Ranking Our Favorite GameCube Exclusives | Kirby Air Ride, Warioware & More

[00:00:05] It's good food without a toot. Hey, welcome to Super Ghost. We're starting it right the fuck here, man. We're already pumped up and ready to go. It's right, superfood without a toot. Yes, I'm Aaron. You probably don't know me. I'm one of the four co-hosts of Super Ghost. And I'm joined by Jacob. What's up, man? Hey, man. Thanks for having me on the show today. We kicked it off with a bunch of bangers. We listened to some Foxbox television theme songs to get pumped. And now we're here for the GameCube.

[00:00:33] Damn right. We know. We're hopping right from the Foxbox to the GameCube, goddammit. They were all about. It is the same-ish era, though, so I think we're in the right headspace. Damn right. So we've got nine GameCube exclusives. And just to make things even more complicated, because I love doing that, we can zigzag it. Like, I'll do one, you do one, I'll do one, you do one. We'll introduce each game, talk a little bit about why they're special to us and any, like, nostalgic, warm feelings we have for them.

[00:01:02] And then we're going to rank the crap out of them. And that's going to be difficult, because I know I didn't plan on a specific criteria. I'm just kind of going based off, like, vibes or whatever, but... We love vibes. Yep. All about vibes here. They just all can't be S's, though. That's the only rule, right? It's going to be hard that I'll put them all in S. Goddammit. Mm-hmm. But, um... So the first one, I think we should talk about, because this is one that we both have on our list. Custom Robo.

[00:01:29] Every fucking time I bring this game up to anyone, they're always... We discussed this a little bit before the show, too. Everybody always gets it confused with, like, Zoids or, like, any... Literally any other mech-based thing. They'll be like, oh, what makes it different from that? That's... There's a lot of things. Jacob, take it away. Man, Custom Robo came out in 04.

[00:01:54] It was like a mid-cycle GameCube game where it had a, like, an RPG on top. Yes. But the core of the actual thing itself was you made these little robots fight in a very small arena, and you could have direct control over the robots and could change the parts that go in them. And so you could have one that, like, jumps a whole bunch or is very fast or has a gun that homes. There just was so many options.

[00:02:22] And weirdly, it copped with the same energy to me that Mega Man Battle Network did, just as far as, like, the story did. But the gameplay was way better than it should have been. Like, on paper, you look at it and you go like, this is probably a 6 or a 7 game. Nah, this game's an 8 in my heart. Yeah. I don't know about you. Dude, no, it's a perfect 10 to me. Like, again, it's going to be hard not to put everything in S.

[00:02:48] But, dude, what I love about Custom Robo is that, like, there's so many different kinds of parts you can put on these guys. Like, you can build your perfect fighting machine based off whatever the hell kind of fighting style you like to be. Like, there's the lighter weight bodies that have less HP, but they're faster. There's the big guys that have more HP, but they're slower, blah, blah, blah. There's that goddamn gun that shoots little laser swords that, like, fly in the air and then haul them in at your enemy. There's, like, the dragon gun that spews fire.

[00:03:18] There's all sorts of cool shit. And then there's just, the game gives you so many different, like, so many tools, I guess, to your toolbox for, like, if an enemy is hiding behind walls too much or if they're, like, if they're too fast. Like, there's all sorts of ways you can counteract that type of shit. Like, you have your pods, whatever. But, man, that RPG-ishness that you're talking about, like the story mode. Oh, my God, the soundtrack.

[00:03:47] Oh, God, the fucking world map theme is so good. Oh, I love the story mode is, like, it's not like, you know, Xenosaga or fucking Chrono Trigger. It's not going to blow anybody's mind, but it's just goofy, dumb, like, Saturday morning cartoon fun. Like, it's... Yep. It's, like, a Camelot RPG or a Mega Man Battle Network, like I said, or even, like, the Pokemon trading card game for Game Boy Color. Like, it's that level of...

[00:04:18] Don't think... It's more than that, but it's cops the same energy and it... Like, don't overthink it. Just roll with it. And the battles sometimes even could last as short as, like, 45 seconds, even though you have 1,000 HP. Those battles could last 45 seconds if you are mismatched or play it poorly. Yep. But... And then there's, like... There's a lot of times where you get to... Well... Yeah, there's a lot of battles where you'll be, like, 2v2 or free-for-all.

[00:04:43] As a kid, I would always try to get my friends together to play this game with me because it was always me playing this alone. I never had anybody to play with. So I'm constantly clamoring for this game to get a remaster or, like, a remake with online multiplayer. Because I feel like that shit would spank. Like, if you could do online custom robo, more parts, more people in a holiseum. That's what it's called, by the way, listeners. Or viewers. It's a holiseum. Not a coliseum.

[00:05:13] It's a holiseum. But, yeah, I think that would be really cool. That's custom robo. Because it was originally a 64 game. I think it was a 64DD game in Japan. And then they brought it to GameCube. And then there's also a custom robo V2 on 3DS. Either DS or 3DS. There's two on 64. There's Arena on DS. There's a Game Boy Advance game. And then this one. I think this one came out in between all that.

