The Best Mini-Games Within a Game | Final Fantasy X, Super Monkey Ball & More
I have to shout out Blitzball from Final Fantasy 10.
Aaron:Oh. That's That's
Seth:He's he's giving me the slow nod.
Aaron:He's like, okay. Alright. Let's
Seth:see where this goes.
Aaron:I know a lot of people like a lot of people love that shit, but I could not figure it out. Therefore, I hate it. But, I mean, good on the people that actually do learn it and learn it. Hey. What it do?
Aaron:It's Hey. You know me. You've seen me a million times before. It's another topic time. You know, just a good old fashioned topic time.
Aaron:We pick a topic. We talk about it. That's it. This time around, I've got a brand spanking new guest to the the whole channel. I've got I've got Seth with me who does quite a few shows.
Aaron:You do a whole bunch of was it's all in media. Right?
Seth:Yes. Although we're rebranding pretty soon. So the I don't know exactly when hopefully sometime within the next few weeks or so we are rebranding. So that information will be outdated soon enough. But for now, yes.
Aaron:Right on, man. I know you guys do it's I always get the name mixed up. It's eight bit harmony. Right? Or eight bit just bit harmony.
Aaron:Bit harmony. I don't know why I keep thinking that, but frequent listener to that one. A big VGM VGMaholic, I guess is the term I give myself. So that shit is always good. Always tuning into a girl fashion VGM podcast.
Seth:Thank you. Yeah. No, we we've been doing that for over two years now, which is crazy. It's If you like video game music, yeah, you should check it out. Bit Harmony, a video game music podcast I do with my one of my best friends, Matt.
Seth:And, yeah, we we just talk about video game music. We have an episode on Cuphead coming out. We usually focus on a game. And we really deep dive into not only the music, but the the game itself. We usually discover a bunch of, like, random facts and whatnot.
Seth:And, you know, while we kind of do our research for it, we take listener voicemails on the show. Essentially, the pitch for the show is it's like a like car talk, or like an NPR show, but with video game music hosted by like two dorks. That's basically what it is. So
Aaron:I love it, dude. Is there anything else you want to you want to shout out?
Seth:I do do a lot of stuff. I'm YouTube $2 hero. I do a bunch of YouTube content. I do let's plays and long plays and streams and stuff over there. If you like indie games, check that out.
Seth:Let's see. Yeah. The all in media stuff. I'm part of the team at Carpool Gaming. I do a podcast called the Nintendo Drive over there.
Seth:I do a bunch of Patreon stuff over there. Behind the scenes, do a bunch of things with Extra Life. So, yeah, I I do all kinds of things. I do voice acting as kinda my my main gig. So
Aaron:Nice. Hell yeah, man. I like it. I like it. I'm a busy guy as well too.
Aaron:It's always good to see that I'm not the only person that's working myself to death. Thank goodness. Yeah. No kidding. The this week's topic, we're gonna talk about the best mini games in video games, or I guess just best mini games, whatever.
Aaron:And not necessarily, like, you know, WarioWare micro games or, like, Mario Party Pokemon Stadium mini games. I'm talking about, like, not like a full blown game within a game, but just, like, a side game within a game pretty much. And I mean, I'm ready to just take a crack at one of my picks unless you wanted to go first. Do do you want go first?
Seth:Okay. Go for it.
Aaron:Oh, man. Okay. The game Eastward? I don't know. Have you ever played Eastward before?
Seth:I have played Eastward.
Aaron:Yes. Oh, it's got this little RPG, just a cozy little short RPG within the game called Earthborne. It's basically just like a Dragon Quest style. I wouldn't say eight bit RPG, but, yeah, it's got the first person view in combat. And there's all sorts of different characters that you can pick up along the way as you go to fight.
Aaron:Crap, what's the bad guy's name? I forget. I think it's just the Dark Lord.
Seth:Yeah, something like that sounds about right.
Aaron:Then, yeah, there's your typical knight, hunter, thief. You can also get a merchant, priest, you can get a monkey. The monkey is actually pretty good. He does little party tricks, and you can throw darts, I think. Or maybe that's the merchant I'm thinking of.
Aaron:But yeah, it's just a cool little RPG within an already pretty goddamn long game. And It's
Seth:long it feels longer than it actually is. Like, I've talked about this before. Eastward is a cool game, but for some I think it's just the pacing of it. It's a pretty slow paced game. And something about that, like, when I rolled credits on it, I think I had only it would took me, like, twelve hours or something, but it felt like twenty five.
Seth:Like, it just and that's not necessarily me saying the game is bad. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It just felt long. Like, it just felt like a lot happened in, a short runtime. It's a cool little game, though.
Seth:It's got some of the best pixel art I've ever seen. Yeah.
