[00:00:00] Yeah, the Selena Gomorios. No, that wasn't as funny as I thought I was gonna be. Okay. Gomorios. Yeah, so they were at my store, so if the others, at least Steve or Kevin can find them, we will have them on the air. What's special about them? They have Selena Gomez's face pressed on the fucking Oreo? That would be amazing. Well, it looks like it has a music note, right? And it says cinnamon down there. I don't know if you can see it.

[00:00:29] That sounds good. Chocolate and cinnamon cream cookies. So, I mean, I love Oreos, so I'm sure these are good. Dude, chocolate, cinnamon cream, that sounds awesome. Thanks, Selena Gomez. Thank you, Selena. Good stuff. Hopefully. Only the finest. I mean, how could they be bad, really? I mean, if we're being real. I don't think they've ever made a bad Oreo flavor. Like, the lemon ones are good.

[00:00:57] I love the lemon. Well, lemon's my favorite flavor of everything, so... Where'd it go to Mario Kart? What it do, everybody? My name's Aaron. I don't know what the fuck a quadratic formula is, but I do know you're listening to Super Pod Saga.

[00:01:24] Hello, everybody. Hi. Welcome back to another Super Pod Saga. It's the greatest collaboration of all time. It's the one and only podcast where Jerry and I discuss every single video game topic in existence week by week. This week, we're discussing Mario Kart World. And as you might have guessed, judging by the intro, there's no Jerry this week. He's still on vacation. He'll be back next week.

[00:01:48] But we've got a super solid guest. We're gonna intro here in just a sec. But just even before all of that, do us a solid and go check out SuperPodSaga.com. Check out our episodes, socials, links to the show on your favorite player. Patreon, it's $2 or $4 a month. I don't know why I always say Patreon with that like... I get so violent with Patreon. Yeah, $2 or $4 a month. Bonus shows, early access, unedited video versions, all that stuff.

[00:02:19] Also, rate and review the show. Wherever you're listening to it from, please. That really helps us out. But enough about us. That's enough about us. Let's introduce Andre from Fine Time. Hello. Hello, party people. It's your boy, Dre, on Super Pod Saga. Hell yeah. It's great to have you back on again. It's... When was the last time you were on? Oh my god. Planet Robobot? That sounds right. Yeah. It might be that.

[00:02:46] Not to spoil the future episode, I can just cut this out. We also just did this episode about Mighty No. 9. No! You can have that in the show. Yeah, that's gonna air sometime this summer. No, that's not a secret. We can have that here. Well, yeah. Let's hype that up. Yeah, Mighty No. 9. Well, not, we're not gonna hype up Mighty No. 9. We're gonna hype up the episode about it. But yeah. There's nothing hype about Mighty No. 9, but I'm glad I found a sucker suckery enough to play it with me.

[00:03:16] And I'm glad you were that person. Damn straight. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. Well, I don't know what it is about you, but talk about like any kind of game, even if like a shitty one. I always get so pumped to dive into the game. Then I get to the game and I just fucking hate the game, but I'm still excited to talk about it. Even if it sucks, it's always fun to talk about, right?

[00:03:38] Yeah. Well, go ahead and plug your show. Talk about your favorite games. Anything else you do, go ahead and tell us about yourself and all that stuff. Tell everything about my personal life. Yeah, what's your social security number? Yeah, blood type. I don't even know my own, but yeah. Well, I think the people, I don't know. It's been a while. I'm Andre. I do a show called Fine Time with two of my friends, Steve and Kevin. We do it. It's a weekly show.

[00:04:04] Sometimes there's guests, but usually there's not. It's usually just all three of us or a combination of the two of us talking about whatever we feel like. We could talk about new games like Mario Kart World. We could talk about old games like, you know, Dragon Quest 5. It doesn't matter. Whatever we are currently playing, that's what we're going to talk about. We love to play games. We love to do quiz games. We love to have discussions lately about what's the top 10.

[00:04:28] We had a recent episode about our top 10 favorite consoles. We all had to agree. That's the thing. We had to come to a consensus list. So is it this collective like? Yeah. Oh, shit. Yes. We all had to agree. And ooh, baby, we caused some controversy in our community, but that's fun. We love doing stuff like that. So it's great. So come have a fine time with us. I'm also glad to be on the Superpod Network, and I'm so glad Aaron asked me to do this with him.

[00:04:57] It's a great collective of people who do very good shows. I know we always stand bar silence as we should, but man, I tell you what, that Jameson guy, he's going places. He is. Speaking of that, he's on a break right now because he's a hella busy guy. Like he's probably the busiest person I know, but yeah, while we're at it, check out superpodnetwork.com.

[00:05:21] There's a bunch of shit there. Check out Superpod Saga, Fine Time, Bar Silence that we so, so love to promote. And there's a bajillion other shows as well. Like one of our friends, Danny, she's doing audio versions of some of our blogs, and that's kind of cool. Fun little side project. That's been cool. Yeah. It's great. It's a great place. Great people. Great stuff happening on that site, man.

[00:05:48] Now we get to the guest question. I forget if I asked you in the Kirby episode about your favorite gaming memory, but what's your favorite drink? That's your guest question. What's your favorite drink? Your go-to. Your favorite beverage is Pepsi. Yes. I am a Pepsi man. Fuck yeah. I've always loved Pepsi. I don't hate Coke, right?

[00:06:11] I just always like Pepsi, but I come from a Coke household. Like my mom likes Coke. They all like Coke, so I always have to get my own Pepsi. Yeah, basically. So I love Pepsi. I always have just straight up normal ass. Don't get me wrong. I like the flavors too, but just basic bitch Pepsi for me, man. That's it. You know what's good? You know what I recently, and I don't know why it took me so long to realize this.

[00:06:36] You know how like McDonald's Sprite is like on another level. It's like so good compared to Taco Bell Pepsi is so good, man. Hell yeah. I don't know what it is. It's just so good at Taco Bell. That's in the town closest to us. We have a KFC Taco Bell combo. It always comes back to KFC with us. God damn it, man. I love KFC.

[00:06:59] We'll talk about KFC in a little bit. Yeah, the KFC Taco Bell combo, whenever we go there, I always get a Baja Blast because I'm a Baja Blast Stan, but then my wife always gets the Pepsi there. So yeah, it's always good. It's awesome. You know, I've never liked Mountain Dew, right? But since we did that taste test on Fine Time, we also do taste tests for some reason on Fine Time of the Mountain Dew Mango Rush from Little Caesars. I still haven't had that.

[00:07:23] Yeah, you gotta try it. It's so good. I thought it was really good. Me and Steve thought it was great. So now I want to try Baja Blast, which for some reason I have never tried. But now next time I go to Taco Bell, I will try it. Dude, you need to, and then you need to hit me up. You need to message me right away. Be like, Aaron, Baja Blast is the greatest thing my taste buds have ever touched. Or like, I guess if you don't like it, you'd be like, frowny face, frowny face, frowny face.

[00:07:49] I'll take a sip before I leave. If I don't like it, then I'll skip Pepsi. But yeah, I want to try it now. But before, I've never been curious. So I think what it is, I just don't like basic ass Mountain Dew. That's the thing I don't like. It feels like the flavors of Mountain Dew, though, I probably do like. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's way more lime and way more... I'm trying to think. I can't put my finger on what the other flavors are. Baja Blast. I don't know, Baja. There's a lot of Baja in that shit. There's a lot of Baja, a lot of Blast. A little bit of Blast.

[00:08:20] Yep. Oh yeah. So circling back to Pepsi, I feel like Wild Cherry Pepsi is just on a whole other avenue, like a whole other tier than Cherry Coke. Like, my grandparents always had Cherry Coke around and like, it's alright, but it's not Wild Cherry Pepsi, man. I don't know what it is.

[00:08:43] It's like... I like Cherry Coke a lot. I would say I definitely like it more than regular Coke, that's for sure. But yeah, Cherry Pepsi is just the truth, isn't it? It's... The truth? It is the truth. It is so good. It's the word of the Lord. Do you remember like the 90s ass cans of Cherry Coke where it's like the sketchy like fucking graffiti or whatever? It's like the checkered background. No, pinstripes or something? I forgot what it was. Yeah. Something like that.

[00:09:13] Yeah. And it was like very... Man, that's a... You know what can I think about a lot? Do you remember like the caffeine-free Pepsi from back in the day? Oh, and it was like gold stripes? Yeah! Dude! Yes! Yep! That shit was immaculate. I want to rip that off for fine time. I do. We've already ripped off like two different soda cans and like a snack package. We should definitely do the old caffeine-free Pepsi. You gotta make sure you put caffeine-free somewhere on that too, man. Oh, yeah. You gotta have that caffeine-free. Absolutely. For sure.

[00:09:43] Oh, man. Have you ever had the... We're eventually gonna stop talking about Pepsi, but I just want to bring up Wild Cherry Vanilla Pepsi. Pepsi? Holy fuck. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's so good. It's very good. It's very good. I've had it. Yeah. It's... You know, typically like when you get like to those like flavors, sometimes it can be too sweet for me, but that one was not. Like, cause like... That's why I don't... I like Dr. Pepper, but I don't do like the flavors. It's just like too much for me for some reason.

[00:10:13] Yeah. But that particular Pepsi was very good. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some mad scientist somewhere was like, we've kept Wild Cherry and Vanilla separate for way too long. What if we... Combined them? And then boom! It was like the Powerpuff Girls intro. He's like combining cherry, Pepsi, and vanilla. And then boom! And then it's just... He should be like pouring it into a beaker and then it goes poof. And then he has crazy scientist hair. You know?

[00:10:43] Like a fucking cartoon. His little goggles are all like... are all fogged up and shit. Yep. My word! Eureka! What have I done? This is too powerful. Yes! I love it. We just made every 90s like advertisement ever. Oh! Another tangent. I promise we're almost done with the tangents, but I remember this commercial for... I forget what it was called, but it was this like... This toy thing that you could make like gummy creepy crawlies. Hmm.

[00:11:13] Yes. And it was like... The commercial was so weird because there was a scientist dude like peel on the little gummies on it and be like, looks gross, tastes great. And he'd be eating like gummy spider or like gummy slime. Listeners, if any of you know what that is, please hit me up. I know exactly what that is. I don't remember the name, but I remember the commercial for sure. It was some stupid name too, like Dr. Gross or like... I don't want to say Dr. Strange because obviously that was like Marvel territory, but... Yeah, that was...

[00:11:41] Yeah, I don't remember what Dr. Gross was. Sounds like a... Sounds like a... That sounds like a... That sounds like a satirical Dr. Pepper. Dr. Gross. Oh my god. I'm sorry. Oh my god. I don't know why they killed me. Oh lord. It was... It's just so plausible. Here's the thing.

[00:12:10] If it were actually called Dr. Gross, I wouldn't be surprised because that's how stupid that shit was back then. So why not? Oh, yeah. That was... It was very early 2000s shit right alongside Gak. Yo, I remember Gak. I remember Gak. Oh, fuck. What's another one? Furbies. That was super 2000. Or like the dog, the little dog, like the little like ankle biter dog you can connect to your iPod. That shit was cool too. Oh, Ibo? Not Ibo.

[00:12:40] Um... That's a different one. Uh, uh, iDog. I think it's just what it's called. To be honest. iDog? Oh! Like you literally... Okay, like iPhone or iPod or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Manufactured by Sega toys? Holy shit. They did a lot of weird shit, man. When they were trying to diversify after I stopped making consoles, it's like, we need to do everything. Including this. We've got so much free time, we don't know what to do with it.