[00:05:41] So it was two on the 64, this guy, and then GBA and then DS. Yep, you're totally right. But I remember playing the DS game. It's just not the same. No, it's... I think the fidelity is just a little bit different. Oh, man. I remember discovering this game. Like, I only knew about this game's existence because of the Smash Bros. trophies. And eventually I discovered it at a movie gallery, which I don't know if there's...

[00:06:10] Movie gallery is like a Midwest chain of movie rental places. And I discovered custom robo there. And I was like, Dad, Dad, we have to get this. I need to take this home now. And he was like, all right, calm down. Let's go. And I do... I was a Wavebird person, but I could imagine that this game had some wicked rumble if you had a not Wavebird controller. I bet, yeah. Like that every time you got hit with a bullet, your controller was shaken. Oh my God, yeah. This game...

[00:06:40] I really wish this was on NSO. Like, if there's any game that needs to be on Nintendo Switch Online more than anything, it's probably this. I know a lot of people like to say fucking Chibi-Robo or something, but I mean, that's not a good example. But custom robo. God damn it. Great game. And I will... I'll let you pick the next one. Which... What's the next one you want to introduce? Man, let me talk about WarioWare.

[00:07:09] Well, actually, I'll go to... I'll go to Ultimate Muscle Legends versus New Generations because that's what sort of inspired us to sing Fighting Foodons and all these Fox Box because it was an anime that played on, you know, Fox for Kids or... Is that what it was called before it was the Fox Box? Yeah. It was... Four Kids TV? Is that what it was called? I think that was after Fox Box. I think it was... Okay. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought it was like Fox Kids and then Fox Box and then Four Kids? Or maybe it's the other way around.

[00:07:39] I'm not sure entirely. But either way, based on an anime, this game was only available on Gameplay. GameCube at the start and then we got a version on PlayStation 2, which was Galactic Wrestling featuring Ultimate Muscle. But for all intents and purposes, this is an AkiCorp wrestling game, which if you're an old school wrestling head, you know that the Aki games are always great and it had that same engine that would have powered all the old WCW and WWF games. And so the wrestling was real good.

[00:08:08] And I didn't really know the characters until I started watching the show, but they were all so unique and interesting. I mean, for those that were watching G4 back in the day, in the amount of times that Dick Dick Van Dick was set on television, and I think they got to get away with it because it was the name of the character and it wasn't spelt D-I-C-K. They did it. But the cool part is that because it wasn't a human being, these are like aliens that are wrestling, they could do superhuman feats of strength.

[00:08:36] That would include jumping off the rope and then diving directly at their enemy in order to do like a grapple move. And the special moves were just the best. And not only that, but you could also customize a character. And there were finishers from the anime, but also there were just some other sort of made up ones. The wrestling was good. The story mode was good. The wrestling was good. This is over, underrated video game in the pantheon of GameCube games.

[00:09:06] And whenever I can yell about it, I do. Good. Good. Just like how I'm going to take a minute to yell about Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Woohoo! Good game. Another movie gallery find. So, we didn't get shit for Final Fantasy on GameCube. You know, PS2, well, I mean, even Xbox. But yeah, the one Final Fantasy that we did get on GameCube, it actually was really fucking cool.

[00:09:30] Nothing like, you know, Final Fantasy X or X-2, hell even like XII or XI or whatever. But Crystal Chronicles is essentially like a dungeon crawler. Where you pick from like one of four different races of different characters. Like there's one that has much better defense. Ones that are better with magic. Ones that are better with physical attacks.

[00:09:58] Ones that are better at dodging, I think is what the last one was. And as you go through and you defeat the bosses at the end of each dungeon, you'll unlock a permanent upgrade for your character. Like strength plus whatever. Or like a bonus to this stat. Or bonus to whatever. Blah blah blah. But like one of the coolest but like suckiest things. So the entire time you're going through the dungeons and shit. You gotta carry the bucket.

[00:10:28] You gotta carry the crystal bucket. You gotta carry the crystal bucket because the whole world. Well, I forget if it's the world or if it's just the dungeons. But they're covered in this miasma. Miasma? I don't know how to say that for the life of me. It's just like thick poisonous fog. But your little like crystal bucket. It's got like a little barrier that protects you from it. And if you're playing single player, your little moogle friend just carries it for you. So it's fine. Like whatever. You just do whatever.

[00:10:57] But there was like a weird co-op to it where you had to have Game Boy Advance and the cable. You could not plug in another controller and play co-op that way. No, no, no. Fuck you. That's not how this game works. It has to be the GBA with the cable for each person that isn't player one. Spent $800 on hardware, you goof. Exactly. Oh, God. That annoyed the fuck out of me. And nobody had those cables. So I could never play co-op. God damn.

[00:11:27] I wish we were friends back in the day because I had four sets of them because I was a crazy person. Oh, fuck. See? Man, I shouldn't have grown up in Iowa. I should have moved. As soon as I was born, I should have moved. God damn it. Come to Canada. We'll take you. You and your precious GBA to GameCube cables. Did you play any of the other games? This is a small side tangent that used that cable because there was Four Swords Adventures. There was that one. Metroid Prime was a good one. Yep.

[00:11:55] Wind Waker, I think, had a tingle thing. Oh, Sonic Adventure was a good one, too. You could stick with the Chow Garden in there and take them to go on Sonic Advance or something. There's a million Sonic games on the GBA. I think that was it. I think that's all I can think of. I'm sure others will come to us. Oh, WarioWare also had one, too. That and the Pokemon games. Coliseum and shit.

