Mario + Hulk + Red Faction = Donkey Kong Bananza
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Transcript
Chris Plant, here's the deal.
I have
the sides in front of me, and really, we just have one line that we need you to do.
And hopefully, you can take as many tries as you want.
You don't need to get it perfect the first time through.
But if you just read this line for us,
just however you want to deliver it,
and
we'll go from there.
Okay.
Oh, banana.
Okay.
You don't sound so excited about the banana.
I want a little more enthusiasm, like you just found a banana and you're pretty pumped about it.
Oh,
banana?
Okay, now you're just confused.
You don't know what a banana is.
You've never seen a banana in your life.
You love bananas.
You're a banana-loving creature.
So I want to hear that in the delivery.
Ova nana!
Okay, that's just, I don't know what that is.
Can you give me one more try?
Yeah, one more try.
Go for it.
Oh,
Ma Nana.
Okay, there it is.
Check the gate.
We got it.
He's got the job.
Congrats, Chris Plant.
New voice of Donkey Song.
Donkey Konk.
Well, no, no, no.
We don't.
The rap is already taken care of.
We don't need anyone for the rest of the time.
You know what?
I'm sorry for wasting your time.
I'll sign up.
I appreciate it.
Don't think I got the role.
My name is Ross.
Oh my god, I'm doing it first.
My name is Ross Frostick, and I know the best game of the week.
My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week in the best game in a very long time.
What a game.
Welcome to the Besties,
where the best.
And today it's just Plant and I.
The McElroy boys are dealing with some family stuff and they were unable to join because of some very last-minute scenarios.
I'm sure we will hear about their opinions on this game on the subsequent episode that we do.
But for right now, we wanted to make sure that you guys heard just an initial Donkey Kong Bonanza episode.
Chris Point, what is Donkey Kong Bonanza?
Donkey Kong Bonanza, it's like that Super Mario Odyssey game that you love so much, except for now you're Donkey Kong and you can break the shit out of everything.
In the words of Fred Durst, Give me something to break.
And we did.
Nintendo gave us something to break everything in this video game.
I thank Fred, I thank Nintendo, and I thank Donkey Kong.
Let's get into it.
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Okay, so I played, I mentioned this before, but I've played Donkey Kong Bonanza briefly at the Nintendo Switch 2, like the first hands-on preview ever.
Bragg.
And I thought it was pretty fun.
Yeah.
I did not think the entire game was going to be as
focused on the blowing shit up that this game is focused on.
But man,
they just like commit to the idea that you're Donkey Kong.
Donkey Kong loves bananas.
The bananas are in the rocks for some reason.
And you need to get at them.
Yes.
The way to think about this game as a platformer or whatever you want to call it in the Mario style is if Mario is about jumping to get to various areas around a platform and kind of fast movement, this is about carving straight through.
A lot of the puzzles in this game, a lot of them, are about being able to create paths through the environment.
So that means at the very beginning of a level, you might just say, I wonder what happens if I go straight down.
And if you bury, berry, berry or dig, dig, dig, you will find that there is a banana, which is the equivalent of the gold stars in the Mario games.
Yes.
It's waiting right there for you.
So one, it just rewards discovery.
But two, you might find that there's a puzzle where there's a tube of steel that cannot be broken.
by bashing.
Oh no, what are we going to do?
You have to find other things that can be destroyed to create the path into that that giant i don't know super protective tube it is right the puzzles of the game are the smashing and the bashing and the boring and the digging
not boring but boring bore yes like you are a subway bore
yeah it's it's interesting because when you first start out like the early environments tend to be like like where is the challenge in this because you're really just going through and just like dig dig dig oh i see a a banana because of my like ability to sonar my way through the environment.
But there isn't a lot that's in your way.
And then obviously, as time goes on, it seems like the environments get more
a little more level designed, like less just like you can explode this entire level and a little more like, I wouldn't say guided, but just like structurally.
you're not necessarily just like able to dig straight down for 50 meters for no reason.
It feels like a game we're going to figure out how smart it is in like a year or two or five
because it is so unlike anything that I've played.
And by that, I mean you play any big open world platformer game where you need to go and collect stuff, right?
There's types of signposting and things, tricks that are guiding your eye on where to go.
That once you've played enough of these, you know the language.
You actually can see the way it's tricking you to get around.
There are times here where
I feel like a genius.
Like I just happened to have just had this random decision to carve a path.
And then how could I possibly have known that it would lead to this banana?
And I get the sense that they have so many little tricks in their utility belt to guide you through something that seems random.
and chaotic and happenstance.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
When I think about signposting, like there are moments where you'll like be running through a grass field and there's like a circle that doesn't have any grass on it.
And chances are, if you dig in that spot, something's going to happen.
The other element, every area in the game, and these environments are quite huge, has like,
I don't know, fucking 50 collectibles per area.
It's like an astonishing, because there's the bananas, which we've talked about.
