Level 44 - A Smashing Good Remix

Welcome to Remember 64, where
this week we're remixing a smash hit.
See what they did there?

I'm so clever.
Very good.

Welcome to the show, everyone.
My name is David Betrangelo, and look, I love me some deadly pink
marshmallows that can suck up anyone else's ability.
Heck, I'll even mess with a

Pokémon that conjures lightning
every once in a while.

But now I think I found my true
calling.

I found a niche Japanese hero
with a name I didn't even know how to pronounce my entire life
until last year.

That's my go to.
Oh man, I'm jiggy, look back and

I'm here.
I'm ready to bang.

I mean, smash, let's, smash
let's.

Do it Sir.
We are talking Smash Remix and if anyone has not heard leading
up to this episode, this is our first venture into playing a mod
for a game.

So if anyone doesn't know, Smash
Remix is a mod from a group of creators that got together over
the last several years, I think it was 2018 or 19.
And they've built new levels, new characters, new items, all
for the original N64 Super Smash

Brothers.
And it's available.

It's in 1.5 now and we thought,
you know what, we're going to give it a shot.
What a place to start and something like Smash, Remix,
Jiggy.

This is fun, man.
I like, I I still like.

I know I've said it before, but
this idea is just fun to go through mods like this.
Yeah, and you better, you know, watch your eyes because all the
characters and cosmetics and stages and everything you're
about to see or hear, I guess, because technically it's a
podcast, but you will see at some point it's going to burn
your retinas out.

It's it's it's overexposure to
Pure awesome.

It's it's amazing.
The overexposure of awesomeness.

There we go.
Yes, it's really cool.

We're we.
It radiates awesome.

It's damn, damn you got you're
bringing the fire.

I like it and and one of the
reasons or one of the one of the bonuses about this episode, not
only are we talking about something different, we are
going to talk about the original

Smash Brothers a little bit and
then we're definitely going to dig into all the different
things that go on with Smash

Remix.
But we have a special guest that we're going to be cueing into
the show in just a moment.

Here he goes by the Smash
Father.

That's right.
He is the the lead project manager I guess you could call
it, of Smash Remix.

So one of the main, you know,
creators, one of the main people that made this a reality.
So he's going to sit with us in just a moment.
We're going to talk about Smash

Brothers itself, Smash remix and
toss a few fun ideas around and and talk about our time playing
it because it's it's been pretty cool to to dig into this and I
think we got lucky 1.5 just came out yeah like a couple weeks
ago.

So we just, we had this idea
anyways and then we saw the 1.5 game and we went, well, it's a
no brainer, we have to do this now, yeah?
We're doing it right now.

It it, it made it up.
The list.

It was it was down.
I don't know, it was still at the top.
It was still like top five of mods we were going to do this
year.

But the second that dropped with
the intro and the special character that got released,
Yep, we're down.

And and that's just a little
tease.

We will talk about that video.
We will, if you're watching the video version, I will be showing
that video as well.

We'll talk about it because that
video is, it's not just a trailer.
It's not just like 3 minutes of like you know, like a movie
trailer or something or a game trailer.
It's like 12 or 13 minutes of just awesomeness.
It's so cool.

There's so much going on.
Lots to talk about in our chat.

So you know what, Jiggy?
Let's just get right into it.

Let's get our guests in here and
we'll talk some Smash Remix.

We have our special guest.
We have project leader for Smash

Remix.
The Smash Father is joining us on Remember 64.
Welcome to the show.

Thank you.
Hello there.

Hello, Hello.
How are you this fine evening?

I'm doing good.
I'm doing good today.

How are you all?
Yeah, we're hanging in there.

We're hanging in there.
Yeah, yeah, pretty good.

Yeah, just just your average
evening, but but with a decent amount of Smash Brothers in the
last couple of weeks, which is awesome.
So that's a that's a good bonus.

Just so we can sort of start
from the beginning, I guess in a way you can kind of put it that
way.

Smash Brothers, let's talk about
your experience with Smash

Brothers, the original Smash
Brothers on North 64 and maybe even the the franchise moving
forward sort of from there.

Did you grow up with it?
Did you play it later?

Was it one of those like main
Ted pool titles that you have with the N64?
What?

What's?
What's your story with the game?

So I think I would have started
playing when I was like 1/4 grader, which would have been in
the 90s when it came out, immediately when I saw it, I was
enchanted.

It was like right up my alley.
And we we just play it so much as kids.
I mean I was like 10 or something like that and it was
super fun and I loved it.

And then you know, you know, I I
was always in the smash.

So I got like, I think I got
Melee for my birthday and we just played that all night.
And you know, that was a blast.

And then, you know, Brawl
happened.

We still played it.
Brawl happened, you know, and you know, then I kind of, you
know, personal history.

Like I, you know, I got busy
with other things.

I went to law school and I
didn't really play Smash for a while and then, you know, so I
kind of settled into a new place.
I turned back to 64 and started running tournaments if you want
to and stuff.

Like that.
Nice, nice.

I mean, I I like the game, but I
definitely didn't play tournaments or get into
tournaments.

But that's awesome.
I definitely did play tournaments, but I didn't play
tournaments until Wii UI started with Wii U and then moved into
Ultimate, and then kids just got too good and I'm out.
It's.

Tough, Yeah, it's a tough
racket.

Honestly, online games, I I
can't anymore.

It's like just it's not fair.
It's not fair, man.

I can't.
Do it.

You know what's interesting?
So first, actually I do want to ask you, what is your favorite
Smash game?

If you had to say which one was
your top one?

Is it 64?
Is it Melee?

Is it Ultimate?
Which one do you think stands at the Pinnacle, aside from Smash
Remix?

At this point, it's definitely
64.

There were times I might, you
know, kind of go back and forth between 64 and Melee, but at
this point I've committed so much of my time and just gotten
so kind of enamored with 64.

I'd say it's definitely, it's
like it's the one on best tech competitively for sure, But I
think Melee is a great game too.

I had a lot of fun with
Ultimate, you know?

