Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season 12 of the Gaming Backlog book club. We just wrapped up season 11 about Ratchet and Rift Apart.

What have you been playing since finishing Rift Apart, Alex?

[00:00:12] Speaker B: Since we finished Rift Apart, honestly, not too much. I’m still going through Hades. I’m trying to get my first clear. I’m getting closer and closer. Very close.

[00:00:22] Speaker A: Progress is good.

[00:00:23] Speaker B: Yep.

But then really, to be honest, I haven’t had too much time to find another like single player, chill game to play by myself. So I’ve just played it online with some friends, some battlefield, because the new season came out, but otherwise, that’s it.

[00:00:38] Speaker A: All right, all right. I. I hear that.

I’ve been playing. I’m still playing control.

I think I’m around like close to halfway through it, but not quite there. And I’ve been playing the Star Fox remake as well. I’m a few runs into it.

I suppose it isn’t correct to call them runs because it’s not a roguelike, but it almost feels like it since I’m doing laps through the galaxy, taking different paths or routes through on my way to Venom to fight Andross. And then win or lose, you always end up back on Corneria.

So it’s essentially like a roguelike run.

Anyway, loved star Fox 64 as a kid and since this is just that with a fresh coat of paint, I’m having a fun time. I really hope they use the renewed hype around it to create an actually net new, fresh game in the Star Fox series though, because if not, they’re really missing an opportunity there.

[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I got some. I need to. Actually, that’s one I need to.

Need to get open. I have Star Fox. I do need to play that.

I’m still looking for like my game. I want to just play by myself right now.

[00:01:39] Speaker A: So it looks great, it plays great. And guess what? You can finish a single kind of lap basically in about an hour and a half to two hours if you’re, you know, have to dust off the.

Yeah, the skill set, you know, from being a kid. Because I don’t. I played a little bit of The Star FOX 64 3D on the 3DS or on my 2DS a couple weeks before Star Fox came out. And other than that, I have not played it since the actual N64.

So if you’re just as rusty as me with it, you know, you’ll get a couple hours out of it and if you want to keep going, you keep going. And if not, you just kind of roll on to another game, but finish Hades first. Oh, I will.

Perfect. So this season we will be playing two games actually in a Head to Head.

And after Rift Apart, we’re sticking around in the world of mascot platformers.

Although these ones are a bit more classic, you could say, across all meaningful aspects. So our head to head is going to be between Super Mario World and sonic the Hedgehog 2. And that is for a few reasons. They are both pretty short. Sonic and Mario were both console mascot rivals the entire time that SEGA was in the console wars at the time.

And they were both side scrollers, albeit with somewhat different gameplay.

This was of course, long before they eventually became buddies in each other’s games, like the Olympics games and Sonic appearing in Super Smash Bros.

And Also finally, Sonic 2 was my first video game I ever played when I received a Sega Genesis as a birthday gift.

And correct me if I’m wrong, Alex, but I think Super Mario World was one of the first games you ever played.

[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it was one of the first games I ever played. I remember at a friend’s house in their basement before I got my own Super Nintendo.

[00:03:32] Speaker A: Back in the day when you would go over to a friend’s house to play a game. Yep, because they were all physical copies and you could use them. That’s all we’ll say about that.

I for one never finished Sonic 2 and absolutely want to now because back when I was a kid I would play through the first handful of levels over and over again and you know, probably get distracted and. Alex, have you played sonic the Hedgehog 2 or any Sonic game for that matter?

[00:04:01] Speaker B: I have, I have, I have. No, I’ve never played sonic the hedgehog 2.

I tried like the first Sonic the Hedgehog a little bit, but again, I.

However long ago, a long, long time ago, but I’ve never fully like completed. Actually I think I did Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. I think that might be my one like main a long time ago. But otherwise, no. The original Sonic games, no, I didn’t really play them. I just watched the cartoon a lot as a kid.

[00:04:31] Speaker A: But yeah, he’s a great character. Yeah. Yeah, I guess also, you know, top it all off with the fact that Super Mario World is consistently being ranked as one of the best video games of all time, even to this day.