There's fossils that you can collect that unlock like different like clothing pieces, whatever.
There's like bigger fossils and then there's like super big fossils, and then there's these randomly appearing chests.
So, really, whenever you're digging, it's kind of shocking if you don't find anything for like two or three digs because the environment is so littered with stuff, which again feels incredibly fat, uh, incredibly satisfying.
Like, they nailed that feeling incredibly well.
Yes.
The
cool thing about the level design for me is
it feels chaotic, and it feels like you will the very first time you go into a level and i should clarify the way the game works is you are going deeper and deeper into the core of a planet but really you're just going from like deep one level to the next and these levels are larger and larger spaces that
when you first land in them you will dig and carve and you'll wind up exiting a hillside and not even know how you got there or where you are because you actually never even explored the surface of the level and it feels like well how do i even know where to go in this space
but
the all of the destruction that you do is persistent at least when you are in that level it resets when you leave the level and that does this
one of many cool magic tricks it lets you know where you've been and you end up recognizing the the the scope the geography of the level based off of the destruction that you've done to it, more than you actually do from the level's design itself.
So it's this weird thing where you're kind of like almost creating your own map through this big amorphous space.
It's really trippy.
The old version of that was like
very old.
Oh, there's dead Nazis here.
Clearly I've been.
But this obviously, yeah, much more in-depth than you can really, it just saves you the effort of like, oh, I don't need to dig here a ton because I've really like plumbed the environment as much as I can,
which again, when you're trying to get the most out of each and every area, that makes it so much easier.
Do you,
did you feel lost when you were playing the game at all?
I mean, the map is pretty good.
There is like a 3D map.
If you ever get lost, you're not sure, for example, like you want to find the store or whatever, there's a 3D map that lets you really just like scrub anywhere you want and set pins.
So you can like, oh, I want to to find the store.
I'm going to set a pin on the store.
And it'll always appear on your radar.
You can also hold down the, I think it's the left bumper, whatever like causes you to sing.
You can like whistle as Donkey Kong and we'll talk about her, but Pauline is also in this game and she'll sing and it reveals like if you found any fossil maps, for example, they'll like stay on your radar
on the HUD.
So that, I think, really helps in terms of guidance.
But there are certainly moments where, again, you're underground.
You have no fucking idea where you are.
You're just punching like a madman, mad Donkey Kong, and suddenly you're like, yeah, you pop out and you like fall 50 feet because there's just water in front of you, which feels very Looney Tunes in that way.
So I didn't have problems navigating, I would say.
What about you?
Yeah.
Anytime I felt lost, it wasn't a bad type of lost.
It was
kind of the fun of it.
It was that overwhelming experience at the beginning of a level where it's like, I don't even know where I'm going.
And I am kind of okay with that.
We've talked before on maybe on Rusties about like weed games, or
if you don't want to call them that because you live in certain states, podcast games, maybe.
But games that are, they benefit from a certain degree of zoning out.
And holy moly is that this game for me.
Last night, I was playing in Mosey and Steffi had gone to bed, and I was like, oh, you know, I'll get a little bit in before the episode tomorrow.
And I had YouTube on on the TV and that band Korongbin came on.
Oh, yeah.
Right?
It's like a vibey,
very vibey, very like modern day equivalent of like listening to the dead or fish.
And
I don't know, like two hours passed where I was just zipping through.
And I hadn't like that was, I was stone cold sober, but the vibe was just there.
And I was was completely entranced by it.
And I, I don't know.
A weird thing about this game is, I often don't even know if I'm on quest or missions.
I'm just kind of carving through it.
I don't know if I'm like, I don't know if I should be talking to more characters or if I should be like accepting quests or if I'm if like my goal in the game is to just kind of destroy, destroy, destroy until I get to a new area where I can hop down to the next layer.
But it seems to be okay with me doing that.
And when I do talk to people, a thing that, sorry, just very quickly that I do want to highlight, which is one of the most brilliant decisions in this game,
everybody's so happy you're there and they're so happy you're breaking stuff, which is really important because I think the vibe and the energy of this game would just feel different if it was like, oh no, Donkey Kong's here.
That comes up.
He breaks everything.
Where here, there are characters made out of gems, and you can like break them in half.
And they're like, wow, that was such a cool idea doing that.
I'm so glad you tried that.
And you're like, thank you.
Yeah, there is like a Yoshi's story almost like upbeateness to this entire world.
And everyone is like totally game for it, except for like the villains who are obviously like not that.
But every other NPC you meet is like, yeah, super thrilled to be there, having a great time.
You know, would like to have this problem addressed with Void Kong or whatever he's got going on, but largely very happy to be there.
I do want to mention, though, we've been talking a lot about like the vibe-y, just exploration, destroying shit parts.