[00:12:23] You could use your Pokemon from there on there. That's it. Man, what a killer system that was. So should I then go to another GameLink cable game and talk about WarioWare Mega Microgames? Please, God, do. I'm a big WarioWare junkie. Preach it. Dude, for those who don't know, I don't know how you don't know at this stage in life, but many it's micro games. So they take four to eight seconds.

[00:12:50] And so what the GameCube game did is it was essentially a upgrade, a weird like upgrade version of the first GBA game Mega Microgames, where they took a lot of the I think, if not all, almost all of the micro games that were in the GBA version. And just put it on GameCube. But then there were multiplayer elements to that game, which I played that so many like I played the multiplayer in this so frickin much.

[00:13:20] There were games I forced my friends to play when they came over and WarioWare Mega Party Games was one of them. Sorry, Mega Party Games is the appropriate title here, not Mega Microgames. How dare I? But did you play this one? Did you like this one? I was a big wobbly bobbly guy. Fuck yeah. Yeah, I played the crap out of this game as a kid. I, uh, I, oh, what's the, what was the alien guy's name? It's like Zorbo or, um, he's got like the bowling pin head.

[00:13:49] Oh my God. What is his name? Um. Oh, Orbulon. Orbulon. Fuck. I was so close with Zorbo. Um, yeah, I played this game to death. This and, um, and Smooth Moves I played to flippin death, man. Yeah, I, uh, wobbly bobbly I really liked. Uh, there's like a listen to the doctor. I like that. Yeah. But just the games are always so, even the ones that were sort of playing off Nintendo's nostalgia.

[00:14:19] Oh yes. Those were great, but the original ones were also really fantastic. And even the little games that they would include that were sort of little single player one-offs like the, the paper, the paper airplane. I don't know if that was in the GBA or the GameCube version, but just letting that paper airplane go down and avoid shit was great. Oh dude. Bring, I'm having a big old nostalgia blast now. Remember the, uh, uh, there was that one where like Wario was spinning on a wheel and you have to stop him or whatever. That was good. Yeah.

[00:14:49] There's a million I can go off about. I'm not going to, I'm not going to start this whole thing now, but. There was also the one that was like tic-tac-toe, uh, called Milky Way Delirium where you would just play games to get specific, uh, places on the tic-tac-toe board. It's yeah. What a, I think there was even like one based on the e-reader also, if I remember correctly. Oh, I'm sure there was. You would just draw cards and those cards were micro games. And if you won the micro game, you would win, like you would keep drawing.

[00:15:18] And then if you drew a game and you won the game, you got the stack of cards and whoever had the most cards wins. Oh, that's so cool. What a time to be alive. Yeah. God damn it. I want to go play more, more WarioWare. Fuck. I want to go grab my e-reader. Said no one ever. Said no one ever. Just us. Dude. All right. So going off the whole Mario thing, um, Luigi's Mansion, man. I, um. B-b-b-b-b-b-b-mario?

[00:15:46] I have the, the sound of Luigi turning the door, the, the knob to a locked door. Still stuck in my, like, wah, wah, wah, bum, bum. That's still in my, like, forever locked inside my brain. Um, no, this wasn't the first game I ever got for my GameCube. It was like one of the, the first five I think I got for it. Cause my dad gave me money one time for my birthday or Christmas. And I was like, cool dad. And I walked on down to Kmart. Uh, if anybody remembers Kmart.

[00:16:15] I walked to Kmart, bought the game. And then because I was a stupid little piece of shit kid, I couldn't figure out how to get back home. So here I am. Walking around the town my dad lived in. I couldn't find my way back home. And I was just dragging along this, like, Kmart shopping bag with Luigi's Mansion. And I was like, I'm never gonna get home and play this game. My dad's never gonna know I'm missing. My parents didn't love me.

[00:16:44] Oh my god. And then eventually, it turns out I was going the wrong way. I just walked up the hill and boom, there's my dad's house. But, um, yeah, Luigi's Mansion is just like, every time I play it, it feels like I'm kind of uncovering something a little new. Or like something I totally forgot about last time and didn't do. But, um, it's just a fun, I almost said fun dump. It's just a fun little romp that's like... A fun dump. Yeah, it is a little fun dump.

[00:17:13] Yeah, a little nostalgia dump. It's so short, so quick and easy. Like, I just, I love the music in it too. I love just going around every single room in the mansion, clearing everything out, sucking up all the dollar bills and coins I can find. And then, um, when Luigi gets a key and he's like, haha, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. I love that. So good. The ghosts were also iconic.

[00:17:40] Like, of course you get Boo, but just those little pink and blue and yellow ghosts and their little shapes going into that little vacuum, little EGAD vacuum. Iconic. Iconic. I played it, uh, I want to say five or six years ago for the second or third time in my life. And like you said, it still holds up. Because I think it is on, it's on GameCube obviously, but then they also ported it to 3DS. Yeah, for whatever reason. Yeah. Yeah. And then Dark Moon is also on 3DS.