[00:13:09] I don't have an R&D for hardware anymore. Oh. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. So, might as well do something. Speaking of doing something, we've got news. We've got some, uh, some weird news. Weird and wacky news. So, you know Dig Dug, right? Well, it's back, kind of. Yeah. I saw this. Go ahead and tell the people. Yeah, so, oh man.

[00:13:36] So, Dig Dug is back as a mobile game on iOS and Android. Dig Dug New Frontier. It's part of this other app called Gamasodes. And the game is only available for like two weeks or two months. I forget exactly what the time period is for it, but essentially it's basically like interactive TV shows. So, I don't know, man. You know, the look of it, though, was just, you know, it sucks that like we've gotten to

[00:14:04] the point now where something can just look like a mobile game. And it just has that look. Oh, yeah. That doesn't always have to be bad, but in this case it just feels kind of, eh. I don't know. So, obviously I'm not the target audience for this, even though I love that universe, especially Mr. Driller. I have a Mr. Driller tattoo, folks. Oh, my God. I'm so jealous. Mr. Driller rules.

[00:14:33] I'm going to show Aaron right now to make him jelly right here. There it is, baby. Oh, my God. That's so cool. There he is. Oh, shit. Susumu Hori on my body forever. But yeah, Mr. Driller is there. Do you know who Mr. Driller's mom is? Because obviously his dad is Dig Dug. Oh, no. Mrs. Pac-Man. No. Oh, wouldn't that be some scandalous shit? It's Kissy from Baradook.

[00:15:02] I don't know if you know the Namco game Baradook, but that is his mom. So somehow Dig Dug got together with that bad bitch and they had Mr. Driller because she's badass. Look at that. Look at the Baradook. Yeah, she's badass, dude. Hell yeah. I'm looking at this really, like, really, really new image. Holy shit. All right. Cool. Yeah. That's why it's one of my favorite skeets on Blue Sky. It was funny. It was funny.

[00:15:31] They put up the Baradook poster, the arcade poster, and they just said, Dig Dug fumbled a bad bitch. It's like, dude, you did. You fumbled the bag. You let this lady go? Bro. So, yeah. Oh, shit. That's cool. One of these days we need to do, like, a Mr. Driller episode. I feel like nobody talks about Mr. Driller, and that's a goddamn shame, too.

[00:16:00] It's a great series. It's awesome. It's great stuff. Speaking of great stuff, here's another cool little piece that I found earlier today. Somebody got Sonic Mania Plus running on the Dreamcast, so that's kind of cool. Interesting. Yeah. There's no reason why they couldn't run on that hardware, obviously. Just, you know. Yeah, probably crunch it down to, like, fuck, I don't know, 420p or maybe less than that.

[00:16:25] Yeah, you would have to make the sound. You'd have to crunch the sound somehow, too, into the, like, Dreamcast format. Oh, update. There's no sound. There's no sound on it. What? Yeah, they'd cut that out, apparently. What's the point of Sonic the Hedgehog? It's running. It's on it. No, that's not Sonic Mania. Sorry. Eh, fail.

[00:16:51] Yeah, they, so yeah, they got, according to this article on Retro Dodo, there isn't any sound yet, and they still have yet to get the 3D stages hooked up, but the progress so far is amazing. So, like, you can play it, but there's no audio. That's what, you know, I'm sorry, I know this is going to sound rude, but, like, all these, like, fan projects where they try to put something on something, it's always, like, one level, and it's, like, not half done, and then it's, like, we're making progress, and then they, it's never the full game.

[00:17:21] It never seems to actually work out. It's, like, they did the entire thing on this. It's always just, like, a proof of concept that never, again, I know I probably sound like a prick, but, like, honestly, it just feels like what happens. Yeah. You know, they, they got, I mean, I wonder exactly how much, like, how much data, uh, dream, holy shit, I wonder how much data a Dreamcast disc can hold, or, like, how little it can hold that they had to completely cut out the audio.

[00:17:50] It's a little over a gig, is a, is a Dreamcast disc, so that's tough. You would have to compress, and obviously those 3D stages can't look like that on Dreamcast, you know? They're too high res. I understand they made it modeled after, like, Saturn graphics at the same time. Saturn games didn't look like that, and didn't run like that, too. So, they would have to severely cut the frame rate or something to get it to work, maybe.

[00:18:18] You know, I've always kind of, like, dreamed of what I doubt will ever happen is, like, we have all these people doing, like, um, like, fan projects of Sonic back on the Genesis, but I kind of want, like, a fan project, like, just, like, a, like, a new fan-made Sonic Adventure, like, early 3D-ass Sonic game. That'd be super fucking sweet. I want what happened for Sonic Mania to happen for Sonic Adventure. You know what I mean?

[00:18:48] For what happened for 2D Sonic, I want that to happen for 3D Sonic. Like, glow it up? Or, like... Yeah, someone make a... You know, because, like, Sonic Mania basically started because of fans, you know? Oh, yeah. So, like, I want that to... You have said my dream for a long time, because I love Sonic Adventure 2 and Heroes. That's, like, my... I love those three games. So, I just... Man, if that could happen for 3D Sonic... I don't really like the boost stuff. That's always the thing with Sonic.

[00:19:18] Once we get to, like, Unleashed and after that, I'm not really into that kind of gameplay. Yeah. So, I want, like, the earlier 3D Sonic stuff as a game, as a Sonic Mania type game. I would lose my mind. Dude. Would be the best. Especially if it's in that early 3D fucking style. Or even just, like, the GameCube Sonic style. Oh, my God. The music would just... Oh, dude. Ugh. I'm just dreaming right now. I really am.

[00:19:46] There's nothing like the, like, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 soundtracks. Like, if you go through all the other Sonic soundtracks, like, they're kind of similar. But there's just something really early 2000s about that shit. Like, when you get to the Egg Carrier stage or the Chao Garden. Oh, nothing beats the fucking Chao Garden track. Jun Senua cooked on those soundtracks, dude. He cooked. Shit was incredible. Look, I like the...

[00:20:15] I kind of included Sonic Heroes earlier. I like the soundtrack to that, too. Don't get me wrong. But it's not as good as, like, the two Sonic Adventures. It's just not. It's really good, though. There's really good stuff on there. But not quite it. It was clear that Sonic 2006 was trying to carry that lineage. And it mostly does, because the music in that game is great. But obviously, the game sucks ass. So it's... You know. Yeah, damn right.

[00:20:42] I mean, in fact, listeners, if you want to read about Sonic 06, we did a Game Club blog on SuperPodNetwork. Just SuperPodNetwork.com. Search for Sonic 06, I think, and you might find it. Spoiler alert. We all said it sucks, because it does indeed suck. And that in itself sucks, because they have some good fucking bones on that game. Like, what they have is kind of cool. But yeah, it's totally not done. If they were allowed to finish it, which they weren't, obviously.

[00:21:12] Did I tell you this? I went to... The only E3 I ever went to was 2006. Nice! So this was before Wii came out. This is before PS3. We're on the cusp of that generation, right? Xbox 360 was out already. Yeah. So I played a lot of stuff at that show, including Sonic 2006 on PS3. It's legit the first PS3 game I ever played. Because it was at that booth. And I was playing it, and it was rough as hell, obviously. But I'm thinking, like, okay.

[00:21:40] You know, by the time this is supposed to come out in November or something. They got, like, six months. They can clean this up. They have time. They did not have time. That was exactly the state that game came out in. What I played at that show is what was released. And it's like, oh, no. So what could have been, I guess, huh? Goddamn.

[00:22:03] You would think they would have learned from the Sonic Extreme shit, which is just a whole other fucking mess. But, like, trying to rush it and then trying to scrap it and do it all over and then trying to rush it again and then kind of repeat that same cycle. Yeah. So it just made both projects suffer. For those who don't know, half that team got pulled off of Sonic 2006 to go make Sonic and the Secret Rings. Sonic and the Cock Rings, as I've always called it my whole life. Sonic and Jacob's Ladder.

[00:22:33] And both those games sucked ass because they both had half a team. So, yeah. Maybe you shouldn't do that, huh, Sega? I'm sure they've learned now. Or maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. What's the newest one? Sonic Frontiers? That one's kind of cool. Frontiers? Oh, Superstars? Superstars? What was the newest open world 3D one? Is that Frontiers? Oh, that was Frontiers. No, that was good. I liked Frontiers. I liked it. Which is cool.

[00:23:15] Now we're getting to the actual topic now. We're going to talk about Mario Kart World finally. We're done talking about Pepsi and Sonic and Dreamcast. As much as we want to keep talking about that. Because, goddammit, I could talk about the Dreamcast all day. Me too. Yeah. So, Mario Kart World. I mean, really no need to intro the game. It's brand spanking new. It came out, what, June 5th, 2025. And it's just its newest Mario Kart. And it rips.

[00:23:45] That's about all. It's Mario Kart, baby. Yeah. Well, maybe that's a good place to start, huh? Because, like, obviously it's been, what, 11 years since Mario Kart 8. Holy shit. Has it really been 11 years? Yeah. It came out, like, 2014 on Wii U. And then, what, 2017 on Switch, right? So, oh my god. Yeah, dude. It's been a very long time since they made a Mario Kart. So, I was reading some of the developmental history.

[00:24:13] Because, you know, Nintendo does those, like, developer interviews with their own, like, people or whatever. I was reading about some of it. This started as a Switch game. But then the concept was not going to fit on Switch. As they started making the game, it's like, we can't actually really do this on this hardware. And they were trying to. They were trying everything they could. They even considered lowering the frame rate to 30. Oh, no. To even try to get it to happen. Yeah. Which would have obviously been a terrible idea.

[00:24:41] So, like, don't do that. You know, that Mario Kart is one of those games that, I'm sorry, it needs to be 60. Sorry. So, they didn't do it. So, they just. So, that's why the booster pass. The booster course pass thing happened. Like, late in the Switch's life. To add a bunch of more courses to Mario Kart 8. So, it's like, okay. We need to hold this game for Switch 2. What can we do right now? That will tide people over. So, that's why they did the booster course thing. That's kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, I guess.

[00:25:11] Like, I did like the booster course pass. I remember a lot of people complaining about, well, why can't we just get a new Mario Kart? It's the same Mario Kart from Wii U. But, like, it was pretty sweet. They're working on it, buddy. Yeah, it was sweet. And it was cheap, dude. For, like, all those courses, it was, like, hella cheap. And, of course, if you have Nintendo Switch Online, the top tier, it's free anyway. Yeah, dude. Oh, my God. I didn't know that. That's really cool. That's. Yeah. So, that's why they did that. To just buy time. It's like, okay, we'll sit on this. We'll switch too.

[00:25:40] And, that's why, for the first time, Mario Kart is a launch game for the system. Because, you know, they've been sitting on this for a while. And that's fine with me. Because, yeah, it doesn't seem like they really had a whole lot else to launch with it. Other than, like, Fast Fusion. And, what, Cyberpunk, kind of. And, like, all those other games that launched with it. It's funny that we've gotten to a place, though, where, like. Remember before, it was always, like, think about Dreamcast. And, like, Sonic Adventure.

[00:26:10] And, Hydro Thunder. And, Blue Stinger. Like, they had all these games, right? Like, you had to have that strict launch lineup. You don't have to have that shit anymore. In this digital age. And, especially with backwards compatibility. Oh, yeah. You don't really have to have that, like. Okay, we know the games are coming. We trust Nintendo to do that nowadays. It's not like the Wii U days where they didn't have anything. So, it's like, okay. I'll dink around with, like. Tears of the Kingdom in 4K at 60 frames a second. Oh, my God. Right? Like. Sure. That'll tighten me over.

