Did you know Mario punches Yoshi in the head?

Also: the Tony Hawk demo documentary, Faeria, toddlers and video games, Square Enix in 2005, and more.

All of this is very much a work in progress, so feel free to comment on what you want to see here. This is mostly an exercise in keeping me writing fun shorter form stuff. Want to try to steer what I do here? Well…..

First Things First: That Tony Hawk Demo

If you pre-ordered Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (aka the remake of the first two Tony Hawk games coming out in September), then you will get access to a demo that contains the classic first level: the Warehouse. I got a chance to check out the demo (thanks Activision!) and well, I’m extremely optimistic about a game I was already very optimistic about.

The demo’s barebones. It’s quite literally just a 2-minute run of the Warehouse. There are no goals. It’s just you, Tony Hawk, a skateboard, and tricks. The demo echoes a lot of the magic of the initial release. My precise memories of the late ‘90s Tony Hawk video game hype cycle are fuzzy, but I certainly do remember playing that initial demo. That demo was probably similar to this one. It’s a mission statement from Activision and the remake’s developers Vicarious Visions (Albany, NY represent!). They did it. They nailed the feel. Playing the demo of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 was like riding a bike. It’s like sliding under a warm blanket in a cold room. It’s cozy. I would like more of it.

So far, I’ve done at least a dozen runs of the demo. My current high score is in the ballpark of 300,000. My longest line is somewhere around 80,000. I’m hoping I can eke out a 100,000 point line and get my overall 2-minute run high score to 500,000. I can’t wait for September to get here.

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Things On Nintendo World Report

• I reviewed the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater documentary, delightfully named Pretending I’m A Superman! That series is near and dear to my heart and that documentary is incredibly well done. Seeing all the skateboarders talk about both where skating was before the video game and how their careers changed because of the video game was awesome. Lots of amazing material from Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Chad Muska, and so many more.

• Grant Buell reviewed Faeria, which is a game I’ll probably buy. It’s Magic the Gathering-esque with a “living board.” Basically, it just seems like a cozy game where I can tickle my strategy brain with some virtual cards.

• To highlight the Metroid Month thing I didn’t call out in the previous post, here’s Jordan Rudek talking about how Metroid: Zero Mission rules. He also talks about buying houses, which definitely rekindled some anxiety in me.

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Stuff My Kid Is Playing

My child, who will remain nameless for his privacy (but maybe I’ll bring the gag from the year he was born where I referred to him as Baby Octopath Traveler since his due date was the week that game came out on Switch, and then audibled to Baby Sushi Striker when he was born five weeks early - when Sushi Striker came to Switch), has a penchant for toying around with menus on the Wii U and Switch. This is the first time in my life where I’m grateful for the Wii U and its Fisher-Price-ass controller.

Anyway, that’s him playing Paper Mario: The Origami King, which he started up on the Switch this week. He only watched the opening cut scene before getting bored. Then he closed out of the system and reopened the game under my save file, which led to me being like “YO KID - DON’T MESS THIS SAVE UP” and then we watched a cut scene where Mario danced with a bunch of Toads who had their faces hole-punched out by a disco-dancing hole puncher. The Origami King is incredible.

His predilection to Mario is continuing. When he wanders the large swath of games on my Switch, he just basically starts up any game with Mario’s face. He watches the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate opening video and then stares at the character screen, pointing at Mario and saying “Mar Mar!” while growling at Bowser and Wario and happily yelling “Shoo-shi!” at Yoshi (which has become a weird verbal portmanteau of Yoshi and our dog Siouxsie; he’s at an age where any consistent word with an object is money, though).

When the Tony Hawk demo entered my life, I tossed him the controller. He…got really into it? LIke he’s not good but he managed to actually land tricks. His Tony Hawk mostly just rolls around, occasionally falling, but he really enjoyed it. I did notice that the Hawk remake has a “no bails” accessibility option, which is awesome.

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Nintendo Developer of the Week

Nintendo has made a buttload of games over the past several decades. Y’all probably know about Shigeru Miyamoto, the genius who helped craft Donkey Kong, Mario, and Zelda. You probably don’t know about someone like, say Taro Kudo, who has basically spent his entire career sagely subverting expectations in RPGs. But I’m going to save Kudo for the future. For the first entry here, we’re gonna talk about Shigefumi Hino.

