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A nightmare in any form.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/75759/episode-977-the-pictonico-pact
It is increasingly clear that Intelligent Systems' great success with Fire Emblem Heroes was not due to some grand insights on the world of mobile games.
At the least, the sages who oversaw the creation of the selfcest money maker must have returned to their home planet.
Or prison.
It's unclear if these are different places.
But we're not here to burry Fire Emblem Heroes - that was last week. We're here to burry their most recent afront, Pictonico!
To be clear, the exclamation is theirs, not mine. I would have ended with a question mark: Pictonico?
Well, James has been playing Pictonico%, and questions arise quickly. Most are simply "why." There are many whys to investigate: "Why did they make it like this," "Why does it behave this way," "Why is this not a WarioWare game," "Why am I playing this," "Why did they make it at all?"
Following last year's Fire Emblem social deduction game, that always ended in the bad guy getting socially deduced, we are now introduced to a game that scans your phone for photos - usually of faces. This is not an exclusive situation, it will use non-facial photographs for non-facial purposes.
This is sounding sexual in a way unintended.
This product is uniquely capable of making a visual nightmare. In a way, I appreciate the chaos it seems wired to create. I do not understand nearly any of the decisions it makes.
Also we now have a new Mask-cot: Masky. I suppose I'm now honor-bound to write up a fictional biography of Masky, in the hopes of assailing the AI Search tools that seek to monetize our writing without recompense. The mill needs more grist, as the proliferation of AI content online has resulted in a Masky-info ouroboros,
Not today, dear reader. Perhaps some other day.
Today, we have a podcast to talk about. James' New Business is Table Flip Simulator - a game that was bad in a way that did not comport with how James wanted it to be bad, and the aforementioned Pictonico#. Guillaume is still trying to channel Japan with Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival and Forza Horizon 6. He's also still driving through the hundred endings of The Hundred Line, but things are starting to get a bit... strange. Greg closes out New Business with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book.
After a break, we tackle a single Listener Mail: what enemies join the party, and as a result just start to suck.
You can...just email us.
Specifically, as perceived by dinosaur tongues.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/75640/episode-976-im-just-going-to-choose-to-not-engage-with-how-i-taste
Different species perceive flavor in different ways. This is something you could probably intuit given the widely-commented on smelling power of canine and swine.
For those unaware, taste and smell are intricately linked senses. A head cold can mess with your sinus, and ultimately make food taste weird.
Theropods - strictly upright dinosaurs that are largely obligate carnivores - are the ancestors of our modern birds. Yoshi's posture indicates that he is a theropod, although some ornithischian were likewise upright walkers. The diet is the key: the "bird-hipped" ornithischians were obligate herbivores - and Yoshi is not. His omnivorousness, upright posture, and presumably three claws inside his shoes make him a theropod.
What does the exercise in Linnaean nomenclature have to do with taste? Yoshi cannot taste sweet. This is not even up for debate. All birds have lost the genetic molecule to detect sweetness, which means the evolutionary departure must date back to before birds separated from more-dinosaur like forms.
Obligate carnivores - which the evolutionary stock for modern birds almost certainly were - really only detect savory, salty, and bitter flavors. The first two deal with the tastes of their prey and the last is a defense for detecting spoiled food. Even birds with diverse diets, like Yoshi, only add a fourth flavor: sour, used to detect unripe fruit.
Hummingbirds have re-evolved their taste for carbohydrates by modifying their savory sensors. They don't eat savory food and so they are repurposed for sweetness. They still lack the physical structures for detecting and genetic compounds related to tasting sweetness that other animals have, they just found an adaption.
That does mean the Mysterious Book screenshot saying the Crazee Dayzee "tastes sweet" must be written from the perspective of the book, not Yoshi. Yoshi would not be able to taste Dayzee's sweetness, just the suffering of its crushed flesh.
I believe it screams. Yoshi, and his dinosaur hearing, would hear it clearly.