[00:26:41] You know? So, it's interesting that they launched with Mario Kart World. But, hey. What bigger game? It's always their consistent biggest selling game is Mario Kart. So, why not? Hell, yeah. I bet. I don't want to wait any longer for Donkey Kong Bonanza. Because that looks really fucking good. Oh, my God. I didn't even. I didn't even watch that direct the other day. I'm, like, saving myself. I didn't even want to look. I'm like. I'll just play when it comes out. I have it pre-ordered. I'm ready. But, yeah. Man.

[00:27:10] Mario Kart World is a beast. I'll say this. I actually didn't like it at first. Oh. Believe it or not. Okay. I didn't. I played the first couple of Grand Prix Cups. And I was like. I don't. I don't understand this. So, like. What? Why are we doing a course? And then we're driving to the next course. And then we do a lap. And then we just, like. And then that's it. So, it's like. What are we? Is this a GP?

[00:27:40] And then, like. We're just playing random Mario music. Why are we playing the athletic theme from Mario 3. While driving to the next course. This is Mario Kart, motherfuckers. Like, I was just like. I was very confused. You know. I was very confused. But then. I played a couple more cups. And I got it. It just clicked. I was like. Okay. This is badass. This is great. Obviously. And I know it sounds stupid. Because it's obvious to everyone but me. It's a Mario road trip. That's what the game is.

[00:28:10] And duh. Dumbass. Andre. It's a Mario road trip. It's different from other Mario Karts. Because, like. Let's be real, Aaron. Mario Kart 8. Is about as far as they could push that formula. The classic Mario Kart formula. They needed to do something else. And this is something else. That's what I always thought, man. Like. There cannot be more. More. That they could do with Mario Kart. Because. What. 8. They had a million tracks. A million characters. They had the, like. Anti-gravity shit. You.

[00:28:40] Bop a little bumper on the ground. You spin. You get a little boost. Woo. Yeah. That's. But they. They fucking delivered with this. For sure. My. My first impression of this whole thing. I mean. I was already. Like. I was already. Cart-pilled from the get-go. I was like. Come on. I want that bundle. I'm going to play this non-fucking stop. And. I sure as shit did. And right away. Like. Yeah. It's. It's nuts. The. Maybe. Maybe we'll get to this later on. But.

[00:29:10] I was kind of like. I was hoping the open world would be. More than it is. At first. Okay. That I played a lot more. Like. I've warmed up to it. To it quite a bit. Yeah. We. We. We. We. We can. Definitely talk about free roam mode. And. In a bit here. I'm trying to think if there's any. Surface. Express. Surface. Impressions that I had. Other than that. Yeah. I didn't. Yeah. I had to warm up to it. I really did. I just. It just wasn't. It wasn't hidden for me.

[00:29:40] Donkey Kong. Obviously. It's based off of like. Bonanza coming up here. But. His facial expression. Is like. The best thing I've ever seen. Dude. I know. He looks like he has no idea where he is. There is not a single thought in that head. He is like. He's constantly doing one of these. He's constantly like almost dabbing. But not. Kind of dabbing. Yeah. It's kind of. It's pretty dabbish. Also. So. This is a thing. I was talking about on fine time.

[00:30:08] Because the guys like to pick characters. Like Shy Guy. And Koopa Troopa. And my thing is. No critters. Okay. Mario Kart is for people. Mario Kart is for people. People. Okay. But guess what? This game has like a billion critters. You have like. Parabitty Bud. And like. The Bumblebee. And like. You can play as any critter you want. Right. So like. I've decided. Because this is up to me. Of course. I've decided. That like.

[00:30:37] Having so many critters in the game. Makes it cool. There. They went maximal. Like. Here are all the enemies. You might want to play as. And so. Now that's like. Okay. I get it now. I get it. Dude. I'm so glad they added the critters. Like. Usually when I'm picking a character. Well. So. For Mario Kart. My go-tos are. Yoshi. Luigi. Wario. Or Dry Bones. If they have. If they have Dry Bones. But. Now my rotation is.

[00:31:06] Those four. Plus. The. The fish skeleton. Plus. Pokey. Plus. The cow. Plus. The crab. Plus. Fucking. All of them. Because they're all. So good. Pokey doesn't even have arms and legs. How does he drive that stupid motorcycle? I don't give a fuck. He goes fast. And I win. Oh man. Oh. What is his name? Charge and Chuck. Dude. I'm so glad they finally added Charge and Chuck. To another. Mario game. I love Charge and Chuck. So good.

[00:31:37] The guys are trying to tell me. Charge and Chuck is a critter. And I'm like. No. He's a guy. I don't think he's a critter. Yeah. Yeah. He's more of a guy. Than like. He's more of a. I feel like he's a dude. He's less of a creature. Well. No. He's. He's more of a person. Than like a Goomba. Or a fucking bee. Or a fish. Exactly. Yeah. I almost got beat by a Cheep Cheep. The other day. It's like. Please. Oh man. Goated Cheep Cheep. Why didn't they add. Hold on. Why didn't they add a blooper? Why don't we get a fucking little squid guy?

[00:32:07] I want to play as a blooper. That's so weird that they don't have blooper. They added literally everything else. Yeah. Yeah. It's so. It's so bizarre. They don't have blooper. They have Cheep Cheep. I mean. Come on. I don't. That's the one. I probably don't ever pick. Okay. So. It's good that we're talking about the character selection. So. Here's my thing. And I don't know if I've ever talked about this with you. But I'm going to now. Okay. For years and years. My hot take. Was that.

[00:32:36] I didn't like the crossover stuff. Yeah. In Mario Kart 8 and Deluxe. I. This is. This is not Nintendo Kart. Thank you. It's not Nintendo Kart. If you want to make Nintendo Kart. Make Nintendo Kart. We don't need Zelda and Animal Crossing. And the squid kids and shit. Like just. Squid kids. It's not. It's not that. Let's rename Splatoon to Squid. Just a fuck to Squid. Rename Splatoon to Squid Kids. Holy fuck. Let's move away from that. God damn. Squid Kids 4 coming out on Switch 2. Pretty soon. Squid Kid Frontiers.

[00:33:06] Fucking. But. Guess what? That Mario Kart World is now Maximum Mario. Yep. Now that you have this connected thing. And it makes sense to have like just. Here is the ultimate like Mario. Driving across America. Basically. Kind of game. It's definitely America. Right. All the. I'm surprised. I didn't license that song for the game. It would have fit in like perfectly. Can you imagine a Nintendo game with licensed music?

[00:33:35] Like can you imagine that every second? That would be so weird. I'm trying to recall. The last game I've played that used the licensed music. Cause you don't. Maybe I just don't play as many games that use that anymore. Um. Um. Usually now what games will do is that they won't use a song straight up. They'll like cover it. They'll like do a new version. Like the Florence and the Machine version of Stand By Me. And like Final Fantasy 15. Oh. Or something like that.

[00:34:05] Or like you know stuff like that maybe. Oh. And like I think. I think Hi-Fi Rush used stuff from different artists. I think Nine Inch Nails did a big part in that. Mm. And then a couple other bands. But. Well. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross do a lot of soundtrack work. So like maybe they. Maybe they did that. Their soundtrack work is. It's tight. The best dude. Oh yeah. Did you watch that Turtles movie a couple years ago? Mutant. No. Oh dude. It's so good. It's so good. And that's a true. And that's a true.

[00:34:34] And that's a true. And that's a true. And that's a true. And that's a true. Oh shit. So it's. It's so good. It is. Fire dude. It's. It's amazing. Cause you know Ninja Turtles is always kind of 90s associated. So it's like. It just has that sound right. And between all the. You know. 90s rap songs or whatever they'll say play. It's a fun soundtrack. Point is. I really. The Mushroom Kingdom and just Mario in general. Is so rich for stuff. You don't need to add other stuff. You have everything you need.

[00:35:03] And Mario Kart World proves that. So I'm just declaring myself correct. Basically. This is what I'm doing. I mean. Yeah. I agree. I agree with you. But like kind of like. Part of me. Part of me is like, dude, what if they added like new islands with Hyrule or like an Animal Crossing Island or other some other stupid shit. But at the same time, the other part of me is like, shut up. And it's just like, what if they just made more?

[00:35:29] Cause it basically Mario Kart World kind of like Mario-fied a lot of real life locations. Cause like you have this Japan setting and they have, um, you know, they Mario-fied that. Or the fucking, they have that like African, um, Savannah area with the Mario-fied fucking zebras and other animals. And like, there's like the part, there's like the plains part of like, it looks like Wyoming and shit. And there's like Buffalo. Yes, dude. Yeah.

[00:35:56] And then they have, they brought back the fucking T-Rex from Odyssey. I don't know if it's the same one, but yeah. Yeah. They added from like the new Dino Dino jungle. Rather. It's like, you still have the, the Brontosaurus eye. Right. But then you have like the T-Rexes as well. You want to talk about that maybe? Cause like, I think it's very interesting that Mario Kart World has like classic tracks, but not really. Yeah. You know what I mean? Cause like classic tracks have kind of been a thing since like super circuit. Right.

[00:36:25] However, you have a track called Dino Dino jungle. You have a Mario circuit. You have a peach beach, but they're not like they were before. Yep. At all. You know, they're totally different. That's what I was. That's what every time I would come to like, they have that one. I don't know if it's called Moo Moo Meadows, but they have that one. That's like Moo Moo Meadows. Cause it's got the farm, the little areas where you jump up over the mole hills and do a spin and shit. And the cows obviously. I think that's called Moo Moo Meadows again. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[00:36:55] I was thinking like, dude, this isn't, this doesn't feel familiar, but I'm glad like now. Yeah. They're, they're remixed, which I think is good because they can only re-release the same tracks over and over so many times before it gets boring. And Mario Kart 8, again, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and the booster course did like, what can you do after that? Right. Yep. It's kind of like the smash problem right now where people are like, what do you do now that you had everybody? Well, you can do something else. There's always another idea.

[00:37:24] And like Mario Kart world proves that. So there's always something, there's always a new way to approach it. And I love Mario circuit in this dude. It's so much fun. Cause you know how many times we've played those like SNES tracks. It's like all three Mario circuits from SNES in one course. You see little bits of everything. It's like, oh yeah, I remember those couple of turns from like Mario circuit two. Oh yeah. That's that big hairpin one from Mario circuit three, but they're all in like one course. That's so fucking brilliant, man. Yeah.

[00:37:53] I love that. And, and you brought it up earlier, the, basically like the whole road trip dynamic to the game. Oh God damn. And I love that dude going from like one track to the net. Like you're going from like the game connects the world so well. Cause you'll go from like Moomoo Meadows. So you'll go from Moomoo Meadows to like this next area and you'll be driving down this highway and you can do flips onto the fucking, um, on the power lines and shit.

[00:38:23] And there's traffic and then you'll go to like, uh, it'll transition so smoothly into like a desert or something. And, oh shit. That just feels so, so awesome. It's so interesting. Right. Cause that's actually very hard to do in like a map. It's like, make that shit feel organic because like, okay, you're just driving around and it's not like a hard cut to like the ghost house. Right. You kind of gradually go into like the spoopy, you know, area. And then there's like the ghost boo, boo cinema, dude.

[00:38:52] Oh my God. So fucking cool, dude. Dude. It's so incredible, man. But yeah, it doesn't feel. I'm gonna get this out of the way. The Wario shipwreck shit. Oh, it's so good. Excellent, dude. It's just, yeah. It doesn't feel like a hard cut from like, okay, we're in the African savannah and now we're in like the city or it's not like it feels very organic driving from place to place, you know? It does too. And that's what's very impressive about the game, obviously.

