Level 51 - There's No Time To Pokémon

Wait! Don't
forget the currency we have in my office in Buzzalene
Village! Yeah! Did you hear me, Ash?
Welcome to the show, everyone! My
name is David Petrangelo and I don't know what I'm
doing, but I am quite glad that I recognize these
Pokemon. Gen 1 for the win! I
am old! And of course, Jiggy Lookback
is with me once again. Who is that Pokemon? It
is Pikachu! No! Jiggy Lookback. It's
Jiggy Lookback. It played out funnier in my
head, but whatever. Please, please, just if you're
gonna watch any of the videos, any of our, any of
our video versions of these episodes, just even if it's
only the first like two or three minutes, just watch
Jiggy's intros because as I said before we hit record,
I'm glad that he is the one that gets physical with
our intros and does anything that's not just
sitting here talking into a microphone. It
is worth it just for the first few minutes of that.
So I will explain it slightly,
but there was there was some Pokemon that made it
on screen. So some Pokemon made it. I
wish I had them hanging. They
were hanging. And then I came in and just
like punched and just threw some punches like some
fishing, fishing wire sort of hanging. So
you then wire and I just punch him and they fly
off. It's like Pokemon action movie.
Here's a real question for you.
Yes, please. If
you were a Pokemon, not what Pokemon would you be,
but what type would you be? I
don't care what Pokemon you are. I
want to know what type you are. Interesting.
I think I think I want to go with the psychic ones.
And I'm going with what the
descriptors are for the first gen or maybe the
first two genes, because that's kind of all I'm
familiar with, which we'll talk about in a little
bit. But the psychic ones always
seem to be pretty powerful and also psychic is kind
of like magic. And that's kind of fun. So
yeah, I'd probably go with that. Yeah.
What about you? OK, I think I would go. I'd
probably be. I always wear gray. Oh,
so I feel like I would be like a rock type. OK,
plus I hit so hard. Maybe a rock fighting. That's
what I would be. Oh, come on. Rock
fighting. Yes, I didn't say combos. You
can be a combo. I don't know. I
don't know what the combos are. Like,
I don't know if there's rules to combos because not
really not really. OK, any any Pokemon that has a
combo that is. Like, say you have like a water
electric or something, right? And
electric would be super effective on water. Yeah,
not your electric. So it's dope. That
sounds too complicated. I'm glad I only played one and
a half gens of Pokemon. It sounds too much for me.
Golden Silver was the best,
though. That's the one that's the one I
want to finish. That's the one I got a few hours
into. I stand firm that Gen two is
the best gen. Like, I love Gen one, but Gen
two is Gen one plus more. Is
that because the games themselves or because of
the Pokemon that are added or a combination of both,
I guess? Both. Both. OK,
all right. OK. Oh, yeah. One
of my favorite one of my favorite Pokemon of all
time is Bayleaf. Oh, yeah, I know which one
that is. Oh, that was Gen two. That
was the evolution of Chikorita, not the final
evolution because the final evolution, let's be honest,
not that great. But Bayleaf is dope. What's
the name of the evolution? Because
I don't know the name. I'm going to look it up. It's
like Maganium or Meganium. I
don't know how to pronounce it. Is
Chikorita, Bayleaf, Maganium, Meganium. Oh,
that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I would say Meganium because
it's like mega, like. Oh, it could be. I
don't know. Maganium. Yeah. Yeah,
it's OK. It kind of looks like a kind
of looks like a really like phallic dragon with a
flower on its neck. That's what it's like. Yeah.
Yeah, it's OK. It was it's not bad. Yeah.
Yeah. The the the Bulbasaur, Venusaur,
Ivysaur sort of combo, I think, is is cooler if
you're going to compare the grass types overall. But
so it's funny, as I always I often pick the Pokemon
evolution I like the most. Yeah.
And then like the others, I'm like, ah. So
like Squirtle, I I actually think Squirtle and Blast
Ours are cool, but War Turtle sucks. OK,
I like Bulbasaur and I love Ivysaur. I
don't really care about Venusaur because I think
he's ugly. OK. And then I sort of like
Charmander. I dislike Charmeleon and I
love Charizard. Yeah, I think everyone's kind of
on the same page. Like Charizard's pretty just cool
looking like it just. Yeah. Is a cool looking Pokemon
regardless. You don't have to like fire or
what? You know, I have to like. He's
almost like. Who's a dragon? You
have to pick Charmander because you know it turns
into Charizard. Yeah. Charmander and Charmeleon
are kind of just meh. Whereas
like if I was picking Gen One or like just from like
the base evolutions, I probably would go Squirtle
myself. OK, OK. See,
I usually I usually went Bulbasaur. Bulbasaur,
I usually went with grass. I
think because honestly, like I think it's because the
first. I think the is it the first
or the second gym and the water water is effective
against against rock. Was it? Is
that what it is? Yeah. So you could get obviously
you could make the first first gym easier. But
grass was also kind of good against rock and then
obviously good against water, which is I think
the second or third one. So
I think that's why I did it. And
then by the time you evolve enough, like, oh, I
got other buddies. I got, you know, the other
five to sort of round it out and stuff. And
I always liked the way that all three of those
looked. So I think that's why I
always went that way. And also everybody loved
Charmander because it was fire and it was a dragon.
I'm like, you know what? I'm
going to go the opposite because I'm. Yeah.
