Level 81 - Tonic Trouble - Early, Purple Rayman Platforming

We're here to test the new
Nintendo 64 game Tonic Trouble.

In Tonic Trouble, the player is
a little alien guy named Ed.

Ed has to save the world from an
evil mutant warlord and his army of crazed killer tomatoes, which
we think sounds like a lot of fun.
Let's find out.

Yes, that looks like a lot of
fun.

So there you have it.
Proof positive that Tonic

Trouble for Nintendo 64 is,
That's right, a lot of fun.

Welcome to Remember 64, where
this week, well, we're just a couple of purple janitors caught
up in a real mix up.

Hello everyone, welcome to the
show.

Hi if they're returning,
listener or viewer, and welcome if this is your first time here.
Remember 64.

We will be playing discussing
the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between throughout
the Nintendo 64's library and more.
Actually recently.

My name is David Petrangelo and
I had no idea that popcorn got me buff or swole or whatever the
kids say these days.

Jiggy, you're younger than me.
Is that what the kids say?

No, kids don't eat popcorn
anymore.

Oh, oh, that's what was off
about what I said.

Popcorn.
Yeah, they don't do the popcorn anymore.
Yeah, they just skip it.

They just go right to buff.
Right.

Just straight to buff.
Yeah, yeah.

There was like a noticeable
transition where every 12 year old of a sudden had a full beard
and was like 6 foot 3 and you're like, how old are you?
And they're like is.

That just ageing.
Maybe.

Maybe.
That's because that 12 year old's now like 17 maybe that's.
You know what, maybe I just thought that was weird because I
never had that.

OK, fair enough.
Fair enough.

Yeah.
Did you look back?

You can't grow a full beard when
you were 12 years old.

Come on.
No, I can't.

I'm in my 30s and I still can't.
Life sucks.

God God damn, God damn.
Go go grow a beard and come back to me.
When when you get that done, how about how about that?
Yeah, it's going to look really straggly and.
We are sitting here in late

January recording this last
couple days of the first month of 2026, which is already crazy
to say.

And we are talking Tonic
Trouble, a game that was recently added to the Nintendo
Switch Online if you have the

N64, which I believe is still
part of the expansion pack, so you're able to play it there.
But an Ubisoft platforming title that is not too, too dissimilar
from Rayman 2, which we played roughly a year ago on the show,
which was a fun to fun time to go back to and also was just
actually added to to NSO.

So we'll get to it in just a
second.

But Tonic trouble was a
platformer that a few people have asked for over the last
little bit.

I know Jiggy was something that
you were interested in playing again and stuff and something
that's I never played before.

So we're gonna we're gonna chat
about that in just a few minutes.
I just wanted to 1st let everybody know that of course,
you can always send us a text message or a voicemail for free.
Voice cast dot app slash remember 64 And we got another
one just this week as well, which will jump into a little
bit of a potential planning sesh.
Live on air, everybody live on air.
Let's just hit play and read and listen to this one.
Go on, don't be afraid.

Great show guys.
I just found it from your top 2025 games episode.
I was wondering if there is any chance you'd be covering Ocarina
of Time as it's always been one of my favorite games ever.
OK so I don't never never heard of it really.
Actually, Nah, that's not.

Interesting, I heard it's not
good.

Actually, I heard that that was
almost Power Rangers level of not good.
So yeah, of course we covered

Majora's Mask two years ago now.
Ish.

Roughly a long time ago.
That was an episode though.

That was a lot of fun.
Yeah, it's actually one of our most listened to episodes as
well.

It was great.
Luigi was with us of course.

So two of my Co hosts I guess
throughout the years were together and that was fun.
It was it was a good time talking about that.
A lot of stuff that we covered.

But of course, Ocarina of Time
is a trash game, but we do have to cover it at some point.
So we will get there.

You know, I, I I think something
like this, I just said before we actually as we went live on our
live stream right now, but just before the episode actually
officially started.

I thought when we got this text
message a couple days ago, which by the way, just has like an
audio.

I can press play and it reads it
with like an AI voice or something.
So that's where that came from.

Person didn't write what their
name was or where they came from, but all good talking
about.

But the text was read in a
woman's voice, so clearly you are a woman.
Clearly, clearly, obviously.

And I was, I said the jig, I
said, you know what?

Like it's such a big game that I
feel like maybe we could lead up to it a little bit, kind of like
we did with Banjo last year where we played, you know, Kirk
Omad's latest mod, which was awesome.
It's a nostalgia 64.

And then we played the two GBA
games as part of the the Banjo franchise.
And maybe we'll, we'll figure it out as we go and maybe people
can let us know which games they might want us to play.
But maybe we can play a couple of like the earlier Legend of
Zelda games or even just like one that's later and stuff too,
'cause there's a few that I haven't played and like the
GameCube, Wii era, but maybe older ones that lead up to it,
ones that are a little bit different, what Ocarina feels.
Like, I have one, I have one, hang on, now I gotta go grab it.
Oh, now you do.

Oh, hello.
Is this is a?

Let me see where is it?
Where is it?

I don't know.
My brain, my brain is not braining when I'm looking for
this.

Of course not.
I'm going to focus right in on the video version.
Here we go.

Found it, Jiggy.
Here we go.

Let's get the focus on Jiggy.
You don't need to see me with this show and tell.
So there's one Zelda game that

I've always wanted to play that
I've never played, and I never owned it.
I never saw it anywhere.

And recently I acquired it.
I never played this one on

GameCube.
The four sword events and yeah.

Four swords.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I played the one that's like on
DS and Game Boy Advance and stuff, but I never played this
like GameCube equivalent and this is supposed to be like
really cool and interesting.

So the four, I feel like that
was a re release of one of them, but they did the whole
multiplayer thing in it and stuff I can't remember.
Exactly, it looks way more fleshed out than than that
though.

Like it looks way more fleshed
out than the than the four sword adventures.
That's like on Game Boy.

Right, right.
But it looks, yeah, yeah, it's like Game Boy advanced
connectivity, which is interesting, but that's
definitely one that I've always wanted to play and I've just
never played it.

Now, can you get take advantage
of what it what it offers Like with like if we just played it
ourselves, Like that's the thing that I wonder, 'cause it'd be
cool.

I like the idea.
Yes, I think this this one you can.
So I actually played, I played the original 4 sword.
I don't know if it's the original, that could be the
original for all I know, but the

GPA.
One was the original it looks like.
Yeah, I played that one with friends and we did link cable.
Nice.

And that was really cool.
That was a long time ago.

That was a lot of fun.
But this one I think you can play it single player like but
you can also hook up your game boys.
But it looks like you almost just control 4 links
simultaneously.

What, so it's kind of like a
little bit more of like a, like a puzzle puzzle experience
almost.

In that way, yeah, it looks
different.

It looks different than the Game
Boy one.

Like it doesn't look like the
same game.

It looks like a totally
different game just with the.

I'd be down to play either of
those because I've never played those ones.
I know of them, but I've never played those ones.
And then I thought, like, you know, we could do a couple, so
that could be 1.

I bought this for $60.00.
Let me know if I got a good deal on it.
OK, so we have to play that.

You spend money on it, man.
I spent Oh yeah, I bought, I wanted it.
I was like and $60.00 look, the guy gave it to me complete inbox
in like a sealed like I don't put I don't put any of my
gamekeep games, but this one's in it.
Nice, there we go.

Yeah, 'cause the cases like that
you don't need them as much right 'cause the cases aren't
aren't paper like.

I'm not worried.
I'm not worried about it.

It's coming off when I play it,
it's coming off and it's probably never going back in
there.

But yeah, that just can cringe
all they want.

It doesn't bother.
Me yeah, that's OK.

You gotta.
Games are meant to be played.

All right, so there's that.
So we're, you know, what I might do is I might, we'll, we'll talk
about it, but I might put a little poll out there maybe on,
you know, on, on a YouTube post and like on, on social media and
stuff.

Look for that in the next little
bit.

I don't know exactly when we'll
get to them, but the hope is that we'll at least play a
couple of Zelda games, and the goal would be sometime this
year.

We'll get to our green of time,
but we'll get to.

Yeah, we'll get to it and really
decide if it's actually that trash like everybody says it
believes.

Yeah, we'll see.
We'll give it the old college try.
The first like 20 minutes the college drive.
I don't know about this game.

I don't know, man.
I I feel like I'm not doing anything.
I'm like I'm I hit a chicken and then it came after me.
Now what is that what this game is?
That's all the game is.

It's a chicken hitting
simulator.

I I jumped off a tree and then I
talked to a tree and I'm like,

I'm bored.
I'm out of here.

Like I don't.
Know.

Well we'll get to it.
We'll get to it.