[00:39:21] And that's the whole, the whole bit. But yeah, I like that they, in this world, they found a way to have familiar, familiar motifs such as Toad's factory or whatever, but not, um, you know, the same. If I could levy, this might be the only criticism I have about the game.

[00:39:39] And this is probably not even fair criticism, but I think with this open like world approach of sensibly open world, it doesn't allow for really wacky shit because everything has to be like connected. You can't have like a Waluigi pinball or you can't have like a, you know, like a Daisy cruiser, right? Something like that. Yeah.

[00:40:07] Or you can't even have something like a Super Bell subway because that means you would have to make like an underground area. That's true. You know? So, but again, I don't even know if that's fair for me to say, but like, that doesn't mean that like you can't incorporate those things in the future, but it'd be very, very hard because those, when you're thinking about like, this is the course, this is the only place you're at and that's it. That's fine.

[00:40:30] When you have to think about connecting it to a larger world, you can't really have stuff like that, which is, but again, I don't know if that's fair for me to criticize because like that makes them think different. You know, you can't do all these wacky things. Okay. We can't have an electro dome. How can we, how can we be creative by just making stuff out here on the road? Oh man. I think they could figure it out though. Like there's a, I bet. So for Daisy cruiser, cause Daisy cruiser was just that fucking like cruise ship. Wasn't it?

[00:40:59] I bet they can work that out. Just have you go from like this area over here on this beach. And then somehow you go to like trying to do something that would connect to it. Just like chains, I guess chains connecting to it and then you're on it and it's huge. And then, well, with this game, you can also like jet ski and stuff. Right. So like, I guess you could just kind of like drive out there. That's true. You could drive right on over to it. Maybe there's like, uh, I don't know the loading dock.

[00:41:26] I don't know what you call the loading bay is, is open and you can go into it from there and then work your way up. And then you leave, you leave by going through a cannon or something. It's totally open to interpretation. I don't know. Well, I mean, we, you talked a little bit about like possible future DLC. Please God, let there be DLC for this game. There's gotta be. Oh my God. Um, but like I was thinking Isle Delfino, right? Like you gotta just put the whole island out there in the water, right?

[00:41:54] You can kind of just have that. I think, I don't know if you remember like pre pre-release footage of Mario Odyssey had like Isle Delfina had like the dolphin, like when they were looking at the map, but that's obviously not in the game. Yeah. So like maybe they can incorporate something like that. That would just be so cool if they could have, I know they already have like some city courses, but for me, Mario cart, I love city courses in any game.

[00:42:23] Those are always my favorite totes turnpike. It doesn't matter. Mushroom red bridge or whatever. I'm, I'm always here for it. Um, if they could have, I don't know. Could they add like a new donk city? Could they add like, I mean, I feel like it would be very easy to just not very easy, but you know what I mean? Like just craft stuff onto it. They totally could. There's there's without pulling up a map. I'm, I'm sure there's lots of open space in between different areas that you could tack it on, but I don't know if that would fuck up like the, the drive from,

[00:42:52] one course to the next in grand prix or not. It probably would. I think they would have to make another map. Yeah. I think it'd be better if they just made another map. Hell, I would be okay if they, yeah, dude, I would be okay if they just did like a Mario cart world two a couple of years from now and just have a complete, this exact same concept, totally new island and locations. Just, I would be completely okay with that. Honestly. That'd be, oh my God, that'd be so cool.

[00:43:17] And they have, um, they have maps from like DK Bonanza or like shit from, um, uh, uh, they, oh my God. I stumbled on myself all over again. And they bring back a map from like Luigi's mansion, but they don't make it a fucking battle stage. They make it a full on, wait, didn't they have a stage you could race through for Luigi's mansion? It wasn't Luigi's mansion, but it was like, it's like a, it's very Luigi's mansion. Like it's in Mario cart eight, right?

[00:43:45] They have like a spoopy mansion stage and it may as well be Luigi's mansion, but it's not called that. I'm surprised they never did one like that, but yeah. Yeah. They never, they never did like an official like Luigi's mansion. You know what I fucking love? I love before you get to boo cinema, all those like boardwalk planks, almost like the SNES game of like the ghost house courses. Yeah. It's like, that's not really. Cause like if you're driving there on a way to a course, you're going to drive through those. But if you're just playing boo cinema, you're not going to see them.

[00:44:15] And I love that, you know, is it that little bit of, you know, and they do that a lot. Like they, they play with, they play with like very, very like subtle throwbacks to other stages. Cause there's, um, in the dinosaur area, there's, there's, it really feels like Yoshi's Canyon or whatever that's called. You get that kind of feel there. Maybe that's just my, my brain cooking like, Oh, this is like Yoshi's Canyon.

[00:44:43] But yeah, there's like really subtle throwbacks in my mind. You know what I would love? You know what kind of course I would love? If you ever play, you played Yoshi story, right? Oh yeah. I love the jungle levels in Yoshi story. If they could make like a course out of that. And that could be like the Yoshi course with like the watermelons and everything. And like the different fruit and like, Oh, that would be, and you know how like weird and blobby and like stretchy those enemies are like Yoshi's story. Like they're so like weird.

[00:45:12] I would love a course like that, man. That'd be cool. He's so good. Um, man. Oh, maybe. Okay. I'm going to say this here because, uh, when we talked about Mario Kart world on fine time, I forgot to say this. So I'm getting, this is a, this is a, this is a super pod saga exclusive. This is the thing I love the most about Mario Kart world. I love that. Okay.

[00:45:39] So you have courses and then you have driving, you have open world driving and the modes kind of mix and match those things. So you have on one end of the end of the spectrum. Okay. You have knockout tour, which is completely rally racing, driving from place to place. You are completely open road driving through all these places and whatever. Right. Yeah. On the other side of that spectrum, you have like time trials or versus race where you can just play the course. You want to just, you're not down with that open world shit.

[00:46:09] You just want to play the course. You can do that. Right. You can go to time trials and like play that course. And then in the middle you have grand prix, which kind of mixes the two, you play courses and then you like go on the open road. Yeah. This is fucking excellent because you get everything. You don't throw away the stuff people love about Mario Kart, which is like, if some people are feeling a little left out by the stuff, it's like, you know what? I just want to play some courses. Guess what? You can just go play time trial or you can just play versus race where you can just play the courses.

[00:46:37] You don't have to drive from place to place if you don't want to. And for a long time, I haven't done time trials in Mario Kart because to me it was just kind of like, why would I do that if I could just play Grand Prix? Now I'm playing time trials in Mario Kart again because like, hey, you know what? I love Mario Kart circuit, Mario Brothers circuit. I just want to, I just want to race that course and that's it. So I can just go do that.

[00:46:58] I love, basically what I'm saying is I love that the three main modes in this all sort of work in concert to like basically the ultimate Mario Kart experience. Yeah. To add to your point about how they made basically like a best of everything for everybody. Like if you don't want to do the open world stuff, that's cool. Just do courses.

[00:47:18] I like how they made it so like, so in world you can unlock different costumes for characters, not for critters, but for characters like Mario and Toadette and Peach and shit. You can unlock new costumes by going to a Yoshi food truck and getting boost food. I love it. And like depending on where you're, or depending on what food you get, which is different depending on what location the food truck is in, you'll unlock a cool costume for a character.

[00:47:46] But I like that they, they incorporated the Yoshi food trucks into a lot of tracks. So if you, if you really don't want to do the open world stuff, that's cool. You get the costumes, you know, in a regular ass race, like a regular versus race. Yes, you can. And that's really, really cool. Yeah. You don't have to do the free roam stuff to get, to get that, you know, which is not, there's just me. I mean, like I don't do a whole lot of free roam. I mean, I don't hate it, but it's just not the main way of play.

[00:48:15] So, um, but yeah, I, I do like just driving around. It's like, Oh, now Wario has bumblebee wings. Okay. Sure. You know, um, did you, okay. This is something I like, I feel like I'm the only one who has noticed this. Is it weird that they don't show like, like times, like race times anymore outside of like time trial? You know, I did notice that. Yeah. There've been so many times where I'll finish a race and I'll be like, somebody will be right on my ass.

[00:48:44] And I want to know that time, but yeah, they don't show that shit anymore. It's weird. I don't, I mean, I guess it's not, it's not a deal breaker or anything. It's just like, okay, I guess, I don't know. They've been doing that. They did that in eight also, didn't they? This is the first time they've ever not done that. So I don't know, man. It's weird. It's really weird. Yeah. Not, I get, not a deal breaker. Just a, just a UI thing. Cause like usually where you, yeah. We're used to seeing like the race times and then it flips to the points. Everyone gets their points. Right. But we don't get that.

[00:49:14] We just go straight to the points. It's like, okay, I guess. So a big, like, well, not a big, but like a new thing with this game is that you can do jumps onto like walls and then jump back onto like rails and all sorts of like cool ways to, to maneuver around the environment and shit. I do. That shit's tough. I'm, I'm really trying with the wall rides and shit, but it's tough. It's hard. I think it's supposed to be hard though.

[00:49:43] I think they wanted to add one tough thing to do is a tough by Mario Kart standards. It's not like executionally, like impossible. Like you, it's not like Tony Hawk where it's like, Oh, I got a balance on this rail or something like that. You just jump on the rail and it's happening. Right. Yeah. Almost like Sonic up to it. Yeah. Like Sonic rail grinding, you know, you just kind of do it, but the way you jump off them or the way you can jump between them is very specific. And I think that's on purpose and I like that. So I'm really with the rail grinding, especially like if the packs crowded or something, it's

[00:50:12] like, yeah, it might take a little longer to go for the rail, but you'll probably be avoiding like some hazards and shit. Right. Or avoiding the pack. It's the wall writing that I don't know is very impactful. It's not practical for most courses. I would say don't really have walls that you can do that on. I wonder if it's mostly just for like the, the transition races, like the, when you're driving from like track to track. Cause I know there's lots of like billboards or you can jump onto the side of a truck and

[00:50:42] like wall ride on a truck and then bounce off and shit like that. I can't think of any like other than like a city stage where you would, you could just like jump onto a wall. There's not a lot. Dk spaceport. How good is that stage? Oh my God, dude. I lost port. I lost my mind. I lost my dude. I'm a, I'm a donkey Kong freak. I love donkey Kong before donkey Kong country. I'm not saying I'm a donkey Kong country, complete hater, but to me, donkey Kong is like

[00:51:12] the classic shit. Right. And that's why I'm really glad about Bonanza. It seems like they're taking Nintendo themselves is kind of taking that back a little bit. Point is when we do classic donkey Kong type shit. You, you will move me to tears practically. Like I, I love that shit so much. You've got that big motherfucker throwing those barrels at you. I need to like dodge the barrels in your little cart.

[00:51:37] And oh my God, dude, the way the music ramps up too, by the time you get there, it's, you know what? Dk spaceport is probably the best. Non lap course they've ever done. Like the, the start to finish course, you know, the kind of, the kind of kind of introduced in seven, right. With like the woohoo Island stuff or whatever. And eight has some of those with like Mount Wario. Right. I think like one of the F zero courses is that way as well.

[00:52:03] Then I love, I love that they started introducing like start to finish courses like that. And Dk spaceport in Mario Kart world is one of them. And man, oh man, oh man, oh man. It's just the absolute best. To tack on more about this, about the tracks. I love that there is like, they're, they're not as confined. Like there's way more, there's way more vertically and horizontally to each track.

[00:52:31] The scope of each track is just fucking gigantic. Like it's no longer just like, it's no longer just like super Mario Kart where you're just in this tiny confined track and like bouncing off of walls and going this way. And then in like, and even like eight, they kind of tried to experiment a little bit with that. Like literally and figuratively. Cause like if you're coming up to a bridge, sure. You can just drive right through the bridge and just do whatever.

