Our Nintendo Hot Takes! - NVC 803

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I'm your host, Logan Plant, joined by a fiery Seth Macy. Woo! Look at me now. I ate a fire flower and I'm turning orange. And why is he even on this show? He just said he doesn't like Nintendo. That's right, I'll tell you. Yeah, my whole life is a lie. All the Game Boys and everything behind me in my shot and just random books and controllers all over the shelf. Yeah, no, I love them. That was a fake. I lied to you. Whoa! Well, a fake idea, but a very real concept. This week on NBC, it's our Nintendo Hot Takes. We're going to go around and share two or three controversial takes we have. And then we're going to judge each other. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And later in the show, we're going to talk about Pokemon Pokopia, the latest Switch 2 exclusive that we're all playing. And I think really loving. We'll talk about Yoshi in the Mysterious Book, giving a trailer and a release date, the final Mario Galaxy Movie trailer, and a lot more. Okay, guys, Nintendo Hot Takes three rounds. You'll get a minute or two to present your take, and then we'll discuss it as a group. And I'll say it right now, next week is going to be your Nintendo Hot Takes. Wow! You listening to this. So email us NBC at IGN.com and we'll judge you next week on the show and what you think of Nintendo. Seth, kick it off. Oh my God, I'm starting hot. I'm coming in hot. I put the worst, most controversial one at the forefront of my list. Hold on, let me get my glasses. I printed them out. It looks like it's longer than it is. It's just sporting. I made supporting bullet points to it. So, and I'm actually going to tone this down from what I wrote last night, because there's a lot of it's just uselessly snarky. But I think that the Mario movies are bad for the long term health of the Nintendo brand. Okay, why? Because they are flashy, gorgeous, star studded affairs that lack all of the heart that makes Nintendo special. They are... Nintendo kind of famously will revisit ideas or bring something back from the past. Like the Animal Crossing houses are based on like a toy line that they had in the 60s. That was a physical, like dollhouse line of cute things. I just saw today that some of the wallpaper patterns and the sheets and blankets in Pokopia are based on a line of Pokemon button-down shirts that they had in the 2010s. Whereas the movies are just like, hey, do you remember Rob the Robot? Well, he's here now. And do you remember War... Well, he's the Whiskers man. So, yeah, I think that there's a big divide between Nintendo, the toy maker in video game studio and what is being made for the Nintendo movies. And I think that long term that dilutes and hurts what makes Nintendo so special. Hmm. What do you think, Brian? I don't think I agree with that. Well, then I don't care. No, so are we allowed to debate? No, you're not allowed to talk about this. Please. Okay, so I've seen a lot of people say they don't like the Mario movies because they're just nostalgia bait. And I think if you watch them with a young kid through their lens, they're not picking up on any of that. They're picking up on the iconic stuff that's in modern Mario games that they recognize. But their biggest problem is me pausing the movie to be like, hey, do you know, I'm not going to tell you about the virtual boy. You see that bus guy on the back of that moving truck? That's Captain Falcon. Yeah, like I showed the new direct trailer to my kid. And then I basically did like an impromptu rewind theater where I played it again. And I was like, see that frog? That's wart. And like, most people shouldn't have to deal with that. I think that's my fault. And I should have some self-restraint, right? Ultimately, that's me being like, let me project my nostalgia onto you, which is ultimately like swaying your movie viewing experience in a specific direction. But if you were to just watch this in isolation on your own or like you went on a field trip to the theater and they played this, you know, this trailer, you're at a birthday party or something like that and they have this on, you're not going to pick up on any of that. And so you're just going to look at this as like this fun celebration of the characters you like with some, you know, minor conflict thrown in to get them from point A to point B to point C. Like, I don't think you're ever going to get like the level of like this, this is such a moving story or something like that. But like, I take my kid to see Disney movies and Pixar movies and stuff like that. And we went to see Hoppers and I had a good time. And I don't think that that is such a drastically bigger sort of narrative leap over the Mario movie, frankly. Like, I think Pixar has big swings, right? And they've got some classic movies and they've got some modern classics too. And I think that like pound for pound, the best Pixar movie is easily clears the last Mario movie and we'll probably clear the next, the Mario movie. But I think that like, there's a lot of crap out there for kids to watch. I talked about this last week in terms of what kids can play. And so I think the nostalgia stuff plays in to get like older folks in the theater being like, oh, yeah, I remember that. But it is not an issue at all when it comes to like a young kid watching these movies. They're just having fun with how cool it is. It's more annoying that they have a dad like me being like, oh, check out the virtual boy, daddy has one, it sucks. Not a hot take, man. I will take your point for what it's worth and I will reject it wholly because I still think, I still... I don't want to sound like I'm saying that these movies should not exist because I do... As much as I think that the stories are dumb and I don't like the nostalgia, I think that they are ultimately very fun and they are absolutely gorgeous. They're such just like beautiful movies. But I feel like that heart, that like just creative... That creative energy, that earnestness that just you feel in Nintendo games doesn't come through in the movies at all. It feels very disconnected from the parts of Nintendo that I love. And it just... It feels like, you know, somebody describing Nintendo to like a space movie. It's a cover album. It's a cover album. Sure. Yes. That is the perfect thing. Shout out to Toys in the Attic, New England's number one Aerosmith cover band. I landed between you guys on this. I think that... I don't really like the first Mario movie that much. I saw it one time and never wanted to see it again where I'll play like a Mario game three or four times because it's just not what I'm here for. And that's totally fine with me. I think Brian, you nailed it, that it's for two audiences. It's for old Nintendo fans to be like, oh, cute. I love that. I love seeing these characters I grew up with on the big screen. Look, it's legitimate. It's real. I think that's a big part of it. And then it's for kids as a gateway into the world of Nintendo. I don't see really the Mario movies impacting the legacy of the core Mario franchise in video game form at all. I think that like... Oh, I do. Because these make gobs and gobs and gobs of money. Like just millions and billions of dollars. And that's what they're saying. Like the audience is responding to this and they're going to move into that direction. That's what I'm thinking. Also, I wanted to quickly point out another great gateway into Nintendo are Nintendo video games. That is an amazing way to introduce a child to the world of Nintendo video games. But there. That's true. But it's harder. It's getting harder to sell people on dedicated consoles these days just in gaming and games. People play on their phones, on their PCs, whatever. And so I think the more exposure you can have to Nintendo in any given realm, the more likely a parent is to buy a Switch 2 for their kid. Which I think still with the movie is Nintendo's ultimate goal. Everything, the theme parks, all of it funnels into the core gaming ecosystem. Even the theme parks, the merchandise, everything they do. The center of it is still the games. And I don't personally see a fine kids movie changing that. No, it is. You guys know that it is a largely a net positive for these movies to funnel people into becoming Nintendo fans and becoming console owners. Like we're seeing console ownership diminish over or under people under the age of 40. Like that's going to be a problem in the future. I don't want to live in a world where nostalgia 30 years from now is for Fortnite season 4. I want it to be a world where people have nostalgia or some skibbity toilet or whatever. Not to diminish whatever kids are playing those things. Awesome, great. I get it. Like at some point it's like if your only gaming experience is one game every single day, that varies slightly or maybe evolves in very tiny ways over the years. But ultimately you're just playing one thing. And I would say the same thing about people who only play Call of Duty or only play FIFA. I think that ultimately that's not super beneficial for the games industry as a whole, for the medium as a whole. And I think if we can get to a point where younger generations are like they recognize Mario and they like Nintendo and they talk their parents into getting them a switch or a switch too. And they have these new entry points into becoming console gamers and they start going like, hey, let me open up the eShop and see all these AI generated hentai games and I can get into that. No, because there's so much crap on there. But no, like if they ultimately like start getting into more games, that's a good thing. Right? So I think the theme parks, the movies, like and toys, all that stuff are good ways to get them started on that. Yeah. The movie is the only part of everything that you just said that doesn't seem to have fun at its forefront to me. It just, the theme park, the toys, the games obviously are like all about fun. The movie is fun for