Not a sheep. You know, that's. Yeah,
it's not. There is a sheep mentality there
that makes me not want to pick Charizard or
Charmander. And I definitely was between
the two. I think what I did was I
had so my original like blue play through. I
had Squirtle. OK. And then in my when I
went back and got leaf green, the remake, I did
Bulbasaur. OK. But but I really don't
like Venusaur. And I don't like him because
he's a very ugly frog. He's
a very ugly toad. I think it's a toad. I
think that's kind of what it is. And
then like Bulbasaur and Ivysaur are cute. They
are. And then you get they are. And
you get Venusaur and he's just like really ugly and
big. And I'm just like, he's like,
he's more intense, right? All
three of the final revolutions are more
intense, I would say, at least. But
he's not intense in the way that would make him
intimidating. He's intense in the way like
they they turned him into clungo from Banjo or
something like he just gets dopey. Whereas
like Blastoise gets machine like rocket cannons on his
back. He gets rocket launchers on
his back. Darsaur gets wings. It's
like he got he got a slightly bigger flower.
That's what Venusaur got. Longer
vines, man. He's more of a more of an
intense weed. That's what it is. Although
although I like it, I like I like that I can use
cut. I like that you can use. I
can't remember what other ones are. There's
like a spore one or something. I
don't know. I like the moves that they
had. Maybe that's part of what it's
one of those comfort things. Like
the reason why I intro the way I did is because, hey,
I pretty much only recognize the first maybe
200 Pokemon on an average day. Sometimes
pop up and like I've seen that before. Could
I name it? Hell no. But
if you showed me the original one fifty or fifty
one, I would probably 90 percent of the time be
able to pull the name out of at a hat like top of
my mind right away just because I played. I
also had the blue one. I also play. I
played blue version, probably, I would say, 10
times at least. Yeah, at least on the original
game. Yeah, at least so you want to
know something I did that was really like stupid, but
I did it and felt cool. Pokemon
blue, you could do like Pokemon dooping. Oh,
where if you it was I can't remember the exact
way of doing it, but it was basically you could go
into your box. You're on the computer or whatever
on the. Pokédex. Yeah. Well,
you could go into your box and like organize your
Pokemon. And it was like if you moved
it and then quickly like ripped out the game, it
would duplicate that Pokemon. Oh,
I remember something like that. Now
that you say that. Yeah, I had an entire team of
Pidgeots. And they were all like level
100. And they all just fly all the
time so no one could ever hit you. Like
you just hit fly. I just I liked Pidgeot as a
kid too. Like those were those were
surprisingly good. That was a surprisingly good
early investment is to get grab a piggy and go with
it. Love. I loved his his hair. I
had like a little toy figure. And
I think this is why I loved it so much. My
dad got me like a Pokemon figure. It
was like they had the Pokeball with like Pidgey
and it actually might have been Pidgeotto. I
can't remember his Pidgeot or not, but they look like
somewhat similar. Yeah, somewhat similar. But
I remember I had that toy and I just loved it
because it was like the only Pokemon toy I had
basically. And so I was like, this is my
Pokemon. And so it's the most common
Pokemon, but it's mine. It's
all maybe not. Yeah, it's like happened. Like
for me, I was I mean, this is not the same. And
obviously it kind of shows our age a little bit, but
like I had. We have a Canada's Wonderland
is what they call it, but it was sponsored by
Paramount. Like Paramount Canada's
Wonderland. That's what it was. And
we had Hannah, Barbara and everything was like, oh,
yeah. Yeah. So Flintstones was a big
thing growing up. I watched lots of Flintstones.
The cartoon, the original
cartoon was on repeat all the time. The
movies came out when I was younger and I won a. A
Dino. At a game at the theme park,
not massive, but like, you know, a sort of cuddling
type of plush toy. Plush toy when you're, you know,
seven years old, five years old, something like that.
And I won it myself. I
remember actually remember doing it. It's
one of those games where you have to throw the the
baseball in the basket and have it like sit and it's
like, oh, yeah, yeah, angled impossibly. And
you just have to get. I think I said, yeah, you
have to get like two out of five or something or
two out of three. I got it. I
got it. Right. I'm going to blow your
mind right now because I have had no one to tell
this to. OK. And no one that's brought
up the Flintstones in the same conversation. I
went on Facebook Marketplace. I
was game hunting. Yeah. And I was just looking at
deals and stuff. And one of the things that
just randomly popped up for me was someone made the
Flintstones like vehicle like foot powered, like
they just made it. But it's like extra long and
they call it a Flintstones bus. And
it was like it was like two hundred dollars or
something. Like like like lifestyles like
you'd sit in it. Like for people like you sit in
it and you you move your feet and it's got like a
rolling wheel in the front. What?
And I was like, who makes this? Who
wouldn't want that? It was crazy, though. That's
hilarious. Oh, my God. Yeah.
That's great. Oh, my God. Anyways,
your your Pidgey Pidgey yacht or Pidgeotto is kind
of like me where it's like I had this like affinity
for Dino, for some reason, in the Flintstones. And
I had that toy that plush for 20 years or something
like that. His collar fell off. His
neck was sort of like, you know, because it was like
the thin part of his body and his tail. Yeah,
kind of like, you know, his head just kind of like
sat to the side kind of thing. But
I held on to it until I passed until I absolutely
couldn't anymore. One of those like childhood
things, right? So I don't have that for
Pokemon, but I but I do still have my original
cartridge over there. My my Gameboy. My
Gameboy is is in the grave, but but my cartridge
itself still works. The battery is still alive. I
have a Pokemon silver, but that battery is dead. I
didn't know that until after I played it for
about three hours. So that sucks. That's
why I've never gotten through that games, because
I haven't started it in any other way. But
I played it for about two and a half to three hours
a couple summers ago. I hit save. I
was like, all right, it's saved. I
turned it off. Next day I turned it on. Start
from the beginning. So I didn't realize. Oh,
yeah. So I'm going to have to play
through that one. I enjoyed the beginning few
hours. That's all I got to say. So
that's that's all I know about Gen two. So
all of all of that, all of that. If
anyone has a guess, yes, we are talking about
Pokemon, not Flintstones, but we could talk about
both. And that's fine. We
are talking about Pokemon Puzzle League. No,
we are not hitting up Pokemon Stadium just yet.