And it’s hard to not want to fully play through it, which I never did.

So, you know, now I know I said in our intro expectations episode for Final Fantasy 6 when discussing about games I’ve played on the Super Nintendo Classic that Super Mario World was going to be on my backlog for a lot longer because I’m not huge into Mario as the leading man in games, but here we are. I’ll eat my words now and take it back if I enjoy it, I guess is the caveat there.

[00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:05:14] Speaker A: So for background, if you somehow aren’t yet familiar with Super Mario World specifically or sonic the Hedgehog 2 specifically within their respective franchises, let’s give you a rundown.

Super Mario World released first in 1990, so we’ll cover those details. First released in 1990 in Japan and 91 in North America. Developed and published by Nintendo, it was widely acclaimed upon launch and it was the best selling SNES game ever.

The story setup, what there is of it, of Super Mario World is pretty bare bones, just as most Mario games are. You play as Mario, a plumber on a journey to save Princess Peach in a place called Dinosaur Land from a giant turtle with a spiked shell named Bowser and his Koopaling army.

It sounds kind of wild when you don’t see the image in your head.

[00:06:07] Speaker B: When you don’t see the image in your head.

[00:06:09] Speaker A: Just the bare description of it is very unusual. For someone that doesn’t know anything about this, the gameplay at a surface level is deceivingly simple. You can walk, run and jump. And while, yes, those are the core principles of movement and your base level skill set, Nintendo provided so much room for variety and a surprisingly diverse set of tools for creativity and how you reach the end of level goalposts.

The primary way to defeat many enemies is by jumping on top of them, even the ones with spikes somehow. But you can also get power ups that allow you to do things like grow to double your size, which allows you to survive two hits instead of one. Fly with a cape, soar through the air like a flying squirrel, shoot fireballs out of your hands, spin and jump to attack, and somehow become invincible to damage momentarily by touching a star.

Super Mario World also introduced the lovable rideable Mount Yoshi, the green dinosaur. Yes, in addition to saving Peach, you also save Yoshi’s multicolored other friends.

And there is in this game an overworld map structure like a board game, almost visually. And you move along and enter the different levels. There are multiple exits from each level, shortcuts and secrets galore.

You can also play in co op with player one as Mario and player two as Luigi, which is really just a green and white reskinned Mario.

[00:07:38] Speaker B: I don’t think.

I don’t think I ever did that with friends. I don’t think we ever played co op. I think it was just like we took turns.

[00:07:45] Speaker A: So and so if. Oh, you took turns as Mario. Right. So yeah, to what I can understand you. It’s still the same concept of just passing the controller between each other, but you have two controllers. You know, each person has a controller and you have. You take turns. Basically, one person dies in a level, it switches to the other person, but you’re Luigi.

Yeah, yeah, it’s fun fact.

Now technically, Sonic the Hedgehog one was the true competitor to Super Mario World as it was also released in 1991 in North America and was the first game of that console era.

But we’re going with Sonic 2 specifically because as I mentioned earlier, it was my first video game ever.

Sonic the Hedgehog one is a fantastic debut entry for the series though, which I played a little bit of in preparation for this season. And you should also play it if you haven’t before. I had played also sonic mania plus about 7 or so years ago if I had to guess, which was so good too and is just such a great success story because that was not created by Sega, it was an outside developer that got Sega’s blessing.

Now for the background here. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was developed by Sega Technical Institute and published by Sega in 1992, very quickly after Sonic 1 the year before due to how popular it was and the ability to sell Sega Genesis consoles very well.

Sonic 2 was also a critical and commercial success and helped solidify Sonic into the franchise. It is today with three major movies out and a spin off TV show. Even the story setup of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is that you play as Sonic, a blue hedgehog who can run extremely fast in his red shoes and try to stop the evil Dr. Robotnik, who of course like so many 90s villains was a mad scientist.

You had to prevent him from stealing the Chaos Emeralds to power his space station base called the Death Egg.

Yep, no additional explanation needed there.