OK, let's get to tonic trouble.
Jiggy look back.

First off, to you Sir, I know, I
know that you had some history with this game and you have
another little bit of a show and tell, I believe.
Yes.

OK, so let's start with the
history.

The history is this is one of
the games I got in my massive haul.
Yeah, I.

Feel like you have 700 games
even though 700 doesn't exist.

The story, for those who haven't
heard it for the billionth time, is I went to a movie rental
store that was closing down with my dad and he bought me just
like a crap ton of games.

And this happened to be one of
them.

And we picked it up actually
because I really liked Rayman 2.

I had that one first.
That was one of my favorite N64 games that I owned.
And my dad knew that and saw this and just kind of was like,
oh, you're probably going to like this.
And I saw the picture and I was like, oh, I'm probably going to
like this.

When I found out it was a 3D
platformer and didn't realize it was made by the same people that
made Rayman, we didn't like, we didn't process that.
We just saw it looked like

Rayman and we made that comment
and it was actually my my cousin, my older cousin, she
came over with her boyfriend at the time and he's like, oh, it's
made by Ubisoft, the same people that made Rayman.
I was like, it is.

And then and then when we're
playing, like you see all the little nods and references to
Rayman, like I'm sure we'll, we'll talk about it a little
bit.

But it like right in the
beginning the, the sliding down the snow mountain, there's a
little like Rayman hieroglyph or whatever you'd call it in the
mountain.

It was pretty cool.
But what I wanted to do and mainly 'cause I want to talk
about this right now, please do is I found out, I did not know
this.

I found it out later that the PC
release in other countries, not

North America but in the Europe
and Italy and stuff they had a deal.
So instead of popcorn that turns

Ed into super Ed, we'll.
We'll get to that, that's for sure.
Yeah, it was Nestle Crunch.

Yes.
Any excuse for me to just eat candy?
I thought that was great.

I didn't know that.
And I was like, wait, what?

And I it's.
An it's it's so crazy that they did actually let's let's talk
about that quickly now, since since you brought it up.
So in the game and we'll get to this sort of get into the
detail.

Good chocolate.
I mean, crunch is pretty good.

Crunch is one of the ones that
like my mom always had for some reasons it was like her
favorite.

That and crunchy, which I
believe is the one with the toffee inside.
I don't.

Think I've had that one.
I like a good crunch bar.

I like bunch of crunch.
That's like my movie snack.

Oh yeah, those are good.
Like the little.

Box, Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, those are nice.

Yeah.
So with this I.

This is like getting into like
even before we can talk about the game itself.
But because you brought it up, it's it's it's funny.
So this is something I knew about beforehand, but didn't
really realize how it was utilized.
Essentially what happens is as

Ed, the main character, some
parts of the game, which I think it's at least in once in every
world or almost every little level that you're in, he goes up
to a popcorn machine that looks like kind of like a slot
machine, honestly.

Or like one of those ones where
you turn the dial and like a toy comes out like whatever that
would that would.

Or like a classic office water
cooler, like that kind of shape, if you think about it.
Yeah.

Pulls the lever, eats some
popcorn and turns into this big buff version of himself and
shows off this jiggy look back muscles.
Yeah.

So this is so random, but I, I,
you know, took a couple notes as to like how this came about and
stuff like that.

And the fact that it was just,
you know, so it says Ubisoft entered the partnership with
Newman's Own.

So if anyone's seen Newman's,
it's got sort of an older guy's cartoon face on the packaging
and it's just homemade popcorn.

You know, you just end up
putting whatever you put in the microwave.
One of those are on the stove top or something.
I've been around for, I think ages.
And so the idea was that Tonic

Troubles Windows release would
actually include a package of popcorn, which is funny.
And honestly something that when you think about it, that PC
packaging, it's sort of like roughly the size of an N64 box,
maybe a little bit bigger if it's just like just a disk or
something, right?

That's classically how those
things were sold.

You slide a little bag of
popcorn in, I think you're good.

I think you got it.
I think that that that makes sense.
So in November of 1998, Newman's

Own started packing $10 rebate
coupons inside Tonic Trouble boxes, 4 million boxes of
popcorn products where the coupons would expire on June 1st
of 99.

So they were very ambitious and
put this in 4 million boxes.

Bro do you have one?
Are you about to pull it out?

I don't have.
One bro if I just I would order it I would find 1 and I would
eat it I would.

Try it.
Yeah, every coupon redeemed with

Ubisoft.
The company was also going to donate $1.00 to the Hole in the
Wall gang camp in France, which is a camp for kids in France and
where I think it was a, a French studio that's, or at least
partially a French studio that put this game together.
So that's why it was there.

But I thought that's kind of
cool.

It's not just here's a giveaway,
here's a promotion.

Hey, at least they're, at least
they're doing something with it, right?
So that's very interesting.

I, I, it's, it's, you know, it's
microwave popcorn.

Let's take it or leave it.
And it's, it's cool, it's random, but it adds to the
personality of this, of this, of this game, I think.
You know, it's funny, I actually had, so I did not own the PC
version of this game ever, but I did have in our garage like of
all, of all things.

First it was in our basement,
then it was in our garage and it was like this thing.
For some reason, my parents had this random, like, graphics card
that was still in the box.

They never like put it in their
computer.

I'm assuming that's what the
intention was.

I don't know why they had it.
It was like a graphics accelerator or something.
And one of the games that was advertised on the back of like
benefiting from this was Tonic

Trouble.
And I remember, like, seeing that as a kid and being like,
this is so cool.

And seeing the PC version, like
a screenshot of it and being like that looks so much better
than the Nintendo 64 version.

And I was like, I don't know,
10I.

I wonder if it is I'm gonna pull
that up while while we're talking 'cause I have the 64
gameplay pulled up that I'll that I'll show in a minute, but
I'm curious the difference.

It does look better.
It's not like it like it still looks like Tonic Trouble, but it
it does look better.

And what's really cool is the
beginning cutscene.

I'm sure other cutscenes are
different too, but like I think the beginning cutscene is
dramatically different.

Oh, I like beginning cutscenes.
It's kind of very slapstick, you know?
Yeah.

It is.
It's still got that, but it's like way more fleshed out.
And like he has like a whole court scene where he's like,
yeah, they, they see a court scene where he's, he's like a,
in a, like a prisoner garb and they're like ordering him to go
like fix the problem and stuff.

Because he's already very.
Poor 1, he just sort of like decides to go down and yeah, I
just take it in himself.

It doesn't really.
Yeah, it doesn't.

Really.
OK, let's see.

OK, so here's the PC1.
I love that how the 64 show is showing the PC version of this
game.

Most cool and yeah, they just
added to NSO Yeah, we're just talking about that.
It's you should check it out.

You should check weird.
That it it got added to NSO.

So freaking weird.
Wait, that's a full on like cartoon.
All right, so in comparison, here's part of the 64 one.
Yeah, this is the one I remember.
And all the music.

There's the music.
Rayman too.

So Rayman, Yeah.
Yeah, it's it's there's a difference.
Yeah, it's the way it looks.

Yeah, and I mean, let's be,
let's be real.

Well, I mean, that's like a full
animated cutscene.

Yeah, it really.
Is but even the gameplay looks does look better, like the
models are much better.

Like they're different.
Sometimes they're just different.
I'm like why are they different?

Like the tonic looks different
on the PC version.

Oh yeah.
It's everything's a little bit cleaner, you know, Which does
make sense.

Yeah, I'm sure I, I don't know,
but I'm sure it plays somewhat similar.
It plays pretty much exactly the same though, yeah.
Yeah, it looks like it looks like it probably would.
OK, so Tonic Trouble is a little bit of an odd one, I would say.
I think like it's got such a random set up.
Like I said in my little quip at the beginning, Ed is a janitor
on I don't remember what like the spaceship is called.
I don't remember the spaceship either.
I don't.

Know if it even matters but
essentially what happens is a he he drops this like tonic that
creates this weird substance in on on this the planet and it all
the fruits and vegetables come alive and you got to save the
day and like sure I mean I guess.
He like, yeah.

So he like has this, this
experimental tonic that like mutates things that it touches
it, like evolves them or something.
And he drinks a little bit of it and then throws it up.
And then the like this hatch opens up that these screws are
in and they, they like, they like come alive and then they
start moving and it falls to earth and everything starts
coming alive.

But like there's like a the main
guy, what is his name when I was a kid.
Grog.

I don't know.
I think it's supposed to be grog, but when I was a kid I
said grow because that felt.

Look at you, you're so cultured.
It is French too.

Yeah, GROGHI think so.
Yeah.

It could be grow, but because
it's French, yeah.

Yeah, he's like a Viking and it
it really he just gets it in the

N64 game and like drinks some of
it and starts laughing in the PC version.
I know in that cutscene he like gets kicked out of like a bar
and he's like, oh, we want more.