everyone who's, by the way, everyone who's so mad at me right now, because every time I speak ill of the Mario movie, people get very, very bad. Sorry. No, it's, I mean, it's not, it's not like it's got like, it's in the like 60s on Rotten Tomatoes, right? It's not like this is like a universally loved slam dunk film. Like there's, I've seen a lot of like older, not like Space Jam or Space Jam 2. Oh, that was a slam dunk. Yeah, there was a lot of things. No, I think it's not really that hot of a take for grownups to be like, I don't like the Mario movie. I saw that sentiment a lot when the movie first came out. People being like, it has no story, which like I disagree with. I think that like the two brothers being seen as failures to their parents and then ultimately like winning them over by doing something cool together. I like that. I think that's very sweet. Yeah. I think a lot of people, you know, don't, don't like this movie and that's okay. No, I've said before on the show, I like the movie more somebody who follows Nintendo and like their business and their wins and losses than somebody who, and then as a fan, then as the fan side of me. Because like I said, I saw once, I think the Mario movie is great for them. But yeah, it's, I just am not really in that target audience, which is totally fine. Yeah. All right, Brian, let's go. Oh, go ahead, Seth. I'm fine with them making billions and billions of dollars because as much as I worry that that's going to shift their audience, I think realistically what's going to happen is they're just going to use that billions and billions of dollars to make more fun things that aren't the Mario movie. In the way that people are very mad that K-pop Demon Hunters is getting a criterion collection, but that movie is going to sell a trillion dollars worth of 4K Blu-rays that's going to then allow them to make that weird obscure French noir film from 1930 into a, I mean, into a collection. So your other option for that movie is to rent it on Netflix for $25 a month effectively. Yeah. Like, so yeah, you know, also get, there's a bunch of dumb crap in the criterion collection. Put your nose down about that. All right, Brian, what's your first Nintendo hot take? This is definitely nostalgia speaking, but the best Nintendo Direct will never be as good as the best Nintendo E3 live show. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just the crowd dynamic. I think that the human element of having that spontaneity of having Miyamoto come out on stage with his elder shirt or Reggie pole, you know, a Wii U out of his coat pocket or whatever. There was something magical to that that and I love the direct format. Everybody does now. Everybody's ripped it off. Don't get me wrong. I love the direct format. I think that is a, it is a fantastic make good for the fact that like E3 is dead and the live show was a logistical nightmare from a production perspective. The amount of moving parts thinks it can go wrong. Like the amount of E3 demos we've seen were like, like Nathan Drake falls through the environment or whatever. And, you know, like there's a sound cuts out or whatever. Like there's, there's. There's Skyward Sword probably scarred Nintendo. Their motion controls didn't work on stage. They didn't work when the game came out either. Which leads me back. No, I'm not going to get into Skyward Sword. No, so I, and this is not just Nostalgia Speaking. I genuinely believe that there's something really cool about that, that live element. And I don't know if it necessarily has to have a crowd to it. But I mean, it's like, you look at, look at the Paris Schneider, look at the reaction guys, right? Look at the, like that's the kind of thing. The reaction guys on watching a live, a live stream on zoom or whatever, right? It just doesn't hit the same way. And look, like I understand that the reaction content is, is, is huge and has been for a very long time now that that's the way we do this show now, right? Like we'll watch directs together and we're all not even in the same room and we're making the best of it. But there was a really cool element to this. And don't get me wrong. There's also, there was a, like a weird business side to it too, where like a lot of these, a lot of these shows, like they would come out and Sony did this too. They would come out and they'd be like, let's look at our Q1 results and they'd be like bar graph. And then, you know, there was also a lot of bad moments, like they'd be like, let's bring out, you know, Robbie Drummond's we're going to play we music or like, I think it was, I forget who it was, who was like, I like to go on snowboarding trips. And they jumped on like a, you know, the, the, the balance board or whatever. There's dumb stuff. Don't get me wrong. But when these things hit, when they had their best moments, when they had their biggest surprises, like when you saw, I think it was like Twilight Princess for the first time, right? People lost it. And there was something so cool about that. And we, we can, you get close with directs, but that live show element is something I will, I will always, always, always love. I love that we get to do a tiny bit of it at IGN live. Obviously, we don't get to reveal brand new Nintendo games. Maybe someday, but Oh, you can make a fake. Yeah, just make a fake one. We could do that. We did that for April Fools periodically. And yeah, so that's, that's my hot take. I love directs. I like the E3 live shows much more and always will. I think 100%. I completely agree. It's like, if you don't like a band, if you go see them live, you will still walk away from that having a good time. It's just so much better. And yeah, I totally agree. Like those E3 shows, they were so fun. Everyone looked forward to it like, what are they going to do? What do they get? You kind of look forward like, ooh, what's going to, you know, what's going to break? You'd hold your breath when a presenter would come out who was terrible and not trained to be on stage. Like, oh God. And then you'd get that like, that big surprise or that big thing. And I, I loved just hearing the crowd go crazy. Yeah. For, you know, for all of them. And it's like, yeah, and people just losing their minds in the crowd because, you know, a crowd adds a whole another dynamic to it. Also, I swear, every one of those, they would put like a mic on hip hop gamer because you just like losing his mind at every conference. And I just shout out to him, but yeah, I agree 100%. The directs are fun. They're great. It's especially nice for me because I live on the East Coast. So either at 9am and then you guys are all still drinking coffee and bleary eyed. But just it doesn't, it doesn't hit the same. And I hope maybe someday, yeah, like that is what IGN Live kind of becomes. And it's entirely up to me as the host on stage. So I'm like, Tinkerbell, please clap for me or I will lose my power. Yeah, I think I'm, I don't have much to say about this one. I think it's just interesting to note that when Nintendo did go away from the live stage show in 2013, everybody thought that this was a step towards them going third party and leaving the console business. That's how big of a deal it was for them to leave the stage show and go to a direct presentation. And I remember watching it and tuning in and being nervous as watching this, is this going to work? Are people going to care? And the stream crashed halfway through and we missed like 30 seconds of like tropical freeze or something that they revealed in this presentation. Tropical frozen. And now like you said, everybody does it. Everyone. Yeah. There's a Capcom spotlight where they announced new costumes for Street Fighter 6 characters last week. Everybody does one now. Arc system works. Not only does everyone do one now, but they're all, or 99% of them are in the exact same tone. Yes. Right? Like they, they have this kind of like peppy like, hey, coming up next, we've got this spot. Like, and it's, you know, it's very... Watch Kratos. ...viscerate his foes in this bloody clip. It's that. It's that. And like, it's just got that very sort of like hotel concierge meets like kindergarten teacher, like, say, tune, because coming up next, we're having a blast with bubble poppers too. Coming in and like, whatever. Like, it's, and like, I don't know, like, I don't, I don't think that's... Like, E3 shows didn't always have that exact same sort of cadence to them. So, and look, I know they're gone. I know they're going away. I know that E3 was an incredibly expensive show to do. Like it's like, you had a, if you, if you had a booth at that show, you had to basically rent every single proprietary part of that through the, through E3, right? You're like, oh, we want, we want carpeting. So it's soft when I guess come here. It's like, cool, that'll be $50,000. We want, you know, we want some panels over here. That's $100,000. What can we do for lunch? $40 a burger or whatever, right? Like, that's, it's not, and then they had a Nintendo had to rent out an entire theater. Like, it's, it's expensive, right? It's a lot easier to cut a trailer out of their headquarters. Yeah. But I miss that energy. Yeah. How would you feel about the middle ground of going back to, because even when they were doing digital events, which was the name of their E3 show for a few years, you had Star Fox Puppets, you had Reggie Fizamek, you had, they were, there was more showmanship specifically at their E3 show than the other Directs. I like that. I think, I think that that's awesome. I think the other middle territory for that is, right? This is hard to watch. Yeah, it was just not, it was just not working. No, I think the other, like the middle ground right now that currently exists right now is they'll show Directs at their flagship stores. And they'll have a bunch of fans in there. And like seeing, I remember seeing like fans in the Nintendo New York store react. I think it was King K. Rool getting announced for Sniff Brothers. Yes. And