[00:52:59] There's a shortcut you can take to like grind on a rail, go up, go up on top of the bridge and then just do whatever. And then you can, there's another shortcut that you can take to fly, like fly over the bridge. Like there's just so many ways to get through each track. It's fucking nuts. Yeah. Mario Kart 8 did had, did have some stuff in that regard, sort of, but not like this. This is the other. So you're, but also when you're like talking about the physical space, I think it's obviously necessary now that there's 24 characters on the track.

[00:53:29] Oh yeah. Which is insane. I forgot to mention that. That was another, that was another thing that switch couldn't handle. That's just why they had to wait till switch too. Cause forget about it. Right. It just wasn't happening. No. Oh my God. But that also, when you do have a narrow, like classic course, like Mario circuit in this game, that makes it, that makes it even more fun. It's like, oh wait, now we're doing the classic thing with like all these people on it. Holy shit. Right. Like then it becomes like, this is wild.

[00:54:00] How have you played a lot? Like the main mode that I play a lot of is knockout tour. Like I'll get together with a bunch of dudes in the tales in the backlog server, or just like me and Jerry and a couple other friends. And we'll play knockout tour. Have you played it net at all? Yeah. Oh, I joined you last night for a knockout tour. If you're a member as of this recording and that's right. No, but also no, I've been playing it on the, the single player to knockout tour. I very fun. So fun, dude. I almost got eliminated last night. I was fifth.

[00:54:30] I almost got cut off from the top four. Or I had to, I had a last minute mushroom or something when I bumped someone out of the way and I, I got to that top four, but like, and then I think you were first and I was second, but like with my, like, with my construction, with my construction Mario outfit or whatever I was. There was one point, I forget which stage it was, but I knocked you off with something and I was like, oh my fuck. Like I knocked you off of the stage. Yeah.

[00:54:56] Like I, I went out of my way to come up behind you and I threw something at you and knocked you off the stage. And I was like, no, why did I do that? I just, I just turned into, I remember it. I just turned into the airplane and so I just went tumble, tumble down. It's like, oh no. So yeah, but Hey, that's Mario cart, man. People who get pissed at Mario cart are going to be really pissed at this game. People don't play this one at all. Yeah.

[00:55:25] With 24 people, you're going to see way, way, way more items, like double the number of thunders. You're going to get thundered like constantly. I feel like knockout tour feels almost like, like a battle Royale. Like if they ever made a battle Royale version of a racing game, this would fucking be it. Cause a listeners knockout tour essentially is just like, think of like a grand prix, except there's like, uh, what? Seven, six, seven, six.

[00:55:53] So yeah, six, um, six tracks. And basically every time you get to, uh, to another track people in like the last, what, um, five or six are getting cut out of the race. How did, uh, the last four get cut off. So like the first leg, you need to be 20th or better than 16th or better than 12th or better, you know? Like, so the last four always get cut off until there's like the final four.

[00:56:19] And then, you know, the race ends, then you battle it out for those four spots. Yeah. And it's, it's rough. Like sometimes it's rough. Cause yeah, you're getting nailed by items all the goddamn time. Uh, but at the same time, like, yeah, you're also, it's just like, just a good, like well timed golden mushroom. And you can go from like 19th to fifth. It's insane. But that, I almost got knocked out in the first round. I was like 19th or 20th. Practically.

[00:56:48] I almost like I was in the back of the pack that first leg that we played last night. So it's the way it goes, you know, that's why it's so much fun. It's like, okay, let me just maintain here and not, you know, get beat by parabity bud or some stupid critter. Goddamn. And then when you do get to like the top four, like when it starts whittling down to, to like eight or less, oh, it gets so intense. It's so fucking insane. I was just mad. I was just glad I made the top four. I was just glad.

[00:57:17] Cause like I said, I almost missed that cutoff. I was like fifth for a while. And then I was like, barely pushed ahead to get four. So I was like, okay, I made the, made the last leg. Yeah. The knockout tour, very fun stuff. I'm, you know, it seems like the kind of mode that they organically thought of while just like making the game. It's like, you know, we have all this open space. Let's not just do grand prix this way. Let's just have a straight up rally race, you know, which obviously harkens back to their roots.

[00:57:45] It's like their earlier, like racing games. I'm like, I don't know if you know, like Famicom, this system racing games, they have like a couple of them. There was like an F one, one. And then there was one called 3d hot rally. It's referenced a lot because, um, if you see those like monster trucks called monster with the big wheels, those are from that game, that Famicom. Oh yeah. So like they, they always reference those like old racing games of theirs before like super Mario cart. So like they've always for summer, you know how Nintendo is.

[00:58:14] They always keep their lineages. Right. So, um, God, that's a game I wish would show up on Nintendo switch online. Anyway. Um, man, I just, all the courses in here are winners. I, like I said, I already love, I love Mario circuit DK space for Pete stadium, dude. Pete stadium is so sick. I love that one. It's just stages. Yeah. It's, it's incredible. It's like, you're just, it's exactly what it sounds like.

[00:58:42] It doesn't even look like there's like a big crowd or anything like Mario cart stadium from before. It's just like, yeah, yeah. It's just, it's just so wide open and cool. Um, the great question block ruins. That shit's rad. Well, that one, um, dude. Yeah. There's just so many. Wow. Is it the, the, the, the, the snow area? I think it's, it's named after Yoshi, isn't it? It's like, um, no, I'm probably thinking of something else.

[00:59:12] Um, I don't remember. I know what you're talking about. I just don't know the names of the, I, you know what I, you know what else I like? I like that. There's not just like, here's the snow patch. There's like a couple of different snow levels in that area, you know? Yeah. It's not just the one winter course. It's a whole ass region. Yeah. That's because even the, uh, the, the desert area, they have the, like the African Savannah type place.

[00:59:36] They have the, like, um, the main, like Sandy, the, the one that feels a lot like every other desert level and every other Mario cart that has like the giant, um, quicksand pit in the middle and you have to go around it and shit. And they have like one other desert level. I forget, but that's, that's a big thing with this fucking game that I really love is like they have like a collective amount of tracks within a certain theme. And that's really fucking cool.

[01:00:05] I buddy, can we talk about rainbow road, please? Hmm. Oh yeah. I, I lost my mind. I lost my fucking mind. I could not believe. It's huge. I could not believe it. I could not believe what I was looking at that. Oh my Lord. Best rainbow road of all time. I'm not even going to, there's no reason to beat around the bush. It's insane, dude. Wow.

[01:00:35] They, they went over the fucking top. Oh, uh, another, like another thing that we want to touch up on before we go back to rainbow road is, um, I really love how cohesive the whole world is. Yeah. Like when you're, when you're flying up to rainbow road or like any other track that takes place in the sky, you could see down like clear as day. You can look down below and perfectly see like every track that's below you or like the rest of the world below you.

[01:01:03] And you see traffic going around and shit. It's great. That's so fucking sweet. But no rainbow road, the great, great question block ruins just like that. That's one of the ones where you have to drive up the sky or whatever. And then you're in the sky ruins or whatever. It's just, but here's the thing. If you're doing that in free room, you can just fall the way down. You fall for like 30 seconds. Woo. You know, like it's, it's, it's crazy, man. But yeah, dude, rainbow road made me lose my mind.

[01:01:32] I never seen anything like that in a video game. That shit was inspiring. I don't even use that word very often, but it legit Aaron made me like, oh my God, this is incredible. Wow. Yeah. I got very goose bumpy, like toward the end of it. Like when you see that big, like that big circle, like star thing rotating around like a gate, I guess I'll call that big, like rotating star shaped gate around the finish line.

[01:02:02] Oh man. I was like, have I died and gone to heaven? This is some sweet shit. So good. I love how they incorporated so many different things from other rainbow roads. Like you have the train thing, right? Is that from Mario 64? The train? Or is that from another, is that from another rainbow road? I think that's from like seven. Oh, is that seven? Yeah. Okay. The DS or 3DS one. I forget. It's one of those two. It might be DS. It might be DS anyway.

[01:02:28] But yeah, I like how you see, it's not like it's an agglomation of all the rainbow roads, but you definitely see like touches of them. I definitely feel some like double dash rainbow road in there. Dude. Dude, you went out to that like Mario galaxy ass space station at some point. Yeah. What the hell, man? And you think it's like, okay, is this just going to keep going? And then it does. Like, it's just, it's incredible. It was, it's, it's legit mind blowing stuff. Yeah.

[01:02:56] Like if it was, it was worth it to play through every cup in the grand prix just to finally get to that. Like, yeah. Yeah. Every, every track on its own is awesome. Like it's, it's great ship. Then you get to add rainbow road and it's the perfect little like dessert to a, like a five course meal. Dude, it's, it'll send you. It sure did, man. It made me insane. Oh, it went insane with, with just great feelings. Speaking of great feelings.

[01:03:26] What, what else? Uh, well, I, I wanted to talk about music, but we still got to do an ad break too. We can do a fun ad break. Let's do an ad break right now. Let's do it right now. Okay. All right. We'll be right back. Dre, how, uh, you know, band-aids, right? Band-aids are cool. Sure. Band-aids. Yeah. You, you got a boo-boo, uh, get a good cut on you, slap a band-aid on no big deal. Uh, what about like when you get like a really deep gash or like, you know, real deep cut,

[01:03:55] you know, band-aids not going to cut it. You got to gauze it up. Yeah. Uh, introducing canned skin. And now if you get like a, you get a big old, like just, you basically cut off part of your arm, like a good decent chunk of your arm with like an ax or something. No problem. Maybe you got a can of canned skin. You just, just pop it open or no, squeeze it open Popeye style. And then just, just, uh, slap it onto your arm. You're good to go.

[01:04:25] Brand new arm. Pretty much. If you get third degree burns, like canned skin isn't going to help with those dead nerves, but by God, your skin is going to look like, I was trying to do like the French, like lip pop thing. It's going to look like brand new. You were just born. It's so brand new. So shiny. Dude. Yeah. Now, now it comes in 12 different skin tones, you know, by the one that matches you and,

[01:04:54] and you're good to go. They've got the little, uh, little swatches, like the, like the paint swatches. Yeah. So you can just like, Oh sweet. All right. Yeah. Match to your arm. It's like, Oh yeah, that's, that's about how. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Canned skin just came in handy very many, many times working out in the garage, accidentally cut off a finger or two, you know, shit happens, you know, what can you do? But now with canned skin, I don't have to, I don't even have to go to the hospital. I just wait for my fingers to regenerate. That's right. No health insurance. No problem.

[01:05:23] If you cut off a finger. Yeah. You can just take out a piece of canned skin, roll it up like a little taquito and just like right, right. Like the little finger hole. And then bam, like it'll, I mean, you probably can't bend it. Cause it's just like, like a skin taquito on your hand, but Hey, it looks like a finger kinda. Yeah. I mean, it definitely gets a job done until your fingers grow back. I mean, everyone's fingers grow back eventually. Right. I think so. I hope so. Could you imagine if that was the thing?

[01:05:53] Like if you could have a finger and then it's like, Oh no worries. We just got to wait like a year for it to grow back. And it just like starts as a little numb. It's just sprouting. And almost like a, like a lizard that, you know, they regrow their tail. Right. So it's like, you know, just get that shit back. That's fine. But canned skin can definitely help with that. You know, for sure. Yeah, it can. Yeah. A lot of things that no more, no more skin grafts, no more taking skin from your ass

[01:06:19] and putting it on your like arms or head or maybe back onto other parts of your ass. It's no more of that. Canned skin is here to stay. What did it say? Say you fall off your motorcycle. You get hella road rash on your, on your chest or something. Normally, you know, you'd have to get a skin graft or just, just look like a grizzly beast the rest of your life. But no, no, no, no. Canned skin. You just pull out the, the probably shouldn't be tin, but it's tin anyway. Can of canned skin.

