Summary
Get Played hosts discuss the year of Yoshi, covering the character's history from Super Mario World through recent games, the new Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, and cast a dream Star Fox movie with celebrity actors. The episode weaves gaming analysis with personal anecdotes about Jolly Bee fried chicken and recent gaming releases like Soros and Esoteric Ebb.
Insights
- Yoshi's evolution from mount character to franchise lead demonstrates Nintendo's ability to develop ancillary characters into standalone properties with sustained appeal
- The shift from stylized to more anatomically realistic character designs in Star Fox 64 remake reflects broader industry trends toward visual fidelity, though fan reception remains mixed
- Indie games like Esoteric Ebb successfully emulate and improve upon established formulas (Disco Elysium) by embracing influence rather than overcomplicating design
- Fast-food quality and consistency (Jolly Bee vs. Popeyes) can drive unexpected cultural moments and personal loyalty among gaming audiences
- Difficulty accessibility in games is becoming a feature, not a flaw—audiences appreciate both challenging experiences and relaxing, 'baby mode' games depending on context
Trends
Character design realism vs. stylization debate in AAA remakes and rebootsIndie games successfully competing with AAA titles by leaning into established genre conventions rather than reinventingFast-casual food chains gaining cultural relevance through gaming and sports partnershipsYoshi character prominence across Mario franchise spin-offs and media (film, merchandise, sports)Difficulty options and accessibility becoming standard expectations rather than optional featuresThird-party characters dominating competitive Smash Bros tier lists, raising questions about balance in crossover fighting gamesNostalgic remasters of N64-era games gaining momentum on Nintendo SwitchAnthropomorphic character design trends in family-friendly media and gaming
Topics
Yoshi character history and evolutionSuper Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island game designStar Fox 64 remaster character redesignsSoros (PlayStation 5 action game)Esoteric Ebb (indie RPG)Resident Evil RequiemPragmata (Capcom action game)Yoshi's Crafted WorldSuper Smash Bros character tier listsMario Kart character selectionJolly Bee fried chicken quality comparisonPanda Express menu optionsNintendo character licensing in filmVideo game difficulty accessibilityIndie game development influenced by established franchises
Companies
Nintendo
Primary focus of episode; discussed Yoshi games, Star Fox remaster, Mario franchise, and character design philosophy
Capcom
Released Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata in 2025; discussed as major AAA releases competing with Soros
Housemark
Developer of Soros, PlayStation 5 exclusive action game with roguelite elements discussed extensively
Illumination Entertainment
Produced Super Mario Bros. Movie; discussed casting of Glenn Powell as Fox McCloud and Yoshi appearance
Jollibee
Filipino fast-food chain; extensively discussed for fried chicken quality and Final Fantasy XIV meal collaboration
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen
Fried chicken competitor to Jollibee; discussed in taste comparison segment
Panda Express
Fast-casual Asian cuisine chain; discussed menu options and orange chicken quality
PlayStation
Soros exclusive platform; discussed as exclusive release for PlayStation 5
Steam
PC gaming platform; discussed for Esoteric Ebb availability and Steam Deck compatibility
Rothfury
Publisher of Esoteric Ebb indie RPG
People
Donald Glover
Voices Yoshi in Super Mario Bros. Movie; discussed for vocal performance and casting announcement
Glenn Powell
Cast as Fox McCloud in Super Mario Bros. Movie; campaigned for role and wore Star Fox vest in announcement
Rahul Kohli
Portrays protagonist Arjun Devraj in Soros; noted as gamer and Mike Flanagan collaborator
Shigeru Miyamoto
Discussed for designing Yoshi and attempting to introduce mounts as early as NES era
Kazumi Totaka
Original voice of Yoshi before Donald Glover; Nintendo composer who provided character vocalizations
Chris Plant
Previous guest who personally recommended Esoteric Ebb to Nick
Sam Rogich
Guest engineer for this episode; discussed Jolly Bee experience and gaming preferences
Heather
Regular co-host absent this episode due to travel; frequently referenced and missed by hosts
Rachelle Chen
Regular producer absent at Headgum corporate retreat in Miami; texted about Jolly Bee chicken
Tiger Weaver
Main host discussing games, Yoshi, and casting dream Star Fox movie
Matt Apodaca
Host who pitched himself as voice of Slippie Toad in dream Star Fox movie casting
Nick
Host discussing Esoteric Ebb and Soros gameplay experiences
Quotes
"It's kind of the year of Yoshi. And so I've been thinking about him a lot. He's been coming up a lot in my life."
Tiger Weaver•~1:15:00
"The spicy Jolly Bee fried chicken to anybody who will listen. I think that is some of the best fried chicken I've ever had in my life."
Tiger Weaver•~0:45:00
"Yoshi's Island was not like a, how I think people live unfairly, but perhaps accurately characterized some of the Yoshi story and its follow-ups, which is just kind of like more of a fun-tying game."
Nick•~1:35:00
"It's just really, really cool, Matt. And I think it's just like, what a year for video games already."
Nick•~0:55:00
"I have a very specific set of skills, and I will find you. Matt's not kidding about these skills."
Tiger Weaver•~0:15:00
Full Transcript
This is a headgum podcast. Hey, it's me, Yoji. Hey, you stole my fucking pencils. I need my pencils. I want to draw a picture of my dad. Hang on. Just stop real quick. Yeah. Sorry, I kind of broke there. It was a little unprofessional. I can do a better read. No, it's... I just don't know what the pencils thing is because he doesn't read or write. Usually. Yeah, I mean, I'm just riffing here. I'm just kind of going like... Yeah. I mean, that's the nature of improv sometimes. Yeah. No, I just... I mean, I know we said to improv, but I guess what I meant was maybe improvise different intonations, different ways you might say Yoji because that's kind of all that we have in the script. Usually what we do is we'll have the... I worked in casting Groot and like BBA and stuff too. We'll have placeholder lines for what the noises are, but we want those lines to come through the noises. You're kind of embodying it through the noises, those vocalizations. Sorry, I'll try another one. Okay, another one. I'm taking a sip of water here. Yeah, go ahead. Have you worked here long? You know, it's been... It's my first summer. Oh, wow. Okay. I mean, this is a bad summer. It's your big season. It's a... Oh, hey, you don't gotta tell me. I hope we get people back at the movies. Okay, here we go. Take two. Hey, it's me, Yoji. Who took my fucking markers? What do you took my markers? I was gonna draw a picture of my dad. Fuck you. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Yeah. So you kind of... You kind of went A to A. Yeah, kind of avoided pencils there. So I think that was like... Yeah, you went markers. And you still laughed. You can't... You can't laugh at your own shit like that. Because, one, we can't use that in the movies. Yeah, that's true. And two, we're not really establishing that Yoji has a dad. Got it. Got it. So it's kind of crazy that you keep improvising this thing, which, by the way, because now you've done it twice. Yeah. It's not really improvising it. Now, wedging this thing in about Yoji's dad, wanting to draw a picture of Yoji's dad. Look, you didn't even look too carefully at both sides of my hands. I got my lines written down right here. Oh, God. I kind of pre-improved it. So... It's okay. Because, look, I like what you're doing with the book. I like it. I just kind of need you to... Let's kind of just do one that's not about drawings or anything like that, or whether or not they're about your dad or what it... Maybe your implement for doing the drawings has been taken. Yeah, sure, sure. I got it. I'll just vocalize Yoji, because I know that's what you wanted. Yeah, I just want to hear Yoji a couple times. Okay, here we go. Take three. Yoji! Yoji! Yoji! Internal monologue. Hey, it's me, Yoji, who took my fucking crayons. I was going to draw a picture of my dad with those fucking crayons. Fuck you! Hey, I'm sorry. Yeah. That was great. Yoji! You did a really good job with that. I don't know if you're supposed to vocalize internal monologue. Well, that's more of a stage direction, but just sort of painting a picture. I have no way to... I have no great way to tell you this. I'm going to go beg Donald Clever to do this. You're a good man, that's a fair thing to say. Thank you. I know it's hard to... I don't want to upset you. Hey, it's okay, it's okay. I'm not good at firing anybody. It's a business. You're not even firing me. This is an audition. That's right, they call it show business, not show friends, but fuck. It's hard. Okay, dude, it's okay. I don't even know if I'll do it. I just kind of threw a name out. It's totally okay. Hey, why don't we shake hands, all right? Okay. Wait a minute. You got a handful of my pencils. You stole my fucking pencils. E-link? We grab fruit with our tongues and, yoshi! As we discuss the year of Mario's other green ally, this week on Get Played. Wow, it's Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to Get Played. I'm Tiger Weigher alongside Mr. Games, Madhapadaka. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Get Played. Heather is out this week. As you might have inferred, she is traveling. So we're here with the two fellas, and let me tell you, it's a boys' night because our producer, Ranch, Rachelle Chen, is at the mandatory head gum corporate retreat in Miami. That's right. She's been taken. She's been taken. And so they took her to the corporate retreat where the head gum staff who doesn't work here is enjoying a wonderful week off. Yeah, and to the head gum staff, let me just say, for taking Rachelle, just so you know, I have a very specific set of skills, and I will find you. Matt's not kidding about these skills. You don't want to see him deploy these skills. You don't want to see what they are. I won't say what they are. But I have them. And just so you know, just bring her back. Yeah, bring her back. Yeah, bring her back. Bring her back. Not that we don't like having Sam. We love. Hey, our guest engineer, Sam Rogich. We always love having in the building. How are you doing, Sam? Pretty good, fellas. Thanks for having me. Sam, you ever had Jolly Bee? We had Jolly Bee last week. I have had it. Pasta with ketchup in it? Yeah. They've got a, it's with a banana ketchup, so it's a little bit sweeter. It's a sweet spaghetti. Donkey Kong's favorite ketchup. It is Donkey Kong's favorite ketchup, I think canonically. But it's a Filipino chain in origin, but it's not just their sweet spaghetti. Their fried chicken is dynamite. And last week we taste tested, was that last week or two weeks ago? It was two weeks ago. Two weeks ago we taste tested the Final Fantasy 14. They have a meal right now, and it comes with a bucket of fried chicken. Yeah. And Matt and I are still thinking about that chicken. I... Now, like, I've had Jolly Bee before, but that was a particularly well-executed batch of fried chicken from our buddy, the Bee. Yeah. Oh, man, first of all, not very familiar with the Bee as a mascot in general. He's fucking awesome. One of our best little guys. One of our best little guys, I think, may be one of the best bees. Sorry, Cheerios. Sorry, Benson. Poor top bees. Yeah, Benson. Barry B. Benson from Bee Movie. Who else? Who else? I'm trying to think of the famous bees. Yeah, Honey Bee Guy, the Honey... What does Cheerios Bee just name the Cheerios Bee? The Cheerios Bee. Except, you know what? Honey that Cheerios, I will say... Mm-hmm. Buzz the Bee. His name is Buzz? They don't ever really make a big deal about that, do they? No, they don't. We had to look it up to learn it. You know Toucan Sam's name. You know Captain Crunch's name. We had to Google Buzz. What are we doing? Who the fuck is Maya the Bee? Maya the Bee? Oh, there's Charmy Bee, of course. Charmy Bee, of course. Charmy Bee is good. A bee man from The Simpsons. How could we forget? Yeah, Bumble Bee Man. Bumble Bee Man's a fun, fun character. Have I said this on the show before? I think I have. Charmy Bee should be played by Cardi B. That's pretty good. Save it for a segment Dreamcast. We'll do it in the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cardi B, probably on the list. Okay, so Spike the Bee was a bee who tormented Donald Duck in several cartoons from 1940 to the early 1950s. I'm not familiar with Spike the Bee, but he is cute. I wish he would torment a different Donald. Matt, don't get me started. Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld. He's dead. Ed Gould is fucking dead. Yeah, but so I mentioned before record that I haven't stopped thinking about the fried chicken. It has not got me to play Final Fantasy XIV at all, but I've been talking about, in particular, the spicy Jolly Bee fried chicken to anybody who will listen. I think that is some of the best fried chicken I've ever had in my life. Yeah, you know, again, they said this on the episode. I'm a Popeyes advocate. Popeyes is on my Mount chain more. I love Popeyes fried chicken. I think they do a great job there. And so, Popeyes is Louisiana kitchen. They do more than just chicken, but that chicken, they do right. The Jolly Bee at its current like level of consistency might be a little bit better than Popeyes. It might be edging it out at this point. We'll see. I've got to get a few more batches from each, but fried chicken is my favorite food, so I don't say that lightly. We said this maybe on the show, Heather and I, we were both like, I don't think we've seen you this happy ever. Yeah, no. You were so happy eating the chicken, it was great. It cured my depression. But like the spicy one too, it wasn't like no offense, boys. It wasn't for white people. No, it absolutely was not. It was not for white palates and offense taken, but I am a bit of a heat seeker myself. And I was just like, okay, this has some real burn to it. Cause very often usually, and I know what you're talking about, it was because you'll get like the Wendy's spicy chicken sound, which is like, this has no real spice to it, especially the current nerf version, which don't get me started on that. But the, like, you know, they'll even when they'll be like, oh, Burger King has this new, it's new ghost pepper sauce. And then you have it and just like, all right, this is I guess kind of spicy. It's like Tabasco spicy. You just want to market it with ghost pepper, but you don't want to make it something that's genuinely spicy because you'll alienate, like you were saying, so many sensitive palates. Jollybee doesn't give a fuck. There's spicy chicken, got some real heat to it. That bee's got some sting. Bee's got some sting. Jollybee might be our top bee. He might be, he's great. I love him. Definitely destroyed his berry bee Benson. Oh man, he fucking takes them into the back alley and shoots them. It's cold blood. He's in a puddle of his own mess. Barry Bidson is complaining about college protests. I guess he doesn't have to shoot him. He can just pull his stinger out. He can just pull his stinger out, yeah. Which is even worse. It's kind of, it's like, he's doing the thing that could also kill him to somebody else. He's doing the Varong move. Oh yes. Of severing their connection to IWAH. Yeah, yeah. Like the Natiri watch, it looks on with horror as this is happening. Yeah. Hold on, I just actually, I wanted to say this earlier. Yeah. You and I are here. We're here with Sam. Yeah. Did you guys hear the news? What's the news? The boys, they're back in town. The boys are back in town. Dun, dun, dun. Maybe one of the best songs about boys being back. Is there another? It's the definitive boys are back in town. If there is another, it's not as good as this one. No, no, no, no. This is the go-to. In a sense, all songs are about the boys being back. But this one, kind of the best one. I've, what's, what's, I think if you look at the lyrics of, because I did this once, a back in town is a thin Lizzie song. Yeah. I think if you look at the lyrics, it is like so much of it. It's just like boys being back in town. Yeah, it is, it is. Guess who just got back today, them wild-eyed boys that had been away. Of course, of course, the boys are back in town. The boys are back in town. Repeated endlessly. Spread the word around. Guess who's back in town? You spread the word around. Why, cause you got a little microphone fuzz on your beard. Let me get that, that's embarrassing. I tried to wipe him down for you, but. It's okay. Who was in here recently? I think Santa was probably in here doing Santa cast. I'd listen. I would too. That's a good list. He recaps baby reindeer. I thought, oh, I thought it was something else. I still liked it. Friday night, they'll be dressed to kill down at Dino's bar and grill. The drink will flow and the blood will spill and the boys want to fight you better let them. Not will be long till summer comes. Now that the boys are here again. They're coming and going in the song. And says the boys are back in town again, been hanging down at Dino's. The boys are back. So the boys are specifically going to their old haunt. They're going straight to Dino's. And the town, the town knows about them and is excited about it. It's good shit. Songs are good. Is jailbreak a prequel to these lyrics? They got out of jail and that's why they're back. It might be what's going on. It looks like they're like, oh, they're looking for a specific woman perhaps. Maybe that's an element of it. That's kind of a subplot. Mostly their agenda is just to be back in town. But there is a chick that used to dance a lot that Slap Johnny wants, that it looks like they're looking for her. I don't hopefully not for anything nefarious. Probably just for a well worded apology for the slap. That's my guess. And if you do that, all is forgiven as we saw with Will Smith and Chris Rock. And on NBC's The Slap. It's true. You just turned the page. God, that Jolly Bee was so fucking good. It really was like transcendent. I texted my brother after we recorded it. Like we did that segment and then we had like a break for a second before we came back from the break. I had texted my brother, dude, because we had talked about wanting to try this chicken specifically we hadn't both never had it before. And I was like, you got to get in there. And he was like, this is groundbreaking information. Speaking of texting, I just texted Ranch that Jolly Bee was so good. We'll see if we hear back. I think Rancher probably definitely has something to say about it. Yeah. She's busy clubbing at Miami with the rest of the head comes down. Well, the boys are back in town. The boys are back in town. The boys are back in town and yet no one's here to greet them. So Heather's not here. Ranch isn't here. Sam is here. Jolly Bee is not here. We're getting burgers instead. The Jolly Bee is welcome anytime. The Jolly Bee is welcome anytime. We'd love to have him on the podcast. Yeah. Love to chop it up with him. I wonder, do we know what the Jolly Bee's name is? Is it just Jolly Bee? I thought he was the Jolly Bee, but let me get some more context on the Jolly Bee. His name is Buzz also, just like a common bee name. You know, it is kind of a, I get it, but I think he's just a guy. Yeah, it is the kind of thing that just is reused endlessly. But I'm not sure if he actually has a canonical name beyond the Jolly Bee. There's different ones. Lady Moo in 1983 to the mid-90s. Miko in between there from 83 to 84. Champ from 84 to 2004. Mr. Yum Yum is the president one, I believe, where there's even more. Wow. Yeah, I'm looking up right now. So the Jolly Bee is the mascot. Jolly Bee is just his name. Jolly, it loses the, it's cleaner. And, but he's got buddies like Teamy, the Productivity Bee, and Buzz Bee, who have different, different color ways. Okay, so here's friends, Heady, Popo, Yum, and Twirly, each representing a different dish. They had their own show, Jolly Town, which aired on Filipino TV. This is a team to rival the McDonald's characters. These guys are great. Jolly Bee is a cheerleader who likes surprising and cheering others up. Heady represents Jolly Spaghetti. Not what I would have guessed at all based on the name Twirly. Twirly seems more like the Spaghetti Avatar. I wonder who, a Popo Yum, I guess a Yum would probably be the fried chicken, but I don't know. Could be Popo for all. I would hope that Yum is just all the food. Wait, they have Yum burgers. So maybe, I bet Yum is for the Yum burgers. So maybe Popo is, I wonder if Popo is like Tagalog for Bird or something like that. I'm gonna be such a hero for my next friend gathering when I pull up with a bucket of Jolly Bee chicken and everyone's gonna lift me on their fucking shoulders. I was trying to find what Popo meant in Tagalog and instead it's telling me. Police. No, it's giving me the trans, dumbass Google AI giving me the Tagalog translation for poop. No, that's not what we want. It's not what we want. It's helpful information maybe, but not what we're searching for. Coconut perhaps? Coconut. Coconut. I could be wrong. I don't know. I'm sure we have- Popo the Coco? If we have any AAPI listeners out there who have any knowledge of that, let us know. Honestly, any context on Jolly Bee and Jolly Bee's buddies, the Jolly Friends, we'd love any of it. Please put it in our Discord, discord.gg slash get play. Come to us with any information you have. Even if it says little as, I also like it. That's totally valid. We love to hear that. Let's keep the brand going. Yeah, I think what you're saying though is that obviously smaller footprint than Popeyes or any of these other national chains. Though ascending the global rankings, there's 1,700 locations. 1,700. Yeah, but I mean like it's, a lot of them are in Southeast Asia, but it's still, they're growing. They're scaling the right way though, where I feel like the quality, I feel like I've heard it's this good my entire life and just had never had it before. And now I've just caught up and now I'm thinking about the years spent wasted, not eating it. Not wasted, now you have a new experience which your future years, you can enjoy Jolly Bee with a new appreciation. It's like how I'm trying to approach everything. Cause I'm like, hey, you know, I'm in my 40s. I'm just getting tattoos now. And this is like, hey, there's maybe a different identity for me if I realize that this is a thing I like doing when I'm much younger. But then I feel like I'm a different guy. And I feel like the guy I am now has like kind of a confidence in his like look and in like being himself to a degree where I'm less self-conscious about it. And I can kind of like enjoy getting, you know, like a new forearm piece of a tiger. I'm tiger now. He's tiger now. This, I mean, all of them are great. This one, this one is so, cause it's so visible. This one is kind of like tigers here. Tigers here. Tigers here. Everybody back the fuck off. Reminded every time I'm holding my hog at the urinal. Hey, tigers here. You scream cause you think it's gonna bite it off. Get away. Get away. Hey. We've all had those nights. The ones where you laugh until the sun comes up, where conversations go places they've never gone before. And you walk away feeling closer to the people around you than you have in years. That's still a assignment. It doesn't just open doors in your mind. It opens them between people. 