That will come at some point.
But Pokemon Puzzle League is
something that we're talking about this week. It's
a game that has a bit of a mix of Tetris and Dr.
Mario style and I think it's
Tetris sphere or something. I
can't remember exactly which one it is. That
is what we are going to be talking about this week.
And to get things going and to
see and just to hear a little bit of it. This
time, this should work. If anyone has listened to past
episodes where the sound has not worked with me, I
think this will work. OK, little intro.
Welcome. It's so good to see you.
Welcome. So it's like it doesn't
even let it play for any longer. Like,
come on, that would be nice, wouldn't it? I
feel like that would be good. It
would. It's so it's so weird that he's
like saying things that aren't what his text
dialogue says. Yes, so strange. And
then this game. So OK, so. One
of the reasons why we chose to do this is
because we're not going to be able to play it. It's
a pretty simple game to play. It's
really just a puzzle game. It's
kind of like Tetris. We're like, you know what, let's
give it a shot. So we haven't played a game
like this together or talked about a game quite
like this yet. So I thought, you know what,
it's on Switch Online as well. Let's
let's just play it. I tried it on both. It
plays exactly the same. I tried it on the 64 and I
tried on Switch. It's literally exactly the same.
So so that that was kind of
fun. We had an experience to be
able to do that. It's easily accessible. So
if anyone wants to play it while you're listening. Then
then you can do that. But before we before we dig
into the game itself, I need to do this closer to
the top because I will always forget, sir. I
I need to make sure that we are plugging the Patreon
page and talking about the podcast itself and your
YouTube. Look at it. Look
at it. So look at I'm plugging away.
Patreon .com slash remember, sixty
four show is where you can support this show monetarily
with some free content as well. But
episodes, every single episode, I think there's
only been a handful, maybe a couple that I haven't
been able to get out early, but the vast
majority of them are at least a couple days early.
Also some small other side
reviews that I'm going to do, some free contents
going up as well. So it is something where you
can sort of have a one stop shop of some extra
content like sometimes going to be written. I'm
probably going to record a couple of audio things of
stuff that is not and sixty four related as well.
So there's going to be a
little bit of a variety. But
it really just gives you a chance to keep the show
running, keep the show going kind of thing. So
that's the easiest way to support the show. And
if you can't or don't want to monetarily, totally up
to you. Leave us a rating leave us a
rating on your podcast, App of Choice. Typically
it is a Apple or Spotify. I
think those are the easiest and the ones that really
take ratings, quote unquote, seriously, I guess. But
yeah, give us a star rating across the board on
those. And it'll help us know how
well we're doing or not doing. And
it'll also help more people find the show because the
more ratings and more positive ratings we get,
the the more chance more people are going to find
it just kind of organically and be able to do that.
So what Dave is trying to
say. Yes. What am I trying to say?
He wants to be the very best.
I want to be the very best.
No one ever was. Like
no podcast that there ever was ever, ever, ever. To
rate him is your true quest. To
pay him is his cause. OK, sir, you are brilliant.
You're so much better at this
than I am. So, OK, so. Whoops,
I changed my window and I screwed this up. Man,
come on. Really? Real time figuring things
out, people. Here we go. OK,
so Pokemon Puzzle League. Pokemon
Puzzle League. Pokemon Puzzle League. Let's
talk a little bit about how this game was made,
because of course, let's bust out the history books,
everyone. I'm learning. We're
going back to September of 2000. So
much later in the console cycle than I thought it
was. I'm not sure if you had any.
Yeah, it's in North America, at
least, right? That's where I was in North
America. So OK, Pokemon Puzzle League
is I wrote down straight up a Nintendo joint that
is published by Nintendo, developed by a Nintendo
studio. Nintendo software technology. Does
that sound familiar to you at all? I
don't know if that Nintendo software technology. Yeah,
it's very, very vague, but they have a lot of they
have a hand in a lot of other games that I'd be
like, oh, shit, that's pretty good. OK,
so Nintendo software technology is an in -house
North American developer that Nintendo launched
specifically to make more games in North America and
just give them a bigger sort of portfolio. I
guess you could call it around this time. So
as I did my searching, I realized that they made a
whole bunch of stuff for the N64 or sorry, a couple
of things for the N64 and then did a lot of other
things that weren't just games. So
they did the 64 emulator for the Wii and they also
did funny little things like Mario and Animal
Crossing calculators and clocks for the DS.
Interesting, which is so random. So
random. It is. So
all the rage, I guess. I guess I don't know. I
didn't have a DS, so I don't know if it was the
rage. Oh, man, there's nothing like
driving into a shady, shady neighborhood and getting a
random picto chat. Sure. Is that is that what the
kids call it these days? If
you go, if you go places and you just like have
your picto chat on, I did that. I
bet other people did that, too. That's
just be like seeing if someone else had picto chat
that you could like chat with and like draw pictures
and send pictures and stuff. Oh,
that's so it's kind of what they call on 3ds. Was
it like not Game Pass? It was they call it Street
Pass. Street. Yes. But
it's not not quite the same, but similar concept.
It just it's way better than
picto chat was just really cool because it was just
like drawing and like notes and stuff. Oh,
OK. In in Super Smash Bros.
Ultimate, there is a stage that's
like picto chat and they have like little messages.
Oh, yes. Oh,
that's what that's from. Yeah.
OK. See, they know all that time.
That is that's a cool looking
level, too. I like that one. Yeah,
it kind of like evolves. Doesn't
like the background like move and stuff. Yeah,
changes in everything. Changes.
Yeah, that one's cool. Nice.
