Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog book club. We are here to chat about Super Mario World compared against sonic the Hedgehog 2.

And with that, we will be talking about both games in their entirety. We’ll also go through our final thoughts on the game as a whole.

And additionally, we are thrilled to have Mike and Jaymo from the old Switcharoo podcast on with us today to chat about Super Mario World and sonic the hedgehog 2.

Can you guys give us an overview of your podcast and what’s. What it’s all about?

[00:00:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. First of all, thank you for having us. This is going to be so much fun. Yeah, thank you.

Yes. Mike and I, we’ve been friends since kindergarten and we.

Mike, it was. I approached you first, right?

[00:00:44] Speaker C: Yes. This was your idea.

[00:00:46] Speaker B: Okay. For better or for worse, he’s like.

[00:00:49] Speaker C: This is.

[00:00:50] Speaker D: I was like, wait, did you mean you approached him first to be friends in kindergarten or first with you for the podcast?

[00:00:56] Speaker B: You know that I don’t really remember. I know. It was like we. We lived right next to each other just by coincidence. Like, we became friends on the playground and then learned we were like half a block away from each other.

So that. That made getting together to play video games really convenient.

[00:01:10] Speaker A: Game on.

[00:01:11] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely.

[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I think some of our best bonding was New Year’s Eve, right, Mike? It was Smash Brothers, mostly.

[00:01:20] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:01:20] Speaker D: Yeah, very nice.

[00:01:22] Speaker B: Smash brothers and Block Fort on Mario Kart 64. Those battles would go literally all night long.

So then, you know, when the Switch came out is actually kind of right around the time that Mike and I reunited as friends. And, you know, these games that we. I grew up playing and that some of them I grew up playing with Mike, you know, we can play them together online thanks to Nintendo Switch Online. So which brings us to our podcast. We are trying to research and review and playfully rib all 300 plus games that you get with a Nintendo Switch Online expansion and subscription.

And we’ve covered over a hundred games and had some really fun guests. And Mike, what am I missing?

[00:02:09] Speaker C: I think sort of basically the ultimate question is whether or not they’re still worth checking out.

[00:02:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, Claire, like, are they Nintendo’s? Are they Nintendo? But I remember what I was forgetting. What I think makes our podcast unique among the thousands of gaming podcasts is that you don’t have to worry about emulating games or buying old games on ebay to play along with the host. We are working through a set collection that. And games and games are never supposed to disappear from it. It’s not like Netflix, we’re like, oh, I gotta play this month. Oh, it’s not on there anymore.

[00:02:40] Speaker A: Right.

[00:02:40] Speaker B: With very rare exception. Once a game’s on there, it’s on there for good. So we invite anyone to play along with us.

And, you know, pretty much anyone can come on to the show as long as they subscribe.

[00:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it’s. And they keep adding weirder decisions to that. Like, it felt weird that they had the Sega Genesis on Nintendo Switch Online and now the Virtual Boy is there, which is Nintendo, but feels weirder.

[00:03:05] Speaker B: Mike called that shot, like six months in advance. He made a joke about, like, I’m holding up for Virtual Boy. And then they announce it.

[00:03:11] Speaker D: And then they announce it.

[00:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:13] Speaker B: That was one of our more interesting episodes from this season. Alex, you were just doing the Virtual Boy.

[00:03:18] Speaker A: You were just saying that you were tempted by it. Is it worth it?

[00:03:22] Speaker D: Guys, I was looking at the. Because they re brought out the VR headset or you can do. But put the Switch in. I was looking and I was like, it’s tempting, but I don’t know if I want to do it.

[00:03:33] Speaker B: I mean, we can talk about it later, but I’ve got a cardboard VR copy. Mike, you got the full thing?

[00:03:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

I don’t know what. They could have made one that was just nice and useful, and instead they did not.

[00:03:45] Speaker B: So it is authentic all the way down to the literal pain in the neck.

[00:03:51] Speaker D: Okay.

[00:03:53] Speaker B: The playing it requires. But you know what, though? I’m weird. Nintendo is my favorite Nintendo. It always has been.

[00:03:58] Speaker C: They didn’t give us a small controller.

[00:04:01] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, that would have been cool.

[00:04:03] Speaker A: That’s an oversight because all the other

[00:04:06] Speaker B: consoles, you can buy the actual recreations.

[00:04:09] Speaker A: Right, right.

[00:04:09] Speaker B: And that’s how Mike plays it. And also with our show, I play with modern conveniences. So rewinding and save states to try to beat every game. But Mike play is like they did in the 90s with handwritten passwords and no save states and an acceptance of failure.

[00:04:25] Speaker A: Okay, okay. So, Jamo, you’re the one that actually finishes for sure. And Mike, you finish when you can.

[00:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:33] Speaker B: And then finish for sure. I mean, it’s brutal sometimes. Some of these old games are very long.

[00:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, you know, what’s it called? Save State every time you pass a section.

[00:04:43] Speaker B: Well, thankfully they have rewind, so.

[00:04:46] Speaker A: Oh, rewind.

[00:04:47] Speaker B: You can rewind instantly on Nintendo Switch Online. So that is the only way I’m able to do some of these, like Echo the Dolphin and, you know, Contra. Those games are so hard that if it wasn’t instant rewind. I would never have the time to get to the end of them. But, yeah, I think I’ve beaten over 70% of all the games we’ve covered.

[00:05:04] Speaker D: Nice.

[00:05:04] Speaker A: That’s great.

And I mean, I think, overall. Right. Such a great plan and such a great kind of concept that you have on your podcast here.

[00:05:13] Speaker C: Thank you.

[00:05:14] Speaker A: And of course, it doesn’t hurt that you have a seemingly limitless selection of games to cover as well.

[00:05:20] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:05:22] Speaker A: What has been each of your favorites that you’ve covered on your show? If you can pick out of 100 plus.

[00:05:28] Speaker B: Uh, well, Mike, I’ll let you handle that because you. You’re kind of the keeper of the ranking list, I guess, is.

[00:05:34] Speaker C: Is the question in terms of games that are games that we played before or games that are new to us?

[00:05:43] Speaker A: I.

I think the question is, of all the ones you’ve covered on your podcast, what has been your fa. The most enjoyable to each of you?

[00:05:55] Speaker B: I think I know why Mike’s asking.

[00:05:56] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So, like, for me, my very top top one currently remains Pokemon Snap, which is a game that I played on the N64.

As soon as I got this same, I went and played it again and played through it. And then when we covered it, I played through it again because I really like Pokemon Snap.

Overall, like, we have a combined list, and the highest one on there that is a game that was new to both of us was Chibi RoboBo on the GameCube game.

[00:06:31] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:06:32] Speaker D: Okay.

[00:06:32] Speaker B: Makes me emotional.

Another kind of quirk of our show is that, if it’s not obvious already, like, I love Mike to death, but we are very different human beings.

So I love a good tier list. I love a good ranking list.

And, you know, Mike was a bit more hesitant because that kind of thinking doesn’t appeal to him because, you know, he doesn’t like that. Oh, we argue, but one of us is going to win out and it’s going to place somewhere on a ranking list. But that’s not necessarily how he feels. Right.

So halfway through our latest season, I talked him into, like, what if it was pure mathematical? What if we each had our own list and mathematically averaged our rankings together to make not Mike, not Jamo, but the. And in between.

And what’s funny about it is that Mike has some wild ones. Like his Sonic the Hedgehog spinball is, like, way too high on his list, and I like that game. To be clear, I’m a spinball defender. But, Mike, isn’t that your number three right now?

[00:07:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that game.

[00:07:32] Speaker B: Out of 150, it goes Mario Kart 64, like Sonic the Hedgehog, Spinball, and then one of the today’s games, sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Um, so I just. I don’t know. I love it. I love that our kind of different takes and quirkiness get combined into one cohesive list. That’s not a total abomination,

[00:07:54] Speaker A: right? Yeah. I mean, everyone has their own opinions, so it is interesting to see where. Where the combination ends up taking place.

[00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:03] Speaker A: So, yeah, I guess after following your podcast for a while, I had been hoping to have you guys on for this episode because we’ve been planning it for a while and because both of these games are obviously available through Nintendo Switch Online, and it would be right up your alley.

What are your backgrounds with these two games and the franchises they live within?

[00:08:24] Speaker B: Well, I mean, Sonic, I was a Genesis kid.

[00:08:28] Speaker A: Same.

[00:08:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And so Sonic the Hedgehog was incredibly important to my family and my brothers. And I like Sonic is when SEGA owners got to puff out their chest. You know what I mean?

[00:08:40] Speaker A: Absolutely. Not with Echo Dolphin.

[00:08:44] Speaker B: Mike and I kind of liked Echo, but not. It certainly does not have broad appeal, but, you know, every kid who only had a Super Nintendo wanted to play Sonic, and every kid who had only a Genesis wanted to play Metroid and Final Fantasy and Kirby. And, like, I feel like Nintendo had a lot more exclusive IP that made people jealous.

So Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has been huge in my life.

And then Super Mario World.

I hadn’t really sat down with it extensively until we did an episode on it with a friend of yours, right, Mike, who was our guest for that one.

[00:09:27] Speaker C: That one we had Dempsey from the Overthinking Games podcast.

[00:09:31] Speaker B: Thank you. Yes. Okay.

That was really fun. But Mike had you. You had played some of them before too, right?

[00:09:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So as much as JM talks about being a Genesis kid, I was basically an Atari kid that lived around the block from a Genesis kid.

[00:09:46] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:09:47] Speaker C: So much. And to be clear, that’s like the 2600. I was a left let me down system.

Hand me down system. Let me down is not quite right thing. Whatever.

[00:10:01] Speaker B: The Virtual Boys a let me down system. Hey, yo.

[00:10:06] Speaker C: Possibly several of Atari’s later systems too.

So for me, Sonic was very much a thing that, like, I played it as his house or I played it because Burger King had it back when they had Genesis set up there.

Um, so it. It meant, like, I was more familiar almost with the multiplayer such that it is than I was with with single player playing beyond about like Chemical Plant. Like that’s about as far as I could get at Jeremy’s house in a go. Is as far as I really saw.

[00:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah, love that though because like the two player mode in Sonic 2 is not something that a lot of people have played extensively. So would you and your younger brother play it together at Burger King?

[00:10:59] Speaker C: It was just. It was the only mode that it had. Like, I don’t know, like, I think it was like set up where it was. Like it was just. It was only on that. So even if it was just me, that was still what it was.

And then Super Mario World, I clearly have played somehow in some fashion a little bit because very early on I knew think to do things for about

[00:11:23] Speaker A: the first three worlds and I don’t

[00:11:24] Speaker C: know what exposure I had had.

It was one of the things where like, I know there’s a thing here. I don’t know why I know there’s a thing here.

And it doesn’t go very deep in the game.

[00:11:35] Speaker D: The.

[00:11:36] Speaker B: I mean, I’m sure we’ll get to it. But the map screen of Super Mario World, you can pick your path. And Mike knew to go left first,

[00:11:46] Speaker A: huh? Yeah. I mean, you got some muscle memory from a moment you don’t remember.

[00:11:52] Speaker B: You blocked it out. Some horrible thing happened while he played Super Mario World.

Oh, God, I hope that’s not true, Mike.

[00:12:00] Speaker C: I mean, here’s the thing. I don’t know that that’s true.

[00:12:04] Speaker B: It just easily could be true.

[00:12:07] Speaker C: But. Yeah, and so Mario is a franchise that I have the familiar as a broader franchise. The familiarity that comes with everybody that had Nintendo had something like that and not really playing any of them heavily until like renting an N64 and playing Mario on that later.

[00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I want to say my first Mario experience might have been on Game Boy advance, actually. Wait a minute. That was the GameCube area. No, sorry, it was everything on N64.

[00:12:42] Speaker D: But.

[00:12:44] Speaker A: But I think the first 2D Mario experiences I had were primarily on Game Boy advance rather than the Game Boy, which didn’t have as many. I think I was wondering if we’re

[00:12:53] Speaker B: going to get into that because we talked about it when we covered Super Mario World on our show. But the Game Boy advance version is interestingly different.

[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven’t. I don’t think I’ve tried this. Like I. I was playing the first Super Mario advance, which I think is a remake of Mario Bros. Two, if I’m not mistaken.

So I remember having that. Anyway, that’s a whole other discussion. Right.

[00:13:16] Speaker D: But okay.

[00:13:17] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think everyone has a similar experience.

Most people were either a Genesis kid or a Super Nintendo kid. I was definitely in the Genesis side. Alex, you were on the Super Nintendo. Yeah, there you go.

And I remember, I think I had very minimal Super Nintendo experience. I played a bunch of Kirby Superstar at a friend’s house and maybe a couple other things, but that was really it.

So it’s good to finally play through this.

I have another question for you that’s not related to Mario or Sonic specifically, and it doesn’t necessarily have to relate to Nintendo or anything on Switch Online either. What would you both say are your biggest offenders? As in the games you somehow still haven’t managed to play from your backlog, even though you know and everyone tells you they’re too good and you should play them immediately.

[00:14:04] Speaker C: I bought. I’ll go. I’ll start. I bought Skyrim years ago because it was like $4, and I have never even installed it.

Like, I may well have owned that game over a decade at this point.

[00:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I.

[00:14:22] Speaker C: And.

[00:14:22] Speaker B: But your Steam library is enormous. Like, that is probably other heavy. There’s probably other heavy hitters on there that you haven’t touched. But you’re like, well, people say this is good and it’s $2 right now.

[00:14:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Back. Back in that era where Steam sales would be wild.

But that. That one feels like the largest one of, like, how have you not.

[00:14:45] Speaker B: So I got one, and it’s. It’s. It’s embarrassing. And I’m like, mad you ask because I didn’t know you were gonna ask this, but I feel like I have to be honest.

So Genesis Kid Transitioned into Sega CD Kid into 32X Kid. Like, I was a Sega Lifer.

[00:15:02] Speaker A: Oh.

[00:15:02] Speaker B: Like, my family played all of them, even the consoles that didn’t really deserve our time, but was cool because, like, each of them had some really neat games.

[00:15:10] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.

[00:15:12] Speaker B: You know, that. That I think the average person has never touched. But that then transitioned to becoming a Dreamcast kid. And the Dreamcast was like my favorite console for Dreamcast. Right, Alex? So good.

[00:15:24] Speaker D: The Dreamcast.