Similar to Mario. None at all. It just makes sense.

At least to our five year old brains. It did.

[00:09:57] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it definitely did.

[00:10:01] Speaker A: So yeah, just, just reinhabit your prior self. Don’t, don’t overthink it.

Now the gameplay of Sonic 2 has you sprinting through levels at super high speed on maps with lots of roller coasters type designs full of loop de loops as well as long distance jumps and pinball like springs to launch you in the right direction. You collect golden rings which as you acquire them become a damage defense shield of sorts. Because if you get hit, your rings go flying all over. And as long as you collect one or many of those rings before you be are hit again, you’ll continue to survive.

So you just got to be quick on your toes when you get hit.

[00:10:40] Speaker B: Just got to be very quick.

Very quick on your toes. Yeah.

[00:10:44] Speaker A: Similar to Mario, you can jump on enemies to kill them, but Sonic adds some flair by doing a flip when he jump attacks.

This was also the game where the devs added the spin dash that lets you charge up a spin while standing still to get up to max speed very quickly.

Sonic 1 did not have that ability.

[00:11:03] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:11:04] Speaker A: Didn’t know that. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was also the introduction of Tails, who is a core memory of mine, probably of yours as well as a fan of the animated cartoon.

[00:11:15] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:11:15] Speaker A: Tails is Sonic’s sidekick. An orange fox with two tails that he can use as a helicopter. Propellers set to fly.

I thought that was the coolest thing since sliced bread back in the day.

And it’s still pretty cool.

[00:11:33] Speaker B: It is pretty cool. Yeah. I loved.

[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely, you know, instead of just making another hyper fast character, you can fly and it just gives that little bit of switch up to your co op partner.

Tails can be played by a friend in Co op by the way, which is always fun in Side Scrollers. So excited for that.

You might need to have someone play along with you.

[00:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:11:57] Speaker A: Outside of all that info, what do you know about Super Mario World specifically going into the game and what do you expect out of it?

[00:12:04] Speaker B: Well, I know, I just.

It’s hard to.

[00:12:07] Speaker A: I mean, there’s a laundry list, right? I mean you can. You can go on forever, I’m sure.

[00:12:11] Speaker B: But I don’t remember too much because I honestly, I have not played it since. Yeah, I was a kid, so that was a long time ago.

But I don’t know, I definitely remember sitting like running along with Yoshi and using his tongue to take out like they were like the little tall, spiky cactus villains that you could eat and then spit out and all this stuff.

[00:12:36] Speaker A: How. How Yoshi and Kirby for that matter are able to fit things that are way larger than themselves inside of their mouth to chew on is beyond me. But again, none of the rest of the stories of these games make any sense either. So if you look at it from a neutral real world perspective. So leave that at the door.

[00:12:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I don’t think I ever beat it as a kid. Just played, I don’t know, however many levels, but it’ll be fun now to go through it fully and actually beat it. And I know there’s not much of a story, but a little bit of a story. Like obviously as a kid, you’re just kind of running along and having fun with it. So it’ll be. Yeah, I’m excited to start it up and fully finish it as an adult.

[00:13:25] Speaker A: Right, exactly. I mean, so, you know, when I ask about Super Mario World specifically, I think we gotta take it within the broader context of. Right. We’ve both obviously been playing video games since we were very little kids.

[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:13:37] Speaker A: Knowing about the Super Mario franchise as a whole is essentially a given, considering that context.

You know, some people outside of that space can be forgiven for not knowing who Mario is or knowing who the character is, but not that, you know, that it’s a video game character. Considering the majorly successful movie from a few years back that’s getting, well, that has a sequel out already.

Same goes for Sonic the Hedgehog, who could be considered slightly more obscure in the grand scheme of things. Hasn’t been as ever present as Mario has, but still a known quantity thanks to his, you know, major success in movies recently as well.

But basically, if you know even the slightest bit about video games and haven’t been living under a rock for the last 30 plus years, you likely know who Mario is and also at least a handful of his universe’s characters.