I thought that was fun too.
Even this got its own things that I I don't necessarily love,
but it's it's, I think it's still really fun games.
So I mean, I like, I've enjoyed every Smash I've played.
I didn't really play Smash Four.

Sorry Wii U fans.
You know, Smash 4, you played ultimate, you played Smash 4,
roughly.

People are going to hate that I
said that, but it's, you know, it's very similar.
Ultimate's just the better version of four in my opinion.
Granted, there are a few modes that I did like in four that
didn't transfer over.

I spent a lot of time in four,
actually.

But interesting enough, I did a
poll on my YouTube channel and had I don't know how many 100
hundreds of people voted in.

In this poll, Brawl was a big
contender.

Really.
Which actually, I agree.

Brawl is probably my least
favorite.

The Subspace Emissary was a cool
idea, but tripping like, Oh yeah, freaking hate tripping.
I freaking hate The Hammer.

Losing its top.
Like just the dumbest, the dumbest editions.
It had some of the smartest editions, but.
And Attic King DDD.

That was nice.
That was cool.

We were all.
Happy about that.

And Sonic I mean.
You know, that was cool.

Yeah, it it's not.
It's not all bad.

It's not it's not great, but
it's not all bad.

Yeah.
It's not all bad.

Still was fun.
You know, it's not, it's not not fun, but it's.
Like, well, you know.

I have a downgrade but.
Yeah, I mean, so, so now there's like there's such a massive
roster.

I'll, I'll go first on this
question so I don't have to.

So you guys can think about it
if you have to.

But just on the 64, the original
64 version before Remix came around and and really expanded
things here, I'm going to ask you guys what your favorite
character was or who your go to was.
Sometimes that's different, you know, especially competitively
for me, I was always comfortable with Kirby.
I don't know what it was just always the case.
Going back and playing it over the years.
He's still like probably just what I'm comfortable with
because I always played Kirby back then, but I've gotten used
to playing quite a bit of Mario as well.
Jiggy, what about you?

What's What are your go?
To I'm 64 exclusive.

We're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My main growing up was probably,
it's a tough one.

I think I'd say Fox.
I think I was a Fox player.

OK, I did play a lot of Kirby as
well, but going back to it now,

I'm a Donkey Kong player.
For sure.

Actually, Samus is one that I
actually got used to too as time went on.
I like Samus like I like her move set.
Yeah, I just like the combos and

I feel like I can do pretty well
as Donkey Kong, yeah.

But yeah, what about you, Sir?
For me, it's always been.

I mean, since I was a kid,
Pikachu has always been my my favorite character in 64 and
makes sense.

I'm still still my pretty much
only character.

I can play well.
So it's that's, yeah, it's a

Pikachu.
Yeah sometimes it's muscle memory too right.
I think that's the thing with me and Kirby where it's like every
time I press down BI know what's gonna like.
I I get it you know it's so simple and and most characters
like that too but something about his where it's like Nope
it's just a straight drop and you're turning into one of
several different items.

OK, let's let's dig into into
Smash Remix.

Before you we brought you on the
show.

We were just talking about how
the fact that we wanted to explore mods on remember 64 this
year, we wanted to get into a couple of games.
Every every couple of episodes we're gonna sort of dig into
different mods and try it.

And then the second we saw that
1.5 was released, we said this thing is hitting the top of the
list.

We're doing it now.
Not only that but but Smash just had an anniversary a couple of
days ago as of this recording, which is great as far as.
Yeah, as far as its release goes.
So that that that's awesome.

All right, Mr. Smash Father, how
does something like this even happen?
1.51 point O 0.5 whatever the version is, How How do you even
look?

I I don't know how to make
games.

I don't know how to make mods.
I don't know.

I am.
I love games.

But I I am so far out of the
realm of understanding.

I'm so impressed with the fact
that anybody can make anything like this.
How does this get started?

And how do you get to be, like a
project leader on something like this?
Well, it happened pretty organically and some of it is a
little bit of fortune on my part.
So, you know, I started running tournaments here in Houston and
I just wanted to find a ways to attract people to my events
basically.

So I started off with doing like
cheap game shark stuff like oh, we can play with like Metal
Mario or like Final Destination, you know, just doing random
stuff and then like suddenly sub drag who's made something called
the Goldeneye editor and you could make stages for Smash 64.
And so I started doing that.

I made a Houston themed stages
like you could play like the the

Astrodome and stuff like that
just to get people to come out to my events for my tournaments.
You know, I started digging into things and getting more
interested in modding more and doing more than just the stages
and seeing what had been done.

And I saw there had been people
who kind of had tinkered around with making characters but
never, never went all the way.

People had experimented, People
thought about people had write, wrote, wrote things up, but
never really went all the way.

And I thought, well, I'm going
to try now.

I had no form, I had no
experience.

I had never coded anything.
I have no artistic ability.

I was just a guy.
It was.

Just a guy with a dream.
It's just yeah.

And I was.
I just started working on life.

I got some pieces.
I I was connected very early on with a person named Frey in the
64 community who's a very big name.
And he was just.

I couldn't have done it without
him.

He was he advised me on how.
He basically taught me how to code.
He kind of really showed me how to hack things and I get into
the code and all that.

And he helped me work with the
original system with which we coded.
If you ever watched the old trailers, the way we used to
make models and everything was very rough and it was very hard
and didn't look very good.

But he helped me work through
that and through that.

You know, even though it wasn't
beautiful, you know, it just attracted other people to
actually work with me, you know,

I reached out to different
folks, which, I mean, I became

AI was just a guy making it at
first.

But once I had an actual work
product, you know I can reach out to people like our lead
artist Soap, who is insanely talented and we're fortunate to
have well, as many other of our artists, coders like.
Yeah, it's a big all.

These people helped.
Us it's a it's a big team like for obviously it's it like you
said it, it grows over the years but it's like yeah, you can be
you can be a project leader but but this is a huge team effort.
It's it's amazing.

Yeah, that would be nothing
without my team.

Yeah, yeah.
To piggyback off that I was watching or I had just just
before we hopped on, I played through Smash Remix again and
got to the credits.