And then it falls right in front
of me.

He's like, that's what I'm
talking about.

Basically, let's see, I want to
find it.

It's right at the beginning.
Oh, he's got a Ed's, got a spaceship.
There's a whole thing going on here.
Oh yeah, look at him go, I'm telling.
You.

That's cool.
I like it.

That's cool.
And that guy, That guy.

Fun fact, because this is
connected to Raymond to the

General in Tonic Trouble also
appears as the guy who sells the robot to Captain Razor Beard and
Raymond too, which is a really cool.
It's a really cool fun than a nod.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's so funny.
So really it's it's an excuse to kind of send this wacky
character down to a planet and collect a bunch of stuff in
order to.

Yeah, he, I mean, he literally
just goes down.

Like his goal is to just get the
tonic and he meets the dock and the dock's like, oh, I need you
to go collect this.

I need you to collect this, I
need you to collect this.

Like, it's a lot of.
And he's like, very cool.

Yeah.
Basically he just agrees with everything.
I'm like, all right.

He's adds a, a funny looking
character with a funny personality and with a whole
bunch of weird characters around him and stuff.
It's, it's really just an excuse to have like this really
cartoony interaction with a bunch of different characters
and stuff.

Like it's, it's fine.
You're not going for the story.

You're going to collect some
stuff, play a few levels, do some, put some random ideas
together and do a little 3D platforming, I think.
And I was very confused at the beginning.
I had no idea what I was doing.

I was.
Like, yeah, they just kind of throw you in there.
Yeah, 'cause it's like go here, go here and I didn't really
understand where it was going or necessarily why it's collect
this thing.

I'm like, I don't know what that
means and and it's kind of like a hub world.
You know, you're in this one area that's has branching paths
that go to different other spots and need to have a certain
amount of collectibles to unlock this door and this door or some
ability to unlock that stuff you've seen before, but do it in
its own like quirky way and stuff like that.
So it it's the whole setup of it is totally fine and the story
might be unique, but it's really just a goofy thing and there's
nothing wrong with that.

So I thought that was kind of
fun.

Do you remember sort of going
through this as you grew up,

Jiggy?
Like was it something where is this one of those games?
I guess I ask is because it's not a huge game, but it's not
tiny either.

Is this one of those games where
you remember, Oh, I played the whole thing.
I went and I tried to get all the collectibles.
Oh, I only played the first couple levels because it was
just one of those games.

Like it was your sort of when
you when you grew up, as you played it.
It is one of those games I got pretty far in.
I don't think I ever finished it.
OK.

But the main reason was I didn't
have a controller pack.

So I've, I it's one of those
games I replayed the first couple levels like a billion
times, yeah.

If you don't have the controller
pack and it's necessary 100% this would be one of those.
Yeah, it was just, I mean, it's just like Rayman 2.
I did the same thing with Rayman 2 until I got a controller pack.
But I don't know that I ever went and got and finished this
one.

But I, I do remember I played
this one for a long time and I had my N64 just like on and like
I just kept playing it.

But I think it's possible the
power went out one night and it was cataclysmic and I just never
went back to tonic trouble after that.
But I do I remember it so fondly and it actually made my own
list.

I made a list of like 10 weird
N64 games I loved growing up and this was on there only for it to
be released on NSO like 2 weeks later.
I was like, did I just like manifest that?
Like what just happened 'cause I never hear anyone talk about
this game other than like weird, obscure, like somebody looks
into platformers kind of people.

But.
I, I, I for the, the, the cover of this game looks vaguely
familiar, but I wasn't really ever really paid attention to
it.

You know, my my whole story is
very different from Jiggy's as far as what I played growing up
on the 64.

So like this just was never on
my radar, even though games like this were like I knew what
Rayman 2 was growing up and even if it was a later one, but I
never bought it because I was in sort of on my way to moving on
to the whatever the next console was.
And I think I was playing too much no mercy when that game
came out.

So it came out very close
together.

But but this was before that.
This is a little bit earlier than Rayman.
And I think I would have had fun with this growing up.
I think I would have enjoyed this same thing as you.
It's I don't know if I would have, I had a controller pack,
but I still don't know if I would have like beat it because
I just played other games or cause it's single player or, you
know, things like that.

We're just sort of the rotation
of games that I played and stuff.
But it's not as big as Rayman 2, not as long.
It has similar ideas.

I think it's a little simpler,
but not in a bad way.

It's, it's prototype Raymond
too.

That's what it is.
It's them experimenting, seeing how Raymond would work.
I'm pretty sure they actually stated that, that it's like just
them tech demoing basically.

And they just decided, hey, we
should just make this a game 'cause they were having fun with
it.

And so they've finished it.
And that's the story of Tonic

Trouble.
Yeah, and the thing reminds me too the the creator of it.
Where's the name here?

Michael Ansell or Ansell, who
created Rayman in 95.

Like he is the original.
Onsell yeah, he's the one of or the original creator of the
first Rayman game that came out in 95 and said that for Tonic
Trouble, he was inspired by Day of the Tentacle and the world
travelling mechanic of Zelda

Comes Back A Link to the Past.
So those were a couple of ideas that he pulled from.
I love the the Day of the

Tentacle poll here because I
love that game.

It's like a very early point and
click adventure that I played growing up that is just so
funny.

I mean, if you've played
anything that Double Fine has made over the years with their
goofy personality and their cartoony nature and stuff.
So like, they're the guys that did what's the music?
The Jack Black rock music one.

Oh geez, school.
Of rock, What are you talking?

About no, no, that's the movie.
No, no, the the the game he plays.
Oh, Oh yeah, yeah, Brutal legends.
Brutal Legend.

Yeah, that.
So they made that game.

They they made, they made a made
a bunch of they're the ones who created Psychonauts, like stuff
like that.

So that kind of personality,
yeah, Double Fine does a lot of weird, weird games like that and
cool ideas and original ideas, which makes sense 'cause that's
what Tonic Trouble is.

And that's honestly what Rayman
is too.

It's like even though it was new
in 95, it still feels like extra original in a way, just because
of the way things look and the character designs and world
designs and things like that.

And I think Tonic Trouble is
sort of like a good, it makes sense.
It still looks like it's an evolution of the old, older 2D
Rayman games.

So I think that that makes
perfect sense.

And yeah, I like I, I at first I
felt like the game was a little clunky and it is a little bit,
you know, it, it controls a little bit.
I don't know, Boxy is the right way, but like he, he moves a
little stiff sometimes, doesn't move very fast or every time he
stops, he like stops on a dime, which I know is kind of part of
his personality kind of thing.

It just sort of his body reacts
to it and stuff, But once I got used to oh, OK, this is how they
want me to see the world.

This is how the camera works.
This is how he moves.

His jump is fine and and
controllable and stuff, But I I thought it was, I thought it was
pretty good to control.

It felt, you know, not very
difficult.

You know, I think I died maybe
like a couple times, mostly because I fell off platforms
platforming, not because, you know, Oh, hey, look at oh, oh,
oh, I gotta pause that.

Oh, this is the the Oh, I'm
gonna.

I was just looking at that.
I'm like, I thought that was only the PC version.
It must just be no.

Must just be the the European
version, the PAL version.

There's a there's a crunch
machine instead of the popcorn.

All that talk about popcorn
before Jiggy it it was it.

What they did?
Popcorn.

It still dispenses popcorn.
Yeah, that's right.

It's not even.
Yeah, that's interesting.

That's so funny.
It's the it's this crisp rice in inside of the crunch bar.
Yeah, that's.

What it looks, Yeah, it's yeah,
yeah, 'cause there's, yeah, I guess so.
That's so funny that that this just this long play that I'm
playing must just be like the

European version of it.
There's Big Ed, super, super Ed.

Great part of the game is his
sound effects.

Absolutely.
Every every single thing he does is is funny.
I think let's see if we can get a little sound.
The soundtrack is pretty good too, honestly.
I like it.

Yeah, it's.
It's it is very like they're going for like the spy motif and
it does have a spy sort of vibe to it.
Yeah, 'cause you're kind of like infiltrating, right, 'cause some
of the stages lead you up to the castle that take you to the Grog
guy and you're kind of trying to make your way in there while the
enemies try to take you down kind of thing.
And it's fun, 'cause he's just like this random character, you
know what I mean?

Like he's just this guy.
Even if I totally forgot that he was a janitor to start, that he
was a guy that dropped.

I thought he was like, oh, this
guy's a hero.

No, no, he's supposed to be like
the average Joe kind of thing, right?
And that's he's the hero for that.
So well, that's what cracks me up because he he goes and he
gets his weapon is this other robotic janitors like feather
duster.