[00:18:08] Someday, because my partner, she's played Luigi's Mansion 3 and she loved Gooigi. Someday I will go back and play Dark Moon and then Luigi's Mansion 3, but not this year. Not this year. Not today, I see. Not this year. No. What's your next game? Uh, my next game, I got two left. Let's just go Mario Power Tennis. Uh, I loved the Camelot, you know, sports games. Oh, hell yeah.

[00:18:33] Whether they were on a Game Boy or on a GameCube or on an N64, this is the second game in the Mario Tennis series. And it just really perfected, it's like the N64 version had aspirations that were a little outsized for the hardware that they were playing with. But then Mario Power Tennis was sort of the fully realized version of that. It was crisp. Uh, the character movement was great. There was a lovely back and forth with some of the, uh, you know, either the, the gimmick

[00:19:02] courts that you played or also some of the, like, powers that you could use to, you know, hit the ball back. It's, it really was, like, I've played all of them since they came out and I played, uh, Ultra Smash, I played Aces, and then we actually just got the new Mario Tennis for Switch 2 and we've been playing that. And nothing really, I think, beats the peak of the GameCube sports games for Mario, but Mario Tennis specifically. I will tell you, it was a hard, I'm like, one of these has to be a Mario sports game.

[00:19:32] Mm-hmm. And I had a real hard time picking one because Sluggers is great too. Oh, yeah. Like, and, and Strikers is awesome also. Uh, and, uh, what was it? Toadstool Tour. People still say that stuff. Yep, that's also fantastic. Yeah, people say that's like the best Mario golf game. Um, did they do any other Mario baseball games other than Sluggers or was that? Yeah, they did, they did one for Wii. I think it was just called Super Sluggers if I'm not mistaken. Okay, yeah.

[00:19:56] And so there's, there's, there would be two baseball, two soccer, or is there three soccer? There's three soccer because they had a Switch one. Um, but Mario golf, they haven't, Mario golf they also did on Switch. But they haven't brought back, um, baseball. And I'm dying for it. I need it. You know what, or basketball. Like three, Mario hoops three on three. With all the Final Fantasy characters because it was made by Square Enix. That was cool.

[00:20:23] You'd be a Cactar playing, uh, I almost said Cactar playing Cactar. No, wait, they had a, no, it was NBA Street with Mario characters. That's right. Okay. Yes. That was cool too. Yes. Um. Mm-hmm. Also on GameCube. Oh, that's true. That V3 is a GameCube game. One more tangent. Uh, there was also, I think it was SSX on tour on the GameCube. Yep. You could also play as like Mario, Luigi, and Peach. Yep.

[00:20:52] Yeah, that was cool. I think that was, that was it for that. Oh, and Soul Calibur with Link. That was cool. It was really cool. Mm-hmm. Soul Calibur could have been on this, uh, not an exclusive, even though I had an exclusive character, so I guess it doesn't count. Yeah. Oh, and he had exclusive weapons too. Like different shields and swords and shit. It was so good. Another game I put too much time into. Just like I did with Kirby Air Ride. Oh my God, man. Um. As a kid.

[00:21:19] It was just, it was unlike any other racing, well, cause the only other racing games I'd played until that, up until that point were like, um. Oh, okay. I'm blanking on the name. Mario Kart Double Dash. There we go. Double Dash. Uh, Need for Speed Underground. Like. F-Gro GX. Oh, yeah. Oh, I think I played that after Kirby Air Ride. That'll come after. I think. I think that was after Kirby Air Ride for me. And then, um, I dabbled with Midnight Club on my, my brother's PS2 for a little bit. That was pretty good.

[00:21:49] Mm-hmm. But, Kirby Air Ride was, uh, I've always thought of it as more of like a, like a battle racing game akin to like, uh, akin to Twisted Metal or... Vigilante 8. Vigilante, yeah. Or Carmageddon or something. Like, the racing is good and it's fast-paced, high-octane, in-your-face type shit. But the, the city trial is where the game for sure shines.

[00:22:16] You know, you, you and like maybe eight other people at the time or maybe six. I forget how many it was limited to. But, yeah, you run around the city, collect power-ups. Everybody knows this now because Kirby Air Riders is out. Mm-hmm. Um, and, yeah, you collect power-ups. Uh, go play a game and then... Sometimes a game that could take 10 seconds. You, you play five minutes around the city and then just to power up your cart and then

[00:22:43] maybe it's a 10-second game where you just have to speed your way through and then float to a target or, uh, Drag Race as an example. Drag Race was good. Oh, my God. And by today's standards, now that we have Kirby Air Riders, um, the first game is, it is kind of bare bones compared to that. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, fuck. Like, the original game just did so much. And they had that cool tie-in with, uh, Kirby right back at ya. Dude, shout right back out to Foxbox. Um, they had that little tie-in. What?

[00:23:13] Yeah, they had a little tie-in where, uh, they had an episode where the Shadow Star, the Formula Star, and, like, a couple other star vehicles were in the show. And they were like, which one will Kirby, uh, will Kirby do something with in the show? And then, then they started shouting out Kirby Air Ride and shit. It was super cool. Wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. Look, there's, I found a clip on the Reddit. And, man, what a good cartoon that was.

