a lot of like all those arcade archives games have caravan mode, which is, you know, the two minute or five minute challenge.

[00:38:06] Um, and a terror in who does a lot of, um, like throwback shooters to the time of like compile and star soldier and all that stuff. Um, a lot of those games have, um, a lot of those games have caravan modes in them too. Right. So it's cool that it's, it's persisted, you know? Um, but it got started with like Hudson driving a van around and being like, who wants to see who's the best at star force. That's crazy. That's how it started. Yeah.

[00:38:32] You know, those vans are floating around somewhere and they're probably like so exclusive. The dude from top gear probably has it. Oh yeah. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. If anyone's going to have it, it'd be those guys. Yeah. Um, did you, uh, so you play this a little bit later and stuff. Um, Jiggy, what about you? I think you mentioned that you had this. You, oh, you owned it. Oh wow. I owned it. Yeah. I had this as a kid. You're so cool. I don't, I never had any of this kind of shit.

[00:39:03] So, okay. Let me, let me explain why I had this. This was like, you don't have to explain. Just say you're, you sat at the cool kids table. It's okay. I got the N64. Obviously I'm a, I'm a little, I'm younger. I got it in 99. Yeah. Okay. And so because I was on that backend, I think I've said this before, but we've had, my dad and I had the opportunity to go to places that were like, we were also in that like spot where like movie rental stores, like started closing down and stuff.

[00:39:31] So we would go and like, there were several that were just closing down and just getting rid of inventory. This is one of those games that I just randomly thought, Hey, this is kind of cool. And we just added it to the pile. Like my dad bought me like 40, 50 games. Like it was awesome. This is one of them. I played the crap out of it. Never beat it. But I really enjoyed it. And I liked, um, I played as the blue ship the most, but if I had to pick between the ships, I don't know. The green one was pretty cool too. I think the red one was my least favorite.

[00:40:01] Um, I have their names and everything pulled up here, but we don't need to get into that quite yet, but we will. We'll get there. We'll get there. Like just flying around. It's, I really love star Fox 64. And in my mind, this was very similar to that. Just like, it's different, but it was, it was like giving me star Fox 64 vibes. So it was like another sort of another outlet for me in that way. Um, but yeah, I just thought it was really cool. And fun fact about this.

[00:40:30] So closing out my mom's house. Um, she was selling her house and moving and it was going through old stuff. This is one of two games that I found the box for. Oh, snap. I had the box for star soldier. Um, it, it wasn't like super great shape, but it was like intact. And I was like, this is pretty dope. Yeah. And I, I don't remember.

[00:40:57] I think at the time I looked up like an inbox copy and it was something stupid, like $300 or something. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's cool. It was pretty cool. You want to know what the other game was? You're going to love it. Ooh. I mean, I had two boxes. They were right on top of each other. Like they were flattened out and I had them. And the other one was Superman 64. Yes. Yeah, it was. It was awesome. Yeah. So equally caliber games, obviously.

[00:41:26] I swap between them, you know, play Superman, play star soldier, play Superman. And you know what? I could see that. Like you said, like, Oh, I played the shit out of this, but I never beat it. But it's, it's kind of one of those games, especially at a younger age where that's totally fine. You know, it's, it's kind of hard. Like, dude, I found it. I found it hard. I'll get into sort of the details of like why I suck at this game. But like, I was like, what the, like, it's something wrong with me. What am I doing? I can't. I thought it was good at these games growing up.

[00:41:55] And I just, I just was not. Um, so did you, if you look at, uh, if you look at like, you know, the boards, like, um, where people talk about shoot them ups. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, Oh, this one's so easy, whatever. It takes like no time. And it's just like, it's easy for you because you are a person who posts on a board. Specifically. Yeah. Like, yeah, most people. Yeah. It's going to take some doing, you know, come on.

[00:42:22] Like, yeah, I can beat it or whatever, but I'm not like, Oh yeah, that was a cinch or whatever. It's like, no, this is, this has its moments. And if you like play the wrong way or you use the wrong kind of ship or whatever, you, you never master the dodge, you know, the reflecting thing. Like, no, I could, that's going to be really hard. I like it, but I couldn't, I definitely could not. You need to. Master is not a word that I would use in my experience playing this game. I'll tell you that. Um, Jiggy, did you, uh, did you have some time to revisit it and stuff? Which would you think if you did?

[00:42:52] I did. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I was having fun. Um, I feel like I played it very similar to, I did when I was a kid, like I popped in and I was like switching between the ships. Like I play, like I basically just play till I died. Yeah. And then it'd be like, do you want to continue and be like, no. And then I'd go back and then I'd swap my ship and then I'd be experimenting with all the weapons and stuff. I just thought that was super cool. And I still think the blue one's my favorite. I remember the blue one being my favorite. I think it's still my favorite.

[00:43:19] Although the main weapon is not my favorite. Hmm. The green one's way cooler, I think. But I also like was looking at the stats, which is something I never really paid attention to as a kid, but I'm like, do these really affect it? I don't know if I could really. I don't know. Like it's just like move and roll and stuff. And I'm like, I don't know if it's that dramatic of a change that it really makes a difference. Also too.

[00:43:46] It's like, because I didn't like, I didn't, it's not like I played this for hours and hours and hours. Like I wasn't endlessly playing this in the last couple of weeks, but like, wouldn't you just look at the move and roll bar and be like, I'll just take the one that's maxed out. That's the best. That's exactly why. Isn't that just the best one? Like, why take the one that's half, half that? Like what? Why wouldn't you just, I don't know. But the, the weapons that I mean, that's what you have to like play around with. That's, that's what you have to play around with the weapons with each ship. Yeah.

