At the front of the show, we dink(um) around a bit and chat about Hollow Knight: Silksong, plus Casey grants us a fun ol' Mystery History. But stick around for the end, because there was a HUGE new Nintendo Direct. 60 minutes or something! We chat about all the hits including Fire Emblem, Metroid, Mario Galaxy, Virtual Boy, Yoshi, Ditto, and who knows what else. That new Hyrule Warriors looks pretty good, no?
We're going to try to do emails next week if we can, so send 'em in, fools.
No Casey, so Perry and Bulafski are here to pick up some slack!
At the top, we discuss some random stuff like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Yooka-Replayee (which is coming in about a month, w00t!!). We then chat Gears of War: Reloaded and the Adventures of Elliot demo. Other stuff in there too. Justified? Pokemon cards? Favorite Mega Evolutions? Huh?
Didn't think this week was going to be so busy, did ya?
Actually, this week was pretty fun. There was that Kirby Air Riders Nintendo Direct (as well as that other news), plus some chat about Donkey Kong Bananza, Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol. 1/2, Lumines Remastered, $400 Pokemon cards, and moooooooooooooooooooore!!!!! Oh hey, send us mail, will ya?
On the docket: Games like Ocarina of Time, Toree Saturn, Expedition 33, and more! Perry opens Pokemon cards! Alex shares the most expensive pack of cards he’s ever seen! We debate the merits of the new King of the Hill season! Has Bobby gone TOO FAR?
We got an OG cast fellers. And you know what that means? Well, it means two things. One, we're talking more Donkey Kong and two, this article's gone b shrt.
Three fellas talkin' bout games. What's betta dan dis?
Pretty chill ep this week. We start things out with some food talk before rolling straight into talking about Donkey Kong Bananza and No Sleep for Kaname Date: From AI The Somnium FIles. Also some King of the Hill chat in there, maybe?
I was not here this week and was not given any info. I can only assume Donkey Kong takes up majority of the talk, but you'll have to listen to find out!
We're talking Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and 4 and Dynasty Warriors as we counted down the time for DK. Plus Jerruh pops in after missing the first segment with a good ol' fashioned Mystery History!
This week, No Perry No Problems (♫ I don't know what, they want from me; It's like the less Perry we come across, the more game show segments we seeEEEee ♫)!
Which of course is a roundabout, awkward way of saying it’s just Alex and Casey this week. Except wait, now that I think about it, Perry is on this week’s show too! Whaaaaaaaaaaaa???
At the front of the show, Alex and Casey got us some Snack Wrap chat plus thoughts on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 on Switch 2 & Dynasty Warriors: Origins on PS5. Then we pass things over to Perr-berr, who Mystery History-s it up with Ryne and Josh. Woo!
We're talking Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and 4 and Dynasty Warriors as we counted down the time for DK. Plus Jerruh pops in after missing the first segment with a good ol' fashioned Mystery History!https://t.co/hNyrCcbuDPpic.twitter.com/XcIVRRgjg3
— Talk Nintendo Podcast (@TalkNintendoPod) July 19, 2025
We've been keeping busy, Balex of course picked up and polished off Death Stranding 2 real quick, no biggie no biggie. Plus Jerruh playing his Switch 2?! Then we get into all the goodness coming out the rest of the year and give our hype levels for each!
Down a Balex, but spirits are up xD. We got everyone's favorite, Food Talk, and its a hefty one to boot! We do get to some Fast Fusion, which kicks butt and we wrap it with Number Trivia!
Everyone is back and we got ourselves a normie show! Three Switch 2 games including EVERY new Switch 2 game from last week.
You asked for food talk, so hey! We start the show with 10 minutes of it. Then we talk Monster Train 2, Cyberpunk, Raidou Remastered, and Kunitsu-Gami. We also got Perry’s pack battle segment “I Can Quit Anytime That I Want” in there. Nice lil ep!
Balex is MIA, but the OG bois are here to take care of you. We're having a blast with the Switch 2 as we continue our romps through Night City and Mario Kart World!
It's so darn close! But we got a juicy episode to help pass the time. We're talking Fantasy Life I and Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance. Plus Jerruh got himself into another Pokemon pickle.
Anyone else getting tired of looking at the clock?! So darn close, but in the meantime we got a good one for you guys. We're talking Fantasy Life I and SMTVV. Then ol' Jerruh really dropped the ball, as he tends to do. Won't wanna miss what happened on the latest Pokemon Pickel. Plus another installment of the Game Show Club!!
Just think, this time next week, we'll have those Switch 2's in hand!
Earlier this month, I finally played through Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake on my Switch. Having never played the original, I had two main takeaways. One, this is some of the best looking sprite work I’ve ever seen. Two, like many games from that era, it gets extremely grindy and your choices are to either stick it out or switch to the can’t-die “Dracky Mode” difficulty (I did the latter).