What else? OK. Puzzle League was one of
their first games, was one of the first games that
they've remained, but they also created a bunch of
other great games over the years. One
of them is a game that we played this past year. They
developed Wave Race Blue Storm. So
they made the sequel. Yeah, they made the sequel to
Wave Race 64. So if you want to hear us
talk about that episode or level 49, we talk about
Wave Race and that is the sequel to it on GameCube.
So they made that and they
also made the Mario vs. Donkey
Kong franchise as well as the remake that just came
out and F -099, which also came out within the last.
Wow. Yeah. And
they're coming back. Yeah. So they have done a lot
of really cool stuff. I think that is a pretty
good pedigree of games. I would say maybe not all
like all star type of games, but but those. And
that's not all of them. They
made other ones, too. Those are just sort of the ones
that I that I sort of made note of. But
but that's pretty good. I think that's pretty good.
So that they must have known
and been happy with this because they thought, oh,
this isn't pretty good hands. Let's
let's keep going with these guys. So
yeah, that's basically it. I
think they it seems like everything that I looked up
was Nintendo wanted to make a Tetris like game. This
was one of the ways that they've done it. There's
a puzzle league also for, I believe it is for a GBA
plays very similar, but it doesn't have the exact same
setup and everything as far as modes go. We'll
get into it, but there are a bunch of different modes
you can play. But to start things off, Jiggy,
what did you think of Pokemon Puzzle League for
the N64? Well, OK, so first off, I got a
few thoughts. One, please. I
don't know if it was mentioned, but I believe it
said it's based. It's based on Nintendo's pre
-existing game, Panel Daypon. I
saw that, yeah. But it was so I was never
released as far as I can find. It
was something that they worked on, but I don't
know that it was released. I
could be wrong about that. That's
that's what I saw. It looks like it was. Was
it? OK. Yeah. And
the well, it says the English patch was 2007. I
don't know in the actual end, but but apparently it
was based on that game, which it's you know, it's
a puzzle game. There's a there's a lot of puzzle
games that function very similar. Yeah.
And you'll find that a lot of these puzzle games are
based on like two or three different games. Like
it's like at the at the core, there's like three
puzzle games that cover like every other puzzle
game. And then they're just kind of
reskins or rethemes. You know, it plays functionally
sort of like Dr. Mario, except I I found this hard
personally. OK. I was struggling throughout.
But to talk about the Pokemon
theme. Yeah, because that's a that's a
draw, right? I mean, like that's that's
part of the point of doing this is that, oh, you're
doing something different. It's
not just, you know, another not only not only is it a
draw, but this is specifically catering to
fans of the anime. Right. Right. No
Pokemon game ever did that really. Like,
I mean, there might be a handful, but few and far
between that actually focused on like Ash being
the main character. And the fact that you boot up
this game and you get a full like movie sequence.
Right. That was awesome. Yeah.
I loved that. I owe that is that's where
we have to start to because I captured the clip
of Professor Oak saying, hey, you're involved in the
Pokemon Puzzle League. And this is part of his
explanation. Being selected for this event is
such an honor. Well, there's no time to explain
everything. You know, classic Professor. Be
excited, but also there's no time. There's
no time. We have no time. I
love how Professor Oak is always like, he's that guy
that's always there somehow. Yeah.
He's always explaining something to you, but he
doesn't actually have much to say. Or
he's like, he's like, oh, Ash, I see you've got your
first badge. Congratulations. Badgers are drives away.
Like he never, he never, he's
like the he's the Neil deGrasse Tyson of the
Pokemon world. He's always explaining everything,
but it's kind of like roundabout, never finishes a
thought like he's got the knowledge. He's
got the knowledge. He's just he's just not. Of
course. He's not putting together. He
is a Pokemon expert. Of course. Of
course. He always talks like this.
There's no time, Ash. There's
no time. There is no time. I
want to help you with puzzles and Pokemon, I
guess, but there's no time. There's
no time to explain other than it is a great honor.
All you need to know is you
should be honored. You should be honored. Not
many people get to play in the Pokemon puzzle league.
You need to move around pink,
red, blue, green, sometimes blue, sometimes gray
squares, go Pokemon. Yep. That's pretty much the
game. Play. And that's the game. Yeah.
So yeah, so if anyone doesn't know, it's it's
quick. Like you said, it's based on a
lot of other other games for sure. You're
right. Tetris, Dr. Mario
like. There's all obviously different
types of Tetris as well. One
of the things that that differentiates this is
there's a possibility. I don't know if you got to
it, but there's a possibility to play a 3D
version of. I heard that. These
stages. Yeah. So. Like
any other puzzle game like this with the bricks or
pieces falling down from top to bottom, and you
need to match three or four or five or however
many you can do or combos to clear the bottom of the
screen. Actually, they don't fall from the
from the top here. They come from the bottom.
That's how this works. And
if you get a combo and you're playing against
someone, then it falls from the top and you have to
deal with it that way. So it's a little bit
different, not quite Tetris, but. OK,
here's the thing. Here's the mechanic I don't
understand. OK. Right now, what just
happened? Yes, you were selecting your
Pokemon. OK, yeah, we've got to get to
this. Yes, yes, either. A
Pikachu, Squirtle or Bulbasaur. Bulbasaur,
yeah. Same options the whole way
through. As far as I know, as far as
I've experienced, it was the same all the way
through. I played two different
difficulties in the normal, like one player mode. And
then I think I played, I want to say a total of a
couple of hours in like the other modes sort of
combined kind of thing. So yeah. So
my question about that is does type affect the match?
So Misty, for example, year is
a water type water. Yeah. And you are using
Bulbasaur. Yep. And it seems right now you
had an advantage right off the bat, like she had more
squares populating her side just from the get go.
Right. And I'm wondering if maybe
that was my problem. I wasn't like addressing that
mechanic. And like that might be why I
was finding it harder. So I can't find anything about
that specifically. OK, so I got Nintendo power.