[00:44:16] Those are really the deciding factor and they each have unique weapons and they feel different and it's kind of awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I did like that. It was unexpected. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Mark. So the, it's funny. They have the multiple ships here because the other star soldiers, star soldiers, I can't, it's a good thing. I can't say the word soldier right now, right after star. That's not important to what we're doing or anything. Uh, the older star soldier games. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[00:44:46] One ship, but you had multiple weapons and you could go, especially after, um, like pick them up or something. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, especially after blazing lasers where they like combine cause that was a compiled style of doing things was like you're experimenting by combining different things. And getting kind of, um, attacks and weapons that you wouldn't have had like on their own or they're upgraded in some way. Um, so here they just, instead of having you, you know, you can make whatever your weapon is stronger, but you can't switch your weapon. Right. Right.

[00:45:16] Uh, which is not how the pre a few of the previous ones worked, but instead they're like, okay, what if we take three of the established weapon types from these games and make each of them a ship? Right. Hmm. Okay. Which is kind of a different way to do it. And previously the, the, the bombs, which here, what are they? X arms? Like X arm. I think it's X arm. Yeah. Um, so those would be like, you would have, you'd have options maybe flying around your ship. Um, and you could like sacrifice them as a bomb.

[00:45:44] Um, kind of, so it's a different situation than here, but here they do more of the like screen clearing bomb thing, limited, limited use, you know? Um, so it's an interesting, it's like a bunch of new stuff and then like old stuff, but kind of presented in a different way. Yeah. Um, do you, so you have, you have obviously much, I mean, especially compared to me, but you have more experience with like the variety of these games are just this, this franchise or series or ones that are similar.

[00:46:11] Do you find, do you personally find that this one is like, it's different, but is it quote unquote better or is it just, it's doing its own thing? Or do you like the differences or what do you think? It's doing its own thing. Um, I think it, I think it does a good job with the thing that it's doing as well. Um, I, but I also think it's very, it's easier to miss what this game's trying to do and then not have a good time with it.

[00:46:38] I feel like if you don't engage, you know, the other ones, again, since they're just throwing stuff at you and you're trying to not die. Um, if you were trying to not die also, which feels like a pretty, like that should be your goal, right? Yeah. Without much thought. Whether you can do it or not is like separate from whether you're like, yes, I'm trying not to fail. Right. So you can like engage with what the game's doing very easily. But here it's like, if you don't engage with the chaining system, you're not going to

[00:47:06] score all the points you need because the game is expecting you to die, but you'll have like, it's giving you lives very generously. Yeah. But you have to earn those lives by scoring all these points with all the chaining, you know? Um, and it wants you to find those hidden levels because the hidden levels are like cooler. The hidden levels are better than most of the regular. I saw them, but I never actually got the chance to play them. Like I, I didn't know that there were any. And then when I was looking at more of the games, like, Oh, there's hidden low.

[00:47:34] Like I just, again, I just was not good at this game. I just, you know, I just, yeah, they just give you that little like, yeah. Yeah. They're like here when you see this, we're not telling you what to do, but like, this is a moment where you should figure something out there. It's tough moments. Cause it's like, Oh, here's six blue ships. There's one red ship. If you destroy a single blue ship, you will not unlock this, the secret level. But if you like, Oh, it was kind of retreat and then the red ship will be left all alone and you kill the red ship.

[00:48:00] And then, you know, you'll fly over the space station or through a Canyon or something that you wouldn't have. Anyway, you still have to survive long enough to like get to the end. It's not like it brings you right to the special level. Right. But the, which to Jiggy's point, the, the, that's sort of a shared Star Fox 64 type thing too. Right. Where if you find out what you need to do, you sort of solve that mini like real time puzzle. And then you move on to like a different path. It's got a lot of similar elements to something like Star Fox or Star Fox has a lot of similar elements to something like this. I should say. Right. Cause it would have come before it.

[00:48:31] Or, or games. It's really the perspective. That's like dramatically different. It's just like top down versus, you know, and this is more like a roguelite type situation. Well, it's yeah. It's like if you fail to, you can beat Star Fox 64 without being any good at that game. Mm hmm. Yeah. Or come very close at least. Yeah. And then it's like, I played for 40 minutes and I don't know if I enjoyed myself, but if

[00:48:57] you, it's again, if you engage with the game the way it wants to be and you get much better at like taking down a higher percentage of enemies and you find the secrets and then you're like, Oh, this game rules. This game is actually amazing. There was so much, there's so much this game has to offer. I just have to be willing to like engage with it and notice it and want to be part of what it's doing. Um, but yeah, I remember like the very first time I played it, I was probably, I feel like I was too young to really get it.

[00:49:27] Oh yeah. So I was like, I was like, well, yeah, that was fun. But like, what am I doing? And then I went back to it. I went back to it later and played more and was like, Oh, actually this game like fucking rules and this game rips. Right. Yeah. But it took some time. There's one mechanic. I'm just curious if you know what it actually does. If you press down, I think it's down on the C button. You do like your little thruster. Yeah. What the heck does that actually do? Other than just make a big change of the speed of your ship.

[00:49:55] So it says, yeah, in the top left corner where it says like low, medium, high. Yeah. That's, that's your speed. No kidding. So it's, there are times where you want to go slower. I think it's more noticeable with some of the ships in the, you know, they show the speeds when you're doing the like ship select. Mm-hmm. I think it might be more noticeable for some of them than others. Um, okay. It's like the, the, the jumps in, in velocity or, are more significant. Okay. I didn't know. I was like, what is this doing?