There are like,
for lack of a better term, like challenge parts or even like puzzle parts where you'll find these warp areas
and you'll enter them, and they are like very contained
platforming challenges or puzzle challenges that usually have like a few bananas that you find just by by like trying to complete the normal path, and then like a hidden banana if you like go off the beaten path.
The closest analog I could think of would be like in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, the shrines.
It's like a very similar thing here where it's like just a very focused challenge.
Or like the challenge
in Celeste,
like the little one-off missions in Celeste.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's such a clever solution for, well, if you can destroy everything, how do you create any order?
How do you control the player?
And by having that, it's like, oh, this is a thing that you've chosen to do.
You want a more controlled experience.
They're like a minute and a half long.
Yeah.
They're right back into busting shit up.
Yeah.
You mentioned Pauline.
Oh, yeah.
Can you tell people how Pauline works?
Okay, well, just a quick history lesson.
Pauline, for those that aren't aware, was the woman that was in the original Donkey Kong game.
So when Mario is climbing up the construction site and Donkey Kong is up there throwing barrels, he's doing it for his love of Pauline.
So I don't, I haven't finished the game and I haven't looked up spoilers.
I imagine it's addressed because Pauline in this game is only 13 years old.
So it is before, theoretically, the events of the Mario game where Pauline and Donkey Kong are, I guess, older.
She's also the mayor of New Donk City and Superman.
Well, that's in Mario Odyssey.
Yeah.
Yes.
Which we
don't want to get too lost in the weeds here.
I'm having Jeremy Parrish is coming on post-games this week to talk about video game history.
And we'll have a whole lesson on the chronology, which is a disaster.
But her power is she sings is basically.
Yes.
She sings.
And that's true.
That's a good note because obviously in Mario Odyssey, she's very famously singing.
She has a big theme song that she sings.
But here, she sings, and if you're playing in co-op,
her power is fucking outrageous.
Have you played co-op yet?
I haven't.
I saw a video of it, and I was like, I don't know if I'm ready for this.
Okay, so in co-op,
the main character, the player one, plays Donkey Kong, standard controls.
But the second player plays as Pauline, who is riding on Donkey Kong's back, like a piggyback situation.
And at any given time, the second player using like a targeting reticle on the screen,
similar to like Mario,
what is it?
The space one, Mario Galaxy, very similar to that, can fire off these shouts that
Pauline can do.
And the shouts can be different materials.
So if you set it to be like grass, she'll like shoot these big grass clumps out.
Or if you set it to stone or even gold, you'll change what she's like shooting out.
And there is no limit to this power.
You can use it as much as you want, as often as you want.
And it's fucking buckwild, especially when you introduce a small child to the mix.
And let me tell you, my small child, who is four,
fucking loves this game and loves breaking shit.
This is like the first time that he and I have played a new game.
That he is so jazzed about.
Everything before this was like, we're playing Animal Crossing, which obviously had been out for a while and different games that have been out.
This is the first new game and he is like Donkey Kong pilled up the wall and he
contributes.
Like I will be running straight as Donkey Kong and he is firing off bazooka's worth of ground destructing capabilities.
Now, that doesn't make it easy to climb a hill, let me tell you.
No.
Because he's just like destroying everything around me.
But if I'm just looking to clear the map,
it's going pretty well.
I mean, you can just rubble that entire map in minutes.
You really can very quickly.
It's pretty impressive, actually.
Yeah, one of the materials for people is basically a bomb explosive material.
So you can just truly wreck wreck.
Yeah, I haven't tried that one.
She can like copy the material if she's aiming at it.
And he is not the best at aiming.
So it's more just like a scatter shot
cluster bomb approach to it.
But it's pretty fun to play with a little kid.
I wouldn't say you make a lot of progress progress from working your way through the story, but all he cares about, and we haven't talked about it yet, is breaking shit with Pauline and character customization, which I am also deeply into.
Yeah.
This is the first game that I can think of where there was like pretty extensive Donkey Kong customization in it.
Yeah, yeah, it's weird.
I'm kind of torn on the customization.
I love it in that it looks great.
His outfits are great.
And I like the new Donkey Kong design.
We'll get to that in a second.
It's weird in that the clothes that you pick have powers.
And it's kind of in that, like, I don't know, Ubisoft Activision EA realm of
save X mini points to get 10% or 20% or 30% buff to your speed in mud and ice environments, which
never really
feels exciting to me.
It's useful.
And they're useful per it's not like a 3% improvement to whatever.
It'll be like, yeah, you can swim 30% faster or whatever.
That's a useful skill.
But it is weird to tie it to clothing, especially when it comes to little children, because my boy does not like it when Donkey Kong wears pants.
So I'm continually a sub-optimal build because Donkey Kong cannot wear pants.
Wow.
Which is, yeah, it probably should have just been like a badge that you equip or something that doesn't have a visual impact on the character.
Because I would collect pants just as a matter of course.
I love that you just said that with such certainty.
Yeah, I agree.
You mentioned not getting much done in the story.
