Wonder Flowers, the Koopa Clown Car, and the "Elephant Mario" in the room. Join us for a conversation about the first traditional side-scrolling Mario game in over a decade, Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
Wonder Flowers, the Koopa Clown Car, and the "Elephant Mario" in the room. Join us for a conversation about the first traditional side-scrolling Mario game in over a decade, Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
In this episode, we share our thoughts about Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Willie drove 19 hours cross-country to visit Joseph, naturally leading to a couch co-op playthrough of the game. This game is pretty damn good, full of joy, and pulls inspiration from classics like Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3. Think of it like a souped-up version of those games, but with a ton more variety in the level designs—specifically in the Wonder Flower sections. We discuss the visual graphics, different level types (like Break Time and Search Party), new power-ups, the re-spawn mechanic, and the game's difficulty. Overall, Joseph thought the game was too easy, and Taylor talks about how impressed he is by the variety in the game. Willie breaks some news about the helicopter/bowl thing that Bowser flies around in and gives his critique about the music. If you're a big fan of Super Mario Bros. 1–3 and Super Mario World or looking for something family-friendly— you should 100% check this game out. HINT: don't miss out on the Special World!
Here's the full transcript for this episode.
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00:00:00
[Alienated by ELFL plays in background]
Joseph: Taylor, so, [chuckles] I don't know if you caught this in that, but Bowser merges himself with a castle. He turns himself into-
Taylor: And a clown car? [Willie laughs] Did I hear that correctly? [all laughing]
Joseph: I thought I heard that too.
Taylor: And also a clown-
Willie: It's the Koopa clown car. It's the like floating-
Taylor: Oh man
Willie: -uh, you know, the, the floating white-
Taylor: Yeah, that was a hilarious detail.
Willie: -sort of pot thing, that has a face on the front of it.
Taylor: Yes. Ok.
Joseph: Yeah, I've never thought of that as a clown.
Taylor: Neither have I.
Joseph: I don't know why.
Willie: That's a clown face.
Joseph: Yeah
Taylor: Makes sense now.
Joseph: I don't know why I've never thought that but yeah, I mean that's that's pretty much it. Like it's a pretty basic setup.
Taylor: Oh, yeah, that's super basic.
[Alienated by ELFL fades out]
[Intro theme plays - Tiger Tracks by Lexica]
00:00:52
Joseph: What's up, welcome to Berries and Blades. Thanks for tuning in for a casual conversation about video games. My name is Joseph and I'm here with my friends, Willie and Taylor. We're just three regular guys wondering if GTA VI is a shoe in for game of the year in 2025, but I digress. So what do y'all think?
Taylor: Wazzup. I think that there's no way it won't be. There will be other games that are going to pop up before it comes out. I'm sure that are going to, uh, do the same thing that Saints Row did, uh, back in the, you know, older days of GTA where they would kind of come out with theirs a few months before GTA came out with theirs, I believe, and then it would give everybody a big open world adventure.
So I think we'll see some of those. And then I think they're going to do what they always do. They're going to splash into the, um, Arena and just destroy everybody's concepts of what a game can be. So yes.
Joseph: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think, Willie?
Willie: I don't know. I 2025 I think is the uh, that Exodus game which we were talking a little bit about yesterday.
Joseph: Mmhmm
Taylor: [whispering] Exodus
Willie: If you watch the Game Awards, it's the one that had Matthew McConaughey come out and talk about it first, which it did feel very Interstellar -ish, in its like manipulation of time.
Taylor: Interesting.
Willie: I don't really know the story exactly, but it was some people traveling out in space looking for new places to like settle humanity, I think, or something like that.
Taylor: Oh, I love that.
Willie: But at some point, something happened where they unlocked some alien technology that was bad or something. I don't really quite know yet. But it's a man and a woman, and the woman goes off and does some stuff that ends up saving humanity. The man and her get separated. The man goes off on, like, a escape pod, and at the end of the trailer, you see that there's a museum to her for, like, saving humanity.
And he's there, still young. So clearly there was some, like, space time shit that happened that he, like, didn't age while she did, and the rest of the world aged.
Taylor: Ooh.
Willie: So he's, like, back, like, at this museum and sees people who are, like, you know, obviously, uh, I don't know what the word I'm looking for, it's just, like, holding this person up in high regard. For doing all that.
Taylor: Wow. You think it's two different paths or something?
Willie: I don't think so, but the reason it seems like it could be good is because it's led by former Bioware developers. People who worked on Dragon Age Origins and Knights of the Old Republic 1
Taylor: Ah ok.
Willie: -and what else was it? Mass Effect 1 and 2.
Joseph: Mass Effect 2. Or 1 yeah
Willie: 1 and 2.
Taylor: It looks like Mass Effect. It looks like an evolution of where Mass Effect would be now if they kept going and kept evolving and growing their tech.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Taylor: Definitely. Wow.
Joseph: It looks fucking cool, man.
Taylor: Cool surprise. Yeah. I'm watching the trailer for it now. It looks really neat.
Joseph: Time shenanigans too. I think, uh-
Taylor: Yeah
Joseph: -they're great in film, but also when you incorporate those into games, I love that.
Taylor: Yeah. Maybe that's the next step for a lot of these publishers and developers is going to be using that extra dimensionality. Being able to go not only multiple dimensions, but pull in different times with your story and choices you make, things like that.
00:03:54
Joseph: I didn't look back at The Game Award winners to see like which GTA games actually won at The Game Awards for best games or best game of the year.
But I did see that a few of the games won game of the year at the Golden Joystick, uh, the Golden Joystick Awards.
Taylor: Mm.
Willie: I would guess IV and V did. I feel like V definitely did but The Game Awards as we know them, I don't think they existed back then. Did they?
Joseph: Yeah, probably because like it was on like Spike TV.
Willie: I do remember that
Joseph: Like back in those days.
Willie: Yeah
Joseph: VGA is what it was, Video Game Awards
Willie: Okay, yeah, it wasn't until like 2018 or something that they like changed the format. But yeah, I do remember the Spike Awards now.
Taylor: Okay, and there's the, I do see, yeah, Game of the Year for the Golden Joystick, and it looks like they got multiple categories for that one, so.
Joseph: For V, or?
Taylor: Yeah, for V.
Joseph: Word. I don't know if it's a shoe in, obviously we don't know everything that's coming out in 2025, but there's obviously also a ton of fucking anticipation and hype for this game. And who knows, I don't know how, do we know how long they've worked on this game?
Willie: I mean
Joseph: 40 years? [Scoffs]
Taylor: I think they said 10 years. I don't know why that's in the back of my head, but uh, do you mean, uh, on V or the new one?
Joseph: No, on VI.
Taylor: VI. Um, yeah, I want to say seven years or 10 years are the numbers that stand out in my mind.
Joseph: I mean, if, uh, Bethesda can work on Starfield for what, seven years?
Taylor: Oh God-
Joseph: -and turn that into a piece of shit.
[Joseph and Taylor laugh]
Taylor: Are you saying that this isn't going to be good?
Joseph: Nah, nah, this g- the GTA will be good. I mean-
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I feel like they've had plenty of time to create an amazing game.
Taylor: Yeah. They don't seem to bend to the will of the, of the people either. When it comes to something that might jeopardize their final product-
Joseph: Mmhmm
Taylor: -they're not afraid to push back if they need to. They'll push back two years if they have to.
00:05:50
Joseph: Word. Well, Happy New Year to everybody. This is our first episode of 2024, and we're going to talk about Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which is the first traditional side scrolling Super Mario game in over a decade. It sold 4. 3 million units in the first two weeks and became the fastest selling Super Mario game.