Aaron:It's got really good music too. I really love quite a few tracks in there, specifically the one that when you're on the train. Anytime you're on the train, I'll always vibe out to that shit. Or the what was it there? Toward the end, you're on a train that's filled with monkeys.
Aaron:There's a track that plays in there, and that was really good too. Yeah. Everybody go check out eastward and check out Eastbourne. Let me know what you think about that. Because I think it's it's short.
Aaron:It's like maybe an hour long, I think, to beat Eastbourne. And then you get a new game plus after you beat it. And you unlock new color palettes, kinda like down well, you'll unlock like a blue color palette, a red color palette, I think. And, yeah, it's it's cool.
Seth:Yeah. Yeah. Pete, more people should play Eastward. It's good. They they put out that what's it called?
Seth:It's like Octo Valley or something. Or it's something like that. It's like their farming sim spin off for Eastward. They they put that out, and I messed with that for a little bit, but I did not I didn't finish it. I didn't, like, go super deep into it.
Seth:But it was cool. Like, I you know, a neat idea.
Aaron:So That is kinda cool.
Seth:Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess to kick off my list here, this is anybody who is listening to this, listens to Bit Harmony or who knows me at all, this is we call this a Seth ass list. Like, this list is just this is me to a tee here. So how do I not start off my list by talking about Monkey Target from Super Monkey Ball?
Aaron:Oh, goddamn. I almost put this on my list. I almost put this on here.
Seth:I I love Monkey Target. It is my favorite. It's my favorite, like, Monkey Ball side game. It also another kind of accidental recurring theme of my list is that for each of my entries here, most of them have, like, my favorite song in the games in question and Monkey Target. Nice.
Seth:Specifically, Monkey Target two from Monkey Ball two. That's, like, probably in my top 10 video game tracks, like, single video game music tracks of all time. Like, I love Monkey Target two. It's so good. Yeah.
Seth:Just fun. Like, I I played this a bunch with my family. It's like a fun little, you know it's one of those games that's very simple but difficult to master. Oh, yeah. Fantastic vibes just like Monkey Ball always has.
Seth:If you know what you're doing, like, it is way more precise than it seems on the surface. It also has just that right amount of, like, physics jank to wrap your head around that, like, you can get, like, delightfully frustrated at. It's funny. There there's a I I had always wished that Monkey Target could just be made into its own game. Yeah.
Seth:And there's this developer oh, I'm blanking on the name of them. An independent developer that basically made that. It's a game called Bonito Days, and it basically is Monkey Target made as, like, a full video game.
Aaron:Damn it.
Seth:That's awful. You should check it out because you would like it. The the the art direction of it is very nice. It has this kind of, like, pastel look to it. The the music is all like Japanese city pop.
Seth:It's really good. Yeah. Very good.
Aaron:Oh my god. Yeah. Let's you know what? Shout out to all the other Super Monkey Ball mini games too. Yeah.
Aaron:Like, it's not enough that super like, base Super Monkey Ball is already addictive and and hard to put down. But then you boot up, like, monkey bowling or Yeah. Yeah. Monkey Target, monkey golf. Crap.
Aaron:What's the other Billiards. Monkey Billiards. Monkey Dog Fight, I think. Yeah. Super Monkey Ball two.
Aaron:That was good shit too. I forget the other ones, but they always pack that they always pack those games so full of mini games and, like, yeah, that shit rules.
Seth:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron:I'm trying to I'm trying to save the best for last, but I don't know. Fuck it. How I forget the the actual name for it, but the whole, like, Ichiban confectionery business management shit and Yakuza Like a Dragon or Yakuza seven, however you wanna say it. I wish there was more of that because I love that kind of shed so much. That was so fun to like, just coming into it for the first time, I was like, god, I'm gonna bomb this so hard.
Aaron:I have no clue what I'm doing here. And then after maybe, like, two hours at all, it all it all clicked. And I was like, I can't put this down. I need to make more cookies. I need to buy more properties.
Seth:I need to I need
Aaron:to hire more old ladies to make these cookies. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's just so good. Like, you you keep leveling up your employees and then promoting them to managers and then pushing them over here and you buy a new property, sell it, buy a new one, sell that too, buy this one, upgrade it. It's just such a good fucking flow to it, and it's so so tough to put down.
Aaron:Or and I guess the same could be said about, like, any Yakuza mini game, like the
Seth:Pretty much.
Aaron:Was it the slot cars, the cabaret club? There's too many. There's too many good ones.
Seth:You know, it's interesting that you bring this up. We did not consult each other on our lists, by the way, beforehand, before recording this. He has no idea what's on my list. But on my list is the Cabaret Club from Yakuza zero. Now when it came Like a Dragon, I played it a little bit when it came out.
