Nakano Broadway with Matt Alt, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Final Thoughts

[00:00:01] They Tokyo Base to Video Game Podcast, focusing on intendoing gaming culture in Japan's capital. Your host, Mono here to bring you a slice of gaming life from Tokyo. Today, author Matt Alt joins the podcast as we talk about one of the biggest, decaut spots

[00:00:23] in all of Tokyo, Nakano Broadway. We chat about how the symbol of modernity became a holy land for Japanese retro culture, most amazing shopping discoveries, and what the most likely fate for the massive shopping complex.

[00:00:37] In the game section, I share some final thoughts on Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door on Switch, plus in the news I dig into the direct and many other gaming announcements, plus fun game events coming up soon in Tokyo. Let's get started with Nakano Broadway and Matt Alt.

[00:00:59] Today's feature is on Nakano Broadway, one of the more unique hotspots for gaming and geek culture in Tokyo. Joining me to chat all about it is a special guest, so guest, please introduce yourself. I'm Matt Alt.

[00:01:11] I am the author of Pure Invention, how Japan made the modern world. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining me. Let's play some groundwork for those who maybe don't know what is Nakano Broadway. Nakano Broadway is a shopping complex.

[00:01:25] It's located on the west side of Tokyo, a few stops away from Shinjuku in Nakano. It's been there for quite a long time. It incorporates a big residential building as well and it anchors this entire shopping

[00:01:41] arcade that extends from Nakano Station out to the building which Nakano Broadway is in. It's just a huge kind of shopping complex, like a lot of shopping streets and things all around it and it's a fun place to go.

[00:01:55] You and in Japan for quite a while, do you remember your first ever trip to Nakano Broadway? Wow, yeah. I mean, I've been living here for 21 years now but I think the first time I went out there must have been in the 90s.

[00:02:09] I actually spent the thing that drew me to it is that there's a shop chain called Monde Rocket and Monde Rocket has outlets all over Tokyo and many other cities in Japan and it's

[00:02:23] a store that specializes in reselling used pop culture of Femura, like all sorts of stuff, comic books, games, toys, a new name it, posters. I was mainly familiar with them from their Shibuya outlet which was kind of thriving in the 90s and the early 2000s.

[00:02:45] I don't know how it was that I realized they also had one in Nakano Broadway and it turns out that the Broadway one was first. This was something I didn't realize at the time I was going there.

[00:02:55] Yeah, my first trip wasn't actually that long ago relatively, especially compared to you. Maybe 21, I made my first trip down there. Wow, okay. And I've been back a few times since. Obviously for me, I mostly hit up that gaming hotspots but there are dozens and dozens of

[00:03:09] other shops inside the complex. So let's touch on the history of the place a little bit. It opened up in 1966 in Nakano which you said is right outside of Shinjuku. And ironically it still does sell a lot of things from that time period or at least close

[00:03:23] to it. But I just hope it must have been a very modern structure, right? Yeah, so actually turning the clock back a little earlier, Nakano was leveled during World War II because it was a site of a large military training facility

[00:03:36] that basically trains spies and like infiltrators and things like that. It's the Nakano training academy. And so it was targeted by the allies that whole area was wiped out. And in the years after World War II a black market sprung up there.

[00:03:50] And this was pretty common in urban areas in Japan. There wasn't a lot of food. There wasn't a lot of money. People would barter things. People would pill for things from Japanese bases and resell it all sorts of shenanigans so to speak on.

[00:04:05] And as a survival tactic, this wasn't something that people were doing for fun to make money or anything like that. Although I'm sure there were individuals profiteering off of it.

[00:04:14] And a lot of the places that we see as fun spots in Tokyo now got their start that way. Akihabura is another one. And Akihabura kind of specialized more technological things like radio parts, vacuum tubes. And that's why that section of town turned into the electronics district.

[00:04:31] Nakano was the site of another one of these things and another one of these black markets. And over the years it kind of gentrified into a shopping arcade. Shotengai as they're known in Japan, which are very common to find in neighborhoods all over Japan.

[00:04:49] Like suburban areas all over Japan. Japanese people typically didn't go to supermarkets and things like that. I'm talking in the post where era that go to their local green grocer, their local the meat guy, the butcher, whatever the thing you wanted was there was some neighbor of yours

[00:05:02] would be running a shop on the kind of main street in your neighborhood. And Nakano is a particularly kind of a large one maybe because it's so close to downtown Tokyo. Like you said in 1966 some real estate developer got the hot idea of building a giant

[00:05:19] gleaming modern for the era shopping residential mixed complex there called Nakano Broadway and it opened in 1966. It was touted as literally the greatest building in Asia. It was I believe the tallest building in Asia for a little while before bigger buildings were built elsewhere.

[00:05:40] It was kind of like a remarkable achievement and early on in the 60s real movers and shakers live there. So what a Kenji, the rock star, idol and actor lived there. There were politicians living there. It was really a big deal when it opened to the 1960s.

[00:05:56] How did it become synonymous with the idea of retro? The Nakano Broadway that we all know actually dates back to 1980. That is due the math. That's a good 14 years after the place opened and by that point Nakano Broadway was already kind of on the Wayne sort of speak.

[00:06:16] It was no longer the hip trendy place to live. It was no longer gleaming and new was already a decade and a half old. And 1980 is when Matsuzo Furokawa, who is the founder of Manderake, decided to open a used bookstore there. It was tiny.

[00:06:34] Like he opened this tiny used bookstore in this fading shopping mall that nobody really cared about and just started running his business there. And that is the seed from which the Manderake empire started and grew. Yeah, let's talk about Manderake.

[00:06:52] There's a few Manderake stores all over Tokyo like you said, but Nakano Broadway is really its home base. How would you differentiate Manderake from say book off? Oh yeah, we're book off to me when when that opened I thought it was kind of a Manderake

[00:07:06] clone in a lot of ways. The big difference between a book off and Manderake is that book off specializes mainly largely in mainstream literature, nonfiction, periodical stuff like that. It's a used bookstore and an average it's a chain. It's well run.

[00:07:23] It's well stocked depending on which one you go. There's like hundreds and hundreds of book off outlets in Japanese cities. But it's like the kind of first place you would go if you wanted a bestseller or the buy it used or a fairly well-known book.