Fittingly, it's Wonder Full. Ha ha! See what I did there, Taylor?
Taylor: I, oh, yeah, mm.
Joseph: Anyway.
Taylor: We're sorry about that.
Joseph: It's pretty bizarre, and does an excellent job of pulling from classics like Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3. It won Best Family Game at the 2023 Game Awards and was nominated for a bunch of other shit.
I think this game is very good, it stayed true to its roots, and I think it's one of the best 2D Super Mario games. Unsurprisingly, this game is fucking masterful at taking full advantage of the Nintendo Switch's hardware. But how about you, Willie? What are your first thoughts?
Willie: I'm not actually sure how I feel about it.
I think it's pretty good. I don't know if I would say very good. I have some criticisms of like Some of the, the mechanics that we'll get into that are just like, I don't know, they're fine. They're good. They add like new gameplay to it. It also sometimes seems unnecessary. Like there's some, like it looks super beautiful for sure, but some of the mechanics seem like here's just some extra stuff that you could do, but you don't actually need to do. And I'm not sure, but we'll get into that.
00:07:12
Willie: The coolest part about this is, is the multiplayer aspect. Joey and I have been talking about playing it for a little while because he said he and Meg were going to play through it. And I just hadn't picked it up yet, but I'm visiting right now. Barbara and I are visiting Meg and Joey, so we decided to do couch co op to just like, play through together.
And it's a lot of fun with four players. It's chaotic for sure. But it is, I understand why it was a multiplayer, like, best multiplayer nominee. And it feels like it could have won too, like it's pretty, pretty solid in that aspect.
Joseph: Mmhmm. Yeah, that was my pick for best multiplayer. I think it's fitting to win uh, family game too.
Willie: Yeah, for sure.
Taylor: Have you guys played the online multiplayer?
Joseph: Nope.
Taylor: Okay, I'm just curious, um, I'm guessing that had to be at least bearable or tolerable if, if it was in that category.
Joseph: Yeah, I bet it's pretty fun. Like, just playing with, with, uh, other people online.
Willie: I wonder, like, as we get into, like, sort of the mechanics and the, and everything about it, I wonder if playing with people you don't know becomes frustrating, if they're, like, not on your level or something.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: If you, like, can't get past something and nobody can get past it, and you're just, like, I guess, I don't know what Nintendo's, like, chat function is like, like, when you're talking. For a long time I didn't think they had any, like, do they have...?
Joseph: I don't know.
Willie: I don't think they do, right? So, and I could be completely wrong, but I thought for a long time that they didn't have a way to chat with people, so it would be really hard to, like, communicate what each of you is going to do in a game that's very chaotic.
Joseph: I do feel like two players and three players are better than four players. Four players is fun as fuck, for sure, but you can lose your character on screen pretty easily when there's four and you have all the different character animations and just kind of shit happening in the world.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: There were a few times where we were getting lost just because of visual clutter, but Willie and I played it for a little bit last night, just two players, and then I played a lot with Meg, um, two-player set up and I thought that was like the perfect balance because you can use each other just enough with two people, but there's not so many characters on the screen that you're, you're getting lost like we were with four players.
Willie: It's funny that this got family game because there's also some very challenging sections.
And I wonder if you're, like, playing with your kids. I don't know. Kids are really good at video games and shit. But I don't know if you're, like, under 10 trying to play this game, and you're on playing some of those really challenging levels. I don't know. I feel like sometimes they might be too difficult for a kid under 10.
But I could be totally wrong. I've seen kids do some pretty incredible stuff.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: Music wise and video game wise, like, I know they're very capable, but there's some shit in there that's real difficult [snickers] and would take some time.
00:09:50
Joseph: Taylor, there's a couple of rhythm stages where you have to jump on the beat.
Taylor: Oh, nice.
Joseph: To the music. And those are pretty freaking challenging. So I think that's the level. That like Willie is talking about that type of level where like a kid is probably not going to pass this, but the game doesn't require it. Like you don't have to pass that stage to kind of progress.
Taylor: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.
Is there any kind of accessibility options on there? So if your kid is playing it and it's a little too challenging, is there-
Joseph: Mmhmm
Taylor: -like an infinite life uh, mode or God mode, or anything like that, just allows them to play?
Joseph: Pretty close. So there's Yoshi's like, uh, three or four different Yoshi characters you can choose. And then there's Nabbit. And if you choose either of those two characters, you don't take damage.
Taylor: Nice.
Joseph: So anybody that chooses them is just going to be invincible pretty much, but they balance it out by not allowing those characters to use power ups.
Taylor: Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. And then reward you for playing with the, with the more challenging characters by allowing you-
Joseph: Mmhmm
Taylor: -to, uh, get the power ups.
Yeah, that makes sense.
00:10:52
Joseph: I think you can even turn all of the, Oh, I'm kind of jumping ahead. Uh, uh, yeah, I'm jumping one step ahead here, but there are also badges in the game, so you earn something called badges and they give you different abilities as the characters
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: And you can have one equipped at a time. But everybody in the game gets this ability from a badge. And one of them is like a parachuting hat. So that you can jump in the air and then parachute down with your hat.
Taylor: Oh, kind of like the princess in Mario 2.
Willie: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: How her-
Joseph: Yeah
Taylor: -dress works.
Joseph: Yeah, you kind of hover in the air.
Taylor: That's cool. I've always loved that mechanic. She was always probably my favorite character to play as.
Joseph: So that's one example of the badges. But I think you could turn the badges completely off. If you want like a much harder challenge.
Taylor: Or turn them all on if you want it to just be chaotic mayhem and fun.
Joseph: That would be sick.
Taylor: That's cool.
00:11:41
Willie: You said that it definitely does a good job of pulling from Super Mario World and like Super Mario Bros. 3.
I think it does do a decent job of hitting that, some of that nostalgia for sure. I do think, and this is just bias and completely like subjective, but I do think if it pulled a little bit more, specifically from music from those eras, it would be even, it would make me like the game even more. There are notes of it within some of the stuff that happens, but it's never like a full on this, oh, you remember this song exactly sort of thing.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: That straight up nostalgia of hearing-
Joseph: Uh-huh
Taylor: -the original song or the, yeah.
Joseph: It definitely feels inspired by.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But there's nothing super obvious.
Taylor: Interesting. So maybe they went a little too hard in the, in the updates section-
Joseph: Maybe
Taylor: -when it came to the music.
Willie: I haven't played enough of the recent Mario games to know if some of these themes are like actually more present in what a kid five years ago would have played and now this is, that this hits something for them because it's like, Oh yeah, I remember this song, you know, like-
Joseph: Yeah
Willie: -and I just didn't.
00:12:41
Taylor: Y'all played Galaxy, right? That was the one that the first Mario, the open world Mario that came out on Switch?
Willie: Was that on Switch?
Taylor: If I'm remembering correctly.
Joseph: Yeah, I did.
Willie: I played a little bit of.
Taylor: Whichever one came out, you know, there was a big deal where you could become the hat and there were-
Willie: Yeah
Taylor: -all the funny memes about it.
Willie: I played a little bit of that, like very little of that.
Taylor: Me too. Yeah, but I seem to remember, I think that the music was still calling back to the old ones on that one. Like, as you're running around in the city, especially now in the desert areas and some of the different areas, it might not have been quite as much so, but.
Willie: I was gonna say, that's probably one of the last ones I played, but that was on Wii.