Seth:And now I I I didn't finish it, but I'm I really enjoyed it. But I'm kind of, like, waiting for them to inevitably be ported to Switch two at this point. Yeah. Because they just seem to be going through the line of Yakuza games and porting them over. So I'm really hopeful that pretty soon Like a Dragon and Infinite Wealth will come to Switch two, and I'll I'll just snag both of those and play them.
Seth:But no. Zero, though, was was my first Yakuza game, and I loved it. Like, I I thought it was fantastic. I spent so much time in it. And yes, like, over the course of my, like, I don't know, fifty hour playthrough or something, probably, like, ten to fifteen of those hours was in the cabaret club.
Seth:Like, that mini game is so good and so in-depth because, I mean, it's similar to what you're talking about. Like, you hire these hostesses, you can give them like training and boost their stats. You can learn like, over time, start to learn like the little hand signals that they can give to you to signify, like, what would make the date that they're having with their customer better. They're, like, rival cabaret gangs and stuff that you have to take down. And it's it's a very, like they basically put another little game inside of of Yakuza zero that has this cabaret management at its core, but it really is like a little RPG.
Seth:You can dress up the hostesses to increase their stats and stuff. And one of the hostesses, I don't remember her name, but she's an old, like, grandma with a purple afro and, like, cheetah print.
Aaron:Oh, hell yeah.
Seth:A cheetah print dress. And she I think she might have, like, the some of the best stats in the game too. Like, she's fantastic. It's just so good. Like and then there's another situation where the cabaret club music in Yakuza zero is, like, the best track in that game.
Seth:Like Yep. So good. And, yeah, Yakuza always crushes this stuff.
Aaron:Dude, yeah, they do. Even music too. I unironically well, I don't know why I say unironically. I do a on the side, I do a chill VGM podcast, Chillscape. And I frequently well, no, not frequently.
Aaron:I've done Yakuza tracks on there a couple times because some of them are just too good to pass up. It'll be like, well, you know what? I'm doing this theme. I might as well put a Yakuza game in there. You know?
Seth:Yeah. I mean, look, we we view on BitHarmony, there's kind of a recurring bits where Matt and I always love horns. Our our audience lovingly refers to us as horn boys. Horn Boys. Cabaret Club has some that's a Horn Boys song.
Seth:It's it's good stuff.
Aaron:Though they say horns, drama like like brass horn, like like trumpets and like that. Okay.
Seth:Yeah. We we love it. We we go crazy saxophone. Like, we go crazy for all that
Aaron:stuff. Oh, man. Yeah. How do you guys feel about the the soundtrack for Pokemon, like, Ruby and Sapphire and Emerald with all the little, like, digitized trumpets and shit? Because that shit is so good.
Seth:We've talked we haven't done an episode specifically on those, but for some reason or another, we did cover that in some capacity. I I think maybe a listener requested a song from the games or something. But, yeah, I love that too. Like, at any time, especially Game Boy Advance, like, any time in that era where they just tried their best to replicate the the sounds of, like, real instruments, like I'm thinking of Monsoon Jungle from Wario Land four, like Oh. Where they replicate the sound of, like, the fingers sliding on the guitar and stuff.
Seth:Like, I love that.
Aaron:I'm a big fan of when when video game soundtracks have the doot doot doot doot, like the I guess the doot is what you call it.
Seth:I Big fan of the doot.
Aaron:Yeah. Oh, man. I forget what song I was listening to recently. But yeah. The no.
Aaron:It was it was from the Neo Geo CD version of Neo Turf Masters. I think it's the Australia golf course. It's like, do do do do do. Yeah. That's that's good.
Aaron:Side tangent over. Main tangent. Here we go. The mercenaries in Resident Evil four and five. Holy shit.
Aaron:Could play that for well, I have played it for hours. But the the original one on Resident Evil four was I I've I've spent too many goddamn hours trying to master that shit because you have to I forget if you have to beat a certain score to get the hand cannon in RE four or
Seth:I think you do. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron:Yeah. I would just run through that shit constantly with with Krauser trying to get the best possible score. And then you get to five. And a lot of people like to shit on five for being way too action forward and whatever. But the the mercenaries in that game was was top goddamn notch.
Aaron:Like, you have multiple characters from all across Resident Evil with different move sets and different, I guess, item sets as well too. And they some of them have different cool abilities. Like, Rebecca, she gets more healing items. And, man, that shit was just so much fucking fun. I I loved going through every character, experimenting with them, and then calling in a like, calling a friend over to be like, dude, you need to come over play mercenaries right now.
Aaron:Like, I really love using Rebecca. You can be anybody else, not Rebecca.