This is where I wanted to get
my research from. This is exactly what I was
thinking, too. I had no idea if it mattered
automatically. Like you see, like you said, I
see Misty and I'm like, cool, I'm going to use
Bulbasaur. Why wouldn't I? We
just talked about this five minutes ago, you know?
Yeah. It's going to give me an
advantage. So Nintendo power issue one
thirty six. It's one of the games that's on
here or featured in the Nintendo power issue. And
it's basically just like a feature of like, I think
it's like six pages. So it's not huge, but it's on
there. Sort of tell you what the game
is and what you can expect. So
different modes. I can chain the blocks
together. You know, they have fun titles
like block party and quite a puzzler. You
know, stuff that you would expect in Nintendo power in
in 2000. As I looked through this and
as I was trying to find out if that even mattered,
I also found the manual at one point. I
I really don't think it matters. It
doesn't seem like it makes any difference at all. It's
just choice. And that's it. OK.
And to me, that's a missed opportunity. That's
disappointing to me because. It's
kind of like when you start, you know, any
Pokemon game, or at least I think this is how the
newer ones also make or start. But
presumably all the Pokemon games you pick your starter
or however the latest ones for switch work. And,
you know, within the first few minutes, you're facing
your rival. Your rival always picks the one
that is most effective against you. Yeah.
Yeah. So Misty pops up, for example,
and she's water. But you choose first and she
chooses a water type if you choose fire, for
example, something like that, right? But
that's the fun in is that now you have to work up
against what is most difficult in that. That's
part of the of the struggle, right, is be able
to. As far as I can tell, there
is nothing that I can find. Please,
if people are listening or watching, tell me if it
matters, but I played through the easy and normal
difficulties in the one player from start to
finish. And it didn't make a
difference. I didn't find any difference.
The difference I found was the
AI was better because they were faster. They
made more combos and more stuff dropped from the top.
I wish that was there. I
think that that's what makes it Pokemon is that
that's the. Yeah, that's the turn based
battle RPG part of it. Is that I don't. But
like we said, it's a. It's the same puzzle game just
with a different skin. Yeah,
that's essentially that's the problem. You
know, it did make me feel, though, that having that
option had some sort of advantage or disadvantage if
you chose wrong. Yeah. So it made me think it
made me think in Pokemon terms. Yeah,
100 percent. The world of Pokemon and the
world of Pokemon types matter. Diggy,
if you pick fire against water. You
get steam. Science, bitches. Oak
out. Oak just slides off screen.
Gets in his Flintstone bus and
runs away and gets out of there. Yeah,
it's it's I look the game. Like
you said, the game works well functionally. It
it does exactly what it's supposed to. I
think, you know, it's it's smooth. It
feels pretty good to play it, I would say. But
yeah, it's it's kind of a missed opportunity that
there isn't more Pokemon like stuff that you can do
in it. Like I feel like if they're
like maybe you don't have to level up your
characters. That's fine. You
know, you just go from, you know, level one to
level 11 in the single player, you know, you play
multiplayer against someone. That's
totally fine. I get it. There's
a time trial type of thing. There's
also a mode where you have to do all you have to
clear a screen in a certain amount of moves. I
don't remember exactly which one that's called, but I
have the thing that you were to the spot. No,
not spot puzzle university. That's
what it is. I tried those. Who
eventually they're tough, man. They
give you like a screen with a, you know, mishmash
of blocks. And I was like, shit, man,
sometimes I spent 10 minutes on one of them. I
was like, yeah, it's this is this is hard. This
this game is as far as my my puzzles go. So
here's how I view it. I don't know what the
original games are. OK. But you have, I guess you
do have Tetris and stuff, but I wasn't even going to
count that. Yeah. These puzzle games like.
Dr. Mario. This
one. And Dr. Robotnik's
mean bean machine. Oh, I've never played that.
I've never played. OK.
Well, let me just say, having played all of these.
Dr. Robotnik's mean bean machine still
stands at the pinnacle. Oh, really? OK.
It is my favorite. It
is my favorite. I go back to I like puzzle
games. Yeah, I find them like relaxing
in a casual way, like whenever I'm just like, I'm
just going to go play a couple rounds of. Dr.
Robotnik's mean bean machine is the
one I go back to. Sometimes
I do go to Dr. Mario and I play a little Dr.
Mario, but I just love mean bean
machine. And I don't see myself going
back to Pokemon Puzzle League. OK,
it just it doesn't feel as fleshed out. It
feels like the Pokemon theme is a shoehorned in
there and it doesn't actually do too much. I
like the the actual like anime being incorporated
rather than the just the games. It
looks good. It definitely looks good.
Video. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.
Professor Oaks, cool. Yeah, it's just, you know, it
just doesn't do enough for me, I guess. Yeah,
so I played when I realized that this was on
Switch Online. I think I think they put it
on like a few months ago as of this recording, like
sometime in 2023, I believe it went on. Maybe
it was even earlier than that. On
my emulation device, I played the the GBA one is
the GBA version of the game is Pokemon Puzzle
Challenge is what it's called. It's
actually the same game, but there's a little bit more
of like a story element to it. I
wouldn't call it like, you know, really detailed or
heavy or anything like that. But
you basically go across this this the screen from
right to left or left to right and and you kind of
bump into other characters, recognizable ones in the in
the Pokemon world. And you and I think this
includes also Gen 2. Yeah, it also includes Gen 2 in
it. And you're kind of fighting
different and battling different people as you go.