Taylor: Okay, so it must have been whatever was after that one. The open world hat one, because I never had a Wii.
Willie: Well, I had one at the time we lived together. So we might have played it then. [chuckles]
Taylor: No, no, I played it, whatever this is I'm thinking of was definitely on the Switch. Like I own it on the Switch.
Joseph: Hmm.
Willie: Yeah, I don't know what the first one on the Switch was called.
Joseph: I think overall I like the fact that it doesn't resemble the music too directly. And that seems to be a thread because you get that in The Legend of Zelda too, like in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, like there are nods and tie ins to some of that older video game music, but it's like, it's something new.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: I like that they're not just repeating it over and over and over again, but Taylor made a point that they might've gone a little too far. I think maybe for gamers like us, older gamers that play, you know, Super Mario Bros. one through three and those earlier games in general, I think, uh, a little bit more would, would have hooked me from like the music point of view.
Willie: And that's what I'm saying. And I think especially because this is supposed to be a family game, right? It should be people our age playing with their kids right now.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: So I feel like you should try to bring in a little more of that. And there are hints of it, like I said. But it's, it's pretty rare that it like more than like five notes in a row or 10 notes in a row are from something you remember before.
Joseph: It's interesting we're talking about this because this is almost exactly what we said about the Super Mario, Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: And the music there, how it was like good hints of it, but they didn't overdo it.
Willie: I think they did a better job in that though, than they did in this game.
Joseph: Yeah, I think so too.
00:14:50
Willie: We haven't really talked too much about spoilers yet, but I think, any other like, non spoilery thoughts you want to share, Joey, before we like, get into what spoilers we can give about this game?
Joseph: Um, or maybe no, not really, but do you want to read the plot?
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: [chuckles] There's a plot, great.
Joseph: [laughs] I mean, there's not a lot of story in this game, like, Like the kind of original Super Mario Bros. games, but I feel like if we read the first paragraph of the plot, that kind of sums up everything we should say about what is different about this game.
But back to non spoilery thoughts, I think the gameplay is really smooth. The game doesn't seem to lag at all. Like I don't know, like they're just, I mean, they just take care of their games on their platform, man.
Willie: Yep.
Joseph: Like, it's the same thing with Tears of the Kingdom. They designed games for their piece of hardware even though that piece of hardware is fucking outdated. And it looks visually stunning. But it's just another complete Nintendo experience. Even though there are some things I don't like, like I don't like fucking Accidentally jumping on Yoshi all the fucking time. But they are small things. Small things that I can definitely look past, and I probably wouldn't experience in a single player playthrough
Willie: That's sort of where I'm coming from, but like, it's, this game is pretty good, but there are things like that that are sort of problems sometimes that wouldn't exist if you play a single player, but the game is designed to be multiplayer.
So it's like, well, that's kind of, that's gotta be a mark against it then. Right? Like if it's supposed to be multiplayer, but you find the most frustrations from playing multiplayer, then it's like, well, that's a little weird, but it's also fun in a chaotic way. If you're just sitting around having fun, it doesn't matter.
Joseph: That dramatically outweighs the frustration I've had with the game. And you know, if I was going to complain about something, they're all pretty minor complaints. The biggest one I would have is that I wish it were a little bit more difficult, like across the board. There are some difficult stages that I think are really challenging, but overall, it's a little too easy compared to like Super Mario Bros. 1 through 3. And that's okay. Not really anything I'm mad about because, I mean, this is how many decades later, but also it's way more of a family game than like those original Super Mario Bros. games were to begin with and there are just so many things they've added to the gameplay.
Willie: Yeah.
00:17:05
Joseph: There is a real sense of wonder in this game with the Wonder Flower and like, what can happen when you go on like this acid trip in the middle of the stage, you know. And then you have to get yourself out of it.
Willie: Yeah, there's some very cool ones to talk about. Yeah, I think before we get to the spoilery section, we could start with this paragraph of this plot, because this sort of just sets up the game so you know what's going on in it. Do you want to read it? Do you want me to read it?
Joseph: Yeah, go for it. Uh, you read it.
Willie: I'm assuming we're looking at the same thing, so you tell me if I'm not. [chuckles] Uh, but it says, "Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Yellow Toad, Blue Toad, and Toadette are invited to the Flower Kingdom, a neighbor to the Mushroom Kingdom, ruled by Prince Florian. Florian shows off the Wonder Flower to his visitors.
When suddenly, Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Kamek arrive. Bowser takes hold of the Wonder Flower, merging him, his Koopa Clown Car, and Florian's castle, the Flower Castle, to become Castle Bowser. He proceeds to spread havoc across the entire kingdom, including trapping the kingdom's inhabitants, the Poplins, in their homes.
Not wanting to let this stand, Mario and company eagerly decide to help save the Flower Kingdom, and set off with Florian to stop Bowser's plans once again. The group is closely followed by our four Yoshis and Nabbit."
Joseph: Okay, yeah, that was something different, but it says most of the same stuff?
Willie: Interesting. So yeah, that sets up the game. That's how you start the game, before you start going on this adventure to save the Flower Kingdom.
00:18:30
Joseph: Taylor, so, I don't know if you caught this in that, but Bowser He merges himself with a castle. He
Taylor: turns himself a clown car? Did I hear that
Willie: correctly? I thought I heard that too.
It's the Koopa clown car. It's the like floating, uh, you know, the, the floating white sort of
Taylor: hot thing
Willie: that has a face on the front of it. Yeah. I've never
Joseph: thought of that as a clown. Neither have I. I
Willie: don't know why. That's a clown face. Yeah, I don't know. I've
Joseph: never thought that. But yeah, I mean, that's that's pretty much it.
Like it's a pretty basic setup. Oh, yeah, that's super basic.
00:19:02
Willie: Yeah, I think with that, if you're wanting to avoid any spoilers at all about this game about the story, we're probably going to get into some of them. There's not a lot here that we can spoil because we didn't actually finish the game.
Joseph: We're maybe two worlds, two worlds away from whatever the end game is.
Willie: Yeah, I think we're on- we've beat world four, we have five and six left to be- to get to the end game. We've also- I will say this, if you're going to play the game, there is a special world that's sort of hidden. That you could completely miss.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: So be on the lookout for that.
Joseph: It seems like they're supposed to be more challenging levels.
Willie: It seems like the special world is all of the like, most difficult challenges with each of the badges, with each of the special abilities.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Taylor: That's very cool.
Willie: Yeah, but this will be a good spot to check out for spoilery things.
Joseph: Word. What kind of spoilery stuff do we have? I don't even know if I have stuff that I can spoil.
00:19:47
Willie: I, that's why I said it's like not even that spoilery because it's mostly, it's mostly just a mostly linear get through this world to find, to collect seeds. Collect enough seeds to open the castle to then get the royal seed, which will help you unlock the final boss, which is Bowser in his like, whatever, what did I call it? Castle Bowser.
Joseph: Mm hmm.
Willie: His Castle Bowser is protected by these, what are they called? They're piranhas.
Joseph: Uh, they're cloud piranhas.
Willie: Cloud piranhas. They're just like, they look like the face of a piranha plant, but it's in cloud form and it's just floating around his castle.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: And just protecting it. So each royal seed you get destroys one of those.
Each world has a different colored royal seed that you're going for. I guess what I was going to say is a little bit spoilery, but I don't know, is how closely does this tie into The Super Mario Bros. Movie? How often do we see Bowser become Castle Bowser in this way in the other games?
Joseph: I don't know.
Willie: Because we do see it in the movie. That's Castle Bowser at the beginning of that movie.