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Sam is here. Sam is here. And we've been playing some video games lately. It's time for a question we ask every week. That question is, what are you playing? Well, it looks like the Resident Evil merchant either missed their cue or is not here entirely. Well, I got a text from the merchant the other day asking me what's the best way to fit inside a suitcase. And I know Heather is traveling. So I don't know if... I'm a little worried that Resident Evil merchant is a stowaway on Heather's flight. So she can be dealing with that. I guess we'll deal with not having the merchant to set up this segment. But Matt, I can ask you directly, what are you playing? And I'll tell you directly. Holy shit. The boys are back in town. Put it in the air now. Put it in the air now. I'm going to tell you what I'm playing. I'm playing a little game called Soros. Oh, yes. Yeah, man, I'm so interested in Soros. Well, it's the new House Mark game released on April 30th this year, exclusively for PlayStation 5. Yes. One of 10. Numbers are growing. Yeah, it's great. But it's sort of, I mean, it's basically, it's not exactly like Returnal, but the gameplay is very similar to Returnal. And it's the same developers. It's the same developer. And you liked Returnal. I liked it a lot. I never finished it. But when this new one came out, I was like, I have to be here on the ground floor. On Soros. It's a third person action game that combines bullet hell, third person shooter and roguelite elements. And you play as this guy, Arjun Devraj, who's portrayed by the actor, Rahul Kohli, who's in a lot of the Mike Flanagan horror things. Oh, okay, yeah. It seems like a generally like cool guy. I kind of feel like he's cool enough that like he would do the show. He seems awesome and funny. I love to play the game. And I see him on like other video game things. He's a big time gamer. And he's a right proper lad, this guy. He's awesome. But in the game, Arjun is investigating a lost offworld colony on the planet, Carcosa. And that's sort of your, you start the game sort of not knowing what the hell is going on. You're like, what the fuck is all this shit? And you're seeing these creatures, there's like alien type things. These like sort of flying squid type things. And then there are the ones that kind of look like robots, not robots, but like they look more mechanical on the ground too. And there's different ways to dispense of these enemies. You have a gun that you can just hold and fire. But there's things just coming at you constantly. And because of that, Arjun is fucking fast as fuck. He's so goddamn fast. Like he's almost too fast. Or like, you don't have to hold something down to run. You're just running all the time. And it's kind of like, if Heather was here, it'd be like, Heather, you have to play this. He's maybe one of the faster characters in a game in a long time. He's fucking fast as shit. Wow. Yeah, cause like he's just like constantly moving and there are things just coming at him all the time. And all you're doing is shooting at shit all the time. It rocks. I find the game to be actually very challenging. It's not quite like a souls-like thing, but it has that level of difficulty kind of. Where there's no difficulty toggle, certainly. So the game's as hard as the game is. So you kind of just have to grate your teeth and bear it and get through it however you can. It took me maybe eight or nine runs to beat the first area boss and then got past that a little bit and got to keep going. And I'm still on my way to my main mission so far, which is to find the source of a signal somewhere. And so far I haven't been able to do it cause I keep dying in the second area or to the first area boss again. But then you have a skill tree that you're bringing back like currency to unlock things in the skill tree. And it's just cool as hell. The, but I will say the vibes are bad. The, like it is a really cool and fun game, but like it is like the world is like brown, orange, everywhere like red, sort of that color palette. And it's just kind of like not so far anyway. That's the first biome that I've seen. So it could maybe becomes more colorful at some point, but it is, it's tough stuff. And it's just the world is aggressive too. Cause you're just like being, you know, you're under attack at all times basically, but it's all, it's really, really cool. And then along the way, you're meeting these guys too that, like, or you know, you've met a couple of characters who have like gone insane. Like you're finding, audio logs of them, like having these like delusions of grandeur and stuff and like talking about how they think they're king shit or whatever. And it's, it's great. It's, I'm really interested to see what the story, what the story is, you know, but I'm really enjoying my time with it so far and give it a hearty, hearty recommend. So it's, it's interesting that this game has come out at a time where, you know, there's another, a very different game, but another game that is like getting a lot of commendation, Pragmata, an action game that I also have now purchased, but have not played. But I am, it's like, I wonder which one will kind of become the game of the moment, which one will be like, hey, I guess Pragmata by virtue of being multi-platform, you know, you can also play it on PC, which I imagine there's not a PC skew out yet of Soros. And no, PlayStation stopped doing it too. No plans for it, okay. So, I mean, like for that reason, I kind of feel like Pragmata will have the, you know, the momentum coming out of this, but I don't know, it's just kind of like, it's an interesting comparison point and you haven't gotten much time in Pragmata yourself. I haven't gotten it yet because I have not been able to hunt down a disc. I want- You're a physical media guy. I'm a physical media guy when I can be. And for this, I'm like, I want that really bad. And it seems cool. I was not previously interested in Pragmata at all. I was always interested in Sarns since, you know, the announcement trailer of it. I was like, I'm gonna play this, but Pragmata never really hooked me, but the raves and the people I know that are playing it are like, it's incredible. No, people I know with good taste or loving Pragmata. I'll get into it at some point. I'm sure I will too, if I can ever find a goddamn disc. But- Let it go, Matt. No, I'm gonna get the disc. Except this digital future. No one owns anything. Here's the thing, I should just get it digitally. But the thing that is interesting to me though is that because it's Capcom's second game this year, a month after Resident Evil Requiem. Yeah, and a new IP, it's kind of crazy. And speaking of which, of games that have just been critically very well received, just like bang, bang, bang, these kind of like, I'm not sure if you call Saros a triple A game, but it certainly has the feel of it. Yeah. So- And I think to your point, Pragmata probably will have the longer tail because it seems like they're setting it up to be a franchise. And it seems like it's probably shorter. Like it seems like it's like 15 hours, I think you can do it in 15 hours or something. I've heard like Requiem is a manageable length. I mean, we could, you know, we're a video game podcast if we were journalists and we were full-time, we'd have already played these fucking extremely relevant games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you finished Requiem. I did finish Requiem, in that game. But I have not gotten to Pragmata myself and I'm excited to try it. I'm glad you're having fun with Saros. That's another one on my radar. Already, my backlog of 2026 games alone is unmanageable. It's possible, it's early to say this. Yeah. Right now, I think Requiem might be my game to beat for Game of the Year. Hachi Machi. It's so fucking good. And you know, maybe there's other stuff coming out. Maybe there's stuff I'm forgetting as well that I've played this year. Yeah. But for new games this year, Requiem is top dog for me. But Nick, what are you playing? Matt, thank you so much for asking. You know, if anything is going to dislodge it from your top spot this early in the year, something that you might get around to that I have finally gotten around to playing, a recommendation of our buddy Chris Plant, personalized for me when he guested on the show, the game Esoteric Eb. Oh. Now here's the thing, I was supposed to give an update on Mouse Detective PI this week, but I got distracted by other games because that's what, I don't know, that's what I do. I don't know, that's what people play video games do. They would just go like, oh, you know, I can play this other thing. Yeah. I can spend more money on something else. Oh yeah, good. That is the gamer's curse. Yes. It is the phrase, ooh, something new to buy. I picked up both Esoteric Eb and Pragmata in the same Steam cart and I was like, what am I doing? I'm like, I'm like not barely even home these days, but at the time I've had, I've gotten to film and realize myself with Eb and Matt, this is very for you. And also, I wish Heather was here, I mean, first off it makes the show better and it's more fun to do, but Heather and her wife, Mary, both love Disco Elysium. Yeah. And this is the most Disco Elysium game since Disco Elysium. Oh god, damn it, I'm gonna buy it right now. I'll keep playing it, yeah, buy it immediately. I'll keep playing it, but I'm sure, and so I'm sure when she's back, we'll be able to chop it up about it a little bit. It was developed by Christopher Brodegaard, I guess based on a homebrew D&D module and of their own creation and published by Rothfury. It's a fantasy world where you're a cleric who's a government employee, so you're kind of like this stooge of the government. Just before the first ever election in the city of Norvig and a tea shop explodes, so that's kind of the inciting incident and you're just investigating what the fuck happened with this tea shop. So as such, it's just basically a way in, like the murder in Disco Elysium, that you can't quite call that a shaggy dog story because it does ultimately have a satisfying resolution, but that game is not... And Tim Allen's not in it. But that game is, isn't it why he turns into a dog and a Santa? Did he turn into anything else? A right wing piece of shit. Got him. I don't think so, Tim. So... You probably always was that. I'm sure. I'm sure. Anyway, the developer self-describes it as a Disco-like and the same, you know, it's like a soul's like, this is a Disco-like and it's exactly there. It's not shy about showing its influence, which I love because they feel like if I was trying to do like an indie version of Disco Elysium, a game I really love, a game that's in my top five games ever made, I would be self-conscious about like, well, I can't just do it the way they did, even though that worked excellently. You know, I can't just do that. I have to make all these arbitrary changes. They didn't overthink it. And so the UX is basically the same. You get the right justified endless scroll of dialogue. Also that the conflicting internal discussions, it's like, hey, it's kind of in a sense, it's also kind of like a homebrew Disco Elysium. It's also got this dense complex world with political intrigue that's very Disco Elysium, like although it's like high fantasy. So, you know, this is a play in this game and then there's like a dwarven workers party. I'm like, let's go. This is shit for me. Basically like theocrats and liberals and socialists competing for control. Okay, very, very, very, very Disco. And similarly, failure is often the most interesting outcome. So, but one thing that is a distinct difference is this art direction that looks like a colored in fantasy color book, if that makes sense. Let me just show you some of this. Like look at this rich, vibrant palette. And it's really cool looking there. You can see some of the character design. Oh, this guy's my fucking guy. Yeah, that guy's great. It's like a gator who's cooking over a little open fire. But yeah, and you see the di-rolls there. Another commonality. Yeah. And yeah, again, just like kind of look at this. The perspective. This art style. Yeah, it's a isometric, but it's distinct visually from Disco Elysium. When I say it's more of this oil painted sort of character to it, it's really, really cool. I don't really want to talk much about the story because I just like, I feel like it's one of those ones where it's cool to discover everything. But if you know the setup, you kind of know where you're headed. And there is, because it's a fantasy world, there's magic, which you can use to affect interactions. Which is cool, because it's like, hey, that's an element that's not in Disco. And also there's combat. But the thing is they don't have a distinct combat engine. It's through the dialogue system. So it'll be the same thing of like, you encounter some skeletons and then you're rolling dexterity, your strength or whatever to try to get different outcomes from them. You can take damage and you can fail, but ultimately it's not a combat-driven game. It's just like, because it's this world that becomes an element. I wonder if I can get it to run in my aim Thor. Cause I got Disco running just fine, but the fan was going. I wonder if it'll run on an Ithor. I think it'll definitely run on a Steam Deck. Yeah, which I also have. I mean, it might be Steam Deck certified. I'm not sure I haven't checked. But it's not like the most resource intensive game. It's a good looking game, but it's really cool, cool dark tone, you know? It's kind of like, the esoteric ebb of the title is kind of like these reality warping phenomena that populate the city. And so you kind of discover them and interact with objects in the same way that you