Seth:RE five that's I think RE five, you're gonna see before too long, I think you're gonna see the narrative flip on RE five. I think eventually people are gonna come around and be like, that was good, actually. You know, it's gonna have that kind of, you know, amount of time pass that people are ready to reevaluate it. Because I I enjoyed that game quite a bit for what it was. Yes.
Seth:I understand it was
Aaron:Fuck yeah, it was good.
Seth:Action y, but it was good. I played it through entirely in co op with my cousin. And we had a blast. Like, we had a great time with it. Punch the rock.
Aaron:Love the rock. Make It's out with a good rock. Even the oh, my god. The even with all the the quick time, like the annoying as hell quick time events, like the I think it's also right at the end where Shiva's hanging on, just barely hanging on for like, the tap x for like thirty fucking minutes to hang on while Chris annihilates that boulder. Fuck.
Aaron:Even with all those in there, it was still an awesome game. And you have the you get the mercenaries after you beat the game. So it's worth it. Go play that shit. It's awesome.
Seth:There there a lot of people are wanting them to to go in and add that mercenaries mode to Resident Evil nine. Like, they they just had that I think it's called like Leon Must Die DLC or something like that.
Aaron:Yeah. The roguelike type thing.
Seth:Mhmm. Yeah. So that that just came out. And and everybody was, like, disappointed that it wasn't mercenaries. So hopefully, they'll be doing that in the future.
Aaron:Damn it. Hey, we gave you new new well, it was free. Right? Or did you
Seth:Yeah, think so.
Aaron:Yeah. Was free. Think was free. Hey, Capcom comes in, hey, here's free l d DLC. Hope you like it.
Aaron:And then, know, that's stupid. Everybody's mad about it.
Seth:It's free. Nobody's happy. Nobody's happy with anything.
Aaron:Goddamn, man. What a shame.
Seth:Well, let me see if I can piss off your audience here with this one
Aaron:Do it.
Seth:That that I have to shout out. This is either going to be something that makes people turn this off right now, or it's gonna you know, people will resonate with it, those are my people. I have to shout out Blitzball from Final Fantasy 10.
Aaron:Oh. That's that's
Seth:he's giving me the slow nod.
Aaron:He's like, okay. Alright. Let's see
Seth:where this goes.
Aaron:I know a lot of people like a lot of people love that shit, but I could not figure it out. Therefore, I hate it. But I mean, good on the people that actually do learn it and love it because, yeah, it it does seem really, really cool. But, yeah, tell tell me all about
Seth:The first time I played the game when I was, like, a teenager or whatever, I also hated it. The and they specifically like, the first time when you're playing the game and you encounter Blitzball for the first time, it's when you're going up against, like, the the Luca goers or whatever. And it's pretty weighted against you
Aaron:to lose Oh, fuck. Yeah. That Yep.
Seth:That that first Blitzball encounter. And so I I think that thematically, it's kind of cool in hindsight. But in the moment, you're like, well, this sucks. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna lose this.
Seth:So I think that a lot of people kind of decided in that moment how they felt about blitzball. But if you give it time and you actually, you know, engage with it and learn it and you have to do a whole bunch of it to get Tidus and Waka's, like, ultimate weapon or whatever, you you know, like, it's a genuinely good and in-depth little almost sports RPG. You, you know, put your team together, you kind of level them up, you learn strategies, and, you know, you you go and find, like, this all bad guy named, like, Brother who's, like, the the MVP and you just he's got, like, a mohawk and, you know, I I love that stuff. It's also Final Fantasy 10 is maybe pound for pound my favorite video game soundtrack of all time.
Aaron:Fuck. Fuck. Yeah, dude.
Seth:It's a it's depending on the day, it's up there. But it it is top three for sure. And that Blitzball song rules. I I love that song so much. And I think it's cool too.
Seth:The the very concept of, like, having this underwater, like, soccer in a fantasy setting, I think just rules. Like, it's it's just very, very neat. So I'm I'm a huge blitz ball blitz ball defender. So come at me, I guess.
Aaron:I'll defend you, man. I again, yeah, I didn't really I couldn't understand Blitzball. Therefore, I hated it. Typical boomer shit. But, I mean, I I appreciate it, though.
Aaron:It is fucking cool. And I totally fucking agree that Final Fantasy 10, not even like just the soundtrack. Like, the game itself is up there.
Seth:I love it.
Aaron:It's it's so fucking good. But, oh, man. Maximum summer vibes with the Besade Beach track.
Seth:One of the all time great video game songs, Besade. Yeah. Fuck.
Aaron:Even just the the battle theme, well, the Zanarkin theme no. No. I'm not even yeah. I'm gonna talk all night about the goddamn Final Fantasy 10 soundtrack.
Seth:We did a whole we recently it was a couple episodes ago. We did a whole Final Fantasy 10 episode of Bit Harmony, and it's like a 3.5 episode or something. Like and and we do that often. The Super Monkey Ball episode that we did, I think, is nearly five hours. Like, it's
Aaron:Holy that shit.