A cool thing about the destruction, though, is so there's gold everywhere.
Yeah.
And gold ends up being the way that they gate you in this game between various things.
So as you get deeper into the game, there are
even like small little quests that will have a character say, hey, I can unlock that area for a thousand gold or I can unlock blank for 500 gold or whatever.
So you end up wanting to...
You're rewarded for the grind a little bit.
I hate to even call it a grind because it...
it's kind of the whole heart and soul of the game.
But it the game wants you to explore and to destroy stuff and to really find and discover new things.
It seems like it will punish you if you try to just mainline the game, if you try to go from point A to point B.
I'm really curious what speedruns of this game will look like because because of its gating.
I don't know.
It could look cool.
Like how people harvest gold very quickly will be interesting.
There is a bit of RNG, I think.
Yeah, in terms of what's actually in the ground.
I agree.
And the treasure chests tend to be, I think, RNG-based as well.
So the gold gating that you're talking about is really just like when you reach like certain moments, they'll be like, oh, we actually need 10,000 gold to like open this thing, correct?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think you can still, there are other ways of like progressing the core levels.
There are just certain.
I've started to come across more things where they're asking me for gold to keep moving.
And I
think how much that happens.
What's funny is that because of playing co-op with him and him not really wanting to do anything but like dig,
gold is like so not a problem.
I have so much fucking gold.
It is, I'm drowning in it and it constantly respawns and it's everywhere.
And honestly, like even when I see gold, like the urge to break it up is incredible because it feels so good when they, when you do that.
So I haven't hit that wall, but I, yeah, it will be interesting to see if people figure out a way to like get enough to get to the next area and the next area yeah yeah um uh any any other kind of thoughts on it about you know did you did it feel overpowered for you i mean you mentioned that in co-op and even if it does like do you mind
No, I don't care.
I mean, it does feel overpowered, but I don't care.
I don't think Nintendo cares.
I think they just want it to feel good.
You certainly feel very powerful as Donkey Kong, whether you're playing in co-op or not, to the point where a lot of the fights that I've done, like the larger fights, tend to be like, well, fuck that guy up.
You can turn into, we haven't talked about it, you can turn into like the equivalent of like super forms of Donkey Kong that have different powers, but the base, the first one you're getting is really just you turn into a giant Donkey Kong and you're much more powerful than you were previously.
Yeah.
And so that,
you know, activating that in the first third of the game feels like a cheat code that you're entering because you are just so astonishingly powerful as that Donkey Kong.
And you just trivialize basically any bosses that you come across.
This seems to be the new model of Nintendo game design of
if you want to be ultra powerful and you want to just crush the game beneath you, you can.
If you want to give yourself more challenge and come up with like a more creative way to beat something, you can also do that.
And it's going to rely on you to make that decision.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean,
with Tears of the Kingdom, like, I don't think that's the case.
Like, I think Tears of the Kingdom, I don't, I mean, you theoretically, if you like, look at guides or whatever, I guess you could
break it with like abusing the systems to respawn zone item or whatever the fuck.
But I think broadly speaking, like for
the first 10 hours of that game, you feel pretty weak.
I think that's true, but I guess I feel better than Tears of the Kingdom.
There are a few contraptions that you can build to solve pretty much every puzzle.
Yeah.
Or you can get really creative.
Like, it's up to you.
But yes, it's, this is the
most,
the far end of that spectrum.
Again, we haven't talked about the powers.
I don't want to go too much into the powers because I think that is like a spoilery thing that you should be able to discover.
But
as Donkey Kong gets his Donkey Kong superpowers, you can really bust through this game.
I mean, they are the perpetual cheat code.
And
charge them up.
And it's very silly because there's an option to make it charge faster.
There's all these upgrades you can get.
And I have yet to have any reason to do that because I'm just constantly charged up.
It feels like I can just live in superhero mode all the time.
Yeah,
I really dug it.
Yeah.
I look forward to talking about it more once we have the boys back because
I'm sure it will be part of the game of the year conversation.
Yeah.
And I think it'll also be good to talk about what the end game looks like.
We've run into this a few times with Kirby where we really, really enjoy the game and then you get to see the real challenging stuff and it becomes a whole separate thing that we love.
And I'm curious where that is.
I think I'm probably about five or six hours from the end.
So yeah, we'll follow up on it.
Cool.
Let's take a quick break and then we've got a little more coming at you after the break.
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Okay, we are back.
And I am so happy that Nintendo gave Donkey Kong another shot.
Donkey Kong disrespected.
Donkey Kong, the original Nintendo icon.
He performs one rap on the Nintendo 64 and suddenly he can't get AAA games anymore.
I think that's bullshit.
So I'm happy that Donkey Kong is getting his, you know, his return, his moment.
For what it's worth, I do think, I guess that was the last one, right?
I was going to say Donkey Kong.
Yeah, that was the last one was N64 Donkey Kong.