[00:50:25] And I kept tapping it and I didn't know. So that the only reason why I figured that out, or I mean, I ended up looking it up as how I, I didn't just naturally get it. But like, like with these games, if you're, if you're emulating it, for example, which I did, um, you know, I've said this before. It's like, Oh, would it help to look up the manual? You know, because I probably would have told you, right? What I did was like, what is that mid thing in the top left? Like, what is that? What is that? Mid what? Like mid power? Am I not picking it up enough points? Like what, what am I only doing? Okay.

[00:50:55] Like, what does that mean? So I looked it up and it was, it was the speed. Otherwise. I never even questioned that. I never even like, I was just like mid. Okay. At least this one starts in the middle because I think there's some of them where you start on the lowest speed and you're like, wow, I feel like I'm flying a tank through space. And then you can, then you like, What? I didn't, I didn't really, uh, get into that. I've been to a lot of variety of, of choosing different ones.

[00:51:25] Maybe I should have, and that would have helped me out or whatever. Um, I had a pretty good time playing this game. I don't know. It's weird because there was the one, the most experience I have with this genre of game where it's the sea. We're supposed to just take out the reds there. Oh, that one. Yeah. Oh, that's one of the ones. See, I probably was just like blow everything up. That's, that's my, that's what I do. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, it's, it's, it's good to know. Cause now when I get to this level next, which I, I, it's easy to pick up and play this game, which I think is a big plus.

[00:51:55] Um, I, I enjoy that about just like this genre or these style of games. Um, Mark, because you have like a decent amount of sort of experience with games like this or ones in the franchise and stuff and similar. The one of the games, it's one of the first games I remember playing because it was like a demo and we had computers that basically didn't run anything. And this was just before I got my SNES was a game called Raptor. I think there's a subtitle to it too. That's the, that's the game in this genre that I played the most growing up.

[00:52:25] And it was like a two level demo on my cousin's PC. And like, that's what it was. And it's, you're just like a, you know, an army ship and you're flying and you're just trying to survive basically and stuff. So that game wasn't that intense. And it's the one that I just remember the most. And then I turned this one on and I was like, holy shnikes. Like I got to think about what I'm doing here. And then the dodge, like you said, is a big part of it.

[00:52:48] And like, I don't know if these games are my thing anymore because like I enjoyed it, but I wasn't like, oh, this is incredible. This is like the, the, this is like exactly what I wanted from this type of game. Or maybe I'm just not good at it. And that's what ruined part of my experience. Again, I don't think it's, I don't think it's like a really on the game all that much. I think part of it's my own fault, but it didn't click in the way that I thought I might have.

[00:53:16] And I think maybe if I give it more time and I'm sort of like, like, we're sort of watching someone right now as we talk, sort of basically know exactly what this boss fight is going to do and how. Yeah. They're not even using the, the, the reflect thing. They're just like. Literally. Like I said in this quarter, I avoid everything. Yeah. Which, which is a skill in itself, right? To know how to do that. When, where all those things. Yeah. Memorization.

[00:53:40] It's, it's, it's memorizing boss patterns and stuff that's, or just in general, a game like this, memorizing the patterns of all the ships leading up to that point too. Right. That's a big part of it. And a way to, to multiply that score that we were talking about. So I don't know that I would ever get to that point specifically, but I think if I put maybe even just a little bit more time or a couple more hours or something, I'd be like, oh, this is like really gelling, really clicking.

[00:54:04] I mean, so I think I might've missed that just a touch, but I do see how this is a pretty nuanced game, but like below the surface kind of thing. So I think on surface level, it just looks like, like I mentioned on my silly little quip off the top, hold on to the A button and just try to survive essentially. And like you, I guess you could do that. You probably won't do great. You'll maybe make it a couple of levels if you get lucky with your pickups and stuff, but to get to that fourth, fifth, sixth stage, which I think there's six in total.

[00:54:35] You, you need to know what you're doing when you get to like five and six, especially. Um, yeah, yeah. The end, the end game, the last, the last secret area. And then five, six are like, that's hard. The whole game was like this. A lot of more people would have put it down earlier. Yeah. Oh yeah. And that, and that's actually true. Cause like the first stage is, is pretty simple and pretty easy. And like, I think, you know, that, that the progression of the difficulty I found actually totally made sense and was, was really good. Um, I kept getting my ass kicked in the sixth one. Like I just, I couldn't get past it.

[00:55:04] Um, and, uh, and that's fine. You know, that's, that's part of learning the game and whatever. Right. But, uh, yeah, I, I liked it. I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I think. Um, I'll say you're, you're kind of, you're kind of blaming yourself for this, but I will say like, I like this game, you know, I think it's a good game. I'm not like, I mean, I, I have played a lot of shoot them ups. Right. A lot. And like, this is a good game.

[00:55:34] I like this game. I'm coming on a podcast to talk about this game. I mean, Hey, we've had people come on that Superman's a perfect example where we had Jake come on and just say, let's just play a shitty game. So, Hey, it happens. Um, but you know, if I was trying to like turn someone on to shoot them ups or make them feel the way that I feel when I play. Mm. Just like, uh, like this is not what I would suggest. Right.

[00:56:02] So, so you got, you know, you're, you're being a little hard on yourself, but like, no, I could, I could probably suggest some things to you if I, if I knew a little more about like the kinds that have interested you. And, you know, I might be able to show you the one that will change your life. I wish, I wish I could list off how many in this genre I have played in the last 10 to 15 years. I would maybe be able to count it. I, I for sure I'd be able to count it on one hand. Like, it's just, it's just not one in recent memory, at least that I could remember.