Seth:It's that kind of show.
Aaron:Oh my god. Yep. Oh, man. I like that you did Final Fantasy 10 because my next one is Final Fantasy nine. I'm talking Tetra Master.
Seth:Oh, hell yeah.
Aaron:I'm a big defender of that. I know a lot of people prefer I'm blanking on the name. Triple Triad or Queen's Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people love that.
Aaron:But tetramaster, I feel like it's kinda slept on just because of how, like, it's easy to learn, but just like everything else, it's kinda difficult to master. It's what is it? You got this it's a three by three grid, I think. Mhmm. And you'll each card well, not all cards are the same because you could have, like, four of the same type of card, but it'll have different stats or different points on each corner because in each of the eight corners, there's there'll be an arrow and holy shit.
Aaron:So you throw a card down and then say your enemy throws a card down and theirs has an arrow pointing to a spot on your card that does not have an arrow. Boom. They captured your card, and then you can do the same thing to them. Yada yada yada. Then the point of the whole game is to have the most cards captured at the end.
Aaron:And it's so fucking so satisfying and so like, you'll have just the biggest shit eating grin on your face when you pull off. Like, you trick your opponent into playing a card here and then here. Then you play a card down there, and you capture both of their fucking cards in one swoop. You're like, now I've got 10, and you've got nothing. And then you take their best card.
Aaron:That's another thing too that I love about the whole thing is that when you lose or when your opponent or when you lose, your opponent gets a card from you. And then vice versa, your opponent can take a card or you take one from your opponent, your opponent takes one from you. I fucked that all up. But and then, yeah, all throughout all throughout the entire game, there's hidden cards fucking everywhere. Yeah.
Aaron:Like, right away in the beginning of the game, before you get go get your starter cards from, like, alleyway jack or whatever, you can find, like, five flans and goblins and shit just right in the beginning in Alexandria. And later on in the game, you'll find some really powerful shit if you just kind of, I guess, hug the walls of every single place you go to and tap x. Yeah. And yeah, man. It's just a really fucking fun game.
Aaron:You can challenge goddamn near anybody to tetramaster, and then it's it's just so fun to to experiment with and try to find those new cards. Be like, oh, I got a a Shiva card that has, like, basically every single corner filled but one. Holy shit. And it's got 22 magic. King of games.
Aaron:It's the king
Seth:The of stuff that I I I love that I love it when you in in a game like that where you earn the cards or whatever it is that you're using, the game pieces, and you earn it in the the game properly. Like, I love that synergy. I I love that stuff.
Aaron:Yeah. Goddamn. Oh, it's so good. And that track that plays in the background. Also, shout out slash honorable mention to I forget the name of it, but the card game from Shovel Knight, King of Cards.
Aaron:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Joustis, I think?
Seth:I think that's right.
Aaron:Yeah. That shit's really good. I really love that too.
Seth:Yep. That's that's a good one. I had a couple honorable mentions myself. Junimo Kart from Stardew Valley, I love. It's it's just an auto scrolling, you know, DK mine cart level, basically, is is what it is.
Seth:But it's just a fun like, it it's way more challenging than you think. Like, if you sit there and really play a bunch of Junimo Kart, you can spend a lot of time with Junimo Kart.
Aaron:Junimo Kart.
Seth:It's it's good. And then also, you know, I'm a big Night in the Woods is is one of my favorite games of all time. And in Night in the Woods, there's a really, like, shockingly deep, like, action roguelite tower climbing thing called Demon Tower. And it's shit. It's like a fully formed little little game, little action game.
Seth:It's pretty good. And I don't know. Just just fun. Like, it's neat that they put that in there. Like, that you can just discover this whole other little thing within that game.
Seth:So yeah.
Aaron:God, I love when games do that. I just had another honorable mention on my mind, but I forgot. Oh my god. What was it? We were talking about karts.
Aaron:Oh, oh my god. Okay. So so the game Smite, the the MOBA with gods has been around for a really long time. For a hot minute back in, I think, like, 2017 or 2018, they had a really horribly broken, terribly made kart racing mode in it, where you could if you got to first place or if you did so many races, I forget you get a limited limited edition skin for Apollo or someone. And it was just so broken and so horribly made, but it's cool that a fucking MOBA had a kart racing mini game in it.
Aaron:Hell, yeah. Love that.
Seth:Yeah. There there's I I don't know if you ever played Sea of Stars. Oh,
Aaron:yeah.
Seth:Yeah. I I thought the game was good. Like, I I didn't love it like a lot of other people seem to. I liked it. Like, it was good.
Seth:However, there's that game wheels that's within it where
Aaron:Oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah.