kind of interact with people. Planescape Torment and other influence of this game. And again, one of my favorite games of all time, these isometric games that are just so driven by dialogue and character interactions and just the world building and choices that matter. So, I don't know. I think you'll love it, Matt. I think our audience, I mean, I know a lot of our audience who's playing this already loves it, but I think that anyone else who responded to this go at least see him. Heather and Mary included. In fact, maybe I'll text Mary about it right now. That'd be really, really funny. I texted her earlier. Yeah. And Heather just said, stop texting my wife. I'm just wishing her safe travels. That's so funny. That's really, really good. But it's really, really cool, Matt. And I think it's just like, what a year for video games already. It is. It's May. I guess it's halfway through the year. But still. It's halfway through the year. Fuck, it's halfway through the year. God, I'm gonna die. No, no, we can't do this. We can't. You're right. We're gonna live for, well, I was gonna say we're gonna live forever and that's not good either. Not me. Seem like Jolly Bee I take down. I felt like I have to get back on it. Yeah. The sink, like the sink, well, I had two pieces, but the piece of Jolly Bee chicken that I had the first piece that I took down, made my life better. Like it was so cool. Yeah. It's so good. That's what it's all about. I had three pieces. I took them down and they were fucking good. Yeah. And Heather didn't have any. No. And she missed out. And she did. Ranch loved it. Ranch loved it. Ever heard back from her? She didn't say it. She didn't say it yet. All right, she hasn't gotten back to us. Sam, you gotta try it. Is it, I was wondering, is it sauce or is it, is the spice in the sauce? Or is it? It's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. It's dry rub. Spiced into the fry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the Popeye spicy. Yeah, it's not a spicy sauce. Yeah, but they have gravy that you can dip. Yeah, the gravy is good. I don't like a sauce, you know, I'm sorry. I don't like a sauce noug or a sauce fry thing that comes, that comes like a buffalo chicken sandwich. Yeah. It's got the sauce already on it. It's just like, that's gonna be a dry guy. Best. Or I don't mean, an opposite of the dry guy. It's going to be so wet that it removes the crunchy character, which is, you know, so essential to get fried chicken. Best version of that though is orange chicken, right? Oh my God. Now you're talking. I found it. Yeah. That is like that. That's the one that works. Yeah, cause like you can get, you can get it crispy. You can, you, they somehow you can do it. But it's also like a, like a kind of the syrupy sauce. Yeah. It's not quite like gauzed. Yeah. It just, it's like almost like adheres to it. Yeah. Like the stack of like the egg waffle. Yeah. It's, yeah. I don't know what it is about it. Orange chicken is great. Orange chicken is really, we should get it. Panda Express also seems like a good company. Family owned still, high wages relative to the sector. Panda Express is one of the few fast food meals we get in my home. Yeah. You can get like, what's that? I want it now. It is so fucking good. It's so good. But you can get like a decently healthy meal there. Like you don't have to get like, you don't have to get two sides of orange chicken. You can. Yeah. You don't have to. You can get like the, I get like a boring thing when I go. I get like the grilled chicken teriyaki, but with no sauce. You know, sometimes you gotta make a, you gotta make a choice for your health. Yeah. I get that. I get half super greens, half chow mein. No, I do like getting half greens, half rice. That is nice. Yeah. And then the, if I'm getting the plate, I'm getting, I'm getting orange chicken. Here's a complaint I have about Panda Express. No drive through. Wasn't thinking that, but yeah, but no. Also like, like, I just feel like they should have better vegetarian options. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Cause it's usually like, they have like, they had that tofu thing or not tofu eggplant thing for a while, but that kind of looks like shit every time I look at it. And, and one of their options is like, like, oh, I want to get a vegetarian main. You can just get super greens. I was like, but that's like a base. Yeah. I don't want more base. Yeah. I don't want that as a protein. Tofu seems simple and obvious to me, but yeah. We should have more tofu. And they used to have an, a beyond orange chicken. Which was fucking good. It was fucking awesome. And they got rid of it. Yeah. It's a bomber. Anyway. Anyway. Different. That's for, it's for a different show. I like how like the boys are back in town and like we're going to talk about boy stuff. And then just our fat ass is just talking about fried chicken. All right. Let's get to the real boys. Tits am I right? I know you worked at, at Albertson. I did. Albertson's fried chicken is good as hell. It's so fucking good. And I mean, I told you, we can't get into this. Yeah. I told you about how the, the older ladies that worked behind the deli counter fucking loved me. Oh yeah. Yeah. And they would like just do whatever I asked them to do. And so they had like, what do you call it? They had those, um, Tendies. They had Tendies and Kings Hawaiian rolls over there. And I was like, he put some, can you make me a little sandwich in the Kings Hawaiian rolls? And they would be like, anything for you. We love you. Were you, was this like a quid pro quo? Like were you, were you like helping them lift things, etc? No. They just liked having you around. They're just like, Hey, here's a young man. I was like a 19 year old little like cutie pod. Yeah. But I was also good at my job. And like I would just like, I mean, I guess I would go and mop up their greasy floor every day. Yeah. I'm sure they love that. I would do a great job. Yeah. Uh, they, yeah, they were great. That sounds really good right now. A, a, a Tendi on a Hawaiian roll. And yeah, they would put like a honey mustard and like lettuce and tomato on it for me. Oh, they'd make a proper sandwich. But a proper sandwich. Yeah. It was really, really good. Anyway, we, we can't talk about, we can't do this all day. No, no, no, no. We could. This is another thing. We could. No. But esoteric app, I think you'll, I really like it. I'm going to, I'm going to try it out tonight. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like, I mean, and it kind of has, it's a, it's a beefy game. I feel like, I think I looked it up on how long it would be. Actually, I think it was like, it was like 25 to 30 hours on that range. So it's, it's not a short game. And obviously there's all sorts of flexibility in terms of how you build your character and how you role play it, which seems to invite multiple playthroughs the same way Disco Elysium does. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's, it's a, it's again, it's a beefy boy. So know what you're getting into. And it could just like take over from Soros, which is just, I know that's not exactly what you want, but maybe just have it on your wish list or have it, have it ready to check out at some point. The thing about Soros is that like, that's only on PlayStation five. So if I turned my PlayStation five on, I know that that's what I'm playing. Got it. So like, I like, that feels like a good game to like have something else going too. Designated Soros box. I got the disc in the dam in the dam. Sure. So it's, it's in there, but like esoteric app, I can pick that up on my Steam Deck. No problemo. Oh, Oh, buddy. One in five Americans have learned a new language on their bucket list. If that's you make 2025 the year, you finally check it off with Babble. The language app that makes grammar fun is actually worth your. Precious. Time. Learning into language with Babble is all about small steps, big wins, and progress you can actually track and feel. 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To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash get played. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. Let's talk about the year of Yoshi. So Yoshi. It's the year of Yoshi. It's the year of Yoshi. I think informally or is it formally? I think it's not been declared the year of Luigi. It hasn't been declared. But it kind of feels like it's the year of Yoshi in terms of, you know, Yoshi's getting a new game. Yoshi's so prominent as voiced by Donald Glover. Yes. In the Super Mario Galaxy movie. So this happened to me. Yeah. We go do the Mario stuff. We see the movie. Yoshi's in the movie. You say we go do the Mario stuff just for people who don't have full context. We went to Japan. We interviewed the cast of Mario. Universal sent us out there. We interviewed the cast of Mario. That's an episode that came out earlier this year. And we also saw the Mario Galaxy movie and the Nintendo museum in Kyoto. So this is why I've been thinking about Yoshi a lot. Because they gave us all this Yoshi stuff. Yoshi's sort of like the big new toy of the franchise. They got a lot of new Yoshi stuff out. They have the hatching Yoshi, which I hatched immediately when I got home. It was a very strange experience. You can only hatch it once. You can only hatch it once. And they also gave us Yoshi popcorn buckets, which I fought tooth and nail to try to bring back and simply could not bring back, which I was really bummed out by. I needed a straight up empty bag with all the shit I got in Japan. I needed to bring home a wooden crate of stuff. I wonder. I kind of feel like next time I'm going to just put underwear and socks in my carry-on. And then, I'm already talking about it next time. Look at that. Underwear and socks in my carry-on. And then just bring a full on empty suitcase. And then just like, should I buy there? Can just go inside of it. Because I'll buy clothes. I know they'll buy clothes. It's a great clothes shopping country. Yeah. It's a great time. We were in two cities. So I can't speak at large. Yeah. Great shopping in Kyoto and Tokyo. Yeah. The smaller towns with the clothing shopping is like. Can't speak to it. But we did the interviews. The clips of, there was a clip that we had that went sort of semi-viral with Donald talking about Yoshi's eye. People were writing about this. Donald's fun again. I'm like, Donald's always been cool. I come home two days after we get back from Japan. I'm at a Dodger game. Yes. It's Yoshi bobblehead night. Let's go. And the players will get their own bobblehead. And you know, they have number 17, Yoshi nobiyama moto. Who's a fucking killer. Yeah. But it's not him on the damn bobblehead. It's Yoshi wearing his damn jersey. He's wearing the number 17. He's wearing the number 17. It says Yoshi on the back. They call him Yoshi on the team. But who's throwing out the fucking first pitch? It's Donald. Wow. And I was like, if I had known, I would have given him some damn tips. Here's how you throw heat, my man. But it was all this to say, get that home. My wife is like, there's too much Yoshi stuff here now. And I was like, it's kind of the year of Yoshi. And so I've been thinking about him a lot. He's been coming up a lot in my life. And I am sort of, I am excited for this new game because it seems different than some of the other Yoshi games. Because for my money, there's like two types of Yoshi games or there's two eras of Yoshi games. There's Yoshi's Island. And then all the games sort of after that are sort of trying to be like that. And then there's these other ones that are where he looks like yarn. Yoshi's Woolly World. Woolly World, yeah. And then Yoshi's Crafted World. And those are, those play kind of similarly, but are different enough aesthetically where now this one, I'm kind of like, they're trying, it seems like they're trying a new thing. And I also love the name of the new game, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. Yeah. So what's going on with that book? I just think it's funny that it's mysterious. Well, the book's mysterious and we don't know what it's up to at all. But the word book is such a hard word to end on for some reason. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. I kind of, what about the Book of Mysteries? That's pretty good. The hard consonant at the end of the story. It's tough, right? Something about it, not right. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. So you help a mysterious talking book named Mr. E. Good name. That is, here's the thing. Remember the creature's living in his pages. Day one by. I'm getting that. So here's the thing. Yoshi's Island was not, I mean, I can't say it wasn't an easy game relative to Super Nintendo platforms. You could get through it without much challenge. But Yoshi's Island was not like a, how I think people live unfairly, but perhaps accurately characterized some of the Yoshi story and its follow-ups, which is just kind of like more of a fun-tying game. The difficulty is pretty much non-existent. And then you also see Yoshi appear in Super Mario Wonder, and it's like, oh, it's kind of like the funky mode. It's kind of like the easy mode of that game. So I mean, it's interesting how that's kind of become that association. It makes sense because it's got so much appeal to kids. I kind of wish funky mode took over as the word for easy mode. Yeah, every easy mode should be funky mode. It should be funky mode for sure. You know what? He should be in all the games too. Don't have to convince me. You're too young to have experienced this, but I'm old as dirt and I... You start talking about the Big Bang. Yeah. First, there was nothing. I got Super Mario World, like, there was a gift for my birthday. It was Super Mario World with a Super Nintendo as a pack-in game at launch. And I remember getting home from camp and being so, so excited by this gift. It was a lovely surprise by my dad, who's very good at gift-giving. He was like, oh, check it. I left something on your bed. Can you go pick it up for me? And it was a Super Nintendo. So yeah, that's nice. Play the shit out of it. Other times you'd do that, it'd be a belt so he could spank you. It was a coin flip. You could get a thoughtful gift or a whoopin. But you always had to go back to your room to see what it was. Always had to go back. Oh no, another whoopin. Come on, my father. How dare you. You did it! Shame on all of you. The boys are back. The boys are back. In town. But I, like, Yoshi is such a big part of Super Mario World and you get Yoshi very, very early on in the game. And then there's not just a Yoshi. There's all sorts of different Yoshis. Like there's a blue Yoshis that can fly. There's the red Yoshis that can breathe fire. There's the yellow Yoshis that when you land on the ground, they stomp. Really, the blue one was the most useful. But they were all fun. Yeah. And then the other element is it was this cool thing where the same music is playing throughout. Basically, they're all remixes of the exact same melody. But Yoshi's presence would just add a drum track to each one. Just add some percussive elements. So I just remember how cool it would be. You'd just hop on Yoshi and it'd be like... And this beat is just undergirding this existing melody. And then if you get hit and Yoshi runs away, the beat goes away. It's just really, really cool bit of detail. And again, just such an appealing character design. So fun mechanically to be able to eat a bunch of fruit and then you either get another Yoshi or you get a one-up. If you have a Yoshi, get another one-up. But if you just have the egg, or you have the baby Yoshi, you can grow into a big Yoshi. I'd say also, one of the great sounds in gaming is Yoshi grabbing a little apple or something with the egg. And then he's just tongue out. I thought you were going to say the mount, which is like a... Oh, that is good too. The mount is really satisfying. I also like when you get hit and he runs off and it's like... Yeah, that's fun. A lot of good sounds associated with Yoshi. A lot of good sounds associated with Yoshi. Also, apparently, I did not know this. His voice, which is, again, Donald Glover in the recent film, was originally Nintendo composer Kazumi Totaka. So that was a lot of that was just coming from a person who was working on Sound of the Game. That's great. My very first experience with Yoshi probably was Super Mario World also, but for the Game Boy Advance. Yeah, sure. Which is crazy to think, well, you know what? That's not true. I had probably played Mario Kart at a friend's house and Super Smash Bros. Yes, because once Super Mario World comes out, Yoshi is just a fixture of all the party games and sports games from that point forward. I mean, well, I was about to say something that then became immediately not true. Yeah. Maybe go with me on this. Yoshi, the most recent, important Mario character? Because, yeah, you have Waluigi, but he's not really featured in that much stuff. Does Yoshi... does Wario predate Yoshi? I think Wario predates Yoshi. Mario, so it's Super Mario Land 3 is where Wario makes his first appearance. Let me check the chronology here. I think Wario might be coming later, but you could very well be right. I hope I'm right. I hope I'm right. 1992. Oh, dang, just a couple of years after. And it's Super Mario Land 3. Wow. Or Super Mario Land 2, rather, six golden coins where he's the bad guy. So, yeah, it's that one. Wario does come a little later, and I think you have to consider Wario's major Nintendo character. And you know, I was just saying the other day, oh, I maybe said this to you and Heather separately, I think WarioWare touched as perfect of a video game to me as Tetris. I think maybe we talked about this on the podcast. But yes, I love the WarioWare games. I mean, for me, you have a soft spot for WarioWare Twisted, which is the one with the motion detector mechanism where you'd be spinning your Game Boy Advance and shit. It was really fun. Yeah. But I enjoy all of them. Even the weird kind of platformer one for Switch that was not exactly a WarioWare, but it's still, I still was just having fun with it. I loved that as well. I thought I would be playing it a lot longer than I ended up playing it after I beat it. Me too. I thought I'd keep doing the challenges and then I was like, eh, okay, all right, I'm kind of done with this. Because yeah, for a while I was just like, I'm just competing against Mono. Because Mono was playing it a lot too. But on Mano Gapio. Yeah, that's right. So you said Yoshi has a sort of reputation at these days as being like the baby franchise. And I played, I got Yoshi's Crafted World at launch for the Nintendo Switch and I've never beat it. And I thought it was a little, that wasn't like hard. It was definitely not as hard as Super Mario Wonder or anything like that. Like Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. But some of those levels had some decent challenge to it. Sure. That I was kind of like, this is the, damn, this one's for babies? Well, they may have been, I haven't played Crafted World, so I can't speak to that directly. But they may have been responding a little bit too. Like yeah, we can up the challenge a little bit later in the game. I will say Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island, whatever about it, it's challenge level. It is a fucking incredible video game. Oh, yeah. It's so good. The art direction is outstanding, the sort of like color book. I said coloring book earlier. It's not that for this. This is more like a crayon sort of drawing. It's not the precise line work that you'll see in like an esoteric ebb. And so it's got these messy lines that are just look really great. It's got a little bit, it's got like this morphemation thing, which was taking advantage of the Super Nintendo's like some new chips for its hardware. Introduction of baby Mario. Yes. And this is one thing I would like to see in Super Mario Galaxy. Why aren't we seeing baby Mario, you know, baby Mario on Yoshi's back, but why aren't we seeing baby Mario like doing that? And then Yoshi retrieving him, which is such a thing from Yoshi's Island. Anyway, that was it. And this may be apocryphal, but I remember reading this that because people would always complain about Mario's baby Mario being annoying. And Miyamoto was was like, well, we needed it to be annoying because when we made it less annoying, players were not prioritized because mechanically what's happening for people haven't played the game. Baby Mario is on your back when you take damage, it's an inversion of what happens in in Super Mario World, which is you retain control of Yoshi and baby Mario is on his own and vulnerable. And you have a timer to rescue him or else he is basically taken away by shy guys or whatever the fuck. Yeah, they skin him alive. It's brutal. Yeah, it's crazy. It's like a Game of Thrones-esque cutaway. Yeah. Anyway, just get just this beloved character. It's flayed. Who wants baby skin? One line of EO. Yeah, they fucking talk. It's good. It's nasty. Anyway, I like the shy guys too. I love the shy guys. They're great character design. I think maybe I'm a bit of a shy guy. Matt, no. Please, you're the life of the party. Who, me? Shy guys are from Super Mario World or Super Mario 2, but they get kind of like canonized as like, they're not just the dream enemy, they're a real sort of enemy in this one. Yoshi's Island. Well, let me finish this thought. We'll end the play on this. So they had, they made baby Mario's sound effect very annoying when he is crying because if it wasn't annoying, they'd found that players would ignore baby Mario and just like keep progressing. And so they need, basically it was functioning the same way a baby's crying is. It's just like, oh, someone shut that baby up so everyone gets attention to it and you pick up baby Mario. It's like, it's just a lovely piece of design. Much like, and then you could follow that straight line all the way to 2018's Death Stranding where he starts crying and you got to cradle the controller to soothe the baby, to soothe the baby. Yeah. Cute stuff. Man, I think a baby in a game seems to always work for some reason. It's great. We were like, what's that baby doing there? And he's playing the game and he's like, I don't like the baby. I like the baby. Apparently there's a big baby in Resident Evil 8 that I was not aware of. I got to play the new Resident Evil's. I'm so behind in that franchise. Apparently there's a big baby. Yeah. And the big baby's scary apparently. And then you want to see a big baby see me playing those games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Turn the camera. Look at my ass. And yeah, I'm wearing a diaper when I'm playing too. You got to wear a diaper. And I got to type up. You got to type up. But Yoshi's Island was another game that I had for, we had one Game Boy Advance. We had two Game Boy Colors, one Game Boy Advance, and I didn't start playing Mario stuff until the Game Boy Advance. This is my first dalliance with Mario is really on the Game Boy Advance apart from playing Smash and Mario Kart at friends houses and stuff. We had one cartridge for, well, for all these games, but we had Super Mario World for our one Game Boy Advance. And then when I got my own Game Boy Advance, I started, that's when the branch really started like, Matt's the one that plays games. Yeah. Because I started getting stuff like, I bought Yoshi's Island. Because I was like, Oh, this is just a new, to me, this is a brand new Nintendo game. I have to see what's going on with it. No, I definitely had that era. And was like, this is like one of my favorite games. I think Yoshi's Island, maybe not in my top 10, but it could be and it should be. It's fucking great. If I was making a list of top five to top 10 platformers, it would be. Oh, yeah. I mean, games of all time is just tough to make that cut there for anyone. It's in my top 25 probably. It's an excellent platform. It's such a game. And it's the sort of thing of like a kind of, you know, I think people forget it was Super Mario World 2 originally. And it's so not a direct sequel. And it came out of kind of a weird time in the Super Nintendo life cycle that it more became the cult hit than the blockbuster that it deserved to be. But it's a really a tremendous, tremendous piece of design. It's so fun. I mean, shooting eggs is fun. I love shooting the eggs. Cool mechanic. Yes. And I like, but I also just like the aesthetic of it so much. It looks like it has like this, like you're saying like this sort of like hand drawn looking kind of thing. Like some of the like backgrounds are kind of like shaded in kind of instead of like fully. I really love that so much. I like that everything is smiling there. It's very fun. It's very, very cute. Man, I want to play it. We're gonna play it. I can play it. You want to play it? You want to eat Popeyes or Jolly Bee? I mean, we do want to eat Popeyes always, but Jolly Bee is what's on my mind right