[00:07:37] Manderake is 100% manga and subculture. I mean, you would not go there for the Japanese translation of Harry Potter although I'm sure they have it or something like that. It's where you go when you want like a copy of Shonen Jump from 1975 or when you want

[00:07:53] some weird occult manual that was published whenever. It's not the place you go for quote unquote normal literature. It's the place you go for abnormal literature and manga and things like that. So it has this kind of counterculture in so far as that concept even exists anymore.

[00:08:12] Subculture, pop culture, focus. That places like book off do not. Is there any type of specific fandom or types of merch you think knockin' out with the place to go over Akiabara? My feeling is that Akiabara's pop cultural shops tend to specialize more in modern things,

[00:08:33] up-to-date cutting edge anime like cutting edge manga, the popular stuff. It's become a real tourist spot recently and in the last like certainly post-COVID. It was already trending that way pre-COVID but post-COVID is just exploded.

[00:08:47] You're more likely to encounter a non-Japanese person on the street in Akiabara on a weekend than Japanese one I think. Mundarake or knockin' abroad way in specific tends to focus on older stuff, the audience there tends to be older.

[00:09:01] It's people who are into series that aren't necessarily cutting edge like if you want a transformer for instance like that you remember from your childhood you'd go to Mundarake or you'd go to knockin' abroad way one of these stores more than I think you would aim for Akiabara.

[00:09:14] Which isn't to say you can't find stuff like that in Akiabara. Mundarake actually has a whole tower there called Mundarake Complex and another shop that specializes in soft vinyl called Tuku, COO, COO and Akiabara.

[00:09:28] So there are places to find cool stuff and retro stuff and Akiabara too but Broadway really lives it and embodies it and kind of it's crusty, it's musty and that's why you go there. We've talked about the history, let's actually go inside and knockin' abroad way.

[00:09:46] If you said before it definitely doesn't have the kind of gleam and allure it might've had in the 1960s but does have a lot of character I would say. And do you have any personal favorite stores you often frequent or you find interesting in knockin' abroad way?

[00:09:59] I'm a toy collector. My interest in Japan was sparked by toys as a kid, toy robots, transforming robots, combining robots, robots that don't do anything, whatever I love that kind of stuff. And so I think every person kind of follows their fetish people.

[00:10:16] Somebody who's in a movie posters would go this way, somebody who's in Ta-Monga would go this way, somebody who's in the finals, whatever video games, everybody has been on track but for me

[00:10:25] I think the thing I like best about knockin' abroad way is it really feels like a time capsule. It hasn't been renovated since the 1960s. It feels like a 1960s building. It's laid out in a very 1960s, 1970s way. You just don't build places like this anymore.

[00:10:42] Like the layout is kind of maze-like. There's not a lot of windows. It's intersected by these staircases. The geometries of it are very retro, like the building itself is an antique. So just simply walking around in there because all of these smells, there's a kind of decaying

[00:11:01] cardboard and you must eat paper. There are restaurants in there that have been run for decades and specializing in all sorts of pretty pinpoint unique foods. There's like a temporary place, a vegetarian place. There's a place specializing in a moogitoro which is this kind of ground up,

[00:11:20] kind of a potato root that makes the sticky paste that you put on top of rice and things like that. There's some all of these kind of really unique shops in there. And so it's an atmosphere. You know what I mean? It's a vibe. Right.

[00:11:33] Yeah, I'd have to dust with like your kind of going back in time in a good way. I would say, is there a shop you came across and not gonna Broadway that really surprised you? Either in it's layout or what kind of goods it carries?

[00:11:43] There's so many surprises in there. I think the one that really shocked- I'm not really shocked by much, I'm not gonna Broadway anymore. But I remember encountering one shop that dealt exclusively in like serial premiums

[00:11:57] and like the little candy toys that were packaged with chocolate some things like that back in the 60s and 70s which was and is still kind of like a big genre of toy in Japan.

[00:12:09] And like the prices on some of this stuff were just mind boggling like thousands of dollars for these little tiny pieces of plastic that are basically, they're better than cracker jack trinkets because

[00:12:19] this is Japan and even those toys the toy makers put the surprising amount of effort and detail into. But just the prices on some of them were just mind blowing. I was like, wow and they're gone when you come back the next time.

[00:12:32] So somebody is out there and somebody bought them. There's somebody out there who specializes in nothing but vintage 1970s, Japanese candy toy premiums. So yeah, I mean there's a lot of stuff in there.

[00:12:45] Yeah for me like I mentioned before, I mostly hit up the game stores and the biggest one in Nakano Broadway is probably Mondrake Galaxy. Right. It's fairly big with aisles of games and it really doesn't shy away from especially deep cuts.

[00:12:57] Like for example, they have probably the most wondrous one games I've seen right in store ever carry and they even carry like 3D old games. They have PCFX and MSX games and so forth.

[00:13:07] They also have the Famicom games and whatnot but they also have a lot of great how to describe this kind of displays from old game stores. Yes, the Femura they have like game adjacent stuff too.

[00:13:18] I remember when one of my big regrets is that about it was really COVID I think and there's nobody in Nakano and they had that store I believe it was Galaxy out in their window.

[00:13:31] Is that the one I actually don't know what the names of a lot of these places are just know them by saying that the one that has with the game and watches and like all the vintage games on display in the cases outside?

[00:13:40] Yeah, they have a huge this kind of like a window I guess or a guest case right outside. Well they had like five or six issues of game freak by Satoshi Dury and at the time they were like

[00:13:51] oh my god 10,000 yen each that's crazy but now like those I really wish I could read them and it's called Game Freak because Satoshi Dury was one and yeah this is where the game company's

[00:14:02] name comes from and he was penning these Dojin Shies which are full of like strategies for beating Gallagher stuff like that or like Dragon Quest. It was the Dojin She like self-published

[00:14:13] Zeein that he was putting out in the 80s before he became kind of like a full on game developer and now I'm just like man I should have just thrown down and gotten those things because they're

[00:14:22] incredibly rare and it's just a window into you know the soul of this guy. Yeah definitely I think for that price I probably would have bit as well if I saw that and yeah they had to be like the Nintendo entertainment sign which was like a big sign

[00:14:35] had a lot of the stores like in a pergivly big camera and so forth in the Famicom days would be like an Nintendo section and of course they have a big gold Mario statue that I

[00:14:44] badly want. Rapping is also there. Another Game Store I recommend it's called Lushing Bomb Audio Visual. This stock is not as big as Mondrake Galaxy but what they do have is probably