it's just, it just gives me goosebumps thinking about it because it is this, this infectious positivity and joy shared in a group. And I think, I think that's awesome. I think there was like the game awards and I believe like some others have streamed in movie theaters and you know, they're not filming people in there. But it's, I think this stuff works well in a group setting, right? Like I think it's like one of those things where it's, we don't, I don't know, I don't care about the Super Bowl. I don't care about the World Series. I don't care about like being in a crowd setting for a sporting event. I just, I just don't. Like my, that my peoples are, are, are dorks and, and nerds and gamers and being in a room with a bunch of people or watching a bunch of people in a room celebrate a big surprise announcement is this really, really cool thing. And I hope, I hope they can recapture that somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, online shopping is quite literally at our fingertips, but that doesn't mean it's always simple to buy. Whether it's trying to remember one of a million different logins so you can actually place your order or getting almost all the way through checkout before realizing your card is nowhere near you. There are many hiccups that can get between you and placing that order, which is why it's such a relief when you see that purple pay button that has all of your information saved, making checkout as simple as a tap of your screen. That iconic purple shop pay button is why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales going to you. 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It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. Well, my hot take is also in line with Nintendo Direct. It's the one I said at the top of the show. I don't care when the next Nintendo Direct is. I like Nintendo Direct a lot as much or more than the next guy, but I feel like Nintendo Direct discourse is the most painfully uninteresting thing that Nintendo fans do. I just find it dreadful and I can't stand how much it dominates the conversation. I feel like every single reaction to recent online Nintendo news has been trying to dissect what this announcement and its timing means for the next Direct. We got a Yoshi trailer this week and the primary reaction I saw was, I guess this means no Direct this month. People aren't even talking about the Yoshi trailer. We got a Mario, Mario Day came. I don't care about Mario Day. It's a calendar pun that has been built up into false expectations for Nintendo fans and people say, wow, not even a Direct for Mario Day. How disappointing. And then we get a Mario movie Direct and people say, oh, and there's no games in this either. I just feel like it's all people talk about and not everybody. I know this is like the very like terminally online Nintendo community. I'm talking about here. I know there's thousands of people that listen to this show that don't think this way. I just think that I'm just tired of it. And then inevitably when that Nintendo Direct comes, if there's not a 3D Mario or a 3D Zelda or a Super Smash Brothers, people think it sucks. And it's just nobody's happy ever in this nonstop Direct hype cycle. I just feel like we're in a place where people like talking about the hype train and the announcements more than the games themselves. These games on Switch 2 have been coming and going so fast and we've gotten so many of them that are worth talking about. And instead people are just like, well, where's 3D Mario? I don't care because I don't have 3D Mario. It just bums me out, man. No, I completely agree. It's also like, I think it diminishes the reality that Nintendo is not a company that only puts their announcements and their surprises in Directs. Like they will drop a random thing on a Tuesday. I remember like just like Lobo is one of those things that like they just, it was like five o'clock and I was like ready to leave work. And they were like, hey, we're making a cardboard piano. And I was like, what is going on? Like that's the Nintendo I love, right? It's not just waiting for them to glue a bunch of trailers together into one big thing. It's also just like drip feeding cool surprises constantly and they're really good at that. And so I also think if like if you only, and this is not even my hot take, but to piggyback off what you just said, Logan, if you're only here for the next like Zelda and Mario game, you're a tourist. You're a fake Nintendo fan. You're a you're a like Times Square, Sabaro Pizza, basic, just like you're you're boring and you're lame and you need to you need to expand your your horizons and worldview. You need to go to Johnson Bleaker like Logan and I did get the real good stuff. Like there's there's more to the world than just those two games. And we know at this point that those are our games that we get like once a decade now. So just for your own sake, temper those expectations, play something else between those big two tentpole events. Check out some smaller games, play some indies, you know, play Pocopia. It rules like there's there's so much you could be doing right now other than refreshing your browser or looking at a sundial to see when the planets will align to give you a Nintendo Direct. Like yeah. Yeah, Brian, I actually had written down in here. I didn't know if I was going to say it because it is it is spicy. I was going to say most Nintendo fans are actually Mario and Zelda fans. I absolutely think that again. I'm not really talking to people that are hardcore enough listening to this. I'm just talking about a lot of people I think online that this is it for them. And if it's not a 3D Mario or 3D Zelda, it doesn't count. It doesn't matter. I'm going to I'm going to sub I'm going to do a sub hot take on your hot take. I would be fine with just three Nintendo Directs. I mean, yeah, have some indie directs because of those are awesome as well. But I'd be fine if there were a spring direct, if there were like the June like, hey, this is the crazy stuff. And then a, you know, August, September, maybe even October. Here's what's coming in the holiday. And that's what let's look a little bit forward to the next year. I would be completely OK with that because the these little like micro directs that we have where, you know, like the Mario movie headed like a seven minute direct. It like when I was a little kid, I poured a bowl of Lucky Charms and I didn't put any milk in it. And I spent like a half an hour. I pulled out every oat, every oat piece and I just ate the marshmallows. And I was so sick by the end of it that I never did it again because I took out all the I didn't realize how you need to temper that tasty sweetness with the boring oats or else you will feel terrible. And I feel the same way about about Nintendo Directs. That doesn't work on horses, by the way, that is the fastest way. No, that's the opposite. They love the oats. That's probably faster ways. Anyways, I think that to defend maybe the fan we're talking about, I do think people are upset right now because they are seemingly skipping that February direct. I mean, it's March. They didn't do it in February like usual. So that's kind of where the fervor is coming from right now. But I got to bring up something that I think is really important to the direct conversation, which is Nintendo today. This is a huge shift in their strategy. This mobile app that they push something out on every day. Lots of times it's just like, guess the silhouette and it's Mario, but lots of times it's something actually meaningful. I'm losing my mind. It's a big deal for them. Like this is this is huge for them to create this own walled garden that when they announced Nintendo today, Miyamoto even said like, hey, this is kind of an evolution of the direct. They're telling you this is how we're going to deliver you news. He even did the directly to you thing right there in this trailer that we're watching. And within the last this year alone, like they've announced that they dropped this Yoshi trailer. They drop Amiibo announcements. They drop little overview trailers for something like Super Mario Brothers, Wonder Nintendo Switch, 2 Edition plus Meetup in Belleville Park. Like they're dropping stuff on this all the time. And I think that you just need to recalibrate your expectations a little bit and think there's not maybe going to be three 45 minute directs a year anymore. Maybe I don't know. There still could be. But in the meantime, you have this app. You have a Tomodachi Life Direct that I think was one of the best individual game presentations they've ever done. Like and it's frustrating. The stuff doesn't count if it's not packaged in a 45 minute thing that starts with a Mario and ends with a Zelda. It's yeah, I just think there's a lot more going on. I get it. This stuff clicks so people make it. They make the direct theory videos and that is just what dominates the message. But I just move over it. I'm looking right now because I forget that I have Nintendo today. So I'm like looking on my phone right now. I don't. I never get notifications that something's new. It never says like, hey, good morning. Check out what's new. And if that would be an enormous help, maybe I turned that setting off. I don't turn notifications on. I really get a notification every day. Well, damn, I get no notification. I get Nintendo music notifications. It's like, hey, we just added the tracks from Mario Tennis on the virtual boy. Okay, good. That's good to know. And then that will, that's going to be a real big life changer. Cool. All right. We got another round. Let's do, let's do just one more round and then we'll talk. One more round. Okay. Then I'm going to throw out the one I started with. I still do. I don't think Nintendo needs a robust online ecosystem in the vein of Xbox Live or PlayStation Online. But that's not my, here's my, here's my hot, my hottest take of all. Oh, I need my glasses again. Sorry. Where'd I put