And it's just like the feather
duster part comes off and it's just the stick and he uses that
as his weapon in the game and it's like he's experienced with
that.

So he's like, he flips it around
like he's a freaking Ninja

Warrior or something and then
utilizes it in many unique and different ways like a Pogo
stick.

Oh yeah, the Pogo stick you use
this, it's literally called a, a peashooter.
That's literally what they call it.
Like just so funny.

It's it's it's cool.
Like it's it's at first I was like, is this a game where you
Because I again, I didn't know any really all that much about
it other than, oh, it's Ubisoft.

Jiggy told me it's, you know,
early Rayman.

I was like, OK, that's kind of
cool.

Kind of that actually helped me
sort of realize or, or sort of set my expectations of what this
game might be.

But I was wondering, oh, maybe
there's no weapons and you just jump on enemies because for the
first stage you just have to avoid things.
There is no, there's, that's all it is.
So for the first, like, you know, whatever, half hour, 40
minutes, whatever it was, you're not actually killing anything or
knocking anything out.

You're just sort of making your
way around the stage and it kind of acts as a little bit like a
tutorial and it actually give gives you a good sense of what
the game feels like, what the platforming feels like.
And there isn't a ton of like really difficult platforming,
but you do have to be able to understand what the physics of
the game is, what Ed feels like, all that stuff.
And I think this first little section here did a good job of
that.

And then you get your little,
your little whacking stick, like you said, so, and then it just
kind of goes from there.

So did you have a favorite, I
guess, a weapon or item that he uses 'cause he's got a melee,
he's got the pea shooter, which is just, you know, a range shot.
Eventually get the Pogo stick and then you can fly, which I
guess isn't directly related to the stick.
But did you have a favorite then, and do you have a favorite
now?

Well, the flying would.
Always.

The the top of the top.
But I actually think the Pogo stick's pretty silly.
It's funny.

Like I think, I just think, I
guess I just referenced everything from Banjo Tooie.
So I'm like, Oh yeah, it's gliding like Kazooie.
Oh yeah, it's like, it's like

Banjo hopping in his backpack.
Like it's very similar.

It's a little stiff, but it's
fine.

It works.
Yeah, the the Pogo stick's pretty stiff, but I found at
least they do something with it.

It's not like, oh, you just can.
Cause the whole idea is that you're supposed to be able to
hop on top of like hot spots, like lava, like sort of lava
spots and all that.

And I thought that's kind of
cool.

But then they say, oh, but if
you find like certain things on the ground, you can actually
smash them and it takes you like underground and you can get more
collectibles or a key or some, some version of a key or
something like that.

And and then it kind of gets you
to go back to levels in order to unlock stuff and get enough
items to be able to progress in the story.
And I didn't think that would be a thing.
I thought like, OK, you know, you, you can go back and collect
notes or puzzle pieces and stuff in in Banjo or, or a star or
coins and Mario 64 and things like that.
But like, I don't know, for some reason I thought this was like
one of those, Oh, you're 1 and done.
You got, you beat the stage, you move on, you got your ability,
you move on kind of thing.

But but no, they, they do a
little more with it.

They want you to go back.
They want you to sort of, you can experience these, these
somewhat short levels again and then you can actually go to
areas you couldn't reach before.

And I, I, I like that.
I, I was surprised.

It was sort of a late game thing
for me because you have to collect, I think they're called
antidotes, which are these little swirly sort of things,
which I guess you could kind of equate them to what the, the
notes are in Banjo Kazooie because there's a decent amount
of them per level.

That's not like only 10 or five
or something.

Yeah.
And you need a certain amount in order to get to the final stage.
And boss and I was so close.

I had like 12 left and I'm like,
I'm going to go for it.

And you know what?
It wasn't a pain in the ass I thought it was going to be.
Actually, yeah, it's not.

It's not like the tribals in Jet
First Gemini.

Oh my God.
It feels.

It feels doable.
Yeah, yeah, it was.

It was.
I think it took me probably, I don't know, maybe an extra 45
minutes to an hour.

I, I don't know exactly because
I had, I, I played this on NSO because I knew it was going to
be kind of like on the go a decent amount through the last
few weeks.

And I played a little bit at
home, but then also played it partially in the train to and
from work.

So it was a good sort of, oh,
there's my safe spot, my safe state.
I'll pick it back up, do things like that.
And I don't remember exactly how long it took me, but it was
something like that.

And I had, yeah, like 10 or 12
left, went to like 3 different stages maybe to get them.
So it wasn't a ton.

And I didn't have to like rehash
everything over and over.

You don't have to get all the
keys again.

You don't have to unlock
everything again.

You don't have to do stuff like
that.

You can just go to the areas
that you can now access with like flying or the Poco stick or
whatever.

And yeah.
And then I actually, I actually finished the game.
I actually went through the whole thing.
I didn't.

Yeah, you got your, got your,
the whole, like, ending thing where it's like, yeah, we're
gonna take care of the Earth now.
Yeah, that's right.

Like we need to go green.
It was like a weird, like environmentally, Yeah.
That that meant nothing.

That had no, like, context.
It was just like, we're gonna throw this in there 'cause it
sounds good.

Yeah.
It's like you don't get any sense of that the whole way
through, really.

Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I bet this tonic didn't cause the problems at
all.

I bet that was the world being
mad at us for destroying the environment.
Kids, we need to do better.

That's what it was.
I'm not even joking.

It's something like that.
It's 100% what that is 'cause like the whole thing is that
most of the enemies, if if not all other than like the Vikings
are like nature based or food based, you know?
So there's corn that shoots stuff at you.
There's the tomatoes like you heard in the commercial off the
top that roll, which are huge pain in the ass, by the way,
and, and a whole bunch of other sort of foods and stuff.
And I guess they're angry because people suck.
I don't know, I guess that's kind of the idea.
I don't know.

I don't know what to say.
I don't really know why they're angry.
Yeah, the other thing too is that I guess I mean, I would be
too, let's be honest.

Like, I get it in a way.
The other thing too is at the end you get to be with your I
guess girlfriend, which is the is it?
Is it the scientist daughter I?

Yeah, it's the scientist
daughter.

It's the doc's daughter.
Trying to think I have to get something.
Isn't it like this?

Or something.
I think it's Susie like it's

Susie.
Susie, that's it.

I think you're right.
I confirm that like I'm 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure it is.
Pretty sure it is, I got it.

I took screenshots of a couple
of things that they say I have to pull up my Switch so I can so
I can find it.

I should have been able.
I should have loaded it up so I can I can find it.
But but there's a whole lot of sexual innuendo going on between
Ed and Susie and it is hilarious, especially for being
in a kids game.

Oh no, is my switch dad.
I will find it.

I'll get to.
It agent XYZ agent.

Oh yeah, it's like eyes behind a
newspaper.

Yeah, that's that's part of the
spy thing or whatever.

The doc looks like Albert
Einstein stereotypical.

Einstein or he looks like, you
know, Doc from Back to the

Future, you know, that kind of
mix.

Either way, they both.
Which is also, yeah, yeah, it's good.
But like a character like, yeah, that's true.
That specific character is very day of the Tentacle.
I don't know if you've played that game.
Or I haven't actually.

Yeah, it's it's really good.
They have like a they also have like a a re release version of
it on steam for it's probably super cheap and stuff.
I have it on PlayStation actually.
Like I think I got it.

It's like a free game on time.
Wouldn't be surprised.

I mean, it's like 35 years old
now or something like that.

All the characters kind of look
the way that the that the Doctor looks in this game.
Kind of quirky, weird hair, sort of exaggerated face expressions
and they kind of move kind of funny or whatever.
And so does your main set of characters too.
Really, really weird sort of cartoon idea.
But that game is just so funny.

It's so cool.
All about time travel and tentacles, like giant alien
tentacles going to take over the world.
It's it's so random, but I could see the inspiration in this too.
When I read that, that was one of the things.
Did you have any, Like do you, did you remember any of it since
you didn't necessarily play the whole thing or potentially play
the whole thing then like was there anything that we were
like, Oh yeah, this lover?

Oh yeah, this item or that
collective learning thing?

So many things, so many things.
I completely had the first, the first like I would say probably
the first hour basically memorized.
Nice.

I was like, I remembered
everything.

I was like, Yep, I remember
this.

Like I remember the I remember
exploring the vegetable HQ here.

I remember this.
Yep, this little floaty like ship thing.
It's like a platform, but I thought it looked like a
surfboard.

It it totally looks like like a
a ship with like a sailed old

Viking sailboat without.
Yeah, something that's.

What it looks like to me, yeah.
It's a it's a Viking kayak.

But yeah, there was so many, so
many things.

I'm just like, Oh my gosh, yeah,
I forgot about this.