It's not just, hey, here's one,
two, three, four and so on. And
just fight the gym gym leaders. And
that's basically the one player version of it. It
actually has a little bit of that, you know, quote
unquote story to it. And it plays the same way. It
just does. And the screen is obviously a
little bit smaller. It's actually more horizontal
than vertical. So it's a little bit different
that way. That felt more fleshed out as
far as single player goes. If
you want to do, like I said, the quote unquote
story version of it, there's more modes in this
one, because it's just more possible to possible to put
more things on here. But unless you're playing this
multiplayer, it does your right. It
does just feel like a skin with with Pokemon. It
looked, I think it looks good. But
like these these kind of games aren't something that
I would particularly play multiplayer. I
understand there's a there's a 2v2 mechanic. Yeah.
But. Again, there are other games I
would. I would do that before this
as far as puzzle games go. Like
this is not the game that I think of. And
maybe I just have zero nostalgia for it. But
I just I I'm not I'm not huge into Pokemon. I
was in the wave. I liked Pokemon. I
was never like Pokemon is everything. Yeah,
same, same. But if you were talking about
Beyblades. See, I would be like, I what's
a what's a Beyblade? You know, like, I know what it
is, but you know what I mean? Like
I just know it doesn't mean that means literally
next to nothing to me. Beyblades
and dude, I love just launching a Beyblade. And
you've explained it sounds. It
sounds cool. Like it sounds. It
just was out of the age range at that time for me.
That's that's really what it was.
Like I used to have all my
fingers. Man, I miss my I miss my right
pinky. It was great. Man,
I regret nothing. I am a Beyblade Masters. I
would as Beyblade Masters Beyblade Masters Bay
champion. Bay champion. Oh,
OK, I like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. It sounds cool, too. Also,
it looked pretty cool. Beyblades
look look kind of cool. I get it. I
get it. I get it. There's
like an arena. It's physical, such as cards.
Well, it had an anime, too. It
had an anime, too. That that's what I know it from
is just that is seen that the commercials like on TV,
essentially, everything was trying to mimic Pokemon.
Right. Sure. And
Beyblade, it's about spinning tops, but the
spinning tops had monsters like stickers in the
middle. And in the show, those monsters
would like beam out of the Beyblades, like holograms
almost. And then the monsters would
like fight and the Beyblades would be like
replicating how the monsters are fighting. Hey,
that you know what? That's an inventive idea. I
think it was cool. Yeah. That's I you know what?
Hey, man, you're not crazy. My
favorite was Black Dronzer. Dronzer.
It was. Yeah, Dronzer was like a red
phoenix. OK. And it was like one of
the main one of the main Beyblade. Guys,
right? One of the main characters,
Beyblades. Yeah. But Black Dronzer was like
the evil version that he like went rogue. And
that like his whole team had to like gang up on
him to to beat him. And I was like, Black Dronzer
is the best. I'm the whole team has to
fight him to win. I mean, that's that's just
fun as a kid to be able to have. Yeah,
I get it. I get that. Like
we were saying, we didn't want to be a picked
Charizard at first because we wanted to not be sheep.
Wanted to be the don't be
mainstream. We can't we can't come on.
That's why there's an N64 podcast.
Yes. Oh. And
surprisingly, this game has really good reviews. Yeah,
I just looked it up. It's like really, really kind of
overwhelmingly positive. So you're pretty surprised by
that. I well, I'm surprised that.
I'm not surprised that it got
good reviews because it's not a bad game. Right.
I'm surprised that everyone's like, oh, it's
the best bubble game ever. Oh,
here we go. Here we go. Sorry,
what was that? A six out of 10 by Yo Jimbo
2015. Oh, Jimbo. Thanks,
Yo Jimbo. Rather cynical attempt to repackage
a bog standard block matching game with Pokemon
characters. OK, it has a perfectly decent.
It's a perfectly decent one, but
has little to do with Pokemon, which is exactly
what I said. Yeah, it's kind of what we're
saying. Yeah, I would I would give it a
seven, probably. OK, like I'm on my skill. I
feel like it's solid. It's a good it's a good game.
It's not bad at all. It's
just. Yeah, it's basic. Yeah,
it just doesn't need to be Pokemon. Like
the Pokemon aspect of it is is just an ad. It
doesn't hurt it. No, that's no, that's that's
true. That's true, because that's not
like we say we said that it was like shoehorned in.
But shoehorned sometimes is more
negative. It's more just like the skin
that that is doesn't make the game worse. It's
not like they tried to add stuff in that made the
game feel like, well, this isn't a puzzle game
anymore. This doesn't make sense. I'll
tell you exactly how I feel about this. Please.
OK, the skin, the skin thing, the skin comment.
OK, it is an echo character in
Super Smash Bros. It is like Daisy to Peach,
whereas Peach would be the original puzzle game. And
then if people like Daisy, they're going to like this
more. But it's fundamentally the same,
maybe slightly different, like stats or something
affects it slightly different, but it's very,
very similar. OK. Yep, I can see that. Yeah,
that makes sense. That makes sense. That
the one thing I mentioned this earlier and I wanted
to make sure my biggest disappointment with this
game isn't the fact. Well, actually, it probably is
actually that the the Pokemon aspect of it and
the sort of balancing your your different types and
stuff isn't quite there. The
other thing that I don't quite understand this this
idea or why they went this way is that you can play
this game in a 3D version and you can play it in
like a cylinder, essentially. So
it's not just flat on the screen and 2D as you move
from left to right. The screen kind of rotates left
to right. I have a video of it, so
I'm going to I'm going to find it and pull it up
while we're while I'm talking about this. But
what happens is is that just makes things more like
in depth, like there's just more going on. And
it's just it's just. Oh, yeah, it's just way more
fun this way. And I don't know why they
buried this behind a higher difficulty and behind a
mode that isn't part of the basic mode. So
the only reason why I got to play this was because
the cheat codes can be entered at any time and
you can access different difficulties and different
levels. And at a certain point, I
think it's in the spa service one or in the time
trial one, you just open that mode, you type it,
you put it, you hold on to the Z or the Z button
and you do like L R A or something. You
can do it on Switch Online, too. It's
available on both, which is kind of nice. You
can do the codes and then you're able to access these
stages. But you have if you didn't
have the code, you have to play for a long time to
reach these stages. And it's unfortunate that they
bury it behind that because I think this is it's more
difficult for sure. But it is way better. It's
way better. And little jigglypuffs over
there in the corner like getting angry. It's
awesome. I don't know why. Trying
to like shove the microphone. Let's
go. We go. Yeah,
actually, I'm going to turn the sound on for this this
mode, too. It's kind of the same, but
let's see if it works here. Did
it work? No, it didn't work. But
you know, it didn't work. There
we go. Don't mute it. There
we go. That's
OK. It's OK. You
didn't hear it, but I heard it and it was me
failing. So, yeah, so. I
think this should have been the main draw of the game.