Seth:It's really good. Like, I I quite enjoyed it. I kind of wish that the only problem is because it's similar to what you're talking about with Final Fantasy nine. Like, you you get pieces that you can use in the in the game while you're playing it and stuff, and you can challenge people. But there's only a handful of people in the game that you can actually play it against.
Seth:If they had fleshed that out and made it so that I could challenge, like, you know, two, three, four times the the amount of people in it, I probably would have doubled my playtime in Sea of Stars playing that. It's a very fun little, like, strategy game. It's it's fun.
Aaron:Hell, yeah. Now okay. Now all the cylinders are firing in my brain. I've I've got one final pick in my list. But before I do that, I'm gonna rattle off a whole bunch more.
Aaron:Because, dude, I fucking I love, like, cooking style mini games within a game. And I think it's Professor Layton in the Diabolical Box. You get to make teas with different herbs and shit like that. I love that. I mean, you could kind of maybe call the sushi restaurant and Dave the Diver a mini game maybe or maybe that's a bit half of the game.
Seth:Yeah. I I get it. Yeah.
Aaron:I love that. But any game that lets you cook, I really love that shit. And any game that also has just just a separate card game within it because I'm a big card game junkie. I think it's called B and D in in Bravely Default two. It's Oh,
Seth:okay. I never played that one.
Aaron:Oh, man. It's you need it in order or you need to play the game in order to get this class the gambler or something.
Seth:But Okay.
Aaron:It's a really fun little mini game within that already fucking gigantic game. But alright. My final pick, I'm gonna probably talk about this for the next twenty, forty minutes. Just kidding. I'm gonna do the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure one and two.
Aaron:Okay. Oh, shit.
Seth:Okay. So real quick, before before I let you go off on this, I told you before we started recording that I have a few hot takes that I wanted to anger your audience with. And this is relevant. My first hot take, the Chao Gardens in the Sonic Adventure games are far better than both of the base games themselves. That's my first hot take.
Seth:So I agree. I love the Chao Gardens. I
Aaron:agree to some of those fucking levels in Sonic Adventure. Really both of them. Some of those are fucking broken and well, absolutely weird. But yeah. The fucking Shao Garden, like, I really don't care which game.
Aaron:They're both pretty good. I mean, I know the the second one adds a whole lot more to it. But Yeah. The first game has, like, the most immaculate beach well, not maybe not beach vibes, but, yeah, just picking up that egg and just giving it a shake. And then well, I guess maybe you're not supposed to shake it, but just picking up that egg and then watching your chow pop out of there.
Aaron:And then you give it a little animals or or the berries or whatever the hell else you want to give them to maybe change their appearance and their stats and all that shit. The first game, I forget what the fuck mini games they had. I think that was the Chow Kindergarten or something. Or maybe, no, they had the obstacle courses.
Seth:Yeah. I I believe they had the obstacle courses at the very least, like the the races and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure they have that at least in the first game.
Aaron:But, yeah, the oh, man. The second one, I I have as a kid, I played both of these games on the the GameCube Director's Cut. Yeah. And the second one, I I definitely spent the most time on. Because then you get, what, three different Xiao gardens.
Aaron:You get way more mini games. So you get Xiao racing, karate, kindergarten. Like, you can teach them to read and spell or something. And there's a couple more mini games I forget. Like, you can find all these different animals in the the base game.
Aaron:So I mean, I I guess you have a reason to go play the base game, but you can give your Chao a little parrot to give them wings and change their colors. Give them a little bunny to increase their jump stat, and they get little bunny ears. You can abuse them and turn them into dark Chao. Unlock the dark Chao garden, which is super fucking cool. It's got like the little purple sky and then the big castles and everything.
Aaron:Yeah, what's your what's your what's your thought on the Chao Garden or thoughts?
Seth:I know I love I love the vibes of the of the Chao Garden. I love just like spending time in there. I love that you could put the Chao on, like, what what is it? The VMU little thing. Could put that
Aaron:on there,
Seth:and it'd be, like, almost a little Tamagotchi or something. Like, very, very cool. I I love that. And, yeah, like, it's just like it's it's nice. It is involved, but it's also kind of relaxing.
Seth:Their designs are super cute and good. It's unbelievable to me that they have not revisited the Chao Garden concept. I feel like Sonic fans like, I'm not even, like, a huge Sonic guy, but I feel like Sonic fans have been clamoring for the Chao Garden to come back. And I'm like, why are you guys refusing to to do this to the point where I don't know if you've ever heard of Bobo Bay. There's an indie game that came out, I think, last month called Bobo Bay.
Seth:And somebody said, I'll just make a full Chao Garden game, basically. And that's what Bobo Bay is. Bobo Bay? Yeah. It's on Steam.