Jon is out this week. This is a transition that is akin to giving a new driver a manual transmission with a completely fragmented clutchplate. It doesn't matter.
James took to the RFN Bluesky to ask for emails. And you rewarded his... panicked realization that there was a dearth of content this week and a lack of motivation to do anything about it.
This week we are asked to explain the state of "modern" light gun games, which means we spend the majority of our time talking about things that came out nearly 20 years ago.
We are also asked to identify games that just need to be paced better.
It fell to us to predict which of three impossible things will happen first - what was clearly a setup to put us in position to talk about a Rexian Bargain. We are calling it that now.
Our fourth question asks us, the masters of predictions, to look forward ten years and predict the entire future of the console space.
Question five is a simple proposition: what's the weirdest experience you had related to Radio Free Nintendo?
Our final, an impossible sixth question, asks what Yoshi would think we tasted like. The answer, as we discussed, is meaty.
...I really need to preview emails before we start reading them.
An infinite supply of shoulder-mounted RPGs are available to you.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/75559/episode-975-charles-bronsons-ragebound
Eternally playing catch-up.
I could be talking about Radio Free Nintendo or just regular Nintendo.
This week we're doing both. We have caught up on the news of last week, with Nintendo catching up on the inexorable rise in costs triggered by... everything bad in this world.
I'm going to choose not to talk about that, because it's sad and depressing.
I could spill ink on the fact this is the 20th Birthday of Radio Free Nintendo. Like, actually today.
I likewise decline, because it makes me feel old and sad.
This is a recurring theme. The world was better when I was 20. I am the first person to have this realization, I am sure.
No, we are going to use this space - a space that should be dedicated for talking about the podcast - to talk about the retirement of Takashi Tezuka. One of Nintendo's early game designers, his name is all over the credit screens for the last 42 years.
I was lucky enough to meet him on two separate occasions. The immediate takeaway from the experience was "I think this man face modeled for Mii." His Mii was so accurate that he could have used it on his passport. There is no indication that he worked on the Mii project, and I feel like this is impossible.
This toolkit seems to have "Make Tezuka" as its one and only test case.
The good news is you don't have to take my word for it: Nintendo repeatedly sent Miis of Nintendo executives DIRECTLY to you - including Mr. Tezuka. This is now my personal conspiracy: Takashi Tezuka designed Miis, change my mind.
Anyway, Jon was out this week. This was known ahead of time. We did not scheme up a replacement. Obviously, the price increase of Switch 2 leads the way; we would never avoid talking about the lead news story for roughly thirty minutes. We also talk about Tezuka's retirement, and touch on the investor questions.
After a break Gui and Greg have some New Business. Gui took advantage of exchange rates and purchased the Switch N64 controller while in Japan. He used it to play Sin and Punishment and Star Fox 64. He also is still playing The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. Greg, fresh off defeating the most insidious challenges in Bellabel Park, is now trying to find pain in the embrace of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound.
I had to look up how to spell this thing's name just so we could make this dreadful title.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/74436/episode-964-its-bokoblin-time
We've spoken quite a bit about Nintendo's transmedia usage of Mario. We've had Mario merchandising for decades, but the ramp-up from the dark days of the Wii U have been consistent and noticeable.
My Mario - a line of Mario product confronts a very specific challenge. The late Satoru Iwata used the phrase "licensed product really leads to consumers’ smiles" when talking about ideal use of Nintendo IP. The goal wasn't just to protect their brands but to deepen these connections.
Whether or not children are currently engaging in console gaming, or if they're adrift in the Obby Sea of Roblox, is irrelevant when you're talking about the zero to five year old demographic. This is a population who's media diet is largely whatever their parents select, they have not obtained such agency.
And so now we find ourselves with wooden Nintendo Mario blocks. They are amiibo, because presumably this is some kind of standing internal requirement for internally produced toys that was maliciously complied with for this project. And so now, we can twist Mario's face.