[00:23:42] We were spoiled back in the day. We really were. God, that theme song is such a bop, though. Kirby, Kirby, Kirby, he's the star of the show. I'm not gonna sing it again. I don't know how you felt about Air Riders, but I didn't love it. As a huge Air Ride stan myself, huge. I guess I was disappointed. It's one of those things where I look back and I said, was I wrong as a child about Air Ride? Nah, I couldn't have been. No, you definitely weren't. Air Ride is good.

[00:24:08] I did, I did really love Air Riders, especially all the new shit that they added to, to the city trial and all the new vehicles and the way you could customize them to make stupid shit. I loved it. I mean, they probably could have added more stuff to it, but I think it's, it's cool that we finally got a sequel and, yeah, it still feels very familiar. Or maybe charged a little less for it instead of it being a full price game. But, you know, the Nintendo tax, we know.

[00:24:37] Yeah, maybe that. Like, it feels like a $40, $50 game? Yes, it certainly does. I don't think I'd be mad if it was that price. $40 especially, yeah. Who are we kidding? It's 2026. Yeah. Games are now $100 in joy. Oh, God. My last game is Super Smash Bros. Melee, which I feel like is the easy, low-hanging fruit, but I had to do it. Needs no explanation. It doesn't. It's a nearly perfect video game.

[00:25:05] It's a game that they've been chasing. Well, I mean, it's interesting because Nintendo, I think, actively hates Smash and that people like Smash. They prefer, like, Smash went off into a corner and then never came back. We just keep clamoring for Smash. And I think Ultimate gets really close to being Melee, but it took a long time to get there. But it's classic. The fighting's perfect. Almost every character is fun to play. The story mode is great. Either the arcade or the full story mode. It's just, it's a good-ass video game.

[00:25:35] It really is, man. And they added so many more new characters. Like, I feel like with every new game in that series, they add more and more and more characters. Because I think it was, what, four bonus characters in the first game? And then in May, they were like, fuck it. Have them all. Have Ganondorf. Here's fucking Mr. Game & Watch for no reason. Here's Marth and Roy. Fucking everybody else. Master Hand. Crazy Hand?

[00:26:04] Was Crazy Hand in this one? Or was that Brawl? I think Crazy Hand started... Was Crazy Hand not in the first? No, it wasn't. I think Crazy Hand started in Melee. That sounds right. Yes. Crazy Hand started in Melee. Yeah. Melee was just... When that first hand came down, or the second hand came down for the first time, I was like, what are we doing? Why is there two hands? I thought there was only one. Oh my gosh, man. I'll never forget the first time I unlocked Falco. I was like, what is this other Fox character doing here?

[00:26:34] Because I don't think I'd played Star Fox 64 until that time, but that shit was really cool. Or Toon Link and Young Link. Yeah. Was Toon Link in that? Yeah, I think he was. I think Toon Link might have been after Toon Link Super Mario. First... No, first appeared in Brawl. Toon Link. Oh, okay. Well, yeah. Young Link then. But Young Link might have appeared in Melee. He did.

[00:27:01] Young Link and Zelda and Ganondorf. And that's it. And Sheik. Yeah, Sheik. Oh, man. But was Sheik two separate characters in Melee or just one? Just one. Because he had to down B to go into Sheik. Yep. Back when Sheik was OP. Man, the amount of times that my cousins and I played that game on the Hyrule Field stage

[00:27:26] or the F-Zero stage or... Yeah. Needs no explanation. Nope. Just like Resident Evil 4. That was my other game I had on here, which I mean was an exclusive for... I'll allow it. But... How long exactly was it exclusive? Let's see.

[00:27:55] I bet it's two years. Because I think it went GameCube and then it went PS2. Then it went Wii. Then it went everywhere. I'm going to look it up real fast. 18 to 24 months is my bet. Oh, wow. Okay. So, it was exclusive to GameCube. So, it came out to GameCube January 2005. And then it came to PlayStation October 2005. So, it was like... Oh, shoot. Six months?

[00:28:25] Nine months. Wait. Nine months. Yeah, nine months. Yeah. That's... Yeah. So, whatever. Exclusive still. Sure. Yeah. I think people think of it as a GameCube game first. Yeah, because that was part of the whole Capcom 5 and everything. So, Resident Evil 4, my buddy at the time, he would come down to his dad's every other weekend and I would just watch him play the game. And he must have played through that game like five times until I was finally like,

[00:28:54] okay, I need to buy this game. I need to play it on my own, which I did. And then I also played through it like five times and unlocked everything. The Infinite Rocket Launcher, Chicago Typewriter, the Hand Cannon. Oh, and the Mercenaries mode, dude. That was so much fucking fun. Like, I don't know why that wasn't... No, it wasn't co-op at the time. No, it was single player, I think. But it should have been co-op at the time. Because, like, all the cool unlockable characters you could be.

[00:29:23] Like, fucking Honk, Leon, Ada, Krauser. There's another one I can't think of at the top of my head. But, yeah. Resident Evil 4. The original is still... I think it will... I don't know. Have you tried to play it in the last, like, ten years? I haven't. Because it's really like the stopping and shooting, having played the remake, it's tough to go back to. Now that I think about it, maybe it isn't...

[00:29:51] Maybe it doesn't hold up as well as some of these other games on this list. But, yeah. It's still good. I will tell you, the remake, have you played the, like, 2023 version? Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, it's still good. It's still good. You still got it. Still got it. And I think that's it for our games.