And once I got past all the
original credits, I was like,

OK, I want to see how many more
come on.

And it went forever, man.
It's like, but what I loved about it, OK what I loved about
it is I did click on them and a lot of them just say funny
things.

Oh.
I didn't do that.

No way really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was clicking through one of
them.

I I wish I could have.
I wish I was recording or could have gone back because one of
them had like.

I don't know if it was it was
like a code or something and I was like.
And this has has his in Morse code I think.
Yes.

I forget what it's I honestly
don't remember what it says.

I saw it and I was like no I
needed.

I needed to figure that out.
But.

That's amazing.
I have to, yeah.

It's a clue for fans.
If you want to look into it, it's in Morse code.
I'm sure you know so you could figure it out, but it's it's in
Morse code.

Amazing.
Yeah.

So it's it's, it's this, it's
this amazing group of of artists and coders and everything.
And I mean this isn't something that we just said like you know,
1.5 was was just released in early 2024.
This has been going on on for years.
How do, how do, how do things progress?
Like, is it just, I mean, you sort of mentioned how how things
get started as far as working with the team and all those
types of things.

Also, the video that I'm
showing, if anyone's watching the YouTube version, I just got
shot with a golden gun.

So they're like lots of really
cool ideas.

And that's by the way, So we'll
get to that.

But I thought that was
hilarious, A great addition.

How do you.
Yeah.

How, how does how do things get
going?

Like how do you decide like,
Yep, this is ready to to to get released.
Let's, let's do this, Let's add this character, Let's add that
stage.

Like obviously it's a group
effort and stuff, but how does that sort of thought process
happen with something like this?

Well, the the nature of that
really evolved over time as far as getting this stuff together.
I mean, honestly, you just ask people, right?
People don't realize if you're trying to build something, it's
just like ask for help.

I I seriously will work as long
as you show that you're willing to work yourself.
I mean, just ask people for help.
And I mean a lot of the people on my team, I just literally rip
one up to them is like, I like your work.
Would you like to work with me?

And that gets easier.
The more credit you, you know the more your stuff you do.
But yeah, I was, I was working on actually getting a mod like
how much you want to do with this, like at the with the
getting out like 1.1 or 1.5, like what do we want to put in
there.

You kind of, you come up with a
game plan and you know it's not going to end up exactly how you
originally envision.

And you think of like you
obviously want to have a character because that's like
that's like you know, that's what gets people gone.
That's what's get the people wild.
They want their character, But you know, you add other things
too.

They kind of support that and
make it interesting.

And it's challenging because you
want to give yourself a realistic goal, right?
Because a lot of times with mods you give yourself unrealistic
expectations and you don't and people won't keep themselves
accountable.

You want to be like let's get
want a good pace, get things done.
This is our timeline.

That's the challenging part.
So but you try to have like you don't want to go too far, so
like a character to is good.

You start adding all this stuff
it's way out of your skill zone.

You're going to find yourself in
murky waters.

Right.
So interesting to to play off that.
So as far as content wise, in this game we have new
characters.

I didn't count out exactly how
many, but we have new characters we have.
There are even more new stages, like I was really blown away
with stages like you have to go, you have to cycle through the
right there's there's so many, you got new items, new music
tracks, just so much new modes, new game modes entirely, just so
much is packed into this.

So my question on that, we did
an episode, specifically an episode about Goldeneye and how
people are going to ring me out for this because I don't
remember what the number was, 17 megabytes was the totals like
capacity of the game, that's how big the game was.
Is that something you need to consider as far as because it is
a mod it is running on like you know emulators or ever drives or
what what not it?

Yeah, we're we're, I think we
might be bumping up against a limit, possibly.
People have been mentioning it cause like I said, we set like a
size for like the ROM, right?

So when you get the ROM, well,
we don't, we don't give you the

ROM, but we give you like the
little, yeah.

It's like a patch.
Basically when you get that it tells you all the changes you
need to make and you know one of that is a setting the ROM size.
So I think currently I think ours literally says like 64 MB.
It's exactly 60.

Four, yeah.
Yeah, that might be as big as she can go.
I'm not don't quote me on that one.
But that might be that might be as big as it gets.
And after that it might you.

Right.
Run into hardware issues with like how big the 60.
It would just be random.

You know, like 6064 megabytes
isn't a real it's only to do.

I know it's a Nintendo 64, so it
sounds like it should be how big it should be, but it's entirely
irrelevant.

But it might actually be the
maximum size we can get our our file system to do.
So it hasn't been really a big concern and if we ever really
were concerned we could find ways to work with it.
But yeah, I mean there's there's an upper limit to how big these
things could be on on if you wanna stay on hardware.
Which we do right.

Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's the charm, right?
That's that's the cool thing about this, is that it can run
on the actual hardware.

And like, I play it on my actual
64, and there's just something about it, it it almost provides
legitimacy to it.

You know what I mean?
It's it's got this, this aura about it that you're like, wow,
this is exactly what I wanted

Smash Bros to grow into.
Like, it's how I imagined the sequel before Melee was a thing.
You know, under my head.

I'm like how much more
characters, like, conquers in it.
Like conquer?

Oh my gosh.
I you know what?

That's actually a good way to
put it too.

Because like I I did the same
thing.

I I had it on an actual hardware
with the controller, every, everything.
It felt like, sure, I'm sitting in front of a different screen
than I used to.

It's not acrt that I'm that I'm
playing this thing on, but it it's just it just feels like the
the real game.

It doesn't feel like this is
like I I think it's impressive on its own that it doesn't feel
like it's a mod.

It doesn't feel like it's
something that was made, you know, 20 years later, 20 plus
years later, Like it just feels like the game and what it is
supposed to be.

And I think that's a testament
to to yourself and everyone else that's been that's been creating
this over the years.

It's man, it's it's it's so it's
so crazy because like you said before, jiggy, there's also all
these different modes.

Is it All Star mode?
I keep forgetting the name exactly of what it is.
There's remix.

There's All Star.
Yeah, there's a bonus.

The race to the finish is
different.

Yeah, I love that.
That's cool.