[00:14:53] at a better price and they do have a lot of fun stuff. Has there been any I guess you mentioned it I guess maybe the sides the Game Freak magazines is another game related find you've come across

[00:15:03] and not gonna Broadway that was really memorable. I remember when it was it was shortly after my bulk had come out and so I was very very familiar with this piece of equipment. It was like an

[00:15:16] Nintendo TV game 15 which is the kind of pong clone that Nintendo put out a color TV game I think it's called and it was designed by Masa Yuki Uemura who had it up I believe it was R&D

[00:15:31] too at Nintendo and it was like one of their early attempts at the Nintendo we know today is like this factory of dreams but in the late 70s and really prior to about Donkey Kong it was just a

[00:15:44] copyright. All they did was was copy other people's game designs and they made all of these games they're really probably not too proud of now like space invaders clones and like pong clones

[00:15:55] and stuff but it's history had like one of those color TV game consoles in there and for whatever reason I didn't pick it up I should probably should have you need a special you can't hook that up

[00:16:04] to like a LCD panel you have to invest in a in a CRT to really run that kind of thing and I was like man I think I should just leave that for somebody who can really appreciate it and it was gone

[00:16:15] so it did go off some of the the family room in the sky I guess were somebody who didn't enter TV but yeah. Akiba definitely has a larger stock but Nakano has a lot of game merch from the 80s and 90s

[00:16:26] and rare stuff that you probably wouldn't find elsewhere another Mondoraketskora is called microcon and they have a lot of kashi toys oh yeah micro before a hotcast micro is one of my favorites

[00:16:38] there it's not just kashi it's it's all sorts of cheap toys I like micro a lot because I do like that style of toy but when you're a little kid most of the time the toys you would

[00:16:49] get from your parents or the ones that you could scrape the money to get together by yourself aren't the huge deluxe like play sets it's it's got little cheap things that you get like at a penny candy store

[00:16:59] in Japan or out of like a gumball machine kind of situation or like just the cheapest kind of thing that was in a toy line and micro specializes all of that stuff so the transformer

[00:17:10] that the non-transforming transformers or racers or like gun-dam figures that were you know sold as little model kits with candy or a million and one different variations of things that were sold

[00:17:22] at a vending machines all sorts of stuff like that I really like it because to me that stuff speaks childhood even more than the really really expensive stuff that everybody's kind of idolizes the big deluxe toys the jumbo machiners the chogo keen diecast all of that stuff that

[00:17:37] commands huge sums is great but the micro is just full of that little cheap stuff yeah the micro con also has a lot of 90s era pokemon toys which I'm a fan of and I went there with my wife once

[00:17:48] and she mentioned that oh they have these dragon quest battle pencils right I know sure exactly the rules but you can battle with pencil somehow I think they have stats like written on them or

[00:17:59] right I'm sure but she mentioned she saw that from her childhood and she was like wow I can't believe they have it here when I was writing pure invention I kind of set out to get one of every

[00:18:10] sort of gadget and and product that I was writing about in there and when I knew I needed tomagoches really the original tomagoches I went straight to micro and bought them there and they still

[00:18:22] worked I actually raised a tomagochi for the first time in 20 years in the course of writing that book and it is all thanks to micro what would you say is the rarest item you've ever come across in

[00:18:32] knocking a Broadway well that's actually really easy because it happened just a couple of years ago there is a toy series that is known as the jumbo machiner series in Japanese they're like two

[00:18:42] foot tall polyethylene plastic super robots they were sold in the 1970s and 80s in America as Shogun Warriors and a really cool they're like these big plastic kind of indestructible toys and bond I under its subsidiary poopy started putting them out in the early 70s and continued

[00:18:59] throughout the 80s and there's dozens of these things and like other companies put out their rival versions and they're all really cool it's actually what I collect like were used to but where they got so freaking expensive but there is a series of villains enemies that poopy produced

[00:19:15] and they were made in very small numbers because they thought kids would prefer the heroes and they're made of soft vinyl they're like giant soft vinyl toys and the rarest one of those is an enemy from a TV series called Missingersy who's called Trans-Orezy in the American English

[00:19:33] speaking market but it's a it's a bad guy called Garada K7 who has this skull for a head and these giant like death site like horns coming out of the sides of his head and the toy shoots this

[00:19:46] ball out of his chest it's literally the the rarest Japanese character toy there's so few of them and they go for the astounding sums and a couple of I was a year or so ago I walked in and they

[00:19:57] actually had one on display in a showcase and I was like oh my god I'd only like I'd only even confirmed I was the one who actually confirmed the existence of this toy years and years back or found the

[00:20:11] first photographs of it through a Japanese collector friend of mine but I'd only seen them a few very rare occasions and so to come across one in Mondrake in Nakano Broadway in Broadway in Broadway

[00:20:23] in this showcase was just absolutely astounding it was not for sale it was up for auction and this actually leads into another aspect probably I'd been forgive me if I'm getting ahead of things

[00:20:35] like Mondrake now puts all of its choices stuff up for auction and so a lot of the showcases in there are full of stuff that you can't buy I find that to be kind of a bummer not that I this Garada K7

[00:20:47] ended up going for I believe was a quarter of a million dollars it was like just an insane amount of money at auction and like this is not the kind of thing that we're gonna be able to walk

[00:20:57] and be like hey I'm gonna buy this but yeah that was certainly the rarest thing that I saw there well it's pretty incredible yeah it's like I got like the hair standing up at the back

[00:21:09] of my neck when it's so I was like oh my god it's real here let's talk about what it may be the most high profile shop in Nakano Broadway to not know Zingaro or Zingaro maybe in the English

[00:21:18] pronunciation can you touch on when it entered Nakano Broadway and its impact on the area well Zingaro is one of the brand names that the pop artist Takashi Murakami who kind of rose

[00:21:31] to prominence in the arts with his commodification of Otaku culture into pop art for born consumers he sort of set up base in Nakano about 10 or 15 years back I actually am not a huge follower

[00:21:47] of Takashi Murakami's work so I'm not exactly sure when that happened or why he did it but his art collective now has a bunch of galleries in there they also run a pretty cool coffee shop

[00:22:03] in there which is modeled on an old 1970s invader room which is what our kids were called in Japan at the turn of the 1980s because they were mainly only space invaders cabinets and this cocktail