[00:30:21] So, we rank them. Do we want to add, like, a top tier to it? Like, god tier? Or, like, a lower tier? Or, does this look fine? Well, I think we just need to define, like... Because if we had our way, almost every game would be an S, right? So, are we going to have to go max two in each tier? Max three in each tier? Like, what are the rules, man?

[00:30:44] I think one big criteria, we'll say one big criteria for judging these would be, like, how well they hold up today. There's nine games, probably about, like, maybe two per tier. What? Two, four, six. Yeah. Yeah. Two per tier. How well they hold up today. Maybe some, like, replayability value to them. What do you think? I think that's great.

[00:31:11] Let's challenge ourselves to put two, and then if we get to the point where we just can't decide, then we can bend the rules. Because it's our dang tier list. We can do what we want. That's right. It's our tier list. It's our video. It's our world, goddammit. Let's start with WarioWare. Okay. I think, well, so it's a great game. Still good. Mm-hmm.

[00:31:39] But probably not as good as Smooth Moves or WarioWare Gold. No, I don't know if that's a good way to judge it. Because it's still a good game on its own. Mm-hmm. I think it's one that you could still pick up today that would almost bring you the same level of joy that you would have had as a young lad.

[00:32:03] I've not played it in probably five or six years at the, like, maybe a little more than that. But the multiplayer still holds up. The microgames, like, we still go back to the nostalgia factor in there. I don't think it's an S&A. But if you said, like, maybe it's a B tier, I might agree with you. Okay. B tier. B tier. Baby tier. Because I think there are perfect games here that still hold up as S or A. I think WarioWare is a B. Hell yeah.

[00:32:33] Okay. Let's, um... You know what? I think we could, as much as I hate to say it, I think we could probably put Resident Evil 4 in D. Because, I mean... Yep. It was great at the time. We have to. Yep. And I would say remake, if we were just judging today, remake, that would be an S&A.

[00:32:59] But strictly the old 2005 version, I don't think holds up super, super well in 2026. Okay. And we have to put a game in D. And so I think that's the D. Hell yeah. That sounds good. You know what? You can pick the next game. I think based on the way we spoke about it, I might put Luigi's Mansion in S. Yes. You know what?

[00:33:29] I was just thinking about this while you were talking about Dark Moon and Luigi's Mansion 3. I know that Luigi's Mansion 2 is far different from the first game. Because it's mission-based. And there's like a hub that you go to and shit. Well, I mean, I guess Luigi's Mansion... Oh, I don't want that. Yeah, it's mission-based. And that just doesn't sound like what I want from Luigi's Mansion. I haven't played 3, but I've heard it's good.

[00:33:55] But it doesn't ding the same dong as the first game. For lack of better words. So, yeah. I think Luigi's Mansion... It's such a beautiful, self-contained thing that you can kind of just poke around and there's always fun ghosts in situations they get into. Yeah. And the EGAD machine, whatever it's called. The, whatchamacallit 3000. The Gust. Poltergust. Poltergust. Post-Poltergust.

[00:34:24] That thing is still satisfying to use in 2026. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Because I replayed it. Maybe, I think it was last year or the year before that. I replayed it for SuperPod Network. And I don't recall having any control difficulties with it because I played it on my Wii U gamepad. Oh. Nice. As God intended. Yep. As God. It's the perfect Nintendo emulation machine right there. The old Wii U. Mm-hmm. And I'm trying to recall. No.

[00:34:53] No issues there. It was great. S tier. As much as I love Crystal Chronicles, it's not the best game. It's definitely not as good as WarioWare, I think. It's, um, I think this might be our other D tier. I don't, and here's the thing. I've, I've played this game a little bit. As I mentioned, I'm, I'm the sicko who had four of those cables and a spare Game Boy for

[00:35:22] the friend that didn't have a Game Boy to bring because I was that generous. Fuck, I should have lived there. It's still a unique, interesting multiplayer scenario that you don't get a lot of where, where like, hey, everybody has information on their own screen and they can, because it, there was information on your screen that you would use in that one, right? Uh, I think the screen was your map and I think that's it. It was your map and that's it because everything else was on the screen.

[00:35:51] But how many times did you get a like fun, interesting multiplayer like that? So I, since we have nine games, I don't think we need to put two in D. So I was going to say, if you want to put Crystal Chronicles in C, I'm down. That's good. Okay, great. I mean, Crystal Chronicles, C tier, it's perfect. Boom, there we go. All right. Which one are you doing next? Um, oof. Uh, Air Ride. Ooh. I can't put it in S tier.

[00:36:23] But I could barter with you. What you thinking? A or B? I'd say B. Okay. I'd say B. It's still, uh, it's unique. It's different. But it was pretty wonky. It was pretty dang wonky. Yeah. It, it definitely was a special game that when, when I had friends over, it's not the game

[00:36:50] we'd gravitate towards, but it was one that I would like force upon people to be like, you must play this. Yep. And it, it definitely is weird. It's not like a Mario Kart or an F zero or name another, like a wave race, uh, that you could just put in somebody's hand. You had to explain like, yeah, but then you have to get off your, your racer and then you have to jump on another star and then you have to collect these, all these different things around the map, but they only last for five minutes and then we're going to like dump it all and then play again.