[00:15:25] Speaker B: It was a special moment. I mean, especially for Sonic fans, because we had wanted a 3D Sonic game.

Alex had been what I felt like

[00:15:35] Speaker C: over a decade long time.

It was a Sonic game.

[00:15:40] Speaker B: Will you talk about Sonic 3D blast?

[00:15:42] Speaker C: Probably. That’s the one with the birds.

[00:15:47] Speaker B: So there was a canceled, like, kind of almost Crash Bandicoot perspective Sonic game for the Saturn called Sonic Blast, and it was never released, but that’s one of the most infamous vaporware instances. But anyway, my point, though is that I became a Dreamcast kid and. Alex, did you mess around with Shenmue?

[00:16:06] Speaker D: No. That’s one on.

[00:16:09] Speaker B: That’s yours.

[00:16:10] Speaker D: Huh? Yeah.

[00:16:12] Speaker B: Shenmue was so revolutionary because it was like the first game to actually be an open world in the way that we mean the term now.

And this was, you know, in the early aughts, but this, the series was infamously unfinished. Crazy cliffhangers. The wait for Shenmue 3 was decades long and it is out. And I’ve only played it for like an hour because it’s not very good.

But I need to finish it.

[00:16:37] Speaker C: You know what I mean?

Is that where Val stole it

[00:16:44] Speaker D: from?

[00:16:44] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:16:44] Speaker C: Well.

[00:16:45] Speaker B: But they did make it eventually. I don’t think we’re ever going to get Portal 3 or Half Life 3.

[00:16:49] Speaker A: Oh, I mean, I guess Half Life Alex portrayed. The VR game is supposedly very good, but very hard to. You know, you have to get an entire setup just for that.

I won’t be doing it, unfortunately.

[00:17:02] Speaker B: There’s a way where you can like stream your Steam library to your. To a rival headset. I have a meta quest, so I might. I might take the plunge and see if it runs well enough.

[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s. You know, it’s funny that you mentioned Skyrim Mic as well, because I’ve also had access for maybe 10 years to, I think, a PlayStation free version of it. Don’t know which of the many, many editions, but the only version of Skyrim that I’ve played was about 20 minutes of the Alexa, Amazon Alexa version of Skyrim.

[00:17:37] Speaker B: Voice command.

[00:17:38] Speaker A: Voice command. It’s basically just.

There’s a very funny trailer for it or commercial that they put out for it. And I was like, all right, I’ll give Skyrim a shot. Why not?

[00:17:49] Speaker B: And so she just. Is Alexa just describing what’s. It’s almost like a radio drama kind of thing.

[00:17:54] Speaker A: It’s like a. It’s like a, you know, like an old goosebumps. Choose your own adventure story. But as a, you know, from Alexa.

[00:18:01] Speaker B: All right, I’m into it.

[00:18:03] Speaker C: Yeah. I will say prior to our show, I feel like the fact that I’d never played anything from the Zelda franchise probably was the biggest shock to anybody else.

[00:18:16] Speaker A: This is. Yes, I will agree with that statement, especially considering you’re Nintendo themed and everything.

[00:18:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Although I.

[00:18:25] Speaker A: Wait, please tell me you at least used Link in Smash Bros at least one time. Maybe Ganondorf.

[00:18:33] Speaker C: I mean, I don’t think I played a Smash Brothers that had Ganondorf.

[00:18:37] Speaker A: Oh, all right.

[00:18:38] Speaker B: But you played Melee. I think we played melee a bit. I, I remember specifically you preferred the original.

[00:18:44] Speaker A: As, as long as you’ve used Link, then you’re in good shape.

[00:18:47] Speaker B: He has.

[00:18:47] Speaker A: We’ll count it. We’ll count it.

[00:18:48] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:49] Speaker C: I mean, I, I, I, at least I knew which one Zelda is, which I feel is something I am def. My words definitely are much more PC gamer than console gamer because it was a lot easier to incrementally improve a computer to be able to play some games.

[00:19:06] Speaker A: Very true.

[00:19:08] Speaker B: But it’s also, as our friend Riri yells from Twitch, she’s one of Mike’s best friends and she’s a Zelda streamer. And so she points out that it was actually kind of rare that Mike gets to play them in release order because pretty much the only people who’ve ever done that are people who are, like, old enough, you know, to have

[00:19:23] Speaker A: actually done it in real time. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:25] Speaker B: But Mike has just somehow avoided it for so long that it’s like he’s back in time.

[00:19:31] Speaker A: Wonderful.

Well, okay. Yeah, thanks, guys. We set the stage here. Now, it’s funny because when I first brought up to you about joining us for this episode, Jamo, I think your candid reaction was something along. Along the lines of, am I supposed to believe these are games that are in your backlog? As in, you never tried either of them.

And yes, Jamo agreed. I’m still in shock they stayed there this long, but we finally brought justice and order to the world.

[00:20:00] Speaker B: Both of them is surprising. I feel like most gamers have encountered one or the other, but that you were, you were still a virgin on both these games is actually also pretty unique.

[00:20:10] Speaker A: So. Okay, I think there’s a tiny bit of clarification where we.

I had touched Mario World for a couple hours, but never finished it.

Alex, I think you said you played as a kid. I think the Hedgehog 2 was my first Mario game ever.

Mario first base just touched.

[00:20:29] Speaker B: Look, nothing happened. We just touched.

Mike’s being Mike.

[00:20:38] Speaker A: Exactly. So. Exactly. You know, you can’t go. There’s nothing to say.

[00:20:45] Speaker B: Way to make it weird, Mike.

[00:20:53] Speaker A: Alrighty. Well, reminder everyone. We do go into spoilers in this episode for both Sonic 2 and Super Mario World.

Despite the fact that there isn’t really much of a story here, we’ll be chatting about various pieces of gameplay from the beginning to the end.

So if you are like us and somehow still haven’t managed to play through either one of these games and want to avoid Gameplay or those light story spoilers. Go ahead and finish both games before coming back to this one.

Final Two.

[00:21:21] Speaker B: Won’t take you that long.

[00:21:22] Speaker A: It really won’t. We both did it in a day. I think both did it.

[00:21:25] Speaker D: I did it this afternoon.

[00:21:29] Speaker A: Exactly.

Says a lot, but it was great.

Alex.

[00:21:33] Speaker B: Mike, did you ever reach the end of it?

[00:21:36] Speaker C: No.

There’s a bit at the end that I find really, really tough, so I can get to almost the very end.

[00:21:43] Speaker B: Metal Sonic.

[00:21:44] Speaker C: Yep.

But I lose all my lives right before there.

[00:21:50] Speaker A: Well, and then the no Rings challenge at the end doesn’t help either.

[00:21:54] Speaker C: Brutal.

[00:21:56] Speaker D: That was mine.

[00:21:59] Speaker A: All right. Alex, did you play it sounds like Super Mario World first?

[00:22:03] Speaker D: I did. I played Super Mario World first. Yes.

[00:22:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I don’t think you can squeeze in Super Mario World today. This afternoon after Sonic 2.

[00:22:11] Speaker D: No.

[00:22:13] Speaker A: So, yes, let’s chat about Mario first. And let me just start off by putting it out in the open that I am very, very bad at this game.

I, I, I don’t know what it is specifically, since I’m actually pretty proficient with precision platformers and enjoy the hell out of them, actually, especially some of the modern ones. But I really struggle to get a grip on how to control Mario here.

Like just, just something as simple as jumping a reasonable distance and then also not sliding off the edge of the platform I was landing on.

[00:22:49] Speaker B: Yeah, but you had said that. So you played the SNES version.

[00:22:54] Speaker A: Yes, I was playing this on the Super Nintendo Classic, which is that micro sized, you know, HDMI version of a Super Nintendo with 20 something games on it.

[00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah, because one thing that Mike and I discovered when we covered this game for our episode is that we both prefer the Game Boy advance version for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the controls.

The fact that you utilize the shoulder buttons for running, I believe.

[00:23:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Instead of using Y here, which is like putting your finger on two buttons at the same time.

[00:23:31] Speaker B: And that’s okay.

[00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s not terrible. You get used to it.

[00:23:33] Speaker B: But, but the problem though is that you can’t do the spin jump without moving your whole thumb.

Um, so the Game Boy advance gets around that by utilizing the shoulder button. So I also found the Super Nintendo version hard to control at times.

And it’s weird because like the, the trigger buttons were there on the Super Nintendo. They could have done this.

[00:23:53] Speaker A: They really weren’t used for much.

[00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I read somewhere and this could totally be 2026 fake news or something. But like, I, I remember someone saying that, like the durability of the shoulder buttons on the SNES controller were not designed for being pressed a lot.

[00:24:08] Speaker A: A lot.

[00:24:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is why the devs shied away from it being like major functionality on a lot of games.

[00:24:15] Speaker D: Okay, I could see that.

[00:24:17] Speaker A: That makes sense. But then why put them on the thing in the first place? Well, I mean, you know, occasionally that’s true. Okay, okay.

But, yeah, you know, I now I want to play the Game Boy advance version because Mario in this is just so simultaneously floaty, but also heavy as a boulder somehow. And it really threw me off.

[00:24:40] Speaker D: Yes.

[00:24:41] Speaker A: And then even if I knew exactly what to do in a particular section, I would do things too fast and massively screw it up.

[00:24:49] Speaker B: But Mike, though, this is one of the ones you beat legitimately for our show.

[00:24:54] Speaker D: Indeed.

[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:56] Speaker C: Although much of that relied on the fact that since I streamed this at some point, someone decided to put me out of my misery.

[00:25:03] Speaker A: In what way?

[00:25:05] Speaker C: So I had gotten stuck on a level fairly deep in.

Forget which. Which one offhand, where you have to. Like when you go across the level, there’s like a couple different.

Like you load into a couple different stages, and depending on what’s happened in each of those stages, you get a different version of the next one where it’s like, if you get through this fast, then this. The middle stage is easier or harder. And whatever course I was doing on that and it was leaving me in like a version that was a lot of platforming I couldn’t get through.

And it turns out where it’s like, oh, if I had collected two less coins and then done it two seconds slower, then it would have put me on a different track. And I don’t.

It was weird. I didn’t know any of it until after.

[00:25:57] Speaker D: I did not know that was a thing.

[00:25:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it. It’s not like it’s a normal mechanic, so it throws it in on this one. And it was like I was just. And I think it’s worth. Like I was just getting really good at doing this first one and it’s like, oh, if I change that up, I would have been on like a different second section.

And. And then someone in chat was like, hey, are you familiar with the Star Road? Or whatever? And I’m like, no, please go on.

And they guided me to get onto that to basically skip my way to the end.

[00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Because the Star Road is a series of ultra challenging levels, but if you can do them, it. It ends the sequence of like 5 levels, ends at Bowser’s Castle. Right, Mike?

[00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that sounds. That sounds Right, Yeah.

[00:26:48] Speaker C: And so that got me to there and then it was a lot of going through the last bit, but I was at the last bit. So proud of you.

[00:27:00] Speaker A: Hey. And you did it the legit way. I mean. So basically what you’re saying though, it sounds to me like Twitch streaming on Twitch is essentially the modern day version of calling a Nintendo hotline.

[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:27:13] Speaker C: Pretty much a huge chunk of games I have only gotten through because someone shows up in chat and I was like, oh, you should do this. Like the Legend of Zelda games that I have beaten would never have happened on my own.

[00:27:25] Speaker B: But you know what’s interesting though is that something I get no, no shortage of grief for doing is, you know, we talked about it before the rewinding.

[00:27:33] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:27:33] Speaker B: That’s how I. That’s how I get to the end of so many games. I’ve beaten over 70% of all the games we’ve covered.

But when I first started playing Super Mario World for our show, I was very confused and very crestfallen because I was like, some people say this is the best Mario.

This is like limp. This is weird. The pacing is all off this. I almost don’t like this. And then I had this thought of like, is the rewinding ruining it? And it a hundred percent did.

These levels are so meticulously designed. That’s true to be learned and mastered that if you don’t go through the process of doing it right, the fun is gone.

[00:28:17] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:18] Speaker A: I mean at the very least it, you know, now you can kind of meet that middle ground of not having to.

To fully go like re up all your lives by just putting a safe spot or whatever. But yeah, the rewind maybe is a little overkill for some of these maybe.

[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:28:34] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:28:35] Speaker C: I think that’s perspective was actually one of the things that I liked about the playing as the Game Boy advanced version was the spots that you can save are more common and I think the checkpoints were.

Might have also been slightly more generous. So it was okay for me, just a little bit more forgiving.

So it’s still redoing a lot. But it wasn’t that sense of.

Because I think in the original it’s like only at like the castles and something else that you can say about.

[00:29:05] Speaker A: So it’s like multiple levels frequently and you have to, you know, either know where they are or go back to a secret room to get more 1 ups. So it’s. Yeah, it’s pretty grueling if you just go all in the OG way.

[00:29:18] Speaker B: But the Game Boy advance one, though, it goes even further than what Mike mentioned. They. The checkpoints and the levels.

You can go from the map screen to the checkpoint, like your checkpoint saves.

So once you get halfway through a level, you don’t ever have to do the big first half ever again.

And it was like, that’s really generous. That’s what modern games are. You don’t replay things in modern games. You kind of brute force your way to the end. And you can do that in Super Mario Advance.

Let’s see. Super Mario Advance 3, Super Mario 4, I think is what it’s called.

So janky. So janky.

[00:29:56] Speaker C: Yeah. I think it’s handhelds have had.

Have in general gone better for me because I feel like they had to be slightly more forgiving because they knew that they were trying to sell this to people who are trying to play on the go.

[00:30:11] Speaker D: Right.

[00:30:12] Speaker C: Or would have batteries die.

[00:30:15] Speaker A: Right, right. This is a good point. Yeah. I mean, I think there’s just nothing that kills my soul more than proving that I can get past this section 50 times. And then, you know, you get screwed up a second later because there’s something off screen that shoots you.

[00:30:29] Speaker D: Yes. Yep.

[00:30:32] Speaker A: But I mean, I think also some of my best moments in this were where just sheer gaming instinct takes over, and you just make it through a stage by sprinting at full speed and just jumping.

[00:30:44] Speaker D: Yep.

[00:30:44] Speaker A: Not sure how I pulled those off. Your guess is as good as mine.

[00:30:47] Speaker D: Yeah, I had a few of those, too.

[00:30:49] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:30:50] Speaker B: It is uniquely thrilling.