The rest of them have been like either spin-offs or throwbacks to the Donkey Kong Country style.
Those were great, but I would agree that they're not like full-on, huge, huge titles.
And what I realized is there's a lot of brands that are just getting this disrespect.
And sure,
I understand.
Nintendo, they know exactly what they're doing.
You don't need to tell me this.
But also, like, why haven't I gotten my Earthbound AAA game?
I'm just saying.
So I thought what we could do is we can go through a list of the games that are...
Either fully ignored, they haven't been getting anything in a while, or they've been bumped down to the B or the C tier list in Maker.
Where they'll have like, oh, here's a card game version of this.
That's all I have to do.
Yeah, or like 99.
You know, those series were like F-Zero.
We can start with F-Zero.
Congratulations.
It's, you know, a novelty that we'll take off the store once we're done with it.
Let's start there.
Do you think it has any chance in hell of coming back as a major Nintendo series?
Yes, I do.
I think the last time that there was like a major F-Zero game was, what, on GameCube?
Yeah.
And then there was like an arcade version of that.
But I think right now they've got
the only hesitation that I have is like they are a little top-heavy on racing games right now because they have Mario Kart, they have Kirby's Air Ride is coming.
So I wouldn't necessarily see,
I wouldn't expect to see an F-Zero game in the next year, but it's like the other big racing franchise for them.
And it has the ability
in the same way that, what did we play,
that the Fast Fusion, whatever that game was,
it has the ability to be a real showpiece for the hardware because everything is moving so quickly that it wouldn't surprise me.
It's also, as they've seen, as they've shown with F-Zero 99, it's great for online play.
So it wouldn't totally shock me.
I would like to see something
more
story-based or like character development-based.
Uh,
but I don't know that maybe that goes in conflict to like what F-Zero is, which is really just like an arcade racer in the style of Wipeout.
Um, or I guess Wipeout was in the style of F-Zero.
So, yeah, I could see it, but it might be a few years.
That's the problem for me: I don't know why they make another racing game series when they've made it clear that they will put all the eggs in the the Mario Kart basket
throughout a console's life cycle.
And I'm just going to be making
Kirby Airride they're making.
Sure, yeah,
that's true and still wild to me.
In the same year.
But F-Zero, for me, yeah, I would love either a game that is more of a story-based racer game, a racing RPG like we used to get a long time ago.
or
hand it over to an indie studio.
There was
a time where I felt like Nintendo was doing a bit more of that, of trusting Crypto the Necro Dancer developers to make the Zelda game.
Is that the only example that I can think of?
I could have sworn that there was more.
You're right.
I started to say that.
I was like, you have to do that a few times.
And now I'm like,
I think it might be just the one.
Otherwise, they'll work with like Namco and things like that.
Yeah, but it feels like it would be a good partnership.
You're right.
And Namco Bantai.
Okay.
I'm going to put what would you put the odds at for that one?
Uh, I think there's a
in in the lifespan of the Switch 2.
Yeah,
I'd say there's a 20% chance of getting an F-screen
lifespan.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, uh, next one I have is the Earthbound Mother series.
Three percent chance.
I think you're right.
I don't know if we need to say much more.
For people who don't know, um, Earthbound was a cult favorite uh RPG for the Super Nintendo.
There was a
prequel or a predecessor that was not released in the U.S.
There was a sequel called Mother 3 that was not released in the U.S.
The hardcore fans have been badgering Nintendo for more Earthbound forever.
And
not without reason, because Earthbound's...
main characters have appeared in Smash Brothers from the very beginning.
Ness is the protagonist of Earthbound, so Earthbound has just always been part of Nintendo IP.
But I agree with you in that it almost feels like it's been so long that it's a lose-lose, that it's not a big enough name that it will make you a lot of money.
And the fan base is so...
rabid that
the odds of you messing up are
really high.
So
I also don't even know how big that fan base is.
I know they are rabid.
I know they're intense, but like, is it
millions?
Yeah, it's hundreds.
Right.
You know, like, that's the problem.
Yeah.
Okay, so the next one is...
Wait, wait, wait.
Let me do a caveat.
There were how many Earthbound games were there?
Three.
Three.
And didn't the third one never get released in the U.S.?
Correct.
I could definitely see the third one getting a port with the translation.
My friend, here is where you are wrong.
Here's where you are being schooled by a real fan.
Okay.
There are a few things in it that have not aged well.
Oh, and they will never release it.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I would not count on that.
I think there's a reason that they have been very okay with a fan translation of that game.
Sure.
I think that is a compromise.
Love that game, but there are some parts.
Yeah.
We need work.
Okay, 3%.
Great.
We're moving along.
Here's a weird one.
Pokemon.
I know what you're saying.
Pokemon already has big games out there.
What I'm asking is, is this really, is this really the peak?
Is this really triple-A Pokemon when we see this stuff?