All these things are there like
for example the All Star mode is you're going through the roster
of of characters and you're fighting all of them with only a
couple of chances to heal up and and eventually you're you're
fighting in pairs and all that.

All this stuff would be so crazy
back in the day to just be like

OK, who can get the furthest?
And I'm just sitting here on my own just you know sucking at the
game.

Honestly, I'm not.
I'm not that good at it.

But but having a great time with
it, it's I are are these modes like what?
What's sort of like the largest?

My question sort of around this,
my long winded way of asking it is like is it challenging to
create new modes as far as things go or is it more like the
characters and balance and things like that?
What's sort of like the the biggest challenge I guess
hurdle.

Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

So modes like, so the first time
I made a mode probably was kind of difficult every like just
getting into the weeds, understanding first time you do
anything, it's challenging.

Sure.
And all subsequent modes I'd say aren't honestly that hard but
are more.

It's more frustrating.
It's the nature of the code is like it's it's like gosh if it
feels like when I'm making a new mode it's like I have to like
fight through.

You're fighting yourself because
you make code that when you were when you first start writing
code your your code isn't quite up to par and so you get to
fight your old code and revise it.
You learn new things you didn't know about the general code and
you know so the the modes I'd say they're not the hardest
thing I mean the most time consuming.
The biggest feature that takes the longest, most drain on our
resources would be animations.

Making nice animations that look
good that feel era appropriate.

It takes a long time, takes tons
of revisions.

That's going to be the longest,
the biggest.

That.
And of course just coding takes long too, because the coding
also is you can make moves that feel really weird and don't
don't feel good, don't feel up era appropriate, but you got
that, you got to make them feel right.
Makes sense.

You know, like we have, I'm, I'm
soon going to be making a a kind of cut content thing for Remix
and there's a lot of moves we just had to cut because like
they didn't feel right or they didn't work with 64 as well as
we hoped.

I was like, yeah, you know, I
would say, you know, the biggest time sync is animations, most
challenging thing.

The biggest commitment is just
making the character.

Making a character is probably
the biggest task.

There's so much to do, so much
love and hard work goes into it.

The character's the biggest
thing.

Yeah, yeah, animation's the
biggest part of.

It I could see that that that
makes sense because like what we were just saying is is like it
feels like you're playing this game, like this is this feels
like what this game was supposed to be.
You know, whatever supposed to be.
It's not like they did a bad job originally.
We're not you know, sliding the actual original title.
But it's but it's it it just feels right.
So whatever effort and time that everyone's put into it, it's I I
think it's paid off.

So sorry.
Yeah, for sure.

And the the whole, as far as the
character models themselves, like they feel like you you
mentioned and I love that they're era relevant, right?
So they look how I imagined they would look if they were running
on the original Smash, not necessarily from their game.
Banjo being released was very interesting because I looked at
him and I was like, yes, this seems like the perfect
translation from Banjo Kazooie to Smash Bros on the N64 because
you think the models get a little more low Poly.
Like it just it meshed so well.

It does.
None of the characters stand out like, oh, this one's really high
Poly.

This one's, you know, this one
looks significantly better or more detailed than any of the
others.

They all feel genuinely like
they could have been on the original 64 version of Smash,
which is awesome.

I love that is there.
It's not.

A deal.
It's a really challenging balance because obviously one
thing is to look good, but you you you had to not only make it
look good for the 64, but like there's a specific style to the
way they make things look in

Smash Bros And of course it is a
lower Poly because you you have to, you do have to deal with the
console's limitations.

If you make a high Poly
character, they're literally going to slow down the game.
Like Bowser, when he first was released, he was a little bit
too high Poly, so we'd had competitive players complain
about him.

So we had to work on his model.
So like, there's a lot of things to balance when making the
models.

And you know, models aren't the
hardest part, but they are a part that requires a lot of
work.

We always joke like when the
models don't, we're like, well, guys, we're halfway there.
Because the model is honestly, people who don't know will think
like, here's the model, like we can just make a character.
It's like the model is probably the least important part, but it
is.

We do have to put a lot of
effort into that too, to make it look right and make it function
right within the game.

And Banjo was a challenging 1
because the way the textures work and Banjo Kazooie, the way
that looks, it just, you know, it wouldn't work for 64, it
wouldn't look right.

It it, it's too complicated.
So we kind of looked at how D KS fur works and we kind of looked
at that, but like we didn't obviously just make D KS fur, we
we made it.

So it's banjos and it was
unique.

But you do, you have to look at
what exists in 64 and what would work and it's it can be
challenging to balance all those things and balancing what you
want, you know, because you want everything to look good but also
play good.

So it's it's it can be a
balance.

What's what's interesting too is
the fact that some characters it's it's really obvious when
you felt like their move set in a future game like an ultimate
or Brawl.

I'm I'm thinking of Wolf in
particular like the move set is fairly similar but then you have
Banjo who I actually main Banjo in ultimate.
So going to this he was dramatically different.
His move set was more Kazooie based I'd say than Tui.
Although he does have the not the beat Buster but the drill I
I don't know why I'm blinking.

Yeah, I.
Don't.

Yeah, but it's.
Just the.

Drill, drill.
Drill, yeah.

Drill bill, but that's it.
Thank you.

But it's just, it's just really
interesting how it's kind of like you pick, you pick and
chose elements that you're like, yeah, that works, that feels
good.

And then you completely changed
others and I think you made

Sonic way better.
Like Sonic feels way better in

Smash Remix than he does in any
other Smash game.

His he has more than just spin,
dash and homing attack.

It's amazing.
I I.

Felt I wasn't big into his kit
because Sonic is usually viewed as annoying.
Yeah, a lot of people always complain about him.
So our our main you know game designer Frey, he took all, you
know he really worked to make him not annoying but also still
good character, which he is.

Something that took that took
some time and we didn't want to make him be a nuisance with his
homing attack and with you know just doing stupid stuff that
makes people annoyed with him.

We we we avoid that as best we
could.

He's got the best, best meteor
smash.

Oh yeah, That thing we like?
Yeah, that's.