Perhaps they are bringing a smile to Mario's face, by force. Iwata's legacy lives on.
Delaying our Top Five of 2025 into March, 2026 is a deeply RFN thing to do. It's easy to blame Jon, largely because he does deserve it but also because he never mounts an effective defense. His defenses are somehow better when he isn't present so perhaps today is his bet argument.
When Jon gets back feel free to boo him.
Instead, we spend this week talking about Xenoblade Chronciles X going double edition with the Definitive Edition Switch 2 Edition. This is not necessarily the Xenoblade game we would tee up for the Switch 2 Edition, but it was the most obvious one. We also have a bit of pull at the above Hello Mario and get broadly distracted by whatever nonsense Hamster is up to.
After damned near 40 minutes of preamble we finally make our way into New Business. Greg has some quick thoughts on FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE and then we take a break!
After the clearly well-earned break, we resume our New Business. James has the Virtual Boy shell, and inflicts significant pain on himself by using for unintended purposes. He then inflicts additional pain with the intended purpose: playing The Mansion of Innsmouth. It's bad.
And after all this, we are once again distracted, now by discussing Morbius. The movie. In 2026. RFN continues apace.
Guillaume wraps up our New Business with an update on Hundred Line and thoughts on Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. He also took a look at The Punisher arcade game from Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection.
Lastly, we spiral a little bit into the Pokémon Company's recent purchases in an attempt to make their TGC a product people can actually buy.
We're going to hold the NSO to a higher standard.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/74111/episode-961-only-games-with-the-cultural-cachet-of-quest-for-camelot-may-apply
Two years ago Nintendo set a standard for what games belong on the NSO and, by extension, what games do not.
Quest for Camelot, still no definitive article, cast a pall over the entire NSO service. Even I failed to see the true quality of such art.
To take this Titus-produced title at face value is to miss the rich cultural ore imprisoned in a crust of earth and quartz. It is like taking a party van of Praxiteles, Donatello, Bernini, and Canova to La Galleria Nazionale, a contemporary art museum in Rome - a city where each has contributed immeasurably to the cultural heritage. Some galleries contain works that would seem familiar and that they would be able to appreciate, but anything with postmodern art would be beyond their understanding. They could not grasp the forms they see.
Nintendo is not so bound by convention. They understand that an artform is as elastic as the artist wills it to be. There is no bad art, only bad art appreciators. Quest of Camelot shapes and distends the bounds of the video game artform, challenging the audience to understand the intent of doors that are identical to walls and a save feature that costs money. The texture of the piece is the message and the message the texture.
Rather than putting people-pleasing unchallenging, mass-market, art in their digital gallery - Nintendo hosts a more sophisticated exhibition.
I am unable to continue this joke any further.
Jon is out this week, and somehow the crew manages to really only handle two email. The first asks what "Hall of Fame" games took us by surprise, the other seeks to identify omissions from the NSO service.
After these email we do gesture broadly at the Nintendo Directs for Super Mario Galaxy movie and Tomodachi Life. We also recognize the inevitable arrival of the Virtual Boy.
Send the emails here.
Never has one man so needed an editor.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/73009/episode-949-ponder-the-gummies
In a literal sense, every city in every game is a simulacrum - a simulation of a real thing in a simplified scale.
It isn't technically or artistically realistic that a game could ever simulate a real city at 1:1 scale. Trying to represent a small city would be building a digital Tower of Babylon to capture intricacies of interior spaces, people, and events. Even if someone did do it, without realistically modeling the interaction of these things the entire illusion would fail.
Setting aside the unfathomable scale of the ask, it seems unlikely to produce a game that would be fun to play. I could see someone attempting the task just to brag about it - Team Bondi's infamous working conditions for L.A. Noire seem informative here - it probably wouldn't be any fun. To be clear, I like the game but their "model L.A. at scale" was no way part of the enjoyment.