[00:56:31] I mean, they're not, they're not as popular as they were either. Right. Like this was a much, this was a nineties genre. It was an arcade genre and stuff. I, I, in my experience, I don't, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would definitively be, oh, this is a game. Is that game from the last, let's, let's say 15 years or something, but maybe they just haven't been on my radar. And maybe that's on me. I don't know. Yeah. So there you go. Um, yeah. I mean, there's actually been like a huge revival, but it's still niche. Like you have to be looking for it.

[00:57:01] Right. Maybe that's, that's, that's the simple, instead of me rambling for two minutes, maybe I just said, should have said niche and that would have solved it. Well, no, I mean, they did, they did go underground, you know, they were it. Yeah. Space invaders was the biggest game in the world at one point. Right. And then Xevious was one of the most influential games ever. Yeah. Huge in Japan sold well on the NES, you know. Um, and there was like a string of all that stuff, you know, Galaga is still super popular. I love Galaga. It's great. Oh my God.

[00:57:30] But fighting games, you know, fighting games pushed shoot them ups out of the arcades. So, right. Or at least out of like their primo position. Right. Then like the Sega Saturn was the system that had the most of them for like at home. And you know, that didn't, that sold even fewer systems than the, um, than the N64 did by like a lot. Not decent margin. Yeah.

[00:57:55] That's the, that's the one cons or not only console, but one of the quote unquote mainstay consoles that I have. Almost zero experience with like, I'm, I was part of the problem. So I've got one. I got one. You got one. Oh, there's, there's one in the store near me and I was so tempted, but I'm like, but then it's going to be an investment. I got to get into it. It's just one thing at a time. Let's go through the N64. What's the thing about it? My friend had one. We'd always, uh, hunt for games like for him.

[00:58:25] I'd be like, dude, I'm at a store. They have Saturn games. Like, do you want any of these? And it's in a picture. Um, I'm trying to remember what it was. It's just like the weirdest game. Cause it's got, uh, Kirk Cameron. If you know who that is, the actor, like the nineties actor, maybe, maybe late eighties. Um, I'm trying to think of the show he was in. Uh, he does like a lot of Christian content now. Oh yeah. Okay. He's, uh, he's, um, he was like, he's growing pains. Yeah. Older brother and growing pains.

[00:58:55] Yes. Yes. And he was in this game in like the cut scenes. It was like any, it was like a weird, like medieval. Yeah. Yes. It was like a weird medieval thing. And it was like a build your, build your like fortress sort of a thing. And like zombies would come at night. I don't know what this game was called. I can't remember, but I remember being the horde. Is it called the horde? I'm actually looking at the word. Uh, it says the horde. Yeah. That's when I looked it up.

[00:59:23] That's we type in his name and video game. The horde pops up. That is like one of the few games I played on Sega Saturn. Yes. This is it. This is it. I just looking at the image of the game. This is happening in this game. Dude. It's hilarious. Well, I will say that. That box art is incredible. The cut scenes are fantastic. You need to just like watch the cut scene, like the opening cut scene. It's so funny. We can do that if you want. Yeah. It's for Cameron. It's totally worth it.

[00:59:52] I played a couple other Saturn games too. Like nights and, um, uh, is it both bugs? It's like, or, um, Zapper bugs. I think I'm mixing games together. Oh, this guy's streaming it. No, it's just, but I think it's just bug. Yeah. Bug. Yeah. Yeah. I played that one. I didn't really care for bug. It's probably good. You didn't get that. Sonic extreme. Yeah. But I think it did.

[01:00:22] Yeah. Oh, but Crystal dynamics made the horde. Crystal dynamics made it. Dude. I'm telling you. Ow. It's awesome, dude. Whoa. Being a ruler is a difficult business. I thought you could handle it, but I see that I was wrong. Shall I alert the executioner, sire? Oh, that's, I guess, familiar. No, no, no, no, the cook. I don't know what there is here. Along with the use of my mighty sword, grim twacker.

[01:00:52] It served me well in defending the kingdom from the evil. The evil, insatiable, terrifying horde. Oh, shit. It's just like a laugh track. It's like a laugh track. What is happening? It's crazy, dude. That's like when I love that game. It was so fun. I would totally play through the whole thing. I want to get a Saturn just for that game.

[01:01:17] I love how I just played a clip from a Saturn game, whereas I can just like maybe play the audio clip from the game we're talking about. Anyways, through all that noise, I thought the music was actually kind of good. Yeah, I was like, it's hard to sit there and focus on the music when you just... Yeah, here. The opening. It does slap. It is good. Solid.

[01:01:47] You know what it kind of reminded me of? I'm a huge fan of the early Double Dragon games. It kind of reminded me of a Double Dragon soundtrack. Yeah. Like that high-pitched synth, I guess you could call it. It does have that kind of vibe. Like Super Double Dragon, play that, which I love that game, and then play this. And it felt similar, but maybe that's just because I have so much experience playing that particular Super Double Dragon game. Oh yeah, I was going to say Streets of Rage. I was trying to remember. I was totally blanking.

[01:02:17] I'm like, it does have that sort of vibe. Yeah, it's keeping you upbeat while you're beating people up here. Yeah. Yeah. What's that? This was the composer's first game that he composed. He was on... He was like a sound programmer or sound effects in previous games. Oh wow, nice. But he has done most of the Mario Party games. Oh no way. Itchero Shimakura. Hudson made Mario Party. Yeah, Hudson made Mario Party.

[01:02:46] And then when Hudson got absorbed by Konami, or even while Hudson was still... Existing, but they weren't doing Mario Party anymore. Um... And D-Cube was formed by a bunch of former Hudson employees. And... Like, as a Nintendo studio, making Mario Party. Ah, okay. Nice. That's where a lot of the... That's where a lot of the tech...