Oh, yeah.
And then like the music and it just the sounds, the sounds of
this game, which are very Rayman too, but they're also their own
thing, very like high pitched, like Dings and like stuff like
that.

It all takes me back.
Like I vividly remember playing this and the cover art,
Honestly, you, you kind of mentioned it, but the cover art
is one of the more striking cover arts of any N64 game I
think I've played.

Yeah, I'm gonna.
It's like the color's high.

Really contrasty and really
bright.

It's like a yellow swirly sort
of thing.

It's like Buck Bumble, but
there's no darkness in it.

There's no like.
It's all bright colors and just super vibrant.
Purple and green and red and orange like a whole bunch of
things, which which is this game, but I think like I feel
like the the cover is even more like.
It's intense.

It's intense.
I was expecting a little more like angry tomatoes, honestly.
It was like, it's such a big like thing that they go for on
and the cover and in sort of like showing this game that like
it feels like there's not enough of them.
I thought that was like the big bad, you know, it was like a
giant tomato.

Nope, Nope.
It's just like that rolls.

Yeah, there's some random Viking
or whatever.

I I I mostly like the level
design in the game.

I think it was pretty good.
You know, it's pretty straightforward.
I was a little worried that going back to the stages like I
mentioned before would have been just such a big pain in the butt
that like, oh, I don't want to sit through this level for so
long or whatever.

But none of them really like
overstay their welcome, even when he played them for the
first time.

So I thought that was that was
helpful.

I want to.
I'm charging my Switch now so I can see how.
Long I Yeah, they do.

They do a lot of like,
especially in the first beginning part of the game,
there's a lot of like really slow paced platforming and
riding of platforms.

And yeah.
It's very slow though, like you can see it if you're watching
this on YouTube, you can see the how slow the platforms move.
They really, they do it a lot and it is something that does
carry into Rayman 2.

They don't do it a lot in Rayman
2, but the levels that do have some sort of riding platform
mechanic are very slow paced and some of my least favorite levels
and that's a lot like trouble.

So I will say like as far as
that goes in the level design,

I'm not a huge fan of that.
But it does get better later on as you get to fly and sort of
just bypass it.

Yeah, that's true.
Because like, like this level in particular that we're looking
at, Oh no, it went to an ad, so we're not looking at it.
But what what happens is you go back to these levels, like I
mentioned and there's like this one in particular has a swirl of
sort of wind in this area.

And once you get the ability to
fly, you can kind of fly past this spot or you can fly through
it and grab a different collectible that you missed last
time and it at least it gives you a little something else.
You're not doing the exact same thing.
You're not just saying, oh, I missed that one thing on that
one platform that I just happened to not look at in that
direction that last time I was in that stage.
So that that that takes you somewhere or whatever.
But yeah, I I think the whole time I was not the whole time,
but part of the time when I was playing this, I was like, oh,
this yeah, this is definitely

Rayman too.
Is definitely Rayman feel and all that, but just a slower I.
I don't know if clunky is even the right word 'cause I still
felt fine controlling the whole game, but.
Well, everything just earlier it was like boxy and I think that's
it's very precise.

It's not that it's clunky.
It's like you jump forward, you're jumping forward.
It's not there's no nuance to it.
There's no like Rayman like role and like aerial movement.
It's like false end.

Yeah, he, he, he.
Rayman moves a lot more.

I just got a lot more more
movement to him.

He's.
Faster.

He's more fluid, yeah.
Exactly.

And there's not really a whole
lot of fluid movement in this at all.
I don't even think the flying to me actually, you said the flying
was cool.

I, it was OK.
I found it a little bit frustrating because it's very
much that whole like dip and like dive and go up or open or
you get that, that gust of wind.

Otherwise you're definitely not
going to make that next one, man.
Yeah, it's a little bit of a pain in the butt that way.
So there's some stages that rely, There's one particular
stage that relied on it a little too much.
It's pretty much the whole stage.
It's fine.

But I didn't, you know, I didn't
enjoy it all that much because I was like, OK, I just got to get
this, get the collectibles and it'll be fine.
And that's that's it.

I just felt it was just fine.
'Cause the bow tie is more like a gliding and then like in
Rayman 2, it's like a helicopter.
Like it's, I don't know it.

Makes more sense.
It feels better to kind of have like when Rayman does, it kind
of feels like, I don't remember if I said this at the time, but
it kind of reminds me a little bit of if you've played, I mean,
a lot of platformers do this now, but if you've played Super
Mario World or Super Mario

Brothers 2, the sort of quirky
one with bird bird Berto in it and stuff like that one when you
play as Peach and she kind of like floats when you double jump
that that's kind of what it feels like.
And yeah, a lot of games do that now.
But for an early 3D platform or early ish 3D platform that
Rayman two had it, it felt pretty good.
This doesn't have that.

It's a little bit more like
jump.

Like you said, you're jumping
forward.

OK, you're jumping forward.
That's.

What you do?
Yeah, and it's fine.

It works for the game, but it's.
But it's nothing special, I think.
And then there's a whole bunch of weird collectibles that you
have to get.

I thought that was really
random.

I didn't know what the hell was
going on.

So there's the swirly things
that I mentioned.

Swirly antidotes.
Antidote, that's what.

You get the the thermostats
which are your health and you collect enough of those.
You collect 10 and you get a health extension and those those
thermostats stack.

So if you get like 3 in a level,
it won't tell you you got more than three if you get like, but
if you get the remaining 7 in the next level, you'll just get
like your extra health thing.

So it could be a surprise
sometimes.

Yeah, 'cause you can't.
You're not really.

You could check your stats, you
could check what you're at, you could look in the in the menu
and sort of see where things are.
But I thought that was good.

I mean, it's a little bit of a
generous thing.

It makes the game a little bit
easier where it's like, oh, you don't have to collect 10 in each
level, it's just ten overall.

And and that I thought that was
pretty good.

I maxed out my health by the
time I got to the end of the game, I wasn't really searching
for these.

So they're pretty accessible and
you don't need to get every single one in order to Max out
your thermostat health or whatever.
So and then you need 160 of the little antidotes out of I think
it's 180 or 190, some random number like that.
And it's it's a lot.

Yeah.
I was like 106.

They're going to be here for
friggin weeks and there's roughly 20 per per level.
So there's there's a decent amount of them.
And then you have your health, which is like these little, I
actually don't know what they are.
They just like, do they reference them as like stones or
something?

They're like, they have little
stones, they have little faces.

On them.
When I was a kid, I thought they were coins and they were like,
they were weird.

I don't know.
I.

Think they're sphere.
So I think they're like a, like a, like a marble maybe like it
kind of looks like a, like a

Gray marble.
You know, I thought marbles bounce.
Necessarily like a like a silver dime is what I thought it was
like when I was a kid or 1/4.

Yeah, I like what?
And they were just like animated so that you see them, you know?
But yeah, they are kind of like gooey.
They look almost like gooey, like maybe they're supposed to
be like drops of the tonic now that I think about it.
Yeah, maybe maybe you're right.

It could be that, but I think.
It's like it's fine.

Yeah, it's fine.
Again, the game is pretty generous.
You, you get there's like at least a handful of sort of one
UPS throughout each level, which is just like an orange version
of Ed's head and they're sort of scattered throughout the stages
and stuff.

I'd say it's probably more gold,
but fun fact the the mask in

Rayman 21 of the masks is Ed's
face like that.

Oh, I I didn't.
I don't remember that at all.

Yeah, yeah, At the time I
probably didn't really know what this game was, so that's
probably why.

Maybe the second one you get is
Ed's face, and that's pretty funny too.
Nice 'cause it's kind of got a like he doesn't have limbs like
Rayman does, kind of got similar body structure or?
Whatever.

Yeah, they're very much in the
same universe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
They're they're having fun with it.
And then there's the stuff you have to collect for the dock.
And.

It's it's so random.
Yeah, he needs spinning propeller things.
He needs OK, he.

Needs flying pigs.
Yeah, he's it's great.

Let's just.
Yeah, and he just like makes something out of it.
I'm not even convinced he always makes something out of it.
I'm sometimes I think he just gets it 'cause he need it, he
wanted it for something.

And he's like, oh, and you can
have this as like your payment basically.
Yeah, it's like, thanks for getting me that thing.
I forgot.

Yeah, what's the one?
The one, he says.

It's like a like a goldfish bowl
or something that you put on your head and it's like, doesn't
it look more like a beaker, like a science beaker, Like you just
like put it on your head?

Yeah.
So in order to swim underwater, one of the sort of abilities is
like, oh, here's.

And then then you go to a level
that has a lot of swimming and stuff is, yeah, it's a fishbowl.
But because Ed's head looks like a a beaker, really, you're
right.