Seth:It's PC only right now. And I want to say it's either a solo dev or like a very small team. And it is basically, they made Chao Garden and fully like fleshed it out into a whole game. So yeah.
Aaron:Oh, I love when devs do that, man.
Seth:Fine. Do it myself is what they say.
Aaron:There's another indie game that I think either I forget the name of it, but there's another indie game that's, like, heavily based on Kirby Air Ride and Sonic Riders. Oh, sure. I forget the name of that shit, but I love when devs take a game that's been abandoned by devs for so goddamn long and then, whoosh, here you go. Oh my god. What's your what's your last pick?
Aaron:Would would you have?
Seth:So my my three main picks were Monkey Target, Blitzball, and Cabaret Club. And then I had my honorable mentions, Demon Tower, and Junimo Kart. But I do have two more hot takes that I'll throw your way if you'd like.
Aaron:Hell yeah. Go for it.
Seth:So, okay. This is I don't know how hot these takes are, but these are just mine, and this is just based on the stuff the the sort of discourse I've seen on the Internet for years. Here you go. The gummy ship sequences in the Kingdom Hearts games are good, actually.
Aaron:Yes. Yes. Thank you.
Seth:Thank People hate on the gummy shit. I always liked the gummy shit sequences, and I even liked, like, building my own gummy shit. Oh, my dude. I really enjoyed that. I like that again, that's another example of you can find parts.
Seth:And then when you get to Kingdom Hearts three, they fully flesh it out into kind of like a little almost like a little space exploration shooter thing. It's really neat. I I think they're really good little, you know, side content in Kingdom Hearts. So shout outs to gummy ships. I don't care if you don't like them.
Seth:I like them.
Aaron:I like them too. I'm behind you. I'll stand with you. Hop on there.
Seth:Hell, yeah. I also want to this is my my last hot take here. Table turf battle in Splatoon three is highly underrated and should be expanded into its own thing on the side. Flesh it out, give it online PVP, and sell it for $10, and it would be among the best digital kind of p v p card games there are. I don't know if you played table turf battle in Splatoon three.
Seth:It's excellent. It
Aaron:like do not.
Seth:It's kind of so think of it like, you know, it's Splatoon, so the whole idea is that you're doing, like, turf war. You're trying to cover more turf than the enemy. But in this case, your cards have almost like tetronomo, like Tetris shapes. So you are strategically placing your cards in such a way that you wind up blocking where your enemy can place theirs or just trying to cover more of the battlefield than your enemy. And it's very, very simple, but there's like a deceptive amount of depth to it.
Seth:And as you play the single player, you can unlock table turf battle cards. And I just I think it's like low key genius and nobody talks about it. Like, when people talk about Splatoon, that never ever ever comes up. And I think it is just such, like, underutilized. Like, they they could totally do something with that.
Aaron:Yeah.
Seth:So there you go. I I don't know. I don't know if that's a hot take or not, but that that was my last hot take.
Aaron:Some of these I'm surprised that they don't make into full blown games. Like do you do you not want money? Don't you want money?
Seth:I'd buy it.
Aaron:Fuck the Chao Garden. Would pay upwards of well, maybe not upwards. I would pay up to $10 for that if Sega made its own little standalone thing. Just even put it on mobile. I'll play it on mobile.
Aaron:That'd be the only thing I play on mobile for Christ's sakes.
Seth:Oh, they'll make it some micro transaction laden garbage and, It does. You know, 99Β’ a chow, cough it up. It'll be a gotcha game where you
Aaron:Thank you.
Seth:You get, like, a a random roll for what chow you get.
Aaron:Oh, my fucking god. No. Shit. That is a that's it for my list. I can't think of any more off the top of my head.
Aaron:But yeah, man. Why don't you tell the people where they can find you? Like, the websites, blue sky, what have
Seth:you? Best way to do is probably blue sky. I'm $2 hero on there. Yeah. Like I said, $2 hero on YouTube.
Seth:For the allin stuff, allin.media is is the website there again, that will be changing soon. So it'll be this will be outdated information in like a month or something. But for now, allend.media. And then carpoolgaming.com. You can find all of Carpool stuff there too.
Seth:That's pretty much it. So Gotcha.
Aaron:Hell, yeah, man. You know what? I'll I'll end this on a hot take that just came to mind.
Seth:Oh, please.
Aaron:Completely unrelated. So it'll be good. I promise. Peanut M and M's are the best kind of peanut M and M's. I'll I'll die on that hill.
Seth:Oh, yeah. I I love so let me ask you this. When you eat a peanut M and M, do you eat it whole just like or do you crack the shell and extract the peanut from the the inside of the M and M and eat it that way? What kind of peanut M and M enjoyer are you?