I think I think this would
have been so much better because it differentiates
itself. It maybe you don't have the
different types of Pokemon. Maybe
that's not something they end up going with. But
at least this made it feel different than other ones
in the genre or other ones with a similar style. So
they should have had the little Pokemon like battling
at the top or something. And
like whenever you get like a chain of blocks or
something, it would attack. And
then the other Pokemon be like, ah. Yeah,
instead of just like the color falling because all
it is is color coordinated. Yeah,
blocks that fall. So they try to do it like
via types, which just further confuses and makes
you think that the type thing is a thing. Yeah,
exactly. 100 percent. It doesn't matter. It
doesn't do anything. Kids, don't waste your time. But
you know what? Don't waste your time. But
you're right. Playing the game is still pretty
good. I enjoy it. I
wish this 3D thing was was more accessible and was
more clear. You can get it easier. You
can play it in the multiplayer one as well. So
we play against somebody. It's
available, but, you know, we were just playing at
single player. I think that's also a missed
opportunity. There's a lot here, though, if you
play the different modes, you know, there's there's
the puzzle one, the university thing that I
that I mentioned. There's also one that's like an
endless mode. There's another one where the team
rocket is involved and you have to like go through
like a hundred stages or something crazy like that.
So there's a lot to play, but
it still is the same thing over and over and over
again with a little bit more difficulty. So
it really depends on if that's what you're looking
for, I think. Yeah, I just wish they had a
separate mode that was just the 3D one and you didn't
have to go searching for it or enter codes. I
think that would actually go a long way in making
this a little bit more robust or making it a
little bit more entertaining. But
I like that it spins. It gives you a sense of
urgency. Like you got to look at
everything. Yeah, and you can kind of see
your your rows that are that are around the
cylinder behind you as well. So
as it's moving up, you can kind of be like, oh, shit,
the one that's, you know, five rows over or five
columns over, I need to get over to that one
before I fix this one. Yeah.
And then, you know, you have combos, it chains and
all these things that you see in other games. But
I see it. It's a good time. It's
just not a home run. I think that's that's kind of
where I sit with it. Yeah. So, yeah. It
doesn't if you haven't played it before and you
have Switch Online or you have an opportunity to get
this for 64 or even emulate it, if that's
something that you you're you're doing, you're not
going to hate the time with it, but I don't think
you're going to experience anything that you haven't
experienced before, unfortunately, unless you
play the 3D version of it. I
think that's actually really fun. And
I would recommend if you do have the Switch Online
one, you want to try the 3D thing, look up the
codes are really easy to find and try that out and
just I think that's that's a better time. It's
more fun. So, yeah, Pokemon Puzzle League.
It's it's OK. It's
OK. That's OK. That's
kind of it. Yeah, it ain't no Elmo's number
journey, but you know. But hey, not everything can be,
you know, not everyone. Not everything can be. Not
everyone can. Everything was almost number journey.
We have only good games. We
if everything could be as good of a journey as Elmo
has when he's snowboarding and collecting their world
would be so much better off. There'd
be peace in the Middle East. There'd
be just OK. I'm going to stop right there.
You're right. I
mean, I don't think you're wrong. I
don't think I don't think you're you're off on this.
You know, taxes would be lower.
House prices would be manageable.
That would be free. And
we'd be slowly transitioning to electric. Right.
That's it. At that we would at no cost
at zero cost, like zero costs. It
would just be everyone would break even. It
would be you'd be fine. And
the economy would survive. Yeah.
You'd walk into restaurants and they'd be like, hey,
here's your food for free. You
know, have a great day. Have
a great day. Thanks for stopping in. You're
welcome, kind sir. That's not my. Now
my. You're done. That's
our professor, Oakwood. Oh, my God. But
also he would have no time to explain being selected
for this event is such an honor, while there's no
time to explain everything. Oh,
I will say I'm going to play that again. And
the music in this game is actually pretty good. Being
selected for this event is such an honor, while
there's no time to explain everything. Yeah,
it is. It's decent. There's
there's some there's some jazz bass going on, some
like cool music. Even the rendition of the theme
at the beginning and like the menu music was really
good. It is good. I
wish it lasted longer, but it is good. Yeah.
So that's that's a positive for two. I
think they did a good job with that. Part
of it is like you said, they're trying to bring in
the the anime crowd and stuff like that, too. And
I think they did a good job of making that happen.
So and that opening scene,
like you said, is fully animated, just like the
show is. It looks it's brief, but it
looks really good. Doesn't feel choppy. Doesn't
feel really pixelated or nothing. So
there's positive here. That's
right. Meow. Yeah, it's just it's yeah.
There's that. There's
lots of voiceover, which is a mixed bag, I think. Oh,
but the. No, the cheesy awful voice
acting is what I like about. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
straight straight from the show. Right.
So. Oh, yeah, it's it's awesome.
Yeah. I'm going to turn my
trusty frying pan into a drying pan. Like
you don't find dialogue like that, you know, that
doesn't exist in other places. I
mean, it does, but just not so special. White
like that. So special about it. Yeah.