I would call Pokémon Legends: Z-A's Lumiose City a simulacrum of a simulacrum. It gives the illusion of a city in a game, trying to give the illusion of an actual city. This pantomime polis It's such a miss. Seeing as it is the game's only environment, it is inexcusable that the city isn't more alive.
Jon is out this week, scientists claim he is magnetically repelled by Kirby talk, and we're joined instead by Syrenne. She, Greg, and James spend the entire first half the show today talking about our adventures in Lumiose City. It's got a lot of ideas but many of them don't add up to a coherent whole for our trio.
After a break, we continue the New Business. Gui decided to see exactly how French Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actually is. Syrenne has impressions of Ghost of Yotei, the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima - this time its personal. She also talks a bit about two recent releases that she worked on: Spooky Express and Dispatch. This somehow leads us down a long conversation about the overall health of the games industry - which is of course absolutely fine and there are no problems.
Somewhere in there we also talk about Sakurai's second hour-long Kirby Air Riders Direct.
They gave him a second direct.
He has had two, uninterrupted, hours to talk about Kirby Air Riders. An entire Radio Free Nintendo's-worth of time has been allocated to this task.
I don't get it either.
Oh, you've got a deadly game of cat and mouse going. I'll come back.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72471/episode-943-im-seeing-double-here-four-virtual-boys
I can't believe we're talking about the Virtual Boy in the year 2025 CE. Normally, this brand of declaratory surprise is delivered as "I can't believe we're STILL" doing whatever the prepositional phrase describes. It would be incorrect in this case. We have never talked about the Virtual Boy.
I've owned a Virtual Boy for about 13 years. I bought it before game collecting went through its absurd inflation cycle. I've probably used it a dozen times, I can't even tell you if it still works, but not for lack of effort. I don't have six known-good AA batteries, because again, it's 2025.
Please wait while I walk to the CVS up the street at about 10 PM.
On the return, I can confirm my Virtual Boy is functional, but a bit finicky to get started.
It's a really strange controller. After using it for about twenty minutes, I agree with Greg that the lack of a Virtual Boy controller in the Nintendo store is a bit surprising. Shelling out $100 for a plastic Virtual Boy shell is already a deeply sick thing to do - what's another $40 for a controller?
A true mirror-image from left to right, the controller has two D-Pads and two face buttons on each side. The left side's face buttons are Start and Select but in shape, size, and location they are identical to A and B on the right. There is also a trigger button on each of the two handles. They're round, which makes zero ergonomic sense, but they are often the primary action button. Even the handles, a bit of a precursor to the N64, feel somewhat off. They're a bit thin but, to their credit, are more contoured than the N64's.
The weirdness of the controller continues, as the power for the Virtual Boy unit actually comes from the controller itself. The back of the central core of the controller has a rail that you can slide a power brick into. By default, the brick is a box for holding six AAs, but in theory it could be an AC Adapter or some kind of rechargeable device. There was an official AC Adapter, but they seem very rare. I doubt a rechargeable battery came out, since the system's lifespan was about five months. However, the Virtual Boy has a dedicated modding scene, and they have produced their own.
If you're wondering why I'm talking about the Virtual Boy, I guess this will be news to you - Nintendo had a major Switch Direct this week.
I say "Switch Direct" but that's not entirely accurate. The Direct started with an extended Mario 40th Anniversary segment that included: an uninspired Mario Movie segment, a solicitation to run the Kyoto Marathon, and a reminder that you can shell out and go to Universal Studios (Osaka, Orlando, Hollywood) and live the Mario life.
With the Direct running over an hour, it would be impossible to document here everything we touch on in this week's episode. There were so many silly things: a printed Rosalina's storybook that will be lacking the new pages, Tomodachi Life in general, the announcement of another Kirby Air Riders Direct, and the above. There was also a lot of news: a new Fire Emblem, a Metroid Prime 4 release date, Donkey Kong Bananza DLC. This episode is more than a bit packed with content. However, not Jon. He was unable to join us this week.