I did this in the wake of a 25-minute demo of Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake on PlayStation 5 at PAX East 2025 earlier this month, as I wanted a frame of reference before finally writing this preview. This is going to be a bit of a different sort of writeup as, mechanically, there’s not a ton to say. To me, what they’re conceptually going for here is a lot more interesting.
Let me explain. In the Dragon Quest I portion of the demo, I went from the starting town into the open field into a cave. I did some battles, walked around, and didn't see much of the new stuff. Hey, it looks amazing. The little tweaks that I could see, such as the ability to fight multiple monsters, seem like a good way to add mechanical complexity to the original title.
II was similarly gorgeous, and it played a lot more like the Dragon Quest III remake – low camera overworld and voiced cutscenes in kind – which is good because, if you’ve played II originally, it’s a fairly polarizing game. II, while not entirely a black sheep on the series, is unforgiving and an awkward halfway between the addictingly grindy Dragon Quest and the more expansive Dragon Quest III.
There’s little you can tell from a few minutes with a game, but if Square Enix gave II the same treatment they gave III which they absolutely seemed to have (increased battle speed, multiple difficulty options, and generally a more comfortable experience overall), then it seems like an ideal way to experience a game many Dragon Quest fans have a complicated relationship with.
Now conceptually, what stood out to me was how the remake’s developers took pains to make I & II feel like a sequel to the III remake that came out last year. III stars Erdrick and acts as a prequel to I & 2, which are led by his descendents. Outside of visual/stylistic parity with III, I & 2 will have new content (both story and gameplay) to tie this remake trilogy together and make the III -> I -> II playthrough feel natural.
A Square Enix representative told me that playing the two upcoming remakes together is roughly equivalent to the length of the Dragon Quest III remake last year (which, if you played on default difficulty, would have taken about 30-40 hours). That same rep got excited when I said the new remake seemed like an opportunity to make Dragon Quest II into an easier hang; to paraphrase, they said the II upgrades/additions were specifically a point of focus for the team.
Today, on Dragon Quest Day, Square Enix announced Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake would come out (including on Switch 2!) on October 30. My surface takeaway of this remake is, “Hey, seems like they did a great job with this one like they did III!” But a bit below the surface, it’s clear Square Enix has grand ambitions for this remake, ambitions that will be worth paying attention to.
As the countdown continues, the boys have been wrapping things up in Xenoblade Chronicles X. Plus Alex has a slew of games he's bringing to the table, as per the ushhh.
The title of this episode was almost “Casey Made Me Edit This Episode” but I’m not feeling so vindictive so we’ll play this one diplomatic, up the middle, something from the stinger.
Pretty good episode again this time, if I remember right? A lil loosey goosey, spinning our wheels a bit as we get closer to Switch 2 time. We talk about Xenoblade Chronicles X, $80 games, Listener Mail (send us more pls), Doom: The Dark Ages, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, and other stuff in the margins like breaking Peppa Pig news.
As the countdown continues, the boys have been wrapping things up in Xenoblade Chronicles X. Plus Alex has a slew of games he's bringing to the table, as per the ushhh.https://t.co/GoARgPfLTvpic.twitter.com/a0kdn1psH2
— Talk Nintendo Podcast (@TalkNintendoPod) May 24, 2025
Mama Mia, look at that episode length! We got everything you could ever want, from Doom to Switch 2 talk!
We start things out with Alex's PAX East report, featuring brief thoughts on the show floor as well as his first impressions demoing Bravely Default on Switch 2! We then kick things over to Perry, who chatted with our bud Kynan Pearson about Donkey Kong (a topic he is VERY qualified to speak on) as well as Switch 2.
In the back half of the show, we chat Doom: The Dark Ages, Who's That Pokemon Card, and...Madea??? What'll they think of next?
On the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch day, they’re putting out the original Bravely Default out in HD, aptly titled “Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster.” This was a 3DS game originally released in 2012 before coming out in the West a year later via a slightly reworked, slightly expanded format.
There’s a whole historical context behind this game and how it originally started as a Final Fantasy spin-off before becoming its own franchise, but I’ll mostly skip that. Wikipedia exists for a reason, and I’m guessing an NWR alum wrote that article and/or video better than I ever could about 47 years ago.
What I will say is that the original Bravely Default is a turn-based JRPG – and a damn good one I hear – that started the whole “Brave/Default” mechanic utilized in several Square Enix RPGs since (such as the Octopath Travelers). While your party fights monsters, you can choose to “Default,” in which you don’t attack and save up a move for a future turn, or “Brave,” which allows you to spend up to three banked turns (four including your current one) to do a bunch of damage against enemies all at once.