Taylor: Oh.
Willie: So does this take place in that same world or is this just something that happens all the time and I didn't know it?
Joseph: I don't know. In the movie, he's not like morphed into the castle like he is in the game, right?
Willie: He's not, but he does- it is a floating ship with Bowser's face on it in the game. In the, in the game, and in the movie. I guess I'm not really thinking about- we haven't gotten to Bowser.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: So, I don't know if he actually, like he- I guess he is physically- he says, "I've merged with the castle." I forgot his ridiculous line. It sounded silly whatever it was.
Joseph: Yeah yeah, it's pretty ridiculous.
Great for kids. Great for kids stuff. So he, I guess, it couldn't be because what's unique about this game is the Wonder Flower.
Willie: Mmhmm.
Joseph: And Bowser's stolen the Wonder Flower to use that power to become the castle. And since this is like the introduction to the wonder, the Wonder Flower and Wonder Seeds, it couldn't have happened in the game, even though there is a Bowser's castle.
Other than that one thing, I think they're pretty disconnected, you know, in terms of like what's happening in the movie versus what's happening in this game.
00:21:50
Willie: Yeah. I already did spoil the end of the game for myself. I don't know if I should [Taylor laughs] spoil it for you.
Joseph: Oh, nah, not for me. Not for me. Cause I don't even know what happens.
Willie: Obviously you'll stop Bowser. That will happen probably. [snickering]
[Taylor laughing]
Joseph: Yeah, I figured that. I did figure that. I had no idea. Bowser finally fucking wins. That's what this game is about.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah. Dang. That's a, that'd be a big change.
Willie: Yep.
Joseph: And then the next game is Bowser's Big Day.
Willie: Sounds good. [chuckles] We should see that.
Joseph: Bowser's Day Out.
Willie: That'd be a fun game, wouldn't it? Are there any games where you get to play as Bowser besides, like, Mario Kart?
Joseph: I don't know. Taylor, would you be down to play a Bowser Kingdom simulation game? The Bowser Sim game where you just have to manage the kingdom after you've conquered it?
Taylor: No, [Joseph laughs] no, I would not.
Willie: I feel like you would. You played Warcraft, you said. That was one of your games back in the day.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah, and I will, I will play Warcraft again someday. Game lords willing. But, I don't know. To me, I would much rather play stuff like this, um, that's more like the traditional Mario, than, and I kind of found that out with the, the other one was called Odyssey, I think, was the name of the-
Joseph: Oh yeah, you're right, you're right.
Taylor: -one I was thinking of on Switch, and it was cool at first, but it just, once I got a good hour, two hours in, it started feeling too much like a kid game, like something that was made to be accessible by everyone, which is great, but it also is not exactly what I'm looking for.
Joseph: Right.
Taylor: Unless it's in this form, which is more up my alley, but even then it's hard to say until I sink some time into it, how long I'll stick with the game in general.
00:23:25
Joseph: I do think the 2D platformer does do that for me too, like if it's a little too much of a kids game, the side scrolling platforming component can like sway me.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: So I think that did work on me as well for this game. But it also speaks to I think the game just not being as challenging as I would hope it to be, because I think you can play through this game pretty quickly.
Taylor: Even all the flowers, did you- so you said you didn't finish it, but did you- how many flowers do you think you did?
Joseph: We've done four out of the six royal seeds
Taylor: Oh ok
Joseph: -that you're collecting to destroy all the cloud piranhas.
Taylor: So what about the Wonder Flowers? I've been watching a video right now as we're discussing this, that is somebody going through all of the Wonder Flowers.
Joseph: Oh, wow.
Taylor: And I said, Oh, okay. That's probably 11 minutes or so. And I pulled it up and it was an hour and 17 minutes.
Joseph: Wow.
Taylor: Is how long that is. And the, the variety-
Joseph: Yes.
Taylor: -between these maps is astounding.
Joseph: I think that's where- that's the gold of this game is the variety in those wonders- the Wonder Seed sections and just how different they are.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: There's been some of them that were just monochromatic. Right now this one is a, a giant fish, a humongous fish that's just part of the, part of the level. Really cool.
Joseph: Yeah, it's wild.
Willie: The thing about that is, how many did you say it was? Did it say, did it say a number? Besides the hours?
Taylor: I don't see a number of it.
I just see the-
Willie: Because whatever that is, it's basically the number of what you would consider like a traditional Mario stage. Like however many of those there are is how many traditional-
Joseph: Right.
Willie: -Mario stages there are. Because it's only in the like regular 2D platforming stage that you'll have to find like usually a hidden seed.
And the hidden seed is somewhere by getting one of those Wonder Flowers to activate, which completely shifts the color of the screen, usually either like to be something monochromatic or completely in the dark or something random. Like Joey said, you're suddenly on like a psychedelic trip in Mario-
Taylor: Wow
Willie: -moving through the same level, but in a different way.
00:25:27
Taylor: Wow. It is crazy. Sometimes I don't even know, like you swim up, like you jump up into water-
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah
Willie: Yeah
Taylor: -and you're, it's really breaking my mind.
Joseph: Like the water's on top and the land is on bottom.
Taylor: Yes. Yeah. And it's, and I definitely see the distraction where it's, for one, it's all so beautiful. Like everything looks so nice. Their choice of the animations for everything, but also the backgrounds that are going.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Taylor: Particle backgrounds that are just, beautiful, and they all have these hyper stylized looks to them and are also moving, like it's super distracting. I would be dead constantly.
Joseph: They use depth in the game too Taylor. So like you can go down a pipe and then end up in the foreground.
And you're like a bigger character on the screen. And then you can do stuff in the foreground and then the opposite too. Like you can go down a pipe and then you end up real far in the background.
Taylor: That's crazy.
Joseph: And there's like coins and shit to hit and bricks to, to, to break back there. And then you come back into the, the kind of middle ground.
Taylor: This is awesome. The variety, all you have to do is watch this video alone to truly understand how much work went into this game, how much art went into it and thought about all of that art. It's crazy.
Willie: Wait until you see one of the music levels where suddenly the plants start singing to you or dancing around. [Joseph laughs]
Taylor: Yeah, I saw. I saw one of those. Yeah those. Yeah, that's beautiful. They all jump out like a chorus-
Willie: Yeah
Taylor: -and they're all singing and yeah. Yeah this is really cool.
Joseph: It's pretty great man.
00:26:58
Willie: So I think there are two like really big things to talk about here, which is the type, the variety of stages and what Joey mentioned up top about these badges. So I think it makes sense to start talking about one of the types of stage is just called a badge challenge, which is usually where you earn the badge for the first time.
Joseph: Yeah, that's a tutorial stage
Willie: Yeah
Joseph: Basically to teach you how to use the badge and then you're earning it at the same time.
Willie: And that's usually like for the parachute cap. It'll be like Badge Challenge, Parachute Cap 1. And that means this is the first time you're doing it. You're just going to get introduced to this item and how it's used.
The weird part about the badges is, just so it's explained, is Prince Florian, the prince of this kingdom, goes with you on this journey. He just jumps on your back. And is like with you the whole time. You don't ever really see him except cutscenes. But he's also, he's like, I'll wear these badges and this, it will help you.
So he's the one who like changes out the badges and puts them on while he's attached to you and your party and you get this ability. So like Joey said, there's that parachute cap. There's one that was, I don't remember the name, but it was super difficult that just made you bounce the entire time. You just had spring feet. [snickers] and so you're just like bouncing.