Pardon our dust, this was an episode where we forwent traditional editing in order to get it out as soon as possible. We moved our normal recording date to cover the Direct, and released within an hour of recording concluding. That also means no timecodes this week, because we don't know where they are either! You might also hear a bit more crosstalk or noise than the usual episode.
SENDEMAIL
We could have made the poster lenticular but thought you might be confused why the ship was sometimes not a skull. Yes, the title should clue you in, but we're not taking any chances.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72346/episode-942-we-cant-make-the-ghost-ship-poster-any-clearer
I've mentioned it in past episodes, but for about ten years I was part of a group that routinely watched movies ranging from "bad" to "befuddling." We produced a spreadsheet that documented every film, but sadly I have lost access. Ghost Ship was on that list, and as dumb as "Speed 2 with Ghosts" sounds, it really isn't even close to the worst content we saw.
One of the things we learned will not surprise: as the barrier to entry dropped the floor for quality dropped with it. When it was hard to make a movie, movies like Manos: The Hands of Fate were rare novelties. By the 90s, any delusional narcissist could make their vision our reality.
Camcorders, a portmanteau of "Camera" and "Recorder," really was just a video camera with an on-board recorder. Previous video cameras - portable and studio - transmitted their analog video signals to an external recording device. In the early 80s there were professional quality "remote" recording kits that included a VCR in a satchel, but these were prohibitively expensive.
In 1983, Sony released the first consumer-grade camcorder based around their proprietary Beta format - a format that was already losing the format war with VHS. JVC soon followed suit with a VHS-based product. Prices quickly dropped, refinements continued, and the cameras - and their recording medium - continued to shrink.
1990 saw video editing likewise democratized with the release of Video Toaster for the Amiga. Non-Linear editing was now available to any content creator with a camera and a Commodore PC.
The legacy of these creators lives on horror slop available on Tubi.
You might wonder why I'm telling you all this. Well, it's related.
Jon wasn't available to join us this week, ending his "Iron Man" streak at two. A new high score.
This week we lead-off with a chunk of your Listener Mail. Our first question asks what games can introduce non-gamers to the hobby. We then get real old and breakdown how our bodies' breakdown is degrading our ability to game. The third email requires we defend ourselves from accusations of becoming a Xenoblade podcast. We did just release a 150 minute Xenoblade podcast three weeks ago...
After a break, we dig into one final email: why no one besides Nintendo has an active mascot character. Concluding the Listener Mail task, we tackle a bit of actual New Business. Guillaume tore through Shinobi: Art of Vengeance. Needless to say, he's a fan. We also get a brief Silksong mention, because its real. Greg has some final thoughts on Star-Crossed World and the Chibi-Robo! for GameCube NSO.
Keep sending those emails!
Even the embarrassing moderation policies of X, The Everything App, are being put to the test.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72098/episode-939-crankys-forbidden-rant
Last time I wrote about Donkey Kong Bananza, I discovered that DK is an ape and Diddy isn't. The revelation that adjoins this information is that Diddy is dumber and closer to death than DK.
Truly, an evolutionary dead-end.
Speaking of evolutionary dead-ends, Rare's time with the Donkey Kong brand contributed the plurality of character and world details that we associate with "the big ape."
This sounds instantly more accusatory than I intend - I'm not speaking of Rare as the dead-end. I'm talking about many of the so-called "characters" they contributed to the brand.
Lets talk about Manky Kong.
WAIT! GET BACK HERE, I DIDN'T DISMISS YOU!