That's a long thing.
Yeah.

He's good, Yeah.
I I wanted to add that now people will say we we took that
from Project M, but it's not true.
Sonic battle.

Yeah, I I played Sonic Battle,
you know, and I was like, I know we should add this move as to be
so great and like and everyone's just like, oh like Project M and
they're like, gosh damn it.

People don't know.
Project MI don't know if you guys have watched the episode of
South Park where like Simpsons did it every time on the episode
of South Park, they're like, oh,

The Simpsons have already done
that.

Kind of state, right?
Project M is The Simpsons to us, where it's just like, oh,
Project M did that, It's like.

Gosh, damn it.
Come on.

Yeah.
He's he's very good.

I I had a good time playing
around with Sonic for sure.

I played him a bit in Ultimate
but but he I I couldn't actually couldn't couldn't tell that it
just to try.

I mean it's such a huge roster I
got to try everybody as far as the as far as the characters go
I mean it's it's impressive how many are added over the last.
I guess it's been about five years now that that things have
been going but are are the decisions just like, hey, we
like this character, let's, let's try and explore that.
Is it coming from outside And like, oh, this one seems like
it's getting the buzz.

Let's, let's try.
We got to get, we got to get

Banjo Kazooie in there.
Oh, we got to get Sonic in there.
Like, is that decision again, like you said, is it just
organic like other stuff has been?
Or is it more fine-tuned than that, if that's the way to say
it?

So it's evolved out of the time.
Originally it was really limited to what was our capabilities,
which were far more limited originally.
So, you know, we were doing clones and it was kind of like,
you know, I couldn't really code that much and you know, we
couldn't, we didn't have animators really at the time,
like you were really limited.

And as we've grown gotten better
and more skilled, it's like less about our capabilities because
we can kind of do what we want.

So it started off being like
very capability based, like, OK,

I'm making Endor if he's a
clone, I could do that by myself or like, you know, Doctor Mario
and those kind of characters, it was kind of like, well, this is
where we have capabilities.

Your capabilities are always a
factor.

But now is later on it became
less of a thing we really had to worry about.
And then it kind of became about like, well, you know what, once
we narrowed in on that we wanted to be.
It wasn't always that I wanted to be kind of a ode to the
Nintendo 64.

Originally.
I just wanted to make it like cool competitive characters.
That was my original thought, like good competitive characters
for 64 or something kind of like that just make it more
interesting.

But as time around, it's like,
well, OK, there are mod is kind of an ode to the 64 and what
characters do we need to add.

So, you know, getting where
we're getting our roster now, we're kind of, you know, at the
end of things, I, you know, I feel I was like, you know, we
need to do banjo.

This is a character that
personally I did not play a lot of Banjo Kazooie.
I'm sorry folks.

I know I should have.
I played it a little bit, but I didn't own it.
We didn't have a lot of 64.

We didn't have a lot of games
back then.

I had to rent games.
I was not rich.

I'm sorry.
We played like insane games 50,000 times over.
But I played a lot of smash for.

I was in Mario 64, but you know,
I knew Banjo had to be done.

It's like Banjo is a must have
at the end and like there are other ones that I just thought
like this is a 64 character,

Conquer is just so 64, he's 64.
He had to be done.

And plus he had so many
different things.

You gotta think of like does
this character have a cool move set that we could make
interesting?

Conquer had so many things
available to him with his all his weapons.
His stuff is so he can pull.

Something out?
It's so fun.

You think I love it?
So like characters like going on and Marina and Banjo, just like,
wow, that character feels so 64 and so of the era and we can
think of a creative move set that let's do it.
That's what it became at the end, where originally it was
like what do we have the capabilities for?
And ultimately, as a team leader, you got to think of like
what?

I can't just be unilaterally.
Well, there have been times, but even I can't just be like, I
wanna make this.

So we're gonna do it.
I have to have the support of my team.
If if my artist doesn't wanna make it or my animators don't
wanna animate it or my coders don't wanna code it like it's
it's not gonna happen.

So it is kind of organic in that
sense.

We don't really care what other
people want, you know, if you ask for characters, it's not
something we're considering, but we do think about like, what
makes sense, you know, if it if it's gonna make people happy,
that that's always nice.

But we really make the mod in a
sense for ourselves, to be honest.
But we just think about what would what's an ode to the 60
fours, what we've been doing lately, what's what makes sense
there, and what what's fun, what's gonna be a fun character
to play?

So then the question turns into
are there characters that you wanted to put in and decided
against?

Because you mentioned cut
content.

You don't have to spoil it if
that's something coming up, but if you want to name like one or
something if.

You want to like, you know, if
you want to, yeah, if.

You want to just throw something
out there and then the other thing is there, you reaching the
limit, you're at 64 megabytes

Max capacity here, right?
Is there plans for any more updates?
Is this the end?

Is this like everything minor
after this, like no more characters or is there a a
stance on that?

Just what are your thoughts on
those?

Yeah.
So we kind of leave it open ending and if there's going to
be any more updates, it's just going to be one of those things
like it it could happen, it might not.
Right now I feel fulfilled where

I am at.
I'm I'm kind of going to be taking the step back from things
and more have a more of a, I don't know, an ownership role,
ACEO type role.

I have kind of put some other
people in charge and I'm kind of letting my team decide how they
want to continue.

So will there be another you
know, addition, you know they'll be bug fixes for sure like that.
You know they'll be like you can count on certain things being
fixed.

You know, there might be a 1.5.
There will definitely be something beyond 1.5 right now.
Will there be, you know, new characters, new stages?
You know you'll have to wait and see.
I can't.

I can't give you an answer
there.

That's just gonna depend on what
the team's feeling and if I feel it's appropriate.
Can't wait till Rayman's added.

We'll we'll see about that.
Now you mentioned the cut characters.
I was thinking what's a like a a small one?
I could throw one that I, you know, I'm going to speak on this
in the in the video, but like one that this is, it's gonna be
random for people that we really wanted.
The early days was Raichu.

Me and one of the artists on the
team are just big Raichu fans and we were doing clones, so we
thought it made sense.