Taylor: Oh that's awesome.
Willie: And like, if you time your bounces. You'll jump higher. There's also one that's called a dolphin kick, which you would want to use for swimming levels because it gives you a really fast burst of speed underwater. Do you have any other favorite ones?
Taylor: Reminds me of Echo. [laughs]
Willie: Yeah, it really is.
Taylor: That's cool.
Willie: Do you have any other favorites, Joey?
Joseph: I would be interested- we haven't tried the one that speeds up your movement. We had just collected that one, but we didn't get a chance to try it. But that one seems interesting. I can imagine that one would be super, super helpful for people speed running the game, like speed running it with the extra speed.
Taylor: I see somebody using it right now as we're talking about that.
Joseph: Oh really?
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: And it makes the climbing and, and the, uh, holding yourself up going across like traversing poles and stuff. It's so fast.
Joseph: It seems like it would kind of speed it up to like Super Meat Boy speed levels.
Taylor: Definitely. Definitely. It it's, that's a pretty good match for it.
00:28:59
Joseph: My favorite is definitely the parachute cap. It's the first one you get in the game, but it honestly seems the most useful for, like, the majority of levels.
Willie: Yeah, and I think that's another drawback, too. I think it's both great, because I really like the parachute cap, but it also feels like a drawback because it seems OP in that the rest of the badges don't seem that useful a lot of times.
We would always go back to it to keep using the parachute cap for things when it got difficult.
Joseph: I mean, I think there's still enough variety in them that you can still kind of choose the one you like and then play the game a little differently than everybody else.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: But I do think it's the one that helps you across the most levels unless it's a really specific height you're trying to reach and you have to use like the, the double jump or the charge jump.
So there's one, Taylor, where you can just like hold down or hold, hold the action button and then you charge up to do like a super jump.
Taylor: Okay.
Joseph: So there's like some stages where there might be hidden secrets in the levels where you have to use a different badge to specifically get that one thing.
Like Willie was saying, most of the badges aren't as flexible and scalable across all the different levels as the parachute cap or the, the kind of like hover, uh, the Peach kind of like hover in the air jump thing like we get from Super Mario Bros. 2. There's a badge that does that. I don't remember the name of it, but.
That one's almost as helpful as the parachute cap, but the parachute cap, you can just glide across like half the fucking stage, you know, half the screen, and it's safe. Like it buys you a ton of time and it gives you a lot of wiggle room to make mistakes because you can really slow down time as you're gliding through the sky. I think that's why, what makes it the most useful for me.
Back to the badge challenges. They do work in badge challenges for all of the badges. So the game does kind of find a way to get you playing the other badges in these kind of fun, somewhat challenging, badge challenge levels that are much easier, but give you some like, hands on experience with the different badge types.
Willie: We did play one last night that was an expert badge challenge. What was that one? I forgot already.
Joseph: Yeah, it was the first expert badge we have come across, but I guess that's a separate category of badges, because I think we only have like half of them unlocked. And I think those are just, they're just more difficult to use is what I kind of gathered.
00:31:18
Willie: Well, there's two types of badges, right? There's badges that are active abilities, and then there are badges that are, I say more passive, but they like give you more coins for defeating enemies or something like that.
Taylor: Hm, ah.
Willie: And we only have two or three of those passive sort of badges unlocked, and I don't even remember what they are because we've never used them. Because it seems like a detriment to do that when you could have a new ability like the, like the parachute cap or the charge jump or something.
Joseph: It's almost like they're not as valuable, you know, they don't provide as much value as the other active badges, but another one, Taylor, is like you start the level with like a mushroom.
Taylor: Oh, okay. Oh, so you start big.
Joseph: Yeah, you start big. And then there was another one that I think reveals hidden blocks in the stage if you activate it.
Taylor: Oh, that's cool. Are there a lot of hidden blocks?
Joseph: There is, yeah.
Willie: One of the biggest ways that there's like some replayability in the game is certain blocks I feel like they're only shown for certain characters.
Taylor: Oh. Neat.
Willie: If you don't have that character in your party, they don't show up. And I don't know if they show up in the same place as they would if you had a different party makeup,
Joseph: Mmhmm
Willie: -or somewhere different, like slightly to the left or to the right of the other block.
Joseph: Yeah, that's a good question.
Willie: You wouldn't know without replaying the level with different characters.
Joseph: I feel like there are probably 25 percent more secrets than we've found in our playthrough. Like, I feel like there's a lot more stuff there. If we were looking for it, we could find it.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: It does take playing the same level over and over again to kind of really, really hunt and look for all the stuff that might be hidden.
00:32:56
Taylor: Is the elephant one of the badges?
Willie: No, that's a power up.
Taylor: Oh, is it? So it's just an a power up built in?
Willie: Yeah. So beyond the traditional like mushroom and the flower power and the star power that you would recognize from other games, there's the elephant Mario, which is pretty cool. There's a bubble Mario. Instead of shooting out fireballs, he shoots out bubbles
Taylor: Oh wow
Willie: -that you can like jump off of and stuff.
If you get really good at it, you like throw two bubbles out and then jump from each bubble to the like one bubble to the next.
Taylor: That's interesting, that has a mechanic of Bubble Bobble
Joseph: Mmhmm
Taylor: -or something like that in it too, which is, seems like they're really pulling from all of the, all of my favorite kind of game tropes from Nintendo, from the tool belt that they have, and they're doing it in a really cool way, go on though.
Willie: The other new one is a drill Mario
Taylor: Ooh
Willie: -where you get this like drill hat that you can either like drill up into the ceiling with and then traverse like while you're underground or like in the roof, in the ceiling, or you can go down and like drill into the ground and like traverse like underneath the ground, which is something you'll use a lot to get to hidden areas.
To get into a place that's like too small for any person to crawl. There'll be enough that you can go underground, move past the barrier, and then come up on the other side of the barrier.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: It's pretty cool, man. I love that animation. Like I think the drill hat looks fucking really cool. The bubbles are pretty cool too. I don't find them as useful or they're, they're definitely. Low on the favorite list compared to the flower power and being able to shoot fireballs, but it is nice that you can trap enemies with the bubbles too. If they hit the enemies, they get trapped in it. And then they become a coin that you collect.
Willie: Yeah.
00:34:37
Taylor: And the hammer bros looks so cool.
Willie: Yeah, they really do.
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: They look awesome.
Joseph: They're easy.
Taylor: Like their tough guy-
Joseph: [scoffs] Yeah
Taylor: Yeah, which is crazy because they used to be the hardest.
Joseph: Yes, man. They're easy, but they look awesome.
Taylor: They do look cool. I love the art on this game. They did a great job.
Willie: So yeah, we'll talk about some of the animations too, because they're a lot of fun.
But like for the elephant Mario, its power is that it can like gather water in its trunk when you're like standing over water and then use that water
Taylor: Oh
Willie: -to water the ground, which will usually bring up flowers or in other sections, like revive one of the long vines that you need to climb or something like that.
Taylor: Ah.
Willie: It'll also like give you coins for a limited amount of time. It seemed like one of those times we were just watering the ground, it gave us like 60 coins or something like that.
Joseph: It does, man.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: It's like 50 plus.
Willie: Yeah, so you just sit there and just keep watering whatever you can on the ground and like flowers will keep popping up and coins will keep popping up for like a minute.
But they're also super strong. The elephant can push things a little faster than just being a regular Mario character.