[01:06:48] And just, it makes that sound too. It's like, it's wet. You know, you know, the sounds and like old wrist and evils when you change to another outfit, they have those very cartoony, like shuffling, like taking off pants and putting on like vests and stuff sounds in the dark. That's what I imagine happening as you're, as you're putting on the canned skin. It's like, or like, um, like the Sims when they change clothes, they just spin and it's like, no, no, no, no.

[01:07:15] Kind of like, but with canned skin. Exactly, man. Just, just great stuff. I, or like animal crossing. They do the little bling, you know, and they're in like a different outfit. I love it. Yeah. Canned skin, really great stuff. Really. I mean, you can't, you can't say enough good things about it. No, you can't. And you know what? If you're feeling saucy, I mean, you don't even really need to worry about skin tones. You can mix and match if you wanted to. Oh yeah.

[01:07:41] The artistically, like, you know, yeah, you could use different skin tones and make some nice little gradients or whatever you want to do with it. You know? You know what? Uh, for, just for Jerry's sake. We've got the DLC. He, he likes to put DLC in all of our inputs. Okay. DLC. DLC. You, you can get non, like non skin tone ones. You can get like blue, purple. Uh, what's a good one? Like a blue, like a blue green gradient. Turquoise. Turquoise. Turquoise.

[01:08:11] There we go. That's a good one. I'm from the nineties. It's turquoise time. Turquoise. Turquoise. Turquoise. Like a little, a little turquoise one. I mean, it'll, you'll have like a big old blue, like big old turquoise patch on your arm. If you slap it there. But, uh, look cool. Oh, and they have ones that have, they have pieces of canned skin that have tattoos already on them. So if you don't want to go through getting a tattoo, just yeah. Right there. That'd be great.

[01:08:37] That's better than like fucking the temp tattoos we did as a kid, put the water on it and peel it off. Now you have canned skin to, you know, cover or if you need to cover up a tattoo, I would say if you're, if you're meeting your, your girlfriend's parents for the first time and it's like, okay, you don't want to look like a total ass. You can cover up one, you know? That's beautiful. Yeah. Tattoo coverups, removals, whatever. Just, it's like a snap bracelet. You get your can, your can skin just and it just like conforms all the way around your arm.

[01:09:07] Love snap bracelets, dude. That was the shit back then. Oh man. Um, oh my God. I had such a good one a second. Oh yeah. Um, but, uh, depending on where you put your canned skin, you have to wait a little while before you apply more canned skin because before you know it, you'll have a big old like, like a big old lump. Yeah. I keep using my arm. Like that's the only place I'm ever going to put it. But like wherever you put it, you're going to end up getting like a big lump. Uh, it's just going to be all this built up canned skin.

[01:09:35] And, uh, it's, it's still kind of unstable in some ways. So it might like conform together and might make a face, but, uh, just ignore it. It'll go away. If you ever wanted to know what you would look like, not circumcised, you just slap that shit on your dick. Just that's canned skin. You know, you can get, you can get like a little view of it. I mean, it's probably not exactly the same, but you know, just, just, just slap it right on there. See what it looks like. You know, get a recircumcised with canned skin. Yeah.

[01:10:03] You'll have to get it cut off again later. So don't do it unless you're sure. Right. But you know, Oh my God. The little cigar cutter thing out to cut off the tip of your penis. That sounds like a fucking like, that sounds like a, like an episode of something. The man who was circumcised twice. Those are the days of our lives. Re-circumcide. Oh, fucking A. That's. Oh, shit.

[01:10:33] Thanks. Thanks. Uh, circumcisions for sponsoring this episode. Canned skin. Canned skin. Canned skin. Canned four skins. Canned four skins. Canned four skins. Oh my God. Oh shit. We're back. Hey. Oh, we're back.

[01:11:04] Um, we want to, I want to talk about free room. Honestly, do it. Okay. Because I feel like this is a mode where a lot of people were kind of invested in. Like they thought this was going to be something other than it was. And personally, I always thought this was just going to be some sort of like extra fuck off mode where it's like, you can drive around with your friends and take pictures just like they showed in the initial like switch to like direct. Right.

[01:11:29] I never thought this was going to be any like central single player mode where it's like this big adventure and like, like burnout paradise. Like horizon. We're like, that's the, that's the thing. Yeah. I just did not think that was going to be that. I guess some people maybe thought it was going to be, but I always thought like, no, man, that's not really Mario cart. And here's, here's what I came to the realization of while playing this mode. It's not for us. It's for kids.

[01:11:59] You know, like the type of kids that are like, you know, I've seen kids play Mario cart before as early as like 64 where they just want to drive around and look, they want to drive up to the cows and like, look at them or they just want to like, you know what I mean? And sort of a pressure free environment. Now, obviously it's not pressure free if you're in the middle of a race that I could do screaming at you and shit. Oh, you're going the wrong way or whatever. But now they don't have to worry about that. They can just drive around and look at stuff. Yeah. I think that's cool.

[01:12:29] Personally, again, it's not going to be something that I do a lot. I mean, I have done it, but I don't know. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way this is set up. I think people were expecting too much. Yeah. I was one of those people. I was expecting it to be like, yeah, burnout paradise, but Mario cart. But once, once I got like really into Mario cart world, I was like, like, this isn't what I expected, but I still, I still like this. Like there's cool.

[01:12:58] There's lots of collectibles like the, the, the piece switches, the peach medallions, the question mark switches. I still don't know. I still don't know what you get from getting all of those, but eventually I'll get all that shit. But I also like how when you're playing with friends, basically like the open world is like your main hub pretty much like in between races or battles or whatever the fuck you're doing with your friends.

[01:13:25] You can just fuck off in the open world and just go do whatever. And like, that's instead of just waiting in a menu and like staring at your me on the little globe, like I play with tilt controls or whatever the fuck people say on that. They don't even have that anymore. That's sad. They don't even have that in the menu. Yeah. On Mario cart eight or you're talking about in world world. Yeah. They don't have tilt controls on there. I look for it. They didn't even have me's. Yeah. They don't even have me's. That's right. Oh, shit. That's fucking right. Me's are out, man.

[01:13:56] Huh? Um, dude, I don't know, man. I thought it's I think. How do I say this? I've seen people say that they wish like the open world map, the free room map were like more detailed. It should show you the P switches or it should show you this. And I'm like, no, dude, I think there's a reason why they didn't show you that stuff. Because think about how many people, Aaron, where they talk about like Ubisoft, open world. Here are a thousand things on the map to go do.

[01:14:25] And then they feel overwhelmed or they don't like the way that looks or something. Exactly. Then it's like Nintendo wants to avoid that. They don't want you to feel pressure to do anything particular. Play the just go out there and explore. If you don't have a map and you don't know where you do have a map, but if you don't know where anything is in particular. Then you're just going to go explore. You're going to play the game completely differently. And that's what they want. Think about how many people complained about stuff like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, for instance,

[01:14:55] where it's like, oh my God, there's so many mini games and there's so many things to do. And it's like, you don't actually have to do any of that stuff. You can just play the game. But people put it on themselves to like do all the stuff. But it's like you don't actually have to do that. So I think if Nintendo basically is like, okay, we're not even going to show you. You're just going to have to go find it if you want to find it. That removes that brain tick from people's heads where they feel like they have to do stuff, even though they don't have to do it. You know?

[01:15:25] Yeah. I didn't think about any of that until you started talking about it. And that's awesome. Awesome. Like the most you see on the map is the like the question mark switches or patches, whatever the fuck you want to call them. You can highlight a character and see how many costumes you have collected versus how many you have left to collect. And like that's kind of cool to have there too. But yeah, at the same time, you don't need to goof off in the open world to go do that shit.

[01:15:52] You just pick a character, go play Grand Prix or versus race or knockout race or fucking anything and just go to a food truck and boom. Yep. Like you probably will get that costume. Or if you want to find them, you will eventually learn that different parts of the world have different kinds of food. So, hey, did I try the food in the snowy area? Did I try this one? Did I try that? And so it's like you can drive around and try to find them if you want to, you know,

[01:16:19] so you can play it either way you want, which is obviously fantastic. So I think their approach is great here. And I think the open world area is a really cool way of trying to teach yourself the new mechanics of the game too. Because there isn't like, it's not like a fighting game where there's like a training mode or a practice mode. You can just go into the open world and just like go wherever and try to try out the rail

[01:16:46] grinding in this area, try to do some wall jumps here and there, try to just get better or like try out a new car or like character combo without having to start a race and then go through it and then back out. And it's like a hassle-free, stress-free way of just like testing shit out, testing the waters pretty much. I think that's really fucking cool. I really like that.

[01:17:12] Because like in fucking eight, whenever you unlocked something new, you would have to go into a race and then go unlock your new fucking wheels or whatever and then start the race and then try it out. God forbid you get hammered by fucking red shells and green shells. So you can't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, once you do finally get to test it out, it's like, okay, well quit, go back, try out a different combo, start a race, get nailed by shells, quit, go back and then kind of repeat that until you find the right thing.

[01:17:40] So yeah, this it's awesome. Yeah. It's just, it's very good. It lends to experimentation and you could just kind of like, oh, you can look on the map and be like, oh, this character has like, you know, I still need two costumes for this character. Let's go to try to find them. And then you just select that character and all of a sudden you're that character, you know, you don't have to like go back to the menu and go, you know, and it just obviously now with switch to that shit's loaded fast.

[01:18:07] So like, it's just, it's happening, you know, it's happening. It's happening. It's not, you know, PS5 fast, but it's, it's fast, you know? Oh yeah. So noticeably fast too. Holy shit. Like side tangent. I'm so glad that the e-shop on the switch to actually fucking works. The e-shop on the original switch is so fucking slow. It got slower. It didn't, it wasn't that slow when the thing first came out, it just got slower over time and it just never improved.

[01:18:36] They like never like did any better with it as more and more games got on there. It just became, oh my God. I mean, so like, yeah, the fact that like switch to is much better in that regard is excellent. It's awesome. Let's talk music, baby.

[01:19:07] I'm ready. Let's talk. I'm glad we saved this for last. Cause my God, dude, first off, like the, the very first track that plays, it sets the mood for the whole entire thing. You know, we go with the strength of the fucking harmonica. It goes that that sets the tone for the road trip, right? That's, that's like American Americana. I think that's what I like the most. Maybe that's a good place for me to start.

[01:19:33] I think like hearing all these Mario Kart songs in various types of American styles of music, whether it's jazz or ska or bluegrass or kind of country-ish or, you know, whatever hard rock with that harmonica, right? All of it's great, but that's the thing. I, I, I joked and I called this like the circle of the moon of like Mario Kart soundtracks because

[01:20:01] almost all the music is from another Mario Kart game. There are some originals. Don't get me wrong. Like that theme song you mentioned, but most of it is from other games from other Mario Kart games, which is something they haven't really done before. Usually they always do original music unless it's a classic track, but now hearing those in such fresh takes is insane. I never thought I would hear the songs that we heard a million times like Mario circuit or

[01:20:30] Toad's turnpike or whatever, like hearing those in these new ways is so good, man. Like the music team knocked it out of the park here. I didn't think it could get better than Mario Kart 8 and it did like, dude, this shit's incredible. And they, they go way beyond like redoing other Mario Kart tracks. They also do there, there were, there were at least two Luigi's Mansion tracks that I heard

[01:20:58] that, um, yeah, they, they did like little jazz cover, like looking slow jazz covers of there was, uh, there's like a Yoshi's Island track. I forget which one, but yeah, they slow jazzed that. That was, I heard Steam Gardens. I heard Steam Gardens from Mario Odyssey in there somewhere. I heard the Egyptian like underground theme from Super Mario Land. So yeah, dude. Oh shit.