And he had this model for Raichu
that was just so good.

And you know how Pikachu has
those birthday hats.

Julie Puff has the bows he made.
We we went since.

He's kind of like Lieutenant
Serge is kind of like a

Lieutenant, right.
You know, there's a military guy and Raichu's kind of associated
with Lieutenant Serge.

We gave Raichu A beret and it
looks so cool.

He was this like special
operations Raichu.

And ultimately, we didn't go
that route because tail would have been such a thing to
animate.

You make a clone, you're hoping
to reuse animations, right?

That's the big benefit.
But with ride shoe with his tail, you really don't get much
of A benefit 'cause you have to.

That tail is so different from
Pikachu's tail, you have to reanimate the whole thing.
So it wasn't very valuable.

It wasn't like a value add to do
ride shoe and ride shoe just never came to be.
Although I one of the melee mods made Raichu afterwards which I
thought was was pretty cool.

I never, I never played it but I
I was like oh someone else made

Raichu.
That's that's cool.

Nice.
We shared shared love for the

Pokémon.
Yeah, why not?

Yeah, I guess that's that's
something too, right?

Like Pokémon in general.
I mean, yeah, there's there's a few and there's definitely more
than a few at this point in the in the later smashed games.
But like there's literally hundreds you could choose from
like, but, but but like you said, it has to make sense for
the 64, has to make sense for that era.
All those decisions that you guys have made that the team has
made as far as making it a reality is, is it's awesome that
all of that stuff is taken into consideration is what I gotta
say.

I guess basically I man, I suck
at this game so bad.

I'm watching like.
I'm watching your game play too.

I'm so bad that I think this was
like one of the first.

This might have been the first
time that I picked it up.

I I want to say about the
characters too.

I'm I'm very there's something
about the fact that Goemon is in it and Marina something about
those two feels even extra this era because we haven't seen
either of those since.

If I'm not if I'm not mistaken
so.

And I I think Marina has one of
the most unique move sets because like in her game like in
mischief makers and in this there's a lot of like grabbing
you know or you can you know the way the projectiles were And she
has like she has the pot and she has her.
Her jumps are different like all of that stuff feels so her which
is amazing.

And I really got used to playing
Goleman.

He is now probably my go to I
don't know what it is but his move set just clicked with me.
I don't know if you had like a.

A favorite GUI.
You're playing through it and and as far.
As Oh yeah, Sonic.

So it was Sonic for the new
ones.

Oh yeah, I loved his his meteor
kick.

Every time I landed it, I was
just like, hell yeah.

Yeah, it Gorman's thing felt, I
think he felt a little bit familiar in some ways.
Like he has some projectile, he has some close quarter stuff.
He has, you know, his his cloud that he can fly on that saves.
I use that quite a bit because again, I'm not very good at
this, but but he's fun and he's such a goofy character.
Like he's such a a randomly goofy character.
I find that it's always fun to sort of embody that Mister Smash
Father, is there a particular, do you you don't have to say
favorite, 'cause I'm sorry, it's hard to pick a it's hard to pick
a favorite kid, you know what I mean?
But was there or is there a favorite in the in the new group
at least?

It depends on what you're
looking for.

So I have, Nah, I was never a
huge Gandorf fan.

Like people, I've heard people
say like, oh, there's some

Gandorf fanboy runs Smash 64.
I was not a huge Gandorf fan, but I became one just because he
kind of has emotional significance.
He's the first character I ever made that was such a triumph for
me.

And he's kind of to me, he's our
mascot.

Gandorf is is the mascot of of
Smash Remix.

So I have a deep affection there
as far as who I'm gonna playing with.
Who's you know of the remix cast.
I you know I not bad with going on I guess but like Bowser and
DDDI like the big guys so I can play with them pretty well.
Surprisingly well, considering I

I barely have time to play.
But you know, those are really good.
I'm a huge Sonic fan.

It's hard to yes.
Once again, I'm not really.

I'm not going to give you a true
answer, Yeah.

No, that's that's totally fair.
A huge Sonic fan.

That was a huge thing for me to
add him.

I was definitely, you know,
vehemently I I forced us to have

Classic Sonic.
I was, I know members of team really liked Sonic Adventure.
Sonic, and that's fine.

Sonic Adventure came out before
Smash Bros, which like I was there.
Like, I literally, I was live, I was experienced it, and it
doesn't seem right to me.

It didn't seem like it was real,
but it happened, you know, like it came like Sonic Adventure
came out before Smash Bros and I just, I don't believe it.
But that's what history is, I guess.
And so I was like, fine, we can have Sonic Adventure, Sonic, but
we have to have Classic Sonic.

Yeah.
So, you know, I mean, I love

Sonic too.
There's there's a lot of characters to love and going on
was big for me.

Going on was kind of the one
where I was like we're making going on.
Nice.

And but then all everyone
started playing his games and fell in love with them along the
way, right?

And that's that's how we got ABC
Morrow.

Like I had no interest in having
ABC Morrow, but the team fell in love.
With such a goo.

It's amazing.
ABC Morrow.

So ABC Morrow, you know, came
into reality, Yeah.

Especially in the 64 games, that
guy is just hilarious.

He's just so goofy.
It's amazing.

I I know, I know the gome on
characters from, I think it's called is it called Legend of
Mystical Ninja for Super

Nintendo?
That I had that game growing up, not not knowing anything about
it, not knowing it was even a series.
I had no idea and it was Co-op so me and my brother could play
it together.

We probably never really knew
what we were doing 'cause it's not a simple game for like a A5
and A and an 8 year old to be playing.
But but I was like oh, I know this, I know this guy.
Like when I got a 64 and realized that there was more
characters and it was still the same.
I I just there's something about it about that about that
franchise about that series that it was it was it was a it's a
very charming addition in my in my opinion to to smash remix so.
Yeah, I also think, I also think that the characters having
alternate skins that just changed them completely is
awesome.

I love that you can do the
entire Starfox team.

You can be slippy.
You can be Falco, you can be peppy.
The fact you can switch between

Giga Bowser and Bowser, even
that's super cool.