now. On Mario Kart, I will say more often than not, if I'm not maining Mario, I'm maining Yoshi. Wow. You're a Yoshi stand. I mean, Yoshi got. I love him. But I'm going green all the way. Yoshi is like a high acceleration, low top speed sort of character. Yeah. Easy to handle. Yeah. I never really got with those. Damn, he is kind of baby mode. He's kind of baby mode. I never really got with that type as much. I tend for a heavier character, but I'm also... I'll do DK too. ...shitting Mario Kart. You're bad at it? I wouldn't say. I just feel like there's so many people who are good at Mario Kart, and I'm just like a guy who, you know, like the new Mario Kart that just came out, Super Mario Kart World. Oh yeah. It was, I'm just like, alright. You know, and I know a lot of people kind of receive that game with a shrug, but for me, I'm just like, I don't really need to spend much of my life playing Mario Kart anymore. Yeah. It's kind of the same relationship I had with Smash Brothers, though I always like Smash Brothers more than Mario. But like, I love Mario Kart, but as a franchise, as I've kind of gotten older and had less time for games, I'm just like, I don't know. So compared to a lot of people, yes, I don't think I'm great at Mario Kart. I'm Kart over Smash, for sure. Yeah, I know you're Kart over Smash. This is the only two games I play. Who's your main in both? Well, I was going to say Yoshi's like top three in Smash, actually for me, weird. Wow. Which I don't think that's common, but um, Yoshi's- I love Yoshi's Down B, like- Yeah. Yoshi's guy, so he's got a Down B stomp. He's got an- Down B, one of the top B's. It is, it is one of the top B's. He's got like an egg roll, and he's got like, you can swallow guys and egg them, which is fun. Yeah. He's also got an egg toss, but this is part of the challenge of Yoshi is that he's got that very long second jump, like that long sort of striding, you know, floaty leg fluttering second jump in Smash Brothers, but he does not have an Up B recover, and this- most characters have an Up B recover instead because his is taken by the egg toss. He's just like, I got a little bit more challenging. What he does have that I think is undervalued when you're actually playing human beings is a good taunt. He just goes, Yoshi! And people get so fucking annoyed by that. It's not quite the same level as like, Jigglypuff, but it's the same sort of thing like, like shut the fuck up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, if Jigglypuff said Jigglypuff at me, I'd be so fucking annoyed. And did a little twirl. Oh god. Yeah. Starts banking its little butt at you. Like imagine, imagine I just downbeat your ass. You just got ejected, and I wake up and I hit you with a Jigglypuff. I'd be so upset. Yeah. You'd be pissed off. God damn it, I'm mad now. Let's talk about some of these other Yoshi games real quick, because I do think that there is like a, I think we could call it a drop off. Sure. Because like, let's say the height is Yoshi's Island. To me, it's all downhill from here, kind of. Wow. Right? Like Yoshi's story for N64, I messed around with a little bit. I don't love it. That was more of a, that was definitely more of a baby game. They definitely nerfed it big time versus the previous one. Then you have Yoshi's Topsy Turvy, which also utilized the, you twist it around your Game Boy Advance. I forgot about Yoshi's Topsy Turvy. It had a gyroscope in it. It has a different name everywhere else though. In the U.S., it's Topsy Turvy, but everywhere else it's called Yoshi's Universal Gravitation. Wow. When we think about that. I think they thought Americans were stupid and they were correct. Yeah, they were right. We gotta call it Topsy Turvy. Directional Gravitation. What the hell? What the hell? Then we start getting into the DS. Yoshi's Touch and Go, which is the first DS game, which I remember being interested in, but not getting because I think it's not particularly good, if I remember correctly. The next year in 2006, you have Yoshi's Island DS, which is a sequel to Yoshi's Island. Yes. This is what I mean though, is that Yoshi's Story, Topsy Turvy, Touch and Go, and Yoshi's Island DS are all aping the style of Yoshi's Island. They're all doing the same thing. No, that aesthetic has stuck around. Even if the gameplay conventions have not. They're all doing various versions of it, even if there is a thing, like you were saying, that it's got this wool texture to it now. It's still ultimately achieving the same thing in a different way that Yoshi's Island, I assume, or World 2, achieved so well in the 16-bit era. Then between 2006 and 2014, there's not a Yoshi game. It's eight long years. Wow. Till there's a new Yoshi's game, and it's Yoshi's New Island for the Nintendo 3DS. They're still just like, hey, we gotta just stick with this. This works. We like this. Then we break off into this new era, the little yarn and crafts era. We have Yoshi's Woolly World for the Wii U, which I never played, but it also, I think, came out on the 3DS as well. Then we have Yoshi's Crafted World, which I've mentioned already, which I absolutely loved when I was playing it. It has an arts and crafts aesthetic. It has cut paper and cardboard tubes as part of the level design and stuff. It's just really, really clever and cute. I just really love the aesthetic. It has that same Yoshi's Island gameplay, just no baby. You have the ability to throw eggs and devour enemies. He is eating them. They disappear and they become eggs. Yeah, he's eating them. He's eating them. He's kind of a really ferocious character when you stop and think about it. I'm just interested in the digestion process here. How quickly it happens. Well, also, no animal works that way. You don't eat something and turn it into an egg. You eat it and you turn it into fuel and then you shit it out. Here the egg is taking the place of feces. Yeah, which maybe they don't do. Maybe they just don't shit in the Mario universe, or Yoshi's don't shit. Maybe these eggs stink. Yeah, I mean, they could be smelly eggs that function both as bowel movements and also you know, methods of reproduction. Maybe that's the sort of dice roll of like you lay an egg. You don't know there's going to be a baby inside or a turd. I feel like we've been in a similar area before. I was about to make a joke. I was like, yeah, then you pick up what you think is the baby and you swaddle it. And it's just like a big poop in a blanket. Oh, this again. Yeah, but I want to talk about Birdo for a second. Yes. Because Birdo is not a Yoshi. No. But I think we can agree pretty close. Birdo shoots eggs. Birdo shoots eggs. And I think, look, we know that Miyamoto, he said this, that he was he'd been trying to get Yoshi into or maybe not Yoshi specifically, but a mount for Mario. As early as the NES era. Right. So and just technical limitations kept it from happening. So it could be that Birdo, like, you know, shooting eggs and and kind of its form factor could have been almost like a rough draft of like, well, this could have been an idea for Yoshi at some point or Yoshi like character that we just turned into a boss. I have no idea where Birdo actually came from. Certainly, though, like, like, yes, the commonality of eggs are so central. Projectile eggs. They have well, I guess, well, similar body types, similar body types, not quite as dinosaur like Yoshi doesn't have a cool bow. No. And that's his greatest flaw. But this mysterious book that's coming out now, look, to me, all books from stereo. Yeah. When I think about mysterious book, I think about the Dan Brown trilogy, beginning with the Da Vinci code. It's the Da Vinci code. Angels and demons and then it's like inferno. Inferno. Yeah. Everyone forgot about inferno. Yeah, he did all three movies, right? Yeah, they did. Without his stupid little hair. I guess so. I didn't. I never saw the last one. The only one I've seen is the second one. And my in-laws invited us over my wife and I to their home so we could watch it because we were my wife and I were going to Italy. They're like, hey, we should maybe watch this movie because a lot of it's set in Italy. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure. We put it on. I'm bored within the first like five minutes and then we look it up. It has a 10% on rotten tomatoes. And I was like, this movie is like two and a half hours long. What the fuck? Why did we say yes? And it's bad. It's a bad movie. Yeah. I love committing to garbage. It was. Fuck, I guess I'm going to watch all of this. Infer a penny, infer a pound. I was the only one that stayed awake. I watched all of it. It sucks. It's not your idea. No. You get the most punished. Yeah. But gosh, why did I bring it up? So mystery book. I kind of I think I have heard that this move, that this game is maybe a little leaning more baby. That into that. Because like, here's the thing. I don't need I was saying this before. I don't need every game to be difficult. I could use a baby game right now. I'm sorry. I was just kicking my fucking ass. There's so many and especially with the prominence of souls likes. Yeah. There are there are so many tough as nails video games and not enough hours in a day to play them all that it is kind of sometimes nicely like not that that I mean Astro Bot is pretty fucking easy throughout. But you can play these. You can do these challenge runs. You can do these, you know, more difficult go for these more difficult trophies. But if you just play through the main progression, that game's kind of a breeze. It's kind of like a like a hug of a video game. And it is kind of nice to experience that sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So I definitely am looking forward to it. I guess I have a couple of questions for you about Yoshi. Yeah. When you have the option to pick a Yoshi color. Are you staying with default? Are you picking maybe something that's close to your favorite color? One thing I like about Yoshi because of his distinct color ways is he has the most alt costumes in Super Smash Brothers. So like, especially as the franchise continues, there's a point where other characters have like, you know, a few different alts, but he's got like so many different different looks. I feel like I'm I'm often opting for green, but I do like pink and I do like yellow. Rarely red, blue sometimes because it makes me think of Boshi from Super Mario RPG. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I don't I don't know. I think a lot of times I just end up going yellow and pink and I love pink so much, you know, so if I have that option. Yeah, you don't get I guess it's a different shade of pink than Burdo. Yeah. Burdo is more of like a magenta. Not it is. I mean, it's Burdo coated, but it's not exactly Burdo. Yeah. It is kind of crazy. How many how many mounts have become standalone characters? I'd say very few. This is the triumph of Nintendo. I'm kind of like Yoshi in this way. I wasn't a mount, but I was an ancillary part of the show before I became one of the hosts. Yoshi, an ancillary part of the games. I got my own. He's got his own games now. Matt, you're not host anymore. What the fuck was that? The hell? I'm just saying. You're kind of like yourself to a mount. What are you talking about? Not a mount. No, I was saying that like I meant in the way that he wasn't the main thing. Yeah, sure. You're a producer. You guys are always riding my ass, though. All right, you're back. You're a producer who we're like, oh, we love Matt. We love talking to Matt Matz, a funny guy. And you became the third host and to the betterment of the podcast. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I mean, like this is like this is what's what Nintendo's magic is, especially with the Mario franchise, that they were able to take Mario and then now, you know, Peach can sustain her own games. Luigi can sustain his own games. Well, Yoshi has his own franchise. Wario has his own franchises, you know, it's like it's kind of amazing. I mean, Mario and of himself is a spin off character of Donkey Kong. That's true. The fact that he's able to like become this this icon. It's just like it speaks to both their game design, like how effective they are at coming up with the with with video games and especially ones with distinct mechanics like the WarioWare series that are just like, oh, people want to play these. But also just their ability to design characters so effectively and make them so appealing that people want to see them in different contexts. I that's that's that's that's a good point because, yes, like you were saying earlier, it's like Yoshi is one of the main guys. Yes, like it's like is is is it Mario Luigi Yoshi or is it Mario Yoshi Luigi? I mean, in some order, I feel like those are the top three. I love Peach. I'm saying this is a Peach stand. Yes. But I feel like in terms of the popularity of Mario characters, I think Peach is on the outside looking in from the top three. Yeah, I think you're right. Yoshi is so popular and people because people love those Luigi's Mansion game. Those they do love those. Yeah. Yeah. And they love Luigi. One of our one of our best beta males. There's certainly one Luigi that is Alpha as hell. Love that. You know what? You're right. There's one Luigi who elevates them all. You know the one. I looked at the Smash Brothers tier list. So did you have more to say on that? No, I just love I just I love him. And I think something that I do remember this from the Dodger game. People were wearing Yoshi hats. People were wearing like kind of like they're dressing up. They're dressing up. So, you know, on the camera, they were like panning over to people dressed up as Yoshi. It was also crazy because it's Tani's first game. It was the Otani's first game this season. Wow. So it was fucking crowded as hell. Everybody also wanted the bobble head. I get to the stadium a full two and a half hours before the game starts because I'm like, look, I like being here and just having a I like vibing. I like getting my hot dogs in. Let's party going to a baseball game. It's a chill. It's so fun. I get my seat, get my hot dog, get my Michalada. I was chilling, get my bobble head, secure the bag. Come on now. Come on now. They're panning over to people. They pan over to this guy who's wearing like a like a Yoshi sort of like hat that then has like Yoshi's like face. Fun. And then he sees that he's on camera and says jacket and is wearing a shirt that says abolish ice. And the camera did the fastest sweep away I've ever seen in my life. But everybody went nuts for this guy. They're like, fuck yeah. Because like he sort of like baited them into showing him. That rocks. He like had like a stupid little hat and it was it was great. It was so fucking good. They could have just lingered on him and just been like, well, you know, it's just like we like the Yoshi costume. I think based on who they allowed to use their parking lot, I think they were like. Let's get this guy out of here. Contracts not up yet. This is this is completely different, but there's a New Orleans Pelicans game. And I think it was last season, not this current season, where a fan got up on the jubbo tron and he goes and they're like, oh, the jumbotron. He's up there. He's like, yeah, yeah, he puts his arms up. He's cheering and then he immediately starts going, oh, like doing a grapefruit two handed with a twist blow job. They also panned away from me so quickly, but it's great because you see him like, yeah, oh, and then the people behind him just collapse and laughter. It's like the funniest shit. I watch it like 20 times. And it's funny because like that guy like probably works at like a target or some shit and he's funnier than will ever be. And he definitely got thrown out of this game. He spent like four hours wages on for one ticket. But it's like, fuck it. He writes in, actually, I'm the CEO of a fortune 500. Like what you are. You should be you should be you should be sitting court side. Yeah. Oh, man. I'd love to sit court side. Yeah. I think I'd be too stressed. It's also like not be afraid that the ball's going to hit me. I'd be ready for that. Well, you're a big guy. They might pass it to you. So I'll take a take a jumper. We hoist up a three LeBron falls, hurts his ankle, looks out to see if there's anybody tall points directly at you. You're just like me. Grab the ball so hard you pop it somehow. So I looked at the Smash Brothers tier list. Yoshi's an A tier in Super Smash Brothers, the first one for N64. OK. For Melee, he's down to B plus tier, still in good company with Ice Climbers, Pikachu and Samus. These are these are all very viable characters in brawl. He is down in D tier. So he is declined quite a bit at this point. In Smash Brothers four, he's also in D tier. Wow. In Smash Brothers ultimate, he's back up to S minus tier. He got all the way up. He got buffed. So they got him up there. He's up there with with Peach and Daisy and Fox McCloud, a staple of the tops of tier lists of these of these games. The S plus tier list is still just like, man, I'm so out on Smash Brothers that that that Minecraft Steve is like the top, the best character. Wow. In in in Smash Brothers now. It kind of feels like they shouldn't let the guest characters be that good. There's there's a lot of third parties in the in the S plus tier rankings. I mean, you got Minecraft Steve, you got Sonic there, you got a solid snake. And you've also got yeah, Kazooia from from is that from Isu from Tekken? I think so. Yeah, from Tekken. So it's it's a it's it's kind of like a big run of of of of third party characters. I wonder if there's an element that this can't be the case. This can't be the sort of thing of like, like, hey, we're going to put we're going to put your Minecraft Steve in the game and also he's going to be OP. That can't be part of the pitch. Hey, we'll put him in preliminarily. This is where we're going to play some. I don't know if maybe you want to give us a little bit more money. Maybe we bump him up a little bit. I guess he's a little bit more tournament play. Perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like they just don't anticipate that. I don't feel like there's any of its calculated because I always feel like the how could they possibly figure out what a player base of millions is going to gravitate towards and ultimately Max is like the best possible, you know, a character in most scenarios. You brought the ice climbers. Now, they're sort of like. They're not even. A factor in Nintendo's roster these days at all. It was such a shock when they showed up in Melee, I believe. Yeah, like this. Like I think that was their debut. I could be wrong. It could be the next entry, but it's like it's it was just so unexpected. And they were. Hard to kind of hard to play. Yeah. I remember playing ice climbers, the original on any ass, which I revisited on emulator and been like, man, why did it play this game? It kind of sucks. I was going to say, like, that kind of feels like they'd be like ripe for, like a mobile game or something like or like maybe even like a Nintendo Switch online exclusive, you know, new ice climbers or something. Just bring it just get them back in the conversation. If they if they yeah, what making like a sort of like really limited scope ice climbers like sort of puzzle platformer, I think could be fun. They'd have to reinvent the mechanics is that when you're just it's just you're just jumping. It's just a vertical scroller where you're destroying ice blocks and ascending. Yeah, there's not a lot to it. But the characters Nana and Popo are good. Oh, I love them. Yeah. And Yoshi, I think one of the great characters of all time. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of any final thoughts I have on him. I mean, just he's just good and I like seeing him. He makes me happy. I think he's he doesn't there's not a lot to him. I mean, he says his own name and he he eats things. But you know what? That's sometimes that's all you need. I was just about to say, actually, I think it was the smartest thing they could have done to not have him speak actual words in the movie. Well, when he cast when they cast Donald Glover, I think a lot of people were like, oh, man, is he going to be like, is he going to be, you know, like a full a fully voiced character with dialogue? Yeah, that feels like such a misfire. And then I had received assurances from people who are in the know is like, no, the only thing that Yoshi says in the Mario movie is Yoshi and then actually see that some bitch. I was like, yeah, they got Donald Glover to just say Yoshi. Yeah. And he does a good job. He does a great job. Well, even like as he was in the trailer, he says Yoshi in the trailer before they announced him. And there was like a whole part of the press run where Donald was like, it's the biggest compliment to me that they thought like he's like, I saw comments of people being like, oh, cool, they didn't get somebody famous to do Yoshi. Yeah. Because they hadn't announced him yet. And like they couldn't tell it was him. And you can't tell it's him. No, no, no, no. Just saying Yoshi. But he does he does he does he does a great job at you know, hats off. But Yoshi, we love you, baby. We love you, Yoshi. Out. Well said. Shall we do a segment? Yeah, let's do a segment. It's time for a Segment Dreamcast. Segment. And now this will be about a week and a half old, maybe, but they just announced a brand new Star Fox game. And it's so brand new. It's a remake of a Star Fox game. It's a surprise Star Fox Direct, which as of this recording came out recently. The new game, Star Fox, is an extensive Star Fox 64 remaster. Releases June 25th as a switch to exclusive. Visually, I was quite impressed. I was really impressed, but there's there seems to be a lot of discourse about the redesigns of the characters because they went away from a more stylized thing to a more. What would you say? I know what you're trying to say. Accurate depiction of like what the animals look like. Animal anatomy. More realistic. Sure. And I'm just like, who cares? I mean, they're anthropomorphic. They're not going to be. But I get what I get what you're saying. There's maybe just an additional level of detail, which necessitates the character designs being a little less cartoonish. But of course, Fox McCloud appears in the Super Mario Galaxy movie. So we're I'm the exercise today is look, they're going to make they're going to make a Star Fox property at some point. They're going to make a Star Fox. You know, you don't bring them in. To see him just one time only. It's funny how they spend so much time like justifying like Rosalina and like how she's connected and everything. And then Fox just like, he's just there. Hang out for all this other stuff. Not even a Nintendo character. He just shows up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But so we got Fox McCloud. He's played by Glenn Powell in the movie. And that got me thinking, who else could we be getting for the rest of his his his furry and otherwise friends? Is this AI him with the Glenn Powell with the the Star Fox jacket? No, this was something he posted. He posted him with a Star Fox vest. Yeah. That's what they announced him. Because apparently he campaigned. He went straight to Illumination and was like, I have to be. I have to be Fox McCloud in this movie. Wow. Which is cool. Good casting. And he does a great job of the movie. He's great at it. But I thought we could we could have a little fun casting his other friends. OK, great. So we're we're we assume Glenn Powell is going to be fixed in place. They're not going to replace the star replacing Glenn. And I here's the thing. Couldn't do it if I tried. I thought it was too good. Well, what's interesting is that you bring up the first character we got here is Falco, who's kind of this this a cock shore bird character. Yeah. Kind of akin to a Rita Rita in terms of character design. Yeah. It's kind of like this is almost a Glenn Powell sort of character. You know what I mean? Yeah, sort of brash and like I'm I'm overconfident. He's just he kind of has that same sort of affectation. But if he's not that, I think we go. I think we go full Italian and lean into the Lombardi. I think we cast a we cast a super Italian actor. Oh, really? Yeah. I think Roberto Bonini, Roberto. We have to cast somebody who's alive and contemporary. Roberto Bonini is dead. Oh, I don't know. But he's probably like 100 years old. Right. So I don't know much about Falco or many of these characters, honestly. Yeah. But Falco seems like he's really cool and maybe cooler than even Star Fox himself, who is cool. I kind of think what if we got Michael B. Jordan in here? I mean, Michael B. Jordan is is really cool. It just feels like it's one of those things where it's like he's I think you I think you should be up there as an option. I think and I think if you want to make him your option, I think that's great. I think the thing is, it's like just in terms of star