Manky Kong is an orangutang that Rare created as an enemy for Donkey Kong Country (1994). He went unused for the remainder of Rare's time with the series - presumably because he's undeniably terrible. However he did show up in a few manga and as a sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
I suspect this fact will be unsurprising, but the name "Manky" was, once again, Rare gracing a title from UK slang to one of their creations:
Used to describe an object that is unpleasantly dirty, usually because it is old or has been used a lot
-Cambridge Dictionary
Rare's use of British slang has always felt like it was their way to get one over on whoever was, at that moment, their foreign master (see: Ghoulies, Grabbed by the). In this case however, the oblique naughty reference was not of their own creation.
Nintendo Power published the Player's Guide - the official strategy guide of Donkey Kong Country. They described Manky Kong as follows:
Manky Kong is really mad. Probably because he was never accepted as part of the Kong group. The word "manky" seems to be derived from the words "mangy" and "skanky." It's certainly befitting for such an unsightly ape...
In fact, an issues of Nintendo Power likewise describe Manky Kong as "skanky." Even when they were trying to behave, Rare will always be Rare.
As for the actual episode, it's the 100%er Club Spoilercast for Donkey Kong Bananza. James and Greg have all the collectables and have a lot to say. Below are the chapters and timestamps.
Why does everyone laugh at this joke? I'm so confused.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72096/episode-938-hey-hows-it-poppin
Are you aware that the Xenoblade Chronicles series makes a few very subtle references to 2001: A Space Odyssey? It has some other similarities too:
Like Space Odyssey itself, the ambiguous ending is at once appropriate and wrong. It guarantees that the film will arouse controversy, but it leaves doubt that the film makers themselves knew precisely what they were flying at.
Time
April 19, 1968
That sounds awfully familiar... (also see: Xenoblade Chronicles X spoilercast).
So does that mean Chapter 13 of Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition has a space baby? Well, this is our XCXDE - a very easy to follow shorthand that I will use from now on - spoilercast, so you could listen and find out.
But no, there is no Space Baby.There is a planet to colonize, famously ambiguous endings, but no cosmic postnatal giant.
There are also dangerous, meat-hungry, apes.
Who's the guy in the hood? How are things poppin' in said hood? Why is the fact that things are "terrible" for me, good for him? Is he a dick? Why is he a dick?
Why is the entirety of this narrative powered by cosmic unknown and pizza?
Since I can't really get into spoilers here, let's talk about pizza.
Pizza moves all the gears of New LA's economy. New LA is a city of American exiles. It stands to reason that Army Pizza, the central nexus of New LA, serves a style of Americanized pizza. Let's explore this very stupid space.
What kind of regional pizza are they serving in New LA?
Wait, I have entire second episode to edit and write about this week? I can't get into the galactic unknowable mystery that is Altoona-style pizza. Honestly, the Ganglion should have made their way to Earth a lot sooner...
You heard me right, we have a Donkey Kong Bananza spoilercast coming out in a few days...what the hell did I sign up for?
Here's the timecodes for the various subjects we cover on this episode, keep in mind the chapter titles could be spoilers.
His killing progress though? Top of the class. Middle school is looking bright.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72002/episode-937-im-worried-about-razors-reading-progress
Nintendo's back-to-back weeks of announcement streams continue to provide a serendipitous disruption to the status quo; this week Jon is out and Greg and James have been mostly devoted to the chores of cleaning up Bananza. Last week we had Jon, but Greg and James were still busy with the task of banana collection. With limited content to sustain the New Business pipeline, this marketing disguised as an event kept this show fueled.
This is an unsustainable resource; Nintendo needs more time for developer biomass to degrade into extractable hydrocarbons. Sound off with your favorite form of hydrocarbons in the chat. I'm personally a big proponent of Ethane.
Next week we'll similarly extract all the dead dinosaurs we can from the Earth's crust* with a double spoilercast: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition and Donkey Kong Bananza. The timing is fortuitous, Guillaume will join Jon in their absence - and Greg and James are the only cast members to have explored either of these games.
* I understand fully that the vast majority of biomass that has become hydrocarbon fuels were, in life, plant material. I am simply suggesting that RFN is biodegraded different.