Aaron:I guess it depends on what's happening. Like, we just had a movie night with my youngest the other night. And, like, if I'm not paying attention and I'm just focused on the movie, I'll I'll just gobble them up as they are. But if I'm actually taking my time see, got three different ways to do it. So, yeah, number one, just shovel them in whatever.
Aaron:Put them in the face. Number two, yeah, extract the peanut and then then eat the shell afterward. And then number three, I just put it my just put it into your mouth and then just let it melt for a little bit. And then you got a peanut leftover and then crunch it up.
Seth:Yeah. I every time I eat a peanut M and M, I put it in my mouth, I crack it, crack the shell,
Aaron:and I kinda seed.
Seth:A little bit, but but it you know, I guess so. But except that, you know, rather than it being, like, the the shell of the seed or whatever, it's like a candy coated chocolate shell.
Aaron:Yeah.
Seth:And then, yeah, you have the I I eat the peanut, and then you have, like, the chocolate shell after. I I think it's such a satisfying candy to eat. It's one of my favorite candies of all time. Yeah. I I love peanut M and M's.
Seth:And I agree. I think they're, like and my and maybe this is a hot take. I don't know. A an M and M on its own is mid. Like like, pretty mid.
Seth:Just an M and M by itself. What you need the the M and M needs the help of peanuts or, you know, peanut butter or I I like the they don't make them anymore, but the the ones that have, like, the crunch bar stuff in it. Crispy M and M's, I think they called it. Yep. Yeah.
Seth:Those were good. I like the mini M and M's and the tube. But but a standard M and M is is mid. I'm sorry. It's just not that great.
Aaron:Oh, man. We're gonna be here all night with hot takes. I just have another one too. Kind of related to this whole thing. Like, regular Hershey's Kisses are are pretty mid.
Aaron:And then also Tootsie Rolls. Can we just stop handing those out? I'm not a Tootsie Roll fan. I I don't
Seth:alright with them. Here's what I appreciate about Tootsie Rolls. Now you really got me on a tangent now. This is this is unfortunate. Here's what I appreciate about Tootsie Rolls.
Seth:Do you are you familiar with the history of Tootsie Rolls?
Aaron:Not at Okay.
Seth:Real real quick tangent. Tootsie Rolls, obviously, were very popular in, like, World War two. They would put them in, you know, ration kits for soldiers and stuff because it's like a little sweet treat and gives them a little bit of morale boost during the war. Ever since the advent of Tootsie rolls back in the wartime, they have saved a little bit of every batch and worked it into the next batch. So by proxy, you are every time you eat a Tootsie Roll, you are kind of eating the entire history of Tootsie Rolls, which I think is kinda neat.
Seth:You know, for it being such a sort of boring kind of non candy, I think it's kind of neat that they do that. I kind of appreciate that a bit about Tootsie Rolls, if nothing else. And I do like a Tootsie Roll pop.
Aaron:You know what? Yeah, I'll give them that. The the Tootsie Pops are pretty fucking good. I remember back in the day. What was it?
Aaron:There would be a star on the wrapper.
Seth:Oh,
Aaron:yeah. You gave the wrapper with the star to wherever you bought it from. Like, so holy shit. Super unrelated once more. But I mean, whatever.
Aaron:It's it's the show. I grew up in a I grew up in many small towns in Iowa. And there was this bar that my sister and I would go to because they sold candy, not just booby, we didn't buy booze, we bought candy. And you'd buy Tootsie Roll. If you had a star in the wrapper, you give it back to the cashier, they give you a free one a second And for free or then yeah, that show was cool.
Aaron:I like that.
Seth:That rules. Not everybody did. That that was kind of like a, you know, like a just a rumor that caught traction. And and yeah, like some places would would honor it, which I thought was very cute. I will say this, looping it back to video games.
Aaron:Hell yeah.
Seth:They they referenced that in, I think, Fallout New Vegas. Oh. There's a whole side quest where every night you're you'll I think it's the sunset sarsaparilla soda or whatever. Mhmm. Whenever you open one and drink one in the game, there's like a whatever 2% chance that one of them has a star on it.
Seth:And it it the first time you get one, it starts a side quest where you can go to the Sunset Sarsaparilla factory and, you know, read all about it. Turns out it's, like, overtaken by robots and stuff. And, anyway, it's a fun little reference to the whole Tootsie Pop star, the arrow star thing.
Aaron:Oh, yes. Yes. Yep. That's it for all my hot takes and side tangents.
Seth:Hell yeah.
Aaron:Guess that guess that's it for this episode. It's oh, man. I'm all worn out by the heat. My eyes are freaking out.
Seth:Thanks for having me. It was super fun.
Aaron:Hell yeah, man. I'd love to have you on again sometime. We'll cook up another topic or something. But, alright, listeners. Go on and get by.
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