Taylor: Okay, I see he can beat through brick walls.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: They can use their trunk to hit enemies or through brick walls. And they can- also, um, what's the other thing? They'll like actually pick up larger shelled enemies when there's like giant versions of a turtle shell or something, they can pick it up-
Taylor: Wow
Willie: -versus Mario that can't, like a non powered up player.
Joseph: And, um, does more damage. So some enemy types you can, you can kill in one like bop on the head versus two or three with like big Mario or a small Mario.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: So much variety in what you can do. Did you guys see that there was a, a top down on one of those? [laughs]
Joseph: Yes dude.
Taylor: Just outta nowhere.
Joseph: Yeah, we played that yesterday.
Taylor: He suddenly- like you said, playing with the depth, you know- suddenly he's walking top down.
Joseph: It's like fucking Contra.
Taylor: Against the third wall. Yeah. That's really crazy.
Willie: Yeah.
00:36:30
Joseph: Oh shit. This is derailing, but there's a new Contra man that I saw a trailer for not too long ago.
Taylor: Yeah, does that look good? I've only heard about it.
Joseph: It looks fucking great.
Taylor: Oh, man. That's one of my OG favorites right there.
Joseph: It's definitely a game I'll play.
Willie: I saw someone mention Contra recently, and I didn't realize they were talking about something new because I hadn't seen anything about it.
Taylor: No kidding.
Joseph: There's at least one trailer. I saw one trailer that had some gameplay footage, and it fucking looks great. It's almost like what this game is doing. You know, it's taking like an original and just like giving it a facelift, adding a bunch of really cool shit to it, but visually, it just looks great.
Taylor: [Laughing] Operation Galuga?
Joseph: Is that what it's called?
Taylor: [Laughing] Yeah. I think so, if I'm looking at the right thing.
Willie: Interesting.
Joseph: I'm down for that for sure.
Taylor: Contra: Operation Galuga.
Willie: I wonder if it'll still be just like a two player co op or more.
Joseph: Probably, but if it does have like online? Online co op, that would be sick.
Taylor: Wow.
Willie: Oh yeah. For sure. Yeah, I used to love that game.
Taylor: And they have people coming out of the, of the back, the background shooting at you and stuff. So they're doing the same thing.
Joseph: Yeah. It's just like a great refresh.
Taylor: Wow. What is that going to come out on? [Willie chuckles]
Joseph: I don't remember.
Taylor: Oh, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox. Sweet. Let's go.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Do you see the release, the release day?
Taylor: It is early 2024.
Joseph: Yeah, dude what?
Willie: It's early 2024 now. [laughs]
Joseph: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah, that should be right now. What are they doing?
Joseph: Tomorrow. That sh- No I'm kidding.
Taylor: This looks really cool.
Joseph: Yeah man, we can play some Prince of Persia. We can play some Contra.
Taylor: Wow.
Joseph: I'm guessing that means first quarter. If they're saying early 2024.
Willie: Yeah. It's up to 2 players in story mode and 4 players in... sorry, I'm just seeing a preview. Something. So there's 4 players in some mode. Arcade mode.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: So, yeah.
Joseph: Huh. I wonder how they scale. I wonder how they scale the difficulty for 4 players.
Willie: Yeah, I'm not sure.
Joseph: Or if there esen- if there even is like a big, a big difference between two player co op and four player.
Willie: Yeah, and I wonder if arcade mode is just select a stage at a time but still the same story mode stages or what.
Joseph: Mm.
Willie: Or if it's just completely different experience.
Joseph: Yeah, that's good question.
Willie: Either way, we'll be checking that out.
Joseph: Yeah, that'll be fun.
Taylor: Yep.
00:38:34
Willie: The other thing I was going to say about when you are a different powered up character and even when you're not, the animations are all really fun. When you're an elephant and you're like, crawling on the ground, your trunk will be wiggling, your tail will be wiggling, and uh, if you like, go through a pipe, you're like, trying to squeeze through, like, it's more difficult to squeeze through the pipe so you see your character.
And every character will like, wiggle their legs as they're like, going through. Or if you're Mario, you'll always like, lose your hat and like, have to reach back out the pipe to grab your hat. And, like, pull it in.
Taylor: That's awesome.
Joseph: Even peeking out, dude, like, when you come out of pipes, you'll see them, like, peek out both ways before they, [Taylor chuckles] before they get out. They're subtle, but they're great.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: I like how joyful Mario is when he jumps.
Willie: [chuckles] I think Luigi is even more joyful [Joseph chuckles] if you see him.
Taylor: Really?
Willie: If you, like, can find him jumping.
Joseph: Yeah, he does, like, this body splash. Like, just extends-
Taylor: Ah
Joseph: -all, all limbs.
Willie: But yeah, everything about it is sort of like, made to like, spark joy, I'm pretty sure.
Taylor: That's great.
Joseph: Even Bowser, man. Bowser's kinda metal.
Willie: Yeah, that's another thing we should talk about.
Joseph: [chuckles] Y'know like the Bowser battleships, like they're playing like, some kinda like, subtle metal music.
Willie: I think it's all pretty good metal, like progressive metal sounding. Metal core ish, I guess, more than progressive.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: But it's like, damn.
Joseph: I like the edge. The edge it's given Bowser. Like, he kind of feels like a badass in this game.
00:39:57
Willie: Let's talk a little bit about some more of the uh, the stage types. One that's very easy is just called Break Time. If you find a world that's called Break Time, it literally is kind of just like an easy gimme a Seed stage where you might just kill some stuff and then get to the end very quickly. It's like super fast, like less than, I don't know, what do you think Joey? Like less than like a minute and a half it feels like-
Joseph: Probably yeah
Willie: -every time, like-
Joseph: Probably less than a minute.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: They're calling the, the, the level type Break Time. And that's like literally what it feels like.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: It's just like a mo- a breather. It's super easy. You still get a Wonder Seed out of it. And it's just like the kind of filler stages between the other, you know, moderately difficult stages. It's cool.
Taylor: I love that.
Willie: And we didn't really talk about this. You can pick once you're in the world, you can sort of pick what order you want to tackle stages in. You're looking at sort of a top down view of a map, like Super Mario World or something like that.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: And you get to just walk your party around and go pick a stage. And honestly, one of the things that every now and then happens is. You'll be walking around and people will be looking at different stages, and anybody could start a stage if they wanted to.
Taylor: Ah.
Willie: So you're just like, oh, did I click on that? Or did somebody else click on that? Are we starting now?
Taylor: Which one are we doing?
00:41:06
Willie: So Break Time is one of those stages. Another one that's very similar is called Search Party. It's basically just a bunch of hidden blocks, or you're trying to find hidden coins. I don't know what those things are called, honestly. They're these little round medallion things that you have to collect in those stages.
Taylor: Hm.
Joseph: I think those are just called, no, I don't know.
Willie: I literally have no idea. I don't know what that type of thing is. [chuckles]
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: It looks different. It's not a coin, but it's very close.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: But it's more circular than a coin. And it's not a seed. It's not a- It's not one of the like purple- I don't even know what the money is called in this game. Besides the coins.
Joseph: Those are Flower Coins.
Willie: Flower Coins, yeah.
Joseph: There's the Wonder Seeds, the Royal Seeds, the Wonder Flower. But I don't know what those like yellowish orange ones are even called. But Taylor, that that search party level type is literally you're all working together to find five hidden blocks.
Taylor: Oh wow.
Joseph: And they're like, they're pretty like, some of them are like- one of them stumped us yesterday for like 20 minutes.
Willie: I feel like it was longer than that man [chuckling] it took a long time on that one.