[00:37:16] And even, even if you did do a regular race, it was still like, it's like with F zero or Mario Kart. Yeah. You'd have like a bunch of different buttons. Like you hold this to go, you hold this to power slide, push this to use items. Whereas an air ride, it's all a, it's all the a button. Do you push one button? Exactly. What if you pushed a to power slide?

[00:37:43] What if you pushed a, or I guess pressed, what if you pressed a to use items? What if you pressed a to go fuck yourself? I don't know. Well, that's Kirby air ride. Yeah. And I will say the race stuff I don't think was as interesting as the sort of city trial. And so for that reason, if, if part of the package isn't super compelling, then maybe it's a B tier. Okay. Okay. Maybe we'll come back to it, knock it down a peg or two. Who knows?

[00:38:13] Um, I think melee S you can't see, but I'm pointing to the S tier on my laptop. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That is a game that still people had been playing competitively. I played it recently. It, it is still very good. It's, it's probably the most balanced. Yeah, for sure. Like balanced. There's plenty of bonus shit to do. All the characters.

[00:38:39] Well, I shouldn't say all the characters are fun to play because I fucking hate playing as Bowser. Um, but I'm sure people who like playing as Bowser though, but yeah, melee is fucking awesome. I remember side tangent and then we'll move on. I remember reading a Nintendo power or some other, yeah, some other magazine back in the day at Walmart while my mom was trying on clothes.

[00:39:03] Um, I was flipping through that and they had like, they had predictions as to who the new characters would be in, in melee. And one person said Boshi for anybody that remembers fucking Boshi. Someone that's like fat blue Yoshi, right? Yeah. With the sunglasses, someone, someone either at, uh, uh, what are the Nintendo Nintendo power? I was looking at the Nintendo power poster.

[00:39:32] Uh, remember the name, but yeah, someone at Nintendo power or some other magazine was like, Hey, what if Boshi was in smash bros? We don't know what the fuck he does, but what if, right? Right. Your turn. Those Nintendo power writers got into the ayahuasca and they were like, what about Boshi though? They got together with sting and they did some real hardcore shit and they were like, Whoa, bro, wait, what if like, what if toadsworth was in the next smash bros or something? I don't know. You pick the next game. He's got a cane.

[00:40:01] He can use it as a baseball bat. He's in. Holy shit. I think you and I had similar feelings for custom Robo given it was on both of our lists. Hell yeah. I think it's, that's, that's an A tier game. Fuck. Yeah. A lot of people like to knock it down as a six or seven, but they're, they're wrong. Like, yeah. Story. It's a beautiful seven. It is a beautiful seven. A seven can be an A. That's a, that's a totally different grading system. That's how that works.

[00:40:31] That's how they do it in the U S right. Seven is a. Yeah. Sure. Fucking do. Um, I don't know if I can, well, I know the ultimate muscle cartoon. I remember, um, the main character, what's his name? What's the name again? What's the main character? Uh, Kaniku man. Is it Kaniku man? No, it's King muscle. King muscle. There we go. It's, well, it's King muscle and kid muscle. Kid muscle. And it's Kaniku man in, in Japan. Yeah.

[00:41:01] I remember there being an episode, um, of kid muscle wrestling some, it was like some tag team, like chess piece guys. Like there was like a horse guy. Yeah. It's like, Oh, now I need to know what the horseman character is. Um, ultimate muscle horse character is, Oh frick. Who is it? Oh, we're going to find out. It's ultimate. Oh, we're not going to get there. Terry, the kid. Terry, the kid. Terry, the kid. Checkmate.

[00:41:31] It was checkmate. No. Yes. Yes. And he had, he had a literal rook coming out of his shoulder or something. If I remember correctly. Yes. This has to be it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he changes forms. He's got a form where he changes into the horse. He's going to hope. Uh huh. Yep. Yep. This is him. Checkmate. I, I might have a proposition for you. Okay. I might be willing to barter and negotiate here and move Kirby Air Ride up based strictly

[00:41:59] on the city trialness and how good that is. Yep. Okay. I agree. If we move Kirby up to A, we put Mario Power Tennis at B and we put Ultimate Muscle at C. Could you live with this list? Let me take a gander. Hmm. Hmm. This is the tier list for sickos, but I'm into it. I like it. Somebody's going to look at it and be like, wait, Resident Evil 4 at D? What is this podcast, sir? No, they'll find out. They just got to listen to it.

[00:42:29] I think, I think this is good, man. I think that, I like this. Yeah. This is, uh, this is beautiful. It's making me tear up a little bit because of how beautiful it is. So I like it. A tier T-E-A-R or T-I-E-R? Oh, God damn it. T-I-E-R. Got you. Got you.

[00:43:00] That's it. All right. So we've got honorable mentions. I'm having trouble saying honorable because I'm real hyped up on this, uh, prime energy that was a dollar at Aldi. Mm-hmm. Yep. But. On that Logan Paul energy. Well done. Yes. Exactly. It's, I mean, 200 milligrams of caffeine. God damn, Logan Paul. Um. Enjoy not sleeping tonight. It'll wear off in like 10 minutes. Trust me. All right. We've got some cool honorable mentions.