[01:03:14] That's where a lot of the former Hudson devs ended up going. Not all of them, but... Look at that. There's probably more former Hudson devs at Nintendo than there are in the place that... Like... Started it. Yeah. Yeah. We're full circle. Okay? We started this conversation about the N64 controller and the joystick and it breaking. And now we're back to... Oh yeah! By the way, the people that made this game is Hudson, who also made Mario Party, which

[01:03:41] is the game notorious for breaking your N64 controller joysticks. And your... Boom! It didn't break my joystick, but I had the... I definitely had the... You had the palm thing? Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Me too. You know what blows my mind? I think, like, there's a certain amount of people that probably learn from someone else, like, oh, that's how you play that minigame. Right. But you just naturally... Like, if you isolated like six kids, they all played Mario Party, they all played this

[01:04:08] game, you just naturally know that, oh, this is how I can make it go hella fast. Spin it around? Yeah. Like, you know? Like, you know? That's true. Like, you gotta account for that. Yeah. Well, it's the same thing as when you, like, turn the controller so you can, like, slam, you know, press the button. It's like, you're not gonna be able to press it, you know? I do that. Like, I... When I do the A-B thing? I do it sideways and I'm like... Yeah, because I can push faster with... I'm left-handed, I feel like it gives me... I can do more with this one than I would with the one.

[01:04:37] Left-handed would make a difference, yeah, for sure. I think what I've done, it's harder to do with the 64 controller just because of the shape of it. But like, if it was a SNES one or some, you know, that's flat, I would put it on the floor or on the chair or on my lap and use both my fingers to... Back and forth. We can't talk about this anymore. I'm having, like, mad Canary Mary, like, flashbacks right now from Bantatui. I'm just like, I can't... My fingers, like, are getting sore just thinking about it.

[01:05:06] Well, actually, recently we played... We just played Rayman 2, like, a month ago or something. Oh, yeah, that mini game. That was a mini game. That's what I did. I put it on my lap and I was like... Balancing it on my knee while I was playing it and I was like... Back and forth. I would go back and forth by pressing the buttons like this. Yeah. And then I'd be like, ah, ah, and then I'd switch to my finger and my thumb and then go back and forth like this. And then I'd go, ah, ah, and then switch back. Sorry, what would you do? I would say... What was that sound?

[01:05:34] Ah, ah, you can capture that, sound bite that later for future reference. I will say the... I played the N64 version of Rayman 2, like, a billion times. Yeah. But this last experience, I played the Dreamcast version because I was just like, I'm going to play the different version to get a slightly different experience. And I will say the N64 controller is a much more pleasurable experience for those bonus levels. The buttons on the Dreamcast feel like mushier. There's some... They're not bad.

[01:06:04] It's not that it feels bad. It's just like, comparatively, they don't like bounce back as fast. So I feel like it was like holding me back. Are they smaller too? I feel like they are smaller. They're smaller. Yeah. They are smaller. Yeah. That makes a difference. I have them stored in the back, but... Yeah. But especially as like an adult, like a smaller, like primary button or button buttons like that would make a difference. Like if the size of the C buttons were the main A, B on the 64, like, that would feel weird, I think. Yeah.

[01:06:32] If that was A and B, the size of those, so... You know, we need to go back. We need to go back to the GameCube. Every button's got to be like that A button. Let's just make them really big. Really big. But then you're going to have a controller that's the size of the Xbox Duke. I don't care. Which I like. I like that controller. Dude, I think that's dope. Yeah. I think we need to go back to the giant controller. But it wouldn't have wasted space because all the buttons would be giant. So... Yeah. And analog triggers. Dude, I could make the perfect controller. Come on. Somebody hire me. Somebody. Just to design it. I don't...

[01:07:02] Give me 10 bucks. Buy me dinner. 10 bucks. I'll just draw it for you. I'll draw you the perfect controller and then you handle the rest and I'm out. I would like to know where you go to dinner for $10. Just $10 in addition to dinner, I think. Oh, okay. $10 was like... My mistake. My mistake. And dinner. That is what I was trying to get. Because you know, I'm going to milk them for all the worth. We're going to like Red Lobster or something. Red Lobster? Isn't Red Lobster gone now too? Maybe you'll save it. Oh, that one. Maybe you'll save it. Is it?

[01:07:33] I think so. It's the only like semi-cheap, fancy restaurant I could think of. So I'm going to bring us full circle in another way since we're talking about hitting the controller really fast. So, the guy who was an attraction at the caravans for Hudson was Takahashi Mejin. Because he could... He ended up being like their promotional guy. Like he didn't do development or anything, but he was an employee for the company. He was like, face of the company. Like public face of the company.

[01:08:01] They used his likeness for the Adventure Island character. Oh! But he could... He could press 17 shots per second. Which was huge for a game like Star Soldier back in the day because you didn't have the auto-fire. You couldn't hold the button down. You had to press it. You shot as fast as you pressed. So he could do 17 shots per second, but they actually like lied and said he could do 16 because he liked the way it sounded better.

[01:08:32] But he straight up shaved off a shot per second. But he's just got this like inhuman press speed. And he like designed an analog stick. Like a Hudson analog stick to use on the Famicom. Which I would love to like get an analog. That is an absolutely crazy number. It's in heat. How do you... How do you do that? I can't even... Yeah, like I want to see a video.

[01:09:03] Yeah, they're um... What does that look like? I am sure you can... You probably can't even see it. It's like a flash speed force thing or how it like freezes everything, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the name of it? What's the guy's name of it? Takashi... Takashi, yeah. Let me see if I can find... And when you said his likeness, I thought you were about to say for the B. Let's see... Here, I'll uh...