[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:30:53] Speaker C: I think I draw more is less the, like, that side of it and. Because one of the weird things that this does is how some levels have multiple exits so that you.

[00:31:06] Speaker A: Many, many, many of them do. Yeah.

[00:31:08] Speaker C: Yeah. And so there is a little bit of that I find satisfying. I’m just going through a level and you think that’s a thing. I don’t know how I’d get to that yet. But that. That’s something about that tells me that’s the thing that I need to get to somehow for a different exit and kind of picking up those clues rather than just, oh, I just kept going. Right. And then it was done.

[00:31:30] Speaker A: Right. Which, I mean, I think when you’re playing a 2D Mario for the first time and you have some context. Right. Because we’re in 2026 and people have heard of Mario, but you don’t necessarily know that there’s more to it than just go. Right.

And there’s so much more.

[00:31:46] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:31:47] Speaker B: The sheer number of secrets in this game is staggering. And like you guys recently had an episode about strategy guides. You, you, you would want the Super Mario World strategy guide. You wouldn’t really need it for Sonic, right?

[00:32:02] Speaker D: No.

[00:32:03] Speaker B: And so that, you know. But the, the, the explorability is maybe unrivaled. I struggle to think of a 2D game that isn’t just like a Metroidvania, where secrets and exploration are so pivotal to the game’s appeal and to the strategy of getting to the end of it. And such a wide variety of secrets like Mike is talking about. Oh, this level, if you beat this section quickly and this section slower, you’ll get to this third section. They didn’t need to do that. But someone at the Nintendo offices had a cool idea to make a very unique, you know, instance for these players.

And then, you know, it became such a thing to share with people and to buy strategy guides and look it up online. Like, it’s just, it’s such a rich game in terms of looking under rocks and seeing what’s there.

[00:32:51] Speaker A: Totally. And that concept is sort of the inspiration a bit about our podcast even existing. Right. It’s like going to the playground the next day at school after you got through a section and sharing with your friends what you found out or something that you ran into that is like that quintessential moment of growing up that we trying to grab onto again.

But, yeah, I mean, I, I go ahead.

[00:33:18] Speaker C: I think the other interesting bit with this, with the Mario game that I think is kind of of note, there’s someone has a YouTube video that kind of dissects how Mario games often have difficulty settings, so to speak, but they’re not done in a traditional way.

The idea that you have a beat the game the easy way and beat the game the hard way, and it’s all done in game design.

And so I think, like, what does set this back apart from something a Metroidvania that has. Oh, it has all these paths and you have to do all of them. Because that’s the point is this has all these levels and you do not have to beat all of those levels.

You can, if you would like to. There’s plenty of people who make it a point of like, I’m going to beat all them. I’m going to find all the exits.

But you can get to the end of the game without having to do that. And it’s the same thing of you’ll get on the N64 where it’s like, there’s this many stars and you don’t need that many stars. You can get that Many stars, but you don’t hit, you’re less likely to hit a spot of I can’t do this one thing. I can’t beat the game.

[00:34:35] Speaker A: Right? And so I think, yeah, I, I mentioned in the intro episode for this.

My wife loves this game to death. She played it endlessly as a kid. And so I actually played it this time around in co op with her since it just seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

But since she’s played it so many times, there was a very real option to just kind of get coasted through or carried.

So she just let me do the major important levels and bosses in the early sections and we both try each one. But really, basically once you get to a certain point, whenever there was a secret she knew about and I just blew right past it, she would take that route on her version of the run and I would just go to the exit and she would like go up high in the sky and say, hey, there’s something over here now.

[00:35:30] Speaker B: I mean we’ll, we’ll get into it, I’m sure with Sonic 2 more. But the two player mode in Super Mario World is turn based.

[00:35:36] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

[00:35:38] Speaker B: But so, but so do you share your progression? Like if she beats a level and then you. And she dies and it’s your turn, can you now go to the next level because she beat the previous one.

[00:35:47] Speaker A: Correct. You can. Oh, okay. So, so right. Because like you mentioned, there are keys you can find, there are different routes you can find. You can go up onto the clouds and find whatever El health.

And sometimes it just opens up a different path. Right, and sometimes it opens the same path, but either way the, the level has a cleared state no matter who you are.

[00:36:10] Speaker B: Do you switch when someone dies or when someone beats a level?

[00:36:13] Speaker A: Either one.

So you, you die, it switches to the other person. You beat the level, it switches to the other person.

So I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s well implemented, I would say because it was always, you know, back in the day, like your little brother wants to play. Well, just give him the other controller, he’ll die in two seconds and then you gotta keep going.

So I, you know, they did a fairly good job with it. I have a bit more commentary on that when we get to Sonic 2. But, but you know, it, it does, it does the job here.

[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s cool. Because I feel like a lot of turn based two player modes sucked because if someone was good, you’re sitting there for 40 minutes waiting for them to die and then, oh my God. Finally, it’s my turn. But that they, they switch players after every level, I think is actually a very subtle but interesting different way to do it. Like Ghouls and Ghosts two player mode was not that clever.

[00:37:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you have the benefit of it being Nintendo. You have the benefit of being Mario. They want everyone to have the fair shake in it and, but so, hey, I appreciate it because otherwise I would be telling you about what I saw in Mario World instead of what I played.

But yes. So my wife would just basically go off into the distance treasure hunting, and I would just keep moving along the standard regular boring levels, boring by comparison.

But by the last couple of worlds, I was really just content doing those main progression stages and repeating them 20, 30, 40 times until I passed. And then she would be off doing like five Star Road levels at the same time.

[00:37:54] Speaker B: None more righteous.

[00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah, good stuff.

Alex, how did you feel about the sort of the progression and the difficulty? Honestly?

[00:38:04] Speaker D: Yeah, the difficulty, yeah. Definitely not as young as I used to be.

I was in a nice way. Say I told Mario a lot to lay off the pizza.

I was, I was.

Yeah, I, I’m not gonna lie. I have not been this frustrated in a game in a long time playing. It just, it really hit me of like, damn, this was a lot harder than what I remember. This is hard.

[00:38:38] Speaker C: Did you suggest to, like, the normal route or did you try and use the Star Road?

[00:38:42] Speaker D: I, I, so I unlocked the Star Road, but I tried a little bit of a level and then I was like, nope. And I went back. And Andrew can attest to this, I went back. It was in the illusion of forests or whatever, where I unlocked the Star Road and, or Forest of Illusions, whatever it’s called. And I was kind of stuck because I had to get a secret key to move on to open the path down to the next area. And I wasn’t like Super Mario. I didn’t have the cape.

So I had to like, replay a level. And luckily I was playing on the Super Nintendo Classics. I like, replayed. And like, the second I got the cape, I would just hit the reset button on the Super Nintendo Classic, hit

[00:39:22] Speaker A: a safe point, like a save state,

[00:39:24] Speaker D: and then play through the level. And then whenever I got ever a little bit further, I just, I just save stated it every little bit so that I can make sure I got to that point with it so I could get the key. But.

[00:39:36] Speaker B: Well, this will drive you nuts. Then the Game Boy advance version, you have like a little inventory of items. So if you’re like, oh, I need the cape. I don’t need to go back 20 levels and play the level that had the cape in it. I can just open my menu, equip the cape and dive in.

[00:39:50] Speaker A: Wait.

[00:39:50] Speaker C: I think it would also let you leave a level.

So you could go into a level, grab it and then leave. So I had levels where I was like, that would have been going, I’m going back to that level, get what I need and exiting this level.

[00:40:04] Speaker A: Now that’s. Now that is why they invented the term quality of life enhancements.

Geez, that’s crazy.

[00:40:11] Speaker C: And you also hear Mario. Yeah, same thing.

[00:40:14] Speaker B: Sorry Mike.

[00:40:15] Speaker A: I don’t know how I feel about that.

[00:40:17] Speaker B: Oh, no, you don’t.

[00:40:19] Speaker D: Like, was still Charles Martin Day though, right? Back then?

[00:40:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just, just, you know, obviously it sounds like it got much better for the advanced version, but the Super Nintendo version was just for such a supposedly family friendly franchise. This is like banging your head against the wall difficult.

[00:40:40] Speaker D: I was not speaking family friendly for most of the time. I was playing through it. Let’s just.

[00:40:44] Speaker A: So, so here’s again where the benefit of, of playing in co op.

My wife very early on in the Donut island unlocked this secret room that basically just had five blocks in it. It had a Yoshi, a mushroom, a fireball, and two feathers. And so it was a long hike to get back there from the end stages, but at least I could re up on things. And if you got all the items and a Yoshi, you could go back in as many times as you want to get one up. So I would just go and like leave the room, come back maybe 20 times to pick 20 lives up, and then go back and try again.

[00:41:20] Speaker B: And then there’s also a collectible that’s being tracked, these dragon coins. These coins with Yoshi on it. They haven’t even talked about Yoshi. Yeah, the Yoshi coins and the Game Boy advance version would display when you go from map to map, it would show you how many of the coins you’d found and like which one you’d missed.

[00:41:37] Speaker A: So, you know, I, I never figured out what they were doing. What do you get out of the Yoshi coins?

[00:41:43] Speaker B: That’s my just points.

No, it’s how you unlock the different color Yoshis, I believe.

I don’t.

[00:41:50] Speaker C: Oh, I don’t remember what they did.

[00:41:52] Speaker B: Pretty sure it’s the different color Yoshis because at the, the very first part of the game before you go right or left to level one or two, if you just press Go into that level. You visit Yoshi’s house.

[00:42:04] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:42:05] Speaker B: And it’s empty. There’s no. There’s no Yoshis. But as you. As you unlock more Yoshis, you’ll get all the different colors.

[00:42:10] Speaker A: This, and the colors have, like.

[00:42:11] Speaker B: And they have different abilities. Like, they can breathe fire, or they can fly, or they can do, like, this weird stomp attack.

[00:42:16] Speaker A: I didn’t use this, but I saw it happen.

[00:42:18] Speaker D: I didn’t.

[00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah. The gold shell is the, like, heavy Yoshi that stomps, and the blue one flies, and the red one spits fire.

Yeah, those are convenient. Yeah. I didn’t. I didn’t get a chance to use them myself, but I saw it.

But I. You know, speaking of Yoshi, I definitely have a newfound love for the guy.

Obviously, between Yoshi’s story, Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and the first Mario Party and the first Smash Bros, I always thought Yoshi was pretty cool. But just how versatile and his sheer usefulness in Super Mario World is ridiculously valuable. He can walk on. I don’t know if it was spikes or something else, but he can just walk on it. Like, nothing.

Then, of course, you throw in the, like, eating enemies, picking up items, spitting fire, the flying like.

[00:43:04] Speaker B: Or just meat shield.

[00:43:05] Speaker A: The meat shield. Yeah. You get an extra hit out of it.

[00:43:08] Speaker D: Yeah, that’s.

[00:43:08] Speaker B: That’s huge.

[00:43:09] Speaker D: Yeah, it is.

[00:43:10] Speaker C: The dragon coins are extra lives.

[00:43:14] Speaker B: Okay.

I guess if you’re just trying to 100% the game, some people want to

[00:43:18] Speaker C: get them all also, just, like, I need extra lives. I die a lot.

[00:43:22] Speaker B: Yeah, right.

[00:43:24] Speaker D: Yeah, that was me.

[00:43:24] Speaker A: Important.

[00:43:25] Speaker B: Always good to have.

[00:43:26] Speaker D: Yep.

[00:43:28] Speaker A: You know, I will say I’m honestly in shock of just how many of the enemies and characters that appear across so many 3D Mario games. And even more commonly in Mario Party, and especially now in Mario Kart World.

Like this.

This whole franchise has so many obscure characters, but I’m surprised at how many of them appeared here in Super Mario World so long ago.

Yeah, and obviously many originated back on NES as well. But, you know, some of these, like the. The dolphin, I don’t think I had seen that before. Mario Kart World.

[00:44:05] Speaker B: Well, here’s a fun factoid about the dolphin I learned for researching.

They made it so that when the dolphins were.

When the game was localized, when Super Mario World came from Japan to the U.S.

they removed Yoshi’s ability to eat the dolphins because dolphin preservation was very big in the 90s.

But in the original Japanese release, Yoshi could eat the dolphins.

[00:44:31] Speaker A: Oh, well. Let’s just forget about that.

[00:44:35] Speaker C: Yeah.

It’s not like it’s a uniquely eating the dolphins thing. Like everything else Yoshi eats in there, except for the apples is more endangered than dolphins are.

[00:44:48] Speaker B: Because they don’t exist.

[00:44:49] Speaker D: Because they don’t exist.

[00:44:50] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:44:51] Speaker B: Or at least save the Goombas.

[00:44:53] Speaker C: Yeah. I’ve never seen a Goomba in the wild. I’ve seen a dolphin in the wild.

[00:44:59] Speaker A: Touche.

[00:45:01] Speaker B: Checkmate.

[00:45:02] Speaker A: Yeah, no comment.

[00:45:04] Speaker D: I feel like the Goombas are the rats of Mario’s world.

[00:45:09] Speaker B: I think it’s a fair comparison.

[00:45:12] Speaker A: They would like everyone.

[00:45:13] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:45:17] Speaker A: I also, I mean, obviously it seems like this whole three hit kills on bosses is the Nintendo trope that will never die.

And it was alive and well during this era. And it’s fine. It’s just kind of funny to see it go through so many generations and no one has any other ideas.

[00:45:38] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:45:38] Speaker B: I have mixed feelings about the bosses in this game because some of them are really cool. Yeah, I remember we talked about like Reznor.

[00:45:46] Speaker A: You asked me.

Yes, I have my qualms with Reznor.

[00:45:51] Speaker B: Wait, the musician or the boss?

[00:45:53] Speaker A: Well, you know, what’s the guy’s name? Trent. He’s all right. Yeah. I don’t mind the guy.

[00:45:57] Speaker B: But the boss is named after him.

[00:45:58] Speaker A: I’m not surprised.

[00:46:00] Speaker B: But I love that boss fight because it is so clever mechanically that you are fighting these fire breathing triceratops on a Ferris wheel essentially, and you have to hit them from below, which you know, the game has been teaching you to do this whole time. So like you’re kind of equipped for that part of it. But then halfway through the fight, the floor you’re on melted the lava so you have to jump onto the Ferris wheel.