[00:22:17] sit down ones you go in order to drink in place space invaders so they have that coffee shop is really amazing it's actually right next to micro which we were talking about great atmosphere there but

[00:22:26] yeah like Murakami is doing his own thing in there it's kind of adjacent to Mondoraka I don't know if they're collaborating I don't know what's going on but yeah so there's that kind of pop art

[00:22:36] thing going on too yeah it's an incredibly popular store sometimes when I go up there there's a huge queue like right out of the door and I've even seen security guards there which I've really never

[00:22:46] seen any other store so it's definitely like a lot of not super expensive items but things a lot people really want especially overseas customers do you think there's any sort of advantage to being

[00:22:56] in Nakano Broadway? Sure I mean it's like there's a lot of tourists there. Yeah do you think that maybe that's might lead to maybe more artists like moving in well in 10 years Nakano Broadway

[00:23:08] be some sort of like art haven you would think? It's a tough call because nobody really knows what's going to happen to Nakano I think that Murakami targeted Nakano Broadway

[00:23:18] because he knew that it fit his image he's a pop cultural guy and whether you like that or you don't like that he's a guy who kind of brings Japanese pop culture and high fashion together so there's

[00:23:33] a lot of people out there often the same ones who are lining up outside of supreme stores and things like that or like Harajuku Street Fashion stores who come for whatever latest limited edition collaboration he's doing but I actually don't think there's a lot of overlap between the

[00:23:51] people who are into Murakami stuff and who are into the actual vintage of Femurud that Nakano Broadway sells. In fact I kind of see it a little bit exploitative a little bit appropriate to

[00:24:03] is that the word to me the whole point of Broadway is the hunt you go in there looking for things that might only have personal value to you and that personal journey is what Nakano Broadway's

[00:24:16] about so lining up to get the latest high fashion art collab things that you can flip on Mercury or Yahoo Auctions or eBay to me is just not in keeping with the spirit of that place but

[00:24:28] it's not like they're hurting anyone it's just not my thing. What do you think is the future of Nakano Broadway? Is it just going to be a gradual decline or can you see it being revitalized in

[00:24:37] some way or is it always going to maintain some level of stability because of focuses on such specific nerd cultures? The future of Nakano Broadway, a pile of rubble I think it's rapidly kind of deteriorating

[00:24:50] it's the reason that it has never been renovated is really simple nobody knows who owns a lot of it. So many of those retail spaces have changed hands so many times that don't was impossible to manage it

[00:25:02] as a collective that's why it has this kind of pirate black market feel to it because it is a sort of pirate black market not in an illegal sense people do sign you leases and stuff like that

[00:25:13] but there's no overarching management of the place and it's why they haven't been able to update the HVAC system it's why they haven't been able to tile the floors or repaint the walls there's

[00:25:23] no sense of collective ownership of the place it's like a bunch of people who've set up shop in there and so the place is slowly deteriorating at a certain point they're going to have to tear it

[00:25:34] down when it gets damaged or I don't even know whether it's been updated from modern earthquake standards or anything like that if there's no like plans to do this anytime soon but it's not

[00:25:46] tenable over the long term to be brutally honest I think if they knocked it down and tried to rebuild it it would lose everything it would be suddenly it would be an expensive place the whole

[00:25:54] great thing about knock-in-o-traditionally is that it wasn't that expensive to rent a spot in there rants were cheap so you could be some solo weirdo which I mean in the best possible sense

[00:26:07] and open like some shop that catered to people just like you it was a place to kind of find your tribe and so like the way that it's becoming a tourist anchor is I actually have to be honest I

[00:26:20] had some reservations about even coming on here and doing this because like I don't think knock-in-o-brought way needs more people coming to it right now like more gonger is more

[00:26:30] tourists it's like it's a great place it's a place that was kind of a secret for a long time and now it's not and it is sort of losing something for that like you see a lot of people there who

[00:26:42] are trying to like get something so they can flip it as it's as opposed to going there because they want to get something because they love it and already the mind-or-ocket self is kind of transitioning

[00:26:53] away from the storefront sales to like using the storefronts to advertise things are auctioning which is I get it it makes them more money but it it also really makes it more difficult to find

[00:27:05] kind of gems in the rough or weird things there because they know what everything's worth everybody knows with everything's worth and it just all goes up on auction to the highest bitter

[00:27:15] so I mean that's that's life that's just how it goes like things have have changed but it is that's another aspect of knock-in-o's future that I think is going to be accelerating which is that

[00:27:24] all the good stuff is going to go out online it's not going to go out through the stores all right final question what tips would you give to somebody who is visiting knock-in-o-brought way

[00:27:32] for the first time bring money lots of it cash I mean what advice would I give just go in there and luxuriate it and just enjoy the atmosphere fly your free flag find your tribe who knows maybe

[00:27:45] you're going to find some repressed childhood memory of an old toy or video game you haven't seen it's like a worship test just look on the things you like but yeah I would also say be respectful

[00:27:56] to the people there remember that this isn't like a theme park it's actually a place where people are running businesses and if the margins are very thin can go into a place and spend a lot of time

[00:28:06] there consider buying something to support the owner and yeah just be respectful remember you're visitor there awesome well Matt it was great to chat with you about knock-in-o-brought way I would definitely

[00:28:15] recommend it if you are a retro nerd and knock-in-o in general is actually quite nice there's a place called magro mart where you can basically eat an entire giant tuna so do that and then go buy some

[00:28:26] old toys all right Matt where can people find you you can find me at blog dot pure invention book.com that's my newsletter the pure invention newsletter and you can find my book it's on amazon

[00:28:39] it's everywhere it's pure invention how Japan made the modern world it's got a website pure invention book dot com look for look for me everywhere I'm on Twitter I'm on Instagram I'm everywhere you are online great and the least everything will be in the podcast description so

[00:28:53] listeners check it out what's again Matt all thanks for joining me thanks for having me I did it I wrote credits on paper Mario the thousand year door is that a paper pun like role of

[00:29:09] paper let's say it is I talked about the game a few episodes ago when I was only a few chapters in but now I got all the crystal stars beat all the baddies may or may not have gone all the star pieces

[00:29:20] I'll leave that up for you to decide so I wanted to share some final thoughts on this remake of the much discussed 2004 intelligent systems RPG hey I did imagine this last episode but