[00:14:26] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:14:29] Speaker A: I also will take this one within the context of every other Mario game since then, you know, because I’ve played tons of Super Mario 64 as a kid when that came out.

[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:14:41] Speaker A: Even though I never fully finished that, I pretty much just ran around Bob on Battlefield and a couple of other levels and just kept doing those because that was so much fun.

You know, I played a bit of a game on, I think it was called Super Mario advance, which I think was a remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 when that came out, because it lets you play as Mario Luigi Peach and Toad.

And I did play all of Super Mario Odyssey when I first got my switch circa 2019.

[00:15:13] Speaker B: Odyssey. Odyssey was great.

[00:15:14] Speaker A: Odyssey was great. And everyone’s still waiting for the next game in that series, but they went and made Donkey Kong Bonanza. So, you know, I can be forgiven for digging longer.

But, you know, I, as I’m sure you did as well, of course played tons of Mario Party 1 and 2 on N64, the Switch ones more recently, tons of Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and a bit of Mario Kart World now, you know, a handful of the sports games because there are a ton of Them.

Not to mention the endless amounts of Super Smash Brothers 1 on N64, Smash Bros. Melee and Smash Bros. Ultimate.

So because of all that, I expect all of the classic enemies to show up here in Super Mario World. Goombas and Cheep Cheeps and whatever else. Yes, Yoshi is on the COVID So yeah, there definitely is an expectation to see a lot of Yoshi.

[00:16:09] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:16:09] Speaker A: And I don’t know if he’ll be in every single level, but hopefully because I’m a huge Yoshi fan.

Aside from that, I guess my only other note is I started up Super Mario World for the first time ever with my wife a few years ago. She’s an absolute fanatic of it. It is definitely in her top five games of all time. And she knows, remembers instinctually on every level that there is some secret over in some corner.

Wow.

She’ll just start.

She’ll just get to a spot or a screen and say, there’s something up above here, but I don’t know how to get to it. And then, you know, decipher how to do it. So, yeah, very ingrained. But that kind of goes with the territory of these old platformers where everything was hidden.

But yeah, she doesn’t remember the exact spot necessarily, but enough pass throughs of each level that she’ll eventually find it. Yeah, that’s what my experience was that time. But we didn’t continue past the first world that time around. So I just know she’ll be watching over my shoulder with some cryptic hints when I’m blazing through a level and just trying to survive, not find a single hidden doorway or platform or whatever. So I’m excited for that element of my experience coming up.

[00:17:21] Speaker B: That’ll be good.

[00:17:24] Speaker A: Now, what do you know about sonic the hedgehog 2 going in and what do you expect out of that?

[00:17:31] Speaker B: I know very little of the game. Like overall, I just know kind of just how, yeah, Sonic is fast and how sort of a Sonic game looks. Original plays. Yeah, it looks and feels.

[00:17:42] Speaker A: You’ll start at Green Hill Zone, which you may not know the name of, but it’s that first level with the, you know, loop, the Green Loop.

[00:17:50] Speaker B: I think I’ve tried it maybe a long, long time ago, back in the day, but it just. I never got past like the first area. But again, it’s.

It’s something. Yeah, I just. I’m sure happy to play.

[00:18:02] Speaker A: Okay. You’re going in essentially blind, which is great.

[00:18:04] Speaker B: I kind of am. For Sonic. Yeah, for Sonic too. Sonic was not, as I said, you got a genesis I did not. I had, yeah, Super Nintendo. And then.

[00:18:12] Speaker A: So we’re on both sides of the console wars here because I was very much. I did not have a Super Nintendo until I got the classic, you know, 10 years ago. So that, that’s a. Yeah.

[00:18:24] Speaker B: Between me and my friends when I was kids, it was just. Everybody had a Super Nintendo. It seemed like.

[00:18:29] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I had a Super. A Sega Genesis and loved it. And you know, my first Nintendo was an N64 and then followed that with a Game Boy Pocket, you know, the black and white version of the Game Boy Pockets. Those were fun. But yeah, I mean, I guess in middle school, at some point after the PlayStation and all the 3D kind of consoles were in their first generation, I did play a bunch of Z snes, the emulator, the ROM emulator to play some Super Nintendo games, but didn’t actually, you know, finish any of those. Except maybe Earth Band.