Because I look at these Pokemon games.
We need so much shit for this.
I love when I say something.
I'm like, I can already feel the rage.
They don't look visually great,
like at all.
We can all agree on that, right?
Like they kind of look busted.
I would say, I thought,
yeah, I would say the most recent one, certainly,
was like,
I think, incredibly hamstrung by the hardware to the point where they designed it for hardware.
They couldn't run it.
And even then, it still looked pretty bad.
Yeah.
It does, I agree.
It doesn't look certainly on the tier of something like Donkey Kong Bonanza.
No.
So it would be nice to that, to have that level of quality attached to it.
But
this one in particular
seems unlikely to me that it would ever get that level of polish
because they don't need to.
Yeah.
These games still sell astonishingly well.
And they make them at a much faster rate.
Like a
much faster rate.
I also think that
there was a new trailer for Pokemon Legends.
What is it?
ZX, whatever it is, ZXA, whatever it is.
The new one.
And it looks fine.
It looks good enough to me.
It's not jaw-dropping, but
it's okay.
Good enough is truly
the Pokemon away when it comes to it.
Well, when Good Enough sells astonishing numbers of copies, yeah.
You're right.
You're right.
Unfortunately.
Okay, so
we're going to put that as in a we're not gonna give a percentage there here's one that definitely could or couldn't happen i i don't i don't know where to go with this yoshi okay
so yoshi is interesting because
before kirby got kirby's big game i would have said like why would you ever make another big top-tier Yoshi because Yoshi is the little kid brand.
Yeah.
But now I don't know.
I mean, I i think nintendo has realized that you don't need theoretically you don't need little kid brands you can design games that are fun for both little kids and for adults and kirby forgotten land is the like epitome of that as honestly is donkey kong bonanza yeah like perfect examples so i don't think they need to like silo oh this game needs to be so easy that babies can play it which i think is pretty much what the latest yoshi games have been they've been like very approachable very cute and like amazingly art-designed, but very, very simple.
So, I guess the question I would have for you is:
would you consider another Yoshi's crafted world like a triple-A on the level of Donkey Kong?
No, I don't think so either.
No, and
we've talked about this, that they want to have different levels of budgets for different projects because that's the sustainable way of doing things.
I think Yoshi, maybe more than any franchise, is trapped in that weird liminal liminal space, and that it is not doomed like F-Zero, or we're going to talk about Pilot Wings.
But also, by not being doomed, it has no chance at a comeback.
It's doing just well enough that they will continue to make these games that are still targeting little kids because
they're not getting the support to be a game for everybody, a multi-quadrant game, or whatever you'd want to call it.
I would put like a big budget.
The only thing, and this would be the most most Nintendo thing to do,
so it makes the percentage increase quite a bit here.
Nintendo releasing Donkey Kong Bonanza from the Mario Odyssey team.
Five years pass.
I'm like, wait, are we ever going to get Mario Odyssey 2?
And they're like, we hurried you.
We're doing it.
Like, and it's like, the next Mario game is actually a Yoshi's Island game.
In the same way that the original Yoshi's Island game was indeed a Super Mario Brothers game game.
100%.
Whatever it was.
And
that feels so in Nintendo that the Switch 2 would never get a true Mario game and that we would get a Donkey Kong game and a Yoshi's Island game.
Yeah.
That feels
right in some really twisted way.
I mean, the interesting thing about Donkey Kong is it's a reminder that they,
if they don't have like a drastically new idea, oh, yeah, they kind of just won't do it.
So, obviously, with Super Mario Odyssey, the drastically new idea, you were like transforming into different creatures using the hat and whatever, and that was like a pretty drastic idea.
Donkey Kong, you were destroying the environments in ways we've never seen previously.
I don't see them doing, hey, here's Super Mario Odyssey, but more levels.
The only time that I can remember them really doing that was with
Galaxy 2.
Yeah.
But I think it's been too long since Mario Odyssey came out for them to just like, here's Mario Odyssey with new, like, new levels.
I think they would need a pretty substantially different mechanic to justify the return of Mario to like a big new game.
Yeah, I think that's right.
Well, so then where does that put the percentage for you for Yoshi?
For a like a big Yoshi game, I think if you're not counting those side-scrolling games very low, I would put it at like 10 or 15%
because I think it's that's how it's going to manifest.
It's like Yoshi will be like on off years when they're not doing either a big 3D Mario game or
like a Mario Wonder, for example, like Yoshi will get slotted in as like their 2D platforming solution.
That's my guess.
I agree with that.
Let's, I'm going to bash some of these together.
Wario Star Fox.
Do you see either of those games?
There will be a Wario, Wario Wear equivalent game.
I guarantee it.
No question about it.
It'll have online play, whatever it is.
As much as I'm dying for like,
while I was playing Donkey Kong, I was like, this maybe should have been a Wario game because Wario loves gold and
breaking shit.