them? Oh, shoot. Where'd I put them? Wow. Okay. What is happening? It's a disaster. All right. The Nintendo Switch will be remembered as the most important video game console of all time. Nice. Yep. Sure. It perfectly combined Nintendo's two strengths. Everyone else now is trying to make a handheld and they are missing the point entirely. They don't have that Nintendo magic. They're like, what if we made our, if we made a video game system, you could hold in your hands that runs Windows or, you know, the PlayStation portal, which I love by the way. I think it is wonderful, but it's, you know, it's a cloud streaming device. It is not a dedicated handheld console that has specs just good enough to appeal to some people who are into that, but it's also just inexpensive enough to appeal to people who are on the periphery. I don't think anyone will ever come close to replicating what the original 2017 Nintendo Switch did for the video game console market. It is absolutely the most important video game console of all time. Boom. There. I agree. Actually, let me, let me piggyback on that too. I think it's, I think that the, the modern renaissance of handheld gaming is one of the most significant and important things that can be happening in the medium right now because it is not only giving people a lot of access to play video games wherever. That's amazing, right? There's that practicality of it. I think that the hardware limitations that inherently come with a console or handheld that is sort of bottlenecked with how much it can do is setting a expectation level with the audience that games don't have to be the most realistic, expensive looking things on planet earth. And I think that that's where games should be heading because I think that, I think that budgets are ballooning. I think that this like arms race to make the most realistic textures and graphics and, and mocap and all this other stuff in every single game is, is making it so that you could ship a game like the recent Spider-Man game and break sales records and then still have to do layoffs afterwards because you didn't make enough money back. And so I think that the hardware limitations that come with handhelds are so important and should be standard across the industry. And I think that where things are going now with like, like data centers using all the chips up and PC gaming being the most, you know, just incredibly expensive is creating a situation where the hobby is becoming out of reach. Yep. Don't get me wrong. The switch to is $550, right? Or 500, 500 bucks. That's not great either. But I think that like switchlight being sort of like a way to get in there. The old switch being, you know, eventually being phased out and price dropped and stuff like that. All of that is really good. Like we, I played through tears with the kingdom. I played 150 hours of that game. There were like a couple of hiccups technically. Nintendo are absolute wizards on, on something that was effectively a 10 year old Android, you know, tablet like. It's a killer fire tablet. Yeah. Yes. Yes. More of that, I think will benefit the games industry as a whole because more people can play games and they'll cost less money to make. Yep. Yeah. I think I'm with you too, Seth. I mean, even just from a Nintendo perspective, I think the switch is unquestionably the best Nintendo console of all time. Oh yeah. Now we're getting further into the switch too, further in the rear view mirror of the switch one kind of as its own thing. And I just, I thought that in the middle of the generation, but people will call recency bias, but just the further we get, it's like it had people talk about the Super Nintendo. And yes, that had amazing influential games that still hold up or people talk about the Wii, which was this huge global phenomenon and the switch had both. It was both of those things combined. It is the best Zelda ever made on the best selling Nintendo hardware of all time, the best Mario, the biggest Smash Brothers. Like it's, it's just huge. We've talked about it before. It brought Nintendo franchises more into the mainstream than they were before. We're on the Wii, the best selling stuff was like, Wii sports, Wii fit, Wii play, all those games. Yeah. And so it's just huge, hugely influential. Everybody is copying them to some extent. And even the switch too, like we were a little hesitant when it was announced because we're like, Oh, this is way more powerful, way more expensive, way less accessible than the switch one. And it's doing very well so far. But yeah, the switch one is just, it was a huge deal. Yeah. Brian. Trying to think which of my two I should do. The one you told me last week. Okay. I'll do that one. Yeah. Okay. So, um, I don't think Majora's Mask is a very good game. Whoa. Good. So now all the Nintendo, the Mario movie people will not just yell at me and they'll yell at you. No, that's okay. That's not even what I'm going to argue today. I will argue that the art direction and mood and tone in Majora's Mask set unreasonable expectations with Nintendo fans that Zelda had to be dark and gritty. And I reject that notion. I don't think it should ever be realistic, mature. I see these like unreal engines out. It's like the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Like we don't, we don't need that. Also you kind of miss the point because these are, these are very inherently goofy games. Even Majora's Mask with its like scary moon that is descending on onto, you know, the land to kill everybody. Like it's, it's full of slapstick caricature buffoons. And Nintendo has always understood that Zelda is about whimsy. It is about this sort of like childlike wonder goofiness, the sort of pudgy stout original production art around Link, around the original Legend of Zelda. And more so Link to the Past has always been what this series has. And the rejection that people instantly had for Wind Waker's art style because it wasn't gritty and mature set us back for years. And I'm glad that people came around to it. But you were wrong. You see, yeah. And that, you were wrong to, you, to reject Toon Link when he was first here. And I hope that, I hope that Stain remains on your character forever. I don't care that you came around to it. I don't care that you, that you've, you've made amends with your sins. We'll never forget. We'll never forget that you dropped the ball on that because he wasn't, because he wasn't real. He wasn't realistic and you couldn't see his, his, you know, his stubble and his veins or whatever you want from this man. Like I don't, I don't think that Link should be hyper realistic. I don't think Zelda should be gritty and mature. I'm glad when they do cartoony nonsense in Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, because that's what these games are about. If you don't like it, go play Skyrim, go play something else, go play something realistic. Zelda should never be like that. And I'm glad it isn't and you'll never get your way. Yeah. What do you think of like Twilight Princess's art style and tone? Even that, I think some people, like if you look at like there's so many goofy characters in that game. Yeah. And I think that like, like the, the, the parts where it gets fully desaturated and there's wolf link stuff, I think those are some of the ugliest parts in the game, frankly. So like, I think there's a lot of beauty in that game. But again, I don't think that that's like a very gritty, realistic game. I think that is like that is the ceiling for what I will allow. Not like I have any, any power over these things. But that's, that's the ceiling for what I will allow in terms of these being gritty and realistic and mature, because it's ultimately still cartoonish. Yeah. No, I agree. Twilight Princess is a super goofy game. It is not dark and realistic at all. It's one of my favorite Zeldas. And the reason is not because of its art style. It's still like just the first quest you do. You're like chasing a monkey who stole your sword. It's just ridiculous. It's not mature gritty at all. It's still very, it's, it's a fairy tale. And that's what Zelda is. And I think all it should be. It's that dance world demo. I think even as recently as a few weeks ago, someone in the comments was like, I still want that. I want real, I want gritty link fighting a real scary spider where you can see the fur on the spider. And again, yeah, no, that's not, that's not what it should be. It should always feel like a kind of goofy anime. That's what Zelda should be. And it is for the most part. And yeah, Wind Waker turned out to be just absolutely. Yeah, there it is. Look at our. There's Grace Worlds. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even, even that, like it's dark, it's desaturated, right? But like these are ultimately like glossed up Ocarina of Time characters, right? Yeah. He's still got this bright green tunic. He's still got overly expressive eyes and sort of like, you know, enlarged features and stuff like that in his hands and his hair and all that. And I think that you thought, not you, but those of you out there that are typing a comment right now, you thought that that was realistic because you were six. And you were, you were a baby with a not fully formed brain. And you thought that this was the coolest thing in the world because you thought it was dark and you spelled dark D a R E K. And because again, you were six and you thought that this was mature and gritty and realistic because you'd never seen anything for adults. And that's OK. You're a big boy now and we're here to help. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you want Zelda to look like? I think like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom and Link's Awakening and the Wind Waker. I think I think that I think that like more of that. I think that when they come out and they go, like this, this, this looks like a 70s animated movie. I'm like, oh, my God, this, you know, this is this is fantastic. Like when I see them take big artistic swings, I was I was enamored with the art direction in Link's Awakening because they were like, we made this very toyetic, like, you know, claymation, like I anything that doesn't look exactly like anything else in the games industry. These days, I gravitate towards I praise because I think that like that's what sets this medium apart. If you want realism, like there's a billion people doing that. And I don't necessarily want all my favorite Nintendo franchises to funnel into that. Yeah. They definitely dodged the bullet. I mean, that that that demo came out in 2000. Oh, there it is. That's what we want. We want this is the syndicated Zelda cartoon or maybe the the CDI ones. Mm hmm. The the Space World demo was to not to show off like a new Zelda game. It was to show off their new like hardware and what it was capable of doing. And then everyone kind of glommed on to that. But it was also a very much a product of the time. It's 2000, right? Like there was probably like Fred Durst was probably somewhere in the audience. Like this was new metal was at its absolute most powerful. Janko jeans everywhere. Pukashell necklaces. There was a lot of just real bad, real corny, gritty stuff going. And that has all thankfully merces. No, actually, I take that back. It's all coming back now. So get ready for the for the gritties on the next year. Cool. Yeah, I like that one, too. I agree with I agree with you, Brian. That's a good take. My last one, I'm also between two. I think that I'm going to go with Animal Crossing, which is that I I've talked about this a little bit a couple of times this year on the show, and I feel like people aren't with me. And that's fine. I think Animal Crossing was better before it basically made you a God. And I miss when you were just a villager that lived among the animals like everybody else. And I still really like New Horizons, but I just think it's I think it's fundamentally different series now and almost a different genre than what the original Animal Crossing was on GameCube. And slowly over the years, it worked its way to be something unrecognizable as its original form. And Animal Crossing was originally conceived because in 1986, Katya Eguchi, who worked at Nintendo, moved to Kyoto when he got a job at Nintendo. And a quote is that he says, when I moved there, I left my family and friends behind and doing so, I realized that being close to them, being able to spend time with them, talk to them and play with them was such a great important thing. Animal Crossing was born from this idea of setting off on your own and starting over and not knowing what's ahead. And like in the first Animal Crossing, you buy this crappy house with a crappy floor and a radio and a rickety bed and nothing else. You work this terrible part time job for this evil raccoon who screams at you, says, I'm paying you less for that because you took too long to deliver this letter. The post office, the bird of the post office is like, please shut the door on your way out and make it quick, she hates you. And then it's I think a lot of us can relate to this experience. Like I remember I moved out of college with with my now fiancee and like we moved into this dingy apartment with this weird crusty spot on the carpet. We didn't know what it was. And like our first night there, we slept on this air mattress that had a hole in it. So when we woke up, it was like a taco and we were like totally pressed up against each other. Like that is Animal Crossing and New Horizons is just not. It's just not that at all. It is you have complete control over this town, its existence hinges completely on you. You decide who lives where. I want a bridge here. I want a waterfall here. It's like this dollhouse that you are developing to show off to your friends. And it's it's very little more than that to me. And I get it's immensely popular. It's very good. I just miss this original where it felt like this world that existed beyond you. And truly, if you didn't show up for a month, like it showed you that like there are weeds and the villagers are mad at you and people move out without notice. You have a male a letter in your mailbox is just like, hey, I'm out of here. Like people live life on their own clock in New Horizons. You have complete control and it's just can you really be part of this community that you completely rule over? And I don't really think so. So it's just very different to me and I miss the old one. I love I love that. And I felt that way for a long time and and I have never put it together so eloquently like you just did. I think that there was something something awesome and scrappy about that. And I get again, I've been through the exact same experience. So I moved to New York City in 1999 and gave all my money to her. I loved that. And it's I think I was playing Animal Crossing while I the original GameCube one when I did this. And so it was those those things were directly overlapping for me. And I remember like literally joking about how the shop was giving me like five or three thousand bells for or five thousand for like a what was the striped knife jaw or whatever fish. And I was like, I wish I could get five bucks in real life for this because five bucks would change my day today. Yeah, no, they became these like power fantasies. I don't want to be the mayor, you know, I don't want to be in charge of the entire town. I don't want to like if they're like everybody in town decided they want a bridge. Cool, go build it, dude. I don't want to do that. You know, I just want to live here. I don't want to be I want to vote and pay my taxes and put wall art up and, you know, collect furniture, but I don't want to end play NES games. But I don't want to be in charge of like the, you know, the the the town public works or whatever. Like I just I liked it when Tortimer was like, I can blame you for why this sucks. You know, he's hanging up on the well all day doing. Yeah, just doing nothing. You know, just a classic 900 year old politician that refuses to resign. And tell he does. And then I think he dies. Isn't there a tortimer grave? Oh, wow. In one of the games. Are I making that up? It was gritty. I don't know. I think there is. Yeah. Seth, what do you think? I I'm not a tortimer's death of animal. Oh, I was going to say, I mean, he he lived a full life. So I mean, it's sad, but, you know, think of all the memories. I didn't play Animal Crossing until new new leaf on 3DS. So I don't have this attachment to the old one. I I doubt we'll ever see it on on Nintendo Switch online. I don't think it was one of the ones that they said was coming. But we did have it when my kids were young. And it was one of those things where they just dropped the disc into like a sandbox and scratched it to uselessness. So I've never I don't have any anything to say. Unfortunately, I like the new Animal Crossings. I don't think I like them as much as everyone else, but I do enjoy them. They are they are. Yeah, I still like them to be clear. I still really like New Horizons and the series. It's just I think it's less unique than it used to be. I think that undeniably when new leaf came out and it was the most control and ever given you as the mayor, where you decide the ordinances and where the bridges go and little smaller things. That was a time where Minecraft was rising. And then a few years later, Stardew Valley came out and became a phenomenon. And I think you yes, Animal Crossing was already moving this direction. But you cannot deny that Minecraft and Stardew had enormous influence on New Horizons and what Animal Crossing now is. It's now another one of these cozy island builder simulator things instead of what it was before, which was this communication game about writing mean letters to your neighbors and then like leaving something in your like my I had an island with my family growing up. It's like, oh, I buried a couch in my dad's front yard and then he grabbed it later and then put it in his like people wishing you could have multiple islands in New Horizons to design your own. Like, man, we've gone so far. Like that's so the opposite of the point of this series. It's to live in this shared community. And now people just want individual ownership over their own. So it's very different. The it's it's a striking wealth disparity, frankly. It's true between between you and your once once was friends and neighbors, right? Your fellow citizens now it is like I and I did this is my own doing because they gave me the power to do it. And this is what happens to me. Like that's it's why there's no good billionaires, right? Like they they gave me the power. I made I made a mansion surrounded by a moat and the animals don't know how to jump over the thing to get to it so they can never get on my property. No one taught me to do that. This is just inherently what people do, right? In nature, it's human nature. Like, you know, you give you give people enough power and money and they will build a walled garden bigger and higher than than anything else can can ever attain to. And they will net that what that wealth will never trickle down ever, ever. I put garbage in the lost and found that's what they get from me. Tortimer is alive. I just want to confirm that. He's alive. There was theories that he was dead because there's the gravestone the Nick is showing us on screen now. But then he came back in a later direct in a post launch update. So Tortimer is alive and well. And the Animal Crossing world. It's good. Yeah. Well, those are our Nintendo hot takes. Email yours. N.V.C. at IGN.com. And next week, we will hold yours to the fire and judge the best and worst Nintendo hot takes. Yes, exactly. And we do it all with care. Care First, healthier members, better businesses, stronger communities. Learn more at CareFirstForBusiness.com. Let's talk about a game that gives you complete control over the entire world. And there's like five of these worlds. It's Pokemon, Pokopia. This game is massive. I am just in awe of how large this game is. Like it is like, OK, you can have five new Horizons Islands, basically in Pokemon, Pokopia. It's unbelievable. Seth, you told me you're at 21 hours. What are you doing? 