[01:09:33] The Hudson B. See if that... Oh, that might be it. Takashi Iizuka. No, I know who that is. Yeah. That's not him. That's the guy who won't give me the chow garden. Let's see. Oh, I dropped one in the... Yeah. Oh my gosh! No, that's not fapping. That is him pressing the button super fast. Yeah, it's nuts though. He's like...

[01:10:03] They had him do the Star Soldier R1. During that challenge event, they included... The second thing they did in addition to the 2 minute and the 5 minute caravan was they did a... Like shots per second challenge. Oh. And they had online leaderboards for it and everything. And I think I got up to... I think my highest was probably like 10 and a half. That's pretty sweet. Holy shit, that's great. That's good. He was still doing...

[01:10:29] You know, this is 20 plus years after he was like famous for it. And he was still doing it. He was doing almost 12 and a half shots per second. That's crazy. Which is like... Okay, I'm not even kidding. If anybody's ever watched The Flash on CW, when they go to like... vibrate their hand as like a weapon to like kill people. His hand is doing that right now.

[01:10:58] It's literally like... Yeah, they can go around in the van and like show off doing that. So the little controller thing measures how much he's... how fast... like that little controller that you can hear him clicking is measuring how fast he's actually pressing the button. And it has a little number that pops up and says... at least in this particular video, I think at the end it said 16, I think. But... This is gonna sound bizarre, but I would love to get like an x-ray of his wrist to just see it like in motion.

[01:11:29] Like what's moving in his hand that's making it do that? I think it's... Wouldn't it be like your elbow more than anything? Like I'm trying to think of like... Like you would keep your wrist maybe stiff so that you can... Like I'm just trying to think of how you would do that. And I feel like it would have to be... Yeah, we got to know what muscle he's using. Because like for me, it just goes right to my forearm. And listen, I got a pretty, you know, I got a decent forearm. It's, you know... It's solid. Okay.

[01:11:59] The power of youth! The power of not having a child. I feel like if we have a video of this, it's gonna like... Be a meme online. I should stop doing that. Power of you! Power of you with a... In the back. I had my hand in the air for the listeners. And I was doing the motion. You know what I was doing? I mean, I have the video. I have the video. I can make it happen. Oh my bad. So Hudson's no more.

[01:12:29] Yeah, that's right. Takahashi Metchum is still out there though. He partnered in a game that came out in the last few years called Stargagnant. I think that's how you say it. It's out on the Switch. I think it's out on Steam too. And that whole game is... Unlike a lot of other stuff where it's like, here's auto fire. This game is designed around the idea of shooting as fast as you can. Then you have to press the button. But like, it is built into the gameplay.

[01:12:58] It's not just like, oh shoot a lot and you'll do better. Like the concept of keeping your shots per second up high is built into it. So, I mean you want to talk about like, you're getting tired 30 minutes into playing a game or whatever. You know, I was like playing and trying to like move up in the leaderboards in that game. And I was doing well enough that I wanted to keep doing that. And I was just like, oh my god, this is exhausting. How do you just play this forever? I've seen this game. It's got a whole bunch of like scores on the side.

[01:13:27] And it has all these like different sort of gauges on like on your HUD and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen this. Yeah, the higher your rapid fire is, the more points you're getting. In addition to it like helping you sustain the chain that you have, which gives you even more points. Yeah. It has a cool like cartoony style and stuff too. Like the art style of it's really cool. Yeah, it was made by Terrain, the company I mentioned earlier. Yeah.

[01:13:55] These kind of throwbacks, even though it's like a one person studio as far as I can tell. I don't know. I don't know about the music, but yeah, like the rest of it is. It's one person. And they partnered with Mejian and did something based on the thing he's like most known for. That's awesome. That's it's cool looking game. That actually, before I sort of forget, just because I mentioned the controller. I know I can't. I don't have a crazy. I have an Xbox controller beside me.

[01:14:24] I'm just blown away. That was the crazy. That was the craziest visual I've ever seen. I just can't believe his hand was just blurred. It was moving so fast. Yeah, his. But like you can understand why like the caravans took off when it's like we have to go see the person do the impossible thing and like play a game doing. Yeah, absolutely. This is five years after. I think it's five years after like Space Invaders. Yeah.

[01:14:52] Which like Space Invaders blew everyone away, you know, and obviously like that's that's it was great. But like, man, slow moving compared to the guy. It's like, watch me press this button 17 times per second. Watch me blow your mind and not break this controller by going crazy with it. Like watch. Like that's insane. That's some real frickin skill, man. Like that's that's really impressive. That's impossible. Like, do you think he uses that as like a.

[01:15:21] Not like a party trick, but like he goes somewhere and he like like I just imagine trying to pick up a girl or something and he's just like check this out. Like I was really big in the 90s. He's just like, like, OK. And like what does he carry around that little thing everywhere? He's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would. It's cool. Not. Yeah. Hey, you gotta you gotta work with what your best at, man. That's you gotta do what you gotta do.

[01:15:53] I mean, he is not one, but he is not one but two video game characters modeled after him. So, you know, yeah, you said the Adventure Island. What's the other one? Oh, it's the Star Gagnon. He's like, oh, OK. And it's like his likenesses in it. But Adventure Island one's a little insulting. But I do remember it. Yeah. If you see a picture of him in the 80s where he's like wearing a baseball hat and like just kind of standing around, you're like, no, OK, I see it. Like, yeah, that's. Oh, there it is. Yeah, that's him.