So I think it kind of dashed those hopes.
I don't think he's going to star in like a big AAA game, but there will be another Wario Weir game.
So if we're saying what are the odds of a triple-A, I would put it at 2%.
Very, very low.
Very low.
Yes.
With Star Fox, if I could merge these together, I have Star Fox, Kid Icarus, and F-Zero.
If I could do, it's not a reverse parlay, I don't know how you describe this, but if you could say, hey, one of those games is going to get turned into a major third-person
open world franchise that is like Nintendo's version of a third-person action game.
I would 100% believe that.
Mostly because they've tried to do it at different times with, I think, all of them.
And it feels like a natural fit.
All of them have these cool worlds that you want to be in.
They have great characters.
But the core games themselves have aged poorly.
You know, the FCR is still somewhat holds up.
Star Fox, the original thing, is not...
I mean, they barely run, so yeah.
Yeah.
Kid Kidicaris, the original game, is best not spoken of.
But they are great IPs that they seem to return to every 15 or so years.
So I don't think any of them individually have much of a chance, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of them somehow popped out during
this period.
I'll tell you what I want is like a space exploration Star Fox game where you're like going from planet to planet and like
moving like you're like a space trader, but you're Star Fox.
No man's sky cool.
But with Star Friday, you have like a No Man's Sky thing with Star Fox.
That'd be fucking cool.
I wouldn't mind it.
Speaking of zipping around Pilot Wings and Wave Race,
or those sorts of games,
do you think we'll ever get the?
I don't even know what to call these oddities of the Nintendo.
I mean, Wave Race, no.
I'll just say right here.
I'll be direct and say 1% chance of a Wave Race.
Yeah.
Because who knows what the future is.
But very, very, very like.
It's too overa.
It's too limited.
You're just like, oh, it's a jet ski game.
Like, I don't think there's a lot of interest in that, something that's that limited.
1080 degrees snowboarding didn't even make our list, and it is in that same
pool.
Pilot Wings, maybe.
I could see another pilot games.
I could see another Pilot Wings game.
I think the last one was on 3DS.
Yeah.
I believe.
I like those games a lot.
And I think they are, again, a good demonstration of system power.
And it allows Nintendo to make
like smaller experiences that aren't like a full-on game.
And then you sort of just cobble them all together.
But like a big open-world Pilot Wings game in the style of like Forza Horizon would be fucking awesome.
Yeah.
That'd be great.
I'd put it at like 10, 10%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean,
I think the lesson from this exercise is
there's no way of ever knowing what Nintendo will do.
It's so completely unpredictable, and there is no consistency or rhyme or reason to them doing these things.
I mean, even with,
I remember before Tears of the Kingdom was announced, I had no idea if they would give...
that type of Zelda another shot, despite it being the most successful game imaginable.
And I still don't like that, I don't know what the next Zelda looks like.
I think it'll be not a direct, like it won't be in the same environment, but I think it'll be in the same spirit.
Yeah.
That's the other side of the coin for everything that we just talked about too, is
as they are figuring out different budgets, I am curious what gets shrunken down.
What we get really small versions of.
Like, do we get a Wave Race 99?
Do we get these things that are kind of meant to humor you that are the, you know, one-off baubles?
I don't know.
I'm very curious.
I have a feeling that they have a lot of weird stuff coming.
And even before the end of the year,
I feel like they have not put all their hands or all the cards on the table just yet.
Yeah.
I think so too.
Do we have some reader mail?
We have a few things.
We had this letter.
This one came from James.
This is wild, y'all.
Oh, this is in reference to Peepee Strello, which we talked about last week.
This is Wild.
Y'all are covering a game in the style of a GBA Zelda, and I was just coming here to recommend Master Key, a one-bit graphics that plays like a GBA Zelda.
If it had been on handheld 20 years ago, it would have been my favorite game.
Absolutely worth your time.
I have not played this, but it looks fucking dope.
The visuals are killer.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'll make sure that we include that in the newsletter because I am definitely digging it.
It's also 40% off on Steam right now.
I mean, it only costs 12 bucks normally.
It costs $7
now.
But yeah, this looks cool.
I also love that
only one person I know owns this game, and it is Chris Grant.
Polygon subscriber,
founder, and a longtime nerd.
That's pretty awesome.
What else do we got in the the mailbag?
We got another letter.
This one comes from Connor.
Y'all should check out Battle Train, the second train-based roguelite deck building game of the year.
It has neat track laying mechanics and a fun TV game show vibe.
This seems like Justin Fodder to me, if I had to guess.
I know Griffin was really getting into Monster Train 2 as well.
Last letter, this one comes from Keaton.
And I will preemptively apologize.
Keaton writes, Russ called Cujo Cujo an innocent and lovable dog who contracted rabies from a bat an asshole.
That's true, I did, and I apologize.
It's not Cujo's fault that he has rabies.
He seems very nice.