And so it’s this really cool moment of like Shadow of the Colossus style climbing up onto the boss itself to finish the fight. I love that. But then you have. I mean, how many Mid Koopaling fights are there in this game where it’s like, oh, jump on him three times and he’s going to try to run into you. And it’s like those moments I think

[00:46:41] Speaker A: are just kind of flat.

[00:46:42] Speaker B: And I feel like that’s something that Sonic 2 doesn’t suffer from. I don’t think Sonic 2 has a like, boring moment.

And I think as far as like pacing goes, this game gets sleepier sometimes.

[00:46:56] Speaker C: I mean, doesn’t that just do the same X number of hits? It’s just a different number of hits.

[00:47:02] Speaker B: Well, like, I mean, the one I fought right before we Recorded it was the one where you have to jump on him until he gets knocked into the lava. So it’s not. It could be. It could be endless if you time it wrong.

[00:47:13] Speaker A: Right.

[00:47:13] Speaker B: But it. Like, it was.

[00:47:14] Speaker A: That was me. Yeah.

He just keeps going to the other side, and then you realize, oh, he doesn’t die with the hits. You have to get him into the lava.

[00:47:21] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:47:21] Speaker B: But, I mean, that wasn’t. I wasn’t having fun. I was just getting annoyed. And, like, this is going on for a while.

[00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it’s funny, too, that you mentioned Reznor, because I think towards the end game, there was a level. I don’t. It was in the. For the. What’s it? Forest of Illusion. Also, there was a level that I cleared, but then it just opened a path through the forest that brought me in a circle back to the same level I was already in. Because you had to find. Right, The.

[00:47:49] Speaker D: Yep. That’s why I said the key.

[00:47:50] Speaker A: Get the feather and fly to the true exit, sort of in the lower area.

And so it. I was like, you just stole my victory out for my hands. Like, I just. I just finished this. What am I doing here again?

And then you mentioned Reznor in that chocolate levels. I killed Reznor.

And even though I already beat the last one, I fell faster than he did because Mario’s so heavy that it didn’t count. I died.

[00:48:21] Speaker B: You suck.

[00:48:24] Speaker C: I know that moment.

[00:48:25] Speaker A: And this happened two or three times, and I was so annoyed. And then I finally went back there with a cape feather and just floated on the way back down. And there you go, able to move on. Very annoyed. I was not.

[00:48:41] Speaker C: The Smash Brothers thing of. It’s like, okay, we’re both falling.

[00:48:43] Speaker B: It’s.

[00:48:44] Speaker C: Who falls faster now?

[00:48:45] Speaker D: Right?

[00:48:46] Speaker A: Right.

For whatever reason, the Triceratops doesn’t fall as fast as a plumber.

I mean, beats me.

[00:48:56] Speaker C: Triceratops are not known for being aerodynamic.

[00:49:01] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.

Yeah. It sounds like you’re a spokesperson for Nintendo here

[00:49:08] Speaker C: a lot about it. Just a spokesperson for aerodynamic. Aerodynamic.

I don’t think that’s the right word for that.

[00:49:16] Speaker B: Aerodynamics.

[00:49:23] Speaker A: Did you all have a favorite level or part of the Overworld overall?

[00:49:31] Speaker B: I mean, I think something that the game needs credit for is the variety of level types.

You know, it’s like, this one’s scrolling. This one’s scrolling up. This one is those dang haunted houses where I’m constantly stuck and looking for the secret doors.

[00:49:48] Speaker A: I was gonna say that. Those are some of my favorite levels. Was those Boo levels.

[00:49:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:49:53] Speaker A: I mean, the weirdest routes through them. Yeah, they. They are so different to the rest of them and the mechanically that I think that’s why I enjoyed them so much. Plus, King Boo was my main in Mario Kart 8.

[00:50:06] Speaker B: But I think the levels, though, are kind of. They do kind of all blend together in your mind.

The levels in Sonic 2 have such a personality.

The levels in Super Mario World, they have different quirks, they have different mechanics to learn. But the backgrounds are kind of all the same color for a lot of it.

And, you know, you’re like, if I said, oh, picture 84 versus 8 2, you’re not.

[00:50:31] Speaker D: What?

[00:50:32] Speaker B: You’re gonna know that by heart. But if I say, like, Picture Chemical Plant versus, you know, angel island, you’re like, okay. Like, you know what I mean?

[00:50:39] Speaker A: Totally.

[00:50:41] Speaker B: So, you know, I just appreciate the variety overall. But I don’t think any particular level jumps out as, like, my favorite. I guess maybe the Bowser Castle, where you’re picking the doors.

[00:50:50] Speaker A: That was cool.

[00:50:51] Speaker B: And you’re. You’re picking your route to the final boss. That. That was neat. I guess that’s my favorite.

[00:50:55] Speaker A: And there were. They were like. They were basically. I mean, it’s like a WARIO game just piled into the last level because it’s. You know, you get, like a micro level for each of those doors.

Yeah, I enjoyed that, too.

[00:51:07] Speaker D: I didn’t get, like, up for that one. I just went through. I went through the first door.

Beat that. Then it took me to five.

Beat that. And then.

[00:51:17] Speaker A: Okay, there’s a hallway down each of those pathways that you. Yeah, yeah.

Different numbers.

[00:51:23] Speaker D: No, I just went one.

[00:51:24] Speaker A: It went one way.

[00:51:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I finished one, and it put me out at five. So I went into the five door, and then when I finished five, I

[00:51:30] Speaker A: was either at seven or eight.

[00:51:32] Speaker D: And then I beat that, and then it put me out to the end.

[00:51:35] Speaker B: So I have a personal question, Alex. When you get into a bathroom, do you go to the first stall or do you like. Because I always go a couple in. I don’t like the first one. I feel like more people use it.

[00:51:44] Speaker D: No, it’s a couple in.

[00:51:45] Speaker B: Also depending on.

[00:51:47] Speaker D: Also depends on how many people are there.

[00:51:49] Speaker B: I don’t care how many people are there. I never want the first one.

[00:51:51] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. No, never the first one. Okay, I get you on that one. Yeah.

[00:51:54] Speaker A: No, especially not like, in an.

[00:51:56] Speaker D: I just didn’t. I didn’t understand how I didn’t know the door thing. So I was like.

[00:52:01] Speaker A: I just thought.

[00:52:01] Speaker D: I thought for. At first I was Gonna have to

[00:52:03] Speaker A: do like, each one.

[00:52:05] Speaker B: That would have been brutal.

[00:52:06] Speaker D: I was like, oh, man.

[00:52:07] Speaker C: But yeah, so, but I made it.

[00:52:14] Speaker A: Any least favorite levels?

Yeah, no, that, that, I agree with that.

[00:52:22] Speaker C: Like when I found out what it did, but not a fan.

[00:52:27] Speaker D: I think the Forest of Illusion just overall for me was not a big fan. I wasn’t a big fan of the underwater levels.

A couple of them. There were one, I think in that forest.

[00:52:36] Speaker A: It’s so strange that you can throw fireballs underwater.

[00:52:40] Speaker B: That’s how hot they are.

Like, Mike, you’re a math guy. That’s possible, right? If the fire is hot enough, it will evaporate the water before it puts it out. Right?

[00:52:51] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, you can do the thing with something that’s hot enough that you can pour water on it and the water will just like roll around as beads because it’s, it’s vaporizing on the hot side. Yeah, yeah.

[00:53:03] Speaker B: You know, I, I, I guess I’ll just say, like, I know some of the Star Road levels were real bash my head against the wall frustrating, but, but that’s the point of those. Like, those levels.

[00:53:14] Speaker A: You got to go. I’m accepting that.

[00:53:16] Speaker B: It’s like Celeste before Celeste was a thing, you know, it’s like Super Meat Boy before Super Meat Boy was a thing like that. Those games absolutely borrowed from that mindset. It’s called Kaizo levels. Super Super Mario Lost levels. The Original Super Mario 2 was essentially all that.

Every level was crazy frustrating and I enjoyed it. Mike didn’t as much, but. So I can’t really fault Star Road for being frustrating. It’s like, if that’s frustrating, you, well then play the go the long way around.

But this is the brutal shortcut. It should be brutal.

[00:53:48] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:53:49] Speaker C: Chocolate Island 2 is the level I’m thinking of.

This is the from the Super Mario Wiki. This bit will describe. The level is unique and features four different areas which are all affected by the amount of time, the number of coins, or the number of dragon coins that the player has.

[00:54:08] Speaker B: Insane, but cool.

[00:54:11] Speaker A: And how do you know that without calling a Nintendo Hotline? I mean, that’s just.

[00:54:16] Speaker C: I think the other thing is if you actually varied what you did, and I think I just did the same thing every time in a very repeatable fashion.

If I had varied it, I would have started seeing different outcomes and I had to be like, wait, why is that happening?

[00:54:30] Speaker A: Sure, yeah, that would make sense. But I think most people are going to just like brute force it in the way they were doing it already.

[00:54:37] Speaker B: Did you guys Ever call the Nintendo Hotline? I never did, but I was always like. I mean, I was too shy. I can’t believe that that was a business model because, like, I’m eight years old, stuck on Mario. I don’t want to talk to a stranger.

[00:54:47] Speaker D: Yeah. I think I was just too young to be.

[00:54:49] Speaker A: That is true. Yeah. I mean, I was. Yeah. Still Genesis, so I don’t know if Sega had one of those. Probably.

[00:54:57] Speaker B: That’d be a cool Facebook Live, though, if you’re just like, hey, I’m the Nintendo Hotline. Drop in if you’re stuck on a game.

Oh, Mike, we should do that. Patent pending. Patent pending.

But the problem, though, is that I’m not actually good at these games. I just cheat. So I’m like, oh, you’re stuck. Rewind.

[00:55:15] Speaker A: Easy.

[00:55:16] Speaker C: I feel like they had guides for what to tell people. Yeah.

[00:55:20] Speaker B: Apparently they had huge binders and Giant. And you’d get the game and they, you know, and they flip through the page number and you’re saying they didn’t

[00:55:28] Speaker A: know it all inside and out. That’s disappointment.

[00:55:32] Speaker C: As opposed to just being. Oh, you have a question about this? Let me. Let me transfer you over to our.

[00:55:37] Speaker A: To our expert on level Chocolate World one two.

[00:55:40] Speaker D: Yeah.

Huh.

[00:55:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I think otherwise. Let’s see.

Well, I guess I didn’t say my least favorite level, actually. I think it’s just all of the Chocolate island, because I’m a weird person that doesn’t like chocolate.

So seeing the chocolate everywhere, it didn’t

[00:56:00] Speaker B: really look like chocolate.

[00:56:01] Speaker D: That was.

[00:56:02] Speaker B: That’s one of the weird things about this game is like, oh, I’m on cheese Land. And it’s like, why it’s not made of cheese.

Like, this is Donut Bridge. Where’s the donuts? I’m so confused.

[00:56:13] Speaker A: So, yeah, that’s one of my. The curiosities that I had coming out of this. And so I did some research on that.

And yes, obviously, many of the worlds are named after food. We have Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, the other Bridges. I think there’s Butter Bridge and Cheese Bridge and Chocolate Island.

It turns out they weren’t necessarily aiming to make the world look like them, which I guess tracks because they don’t look like them for the most part. Maybe just color schemes, but they just seem to notice a connection after they built them and decided to name them like that.

[00:56:48] Speaker B: Whereas Mike said, to the dinosaurs, we are all food, which doesn’t make sense.

[00:56:52] Speaker A: Well, and you’ve got Yoshi, who’s all obsessed with eating everything. So I guess it all applies.

[00:56:58] Speaker B: How does Yoshi not starve? Because everything he eats comes out.

[00:57:02] Speaker A: Comes out immediately.

[00:57:03] Speaker B: When does he digest like Kirby digests? You know what I mean?

[00:57:07] Speaker D: I don’t know.

[00:57:08] Speaker B: Yoshi’s got some crazy metabolism.

[00:57:11] Speaker A: It sounds like you need to start up a philosophy of game lore podcast.

[00:57:16] Speaker C: My theory is that Yoshi doesn’t actually rely on that for sustenance. He’s green because of chlorophyll.

[00:57:24] Speaker B: Oh, he’s a plant.

[00:57:26] Speaker C: Doesn’t have to be a plant. Just has chlorophyll.

[00:57:28] Speaker B: What about the Yoshis that are like red and stuff?

[00:57:33] Speaker C: Really weird side thing. Green is actually the li. Less efficient version of photosynthesis that for some reason is dominant because that’s where we get the most light. So you actually get like red.

Like red algae which absorbs green light.

[00:57:49] Speaker A: I want to say I’ve actually heard that before.

[00:57:52] Speaker B: I’m really annoyed you had like. He’s just perfect rebuttal to my joke.

[00:57:58] Speaker A: The most obscure thing you could possibly come up with and it was there.

[00:58:01] Speaker B: Ants. He knows it.

[00:58:05] Speaker C: What I lack in ability to platform, I make up for in obscure science.

[00:58:11] Speaker B: There you go.

[00:58:13] Speaker A: Hey, I mean, obscure science is all the basis of most of these 90s games anyway.

I guess I. So a bit of a quick story here too. I have this long standing grudge or feud, I guess is the best way to put it, with Monty Mole.

So I was playing Mario Party with two other people a couple years ago, and the fourth player was a bot that chose Monty.

And so instead of attacking my other human competitors, I just started going all out with any kind of negative status effect or any kind of move doing it against Monty to the point that about 60% of the way through the turns, he started retaliating and would exclusively try to make me lose.

And my grudge changed here because in the first true Valley of Bowser level where you get to stand on his head.

[00:59:12] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.

[00:59:14] Speaker A: And just cruise around in those tunnels.

[00:59:16] Speaker D: Cruise around. Yeah.

[00:59:17] Speaker A: And he’s wearing sunglasses too. I’ve completely turned a new leaf here.

So you’re.

[00:59:22] Speaker B: Now you’re pro Mole.

[00:59:24] Speaker A: Pro Monty Mole. You know, you just can’t hate something like that.

[00:59:29] Speaker B: I like to play him in Mario Kart world. I don’t know why it feels like a troll pick like you lost to Monty Mole. You know what I mean?

[00:59:36] Speaker C: I go. I go with the dolphin because you can get the motorcycle that looks like a dolphin. So you’re a dolphin riding a dolphin.

[00:59:41] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. And then you looks like a school of Dolphins, Yeah.

[00:59:45] Speaker C: Oh, Especially if this is totally off tangent. I’m sticking with this. If you switch the items to just be the one that changes everybody into a specific racer and then play on the right levels, you can turn everyone else into dolphins as well. And it’s weirdly satisfying.