[00:29:31] did you know that the director of this game is not co-ad a who directed the first two games but instead must he go nagaya who directed the origami king did you know that well now you do

[00:29:40] first thing up the bat I think it's very safe to say that this is the definitive version of paper Mario the thousand year door. Now sure what one would prefer from the first game except

[00:29:49] for maybe the visual style like I mentioned before the remake has much more dynamic and realistic lighting which makes us seem like a diorama as opposed to a flat picture book like the first game

[00:30:00] I can see some people digging how the game cube version looked over the remake but outside of maybe that the remake is better in every way yet it doesn't fix every single issue I

[00:30:10] had with that original game my overall opinion of the game has really changed compared to when I first played it it's a very good RPG with an awesome battle system instantly memorable setting clever puzzles and well hidden secrets that reward curiosity but it has pacing problems and

[00:30:26] absurd amount of backtracking and no it's not as good as paper Mario 64 but then again no game is let me jump into the positives the character building and battle system makes the game

[00:30:37] you want to get into battles so you can test out new strategies and see how much more powerful you got I remember I played Assassin's Creed Odyssey and I got some ability that let me do

[00:30:45] 47 thousand arrow damage that means nothing to me but now Mario's hammer can do 10 HP of damage that is legitimately game changing bigger numbers aren't always better in fact I would argue the

[00:30:57] opposite obviously most of your level ups should be in to be p aka batch points one level up gives you three more batch points which has to be potential straight up change the game you're always

[00:31:08] excited to level up and see what you can equip badges that give you new combat abilities or even pass those stuff like attacks missing when you have 5 HP these things that you feel extremely powerful

[00:31:18] in the battles it's always great when you just get a little bit more powerful and now you can kale an enemy and one hit compared to two the game gives you more badges than you'll need but there

[00:31:28] are battles where you need to change them up quite a bit so it's always good to have a surplus favorite badge quick camera and fire driver really awesome attacks that seem pretty powerful

[00:31:36] also any badge that lets you do one HP more damage is just exciting to equip again one HP means a lot in this game things like damage dodge or last hand also make you feel invincible

[00:31:48] the game does a great job in bouncing out interesting offensive and defensive badges the badge system is pretty much what separates paper Mario from the other Mario RPGs and just RPGs in general you don't look quite weapons or armor and most of the power upgrades are story driven

[00:32:02] customizing Mario in this way is very unique I mean when you play Odyssey you don't have a Mario build right even in super Mario RPG which came out a few months ago it treats Mario like

[00:32:13] every other RPG character in terms of leveling up and equipping items there's no variety there but in paper Mario my Mario and your Mario could be quite different outside of its battle system the

[00:32:24] other big reason why people love this game is diverse setting and the very big and interesting cast of characters I talked a lot about roadport a few episodes ago and yeah certainly one of the

[00:32:33] more iconic locals in all of Mario the fact that each chapter also takes you to so many unorthodox locations keeps the game really fresh yet the first chapter basically your typical

[00:32:42] small town with a castle but then you get to go to a wrestling arena then a spooky town with a haunted house a train journey complete with pit stops and you end up in a fancy city and then you can even

[00:32:52] go to the moon which is obviously a must for any great game all your partners are very fun to talk to and they're all very different in battle as well plus they all come equipped with amazing

[00:33:01] abilities once you level them up best partner i mean it's easily Yoshi kid i love how he calls you Gonzalez for literally the entire game the great thing about thousand year dorn general is that

[00:33:13] you really don't know who you will meet and where you will end up any chapter structure is very different from each other so it doesn't feel like a retread but speaking of retread you will retread literally

[00:33:24] your steps in the game this game is really well known for its backtracking and that you have to go from point A then B then A again then B again then C then back to A and then finally B then C

[00:33:36] and intelligence systems has tried to mitigate this with the addition of new warp pipes which certainly do help but the core issue can't be erased think about how many times you got to go back

[00:33:46] all the way to hooked out castle yes i know some of these are side quest related but you probably want to do those right or twilight town where you got to go back and forth from the haunted house several

[00:33:56] or the train chapter where you need to revisit so many rooms again and again the game is also very economical in terms of screens with each chapter only being a handful of them but you're going to

[00:34:06] see them more than once pretty much every chapter has some sort of noticeable backtracking and i can't lie it does way on you i think implementing some sort of more modern fast travel system would go

[00:34:16] a long way let me just open the menu and go straight to twilight town what is that really going to hurt it's not like the game needs to be patted out at all it's about a 30 hour game so

[00:34:25] cutting a few of those hours thanks to reduce backtracking would be very helpful maybe this would affect Mario's growth since likely everyone is about the same level when they beat the game because it's not like you can really grind all that much and

[00:34:36] skipping a lot of battles thanks to a fast travel system might leave you under level but even then i don't think it's that much of a concern it's a bittersweet game for many since this is the

[00:34:46] final paper Mario RPG did it have flaws yeah but it also has many strong elements that we never really saw expanded upon in future games or gumming king comes closest in terms of delivering

[00:34:57] JRPG exploration giving us open areas filled with secrets and fun things to do in C if origami king had an expanded version of paper Mario RPG's battle system i think many people would put

[00:35:08] it ahead of the thousand year door but again that's the game with more muted character designs so thousand year door still feels very singular in a lot of ways and how it portrays the world

[00:35:18] of Mario when super paper Mario came out i wasn't disappointed that it wasn't an RPG because it did feel like it's been off and it had an interesting core concept i thought oh well we will

[00:35:28] get another Mario RPG in the future so don't worry about this one but then sticker star came out and was hounded by so many that i skipped it despite the first maybe being my favorite game ever

[00:35:39] and then i skipped color splash for largely the same reason it's very clear that Nintendo or intelligent systems was a little lost with what they should do with these series since the RPG

[00:35:49] elements of the game are so distinct from other RPGs i think that maybe they did feel like they needed to dial it down even more since paper Mario in general streamlines a lot of elements

[00:35:58] from the JRPG genre as a whole but those first two paper Mario games are addition through subtracting while Mario doesn't have a stat sheet or equipment what it has instead makes the series feel completely new and interesting also should i do some sort of ultimate Mario RPG ranking

[00:36:13] despite not playing all of them i've never touched partners in time or dream team or paper jam or should i just do some sort of ultimate paper Mario ranking or combine them let's just