Otherwise, he just has rabies.
So I'm sorry, memory of Cujo.
I'm sorry, Stephen King.
You're great.
Okay, honorable mentions before we wrap up.
I yesterday drove up to Los Angeles, went to the Vista Theater, one of, I believe, the many theaters now owned by Quentin Tarantino in Los Angeles.
And I saw Kill Bill the whole bloody affair, which I had never actually seen.
Which, do you know about this?
I mean, it's just, I mean, I assume it's both movies?
It's a cut that brings the two movies together, and there's like some changes.
For example, the
crazy 88 fight sequence isn't in black and white.
It's just in color.
Interesting.
A few changes.
Did he make the cut?
Yeah, it's his.
He made the cut.
And then the version that I saw was the
same
reels that he showed at Cannes Film Festival.
So it had the French subtitles on the bottom.
It was funny.
Very, yeah, very silly.
Yeah.
But hey, what a great movie.
And what a great movie when watched as a single movie.
I remember
more or less liking both of them when they came out,
but it not being my favorite stuff.
And this time it really, really worked for me.
And it really does feel like just one
humongous movie,
more so than I expected it to, which, I mean, I should have known.
But it is playing, if you live in Southern California, it is playing at the Vista Theater, I think, for the rest of the month,
twice a day.
It's like four hours.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
But it's great.
And the theater is gorgeous.
Like, it's like a really classic old school Los Angeles theater.
But they've basically ripped out every other row.
So there's just a lot of space between the seats now.
So it feels way more comfortable and not so claustrophobic like some of the older houses do.
Wow.
Yeah, that sounds cool.
I mean, I love both of those movies for different reasons.
So it is funny.
I mean, I guess I respect it.
They just show his movies at that and the new Beverly just non-stop.
I mean, like, yeah.
If you own it, you know, why wouldn't you?
Well, and I also think his movies are good fodder for
midnight screenings and things like that.
It's very easy.
I don't think it's
although it's certainly partially self-promotion.
I'm sure the tickets sell.
Oh, I mean, this was a 12.30 in the afternoon showing and it was packed.
I mean, like completely sold out.
How about you?
What you got going?
I finished Murderbot, which I thought was great.
I know Griffin talked about it recently.
I thought they just did a really good job of telling a very focused story.
I don't know about the source material, like where it goes from here, and whether it's like individual contained stories for each season, or whether there's some continuity there.
But I thought it was just really smart and
really enjoyable.
And like,
I mean, very gory, but also like a light watch, which I also appreciated.
So check that out.
Nice.
I really, I think,
yeah, it's quite good.
I think that's it.
Wanted to thank some people.
Oh, I have some news real quick.
I am no longer working at Polygon.
Just
plants aware.
Yeah.
I mentioned it on my blue sky.
So just letting you all know, I mean, it doesn't really impact this show at all.
Obviously, this is a fully independent thing, but I have departed Polygon.
I am the last of the besties to do so.
So we are now formally divorced of Polygon, but there are still some lovely people that are still working there.
So please be nice to them.
And also.
And a great time to mention that we have a Patreon.
Yeah, also.
The Besties and the Resties.
And if you enjoyed this episode, let me tell you, there's a lot more where this comes from over at the Patreon.
Oh my God.
So much more.
We've got just tons of people.
Does people sign up now get like 55 episodes, I think?
Yes.
I mean,
I don't want to diminish the support of the previous people that have signed up because you made those 55 episodes happen.
But if you have been late to the party, you're like, maybe I'll wait and see.
You have now waited and seen, and now you have literally probably
80 to 90 hours of content waiting for you to absorb.
If that is something you want to do,
if you have, you want us in your ears non-stop, so you can do that over at the Patreon, which is patreon.com slash the besties.
We have a few new members to call out.
Trampoline Tales, we have Theltis, we have Michael, and we have Bill.
Thank you to our Patreon members.
We love you.
You're great.
Next week,
boys will be back.
Griffin and Justin will be back.
And I'm sure they'll talk about Donkey Kong some more.
I know y'all probably want to hear what they have to say.
I actually have no idea what they think of this game.
This was not a game that I discussed with them prior.
So I don't know if they liked it or hated it.
So that'll be interesting.
The focus of the game that week will be Ninja Gaiden Rage Bound,
which is the 2D,
I think, throwback-style Ninja Gaiden game.
And I believe that's coming from the developers of
Yes, not to be confused with the Shinobi update that we've covered on the Rasties and that we'll be officially releasing in a few months, too.
We are in an embarrassment of ninja riches right now.
Drowning in ninjas.
I love to see it.
Well, I think that's going to do it.
Thank you, Chris Plant, for joining me for this very special episode.
Thank you to everyone at home.
This has been the besties, where the best.
No.
Good try.
This has been the besties.
where shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best I got it I got it I got it I got it go ahead now you go ahead you got it this has been the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games
oh banana
Besties.