[00:18:59] Speaker B: I don’t.

[00:19:00] Speaker A: I don’t know if I even finished that.

Anyway, Genesis is great. It’s difficult and awesome that you’re pretty much going in blind to this game that’s 30 years old.

[00:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:19:12] Speaker A: So sweet.

I guess for me in sonic the Hedgehog 2, I’m expecting, yes, of course, to start in Green Hill Zone as the first Biome, which is definitely the most iconic of Sonic’s levels that has appeared many times over.

I’m expecting to move really fast.

I also obviously love Tails as a character as a kid, so taking a break to just fly for the fun of it sounds like the perfect blast for my past.

And then based on my more recent memory from Sonic Mania plus and the inspirations it took from the older games, I’m assuming there will be some kind of technological or futuristic or cyberpunk type level at some point as well.

With a bunch of flashing lights and a purple or black sky and that kind of thing.

So big imagery shift from green rolling hills.

[00:20:00] Speaker B: Green rolling hills. Yeah.

[00:20:02] Speaker A: I hope to be able to find enough secrets to be able to use the golden Supersonic that can fly around, but who knows? I don’t know if I’m that gonna comb through with enough of a.

What’s it called, Fine tooth comb to find that, but it is always fun to see that option.

I also know I’ll likely take way longer than I should to figure out the timing of landing a jump attack because the way Sonic spins while jump always threw me off for a while.

[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think stuff like that’s going to take me. It’s going to take me a little

[00:20:32] Speaker A: bit to it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment. Yeah. Because you can’t. You don’t hit. If I remember correctly, you don’t land the hit on the enemy in the upwards trajectory of your jump. It’s more on the downwards. So. But, you know, experiment to try that out.

Lastly, I hope it lives up even without the rose tinted glasses. And I’m super excited to finally fully commit to it and beat it, which I. I definitely didn’t back then.

Now here’s a question. Which one will you play first or will you swap between them?

[00:21:05] Speaker B: That’s so funny. I was gonna ask you that too. I didn’t know if that was something you were gonna ask.

[00:21:09] Speaker A: That’s a very curious and important thing.

[00:21:13] Speaker B: You know, it’s a good question because

[00:21:14] Speaker A: it’s very, you know, viable to. To play a bit and then swap over and play a bit. I will give you. Okay, actually, I want to know your regular answer first and then I’ll ask you. I’ll give you the quantifier qualifier.

[00:21:25] Speaker B: I. To be honest, I might, because it’s on two different, like for me, completely two different system. I might try and do like both sort of the same time. As in, like, maybe I’ll clear a world of Super Mario World and then go and try and clear like the first one is Super Mario World and then go and clear the first one in Sonic and then kind of go on. I might do that.

Otherwise, if I determine and I just am enjoying one more than the other after a bit of a start, I’ll probably just finish that one. More than likely, it’ll probably be like, I anticipate, probably finishing Super Mario World first.

[00:22:04] Speaker A: Okay, so you think you’re going to start with Super Mario World and then.

And then finish it first? Most likely, yeah.

[00:22:11] Speaker B: And probably finish it first. As I said, I might just do like the first couple bits of the world map, like a few of the areas and then move on to Sonic and then do a couple of theirs and then maybe go back and forth. But I’ll see how I hear you.

[00:22:26] Speaker A: So I might propose. So I have some background info here that’s very vague, I suppose, looking up on how long to beat Super Mario World.

And of course this is for people that have practiced this a lot, I think I’ve seen Super Mario World can take up to like 10 hours maybe if you do full exploration on how long to beat it. Says the main story is five hours, the main plus extra is seven and a half, and the completionist is nine and a half.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is.

Let’s pull it up here. Main story, two and a half hours main plus extra three hours completionist, three hours.