That's actually exactly what it
looks like.

He puts it on and it goes boop,
which is a great sound effect, by the way.
And then he can swim underwater indefinitely, which is, which is
a nice touch.

But yeah, the 100% looks like a
beaker, but he's a doctor or, or scientist.
Like maybe he's got his doctorate.
So he's a scientist and, and, and that is one of the beakers
that he lost.

I don't know, maybe that's what
it is.

I don't know, something like
that.

I have no idea.
Maybe.

I don't know.
I don't know.

I guess that's one of the
abilities too, as you can swim underwater.
I thought that controlled pretty well.
I thought it was.

Yeah, it was pretty good.
It's fine.

It's there's, there's nothing in
this game that I'm like, this control's bad.
Like, really?

Yeah, there's just at times the
flying was not ideal, but no, it's not bad.
It's definitely not bad.

That's.
True, Yeah.

It's like it's fine.
It makes sense.

It's just, I think, I think
you're just kind of we're kind of looking at early 3D
clunkiness.

It has a little bit of that,
like they're still figuring out how to like master controls and
stuff.

But it's and master the camera
as you're doing things like that that we had to do before, right?
But it's pretty solid for like the first one of the 1st 3D
platformer.

I don't know when did this
release what year.

This was, I think it was 97.
I'm gonna double check I wrote it.
Down.

It's a fairly early 3D
platformer.

So it was announced in April 97,
slated for release in December of 97.
And yeah, yeah, so late, late 97, so pretty early yeah.
That that's, that's pretty early on.
And then wasn't Rayman 2000 or 99 so?
Rayman's later.

Yeah, I think it's 99.
Yeah, it's one of the one of the later ones.
Yeah, it's, it's pretty good.

I, I like, I like the fact that
you get a good feel for what this is, you know, like what
they're trying to do makes sense, all that kind of stuff.
So I think like, it makes sense that this is where Rayman came
from.

And the other thing I wrote
down, it's funny now that you're asking, when it came out, I
wrote this note down too.

They didn't know what to call
this game.

That was one of the things that
the creators struggled with.

So they said they sent out like
sort of like a, a, a contest out there, I guess you could say.
And one of the choices was tonic trouble.
And that's the one that got the most votes was tonic trouble.
It's a great, it's a great name.

It's cool, it's very unique.
It's very like there's no other tonic trouble out there.
I love it.

Yeah, and, and it doesn't look
like you said even just like with the cover itself, it
doesn't look like anything else too.
You know, I think that always helps.
That goes a long way with games like this because they could
sometimes feel the same way potentially, or maybe they don't
have as many unique ideas.

But if it doesn't look like
anything you've played before, and largely I would say this
game is especially in the character design, then that that
makes a huge difference.

Oh, here's the Pogo stick.
Yeah.

Yeah, here we go.
So the other thing that they that got scrapped from this
game, which is interesting.

I don't have no idea how this
would have worked, but when it was revealed in June of 97, like
the actual showing showing of it, it was announced but the
actual showing of it at E3 that year in 97, so early E3 it's
said that it would have cooperative multiplayer on the
64 DD.

That was the original idea.
Oh Dang, that sounds awesome.

I know what I I'm sure the
levels would have been different.
I'm sure there would have been a lot of things that would have
had to change in order to make that a reality.
But the fact that they had an idea for something like that,
like a 3D3D cooperative platformer, I'd take that in
this, in this world and this with this goofiness, I thought
that'd be great.

I'd love to do like racing.
They'd be sick.

Oh, yeah, even.
Oh, that's the other thing.

I didn't like the sliding
things.

I didn't like that.
I thought it.

Was you don't like them?
No, I got like the idea of it.

I just don't think the execution
was was great.

I know you just do this stuff
that in Rayman, but I think just because the way that game
controls it just felt better.

Yeah, it's stiffer.
It's like, I mean, you're riding a sled.
It feel I felt good.

I don't know, I like them.
I can't complain about those, really.
They do force you to like redo the track, which I don't like
that.

But yeah, like I want to be able
to get everything in one go.

That's, that's The thing is like
the, the platforming parts of, of some of the stages.
I understand 'cause it's like, you know, an ability that you
don't have yet, but I, I, I don't think you can actually get
everything by just doing it in one shot.
And no, you can't.

You can't.
That's that's that's poo.

Yeah, I don't like that
decision.

That's.
Yeah, yeah.

I think overall, I don't know.
I think I think people should give this a shot, especially
because it's easier to access now.
Yeah.

And there is transformations by
the way, because we didn't really mention that.
Oh yeah.

You have like a disguise thing
and he, he does like a little like it looks like he's doing
the Disney Channel, like he waves his wand around and it
glitters and then he transforms into whatever.
Like you'll have like basically like a, not a pedestal, I guess
maybe a pedestal.

I don't know, just like a, a
thing on the ground that I'll have a picture of like a
different thing and it could be an enemy, it could be an object.
Like it's something that is around you in that area and
you're sort of replicating it as what you're doing, yeah.
So it's interesting, it's fun, you.
Turn into you turn into enemies essentially is mostly what it
is.

And at one point or a couple
points you'd like one of the ones you actually turn into a
block, like an actual like square block.
And I think you have to like insert it somewhere or put it by
like it's just like it's so random.
It's not like, oh, I have I turn into an enemy that can jump
higher.

No, no, no, you're a block so
that you can get to that next spot.
Like it's just, it's so.

Random.
And you just slide along and you just go.
Yeah, you, you at one point change into Grog or whatever his
name is, and like, you walk, you walk over to the store and like
to let you into the, like, super secret area.
They're just like, oh, yeah, OK, yeah, come on in.
He's like, it's great.

It's a it's a real Mission
Impossible where you're like basically put the mat like.
You put the mask on just like totally me.
I'm trying to find the things some of the dialogue between
Susie and Ed because I mentioned it before and I can't, I can't
pull up my switch because it's dead.
But one of the ones when you have to find feathers at one
point, this is the one of the ones that stood out to me.
She stands at the end of each level and tells you if you
haven't checked your stats, you don't know what you've
collected.

Oh, you need this many more of
this item or that item before my dad can make his next whatever
it is that he's making right or or going to get you for the next
stage.

And with the feathers, she goes,
oh, I guess you have to give all those feathers to my dad.
I was hoping we could use them for something else.
Yeah, like what does that mean?

I, I love it.
It's, it's great.

It's it's like such an adult
joke in this game that's clearly not for adults.
Not at all.

It's great.
It's fantastic.

Yeah.
That's the kind of like little sort of adult British humor, you
know, European humor type style that this game gets to at some
points.

And again, everything,
everything about this is just wacky.
Everything about this game is just it is strange, strange
stuff.

So did you, did you complete it
this time?

Did you get to the end or close?
Oh, you did.

Oh nice.
Oh yeah.

But I didn't do it on NSO, which
I kind of want to.

Maybe I'll do it in a year.
Yeah, as in.

Back I did it on my analog
though I played it on my analog which was fun.
So it looks did.

It did it look or run smoothly?
I can't say that it really ran better, but it ran solid through
the whole thing I.

Don't.
I don't recall this ever having any frame rate issues to be
honest.

I didn't experience any.
Again, it was NSO so I don't know.
But yeah, on the actual N64, I don't, I don't remember ever,
but it's a long time ago and I did not play it on my actual
N64.

So it's possible it had framed
dips and stuff, but I don't think, now that I think about
it, I don't think Rayman Two really has framed dips either.
And there's a lot more going on in that game for the.
It's a pretty optimized game.

I think they were pretty much
added at this one too.

Yeah, it didn't.
It doesn't feel like there's enough going on in most of these
stages or enough fast movements or too populated of a screen
where like you might experience that in in other games that
might have the same thing.

It just it runs well, it feels
mostly pretty good and has a good personality and I think
that's enough to at least give it a shot.
I would say I wasn't sold on it for the first hour.
Let's say I did, I did, like I said earlier, I did appreciate
the whole like way that it introduces you to the way the
game feels and everything.

So that part was good.
But there's not, you know, it drip feeds you a little bit of
your abilities and stuff.

And I understand that's just
part of these games unlock abilities and items and things
like that.

But I felt like because of the
way the game feels or because of the way that I was kind of
confused at the beginning, I was like, I just want to, I want to
whack this enemy.

I want to.
Fly or I wanna whatever it's gonna offer me 'cause I had no
idea what any of the abilities were.
Once it does that though, once you get even just the ability to
have the stick to whack enemies is that the game just feels a
little bit better.

You can do a little bit more
gives you more interesting levels and and every time you
get an ability, the next stage lets you utilize that ability
pretty well and and never feels overly difficult and it doesn't
take super long.