Supersonic Sonic to Supersonic.
I love, I love stuff like that.

And I feel like you really gave
quite a few options for every character.
Like, you can even do like the

Polygon versions.
The Fighting Polygon team just really cool.
And Bowser's Fighting Polygon team looks like Godzilla.
And it's really it's really sweet.
Oh, that's the intent.

Yeah, it was.
That was definitely an intent.

Very good, like Godzilla
reference in there.

And yeah, I almost wanted to
give people, you can see that with the character.
You've seen the character menu where you have so many options.
You can play the giants, you can play with random hit boxes.
To me, it's just like it's all about letting people play the
way they want to play.

Unless that involves turning on
tap jump, but.

That's the one.
That's the last thing.

No, not.
Happening.

Yeah, it's never gonna happen,
not as long as I'm alive.

But we just wanna give options
to people to play the way that they wanna play.
And so we have all these zany options.
Honestly, an overwhelming amount of options.
It it is, it is.

It'd be fun.
Yeah, yeah, I I was never a kid.

You mentioned Gameshark way at
the beginning here, but you mentioned, you know, Gameshark
and those types of of products that were out back in the day.
I never had one of those.

I had a couple friends that
didn't.

That was it.
But I was never like the person to even just have a strategy
guide for a game.

I just played the game and like
that was kind of it, right?

But you don't need a game shark
with Smash Remix.

You can just, you can play it
and it's got, like you said an overwhelming amount of options
And to sit down like we played this solo.
But to sit down and play Smash

Remix with friends, which I
fully plan to do at some point, is just going to be it.
Like they probably won't even they, they don't have, you know
64 ROMs available or an ever drive like I do and definitely
don't have an N64 podcast.

So they're not sort of watching
all these things like I am.

But I'm gonna show this to them
and they are going to be blown away.
I I still have a couple friends that I played this game with
back in the day and I know that they're gonna just, they're
gonna, they're gonna lose their shit.
Just plain simple.

They're gonna lose their shit.
I know they are and it's.

Gonna be you definitely should
do is.

I don't know if you guys know
know this or not because this has been for like a patch or two
is you want to do one player mode with one of your friends
playing it as ACPU and if you've seen that option.
No, I did not see I.

Did if you press, yeah,
basically I think you press Z.

This is a mode I designed.
If you press Z when you're on a 1P mode, it could be regular 1P,
could be remix 1P you'll get.

You'll hear the laugh of Master
Hand and your opponent.

Your friend will be able to play
as ACPU in A1 player mode and like that's a blast for people
to play through.

That's.
Awesome.

Wow.
If one you know, I would advise against doing very hard mode,
you know?

And your friend's gonna be a lot
better, most likely than than the CPU.
So don't make it too hard on yourself, but it's it's really
fun to play as.

Actually, Jiggy, that's awesome.
You were saying before that you found the game to be to be
fairly difficult.

I don't know if it's just muscle
memory is not there in the same way I Me too.
I mean, I said I I stink at this game, but I think I was kind of
always not that great.

I I.
Was particularly like one-on-one

I was having no problem like all
the all the fights were were fine.
But going up against Giga Bowser specifically and the Giant and I
had a giant variation of Sonic playing through the remix mode.
I found it very hard.

Like very hard.
Like.

I mean, I was getting
obliterated.

Yeah, the intention with Remix
1P was to make a a harder mode than the original like 1P mode
was to give people more of a challenge.
So like it's at least scaled up.

We've tried to balance it more
and make it a little bit more less brutal, but maybe there's
some more room to gain there.

But yeah, the goal is to make
remix 1P, like loose a stage or two up from the difficulty of
the original game, just to give people who've been playing
forever an additional challenge, basically.
So yeah, if you're on very easy, you know, don't, don't feel bad
because like, it's more like you're on, you know, easier
normal mode.

I was.
Don't feel bad.

If you play Very Easy on Remix
1P, you're really playing what would be like the equivalent of
like easy or normal mode on one

P mode, the regular 1P.
So that makes sense.

The intent was to give a new
challenge there.

Yeah, I think I it's not that
the the game definitely does not feel unbalanced at all.
For me, I felt like, Oh my God,

I forgot how to do this the way
I'm supposed to.

Like, it took, it took me a few
rounds to really be like, Oh yeah, shit, like I'm not playing
Kirby, you know, like that's.

That's kind of like, I think.
I think part of that too is you have to get used to what when
you're playing the newer games there's a, there's a lot of
frame buffer between your button presses your input presses and I
feel like you go back to the 64 or even melee like you.
It's probably even more particularly melee.
It's just things are so tight and there's no, there's no
buffer for that.

It's like you got to, you got to
nail it, right?

Yeah, I mean it's it's the it's
this, it's the original game.

That's what this is.
That's what remix feels like.

Like we've said and everything.
So it's yeah, you just.

Got to get good.
Just got to get good which which

I I you know I probably won't
I'm.

I'm not.
I'm not.

I'm not I'm not in that skill
set anymore man.

Kids these days and their
reflexes.

Let me tell you, kids these days
know nothing, because I just went back and I played Earth
from gym and I played it as a kid, but I recently just
replayed it.

I don't remember it being that
hard.

I always.
Like I always remember those games being difficult.
I I.

The second one was fine, but the
first one I was like, I was, I was so mad.
I was so mad.

I kept dying and it was like the
stupidest things.

And then later I'd be like, oh,
I forgot that's how you do that.

But it was just it's so
unforgiving.

Yeah, those those 2D games would
always be like that.

All right.
I I think, I think that if anyone has a chance to play
Smash, Remix 1.5 is out now, we have some new characters.
There's obviously updates that are going to be coming.
Just a few, just a few.

What I'm saying is it it it, it
might continue, but even if it doesn't, even if nothing else is
added to this, it is an exceptional feat of programming
and creation.

Smash Father, honestly Congrats.
This is amazing.