Okay. So might I propose that you play halfway through Super Mario World, switch to sonic2 and do all of it, and then go back for the other half?

[00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that. Maybe that’s not a bad idea. Yeah. Yeah, I might do that.

[00:23:24] Speaker A: Again, obviously this is all up to you and how you’re feeling in the exact moment that you’re playing it, so

[00:23:28] Speaker B: I didn’t know it was that short. Sonic 2.

[00:23:30] Speaker A: It is very short. Probably because he runs so fast.

[00:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah, probably get through it quickly.

[00:23:35] Speaker A: Which. Funny story. Apparently I read an article somewhat recently that for those Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Video Games, I think Nintendo put some stipulation in there that Sonic was not allowed to be faster than Mario in Justin.

So, you know, just like FIFA, they’re a little corrupt.

[00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:23:58] Speaker A: Anyway, I probably. I’m probably just going to go all in on playing Super Mario World to completion first just because I’ve only touched it for maybe an hour total before and then switch over to Sonic 2.

But you never know, that might change.

[00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:15] Speaker A: I think the other interesting question because these are so, you know, I mean, or I guess fairly widely available across different platforms. Where will you be playing them?

[00:24:27] Speaker B: So I can tell you, for Sonic 2, I’m 100% playing it on

[00:24:36] Speaker A: the

[00:24:36] Speaker B: Switch Online with the Genesis expansion because I do not have a Genesis mini.

[00:24:42] Speaker A: Okay. And you don’t have an old Genesis

[00:24:44] Speaker B: and I don’t have an old Genesis cartridge. All right. No, for Super Mario World, I have two options. I can play it on the Super Nintendo Classic, because I have that.

Or I could play it on the Super NT from analog with the original Super Mario World cartridge.

[00:25:07] Speaker A: The original Super Mario cartridge and controller. Which.

[00:25:11] Speaker B: And controller. Well, both, I guess, are still the original controller, obviously.

[00:25:15] Speaker A: Plus the original controller format. Yeah, yeah. But plugs into this new.

[00:25:20] Speaker B: I don’t know. I’m kind of curious on.

[00:25:22] Speaker A: Okay, well, here’s.

[00:25:23] Speaker B: I might ask people on Discord, like, what do you think I should do? What do you think I should. Should I do it?

[00:25:28] Speaker A: Let’s have a little vote.

[00:25:29] Speaker B: Should you play it? Let’s have a little vote. Like, tell me, should I play it on with the Super. The analog Super NT with the original car, or should I play it on the Super Nintendo Classic?

[00:25:38] Speaker A: All right, we’ll set up a poll.

But I think my question to you is, have you.

I guess, I think I know you’ve played a little bit of Something on the Super Nintendo Classic at some point. Have you used your analog at all?

[00:25:52] Speaker B: I have used it before, yes.

[00:25:55] Speaker A: For which games?

[00:25:57] Speaker B: Funny enough, Toy Story.

I played a little bit of that original.

There’s a game on there that I loved the movie back as a kid. It was called We Are Back, A Dinosaur Story.

And they had a game of that. I played that. Another one.

[00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah. My dinosaur movie as a kid was the Land Before Time. So I don’t know.

[00:26:15] Speaker B: It’s time to watch this too then. Another big one for me as a kid that I played a lot and then I bought was Mega Man Soccer.

[00:26:28] Speaker A: Mega man has a soccer game? Okay.

[00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah, Mega man has a soccer game and I love it. It’s so. It’s so good. It’s so fun.

Yeah.

[00:26:37] Speaker A: Okay. I’m definitely interested. I’ll look it up on YouTube.

Okay. Well, I mean, my vote, which I’ll put in the poll as well, is for you to use the analog, possibly because I’ll be playing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Classic, you know, just because it does feel like a disservice to play on a controller that is actually ergonomically researched and functional for adult hands and won’t cramp my hands.

[00:26:59] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:27:01] Speaker A: So I might as well use the one that causes all the problems. Also, after having played through a number of other games on the Super Nintendo Classic before the podcast, as well as Final Fantasy 6 on it for the podcast a few seasons ago.