[01:00:06] Speaker B: It’s like a school of dolphins, right?

[01:00:09] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Combo on there that is just. That is super fun and utterly ridiculous. Because I think it’s that the bullet bills and then Giant and those are the only three items available.

[01:00:27] Speaker B: Well, what we need to do is we need to each pick the dolphin on the dolphin, do four player split screen, right?

And then you say I’m seeing double here, 64 dolphins, right? Did I do the math right, Mike?

If it’s two dolphins

[01:00:45] Speaker A: and then you have a hell of a callback to the N64.

[01:00:48] Speaker B: There you go.

[01:00:52] Speaker A: All in all, while we are comparing this to Sonic 2 for this season, I feel like as another Nintendo game, I much prefer Donkey Kong country over Super Mario World.

For me at least it, you know, this thing you said with the levels, right. And like I think I really noticed it when I was watching not playing, but watching the Star Road levels and they all looked so visually similar to just the other levels around. And I was hoping it would be something more like Rainbow Road themed or anything like that. And I think Donkey Kong country just has more character. It’s just more fun to me personally.

Um, I guess that’s blasphemy to some people, but probably to most.

[01:01:31] Speaker B: Well, Donkey Kong country is more similar to Sonic 2 than it is to Super Mario World. You know, it doesn’t have as many secrets.

Visually very appealing, but a much more straightforward experience.

[01:01:41] Speaker A: That’s a good point.

[01:01:42] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe I’m more more into the visual aspect of it than the actual gameplay.

I think my final comment, I guess around Super Mario World for the moment is, you know, you get to the final boss, it’s Bowser, of course, who would have thought?

And you know, after that section of two hallways full of doors, you get to Bowser and it’s kind of an odd fight. I expected to walk in and fight him kind of face to face with fire breathed in my face.

But instead he just flies around in a little Alice in Wonderland teacup with the helicopter propeller that Bowser Jr. Uses in Smash Bros.

And then flies around throwing wind up Koopalings at you to throw back at him. So he’s just this big tough guy hiding away in the sky.

[01:02:35] Speaker B: Well, it’s very reminiscent to me of Dr. Robotnik that’s true.

[01:02:39] Speaker A: That’s true.

[01:02:40] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:02:41] Speaker A: Which is probably the best comparison between the two games we can even have.

[01:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah.

But I mean, yeah, I. I like that fight. I think there is some clever tension to the fact that like, your enemies, he’s throwing. He’s throwing monsters at you that come at you at ground level while he’s flying above you with his propeller.

So you can’t jump too low or too high. You really have to thread the needle to. To avoid them.

And then I also love the mechanic in that fight where Peach is like, you know, she’s been kidnapped, but she’s still on your side. So every now and then she’ll pop out instead of Bowser and throw you a power up.

[01:03:19] Speaker A: I definitely enjoyed those power ups.

[01:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s like keep them coming, Peach.

But you know, I just feel like storytelling wise, mechanic wise. I think it is very neat, even if it doesn’t feel nearly as epic as the fight against Bowser in Super Mario 64.

[01:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s a good point.

But I guess, you know, with time they evolved it even more. So I can give them credit there.

Okay, let’s do a little transition here. So before chatting about Sonic 2 specifically, I had mentioned last time about playing a bit of Sonic the Hedgehog one in preparation for this bottle season. So after I finished Super Mario World, I actually went and finished Sonic 1 just for fun and also because it’s kind of short and also to see a bit of the evolution from one to two. It’s a great, fun game as well as, I guess you would call it a proof of concept of sorts, since it’s the first one in the series and still totally worth playing since it’s fairly easy to have access to.

It’s not on Nintendo Switch Online though, which is strange.

[01:04:27] Speaker B: So strange.

It’s. There’s definitely some weird omissions to the service. This is, I think, one of the strangest.

And I fear it’ll never be resolved because I don’t know if they’re going to keep releasing Genesis games as part of Nintendo Switch Online.

Ever since they rebranded the service to Nintendo Classics, they have not released a single new Genesis game. So it’s been over a year and they’re not hinting that more are coming. And there’s some really classic ones like the original Sonic, that are strangely absent. I think it’s because Sonic Origins was releasing around the time that the Sega Genesis app was released for the Switch, and that one has the three original Genesis games. It has Sonic cd, it has a bunch of Game gear titles.

And so I think they’re like, well, we don’t want to give people a way to just play all these without buying our game.

But we also can’t have a Genesis app with no representation, so.

[01:05:30] Speaker A: Right. You can’t have a Genesis app without a Sonic game. That’s one of the mainline ones, so.

[01:05:35] Speaker B: Exactly. So I think, I think they picked the one that they felt best represented the series.

[01:05:40] Speaker A: Okay. Well, it’s a shame, but it’s.

I suppose it makes sense.

Everything’s about to say.

[01:05:47] Speaker C: I feel like they based stuff around the.

That six pack cartridge for Sega, which.

No, that one was the first song, not the second one. So yeah, that was my theory gone well.

[01:06:00] Speaker B: But I mean, also in your defense, one of the iconic games on that super. Hang on, the motorcycle game not on here yet.

And so it’s just like. I don’t know, I don’t know what they’re doing. I really hope they don’t give up on this because I love having the Genesis games as part of our show and as part of that service.

[01:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Provides a bit of variety, right? I mean, both for you to play it through visually and also just in the. But there’s, you know, every console has its own exclusives that make the identity of the thing in the first place.

[01:06:33] Speaker D: Yeah,

[01:06:36] Speaker A: yeah, I mean, I guess so. About Sonic 2, first of all, just hearing Sega so good brings me straight back to childhood. Sitting on the floor, of course. Because that’s what you do as a good 90s kid.

I don’t think anything is more nostalgic in life than hearing that little. What is it, a jingle? I don’t know.

Sound bite.

[01:06:59] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:07:00] Speaker B: I mean, I would play this before school. I’d play it right when I got home from school.

Yeah, definitely. A lot of happy memories of sitting on the floor in a semicircle with my brothers and I, all playing video games.

And this is definitely a big one in the rotation.

[01:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s just. It’s just too good. I mean, I think after finally finishing it, I just have even more appreciation for it now.

And like looking even just at the difference between one and two, because I played them back to back. Sonic 2 evolved from Sonic 1’s one button control scheme in just like a very simple way that made a huge difference.

[01:07:43] Speaker B: You’re referring to the Spin Dash?

[01:07:45] Speaker A: I’m referring to the Spin Dash, yeah, yeah.

Because like you. I mean, I forget actually which. The Sega Genesis mini, which is what I played this on, has the original Sega Genesis controller. And I Don’t actually recall whether the North America version was the one with three buttons or six buttons. But this thing has three buttons on it and you have three buttons and they all do the exact same thing, which is just jump in Sonic 1. And now you get the spin dash, right, by doing down and hold and smash and all that.

[01:08:17] Speaker B: I mean, I think there’s an academic argument for saying that Sonic 2 is the greatest single button game ever made.

And there’s contenders, right? Because Mike, a lot of Atari games are fantastic and single button like Centipede and Defender and things like that. But.

But what they do with just a single button on this is really fantastic. And when you go from Sonic 1 to Sonic 2, I think what you really notice is the pacing is so much better. In Sonic 2, Sonic, the original Sonic, every level has three zones. And by the time you get to the end of zone three, you’re kind of sick of that level.

You know, Sonic 2 was wise enough to make it Zone 1. Zone 2 and a cool boss fight. So you really. You really zip through this one at a satisfying pace, which serves the speed of the care for sure.

[01:09:01] Speaker A: You get. I mean, you get. Instead of the six, what is it? Six zones with three acts each. As you said, there’s the 11 or so.

Maybe it’s nine. Somewhere between nine and 11 where you just have two acts and. Except there’s the one. There’s the city level towards the end that has three. Which bothered me because again, after just playing Sonic 1, I was like, why are we going back to three acts? This is wasting my time.

[01:09:26] Speaker C: Wasn’t one of those supposed to be like some other weird questionable level?

[01:09:31] Speaker B: What he’s referring to is that there was. So the sonic the hedgehog 2, the development was very challenged and very quickly

[01:09:39] Speaker A: done, as I recall.

[01:09:41] Speaker C: Gotta go fast.

[01:09:44] Speaker B: Well, part of the reason they had to do it so quickly is that, you know, it started as an American project and they realized the production was troubled, so they brought in Japanese staff. And none of the. None of the Southern California staff spoke Japanese.

So always there are these two groups of developers and it’s sharing an office who could not communicate with each other, but were supposed to collaborate and get this game done.

And so what ended up happening is that almost everything the American devs did was scrapped in favor for what the Japanese team put together. But one of the only exceptions is that one of the levels from a zone called Genocide City, American version, that’s the name, Genocide City, which horrifying, but also kind of metal like I think that is kind of a sick level name, as awful as it is.

[01:10:35] Speaker A: But in Doom though.

[01:10:37] Speaker B: Exactly.

[01:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah.

[01:10:39] Speaker B: But so, you know, they took the level structure and stuck it in the end of Metropolis. And as my brother. So Sonic 2 is my older brother’s favorite game of all time. And he points out that one of the final levels having three zones really adds a level of like, okay, we’re almost at the peak here. This is really grueling. But we’re. We’re in. We’re in Robotnik stronghold, so this feels more arduous and that’s good for pacing and storytelling.

[01:11:10] Speaker C: Disagree.

[01:11:10] Speaker A: That’s a great point, but it’s still annoying.

[01:11:14] Speaker D: Yes, it is. Yeah.

[01:11:16] Speaker C: I think around some of those levels are also where it starts to really go to like the. No, now I’m just like waiting for.

It feels like the pacing of Sonic movement slows down. I think in. I think it’s those levels that start to get a lot of like slowly moving up with the, like the nuts that you’re. And the star use. Yes.

[01:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah. The elevate the elevator system where you need to run along a nut to make it wind up the bolt. Which is a cool visual.

[01:11:46] Speaker A: That’s a cool visual.

[01:11:48] Speaker C: But it’s the slowest elevator ever. Yeah.

[01:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. When you do it once the first time, you’re like, oh, this is really cool. And then it’s just miserable.

Especially when it doesn’t register that you’re right in the. You know, you’re not necessarily in the exact center, so it launches you off instead.

[01:12:04] Speaker B: Well, and as. As Mike discovered the hard way.

So. So we asked this on our. On our show.

One of the neat things is that this game introduces Tails.

[01:12:13] Speaker A: Right.

[01:12:13] Speaker B: Whereas Super Mario World has Yoshi, this is Sonic and Tails. And it’s two player simultaneous, which is amazing. Or two player versus simultaneous, which is, I don’t think, as cool, but still fun.

But if you don’t have a second player, you can go in the options and play as just Sonic, just Tails. But the default is Sonic and Tails. And AI is controlling the second player.

[01:12:36] Speaker A: It’s basically just. It’s a mirrored.

Not a mirrored. It’s a delayed input of what you just did.

[01:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of like the shadows from Ninja Gaiden 2 Mike.

But as Mike discovered the AI, the

[01:12:49] Speaker C: shadow didn’t show up in the Sonic games till later. Right.

[01:12:52] Speaker B: Hey, but anyway, the AI partner will set off these remote mines in Metropolis Zone. And so Mike was getting hit for things he wasn’t doing. Like, you kind of need to turn off the AI to not have that issue in that level. That is one of the only parts of Sonic 2 that I think was

[01:13:10] Speaker C: just badly programmed, which I think that was a suggestion in the discord for this as well, wasn’t it?

[01:13:16] Speaker A: It was. It was definitely to turn off Tails for if you’re trying to go for all the Chaos Emeralds.

[01:13:22] Speaker B: Turning on Tails is fun too, but that’s a different genre.

[01:13:27] Speaker C: Very plentiful.

[01:13:39] Speaker A: We might have to put on a explicit tag on here.

[01:13:43] Speaker B: Hey, there’s a reason I’m not elaborating,

[01:13:48] Speaker A: I think. Also, I mean, you guys mentioned Gotta go Fast, right? I will say it’s I where Sonic 2 took it and ran with it. I think the whole concept and marketing behind the Sonic games being about speed and how fast he is and even that. Yeah, I think it sound. I did some research and it sounded like the cartoon slogan of Gotta go fast came along a couple years later. But it’s just a massive trap. At some point, especially in Sonic 1, you get to go reasonably fast in Green Hill Zone, but after that, you sort of walk into this game thinking you can just sprint through every level and have a great time.

But if you do that, you just launch headfirst into so many spikes, so many enemies and other environmental hazards, and even the pinball launchers that send you back into the same thing that you just jumped over.

And that happens a bit here in Sonic 2, especially as you get. It felt like more of the Act 2 stages of each zone had more enemies and whatnot. And the first one was a bit more about speed.

But Slow and Steady is kind of the name of the game here, like any other platformer when you’re first getting used to them.

So it’s like a little bit of a, like, punch in the face when you’re expecting to just sprint.

[01:15:07] Speaker B: I mean, I think you get the good enough at this game. You learn the timing and you learn when to jump and when to dodge and whatever, and you really start to feel superhuman when you get good enough at it.

[01:15:16] Speaker A: Totally.

[01:15:16] Speaker B: Or just get all the Chaos Emeralds and become supersonic and then nothing hurts you.

[01:15:19] Speaker A: You fly around.

I. Yeah, I mean, that’s a very good point. I think. Obviously, there’s got to be speedrunners out there that I haven’t looked up, but I’m sure they can finish this game in 20 minutes.

[01:15:31] Speaker D: I saw one that said it was 16 minutes to beat it, and I was like, oh, my God.

[01:15:39] Speaker B: Well, and Mike, the. The speed run for the second to last level when you’re on the plane. You said that since it’s a set amount of time, the Speedrunner just parks the plane, right?

[01:15:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:15:54] Speaker B: It’s. It’s just really funny because like there’s.

The gameplay variety is not nearly as good in Sonic 2.

You, you. You have bonus stages which are cool. In 3D, you have the two player versus two player co op. But as far as level to level, there’s not like the different mechanics coming into play like you see in Super Mario World.

But one of the exceptions is the second to last level. The iconic Sonic riding on top of Tails Biplane. This was the first game to ever do that.

[01:16:23] Speaker A: And this was, you know, actually that was my favorite level of the whole game.

[01:16:28] Speaker C: Really?