There are other intricacies, but all you need to know is that it’s a really cool system that differentiates itself from the meat-and-potatoes aspects of many contemporaries.
I’m interested in this release in part because I’ve played Bravely Default II and Octopath Traveler II but not this predecessor. I hear Bravely Default is a really good time (we have reviews attesting to this) – one of those 70-hour RPGs that evokes SNES-era Final Fantasy while offering its own modern twists. It helps that Flying Fairy HD Remaster is coming out well below “full price” – $40 MSRP in the States – which feels smart and sensible against $70 and $80 first-party releases.
I played Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster during a brief appointment demo during PAX East 2025. I played with Joy-Con 2s in the new grip for the RPG parts, and I played the two new minigames with mouse controls. We weren’t able to play on handheld (only TV), and I’ll note that what I played was a development kit so technically I can’t speak to the Switch 2 final retail experience. Joysticks seem real good though!
I played the first 10 or so minutes of Bravely Default (up through a few random encounters in that first cave) and hey, it looks good. You can tell it’s a remaster of the 3DS game rather than a full on remake (which is totally fine), but it looked sharp and ran great. Because of preview limitations, we weren’t able to take direct or even indirect gameplay to check things out on our end, but it felt like it was running at 60fps (at least). Special shout out to the hand-drawn backgrounds from the original game, which look extra pretty with the enhanced resolution.
Flying Fairy HD Remaster also includes two new minigames that utilize the Switch 2’s mouse controls: Luxencheer Rhythm Catch and Ringabel’s Panic Cruise.
My initial impression of the Switch 2’s mouse functionality is that it seems like every other thing like this Nintendo has done in the last 20 years; on one hand it obviously didn’t feel nearly as good as a standard computer mouse, but on the other, some kids are probably going to get into the Civilization franchise through this control scheme and that’s pretty cool.
Luxencheer plays almost like a take on Theatrhythm where you move the left and right Joy-Con 2s as cheering apparatuses to the rhythm of a few songs, pressing the shoulder buttons once in a while for specific beats. Although it was awkwardly fun and kinetic moving the left and right controllers around a coffee table to catch notes, I can’t really say I felt the “rhythm” piece. I did play on an easier difficulty (I love rhythm games but wanted to be efficient with limited preview time) so maybe harder difficulties will feel better.
Ringabel was more up my alley because it played into the fundamental awkwardness of this control scheme. You pilot an airship in first-person and fly through rings at different elevations while using your mice as hands to control the airship dashboard. The point is to juggle turning the wheel while managing an elevation lever, the occasional valve you need to fix, and various buttons that the game occasionally instructs you to check. It’s silly and overwhelming, and I think this is the one of the two that has party game potential.
These are both fairly small bonuses that act as a nice application of Switch 2 functionality on launch day. It’s not the selling point, but rather a cute little thing. The new release also includes a single-screen UI, the StreetPass mode redesigned with network functionality, and quality of life upgrades such as fast-forwarding.
Here’s all you need to know: on June 5, Square Enix is selling an HD version of a huge, well-received JRPG from the early 3DS era. It’s launching at a pretty good price, and it seems like they did a pretty good job with it. There are still questions about whether every feature from the original game comes back (the spokesperson I spoke with mentioned that there’s more to share RE: some of the early questions folks had), but it seems pretty good!
With Casey out, the boys are all over the joint. We're talking a few Xenoblade Chronicles games, more Switch 2 hype, Ghost Trick, Pokemon cards... you name it.
We ended up with another episode where Alex was on but Casey wasn't (has nothing to do with a restraining order or anything#) but do not fret, Alex and Perry are back for another Classic Episode(tm).
It's so loosey goosey there's not much to timestamp, but we go back and forth between Switch launch stuff, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed, Ghost Trick, Pokemon cards, and a bunch of other junk. Also, HUGE stinger this week (like a third of the show???) so don't miss that.
With Casey out, the boys are all over the joint. We're talking a few Xenoblade Chronicles games, more Switch 2 hype, Ghost Trick, Pokemon cards... you name it.https://t.co/XlfmTZJ7b0pic.twitter.com/hcly8q6MOU
— Talk Nintendo Podcast (@TalkNintendoPod) May 10, 2025
We got ourselves an OG cast this week with Balex out on a work trip. But we're talking about the Switch 2 and how fast it's coming. Plus more XCX as the boys keep chippin' away.
The Switch 2 hype is building, so luckily we have a juicy game like XCX to play in the meantime. Unless you're an animal and beat it in a week like Balex.
Perry and Bal convene to cover a wide range of topics on this week’s show. We got some Mystery History, some Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, some Pokemon TCG Pocket, and moooooooore!!!
Show Posts
??