[00:43:30] And, uh, the first one I want to bring up. I, I think probably everybody and their mom has played this. Mario Kart Double Dash. You know, uh, Baby Park. The fucking oval. We have 10 laps. And then you switch between characters the whole time. Yeah, man. Why haven't they done that again? Give me another tag team racing game. God damn it. We're ready for it. We are ready for it. Uh, another one. Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut. This was yet another movie gallery find.

[00:44:00] And I fell in love with this game. Mostly because of the Chow Garden. If, like, probably 90% of my love for this game is because of the Chow Garden and how addictive that show was. Yeah. And, and the soundtrack too. The soundtrack was really good. Especially Windy Valley. Um, yeah. The Chow Garden was just so fun to throw your chow around and watch them evolve and grow up to hate you and stuff. Good shit. City Escape. Great song. Oh, dude.

[00:44:30] Can't go wrong with City Escape. And F-Zero GX is my last one. And that was my first ever F-Zero game. I didn't know it even existed on Super Nintendo and N64. And it was so fucking addictive for me. First of all, because of how goddamn fast it is. Second of all, because you can make your own little craft or ship or car, whatever you want to call it.

[00:44:54] You can make it into different goofy shapes, put a different racer in there and then customize the stats and everything. And it was fun. And, dude, the tracks, especially when you get to the last fucking cup, like the Diamond Cup or something, that shit is just borderline impossible. It was, it was insane. I mean, you were going a thousand kilometers an hour or something, so I get it.

[00:45:18] And the thing that I always forget is that it was made by, um, I think back at the time they were called Amusement Vision, but then ended up becoming Riyaga Goku Studio. No shit, really? Yeah, yeah. Sega's divisions have gone back and forth, but I believe that they then went on to do, uh, Yakuza. Damn. They did Monkey Ball, they did F-Zero GX, Yakuza.

[00:45:49] Hell yeah. That's cool as fuck. Uh, speaking of Monkey Ball, uh, I've got Super Monkey Ball 2. Uh, I, for a long time had forgotten that these games, I think they were eventually put into a collection and then released on other consoles, but originally released on GameCube. It's just super fun to be able to, you know, play, uh, tilt those tracks and Marble Madness your way to some bananas. And the multiplayer modes were great. I played Monkey Target so frickin' much back in the day. Dude. Your little monkey will jump on the target.

[00:46:18] It's super fun. It's a great game. Monkey Balling, dude. My buddy and I, the same buddy that, uh, I would watch play Resident Evil 4. We would play Monkey Balling constantly. Um, another game with a fuckin' excellent fuckin' soundtrack. All these have pretty good soundtracks though. I mean, I don't know about, uh, Crystal Chronicles, but, uh, yeah. And I think I remember also Dole Bananas was a part of the game. Oh, fuck, yeah. They were trying so hard to sell Dole Bananas, dude. Mm-hmm.

[00:46:48] And I think it worked because they're the only banana people that I remember because of, uh, Monkey Ball. Uh, a pair of twos I have for you. Super Monkey Ball 2 and Pikmin 2. Uh, I think Pikmin 4 is a, is a nearly perfect video game. Pikmin 2, I think, is the, is the next one afterwards. It's just like, Pikmin 1's a fairly simple game, but then they just added different Pikmin and added a little more, you know, quality of life stuff to Pikmin to make it a game that

[00:47:14] is not just, uh, is Shigeru Miyamoto's weird-ass gardening nightmare. It's actually a really great game. And here's, here's my little Pikmin for the, uh, for the home viewer. Hey! There he is. But, uh, that's, that's an excellent game. Pikmin 2, uh, led the series to greatness and I think was re-released on Wii, if I'm not mistaken, also. And then Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg from Team Sonic, or Sonic Team is my third honorable mention. I scream out this game whenever I can.

[00:47:40] It is, uh, underrated as far as platformers go. It's just a, just a little guy and he's, he's rolling around his big egg and you're doing platforming and, and, and shooting your egg at, at bad guys to beat him up. It's, it's stupid and fun. Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. Yeah, man. It was great having you on. Uh, if you want, go ahead and plug all your stuff that you want to, that you want people to go listen to or follow you at, all that stuff.

[00:48:10] I'll do the speed run in Sonic form. Uh, you can find me on blue sky at jacob.bsky.social. That's where I'm, I'm doing all my, can I call it the thing that people call it? Where I'm doing all my skeeting? Ew. But then you can find me on podcasts everywhere. I'm on to call the love behind game club, which is a video game book club podcast for, just kidding. Were you, were you doing the Sonic Heroes? I was doing the City Escape song while you were doing your speed run. Continue. Sorry. Oh, to keep going. Don't let me interrupt you. Um, the love behind game club.

[00:48:39] It's a video game book club podcast. We've been going for almost 10 years now. Um, you can find me on that one and then class by conversations, which is a indie focused, uh, video game podcast coming out biweekly. Uh, if either of those are your thing, you can find them on podcast services everywhere. Thank you for having me. Hell yeah, man. This is fun having you on. We definitely got to do more stuff. Yeah. What? This idea just sparked, we need to, uh, we should do a ranking of like all the, the Fox box cartoons. Yep.

[00:49:09] Yep. Patreon bonus. You did it. Fuck. Yeah. We need to do that sometime. That sounds great. Uh, until next time. Goodbye, everybody.