[01:16:28] Speaker D: Really. I hated it.

[01:16:30] Speaker A: I mean, okay, I’ll give an honorable mention to the Casino Night Zone for the A, the visual variety and the pinball, despite that boss’s pinball fight being somewhat annoying.

But I really like the sky chase zone.

I don’t know why. It’s something about platforming while on a moving plane and visually is kind of cool. But Alex, I think this kind of reminded me a bit of the airplane levels in Cuphead as well.

[01:17:01] Speaker D: Yeah, I did not like those levels either.

[01:17:04] Speaker B: Alex, do you like flying in real life?

[01:17:07] Speaker D: No. I’m not a huge flyer. I don’t like to fly.

[01:17:11] Speaker B: We cracked the code.

[01:17:12] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:17:13] Speaker A: Meanwhile, I enjoyed being on a plane for a long time.

Airport was the best thing because it means you’re going somewhere cool.

[01:17:22] Speaker C: I think I did appreciate that other games could have had it that you can easily fall off that plan. I think you didn’t on this.

[01:17:29] Speaker A: No. Yeah. Tails was just always below you.

[01:17:31] Speaker D: It took me a while to figure out that I could move all the way forward and then it moves the plane. I thought if I. If I went too far forward, I was just gonna fall off, so.

Yeah.

[01:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah.

[01:17:41] Speaker A: And I mean, I suppose there’s a degree of unfairness to comparing these two games, right? Because despite the fact that they released, I believe it was the same year.

This is the second game in the series for Sonic. And it’s the what, fourth, fifth or more first Mario. So they had a lot more time to iterate on it.

[01:17:58] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I don’t know if we’re getting into it now, but I think Sonic 2 is the better game.

I think they master. I think this is the peak of 2D Sonic. You could make an argument for Sonic Mania. That game is incredible.

[01:18:14] Speaker A: It’s great. It’s really fun.

[01:18:16] Speaker B: But what’s good about that game is what they already got right in sonic the Hedgehog 2.

I think in terms of pacing and level design and aesthetics and music and just playability and iconography and character, I don’t think it gets much better than this. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is amazing, in my opinion.

[01:18:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I won’t argue with that. I agree with that. Sonic Mania was fantastic too.

[01:18:41] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:18:42] Speaker A: But this is just too classic.

[01:18:47] Speaker B: Alex, have you checked out Mania?

[01:18:48] Speaker D: I have not checked out Mania. I have it. I have not checked it out though, yet.

[01:18:53] Speaker C: Mike.

[01:18:53] Speaker B: You had, right?

[01:18:55] Speaker C: I don’t think so.

[01:18:57] Speaker B: Oh, well, it’s one of the cooler gaming stories of the last couple decades because, like, it was a fan game that was clearly so good that Sega’s like, hey, we’re gonna like, we’re gonna pay you and we’re gonna publish this and this is gonna be an official entry.

And I. And. And not a lot of companies will do that, so I want them to do it more often for sure.

[01:19:16] Speaker D: I think now that I’ve finished my first ever Sonic game, I will probably. I’ll go and play that.

[01:19:22] Speaker B: It’s wonderful.

[01:19:23] Speaker D: Give it a try here.

[01:19:24] Speaker A: And while I didn’t have enough time to try it out yet, Merovingian on Discord mentioned that perhaps Sonic 3 and Knuckles was a better comparison point to Super Mario World Jamo. Have you played that one? I have not.

[01:19:37] Speaker D: Oh.

[01:19:38] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I played all of these.

[01:19:40] Speaker A: You played them all?

[01:19:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I’ve played the Sonic games that I shouldn’t have beaten. I’ve beaten Sonic 06 like I’m a blue boy.

Yeah. You know, it’s funny, we have friends, the Cable Club League podcast, they did a similar episode, but they compared Sonic 3 and Knuckles to Super Mario World.

And people say that’s a better comparison because there are more secrets to discover.

There are not only the Chaos Emeralds, but the super secret Hyper Emeralds in that game. And then you got your supersonic forms, but then you got your hyper forms.

So in terms of replayability and secrets and like depth, definitely that game, that was also the game where the power ups like. So in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 1, you can get power ups mid stage, but they’re either a shield or temporary invincibility. And that’s kind of it.

[01:20:34] Speaker A: Right.

[01:20:36] Speaker B: Sonic 3 though, added element shield, so you could have a fire shield that gave you a lunging attack, so you would jump up and then rocket across the screen, but it would be fizzled out if you go underwater or if a water attack. Hits you, you’re still getting hurt by it. So there was kind of a fun like Pokemon element to that.

But since we’re. I think the spirit of what you’re doing here is that these are two games that you’ve heard are kind of the peak of the series.

So let’s play them both and see which one kind of holds up better.

And I think Sonic 2 is the better game. Even though it is simpler. I think the pacing is better, the levels are more iconic. It’s my choice.

[01:21:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that’s a very good way of putting it. Right. I think both peaks of their series. But also I think this was just our first. Some of our first gaming experiences of life and figured it was a good time to go way back in time and see what it was actually like without the rose, I guess with the rose. Tinted glasses.

What’s the phrase? Doesn’t matter.

[01:21:48] Speaker B: Rose tinted contact lenses.

[01:21:49] Speaker A: There you go.

Modernized.

They’re in there.

But yeah, I think after all of that, my vision now is framed by rings and loops. Loop de loops.

Just a lot of Sonic in a very few number of hours.

[01:22:10] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah, it was.

[01:22:12] Speaker A: I guess you can’t really go and talk about Sonic 2 without talking about Dr. Robotnik either, which. He’s the boss of every level.

He’s got so much just like sass to him.

And it’s interesting. So growing up, I. I guess, or thinking back about it, Dr. Robotnik isn’t the English name and Dr. Eggman was the official name in Japan.

You can correct me if I’m wrong there.

And now they’re just interchangeable because Robotnik is basically. Now uses his true last name and Eggman is the derogatory version.

[01:22:48] Speaker B: Yeah, they kind of retconned that into being part of the canon. You’re right. Originally, Eggman in Japan, Robotnik in America, and I believe it was Sonic Adventure was the first game where they merged the two. He introduces himself as Robotnik. And then Sega Sonic’s like, whatever, Eggman. And then that’s just the.

That’s just the name from now on. Which is interesting because he builds an evil theme park and called it Eggman Land. So it’s like, he’s so spiteful. He’s like, yeah, I’m gonna own this so much. I’m gonna make theme parks out of the cruel name you came up for with me.

He’s gonna run for president one day. He’s just like very, very determined.

People tease him. But productive.

But productive.

[01:23:33] Speaker A: You gotta.

[01:23:33] Speaker B: Gotta give it to him.

No, I And this is another edge I think Sonic 2 has over super Mario World. I love, love, love the Robotnik fights.

[01:23:42] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree. I think these were definitely a lot better than the boss fights in Super Mario World.

[01:23:51] Speaker B: Did you have a favorite?

[01:23:58] Speaker D: It was.

It took me a couple tries. It was a bit more annoying. But the. The one where he has the eggs flying around him and you have to. You sort of jump over him and then when he goes up, you hit him underneath. You can knock down an egg and then you get rid of it and just take it down from. I don’t know how many. It starts with like six or seven, down to none. It’s a longer fight, but it was pretty fun. I did enjoy it. It took me a couple tries, but once I figured it out, yeah, I. I enjoyed that one.

[01:24:26] Speaker B: That’s also neat. That’s the Metropolis Zone, boss. And it’s cool because as you hit him, more like his shield is getting.

The gaps are getting bigger in his shield.

So like you’re kind of weakening him. But every. Every time you knock a piece of his shield off, it’ll become a little Robotnik clone bubble. It’s like a little version of him and you have to hit it again. And it’s just like. I don’t know. That’s a cool one. I like that one a lot.

And Mike, you like the one, the lava one, right? You just kind of jump on top of them and don’t move.

[01:24:59] Speaker A: I just jump. I keep bouncing.

[01:25:00] Speaker C: Something nice about the strategy. I was actually gonna go with aquatic ruin.

[01:25:06] Speaker B: Oh, the totem poles.

[01:25:07] Speaker C: Yeah.

[01:25:08] Speaker A: And the arrows with the. With the arrows. And you use them as a totem pole.

[01:25:11] Speaker D: Yeah, the totem pole was fun. Yeah, that was a good one.

[01:25:14] Speaker B: The other one, why did you like it, Mike?

[01:25:15] Speaker D: I wasn’t a big fan of the submarine one. That one was a little more. I kept falling in the water and stuff too, trying to get out.

Sonic is not a very good swimmer, I’ve noticed also in this game.

[01:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it broke my heart because I heard you guys being like, oh, I’m looking forward to flying around as Tails. And I’m like, oof. Who’s gonna tell him? Who’s gonna tell him? Tails doesn’t fly until Sonic 3.

[01:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So that is something that I had to realize the hard way. Right. You. Tails only flies when he gets sucked off screen because he went so far as sonic in Sonic 3.

[01:25:50] Speaker C: Tails flies in Sonic 2.

[01:25:53] Speaker A: He flies, but you can’t control him.

[01:25:55] Speaker B: No, he’s referring to the biplane.

[01:25:57] Speaker C: I’m referring to the plane.

[01:25:58] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, yes, There he is.

[01:26:01] Speaker B: I’ve been podcasting with Mike for a while. I know he’s being a sarcastic bastard, or not sarcastic.

[01:26:06] Speaker C: What would it be? Accurate.

[01:26:08] Speaker A: Correct. Yes.

[01:26:11] Speaker B: Well, Mike’s being a butthead, so we’ll rub it. It’s salt into the wound, though. So Mike, you know, like I said, he plays these games legitimately, and he. He. He on his stream, lost a lot of lives to the airship boss, Right? Mike was not the one.

[01:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah.

[01:26:28] Speaker C: The one for lasers and stuff.

[01:26:30] Speaker D: Oh, that one. Yeah. Yeah, that was a pain in the ass. Yeah, I agree on that one.

[01:26:35] Speaker B: And so then you’d lose so many lives at that one that you could never beat Metal Sonic because this game has a credibly epic final level where for the first time in the entire game, you are denied rings, and that has been your meat shield. It’s like, as long as they have one ring, I’ll never die. Sonic drops them. He has to recollect them. That’s very different from Mario, too.

But final level, just. You just can’t get hit.

And. And Metal Sonic, his weak spot is just the. The size of his forehead. It’s like just a couple of frames, a couple of pixels to aim for. But then if you can beat him, you get to the giant Eggman robot that takes up the entire verticality of your television in 1990.

It is the biggest freaking thing you’ve ever seen coming after you in a video game. And I also think. And let me know in the comments if I’m wrong. I think that’s the first. First boss fight, at least in a platforming game. That was epic. I don’t mean, like exciting. I mean, like an epic fight. I love the final. Final level. Death egg.

[01:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah. It’s just a complete culmination of every weird gadget that Robotnik has built this entire time. And then you just fight him, but as a giant robot.

[01:27:53] Speaker B: And then the music is so good. And at this point in the story, Tails is shot down. So even if you’re playing two players this entire time, it’s all up to Sonic. Like, you know, not very Fun for Player 2, but good for storytelling, right?

[01:28:06] Speaker D: For sure.

[01:28:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think there’s. Oh, go ahead.

[01:28:12] Speaker C: Did you guys try to bother with, like, the. The bonus levels and the emeralds? Because, like, when I played through, I was just like, I’m not going to succeed at those, and I need every ring possible. So I didn’t even attempt it to try to go for the whole supersonic.

[01:28:25] Speaker D: I did not. No I didn’t attempt it. I just got through them.

[01:28:29] Speaker A: I think I remembered about it and discovered it a little too late, where it wasn’t going to be possible to get the rest. So I did one and then moved on.

Just accepted.

[01:28:39] Speaker B: Well, it’s funny though, if you know the path, you can become supersonic by level two. Before you fight the first boss, you can become supersonic. There are enough bonus level gateways to jump into that you can get all seven before the end of level one.

And so, and, and that’s the other thing cool about this game is that the levels have really a lot of diverging paths and when. Yeah, but they’re not really hiding secrets like Super Mario World. There’s just different routes to the end of the level.

[01:29:08] Speaker C: Sometimes there’s lives there.

[01:29:10] Speaker B: It’s true.

[01:29:11] Speaker C: Those are always nice to be like, oh, I went a different way. And there’s a one. I’m always remembering this way now.

[01:29:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the differences. Obviously there’s not as many different types of things you can find, but there are still secrets everywhere.

[01:29:30] Speaker B: Well, and we’d be remiss not to say that this game was groundbreaking in that when Sonic 3 and Knuckles released, you could take your old Sonic 2 cartridge and plug it into the top. And now you can play as Knuckles in sonic the Hedgehog 2.

And we had never seen anything like that before.

[01:29:48] Speaker C: No, that was never.

[01:29:50] Speaker B: Never before in gaming had there been new content added to an old game.

[01:29:55] Speaker C: Surprisingly, a Voltron game didn’t get to that first.

[01:30:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, also I was a Game Genie kid. So you plugged the game genie, then Sonic, the next levels 3, then Sonic 2. You got like a whole stack of cartridges

[01:30:09] Speaker A: sticking out.

[01:30:10] Speaker C: CD and everything.

[01:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah, we also had the psychic CD and the second 32X. Yeah, it was a real Frankenstein situation.

But that’s one of my joy cons about Nintendo Switch Online is that you can’t do that. They didn’t include a version that has the Knuckles add on. But Knuckles is great because not only like they put him in the cutscenes too. Like they.

[01:30:36] Speaker A: They went all in.

[01:30:37] Speaker B: They went all in. And his ability to climb walls and glide makes this a very different game.

[01:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s like full on sequence breaking right there.

[01:30:52] Speaker B: You know, it holds up surprisingly well. There’s not too many levels that he can just kind of bend over his knee. Yeah.

But like the ability to glide makes that final fight worse way easier because Sonic has to time his jump perfectly. But Knuckles just glides into the giant robot’s gut over and over again.

Super satisfying.

[01:31:13] Speaker A: All right, well, it sounds like the next playthrough is gonna have to be a supersonic pickup and maybe find an old cartridge.

[01:31:20] Speaker B: Well, if you get Origins plus it’s

[01:31:22] Speaker A: already built in there, I have that, I think.

[01:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah. You can turn on the Knuckles mode and you can play as Amy Rose, which is cool.