[01:16:23] How about that? Because I also I feel like that looks a little weird. And I think I did. I think when I wrote about Adventure Island, I put the like a photo of him and a photo of the character. Yeah. I was like, oh, shit, that is. That is him. How about that? It's not. It's not too, too bad. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's here we go. 86. Is that what it is? Yeah. So that's, you know, people got it. People should look it up because it's it's pretty.

[01:16:56] Yeah, I see. I see where you're from. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a shirt on there, you know, unlike his video game counterpart. But yeah. But is he wearing a hula skirt? There it is. The question is it like that's him. You know, you're like, oh, yeah. OK. Yeah. You could see it on vacation. You know, no sure. There you go. This is what he does on his spare time on vacation or just or just, you know, when he decides to cruise an island. That's yeah, it's fine. I can't. I can't see it.

[01:17:24] But it'd be so funny and be like, yeah, we base this video game character off of you. The main character really. Really? And he stands there like, oh, OK, this is how you see me. Are those what are those? Are those my nipples? If you want them to be. They can. How did you know? How did you know? Oh, they come to work shirtless on Sundays.

[01:17:53] You never see me. Oh, man. One time. Yeah, it was. It was only that one time. Adventure Island Game Boy. Oh, yeah. Hmm. Oh, these games. OK. Star Soldier, everybody might might be a little hard and and and expensive to kind of find the cartridge at this point or apparently the box. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, did you mess with the difficulty at all?

[01:18:23] Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I did. Yes. OK, because I did. There's no chance I was going to get to the sixth stage on the normal difficulty. Not this. Yeah, I will say, though, it feels it feels very cheap to not do the regular difficulty. Like I would never do the expert difficulty like that's not me. But going to beginner like swapping it down your weapon is just automatically like the highest which I feel like that's a fundamental.

[01:18:53] It feels like cheating. Basically, it feels like cheating. It's like a part of the game. I thought there was like at least one that you pick up that that ups it a bit. No, my. I'm pretty sure it just starts off max power and that it just feels like that's like a part of the essential like gameplay like being able to pick up these power ups and retain your power ups. So it just it feels cheap. And I just would recommend don't soil your experience like just try to get good and at least play through a couple levels.

[01:19:23] Yeah, I think I think on the normal one I might have made it to four. I think so I didn't do too bad. But if the first couple feel like a little too tough, I would I wouldn't say shy away from trying the easy one. But maybe you'll get a better handle of the way things. I would feel I'd say I'd say if they feel a little tough to you. So you just probably suck. Hey, I don't have to tell you. Hey. Oh, hey, I am not questioning. I've said that from the beginning. I do not. Hey, man, I'm not saying I'm good. I suck.

[01:19:53] But I acknowledge it, you know, better. You got to keep practicing. You got to know where to sit on the screen so you can't be hit. Period. Apparently some of the guys that we're watching here. It's it is a it is skill, though. It is. It's not one of those games where you can just sort of, you know, bulldoze your way through it. Like it seems like that. It definitely appears to be that. And so and maybe the first level you can pull it off maybe. But after that, you really got to sort of focus on it, whether you're going for a score

[01:20:21] or whether you're just going to survive and get from from through each mission and stuff like that. Yeah, just try to survive. Try to survive. Try to survive. Don't don't worry about the score. You'll you'll get it. And and Mark, you've mentioned it a couple times, too. But like the the two and five minute mode things, I forgot about that earlier, but I found those pretty fun. I like those sort of a bite sized thing and just sort of I, you know, I played up my own scores and tried to beat my own scores a couple times. And two minutes feels like, oh, yeah, you can get through the first stage kind of in a

[01:20:51] couple of minutes is up to five minutes is like, oh, this is like it's a little bit of an endurance test, too. It's not easy. And it is interesting to sort of trying to approach it with different ships in different ways and stuff like that. I found that to be a pretty fun idea. And I actually gravitated to them more than I thought I would. I thought they would just be kind of like a throwaway option, but I liked them. I thought they were pretty fun. It's the power of the caravan, you know? Yeah, they're enjoyable even when you don't have the actual van attached to it. The power of the caravan. Jiggy's going to find that van.

[01:21:20] Jiggy's going to find the van. I totally would look. I want to know. That would be sick. It's that or the Oscar Mayer Wiener car. I guess get a dream. The dream. The dream. The dream garage. I see. It's cool looking. Dude, those vans are pretty cool looking. They are. Oh man, the art and everything. Yeah, it is cool. Dang, they're like school bus covered or colored, not covered, colored. They look awesome. Yeah. Art on the side.

[01:21:51] Oh man, if I saw that pull up, I'd be like, what is. Yeah. Oh, I did. I've been lying for that. They did shoot them up most of the time for the caravans. But at one point they made. They made like a. A bomber man one that was. They made an HD TV for it essentially in like 93. Oh, what? Yeah. And they had this there and it was.

[01:22:20] Yeah. Ten player HD widescreen. So that it could fit all the players in 19. I see it. Right. Yeah. Oh, I don't see the van. Yeah. Yeah. Was that one of the one of the caravans? Wow. Widely regarded. Bomberman 1993 is widely regarded as the first HD video game. Oh, wow. That's a really cool fact. I never knew. Holy cow. Go bomber man. Bomberman deserves more.

[01:22:50] Yeah, that is cool looking. Yeah. People are look that up. Look up those that sort of big screen sort of. That's crazy. Yeah. Cause to be able to fit all those people and what, yeah, that the players and stuff. Wow. Never bomber. Yeah. And it's like the only, it's like the only thing that it was used for. It's not like high 10 bomber man was released anywhere else. Cause like, what are you going to do? How could you? Yeah. In people and you didn't have HD at the time. So it was like. There'd be, there'd be no other way to pull it off. That's true. Yeah. That's so wild.

