The Switch is finally a thing you can conceivably buy in a store, and erstwhile host Henry Gilbert returns this week to tell us about his experience playing Nintendo’s new console for Fandom.com – but first, we start off with a highly contentious list of five of the best non-Mario/Zelda launch games from Nintendo’s past. Then we dig into Horizon: Zero Dawn, River City Ransom: Underground, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the secret lyrics to Mario’s theme song, and your oldest consoles that still work.
Question of the Week
What’s your favorite launch game of all time?
Theme song by Matthew Joseph Payne. Break song is Do The Mario! as sung by Lou Albano. Haunting and beautiful New Releases Theme by David B. Cooper.
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If ya haven’t checked out the Laser Time YouTube channel, here’s something swell you might’ve missed!
UPCOMING VIDEO GAME PRE-ORDER BONUSES
Kingdom Hearts III
Red Dead Redemption 2
Persona 5
Mass Effect Andromeda Deluxe Edition
Halo Wars 2
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Death Stranding
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Spider-Man
Mario 64
Wait… years of exposure to match x games have not prepared for people to play Puyo Puyo?
Hiromasu Shikata directed Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild was directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi. But if Henry says they cut out all of the Skyward Sword BS, cool.
Dead Or Alive for Xbox360 was my intro to the bigttitty girl fighting series and i actual found it to be my favorite fighting game due to its combat being way more fluid than the rigid stiffness of mortal kombat and street fighter, two series ive never been interested in. The Alpha Clone is probably still today one of the hardest bosses besides those found in a souls/bloodborne game.
*actually
When it comes to video game launch software, it seems the worst launches stand out the most. One that I really loved, and that seems topical in light of recent announcements, was the Gameboy Advance in 2001 for Fire Pro Wrestling. Prior to that, being an American gamer, I had to download ROMs of Japanese Fire Pro games and remember sinking many hours into playing Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium (I wish the new one had such an amazing title) on my PC. Somehow, I was able to get good at that game using a keyboard and getting an officially released Fire Pro on a shiny new portable system was truly awesome. I wasted many free periods in high school on that game. Here’s hoping the new Fire Pro finds its way to one of the portables as well.
Recent launches (in particular the Xbox 360/ PS3/ PS4) have had such a dearth of exclusive and interesting games at launch that I didn’t end up getting the consoles until about a year after launch. The Switch is going to be an exception.
No exceptions for me. Because the design flaws of any new system want to make me be a late adopter.
Okay, between the Ducktales bullshit on the top 20 best games list, and now choosing Luigi’s mansion on number 1 spot despite evryone agreeing the game itself was kinda shitty. I’m starting to seriously question the logic you guys use to rank stuff.
“Yeah, Tetris still holds up great and singlehandedly defined both puzzle games AND portable gaming for years… BUUUUUT We’re putting a mediocre launch game above it because it’s sequel is great, (even though it’s not a launch game, so it shouldn’t even matter for the criteria of this list.) And because it defined Luigi as a character.” (Which is fair… But since when defining a single character from a single franchise, no matter how big, matters more than defining and entire genre and style of gaming?)
I love you guys, but please get your shit together 😛
I’ve never been able to afford a console within a year of its release so launch games have never had any special place for me, so maybe that’s why my answer is very generic: Super Mario World. It is the definative SNES experience, the best platformer of the era, and the best Mario game EVER. Super Mario Bros. 3 can suck my dick.
Excitebike 64 is actually on Wii U Virtual Console.
So, you can tell me if this doesn’t count but when the Rumble Pack launched, it came with Star Fox 64. I was on a trip with my family to Minnisoda for Christmas. When it came time to open presents I opened Star Fox 64 with Rumble Pack yet no N64. It was my parents way of saying ‘when we get back to Florida, You’ll get a N64’ … the rest of that week felt like an eternity! I read the Star Fox manual front to back! It still is a favorite of mine and I do bring it out from time to time still.
Ah neat, Majora’s Mask music this time.
That bit of Tetris history was fascinating. You guys are really convincing me to read “Game Over.”
I’ve never played Excitebike, but occasionally when I’m enthusiastic about something video-game related and I want to sound like an idiot, I’ll say “I am excitebike,” so there’s always that going for me.
best launch game?
Crazt Taxi for Gamecube
second note, Breath of the wild’s english voice acting is worse than any english dub anime Ive ever seen
Great episode, guys. Thanks a lot.
While the best ever launch game is Super Mario World, it’s kind of a boring answer. Instead, I’ll take this opportunity to trash Perfect Dark Zero, a terrible launch game that never did receive the thrashing it deserves and kind of just vanished. It’s an embarrassment of a game and feels Microsoft management lined up all of the devs in Rare and reenacted the Defenestration of Prague on them over and over until they were finally able to translate the experience into a game. It’s the game that killed Rare in my eyes and turned them into the Ozymandias of gaming.
Great top 5! I would love to see a new Luigi’s Mansion on Switch with HD Rumble support.
Although Mario 64 is probably the most important and Super Mario World is my favourite I’ll go with Riiiiiiiidge Racer on the PS1. It wasn’t even my first game. After playing the coin op, the chance of owning an ‘arcade perfect’ version with extra cars could not be missed. It was a game I was actually good at too. The music was amazing, its also crazy that we were happy with such little content in a full game release. Anybody that unlocked the devil car will have a special place for this game in their heart.
In regards to .01% of political stuff….. I think people are just tired of being remainded of that. We here it all day long at home at work on tv, I for one Listen gaming podcasts as a break from all that stuff so I’m in the same boat, I’ll be happily distracted listening to your show at work,and then BOOM I’m reminded of Trump… It’s the last thing I want to think about in relation to my favorite hobbie. Just some food for thought.