[00:36:24] rank all the Mario RPGs i played and they non RPG paper Mario games that i've played so no sticker star or color splash so this is very confusing and a very incomplete ranking but here we go one

[00:36:36] obviously paper Mario 64 the perfect video game to honestly i'm kind of leaning towards Bowser's inside story it brought the Mario and Luigi concept to its apex and had such a great concept where

[00:36:47] you switch off between the bros and bales are and the story was very clever and how both storylines interacted with each other three i'll give it a super Mario RPG which is basically

[00:36:57] a game that took all the fun parts of an RPG and then put it into a fast paced 15 hour game now you're going to think i'm crazy for the next one but i'll put origami king here i think this

[00:37:07] game completely nails the exploration elements and pacing of an adventure game five i think i can put the thousand year door here six superstar saga it's a good start to the series but Bowser's

[00:37:18] inside story is just better seven super paper Mario but this is still a fun game so none of these games are bad at all but something's got to be at the bottom feel free to put all the other games

[00:37:29] i haven't played below this so what i recommend that thousand year door sure it's a very solid RPG adventure that will eat up a few dozen hours of your time i'm not a thousand year door act like but

[00:37:40] it is a good game it's probably the best entry point into the series in terms of understanding why people love paper Mario even though i do like 64 better and it's on NSO for quote unquote free

[00:37:52] now if you've never played a Mario RPG and you're asking me should i get super Mario RPG or paper Mario the thousand year door i would honestly lean towards super Mario RPG despite

[00:38:02] being more of a typical RPG with a Mario skin as opposed to paper Mario which is really its own thing honestly you won't beat yourself up if you eventually play both though as we will see in the new

[00:38:13] section a new Mario RPG challenger has appeared now my ranking is going to get very very confusing in a few okay well that's it for games so now for some news we got our first big boy in the

[00:38:30] Nintendo Direct of the Year and man it was a fantastic one i was skeptical i assumed Nintendo would just coast on ports and remasters until switch 2 came out but they are really pushing for another

[00:38:41] big holiday maybe the last one whether is only one switch on the market first game was one of the more surprising ones Mario and Luigi brother ship so yes a third Mario RPG in a one year span

[00:38:52] i'm not complaining but it is odd it does feel like Nintendo is pinning them all against each other and we'll see which one is victorious in battle and which one they should focus on in the future

[00:39:02] the answer though all three making new super Mario RPG making new paper Mario and making new Mario and Luigi which they are doing out for dream is gone but there have been some investigations

[00:39:12] and some are saying that perhaps Ilka BDSP fame is working on this game they got a lot of five for BDSP but i do feel like you can't pin all the games faults on Ilka also i do really like

[00:39:22] that game i'm probably the biggest BDSP fan in the world by default and Ilka is really more of a for higher type of company they really handle the coding element of the game not really the

[00:39:33] planning or the game design recently they worked on sandland and i had to think that nano producers were more hands on with that game than Ilka in terms of game design but brother ship looks

[00:39:42] like classic Mario and Luigi gameplay Mario is a Luigi is b you do some overworld puzzles and have RPG battles they are sound looks incredible it really does look like the illustrations come to life

[00:39:53] this still has a top down fixed camera view though so not too dissimilar from the past games the story seems to roll off around the bros traveling like ship to some islands and then fighting electrical enemies sure i guess that concept could be a game why not

[00:40:07] if you've never played Mario and Luigi and wonder why you should care about yet another Mario RPG is because the game really does feel like a successor to the paper Mario RPG series it has time to tax when you combos between the brothers and tons of weird enemies

[00:40:21] you've never seen before in a Mario game plus a very funny and goofy story this is the first time it's ever been on a console so it does feel like a big coming out party from the series

[00:40:31] it's coming out no remember seventh so Nintendo is really pushing this as one of their big holiday games so i expected to be pretty ambitious next was Nintendo World Championships and originally

[00:40:41] i wasn't so excited for this game but some previous have come out and they may seem like it's much better than what you would expect so i might have to put it on my radar next fairy tale

[00:40:50] too don't care, fantation, do care this game is finally free from the buttonless clutches of applarcade it doesn't look like they did a whole lot to the visuals it still looks very much

[00:41:00] like a mobile game but i'm glad i can finally try this game out, the far bigger announcement though Nintendo Switch Sports is getting basketball this summer this was a very surprising announcement

[00:41:10] since the game has been updated in a notable way in over a year golf was 18 months ago data miners did reveal that there's code for basketball and dodgeball in the game so it does

[00:41:21] make you wonder if we are only a few months away from dodgeball, the basketball mode doesn't look too similar from we sports resort but now you can play online i'm excited for the definitely try it out and i always love reminding people of this, Nintendo Switch Sports

[00:41:35] has sold over 13 million copies so yes people do like this game people are buying it and that's why and it was updating it next was meow a beautiful looking 2D platformer and i guess i got to put

[00:41:47] that on my radar as well we got Disney illusion island and hello kitty island adventure so island fans you were really eating good this direct, lonely tunes wacky world of sports don't care

[00:41:57] among us update, neat farm agia which is i guess a farming game and also some sort of maybe pickman esk rpg you literally grow monsters like they are tomatoes and then you send them out

[00:42:09] to fight bigger monsters it's a pretty interesting premise at least i have not really got into any farm game but honestly i haven't given any a real try should i just get start to valley all

[00:42:21] these games are riding on that game's coat tells right but now we're back to Nintendo games with donkey Kong country returns HD a remaster of the original game this is very unexpected i think

[00:42:32] many assumed or hoped a new decay game would be coming out the lineup with the park opening but we are instead getting an enhanced port it's being handled by forever entertainment

[00:42:41] which i know from their pants or jrgun remake they've handled a lot of ports and remasters so i think they are a pretty capable team it is good to see Nintendo bring a lot more companies under

[00:42:50] their wing when it comes to handling these first party franchises and it really helps keep the momentum flowing the game seems to lack funky con but we'll have all these 3ds levels

[00:43:00] so it is going to be like the ultimate version of the game i gotta admit i'm not a big fan of this game it is surprisingly difficult and pretty frustrating but i'm not a big decay platformer guy

[00:43:10] in general so take my opinion with the grain of salt for decay hard course out there i think they will be happy that this game is back again it's coming out in 2025 so it will keep pokemon legends