And I do think that that is an
asset when it comes to, you know, a world where we can play
900 games a day if we wanted to.

Yeah, if you really pushed
through this game you could probably beat it in like 5-6
hours maybe.

Yeah, maybe even honestly like
if you're pretty efficient with with it and you're kind of, I
mean, especially if you look up tips and stuff like that.
But even if you kind of just wing it, which I did, I didn't
look up any strategies or any of those types of things, I think
that's like the Max that it's gonna take because like I said
before, you don't have to collect every single item to get
to the end.

And it's not that hard, it's
really.

Not the first, the first like
half hour hour you spent.

First you do the slidy thing,
then you go in, you play like a small level and you get the
stick, and then you spend the next like 1520 minutes trying to
figure out where to go next.

That's.
True, that's why the first like half hour an hour is really
like.

Yeah, grueling.
Even then, even after I thought

I got the hang of which
direction was what I was like.

You start going in a direction
and then you get like so far, and then you're like, oh, I'm
stuck.

This wasn't the right way to go.
Oh, I was just here.

I went in a circle, a map.
Would have been very full I think.
Well, there's a there like a just like a mini map, just a.
Little a mini map that just or like even just something that
says like not giving you portals to different areas right off the
bat.

Like if you just if if they
blocked it somehow or they said get X amount of collectibles
like banjo does, it would have just streamlined it.
It would have helped.

That's true.
And there is a map in the pause menu, but it's really it, it
doesn't show you where you are and it's just it's just a
picture and it's like a an oddly drawn picture and it doesn't
quite give you a sense of how far things are from each other.
What it's not, it's not great.

It just, you click on map and
it's just a a hand drawn picture of a vague sense of what things
look like and that and and that's and that's it.
So yeah, actually that is the that is one of the frustrations
I had too, that I was just like, oh, I wish just a little little
thing, just a little thing or like an arrow.
You know, some of these games have like an arrow to say, hey,
this is where you should go next, just send me to that
portal that takes me to that next level.
That's it.

That's all I need to do.
If you want me to.

I can still wander.
I can still find things in the hub world, which is totally
fine.

But my next spot that I need to
go to, just put a little yellow arrow at the top.
That won't bug me.

You know, it's it's not the kind
of game that's trying to really kick your ass or anything like
that.

So a little tiny thing would be
all it would take even if the map ended up looking exactly the
same.

So yeah, I ran in circles a few
times.

That's 100%.
It's just, you just can't not.

It's just the way it is.
Yeah, and it's funny because some spots you go through a
portal and you're like, oh, I'm in a different area and like,
oh, I'm going to go in that water and go through that tunnel
and go this way and go that oh, wait, I just went in a circle.
Why'd that portal exist when I could have just gone that
direct?

Like, I don't it's, it's a
weird, hard to explain if you don't actually go through that
situation, but I found that to be a little bit frustrating, but
not anything to deter me from keeping playing.
Like I said, I played the whole thing.
Jiggy did too and it was it's fun.
I think it's a good time.

I think people should give it a
shot and give it a couple hours and you'll really get a sense of
what the game has to offer.

So.
And you'll beat it.

And you'll probably beat it.
Yeah, if you want an easy like a like a breezy platform in time.
There you go, it's.

It's it's pretty good in that
way.

So yeah, it's a quirky
personality, lots of colors, good sort of way to kind of
brighten things up and stuff.

So that's a lot of fun.
And if you have NSO and you're paying for the expansion pack
you wanna find?

Yeah, no brainer.
Yeah, let's it's great.

I wanted to play this anyway.
And then once that NSO thing pinged, I think in like November
or December when it first came out, I was like, oh Jakey, let's
play this.

This is perfect.
Like this is my chance to play something I haven't played
before.

The quintessential experience is
playing Tonic Trouble on NSO and then right after you beat it,
diving into Rayman 2 to see how they used the same formula and
enhanced everything.

And like, you really see how
Tonic Trouble was the prototype and you see how Rayman two
really got fleshed out and all the mechanics that are like sort
of shared between the games.

It's really, it's, it's a cool
little journey.

It's a cool journey.
I like it.

What's, what's great too, is
that like I, you know, we played

Rayman two last year for the
show like a pretty much a year ago or, or, you know, 11 months
ago essentially.

And I, and I remember it pretty,
pretty solidly.

Like that was one of the, one of
my favourites from 2025 that we talked about was being able to
play that and stuff.

And, and even though I haven't
had my hands on that game for a year, I recognize the
differences of what was going on.
And it's 100% exactly what you said.
So that's, that's totally true.

I'm just a little distracted
because I'm trying to find the things that the little things
from Oh man, here it is.

Become a muscle man, Ed.
You've got the style and now all you need is the muscles.
And that's before you become super Ed.
So.

She's all, she's all over you.
She's all over you.

She is the whole time.
Yeah, Oh, here it is.

Here's the ending, exactly like
it was before.

The vegetables and animals are
back to normal again.

Yay.
And it's Ed and his girlfriend very, very, very happy.
That's that's where the game ends.
Tonic Trouble.

Check it out, people.
It's a lot of fun.

It's easy, breezy time,
beautiful CoverGirl.

So yeah, it's good.
Yeah, tonic trouble.

Before we get out of here, I
just want to point out if anyone hasn't seen me post on social
media and any and hasn't noticed potentially not everybody looks
at thumbnails or, or you know, things like that, but Jiggy put
together a very cool sort of, I guess the sidebar that you would
have on on the side of an N64 box.
Yeah, like the box.

Yeah, like on the right side of
the box art where it has like the peel and it says only for
whatever.

Jake made a really cool one.
I can't.

I think I can.
I think if I hide us on the stream, you won't be able to
hear us.

But it's super fun because he
has all these little quips about the show and how I'm forgetful
and how we have guests on and how the show is from kids to
adults.

But sometimes we swear like
things or I swear at least.

And and it's really fun.
I, I'm, I, I suggest people look at the thumbnails that I put up
for the episodes because it's got Jiggy's very talented
Photoshop art on it to.

Be might have to change it every
once in a while too, depending on yeah.
We can change it up.

Yeah, exactly right.
We could do stuff like like if we play like, you know, another
Shadow Man or Perfect Dark where it's a mature game, we can.
Yeah, keep, keep an eye out on those 'cause they'll, they'll,
we'll just put funny messages.

It's it's not much for me to
change them, so I'll do that time to time, yeah.
Yeah, 'cause you got the template now, right?
So got the.

Template.
Yeah, check out the thumbnails that I post when when episodes
go up and stuff like that.

I just want to point it out
'cause Jiggy does awesome work.

It looks so slick.
It looks good and it just helps to show look and feel even
better.

So thank you Sir, for for doing
that.

I think it's awesome.
You got it, dude.

And Jiggy, what is happening
sort of in these first, I guess couple months of 2026 if people
listen to us early in the year?

Oh man, so much has happened.
Banjo Kazooie got recompiled on

PC which is that's probably the
biggest news and I happen to put out a video within an hour of it
being released, so suck it.

If you don't know what that is,
I suggest going to Jiggy's page that Jiggy look back into
YouTube if you haven't seen it or or haven't even clicked on
that video, even if you are subscribed to him and he does a
really good job of sort of letting you know what that
means, why it's cool and what it offers.
And it's a it's a short video, but it's very informative and
you know, kind of points you in the direction if you ever want
to play it or give it a shot or even just see what it looks like
because you have the video up and stuff like that.
So.

Yeah, yeah.
So now I'm in a banjo mood because of it.
And so I like I just dropped my big Every Species and Banjo
Kazooie video, which was a lot of work.
And it's like a 20 plus minute video.
And I am going to be releasing my wandering world's Banjo Tooie
video, which is another really ambitious, not looking forward
to working on so much this weekend, but I will get it done
because I said I will.

And yeah, that's Wandering
Worlds for me is it's a it's it's sort of, I called it
reverse boundary break because like how boundary break, like he
goes out, out of bounds and looks at things.
I stay inbounds and I go really like I zoom in and I'm like,
let's look at let's look at this texture on the wall.
What is this?

What is this right here?
What is this character holding?

What does this poster say?
Did you see this little Easter egg here?
Like it's sort of like everything we go through, every
single texture.

Nothing is sacred, nothing is
safe.

We find it.
So I've only done it for really,

I've only done it twice.
And I'm I did Banjo Kazooie and

I did Smash Bros Melee, which
took for they take forever.

They are my least favorite
videos to make, but probably the most rewarding videos to watch.
So.

Yeah, there's a, there's, you
could tell the work is put into it honestly, as as a viewer, you
can tell that it's that it's there and and that's, that's
awesome.

That's all.
Yeah.

I started and.
I swear I'm not just saying that.
I swear I'm not just saying.