I I just I just have to tell you
that you know if if the team isn't hasn't listened to this or
or if if they haven't heard it recently they deserve all the
all the credit as well because it's just it's such a good it's
such a great game and it's not a great just a great mod it's a
great game and I think that is a huge difference.
It doesn't feel like, you know, a few people got together and
just decide, yeah, let's slap you.
There is work put into this.

There's creativity, there's
craft.

It is really, really something
special.

It's hard, I think, to make
something feel like you are sitting on your couch only four
feet away from your TV with your original console back in the
day, yet it's you're not doing that at all.
Like, it's it's it's very impressive.
So, so kudos to you and and the team.
Thank you very much.

Love it?
Yeah.

So I got to.
I got to address this.

I got to address this.
So do it.

We had the YouTube thing was
figured out, right?

That whole spiel.
Because I was.

I was mad for you.
I was so mad because that Banjo

Version 1.5 trailer was
incredible.

Oh my God, it's amazing.
Oh my.

God, I went back to re watch it
and then saw it was down and then followed the whole Twitter
spiel and I was just like, what?

What?
Why?

It makes no sense.
I can give a brief summary of the situation, sure.
Basically now this start most people don't know is a few
months ago randomly our Sonic trailer just got taken down and
we tried to appeal it.

And we also kind of did like a
Twitter push where we asked people and they just said, no,
it's no big deal.

Like you just, we we reviewed
your appeal and like basically it's like they out of nowhere
said like, oh, this is like, what did they say?
Oh, dangerous.

It said it was like dangerous
content.

And then we appealed that and
they instantaneously, they rejected it.
We did the Twitter push for

Sonic to come back and they
said, like, no, we were right.

We're totally right.
They did the same thing with the banjo trailer and say, like our
whole channel gets taken down and like you've been, you know,
two strikes, you're out everything.
You're just totally booed off

YouTube, your dangerous content.
And we we appealed once again instantaneously rejected and
then we were left with no other options to really to complain.
So we just took we, I even, I didn't go to Twitter to get a
movement going, but I tweeted out like, hey, this is what
happened.

Like, we got our channel taken
down by YouTube and enough people like yourself complained
and retweeted.

And what got into YouTube's
eyes?

That they actually did
something.

Which is sad to think that the
only way you can get YouTube because like Nintendo, let me
tell you, Nintendo did not care.

Nintendo does not care.
They didn't.

Nintendo did not, was not upset
with us.

They don't care.
Nintendo doesn't care about us.

They did not.
There's no strikes against us.

Nintendo has never given us any
issues.

We're very respectful of
Nintendo and they have not caused us really any problems,
but it was all YouTube just goofing up and they because we
got enough social media traction, they put our channel
back up and Sonic came back too.

So that was nice, but yeah, it
was.

It's sad that YouTube requires
you to cause a a a bunch of a furor on Twitter.
That's your best resource.

So.
Weird.

So small creators, you're just
doomed.

Sorry.
Yeah, that's so that's so crazy.

I mean, I'm glad it's back.
If anyone hasn't.

I should have said this off the
top, really.

But you're right.
If anyone hasn't watched the trailer for 1.5, even if you
don't have a way to play this game, totally fine.
Watch that trailer.

Watch.
Watch that 1213 minutes of a it is.
It's it's so good.

It's like a it's like a a a
short film.

It's amazing.
It's.

Crazy.
I was calling it Citizen Banjo.

I mean, many sleepless nights
were given to make that a trailer.
I've never seen them work harder than when they worked on that
that damn trailer.

I was like, guys, are we done
yet?

Like, how long is this gonna be?
So it was a heck of a trailer.

So I would recommend.
It's very good.

You can watch the all the
trailers, they're all thrilling.

Yes, even the original one I
made in 2019.

Oh, I went back and watched
It's, it's I went back and.

Watched it.
It's it's a thing of beauty.

Yeah, I agree.
But.

It's it's great.
So if anyone wants to keep track, whether it's YouTube,
whether it's Twitter, whatever it might be, where can everybody
find everything?

Smash remix in yourself.
Depends on, yeah, we have a

Smash Remix, Twitter, Smash
Remix, YouTube.

We have a GitHub.
As far as like downloading Smash

Remix, there's a special
sentence is going to kill me because I don't know.
I don't know that URL.

I'm trying to think what is.
The URL?

Yeah, we'll post in the
description for sure.

It's also POST.
It in the description for me, so this doesn't kill me because.
I think I grabbed it from your from your Twitter.
Post Oh wait, I got it guys.

I got it.
OK, it's smash 64 dot online slash remix.
OK, that's the best way to download it.
Don't go anywhere else.

Do not pay for remix.
If you pay for it, you're putting us on the line.
We get in trouble with Nintendo.

We never want Remix to be sold.
If you're getting, it's sold to you, You're getting robbed.
Nobody owns Remix like you should get it for free.
Never buy a cartridge with Remix on there.
Get never drive.

You know it's always free.
Never pay for Remix.

The ever drive ran this thing
beautifully.

It was.
That's what we designed it for.

If it doesn't work on console,
it doesn't.

It's not real.
Yeah, that's our viewpoint.

It was awesome.
I I totally just ripped my ever drive out to like flaunt it.
And then I realized I had Smash

Remix running.
I might think of it.

So I just ripped it out of my
live 64 to to prove this .0 fancy.
There you go.

Yours is red.
Mine's just Gray.

Fancy.
Yeah.

I like the red.
Yeah, OK, that's awesome.

Thank you so much for coming on
the show.

This is very exciting.
Check out Smash Remix if you have a chance to play it, play
it.

At the very least, watch a lot
of amazing videos that are out there, watch the trailers, and
support this awesome group of creators.
Because as we said, it is just an insanely impressive feat and
a whole lot of fun.

So thanks again for coming on
the show and and hopefully we'll chat to chat to you soon and
good luck with the with the future endeavors and being the
CEO as you say.

Thanks so much for having me.
All right, everybody.

Thank you so much for listening
to Remember 64.

This week.
We are back to our regular schedule programming of an N64
game on the next episode and more mods to come in the rest of
the year.

So thanks everyone for
listening.

We will talk to you soon on
Remember 64.