Hino is one of the directors of Pikmin 3, which came out on the Wii U in 2013 but is also now coming to Nintendo Switch in Deluxe form in October 2020. But you already know Hino’s most famous creation: Yoshi. Joining Nintendo in 1988, his first credit is on Super Mario World, where he was noted as the creator of Yoshi. He followed that up by working on character designs for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Yoshi’s Island - a pair of games with some memorable characters! He also brought home the cold hard truth about how Mario punches Yoshi in the head. Yoshi’s creator brought him so much pain.

Since 2001, Hino’s work has been focused on the Pikmin series. He’s been in charge of directing the design of all three Pikmin games. If you’re not familiar with the Pikmin games, Pikmin 3 Deluxe (coming to Switch on October 30, if you’re curious) is probably a great entry point. The first two games, most recently available on Wii, are also great, but Pikmin 3 is definitely the most accessible one.

Here’s Hino, potentially in the middle of confirming to the world that Mario beats up his horse-dinosaur-creature Yoshi.

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This Week in Planet GameCube

On August 7, 2005, Dan Bloodworth wrote a news story with the headline “Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest to go Multiplatform”

According to Japanese news site, Mainichi Interactive, Sony's hold on both the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series is about to come to an end in the next generation. Despite Sony's enormous lead in market share the past two generations (which both series are partly responsible for), Square-Enix president Yoichi Wada thinks that it's time to reach out to more consumers.

15 years ago, venerable gamemaker Square Enix announced that their flagship game series - Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest - were going to go multiplatform. 2005 was a transitional year for video games. PlayStation 2 was dominating while the Xbox 360 was on the verge of launching and Nintendo’s Wii was a year away from capturing the world’s attention.

It would be a while before Square Enix President Yoichi Wada’s comments would come true, though, as the next major entries in both series would still be PlayStation-exclusive, with Final Fantasy XII in 2006 and Dragon Quest VIII coming to the west later in 2005 (it was already out in Japan). Wada’s words were accurate, though, as Final Fantasy XIII launched on the Xbox 360 as well as the PlayStation 3 and Dragon Quest IX only came to Nintendo DS.

What struck me most about this article was the author (and current Easy Allies wunderkind) Dan Bloodworth’s first post in the comments section:

That high end / low end quote is another indication that the PS3 may be prohibitively expensive for the mass market, while Nintendo, as usual, will be going for a low-cost machine.

That’s somewhat reminiscent of the video game market now, specifically in Japan. The Nintendo Switch is thriving there, but the PlayStation 4 isn’t. Additionally, it seems like the PlayStation 5 when it launches later in 2020 will be prohibitively expensive in a declining economy. The disparity in cost between Nintendo platforms and Xbox and PlayStation isn’t anything new these days, but it’s interesting that the disparity that led to Square Enix moving away from being predominantly Sony-focused is still strong.

If we look at Square Enix’s latest entries in Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, they launched virtually everywhere they could. Final Fantasy XV came out on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. It even had a mobile-centric version that made its way to Switch. Dragon Quest XI had a PlayStation 4 and 3DS version initially, then came to Switch and PC later. Dragon Quest XI is even coming to Xbox this year.

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Upcoming Switch Game(s) I’m Excited For

I don’t know if I’ll keep these “recurring feature” things on this newsletter. Drop a comment if there’s something you’d like to see. As I said: it’s an experiment. But I definitely want to highlight indie games. Here’s a quick list of some cool things on the horizon:

• Okay I know I said indie games, but like, PGA Tour 2K21 is coming to Switch on August 21. A new golf game! With a good (albeit hard) track record.

• And, well, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered hits on August 27. It’s got cross-play between Switch, PS4, and mobile! Who wants to be my bucket holder?

• Moon finally hits the indie threshold. My excitement for Moon might have to be collected in an entire newsletter. Here’s my tease: y’all like EarthBound? Undertale? Super Mario RPG? What if I told you there was an RPG that came out in 1997 made largely by people who worked on Super Mario RPG, is reminiscent of EarthBound, and was hugely influential on Undertale? Do you want to see a video game attack the very structure of an RPG? Well, Onion Games localized the 1997 PlayStation game into English in 2020. It’s coming on August 27. I’m thrilled.

Anyway, that’s my show. I did one of these. Now go tell all your friends to subscribe