This week, we screw around for a disproportionate amount of time, even by our standards, before we finally get around to the business of the previously mentioned Indie World Showcase (00:13:14). We run through the majority of the featured titles, but special attention is paid to UFO 50, Is This Seat Taken?, Mina the Hollower, and the childish jokes from BALL x PIT. After the Showcase is sufficiently explored, we turn our attention to the just announced My Mario line of toys, games, and clothes for babies. Jon, not being here, is the butt of multiple jokes. If he had been here, he would have been the butt of many more.
Not content to simply start the first segment on a meaningless diversion, we wade into Donkey Kong's presentation in Bananza vs. The Super Mario Bros. Movie. As it frequently does, the end of the segment ends up being about things that are entirely unrelated: the 2014 cinematic masterclass "Unfriended."
A much-needed break frees us from our nonsense. Guillaume does actually have some New Business: Pampas & Selene (01:12:41), a multiplayer MSX-inspired Metroidvania. Lastly, we knock out a single Listener Mail: is Edge Maverick or Razor Callahan the right name for your baby? It's got to be one of them - so get to making those babies. We need to sell My Mario to someone when the line launches in the West sometime next year.
Email is still broken, continue to use the normal email address. I'd put it here, but we get enough garbage sent to that inbox from bots, purveyors of podcast "services," and you lot. We say it on the show, you know what it is.
Nuh huh, not going there. Not happening.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/71614/episode-932-the-title-is-not-getting-glazed-by-toadsworth
I don't come into these articles with a plan in mind; they're a kind of free-association riffing in essay format. It's a bit of the opposite of how I draft "editorials," where I map out a number of the jokes ahead of time - but often the conclusion isn't scouted until I've crested the hill. In this case, as it is every week, the conclusion is I tell you about the latest episode of Radio Free Nintendo. This Shangri-La's location is known, our meandering about the Kunlun Mountains is a choice.
Today we're in uncharted territory; previous articles had been kicked into their topic naturally, and I have no desire to turn this into a meta-narrative on how I draft articles, especially since I've only been using this format for a month.
Here's the point where I deleted 124 words that had nothing to do with anything in particular: Clerks: The Animated Series, Enki, the various ways one can define a "week."
Here's the point where I had to delete a second digression that involved the French Republican Calendar.
Speak of "a week," in a week, give or take, we'll be playing Donkey Kong Bananza. However, you wont be invited to our early impressions. This is not an act of exclusion, we just wont be talking about it on the next episode. Our recording scheduling is fixed, and it changes for no man. Or ape. Excepting when it does, of course, which it wont today. Or next week, to be more accurate. We'll be crushing rocks with you in two weeks. Presumably we will also talk about Donkey Kong Bananza, but the future is unknowable.
In the meantime, I was able to reenter the NWR Forums, which I had been locked out of for nigh on a year due to the corrupted Core Theme. It turns out all you need to do is put ;theme=1 at the end of the forum URL and you'll be golden, assuming you're still on the list of impacted users. I'll be biding my banana time there.
In his absence, James has accumulated a bit of New Business. First he wraps up Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (00:10:03), this time with much less rambling. He also decided he needed more New Business, so purchased Arcade Archives2 AIR COMBAT 22 (00:16:16), only to find its total runtime of five minutes presents its own downsides. Lastly, he kicks off some conversation about single player activities in Mario Kart World (00:31:56). Guillaume details his unsuccessful attempt to daisy-chain Switch docks (00:57:25) but Nintendo is not having any of that. He also details how to hide all your anime girl slide puzzle Virtual Game Cards. Balatro (01:05:44) has come into his life, and the addiction is setting upon him. Jon is accidentally timely with Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (01:21:05), now on Switch 2. Greg closes out the show with Mario Smash Football/Super Mario Strikers (01:31:57) on NSO.
Also, we talk about Acclaim and Bloodvertising again.RFN will always be RFN.