Yeah. For sure. I
love it. All right. Pokemon
Puzzle League. Give it a shot. You
know, if it's your thing, if it sounds like your
thing, I think you're going to you're going to find
something here. It just might not be a home
run and that's OK. It happens, right? So
Jiggy, you were saying that's probably like a
seven. I would say it's something
like that for me, too. Maybe
maybe a little bit lower just because I'm
disappointed with some of the choices that they made,
but it doesn't mean that the game doesn't play well.
So it's just more of like I'm
puzzled by the choices that they made in some ways. So
I'm a little bit disappointed, but it's not
not a terrible game. So check it out if you want.
It's out there on Nintendo
Switch online. It's a unfortunately, as far as
I can tell, kind of expensive to buy the
cartridge. I don't know if that's
because it's late in the cycle of the console. And
it just probably wasn't a ton out there. I
got a copy of it ages ago for a pretty good price. I
just grabbed it. So for now, I have it,
whether it's something I hang on to or not. I
don't know. But I'm not I'm not upset
about it. Those games that released like
post 2010 to be a little more expensive, I've
noticed. Yeah, because it's just far less
on them. So that's their focus was
elsewhere, right? Understandably.
So so. So Dave was by this game. I
was struggling. I thought it was kind of
hard. It was a little out of my
league, you might say. Might
say you might say. But it was OK, man. Oh,
I will say, as far as the difficulty goes, really
briefly before we get out of here. I
thought the easy mode, which is a good place to
start still, like don't go straight into normal. I
recommend try the easy one and do just the one player
thing where you just go through all the all the
badges that I had no problem defeating and
beating like I did a whole run with it without failing
once. But when I got to normal, it
definitely gives you a test. Like
things move faster. They're making matches better to
combat you and stuff. So and if you get to the
higher sort of matches in the other modes, you notice
a difference. But I would say get your feet
wet with the with the easy mode and single player if
you're playing it and then just kind of go from
there. Don't don't be here. Because
yeah, it's not easy. It's definitely not an easy
game. And I think I think for me,
like the learning curve came from. I
wanted to match as many as I could, as opposed to
getting high match. You know what I'm trying to
say is I would see three and I would line up those
three so I got a match. But
really what you want to do is you want to wait until
you have like six, you know, or five, like he
just got. Yeah. You really like it in
other games, I feel like you could do that. And
it's just about kind of bringing things down and
chipping away at everything. Whereas
this game, it's more like you want to get those high
matches so you can really like screw over your
opponent. Otherwise, you know, I mean, being
machine was a little bit of that, but I don't feel
like it was as as necessary. Well,
it was necessary like you had to do it, but it
wasn't as. I don't know what the right
word is, like not as I guess necessary. I
guess like I guess necessary is the word
because it's it feels like if you didn't do it, you
were going to lose and they start loading you up.
Yes, 100 percent. That's
what it feels like. Yeah. Yeah. And
that's when you're playing against someone when you're
doing the sort of solo, just try to like. Yes,
clear a certain amount. It definitely helps you because
you're clearing more at once, but it's not going
to make or break it, I don't think. But
yeah, when you get into the higher difficulties and
when you're playing against someone, whether it's the
CPU or whether it's an actual person, you got to
like line up combos or larger numbers. Otherwise,
stuff does not drop on the opponent's screen. And
then now not only are you not clearing stuff faster,
they're not being punished for your good place. So
there's a difference there. Yeah.
And it's also it's also throw it throws me off a
little bit because it doesn't play like the
puzzle piece comes from the top, like Tetris style or
maybe in machine style or Dr. Mario
style. Everything just kind of shows up.
Yeah, it comes from the bottom.
And it's like you have no you
have no. Like pre vision of what you're
about to match, like you barely see anything. Yeah,
I just see like a tiny bit. But
as I'm watching you play this and I can like focus
and look at the pieces, I'm just seeing why I
think this is more difficult than other puzzle
games because or like why I personally was struggling
because I'm so used to the way other puzzle games
function. The first one just functions
slightly different. It's like fundamentally it's
similar, but it functions just different enough. It
throws me off. Yeah, you got to get a wrap. It
was a type thing. It's why am I not getting
right? You got to wrap your head
around the differences when you when you almost like
felt like you were going into something different or
felt like it functioned as I totally get it. I'm
like that with a bunch of different types of games,
too. So it's kind of the same
thing for me. I was mostly OK, but I I
definitely struggle with the combo thing, especially at
first and was like, oh, OK, yeah, I really got to
do this. Got to do that. And
it took me a bit. It took me a bit. It
wasn't wasn't a simple, simple get. So
yeah, anyways, give it a shot. Pokemon
Puzzle League worth your time. Probably
not going to blow you away. Maybe
it will. Didn't for us, but it's still a
fun time. But until next time, Jiggy,
where can everybody find your awesome stuff on
YouTube because it is awesome? Yeah,
well, my awesome stuff on YouTube can be found on
YouTube on the Jiggy Look Back channel. I
just looked back and realized that my look back.
I realized all the lights on
my shelf went off for some reason. So
I hope that doesn't mean something. But
yeah, but we're all good. Yeah,
Jiggy, look back on YouTube. Go
look me up. It's fun. You
won't be disappointed. We've been I don't know. I've
been going pretty hard. Yeah,
it's you're being kicked out for me. You've
been kicking ass. It's been it's been great
lately. And I think everyone needs to
be a part of it. So just keep an eye on that
on YouTube. Give them a subscribe and and
tell your friends. That's that's kind of the tell
your friends. Tell them friends, you know. But
but that's it. That'll do it for this time,
everybody. Thank you so much for joining
us. There's no time. This
we've got to go. There's no time to explain. We
have to go. This has been Remember Sexy
Park. Goodbye.