[01:21:24] Did you hear the like big band swing credits theme from Super Mario World? Did you hear that version of like the credits for Mario World in there? Yeah, dude, they have. That's the thing about it. They're not just doing Mario songs just to do them out on the open world. They're like deep cuts. They are some real Mario. If you're a Mario freak like me, you are eaten right now. Like this shit's crazy, man. Wow. Like good time to be a Mario freak. Basically.

[01:21:55] Yeah, they've really mishmashed as much Mario as they could in this whole goddamn thing. Oh man, I don't know what more to say about the music other than like it. Oh, they are. It is kind of weird how like when you're doing the open world, the game just kind of like plays random tracks whenever just because like you'll be in like the snow area. It'll be playing shit from like a desert or something. And that's kind of weird. But I mean, it's still kind of fun. Yeah, it's still fun. Like, you know, because they're playing.

[01:22:24] That's I think that's why they did them in these radical styles just so it could be like, you know, it's like, okay. Yeah, it may be like a underwater theme you're hearing from like. Oh God, I think I heard the underwater one from like New Super Mario Brothers U or something like that. I just love how far they're reaching into like all sorts of Mario stuff. And like you said, I heard Luigi. You heard the general like over light motif from Luigi's Mansion. I heard that too.

[01:22:55] God, man, just just incredible stuff. I legit think it's one of the best Nintendo soundtracks of all time. And I'm not being a prisoner of the moment. But I really do believe it is. Yeah, it's it's going to be very hard. And like I said, I was kind of like I remember I was kind of put off at the beginning because like when I when I first did Mario Brothers Circuit and you start getting down the open world, the first only played for me was like Mario three athletic. And I'm like, guys, this is Mario Kart. What the fuck are you doing, man?

[01:23:22] But then it's just like, you know, because like that kind of stuff bothered me in like Super Mario 3D world where they didn't have, in my opinion, not a whole lot of ideas of their own. It was just kind of like, here's a Mario game. And it's just like, OK, here are some like classic songs because it's Mario, right? That to me felt forced and just like whatever. Mario Kart world doesn't feel forced. This shit is like legit, especially again. Like I said, they're pulling. They're doing like deep cuts and everything, which is always what I want to hear.

[01:23:51] I never want to hear the songs we know. I want to hear the songs we don't get to hear very often. So that's this. This game pleased me very, very well in that regard. I mean, I don't even know if I've heard every song on this because there's just so many dude when they release this shit on Nintendo music. It's going to be like 200 tracks or something. It's going to be fucking crazy. I can't wait.

[01:24:14] I'm glad that they, you know, they like jazz fusion everything and basically like redid the tracks instead of just adding the same shit over and over and over. That's so smart of them, dude. It said everything about this fucking game feels like familiar, but totally like brand spanking new. That's everything about this game just rips. Yeah. It just, it's so awesome. 100%. Here's a random thing.

[01:24:44] Do you think it's cool that like now when you get an item, it automatically holds it behind your cart now instead of like having to hold like the trigger button, like the item button, you know? Cause before you hold like a green shell behind you, you'd have to like hold it. Right. If you didn't have like the revolving ones, like the triple, you just want to hold one behind you like a banana peel or something. But now you don't have to do that. It just appears behind you. I did not fucking notice that that's now that's a deep cut. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:25:14] Cause like whenever I'm playing a knockout tour and I get like a banana or something, I usually just let that shit sit to eat up a shell or something. I totally did not notice that at all. Yeah. Now you don't have to, before you had to like purposefully let it sit behind you. So, um, I do, again, I don't know if no, if this is like a totally fair criticism. I like that they brought back the feather to the, you could do stuff with it, especially now you could wall ride with it. It's, it's cool.

[01:25:44] There isn't a whole, there isn't really like any new items that are like too wacky. Like I love how Mario Kart eight had the eight where you got like all the items. Oh, it was so, you know what I mean? Like, I guess there's enough chaos already. They don't need to like go crazy with stuff like that. But like, there's no real like items that are like interesting in that regard. But I guess it doesn't have to be, they're just Mario Kart at this point. You know? Yeah.

[01:26:09] I feel like they, they kind of refined the, I guess like the cat, the, uh, the list of items that they have in this game. Like just the, the ones that work, like they've weeded out the ones that don't like, I'm glad they took out the fucking piranha plant. I just did not care for the piranha plant. I liked it. I liked the piranha plant actually, believe it or not. Oh, I guess the new one they did add was the, the, the big mushroom, the mushroom that makes you big. That's in fucking, um, what is that in? That's in another game. They brought it back. We maybe. I know.

[01:26:39] I don't think I ever played the Mario Kart. I think it might be weed, but it hasn't been seen since we. So I think that's like a deep cut that they brought back. It may as well be new at this point since that game is fucking 20 years old or whatever. So yeah, but yeah, no, that was, that was very cool to see. Yeah. I love the big mushroom thing. I love that one. Yeah. You run over people and you get a little small boost. Um, I, I noticed that there's two kinds there. So there's like the orange fireballs and the blue fireballs. Do you know what the fuck the difference is with that?

[01:27:08] I think the blue ones, it's like the ice flower. It is. I think it might actually freeze you, but I think it's just visually interesting. You just have two flowers. I don't think they do too much different in my opinion. Okay. You know what I, you know what I, Oh, Oh, the golden, the golden shell that spits the coins. Yeah. In the punch block. Yeah. Oh yeah. The punch block too. Yeah. There's a lot of coin stuff in this game, which I think is cool. I prefer Mario game. I prefer Mario Kart games with coins.

[01:27:38] I know some of them don't have it, but I definitely, that was one thing I did not like about Mario Kart 64. They don't have coins. I, I like when Mario Kart games have coins. So. Isn't it like the more coins you have, like the, the gradually faster your car will get or whatever. It was like a top speed. And you also unlock shit. It was, you unlock shit. I don't know if the top speed thing applies to this game. I haven't really noticed a speed difference, but it's, it was definitely noticeable in like

[01:28:06] something like Mario Kart super circuit where like, you know, like the GBA one where like getting those coins is like your top speed goes way up. I don't, again, I don't know if world does that, but it is fun that they have coins and it does unlock stuff. So that is, that is good. Other than that, they, they still have all the, you know, green shells, the blue shells, red shells, bananas. They don't have, do they, do they have like the, yeah, they have the three, but the three banana peels.

[01:28:35] They have the bullet bill, which still fucking rules. Yes. I think that's pretty much it. I love bullet. Other than star. Oh yeah. Star man. Of course. Gotta have it. And it's still, oh God. I love it. That's one of the best things in Mario Kart taking shortcuts with star. Now that you have the star, you could just off road all these fucking, you know, like turns and shit. Yeah. Not even now you can use the mushrooms or the golden mushroom. That was the, that was the best gold mushroom.

[01:29:00] Just go like off road and just blast that fucking gold mushroom and then do like, do like, and another neat, cool thing they did with this game. So in like, I think it's either Mario Kart eight or we were, they, they started letting you, letting you do tricks. With this, you can do like a double flip. You can do like a double backflip. You can do more than one trick while you're in the air. Yep. I don't know if it gets you more boost, but it sure looks cool. I don't think it does, but you can just do it. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool to be able to do it.

[01:29:30] It's very, it's very nice. Yeah. Oh yeah. I love tricking through the air and like rainbow road or where you're flying a long time or great question block ruins or whatever, where you do like this long fly through, you know, I'm glad they like kept that stuff to a minimum. It's not like when I first sold the game, I thought it'd be more like Sonic racing transform where it's like, okay, this part, you are the plane or this part, you are the jet ski where it's, it's much more like organic than that, which is fine. And I don't think I love Sonic racing transform.

[01:29:57] I mean, I do, but like, I'm glad this isn't totally like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I like that. They, they brought back the, like the boaty kind of segments. Like it, it, it, it still feels like Diddy Kong racing or like Sonic racing transform where there's like car boat and flying segments. But yeah, like the flying, it's not really flying. It's more or less just gliding and gradually losing momentum and then falling to the ground. Yeah.

[01:30:25] And then like, yeah, the boat sections where you're, they have like water physics and you can do tricks off the waves and shit. And that shit feels good. I, man, I'm this, to go off topic with Sonic and like Sonic racing transformed. I loved how each character's car would like transform into cool shit to match like what, like, like with a amigo, his main car was a train.

[01:30:54] And then when you were a boat, it was like this like steamboat tugboat. Yeah. And then when it was a plane, it was this dumb helicopter. That shit was so, so good. Well, it's like, and then if there's like actual game reasons for it to be that like tails obviously transformed into his like airplane or whatever, like obviously. Right. Or like, you know, I just, I love stuff like that. So. It's awesome. And the, another thing to throw in about this game too, the costumes are cool. I wish Donkey Kong had more costumes.

[01:31:24] My favorites are the, the fishermen for lack of two vampire Waluigi pirate King Boo. He's got a fucking hook for him. You do. That's who you were the other night. You're a King Boo. That's who you were. Yeah. I thought you were pokey for some reason, but you're, you're a King Boo. Oh, I do King, I do King Boo a lot. Even though I love Luigi. Um, Luigi has a, uh, snowboarding cot. No. Yeah. He has a snowboarding costume that I love to use a lot.

[01:31:51] The only one I've unlocked with Luigi so far is like the gondola one where he looks like he's in Italy or something. He has like that hat and like the striped shirt. Yeah. This is very European. Yeah. Dude, the costume dude, ever since I would say since like Mario cart, Mario cart ever since Mario Odyssey, Nintendo's costume game. Cause all the outfits Mario can wear in Odyssey is like peak, you know? And they have some of these in here. They have aviator Mario, which was like one of my favorites in Odyssey.

[01:32:17] Oh, I wish they had the city Mario, like the city slicker, like the new Donk city, like the suit and like the hat. I wish they had that. Oh man. But like, or like, um, like the, um, Mario with like the sombrero and the poncho and stuff. Yes. They have like a, they, I think, I think, uh, while the Luigi has like a Mexican outfit, right? Or like a, I think he does actually know that you mentioned it. Yeah, he totally does. Well, they fucking decked out Waluigi with the coolest shit. They did. This vampire costume.

[01:32:47] He has that biker costume where he has a fucking Mohawk. Yeah. A Wario has that too. I've been playing Wario the most. He has the biker one and he also has like a, I was, I think you saw last night when I was using it. He's like a work, like a construction worker. So he's wearing like this grubby, like white tank top and like this hard hat. And it's like, Mario doesn't work. Like Mario and Luigi are the working men out here. Wario just lays on his ass and fucking doesn't, you know, but I guess he's out here working. I guess the micro games aren't paying right now.

[01:33:15] So, uh, maybe he just, he has that on to, uh, to impress his parole officer. Well, they don't have the Wario wear outfit. I've noticed. They just, I wish they did honestly. Cause that's, that would be really fucking cool. That's just the coolest Wario, honestly. But yeah, Wario. Oh, he, oh, I think, uh, while Luigi has us to Oasis Wario where he's like, it looks like a turban and like a feather. He looks like he's like from the middle East. He's wearing like this gold, like, and like, yeah, Luigi has one like that too. Yeah. I think they both have that. Yeah.