[00:43:21] the company that will follow up by the return of dragon quest 3 HD 2D coming November 14th the game looks far more detailed and visually rich than original showing i think it's safe to say

[00:43:31] that this is easily the most impressive looking HD 2D game yet and it has competition with octopas 2 and triangle strategy which are amazing looking games it doesn't seem like a straight remake

[00:43:42] either there are definitely some changes in additions i think square i set up to make the ultimate dq3 experience and not just the original game with prettier graphics for one there's at least

[00:43:52] one new class and these special edition shows art of a monster master class more cost is probably my most wanted feature for the remake so i'm glad we have at least one the game in general

[00:44:03] is a strange beast because you've got the original the SNES remake the name gbc remake which has a lot of exclusive content then a mobile remake and is this game just going to take all the

[00:44:14] additional content from those games and shove it into this one or kind of start from square one and just adding completely new ideas we don't have a full changelog yet and the game is still

[00:44:24] five months away so there's plenty of time to see what's new but i'm absolutely picking this up it is a smart to play both this and mario in lvg at the same time we will see fun coefficient don't

[00:44:36] care lvg is mentioned to HD a fine game but i still have my 3ds so i don't feel the urge to pick it up on the switch maybe one day on sale we'll see the new dimpleman from genus reward he was next

[00:44:47] i talked about this game earlier this year because it did show up on the japanese partner direct but now it's confirmed for a western release this is the latest entry in the dimpleman

[00:44:55] series which started on the 3ds i think i said last time this may be an enhanced port of the mobile game which was called new dimpleman but it actually might be a totally new game called v new dimpleman

[00:45:08] dimple heads please help me out here but it's free to play so i wonder what the monetization is like next metal song attack reloaded which is kind of a tower defense game then dark as dungeon 2

[00:45:17] a game i kind of want to check out and we got our big in a so update linked to the past with four swords and metroid zero mission on gba this was actually how i played linked to the past the first time

[00:45:28] and it's also how i played the first better game for the first time as well it's really hard for me to go back to the original NES Metroid but zero mission is a great remake so check it out

[00:45:37] in 64 also got the mature 17 plus app which was already in Japan with turok and perfect dark hitting in a so perfect dark obviously in in 64 classic but like golden eye i got most of the fun

[00:45:50] out of the multiplayer perfect dark does have an advanced butt system so maybe i should try it out next at genu and mega ton announcement for me phantom brave the last hero a sequel to the

[00:46:00] 2004's original strategy RPG from nipon eg who thought a new phantom brave was coming out while it's been ported to psp we steam and even switch i don't think anyone expected them to revisit the series the first game is legitimately one of the best strategy RPG's ever

[00:46:17] and one of my personal favorite games of all time if you've never played it it's a strategy RPG but it's filled with one of a kind idea that i haven't seen in any game sense it's completely

[00:46:26] gridless so you move within a movement radius you can get incredibly precise with your movement as well every inch counts you also summon units to the battlefield via items which affect their

[00:46:37] stats this is called the confined system so if to think about who you want to summon where and when you want to summon them because they have limited turns once they are on a battlefield

[00:46:46] it also has an insanely deep level of customization where you can choose items into weapons weapons in the characters characters into items and so forth you could also give titles that further effect stats you can manipulate randomly generated dungeons i could really spend a whole podcast

[00:47:01] just talking about how great the original is i did appear on super pod saga last year where i talked about this game quite a bit so go check out that episode but point is i'm thrilled the

[00:47:11] franchise is back ask for what's new they didn't give out a whole lot of info but we can see that yes the gridless system is back along with the confined system where you summon the characters but

[00:47:21] this time it seems like you can summon them into kind of like necks or the items turn into some machine or weapon once the character is summoned into them this is somewhat similar to a kikindum

[00:47:31] where characters can use vehicles and buildings on the map marona can also fuse into other characters which i guess okay i'm sure there will have major implications in the gameplay but i'm not sure

[00:47:41] why you would want to fuse into marona it's coming out twenty twenty five so yes game of the year twenty twenty five may already be locked next up another shocking announcement marvo versus capcom fighting collection these six first original marvo fighting games from capcom are bundled in with

[00:47:56] the punish or arcade game this is something i've wanted for a long long time but never imagined it was possible i was just thinking how silly it was there's no marvo fighting game on the switch

[00:48:06] when x been ninety seven was airing but i didn't know what capcom was cooking obviously the crown jewel is marvo versus capcom two one of the best fighting games ever and soon you can play it on your

[00:48:18] switch portably insane this is the game in the collection i spend the most time with but i'm curious to try out the older games as well since i barely touched them but i imagine most are solely

[00:48:28] going to buy it for mvc two which i don't blame them these are the arcade version so there are faithful to that but there are some changes that include new characters that were never

[00:48:36] playable in the arcades nori motto a guest character based on a japanese comedian is removed from marvo versus street fighter but he is replaced by cyber kuma who is as beyond his way cooler

[00:48:47] there's also ruleback net code for online matches a training room gallery sound test and so on if that's the everything you could ever want from a collection like this it's coming this year

[00:48:57] and it's going to be a date one purchase for me and hey does this open the door for a capcom versus s&k collection please just give me cvs two that's all i want marvo party is back with

[00:49:08] super mario party jamboree the big new addition is the coupathalon in online twenty player mode where you race around the map this mode looks pretty crazy and honestly it is intriguing

[00:49:18] i know the mario party hater but i don't have three people in my life who want to just constantly come over and play mario party but i do wonder if i can have a lot of fun with

[00:49:27] this online mode is coming out in october and will sell ten plus million copies after that the game of the show dropped the legend of zeldah echoes of wisdom a brand new 2d zeldah game starring

[00:49:38] zeldah and probably made by groso wow is all i have to say who on earth imagine we will get a new zeldah adventure sixteen months after two is the kingdom and one this ambitious i still can't believe

[00:49:51] it's real link gain in they fell into a hole what's the gonna do except take things into our own hands the core mechanic is that zeldah can make echoes or copies of items that she comes across

[00:50:03] find a table copy a table you'd also copy enemies that fight for you or you could use them in other ways to solve puzzles mechanic isn't too dissimilar from auto build in tiers of the kingdom

[00:50:14] but it feels unique in the sense that being able to copy anything you come across and use them in multiple ways and the trailer we see zeldah stacking up tables reach a higher position using