[01:23:20] Yeah. That experience was so singular, like so exclusive to be able to experience it. That's awesome. I'm really jealous. Yeah. High 10 bomber man. Amazing. I wasn't even, I was, I was a twinkle in my daddy's eye at that point. I was almost here, but I was just a twinkle still. I was, I was getting my SNES and, and game boy, I think in 92, 93.

[01:23:45] So now that I say that it's possible, I may have been almost here. Depends. Depends where the caravan was, right? Just kind of depends on where, where that van was headed that, that month. Crucial to my existence. That big screen TV. The first HD bomber man was crucial to existence. You didn't even know it. You learn something, you learn something new every day. Happy. We can help Jiggy.

[01:24:12] Mark, before we get out of here, let's remind everybody where they can, where they can find you online and your, and your writing too. Sure. I'm a, where am I these days? I'm on blue sky. It's just a, my name. I'm pretty sure. Do I have? Yeah. No hyphen or anything. Just mark normand and dot BSky dot social. Uh, I didn't give myself a special address or anything. Yeah. Like some people have done. It seems like work, you know, I had to verify some shit. I don't know. Yeah. That's enough.

[01:24:42] Yeah. Um, uh, my writing is, uh, retro XP dot beehive. That's with two eyes.com. Um, Um, OBI. Damn. That was good. I didn't, I didn't see that coming. Sign up for that newsletter. It's free. It's a lot of words. I think today's the one I wrote published today was like 3,400 words on, um, the different shoot them up. That is even more obscure.

[01:25:12] So I'm not always writing about those. It just happened to line up that way. Um, we're just really good at what we do here at the show. So I just, I would, if I wrote about them as much as I wanted to, I think I would probably have fewer subscribers. I try and keep it to like, it's like, I'm like, I'm normal about them. That I have some kind of problem that people not know about problems, skill, color, whatever you want.

[01:25:40] He sits in his van and I show up at pace magazine a couple of times a month. Um, again, usually writing about older games, but sometimes, sometimes with a review of something new, sometimes with, uh, some kind of take on something going on in the news. Um, yeah, that's, that's the video game stuff. Uh, for the most part. Nice. Um, and Jiggy, uh, March, April ish as this episode is, uh, is released.

[01:26:10] Uh, how's, how's things going, buddy? You're, you're always busy. You're always taking ass, taking names. I know you're playing a couple of games and streams and stuff. How's everything going? Oh yeah. I've been playing quest 64, which I've never experienced before. I think you did an episode on it, right? No, I've never played it. Okay. Well, I look forward to the day we're going to do an episode on it. Um, it's actually not that bad.

[01:26:36] I, I'm surprised that people always have this like notorious, at least this is my experience. And I'm like six hours into the game, maybe. And I'm just like, it's very grindy and I could see why that would rub people the wrong way, but it's very charming and it feels good to play. It's, it was interesting. Great. Um, I'm not saying it's a 10 out of 10 game, but I'm not saying it's a one out of 10 that I keep seeing everyone, you know, kind of talking about it notoriously.

[01:27:05] I'm like, I'm having fun with it and it's silly and you know, it's great. You're having fun. It's fine. Like the, uh, it's like star soldier is to the Saturn where you're like, Hey, this is good. But like the Saturn has better shoot them ups like quest 64. This is a system that doesn't have a ton of RPG. So everyone compares it to like, well, it's on the PlayStation instead of just kind of right. Or, or compares it to like paper Mario or something, which is like, yeah, in my opinion, fantastic. That's great. And that's, you know, I get it.

[01:27:34] I see why people gravitate towards that. So yeah, it's fun. So that's, that's the immediate thing. And then I get a couple of videos in the works. Yeah. You know, I always do as, as you do, as you do, sir. Um, remember 64 does as well, not quite as much as jiggy does, but, um, I, as I mentioned earlier across YouTube, uh, across social media, remember 64 show when I say across social media, pretty much just Instagram and blue sky. That's pretty much where everything's going to be happening at this point. Uh, if you want to support the show, there's a free tier for Patreon as well.

[01:28:04] But as I mentioned earlier, you can get some stuff exclusively through one, three or five bucks a month. You can get some extra stuff there, uh, to support the show, but, uh, that's pretty much it just, if you're listening to this, when it releases and just before these episodes are about to come out, we have two really great episodes. We are getting to the point where it's time to talk banjo Kazooie. Mm hmm. Episode 64 is here. We have Mr. Jiggy himself with us for so long at this point.

[01:28:34] It is about time that we got to that. So, um, yeah, there it is. There's the jiggy. There's the look back. There's the rare logo. The rare logo. Everything's there. Um, so yeah, so if you're listening to this when it's, uh, when it's released or pretty close, uh, banjo Kazooie is going to hit your feed as well, as well as talking about the GBA games that were based in that franchise as well. So we want to take a little bit of a detour on an episode about that. A lot of great stuff coming up too, for the rest of 2025, but thank you everyone for listening. Mark, thank you for being here.

[01:29:02] And, uh, we will talk to everyone next time. Thanks for joining us. Goodbye. Remember 64 is part of the super pod podcast network. Oh yeah. We are teamed up with a whole bunch of awesome people that some, you may have heard on remember 64 already, but there's a bunch of different great gaming shows anywhere from fine time to bar silence to retro wild lands.

[01:29:31] You can of course find the super pod saga on their press B to cancel all of these awesome shows that's are just here to talk about great times with games, share their thoughts with you, our experiences with you. Check us out super pod network on your podcast app of choice and super pod network.com where you can find all our shows, blog posts, videos, and more.