Joseph: Yeah and there were like three of us looking. Four to begin with, and then three of us looking for like 20 minutes or more.
Taylor: Hm. That's cool.
Willie: And the solution was fairly simple we just like missed it. Because it was just, like, hidden, you know?
Joseph: Took a while. It was, I think, hidden pretty well.
Willie: We were just, like, going up and down every pipe you could find in the level multiple times, just to see if we missed [Taylor laughs] some section that we didn't know about.
00:42:30
Willie: Then there's something called a KO Arena, which is basically, like, a timed kill a certain amount of enemies on each, each stage.
And they start out, I think most of them have, like, three levels. So there's one level and these are like, kill five Goombas, and the next one is kill five Turtles, and the next one after that is, you know, kill five, I don't know, some other random enemy that I have never heard of before, and it's new to me.
Taylor: Huh.
Willie: And then you get the Wonder Seed.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: But those are pretty straightforward. We had one yesterday. I think the most levels we've seen within one of those stages is four.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: And then, I think that's all the different types of stages. But it's, the It's the Wonder stages, the ones that you like hit those like Wonder Flowers in, that like really sometimes just completely change what you're doing.
Taylor: Yeah. The pipes start crawling like caterpillars.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: Or, you know, unknown mecha might attack you or something like there's, it seems like there's a pretty wide variety to what happens in those.
Joseph: I think that's where the game excels for sure is that there are just a ton of ideas.
Willie: It takes the traditional Mario stage and then just completely flips what you know about it and suddenly pipes are crawling or
Joseph: You turn into a cloud.
Willie: [Laughs] Yeah.
Joseph: We've turned into snails.
Willie: Or those little spiky shelled enemies that just shoot up into the air?
Joseph: [Chuckling] Yeah, yeah.
Willie: I, the hardest one I think was the, what was it, the completely in the dark. We were those really tall characters.
Taylor: [Chuckling] Yeah, those are ridiculous.
Willie: There's some sort of mushroom fungus thing. And they have a weird name. I looked at them. It's something ridiculous.
Joseph: All of a sudden you're playing limbo.
Taylor: Yeah, yeah that's the look of it.
Joseph: The lights go out and you can see the character's eyes.
Taylor: Yeah, that is exactly what it looks like. And it's so ridiculous looking. You look like a big long hot dog or something.
Willie: [snickers] Exactly.
Joseph: Mmhmm.
Willie: It's very weird.
Joseph: Taylor, if you've seen any of the castle stages, like the palaces.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: The lighting in those, because they're more of a dark setting.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: The lighting in those and the lighting that you see on the character's faces. Like the way they've rendered it.
Taylor: Yes.
Joseph: And given it dimension, like. They did a fucking great job.
Taylor: Yeah, the lighting is fantastic.
Joseph: I was pretty impressed by that.
Willie: Those mushroom things are called erin. E R I N.
Joseph: [chuckiling] Really? Interesting.
Willie: Yeah. I looked it up yesterday and I was like, that's really weird. What is that? Everything else has a name that sort of relates to what it is.
Joseph: Descriptive maybe?
Willie: Yeah, like a Condart is a condor that basically is a dart. You know? It flies at you.
Joseph: The birds that shoot, right?
Willie: A Bulrush is a thing that looks like a bull, but it's not. But yeah. Erin.
Taylor: King oyster mushroom like enemies that are first introduced in the Bulrush Coming Through.
Willie: Referred to as Erin in the internal files. It's a possible reference-
Joseph: Ohh
Willie: -to the mushroom, eringi, and it's spelled in a language I don't know, but I would assume it's Japanese because it's Nintendo.
Joseph: Yeah, interesting.
Willie: So maybe that's what it is.
Joseph: Mm hmm, that's cool. It seems a little weird, but a lot of, a lot of things in this game are weird.
Taylor: Yeah [laughing] go figure.
Willie: And controlling that thing was very weird in the dark. I felt like I was lost throughout that entire thing.
00:45:36
Willie: Which, that reminds me, we should say, when you're playing four player, and one of you takes damage, or dies, like, you know, you power down, and then you finally die, you turn into a ghost version of yourself, and you have to catch up with the rest of the party, and like, tag a party member to revive yourself. Within like five seconds or something like that. If you don't, it will automatically revive you eventually, but you have to wait for like a respawn timer to go off basically.
Taylor: Hm.
Joseph: It can be challenging because when you have four people on screen, the game selects one person to highlight as like the focused character and then the camera scrolls with that one character.
So like you can accidentally kill other people in your party because you're scrolling too far ahead and they get left behind. They get turned into ghosts and then they have to like tap the action button really, really quickly to try to catch up with you, but you're still moving forward. So sometimes it's actually pretty difficult to revive yourself when the focus is on somebody else or if the focus changes between characters because that can happen in the middle of a level too.
Like if somebody dies, the focus is going to shift to one of the players that's alive and then it's kind of just kind of like jumping around.
Willie: That was one of the hardest things about one of the challenge levels that we were doing. One of the Badge Challenges was the wall climb one, where it's on a timer, but it's also on beat with music.
Joseph: On the beat, yeah.
Willie: And so like, platforms will appear on the beat, but they're also disappearing on beats too. As you like, jump forward, suddenly there's a block, on beat, and then the next one shows up and you have to jump onto that one on beat because it shows up at that time. So it's keeping you from going too far ahead, basically, because the block doesn't exist until it hits that certain beat in the song.
So you're like hitting each of those, but also the ones behind you start disappearing as well. So you're trying to not go too far ahead, but stay far ahead enough that you don't fall off a disappearing platform. And when you're climbing up like that in a vertical space and suddenly there's three ghosts with you, it's really hard to tell, is it me jumping or is it someone else jumping?
Because if they do catch up to you, it suddenly like rockets them into the air when they come in. And then it's really hard to catch your footing off of like being revived sometimes. You'll catch yourself, be alive, and then fall to your death immediately because there's not a platform around you. But it's super chaotic, super fun, and also rewarding, I think, when you finish something like that.
Joseph: Yeah, that one for sure. That one, and there was one more. I forget which one it was, but it was similar.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: In that platforms were appearing and disappearing. I wish there were more, I wish more of the levels felt as rewarding, but that would take them being much more difficult than they are.
Willie: Yeah, because those levels, I think both of those that felt like that were both like five star rating difficulties.
Joseph: Mm hmm.
00:48:17
Willie: I do think we should go back and play some of those more, those in the Special World that are the like challenges that are all five stars.
Joseph: Yeah.
Willie: Because it will feel a little bit more difficult.
Joseph: Yeah, I just want to know how challenging they actually are, or at least using that wall climb rhythm level as the reference point in terms of like how difficult the game can get.
Willie: I wouldn't be surprised if there's one that I can't do, or that I would stop trying before I finish. I wouldn't be surprised at all.
Joseph: Yeah, and have to take a break-
Willie: [laughs] Yeah
Joseph: -yeah and come back another day or something. Oh, we were talking about accessibility earlier, which this game is incredibly accessible. Yoshi, Nabbit, they won't take damage.
You can also buy lives at different like little Poplin merchants. So little shops, you can just buy lives with your Flower Coins.
Taylor: Oh, cool.
Joseph: It's really accessible. Maybe the most accessible side scrolling Super Mario Bros. Game. Like if you really wanted to play it with, you know, kids. They can choose those characters.
You can also buy lives. And then, you know, like you can pull off the harder things in the game because you can consistently revive dead players in the game. So you don't really ever truly die in any of the levels because of that ghost revive system.