21 hours. And that includes the fact that I was gone most of Sunday doing other things. I love it. I love it. It's my favorite Nintendo Switch 2 game. It's my favorite Nintendo game in like a long time. I love everything about it. And I'm still waiting for like the other shoe to drop. Or I'm like, oh, yep, that's the thing I don't like. But it never does any of that stuff that I don't like. And I've only built like two of the Pokemon centers. And I'm working on the third one now in the beach level. One of the things that I like the most about Pokemon, Pokopia is the other Pokemon that you interact with never, ever make you feel bad for doing anything. They are so happy. You could not talk to one of your Pokemon from hour one and then come hour 20, 21 later, and they'll be like, hey, I was just thinking about you. Here's a rock for being my best friend. Original Animal Crossing. Yeah, it's can I can I interject on that very quickly? So I accidentally broke half of one of my Pokemon's habitats. They don't like that. He looked devastated. It was like I have never fixed anything so fast. Like I was like, oh, my God, I got this guy's going to he's going to leave. Like, it it it felt like if I went into like my kids room with like a hammer and just like smashed like three things on her wall, like that's that's how quickly. I was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I did this. So yeah, don't do that. Like the the weather, the cast form weather thing that you can flip to change the weather. And I didn't even really know that was part of some of this habitat. I just grabbed it. They're like, oh, my weather. So I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. He plopped it back on the wall. Yeah, exact same thing. But even still, like you fix it and they're like, oh, wow, everything's back to home again and a little heart goes over their head. And I was realizing like unlike Animal Crossing, this game, you're just building relationships, but you're never maintaining them. You don't have to like do all this busy maintenance of like being friends with people, which is kind of weird because I have friends like who I hadn't seen in 20 years. And then we see each other again. And it's like, what's up, bro? We haven't like spoken. There's no maintenance phase to like a real friendship. I love that. There's no pressure to do all of these like kind of annoying things that I don't want to do. I keep just like getting distracted. I'm like, I have an important thing that I need to do, but but I also need to, you know, whatever, build a steam bath so I can make a new Pokemon appear. Who's going to give me a new ability? Yeah, I love this game. So so much more than I would have ever expected. I thought for me personally, this was going to be a solid like seven game. Like, oh, yeah, I really enjoy this. It's fun. You know, it does some things. Maybe I don't really care for. But I I love everything about it. It's so charming. It's so fun. I love finding dumb furniture and then immediately running back and putting it in my house. Yeah, this this is my favorite Switch to game. It might end up being like one of my favorite games when all is said and done. And I have so much more to do. That's what's crazy. And it never for me, at least it doesn't feel overwhelming. There's no sense of like urgency to get any of this stuff done. It just lets you do what you want to do for the most part. And then yeah, yeah, it's so it's so fun. Oh my god, I kind of wish I, you know, I love you guys, but I wish I were playing it. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I'm glad you like it. I mean, it's it's very Minecraft. This is so Minecraft. One of my hot takes almost was that Minecraft is the most influential game on Nintendo ever. That is in so many other games and this more than any other. Yeah, I think that's a very good take. So yeah. Brian, what do you think and how much have you played? I'm probably close to Seth at this point, which I will say did not expect this. Did like we talked last week about, you know, I talked about how much I love the Dragon Quest Builders games. I feel like they always sort of hit a ceiling for me where I'm like, I played them for a while and I'm like, cool, I think I got what I need out of this. This game, Pokopia does such a great job of sort of drip feeding you upgrades and giving you like more and more little like story beats and things that like make you feel stronger and better and more capable in this world. I will say we are so, so lucky, so lucky that this isn't a mobile game. Yes, we are so you guys. If you like that, you have no idea this this and I don't even want to I want to whisper this because I don't want anyone to hear it. This if this game had been a mobile game, it would be a problem. It would be it would be a thing that like like this. This is ticking all of those little parts of my brain that are just like, give it money to make it go faster. Like I don't want to do that building. Yes, totally. I don't want to do that. There are there like this game runs in real time, right? And it's like when you get five animals, Pokemon, whatever you guys want to call them to build a house for you, which feels kind of like slavery. I don't know. I'm going to say it. It's it's and you have to wait 45 minutes for it or wait a day for it. On a mobile game, they're like, the animals are tired, but they could go a little faster if you threw money at them, you know, for three tokens. Yeah. They just want token food and then they'll work a little bit better. We are so lucky they didn't do that. And I feel like they got too deep in this and somebody was like, should we should we do that? And they're like, no, we're too deep. And that's not saying that that won't happen. I feel like if they want it, they might do like a, you know, an animal crossing mobile version of this. I'm so glad it's not. So I'll just say that I think this game is phenomenal. This is my far and away, my favorite Pokemon game I've ever played. I think that it takes it takes all the best parts of animal crossing, Minecraft, Minecraft and Dragon Quest, and it adds the cool part of Pokemon where you see something that's a surprise and all of a sudden, you know, he's part of your collection. It does that for furniture. It does that for, you know, ore and other elements like all of it. You're just constantly building and getting new things. And it's almost overwhelming. Like it's actually like I I opened up my third gate in this game and just another massive sprawling new area appeared and reminded me of, I think it was New Orleans in Red Dead where I got to that. Yeah, yeah, I got to that area and I'd already put like 50, 60 hours into the game and I just put the controller down because I was like, I was like, I'm overwhelmed. I didn't know. Yeah. That there was you just there's an entire city here and I got to do that now. And so I'm pacing myself with this because I was I was like. I was like 80 percent into like the second area, like doing everything I needed to do there. And it's a lot. It's a lot. It's and it never really feels like busy work. Right. Some of it can feel like a tiny tedious here and there. And like there are little things with like inventory that I wish were, you know, like one of my big gripes is that I wish it had a resonant evil style sort of like shared inventory box for everywhere you go. You have the same stuff. I think that like micromanaging your inventory across each area gets tedious, especially when you're being like pushed to pick up some of so many things. And there are like little things that you can do to make that a little bit easier and better. But for the most part, like that's that's one of the only things in this game that I'm like, all right, that could use some tweaking. But everything else, man, like I am having so much fun building habitats, improving like everybody's, you know, building or living living situations and putting down roads and building structures or just like going, exploring and finding stuff. Yeah. Is yeah, so much fun. And you just you're like, whoa, what's this? Like I just feel like you keep pulling on threads in this game and it just keeps giving you more and more and more. And like the more the more you put into it, the more you get back with this game. Yeah. Yeah. It is phenomenal. This is like this is a Desert Island video game for me. Like, yes, for sure. I could easily see myself like if and this is this is what I was talking about. This is, you know, this is not an indie game. This is this is Pokemon. It's one of the biggest franchises on earth. But if you're only playing the Mario and the Zelda's, you're you're missing out on a game like this. And like this is coming from someone that never really got into the the series, right? I never really got into the Pokemon franchise. I've gotten I've I've put like 15, 20 hours into some of the games. But, you know, I never I never lose my mind when they announce a new Pokemon game because I'm like, all right, yeah, I get it. But this one, man, like this is this is special. This is a really cool new formula. And this honestly, it's like it's usurping Animal Crossing in a lot of ways for me. Yeah. You know, I think I feel like that particular formula sort of hit its ceiling for me. And there's something really, really cool about this. And I can't wait to see how it grows. It's the game is selling incredibly well. It's doing really well for Nintendo and for Switch to and for the Pokemon company. And so this is this is here to stay. I can't wait to see how it grows and I can't wait to keep playing it. It's awesome. Yeah. I'm never going back to Animal Crossing. I will just say that right now. I don't agree with that. But I will never go back first just because placing furniture in