And it’s her sprite from Sonic cd which is pretty wild.

[01:31:35] Speaker A: Is it? So it’s just like completely out of place.

[01:31:38] Speaker B: I mean, you know, they did the work to make it work, to make

[01:31:40] Speaker A: it fit all right.

[01:31:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They’ve added new animations, but it’s the Sonic CD look, which if you’re a Sonic Stan, you know, that’s not a. That character hasn’t looked like that in a very long time.

[01:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah.

I think, you know, you’ve mentioned a couple times about co op throughout and I like the way that they implement it better in Sonic 2 as well. Like, obviously, you know, turn based, you get your fair shot at doing it your way and you can even go into a different level and all that. But in Sonic 2, right, you got to share the screen. It’s like true couch co op, you know, it’s a little bit easier for Tails because he’s invincible and the rings are shared. But Tails can’t die unless Sonic does.

Sonic’s also the primary target of all the bosses.

[01:32:28] Speaker C: Yeah.

[01:32:28] Speaker A: And Tails can do damage and not receive much, but hey, it’s still more fun.

[01:32:35] Speaker B: It’s just interesting though because like, the devs were smart. I think they realized, like, look, if Tails is costing them lives, this is frustrating because this game moves fast.

[01:32:43] Speaker A: Right.

[01:32:45] Speaker B: The Genesis had stronger rendering than the Super Nintendo.

It could render things faster and put more moving characters on screen than Super Nintendo could. And it really shows when you go from Mario World to this one.

There might be more meat on the bone with Super Mario world, but Sonic 2 is, I think, visually much more captivating.

And they wouldn’t return to this style of Sonic co op until Sonic Superstars, which is a modern game. It came out like, I think two or three years ago.

And that’s the four player Sonic the Hedgehog one, where it’s like whoever gets in front is essentially Sonic and all the other players are like tails just flying in to catch up with them.

It’s madness, but it’s really cute. I like that game a lot.

[01:33:30] Speaker A: I don’t think I know about that. I might have to do some research on that.

[01:33:33] Speaker C: Yeah.

[01:33:33] Speaker B: You remember Those Super Mario 4 player ones on the Wii.

[01:33:36] Speaker A: Oh, I didn’t really. I didn’t actually. I didn’t use a Wii much, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.

[01:33:42] Speaker D: No, they had. Yeah, I know there was like Super Mario. It was like Super Mario Wii U or Luigi Wii U. That it In Super Mario Wonder. I think just recently I think they

[01:33:52] Speaker B: do four Sonic Superstars is Sega’s answer to that. And it’s very buggy and it’s not perfect, but I loved it.

[01:34:02] Speaker A: I think the other big thing to talk about here is just the influence that both of these games have had on the broader video game industry. Right.

Super Mario World obviously has tons because they have so many layers of the gameplay, but things like just the permanently changing the overworld map, a lot of that kind of Metroidvania DNA that it has to where you can backtrack and pick up an old item and then go and find access to like level two that you couldn’t get to before and now you can.

And then Star Road is basically just a fast travel which is in almost every open world game now.

So they’re like almost thinking through how to do open world and fast travel way back then without even knowing it probably.

[01:34:49] Speaker B: But then you look at Sonic 2 and like it’s split screen gameplay and they weren’t the first one to do that. But it’s kind of hard to go back to Super Mario World 2 player mode once you played Sonic 2’s 2 player mode. I just, I think turn based is always a bummer. I don’t think anyone likes sitting there waiting for their turn.

[01:35:09] Speaker A: Right. Which I think I’m glad that I played Sonic 2 in co op after playing Mario World in Co Op, not the other way around.

Excellent. Now these guys do a little something on the old switcheroo called the Mini Game Minute.

[01:35:27] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:35:28] Speaker A: And Jamo has surprised us by bringing one over to our show.

So Jamo, the floor is yours.

[01:35:34] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you. Well, so this will be quick.

I like to try to. I always research a lot for our episodes because I try to do some behind the scenes trivia. And you know, I’m a middle school teacher, so you gotta gamify where you can.

So this is just a little trivia game for you guys. It’s called Monic or Sario because Sonic and Mario have a lot of similarities.

But the question is, who did it first?

So I’m going to read you a fact that applies to both Sonic and Mario and I want you guys to guess who did it first. Okay, okay, so the first one. Question number one.

Sonic or Mario was voiced by a television sitcom star.

Was that Mario first or Sonic first?

Let’s have Andrew go first.

[01:36:24] Speaker A: Television sitcom star.

[01:36:28] Speaker B: Both Sonic and Mario have been voiced by a television sitcom star. But who did it first?

[01:36:34] Speaker A: I’m going to say.

Oh, now I’m thinking about the modern ones and getting messed up. But I’m going to say Sonic because maybe in the cartoon it was one of those.

I don’t know the answer.

[01:36:49] Speaker C: Yeah, that’s my guess.

[01:36:50] Speaker B: I was going to say don’t explain it until the other boys. Guess you’re saying Sonic. Alex.

[01:36:55] Speaker D: I would say Sonic as well. Just thinking back on it.

[01:36:59] Speaker C: Gotta go with Jahliel White as Sonic.

[01:37:02] Speaker B: That’s right. Jaleel White from Family Matters played Sonic in 1993.

Mario will be voiced by Chris Pratt from Parks and rec in 2023.

[01:37:12] Speaker A: And hold on. Sonic in the new movies is voiced by. I don’t know the guy’s name from Parks. And Reckless as well.

So that’s.

Urkel is great.

Can’t go wrong with that.

[01:37:24] Speaker B: All right, one point for everybody. Okay, question number two. We’ll go to Alex Guest first this time.

Both Sonic and Mario have had a theme park attraction based on their games. But who had it first, Mario or Sonic?

Alex.

[01:37:40] Speaker D: Both have had a theme park.

[01:37:43] Speaker B: They both had theme park attractions. Theme park rides, actually, let’s get more specific. They both have rides.

Who got their ride first, Mario or Sonic?

[01:37:53] Speaker D: I want to say Sonic on that. I can’t even think what the Sonic ride is, but I will say Sonic.

[01:37:59] Speaker C: Mike, let me go last. I want to be more specific in my answer, I think.

[01:38:04] Speaker B: Okay, Andrew.

[01:38:06] Speaker A: Yeah. For the reason that I can’t remember a Sonic ride and I can remember a Mario one, I’m going to go with Sonic.

[01:38:12] Speaker B: Okay. Mike.

[01:38:14] Speaker C: The UK had a Sonic the Hedgehog spinball roller coaster. That was a spinning coaster, I believe.

[01:38:20] Speaker A: No way.

[01:38:20] Speaker C: So I’m going with Sonic.

[01:38:22] Speaker B: Yeah. It was rethemed. It was called Spinball Whizzer and then it was rethemed to Sonic colors and they put little Sonic games in the queue. And Sonic would talk to you when you’re loading on.

Yeah, kind of.

[01:38:33] Speaker D: Cool.

[01:38:34] Speaker B: Okay, we’ll go with Mike first. Both Sonic and Mario have had a starring role in a pinball game. Who had it first?

[01:38:45] Speaker C: I am going to say Mario.

[01:38:48] Speaker B: Andrew.

[01:38:53] Speaker A: Sonic.

[01:38:55] Speaker D: Okay, Alex, I’m gonna go Sonic.

[01:39:00] Speaker B: Mike, why are you. Right.

[01:39:03] Speaker C: Because there were just the pinball craze. Mario’s been around longer. Oh, you’re talking about the video game where he’s in pinballing nes. I was talking. I presume you’re talking real pinball machines.

[01:39:14] Speaker D: Oh, I was thinking games. And I was like, I know the

[01:39:17] Speaker C: Sonic, but I can pinball. You see Mario.

[01:39:21] Speaker D: Interesting.

[01:39:22] Speaker B: You play as Mario in one part of the table. You control him as he moves back and forth. Yeah. One of the first games we covered back in season one, pinball for the NES. 1984 has a Mario section. Yeah, I thought we were talking just

[01:39:37] Speaker C: like physical pinball games, but.

[01:39:40] Speaker B: Well, you know what, Mike? It worked in your favor anyway, so don’t complain.

All right, question number four. We’re going back to. Actually, I think Mike should guess first since he’s now in the lead.

Both Mario and Sonic appeared in a racing game. Who did it first?

Mike, you’re guessing first.

[01:40:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I know.

Go out on a limb and going to say Sonic.

[01:40:15] Speaker B: Okay, Andrew.

[01:40:21] Speaker A: I mean, back on Super Nintendo, there was racing for Mario, which seems wild that it would be. I’m gonna go with Mario.

[01:40:30] Speaker B: Okay, Alex.

[01:40:31] Speaker D: I’m gonna go Mario.

[01:40:34] Speaker B: So Mario Super Mario Kart, or as Andrew calls it, Racing for Mario was released in 1992, but Sonic’s first ever appearance. He’s like any game. A mirror, Mike.

[01:40:47] Speaker C: He’s like hanging from like a mirror. Right.

[01:40:49] Speaker B: In arcade game 1990s Rad Rad Racer, Sonic is an air freshener dangling from your rear view mirror.

And that was five months before Sonic the Hedgehog was ever released.

All right, last one.

[01:41:07] Speaker C: The appears was a very key thing in there. Versus was playable in.

[01:41:12] Speaker B: Mike knows how I play these goddamn games. All right, last one.

Both have been featured in major comic books. Who did it first? Mike, you definitely have to. Let’s. Let’s say double points for this one. So it could be a tie game.

Who appeared in a comic first, Sonic or Mario?

[01:41:28] Speaker C: Mike, your guess.

Mario.

[01:41:35] Speaker B: All right, alex.

[01:41:48] Speaker D: I’ll go Sonic.

[01:41:49] Speaker B: Okay.

[01:41:50] Speaker A: And then Andrew going Mario, because he hasn’t won enough of your questions.

[01:41:57] Speaker B: You’re like, wait a minute, this is biased.

Well, Sonic was featured in issue 33 of DC’s Justice League Europe in 1991, but Mario was featured in Marvel Comics Blip, which was a hybrid comic gaming magazine from 1983. And there was a 36 panel retelling of Donkey Kong.

So our runner up is Andrew with four points. And my boy Mike smoked y’ all with six points. So Mike is the winner of the minigame Mini Monicario.

[01:42:27] Speaker C: Good job.

[01:42:28] Speaker A: Thank you, guys.

[01:42:28] Speaker B: That was fun for me.

[01:42:29] Speaker A: He’s got experience Yeah.

[01:42:31] Speaker B: I mean, in his defense or your defense, I guess making excuses over here. Some of that trivia was from our show. I just didn’t think Mike would remember because he’s a busy guy.

[01:42:41] Speaker C: Some of that is just. I may watch a whole lot of weird trivia videos.

[01:42:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I was impressed you knew the Rad Racer thing.

[01:42:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that is from something that is from some list video on YouTube probably.

[01:42:57] Speaker B: It’s a weird first ever appearance for any character, let alone someone as iconic as Sonic to be. Which is why Sonic first appears in Air freshener.

[01:43:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Which is why it made it onto a list somewhere. I’m outside Xbox. I’m looking in their direction. That feels like.

[01:43:12] Speaker B: Sounds about right.

[01:43:12] Speaker C: Feels like the channel, but yeah.

[01:43:17] Speaker B: So that’s it.

Mike Winch, thank you.

[01:43:24] Speaker A: Well, excellent. Thank you for that Jamo. I think we will have to get onto your show just to have some more trivia questions. Definitely.

[01:43:31] Speaker C: Yeah.

[01:43:32] Speaker B: We got to redeem yourselves.

[01:43:36] Speaker A: And now for the bookend. And Mike, I think you might have even coined this term way back with a discord comment.

So this is where we take a look at our expectations before we started playing and compare it to how we feel about it now.

Alex, how did this compare to what you thought was going to happen when you started?

[01:43:58] Speaker D: How they compare. Mario was a hell of a lot harder and frustrating than I thought it was, than what I remembered it was going to be.

And Sonic 2 was a lot better than I was thinking it would be. I was thinking I’ll just like run through it quickly. Not really, but it was. It was a lot of fun visually. I will say, definitely. Visually looks a lot better.

The boss fights were a lot more fun.

I enjoyed Sonic 2 out of the 2 more.

It was a good time.

[01:44:35] Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah, I mean, I got pretty much everything I was expecting, I suppose.

Despite yes, Mario being significantly harder than expected.

Sonic 2 was also surprisingly short after Mario obviously makes sense because of being the second game in the series versus being the fourth. But jmo, you can give us some insight into whether the future games are a bit longer or are they really just kind of all that brief experience?

[01:45:02] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by future games. Like once we got into the Dreamcast and post Dreamcast era, like Sonic Adventure. The original Dreamcast 1 is one of the most expensive and lengthy and epic in its scope platforming games ever. That game has six characters, I think, all of which have different gameplay styles.

But if we’re referring to Retro, Sonic 3 and Sonic 3 and Knuckles were A bit longer, but not significantly. I think the comparison is that Sonic 2, to me as a roller coaster ride and Mario World is more like a national park. There’s more exploration, there’s more freedom in Mario World.

But I think in terms of thrills and visuals, I think. I think Sonic 2 is the clear winner and it is my preference.

I definitely like Super Mario World. I think it’s a very, very, very good Mario game.

But I mean, Sonic 2, I think on my. And Standing list, I think it’s. It’s like my second. Yeah, it’s my second favorite game we’ve ever covered.

[01:46:07] Speaker A: That’s. That says a lot, actually.

[01:46:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Super Mario world is my 19th favorite, so still very good. Out of 110, 19 is nothing to.

[01:46:15] Speaker D: No, that’s good.

[01:46:18] Speaker B: Mike, which one did you prefer?

[01:46:21] Speaker C: It’s definitely Sonic 2, I think Super Mario World, I guess maybe the name’s probably a tip off, is a much bigger feel of a game than I expected. And honestly, I think up until we played it, I didn’t know it meant to be part of a series.

In my mind, there’s just a whole bunch of games with Mario’s name on them.

And I didn’t really connect it to the. To anything coming before it beyond using Mario.

Do you know.

[01:46:56] Speaker B: Go ahead. Sorry.

[01:46:58] Speaker C: Yeah, so I like. I did.

I didn’t really have an expectation for it and it was a lot bigger than expected. So it impressed me in that way.

But I had more fun while playing Sonic 2, even though I still haven’t beaten Sonic 2.