power, he's more famous than Glenn Powell. I feel like yeah, you're right. You're right. But you know, if there's this sort of thing of just like, hey, he really wants to do it, then yeah, throw his ass in there. He loves video games. He likes anime. Well, you know, we're I kind of feel like we could maybe use this opportunity to redeem him with somebody he's been near planes before. What if we got Miles Teller as Falco Lombardi? Wow. So kind of an inversion. Yeah. Here he's not the lead. He's the he's the second in command. Yeah. I like that. That seems like it can be good. Yeah. And I think that's that's good buzz for the franchise. We got Miles Teller is Falco Lombardi. Who else do we got? I'm going to pick my pick for my pick for. Falco Lombardi is I just looked up a new Italian actors. This guy's name is very Italian, so I think I'll go with him. Libero de Renzio. OK, we'll go with Libero de Renzio. Let me see. Can I get a look at this? And you know what? There's I actually there's an issue. He died on 15th of July, 2021. So let's not let's not go with Libero rest in power. Rest in. Yeah. We'll instead go with a actor who is in World Wars, the Pierre Francisco Faviano. Wow. All right. Well, we'll go with him. Next on the list, we have Pepe Hare. Now, Pepe seems like a bit of a dweeb kind of to me. He's got his finger raised up. He kind of looks like he's sort of like a by the books, kind of like. Maybe he's getting after Falco and and Fox for being too crazy. Well, one thing I think that you should know about Pepe Hare, one important bit of context is that he's the most senior guy here. He is kind of like he he rolled with Star Fox's father. And then he kind of got out of the game and now he's there. So he's kind of like a again, we'll go back to the top gun comparison. He's kind of like we're top gun Maverick, where where Tom Cruise's status wise. He's kind of this this guy who was like, you know, back in the day was the thing. But now is just kind of there in a support role. He's also a widower, which is a sad. Oh, he has a dead wife. Yeah, much like a cranky Kong. Whose wife is a ghost. Yes, yeah, unexplained. The Pepe Hare is unfortunately, you know, flying solo. It is one of the funnier things that she that wrinkly Kong also extremely rude. Yeah, dies off screen. Dies off screen between games is just a ghost. Yeah, I mean, we know why he's so cranky. Yeah, no, no, no, don't tell them why his wife died. Yeah. I can't fuck a ghost. Oh, that's why you're mad. He kind of, I mean, he kind of to me. You know who crushed this, actually. Who's that? Past guest, Sam Richardson. Sam Richardson is good. I mean, I love Sam. He had anything he's great. We can put him on the board. I think just the thing is he like reads as he seems like maybe he's so much. Yeah, he reads is so much younger. And I just feel like it's kind of it's kind of tough. You know, if Gene Hackman was still with us, that'd be the kind of type. But I think I'm going to go a different direction. I'm going to pick Alfred Molina. Alfred Molina is always good, really good actor. That's fucking great. And I feel like he'd like to use a guy who likes comedy and can likes to corn it up sometimes. So I think he could play it pretty big here. I got another pitch in a similar age range, maybe a little older than Alfred. Alfred's probably what in his early 60s, maybe in the 60s, maybe. I'm going, this guy's a little older, 70s, maybe. What about William H. Macy? Love William H. Macy. And he can be funny, too. Yeah, he could. No, well, he is a funny guy. He's very funny. He's very funny and fargo. Yeah, he's great. All right, great. We got some good options. We got some guys. We got next we have Slippie Toad. Now look, I have to be Slippie Toad. OK, we'll just lock in Matt Apodaca for Slippie Toad. I have to do it. I just became aware of this guy. One, he's just like me for real. He's a little guy. He's wearing he's got a hat on. I think I could be him. Wow. I've done one cartoon. Let me be Slippie Toad. Here's something he says. Look, OK, I prepared this. Let me just close your eyes. Now picture me as a frog. I'm just a frog, ribbit, ribbit. Incredible. Do you realize how rare it is to experience a stable warp channel? Did you see the distortions? You can hear it coming. You can hear it coming out of a frog. Pretty good. Yeah. That's just a cold read. I think I think at minimum you get a call back and you're a finalist. I think the approach for Slippie and just just another way you could go, if if, you know, maybe the your availability doesn't quite line up. Yeah, in the same way they caught, they cast Colleen O'Shaughnessy in the voice of Miles Tales, Prower in the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, because it was the beloved voice for the cartoons. I think you get Lisa Brown, who did the the who was the voice actor in English for Slippie Toad, and just bring her back and just be like, because her work is so is so well known. And it's kind of a fun thing. Like, hey, we got this ensemble piece, but you know what? We brought to the back one of the originals. Yeah, it'll probably be like John Mulaney or Kevin Hart or some shit. Well, he's got he's got kind of a he's got kind of a voice, you know, like I can't do it, but it's like he's like he's a I think that that he would be like it's kind of a buffoonish character, too. So I like that his shoe is flat in the front. I do like that, too. I think you'll be I think, you know, I think they probably will cast a comedian. That makes a lot of sense. So maybe Apodaka is in pole position. Look, hashtag Apodaka for Slippie. Not really good. Wow. All right, let's keep going. Here we go. General Pepper. This feels like you can get Macy in here. Yeah, I mean, like I feel like Macy is well served in the other role. This this feels like a natural sort of fit for like a bokeh woodbine or a who's who's so effective at playing like a like military guys or like a Coleman Domingo. Coleman Domingo. I was also going to pitch out a J.K. Simmons, because he was like the kind of general pepper. Fuck yeah. It feels like he just come in and crush that. I also am just like this was my first time kind of looking at all these characters. General Pepper is a dog for people who aren't familiar. He's a dog wearing an admiral uniform, a general uniform, but it looks like an admiral. He looks fucking awesome. He looks great. All the characters in these games look good. He looks like a fascist furry. Yeah, he looks like M. Bison, but a dog. Those are those are great options to me. Yeah, we can we can move on to the next one. Now, Cat. Cat Monroe. I mean, look, these these the the cast is dude heavy. And I think we've got to get somebody in here who can hang with the boys. And I'm talking Scar Joe, baby. You know, Scar Joe feels like a pretty straightforward casting here. I think just to have another option on there, I think you look at the success of Wicked and you get like a, you know, either Cynthia or Eva or Ariana Grande. You know, I think you get one of them in here, one of these young. Yeah. You know, sort of a women with a lot of like momentum behind them right now. I think that's that's maybe one way to go. I heard that there was a well, there was a live. This was now. A year ago, but there was a live Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl where Cynthia or Eva was Jesus Christ in the musical. Yeah. And people were like, it was like the greatest performance I've ever seen of anything in their lives. Didn't didn't she also have a like a one person show where she played like every character in Dracula or something like that? I don't know. She seems fucking awesome. She's great. Yeah. Let's get Cynthia Arrivo as Kat Monroe. I also love that they all have first and last name. The character design is very, very horny. Oh, yeah. Just say they're going to pick Sydney Sweeney, you know. Oh, Sydney Sweeney is Kat Monroe. They could. Yeah. I mean, like I depends on how much they want to emphasize that. But, you know, she's a good actor. Yeah. All right. Let's keep going. Now we got James, the dad. Yeah, the dad. It looks like Joe Biden to me. I mean, who's Glenn Powell's dad? You know, maybe we get Biden in there. He kind of gives Joe Biden here. I say Joe Biden is James McLeod or even my real pick is actually because, look, James, I believe is dead in the games, right? Yes. I mean, it's like kind of like a yes. So it depends on the timeline, but yes, we don't need him for very long. We maybe need him for some flashbacks and maybe for some maybe some dream sequences where he's imagining things. His dad has said, I think we get we call up his old pal, T.C. get Tom Cruise in in for a day. Going to be James McLeod. Tom Cruise has never done animation or video games. Yeah. So if you did that, that would be huge. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a that's a great call. I think it's just like how plausible could it be? But I let let hey, we're we're Dreamcast and let's let's make it happen. I kind of think Glenn and him have the relationship where Glenn calls him up. It's like, hey, you probably won't do this. Yeah. And then Tom's like, I'll do anything for you, Glenn. You're my best friend. All right. So we've got Joe Biden and Tom Cruise are two options. And then I believe this is the last one. Wolf O'Donnell, who is one of the antagonists of this group. Star Wolf is an interesting character. He is also very horny. I think I'm going to pitch something to you. He's kind of like a yin yang of Star Fox. And we know that Glenn Powell likes playing dress up. I think you have him play Wolf O'Donnell as well. Star Fox and Star Wolf. And he just has a different voice. He said this is another yet another Glenn Powell disguise movie. Glenn Powell loves wearing disguises. He's putting disguises on and everything. This is this is a way he can do it. He can do it in an animation form. I got I have I have a pitch, but I think it's just because I love him and everything. Yeah. We got to get Vinicio Del Toro. I bet actually that's great. Vinicio's Vinicio's in. He would have a lot of fun with it. He's great. All right. We got this movie cast. Look, now just put. Let me be sleepy. Let me do it. I won't do it for that much money. I'll do it for like a little bit. What? Half of what Glenn Powell is getting. Sounds like a bargain as far as I can say. And you get to explain to everybody who I am. That was Sigma Dreamcast and that's this week's Get Played. Our producer is Rachelle Chan. Twitch.TV slash yard underscore underscore. Sorry, let me check my text real quick and did not receive a reply on that jolly beat. So it made her back her phone head gum. Staff. She's doing a trust fall right now. She doesn't have time for this. Our music is by Ben Prunty. Ben Prunty Music.com. Our artist by Duck Brigade Design Duck Brigade.com. And thanks to our guest engineer this week, Sam Rogich. Sam, anything you'd like to plug? Gucks been a couple of shows this summer. Check out for that. But other than that, thanks for having me, boys. Where's that? How can people follow Guck? At Guckband on Instagram. Awesome. Check that out. Get Played. Merchantkinshipgoods.com. And a bonus episode every Wednesday on our Patreon Get Played DLC. Matt, what are we doing this week? Oh, this week we're back to our old bullshit. We're at how did this get played? And we're doing the bad Star Wars fighting game. Star Wars, Masters of Teroscasy. This game is really bad. It's really bad. And we didn't like it. No. So if you want to hear us in pain, subscribe over at Patreon. Subscribe over at Patreon.com. Slash Get Played. That's right. And you know what? This week, Matt, Yosh got played. Yosh got played. Yeah, because it's like you got played but with Yoshi for a Yosh. Yosh got. Yeah, I have an all. Let me do that. I can't believe Yosh got played. You got Yoshied. How about that? Yoshi. That was a big piece of merch that they fucked up on this time. Last Mario's movie cycle. They had the You Just Got Luigi thing. Yeah. They needed to have You Just Got Yoshi. They needed the You Just Got Yoshi. But you know what? You, the listener, just got Yoshi. That was a hate gum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast That Was Us Now on Head Gum. Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive. Yeah. From our show, This Is Us. That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh? A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to That Was Us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.