Taylor: That's cool. It's always nice to have that kind of option.
Willie: And to that point, I was going to mention this earlier when we were talking about Flower Coins. We maxed out our Flower Coins at like 999. So we haven't, that's what you use at the Poplin merchants. And we haven't really needed to do that much. But we have, for that one level, we bought like 30 lives. [snickers]
Joseph: [chuckling] Yeah, we burned through a lot.
Willie: We did burn through a lot. Because when you die and you're playing four players, you lose four lives. If you have to start the level over completely, that's four lives gone immediately.
Taylor: Mm.
Joseph: I guess I, I guess I should have mentioned when I was just talking about the revive system, you can revive continuously as long as one person is still alive in the game.
But if all four of you like fall down a pit at the same time and die at the same time, then you actually do all die and it'll cost you four lives.
Willie: Uh, when I was looking through this list of characters to find Erin, [chuckles] I also saw Dark Mario, which we encountered last night.
Joseph: [chuckling] Oh right.
Willie: Which was really cool.
Joseph: That's true.
Willie: I think the level was called Color Switch Dungeon.
Joseph: Nice.
Willie: But then, I don't even know, it was, it was a Wonder Seed, right, that triggered that? Or Wonder Flower that triggered that?
Joseph: Yeah, it was.
Willie: And suddenly we're being chased by a dark Mario figure through the level-
Taylor: Oh wow
Willie: -and trying not to get hit. It's like a ghost Mario that's completely in shadow.
Taylor: Huh.
Joseph: It felt like uh, Badeline in Celeste, like getting chased around like that.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: That's what it reminded me of.
00:50:50
Joseph: Taylor, is this a game you would play if you had a Switch- if you still had a Switch?
Taylor: Yes. Yeah I would um I would definitely want to check that out especially because uh my son is finally starting to put in, like every time he comes in here into my studio, he will uh get the Xbox controller, and he turns on the Xbox. You know he holds down the Xbox, and er, button
Joseph: For real?
Taylor: Yeah, oh yeah.
And he's smart; he's very smart. I mean when he plays the piano, like if I put him on the- it's like a standing electronic piano. He knows to turn it off when he's done with it. He turns the thing off.
Joseph: Damn.
Taylor: And I, I don't, I don't like reinforce this stuff very much. I may tell him once, you know, when you're done, turn it off and that's it. And he just does that.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: He'll just do it. I mean, it's, he's such a smart kid, but I want to get to that point that we can play some games together. That'll be an epic moment.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Dude, yeah, that has to, that seems exciting.
Taylor: Right now he just wants me to, he says goat game. [laughter] He wants me to play Goat Simulator 3. That, uh, that is, he just watches it.
Joseph: Nice.
Taylor: And he says the goat and he sees me, you know, you got a cannon on the goat's back that if you shoot at people, it changes what they're wearing. That cracks him up. Seeing the people change clothes and uh, just silly stuff, man.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: I can't imagine being a kid with like the-
Taylor: Right
Joseph: -with this, this gaming industry and the types of games that exist today, like
Taylor: Just tech in general.
Willie: Yeah.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah.
Taylor: And it makes me wonder, like, I, I always find myself wondering what it's like through his eyes.
And I try to keep that in mind with what I expose him to and what I, what I let him kind of play with electronics wise, just because I don't want to create a problem where there's not, not one, you know. [laughing]
Joseph: [snickers] Yeah.
Taylor: Suddenly have a little Game Boy addict on my hands or something.
Willie: But you know, you do get to instill that love of gaming. And I think something like this is a super good way to do this. When you get the chance.
Taylor: Yeah.
Joseph: Hell yeah. Like even, yeah, coming back to a game like this, I think it'd be perfect.
Willie: Yeah. I think it's a great introduction.
Taylor: Rebecca loves Mario too. So I think her, they would play it together just as much as I would.
Joseph: Hell yeah.
Willie: Yeah.
Taylor: If not more.
Willie: And it is for everybody. It is four player co op, which is really cool.
Taylor: Awesome.
Willie: Doesn't happen all that often anymore. Um, especially-
Joseph: Mmhmm
Willie: -couch co op like this. So that's cool.
Joseph: And for it to run fucking flawlessly, dude. You know, besides a little quirks in the game design, but like. It's efficient, man.
It runs four players beautifully.
00:53:23
Willie: Overall, I'd say it's a good game. Definitely worth checking out if you like Mario at all, if you like platformers at all. Any other, like, closing thoughts?
Joseph: Piggybacking on what you just said, I think this game is for people that are hardcore Mario fans and, like, want to play every single, uh, side scrolling Mario. Or even just want to play it because they want to relive something similar to, like, the earlier Super Mario Bros. games.
Or it's for a person that wants a great family game that could be accessible for people that don't have a high skill level. And so like the accessibility, the game, you don't ever really truly get stopped by any really difficult levels. You can bypass them, you can get seeds in other ways, and you can still find the path through the entire game without doing the hardest things in the game. And I think that's one of the things that makes it truly like a legit family game for people of all different skill levels.
And I'm excited to go see some speed running, like after I finish it to go watch and see how that's going. Because thinking about speed running- I guess you just bypass all the Wonder- the Wonder Flowers if you're speed running it. If there are people speed running it through the Wonder Flower parts of the world or parts of the levels I think that could be super interesting.
Willie: Yeah. I wonder what the categories will be.
Joseph: Right.
Willie: If there is like all Wonder Flowers completed or like
Joseph: All seeds collected or something like that
Willie: Yeah that's, that'll be cool to check out for sure.
Joseph: But overall, I mean, I think the game, I think the game is great.
I think it's perfect for Best Family Game at The Game Awards. I think it could have won Best Multiplayer Game.
And then I also think it could have won Best Art Direction. There is some stiff competition, but what they've done visually with this game, I think is, I think it's worthy of that nomination. And obviously, the game is beautiful, like in the animation, and the graphics, and the rendering. Colors are fantastic.
I feel like they knocked it out of the park with this game. And this is one of the best Mario platformers.
Willie: Taylor, anything else before we close out?
Taylor: No, this was a fun one. It was nice to actually see this game in action and kind of hear what you guys liked about it.
Definitely eager to play it someday.
[Outro theme begins to fade in - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Willie: Yeah, that makes sense. Alright, thank you for listening. Thanks for joining us in the new year. I hope you had a great holiday season, whatever it is you're celebrating. If you're listening to this and kicking off the new year for us, we appreciate it. And soon we'll be talking about all the games we're looking forward to in this new year, because there are so many things coming up.
But thank you all for your time.
Joseph: Peace.
Taylor: ...oh yeah. Was I supposed to say something? [Laughter] Earth Defense Force 6. It's what's for dinner. Hold onto your butts. [Joseph scoffs]
Joseph: It’s what’s for dinner…
Taylor: 2024.
[Laughter]
Joseph: Hold onto your butts.
Taylor: Hold onto your butts.
[Outro theme continues - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
00:55:57
Joseph: Berries and Blades is an independent podcast created by Joseph Bullard, Willie Garza and Taylor Garratt. Thanks for tuning in, and consider subscribing if you enjoyed listening to this episode. You can also support us by telling your friends about the show, and we hope to see you in the next episode of Berries and Blades. Until then, thanks again.
[Outro theme fades out - Caribbean Arcade by Christian Nanzell]
Hittin’ the groove.
Taylor: Yep.
See my nipples leaking.
Wait, [Laughter] I fucked it up. I fucked it up.
Joseph: You fucked it up. [Laughs]
Taylor: That's not what I meant.