[01:47:16] Speaker B: Do you know how different Super Mario World 2 is?

[01:47:21] Speaker C: No.

[01:47:22] Speaker B: Okay, that’ll be a fun discovery for you.

[01:47:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I’m aware. I’ve played. Played a little bit of that one.

[01:47:28] Speaker B: The title is strange when you think about it.

[01:47:30] Speaker A: It is. It’s odd.

[01:47:34] Speaker B: Is that the one where. That’ll be from, my kittens?

Yeah. Like Yoshi’s the protagonist.

[01:47:38] Speaker A: It is. With baby Mario on his back. Yeah. And you know, to the point where in the Super Nintendo Classics, this, you know, basically emulator in a little plastic box.

It doesn’t even call it Super Mario World in the main label. It just says Yoshi’s Island.

[01:47:56] Speaker B: Really?

[01:47:56] Speaker D: Yeah.

[01:47:57] Speaker A: I mean, it’s. Obviously it shows the box art when you highlight it, but then it just. The title above that is just Yoshi’s Island.

[01:48:03] Speaker B: I get. I guess more people refer to it as Yoshi’s island in Super Mario World 2.

[01:48:07] Speaker D: Huh? Yeah.

[01:48:08] Speaker A: I mean, I just know Yoshi’s Island.

[01:48:11] Speaker B: There you go.

[01:48:16] Speaker A: Excellent. What would you all give this, each of these, I guess on a 10 point scale.

[01:48:26] Speaker B: Well, for me, for me, sonic the hedgehog 2 is, is gets a 10. Because I don’t really know what I would change.

[01:48:34] Speaker A: All right.

[01:48:34] Speaker B: You know, like I could nitpick and go like, well, the bolts in Metropolis Zone are annoying. It’s like. But there’s, you know, that’s like saying a movie can’t be a 10 out of 10 because there’s a single scene you don’t like.

I just think, as my little brother put it, this was the defining moment for Sonic. This is when Sonic became the character that we all know and love so much.

This established Tales 2 player split screen, 3D bonus stages that make you feel like you’re watching Cool Runnings.

It’s like it doesn’t get much better than this. So 10 out of 10.

And I suppose just because I like Sonic 2 better, I guess that would make Super Mario World A9.

But I think in terms of 2D Mario games, Super Mario World is very high up there.

It wasn’t always my opinion on it, but now that I’ve spent some time with it and beating it both ways, I rewound and went the long way. And then I beat Star World like an honest man.

So I’ve definitely come to appreciate just how polished and how much depth there is in that game. So that would be a nine for me.

[01:49:51] Speaker A: How about you, Mike?

[01:49:54] Speaker C: I think I honestly probably would also go a 10 for Sonic 2, maybe an 8 or a 9 for.

For Super Mario World. Especially if it is the.

The Game Boy advance. What, the 19 word title? Like definitely for that one.

[01:50:15] Speaker B: Yeah. You put that as your 11th favorite game, so even higher than I put it.

[01:50:19] Speaker A: Look at that.

[01:50:21] Speaker B: But yeah, it has to be said, that’s the. That’s the way to play it if you have access to it. The Game Boy advance version.

[01:50:30] Speaker A: Alex, how are you?

[01:50:32] Speaker D: I would say Sonic wins with the. I would say 9 out of 10 for me for Sonic and an 8 out of 10 probably for me for.

For Super Mario World after going back to it.

[01:50:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I’m kind of follow suit there.

I think nostalgia plays a heavy factor for me with Sonic 2, but even just removing that out of the overall analysis of it is just straight up speed and fun in a way that I haven’t had in a platformer since Sonic Mania maybe.

And with Super Mario World I give it an 8 because it’s fun to overcome the challenges much in the way it is to do it in a Soulslike or any other difficult game genre.

It still frustrates the hell out of me. I limped through it.

But same here, you can see why it’s consistently ranked as number one of all games of all time in many, many lists.

The game design there, all the philosophy and the specific things that, like, everything is deliberate with that team.

And I appreciate that. And so I give it an eight.

[01:51:48] Speaker B: Yeah. But I mean, I’m glad they held up for you because, like, you know, when I watch, like, when I watched Casablanca for the first time, I was, like, nervous because, like, well, it can’t be as good as people. Oh, it really is that good.

[01:51:58] Speaker D: That’s good.

[01:51:59] Speaker B: And so I think that these games are, you know, in the conversation for best games of all time for a reason. So I’m happy that it’s finally off your backlog, because that must have been embarrassing for you guys.

But also, also that, you know, it didn’t disappoint. I’m. I’m stoked.

[01:52:18] Speaker A: Now, if you had to choose between the two and the other disappeared as if it never existed.

You’ve already given your rating. So I think the answer is Sonic 2 for everyone here. But I am still curious.

[01:52:32] Speaker B: That’s actually an interesting thought experiment because I think that Mario Super Mario World does shape more of modern game design.

[01:52:39] Speaker A: You may not have a lot of things you have now without it.

[01:52:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So even though my older brother will probably find a way to drown me and make me look like an accident, like, I think. I think I probably would save Mario World just because I think it had a bigger impact on gaming overall.

But that was a dirty question. I don’t like that question.

[01:53:02] Speaker A: I waited for you to kind of spill the beans in your opinions and then just undercut it.

Is there anything about these two games that hasn’t already been said either here or elsewhere? Not probably not.

[01:53:18] Speaker D: I don’t think so. I think they’ve. They’ve all got the praise everything they deserve.

[01:53:23] Speaker C: I’ve had the bonus music from sonic2 stuck in my head for at least the last 20 minutes. Which pros or cons? I don’t know how you want to take that.

[01:53:33] Speaker A: Yeah, there’s a good point. We haven’t talked about music at all, and they’re both just absolute classic soundtracks.

[01:53:41] Speaker B: Did you catch the crazy Easter egg or. I don’t. I guess I’d call it a secret. In Super Mario World, almost every song is the same song, but just sped up or slowed down or pitched up or pitched down. But it’s always essentially the same, like, 20 notes.

[01:53:58] Speaker A: Yep.

[01:53:59] Speaker C: Yeah.

[01:54:01] Speaker B: So I, I, I love that little twist and I love that Super Mario World has like that sound to it. But it’s song the hedgehog music is so good.

[01:54:10] Speaker A: Yeah.

I mean the weird thing too is that it just works in, in Mario. It just works like you wouldn’t expect the same song a million times to work like that. And it’s fantastic anyway. And agreed. Sonic 2 is just next level.

[01:54:28] Speaker B: Yeah, the Casino Night Zone is one of the fucking, excuse me, one of the freaking dirtiest like, like nastiest songs. It’s just like you just want to dance to it. I don’t ever want to dance listening to Super Mario World. So in that regard too, I give it to Sonic too.

[01:54:44] Speaker D: I need to, to be honest, I need to go back and I think because I kind of flew through Sonic 2, I wasn’t massively and I also didn’t have it like very loud on volume on my TV when I was playing it. I need to go back and listen to the soundtrack. Like I heard some, but I’m not massively remembering.

[01:55:01] Speaker B: But I’ll have to go back and

[01:55:02] Speaker D: like listen to the soundtrack. Mario World I, I can hear in my head and I kind of know because that one’s just that.

[01:55:09] Speaker C: Well, Casino is also one that’s really easy to get stuck. Like that’s a level that I would frequently run out of time on because you have all these slot machine mechanics. I’d be way too busy with that.

I have spent too much time with this and I should have moved on in the level earlier because then it would turn into like, I’m going to run out of time in a way that many of the others don’t have happen.

[01:55:31] Speaker B: Well, you know, it’s funny because Alex was saying like, I need to listen to the music more. Like you can go into the sound test and play the music for the levels. But that reminded me of one thing we didn’t talk about, which is the debug mode. It’s a cheat code. One of the coolest cheat codes of this era, where if you play the soundtrack, you know as certain tracks in the right order and boot up the game.

Player 2 Instead of tails is now a cursor and you can place any object from the level in front of Sonic. So you can put all the rings you want, all the enemies you want, all the spike traps you want. It’s like Mario Maker 20 years before 30.

[01:56:11] Speaker D: Crazy.

[01:56:13] Speaker B: It’s wild and you know, it breaks the game at points and things don’t render properly. It’s crazy pixels. So it was not something that was a feature.

But it’s very easy to put the cheat code in, and it’s very fun to mess with, especially if you have someone to play with you where it’s like, okay, Sonic, try to get to the end of the level while I put a bunch of spikes in your way.

So definitely check out debug mode. And I don’t believe there’s anything like that. I mean, Nintendo doesn’t really put cheat codes in their game that break it very often. They’re very.

They’re very protective of the overall package in a way that Sega wasn’t as

[01:56:51] Speaker C: much, I mean, which is also why your way to get to the end for Mario still involves having to do the Star Road, whereas you could just put in a code in there and get right to the. You could do level select, too.

[01:57:06] Speaker B: Yeah. On Sonic 2. Yeah.

[01:57:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I did see something about that. Yeah. You can just kind of choose any level, which is good because you don’t have the overworld to go and replay them.

[01:57:17] Speaker B: And then the. The definitive version of Sonic 2 is actually on iPhone because you’ll see in the sound test, there’s a track that is does not appear in the game, and it’s because it was an unfinished

[01:57:28] Speaker A: level

[01:57:31] Speaker B: that was only out in the wild because it was stolen from a gaming convention.

Someone physically stole the copy of the game that had the data on it, and it was found on ebay decades later.

And so Christian Whitehead, maker of Sonic Mania, purchased or was gifted the file and restored the level. So Sonic 2 on the iPhone has a level that is missing from the version you guys played.

[01:58:01] Speaker A: Is that still even purchasable? Because I know that a lot of iPhone games end up being removed from the store.

[01:58:08] Speaker B: Well, the iPhone version is what they ported to Sonic Origins.

[01:58:11] Speaker A: Plus, is it really okay so I can play it? The iPhone version, you never hear that

[01:58:18] Speaker B: is the definitive version of such a classic game. It’s wild.

And it’s a cool level too. It has like a Robotnik fight, or he has a bunch of music. His machine is like a big band, so he attacks you with trumpets and cymbals.

[01:58:31] Speaker A: That’s awesome.

[01:58:32] Speaker B: It’s so cool. And there’s like dinosaur robot. It’s only a single stage, but it’s pretty sick.

[01:58:43] Speaker A: All right, are there any parting thoughts?

I mean, I’ll say I want a Mario Metroidvania.

You know, there are already so many power ups to choose from, so many biomes. Just give me an interconnected map instead of an overworld level select. System and give me some backtracking and I’d be super happy. I’d prefer that over the standard format.

[01:59:07] Speaker B: Would he still control like in this game or would he be a bit heavier like he is in the 3D games?

[01:59:14] Speaker A: That is for the designer and the developer to determine.

I’ll give it a shot.

[01:59:21] Speaker B: Well, I want a Sonic game by the people who make Bayonetta. Like I want a frenetic Devil May Cry style Sonic action game where like I’m running around but then I’m also engaged in like crazy hand to hand combat with his speed.

[01:59:35] Speaker C: Yep, you can do.

[01:59:36] Speaker B: You can do that a bit in Sonic Frontiers, but I think a combat focused Sonic game could be sick.

[01:59:42] Speaker A: Yeah, Platinum games. I would love that too, wouldn’t you? Everything they do is like basically just that, but just reskin it. Obviously no guns and all that, but.

[01:59:52] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I mean you could, you could Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog has its defenders.

[01:59:57] Speaker A: That’s true.

I like it. Let’s get both of these into the queue.

[02:00:04] Speaker B: Yeah, Mike, if you made a new Mario or Sonic game, what would it look like? I feel like yours would be weird. Like they run a restaurant or something.

[02:00:12] Speaker C: It’s two directions. Either one, Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball. Two.

[02:00:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be sick actually.

[02:00:20] Speaker C: Or this is crazy. What if you did a Mario and Sonic at the Olympics but Sonic gets actually run like Sonic and not this nonsense of Sonic can’t be faster.

[02:00:34] Speaker A: Imagine that.

[02:00:35] Speaker C: Leave the rest but just have him just dominate in every track sport you want.

[02:00:42] Speaker B: The Bo Jackson from TechMobile is what

[02:00:44] Speaker C: you want and then some.

[02:00:52] Speaker A: Excellent. This has been so much fun, guys. Mike and Jamo. Where can our listeners tune into the old switcheroo?

[02:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Mike, you want to plug our website?

[02:01:00] Speaker C: Easiest way if you go to theoldswitcheroo.com that’s theoldswitch a R-O-O.com follow.

That will give you links to where we are on all podcast platforms, on social media, our Discord, everything from that one spot.

We’ve also got some links on there somewhere, I think on my profile to my Twitch where I Stream under Lobacca 1977 Generally whatever we are playing.

So there’s no set schedule to that. But every.

Everything that I can. Everything that we played with the exception of the Virtual Boy, which doesn’t allow you to stream for.

I don’t. There’s a lot of mysteries about that. But everything else that we play, I stream all my gameplay of it.

[02:01:51] Speaker A: No way. That’s a commitment.

And just to confirm it’s the old with the D. Correct. Not the all with an apostrophe.

[02:02:00] Speaker C: The old.

[02:02:01] Speaker B: The old switch. A roo.

[02:02:03] Speaker D: There you go.

[02:02:04] Speaker A: Important, important details when you’re just listening.

[02:02:07] Speaker C: Yeah.

[02:02:07] Speaker B: And then also, you know, we have, you know, we have TikToks, we have Instagram shorts, we have a Discord. You guys are in there.

So there’s a link to our Discord on the website. Come join us and come be on a future episode. We’d love to have you.

[02:02:21] Speaker D: Awesome.

[02:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah, everyone give these guys a follow. And we still got to set up that Star Fox remake session.

[02:02:28] Speaker B: I mean, I’m ready all day long. I love that game so much.

[02:02:35] Speaker A: Amazing. So everyone let us know in Discord what you thought of Super Mario World and sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Otherwise, tune in next time to find out which video game Season 13 of the gaming Backlog Book Club will be about. Or again, join our Discord for a preview.

[02:02:51] Speaker D: Thank you everyone for listening. We really appreciate it and hope you enjoy enjoyed this journey, this nostalgic journey, I should say to these all time classics. So yeah, thanks again for listening and have a good one.

[02:03:03] Speaker A: Bye Bye.

[02:03:06] Speaker D: 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.