That Full disclosure, I started
Banjo Tooie Wondering worlds like eight months ago and I'm
like, yeah, it's coming guys.

And I got through.
I think I got through Witchy

World.
Like I got that far and I'm just like, Oh my gosh.
And I had to take a couple months off 'cause it just takes
forever.

It's a lot of detail.
It's like, it's like really heavy research in a way, you
know, like that's pretty much what it is.
The effort is there, the effort is there.
I mean your, your channel is great and and the the work like
that is great, even like the the smaller quicker videos look
great or slick sound good like all those things.
That you did for you know, did you see did you see a shout out
the the podcast in my last video?
The WTF moments in N64 games was.
It.

No, I haven't watched that one
yet.

I haven't watched it.
Yet, OK, you should watch it because, well, I talked about
the the plot to battle tanks spoiler yes, and highlighted the
podcast.

And I also at the very end
highlighted Elmo and dude, no,

I'm not joking.
You will laugh hysterically when you see the end in what I said.
Like it.

I was when I did it, I was
crying laughing and I was like, it was so funny to me.
And yeah, a couple of people pointed it out.
Like I don't know if everyone noticed, but if you do notice
it's so funny dude.

OK, so this is right at the end.
I'm gonna watch the whole thing, but it's it's at the.
End it's a short, it's a short video.
It's it's quick, but it's it's totally worth it.
I, I it's popped up because, you know, I see that you when you
post videos and stuff it, it lets me know and stuff.
But but I I that's just one of the ones I haven't clicked on
yet.

Yeah, yeah, you'll like, you'll
like it, I'm pretty sure.

I'm looking forward to it.
Look at that.

See.
Look at it.

Yeah.
You get to get to look forward to something when we hang up the
call.

That's great.
Remember, 64 is just checking on through 2026.
Gonna try and I, I've sort of found a couple games that maybe
we'll play coming up.

One of them is an unreleased
game.

I think I sent you the link to
it, or at least the the

Wikipedia article to it.
What's it called again here?

Dragon something, can't remember
exactly.

It is Dragon's sword.
Dragon's Sword.

So this look, when I saw this, I
was like, oh, I want to, I want to see like, I, I saw someone
post like, Oh, this is an unreleased.
It might have been the the video game Hall of Fame or some,
someone posted on, on, on blue sky or on Instagram or something
like that.

And I go, oh, what's this game?
And then I realized it was unreleased.
But there's a way to still play it thanks to ROMs and people
being able to grab the code.

Yeah, that's pretty frequent.
And it's like one of those games that was like really, really,
really close to being released, but just never was.
So it kind of like a little bit like Animal Crossing, honestly,
a little bit like Animal.

Sort of like the same thing
happened to 40 winks.

Do you know about that one?
Yes, that I want to play.

Very interesting to get to that
at some.

Point I have it I I I played
just like a a smidge of it.

I played it on my my everdrive
but.

Nice.
Yeah.

And that that's how how we'd
have to play Dragon Story anyways.
It looks like a like a 3D action game.
Yeah, it looks it.

Looks neat and and some and some
range attacks.

It looks kind of like a faster
paced, I mean, I don't know, like Gauntlet Legends, if you
ever played that, because that's an N64 game that we'll get to
eventually too.

Kind of feels like that You're
closer to the character and you're sort of swinging your
sword and it's kind of like a, you know, I don't know.
Anyways, it looks interesting.

So that might be something.
And then there's, you know, maybe we'll play really bad
Zelda game that we've heard of at some point this year and
stuff.

But stuff to look forward to and
remember 64 and we'll have some guests lined up soon as well.
And if you want to hear me talk about anything that isn't N64 at
any point, the Still Loading podcast will have me on twice in
the 1st at least few months of of the year of 2026.
One of them I will be talking about Yoshi's Island, which I
believe will be out sometime in

March.
And then return to Castle

Wolfenstein, which is the one
that came out for PC and I believe PS2, it was in that era
in thousands, sort of like the the first sort of upgraded
version of what Wolfenstein was.

And I believe that's shortly
after that, but don't hold me to that.
But to stay tuned to Still

Loading where there'll be lots
of great games to talk about.

But those are the ones that I'm
going to be playing along with

Josh.
And Josh, you just talked to him this morning about it.
And yeah, that's pretty much it.

Everybody 64 on YouTube, on
Instagram, on blue sky.

Subscribe, tell your friends,
watch the video if you haven't yet.
Jiggy's always got show and tell.
This time I don't.

I wish I I bought the Rosalina
storybook.

For my kids.
Yeah, it's upstairs.

It's now part of the rotation.
I just got it 2 days ago, but I read the first couple pages with
them and stuff.

It's really nice.
The pictures inside are really sort of, it doesn't look like
the Mario game, you know, it doesn't look like Mario Galaxy.
It looks like hand painted sort of style and stuff.
And and he's at that age where he can point out certain things
now, like he sees the stars and he's like star star and I'm
like, great that I got this.

He knows what a star is so.
For those for those who do watch, or don't watch rather,
I'll just have you know that I organized my desk and it looks
very nice and clean now.

Because we've gone over that
before, yeah.

Yeah, it looks awful, but now
it's like clean and look.

I moved to my little rare.
Rob's holding up.

Rob's holding up the rare logo.
Which I feel like Rob the robot's holding it.
Yeah, Rob the robot is holding my 3D printed rare logo that
used to be on my back shelf.

And did I show you the throw
blanket?

The banjo?
I got the fan gamer.

I saw your picture and it is I
when I saw that they had that, I was like, I gotta get.
This.

To to get it to Canada though,
was insane.

Oh man, that's the problem.
Yeah, I really want it.

I would honestly, I would use
it.

It it would be, Yeah, it's so.
Nice.

Oh, it's upside down, of course.
So from it's from fan gamer, right?
I think.

Yeah, fan gamer, yeah, I don't
know if you can see it, but.

Yeah, we can see it.
It's great.

I got banjo bottles mumbo.
Yeah, you got the the notes, you got the honeycombs.
What's kind of neat too, is if you flip it around, it's like
the inverted image of it.

Oh yeah.
Like the the negative.

The negative, I think that's
kind of neat that it has that 'cause then you can like if you
have something like maybe this side doesn't really match or
something like maybe you can 'cause it's kind of like a
maroon.

Or you're worried about like
spilling something on the lighter side, you know, like.
Like that slide you can display.

I don't know.
I thought it was.

I thought it was interesting.
Yeah, I I love the sort of like like muted color palette almost
too.

That they have.
With the style, it's very different.
It's not, it's not like they just RIP stuff right out of the
game.

It actually looks a little bit
different, which is fun.

So, yeah, so that's always.
Good.

I also ordered a very cool.
I found this this thing I think it's called record props or
props records.

I'm sorry if I'm getting that
wrong company, but thank you.

I ordered two of them.
They have like these these vinyl record displays.
And so they're like an X basically that you put on the
wall and then it hangs the record like in a little notch
and then the vinyl or the and then like the art for it can
like sit on the X behind it.

So soon I will finally be able
to display my Banjo Kazooie

Jiggy album, which will look
fantastic on this wall.

So I'm gonna, this is probably
gonna look a little different.

I might move this, this wall.
I think I'm gonna put the throw like on the wall so it covers
the whole wall.

And then I'll probably move this
banner somewhere else.

I don't know.
We'll see.

We'll see how it's gonna pan
out, but it's gonna look a little different for those who
watch the podcast, which is great.
If anything I'm looking forward to it.
So if that means.

Anything at all, it's going to
be the best it's.

Going to be the greatest wall.
I walk in and I think, and that's the best wall I've ever
seen.

That is.
People say.

People say it's the best, walls
say.

They know walls.
I know wall.

That is the best wall.
They're all good people.

They know walls.
That is something that would be said, isn't it?
Totally, totally, 100% put.

The put.
The put.

The No one knows walls like me.
People tell me I know I people tell me I have the best walls.
I know I have the best walls,

OK?
They don't have to tell me.

They don't have to tell me
anything.

I know I have them, we have
them.

America make walls great again.
With with banjo content with banjo.
Of course.

That's it.
All right, everybody, happy 2026 again.
On to new.

Games by.
The way that was, that was good,

That was fun.
I know this.

I'm surprised that hasn't
happened yet, You know, how long has?
How long have we had the chance to do that?
That's the first time.

Oh, God.
OK, Everybody look forward to some episodes coming up and
follow us on social media.

Remember 64 and remember 64
show.

Give Jiggy look back a follow if
you don't already and subscribe on YouTube.
And the same with this channel everybody, goofy videos and all
episodes going up.

Goodbye everyone, see you next
time.

I don't remember 64 Ciao play
tonic trouble.