[00:50:23] beds like a bridge summoning enemies to fight other enemies on the field my mind is racing about all the possibilities it feels far more free form and open than any other 2d zeldah when it

[00:50:33] comes to traversal and puzzle solving for example there's a ledge with strong wind blowing on one section zeldah echoes a box and then jumps over the wind the next she blocks the wind with

[00:50:43] the shrub so how you deal with this one puzzle maybe completely different from person the person i'm really excited to see what items you can copy and unique ways people tackle puzzles it does feel like a very breath of the wild inspired design philosophy we really have

[00:50:58] moved far beyond the old locking key method of solving things in zeldah some things i want to know there does seem to be something similar to the chemistry system in the 3d zeldahs

[00:51:08] we see zeldah burn grass something we haven't really done to that extent in a 2d zeldah game yes i know you can burn a bush with the lamp and zeldah one this is different

[00:51:16] and makes me wonder if elements reacting with each other will play a key role in the game we also see water blocks which makes me wonder can we freeze these blocks or electrify them being able to manipulate copy items into new ones would be a very interesting mechanic

[00:51:31] speaking of mechanics we have some sort of idea about how the copying feature will work it does seem like each item has a cost so you won't be able to summon 10,000 beds and make the

[00:51:40] game crash your little fairy try has some triangles floating behind it and in the item menu we can see items cost a certain number of triangles so for example if try has four triangles

[00:51:51] you could only summon four one triangle items or two two triangle items and so on perhaps we will be able to upgrade try but i imagine the devs do want to put a hard limit on just how many

[00:52:01] things you can have in the overall ask for the story it does seem like it takes place in the link to the past a he a downfall timeline the world is similar to linked to the past in his layout

[00:52:11] but has a lot of you areas like death mountain and the decutary, groodo town, a tropical area and so on so it doesn't seem like they were just using the exact same map i'm excited to see these more

[00:52:23] modern soda characters and features appear and watch essentially the link to the past world we even see the old schools aura and the new schools aura right next to each other in a shot

[00:52:32] which leaves me into what i think the story might be about okay spoilers for the downfall timeline. Think to the past you beat Ganon and he goes bye bye awakening no Ganon the oracle games

[00:52:42] twin rover revised Ganon but then it's really just as body and not his mind Ganon then gets a try force of power somehow don't ask why link between worlds again trying to revive Ganon

[00:52:54] but it doesn't really work and only his body appears try force heroes no Ganon then zoda one with the fully revived Ganon then two with no Ganon but we see Ganon and the echoes trailer

[00:53:04] so where is this game i mean really it could be anywhere but if i had to guess it would either be between try force heroes and zoda one or maybe even after zoda two which would make it the last game

[00:53:15] in the downfall timeline before breath of the wild though maybe they are just being cheeky about this game and it actually takes place after links awakening and before the oracle games

[00:53:25] where link is actually the same character as the link from links awakening which accounts for the art style but why there's so many landmarks that weren't in link to the past this makes me think it might

[00:53:34] be the last game in the downfall timeline since it takes place in more expanded high rule though i also wonder if we were getting some sort of multi-verse angle since we see the multiple zoras the riffs could be dimensional riffs that open up other timelines or alternate

[00:53:49] versions of high rule which might explain why i gain it back again i can also see those riffs on the word map being somewhat similar to shines kind of unique challenges again in tendo could

[00:53:58] just do anything they want and can be completely contradict everything they don't care i'm just excited about the gameplay mechanics and not its place in the timeline but echoes is easily my most

[00:54:08] anticipated game of this year and a front runner for possible game of the year if they pull it off after zoda was a bunch of games i don't care about but it is funny to see a-loi and in

[00:54:17] it didn't direct and it's cool that a-saternity fans were getting the last untranslated game from the franchise finally oh and romencing saga 2 is getting a remake which is pretty crazy this is sort

[00:54:27] of the dragon quest 3 of the saga franchise and that is an early entry that sold a lot and established many conventions from the franchise going forward i'll keep my eye on it but in diddle big announcement

[00:54:38] they saved for the variant metronome 4 beyond after seven years it has finally returned and it looks like metronome you shoot you scan you roll no real mega tons in terms of gameplay conventions here

[00:54:51] this trailer was very much a hey metronome prime is back type of announcement the visuals do look spectacular and i can't wait to see what retro does with the switch hardware and yes

[00:55:00] our boy silix finally returned after being teased for so long what is he cooking up does he know that who would be defeated and then never mentioned again in a metronome game ever i'm not a huge

[00:55:10] metronome prime fan i like the first game but never felt like i needed to play the sequels before hey you spend so long that i'm very curious to see how this game will play in 2025 people praise

[00:55:21] the prime one remaster and i think it will be very similar in a lot of ways so that was the Nintendo Direct a lot of must play games and the switch is full steam ahead for the rest of 2024

[00:55:31] and a bit of 2025 as well some other news tidbits limited run games had a showcase to bringing back fear effect which i never expect to see again also the gextrylge a bobsy collection and the

[00:55:43] biggest announcement for me two but two is also coming along with the first game with marvel coming back and now collections of gex and bobsy it really does feel like any old game could really

[00:55:53] reset anytime unless it's a second game and then it will remain in the void forever some japan news should be a parko will have an exhibit for a march based on the kiko games starting in July showcasing

[00:56:04] a lot of their video game t-shirts i'll check it out and report back basket robins in japan also has another mario collaboration this time with a wonder flower ice cream float which again i want to try out awesome Nintendo Tokio got new luge is mentioned thing merch

[00:56:18] including a fun goal in the dark t-shirt please don't wear this in a movie theater and last bit of news and for us was assigned the ambassador pokemon or naga sake prefecture

[00:56:28] naga sake is famous for its port and coastal region so yeah you need a light house pokemon there will also be five new pokemon lids placed in naga sake prefecture so if you're trying

[00:56:38] to visit all of them you're ready to make a trip to naga sake soon okay that's all for now thanks as always for listening be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast on your favorite app leave a five star review as well it really helps with visibility

[00:56:51] this podcast is also available on youtube so like and subscribe there as well I'm on twitter threads blue sky instagram just search for Tokio game life or finally links in the podcast if you like the podcast be sure to share with your friends and on social media

[00:57:05] if there's anything you want me to talk about or cover don't be shy just message me on twitter the next episode will be on July 14th see you next time muttonet