[01:33:45] That shit's so funny on Wario. Oh my God. Oh man. And the fucking cars in this game are so cool. I, at first I was kind of disappointed that you couldn't like customize them, like pick the body and the wheels and shit. But after like an hour with the game, I was like, fuck that. Let me just pick a car. Oh, another thing too, is that like everything up to eight, I'm pretty sure each character was like light, medium, heavy. And then their stats plus the car stats, it means something different.

[01:34:15] Each character has like very slightly different stats. So you can be like whoever and not really worry about weight classes. Of course, Bowser's going to be heavy shit though. But I kind of miss the weight class stuff. I did like that stuff when it was more pronounced. That doesn't mean they can't ever go back to that in the future. But, um, I did like, oh, especially where it mattered a lot, like super circuit, particularly I loved using warrior Bowser in that game and just ramming Yoshi and just falling off of fucking, cause you're so light.

[01:34:45] You can just really like slap them off like a cliff or something like that. It's so much fun, but I get it. This isn't that kind of game anyway. So I understand why they don't really have that much anymore. But yeah, I always tend to pick heavyweights anyway. I always play as Donkey Kong or Wario or, you know, you know, I've not picked Bowser yet in this game. I definitely need to do that. He's got some cool fucking costumes. I hope that if they do, if they do do DLC, ha, do do, if they do do DLC, I hope that,

[01:35:15] well, for one, they give you more Mario characters. Like maybe this is like, this is a shot in the dark. Maybe we'll get Geno. I highly doubt it, but that'd be cool. Just can't imagine. Geno or like more critters, like a chain chomp would be fucking cool. So stupid. I say that as if they, but they already have every stupid ass critter in this game. So it doesn't even matter now. So yeah, Dre, they have a cow. Yeah. Cow. And this name is cow.

[01:35:45] Its name is cow. Yep. That's so ridiculous. Oh man. Oh, I am. Oh, did you see that motorcycle named Rob hog? Yes. Oh my God. Rob. I have, I have three. I don't know why I'm trying to show my fingers to the camera. I have three go-tos that go to vehicles. It's the Rob hog. There's like the, the blooper mobile thing. Oh, what is it called? It's like, it's shaped like, it's like the, the dolphin motorcycle. That's what I use.

[01:36:14] It's dolphin dasher. You know, I've never, you know, I know Mario Kart. We introduced the bikes. I never been much of a bike person. Sometimes I'd use them in eight, but like in this game, I'm really liking bikes. Yeah. I don't know why. I, I think in eight, they had like very slightly different physics to, um, maybe I'm thinking of, of, of a different game, but could be seven. The bike, the bikes, the bikes feel real good in this game, especially. Yeah.

[01:36:44] I like the, the, the Rob, Rob, uh, what is it called? Rob hog. Rob hog. It was like, bro, I can't believe they need their rob hog. The Rob, the robot isn't even a racer in the game anymore. And they have a rob hog. Yeah. Also, I'm glad they took out the fucking, I don't care for the Koopalings. They can stay out. They can keep them in if they want. They can bring them in. I don't give a shit. Leave them out. I, I like Morton, but I'm not, I'm not, I don't really care that they're not here.

[01:37:13] I was an iggy guy. Yeah. I like, I like Morton or, um, what's his name? Not Morton. The other heavyweight, um, Roy, Roy Koopa Jr. Lemmy. I lied. Lemmy is the one that I like with the, the Mohawk. You know, if I go medium, if I go medium weight, I'm just a basic bitch. I just pick Mario, honestly. Yep. Yeah. That's just kind of what I like for that. Mario's good. Yeah. He's got some cool costumes too. I wish they had, I don't know why I love metal Mario so much. I kind of wish they had metal Mario again.

[01:37:42] I don't know. I do like metal Mario. I like that they had gold Mario in eight for some reason. It was weird. Yeah. And pink gold peach. Yeah. Rose gold peach and shit. I was making jokes like, you know, rose gold, dry baby Daisy or something. Just, just pile, pile on all the adjectives. Baby skeleton. That's very, very hot take. I don't give a fuck about the baby characters. Take them out, man.

[01:38:13] Look, baby Mario. Okay. That's like a thing from Yoshi's Island. Fine. I don't understand why we need the other baby characters. It's dumb as hell. I don't get it. Baby Daisy, baby, baby Rosalina. Get the fuck. She's like, yeah, she's like floating. Maybe kids, maybe real young kids like that shit. I don't know. But here's the thing. When I was a kid, I didn't want to play as a baby. I wanted to be a big boy, right? I didn't want to be a baby. That's a baby. I don't want to do that. I'm better than that. Right. So I don't know that. Yeah.

[01:38:44] At least I get my boys, my Yoshi, Luigi, and whatever the fuck creature I feel like that day. Pokey. The skeleton fish. Or the bat swoop. Oh, yeah. Why don't they have the bat? Love swoop. That is hell. I mean, what are you guys doing? The bat. The B from like Mario Galaxy or something? Like, what do you mean? Oh, they should have B Mario as an outfit. Why don't they be Mario? That's a good question.

[01:39:12] Or like the Mario maker outfit for Mario. Oh, builder Mario. Yeah, dude. They have that shit in Mario Odyssey. Just carry that straight over. Oh, man. I wonder if they'll do that for DLC. Then they give them extra fuck off. They'll probably do. They'll probably do free updates. I can't imagine they won't have more like just stuff they'll add. If they don't add Diddy Kong, I'm going to fucking scream. They're never. They're never. Oh, maybe. Maybe when the game.

[01:39:42] Maybe when Bonanza comes out. Maybe after. I hope so. Maybe. Diddy Kong's my boy. What a fucking game, man. Mm-hmm. What a game. Random Recommendated Games! This is the part of the show. It's the sad part of the show, but also the most generous, where we leave all of you listeners with a game that we recommend that you go play. Just because we're generous lovers, generous people, generous men. Mm-hmm. We'll leave you with something good. Do you want me to go first, Andre?

[01:40:11] Or do you have something? I have a game. I'm just trying to think if I've recommended it before, but I don't think it matters. I can just do it again. Go for it. Because whenever I'm a guest anywhere and we need a game recommendation, I always go here. Because it's probably my favorite indie game of all time. It came out in 2019. It's called Ape Out. Oh! You never brought it up on this show, but I'm so fucking glad you brought it up here. I love that game.

[01:40:37] Ape Out is one of the best fucking games I have ever played in my life. Yes. That shit's incredible. It's exactly what it sounds like. You're an ape. It's from a top-down perspective, and you're trying to escape your captors. It's super violent, and it's set to the tone of very modular jazz. So as you're hitting them, the cymbals go kshh. You know what I mean? It's incredible.

[01:41:03] It is one of the most visually striking games I've ever seen, and it's so much fun. And the music is crazy. All the art is done in 60s, 50s, 60s jazz style records. Oh, my God, dude. If you love music and you love very gratuitous, bloody violence, as I do, definitely pick up Ape Out. It's incredible. It's 15 bucks on Steam. It very often goes on sale on most... I think the only thing other...

[01:41:30] I think the only console it's on is Switch. I think so, too. I don't think it's on anything else besides Steam and Switch, but I have it on both platforms because it's that good. It often goes on sale for like three bucks. I mean, it's worth the $14.99. Yeah, definitely worth it. You're getting it for a steal for three bucks. Yeah, definitely get it if you ever see this game. Ape Out. Just incredible stuff.

[01:41:56] I remember the different stages you can unlock, too, for that game. After you beat the main four or five, there's a couple more you can unlock, and then there's a much harder difficulty you can play on. Oh, man. Oh, man. I need to play that again. God damn it. Great stuff. My random recommendation that I'm leaving everybody with is... I forgot that I even had this on Switch. It's Biomotor Unitron.

[01:42:25] It's a... It's a Neo... I've heard of this. Yeah, it's a Neo Geo Pocket Color game. That's right. I know what this is. Yeah. I'm a big simp for customizable robot games, and boy, howdy, do you get that in this game? Like, in spades. Holy shit. I know you are. I gotta lean forward away from my desk for this one. So, yeah.

[01:42:50] It's a dungeon-crawling customizable robot RPG, and then pretty much you'll just... Like, you'll start off with your basic bitch-ass robot, and then I think you start off just going through dungeons. You can go through dungeons, collect money, get XP, and level up your robot, and get money to buy new parts. And that's a big part of the game is buying new parts. It's... You go to the shop, buy a new part. You take it back to your shop, and your sister or whatever, you can have her morph it into

[01:43:19] something new by giving her new materials and shit. So, you can take, like, a rapier, and she'll turn it into a drill. Then you can take the drill and turn it into, like, a tornado drill or something, and now it's a wind element. Oh, and then there's, like, different... Sounds so good. There's different legs that you can put on that affect your... Not only your fucking appearance, that's a huge thing. Like, it'll... Any part that you put on will change the appearance of your robot.

[01:43:47] Mind you, this is a game that came out during, like, the Game Boy Color era, so there's so much fucking, like, so much detail to the robot portrait in the game. And yeah, the combat is simple. It's just you either attack or use an item or run away, and that's pretty much it. You said this is on Neo Geo Pocket Color, right? Yep. Is this on one of those, like, collections? Like, Neo Geo Pocket Color collections on Switch or something?

[01:44:17] Can you play it? Damn right it is. Okay, good. And you can buy it separately, too. It's... I think, like... It was on sale, like, yesterday, because I told Jerry, hey, go buy this because it's really good. And then he told me to go fuck myself because he was just gonna go emulate it instead. But, yeah. Wow. So... It's on the, uh... Yeah, it's on the collections, or you can buy it separate. If you buy it separate, that's fine because it's totally worth it. You can get, like, maybe 15 hours out of this game. Maybe even more than that if you replay it. It's just... It's that good.

[01:44:46] There's so much to it. It's awesome. Sounds great. I gotta... See, I have a couple of collections, so I might have it already. I'm not sure yet. I hope you do. So... I gotta go look. And if I don't, I gotta catch up on that stuff anyway, so... Oh, yeah. And with that, listeners, that's it for the show today. We're gonna wrap it up. Get out of here.

[01:45:15] Send it your way with a pretty bow. Andre, one more time, do you wanna tell people where they can find you and your show and all that stuff? Go to Find Time on... Or just search Find Time on any of your podcast catchers. Find Find Time on Blue Sky as well. And if you look at our profile in there, you can find the personal accounts of us three hosts, me, Steve, and Kevin. So check us out on... Check us out on the interwebs. Do we still say that? Oh, yeah. Totally. Check them on the interwebs. Okay.

[01:45:45] Andre, just today, as of today's recording, put out an excellent episode where you did your favorite Capcom arcade tracks. Yep. Music tracks, I should say. And dude, that was some fucking excellent picks. Thank you. I'm so glad you liked it. It's always... That's the only time I get nervous about Find Time is when I do a solo episode. So I'm really glad to hear that feedback. Yeah, man. And what was the other one you did? Your top 10 SNES games?

[01:46:15] That was all... Like... Top 5, yeah. Top 5. Yeah. Yeah. Those kinds of things. Like those little checklist-style episodes. Those always get me. You'll always get a listen out of me. Thank you. I'm glad I've worked out well. And with that, we're getting the hell out of here. Thanks for hanging out, everybody. Check out SuperPodSonga.com. Check out our Patreon. Leave a rating review and all that stuff. Also, be sure to tune in next time where Jerry gets back from vacation.

[01:46:45] He gets taken. And then Liam Neeson has to go and save him. And then that's the end. Credits. Goodbye, everybody. Okay, bye.