[00:27:14] Speaker B: Yes, you did.

[00:27:15] Speaker A: It’s just a nice nostalgic throwback experience.

I always enjoy picking that classic controller up every once in a while.

I will also be playing Sonic 2 on the Sega Genesis Mini, which I don’t think I’ve actually booted up. It’s been sitting in a closet for a while.

If I’m going Super Nintendo Classic for Mario with the true to form Super Nintendo controller, I got to do the same for Sonic with the original Genesis controller and play like it did way back then.

[00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. If I had. I don’t know.

[00:27:45] Speaker A: Well, maybe if you order the. I think the Genesis controller is available through Switch Eshop. If you want to get Express delivered just for this.

[00:27:54] Speaker B: I was going to say if they deliver it pretty quick, then that might be. Yeah, maybe I might play it that way. I’ll look it up. I’ll look into it.

[00:27:59] Speaker A: It might be worth a shot. Then you can go play Echo the

[00:28:02] Speaker B: Dolphin, which I think I’m okay without that one.

[00:28:06] Speaker A: All right, all right.

[00:28:07] Speaker B: I know that was another Genesis Classic, but I don’t think that’s you know,

[00:28:10] Speaker A: I never played it unless I rented it once from Blockbuster. I never played it. But yeah, it doesn’t look supposedly it’s very difficult as well.

[00:28:21] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:28:22] Speaker A: As are so many games from back then.

[00:28:23] Speaker B: I was going to say a lot

[00:28:24] Speaker A: of games were Also, I find this kind of funny because we scheduled this season long in advance of finding this detail out, but that Super Mario Galaxy movie arrives to streaming next week here in the US on July 30, FYI, which I did not see in theaters despite enjoying the film well enough, you know, with having a toddler, and I’ll have to really pick and choose what’s worth seeing on a big screen. And it did not make the cut.

But you can be sure I’ll be watching that movie concurrently with our playthrough of Super Mario World just for peak immersion.

[00:29:01] Speaker B: Oh, I definitely will as well.

[00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess I should watch the Sonic 3 movie as well, which actually contains a hint at our next season buried within it without even trying actually as well.

Don’t spoil it though, I think I

[00:29:15] Speaker B: can’t remember if I’ve watched I’ve seen

[00:29:18] Speaker A: Sonic 1 and 2.

[00:29:19] Speaker B: I’ve seen the first two.

[00:29:20] Speaker A: I’ve not seen the third one which brings in third one.

[00:29:25] Speaker B: So the one that brings in Robotnikiri in.

No.

Oh, brings in Knuckles. No. Yeah, I haven’t seen that.

[00:29:33] Speaker A: I don’t know if that one. I don’t think it’s Knuckles or Shadow. One of them goes in two and the other one is not and the other one comes in.

[00:29:38] Speaker B: Oh, I think it’s okay. Maybe it’s. I think it’s Shadow because it’s Keanu Reeves.

[00:29:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense, I suppose.

Anyway, this little hint is not too difficult about our next season, but yeah, let us know listeners, if you immediately guess what it is.

Since these games are fairly short, but too long to complete both in one week, we’re actually going to do something slightly different from usual and play through both games over the next few weeks and reconvene then to chat and compare both games. So tune in next week for a very different episode, or join us in two to three to chat everything about Super Mario World and sonic the hedgehog 2.

And yeah, join us to find out if Super Mario World is still worth playing in 2026 and if Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is still worth playing in 2026.

And before you get started, let us know on Discord what your expectations are for both of these games. Before you start, we’re curious to hear your thoughts.

[00:30:36] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely looking forward to going down this nostalgic route and maximum nostalgia starting now, pulling out my inner child here to go through this.

I’m looking forward to this. This will be fun.

[00:30:53] Speaker A: So yeah, should be good time. Yeah, it definitely will be.

[00:30:57] Speaker B: Thank you everyone for listening and hope you guys are excited as we are to get started on some of these classics. So thank you and have a good one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of Native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.