this game is so easy. It's so easy to do. And like, oh, I need to turn my furniture around. All right, I can do that by just walking in this other direction. Instead of being like, all right, was it L or LR that turns it. But now the other thing that I just I really surprised me and that I love on top of the fact that like I kind of didn't expect to be so in love with this like Pokemon world. I didn't expect it to be so. Everything feels so well thought out. Like it doesn't feel like anything was just tacked on to tack on. If it's like everything that's there meshes with something else. There's no like there's no fat hair. It's like it's just trimmed right down. It's beautiful. But the story of this game. Is kind of what really sets it off because you have these optimistic, beautiful little Pokemons who love each other and they love humans. And as you kind of play, you're sort of it's I don't know what's happened, but it sort of seems like humanity destroyed itself and like like is not around anymore. And it's basically like they left a kennel full of golden like Labrador dogs to repopulate the earth. Like it's just that part of it is the most surprising thing to me. There's this kind of weird melancholy to this beautiful world because they love humans so unconditionally and love each other so much. And unconditionally that you're starting to find out like actually something kind of horrible seems to have happened. But they are just they're so optimistic and wonderful. I love it. There's no game like this in the world. I mean, this is the best game that I think I will play this year. There, I said it. Well, yeah, yeah, I hate this game. No, I'm just kidding. I love it. I love it too. I think yeah, this game is fantastic. I just think it's brilliant. I did feel a little overwhelmed at first just because it's not like a minecraft where it is this blank slate, these beautiful biomes for you to build up on. This is ruined. So these roads are destroyed and these buildings are crumbled. And that is a little was a little stressful for me at first, because it's like, oh, I want to fix everything all right now, but I don't have the tools to. So I kind of just like, OK, I'm just going to do what they tell me to. And there's so much that they tell you to do that when you're doing something, Bulbasaur is like, oh, hey, can you do this for me? And then it's just really great loops and it just goes and goes and goes. And it's constantly tutorializing you, but not in a way that feels overbearing at all to me. It's like, hey, do you know you can paint stuff? Well, by smashing fruit and giving it to this Pokemon to turn into paint and then you can paint any of your stuff. That doesn't happen till like the second area where you learn that. And it doesn't feel like you're being roadblocked and stopped to learn this. It's just another quest that gives you this tool. And I think that's brilliant. And I don't even think I've scratched the surface of the systems of this game. No, when I get to a part that's like it pops up in the corner of my screen. And it says, if a habitat is lighted the way a Pokemon likes, they will be more active during the night. I'm just like, what? Like you're tracking the lighting that all hundreds of these creatures like in their homes. It's crazy. Like it is just systems on systems that all interact with each other in really smart, clever ways. I love a game that gives you an objective, but it doesn't tell you how to do it. Or it's like, build a house. It's up to you what kind of house you build, where you put it, what furniture you put in it and who lives there. And that's just great. Like they've just nailed quest design in a free form sandbox game in a way that I think makes this have such wide appeal to people who like single player quest driven games and open sandbox games and Pokemon and cozy games. Like all of it. This is like masterful stuff. It's just super impressive. Yeah. I mean, that's like the other half of the equation is that I'm just in awe of the everything works. And yeah, another thing that I'm discovering like in real time, just talking to people who've been playing this game is I feel like everybody is having kind of a different experience with it. You just talked about, oh, yeah, you know, you learn to smash up paint in the second area. I haven't done that. And I have three areas. So like Jada was Jada was talking about some stuff that she did. And I was like, I that hasn't even happened for me yet. And like, yeah, phenomenal, fantastic, wonderful game. I love it. Is this the is this the only great game in video game history where R1 is jump? Because I remapped it. I remapped it. I thought that was so strange. I actually like it. Like it's weird. Yeah, I'm just used to it at this point, but I can't think of another. I feel like that I would be so mad at that in any other game. And I got jumped 10 hours into this game. So I was kind of like I had like a weird. I will say read IGNs. If you're thinking about getting this game or you just got this game, read IGNs, you know, things that doesn't tell you God, read IGNs. Things to do first. I should have done that. And there was like a narrative bottleneck I had early on with like a specific character not appearing yet because I didn't build a specific habitat. And I get in the place, humid. Yes. Yes, I got blocked there too. Yeah. And I was just like, I'm not sure what to do here. And once once that bottleneck moved out of the way, like it's the traffic's been flowing like crazy. So it's been it's been awesome. And I'm just getting constantly new quests and new distractions and new toys. And yeah, I what it just a what a fantastic game. It's so good. So I agree with you, Brian. Storage is not great. You get more as you go. But again, like Minecraft where your chests are contained, you kind of have one home base you work out of, but here you don't. Like we said, you have three home bases is what I'm at right now. And so it's like, you need to craft this. It's like, oh, that's in my chest. A long loading screen to get back there to pull it out like that. That's a little annoying. I wish the map was a little bit better. Like the little grid map when you pause. I don't know if maybe you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have yet, but it's like, I have so many Pokemon. Sometimes I can't remember where they live. And it's like, I wish I just had a slightly better way to keep track of everybody and their abilities and where they are and where to find them. I know it's like, you can ask a Pokemon to help you locate someone. And that's cute and all. But I think that sometimes I'm just like, where did and so I'm it's leading to a thing where I'm just putting everyone's habitat right next to each other. Just kind of this grid. So everyone's really accessible. But those are really minor things in the grand scheme at all. Jada gave me a pro tip. If you have a Pokemon, I can't remember what like, I think maybe the teleport ability and you ask them, they'll just teleport you right to where that Pokemon is. So. Oh, OK. Yeah, that's a jada tip. I haven't got anyone with that yet. OK, that's Jada somehow. Jada got the platinum trophy somehow in this game. Yeah, just awesome. And I it's just led me to think about the switch to line up a little bit more as a whole. And just thinking about Pocopia, Bonanza, like Kirby Air Riders and Mario Kart World. You have really, really good switch to exclusive. It's the GameCube era is back when they would make these kind of weird, risky games that didn't make sense. And then they worked and it's it's wonderful because the GameCube did not perform up to the way that it should have. It was that such a great system with so many great games. And now like that era is back, like let's take some risks. Let's make some weird games. And here we go. It's the same thing with the DS, right? Like that like that. I don't think anybody will tell you the best games on the Nintendo DS were New Super Mario Brothers and Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, right? And that's not to say that the Zelda and Mario games when they come to switch won't be amazing, because I'm sure they will be. Yeah. But that system was defined by so many other smaller, weirder titles. Like we're getting Tomodachi life next. I know. I have to pull myself away from Pocopia to play that. And like that. What a great problem to have, right? Like to have these two quirky, weird life sims back to back that will be doing very different things. And ones on Switch One, ones on Switch Two, which is smart. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's just so cool. And yeah, I think when we when we look back when it when it comes to that first week of June and we look back at the one year anniversary of the Switch Two, I think I think it's going to look really good. I genuinely do. And I feel like even I think if you stop that conversation right now, you would be like, there's, you know, there's a lot here to love. But I feel like by then it's going to be even better. And yeah, it's it's it's been it's been an awesome first couple of months for the for the Switch. And it's only going to keep growing. We're going to be playing the system for the next eight years, probably. So yeah. And it's just it's just like I think that Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild created a nearly impossible one to punch a replica or two of top five Nintendo games of all time. But when I look at Switch Two and I'm like, Bidanza and Pocopio's are two pretty dang good exclusives to get in the first year. It's like those are the system sellers. They got them in the first nine months. Like they're if you want a platformer or a cozy simulation game, like these two are fantastic Switch Two exclusives. And there's nothing like them on Switch One. Like that's what I think really like you could have done another 3D Mario. They did Donkey Kong. They did Pocopia. These are their 10 pull exclusives because their experiences they didn't have last generation. And I think that's really smart now in hindsight of seeing how this library is shaping up. Yeah. And I do I do think kind of what you said this this game is a system seller. I just did like a question on the IGN finds account the other day. What up? You know, who's playing Pocopia and so many people were like, Oh my God, I wish I were. I don't have a Switch Two yet. And then, you know, they're like planning to get a they've moved up their level of like priority for a Switch Two just based on like everything that they're hearing about this game because it is wonderful. And I think like, you know, Nintendo is probably going to push this maybe with a bundle, probably not. This this is like this is probably the holiday bundle game or, you know, because it is just it's so fun and it's so approachable to kind of everybody. Yes, I think it's awesome, too, that we we've talked on the show a couple of weeks ago about how we had sort of mixed feelings about the update that came to Animal Crossing because we're like this probably means we're not going to get a new one for a while. And like this is completely scratching that itch. And I think that there's a lot of yeah, there's a lot of audience overlap, too. And so, you know, like you'll never lightning strike twice of everybody being home during the pandemic and the Animal Crossing coming out. Right. But this is OK with that. Yeah, I'm OK with that, too. This is this is I think one of those like once in a generation games that's going to be like a big system seller. Get people get people on board, get people who don't have a switch to to get a switch to get people who only had a switch one and don't, you know, aren't in any rush to upgrade. This is one of those things that nudges you into the into the future. So yeah, I mean, the people like literally couldn't buy physical copies of this game because it's it's selling out everywhere. It sold out. Amazon raised the price. They're like, ah, terrible. I want to say I'm really surprised at that because, I mean, we said on this show during that Animal Crossing conversation we were talking about, Brian, we said this is advertisement for Pokopia and Tomodachi Life. Pokopia is going to be the biggest deal on Switch this year. I think like I think it's going to sell like 10 million. And I'm just shocked that Nintendo didn't see the demand with what they cooked here. Like it's just that you combined like three of the most popular things on the planet. And you didn't think it was going to sell out in its first weekend. Yeah, it's crazy to me. But that's Pokopia. We only have a few minutes left. We've got to go in about five minutes. I do want to talk about Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, which got a release date trailer. It's coming as a Switch 2 exclusive on May 21st. And this is a 59.99 game, 60 bucks, so not 70 for this Switch 2 exclusive. Nice to see that. And the description is jump into the pages of Mr. E's book and the all sorts of unusual creatures. Who knows what you'll discover after you've wrapped up your research. You can even give the creature you found a name, accumulate stars as you make discoveries and more and more chapters will be available to explore. It's about a three and a half minute trailer. What do you guys think? I think it's very funny that Nintendo was like, when you see Mario Kart World, you'll understand why it's $80. But they're not going to be like, when you see this, you'll understand why it's 60. Yes, this this looks this looks charming. I'll be I'll be totally blunt. Like I I have a I think that like when I have a hard time, like 100 percent Yoshi. Yeah, I hate Yoshi. No, he's fine. I I'm a huge Donald Glover fan. I I have a hard time finishing these games. I feel like not that they overstayed their welcome, but I think that like I get what I need for them after a couple hours. And there's it's kind of a pretty low ceiling in terms of like difficulty and like postgame stuff, whereas like like the Kirby games are like very endearing and very cute. And then you loop back around 100 percent of them. And you're like, oh, OK, this is this has gotten crazy and tougher and more interesting. But I think this is really charming. I I I definitely looks like it's skewing for younger audiences, and that's OK. But I hope I hope there's some depth here. I hope there's a lot to do that. Feels better long term, because I feel like I play the first couple of worlds in these games and I go, OK, I think I get it. And then I move on and I'd like to see this one through. So I hope I hope there's a lot to do and there's some challenges towards the end. Yeah. Yeah. On that note about it being for kids, this is like the first video I've ever seen on Nintendo's YouTube, besides like the Hey, Mario line of stuff that was set to be made for children's. You couldn't leave comments. Oh, wow. And instead it is that like this video is made for kids. Yeah, I mean, that was interesting. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a storybook. I mean, obviously, that's the crux of the game. But like absolutely beautiful, unbelievable art direction here. It has a weird sort of like claymation feel for the characters. But I'm like, Brian, I don't know if I'll see this one through. I I would love to because this does look so cute and so charming and inventive. But I kind of never the Yoshi games have never clicked with me. And that includes Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island. Like I tried to play that a million times and I just cannot. I cannot get into it. So beautiful game. I'll take at the end. Yeah, like my last little hot take, which I think I've said like a hundred times. But I I was going to say, if my kids were younger, they would probably be into this, but they were all about Kirby. So they probably wouldn't be. But somebody's children are going to really enjoy this game. And we'll see. I'm excited. I mean, excited for every Nintendo game. And it doesn't look offensively like terrible or like, you know, overly sacri. One of the last years, the games did did look and sound defensively terrible. Yoshi's New Island is a bad game. Oh, wow, looks much better than that. I mean, yeah, this looks amazing. Like this looks I I it kind of looks like the. Oh, God, what's the the monogame that I reviewed? It was a whole place. It has that look of one of the monogames. But yeah, I platform. I'm really, really high on this trailer. I think that Yoshi has needed a little bit of a refresh for a very, very long time because it was just Kirby, but a little worse and less interesting, kind of like Brian said, I totally agree with that. And I think this could be it. I think this the the concept of a platformer being about like discovering systems that enemies have is really cool and very modern Nintendo like that's super like this is baby breath of the wild. I mean, that good complimentary like it is you are discovering what these enemies do and how like combining different objects makes them interact. And then it fills out this encyclopedia that's teaching you about them. Like you're teaching kids how to play these system based games that they make. That's cool. I just hope that it's the extent of the systems is not just discovering them. We're so cool. You knock this guy off the post and then you feed him a very and then he uses different bubbles. Like I want there to be challenges that then use your knowledge of those systems you spent the level I'm covering. I don't know if I trust that this Yoshi game is going to go that step. But if it does, I think this could be a 2D platformer that's very, very different from the kind of traditional left to right, reach the goal thing that Yoshi or Kirby usually does. Hmm. Yeah. I was said, but we'll see. I and the art style is amazing. I think the art style is gorgeous. Like this just looks beautiful. So I'm high on it. Fifty nine ninety nine out on switch to on May 21st. Excited for that one. OK, we do have to go. That is another episode of Nintendo voice chat in the books. Warts in the Mario movie. We already talked about that. Donald Glover is the ocean. It's crazy. We'll talk about that more because the Mario movie, Mario Galaxy movie is just a few weeks away. But for now, we're here every Friday with audio on your favorite podcast app and a video on Spotify or the IGN Games channel on YouTube. Next week, it is your Nintendo hot takes. Email us nvc at IGN dot com and we'll read some of our favorites on the show next week. Seth, tell me real quick about IGN finds. Oh, IGN finds is what used to be IGN deals. But now it's more cool stuff than ever before. It's not just deals. It's stuff that you've never seen before from like Japan that you can't get. I just tantalize you with it. Please make sure to follow it on all of these social media platforms because there's different content on different platforms. And you will learn about why I am completely obsessed with this Kodak Charmora, which is a video that I made. So check it out. IGN finds also real quick. Pax East, if you're going to be there, say hello, because I'm going to be there too. You inspired me to get one of those Kodak Charmoras, actually. They're so stupid, aren't they? I love them. It's so cool to have like a little digital camera on my key ring that takes like crappy early 2000s photos. I love it. It's I put like a four gigabyte SD card in there. I've just taken hundreds of pictures and it's and then I bring them to my laptop once a week to air quotes develop them. And it's it's wonderful. Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's IGN finds. Go check it out. Thank you so much, Seth and Brian, and thank you for filling in behind the scenes this week and thank you so much for listening. But for now, that's all the time I've got. I got to be back to playing Animal Crossing, New Leaf on my Nintendo 3DS. Have a great week. We'll be back next time with more Nintendo voice chat. The only place you can get the thing.